nategar05's page

How about Blindness/Deafness for a debuffing Hexcrafter? Bouncing or Persistent would make for a good use of metamagic with it. Yes, it allows a save. However, by the time you consider that a debuffing Hexcrafter will have more than average trouble with hitting with his attacks (focusing on Int means lower Str and you only have so much Arcane Accuracy or True Strike) you already have a chance of Shocking Grasp not working much either. The proper metamagic makes it much more likely to be effective.

A Bouncing Blind/Deaf with Wayang is level 2 and a Persistent one is level 3. I agree that it's better for your main combat spells to be lower level if possible, but the fact that it's a medium range spell that doesn't require an attack roll makes it a better option in certain builds imo.

Personally, I would. The Hexcrafter is better regardless because access to Witch hexes is much more powerful than Spell Recall. No traits and no cloaks of displacement have similar effects on all Magi regardless of archetype. In fact, Hexcrafter may be even better in a no traits campaign since without Magical Lineage Magi have an even bigger problem with maintaining resources.

That's what I was thinking. I was just trying to do everything and it wasn't working. Half of the reason I was trying so hard to fit in Moonlight Stalker was for flavor reasons.

I was considering switching my Str and Dex, but I want a good Dex to help me get through the early levels before I get good defensive stuffs. Especially since I'm not planning on playing high enough level to get heavy armor anyway.

Is there any other good option for Wayang after 5th level besides Shocking Grasp? FWIW I was planning on my 4th trait to get me Perception as a class skill.

I can't take Additional Traits and Extra Arcana at 5th, since one of them must be a Combat feat or Metamagic. I'm leaning toward a relatively low cost metamagic like Extend, Empower, or Piercing. Merciful would come in handy, but flavor says no for me. Either that or Weapon Finesse if I keep my Dex as high as it is and then boost it, which I'm strongly considering since my end-game armor will likely be a Mithril Breastplate and I'm not sure how keen my character will be on shapechanging.

Speaking of that, is there a reason that Merciful Spell is missing from the Enforcer build? No room for it? No need for it since Frostbite alone is enough?

Absolutely my 7th level feat will likely be Extra Arcana for either Spell Blending, Spell Shield, Prehensile Hair, or Evil Eye. Or something else. Or Intensify Spell if I stick with Shocking Grasp.

Here's a build I've made that is more of a debuffer and feels more like a Witch with some Magus thrown in. The race is Tiefling. For flavor reasons, I don't particularly want a familiar or a high Charisma. Roleplaying as a loner with anger issues. This is for PFS, so no drawbacks for me.

Str 12, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 5

Traits: Magical Lineage (Frostbite), Wayang Spellhunter (Shocking Grasp)

1. Rime Spell
2.
3. Arcana: Arcane Accuracy, Enforcer
4. Hex Magus: Slumber
5. Bonus Feat: Blindfight, Combat Expertise
6. Hex Arcana: Flight
7. Moonlight Stalker
8.
9. Hex Arcana: Discord, Intensify Spell
10.
11. Arcana: Accurate Strike, Empower Spell
12. Hex Arcana: Ice Tomb.

Questions:

1. As is, my Intimidate modifier will match my class level throughout my career. Would that make Enforcer unfeasible?

2. I'm strongly considering working Additional Traits into the build so I can use Int for Intimidate instead of Cha. I'd take it at level 5 and pick up Wayang Spellhunter then so I could be intimidating from the beginning. I'd like to be more intimidating anyway for flavor. Were I to do that, it would delay Moonlight Stalker and Intensify Spell. At that point, would it be better just to give up on Moonlight Stalker and get more Hexes/Arcanas? A +2/+2 by level 7 already seems kinda minor for my build, but it especially seems that way by level 9.

3. Since I'm focusing on magic rather than melee, would it be better to take Wayang Spellhunter for a different spell and pick up Dazing instead of Intensify? My attack stat is a 12 (maybe a 14 if I switch it and Dex around) unless I fit Weapon Finesse in somewhere or spend the money on Agile. I'm already likely to have trouble hitting unless I burn a use of Arcane Accuracy anyway. I'm thinking it would be. No Fireball because it would be too late for me to use it in PFS. Any other good options?

4. How much good would dumping my Wisdom do? If I was to take it to 10 I could offset some of my Cha penalty and if I was to take it down to 9 I could make my Str a 14. If I was to take it down to 7 I could do both. It could be interesting roleplaying a low Wisdom character, so I'm good either way with that. However, dumping my Wisdom means low Will saves (even though it's a good one.) and having NO Perception (not a class skill). What would be worth it?

5. By the way, the hex Discord is quite awesome for flavor and doesn't seem too unreasonable for effectiveness. Take a couple of allies that already don't get along and turn them on each other.

Thoughts?

nategar05 wrote:

Sean, what do you think of some kind of mechanic to temporarily increase the effective Hunter level for determining his pet's abilities? It would certainly (AFAIK) be unique to the Hunter and would go a long way toward making them the undisputed masters of the pet combat classes.

I think that would be a really complex option; you'd basically need a separate stat block for the companion for when you use that ability. Especially as some of those changes would mean it gets extra feats, changes size, and so on.

That's actually why we changed the animal focus to always-on: if you wanted to, you could just set your companion to one focus and leave it at that.

What about using it in an archetype or as a Hunter only feat? That way it would be optional. It's really no more complicated than playing a Wildshaping Druid, a Summoner, a Conjurer, or any number of other classes with often changing stats.

For the experienced player it wouldn't be difficult to track. It would be a somewhat relatively simple way to greatly boost the AC's power.

Sean, what do you think of some kind of mechanic to temporarily increase the effective Hunter level for determining his pet's abilities? It would certainly (AFAIK) be unique to the Hunter and would go a long way toward making them the undisputed masters of the pet combat classes.

Exploits:

- Giving a bonus to penetrating spell resistance.

- Utility abilities, such as brief modes of movement or skill increases.

- Pseudo metamagic abilities, not necessarily full feat usage. Maybe +X to the spell level cost to use the actual feats though.

Thanks LazarX, but I was already accounting for that. Most people still see the Class Features that support the pet as being underpowered still, even with permanent Animal Focus. My suggestion is to introduce a mechanic to increase the effective Hunter level to determine the pet's ability. As in higher than the class level.

So this class is supposed to have the best animal companion in the game, right? How about a class feature, feat, or spell that temporarily increases the effective Hunter level for determining his pet's abilities and features?

RainyDayNinja, I posted a Bloodrager build near the end of the first page of the thread.

I won't be having the chance to actually play, but I have a build for a level 10 Bloodrager that someone can use.

Obviously feel free to correct any errors, adjust to your playstyle and campaign, and otherwise improve this. Let us know how it goes.

What level(s)?

It seems to me that the best way to balance the new classes and get them to "comparable" power level with the existing classes (comparable being a relative term) is to fully optimize them and then use optimized builds in scenarios. Ideally the new classes would be played through the same scenario as similarly optimized builds of established classes. The new classes could also be substituted for the old classes according to their determined new roles.

So, my question is this: who else thinks this should be done sooner rather than later and would be willing to give it a preliminary shot?

Question 1: read all of the optimization guides you can find and then look up what they're talking about on the srd. Or books if you prefer.

Question 2: no experience with that.

Question 3: no experience with that either, but there are resources for that.

Designing Encounters

Question 4: entirely player and group dependent. As such stereotypical answers likely won't work anyway.

Question 5: have the villain be the fish monger. You must rescue the other fishing captains and their companies from his tyrannous rule. Kinda sounds like Forrest Gump to me.

Nice article.

Question 6: hide them, but so that you can make adjustments on the fly. Not hiding them is a great way to accidentally tpk your party.

If by "best class" you mean most versatile: Inquisitor. Especially if you consider versatile to mean best class to be a one character party. In fact I posted a build as such about two years ago.

Build Link

Granted the Conversion Inquisition isn't PFS Legal.

Sadly I never found out if I won. lol

Another interesting question that was touched on would be what the best class to comprise a single class party. Four Inquisitors, four Druids, four Wizards, etc...

Halfling Summoner who rides a Serpentine mount. Thanks to the Limbs (Arms) evolution and several uses of the Skilled evolution, the Serpent is the party's rogue.

3. Rage is a hilarious debuff against enemy casters.

4. Would Disintegrate work through Summoner's Conduit?

Great guide so far. I'll get back to you with a few more thoughts in a bit. For now, a couple of thoughts about spells:

1. Hydraulic Push = fire extinguisher?

2. Flaming Sphere and Pyrotechnics make an AMAZING combo.

Nice guide, though I skimmed the Sorcerer bloodline and Witch patron sections.

The only thing wrong that I noticed was that you said you can get a rod of Still Spell. There are no rods of that feat. I assume it's because you must move to use the rod, hence defeating the purpose. :-)

"Useless fluff" is what teaches the people who need to read your guide the game system. That and actual playing of course.

Besides, it's also entertaining for Pathfinder veterans. :-)

Bigtuna, that build would likely be better with a class that gives bonus feats and/or is much more focused on combat than spellcasting. That's A LOT of feats for one thing. I'd suggest Fighter or Monk.

What are your skills?

As important as Perception is, I probably wouldn't give up Ferocity on a Half-Orc that can heal himself. Max it out and all, but it's only so important. Though Sacred Tattoo and Toothy are good too.

Also, I'd consider switching your Dex and Con. Dex contributes to many more attributes than Con does and you have more than enough max Dex in your armor for it. Sure it helps with HP, Fort, and Rage rounds, but it's easier to supplement Con than Dex.

Loot is good, I agree. Perhaps there are ways around that though.

nategar05 wrote:

1. You're listing the Cure and Inflict spells as if you'd need to pick them separately to know them. At least that's the impression I get. It looks like it could use better wording to make clear that you get all of one line or the other known for free.

I touched on this specifically in the section Understanding Magic. Do you think it bears repeating in each entry? (I'm being sincere here, so don't read that as sarcasm/snark) I could add "oracle freebie" to each spell.

I think another reference at the beginning of the spell section and a different font color/style should suffice. If you change the font somehow people will know something is up with them so they'll look around to see what it is. You know, if they skipped straight to the spells without reading the intro.

nategar05 wrote:

2. For Continual Flame, you say not to take it because your Summoned Lantern Archon can cast it for you. Actually, he can't:

Summon Monster

Summon Monster wrote:

Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).

I still don't think it's worth knowing. Just pay a spellcaster to cast it for you. It's better than buying an Everburning Torch at retail, since you can have it cast into anything you want. My preference is a pebble that I keep in a poison pill ring for easy access and hiding of the light when necessary.

Damn, I felt really clever for suggesting that. Good catch.

Yeah, I love Conjurors and I was very disappointed when I found that too.

nategar05 wrote:

4. For Plane Shift, how about Plane Shift as an attack? Send them to the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing. ;-)

I feel like a complete idiot for not remembering that, haha. I love OotS! I also seemed to remember that Plane Shift was willing targets only... but that's only the case if you try to send more than one. I'll make an adjustment to the spell. I think it's probably worth a yellow, don't you?...

Well, is there a better Save or Die by 5th level? That targets Will? If you pick the target wisely in the right campaign it may as well be a Save or Die. I think it's worth Yellow or Green.

1. You're listing the Cure and Inflict spells as if you'd need to pick them separately to know them. At least that's the impression I get. It looks like it could use better wording to make clear that you get all of one line or the other known for free.

===

2. For Continual Flame, you say not to take it because your Summoned Lantern Archon can cast it for you. Actually, he can't:

Summon Monster

Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).

I still don't think it's worth knowing. Just pay a spellcaster to cast it for you. It's better than buying an Everburning Torch at retail, since you can have it cast into anything you want. My preference is a pebble that I keep in a poison pill ring for easy access and hiding of the light when necessary.

===

3. I think I saw in one of the Cleric guides that someone said they used Water Walk as an underwater Reverse Gravity. Kinda funny and may be useful, especially in an aquatic campaign.

===

4. For Plane Shift, how about Plane Shift as an attack? Send them to the Semi-Elemental Plane of Ranch Dressing. ;-)

===

5. For Dust Form, it's spelled "per se". I don't generally nitpick spelling but I noticed it and thought you may not want future readers to notice it. :-)

===

6. For Regenerate, you say there's no rules on severing limbs. How about called shots? Granted, those are optional rules and not used in PFS. Still I think it merits a mention, though it's hardly worth changing the rating over.

Thanks for the credit in the Special Thanks section. I'll finish reading your new stuff and may have an opinion or two on it.

I do have a new thought on the Deaf curse though. Yes the autofail on audible Perception still sucks, but there are barely any bad side effects socially. The reason for this:

Pathfinder Society FAQ

In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, any PC may learn to read lips with a rank in Linguistics as if they had learned a new language. When reading the lips of a speaking creature within 10 feet in normal lighting conditions, the reader need not make any skill checks. In situations of dim lighting, extreme distances, or to read the lips of someone trying to hide their words from the reader, the reader must make Perception checks (DC determined by the GM based on the situation). A lip reader may only understand spoken words in a language it knows.

So 1 rank in Linguistics and the social penalty is almost entirely mitigated. In an amusing way, it makes low-light vision or darkvision more important though. If it's good for PFS it should be good for most reasonable GMs in home games. I think this should push Deaf to Green, since free Silent Spell and immunity to Silence alone are awesome, let alone extra senses later on and reduced penalties for being Deaf.

So, did I win? :P

Thank you for both pfsrd and this. I'm about to start running a game of DC Adventures and while I already have my own book of it, it's convenient for me that the players can access the rules independently of the book. =)

This will be my last post on this thread, at least for a little while. I'm too busy to keep up with everything here. Thanks for the challenges.

Nategar05 wrote:

Thanks, I appreciate that. It doesn't bother me to read things by secular scientists. In my view it's not so much that I don't trust secular scientists. I simply don't trust the assumptions behind their methodology, such as uniformitarianism.

This is VERY important.

Indeed it is. I'd consider it one of the most important points about how science and faith interact.

Uniformitarianism is NOT an assumption. Its a conclusion. Its a conclusion based on so much evidence, that explains and predicts so much of what we see around us, that it has become a fact. And for good reason.

You all trust Wikipedia, right? At least they don't have a theistic bias anyway.

They say quite a few times that it IS an assumption. Granted, they say that it's a nearly universally accepted assumption, but it's an assumption nevertheless. I'm not questioning the "laws of physics and chemistry are consistent across time and space" part of the assumption. Furthermore, in a randomly formed naturalistic universe, why should we expect constancy of physical laws?

I'm questioning the "all geological processes have always happened and will always happen at roughly the same rate as today's processes" part of the assumption. Essentially, I'm questioning gradualism.

Interestingly, many secular scientists are also questioning gradualism. They don't go from there to Biblical flood geology; instead they go to catastrophism. I find that to be a convenient way to explain the appearance of catastrophes throughout geological history and yet denying the possibility of a global flood on Earth. It seems that most secular scientists find a global flood on Mars to be a more likely possibility, despite the abundance of water on Earth. I'm betting it's because the Bible doesn't describe a global flood on Mars, but YMMV. :P

The idea that we can only use direct evidence (seeing it ourselves) is silly. History will never happen again, but we have a good idea of what happened. The 1998 world series will never happen again, but its on tape to watch. If we find bloody gloves with someone's DNA in side, their dead wife, their blood all over the place, and the vicitms blood all over his place, its a reasonable conclusion that he killed her. (outside of california anyway)

We had video cameras all over the place at the 1998 World Series as you said, but we can't say the same of the origins of life and the universe. It's a different ballgame to figure out who killed someone with forensic evidence than to figure out the mechanisms of the origins of the Earth and the universe. On that point we seem to have hit an impasse on.

Stuff on Antarctica

That's a better explanation than Ancient Aliens gave. They said aliens did it. :P

I found this link as one of Wikipedia's references. Note that it's a non-Christian and, in fact, a relatively anti-Christian site (based on an article or two I read there.). I don't know that this is right and that you're wrong as your explanation made sense too. Interesting though.

Paul: I don't know about the information thing. At first glance it seems arbitrary to define information in such a way that doesn't contradict your theory, but I don't know. I don't profess to be a genetics professor.

EDIT: Also, please stop using the word 'evolutionist'. It is a word used only by creationists. It has no meaning to anyone else. What you mean is the vast majrotity of scientists and the overwhelming majority of biologists. So be honest and say that. Evolutionist is a weael word to imply you and they are on equal footing. You're not. On the one side you have pretty much everyone who does science and on the other you have a bunh of religious zealots who cannot accept that their holy book is not 100% literally rtue. The recent Kiltzmeyer v Dover case proved that.

Well, creationists aren't considered real scientists by many people. When those people say that most scientists believe in macro-evolution what they really seem to mean is that most scientists are scientists. That seems kinda circular to me. It's easier for me to say "evolutionist" than "macro-evolutionist" or "rational scientist guy" or something like that. I apologize if that offends you and if I participate in conversations like this in the future I'll try to be more sensitive. :)

Furthermore:

“Almost all scientists accept evolution.”

Response: No, they don’t. The only related survey of scientists I am aware of was of chemists. A slight majority rejected evolution. [See the last paragraph of Endnote 2 on page 325.] Most professors in the basic sciences favor evolution, in part, because that is what they were taught and those who openly reject evolution are not hired or are fired. In the applied sciences (medicine, engineering, etc.) and among scientists in industry, those accepting and rejecting evolution may be nearly balanced. Gallup polls have shown that more Americans reject evolution than accept it.

Also, another page I found on the World-Mysteries site (once again, a non-Christian site) is here. Here's the abstract:

"Textbooks present science as a noble search for truth, in which progress depends on questioning established ideas. But for many scientists, this is a cruel myth. They know from bitter experience that disagreeing with the dominant view is dangerous - especially when that view is backed by powerful interest groups. Call it suppression of intellectual dissent. The usual pattern is that someone does research or speaks out in a way that threatens a powerful interest group, typically a government, industry or professional body. As a result, representatives of that group attack the critic's ideas or the critic personally-by censoring writing, blocking publications, denying appointments or promotions, withdrawing research grants, taking legal actions, harassing, blacklisting, spreading rumors."

Quite thought provoking. Thank you to everyone for the challenges and the opportunities to learn. :)

nategar05 wrote:

I agree that science itself can't have an agenda. However, you said that it's observed and reported. By whom? If it's by a person, there most certainly can be an agenda. Not that it always happens, but it can.

nategar05 wrote:

In my view it's not so much that I don't trust secular scientists. I simply don't trust the assumptions behind their methodology, such as uniformitarianism.

Dear nategar05, if there is one constant thing you post that is as of finger-nails leaving a screaming trail across a black-board, at least to myself, it is as these types of postings.

BNW, Kirth Gersen and others do keep reminding you that neither the scientists, nor the scientific method are some sort of great hood-winking conspiracy and so I ask you to please, please, please stop throwing this post or line into the conversation. *Bows*

My main point is that origins science on either side relies on unprovable assumptions. We weren't there and didn't see it. It won't happen again. I'm not so much saying that there's a conspiracy. It's more like I don't think people always question their assumptions enough to realize that they're not necessarily true. I apologize for repeating it, but I was just trying to get my point across. I can tone that down, but it's fundamental to my worldview and can't easily just drop it when people challenge the concept of assumptions.

Now, as to getting back to a little thing we mentioned quite a few posts ago, ;).

nategar05 wrote:

Well, for one thing he's made predictions, a few of which have already been confirmed.

Indeed, there are the predictions, though some of which read a tad more like a 'Two way bet' to me, but still. No, again I ask, how do you think there are ways to test, as in look for the remnants, of what the fellow is Hypothesizing?

For an example, the fellow gave the idea that at one stage the world was a great big solid ball. Okay, then goes on to explain the 'cavity' layer 5 miles or whatever deep of a thick layer of water, presumably all around the solid globe (With a neat explanation of the joining 'columns' or else you'd have an interesting 'frictionless bearing' type of set up between in the inner and outer sections)

Now, again, my question is -How would you go looking for the remains of this level? It was only there 6K years ago, that's not actually that long ago. Would not some small parts remain, depleted, but still there? How would you suggest finding out? This is what i mean. *Bows*

I suppose finding naturally occurring subterranean super-critical water would be a good start. Actually, they did find that:

Figure 56: Black Smoker. Black smokers, some as hot as 867ºF (464ºC), were discovered in 1977 jetting up on a portion of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge in the Pacific. Many other black smokers have since been found along the entire, globe-encircling Mid-Oceanic Ridge, even inside the Arctic Circle. As the hot water shoots up into the frigid ocean, dissolved minerals (and on rare occasions, asphalt) precipitate out, giving the smoker its black color. It is now known that the water was initially supercritical water (SCW)48 that held vast volumes of dissolved minerals such as copper, iron, zinc, sulfur, and sometimes hydrocarbons. SCW has been produced by man in strong, closed containers, but it had never before been seen in its natural state, even around volcanoes.

According to evolutionary geology, water not in a closed container seeps down against a powerful increasing pressure gradient a few miles below the ocean floor. There, magma (molten rock) heats the water to these incredible temperatures, forcing it back up through the floor. (SCW could not form by such a process, because of the two conditions highlighted in bold above. Uncontained liquid water, heated while slowly seeping downward, would expand, rise, and cool, long before it became supercritical.) Figure 55 gives a simple explanation. Besides, if the evolutionary explanation were true, the surface of the magma body would quickly cool, form a crust, and soon be unable to transfer much heat to the circulating water. (This is why people can walk over magma days after a crust has formed. The crust insulates the hot magma.) However, black smokers must have been active for many years, because large ecosystems (composed of complex life forms such as clams and giant tubeworms) have had time to become established around the base of smokers.

(Emphasis in original)

“Even Jules Verne didn’t foresee this. Down at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is the hottest water on Earth, in a ‘supercritical’ state never seen before in nature ... and could offer a glimpse of how minerals such as gold, copper and iron are leached out of the entrails of the Earth and released into the oceans. Its water, but not as we know it ... .” Catherine Brahic, “Superheated Water Spews from the Seabed,” New Scientist, Vol. 198, 9 August 2009, p. 14.

That's the subterranean water according to the theory.

The way I see the races (unless I have a specific RP reason to be a specific race) is this:

The "non-flexible" races (the ones with specific stat adjustments) tend to have racial traits focused toward a specific trope or type of concept. If you happen to be playing that exact thing, then the corresponding race will suit you best.

But if you want to play any other concept/build ever, then the non-flexible races are going to have stat mods that work against you and racial features that are irrelevant (a bonus to CL checks doesn't help a fighter, for instance).

So for most characters (unless you're really into playing "the classics" over and over again - more power to ya) you're then left with Humans, Half-Elves, or Half-Orcs.

Half-Orcs have an issue similar to that of the Non-Flexibles, in that despite the flexibility of the stat mod, the racial abilities are definitely geared toward a specific type of character that you might not want to play. There are a few options in the alternate racial features in the APG, but they're still a bit restrictive.

Half-Elves, however, have abilities that are much more universally desirable. Some of the APG's replacements for the free Skill Focus are amazing: Dual-Minded (untyped +2 to Will saves) and Ancestral Arms (free weapon proficiency - even exotic - without meeting prereqs). So basically, Half-Elves have three different feats (or feat-equivalents) to choose from.

So when I'm choosing a race, I'm looking at:
Human: Feat+Skill Rank
vs
Half-Elf: Limited selection of bonus feat + Elven Immunities + Low-light vision, etc.

For me, it's usually a toss-up between Half-Elf and Human. I would call them the (overall) best races.

+1

I like Half-Elves for Summoners because of the favored class bonus: + 1/4 to Eidolon's evolution pool. Evolutions are quite nice.

I like Half-Orcs for Ferocity if I can cast cure spells.

Obviously the other races are really good in specific builds: Elven Wizards, Halfing archer Bards, Dwarf Inquisitors, etc...

If you're relcutant to carefully read things by secular geologists, and prefer a more "faith-friendly" series of informative writings on why a global Flood, while an excellent allegory, is not a literal historical event, you might check out The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth by Davis Young and Ralph Stearley, two devout Christians. Also, J. Laurence Kulp, a Wheaton alumn, geochemist, and member of the Plymouth Brethren, wrote an excellent article refuting flood geology: Kulp, J. Laurence, 1950, Deluge geology. Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 2 (1): 1–15.

Thanks, I appreciate that. It doesn't bother me to read things by secular scientists. In my view it's not so much that I don't trust secular scientists. I simply don't trust the assumptions behind their methodology, such as uniformitarianism. It's those assumptions that I don't agree with and old earth creationists (knowingly or not) use the same assumptions. Because of this, scientifically speaking I disagree with old earth creationists in a similar way than atheists who say much the same things while leaving out God as active in the process.

So, I appreciate that you were thoughtful enough to find that and I'll look at it when I have the chance, but I'm fine with reading secular scientific papers.

Also don't forget St. Augustine:

St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 1, ch.19. wrote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

That is a very thought provoking quote. Thank you.

I'm not always as clear as I should be in my posts and for that I apologize. That may be why many of you get the impression that I'm ignorant about naturalistic theories. I consider myself to have a fairly firm grasp on the basics. I did learn all of this in school and do like reading about science after all. When you respond, don't be afraid to use technical language in your posts. I know what isotopes and dipoles are, for instance. I don't want to brag, but I do want to make that clear. The reason I quote so heavily from that site is because I don't want his theory to be misrepresented by me because I know my limits of paraphrasing, especially when I don't have a lot of time for posting.

However, I wouldn't by any means consider myself to know as much as you (or at least many of you) on all of the specifics. I don't know everything and I don't want to imply that I think I do. There are some objections that you all raise that I may not be able to answer, at least not right away. I try to make it a point to concede those points when that happens.

BNW, I'll get to your post later because it's kinda long. For now, I saw that you mentioned Antarctica. I don't know how to respond to your question about marsupials. For one thing, I wasn't previously aware of it, so I'll have to look into it. Since you mentioned Antarctica, I wonder what all of you think of this.

Nategar,

The fossil evidence is only a tiny fraction of the evidence we have for evolution. The genetic evidence is far more overwhelming. The IRV commonalities that precisely match the evolutionary theory, for example. Or the telomeres in middle of our chromosome 2 which itself appears to be two fused chimpanzee chromosomes. The list does go on for quite a bit.

By IRV, I assume you mean retroviruses. I'm familiar with them and with telomeres. I'll grant that it makes sense within an evolutionary framework for the genetics to match up, at least to a certain extent. However, all that these similarities really prove is similarity. It could be from common descent, but it could also be from common design. We build stuff all the time and we frequently use very similar base materials in very similar ways for different objects because we have very similar intended uses for them. The things that we build frequently have things in common because they had a common designer: mankind. If God really did create everything, why shouldn't we expect similar features throughout creation?

Also, given you're criticiing other people for not understanding your pet theories, you show a marked lack of understanding of, so far, physcis, biology, astronomy, geology and probably half a dozen other sceintific disciplines. How about you correct your own plank before commenting on our spekcks, huh?

I'll grant that I'm not an expert on naturalistic theories and shouldn't be so harsh with others. I apologize for that.

Also, you claim science is anit-Christian. B%@$#@&s. Millions of prominant scientists are Christians. Millions more have faith in a different higher power. They just view the Bible as allegory rather than literal truth. Especially given the poetic structure used in Genesis (not to mention the fact that Genesis 1 and 2 disagree on things far worse than you claim science does). Also, apparently you didn't know that the first people to disprove the Flood hypothesis where Christian creationists such as Adam Sedgewick who was an ordained minister. He hated God, huh? Wrong. He set out trying to prove the Flood hypothesis and found no evidence at all for a global flood.

I never claimed science itself was anti-Christian. Romans 1 and Psalms have plenty to say about seeing evidence for God through His creation. All I've been claiming is that science as understood by evolutionists doesn't line up with what the Bible says as far as I understand it.

I never said that you had to hate God to not believe in a young Earth and a global flood and I apologize if I implied it. There are plenty of honest, God loving Christians who don't agree with me on this subject. I'd consider them misguided on this issue, but I don't question the legitimacy their faith.

EDIT: Oh, and the 'lack of radioactivity in Noah's time'? Pure and total b**@##!~. They would still have to deal with the massive amounts of UV light that the sun puts out every day. Oh, look, that's radioactivity and causes changes in DNA, which we know, it's why we get skin cancer.

I overstated my case on this point. I meant that it was the origin of most of the radioactivity found on Earth, including virtually all of it that originates in the crust. I also pointed out that radiocarbon wasn't affected anywhere near as much by the same mechanism as the rest of the radioactive stuff (because carbon is frequently part of the biosphere, rather than in the crust itself.). Here's an idea of why preflood ages would have been as high as reported in the Bible.

As to why I wasn't more clear, for some reason I thought that all of you would know that I knew about uv light's effects and was considering it in my argument. In retrospect it was a very silly mistake to make.

EDIT 2: DNA from RNA. Well, we kind of do see this on a regular basis every time a protein is stranscribed. It first goes through a process of transcribing from DNA to RNA. This is incredibly ineffiecitn and makes far more sense to be an artefact process from the original RNA genetic form than any other explanation so far advanced.

Firstly, I don't claim that the creation as it is now should be perfect. Genesis 3 and Romans 8 talk about the negative effects that sin has had on the universe itself.

Speaking of Romans 8, it speaks of creation's "bondage to decay". That seems similar, at least in principle, to the second law of thermodynamics at a time that mankind couldn't have known about it, at least in the sense of energy decay. Weren't many "scientific" people in the 1st century saying that the universe was eternal? Seems interesting, but perhaps I'm simply off on that.

Secondly, many times people only look at one aspect of something and say that it's inefficient. It may be the case that something could've been designed better in one area, but it would have been too much of a detriment to another area. Tradeoffs are always necessary to reach the best overall design.

Thirdly, I still haven't heard an explanation on where the genetic information embedded could have came from in the first place. Information invariable only comes from intelligence. Its existence in nature requires an intelligent source. All chemical affinity and self ordering gives you is unspecified complexity.

For instance, let's say you're driving down a highway. You see a license plate that says "5066 NM" and another that says "936 5768". You think nothing of them because you assume they're just a random combination of letters and numbers. Then you see a license plate that says "Batman" and think "Wow, that's the best license plate I've seen all day. I'm so happy to find another Batman fan out there.". Well, probably not because you probably don't obsessively look at license plates. Anyway, my point is that information only comes from intelligence.

Why should DNA be the exception? How could it be an exception? It seems exceedingly statistically unlikely, just like many other of the huge gaps I see in possibility for naturalistic theories of origins to work. All I see is appeal to probability, a nice logical fallacy that says that just because something "can" happen, that it eventually will.

Human DNA contains more organized information than the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the full text of the encyclopedia were to arrive in computer code from outer space, most people would regard this as proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But when seen in nature, it is explained as the workings of random forces.[/url]

nategar05 wrote:

Saint Caleth wrote:

The fact that the Bible gets the occasional fact about nature correct does not mean that you can start making up theories to support your preconceived notions, which is what hydroplate theory is. IT begins with the idea that the biblical notion of the flood is correct and then tries to contort various scientific principles to "prove" it. That is exactly the opposite of how scientific thinking works, as I and many other commenters have noted.
As far as I can see modern scientific thinking begins with denying the Biblical notion of the flood and then tries to contort various scientific principles to "prove" it. Everyone has assumptions and biases. Do you think that creationists have confirmation bias, but naturalists are somehow immune?

I think that thejeff just about covered this, but it is ludicrous to suggest that modern scientific theory began with denying the bible. Science begins with facts that are observed and reported, it does not have an agenda beyond making the simplest explanation of the facts at hand. In this case, the consistent principles of evolution and change over billions of years explains the observable facts of the world without resorting to cockamamie schemes of collapsing pillars and animals running for high ground, just in order to justify something written in the early Iron Age.

I agree that science itself can't have an agenda. However, you said that it's observed and reported. By whom? If it's by a person, there most certainly can be an agenda. Not that it always happens, but it can.

nategar05 wrote:

Saint Caleth wrote:

On the subject of poling, the external refrences that I found say that it can only happen within a crystalline domain and not between multiple crystalline domains. By symmetry, I mean essentially the shape of the crystal., not the arrangement of the individual small crystals in the quartz.

I'll need to take a look at that. Do you have links for your references?

I found a very good short deifinition of poling here and here. If you have trouble understanding any of the chemistry talk in those definitions I will be happy to help explain. Poling only works within a single crystal, it cannot happen between many small but separate crystals, such as would exist in a piece of quartz.

I'm not seeing any contradictions between those sites and the theory. Perhaps I've been confusing in how I paraphrase the theory, but it looks like he says that poling happened to the individual crystals themselves, rather than the entire structure.

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He has a whole lot of predictions, a few of which have already been confirmed. He also has explanations that make quite a lot of sense. Sounds like a theory to me.

A theory has never been demonstrated wrong, even once. Hydroplate has too many things make no sense or are completely wrong, and its "predictions" only describe known events. At the top of the list is deposition.

Firstly, did you get the chance to look over Part I? He lists some objections to naturalistic theories there.

Secondly, list of predictions:

You do not need any fancy radiometric dating to figure out the RELATIVE ages of fossils. Older stuff goes at the bottom. We know this because of how sedimentary rocks are formed, a process we can directly observe at every stage today. If you want to say this is circular, you'll have to say HOW its circular.

I still don't think that uniformitarianism (or even catastrophism) is as good an explanation as liquefaction. What I find to be circular is that it seems like geologists say "Hey, look at how well the geologic column supports evolution.", then biologists say "Hey, look how well evolution supports the geologic column." Stuff like that. It seems like naturalism is using naturalism to defend itself.

With a world wide flood you should have rocks and fossils going bottom to top from biggest to smallest. Mastodon skulls should be right next to triceratops skulls: they are not. Sedimentary rocks should go from congolmerates up to fine clays: they do not.

I've already addressed animals. As far as sediments go, you mean cyclothems are common and that's the approximate order of them. It seems like you're objecting by saying that all of the sediments in the world should be sorted by density, with all of the conglomerates in one layer and all of the fine clays in another. However, that's not what the theory calls for in the first place. To paraphrase, he says that liquefaction didn't happen evenly enough over large distances (in all dimensions) and that some sediments experienced liquefaction more than others. That would mean that sediments would be partially, but not completely, sorted.

You can see an orderly progression through time. This was the case even before we understood evolution: the thing that was causing the progression. How is it that science and geology independently arrived at the same answer. Physics came along later and added more confirmation. Why are these three different branches of science all giving us the same answer?

It goes into what I said about naturalism supporting itself. Isn't it a possibility that when naturalistic theories were formed that the scientists innovating them were biased and not wanting a theistic explanation? The first guy comes along and says that uniformitarianism is awesome. The next guy says that uniformitarianism and macro-evolution are awesome. Then the next guy says that all of that and the Big Bang theory are awesome. Then they get put in textbooks and taught to everyone as essentially absolute truth. Sounds like there was a possibility for scientific theory to go wrong here. If there was any possibility of bias people would be likely to form theories accordingly and to dismiss contradictory evidence. Hence confirmation bias. I'm more than happy to admit that creationists have that too. I just don't like naturalists being pictured as being immune by comparison.

I'm not saying that any of you are trying to imagine away God by using science to replace Him as necessary. All my position is is that it's possible that the innovators of naturalistic theory were biased in that direction and that many people ever since then have been blinded about the scientific facts by an educational and media system that are saturated by naturalistic theory.

The explanation offered, that the dinosaurs are down below because they were clumsier and less able to avoid the incomming flood, quite frankly sucks. There's no reason that an archeopterix, Procompsognathus, or pteranadon would be less able to avoid the flood than a mammoth. There's no reason that the flood should be more deadly to a blue whale than a pleisiasaur.

Even if it were true, it could only be true as a statistic. You would expect to find ONE giant ant eater at least that was slow or lame and couldn't get away any faster than the brontosaurus. (patty is a girls name)

There's really no excuse for buying this explanation. He can hide all of his other obfuscation behind confusing technobabble and graphs, but seriously, "The pteranadon couldn't fly out of the way but the mammoth could run away" doesn't require a degree in anything to see through.

How about the supposed out of order fossils?

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According to the theory, radioactivity began by the piezoelectric effect in quartz in the crust during the flood. I don't remember Jupiter having quartz, so I don't see how mentioning Jupiter is relevant.

The piezoelectric effect only causes the electricity. It doesn't directly do anything to the atoms: so as long as you have the electricity you should, if that guy is right, be tossing off atoms left and right.; The thing is that jupiter generates that level of electricity all the time in lightning storms.

You seem to be confusing the source of the electricity (piezoelectric effect) with any demonstrable effect on the atoms. That's pinching (z pinching or theta pinching) that does that, which isn't dependant on having quartz nearby.

He's also using the numbers of the granite as if it were 27% of quartz because it is 27% quartz.. it doesn't work like that.

That seems like a fair argument. I'll have to look into it.

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If I link you to something on the site, will you be able to check the references that go along with it? Most of his claims have some references and they're conveniently linked for his readers.

What your creationist is further overlooking is that our best machine, which uses far, far more electricity per unit of area than he's talking about, can only make the fusion of Deutirium (heavy hydrogen) easier. We can't do it with anything heavier... not even hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine

There's no way this effect made uranium without destroying the planet.

He's saying Deuterium formed by large scale neutron capturing by Hydrogen in the subterranean water. Is there a better explanation for it out there, considering Deuterium burns so easily that little to none would have been likely to have survived the Big Bang?

Why is the Uranium 235 to Uranium 238 ratio so consistent across the world? Why do we still have so much Uranium as its half-life of 700 million years is relatively short? Why is Uranium that was supposedly part of the nebular cloud so highly concentrated in a few ores on Earth? Why are a few Uranium ores in Oklo partially depleted? Why is radioactivity confined to only the first few miles of the Earth's surface (based on levels of geo-thermal heat.)? See, questions are fun. :P

In case it makes a difference, he's not saying that Uranium formed directly. He's saying that many atoms fused into superheavy elements and then fission and decay took place, forming Uranium and many other elements. Superheavy elements was a result of the Proton 21 experiement in the Ukraine if I remember correctly.

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Do you think it is more prideful for me to stick to my position than for other people to stick to theirs?

In this case yes, because your position is glaringly and obviously wrong. Physics, biology, paleontology, geology, astronomy, archeology, zoology and anatomy are ALL telling you you're wrong and you're insisting that you're right based on half baked excuses parading around as explanations.

Well, different people believe differently. I see no need to repeat my take on how different branches of scientific theory interrelate.

The geocentrists had their reasons for reading the bible the way they did too.

I'd like to see a geocentric theory based on the Bible that uses proper exegesis according to the original Hebrew and Greek of the Bible and makes more sense than a heliocentric theory. I doubt one exists. I can't say the same for Young Earth Creationism over Old Earth Creationism.

Sorry if I'm being frustrating or controversial here, I'm just expressing my viewpoint. Thanks for the challenges everyone. :)

Hydroplating and it's proponents have so far failed to adequately explain how marine life survived this event. A very large portion of marine life are stenohaline, this means they can only survive in narrow range of salinity.

Now, freshwater can sit on top of salt water, but it mixes very easily, pretty much any motion would mix the two. The motion described in hydroplating is fairly violent, the waters would mix. Even without motion, they would mix within days, a short enough time that any stenohaline species right now would die.

Hydroplating is a young earth theory. It necessarily excludes evolution (and hyrdoplating theorists also claim macro-evolution does not exist). If this is true, the majority of marine species would be euryhaline, able to survive in more than one salinity range. Also, not even all euryhaline are able to survive broad salinity ranges, they just change environments at some point during their life (like being born/breeding in freshwater than moving to salt water once mature).

Not only is the salinity important, but the type of salts as well. Not all salt is the same, certain kinds of salt will kill marine life.

When Mt. St. Helens erupted lakes most affected were unable to support plankton for two years, it still took another 8 years after that for them to really start to look like they did before the eruption. After that the lake started to repopulate from fish reproduction in neighboring areas, but during the hydroplating event, there were no neighboring areas.

Hydroplating either would have killed the majority of sea life, or only highly adaptable species would have remained, those that can survive wide ranges of salinity, temperature and turbidity. There was no where where they could have hid to survive this calamity, they had to survive it right in the middle of all this chaos under the water.

FWIW, here's an attempt at an explanation.

nategar05 wrote:

According to his theory the fossils weren't sorted according to density alone:

Quote:

How did it happen? During the early days and weeks of the flood, flutter amplitudes were large enough for the crust to rise slowly out of the flood waters. [See “Water Hammers and Flutter Produced Gigantic Waves” on page 180.] Frightened animals—and sometimes dinosaurs—scampered uphill onto the rising land, each leaving footprints. Minutes later, the crust again submerged, allowing sediments falling through the thick muddy waters to blanket and protect the prints while the rising water swept the animals’ bodies away. Other perishable prints—called trace fossils—were made in the same way. [See item 9 on page 184.]

Each time the crust fluttered up above the muddy flood waters, it had (in evolutionary terms) “thousands of years” worth of additional layered sediments containing sorted dead things trapped in liquefaction lenses. The approximate order of burial, from the bottom up, were sea-bottom creatures, then animals and plants that were first overcome, ripped up, and deposited by the initial flood waters, then the larger animals that could float and live for some period of time (such as many dinosaurs), then mobile animals that could flee to high ground. Each region had its own mix of animals and plants. Once they were buried in sediments, liquefaction provided additional sorting by such characteristics as density. Sometimes, dinosaur prints from the previous upward flutter minutes earlier were sandwiched between layers that never experienced liquefaction again

But that doesn't work as an explanation either. There were a lot of different kinds of dinosaurs, so they should have sorted themselves out by behavior along with the birds and mammals and whatnot (with the 'large' dinosaurs succumbing first, and then the 'mobile' dinosaurs climbing up to the high ground). Instead, we have all the dinosaurs together in the lower strata.

There were also a fair number of slow, lumbering mammals that shouldn't have been able to survive until the later stages of the flood, but somehow did. Giant sloths for example. Yet we always find giant sloths in the upper strata.

And what about creatures that can swim or fly? We'd expect all of them to end up together in the same strata, since they all possess a similar ability to survive the flood. Instead we find modern birds up at the top, and ancient flying creatures like pteranodons down at the bottom. Why did they sort like this?

That doesn't even get in to plants. Plants wouldn't have been able to flee the flood, and so they should have laid down fossils in a completely random manner, or be sorted by density. Instead we've got a clear evolutionary progression from top to bottom.

That is all true, partially at least. It looks like the theory would explain partial sorting, but we should expect exceptions in order of deposition. Apparently the fossil record isn't perfectly arranged to match naturalism as we understand it, unless all of that is being misquoted.

nategar05 wrote:

Unfortunately, I don't always have time to read the original source.

nategar05, you strike me as an earnest and intelligent fellow, so it pains me to see you being misled by someone whose arguments are fundamentally dishonest. The truth of God's creation should stand on its own merits, from your own studies -- that's why God gave you the gift of reason. No one should have to sell you an intentionally incorrect interpretation of it.

Thank you for the compliment in the first line. There are too many assumptions out there about atheists choosing to be evil and religious people being too dumb to know about science that are simply not fair.

I glanced at the paper and I'll take a more thorough look when I have the chance. How do you feel it's out of context? Do you think that Walt misrepresented the writer or the theory? Both?

nategar05 wrote:

The Bible says to circumcise infant sons on the 8th day. It was recently discovered that the platelet count of a newborn peaks on the 8th day. Imagine how many lives were lost because of bloodletting, when Lev. 17:11 says "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." That could have all been prevented by taking what the Bible has to say seriously.

Your conclusion, then, is that no one was capable of making observations or inferences until post-Biblical times? That God gave us the gift of reason only within the last 3,400 years? Because it would seem obvious to me, were I a rabbi, to observe what day of circumcision gives the best results, and then record that result in my instruction book. I don't even need to know about platelets -- I only need to watch and see that the wounds bleed more profusely if I don't wait at least that long.

Likewise, the prohibition against shellfish in Leviticus could easily be a response to the observed effects of a toxic algal bloom, or high concentrations of heavy metals in the local sediments, or whatever. Anyone who isn't an idiot will eventually figure out that the people who ate the oysters got sick, and prohibit shellfish in general -- at least until the cause could be understood. This knowledge doesn't have to be divinely imputed; it could easily be gained by direct observation.

I'll grant you that that makes sense. I suppose that would render those examples rather "neutral" when it comes to this conversation.

A benevolent God will allow His creations to figure these things out for themselves, rather than having to tell them specifically which animals are "an abomination unto Him." That's why He gave us eyes, and brains, and memories, and the ability to learn writing so that we could record our observations and thoughts.

Well, I'd think a benevolent God would warn us in the first place so that we didn't have to wait for people to die from food poisoning, for instance.

nategar05 wrote:

Until the mid 19th century, conditions in hospitals were not very sanitary at all. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis saw that the doctors didn't wash their hands after handling the recently deceased patients. After they started washing their hands in running water (instead of a bowl) the mortality rate for delivering mothers dropped from about 30% to about 2%. Lev. 15:13 says to wash in running water to get rid of uncleanness.

I'm not saying that the writer of the Bible at that time knew WHY they were inspired to write those things, but what matters is that the Bible was right.

I think I see the point that you are trying to make, but again you chose a terrible example. Ignaz Semmelweis' discovery had nothing to do with Leviticus. He noticed that the babies birthed by midwives had a far lower mortality rate from what we now know as infection than those birthed by doctors, since as it turned out, doctors did not wash their hands between autopsying bodies and birthing babies. He used observation to come to his conclusions and not relying on coincidence. In any case he said nothing about running v. still water; instead he advocated washing with a weak bleach solution instead of not washing at all.

Yes, I know. That's why I put it in the general "they were right" category, rather than "this discovery was made because of this" category that I put ocean currents in. I gave the specific example there because I knew of it. I should have been more clear though.

The fact that the Bible gets the occasional fact about nature correct does not mean that you can start making up theories to support your preconceived notions, which is what hydroplate theory is. IT begins with the idea that the biblical notion of the flood is correct and then tries to contort various scientific principles to "prove" it. That is exactly the opposite of how scientific thinking works, as I and many other commenters have noted.

As far as I can see modern scientific thinking begins with denying the Biblical notion of the flood and then tries to contort various scientific principles to "prove" it. Everyone has assumptions and biases. Do you think that creationists have confirmation bias, but naturalists are somehow immune?

On the subject of poling, the external refrences that I found say that it can only happen within a crystalline domain and not between multiple crystalline domains. By symmetry, I mean essentially the shape of the crystal., not the arrangement of the individual small crystals in the quartz.

I'll need to take a look at that. Do you have links for your references?

nategar05 wrote:

I don't know. My guess is that you and him disagree on what large means. He should have been more clear though.

-You mean the great salt lake should be producing salt deposits larger than the great salt lake?

Large salt deposits are not being laid down today, even in the Great Salt Lake.

Apparently he doesn't consider the Great Salt Lake as an example of a large salt deposit. He's likely thinking on a bigger scale here.

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Seems clear to me.

This doesn’t contain an explanation. If you had random sinking and rising with earths quakes the mammoth and triceratops skulls should still wind up in the same spots together. Triceratops skulls should be close to mammoth skulls and archaeopteryx skulls should be near raccoon skulls.

Instead what we see is that the relative ages of the fossils match evolution, not density. The hypothesis runs utterly concurrent to our observations.

According to his theory the fossils weren't sorted according to density alone:

How did it happen? During the early days and weeks of the flood, flutter amplitudes were large enough for the crust to rise slowly out of the flood waters. [See “Water Hammers and Flutter Produced Gigantic Waves” on page 180.] Frightened animals—and sometimes dinosaurs—scampered uphill onto the rising land, each leaving footprints. Minutes later, the crust again submerged, allowing sediments falling through the thick muddy waters to blanket and protect the prints while the rising water swept the animals’ bodies away. Other perishable prints—called trace fossils—were made in the same way. [See item 9 on page 184.]

Each time the crust fluttered up above the muddy flood waters, it had (in evolutionary terms) “thousands of years” worth of additional layered sediments containing sorted dead things trapped in liquefaction lenses. The approximate order of burial, from the bottom up, were sea-bottom creatures, then animals and plants that were first overcome, ripped up, and deposited by the initial flood waters, then the larger animals that could float and live for some period of time (such as many dinosaurs), then mobile animals that could flee to high ground. Each region had its own mix of animals and plants. Once they were buried in sediments, liquefaction provided additional sorting by such characteristics as density. Sometimes, dinosaur prints from the previous upward flutter minutes earlier were sandwiched between layers that never experienced liquefaction again.

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But when fusion creates elements that are heavier than iron, it requires an excess of neutrons. Therefore, astronomers assume that heavier atoms are minted in supernova explosions, where there is a ready supply of neutrons, although the specifics of how this happens are unknown. [See Eric Haseltine, “The Greatest Unanswered Questions of Physics,” Discover, February 2002, p. 40.]

So an article 10 years ago didn’t know the specifics, but had a general outline for it happening. But because we only have a general outline we need to assume that the physics are wrong and that the bible is right….

I'll grant you that saying that we don't have a scientific answer doesn't mean that we can't find one.

No. Dear gods... no. Rational science based on observable evidence has beaten theology at every turn. If you don't want to loose your religion entirely learn some humility and accept that you can interpret the bible incorrectly.

I very much have to deal with issues of pride and considering myself more intelligent than most people that I know (at least in real life), so I won't deny that it can be an issue. Yes, there's a possibility that I have misinterpreted the Bible, even though I could go into quite a lot of detail as to why I interpret it as I do. Do you think it is more prideful for me to stick to my position than for other people to stick to theirs? I'm curious as to your opinion because I don't want to be or come across as prideful.

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I could fill a few quite large posts with nothing but quotes from scientists listing problems with current scientific theories. Maybe they don't explain things so well after all.

No, you couldn’t. You could do some more disingenuous quote mining like you have there where someone tells you that when they age a 200 million year old rock they might be off by a couple million years.

Kirth already called you out on that behavior.

I'll grant you that answers can often be found when there aren't any yet, and that some quotes express ignorance about exact mechanisms without undermining the principles behind them. However, there are still some very very large gaps between theoretical and practical understanding of many things that naturalism claims to explain (DNA once again comes to mind. Even IF (big if there) it could have formed from RNA, where did the information come from? Not to mention the origin of the universe itself.). How big does a gap have to be for an alternative solution to be considered?

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What molten lava?

So the core of the earth used to be solid?

Yes. Check out the section on Trenches and Plate Tectonics if you have time.

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Ok you lost me here.

This is hard without a picture.

You have superheated, minieral rich water shooting out of the earths crust over a small area. It would be like taking a pressure washer to a rock: you make a smooth, strait line in the side. That isn’t there at the trench… or anywhere for that matter.

It wasn't a small area. It was the entirety of the Mid-Atlantic and Mid-Oceanic Ridges. It sounds like you're describing a huge cliff leftover from the subterranean chamber. That isn't predicted by the theory and wouldn't even make sense to be an effect from it.

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Well, when you're refuting an inaccurate version of the theory

Its not a theory. A theory is a well tested set of observations with vast explanatory and predictive power.

He has a whole lot of predictions, a few of which have already been confirmed. He also has explanations that make quite a lot of sense. Sounds like a theory to me.

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That's perfectly fine and I appreciate you asking them, but you shouldn't expect me to just say "Oh wow, you're right, my bad." when you're not dealing with the theory properly, at least not as far as I can see.

Then try "hey, this is the part you missed" and link to a page, because I'm not reading the entire book again. Its VERY hard to tell where I'm not following the rails of his crazy train and where he's not following reality.

I'll try, but I don't always have the time. I did quote a bit of a relevant portion of the radioactivity chapter for you though.

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As to it not happening on Jupiter, first of all it's not pressure from an ocean alone that he says did it. Second of all, I don't imagine Jupiter has enough quartz for it to have happened there.

Case in point...

Electric voltages of about 10 million volts, and currents of 10 million amps Р a hundred times greater than the most powerful lightning bolts Р are required to explain the X-ray observations. These voltages would also explain the radio emission from energetic electrons observed near Jupiter by the Ulysses spacecraft.

According to the theory, radioactivity began by the piezoelectric effect in quartz in the crust during the flood. I don't remember Jupiter having quartz, so I don't see how mentioning Jupiter is relevant.

Also, the math on the generation of voltage seems to be ignoring that a 27% quartz structure won't get nearly the voltage he needs because the quarts is all spread out. Most of the electricity would be resisted by the rock.

I'll find a "real science link" to this, but the voltages in the granite during the flood exceeded granite's breakdown voltage, causing "lightning" in the granite.

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Its already been done in a laboratory

Can you give me a real science link to it?

Here's one. If I link you to something on the site, will you be able to check the references that go along with it? Most of his claims have some references and they're conveniently linked for his readers.

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Essentially, a global flood affected everything in the world very similarly. The same mechanisms affecting pretty much the same environment for the same amount of time would cause this.

This isn't an answer.

Why did it consistantly act in such a way that the stuff further down appears, when you carbon date it, to be older than the stuff above it?

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I'll have to look into that.

Its a real problem because biology, chemistry, geology and physics are all giving the same answer. All you have is a lot of unsupported suppositions.

All I really have time to do is link you to his page on radiocarbon dating

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Pillars made out of granite

Like i said, thats not going to work. Granite gets soft and plastic under that much pressure if its as hot as it is down there. The continent is going to get wobbly: you basically have a record spinning around on a warm marshmellow.

I suppose the pillars were thick enough to support it, but according to the theory most of the weight from the granite was supported by the subterranean water itself.

Also, something i should add here: the moon. You've got essentially a hollow earth with a near infinite amount of pressure exerted outward from a 1,000 degree source of pent up water.. and then you're going to have that planet stretched and pulled by our abnormally large moon spinning around it, and it doesn't crack in even one spot?

Yes, tidal pumping was a major influence leading up to the flood, as he said it was (scroll down to "Three Common Questions". And it did crack in one spot, that's how the flood started according to the theory.

Kirth, I found the full paper and will look it over when I get the chance. Thanks.

nategar05 wrote:

Well, for one thing he's made predictions, a few of which have already been confirmed.

Ah...right, so the difference in the meaning is, not what 'predictions' the fellow has made but how does one go about looking for the residual evidence of his claims?

Test out the theory itself step by step and double check his math I suppose. Really look to see how well conventional sciences can explain what he claims to explain and see what really makes more sense. At least for the unprofessional scientists like me, that sounds like a good way of doing it.

nategar05 wrote:

, wrote:

I do believe there have been some measurements taken using the traveling times of seismic waves from earth quakes to show that, as an example, the earth is not hollow -As some fantasy writers would like to be such that their tales would have a place to exist. ;)

I'm not getting your point here.

Yes, I already knew that. I just didn't see where you were going with that line of thinking. :)

Here's a question for possibly Kirth Gersen to fill a hole in my knowledge. Does the interior core spin faster or slower than the stuff on top/around the outside? Also, is it this difference in the two's motions that causes the magnetic effect? Just something that's puzzling me. (^_^)

At the risk of being controversial I'll take this one. The inner core rotates slightly faster than the rest of the Earth. Earth's magnetic effect was started by many, many (many) magnetite crystals lining up in the inner core as the inner Earth melted. Or a dynamo effect in the outer core, depending on who you ask. :P

Of course, others have the right to disagree.

Right then, so I'm going to kind of fixate on a few things the fellow has mentioned, basically running down his basic idea, so bear with me. ;)

So...6K years ago the world was a solid ball of rock? With a highly compressed layer of water trapped somewhere within it? The topography of the surface was just 'there'. Laid out with mountains, hills, rivers,etc as is...just...

Thank you for taking it seriously. According to the theory:

Assumption: Subterranean Water. About half the water now in the oceans was once in interconnected chambers about 10 miles below the entire earth’s surface. At thousands of locations, the chamber’s sagging ceiling pressed against the chamber’s floor. These extensive, solid contacts will be called pillars. The average thickness of the subterranean water was at least 3/4 mile. Above the subterranean water was a granite crust; beneath the water was earth’s mantle.

To clarify: the inner Earth hadn't melted yet, so it was solid throughout if I understand the theory correctly.

Link with a picture.

BNW, I'll get to your posts in a day or so.

Um...you've advanced this statement before and I do believe you've been shown how and why it's not quite the stated case within the edifice that is science. Also...the idea/word you might be meaning to use in this instance is 'Hypothesis'? That which is an idea put forward for the rigorous testing of its merits until it has accumulated enough data/information/etc to become/qualify for the position of 'Theory'.

Yes, I meant hypothesis in that sentence. Thanks.

I have one other slight question about/for the site you graciously linked too...and that is how would one test some of the makers claims? How would one find the 'remains' of such a large volume (Where said water the person has made the claims it was so) be made of the earth's crust?

Well, for one thing he's made predictions, a few of which have already been confirmed.

I do believe there have been some measurements taken using the traveling times of seismic waves from earth quakes to show that, as an example, the earth is not hollow -As some fantasy writers would like to be such that their tales would have a place to exist. ;)

I'm not getting your point here.

I shall leave my thinking to just this one small part of your post for now, since I have been lapse from the boards for some time, as well as apologize if this missive may seems a tad rambling in its reading. *Bows*

Again, much cheers to you and yours.

It's ok, thanks for contributing.

Typical Creationist tactic, to take a single quote out of context -- from a paper strongly supporting subduction in this case -- and claim it somehow "disproves" what it's helping to develop. Whenever possible, it's better to read original sources, not someone else's quoting of them.

Don't you hate it when someone quotes, say, Samuel 27 out of context and claims that means that Christianity is a genocidal religion? Same thing going on here.

Unfortunately, I don't always have time to read the original source. Thanks for pointing out that it's out of context. I'll have to take a closer look at it. Do you have a link for it?

All you have done here is to name drop some scientific principles. It does not change the fact that this theory was developed solely in order to justify a preconceived notion, which is essentially exactly the opposite of the mindset needed to do real science.

First of all, everyone is biased and capable of letting that influence their interpretations. Everyone is capable of developing and advancing a theory from biased motivations, including many of the founders of the currently popular worldviews. Buffon, Lamarck, Hutton, Laplace, Werner, and Lyell all heavily influenced scientific theory toward gradualism and uniformitarianism, the foundations behind today's theories of origins. As far as I know, none of them were Bible believing Christians and they may well have been hostile toward Biblical thinking.

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Secondly, let's see what happens when you do science based on the Bible. Matthew Maury is considered the father of oceanography. He saw Psalm 8:8 and decided to find "the paths of the sea" as they were so called. He then discovered ocean currents. So starting with the assumption of the Bible being true can lead to scientific discoveries.

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Thirdly, let's see what the Bible has to say about science, even if nobody in particular that I know of used it for discovery:

The Bible says to circumcise infant sons on the 8th day. It was recently discovered that the platelet count of a newborn peaks on the 8th day.

Imagine how many lives were lost because of bloodletting, when Lev. 17:11 says "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." That could have all been prevented by taking what the Bible has to say seriously.

Until the mid 19th century, conditions in hospitals were not very sanitary at all. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis saw that the doctors didn't wash their hands after handling the recently deceased patients. After they started washing their hands in running water (instead of a bowl) the mortality rate for delivering mothers dropped from about 30% to about 2%. Lev. 15:13 says to wash in running water to get rid of uncleanness.

I'm not saying that the writer of the Bible at that time knew WHY they were inspired to write those things, but what matters is that the Bible was right.

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So, it seems as though the Bible and science get along just fine. Saying the Bible is wrong for saying that pi is 3 is ridiculous when you consider the fact that the verses in Kings were approximating the diameter and circumference. There's no reason that pi shouldn't be approximated as well given how the numbers were reported. Besides, pi is approximately 3, so the Bible isn't wrong, even if it's not as precise as some people arbitrarily insist it should be (no offense to whoever raised that objection. I don't even remember who that was.).

Just from looking over the source you cited briefly, I can see a few problems. The entire argument about the piezoelectric effect is predicated on the fact that quartz is piezoelectric and that quartz is the most common mineral in the earth's crust, comprising ~25% of granite. This is all true, however what is conveniently left out is that something which is only 27% quartz is not piezoelectric overall, since the process of creating charge from stress works because of the symmetry within crystal, symmetry which only exists in bulk quartz, not in a quartz-containing rock.

Did you read about poling (there's more about poling just below that section on the same page)?

By symmetry within crystal, do you mean the axes of crystallization aligning? If so, that's how it is:

“All quartz-rich rocks (quartzites, granites, gneisses, mylonites) did show [statistically significant] piezoelectric effects when stressed.” J. R. Bishop, “Piezoelectric Effects in Quartz-Rich Rocks,” Technophysics, Vol. 77, 20 August 1981, p. 297.

u “... frequently in quartzite, the quartz occurs as grains with isometric form but shows a preferential orientation in terms of internal crystal structure, that is, in terms of the axes of crystallization.” E. I. Parkhomenko, Electrical Properties of Rocks (New York: Plenum Press, 1967), p. 6.

How about the fact that electricity is generated in the crust during earthquakes?

Also I am not sure where the idea that bremsstrahlung radiation can produce neutrons is coming from, since the definition of bremsstrahlung radiation is when the kinetic energy of a charged particle is turned into electromagnetic radiation as it decelerates in an external magnetic field. For those of you keeping score at home, electromagnetic radiation is photons, not neutrons.

Bremsstrahlung radiaction can cause free neutrons:

Neutrons will be produced in any material struck by the electron beam or bremsstrahlung beam above threshold energies that vary from 10–19 MeV for light nuclei and 4–6 MeV for heavy nuclei.

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This report briefly describes the three mechanisms by which bremsstrahlung radiation releases neutrons from nuclei.

Source: N. E. Ipe, “Radiological Considerations in the Design of Synchrotron Radiation Facilities,” Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, SLAC-PUB-7916, January 1999, p. 6.

Those neutrons being absorbed by the subterranean water would explain the abundance of Deuterium in the solar system quite nicely.

I will need to take a closer look at the arguments put forth by your source in order to make a more thorough explanation of what is wrong.

Please do. :)

Large salt deposits are not being laid down today

They're on a freaking poster!

I don't know. My guess is that you and him disagree on what large means. He should have been more clear though.

Layered Fossils.

-Why aren't fossils burried by density? Why aren't we finding mammoth skulls and triceratops skulls closer to each other?

Seems clear to me.

Few people realize that the origin of earth’s radioactivity and the origin of the heavier chemical elements on earth have never been explained.

Supernova Nuclear Synthesis

A supernova allegedly can't do this.. but the flood can?!????

But when fusion creates elements that are heavier than iron, it requires an excess of neutrons. Therefore, astronomers assume that heavier atoms are minted in supernova explosions, where there is a ready supply of neutrons, although the specifics of how this happens are unknown. [See Eric Haseltine, “The Greatest Unanswered Questions of Physics,” Discover, February 2002, p. 40.]

Where the heaviest elements, such as uranium and lead, came from still remains something of a mystery. Ibid., p. 41.

Speaking of quotes:

“It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ‘clock.’ ” William D. Stansfield, Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977), p. 84.

I could fill a few quite large posts with nothing but quotes from scientists listing problems with current scientific theories. Maybe they don't explain things so well after all.

The water trapped under the crust would eventually explode the crust. Over a thousand years the water would attain the same temperature as the molten lava beneath it and burst through SOMEWHERE

What molten lava? That hadn't formed yet.

Quote:

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/HydroplateOverview7.html

Thi s would leave huge , vertical channels in the ocean's trenches that we don't see. They would then fill in with loose debris rather than form what we see today.

Ok you lost me here.

This is all I can quote and I'm too lazy to do the rest of it at the moment.

Quote:

For instance, you asked how come the pressure of an ocean above the crust would alter pressure. It wouldn't, that's not the mechanism. I'd suggest rereading about the piezoelectric effect.

Stop telling me to reread things I've already given an answer to. Particularly when you're ignoring every single problem with the hypothesis.

Well, when you're refuting an inaccurate version of the theory it's difficult to accept the answers. I'm only trying to help you understand the theory because it's clear that you don't from the questions that you're asking. That's perfectly fine and I appreciate you asking them, but you shouldn't expect me to just say "Oh wow, you're right, my bad." when you're not dealing with the theory properly, at least not as far as I can see.

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As to it not happening on Jupiter, first of all it's not pressure from an ocean alone that he says did it. Second of all, I don't imagine Jupiter has enough quartz for it to have happened there.

So i should be able to do cold fusion with my wrist watch.

If you can exceed the breakdown voltage and figure out how to sustain and harvest it, among other engineering challenges, sure. It's already been done in a laboratory

How on earth did the carbon ratios get mixed up on every peice of tree, mammoth bone and fossil in the EXACT amount they would need to be to show gradualism?

Essentially, a global flood affected everything in the world very similarly. The same mechanisms affecting pretty much the same environment for the same amount of time would cause this.

Can you tell me why times of last separation correspond very well with the geologic time frames for the continents splitting?

I'll have to look into that.

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You also don't understand how the rock floated on water. It didn't. The subterranean water was completely sealed under the granitic crust, and pillars connected it to the chamber floor.

Pillars made out of what exactly? Rock gets crushed under that much weight, and quartz melts under that much heat.

Where are these pillars? Where is the evidence that ANY of this ever happened?

Pillars made out of granite, the same material the rest of the crust was made of. They did get crushed as the flood progressed. They didn't get crushed beforehand because the extremely pressurized subterranean water supported much of the crust's weight. As to where they are now, according to the theory some of the rocks in the pillars were launched into space to become meteroids, asteroids, and comets. That would explain the formation of chondrules in meteorites.

Quote:

The crack started forming at the surface of the crust and expanded at both ends due to tension until it lapped the world (we know it as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Mid-Oceanic Ridge). After that, the only place the water left the subterranean chamber was at the crack itself. The rest of the continents were completely waterproof and under constant water pressure, just as you said would need to happen for the continents to drift.

Ok, and how do you explain the plates in places like the himilayas, and why they're still getting taller? Why do we have plates all over the place?

As the plates crashed at the end of the continental drift phase, they broke into many pieces. I'm not sure why they're still getting taller, I'll look into it.

Kirth, he gives explanations behind all of his points about subduction. For example:

Points 2 and 3:

it would seem that the sediment sliding into the bottom of the trench should be folded into pronounced ridges and valleys. Yet virtually undeformed sediments have been mapped in trenches by David William Scholl and his colleagues at the U.S. Naval Electronics Laboratory Center. Furthermore, the enormous quantity of deep-ocean sediment that has presumably been swept up to the margins of trenches cannot be detected on sub-bottom profiling records

references wrote:

“Cloos and Saunders et al. have shown that large oceanic plateaus cannot be subducted. Such thick plateaus resist subduction, jam the trench and accrete to the arc.” Sheth, p. 16.

u “It is disturbing that the proposed, exceedingly large differential movements between continents and ocean basins (especially where much unconsolidated sediment is involved) are not obvious. ... The present simple continental-margin model diagrammed with essentially rigid slabs does not relate well to observational data, and its value as a framework for interpreting observed structures of the continental margin is diminished by the large gap between theory and observation.” Roland von Huene, “Structure of the Continental Margin and Tectonism at the Eastern Aleutian Trench,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 83, December 1972, p. 3625.

u “... slippage of the oceanic crust beneath an overlying trench fill is unsupported by observational as well as theoretical data ...” D. W. Scholl, “Peru-Chile Trench Sediments and Sea-Floor Spreading,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 81, 1970, pp. 1339–1360.

What do you think?

Also (and here's an old, necrotic equine argument), why would an all-powerful entity go to so much trouble? If it's transcendent of the universe, then it's transcendent of physics (and everything we know and understand of the nature of reality). It can do anything it so desires. Anything

I found your example humorous, but it's a little long so I left it out of the quote. Anyway, I see God as being extremely intelligent and rational (bit of an understatement :P). I see Him doing it the way He did for the same reason it took Him 6 days to create stuff instead of doing it all at once: he uses natural mechanisms to bring things about whenever "possible". Many of the miracles in the Bible weren't "miraculous" in the sense that they couldn't happen. It's more that they were timed PERFECTLY, and if God hadn't directed it that way, the timing would have been off. Example: the walls falling at Jericho. It was likely an earthquake, but a really really well timed one.

In summary, I think God uses natural means whenever He "can".

Andrew Turner wrote:

I think one of the problems is that the hydroplate theory has been developed specifically to conform to Biblical events, rather than a phenomenon discovered through scientific inquiry.

This is 100% correct. This theory is not based on controlled observations or predictive power, it is made purely to justify a preconecived notion. Therefore I would not call it science, since it is essentially nothing but wishful thinking.

Here's a quote from the section on radioactivity. HP = Hydroplate theory, CE = Chemical Evolution theory.

Experimental Support. Good theories must have experimental support.

1. HP: As explained in this chapter, every phenomenon involved in the hydroplate explanation for earth’s radioactivity is well understood and/or demonstrable: the piezoelectric effect, poling, electron capture, flutter with high compressive and tensile stresses, nuclear combustion, neutron production by bremsstrahlung radiation, Z-pinch, neutron activation analysis, rapid decay of artificially produced superheavy nuclei, and increased decay rates resulting from high voltages and concentrated electrical currents.

We know radioactive nuclei have excess energy, continually vibrate, and are always on the verge of “flying apart” (i.e., decaying). Atomic accelerators bombard nuclei; adding that energy produces radioisotopes and rapid decay.

2. CE: The various scales (such as time, temperature, and size) required—for example, in and around stars hundreds of thousands of times more massive than earth—are so large that experimental support for chemical evolution is necessarily limited. Experiments using particle colliders allow investigation of the interactions of subatomic particles traveling at very great speeds. By using computer simulations and extrapolating the results of experiments to larger scales, we can draw conclusions about the kinds of elements that would have been produced at extremely high temperatures inside huge stars billions of years ago.

Seems scientifically testable to me. In fact it all has been tested.