Creation-Evolution-Creative Days-Age of the Earth-Humanoid Fossils-Great Flood

[JW Insider]

54 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Now I know why I lost my fortune and am reduced to selling pencils to get by. 

Back when salesman jokes were in vogue (September 1936 issue) the following was somehow considered a good one:

• Worried pencil-selling business partner: We buy these pencils for 3 cents and sell them for 2 cents. We're losing money on every sale! How are we ever going to make a profit?
• Reassuring pencil-selling business parter: Volume!!*

* Alternative: "We'll make it up in volume!"

 

[AlanF]

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.

[Ann O'Maly]

Just to emphasize that the issue here is whether or not a global flood happened c. 4,400 years ago. 

https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth

 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

I suppose the real issue is Faith.  it's like the issue of Mary / a virgin birth.  The point being that if you believe Almighty God created the Heavens and the Earth, then you will also believe that, that same God can do anything with it, that pleases Him. 

And if you believe that the Hebrew scriptures are 'inspired of God', then why would you want to call God a liar ?

FAITH. Faith in the things unseen.  But it seems, once again, that many of you prefer to have your ears tickled by the words of men. And the 'emperors new clothes' issue comes into play also. Some of you have fear of men, so you want to look 'clever' in the eyes of others. Please yourselves, either believe God or believe men. But remember that your life depends on it, and possibly the lives of your family too.  

[Ann O'Maly]

Hm. Your argument doesn't fly. If we play the 'faith and miracles' card, and God is not a liar, why would he miraculously fake the planet-wide geological record to make it appear like there was no global flood if there really had been a global flood? 

[AlanF]

2 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

I suppose the real issue is Faith.  it's like the issue of Mary / a virgin birth.  The point being that if you believe Almighty God created the Heavens and the Earth, then you will also believe that, that same God can do anything with it, that pleases Him. 

And if you believe that the Hebrew scriptures are 'inspired of God', then why would you want to call God a liar ?

FAITH. Faith in the things unseen.  But it seems, once again, that many of you prefer to have your ears tickled by the words of men. And the 'emperors new clothes' issue comes into play also. Some of you have fear of men, so you want to look 'clever' in the eyes of others. Please yourselves, either believe God or believe men. But remember that your life depends on it, and possibly the lives of your family too.  

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.

 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

9 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

Hm. Your argument doesn't fly. If we play the 'faith and miracles' card, and God is not a liar, why would he miraculously fake the planet-wide geological record to make it appear like there was no global flood if there really had been a global flood? 

Where would be the faith if you had material evidence in front of you ?  Now was the flood of the 'earth' or of the 'world' ? 

[Ann O'Maly]

1 minute ago, 4Jah2me said:

Where would be the faith if you had material evidence in front of you ?

So that goes back to AlanF's point about believing anything at all if no evidence is needed to validate that belief.

In that case, in the absence of evidence, on what basis can you believe the Bible to be true? 

7 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

Now was the flood of the 'earth' or of the 'world' ? 

How do you interpret 'earth' or 'world'?

Are the terms as absolute and literal as in this passage from Zephaniah 1, for instance:

“I will completely sweep away everything from the surface of the ground,” declares Jehovah.

“I will sweep away man and beast.

I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

And the stumbling blocks along with the wicked ones;

And I will remove mankind from the surface of the ground,” declares Jehovah.

[...]

For by the fire of his zeal the whole earth will be consumed,

Because he will make an extermination, indeed a terrible one, of all the inhabitants of the earth.”

[Srecko Sostar]

4 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

Just to emphasize that the issue here is whether or not a global flood happened c. 4,400 years ago. 

https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth

 

Because of the identical flood stories, but in different parts of the planet, it could be that similar cataclysms occurred in different places at different times to different people. It would also mean that “God warned" not only Noah, but other individuals or groups of people around the world as well.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

And this is why we need the True Anointed Remnant.  Because without them we cannot know the true meaning of scripture.

But i am past trying to converse with athiests. There is enough probem proving the GB/Watchtower/JW org wrong on many things. 

I have no idea where athiests stop calling people liars.  Why ? Because if you don't believe in the Hebrew writings, then you can't believe in the Greek writings. Because the Greek writings quote from and make reference to the Hebrew writings. And if you don't believe the Greek, then maybe you don't believe Josephus or Pliny or other historians.  So you see, i don't bother with athiests.  And as for believing 'scientists', they are only men and women. They get paid for results. And he who pays the piper calls the tune. 

[Srecko Sostar]

4 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Please yourselves, either believe God or believe men.

I think i can understand what you say. On other side, if Genesis book speak about "Day" in which God created this and that, than "faith" will believe what Moses wrote - "the day" (from sun to sun or from from sunrise to sunset), not 1000 or 7000 years or eons. If believer have faith that God can create things in literal 24 hours, because he can and want, than interpretations, on what word "day" means in Genesis and what "day" means in other part of Bible, are not necessary for faith but for mind.    

[AlanF]

16 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

And this is why we need the True Anointed Remnant.  Because without them we cannot know the true meaning of scripture.

But i am past trying to converse with athiests. There is enough probem proving the GB/Watchtower/JW org wrong on many things. 

I have no idea where athiests stop calling people liars.  Why ? Because if you don't believe in the Hebrew writings, then you can't believe in the Greek writings. Because the Greek writings quote from and make reference to the Hebrew writings. And if you don't believe the Greek, then maybe you don't believe Josephus or Pliny or other historians.  So you see, i don't bother with athiests.  And as for believing 'scientists', they are only men and women. They get paid for results. And he who pays the piper calls the tune. 

By faith one can believe that the moon is made of cheddar cheese. One can believe that the earth is shaped like a pizza pie.

On the other hand, if supposedly God-inspired writings contradict demonstrable reality,  it should be evident that those writings are mere manmade speculations.