Was Most Terrestrial Life Destroyed by a Global Flood ~4500 Years Ago? -

osmanthus · 02-22-2016, 07:50 AM

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It's often struck me that Dave must have had a very land-locked life.

Must have. IIRC though, the various flood myths that did include boats (which I assume would be most of them) described the different types of boats that the different cultures would be familiar with, which is obviously not evidence for common ancestry of the myths.

Pingu · 02-22-2016, 08:07 AM

It does always amaze me that people think that a 4,000 year old Global Flood is a better reason for finding "billions of dead things" than a straightforward ocean.

It's like some of them have never seen one.

osmanthus · 02-22-2016, 08:09 AM

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It does always amaze me that people think that a 4,000 year old Global Flood is a better reason for finding "billions of dead things" than a straightforward ocean.

It's like some of them have never seen one.

True. It is totally daft.

Faid · 02-22-2016, 10:57 AM

:

It does always amaze me that people think that a 4,000 year old Global Flood is a better reason for finding "billions of dead things" than a straightforward ocean.

It's like some of them have never seen one.

I suspect dave dislikes fish even more than he does vegetables.

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 11:30 AM

Copied from the radiometric dating assumptions thread ...

:

It astounds me that Davie thinks those things are evidence for the bible.

The number, type, distribution, and variety of fossils makes it impossible that they were buried during a global flood. If all of those plants and animals had been alive on the earth before The Flood^TM, the earth would have been completely covered many meters deep with lifeforms, packed together lIke sardines..

The only possible way they all could have inhabited the earth, lived their lives, died, and been buried is a few at a time over a very long period. There are simply far too many fossils.

And the fact that many cultures all over the earth have flood myths is evidence AGAINST the biblical version of a flood! In the biblical version, all those cultures were wiped out, you fuckwit. They wouldn't have survived to talk about it if it had actually happened! How do you not grasp this?

This has long struck me as one of the stupidest arguments In favor of the flood. "Many cultures all around the world speak of a global flood... that killed everyone off." You seriously can't see the problem here?

Bwahahahaha!!

It might occur to someone smarter than Dave (which is to say, most of the people on the planet), to argue that all the cultures across the world have flood stories derived from the Bible flood story because the flood survivors (Noah's family) were the ancestors of the people making up all those cultures.

But we know the general lines along which the world was settled, supported by genetic evidence (the same evidence that Dave would have no problem with if it were presented in a genealogical or medical or criminal context): out of Africa etc. So we know humanity didn't spread from a Middle Eastern locus in the first place, but from an African one (though the Middle East would have been a gateway through which much of the rest of the world was accessed).

So the alleged dispersal of *the* flood story should match the paleontological, archaeological, genetic, etc. evidence of the sequence of settlement of the world.

But, of course, it doesn't. Except in the immediate vicinity of the Near East, we don't get a smooth gradient of Bible-like flood stories that matches the pattern of dispersal of peoples. Instead, Bible-like flood stories are scattered around haphazardly, likely due to the influence of early missionaries and the like on the peoples from whom those stories were collected. And then we get a huge variety of other variations -- including no flood stories, ones in which the cause, motive, characters, results, and motifs very tremendously, and so on. The flood was caused by a shaman. The flood was caused by the Inuit deity Sedna. The flood explains fossils found eroding high on mountainsides. The flood bubbled out of the underworld, with no rain. Boats or canoes allowed people to escape. A supernatural beaver or muskrat brought mud up from the bottom of the water world to build a refuge. On and on in endless variations, many of which don't resemble the Bible version much more than in having the world "flood" involved...

Tsunamis, end-ice-age melting, river flooding... There are dozens of local explanations for why people (almost all of whom live along lakes, rivers, streams, or ocean margins) would have their own flood stories, or would borrow them from neighbors much more immediate than the people at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

And, of course, you'd expect to see a similar outward-spreading ripple centered around the Middle East of ... EVERYTHING: the dispersal of wild and domesticated plants and animals, the spread of cultures and lifeways, the spread of agriculture and architecture, etc.

We see some of this with regard to the advent of agriculture, settled villages and urban centers, and the neolithic, at least with regard to southern Eurasia. But we don't see it with regard to many other things, for example, if Noah already had command of agriculture, a pastoral economy, carpentry and boat building, etc., then everybody should have taken those cultural elements with them as they spread outward. But, of course, that's not at all what the European explorers encountered when they began encountering the rest of the world's languages and cultures: instead they found a bewildering variety of languages, lifeways, architectures, and so on that bore little resemblance to the Biblical society.

Likewise, the distribution of OTHER stories, legends, myths, and oral literature ought to parallel that of the (non-existent) spread of the flood story. But, uh, nope...

As I told Dave long ago, folklorists and linguists have compiled and indexed a huge mass of the world's various myth-motifs over the course of the last couple of centuries, and the pattern of borrowings, inversions, etc., is much more complicated than any simple outward ripple from the Tigris-Eurphrates uplands could explain.

And, of course, evidence of human habitation everywhere goes back much further than Dave's 6-10 k years.

The genetics also provide a means of dating the divergence of populations (and that's just looking at us comparatively-recent humans, and not at the staggeringly ancient divisions of the kingdoms of life, the animal phyla, etc., etc., etc.). Genetic "Eve" and "Adam" don't date to four or six or eight thousand years, but to tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Neandertals were mating with humans 60 thousand years ago (likely somewhere in the MidEast). Human were mating with Neandertals upwards of 100 thousand years ago, somewhere in Eurasia.

NONE OF IT, none of these lines of evidence or any of literally hundreds or thousands of others, many of which have no arguable religious or old-earth "agenda," works for YEC or for Dave.

It's like he's sitting in the middle of an endless minefield, afraid to move, flick a pebble, or breathe too hard.

While proclaiming himself the battlefield victor, lol.

It's droll, but it's also pathetic, and Dave's been stuck in that pathetic mode for a very long time now.

If some of life's goals are growth, learning, individuation... Well, Dave's entirely missed the boat.

Not that there was any big dumb square rudder-less animal-poop-packed boat in the first fricking place.

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 11:31 AM

And one more ...

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It might occur to someone smarter than Dave (which is to say, most of the people on the planet), to argue that all the cultures across the world have flood stories derived from the Bible flood story because the flood survivors (Noah's family) were the ancestors of the people making up all those cultures.

You know, of all the people I've heard try to support The Flood with this argument about cultures all over the world having flood myths, I've never observed a single one make the obvious connection that the only way this observation could validate the bible is if all the cultures of the world descended from Noah's family.

I get it. I got it immediately. In fact I was raised by a biblical literalist, so I was taught as a child that everyone descends from Noah's family. I just love the look on people's faces when I point out the obvious, because most of them had never thought that far ahead (incredibly).

They're speechless because they're not prepared to adopt the conclusion that derives from their own argument.

It is so obvious to most people that Africans in all their many variations, Australian aborigines, Native Americans in all their varieties, Arabs, Persians, Siberian reindeer herders, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Pacific Islanders in all their many varieties, Europeans of all their various flavors, etc... All these races and all their cultures and languages could not have arisen from a single family that lived 4,500 years ago. This is REALLY obvious. To everyone.

So, they say "cultures everywhere have flood myths" but they imagine each of those cultures somehow experiencing the flood each in their own way. I think they're trying to argue for some version of a regional flood, various regional floods, or some other interpretation that saves the bible by making the flood a real event, just not the complete global catastrophe a literal reading requires.

When confronted with the fact that widely dispersed cultures can't recall an event they didn't a) witness or b) survive, they abandon the whole argument because no matter how stupid they may be, they're not going to try to argue that everyone on earth actually descends from Noah's family.

Of course, we're not talking about Dave here. Dave is a unique category of stupid.

VoxRat · 02-22-2016, 11:32 AM

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I figured I should dust off my RATE books so I just finished rereading pages 457 through 465 in "RATE 2" ... My take away is that yes indeed the leading creationist researchers agree on 3 to 4 GA worth of actual radioactive decay during creation week and about one half GA during the flood.

I wanna talk about flood legends more ... but I also don't want anyone to have a basis for saying ... "Look, he's running away from radiometric dating assumptions!" I'm not at all. And neither is AIG.

Sooo ... this week I will continue my refresher course with the RATE books.

Well, don't bother reporting back until you're prepared to state the argument simply, in your own words. You wouldn't want to be that obviously hypocritical, now, would you?

:

... unless I hear you present it simply in your own words, then I'm fairly certain that you don't even understand what you are regurgitating.

damitall · 02-22-2016, 11:34 AM

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It does always amaze me that people think that a 4,000 year old Global Flood is a better reason for finding "billions of dead things" than a straightforward ocean.

It's like some of them have never seen one.

Oh you cannot see the ocean from Missouri
Nor see the sparkling sea from Tennessee
But you can read your bible
Even though it makes you liable
To believe in sheer impossibility

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 11:35 AM

Let's start from the beginning ...

:

Originally Posted by OHSU View Post
It astounds me that Davie thinks those things are evidence for the bible.

The number, type, distribution, and variety of fossils makes it impossible that they were buried during a global flood. If all of those plants and animals had been alive on the earth before The FloodTM, the earth would have been completely covered many meters deep with lifeforms, packed together lIke sardines..

I see.

And you know this how?

Have there been experiments done to show this sort of thing? Or is this your personal incredulity?

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 11:41 AM

Secondly ...

:

And the fact that many cultures all over the earth have flood myths is evidence AGAINST the biblical version of a flood! In the biblical version, all those cultures were wiped out, you fuckwit. They wouldn't have survived to talk about it if it had actually happened! How do you not grasp this?

This has long struck me as one of the stupidest arguments In favor of the flood. "Many cultures all around the world speak of a global flood... that killed everyone off." You seriously can't see the problem here?

Bwahahahaha!!

Hold on. Let's examine your logic ... you say that "flood legends from all over the world is evidence AGAINST the Flood"?

Surely you do understand that IF there was indeed a Global Flood which wiped out all human life except for those on the ark ... and IF the ark family did indeed repopulate the earth ... then flood legends all over the earth is exactly what we would expect ... right?

You DO get this part, don't you?

vivisectus · 02-22-2016, 11:41 AM

They have it all wrong. The earth was created about 8000 years ago, from the primordial oceanic chaos. Dragons were involved. That is why you see evidence of ancient ocean floors in the middle of dry land. Dragon fire was also responsible for accelerating radioactive decay, making loads of rocks seem millions of years old.

If you need more evidence then simply ask my fellow literalist Dave, he'll sort you out. His only mistake is to pick the wrong ancient middle-eastern creation myth.

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 11:45 AM

In other words, we could say that under the "Flood Hypothesis" ... one prediction would be that there would be universal flood legends with many common features from all over the world.

On the other hand, under your "No Flood" theory, why would there be universal flood legends? Seems that there might indeed be SOME legends ... tracing back to whatever culture originated the story ... but why would it be so universal?

Entropy · 02-22-2016, 11:46 AM

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In other words, we could say that under the "Flood Hypothesis" ... one prediction would be that there would be universal flood legends with many common features from all over the world.

On the other hand, under your "No Flood" theory, why would there be universal flood legends? Seems that there might indeed be SOME legends ... tracing back to whatever culture originated the story ... but why would it be so universal?

"Many"? You said "hundreds" in the other thread. Still waiting for that list.

VoxRat · 02-22-2016, 11:49 AM

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Surely you do understand that IF there was indeed a Global Flood which wiped out all human life except for those on the ark ... and IF the ark family did indeed repopulate the earth ... then flood legends all over the earth is exactly what we would expect ... right?

You DO get this part, don't you?

Actually, no.

For starters, if such a thing actually happened, the ark family would have no way of knowing the extent of the flood they experienced. The "global" bit is a dead giveaway that it's not a real, eye-witnessed event.

vivisectus · 02-22-2016, 11:53 AM

:

Let's start from the beginning ...

:

Originally Posted by OHSU View Post
It astounds me that Davie thinks those things are evidence for the bible.

The number, type, distribution, and variety of fossils makes it impossible that they were buried during a global flood. If all of those plants and animals had been alive on the earth before The FloodTM, the earth would have been completely covered many meters deep with lifeforms, packed together lIke sardines..

I see.

And you know this how?

Have there been experiments done to show this sort of thing? Or is this your personal incredulity?

Just look at the UK. We find the remains of wildly different landscapes: a tropical sea, hot savannah, an ice-age tundra. Neatly grouped together too in layers.

So what was going on? Was the UK at the same time a freezing tundra and a sub-tropical savannah?

vivisectus · 02-22-2016, 12:00 PM

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In other words, we could say that under the "Flood Hypothesis" ... one prediction would be that there would be universal flood legends with many common features from all over the world.

On the other hand, under your "No Flood" theory, why would there be universal flood legends? Seems that there might indeed be SOME legends ... tracing back to whatever culture originated the story ... but why would it be so universal?

In the same way the "the world was created from the primordial sea by dragons" hypothesis that involves Tiamat is supported by the prevalence of creation stories to do with water. You find them from one end of the globe to the other. All the land is water, until a spirit animal recovers or finds a piece of land.

If your "no dragons" theory was correct, then why do we find both creation stories that involve water, AND stories about dragons all over the place?

Entropy · 02-22-2016, 12:03 PM

I imagine that just as many cultures have stories about volcanic eruptions as they do about floods. Does that mean that theyre all talking about the same volcano? Of course not.

RAFH · 02-22-2016, 12:10 PM

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Let me remind you…

We have billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth…

Which the mainsteam narrative and model more than adequately explains and which your fable has loads of issues it doesn't deal with or that can be and have been more than successfully refuted or rendered irrelevant. Such as most of those billions of thing buried in the rock are fish or water living organisms, which most likely would not die in a flood. Then there's the issue of where the water came from and where it went. And ... ...

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not to mention that we have hundreds of traditions from cultures all over the world telling about a global flood.

Except they don't. Some relate to a flood, of sorts. Some, like the Norse sagas, simply describe an ice giant melting and a cow producing milk. Others are not and never could be global because those people didn't even know there was a globe. And one would wonder why they didn't keep the faith, being supposedly all the offspring of Noah, a very righteous man.

No, Bluffy, these two PRATTS are even worth addressing they are so lame.

:

And ... No currently operating processes could possibly be extrapolated over millions or billions of years to produce anything remotely similar to what we see in the geological record no matter what type of pretzel logic or intellectual gymnastics are employed.

" no evidence to ignore"

Lol

Really? According to who? Yourself? That's possibly one of the funniest aspects of your act.

No, Bluffy, all you've got is an old myth you take bites of, a lot of fantasy and loads of bluff, bluster and bravado.

RAFH · 02-22-2016, 12:14 PM

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Let me remind you…

We have billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth…

Yes.
And those rock layers turn out to be many millions of years old.
As determined by radiometric dating.
Against which you have yet to raise a single objection that withstands the slightest scrutiny.

Fail.

:

not to mention that we have hundreds of traditions from cultures all over the world telling about a global flood.

Bullshit.

Even if it were true, folklore is not evidence.
And how would any of these folklore "historians" be in a position to know the extent of any flood they might have witnessed, heard about, or heard the n^th generation retelling of?

Not to mention there were substantial civilisations at that time which recorded no such event. And it would, from all descriptions, have been something difficult to ignore.

damitall · 02-22-2016, 12:14 PM

Many cultures had legends about the origin of the sun and moon, the reasons for thunder, and so on and so on.

They were wrong too.

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 12:21 PM

:

Many cultures had legends about the origin of the sun and moon, the reasons for thunder, and so on and so on.

They were wrong too.

Yeah like our culture for example… Where there was once a piece of nothing we call a singularity and it exploded and created all things. Complete with "dark energy" and "dark matter."

Lol

Dave Hawkins · 02-22-2016, 12:23 PM

And don't forget about the modern legend of the frog becoming a prince due to copying mistakes and natural selection. Or something like that.

VoxRat · 02-22-2016, 12:24 PM

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Many cultures had legends about the origin of the sun and moon, the reasons for thunder, and so on and so on.

They were wrong too.

Yeah like our culture for example… Where there was once a piece of nothing we call a singularity and it exploded and created all things. Complete with "dark energy" and "dark matter."

Lol

Only those are not folklore and legends.
You know how to tell the difference?

(Rhetorical question. Of course you don't.)

Entropy · 02-22-2016, 12:27 PM

Vapid drive-by snark is all Dave has, apparently...

teeth! · 02-22-2016, 12:27 PM

First biblical creation myth is the Tiamat myth.

02-22-2016, 08:07 AM	#2618473 / #27
Pingu I did. F. Poste. GLaDOS : Mar 2008 : UK : 60,846	It does always amaze me that people think that a 4,000 year old Global Flood is a better reason for finding "billions of dead things" than a straightforward ocean. It's like some of them have never seen one. __________________ Join me at The Skeptical Zone

02-22-2016, 12:14 PM	#2618515 / #45
damitall Member, Great British Public : Mar 2008 : 5,654	Many cultures had legends about the origin of the sun and moon, the reasons for thunder, and so on and so on. They were wrong too. __________________ You can't have everything. Where would you put it? No I didn't read anything I just clicked on the links and looked at the pictures. - Dave Hawkins

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Messages:

02-22-2016, 11:41 AM	#2618498 / #36
vivisectus Senior Member : Nov 2015 : 386	They have it all wrong. The earth was created about 8000 years ago, from the primordial oceanic chaos. Dragons were involved. That is why you see evidence of ancient ocean floors in the middle of dry land. Dragon fire was also responsible for accelerating radioactive decay, making loads of rocks seem millions of years old. If you need more evidence then simply ask my fellow literalist Dave, he'll sort you out. His only mistake is to pick the wrong ancient middle-eastern creation myth.

02-22-2016, 11:45 AM	#2618499 / #37
Dave Hawkins Senior Member : Mar 2008 : Kansas City, MO Area : 29,025	In other words, we could say that under the "Flood Hypothesis" ... one prediction would be that there would be universal flood legends with many common features from all over the world. On the other hand, under your "No Flood" theory, why would there be universal flood legends? Seems that there might indeed be SOME legends ... tracing back to whatever culture originated the story ... but why would it be so universal?

02-22-2016, 12:23 PM	#2618518 / #47
Dave Hawkins Senior Member : Mar 2008 : Kansas City, MO Area : 29,025	And don't forget about the modern legend of the frog becoming a prince due to copying mistakes and natural selection. Or something like that.