[_ Old Earth _] THe fossil record

[Jimbob]

1. It is a common misconception that scientists do not take initial isotope counts into account when performing radioactive dating procedures.

See this article here: http://www.creationtheory.org/Database/Article75

Anyway, as for the whole 'sea fossils on mountaintops' thing, that can easily be explained by plate tectonics. For more information, try this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC364.html

2. The point is that if God was moving all the world's mountains around, and then had to somehow counteract all the destructive energy released by that process, then why doesn't the Bible mention that he did that? It seems far more likely to me that the people who wrote it simply didn't understand the consequences that kind of geologic upheaval would have, so didn't include that.

 

[unred typo]

Your link says: “Isochron dating does not suffer from this problem, and the methods which do rely on a premise for initial isotope levels (such as C-14 dating) are hardly picking these levels out of a hat. They have justifications for those estimates, but creationists would rather not talk about those justifications.
Once again, we see an example of a creationist half-truth: they tell you only the parts of the truth which are convenient to their argument, and suppress the parts which demolish it.â€Â

What are the justifications? Let’s talk about it.

Your site states: “A flood cannot explain the presence of marine shells on mountains for the following reasons:
Floods erode mountains and deposit their sediments in valleys.
In many cases, the fossils are in the same positions as they grow in life, not scattered as if they were redeposited by a flood. This was noted as early as the sixteenth century by Leonardo da Vinci (Gould 1998).
Other evidence, such as fossilized tracks and burrows of marine organisms, show that the region was once under the sea. Seashells are not found in sediments that were not formerly covered by sea.â€Â

This is an example of a straw man argument. The flood itself did not make all the deposits in 40 days and 40 nights. First, there was another partially global flood recorded in Jasher from the overflowing of the River Gihon several years before the Noachian flood.

Second, the flood was accompanied by the breaking up of subterranean fountains and after the flood, the unstable earth probably did quite a bit of rocking and rolling for centuries. This is “easily explained as an uplift of the land, what geologists today would refer to as plate tectonics.â€Â

“Seashells are not found in sediments that were not formerly covered by sea.†Well, duh. The Bible says after a year the tops of mountains were uncovered, the rest of the world probably took years to dry out. It wouldn’t take years for seashells to populate the mountain tops in the shallow waters over them. In two months, oysters and other crusty sea creatures can completely cover the entire underside of a nice boat. (don’t ask me how I know…)

Jimbob wrote:

2. The point is that if God was moving all the world's mountains around, and then had to somehow counteract all the destructive energy released by that process, then why doesn't the Bible mention that he did that? It seems far more likely to me that the people who wrote it simply didn't understand the consequences that kind of geologic upheaval would have, so didn't include that.

I think most of the people who experienced all the destructive energy released by that process were either A. drowned or B. in an ark floating in a sheltered spot somewhere on the planet’s newly formed ocean for the first year. After that, the counter actions of settling and shifting was more localized to various parts of the earth. A very destructive super earth quake, mud slide, or meteor shower on one side of the planet would be barely noticed on the other if at all. Even if it were noticed, the population was probably too busy building cities and towers to worry about after shocks from volcanoes or global warming 4000 miles away. You don’t seem to understand the Bible’s focus is not on scientific or geological events but on the history of man and his relationship with God. What you are curious about today wouldn’t be what concerned mankind in the first century post flood.

I’ll tell you what. You’re way more interested in getting the most current scientific view of all this. You give me a nice summary of what you think fits the evidence and I’ll adapt it to literally correspond to the Bible record for you. :-D

 

[Jimbob]

1. The justifications are that the dating is based on things like the ratio of carbon-14 isotopes to carbon-12 and other isotopes, which is constant irregardless of amount. Besides, you ignored the point about isochron dating.

1a. You're completely sidestepping the point. Even if there were multiple floods, it still doesn't explain all the evidence that those mountains were once part of the sea floor. A flood would not explain that, not to mention that such sediments would be washed to the lower land areas. (I admit after doing more research that I was wrong about the goats, any fossilized goats would also be washed to the lower areas in a flood). So therefore, fossils like that found on the tops of mountains must have been made while that mountain was not a mountain, and at the bottom of the sea. They also, as explained by the article, were not distributed in a pattern that suggested a flood.


2. Where are you getting this from? If God was really moving mountains around all over the Earth like you were claiming, then the effects would have been evenly distributed all over the Earth, not just on one side. Also, you seem to have shot yourself in the foot in this point. If the Bible is really more about 'The History of man and his relationship with God' than actual historical accuracy, wouldn't it make more sense to say that the accounts of Genesis, etc. were allegory and not actual truth?

 

[unred typo]

Jimbob wrote:

1. The justifications are that the dating is based on things like the ratio of carbon-14 isotopes to carbon-12 and other isotopes, which is constant irregardless of amount. Besides, you ignored the point about isochron dating.

Excuse me? I want to hear the justification for saying that, too. Was that a typo or did you mean to say C-14 to C-12? Repeating the same reworded phrase doesn’t count, btw.

Jimbob wrote:

1a. You're completely sidestepping the point. Even if there were multiple floods, it still doesn't explain all the evidence that those mountains were once part of the sea floor. A flood would not explain that, not to mention that such sediments would be washed to the lower land areas. (I admit after doing more research that I was wrong about the goats, any fossilized goats would also be washed to the lower areas in a flood). So therefore, fossils like that found on the tops of mountains must have been made while that mountain was not a mountain, and at the bottom of the sea. They also, as explained by the article, were not distributed in a pattern that suggested a flood.

I don’t dance with strangers. The only sidestepping I do here is like I do in the barn. As I explained but apparently did not spell out, you don’t own plate tectonics. Let me try again.:fadein:
Upheavals are to be expected as millions of tons of water shift from being inland seas caught behind flood debris countless meters thick, to ocean waters at the new improved super deepened levels. This, while majorly the result of the flood(s), happened for several decades, even centuries later, until all the mudslides settled back into rock hard sediment. So, yes, waters sat patiently at high levels for years until they were again teeming with sea life, and then the natural levies broke and stranded the fish and mollusks it didn’t bury in the process. These enormous settling changes didn’t happen in a year or two. Though these enormous alterations were localized to partial areas of the globe, they were not limited in severity, size and scope to normal local flooding events. This flood, together with it’s preview flood, was a once in a planet’s lifetime happening and it had earth shaking results that can be clearly seen with unprejudiced eyes.


Jimbob wrote:

2. Where are you getting this from? If God was really moving mountains around all over the Earth like you were claiming, then the effects would have been evenly distributed all over the Earth, not just on one side.

Oh really? We don’t have mountains all over the earth? What planet are you from? And yes, the effects are evident all over but some resulted in terrain that was caused by flood waters receding gently, some caused by violent upheavals, some by secondary flood waters released when earthquakes opened natural dams and levies. In all of this, nature trudges on, as it does today, trying to survive wherever it’s planted.

Jimbob wrote:

Also, you seem to have shot yourself in the foot in this point. If the Bible is really more about 'The History of man and his relationship with God' than actual historical accuracy, wouldn't it make more sense to say that the accounts of Genesis, etc. were allegory and not actual truth?

You’re the one holding the smoking gun. I said: “You don’t seem to understand the Bible’s focus is not on scientific or geological events but on the history of man and his relationship with God.†You changed it to “'The History of man and his relationship with God' thanactual historical accuracy.†You want to take another shot at that? You missed my point entirely.

 

[Jimbob]

1. That IS what I said, isn't it? Besides, that's not the only method. They correlate it with many other dating methods (both radioactive and non - radioactive) to form calibration curves in order to determine initial isotope counts. You can see examples here: http://www.calpal.de/calpal/manual/Cali ... Curves.htm

It's pretty complicated, I'm not an expert in the field or anything, so don't try to bog me down with technical questions. The point is that they don't just make random assumptions about initial isotope counts.

1a. And you base this on....what, exactly? According to the Bible, which is the only 'record' of this particular flood (other flood mythologies are quite different, although some of them obviously influenced each other, for example the Biblical flood story was possibly inspired by the similar epic of Gilgamesh), the peaks of the mountains were the first to be uncovered after the flood waters receded. Unless you want to argue that all the mountains marine fossils have been found on somehow rose up from the seabed and became mountains the last 6000 years, then you have no justification for saying they were underwater for so long due to a flood.

2. I'm afraid I don't understand your logic here: You argue that the effect of moving mountains around would only be felt on one side of the Earth, I say it would be all over the Earth, and you reply by saying that there are mountains all over the Earth, so therefore it would only be felt on one side of the Earth? That makes no sense. Besides, I don't think you understand the sheer magnitude of energy that would be released during such a process. Moving and reshaping mountains all over the world in such a short timescale would release tremendous amounts of energy, enough to boil off the oceans and pretty much fry the planet.

2a. The point is that if you want it to be taken as a historically accurate source (ignoring, for a moment, the mountains of evidence collected from millions upon millions of different sources and independently verified by people over and over again throughout history since before the Bible was ever written that contradict it, in addition to the many times it contradicts itself), then you should expect it to document historically accurate information, such as the effects of such a geological upheaval.

 

[reznwerks]

god

God was always here, He has no beginning and He has no ending. But our finite minds cannot comprehend this. As far as the Universe is concerned God took nothing or the Hebrew word-bara- which means to make something out of nothing. And He did just that, He created the universe out of nothing.
But in our lower state we cannot put this together.

If our finite minds cannot comprehend this state of affairs yet you want to accept it why is it unreasonable to simply accept the premise that the universe always was and no God is in back of it? After all we know the universe exists yet we have not one speck of evidence of a creator God with a purpose.

 

[unred typo]

1. That IS what I said, isn't it? Besides, that's not the only method. They correlate it with many other dating methods (both radioactive and non - radioactive) to form calibration curves in order to determine initial isotope counts. You can see examples here: X It's pretty complicated, I'm not an expert in the field or anything, so don't try to bog me down with technical questions. The point is that they don't just make random assumptions about initial isotope counts.

Verrrry impressive. Verrrry technical. Verrrrry mumbo jumbo. Where is the layman explanation? The thing that sticks out for me is the tree ring calibration. Heh heh. Do you suppose they can go back millions of years counting tree rings? I understand they overlap recent ancient trees with fossilized stumps. Amazing technology. You actually believe this stuff? Verrrrry strange.

1a. And you base this on....what, exactly? According to the Bible, which is the only 'record' of this particular flood (other flood mythologies are quite different, although some of them obviously influenced each other, for example the Biblical flood story was possibly inspired by the similar epic of Gilgamesh), the peaks of the mountains were the first to be uncovered after the flood waters receded. Unless you want to argue that all the mountains marine fossils have been found on somehow rose up from the seabed and became mountains the last 6000 years, then you have no justification for saying they were underwater for so long due to a flood.

Have you never read the book of Jasher? It is a book mentioned in the Bible that is similar to Genesis but with more detail. That is my reference to the previous flooding. Do a search for Jasher. There are several sites on line.
Why on earth do you think it would be impossible for most mountains have come into being in the last 5,000 years?

2. I'm afraid I don't understand your logic here: You argue that the effect of moving mountains around would only be felt on one side of the Earth, I say it would be all over the Earth, and you reply by saying that there are mountains all over the Earth, so therefore it would only be felt on one side of the Earth? That makes no sense. Besides, I don't think you understand the sheer magnitude of energy that would be released during such a process. Moving and reshaping mountains all over the world in such a short timescale would release tremendous amounts of energy, enough to boil off the oceans and pretty much fry the planet.

Sorry. I misread your statement; “If God was really moving mountains around all over the Earth like you were claiming, then the effects would have been evenly distributed all over the Earth, not just on one side.†to mean the effects of the earth’s moving would result in mountains all around the earth. You meant the effects of the volcanic/earth quake action should be felt around the world. I see.
If all but 8 of the world’s population were dead, how many are going to record the volcanic activity? Are they going to notice in their floating zoo? I kind of envision them in a catatonic state of fear and crippling anxiety. After they left the ark, finding food and shelter would take precedence. Volcanoes spewing molten rock and forming mountains were to be avoided, just like they are today. Wouldn’t want to come back with the grocery cart to find the Navigator buried in ash. I’m pretty sure quakes and upheavals were seen at great distances and probably received as much attention as the third Walmart being added to the block. Mudslides that buried an entire herd of annoying dinosaurs would not even make page 12 of the morning news. If a natural levy of crushed flood debris broke loose after a series of wet spring hurricanes, and an area half the size of North America was totally revised and left with gullies big enough to warrant color travel brochures, I doubt if you could have filled a canoe with spectators. Life was just too filled with good old fashioned wars and rumors of wars.

2a. The point is that if you want it to be taken as a historically accurate source (ignoring, for a moment, the mountains of evidence collected from millions upon millions of different sources and independently verified by people over and over again throughout history since before the Bible was ever written that contradict it, in addition to the many times it contradicts itself), then you should expect it to document historically accurate information, such as the effects of such a geological upheaval.

I couldn’t possibly ignore, for even a moment, the claim of mountains of evidence collected from millions upon millions of different sources and independently verified by people over and over again throughout history since before the Bible was ever written that are alleged to contradict it, in addition to the many times it supposedly contradicts itself You can’t just make those broad brush unfounded accusations as fact and expect to not be challenged for proof. You might actually begin to believe your own fabrications.
As for my expectations of what Noah and the boys would record for inquiring minds 5000 years later, I am pretty sure they had better things to do. The building of the Babylonian tower obviously was much more interesting to them than rumblings beneath their feet signaling the advent of some mountains growth somewhere across the sea, unless rocks actually were dislodged and the tower fell. Oh, now that you mention it, it did. Jimbob, you’re a genius. :wink:

 

[Jimbob]

1. What? I don't get you. Are you now questioning the validity of dendrochronology, even though I never even mentioned it in the first place? Please try to stay on topic.

1a. Because geological processes take millions of years. Mount Everest, for example, grows a centimeter or two each year. If mountains really only took a few thousand years to form, then there would be tons of records of mountain formation in recorded history, but there are none. Besides, even if mountains somehow could just spring up out of the ground across the span of several thousand years, and you're stating this happened after the flood, then the argument is over, since the original point made (that fish fossils on the tops of mountains had to have been deposited there by the flood) is no longer what you're arguing. If you're now saying those mountains were underwater and didn't become mountains until after the flood, then fossils found there can't be used as evidence for a flood.

2. You don't understand. The kind of energy release you're postulating is beyond an extinction - level event. Nothing would survive, not fish, not birds, not bacteria, and certainly not 8 people and a bunch of animals in a boat. Try this article here for further information: http://www.creationtheory.org/YoungEart ... an-6.shtml

2a. The reason I said to ignore it for the moment is that I don't want to get off topic into a completely different discussion, but if you insist, here's a compromise: a list of Biblical contradictions: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/ex ... tions.html

Again, you're greatly underestimating the effects of such proposed mountain formation. It wouldn't be a 'slight rumbling under their feet', it would be a massive earthquake and a shockwave of heat that would boil off the oceans and kill everything.

 

[Jimbob]

You know, I was expecting a response here, and I had thought of a further explanation I could give on radiocarbon dating, so I thought I'd might as well not let it go to waste.

Anyway, consider the analogy of a mercury thermometer. Some time ago, people discovered that mercury would expand and contract depending on the temperature. They then got the idea that this could be used to make accurate thermometers to tell the termperature. However, if you just take a big blob of mercury, it doesn't tell you any more than you can already feel (whether it's hot or cold). So more information was needed. They did many experiments, gauging the expansion rate of mercury against temperature, comparing its mass to its volume to find its density at different temperatures, using readings from more primitive thermometers as well as known temperatures such as the freezing and boiling points of water and other substances. Finally, after many experiments and hard work, they created cylinders of the right size with calibrated temperature scales on the side at the right intervals, and they had an accurate mercury thermometer, down to a reasonable margin of error. Later designs and improvements reduced that margin of error further and further until the mercury thermometer was the incredibly accurate instrument that we rely on today.

The same principle holds true with carbon dating.

Some time ago, people discovered that carbon - 14, which was present in living organisms, decayed at a specific rate and had a fixed half - life. They figured that they could use this to develop a method for figuring out the ages of ancient artifacts and remains of organisms, etc. However, they didn't have enough information, so they did many experiments, first trying to figure out the rate of radioactive decay of carbon - 14, and used laboratory experiments as well as comparisons between objects of previously known age or dated by other methods. They found the half - life of carbon - 14, and also that they could date the age of an object based on the ratio of carbon - 12 to carbon - 14, which seemed to be constant, but actually changed over time. To document this change, they did many more experiments with carbon - dating artifacts that were already known by their historical age, as well as correlating their information with other established dating methods, such as dendrochronology, geologic strata dating, ice cores, etc. After many such experiments, they finally came out with a set of calibration curves (like the ones I showed you) for the ratios of the carbon isotopes in different periods of history. Continuing our analogy, these calibration curves are equivalent to the temperature calibrations on a mercury thermometer. They are continuously refined and improved to reduce the margin of error. However, error is very common in radiocarbon dating for one simple reason: It is very complicated and very difficult, and if you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to screw it up. If you take amateurs and give them instructions and tools to perform a radiocarbon dating test, it's likely that they will obtain bad results due to error in their procedures. Similarly, if you take some random person off the street and give him the materials and instructions to build a mercury thermometer, then (assuming he doesn't accidentally poison himself with the mercury) it is likely the thermometer will give bad readings because it was improperly built. That doesn't mean all mercury thermometers are useless, though.

So, in conclusion, scientists do a lot of work and put a lot of effort into making sure their initial isotope counts are accurate in carbon dating, they don't just pull random numbers out of a hat as some creationists seem to assume.

Not to mention that radiocarbon dating is just one of the many, many scientific dating procedures, both non - radioactive and radioactive, that are used for determining the age of objects. Many of these procedures use completely different methods and principles, yet they all correlate into a clear agreement during their areas of overlap, providing a pretty clear (although not perfect) history of the earth. Even if, by some strange cause, all of these procedures were in error, the odds of them all correlating to the extent that they do are, to say the least, astronomical. Also, several of these dating procedures were used by scientists before Charles Darwin even formulated his (in)famous theory of evolution, and they came up with results for the Earth's age far in excess of 6000 years, so that pretty much shoots down any ridiculous conspiracy theories.


Of course, as I already mentioned, I'm not a scientist, I don't have a degree in this, and I might have gotten some of the details wrong, but I believe I've given a clear picture that should clear up any questions you have about radiocarbon dating.

If you still have more, you should probably try asking someone with more experience in the matter, like an actual scientist. I can probably find some e-mail addresses for you if you want.

 

[unred typo]

1. What? I don't get you. Are you now questioning the validity of dendrochronology, even though I never even mentioned it in the first place? Please try to stay on topic.

Dendrochronology comparisons were the main method of calibration on the site you sent me to. Giving something a grand name does nothing to make it more legitimate. The whole idea is as bogus as the scam in the Emperor’s New Clothes. You just keep the faith though.

1a. Because geological processes take millions of years. Mount Everest, for example, grows a centimeter or two each year. If mountains really only took a few thousand years to form, then there would be tons of records of mountain formation in recorded history, but there are none. Besides, even if mountains somehow could just spring up out of the ground across the span of several thousand years, and you're stating this happened after the flood, then the argument is over…

You sound like you know what you’re talking about. In fact, you even told me you did. How is it you could be so wrong? Volcanic activity can create new mountains, islands and new volcanoes. This is just a few of the mountains that have emerged in the last few centuries: (Please excuse the cut and paste chop job but the facts are accurate)

Volcanic activity had been submarine when in November 1963 huge steam explosions initiated the birth of the island of Surtsey. The steam pressure ejected ash 5 km into the atmosphere and Surtsey finally emerged on November 14, 1963 in a phreatic eruption, building a cone of ash and lapilli that rose almost 200m above sea level in just 3 months. Do you remember that one? Me either. I bet you didn’t know there were “tons of records of mountain formation in recorded history.â€Â

Similar eruptions can happen on land as well. On February 20, 1943, a new volcano formed when eruptions blasted through fields near the village of Paricutin/Mexico. The volcano erupted for 9 years forming a distinctive cinder or scoria cone. Lava flows eventually buried 260 km2 (100 square miles) of land, destroying the cities of Paricutin and San Juan de Parangaricutiro.

Mt. Unzen has a growing lava dome. A steady magma supply causes the dome to become unstable. Junks of viscous lava break off in explosive eruptions and pyroclastic flows speed down the slopes. There have been more than 7000 flows between 1991 and 1994.

Kelut is a volcano Indonesia in the tropical climate belt. After an eruption, new pyroclastic material decomposes quickly to form fertile soil. This attracts many people to live near the volcano despite the threat of imminent eruptions. A large summit crater lake (water, not lava) often empies out during eruptions (15 times in the last 200 years).


Some volcanic eruptions create new land and new volcanoes. The mostly submarine Vestmannaeyjar volcanic system consists of a group of volcanic islands and submarine cones occupying a shallow shelf off the south coast of Iceland. By July 1973, 230 Mio m3 of lava and 26 Mio m3 of pyroclastic material increased the island by 20%.



Santorini is a ring-shaped group of small islands that once formed a large volcano behind the subduction arc of the Aegean Sea. A cataclysmic eruption about B.C. 1650 destroyed the main volcano, leaving behind a caldera and a sequence of eruptions ended with the production of massive amounts of white pumice that now cover the rim of the islands up to 70m (230ft) high; volcano produced a total of 30 km3 (7 cubic miles) of material ash found more than 30cm (1ft) high in Turkey, over 300km (200mi) away.


1723 The eruption of the Irazú volcano destroys the town of Cartago in central Costa Rica, where a few small Spanish settlements subsist on agriculture. June 8, 1783: 25km (15.5mi) long fissure opens, basaltic lava gushes out for 50 days at 5000m3/s) (for comparison, the mightiest North American river,the Mississippi River, empties into the Gulf of Mexico at just 3 times this rate) the total volume of produced lava is estimated to be 15km3 (3.6 cubic miles)

Tambora, Bali/Indonesia
the eruption in April 1815
week-long activity produces ca. 150 km3 of volcanic material the 4,000m (13100ft) tall volcano is reduced to 2650m (8700ft), with a 6km wide and 1km deep caldera the associated explosions are audible up to 2600km (1600mi) away

Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira are some of the (few) effusive volcanoes that usually are not big killers but cause substantial property damage through lava flows (rather than explosive volcanism). Nyiragongo is a strato volcano and has a long-lived lava lake that repeatedly releases extensive extremely fluid lava flows (e.g. 1977); the last one destroyed parts of the city of Goma. Nyamuragira is a shield volcano and is Africa's most active volcano. It also has a lava lake that is active since at least 1921.

Mt. Mayon is Philippines most acitve volcano and has had 40 recorded eruptions since 1616.

Mt. Pelee, Martinique, Location: Subduction Zone, island arc; stratovolcano, The eruption in 1902 was the deadliest volcanic eruption in the 20th century when directed blast formed a massive pyroclastic flow.

El Chichon's main feature is an emerging lava dome. Chichon had been dormant for 550 years when in 1982 it produced the deadliest pyroclastic flow in modern times (since 1955). Location: Mexico Subduction Zone, continental arc; lava domes


The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo Luzon/Philippines was the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century. It injected so much material into the atmosphere that it lowered the global temperature temporarily counteracting the warming greenhouse effect.


Nevado del Ruiz stands 5,400m (17700ft) tall and has a 10-30m (30-100ft) thick ice cap at its top. During relatively small eruptions the ice cap melts sending lahars down the mountain slopes. Some valleys get repeatedly devasted by lahars.
Nov 1984: a massive lahar travelling 45km (30mi) at 45mk/h (30mph) reaches Armero burying 22,000 of its 27,000 residents under a 8m (26ft) thick blanket of mud

How about some closer to home? Mt. Shasta in California (4318m; 14,162ft) is the second tallest of the Cascade Range volcanoes. Shasta stands 3000m (9800ft) above the surrounding area and is visible from 160km (100mi) away. It is currently not active but has erupted 11 times in the last 3400 years and at least 3 times in the last 750 years; its last eruption probably was in 1786; there is a substantial hazard risk from lahar flows in valleys of growing towns; in fact, 3 towns stand on debris flows that are 8 times larger than those of Mt. St. Helens.


Mt. Rainier in Washington (4393m; 14,413ft) is the tallest of the Cascade Range volcanoes. Rainier stands 2300m (7500ft) above the surrounding area. It has a glacial cap which potentially makes it as dangerous as Nevado del Ruiz whose lahar killed 22,000 people in its 1985 eruption. Rainier produced numerous farreaching lahars in the past; the Osceola mudflow about 5,600 years ago travelled 120km (75mi) affecting an area that is now home to 100,000 people. The Electron mudflow that travelled 48km (18mi) is only 500 years old.

So how long does it take to build a mountain? At your rate “for Mount Everest, for example, grows a centimeter or two each year†you can take as many million year spans as you want. Not needed. Mountains can form in weeks.

Besides, even if mountains somehow could just spring up out of the ground across the span of several thousand years, and you're stating this happened after the flood, then the argument is over, since the original point made (that fish fossils on the tops of mountains had to have been deposited there by the flood) is no longer what you're arguing. If you're now saying those mountains were underwater and didn't become mountains until after the flood, then fossils found there can't be used as evidence for a flood.

We must have some kind of language barrier here. Let me try from scratch. Grab a chair.

Mountains were not as tall as they are today. During the first few weeks of the flood, the water rose to cover these gentle hills. Besides the torrential rains, the subterranean waters of the ‘fountains of the deep’ were released when the earthquakes broke them open. (Some people even believe that some kind of atmospheric ice or water canopy was broken up. That might explain the trail of ice following Halley’s comet but I won’t argue that one. Don’t even go there. :wink: ) The depth of water to cover the highest mountains today was not needed to flood the flatter world of then. A tsunami wave could accomplish the covering of the highest point without needing the excessive volume of water. The waters churned and sloshed around for a year or more while volcanoes formed mountains and earthquakes opened up deep rifts and continents emerged from the water as it drained into the lower areas. Eventually, the waters were even calm in sheltered areas and sea life blossomed again. Since the water over the higher areas would be the shallowest they would foster the most abundant life. A little shift in the earth’s axis would cause the formation of the polar caps and glaciers extending down toward the equator. After a year of this activity, the water would have receded enough to allow the tops of mountains to be seen and quite a bit of the continents to emerge. The land would still be covered with massive inland seas held in place by some of the tons of flood debris. Fish and mollusks multiplied in them until either the natural dams broke or volcanoes ripped open the underwater hill, spewing out ash enough to bury all the sea creatures and send the lake running off to the ocean. This uplift would become a mountain with fish fossils that we see so commonly today. This uplifting activity would be rather common place for decades or even centuries after the flood. Even one or 2 mountains a month over the next thousand years would probably give us the topography we have today. Eventually the activity would diminish and by the time people with names like Jim and Bob happened upon the scene, they would hardly guess such a catastrophic series of events had occurred.

2. You don't understand. The kind of energy release you're postulating is beyond an extinction - level event. Nothing would survive, not fish, not birds, not bacteria, and certainly not 8 people and a bunch of animals in a boat. Try this article here for further information: (typical anti-yec site)

You’re basing this on your extensive expert knowledge of volcanic activity in recent history? *choke*

2a. The reason I said to ignore it for the moment is that I don't want to get off topic into a completely different discussion, but if you insist, here's a compromise: a list of Biblical contradictions: (Atheistic Bible hater’s site)

No thanks. Been there. Looked for intelligent life. No show.

Again, you're greatly underestimating the effects of such proposed mountain formation. It wouldn't be a 'slight rumbling under their feet', it would be a massive earthquake and a shockwave of heat that would boil off the oceans and kill everything.

Pleeeeease. You’re missing out on 2 points here.
1. Kill everything? Yup. Everything that could drown, was drowned and everything that God wanted to save was saved. You seem to forget that God was in charge of the flood sequence and orchestrated it the way he does everything; perfectly fine.


2. You’re making that up and you have no clue. You might as well join the brilliant ones who predicted the space vehicle would sink out of sight into the dusty depths of the moon. :roll:

 

[Jimbob]

NOTE: I'm very tired as I write this, I haven't slept in a while, so I might make some sloppy oversights or typos by accident.

1. I helped explain that in my last post.

1a. Volcanic activity is a special case, I thought you would know that I was not referring to volcanoes earlier, but if you really need me to spell it out for you, then volcanoes can form in such allowed timeframes due to the influx of magma from the mantle. However, unless you are going to assert that all mountains on Earth are really volcanoes, then this is a moot point, so you really didn't need to bother citing all those examples.

1b. Problems with this theory:

Aside from volcanic activity, you have provided no mechanism for mountains to raise themselves to such heights in such a short time, and, as I already pointed out, only a very small fraction of the world's mountains are volcanoes.

You do not explain where these 'fountains of the deep' came from, why they suddenly burst to the surface at that specific point instead of earlier, and why they do not exist today (there are underground waterways, but not nearly enough for what you are proposing). The same problem occurs with the 'ice canopy'. Of course, you stated you did not wish to get into that, so I will respectfully not pursue the point any further.

You failed to address the energy release from these underground geysers and torrential rains.

This massive tsunami you are proposing would have easily capsized Noah's ark.

If the Ark survived the tsunami somehow, it would certainly be capsized by the 'churning and sloshing'.

Entire continents moving around, again, would create a deadly thermal energy release.

How could sea life blossom again, the events you are describing would have killed off most of it, it would take thousands, possibly millions of years for the ocean life to thrive like it did before.

Where does the water recede to?

How come there is no geologic evidence of any type of massive volcanic event dating from this time? In fact, if, as you are postulating, every mountain on Earth somehow magically turned into a volcano and started erupting regularly over a course of centuries, then how come the world isn't uniformly covered by a blanket of volcanic ash? Today, volcanic ash is only found near - you guessed it - volcanoes!

A volcanic eruption on that scale would release massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere. Read this link about the Tambora eruption: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Ind ... ption.html Pay special attention to the part about the atmospheric ash clouds. Now, if one eruption could do that, imagine what thousands and thousands all over the world for hundreds of years would do! There would be enough ash in the atmosphere to block out the sunlight and kill all plant (and, consequently, animal) life.

Why are the fish fossils buried in deep - sea sediment, not volcanic ash?

How come there is no mention of all these volcanoes(or any of their side effects) in the Bible?

And, again, just for emphasis, how can volcanic activity explain all the mountains on Earth when only a very small percent of them are actually volcanoes or even anywhere near a volcanically active area?

2. No, it's based on calculations of material deformation heat release. Of course this was before you came up with your new volcano theory, which has plenty of problems of its own.

2a. If we were actually debating this, that would be a concession, but we're not. I just want to stick to the main topic.

2c. So, in other words, you're attributing it to a miracle of God, so you have no mechanism. Believing in miracles is fine, but you do have to realize that they can't be used as explanations in a scientific debate.

2d. You don't believe me? I would recommend actually reading that page I linked you to (the one on the problems with flood theory) instea of just ignoring it.

 

[unred typo]

So many questions. No problem. We love that, don‘t we? :-D If I miss one, just hit me again.

Not all mountains on Earth are really volcanoes but the action of pressures associated with the flood, volcanoes and the earthquakes related to them are a major cause of most orogeny and the combined force of the water and the land masses shifting would be the most logical mechanism for mountains to raise themselves to such heights in such a short time. A dump of sediment left by a tsunami might be another.

To understand where these 'fountains of the deep' came from, why they suddenly burst to the surface at that specific point instead of earlier, and why they do not exist today, you will have to read the Bible with a little less prejudice. My own theory is that the subterranean waters were formed as part of a filtration system when the earth was created. Porous rock and mineral layers were designed to be inhabited by simple organisms to break down wastes and keep a perfect ecological balance. They were ruptured by order of God when he destroyed the original surface of the earth. There may have been meteors or even comet collisions involved to get the whole thing rolling, but God caused it to happen. The same perfect filtration ecosystems don’t exist today since they were destroyed, although the bacteria, and other organisms have survived to some degree and still accomplish much of their intended functions even if it isn‘t pretty.


The “deadly thermal energy release from these underground geysers and torrential rains†that you worry about were just tools in God’s hands to destroy the world’s surface and form the post flood topography into something inhabitable. The massive tsunamis could have easily capsized Noah's ark if God wasn‘t in charge of the whole operation. Oh ye of little faith, don’t you know that even the wind and the waves obey him? Did you hear the story of the ones who escaped the deadly heat blast from Mt St Helens when they happened to be in a pocket that it jumped over?


Jimbob writes:

How could sea life blossom again, the events you are describing would have killed off most of it, it would take thousands, possibly millions of years for the ocean life to thrive like it did before.

First of all, it would take a massive catastrophic flood event to drown all human and land animal life but a well directed tsunami would do that especially if the population had been as reluctant to spread out onto other parts of the globe as they were after the flood. Breaking up of the subterranean catacombs of spring waters would be either the cause or effect of earthquakes large enough to accomplish that. The fish and other sea life were not targeted for destruction and only the ones in the immediate areas of intense devastation were obliterated. The majority swam or were washed to safer waters.

The rest of the popping, folding and snapping of the earth’s crust could have come in a gradual sequence of events around the world during the next 5000 years and, in fact, is still happening.

All sea life would not be killed if a volcano chain arose on one side of the world. In fact, after the initial blasts of steam and lava, the warmer water around the area encourages more life, not less.

Where does the water recede to? From my elementary school days I seem to recall that water seeks it’s own level. When you open a fault line along the ocean floor, the water flows into it just like magic. When you tilt the earth’s axis slightly, it causes the water on the poles to freeze further toward the equator. Frozen ocean water means more land showing. Just melt those caps and you will be asking instead, “Where did the water come from?†as you dog paddle past your TV.
.
How come there is no geologic evidence of any type of massive volcanic event dating from this time? Are you serious? You mean you never went for a trip down any highway where the evidence wasn’t staring at you from both sides of a blasted out hillside? I suppose you need a geologist to explain things like that to you. Maybe you’re like so many people too busy talking on your cell, spilling coffee or engaging in a bit of road rage to note all those folds and layers of exposed sedimentary and igneous rock.

You wonder why are the fish fossils buried in deep - sea sediment, not volcanic ash? Some of them are. Besides just because it is sea sediment doesn’t mean it hadn’t originated from a volcano. Not all lava is black crust or all ash made up of the same material.

You have such a peculiar way of thinking. In fact, your whole flood view is almost monomerous. You don’t seem to understand that a world wide flood is more than forty days of rain filling up the oceans to overflow the land to the tip of Mount Everest. Mount Everest probably wasn’t even more than an good sized hill until the earthquake of Babel crunched the plates into an accordion pleated rock pile some 300 years +/- after the flood.

Just because it’s a flood, doesn’t mean it’s just water. There will be volcanic mountains arise and fall in different areas, there will be tsunamis in some areas, there will be massive lahar flows in others, there will be earth quakes and plate upheavals and damage from uprooted forests and mudslides and every other mountain moving catastrophic event you can think of but not all at once and not all around the world at the same time. The flood lasted a year before the Ark inhabitants could set foot on dry ground in the area of Mount Ararat. That doesn’t say it was dry everywhere, nor does it say that there weren’t areas that had already been dry for months on the other side of the world.

How come there is no mention of all these volcanoes in the Bible? You know, if I were to read a history of my family spanning the last 3000 years, I doubt that any mention would be made of any of the volcanoes that have erupted around the world during that time frame, and there have been thousands. In fact, if the Mississippi River flowed backwards for 4 days, or a dormant volcano blew it’s top somewhere on the West Coast, I doubt if the people writing the history of the Catholic Church in America would even record it. What do you think?

Jimbob wrote:

2a. If we were actually debating this, that would be a concession, but we're not. I just want to stick to the main topic.

2c. So, in other words, you're attributing it to a miracle of God, so you have no mechanism. Believing in miracles is fine, but you do have to realize that they can't be used as explanations in a scientific debate.

2d. You don't believe me? I would recommend actually reading that page I linked you to (the one on the problems with flood theory) instea of just ignoring it.

2a. Admirable quality. 2b.?deleted? 2c. Yes. No. See mechanism explained above.
Very fine, agreed. Scientific debate? Where? Us? I thought this was a friendly discussion. 2d. I have read it. It neither answers my questions nor offers any hope of doing so. Why don’t you read it and explain it to me in your own words or doesn‘t it really make sense when you translate it into real life?

 

[Jimbob]

I had a huge long response typed up but my brower screwed up and I lost it all :x Anyway, I'll see if I can write it again:

1. There are many mountains on Earth higher than Mount Ararat (where Noah's ark supposedly came to rest) that are not volcanoes. Mount Ararat itself is not a volcano, so how did it form in such a short timeframe? As for sediment, how do you explain that most mountains are composed of rock from the Earth's crust has been thrust upward by plate tectonics, and not ocean sediment or extrusive igneous rocks? And earthquakes that released enough energy to create entire mountains would be so deadly and powerful that they would easily be extinction - level events. And what about mountains that are nowhere near current fault lines and haven't been for millions of years (based on plate tectonic models)?

2. What is your evidence for the existence of this 'filtration system'? And again, you invoke God as a mechanism, which isn't acceptable, since a mechanism must be able to clearly explain how something happens, and God, by definition, in unquantifiable and incomprehensible to human beings. Science is about explaining the world around us using understandable, testable, predictable models, not about attributing events to supernatural beings supposedly beyond our comprehension. Also, how come there is not a trend of major meteor impact craters from around that time, if you are claiming meteors as a possible mechanism?

3. Again, you're using God as a mechanism. In a scientific debate, you can't do that. Also, to illustrate the kind of conditions your theory predicts, imagine Noah's ark as being a woodchip 1 cm. long. Then take that woodchip and put it in the middle of a jacuzzi turned up to maximum, which is resting on top of a giant bonfire so the water inside is also boiling. That should give you some idea of the kind of catastrophe we're dealing with here.

4. First of all, archaeological and anthropological evidence shows that human beings were much more evenly distributed than you assume. Many remains of humans and settlements have been discovered on every continent (except Antarctica) dating back to far before your flood, and even your Creation, supposedly happened. They weren't all clustered in one place. Not to mention that this event would mix saltwater from the sea with fresh and brackish water, which would kill off most or all freshwater fish species, and yet that obviously didn't happen, since they're still alive today.

5.

The rest of the popping, folding and snapping of the earth’s crust could have come in a gradual sequence of events around the world during the next 5000 years and, in fact, is still happening.

But not at nearly the rate that would be required for your hypothesis, which would, as I stated, release enough energy to effectively kill off most or all life on Earth.

6.

All sea life would not be killed if a volcano chain arose on one side of the world. In fact, after the initial blasts of steam and lava, the warmer water around the area encourages more life, not less.

Take a look at this for a second: http://moat.nlanr.net/International/ima ... ld_map.gif

Are all of the continents and landmasses clumped together on one side of the Earth? No, they're roughly evenly distributed all across the face of the planet. If the supposed volcanic activity that created the world's landmasses only occurred on one side of the Earth, then we would only get land on one side of the Earth! This is obviously not true.

7. Nice try, but the polar ice caps do not contain nearly enough water to cover the entire world. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm In fact, according to geological evidence, they have melted several times in the past and then refrozen, and in between these times, there was still plenty of land. Besides, if they did melt, there would be insufficient time for them to refreeze in the timescale you are postulating.

8. You seem to be misinformed here. While it is true that the majority of Earth's crust is composed of igneous rocks, there are two types of igneous rocks: Intrusive igneous rocks and extrusive igneous rocks. Intrusive igneous rocks are formed in the upper mantle and slowly pushed upward into the crust by plate tectonics. Extrusive igneous rocks, on the other hand, are formed by volcanic activity. The former type is all over, whereas the latter is only found near areas of present or past volcanic activity. For more information on these two types of igneous rocks, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igneous_rocks
I should also mention that the presence of extrusive igneous rocks is not the only evidence of volcanic activity, for example, volcanic ash is usually found in strata where volcanic activity took place.

9. Yes, some of them are, but only the ones near volcanoes. As for sea sediment and volcanic ash, the former is formed by erosion by the rivers and lakes on land, and is then carried into the sea. The latter is ejected from the mantle due to volcanic eruptions. While there are variatons within both groups, they are most certainly not made of the same stuff, and are easy to tell apart.

10. My way of thinking is called rational thinking. If you find it peculiar, I think that says more about you than it does about me. As for Mount Everest, geologic evidence indicates it was formed slowly over millions of years by plate tectonics http://www.italysoft.com/curios/everest/ Not by a massive earthquake (which would run into the deformation energy release problem again, making its required yield to be far greater than anything anyone has ever witnessed, and thus unimaginably deadly).

11. Yet you just stated that the water would be high enough to cover Mount Everest. This couldn't happen unless the entire world was flooded at once. You're contradicting yourself. Besides, even if you stretch the timeframe for these events out over several centuries, it would still make them incredibly deadly and catastrophic, an extinction - level event at least. And the shorter timeframe you allow for these events, the more massive, powerful, and deadly they would have to be in order to create all the world's landmasses. After Noah and his family debarked, it would be pretty much impossible to survive in a world like that.

12. Yet if you were writing a history of your family, and your family lived in a world where massive earthquakes, volcanoes, and other geologic upheavals occurred continuously all over the world for hundreds of years, then I would think that little detail would be worth inclusion (assuming you somehow weren't all killed by the effects of these disasters).

13. a. Thank you. b. Yes, I told you I was tired when I wrote that. c. It's not a very clearly defined mechanism, and you still invoke God several times in your explanations. And yes, this is a scientific debate, since we are discussing geology, which is a field of science, and we have opposing viewpoints, making it a debate. d. I have read it, and I have used much of it in this very debate. If you want an idea of how to respond to it properly, why don't you try to see if your theory can address all the problems and questions it raises about flood geology? (the ones with red square bullet marks, to avoid confusion).

14. You have yet to address the problem of volcanic ash released into the upper atmosphere that I outlined in my last post.

 

[unred typo]

Jimbob wrote:

I had a huge long response typed up but my brower screwed up and I lost it all Anyway, I'll see if I can write it again:

I see we are still playing twenty…errr fourteen questions. No, actually some numbers have several related and unrelated questions and points that should be questions. Instead of the machinegun approach, why don’t you limit your responses to 1 or 2 points and you won’t be punished like that. And we won’t be punished like this:

Jimbob wrote:

1. There are many mountains on Earth higher than Mount Ararat (where Noah's ark supposedly came to rest) that are not volcanoes. Mount Ararat itself is not a volcano, so how did it form in such a short timeframe? As for sediment, how do you explain that most mountains are composed of rock from the Earth's crust has been thrust upward by plate tectonics, and not ocean sediment or extrusive igneous rocks? And earthquakes that released enough energy to create entire mountains would be so deadly and powerful that they would easily be extinction - level events. And what about mountains that are nowhere near current fault lines and haven't been for millions of years (based on plate tectonic models)?

You know, I’m not sure what rocks are out there and I’m not sure they have all been properly labeled and catalogued by geologists but I’ll take your word on that idea that most mountains are composed of thrust up rock. My theories are not set in stone and I’m quite flexible in spite of my complaining back. This is just a tentative list and you seem to like things in perfect order but let me see if I can list the events for you. Contents subject to change without notice. :wink:

What we have is a rather rapid unfortunate series of events:
1. Rain in torrents.
2. Earthquakes break up fountains of the deep. Earth’s crust buckles and twists out new mountains higher than any of the previous creation.
3. Flood waters cover earth to height of small mountains, tsunamis reach the new mountain heights ( higher than Mount Ararat) created by plate tectonics, depositing piles of sea sediment far inland probably at the top of hills already in existence. Name one ‘Ararat.’
4. Waters flow into rifts created by plate tectonics and super quakes. Some mountain tops are showing but not around Ararat yet.
5. Ash clouds spewed from volcanic eruptions black out enough sun to cause freezing at the poles and a large ice cap forms down to ….there. Do you think we need to tip the axis at this point? Ok, if it will help the sea life, turn the planet a few degrees toward the sun.
6. Ash settles and plates slow to a crawl but are still making new rifts to allow water to drain into the cracks. Don’t forget to turn the earth’s axis back. We don’t want to cook the new life flourishing in the ocean sized tide pools left all over the continents.
7. Noah’s barge lands on Ararat. Animals disperse and migrate to different areas of the world as led by their God given instincts. The earth is generally unstable with mudslides and lots of lakes. Volcanoes are fairly common, probably erupting twice as often as they do today, forming islands and inland mountains. Some lakes are caught at high altitudes by debris left from the flood . Some stay long enough to become filled with fish and mussels before local rain floods break the dams and send them sloshing down to various low spots on their way to sea level. Some become more or less permanent, surviving to this present day. Minor earthquakes are common and slowly reshape the topography.
8. People multiply for 300 years. They build many cities and the tower of Babel.
9. God destroys the tower with a huge earth quake whose effects are felt around the world. This might be a good time to release the forces needed to break the natural dam holding the large inland sea covering most of America, causing it to drain into the ocean via the newly created Grand Canyon and bring some of the mountain ranges up a notch. This influx of water into the ocean eliminates the land bridges and isolates some animal populations but what the hei? Why don’t we get rid of those pesky dinosaurs now too since we need to spread the human population to other areas of the globe and some of those reptiles can be pretty nasty-tempered, ravenous flesh eaters.
10. Genghis Khan, Electricity, the Beetles, Elvis, Hurricane Katrina. There,… that about brings us up to date. Any questions? Go ahead, fire them off… we’ll make more.

Jimbob wrote:

2. What is your evidence for the existence of this 'filtration system'? And again, you invoke God as a mechanism, which isn't acceptable, since a mechanism must be able to clearly explain how something happens, and God, by definition, in unquantifiable and incomprehensible to human beings. Science is about explaining the world around us using understandable, testable, predictable models, not about attributing events to supernatural beings supposedly beyond our comprehension. Also, how come there is not a trend of major meteor impact craters from around that time, if you are claiming meteors as a possible mechanism?

The evidence for the filtration system is the layers of fossils that were buried when the catacombs collapsed.. Evolutionists don’t own the rights to the origin of the fossil record.
God is a ‘mechanism’ for everything you see. It may be unacceptable to you but that’s your problem, not mine. Science is about exploring the world God created and discovering the laws he made that hold it together. Just because some people think it is finding alternative ways of doing what God has done, doesn’t make that a valid use of science.
I threw in the meteors because I thought you might need a few to feel connected to the far out reaches of scientific endeavor. There wouldn’t be many craters that wouldn’t be filled or washed away by the flood waters, anyway. Your world is so small, a few craters would be a major tourist attraction but my world is big enough to even accommodate a few undiscovered dinosaurs. The entire population of your world fits in the city limits of Tallahassee in mine.



Jimbob wrote:

3. Again, you're using God as a mechanism. In a scientific debate, you can't do that. Also, to illustrate the kind of conditions your theory predicts, imagine Noah's ark as being a woodchip 1 cm. long. Then take that woodchip and put it in the middle of a jacuzzi turned up to maximum, which is resting on top of a giant bonfire so the water inside is also boiling. That should give you some idea of the kind of catastrophe we're dealing with here.

Who are you debating? You’re not a scientist and neither am I. This is a discussion in a Christian board in a forum labeled Creation/Evolution and you are trying to say God is not to be used as a factor? Wow. How do you get your pants on?
Your woodchip ship is cute but the comparative size of the world in contrast to the size of the ark would be more like trying to sink that woodchip by boiling Lake Erie. The waves are so big, the ark so small, it would be able to find a spot of relative calm somewhere. The effects of most of the upheavals would be so dispersed by the time they reached the ark, safely situated in the other side of the globe, that it would ride it out like a aircraft carrier in a hurricane.

Jimbob wrote:

4. First of all, archaeological and anthropological evidence shows that human beings were much more evenly distributed than you assume. Many remains of humans and settlements have been discovered on every continent (except Antarctica) dating back to far before your flood, and even your Creation, supposedly happened. They weren't all clustered in one place. Not to mention that this event would mix saltwater from the sea with fresh and brackish water, which would kill off most or all freshwater fish species, and yet that obviously didn't happen, since they're still alive today.

Your dates are wrong. You’re banking so much on those bogus dating methods, what are you going to do when they figure out they were wrong?
After the tower fell and the languages were confused, people began to migrate to all parts of the planet.
On another note but somehow connected to the distribution of human populations( ? ), the ocean is getting saltier all the time. Probably the huge rivers encircling the globe before the flood were fresh. The waters of the fountains of the deep may have been salty or layers of salt may have been part of the filtration system. The waters were not instantly changed to salt and fish can adapt if it is introduced slowly over time. If the waters of the underground waters were salty, the sea life in them would be already adapted to them. Here we have a good place to use some of those neat built in evolutionary features they were created with.

Jimbob wrote:

5. UT Quote:“The rest of the popping, folding and snapping of the earth’s crust could have come in a gradual sequence of events around the world during the next 5000 years and, in fact, is still happening.â€Â
But not at nearly the rate that would be required for your hypothesis, which would, as I stated, release enough energy to effectively kill off most or all life on Earth.

Did you miss something? Most or all life on earth was killed. Everyone on land except Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. At the time of the destruction of Babel another third were wiped out. Insert ‘dinosaur extinction’ here. Then wind down the rate as the commotion of the flood/quakes/uplifts/etc. diminishes.

Jimbob wrote:

6. UT Quote:All sea life would not be killed if a volcano chain arose on one side of the world. In fact, after the initial blasts of steam and lava, the warmer water around the area encourages more life, not less.
Take a look at this for a second: http://moat.nlanr.net/International/ima ... ld_map.gif

Are all of the continents and landmasses clumped together on one side of the Earth? No, they're roughly evenly distributed all across the face of the planet. If the supposed volcanic activity that created the world's landmasses only occurred on one side of the Earth, then we would only get land on one side of the Earth! This is obviously not true.

Here’s something obvious. Let’s not forget that the Ark is floating on water. It’s not nailed to one side of the planet. When things are going to get rough, the ark is gently blown to another part of the globe. Like birds flying in the eye of a hurricane, there is no safer place to be than in the ark.


Jimbob wrote:

7. Nice try, but the polar ice caps do not contain nearly enough water to cover the entire world. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm In fact, according to geological evidence, they have melted several times in the past and then refrozen, and in between these times, there was still plenty of land. Besides, if they did melt, there would be insufficient time for them to refreeze in the timescale you are postulating.

I want a refund. Several evolutionary science books I have read say that if the ice caps were melted we would be under water. More global warming bunk, huh? At any rate, I don’t think you even know how fast a planet will freeze when tilted away from the sun a few degrees.

Jimbob wrote:

8. You seem to be misinformed here. While it is true that the majority of Earth's crust is composed of igneous rocks, there are two types of igneous rocks: Intrusive igneous rocks and extrusive igneous rocks. Intrusive igneous rocks are formed in the upper mantle and slowly pushed upward into the crust by plate tectonics. Extrusive igneous rocks, on the other hand, are formed by volcanic activity. The former type is all over, whereas the latter is only found near areas of present or past volcanic activity. For more information on these two types of igneous rocks, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igneous_rocks
I should also mention that the presence of extrusive igneous rocks is not the only evidence of volcanic activity, for example, volcanic ash is usually found in strata where volcanic activity took place.

So? Just change my theory to the other type. It doesn’t matter to me or my theory. Remember, I’m flexible.

Jimbob wrote:

9. Yes, some of them are, but only the ones near volcanoes. As for sea sediment and volcanic ash, the former is formed by erosion by the rivers and lakes on land, and is then carried into the sea. The latter is ejected from the mantle due to volcanic eruptions. While there are variatons within both groups, they are most certainly not made of the same stuff, and are easy to tell apart.

And? How does this effect my theory? I have room for both in my world. The former get washed on top of sea life by tidal waves set off by earthquakes/volcanoes, the latter; directly by volcanoes as I suggested.

Jimbob wrote:

10. My way of thinking is called rational thinking. If you find it peculiar, I think that says more about you than it does about me. As for Mount Everest, geologic evidence indicates it was formed slowly over millions of years by plate tectonics http://www.italysoft.com/curios/everest/ Not by a massive earthquake (which would run into the deformation energy release problem again, making its required yield to be far greater than anything anyone has ever witnessed, and thus unimaginably deadly).

I think you may be somewhat biased to call your own thinking, ‘rational’. You can not imagine the forces required to make a ‘Mount Everest’ and for all you know from experience in these matters, it may be a wonderful release of pressure to pop up those rock folds. Probably sends flying boulders bouncing off into the next solar system.

Jimbob wrote:

11. Yet you just stated that the water would be high enough to cover Mount Everest. This couldn't happen unless the entire world was flooded at once. You're contradicting yourself. Besides, even if you stretch the timeframe for these events out over several centuries, it would still make them incredibly deadly and catastrophic, an extinction - level event at least. And the shorter timeframe you allow for these events, the more massive, powerful, and deadly they would have to be in order to create all the world's landmasses. After Noah and his family debarked, it would be pretty much impossible to survive in a world like that.

You’re such a worry wart. First, the entire world could be flooded but not at exactly the same moment of time. Just as the tides have highs and lows, the water could have been pulled to cover the entire planet in stages. This would qualify as a world wide flood, covering all the mountains but with far less water. There are other possible solutions but that one works. Don’t make me use my imagination. It could get messy. :wink:


Jimbob wrote:

12. Yet if you were writing a history of your family, and your family lived in a world where massive earthquakes, volcanoes, and other geologic upheavals occurred continuously all over the world for hundreds of years, then I would think that little detail would be worth inclusion (assuming you somehow weren't all killed by the effects of these disasters).

You missed a couple of vital points here. For about 300 years after the flood, people stayed in the area around Ararat. The geological upheavals were happening in other places during this time. Only a minimum of people, if any, are in those areas. Animals don’t write about their annihilation by catastrophic event. People who are killed don’t write about it either. If they lived outside the loop, they wouldn’t even be missed and Bible authors wouldn’t know of their untimely demise. Of the hundreds of earthquakes and eruptions that have occurred in your own lifetime, how many have personally effected you or your family? If you doubled or tripled that amount, it is still quite conceivable that you would be unaware of such events having happened. During the last 200 years of American history, hundreds of earthquakes and eruptions have occurred around the world and I can’t think of a single one being listed in the U.S. history books.

Jimbob wrote:

13. a. Thank you. b. Yes, I told you I was tired when I wrote that. c. It's not a very clearly defined mechanism, and you still invoke God several times in your explanations. And yes, this is a scientific debate, since we are discussing geology, which is a field of science, and we have opposing viewpoints, making it a debate. d. I have read it, and I have used much of it in this very debate. If you want an idea of how to respond to it properly, why don't you try to see if your theory can address all the problems and questions it raises about flood geology? (the ones with red square bullet marks, to avoid confusion).

I still would prefer reading what you considered relevant to our discussion. I have limited reading time and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a flip-flop what that site says if you don‘t bother to cut/paste it here.

Jimbob wrote:

14. You have yet to address the problem of volcanic ash released into the upper atmosphere that I outlined in my last post.

Sure. You’re still not taking into consideration that not all volcanoes emit volcanic ash in great amounts and when they do, it lowers the earth’s temperature, allowing ice buildup at the poles which I believe is what you would call ‘the Ice Age’ though you have the date all wrong. As I wrote above, it may have been a problem but knowing God, he just used it to his advantage. He’s great at making things work together to accomplish his will. He has a few tricks up his sleeve that you haven’t dreamed of yet too. I can’t wait for you to meet him.

 

[Jimbob]

1. I couldn't possible limit my response to that length because there are just so many issues to address. In fact, I am doing all I can to keep it as short as possible as it is.

2.

1. Rain in torrents.

How much? A rough estimate will do. Because if it's too much over a such a short period of time, then it will release enough energy to cause severe devastation.

2. Earthquakes break up fountains of the deep. Earth’s crust buckles and twists out new mountains higher than any of the previous creation.

You have still not explained where such 'fountains of the deep' came from, not to mention that the Earth's crust 'twisting and buckling' enough to create all the world's mountains in such a short timeframe would release enough energy to boil the Earth. Read this article, as well: http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/plate2.htm

Flood waters cover earth to height of small mountains, tsunamis reach the new mountain heights ( higher than Mount Ararat) created by plate tectonics, depositing piles of sea sediment far inland probably at the top of hills already in existence. Name one ‘Ararat.’

All of which would have easily capsized Noah's ark and killed everyone and everything aboard.

Waters flow into rifts created by plate tectonics and super quakes. Some mountain tops are showing but not around Ararat yet.

With the type of energy released by the 'plate tectonics and super quakes' you are proposing, most of the water on Earth would have been vaporized and become steam.

Ash clouds spewed from volcanic eruptions black out enough sun to cause freezing at the poles and a large ice cap forms down to ….there. Do you think we need to tip the axis at this point? Ok, if it will help the sea life, turn the planet a few degrees toward the sun.

Tipping the planet toward the sun would do basically nothing to offset the clouds of ash covering the entire planet, which would be miles thick from all the eruptions you are proposing. Not to mention you have not provided a mechanism for this tilt. Is it an asteroid impact? You do realize an asteroid powerful enough to tilt the earth a significant way on its axis would be yet another extinction - level event added to your already impressive collection.

Ash settles and plates slow to a crawl but are still making new rifts to allow water to drain into the cracks. Don’t forget to turn the earth’s axis back. We don’t want to cook the new life flourishing in the ocean sized tide pools left all over the continents.

If all of your mountain formation took place in such a short timeframe, I'm afraid you would have already cooked them. In fact, not just cooked them, but completely incinerated them. Not to mention you have no mechanism for this second axis change. Another asteroid impact? Despite being an incredibly unlikely coincidence, it would have the same problems as the last one.

Noah’s barge lands on Ararat. Animals disperse and migrate to different areas of the world as led by their God given instincts. The earth is generally unstable with mudslides and lots of lakes. Volcanoes are fairly common, probably erupting twice as often as they do today, forming islands and inland mountains. Some lakes are caught at high altitudes by debris left from the flood . Some stay long enough to become filled with fish and mussels before local rain floods break the dams and send them sloshing down to various low spots on their way to sea level. Some become more or less permanent, surviving to this present day. Minor earthquakes are common and slowly reshape the topography.

Ignoring for the moment the minor problem that after what you described, Noah would be dead, we still have the following problems:

a. There is no evidence of these instincts you are proposing, and unless none of the populations died on the way to their homelands (which is utterly ridiculous, since in some cases it would take thousands of years), the fossil record does not support this migration period either. Not to mention you fail to explain how certain animal populations get from one continent to another.

b. An eruption rate of 2x what it is today would still take millions of years to form significant landmasses.

c. How do the freshwater and brackish water fish survive if their habitats were mixed with saltwater from the sea, which they can't survive in?

d. What about areas nowhere near any geologic faults, with no volcanic or seismic activity? How do those raise above the water?

e. There are plenty of other problems with the very concept of Noah's ark, for a good list, see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

God destroys the tower with a huge earth quake whose effects are felt around the world. This might be a good time to release the forces needed to break the natural dam holding the large inland sea covering most of America, causing it to drain into the ocean via the newly created Grand Canyon and bring some of the mountain ranges up a notch. This influx of water into the ocean eliminates the land bridges and isolates some animal populations but what the hei? Why don’t we get rid of those pesky dinosaurs now too since we need to spread the human population to other areas of the globe and some of those reptiles can be pretty nasty-tempered, ravenous flesh eaters.

a. If its effects were felt around the world, it would most likely wipe out the civilization at its epicenter.

b. I am unfamiliar of the theory of a large inland sea covering most of North America. Is this from a source somewhere, or are you just making it up? Either way, such a massive water release would create megatsunamis that would leave clearly defined imprints on the coasts of many continents, but no such evidence has been detected.

c. Except for the small fact that the latest dinosaur fossils date to 65 million years ago :roll:

d. Even supposing everything you said was true (and believe me, that's a very, very difficult thing to suppose), then such an event would not explain the extinction of dinosaurs in other parts of the world, since their fossils have been found worldwide.

Genghis Khan, Electricity, the Beetles, Elvis, Hurricane Katrina. There,… that about brings us up to date. Any questions? Go ahead, fire them off… we’ll make more.

Except none of those things would have happened since the theory you are proposing predicts the utter destruction of all life on Earth.

3. No, your view of science is flawed. Science is not about God, science never mentions God, scientists do not involve God in any of their theories, and science, (although more primitive forms of it) existed before the concept of the Judeo - Christian God was even widespread. If you want more information, try here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Method.

More reasons why God is not an acceptable mechanism:

a. When used as a mechanism, you can replace 'God' with literally anything from space aliens to time travelers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and it still basically states the same thing without actually explaining how it works.

b. Saying 'God did it' is effectively an admission of defeat. Many primitive cultures (including the Hebrews) ascribed natural events such as lightning, hailstones, ocean storms, and stars to supernatural deities, but these things can now be adequately explained with science. You won't see anyone going around anymore saying that God is literally responsible for lightning bolts, so what's with this fuss over evolution and geology?

c. Science is about describing the universe by creating accurate models from experimental data and observation, and then using these models to make predictions. Invoking God as a mechanism utterly nullifies any predictive capabilities a theory might have, because God is, as I stated, inscrutable and incomprehensible to human beings. Since the entire purpose of a scientific theory is to make accurate predictions, then this effectively makes the entire theory worthless, since no predictions can be made.

4. I already explained the first part, as for the second, I don't think you really understand the magnitude of the energy release we're talking about here. Consider this: current geological theories predict that the world's mountains and landmasses took hundreds of millions of years to form. Now consider the effect that volcanic and seismic disruptions can have in the short term: minor earthquakes are recorded all over the world every day. Their power is usually so weak as to be inconsequential, but added up they would pack a punch. Now consider the amount of devastation that can be caused by a single large earthquake or volcanic event (the recent Indian tsunami is a good example of this). Now take all of those events, small and large, from a timespan of hundreds of millions of years, and condense them into less than a single year. This is the amount of energy required to form the landmasses in the timeframe according to your theory. Can you even begin to imagine how catastrophic an event like that would be? It would be like nothing else in the history of the entire planet, it would make the KT extinction event look like a firecracker. The oceans would all boil off and become steam, and all life would be wiped out. Now how could 8 and a bunch of animals on a wooden boat possibly have any chance of even remotely coming close to surviving that? (and no invoking God).

5. You can't just state that dating methods are incorrect without providing any evidence. Am I just supposed to take your word over the testimony of hundreds of thousands of accomplished and respected scientists? As for your fresh/saltwater hypothesis, it is completely nonsensical. You are proposing hundreds of millions of years of geologic activity compressed into the timeframe of less than a year, along with your own assertion of 'massive tsunamis that reach the highest ocean peaks', yet you somehow state the the mix of saltwater with fresh and brackish water would be gradual? I am starting to lose my patience with you, now you are simply not making any sense. Also, I would like to know how a river could 'encircle' the Earth. :roll:

6. Again, you don't understand. I meant all sea life and bacterial life as well, along with Noah and his boat.

7. And here you're completely ignoring my point. This doesn't have to do with the ark, it has to do with volcanic activity relating to land formation. If there is volcanic activity on only one side of the planet, there will be land formation on only one side of the planet. All of this is moot anyway, since the energy released by such events on just one side of the planet at the scale you are proposing would still boil off the oceans.

8. Well there's your problem right there! Why are you looking for information on icecap formation in a textbook on evolution? In fact, I have no idea why such information would even be included in that kind of book. Try reading a geology textbook next time. As for icecap refreezing, it takes several thousand years, at least.

9. You're missing the point. The 'other type' (intrusive igneous rocks) cannot fit with your theory, since they are not caused by volcanic activity. Additionally, many beds of sedimentary rock are very near the surface, if your theory was correct we would expect them to be buried under hundreds of meters of extrusive igneous rocks.

10. And that brings us back to my original question: Why are so many fossils found in sea sediment instead of volcanic ash? Your theory would predict that practically all of them would be fossilized in volcanic strata. You do know that there are volcanoes and fault lines under the oceans, right?

11. Yes, that would be the kind of force required (more or less) if it was formed according to your theory (which I already explained result in the death of all life on Earth), however, geologic theory states that it was not formed all at once, but gradually over millions of years. This is obviously more rational. Take the following analogy, for example: If you take a 10,000 gallon tank of water and pour it into a small pond all at once, it will create huge waves and splash the pond's contents every which way from its edges. However, if you take a small tube connected to that tank and slowly release the water into the pond, at the rate of a typical sink faucet, it will take much longer, but will not create the chaotic effects of the former method, and the end result will be a pond with a higher water level, but no other dramatic changes.

12. Oh, believe me, it already has, and this new theory of yours is just as patently ridiculous as the rest. The tides are caused by the moon, and effect the sea levels to degrees of several dozen feet. The tidal forces you are proposing (enough to cover Mount Everest and keep the other side of the world dry) would effect the sea levels to the degrees of tens of thousands of feet! If the moon was really that close (and evidence clearly predicts that it wasn't at that period) , it would have devastating results on all life on Earth, possibly being within the Roche limit. Add another extinction - level event to your collection.

13. If they didn't occur around Ararat, that would mean the mountains of Ararat would have been formed almost completely during the time the ark was at sea, adding more fuel to the worldwide volcanic fire. Also, you fail to understand that to account for all the world's mountain and landmass formation, you wouldn't have to accelerate geologic events by just 2 or 3 times, you would have to accelerate them by several hundred MILLION times, and they would have to occur all over the world.

14. I considered cutting and pasting, yet, as I told you, I'm trying to keep this as short as I can, and adding all of that would just make this post too huge. If you're so insistent, I can PM it to you if you want.

15. My very point is that it would lower the Earth's temperature! Blocking out the sun with massive ash clouds that would last for probably hundreds of years would kill all life (assuming the volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis somehow didn't get them). Have you ever heard of a nuclear winter? This would be a volcanic winter, and it would be about a million times worse. We already went over invoking God as a mechanism, so I won't repeat myself on that point.

 

[unred typo]

Your gloom and doom assumptions about the ramifications of my flood model may sound fine in your neat little world with the hot tub oceans, but they do not compute in mine. Since you feel my theories are so “patently ridiculous†I will forgo the standard blow by blow answers.

Let’s think about this. Some actual facts would be nice to base our figuring on.

Mt. Everest stands at 29,035 ft (roughly 5 ½ miles tall.)

The Earth is 41,849,280 feet ( 7,926 miles) in diameter.

The area of the earth’s surface is right around 200,000,000 square miles.

The world’s oceans average a depth of 2 miles covering 70% of the surface.

It’s hard to visualize a ball 7,926 miles across with 2 miles depth of water on most of it’s surface. 200,000,000 square miles is equivalent to a rectangle 20,000 miles wide by 10,000 miles long, right? Let’s scale it down to something we can get our heads around. The same ratio would be 20,000 inches x 10,000 inches. The oceans now will be 2 inches deep. Our Mt. Everest would then be 5 ½ inches tall, roughly the size of a Dixie cup. The American football field is 300 feet long (3600 inches) and 160 feet (1920 inches ) wide so you can fit 28 of them in this area. So in an area the size of 28 football fields, covered with water to an average depth of 2 inches, how many Dixie cups full of molten lave will it take to boil away all the water? How many places could you hide Noah’s little splinter of a barge to avoid the rows of lethal Dixie cups? If you run across the area making waves and dropping cups of lava, do you think you could stir the entire surface and make it boil? If we fill the water with minnows, do you think you could kill them all with your lava pots? Do you think you could cause the waves to cover the tops of mountains 5 inches tall? Do you think that would release energy enough to cause the water to boil away?

 

[Jimbob]

Sorry it took so long to respond, I was busy with work and couldn't go online for a while.

Anyway, while your analogy isn't even accurate, it doesn't even portray your theory in a positive light. In a 10,000 by 20,000 inch rectangle (about 400 by 800 feet) with a uniform water depth of 2 inches, a dixie cup's worth of molten lava (which is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit) dropped into the center would boil off at least a quarter of it before the water cooled it down, since there wouldn't be enough water to cool it fast enough. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the actual amount of lava from volcanoes erupting all over the world at a high enough rate to build the continents would be much greater than the volume of Mt. Everest, and it wouldn't all be distributed in one place, and that wouldn't be the only heat released (deformation energy and thermal energy from earthquakes, etc), and your theory still has all the other problems I mentioned (volcanic ash clouds, no mechanism, tsunamis, etc.), your model still predicts a significant fraction of the oceans boiling off, which would have the following effects, in and of itself:

- Raising the temperature of the remaining oceans to significant levels, enough to kill 99% of all marine life.

- The boiled off portion becomes steam and raises the temperature of the atmosphere significantly, causing mass extinctions (including plant species)

- Any boat is done for

 

[unred typo]

Sorry it took so long to respond, I was busy with work and couldn't go online for a while.

Anyway, while your analogy isn't even accurate, it doesn't even portray your theory in a positive light. In a 10,000 by 20,000 inch rectangle (about 400 by 800 feet) with a uniform water depth of 2 inches, a dixie cup's worth of molten lava (which is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit) dropped into the center would boil off at least a quarter of it before the water cooled it down, since there wouldn't be enough water to cool it fast enough. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the actual amount of lava from volcanoes erupting all over the world at a high enough rate to build the continents would be much greater than the volume of Mt. Everest, and it wouldn't all be distributed in one place, and that wouldn't be the only heat released (deformation energy and thermal energy from earthquakes, etc), and your theory still has all the other problems I mentioned (volcanic ash clouds, no mechanism, tsunamis, etc.), your model still predicts a significant fraction of the oceans boiling off, which would have the following effects, in and of itself:

- Raising the temperature of the remaining oceans to significant levels, enough to kill 99% of all marine life.

- The boiled off portion becomes steam and raises the temperature of the atmosphere significantly, causing mass extinctions (including plant species)

- Any boat is done for

Wow. You've been busy this morning. This one was amost buried. I'll work on a reply but I am on the run today too. Lots too read, and no time to reply. :roll: :

 

[unred typo]

Jimbob wrote:

Sorry it took so long to respond, I was busy with work and couldn't go online for a while.
Anyway, while your analogy isn't even accurate, it doesn't even portray your theory in a positive light. In a 10,000 by 20,000 inch rectangle (about 400 by 800 feet)

No problem. It’s just too bad the time away didn’t give you some opportunity to think more on our little discussion and work on your math skills. I am interested in how inaccurate you feel my theory is. You have changed my 10,000 inches to about 400 feet? Not even close. 10,000 inches is 833 feet 4 inches. 20,000 inches is double that or 1,666 feet 8 inches. This is an area of 1,388,777.8 square feet. 28 football fields is 1,344,000 square feet. Your estimate of 400’ x 800’ or 320,000 square feet is about a million square feet short.

I still welcome the constructive criticism you might offer though. Everyone makes mistakes. I have suffered from math glitches myself. I do beg to differ on your opinion that my model doesn’t reflect favorably on my theory though.

Jimbob wrote:

In a 10,000 by 20,000 inch rectangle (about 400 by 800 feet) with a uniform water depth of 2 inches, a dixie cup's worth of molten lava (which is about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit) dropped into the center would boil off at least a quarter of it before the water cooled it down, since there wouldn't be enough water to cool it fast enough. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the actual amount of lava from volcanoes erupting all over the world at a high enough rate to build the continents would be much greater than the volume of Mt. Everest, and it wouldn't all be distributed in one place, and that wouldn't be the only heat released (deformation energy and thermal energy from earthquakes, etc), and your theory still has all the other problems I mentioned (volcanic ash clouds, no mechanism, tsunamis, etc.), your model still predicts a significant fraction of the oceans boiling off, which would have the following effects, in and of itself:

Obviously, you have never tried to boil off an average of 2†of water from approximately 28 football fields using dixie cups of hot lava. You seem to forget God in all of this. You keep thinking I have to explain all of this in a scientifically natural random series of coincidences, like you do. Wrong. You see, I am trying to prove it was done by a genius of an intelligence beyond anything you can even dream up. All I need to do is show that the evidence confirms it. It does. End of discussion….errr debate. :wink: Don’t worry, this is too much fun to quit now. Back to God in all this.


Jimbob wrote:

- Raising the temperature of the remaining oceans to significant levels, enough to kill 99% of all marine life.

Do you have the facts on that? Given the volume of water, (which is considerably more than you apparently can imagine,) the tendency of water to cool hot lava before it spews out more than a mountain’s worth, and the fact that volcanoes are still erupting today under the oceans and hardly effect the surrounding sea life and in many cases flavorably, I think you have miscalculated again. A little research into the matter should clear that up. You don’t expect everyone to roll over and succumb to the weight of your excellent opinion backed by faulty math and a few other cut and paste opinions, do you? At least give us some facts to play with. We have functioning brains.


Jimbob wrote:

- The boiled off portion becomes steam and raises the temperature of the atmosphere significantly, causing mass extinctions (including plant species)

Ignoring, for a moment that you are quoting the Bible here when you proclaim that “mass extinctions (including plant species)†did occur, you are not taking into account the turning of the axis to cool the planet. Furthermore, if the amount of water boiled away is significant, it only helps my purposes to remove volumes of floodwater from off the land as steam taking it to the poles to precipitate down as snow for our new improved glaciers. Covering the mountains existing at the pre flood levels with flood waters would have been no problem. The harder part is the removal of the water, imho. Don’t worry, I’m sure God could rise to occasion. Just as the sea life would rather quickly flourish and repopulate the ocean waters. It’s hard to keep a good creator or his creation down.:wink:

Jimbob wrote:

- Any boat is done for

We’re not talking about any boat. We’re talking about the enormous pitch covered, gopher wood, three story, 1 cubit window barge that God instructed Noah how to build. There was no safer place to be during all of this destruction. :-D

 

[Jimbob]

1. So sue me, I was up all night and really tired after a long day of work. It still doesn't change my point, though.

Obviously, you have never tried to boil off an average of 2†of water from approximately 28 football fields using dixie cups of hot lava

And I suppose you have? :roll:

You seem to forget God in all of this. You keep thinking I have to explain all of this in a scientifically natural random series of coincidences, like you do. Wrong. You see, I am trying to prove it was done by a genius of an intelligence beyond anything you can even dream up. All I need to do is show that the evidence confirms it. It does. End of discussion….errr debate. :wink: Don’t worry, this is too much fun to quit now. Back to God in all this.

Plate tectonics is not random. It is governed by observable and predictible mechanisms. God is an unnecessary term, since we have a perfectly good theory that explains continent formation without invoking God. If you want to invoke God in your explanations, then since he is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent, then for all we know he could have created the universe 5 minutes ago, complete with all of our memories from before and all other evidence it is older. But there's no way to prove or disprove that, so it is really only an excercize in philosophical thought, not a scientific theory. The bottom line is, if you're trying to come up with a new theory to replace the current theory of plate tectonics, you're going to have to:

- Provide a clear, testable mechanism (not justing sticking the term 'God' on it and saying that's that)

- Show that the majority of evidence supports your theory over the current one (so far, you have none)

-Making sure your theory has predictive capabilities, and then demonstrating that the predictions it makes are true (they aren't)

- Providing a condition for the falsifiability of your theory (which, if you use God as a mechanism, is impossible)

Like it or not, that's how science works. You can believe anything you want, but you can't go around misrepresenting ridiculous, pseudoscientific concepts as facts. After all, if you really have faith, you should just trust your beliefs, and not try to degrade them by trying to make them seem like something they're not.

Do you have the facts on that? Given the volume of water, (which is considerably more than you apparently can imagine,) the tendency of water to cool hot lava before it spews out more than a mountain’s worth, and the fact that volcanoes are still erupting today under the oceans and hardly effect the surrounding sea life and in many cases flavorably, I think you have miscalculated again. A little research into the matter should clear that up. You don’t expect everyone to roll over and succumb to the weight of your excellent opinion backed by faulty math and a few other cut and paste opinions, do you? At least give us some facts to play with. We have functioning brains.

Try taking a few frogs, hermit crabs, shellfish, etc. and putting them in a pot and boiling it. What do you think will happen? This is all irrelevant anyway, because your analogy isn't even representative of the situation. I never once said that a huge, Mt. Everest - sized glob of lava would somehow appear in the middle of the oceans as the only side effect of your rapid continent formation. Again, I will use the explanations I used before: Geologists have created a record of the Earth's volcanic and seismic activity from far into the past. Sometimes it was higher than it is now, sometimes it was lower. Using this model, as well as geologic dating techniques, they have determined that it took the current continents and mountain ranges hundreds of millions of years to form. Observing the volcanic and seismic activity over one year, you can see that that is a lot. Now imagine hundreds of millions of years of that activity all compressed into less than one year. Add new volcanoes that mysteriously appeared all over the planet (to account for continent formation), as well as super - earthquakes capable of moving mountains, and you have enough energy being released to boil off the oceans. And that is only one of the hundreds of problems with your theory!

Ignoring, for a moment that you are quoting the Bible here when you proclaim that “mass extinctions (including plant species)†did occur, you are not taking into account the turning of the axis to cool the planet. Furthermore, if the amount of water boiled away is significant, it only helps my purposes to remove volumes of floodwater from off the land as steam taking it to the poles to precipitate down as snow for our new improved glaciers. Covering the mountains existing at the pre flood levels with flood waters would have been no problem. The harder part is the removal of the water, imho. Don’t worry, I’m sure God could rise to occasion. Just as the sea life would rather quickly flourish and repopulate the ocean waters. It’s hard to keep a good creator or his creation down.:wink:

Actually, the Bible never said anything about Noah bringing all the plants onto the ark, as far as I recall. Anyway, you still haven't provided a mechanism for this axis change, and even if you could, it would hardly cool the planet fast enough to negate the widespread destruction caused by the boiling of the oceans (and it probably wouldn't do anything at all since the sunlight wouldn't be able to penetrate the massive volcanic ash clouds encircling the planet). In addition, you seem to be greatly underestimating the effects of such a cataclysm. When I talk about the oceans boiling off, I'm not talking about an increased rare of the natural evaporation that occurs on the oceans, as you seem to imply, I'm saying that all the oceans will BOIL. Many marine species can't survive if the temperature of the ocean changes by just a few degrees Fahrenheit, so imagine the kind of disaster I'm referring to now. The entire planet would be deep - fried.

We’re not talking about any boat. We’re talking about the enormous pitch covered, gopher wood, three story, 1 cubit window barge that God instructed Noah how to build. There was no safer place to be during all of this destruction. :-D

For all it matters, it could take up 10 square miles and be made of solid titanium with diamond armor and nuclear fusion reactors, everyone aboard would still be killed by what you're proposing. Not to mention you have still not addressed the problems of tsunamis, volcanic ash, lack of geological evidence for such a catastrophe, and all the other problems affiliated with flood geology in general: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html