Monday, February 4, 2008

On Noah's Flood

This is for all of you young earth creationists out there. If the Grand Canyon was indeed "created" in a few weeks as this hypothesis claims, then let's look some possibilities as to how the grand canyon could have been formed.
1. A giant literal flood washed over the entire earth and carved out this mile-deep crevasse while leaving all the surrounding earth intact.
2. A giant flood-induced river plowed through the land at a breakneck speed carving out this canyon.
3. A little creek slowly flowed over the same patch of land mile after mile over the course of many years carrying with it small amounts of earth sediment, eventually carving out this grand canyon.

To see which method satifies all criteria of the biblical account of the flood, let's do an experiment. You'll need 3 rectangular basins full of sand or dirt approximately 4 feet long by 1 foot wide by 6 inches deep. If you can't find these, just do the experiment in your backyard in the ground itself. On second thought that's a better environment for this experiment anyway. In the ground build up three 6-foot long mounds (one next to the other) of dirt that are reasonably flat on top but descend slightly over the entire length of the 6 feet.

You'll also need a watering hose and a big bowl for water.

As you can guess we'll be simulating three versions of Noah's great flood.

First let's take option #1 where a giant flood washes over the land at once.
So, in your basin or your backyard, fill the bowl with water and dump it out at the higher end of mound #1 all at once, simulating a flash flood which should cover the entire surface of the mound. Now, what do you see? Is there A. a very deep but comparatively slender gash in the mound of dirt, or B. did the entire mound surface simply get shortened?
The answer of course is B. This method of flash flooding could not possibly have created the Grand Canyon in a few weeks. too much additional land would have been carried away and no cut in the surface of the land would be seen.

Next let's try option #2 where a gigantic flood-induced river flowed through the land very rapidly resulting in the Canyon as we see it today.
So, Take your hose over to the second mound of dirt and turn the hose on full blast. What happens? Does there appear to be again A. a very deep but comparatively slender gash in the landscape? Or B. is the gash very wide at the top and diminutive in width along the length of the mound? Or C. did the surface of the mound simply get shortened as before?
The answer could be A, but if it is correct, the premise of the biblical account of the flood cannot be accurate because this experiment shows that the flood waters would have not covered the entire earth but only the section of land described by the path of the Grand Canyon today. The bible is clear, the flood waters covered the entire earth, so A is out.
For the same reason, B is out. Even though it's possible it's also incompatible with the bible's story. Which leaves us with answer C, which is as likely as it was in the previous question, but probably not as likely as B for this question.

Last, we'll look at option #3 which is obviously an account of erosion over time. Run the hose at a slight flow, little more than a trickle, simulating the flow of a creek or small river, Again start at the top and watch what happens. The simulated river will carve out it's own bed if left there long enough. The Grand Canyon took millions of years to carve out. You've deluded yourself if you think otherwise, although I'll allow the possibility of a different rational explanation if scientists can come up with one. I think however, the scientists who would be concerned with this particular area probably all agree on the explanation of erosion for the canyon's existence.

No comments: