Religious Questions

Question

I had a formal (which I apparently lost) debate over the geological validity of Noah's Flood, and flood "geology as a whole. My opponent was claiming that all the fossil evidence points that all of them were deposited by the flood waters, and the opponent also said that the floods waters carved all of the features in the earth seafloor and that is where all the water went, it never left.

I was going to ask to the community about those two things, because every time I try to research the topic it is always some religiously affiliated website. I haven't found any formal rebuttals.

Stack Exchange is a place to ask questions and discuss ideas, but I am not sure whether this site also discusses Earth Science questions that are from religious origin.

Answer 1

Discussions are discouraged on Stack Exchange, where the main thing is definite answers to clear and concise questions, from the Stack Exchange Tour page:

This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat.

and

Not all questions work well in our format. Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers.

and especially debates - they are most definitely not part of the Stack Exchange model.

So, if you could frame your question to aim to get an answer within the scope of Earth Sciences, then you should be fine - an example of a well received question based on a biblical account is Potential explanations of Red Sea crossing.

Answer 2

I think that we should be rather generous with religious questions as long as we can provide scientific answers.

It's also about finding the right tone and complexity, religious questions should be answered by presenting scientific methods, naive questions should try to generate more interest in our field, and detailed academic questions should be answered with the right references and vocabulary of the trade.

Answer 3

Depending on how the question is scoped, you might be able to ask about specific sedimentary deposits or geological formations that would refute "flood geology". The problem is, to know what to ask, you'd probably need to have enough of a background in geology that you would already be able to refute it.

For example, salt deposits below the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere can't be squared with a global flood. Salt deposits are formed when a body of water evaporates. So according to "flood geology", the salt deposits must have been produced by the receding waters of the flood. But then what produced the layers on top of the salt? Did the flood return after the waters dried up?

Or, for example, in the Grand Canyon, the Coconino Sandstone (the third layer from the top) was formed from sand dunes in a desert environment. All the layers above and below were formed in marine environments. Here too, we have a large region that was covered in water, dried out, then covered in water again. Unless there were multiple floods, it just doesn't work.

And then there's all the layers of volcanic rock around the world. Due to the presence of radioactive potassium embedded in the cooling lava, we can get a good estimate on how long ago those layers were deposited.

Or you could look at geological formations that all scientists agree were formed by massive floods--for example, the Channeled Scablands of the Northwestern U.S. or the Skaftafell area in Iceland. Or look into the Black Sea Deluge hypothesis. We have regional evidence of what massive floods do to a landscape, but in much of the world this evidence is lacking.

You might be able to make a good question for this site by asking about any of the above, but if you're just looking to refute a creationist in a debate, you can google them. Surprisingly, some of the best rebuttals can be found at Christian sites like BioLogos or Old Earth Ministries.

Mind you, creationists have answers to all this evidence: Mostly, they deny the validity of any science done outside a laboratory. So actual geological evidence isn't going to convince them. But if your goal is simply to not be caught off guard in a debate, there's lots of information out there.