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

Don said:
"But ice density is about 0.92, so it's not very buoyant. Ice also
tightly grips the rock beneath it (think of cleaning it off windshields
in subzero weather, or car surfaces in case of silver thaw; or, more
appropriately, think of boulders plucked out of their matrix by alpine
glaciers). "

Ice under water, for way over 100 days, is a lot different than ice on a
windshield. For a global flood, the water rose over all the highest
mountains, including all the ice on the mountains. Put warmer water
(over 32 degrees F) over the windshield and things happen... in just a
few minutes, even. A worldwide flood would have brought liquid water
over all the polar ice-caps. Seems to me if there was a worldwide
flood, the ice caps we have now probably formed after that... meaning
they are under 6,000 years or so old (taking it all literally, like Ken
Ham would?).

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Don Winterstein
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 2:17 AM
To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
Cc: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] yec clain (flood and oil)

"What would necessarily happen is the raising of all glacial deposits
off their bases, for ice floats."

But ice density is about 0.92, so it's not very buoyant. Ice also
tightly grips the rock beneath it (think of cleaning it off windshields
in subzero weather, or car surfaces in case of silver thaw; or, more
appropriately, think of boulders plucked out of their matrix by alpine
glaciers). And then the floodwater only stays a short time. If the ice
started out much thicker than now, floodwater wouldn't even cover it
until late in the game. Arguing as a YEC I'd guess it would stay put,
except that God would be melting the stuff on top to increase water
levels.

"A second requirement would have to be the brief disappearance of
creatures from all land areas...."

I agree they would disappear, but we probably couldn't tell today that
they were gone at that time. Absence of fossils means little. Animals
could have been there but just didn't get fossilized. Happens all the
time.

"...Waters...tore everything up and redeposited [strata] in what looks
like the evolutionary order."

Yeah, right. This would take many astonishing miracles. First of all,
since Earth is young, it wouldn't have much in the way of strata--unless
God created them in situ to be much younger than they looked. So the
rocks the floodwaters would be working on more than likely would be
crystalline igneous--like granite, etc. So the next set of astonishing
miracles is generating all the observed limestone, salt, anhydrite, etc.
by means of the flood.

BUT on second thought, I'm no longer so sure it would be easy--see
below--to detect flood-generated terrestrial sediments. The flood
happened only a few years ago, so continental surface topography would
be largely the same as now. This would mean floodwaters would mostly
flow along river channels that exist today, and the flood-deposited
sediments would be buried by subsequent mini-floods. They would still
be detectable, but to establish the existence of a worldwide flood on
this basis would require more time and money than anyone is likely to
invest--especially since the risk of failure is, like, 100%. But it
would be interesting, because the risk of local false positives would
also be 100%.

Don

        ----- Original Message -----

        From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. <mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com>

        To: dfwinterstein@msn.com

        Cc: asa@calvin.edu

        Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 6:49 PM

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

        What would necessarily happen is the raising of all glacial
deposits off their bases, for ice floats. However, the Greenland ice cap
has been there for tens of thousands of years, as has Antarctic ice.

        A second requirement would have to be the brief disappearance of
creatures from all land areas rather that a continuous presence. If they
were able to travel to all areas of the world on land (it's going to be
tough for monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, and the other American species to
swim across the oceans) because all the land was connected, then it is
necessary to explain how the continents separated without producing
incredible amounts of heat.

        Of course, the YEC claim is that almost all geological strata
(very few spots retain the pre-flood structure) are the product of a
waters that fore everything up and redeposited them in what looks like
the evolutionary order. But it is notable that all difficulties are
given ad hoc explanations which almost invariably turn out to contradict
the requirements of other explanations. Consider the temperature at the
time of the flood according to RATE: it would vaporize every terrestrial
material while never reaching above 150 C.

        Dave (ASA)

        On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 02:22:52 -0800 "Don Winterstein"
<dfwinterstein@msn.com> writes:

                Well, if there was a worldwide flood (which I don't
believe), it obviously didn't completely melt the polar icecaps. So
maybe they were much thicker before. Maybe that's where floodwaters
came from. : )

                What sort of "huge stamp" still detectable today would
you expect? What I would expect is sedimentary evidence: not the
generally fine-grained sedimentary rocks of marine origin we actually
have in most places but instead huge deposits of river-borne terrestrial
sediments practically everywhere, all of the same geologic age. Such
evidence would be readily recognizable after analysis, but no one has
found it.

                Don

                        ----- Original Message -----

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

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

                        Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 11:40 AM

                        Subject: 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

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Received on Mon Dec 3 13:39:42 2007