AlanF

Faith is by definition belief without evidence. Without evidence, one can 'believe' anything at all -- astrology, scientology, space alien abductions, etc. The question I examined is not whether one can believe in fairy tales, but whether there is physical evidence for a recent global Flood, and whether specific physical disproofs are valid. Hence, Ann O'Maly's challenge. The idea of a recent global Flood has logical difficulties. Why would a God who could kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night commit massive overkill by a global Flood that wiped out nearly all life -- life that had nothing to do with "wicked men"? It's like using a hydrogen bomb to swat a fly. One who believes such things must believe that his God is a murderous nutjob.

On Whether Noah's Flood Is Physically Possible Consider the amount of water needed to flood the entire earth to a depth sufficient to cover the highest mountains. What depth would that be? The Watchtower Society quoted a source that estimated how deep the water would be if the earth were completely smooth (Is the Bible Really the Word of God?, 1969, p. 37): << If all the irregularities on the earth's surface were to be smoothed out, both above and below the water, so that there were no dents or holes anywhere, no land would show at all. The ocean would cover the entire globe to a depth of 8,000 feet [2,400 meters]! >> If such a smooth earth had just one mountain during the Flood, it would have to be less than 2,400 meters high for the water to cover it. More mountains or depressions of physically reasonable size would change the figures, but not significantly. Thus, pre-Flood mountains must have been less than about 2,400 meters high for the Flood waters to cover them. That means that all of today's mountains over 2,400 meters must have formed after Noah's Flood. But is this geologically possible? No. The science of Plate Tectonics along with standard geological dating show that plenty of mountains and mountain ranges are tens of millions of years old, and have been wearing down a lot longer than that. For example, the Himalayas are at least 20 million years old and rose as a result of the Indian Plate colliding with the Asian Plate. The Hawaiian Island chain is another example. The Big Island is as much as one million years old and rises as much as 13,800 feet (4,200 meters) above sea level (https://www.lovebigisland.com/hawaii-blog/hawaii-volcano-history/). That is already much higher than any possible pre-Flood mountain. But that's not the whole story: the Island is actually the tallest volcano in the world measured from its base on the sea floor -- some 33,000 feet (10,000 meters, but about 15,000 meters if sea floor sinking due to the mountain's weight is taken into account). That means that if the earth had been completely smooth during Noah's Flood, the Big Island would have had to rise at least 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) above the sea floor in the some 4,400 years since the Flood. The Big Island is about 150 kilometers across at sea level and more than 200 kilometers at its base. It is also the biggest volcano in volume, something like 65,000 cubic miles (213,000 cubic kilometers https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/9/5/1348/132675/Modeling-volcano-growth-on-the-Island-of-Hawaii). For purposes of argument, let's assume that the Big Island grew to its present size in 2,000 years. That allows some 2,400 years for all of its plant, animal, bird and insect life to accumulate. If it took 2,000 years for 213,000 cubic kilometers of lava to accumulate, that works out to about 106 cubic kilometers per year. That's a lot of lava! We can compare that to the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland in 1783/1784. In eight months it spewed some 14 cubic kilometers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki) of lava, killing about 1/4 of the population of Iceland, lowering global temperature significantly (http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/laki-iceland-1783) and producing widespread famine. The 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia, the biggest in recorded history, produced similar effects such as the 1816 "year without a summer" in Europe and America. Now, what effects on the earth's climate would volcanic eruptions ten times bigger than the Laki eruption lasting 2,000 years have? Very big effects, obviously. Yet world history between 2,400 BCE and 400 BCE records no such big effects. The obvious conclusion is that the Big Island of Hawaii did not erupt for 2,000 years. When, then, did the Big Island grow to its present size? Again the obvious conclusion is that it so grew during the last million years, just as geologists have found. Far more could be said about the Hawaiian Island chain, such as the 80 million year old hotspot track showing the growth and decline of dozens of volcanic islands, where the chain of Emperor Seamounts tracks west-northwest and north-northwest for some 6,200 kilometers and disappears under the Kamchatka Peninsula. Thus, Noah's Flood is demonstrated to be physically impossible just by the geological history of Hawaii.

Nor does Arauna.

Owwww! On the cleverness scale, you are to TTH as the Rain Man is to Einstein.

I'm not angered in the least by such lies. Just amused and bemused, after 30 years of dealing with such dishonest morons.

Still far less clever than you think. Much like the worst singers on American Idol.

I said "criminals and undesirables" you lying hound.

I don't think so. I've met him in person several times. What you've watched are Creationist distortions of such debates. And you know it. That's why you're afraid to give a link to any of them. You have no wits to understand that it was Ben Stein who tricked him into saying that. And it was Stein and his lying Creationist movie makers who edited the film to make it seem like Dawkins came up with the idea on his own. You were supremely fooled by the Creationist makers of Expelled -- just as you've been fooled by your Watchtower masters.

Half the population of the world consists of idiots. So what? Trump is the ultimate huckster and told them what they wanted to hear. It's easy to fool people by doing that. Look at you. As George Carlin said in his comedy routine: Do you realize how stupid half of all people are? And the other half is stupider than that! America, along with the rest of the world, is certainly in decline. I'm glad that I'll be dead before I see the worst of it. As for your non-existent God's Kingdom, it didn't come when Jesus said it would, it didn't come when C. T. Russell said it would, and it's not going to come at all. You and your ilk will die without seeing it. Just as end-times proclaimers have always died.

As I thought, you have nothing to support your false claims.

Elon Musk is a smart man, but also something of a crackpot. I don't generally follow crackpots.

Wrong. The "young-earth" moniker I use is merely shorthand for the entire nonsensical enterprise, which encompasses young-earth/universe, old-earth/young-life and many other bits of garbage. I you'd actually read posts, you'd already know this. I do that only with arrogant morons like you who are too proud to be corrected. Nonsense. The two biggest YEC organizations do: the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. Yeah: 4.6 billiion versus about 3.6 billion. Of course, until about 1980 the JWs taught that life began 27,000 years ago. Today most JWs have no idea what they believe. It says no such thing. Yes, and they say the earth and universe are only 6,000 years old. And so do obsolete dinosaurs like you.

True Tom Harley said: I have no heros. You're projecting again. I agree very much with that. Just look at Jay Leno's "man on the street videos". That bit of wisdom is only partly applicable. Most religious people I know -- Catholics, Protestants, Muslims -- are individually very fine people. But their organizations are trash. The Catholic Church is a prime example. So is the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yes, the great organization of reptilian aliens is reigning!

The point of impeaching this criminal asshole involves more than just getting rid of him. It involves ensuring that a criminal don cannot ever again hold office, and better establishing the principle that criminal presidents will not be allowed to get away with criminal activity -- such as inciting insurrection. So what? It will go nowhere. Also keep in mind that some of these idiots are Qanon members, gross racists and other sorts of criminals and undesirables. I don't advocate any kind of rulership. Once again you're jumping to assholian conclusions.

Holly Folk has no idea what she's talking about. The fact is that JW leadership has always put protection of "Jehovah's name" -- actually the JW organization's own name -- above all other considerations. That's why it was only in 2001 that they issued a specific instruction to elders not to prevent any molestation victim from reporting to the police -- until then it was understood that reporting was to be discouraged. Victims and their family members were actually disfellowshipped for reporting against elders' instructions.

Your hypocrisy is evident, TTH: Trumpolini has issued several insincere calls for non-violence, talking out of both sides of his mouth -- exactly what you did. You obviously support his incitement to insurrection.

I'm sure you didn't even understand what I said.

Arauna! Arauna!! Lookie lookie lookie how fossils got to be up on Mount Everest -- as a result of the movement of Teutonic, Aryan and Gallic plates!

Arauna! Arauna!! Lookie lookie lookie how close God came to clobbering that visitor center with meteor! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater#/media/File:Meteorcrater.jpg

True Tom Harley said: Too late. Thanks for the compliment! I have the utmost admiration for Mencken and his writing. Bryan's problem was the same as Christian apologists often have today: the Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with the fake 'science' of Social Darwinism. That was originated by one Herbert Spencer, who applied Darwin's notion of natural selection far beyond anything Darwin wrote about. Today it's considered pseudoscience. Others jumped on Spencer's bandwagon and became popularizers of his ideas, despite the fact that it was a philosophical, not a scientific position. Creationists of all stripes have long beat their drums about this pseudoscience. A Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism) puts it well: << Creationists have frequently maintained that social Darwinism—leading to policies designed to reward the most competitive—is a logical consequence of "Darwinism" (the theory of natural selection in biology). Biologists and historians have stated that this is a fallacy of appeal to nature, since the theory of natural selection is merely intended as a description of a biological phenomenon and should not be taken to imply that this phenomenon is good or that it ought to be used as a moral guide in human society. While most scholars recognize some historical links between the popularisation of Darwin's theory and forms of social Darwinism, they also maintain that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution. >> As a discredited logical fallacy, Social Darwinism has no more connection with the Theory Evolution than the carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities had with the Theory of Gravity. Bryan was a wise man in many ways. As an attempt to describe how nature actually is, science is not supposed to be a teacher of morals. Since a great deal of criticism of Evolution is based on the fallacy that science ought to be a teacher of morals, all such criticism is fallacious and completely misses the point of science. Again Bryan was correct. Morality is the bailiwick of philosophy, and sometimes religion -- not mere descriptions of nature. Yes, it would. But remember that neither science, nor scientists for the most part, start wars: politicians start wars. And politicians use every available means to achieve their ends -- everything from stone-tipped spears to hydrogen bombs. "Common sense"? In other words, you have no logical arguments. And you deliberately forget politics. A self-contradictory statement. See below. First, Wells was a science fiction writer, not a historian. While he wrote a popularized two-volume history series, it was not particularly well received by historians. Second, the statement you quote is a mere description of what happened to become popular belief -- which is in no sense valid science. No more so than today's Trump-inspired popular belief that the recent American election was stolen from him is valid history. Since Wells became an atheist and came to accept Evolution, his statements about "de-moralization" and "loss of faith" can hardly be called "corrosive" from his point of view. On the contrary, as an atheist he would have considered such things as a net positive. Even you admit that you have no valid, logical arguments. Only vague allusions to "common sense". Very much akin to the basis of almost all religious belief. More ridiculously illogical claims. And fallacious, since you assume your conclusion. He was basically wrong: far more young people today want nothing to do with religion of any kind than ever before. An excellent statement of your fallacious 'reasoning'. Yes, cheer yourself on! The rest of your 'exposition' is the usual combination of "meh" and "not even wrong", so there's no point in my commenting.

You're imitating your idol Donald J. Trumpolini. Yeah, I'm satisfied.

Translation: "I admit I am a liar."

Your "general impressions" are usually wrong, because they're colored by your prejudices. I'm calling you out here: you're a liar. Now you have an opportunity to prove you were right. But you won't, because as soon as you actually investigate, you'll find you were wrong and you just don't ever admit that.

Young-Earth Creationism has one major banner: a universe far younger than science proves. And again: you've been so taken in by that garbage that you don't even accept that Mommy Watchtower, nearly 40 years ago, declared it "unscriptural and unscientific". Such a gross hypocrite!