The Essential Points In the Answer to Question (12) Of the " 100 Tough Questions about God And The Bible " By Stephen M. Miller.

By Sodium

Re-Citing Question (12):
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" Why do most Christians believe there was a global flood in the time of Noah when most geologists say otherwise ? "

The Essential Points In Stephen Miller's Answer:
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~ Not all Christians believe in the global flood.
~ Those Christians who do not believe in the global flood believe in a local flood that took place in the Fertile Crescent Region  which really meant the Middle East, including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.
~ But most Christians believe in the global flood exactly as described in the Bible. They cite the following reasons for adhering firmly to their belief:

(A) They say: " where do you see a regional flood in a passage this ? " The water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty two feet above the highest peaks.....God wiped everything on the earth." Genesis 7:19, 23 NLT.

(B) They say:: " Flood stories you can find them all over the world, woven into the history                   of at least seventy centuries from one side of the planet to the other, including that of the                     American Indians, China, the South Pacific, and Ireland. "

(C) They say " Greek and Roman children grew up listening to the story of Deucalion and                   Pyrrha, a couple who saved their children and assortment of animals from a flood by herding               them all into big boat shaped like a box. "

 (D) They say: " Middle Eastern kids, in what is now Iraq heard a similar story. In the Epi of                 Gilgamesh, a man named Utnapishtim (call him (U-Guy) saved his family in much the same               way Noah did. He built a boat, waterproofed it with tar, loaded it with family and animals,                   survived the flood, and even released a dove as Noah didto make sure the water had receded               enough to disembark. "
       
~ The essential points raised by those people who do not believe in the global flood can be summed up as follows:

(E) "If God created plants on day three, how did they survive without the sun, which God did              not create until day four?"

(F) "Why should we interpret the six days of creation as six twenty-four-hours days when God           did not make the sun and moon-our tools for measuring twenty-four-hour days-until day four?"

(G) "What's wrong with interpreting the "days" of creation as long stretches of time when other           Bible writers say that " one day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are           like one day ( 2 Peter 3:;8, see also Psalm 90:)?"
       
Final Words:
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Near the end of his pro and con argument about the global flood, as described in the Bible, Stephen Miller has made the following statement: " On the flip side, Christians defending the Bible's literal history of creation say that questions like these ( E, F, and G ) underestimate the power of God." With such a dogmatic view, one cannot really caries on the discussion any further, but it is good to know how each of the two groups thinks with regard to the Biblical global flood.

And lastly, I personally cannot ignore the scientific facts which  say that the earth is 2.5 billion year old and the universe's age is 14 billion year old. Incredible numbers !! And way before Noah's time.