How literally do you take the creation story?

[semlogo]

I thought I spelled it clearly but I will be more specific. You know those gigantic piles of sedimentary layers that are upthrust thousands of feet into the air? We technically call them "mountains". Every major "mountain" chain in the world is an upthrust of once flood lain strata that was below the flood waters. After the flood these layers were upthrust. As anyone who can see, sees, they are made up generally of flood laid strata containig different layers and fossils of dead things that were quickly buried.

Thus there are literally "mountains" of evidence for a global flood.

[Rob Osborn]

Evolutionary biologists can prove their claims. You cannot. Next item.

Laughable at best!!! Since when did evolutionary scientists prove their claim that we evolved from a lower species of animals? I wasn't aware of that. Certainly a prize would have been handed out for such a notable find! Heck, they still can't find the correct missing link. They debate over what continent we migrated from, debated on just how many millions of years it was, and have debated endlessly on the age of when it all started. That my dear friend is not "fact".

Next item.

[Zakuska]

Laughable at best!!! Since when did evolutionary scientists prove their claim that we evolved from a lower species of animals? I wasn't aware of that. Certainly a prize would have been handed out for such a notable find! Heck, they still can't find the correct missing link. They debate over what continent we migrated from, debated on just how many millions of years it was, and have debated endlessly on the age of when it all started. That my dear friend is not "fact".

Next item.

Well they have proved that legged animals did return to the sea and become whales.

http://www.touregypt...leyofwhales.htm

As well as ancient snakes with 2 legs.

http://news.bbc.co.u...ure/7339508.stm

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

So in your view God arranged all the evidence for billions of years to look like it happen in a few months.

The Flood Itself

Where did the Flood water come from, and where did it go? Several people have proposed answers to these questions, but none which consider all the implications of their models. A few of the commonly cited models are addressed below.

Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.

* How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?

* If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.

* If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.

* A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.

* Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.

Hydroplate. Walt Brown's model proposes that the Flood waters came from a layer of water about ten miles underground, which was released by a catastrophic rupture of the earth's crust, shot above the atmosphere, and fell as rain.

* How was the water contained? Rock, at least the rock which makes up the earth's crust, doesn't float. The water would have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time, or Adam's time for that matter.

* Even a mile deep, the earth is boiling hot, and thus the reservoir of water would be superheated. Further heat would be added by the energy of the water falling from above the atmosphere. As with the vapor canopy model, Noah would have been poached.

* Where is the evidence? The escaping waters would have eroded the sides of the fissures, producing poorly sorted basaltic erosional deposits. These would be concentrated mainly near the fissures, but some would be shot thousands of miles along with the water. (Noah would have had to worry about falling rocks along with the rain.) Such deposits would be quite noticeable but have never been seen.

Comet. Kent Hovind proposed that the Flood water came from a comet which broke up and fell on the earth. Again, this has the problem of the heat from the gravitational potential energy. The water would be steam by the time it reached the surface of the earth.

Runaway subduction. John Baumgardner created the runaway subduction model, which proposes that the pre-Flood lithosphere (ocean floor), being denser than the underlying mantle, began sinking. The heat released in the process decreased the viscosity of the mantle, so the process accelerated catastrophically. All the original lithosphere became subducted; the rising magma which replaced it raised the ocean floor, causing sea levels to rise and boiling off enough of the ocean to cause 150 days of rain. When it cooled, the ocean floor lowered again, and the Flood waters receded. Sedimentary mountains such as the Sierras and Andes rose after the Flood by isostatic rebound. [baumgardner, 1990a; Austin et al., 1994]

* The main difficulty of this theory is that it admittedly doesn't work without miracles. [baumgardner, 1990a, 1990b] The thermal diffusivity of the earth, for example, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed [Matsumura, 1997], and miracles are also necessary to cool the new ocean floor and to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.

* Baumgardner estimates a release of 1028 joules from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans. In addition, Baumgardner postulates that the mantle was much hotter before the Flood (giving it greater viscosity); that heat would have to go somewhere, too.

* Cenozoic sediments are post-Flood according to this model. Yet fossils from Cenozoic sediments alone show a 65-million-year record of evolution, including a great deal of the diversification of mammals and angiosperms. [Carroll, 1997, chpts. 5, 6, & 13]

* Subduction on the scale Baumgardner proposes would have produced very much more vulcanism around plate boundaries than we see. [Matsumura, 1997]

New ocean basins. Most flood models (including those above, possibly excepting Hovind's) deal with the water after the flood by proposing that it became our present oceans. The earth's terrain, according to this model, was much, much flatter during the Flood, and through cataclysms, the mountains were pushed up and the ocean basins lowered. (Brown proposes that the cataclysms were caused by the crust sliding around on a cushion of water; Whitcomb & Morris don't give a cause.)

* How could such a change be effected? To change the density and/or temperature of at least a quarter of the earth's crust fast enough to raise and lower the ocean floor in a matter of months would require mechanisms beyond any proposed in any of the flood models.

* Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins [baumgardner, 1994], so sediments should, on the whole, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while on continents (including continental shelves), they average 2.6 km thick. [Poldervaart, 1955]

* Where's the evidence? The water draining from the continents would have produced tremendous torrents. There is evidence of similar flooding in the Scablands of Washington state (from the draining of a lake after the breaking of an ice dam) and on the far western floor of the Mediterranean Sea (from the ocean breaking through the Straits of Gibralter). Why is such evidence not found worldwide?

* How did the ark survive the process? Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth. The aftershocks alone would have been devastating for years afterwards.

[Zakuska]

Where did the water go?

The hollow earth of course!

[thesometimesaint]

Zakuska:

And here I thought that that was where the Ten Lost Tribes are hiding.

[Calm]

From Brigham Young:

This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please---that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reasong I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child.

JoD II, page 6

While BY may not have understood the Creation myth in the same way as others here, I think the principle of "coming to understanding" is the same and he would approve.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska:

And here I thought that that was where the Ten Lost Tribes are hiding.

Sorry... I missed the Emoticon in that sarcastic post.

Earlier today I had run acrossed this image... and Your post jogged my memory.

http://www.2012.com.au/hollow.html

[thesometimesaint]

Zakuska:

Old but true story(1973ish). In one of our Gospel Rumor classes that the Ten Lost Tribes were hiding in the hollow earth just below the North Pole was presented as a Doctrine of the Church. It was all I could do to not right there is class.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska:

Old but true story(1973ish). In one of our Gospel Rumor classes that the Ten Lost Tribes were hiding in the hollow earth just below the North Pole was presented as a Doctrine of the Church. It was all I could do to not right there is class.

The first I had heard about the idea was in the last month of my mission. (1992ish) My last companion had a father that had entertained the idea. And we were talking one day in companion study and he told me about it.

Oooh... I like this... from that link...

Gods in Amnesia

To quote from a song by Tom Waits: "Well the moon is broken

And the sky is cracked

Come on up to the house

The only things that you can see

Is all that you lack

Come on up to the house

All your cryin' don't do no good

Come on up to the house

Come down off the cross

We can use the wood

Come on up to the house

Come on up to the house

Come on up to the house

The world is not my home

I'm just passin thru

Come on up to the house

---

Does life seem nasty, brutish and short

Come on up to the house

The seas are stormy

An you can't find no port

Come on up to the house

There's nothin' in the world

That you can do

You gotta come on up to the house

And you been whipped by the forces

That are inside you

Come on up to the house

Well you're high on top

Of your mountain of woe

Come on up to the house

Well you know you should surrender

But you can't let go

You gotta come on up to the house"

(Waits/Brennan)

Published by Jalma Music (ASCAP)

Released on Shock Records and Epitaph Records

[thesometimesaint]

Zakuska:

Now you're making me feel OLD.

[cinepro]

From Brigham Young: JoD II, page 6

While BY may not have understood the Creation myth in the same way as others here, I think the principle of "coming to understanding" is the same and he would approve.

On the contrary, I don't think Brigham Young would ever approve of LDS doubting the literal nature of the Adam and Eve/ Fall story.

Honestly, this thread makes me wonder if one day we might see "faithful" LDS similarly open to a symbolic understanding of the story of Jesus's resurrection.

No, wait, of course not. That story is totally different. Never mind.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska:

Now you're making me feel OLD.

You know... History channel could do quite a big show on the hollow earth theory. There are so many rummors and legends.

Sorry for the derail.

[thesometimesaint]

Zakuska:

My kids are always referring to the History Channel as the "Hitler Channel" because of all the WWII shows on it.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska:

My kids are always referring to the History Channel as the "Hitler Channel" because of all the WWII shows on it.

Which one has the UFO guys on it. (Discovery?) The thing I hate about History is after comercial break they go back and recap (eg Moster Quest) everything they did before the comercial break and stretch out a 15 minute show into an hour.

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

My understanding is that President President Spencer W. Kimball, and probably Brigham Young did not believe that Eve was literally taken from Adams' rib.

First, President Spencer W. Kimball assured the sisters at Relief Society general conference in October 1975 that the creation of Eve from the rib of Adam was figurative.

[Fifth Columnist]

From Brigham Young: JoD II, page 6

This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please---that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reasong I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child.

While BY may not have understood the Creation myth in the same way as others here, I think the principle of "coming to understanding" is the same and he would approve.

I think BY referred to the Christian world's understanding of the creation as "baby stories" because he had a different version in mind where Adam played a much more important role. http://goo.gl/Tpk9g

[Calm]

cinepro:

My understanding is that President President Spencer W. Kimball, and probably Brigham Young did not believe that Eve was literally taken from Adams' rib.

First, President Spencer W. Kimball assured the sisters at Relief Society general conference in October 1975 that the creation of Eve from the rib of Adam was figurative.

He certainly did not think Adam was literally taken from the dust of the earth as stated in the scriptures.

[cinepro]

cinepro:

My understanding is that President President Spencer W. Kimball, and probably Brigham Young did not believe that Eve was literally taken from Adams' rib.

First, President Spencer W. Kimball assured the sisters at Relief Society general conference in October 1975 that the creation of Eve from the rib of Adam was figurative.

The role of woman was fixed even before she was created, and God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is written:

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

I believe that Pres. Kimball was well aware of the figurative nature of most of the the Endowment. But chose to address only the rib story.

[cinepro]

Maybe we've reached the point in the thread where we should ask whether the literal story of Adam and Eve is the Official Doctrine of the Church?

Adam and Eve are extremely prominent figures in the Plan of Salvation, so the "literal" or "figurative" nature of the scriptural account of their lives would be very, very important to understand.

[Zakuska]

The question is cinepro.

Can the story of the Garden be alegorical and Adam and Eve be literal beings?

I mean I can dress up the story of my wife and me, how we met and came to be a couple too, and even though the story would be highly symbolic. It doesn't mean we arn't literal or the general gist of the story is a fairy tale.

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

I have no problem with a literal Adam and Eve.

[urroner]

cinepro:

I have no problem with a literal Adam and Eve.

I don't have a problem with a literal Adam and Eve. I don't have a problem with a figurative Adam and Eve. I don't even have a problem with a mix of the two. I do have a problem with people telling me that since I don't believe the way they do, that I am wrong. I have a problem with people demanding me to accept what they believe as the gospel truth when are going completely on their beliefs and feelings.

[urroner]

I thought I spelled it clearly but I will be more specific. You know those gigantic piles of sedimentary layers that are upthrust thousands of feet into the air? We technically call them "mountains". Every major "mountain" chain in the world is an upthrust of once flood lain strata that was below the flood waters. After the flood these layers were upthrust. As anyone who can see, sees, they are made up generally of flood laid strata containig different layers and fossils of dead things that were quickly buried.

Thus there are literally "mountains" of evidence for a global flood.

And?????? Sedimentary?

Oh, you mean like the sandstone formations in Utah and Arizona. Oh, so this is the evidence that you are talking about?

That is solid evidence that that part of the land was underwater at one time, but that doesn't mean there was a global flood.

Is this the mountain of evidence that you are talking about?