The Global Flood and Antarctica - Can we have both?

by mavie 44 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  mavie

  A thought came to me this morning in the shower. I was thinking about ice cores scientists have drilled in Antarctica from which they can measure conditions that existed 650,000 years ago. This got me thinking, how could Antarctica have been around that long if the global flood as described in Genesis really happened? Wouldn't all the ice in the world have melted at this time?
  
  

  Second, JW's believe that the entire Earth was protected by a water canopy of sorts which surrounded the Earth. This water canopy is where much of the water causing the flood came from. After the flood was over, all the extra water from the canopy froze around the poles. This is supposed to have happened 6000 years ago. This begs the question, how can pockets of air 650000 years old be trapped in this Antarctic ice?

  Any thoughts?
• 

  Leolaia

  The "water canopy" theory is the product of biblical exegesis (and ultimately rests on ANE cosmology, which construed a heavenly deep above the earth as the source of rain), not the scientific study of paleoclimatology. Flood "geology" contradicts a multitude of scientific facts, including the one you mentioned.
• 

  VM44

  An orbiting spherical shell of water around the earth would not be stable!

  It would not hold a spherical shape for long and would soon collapse to form a ring structure orbiting high above the equator. Such a ring structure would not have afforded protection from the sun's rays as is claimed there was in pre-flood days.

  Also if orbital water "fell" to earth the gravitational potential energy would be converted to heat....the water would be superheated! The ark would not have provided protection against the resulting high temperature environment.

  Why didn't Russell or Rutherford consider these physical reasons why a cloud canopy could not have been the source of the flood waters? The answer is that neither man knew anything at all about elementary physics!

  If these men were wrong about this, and so many other things, why should anyone listen at all to their theological exegesis (or, more accurately what these men practiced, eisegesis!) of the Holy Scriptures?

  It was all fantasy and wishful thinking!

  --VM44
• 

  daniel-p

  An interesting announcement was made at the District Convention: during the announcements while everyone was standing, the chairman read some type of letter that mentioned the water canopy and something about it not being what we had always thought, and also that it HAD rained before the flood, refering to the fact that Noah knew what God was talking about when he mentioned rain.
  It was very odd, and certainly out of place, as the announcements were the typical stuff about kids falling through chairs and how the convention coffers are in the red. Anyway, I thought it was interesting and it may have something to do with a larger doctrine change in the future.
• 

  VM44

  daniel-p,

  Very interesting. That announcement does sound very strange...not only what was said but also when it was given, while everyone is standing.

  So now a statement is slipped in quickly at the conventions saying that the source of the flood waters might now be what everyone thought it was? Notice how they did not say "is not what we taught you all these years"!

  Was this announcement made at all the conventions this year? It would be interesting to know what prompted the reading of such a letter. Probably is a prelude to the unleashing of some new light in the future as you suggest.

  --VM44
• 

  mavie

  Dan-p,

  This announcement seems really out of place. New light coming in the form of a brief comment between talks? Has anyone else heard this at conventions this year?

  As far as Antarctic ice cores being 650,000 years old...how can a JW reconcile this with the flood account?
• 

  Leolaia

  The Society actually hasn't used the phrase "water canopy" since the 1980s. But the notion is expressed in this recent article:

  ***

  w04 1/1 p. 30 Highlights From the Book of Genesis—I ***

  During the second creative period, or "day," when the earth’s atmospheric "expanse" was formed, there were waters "beneath the expanse" and waters "above the expanse." (Genesis 1:6, 7) The waters "beneath" were those already on earth. The waters "above" were huge quantities of moisture suspended high above the earth, forming a "vast watery deep." These waters fell upon the earth in Noah’s day.

  Interestingly, there was a 1 March 2002 Watchtower article on the Flood, "A Whole World Destroyed," which asked the question, "Was an ancient world really destroyed?" The sole piece of evidence other than the Bible itself was the similarity of myths around the world. That's it. Not a peep about geological or archaeological evidence.
• 

  daniel-p

  VM44 & Maivie,
  
  Yes, it was at this LATEST convention. I don't know why I didn't mention it before in my report - I guess it was just many of the fuzzy droning voices I happily forgot about as soon as I left the building. I thought it was very out of place: it wasn't like a "question's from readers," but more like a simple directive, sort of like those little slips they give to the PO to change public talk outlines or to omit some embarrasing remark.
  I think it fits in with the overall push to construct a more believable creation account.
• 

  Leolaia

  Still, even that attempt to prove the Flood was less pathetic than the following:

  ***

  kp p. 22 "They Took No Note" ***

  Was

  There Really a Global Flood?

  Many critics say No. But the Bible says Yes. Jesus Christ himself spoke of it, and he was alive when it occurred, viewing it from the heavens.
• 

  Forscher

  I am going to stick my neck out and let get whacked-off by the mainstream science apologists.
  I have just a little problem with the ice core dating. That problem comes from something that happened a few years ago. Does anybody remember the group who went hunting for the P-38s which had been abandoned on the glacier in Greenland? When folks decided to go looking for them thinking that it would be an easy salvage of some very valuable planes, it took them six years to find them and another two years to determine how deep in the ice they were. To there suprise, the planes had drifted about a mile and were 258 feet down, nowhere near where they should've been. It would be about another five years before somebody would commit enough money to actually go down and get one.
  So it seems that the assumptions for the deposition of ice on the Glacier along with the assumptions for the actual travel for that ice were completly wrong. Now, what I have to wonder is if the assumptions governing the deposition of ice on the Polar cap are similiarly of base. Would it not be reasonable that they may well be? Could it be that ice accumulates at a much more rapid pace than is currently assumed?
  I don't think enough time has passed for research to definatively answer those questions if it has been attempted at all. it may well be with the "global Warming" dogma which is currently in vogue that scientist don't think the conditions can give them that answer and they may very well have not attempted the research, that is if they are not in denial and don't think the Greenland thing has any relevance.
  Now I know that somebody will probably come on here and say I am an idiot for daring to question the pronouncements of the scientists. And they will probably even be able to articulate some reasonable arguement. The questions I would like to see answered is just how much of the assumptions on the deposition of Ice is actually based on observed data and how much is more in the realm of assumption? How far back does the observed data really go? Ten years? Twenty? Forty? Sixty? And are the observations really statistically relevant enough to be confident in. What is the level of confidence?
  I don't think I am being entirely unreasonable. Now, I will admit that if the polar ice data has been properly adjusted to reflect the data observed in the case of the Greenland glacier, then the dates suggested by the scientists may well have some creditability.
  Respectfully
  Forscher