Different areas being covered in water at one time in history does not mean they were all covered by water at the same time.
two thoughts come up here.
1- itâs pretty obvious no one was around back then.
2- the dating concepts raise more questions than they do answers.
As such, what we think we know is more about speculation than actual fact.
As stated before-- Iâm good with that. If we spent less time speculating, and actually let the evidence speak for itself, Iâm confident that weâd get a lot farther than we are.
So, you actually know they were not covered at the same time? Based on what? Eyewitness observation?
And how do you know that the claimantâs testimony is reliable? Faith? Blind faith at that? How do you know they have integrity, and motivation to actually know the truth?
Iâll take Godâs testimony any day over people with whom I have no familiarity.
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Crimes committed without any witnesses are solved by forensic evidence all of the time. âWe werenât thereâ isnât a valid reason for denying the evidence.
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The dating concepts are just fine. The only people who question them are the ones whose religious beliefs are challenged by the measurements.
What speculation? We have the observations and the facts.
A global flood layer put down within the last 20,000 years would contain organic specimens that all have the same 14C content. This is not seen. We also have things like tree ring records and annual ice layer records that go uninterrupted during these periods.
All of the measurements they make can be made by anyone since all of these geologic records and specimens are available to anyone to test and measure.
Humans wrote Genesis. As far as I am aware, only the Muslim faith has God directly dictating scriptures in the Koran.
It is. Of long term slow erosion. The layers couldnât have been all laid down during a global flood. There are layers of sandstone that are composed of windborne sand that lie between layers of sandstone that are composed of waterborne sand. These are all layers that by the YEC reckoning were laid down during the flood. There are layers that contain insect and animal tracks and burrows, etc. etc.
And these massive deposits contain way more fossils than could possible have been alive all at the same time. For one species there are more than a quintillion (thatâs a billion, billon) remains in a small area. There isnât enough room in the ocean for all of these to have been alive at the same time.
Yes that is known as uplift and it results from plate tectonics. No flood needed.
It was simple geology that showed me the earth was way older than 10,000 years. Just as it did for the professional geologists way back when.
Special Formation? Sure, Iâm good with that. For me, a sinful nature can be passed on genetically, in that our weak and corruptible flesh is a genetic construct. But the actual sin part? We either go with the Eastern Orthodox idea of âno original sinâ - - or we go with the idea that God puts a module of original sin into our soul ⌠made for each one of us.
Oh for goodness sake⌠just say âGod made a miracle and flooded a planet that otherwise couldnât be flooded.â
While doing that, you could also propose that God covers the entire planet with molten lava, which he then converts into water. It would be just as easy for somebody like Yahweh⌠and until it becomes water, God holds the ark safely in his bosom, a few miles up in the air, until the water is âjust rightâ.
But why go through all that destruction? Why wipe out thousands and thousands of babies and toddlers?
Itâs a bit preposterous.
Good morning George.
Looks like you just did.
So, you actually LIKE evil, and think that humans should be allowed to destroy themselves, and everyone else, while theyâre committing all that evil?
Well, I have what I suppose could be classified as good news for you.
Jesus said that unless the days of the end would be cut short, no flesh would survive, but for the sake of the elect, they would be cut short.
I.e., humans will be given EXACTLY thatâ to become so evil that they would utterly destroy themselves, their fellow man, and planet earth.
I realize that the idea of Godâs judgment is odious to you, and you find it disconcerting, and indeed downright terrifying. Itâs actually SUPPOSED to bother you enough to get you to turn to Him, from your sin, so you can escape the coming calamity.
This is EXACTLY why Jesus came.
To save us from our sin, and evil.
So, hereâs the thing. According to Genesis 6, God said that the thoughts and intents of menâs hearts were only continually evil. And it was because of this that he was going to give humans 120 years to repent, and believe Him. I donât know about you, but thatâs over twice my present age. Seems like an awful long time to give people a chance to rectify their choices in life.
The next incidence we read where God is going to judge a people group is in Genesis 15. Heâs giving the people who are the indigenous peoples in the present land of Israel, formerly known as Canaan, 400 years to rectify their choices in life.
He gave the people of Egypt the same amount of time.
We further read that there are several people groups throughout history which are given increasing amounts of time to turn to God, from their sin, so as to escape the coming judgment on sin/evil.
So⌠why go through all that destruction?
Why indeed?
To save us from our stupidity, I suppose. It appears that God thinks enough of us to give us the opportunity to escape, and seek a safe haven, when it all starts to go sideways.
So⌠you get to decide⌠do you matter enough to take advantage of the gift God is giving you, or do you continue to mock, and disdain his kindness, and be like the others who think so poorly of themselves that they can just ignore it all?
The curious thing isâ the bible calls those who seek the safety of Godâs protection from judgment---- wise. IT calls those who ignore Godâs offerâ fools.
It further says that those who reject Godâs offer of eternal lifeâ consider themselves unworthy.
The very fact that God considers us worth warning of coming danger should be enough to rattle your noggin, and get you to think. He couldâve just brought down the proverbial hammer, without warning, and ended it all right there. But noooooooo⌠he actually gave the people who died in the flood 120 years to deal with it. We then see that he gave the next group of people 400 years. And the subsequent group of people 1000 to 1200 years, and itâs now up to 2000 years.
Thus, it strikes me that with each new people group, heâs increasing the length of time, so that we have the time to recognizeâ judgment is coming⌠am I going to be smart enough to take advantage of the safe haven being offered, or will I continue to act foolishly?
No one escapes judgment George. Every single human being will give an account for their lives.
Thatâs what those who believe the testimony of those who are of the belief that uniformitarianism is real, claim. As I recall⌠Mt. St. Helens blew that hypothesis out of the water 38 years ago.
Wow⌠so you were there? You actually got to see all of these different life forms exist, die, get deposited, ad-infinitum?
So, there were professional geologists back some 10,000+++++ years ago? ReallyâŚ
If you think the Mt. St. Helens eruption in the present can tell us how geology worked in the past, then you are also using uniformitarianism. Where YEC differs from standard geology is that YECs stop using uniformitarianism when it leads to conclusions they donât like. Geologists are consistent throughout in their use of uniformitarianism.
The âwere you there?â argument just doesnât work. Would you free everyone from jail who were convicted on the basis of forensic evidence?
Youâre still assuming that I am a YEC-er.
STOP IT!!!
And?
It appears to me that you assume I am looking for your agreement.
Do you think the Mt. St. Helens eruption in the present can be used to determine how geology worked in the past?
If yes, you are using uniformitarianism.
All right!
Then the following interpretation of mine is legitimate too:
One has to distinguish between Humanity as community of Image Bearers, and the evolving life-form Homo sapiens.
What you call âthe start (Gen 1:26-27)â means the moment when God made the first Image Bearers. So the Genesis 1:27 does not mean that God made at this moment the whole life-form Homo sapiens in his own image but God made a little percent of Homo sapiens to a community of Image Bearers: It is this community which is referred to as âhumankindâ (Humanity) in Genesis 1:27.
Only at the End of the Flood the whole life-form Homo sapiens was made in the Image of God and became totally and forever Humanity. In Billâs wording: the percentage of Image Bearers in the Homo sapiens population increased to 100% with Godâs decree in Genesis 9:6.
According to the teaching of Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 19: 4-6 and Mark 10:6-9) one cannot separate Genesis 1:26-28 from Genesis 2:21-24. And this means that the first community of Image Bearers received a clear commandment of God regarding Marriage. So the âbe fruitful and multiplyâ (Genesis 1:28) should to be fulfilled respecting the commandment: âWhat God has joined together, man must never separateâ (Matthew 19:6).
This means that being âImage Bearerâ is identical with being endowed with free will and capable of moral agency and sin.
So noting speaks against assuming that at the beginning of the Flood all Image Bearers (some hundreds of thousands) lived in Sumer. All these died in the miraculous Flood except Noah and his family.
The Homo sapiens creatures living outside Sumer were not Image Bearers capable of moral agency and sin. In this sense they were not part of Humanity and were not affected by the Flood just as the creatures of other living-forms.
Once again:
From Noahâs perspective the miraculous Flood was global.
From our perspective it was regional and universal.
And why should I not believe that the laws of physics are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? And this is NOT to say that God can not work a miracle.
How so? There have been volcanoes in all of the geologic record.
BTW, uniformitarianism does NOT mean that catastrophic events have not happened in the past.
No, but you can go to where the deposits exist and see them for yourself. It is the YEC Global Flood model that says they have to all have died at the same time. Which implies they were all alive at the same time.
The âWhere you there?â argument gets very tiresome. Observational science is used to solve murders all of the time but you donât argue that the evidence should be thrown out in court do you? After all the CSI wasnât there was she?
Hey, maybe I can be of help here:
Letâs show @T_aquaticus what youâre made of:
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Old Earther? - Approximately how old do you think the Earth is? Anything near 4 Billion is a good answer.
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Speciation? - Given enough years, any population with imperfect genetic replication (which is most every living thing) can divide and speciate. Do you concur?
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Human Common Ancestry? - Once we accept speciation, the default corollary is Common Ancestry. You canât have one without the other. Are you comfortable with the idea that Humans evolved from out of the animal kingdom?
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Godâs Guidance? God uses evaporation and the water-cycle to make it rain, apparently some times at a very specific time and place. Similarly, God used the natural inclination towards evolution of populations to produce the creatures and humankind that we see on the Earth today. While God might use natural energy sources (heat, light, chemical, physical, etc) as a source of specific/guided mutation and evolution, there doesnât appear to be a way - - so far - - to determine whether specific rain storms or species traits occurred solely through natural processes, or punctuated by divine or miraculous intercession.
Are you comfortable with #4?
@Steve_Buckley, how was your score ??!?!?!?!
Bill and Steve,
In my view your perspectives doesnât exclude each other.
On has to be aware that the concept of âlaws of physicsâ has profoundly changed with quantum physics.
Actually there are no such âlawsâ in the sense Galileo postulated:
âNature ⌠is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon herâŚâ
(Galileo Galilei, Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 1615).
Such a view
âturns out to be an illusion, created by overrating mathematico-logical concepts. It is an idol, not an ideal in scientific researchâ
(Max Born, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, in his Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1954).
The principles we use to describe nature are rules essentially probabilistic.
This means that on the one hand there is NO âlawâ forbidding miracles, that is, miracles transgress NO law; on the other hand miracles are highly improbable events and beyond human control.
Additionally according to quantum mechanics there can be parallel real worlds.
So for instance in Fatima (Portugal) on October 13, 1917, at 2 pm, 70â000 people watched the sun dancing in the sky, while about 2 billion people in the rest of the world see the sun following its usual trajectory. In this precise moment nature did behave differently in the Fatima world and in the outside-Fatima world.
Similarly for Noahâs Flood: Hundreds of thousands living in Sumer experienced the Flood according to the Genesis narrative as a global Flood, while creatures living outside Sumer remained unaffected by the Flood. As I have repeatedly claimed these creatures outside Sumer were NOT Image Bearers and consequently could not sin.
Accordingly uniformitarianism didnât hold for the people in Sumer during the Flood, while for us it is the appropriate description of the world before and after the Flood, and of the world outside Sumer even during the Flood.
In summary: Trying to find geological vestiges demonstrating the Flood may be an âimpossible missionâ, as impossible as trying to find astronomical records of Fatimaâs miracle of the sun.
At the quantum level yes. At the macro level Newtonâs Laws hold just fine.
Can doesnât mean there are.