The Flood

The Flood

[Administrator: The following is taken from several threads. They are identified as separate threads when necessary ]

from Helen’s “Sketchings of a Flood Model”:[

HELEN
A number of years when I first read one of Joe Meert's posts about there being no geological evidence for world-wide flood, I was wondering what on earth was going on -- as I had heard the standard Flood model from creationists. Because I am more involved in, and interested in, life sciences, I had never given the Flood of Noah much thought.

So I started reading and asking questions. As I watched the different creation attempts to explain the definite sorting we see in the geologic record, I knew Joe must be at least right to some degree. I didn't know, and still don't a whole lot about geology, so I can't do much there, but I worked with what I did know and what I had read. Also, as I read the different evolutionist explanations for the fossil record, I knew they were in trouble, too. So what on earth was going on? All sorts of animals really do show up suddenly and seem to disappear just as suddenly. It really didn't fit either model well.

I did read enough to know the geologic record seemed to show evidence of several major catastrophes, such as that at the K/T boundary.

I also knew that ancient cultures all over the world had stories of a giant flood a long time ago where only one family was saved.

I went back to Bible and started looking for more than I had seen before. I don't always get the Bible read start to finish every year, but I did that year. And I found that although the Flood of Noah took primary mention as a judgment from God, subsequent large catastrophes were also at least mentioned.

There was the tower of Babel incident (so often misunderstood by people on both sides of the fence!). This was an incident of direct challenge to God, involving both disobedience and the erection of a minaret or tower having to do with an alternate deity or worship system. Then, the Bible says, God took notice (this is an idiomatic expression, by the way, not indicating he had not seen up until now, but that he actively responded to what was going on). He 'came down' and 'the people were scattered.' WHAT came down? All through the Bible we read that he used natural forces to enforce His will. So what was used this time which seems to have been some kind of catastrophe?

Pause on that one.

Then, actually earlier in the Bible but later in the chronology, there is that funny verse "One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided...' A lot of creationists claim this means the people were divided and say this is the same as the Babel incident. I don't think so. The word for 'earth' in the Hebrew is one that is used always and only for actual physical geographical land areas. They needn't be as large as the whole earth, but the word does not reference people.

Then, in Psalm 18 I saw references to what appeared to be massive volcanism at one time. There is always Joshua's long day, and the time the sun 'went back' on the steps during the time of Hezekiah. Further in Psalms there is a reference, granted poetically, to the mountains 'skipping.' Now I have grown up and lived in earthquake country all my life and I have NEVER seen or heard of one that made mountains 'skip.'

So what it occurred to me was that I was seeing references to some pretty significant happenings.

And when I considered Noah's Flood, and realized that the main source of waters appeared to be those fromwithin or under the crust, it also occurred to me that if such a thing had happened, there is no way there would not be geologic repercussions afterwards.

I think the Bible and geology agree that the Flood was the first of a series of catastrophes that affected all of the earth. I think Joe is wrong in saying there is NO evidence of a world-wide flood. There is. But it is nowhere near the majority of the geologic record! Looking at the effects that massive outpourings of boiling hot water from the surface would have on all life, I don't see how much of anything got fossilized during the flood! So where is the flood boundary? Perhaps as low as the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary. All over the world we have a layer of 'diamictites', a type of conglomerate usually associated with glaciation. This has given rise to the 'snowball earth' theory -- that once the entire earth was covered in ice. That theory is a direct response to this world-wide layer of mixed-up junk, if you will, below the Cambrian. If you deny a Flood, then all you have left is ice to produce this.
But there are some pretty good evidences this was not an ice-formed layer. I can get references if you need, but I don't have them here. A friend loaned me some geology articles on this and I can get the names, etc., for you if you like.

We DO have, around the entire world, as well, a rather consistent ordering of layers -- some missing here or there, and sometimes a lot 'missing' from the proposed geological column. But that column was proposed for a reason -- because there ARE definite series that give every evidence of being world-wide.

So what do they mean? Evolutionists say that they represent the eons of time the world has passed through, as one type of life gave way to another time, and then another type. This is one of the evidences used for evolution and long ages.

But what if there were a series of catastrophes after the Flood? Again, looking at other cultures around the world, we seem to see memories of other catastrophic events -- often referred to as 'wars' between the sea, the earth, and the sky (or the 'gods' thereof). These, too, seem to be worldwide in scope. In fact, I have been asked to do an article, and then a book, on this subject and I will start the research in January or February.

So if we go with the Genesis story as fact, which one does with the Flood no matter where one puts the boundary, then what we have is a possible major catastrophe at the time of Babel that forced the people to scatter (and thus languages become isolated and changed). A couple of hundred years later, at the time of Peleg, another catastrophe, resulting in a possible catastrophic plate movement in the crust.

And in between these times? If there were different environments after each catastrophe, then different life forms would predominate. For instance, after the Flood, it would have been humid, with water-saturated ground and probably warmer oceans (due to the outgasing of the hot waters during the Flood). Insects would have abounded. Algae, mosses, ferns and amphibians could easily predominate. And that is what we see in the various Palaeozoic Strata. Why not humans, if they were alive? I think they would not like to live in swamps and such, and would have preferred higher ground. If the swampy-life forms were centered around the areas where the waters had exploded, they would have been primarily around the edges of what would later be the crustal plates. These would be the areas subject to the most violent future disturbances, thus burying and fossilizing their life forms.

And then what happened at Babel? We have a young civilization at Shinar, wherever that was, building this enormous temple with baked bricks instead of stone, the Bible tells us. Bricks are from clay. Clay would certainly have been abundant after the Flood! And loose stones might have been very hard to find. Tar is used for morter. Interesting. Tar pits from rotten animals? Possibly...

OK, at the Flood, extra-biblical sources tell us the water coming up was scalding hot. After this pressure is relieved, there are vents, if you will, that have broken through the earth's surface. What might work its way up as pressure builds again? Magma... maybe?

Or was the Lord 'coming down' some kind of reference to a large meteorite hit? Either one would, in the proximity of Shinar, cause enough damage and consternation to send people running. Both would cause a darkening of the skies for some time, thus encouraging refuge, possibly, in caves?

Anything that large would probably change the earth's general ecosystem. Did this usher in the age of the dinosaurs?

I don't know. I don't pretend to know. But this would explain the fact that not exactly the same layers are found everywhere in the world, but that there is still definite boundaries that are world-wide.

Why does the Bible not delineate these catastrophes as it did with the Deluge? That is not nearly so difficult. The Bible is about the relationship between man and God. The Deluge was a judgment from God on man. Other catastrophes were not in the same sense. I also think that maybe the peoples of the first millennia after the Flood would never have imagined that anyone would forget these catastrophes, and so only passing reference is made to them to anchor an event in time.

Contrary to a lot of evolutionist claims, there is a tremendous amount of research going on in some of these areas. I know I am most definitely not alone in thinking there was a lot more to all of this than one Flood. And while I don't think the fossil record indicates that one sort of animal changed to another, I do think it indicates strong and definite changes in the environment which would favor one series of life forms over another, which is why we find the order we do in the fossil record.

Just to make sure it is clear to people -- I take the Bible as true when read straightforwardly, and I believe it gives us the parameters of where the truth lies. But, again, that's an awfully big yard to play in and this is just one corner! But I don't think the one-Flood-did-everything model works. Why would dinosaurs lay eggs in the middle of a Flood? How would what seems to be wind-blown cross bedding occur?

But nor do I think this took great long ages to happen. Small catastrophes in our own day have shown us some very rapid processes. And people all over the world seem to have stories remembering some rather giant upheavals, those attributed to 'gods' rather than simple everyday catastrophes. In short, I am interested in looking at all the evidence.


SHAUNR
I am glad that you realise that the geologic column is real, Helen. I am also glad that you realise that a single flood can't account for the entire geological record. Your speculations are imaginative and interesting. You might consider that if you have to engage in all this speculation to save the literal global flood model, then the model might be wrong. I hope that you answer my questions in other flood thread. Forgive my snide tone. Its not you, its other YECS that I have dealt with. Peace,


MILAN
1. There is no geological evidence for a global flood.

2. The Sumerian mythology includes a flood myth too, which predates the Genesis by several centuries.

The gods became angered with humanity and decided on the Flood as one means to exterminate it. A sympathetic god warned Utnapishtim (sometimes called the Sumerian Noah) and told him to build a boat and board it with his family, and the seed of all living creatures.
After six days of tempest and flood, Utnapishtim's boat grounded on a mountain. He released a dove and a swallow, both of which returned to him. Then he released a raven which did not return. Utnapishtim and his family returned from the mountain. When the gods are finally reconciled with humanity, Utnapishtim and his wife are taken by the god Enlil to live in a blessed place.

3. The flood myth found in the Genesis is more than likely directly derived from the Sumerian story.



HRG/ALTER EGO
Biblical flood models are talking about the last 10000 years - a time interval free of major catastrophes, as the geological record shows.

Scientific results are not something one can pick and choose from - like taking those which fit your model and ignoring those which contradict it.



JOHN PAUL
However Biblical flood models are talking about the last 10000 years - a time interval free of major catastrophes, as the geological record shows.

That would be only if the presumed 'mainstrem' geological understanding is correct.


JOE MEERT
[regarding Helen’s reference to diamictites below the Cambrian strata]

Actually, the snowball earth theory is not a direct response to the presence of diamictites. It is in response to the fact that the diamictites are overlain in some places by pink dolomite with a sharp contact. The association of glacial deposits with warm water carbonates is what drove the snowball earth model. Secondly, these ARE glacial deposits. There is no confusion regarding all of the tillites. Many have boulders with striated surfaces, faceted stones, dropstone and other glacial and periglacial features. These cannot in any way be classified as flood deposits. Secondly, and this is very important, the cycle from glacial to interglacial alternates at least 2-4 times in some locations. That is we go from tillite to warm water carbonate to tillite to warm-water carbonate.
There is simply no way to attribute these rocks to a global flood event (especially when you see evidence for terrestrial deposits in some of these units. For example, the Moelv tillite sequence shows limestone (marine) below the tillite, the tillite and then terrestrial deposits above the tillite. These simply don't make a whole lot of sense in a global flood scenario. Anyway, I think this is one of the more serious problems with the notion of a global flood.
Creationists cannot come up with a uniform model for identifying strata that are pre, syn and post flood. It always seems to be a rather ad-hoc definition.



JHAPPEL
1. There is no geological evidence for a global flood.

Wrong. There is an abundance of evidence for a global flood. In fact there is evidence for a global flood on mars that has no water currently so global flood on Earth is hardly a stretch.


"2. The Sumerian mythology includes a flood myth too, which predates the Genesis by several centuries.

The dating for that myth is about 1700 BC. But guess what the date for Noah's flood in the Bible is about 2300BC.
The Bible account has much more details, it has a single God not multiple Gods, the dimensions for the ark in the Sumerian is a perfect square which would not float on water but guess what the Biblical account dimensions were very well designed for floatation, the Sumerain account all animals were on the ark, in the Biblical account all land animals were on board, on the Sumerian it rained for only 6 days the Bible 40 days, the Sumerian did not use pitch the Bible did the Sumerian flood only lasted 14 days the Bible one year. So if the Bible borrowed why is the Bible account feasible and the Sumerian account not. Easy because the Sumerian account is a recollection from Noah's descendants that got corrupted over time. That myth is a great piece of evidence for the historicty of the flood. Thanks for mentioning it. Plus there are about 30 more myths that describe a global flood that are quite similar as well. The historical evidence for the global flood is overwhelming.



RANDY WICKETT
You are the one who is wrong. There is no evidence for a world wide flood and overwhelming evidence against it, much of which has been presented to you before. You have never presented any real evidence for it. Flood geology is bogus. Read the Glenn Morton story. http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/gstory.htm


The dating for that myth is about 1700 BC. But guess what the date for Noah's flood in the Bible is about 2300BC.

So you are saying there was a world wide flood sometime during the 6th Egyptian dynasty and about the time that Sargon conquered Sumer. They just didn’t notice. There were actually developing civilizations in India and China about the time of the supposed global flood that also didn't notice. Again it is the evidence against the flood that is overwhelming.


…Plus there are about 30 more myths that describe a global flood that are quite similar as well.

There are also wide spread legends in many different cultures around the world of werewolves and many other were creatures. Better watch out. The moon is still pretty near full.


The historical evidence for the global flood is overwhelming.

Collections of myths are not historical evidence. There is no historical evidence of a world wide flood.

EDGE
A global flood on Mars? I was unaware of this evidence. I thought it was just the presence of flowing water that was inferred. Do you know how many assumptions you would have to make to accept a global flood on Mars? Are you sure that you want to go there?

DAVID PLAISTED
I think one reason for some disillusionment of people who have been at ICR (like Glenn Morton) is ICR's view that the whole geologic column derives from the global flood, but maybe this is changing now?

My view is that the earth may have existed in some form w/o life before the creation week -- this is not standard for creationists but it may solve some problems, too.

Anyway, here are some links about flood models:

FLOOD MODELS & PROCESSES

Baumgardner, "Computer Modeling of the Large-Scale Tectonics" http://www.icr.org/research/jb/largescaletectonics.htm

Baumgardner, "Runaway Subduction as the Driving Mechanism for the Genesis
Flood" http://www.icr.org/research/jb/runawaysubduction.htm

Baumgardner, interview with plate tectonics expert http://aig.smartbusiness.org/docs/212.asp

Baumgardner & Barnette, "Patterns of Ocean Circulation During Noah's Flood" http://www.icr.org/research/jb/patternsofcirculation.htm

Covey, "Catastrophic Plate Tectonics" http://www.creationinthecrossfire.com/documents/CatastrophicPlates1/CatastrophicPlates1.htm

Chadwick, "A Creation/Flood Model" http://origins.swau.edu/papers/global/chadwick/default.html

Christian Answers Net, "What About Continental Drift?"* http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c001.html

Garner, "The Age of the Earth: Geology and the Deluge" http://www.amen.org.uk/eh/science/flodpg/flodpg3.htm

Garton, "The Real Lifestyle of the Dinosaurs" http://www.amen.org.uk/eh/science/dinos/dinos8.htm

Johnston, "Scientific & Biblical Background to Biblical Geology & the Genesis Flood" http://www.amen.org.uk/eh/science/flood7.htm

Kennedy, "The Intriguing Dinosaur" http://www.grisda.org/dialogue/0509.htm

Oard, "The Extinction of Dinosaurs" (pdf) http://aig.smartbusiness.org/home/pdf_notice.asp?pdf=/home/area/magazines%0D/TJ/docs/tjv11n2_extinct.pdf

Tyler, "Flood Models and Trends in Creationist Thinking" http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/97/cm9705.html#Trends

Woodmorappe, "Hypercanes: Rainfall Generators During the Flood?" (pdf)* http://aig.smartbusiness.org/Home/area/magazines/TJ/TJv14n2_Hypercanes.pdf

[Administrator: this starts a new thread, same subject ]

NAT
There are many logical problems with Flood mythology. Here are just a few to mull over - I challenge any creationist to explain these conundrums:

1. Ancient Civilizations - Considering that most YECs state that the Noachian Flood (which killed all humans except for one family) occurred around 2500 BCE, I am confused how several large civilizations seem to have not noticed it. The earliest Chinese cities are dated to around 3500 BCE, while at the same time the Sumerian and early Egyptian civilizations were going strong. All these civilizations seem to have a consistent history and cultural development - they just didn't seem to notice being wiped out by a giant flood. Even more amazingly, there is strong evidence of agriculture in Mexico as early as 5000 BCE and consistent cultural growth into several large civilizations in the Americas that spanned thousands of years. The Mayan calendar begins in 3641 BCE - a thousand years before the Flood supposedly occurred. If the Flood story is true, early people had to have gotten all the way to Central America before the Flood, and then very quickly returned after the Flood, while at the same time repopulating China, India, the Middle East, and even parts of Europe and Australia. Those seven people must have been pretty fertile!

2. The Pyramids - The Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza was built around 2590, while the Spinx and several others were completed around 50 year later. For the Flood story to be true, either these great structures were built before the Flood or soon after it. If built before, these structures must have survived with little to no apparent damage, being under water for a year and the same rush of water that Creationists claim was capable of carving the Grand Canyon. Despite the amazing engineering of the pyramids, this is a little hard to swallow. So, then we must consider the pyramids being built soon after the Flood, which is also difficult to swallow. If they were built soon after the destruction of the Flood - within a couple of hundred years - then Noah's family must have really had their work cut out for them. The great task of constructing the pyramids would have required thousands of workers (let's say 5000) which would have required at least 10x that number in the civilization as a whole in order to support the workers (producing food and other necessities) as well as children too young and elderly people too old to be helpful. Therefore the Eqyptian culture must have had a population of at least 50,000 able-bodied workers all related back to Noah's family within at most 200 years. Now couple that with all people necessary to restart the other Iron Age civilizations in China, India, Sumeria, and of course across the Atlantic in the Americas. Pretty amazing reproductive abilities indeed.

3. Issues with Food - after getting off the Ark, Noah's family and his portable zoo would have to find the necessary food to survive. Considering the ground had been underwater (at best brackish water, so the salinity must have been fairly high) for a whole year - undoubtly killing all vegetation. Now, if you assume that the water had a low enough salinity, and Noah had brought enough seeds to replant, the humans could live on fish (assuming any fish survived the rapidly changing salinity) until the plants regrew, but what about the animals? The herbivores would need immediate vegetation - do you realize how much vegetation an elephant needs to eat in a given day? And the carnivores are an even greater problem. A single lion will need to eat at least one gazelle sized animal at least every week at the very minimum. So, how are all the prey animals going to even get a chance to reproduce before being eaten by the lions, lepards, crocidiles and other carnivores? There would be mass extinctions within hours of getting off the Ark.

I'll leave you with just these three, but there are of course many other problems with the Noachian Flood mythology (e.g. how did the marsupials get to Australia and how did Noah meet the specific dietary requirements of all the animals on board, like Koala which will only eat certain types of eucalyptus leaves). I would love to see the mental gymnastics required to rationalize these simple problems with the Flood hypothesis.


PAUL OF EUGENE
I'd like to call the attention of board participants to a fascinating web site, here: ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/depthage/countage.txt

This site contains the painstaking hand count of annual layers of ice cores extracted from the summit plains of greenland. There, snow has accumulated year after year in discernable patterns. While of course snow falls fitfully from storms and such, annual layers can be discerned even by eye based on difference between snow crystal sizes from summer to winter and dust amounts from summer to winter. The counts have been verified by detecting volcanic ash and correlating with known historical eruptions. So here is a marvelous opportunity to date the flood of Noah. Simply count down the layers until we see the distrubance caused in the layers by the world wide flood. Obviously that would be no simple disturbance, and would seriously mess up the otherwise orderly marching of the layer counts downward year by year. I invite anyone interested to go back to that site, examine the way the layers change in thickness with increasing depth, and pinpoint the best estimate for the flood of Noah based on the layer disturbance they find there. Go ahead, flood believers, here's your chance to do real science!

If, like some, you hold that the layers transistion from annual layers to wild storm layers representing many laid down per year, why, you too are invited to examine the data and show where the disturbance such a transition would bring about has probably occurred. Remember, the counting is shown to be valid for historical volcanic eruption years, anyway.

I found that the data fits nicely into an excel spreadsheet and you can use excel's graphics capability to do an x/y graph for your demonstration.


DRAGOON
I'd like to point out the fact that Microorganisms are also organisms that need to survive. Were they all on the boat? How would Noah know? Certain parasites require a human host, does this also mean that Noah infected him self with intestinal worms and other unspeakables?

Where is the mention of all the current life we see today in the Bible?

Where is the evidence of the flood outside of the Bible?

I just read recently that scientists have confirmed that over 1 million species of insects exists, with 10 million being suspected to exist outside of our knowledge.

Did Noah have all of these bugs on the ark?

If he had a "kind" what exactly is a kind?

Would the kinds "evolve" into different species?

Were dinosaurs and huge carnivors also on the Arc? Some dinosaurs were massive, and were evolved to get to the vegetation on tall trees. A single dinosaur would be massive! How did Noah get these huge beasts into his ark?


LEGACY
Me thinks you have missed something. Fact is there is more scientific evidence proving that this "old" earth is about 6 to 8 thousand years old with additional abundant and irrefutable evidence implying a world wide flood than the most dedicated evolutionist even dreamed existed.

Your argument about Noah’s flood is a bit like the raging middle ages argument - "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?".

I suggest you obtain the video tape by Ron Carlson called Evolution VS Creation.

You should also read The Flood by Henry Morris.


DRAGOON
Some more questions. A massive influx of water would change the salinity of the ocean, ultimately killing sea life.
Did Noah include sea life?

My second question. Why would an omnipotent deity need to destroy a creation? Furthermore, why would he save it by using a fallible human? Why is the story one of epic proportions? The flood sounds like a bed time story to me, not the workings of an omnipotent deity.


HELEN
What I did was cut the entire first page of material and put it on a Word page. I'll go down it, keep quotes as necessary, and see if I can respond to at least some of it as I go.

Despite the numerous scientific problems with the Flood legend that creationists love to focus their apologetics on (e.g. lack of evidence in the geologic column,

I agree with you. The flood evidence is at the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary.


difficulties with that much water falling and then mysteriously receding, etc),

The waters exploded out of the earth itself (Genesis 7:11) and as the only thing that would have caused that would have been heating and subsequent expansion. Extra-biblical sources tell of the waters being scalding. Waters exploding out would have reached enormous heights, pulverizing earth materials on their way through the crust. They would have evaporated in the main very quickly and this is the rain that was recorded. The settling of the crust due to sinking from loss of mass would have been the start of the ocean beds we have today, and that is where the waters drained. If this scenario is correct, then there is little to no chance of anything at all being fossilized in the Flood itself.


1. Ancient Civilizations …

The problem with the current dating for the Flood is that it depends upon the Masoretic translation of the Hebrew Bible. The much older Septuagint, translated by the Hebrew scholars themselves from paleo Hebrew into classical Greek, is the one that matches all the quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures used by Christ and the writers of the New Testament. It is also the one with a more extended genealogy list. So, first of all, the Flood dates to a little bit more than 3600 years before Christ - close to the beginning of the Mayan calendar, as a matter of fact!

Do other cultures remember the Flood? Oh, yes!
China: http://across.co.nz/ChineseNoah.htm

Others: http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3 A%2F%2Fwww.best.com%2F%7Eatta%2Ffloods.htm

Many others: http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=ht tp%3A%2F%2Fwww.dreamscape.com%2Fmorgana%2Fpuck.htm

I have to add that I have also seen reference to what may be Noah's flood in the Papyrus of Ani (The Egyptian Book of the Dead), but, thumbing through it just now I do not see that I marked it, so I'll not try for it right now!


2. The Pyramids -…

First of all, we don't know HOW they built the pyramids. That is still a puzzlement. But to have started the first within a couple of hundred years after the Flood is not a big deal. The first, the step pyramid, is definitely not the largest!


3. Issues with Food - …

First, floating vegetation mats are common when storms rip up the land - monsoons, etc. Seeds and plants from them which reach land when storms end will rapidly re-vegetate an area.
Second, I live in a farm and ranch area and there are some people who manage to avoid actually paying to get rid of washing machines, old cars, lawnmowers, and the like, by hauling them to holding ponds and dumping them in. So several of the landowners have learned they have to drain their ponds once every few years and have people's trash hauled away. Grass is growing at the bottom of these things in weeks, even after several YEARS under water. Don't ask me why or how - I'm just telling you what I've seen!


Now, if you assume that the water had a low enough salinity, and Noah had brought enough seeds to replant, the humans could live on fish (assuming any fish survived the rapidly changing salinity)

The ocean's initial salinity MAY have come from the exploding crustal waters, and the salts and minerals they must have carried with them. These would have taken some time to thoroughly mix with the fresher sea waters of the antediluvian age. To this day when fish breeders ship freshwater fish, they will normally add some salt to the water. The fish do better and it protects them from infections and such.


until the plants regrew, but what about the animals? The herbivores would need immediate vegetation - do you realize how much vegetation an elephant needs to eat in a given day?

And Noah's supplies had run out the day the animals disembarked???


And the carnivores are an even greater problem. A single lion will need to eat at least one gazelle sized animal at least every week at the very minimum. So, how are all the prey animals going to even get a chance to reproduce before being eaten by the lions, lepards, crocidiles and other carnivores? There would be mass extinctions within hours of getting off the Ark.

The carnivores were most probably not carnivores until forced to be by a lack of sufficient protein in the vegetation the new world could produce. This, in conjunction with the remaining stores on the Ark and the multitude of rodents that must have left the Ark (yes, I KNOW only two of each went on, but…..) and the fact that the prey were not yet afraid of predators would have introduced the carnivore population more gradually to looking to other animals for a food source.


I'll leave you with just these three, but there are of course many other problems with the Noachian Flood mythology (e.g. how did the marsupials get to Australia

Walked, hopped, crawled - before the continental split left Australia stranded.


and how did Noah meet the specific dietary requirements of all the animals on board, like Koala which will only eat certain types of eucalyptus leaves).

I honestly have to laugh that evolutionists can postulate enormous changes in life forms due to mutations but have a hard time understanding that the limited diet of the koala today may not have always been. How do we know what koala ancestors ate, either from a creation OR evolution standpoint? All we know is what they have degenerated into today.

Regarding the Greenland ice sheets: Since the Ice Age came AFTER Noah's flood (probably by several hundred years), I think this wouldn't work the way your challenge would like it to….


I'd like to point out the fact that Microorganisms are also organisms that need to survive. Were they all on the boat?

Best you pay attention to the biblical account before you run amok on this one! Only land animals and birds were on the Ark. All else was able to survive to some extent otherwise.


How would Noah know? Certain parasites require a human host,

At least today….. who knows what they may have degenerated from?


Where is the mention of all the current life we see today in the Bible?

Why should the Bible give a list of life forms? It is about the relationship between God and man!


I just read recently that scientists have confirmed that over 1 million species of insects exists, with 10 million being suspected to exist outside of our knowledge.
Did Noah have all of these bugs on the ark?

No. They would have survived primarily on floating vegetation mats, the same way they do today during extremely fierce monsoons and hurricanes.


If he had a "kind" what exactly is a kind?

Probably fairly close to the modern taxonomic designation of 'family' for the most part. A 'kind' includes the originals and all descendents of original, created, discrete populations of living things.


Would the kinds "evolve" into different species?

Yes, probably, but not into different kinds. Lot of species of hummingbirds, or ducks or the like. But ducks don't become hummingbirds - or anything else. (No, I am not saying they should to 'prove' evolution, folks! Take that as the rough example it is intended to be and nothing more, OK? Thanks)


Were dinosaurs and huge carnivors also on the Arc? Some dinosaurs were massive, and were evolved to get to the vegetation on tall trees. A single dinosaur would be massive! How did Noah get these huge beasts into his ark?

There was certainly no reason to bring any of the aging giant adults onto the Ark! Young adults would have been much smaller and been able to breed much longer after that year of captivity.


Please read The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.

I have. I have it here. I love the first two paragraphs of the preface:
"This book is written in the conviction that our own existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries, but that it is a mystery no longer because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it, though we shall continue to add footnotes to their solution for awhile yet. I wrote the book because I was surprised that so many people seemed not only unaware of the elegant and beautiful solution to this deepest of problems but, incredibly, in many cases actually unaware that there was a problem in the first place!

The problem is that of complex design. The computer on which I am writing these words has an information storage capacity of about 64 kilobytes…. The computer was consciously designed and deliberately manufactured. The brain with which you are understanding my words is an array of some ten million kiloneurones. Many of these billions of nerve cells have each more than a thousand 'electric wires' connecting them to other neurones. Moreover, at the molecular genetic level, every single one of more than a trillion cells in the body contains about a thousand times as much precisely-coded digital information as my entire computer. The complexity of living organisms is matched by the elegant efficiency of their apparent design. If anyone doesn't agree that this amount of complex design cries out for an explanation, I give up. No, on second thoughts I don't give up, because one of my aims in the book is to convey something of the sheer wonder of biological complexity to those whose eyes have not been opened to it. But having built up the mystery, my other main aim is to remove it again by explaining the solution."

His logic is priceless….

[Administrator: there were additional posts after this, but all were mocking and insulting and have been deleted. What follows is a bit snipped from another thread that went astray from its original subject.]

DAVEW
Digestive systems needing the type of proteins carnivores do, and prepared for them -- this is exactly the point! That is why they had to become carnivores and couldn't just eat the other plants which grew after the Flood. God was the one who chose which animals would go on the Ark. He knew which ones had what was needed to survive later.

But according to Genesis 6:19 God chose every living thing to be represented on the ark, not just a select few.

And how did those carnivores survive before they could eat meat? They still had to eat, right? Genesis 1:30 says God gave every plant to the animals for their food, this was before the Fall.


JOHN PAUL
But according to Genesis 6:19 God chose every living thing to be represented on the ark, not just a select few.

The Hebrew terminology in the Genesis account rules out invertebrates having been taken on the Ark. The same holds true for marine and amphibious vertebrates.

[about the carnivores] My guess is that you are referring to obligate carnivores. The type that require taurine in order to survive. Perhaps these organisms lost the ability to synthesize taurine sometime after the flood. What would that take besides a mutation that turned off a bank of genes that performed that task.

(You do realize that the biggest and strongest land animals are vegetarians...)


DAVEW
The Hebrew terminology in the Genesis account rules out invertebrates having been taken on the Ark. The same holds true for marine and amphibious vertebrates.

Genesis 6:19 (KJV): "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female."

Kindly explain how "every living of all flesh" excludes invertebrates -- not to mention how invertebrates (e.g. insects) survived the Flood (or did they evolve again afterward?).


HELEN
Dave, you need to look at the Bible’s own explanation of this and not take it out of context. Genesis 7:15 explains exactly what is meant: “Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the Ark.” The following verse says, “The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.”
So the clear meaning is that ‘living’ here means those animals having the ‘breath of life’, or ‘nephesh’ (which actually is also translated as ‘soul’ and would then indicate a learning intelligence and uniqueness of personality and possibly also the ability to relate to an animal of another kind).
We see this same distinction made concerning these animals in Genesis 1:30, where everything that had the breath of life in it was given every green plant for food. Whether or not we understand it from the point of view of our own system of biology today, the clear meaning of Genesis 6:19 which you quoted, is defined by other verses. “Living thing of…flesh” is said to mean those animals on the land and in the air with the breath of life. This would exclude, certainly, any animals not having a complex nervous system, to put it in our terms, as the individual soul, or uniqueness, is expressed through the nervous system.

If you had not taken your quoted verse out of context, moreover, you would have seen the meaning yourself. For in the next verse, Genesis 6:20, we read, “Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.” At the very least that gives you a clue.

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Administrator ]