Dark Jedi

I can't agree with this. Since it is unlikely a genetic trait, this would be unfair and unconcioonable thing to do to those future children.

beyelzu

you know ed argued that the flood happened but just millions of years ago.


the water didnt go anywhere. see the oceans used to be much shallower so after 40 days and nights of rain and all that sailing god just grew more land. everyone knows that.

VonEvilstein

Oh dear. Time to wheel out the standard countermeasures:

1 - there is a currently viable theory on the spawning of universes through black holes. This already gives a more credible option than creation. Besides, the misconception is that there was "nothing". An alternate point of view says there was infinite mass, in an infinitely small space. Well,that just asks for an explosion. Whatever there was before is not really that relevant, time being a consequence of said explosion.

2 - living matter is no different from non-living matter. It's the same stuff. Life is a process, not a quality of matter. Anyways, non-living matter is turned into living matter all the time. Or does the author isist that all his meals are still moving?

3 - nope, of course you can't. You need two things - a source of energy, and system for organizing the componen parts. Life on Earth has both.

In other words, why do people still put forward this crap?
Oh, becasue there are still plenty of fools who've been failed by the education system.

education = learning how to use your mind, not how to fill it with facts.

Shadownought

How??? I've never heard of this.

VonEvilstein

I came across this one in, of all places, "The Science of Discworld". Please note that neither the authors of that work, nor myself, put this theory forward as fact. Until we understand a lot more about black holes (if that ever happens), it will remain an (un?)educated guess - hence viable, at least for the moment.

I love wheeling it out to counter any creationist attempts to suggest the origins of the universe must lie with a creator.

This, admittedly far fetched, theory, still sounds a lot more likely to me.


http://itss.raytheon.com/cafe/qadir/q1355.html

Ab_Normal

Okay, neuter 'em first.

(I am a bad bad person.)

Zadok001

Shouldn't have to neuter anyone. They'll wipe themselves out within one generation anyways.

Strawberry

National Geographic came up with a likely-sounding explanation for the flood in the past year. When the Ice Age ended, lots of water that was frozen into glaciers, etc. melted, causing water levels to rise.

In some places (such as, I believe, the Black Sea, where I think NG said the Biblical flood story likely originated), certain bodies of water rose enough to breach the rock formations that had formerly enclosed them. In those cases, the water went up at a rate of about 6 inches a day on some of the surrounding flood plains, covering them faster than people could walk out of them. Hence the idea that the "whole world" was under water, because they couldn't see anything that wasn't flooded.

Apparently, villages from about the time of the end of the Ice Age have been found just off the coast of Turkey, suggesting that those areas were once dry land. So the answer to the question about, "Well, if god didn't do it, where did all the water *go*?" is that it's still exactly where it was right after the flood and all Noah did was sail to the new boundary of the Black Sea and resettle.

The nutcase probably had a boat sitting in his front yard for decades, carrying on about how god "talked to him." There's a guy like that who lives a couple miles from my grandparents' house (only his boat isn't finished yet and he doesn't happen to be living at the end of the last Ice Age).

capnkirk

Here is a link to the referenced National Geographic story. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ng...ine_extra.html

Another post ice-age flood occurred in North America, The natives of that part of the world had not become corrupted, yet a lot of them still drowned (and a lot of animals too). But I guess that flood didn't count 'cuz Adam hadn't been created yet, much less Noah.

Here are the particulars: The "Bonneville flood" occurred bout 15,000 years ago when the great Lake Bonneville, which covered much of Utah (Great Salt Lake is the minuscule remnant) overtopped Red Rock Pass causing the lake surface to drop 300 feet to the Provo shoreline. The Bonneville flood released 1,000 cubic miles of water in a couple of weeks. The path this flood took to the sea is still visible to the trained eye.

Splat

My favorite principle:

Unless you're a plant. Or an animal. Or maybe a fungus. Or...