Archive for category Religion
The Great Divide
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Creation and Science, Nature of God on April 1, 2006
The war isn’t going to end anytime soon. I think thats become apparent in the last series of articles that I’ve posted over the last few months. Science and religion seem to be at odds with one another despite however much I wish they weren’t. So far in this series, I have been focusing on the evangelical Christians and the fundamentalist Christians and their steps that have kept the virtual divide not only open, but widening in their wake. I have not said much about the other side of the fence though. That is, I haven’t made any strides to talk about how science as a community is helping to keep this divide between itself and religion open and widening. So in this last article focusing on science for a while, Id like to present something more personal as I find myself more and more on the science side of the chasm that separates us.
I am often asked by people of both camps what my true beliefs are. I can firmly say that I have no idea. It is true I was raised a Christian but not as an evangelical one. That is, I wasn’t brought up with God and spirituality permeating every facet of my life. To me, God was simply there, just like air is there, just like the sun is there. It was one of those facts that just seemed to be without forcing itself into matters that had nothing to to with church. And so, without the constraint of religion interjecting itself into anything other than my spiritual life, I was free to study science as much as I wanted without finding myself at odds with my creator.
In fact, as the more I learned about creation and the universe as a whole, as well as how it all worked, I began to appreciate more and more how God had crafted such a universe that would give rise to us. I began to understand something fundamental that separates my form of Christianity from the evangelical fundamentalists. That fact I found out is probably the definition that divides Christians into two major camps, which I will get to in a bit. I realized that God did not create the universe because he loved us. He created the universe and then he loved us. In other words, he did not create the universe for our meager little species on some backwater planet, rather, the universe was created and we came alone, whether by natural phenomena or not, and God decided to show us love. Our species on a no name planet out back of nowhere received love from the creator of the universe.
This fact forces me at least to view Christianity’s creation standpoint from one of two camps. Those who think we are special, and those who think we aren’t special. To those who think we are, it frames their whole worldview, from their politics to their social life. To those who think humanity is special see their religion as the specialists of the special. In other words, they see Christianity (or islam or whatever) as the people who are chosen from the special people and therefore are above everyone else. This does not mean they are egotistical; though some undoubtedly are, but rather that they have some obligation to show everyone else how humanity is special and that we should all just know that we are the chosen of creation. The other side of this are those of us who see humanity as nothing special in terms of nature, but rather we are special only because God love us out of all of creation. I believe, as I think others do, that creation came first and that we came about in some manner God ordained but were not necessarily thought of before it all started. Therefore, we may have just been an after thought and God decided that maybe we could truly love him. I don’t know if thats a fact or not, but it would make us more humble if it were. Humility is the fact that governs these camps. One has humility because they are told to, the other just has it.
So how does this tie in with science? To me, the connection seems simple, science, by and large, is much like the second group I mentioned. They believe that humanity is nothing special, but not because of anything theological, simply because they can see how everything works and empirically deduce that if it happened here, why not somewhere else? That is to say, why should earth be the only planet out of countless trillions of planets with life on it? It is this empirical method that sets them apart from the first group I mentioned: the evangelicals. Evangelicals seem to like everything told to them, where as scientists want to find everything out. This difference is the second source of the divide, only between not just Christians.
Give a true scientist a bucket of water and they will want to know what its made of, why does the water spin differently than the bucket if you spin the two, why does water behave that way, why why why? Scientists are fixed to a scheme of solving problems through observation. And on their side of the fence this is their source of the divide, though to be truthful, it’s of no fault of their own. Scientists want to measure and test. You by definition cannot measure or test god. Therefore God is not part of science. This does not mean scientists to not believe in god, some do, but it does mean God does not factor into experiments or theories. Why should he? If humans announced they could test God or measure him, how arrogant would we be? We would be admitting level with omnipotence. Scientists will admit their true goal in life is simply to describe how the world around us works. They do not postulate on why the universe is here or what our purpose in life is. They leave that to philosophy.
As one of a scientific mindset, I have no problem separating God from science because God does not factor into gravity, or air, or temperature. God is not a natural being, if he was, he wouldn’t be god. So I can see the scientist’s argument where “leave to Caesar what is Caesar’s” or “leave to God what is God’s.” God only factors into why were are here and where we are going. To say otherwise just doesn’t make sense. But I can see the point the evangelicals make too. They say science is atheistic and hostile to religion. To some extent, they are right. Science is at its basest level, skepticism. God is untestable so he’s also unverifiable. It’s hard to convince a skeptic to believe in something inherently unprovable. Despite what the bible says, you still must have faith in God to believe the bible. Faith in the unknowable disturbs scientists.
But scientists could use some yelling at from those of us in the middle. Just as I yell at the young earth creationists all the time, I should really spend more time yelling at the scientists and those of the scientific mind set like myself. But the major difference between the yellings at is the fact that to move creationists to the center you only need to get them to think analytically and not accept everything at face value. On the other hand to move a scientist to the middle require to get them to give up just a shred of analytical thought, something even I have a lot of problems doing. As analytical people we tend to miss the forest for the trees. Science gets bogged down in the details and sometimes misses the overall picture, especially when its not related specifically to science. It’s like looking at the old cliche of the pocket watch in the desert. The scientist would take the watch apart, see how it worked, note how the pieces were made and what from, try to find out when the watch was made, etc etc. He becomes so engrossed with finding these things out; I think he misses the bigger picture. He doesn’t once stop to think, who made it and why is it out in the desert? And if he does, the could use the old cop out, “well thats for the philosophers to debate.” That’s true, but for the person of the scientist I don’t think its good enough. Not to sound like an evangelist, but as a person, are you letting your lab coat dictate your personal beliefs in the spiritual? Just because they are untestable does not mean they do not hold merit. Some scientists have tried to evade the issue altogether by suggestion religion and spirituality are somehow biological. Maybe, but spirituality is not a natural phenomenon, at least in my mind, and should at least be given some credit. Because of our spirituality and our ability to envision something so much bigger than ourselves such as god, we identify ourselves are separate from the animals. I know there are other reasons scientists would say we see ourselves separate, but you have to admit, spirituality is something we can definitely point to as “human.”
Scientists may see things the way those of us in the middle ground see things, as far as how humanity is nothing special. However they either cant, or wont ask the important questions that are personally applicable to them. Its all well and good you know how the first cells might have formed from folding proteins, but will that help your personal life? Its great you know the universe is expanding, but will that help you in death? So many scientific friends I know are afraid of death because they believe in no god. But not because they are afraid of hell, they are afraid of mortality being the finality of existence. They are scared of not existing and all that entails: a missed opportunity to make a mark on civilization. In some ways this view of spirituality not pertaining to them or not being intelligent thought is the key to why they help split society.
Their side of the divide is to look down on those who use faith too much. Granted some of us use faith where faith is necessary, but we don’t use it to facilitate every aspect of our lives simply because we are told something by a preacher. Unfortunately, a vast majority of Christians are like the evangelicals. As a result they fuel the stereotype of Christians being anti-intelligent bible thumpers. Science looks down on them because they don’t use any thought at all for their worldview. Science on the other hand perpetuates its own stereotype of being ivory tower people who refuse to look at anything other then facts and trying to discredit religion (even though they don’t directly) by scoffing at those who are in religion. And in-between there are those of us who look at both sides and shake our heads. Science discriminates against religion because they don’t like faith-based assumptions. Religion discriminates science by making claims that go beyond the scope of what religion teaches (i.e.. creation science). As a result, both camps refuse to talk to each other and have taken to throwing mud. So many souls and so many minds could be saved here if they just got along.
In the end, there’s not a whole lot I, nor probably any one person, can do about it. Science people will continue to hate Christians because of the lot that tries to wedge the two apart. Christians will continue to hate scientists because science wants to be skeptical of everything, including god. In the end, I don’t think either side is “right” but if I had to pick one thats more right than the other, id pick the scientists simply because I’m sure there is a way to prove God through logic at least, not necessarily experimentation. The evangelicals only offer canned arguments and irrationality. But I think, really, that if the two sides at least agreed to disagree on a few little issues than both would benefit monumentally from each other. That’s just my opinion though.
And the Floodgates Opened
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Creation and Science, The Bible on March 17, 2006
I think its about time that I put my money where my mouth is and actually show you all how I would discount some of the Creationist claims that I so adamantly speak out against. Sure I’ve argued so far that their logic is flawed, that they take things out of context, and that they in general don’t have a leg to stand on, but I haven’t actually proved any of their arguments wrong using the good old scientific method I harp on so much. Well this week I’ll show you exactly how I go about it by debunking one creationist claim and bringing into question the held viewpoint on another related issue.
The topic of the day, if you didn’t guess from the title, is the Flood from the book of Genesis. For those of you who don’t know the story of Noah and the Flood heres a paraphrased version: Noah gets a call from God saying “Hey, the earth sucks so I’m wiping it clean and starting over. But I like you, so build a big old boat and put you, your family, and a whole mess of animals on it so you float while others..well… don’t.” So Noah builds the boat, does what he’s told and sure enough the earth is flooded with rain and torrents and such for forty days and nights which seemingly cover the earth and wipe out all land life. So then after this, waters recede Noah lands on a mountain and God says “Hmm.. I don’t think I’ll do that again. Heres a rainbow to show my promise to not to that anymore.” The End. ((Genesis 6-8 (New King James Version) ))
Now the problems with this story are enormous. but mostly only if you take the English version of the story totally literally down to the last word. Now most people don’t (even though they say its a myth which is also wrong) but there is a fine group of people who like to take Genesis (and not much else of the Bible) literally to the maxtreme: the Creationists. Specifically Young Earth Creationists.
The problem is not only the existence of the Flood itself but the myriad of geological and biological “problems” that they seem to try and solve with it. ((“Claim 581: Carving the Grand Canyon,” The Talk.Origins Archive. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html)) Continental drift? Flood. Mountains? Flood. Fossils? Flood. David Lee Roth? Well you get the idea. One of the weirdest tenants they hold is that evidence of the Flood and also a geological “anomaly” used accredited to the Flood is present in the Grand Canyon. ((Ken Ham, “Grand Canyon,” Creation, March 1996, 28, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/grand_canyon.asp)) This is somewhat ironic, as a side note at least, because after Ussher (the guy who came up with the age of the Earth as about 6,000 years old) the biggest shifts in the age of the Earth were made by guys like Comte du Buffon, WI’lliam Smith, and Charles Lyell who pointed out features like the Canyon were evidence of somewhat uniform processes in the Earth that could be measured and gave the Earth an age of well over 200,000,000 years. ((“Age of the Earth,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth))
In any case, back to the Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a gorge carved out of the desert floor of Arizona by the Colorado River. As the river cut through the rock, straight down, the sides of the chasm would fall into or slide down into the river and were washed away, hence the immense width of the gorge. The rocks in the Canyon have been dated using radiological dating in a range with the youngest, most top layer being around 200 million years old to the bottom layers being about 2 billion years old. ((“Grand Canyon,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon)) The Canyon itself is attributed to being in total, 75 million years with the onset of the Laramide orogeny, the uplifting event in which the Rocky Mountains formed. The Canyon didn’t begin cutting though until about 5.3 million years ago when the Gulf of California opened and allowed drainage into the ocean, lowering the Colorado River’s base level from where it had been (around the elevation of the Canyon top) to sea level. Most of the cutting though has occurred in the last 2 million years. ((“Geology of the Grand Canyon Area,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Grand_Canyon_area))
From then on it has been a matter of the river trying to reach sea level. As it flows downwards it takes rock sediment with it. This sediment bumps and grinds the river bottom as it goes, very slowly eroding the bottom out and lowering the river.
On average this process is about 1 inch of river erosion downward per year. Although it is known that it has sped up and slowed down greatly depending on the climate and the rock strata is is currently cutting through. A very wet climate and a very soft sand stone could net several times more than a dry climate and a granite layer.
Now, Creationists have claimed that the Canyon is evidence of one of two things that are related to the Flood. One is that it is the source of one of the springs where water gushed forth from the Earth to flood it. However, this seems extremely unlikely since there is no geological evidence at all to suggest water channels beneath the Canyon nor a giant reservoir to hold such an amount of water (even if it was only a contributing amount) to flood the earth. The second theory is that the Canyon was gouged out as the Flood waters receded into the pacific ocean from the high elevation it was at. Now this is much more plausible than the other idea, but it still sounded like made up garbage to me, so I decided to do a little math and find out for myself.
So here’s my scientific method for proving them wrong. First I form my hypothesis. “The amount of water needed to form the grand Canyon is more than all the Flood waters in Genesis combined.” Thats one heck of a statement, but its one I’m going to try and prove. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But if I’m right, thats one point for me and one drawing board for the Creationists. So how am I going to prove this crazy idea? Simple, lets set up a simple thought experiment.
We know by measurement how deep the Canyon is and we can observe in laboratory conditions how long it takes for running water, like the Colorado, to erode different types of rock. So we know around the average amount of time it takes to carve out so much rock. As already stated this is something like 5.3 million years. But to be fair and more accurate, lets say it only takes 2 million, the smaller number mentioned above. Next, we ask ourselves, well how much water has flown through the Colorado River to produce the Canyon we see today? This is where the math comes in. From measurement we know the average (or the mean, as I’ll continue to use) flow of the Colorado before it is diverted by the Hoover Dam is 1,206 cubic meters per second of water. ((“Colorado River,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_river))
So how much is that a Year?
1,206 m^3/s * 60 s/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365.25 day/yr = 38,058,465,600 m^3/yr
Quite a bit of water. Now lets take that number and multiply it by the 2 million years needed for that mean flow to carve the Canyon at the mean rate of erosion.
38,058,465,600 m^3/yr * 2,000,000 yr = 76,116,931,200,000,000 m^3
Thats 76.1 quintillion cubic meters of water moving through the Colorado river on average every 2 million years. Now, lets see how much water was available during the Flood. If that number is close to this number we just got, we can assume that the Creationists might have an argument (assuming the entirety of the Flood would move through the Canyon). If the number we get is significantly less then we assume their argument has no merit. If it is significantly more we assume their argument has more merit than the geological erosion theory. So let’s figure this out.
To calculate the amount of water on the earth in the time of the Flood we need two things: the radius of the earth without the water and the radius of the earth with the water. Now we know from satellite data and other means of measurement that the mean radius of the earth is 6,372.795 km. ((“Earth,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)) To keep this simple, lets use meters. So, 6,372,795 m. Now from the English Biblical account the Flood covered ALL land. Now assuming Everest was the tallest mountain then and was at the same height it is now (which it wasn’t, it would have been shorter) we will say that that could be the radius of the earth plus the water. We will keep the Everest elevation as how high the waters reached: 8,844.43 m above sea level. ((“Mount Everest,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_everest)) So the Flood water in our experiment is 8,844.43 m deep.
To figure out how much water that is we will calculate the volume of the earth without the water (Vd) and subtract that figure from the volume of the earth with the water (Vw).
Rd = 6,372,795 m (earth’s mean radius)
Rw = Rd + 8,844.43 m (water depth) = 6,381,639.43 m (earth’s radius plus all that water)
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * Rw^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * Rd^3
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * (6,381,639.43 m)^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * (6,372,795 m)^3
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * 259,894,319,491,000,000,000 m^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * 258,815,239,616,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = Ï€ * 346,525,759,320,000,000,000 m^3 – Ï€ * 345,086,986,153,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = 1,088,642,779,760,000,000,000 m^3 – 1,084,122,740,550,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = 4,520,039,210,000,000,000 m^3
So the volume of the Flood water given this model (which is very biased towards the Flood theory) is some 4.52 sextillion cubic meters of water. This is about 59.4 times the amount of the Colorado has drained in 2 million years. This number was not at all what I was expecting, but I will have to live with it. However, before the Creationists start feeling proud of themselves, let’s look at one more piece of information.
The Colorado River drains an area of 629,100 km^2. So we can assume that during the Flood it would have drained about that much area as well, although it may have drained more. The surface area of the entire earth is 510,065,284.702 km^2. So the area being channeled through the Canyon is only .1233% of the total surface of the earth. If you want to get technical and say that only land drains water, that bumps the number up to .4223% of the total land area. So either way you cut it, the mount of water actually going though the Colorado’s draining area is about 19,092,081,070,100,000 m^3 at most. Thats only 25% the water needed to carve out the Canyon.
End Result? Not enough water in the Flood to carve out the Grand Canyon in its totality. At most, the Flood could have carved out a quarter of the depth and some could argue that the deluge that ensued could have cause a catastrophic carving out, but I doubt that would have accounted for more than half. In any case you’re left with half a Canyon with one million years of cutting left to do. And remember, this experiment was tilted in favor of the Creationist viewpoint. I could have used the 5.3 million years instead of the 2 million years. This would have netted 165% more water needed to carve out the Canyon. You can do the math yourself.
So there you have it. My method to debunk Creationist claims. I went through it just as I would any other scientific claim. Hypothesize then Test then Re-evaluate the hypothesis. And I even disproved my own hypothesis. There was more water in the whole of the Flood than there was moving through the Colorado River in the last 2 million years. Even so, the greater hypothesis, that the Flood carved out the Grand Canyon is still highly doubtful. Even if it had carved it out, it would only have carved a portion of it leaving a majority of it left to be cut. Which would take several thousand years longer than the Ussher length of 6,000.
So does this disprove the Flood in its entirety? Not really. This is but one example of the Flood’s effects being discounted, but it does not totally invalidate the story of Noah. As I said at the beginning of this post, I would try to bring into question one of the chief tenets of the Flood story. That is, I don’t believe the Flood was ever world wide.
There are many reasons behind this idea. First and foremost, so much geological evidence discounts that a global flood of such proportions ever really took place. There just isn’t any clear cut evidence that supports this. In fact most of it points to the opposite. If there was such a flood, on a global scale, there should be rock layers laid down in its wake of all the dead animals and plants. This is explained by the creationists as all the fossils we see in the geological record. However, this doesn’t sync up. If the Flood created the fossils along with the layers they are in, then the animals and plants within the strata would all be in a single, huge band of rock all muddled together. You can see this for yourself.
Take a bucket. Add some clay to the bottom of the bucket, this will be the preexisting bedrock. Next, add some sand and maybe some army men and little toy dinosaurs. These will be all the soil and people and animals that were alive before the Flood. Now dump another bucket full of water into the first bucket. Once the waves clear notice how the things you placed on top of the clay are now situated. All muddled together. This is how the things at the time of the Flood would have ended up during and after the Flood. Therefore the strata would be a muddle as well. But it is not. We see certain animals and plants at certain levels of rock. We see them in the same levels all over the world. We can see layers of ash from volcanic eruptions and also a thin layer of the element iridium that was deposited on the earth 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth near the Yucatan Peninsula.
The fact is, there is no solid proof of a global Flood. However, that does not mean the I was wrong. In fact, it is probably still spot on. The first five books of the Bible, or the Torah, was written in ancient Hebrew. The words were translated into mid-modern Hebrew, then to Greek and then to English. Some words were translated somewhat incorrectly. The most blaring of these (besides the word for “day” in Genesis 1) is the word for “earth” in the Flood story. The Hebrew word is “×¢ ר ×” (pronounced “eretz”), which does mean Earth. ((R. Laird Harris and Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1981),167-8)) However, it also means “city,” “the country,” or “the land.” So you can translate the story as “And God covered the Earth in flood waters” or “And God covered the land in flood waters.” A major transition from one to the other.
The fact is, we don’t know exactly what the ancient Hebrews thought this word meant in this context exactly. What we do know is that there was a major catastrophic flood about 5600 BC which engulfed the entire fertile crescent. Known as the Black Sea deluge, it was a major event at the end of the last ice age and around the time of Noah, close even in YEC standards. The deluge was cause by a huge lake in what is now where the Black Sea is. ((“Black Sea Deluge,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory)) This lake was held back by the remains of a great glacial dam. This dam, due to the warming up after the ice age of the earth, melted and unleashed a huge torrent of water that covered over 155,000 km^2. This theory has its skeptics, but it seems that this may be the source of Noah’s Flood and also of the story of Gilgamesh.
Is this the story of the Flood? An ice dam breaking and flooding the “country”? Perhaps. Personally, I don’t think the story of Noah is a myth but I do think its been not only taken out of context of its original meaning, but it has also been Disneyfied and spread as gospel truth in that form. One day we may discover that Noah was the source of the Gilgamesh story or that the ark was not on present day Mount Ararat or that the Flood was indeed corroborated by some nameless scribe who wrote down seeing his civilization vanish as waters rose and their highest peaks were consumed. But until that time, we have to rely on the Bible as a document of salvation and not as a science book.
And the Floodgates Opened
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Creation and Science, The Bible on March 17, 2006
I think its about time that I put my money where my mouth is and actually show you all how I would discount some of the Creationist claims that I so adamantly speak out against. Sure I’ve argued so far that their logic is flawed, that they take things out of context, and that they in general don’t have a leg to stand on, but I haven’t actually proved any of their arguments wrong using the good old scientific method I harp on so much. Well this week I’ll show you exactly how I go about it by debunking one creationist claim and bringing into question the held viewpoint on another related issue.
The topic of the day, if you didn’t guess from the title, is the Flood from the book of Genesis. For those of you who don’t know the story of Noah and the Flood heres a paraphrased version: Noah gets a call from God saying “Hey, the earth sucks so I’m wiping it clean and starting over. But I like you, so build a big old boat and put you, your family, and a whole mess of animals on it so you float while others..well… don’t.” So Noah builds the boat, does what he’s told and sure enough the earth is flooded with rain and torrents and such for forty days and nights which seemingly cover the earth and wipe out all land life. So then after this, waters recede Noah lands on a mountain and God says “Hmm.. I don’t think I’ll do that again. Heres a rainbow to show my promise to not to that anymore.” The End. ((Genesis 6-8 (New King James Version) ))
Now the problems with this story are enormous. but mostly only if you take the English version of the story totally literally down to the last word. Now most people don’t (even though they say its a myth which is also wrong) but there is a fine group of people who like to take Genesis (and not much else of the Bible) literally to the maxtreme: the Creationists. Specifically Young Earth Creationists.
The problem is not only the existence of the Flood itself but the myriad of geological and biological “problems” that they seem to try and solve with it. ((“Claim 581: Carving the Grand Canyon,” The Talk.Origins Archive. http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html)) Continental drift? Flood. Mountains? Flood. Fossils? Flood. David Lee Roth? Well you get the idea. One of the weirdest tenants they hold is that evidence of the Flood and also a geological “anomaly” used accredited to the Flood is present in the Grand Canyon. ((Ken Ham, “Grand Canyon,” Creation, March 1996, 28, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/grand_canyon.asp)) This is somewhat ironic, as a side note at least, because after Ussher (the guy who came up with the age of the Earth as about 6,000 years old) the biggest shifts in the age of the Earth were made by guys like Comte du Buffon, WI’lliam Smith, and Charles Lyell who pointed out features like the Canyon were evidence of somewhat uniform processes in the Earth that could be measured and gave the Earth an age of well over 200,000,000 years. ((“Age of the Earth,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth))
In any case, back to the Canyon. The Grand Canyon is a gorge carved out of the desert floor of Arizona by the Colorado River. As the river cut through the rock, straight down, the sides of the chasm would fall into or slide down into the river and were washed away, hence the immense width of the gorge. The rocks in the Canyon have been dated using radiological dating in a range with the youngest, most top layer being around 200 million years old to the bottom layers being about 2 billion years old. ((“Grand Canyon,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon)) The Canyon itself is attributed to being in total, 75 million years with the onset of the Laramide orogeny, the uplifting event in which the Rocky Mountains formed. The Canyon didn’t begin cutting though until about 5.3 million years ago when the Gulf of California opened and allowed drainage into the ocean, lowering the Colorado River’s base level from where it had been (around the elevation of the Canyon top) to sea level. Most of the cutting though has occurred in the last 2 million years. ((“Geology of the Grand Canyon Area,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Grand_Canyon_area))
From then on it has been a matter of the river trying to reach sea level. As it flows downwards it takes rock sediment with it. This sediment bumps and grinds the river bottom as it goes, very slowly eroding the bottom out and lowering the river.
On average this process is about 1 inch of river erosion downward per year. Although it is known that it has sped up and slowed down greatly depending on the climate and the rock strata is is currently cutting through. A very wet climate and a very soft sand stone could net several times more than a dry climate and a granite layer.
Now, Creationists have claimed that the Canyon is evidence of one of two things that are related to the Flood. One is that it is the source of one of the springs where water gushed forth from the Earth to flood it. However, this seems extremely unlikely since there is no geological evidence at all to suggest water channels beneath the Canyon nor a giant reservoir to hold such an amount of water (even if it was only a contributing amount) to flood the earth. The second theory is that the Canyon was gouged out as the Flood waters receded into the pacific ocean from the high elevation it was at. Now this is much more plausible than the other idea, but it still sounded like made up garbage to me, so I decided to do a little math and find out for myself.
So here’s my scientific method for proving them wrong. First I form my hypothesis. “The amount of water needed to form the grand Canyon is more than all the Flood waters in Genesis combined.” Thats one heck of a statement, but its one I’m going to try and prove. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But if I’m right, thats one point for me and one drawing board for the Creationists. So how am I going to prove this crazy idea? Simple, lets set up a simple thought experiment.
We know by measurement how deep the Canyon is and we can observe in laboratory conditions how long it takes for running water, like the Colorado, to erode different types of rock. So we know around the average amount of time it takes to carve out so much rock. As already stated this is something like 5.3 million years. But to be fair and more accurate, lets say it only takes 2 million, the smaller number mentioned above. Next, we ask ourselves, well how much water has flown through the Colorado River to produce the Canyon we see today? This is where the math comes in. From measurement we know the average (or the mean, as I’ll continue to use) flow of the Colorado before it is diverted by the Hoover Dam is 1,206 cubic meters per second of water. ((“Colorado River,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_river))
So how much is that a Year?
1,206 m^3/s * 60 s/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365.25 day/yr = 38,058,465,600 m^3/yr
Quite a bit of water. Now lets take that number and multiply it by the 2 million years needed for that mean flow to carve the Canyon at the mean rate of erosion.
38,058,465,600 m^3/yr * 2,000,000 yr = 76,116,931,200,000,000 m^3
Thats 76.1 quintillion cubic meters of water moving through the Colorado river on average every 2 million years. Now, lets see how much water was available during the Flood. If that number is close to this number we just got, we can assume that the Creationists might have an argument (assuming the entirety of the Flood would move through the Canyon). If the number we get is significantly less then we assume their argument has no merit. If it is significantly more we assume their argument has more merit than the geological erosion theory. So let’s figure this out.
To calculate the amount of water on the earth in the time of the Flood we need two things: the radius of the earth without the water and the radius of the earth with the water. Now we know from satellite data and other means of measurement that the mean radius of the earth is 6,372.795 km. ((“Earth,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)) To keep this simple, lets use meters. So, 6,372,795 m. Now from the English Biblical account the Flood covered ALL land. Now assuming Everest was the tallest mountain then and was at the same height it is now (which it wasn’t, it would have been shorter) we will say that that could be the radius of the earth plus the water. We will keep the Everest elevation as how high the waters reached: 8,844.43 m above sea level. ((“Mount Everest,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_everest)) So the Flood water in our experiment is 8,844.43 m deep.
To figure out how much water that is we will calculate the volume of the earth without the water (Vd) and subtract that figure from the volume of the earth with the water (Vw).
Rd = 6,372,795 m (earth’s mean radius)
Rw = Rd + 8,844.43 m (water depth) = 6,381,639.43 m (earth’s radius plus all that water)
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * Rw^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * Rd^3
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * (6,381,639.43 m)^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * (6,372,795 m)^3
Vw = 4/3 * Ï€ * 259,894,319,491,000,000,000 m^3 – 4/3 * Ï€ * 258,815,239,616,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = Ï€ * 346,525,759,320,000,000,000 m^3 – Ï€ * 345,086,986,153,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = 1,088,642,779,760,000,000,000 m^3 – 1,084,122,740,550,000,000,000 m^3
Vw = 4,520,039,210,000,000,000 m^3
So the volume of the Flood water given this model (which is very biased towards the Flood theory) is some 4.52 sextillion cubic meters of water. This is about 59.4 times the amount of the Colorado has drained in 2 million years. This number was not at all what I was expecting, but I will have to live with it. However, before the Creationists start feeling proud of themselves, let’s look at one more piece of information.
The Colorado River drains an area of 629,100 km^2. So we can assume that during the Flood it would have drained about that much area as well, although it may have drained more. The surface area of the entire earth is 510,065,284.702 km^2. So the area being channeled through the Canyon is only .1233% of the total surface of the earth. If you want to get technical and say that only land drains water, that bumps the number up to .4223% of the total land area. So either way you cut it, the mount of water actually going though the Colorado’s draining area is about 19,092,081,070,100,000 m^3 at most. Thats only 25% the water needed to carve out the Canyon.
End Result? Not enough water in the Flood to carve out the Grand Canyon in its totality. At most, the Flood could have carved out a quarter of the depth and some could argue that the deluge that ensued could have cause a catastrophic carving out, but I doubt that would have accounted for more than half. In any case you’re left with half a Canyon with one million years of cutting left to do. And remember, this experiment was tilted in favor of the Creationist viewpoint. I could have used the 5.3 million years instead of the 2 million years. This would have netted 165% more water needed to carve out the Canyon. You can do the math yourself.
So there you have it. My method to debunk Creationist claims. I went through it just as I would any other scientific claim. Hypothesize then Test then Re-evaluate the hypothesis. And I even disproved my own hypothesis. There was more water in the whole of the Flood than there was moving through the Colorado River in the last 2 million years. Even so, the greater hypothesis, that the Flood carved out the Grand Canyon is still highly doubtful. Even if it had carved it out, it would only have carved a portion of it leaving a majority of it left to be cut. Which would take several thousand years longer than the Ussher length of 6,000.
So does this disprove the Flood in its entirety? Not really. This is but one example of the Flood’s effects being discounted, but it does not totally invalidate the story of Noah. As I said at the beginning of this post, I would try to bring into question one of the chief tenets of the Flood story. That is, I don’t believe the Flood was ever world wide.
There are many reasons behind this idea. First and foremost, so much geological evidence discounts that a global flood of such proportions ever really took place. There just isn’t any clear cut evidence that supports this. In fact most of it points to the opposite. If there was such a flood, on a global scale, there should be rock layers laid down in its wake of all the dead animals and plants. This is explained by the creationists as all the fossils we see in the geological record. However, this doesn’t sync up. If the Flood created the fossils along with the layers they are in, then the animals and plants within the strata would all be in a single, huge band of rock all muddled together. You can see this for yourself.
Take a bucket. Add some clay to the bottom of the bucket, this will be the preexisting bedrock. Next, add some sand and maybe some army men and little toy dinosaurs. These will be all the soil and people and animals that were alive before the Flood. Now dump another bucket full of water into the first bucket. Once the waves clear notice how the things you placed on top of the clay are now situated. All muddled together. This is how the things at the time of the Flood would have ended up during and after the Flood. Therefore the strata would be a muddle as well. But it is not. We see certain animals and plants at certain levels of rock. We see them in the same levels all over the world. We can see layers of ash from volcanic eruptions and also a thin layer of the element iridium that was deposited on the earth 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth near the Yucatan Peninsula.
The fact is, there is no solid proof of a global Flood. However, that does not mean the I was wrong. In fact, it is probably still spot on. The first five books of the Bible, or the Torah, was written in ancient Hebrew. The words were translated into mid-modern Hebrew, then to Greek and then to English. Some words were translated somewhat incorrectly. The most blaring of these (besides the word for “day” in Genesis 1) is the word for “earth” in the Flood story. The Hebrew word is “×¢ ר ×” (pronounced “eretz”), which does mean Earth. ((R. Laird Harris and Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1981),167-8)) However, it also means “city,” “the country,” or “the land.” So you can translate the story as “And God covered the Earth in flood waters” or “And God covered the land in flood waters.” A major transition from one to the other.
The fact is, we don’t know exactly what the ancient Hebrews thought this word meant in this context exactly. What we do know is that there was a major catastrophic flood about 5600 BC which engulfed the entire fertile crescent. Known as the Black Sea deluge, it was a major event at the end of the last ice age and around the time of Noah, close even in YEC standards. The deluge was cause by a huge lake in what is now where the Black Sea is. ((“Black Sea Deluge,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory)) This lake was held back by the remains of a great glacial dam. This dam, due to the warming up after the ice age of the earth, melted and unleashed a huge torrent of water that covered over 155,000 km^2. This theory has its skeptics, but it seems that this may be the source of Noah’s Flood and also of the story of Gilgamesh.
Is this the story of the Flood? An ice dam breaking and flooding the “country”? Perhaps. Personally, I don’t think the story of Noah is a myth but I do think its been not only taken out of context of its original meaning, but it has also been Disneyfied and spread as gospel truth in that form. One day we may discover that Noah was the source of the Gilgamesh story or that the ark was not on present day Mount Ararat or that the Flood was indeed corroborated by some nameless scribe who wrote down seeing his civilization vanish as waters rose and their highest peaks were consumed. But until that time, we have to rely on the Bible as a document of salvation and not as a science book.
An Aspirin for Every Headache
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Nature of God on March 10, 2006
I think fortitude is something that we christians seriously lack. And i don’t say that to merely be provocative and belligerent either. I really think that when it comes right down to the facts of life we are in no better position, possibly even in a worse position than our “ungodly” counterparts on the other side of the fence.
The reason i say this is because of the problem with pain. Countless books, lectures, sermons, inspirational posters, and Bible verses are all dedicated the issue of pain. They remind us constantly that pain exists, that the world is filled with it, and that god can protect us from it. And yet it seems that when pain rears its ugly head in our faces we seem to reel back in fear and hide in the shadows behind our picture of what God is to us.
Case in point. I have a friend who recently heard from a friend she had back in high-school. This old friend and my friend had had a falling out some years back over religious issues. Basically the other friend was going to be the perfect little girl for god. No dating, no kissing, no alcohol, church on sunday and Wednesday, everything she was going to do in her life was going to glorify god. And to her credit, from what i know of her, she kept this up for a long time. My friend said she was insane, probably from the fact that she had to constantly listen to her bemoan the fact that she could never get a boyfriend. Well when you never let physical attraction even once dictate your choice in mates and then when you do happen to land a partner you tell them you won’t kiss or hug them until you’re at the alter, what do you expect? But i digress. It seemed that the issue didn’t even phase the friend that her choice to be loyal only to god was hindering her own wishes, but she was pretty much content otherwise. She did drive my friend nuts by preaching to her every time she got the opportunity about how she wasn’t living according to god’s purpose and she would never be happy if she didn’t, inadvertently pushing my friend further and further away from wanting to be associated with people like that (e.g. every christian she knew).
And then suddenly, the friend’s mom died. I don’t know how or why, but she just upped and died one day. naturally the friend’s life was shattered. And she dropped of the map for several months after. So then the other day she calls my friend up and catches up some. Turns out now she’s living with her dad and her step-mom (he parents were divorced long before any of this by the way) and has turned to a life of drinking, cursing, and generally being a heathen (well… relatively speaking). She was even considering to go and lose her virginity for no real reason other than to do it. I laughed at first because of the hypocrisy she was displaying. I find irony like that funny no matter how tragic it is (I’m evil like that). But then as it sank in i realized something that brings me to this article now.
The girl snapped. Why? Because her mom died? Well yes, but more fundamental than that. Pain. She snapped because of the pain. granted, it was a horrible pain having your only real family just die like that, but its the same kind of pain people feel everyday all over the world. And yet she fell so far. Why? The problem with pain is that she expected it to never happen to her. and thats where we christians generally fail at life.
We normally sit on our high horses talking about the great life we have with god and how he will protect us from earthly pain. And should some pain arise in someone else’s life other than our own its simply brushed off with “well god has a plan for you.” But then it happens to us and all the rules change. Suddenly that godly way of life we were living seems to have netted us nothing. all that supposed sacrifice for god and we are left trampled under the wheels of life in the mud for all to see. Then the taunting begins. “where is your god now?” “Why did god let that happen to you?” “if there was a god he obviously hates you.” And these are just from yourself!
When we have the problem of pain, our world shatters around us. pieces falling down like glass and we stand in our broken cathedral looking up at the dark sky above and just ask “why me? why me god?” We thought up to that point we were exempt from having these blows dealt to us because we were living for god. Bad things only happen in retribution for sin, right? wrong. There was never a guarantee for safe passage through life. yes we are told god CAN protect us from pain, but that doesn’t mean he WILL. And nor should we expect him to.
We do have a guarantee from jesus himself. He guaranteed the opposite. He told us if we join him in christianity we enter a life filled with more pain than normal people. “take up your cross and follow me” isn’t just a nice thought about how we will walk with him and let him carry it for us. The cross doesn’t just symbolize the sins we have to carry, but the pain in carrying them and of life in general. We marginalize pain until it happens to us. We tell ourselves before the earthquake how exactly we will react. And when the quake hits, we panic. And this is the main difference between christians and non-christians. The non-christians have been doing drills, but we tend to stand there confidently that the building you’re in will never, never crack or crumble. And when it does our notions about the world and life and torn asunder and the world looks at us as fools.
And thats what we are if we continue to think that a life with god is a life free from pain: Fools. Its for this reason I always harp on teens and kids who want to get baptized as soon as possible because their friends are doing it and the ministers who encourage it. They don’t sit back and think about what they are doing. They are told from the get go that this is a kind of trade. “you join us and life is smooth sailing.” Its not a bargain, its you initiating yourself into a world darker than you can imagine with god there as a flashlight. You are not completely alone, but you are still on your own. people who think that the dark world isn’t really there are blind. People who think that god will shine like the sun onto that world are disillusioned. people who walk without the flashlight stumble, but at least they cant see the terrors. And people who walk with the light see everything, including the darkness.
Thats why i think that fortitude is something we generally lack. If we don’t have any fortitude and instead delude ourselves into thinking life will be peachy if we live by the rules we will end up like the friend who snapped. I know, I’ve been there myself. but having come out of it, it would have been easier, and it still would be easier, just to throw the flashlight away and hide in the shadows than to confront the beast of pain in all its gruesome glory. We need to teach others to hold to the flashlight and open their eyes and not rely on god to protect them from life, lest we lose them to the darkness as well.
An Aspirin for Every Headache
Posted by Tsunami.No.Ai in Christians, Nature of God on March 10, 2006
I think fortitude is something that we christians seriously lack. And i don’t say that to merely be provocative and belligerent either. I really think that when it comes right down to the facts of life we are in no better position, possibly even in a worse position than our “ungodly” counterparts on the other side of the fence.
The reason i say this is because of the problem with pain. Countless books, lectures, sermons, inspirational posters, and Bible verses are all dedicated the issue of pain. They remind us constantly that pain exists, that the world is filled with it, and that god can protect us from it. And yet it seems that when pain rears its ugly head in our faces we seem to reel back in fear and hide in the shadows behind our picture of what God is to us.
Case in point. I have a friend who recently heard from a friend she had back in high-school. This old friend and my friend had had a falling out some years back over religious issues. Basically the other friend was going to be the perfect little girl for god. No dating, no kissing, no alcohol, church on sunday and Wednesday, everything she was going to do in her life was going to glorify god. And to her credit, from what i know of her, she kept this up for a long time. My friend said she was insane, probably from the fact that she had to constantly listen to her bemoan the fact that she could never get a boyfriend. Well when you never let physical attraction even once dictate your choice in mates and then when you do happen to land a partner you tell them you won’t kiss or hug them until you’re at the alter, what do you expect? But i digress. It seemed that the issue didn’t even phase the friend that her choice to be loyal only to god was hindering her own wishes, but she was pretty much content otherwise. She did drive my friend nuts by preaching to her every time she got the opportunity about how she wasn’t living according to god’s purpose and she would never be happy if she didn’t, inadvertently pushing my friend further and further away from wanting to be associated with people like that (e.g. every christian she knew).
And then suddenly, the friend’s mom died. I don’t know how or why, but she just upped and died one day. naturally the friend’s life was shattered. And she dropped of the map for several months after. So then the other day she calls my friend up and catches up some. Turns out now she’s living with her dad and her step-mom (he parents were divorced long before any of this by the way) and has turned to a life of drinking, cursing, and generally being a heathen (well… relatively speaking). She was even considering to go and lose her virginity for no real reason other than to do it. I laughed at first because of the hypocrisy she was displaying. I find irony like that funny no matter how tragic it is (I’m evil like that). But then as it sank in i realized something that brings me to this article now.
The girl snapped. Why? Because her mom died? Well yes, but more fundamental than that. Pain. She snapped because of the pain. granted, it was a horrible pain having your only real family just die like that, but its the same kind of pain people feel everyday all over the world. And yet she fell so far. Why? The problem with pain is that she expected it to never happen to her. and thats where we christians generally fail at life.
We normally sit on our high horses talking about the great life we have with god and how he will protect us from earthly pain. And should some pain arise in someone else’s life other than our own its simply brushed off with “well god has a plan for you.” But then it happens to us and all the rules change. Suddenly that godly way of life we were living seems to have netted us nothing. all that supposed sacrifice for god and we are left trampled under the wheels of life in the mud for all to see. Then the taunting begins. “where is your god now?” “Why did god let that happen to you?” “if there was a god he obviously hates you.” And these are just from yourself!
When we have the problem of pain, our world shatters around us. pieces falling down like glass and we stand in our broken cathedral looking up at the dark sky above and just ask “why me? why me god?” We thought up to that point we were exempt from having these blows dealt to us because we were living for god. Bad things only happen in retribution for sin, right? wrong. There was never a guarantee for safe passage through life. yes we are told god CAN protect us from pain, but that doesn’t mean he WILL. And nor should we expect him to.
We do have a guarantee from jesus himself. He guaranteed the opposite. He told us if we join him in christianity we enter a life filled with more pain than normal people. “take up your cross and follow me” isn’t just a nice thought about how we will walk with him and let him carry it for us. The cross doesn’t just symbolize the sins we have to carry, but the pain in carrying them and of life in general. We marginalize pain until it happens to us. We tell ourselves before the earthquake how exactly we will react. And when the quake hits, we panic. And this is the main difference between christians and non-christians. The non-christians have been doing drills, but we tend to stand there confidently that the building you’re in will never, never crack or crumble. And when it does our notions about the world and life and torn asunder and the world looks at us as fools.
And thats what we are if we continue to think that a life with god is a life free from pain: Fools. Its for this reason I always harp on teens and kids who want to get baptized as soon as possible because their friends are doing it and the ministers who encourage it. They don’t sit back and think about what they are doing. They are told from the get go that this is a kind of trade. “you join us and life is smooth sailing.” Its not a bargain, its you initiating yourself into a world darker than you can imagine with god there as a flashlight. You are not completely alone, but you are still on your own. people who think that the dark world isn’t really there are blind. People who think that god will shine like the sun onto that world are disillusioned. people who walk without the flashlight stumble, but at least they cant see the terrors. And people who walk with the light see everything, including the darkness.
Thats why i think that fortitude is something we generally lack. If we don’t have any fortitude and instead delude ourselves into thinking life will be peachy if we live by the rules we will end up like the friend who snapped. I know, I’ve been there myself. but having come out of it, it would have been easier, and it still would be easier, just to throw the flashlight away and hide in the shadows than to confront the beast of pain in all its gruesome glory. We need to teach others to hold to the flashlight and open their eyes and not rely on god to protect them from life, lest we lose them to the darkness as well.