The order of fossils in the geological column

[PsychoSarah]

Exactly. And they could easily have supplemented their supplies by fishing and catching birds. Poon Lim managed it on an eight foot raft with fishooks made from flashlight wires. If this guy could survive 133 days on a raft with no preparation and almost no supplies, it is absurd to claim that nowhere in the world was anybody else able to survive the gentle Flood OWG describes.

What is worse is that people were well aware of Noah and his ark, should the flood not have been sudden and violent, people would have tried to take the ark for themselves. He had neighbors.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

What is worse is that people were well aware of Noah and his ark, should the flood not have been sudden and violent, people would have tried to take the ark for themselves. He had neighbors.

Good point. That's never occurred to me. It does seem odd that all the other people just gave up when Noah sealed up the Ark. You'd think people would have climbed up and done their best to break in when it became clear that something catastrophic was happening. Heck, they might even have tried to burn the thing down out of spite, though that might be tricky with the rain.

 

[dad]

What is worse is that people were well aware of Noah and his ark, should the flood not have been sudden and violent, people would have tried to take the ark for themselves. He had neighbors.

True. People are people. Just like looting happens today in disasters....

 

[dad]

Good point. That's never occurred to me. It does seem odd that all the other people just gave up when Noah sealed up the Ark. You'd think people would have climbed up and done their best to break in when it became clear that something catastrophic was happening. Heck, they might even have tried to burn the thing down out of spite, though that might be tricky with the rain.

No doubt they would have if the could have and it would have not taken long. Jesus says that the flood came and took them all away. No doubt the bible points to a sudden violent event.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

No doubt they would have if the could have and it would have not taken long. Jesus says that the flood came and took them all away. No doubt the bible points to a sudden violent event.

This discussion is in the context of OWG's gentle, gradual Flood.

 

[PsychoSarah]

No doubt they would have if the could have and it would have not taken long. Jesus says that the flood came and took them all away. No doubt the bible points to a sudden violent event.

That's fine, it just was a comment aimed at a poster who suggested the flood was calm and gradual.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Again you didn't address the points I made. Again I refer you to the story of Poon Lim who manged to survive 133 days at sea on an 8 foot raft with no preparation and almost no supplies. 40 straight days of rain is a lot of fresh water and catching fish and birds for food is pretty common (Poon Lim managed it with a hook made of wire from his flashlight). So clearly people need not have been laying in for a year long voyage in order to survive for quite a long time. He was completely unprepared and survived for 133 days. Yet you're trying to convince me that not one single other person in the entire world manged to survive.

Poon Lim didn't have to contend with the toxic soup from the bloated and rotting dead bodies that would have polluted the surface of the water and the air. He also had provisions to keep him alive for a time while he assessed his situation. Not a good comparison.

Declaring that you can't, because of your faith in the Bible, accept that there were no other survivors doesn't serve as a counterargument. I'm saying your version of the Flood is not consistent with the near 100% fatality the bible claims. Saying that's what must have happened doesn't resolve the inconsistencies. If you find it impossible to reconcile your view of the Flood with near 100% mortality around the world, then you need to rethink your view of the Flood. You are reluctant to do this however because you already accept that there is no geological evidence for the Flood as traditionally envisioned. You're in a bit of a pickle here.

If the flood occurred as is generally imagined there would be ample evidence. Since it didn't happen that way that evidence is absent.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

That's fine, it just was a comment aimed at a poster who suggested the flood was calm and gradual.

Almost all flooding is calm and gradual. There is no natural mechanism for a violent flood occurring everywhere at once. Flooding occurs when a dam breaks, or a levy is overtopped, etc. The water is quite violent at that point but quickly slows as it spreads over the land. Even tsunami's slow down as they flow inland and spread out. The exception of course is where the water flows up a narrowing channel such as a valley or riverbed, and even then it slows as it pours onto flatter terrain.

The flood model that science attempts to debunk just doesn't happen.

 

[justlookinla]

Very late coming into the conversation and maybe this has already been discussed, but there were two sources of water for the flood, from above and from below.

Gen 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

 

[Queller]

This is from a Tsunami in Japan. Not saying that this is how the flood went down as there is not much rain or breaking up of the foundations but does show slow, easy flooding. In biblical times a person would have needed a boat with enough supplies and able to sustain large waves. The ark was it as the instructions for building it came direct from God.

Two things about that video.

One, do you honestly believe that video shows "slow, easy flooding"? I don't.

Two, imagine that type of flooding being deep enough to cover the mountains of Ararat. Still think it is going to be slow and easy?

 

[Queller]

Cast against the vast lifeless universe there is little, aside from the rocks, that is 'natural' here on earth (and I'm not so sure about the rocks). Science believes that everything is quite 'natural'. I don't, beginning with life itself.

OK, well, I have no idea how to argue against the belief that there is nothing natural in the universe.

I said poetic language, not poetic license.

A distinction without a difference. Why could the Biblical wording not be examples of poetic language then?

I believe God used what he has made to effect the flood; he made the water, then caused it to drown mankind. He created trees and instructed Noah to build the ark from them, etc. He manipulates his creation according to his will.

OK, that is completely against Scripture but whatever floats your boat (ha!).

Regarding the evidence, I believe it's all here waiting for science to discover once they get the right flood into their heads.

That's the problem. There is no evidence for a "gentle, gradual" worldwide flood either.

 

[Queller]

Actually this is how I envision the flood coming in.

Morecambe Bay - The Killer Tide - YouTube

OK, what I saw there was a very gentle tide that did nothing at all except raise the water level a few inches. You need enough water to not only float a wooden vessl of at least 13,000 tons displacement, you need enough water to cover the "mountains of Ararat". What you posted here is NOT going to do it.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Almost all flooding is calm and gradual. There is no natural mechanism for a violent flood occurring everywhere at once. Flooding occurs when a dam breaks, or a levy is overtopped, etc. The water is quite violent at that point but quickly slows as it spreads over the land. Even tsunami's slow down as they flow inland and spread out. The exception of course is where the water flows up a narrowing channel such as a valley or riverbed, and even then it slows as it pours onto flatter terrain.

The flood model that science attempts to debunk just doesn't happen.

-_- have you seen any videos of floods? It doesn't become calm when it is a large amount of water like that, heck, it can continue to be fast as it recedes also.

 

[Queller]

Do you not realize that the Ark was not designed to "sail"? It was designed to withstand huge waves and not capsize. It was designed to float only. Any other vessel would have went down.

Why? We're talking about a "slow and gentle" Flood, remember?

 

[Queller]

The ark wasn't located with existing boats, which would have been located at or near the seashore, or along inland watercourses. These navigable watercourses would have suffered violent tidal 'bores' as the incoming water was compressed and accelerated, quickly destroying the boats. The ark would have been located on the plain, out of reach of these violent surges. Imagine a tidal bore like this, but one that keeps strengthening.

Seven Ghosts Ep2 - The "Bono" - Amazing Tidal Bore Surfing - YouTube

Cool video. Nothing in that video fits the description of "slow and gentle" however. Especially when it has to be ramped up exponentially to cover 16,000 feet of mountains.

 

[Queller]

Poon Lim didn't have to contend with the toxic soup from the bloated and rotting dead bodies that would have polluted the surface of the water and the air. He also had provisions to keep him alive for a time while he assessed his situation. Not a good comparison.

Compared to the surface area of the earth, the number of "bloated and rotting" dead bodies would be miniscule in comparison. And it strains credulity to the breaking point that there were no other boats that had at least a few days provisions on board, as Poon Lim's did.

If the flood occurred as is generally imagined there would be ample evidence. Since it didn't happen that way that evidence is absent.

Evidence is also absent for a slow and gentle worldwide flood as well. That doesn't seem to bother you.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

Poon Lim didn't have to contend with the toxic soup from the bloated and rotting dead bodies that would have polluted the surface of the water and the air. He also had provisions to keep him alive for a time while he assessed his situation. Not a good comparison.

You are grasping at straws. I would be interested in any evidence you have for the claim that the air would be poisoned by floating corpses. According to this paper, a 60kg human would have to ingest 10.8 g of pure putrecine every day for there to be a significant toxic effect. Is that your only way to explain away the fact that fishing and collecting rainwater are perfectly viable ways to survive for extended periods at sea? As far as I know, rotting meat doesn't make rain water unpotable. I await your evidence to the contrary. And if toxic corpse air were a real problem, it would have been just as fatal for Noah. Unless the Ark was airtight, which would be equally fatal eventually. And if anything such a bounty of flesh in the water would attract even more fish for survivors (Poon Lim caught sharks with a nail).

Poon Lim had "several tins of biscuits, a forty litre jug of water, some chocolate, a bag of sugar lumps". Not exactly an enormous supply. Are you really suggesting that nowhere in the world was there a ship with at least that much food loaded? Absurd. And again, he survived on a mere eight foot raft; people would be much better off with access to proper boats with supplies and proper fishing gear. Plus in a real ship you could sail away from corpse-clotted areas if that were really an issue. And if you wish to suggest that the entire surface of the water was clogged with corpses, you are in trouble because there is no more evidence for than than there is for the catastrophic Flood commonly imagined.

If the flood occurred as is generally imagined there would be ample evidence. Since it didn't happen that way that evidence is absent.

Correct. But that's why you're having so much trouble with this. You know there's no evidence for the Flood as traditionally envisioned, but the gradual Flood you describe makes near total annihilation of the global population absurdly unlikely. As Sarah says, why not just state that God made sure everyone drowned?

 

[Queller]

Because the rather gentle, tide-like Flood you describe is unlikely to have killed every human on the planet (minus Noah's family) when any decent-sized boat could survive it. This guy went 10152 days at sea on a 70 foot schooner "without stopping and without being re-supplied with either food or fuel". So while the Ark would perhaps be necessary to store a bunch of animals and all their food, comparatively small ships would have been perfectly sufficient to survive the gentle Flood you describe. Given that fact, it seems highly improbable that only eight people in the entire world managed to survive.

I think you put a "0" in that number when you meant to put a comma. You have him out there for 27 years!

 

[EternalDragon]

Why? We're talking about a "slow and gentle" Flood, remember?

I don't think there was anything slow and gentle about Noah's flood. Maybe at the very start.

The flood, wind and rain would have been a mega storm.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

I think you put a "0" in that number when you meant to put a comma. You have him out there for 27 years!

Oops! Well spotted. I have corrected it. Thanks for pointing that out.