(5)     Mon 27 Oct 97 10:58
By: Don Martin
To: Annette Spence
Re: Apologies to regulars
St:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@EID:0db9 235b5740
@PID: BWMAX2 3.20 [Reg]
@MSGID: 1:261/1000.0 3454bff2
@REPLY: 1:114/252 314eecde
Annette Spence said "Fundy Loop..is..isn't" to Mkimes@Ibm.Net, adding:

 > What evidence are you looking for?

 Mk> Annette, I know this is your new catchphrase, but have you
 Mk> considered that it's one that only a conman would use? If you
 Mk> ask a scientist for evidence, do you think he'd ask you what
 Mk> kind you wanted, or just show you some? OTOH, if you ask
 Mk> someone who has none but wants to maintain the illusion that
 Mk> they do, don't you imagine this is _exactly_ what they'd say?

 AS> I am not trying to con here. I am looking for what KIND you
 AS> want.

         Personally, I have said many times that I would welcome ANY
    evidence of the existence of any god, and I have even specified
    indirect evidence that would be quite convincing, not only to
    me, but (I suspect) to all the wicked atheists here: the residue
    of the Noachan Flood. It avoids the problem of "how can there be
    physical evidence for a spiritual being?" by focussing on one
    instance in which that spiritual being supposedly interacted
    physically with the physical world in a way that would have
    produced distinctive physical consequences. While we have seen
    fundies claim that their god is so deceitful as to cover his
    tracks, I, for one, would presume that such a dishonest being is
    unworthy of being taken seriously, much less of worship.

        I do not concern myself here with the issue of the needed
    two additional hydrospheres of water and its drainage out of
    earth's gravity well, nor with the necessary consequences
    resulting therefrom by operation of the laws of physics: the
    atmospheric pressure resulting from a "vapor canopy" that would
    prevent the existence of life as we know it, the heat release
    from the condensation of that much water that would be
    sufficient to melt lead anywhere in the atmosphere, etc. are
    very serious impediments to the veracity of the story, but most,
    if not all, fundies lack sufficient knowledge of physics to be
    able to follow the reasoning. It only confuses them, leading
    them to drag out yet another version of the Deceitful God, who,
    they claim, sets the laws of physics aside his wonders to
    perform. Instead, I simply take the Genesis account at its face
    value, looking at the effects that much water falling at that
    rate would inescapably have upon the face of the earth.

         We have an account of a global flood directly produced by
    Yahweh in the Bible. Given the fact that we have information,
    presumably from a source inspired by omniscience, of the extent
    of the flood ("over the highest mountains," or roughly 30,000
    feet above present sea level) and of the time of the rain (40
    days and 40 nights = 40 24-hour days = 960 hours), it is easy to
    calculate the rate of the rainfall: 30,000/960 = 31.25 feet of
    water fell per hour. That is little better than six inches of
    rainfall per minute.

        I would think that "gullywasher" fails to do this rate
    justice, inasmuch as that term is applied to rainfalls of one or
    two inches per hour. Suffice it to say that this rain would wash
    away pretty much any particles smaller than Volkswagens and
    deposit all of this in a single stratum covering the low-lying
    areas world-wide.

        We know from geology that floods leave evidence in direct
    proportion to their size (this stratum would, for instance, be
    far thicker than any other ever created and would cover all the
    area on earth with its thickness varying in inverse proportion
    to altitude), and we further know from the mechanics of
    disposition of suspended solids in fluids the type and extent of
    the stratum that would be laid down by a global flood. Those
    larger particles would lie at the bottom of the stratum, with
    progressively smaller bits covering them. In addition to that,
    the contents of that stratum, the remains of ALL creatures
    mingled together under optimal conditions for fossilization
    (heavy sedimentation at great depths, with the finest materials
    thickly sealing the top) are known: in short, a universal unique
    event would produce a universal unique outcome--a stratum like
    no other in the geologic column.

         Such a stratum would furnish perfectly good indirect
    evidence for the existence of this Yahweh person, just as
    tracings on a photographic plate tell us of subatomic particles
    or the behavior of objects in space tells us of the existence of
    enormous gravitational forces only explicable by the presence of
    a black hole.

         So show us this stratum. That would be evidence.

... Through a Jaundiced Eye Darkly--Rheum With a View
             (don@balt-rehab.med.va.gov)

--- Blue Wave/386 v2.20
 * Origin: Nerve Center - Where the spine is misaligned! (1:261/1000)
SEEN-BY: 12/12 112/4 218/890 1001 270/101 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51
SEEN-BY: 3804/180

@PATH: 261/1000 1137 270/101 396/1 3615/50 218/1001