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Is the Grand Canyon Proof of The Great Flood?
by Jack Wellman
2008-07-07 10:13:51 |
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Two people can often look at the same thing and come to opposite conclusions. The Grand Canyon is a perfect example. Evolutionists use it as proof that the earth is billions of years old, claiming that the Colorado River carved the canyon over millions of years. Bible-believing Christians interpret the canyon as a spillway from Noah's Flood. One believes it formed slowly, with a little water and a lot of time. The other believes it formed quickly, with a lot of water and a little time. What a stark difference.
If the Bible is true, and the earth is only about six thousand years old, we should find evidence that debunks the evolutionist theory about the Grand Canyon. We do. For example, the top of the Grand Canyon is over four thousand feet higher than where the Colorado River enters the canyon, meaning it would have had to flow uphill for millions of years. Additionally, in contrast to all other rivers, we do not find a delta (a place where washed-out mud is deposited). This alone makes the evolutionist interpretation impossible.
The evidence does, however, point to a great, global flood. Even today, we see two beach lines from what used to be two large lakes near the Grand Canyon. Creationists believe that after the flood, the lakes got too full and spilled over the top. When water overflows a dam, the weakest point is instantly eroded. Thus, the Grand Canyon would have been formed quickly, supporting the creationist interpretation.
So, which interpretation is right? Knowing that rivers don't flow uphill and no leftover sedimentary deposits are found, evolutionists have a lot of explaining to do when it comes to the Grand Canyon. The Bible, however, says that a great flood covered the whole earth (see Genesis 7:18-20). There is archaeological evidence for this over all land masses and even at the top of the tallest mountains. This means we should find places where the water drained. The Grand Canyon is one of those places. It is a washed-out spillway and provides great evidence for a great worldwide flood. Plus, nearly every culture in the world has some story from their ancient relatives of the past that speak of a great flood that happened, and it's often associated with being near to the birth of their nation. Interesting. This appears to be very much like a cultural universal.
Is Carbon Dating Reliable?
Carbon has unique properties that are essential for life on earth. Familiar to us as the black substance in charred wood, as diamonds, and the graphite in "lead" pencils, carbon comes in several forms, or isotopes. One rare form has atoms that are 14 times as heavy as hydrogen atoms: carbon-14, or 14C, or radiocarbon. Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays knock neutrons out of atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere. These displaced neutrons, now moving fast, hit ordinary nitrogen (14N) at lower altitudes, converting it into 14C. Unlike common carbon (12C), 14C is unstable and slowly decays, changing it back to nitrogen and releasing energy. This instability makes it radioactive.
Age estimates which are obviously wrong or contradictory are sometimes produced. For example, new rock in the form of hardened lava flows produced estimated ages as great as 3 billion to 10.5 billion years, when they were actually less than 200 years old. A popular and supposedly foolproof method was used on two lava flows in the Grand Canyon that should be ideal for radioactive age estimation. The results were similarly bad. Young basalt rock at the Canyon's top produced an age estimate 270 million years older than ancient basalt rock at the Canyon's bottom. The problem seems to arise from basic wrong assumptions in the method (rubidium-strontium isochron).
Ordinary carbon (12C)is found in the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air, which is taken up by plants, which in turn are eaten by animals. So a bone, or a leaf or a tree, or even a piece of wooden furniture, contains carbon. When the 14C has been formed, like ordinary carbon (12C), it combines with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide (14CO2), and so it also gets cycled through the cells of plants and animals.
We can take a sample of air, count how many 12C atoms there are for every 14C atom, and calculate the 14C/12C ratio. Because 14C is so well mixed up with 12C, we expect to find that this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your body. In living things, although 14C atoms are constantly changing back to 14N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as soon as a plant or animal dies, the 14C atoms which decay are no longer replaced, so the amount of 14C in that once-living thing decreases as time goes on.
In other words, the 14C/12C ratio gets smaller. So, we have a "clock" which starts ticking the moment something dies. Obviously, this works better for things which were once living, but even then, dating organic matter can produce wrong estimates. But what about rocks, which over thousands of years have a fairly constant rate of 14C to 12C, whether they be volcanic or igneous rocks? Rocks adjacent to each other can test radically different in dates. The problem is that rocks can accumulate C14 atoms from surrounding rocks, plants, animals, water or other means. But they can just as easily lose C14 atoms from floods, burials and cataclysmic events (i.e., volcanism).
Tremendous natural forces (water, fire, pressure) can reset the atomic clock in matter or restoring the original 14C/12C ratio. Either way, it is just too easy to skew the isotropic C14 to C12 ratio test. Hundreds of times, carbon dating of rocks and animals has shown to be highly unreliable and inaccurate. Animal and human skulls, fossilized or not, are subject to the very same loss or gain in C14 atoms, just like rocks are.
Plant and animal fossilized remains have already formed under the lava and ash flow of Mt. Saint Helen‘s 1980 eruption. It took less than 30 years [not millions of years is as supposed necessary] for them to fossilize. These animals and plants were obviously not very old, but carbon dating estimated some remains at (unbelievably) 300,000 years old! The cataclysmic event may have caused this [pressure and fire in this case]. What other reason is there? Carbon dating can only be classified as having such a high rate error, as to make it impractical to date anything with any kind of certainty or reliability.
We are all compelled to believe one way or the other. It is either evolution or creation. To not believe in an Intelligent Designer is just as much a free will choice as believing in a Creator. Everyone that makes a choice to believe in something had to take action first: that action was to choose to believe it. A free will choice. If you choose not to believe the Bible, you are still choosing...choosing not to believe it. Choosing to believe that the Bible is a fairy tale is a choice nonetheless. With worldwide natural catastrophes, economic and political crisis and civil disobedience increasing exponentially, every day it seems, I wish more would choose what is a very real and certain safety and security...but only with One (John 10:28-29), and no other. Choose wisely, for the consequences of the choice are eternal.
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