night2day said:
Yet, there is nothing to compare the readings of today. Since the measurment before the flood, or even sometime after in "yester-year" was unknown, there's little to support what changes took place between then and now.
You are overlooking the fact that there is no mechanism to increase or decrease the supply of water on earth--only mechanisms to route it through the hydrological cycle. Until you can come up with mechanisms that used to exist to increase and decrease the amount of water (other than miracles) there is no evidence that there was enough water to create a global flood. Nor is there any way to remove miraculously created water except through another miracle. You can believe in miracles if you wish, but then you cannot claim scientific support for a global flood.
When I think of scientific evidence for the flood, I am referring to "what has been left behind" for study. Evidence that may taken either/or by whoever. But still evidence that something indeed happened.
And that is where the global flood is falsified by the evidence. There is no evidence left behind. And there is evidence which ought not to exist at all if the flood was global.
There's a differnce between saying God worked through the laws of nature and that's all He did...and saying He supernaturally worked through the natural order of laws.
Sure. That's what I said. And the consequence of assuming that God used miracles is that you cannot claim support for a global flood in scientific evidence. And that is a good thing, since the scientific evidence is clear that the flood was not global.
However, it does raise the question of why God considered it necessary to obliterate all evidence of a global flood and create evidence that a flood did not occur globally.
When the flood began "the gates of heaven opened". When the water began to recede, the passage reads "The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated."
And what does that mean? That the water came from beyond the firmament? i.e. not from clouds in the atmosphere but from beyond the stars? (According to Genesis 1, the stars are located within the firmament.)
And where did the waters return to? And how?
Just stating that something happened somehow does not answer the scientific questions. Unless, again, you are alleging more miracles.
Have you considered that sentiment would not be distributed equally?
Yes. Even without a flood, sediment is seldom distributed equally. There is still no evidence of sediment from a global flood. Lots of evidence of local floods, some of them massive. But none of a global flood.
Or severe damage massive erosion or what earthquakes can do.
Yes. What a flood erodes it must also deposit as sediment elsewhere. Those sediments do not exist. There is no biblical data on earthquakes relating to the flood. In any case, even if they did occur, earthquakes also leave evidence behind and the requisite evidence of earthquakes does not exist.
Or what up the earth being uprooted inside out?
Why would that be a consideration? The bible says nothing of this.
And what if the flood was responsible for the actual dividing of the continants from the one?
Floods don't divide continents. Techtonic plate movement does. The last time the continents were divided was the breakup of Pangea which occurred 180 million years ago. There has been no dividing of the continents within the 2 million year history of humanity.
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Pangea/Pangea1.html
Or what of the content of the oceans?
What do you mean by this? Oceans contain water. So?
There's little way to compare a before/after. I highly doubt what's being considered is everything else that was connected to what such a flood would bring with it.
There are plenty of ways to compare before and after. Unless God miraculously destroyed all the evidence. Is that the position you take?
And you're certain they all existed before the flood?
Yes, the records of these civilizations go well back before the dates commonly given for the flood.
a.) How do plants usually grow back? Would some be differnt due to possible differnt climates? Indeed.
b. Repersentatives of each kind of animal were on the Ark remember?
See above.
And are the seekers of the answer known enough to know what they're looking for or was something bypassed simply because it's an unknown within their studies.
It is not what may have been missed that is a problem. It is what we do know that creates a problem. Geneticists do know how to identify a genetic bottleneck and how long ago it occurred. Since only a pair of most animals survived the flood, and only seven pairs of each clean animal, and only eight humans, the consequence for all these species would be a massive genetic bottleneck within the last 5,000 years. That is not the case. It is not the case for humans, nor for most animals. Only a very few, such as the cheetah, show a recent bottleneck. Even the relatively recent bottleneck in the horse family occurred well before the time of the flood.
So, did God miraculously revamp the genomes of flood survivors? If not, the genetic evidence is clear that there was no global flood.
I don't see that He did erase the evidence.
Because you haven't begun to look at the evidence. You don't really know much about geology or archeology or genetics, do you? You don't know how to identify sediments caused by a flood, because you don't know what to look for. You probably never heard of a genetic bottleneck before and maybe you are still unclear as to what it is. You are not an Egyptologist and can't read ancient Egyptian records.
Frankly, I can't do any of that either. But I do know that if you study the relevant science, you can do those things, and the scientists who have done those things agree on these facts:
a) no part of the geologic column shows evidence of a global flood, and much shows evidence that is inconsistent with a global flood.
b) several civilizations have unbroken written records through the time of the flood, no disappearance of the population, and no reference to a devastating flood consistent with a global flood, or to the gigantic rebuilding projects that would have to occur afterward.
c) the genomes of the vast majority of plants and animals, including the human genome, do not show the genetic bottleneck that must have occurred with the near extinction of the species.
These are facts which must be explained scientifically if one contends that the biblical flood was a historic global event. The only alternative is to claim that God used miracles to obliterate evidence of the flood. But miracles mean no reliance on scientific evidence is possible. It is not a scientist's fault if the facts deny a global flood when God took action to erase the evidence.
Only that you and I disagree. And evidence can be easily interpreted by anyone: rightly or wrongly.
So, explain the three facts noted above. I am guessing that the only "explanation" is to claim miracles.
God spoke the earth and everything else into existance. Adam was formed by God's hands from the dust. Eve was formed from Adam's rib.
The former God called into existance from nothing. Adam was formed from something-the dust; Eve-from Adam's rib and gave them life...again from nothing.
Look up the word [size=-1]ex niliho sometime.[/size]
You might look up the Hebrew words 'bara' and 'asa'.
This is actually evidence that the biblical creation accounts are not literal. According to Genesis 1:27 (where the hebrew word 'bara' is used) God created humanity ex nihilo--out of nothing. That is the specific meaning of 'bara'--to create by fiat, out of nothing.
According to Genesis 2:7, (where the verb is 'asa' the ordinary word for 'make', 'do', 'fashion' 'form' etc.) God formed man, not from nothing, but from the dust of the earth.
So the two accounts of human creation contradict each other. Both cannot be literal fact. It is likely that neither is literal fact. The literary context of both suggests that neither is intended to be a literal report of historical occurrences.
It has still gone unanswered where Genesis states this is all a myth.
See above. The bible does not come with labels as to what in it is historical and what is not. One needs to analyse each passage using tools of textual and form analysis to come to a conclusion. Sometimes there is extra-biblical confirmation that some passages are historical; sometimes not. That is not the only determining criterion, but it is most helpful to have in cases of doubt.
The main thing is to study the actual text, and not rely on pre-supposed principles such as that every text is literal unless shown to be otherwise (or vice versa). There is no logical or evidential basis for such principles. Each text must be studied on a case-by-case basis.
In other word's, a miracle is not is not enough. Evidence already in place is not enough. Conforming evidence to fit one's own pre-determined view would be.
One miracle is not enough. As I have demonstrated, for a global flood to be an actual historical occurrence, many miracles would be required--most of them post-flood. A miracle to remove the water, a miracle to remove the physical evidence (sedimentation) of the flood, a miracle to put civilizations back in place as if the flood had not occurred, and with no memory of it, a miracle to restore genetic information lost in the flood, and probably many more I haven't thought of.
There is no evidence in place. That is the problem. This is not a matter of conforming evidence to anything. These are the plain facts, as anyone who takes the time to check them out can determine for themselves, no matter what their view is.
Of those who I have spoken to over the years who do not believe there was a globel flood do accept evolution as more than just a hypothisis.
I should hope so. Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains this fact. And I thought we were talking about the biblical flood, not evolution.
With a number in the science community who have all but forced the evolutionary theory on everyone else, and having infiltrated the church, it's hard to think this is actually a coincidence.
Oh, it had to come. The last refuge of the creationist who has run out of means to counter the facts. It's all a conspiracy.
However, this does not explain the history of geology. All the information necessary to falsify a global flood was discovered over 200 years ago, with no reference to evolution. What is more, it was discovered primarily by Christians who began with the pre-supposition that the flood was a historical global event. They were not pre-disposed to dispute that, but were actually looking for evidence of the flood. So what convinced these Christians, looking for remnants of the flood, that it did not happen? It was not evolution. It was not an anti-biblical bias.
Genesis as well as the rest of the Scriptures is a testament that God indeed actively works throughout actual human history to bring about His purpose. His ultimate purpose was fulfilled in Christ Jesus when He died on the cross so we could have complete forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace, through faith in Him. Jesus' resurrection proves that His victory over sin, death, and Hell for our sakes is complete.
Agreed. None of that requires that the flood be global.
I recall someone commenting in the "all or nothing". However, the Bible is one whole. The Old Testament prophecies of the New testament and tells of the Savior to come, the New Testament tells of our Savior who came and looks forward to His return. There is no contridictions to be found because God is the Author. He doesn't create confusion.
The very word 'bible' means 'books' not 'book'. And, in fact, some of those books are themselves composites, derived from plural sources. It is true there is a commonality of theme and a lot of cross-referencing, but the bible is still a library, not a novel.
In any case, there is no OT or NT reference to the flood which requires it to be a historic global event. Most references to the flood after Genesis figure as theological and/or moral lessons, not as history lessons.
I personally think almost all creation science organizations are at best misguided and at worst misguiding others. Noble intentions do not make wrong right.
