Jesus Versus Geology

[unknown soldier]

How can Jesus be divine if he can't get his facts straight? He evidently knew less than many of us today know. For example, Matthew 24:37-39 (NRSV) tells us:

For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Sorry, Mr. Jesus, but we have no evidence that the Noachian flood in Genesis ever happened. Today geologists know better than to believe such fables. You are ignorant of that fact. How can you know how to grant people eternal life when you don't know the basics of the world you presumably created?

Anyway, while I wait for the apologists here to try to slip out of this sticky wicket, let me offer some lubricant of my own to help them. First, we can always interpret figuratively what Jesus said about the flood. A literal interpretation will result in seeing an error in the Bible, and to avoid that unacceptable conclusion we can say that Noah and the flood Jesus spoke of are metaphors.

Another way out is to insist that Jesus was right and that there was a historical Noah and a worldwide flood. Apologists can get busy writing books about how wrong geologists are.

Finally, we might even admit that Jesus was wrong, but he had good reason to be wrong. When he came down to the earth from heaven, he had to leave behind some of that omniscience. God couldn't manage to stuff all the knowledge of the cosmos into that little human head! Jesus could manage to save the world without knowing his geology, so such knowledge was dispensed with as unimportant for the duration of his time on earth. Not to worry, though, because Jesus remembered all he forgot on earth when he got back to heaven.

Obviously, most people won't buy these arguments, but these apologetics should be helpful in keeping the faithful assured that Jesus, as God on earth, fulfilled his mission perfectly!

[brunumb]

The only plausible mechanism for this rapid reversal comes from flood geology.

Can you give us a brief synopsis of exactly how it works, or a link to the explanation please.

[brunumb]

All of these predictions that were proven correct come from flood geology and mechanisms. Predictions are what make hypotheses theories. So in reality we can call this flood theory because it has made successful predictions.

You've merely stated that "flood geology" made these predictions but not explained how the two are specifically connected.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to brunumb in post #51]

Here you go you can read all about why the earth's magnetic reversals.

https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to brunumb in post #52]

You can read all about the cause of flood geology here.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebo ... view2.html

Just so you know Walt Brown and Answers in Genesis do have competing theories. But the facts seem to point to a hybrid model that encompasses both theories.

[brunumb]

[Replying to brunumb in post #51]

Here you go you can read all about why the earth's magnetic reversals.

https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings

No one is denying magnetic field reversals. What that article fails to do is show how such an event could be precipitated by the alleged flood. All we get is a sprinkling of mentions of the flood in a discussion of magnetic fields which amounts to no more than unsupported claims. Dismissed.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to brunumb in post #56]

N

o one is denying magnetic field reversals. What that article fails to do is show how such an event could be precipitated by the alleged flood. All we get is a sprinkling of mentions of the flood in a discussion of magnetic fields which amounts to no more than unsupported claims. Dismissed.

you did not read the article because it does.

[Difflugia]

What that article fails to do is show how such an event could be precipitated by the alleged flood.

you did not read the article because it does.

Considering that the author himself writes that he hasn't yet identified a mechanism, I don't think it's brunumb that's having the problem.

I will not try to develop a detailed explanation of the reversal mechanism in this paper. Instead I will show how the general features of my nonspecific model explain both the amplitude and the frequency of the paleomagnetic data.

At present, I have a good Idea for such a mechanism, but I am still developing it.

The best we get is an admitted guess without any sort of justification:

To sum up, my theory suggests that a powerful source of energy was turned on in the earth's core during the Genesis flood. One possibility I am considering is that God greatly increased the rate of radioactive decay during the flood year, gradually tapering it down to the present rate. But whatever the cause, the energy would cause fast enough convection to drive reversals. So far, this mechanism is making sense quantitatively, but it needs more work.

Note that this has nothing to do with the Flood. Even his made-up guess doesn't involve the Flood per se. What Humphries took fourteen pages to say is that though real scientists think magnetic reversals happened over a long period of time and thus disprove a ten-thousand-year-old Earth, it could have happened quickly if the Earth's core was actually way hotter, but only for a little while. If God magically injected a bunch of heat super-fast and then turned it off a little later, he offers (with a roguish wink, perhaps), then the math works out.

I hope this isn't lost on you, but saying that the math works if we posit a miracle is just a verbose and cheeky way of saying that the math doesn't work.

Humphries' paper is a child explaining an empty cookie jar by saying that Jesus ate the cookies. He doesn't know how the crumbs got on his face, but maybe Jesus put them there so that the math would come out right.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #58]

Ok then here is the mechanism described in a different paper that he wrote.

https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings

[Difflugia]

Ok then here is the mechanism described in a different paper that he wrote.

https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings

It suffers from the same overall defect that the last paper does in that it still requires an impetus for which there is itself no plausible source. Humphreys simply waves his hands and declines to "specify that event further."

I suggested that a powerful event in the earth's core at the beginning of the Genesis flood produced the convection. I do not know what that event was. It could have been, for example, heating of the core due to a sudden increase of radioactive decay or cooling of the mantle above the core. It is not my purpose here to specify that event further. Instead, I want to develop a theory of how the resulting convection flows would produce magnetic reversals.

Even if we're willing to concede that everything Humphreys wrote is correct (it's not; as he notes, radiometric dating must itself be wrong because it falsifies the entire premise), it still doesn't buy much. While Humphreys can perhaps get us the rest of the way, we must first assume a very specific kind of miracle for which there's no other evidence. That's like deriving a detailed, mathematically accurate method for Santa Claus to descend narrow chimneys, but dismissing as an exercise for the reader how Santa gets to every house in the world in a single night.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #60]

Even if we're willing to concede that everything Humphreys wrote is correct (it's not; as he notes, radiometric dating must itself be wrong because it falsifies the entire premise), it still doesn't buy much. While Humphreys can perhaps get us the rest of the way, we must first assume a very specific kind of miracle for which there's no other evidence. That's like deriving a detailed, mathematically accurate method for Santa Claus to descend narrow chimneys, but dismissing as an exercise for the reader how Santa gets to every house in the world in a single night.

So what are you trying to say? That there is no such thing as a magnetic quick reversal?

https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the ... ung-earth/