From: chrisa@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (C. G. Albone)
Subject: Re: Is evolution contrary to creation?
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 02:57:15 GMT

In article <9224901.14203@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> sliew@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au (Selbyn Liew) writes:
>In article <1992Aug25.032728.17625@cc.uow.edu.au> u9264442@cc.uow.edu.au (Andrew William Easton) writes:
>>
>>I agree - especially seeing as a global flood should be visible in the
>>geological record, in the same way as a local flood should. I am not saying
>>that the flood didn't occur (I believe it did), just making the point that
>>it should be possible to see, even if nobody has noticed it yet. The same
>>applies to extinct life forms, which is what the creation/evolution argument
>>is about.

Maybe there was a flood... a very local one that got recorded in myth which
then was spread among the peoples of the fertile cresent. The flood motif
is found in the mythology of cultures other than that of the Israelites. The
examples that we have of them are older than the israelite flood myth. WHile
I am not implying a direct braindead sort of copying, i do think that it is
a workable hypothesis that a flood was a part of the cultural millieu of the
area and that the israelites drew upon that. This would mean that there was
no global flood, but that there may have been some historical kernel to the
myth.
>
>I don't know if these may be possible evidences of the flood:  The ICE AGE.
>According to some geologists, a major global event could have led to the
>ice age, as this can only occur if some major disturbance broke upon the
>earth. 
>said that it rained.  It seems that the skies prior to the flood was a
>canopy of moisture or something.
>Also, it also describes the underground
>springs of water existing then bursting out or something like that.  So,
>it sounds like a pretty major catastrophic event.

If one is to accept a literal interpretation of the biblical narratives
concerning the flood and creation, there are also some other things
that come with the deal totally free of charge. One of course must remember
the context that these narratives were created and written in. Now, part of
this context is the worldview (or should i say cosmology) of the people.
In this worldview, the universe looked like this: the earth was flat, and
basically floating on a sea of water, above it God "made the vault of the
sky to seperate the waters above from the waters below". ie "above" the
sky there was another extended body of waters. It is inside this vault that
God placed the stars and the sun & moon. Even without raising questions as
to why they believed in an extended body of waters above the sky, this picture
has a few problems in the light of modern understanding of the universe.
(1) the earth is round. We know the earth is round. People have sailed
    around it. Heh... I have flown around it :)
(2) while in places there is subterrainian water to be found, the earth does not
    sit on top of any extended body of water. Because there is no "up" in
    space, and the fact that the earth is round, this is related to the 
    next point. 
(3) WHile the vault of heaven does not have to be visualised as a dome, 
    (which would provide some interesting problems for the various deep space 
    probes that have been launched) there seems to be absolutely no evidence of
    an extended body of water on the other side of this vault. 
(4) With respect to the flood in particular, if what you want to suggest actually
    happened, then what would have had to happen is that the vault of heaven would
    have to have been opened to let the waters from above through. Now, since 
    we can happily send space probes out to Saturn & Uranus without them running
    into large bodies of water, any water that came from the other side of this
    vault would definately have to come from a long way.. and deal with the
    next to zero pressure (and avoid evaporating) before it reached the earth.

Well... only a few small problems. Is it worth going on to concider the
rest of your theory? 
> If such an event
>occurred, it cannot be natural, but only through the power and wrath of
>the creator against sinful humankind.  Also, such a catastrophy would
>throw much of our scientific time scale off balance I think.  Furthermore,
>it seems that some mammoths described to be found in Siberia were well
>preserved and apparently stopped short of doing some normal day to day
>activities like chewing vegetation.  Lush remains of ancient vegetation
>seem to have been found also in Siberia.  Seems like these did not even
>have time to undergo substantial decay.

Could you supply me with some more information about this? what sort of
remains? 
>
>This theory that I read quite a while ago suggests that prior to the
>flood, a thick canopy of H20 in the skies would have kept much of the earth
>habitable and warm, which explains findings of tropical looking vegetation
>in strange places.
See above for this "thick canopy of H2O" With respect to the findig
of tropical rainforests in the wierdest of places on earth, we have another
rather neet theory to explain it. It is called plate tectonics. This theory
explains many things, such as why the various continents seem to fit together
(if you traced the map of the world onto rubber stretched over a globe, then
 cut the continents out, you will find that with a little stretching and some
 relocation, the bits would go together), such as how species came to
 be distributed as they are, as well as why the Indian subcontinent is getting
 smaller, Everest is getting taller, and why San Fransico is having a real
 bum time with earthquakes. While the mechanics may still not have been
sorted out, i would be inclined to think that this theory has some merit. 

>
>Anyway, if anyone has more info on these things, it may be worthwhile to
>share it.

Well, I hope this is worthwhile. I do have a suggestion though... maybe 
we should stop arguing science and start looking more carefully at the
bible... How it came about, where its myths came from and the like. There
is a wealth of scholarly writing on the subject, and it makes for
very interesting reading, and normally a simple way out of such debates
as these.

no flames intended...

---
Chris.

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