The Flood of assumptions

Cmass · Post by **Cmass** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:14 pm

What assumptions must be made. Part 2:

What assumptions must we make about the story of The Flood that would render the story a true fact?

* Can we make assumptions that are based soundly in science that could render the story plausible?

* Christians, what assumptions have you made about the flood story that has kept it alive for you over the years?

In another thread we discussed the Ark but in this one concentrate on the actual flood. For example, if all the ice in the world melted, could it cover the whole planet? If not, where did the extra water come from? Did God provide it? etc...

Cathar1950 · Post by **Cathar1950** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:42 pm

I like sci-fi.

NGR · Post by **NGR** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:52 pm

goat wrote:Some sci-fi author or other (I think Larry Niven) said "suffienctly advanced technology is indistingushable from magic"

Arthur C Clarke.

Cmass · Post by **Cmass** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:57 pm

Some sci-fi author or other (I think Larry Niven) said "suffienctly advanced technology is indistingushable from magic"

How true! For the past couple of days I have been designing a part that will be created via a rapid prototyping method called stereo lithography. Without getting into the details of how it works, it is basically a machine that creates parts seemingly out of nothing using infrared lasers and a vat of liquid polymer. Just input the 3D drawing file, set it up and watch the part slowly materialize in front of you. It is like something out of Star Trek.
I wonder what Noah would have thought of such a machine. Perhaps if he had a huge one he could have simply created the ark in a few days while sitting in a lawn chair sipping mead.
And then there are quantum computers where things start getting really weird...

Does anyone have a feel for the ratio of Christians who see The Flood story as a true event versus a metaphor?

methylatedghosts · Post by **methylatedghosts** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:17 am

Here's a thought. I'm not sure what the bible says, but was it salt water? If it was, we would find salty deposits in lakes with no "exit river". We could drill holes into mt. everest (or a much lower one for practicality) and see if there is a small layer of salty ice.

Oh no, scratch that, salt water freezes at much lower temperatures. I'll see if I can find something that talks about the content of salt in ice around the arctic/antarctic. See if anything's there.

Cathar1950 · Post by **Cathar1950** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:01 am

They have done ice core samples of those areas. Anyone know right off hand how far they go back?
I found this one.

http://www.gisp2.sr.unh.edu/MoreInfo/Ic ... _Past.html

When they reach the bottom of the ice sheet, 3000+ meters thick, in 1992 they will have recovered the longest, most detailed, continuous record of climate available from the northern hemisphere stretching back 200,000 years or more through two glacial/interglacial (cold/warm) cycles.

Cmass · Post by **Cmass** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:39 am

Cathar, it looks like they are back to about a half a million years now.

Ice cores are but one of many ways scientists determine Earth's climate dating back hundreds of thousands of years. No evidence whatsoever of any global flood - ever. Not even any evidence that could be twisted, turned, massaged or elaborated on by biblical scholars. It just doesn't exist. Local floods perhaps - in flood plains and due to tsunamis etc..- but no global floods.

Here is a small snippet of some recent research:

RESEARCHERS DATE CHINESE ICE CORE TO 500,000 YEARS

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A team of scientists has reconstructed a detailed climate record for the last 130,000 years from a thousand-foot-long ice core they drilled into a glacier on the Tibetan Plateau in 1992. Analyses suggest that the record in the core actually may go back more than 500,000 years

The ice core draws a vivid picture of a climate that changed frequently and dramatically in that region throughout the last glacial sequence -- an interval that reached back 110,000 years through the last glacial period and into the warm stage, the Eemian, that preceded it. Their report was carried in this week's issue of the journal Science.

Ellen Mosley-Thompson, professor of geography at Ohio State University, said that the extreme age of the ice at the bottom of the core isn't the most important discovery coming from the analysis. "A record of this length from the sub-tropics is truly unprecedented," Mosley-Thompson said. "It's good that we've got very old ice at the bottom but the age of the ice is almost secondary to the amount of detail the core provides."

With support from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, Ohio State and the Chinese National Science Foundation, an international expedition retrieved the core five years ago from the Guliya Ice Cap, a 77-square-mile glacier sitting 22,014 feet high in the Kunlun Shan Mountains of western China. Although Guliya is in the sub-tropics the ice is very cold, making it a valuable reservoir of ancient climate records.

BTW: This project was related to global warming research. Recent studies in various tropical glaciers such as this one continue to confirm it is a reality. So, keep driving that Hummer and you might get your flood after all - perhaps one that creeps along a few inches per year resulting in flooding along the lower elevations of the coasts.

Note:
I cannot recommend highly enough that people - especially Christians - read about science on a regular basis. Try subscribing to one of many good layman's science journals - such as Discover Magazine - and stay, at least minimally informed. I fear that many people are missing a hell of a lot of very basic information in well understood fields. The resulting empty section in the brain libraries appear to be filling with video games, bible stories, superstitions and cheetos.
I watch my son sleeping this evening.... and I cannot help but fear for his future due to pure ignorance.

methylatedghosts · Post by **methylatedghosts** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:02 am

I really enjoy New Scientist. Great magazine

Chem · Post by **Chem** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:27 am

I cannot recommend highly enough that people - especially Christians - read about science on a regular basis. Try subscribing to one of many good layman's science journals - such as Discover Magazine - and stay, at least minimally informed. I fear that many people are missing a hell of a lot of very basic information in well understood fields. The resulting empty section in the brain libraries appear to be filling with video games, bible stories, superstitions and cheetos.
I watch my son sleeping this evening.... and I cannot help but fear for his future due to pure ignorance.

If only. I'm lucky in that my young fellow lives for dinosaurs, loves insects etc.

People should also look at Walking with Beasts, Dinosaurs and Monsters. Some of it is artistic license of course but the programmes give a good insight to our prehistory.

QED · Post by **QED** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 7:28 am

You know, for me the climax of the flood story is the bit where God creates the rainbow as a sign that he will never again subject humanity to another mass extinction by his hand... as though the rainbow could be conjured up when it didn't exist before. Like the bow, this story has to be symbolic as it stands in contradiction to physics. But this isn't all that stands in the way of the literal interpretation, there are plenty of good observations that can be made. Perhaps we ought to summarize them in this topic?

Chem · Post by **Chem** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:09 am

You know, for me the climax of the flood story is the bit where God creates the rainbow as a sign that he will never again subject humanity to another mass extinction by his hand... as though the rainbow could be conjured up when it didn't exist before.

Be careful, you may be misinterpreting a Biblical metaphor!

It's either that or pre-Flood the only light available was monochromatic in nature and God decided in His wisdom to make white light so that He could create the rainbow effect or there was no rainfall pre-Flood.

I'm sure one of the above explanations could be forthcoming from Creationists.