It has become obvious to me from the comments of others that I may not have given your computation the justice that it deserved. I truly thought that it would be obvious to you, and to others, that the calculation was biased, and based upon invalid assumptions.
But that was the whole point, Wumpini. As Percy attempted to explain to you, all of my assumptions and calculations were
intentionally biased towards the Creationist side
in the extreme.
If the conclusion is the same
even when everything is biased towards the opposing view, the opposing view becomes ridiculously falsified.
Since this was obviously not the case, I will attempt to point out to you what I thought was readily apparent. If you see that I am misunderstanding your position, your conclusion, or your assumptions then I know that you will point that out. However, please do not hold me to a higher standard of accuracy then you are holding yourself to.
The standard of accuracy is already swung farther than any reasonable gologist would allow
towards your side.
In addition, please understand that I was serious about not getting into a long drawn out debate about a global flood.
Then why are you commenting? This seriously appears to be posturing for an "I can prove you're wrong but don't have the time" typical Creationist backpedal later on. Forgive me if that's not what you're attempting, Wumpini, but we've seen teh like many, many times before.
And if you don't have time to debate, there's an answer to that: simply don't do so.
Maybe the time will come when I will have that desire. Right now I am attempting to devote my time to other areas. Therefore, I would like to limit our discussion to the question of whether there was enough water for a global flood to have taken place, and the calculations that you made to attempt to prove your point. If you want to argue other points that refute the possibility of a global flood, then please let me bow out, and you do that with someone else.
Acceptable for now.
First, let us look at your perceived conclusion.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
Once again, DS, there is not enough water on the entire planet, even including all of teh subterranean water, all water trapped in rocks, all of the moisture in the atmosphere, and all of teh water frozen in the polar ice caps to Flood the entire world to a depth of 15 cubits above even the continental shelves - that means, even without mountains, there is still not enough water.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
The fact is, there isn't enough water to Flood the Earth a claimed in the Bible.
Now let us look at some of your assumptions:
quote:
Rahvin writes:
15 Cubits = 22.5 feet = 6.858 meters
quote:
Rahvin writes:
The surface area of the Earth is 510,065,600 km^2.
I have no problem with these assumptions.
That's good. The cubit measurement, as you'll notice, is unnecessarily generous towards the Creationist side. The 1-cubit = roughly 1 meter measurement used by some cultures would have been significantly worse off. You see again that I was being excessively generous - instead of attempting to be completely objective, I swung all of teh bias
in your favor so that bias on my part would no longer be a factor.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
Unfortunately, we can't simply calculate the amount of water needed to cover this surface area by 6.858 meters, because the continents are not at sea level - if they were, we'd all be standing in a puddle every time the tides came in.
It's very difficult to arrive at a reasonable number for the height of the continents - all of the average elevations include mountains, and aside fom that the continents still vary greatly in elevation. For the sake of argument, I have picked Indiana, a state near the middle of the US that is not a part of any mountain ranges. Indiana's average elevation is 210 meters above sea level (Colorado, in contrast, is over 1000 meters above sea level in places; the middle east is almost completely above 500 meters) - so we need to raise sea level by at minimum 216.858 meters, and this is with us granting a much "flatter" Earth that includes no mountains and ignores the fact that even non-mountainous regions are still frequently at very high elevations above sea level.
To be more specific, we need to raise the sea level by 210 meters to make it even with our land mass, and then add that amount of water to the amount of water needed to cover the entire surface area of the Earth in 6.858 meters to provide the global Flood as described in the Bible.
I disagree with this assumption. I have no idea what the earth would have been like before a global flood that lasted as long as the Biblical account but I am sure that it would be much different then the earth we see today. It would not surprise me if all of Indiana was under water before a global flood. As a matter of fact, it would surprise me greatly if the earth after a global flood that lasted for such a significant period of time resembled the earth before the flood at all. It seems from what I have read that there would have been a lot of geological action including volcanic and seismic activity associated with the flood that would have resulted in the formation of mountains, and other catastrophic changes. I would also assume that there would have been significant sediments deposited throughout the world as an aftermath of a flood of this magnitude. It would seem probable that a global flood would have a significant impact upon the floor of the ocean, and upon the land mass of the entire world. I do not see where your calculations take into account any of these factors.
I did a quick calculation myself of the amount of water that is available on the earth today as it relates to the surface area of the earth. If we wanted to give the “creos” as you guys call them the greatest benefit from the calculation then we could assume that the surface of the earth was completely flat (I know it is unrealistic and not exact, but your figures weren’t either. So let us assume that the earth was like a basketball.) This is only for comparison purposes.
Based upon this we would have:
Surface area of the earth including land and water (I’ll use your number): 510,065,000 km^2
Total water available on the earth today (I’ll use your USGS website): 1,386,000,000 km^3
Therefore, it the earth was totally flat then this water would cover the entire earth by:
1,386,000,000 km^3 / 510,065,000 km^2 = 2.72 km (2,720 meters)
For those who don’t use the metric system that would be about 1.69 miles if I am not mistaken, or 8,923 feet. That is a lot of water.
Now I assure you that the earth was not completely flat, but it was also not as it is today. So, it must have been somewhere in between. Therefore, I will tell you what we can do, we will split the difference. That seems fair enough. We will put one half below sea level and the other half above sea level. That would put the water 1,360 meters above sea level.
The highest mountain in the state of Arkansas where I came from is 839 meters. That would put the water 521 meters above this mountain top. However, as I said before, “creos” would attribute a lot of the uplift and sedimentary deposits to the catastrophic event of the flood. Therefore, this mountain probably would not have existed before the flood. I would think that "creos" would attribute the uplifting of all of the tallest peaks to the catastrophic changes resulting from the flood.
Since you have given me nothing to base your geological assumptions upon, I would think my assumptions are as good as yours or better.
False. Your "geological assumptions" depend entirely on a level of geological morphology never observed, of mountains being raised and massive depressions being lowered in just 150 days.
Do you have
any idea how much heat would be released by raising a mountain in even 150
years, let alone
days? Your "flat Earth" model is utterly ridiculous - to shift the Earth from the shape you propose into what has been documented over the past several thousand years would have effects on the planet that would make the dinosaur-killing asteroid look like a
mosquito bite. I'm sorry Wumpini, I can't leave out geological concerns when you have just proposed "catastrophic plate tectonics."
I used Indiana exclusively becasue it's a relatively low-lying elevation in the middle of a continent, as opposed to the 500-1000+ meter elevations found elsewhere. Once again, I was shifting the bias
in favor of your position, and yet you're insisting we should use an assumption that not only demands more, but liquifies the crust of the Earth.
And once again, as I pointed out before, if a sedimentary deposit is left by a flood, the flood waters
must have reached above the highest point of the deposit, or else there is no mechanism by which the flood can place the sediment. Since you are proposing that the elevation of Indiana could have been the result of sediment built up during the Flood,
your own position requires the Flood to have covered Indiana at its present elevation.
It's quite literally a case of me giving you an inch, and you taking a mile.
Let us look at some more of your assumptions.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
There is only about 12,900 km^3 water in the atmosphere at any given time - a drop in the proverbial bucket. Every drop of water contained in every cloud in the world could fall to Earth and it wouldn't even make a significant contribution to a global Flood.
Once again you are using current numbers to guess what the conditions would have been like thousands of years ago before a global flood. There could have been significantly more water in the atmosphere at that time. I know that some even argue about the existence of a water canopy. I know that others argue that it would have to be limited because of the heat it would generate when it collapsed. Regardless, we don't know what this number would be? Even if you are correct, it changes nothing.
What numbers would you have me use? Arbitrary numbers extracted from my rectum with no consideration for observed patterns or the effects of overly drastic changes, like what
you're doing?
We know the amount of water on
Earth at the time becasue the amount of water on Earth cannot decrease (except again through processes such as electrolysis in the lab - these are not significantly abundant processes in nature). Water can arrive on Earth from a comet at any time, but it can't
leave without being ejected at escape velocity - a very difficult feat, particularly for several billion cubic kilometers of water.
The amount of water currently on Earth is what we call an
upper limit. It's the maximum amount of water that conceivably could have existed in the past becasue there is no mechanism by which the water can
ever leave.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
There is approximately 23,400,000 km^3 water total trapped underground.
I would assume that this number is not even close to correct. Think of all that water that is pumped out of the ground for industry and irrigation today. That does not even take into account what we pump out for personal use. The amount of water trapped underground is steadily decreasing. We see it all over the world as wells go dry. In my opinion, this number would have been significantly higher before the flood.
You aren't thinking very hard. The total amount of water on the planet never changes - it can change locations, but it cannot leave the planet. That
is the total amount of groundwater on Earth, as determined by the US Geological Survey. We
do have excellent methods of estimating this number, you know - it's not a number pulled from thin air.
As to the water we use...did you ever stop to consider
why environmental agencies concern themselves with groundwater runoff? When we use water, Wumpini, it is returned to the water cycle through evaporation, direct absorption into the ground, or being dumped into a river. Wells go dry only becasue that partcular water source has dried up, but that water is still on Earth as water, and will very likely become groundwater again at some point.
Once again, Wumpini - water pumped from underground doesn't magically disappear. My numbers calculated for all of the water on the entire planet being used for the express purpose of Flooding the land. I allwed
all of teh groundwater to be used, even though such a thing would be impossible. I allowed
all of the water in the atmosphere to be used, even though compeltely drying the atmosphere is impossible without compeltely stopping the natural process of evaporation (and increasing the hydration of the atmosphere too high leads to
blotting out the Sun, so that's not really an option either). I allowed
all of the polar ice to melt and affect the sea level, even though this would require global warming on a scale that would make a Flood unnecessary effort to kill the world, and even though msot of the ice is already in the water and so would not affect sea level as much.
Go ahead and move a bunch of the water from the ocean to nderground, Wumpini. All it does is lower sea level and increase the groundwater. It doesn't change the total. This is basic algebra.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
There is not enough water on the entire planet to Flood the Earth as claimed in the Bible, even ignoring mountains, giving an absurdly low average elevation for the continents, ignoring all of the facts that make taking all of the water on the planet out of the atmosphere and up from the ground and melting it from the ice caps completely impossible, and giving the Creationist side the most favorable measurements and assumptions possible. It's not even close.
Once again, your conclusion is wrong because your assumptions are invalid. There is and was enough water to flood the earth. It is only a matter of how you look at it.
And you claim this how? By insisting an
even more favorable view, including a compeltely flat Earth that you imagined from thin air?
Look, Wumpini, we can construct a model of an Earth that could have been Flooded. We can. The question is, could such an Earth become the world we see today? The answer is "not without seriously violating all of the known laws of physics in ways that make the intended purpose of such a Flood compeltely moot."
quote:
Rahvin writes:
You also bring up "some movement" of geological features, resulting in the formation of the mountains, etc. But this is yet another gigantic problem, DS: a flood cannot deposit sediments at a level higher than the flood itself reaches. If the flood doesn't cover the mountains, it can't create the mountains.
As discussed earlier, the geological activity during the flood would have been significant. There would have been volcanic activity, geological uplifts, shifting of the ocean floor, and significant sedimentary deposits. It would have changed the face of the earth.
Why? Demonstrate immediately an example of a flood causing volcanic activity, or a flood that changes the
ocean floor in any significant way (I'll settle for a hurricane that seriously affects sediment deposits more than 100 meters below the surface). Demosntrate an example of a flood that can deposit sediment at an elevation greater than the highest water level. If you cannot, then you are making compeltely unsupported assertions.
Creationists
love to claim "the Flood could have casued the Grand Canyon" or "the Flood would have totally changed all of geology," but they
never propose any sort of
mechanism for such compeltely baseless assertions.
I was at Mt. St. Helens a few years ago. You should see how that one little event changed that entire area. Trees were knocked down, the lake rose significantly, and the entire area looked like a nuclear warhead or something had hit it. What if that had been happening all over the world?
Then a Flood would have been the least of everyone's worries, Wumpini. If you are seriously suggesting catastrophic global volcanology as the mechanism behind changing the face of the Earth, you have a few problems.
You need a global layer of consistant igneous rock from where all of this volcanism poured lava and altered the entire face of teh Earth, and this igneous rock must be consistent with that produced by underwater volcanoes.
You then need to explain why that much force and energy being released
didn't boil away the Flood itself and vaporize Noah and his little boat. Do you have
any idea what you're suggesting?
No, I didn't think so. Mt St Helens is
nothing compared to what you're suggesting, and we would most certainly see evidence of such activity today. Or not, since humanity would be
extinct, but you get the point.
quote:
Rahvin writes:
You may start referring to "hydroplate theory" or "catastrophic plate tectonics," but both of these are total non-starters as far as geology is concerned. They require so much geological activity that a Flood would be the least of the world's problems - catastrophic plate tectonics in particular causes enough heat to be released in such a short amount of time that all of the water would have boiled away, and teh Earth would have been a molten ball of slag. No little boat filled with animals is going to survive that.
There are many other theories that could be suggested to explain the possibility of a global flood. You cannot explain them all away in one paragraph. However, I do not plan to deal with any of those theories. My response is intended to answer one question. Could there have been enough water on the earth thousands of years ago when it is suggested by “creos” that the world was flooded to accomplish that task? I think the answer to that question is yes.
And your answer is not only wrong, it is laughably so. You have refuted nothing, and instead proposed outlandishly insane ideas to swing the bias even
farther towards your side, to the degree that your assumptions don't even have as much of a hold on reality as mine. Given an inch, you are trying to steal the mile.
As for the other "theories," each one that I have seen has been so thoroughly debunked that anyone who seriously believes in them should hang their heads in ignorant shame. If you have a "theory" that could explain how the Flood could have happened despite insufficient water, by all means do so, with evidence to back up your claim.
If you cannot do so, and you have nothing more than your bare assertions and "alternatives"t aht have either no connection to reality or compeltely violate the laws of physics, then concede the argument. This is a debate forum in the science section where evidence is demanded, not the Free For All where "oooh, I'll bet
this happened!" is acceptable. Your fantasies have no place here until you provide evidence to back them up.
And teh Flood is nothing more than a fantasy.
You say about your calculation:
quote:
Rahvin writes:
All of this is a very amateurish attempt at gaining a very rough estimate on terms as friendly to the Creationist side as possible without being too ridiculous (I could have picked an elevation of 20 meters, but the vast majority of the continental landmass is an order of magnitude higher than that). If you think you have a better set of numbers to work with, please provide them and I will recalculate.
I really don’t think your calculation was that friendly to the Creationist side. My calculation was much more friendly and realistic in my opinion.
You apparently think that compressing billions of years worth of tectonic activity into 150 days is
realistic. You apparently think that a completely flat Earth morphing into the Earth we see today in 150 days is
realistic.
Your definition of the word "realistic" must be "whatever Wumpini finds plausable without actually having investigated anything."
Congratulations, you are arguing from personal incredulity and ignorance. That's not a very good method of maintaining objectivity or any sort of connection to reality.
It was obvious to me and I thought to others that your calculations were based upon invalid assumptions. You were trying to calculate the amount of water that would have been needed to flood the world, before the flood took place, by using numbers and assumptions as if no flood had taken place. That really does not make sense to me. Everything would have been different before a flood of that magnitude. Therefore, your calculation should have taken into account those projected differences.
What would have been different,
in what way specifically, and
how did you determine this?
Saying "it would have been different" is a bare assertion, Wumpini. Your argument involves depositing sediments at elevations far above the highest peak of the water. Your argument involves melting the crust of the Earth with extremely rapid geological activity with no mechanism for suddenly speeding it up or slowing it down and no evidence of its passing.
You have nothing, Wumpini. Nothing at all.
I hope this helps to clear up the reason that I questioned your calculation.
I know the reason, Wumpini. It's the same reason all the other Creationists argue over the Flood: you don't know what you're talking about, you have a sacred cow to protect, and when given an inch you feel the need to steal a mile.
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