Adam, first man circa 4,000 bc....?

[_Sethbag]

I should have been more specific. Can you point us to sources that don't depend on their scriptures for evidence that Japheth existed, and was the progenitor of the European ruling familes?

[_Themis]

I should have been more specific. Can you point us to sources that don't depend on their scriptures for evidence that Japheth existed, and was the progenitor of the European ruling familes?

We are left with just religious claims that are somewhat ancient, but don't help us establish that Noah's group was any more then myth. In light of so much evidence from around the world of peoples inhabiting these regions 10,000's of thousands of years ago and are still present today, I don't think this one can really be chalked up as good evidence for a Global flood.

[_SteelHead]

How would Noah and his ilk, the Babylonians or Summerians, known if a flood was global?

[Anonymous]

As far as I can tell, Subgenius copied and pasted his wall of gibberish and junk "science" in favor of the Flood from the following website:
http://unmaskingevolution.com/18-flood.htm

It's always interesting to me how often Creationists conflate evolution with non-biology-specific disciplines like geology, physics, and whatnot. Anyhow, as for the list, there are just way too many claims for me in my spare time here to go through line by line. Suffice it to say that the entire list is a mishmash of non-sequiturs, misrepresentations of fact, and simple outright absurdity. [edit: in fact I ended up commenting on the majority of his claims - silly me]

I will go through and comment on just a few of them here, and let that represent my response to the whole.

That may be well and good but in a discussion obsessed with "evidence" why do they offer none?...its simple, they can not. Science won't allow them to...for the scientific method is incapable of providing evidence that provides negative proof...it can only prove what is there, not what is not there.

If we look at the body of evidence as it now stands, the Earth simply doesn't look like it ever went through a Flood of Noah. Instead, it looks about how geology textbooks describe it today.

You apparently would like to believe that this is because the geology textbooks are part of some global scientific cabal formed up to oppose God by faking a natural history of Earth that masks all the great things we know really happened because they show up in the Bible.

This is all nonsense. Aside from the very fact that you cannot get millions of different scientists from all around the world to be part of such a giant conspiracy and yet keep utterly silent about it, the evidence simply describes a world whose natural history is simply other than what follows from the Bible. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.

So you claim that science can offer no proof that Noah's Flood didn't happen a few thousand years ago. I pointed out already that the Australian Aborigines have had a continuous presence on that continent going back to 40,000-50,000 years ago, and that this is supported by mountains of evidence. This alone contradicts the Flood narrative that all current human populations descend from the survivors who disembarked from the Ark after a grueling yearlong sail in a ship filling with untold thousands of hungry, crapping animals just 4,000 or 5.000 years ago. And that's just one contradictory fact out of an entire world filled with such.

Nevertheless, the offerings of such platitudes such as " i can figure the volume of a sphere" yet they fail to recognize how water exists upon the earth's surface, or how a global flood would behave, or basically how basic and god science works. So, yes we can all argue about what makes "sense" or we can just look at the evidence. Something the Global Flood has and something the naysayers have not.

God science? Is that Creationist code for magic?

Here is the short list of evidence FOR the conclusion that a Global Flood occurred. Since evidence can not be offered that negates a flood occurring (scientifically impossible - the scientific method does not work that way) - This seems complimentary to the logical and archaeological support found in the historical record (scriptures and tradition - both of which are valid forms of "evidence"). So, what evidence do we see that actually supports the conclusion of a Global Flood as mentioned in Bible?

There is a worldwide tradition of a global flood having occurred. The historical record clearly records stories of a global flood across cultures, continents and regions, too prevalent to be considered a coincidence.

All over the world societies have grown up around rivers, lakes, and oceans. These are liable to flood from time to time. With thousands of years of oral history and legend amongst many of these populations, it shouldn't surprise anyone that stories including floods are fairly common. How many catastrophic floods in an area have to take place over thousands of years to leave a mark in a peoples' collective history?

According to current archaeological evidence, civilization appears to have originated in the Ararat/Babylon region.

Yes, read a book like Guns, Germs, and Steel for some good ideas why the Fertile Crescent "took off" so early compared to other populations. *SPOILER ALERT* It wasn't the Flood of Noah.

The genealogical records of many of the European kings are traced back to Japheth, son of Noah.

ROFL. Well, the scriptures say so, so it must be true.

An analysis of population growth statistics is able to confirm that there was zero population at the estimated time of the end of the flood. This indicates the global demise of humans by Noah's flood. (granted stats can be made to say anything, but in some models the math works)

I love how you self-refute at the end of your own evidence.

Human footprints in Cambrian, Carboniferous, and Cretaceous rocks, this is inconsistent with one scientific view of the geologic column - and thus is dismissed as it does not fit the preconceived model.

CFR. By the way, fame and fortune would await the scientist who could actually demonstrate legitimate human fossils in Cambrian or other strata prior to the rise of the hominids. If you've got the proof, you're sitting on a gold mind. Go out and publish that stuff dude!

The most ancient human artifacts date to the post-flood era. No earlier have ever been found, this can indicate that the earlier artifacts could have been buried beyond reach by a huge flood.

This is just complete and utter BS. Seriously dude. You mean, no earlier human artifacts have ever been found, except the billions and billions of artifacts from earlier than 4000-5000 years ago that have been found. The earliest proto-writing was something like 8,000 years ago. Stone tools, knives, spearpoints, arrowheads, etc. go back tens of thousands of years. The earliest proto-civilizations go back over 10,000 years ago, and have yielded artifacts and dwelling structures and whatnot.

There is nearly the same amount of organic material present today, worldwide, as there would have been if all the fossils were still alive. This indicates the demise of all living things in a single global event.

I'm not even sure of exactly what it is this is claiming, but I'd like to point out that life abhors a vacuum, and so we should expect that at all times throughout Earth's development since life came about, life will come to utilize all of the available space, soil, water, etc. that is suitable for life. This may change as the climate changes, but it would make sense for their to be about as much life on Earth today as there was at any other time in Earth's history where the climatic conditions were similar. But again, I'm not sure what this claim is even saying.

Early earth had a warm/humid climate. This is consistent with the destruction of the old atmosphere by the processes of a global flood as described in Genesis.

This is also consistent with the Flying Spaghetti Monster using early Earth as a cauldron in which to boil up megatons of pasta. The existence of an early warm and humid climate in no way indicates that a Flood happened. If Earth had early on had a cold climate you could just as easily have adapted that to your needs. Here, I'll help you: "Earth prior to the Flood had a colder climate, which is consistent with the release of the latent heat of vaporization as all the rainwater condensed and fell."

Glacial period started very quickly. This would require a cataclysmic event such as a global flood to trigger such a rapid climatic change.

Wrong. Aside from the fact that the evidence shows glacial periods at vastly different time periods in Earth's natural history than the Flood-addled version you and your friends present, you have not demonstrated, merely by asserting so, that it would have taken the Great Flood of Noah to induce a period of climate change that produced glaciers.

As it happens, many real scientific theories already exist to account for these climate changes. Here's a story on the BBC website discussing the likely climatic effects of the eruption of a supervolcano. And unlike Noah's Flood, supervolcanos really have happened, and will undoubtedly happen again.

Much of the world's folded beds of sediment have no compression fractures, indicating that they were contorted while they were still wet and soft. For this to occur on a global scale, and on sediment thousands of metres thick, it would have required a catastrophic global flood.

Among other things, this neglects to consider the effects of heat and pressure.

Globally, there is an almost complete absence of any evidence of animal and plant root activity within the tiny layers of sediment. Slowly deposited layers should show this activity, flood deposits wouldn't.

This is not only false, but laughably so. In what types of rocks do the authors of this crap think fossils are found in the first place? Here's a comment on this from our friend Wikipedia: "Among the three major types of rock, fossils are most commonly found in sedimentary rock. Unlike most igneous and metamorphic rocks, sedimentary rocks form at temperatures and pressures that do not destroy fossil remnants."

All types of rocks (eg limestone, shale, granite, etc) occur in all geologic 'ages'. This indicates a common formation on a global scale - the situation that would have been created by the mixing of sediment in a global flood.

No it doesn't. It means that the most common means of rock formation have been in operation since very early days. Why would we expect this to be different? As an example, rocks created from volcanos were created from the very earliest days on Earth, throughout every geological age, and right on down to the present day. Somewhere on Earth, volcanic rock was created today.

The uplift of the major mountain ranges are relatively young, based on evolutionary chronology.

It's true that the major land forms as we see them today are relatively recent. That just means that the face of the Earth has been in flux since the early days. Did you know that Africa and South America got a little further apart today? None of this has anything to do with the Flood. By the way, the Theory of Evolution does not claim, nor does it require, that the Earth had to look like it does today in order for life to exist and evolve. This entire claim is just completely senseless.

There is a lack of correlation between radiometric 'ages' and assumed palaeontological 'ages'. A global flood could easily create an illusion of geologic 'ages'. The consequent conflict between dating methods confirms the illusion.

CFR. Sorry, but this just isn't true.

Fossil 'graveyards' are found worldwide, and in rocks of all 'ages'.

Life has existed worldwide, so we would expect to find fossils from all over the world. They have not been found in rocks of all ages, however. CFR on that one. For example, find me a 1 billion year old fossil with a hominid fossil in it. Or, fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian, as J. B. S. Haldane is said to have mentioned as something that would shoot down current evolutionary explanations.

Found any? I didn't think so.

The burial of fossil deposits worldwide had to have occurred in a catastrophic event.

Why?

All that fossil deposits worldwide indicate to us is that life existed worldwide at various times, and that some of it left fossils. This is not hard stuff, people.

Marine fossils can be found on the crests of mountains,this can also be explained as the marine animals being washed there and then buried - and yes mountain uplifting is also a viable explanation.

Again you self-refute in your own answer. First the Creationist uses the relatively young age of current mountain-tops as evidence for the Flood, and then points out the existence of ocean fossils on said mountaintops as evidence for the Flood, without drawing the conclusion that if mountain tops are young, and occur where oceans used to be, we should expect some ocean fossils up there. Again, this is not hard, people.

Polystrate fossils that are found worldwide indicate turbulent or rapid deposition. A global flood would be required to do this worldwide.

Non sequitur. Let me give an example. Imagine a narrow, deep valley somewhere in the mountains. Large, lush forests grow in this valley. Flooding occurs in this valley for whatever reason, like heavy rainfall causing flash floods, the breech of a natural dam at one end, or whatever. Sedimentation occurs in that valley at a rapid rate, such that some trees are found millions of years later within the strata thus formed. We wouldn't find these fossils everywhere, but we would find some. And that's pretty much what we see today, some of these fossils, not everywhere, and there's no reason it would have taken a Flood of Noah to create them.

Animal tracks and other ephemeral markings (ripple-marks and raindrop imprints) have been preserved throughout the geological column. Rapid covering of these markings is required for this preservation worldwide - ie. by a global flood.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with this one on just an intuitive basis. Fresh animal tracks in soft mud being suddenly deluged by raging floodwaters would be the very last thing I would expect to see preserved after a Flood event.

Meteorites are basically absent from the geologic column. With the large number of meteorites hitting the earth each year, they should be very plentiful throughout the sedimentary rocks - unless much of the world's sedimentary rocks were laid down in one year.

Read this if you are interested in a discussion of this one.

There is evidence of a recent and drastic rise in sea level. A global flood could easily have created this feature.

So would the diminution of the northern and southern ice packs and the disappearance of glaciers that once covered most of the land during the most recent ice age. A Global Flood would stand out more for the question of where the excess water went, rather than its power to explain a recent rise of a couple hundred feet in sea level.

Raised shorelines are found worldwide indicating a time when the world had a different sea level. A consistent interpretation of this is that a global flood altered the levels of the oceans and seas.

This has nothing to do with the Flood. The Flood is supposed to have covered all land, not just raised the shoreline. Anyhow, sea levels are adequately explained by phenomena for which copious evidence already exists, ie: change in ice and snow packs between the previous ice age and today.

River terraces are found worldwide.

What in the world does this have to do with the Flood? Really?

There is a universal occurrence of rivers in valleys too large for the present stream. Slow erosion over millions of years could not have created these valleys as the mountains would have eroded, keeping pace with the valley erosion. The drainage of global floodwaters from the land surface could easily create such wide valleys in a short period of time.

Perhaps judging erosion rates by the condition of the "present stream" isn't very effective nor accurate? Anyhow, why would you expect erosion of mountains through wind and rain to occur at the same rate as erosion caused by a river?

Only modern sediments show any evidence of surface drainage systems. If the majority of the world's sedimentary rocks were laid down by a global flood there would not be any sign of drainage erosion except for the top layers eroded during the recession of the flood waters off the land.

In previous quote the Creationist claims that valleys were created by Flood drainage all over the world. In the very next point they conclude that in a Flood there would not be any sign of drainage erosion. Guys, you can't have it both ways.

Nowhere in the world is it possible to see the complete geologic column as a single structure. It is always found in bits and pieces, and mostly with pieces missing. Globally, a worldwide flood could create the illusion of a geologic column.

Firstly, explain to me why there is a single geologic column. Different places on Earth have different past histories, and hence would be expected to show evidence of what happened right there, but not everywhere else. Secondly, if the Flood happened globally, and formed the geological column all at once, then wouldn't we expect a more uniform geoligical column? Your point isn't even internally consistent.

The oldest organisms still alive on Earth today, the Californian Redwoods, Sequoias and Bristlecone Pines, are around 3,000-4,000 years old. Nothing is older than the alleged and approximate date of Noah's flood.

There's seagrass in the Mediterranean that's upward of 100,000 years old. King's Holly, found in Tasmania, is thought to be over 40,000 years old. A tree in Sweden is almost 10,000 years old.

Anyhow, statistically almost nothing on Earth lives for even hundreds of years, not to mention thousands of years. How 3,000-4,000 year old Sequoias would serve as evidence for the Flood I simply cannot understand.
[quote=Subby]This list is in no means definitive, exacting, or without controversy...[/quote]
Can't argue with that.

but the conclusion of a global flood is reasonable, especially when considered against the story in the scriptures, etc..

So, if you already believe in the story from the scriptures, if you squint hard enough at the Earth and cherry-pick a few issues you can mentally gerrymander enough around all the other evidence that doesn't support the Flood, you can find ways to justify your continued belief.

That being said, what do the naysayers have to offer...dissent, distraction, delusion, detraction, and divisiveness - for they have no evidence of anything nor of nothing...as an objective mind reads through their "rebuttals and refusals" one easily discerns that they are wild and scattered, offering only reaction and without foundation.

Yes, we have nothing at all to offer. Merely the scientific disciplines of Geology, Anthropology, Archeology, Chemistry, Astronomy, Physics, and who knows what else. Books on these subjects literally fill entire libraries. Millions of people are engaged in their constant study, and in publishing thousands of papers per year that expand the boundaries of what we already know on these subjects. But, really, that's just nothing at all. Especially compared to the Bible.

But alas, i am not sure they can even "prove" there ever was a first man circa whenever

I hope this doesn't blow your mind too much, but there wasn't a first man. I mean that, literally. There was no first homo sapiens.

If that didn't blow your mind, check this one out:
Every child is of the same species as its parents. And yet, take enough parent/child/ chains going back in time, and we will decide that a sufficiently distant ancestors of the current population were of a different species.

Pretty cool, eh? Did you wrap your head around that one?

The fact is that there is more reason to believe in the truth of the global flood than to not...that when more evidence supports the story than degrades it one must surely rest with what is more probable...because, well...because that just makes sense...don't it?

Simply not true. The entire world's natural history tells a different story than the story of the Flood of Noah. Squint all you want, and cherry-pick, and try to introduce some confusion into a subject about which truly educated folks acknowledge none, and you might convince yourself that the Flood is plausible. That's not the same as it really having happened though.

[_LittleNipper]

So the Bible is literal and inerrant. Except when it isn't.

The sun stood still, and the moon stopped doesn't mean that the sun literally stood still, and that the moon stopped in its orbit (consistent with a earth centric cosmology, that is now known to be incorrect but which was common in the past) but that it may mean something else.

Atmospheric condition? An atmospheric condition is going to stop the sun and the moon? Or are you now saying that they didn't really stop?

It doesn't matter to me. If the Lord God brought the entire Universe to a total standstill, He has the power to do it without any material issues. God is the CREATOR. Scientists are not.

[_LittleNipper]

I should have been more specific. Can you point us to sources that don't depend on their scriptures for evidence that Japheth existed, and was the progenitor of the European ruling familes?

We are left with just religious claims that are somewhat ancient, but don't help us establish that Noah's group was any more then myth. In light of so much evidence from around the world of peoples inhabiting these regions 10,000's of thousands of years ago and are still present today, I don't think this one can really be chalked up as good evidence for a Global flood.

Please view the following:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... -australia

[_Quasimodo]

It doesn't matter to me. If the Lord God brought the entire Universe to a total standstill, He has the power to do it without any material issues. God is the CREATOR. Scientists are not.

Ah, Catch 22. I don't know if you are old enough to remember the book or the movie (I suspect not). Catch 22 is a rule that covers all contingencies. Just like "God can do anything so no logical explanation is quite good enough".

Belief in this principle ensures that you will always be a little ignorant. You might want to look up the word 'hubris' with your milk and cookies.

[_LittleNipper]

It doesn't matter to me. If the Lord God brought the entire Universe to a total standstill, He has the power to do it without any material issues. God is the CREATOR. Scientists are not.

Ah, Catch 22. I don't know if you are old enough to remember the book or the movie (I suspect not). Catch 22 is a rule that covers all contingencies. Just like "God can do anything so no logical explanation is quite good enough".

Belief in this principle ensures that you will always be a little ignorant. You might want to look up the word 'hubris' with your milk and cookies.

Well, face the fact. The Bible doesn't contradict itself. The style of and storyline of the Book of Mormon contradicts that of the Bible. Cearly, there are exceptions to the what is and isn't historical and true. That said, God says He created the entire Universe including space and matter in a 6 day period. He put into place natural law ---- not for God to follow, but so man had a regularity of time and seasons. It is illogical for someone to attempt to limit the scope of God. It isn't illogical to accept what seems impossible for man to figure out. It is actually illogical for man to tell God what He may and may not be capable of accomplishing... PS> I'm as old as dirt.

[_Sethbag]

We are left with just religious claims that are somewhat ancient, but don't help us establish that Noah's group was any more then myth. In light of so much evidence from around the world of peoples inhabiting these regions 10,000's of thousands of years ago and are still present today, I don't think this one can really be chalked up as good evidence for a Global flood.

Please view the following:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... -australia

You do understand that the dating of aborigines' existence on the Australian continent relies on more than just carbon 14 dating, don't you?

The article above follows a pattern I've seen elsewhere in Creationist literature, which is to take an assertion of antiquity for some find, throw some silly comments about carbon 14 dating, and then driving on as if something has been proven. Here's an interesting article that discusses recent efforts to identify when the Aborigines split off from the rest of humanity by measuring genetic mutations.

It is instructive to visit a site such as the famous Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory, where the well-known ‘X-ray’ style of rock paintings can be found. Modern house paint lasts only a handful of years, yet the visitor to rock-painting sites is told that many of these applications of a simple mixture of ochre and water are tens of thousands of years old!

I don't know if you knew this, but ochre is just clay containing iron oxide. Red ochre is really just rusty clay. If you mix some rusty clay with water and then spread it around and let it dry, that red color will be there forever, or until it is washed or weathered away.

The durability of modern polymer-based paint with synthetic pigments on houses is simply not comparable to the ability of rusty clay to remain red over thousands of years if it is sufficiently protected from being worn off. There's a reason most prehistoric paintings are found in caves. Trying to disprove the latter by reference to the former is absurd.

I would like to add that most paint weathers through oxidation, or through exposure to ultraviolet light, due to the breakdown of the polymers that form the primary matrix in which is suspended the pigments. Rusty clay is already oxidized, and isn't a polymer. It's not subject to the same degradation that modern paint suffers, because it's not the same kind of thing. On the other hand, modern house paint is meant to cover large dwelling surfaces exposed directly to the elements, including wind, rain, snow, sun, etc. And it does that rather well for a while, until it eventually breaks down too much.

[Guest]

Well, face the fact. The Bible doesn't contradict itself.

This is laughably untrue! If you google "contradictions in the Bible" you will come up with more than 3 million hits. What is true is that fundamentalist Biblical apologists are determined to go through whatever torturous and ingenious mental gymnastics and distorted reasoning they have to, to convince themselves and others that the numerous contradictions that have been found and documented in the Bible are somehow not really contradictory.