The Dilemma of the Geological Layers and their Fossil Contents

bob b

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The reason that scientists (even Christian believers) gave up on the Flood several hundred years ago as being the mechanism to generate most of the sedimentary layers is that they could not imagine where all the water for a worldwide Flood could have come from.

Once rejected nobody has ever seen any compelling reason to seriously revisit the Flood scenario. So "naturalistic" ideas have held sway among scientists ever since and tens of thousands of papers have been written assuming the slow accumulation over millions of years scenario. But like the Big Bang, the holes in this idea are big enough to drive a truck through. Keeps people busy and gainfully employed trying to patch things up though. ;)
 

noguru

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The reason that scientists (even Christian believers) gave up on the Flood several hundred years ago as being the mechanism to generate most of the sedimentary layers is that they could not imagine where all the water for a worldwide Flood could have come from.

Once rejected nobody has ever seen any compelling reason to seriously revisit the Flood scenario. So "naturalistic" ideas have held sway among scientists ever since and tens of thousands of papers have been written assuming the slow accumulation over millions of years scenario. But like the Big Bang, the holes in this idea are big enough to drive a truck through. Keeps people busy and gainfully employed trying to patch things up though. ;)

Yes, and if science would just adopt your brand of supernaturalism you could send all those ignorant naturalists home. What a wonderful world it would be. :rotfl:
 

bob b

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Yes, and if science would just adopt your brand of supernaturalism you could send all those ignorant naturalists home. What a wonderful world it would be. :rotfl:

"Matthew 24:38-39 (New King James Version)
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Keep laughing, eating and drinking.
 

PlastikBuddha

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"Matthew 24:38-39 (New King James Version)
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Keep laughing, eating and drinking.

And you keep on believing in fairy stories.
 

noguru

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"Matthew 24:38-39 (New King James Version)
38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Keep laughing, eating and drinking.

Now you are trying to intimidate me through fear into accepting your view. :dizzy: I guess the view from your ivory tower can affect your balance and perception of reality.
 

bob b

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Now you are trying to intimidate me through fear into accepting your view. :dizzy: I guess the view from your ivory tower can affect your balance and perception of reality.

So now it is not only Genesis that you think is a fairytale, but you have now graduated to treating the words of our Lord and Savior in the same way.

Pity.
 

The Barbarian

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Funny, when they realize that they have lost the argument, they always try the old "God is going to get you for not listening to me" routine.
 

Yorzhik

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If not, evolutionary theory has a lot of explaining to do.
Okay. So we agree there are sedimentary layers on both sides of the KTB. These layers, like the KTB itself, can be measured. How big is any particular patch of sedimentary layers just above the KTB? How big is any particular patch of sedimentary layers just below the KTB?

The Barbarian said:
So explain how you think it would be different, and how we can test that idea.
Different from what?

My first question is: "How would fluid dynamics work in a worldwide flood?"

The Barbarian said:
Actually, when the evidence was discovered, almost everyone went over to the Heliocentric model. Although the civil authorities wanted Copernicus's books edited, most of them were not. By Galileo's time, people knew. He merely put the finishing touches on the theory.
So he was put under house arrest because everyone agreed with him?

The Barbarian said:
Nope. Just show us the evidence. You're back to the "evil scientific conspiracy" stuff again. If you have no evidence for your beliefs, surely you can see that people aren't going to believe them.

Why not just admit you don't have any evidence?
I'm not a scientist. You wouldn't believe any of the evidence I presented. And if I did present something you could not refute, you will still just say "the scientists don't agree" and dismiss it anyway.

However, there is a ton of evidence already out there. I think the sedimentary layers will turn out to be more of it.
 

The Barbarian

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Barbarian observes:
If not, evolutionary theory has a lot of explaining to do.

Okay. So we agree there are sedimentary layers on both sides of the KTB. These layers, like the KTB itself, can be measured. How big is any particular patch of sedimentary layers just above the KTB?

Depends on the location. At any given time, different parts of the Earth are experiencing deposition, while others are experiencing erosion. So they show differences. There are few places on the Earth where the entire geological column exists in situ.

How big is any particular patch of sedimentary layers just below the KTB?

Depends. See above. Dependng on which one, and where you are, it can be anything from less than an inch to a few miles.

Barbarian on 'hydrologic sorting':
So explain how you think it would be different, and how we can test that idea.

Different from what?

If you're right about hydrologic sorting (whatever that is) being the difference between fossils found at different levels, explain how it works, and what you would predict seeing at different levels. How can we test the idea

My first question is: "How would fluid dynamics work in a worldwide flood?"

It's your idea. You don't know? Explain how we would be able to test it. What will be the difference between lower and upper layers?

Barbarian observes:
Actually, when the evidence was discovered, almost everyone went over to the Heliocentric model. Although the civil authorities wanted Copernicus's books edited, most of them were not. By Galileo's time, people knew. He merely put the finishing touches on the theory.

So he was put under house arrest because everyone agreed with him?

Scientists agreed with him. BTW, you might want to check out the history; he was actually encouraged by the Pope to work on the theory. He was actually arrested on a trumped-up charge for political reasons. That was a convenient way to get him.

Barbarian observes:
Nope. Just show us the evidence. You're back to the "evil scientific conspiracy" stuff again. If you have no evidence for your beliefs, surely you can see that people aren't going to believe them.

Why not just admit you don't have any evidence?

I'm not a scientist. You wouldn't believe any of the evidence I presented.

So far, no evidence. You suggested "hydrologic sorting", but when I ask a few questions, you either don't know what it means, or you're remarkably shy about telling us.

And if I did present something you could not refute, you will still just say "the scientists don't agree" and dismiss it anyway.

Ah, you'd like to support your argument with facts, but the Evil Barbarian won't let you. Very handy.

However, there is a ton of evidence already out there.

But you won't show any of it to us. Whatta surprise.

I think the sedimentary layers will turn out to be more of it.

You think a lot of things that are pretty weird. This is hardly the strangest one.
 

Stripe

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A world covered in sedimentary deposits all formed in marine conditions is compelling evidence that all those places were once under water.
 

noguru

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So now it is not only Genesis that you think is a fairytale, but you have now graduated to treating the words of our Lord and Savior in the same way.

I will explian one more time in case you weren't listening the past 100 times I have explained. I think that much of Genesis is allegorical. I believe there was a large local flood. It was humans who perceived this as encompassing the whole world, because it was the whole of the world they knew. Certainly you are not claiming that the parts of the Bible you see as allegory are actually fairytales. Or are you?

At any rate, while I believe there is a valid warning in this verse, your use of it to intimidate me to adopt your view is very telling.


Yes, it is.
 
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The Barbarian

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A world covered in sedimentary deposits all formed in marine conditions is compelling evidence that all those places were once under water.

Would be compelling, except that there are extensive sedimentary deposits that were not formed underwater. (we can check this by comparing the two different kinds, as they are still forming today)

In fact, as in the Grand Canyon, we can find the remains of forests and deserts that had the time to appear and then be buried, right in the middle of the supposed "Flood Deposits." This is one of the myriad of reasons geologists laugh at the unscriptural idea of a worldwide flood.

And while most of the Earth has been under water at some point or another, the rocks say that the Earth has never been totally covered by water.
 

The Barbarian

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Yep. Scripture doesn't say "God helps those who help themselves", either. People tend to add things to Scripture.

I'd be pleased to see where it says that there was a worldwide flood. The word in Genesis was "eretz", which can mean an area of land, a specfic country (eretz Israel) or just "land" generally.

So the Flood story, for example, doesn't talk of a worldwide flood.
 

Stripe

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Yep. Scripture doesn't say "God helps those who help themselves", either. People tend to add things to Scripture. I'd be pleased to see where it says that there was a worldwide flood. The word in Genesis was "eretz", which can mean an area of land, a specfic country (eretz Israel) or just "land" generally. So the Flood story, for example, doesn't talk of a worldwide flood.
:rotfl:

You just said it does...
 

The Barbarian

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Um, no, I just said that it didn't. It would be as though someone said "the land is flooded", and you took it to mean "the world is flooded."

Weird reasoning, but pehaps it illuminates the problem better than I could have.

The truth matters. It is immaterial whether or not you can re-interpret the Bible to fit your desires; there is truth in it, and adding new ideas like this is not acceptable to God.
 

The Barbarian

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Sorry. The vast majority of Hebrew scholars admit that it does not indicate a worldwide flood.

The majority of modern Biblical scholars accept the thesis that the Biblical flood story is linked to a cycle of Assyro-Babylonian mythology with which it shares many features. The Mesopotamian flood-myth had a very long currency—the last known retelling dates from the 3rd century BC. A substantial number of the original Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian texts, written in cuneiform, have been recovered by archaeologists, but the task of recovering more tablets continues, as does the translation of extant tablets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah's_Ark



Which is not unexepected, since there is no evidence for such a flood, and a great deal of evidence against it.

To believe in a worldwide flood, you would have to believe entire forests and deserts had time to form between "flood sediments" during the "flood year."

So there's neither Biblical nor scientific support for it. It's pretty much the imagination of a Seventh-Day Adventist "prophetess", proslytyzed to some evangelical Christians.
 
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