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If the Flood really was global, I have a couple of questions:

1. If Noah emptied the Ark in one place (say, Mt. Ararat or somewhere else in the Middle East, or even somewhere near Missouri), shouldn't we see evidence of all species radiating out from that central place? Why, for example, are penguins only found in Antarctica? How did they migrate there from the place where the Ark landed without leaving any trace between the landing point and Antarctica? Did none of them die in transit between the Ark and Antarctica? The same question applies to the marsupials of Australia. Shouldn't we see some evidence of marsupials migrating from the Ark to Australia? Why not?

2. Why do we see the kind of speciation between, say, islands in an archipelago, and the mainland closest to them? For example, there are clear and close genetic relationships between differing species in the Galapagos, and they in turn are related, though not quite as closely, to species on the South American mainland. In other words, the relationships go in one direction, the one that evolution predicts. If all species had been on the Ark, how do we explain the pretty clear unidirectional relationship between species that are geographically dispersed? Why would differing species have chosen to inhabit precisely those places that evolutionary theory tells us we should find them?

Hmm. I don't know. Magic?

I think a better question is why weren't all of mankind destroyed by the flood? Like it says in scripture. Why is there a continuity of human history, outside of western Asia, unbroken by the literal burial of the entire earth underwater for 40 days and nights?

Patriarchal gripe wrote:I think a better question is why weren't all of mankind destroyed by the flood? Like it says in scripture. Why is there a continuity of human history, outside of western Asia, unbroken by the literal burial of the entire earth underwater for 40 days and nights?

Well, sure, that is an obvious question, but even granting some explanation for that, I would like to know how Flood advocates account for speciation and the lack of evidence that all species came out of one place.

Runtu wrote:Well, sure, that is an obvious question, but even granting some explanation for that, I would like to know how Flood advocates account for speciation and the lack of evidence that all species came out of one place.

If you believe in a young earth, anything is possible. Why not just plant yaks in Tibet again. The same kind they had before. Plant scrub oak on the Wasatch Mountains again, same kind as before. Easy. He is God, after all.

Same thing with the stone box on the hill. poof!

zeezrom wrote:If you believe in a young earth, anything is possible. Why not just plant yaks in Tibet again. The same kind they had before. Plant scrub oak on the Wasatch Mountains again, same kind as before. Easy. He is God, after all.

Same thing with the stone box on the hill. poof!

Ah, but if you're a literalist, that's not how God did it:

15¶ And God spake unto Noah, saying,

16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him:

19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

Everything came out of the ark and multiplied and bred "abundantly in the earth."

Thanks for starting this thread. I've been intending to for several days now. :)

Runtu wrote:Ah, but if you're a literalist, that's not how God did it:

snip

Everything came out of the ark and multiplied and bred "abundantly in the earth."

OK, I'm going with Buffalo's theory: magic.

One explanation I don't see is that that God didn't really cause a global flood, he just made many people believe it had happened. The effects are indistinguishable for those so affected and it was a lot less work for God.

Fence Sitter wrote:One explanation I don't see is that that God didn't really cause a global flood, he just made many people believe it had happened. The effects are indistinguishable for those so affected and it was a lot less work for God.

See Zeezrom's local flood thread.