Noah's Ark?

[Sparko]

Then why even bring up the theory of oceans of water 400 miles deep in the earth?

Because you said that the rain alone couldn't account for the water. The bible never said it did. If God WANTED to make rain alone do it he could have since it was a miracle, but he didn't. So your whole objection was wrong in the first place. You were trying to analyze a miracle by using natural laws. A miracle is by definition an intervention by God who created the universe and natural laws. He doesn't have to abide by them, although a lot of times he does, at least partially.

If you want to question a miracle, you can't do it by saying it is impossible because of some physical law. It's like saying "how could Jesus float into the sky after his resurrection? Gravity proves it didn't happen!" and then expecting believers to come up with a natural law explanation (uh, helium balloons!! that's the ticket!) - it's just silly

[The Pixie]

1. It isn't in sponge like rock.

From the article you linked to:

"The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water," Jacobsen said. "There is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water. This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle.”

Did you not read it?

2. It would take a long time to drain that much water back down.

3. It didn't happen by accident. If the narrative is true, then God is real and he flooded the earth. duh. You are trying to dismiss a miracle by claiming it doesn't work according to natural laws. well derp. It's a miracle.

I thought you were trying to dismiss a miracle by suggesting how it could be done by natural law. I actually said in post #11 "It is not unreasonable to say God created the water before hand and destroyed it all afterwards."

[Sparko]

From the article you linked to:

"The ringwoodite is like a sponge, soaking up water," Jacobsen said. "There is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water. This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle.”

Did you not read it?

I thought you were trying to dismiss a miracle by suggesting how it could be done by natural law. I actually said in post #11 "It is not unreasonable to say God created the water before hand and destroyed it all afterwards."

actually I didn't read the whole thing I just gave a link to stave off the inevitable argument from JimL about how ridiculous the idea of water spouting from the ground would be. I have read other articles of vast underground oceans in chambers and caverns also and just assumed that article was the same thing.

But no I was not trying to suggest how it was done by natural law. I was just showing JimL that there is indeed water inside the earth. A lot of it. God could of course just created the water out of nothing if he wanted to.

[Sparko]

Okay, though still theoretical I believe, it is interesting. But that doesn't solve the problem. The water, to the extent that it exists, would be trapped by gravity 400 miles beneath the surface of the earth. Other than that, the Oceans make up 96.5 % of the entire earths water according to the USGS, and that doesn't leave much water left for lakes, rivers, or rain, not nearly enough to flood the entire earth.

yeah the USGS needs to update their data.

Andy Coghlan, writing for NewScientist: Sure enough, they found signs of wet ringwoodite in the transition zone 700 kilometres [400 miles] down, which divides the upper and lower regions of the mantle. At that depth, the pressures and temperatures are just right to squeeze the water out of the ringwoodite. “It’s rock with water along the boundaries between the grains, almost as if they’re sweating,” says Jacobsen.

If all the ringwoodite in the transition zone is as damp as the samples that Jacobsen and his team detected, that layer would hold three times as much water as all of the Earth’s oceans combined, reducing their share from 96.5% of all known water to a relatively paltry 24.8%. In other words, the ringwoodite discovery could quadruple the amount of water found on Earth. A blue planet, indeed.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/ea...earths-oceans/

[Meh Gerbil]

No. You are thinking of ice. That is why ice floats. The water molecules joint together in a bigger way.

No, I'm thinking of water molecules.

Here is a very old water molecule:
big.jpg

Here is a brand new water molecule:
small.png

As you can see the new one is about 1/10 the size of the very old molecule.
I don't know why you're talking about ice as it is always the same size.
That is why we say stuff is 'frozen', it doesn't change.

[37818]

No, I'm thinking of water molecules.

Here is a very old water molecule:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]22686[/ATTACH]

Here is a brand new water molecule:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]22687[/ATTACH]

As you can see the new one is about 1/10 the size of the very old molecule.
I don't know why you're talking about ice as it is always the same size.
That is why we say stuff is 'frozen', it doesn't change.

Are you sure you are a gerbil and not a squirrel?

[JimL]

Because you said that the rain alone couldn't account for the water. The bible never said it did. If God WANTED to make rain alone do it he could have since it was a miracle, but he didn't. So your whole objection was wrong in the first place. You were trying to analyze a miracle by using natural laws. A miracle is by definition an intervention by God who created the universe and natural laws. He doesn't have to abide by them, although a lot of times he does, at least partially.

If you want to question a miracle, you can't do it by saying it is impossible because of some physical law. It's like saying "how could Jesus float into the sky after his resurrection? Gravity proves it didn't happen!" and then expecting believers to come up with a natural law explanation (uh, helium balloons!! that's the ticket!) - it's just silly

Sure, you can believe in the miracle aspect if you want, but, The bible describes it as a natural process, it rained, and the springs of the abyss opened, it took time, 40 days for the waters to cover the earth, and time, 150 days for it to recede from the earth. Kind of a strange way for an omnipotant god to conduct a miracle. But, on reflection I shouldn't have brought it up, with god, and the idea of miracles, any scenario, no matter how strange, can be believed, or claimed, without the possibility to disprove.

[Sparko]

Sure, you can believe in the miracle aspect if you want, but, The bible describes it as a natural process, it rained, and the springs of the abyss opened, it took time, 40 days for the waters to cover the earth, and time, 150 days for it to recede from the earth. Kind of a strange way for an omnipotant god to conduct a miracle. But, on reflection I shouldn't have brought it up, with god, and the idea of miracles, any scenario, no matter how strange, can be believed, or claimed, without the possibility to disprove.

Great, now you are second-guessing how God should have done his miracle. Glad to know you think you are smarter than God. Explains quite a bit about you.

[JimL]

Great, now you are second-guessing how God should have done his miracle. Glad to know you think you are smarter than God. Explains quite a bit about you.

I am much smarter than god, I would have just destroyed the world the same way I created it. Puff its gone. I could have set Noah and his family aside, but not sure why I would have, they didn't turn out to be any less sinful than the rest. It took him 7 days to create the world and 40 days to bring it to ruin, then another 150 days to renew it again. Such a waste of god time.

[shunyadragon]

So all that water was sitting around deep underground in this sponge-like rock, then one day it all decides to go to the surface (a trip of 400 miles), and hang around there for a year, before heading back down below.


Want to talk us through the mechanics of that, Sparko?

. . . and the greatest elephant in the room is the nature of the water in the earth is not free water, but tied up in the mantle rocks, and only comes up in the volcanics around the subduction zones. The well water we pump out of rock pores and caverns is not a part of this water nor connected to it.

[Teallaura]

Sure, you can believe in the miracle aspect if you want, but, The bible describes it as a natural process, it rained, and the springs of the abyss opened, it took time, 40 days for the waters to cover the earth, and time, 150 days for it to recede from the earth. Kind of a strange way for an omnipotant god to conduct a miracle. But, on reflection I shouldn't have brought it up, with god, and the idea of miracles, any scenario, no matter how strange, can be believed, or claimed, without the possibility to disprove.

Actually, Scripture describes a miracle and give material details. There is no known natural process that makes the Earth abruptly flood - nor does Scripture describe it that way. Scripture states categorically that God caused the Great Flood then mentions the details.

As to the strangeness aspect, while God is not limited, the humans He's working with are. The miracle establishes His supremacy pretty definitively - and without turning Noah and his kin into shell shocked vegetables in the process. Poof is a really bad idea if you are planning on sane people being left over. This is also in part why God doesn't fully reveal His glory - some things we humans simply cannot handle at present.

[psstein]

Basically, in the ANE context of the story, the "waters of heaven" are held back by some sort of egg-like shell. The "opening of the floodgates of Heaven" is somewhat literal; there are these massive holes that open up in the retaining shell between the "waters" and the earth (as divided in Gen. 1).

[stfoskey15]

The thing is, I'm not sure why a god would cause a global flood and then hide all evidence that one ever occurred. It seems a bit suspect to me.

[Teallaura]

The thing is, I'm not sure why a god would cause a global flood and then hide all evidence that one ever occurred. It seems a bit suspect to me.

When I asked something about what evidence to expect (ages ago) in Nat Sci, I mostly got 'we don't know - what should it look like?' as the answer. Since they don't have models for a worldwide flood, they aren't sure what to look for.

Not a satisfying answer but when I got to thinking about it, a local flood leaves a distinct footprint but would particulate actually end up on mountain tops - or would most of the evidence end up at the bottom of the ocean instead? I'm beginning to suspect - intellectually only - that we are looking at what we should expect - some spotty evidence laid down in the initial flooding but little evidence higher up as the flooding continued to rise. The greatest violence is in the early ground pounding - and that's the area where most of the particulate would fall out, not the top of a mountain - particulate would have to float to get up there. Very little that could would survive. Heck, after months of being water-logged, most stuff wouldn't float and might well get dumped pretty close to where it came from - or at a lower altitude, or even out to sea (well, what will be a sea once the flood recedes)

Maybe.

As a general rule, history seems to show that when we assume God didn't leave a mark, we're looking at the wrong thing.

[rogue06]

When I asked something about what evidence to expect (ages ago) in Nat Sci, I mostly got 'we don't know - what should it look like?' as the answer. Since they don't have models for a worldwide flood, they aren't sure what to look for.

One thing that should be evident (unless it was deliberately concealed) would be a flood layer consisting of a uniform, worldwide blanket of, in order from the bottom up, of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt, overlain by a layer of clay laid down according to Stokes Law -- no heavier heavier sediments on top of layers of lighter sediments.

We should also find things like dolphins and Ichthyosaurs mixed together in the same sediments since they both occupied the same ecological niche. The same with rhinos and Triceratops as well as eagles and pterosaurs. Further, there should be signs of human habitation at the bottom layer -- things like towns and villages or at least firepits, middens and fabricated tools -- which were covered by the flood. And these things should be under the remains of things like ammonites and trilobites which were buried in the layers of sediment laid down over them by the flood.