Some water measurements for the Flood

NN has shown that's his problem, prove that it's mine before you spout off.

Faith writes: NN has shown that's his problem, prove that it's mine before you spout off.

Believing the creation story and the flood story is a clear indication that you can't tell the difference between reality and fiction.

Prayer works in proportion to the situation. My prayer for millions of people to be spared the evil machinations of Islam contributes something to the mix but just one person isn't going to change the whole problem. You really do need prayer in agreement with others, often many others, to move God to change things on a great scale.

Believing the creation story and the flood story is a clear indication that you can't tell the difference between reality and fiction.

NOT believing it is more an indication that you don't believe God but prefer your own fictions to His revelation of truth, that's all.

And you have not shown that I've confused metaphor with description.

Faith writes: You really do need prayer in agreement with others, often many others, to move God to change things on a great scale.

Jesus disagrees with you again.

quote:

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Matthew 7:7-8 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

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Every one that asketh receiveth. You don't need a whole flock of people knocking at the door.

Faith writes: NOT believing it is more an indication that you don't believe God but prefer your own fictions to His revelation of truth, that's all.

The fiction is yours. You've made up stories about tectonic upheavals during the flood - none of which is in the Bible - in a vain attempt to decrease the amount of water needed.

The sham is your crazy insistence that something has to be miraculous just because you can't tell a metaphor from a literal description.

I'm open to hearing your metaphoric interpretation. I am just going to continue to insist that you tie that interpretation to the text and that you stop mangling science unless you are disagreeing with it. Of course I'm going to be looking for a bit of consistency as well as agreement with the Bible.

The point of this thread is for you to make your case for your interpretation. Calling me names does not do that. The biggest obstacle for you, as I see it, is that the canopy you require is non-Biblical. You'll need to make portions of the Creation story metaphorical to the point where they are completely non-literal.

But the discussion will never get to that point, because you are incapable of holding up your end.

The idea is that the rain was part of it, the fountains of the deep the other part of it, and all that interested me was finding out that at a rate of rainfall that is extremely heavy but not impossible by today's measurements the depth of the Flood could have been achieved without any other source involved.

That rate of rainfall from vapor in the atmosphere is incompatible with human (or pretty much any) life. Bit of a problem for you.

I don't assume any change in the basic laws of physics and nothing anyone has said about that is more than wild conjecture since you have nothing you can measure to prove anything about it.

Simple and correct logical and mathematical deductions from the basic laws of physics show that your scenario is incompatible with life as we know it. We know the properties of water. We know basic geometry. That's all we need. The temperature and pressure would have been way too high. Your choice is between no life as we know it before the fludde and no vapor canopy.

Walt Brown, he who is so loony that most loonies consider him loony, occasionally can to a correct calculation such as at Scientific Arguments Opposing a Canopy. If your canopy only held 40 feet of water, the temperature on the Earth's surface required to maintain it as vapor would be about 200 °F. Fundamental property of water and fundamental physics. Condensing one gram of water from a canopy with 40 feet of water would release 510 calories of heat. Fundamental physical fact. As Brown showed, that would raise the temperature at the Earth's surface by about 810 °F. I.e a vapor canopy with 40 feet of water in it would have raised the Earth's surface temperature to about 1,000 °F when it condensed. Not compatible with life anywhere near to as we know it.

Just for laughs let's work with your 4,800 or 60 feet of water in a vapor canopy. The radius of the Earth is constant. The density (pounds per cubic foot) of liquid water doesn't change much with changes in temperature or pressure, so I'll assume it's constant. Current atmospheric pressure is about 15 pounds per square foot. The properties of water in various forms are well known and widely available, including an Excel spreadsheet, and those properties won't change unless some really fundamental physics and chemistry changes. Those facts, conservation of energy, and a few constant units conversion factors are all we need. See below, especially the red rectangles:

So, before your canopy condensed the Earth's surface temperature would have between a balmy 266 (60 feet of water) to 634 (4800 feet of water) degrees Fahrenheit. Good luck with humans living in that.

Using Brown's formula, referenced above, for the temperature rise required to condense that vapor into liquid would be between 885 (60 feet of water) to 1,001 (4800 feet of water) degrees Fahrenheit for a total between 1,151 to 1,635 degrees Fahrenheit. Noah wouldn't have lasted an instant!

Of course that temperature increase would require a humongous pressure increase to maintain the condensed water as liquid. Here the steam tables fail us; the temperature is way above the point at which any table I've tried cuts off. But a tremendous pressure would have been required and pressure at the Earth's surface is a result of the weight of the atmosphere. You are going to have to come up with a scenario in which all that water is removed from the atmosphere but something weighing much much more was added to the atmosphere. Good luck with that!

For your convenience I have placed the Excel spreadsheet on the Web. If yuo don't have Excel the free Libre Office will open it (it may not do the temperature-required-to-support-the-vapor calculations because those are VBA macros, but Saturated Water Line - Steam Table will do it for you if you paste in the pressure).

Bottom line: a vapor canopy of any significant extent is incompatible with anything close to life as we know it. Your choice is a vapor canopy with no human life or no vapor canopy and a miraculous creation of water.

Again, perhaps if you stuck to speaking about what you believe instead of once again being wrong about what others believe you might get somewhere.

But instead let's look at the evidence?

Is there even one universal list of what books God supposed to be included in the "Bible™"?

For worldscale results yes you do.

The fiction is yours. You've made up stories about tectonic upheavals during the flood - none of which is in the Bible - in a vain attempt to decrease the amount of water needed.

That's weird. The tectonic activity has nothing to do with the amount of water involved and I never said it did. The EVIDENCE is that tectonic activity occurred after all the strata were in place, and I focus on that as evidence that it didn't take hundreds of millions of years to lay down the strata, but they were laid down in a relatively short period of time, during which no tectonic activity occurred, which one would expect if it had taken such a long time. Has nothing to do with how much water.

And there is nothing wrong with considering physical events in connection with the Biblical record as long as they don't contradict anything there.

Who is calling whom names? Sham this, unbiblical that. You're the namecaller.

I've given adequate support for the idea of the vapor canopy, there is nothing more to say.

The point of the thread was simply to consider if the Biblical sources AS I UNDERSTAND THEM (sheesh) could account for the depth of the Flood and the answer is that the rain alone suffices. End of subject really. Your demands are just something you're throwing at me from who knows where, some completely idiosyncratic musings of your own.

All your calculations mean nothing though since there is no way to check any of it. The Bible indicates the existence of something like a vapor canopy, if there is another viable interpretation of that reference we can consider it, but it seems to fit what is required for the forty days and nights of rain so one has to assume that it couldn't have been such a dangerous thing, or there were some mitigating factors you aren't considering. We can't be hard and fast about any of this. Give us another explanation for forty days and nights of rain, we aren't giving up on the Bible, it's the word of God.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So now you're all feverishly engaged in trying to define what a "clear and simple reading" means

It's not a matter of defining what "clear and simple reading" means. The question is, why have you decided that "windows of heaven" is metaphorical? Does that decision come from the text itself or from some outside source? That phrase is setting right there in the middle of a whole bunch of stuff that you take as absolutely literal, so what is it IN THE TEXT that indicates that it is metaphorical?

In Message 185 you state that

Faith writes: A "simple" reading doesn't mean a stupid reading, or a blockheaded physicalistic literal type reading,

So what would make interpreting the phrase "windows of heaven" as a literal, actual barrier between the water above the firmament and the waters below the firmament that could be open and closed to allow for water to pass through - what would make that a "stupid reading" or a "blockheaded physicalistic literal type"? Is it the text that would make you think that interpretation is stupid or is it some external source of knowledge that informs you that there is no such thing as literal "windows of heaven?"

I find the language metaphorical and believe it is a way of describing natural processes that still remain mysterious to us.

But what a slippery slope of compromise this is. Because you "find the language metaphorical" and you "believe" it describes a natural process, you are no longer trusting the Word of God. You are relying on your own understanding of how the world works. Unless you can identify what it is within the text indicates this phrase is meant to be metaphorical, it should be taken literally, especially since it is included in a passage that you DO interpret literally. Or maybe 40 days and 40 nights is also a metaphor. Maybe "rain" is a metaphor... maybe the whole story is a metaphor - it just depends on how you "find" the language to be and what you "believe" - not in the truth of the text itself.

So why is it you reject Biblical Cosmology that is taken straight from scriptures?

Does the text not support such a cosmology or do you reject it because of external knowledge?

HBD

Prayer works in proportion to the situation. My prayer for millions of people to be spared the evil machinations of Islam contributes something to the mix but just one person isn't going to change the whole problem. You really do need prayer in agreement with others, often many others, to move God to change things on a great scale.

Any support for this from the Biblical text? There is plenty of examples of a single person moving God to change things on a great scale. Any support that one person CAN'T change the whole problem? Or is that based on your own understanding of how prayer works (or doesn't work)?

HBD