Birth of a New African Ocean

Khemisty writes "Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one no scientist has ever witnessed. Yet this geophysical nativity is unfolding today in one of the hottest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. Africa is splitting apart at the seams. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, the continent is coming unstitched along a zone called the East African Rift." This stretching of the earth's crust has been going on for 20 million years, and within another 10 million the Red Sea will have broken through to create a new sea.

Wish I'd be around to see it

[gyrogeerloose]

Bet there would be one very impressive waterfall when the Red Sea finally breaks through.

Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's accepted by Christians to be like 6000 years old.

Seriously. They think that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

Are there more of those types of Christians, or are there more "progressives" who believe in crap like astrology?

While there are loons all over the place, I'd rather deal with loons who are mistaken over how things were in the past than with loons who are loony over the present and most importantly the future.

Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the disconnected logic that allows a person to pick and choose what parts of their "sacred text" they actually believe is true.

Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:

[The_Wilschon]

Baylor University is in fact not a liberal arts school, but a full fledged university, with thriving programs in the hard sciences, engineering, business, etc. Furthermore, Baylor as a university is strongly committed to academic honesty (although perhaps Rodney Stark is not, based on your critique of the survey questions. I don't feel qualified to pass judgement on sociological survey questions, primarily because I think that all or nearly all sociology is complete BS.). I don't claim that perfect academic honesty has been achieved across the entire university yet, nor do I claim that there is such a thing as academic honesty in sociology, nor do I claim that any other university has achieved perfect academic honesty. There's always politics, and at this point, "Christian" interference with academic honesty at Baylor has become, in most cases, a matter of politics. I put Christian in scare quotes because, like most of the Baylor faculty, I believe honesty, including academic honesty, to be a vital Christian virtue.

Disclaimer: Baylor undergraduate class of 2007, Physics

Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:

[Tweenk]

From my dictionary "Atheist - One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods." Yet the study says 21% of atheists believe in God. That study is total bullshit.

I believe the criterion for saying who is an atheist is the same as for saying who is a Christian. You just ask people who they consider themselves to be. If that's so, there can be atheists that believe in God, e.g. if they are misinformed what "atheism" means. There's also some percentage of people who believe in God but are opposed to the churches of Christianity based on their practices and history, and those could also describe themselves as atheists.

Really by definition ALL christians believe in ghosts. Ever heard of the holy spirit?

Holy spirit = the force of God. Ghosts = souls of dead people that haunt the living. That's not exactly the same.

Re:Red Sea tag suggestion:

[I'm not really here]

But if you look more closely at the original language, much of the book of Genesis is actually about a restoration of the earth after a cataclysmic flood that wiped out everything (often termed the Adamic flood by those that subscribe to this theory), followed by God restoring everything and then creating Adam and Eve.

The pre-adamic theory of creation is that we are descendants of this second humanity, and that previously there were other "people" (which matches fossil records of cro-magnum man, or whatever they are calling them now-a-days).

So, back to the original point - 6 days of God "letting" there be stuff (the word can be translated as "allow X to be its original form and purpose" or something similar, so "Let there be light" can also be translated as "Allow light to return to its original state" or similar.) This means that the earth existed for at least 6-7000 years, plus whatever is needed for all of the "nations of men" who existed prior (read the book of Dan, specifically about the King of Tyre) plus however long it would take for water covering the earth to kill everything.

Not all Christians are unable to believe that the earth is billions of years old and yet still believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture.

Please put the assumptions back on the shelf and remember that as in all things in this world, nothing is as simple as it appears - Except maybe 1+1=2 :-)

Oh, and I think it is pretty sweet to see an ocean forming. I've always found the idea of Pangea a really interesting concept, and likely to be true with the slow motions of the earth's crust. I hope someday (assuming I am right and heaven is real) to see this new ocean, and hope to see many of you there with me to marvel at the continued creation of our God.