The great flood?

Question

Dose anyone think that the great flood that was seen world wide in historical times could have been caused by a reduction in the earths gravity and could happen at some point again.and why not.

This has seem to have caused some arguments they are all good answers depending on your perception of reality thanks

Answer 1

There are too many flood stories from disparate cultures around the world for it never to have happened, although as previous answers have stated, it is unlikely that the centre of large landmasses would have been affected. Certain researchers have dated the flood to around 7640 BC, postulating that it was the result of a large comet or asteroid that broke up into several pieces before hitting the earth at various places.
The impact and its effects are recorded in Revelations in the Bible, which isn't any kind of prophesy, but just a retelling of an ancient story of disaster. The seven stars (seven lamps of fire, seven angels) mentioned in Revelations 3 & 4 are believed to be fragments of this body. The approach of the fragments is described thus:
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
It's a bit flowery, but you get the picture... anyway, I reckon that would have been enough to flood a few coastlines...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html


For bustersmycat:
10,000 years is the merest blip in the geological record of a planet 4500 billion years old and rising sea levels would hardly have shown up. As an aside, the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age is also postulated as a basis for the flood myths - there would be far less water required than some calculate, given that the weight of the ice sheets would have depressed the landforms downwards by a fair amount. The melting ice would have manifested itself as free water a very, very long time before the land masses 'bobbed' to the surface again, so perhaps the depths being talked about were not as necessary as some feel.
PS - any flood that may or may not have happened had bugger all to do with gravity, and even less to do with this mythical superspook, God...

Answer 2

To what "world wide" flood seen in "historical times" are you referring?

The earth's gravity depends upon it's mass and density. Since those haven't changed since the formation of the planet 4.6 billion years ago, neither has its gravitational pull.

It will not happen again, because it has never happened and can't happen. First, there isn't enough water to flood the entire world. An asteroid striking a deep portion of the oceans could cause a tsunami that could cause devastation to coastlines around the world, but anyone far from the coasts and at a high elevation would be safe from the immediate effects of any gian tsunamis.

There is mounting evidence that the Black sea was a freshwater lake until about 8-9000 years ago when the Mediterranean Sea flooded it and slowly raised the level of the lake by approximately 500 feet. To the people living around the lake, it would have seemed as if the whole world was being flooded.

Answer 3

There are many reasons why this is a ridiculous theory. 1--The flood was local (to Iraq) and never affected Egypt. 2--If the flood was NOT local and truly covered all the mountains, the pyramids would have been at least 2 miles under water. 3--The flood occurred at least 500 years before the pyramids were built. 4--You should never assume that people travelled if the only mode of travel was your feet or your donkey. (By the way, I'm a creationist.)

Answer 4

This is a geology section, not a story telling section. As far as real science is concerned the gravity of the earth has never been less than what it currently is, as the first poster mentioned. Secondly, there is not enough water on the earth to cover the continents as we know them. Secondly, the thermodynamics involved in all the rain that apparently caused this flood are way off. Rain generates heat. The amount of water it would take to cover the tallest mountain multiplied by 40 24 hour periods further multiplied by the number of joules of heat generated by this rain would have caused the earth to be hotter than the sun.

Answer 5

I did a calculation the other day. I assumed mt ararat's current height as the depth of water that existed in the biblical flood. Mt Ararat is about 5000 meters. 40 days and 40 nights of rain. (same as 40 *24 hours if you take the phrase literally). To accumulate 5000 meters of water worldwide, or really anywhere, you need 5 meters (16 feet) of rain per hour for the entire 40 days. That's 2.25 billion cubic KILOMETERS of water accumulation for the entire earth.

Currently there is an estimated 1 billion cubic kilometers of water in the oceans. Pretty hard to make that much water appear and then disappear.

Anyway, back to the gravity issue, changing gravity will have minimal effect on the volume of water because water is largely incompressible (a few % change in volume at most can be expected unless pressure is increased tremendously). Certainly not a doubling of its volume due to reducing pressure from its already low natural state.

So to me, anyway, the whole global flood thing is untenable unless there is a huge change in the natural laws of the universe. (please note that I am not considering the complete lack of evidence in the geological record for such a catastrophe in the present discussion, although I will throw that in if you want it).

Answer 6

First, there is little evidence that there really was a "great flood". It's a story from the Bible, but not necessarily historical fact. Secondly, it's more likely that a flood would be caused by a shift in the earth's magnetic field, as is happening right now. The earth has shifted on its axis, causing the polar ice cap to begin to melt. Interestingly enough, the Antarctic ice is actually increasing as the Arctic ice melts. This is believed to be a cyclical event and may cause further erosion of the shoreline, warmer temperatures and other phenomena. Back in the '50's another 'ice age' was predicted. So, who knows?

Answer 7

The Global Flood was not caused by a reduction in gravity.
The water came primarily from 'the fountains of the deep', namely underground. Indeed there is much water still underground.

There will not be another Global Flood for at least 2 reasons:
God promised that He would never allow another Global Flood.
Most of the subterranean water has now been released and is not in the oceans.

it is an interesting fact that if you leveled out the land over the whole earth (filling ocean trneches with the mountains) then the world would be covered by water to a depth of 1.7 km.
So there is plenty of water for the Global Flood!

Many articles on this and related Flood questions here
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3000/

(Refutations of all scoffers ill-considered criticisms :) )

Answer 8

"Great Flood"? You mean the biblical fairy tale?First of all it didn't happen and floods are NOT caused by fluctuations in Earth's gravity - how silly is that? Since the "Great Flood" didn't happen, it could not happen again could it...now go and study science instead of the bible so you can ask some intelligent questions

Answer 9

What exactly are you talking about?

If you are talking about "Noah's flood", there is NO evidence that it was world wide...it was probably a local to semi-regional flood occuring in Mesopotamia.

Answer 10

Anthony deserves the best answer. After all it is just a myth.

Try not to feed the creationist trolls!

Try R&s instead.