NationStates Jolt Archive


The Flood?

Sel Appa
21-02-2005, 15:26
If a huge flood wiped out the Earth, how did everything come back?
Jordaxia
21-02-2005, 15:28
I pulled the plug out.... :rolleyes:

I thought everyone knew that?
Bobobobonia
21-02-2005, 15:29
Every animal managed to magically re-populate without the effects of in-breeding, a miracle! Surely god's powers are limitless! :p
Nadkor
21-02-2005, 15:29
regeneration?

look at islands like Krakatoa where life was thought to be gone, and it regenerated a bit, same with in and around mount st helens...and that icelandic island that just appeared one day.

life grew from nowhere on it

thats what happen...life always comes back somehow
The Great Leveller
21-02-2005, 15:30
Every animal managed to magically re-populate without the effects of in-breeding, a miracle! Surely god's powers are limitless! :p
Not every animal.

Birds like ducks were OK ;)
Legless Pirates
21-02-2005, 15:30
People got thirsty
Atheistic Might
21-02-2005, 15:33
Forget about animals inbreeding. Where did all the plants come from? It is a little known fact that most plants suck at swimming, let alone treading water for 40 days...
Bobobobonia
21-02-2005, 15:33
Not every animal.

Birds like ducks were OK ;)

No they weren't. They were all eaten by sharks for being cocky!
Bolol
21-02-2005, 15:34
Well, water is the elixer of life, so things wouldn't be so bad ('cept for us...). Obviously marine animals will survive, as will some amphibious creatures.

As for land animals? I guess it'll just start over. But it would be a little bit quicker as advanced marine life would have already existed.

Sounds good? For the planet yeah! But...uh...I'm hoping to LIVE for the next couple of decades...So I HOPE it doesn't happen any time soon! :D
Crabcake Baba Ganoush
21-02-2005, 15:40
Well although many plants would have drowned their seeds would have still been preserved. Not all animals that survived lived in the ark. Some did manage to escape drowning by living in the bellies of giant whales that were promptly spat out once the waters receded. That and there is the lesser known stories of Jacob's ark, Billy's ark and Gigi’s ark.
Sel Appa
21-02-2005, 15:43
If life could just restart than that would disprove creation. If life can restart on its own, why cant it just start?
Atheistic Might
21-02-2005, 15:51
Once the water was gone, the world would be like Elbonia--all the ground covered with mud. Although it would probably be more than waist deep.
Katganistan
21-02-2005, 16:01
Considering that MANY cultures have a flood as part of their creation myths, one has to wonder why it would be mentioned if it had never happened?

Perhaps it is simply because water is a symbol of purification and of rebirth... or perhaps there WAS a flood event.
Celtlund
21-02-2005, 16:04
If a huge flood wiped out the Earth, how did everything come back?

I'm not telling. You will have to read the book yourself. :fluffle:
Demented Hamsters
21-02-2005, 16:25
Forget about animals inbreeding. Where did all the plants come from? It is a little known fact that most plants suck at swimming, let alone treading water for 40 days...
Except it wasn't 40 days. It rained for 40 days. Noah was in his wee boat for over a year before he hit dry land.
And if you've ever read any Jack Chick publications, you'll know that all that water was enveloped around the Earth in a canopy, shielding the Earth from harmful Solar radiation, which also helped ppl live to be hundreds of years old. And they rode dinosaurs as well.
Atheistic Might
21-02-2005, 16:47
Everyone knows that cavemen rode dinosaurs! Everyone also knows that dinosaurs were slow, stupid reptiles that God smote because they were of the devil...
Schoeningia
21-02-2005, 16:54
God had really big problems with his toilet's water tank back then, but after he changed his plumber things got better.
Chicken pi
21-02-2005, 17:07
regeneration?

look at islands like Krakatoa where life was thought to be gone, and it regenerated a bit, same with in and around mount st helens...and that icelandic island that just appeared one day.

life grew from nowhere on it

thats what happen...life always comes back somehow

Seeds from bird droppings played a major part in colonising that icelandic island (can't remember the name at the moment).

EDIT: The island is called Surtsey.
Demented Hamsters
21-02-2005, 17:08
Everyone knows that cavemen rode dinosaurs! Everyone also knows that dinosaurs were slow, stupid reptiles that God smote because they were of the devil...
Cavemen also had really big dogs that went round burying the dinosaur bones that scientists are still digging up til this day.
Atheistic Might
21-02-2005, 17:18
That's because the Flintstones is a documentary, right?
Nadkor
21-02-2005, 17:20
It doesn't grow from nowhere. Seeds from bird droppings played a major part in colonising that icelandic island (can't remember the name at the moment).

EDIT: The island is called Surtsey.
thats the one

but the point is that life will come from somewhere, somehow
Chicken pi
21-02-2005, 17:25
thats the one

but the point is that life will come from somewhere, somehow


Ah, I misinterpreted the point you were making.
Santa Barbara
21-02-2005, 17:35
Considering that MANY cultures have a flood as part of their creation myths, one has to wonder why it would be mentioned if it had never happened?

Perhaps it is simply because water is a symbol of purification and of rebirth... or perhaps there WAS a flood event.

Bah, cultures are stupid. How many cultures have earth goddess myths, or myths about some dude dying, going into the underworld and falling into some legal loophole and being unable to unite with his lost love. Besides that how many cultures have creation myths in the first place? All of them! But that's not evidence of Creation...
Dakini
21-02-2005, 17:49
Well, water is the elixer of life, so things wouldn't be so bad ('cept for us...). Obviously marine animals will survive, as will some amphibious creatures.

Actualyl diluting the salt water and salting the fresh water would fuck up the fish pretty badly.
Dakini
21-02-2005, 17:55
Considering that MANY cultures have a flood as part of their creation myths, one has to wonder why it would be mentioned if it had never happened?

Perhaps it is simply because water is a symbol of purification and of rebirth... or perhaps there WAS a flood event.
The flood legends being so prevalent are most likely the memories of the sea water rising after the end of the ice age. Australian aboginees still pass down hunting maps that encompas part of what's now the indian ocean.

While such a raise in se leavels woudl not wipe out humanity, it would force many groups to move from ancestoral homelands and it would be noticible.

The biblical flood story is based on the babylonian flood story, which likely originated with refugees from the flood of the black sea.
E B Guvegrra
21-02-2005, 18:03
The flood legends being so prevalent are most likely the memories of the sea water rising after the end of the ice age. Australian aboginees still pass down hunting maps that encompas part of what's now the indian ocean.

While such a raise in se leavels woudl not wipe out humanity, it would force many groups to move from ancestoral homelands and it would be noticible.

The biblical flood story is based on the babylonian flood story, which likely originated with refugees from the flood of the black sea.Or, indeed, just about any excess-water situation. There's been plenty of time in human history for various "worse than any time in living memory" episodes to be 'enmythed' into an exagerated tale from the past...

The very best oral histories tend to get distributed down the ages, merging, splitting, mutating and influencing each other.
Demented Hamsters
21-02-2005, 18:08
You also have the whole: "Hey look I've found some seashells up here in the mountain miles away from the sea! They must have got here because there once was a great flood." Lacking knowledge of plate teutonics and fossilisation, what other reason could someone come up with?
Reformentia
21-02-2005, 18:18
Well, water is the elixer of life, so things wouldn't be so bad ('cept for us...). Obviously marine animals will survive, as will some amphibious creatures.

Not so obviously. Ever had an aquarium?

If not, ask someone who has what would happen if they dumped a massive amount of fresh water into their saltwater aquarium and screwed up the salinity... (several hundred feet of rain dumped in the oceans)

Or what would happen if they dumped a bunch of salt water in their freshwater aquarium (oceans flooding into inland lakes)

The salinity of the ocean water goes way down... the slanity for those poor freshwater fish goes way up, add in the massive amounts of dirt and crap being kicked up by the raging floodwaters, and almost everyone is screwed.

But who really cares... there are way better reasons for not believing in the flood than that. Like... there isn't nearly that much water on the planet. Like... we can spot the occurance of tiny local floods in the geologic strata but of this massive global flood we can find not the tiniest of signs it occured. Like... the laughable absurdity of thinking you could put two of every animal (or even every "kind" of animal) and their food and water and living space for the better part of A YEAR on a single wooden boat. Like... the date when this was supposed to have happened according to all the creationists I've heard it from is smack in the middle of the 5th and 6th Egyptian Dynasties for chrissakes. Maybe that's how they managed to build those big pyramids... they were underwater so the stone blocks were easier to move and they had all the slave builders in ancient scuba gear.

Gah! Every time I run into someone who believes in The Flood I just want to smack rationality into them.
Atheistic Might
21-02-2005, 18:36
We have pretty much covered that the flood, as described in the Bible, would be catastrophic, and that it never happened. However, what I find interesting is that there is no way for such an event to occur. The earth does have enough water to cover its surface, but most of it is frozen in the polar ice caps. Should that water melt, the planet would be submerged. But the biblical story doesn't concern a great melting--it describes a great rain. For it to rain, non-stop, for 40 days, all over the earth, would take a massive amount of water. That water would have to come from the ice caps, but I do not recall the Bible ever saying that the temperature fluctuated so greatly, because that is really what you need for rain--a good amount of heat, so water evaporates, followed by coldness, so the water condensates. Then, of course, it is doubtful that any wooden boat could stay together for so long--the rain alone would cause it to sink or rot. That isn't even considering the massive tidal waves you'd get.
Reformentia
21-02-2005, 22:11
We have pretty much covered that the flood, as described in the Bible, would be catastrophic, and that it never happened. However, what I find interesting is that there is no way for such an event to occur. The earth does have enough water to cover its surface, but most of it is frozen in the polar ice caps.

Ummm... no.

If every single drop of water in both ice caps melted worldwide water levels would rise several meters. That's it. If you melted the entire north pole worldwide water levels would barely rise at all. Hint: The northern polar cap is mostly floating in the ocean. Drop some ice cubes in a glass of water (not so many that they touch the bottom of the glass) and mark where the top of the water is. Melt the ice cubes. Let us know how much higher the water rises.

And as for the ice in Antarctica... well, water takes up MORE space when it's frozen, not less.

Should that water melt, the planet would be submerged.

Should that ice melt we would experience flooding of coastal plains. Bad thing? Yes, a great deal of food production is in coastal plains. Global flood? Not even remotely close. It's actually quite simple to calculate the rough volume of water you would need to add to the ocean levels that exist today in order to raise them high enough to submerge mountains (volume of sphere with radius of earth at tops of mountains minus volume of spere with radius at sea level would give you a value slightly on the high side but close enough to illustrate the absurdity of the whole flood idea).

Give it a try, then look up the volume of ice in the polar caps, keeping in mind the points I just mentioned. I think you'll find we would need something like 60 Antarcticas to give us enough water for The Flood.
Brindisi Dorom
21-02-2005, 22:15
We'd call the Master Chief. Oh wait, wrong flood.
RhynoD
21-02-2005, 22:19
Every animal managed to magically re-populate without the effects of in-breeding, a miracle! Surely god's powers are limitless! :p
At that point in time, inbreeding wouldn't have been so much of an issue. The reason it's so horrible now is because of the vast amount of inbreeding that's already happened, probably because of them.


BTW, there IS enough water to cover the earth. You're forgetting how much H2O is floating around in the air.

And there is significant scientific evidence that there was a flood. I'll get back to you on specifics...but yeah, it's definitely possible...
Willamena
21-02-2005, 22:22
regeneration?
Is that, like, coming back from the dead?

look at islands like Krakatoa where life was thought to be gone, and it regenerated a bit, same with in and around mount st helens...and that icelandic island that just appeared one day.

life grew from nowhere on it

thats what happen...life always comes back somehow
Yeah, 'cuz it's not like seeds blew in or anything.
Andaluciae
21-02-2005, 22:49
The flood legends being so prevalent are most likely the memories of the sea water rising after the end of the ice age. Australian aboginees still pass down hunting maps that encompas part of what's now the indian ocean.

While such a raise in se leavels woudl not wipe out humanity, it would force many groups to move from ancestoral homelands and it would be noticible.

The biblical flood story is based on the babylonian flood story, which likely originated with refugees from the flood of the black sea.
I think this theory seems to work nicely.
Santa Maya
21-02-2005, 22:50
And as for the ice in Antarctica... well, water takes up MORE space when it's frozen, not less.

Only up to a point... once the icecaps are heated to above 277K, they start to expand again.
Reformentia
21-02-2005, 23:01
BTW, there IS enough water to cover the earth. You're forgetting how much H2O is floating around in the air.

Oh for the love of...

Look, lets do some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations here:

Volume of a sphere described by the radius of the earth at sea level:

V(es)=(4/3)*3.1415*6731000*6731000*6731000 = 1.2773637E21 cubic meters.

Volume of a sphere described by the radius of earth at the highest mountain tops:

V(em)=(4/3)*3.1415*6739850*6739850*6739850 = 1.28238E21 cubic meters.

Volume of liquid water we would need to add to the oceans to raise flood levels to the tops of mountains = V(em) - V(es) = 5.0163E18 cubic meters or for those who need zeros to grasp sizes... 5,016,300,000,000,000,000 cubic meters.

Volume of all the ice in BOTH the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers (The two major ice concentrations sitting on land, and thus which would actually contribute to rising water levels when melted = 33E6 cubic kilometers or 33E15 cubic meters.

Which means you would need about 152 ice sheets the size of the ones in Greenland and Antarctica combined just to cover the volume required.

Now, as for water floating around in the atmosphere, rough estimates of atmospheric water puts it somewhere around one thousandth of one percent of the world's total water so yeah, it's a giant oversight leaving that out of the calculation.

And there is significant scientific evidence that there was a flood. I'll get back to you on specifics...but yeah, it's definitely possible...

This should be good...
The Mycon
22-02-2005, 00:54
The earth being a square disk as it is, the water eventually flowed off of the sides, leaving the land as it was before. God works hard to keep the level of water relatively stable, as of now. The calculus & fluid dynamics neccesary to figure out the correct rate of pour dependant on the tidal fluctuations of the moon are no small matter, to say nothing of the spontaneous generation & de-electrolysis of the source materials...
Naval Snipers
22-02-2005, 00:56
Excluding God (who I do believe had to have a hand in this somehow) the same way life originally started. Evolution. Except this time it was somewhat quicker since fish and other marine animals, plants, fungi, etc. already existed and there was no need to start over again from scratch.
Bitchkitten
22-02-2005, 01:10
Archaeoligists have found evidence that there once were multiple settlements on land that's now under the Black Sea. There was once a land bridge seperating the Black Sea, which was once a lake, from the Mediterranean. When this piece of land crumbled the Mediterranean flooded into the lake, raising the water level substantially. One of the reasons for the additional stress on the land bridge was probably unusually heavy rains. As people migrated from that area, they probably took the stories with them.
Colonial Army
22-02-2005, 01:23
its strange everyone in the middle ages said the earth was flat yes? but they believed in this flood thing yes? why didnt they come to thye conclusion it would fall off the side of the planet? ah switch on, and think about that. that hurt my head so talk bout this you gits! :mp5:
Tummania
22-02-2005, 01:32
regeneration?

look at islands like Krakatoa where life was thought to be gone, and it regenerated a bit, same with in and around mount st helens...and that icelandic island that just appeared one day.

life grew from nowhere on it

thats what happen...life always comes back somehow

Actually, volcanic soil is the most fertile you can find... So it's not really strange what happened in St.Helen.
And Surtsey (the icelandic island) is the result of an underwater eruption. Surtsey is barren, it has some plant life and the only animals are birds.
Life did not grow from nowhere. It came from the sea, from Iceland and from birdpoop.
Deo Garricko
22-02-2005, 01:39
its strange everyone in the middle ages said the earth was flat yes? but they believed in this flood thing yes? why didnt they come to thye conclusion it would fall off the side of the planet? ah switch on, and think about that. that hurt my head so talk bout this you gits! :mp5:


One tiny problem with that. Most people did not believe that the Earth was flat in the Middle Ages.