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The reason is simple, the USA is dividing itself at the seams in different religious, ideological, and ethnic enclaves.

Religions have often sought to set themselves aside in various ways which define their group. Only this morning I came across a website for Christian teens which says: "While many tattoos are beautiful, they tend to honor the world rather than God." It goes on to discourage tattoos for some ambiguous reasons. The 'setting aside' of Christians is something that evangelicals tend to feel very strongly about.

This is an extension of that onto the internet, and in fact I know several Christians who most likely would affirm GodTube as the cyber manifestation of the admonition to be "in the world, not of the world."

William did you watch the Godtube video on Ruth Gledhill’s blog its more like Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

I don't think you have to be a scientist, anyone with a little curiousity and a mind to, could play head games with these Creationist dolts which would keep them dancing and spinning forever if they cared to waste the time of day at it. Here's a little one for McIntosh or Wilder Smith or whoever comes around to sell his snake oil.

According to the story of Noah in the book of Genesis, the entire world was covered by water in the great flood. From Chapter 7 of the King James version;

17And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. 18And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 22All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. 23And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. 24And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

20...."and the mountains were covered."

Ancients who wrote the bible knew almost nothing about planet earth. But starting in 1958 with IGY, the International Geophysical Year, Scientists began to make a systematic study of it and have accumulated a lot of real knowledge.

Here are two inconvenient truths for Creationists; fact 1. The total volume of ice on earth is estimated to be slightly below 30 million cubic kilometers. This includes both polar ice caps, the ice sheets of greenland, all the glaciers, everything. Fact 2. The total surface area of the earth is 510 million square kilometers.

So if all of the water molecules on earth were in the form of liquid, the level of the ocean would rise 30/510=.06 km or about 198 feet. That's not enough to flooed even the smallest foothills of most mountain ranges let alone any of the great ranges of the earth such as the Himalayas, Rockies, Andes, Alps and not even enough to flood my basement (my foundation is exactly 198 feet above sea level, whew, just missed me. Bring on global warming :-) And it certainly wasn't enough to flood Mount Ararat which rises over 16,000 feet above sea level. Remember, it was the creationists themselves who said the earth was formed only 7000 years ago with all of its mountains much as they are today, the mountains not being the result of pyroclastic upwelling of magma over millions of years. So how could the earth have been flooded, where did all of the rest of the water go, out into space? And come to think of it, since it took 40 days and nights to rise 200 feet (actually less because ice shrinks when it melts and some is below sea level aready but why quibble) the bible insists nowhere on earth could people and animals find a way to climb five feet a day to a higher elevation to escape the rising waters. I'd like to see how they handle this one. (Did anyone tell the Incas who lived high up in the Andes about this?)

Mark- Re. the flood. The creationists have answers to this. Ah the wonders of creation 'science'.

God said: "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky."

From this verse, Ken Ham et al concluded that there was a water "canopy" of water vapour in the earth's atmosphere before the flood, and that God caused it to fall like rain creating the great flood. It is said that after the great flood the topography of the earth was then altered by God, bringing continents up and sending the water down into the great basins we now know as oceans.

Believe it or not, this is among the best of creation science. :-)

John Wright, didn't he separate the water from the water in the first few days before he made Adam and Eve? So if there was that much water in the firmament, was it below or above the sun? If it was below the sun it would have had to be so thick it would have blocked the sunlight (remember the primiatives didn't know about outer space, earth's orbit etc.) On the other hand if it was beyond the sun, it would have had to have been beyond the orbit of earth? So which is it. It must now be reconciled with our modern view of the solar system or do they want to jetison that too? They'll have a hard time of it though since we've already had people out there who have seen it first hand.

Mark- Exactly; it's scientific garbage. This truly is the best they have to offer, though!