[quote]•First of all, where did all the water originate and where the heck did it go?[/quote]

Who are you asking? Does anyone on this board actually believe in a literal flood? (I Honestly cant remember if some do...)

[quote]How could anyone believe in such far-fetched folklore?[/quote]

Well, they obviously trust their scriptures more than scientists....

Toxicat, most (if not all) of the Christians on this board adhere to a local flood, just so you know.

[quote=P-Dunn]Toxicat, most (if not all) of the Christians on this board adhere to a local flood, just so you know.[/quote]
you haven't been posting a lot p-dunn, i miss it.
you should come back, or tell me where you are, you are fun to debate with

My initial thought would be to say "wow, talk about overanalysis", but having been a fundo myself for quite awhile, I do understand the need to have a myriad of rational arguments against even the most obvious absurdities. I'd like to find out just how much water 40 days and nights of rain would produce. My guess is not nearly enough to cover the highest mountains, even if you account for the magical springs that supposedly existed. But by far my favorite argument from the fundos is from good ol' Kent Hovind, who argued that most tribal cultures had a worldwide flood legend. Of course, in each of those stories it was one of their own that was the only one to survive, so doesn't that pretty much [i]disprove [/i]such a story? Hmmm...

[quote=P-Dunn]Almost all of my posts lately have been in the Freethinkers Debate forum, so if you want to join in twag, go ahead.[/quote]
i just may have to do that, no one gives me good logical responses, not that my arguments are that intellectual, but it is good to have a fight.

[quote=twag]
but you have one question that was wrong, they weren't on the boat for a year, it was only 40 days and 40 nights.
[/quote]
Supposedly it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, but the world was "flooded" for about a year.

[quote=P-Dunn]Toxicat, most (if not all) of the Christians on this board adhere to a local flood, just so you know.
[/quote]

That's okay, I just wanted to discuss it.

[quote=Aullios]
.. the temperature of the sun is 5000K at it's corona, so 3000K on the Earth's surface is indeed impossible.
[/quote]

Wow. I never thought about it that way :O!

I'll play the Devil's Advocate for a bit...err...The "Global Flooders" Advocate...

[quote]In order to flood to the top of Mt. Ararat in 40 days and nights, water would have to pour down at 11.5 feet an hour.

Hydraulic Mining, anybody?[/quote]
Ararat wasn't as tall back then as it was. The flood would have been a great source of sediment that indeed made it [i]taller[/i].

[quote]All of everything would be washed into the depths of the oceans, only crystalline rock would remain on the land.[/quote]
Evidence please?

End global flood advocation.

[quote]There are countless problems with the story of the flood, another of the conveniently dubbed "metaphors" of the Bible. I suppose you'd need to fall to a new level of ignorance to take it seriously.[/quote]
It's not that we're conveniently labeling it as a metaphor...I'm certainly not. I still believe in a flood, though I don't believe it was global.

[quote]It's not that we're conveniently labeling it as a metaphor...I'm certainly not. I still believe in a flood, though I don't believe it was global.[/quote]
well, i guess we must believe in floods, because they happen all the time. but the christian flood, around 2004 B.C. was said to wipe out the entire earth population. but, i don't want to start an argument considering it is 12:30 here in georgia!

I decided that Noah's ark , the one they think they found COULD be it..

BUT, only if ALL the animals were shrunken to the size of peanuts:) then MAYBE :)

The first question, the one about the water. I find it rather amazing how many people overlook Genesis 7:11.

[quote][b]11[/b] In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day [i]all the springs of the great deep burst forth[/i], and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. [b]12[/b] And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.[/quote]

While some may say that that may not account for all the water, it does open up quite a large problem to the rain calculations. Also, for consideration, there have likely been massive changes to the Earth's face since such an event. (I'd like to note that to my knowledge, the age of the Earth is inconsequential.)

There, that's my little insight/input for the day. Good night all! ^^,

I believe in a local flood.
I also find tghis interesting:

The bible states that after noah, life spans started to decline.
from a scientific point of view this makes sense because water is obviously made from hydrogen and oxygen. and to get that much oxygen u would have to take it from somewhere. i believe it was taken from the ozone layer. so on thinning it out, we were affected more by solar radiation leading to genetic info loss wich leads to death and shorter life spans.

aha
i know i said all of the that in the most confusing way possible >.<

Regardless of the confusingness, that means nothing.If you're saying the hydrogen and oxygen, and the oxygen from the ozone. For one, where would the hydrogen come from? Air contains almost no hydrogen. Why? Because it explodes violently with oxygen.

Secondly, you are far overestimating the size of the ozone layer. Ozone is only a few parts per million, even in the stratosphere, which is the place with the most dense concentration of ozone. Whatever thinning could be done would barely make a difference. Second, solar radiation causes basically no genetic information loss. Finally, genetic information CHANGE(not loss) will most likely, have no effect, not kill people sooner.

[quote=rafreyna]hydrogen is the most abundant elemnt in the universe and there such a thing as genetic info loss. Look up point shift mutations[/quote]

point shift mutations change, not lose genetic information. Only deletions remove information. However, this point is not useful for two reasons.

One:

You have now addressed Lamarckian evolution, which...didn't happen(at least on earth), wonderful. The thing is, only germ-line mutations are passed on.

Two:

Most mutations are not bad, and have no effect at all. So of germ-line mutations, only a few would be passed on. And they would not stick around if they were bad, because of natural selection. If your theory were true, the constant mutation would have had a seriously detrimental effect. But the bad mutations would be weeded out by natural selection.

Finally, what type of mutation would cause shorter lifespans on average? When we refer to bad mutations, they tend to be disastrous, like protein imbalances, or susceptibility to certain diseases. THings like extra fingers or so forth are not really all that harmful. All the bad mutations(or at least most) would have been rendered irrelevant by medicine, except the drastic ones, like down's syndrome and so forth(the loss of a chromosome is considered a mutation, right?)

when talking about such drastic mutations in a situation with low technology, we would not be talking about a lowering in how long people could live, we would just see far more deaths because of them. But the majority of mutation free, fully healthy beings would still be living to those ages. This argument simply doesn't work.

Hydrogen is very common in compounds, and in the center of suns, yes, but in free air? Free hydrogen, the type which would easily bond is almost nonexistant

.000055% of the air. Since free hydrogen is almost always a gas, we can assume that that is about the general percentage of free hydrogen.

If you're going to cite Answers in Genesis as a valid source, might I suggest [url=http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/new_no_flood_evidence.htm]No Answers in Genesis[/url].

Didn't feel like it since I haven't debated creationists in a long time, so I'll just respond to one:

[quote]Animals with special diets and living conditions probably did not exist at the time of the Flood, but developed by natural selection. (Yes, Natural Selection. Creationists do acknowledge the God-given ability of animals to make small changes to adapt to the environment.[/quote]

So why do you find it unlikely that those small changes could have added up over time? Macroevolution is microevolution over a period of time. They are the same thing, creationists only attempt to distort it.

Wtf. I'm no biologist but I can tell you're just defining them your way. Here's a debunking from the RRS:

[quote]Fallacy #8 Macroevolution is impossible.

This of course is the crux of the matter. This is why I have devoted four points to it. Much of evolutionary theory is not controversial, like adaptation and microevolution. On the other hand, speciation and macroevolution are. The idea that simple cells can progress to man. All of the axioms I mentioned can be observed in bacteria, which is why they are irrefutable even to the most ardent creationist idiot. From penicillinase secreting enzymes to VRE, bacteria have this extraordinary ability to evolve so fast because evolution works at a rather different scale in those sizes. Since the number of organisms and generations is so vast, the immediate survival advantage of the useful genetic mutations that allow certain individuals to survival antibiotic bombardment is massively multiplied, and bacterial resistance can be spawned very fast. Prokaryotic evolution is like speeded up Eukaryotic evolution because they reproduce so much faster and so many more offspring.

Theists often say: I believe in microevolution, I can see small changes in an organism, but I refuse to believe in macroevolution, the idea that organisms can completely change. This is an idiotic argument which uses subjective wordplay. At what point do we decide whether the cumulative mutation has been so much that it is macroevolution? If the organism changes color? During a speciation split? If it grows another eye?

In fact, macroevolution as so many successful mutations occurring within a pool that the phenotype of the organism is totally altered. This is essentially the same as microevolution, just over a longer time frame. DNA changes are not a microevolution topic. This is an extremely common misconception. Genes are very powerful, and they can easily massively alter the phenotype of an organism. You seemed to define macroevolution as speciation. That is, that the cumulative genetic change in an individual and their descendants has been large enough that the gametes no longer match with the original species of the prototype, that is the very first organism of a species that carried a mutation with a slight advantage, which over many hundreds of thousands of years and generations, eventually became so much that the gametes will no longer fuse with those of the original species, if it still exists.

The trick to macroevolution is a probability function called cumulative mutation. A prototype organism is bestowed with an advantageous mutation. He has increased survival probability and passes it on to his children. He reproduces more than the other organisms of the same species because of this advantage. So do his children, and the gene becomes more and more prominent in the pool. Since there are more of this mutated version of the organism of the sample, the probability function states that there is a higher likelihood that one of the mutated children will chance upon an advantage mutation, and then...the cycle continues. Go through this 200 times, and the organism will be unrecognizable. This is macroevolution.

The absolutely most common error ever in the history of evolutionary skepticism is claiming that scientists are extrapolating microevolution into the macroevolutionary model. There is no extrapolation involved. You cannot run a mile without taking steps. Macroevolution is the word we (the scientific community) use to define multiple micros strung together like a polypeptide. One change is micro. A change following a change following a change following a change…is macroevolution. We can see before our eyes cumulative mutation. One mutation is followed by a mutation followed by a mutation based on the mathematics described by the probability functions.[/quote]

(I'd recommend you read the whole thread [url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/yellow_number_five/evolution_of_life/5274]here[/url].)

I just first want to say that I am sometimes blunt and to the point and this may come across and me being rude or something of the such. I just want everyone to know that this is not the case.

[quote=P-Dunn]Toxicat, most (if not all) of the Christians on this board adhere to a local flood, just so you know.[/quote]

They do? Well that is disappointing if that is the case. I haven't been on here long enough to know. That goes against the Bible. It says the waters prevailed over the earth. This means that the water covered the entire earth.

Toxicat you asked some very good questions there. All of which I am going to answer. Keep asking the tough questions though. I like the tough questions.

[quote=Toxicat]•First of all, where did all the water originate and where the heck did it go?[/quote]

There are two theories that when combined or apart even explain this. One theory states that there was a canopy of water or ice about the earth that fell(or melted and fell in drops) and this was the water from above. The other is that the earth was mostly land and a little water(the opposite of today). A large amount of the water would have been ground water. When that water came up it and the falling water would have covered most of the land, creating the oceans that we have today. I hope that helps.

[quote=Toxicat]•How did all the animals get loaded onto the boat, and how did they all fit harmoniously?[/quote]

I am not quite sure what you mean by the first question. If you mean, how did Noah put them all on there, then he just put them on there. What about the big ones? Ill explain that with my answer to the other statement that I think you meant.

If you meant, how did they all fit, then this is a fair question. After all, there are many different species in the world, more than I think anyone knows. So what do you do? You don't take every species of cat that you see. You just take two. Why even take old ones? Why not take young ones? After all they are going to live longer to have more offspring to repopulate which is what you want them to do. When scientists say that all cats have a common ancestor I agree. I think it looked like a cat.

Now you have a real problem here. If you are going to have something like mice or rats and cats then there is bound to be problems. That is, assuming that the animals that are carnivorous today where always carnivorous. Now, since this is a matter of history in the Bible let us once again turn to the Bible. What does it have to say on the matter? It says that everything ate plants. There goes one problem and comes another. If all you have to eat it plants, then you have to wonder how long this would last. Well, this also assumes that plants where always there current size. One cherry tomato plant that was raised in a chamber that increases oxygen percentage and air pressure. It produced 1500 tomatoes that where the size of normal tomatoes. Now if you examine the two theories that I told you about above, you would notice that hey would increase air pressure. This would allow you to absorb more oxygen at a time. There is still whether or not the earth's atmosphere would have had a higher percentage of oxygen. Well during the flood the oxygen would have been trapped by the water as it fell through the earth's atmosphere. That water mixed with dirt to make much which would have hardened into rocks. That oxygen should still be in the rock, unless it oxidized. What do you see when you look at the rocks that scientists say are the oldest rocks? You see oxygen. So this is good evidence for this theory.

[quote=Toxicat]•How could some of the animals with special climate requirements and special diets survive a year on the boat?[/quote]

Could you be more specific? I will answer this as best I can but it will not be very specific because I do not know what animals you have in mind.

Well how did these animals develop these specific needs? It may have been that their environment changed(and a just dried world that was completely flooded would obviously do that) so they adapted to it. Adaption is a well know fact of science. This is the best answer I can give at the moment.

[quote=Toxicat]•Where did the animals get fresh food?[/quote]

Well now remember what I said above about the tomato plant? Well apply that to all plants and you can easily just go and get everything that you need just a month before the flood and you will have enough to last the year and even a bit more. You could also take seeds and things to plant them in and there you have fresh food should you need it. You also then have seeds to plant after you get off the boat.

[quote=Toxicat]How could the boat have been kept clean of all that waste?[/quote]

Throw it off of the ark. Everything in the water could have eaten what he could have thrown out.

[quote=Toxicat]•How was the boat ventilated? How did all those creatures get the fresh air they needed?[/quote]

Have you ever heard of a moon pool? It is basically a hole in the ship that keeps the ship from breaking apart over waves by allowing water to come up and flow back out. Every time this is done, fresh air gets pushed into the ship. Now I should not that it is wooden ships that size that have trouble and not our modern mettle ships. I should also note that there would be walls build up on the inside.

[quote=Toxicat]•What about the short-lived animals like flies and other insects? How could they survive a whole year?[/quote]

Well I should first tell you that Noah only took things that breathed through there nostrils. Insects breath through their skin. Insects can also float very easily. They could also find something like seaweed to ride out the flood on and eat at the same time. This is a good question but Noah did not take insects on the ark. Off of the ark they could have just reproduced like normal. They could have laid there eggs on whatever it is that they were resting on.

[quote=Toxicat]•How do you explain the ice caps? The flood would have broken them up.[/quote]

This is true, if they were always there. The theory that I mentioned about having a canopy of water or ice above the earth would have caused the entire planet to have near the same tempurature. Well this wouldn't allow the ice caps to form to begin with. However, when the canopy fell then the ice caps and all the area would have rapidly froze. Is there any evidence? Well there have been many woolly mammoths found frozen solid standing up, suggesting such a rapid freezing that they didn't have a chance to escape.

[quote=Toxicat]•Why did some mountain ranges become more eroded than others?[/quote]

Well let me ask you this. Where in the Bible does it talk about mountains until after the flood? Also another thing to consider, the second theory that I told you about has mountain coming up and vallies going down after the flood started. The reason being that when the fountains of the deep broke open this would have caused the tectonic plates that we have now. Well tectonic plates cause mountains and vallies as I am sure you know.

[quote=Toxicat]•Why is there no evidence of a flood in ice cores that date back thousands of years?[/quote]

What? Who is telling you this? I already presented some above.

[quote=Toxicat]If the world were flooded for a year, you would see at least a layer of sediments,[/quote]

How about several layers? This is very rarely recognized but it would have taken at least a month to drown everybody. The reason being the tide and the water having to rise all the way. Well before the water had completely taken all the land people would have gone to where water didn't cover the land, quite obvious. Well when the tide changed it would have covered up one area of the land(the one people were on) and uncovered another(the one they went to). Well when that water came onto the land it would have put another layer of dirt on. What is seen in areas like the grand canion? Many thin layers of dirt.

[quote=Toxicat]noticeable changes in salinity[/quote]

I ask you how it is that we would measure this? Why once again none other than the rocks and the earth. Well I do know that salt mines would have all been flooded. Now when the water left it would have left that salt behind. What do we fine today in many caves? We find that they still are or once were places to get salt.

You would also find salt in the rocks from where the mud hardened. Well some of the salt is put into the ocean by the rivers that go to the ocean by eroding rocks and releasing salt from them. However lets look at a river that doesn't go to the ocean and the lake it goes into has no outlet except for the water to evaporate. This leaves all the salt in the lake. I am talking about the great salt lake. Now the river runs into it and the only way for it to leave is, as I said before, to evaporate. Now how does water leave the ocean? It evaporates and leaves all the salt, causing it to build up.

[quote=Toxicat]and oxygen isotope ratios, etc.[/quote]

I already talked about this.

[quote=Toxicat]•How did all the fish and marine life survive? Fresh-water creatures and salt-water creatures can't co-exist.[/quote]

Do we know that the water was always salt and fresh? How do we know it wasn't once all fresh? Well we don't. The animals could have later adapted to the salt water That would be an answer. What if it was always salt and fresh though(I think it was)? Well some deep sea divers like to go down into caves that they find on the bottom of shallower places in the ocean. Well, I was watching a state run science program on T.V. and it showed some divers doing just that. The found some ooz pretty far down in the cave that they later found out to be bacteria. On top of the bacteria was salt water and below was fresh water. They later found out that it wouldn't have separated had it not been for the bacteria. What as even more interesting was that they kept going in the cave and found some fresh water fish that are usually only found in cave lakes. This is how they could have survived. The bacteria could have separated the fresh and salt water. I don't think it was as salty as it is today, for obvious reasons, but I believe it was salty just not in a high percentage.

[quote=Toxicat]•How did all the plant species survive?[/quote]

They didn't. Many that are alive today were killed off in the flood. You are asking how they are here now and I know it. Well the Bible says that Noah was to take every kind, not species. Kind is like, you take a pair of dogs, and all the dogs today come from those two dogs. Makes perfect sence. Same with the plants. Remeber I said Noah took the seeds or young plants to plant after the flood? Well, you bring a fruit tree and from that every fruit tree would come. You bring a tomato plant and from that comes at least every type of tomato plant.

•How did animals at the top of the food chain survive with nothing to prey on?[/quote]

Already explained.

[quote=Toxicat]•How did so many different species get to such remote locations?[/quote]

Once again, could you be more specific? I will answer as best i can and use the kangaroo for an example.

Well now that is assuming that our current map is how it always was. It could have easily changed with earthquakes, erosion,  Could people have not long before adventured to, say Austailia, and set animals free there. They could have planed to use it to raise animals, or they could have took them there because they planned to live there. I don't know if you noticed but a tiger lion or any other big cat wouldn't have too much trouble taking down something like a kangaroo. Kangoroos may have once been on more continets than Austrailia.

[quote=Toxicat]There are so many pieces that just don't fit.[/quote]

Do you have any others?

[quote=Toxicat]My final question: How could anyone believe in such far-fetched folklore?[/quote]

I know this is not an actual question but I have an honest answer to it none the less.

Well you should be asking is it even a folklore. Is it real? Well it seems to me that the evidence does support it. I use to just take it by faith but then I started looking for evidence. I found overwelming evidence, this being just part of it.