Has Noahs Ark been found. Interesting read

[mellestad]

Have you researched the rock layers of the Grand Canyon? How do you explain the marine fossils more than a mile above sea level? What about the shellfish in the Himalayas (29,000 ft above sea level)?

Well...I think you are going to believe what you want to believe (based on scientific proof) and I am going to believe what I believe (based on scientific proof). It can be summed up pretty well with the 2 contrasting answers found at this link: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_presence_of_marine_fossils_on_mountain_tops_confirm_that_Noah's_Deluge_really_happened

Fossils on top of mountains happen because those mountains were not always mountains.  When tectonic plates colide one side of the plate often crumples and rides up over the top of the other plate, slowly raising the ground until you get a mountain range.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics

If there were a global flood, and it caused fossils to be on top of mountains (It wouldn't, because when something dies it needs to sink to the bottom of a body of water, then be covered by sediment), we would find fossils on every mountain.  But we don't, we only find fossils on mountains that have a sediment layer (Mountains that used to be under sea level).  Not all of them do, because of the various ages of the mountains and different ways some ranges form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_building

[MechAg94]

Why would a short but large flood leave sediment layers on mountains?  Why would lack of fossils mean a flood didn't happen?

[mellestad]

For a flood event that supposedly happened inside of a year or so, what sort of fossil layer evidence are you expecting to find? 

I would expect the fossil layer to consist of one massive block of sediment with fossils mixed through it based roughly on density and ability to precipitate out of the water/sea.  If the rain fall was too gentle, I would exect to find no sediment layer.

I was just answering norinco's question, I don't think fossils are the best proof against a literal world-flood.  I did not bring up fossils, I was just responding to norinco based on his own premise of fossil record=flood.  For me, the best proof (besides the impossibility of it) is the lack of physical evidence.

Miles of water set down that violently (or not violently) would leave massive, massive traces.  No-one would doubt the flood because it would be self evident.  Heck, we can tell when there is a local flood based on geological data far older than what we would need for Noah.

[norinco982lover]

Oh, WOW...did he really just use wikipedia as a source? My Comp I teacher would give us an F if we tried that...and my Comp II teacher specifically said he would physically THROW us out of class if we so much as mentioned wikipedia in a paper.

Tsk tsk.

That was what I was trying to say, mellestad-- you have found your own "proof" of why there are fossils on the mountains...while I have found mine.  

The fact is there ARE marine fossils found way way way above sea level...and the only way you can explain it is that they used to be underwater. Well, for the most part I agree with you...they were underwater during the flood...the Bible describes it here: 17And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

 18And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

 19And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

 20Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

skip to verse: 24And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

I'm sure a huge flood would tear apart mountains and possibly the tearing apart of the earth with fountains of water from the ground might create new mountains--some with sediment layers.

~Norinco

p.s. to answer mellestad's latest post: you don't believe in a global flood because of lack of physical evidence? What about the Grand Canyon? Garden of the Gods? Instead of throwing another couple billion years of erosion at everything why don't you consider the impact that a GLOBAL flood might have on the earth's rocks/soil?

[mellestad]

Oh, WOW...did he really just use wikipedia as a source? My Comp I teacher would give us an F if we tried that...and my Comp II teacher specifically said he would physically THROW us out of class if we so much as mentioned wikipedia in a paper.

Tsk tsk.

That was what I was trying to say, mellestad-- you have found your own "proof" of why there are fossils on the mountains...while I have found mine. 

The fact is there ARE marine fossils found way way way above sea level...and the only way you can explain it is that they used to be underwater. Well, for the most part I agree with you...they were underwater during the flood...the Bible describes it here: 17And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

 18And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

 19And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

 20Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

skip to verse: 24And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

I'm sure a huge flood would tear apart mountains and possibly the tearing apart of the earth with fountains of water from the ground might create new mountains--some with sediment layers.

~Norinco

p.s. to answer mellestad's latest post: you don't believe in a global flood because of lack of physical evidence? What about the Grand Canyon? Garden of the Gods? Instead of throwing another couple billion years of erosion at everything why don't you consider the impact that a GLOBAL flood might have on the earth's rocks/soil?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#References  <--  You can read through the actual sources at will.  If you don't like well sourced wiki articles, fine, I'll avoid those, Edit: if we both agree to back up our arguments with .edu sources.

I'm not seeing a refutation of what I wrote either, norinco.  Why are there only fossils on mountains with sediment layers?

A huge flood would not create mountains made of solid granite, nor would it remove them.  If you really want to push that idea then you need to cite sources that show such a thing explains mountain formation and fossils above current sea level.


What about the grand canyon?  Why would a global flood caused by rain carve out such a huge rent?

http://chem.tufts.edu/science/FrankSteiger/grandcyn.htm
http://geomorphology.sese.asu.edu/Papers/Luchitta_1990_Ch15.pdf
http://sorcerer.ucsd.edu/ERTH16/lecture04.pdf
http://www.jstor.org/pss/30065707

 

[MechAg94]

I would expect the fossil layer to consist of one massive block of sediment with fossils mixed through it based roughly on density and ability to precipitate out of the water/sea.  If the rain fall was too gentle, I would exect to find no sediment layer.

I was just answering norinco's question, I don't think fossils are the best proof against a literal world-flood.  I did not bring up fossils, I was just responding to norinco based on his own premise of fossil record=flood.  For me, the best proof (besides the impossibility of it) is the lack of physical evidence.

Miles of water set down that violently (or not violently) would leave massive, massive traces.  No-one would doubt the flood because it would be self evident.  Heck, we can tell when there is a local flood based on geological data far older than what we would need for Noah.

What massive traces exactly?  Do you think there would be an extra silt layer somewhere?  How could you tell it from any other?  In that short a time, it would just look like transition from one layer to the next.

[mellestad]

What massive traces exactly?  Do you think there would be an extra silt layer somewhere?  How could you tell it from any other?  In that short a time, it would just look like transition from one layer to the next.

It would leave a layer of debris, silt, destroyed civilizations and various physical markers, yes.  The reason we could tell it from any other is that the layer would be conistent all over the world...you could date it by radiometric methods, tree cores, ice cores, chemical composition of atmospheric traces in the minerals, etc.  Essentially, everywhere you dug you'd find this trace 5,000 years down, from the tallest mountain to the ocean to ice cores, etc. (or whatever date).

For example, there was a meteor impact call the K-T extinction event.  http://www.psi.edu/projects/ktimpact/ktimpact.html  This impact created a single layer of material over the entire planet.  Depending on where you live, you could literally dig a hole and find it yourself.  We can verify this all over the world.  It is the event that we traditionally associate with the destruction of the dinosaurs, because there is a sharp decline in the fossil record for anything younger than the thin strata this event created.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%93T_boundary  <-- I know I'm not supposed to use wikipedia, but outside my old geology textbook I can't find so many good pictures of the KT boundry in one place.

[MechAg94]

The KT boundary is a bit unique with trace materials that enable them to identify it with certainty all over the world.  What unique trace would a flood leave?  Personally, I think if it left anything of note it would be small/thin and easily overlooked. 

Civilizations have risen and fallen throughout man's history and people tend to build on top of past cities.  I think that part would not appear unique or obvious at all.

[mellestad]

The KT boundary is a bit unique with trace materials that enable them to identify it with certainty all over the world.  What unique trace would a flood leave?  Personally, I think if it left anything of note it would be small/thin and easily overlooked. 

Civilizations have risen and fallen throughout man's history and people tend to build on top of past cities.  I think that part would not appear unique or obvious at all.

You can date anything found in the layer though, and if the flood creation were correct people wouldn't be building on top of old cities until humanity had expanded that far out again.  It is a long way from Turkey to China, for example and we don't see any major break in Chinese civilizations during that time period.  Or Egyptian, for that matter.  As it stands, civilizations don't show any hiccups 5,000 years ago, they advance as normal.  Heck, the Egyptians were building pyramids at a steady rate though the entire time period and well past it.  If there was an extermination event it would take a very long time to go from Noah's family to a population large enough to build monuments of that size again, but we don't see a break during the time the flood supposedly happened.  http://www.allaboutcreation.org/noahs-flood.htm <-- Traditional time of flood, based on chronology in Bible.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids#Construction_dates  <-- Pyramid contruction dates


Edit:  And remember that during this time population growth was not anywhere near as fast as it is now.  No modern medicine, etc.  Even if you assume the flood happened earlier, it would have to be far, far older than what is traditionally assumed...population growth in pre-industrial societies is very slow.

2nd Edit:  And the KT layer is very small too, it would be easy to overlook, but scientists scrutinize every layer, even small layers.  They are all very important to the geological record.

[geronimotwo]

if there was enough water to cover the mountains, where did it go?  was it removed?  and by what method?  for me it is much easier to believe the mountains rose from the ocean through plate tectonics than for the water to leave our gravitational field.

[Matthew Carberry]

If the argument is coming from a "divine intervention" position the water doesn't have to "go" anywhere.  It simply "is not" anymore. 

This is the God who out of nothing spoke the whole of time and space into existence.  Dealing with a mere global flood's worth of water, within that position, with no effort is entirely internally consistent.  Conservation of mass and such simply do not apply.

[Harold Tuttle]

[280plus]

Sham WOW!! 

The other question that is brought to mind is that if your... uh,,,never mind... 

[geronimotwo]

If the argument is coming from a "divine intervention" position the water doesn't have to "go" anywhere.  It simply "is not" anymore.  

This is the God who out of nothing spoke the whole of time and space into existence.  Dealing with a mere global flood's worth of water, within that position, with no effort is entirely internally consistent.  Conservation of mass and such simply do not apply.

exactly, and thus the argument of fossils on a mountain is mute, as they could as easily be made to appear with no logical intent.  but i believe that in the story of noah he needed to wait for the waters to recede before exiting the ark.  that doesn't sound like "devine intervention".  at least not of the same magnitude as the world being thought into existance.  

[Jamisjockey]

I'm not much on apologetics.  Either you believe in what the book says, or you don't.  Trying to prove it all the time seems like a lack of faith to me.

[280plus]

I'm not much on apologetics.  Either you believe in what the book says, or you don't. Trying to prove it all the time seems like is a lack of faith to me.

FIFY although I must claim agnostic in this epic battle. Remember, I started out as a Catholic. 

[geronimotwo]

I'm not much on apologetics.  Either you believe in what the book says, or you don't.  Trying to prove it all the time seems like a lack of faith to me.

then what is the point of having a reasoning brain if not to provoke thought?

[Matthew Carberry]

I use my reasoning brain to try to understand Creation by the rules under which it appears to operate naturalistically as those also encompass the limits of my created pure-reasoning capability. 

When I find issues or incongruities I think, "Hey, science seems to have hit a bump. Glad I don't have to worry about that because I believe God can do whatever He wants whenever He wants, we'll either find an explanation or not.  Back to the science."

[mellestad]

I use my reasoning brain to try to understand Creation by the rules under which it appears to operate naturalistically as those also encompass the limits of my created pure-reasoning capability. 

When I find issues or incongruities I think, "Hey, science seems to have hit a bump. Glad I don't have to worry about that because I believe God can do whatever He wants whenever He wants, we'll either find an explanation or not.  Back to the science."

Are there parts of the Bible where you interpret passages in a non-literal way, or do you take Biblical accounts as gospel (haha, get it?) fully throughout?

Hypothetically, if evidence could show a Bible story is probably not literal or did not happen, would you alter your view of the Bible story to a non-literal one, or reject the science as being wrong/incomplete?

[Hawkmoon]

Are you saying the bolded portion is the original-recipe Christianity they wanted suppress?  If so, those people simply failed, because every English version of the Bible I've seen lays out exactly that.  Or do I misunderstand you?  

I believe he is taking a position similar to that espoused by one Martin Luther, that if the way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ, the existence of a priestly hierarchical class is essentially superfluous. Since the members of the hierarchical priestly class were probably cognizant at some level with the concept we call "job security," they probably weren't especially keen on retaining a bunch of scriptures that taught they were extraneous.

[Matthew Carberry]

Are there parts of the Bible where you interpret passages in a non-literal way, or do you take Biblical accounts as gospel (haha, get it?) fully throughout?

Hypothetically, if evidence could show a Bible story is probably not literal or did not happen, would you alter your view of the Bible story to a non-literal one, or reject the science as being wrong/incomplete?

I think you misunderstood my posts, I was explaining, as I understand it, the literalist position and why it is inherently consistent with doctrine as they understand it.

I take very little of the Bible "literally", which is not the same as saying I think it isn't "true".  Per the best scholarship on the subject much of Scripture is written, implicitly or explicitly as allegory, parable or any number of other recognized literary styles.  While they are telling what I believe to be essential truths about events or doctrine, they are not necessarily meant to be read as a science text or scholarly history as we understand it in the modern era.

The essential truth of Scripture is that man is special to his Creator, was given freedom yet chose pride over due trust and obedience.  Post Genesis, which is transcribed oral history like most perspective-based creation myths (which, again, doesn't mean it isn't essentially true), the nit-picky accuracy of any given account is less important than that it describes events to the end purpose of illustrating how God worked/is working His plan to redeem His creation and humanity through His infinite love and grace.

  

[Snowdog]

I can't bring myself to read all the posts in this thread being that right now it's 0430 and we ran out of "regular" coffee (graveyard shift) several hours ago.  However, I will say this:

I don't consider myself an intellectual in any particular fashion, but I must say that I find it amusing when people attempt to use science to prove or disprove biblical accounts.  I was raised a Christian and consider myself a Christian, but have absolutely no desire to set out to find “evidence” that such a story in the bible really happened (or didn’t happen).
I’m aware that some of my friends and family find this rather "apathetic credence" a bit confounding, but that’s how I live.  I believe in creationism and in evolution.  I don’t think my purpose for being was to convince myself of either, so I find comfort in faith and embrace scientific discovery.
I somehow doubt this thought process isn't exactly unique.

But if such discoveries of "proof" of biblical stories make other Christians feel more secure in their beliefs, more power to them... I guess. 

[mellestad]

I think you misunderstood my posts, I was explaining, as I understand it, the literalist position and why it is inherently consistent with doctrine as they understand it.

I take very little of the Bible "literally", which is not the same as saying I think it isn't "true".  Per the best scholarship on the subject much of Scripture is written, implicitly or explicitly as allegory, parable or any number of other recognized literary styles.  While they are telling what I believe to be essential truths about events or doctrine, they are not necessarily meant to be read as a science text or scholarly history as we understand it in the modern era.

The essential truth of Scripture is that man is special to his Creator, was given freedom yet chose pride over due trust and obedience.  Post Genesis, which is transcribed oral history like most perspective-based creation myths (which, again, doesn't mean it isn't essentially true), the nit-picky accuracy of any given account is less important than that it describes events to the end purpose of illustrating how God worked/is working His plan to redeem His creation and humanity through His infinite love and grace.

  

Cool, that answers my question.  Thanks!

[mellestad]

I'm not much on apologetics.  Either you believe in what the book says, or you don't.  Trying to prove it all the time seems like a lack of faith to me.

FIFY although I must claim agnostic in this epic battle. Remember, I started out as a Catholic. 

It is an interesting idea.  I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a literalist believer to see if I would want to prove the flood empirically, or just accept it as faith in general...

After some thought, I think I would just accept it as a giant miracle, and stop looking for proof to defend belief.  I mean, what are your options?  If the flood story is true, what had to happen?  Off the top of my head:

1.  Divine gift of knowledge about boat building.
2.  Divine intervention to transport animals from habitat to ark.  Doubly hard for critters with strange symbiotic relationships, short life spans, exotic or specific diets, slow movement speed, land animals on other continents, animals that could not survive habitats between local habitat and ark site, etc.
3.  Loading ~30,000,000 animals in the ark, in a day.
4.  Feeding and caring for all those critters for months.  For that matter, gathering food for animals with special diets (did Koala’s carry their own bamboo shoots, etc.)
5.  The source of the water.
6.  Where the water went.
7.  Saltwater fish not dying from change in salt levels, freshwater fish not dying from change in salt levels, delicate fish surviving temp changes, etc.
8.  Plant seeds surviving for months in water, then germinating and growing in climates they could survive, close enough to other species to pollinate, doubly hard for delicate plants, or plants with exotic life cycles that need very specific conditions.
9.  Insects making it back from the ark to wherever those plants germinated in time to continue the life cycle (and insects breeding fast enough to do the work).
10.  Carnivores having food to eat before prey animals are reestablished after the flood.
11.  Same issue for herbivores, insects, critters and plants, again, with exotic life cycles.
12.  Animals getting back to habitats after flood.
13.  Inbreeding for leftover animals, having enough genetic diversity to account for current diversity among populations.
14.  Humans, animals and plants must be protected from diseases until populations are reestablished.
15.  Micro-organisms that cause those diseases must be…I dunno, held in stasis until that point, or just re-created directly by God at the appropriate time.  For the ark too, there would have to be intervention to prevent disease but retain the capacity to create disease for the future.
16.  Human inbreeding.
17.  Humans establishing enough population to re-create civilizations like Egypt extraordinarily quickly.  Or make it to China in time to start those civilizations.
18.  Pressure changes in water due to additional depth
19.  etc.

I can go on, but the point is every single example above requires a literal miracle of one sort or another.  If that is the case, then why not just say the whole thing is a miracle?  Why look for physical proof when the entire episode necessitates miracles at every turn?  In such a story there isn’t any reason for there to have been any physical evidence, and there isn’t any reason to try and mount a scientific defense of the story anyway since you aren’t going to generate empirical evidence for any of these miracles.  Any physical evidence you do find isn’t going to answer the questions of a skeptic who brings up a list like the one above anyway, the best you can do is generate a list of assumptions about the methods God *might* have used to work His miracles, but they would still be miracles.

Then the only questions are philosophical, all the usual stuff.  Why kill everyone by drowning instead of just snapping your fingers and disappearing them, why would an omniscient being create something It knew It would need to destroy, how can God be good and do this, did the babies deserve to die, etc.  But at least those questions are within the realm of theology.

Long story short, were I a theist I think I’d be with Jamis and Snowdog.  (Which I am sure brings them both great comfort :) )

[sanglant]

you know, the bible never says Noah's was the only ark.