geological evidence disproving global flood (noah)

[semlogo]

Mere conjecture. I could state quite the opposite-

Scientists have successfully refuted the counting process of ice cores as anything precise Ice cores have been proven to be the least reliable method for dating because of the inherent problems involved.

CFR

[FutureTwitBlog]

Only if you accept the following:

The earth is flat

The earth is or was covered by a dome, over which sat the flood waters

The Chinese instantly rebounded with all their buildings and people intact seconds after the flood

Ditto on many other world cultures and peoples

The flood somehow didn't wipe out the living plants on the earth that are older than it

Noah was able to travel all over the world to gather up every species of animal, including polar bears and penguins

The flood somehow didn't affect any of the glaciers or ice caps that are older than it

The flood somehow happened, in fact, without leaving any trace of itself whatsoever on the earth.

So sure, if you can accept all that, there was a global flood.

Unfortunately, even though your points are correct, I think you'll always have a number of members that use what I like to call the "elves on the sun" argument against this (or angels if you prefer). The argument goes something like this: "The sun isn't sustained by nuclear fusion reactions as hydrogen is changed into helium in a wonderfully complicated process that involves some awesome physics. This is a lie! The sun is actually sustained by magical elves putting magical wood on a magical fire and they only make it look like there is nuclear fusion going on, because they're magical."

Similarly, with the flood, you'll always have people, no matter how much scientific evidence comes to light, essentially argue a variation of the magical elves (magical flood elves?) argument.

[ELF1024]

The argument goes something like this: "The sun isn't sustained by nuclear fusion reactions as hydrogen is changed into helium in a wonderfully complicated process that involves some awesome physics. This is a lie! The sun is actually sustained by magical elves putting magical wood on a magical fire and they only make it look like there is nuclear fusion going on, because they're magical.".

Being an ELF I can attest that there are no magical elves in space making fire. We're too busy helping out Santa and making Keelber Cookies.

[blackstrap]

Just to get you started semlogo look up the Kipsaramon bone bed found in western Kenya. There are lots of others found around the world. The Arctic has quite a few including one that has dinosaur bones that are said to date 70 million years ago that have yet to be mineralized ." Search for bone beds and you will find..."

[FutureTwitBlog]

Yes I have seen these pictures... and understand them. But i disagree that a sphere cannot have a dome. Put a ball in an empty fish bowl in a filled bath tub and you have the same model with a sphere. A snow globe also comes to mind.

Mathematically, you could also have a four dimensional dome "surrounding" the three dimensional sphere, in much the way that a sphere can "surround" a circle confined to the plane. So, possibly the reservoir of water exists in another spatial dimension?

I don't think it does either, but I'm just saying . . .

[ElfLord]

Mathematically, you could also have a four dimensional dome "surrounding" the three dimensional sphere, in much the way that a sphere can "surround" a circle confined to the plane. So, possibly the reservoir of water exists in another spatial dimension?

I don't think it does either, but I'm just saying . . .

Theres another way it could be read as well. Thinking of Ice Age 2. An Ice dam high up on the glaciers and Mountians (The traditional home of the Gods) that breaks and flash floods the land below into the ocean.

[FutureTwitBlog]

Mere conjecture. I could state quite the opposite-

Scientists have successfully refuted the counting process of ice cores as anything precise Ice cores have been proven to be the least reliable method for dating because of the inherent problems involved.

I always find it amazing that the same scientific principles that serve people so well in other areas of their lives get so readily dismissed when it is convenient for that person to do so. I'm sure that you have no problem in believing Physics, Math, etc. as they relate to the operation of your computer, the internet, electricity, etc. Why the cognitive disconnect on matters of the earth's histroy? Don't you believe a civilization advanced enough to send a man to the moon could also figure out a few things from the earth's history based on geological records?

[Rob Osborn]

I always find it amazing that the same scientific principles that serve people so well in other areas of their lives get so readily dismissed when it is convenient for that person to do so. I'm sure that you have no problem in believing Physics, Math, etc. as they relate to the operation of your computer, the internet, electricity, etc. Why the cognitive disconnect on matters of the earth's histroy? Don't you believe a civilization advanced enough to send a man to the moon could also figure out a few things from the earth's history based on geological records?

This isn't the same civilization with it's technology that has basically stated the Book of Mormon to be a fictional account is it? Perhaps the same society that said Joseph Smith is a fraud?

It's not that they are not capable, it's that it all depends on what spin you listen to- just like politics there are polar opposites to just about every view. Who says my view isn't based upon the same science that sent men to the moon?

Why do you suppose that you may be right and I may be wrong? Whose spin cycle are you on?

[Rob Osborn]

CFR

Are you serious? Look up any site on the net. They all state that ice core dating is not "precise".

This one of those moments.....

HOLY COW!

[Rock_N_Roll]

An interesting link posted by DarkSyth on another thread that could also apply here?

Persion Gulf civilization

At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said.

[FutureTwitBlog]

This isn't the same civilization with it's technology that has basically stated the Book of Mormon to be a fictional account is it? Perhaps the same society that said Joseph Smith is a fraud?

It's not that they are not capable, it's that it all depends on what spin you listen to- just like politics there are polar opposites to just about every view. Who says my view isn't based upon the same science that sent men to the moon?

Why do you suppose that you may be right and I may be wrong? Whose spin cycle are you on?

I've seen science work in my life, as have you. When I turn on my television, it works. The same thing happens with my computer, cell phone, automobile, etc.

If I wanted to make this a little more churchy, I could just bear my testimony of science. Fine.

I know that science is true. I have seen it work in my life. Every day, when I turn on my computer and browse the internet, turn on my car so that I can move faster than 2 mph, and buy my dinner at Walmart (instead of having to grow it like my ancestors), I feel it's effects blessing my life. I bear you this witness that science is true, and that it has the ability to work miracles (i.e. people flying through the air at the speed of sound), something which will only improve over time. I leave this with you, in the name of science.

*If this is too offensive for the message boards, you can delete it. I was just in a silly mood when I wrote it.

[44Foxtrot]

I've seen science work in my life, as have you. When I turn on my television, it works. The same thing happens with my computer, cell phone, automobile, etc.

If I wanted to make this a little more churchy, I could just bear my testimony of science. Fine.

I know that science is true. I have seen it work in my life. Every day, when I turn on my computer and browse the internet, turn on my car so that I can move faster than 2 mph, and buy my dinner at Walmart (instead of having to grow it like my ancestors), I feel it's effects blessing my life. I bear you this witness that science is true, and that it has the ability to work miracles (i.e. people flying through the air at the speed of sound), something which will only improve over time. I leave this with you, in the name of science.

*If this is too offensive for the message boards, you can delete it. I was just in a silly mood when I wrote it.

[Obiwan]

The flood doesn't even have to have been "local" even if the evidence doesn't support a "global" flood. Reason being is the flood most certainly could have been "global" as stated, but simply didn't cover certain areas, thus not global in that sense, though did cover most areas of the earth for people to think it was global.

In other words, a global flood could have been global, but simply didn't cover every "single" piece of land.

[blackstrap]

I generally trust the engineers that produce the technologies that let us live in the comfort that we enjoy. The reason that I do is that they also live in the same society that I do and must use the same airplanes and computers and bridges. They regularly OVER build to allow for the stupidity of man and the unexpected powers unleashed by nature. They also make errors which cost people's lives, occasionally even their own.

When it comes to the "softer" sciences , I take their pronouncements ( eggs are bad for you, no sorry,we were wrong,now they're good for you, wait lets rethink this...) with a large grain of salt. Then there are the "floppy" sciences like astro-biology that are just having fun with unfounded theories and speculation.

Any good scientist knows how actual observations regularly change the prevailing hypotheses ,as well they should.Pick up an issue of the PNAS and see what new knowledge has turned things upside down,(recent observations of Saturn and its moons for example)Did we not just double the numbers of stars ?

Yet many of you here are convinced that the current knowledge of earth's past is unassailable even though it is not reproducible and requires many assumptions as a basis.

[Zakuska]

I've seen science work in my life, as have you. When I turn on my television, it works. The same thing happens with my computer, cell phone, automobile, etc.

If I wanted to make this a little more churchy, I could just bear my testimony of science. Fine.

I know that science is true. I have seen it work in my life. Every day, when I turn on my computer and browse the internet, turn on my car so that I can move faster than 2 mph, and buy my dinner at Walmart (instead of having to grow it like my ancestors), I feel it's effects blessing my life. I bear you this witness that science is true, and that it has the ability to work miracles (i.e. people flying through the air at the speed of sound), something which will only improve over time. I leave this with you, in the name of science.

*If this is too offensive for the message boards, you can delete it. I was just in a silly mood when I wrote it.

You forgot to close in the name off Charles Darwin. AChew.

[StuddleyG]

You forgot to close in the name off Charles Darwin. AChew.

I belong to the Church of Charles Darwin of Latter-Day Scientists.

[Rob Osborn]

I've seen science work in my life, as have you. When I turn on my television, it works. The same thing happens with my computer, cell phone, automobile, etc.

If I wanted to make this a little more churchy, I could just bear my testimony of science. Fine.

I know that science is true. I have seen it work in my life. Every day, when I turn on my computer and browse the internet, turn on my car so that I can move faster than 2 mph, and buy my dinner at Walmart (instead of having to grow it like my ancestors), I feel it's effects blessing my life. I bear you this witness that science is true, and that it has the ability to work miracles (i.e. people flying through the air at the speed of sound), something which will only improve over time. I leave this with you, in the name of science.

*If this is too offensive for the message boards, you can delete it. I was just in a silly mood when I wrote it.

This doesn't make any sense. Let's see if I can figure this out-

Computers and that technology has no ties to ice cores being dated correctly- that technology does not depend upon the dating theories of ice cores.

Automobile technology came about long before ice core dating came along- again, ice core dating has nothing to do with automobile technology.

Walmart? Are you serious? Walmart will not stand or fail based upon ice core interpretations. This is just silly.

People in airplanes? Yeah, they landed upon the face of Greenland and their planes became part of the ice core- a depth of 268 feet! But even stil, whether it was 10 feet or several hundred, ice core dating has nothing to do with airplane technology.

You just listed 4 things of science that I too aknowledge. But we aren't talking about getting dinner at Walmart (BTW, their rotisery whole chikens are yummy!) or turning on the computer or going to work in an automobile, we are speaking of theoretical interpretations of water in the hard water sports category. Ever been ice fishing? It's quite interesting to see how ice actually forms and how fats individual layers can either diminsh or grow in just one season alone! One week it can be two feet thick and the next it can be thin enough that it swallows up Jeeps (darn lazy fisherman!).

[sunstoned]

Well, Joseph Smith believed there was a Noah and a flood. He pointed out the very alter that Noah built. Right here in the good old USA. He also identified where the Garden of Eden was. Also on this continent. Now how did Noah travel from Jackson County to Mt. Arafat if the flood was not global?

[Hughes]

Ice cores vs the Flood

Michael J. Oard:

Seely states that volcanic spikes in acidity can be used to check the dating from deep in the ice cores. There are numerous problems relating volcanic acidity spikes as marker horizons. Volcanic history is known accurately to only 200 years! A few large eruptions are known beyond 200 years, but with all the other acidity spikes, it is difficult to match the eruption with an acidity spike in the ice core. It is very difficult to pin a precise date on an acidity peak beyond 2,000 years ago. 29

[Robert F. Smith]

When religion make a claim about the physical world. Then religion has to expect blow back when that claim is unsupportable by the physical wold.

Religion? What is that?! Religion doesn't make claims. Individual people make claims. Sometimes the claims are very specific, sometimes very general (such as about the content of this or that set of beliefs), but the abstract systems thus created don't actually exist as decision-making entities. Unless of course we are determined to anthropomorphize them.

[Robert F. Smith]

The four corners is one, but the belief in a firmament is stronger evidence. The firmament was a dome structure covering the whole earth, over which were the waters that came down and caused the flood. You can't have a dome on a spherical earth - domes only work on a flat surface. Genesis was written assuming a flat earth - once you realize that, it makes more sense, internally.

I appreciate the graphic illustrations of these ancient beliefs (or what we consider to have been the ancient beliefs based on careful analysis of the ancient texts). In fact, such conceptual frameworks help us to understand a variety of matters -- including the illustrations to the LDS Book of Abraham.

However, we must be cautious in our assumptions about what various ancient peoples actually believed. We ourselves speak glibly about "sunrise" and "sunset," even though we are not geocentrists (my apologies to any geocentrists or flat-earthers out there!!), but the only people who actually give absolute credence to such words as anything other than figurative are very young children. We mustn't absolutize such conceptual words and phrases.

The late William F. Albright theorized that the world-wide flood story (which is attested even in places which never have ordinary floods) came from the period of great pluvial rains which followed the end of the last ice age. That makes good sense to me, and certainly augurs well for a local flood tradition. In that same vein, I especially like Michael Rhodes and Ward Moody's non-geocentric approach to such ancient beliefs in their "Astronomy and the Creation in the Book of Abraham," in J. Gee & B. Hauglid, eds., Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant (Provo: FARMS, 2005), 17-36, available online at http://maxwellinstit...d=40&chapid=162 . Their chapter takes into account the best in modern science in assaying the meaning of the Scriptures.

[Robert F. Smith]

The Jesus as savior myth is just a myth that most adults have not been able to let go of, for any number of reasons. And I am not here to tell you to let go of that myth. All I am saying is don't confuse myth for fact, or legends for evidence.

There was once an Oxford don by the name of C. S. Lewis who believed as you. He was an atheist. However, one day while discussing Frazer's Golden Bough and all the myths of dying and rising gods, he realized that, just once, it might have actually happened. The realization surprised him and utterly changed his life. How could such a thing happen to a sophisticated, well-educated man? What is it about the life of Christ which has all the trappings of reality?

[Robert F. Smith]

We do not know exactly where the flood started and where it ended. All we know is that Noah landed in the mountains of Ararat. The area of land where those mountains are is pretty vast.

There are a number of Flood Stories which predate the Biblical account. There are many similarities and many differences. In a Babylonian version of the Flood Story, the ark lands on Mount Nitsir instead of the Ararat of the Bible. Do we actually know where either of these mountain ranges were? Is later toponymic tradition adequate to settle the matter?

Are such accounts transmitted in pristine fashion at all times and in all places? Obviously not.

[Robert F. Smith]

As the genetic Eve predates the biblical Eve by at least 14 times the number of years. "Houston we have a problem".

CFR? Whose dating system are you following?

[Robert F. Smith]

Me culpa.