100 Categories of Evidence Against Noah’s Flood

This thread isn't about the alleged failings of science; there are several open threads for that kind of discussion. Such stories have a value as myth and literature quite separate from their alleged historical value.The identity of the "oldest text" is a very contentious subject, as any cursory google will tell you. Besides, when you say "the flood", which flood do you mean? The Biblical flood? The Sumerian flood? The Gilgamesh one, or any other of the two dozen or so flood myths detailed here maybe? Each of these myths describes a flood, but not necessarily the flood.Despite this, I would not endorse "dumping" these stories, far from it. Recognising a mythological story for what it is does not equate to dumping it. I hope you realise both that Newton was talking about building upon the work of his fellow scholars, not Iron Age fables and that Isaac Newton was completely mad. He was a keen practitioner of alchemy and spent much effort trying to discover the Philosophers Stone, not exactly a model Christian and far from an impeccable authority. Indeed, but conversely, trying to pass off ancient mythology as history is equally trivialising, if not more so. The key is in how you tell myth from history, namely independent corroborative evidence. The various flood myths conspicuously fail this test because they are all so very different.

---

Mutate and Survive

Hi Buz,I don't really have much time, so I'll restrict myself to responding to point #4. You follow this with a quote about giant insects, specifically dragonflies. The giant dragonflies are quite real, indeed here's one, it's call Meganeura monyi it lived during the Carboniferous period and it had a staggering 75cm wingspan. The reason why creatures like this could grow so large was indeed because the atmosphere was more oxygen rich back then, but there is a problem with your interpretation of these facts.Insects no longer grow this large because they employ a very inefficient means of breathing, through little tubes called spiracles. The oxygen rich atmosphere allowed them to become giants, because this inefficiency didn't matter with oxygen in such rich supply. The modern atmosphere restricts their size to more modest proportions, because the spiracles can't oxygenate such large bodies efficiently enough.None of this applies to vertebrates or plants. Vertebrates do not have their size potential reduced by low oxygen levels, therefore they would not grow larger or live longer in such an atmosphere.As for plants, they don't need high levels of oxygen either. They prefer carbon dioxide, as any gardener will tell you. Increasing the oxygen levels wouldn't make them any bigger.Using the giant insect fossils that are found by hard-working palaeontologists to support your fantasies strikes me as dishonest, since these fossils come from an age some hundreds of millions of years before the dawn of humanity and have no connection to the flood myth. You are hijacking somebody else's hard work, in order to prove something that they never intended it to prove and that it indeed does not prove. Nice try though.

---

Mutate and Survive

Hi there antiLIE, welcome to EvC.In addition to what Rhavin has already said, I feel that it is worth pointing out that the usual geologist's explanation for so-called "polystrate" fossils does not involve "millions of years". Such trees were buried relatively quickly, either by rapid subsidence or volcanic activity.The idea that such features are explained by reference to millions of years of gradual, regular sediment deposition is simply untrue. It is a misrepresentation of the geological explanation. If you really are an anti-lie agent, then you should get to work on this one, because it's a real stinker.Edited by Granny Magda, : Changed title.

---

Mutate and Survive

Um... What? A flood would have the same effect as a volcano? How exactly? I'm afraid it just sounds ridiculous to me.Mind you, if you're going to claim that we should see effects like the ones at Joggins and Yellowstone from a worldwide flood, then congratulations; you've just proved that the flood never happened, because we don't see these fossils beyond certain small and distinct areas, areas which, incidentally, are always associated with large scale subsidence or volcanism. These areas are scattered across the world, but if they were a result of a global flood, they would be literally everywhere. They would be utterly ubiquitous, not the relative rarities that they are.

---

Mutate and Survive