I’m pretty syre that the Illiad went directly into writing and in fact was written into it’s popular form by Homer himself (mayhaps it was scribed by a servant in the form of dictation but same thing all around.). I wish I were home as my copy is there as are my copies of Norse and Greek mythos textbooks (I minored for a semested in the subjects).
But I guess if you want to be the most right then it’s no skin off my beak. Oh, as for Vikings, they were not called that amongst themselves. “Viking” is an occupation, it means to go out and accumulate wealthor provisions by trading and/or raiding. The people who called them that were those that didn’t speak the language well enough or got bad translations. Q: What are you doing!! A: We are Viking!. “Ohhh, they musbe be Vikings!”. Overall there are more common names for the north people amongst themselves such as “Northmen” and “Sea People” but often the names for them were more geographically specific as they were not typically united in large groups.
There are a lot of inaccurate beliefs about the Nordic people of that time period. The Viking thing is just one of them. Horns on helmets is another one. But, I’m sure you knew that.
Yes, Zen, you are indeed a wealth of information I already knew.
You are also dead wrong about the Iliad. I don’t have the time right now to hunt up specific dates, but IIRC the composition of the Iliad is usually dated to around the eighth century BCE, and the first time it was set down in writing to the fifth or sixth century. The poem was originally memorized (yes, all 15,000-odd lines of it. Kinda makes you feel stupid when you can’t remember a phone number, huh?) and recited at gatherings by a special class of entertainers, much like the Nordic skalds, although the name of the Greek version escapes me at the moment. Homer himself probably never exsisted, and there is some question as to wether the Iliad was originally written as an epic poem with one author, or is a compilation of shorter works by many poets. The same arguments, obviously, hold true for the Odyssey.
What is being argued here? I see Opus1 and Fenris defending the literal word of the Bible (even if they themselves don’t buy it). Who cares? Ok, so the Bible says the entire earth was flooded. You now have two choices:
The Bible is the inerrant word of God to be taken 100% literally. This argument leads you down a worthless path for arguments sake because you end up getting to what MEBuckner said so well as regards the Invisible Pink Unicorn problem (the more I hear about it the more I like the IPU). See earlier in this thread for MEB’s post in case you missed it.
The Bible is a collection of stories and the like which no one but the most rabid, foaming at the mouth fundamentalist would take 100% word-for-word. In that case it doesn’t matter that the Bible says the whole earth was flooded. It is enough to know that something happened and maybe there is a message worth listening to behind the words.
I think most people (ministers and priests included) would go with option 2. There is excellent evidence suggesting that a GLOBAL flood that could put Mt. Everest underwater did NOT happen in the last several thousand years. There is evidence, however, to suggest that Noah’s flood may have been the Mediterranean breaking through and creating what is now the Black Sea. Is it so hard to suppose that what must have been one of the most spectacular floods of all time was interpreted by those who lived there as an “end of the world God is going to kill us all” type flood? Remember, these are people who rarely travelled more than 20 miles from home. A flood on this scale sure would look like a global flood. Stories get told, twisted, retold and eventually end up in the Bible.
It’s either that or the “God can do anyting God wants and make it all look like anything God wants afterwards” arguments.
There remains 3 possiblities: 1. Miracles- solves everything, including Carlsbad, whaere the water came from, etc… 2. Poetic license- said “entire world” when they meant “their world”. In both these cases the Bible is inerrant. 3. (Most likely) memories of huge, but local floods were 'epic-ized" into the flood story- in this case the OT could be considered 'errant". In no way, have I ever said the Bible is inerrant.
gollum- there are many Biblical discussions which are not “beating a dead horse”. We can, and acrcheologists do, discuss how correct the Conquest is compared to actual history, or the accuracy of later OT history. Or hwo actually wrote the Gospels, or whether JC was a real person.
There’s a fourth option that you’re missing, which is the one the discussion is about:
The vast majority of ‘scientific’ creation sites (including C.R.I. I might add) are arguing that A) the flood was global B) the Bible is literally true and C) it can all be ‘scientifically’ explained.
I still want to know if anyone knows how this group of people explain the questions I posted above. (Note: They don’t brush it off as a ‘miracle’.
I just wanted to mention I found an interesting site that attempts to explain the flood as scientifically as possible, even though the author seems to be grasping at straws a few times.
You could have just as easily said “True Evolutionists” or “True hatch-from-cosmic-eggists”, why do you specifically pick out JCers from all the major religions to pick on? I pitty the man that must resort to childish name calling…
It suprises me how anti-religious (anti-God) alot of atheists are. A true Atheist should be a-religious.
-Fox
“Minds are like parachutes: They only function when open.” (this goes for fundies AND atheists)
“I can’t explain myself,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” -Alice’s Adventure Under Ground
#1) How do they explain what happened to the salt water or fresh water fishes? Depending on what the saline content of the hyper-diluted oceans would be, either all the salt-water fish should die, or the fresh-water ones should. Or both.
Yes, but this did happen. Look into the Permian mass extinction.
“Ninety to ninety-five percent of marine species were eliminated as a result of this Permian event. The primary marine and terrestrial victims included the fusulinid foraminifera, trilobites,rugose and tabulate corals, blastoids, acanthodians, placoderms, and pelycosaurs, which did not survive beyond the Permian boundary. Other groups that were substantially reduced included the bryozoans, brachiopods, ammonoids, sharks, bony fish, crinoids, eurypterids, ostracodes, and echinoderms.”
And thats just taking one mass extinction. If the Creationists are correct (and I dont really think they are about this) All these mass extinictions happened from the flood at the same time, so you can add to this a large portion of marine life, especially from the Cambrian, Pre-Cambrian, Vendian, and Ordovician mass extinction events.
Fenris said, #2) Ever been to Carlsbad Caverns? It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. But it wouldn’t be if six thousand years ago (give or take) a huge tidal wave of salt-water rushed in. Not only would delicate formations that took eons to build be destroyed, the cave’s “ecology” would be ruined. And even if Carlsbad somehow continued to be a living cave (the formations still growing), there hasn’t been time since the flood for those formations to have grown to the size they are.
Intriguing question… Im gonna have to take a couple wild stabs at it…
Something accelerated the formation.(IMHO the most unlikly) Perhaps liquefaction accelerated the process astronomically. For those of you who do not know, LQ is a rare event where the ground liquifies from various triggers such as an earthquake, etc. This has been documented to topple, sink, or ‘float’ buildings; ‘float’ massive concrete tanks to the top of the ground, sometimes even through asphalt. How would this cause the structures in the caverns? Perhaps it caused the limestone to turn into the consitancy of mud which quickly (over hundreds of years) formed early ‘baby’ formations which continued to grow over the next few thousand years.
The flood formed the cave. according to the Hydorplate Theory (link below) the water that covered the planet had masive amounts of CO2 disolved in it. According to the US Geological Survey (Link Below) limestone caves are formed by “The water, combining chemically with the carbon dioxide, forms a weak carbonic acid solution. This acid slowly dissolves calcite, forms solution cavities, and excavates passageways. The resulting calcium bicarbonate solution is carried off in the underground drainage system.” Perhaps this extreemly carbonized water is what etched out the caverns and formed the wonderfull features of the caverns. You may be thinking “if the water had very high levels of carbonic acid in it, wouldnt it burn/melt the people, animals, etc as it fell as rain?” Not quite. As most of you are probably aware, carbonic acid is the primary ingrediant of that can of Soda in your hand there. The carbonic acid level in the water would be less than that in your sprite.
The limestone was formed by the flood. According to the hydroplate theory, most of the limestone that exists today was formed by the flood. Perhaps as this limestne formed it formed into the caves. (nit much evidence for this one…)
A combination of the previous 3 such as: The original flood created vast sheets of Limestone. As the flood waters slowly drained away, it formed the features of the cave. Over time (a few thousand years) these features continued to grow.
The scientists are wrong (hey, they’ve been wrong many times before…) Many features similar to those in Carlsbad Caverns have been found in MAN-MADE structures such as the Crypts of Paris and Rome, old(not ancient) Gold/Iron/Coal mines, and even the sewers of some older cities. Perhaps the scientists are way off about how long it takes these features to form?
Final note: The Hydroplate theory is the most scentific flood ‘theory’ i’ve found. The Criteria for Evaluating Theories is: Process(is it an adequate explanation?), Parsimony(does it not require many assumptions?), Prediction(can it be used to make observable predictions?). The hydroplate theory passes all these tests very well. This is surprising because Evolution barely passes #2 (evolution starts with many, many assumptions). It doesnt even start with the assumption: “God Created the World”. Anyway, heres a link once again. I would like to see some counter-arguments against this theory (and that means you will have to read it). http://www.indirect.com/www/wbrown/onlinebook/hydroplate/hydroplate1.html
-Fox
P.S. Can someone please tell me or direct me to a link where I can learn how to do the indentation and other fancy stuff for the quotes like y’all do, or is it just regular HTML?
“Minds are like parachutes: They only function when open.” (this goes for fundies AND atheists)
“I can’t explain myself,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” -Alice’s Adventure Under Ground
Nintey to ninety-five percent is a long way from all. Since salt water fishes die in fresh water and vice-versa, there’s got to be some explanation of why some fishes survived if teh theory is to be acceptable.
FWIW, modern genetic techniques can be used to assess approximately how long ago a species passed through a “genetic bottleneck” when there were relatively few of that species alive, and those bottlencks that have been found appear not to correlate in time and not to cluster anywhere in the last few ten-thousands of years.
I am not a geologists, but my recollection from what reading I’ve done is that LQ occurs only in particular formations (e.g. thixotropic clays). Limestone is not one of those formations.
Sounds to me as if you are saying that diluted Sprite would etch caverns out of limestone at a relatively high rate. Should be easily testable. My gut feeling is that you’d need a level of acid high enough to knock off any remaining marine life or animals that were immersed in the solution.
It’s pretty well known that the limestone that exists today was not formed by a flood. There are many who have confused the formation of limestone with the setting of concrete. They’re not comparable. A good reference for this and many other issues is Science and Earth History : The Evolution/Creation Controversy (the typography is horrible; I’d love to know who decided to set a large-format two-column book in something that looks like 10 point Courier: but the content is great). (BTW, this book is quoted and referenced extensively on the hydroplate web site to which you referred).
Well, I’d ask “How similar? Superficially similar, or indistinguishable, or what?”. I’d be very surprised if a comprehensive destructive examination could not distinguish between a stalactite that formed over thousands of years in a cavern and an object that looks like a stalactite but formed over tens or hundreds of years wherever.
Beware. Many psuedoscientists are adept at appearing scientific until the hard questions are asked.
At a quick glance:
“Figure 38: Continental Fit Proposed by Edward Bullard. Can you identify four distortions in this popular explanation of how the continents may have once fit together? First, the area of Africa has been shrunk by 40%. (You may need to look at a globe and compare Africa’s length and width with those of South America.) Second, Central America, southern Mexico, and the Caribbean islands have been removed. Third, an east-west slice was made through the Mediterranean and Europe was rotated counterclockwise and Africa was rotated clockwise. Finally, the continents were rotated relative to each other.”
The first point sounds like a possible distorton that I’d like confirmed before believing it, the second may be just a simplification or a lack of knowledge, and the third and fourth are not distortions; they’re just part of the theory.
His section on “Since We See Galaxies Billions of Light-Years Away, Isn’t the Universe Billions of Years Old?” is totally off the wall. “Astronomer Barry Setterfield of Australia has studied these measurements, especially their precision and experimental errors. His results show that the speed of light has apparently decreased so rapidly that experimental error cannot explain it!” No, only fudging and possibly fraud can explain finding a decrease when there is no reason to believe or data that indicates that any decrease exists: see The Decay of c-decay. “There is no physical reason why the speed of light must be constant. Most of us simply assumed that it is, and of course, changing old ways of thinking is sometimes difficult.” No, if the speed of light were different or changing in any meaningful way, there would be lots of side effects that we would easily detect.
His section on “How Old Do Evolutionists Say the Universe Is?” appears to be pretty incoherent. My BS-meter starts quivering whenever someone talks about cosmology and astrophysics in a section about evolutionists; evolution requires significant time for the proposed changes to happen, but he’s talking about times far beyond what’s required for evolution and is not relevant to the theory of evolution.
His section on “Earth Sciences: The Earth Has Experienced a Worldwide Flood” subsection “Archaeological Evidence Indicates That Noah’s Ark Probably Exists” contains six anecdotes, and no references or supporting evidence other than lie detector tests. This is evidence? Interestingly, he doesn’t mention Ron Wyatt.
In the “The Seemingly Impossible Events of a Worldwide Flood Are Really Quite Plausible, If Examined Closely” subsection of that same page: “Is there enough water to cover all of the earth’s preflood mountains in a global
flood? Most people do not realize what a large volume of water there is on the earth. The oceans have ten times more water than there is land above sea level.” True, but misleading; it takes a lot more water than there is land above sea level to cover all that land, unless the land is much flatter (which is part of his theory). “Every major mountain range on the earth contains fossilized sea life—far above sea level .” True, and the hypothesis that a flood caused this was examined by Leonardo da Vinci and rejectd, as it has been rejected by many scientists since; it just doesn’t stand up under the close examination mentioned in the subsection title. “Practically every ancient culture has legends telling of a traumatic flood in which only a few humans survived in a large boat. The same cannot be said for other types of catastrophes, such as earthquakes, fires, volcanic eruptions, disease, or drought.” Really? I can’t prove, but strongly beleive, that the same can be said for other types of catastrophes. " These more than 230 flood legends contain many common elements …" {and many unique elements and contradictory elements; e.g. many of them do not involve a boat: see Flood Stories from around the World) “… suggesting that they have a common historical source that left a vivid impression on the survivors of that catastrophe.” Or suggesting that local floods happen all over the world, and they leave vivid impressions. “Could the Ark have held all the animals? Easily.” Hardly. The linear dimensions given for the ark are about twice as large as the largest wooden vessel ever built in historical times, and that vessel required iron bracing and still was barely floatable. Also see Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study
Well, that’s about all I have time for now. I bounced arouond his site and looked at several psuedo-randomly chosen areas, and they’re full of holes.
It’s not regular HTML; it could be, but there was a security problem and HTML was turned off. See vB Codes. This same link is at the bottom of every message display page (in fine print).
Most of these are written by Glenn Morton, a former Young Earth Creationist and (I believe) not an OEC as claimed in the second reference: see About the Author.
foxfyre, what was it you were saying over here about good science not piling on with the assumptions?
"Perhaps liquefaction accelerated the process astronomically. "…“Perhaps this extreemly carbonized water is what etched out the caverns and formed the wonderfull features of the caverns.”…“Perhaps the scientists are way off about how long it takes these features to form?”
Now really. Which side has a more rickety set of ad hoc assumptions here?
Like I said when I listed those possible Ideas, they were just ‘wild stabs’ at the question. I never claimed that it was the truth, very plausable, or anything else. Notice the heavy use of ‘perhaps’ in the list items. Those were just a few possibilities that could/should be investigated to see how plausable/possible they are. Someone investigated them and deemed that all of them are not plausable at all.
Thought I’d toss in my favorite “support” for the vapor canopy hypothesis.
Long-time dinosaur enthusiasts will recall that there was a time when palentologists weren’t real clear on how pterodactyls could fly. (Nowadays, of course, it’s understood pretty well–models have even been built which fly like pteradons.) A creationist told me that the vapor canopy would increase the atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface. Since the air was more dense, that would explain how pterodactyls could fly! Q.E.D.
Anyway, even though I think the vapor canopy Idea is preposterous, Ive always wondered why orbital ice was never considered.
What I mean is a ring like jupiter or saturn or even a thick ‘sphere’ of pebble or micrometeor size.
And what about the other theories that have been proposed. These are all just conjecture on my part and Ive tried to relay them here by memory as acturatly as possible.
A huge wave that circled the globe for some reason. (Im sure this theory doesnt hold much merit, I saw it on the Discovery Channel.) I think they said something about a crustal shift could have caused it.
Or an even more mundain reason, the icecaps melting. Perhaps a runaway greenhouse effect started long before Noah’s time. As the Icecaps melted the sea level would probably rise and introduce more water vapor into the global
ecosystem. Perhaps this built up until one final catastropic rain storm. (This is sounding more and more unlikley. WAY too many assumptions in this one)
Or what about a smallish (1/4 mile?) ice comet (or many smaller ones) struck the ocean. This would send a huge column of super-heated water into the upper astmosphere. It would relativly quickly condense back into liquid water and fall back down. By then it could be half way around the world falling in a torential downpoor. (I like the several smaller comets idea) It would also send a massive ‘tidal’ wave around the world, which may have been big enough to cover XXXXX mountain to a depth of YY cubits. Of course, theres no natural way for the ark to have lasted past this wave. Unless Noah’s locale flooded from the torential downpour (or from an unrelated event) and the Ark got washed out to deep, deep sea. (this theory does not have much to stand on…)
AS for where the water went, it is irrelavent for a couple of those theories. For the others, what about the ice caps? Is there enough water as ice in the whole world to cover all the land?
Sources: Deep Impact Waterworld The Discovery Channel PAX TV
All of this is moot anyway, the Flood is part of the religion and therefore should be accepted by faith (by the believers). It is as irrelevent to figure out how the flood happened as it is (for a believer) to try to figure ‘why’ there is a God or ‘how’ he happened. If you (a JCer) can belive he created the world in 6 days then why can’t you believe he created tons and tons and tons, of water and then made it vanish? I guess what Im trying to say is the same thing you all are saying and that is with an all powerfull God ‘how’ it happened doesnt matter. (although I dont think the bible lists it as a ‘miracle’) The only thing worth doing is to look for evidence of the flood. (which there is but Occams Razor eliminates the Flood from being the cause of it)
Speaking of which, back when I was a young kid I always thought the statement that the fossils, strata, etc, was formed by the flood sounded unusual. I thought it sounded ALOT like the statement to Galileo(sp???) from the schoolars of time: “The earth is the center of the solar system. The other planets and the sun circle the earth in such unusual orbits that it appears that the earth is going around the sun”. But who knows, Occam’s Razor doesnt always hold true.
Any crustal shift or astronomical-body impact large enough to cause a world-wide flood would have made the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretacous look like a Sunday-school picnic. We would see many traces, were anything at all left alive to look.
All the ice and snow in the world adds up to about 34,000,000 cubic kilometers of water. It would take about 4,500,000,000,000 cubic kilometers of water to cover the Earth to the tip of mount Everest. That is, ignoring the fact that melting the North polar cap wouldn’t raise sea level much because the North polar cap is floating, there’s about 132,000 times too little water in all the ice and snow on Earth to cause the Noachian flood unless the Earth’s topography was a lot flatter.
Oh, it’s been considered, all right. There’s lots of problems. Where did it come from? What knocked it out of orbit?
My favorite is heat. Consider the ice as being at absolute zero and in a reasonably low-Earth orbit. The difference in potential energy between low-Earth orbit and resting on the Earth’s surface would be enough to vaporize the water and raise the temperature of the atmosphere by hundreds or even thousands of degrees, and the addition of all that water vapor would raise the pressure of the atmosphere by a large factor. A little difficult for Noah to live through …
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