Did the Flood really happen?

Actually, the Luddites are generally misunderstood. And have some relevance in our present times, though not in the manner that you may think.The term arose around 1812, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The Luddites were textile weavers. It was a skillful craft that took years to master. They made a good living at it and could set their own work hours (not uncommon among craftsmen of the time, since the Clock had not yet become Master). Of course, the cost of their products reflected their time and their skills.Then the weaving mills were invented that could produce yards and yards of fabric in a fraction of the time that a weaver could. And all the skill you would ever need to operate the machinery could be gained within a day or two. And the cost of the fabric produced was far less than you could possibly get from a Luddite. Furthermore, the worker was no longer valued. A Luddite had inherent value because of his skill (like my own inherent value because of my software design skills, before I retired), but a weaving mill operator who needed minimal skill was very easily replaced and hence expendable (like so many American workers currently, especially as their jobs keep getting shipped out overseas where labor is cheaper).The Luddites rebelled against the Industrial Revolution because they saw it destroying their entire livelihood, which it was doing. It wasn't just the abstract idea of progress that they were fighting (as they are now charged with and stigmatized for), but rather the very machines that were replacing them and their only way to make a living. We've had several movies and novels about that very struggle, albeit set in more modern or slightly future times (Max Headroom's series of stories set "Twenty minutes into the future.")The Industrial Revolution moved inexorably on, doing what unbridled capitalism does: devouring everything in its path (as it still seeks to do today). Within less than half a century later, the problems it was creating gave rise to the philosophies of Karl Marx * and the development of socialism, as well as unionism. Socialism predicted that the workers would rise up in a revolution against their oppressors, but I would argue that the rise of unionism, the workers organizing themselves in order to negotiate better working conditions, helped to stave off that "inevitable revolution" -- the extreme conditions in Russia (famine, an unending war with Germany that no sane government could negotiate it out of (the Bolsheviks did negotiate that horrific peace, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, but not in good faith), etc).  Karl Marx *Do you remember the National Lampoon magazine from the 1970's? (sorry, I suddenly realized that, because of your Auntie Bellum, I might need to specify the century). Netflix still has the dramatization of its founding, "A Futile and Stupid Gesture." There was also an actual documentary, National Lampoon: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, but it's apparently no longer on Netflix. Did you know that SNL's original "Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Players" had mostly been snaked out from National Lampoon's radio content?Meanwhile in Germany in the early 70's, there was Pardon! (na suche mal das Englishe selbst), copies of which I picked up when working there summers in '73 and '74 (the events of Netflix' The Same Sky take place in 1974, where my own experience with magazine covers agrees with the show -- tits and more all over the magazine cover pages -- in many cases in the grocery store, full frontal female nudity on family magazines, some with articles about full frontal nudes of males of other lands).In one of my copies of Pardon! is a centerfold in black printed on red (ie, to prevent xerox copies). I'm trying to present the proper impact here by first presenting one line of text, then the second once you have seen the graphic. The first line of text reads: "The Marx Brothers". The graphic is of Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Karl. The second line reads: "Why Marxism is so popular."Share and enjoy!I still have a centerfold from that Pardon! magazine. Probably not reproducible.If you follow the Netflix episode of Genius of the Modern World on Karl Marx, you will see that his Das Kapital is extremely dense. It consistents mainly of laborious documentation of the exploitation of all classes of workers of all imaginable ages. It is what, more than a century later, unrestrained capitalism wants to do to us yet again.

Back in 1990, I wrote up an informal compilation of geological evidence along with a bit of history on CompuServe. Since I created my web site in part to repost my CompuServe articles, that one is also there: GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF AN ANCIENT EARTH -- I used

 tags to keep the original formatting of the CompuServe material.  My creation/evolution links page is at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/links.html.
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Towards the end of the geology page, I briefly cover the history:
quote:
    In _Science Held Hostage:  What's Wrong with Creation Science AND
Evolutionism_, creationist Davis A. Young evaluates "scientific-creationist"
geology and presents four conclusions about it (pp 116-124):
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1.  Major distinctive scientific-creationist claims about geology betray
a glaring lack of familiarity with relevant professional literature.
2.  The flood model entails a lack of external consistency with relevant
bodies of knowledge.
3.  The flood model lacks internal coherence.
4.  The flood model lacks predictive accuracy.
​
Another thing to remember is that Flood Geologists are not catastrophists.
Catastrophism was prevalent in the early 19th century as an opposing view to
uniformitarianism.  Both camps agreed that the earth is very old and that the
strata were laid down over a very long time.  Where they did disagree was over
the role of violent events in the earth's history; the catastrophists
maintained that only extremely violent events could account for the folding and
tilting of the earth's strata while the uniformitarianists maintained that
gradual sustained processes would have sufficed.  Both groups avoided mixing
science and religion and would argue for "day-age" or gap theories if pressed
to reconcile geology with Genesis.
A third group, the Scriptural Geologists, or "diluvialists", was not so
reluctant.  This group got their start from the 1820's work of William Buckland
and Adam Sedgwick in which they argued that river valleys and certain other
sedimentary deposits were the results of a recent worldwide flood.  In a few
years, however, Buckland's own field work started undermining diluvialism and
then, with the publication of Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, both Buckland
and Sedgwick abandoned diluvialism.
But the Scriptural Geologists continued writing their views, which were
hardly distinguishable from modern Flood Geologists, from the 1820's into the
late 19th century.  They were highly critical of catastrophists,
uniformitarians, and the very founders of diluvialism alike, and Buckland and
Sedgwick returned the favor with devastating rebuttals.
Then in the 1920's and 1930's, George McCready Price revived Scriptural
Geology and called it "catastrophism" even though he knew better:  "The theory
of 'catastrophism' as held a hundred years ago, had no resemblance to the
theory here discussed, except in name." (_The Geological Ages Hoax_, George
McCready Price, 1931, Fleming H. Revell Co., pg 101)
Later in 1960, Henry Morris again popularized Scriptural Geology with _The
Genesis Flood_, for which he had apparently drawn most of his ideas from Price.
The main question now is whether Morris does not know that his stuff is not
catastrophism and that the true catastrophists of the 19th century had rejected
it, or whether he does know better but finds it politically expedient to avoid
admitting that his Flood Geology is traditionally known as Scriptural Geology.
​
So the first opponents of diluvialism were the diluvialists themselves who had gone out looking for geological evidence of Noah's Flood and not only could not find any such evidence, but also found evidence refuting that idea.
​
In other writings in which I try to figure out the creationist mindset, I constructed some classification categories for different types of creationists and what tends to happen to them.  One category is the honest creationist who honestly believes creationist claims, so he naïvely uses them or studies more science to understand them better, etc, and quickly learns that they are false.  That can lead to rejection of creationism (plus possibly some parts of religious beliefs tied to creationism) -- I understand that several members here are former YECs -- or transitioning into a dishonest creationist.  I would submit that Sedgwick and Buckland were examples of honest creationists.
​
Share and enjoy!
    

However, there was a global world-wide flood that we are still in the middle of. And which is now getting much worse.Again from my geology page (1990), GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF AN ANCIENT EARTH:

quote:

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As promised earlier:
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Question:  "Is there any evidence of a single world-wide flood?"
Answer:    "YES, and it is still going on!"
​
During the ice ages, the sea level would subside due to the amount of
water that would be trapped in the ice caps rather than being in the oceans.
During the last great ice age, the Wisconsinan, the sea level was about 200
feet lower than it is now.  This means that ocean bottom shallower than 200
feet was dry land and a number of land bridges, such as the one across the
Bering Strait were open.  Judging from my atlas, most of the Persian Gulf
should have been dry land.
Then about 11,000 to 17,000 years ago, the Wisconsinan Ice Age ended, the
ice melted, and the sea level rose, flooding the lowlands.  Since human
populations tend to concentrate along the shorelines and in the lowlands, this
catastrophic flooding could not have gone unnoticed.  Indeed, it would be very
surprising NOT to encounter flood stories world-wide.
So not only do we have here an example of a single world-wide flood
produced entirely by natural causes, but it is still going on; the flood waters
have not subsided!  Indeed, if the world climate warms up as we fear it will,
then we would be faced with still worse flooding as the sea level rises another
150 feet (if the entire Antarctic ice cap were to melt).

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Of course, the actual world-wide flood is nothing at all like in creationists' wet dreams. ABE:
There is also archaeological evidence of submerged man-made structures. Several dwellings have been found in the Black Sea which would help support the Black Sea Hypothesis (ie, a natural dam burst). There have also been documentaries of sunken cities or temples off the coast, such as one off of India. Both of those would be due to rising sea levels.Edited by dwise1, : ABEEdited by dwise1, : use the adjective, not the adverb!

But isn't karma the effects that are caused by your own actions? So you, through your own deeds, cause your own karma. Maybe a good idea would be to stop doing the misdeeds that you keep doing?Do you remember The Bob Newhart Show (1972-1978; not his 1961 variety show) where he played a psychologist? Besides the regular patients, it featured one-time presentations of other patients.One such patient was a very bitter middle-aged black man who complained constantly about how much everybody hated him, nobody liked him, just because he was black. Finally Bob suggested, "Maybe nobody likes you because you are a very unlikable person." "Wow! I never thought of that! Thanks, Doc!"He had his breakthrough. You could have your breakthrough if you would allow yourself to.

But what if you're wrong? You must realize that you can be wrong. You are, after all, a fallible human, the very type that often makes mistakes and gets things wrong. Unless you are secretly an Infallible Goddess (which even you have denied), then you are a fallible human who is as prone to any other fallible human to making mistakes and being wrong, more prone than some, maybe less prone than others.IOW, you can be wrong!

quote:

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"As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes."
- Mel Brooks

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There are consequences to being wrong, as well as causes and necessary corrective actions, all of which can be identifiable. The consequences can be either major or minor. The causes for being wrong could be easily apparent or not, minor or not. And the corrective actions could either be easy or difficult.In the Navy, we had Operational Risk Management (ORM) training, which applies to all endeavors. Basically, you assess all the risks you can, all the things that could go wrong, and come up with plans to deal with them should they occur.So, if you turn out to be wrong, what are the consequences? What is the worst that could happen? And why?For example, if we are wrong about the age of the earth, then that would mean that we got something wrong in our understanding about nature. It would depend on how wrong we are. Off by millions or a couple billions of years would mean that we were wrong about a few things. That is good, because that's how we learn. Off by so much that the earth turns out to be only 6,000 years old and that would be devastating for science and technology. That would mean that everything we thought we knew about how everything works would be dead wrong. And since all our modern technology is based on that understanding and much of it directly on that understanding, then there would be no reason for any of it to work. That would be devastating, especially given no methodology to create an entirely new science.Now, if you are wrong about the age of the earth, what would be the consequences and why?

You need to work on that a lot more. Edited by dwise1, : added italics

You are completely avoiding the question.Just answer the question! It is a simple and direct question. No more of your typical bullshirt! Now, if you are wrong about the age of the earth, what would be the consequences and why?

He asked you a simple and direct question. Just answer it!

Yes the question is simple and direct, very much so, even though answering it would require some thinking on your part, thinking that you should have done from the very start.And, no, trying to justify your position does not even begin to address the question, but rather you are avoiding the question. You are putting a lot of effort into avoiding that question, which raises another question: what are you so afraid of? If you are wrong, then what would that mean?Since you seem to require to have everything, even the simplest, explained to you in excruciating detail, please note that that is a hypothetical question that starts a conditional (the clues there is the word, "if", in the dependent clause and the use of the conditional in the main clause) Is use of the English language yet another subject that you are ignorant of?[NOTE: Over the years in attempts at discussion with creationists, in addition to their "selective blindness" (defense mechanism in which one cannot see something that they don't want to see) I also noticed what I would call "selective schtupidity", another defense mechanism in which one cannot understand something that they want to avoid even to the point of being unable to understand the simplest use of English. Is that what we are seeing at work here as you try to avoid the question?]With that simple, direct question, I am not challenging your position but rather asking what you think you are keeping from happening by holding to your position so stubbornly against all evidence and discussion. Especially considering that as a fallible human you are far more likely to be basing your position on a wrong interpretation. BTW, that is why JonF's question in Message 230 is so very pertinent: "What say you, Faith? Could your interpretation of the Bible be false?"Obviously, there is some dire consequence that you imagine will befall you should your young-earth position turn out to be wrong. So what is that "dire consequence" that you imagine?If we can get a straight answer out of you (I can dream, can't I?), then that might shed some light on what's going on in the beady little brains of other creationists who similarly refuse to think about what they think would happen if the earth does indeed turn out to be old (among other things), what they though would happen if their fallible human interpretations (virtually certain to be wrong) prove to be wrong.The next question would be how likely that imagined dire consequence would actually be so dire. A teenage boy wanting to ask a girl he likes out on a date imagines all kinds of dire consequences should she reject him, but when she does reject him none of those dire consequences happen (eg, the earth does not open up beneath him and swallow him up). So many imagined dire consequences never happen.Similarly (real world case; I read her deconversion testimonial myself), a Christian woman believed that all the books of the Bible were written in the order that they appear. That was her interpretation. When she learned that that was not the case, she decided that her church had lied to her and she became an atheist. Her imagined dire consequence to her own interpretations being wrong was that her religion and the Bible would all be lies, so when her own fallible human interpretation (virtually certain to be wrong) turned out to be wrong, that triggered her imagined dire consequence. Right decision, but for the entirely wrong reasons. This shows that many imagined dire consequences end up happening, but only because the person makes them happen (AKA "self-fulfilling prophesy").I have a number of ICR quotes to the effect that if the earth is old or evolution (begging the question of how they are redefining and misrepresenting that, like you do with "species") is true, then God does not exist (or variations on that same theme). That God does not exist is the imagined dire consequence of their fallible human interpretations (virtually certain to be wrong). That is what they teach their followers. As a result, when their fallible human interpretations (virtually certain to be wrong) inevitably turn out to be wrong, then the self-fulfilling prophesy of God not existing comes true. Ironically, creationists accomplish what even the most anti-religion atheist could never accomplish: disprove God.As I said, you should have already thought about what I am asking for. When you started getting involved in YEC, you should have thought about why you are getting involved and what the consequences would be of your interpretations being wrong. If instead you had jumped into the fray without giving it the least bit of thought, then you were being most extremely foolish.So, please avoiding the question and just answer it: If you are wrong, then what would that mean?

Answers in Genesis can be a mixed bag.On the one hand, they have long promoted typical YEC nonsense, some worse than others; eg, a mind-boggling bogus claim that scientists believe that ancients such as the Egyptians at the beginning of history (ie, at the invention of writing) were "ape-men" and not fully human (I had heard it elsewhere attributed by a creationist to David Coppedge and then found it repeated on AiG, but I don't remember the link).Then on the other hand they have come out for seeking the truth.For example, in 2002 they published their article listing false creationist claims that they warned creationists to avoid using. Some examples are "men's missing rib", "why are there still monkeys?", missing neutrinos (that was figured out in the mid-90's), Darwin's "death-bed conversion", etc. That sparked an angry attack from Hovind (since he uses and depends on many of those false claims) and a response by Sarfati which I quote at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/quotes.html#AiG and in which he says the exact same thing that I've been telling creationists for decades, that they are doing great damage by using fake claims and shouldn't do things like that.Another example is an article by YEC astronomer Dr. Danny Faulkner where he explains that the perennial "shrinking sun" claim is just plain wrong and shouldn't be used.So even though Answers in Genesis normally pushes false claims, they can also try to stand up for truthfulness. A mixed bag. The basic reasons are that they do not have a rational position to argue and they have no interest in creating one. Their primary concern is to oppose another position (which is a rational one) and to convince themselves and others that that other position is false (and hence their position, the "only other alternative", must be true even though they never present it nor will discuss nor support it).Consider their standard "Two Model Approach", which is a false dichotomy, and all its ramifications, some of which I just described above. Fodder for future discussion.

No, it does not. Your whole agenda comes from your own fallible human interpretation of the Bible. This completely circumvents your other fallible human interpretation that the Bible must be infallible. You are not speaking from the Bible itself, but rather from your own fallible human interpretation of the Bible.Or are you yourself infallible? You have never claimed to be, yet that is still how you consistently appear to roll. This is also very much a part of the basic "creation science" deception.With Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), the "monkey laws" were struck down and the anti-evolution movement could no longer use religious reasons for barring the teaching of evolution in public schools. Half of the 70's consisted of creationists learning the new rules the hard way, while the other half of that decade consisted of creationists coming up with Plan B. Plan B was "creation science", a deliberately crafted legalistic deception intended to circumvent the post Epperson v. Arkansas courts with the lie that their objections to evolution were all based on science instead of religion.What came out of all that was a de facto requirement for all creationists to avoid resorting to supernatural miracles at all costs and instead to constantly appeal to naturalistic causes, even when no such support even remotely existed.That is the corner that you have painted yourself into. The only way for your imaginations to ever possibly be true would be for your god to have arbitrarily made it so. Every other possible scenario will consistently decide against your position.Despite your claims of having "put the Bible aside", your own fallible human interpretations are still always in force.

It doesn't matter whether you dreamed everything up yourself or you got it from others. The simple fact still remains that it is your own fallible human interpretation (virtually guaranteed to be wrong by its very nature) that you are following, not the Bible itself.And again, what do you think would happen if your own fallible human interpretation (virtually guaranteed to be wrong by its very nature) were to prove to be wrong? Nor would we expect that of you, but nonetheless you should know where your nonsense came from and why you feel compelled to apply a particular approach.YEC screams out for God to have magicked everything into place, because the evidence is all against it. Yet you feel constrained to explain everything "scientifically" (despite you having no idea what that means, let alone having any knowledge of science). Why would that be? You can never succeed, since the evidence is all against you.Yet if you were to employ magick, your god's stock in trade, you could sweep all that difficult evidence aside with ease. Why don't you do that? Why do you feel constrained to "put the Bible aside"?The reason is the manner in which "creation science" works, but was set by its origin as a deliberate legalistic deception. Although intended to deliberately deceive the courts and the general public, fundamentalists decided that it was also good for deceiving themselves. That's where you come in. You have been deceived by your own people. Shouldn't you at least try to understand how?

YEC means "young earth creationist." They base their beliefs entirely only their fallible human interpretation (with inevitably must be wrong since they are, after all, fallible humans) of what they think that the Bible says. Just being a YEC does not require you to not talk about the Bible, since what you have fallibly interpreted about the Bible is the sole basis for your position and beliefs.Then there's a subset of YEC which is "creation science" (CS). CS is a deliberately crafted deception designed to circumvent court decisions in the early 70's which no longer allowed religious reasons for barring of the teaching of evolution in the public schools. So with CS, the YECs scrubbed their materials of all overt biblical references (AKA "the game of 'Hide the Bible'") and explicit Christian terminology (eg, God became "some undefined Creator (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?") and pretended to the courts and to the general public that CS had nothing to do with religion and that they opposed evolution "for purely scientific reasons".It is CS that requires creationists to pretend to use science and "scientific evidences" to support their claims and to falsely claim that their claims do not rely on the Bible. Not only are CS claims blatantly and transparently false, but CSists' position is made even more worse by their general lack of knowledge about science (AKA ignnurance).So Percy is not asking you to stop being a YEC (even though that would be of immense benefit to you), but rather to stop doing "creation science."

I think that needs a bit more development.How many examples do we find of whole islands of coral intact and right side up? Hundreds? Thousands?How many exceptions to that rule do we find, whole islands of coral intact but upside down or at an extreme angle? Any? Any? Bueller?So then the question should be how Faith's Biblical Floods could have transported hundreds and thousands of whole islands of coral intact and deposited them right side up, each and every time without fail.

Sorry for the delay. I needed to give my friend a ride to the hospital for an operation and am now waiting there for the outcome. The problem is that what you describe as having happened hundreds if not thousands of times perfectly each time is virtually impossible. You cannot just wave away the impossible like that, but rather you need to explain how it could possibly happen. So far, you have not even begun to attempt that.In Message 514, JonF described the very special and very rare conditions and forces that would be needed to lift an entire coral formation without breaking or even cracking it and transporting it whole and depositing it in the correct orientation elsewhere. The likelihood of all those conditions and forces coming together to achieve that is extremely low, hence the probability of that event is extremely low. I point out that that exact same set of very rare conditions and forces had to play out hundreds and even thousands of times without fail -- for example, we know of no case where that coral got deposited upside down. The probability of all those hundreds or even thousands of independent events all succeeding would be so very extremely low as to be far less than virtually impossible (I have seen "virtual impossibility" to be defined as any probability less than 10^-120 -- that source was a YEC making the standard false "modern protein coming into existence by chance" claim).First an example to acquaint you once again with the math. If you have a series of n independent events, each with a probability p of succeeding, then the probability that all n events succeeded will be pⁿ. Since the value of p lies between 0 and 1, every time to multiply p by itself the product keeps getting smaller and smaller. For example, the probability of flipping a fair coin 10 times and getting all heads would be: 20 times would be 9.5367×10^-7. 50 times would be 8.881784197×10^-16. 100 times would be 7.8886×10^-31.The greater the number of events, the more improbable they become. That's how the math works out.The probability of the conditions and forces all working together to achieve the uplifting of an entire coral formation, transporting it whole and unbroken without even a crack, and depositing it whole and unbroken without even a crack and right side up is extremely low. I would think it to be less than one in a million, but I feel very generous so we'll assume it to be one in a hundred: 0.01 (AKA 1%, 10^-2).But that's just for one island. For two islands, that would be 0.01² = 0.0001 = 10^-4. For ten islands, 10^-20. For a hundred islands, 10^-200. For a thousand islands, 10^-2000.Remember that a probability less than 10^-120 is deemed to be virtually impossible. The probability of hundreds of islands created in the manner that you propose is hugely less than virtual impossibility.Hence, what you propose is impossible. That is the problem.