The Great Flood

[ast3r3x]

We were talking about population in my Algebra 3 / Trig. Class and my teacher went into how he doesn’t really trust carbon 14 dating and that he thinks that the great flood could have happened around only 5000 B.C. Is he crazy or is there possibly any truth to this? My biology teacher laughed and said he is completely wrong. Does anyone have any sites or knowledge about this on comparisons?

My math teacher’s main points were saying that a the world was a crust around water that acted as a cushion from the center of the earth so there were no earthquakes or volcanoes…that type of stuff. He said a meteor or something hit and broke the crust, and then the water under enormous pressure was shot as high as the atmosphere out at the polls and that is why there are mammoths frozen so perfectly, as the super cooled water came down, it froze instantly and all that stuff. He also said how the Grand Canyon wasn’t millions of years of the Colorado carving it, but just days of massive amounts of water/mud. He sighted Mt. St. Helens as an example saying that the same thing happened there only on like 1/40th of the scale or something. He also said “they” (this freaked me out, conspiracy theory sounding an all) don’t want us to know about the other theories and that is why you won’t hear about them. He said that a professor at a college in Arizona was fired because of teaching this sort of thing.

He also said carbon 14 doesn’t work right, and one of his examples was that rock layers are dated older at the top then at the bottom. He went into the fact that carbon 14 found in coal shouldn’t be there if it’s as old as they say and that you can’t use that dating method because it isn’t necessarily a good measure due to the fact that it is a measure of how much carbon 14 is lost in our conditions not the conditions of ancient times.

My biology teacher laughed and said how they disagree on those things and that the older dated rocks are sometimes caused by mountainous regions falling over and so it looks inverted when you date it.


So what do you think, I am young and impressionable, so I’d like to read up on it, as I’m sure we will talk about it tomorrow. My math teacher was pretty convincing but it is probably just because I don’t know enough…just like if someone doesn’t have explanations, it is easy to make it look like we didn’t land on the moon (not to open up another can of worms).

He said more that I could go into but only will if I need to. So I may have made him sound crazier then I should have or less crazier then he really is.

[podmate]

Sounds like somebody has been listening to the Creationists again.
:no: :no:

[JimDreamworx]

Check out Zecharia Sitchin's book that have theories close to this. They mention about how Earth was affected by bodies in our solar system - and this is where ancient cultures started with their stories about the gods (which were planets).

[Anders]

Wonder how the atmosphere is in the teachers lounge...

[agent302]

While I know nothing of the dates, it is quite likely that a large flood did in fact happen in Biblical times. The reason for my belief here is that the flood story shows up in a number of Ancient Near East texts. It's in the Old Testament, but it's also in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which leads one to think that some sort of catastrophic flood did happen.

The flood stories are actually rather enlightening because the provide some insight to the relationship that people had with there surroundings. The Mesopotamians (in the Gilgamesh story), are clearly influenced by the unpredictability of the flood, and thus feel that their gods are playing with them, whereas Noah forms a bond with God after the flood, showing a much more pacified association with there surroundings. Just thought I'd share. Carry on with the Creationist bashing.

[Ganondorf]

Yeah, there was a Great Flood 5000 years ago, just a couple of thousand years after God took some dust and made the first human with MAGIC GOD POWERS.

Now that I have taken advantage of an opportunity to crack on religion, I must say that many myths are based in fact, and it is true there are a lot of flood stories. That doesn't necessarily mean that some sort of flood happened, all the flood stories may have just originated with the same lie. But it's still possible.

[giant]

ast3r3x, your teacher has no idea what he's talking about and is just regurgitating some crackpot sci-fi biblical stuff he picked up at the local crystal shop/storefront church.
Originally posted by agent302
While I know nothing of the dates, it is quite likely that a large flood did in fact happen in Biblical times. The reason for my belief here is that the flood story shows up in a number of Ancient Near East texts. It's in the Old Testament, but it's also in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which leads one to think that some sort of catastrophic flood did happen.
Maybe it was the flooding of the black sea. Who knows?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea

[Powerdoc]

Originally posted by Anders
Wonder how the atmosphere is in the teachers lounge...

Warning of the Surgeon general : smoking carpet is bad for mental health

[BRussell]

Originally posted by giant
Maybe it was the flooding of the black sea. Who knows?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea Yeah. But it also could be that the Noah story was based on the Gilgamesh story. Either way, it's interesting to speculate.

asterex: I don't understand the premise. Your teacher said the flood "only happened around 5000 BC?" Is there some prevailing theory that it happened before then? Is there even a prevailing theory that it happened at all? It sure does sound like he's trying to push some kind of creationist theory - the carbon 14 stuff, the "Grand Canyon wasn't created in millions of years" stuff, the "they don't want us to know the truth" stuff and "a professor in Arizona was fired" stuff. Ask him the name of the professor who was fired. I give 100:1 odds that never happened.

agent302: if anyone deserves bashing, it's creationists.

[agent302]

Originally posted by BRussell
agent302: if anyone deserves bashing, it's creationists. I know. I was endorsing Creationist bashing, not being sarcastic.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by BRussell
Yeah. But it also could be that the Noah story was based on the Gilgamesh story. Either way, it's interesting to speculate.

asterex: I don't understand the premise. Your teacher said the flood "only happened around 5000 BC?" Is there some prevailing theory that it happened before then? Is there even a prevailing theory that it happened at all? It sure does sound like he's trying to push some kind of creationist theory - the carbon 14 stuff, the "Grand Canyon wasn't created in millions of years" stuff, the "they don't want us to know the truth" stuff and "a professor in Arizona was fired" stuff. Ask him the name of the professor who was fired. I give 100:1 odds that never happened.

And if it *did*, I applaud it just as I would a professor teaching Scientology as a reasonable alternative history.

No wonder our educational system sucks - we're placing our children in the hands of imbeciles incapable of a minimum of rational or critical thinking.

[ast3r3x]

Well it was just a side topic going off of how the population growth formula didn't take into account tragedies like that stuff. You know how high school is, it's always fun to get the teacher off topic.

I understand him believing all this stuff though, he is a hard core christian.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Kickaha
And if it *did*, I applaud it just as I would a professor teaching Scientology as a reasonable alternative history.

No wonder our educational system sucks - we're placing our children in the hands of imbeciles incapable of a minimum of rational or critical thinking. Really? I wouldn't go that far. I think you're currently in academia, right? You can't - and shouldn't - fire people for loony ideas. High School is different, but not in universities.

[billybobsky]

Ok, couple of things. There is nothing wrong with carbon dating. The relative levels of isotopes in the atmosphere overtime have been corrected for by looking at both ice deposites in the artic/antartic and stalgmite/tite formation. While this certainly doesn't give an accurate description beyond a few million years ago, beyond that point creationist have no argument and the variation in isotope levels doesn't vary significantly in that time frame (the idea is that the error cited from the method outweighs the error of not knowing the relative isotope amounts)...

There are other dating methods available now which are more popular (i think) inclusive of methods measuring the level of argon in samples which is related to the isotope decay of potassium... this gives you a measure of the last time a rock changed chemical composition (ie a process that would release the stored argon) and cannot be used for fossils...

On the note of floods. There could have been a flood, but I believe the black sea flood thing has been shown to not be possible...

[xenu]

Originally posted by ast3r3x
Well it was just a side topic going off of how the population growth formula didn't take into account tragedies like that stuff. You know how high school is, it's always fun to get the teacher off topic.

I understand him believing all this stuff though, he is a hard core christian.

I guess you are fortunate he is not your science teacher.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by BRussell
Really? I wouldn't go that far. I think you're currently in academia, right? You can't - and shouldn't - fire people for loony ideas. High School is different, but not in universities.

True. High school is about imparting facts and (one would *hope*) critical thinking skills to students so that they have a toolset with which to simply get through life.

University is about expanding horizons and looking at possible alternatives.


*HOWEVER* (oh, you knew one was coming ;) ), if a university level professor was teaching random spewage that was indefensible from some basic critiques (and no, 'ineffable mind of God' is not a valid justification), I'd expect them to be yanked out of the classroom and given a nice harmless job doing something else. Students are paying good money to receive a good education. We should strive to give them that, not waste their time, money or neurons.

(And this is coming from the guy that thinks that cold fusion still has some potential unexplained processes that could turn out to be interesting.)

[ast3r3x]

Originally posted by Kickaha

(And this is coming from the guy that thinks that cold fusion still has some potential unexplained processes that could turn out to be interesting.)

Oh and he said he figured out cold fusion as well ;) Haha he is a nice guy and good with math, just...we'll call it a conflict of interests.

I just wanted to make sure he was crazy and it wasn't one of those "columbus found america" type things. I figured it wasn't, but I'd make sure with the enlightened few on these boards ;)

[Kickaha]

Sounds like a nutter to me. :\

Wait... Columbus found America??? Why, was it lost? ;)

[HOM]

I have to point out that anyone that has taken Rocks for Jocks (Geology 101) knows that older rocks can be on top of younger rocks for many different reasons. One of the most common is called folding, it's when the pressures force rocks into cool looking shapes.

Oh, and ask your teacher how he plans to use Carbon-14 testing on inorganic rocks.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Carbon 14 is cross-corroborated with ice cores and underground calcium deposits too. It's not 100% accurate but I don't think anyone seriously contests that it works.

So, er, yes: making science fit to a preconceived world-view derived from a very special sacred text in operation vis-a-vis your maths teacher.

[ast3r3x]

Originally posted by HOM
I have to point out that anyone that has taken Rocks for Jocks (Geology 101) knows that older rocks can be on top of younger rocks for many different reasons. One of the most common is called folding, it's when the pressures force rocks into cool looking shapes.

Oh, and ask your teacher how he plans to use Carbon-14 testing on inorganic rocks.

Yeah my biology teacher talked about folding after he stopped laughing :lol: Well maybe that isn't what he said, but he simplified it a lot and said basically rocks build up and fall over and then the bottom are at the top and the top is at the bottom so it's inverted. Maybe he didn't say folding, but he did laugh a lot.

[Matsu]

I would like to add that your math teacher is an idiot, have him stick to math.

[Frank777]

The sheer number of "Flood" stories that exist lends credence to the idea that it did happen. Aside from Gilgamesh and the Bible, there are such stories found in remote Asian cultures, Chinese history, North American Indians and Central America's Aztec and Incan empires.

I'm about to go out but I'll research the links in a day or so. I remember reading up on this a couple of years ago during AI's Fellowship Wars. :D

With such an abundance of stories, most people would normally take the position that something on a global scale in the distant past triggered such narratives.

But, of course, the fact that the story exists in the Bible means that it must be discounted at all costs. :err:

[Matsu]

No, just the idea that it covered the world over and it could be used to build a convoluted support for a paranoid creation theory that has neither anything to do with the original spirit of the text, nor any sensitivity to its rhetorical purpose.

Confine yourself to a few Mediteranean low lands and you'll be closer to the truth.

[groverat]

Ah, the great flood.

Let us say the crust of the earth covered a body of underground water and that a giant meteor came in and cracked it... how was there an atmosphere to sustain wooly mammoths without massive and exposed bodies of water? (Hint: There would not be.)

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights, enough to cover the entire earth, 15 cubits over the highest mountain. Everest is ~29,000 feet high (~348,000) inches.
348,000/40=8700inches/day
8700/24=362.5inches/hour
362.6/60=6inches/minute

It had to rain 6 inches per minute to cover Mt. Everest in 40 days. Now, forget the obvious question of where the water came from, just imagine in your brain that kind of rain. For 40 days. 6 inches per minute.
For reference, the heaviest rain I have ever read about or even heard of in my entire life was ~15 inches in one day, during a hurricane.

So we are to believe that the entire earth was subjected to a rainfall 580x greater than the worst recorded hurricane for over a month. We have all seen the mudslides caused by heavy rains... I am no geologist, but would there even be mountains left? What shelter could protect the living things of the world? The ark?

The water stood for 150 days, according to the Bible. That would undoubtedly kill well over 90% of all plant life on the Earth, at least (if they would even survive the brutality of the rain, which I cannot even conceive being possible).

I am prone to think it did not happen. That's just me.

[Frank777]

Originally posted by Matsu
Confine yourself to a few Mediteranean low lands and you'll be closer to the truth.

That wouldn't account for the widespread "Flood" accounts all over the world though.


Originally posted by Groverat
Let us say the crust of the earth covered a body of underground water and that a giant meteor came in and cracked it... how was there an atmosphere to sustain wooly mammoths without massive and exposed bodies of water? (Hint: There would not be.) [/B]

I don't know anything about this guy or his theory, but the "underground water" thing I've come across before. One of the most overlooked passages in the Genesis account is Chapter 2, verse 5.

Basically, there's a bizarre reference to the fact that it had never rained on the Earth before. A "mist" is said came up from the ground and watered the Earth. This explains the reasoning behind Noah not being able to sign up even one convert to his cause. Water falling from the sky seemed silly.

I'm not sure if this is what he's talking about.


How can I be discussing Genesis in TWO different AO threads? I'm going to bed. :D

[midwinter]

Originally posted by Kickaha
*HOWEVER* (oh, you knew one was coming ;) ), if a university level professor was teaching random spewage that was indefensible from some basic critiques (and no, 'ineffable mind of God' is not a valid justification), I'd expect them to be yanked out of the classroom and given a nice harmless job doing something else. Students are paying good money to receive a good education. We should strive to give them that, not waste their time, money or neurons.

(And this is coming from the guy that thinks that cold fusion still has some potential unexplained processes that could turn out to be interesting.)

I disagree. Tenured university profs (and, really, the non-tenured as well, although it is not politically wise for them to do so) have the right to spew whatever they want so long as it is related to the subject matter without fear of political, personal, or theoretical/philosophical reprisal or punishment.

Cheers
Scott

[billybobsky]

the don't have that right actually. perhaps they should have but they don't...

[ast3r3x]

Just a little more I remembered what he said. Said the trenches that travel along the center of the atlantic and pacific oceans are proof of the crack that traveled the whole way around. He also said I think that it came out more at the polls for some reason I forget what. He said it wasn't rain really it was just the massive amounts of water falling from the sky that were shot up by the tremendous force of the crust on the water under it. That is why you find mammoths frozen in such perfect condition because of how fast it came down.

[billybobsky]

plate tectonics explains the rift (that giant crack) and by this point in high school you should be aware of this fact.

The whole crust floating on water thing is a bit bizarre... Do you go to a public school?
If so, this man should be fired...

[KANE]

I second the notion that this teacher should stick to maths. Maybe you kids should stop derailing him from the subject and let him return to his equations? I always find it the scary when scientists who will not believe in Darwinism and refer to the Bible for answers get to so much attentions simply because they are scientists (and supposed to know better).

[thuh Freak]

Originally posted by Frank777
The sheer number of "Flood" stories that exist lends credence to the idea that it did happen.
that's fallacious reasoning. most of the western world believed for a long time, and many professed that, the sun revolved around the earth. they are all now believed to be wrong. mass acceptence of an idea isn't proof of its truth; just proof of its favorable effect on the believers.

Originall posted by KANE
I second the notion that this teacher should stick to maths. Maybe you kids should stop derailing him from the subject and let him return to his equations?
thats one of the most fun things about school. it's what makes it safe for kids like me to sleep in class (knowing that teacher isn't talking about the subject being tested). and for people who aren't sleeping, they can have a class discussion on something they might be interested in, instead of trig, bio or whatever other b.s. they got on the curriculum. we once got our music teacher to go 40 or 50 minutes about why "110%" is a valid amount of effort to give, despite arguments from the galley that it would only seem like "110%" and yet be "100%". it's really funny to watch them when they are so far off topic.

[ast3r3x]

Well we've gotten my bio teacher on the topic of school vs club sports for the a whole period almost. He even made it a test question!

Basically he was saying that you should do school sports instead of club because the club isn't sponsored by the school and it takes good atheletes away from school sports. He is the track coach :)

They are good teachers, it's just when you talk about something they believe and are adament about, it's easy to go into that. Just like it's hard to not say something when people are bashing macs or saying how good PC's are.

He gave some names today when we were talking about it if anyone wants them, but we didn't talk about it long because he said he had to teach and tried to tie it in though, about carbon 14 dating and stuff. If you want to know what he said just ask.

[Kirkland]

Originally posted by Frank777
That wouldn't account for the widespread "Flood" accounts all over the world though.

Sure it does, if the flood was ancient enough that it occurred back when most civilization was in the fertile area that we now call the Black Sea.

There was no global flood. It defies logic and the laws of physics. There is not that much water in the world, and had there ever been, our planet would have been too heavy to maintain our current orbit. Nothing would have survived the event the Bible recounts, and we would not have now the speciation and separation of animal types that we do had this event truly occured (how would we have kangaroos in Australia, how did they get there from the Ark?)

The Bible, particularly Genesis 1 through 10, should only be taken literally in the most minute of ways, lest the literalness of the text strip away its theological value in the modern age.

Kirk

[Frank777]

Originally posted by Kirkland
There is not that much water in the world[/B]

You've obviously never seen Kevin Costner's Waterworld. :D

I've often wondered if a Loving God would really create Canadian Winters.
Maybe he created an entirely tropical world, and the Flood messed up half the planet and the water cycle subsequently created the polar ice caps.

My own crackpot theory to be sure, but anyone who's had to shovel a driveway and sidewalk in -35ºC weather has got to question whether this was part of the Grand Design. :lol:

[Harald]

This is an interesting question ... I agree with Kirk.

The Bible stories (OT) are probably all true.

That is, they are metaphorical, allegorical retellings of truths about humanity.

For example, the Cain and Abel story has a sedentary farmer killing a nomad; it's interesting that -- in the very area where the OT was written -- nomadic hunter-gathering people became sedentary farmers, changing the course of human development and society totally. Farming man 'killed' nomadic man.

What are the Bible stories if not true in some way?

[BRussell]

Originally posted by Frank777
But, of course, the fact that the story exists in the Bible means that it must be discounted at all costs. :err: I don't think that's it, I just think that the idea that the entire earth was flooded and killed everything just doesn't make sense and doesn't fit with empirical evidence.

A question: Do you start out with a belief that the Bible must be true, and then reason from that point? That's what it seems like with many religious folk. Does that seem like a reasonable way to try to understand the world?

[midwinter]

Originally posted by Harald
What are the Bible stories if not true in some way?

They are stories. Many of them good ones.

[giant]

Originally posted by Frank777
My own crackpot theory to be sure, but anyone who's had to shovel a driveway and sidewalk in -35ºC weather has got to question whether this was part of the Grand Design. :lol:
Never occured to me.

[Harald]

Originally posted by midwinter
They are stories. Many of them good ones.

I'd say they're often folk memories of the broadest sort too. OK, the Genesis bit is as valid as Malian tales of the world being made by a god high on palm wine, but many of them seem to feel like real history, distorted by oral re-telling a few thousand times. You don't have to believe in God to think that (I don't) and you don't have be a blind believer in obvious impossibility (like ahem some in this thread) either ...

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Aha. Old stuff. My favourite.

I think that the Old Testament is basically 'true' in that everything in it happened. They're stories belonging to a particular agriculturalist people refracted, beautifully and metaphorically, through generations of retelling. It's very common for stone age and iron age peoples to remember even recent history in a sort of mythical way, partly because they quite literally understand time differently.

I don't actually know a whole heap about Middle Eastern culture of the late stone age and the early iron age but I do know that there were pastoralists (herders), farmers, expansions and displacement of people, and we remember them thanks to experts in oral history and the people who finally wrote down what they passed on.

For various reasons, agriculturalist societies tend to be more robust, and far more in need of land, than herding people. Agriculturalist people go looking for land to seed and they don't share it with herders. This happed recently in South Africa - less than 2,000 years ago - and when you look at myths of origins there you can often map it to places (rivers and mountains) that really exist. The stories seem to correspond nicely to the archeology. The mythical tone reminds you very much of the stuff in Genesis.

In Southern Africa there were a herding people called the Khoekhoen who lost their land to Bantu-speaking peoples like the Tswana, the Zulu and Xhosa. 'Xhosa', in eastern Khoe dialects, is phonetically identical to a word meaning 'angry men'.

[sCreeD]

Let's not forget all the water-borne animals. The salinity change, whether it rained fresh water or for some reason salt water, would have disrupted the food chain if not killed fresh-/saltwater animals outright.

The epic story of Noah it great fun because on so many scientific levels it's dead, flat wrong.

And the Thumpers speed right past the point of the story: Brotherhood of Man, Steward of the Earth. Noah's sons venture off and allegedly become all the races of humans. (So he had a Asian son, an Native American son, an Aborgine son... did I say "dead, flat wrong"???). Did I read somewhere that someone seriously stated that the Flood was responible for the deaths of the "mythological animals" (i.e Dragons, Unicorns, etc.)

It is a great fable. A teaching story for the kids but...
Dead
Flat
Wrong

I took a Western Civilizations course. The professor kept segwaying into the Creationist, "Veritas" garbarge. Strict old bat, three lates and you failed the course. That of course set the tone where one couldn't tell her to "Shut the bloody fook up and show us the paintings and the pottery."

Screed

[groverat]

Why fire the teacher? No no no. Keep them alive. The dodo bird is extinct and it is a tragedy. We do not have to slaughter the slow-witted, we have higher purposes, like the pursuit of good comedy.

Leave the teacher alone, encourage him, even. Do not suppress voices!

ast3r3x:

He said it wasn't rain really it was just the massive amounts of water falling from the sky that were shot up by the tremendous force of the crust on the water under it.

What is rain but water falling from the sky? A rose by any other name, my friend. :-)
The force of the falling water would be the same(ish) whether it came from a meteor splash, clouds or God's giant penis. So the insanely destructive force of the falling water remains regardless of the source.

That is why you find mammoths frozen in such perfect condition because of how fast it came down.

That is interesting if you completely ignore the impact water falling that fast would have on the mammoth itself. Maybe God aimed the water so it only hit rocks… hey I think I'm on to something! :-)

[Powerdoc]

concerning the mammoth thing , if he was killed by flood, there will be water in his lungs. Never heard of that.

The guy is comedy gold.

[hardhead]

That's when the dinosaurs went extinct, right? Including the ocean living reptiles, right? GOD told Noah, "Don't bring any dinos on board..."

Heh heh, just having some fun...

[curiousuburb]

So this teacher believes the earth's crust covered a pressurized water ocean until 5000 yrs ago?

Which sat on top of what we know to be a rotating molten iron core (hence earth's magnetic fields) ?

And despite perpetually boiling due to the internal heat and pressure, never escaped the crust ??

It's not like the innards of the earth ever do the volcano thing, or the geyser thing, or the earthquake thing and break through the crust, do they/have they ever ?

And pressurized steam never forces its way out openings in its containment, right ?

And fossils are all flash-boiled, except for the flash-frozen mammoths, and ice-men, right ?
Despite having evolved to their fossilized state in the absence of water other than "mist" ?

Cause that would tend to spoil his "theory" wouldn't it.
Riiiiight.

< /laughter> < /pity > :rolleyes:

[ast3r3x]

I walked into his room today and he had a box of books on the Grand Canyon and how it was formed his way and not from years and years of carving from the colorado.

Maybe I'll post some pictures if I have time.

He is kinda started to freak me out now. I mean he had a big box of 30 or so of these books. I asked him if they were for us, and he said they were for another class but I could have one...I wasn't sure if this meant I could look at one or keep one, so I grabbed one and that is why I have it. I'll probably give it back as I don't have a use for it really. I will say I'd rather just move on, nothing good can come of arguing over ones beliefs.

[giant]

What do your folks think about this loon teaching you?

[groverat]

Learn whatever he teaches you. You don't have to accept it, of course, but always hear people out.

What is the name of the book?

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by groverat
Learn whatever he teaches you. You don't have to accept it, of course, but always hear people out.

Keeping an open mind is a valuable trait.

Keeping a mind so open that your brain falls out is not.

Critical thinking is an *important skill*, and learning items that are obviously false is just plain a waste of time. Use that critical thinking. "Does this make any sense? If not, am I missing something? If not, why am I bothering listening to this nut?"

[dmz]

Originally posted by sCreeD

(So he had a Asian son, an Native American son, an Aborgine son... did I say "dead, flat wrong"???)
Screed



DNA is a bit more complicated than that. We already know we come from scientists that we have a common ancestor.

[dmz]

Originally posted by billybobsky
Ok, couple of things. There is nothing wrong with carbon dating. The relative levels of isotopes in the atmosphere overtime have been corrected for by looking at both ice deposites in the artic/antartic and stalgmite/tite formation.


There is a considerable amount of assumption when it comes to ice cores and stalgmite/tite formation. It's intellectually dishonest to not admit it.


Anyone remember the amount of ice covering the P-38's recovered in Greenland? 268 feet of ice in 50 years. Better than 5 feet a year.

Very Interesting.

[billybobsky]

so you are saying that the plane went back in time?


Antartic ice is more accurate and also more generally used for these purposes...so your artic example is horse shit...

[ast3r3x]

It's called "Grand Canyon A different View"

www.masterbooks.net is I guess the creators or printers.

More precise link (http://www.masterbooks.net/canyon_contro.htm)

I'm going to read it now and tell ya what I think.

[dmz]

Originally posted by billybobsky
Antartic ice is more accurate........... horse shit...


These are asumptions. You should be more honest and less angry.

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by dmz
These are asumptions.

No there is evidence. Assumptions aren't based upon evidence.

And I wasn't angry. Your example is horse shit.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
There is a considerable amount of assumption when it comes to ice cores and stalgmite/tite formation. It's intellectually dishonest to not admit it.

Anyone remember the amount of ice covering the P-38's recovered in Greenland? 268 feet of ice in 50 years. Better than 5 feet a year.

Very Interesting.

You are a fundamentalist Christian so it will be impossible to convince you of the verifiable, quantifiable evidence that supports these (and other) 'assumptions' you dismiss, and it's very likely indeed that you'll be confused by what scientists mean by 'theory', and you'll end up saying that faith in scientific evidence is actually itself religious, and so I'm a hypocrite.

(Not being patronising: it's just that we've had dozens of threads like this, and besides I remember you from last year when you were called something else. :) )

All the same, I'll make a half-arsed stab here.

To deny that the mountain of cross-corroborating evidence such as dendochronology, ice cores, carbon 14 testing, archeology, mitochondrial DNA decay rates, calcification rates and the theories of erosion, tectonics and fossilisation offer an immeasurably better explanation of the age and formation of the planet than your sacred text of choice is not only the height, acme and quintessence of 'intellectual dishonesty' but is supremely, gloriously arrogant to boot.

Your go.

[billybobsky]

damn...

I don't think it will work...

but damn...

[dmz]

Originally posted by sillybobsky
No there is evidence. Assumptions aren't based upon.....horse shit.


Evidence bleached with faulty assumptions. Antarctica wasn't always frozen, neither was the Arctic.

No glaciation in the Siberian or Alaskan lowlands, very strange indeed. Animals living in what is now Tundra and Tiaga that can't live in those conditions.....Krakatau dropping the world wide tempatures 1.2 degrees celsius......

Curious.

[giant]

Originally posted by dmz
DNA is a bit more complicated than that. We already know we come from scientists that we have a common ancestor.
So you are trying to use science as your proof against science.

[rampancy]

For a good overall view of the (possible) scientific evidence to back up a global flood (and the evidence against it), I highly recommend the website for the newsgroup talk.origins.

Talk.Origins Archive: Flood Geology (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html)

There's also some good stuff in there on the issue of geological dating methods, too.

The Talk.Origins Archive: Age of the Earth FAQ's (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html)

[Splinemodel]

As far as I know, Carbon-14 dating isn't precise. But it can give some amount of information on certain events. As far as the great flood is concerned, I'm pretty sure that most experts have evidence to believe that such an event did actually occur. That is, a large scale flooding of the area now regarded as "The Holy Land."

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by rampancy
For a good overall view of the (possible) scientific evidence to back up a global flood (and the evidence against it), I highly recommend the website for the newsgroup talk.origins.

Talk.Origins Archive: Flood Geology (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html)

There's also some good stuff in there on the issue of geological dating methods, too.

The Talk.Origins Archive: Age of the Earth FAQ's (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html)
This link (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm) is a goodie.

[Carson O'Genic]

Scientific creationism (an oxymoron for sure) is just an attempt by Christian fundamentalists to get their ideas into schools by disguising their preconcieved notions as science. Hence, their version of the truth deserves equal time in science class. No way, but unfortuneatly their efforts pay off from time to time. If your math teacher wants to spew this crap in a religious studies class I could accept that, but its good he doesn't teach science and I hope he keeps his comments in math class to a passing amusement. (I figure any teacher gets to stand on their soapbox once a semester-no big harm).

I wonder what will happen if the Colorado river keeps flowing, cutting the canyon deeper and carrying silt out to sea? Ask him that.

If only two of each species survived the flood only a few thousand years ago, how come the genetic differences between indviduals is so great?

How come spread in the mid-oceanic rifts, due to new crust formation, has been measured when these rifts were supposed to be made by some crazy water mechanism?

How come radioactive decay is completely predicatable?

Why do I have an appendix?-sloppy job God.

Don't get me started on the junk DNA and the indadequacy of the human birth canal. You'd figure on the last day of creation that the kinks would have been worked out a bit better.

I leave you with this image: Imagine Noah collecting a pair of each insect spiecies to put on the ark-that's a lot of jars.

[ast3r3x]

Originally posted by Splinemodel
As far as I know, Carbon-14 dating isn't precise.

It's precise, what is being argued over if weather it is accurate. The different atmosphereic conditions kept cosmic rays less N14 or something from becoming C14 and so there was a different amount of carbon in bones then now. But since we don't know how much was in them then, we use bones now as an estimate.

His words not mine.

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic

I leave you with this image: Imagine Noah collecting a pair of each insect spiecies to put on the ark-that's a lot of jars.

7 days no less ;)

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by dmz
Evidence bleached with faulty assumptions. Antarctica wasn't always frozen, neither was the Arctic.
So when in the last 6000 years wasn't the antarctic frozen?

Or are you challenging the teachings of the bible?

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
If only two of each species survived the flood only a few thousand years ago, how come the genetic differences between indviduals is so great?

Ah, but evolution is a sham, at the same time.

D'oh. Slight problem there.

[Aquatic]

The sheer number of "Flood" stories that exist lends credence to the idea that it did happen.

AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa!!!!

You're here so you obviously know Macs are better than PCs right? :p

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by Kickaha
Ah, but evolution is a sham, at the same time.

D'oh. Slight problem there.

I think that even if those people that don't believe in evolution in the fullest (life from no life, major speciation events etc) probably still except the existence of DNA, genes and at least some basic aspects of genetics. (Those that don't are so lost it's not even worth discussing.) My point is that if you study the DNA then you can see that there are differences within species and that these differences are due to minor changes in the DNA. We can also measure the rate of these changes and show that they are fairly slow under most conditions. Thus, the degree of genetic change is proportional to time (there are quite a few details I'm leaving out here but the general point still holds true). Thus, the degree of genetic change within species is already more in most cases than can be accounted for by a few thousand years of life on Earth. Example, dogs that exist today are beleived to come from about 10 different progenitor breeds 10-12 thousand years ago (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994682). This one little example already gets us in trouble with the whole creation/flood time line.

[dfryer]

As a fundamentalist Christian who is fairly confident in Biblical Inerrancy (i.e. there are no *mistakes* or untruths in the bible) I personally find most, if not all, of "Creation Science" repulsive. I mean, in high school, a friend of mine was telling people about some guys theory that the flood waters in question were not *under* the earth, but surrounding the earth in a giant shell of ice, which blocked solar radiation thus prolonging human life. I mean, yes, I believe that if God wanted to, he could make it happen, but our scientific responsibility is to determine exactly what he made to happen, not cook up some freaky theory which serves no purpose other than to undermine the credibility of anyone who calls themself a Christian.

(stops, takes a breath)

As a scientist (well, I'm not *really* a scientist, but I can pretend) I think we should step back, and take a close look at just how sketchy much of our evidence for *anything* is. Essentially, our scientific discoveries constitute a working model of the evidence, and not something worthy of worship in itself.

As for the flood story? As far as its authors were concerned, the flood covered the whole world, and God inspired some guy to build a giant boat to keep his family and some food safe.

W.r.t the Apple/PC numbers game vs. the whole idea of "corroborating evidence", all those PC users don't constitute multiple peices of evidence, they're just multiple measurements made by the same broken instrument :D

[Luca]

Originally posted by dfryer
As a fundamentalist Christian who is fairly confident in Biblical Inerrancy (i.e. there are no *mistakes* or untruths in the bible) I personally find most, if not all, of "Creation Science" repulsive.

(snip)

That's a great analysis. I think it's good to look at the Bible as an interpretation of God's word as passed down to man. Obviously, the humans who wrote the Bible couldn't understand some of the concepts that are common knowledge today. So God left them in the dark about various things, and we have been discovering more and more of those mysteries since then.

It is folly to look at the Bible as a scientific text. It isn't one, and it was never meant to be one. The people who wrote it knew very little about science compared to what we know today. But that doesn't mean that science must contradict religion as a rule. You could say that they are totally separate, or that they are somehow linked and each is an essential part of the other. I think it is a bad idea to totally eschew the viability of one because you think it fundamentally disagrees with the other.

DISCLAIMER: I don't actually believe in God, so I don't personally think that the Bible is the word of God. However, I think it's a good concept, and that's why I posted this.

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by dfryer
I think we should step back, and take a close look at just how sketchy much of our evidence for *anything* is. Essentially, our scientific discoveries constitute a working model of the evidence, and not something worthy of worship in itself.

You are very correct in stating that our description of evolution and the mechansims of evoultions are a work in progress. However, the evidence is not sketchy. It's called the theory of evolution because there is so very much evidence that it is way beyond hypothesis. That doesn't mean the whole thing has been explained in every detail-nor will it likely ever be. The origins of life are a particular tough nut to crack since it all happened at least several billions of years ago and replicating chemical reactions don't exactly leave a fossil record to work with. All we have to work with are the commonalities of all life on Earth from which we derive hypotheses on what the first forms of life might have looked like. We also have the ability to test chemical reactions and conditions in the lab.

One interesting problem is figuring out what are the exact conditions under which life developed. It used to be people talked about shallow warm pools of organic chemicals and then it turned to undersea vents away from meteor impacts. Some of the oldest types of life forms appear to be the extremophils that like it hot, salty etc. Then there is always the life started somewhere else and then came here hypotheses, ehich means it could be anybody's guess of what the conditions were like. I've come across more than one scientist who beleives in evolutions ant all the rest but turns to God to fill in the blanks a few billion years ago. To me, that seams to be the more complicated and far fetched of the possible explantations. To each his own.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
. But that doesn't mean that science must contradict religion as a rule. You could say that they are totally separate, or that they are somehow linked and each is an essential part of the other. I think it is a bad idea to totally eschew the viability of one because you think it fundamentally disagrees with the other.


I agree with this. Religious texts and the discoveries of science are two of our species' coolest achievements.

On a side note I wish that fundamentalists would choose to see the majesty and beauty of the work of God in the discoveries of science rather than trying to convince themselves that He wasn't as cool as He so obviously must be. It must really piss God off.

Oh, just look, you twats. I made this for you and you've got your nose in a book.

[billybobsky]

Science and any creation story/description of how the universe works is the only place where shit hits the fan between religion and science. They operate in completely different realms and thus far moralization from science hasn't taken hold (when it has, things became disasterous -- the holocaust, social darwinism, PETA :rolleyes: ). The nature of science currently is to avoid forming a moral structure based upon it; at the same time, religion doesn't need a creation story or describe how the universe works for its teachings to mean something. I will admit that I am an atheist, but at the same time I am not anti-religion per se. It does a great deal of good in maintaining what has become known as the social contract and religion (well, religious customs -- think circumcision, the body/blood of christ...) is as near to that hypothetical document as you can get. I also think religion has its flaws and i don't believe the founders of the various religions ever predicted the coming of fundamentalism (the idea of taking a book, translated and rewritten of course, or particular teachings to their most illogical extreme).

I think it is far more beautiful to think of the storied history the religions have taken under the leadership of different people. How we ended up where we are is fundamentally related to the actions taken by people in regard to their religion and not at all related to the ever changing words and interpretations of the religious documents...

[dmz]

Originally posted by billybobsky
.....shit hits the fan between religion and science.



--there's that CLEVER distinction agian, somehow your metphysics count as "science" while mine do not.


Your "science" (let's use your distinction for just a moment) is wrought with a hundred times the controversy that my "religion" is. In all reality your "science" takes more faith than my "religion".

[Luca]

Originally posted by dmz
Your "science" (let's use your distinction for just a moment) is wrought with a hundred times the controversy that my "religion" is. In all reality your "science" takes more faith than my "religion".

That's only because of your distorted perception. You've been exposed to so much FUD about modern science that you don't even give it a chance. I admit that there are too many scientists who don't give religion a fair chance, but you're just as bad for not giving science a fair chance.

In a perfect world, scientists would realize that religion isn't inherently wrong just because it doesn't appear to make sense at first glance, and religious people wouldn't see science as infringing on their faith. But that doesn't happen, because of atheist and religious fundamentalists.

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by dmz
Your "science" (let's use your distinction for just a moment) is wrought with a hundred times the controversy that my "religion" is.

Wrong. My science is wrought with millions of times, nay, billions of times more controversy than your religion. The thing is it doesn't matter (and I kind of like it that way). They don't replace eachother. I don't think you get it. Religion and science operate on intrinsically different bases. Religion provides some moral structure. Science provides rational (evidenciary) explainations for natural phenomena.

You are arguing with the wrong scientist (and I am a scientist doing real research into things your bible doesn't even begin to describe)....

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
In a perfect world, scientists would realize that religion isn't inherently wrong just because it doesn't appear to make sense at first glance, and religious people wouldn't see science as infringing on their faith. But that doesn't happen, because of atheist and religious fundamentalists.

Couple of things:

Not all scientists are atheists.

Scientists do not think about religion (unless they are religious) on a day to day basis at all. So to suggest that they necessarily think that religion is wrong (what has it got to be wrong about?) is a bit absentminded.

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in, most fundamentallly, a deity. This has nothing to do with science or even the practical concerns of religion. Christianity doesn't need a god to function as a religion (perhaps the customs would seem absurdist, but they already do even when considering that there might be a god) and science doesn't need the almost purely speculative big bang to continue to function in its realm.

What most judeo/christians don't understand is that the very idea of the beginning of the universe is decendent from genesis. In all practical considerations, there is no need for the universe to have ever began...

[dmz]

Originally posted by sillybobsky
........Religion provides some moral structure. Science provides rational (evidenciary) explainations for natural phenomena.........

Your western education is catching up with you. You have bulldozed a path into existential nonsense.

-and-

When is comes to "rational (evidenciary) explainations".....

My science is wrought with millions of times, nay, billions of times more controversy than your religion.


....which, of course, proves how solid your science is.

[BuonRotto]

Don't go after people, go after the content of their posts. Don't make it personal.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
--there's that CLEVER distinction agian, somehow your metphysics count as "science" while mine do not.

Your "science" (let's use your distinction for just a moment) is wrought with a hundred times the controversy that my "religion" is.

For a start, there's nothing wrong with 'clever'. If you have to get all sniffy about 'clever' you're off on the wrong foot. Right there.

Anyway.

'Metaphysical' means 'beyond the physical'; it is a de facto synonym for 'spiritual'. 'Your metaphysics' cannot possibly, by definition, be 'science'. billybobsky's not dealing with metaphysics but observations of the physical world. Yours are not.

If the processes of Creation Science were testable there would by the same amount of 'controversy' as there is in real, proper science. That is the nature of research. That's how it works. People theorise, they test, they disagree, they come to a consensus. Creation scientists would still be scientists. (There aren't any Creationist research units and peer-reviewed journals, though, and it has been proved beyond axiom that the world was not formed in the way the Bible says and that Genesis is no more correct than the creation myths of the Native Americans or the !Xung San of Southern Africa.)

Your religion is not mainstream Christianity (and scientists don't organise into factions to kill each other over differences in their working methods, I notice, so less of the accusations of 'controversy' if you please) and is based on one particular reading of the Bible, furthermore, so you can't even claim orthodoxy.

Finally, when we actually test the processes you claim formed the planet against what is demonstrably observable and repeatable we find that Genesis cannot possibly right.

Originally posted by dmz
In all reality your "science" takes more faith than my "religion".

This is incorrect. I'd dearly love to tell you what I really think of this sentence, but I'm on a (very gentle, friendly) warning from BuonRotto, so you'll just have to imagine I made you feel stupid. :)

I will say this, though: get your nose out of the Book and look at what God's made you. Why would you want to deny your Creator full praise for the awesome genius and beauty of His work, and the mind-blowing complexity of His methods? Based on what's in a book written by people who did not have the tools to understand it?

[Powerdoc]

Concerning science and religion i will quote my-self :



Just a little story about the difference between science and religion.

Many , many years ago, Napoleon assist to a demonstration of Foucault whit his famous pendulum. Napoleon ask Foucault " et dieu dans tout ça : and where is god in that (very approximate translation) Foucault reply : god is not an hypothesis.
More recently , Lemaitre who was a famous belgium churchmen from the catholic church, and accessorily nobel prize in physics and inventor of the big bang Theory, like to repeat what Foucault was saying, he just add, after god is not an hypothesis, i have to many respect for him. Lemaitre a very interesting and open man, was pointing out the fact , that science and religion hare to differents matters that should be never mixed together.

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by dmz
....which, of course, proves how solid your science is.

Active science is, by a matter of course, controversial. It means it is testable, that hypotheses are formed, tested, accepted, modified, or tossed aside. Solid (rigid) descriptions of the world are inherently anti-scientific because there is always new evidence or better ways of interpreting data. But this in no way reduces the legitimacy of scientific descriptions, it merely means they adapt to what has been shown experimentally to be true. It is not as if doubt incited people to toss aside newtonian physics, or maxwell's equations both of which (we now know) fail to provide a complete description of the properties they cover.

But again, science and religion cover different aspects of life. So it really is irrelevant that I feel one of science's strengths is that it (hopefully) will remain forever changing giving more and more accurate descriptions of the properties of the universe...

The problem here is that many religions fail to incorporate incredible amounts of evidence that run contrary to their claims on how the world works; but that is their nature. The establish a feeling of constancy in their observers lives...

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Out of interest, dmz, how does Creation Science explain today's photographs of water erosion on Mars? Did the Great Flood happen there too?

[Powerdoc]

According to the genesis mars and the sun are satellites of earth ;)

[curiousuburb]

"Eppu Si Muove" - Galileo

(But it does move) - referring to the Earth

[midwinter]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
'Metaphysical' means 'beyond the physical'; it is a de facto synonym for 'spiritual'. 'Your metaphysics' cannot possibly, by definition, be 'science'. billybobsky's not dealing with metaphysics but observations of the physical world. Yours are not.

Not that I'm agreeing with dmz or anything (and believe me, I'm not), you could make the argument that science is actually another kind of metaphysics--or at least that it emerges out of metaphysical approaches to the world. If metaphysical approaches to reality insist that there are things unseen that create the world around us, or that there are motives or forces that we cannot detect with the naked eye, we can see science as a means of detecting these metaphysical forces.

[Stoo]

DNA is a bit more complicated than that. We already know we come from scientists that we have a common ancestor.

So you are trying to use science as your proof against science.


Mitochondira are the cell elements that provide the cell with power. The DNA for mitochondria is inherited (IIRC) from the mother only, and therefore is only changed by mutation, allowing it to be used to determine how related individuals are over long periods of time.

[ast3r3x]

I should have known with such a topic, but definitely not where I planned on this thread going ;)

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by midwinter
Not that I'm agreeing with dmz or anything (and believe me, I'm not), you could make the argument that science is actually another kind of metaphysics--or at least that it emerges out of metaphysical approaches to the world. If metaphysical approaches to reality insist that there are things unseen that create the world around us, or that there are motives or forces that we cannot detect with the naked eye, we can see science as a means of detecting these metaphysical forces.

huh? Although I think I know what you are trying to say, I think you have over-reached a bit. I guess it depends on your definition of metaphysical, but the scientific method is limited to things that can be measured and tested. Metaphysics and God, in most of His forms, are beyond science. Offcourse our ability to measure the Universe around has expanded greatly from the subatomic to nearly being able to view the beginnings of time-I guess this is what you were getting at.

On another note, I would like to bring up the fact that comparing science and religion is a bit of an apple and oranges comparison. Science is a method to answering questions, religion is an answer. I do not consider science to be a religion, its a systematic and logical approach to the study of the universe. This is the reason that science doesn't belong in religious studies and creationism doesn't belong in science classes. Sorry, no equal time for creation "science" in biology class. Creationism starts with the answer and twist the evidence to fit this answer, e.g. the great flood carved the grand canyon.

[billybobsky]

we have been trying to establish that...

[dmz]

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
.........comparing science and religion is a bit of an apple and oranges comparison.

There is that clever distinction again. One person's answers to the meaning of life are somehow not empirically equal to anothers'

....Science is a method to answering questions, religion is an answer.

Once science absorbs enough presuppositions that cause it to stop looking at the evidence, it stops being "Science".

I do not consider science to be a religion, its a systematic and logical approach to the study of the universe.

Again, when you guys on this forum dismiss, out of hand, this instructors' POV. You become a bit like "Christians against Christ".


Creationism starts with the answer and twist the evidence to fit this answer, e.g. the great flood carved the grand canyon.

Atheism, Humanism, etc. (or Paganism---a loose catch-all) starts with the answer and is twisting and cajoling the evidence to fit that answer. Hence, the GREAT BIG asparagus piss you people took on Asterix's instructor. Asterix asked an honest question and got an answer more befitting a turf war among a bunch of thugs than a group of educated people.

Out of one side of your mouths "science" is this white-coat, rubber gloved, clean-room look at the universe---out of the other side you ignore the reality: a swirling morass of opinions and arguments over the foundational nature of the universe. The "scientific" community is constantly promising for the money-shot look at the "way it all works" but in reallity what you end up believing in is the unsubstantiated belief that "science" will ever come to a TRUE consensus.

[Luca]

You don't understand what Science is. You also don't understand what Paganism is.

Science is not a faith, not a belief system, not a religion. It is a way of explaining, through observation, how the universe works. If new observations are made, or if new interpretations of existing observations are made, then science can change. It's designed to change. Religion can change, but it is often quite reluctant. Science, on the other hand, is designed to be always changing. Although some individual scientists may be afraid of change, and may hold faith in science or an ultimate scientific truth, that doesn't mean that is the way science works as a whole. A good scientist will accept that his theories may be proven totally wrong.

You've said this before, and I corrected you once but you disagreed. You lump everyone who doesn't go by your exact belief system into a broad category which you call "paganism." That is absolutely false, and wrong. I find it exceedingly rude that you do this, because it is completely incorrect. I am NOT a Pagan, and I never will be. Paganism is a religion (or perhaps a category of religions), atheism is separate belief, agnosticism is another separate belief... and so on.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

dmz. You haven't answered my posts. Why is this? Are you going to?

Do you believe that the points I make in my posts are unanswerable?

Originally posted by dmz
There is that clever distinction again. One person's answers to the meaning of life are somehow not empirically equal to anothers'

Empirically speaking, you're right - they're not. I could posit all sorts of nonsense to explain anything I like, and that would be perfectly alright in the absence of any sure-fire way to test the facts. If you choose to find meaning in your life through the worship of any God or Gods of your choice that would be fine too, but while you couldn't prove that your God is any 'better' than mine, I could prove the principles of erosion, mutation, whathaveyou. I can prove beyond any doubt that Genesis, say, does not offer a convincing explanation of the world's age or geology.

Originally posted by dmz
Once science absorbs enough presuppositions that cause it to stop looking at the evidence, it stops being "Science".

I'm sure you have an example in mind here, and I'd very much like to see it. Because I read 'Nature' and 'New Scientist', and I can promise you that research in cosmology, genetics, paleoanthropology and geology are all progressing quite nicely and telling us more about the world and the cosmos every day.

You're the one choosing to ignore this. You're the one ignoring the evidence. Not all of those who believe that one sacred text from the Middle East, in which a creation account that does not tally in any way to the observable evidence, and which is no more likely to be correct than the creation tales of the Yoruba of West Africa or the Indians of the Argentinian Amazon, is the only possible explanation.

Originally posted by dmz
Atheism, Humanism, etc. (or Paganism---a loose catch-all)

Since when has 'paganism' been a 'loose catch-all' for 'non-Christian'? I'm not a polytheist. I don't believe in any god or gods, so I'm not a 'pagan'. This is pretty rude, you, know. Strictly speaking, 'pagan' means 'polytheistic', not 'irreligious' anyway, so I hope that you don't mean that Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus and many West Africans are 'pagans' too?

I think if you want to call non-Christians 'pagans' then you're not really going to have any right to object if someone were to call you a 'Jesus freak' or a 'God Botherer', so I'd suggest that you chill.

Originally posted by dmz
[Bstarts with the answer and is twisting and cajoling the evidence to fit that answer.

The "scientific" community is constantly promising for the money-shot look at the "way it all works" but in reallity what you end up believing in is the unsubstantiated belief that "science" will ever come to a TRUE consensus. [/B]

Give me the address of one single Creation Science research unit.
Give me the URL of any peer-reviewed Creation Science journal.

You are not a mainstream Christian. Your views are not those of the vast majority of other Christians. Christians kill each other all the time over doctrine. Christians disagree all the time, over gay marriages, divorce, contraception, whatever, and scientists (well, everyone else alive on the planet) don't take this as 'proof' that God doesn't exist. Hell, you can't know the meaning of the word 'controversy.'

While you're deciding whether or not to respond to my three last posts, here are a couple of URLs for you. Earth Sciences (http://www.nature.com/earthsciences/): papers in 'Nature' magazine, an old, respected journal with papers written by Christians, atheists, Muslims, Hindus and agnostics, none of whom, after decades of study, have suddenly found cause to doubt the age of the cosmos or the forces that shaped the world. New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/). Does what it says on the tin. The Astrophysical Journal (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/about.html), established in 1895, full of far-out shit that happens to be true.

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by dmz
Once science absorbs enough presuppositions that cause it to stop looking at the evidence, it stops being "Science".
Yup. And everyone agrees with this. It becomes a sort of non-moralizing belief system at that point. This is why science over time attempts to dismantle assumptions because it isn't science if it doesn't . This is why you must clearly state them before proceeding on to a new theory.


[B}
Again, when you guys on this forum dismiss, out of hand, this instructors' POV. You become a bit like "Christians against Christ".{/B]
No. I dismissed his POV because it doesn't match any evidence, makes no rational sense, and was completely irrelevant to math. He is a fundamentalist teacher who should stick to the accepted curriculum and stop taking advantage of the poor educational system to spread his irrational nonsense.



There will never be a true consensus in science, there will always be descriptions. If a grand unified theory came to be and matches all evidence it still doesn't make claims about anything that is within the realm of religion.

[Harald]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Out of interest, dmz, how does Creation Science explain today's photographs of water erosion on Mars? Did the Great Flood happen there too?

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Bumping.

I really, really want to know if there was a Great Flood on Mars too.

[Frank777]

Originally posted by Powerdoc
According to the genesis mars and the sun are satellites of earth ;)

No Powerdoc, they aren't.

The Genesis account does not say that the Sun and the planets revolve around the Earth. That was a superstition held to by the religious nuts that had it in for Galileo.

If you're going to ridicule the Creationist account at least stick to Genesis.

[billybobsky]

Genesis doesn't even mention other planets...

[Concord]

Ahh Christianity... you would think more adherents in this day and age would take a closer look at the religion's origins and discover (like many other religions) that it is merely an evolution/amalgamation of others that came before it. And I'm sure these evolved from religions that came before them, and so on, etc...

It's not like this information is hard to come by.

Cheers,

C.

[Kickaha]

Originally posted by Concord
It's not like this information is hard to come by.

Just hard for some to accept.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
..........Science is not a faith, not a belief system......


It is a fact that "Scientists" DO NOT understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Also, you MUST accept by faith to know truly what you do not understand fully.


(Also, I'm not going to sit here are tell sillybobsky, et al, that they are not doing important, eye-glazing, mind-bending work. I respect those efforts in academia.)

[dmz]

One more thing, if a global flood provides a workable solution to a recent Ice Age---why not investigate?

[giant]

Originally posted by dmz
It is a fact that "Scientists" DO NOT understand the fundamental nature of the universe.
And rational 'scientists' don't claim to.
Also, you MUST accept by faith to know truly what you do not understand fully.
Example?

[billybobsky]

epistimologically you don't need a belief to know what you do not know or understand. we are capable of realizing things we do not understand without having faith in that we don't know it. take for instance the following phrase which most people on this board wouldn't understand: alpha helices are the preferred secondary structure of transmembrane peptides. I take that fact from experimental evidence, but to many people reading it it could just seem like i took a random set of words and combined them making up something completely arbitrary like: beta sheets rarely contain proline (there is a joke in here, ah its good to have a scientific vocab...). you do not have to take it on faith that my statements are true to realize you do not understand them.
furthermore, it has been proven mathematically that we can never know all of math and by extension science. this is a proof and not a belief...

[Kickaha]

If you're referring to Godel's proof, it's more accurately stated that no system of assumptions and logic can prove *itself*... the assumptions (axioms) cannot be proven by the system which is based on those assumptions.

This seems pretty obvious to most people - if you assume A, you can't *prove* A... you assumed it in the first place.


Which kind of throws a monkey wrench in the works of proving God if you assume His existence in the first place. :P

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by dmz
It is a fact that "Scientists" DO NOT understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Also, you MUST accept by faith to know truly what you do not understand fully.


(Also, I'm not going to sit here are tell sillybobsky, et al, that they are not doing important, eye-glazing, mind-bending work. I respect those efforts in academia.)

First off, thanks for being such a good sport (bunching bag) in helping to keep this fun thread going!

Now, duck here come some more punches:

Obviously, we don't know all aspects of the Universe, but we know a lot more than we did just 100 years ago. No one person can from first principles prove to themselves that what the totality of humanity has discovered is true and correct. We scientists work in our little corners. You may refer to this as faith, and evidence that we rationally minded folks are accepting things based on assumptions and scientific dogma. I disagree since I beleive in the methods that have been used to discover these truths. Sure scientists do get caught up in dogmas, but most scientists I know would love to completely trash a good dogma given a chance- it would likely lead to a good Nature paper. You see, in the long run scientists are always trying to get the better of each other, it keeps us honest. That is why I beleive it when the astronomers tell me that the Universe is going to come to an end in a big crunch, and then when they tell me that maybe they were wrong because they miscalculated the weight of the Universe.

Now, I ask you how can there be a global flood causing an ice age. There is just not that much water. Maybe a flood when the Mediteranean Sea burst the banks of the Black Sea, but the World?? If you respect the efforts of academics, then doesn't that suggest that maybe you even believe a little of it? We're not just trying to make up and use fancy words, we are trying to understand the history and future of the Universe. The Universe is the book we are trying to read. I beleive the answers are far more likley to come from that effort than from the study of a Book written and re-written thousands of years ago by ignorant people trying to forment revolutions and yield power of the populace. So much of the Bible is outright wrong or outdated. I wouldn't trust it much for any kinds of historic details and I certainly have never put my faith in it.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

dmz.

You've ignored five of my posts now. Five of them.

Now I can reasonably not expect a reply I can quite quite safely call you 'chickenshit'.

I've seen this before from Biblebashers (as a loose catch-all) before right here on these boards so I can't say that this comes as a surprise.

Should you grow testicles, I'd welcome the debate. Until then, I wouldn't call billybobsky 'sillybobsky' when he gets the upper hand if I were you. It lessens the (already hilariously slight) gravity of your argument, and you need all the dignity you can get.

[Powerdoc]

Originally posted by Frank777
No Powerdoc, they aren't.

The Genesis account does not say that the Sun and the planets revolve around the Earth. That was a superstition held to by the religious nuts that had it in for Galileo.

If you're going to ridicule the Creationist account at least stick to Genesis.

You are right it just say that earth is the center of universe, that in an humancentric point of vue is true. But because the earth is the center of the universe, everything is then turning around her.

[Powerdoc]

In the correct order : Sillybobski, chickenshit : is this the great flood of insults ?

One time more, and this thread will be closed.

[groverat]

Hassan:

Do you really expect honest discussion from someone making the arguments he is?

[Stoo]

One more thing, if a global flood provides a workable solution to a recent Ice Age---why not investigate?

Sea levels would decrease in an ice age, not increase.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Sorry.

[Harald]

DMZ.

MARS.

IF YOU PLEASE.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by groverat
Hassan:

Do you really expect honest discussion from someone making the arguments he is?

Dude. If he or she thinks those arguments are defensible he or she can defend them. :)

[dmz]

Originally posted by Stoo
Sea levels would decrease in an ice age, not increase.


After a flood, not before. If there were a global flood, it provides a solution to the causes of an Ice Age. There is good deal of argument in academia over workable conditions that cause, sustain, and then end an Ice Age.


Herald:

.....on the Mars thing....I'm not altogether sure why certain molecules are allowed on Mars and some are not.

[rampancy]

Originally posted by dmz
It is a fact that "Scientists" DO NOT understand the fundamental nature of the universe.

Which is why we *do* science in the first place. We will never know all there is to know about Life, the Universe, and Everything, and science or scientists never claimed to in the first place. The role of science is to find out why things are the way they are by providing the best possible, unbiased answer that accounts for all of the collected evidence.

This is the fundamental problem that Biblical Science (Creationism, Intelligent Design, Flood Geology) faces. It already carries with it a built-in bias. That's not to say that science is innocent in that regard -- like any agency of man, science is not 100% infallible. But scientists know that and acknowledge that. That's why there's so much emphasis on Peer Review in the professional literature, and why there's so much debate between theories in science (which outsiders mistakenly see as "abandonment" of a theory).

Biblical Science doesn't seem to understand that, sadly enough. Science doesn't make any claim to absolute truth -- Biblical Science implicitly (or explicitly, as in researchers like Gish and Morris) does.


Also, you MUST accept by faith to know truly what you do not understand fully.

If you're talking about religion, yes. I don't understand God, or Christ. Yet I believe in them both.

If you're talking about science, most definitely not. In science, if you don't understand something fully, you do more work on it, or check your results with someone who has.

There is a difference.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
huh? Although I think I know what you are trying to say, I think you have over-reached a bit. I guess it depends on your definition of metaphysical, but the scientific method is limited to things that can be measured and tested. Metaphysics and God, in most of His forms, are beyond science. Offcourse our ability to measure the Universe around has expanded greatly from the subatomic to nearly being able to view the beginnings of time-I guess this is what you were getting at.

I'm merely suggesting that because metaphysics is concerned with the nature of reality (and I'm thinking of Aristotle and Plato here, not Kant), science necessarily emerges out of that same impulse, which is simply the belief that there is more to a thing than what can be seen.

This is going to make me really unpopular on this thread, but we should also admit a few things about science. Human history is in large part a series of shifts between acceptable ways of explaining the nature of the reality. For the last 200-odd years science has been privileged. In addition, the notion of what can be "tested," the facticity of fact, and what constitutes "proof" keep changing.

Anyway. Just stoking the fire a little.

Cheers
Scott

[Hassan i Sabbah]

dmz appears to have me on 'ignore'. Could someone please reply to my posts quoting their content? Better still, could someone just reply and copy and paste what I said pretending it's from them?

[midwinter]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
dmz appears to have me on 'ignore'. Could someone please reply to my posts quoting their content? Better still, could someone just reply and copy and paste what I said pretending it's from them?

It's not worth it. Really. Seriously.

But then, I'm more interested in the debate about science as another form of metaphysics. ;)

Cheers
Scott

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
After a flood, not before. If there were a global flood, it provides a solution to the causes of an Ice Age. There is good deal of argument in academia over workable conditions that cause, sustain, and then end an Ice Age.


Ice caps lock up water. Sea levels decrease during an Ice Age.

Could someone point this out? Harald? (Be polite.)

[curiousuburb]

Bering Sea Land Bridge and all... but the evidence for it does predate the Flood

[Carson O'Genic]

Not to let this topic go extinct. Today at CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/03/10/evolution.debate.ap/index.html

Quotes: "COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The state school board Tuesday approved a lesson plan for teaching evolution that includes what critics contend is a religious theory 'cloaked as science.'"

"After six hours of testimony, the board voted 13-5 in favor of 'Critical Analysis of Evolution,' an optional set of lessons for schools to use in teaching science for a new graduation test.

Critics say the lessons contain elements of a theory called intelligent design, which states a higher power must have been involved in the creation of life."

The battle to keep pseudo-science out of our high schools continues!

[Stoo]

Ice caps lock up water. Sea levels decrease during an Ice Age.

You have either
Colder temperatures => larger ice caps => lower sea levels or
Warmer temperatures => smaller ice caps => higher sea levels.


Are you suggesting that the end of the last ice-age caused a global flood ?

[johnq]

ast3r3x, if you do one thing in life let it be questioning.

Be wary of anyone with definitive answers. True science has the ability to be proven wrong built in, unlike most religions, pseudosciences, the occult, ideologies and governments.

[dmz]

The evolutionists have brought the ID people upon themselves. The orthodoxy of evolution apparently includes keeping disproved theories 25-50 years posthumously in "Science" textbooks.


Not only do Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., who are sending their kids to public schools have to stomach evolution, but they also have to swallow theories that went out with the Kennedy Administration.

It has opened them up to quite a bit of criticism, as it should.

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by dmz
The orthodoxy of evolution apparently includes keeping disproved theories 25-50 years posthumously in "Science" textbooks.


Could you explain yourself a little more? As far as I know the theory of Evolution is in good health. Sure aspects of the theory, in terms of mechanisms of differentiation, are continueously being updated and debated. That doesn't mean that the central premise of natural selection is proven incorrect. For instance, ifmemory serves me, Darwin talked about a slow, gradual continuous cahnge, but now we know that genetic mechanisms exist that allow for rapid bursts of diversity. These rapid changes can cause evolution to speed up when an organism is under stress.

Either way, textbooks are always slow to change and then schools can't afford new ones anyway. They only talk about what is really established. Add to this the constant pressure to avoid the topic of evolution, like it was sex education (I guess it is come think of it), and I'm not surprised what gets stated is diluted bland oatmeal.

BTW, in science the hierarchy is law, theory, hypothesis followed by guess, wishfull thinking and drunk scribblings on a napkin in a bar. Evolution is a theory for good reason. Its not a law because we are still discovering things. I wouldn't use the word orthodoxy. You make it sound like everybody read Darwin's book and said "well that's done, let's move on." Nothing could be further from the truth.

[DiscoCow]

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
but now we know that genetic mechanisms exist that allow for rapid bursts of diversity. These rapid changes can cause evolution to speed up when an organism is under stress.

Sort of like this (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/02/040220074308.htm).

Check out this too:

Using Computers, Scientists Successfully Predict Evolution (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021115065518.htm).

[rampancy]

Originally posted by dmz
It has opened them up to quite a bit of criticism, as it should.

No one's saying that Evolutionary Biology shouldn't be open to criticism. Criticism is how we got to where we are in Evolutionary Biology in the first place.

My only question is whether or not you think that Intelligent Design/Creationism should be subject to similar scrutiny. If you think that it is intellectually wrong to have unquestioning faith in evolutionary theory, then surely you must think that it is intellectually wrong to have unquestioning faith in ID/Creationism.

[Mr Beardsley]

Oh fun, fun. As a preface to this discussion I would like to say that there are a huge number of Christians that are wrong about science and creation.

Let me paste in an excerpt about how some of us with Faith view the "Flood".

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Genesis Flood is its geographical extent. Part of the basis for the controversy is that Genesis addresses the geophysics, geology, and geography of the flood only secondarily. Its main message is that God was compelled to cleanse the earth of the wickedness of man. The message of God's judgment against rampant evil is very clearly stated and understood in any translation. However, in order to comprehend the geological details concerning the flood, it is helpful, perhaps in this case essential, to read the Genesis text in the original Hebrew, and even then the text is not always as specific as one might like.

A good rule of Biblical interpretation is to analyze that which is less specific in the light of that which is more specific. As I mentioned in part seven of this series, the Bible is very specific about the extent of the defilement of man's sin and about God's response. The defilement is limited to the sinners, their progeny for several generations, birds and mammals which are part of their livelihood, their material possessions, and their agricultural land. Nowhere in the Bible do we see God's meting out judgment beyond those limits. Hence, we can expect that if mankind had never visited Antarctica, God would not have struck that territory. The extent of the Genesis flood would be limited to the extent of the defilement of man's sin. This interpretation is supported by the Genesis author's choice of the Hebrew words for creatures" destroyed by the flood, namely basar and nephesh. Part seven gives further details.

In Genesis 7:4-12 we are told that the flood arose from the earth's troposphere and from underground aquifers (not from some unknown place in outer space). These water resources are considerable, to be sure, but fall short of what verse 19 seems to require. According to Genesis 7:19, the waters "rose greatly ... and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered." The English translation seems to imply that even Mt. Everest was submerged under the flood waters. The Hebrew word for "high," however, simply means elevated" and for "mountain," means anything from "a small hillock" to "a towering peak." The Hebrew verb for "covered" allows three alternatives: (1) inundated, (2) rained upon, or (3) washed over as by a rush of water. In any of these cases, 15 cubits of standing water, 15 cubits of sudden rainfall, or a 15-cubit rush of water, there would be no human or animal survivors.

Genesis 8 gives us the most significant evidence for a universal (with respect to man and his animals and lands), but not global, flood. The four different Hebrew verbs used in Genesis 8:1-8 to describe the receding of the flood waters indicate that these waters returned to their original sources. In other words, the waters of the flood are still to be found within the aquifers and troposphere and oceans of planet Earth. Since the total water content of the earth is only 22 percent of what would be needed for a global flood, it appears that the Genesis flood could not have been global.

The argument I have heard most frequently against this conclusion is that before the flood, there were no high mountains or deep oceans. The present day relief of the earth's surface is said to have been generated in a period of just a few months. I see several major problems with such a suggestion:

1. it contradicts a vast body of geological data;
2. it contradicts a vast body of geophysical data, at the same time requiring such cataclysmic effects as to render highly unlikely Noah's survival in an ark;
3. it overlooks the geophysical difficulties of a planet with a smooth surface; and
4. it contradicts our observations of the tectonics. The mechanisms that drive tectonic plate movements have extremely long time constants, so long that the effects of such a catastrophe would easily be measurable to this day. Since they are not, I conclude that the flood cannot be global.

As for the reference, "under the entire heavens," such expressions must always be understood in their context. What would constitute under the entire heavens for the people of Noah's time? The extent of their view from the entire region in which they existed or operated. Perhaps a verse from the New Testament will clarify my point. In Romans 1:8 the Apostle Paul declares that the faith of the Christians in Rome was being "reported all over the world." Since "all over the world" to the Romans meant the entire Roman Empire (and not the entire globe), we would not interpret Paul's words as an indication that the Eskimos and Incas were familiar at that time with the activities of the church at Rome.

Further support for a regional, rather than global, cataclysm comes from consideration of God's command to Noah after the flood, the same command He had given to Adam and later gave to the people who built the tower of Babel: "Fill the earth." The fact that God repeated this command to Noah (and intervened dramatically to disperse the people of Babel's day) implies that the people of Noah's generation had not filled the earth. This view is consistent with the geographical place names recorded in the first nine chapters of Genesis. They all refer to localities either in or very close to Mesopotamia.

What does the geological data tell us about massive floods in the earth's history? The evidence shows that the only place in the world where massive flooding has occurred since the advent of modem man is the region of Mesopotamia.

The Genesis account of the great flood is not an embarrassment for the Christian. We are not saddled with a contradiction between the established facts of science and the words of the Bible. Rather, we have one more set of objective evidences that the Bible is indeed inerrant, not oust in matters of faith and practice, but in all disciplines including geology and history.

Does all this evidence for a regional flood mean that the Genesis flood was not universal? Not at all. Let me reiterate: the Genesis flood certainly was universal in that it destroyed all mankind and the animals associated with his livelihood except those on board Noah's ark. Only in the twentieth century has "universal" been synonymous with "global." Global citizens, global corporations, and global wars are unique to this century.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
The evolutionists have brought the ID people upon themselves. The orthodoxy of evolution apparently includes keeping disproved theories 25-50 years posthumously in "Science" textbooks.


Not only do Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., who are sending their kids to public schools have to stomach evolution, but they also have to swallow theories that went out with the Kennedy Administration.

It has opened them up to quite a bit of criticism, as it should.

Righty ho. So instead of teaching something that went out with the Kennedy administration let's teach them something that went out with the invention of the steamship and the machine loom!

OK!

(By the way, evolutionary theory is alive and well and the subject of hundreds PhDs a year! And I'm still waiting for you to post the URL of your favourite peer-reviewed Creation Science journal!

Or indeed to answer any of my last five posts!

Hooray!

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic
Not to let this topic go extinct. Today at CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/03/10/evolution.debate.ap/index.html

Quotes: "COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The state school board Tuesday approved a lesson plan for teaching evolution that includes what critics contend is a religious theory 'cloaked as science.'"

"After six hours of testimony, the board voted 13-5 in favor of 'Critical Analysis of Evolution,' an optional set of lessons for schools to use in teaching science for a new graduation test.

Critics say the lessons contain elements of a theory called intelligent design, which states a higher power must have been involved in the creation of life."

The battle to keep pseudo-science out of our high schools continues!

I don't understand. If they're going to teach alternatives to all the evidence, they should teach creation myths from Mali, India, South America, West Africa, Madagascar and Southern Africa too. They're all just as likely as the account given in Genesis. There's no more evidence that Genesis is correct than any of them. None are more or less possible to prove.

[Mr Beardsley]

f they're going to teach alternatives to all the evidence,

All the evidence? I don't think so. Origin of life scientists (ISSOL) recognize a lot of problems with naturalistic start to life. I'm at work, but when I get home tonight I will post quotes from the scientists reguarding evidence that doesn't not fit the naturalist model for the origin of life. It shows that "all the evidence" doesn't point to currently taught origin models.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by Mr Beardsley
All the evidence? I don't think so. Origin of life scientists (ISSOL) recognize a lot of problems with naturalistic start to life. I'm at work, but when I get home tonight I will post quotes from the scientists reguarding evidence that doesn't not fit the naturalist model for the origin of life. It shows that "all the evidence" doesn't point to currently taught origin models.

Excellent. You do that. And could you see if you've got anything relating to the Great Flood in particular? We should endeavour to keep on topic! :)

[billybobsky]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Righty ho. So instead of teaching something that went out with the Kennedy administration let's teach them something that went out with the invention of the steamship and the machine loom!

OK!

(By the way, evolutionary theory is alive and well and the subject of hundreds PhDs a year! And I'm still waiting for you to post the URL of your favourite peer-reviewed Creation Science journal!

Or indeed to answer any of my last five posts!

Hooray!

So dmz can see your lovely words Hassan...

[Mr Beardsley]

Excellent. You do that. And could you see if you've got anything relating to the Great Flood in particular? We should endeavour to keep on topic!

Um, did you not see my post 4 above yours?

[Mr Beardsley]

Out of interest, dmz, how does Creation Science explain today's photographs of water erosion on Mars? Did the Great Flood happen there too?

Since you asked. Its not totally up to date, its from 2000 and it address the issue.


On June 22, NASA astronomers held a press conference to announce their discovery of “recently” cut gullies, indicators of flowing water, on the Martian surface.1, 2 The discovery stirred excitement for several reasons—some practical, some ideological, and some (perhaps) political.

First, some background: More than a year ago, the Mars Global Surveyor, which began orbiting Mars in 1997, confirmed the validity of old Mariner 9 photos (from 1972). Those photos showed flood channels cut previous to 3.5 billion years ago, that is, before Mars lost most of its primordial atmosphere to outer space. Since that time, Mars has been too cold and too dry to hold liquid water on its surface for more than a second or two.

These newly observed channels, however, seem to have formed more recently than a few million years ago.3 Asteroids and meteorites have not yet pocked them with craters, nor have the famous Martian dust storms filled them in or worn them down. What’s going on?

The scenario proposed by the discovery team is this: A small amount of the water that either existed on Mars four billion years ago or that arrived more recently (from infalling comets) managed to seep underground into an aquifer. A recent crustal episode, such as a volcanic or other geothermal event, forced the underground water to the surface. The first water to hit the surface instantly froze, forming a dam to hold back the rest of the water. Eventually, the built-up pressure behind the dam caused it to break, unleashing a torrent. A torrent unleashed high up on a steep slope, where these channels were observed, could make their mark in a few seconds before evaporating or freezing.

In practical terms, the discovery suggests that undisturbed aquifers may still exist on Mars. Such aquifers, though hard to reach, might help sustain future astronauts exploring the Martian surface. On the other hand, water contained in the planet’s frozen polar caps (predominantly frozen carbon dioxide with a tiny amount of frozen water) would likely be easier to locate and cheaper to mine.

The ideological reason for the excitement is the popular (though illogical) notion that “liquid water means life.” While no one disputes the necessity of water for life, science has shown that liquid water is merely one of many requirements for life, not the only requirement. Researchers have identified more than a hundred different requirements, independent of water, for life to exist on any given planet in any given planetary system.4 Most of these requirements reflect substantially greater fine-tuning than does liquid water.

Even if all the other requirements were met on a planet, the presence of liquid water is not enough to support life. Living creatures need an abundance of water in all three states (gas, liquid, and solid) available for a long time. Land life additionally demands an abundant and stable water cycle. That Mars never had one, the Mars Global Surveyor affirms. As Genesis 1:6-8 declares—and scientific evidence demonstrates—the existence of an abundant, stable water cycle constitutes a miracle.5 (Incidentally, comets, which are mostly frozen water, carry at least some water to virtually all solar system bodies. Even the moon has some of this comet-delivered water.6)

Will NASA ever find evidence of life on Mars? I expect so, if NASA searches with sufficient diligence.7 Just as meteors travel from Mars to Earth so also do they travel from Earth to Mars. Over the past four billion years at least several billion tons of Earth material, much of it life-carrying material, has landed on Mars. Spread over the Martian surface, this deposition adds up to a very low density of life material, and given the harshness of the Martian environment, almost all this material will have been broken down into molecules untraceable to life. Nevertheless, NASA has a shot at discovering life’s remains on Mars. Such a discovery would testify to certain species’ marvelous, God-given capacity to survive the frigid, near zero vacuum, radiation-riddled trip.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by Mr Beardsley
Um, did you not see my post 4 above yours?

I did, I did! I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm sort of after genuine, physical evidence for the Great Flood that's genuinely incompatible with the consensus we've arrived at after the past two centuries of research in geology, archeology, botany, whatever. That's what I'm after, but I'd be very happy to discuss the points made by the disagreeing scientists you mention, certainly, in the self-selective absence of dmz.

[billybobsky]

No offense. But why do you try to build scientific evidence into a pre-existing framework when 1) no evidence exists for the pre-existing framework (this is inherently unscientific), 2) more assumptions are needed to make this system work than the simpler modeless systems (Akham's Razor), and 3) even within the context of models that already have supporting evidence, things make more sense?

If you have faith, that is one thing, but by inherently using human translations of human written documents you are trusting a great deal in the exacting ability to translate the text perfectly. Modern Hebrew is less than two hundred years old, the old testament's current translation is subsequently less than accurate. Translations of translations of translations cannot be perfect, and you are resting your faith in trusting the specifics of this langauge...

[Mr Beardsley]

Hassan

Okay, I'm also more than happy to discuss the points made that I quoted. The main point that relates to this discussion is the scope of the flood. What I quoted shows that the flood didn't have to be, and didn't cover the entire earth. As a result it wouldn't have impacted geology, archeology, botany, whatever, in the ways talked about in this thread.

[Kickaha]

Bingo.

What so many fundamentalists lose sight of is *context*.

To the peoples for whom/by the Bible was written, 'the earth' was 'as far as we know it'... which in the case of an oral history passed down from a nomadic peoples, was going to be fairly small, really.

Was there a cataclysmic flood that wiped out their entire universe? I bet there was. Did it cover the entire *planet*? Of course not, that's ridiculous.

And yet some people cling to that *so tightly* that they have to throw out all reason to try and come up with a justification that, pardon the pun, doesn't hold water... it's sad.

[Mr Beardsley]

Kickaha,

You are right on the money. And I believe this extends to other areas. If you throw out the whole earth is 10,000 years old and created in 7 literal days, the account of creation in Genesis and throughout the bible is remarkably consistent with science. The events of creation viewed in the proper context fit very well with what would be required to "teraform" a planet to make it suitable for life.

[Kickaha]

Absolutely.

These were nomadic tribes - what 'unit of time' were they most familiar with? A day. It was simple, it was direct, and it got across the point 'this stage vs that stage'.

I don't think that the Bible is completely and utterly hogwash... I *do* think th