Post-Flood Return To Normalcy

[shalamabobbi]

I wouldn't consider it a good thing unless I had an undeniable witness from the Holy Ghost. Without that witness I wouldn't feel comfortable changing what was written in scripture in accordance with man's interpretations alone. Man doesn't have a very good record of holding to Truth which has been revealed through God's Prophets.

So far it has been my experience that the Holy Ghost has confirmed what the Prophets taught. I have yet to experience the Holy Ghost unconfirming what they taught.

Regards,

jo

What's written in scripture is orders of magnitude more subject to "man's interpretation" then scientific evidence unless you want to engage the idea of God changing the evidence.

I sincerely believe you have conflated the witness of the Holy Ghost with a kind of superstitious paranoia.

The glory of God is intelligence. Then willful ignorance is sin..

[jo1952]

What's written in scripture is orders of magnitude more subject to "man's interpretation" then scientific evidence unless you want to engage the idea of God changing the evidence.

Not all scientists who view the evidence come to the same interpretive conclusions you do. Their interpretations do not cause them to re-write scripture.

I sincerely believe you have conflated the witness of the Holy Ghost with a kind of superstitious paranoia.

It appears you give more weight to man's interpretations of physical evidence than you give to scripture. I use the evidence of your need to change scripture to support my comment.

The glory of God is intelligence. Then willful ignorance is sin..

Yes, the glory of God IS intelligence. My personal intelligence constrains me from changing the Word of God; I am not a Prophet of God. If you feel that this is somehow ignorant on my part, so be it. Through my efforts of studying the world's knowledge, personal study of scripture, keeping the commandments, prayer, etc., my experiencing of the Holy Ghost supports, magnifies, reveals layers of understanding, and adds to scripture; it has never caused me to change scripture.

Regards,

jo

[Rob Osborn]

I have a book that I amde a point of not ordering through the mail but rather going straight to the Grand Canyon to buy in their bookstore there on the South Rim visitorst center. It is called "Grand Canyon a different view". I bought the book at the height of it's controversey being sold on government ground. There were a lot of people who came out against them selling the book in the "science" section. So, they moved the book to the art and wonders section and yet they still complained. What I find interesting here is that no one who believes in a global flood has ever complained about selling books there explaining a much longer and strewn out Grand Canyon formation phiolosphy. The book contains short essays by over 20 modern day scientists, geologists, and other influencial writers who support the science and evidence for a global flood. They all believe in catastrophism- that geological events happen rather suddenly and faster than we believe possible or by what is generally accepted on uniformatirian levels.

I find thier work not only interesting but incredibly believable. There is a general misunderstanding out there that there are no scientists who work in this field and produce viable evidence in support of a global deluge. The numbers may be small, but there actually are people who know their stuff who are providing alternative answers that make more sense.

The layers of the Grand Canyon provide us with a rather dramatic view of how improbable it is to believe those individual thick but rather parallel layers were layed over millions of years. Erosion works too fast and is evidence that that layers like we see in the GC do not lay out so uniformaly over millions of years. On top of all that (no pun intended) you have literally mountains and mountains of layers that spread out uniformaly for hundreds of thousands of square miles. Modern geologic models state that at some other point, higher elevation was eroding away sediment and depositing it to form these thick layers. Though, common sense tells us that no mount improbable could ever contain that much sediment to be eroded and layed all in uniform fashion over many hundreds if thousands of years. The amount of material in just one layer would equal perhaps a thousand separate mountains- all being of the same uniformity and all eroding and depositing in the same place! Not only does this go against every experiment on layering and sedimentation, common sense tells us that nowhere on earth today do we see layering by uniformatarian methods (slow river deposits) forming the same uniform and parallel thick sedimentary layers like that exposed in the Grand Canyon.

The only way you get layering like you see in the Grand Canyon is to have amassive amount of water combined with a massive amount of sediment that lays down generally all at the same relative time- similar to the science experiment of placing 10 different types of sediments ina glass jar, filling it up with water, shaking it up good and then letting the water drain off leaving nice parallel layers of differing sedimentary layers. If it works ona small scale, it would surely work on a scale much much larger.

Many people ere in thinking that a global flood, if it were to happen, would be this nice gentle bath that would leave a small sedimentary layer of silt on a rather unchanged topography. Perhaps they forget that water is the most powerful of all geologic events. Enough water could literally break down a mountain in short time and completely destroy the entire topography of the entire globe and leave in it's wake billions and billions of square miles of sedimentary layers thousands of feet thick. Then, after that you have the geologic events of volcanoes, and earthquakes and mountain uplift that all contribute tot he bending and breaking of the massive sedimentary layers.

[Franktalk]

Rob,

I think that most current mountains came to be post flood. I think that the world was mostly ground flat. There were exceptions.

[Ron Beron]

No, truth is "truth" and never is it "myth". For instance, a mythical creature might be a seven headed dog that can fly. But a normal dog is not ever considered a "mythical" creature. Myth is myth and truth is truth. Accepted historical events are considered historical and not mythology. That is just how it is.

With all respect you are wrong. What is unadulterated truth is rare not only in contemporary society but more so in historical review. Given your analogy the ancient might look at the remains of a long dead fossil of a Pterosaur and see a dragon. The truth is the creature existed, but the myth is the symbolism and metaphor developed around the truth. I think it would be difficult for you to find an example of a historical event that hasn't been tarnished by myth or legend. Consider the final line in the John Ford's, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

[Franktalk]

I have heard that the mid-Atlantic ridge spread the continents. Like sea floor spreading. But I doubt that is the case. Does anyone have data that shows that the spreading actually happened? I mean like real data. You know something besides an old theory. And not this kind of data.

[TAO]

Franktalk, magnetic lines in the sea crust, I think. They record when the poles switched. And they are rather close to being parallel to the ridge lines.

[Franktalk]

Franktalk, magnetic lines in the sea crust, I think. They record when the poles switched. And they are rather close to being parallel to the ridge lines.

I guess that settles it then. But now explain why the ridge is in the center of the Atlantic and the rest of the floor is flat? And why is it that the major valleys are perpendicular to the ridge and not parallel?

[Rob Osborn]

With all respect you are wrong. What is unadulterated truth is rare not only in contemporary society but more so in historical review. Given your analogy the ancient might look at the remains of a long dead fossil of a Pterosaur and see a dragon. The truth is the creature existed, but the myth is the symbolism and metaphor developed around the truth. I think it would be difficult for you to find an example of a historical event that hasn't been tarnished by myth or legend. Consider the final line in the John Ford's, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence", "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

With all due respect, we do not consider that which we believe to be "historical fact" as "myth". World War 2 was a historical fact not a mythological event. The word "legend" is used in somewhat different contexts depending on the semantics of how. For instance- we may state that George Washington was a "legendary" general. But that is completely different than saying that George Washington was "mythical being". The difference is night and day. The semantics of using legendary the way i used it can still fully be used in describing something 100% factual. But when i bring in the word "mythical", it always has some subset of untruth with it. That's the nature of the use of that word, it implys some element of untruth. I grew up with a english major in the house and was constantly reminded on the importance of the proper use of words. Whereas I am no great student of the english language like my older sister, I am always aware of how to use words in their proper context. That said-

In our LDS doctrine we do not refer to the events that founded our church as "mythical" but instead rather as "historical". We want to absolutely convey that we have truthful historical origins to our religion. If we were to instead use the word "mythical", it would thus convey something more on the lines of a pretend dungeon and dragon club type of religion where everything is make believe. There are places for the word "mythical" but we do not ever use them in the context of what we hold to be historically true.

When I here of others comment of the "creation myth" or the "flood myth", this automatically raises a flag to me that they do not believe those events to be held by them as historically accurate and holding some level of make believe. In light of prophets, ancient and modern, I don't believe we have the right to call their recordings as mythical. It is a subtle way that causes discontent and slowly erodes and undermines the accuracy and thus- the credibility of the word of God.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Rob Osborn

[Rob Osborn]

Rob,

I think that most current mountains came to be post flood. I think that the world was mostly ground flat. There were exceptions.

I agree. The scriptures even state that the world that then was (pre-flood), was destroyed and a new earth came from the post-flood, meaning the whole geologic features were changed and made aknew.

[Bond...James Bond]

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.

The oceanic fossils in mountains come from the earth being billions of years old and the reality that at one point that mountain range was at the bottom of either an ocean or a large sea. A billion years is a long stinking time. Try 4-5 billion years. That's a long stinking time X four or five. That's four or five long stinking times (if I did my arithmetic correctly).

Edited September 23, 2011 by Bond...James Bond

[Bond...James Bond]

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 /|\

Evan Almighty is a story, a film. You know that right? The biblical flood story is based in the long tradition of Mesopotamian flood stories coupled with the long tradition of Mesopotamians getting into "my God is greater and more powerful than your God" shouting matches. It's all a big allegory that means do good or you don't get to go on the last Love Boat's ride.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Bond...James Bond

[Bond...James Bond]

Rob,

I think that most current mountains came to be post flood. I think that the world was mostly ground flat. There were exceptions.

Then the global flood was millions of years ago, because the Appalachian chain is more than 400 million years old and the Rockies are more than 50 million.

[Cobalt-70]

I have heard that the mid-Atlantic ridge spread the continents. Like sea floor spreading. But I doubt that is the case. Does anyone have data that shows that the spreading actually happened? I mean like real data. You know something besides an old theory. And not this kind of data.

There's plenty of data for that. In stripes along either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge, the magnetic minerals that formed there formed in alignment with the earth's magnetic pole. The spreading was so slow that as the stripes were formed, earth's magnetic pole had time to flip directions multiple times. If you count stripes starting from the ridge going east and match it with the corresponding stripe going west, the magnetic fields like up in the same direction.

Also, they do radioisotope dating on each of the stripes on either side of the ridge, and they can determine what date that layer of rock formed. It is the same date for each corresponding stripe on each side of the ridge, and the age and magnetic polarity data are consistent with each other. Also, the further you go from the ridge, the older the rock gets.

And finally, with GPS satellites, they have measured the sea floor spreading as it is actually occurring today. Each year, they measure about an inch of seafloor spreading in the Atlantic, which is consistent with the ages of the rocks on either side of the ridge if that rate of spreading has been consistent over tens of millions of years. So yes, we basically have not only a smoking gun that the Atlantic was formed by seafloor spreading, but also videotape of the crime, DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence, eyewitnesses, ballistics, and a signed confession.

[Cobalt-70]

Though, common sense tells us that no mount improbable could ever contain that much sediment to be eroded and layed all in uniform fashion over many hundreds if thousands of years. The amount of material in just one layer would equal perhaps a thousand separate mountains- all being of the same uniformity and all eroding and depositing in the same place!

If you have ever seen the mouth of a large river, you know that they contain vast amounts of sediment. Rivers meander around valleys and over millions of years their meanderings cover a vast distance and are able to either erode or deposit silt over a vast distance. All it takes is millions of years of water running off a mountain into a valley that is able to catch most of the sediment.

The problem with the flood theory that within a 40-day period, a huge flood deposited all the layers exposed by the Grand Canyon simultaneously, is that each of these layers is very different. They each have different ages (as revealed by radioisotope dating), they each contain different fossils and different plant life, they have different mineral compositions (which explains their different colors). Some of the layers are volcanic ash, which tells us that a volcano erupted in the time between when the lower deposits formed and when the upper deposits formed. Also, they have found that at least 14 examples in which lower layers formed and solidified to rock, followed by erosion of that rock, followed by the deposit of addition layers above the eroded rock. Sedimentary layers don't instantly turn into rock as soon as they drop out of the water, so you would not see these kind of discontinuities if the layers were deposited in 40 days by a single flood. Also, some of the layers contain footprints and crawl marks of living land animals, who presumably would not have been walking underwater.

Sediment deposited by a world-wide flood would be just a single, very thick layer of uniform composition, the same fossils, and the same age. There would be no discontinuities, no intermediary layers of volcanic ash, and no footprints and crawl marks of land animals in intermediary layers.

[William Schryver]

If you have ever seen the mouth of a large river, you know that they contain vast amounts of sediment. Rivers meander around valleys and over millions of years their meanderings cover a vast distance and are able to either erode or deposit silt over a vast distance. All it takes is millions of years of water running off a mountain into a valley that is able to catch most of the sediment.

The problem with the flood theory that within a 40-day period, a huge flood deposited all the layers exposed by the Grand Canyon simultaneously, is that each of these layers is very different. They each have different ages (as revealed by radioisotope dating), they each contain different fossils and different plant life, they have different mineral compositions (which explains their different colors). Some of the layers are volcanic ash, which tells us that a volcano erupted in the time between when the lower deposits formed and when the upper deposits formed. Also, they have found that at least 14 examples in which lower layers formed and solidified to rock, followed by erosion of that rock, followed by the deposit of addition layers above the eroded rock. Sedimentary layers don't instantly turn into rock as soon as they drop out of the water, so you would not see these kind of discontinuities if the layers were deposited in 40 days by a single flood. Also, some of the layers contain footprints and crawl marks of living land animals, who presumably would not have been walking underwater.

Sediment deposited by a world-wide flood would be just a single, very thick layer of uniform composition, the same fossils, and the same age. There would be no discontinuities, no intermediary layers of volcanic ash, and no footprints and crawl marks of land animals in intermediary layers.

I am rather ambivalent concerning the question of a worldwide flood. I don't care either way, in terms of whether or not it really happened, or is merely an ubiquitous human myth. That said, there are multiple hypotheses advanced in an effort to explain the field data observed in the Grand Canyon and the larger area of the Colorado Plateau, including one that is gaining traction of late: the sudden overflow of several ancient lake basins, including the breaching of ancient Lake Bidahochi: Lake Overflow: An Alternative Hypothesis for Grand Canyon Incision and Development of the Colorado River

As a resident of southern Utah, and a frequent visitor to the stunning scenic areas of the Colorado Plateau, I have personally observed many locations that appear to evince erosion incident to massive flows of water, rather than only incremental erosion over a period of millions of years.

[Franktalk]

There's plenty of data for that. In stripes along either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge, the magnetic minerals that formed there formed in alignment with the earth's magnetic pole. The spreading was so slow that as the stripes were formed, earth's magnetic pole had time to flip directions multiple times. If you count stripes starting from the ridge going east and match it with the corresponding stripe going west, the magnetic fields like up in the same direction.

Also, they do radioisotope dating on each of the stripes on either side of the ridge, and they can determine what date that layer of rock formed. It is the same date for each corresponding stripe on each side of the ridge, and the age and magnetic polarity data are consistent with each other. Also, the further you go from the ridge, the older the rock gets.

And finally, with GPS satellites, they have measured the sea floor spreading as it is actually occurring today. Each year, they measure about an inch of seafloor spreading in the Atlantic, which is consistent with the ages of the rocks on either side of the ridge if that rate of spreading has been consistent over tens of millions of years. So yes, we basically have not only a smoking gun that the Atlantic was formed by seafloor spreading, but also videotape of the crime, DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence, eyewitnesses, ballistics, and a signed confession.

So I ask you if the spreading is responsible for continental drift? Or is continental drift responsible for the sea floor rift? And if either case why is the rift local to the center of the sea floor? It seems to me that the continents mostly moved where they are today and then the rift happened. If indeed the spreading goes way back then why the flat ocean bottom on each side of the spreading?

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=105844

On this page you can find a map of the entire Atlantic sea floor and the magnetic map. It appears that the continents were already far apart before the ridge formed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6982485.stm

At this link you can download a worldwide map of the magnetic anomalies. On that map you will see long lines of magnetic reversals off the west coast of Canada. Yet no fault and no sea floor spreading. How did that happen?

[thesometimesaint]

The spreding is the cause of continental drift.

The west coast of the Americas(East coast of Asia, and Australia) is part of the ring of fire. There are fault lines all of the place.

Ps. http://dogfoose.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/4-Tectonics.jpg

Edited September 23, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[Rob Osborn]

If you have ever seen the mouth of a large river, you know that they contain vast amounts of sediment. Rivers meander around valleys and over millions of years their meanderings cover a vast distance and are able to either erode or deposit silt over a vast distance. All it takes is millions of years of water running off a mountain into a valley that is able to catch most of the sediment.

The problem with the flood theory that within a 40-day period, a huge flood deposited all the layers exposed by the Grand Canyon simultaneously, is that each of these layers is very different. They each have different ages (as revealed by radioisotope dating), they each contain different fossils and different plant life, they have different mineral compositions (which explains their different colors). Some of the layers are volcanic ash, which tells us that a volcano erupted in the time between when the lower deposits formed and when the upper deposits formed. Also, they have found that at least 14 examples in which lower layers formed and solidified to rock, followed by erosion of that rock, followed by the deposit of addition layers above the eroded rock. Sedimentary layers don't instantly turn into rock as soon as they drop out of the water, so you would not see these kind of discontinuities if the layers were deposited in 40 days by a single flood. Also, some of the layers contain footprints and crawl marks of living land animals, who presumably would not have been walking underwater.

Sediment deposited by a world-wide flood would be just a single, very thick layer of uniform composition, the same fossils, and the same age. There would be no discontinuities, no intermediary layers of volcanic ash, and no footprints and crawl marks of land animals in intermediary layers.

No river in any part of the world is depositing sediments in a thick uniform fashion over a vast area. I am sure that as the flood waters rose, there were areas where still living animals, scurrying to safety would have left a mark on freshly deposited soil.

I don't know if you have ever seen the actual sedimentary features of a river slowly depositing material but it is anything but parallel or uniform. Nice try though.

[Nathair/|\]

Evan Almighty is a story, a film. You know that right?

Of course, I'm not quite as dumb or dishonest as people accuse me of being. The movie was just what triggered my thoughts.

The biblical flood story is based in the long tradition of Mesopotamian flood stories coupled with the long tradition of Mesopotamians getting into "my God is greater and more powerful than your God" shouting matches. It's all a big allegory that means do good or you don't get to go on the last Love Boat's ride.

As I said, I really don't think there was a literal global flood. At least not since life began on this planet.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Nathair

[thesometimesaint]

About 2.5 Billions of years ago the earth was about 97% covered with water(unlike todays 75%). The oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.

[William Schryver]

dup (that was weird!)

Edited September 23, 2011 by William Schryver

[William Schryver]

About 2.5 Billions of years ago the earth was about 97% covered with water(unlike todays 75%). The oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.

I've long observed that absolute is the most common breed of dogma.

[William Schryver]

oops ......

Edited September 23, 2011 by William Schryver

[Rob Osborn]

About 2.5 Billions of years ago the earth was about 97% covered with water(unlike todays 75%). The oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.

Are you sure it wan't 2.4 billion years? After all, a 100 million years is a very long time.