Ed

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Ed: No, the sea to land hydraulic burial of organisms fits the fossil record quite well. Jack: Again, repeating this claim doesn't make it true. Ed, let's see how your theory addresses the following issues: 1. The complete separation of dinosaurs and modern mammals. No dinosaur, not even the fastest of them, made it past the 65 million year point. With the exception of a few rodentlike critters, not a single mammal failed to make it: not a single cow, sloth, rhino, anteater, elephant. Even GRASS managed to run to higher ground: not a single blade of grass or spore of grass pollen was left behind with the dinosaurs.

If they also lived in different ecosystems then it is makes sense that they would probably not be in the same strata. Also there may have been a few that made it but they were not fossilized. You need large numbers for there to be a greater chance of fossilization.

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jack: 2. The extension of this separation into the oceans. Where the dinosaurs stopped, so did the great marine reptiles: plesiosaurs, icthyosaurs, mosasaurs. Not one of them got past this barrier, and not a single marine mammal failed to make it: not a single whale, dolphin, manatee, walrus.

The above also applies here.

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jack: 3. The faking of the geological evidence. An unbroken series of annual ice layers in Greenland and Antarctica, and sediment layers in lakes (varves), undisturbed for hundreds of millennia. No trace of the massive runoff channels which the waters of the Great Flood must have carved out. Delicate structures carved by millions of years of wind erosion in places like the Grand Canyon, which couldn't possibly survive in torrents of water.

What faking of geological evidence? Since we dont really know when the flood occurred, ie, it could have been "hundreds of millenia" ago, and it only lasted a year out of geological column of millions of years, there may not really be much evidence in the geological record.

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jack: 4. From the Bible's genealgies, the Great Flood happened around 2500 BC. We have written records from civilizations before and after this date: civilizations unaffected by the Flood (and written in languages unaffected by the Tower of Babel incident a few centuries later). There's more, but that will do for starters. If you want more, why not go to the Evolution/Creation forum?

No, the biblical genealogies are not that definitive, the hebrew term usually translated "son of" can also be translated as "ancestor of". So the time scale on the genealogies is indefinite.

Jack the Bodiless

Ed, you obviously have no idea of the magnitute of the problem you face.

MILLIONS of fossils have been recovered. NONE are "out of place". Zero. Zip. Zilch.

The odds against this arrangement occurring by accident are truly astronomical, greatly excceeding (for instance) the estimated number of atoms in the Universe. It's rather like arguing that the Dead Sea Scrolls are blank parchments stained with beetle droppings which coincidentally spell out Hebrew words.

And you STILL haven't addressed the issue of GRASS, Ed. It only appears in RECENT strata. According to your theory, grass didn't grow in lowland areas in Biblical times, but only on high ground! Even grass POLLEN magically levitated from mountain to mountain without a single grain falling in the lowlands. And these grassy mountains were presumably the home of the great Himalayan Mountain Clam and other oddities...

And when the Flood struck, icthyosaurs and plesiosaurs magically lost the ability to swim.

Ed, it's obvious that your brain has become crippled with the strain of believing this BS. Try to THINK, man!
"hundreds of millennia" is less than a milion years. There is plenty of evidence of much lesser cataclysms that happened in the more distant past, like the demise of the dinosaurs.
From the context, it clearly means "son of". Each person became the "ancestor of" the next at a specified age. And therefore you're screwed anyhow, because any unmentioned generations don't matter. If A became "the ancestor" of C when he was 100 years old, and C became "the ancestor" of F at 93 years old, then A and F are 193 years apart, regardless of the unmentioned births of B, D and E.

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: Jack the Bodiless ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

So when abouts do you think the flood happened then? Let us know, and we'll check the geology to see this confirmed, as of course it will be... won't it?

Oolon

Automaton

Some basic information can be found on this page: <a href="http://www.ccm.lsumc.edu/bugbytes/Volume2/bb-v2n19.htm" target="_blank">http://www.ccm.lsumc.edu/bugbytes/Volume2/bb-v2n19.htm</a> - specifically:

Ed

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LP: But it would be easier to regard Genesis 1 as comparable to the Earth's four corners in the Book of Revelation.
Ed:
No, Revelation is apocaplyptic literature, Genesis is not. Also, four corners just means all four geographic regions. It does not mean that there are actual corners on the earth.

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lp: What difference does being "apocalyptic literature" make? But all the translations I've seen say "corners" instead of "regions". And it also states that angels were holding back the winds, so no wind was blowing.

Apocalyptic literature is almost entirely symbolic, it is not usually meant to be taken literally. It is just phenomenological way of saying the same thing, like saying that the sun will rise at 6am. Even though it does not really "rise". The statement about angels is probably symbolic though it may not be. God can give angels supernatural powers.

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lp: However, we now know that winds are produced by other causes, such as some parts of the Earth being hotter than others.

Yes, but given that angels are spiritual beings taht cannot be detected by science, they could withhold wind by making some parts of the earth hotter than others and we would not be able to detect them.

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Ed: Maybe not, given that the flood only lasted a year, if it occurred 400 million years ago there may not be much evidence left after millions of years of erosion and etc. lp: However, humanity simply did not exist back then -- there are no human remains except in VERY young rocks (young by geological standards), and the older such remains have a suspiciously half-simian appearance.

If the population was very small there may not have been enough to be fossilized.

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lp: And if that flood had not left much evidence, then that is conceding that Noah's Flood was the cause of essentially none of the rocks.

That is a possibility, but given that I am not a geologist I dont know for certain.

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Ed: If you mix different soil types in jar full of water and shake it up the soil granules nicely segregate into strata. Just like the flood. lp: However, there is a lot of ordering that simply does not fit into the single-flood theory. For example, the Grand Canyon has a variety of rock types in no special order; sandstone, limestone, and shale alternate in rather irregular fashion. And to claim that it is all due to a single flood directly contradicts the claim earlier that Noah's Flood had left little evidence behind.

There are some geologists that would disagree with you but me not being a geologist, I dont have the answer. My primary purpose of this post was to discuss the evidence for God not the flood.

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LP: (fruit trees, then flying animals, then land animals) Ed: Their position in the fossil record could be because of their greater ability to avoid the flood. And fruit trees usually occur in the lower elevation ecosystems so it would expected that land animals would be further up in the strata. lp: Ed has just contradicted himself, because what he claims would require ALL the sediments of the last 300 million years or so to be due to Noah's Flood. Furthermore, there are plenty of slowpoke marine animals, like clams, in high layers.

See above about the sediments. They may be freshwater clams from mountain lakes or streams.

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Ed: No, viruses are not highly ordered. ... lp:In a relative sense, perhaps; depends on what counts as being "highly ordered."

In a biological sense they are not highly ordered.

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Ed: No, theoretically anything is possible, but some theories are more logical than others and claiming that somehow the impersonal can produce the personal is illogical. lp: You haven't explained why, Ed. Ed: Because it has never been observed throughout all of human experience. lp: As have many other things whose existence is inferred. Ed, I don't see you kvetching that Laurasia or Gondwana or Pangea or Rodinia have never been observed.

Inferences are usually trumped by empirical evidence.

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lp: Ed on egg cells: And in addition it contains a complex languagelike code(DNA), which throughout all of human experience only minds have produced complex codes. lp: However, DNA -> protein is actually a rather simple sort of code: 3 nucleic-acid bases -> 1 amino acid. But regulation and development control are much more complicated.

No, the simplicity is more of appearance than fact. Development is largely controlled by genes.

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lp: And if a mind had done it, how can we be sure that it was not an extraterrestrial visitor that had done it? How can we be sure that no other place in the Universe is inhabited?

That just pushes back the question to who created the personal extraterrestrials. The problem still remains. But we know that extraterrestrials could not create the universe however.

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Ed: Extraterrestrials or time travelers are personal beings also, so the ultimate cause's characteristics would still stand. lp: However, time travelers can be part of a closed causal loop; they can cause their own existence.

No, that is a logical impossibility, that is one of the problems with time travel.

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Ed: Free will doesnt cause wicked behavior, humans using their free will cause wicked behavior. lp: But free will enables it.

True, but God was willing to risk it for our freedom.

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Ed: God probably was rescuing the babies from going to hell before their later more serious behavior kicked in as adults raised in a barbarous society. lp: It might be better to keep people from creating "barbarous societies". I do that all the time with all the software that I create. Ed: That would take away our freedom. lp: I don't care; you are dragging in irrelevancies.

Freedom is not irrelevant to God. And it answers your questions of why things are the way they are.

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Ed: The destruction of animals was an unfortunate side effect of man's rebellion against God. lp: As if God was not capable of saving them. Ed: Of course, he was capable of saving them but in order to show to man what horrible things sin can result in he allowed it to happen. lp: An omnipotent being could save Itself a lot of trouble by creating entities incapable of sinning.

See above.

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(On Midianite "Comfort Women"...) Ed: There are major differences between being a wife in ancient Israel and involuntary prostitution. The ancient jews had to conform to the golden rule for one big difference. lp: There was no serious enforcement of that rule, however.

While there were no bedroom police, there was enforcement against physical assault.

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lp: This reminds me of one clergyman's response to Tom Paine on this subject -- that those young ladies were not going to be used for "immoral" purposes, but would instead become slaves, to which, he claimed, there was no ethical objection.

He was wrong. There is a huge difference between being a slave and being a wife which is what they were going to be, wives.

Answerer

Hello ED, sorry to cut in. But frankly speaking, even if the flood do occur, it is definately not Noah who was the hero of the flood if you want more proof I can show you some. Furthermore, from you have said, you seem to indict your belief in the existence of angels. Well, thats nonsense. Actually, the word 'angelos' means 'messenger' in Greek and modern English derives the 'angel' from the greek word 'angelos'.So, in short, there is so such things as winged-humans.

ps418

ED:
What faking of geological evidence? Since we dont really know when the flood occurred, ie, it could have been "hundreds of millenia" ago. . .

Really? You think the biblical chronology is consistent with the flood happening hundreds of thousands of years ago? Maybe you could explain where the following analyses goes wrong:

I Kings 6:1 says that 480 years passed from the start of the Exodus to the start of construction on the first temple by Solomon. Gal 3:17 says that 430 years passed from the covenant with Abraham to the delivery of the Law to Moses. Yahweh establishes the covenant with Abram about 135 years after he was born (11:32, 26). Abram was born when Terah was 70 (11:26). Terah was born when Nahor was 29 (11:24). Nahor was born when Serug was 30 (11:22). Serug was born when Re'u was 30 (11:20). Re'u was born when Peleg was 30 (11:18). Peleg was born when Eber is 34 (11:16). Eber was born when Shelah was 30 (11:14). Shelah was born from a 35 year-old Arpach'shad (11:12). Arpach'shad was born from Shem 2 years after the flood (11:10).

Since the date of Solomon's reign is agreed to be about 950[+/- 50]BCE, we can calculate the time of the flood using this chronology. Starting with Solomon and working backward, we have:

950BCE +480 +430 +135 +70 +29 +30 +30 +30 +34 +30 +35 +2= 2285BCE

According to the<a href="http://www.moodyisd.org/stephens/worldtl.htm" target="_blank">WORLD TIME LINE OF BIBLICAL HISTORY, </a> the flood is biblically dated to 2386BCE.

So, where does the hundred thousand years fit into the timeline?

Thanks,

Patrick

ps418

ED:
Ed: No, the sea to land hydraulic burial of organisms fits the fossil record quite well.

Really? I disagree. If you think that the fossil groups are arranged in the geologic record in a manner consistent with hydraulic sorting or ecological zonation, then let's explore this explanation with some specific biostratigraphic examples, and see how good the 'fit' actually is.

Patrick

GunnerJ

To all you still responding to Ed the Shit-Shoveling Crackhead: DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!

Do you notice how every one of your painfully well-thought out, paragraph-long arguments are dismissed by Ed with a pithy reply no more than one sentance long, which is usually an already long-refuted, unsupported assertion?

He's not interested in reasoned debate, in fact, he is the poster-child for what Koy calls a cult-incuclulated zombie. His only purpose here is to spread his half-baked Xian apologetic memes on these Fora like so much second-grade, stale, bullplop-based fertilizer on an already growing farm. I urge you, for the sake of your own sanity, please stop giving his inane poinltless claptrap the dignity of a response.

Thank you.

lpetrich

Sorry, Rim, I couldn't resist. But I came up with this response relatively quickly.

Says who?

However, the text clearly implies some picture of the winds like that in Homer's Odyssey, which features a bag with some winds inside. But according to modern science, winds are much more like the bubbling of boiling water.

The only "geologists" who maintain that the Grand Canyon's sediments were formed by a single flood are the sort who sign statements asserting in advance that they believe the literal truth of the Bible. It has been apparent for two centuries that the Earth's sedimentary rocks have a very complicated history -- apparent before Charles Darwin was born.

Only in some relative sense. Try to manufacture a virus in a lab without referring to some known virus genome and see what you come up with.

How is that so?

(I lost patience when it came to the question of the Midianite Comfort Women.)