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Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog,\u00a0A Tippling Philosopher<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0His\u00a0\u201cAbout\u201d page<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cPearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turn\u00a0his hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.\u201d His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Jonathan managed to scrounge up a desperate pseudo-pseudo-quasi-\u201creply\u201d [choke] to my most recent paper on Noah\u2019s Flood<\/a> with passing references to my earlier primary one: Local Mesopotamian Flood: An Apologia<\/a>. He completely ignored another preliminary paper (Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought<\/a>), that dealt with biblical language, and why virtually all Christians scholars believe in a local, not a universal Flood. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a case study of intellectual evasion and cowardice and relentless unwillingness to engage point-by-point, with the usual mockery and condescension that we have come to know and love from almost all atheists (at least of the anti-theist variety) who interact online with Christians at all. He calls his \u201creply\u201d <\/span>God, Floods, Miracles and Evidence<\/a> (10-1-21).<\/p>\n It\u2019s an argument about physical evidence, and, of course, there is no physical evidence for it \u2013 whether global or regional.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s also an argument from analogy, dealing with the science of what is possible and what could have been entailed in Noah\u2019s Flood. Part of Jonathan\u2019s argument is that even a local Flood, such as what I proposed, is not possible according to the laws of science and specifically of the behavior and characteristics of water, storm systems, etc. Therefore, if I show that it is indeed<\/em> possible, his counter-argument is defeated. In that respect, it is not simply about literal physical evidence. But there actually is<\/em> some of that (that Jonathan ignored or never read: per his usual sloppy and unsystematic modus operandi<\/em>.<\/p>\n The scientific article that I mostly relied on, from geologist Carol A. Hill, was \u201cQualitative Hydrology of\u00a0Noah\u2019s Flood\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith<\/em> (Volume 58, Number 2, June 2006). She maintained:<\/p>\n At Shuruppak, and also at Uruk, the last\u00a0Jemdet Nasr remains are separated from the\u00a0subsequent Early Dynastic I Period by clean,\u00a0water-lain clay deposited by a flood. This clay is nearly five feet thick at Uruk [60] and\u00a0two feet thick at Shuruppak. [61] Since the Sumerian King List mentions that Noah (Ziusudra) lived in Shuruppak (today the archaeological mound of Fara), and since Noah is believed to have lived during the\u00a0Jemdet Nasr Period, [62] then these sediments\u00a0date from the right time and place and may be deposits left by Noah\u2019s Flood. [c. 2900 BC]<\/p>\n A popular misconception is that a great\u00a0inundation such as Noah\u2019s Flood should\u00a0have left a widespread layer of sediment all\u00a0over Mesopotamia. If flood deposits occur at Shuruppak (Fara), then why not at nearby\u00a0Kish? Why have no flood deposits been\u00a0found at Ur that correspond to Noah\u2019s Flood, and why in the city-mound of Ur do\u00a0some pits contain thick flood deposits while other pits nearby contain no flood deposits?<\/p>\n This presumed problematic situation is\u00a0completely understandable to hydrologists\u2014in fact, it is what they expect. Floods\u00a0erode\u00a0<\/em>sediment as well as\u00a0deposit<\/em>\u00a0sediment. Rivers\u00a0in vegetated terrain (like in northern Mesopotamia) are capable of eroding less sediment than in unvegetated, clay-silt terrain\u00a0(like in southern Mesopotamia). Rivers may\u00a0scour and down cut sediment along steep\u00a0gradients, whereas they may deposit sediment in shallow-gradient situations. Or,\u00a0sediment left from the waters of one flood may be removed by erosion in a later flood. Most Mesopotamian cities were located close\u00a0to former river channels or canals since commerce and transportation depended on these\u00a0waterways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Apologist Dave Armstrong was complaining that I wasn\u2019t interacting with<\/span>\u00a0his apologia for a localised flood<\/a>. So I half-read it. I say half because I got halfway down and couldn\u2019t take any more. I declared, \u201cI literally don\u2019t understand how someone can rationally assent to the claim.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There you have it folks. He not only refused to grapple with my paper (or it\u2019s preliminary \/ introductory precursor) point-by-point, he also didn\u2019t even read<\/em> the whole thing. By his own estimate he only read \u201chalf\u201d of it. This is not the response of one who is confident of his own positions, or who has a robust courage of his convictions. It\u2019s sophistry and special pleading, obscurantism and obfuscation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n His first piece (linked above) essentially boils down to \u201cGod did a miracle\u201d (we\u2019ll get onto this in a bit) as well as, \u201cbut just in case he didn\u2019t, here\u2019s a bunch of modeling and \u2018evidence\u2019 to suggest it could well be natural\u201d. He\u2019s eating his cake and keeping it, too.<\/span><\/p>\n This is a gross caricature of my thought (what else<\/em> is new with Jonathan?). Christian thinking with regard to the relationship of God, natural laws, and miracles is far more sophisticated than Jonathan thinks. I wrote:<\/p>\n Sometimes in the Bible God is described as having caused something that is actually natural. In these cases, the meaning would be that God \u201cupholds\u201d creation and\/or caused the origin of natural laws in the first place, which now govern natural events, short of the rare miraculous divine intervention with a miracle. Other times it is purely miraculous . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then I cited Carol Hill:<\/p>\n One does not have to invoke the notion of the suspension or violation of natural laws in \u201cnature miracles.\u201d Divine action can simply be understood as higher-order laws (God\u2019s ultimate purpose) working seamlessly with lower order laws (God\u2019s physical laws). Is it any less a miracle because it can be explained by natural processes? This is the nature of \u201cnature miracles\u201d: to have the\u00a0timely<\/em>\u00a0intervention of God into natural processes.<\/p>\n One of the best examples of a \u201cnature\u00a0miracle\u201d that comes to mind is Jesus rebuking the winds and sea (Matt. 8:23\u201326). In\u00a0Matt. 8:26, the calming of the winds and sea\u00a0could be explained by a sudden change of\u00a0barometric pressure\u2014which was probably\u00a0the case. But it was God who caused this\u00a0change to take place exactly when Christ\u00a0commanded the waves and wind to be still.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The argument I made, accordingly, can and should be construed as a purely natural one, insofar as scientific analysis is brought to bear. Christians simply refuse to exclude God as the creator and upholder of the laws of nature that are capable of being observed and more deeply understood via the scientific method.<\/p>\n And when he does try to present natural evidence, he presents someone saying it might just about be done if x, y, z happened and there is a 40-day model of 2.75 inches of rain per hour and tapering off to \u201cjust\u201d 1 inch per hour every hour for the next 110 days. Solid.<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, as I said, I stopped reading after that.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s not interaction with an exceedingly nuanced and detailed argument that involved far, far more than the above. It\u2019s selective presentation, mockery, and dismissal.<\/p>\n It also inaccurately reports what Dr. Alan Hill argued as to the rate of rainfall. It wasn\u2019t 2.75 inches per hour for all forty days<\/em>. It was a \u201cpeak\u201d of 2.75 inches, then gradually \u201ctapering\u201d to one inch per hour at 40 days. As Figure 3A on page 135<\/a> shows, it\u2019s actually two inches, thirty days in, gradually going down to one inch by forty days. Dr. Hill stated \u201cin forty days\u201d: meaning in context, \u201cby<\/em> forty days.\u201d It then continues to drop, whereas Jonathan mischaracterized it as \u201c1 inch per hour every hour for the next 110 days.\u201d<\/span> The graph in Figure 3A shows how this is false. The rate decreases to one-half inch by about 85 days and one-quarter inch by 110 days.<\/p>\n Dr. Hill notes: \u201cSuch rainfall rates are not unreasonable for large hurricanes.\u201d Indeed, we can match and exceed them (for a 24-hour period) in examining the greatest historical rates of rainfall (since it has been recorded). Dr. Hill\u2019s peak rate is 66 inches in 24 hours. That was surpassed on January 7-8, 1966<\/a>, when 71.8 inches of rain fell in 24 hours on Reunion Island: approximately 670 kilometers east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, during Tropical Cyclone Denise. Therefore, we know it is possible to rain that much in a day<\/em>. But that\u2019s only the \u201cpeak\u201d figure, that only lasts a few days at most in Hill\u2019s mathematical model.<\/p>\n The world record for a month\u2019s rainfall is 366 inches<\/a> [30.5 feet] at Cherrapunji, Meghalaya, India in July 1861. That\u2019s 0.49 inches per day, which matches over a month\u2019s time, Dr. Hill\u2019s calculation for the rate of rain at Day 85 of the Flood. Now, granted, we can\u2019t match the figure for the entire 150 days, but we can get close enough to render it at least thinkable or possible to conceive of the Ultimate Superstorm: Noah\u2019s Flood. We only have an accurate record of global weather since 1880<\/a>. We can\u2019t rule out much larger storms during all of history before that. 141 years of weather-keeping is so low of a percentage of the world\u2019s age (4.543 billion years<\/a>) that it actually comes out to 0% in calculations<\/a>. It\u2019s 32.23 million times more time in earth\u2019s history than the vanishingly tiny and miniscule length of time we have been recording weather.<\/p>\n Consequently, there are huge meteorological and climatological \/ catastrophic events that we know of such as the Altai flood<\/a> in Siberia, from 12-15,000 years ago, the Black Sea Deluge<\/a> (about 5600 BC), the Missoula floods<\/a> in northwest United States, from 13-15,000 years ago, the Zanclean flood<\/a> that\u00a0refilled the\u00a0Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago, and the Bonneville flood<\/a> in Utah and Idaho (14,500 years ago). One article on prehistoric \u201cmonster hurricanes\u201d<\/a> stated:<\/p>\n A new record of sediment deposits from Cape Cod, Mass., show evidence that 23 severe hurricanes hit New England between the years 250 and 1150, the equivalent of a severe storm about once every 40 years on average. Many of these hurricanes were likely more intense than any that have hit the area in recorded history, . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is even a field of study called Paleotempestology<\/a>, which is \u201cthe study of past\u00a0tropical cyclone<\/a> activity by means of geological proxies as well as historical documentary records.\u201d<\/p>\n It stands to reason that in all these millions and billions of years of earth history, that something like Noah\u2019s Flood was entirely possible and did indeed happen.<\/p>\n You are absolutely right. I did misread that and therefore mischaracterise his figures to some extent. But it makes absolutely no difference at all. I will try and respond to this in greater detail when I\u2019m not just about to go to bed\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n However, one of the main problems is the fact that Hill and yourself are comparing record statistics over a tiny area of concentrated rain during a cyclone that had limited time, area and scope and extending that to a massive geographical region over a huge amount of time. This is just simply impossible. It is literally impossible. There is more, to boot, but I am not sure I have the energy. We shall see.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n He relies heavily on Alan Hill\u2019s<\/span> \u201cQuantitative Hydrology of Noah\u2019s Flood\u201d.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n That\u2019s one of my two main sources, yes. At least he got that<\/em> right.<\/p>\n However,<\/span>\u00a0even the author of this calculation admits<\/a>\u00a0God \u2018having performed a \u201cnature miracle\u201d\u2018<\/span> (<\/span>p. 130<\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The notion of \u201cnature miracle\u201d was explained above by his wife.<\/p>\n He also admits, \u201cFirst, this model, and the nature of the assumptions it embraces, are crude at best\u201d and \u201cwe are unable to realistically determine what actually happened to any level of detail during Noah\u2019s Flood\u201d (p. 131).<\/span><\/p>\n Of course: just as would be the case with virtually any other scientific analysis of events estimated to have occurred some 4,900 years ago. Any good argument doesn\u2019t claim more for itself than is warranted. Such straightforward and realistic honesty doesn\u2019t disqualify his and his wife\u2019s articles as serious, worthy scientific analyses: not at all of the anti-intellectual, fundamentalist type that Jonathan and many atheists used to be part of (and which still highly influences their thinking in their deeply flawed understanding of Christianity).<\/p>\n The piece relies on an incredibly unrealistic storm surge that lasts for an inordinate amount of time, relying on a whole set of variables. Due to the \u201cpaper\u2019s\u201d complete lack of citation, I imagine no one takes this stuff seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n Note the mocking dismissal, which (again) is not any attempt at seriously interacting with the argument. He\u2019s so out to sea he doesn\u2019t even seem to realize that the main component of my argument is Carol Hill\u2019s presentation, not Alan Hill\u2019s. Carol Hill isn\u2019t even mentioned<\/em>! That\u2019s how far he is from actually interacting with and grappling with my actual overall argument. He picks and chooses what he thinks will be best for his purposes of sophistry and mere mockery.<\/p>\n As to a supposed \u201ccomplete lack of citation\u201d<\/span>, this is untrue. Anyone can look at the 12-page presentation<\/a> (complete with very complex mathematical calculations), go to the end, and observe 15 citations. Three are from two articles by his geologist wife. The rest, as far as I can tell, are completely secular scientific citations. Carol Hill\u2019s article<\/a>, that Jonathan ignores, is copiously footnoted, with 74 footnotes.<\/p>\n So here we have the spectacle of Jonathan MS Pearce, who doesn\u2019t seem to have earned a doctorate even in philosophy (I\u2019ve never been able to ascertain what<\/em> the case is there, and he got angry about it when I asked him one time), in effect lecturing a geologist and physicist about true science, as if they are quacks and frauds. Near the end of his farcical \u201creply\u201d Jonathan takes another shot at Dr. Hill:<\/p>\n It\u2019s just, you know, for me, I need good rational evidence. And that, I\u2019m sorry to say, doesn\u2019t include Alan E. Hill and his hydrological winguttery.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWinguttery\u201d is, I confess, a new term for me. I couldn\u2019t find it in any online dictionary, but it seems to be a term of abject scorn, used mostly by leftish and skeptical-type folks<\/a>, looking for a colorful insult. Ad hominem<\/em>, straw men, non sequiturs<\/em>, switching topics, ignoring, sophistry,\u00a0 anything at all used in the service of avoiding serious interaction at all costs with a serious Christian and scientific argument: setting forth views he disagrees with, is Jonathan\u2019s goal. It\u2019s pathetic and a disgrace.<\/p>\n In fact, Alan Hill was formerly a Distinguished Scientist of the Institute For Quantum Science & Engineering<\/a> at Texas A&M University. He has spent some forty years inventing and developing lasers of the Star Wars<\/em> variety, and in the early 1960s, while at the University of Michigan, Alan and co-workers on a study, were the first to discover nonlinear optics<\/a> and second-harmonic generation<\/a>. Wikipedia describes the latter discovery:<\/p>\n Second-harmonic generation was first demonstrated by\u00a0Peter Franken<\/a>, A. E. Hill, C. W. Peters, and G. Weinreich at the\u00a0University of Michigan<\/a>, Ann Arbor, in 1961.[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The demonstration was made possible by the invention of the\u00a0laser<\/a>, which created the required high intensity coherent light. They focused a ruby laser with a wavelength of 694\u00a0nm into a quartz sample. They sent the output light through a\u00a0spectrometer<\/a>, recording the spectrum on photographic paper, which indicated the production of light at 347\u00a0nm. Famously, when published in the journal\u00a0Physical Review Letters<\/i>,[7]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0the copy editor mistook the dim spot (at 347\u00a0nm) on the photographic paper as a speck of dirt and removed it from the publication.[8]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The formulation of SHG was initially described by\u00a0N. Bloembergen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0P. S. Pershan<\/a>\u00a0at Harvard in 1962.[9]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0In their extensive evaluation of\u00a0Maxwell\u2019s equations<\/a>\u00a0at the planar interface between a linear and nonlinear medium, several rules for the interaction of light in non-linear mediums were elucidated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here is the article that Dr. Hill contributed to: \u201cGeneration of Optical Harmonics\u201d<\/a> (P. A. Franken, A. E. Hill, C. W. Peters, and G. Weinreich;\u00a0Physical Review Letters<\/em>, 7<\/b>, 118 \u2013 Published 15 August 1961). This highly significant and influential article has been cited by no less than 4,392 scientists<\/a>.<\/p>\n No doubt, Jonathan will interact point-by-point with that<\/em>, too, and show us all how he is the real, bona fide<\/em> scientist. Yes, I\u2019m sure (but hey, I won\u2019t be holding my breath<\/em> waiting. I value my life). Dr. Alan Hill is quite obviously not<\/em> a nutcase or some fundamentalist pretender. This is a real scientist<\/em>, and Pearce doesn\u2019t even pretend<\/em> to overthrow his calculations.<\/p>\n He knows when he is over his head. And so he childishly mock<\/em>s and lies about a supposed lack of citations (about a scientist whose most famous article has been cited 4,392 times), to try to cover it up. If he insists on embarrassing himself with emptyheaded pseudo-academic displays like this, I will be more than happy<\/em> to host such novelties on my blog.<\/p>\n The main issue appears to be his reliance on a fairly arbitrary 40-mile conduit into the Persian Gulf\u00a0 as being the only place where the water can escape. Of course, Mesopotamia is BIG and VERY FLAT. In fact, there is a 1200-odd km southern flatness where, you know, an absolute deluge of water could flow and no storm surge could keep it in.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, this is not a comprehensive, point-by-point attempted refutation of the actual argumentation. It is a caricatured, cynical summary of arguments and a mere dismissal. It\u2019s sophistry. The Mesopotamian floodplain being \u201cVERY FLAT\u201d<\/span> is actually part and parcel of the overall argument, rightly understood and comprehended. But this was in Carol<\/em> Hill\u2019s article that Jonathan (conveniently) makes no note of, whatever:<\/p>\n The Mesopotamian alluvial plain is one of the flattest\u00a0places on earth. The surface of the plain 240 miles (400 km)\u00a0inland from the head of the Gulf is less than 60 feet (20 m)\u00a0above sea level, [25] and at An Nasiriyah, the water level of\u00a0the Euphrates is only eight feet (<3 m) above sea level,\u00a0even though the river still has to cover a distance of more\u00a0than 95 miles to Basra (Fig. 1). Once As Samawah and\u00a0Al \u2018Amarah are passed, the waters of the Euphrates and\u00a0Tigris Rivers are lost in an immense marshland-lake region\u00a0(Fig. 1), where water flows very slowly to the Persian Gulf. During spring this whole region\u2014from the Euphrates east\u00a0to the Tigris\u2014can become severely inundated. [26] The level\u00a0surface of the plain and shallow river beds of the Euphrates and Tigris, which offer the right conditions for irrigation, [27] can also cause immediate, widespread flooding.\u00a0And, however difficult it is to get water\u00a0to<\/em>\u00a0the land via\u00a0irrigation canals, it is just as difficult to get it\u00a0off<\/em>\u00a0the land\u00a0when it floods. [28] Before any dams were built (before\u00a0~1920), about two-thirds of the whole area of southern\u00a0Mesopotamia (Babylonia) could be underwater in the\u00a0flood season from March to August. [29] . . .<\/p>\n There are historical references to floods\u00a0in Mesopotamia in the tenth, eighteenth,\u00a0and twentieth centuries BC and seventh and\u00a0eighth centuries AD.\u00a033 From AD 762\u20131906,\u00a0thirty major floods were recorded in and\u00a0around Baghdad. [34]<\/p>\n Footnotes<\/p>\n 25 J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia\u2014Society and Economy at the Dawn<\/em> 26 M. C. DeGraeve, The Ships of the Ancient Near East<\/em> (c. 2000\u2013500 BC) 27 C. A. Hill, \u201cA Time and Place for Noah,\u201d Perspectives on Science and<\/em> 28 Postgate, Early Mesopotamia<\/em>, 180.<\/p>\n 29 Semple, \u201cThe Regional Geography of Turkey,\u201d 346.<\/p>\n 30 H. F. Vos, Beginnings in Bible Archaeology<\/em> (Chicago: Moody Press, 31 S. N. Kramer, \u201cReflections on the Mesopotamian Flood: The Cuneiform Data New and Old,\u201d Expedition<\/em> 9, no. 4 (1967): 16.<\/p>\n 32 K. Smith and R. Ward, Floods: Physical Processes and Human Impacts<\/em> 33 Kramer, \u201cReflections on the Mesopotamian Flood,\u201d 16.<\/p>\n 34 Harza Engineering, Hydrological Survey of Iraq<\/em> (Baghdad: Ministry And, before I go on, none of<\/span>\u00a0Armstrong\u2019s piece<\/a>\u00a0or the sources overcome the problems I set out in my own piece, particularly the theological issues (A regional flood is a retribution on\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>of humanity? How does this fit with Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel etc.?) and the idea that, if this was a localised flood, then anyone could have just, you know, escaped the region or run up a taller hill\u2026 I mean, what proportion of all of humanity that is supposedly evil and requires punishment lives on this floodplain? None of this makes nay sense of the Hebrew Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s all so desperate.<\/span><\/p>\n This sort of (silly, hackneyed) objection was, of course, dealt with in my article, Local Flood & Atheist Ignorance of Christian Thought<\/a>), that he has chosen to ignore, now, and when I announced it on his blog, almost three months ago now.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at world records to quickly check Hill\u2019s thesis:<\/span><\/p>\n Wettest place on earth by year: 1041 inches over 365 days = 2.85 inches A DAY = 0.1 inches per hour (your figures require 27.5 times that).<\/span> Here again, as noted above, Jonathan distorts what Dr. Alan Hill actually argued. I think he had such derision for it that his mind simply didn\u2019t process the words properly. That\u2019s what extreme bias does. In both calculations above, he is using the figure of 2.75 inches per hour over the entire period in question<\/strong><\/em>, that was in actuality, only a short-term peak figure<\/em><\/strong>, and comparing that to the wettest place on earth by year and month. It\u2019s invalid, because he\u2019s using incorrect figures. Noah\u2019s Flood still has a lot more water, but it\u2019s comparatively much less than it would<\/em> be, using these inaccurate numbers.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also completely neglecting in his equation, as I noted last time, additional water from snow melting off of the surrounding mountains, from the abundant springs in the area, and from surging seawater. Genesis 8:2 refers to \u201cthe fountains of the deep\u201d in conjunction with the Flood: presumably a reference to these springs.<\/p>\n You would be demanding, with ALL SORTS of extra variables in place (such that the water doesn\u2019t just rush away into that big flat desert area to the south, there), at least 2046 inches per month, and then for an extra ten days, and then a whole big bunch more thereafter. That is over double the rate seen in one month than over one year in the single wettest place \u2013 a village.<\/span><\/p>\n It gets worse, though, because those rainfall stats I provided are for a tiny place, not a whole region. So for that amount of rain to fall over a behemoth region is \u2013 well \u2013 impossible.\u00a0Actually<\/em>\u00a0impossible. There is simply not that amount of rain possible in the world, and no example of this ever having happened. The atmosphere cannot collect that. For clouds to hold that much rain and dump it over THE ENTIRETY of Mesopotamia is utterly ridiculous.<\/span><\/p>\n Just think about it<\/span><\/p>\n And I\u2019m not convinced it would not flow away too quickly due to\u2026storm surges.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s all fine and dandy, but doesn\u2019t deal with the dual arguments<\/em> of husband and wife (physicist and geologist) Alan and Carol Hill: laid out in the greatest detail. If Jonathan wasn\u2019t merely firing blanks or throwing manure pies, desperately hoping some of it will stick<\/em>, and hoping that no one will notice his unsavory and unworthy tactics, he would certainly attempt (in his allegedly oh-so-superior academic excellence) a serious systematic interaction and refutation<\/em>. But he ain\u2019t interested<\/em>. All he cares about is maintaining the illusion that all Christians are stupid and anti-science.<\/p>\n His \u201cpaper\u201d is\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n a) demanding things that have never even remotely been experienced in the history of the planet, and<\/span> He replied \u201cNonsense. There have been several floods of the magnitude that my model posits: from storm surges, tidal waves, etc. And there have been instances of a great deal of water remaining for months.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, but no. Not to that degree. Ever.<\/span><\/p>\n That was the purpose of my last article: Pearce\u2019s Potshots #47: Mockery of a Local Flood (+ Striking Analogies Between the Biblical Flood and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927)<\/a>. That was but one<\/em> example of a flood with remarkable similarities to the biblical description of Noah\u2019s Flood (with an even longer sustained rain and longer overall drying time) and to my proposed local model in Mesopotamia. Jonathan dismisses it with an eight-word \u201csentence.\u201d That\u2019s not rational dialogue, folks. It\u2019s just . . . silly. Don\u2019t fall for this crap. It\u2019s not a serious reply at all, and as far from a \u201crefutation\u201d as east is from west.<\/p>\n And he seems to have reduced his flood theory scope over time so now this really, really is a local flood: \u201cIt\u2019s only the floodplain of Mesopotamia, and it doesn\u2019t have to be all that deep.<\/strong>\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n Wow. Quite the climbdown.<\/span><\/p>\n There is no \u201creduced\u201d scope or \u201cclimbdown.\u201d This has been my view for (at the very least) almost 40 years. I wrote in a related paper<\/a>, dated 5-25-04 (that\u2019s over 17 years ago):<\/p>\n I formed my view on this during the early 80s due largely to Bernard Ramm\u2019s book,\u00a0The Christian View of Science and Scripture<\/i>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1954). He pointed out things like the 18 layers of forests on top of each other in Yellowstone Park, which blows away the young earth and flood geology alike.<\/p>\n As for a universal flood (if by that one means that the waters literally covered the entire earth), the Bible doesn\u2019t require this. The theory also suffers from several serious flaws having to do with what would happen with that much water around, even covering the mountains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, nice try at misrepresenting my views (in the effort to \u2014 you guessed it! \u2014 make me look silly), but no cigar.<\/p>\n I suggest you go and read Genesis 7-9 and see whether the Bible is talking about the Mesopotamian floodplain, and not at all that deep. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be all that deep\u201d also happened to kill every human being and animal, including swarming insects. All dead. From a floodplain flood.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof History<\/em> (London: Routledge, 1992), 180.<\/p>\n
\n(Lewen: Department Orientalistich, 1981), 8.<\/p>\n
\nChristian Faith<\/em> 53, no. 1 (2001): 28.<\/p>\n
\n1973), 13; DeGraeve, The Ships of the Ancient Near East<\/em>, 11.<\/p>\n
\n(New York: John Wiley, 1998), 10.<\/p>\n
\nof Agriculture, Government of Iraq, 1963), 3\u20132, 3\u20133.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nWettest place on earth by month: 370 inches over 31 days = 11.9 inches per day = 0.49 inches per hour (your figures require over 5 times that).<\/span><\/p>\n
\nb) demanding things that are still physically impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n