This is Part 3 of the ten part blog debunking the claims made on CreationEvidence.org’s “Evidence for Creation.” This blog examines point #3.
STATEMENT: ”The Biblical record clearly describes a global Flood during Noah’s day. Additionally, there are hundreds of Flood traditions handed down through cultures all over the world.”
RESPONSE: The biblical “record” does describe a flood. And yes, there are hundreds of flood traditions handed down throughout the world. This proves nothing. The bible is not scientific, so its story proves nothing. The traditions are not scientific and also prove nothing.
Floods are not an unusual thing. In ancient times, it would not be unusual for a flood (especially in a desert climate) to wipe out vast quantities of the population, as warning systems wouldn’t have existed, waterway control was primitive, etc. Unusually strong rains could and would bring destructive floods, but this is not a biblical event. For instance, I live in Wisconsin. This past spring we had very strong rains, much stronger than usual. Despite the system of dams and controlled waterways (rivers, spillways, etc.), we had large flooding throughout southern Wisconsin and into Illinois and Iowa. These floods (particularly in more rural areas) caused massive destruction and some deaths and injuries. The loss of life was less than it could have been because of early warnings, controlled waterways, and (importantly) a well-functioning healthcare system and emergency response system.
So take this flood and localize it in ancient times when a large rain would produce catastrophic flooding. Is it unreasonable to assume that survivors of such a flood would pass down the story of this flood to their offspring and that this would eventually become a culturally traditional story? And is it unreasonable to assume that a large flood could happen in more than one place on the earth in more than one time period, causing multiple cultures to have their own traditional flood story? The biblical account of such a flood is no proof of a “world-wide” flood. At best, it is the recounting of one large-scale local flood that all but wiped-out an entire community’s or country’s population.
(for the sake of this response, we are ignoring the account of Noah, as it is not mentioned in the article’s argument).
STATEMENT: “M.E. Clark and Henry Voss have demonstrated the scientific validity of such a Flood providing the sedimentary layering we see on every continent.”
RESPONSE: I scoured all over the internet for anything I could find on M.E. Clark and Henry Voss and came up with nothing. Supposedly they have demonstrated validity of the flood at an International Conference on Creation in 1994. I would very much like to know their qualifications, credentials, and what they said! Until this is brought to my attention, I am left to believe that, because they made this demonstration at a creation conference, that they are, like many other proponents of a creation, biased in their findings; why else would the geologic community at large otherwise disagree with the idea of a world-wide flood event.
STATEMENT: “Secular scholars report very rapid sedimentation and periods of great carbonate deposition in earth’s sedimentary layers.”
RESPONSE: Cited as evidence for this statement is Derek Ager’s The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. Here is Ager’s response to the use of his work to support creationist arguments:
“For a century and a half the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brain-washed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell. Any suggestion of ‘catastrophic’ events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific and even laughable. This is partly due to the extremism of some of Cuvier’s followers, though not of Cuvier himself.
On that side too were the obviously untenable views of bible-oriented fanatics, obsessed with myths such as Noah’s flood, and of classicists thinking of Nemesis. That is why I think it necessary to include the following ‘disclaimer’: in view of the misuse that my words have been put to in the past, I wish to say that nothing in this book should be taken out of context and thought in any way to support the views of the ‘creationists’ (who I refuse to call ’scientific’)” [Ager's emphasis] (Ager, Derek, 1993, 1995 (paperback edition), The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain). (thanks to Dr. Kevin R. Henke)
As Ager shows, his comments have been taken out of context. Like many pseudosciences and their proponents, creationists cherry-pick scientific material for the one or two factoids that seem to support their view, dismissing the context of the work and the voluminous evidence that contradicts the creationists’ claims.
STATEMENT: “It is now possible to prove the historical reality of the Biblical Flood.”
RESPONSE: This final statement in the argument contains a citation for John Anthony West, who has proposed, with the help of Robert Schoch, an alternative hypothesis as to the age of the Great Sphinx of Giza based on erosion supposedly due to heavy rain. However, mainstream archaeologists and egyptologists do not accept this hypothesis, arguing that the erosion has been caused by wind, sand, acid rain, exfoliation, or poor quality of the limestone used in the Sphinx’s construction.
All this aside, it is not possible to “prove the historical reality of the flood.” How does the erosion of the Great Sphinx in Egypt (possibly do to rain) have anything to do with the supposed flood of Noah’s time? And how does it prove that the flood happened.
CONCLUSION: None of the supposed evidence given to support the creationists’ argument proves a flood. Traditions are not proof, nor are evidences from scientists that are taken out of context, nor is an argument for the possible erosion of the Great Sphinx due to rain (rain does NOT equal flooding). The supposed ‘great flood’ never happened.
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