Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jimmy Higgins · 03-20-2003, 06:28 PM

Does it strike anyone's fancy strange that a Flood narrative came out of a desert region?

*cough*Babylon*cough*

Spaz · 03-20-2003, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jimmy Higgins
Does it strike anyone's fancy strange that a Flood narrative came out of a desert region?

Now you see! God loved them so much he decided to give them all the water they'd ever need, but he just loved them a little too much

Qinopio · 03-20-2003, 09:37 PM

One explanation I have heard that would reduce the amount of water needded for the flood is that continental drift caused/is causing the mountains to be formed. Apparently at the time of the flood, the mountains weren't very high, but during the thousands of years since then, they're gained most of their modern height.

I assume you could take a look at continental drift rates to give a real answer to this, but I don't know much about them personally.

Arikay · 03-20-2003, 09:49 PM

Yep, ive heard that one. The answer is that there is no evidence for a quick cotinental drift idea (but when has lack of evidence stoped them

)

The biggest problem is that if you moved that much stuff, that far at that type of speed. The earth would probably melt into molten rock

Quote:

Originally posted by Qinopio
One explanation I have heard that would reduce the amount of water needded for the flood is that continental drift caused/is causing the mountains to be formed. Apparently at the time of the flood, the mountains weren't very high, but during the thousands of years since then, they're gained most of their modern height.

I assume you could take a look at continental drift rates to give a real answer to this, but I don't know much about them personally.

Fiach · 03-20-2003, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Qinopio
One explanation I have heard that would reduce the amount of water needded for the flood is that continental drift caused/is causing the mountains to be formed. Apparently at the time of the flood, the mountains weren't very high, but during the thousands of years since then, they're gained most of their modern height.

Continents have drifted pretty consistently at 2 cm per year. When India collided with Asia to form the Himalyas, the process took millions of years. It occurred 40-50 million years ago.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/himalaya.html

Measurements of sedimentary layers from Mesozoic era have reach heights to show signs of Mountain glaciation as early as 40 million years ago. A volcano can grow in a matter of thousands of years if it is a really active one. We know the Alps in Europe nearby, show the similar sedimentary layers from the collision with Africa under the Mediterranean. We have evidence of Mountain glaciation separate from the Polar glaciers in the Ice age back 100,000 or 200,000 years, I forget which. But there are signs of ancient glaciation among rocks in Scotland going back to Palaeozoic glaciations more than 280 million years ago as North America collided with Africa then. One other piece of evidence is that the Alpine Ice Man was frozen in the high passes some 10-12 thousand years ago. When he tried to cross and a blizzard buried him. He was discovered only recently. So if a flood occurred in historical times as the Bible claims it didn't reach the high Alps of Europe or the High Himalayas. If it had it would have melted the glacier and broken it loose with the Ice Man's body.

I assume you could take a look at continental drift rates to give a real answer to this, but I don't know much about them personally.

We know for a fact that there are tectonic plates making up the Earth�s Crust. These plates are propelled by upwelling and down welling currents in the hot magma of the Earth�s mantle. The result is that the plates drift slowly as the up welling at a rift zone pushes the left and right edges of two plates apart at about 2 cm per year. We know that this rate is constant for two reasons. The continental drift has been measured by satellite laser measurements for about 20 years and has remained consistently at 2 cm per year.

We know that measurements of sediment, a long period type of measurement, average out dry years from wet years, and are remarkably consistent across the oceanic floor. We know that Earths magnetic poles reverse N to S and back to S to N every 10 or 11 thousand years. This causes Ferro-magnetic minerals to line up in those fields while liquid. It cools and the iron containing crystals remain aligned that way. When the field later reverses the newer oceanic plate shows the reversed polarity. Deep drilling of the ocean floor has shown these bands of alternating polarity reversals from the mid-oceanic ridge where they form all the way to the continental edges.

Using these two measurements of tectonic plate and continental drift, we can estimate the age of sediments and igneous rocks at the continental margins. Using both the magnetic field polarity reversals and satellite measurements of 2 cm/yr we can estimate that Cameroon in Africa started separation from the bulge of Brazil 220 million ago in the late Permian Period. (We divide the distance traveled by the velocity of 2 cm/yr.)

Then we use isotope dating of igneous rock on the Brazil coast and the Cameroon coast and get 240-220 million years. By geological timescales this is like hitting bulls eye with a bullet at 600 metres. Thus the accuracy of isotope measurement of fossil ages is supported by collateral evidence of continental drift velocities, ocean floor polarity shift bands, and by a less specific but generally approximate date of sedimentary layering rates. Knowing that we can safely estimate the approximate ages of fossils.

Getting back to the existence of mountains, we know that in 280 million years ago the American Apalachian mountains were the size of the Himalayas today. Given the dynamics of tectonic forces and plate movement with continental drift and collisions, there was never a known geological period in Earths 4.5 billion year history in which there were not mountains. Glacia groves in rocks can be found in the Canadian Shield, Greenland, and Scotland going back to millions of years before the Dinosaurs, and before land animals.

Fiach

ps418 · 03-21-2003, 05:39 AM

Regarding what Lpetrich (IIRC) once called bumper-car plate tectonics, and what YECs call catastrophist plate tectonics, and what I prefer to call a steaming pile of implausible creationist horseshit, see the following article I wrote:

Sea-floor spreading and the age of the earth

Patrick

Daisy · 03-21-2003, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fiach
The fact is that certain animals are found only in certain isolated location. For example, Kangaroos have never been found outside of Australia and New Guinea. Certain species of fresh water fish have been found nowhere outside of the Amazon Basin. Lemurs are only on the Island of Madascar in the last 20 million years. Emus, Koalas, Marsupial wolves, wombats, and marsupial lions are found only in Australia. Many other animals while on the Eurasian mainland are found only at great distances from Palestine, Mt. Ararat, and Mesopotamia. These include: polar bears, tapirs, aardvarks, Meercats, Irish Elk, Reindeer/Caribou, Moose, the Ice loving Macaques of Northern Japan. There are a few thousand other animals found far from Mesopotamia.

These represent animals never found in Mesopotamia/Ararat. How did Noah and his sons gather all of these animals from the far reaches of the left and right hemispheres and polar areas? How did they fit in the approximately 3.8 million species into the Ark if it was the wee little boat described in Genesis? How could they store enough food for the entire long journey aboard the tiny boat? When it landed on Mt. Ararat how did they return all of these animals back to their places of origin?

How did they transport some 3000 species of delicate fresh water tropical fish back to the Amazon Basin across thousands of miles of salt sea? How did they transport the Koalas, Wallabies, Kangaroos, Wombats, Marsupial wolves, Emus, and Marsupial lions back to the island continent of Australia? How did they get South American Tapirs back to South America along with Jaguars, sloths, prehensile tailed New World Monkeys, Armadillos, Alpacas, Llamas, as well as a million species of South American insects? (A fourth of all species live in the Amazon Basin.) How did they get the 9 types of Lemur back to Madagascar?

The amount of water needed to flood the Earths highest mountains would have to be enough to cover Mt. Everest at 29,000 plus feet or over 5 miles higher than present sea level. Can we even begin to imagine the immense quantity of water that would require? If Earth had been covered over 5 miles deep it would require 980 million cubic miles of water or 2.55 billion cubic kilometres of water. That water would have to be obtained and then carted away somehow. There are no empty spaces within the Earth for all of that water. The hot magma is only a few miles deep in places and about 8 Km in the ocean crust. There simply isn't enough room for so much water to be stored before the flood, and no place to put it afterwar.

So, you see, it is a scientific, or really a physical impossibility that Noah�s Legend could be true. The size of the boat is far too small for the number of animals and their food supply. The gathering of the animals from all over the world and delivering them back to their places of origin would have taken many years and hundreds of ocean going vessels to accomplish that task. The obtaining and disposing of many hundred thousand or millions of cubic miles of water is impossible without divine magic, which I don�t accept.

If you postulate miracle, i.e. magic, you must show me proof that magic exists. You must prove that magic ever occurred in any time or place. Other than magic, the Noah�s Fable was not physically possible.

Fiach

Big sigh.

You obviously don't understand the greatness of God. It took Noah some 600 years to build the ark. During that time, God had the animals come to Noah. God can do that. He can do anything He wants.

As for the 9 types of lemur, all Noah needed was ONE pair of lemur-kinds. I'm not sure if the marupial lions are from the marsupial kind or the cat kind, but I'm sure they're covered. Didn't your science teachers cover the concept of "kinds" or were you absent that day?

Coragyps · 03-21-2003, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Didn't your science teachers cover the concept of "kinds" or were you absent that day?

Daisy, m'dear - science does not recognize the Genesis-style concept of "kinds." Perhaps you have a definition for that term? I'd like to see one.

I looked at your profile, d. Did you forget a winky face?

Daisy · 03-21-2003, 10:45 AM

I suppose I ought've winked or [troll][/troll].

Just looking for some action ~~ but that is the argument used.

BlueSuedeShoes · 03-21-2003, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Daisy
Big sigh.
Didn't your science teachers cover the concept of "kinds" or were you absent that day?

Well, no.

You see, creationists define "kinds" to be whatever they want it to be. The folks who don't believe in the Ark and Flood say, "Okay... is 'kind' a species or a genus or what?" And you know, they can't answer.

There's 1.75 million species of animals in the world today. If there was (really) a global flood, then ancient civilizations (like the Egyptians) would have started writing (some 4,000 years ago) of prehistoric canines giving birth to wolves and foxes and fennecs and dingos and jackals and coyotes and dogs. Mice would be noticeably evolving a different species each year.

Does "kind" mean genus (which puts a smaller number of animals on the mythical Ark)? Most creationists avoid that argument because even they realize that there would have to be a visible evolution going on to account for all the species we have today.

So... since you DID sit in on this (apparently) when it was discussed, would you please provide an EXACT accounting of what a "kind" is so that we can know if the buffalo and cow came from an original kind or if the dogs and raccoons both came from the same "kind" and how they failed to notice all the evolving species of birds (like the numerous different (very!) types of ducks.)

...and why don't we see things evolving at this rate for the past 3,000 years?

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03-20-2003, 06:28 PM	#21
Jimmy Higgins Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Proud Citizen of Freedonia Posts: 42,473	Does it strike anyone's fancy strange that a Flood narrative came out of a desert region? coughBabyloncough

03-20-2003, 09:37 PM	#23
Qinopio Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Michigan Posts: 40	One explanation I have heard that would reduce the amount of water needded for the flood is that continental drift caused/is causing the mountains to be formed. Apparently at the time of the flood, the mountains weren't very high, but during the thousands of years since then, they're gained most of their modern height. I assume you could take a look at continental drift rates to give a real answer to this, but I don't know much about them personally.

03-21-2003, 05:39 AM	#26
ps418 Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Louisville, KY, USA Posts: 1,840	Regarding what Lpetrich (IIRC) once called bumper-car plate tectonics, and what YECs call catastrophist plate tectonics, and what I prefer to call a steaming pile of implausible creationist horseshit, see the following article I wrote: Sea-floor spreading and the age of the earth Patrick

03-21-2003, 10:45 AM	#29
Daisy Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Halfway out the door... Posts: 788	I suppose I ought've winked or [troll][/troll]. Just looking for some action ~~ but that is the argument used.

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