And there were of course also no rivers ...

One last question, because there are at no point the plants mentioned. What happens to landplants when they are under salt water (i assume it was salt water, because the oceans are of salt water) for a week or two?



There was at one point a super continent. But before there was divided land masses and after there was divided land masses.

Pangea, the latest super continent, dates back into 300 - 150 million years bc. There are no human fossils found in that age, not even mammals ...

I would pretty well say they differ a bit

Imagination. You say that as if science is just another religion. No. Scientists are no high priests of a religion. Imagination comes in place to interprete and/or interpolate the facts, not to make facts. Every idea, every theory has to be based and to be proofed by facts.
Introducing imaginary facts and/or faking the facts is a thing of religion, not science.

Ah, OK... I dont know my bible well enough to know the world was a
supercontinent at the time of the flood. By bad assumption.

Yes that is what happens.
While the gene pool is small, there are 'a lot' of non-viable freaks and stillbirths,
which is acceptable in animals, and the species will survive and improve with
the death of every non-breeding mutant, but us humans get upset by it. Which is why
incest is illegal in so many countries, that gene-pool is a lot too small.


So what, there was only one Ark, we just havent found it yet.
Just as there was only one asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, and look how long it took to find
its crater, ie the gulf of mexico.

Firstly, theres no proof to be found on the DRY part of the world, and we havent checked the wet part.
Secondly, the bible (probably) says 'worldwide' flood, which is different to
'planetwide' flood. Check a dictionary for World and you'll find something
like "A part of the earth and its inhabitants as known at a given period in history".
So World meant "everything we know of", thats different to planetwide.

Who is the say that the flood needed more water? Land can sink, and anyone on it
would be shouting "FLOOD!!", not "SUBSIDENCE!!".
AND, who is to say that the 'land' that the Ark landed on wasnt newly created
by God so his refugees could have a clean start, or even just old sea-bed that
had risen from the depths.

It has been pointed out to me that the world was a single continent/supercontinent then. OK.
Seeing as the bible wont be using the word supercontinent, two possibilities spring to mind.
1> The landmass that everyone lived on wasnt the only one, just the only one anyone knew of.
So it didnt likely have as many animal species as we know of now. So a smaller Ark is managable.
2> If the world consisted of only one landmass, there would not have needed to be
so many species to fill all the ecological niches, so smaller Ark once again.
Once it landed, each species had very small gene pools, and lots of land to fill,
so as they multiplied, the species would have diversified greatly due to evolution and mutation.
Thereby giving rise to the many species we know now.


Side question Delerna, if you believe in God and all his wonders, do you need
to believe the he kept small gene pools clean? After all, if 'He' is running
the show, then Genetics is just science's, possibly faulty interpretation
of what 'He' is doing. Faulty because "For no man can know the mind of god..."

Which realistically means the story of a "global" flood couldn't possibly have been about the period back when the super-continent Pangaea existed... after all, if humans would have gone extinct back then or better yet survived such a flood in a Noah's Ark type boat, then we would have found fossils either way.

And assuming there are fossils but we haven't found them yet, then there is of course the problem of a huge hiatus when it comes to the first human fossils compared to the time of Pangaea. Not to mention how the authors of the Bible could possibly know of such things.

By the way, there really has been extensive research done all over the world when it comes to the global flood story. Every time geologists found some clues of a possible flood, it always turns out to have been local floods. Sometimes bigger ones, think tsunamis, but all of them leave quite distinct marks in geological layers. A huge global flood would have been visible in geological layers for sure, especially as in good conditions even slight rise and lowering of sea level can be traced back in the layers.

On one hand it makes no sense to rule out the possibility of a worldwide flood, but on the other hand without exception all the evidence so far points in a very different direction.

Ahh and another something quite important, when it comes to simple fluid dynamics, it would take a really tremendous force of vibration, sudden change in temperature and pressure to be able to cause such a literal global flood. Quite unlikely that something like that would remain totally unnoticed by geologists that study geological layers all around the globe,

Cheers

Hmm. Could be. But it is most likely that the whole Noah story is based at the story of a farmer and his farm animals. And the flood was just something very local, and the Ark was a normal fisher boat. That would make most sense in case it ever happened at all. Religions tends to blow up storys to make them more interesting so that they can use it for their purposes. Ooh, look, a sign, a wonder. Now look how powerful our god is ...

What counts in the end are facts. No ark found yet, no proof for that story to be true. It's the opposite, all the facts points away from that story

Noah's Ark seems to be moderately unrelated to microorganisms and 'their' ability to harness human power.
Quoting Tiles.

If that's the case, other than savoring effortless victory over the argument, why bother with the topic at all?

Quoting PHeMoX.

If 'we' put 'our' minds to it as a species, keep a positive attitude, and try, try again, 'we' should be able to pull it off.

Untrue, depending on what you mean with the 'wet part', there has been research done on sea floors to figure out more about geology. The sea is huge though, so of course not everything has been researched to the fullest yet. In time they will, but if there would have been a worldwide flood, they probably would already found clues.



Sorry, but that's back paddling at best. Worldwide can be global just the same.

I DO think they must have meant local floods though, as those occurred a lot in that area. But the whole idea of how a wooden massive boat allegedly 'saved mankind' is a far more modern interpretation that simply makes no sense.



You don't need more water, you'll need less land, higher sea level and more importantly enough motion that could cause all this. In case you're wondering, you will never get a flood, especially a global flood, when nothing happens.

As for more water, that's probably not even needed as quite a lot of land lies beneath the sea level, but even then there's probably enough water already,



So true, but I guess they can be very stubborn when it comes to the evidence. The whole split-the-sea story can't possibly be true either, same goes for certain other stories or aspects of the Biblical stories...

Cheers

Noah's ark is just one very clear example i have picked to disproof the Genesis. There's not enough space here to went through every single item of the Genesis here. Especially when i look at how long we stay just at this item at the moment ^^

It's still all about what is true here. Genesis or Evolution. Bible or Science. Faith or knowledge. Normally clear who wins in such a case. A hail to the holy flowerpot ^^

No, I don't, I don't know and I don't feel a great need to know. And mabe genetics is based on "faulty interpretation"? (I actually don't believe that, but it wouldn't be the first time now would it?)

I think we can all agree that science is largely assemling facts and then using logic,common scence, derived knowledge and imagination in an attempt to make sense of those facts. I think we also can all agree that logic,common scence, derived knowledge and imagination are tools that are just as prone to error, misrepresentation and bare faced lies as they are to the discovery of truth.

No, i was merely attempting to highlight the double standard that evolution having a small gene pool is nothing to be concerned about, but the flood story could't possibly be true because the gene pool was too small.
Double standards like this are common in discussions such as this one (from both sides of the fence).

That the shape of a stone is obviously designed for a specific function and it is too intricately designed for it to have occurred from chance events. That is enough evidence to say the stones shape had a maker.

Yet if you use the same agument for God.
Proteins are obviously designed for a specific function as is the living cell and this design is too intricate to have occurred from chance events.
I get told that:-
I have turned my brain off.
The obvious design in the rocks shape IS evidence of a maker.
The obvious design in protein and cells IS NOT evidence of a maker.
It's perfectly feasable that the cell is the result of random events

Well, the cells design is astronomically superior to the rocks shape, so if the design in cells is not evidence then neither is the design in the rocks shape.
You can't have it both ways, either intricate design IS evidence of a maker OR it is not evidence of a maker
Notice, I say evidence here and not proof.

I would like to take the opportunity here to restate that I don't abdolutely dis-believe evolution. I am un-sure, I choose not to believe it, but I am un-sure. I do object when interpretation of facts is presented as though evolution has been prooven. It is all nothing more than interpretation and there are other interpretations even from other scientists.

I do not know, let alone understand the techniques used to age rocks. So I cannot comment. I have however, no problem with rock being of that age, or that there no human or mamal fossils in that age.

On the subject of carbon dating I do know a little
My understanding is this (in simplistic terms)

1) There are two forms of carbon in the environment in a known ratio
2) One of those forms of carbon is radio active and decays back to the non-radio active form, at a known and constant rate.
3) Living organisms also have these two forms of carbon in the same ratio up untill the point they died.
4) By measuring the ratio of these two carbons of a dead organism, we can calculate how long ago they died.
5) As measuring tecniques improve so does the accuracy of the calculation.

Cool, and this has been definitely proven to work .... I agree, yes it has.

My concern with it is the assumption that the ratio has always been the same as it is today. If, the ratio 10,000 years ago was half of what it is today then things that died 10,000 years ago would appear to have died 20,000 years ago.
Conversely it the ratio was double then it would appear to have died only 5,000 years ago.

Since the ratio between the two carbons is dependent on the amount of ultraviolet light entering the atmosphere this is a very real problem, it is one of the things scientists are trying to determine by drilling ice cores, has the ratio changed over time? Indeed, has the ratio oscillated over time? That would be worse because it would mean that it would become impossible to carbon date anything because you would have to know exactly when it died in order to know which starting point to apply.

Thats the problem with science, it can only interpret the facts based on current knowledge and if there is anything that evolves it is definitely "current knowledge".
So, unless you believe as one scientist I have heard, "Science is dead, we now know everything", then there is no firm ground for you stand on while you make your absolute assertions that your beliefs are based on "solid evidence"