RE: [asa] yec clain (flood and oil)

"Even if there is evidence of a worldwide Flood, I'm not sure we'd
recognize it for what it is"

Holy cow-if such a worldwide major event happened (covering all the
mountains of the world with water), it should leave a huge "stamp" on
the earth, I think. Are all the polar ice-caps formed after the flood?
If before the flood, why wouldn't they all have been washed away? If
formed after the flood, they must have formed very rapidly... and then
stopped...?

All animals on the ark... must have been an awful lot of insects...?!
Ants, spiders, flies, gnats, mosquitos, ... did Noah bring food for
them, too?

...Bernie

________________________________

From: Don Winterstein [mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com]
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 10:31 AM
To: asa; Dehler, Bernie
Subject: Re: [asa] yec clain (flood and oil)

No way can I speak for YECs, but I'm sure they would not claim that a
divine miracle, apart from the encompassing miracle of the Flood, had
any role in generating oil deposits. Given the Flood miracle, they seem
to favor some kind of "natural" explanation for everything else. It's
just that as a rule I find their "natural explanations" to be
incompatible with real world observations. (However, I seldom read
their literature, so I'm not familiar with many of their details. But I
know beyond doubt that a chaotic event like a massive flood could not
generate more than a tiny fraction of the features geologists and
paleontologists have found in sedimentary rock.)

Even if there is evidence of a worldwide Flood, I'm not sure we'd
recognize it for what it is. The biblical account says the waters
stayed only a short (geologically negligible) time, so features like
shorelines and beaches would have been indistinct or absent. Most of
the time water levels would have been either rising or falling. What we
know from studies of geology is that a great many areas on continents
that are now dry land were once shallow seas. For geologically long
periods of time.

Don

        ----- Original Message -----

        From: Dehler, Bernie <mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com>

        To: asa <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>

        Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 1:11 PM

        Subject: RE: [asa] yec clain (flood and oil)

        Don said:
        "The problem with trying to account for the world's sedimentary
deposits in terms of a single massive flood, however, is that the
mechanism is so astoundingly preposterous that it would require very
large numbers of divine miracles, none of which would have an obvious
connection to that plan of salvation. "

        Wait a minute. What exactly is the YEC claim? Is it that the
oil deposits were formed by the flood (natural outcome of the flood), by
miracle, or by both? If miracle had a part to play, for what purpose...
just so we could have fuel? If so, God should have told someone, so
they could have discovered it sooner. But maybe God wanted to see how
long it would take for us to figure it out... after all, he doesn't have
TV shows to watch, so we are his entertainment.

        It seems to me that if there was really a worldwide flood, there
would be evidence. Apparently, there's no significant evidence for the
flood (but evidence against it)... unless you figure in the actual ark
that is on Mt. Ararat but forbidden for people to see...

        ...Bernie

        
________________________________

        From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Don Winterstein
        Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 6:49 AM
        To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
        Cc: asa
        Subject: Re: [asa] yec clain

        You're right; I made the mistake of beating dead horses again.

        Mind you, I'm not averse to a few miracles here and there,
especially when they can be seen to be connected in some way with God's
"plan of salvation." The problem with trying to account for the world's
sedimentary deposits in terms of a single massive flood, however, is
that the mechanism is so astoundingly preposterous that it would require
very large numbers of divine miracles, none of which would have an
obvious connection to that plan of salvation.

        In my spare time I started estimating the number of miracles
required to get a single massive flood to account for the geologic
column. I was getting into large multiples of Avogadro's number when I
realized that several kinds of my miracles should be lumped together as
single miracles. Even so, millions of miracles would still be required.
For example, it's not enough to get trilobite fossils into Paleozoic
formations; one must also arrange to have the earlier trilobites in the
earliest rocks and the later ones in the later rocks. Same for
crinoids, brachiopods, etc., etc. Then it's not enough to do this for
one sedimentary basin; it's got to be done for all relevant basins of
the world. Since we're not talking about natural processes here,
sorting these fossils would have to be done independently for each
basin, leading to designation as separate miracles.

        But enough time wasted on dead horses. If millions of miracles
are what it takes to keep God from telling lies in Scripture, then
millions of miracles we will have.

        : )

        Don

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Received on Fri Nov 30 14:42:10 2007