SE Sun Vienna Va.
Sep-10-93 05:27AM
The Flood is Absurd

Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc., Vienna, VA.
From: fritz@titanic.East.Sun.COM ( SE Sun Vienna Va.)
Message-ID: <26pvc7INNldh@titanic.east.sun.com>
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.origins

>rticle 747631218@cc.gatech.edu, drewd@terminus.gatech.edu (L. Drew Davis)
writes:
   I found the pressure argument presented a few weeks back interesting.
   The weight of all that water doesn't go away, even if it's vapor and
   in the atmosphere.  Living under a "vapor canopy" would subject
   creatures to just as much pressure as living at the bottom of
   an equivalently deep ocean.  I don't know of any land creatures
   that would survive at 25,000 feet down in the Marianas Trench.
   How do you keep everything from gettting squashed?

The Creationists could probably wiggle out of this one
pretty easily.  After all, they claim that the waters of the
flood came from both the "vapor canopy" and the "waters of the
deep", and never say how much came from which source.  All they
have to do is claim that there wasn't that much water in the
canopy so it wasn't a problem.

But you don't have to go as deep as the Marianas Trench to start
causing distress in humans.  Ask any scuba diver and they'll tell
you that after you get down several hundred feet nitrogen narcosis
(rapture of the deep) sets in.  So any significant amout of water
in the atmosphere would really screw up a budding culture.  I wonder
how all those pre-flood civilizations managed to get anything done
since everyone would be acting like they just got back from a three
martini lunch.

Also, when the vapor canopy collapsed, the pressure would have
dropped very rapidly.  I wonder why the Bible doesn't tell of Noah's
agonizing case of the bends.  "'And as the Heavens opened, and the
waters of the sky did fall, Noah and all his kin, and all the animals
of the ark were striken by a great pain in their bellys.  And their
noises did bleed, and their eyes did bleed, and their ears did bleed.
And of the dumber animals of the field, who did not know to scream for
their lives when undergoing explosive decompression, their lungs did
explode, and their brains and their hearts did rupture.  And they did
die in pain.  And the Lord saw this,and said that it was good.'  Thus
endth the reading."

---
Steve Fritzinger   --  steve.fritzinger@East.Sun.COM

"But nobody asked me, and now it's too late."   - Al Bundy

===============================================================
From:    Robert Grumbine
To:      All                                    Msg #198, Sep-12-93 11:07AM
Subject: Re: How big a balloon of water would be needed for the Flood?

Organization: Grebyn Corporation Timesharing
From: rmg3@grebyn.com (Robert Grumbine)
Message-ID: 
Newsgroups: talk.origins

In article <1993Sep10.194932.12830@desire.wright.edu>
sbishop@desire.wright.edu (Sue Bishop) writes:
>
>How about an approximation of the amount of water that would have been needed
>for the Flood, but calculated as a globe?  A couple of ways would be nice,
>using Mount Ararat and using Mount Everest.  I think it might help some
>of these creationists for visualization, if they could just picture a globe
>of water that encompasses the amount needed to flood that deep, then visualize
>it next to the earth.  One of the main problems is lack of imagination on
>their part.

  Basic figures from Gill, Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics (full citation
given earlier):
Mass of the ocean = 1.4E21 kg
Area of the ocean = 3.61E14 m^2
Area of Earth     = 5.10E14 m^2

  Ancillary figures (not directly from Gill)
Mean elevation of land 800 m
Mean depth of ocean 3730 m
Volume of ocean     ~1.4E18 m^3
 ~ Radius of equivalent sphere: 7E5 m, 700 km.

  I break covering the mountains in to two parts: first, adding enough
water to drown (on average) the continents (i.e. the 800 m).  Then,
adding enough water to make up the difference between 800 m and the top
of the mountain.  This split lets us (approximately) cover the present
surface area of the ocean with 800 m of water, then to cover the surface
area of the earth with whatever additional amount of water is needed.
The difference between this and the rigorous method matters only to
pedants for elevations about 2-3 km.

  To get to 800 m, we need to add 8/37.3 times the present volume of
ocean.  About 0.21.

  To get from 800 m to 14,000 feet (I keep forgetting the exact
elevation, adjust as needed) we need 5.1/3.6 (area factor) *
(14000/3.28 - 800) / 3730 times the present volume, or 1.3 time present.

  To get from 800 m to 29,000 feet (Everest) substitute 29000 for 14000
and get 3.05 times present ocean volume.

Totals:
Ararat (14000 feet assumed) 1.5 times present ocean volume added
Everest (29000 ")           3.3 "

  I go through the gory details because other posters seem to be
disagreeing with me and each other.

  In any case, _lots_ of water needs to be added.  Speaking of which, a
while back someone posted a contest to win creation science points.  A
three pointer was to create a scheme to support the 'vapor canopy'
without killing off life on the planet via added hydrostatic pressure
and such.  I'll be entering the contest in a bit :-)

Bob Grumbine
rmg3@grebyn.com