Sunday School And A Worldwide Flood (Pt.3)

[Rob Osborn]

... but you can't make it grow wings and fly you to Fantastica. 

How did the evolutionists get there? Perhaps the pegasus really exists.

[jkwilliams]

After examining the evidence I am left with a greater belief in God.

 

You say that as if you think you had to choose between science and God.

[Rob Osborn]

You say that as if you think you had to choose between science and God.

I say it because of the obvious. God flooded the world, I go out in the world and see overwhelming evidence for it. What choice is left? Thats like saying there is no sun day after day watchibg the sun rise an sun set.

[jkwilliams]

I say it because of the obvious. God flooded the world, I go out in the world and see overwhelming evidence for it. What choice is left? Thats like saying there is no sun day after day watchibg the sun rise an sun set.

 

What overwhelming evidence do you see for a global flood?

[Gray]

After examining the evidence I am left with a greater belief in God.

 

If your faith in God depends on real global floods or all of humanity originating in a garden, it seems to me a very fragile sort of faith, and a strange one, to be so tied to mundane concreteness. 

[jkwilliams]

If your faith in God depends on real global floods or all of humanity originating in a garden, it seems to me a very fragile sort of faith, and a strange one, to be so tied to mundane concreteness. 

 

Yep. IMO, a faith that insists on certitude (which isn't faith, according to LDS doctrine) is really based on fear of ambiguity.

[Bikeemikey]

What overwhelming evidence do you see for a global flood?

Asked so many times, yet never answered.

Robs beliefs are held my a small fraction of LDS faithful in today's church.

[jkwilliams]

Asked so many times, yet never answered.

Robs beliefs are held my a small fraction of LDS faithful in today's church.

 

As I said, I'm glad there isn't a large fundamentalist streak in the church today. Rob reminds me of when I was a teenager and found a copy of Answers to Gospel Questions. I read what Joseph Fielding Smith had to say about evolution and the age of the earth, and in my youthful zeal decided that it was either one or the other: either evolution was true, or the scriptures were true. They couldn't both be. Fortunately, I outgrow the need to see everything in black and white.

[Bikeemikey]

As I said, I'm glad there isn't a large fundamentalist streak in the church today. Rob reminds me of when I was a teenager and found a copy of Answers to Gospel Questions. I read what Joseph Fielding Smith had to say about evolution and the age of the earth, and in my youthful zeal decided that it was either one or the other: either evolution was true, or the scriptures were true. They couldn't both be. Fortunately, I outgrow the need to see everything in black and white.

It's that classic theological defense: we don't know everything so let me tell you the answer.

[thesometimesaint]

I say it because of the obvious. God flooded the world, I go out in the world and see overwhelming evidence for it. What choice is left? Thats like saying there is no sun day after day watchibg the sun rise an sun set.

 

There was no time in the last 6-10,000 years when there was a global flood. If you have to resort to miracles it is no longer science..

 

Actually the sun never sets. The earth revolves so that you are not facing it.

[Rob Osborn]

There was no time in the last 6-10,000 years when there was a global flood. If you have to resort to miracles it is no longer science..

 

Actually the sun never sets. The earth revolves so that you are not facing it.

Miracles? You literally have mountains of evidence for the flood.

I am not even gonna comment on the sunset thing.

[Rob Osborn]

What overwhelming evidence do you see for a global flood?

All of the strata layers all over the globe with billions of dead things that got buried it them when they were laid underwater. Most of these vast sediment layers span entire continents and beyond. These layers are not layers one would see from uniformatarian means which deposit very slowly in small layers relatively nonuniform in parallel or thickness. There is not one single place in the world happening today where we see new strata layers forming like we see in the great geologic column.

[thesometimesaint]

Miracles? You literally have mountains of evidence for the flood.

I am not even gonna comment on the sunset thing.

 

Mountain are evidence of crustal movement and volcanism.

 

You are saying that sunsets are evidence for the sun. They're not. The planet Mercury doesn't rotate. Therefore it has no sunrises or sunsets. The sun is still exists regardless of which side Mercury faces.

[danielwoods]

I don't much care if people want to be fundamentalists, but I take exception to those who tell me that their personal interpretation is the right one. I know how I read the scriptures, and I know what the spirit tells me, but I will not insist that other people ignore large pieces of evidence to fit my interpretation to the evidence. That's what I object to about the fundamentalists. They want us to filter out all the evidence that doesn't fit our preconceived beliefs. Frankly, that kind of thinking is dangerous.

 

I agree. I take exception to those who tell me their way is the only way to interpret data. 

[thesometimesaint]

All of the strata layers all over the globe with billions of dead things that got buried it them when they were laid underwater. Most of these vast sediment layers span entire continents and beyond. These layers are not layers one would see from uniformatarian means which deposit very slowly in small layers relatively nonuniform in parallel or thickness. There is not one single place in the world happening today where we see new strata layers forming like we see in the great geologic column.

 

The geologic column shows no such thing.

SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-gc.html

 

G2. If Dr. Hovind would take the trouble to do a little reading from something other than creationist publications he would not make such an outrageous statement. I believe he has confused the use of index fossils with evolution. One creationist editor, who is more mellow than his unfortunate statement suggests, phrased the argument thus:

Unfortunately the geologists date the rocks as the paleontologists tell them to. Then the paleontologists use the geologists' dates as evidence for the age of the fossils! That's not science. That's just a game played by dishonest scientists!

That passage might have come out of one of Henry Morris' books, except that Morris usually avoids crude slander.

Perhaps Dr. Hovind is not aware of the fact that by 1815 the broad outlines of the geologic column from Paleozoic times onward had been worked out by people who were mostly creationist geologists. The relative order of the strata was first determined by the principles of stratification. (The principle of superposition was recognized as early as 1669 by Steno.) Reverend Benjamin Richardson and Reverend Joseph Townsend were a couple of early geologists involved in this work. By 1830 Lyell's famous textbook, Principles of Geology, came out. The captain of the H.M.S. Beagle, a very strong Bible believer, made it a point to have a copy of Lyell's book for the ship's library. Obviously, even Lyell was not pushing evolution at the time. Such was the age of the great creationist geologists!

The principle of faunal succession in the geologic record was established by direct observation as early as 1799 by William Smith. By the 1830's Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison established a correlation between the various types of fossils and the rock formations in the British Isles. It was found that certain fossils, now referred to as index fossils, were restricted to a narrow zone of strata. Studies done on the European continent soon demonstrated the universal validity of index fossils. That is, an index fossil corresponded to a very specific point in the geologic column. Once the worth of index fossils had been established on the basis of stratification studies, they could logically be used to extend the correlation of rock formations to other continents. At this point in time they were simply a useful tool for correlating rock formations.

One can hardly accuse these pioneers of evolutionary prejudice. Nearly a half-century would pass before Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, was published! By then, the relative ages (order) of the geologic column had already been worked out in some detail. Radiometric dating would later confirm the relative ages of the strata and tie them to absolute dates. (Far from being a rubber stamp, radiometric dating would go on to revolutionize our understanding of the Precambrian.) Thus, it became possible to date strata directly from index fossils.

Note that evolution has nothing to do with how the index fossils are used to date strata! Any kind of object clearly restricted to a specific point in the geologic column would do just fine. If green dice were found only in the middle Ordovician strata, they would make excellent "index fossils." Evolution should be seen as an explanation of the faunal succession, a succession which was worked out long before evolution dominated the scene. Evolution, working in tandem with geologic ages, can explain why we have index fossils, but evolution is not needed to make the index fossils useful for dating strata.

While we're on this subject, you might wish to know the odds of arranging the Precambrian era, the seven geologic periods of the Paleozoic (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian), the three periods of the Mesozoic (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous), and the two periods of the Cenozoic (Paleogene, Neogene or Tertiary, Quaternary) in their proper order by pure chance. Your chances are 6.2 billion to one of getting the right order for all thirteen. And, when you consider that each period can also be divided into "upper, middle, and lower," the odds of arranging them in the correct order by pure chance become astronomical. Radiometric dating has passed that severe test! It has correctly placed the Cambrian between the Precambrian and the Ordovician, the Ordovician between the Cambrian and the Silurian, the Silurian between the Ordovician and the Devonian, and so forth. (See Topic A1 for claims of bad dates.)

Creationists, on the other hand, must explain to us how sediment and rock laid down in a mere year can yield such fantastic, orderly differences in radiometric ages. This poses a fatal problem whether one believes in the accuracy of radiometric dating or not! One would think that the flood sediments (gathered from the four corners of the old antediluvian world) and their associated igneous rock (formed during the flood) would all register very little radiometric age. At the very least we would expect random fluctuations if the radiometric methods were totally at sea. Why should the percentage of lead to uranium in zircon crystals (the key to ordinary uranium-lead, radiometric dating) depend on which geologic period they are found in? If most of the geologic column were created during Noah's flood, would it really matter whether a zircon crystal was found in Cambrian strata or Cretaceous strata, in Jurassic strata or Tertiary strata? Noah's flood might just as easily deposit the same crystal in one place as another.

Thus, we have a mystery. Pressure has nothing to do with it, and zircon crystals all have about the same density as their total lead content is small. Just what is it that a Cambrian stratum has which a Cretaceous stratum lacks? What does the Jurassic strata have that the Tertiary strata do not? If rock type mattered then we would expect a zircon crystal's lead content to vary dramatically within the Cambrian or Cretaceous strata according to their local rock types. No, that's not what we observe. How about neutrinos or cosmic rays? Neutrinos penetrate the earth so easily that they would affect all strata more or less equally, to the extent that they affect anything at all. Cosmic rays, on the other hand, don't penetrate that far into the earth to begin with, so we can rule them out. The depth of burial, itself, has little to do with our mystery. In some parts of the world the Cretaceous is found deeper than is the Cambrian in other parts of the world. The depth at which either is found can vary dramatically. In the Grand Canyon area the Cambrian lies beneath a huge column of strata; in California's Mojave Desert portions of the Cambrian are exposed at the surface.

For the young-earth creationist, this is an unsolvable mystery, a mystery with parallels in each of the radiometric clocks used by geologists. The potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, luteium-hafnium, rhenium-osmium, thorium-lead, and the two uranium-lead dating methods all point to the same amazing fact. The ratio between tiny amounts of radioactive elements and their decay products have this uncanny ability to determine which strata a rock will appear in! What is this magic ingredient that each of the geologic periods have which affects rocks and zircon crystals so? For those who believe that each of the geologic periods were laid down in days or weeks by Noah's flood, the mystery has no intelligent answer. For the rest of us, the answer is as plain as daylight. The answer to our riddle is time. The Cambrian has simply been around a lot longer than the Cretaceous, and the radioactive uranium in its zircon crystals has had more time to decay into lead. The same radioactive elements in different geologic periods will have decayed by different amounts.

Even creationists realize that time is the only answer, but they give that answer a strange twist. They imagine that the radioactive elements decayed much faster in the past! Such claims are mere flights of fantasy with no basis in fact or theory (see Topic R2). Problems abound. For instance, there are many boundaries (unconformities) in the geologic strata that exhibit a sharp change in radiometric age. Thus, zircons that are formed at about the same time in Noah's flood (from intruded magma close to each side of an unconformity, if such quick formation were even possible) would exhibit impossible differences in the decay of their uranium. Figure 2 explores an additional problem that pops up when one monkeys around with the radioactive decay rates.

A few calculations will rule out a fast radioactive decay rate before Noah's flood, thus firming up our intuitive feeling. Based on the present decay rate of U-238, the Cambrian period began about 570 million years ago. Since then the amount of uranium-238 has been reduced a bit (to 91.544% of itself) by radioactive decay. Had the decay rates remained high after the flood or in its later stages, the zircon crystals in the more recent strata (the last strata laid down by Noah's flood) would have "aged" considerably, which is not the case. Furthermore, the zircon crystals had to be created during Noah's flood in order to be "aged" according to the strata in which they were associated. It is too much to assume that each one just happened to be deposited in the right strata. Therefore, at the time of Noah's flood the decay rate had to be at least fast enough to reduce the amount of uranium-238 to 91.544% of itself in one year. If we generously take that minimum decay rate, with no thought of increasing it further as we look back into the past, we can calculate how much uranium-238 had to be present 1656 years before Noah's flood (when the earth was created, according to Dr. Hovind). It turns out that the amount of uranium-238 needed is 3.47 x 10⁶³ times the amount of uranium-238 around at the start of Noah's flood! In other words, if our entire solar system were made of uranium-238 the quantity would not even begin to suffice.

There is nothing like a few calculations to bring out the absurdity in creationist thinking! We may safely rule out the idea that the radioactive decay rates (for uranium-238, and, by quantum mechanical implication, all others) dwindled to their present values from high rates at creation time. An initial U-238 decay rate high enough to do creationists any good also leads to an absurd conclusion. They must now assume that the decay rates were low before Noah's flood, that they became phenomenally high during the start of Noah's flood, and that they dropped to normal after Noah's flood. Such tailor-made assumptions will impress only idiots and fanatics, and there is yet another problem worth mentioning.

Some of the material that has been radiometrically dated, whose dates fully conform to the accepted ages of their place in the geologic column, come from large masses of once-molten rock. Those samples could not possibly have cooled down in the course of a mere year no matter what. (Try a million years!) Thus, any "aging" done on their interior zircons had to occur, by creationist thinking, after Noah's flood. Only then did the inner rock cool enough so that those crystals finally formed. By creationist reckoning, those crystals really formed after the flood and should reflect the normal decay rates! That is, their uranium-238 should show almost no decay at all. To the contrary, their radiometric age is in good agreement with the strata in which they were formed. Thus, even the tailor-made assumptions, to which a few desperate creationists might be inclined, come to naught.

In summary of these latter points, radiometric dating has passed a severe test whereas young-earth creationism flounders, in hopeless knots, on the basic facts of the geologic record.

Edited February 25, 2014 by thesometimesaint

[JLHPROF]

"Come now, and let us reason together," sayeth the LORD

 

If you have no mechanism with which to temper your faith, you must literally believe in everything.  If your filter is to only accept that which agrees with your own biases and tradition, then your faith is not based on respect for truth but rather respect for tradition. That's not faith so much as it is tribalism.

 

Surely God did not endow us with sense, reason, and intellect only to forbid their use. 

 

God also said that we should live by EVERY word that proceedeth forth from His mouth.  He said he flooded the earth.  God doesn't lie.  My faith is that God's word is true, and science just needs to figure out how He does things, "evidence" aside.

 

And the key in reason is that God said "Let us reason TOGETHER", not reason on your own.

When science starts taking the possibility of a miraculous God into their reasoning perhaps the science vs. religion debate might finally end.

Edited February 25, 2014 by JLHPROF

[jkwilliams]

I'll just say again that I never imagined that there was such a fundamentalist streak within Mormonism. Thank God it's not widespread.

[jkwilliams]

All of the strata layers all over the globe with billions of dead things that got buried it them when they were laid underwater. Most of these vast sediment layers span entire continents and beyond. These layers are not layers one would see from uniformatarian means which deposit very slowly in small layers relatively nonuniform in parallel or thickness. There is not one single place in the world happening today where we see new strata layers forming like we see in the great geologic column.

 

I worked for quite a while in the oil business and was involved with the technology used in locating oil deposits and drilling for them. There are millions of places all over the world where we see what you're denying above. I'm sorry, but you've crossed the point at which I can no longer take you seriously.

Edited February 26, 2014 by jkwilliams

[Rob Osborn]

I worked for quite a while in the oil business and was involved with the technology used in locating oil deposits and drilling for them. There are millions of places all over the world where we see what you're denying above. I'm sorry, but you've crossed the point at which I can no longer take you seriously.

Bring out yer evidence.

[jkwilliams]

Bring out yer evidence.

 

What's the point? You clearly aren't interested in observable facts. If they conflict with your interpretation of Genesis, you'll deny them anyway. That's not exactly a conversation I'm tempted to have.

[Rob Osborn]

What's the point? You clearly aren't interested in observable facts. If they conflict with your interpretation of Genesis, you'll deny them anyway. That's not exactly a conversation I'm tempted to have.

Millions of places where thick uniform sediment is trapping and rapidly burying live animals turning them into a fossil graveyard? This I gotta see.

[Tacenda]

The difference is one of evidence left behind. Miraculously walking on water for a short time on a lake leaves nothing behind. Turning water into wine leaves no evidence once the wine is drunk. Same with the fish. Causing the dead to live again is definitely miraculous but would leave no clues unless the resurrected being chooses to visit you.

Separating continents, flooding the whole earth, and so forth could be miraculously done but this is a jarring change to things we can later study and all evidence suggests it never happened. You can argue that God also miraculously covered up all the evidence but why? That comes dangerously close to outright lying. If all things denote there is a God that seems incompatible with God hiding his handiwork.

This is why I hate this kind of reasoning. It argues God hides the miraculous in spectacular events.....so it undermines belief in smaller miracles.

God can do anything He likes of course. I am not limiting His power. I just find no reason to believe in a spectacular miracle when evidence suggests a less dramatic one occurred. This does not diminish God's power.

Very well said!

[Tacenda]

Well, it's not a matter of opinion that the scriptures were not literally written by God. When humans are in the mix all bets are off.

And IMNSHO, there were shrooms, that were probably ingested, how else do we get talking donkeys?

[The Nehor]

God also said that we should live by EVERY word that proceedeth forth from His mouth.  He said he flooded the earth.

Where does God claim to have covered the whole earth with water at once?

[Rob Osborn]

Where does God claim to have covered the whole earth with water at once?

19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Gen. 7:19

11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to de i386stroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. Gen. 9:11-17

6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 2nd Peter 3:6

50 And it came to pass that Enoch continued his cry unto the Lord, saying: I ask thee, O Lord, in the name of thine Only Begotten, even Jesus Christ, that thou wilt have mercy upon Noah and his seed, that the earth might never more be covered by the floods. Moses 7:50

During Noah’s time the earth was completely covered with water. This was the baptism of the earth and symbolized a cleansing (1 Pet. 3:20–21).

God will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh: Gen. 6:17. Moses 7:34, 43, 50–52; Moses 8:17, 30.

The waters of the flood were upon the earth: Gen. 7:10.

God set a bow in the cloud as a token of the covenant: Gen. 9:9–17.

After the waters had receded, the land of America became a choice land: Ether 13:2.

The wicked shall perish in the flood: Moses 7:38; 8:24. (Guide to the scriptures)

Edited February 26, 2014 by Rob Osborn