The so-called global flood--evidence against

[Heyo]

There is no intelligent reason to assume that the layers we find are from one single event.

These are the layers you can see with the naked eye in the Grand Canyon:

They form under different conditions, some are river delta deposits, others shallow fresh water deposits, and some only form in deserts and there are also ash layers which come from volcanoes. In no way could these have formed in a single flood event.

 

[Sargonski]

These are the layers you can see with the naked eye in the Grand Canyon:


They form under different conditions, some are river delta deposits, others shallow fresh water deposits, and some only form in deserts and there are also ash layers which come from volcanoes. In no way could these have formed in a single flood event.

I thought of one .. Closest Galaxy is 25,000 light years away ..meaning - it took that long for the light to get here .. so that Galaxy must have been there 25,000 years ago

 

[Mock Turtle]

Tommy said to Sid:

 

[Colt]

I realize that this topic has been addressed here and there in many threads. I'd like to collect all the points into one clearly labeled thread. Let's list all the arguments and evidence against the flood. They can include, for example, geological evidence, or internal problems with the Genesis account.

I'll start.

If there had been a global flood, there would be a single layer of silt extending all around the world. No such layer of silt exists.

Because no other culture on earth but the Israelites (who wrote the self-important story) recall being descended from a 600+ year old Noah who survived a worldwide flood! None of the races around the earth even remember an ancestry back to ANY of Noah's ancestors! Cultures do recall cataclysmic floods because there have been many, but the Israelites flood would have destroyed the entire culture who remember big floods!!!

The oldest human remains predate the claims of the Israelites by hundreds of thousands of years and the oldest life forms by hundreds of millions of years!

 

[blü 2]

Why do you think global flood would case single layer of silt? Single layer can be formed only, if the material comes from the same source. In global flood, material could come from different sources, and therefore cause different layers.

In the tale, the flood pours down 1.1 billion cubic miles of water over and above the water presently on the earth. It does so in forty days. Thus rain fell at the rate of at least 318 cubic miles per second for forty days and forty nights. The erosion (of which, of course, there is no trace in the real world) would have been enormous, entirely without parallel, and it would be left on the surface when the flood subsided. It would be huge and ubiquitous and unmistakable. Instead, of course, there's nothing even vaguely resembling it.

The real point that this example ignores is that in the bible the earth is not a sphere but flat (either like a plate, or like a table, both are found). You can read how the bible describes its own cosmology >here<. The rain was envisaged as coming from the waters above the hard dome of the sky (to which the stars are attached), and falling off the edges into the deep under the earth. However, as you may have heard, we've since discovered that the earth is not flat but an oblate sphere, so if the flood had occurred it would have been on such a sphere, contrary to the understanding of the authors of Genesis.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I realize that this topic has been addressed here and there in many threads. I'd like to collect all the points into one clearly labeled thread. Let's list all the arguments and evidence against the flood. They can include, for example, geological evidence, or internal problems with the Genesis account.

I'll start.

If there had been a global flood, there would be a single layer of silt extending all around the world. No such layer of silt exists.

This is a list of points and questions that I have thought about over the years. It is not complete, but just what I could recall quickly.

1. Not enough water available to cover the tallest mountains plus ≥15 cubits.
How would the location of that mountain be known to do a sounding?

2. Rain for 40 days and nights in the requisite volume would increase the pressure and temperature of the Earth to the point that it would cook the Earth, the ark, its crew and cargo.

3. How would the animals get to Noah and return home?
The logistics of animals arriving from around the globe to a single location in the Middle East in seven days can't be carried out today with modern transportation.

4. There is no global flood layer.
A flood with the scope and ferocity to cover the Earth in 40 days would produce a large, mixed layer of debris that would be obvious and global. None exists.

The existing fossil beds as evidence of a flood make no sense. Different ages. Different groups.

The permafrost megafauna carcasses as flood evidence makes no sense.

They are predominantly mammals that died over the course of 50,000 years and not in a single event at the same time.

5. There are parts of the world with no evidence of having had standing water or even rain in millions of years. The Atacama Desert of South America.

6. 8 people and 1 or 7 pairs of each species does not constitute a viable, basal population to re-establish the existing populations of living things.
Not enough diversity.
Potential of screening for recessive traits in subsequent generations. Reduced fitness.

7. No universal genetic bottleneck in global populations that is dated to the same time in all species.

8. No evidence that current geological features were carved in the wake of a giant flood.

The Grand Canyon was created by the gradual erosion of various layers of rock laid down over millions of years. Some of those layers are wind-formed between layers that are water-formed. How could any flood do that?

9. How would marine and terrestrial aquatic organisms survive in brackish, turbid, sediment-filled waters that rapidly went from raging to incredible depth over the course of a year?

Not all species of marine life live at depth. How would those that don't survive?

How would terrestrial freshwater species survive?

10. As a group, plants would not survive covered in water and sediment for a year.

Experiments show that an olive tree cannot survive even a few months entirely covered in water, let alone retain leaves.

11. The ark would not be large enough to house and maintain 10 million plus animals.

12. Eight people would not be enough to care for 10 million plus animals.

13. There would not be enough space on the ark to provide food for 10 million plus animals.

14. What is a pair of any eusocial organisms? Is it two bees or two colonies. Two termites or two colonies.

15. How would you save all the species of termites, timberworms, powderpost beetles, capenter moths, wood boring beetles, etc. on a wooden boat for a year?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

16. No evidence of cultural interruption.

If the major cultures of the time had been wiped out, they would have had to have been instantly restarted. Each with full populations continuing on as if there were no interruption.

There is no evidence of the sudden cessation of all existing cultures of the time and the gradual, seamless re-establishment of those cultures.

 

[Kfox]

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[metis]

One of the bogeyman scenarios, used by manmade climate change, to shake down rich countries, is the potential for a great world flood due to the rising oceans.

The scientific evidence is VERY clear even though you are blind to it as almost all of the world's climate scientists realize and reluctantly accept the fact that global warming is taking place, and the only factors that connect to that is higher levels of C02 and methane gas. Your left/right nonsense blinds you to the reality of what the climatologists know.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I realize that this topic has been addressed here and there in many threads. I'd like to collect all the points into one clearly labeled thread. Let's list all the arguments and evidence against the flood. They can include, for example, geological evidence, or internal problems with the Genesis account.

I'll start.

If there had been a global flood, there would be a single layer of silt extending all around the world. No such layer of silt exists.

Underlying soils in the Great Lakes region of North America (and plenty of others, but this is the region we focused on when I was in school) are overconsolidated, indicating that they were more heavily stressed by weight from above than they are today but not by liquid water*. The overconsolidation exactly matches the stress the region experienced under the glaciers of the last Ice Age.

This doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility of a global flood ever in history, but it does mean that since the last Ice Age, nothing happened in this region - e.g. deep flooding or major eroding currents - that was so significant that it would have disturbed these soils.




*increasing the amount of water over a soil increases the pore pressure, which actually decreases, not increases, the effective stress within the soil.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

17. The existence of polar icecaps that would have been obliterated by a global flood. Essentially, they would have floated free and been broken up.

Estimates place parts of the Arctic ice to over 5 million years of age and parts of the Antarctic icecap at several hundred thousand years of age.

Those ages and present existence would be inconsistent with a global flood several thousand years ago.

 

[F1fan]

It was the best at the time of writing. God was neither omnipotent nor omniscient nor omni benevolent at the time - and obviously not very smart.

God evolved over time and became new and improved to meet the challenges of science. Science has moved way beyond what creationists can offer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

17. The existence of polar icecaps that would have been obliterated by a global flood. Essentially, they would have floated free and been broken up.

Estimates place parts of the Arctic ice to over 5 million years of age and parts of the Antarctic icecap at several hundred thousand years of age.

Those ages and present existence would be inconsistent with a global flood several thousand years ago.

You might have the two switched around. In fact "Arctic ice" is rather thin since it is floating ice. There are no '"icecaps" there. Those are in Greenland and Antarctica. From the Wiki article on the Arctic ice pack:

". Currently, 28% of Arctic basin sea ice is multi-year ice,[2] thicker than seasonal ice: up to 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 m (65.6 ft) thick. Besides the regular seasonal cycle there has been an underlying trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic in recent decades as well."

Compare that to the Greenland ice sheet:

"The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of 1.67 km (1.0 mi) thick, and over 3 km (1.9 mi) thick at its maximum.[2]"

The Antarctic one is wider, thicker and older.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You might have the two switched around. In fact "Arctic ice" is rather thin since it is floating ice. There are no '"icecaps" there. Those are in Greenland and Antarctica. From the Wiki article on the Arctic ice pack:

". Currently, 28% of Arctic basin sea ice is multi-year ice,[2] thicker than seasonal ice: up to 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 m (65.6 ft) thick. Besides the regular seasonal cycle there has been an underlying trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic in recent decades as well."

Compare that to the Greenland ice sheet:

"The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of 1.67 km (1.0 mi) thick, and over 3 km (1.9 mi) thick at its maximum.[2]"

The Antarctic one is wider, thicker and older.

I'm going by what a couple of sources indicated on the ages of parts of the two different polar caps. I imagine they were referencing Greenland ice in the figures for the north polar icecap.

I do recall that several cores have been dated using a continuous series of annual layers that go back more than 150,000 years. No evidence of a flood in those either.

These were just selected figures to indicate the great age and lack of flood evidence. Not an attempt at a full accounting of the ages of either ice cap.

 

[Tamino]

16. No evidence of cultural interruption.

If the major cultures of the time had been wiped out, they would have had to have been instantly restarted. Each with full populations continuing on as if there were no interruption.

There is no evidence of the sudden cessation of all existing cultures of the time and the gradual, seamless re-establishment of those cultures.

You know, I was so busy with the biological and physical impossibilities, that I didn't really consider that point.
I checked, "Answers in Genesis" dates the Flood to 2348 BC.
Joseph is dated to 1745 BC and the Exodus they date at 1491 BC.

I'm not an expert on biology, but I know ancient Egypt.
Let's look at the biblical accounts. Considering that no Egyptian building could have survived the flood - remember, the huge swathes of sedimentary rock that make up the ground in and around the Nile valley are all supposedly one huge "flood layer" - we have now 603 years to repopulate the earth to a degree that there's enough people to establish a culture and an empire that can accommodate the story of Joseph.
Further, we would have to squeeze all the known buildings, artifacts and kings of the 1000 years of Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom eras somewhere in with the 1st Intermediate and Middle Kingdom, so that we could catch up to New Kingdom chronology when Moses comes around (Egyptians didn't have horse-drawn chariots in their army till the New Kingdom, so that's a clear terminus post quem for Moses. And if you don't know what "terminus post quem" means you have no business criticizing conventional chronology).
And you know what? That simply doesn't fit. Even if I disregard all absolute dating methods (C14, Ice cores, dendrochronology, Sothis-dates...) and go strictly by archaeology, relative sequencing and historical inscriptions: there's too many known kings, too many buildings, records, artifacts and cemeteries. I mean, someone has to build the pyramids... How would you do that with a tiny and still growing number of flood survivors, who moreover would be busy repopulating EVERY OTHER corner of the planet simultaneously?

Dear bible literalists: your numbers don't work.

 

[soulsurvivor]

I realize that this topic has been addressed here and there in many threads. I'd like to collect all the points into one clearly labeled thread. Let's list all the arguments and evidence against the flood. They can include, for example, geological evidence, or internal problems with the Genesis account.

I'll start.

If there had been a global flood, there would be a single layer of silt extending all around the world. No such layer of silt exists.

There is absolutely ZERO chance that there was a global flood and the whole Earth was under water. We don't need the lack of a layer of silt to prove that. We are not all descendants of Noah nor are all the variety of animals and plants come from being saved by a single boat. I am quite sure I have zero Semitic blood or genes in me.

However, that does not preclude that there may have been a major, unusual flood that destroyed a whole civilization, especially since so many ancient texts mention it: Flood myth | Definition, Accounts, & Mythologies.

People may accuse Graham Hancock of being a pseudo-scientist, but he has done quite a lot of research in this field : https://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Mysterious-Civilization-Graham-Hancock/dp/1400049512

Other scientists who theorize different parts of the world sinking because of massive floods caused by rise in sea level: Meltwater pulse 1B - Wikipedia

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm going by what a couple of sources indicated on the ages of parts of the two different polar caps. I imagine they were referencing Greenland ice in the figures for the north polar icecap.

I do recall that several cores have been dated using a continuous series of annual layers that go back more than 150,000 years. No evidence of a flood in those either.

These were just selected figures to indicate the great age and lack of flood evidence. Not an attempt at a full accounting of the ages of either ice cap.

Okay, I just cringed at the term "Arctic". And you are right, no sign if a flood in ice that the last time I checked floats. And as I said, the oldest continuous ice cores are from Antarctica:

"Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled out of an ice sheet or glacier. Most ice core records come from Antarctica and Greenland, and the longest ice cores extend to 3km in depth. The oldest continuous ice core records to date extend 123,000 years in Greenland and 800,000 years in Antarctica. Ice cores contain information about past temperature, and about many other aspects of the environment. Crucially, the ice encloses small bubbles of air that contain a sample of the atmosphere – from these it is possible to measure directly the past concentration of atmospheric gases, including the major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide."

Ice cores and climate change - British Antarctic Survey

Introduction Ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled out of an ice sheet or glacier. Most ice core records come from Antarctica and Greenland, and the longest ice cores extend …

www.bas.ac.uk

Please note, this is the oldest continuous ice. It may be possible that there are cores with breaks in them that are even older. Though that does not matter for this debate.

 

[1213]

In the tale, the flood pours down 1.1 billion cubic miles of water over and above the water presently on the earth. It does so in forty days. ...

You still don't seem to understand that the water came in two ways. And the reason for both is the same. Bible tells that it begun when the fountains of the great deep were burst open. This means, under the original single continent there was vast cavity filled with water. And when the water started to came out, it was first similar to as what we can see in modern geysers. Lots of water vapor came out, causing the long rain period. And after that the cracks in the original continent started to widen and water below the earth (dry land) started flooding.

So, there was not only the rain, but also the flooding water from below the dry land. And probably the water from below was the greater source for the flood water. And the reason for this is that the original continent was broken and begun to sunk. In post #19, there is images that show the principle of how it happened.

And actually, the water level didn't rise, it was the dry land that sunk. And the reason why it could not happen today is that the water has compressed the things that sunk so that it looks like mountains have risen. Mountains have not actually risen, it is the ocean floor that has gone down, making it look like mountains are rising.

The real point that this example ignores is that in the bible the earth is not a sphere but flat...

Bible doesn't say earth is flat. Bible tells, earth means dry land, not the whole planet. And the dry land was first single continent that could perhaps be called relatively flat. However, Bible doesn't say that the original continent was flat. The idea of flat earth is just a poor interpretation of what is said in the Bible.

 

[1213]

So in your theory, "the mammals", including such creatures as the Giant Sloth, would survive longer in a flood than, let's say, the Ichthyosaurs or Trilobites, who are specifically adapted to life under water??

Giant sloth would probably have been on higher ground. It also is bigger and requires more stuff before it is stuck in sediments. Also, when a mammal drowns, it usually floats some time before sinking. This is why it is not as easily in sediments and doesn't as easily become a fossil.

There is no intelligent reason to assume that the layers we find are from one single event.

I don't claim all possible layers are because of the great flood. The flood event caused the ice age. And the melting of the great glaciers caused also lot of layers and finished largely the job. After those, there has happened also events that has caused layers. And it is also possible that before the flood, there was also events that caused layers. But, I believe the great flood event is the reason for example to all orogenic mountains.

 

[1213]

You have posted this before. Physically impossible fairy tale.

Sorry, I don't see any reason why it would be impossible.