Beliefs Regarding The Flood

[valiant]

The biblical global flood supposedly covered the planet. Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall and the diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.
So, here are the calculations:
First, Everest
V= 4/3 * pi * r^3
= 4/3 * pi * (6387.248 km)^3
= 1.09151 x 10^12 cubic kilometres

Now, the Earth at sea level

V = 4/3 * pi * r^3
= 4/3 * pi * (6378.4 km)^3
= 1.08698 x 10^12 cubic kilometres
The difference between these two figures, 4.525 x 10^9 cubic kilometres is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth. Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000 cubic kilometres. This is one helluva lot of water.
For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary.

Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre so:
4.252x10^9 km^3 of water,
x 10^6 (= cubic meters),
x 10^6 (= cubic centimetres),
x 1 g/cm^3 (= grams),
x 1o^-3 (= kilograms),
= 4.525X 10^21 kg.
Ever wonder what the effects of that much weight would be? Well, many times in the near past (i.e., the Pleistocene), continental ice sheets covered many of the northern states and most all of Canada. For the sake of argument, let's call the area covered by the Wisconsinian advance (the latest and greatest) was 10,000,000,000 km^2, by an average thickness of 1 km of ice (a good estimate...it was thicker in the zones of accumulation and much thinner elsewhere at the ablating edges. Now, 1.00x10^7 km^2 X 1 km thickness equals 1.00x10^7 km^3 of ice. Now, remember earlier that we noted that it would take 4.525x10^9 km^3 of water for the flood? Well, looking at the Wisconsinian glaciation, all that ice (which is frozen water, remember?) would be precisely 0.222 percent of the water needed for the flood.
Well, the Wisconsinian glacial stade ended about 25,000 BP as compared for the approximately supposedly 4,000 BP flood event. Due to these late Pleistocene glaciations some 21,000 years preceding the supposed biblical flood, the mass of the ice had actually depressed the crust of the Earth. That crust, now that the ice is gone, is slowly rising (called glacial rebound); and this rebound can be measured, in places (like northern Wisconsin), in centimetres/year. Sea level was also lowered some 10's of meters due to the very finite amount of water in the Earth's hydrosphere being locked up in glacial ice sheets (geologists call this glacioeustacy).

Now, glacial rebound can only be measured, obviously, in glaciated terrains, i.e., the Sahara is not rebounding as it was not glaciated during the Pleistocene. This lack of rebound is noted by laser ranged interferometery and satellite geodesy, as well as by geomorphology. Glacial striae on bedrock, eskers, tills, moraines, rouche moutenees, drumlins, kame and kettle topography, fjords, deranged fluvial drainage and erratic blocks all betray a glacier's passage. Needless to say, these geomorphological expressions are not found everywhere on Earth (for instance, like the Sahara). Therefore, although extensive, the glaciers were a local (not global) is scale. Yet, at only 0.222% the size of the supposed flood, they have had a PROFOUND and EASILY recognisable and measurable effects on the lands. Yet, the supposed flood of Noah, supposedly global in extent, supposedly much more recent, and supposedly orders of magnitude larger in scale; has exactly zero measurable effects and zero evidence for it's occurrence.

Even further, let us take a realistic and dispassionate look at the other claims relating to global flooding. Particularly, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (5 m) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 5,155.7 m, or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37 x 10^9 km^3. Where would this additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C.

Someone has suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, is staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.

Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.252 x 10^9 km^3 of water with a mass of 4.525 x 10^21 kg. When this amount of water is floating above the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:
Potential energy: E=M*g*H, where
M = mass of water,
g = gravitational constant and,
H = height of water above surface.
Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525 x 10^21 kg/40 24 hr. periods. This equals 1.10675 x 10^20 kilograms daily. Using H as 16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584 x 10^25 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m^2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is: e = 1.735384 x 10^25/(4*3.14159* ((6386)^2*86,400)) = 391,935.0958 j/m^2/s.
Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan- Boltzman 4th power law to calculate the increase in temperature:
E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T^4 (normal)

E (normal) = 215
E (increase) = 391,935.0958
T (normal) = 280.

Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1800 K.

The temperature would thusly rise 1800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's well above melting temperature of lead). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of 6 ft deep.
Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.

It is quite clear that a Biblical Flood is and was quite impossible.

By Dr. Marty Leipzig at:

*Dr. Marty Leipzig looks at the mathematics of 'Noah's Flood.'

this whole argument assumes that no changes have taken place in mountain and sea levels. this is simply unrealistic. back to the drawing board Leipzig!!!

 

[valiant]

There may be several grains of truth to the flood mythology of Noah and similar mythologies from elsewhere in the ancient Middle East. About 25 years ago it was discovered (" Noah's Flood" by Ryan and Pitman) that in antiquity the Black Sea was a freshwater lake with a water level at least 155 meters (510 feet) below its present level. It was cut off from the Mediterranean Sea by a silt plug in the Straits of Bosporus. This plug broke through about 5600 BC. It created an immense waterfall whose sound was most likely audible for 100 or more miles. The Black Sea basin filled to its present level over a period of several weeks. It is estimated that the shore line advanced at the rate of a mile or more per day. For the people living around the lake it was a catastrophe of immense magnitude. It was likely the single most memorable flood in all of human history. The racial memory of this event probably inspired the Gilgamesh epic which in turn inspired the Noah narrative in the Bible. The evidence for this flood is scientifically solid. This prompted the National Geographic Society to finance an underwater search along the ancient shoreline for evidence of pre-flood human habitation. This search has been successful! A settlement has been found at a depth of 90 meters approximately 12 miles off the coast of Turkey. It is in a remarkable state of preservation because it is located in an area of the Black Sea where the water is completely devoid of oxygen with the effect that biological decomposition does not take place. This means that wooden artifacts such as tools, planks, housing beams etc are preserved intact. What is also quite amazing is that while there is solid scientific evidence for this local flood some 7600 YBP, there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood just 4300 YBP. One would think that a more recent, more catastrophic event would have wiped out evidence of the earlier Black Sea event.

The Black Sea flood was not large enough to fulfil the Biblical requirements. Furthermore it is too recent. This is called grasping at straws.

 

[JackRT]

I can only suggested an exposure to science and contact with actual scientists, many of whom are Christian themselves.

Radiometric Dating

The above article on radiometric dating is written by a working scientist who is also a Christian.

 

[JackH]

The Black Sea flood was not large enough to fulfil the Biblical requirements. Furthermore it is too recent. This is called grasping at straws.

What date, approximately, do you put this flood of yours at?

 

[JackH]

I can only suggested an exposure to science and contact with actual scientists, many of whom are Christian themselves.

Radiometric Dating

The above article on radiometric dating is written by a working scientist who is also a Christian.

I have tried providing credible information such as that.

You will soon discover that talking to YECs in these forums is like talking to a rock.

A rock that YECs will insist can never be more than 6,000 years old, no matter what.

YECs have undergone a frontal lobotomy without even having to pay a doctor bill.

 

[DiscipleDave]

The Great Flood. Do you believe it was:

1. Local

2. Worldwide

3. An Allegorical Story

Simply curious. Nothing more.

The Word of God plainly teaches it was world-wide to kill ALL flesh.

There are two types of people. Those who believe the Word of God, and those who don't.

And those who doubt, are they that don't.

^i^ Responding to OP

 

[JackH]

The Word of God plainly teaches it was world-wide to kill ALL flesh.

There are two types of people. Those who believe the Word of God, and those who don't.

And those who doubt, are they that don't.

^i^ Responding to OP

So, you are saying that those Christians who do not believe in a global flood do not believe in the Word of God?

And what else does that mean?

Those who do not believe in a global flood are destined for an eternal fate such as the lake of fire?

Who made you the infallible interpreter of the Word of God?

 

[Bowman]

So, you are saying that those Christians who do not believe in a global flood do not believe in the Word of God?

And what else does that mean?

Those who do not believe in a global flood are destined for an eternal fate such as the lake of fire?

Who made you the infallible interpreter of the Word of God?

Jack....we must remember that Dave is a self-proclaimed prophet of God.

He's got insider info on everything.....

 

[valiant]

What date, approximately, do you put this flood of yours at?

well it wasn't actually mine, but if you mean when did the Noahic flood occur I would suggest around 10000 BC or before.

 

[JackRT]

well it wasn't actually mine, but if you mean when did the Noahic flood occur I would suggest around 10000 BC or before.

Strictly biblical dating puts the Noah flood at about 2700 BC or 4700 YBP. The Black Sea flood dates to 7600 YBP and the Arabian Gulf flood to about 10,000 YBP.

 

[JackH]

well it wasn't actually mine, but if you mean when did the Noahic flood occur I would suggest around 10000 BC or before.

How much before?

If a global flood did not occur around 2500 BC, this YEC 6,000-year-old worldview falls totally apart.

 

[valiant]

Strictly biblical dating puts the Noah flood at about 2700 BC or 4700 YBP. The Black Sea flood dates to 7600 YBP and the Arabian Gulf flood to about 10,000 YBP.

Not Biblical dating. Scripture gives no dates. What you mean is that man made assumptions (not Biblical assumptions) may suggest that date.

 

[valiant]

How much before?

If a global flood did not occur around 2500 BC, this YEC 6,000-year-old worldview falls totally apart.

Wow good at maths as well

 

[breno785au]

The biblical global flood supposedly covered the planet. Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall and the diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.
So, here are the calculations:
First, Everest
V= 4/3 * pi * r^3
= 4/3 * pi * (6387.248 km)^3
= 1.09151 x 10^12 cubic kilometres

Now, the Earth at sea level

V = 4/3 * pi * r^3
= 4/3 * pi * (6378.4 km)^3
= 1.08698 x 10^12 cubic kilometres
The difference between these two figures, 4.525 x 10^9 cubic kilometres is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth. Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000 cubic kilometres. This is one helluva lot of water.
For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary.

Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre so:
4.252x10^9 km^3 of water,
x 10^6 (= cubic meters),
x 10^6 (= cubic centimetres),
x 1 g/cm^3 (= grams),
x 1o^-3 (= kilograms),
= 4.525X 10^21 kg.
Ever wonder what the effects of that much weight would be? Well, many times in the near past (i.e., the Pleistocene), continental ice sheets covered many of the northern states and most all of Canada. For the sake of argument, let's call the area covered by the Wisconsinian advance (the latest and greatest) was 10,000,000,000 km^2, by an average thickness of 1 km of ice (a good estimate...it was thicker in the zones of accumulation and much thinner elsewhere at the ablating edges. Now, 1.00x10^7 km^2 X 1 km thickness equals 1.00x10^7 km^3 of ice. Now, remember earlier that we noted that it would take 4.525x10^9 km^3 of water for the flood? Well, looking at the Wisconsinian glaciation, all that ice (which is frozen water, remember?) would be precisely 0.222 percent of the water needed for the flood.
Well, the Wisconsinian glacial stade ended about 25,000 BP as compared for the approximately supposedly 4,000 BP flood event. Due to these late Pleistocene glaciations some 21,000 years preceding the supposed biblical flood, the mass of the ice had actually depressed the crust of the Earth. That crust, now that the ice is gone, is slowly rising (called glacial rebound); and this rebound can be measured, in places (like northern Wisconsin), in centimetres/year. Sea level was also lowered some 10's of meters due to the very finite amount of water in the Earth's hydrosphere being locked up in glacial ice sheets (geologists call this glacioeustacy).

Now, glacial rebound can only be measured, obviously, in glaciated terrains, i.e., the Sahara is not rebounding as it was not glaciated during the Pleistocene. This lack of rebound is noted by laser ranged interferometery and satellite geodesy, as well as by geomorphology. Glacial striae on bedrock, eskers, tills, moraines, rouche moutenees, drumlins, kame and kettle topography, fjords, deranged fluvial drainage and erratic blocks all betray a glacier's passage. Needless to say, these geomorphological expressions are not found everywhere on Earth (for instance, like the Sahara). Therefore, although extensive, the glaciers were a local (not global) is scale. Yet, at only 0.222% the size of the supposed flood, they have had a PROFOUND and EASILY recognisable and measurable effects on the lands. Yet, the supposed flood of Noah, supposedly global in extent, supposedly much more recent, and supposedly orders of magnitude larger in scale; has exactly zero measurable effects and zero evidence for it's occurrence.

Even further, let us take a realistic and dispassionate look at the other claims relating to global flooding. Particularly, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (5 m) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 5,155.7 m, or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37 x 10^9 km^3. Where would this additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C.

Someone has suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, is staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.

Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.252 x 10^9 km^3 of water with a mass of 4.525 x 10^21 kg. When this amount of water is floating above the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:
Potential energy: E=M*g*H, where
M = mass of water,
g = gravitational constant and,
H = height of water above surface.
Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525 x 10^21 kg/40 24 hr. periods. This equals 1.10675 x 10^20 kilograms daily. Using H as 16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584 x 10^25 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m^2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is: e = 1.735384 x 10^25/(4*3.14159* ((6386)^2*86,400)) = 391,935.0958 j/m^2/s.
Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan- Boltzman 4th power law to calculate the increase in temperature:
E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T^4 (normal)

E (normal) = 215
E (increase) = 391,935.0958
T (normal) = 280.

Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1800 K.

The temperature would thusly rise 1800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's well above melting temperature of lead). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of 6 ft deep.
Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.

It is quite clear that a Biblical Flood is and was quite impossible.

By Dr. Marty Leipzig at:

*Dr. Marty Leipzig looks at the mathematics of 'Noah's Flood.'

Inner Earth May Hold More Water Than the Seas

Possibly up to x5 more water under the earth than all the water above the earth they reckon.

 

[JackRT]

Inner Earth May Hold More Water Than the Seas

Possibly up to x5 more water under the earth than all the water above the earth they reckon.

And we are not talking about free water here --- this is water that is both physically and chemically bonded into the rock structure. Did you not notice that?

 

[JackH]

Not Biblical dating. Scripture gives no dates. What you mean is that man made assumptions (not Biblical assumptions) may suggest that date.

I can't believe that YECs aren't putting up more of a fuss about you saying that Scripture gives no dates.

They must all be out at the dinosaur rodeo.

 

[DiscipleDave]

Originally Posted by DiscipleDave

The Word of God plainly teaches it was world-wide to kill ALL flesh.

There are two types of people. Those who believe the Word of God, and those who don't.

And those who doubt, are they that don't.

^i^ Responding to OP

So, you are saying that those Christians who do not believe in a global flood do not believe in the Word of God?

And what else does that mean?

Those who do not believe in a global flood are destined for an eternal fate such as the lake of fire?

Who made you the infallible interpreter of the Word of God?

You would not believe me even if i told you the Truth, but the answer is God.

^i^ Responding to post # 167

 

[valiant]

And we are not talking about free water here --- this is water that is both physically and chemically bonded into the rock structure. Did you not notice that?

but surely the point is that it got there from somewhere, from something that happened on earth?

 

[resurrection33]

The Great Flood. Do you believe it was:

1. Local

2. Worldwide

3. An Allegorical Story

Simply curious. Nothing more.

It could have been allegorical but I'm guessing it really happened. As for whether or not it was worldwide, it killed almost everybody alive, but I don't know how much of the earth was inhabited.

 

[Budman]

This "Hector81" is hijacking posts and changing them. Don't believe a thing he posts. Report him.