>>Do you read ANYTHING but the threads and the bible?
>
>The great flood was accompanied by a cataclysm, probably an earthquake of great magnitude.

The only volcano of THAT magnitude would have been the culdera in Yellowstone Park, some 64,000 years ago. Unless it was the great cataclysm is the Yucatan asteroid, in the time of the dinosaurs. There WAS the huge volcanic eruption in the Med. that destroyed the Minoan civilisation (and, incidentally, may account for several of the "plagues of Egypt") but the effects of that, besides altering climatic conditions on a global scale, were rather local in effect and wouldn't have flooded the world. Or are you suggesting that all the inhabitants of the world were in the mediterranean area, none in Africa or America, or Europe? I suppose if you follow the blood-line from Adam & Eve it doesn't allow for such a diaspera.

>As the new ocean floors cooled, they would have become denser and sunk, allowing water to flow off the continents. Movement of the water off the continents and into the oceans would have weighed down the ocean floor and lightened the continents, resulting in the further sinking of the ocean floor, as well as upward movement of the continents. The deepening of the ocean basins and the rising of the continents would have resulted in more water running off the land.
>
>Measurements suggest that Everest is currently rising at up to 15 centimeters (six inches) per year. So, the possibilites are that:
>1. the sea rose to cover the mountains
>2. or the mountains were once under the sea and have since risen out of the sea,
>3. or a combination of the two.
>
>As for your ad-hominem arguments, they add nothing to the debate and lessen your stature. I am making a conscious effort to refrain from these snide comments when I can't seem to convince someone else of my point of view. The fact that you don't see things as I do indicates that maybe I am not doing as good a job of explaining as I could, or you just don't want to see it, or you are not able to understand the issue. The bottom line is - it is my issue to deal with.

John

I was not making an attack on your intellect. A few messages ago I said that you are an intelligent rational guy, my question was simply: do you not read, watch documentaries, etc.? In essence, how can you doubt the evidence of your own eyes and ears? You KNOW the Earth is older than the Bible says (where in Genesis are dinosaurs mentioned? They knew nothing of them when it was written!) and common sense dictates that there isn't enough water in the world to submerge it. Even back in the 19th century, when Champollion was decyphering hieroglyphics, it was obvious that the Egyptian civilisation was older than the biblical date for the Flood, and had survived it, with many great constructions thereafter. i.e. the Flood didn't happen. The Church, as his sponsor in Egypt forbade him from revealing any information that gainsaid the "official" account of history as given in the Bible, showing that they were running scared of this convenient piece of fiction being revealed for what it is.

I'm no geologist but to my knowledge, the continents aren't separate from the ocean floor, as floating on the oceans, but continue right up to the where they meet other continents, i.e. techtonic plates. If you can envisage them as being like upturned soup bowls then any weight, as in deeper water, exerted on the "rims" would drag the rest of the mass down with it.

I don't doubt that some flooding happened some time in history (even the Mediterranean is a result of a massive inundation into that area, but before Man). There are many local accounts of floods in many disparate civilisations. We can't be sure that they are all from the same time, nor could their authors speak for the rest of the world. How could they, without sat nav, radio, etc.?

I remember watching a film about the American teacher who was originally up in court for teaching Darwinian evolution in an American school, contrary to the local creationist preference. I though that after that, this primitive, unenlightened, guess-work-base, evidence-ignoring, bible-based theory had been dropped. Now it's rearing its head again, in a more acceptable form, as "Intelligent Design". These old die-hards just won't let it lie.

The upshot is that there seems to be a movement in the USA that continues to fly in the face of scientific fact and common sense, and seems to continue to take in rational intelligent people. I wonder how such people's minds would be if they hadn't been brought up in their christian environment but had been left to believe the evidence of their own senses.

You say "The fact that you don't see things as I do indicates that maybe I am not doing as good a job of explaining as I could...". No. It's because your beliefs don't hold water.

"...just don't want to see it..." Man I'd love it all to be true, it makes such a good yarn, and would prove to me that there is a, albeit mercurial, god.

"or you are not able to understand the issue."

now who's calling names!?

I'm not going to go on arguing this. But let me just ask you two questions:

How old is the Earth?

How long ago (and/or what was the date of) Noah's Flood?