Is there any obvious evidence today for the biblical global Flood?

[Derf]

Sea Turtles exist now, creation was finished at the end of day six and evolution is a myth. Therefore, Sea Turtles existence at the beginning.

Turtles, perhaps, but maybe not Sea Turtles. They could have been lake turtles or river turtles. They might have laid eggs out in the open, if the environment permitted and lack of predators permitted it. God seems to have made creatures that can adaptor to their environs.

 

[Right Divider]

Nearly identical is probably overstated. Substantially similar would do.

Agreed.

Sea Turtles exist now, creation was finished at the end of day six and evolution is a myth. Therefore, Sea Turtles existence at the beginning.

The original "turtles" may not have been "sea turtles". The "evolution" that is a myth is the idea of a single common ancestor. The Biblical view is not that the kinds are fixed forever. So that means that not every species that exists today was there from the beginning.

Why would you assume they weren't?

Because I can see that things do change over time.

Quite so! But without any evidence supporting the contrary, it is the best place to start. This is the world that God made.

I simply believe that actual impacts make more sense. I realize that we will never agree on this.

 

[JudgeRightly]

There is room for nuance in the interpretation that could include a canopy.

But it isn't implied, naturally.

You have to read "canopy" into the text in order for it to imply that there was a canopy, and that's just not how things are done.

That's a viable interpretation. But it's still an interpretation that has room for variation depending on the evidence and there is evidence for a canopy.

An interpretation based on a priori beliefs.

Really? You are accusing me of adding to scripture because I don't necessarily agree with your interpretation?

I'm accusing you of adding to scripture because you're insisting that the scriptures imply that there was a canopy where none is stated.

Sure. And it could possibly also be explained by a canopy.

Only if you read it into the text.

I was describing your view. For you to read that and say the idea falls apart is pretty funny. Here, read it again with underlining:

"It could also mean that every time it rained, at least to Noah, that he wanted to differentiate rain from normal watering he was used to since he hadn't seen rain like this before. So he added a phrase to let people know this wasn't the usual water the way they normally got it, but a crazy new form that came from the heavens in such great amounts it was like floodgates were opened."

Again, Noah didn't write anything, as far as we know.

Moses is the one who wrote Genesis, inspired by God.

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

... this is exactly what I say, with the implication that the fountains (cause) tore through the canopy (effect).

In other words, you're assuming there was a canopy that was torn through.

My position, on the other hand, assumes only what is stated by scripture.

See the difference?

Answer the question about how it got destroyed? What are you talking about?

No, as to what it was. I apologize, I apparently forgot to finish my sentence.

Why does that take a miracle? What miracle are you talking about?

Keeping your supposed canopy aloft requires the violation of the laws of physics. AKA, a miracle.

Sure it does. It says 'windows of heaven' which was possibly a canopy. I'd speculate God didn't have to mention it separately because it was a technical detail of the atmosphere outside of the scope of the creation story.

So why are you immediately jumping to "canopy"? Why not the "flying spaghetti monster"? In other words, what evidence do you have to positively assert that there was a canopy?

Sure it does. floodgates and sluices are things water is channeled through, which adds to the idea of a thing the water went through while water coming back down is an event not a thing.

The simplest solution is often the correct one.

Why are you assuming canopy, when the water went through the atmosphere with the fountains, and then returned through the atmosphere as though floodgates were opened?

Why the need to add "canopy" to that?

It can be ripped open.

There is no indication of being "ripped open" anywhere in scripture that it describes the windows of heaven.

And all figures break down at some point and is well within understanding the destroyed canopy ending or stopping to mean closed.

Or, as the video I posted earlier showed, it was simply a matter of the fountains being suppressed enough to not launch water high enough into the atmosphere for it to come down as though floodgates were opened, a purely physical process.

It certainly is so that 'windows of heaven' is a figure that needs to be interpreted because it could have some variation in what it's referring to. It could be referring to an event or to a feature of the atmosphere that changed.

Supra.

The rain stopped long before the water receded explains the canopy just as well

But you have to add "canopy" to the process, where scripture only says "windows of heaven."

because it doesn't mean anything to a canopy at all at that point in the text.

In other words, a "canopy" has nothing to do with the process, so why bother?

You keep saying that the rain stopping before the water receded says something against the canopy. Can you spell that out?

I linked to a video earlier. The link takes you to the relevant section of the video, and I told you to watch until a certain point (because after that point, Brian Nickel moves onto a different subject).

Did you not bother to watch it?

If you did, then what about that process, which is just a small-scale representation as to what is proposed to have happened by the HPT, implies that there needs to be a canopy of some sort?

Clearly, as I've been describing the canopy, that couldn't mean anything to/about/for the canopy and in fact would be expected because it would probably have been a wispy thing that would have broken down quickly.

Expected, how? All I've seen so far is conjecture.

Who are you talking to?

YOU! Who else!

Since I've repeatedly, again and again, and with much redundancy said I don't support VPC, this isn't addressed to me.

There are other questions that pertain to your theory as well on that page, and it is addressed to ANY form of "canopy." That means yours as well.

But I'm willing to answer some questions in that section anyway:

What was the canopy made from? I'm not sure of the mix of elements that made it, but I would be more inclined to say there was some water involved, but it did not necessarily need any water at all.

What was its construction? I'd have even less speculation about this not knowing what it was made from, and knowing it did not necessarily need to have any water at all.

Was it fragile? Certainly. It probably would have taken a lot less than the fountains of the great deep ripping through it to take it down. It's just that before the flood nothing drastic enough to do that had happened.

How about heat? How does your idea deal with the heat that a canopy would trap?

If I remember correctly, there was a simulation run at some point, and it found that just a 4" canopy of water above the earth would be enough to boil everything alive.

How about the final "Response" on this page?

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Arguments for a Canopy—and Brief Responses

hpt.rsr.org

Where are the canopy interpretations that predate Vail's in 1874?

The reference was not to the canopy but to the sequence of events. Let me rephrase to make it clear:

"What are you talking about? Of course if there was a canopy it was ripped through before it came down. That's probably what would have brought the canopy down if it was there. I'm still not seeing why you think the rain happening after the fountains broke open does not allow for a canopy when that's exactly how a canopy being brought down would be described.

Supra, re: the video link.

In case you weren't aware, one of the premises of the entire HPT is that it aims to explain the Global Flood through as many purely physical processes as possible.

A canopy above the earth does not comport to that premise.

Notice this does not change the meaning of what I said, but still makes a statement that implies a question you did not answer.

Because it's a figure that matches the previous one. Certainly something that was destroyed is stopped.

Why did it take 40 days for it to be destroyed then, if it was so fragile?

Your idea isn't consistent with scripture.

The windows of heaven were open for 40 days and nights. The canopy you propose was, as you stated, "certainly" fragile, and "probably would have taken a lot less than the fountains of the great deep ripping through it to take it down."

How does something that fragile last for 40 days and then "close"?

Alternately, it's explained by the video link above, no canopy required, through purely physical means.

What are you talking about? Why does what you say here matter to the canopy as I've described it? What you are saying here is exactly what I say, so it's nothing against what I say just because you say it.

I think there is a communication disconnect where you think this somehow means something about/for/against the idea of a canopy. I can't figure out what it is though.

Let me try going through each part:
it's a cause and effect sequence
It certainly is.

Water launched into the air, water comes back down (as though floodgates were opened), and water continues coming down for forty days
Exactly. And this is where the canopy got destroyed. Opened, like a piece of glass, as it were.

After forty days, the waters remained on the earth for one hundred fifty days, despite the windows of heaven being closed.
Yes. I describe it with exactly the same words in the same order. The canopy was gone after 40 days, changing the atmosphere from then on.

Supra.

Maybe the disconnect is in the word "despite". 'Despite' what? I'd say "despite the rain stopping the great deep continued to empty".

There is no reason to assume a canopy just because the rain stopped after 40 days. There is a reason to speculate there was a possible canopy because the windows of heaven are mentioned, which is a figure that could very well include a canopy,

Conjecture.

and there are clues about differences in a pre-flood atmosphere that could have their explanation in a canopy.

Answered here:

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Did It Rain before the Flood? What Generated the Preflood Mist?

And just one more note: Moses wrote Genesis, but he could have very likely gotten an account of the flood from something Noah wrote. Bob Ball, I don't know if you remember him but he was a rocket scientist that used to frequent TOL before his passing and was a YEC, a strong advocate for many topics you would agree with including HPT. He was a friend and supporter of Bob Enyart and they spoke face to face on occasion because both Bobs were in South Bend where Enyart did his TV show for a while. Bob Ball was an advocate for the tablet theory, although he never mentioned Wiseman, he did link to a Curt Sewell article, where Wiseman is brought up, that I think explains it at least as well as wiki. But either way, if it were God that was dictating to Moses or if Moses was editing a compilation of the tablets he had, the style of the flood account itself is somewhat more a log book and less prose according to Bob (either Bob if I recall), and in any case is an account of what happened to Noah and how Noah would have written the account if he wrote it down.

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

For the same reason He created fully mature trees, rivers with river rocks in them and beaches with sand and huge cliffs made from lime stone and a thousand other things that present the Earth as mature.

I'm partial to this idea...

* 2013 Update: See this by AiG astronomer Danny Faulkner, A Proposal for a New Solution to the Light Travel Time Problem, in the peer-reviewed Answers Research Journal! Dr. Faulkner mentioned that for the Day 3 creation of plants, God may have supernaturally pulled the plants out of the ground, and that this may be an analogy for how He stretched out the heavens on Day Four, causing the stars to undergo hyper-stellar-nucleosynthesis and actually, though supernaturally, pulling the light from the farthest stars across the universe to the Earth (and perhaps beyond). RSR extends this supernatural stretch cosmology in various particulars including by asking (and answering) why is it that by the end of Day 4 some stars had expended their available energy and others, nearly so, would run out of energy and supernova as observed more recently. And we add the following. If the supernatural-to-natural boundary (SN2NB), where the laws of physics take over when God rests from His creative work, occurred earlier or later on Day 4, determines whether or not a physics theory is even theoretically helpful to explain how distant starlight arrived during that 24-hour period on Earth. If God supernaturally created the starting conditions after which the light would then naturally propagate to Earth, the SN2NB, at least conceptually, could have been earlier on Day 4 at which point God could watch the laws of physics take over for the completion of that Day's events. God liked His creation and would sometimes use the laws that He had brought into existence to perform even some of His subsequent miracles. So an "earlier" SN2NB is certainly possible. On the other hand, if God supernaturally performed most of what happened on that day, including the stretching of the light throughout the cosmos by miraculous means, that would put the SN2NB, at least conceptually, later on Day 4 and would make unneeded any physical theory about how that light naturally arrived on Earth. In fact if God's supernatural creative act was the effective means whereby light arrived on Earth, then creationist physical cosmologies themselves, while creative and even possibly ingenius, would each represent a dead end. The creation movement would be stronger if theorists and advocates readily communicated where they see the SN2NB and, if possible, why they see it there. * The Day Three Analogy: The Bible states eleven times in five of its books that God stretched out the heavens (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Isa. 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; & Zech. 12:1). Regarding this repeated description, Genesis 1:11 may be literally communicating an aspect of how God created plants, by rapidly and supernaturally pulling them up from the ground. The English word sprout is translated from the Hebrew tad-se, used in Genesis 1 not for the creation of animals but only for plants, and meaning to sprout or to shoot [out]... Gen. 1:11: "And God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation...'" See an animation of this happening in the first 10 seconds of the trailer for Genesis: Paradise Lost. The Hebrew word translated "sprout" appears in Scripture only in Genesis 1:11. The word daw-shaw', considered related, appears in Joel 2:22, the "pastures are springing up..."

RSR: Stretch Cosmology | KGOV.com

kgov.com

Well, I just brought them up as major examples of major geological features that would seem to have no explanation other than, "God made it that way.", if the universe was created 6000 years ago, as we both believe and as the Hydroplate Theory presupposes.

7500, roughly...

And I would agree with you.

But asteroids, comets, TNOs, etc., don't look like they were "made that way" by God.

They look like piles of pulverized rock and giant boulders that were rounded by water.

We have proof of super novas that occurred in galaxies that are multiple millions of light years away. To use your line of reasoning, super novas are usually caused by exploding stars.

I would agree that super novae are the result of exploding stars, but I'm not sure what that has to do with "my line of reasoning..."

I, for one, don't have any problem with believing that God created the universe with already exploded stars in it and then created the light from those exploded objects in such a manner that permits us to see the explosion happen some 6000 years later.

This takes us down the "one-way speed of light problem" path.

As far as I know, we both hold to the same position on that front.

The thing I have to keep in mind, however, is that this kind of thinking can easily lead to the creation of an unfalsifiable worldview where I allow myself to toss anything I want into the "God did it." catch all bin of things I don't want to have to explain. But I'm intellectually honest enough to not only be aware of this danger and to careful not to allow myself to go too far down that road, which translates to holding such beliefs at arms length, know that they could be wrong and not allowing myself to be dogmatic about them.

Indeed. That would be a "divine fallacy."

How so?

Aren't you begging the question there?

First of all, an object impacting the moon poses no threat to anyone and I have no doubt that God would have prevented any impacts from being harmful on the Earth, or from happening at all, prior to the fall of Adam.

Again, this assumes that there was something that would have impacted the earth to begin with.

We're saying that there wasn't, prior to the flood.

Absolutely. Otherwise my point wouldn't hold.

It doesn't hold if the rate of impacts has gone down, which you cannot assume the rates were always constant.

For you to assume otherwise would be to beg the question.

Is it though?

Wouldn't it be begging the question to assume that the rates have always been the same?

The point is that, if the rate of impacts has been the same, then no, there is not enough time. On the other hand, if the rate has changed over time, and was higher or lower in the past, then it's possible that some catastrophic event (in this case, the Flood), is what caused those impacts (which the HPT readily answers with the debris launched by the fountains of the great deep).

Something has to explain the craters there. HPT says the FotGD caused them (and implies higher impact rates in the past than there are today). You, otoh, seem to reject the notion out of hand (not saying you are, just that that's what it seems like) because the current impact rates don't support it, and ASSUME that the rates have always been the same (which is why you say it would have taken billions of years), and because you say there wasn't enough energy to launch the debris that far.

And you also state (indirectly) the possibility that God made it that way.

Can you see the difference between our positions?

The HPT provides a purely physical process for the purpose of explaining how the Solar System is in its current state.

Your position seems to be rooted in miracles that aren't stated by scripture. Not saying you're wrong because of that, but at the very least, your position doesn't seem like it has a firm foundation.

Where's the :doh: smiley when you need it!

I flatly reject the notion that ANY object that was geologically ejected from the surface of the Earth could possibly make it to Jupiter, never mind the trillions of objects that it would take to account for the cratering on just one of its moons, which would, by definition, have to be a tiny percentage of the whole mass of the objects that made it that far, and trillions of more objects making it to Mercury would be even more difficult!

On what basis do you reject it?

Also, if this were even close to true, our Moon would be, by far and away, the most heavily cratered object in the solar system not a moon that's 480 million miles away.

What do you think the dark patches on the Earth-side of the moon are?

It actually is, as you say, "the most heavily cratered object in the solar system."

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Comets

hpt.rsr.org

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Why did the Moon Roll—and When?

hpt.rsr.org

I recommend going here, to the entry for "moon" and browsing the sub-entries.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Index Letter M

hpt.rsr.org

Sorry, but it just goes from implausible to utterly impossible for this to have happened. There's just no way!

Because you say so?

An appeal to incredulity is a fallacy.

And in this case, you're actually cutting yourself off!

The near side of the moon has those dark spots because (as per the HPT) that's where most of the debris that hit the moon struck, enough to literally melt the surface!

A modified version of both put together might be interesting to consider. If plasma cosmology is even partially correct, it could go a long way toward explaining, not only the cratered surfaces of planets and moons but a great many geological features throughout the solar system.

I can kind of agree.

It would also provide a whole new set of possibilities when it comes to triggering events for the beginning of Noah's flood and would do away with the need to postulate that geological forces on Earth could be sufficient to create billions of craters on bodies throughout our solar system.

I don't see a need, since as far as I can tell, the HPT sufficiently provides for such forces for such phenomena.

People are killed by natural objects and processes every single day. That cannot be disputed. People were not killed by any of those objects or processes prior to the fall. That also is not in dispute and my argument was not implying otherwise. On the contrary, my argument presupposed that fact!

Ok.

If mud could exist prior to the fall without killing anyone, then why couldn't meteors, comets and asteroids also exist prior to the fall without killing anyone?

Put another way, if meteors killing people is proof that they couldn't have existed prior to the fall, then why isn't the fact that someone has been killed by mud proof that there was no mud on planet Earth prior to the fall?

I would imagine that there weren't mudslides prior to the Fall either.

Or quicksand (or even just sand, for that matter, except maybe on beaches?), or trees falling, or sandstorms, or floods to drown in, etc...

Or deadly insects, snakes, birds, rockslides, or even fire, for that matter...

I think the Earth God created was a peaceful place, with terrain that wasn't hazardous, and with creatures that, as part of a greater ecosystem, were beneficial to the other creatures in the system, including Adam and Eve.

God created a world that was, in fact, "very good."

The logic simply doesn't follow.

The fact that someone might get killed by something today, is not even evidence that it didn't exist prior to the fall.

Of course not!

The point is that there wasn't anything dangerous prior to the fall (barring the Tree, of course).

How are meteorites beneficial to life on earth? As far as I can tell, they are only a hazard to be avoided, not something that is "very good."

The air before the flood could be better for life if it is at a higher pressure depending on the mix. And we can be pretty sure the mix was different before the flood, especially that the % of co2 was relatively higher.

How do you know this?

Also:

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Limestone

hpt.rsr.org

UV filtering would be helpful to life in many scenarios.

The UV light from the sun would destroy any canopy LONG before the Flood.

More even temperatures could be helped by a canopy especially if the tilt of the earth was less, but that isn't necessary. And it isn't a matter of making the whole earth perfectly the same "perfect" temperature, but making more parts able to team with life.

Obviously, the following calculations are for roughly 40 feet of water. I suggest plugging the numbers in for whatever you think your canopy might have had in it.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Scientific Arguments Opposing a Canopy

hpt.rsr.org

I can almost guarantee you that it wouldn't be pleasant.

And, as always, I've read the book, so there is no need to link it. Everything I've listed here is either not addressed or the argument against has a lot of unknown externalities.

Apparently there is a need to link to it.

And, as for the source for limestone, I think it's debatable either way. Maybe it was created somehow in the flood and maybe it preexisted as just one more aspect of the mature Earth that God created, maybe some of both.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Limestone

hpt.rsr.org

It seems to me that most Christians haven't given sufficient thought to the starting conditions of the Earth and tend to presuppose that things started in a much more nascent state than is necessary to believe or that they even have good reason to believe. They seem to be unaware of the fact that they are making assumptions about the state of the newly created Earth that may or may not be true. The creation of the Earth was a super-natural event and God could have created it in any state He decided to create it in. He would have been fully aware, for example, that plankton and diatoms would, under certain conditions, turn into what we today call limestone and He may have decided that He liked limestone and thought it would be nice to have big magnificent cliffs of white rock in a place or two around the globe. In other words, there isn't any need for Christians to find an explanation for everything someone finds that looks old. It isn't necessary, for example, to explain where gold comes from or how diamonds are formed from within a young Earth paradigm. It borders on conceding the atheist's premise to act as if there needs to be a naturalistic explanation for every single thing. Nature was started super-naturally and so there may well be aspects of nature that defy naturalistic explanation for their origin.

And if an explanation can be provided for where those limestone cliffs came from, why reject it in favor of "God created it that way"?

We have witnessed multiple supernovas in other galaxies. Galaxies that are tens of millions of light years away from here. There isn't any possibility other than that God created that galaxy with stars that were already in an exploded state along with the light from that explosion in a position that was 99.97% of the way between the pre-creation exploded star and our eye balls, which then traveled the remaining 6000 or so light years so we could see it.

This assumes the speed of light is the same in both directions.

If it's not the same, or if stretch cosmology is true, then those stars exploded relatively recently, and likely were not created in that state.

How is that any different than supposing that the Moon's craters were mostly all there when God created the Moon?

Quite.

There are lots of things not mentioned in scripture that still happened.

Missing the point.

The point is:

Then the burden of proof is on you to show that these phenomena existed

... using evidence. We have evidence for China.

What evidence do you have for the:

unknown physical phenomena active at the time

...?

It could have been. But just because it could have originated with the earth, parts of which you say can be blasted to the far reaches of our solar system, doesnt mean other planets couldnt experience similar events, maybe even as part of Noah's flood event.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

What your describing IS the result of the global flood that occurred here on earth, according to the HPT.

From what sources?

Sources?

If you're referring to Moses writing Genesis...

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

If you're not, then please clarify.

Actually, if they have plenty of surface water, they don't need to root as deeply. Walt Brown might not be as knowledgeable in botany.

Maybe not, but their root system would certainly be extensive, no? Roots thick enough to plug up that water source?

Kind of like this tree:
Daniel 4:10-15 KJV — Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed; I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth: The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven; He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches: Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth:

Or this bramble:
Judges 9:14-15 KJV — Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

You didn't answer the question, perhaps that's my fault for not clarifying.

Are there any specific trees in the Bible that match the one described Ezekiel 31?

Yes, but what was shown was not enough to get past the coincidental nature. Your 100 years, though a great effort, doesn't help it either.

The problem, as stated in the link, is that the orbits of these bodies have circularized, making it extremely difficult to calculate their trajectories that they've taken.

Especially given how many of them are, hence the reason for choosing the most clocklike comet.

The environment before the flood carried a lot more vegetation over a much larger area. It had to account for longer living and larger bodies in animals and insects. This suggests there may have been a different mix of gasses that made the pre-flood air, possibly more even temperatures, and possibly the filtering of UV light. All these things together could be helped by having a more controlled environment, at higher pressure, suggesting a canopy as a possible solution to account for these differences.

Most of this is conjecture. Most of the rest of it is precluded by physics and math.

None of the solutions require a canopy. No solution that has one is needed.

That leaves you with very little in favor of your position.

Have you considered the fact that much of earth's current atmosphere currently extends past the moon?

Earth’s atmosphere actually extends far beyond the Moon

New data shows that the layer of gases surrounding Earth stretches to around 630,000 kilometers, which is about twice the distance to the Moon.

www.earth.com

Easily explained by the HPT.

 

[Clete]

The original "turtles" may not have been "sea turtles". The "evolution" that is a myth is the idea of a single common ancestor. The Biblical view is not that the kinds are fixed forever. So that means that not every species that exists today was there from the beginning.

The point wasn't about Sea Turtles per se. All turtles - all of them - bury their eggs into something that is not only very like one form or another of eroded rock but that has killed a human being at some point and even if that weren't the case, forget turtles, you don't believe that there aren't at least a hundred species of creatures that live in, on and because of sand?

Because I can see that things do change over time.

You have no reason to believe that the Earth that existed prior to the fall of Adam would be unrecognizable from that which exists today. Dirt is still dirt, rock is still rock, air is still air, trees are still trees, grass is still grass, birds are still birds, fish are still fish. There is exactly zero evidence that their biology functioned in some fundamentally different way than it does today. Adam's sin did not alter the mating habits of salmon, or the feeding mechanisms that Sand Crabs use to filter food out of the sand.

I simply believe that actual impacts makes more sense. I realize that we will never agree on this.

How do impacts make more sense?

Of course you can choose to be inconsistent if you want but why do so?

If you're comfortable with believing that supernova remnants exist that are further away than the maximum 10k years that the light has had to travel here, then why wouldn't you be just as comfortable with believing that God created the Moon with craters already on it?

Supernova remnants are only one example of such things, by the way. You believe that the Earth was created with gold in it's crust and on the surface. The existence of gold is a result of a natural process just as much as a crater is. Everything that exists, aside from God Himself, has a cause. You're perfectly comfortable with doing away with any need for a naturalistic explanation for the existence of countless things on planet Earth, I don't get why you'd choose to get stuck on impact craters of all things.

 

[Yorzhik]

No, I am not.

evidence
noun
ev·i·dence ˈe-və-dən(t)s
-və-ˌden(t)s
1
a
: an outward sign : indication
b
: something that furnishes proof : testimony
specifically : something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter

Yes, you are. The nature of the vegetation, the size and longevity of the animals and insects are outward signs. They are indicators that something was different before the flood. At this point we are free to speculate within certain bounds. One of these bounds is the bible. The bible in this case is consistent with both a canopy and without. Another bound is the laws of physics and here, again, both ideas that include a canopy and those that don't are within the bounds only because we have very little data to apply the laws to. To know one way or the other we need more data.

You may think a canopy is less likely than no canopy, but it isn't because one side has evidence and the other doesn't.

You are claiming things that you do not know. That is not evidence.

I'm only claiming the things I don't know as much as you are.

Again, give us some evidence that a canopy existed.

Done and done.

The evidence for more vegetation in the past are the deposits in the ground that we can find today. The evidence for "larger bodies in animals and insects" can, once again, be found in the ground.

Bingo! Now on to the speculation part about how that happened. A canopy, making the environment a more controlled space for one thing, would make solving both those problems, and more, easier to solve. Thus, evidence for a canopy.

What is the evidence that there was "filtering of UV light"? You do not have evidence for that.

UV light is damaging in many situations. For the same reason comets and asteroids were possibly not part of the pre-flood world, filtering (or at least diminishing) UV light would also not be 'good'.

Again, you need to provide some evidence that there was a canopy and not simply make the claim without evidence.

The issue here is that you don't recognize what evidence is when competing ideas have areas of great speculation like this because of how little evidence is available.

Here is an example: evolutionists are not without evidence for common descent. One point they make about all living animals coming from a common ancestor is supported is by the evidence of homology. Now, certainly this is a weak argument on scant evidence, but it's there.

 

[Clete]

I'm partial to this idea...

* 2013 Update: See this by AiG astronomer Danny Faulkner, A Proposal for a New Solution to the Light Travel Time Problem, in the peer-reviewed Answers Research Journal! Dr. Faulkner mentioned that for the Day 3 creation of plants, God may have supernaturally pulled the plants out of the ground, and that this may be an analogy for how He stretched out the heavens on Day Four, causing the stars to undergo hyper-stellar-nucleosynthesis and actually, though supernaturally, pulling the light from the farthest stars across the universe to the Earth (and perhaps beyond). RSR extends this supernatural stretch cosmology in various particulars including by asking (and answering) why is it that by the end of Day 4 some stars had expended their available energy and others, nearly so, would run out of energy and supernova as observed more recently. And we add the following. If the supernatural-to-natural boundary (SN2NB), where the laws of physics take over when God rests from His creative work, occurred earlier or later on Day 4, determines whether or not a physics theory is even theoretically helpful to explain how distant starlight arrived during that 24-hour period on Earth. If God supernaturally created the starting conditions after which the light would then naturally propagate to Earth, the SN2NB, at least conceptually, could have been earlier on Day 4 at which point God could watch the laws of physics take over for the completion of that Day's events. God liked His creation and would sometimes use the laws that He had brought into existence to perform even some of His subsequent miracles. So an "earlier" SN2NB is certainly possible. On the other hand, if God supernaturally performed most of what happened on that day, including the stretching of the light throughout the cosmos by miraculous means, that would put the SN2NB, at least conceptually, later on Day 4 and would make unneeded any physical theory about how that light naturally arrived on Earth. In fact if God's supernatural creative act was the effective means whereby light arrived on Earth, then creationist physical cosmologies themselves, while creative and even possibly ingenius, would each represent a dead end. The creation movement would be stronger if theorists and advocates readily communicated where they see the SN2NB and, if possible, why they see it there. * The Day Three Analogy: The Bible states eleven times in five of its books that God stretched out the heavens (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Isa. 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; & Zech. 12:1). Regarding this repeated description, Genesis 1:11 may be literally communicating an aspect of how God created plants, by rapidly and supernaturally pulling them up from the ground. The English word sprout is translated from the Hebrew tad-se, used in Genesis 1 not for the creation of animals but only for plants, and meaning to sprout or to shoot [out]... Gen. 1:11: "And God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation...'" See an animation of this happening in the first 10 seconds of the trailer for Genesis: Paradise Lost. The Hebrew word translated "sprout" appears in Scripture only in Genesis 1:11. The word daw-shaw', considered related, appears in Joel 2:22, the "pastures are springing up..."

RSR: Stretch Cosmology | KGOV.com

kgov.com

My point was based on the idea that God stretched out that light. I don't understand why you guys aren't understanding the point here.

If God can create stars in a post supernova condition, why couldn't He also create a moon in a post meteor impacted state?

Why do stars get to explode before God created them but craters have to have been the result of something that happened, not only after the creation week, but after the fall of Adam?

7500, roughly...

And I would agree with you.

But asteroids, comets, TNOs, etc., don't look like they were "made that way" by God.

They look like piles of pulverized rock and giant boulders that were rounded by water.

How does that logic follow?

God can't create piles of rock and giant boulders?

I would agree that super novae are the result of exploding stars, but I'm not sure what that has to do with "my line of reasoning..."

Many of the nebulae that we see in the sky, like the Crab Nebula for example, are the remnants of stars that blew up. That much, we agree on and there's no issue. The issue comes in when we see either a supernova itself or we see a supernova remnant that is so far away that it would take the light more than 7500 years, to use your number, to get here. The only way that could happen is if God didn't create a star that then exploded but that He created it in an already exploded state and placed the light from that explosion that we can see today 7500 light years from Earth.

In other words, everything that we can see today that is more than 7500 light years from Earth had to have been created in the state in which we see it. Cause and effect, past 7500 years, reaches the dead end of "God did it." Does it not?

And if you're comfortable with acknowledging that all kinds of things that exist, not only in the universe, but on the Earth, that would have taken longer than 7500 years to come about on their own were made by God, when why go to such great lengths to accept what is, at the very least, an intuitively implausible explanation for something as mundane as craters on the Moon?

Again, this assumes that there was something that would have impacted the earth to begin with.

No more so than your position assumes that there wasn't.

We're saying that there wasn't, prior to the flood.

With no evidence.

It doesn't hold if the rate of impacts has gone down, which you cannot assume the rates were always constant.

It isn't an assumption. The rate is what it is. If you think it has changed without evidence, it is you who are doing the assuming, not the person who acknowledges the current rate because the current rate can be observed and measured.

Is it though?

Wouldn't it be begging the question to assume that the rates have always been the same?

NO!

As I said before, this HPT origin of comets and asteroids business is an answer in search of a question.

IF the Earth ripped open as described and
IF the rip created the forces required and
IF sufficient amounts of material were ejected and
IF probably several other bullet points...

Then you'd expect the Moon to be heavily cratered.

The Moon is heavily cratered, therefore, the Earth did rip open, the proper forces were created and sufficient quantities of material made it to Jupiter to crater the crap out of one of its moon as well as the planet Mercury as well as our own Moon and God only knows how many other bodies in the solar system and created the entire Asteroid Belt and every comet that exists to boot.

There is no chance that you think that this is a proper way to do logic.

The point is that, if the rate of impacts has been the same, then no, there is not enough time. On the other hand, if the rate has changed over time, and was higher or lower in the past, then it's possible that some catastrophic event (in this case, the Flood), is what caused those impacts (which the HPT readily answers with the debris launched by the fountains of the great deep).

Theoretically possible, yes. Logically necessary, not even close.

Something has to explain the craters there.

Something has to explain the existence of a supernova that was just witnessed two months ago in a galaxy that is more the 2.5 million light years from here.

HPT says the FotGD caused them (and implies higher impact rates in the past than there are today). You, otoh, seem to reject the notion out of hand (not saying you are, just that that's what it seems like) because the current impact rates don't support it, and ASSUME that the rates have always been the same (which is why you say it would have taken billions of years), and because you say there wasn't enough energy to launch the debris that far.

And you also state (indirectly) the possibility that God made it that way.

Can you see the difference between our positions?

I can clearly see it. I'm fairly sure that you don't see it though.

I am not saying that the HPT is logically irrational, I'm simply saying that I don't buy it (The portion of it having to do with the origin of Lunar craters, asteroids, comets, etc.) and that there isn't any need for us, as Christians, to explain the origin of such things. If it turns out that Walt is right, then that's great but as far as I'm concerned it is at least as plausible to my mind that the Moon has looked pretty much exactly the way it look right now for the whole of it's existence and the smaller objects in the solar system were placed where they were placed such that they do not pose a large scale threat to God's Earth.

The HPT provides a purely physical process for the purpose of explaining how the Solar System is in its current state.

Only partially so, right?

Where did all the water come from? Did it have a naturalistic cause too or didn't God simply create it that way?

Your position seems to be rooted in miracles that aren't stated by scripture. Not saying you're wrong because of that, but at the very least, your position doesn't seem like it has a firm foundation.

No. The orbits of objects in the solar system are very easily predictable, even for us humans. All that would be needed for God to protect the Earth from space stuff falling to Earth is to place it in an orbit that misses the Earth.

On what basis do you reject it?

On all the obvious stuff like...

It would take more material than the Earth is made of.
It would take more energy than could be created by any geological event that didn't destroy the planet itself
There isn't any even theoretical way for large quantities of material that was ejected from Earth, by whatever geological means, for it to ever arrive anywhere near Jupiter. If you're talking about blasting trillions of tons in random directions in the hopes that maybe a marble sized piece might get sufficiently lucky gravitational assists from mulitple planets such that it happens to impact on Callisto, then I'd grant that that is at least theoretically possible. But what you're talking about would require the material to be intentionally sent, in mass, in just the exact right speed and direction that virtually all of it was available to evenly crater up Callisto. The complexity of such a feat is staggering to say the least. It would be no more likely than accidentally typing up the book of Psalms.

What do you think the dark patches on the Earth-side of the moon are?

We know what they are. How is it relevant?

It actually is, as you say, "the most heavily cratered object in the solar system."

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Comets

hpt.rsr.org

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Why did the Moon Roll—and When?

hpt.rsr.org

I recommend going here, to the entry for "moon" and browsing the sub-entries.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Index Letter M

hpt.rsr.org

Not quite. Callisto is actually the most cratered object in the solar system and Jupiter is, BY FAR, the most impacted object in the solar system. 99.999+% of any material that was shot in a beam, straight at Callisto from Earth, would not hit Callisto, it would hit Jupiter.

Because you say so?

No, because of things like I just said. There'd just not be any way for the material to get there. Nearly everything that you randomly sent toward Mercury would end up in the Sun and nearly everything you sent toward Callisto would end up hitting Jupiter and even that is being generous because most of everything you sent in either direction wouldn't make it anywhere near either place!

And in this case, you're actually cutting yourself off!

The near side of the moon has those dark spots because (as per the HPT) that's where most of the debris that hit the moon struck, enough to literally melt the surface!

I understand that this is the theory but there is no evidence to support it.

I don't see a need, since as far as I can tell, the HPT sufficiently provides for such forces for such phenomena.

You mean like I don't see the need for the HPT's explaination for the origin of comets?

I would imagine that there weren't mudslides prior to the Fall either.

Or quicksand (or even just sand, for that matter, except maybe on beaches?), or trees falling, or sandstorms, or floods to drown in, etc...

Or deadly insects, snakes, birds, rockslides, or even fire, for that matter...

I think the Earth God created was a peaceful place, with terrain that wasn't hazardous, and with creatures that, as part of a greater ecosystem, were beneficial to the other creatures in the system, including Adam and Eve.

God created a world that was, in fact, "very good."

This all moves the goal post and is beside the point.

My response could be, just as God prevented (by whatever means) mud slides and quicksand, He also prevented dangerous meteorites.

As for deadly insects and snakes, they definitely existed prior to the fall of Adam. Adam's sin did not alter such things. Why would Adam's sin alter the way some creature catches its food or how it reproduces or any other major aspect of its life cycle? Lions are deadly. I bet Leviathans were deadly, at least potentially so. Do you suppose that Eagles had blunted talons prior to Adam's sin?

Of course not!

The point is that there wasn't anything dangerous prior to the fall (barring the Tree, of course).

How are meteorites beneficial to life on earth? As far as I can tell, they are only a hazard to be avoided, not something that is "very good."

You know what's "very good" for Elk?

Wolves!

That's not a joke. I'm totally serious. Elk, on the whole, live longer, healthier lives when some of them get eaten by wolves. It is precisely the danger that wolves pose to them that causes them to act in ways that cause them to thrive.

Danger, in and of itself, is not a moral issue. It is neither good nor evil. The examples of potential danger in Eden are countless. For example, gravity worked the same before the fall as it does now and thus, if Adam had dug himself a deep hole in the ground and then jumped in head first, injury would have been the result and he would have learned the wisdom that comes from natural consequences.

 

[Right Divider]

You have no reason to believe that the Earth that existed prior to the fall of Adam would be unrecognizable from that which exists today. Dirt is still dirt, rock is still rock, air is still air, trees are still trees, grass is still grass, birds are still birds, fish are still fish. There is exactly zero evidence that their biology functioned in some fundamentally different way than it does today.

I'm not claiming that "biology" changed. Just many things about the earth.

Adam's sin did not alter the mating habits of salmon, or the feeding mechanisms that Sand Crabs use to filter food out of the sand.

I'm not claiming any such thing.

How do impacts make more sense?

Because we can see impact craters happen today and this is what they look like.

 

[Right Divider]

Yes, you are. The nature of the vegetation, the size and longevity of the animals and insects are outward signs. They are indicators that something was different before the flood.

Has anyone claimed otherwise?

Again, the vegetation and large animals (and insects) have physical evidence to confirm the prior existence. There no such evidence for the "canopy".

At this point we are free to speculate within certain bounds. One of these bounds is the bible. The bible in this case is consistent with both a canopy and without.

No, it is not. As @JudgeRightly has pointed out, you are adding this to scripture.

Another bound is the laws of physics and here, again, both ideas that include a canopy and those that don't are within the bounds only because we have very little data to apply the laws to. To know one way or the other we need more data.

This is exactly where I would like some EVIDENCE. The laws of physics do NOT support a "canopy".

You may think a canopy is less likely than no canopy, but it isn't because one side has evidence and the other doesn't.

There is no evidence for a canopy. If there was, you would have provided it.

Bingo! Now on to the speculation part about how that happened. A canopy, making the environment a more controlled space for one thing, would make solving both those problems, and more, easier to solve. Thus, evidence for a canopy.

Claiming that there would be advantages to having a canopy is NOT evidence that one existed. That is pure fantasy.

Also, I'm not understanding why you think that there is a problem that needs to be solved by a canopy. What is this problem?

UV light is damaging in many situations.

And yet we live here on earth with it just fine.

For the same reason comets and asteroids were possibly not part of the pre-flood world, filtering (or at least diminishing) UV light would also not be 'good'.

No clue what you mean here.

The issue here is that you don't recognize what evidence is when competing ideas have areas of great speculation like this because of how little evidence is available.

We are not speculating that there was no canopy. We are asking you to prove that one actually existed. We are asking you to support your claim with some actual evidence.

Here is an example: evolutionists are not without evidence for common descent.

Of course they are not without evidence... because common descent is exactly what happened FROM the created KINDS. Their claim that all life descended from a SINGLE COMMON ancestor is what they have no evidence for (though they certainly claim otherwise by using equivocation).

One point they make about all living animals coming from a common ancestor is supported is by the evidence of homology. Now, certainly this is a weak argument on scant evidence, but it's there.

Weak is an understatement.

 

[Clete]

I'm not claiming that "biology" change. Just many things about the earth.

I'm not claiming any such thing.

Either you or JR suggested that river rock (i.e. gravel) and sand didn't exist in Eden. That would, by definition require the alteration of the life cycle of several creatures.

Because we can see impact craters happen today and this is what they look like.

We see stars explode too!

This seems like a completely false accusation to me.

I'm not sure why I'm unable to get you to see the parallel that I'm drawing between God creating stars that had already exploded and Him creating moons and planets that had already been impacted. Your willingness to accept the former but not the later seems inconsistent.

I don't think that we know enough about the stretching of the universe to make these sorts of claims about stars.

Yes, we do! It's just logic.

If it's currently 7500 years after creation then the light has been traveling for that long and no longer. Therefore, if the light from a star that blew up in a galaxy 2.5 million light years away, only just arrived here two months ago, then the star itself couldn't have ever actually existed. God created it in an already exploded state and then configured the light between here and there so that we could see light from the star as it would have looked had it actually existed for the first 7500 years and then the light from the explosion, that also never actually happened, arrived from its original position 7500 light years from Earth and so we get to see it.

That's literally the only rational possibility if one assumes that creation occurred 7500 years ago.

This argument, or a form of it, would hold whether it was very far away or not, by the way. Take the Vela Supernova Remnant for example. It's about 800 light years from Earth. Explain that from within a 7500 year span of time since creation. It simply had to have been created pretty much exactly as we see it today. That star did not explode after it was created. It was created already exploded and a lot exploded, by the way. The explosion, based on its distance from Earth and it's apparent size in the sky, it would have exploded something like 11,000 or 12,000 years ago.
Of course, those numbers are assuming that they are able to accurately estimate its distance from Earth but that's beside the point. The point is that just because something has a naturalistic explanation doesn't mean it didn't exist, more or less in its current state, when God created the universe.

 

[JudgeRightly]

My point was based on the idea that God stretched out that light.

Scripture says that God stretched out the heavens.

Whether that means He stretched out light is still up for debate.

I don't understand why you guys aren't understanding the point here.

If God can create stars in a post supernova condition, why couldn't He also create a moon in a post meteor impacted state?

I'm sure He could do so in both cases. But why would He do either?

Why not create a star, and then make it explode?

Why do stars get to explode before God created them

No one here is saying that stars exploded before God created them.

In fact, I specifically said that the stars could have exploded AFTER the Fall. WHY they did so, I don't know, but it's a possible alternative to God creating pre-exploded stars, and is perfectly within His capabilities.

Conjecture: Perhaps the "stretching out of the heavens" has something to do with why some stars have exploded, or alternatively, the fact that God stretched out the heavens gives the appearance of distance. Ultimately, we don't know what causes stars to explode, only that they do, and have, recently.

And by "recently," I mean within the last 7500 years, in case that wasn't clear.

Aren't you the one who always says that the "redshift" of stars that secular scientists base their distance from earth on is misleading at best?

Like I said, this gets into the one-way speed of light discussion as well. I wonder how that could affect things.

How does that logic follow?

God can't create piles of rock and giant boulders?

Of course He could.

But if the rest of Scripture is any indication, if God is going to do something, He would much rather use natural means to do them, rather than always doing miracles.

The issue comes in when we see either a supernova itself or we see a supernova remnant that is so far away that it would take the light more than 7500 years, to use your number, to get here. The only way that could happen is if God didn't create a star that then exploded but that He created it in an already exploded state and placed the light from that explosion that we can see today 7500 light years from Earth.

Why couldn't God have created a star, and then it exploded, and the reason it took so "long" for the light to reach us has to do with how God stretched out the heavens?

I mean, even the most distant stars and galaxies look young. They certainly don't look billions of years old. You seem to be arguing against a strawman.

We all agree that God created the stars less than 7500 years ago.

Thus, anything that happened to the stars (including the ones that have exploded) has to have happened within the past 7500 years.

You say "God created all the stars and supernovae that way." Which is just an appeal to the miraculous.
We say "God created them in a perfect state, and some of them have exploded since they were created.

Your position is unfalsifiable. It cannot be verified scientifically.

Our position is falsifiable, and we defend it with evidence, and if enough evidence shows that it cannot be when testing it, then we can throw it out. So far, the evidence fits.

In other words, everything that we can see today that is more than 7500 light years from Earth had to have been created in the state in which we see it. Cause and effect, past 7500 years, reaches the dead end of "God did it." Does it not?

Here's the problem:

We don't believe that anything more than 7500 light years from earth had to have been created in the state in which we see it.

We're saying that "God stretched out the heavens" likely has something to do with why anything beyond* 7500 light years is that far away and yet why we still see it.

(*and, all things considered, probably most things farther away but still within 7500 light years)

And if you're comfortable with acknowledging that all kinds of things that exist, not only in the universe, but on the Earth, that would have taken longer than 7500 years to come about on their own were made by God, when why go to such great lengths to accept what is, at the very least, an intuitively implausible explanation for something as mundane as craters on the Moon?

Why do you assume that they would have taken 7500 years to come about on their own?

That's the straw man.

We're saying that everything that we can observe happening in the universe has occurred SINCE the creation of it. Not before. AFTER.
We're saying that the appearance of "age" (for things farther than 7500 light years, at least) is a result of God stretching the heavens, whatever that ends up meaning.

With no evidence.

It's hard to prove a negative, sure.

It isn't an assumption. The rate is what it is. If you think it has changed without evidence, it is you who are doing the assuming, not the person who acknowledges the current rate because the current rate can be observed and measured.


NO!

As I said before, this HPT origin of comets and asteroids business is an answer in search of a question.

IF the Earth ripped open as described and
IF the rip created the forces required and
IF sufficient amounts of material were ejected and
IF probably several other bullet points...

Then you'd expect the Moon to be heavily cratered.

The Moon is heavily cratered, therefore, the Earth did rip open, the proper forces were created and sufficient quantities of material made it to Jupiter to crater the crap out of one of its moon as well as the planet Mercury as well as our own Moon and God only knows how many other bodies in the solar system and created the entire Asteroid Belt and every comet that exists to boot.

There is no chance that you think that this is a proper way to do logic.

Theoretically possible, yes. Logically necessary, not even close.

The HPT seeks to explain the phenomena we see.

The fact that the moon looks beaten up supports the idea that it took a good portion of the debris launched directly.

Something has to explain the existence of a supernova that was just witnessed two months ago in a galaxy that is more the 2.5 million light years from here.

We don't know what caused it. But I guarantee you the explosion didn't happen more than 7500 years ago, let alone 2.5 million.

I am not saying that the HPT is logically irrational, I'm simply saying that I don't buy it (The portion of it having to do with the origin of Lunar craters, asteroids, comets, etc.) and that there isn't any need for us, as Christians, to explain the origin of such things.

There isn't?

I mean, I get that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but even scripture has something to say about investigation of the universe:

Proverbs 25:2:
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Only partially so, right?

The only miracles that were performed that pertain to the current state of the solar system was the initial creation event.

Where did all the water come from? Did it have a naturalistic cause too or didn't God simply create it that way?

Obviously, God created the water on earth. As for where the flood waters came from, HPT proposes that the crust of the earth was made in Genesis 1:6, dividing the waters above (which eventually became "Seas", and the waters below (referred to as "the deep").

As for the rest of the process, it's all physical, unless it can be shown that God sealing off whatever pressure relief valve existed was done directly by Him, but that can also be explained by, of all things, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

No. The orbits of objects in the solar system are very easily predictable, even for us humans. All that would be needed for God to protect the Earth from space stuff falling to Earth is to place it in an orbit that misses the Earth.

Here's the problem I have with this:

Why would God put something in space that He would have to protect the rest of His creation from?

It's like saying that someone puts a landmine under the welcome mat of their neighbor's front door, but actively prevents them from stepping on it.

It seems bizarre.

On all the obvious stuff like...

It would take more material than the Earth is made of.

No, it wouldn't.

It would take more energy than could be created by any geological event that didn't destroy the planet itself

Um... Well, the planet was ripped apart, or at least, the crust was. But I think here you're actually overestimating the amount of energy involved.

Or, rather, you're not understanding that the energy release wasn't a "firecracker," (relatively speaking; a high velocity explosion) but rather an "Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil" (ANFO) one (a low velocity explosion (again, relatively speaking)).

The total amount of energy released was massive, but it wasn't all at once. If it HAD been released all at once, it very well could have actually destroyed the entire earth. But since it was a sustained release of that energy over a longer period of time, the earth didn't shatter.

There isn't any even theoretical way for large quantities of material that was ejected from Earth, by whatever geological means, for it to ever arrive anywhere near Jupiter. If you're talking about blasting trillions of tons in random directions in the hopes that maybe a marble sized piece might get sufficiently lucky gravitational assists from mulitple planets such that it happens to impact on Callisto, then I'd grant that that is at least theoretically possible. But what you're talking about would require the material to be intentionally sent, in mass, in just the exact right speed and direction that virtually all of it was available to evenly crater up Callisto. The complexity of such a feat is staggering to say the least. It would be no more likely than accidentally typing up the book of Psalms.

I think you underestimate physics.

We know what they are. How is it relevant?

See these two links.

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Comets In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Why did the Moon Roll—and When?

Not quite. Callisto is actually the most cratered object in the solar system

Perhaps I should have said "the most severely beaten up."

and Jupiter is, BY FAR, the most impacted object in the solar system. 99.999+% of any material that was shot in a beam, straight at Callisto from Earth, would not hit Callisto, it would hit Jupiter.

I agree.

Which is why most of debris in the solar system is around Jupiter.




There was enough energy to launch most of the debris into orbit around the Sun just shy of or out to Jupiter's orbit, with some debris being launched further, either directly, or using gravity assists.

No, because of things like I just said. There'd just not be any way for the material to get there. Nearly everything that you randomly sent toward Mercury would end up in the Sun

I would imagine most of it did end up in the Sun, eventually.

and nearly everything you sent toward Callisto would end up hitting Jupiter and even that is being generous because most of everything you sent in either direction wouldn't make it anywhere near either place!

See the above images.

I understand that this is the theory but there is no evidence to support it.

On the contrary:

In 1998, billions of tons of water-ice mixed with the soil were found in deep craters near the Moon’s poles. As one writer visualized it, Comets raining from the sky left pockets of frozen water at the north and south poles of the moon, billions of tons more than previously believed, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have found.​

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Comets

hpt.rsr.org

See also figure 169 on that page.

the alteration of the life cycle of several creatures.

Or, just adaptation on their part.

I'm not against God having created some sand.

But usually, when I think sand, I think either desert, or beaches.

And I strongly doubt there were any deserts on the earth when God created it.

We see stars explode too!

Which means, based on the above, that they were created within the past 7500 years, and based on the fact that we observed them exploding, they could not have been created in the state of having already exploded.

I'm not sure why I'm unable to get you to see the parallel that I'm drawing between God creating stars that had already exploded and Him creating moons and planets that had already been impacted. Your willingness to accept the former but not the later seems inconsistent.

We see it just fine. We reject the premise that God created them as they are, because they can be explained without the need for Him to have done so.

Yes, we do! It's just logic.

If it's currently 7500 years after creation then the light has been traveling for that long and no longer.

We agree.

What you don't seem to be taking into consideration is the fact that God stretched out the heavens.

I appeal to mystery as to what exactly that means, but whatever it means, it likely explains why we can see things that are further than 7500 light years away.

Therefore, if the light from a star that blew up in a galaxy 2.5 million light years away, only just arrived here two months ago, then the star itself couldn't have ever actually existed.

Or, as I said above, "God stretched out the heavens" explains why we can see things that are that far away.

God created it in an already exploded state and then configured the light between here and there so that we could see light from the star as it would have looked had it actually existed for the first 7500 years and then the light from the explosion, that also never actually happened, arrived from its original position 7500 light years from Earth and so we get to see it.

That's certainly one possible explanation. I think God stretching out the heavens has something to do with it though.

That's literally the only rational possibility if one assumes that creation occurred 7500 years ago.

It is, only if you refuse to consider the fact that God stretched out the heavens.

Once you consider that, however, what I said above becomes the other alternative.

This argument, or a form of it, would hold whether it was very far away or not, by the way. Take the Vela Supernova Remnant for example. It's about 800 light years from Earth. Explain that from within a 7500 year span of time since creation. It simply had to have been created pretty much exactly as we see it today. That star did not explode after it was created. It was created already exploded and a lot exploded, by the way. The explosion, based on its distance from Earth and it's apparent size in the sky, it would have exploded something like 11,000 or 12,000 years ago.

Unless and until you consider "God stretched out the heavens" might have something to do with it appearing that way.

Of course, those numbers are assuming that they are able to accurately estimate its distance from Earth but that's beside the point. The point is that just because something has a naturalistic explanation doesn't mean it didn't exist, more or less in its current state, when God created the universe.

Supra.

 

[Clete]

Scripture says that God stretched out the heavens.

Whether that means He stretched out light is still up for debate.



I'm sure He could do so in both cases. But why would He do either?

Why not create a star, and then make it explode?



No one here is saying that stars exploded before God created them.

In fact, I specifically said that the stars could have exploded AFTER the Fall. WHY they did so, I don't know, but it's a possible alternative to God creating pre-exploded stars, and is perfectly within His capabilities.

Conjecture: Perhaps the "stretching out of the heavens" has something to do with why some stars have exploded, or alternatively, the fact that God stretched out the heavens gives the appearance of distance. Ultimately, we don't know what causes stars to explode, only that they do, and have, recently.

And by "recently," I mean within the last 7500 years, in case that wasn't clear.

Aren't you the one who always says that the "redshift" of stars that secular scientists base their distance from earth on is misleading at best?

Like I said, this gets into the one-way speed of light discussion as well. I wonder how that could affect things.



Of course He could.

But if the rest of Scripture is any indication, if God is going to do something, He would much rather use natural means to do them, rather than always doing miracles.



Why couldn't God have created a star, and then it exploded, and the reason it took so "long" for the light to reach us has to do with how God stretched out the heavens?

I mean, even the most distant stars and galaxies look young. They certainly don't look billions of years old. You seem to be arguing against a strawman.

We all agree that God created the stars less than 7500 years ago.

Thus, anything that happened to the stars (including the ones that have exploded) has to have happened within the past 7500 years.

You say "God created all the stars and supernovae that way." Which is just an appeal to the miraculous.
We say "God created them in a perfect state, and some of them have exploded since they were created.

Your position is unfalsifiable. It cannot be verified scientifically.

Our position is falsifiable, and we defend it with evidence, and if enough evidence shows that it cannot be when testing it, then we can throw it out. So far, the evidence fits.



Here's the problem:

We don't believe that anything more than 7500 light years from earth had to have been created in the state in which we see it.

We're saying that "God stretched out the heavens" likely has something to do with why anything beyond* 7500 light years is that far away and yet why we still see it.

(*and, all things considered, probably most things farther away but still within 7500 light years)



Why do you assume that they would have taken 7500 years to come about on their own?

That's the straw man.

We're saying that everything that we can observe happening in the universe has occurred SINCE the creation of it. Not before. AFTER.
We're saying that the appearance of "age" (for things farther than 7500 light years, at least) is a result of God stretching the heavens, whatever that ends up meaning.



It's hard to prove a negative, sure.



The HPT seeks to explain the phenomena we see.

The fact that the moon looks beaten up supports the idea that it took a good portion of the debris launched directly.



We don't know what caused it. But I guarantee you the explosion didn't happen more than 7500 years ago, let alone 2.5 million.



There isn't?

I mean, I get that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but even scripture has something to say about investigation of the universe:

Proverbs 25:2:
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.



The only miracles that were performed that pertain to the current state of the solar system was the initial creation event.



Obviously, God created the water on earth. As for where the flood waters came from, HPT proposes that the crust of the earth was made in Genesis 1:6, dividing the waters above (which eventually became "Seas", and the waters below (referred to as "the deep").

As for the rest of the process, it's all physical, unless it can be shown that God sealing off whatever pressure relief valve existed was done directly by Him, but that can also be explained by, of all things, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.



Here's the problem I have with this:

Why would God put something in space that He would have to protect the rest of His creation from?

It's like saying that someone puts a landmine under the welcome mat of their neighbor's front door, but actively prevents them from stepping on it.

It seems bizarre.



No, it wouldn't.



Um... Well, the planet was ripped apart, or at least, the crust was. But I think here you're actually overestimating the amount of energy involved.

Or, rather, you're not understanding that the energy release wasn't a "firecracker," (relatively speaking; a high velocity explosion) but rather an "Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil" (ANFO) one (a low velocity explosion (again, relatively speaking)).

The total amount of energy released was massive, but it wasn't all at once. If it HAD been released all at once, it very well could have actually destroyed the entire earth. But since it was a sustained release of that energy over a longer period of time, the earth didn't shatter.



I think you underestimate physics.



See these two links.




Perhaps I should have said "the most severely beaten up."



I agree.

Which is why most of debris in the solar system is around Jupiter.

View attachment 7470
View attachment 7469

There was enough energy to launch most of the debris into orbit around the Sun just shy of or out to Jupiter's orbit, with some debris being launched further, either directly, or using gravity assists.



I would imagine most of it did end up in the Sun, eventually.



See the above images.



On the contrary:

In 1998, billions of tons of water-ice mixed with the soil were found in deep craters near the Moon’s poles. As one writer visualized it, Comets raining from the sky left pockets of frozen water at the north and south poles of the moon, billions of tons more than previously believed, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have found.​

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - The Origin of Comets

hpt.rsr.org

See also figure 169 on that page.



Or, just adaptation on their part.

I'm not against God having created some sand.

But usually, when I think sand, I think either desert, or beaches.

And I strongly doubt there were any deserts on the earth when God created it.



Which means, based on the above, that they were created within the past 7500 years, and based on the fact that we observed them exploding, they could not have been created in the state of having already exploded.



We see it just fine. We reject the premise that God created them as they are, because they can be explained without the need for Him to have done so.



We agree.

What you don't seem to be taking into consideration is the fact that God stretched out the heavens.

I appeal to mystery as to what exactly that means, but whatever it means, it likely explains why we can see things that are further than 7500 light years away.



Or, as I said above, "God stretched out the heavens" explains why we can see things that are that far away.



That's certainly one possible explanation. I think God stretching out the heavens has something to do with it though.



It is, only if you refuse to consider the fact that God stretched out the heavens.

Once you consider that, however, what I said above becomes the other alternative.



Unless and until you consider "God stretched out the heavens" might have something to do with it appearing that way.



Supra.

For the sake of time, I'm boiling this down to just the following three points...

The explanation I gave about light that we see today having traveled for 7500 years et al, IS God having stretched out the heavens!
Just what is it that you think "stretching out the Heavens" could otherwise mean except what I explained?
Seriously, think it through and see if you can figure out how God could have made it work where He created an intact star 7500 years ago that exploded after He created it and we got to see it explode. I can tell you that what it would mean is that we shouldn't ever see or even discover any supernovae that are more than 7500 light years away. That, in fact, was a prediction that I clearly remember Bob Enyart making on his radio show several years ago.
The fact is, however, that we do see supernovae that happen very much further away than 7500 light years. So, if the light that we see today has been traveling for 7500 years and the star that exploded is further away from us than that, then what must that mean if not what I've already described?

Also, try to avoid answering rhetorical questions as though they were direct questions. For example, I wasn't actually asking "Where did the water come from?" I was making the point that there is no more need to explain the craters on the Moon than there is to explain the existence of water on Earth, or ANYWHERE else, for that matter and that Walt's Theory makes no effort to explain the origin of water precisely because there isn't any need to answer that question from within a Christian paradigm. I picked water, but I could have picked gold or diamonds or helium or cobalt or aluminum or silicon, or any one of a million different things that we find here on the Earth, not one of which can possibly have any naturalistic explanation if the creation week happened 7500 years ago. I didn't even have to limit myself to the Earth. I could have picked any one of the dozens of moons that exist in the solar system or the ring systems around Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune. I could have picked Oumuamua which is the silly name some leftist gave to an object that DEFINITELY came from outside our solar system.
Walt's Theory doesn't touch any of these things, nor does it need to because, once again, there isn't any need to explain the origin of such things from within a Christian paradigm because God created things pretty much the way we find them today.

Finally, you asked, "Why would God put something in space that He would have to protect the rest of His creation from?"
There are several things in space that God had to protect us from. Supernovas, pulsars, gamma ray bursts, the solar wind, etc. I see no reason to exempt meteors from that list.

 

[Derf]

But it isn't implied, naturally.

You have to read "canopy" into the text in order for it to imply that there was a canopy, and that's just not how things are done.


An interpretation based on a priori beliefs.


I'm accusing you of adding to scripture because you're insisting that the scriptures imply that there was a canopy where none is stated.


Only if you read it into the text.


Again, Noah didn't write anything, as far as we know.

Moses is the one who wrote Genesis, inspired by God.

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

In other words, you're assuming there was a canopy that was torn through.

My position, on the other hand, assumes only what is stated by scripture.

See the difference?


No, as to what it was. I apologize, I apparently forgot to finish my sentence.


Keeping your supposed canopy aloft requires the violation of the laws of physics. AKA, a miracle.


So why are you immediately jumping to "canopy"? Why not the "flying spaghetti monster"? In other words, what evidence do you have to positively assert that there was a canopy?


The simplest solution is often the correct one.

Why are you assuming canopy, when the water went through the atmosphere with the fountains, and then returned through the atmosphere as though floodgates were opened?

Why the need to add "canopy" to that?


There is no indication of being "ripped open" anywhere in scripture that it describes the windows of heaven.


Or, as the video I posted earlier showed, it was simply a matter of the fountains being suppressed enough to not launch water high enough into the atmosphere for it to come down as though floodgates were opened, a purely physical process.


Supra.


But you have to add "canopy" to the process, where scripture only says "windows of heaven."


In other words, a "canopy" has nothing to do with the process, so why bother?

I didn't reply to the whole post, JR, as I wanted to just discuss the canopy for a moment. Your biblical arguments against the canopy, that the "windows of heaven" don't necessitate it, are the same as arguments against the rain coming from the fountains of the great deep--the biblical text has to be added to, in order to maintain the source as the same one. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about adding to scripture, but our speculations are necessary to determine where the source water for the rain came from in either instance. The HPT view has to metaphorize the windows of heaven (WOH), just as the canopy view does (not a bad thing for either view).

But I wanted to put forward something that could eliminate the HPT view of the WOH, potentially. Here are the verses again:

[Gen 7:11 KJV] In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

And

[Gen 8:2 KJV] The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

If you maintain, according to HPT, that the source of the water for the rain was the same as the windows of heaven, then Gen 8:2 seems to be triply redundant, speaking of the fountains (causing rain) being stopped, the WOH (causing rain) being stopped, and the rain being restrained (stopped). If the WOH just refers to the fountains, which cause the rain, a three-fold stopping seems overkill.

In addition, the word for "windows" is also translated "lattice" in other places, and the Young's Literal Translation uses such a word in both of those references:
[Gen 7:11 YLT] In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, in this day have been broken up all fountains of the great deep, and the net-work of the heavens hath been opened,
[Gen 8:2 YLT] and closed are the fountains of the deep and the net-work of the heavens, and restrained is the shower from the heavens.

The word is defined by Strongs thusly:
ʼărubbâh, ar-oob-baw'; feminine participle passive of H693 (as if for lurking); a lattice; (by implication) a window, dovecot (because of the pigeon-holes), chimney (with its apertures for smoke), sluice (with openings for water):—chimney, window.

This suggests, to me at least, something of a structure that has to be opened and closed, and while "canopy" doesn't really fit, what does fit is that there might have been a hole of some sort created between the structure between earth and space, the "structure" meaning the way God established the sun and the planets so that they are fixed (in their orbits) and mobile (through their orbits) at the same time--a "structure" relying on gravity and inertia.

"Canopy" doesn't really fit because the idea there was that something existed prior to the flood that wasn't there afterward, and you can't "close" the window in a canopy that no longer exists. Although I'm not sure why the "canopy" might not refer to something that is significantly diminished now, compared to before--just like you say the crust is significantly diminished now compared to before--something like the atmosphere, as @Yorzhik was speaking of, or perhaps the earth's magnetic field, which is a lattice/net-work of sorts today.
http://wuli3d.nobook.com/1/#EarthScene2 (click the link to view an interactive view of magnetic field, including sunspots on the sun.)


If there's actually some kind of lattice/net-work in mind in Gen 7 and 8, then there still needs to be a source of water...something we don't see today, perhaps, or perhaps we do (comets/asteroids if not from the earth originally). But not seeing it today is not a problem, since God promised not to destroy the earth by water again--therefore no need for that unknown source to still exist, and therefore the evidence of it is only in the aftereffects.

One of the biggest problems for the canopy idea is that it would result in runaway greenhouse effect.
"But holes appeared in the theory. Atmospheric physicist Larry Vardiman used climate modeling software to construct a virtual vapor canopy. When he input enough water vapor for the first 40 days of rain during the Flood year, he found that Earth’s temperatures would have soared due to an intense greenhouse effect. His results required the sun to emit only 25 percent of its current intensity to keep Earth’s inhabitants from basically boiling." (https://www.icr.org/article/what-were-waters-above-firmament)

But that assumes we know all about the canopy, and that Vardiman was able to accurately model those assumptions. The article goes on to talk about the way ICR sees the division of the waters from the waters today, which has some merit, imo. If they are correct, it fits better with the scriptures' description of "heaven" being the thing that separates the waters from the waters, and by itself does away with the textual need for the canopy as a source of water.

Anyway, I think the same thing that limits the usefulness of the canopy view also limits the usefulness of the HPT view--the scriptural support for the source of the waters from the WOH isn't there in either case.

 

[JudgeRightly]

The explanation I gave about light that we see today having traveled for 7500 years et al, IS God having stretched out the heavens!
Just what is it that you think "stretching out the Heavens" could otherwise mean except what I explained?
Seriously, think it through and see if you can figure out how God could have made it work where He created an intact star 7500 years ago that exploded after He created it and we got to see it explode.

Why is that a problem? (Especially for your position, which says God could make stars at any point of their life cycle that He wanted to, including after they've exploded...)

I appeal to mystery as for the reason a star could explode so soon after God made it.

we shouldn't ever see or even discover any supernovae that are more than 7500 light years away.

Why not?

... Especially if God stretched out the heavens.

That, in fact, was a prediction that I clearly remember Bob Enyart making on his radio show several years ago.

Ok...?

The fact is, however, that we do see supernovae that happen very much further away than 7500 light years.

So Bob's prediction was wrong.

So, if the light that we see today has been traveling for 7500 years and the star that exploded is further away from us than that, then what must that mean if not what I've already described?

I think you're forgetting that we don't just see supernovae and stars. We have seen stars explode and become supernovae, from both within and further than 7500 light years. You gave one example. Here's one that was further away (though, admittedly, not much farther, only 8,000 light years):

Oldest Recorded Supernova - NASA

This image combines data from four space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of RCW 86, the oldest documented example of a supernova.

www.nasa.gov

Ah, and a quick google search presents me with this one that is estimated to be 60 million light years away, OBSERVED exploding (the astronomers literally watched it explode):

Astronomers use Hubble to watch a star go supernova in real time

An international research team used Hubble, TESS, and other instruments to witness the “Rosetta Stone” of supernovas. Its findings could help astronomers predict when other stars in the universe are about to explode.

www.pbs.org

So we have the oldest recorded supernova from 185 A.D. at about 8,000 light years away (that was witnessed exploding) (meaning the explosion happened around 10,000 years ago), and one recorded in the recent past that the people literally watched explode which is about 60 million light years away.

So which is more likely, regarding the rest of them?

That God created the stars already exploded, or that God created them "very good," in perfect condition, but now, after the fall, "the whole creation groans," and stars explode?

Also, try to avoid answering rhetorical questions as though they were direct questions. For example, I wasn't actually asking "Where did the water come from?" I was making the point that there is no more need to explain the craters on the Moon than there is to explain the existence of water on Earth, or ANYWHERE else, for that matter and that Walt's Theory makes no effort to explain the origin of water precisely because there isn't any need to answer that question from within a Christian paradigm. I picked water, but I could have picked gold or diamonds or helium or cobalt or aluminum or silicon, or any one of a million different things that we find here on the Earth, not one of which can possibly have any naturalistic explanation if the creation week happened 7500 years ago. I didn't even have to limit myself to the Earth. I could have picked any one of the dozens of moons that exist in the solar system or the ring systems around Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune. I could have picked Oumuamua which is the silly name some leftist gave to an object that DEFINITELY came from outside our solar system.
Walt's Theory doesn't touch any of these things, nor does it need to because, once again, there isn't any need to explain the origin of such things from within a Christian paradigm because God created things

God created all things. But not everything we see today was the direct result of God creating them

pretty much the way we find them today.

I disagree, at least as far as the solar system is concerned. And all the exploded stars...

Finally, you asked, "Why would God put something in space that He would have to protect the rest of His creation from?"
There are several things in space that God had to protect us from. Supernovas, pulsars, gamma ray bursts, the solar wind, etc. I see no reason to exempt meteors from that list.

Solar wind? Ok, He protected us with a magnetosphere (yes, even before the flood, though it is much stronger now compared to before), and an atmosphere.

Pulsars, supernovae, gamma ray bursts?

You know those are usually only the results of dying stars, right? I imagine God created stars in such a state that they wouldn't die very quickly. So sure, in that sense, God protected us from them, by making a universe where they wouldn't happen easily.

But it doesn't quite follow to apply that logic to then say that God created asteroids, meteors, comets, etc., and then protected us from them ("somehow").

It seems inane to me that anyone could think that God meticulously planned the orbit of every single object in the solar system so that they wouldn't ever be launched towards the earth... only for them to be launched towards the earth anyways after the Fall.

Or do you think that God was directly intervening whenever one DID get launched?

When it comes to building a fence, which is the sign of a good builder:
A) When the fence stands on its own without any further intervention on the part of the builder?
OR
B) When the fence has to constantly be held up by the builder?

A, right?

So then why do you think that God had to protect us (aka "hold up the fence He created") from something which He created (the meteorites), when 1) God is definitely a good builder, and 2) He called His creation "very good" when He was done creating it?

 

[JudgeRightly]

the biblical text has to be added to, in order to maintain the source as the same one.

What is being added?

Keep in mind that I'm not talking about adding to scripture, but our speculations are necessary to determine where the source water for the rain came from in either instance.

Sure.

The HPT view has to metaphorize the windows of heaven (WOH), just as the canopy view does (not a bad thing for either view).

Except people who hold to any canopy theory assert that there was a literal canopy.

HPT says there was no canopy, only that the events recorded in Genesis 7:11-12 are a causative chain of events. Fountains broke forth, thus windows of heaven (gives an indication of how tall the fountains were) were opened, and the rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights.

But I wanted to put forward something that could eliminate the HPT view of the WOH, potentially. Here are the verses again:

[Gen 7:11 KJV] In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

And

[Gen 8:2 KJV] The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

If you maintain, according to HPT, that the source of the water for the rain was the same as the windows of heaven, then Gen 8:2 seems to be triply redundant, speaking of the fountains (causing rain) being stopped, the WOH (causing rain) being stopped, and the rain being restrained (stopped). If the WOH just refers to the fountains, which cause the rain, a three-fold stopping seems overkill.

The fountains were not stopped at exactly the same time as the rains. The waters prevailed upon the earth for another 150 days AFTER the rain stopped.

Rather, the HPT proposes that after 40 days and nights, there was enough water on the earth that the fountains, still pushing out water, from under the crust, were suppressed enough that they didn't launch any more water into the atmosphere.

I gave this example before, but Bryan Nickel illustrated it better (watch until 11:06):

In addition, the word for "windows" is also translated "lattice" in other places, and the Young's Literal Translation uses such a word in both of those references:
[Gen 7:11 YLT] In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, in the seventeenth day of the month, in this day have been broken up all fountains of the great deep, and the net-work of the heavens hath been opened,
[Gen 8:2 YLT] and closed are the fountains of the deep and the net-work of the heavens, and restrained is the shower from the heavens.

The word is defined by Strongs thusly:
ʼărubbâh, ar-oob-baw'; feminine participle passive of H693 (as if for lurking); a lattice; (by implication) a window, dovecot (because of the pigeon-holes), chimney (with its apertures for smoke), sluice (with openings for water):—chimney, window.

This suggests, to me at least, something of a structure that has to be opened and closed, and while "canopy" doesn't really fit, what does fit is that there might have been a hole of some sort created between the structure between earth and space, the "structure" meaning the way God established the sun and the planets so that they are fixed (in their orbits) and mobile (through their orbits) at the same time--a "structure" relying on gravity and inertia.

"Canopy" doesn't really fit because the idea there was that something existed prior to the flood that wasn't there afterward, and you can't "close" the window in a canopy that no longer exists. Although I'm not sure why the "canopy" might not refer to something that is significantly diminished now, compared to before--just like you say the crust is significantly diminished now compared to before--something like the atmosphere, as @Yorzhik was speaking of, or perhaps the earth's magnetic field, which is a lattice/net-work of sorts today.
http://wuli3d.nobook.com/1/#EarthScene2 (click the link to view an interactive view of magnetic field, including sunspots on the sun.)
View attachment 7472

If there's actually some kind of lattice/net-work in mind in Gen 7 and 8, then there still needs to be a source of water...something we don't see today, perhaps, or perhaps we do (comets/asteroids if not from the earth originally). But not seeing it today is not a problem, since God promised not to destroy the earth by water again--therefore no need for that unknown source to still exist, and therefore the evidence of it is only in the aftereffects.

I haven't done any investigation into it, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that of all the times in the Bible that the word is translated as "lattice," there is NO relation to water in the context.

Here, we have both fountains, and rain, on either side of the word, and I would go so far as to assert that "floodgates/sluices" would be a better word than "windows."

One of the biggest problems for the canopy idea is that it would result in runaway greenhouse effect.
"But holes appeared in the theory. Atmospheric physicist Larry Vardiman used climate modeling software to construct a virtual vapor canopy. When he input enough water vapor for the first 40 days of rain during the Flood year, he found that Earth’s temperatures would have soared due to an intense greenhouse effect. His results required the sun to emit only 25 percent of its current intensity to keep Earth’s inhabitants from basically boiling." (https://www.icr.org/article/what-were-waters-above-firmament)

But that assumes we know all about the canopy, and that Vardiman was able to accurately model those assumptions. The article goes on to talk about the way ICR sees the division of the waters from the waters today, which has some merit, imo. If they are correct, it fits better with the scriptures' description of "heaven" being the thing that separates the waters from the waters, and by itself does away with the textual need for the canopy as a source of water.

Anyway, I think the same thing that limits the usefulness of the canopy view also limits the usefulness of the HPT view--the scriptural support for the source of the waters from the WOH isn't there in either case.

Only if the firmament of Genesis 1:6 is not the crust of the earth.

If it is the crust, then there's no support for a canopy, and if it's not the crust, then HPT is false anyways, because there's no source for the fountains.

As far as I can tell, the evidence is in favor of the HPT regardless of whether there's a canopy or not.

 

[Clete]

Why is that a problem? (Especially for your position, which says God could make stars at any point of their life cycle that He wanted to, including after they've exploded...)

I appeal to mystery as for the reason a star could explode so soon after God made it.

There isn't any way it could have happened that way, JR.

That's why it's a problem for you, not for me. I'm the one here who's saying that God can make things in whatever state He chooses to make them and that there isn't any necessity or even utility in insisting that God made things in a "pristine" state, for want of a better term. What advantage is there in believing that the Moon was a featureless perfectly smooth celestial body when God made it? Why couldn't there have been winding river beds, water falls, canyons and other erosion related features on the Earth before Noah's flood? Why must we believe that there were no objects in the night sky akin to the Crab Nebula when God created the universe?

Why not?

... Especially if God stretched out the heavens.

Well, at the risk of sounding flippant, its because light has only been traveling at 1 light year per year since God did whatever stretching He did. Meaning that whatever light gets to us today has been traveling at 1 light year per year for the last 7500 years and so could not have started its journey toward us from 20,000 light years away, never mind 2.5 million light years way.

Take another example....

Back on February 24, 1987, the Earth got to witness a supernova that occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It's been given the name SN1987a because it was the first supernova seen in 1987. The "A" was, I suppose, someone's wishful thinking that there would be more to come within that same year. It is the closest supernova to Earth since Kepler's Supernova which the Earth witnessed on October 8, 1604. Kepler's Supernova (a.k.a. SN 1604) was only about 20,000ly from Earth but SN1987a, as I mentioned, is in the Large Magellanic Cloud which we know is something like 168,000ly from Earth. We could use either one. The only difference is the numbers.

Assumptions:

• The universe was created 7500 years ago.
• Light from distant objects has been brought to the Earth by God by whatever means (i.e. God stretched out the Heavens)
• Light has been traveling at basically the same speed since God finished His creation.

If either SN19787a or SN1604 started as an intact star 7500 years ago and then exploded, we wouldn't know about it yet because the light wouldn't have arrived here yet. Since we do see them, it means that the light from those two events was already most of the way here when God finished His creation. The light from SN1604 started it's journey 7081ly from Earth and the light from SN1987a started it's journey 7464ly from Earth.

The objects themselves are 20,000 and 168,000 light years away which means that neither star that exploded could have ever actually existed. The light from the star that would have existed was present but the star itself had already exploded. It had to have been created in an already exploded state and if the universe exists for long enough, in 17,977 years, the Earth will get to see the state in which God actually created SN1604, and to see what God actually did with SN1987a, the Earth will have to wait another 160500 years.

Ok...?

So Bob's prediction was wrong.

Yes. That is, at least, probably so.

His logic was completely sound. He started with the same premise as you're arguing here. That premise being that exploded stars started as intact stars when God created the universe. And that's not a wacky thing to think. It seems intuitive that God would start with intact stars and then they'd explode at some point after, for whatever reason. And if that was the starting condition, then Bob would have been correct and then the fact that all supernovae are less than 10,000ly from Earth would stand as an awesome evidence for the young age of the universe. The problem, however, is this doesn't seem to be the case. We have some pretty strong evidence that says that a whole lot of supernovae are very much further away than the light from those events would have had time to get here from.

I think you're forgetting that we don't just see supernovae and stars. We have seen stars explode and become supernovae, from both within and further than 7500 light years. You gave one example. Here's one that was further away (though, admittedly, not much farther, only 8,000 light years):

Oldest Recorded Supernova - NASA

This image combines data from four space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of RCW 86, the oldest documented example of a supernova.

www.nasa.gov

It doesn't matter. It's no mystery if we see one happen within 7500ly because the light has had that long to travel. It's when its further away than 7500ly that it is an issue in regards to the state in which it was created.

Ah, and a quick google search presents me with this one that is estimated to be 60 million light years away, OBSERVED exploding (the astronomers literally watched it explode):

Astronomers use Hubble to watch a star go supernova in real time

An international research team used Hubble, TESS, and other instruments to witness the “Rosetta Stone” of supernovas. Its findings could help astronomers predict when other stars in the universe are about to explode.

www.pbs.org

So we have the oldest recorded supernova from 185 A.D. at about 8,000 light years away (that was witnessed exploding) (meaning the explosion happened around 10,000 years ago), and one recorded in the recent past that the people literally watched explode which is about 60 million light years away.

The one we just saw go off a couple of months ago was in the Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.5 million light years away. The bigger the distance, the bigger the issue.

So which is more likely, regarding the rest of them?

That God created the stars already exploded, or that God created them "very good," in perfect condition, but now, after the fall, "the whole creation groans," and stars explode?

It cannot be the latter. IF we assume that the universe was created 7500 years ago (or any length of time ago less than 2.5 million years) then what we are seeing had already happened (i.e. was created in an "already happened" state), and the light from the event was most of the way here when God finished His creation.

God created all things. But not everything we see today was the direct result of God creating them

I didn't suggest otherwise.

I disagree, at least as far as the solar system is concerned. And all the exploded stars...

I understand that, but the state of things (i.e. the evidence) would seem to falsify that position.

IF the universe was created 7500 years ago, there's very few possibilities, really.

1. Things like supernovae are less than 7500 light years away, which was Bob's theory. If this is the case, then there is something seriously wrong with the way we measure distances to these objects.
2. The speed of light is completely different everywhere else but here in our celestial vicinity, which we have absolutely no evidence for whatsoever.
3. Events like supernovae were created in an "already happened" state.

I cannot think of another alternative. Can you?

Incidentally, I'd have to say that options 1 and 3 are just about equal in terms of plausibility in my mind. If Plasma Cosmology turns out to be true then all bets are completely off when it comes to determining distances to far away objects. It's basically down to parallax measurements and assumptions made about the brightness of various types of stars and almost nothing else.

(Just to reiterate: The same line of thinking could be applied to things like heavily cratered planets and moons and anything else that would have taken longer to occur naturally than the 7500 years that the universe has existed.)

Solar wind? Ok, He protected us with a magnetosphere (yes, even before the flood, though it is much stronger now compared to before), and an atmosphere.

Pulsars, supernovae, gamma ray bursts?

You know those are usually only the results of dying stars, right? I imagine God created stars in such a state that they wouldn't die very quickly. So sure, in that sense, God protected us from them, by making a universe where they wouldn't happen easily.

None of that is relevant to YOUR point which was that God wouldn't have created the solar system in a manner that He had to protect the rest of His creation from. The fact is that He did precisely that!

But it doesn't quite follow to apply that logic to then say that God created asteroids, meteors, comets, etc., and then protected us from them ("somehow").

It isn't proof that He did but that wasn't the point. The point is that there isn't any good reason to suppose that meteors and asteroids are exempted from the list of dangerous things in the solar system that God made in a manner that is no significant threat to us.

It seems inane to me that anyone could think that God meticulously planned the orbit of every single object in the solar system so that they wouldn't ever be launched towards the earth... only for them to be launched towards the earth anyways after the Fall.

They haven't been. There are no large objects that anyone has any evidence for that are in any danger of impacting the Earth.

Or do you think that God was directly intervening whenever one DID get launched?

There's no need. Before the fall, God would have intervened had it been necessary to do so, which there's no reason to think it would have been. After the fall, there would have been no motive to do so except in cases where the whole planet was in jeopardy. I very much doubt that any such case has or will ever exist, by the way, and if it does, it will indeed be because God directly intervened to cause it. The Earth will not ever be destroyed by accident.

When it comes to building a fence, which is the sign of a good builder:
A) When the fence stands on its own without any further intervention on the part of the builder?
OR
B) When the fence has to constantly be held up by the builder?

A, right?

So then why do you think that God had to protect us (aka "hold up the fence He created") from something which He created (the meteorites), when 1) God is definitely a good builder, and 2) He called His creation "very good" when He was done creating it?

Nothing here conflicts with my position. I do not believe that God would have needed to actively (supernaturally) protect the Earth from asteroid impacts prior to the fall and "Very good" does not imply "perfectly safe" as though God had rubber bumpers installed on the corners of any sharp rocks Adam and Eve might encounter.

Clete

 

[Yorzhik]

Has anyone claimed otherwise?

Again, the vegetation and large animals (and insects) have physical evidence to confirm the prior existence. There no such evidence for the "canopy".

Let me go back to something you said before: "I agree that the composition of the atmosphere was probably a lot different, but that does not require a higher atmospheric pressure. You are claiming "higher pressure", but again no evidence of that supposed fact."

Your statement is not quite right. Instead you should be saying "I agree that the composition of the atmosphere was probably a lot different, but that does not necessarily require a higher atmospheric pressure."

Get it? A canopy may not be necessary based on the forensic evidence, but it is not outside of a reasonable idea depending on the weight one puts on the factors involved.

Or, said in a more general way; The differences we know about in the pre-flood atmosphere and land is forensic evidence. How that forensic evidence is interpreted varies by the weight a person puts on the various factors involved. Thus, via the weight I put on certain factors that benefit from pressure, a different gas mix, reduced UV light, and more even temperatures leads me to believe there was a layer of atmosphere around what, for the most part, we see today.

No, it is not. As @JudgeRightly has pointed out, you are adding this to scripture.

Really? You really think my interpretation of "windows of heaven" rises to the level of God's admonishment of adding to His word? Saying God said something that He didn't say is taking His name in vain, which is something God took a very dim view on.

Ex 20:7 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Deut 4:1-2 Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, so that you may keep the commands of Jehovah your God which I command you.

Deut 12:32 Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it

Prov 30:6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

Rev 22:18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book

That's a pretty serious charge for not adding the words "windows of heaven" to scripture, but instead disagreeing with you on exactly what they mean. Especially since I think the view you take is also reasonable and I'm perfectly OK with there being no canopy.

Seeing how serious God takes adding to scripture, do you see me as a heretic because I disagree with your interpretation of a figure of speech found in the bible? If you are consistent you sure would.

This is exactly where I would like some EVIDENCE. The laws of physics do NOT support a "canopy".

Since we don't have a complete enough data, there is no way you can claim this with such surety.

There is no evidence for a canopy. If there was, you would have provided it.

I provided the forensic evidence.

Claiming that there would be advantages to having a canopy is NOT evidence that one existed. That is pure fantasy.

It IS evidence that a canopy is still an option. That is the opposite of pure fantasy.

Also, I'm not understanding why you think that there is a problem that needs to be solved by a canopy. What is this problem?

How the gas mix worked the way it did. How things grew larger. How things grew older. How plants and animals could spread across most of the surface of the earth.

And yet we live here on earth with it just fine.

No, there are a lot of situations where it's not "just fine". It would be "good" if it were reduced. Just like us living here just fine on earth at the moment having comets and asteroids flying around that could hit us, it would be better if they weren't.

No clue what you mean here.

Supra

We are not speculating that there was no canopy. We are asking you to prove that one actually existed. We are asking you to support your claim with some actual evidence.

LOL, I don't have proof, only forensic evidence. You are saying there was no canopy despite the forensic evidence.

Of course they are not without evidence... because common descent is exactly what happened FROM the created KINDS. Their claim that all life descended from a SINGLE COMMON ancestor is what they have no evidence for (though they certainly claim otherwise by using equivocation).

Weak is an understatement.

Right, so we disagree with them even though they have evidence, weak as it is.

 

[Right Divider]

Let me go back to something you said before: "I agree that the composition of the atmosphere was probably a lot different, but that does not require a higher atmospheric pressure. You are claiming "higher pressure", but again no evidence of that supposed fact."

Your statement is not quite right. Instead you should be saying "I agree that the composition of the atmosphere was probably a lot different, but that does not necessarily require a higher atmospheric pressure."

You're just being silly here. Even without the word "necessarily", my sentence means exactly that.

Get it? A canopy may not be necessary based on the forensic evidence, but it is not outside of a reasonable idea depending on the weight one puts on the factors involved.

No only is a canopy unneeded, it is physically impossible based on many problems that it would cause. @JudgeRightly has pointed out some of these problems.

Or, said in a more general way; The differences we know about in the pre-flood atmosphere and land is forensic evidence.

What do we "know about the pre-flood atmosphere? Provide that information with its evidence.

How that forensic evidence is interpreted varies by the weight a person puts on the various factors involved. Thus, via the weight I put on certain factors that benefit from pressure, a different gas mix, reduced UV light, and more even temperatures leads me to believe there was a layer of atmosphere around what, for the most part, we see today.

Again, that additional pressure COULD have benefits is NOT evidence that it did exist.

 

[Idolater]

... Events like supernovae were created in an "already happened" state. ...

This has been my position, it comports with the story in the Garden, man and woman were made fully formed adults as far as we can tell. That means their development as human organisms "already happened" on the day they were made by God. Same goes for all the trees created in the Garden, plus all the other creatures. Plus even the soil all the plants were living in, as fertile soil is a mixture of sand, silt and clay, plus organic material (compost or humus for example). The formation of compost and humus also "already happened."

It's the "creation with the appearance of age" theory, I think it's called.

 

[Clete]

This has been my position, it comports with the story in the Garden, man and woman were made fully formed adults as far as we can tell. That means their development as human organisms "already happened" on the day they were made by God. Same goes for all the trees created in the Garden, plus all the other creatures. Plus even the soil all the plants were living in, as fertile soil is a mixture of sand, silt and clay, plus organic material (compost or humus for example). The formation of compost and humus also "already happened."

It's the "creation with the appearance of age" theory, I think it's called.

Well, yes but the folks that adhere to the appearance of age theory typically take it very much too far. The fact remains that modern "science" is more political than it is scientific and has more to do with being anti-religious than it has to do with doing intellectually honest investigations into the nature of the world around us and, more often than not, the adherents to "appearance of age" type theories generally want to accept every premise that modern science puts forward while giving what amounts to mere lip service to God having created it all.

I would readily admit that going too far down this road is a major issue with my stance on this issue and such an error should be very cautiously avoided.

 

[Yorzhik]

But it isn't implied, naturally.

You have to read "canopy" into the text in order for it to imply that there was a canopy, and that's just not how things are done.

It is precisely how things are done. When one reads a figure of speech in the bible we look at grammar, history, and science to get the best interpretation.

An interpretation based on a priori beliefs.

That's quite a presumption. I'm perfectly comfortable with there being no canopy, which would not be true in principle if it were an a priori belief. Yet the forensic evidence tips the scales in favor of an interpretation of 'the windows of heaven' being a different atmosphere that could have been enclosed.

I'm accusing you of adding to scripture because you're insisting that the scriptures imply that there was a canopy where none is stated.

As I said to RD. You really think my interpretation of "windows of heaven" rises to the level of God's admonishment of adding to His word? Saying God said something that He didn't say is taking His name in vain, which is something God took a very dim view on.

Ex 20:7 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Deut 4:1-2 Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, so that you may keep the commands of Jehovah your God which I command you.

Deut 12:32 Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it

Prov 30:6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

Rev 22:18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book

That's a pretty serious charge for not adding the words "windows of heaven" to scripture, but instead disagreeing with you on exactly what they mean. Especially since I think the view you take is also reasonable and I'm perfectly OK with there being no canopy.

Seeing how serious God takes adding to scripture, do you see me as a heretic because I disagree with your interpretation of a figure of speech found in the bible? If you are consistent you sure would.

Only if you read it into the text.

And since the forensic evidence supports it.

Again, Noah didn't write anything, as far as we know.

Moses is the one who wrote Genesis, inspired by God.

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

Of course the document hypothesis is wrong, as I've been saying for many years now. The document hypothesis and the tablet theory are different. You should read the link, which lays out why Bob Ball supported the idea and why Bob Enyart didn't disagree with it (Bob Enyart may have supported it too, but I can't remember the conversation Bob Ball and Bob Enyart had on the subject. I do remember it was at the seminar right after 9/11).

Still it would be good to get your comment on why you said what you did since I was describing your view. Here, I'll state it again with underlining:

"It could also mean that every time it rained, at least to Noah, that he wanted to differentiate rain from normal watering he was used to since he hadn't seen rain like this before. So he added a phrase to let people know this wasn't the usual water the way they normally got it, but a crazy new form that came from the heavens in such great amounts it was like floodgates were opened."

In other words, you're assuming there was a canopy that was torn through.

My position, on the other hand, assumes only what is stated by scripture.

See the difference?

My position assumes only what is stated in scripture. This is the same as the word "trinity". Just because the bible doesn't use a particular word doesn't mean the idea isn't in scripture. 'Windows of heaven' is enough for God's purpose for the idea of a canopy.

Keeping your supposed canopy aloft requires the violation of the laws of physics. AKA, a miracle.

You forgot to add 'in your opinion' since you simply don't have enough data to state this as a fact.

So why are you immediately jumping to "canopy"? Why not the "flying spaghetti monster"? In other words, what evidence do you have to positively assert that there was a canopy?

I don't immediately jump to a canopy, I weigh the factors carefully. I don't jump to the FSM because there is no forensic evidence for such. The forensic evidence for the canopy is the pre-flood conditions I've listed a number of times. It's not proof, you could be right there is no canopy, but that evidence can also imply a canopy which I think we'll find when we have more data.

The simplest solution is often the correct one.

Why are you assuming canopy, when the water went through the atmosphere with the fountains, and then returned through the atmosphere as though floodgates were opened?

Why the need to add "canopy" to that?

Because I'm following the evidence where it leads.

There is no indication of being "ripped open" anywhere in scripture that it describes the windows of heaven.

You mean scripture has to use a word for "ripped" or it didn't happen? You ask too much of God to give details of something He didn't care to tell us much about. Just to say the windows of heaven were opened is enough.

Or, as the video I posted earlier showed, it was simply a matter of the fountains being suppressed enough to not launch water high enough into the atmosphere for it to come down as though floodgates were opened, a purely physical process.

Sure, that's quite plausable.

But you have to add "canopy" to the process, where scripture only says "windows of heaven."

No, canopy isn't added, it is interpreted from "windows of heaven".

In other words, a "canopy" has nothing to do with the process, so why bother?

Because I said, "because it doesn't mean anything to a canopy at all at that point in the text." It's the point in the text you brought up where the canopy doesn't matter. It makes you look like you aren't considering what you are arguing against.

I linked to a video earlier. The link takes you to the relevant section of the video, and I told you to watch until a certain point (because after that point, Brian Nickel moves onto a different subject).

Did you not bother to watch it?

If you did, then what about that process, which is just a small-scale representation as to what is proposed to have happened by the HPT, implies that there needs to be a canopy of some sort?

Of course I watched it since I had seen all the Brian Nickel videos on HPT when they came out. There is nothing he said that implies a canopy because he didn't address the questions I am.

Expected, how? All I've seen so far is conjecture.

You are conflating the different points we've been talking about. Just because you've seen conjecture doesn't mean it's all I've presented. And regardless of any conjecture, if the canopy were as I've described it, it would have come down quickly with a fountain going through it.

YOU! Who else!

No, you are talking to someone that supports VCT, which isn't me.

There are other questions that pertain to your theory as well on that page, and it is addressed to ANY form of "canopy." That means yours as well.

How about heat? How does your idea deal with the heat that a canopy would trap?

If I remember correctly, there was a simulation run at some point, and it found that just a 4" canopy of water above the earth would be enough to boil everything alive.

As implied by my answer, not knowing the construction of the canopy (perhaps there was no water in it to speak of if at all), I can say nothing about the heat it trapped. And, as I've mentioned in previous conversations we've had on this topic, I don't have a good answer for the heat problem but I don't dismiss it.

How about the final "Response" on this page?

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Arguments for a Canopy—and Brief Responses

hpt.rsr.org

Where are the canopy interpretations that predate Vail's in 1874?

They didn't have the forensic evidence we have today is the obvious answer.

Supra, re: the video link.

In case you weren't aware, one of the premises of the entire HPT is that it aims to explain the Global Flood through as many purely physical processes as possible.

A canopy above the earth does not comport to that premise.

Sure it comports to the premise that the canopy (after it was created) acted according to physics, and it came down according the physics, too.

Why did it take 40 days for it to be destroyed then, if it was so fragile?

Your idea isn't consistent with scripture.

The windows of heaven were open for 40 days and nights. The canopy you propose was, as you stated, "certainly" fragile, and "probably would have taken a lot less than the fountains of the great deep ripping through it to take it down."

How does something that fragile last for 40 days and then "close"?

Alternately, it's explained by the video link above, no canopy required, through purely physical means.

Perhaps it took longer than 40 days, but 40 days was close enough for God to use that number. Perhaps it took less than 40 days, but since the rain stopped after 40 days and it was long gone there was no need to explain in detail exactly how long it took since it could be lumped in with the fountains breaking up because they were related. Perhaps it took exactly 40 days because it was big but the majority of it came down right away. Perhaps the canopy didn't include water and had nothing to do with contributing to the rain, so what was invisible, and then gone, was just marked to together with the 40 days of rain that started the flood. Perhaps remnants of the canopy were still up after 40 days but not enough to matter so God considered the matter closed.

But no matter how it happened, it all happened through purely physical means.

Conjecture.

No, it was a question about what you were comparing. Despite what?

Answered here:

In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Did It Rain before the Flood? What Generated the Preflood Mist?

Yes. And it doesn't address what the canopy could address. In fact, everything there remains the same with or without a canopy.

Documentary Hypothesis Refuted by Cassuto, and here on RSR by Dr. Peter Gentry | KGOV.com

kgov.com

Again, the tablet theory has nothing to do with the document hypothesis. You should read the link I provided. It's very interesting and compelling.