Post-Flood Return To Normalcy

[Nathair/|\]

As my wife and I were watching Evan Almighty and enjoying each other's company tonight, I started wondering about the plant life. It seems that a world-wide flood would have wiped out most of the plant-life, yet there seems to be a functional ecology rather quickly. On the one hand that would seem to argue for a local flood, On the other hand, a global-flood believer could argue that God protected the plant life, which could explain why there is so little geological evidence. For the record, the idea doesn't affect my opinion. (I'm about 75 percent in favor of a local flood. The remaining is split between it being a global flood and it being purely a fable.) I do hope it adds something to the debate, at least make it a little less boring.

Yours under the mad oaks,

Nathair /|\

[thesometimesaint]

Nathair:

The whole thing can be claimed to be a series of miracles. There is no scientific arguement against it. But why would God do things one way then arrange all the evidence to show another way?

[Cobalt-70]

As my wife and I were watching Evan Almighty and enjoying each other's company tonight, I started wondering about the plant life. It seems that a world-wide flood would have wiped out most of the plant-life, yet there seems to be a functional ecology rather quickly. On the one hand that would seem to argue for a local flood, On the other hand, a global-flood believer could argue that God protected the plant life, which could explain why there is so little geological evidence. For the record, the idea doesn't affect my opinion. (I'm about 75 percent in favor of a local flood. The remaining is split between it being a global flood and it being purely a fable.) I do hope it adds something to the debate, at least make it a little less boring.

One of the many serious scientific problem with a literal reading of the Noah's ark story is that it is inconsistent with present genetic diversity in existing animals. If at any time in the last 6000 years there were only two individuals of a given species, that would be an extreme population bottleneck, and would leave obvious genetic traces. For example, if the ark story were literally true, there would be a maximum of four alleles for any given animal gene, and we would never (except for rare, very recent mutations) see more than four. Moreover, we would see various statistical genetic signatures that simply do not exist except in the few species that actually have undergone severe population bottlenecks. I don't know if there has ever been an animal species that got down to just two individuals and yet survived in the wild. Species just don't recover from that much loss of genetic diversity because they become too vulnerable to disease.

[Calm]

On the other hand, a global-flood believer could argue that God protected the plant life, which could explain why there is so little geological evidence.

Nathair /|\

It is not just the lack of geological evidence for, but the presence of evidence against that is problematic.

[Deborah]

I'm inclined to multiple local floods, which occurred at different times but eventually "baptized" the whole earth. The reason for this is that almost every culture has a flood history and evidence of oceanic life can be found in the mountains of north America.

[thesometimesaint]

Deborah:

The Rocky, and Appalchian Mountains were once the bottom of a ancient sea.

[Deborah]

The Rocky, and Appalchian Mountains were once the bottom of a ancient sea.

That's my point. Some GA's have talked about the baptism of the earth, but at some point all the earth was covered in water. It didn't necessarily happen in Noah's time. I think that was localized to destroy the wicked and start over.

[Rob Osborn]

Plant life is rather easily explained in my opinion. Most seeds can indeed be washed from one location to another and settle in soil and sprout up aknew. We read that in the Jaredites time that they took seeds of every kind and also took "bees". Now why take "bees" and seeds? The Jaredites were going to a new land- America that had never been populated before and that as the waters had come off the land it had become beautiful, yet also barren and void of life. So, here you have the Jaredites bringing life again to a fresh new continent. I don't really think people consider the implications of why they would be instructed to take seeds of every kind and bees other than the fact that without such, no life would be on the newly formed place of their new inhabitance.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Not that I want to get drawn into yet another protracted Flood thread, but Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend have some interesting speculations on the possible cosmological nature of various "Floods" that are worth considering:

http://www.bibliotec.../hamletmill.htm

Edited September 18, 2011 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

Try it yourself, soak a seed in salty water for over a month and see what happens.

[Rob Osborn]

Who said what the water was like at that time during a grand cataclysmic event? It's all just speculation what the water actually contained.

[Bill Hamblin]

From my perspective, the fundamental problem is that a global flood would have simultaneously wiped out all cities in the world. The archaeological record should thus show all sites in the world with a flood destruction layer, followed by a period of non-habitation (or complete abandonment), followed centuries later by new habitation on a small scale with different material culture. If there was a global flood, this succession of events should be found at every single 3rd millennium site in the world (depending on the proposed date of the global flood). Instead we find cultural continuity throughout the world--not at every site, but at many sites. Unlike most archaeological issues, a global flood would leave an unmistakable imprint throughout the world. That imprint is simply not there.

[Questing Beast]

I'm inclined to multiple local floods, which occurred at different times but eventually "baptized" the whole earth. The reason for this is that almost every culture has a flood history and evidence of oceanic life can be found in the mountains of north America.

Iirc, China does not have a global deluge tradition....

[Bill Hamblin]

Iirc, China does not have a global deluge tradition....

Yes they do. See Yang and DeMing, Handbook of Chinese Mythology, (Oxford, 2005), 114-117, with bibliography on 117; Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (1993), index.

[BCSpace]

Unlike BoM horses, there is plenty of evidence against a global Flood. For example:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#implications

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

So water wasn't water during the times of Noah?

Que up the Twilight Zone theme.

[thesometimesaint]

Deborah:

There are a few places on earth that haven't had a flood at some point in their history. But when the Rocky and Appalchian Mountains were nothing more than a sea bed humans didn't exist.

Edited September 19, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[Rob Osborn]

Rob:

So water wasn't water during the times of Noah?

Que up the Twilight Zone theme.

It would seem quite obvious that during a massive flood, the mixture and contents of it would not be the same as our modern oceans. DUH!

[Rob Osborn]

Deborah:

There are a few places on earth that haven't had a flood at some point in their history. But when the Rocky and Appalchian Mountains were nothing more than a sea bed humans didn't exist.

Mere conjecture.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Ah, good ol' Flood debates!

Let all schools of thought keep in mind the 25 foundational philosophical principles elucidated in the immortal words of Calvin & Hobbes:

1. Careful. We don’t want to learn from this.

2. Somehow I imagined this experience would be more rewarding.

3. I'd explain it, but there's a lot of math.

4. My penitent sinner shtick needs work.

5. I’m not in denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.

6. From now on I’ll connect the dots my own way.

7. Everybody hates a literalist.

8. I just don’t test well.

9. When in doubt, deny all terms and definitions.

10. I love loopholes.

11. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

12. Life is too inconvenient.

13. I really hate having things put into perspective.

14. Nobody asks me how things oughta be! I've got tons of ideas!

15. Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?

16. I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.

17. Reality continues to ruin my life.

18. The secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met.

19. To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.

20. Remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated then!

21. If something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.

22. A good compromise leaves everybody mad.

23. I don't need to study! I don't need to learn! I can always get by on my good looks and charm!

24. What do they think I am, an engineer?

25. If ignorance is bliss, this lesson would appear to be a deliberate attempt to deprive me of happiness, the pursuit of which is my unalienable right according to the Declaration of Independence. I therefore assert my patriotic prerogative to not know this material. I'll be out in the playground.

Edited September 19, 2011 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

Just the FACTS man. Just the FACTS.

Edited September 19, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

Rainwater is essentially pure water(it has a tiny speck of dust around which the water vapor forms a droplet), but there is no salt in it. Add that essentially pure water to the salty water already in the ocean. You get slightly less salty water. You will kill off the plant and animal life not only on land but in the oceans as well.

Plus add in the FACT that water vapor has weight. Suspending that much water in the air would crush all life.

[Rob Osborn]

It's all conjecture. We can't assume what the salinity of the water was like during the flood nor the conditions present. We have nothing on the earth happening today, geologically speaking, to compare or observe from and make any factual statements. It's all conjecture- both on my part and yours. Would you agree?

[jo1952]

As my wife and I were watching Evan Almighty and enjoying each other's company tonight, I started wondering about the plant life. It seems that a world-wide flood would have wiped out most of the plant-life, yet there seems to be a functional ecology rather quickly. On the one hand that would seem to argue for a local flood, On the other hand, a global-flood believer could argue that God protected the plant life, which could explain why there is so little geological evidence. For the record, the idea doesn't affect my opinion. (I'm about 75 percent in favor of a local flood. The remaining is split between it being a global flood and it being purely a fable.) I do hope it adds something to the debate, at least make it a little less boring.

Yours under the mad oaks,

Nathair /|\

My first thought while reading your OP was, "He started thinking about plant life while enjoying his wife's company"? My second thought was about Mt. St. Helens. I know it wasn't a flood that destroyed all life in that event. However, I do recall how scientists at the time of the explosion thought that it would be centuries and centuries before any new plant life would be seen there. Fortunately, the scientific world was able to convince the rest of the world to leave the site alone; sort of like a giant scientific experiment so that it could be watched and studied as time passed by. Scientists at first were theorizing that eventually enough time would go by that the wind and rain would gather enough dust and dirt to create soil. Then other naturally occurring processes would lead to seeds becoming "planted". In several hundred years "evidence" of plant life would support those theories.

Much to the surprise of many scientists, life through the evidence of plants growing began to show up in a much much shorter period of time, resulting in the need for those scientists to adjust and appropriately change their preceding theories. Anyway, I find this very interesting - and it is something I can identify with because I was living at the time of the blast, I got to see the devestation in person shortly afterward; and I have seen what has taken place since then. IOW, I am an eye witness to this incredible event; and the OP reminded me of it. It seems relevant; so I'm sharing it.

Regards,

jo

[Eldwynn]

Just... show me a kangaroo that can hop from Africa to Australia and I will believe in a global flood.

Yep, that's all it will take.