Describing what the Biblical Flood would be like.

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In the Bible the intermingling of why and how is evident, especially in the opening chapters of Genesis. There the majestic statements of God's action, its value and the place of humanity in it, use an orderly and sequential statement of method. The why of the divine work is carried in a primitive description of how the work was done.

But even here the distinction between religion and science is clear. In Genesis there is not one creation statement but two. They agree as to why and who, but are quite different as to how and when. The statements are set forth in tandem, chapter one of Genesis using one description of method and chapter two another. According to the first, humanity was created, male and female, after the creation of plants and animals. According to the second, man was created first, then the trees, the animals and finally the woman and not from the earth as in the first account, but from the rib of the man. Textual research shows that these two accounts are from two distinct eras, the first later in history, the second earlier.

From this evidence, internal to the very text of the Bible, we draw two conclusions.

First, God's revelation of purpose is the overarching constant. The creation is not accidental, aimless, devoid of feeling. Creation is the work of an orderly, purposeful Goodness. Beneath and around the cosmos are the everlasting arms. Touching the cosmos at every point of its advance, in depth and height, is a sovereign beauty and tenderness. Humanity is brooded over by an invincible Love that values the whole of the world as very good; that is the first deduction: God is constant.

Second, creation itself and the human factors are inconstant. Creation moves and changes. Human understanding moves and changes. Evolution as a contemporary description of the how of creation is anticipated in its newness by the very fluidity of the biblical text by the Bible's use of two distinct statements of human comprehension at the time of writing. As a theoretical deduction from the most careful and massive observation of the creation, the layers and deposits and undulations of this ever­changing old earth, evolution is itself a fluid perception. It raises as many questions as it answers. Evolution represents the best formulation of the knowledge that creation has disclosed to us, but it is the latest word from science, not the last.

If the world is not God's, the most eloquent or belligerent arguments will not make it so. If it is God's world, and this is the first declaration of our creed, then faith has no fear of anything the world itself reveals to the searching eye of science.

Insistence upon dated and partially contradictory statements of how as conditions for true belief in the why of creation cannot qualify either as faithful religion or as intelligent science. Neither evolution over an immensity of time nor the work done in a six­day week are articles of the creeds. It is a symptom of fearful and unsound religion to contend with one another as if they were. Historic creedal Christianity joyfully insists on God as sovereign and frees the human spirit to trust and seek that sovereignty in a world full of surprises.

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From the Pastoral letter of The Rt. Rev. Bennett J. Sims, Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta

Faith writes: I didn't say you had to endorse YEC, I wondered how a Christian can simply do away with actual Biblical text.

It is not a matter of doing away with actual Biblical text but rather honestly acknowledging the actual Biblical text and admitting that the Biblical text is often contradictory, factually wrong and simply the product of human imagination as clearly shown in the quotation above.

Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

It is not a matter of doing away with actual Biblical text

It helps to read in context and not answer something else. I was addressing NoNukes who actively dismissed actual Biblical text.

Faith writes: jar quote taken out of context writes: It is not a matter of doing away with actual Biblical text It helps to read in context and not answer something else. I was addressing NoNukes who actively dismissed actual Biblical text.

I agree, we should keep things in context and not quote mine. My full quote was:

It is not a matter of doing away with actual Biblical text but rather honestly acknowledging the actual Biblical text and admitting that the Biblical text is often contradictory, factually wrong and simply the product of human imagination as clearly shown in the quotation above.

When the Biblical text is factually wrong we need to make sure we do dismiss it as fact beyond the fact that that is what the story said.

Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix a quote box.

You have no witness accounts for a super genome. You made that up.

Aside from the fact that I have no super genome at all, of course I've "made up" the attempts to explain how the few people and animals on the ark were able to populate the earth since then. Of COURSE I have no witness evidence for that. CAN YOU READ? I said most of this is necessarily guess work. I did NOT claim witness support for my guesses. CAN YOU READ?

You have no witness accounts for the idea that there is missing landscape evidence. You made that up.

I have NO idea what "missing landscape evidence" means. If I said something even remotely similar that you garbled I suppose I probably did "make it up" because AS I SAID, all we can do is GUESS, to which I added that I do have the advantage of a witness account, BUT NOT FOR THE THINGS I HAVE TO GUESS AT.

CAN YOU READ?

You do have a Biblical testimony that an olive leaf is available, but as for how that happened you don't have any witness as to how that occurred. You made your explanation up.

OF COURSE I DID. THAT IS THE NECESSARY WAY ONE HAS TO DEAL WITH THE UNWITNESSED POSSIBILITIES. AS I SAID. I DO NOT CLAIM WITNESS EVIDENCE FOR THE DETAILS THAT HAVE TO BE IMAGINED.

CAN YOU READ?

In one post you tell us that there is no explanation for the sorting of fossils. In another you tell us you have a working model for the flood. One of those statements is obviously false.

Oh nonsense. A working model for a worldwide FLOOD doesn't need to explain the order of the fossils. Why on earth would that be required of a FLOOD for pete's sake? Since conventional science makes a lot of the fossil order it would be nice to have a clear explanation, but not for any reason having to do with the way a Flood should be expected to behave. It sorts layers, it does some kind of sorting, but however it sorts wouldn't have anything to do with the evolutionary assumptions about the fossil order.

I think Jar has properly guessed that neither of those things is true.

My scenarios are quite consistent overall. Added together they amount to a model.

In one post you tell us that there is no way to obtain information regarding the unwitnessed past. Yet you devote an entire thread to telling us how you can use that same evidence to rule out a scientific explanation. Quite obviously one at least one, and almost certainly both of those statements are wrong. But not when you tell it.

Sigh.

The point is you can never have the SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY about the past that you have in the hard sciences. I've said this so often you should get it. Oh but I forget I'm talking to YOU, who always manages to get anything I say mangled beyond recognition. If I say something is red and it dominates another blue thing you'll turn that into the blue dominating the red. Anyway it's not about not being able to know ANYTHING AT ALL about the past, it's about how you can't have CERTAINTY about the past the way you can with the sciences whose discoveries are testable and replicable, as events in the past are not. I've often used the term "plausibility" to describe the degree of knowledge that is possible about the past, basically a persuasive interpretation, and I will certainly argue for the persuasiveness of my own interpretations of the past.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Aside from the fact that I have no super genome at all, of course I've "made up" the attempts to explain how the few people and animals on the ark were able to populate the earth since then. Of COURSE I have no witness evidence for that. CAN YOU READ? I said most of this is necessarily guess work. I did NOT claim witness support for my guesses. CAN YOU READ?

You are missing the point. Your claim is that we are all guessing. That claim is wrong.

You require that the 8 people on the ark, 3 of whom were direct descendants of one and probably two of the others include enough genetic variety to account for all of the variation among humans currently observed without invoking mutation. In many cases, you require even more from the animals on the ark. Your guess requires far more than even being heterozygous at every loci can provide. That means you are using guess work against a conclusion backed by evidence.

You've similarly missed the point with the rest of the things I've raised by yelling about how accurately I have quoted you. The point is that your claims are dismissed as being completely unsupported by the evidence and are even contradictory to some other of your claims.

ABE:

Faith writes: The point is you can never have the SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY about the past that you have in the hard sciences.

Your claims are far more dismissive than that. Your claim is that the sciences like geology and paleontology are not sciences at all even where they rely directly on things like physics which are hard sciences. You claim that people doing geology are simply guessing like you do. But then you claim an ability to use that same science as proof that geologists are wrong. If so then there must be a degree of certainty available from the geological record. That is the contradiction I am pointing to.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Faith writes: The point is you can never have the SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY about the past that you have in the hard sciences. I

Again Faith, reality shows that is simply another false statement. Of course we can have exactly the same scientific certainty about past events and we arrive at that level of certainty using the exact same hard sciences.

We can be as certain about the landscape and topography and biology and chemistry and physics and cultures of long ago as we are of those in existence today. When we find the impression of a fossil leaf in stone we can tell the type tree, the average temperature, the location of the tree that dropped the leaf with the same degree of accuracy we can when we find a leaf on the ground today.

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Oh nonsense. A working model for a worldwide FLOOD doesn't need to explain the order of the fossils. Why on earth would that be required of a FLOOD for pete's sake?

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It would be required if the person providing the model were to claim that the fossil record was "terrific" evidence of the flood. If the flood cannot even account for the evidence that supposedly supports it then it is obviously false.

I know that you'll claim that you don't cite the order of the fossil record as evidence - but that order is so pervasive a feature of the fossil record that any model that cannot account for it cannot account for the fossil record at all.

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The point is you can never have the SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY about the past that you have in the hard sciences.

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In any science there is a variation in the degrees of certainty. In experimental science it is usually expressed in statistical terms. And so it is with geology and palaeontology. We may be certain that the Earth is very old - even if we cannot work it out exactly we may be sure that it is far, far older than YEC views allow.. We mat be certain that the strata and the fossils were not produced by a catastrophic flood - as these discussions should be making very, very obvious.

You're wrong, NN but I'm leaving it at that. I'll even say I'm sorry for becoming intemperate about it. But you're wrong.

Hi NoNuke

NoNuke writes: It's not feasible for the tide to come in and not go back out. Further the extreme rise of the tides at the Bay of Fundy is caused by the region's topology. The fountains of the deep are like the tides in what way? How would the effect get expanded to the rest of the world, where the tides are of a substantially smaller scale. What is the point of your comparison with the Bay of Fundy.

Yes Fundy is caused by it's location and topology.

But according to the Bible there was one land mass at the time of the flood. Genesis 1:9
The earth was covered with water.
The water gathered to one place and dry land appeared.

We do not know what the lay of the land mass looked like at that time, nor do we know the elevation above sea level.

We do know there was enough water available to cover all the dry land with water, as it did in Genesis 1:2.

So why is it not feasible for the water to begin to rise as the water of the tide as it comes in and continue to rise as the fountains of the deep opened up and water rose from the ocean floor, out of those fountains?

The water would be coming from all sides of the land mass at the same time. This would make the YEC model impossible.

God Bless,

The water would be coming from all sides of the land mass at the same time. This would make the YEC model impossible.

Why?

I've noted that myself.

Hi Faith

Faith writes: Why?

1. You don't know how large the land mass was that existed at Genesis 1:9.

2. You don't know how tall the hills were on this land mass if there was any.

3. You don't know the sea level of the land mass at Genesis 1:9.

The YEC model would require massive mountains and thousands of times the water in the atmosphere than can be in the atmosphere at any given time. There is only enough water in the atmosphere for a 1 inch rain fall on the planet.

The Yec Model would require underwater, and above water volcanos to be erupting shooting rocks and ground up material miles into the air. This would have to be done in a way to lay down the rock strata and formations we see today. I can't find any scripture to support any of that.

The YEC model would require millions of times the material to produce all the oil, natural gas, and coal found in the earth. Than was on the earth at the time of the flood. According to AIG there was enough to produce the coal we have but that would leave nothing to produce the oil, and natural gas.

Oh I forgot the earth had not been divided into the layout we see today, which invalidates the YEC model in itself. The Yec model requires the land mass to be distributed during the flood.

It was not divided until the days of Peleg according to Genesis 10:25.
Peleg was born 101 years after the flood.

Now if you disagree with the scriptures I presented I would be glad to discuss them with you.

Now the rest of you guys just save your comments that there is no way the earth could be divided without mankind knowing about it, and recorded it. Ops they did.

Next thing it could not have divided without creating too much heat.
That would be determined by how fast it was divided say like in a nano second.

God Bless,

You're wrong, NN but I'm leaving it at that. I'll even say I'm sorry for becoming intemperate about it. But you're wrong.

I appreciate your politeness, but you are just asserting that I am wrong in response to an argument that you are wrong. If that's where you want to leave the record, that's fine with me.

Yes Fundy is caused by it's location and topology.

Right. In particular, the effect of the tide over a large area is funneled into a small region multiplying the effect of the normal tide. If that is supposed to be an illustration of how the flood could work, how can you generate a world wide multiplying effect if the flood itself is supposed to be global? In short, what is the purpose of even referring to Fundy?

Hi NoNukes

NoNukes writes: Right. In particular, the effect of the tide over a large area is funneled into a small region multiplying the effect of the normal tide.

NoNukes, you are missing my point.

The Bay of Fundy has been having these 45+ feet tides two times a day for a very long time. They haven't destroyed everything yet.

It is awesome and still looks like it did in 1952 with very little change.
The water in the big part of the bay is rising 1 1/2 inches per minute.
As it goes up the river it is multiplied about 10 times.

As I said the Bible has the dry land mass of an undetermined size with an undetermined sea level elevation. We do not know what the highest elevation of any of the land mass was.

All we know is that the Bible says the land mass was one single land mass that was surrounded by water as it was in one place.

If the water was rising 1 inch per minute from all directions how much damage would it do? That is less than the Bay of Fundy. If it receded at the same rate it would do little damage.

Making the signs of the flood that everyone talks about missing, is missing because they were never made.

The water rising 1 inch per minute would equal 4,800 feet of water in 40 days.

So the elevation of the land mass would determine the amount of water needed to cover the highest point of the land mass.

With so many unknowns I don't see how people can tell me it could not happen.

Or the YEC'S to be so dogmatic about what they believe. But they believe what is taught rather than study it out for themselves and let the Bible be the final authority.

God Bless,

As I said the Bible has the dry land mass of an undetermined size with an undetermined sea level elevation. We do not know what the highest elevation of any of the land mass was.

I asked you the relevance of your example regarding the Bay of Fundy because you appeared to use it to tell us that extreme rising of water levels in a short period were feasible. Here is what you said:

I would think the rising of the waters from the oceans would be like what is seen two time a day at the Bay of Fundy. The water rises and falls 48 feet every 12 hours. But what would happen if the tide did not go our and the water just kept rising? Forty days later the water would be 3,840 feet deep. Just a thought.

What portion of the above sentence is the least bit relevant to the flood as you describe it happening. What you did above is simply take the water level rise in a 12 hour period and multiply it by 80 to find a rise in 40 days. How is it relevant to do such math without implying a similar mechanism?

Rather than answer the question, you talk about other things having no relation to the Bay of Fundy at all.

Here is a similar argument once made by someone else at EvC,

The record for rainfall in one hour is 12 inches. So clearly we can get a total rainfall of 40 * 24 feet in 40 days, more than enough for a flood over the entire earth. Except that we know that this cannot work.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.