Phil Wrote:
>>>I heartily agree that we don't want to ignore data sets and lock ourselves into positions that can't hold up to scrutiny, but my point is that atheism is not the automatic alternative. I would prefer to simply accept that I don't understand the flood, and then remain a Christian.<<<
One of the problems I have is that I observe so often that Christians simply twist logic and twist data to stay with their viewpoint. That makes one wonder if the early christians did the same. In which case, one can't trust their accounts of resurrection and water-walking.
>>>From Phil:
You missed my point -- and I apologize if I wasn't clear. I was talking about primitive people who are Christians. Their lack of scientific sophistication and their inability to think of scientific explanations for Noah doesn't render their faith worthless. My point was that our faith doesn't have to explain Noah either. We don't have to become atheists just because we are mystified about how to reconcile Genesis with historical, scientifically reasonable facts.<<<
GRM: We might be talking past each other. In the case of Genesis, we are not talking about primitive people who were Christians, we are talking primitive peoples who were Jews. But that is minor. When I hear how the primitive peoples were too dumb to understand, I know two things. Their brains were identical to ours. They could understand. Secondly, some cultures DID understand and had fully evolutionary views of the origin of the world. Third, we can't use ad hoc principles for our religion but deny those same principles to other religions, wich is why I keep pointing out that if we assume that God had to talk down to those poor primitive dummies and tell them a bunch of fish stories, then why can't other religions do the same thing and their adherents save their religion from the silliness they have.
GRM: No, faith doesn't rest on Noah. But, we can't verify the resurrection today (we can beleive it but not verify it). We can't verify the actual existence of anyone before David. We can't verify the creation account. But we should be able to find evidence for a flood. That is the only thing which is macroscopically verifiable with evidence. That is why the flood is important.
GRM: But faith IS based upon the idea that the event actually happened (the ressurrection), but that is based upon the veracity of the story handed down, which means that the story teller must be a truthful guy who can tell the difference between fiction and reality. What I see in the area of Christianity is a whole lot of people who can't tell when they have logical or observational problems with their belief system. Data is twisted and turned so that it fits the ugly stepsister's foot into the shoe, but then they tell me how true Christianity is. That is the YECs. The other side, says, well, all that OT stuff is really not true other than teaching us deep spiritual truths but the resurrection really happened, but they seem never to realize that if God is strong enough to raise a man from the dead, he should be able to tell us something real about the world.
GRM: While we may not like the answer, atheism does actually solve all these issues. They go away.
>>>Glenn wrote:
GRM:And this is what I find uttlerly incredibly wrong with the approach you take. YOu wouldn't publish a physics paper saying that Pons and Fleischman have every bit as much claim to the truth as those in your business who do not believe in cold fusion, would you?<<<
Phil writes:
all your comments here are coming from your misunderstanding of what I said (or my failure to communicate clearly). Of course I don't believe that polytheists are just as correct as we are. That's silly. I was talking about unsophisticated **Christians** who live in the jungles. **Their** faith is just as valid to God as ours is, even though they may be completely unscientific and irrational. Hence we see that God doesn't expect science to be the touchstone of faith. Even if we can't explain Genesis 1-11, whatever the touchstone of faith may be it is still available to us, and hence there is no valid cause to become an atheist.<<<
gRM: OK, then I did misunderstand. I apologize, I was wrong. No, science isn't the touchstone of the faith, but let me put it this way. Do you believe the book of morman for which there is not one shred of archaeological evidence that the events actually happened? If not, why not? Do you think it is a sham? I do. But, if I judge the Book of MOrmon in that way, why do I reserve judgement on the Bible with a similar standard? If what it says is fictional claptrap, then I should treat it the same as I treat the Book of MOrmon.
>>>>Glenn writes:
GRM:ARe you aware that near surface geologists regularly bore into the near surface to see what is there? I keep trying to tell you, but you refuse to listen, that if there was evidence of a widespread holocene flood, it would be abundantly evident. Maybe you should do some geology courses sometime.<<<<
Glenn, you are trying to make it a binary all-or-nothing. Either your straw-man version of the flood is true or else there was no biblical flood in Mesopotamia, according to your arguments. <<<<
GRM: It is a binary. either the flood was in Mesopotamia or it wasn't. Unless the macroscopic world suddenly becomes quantum, there is no superposition here.
>>>I actually have studied some geology -- not as much as you, <<<<
Then I stand corrected again. I was wrong.
>>>>but I have studied planetary geology. My Ph.D. advisor was a well known planetary geologist who was directing me in the study of sand-related topics (she moved to another university after several years, so I didn't finish with her -- I finished with a soft condensed matter theorist). My specialization at NASA is studying sand, and currently I am funded in one of my research projects to study the geology of the lunar south pole regolith. My other funded project is studying how gases interact with sand: erosion, deposition, diffusively driven shearing, etc. I just got back from a conference in Houston where I presented some of my findings on that topic. I was a co-organizer of that conference, and the chair of the first and second Workshops on Granular Materials in Lunar and Martian Exploration. Prior to the recent focus on the moon I was researching similar topics for Martian geology. I've been heavily involved in these related topics for quite some time. This by no means makes me an expert in terrestrial sedimentology. I'm very well aware of this. But I've become increasingly aware of the fact that your arguments against the flood are really only arguments against your interpretation of a mesopotamian flood, and you won't allow anyone to refine their views based on the evidence because in your mind the only correct way to respond is to completely chuck a model and adopt yours, because it's all or nothing in your mind. That's certainly not the way science works.<<<
GRM: So, the refinement you want is a wind that shifts course everytime the ark turns a bend in the river? could be of course. God could do that. And if you tell me that that is what miraculously happened, I couldn't argue with you and you would actually solve the problem. But so far, I haven't heard the word, miraculous in the explanation proffered.
>>>I appreciate that you are pointing out the lack of thick, widespread surface deposits in upper mesopotamia because that certainly does falsify a number of versions of the mesopotamian flood theory. I value the fact that you have shown this to me, and it has caused me to modify my views. However, it does not falsify all possible mesopotamian flood models. How much silt would have been deposited 50 km to the side of Ninevah, for example? 0.5 mm?<<<
GRM: When the Mississippi River flooded in 1993 there were places where 6 feet of new sand was deposited outside of the normal floodplain.
>>> Do you think 0.5 mm of silt would not be tumbled by the action of migrating sand dunes, mixed with the sand and unrecognizably dispersed after 5000 years? <<<
GRM: I dont think we are talking about .5 mm of silt. River floods deep and big enough to cover northern Iraq would deposit much thicker sediment as did the Mississippi River in 1993. The thin veneer model of Mesopotamian flood doesn't match other floods of lesser magnitude that we have observed
>>> I suspect it would be. Do you think it was 10 mm, which would be sure to survive that long? If so, then you have to calculate how much silt that would be in total to discover whether that quantity of silt is reasonable. Is it some compromise, some areas with more silt and some with less? I have no doubt that a reasonable view of a mesopotamian flood can emerge if we allow the actual facts to mold the theory. It's not all or nothing.<<<<
GRM: I would compare it with the 1993 Mississippi flooding, which still would only be a child compared with what a flood covering northern Iraq (widespread) would have to be.
>>>>No doubt quaternary geologists have found silt farther from the river than shown on your map. Surely the Euphrates occaisionally silted up and changed channels, and that would assure the existence of silt not shown on your map. Those deposits must be under the aeolian deposits, exactly where we would expect them to be! <<<
GRM: This one I would say you are making up the evidence, because the maps show none. Those rivers, I believe are underfit and are dug into the bedrock making it difficult to switch channels. I have a page showing this phenomenon in the Green River formation, where the river hasn't changed in 100 years.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ErosionGreenRiverUtah.jpg
>>>It also seems inherently reasonable to me that a flood theory can be constructed that meets the geological evidence and meets the description we find in the text when we disabuse ourselves of various assumptions (such as the one that Noah couldn't have seen any distant mountains). A modest mesopotamian flood would leave more silt near the river and less far away, and the thinner areas of silt would tend to be dispersed and covered by 5000 years of aeolian activity. It is reasonable that this would NOT end up looking like a flood of biblical proportions, according to the biases that most persons have. Hence, I don't doubt that the silt from Noah's flood HAVE been seen here or there and even somewhat away from the river, and yet it probably wasn't recognized as being important to the discussion of Noah. It was probably just seen as modest amounts of silt that could have gotten there any number of ways, and so it was no big deal. <<<
Well, you might be right that the flood was a normal river flood and God miraculously changed the wind with each and every bend in the river. Problem solved. I can't criticize such a view. But I don't think you really want that word miraculous in there or do you?
>>>>Unless we can inject some quantitative analysis into this discussion then there is no reason to continue. The kind of discussion should be things like, how much resistance to dispersal would a 1 mm layer of silt have when the sands beneath it are sapped away in the wind or when it is pelted by wind-blown grains, and would the rate of degredation survive 5000 years? How much silt would be laid down as a function of location by numerical simulations of the hydrology of various flood models? Only these kinds of quantitative studies can really advance this discussion.<<<
GRM: First off you have to demonstrate that you would only get 1 mm of silt. Modern floods disprove that concept pretty well. Especially if you have any abundant sand layers nearby to throw into the mix. I think your 1 mm scenario does show your bias. That is the first thing to prove. Floods often carry a 3% sediment load by weight. If it left a 1 mm silt, the flood would be not much deeper than 8 centimeters as far as I can see and as I calculate it. Couldn't they have walked in that water depth?
There is your quantitative analysis
Received on Thu Mar 9 17:56:41 2006
