Waters deep under the surface - the Noah Flood

[Gil Hamilton]

I've always just thought that the book of Genesis was a written account of oral history, and that the flood was actually an account of the sea levels rising at the end of the last ice age. It doesn't need to be a massive global flood.

The problem with that is that the last major ice age ended 10,000 years ago.

[Darth Wong]

Ahem ... it heats up the air.

The quote was double the Earths temperature. Are you changing that to doubling "the Earth's Atmosphere" temperature now Wong?

Who posted that quote, moron? Not me, so its exact wording is not my fucking problem. And even if that weren't the case, focusing on semantics is the tactic of an asshole; obviously, Alyeska did not mean that the entire mass of the Earth would shoot up so greatly in temperature, nor did he even specify which units of temperature he was talking about. The ambient temperature experienced by Noah would be that of the atmosphere, which is why the fucking weather channel reports the temperature of the air, not the temperature of the ocean. So please take your sophistic nitpicking bullshit and shove it up your ass, dipshit.

The air temperature would equilibriate with water temperature.

Eventually, not instantly. Holy shit, you don't even realize that thermal equilibrium carries a time component.

The calculations show that there isn't even enough energy to boil the water 'god' magically dropped.

The calculations of an idiot, perhaps. Not real calculations, based on relevant data.

I'm not even sure if the air temperature by the surface would be raised that much. Evaporating water takes about 960 BTU/lb (@ 212 deg F it is higher at lower temps but I don't have my copy of Cameron's to check.

Lets say the average world air average temperature is 80 deg F and friction heats up the air to 120 deg F.

Yes, let's just make up totally arbitrary figures with no relation to the hypothetical scenario under discussion, and then base calculations on them. Whee!

I'll even say friction transfers all the kinetic energy to the air

@80 deg F 1000 lbs of air holds about 20 lbs of water

@120 deg F 1000 lbs of air holds 80 lbs of water

@150 deg F 1000 lbs air holds 210 lbs water

@190 deg F 1000 lbs air holds 1,100 lbs water

60 lbs of water per 1000lbs of air will be absorbed (190 lbs for 150 deg F)

There are 14.7 lbs per square in of surface area. .5 x 10E15 m2*39^2

.5*10E15*39^2*14.7 equals the pounds of air of the Earth.

.5*10E15*39^2*(14.7 lbs air*60 pounds water evaporated/1000 lbs water*1000 BTU/lb=6.7E20 of energy to evaporate water.

The Flood requires far, far more water than that. To be specific, it requires a roughly 5km thick layer of water worldwide, in order to cover the land-masses and mountains (actually, that wouldn't cover all of the mountains, but it's close enough for our purposes). This would have a mass of 510E6 km^2 * 5km * 1E12 kg of water per km^3 = 2.55E21 kg. Notice that this is roughly 500 times the mass of the atmosphere itself (as opposed to your proposed 6% of atmospheric mass), so it's well above air saturation point, and the Bible's description of the event can only mean that the water was shot up as high-pressure steam and was never really absorbed into the air, but rather, simply came back down. In fact, your hypothetical volume of water (roughly 3E17 kg) would amount to a pitiful global flood layer of 0.6 metres thickness. My, what a devastating Flood that would be! Why, you might annoy some sunbathers!

.5*10E15*39^2*14.7*(40 deg F temo change)*.7 BTU/lb air=3.13 E20

Thats roughly ~1E21 BTUs to get to 120 deg F atmospheric temp.

If we use 150 deg F just to evaporate the water would require 1.12 E21

@ 190 deg F, 1E22 just to heat the water.

In addition to using a preposterously small amount of water that would only be as deep as a wading pool, you are neglecting the requirement to elevate the water to great height against the force of gravity. In order to elevate a (for example) 5km thick global flood layer by 5km altitude, you would need 1.3E26 J. Assuming this elevation occurs in an impossibly perfect way, with zero inefficiency and zero transfer of energy to the air through friction, it still has to come back down again, converting all of that potential energy to heating and kinetic energy on the way.

Total Possible energy was calculated by others at 7.8E+25 joules a joule equals ~ 1000 BTU=7.8*10^22 BTU's calculated of total energy availible.

This assumes that all the energy is transferred to the air which it isn't a portion is transferred directly to the water. Also a portion is transferred to the ground as kinetic energy.

An insignificant portion. The terminal velocity of rain is such that its gravitational potential energy when falling from many kilometres altitude dwarfs any remaining KE at ground level.

The Earths atmoshphere would be less than 190 deg F. The temperature at the surface would be much less due to heat transfer at the surface.

Thanks for demonstrating that you are clearly unqualified to analyze anything more complicated than your breakfast. Congratulations; you just proved that the Earth's temperature would be less than 190 degrees F (which, by the way, is roughly twice normal temperature on the Farenheit scale which you've chosen to use) if we suffered a "global flood" that's about as deep as a wading pool. Got any more dumbshit arguments and totally meaningless calculations based on laughably incorrect premises to throw my way?

What idiot besides you would seriously propose that the Biblical Flood was only supposed to be 2 feet deep?

[Darth Wong]

And why the hell don't you give units for energy most of the time? Don't they teach you to consistently specify units in your statements in fucking high school science?

[Veramocor]

Ahem ... it heats up the air.

The quote was double the Earths temperature. Are you changing that to doubling "the Earth's Atmosphere" temperature now Wong?

Who posted that quote, moron? Not me, so its exact wording is not my fucking problem. And even if that weren't the case, focusing on semantics is the tactic of an asshole; obviously, Alyeska did not mean that the entire mass of the Earth would shoot up so greatly in temperature, nor did he even specify which units of temperature he was talking about. The ambient temperature experienced by Noah would be that of the atmosphere, which is why the fucking weather channel reports the temperature of the air, not the temperature of the ocean. So please take your sophistic nitpicking bullshit and shove it up your ass, dipshit.

A not so insignificant nitpick as water temperature was what I initially argued in the last Noah's Flood thread.

The air temperature would equilibriate with water temperature.

Eventually, not instantly. Holy shit, you don't even realize that thermal equilibrium carries a time component.

Where the fuck did I say instanly, dick? I agree it would take time for all of the heat generated to equillibriate. However at the surface determining the amount of time needed would be nearly impossible without making wild assumptions about wind and heat transfer coefficients.
[/quote]

The calculations show that there isn't even enough energy to boil the water 'god' magically dropped.

The calculations of an idiot, perhaps. Not real calculations, based on relevant data.

I stand by my calulations in the previous Noah Arc thread. If all of the energy was transferred to the water it wouldn't even boil.

I'm not even sure if the air temperature by the surface would be raised that much. Evaporating water takes about 960 BTU/lb (@ 212 deg F it is higher at lower temps but I don't have my copy of Cameron's to check.

Lets say the average world air average temperature is 80 deg F and friction heats up the air to 120 deg F.

Yes, let's just make up totally arbitrary figures with no relation to the hypothetical scenario under discussion, and then base calculations on them. Whee!
[/qoute]

Of course they are arbitrary. How the fuck are you suppose to pick anything but approximations in an undefined scenario? I don't know what the final temperature of the air will be. I picked 3 different temperatures 120,150,190 deg F and calculated to see if there was enough heat to reach that temperature, the calculations were meant to be itterative.

I'll even say friction transfers all the kinetic energy to the air

@80 deg F 1000 lbs of air holds about 20 lbs of water

@120 deg F 1000 lbs of air holds 80 lbs of water

@150 deg F 1000 lbs air holds 210 lbs water

@190 deg F 1000 lbs air holds 1,100 lbs water

60 lbs of water per 1000lbs of air will be absorbed (190 lbs for 150 deg F)

There are 14.7 lbs per square in of surface area. .5 x 10E15 m2*39^2

.5*10E15*39^2*14.7 equals the pounds of air of the Earth.

.5*10E15*39^2*(14.7 lbs air*60 pounds water evaporated/1000 lbs water*1000 BTU/lb=6.7E20 of energy to evaporate water.

The Flood requires far, far more water than that. To be specific, it requires a roughly 5km thick layer of water worldwide, in order to cover the land-masses and mountains (actually, that wouldn't cover all of the mountains, but it's close enough for our purposes). This would have a mass of 510E6 km^2 * 5km * 1E12 kg of water per km^3 = 2.55E21 kg. Notice that this is roughly 500 times the mass of the atmosphere itself (as opposed to your proposed 6% of atmospheric mass), so it's well above air saturation point, and the Bible's description of the event can only mean that the water was shot up as high-pressure steam and was never really absorbed into the air, but rather, simply came back down. In fact, your hypothetical volume of water (roughly 3E17 kg) would amount to a pitiful global flood layer of 0.6 metres thickness. My, what a devastating Flood that would be! Why, you might annoy some sunbathers!

You did not undertsand what I was calculating. Admittedly I should have explained it better.

1. I used Grand Master Terwyn numbers from the previous thread of
- 4.95E+21 kilograms of water

- 1 mile up, 7.8E+25 joules
- God mythically creates the water 1 mile up. And lets it fall.
2. Next I assumed the average air temperature was 80 deg F.
3. As the temperature rises the partial pressure of water in air increases signifigantly. Thus at higher temperatures the air can hold more water. This water is evaporated from the falling rain. This evaporation absorbs heat. As air temperature goes up the amount of water in the air shoots up.
4. Itteratively raised the air temperature till the heat removed by evaporating water equaled the heat generated from dropping the water.
-total lbs of air*amount of water absored at high air temperature/1000 lb air * amount of heat to evaporate the water = heat absorbed when increasing the temperature of air
5. Determined that this was around 190 deg F
6 190 deg F sets an upper limit for the temperature
7. This upper limit does not take in account heat transfer at the water surface, nor does it account for that some of the frictional losses go to heating the water droplets not the air.

.5*10E15*39^2*14.7*(40 deg F temo change)*.7 BTU/lb air=3.13 E20

Thats roughly ~1E21 BTUs to get to 120 deg F atmospheric temp.

If we use 150 deg F just to evaporate the water would require 1.12 E21

@ 190 deg F, 1E22 just to heat the water.

In addition to using a preposterously small amount of water that would only be as deep as a wading pool, you are neglecting the requirement to elevate the water to great height against the force of gravity. In order to elevate a (for example) 5km thick global flood layer by 5km altitude, you would need 1.3E26 J. Assuming this elevation occurs in an impossibly perfect way, with zero inefficiency and zero transfer of energy to the air through friction, it still has to come back down again, converting all of that potential energy to heating and kinetic energy on the way.

Total Possible energy was calculated by others at 7.8E+25 joules a joule equals ~ 1000 BTU=7.8*10^22 BTU's calculated of total energy availible.

This assumes that all the energy is transferred to the air which it isn't a portion is transferred directly to the water. Also a portion is transferred to the ground as kinetic energy.

An insignificant portion. The terminal velocity of rain is such that its gravitational potential energy when falling from many kilometres altitude dwarfs any remaining KE at ground level.

My whole calculations have alway been that the water is mythically created (yes I know this is bullshit but so is any other scenario we are arguing here). I've never ever argued any scenario where the water shoots up from ground level and then rains back on Earth.

The Earths atmoshphere would be less than 190 deg F. The temperature at the surface would be much less due to heat transfer at the surface.

Thanks for demonstrating that you are clearly unqualified to analyze anything more complicated than your breakfast. Congratulations; you just proved that the Earth's temperature would be less than 190 degrees F (which, by the way, is roughly twice normal temperature on the Farenheit scale which you've chosen to use) if we suffered a "global flood" that's about as deep as a wading pool. Got any more dumbshit arguments and totally meaningless calculations based on laughably incorrect premises to throw my way?

What idiot besides you would seriously propose that the Biblical Flood was only supposed to be 2 feet deep?

I used 4.95E+21 kg more than 5 km of water. I believe you assumed that my calculations where showing how much water would need to be evaporated to cause a flood. As explained above that is not what I was calculating.

[Darth Wong]

A not so insignificant nitpick as water temperature was what I initially argued in the last Noah's Flood thread.

And how is that relevant to this thread, asshole? Alyeska made a comment that was obviously relating to atmospheric temperature which is what every goddamned weatherman in the world means when he says "the temperature will be ...", and you assume he was talking about your last thread instead of this one? And what the fuck difference does water temperature make anyway, since the whole goddamned point is the air that you must breathe?

The air temperature would equilibriate with water temperature.

Eventually, not instantly. Holy shit, you don't even realize that thermal equilibrium carries a time component.

Where the fuck did I say instanly, dick?

The part where you claimed it was relevant, you stupid asshole. This event doesn't take long enough to achieve thermal equilibrium. The goddamned thermal capacitance of the oceans is six fucking months, and you figure that thermal equilibrium will be achieved between an even greater volume than the entire oceans and the atmosphere in less time than that? Why the fuck would this happen?

I stand by my calulations in the previous Noah Arc thread. If all of the energy was transferred to the water it wouldn't even boil.

So? In order to make the air hot enough to kill people, you only need a tiny fraction of the energy to transfer to the air, and this is a completely pointless exercise since it assumes that a blanket of cold liquid water suddenly appears in place.

Of course they are arbitrary. How the fuck are you suppose to pick anything but approximations in an undefined scenario?

Undefined? Give me a fucking break; we know roughly how much water you need: between 5km and 8km of water, worldwide. We also know that it must be at least 5-8km high to start with, otherwise it wouldn't be rain (rain sort of implies falling). And given that sheer amount of water, any water absorbed by the atmosphere is utterly insignificant relative to the amount of water which is falling.

You did not undertsand what I was calculating. Admittedly I should have explained it better.

In fact, you did not explain it at all.

1. I used Grand Master Terwyn numbers from the previous thread of
- 4.95E+21 kilograms of water
- 1 mile up, 7.8E+25 joules
- God mythically creates the water 1 mile up. And lets it fall.

Do you fucking well understand that when you present calculations, you are supposed to STATE your assumptions? How did you pass high school science with this dipshit methodology?

2. Next I assumed the average air temperature was 80 deg F.
3. As the temperature rises the partial pressure of water in air increases signifigantly. Thus at higher temperatures the air can hold more water. This water is evaporated from the falling rain. This evaporation absorbs heat. As air temperature goes up the amount of water in the air shoots up.

Correction: the saturation point shoots up. I don't know where you got the idea that the air will magically evapourate any amount of water necessary to saturate itself in any arbitrarily short timeframe.

4. Itteratively raised the air temperature till the heat removed by evaporating water equaled the heat generated from dropping the water.

And apparently didn't notice that this temperature was, in fact, far greater than "a few degrees" higher than normal temperature. Even given your absurdly nerfed assumptions in which the entire Flood falls from an altitude lower than Mexico City.

-total lbs of air*amount of water absored at high air temperature/1000 lb air * amount of heat to evaporate the water = heat absorbed when increasing the temperature of air
5. Determined that this was around 190 deg F
6 190 deg F sets an upper limit for the temperature

Based on the groundless assumption that the water will evapourate enough to saturate the air at any given temperature. And why the fuck should it do that? The fact is that the water will not evapourate to any great extent (being, for the umpteenth time, several orders of magnitude more massive than the entire atmosphere), hence the friction will slightly heat up the water and greatly heat up the air.

7. This upper limit does not take in account heat transfer at the water surface, nor does it account for that some of the frictional losses go to heating the water droplets not the air.

Bullshit. If the frictional losses all went into the air and not the water, then the water would not heat up at all, hence it would evapourate very slowly. Yet your argument, now that you have actually explained it rather than assuming we are continuing your previous thread, assumes that any arbitrary amount of water required to saturate the air will evapourate. Tell me, if you put water in air at 120 degrees Farenheit, does it instantly evapourate until the air reaches saturation?

My whole calculations have alway been that the water is mythically created (yes I know this is bullshit but so is any other scenario we are arguing here). I've never ever argued any scenario where the water shoots up from ground level and then rains back on Earth.

Then why the fuck are you posting in this thread, asshole? Did you even read the opening post? It's bad enough that you're trying to hijack the fucking thread, but you actually seem to expect everyone else to ASSUME without request or notification that we're switching to the subject of the previous thread and dropping this one. And then you use these bullshit assumptions in order to state that something WILL NOT HAPPEN despite the amount of energy being far more than sufficient: a hard statement of fact which is completely absurd in light of the various bullshit assumptions your scenario requires.

I used 4.95E+21 kg more than 5 km of water. I believe you assumed that my calculations where showing how much water would need to be evaporated to cause a flood. As explained above that is not what I was calculating.

Fine, now that you've actually defined your assumptions rather than keeping them in your head or assuming we would go back and reference the old thread which has a completely fucking different subject than this one , we see that you are still unqualified to analyze anything more complex than your breakfast, because your assumptions are physically meaningless. You take the ratio of heating between the water and the air and rather than assume 50/50, you assume it all goes into the air, then you assume that air at any temperature MUST magically cause sufficient water to evapourate that it will become saturated (I never knew 100% humidity was always guaranteed in any body of air until now ), and then you generate a temperature which IS, in fact, roughly double the starting temperature on the Farenheit scale you're using, and you say that this proves Alyeska's statement is flat wrong. At some point during this ridiculous exercise, shouldn't you have figured out that you were jamming your own head up your ass?

[Setesh]

Do you fucking well understand that when you present calculations, you are supposed to STATE your assumptions? How did you pass high school science with this dipshit methodology?

On the 'Do the work you pass.' method I assume.

Setting the science aside the flood never happened for the simple reason that there were civilizations that existed through the purposed time period that recorded no flood. The flood myth was a scare tactic nothing more.

[Gil Hamilton]

Just a little noodling with math.

The Earth's surface is 510,065,284.702 km², which converts to about 7.9e17 in².

Veramocor used 4.95e21 kilograms of water added to the atmosphere. This is about 10.9e22 pounds.

Unless I did something completely daft, that's ~13,780 PSI of water. If you added to the, um, 14.7 PSI of air at sea level, that's quite a sum.

[LadyTevar]

Veramocor, please stop while you can. You are proving nothing, only annoying the scientists on this board and embarrassing those of us who are Moderate Christians.

I have long since accepted that the Bible is a GUIDE to FOLLOW, not the Literal Truth.

[Dooey Jo]

IIRC Veramocor stated in the other thread that he is an agnostic.

And he was not trying to prove that the great flood might have taken place, just that some of the effects of such a flood are exaggerated.

However, the scenario in this thread is different from the other thread. In the other thread, the water was already in the atmosphere and fell from only a mile high, and also spread out over 40 days. Here, it seems the scenario is a shitload of water flying up from the ground to considerable altitudes over an undefined, but supposedly short, timeframe.

[wilfulton]

Let's say we could just dump this trifle amount of water on the Earth that would raise temperatures up to 190 degrees. Mind you this is at 100% relative humidity (it is, after all, raining IIRC).

How long do you plan to survive in this climate? Yes some regions of the Earth get pretty hot, but they are dry, which allows your sweat to evaporate faster and keep you cool. Add humidity, and it feels like you're being strangled by a pair of well used gym socks.

And be careful not to fall in that 190 degree water that's coming down, because it will take your skin right off. Even if it was only 140 degrees, it'll give you third degree burns in six seconds. My source is the warning label you'll find on your water heater.

And what will this hot water do to poor Noah's boat, which is made of gopher wood (?) and probably sealed with pitch. I'd imagine that boiling his boat would probably not be too good for either its structural integrity or the crew's health.

And if Noah saved the Mosquitoes, I'm going to kill that bastard myself. Because I don't think the larvae would have survived if you boiled all the world's oceans, yet those flying succubii are everywhere!

The real miracle is that anyone even believes this crap to begin with.

[wilfulton]

ghetto edit:

Oops my bad, that 190 degree water happens to be falling on you. You are now Fucked with a capital F.

[Darth Wong]

IIRC Veramocor stated in the other thread that he is an agnostic.

And he was not trying to prove that the great flood might have taken place, just that some of the effects of such a flood are exaggerated.

However, the scenario in this thread is different from the other thread. In the other thread, the water was already in the atmosphere and fell from only a mile high, and also spread out over 40 days. Here, it seems the scenario is a shitload of water flying up from the ground to considerable altitudes over an undefined, but supposedly short, timeframe.

The scenario he described had nothing to do with the Biblical Flood. I think any reasonable person would agree that a Flood which leaves Mexico City high and dry is not the Biblical Flood.

[Dooey Jo]

The scenario he described had nothing to do with the Biblical Flood. I think any reasonable person would agree that a Flood which leaves Mexico City high and dry is not the Biblical Flood.

There's always the YECs that think the Earth's surface was completely flat before the Flood so it would only take a few miles of water to cover everything, which I think was the reason so little water was needed in the other thread... Of course, YECs aren't reasonable people...


On a different note: I read this thread a little more closely and noticed this:

Fountains of the deep=water from the earth.
Windows of heaven=water created by God that flowed from heaven
Rain from heaven=water that came from the atmosphere (possibly the canopy).

Well that's pretty damn funny. If they can have god create some of the water, why the hell not just have him create all of it? They have already put god into their hypothesis so there's no need to fuck over physics even more with moronic canopies and hydrospheres. Of course, it wouldn't be Flood Geology if they didn't

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

IIRC Veramocor stated in the other thread that he is an agnostic.

And he was not trying to prove that the great flood might have taken place, just that some of the effects of such a flood are exaggerated.

However, the scenario in this thread is different from the other thread. In the other thread, the water was already in the atmosphere and fell from only a mile high, and also spread out over 40 days. Here, it seems the scenario is a shitload of water flying up from the ground to considerable altitudes over an undefined, but supposedly short, timeframe.

The scenario he described had nothing to do with the Biblical Flood. I think any reasonable person would agree that a Flood which leaves Mexico City high and dry is not the Biblical Flood.

His starting assumptions were based on mine, which was based on a highly idealized Earth and assumed that each point of the Earth's surface would be hit by rain from a mile up, and was meant soley to prove a point about the energy being imparted on the planet. It's on the low-end, but the for the duration of "40 days and 40 nights" of rain, it would involve the dissipation of more than ~2E+19 watts of heat. A mature hurricane, during its lifetime, dissipates only 6E+14 watts.

In his effort to downplay the effects of the Noachian flood, he's assumed the rain falls in a perfect vacuum and transfers 100% of its energy to the surface of the Earth. What he's failed to consider (and what I failed to consider the last time) is the fact that roughly 99.5% of the energy of each raindrop will be transferred to the air by atmospheric drag.

So even in this low-end scenario, the resulting global storm is something like 100 times more powerful than a typical mature hurricane (the total power output of this storm is actually some 37,500 times that of a mature hurricane. However, the storm's power is spread over the entire surface of the planet. When one considers that, they find that any given part of the planet will be experiencing locally stormy conditions that are a hundred times more powerful than the typical hurricane.) So, not only will the air experience significant heating, but the every square kilometer of the planet will likely be scoured by catastrophic hurricane-force winds. Noah will feel like he's in the eyewall of a strong Cat 5 hurricane. That wooden boat of his is going down faster than he can say "Oh shit, will you check out the size of that wave." And this is using a highly simplified basic physics model. Realistic assumptions would make Noah's problems significantly worse.

[LadyTevar]

So, in other words, just more proof that this is a MYTH.

[Magnetic]

So, did we conclude whether there IS enough water underground to account for 'where the Noah Flood' water went afterwards?

We can assume that (if it were a factual happening) that the oceans would have risen significantly, so we'd have to include that in with the "where'd the water go" idea.

[DPDarkPrimus]

So, did we conclude whether there IS enough water underground to account for 'where the Noah Flood' water went afterwards?

There most definately is not. You can only go down so far before it is too hot for water to be present, so filling the Earth's crust with the amount of water would be akin to filling a Twinkie up with so much whipped cream that the slightest touch would cause the Twinkie to burst.

[Gil Hamilton]

There most definately is not. You can only go down so far before it is too hot for water to be present, so filling the Earth's crust with the amount of water would be akin to filling a Twinkie up with so much whipped cream that the slightest touch would cause the Twinkie to burst.

Actually, there could easily be several oceans worth, but it's all trapped in rock, which is a really inconvenient place for it to be if it intends to rush to the surface.

[Darth Wong]

There most definately is not. You can only go down so far before it is too hot for water to be present, so filling the Earth's crust with the amount of water would be akin to filling a Twinkie up with so much whipped cream that the slightest touch would cause the Twinkie to burst.

Actually, there could easily be several oceans worth, but it's all trapped in rock, which is a really inconvenient place for it to be if it intends to rush to the surface.

As I said earlier, it's akin to someone thinking that the 40 or 50 litres of water in a human body might suddenly shoot out of your nostrils.

In addition to the little problem of magical spontaneous dehydration of the magma and the accompanying tectonic problems, there's also the little problem of any resulting water coming out as superheated steam.

[wilfulton]

As I said earlier, it's akin to someone thinking that the 40 or 50 litres of water in a human body might suddenly shoot out of your nostrils.

But admit it, you'd still pay money to see that!

I think it mostly boils down (no pun intended) to the simple fact that people are made comfortable by such believe, be they rational or no, and are of course knocked out of their comfort zone when you challenge that. It's almost pathetic in its scope that so many people have to come out screaming about how there is a scientific explanation for how the flood could have happened, how the events in the bible could be real, even if interpreted literally!

Of course, the bible has itself been translated throughout how many languages? From yiddish to latin or greek, and to then what? And language is such a complicated thing that translating without altering the meaning of the words is nearly impossible. And this is before you take all the pseudoscience into account!

[Zero]

I know I find it comforting that God could make the 40 or 50 liters of water shoot out of my nostrils at any moment, but I think a better death would be wrestling a bear. While on fire.

Anyways, you folks have to remember that they're just trying to account for where the water went, not any kind of mechanism behind anything. God's supposed to use miracles, and miracles aren't something easy to quantify or find mechanisms for. They are, after all, supposed to be... yknow... supernatural, which is to say, above nature, and nature's laws. Miracles aint something you're going to be able to explain, and they sure as fuck aren't going to be part of any realistic science (ID makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Props to Oedipus)

Even so, it seems awfully inconvenient to drown everybody like that because they don't like each other much. Kinda akin to a parent giving up all his children for adoption because they aren't quite like he planned. What a douche.

[wolveraptor]

And why the flood? He totally could've made people die...by forcing them to eat beans until their stomach walls ruptured. Totally kickass.

Or, making them choke on their own testicles ripped off by a Dromaeosaurus's sickle claw. Oh man that fucking rocks.

[Wyrm]

Well that's pretty damn funny. If they can have god create some of the water, why the hell not just have him create all of it? They have already put god into their hypothesis so there's no need to fuck over physics even more with moronic canopies and hydrospheres. Of course, it wouldn't be Flood Geology if they didn't

Exactly! The whole point of the exercise is that the YEC want to "prove" that their little fairy tale of the Biblical Flood is entirely supported by the science. Of course, anyone who actually reads up on the matter (the good folks at talk.origins are especially helpful) will realize that the YEC's explainations fall right on their faces. Not only for the reasons you cite, but because the evidence in the geological record all says that the Earth is OLD!

[Magnetic]

An argument from a YEC proponent:

This promise is reconfirmed by this finding: Deep waters. This water cannot be brought up because to do so would broil the earth. I believe this was done so that when we found this water, it would be a testament to God's promise to never flood the earth again. Also, science can't explain how it got there so deep and in so hot of a mineral. Here's my comment on how this happened. When water is put under pressure, it's boiling point rises. In other words, it would take more heat to achieve the water to boil. The higher the pressure, the more heat it takes. So when the earth was flooded to 5.5 miles, there was extreme pressure at the bottom. But, that's not the end of it. Some of our deepest oceans are 6.6 miles down. Ocean trenches are the deepest part of an ocean. The deepest one, the Marianas Trench in the South Pacific Ocean (6.6 mile down). That would be 12.1 miles down to the deepest part of the ocean during the flood. We'll round it off to 12 miles to make the math easier.

According to scuba diving books, every 33 feet you descend in water, doubles the atmospheric pressure. There are 5,280 feet in a mile. So 5,280 times 12 = 63360 feet, which equals 1920 atmospheres (63360 divided by 33). 1920 atmospheres equals 28,216.2066837 psi. Now the average boiling point of water at 30.00inHg is 212.15 F. So if you times 30.00inHg times 1920 atmospheres equals 57600.00inHg. The boiling point of water at this atmospheric pressure is 106820.27 F. And also keep in mind that salt in the water will raise this even higher. But we will keep this simple. Wadsleyite, the mineral that holds the water that receded from the flood, stays around 1832 F or more. So 106820.27 F is well within range for the water from the flood to go into this mineral without boiling away.

Replies?

[Darth Wong]

The part where he says "science can't explain" should always be answered by "have you tried actually asking a scientist in the relevant field, to confirm this claim?" In general, I think that rule should be applied the instant you see any creationist using the words "science can't explain" as part of his argument.

These people spend a great deal of time speaking on behalf of scientists; never let them get away with it.