No Water Jacket For The Earth

One of the prevailing views amongst creationists holding to the genesis bible account is the presence of a theory known as "the water jacket." In an explanation of the firmament (the visible arch of the sky) as created in the midst of waters separated to above and below the "sky". It has been suggested that Earth was surrounded by an upper atmosphere of water that not only protected the remarkably long-living pre-Noah citizens of earth from any aging ultraviolet rays but also accounts for the large deluge of water in Noah's day that caused the great flood. (There are often points such as the first rainbow after the flood used to support a change in the atmosphere.) I clearly dispute this theory with the following few remarks.

Firstly If there was such a water jacket it could only exist as a set of rings surrounding the earth as does saturns. It is clear that ater that is in orbit must orbit in a great circle or ellipse with earth at one focus: Were water to orbit earth above the poles, not as in a meridian orbit but merely about the earth's axis of rotation, there would be a super-vortex and a dreadful storm above each pole.

Also, If the water orbited on lines of longitude only then there would be great chaos where the water crosses the poles. Such orbits could not be geostrationary due to the coriolis effect. This simply means that if the water is further out in space it must orbit slower than the turning of the earth underneath it.

Also, consider the verses themselves;

-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Gen ch1:v14-19
Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (KJV)

If God according to the interpretation that the firmament is the "sky" accounts for the "two great lights" to be the Sun and Moon respectively, and not gravity and electromagnetism as is actually the case, How can the Sun and Moon be placed in the firmament which is clearly under the "waters" that would form the water jacket? Of course, it is precisely the case that these are waters as in the future and past with the firmament or present between them.

There is also the creation of the stars, also placed in the firmament. I have heard it said on radio that the difference between creationists and science is that physicists explain how stars got from one place to many light years away, and how long a time it takes for the light to get to earth: Thus, the creationists takes the view that the stars started at earth and then moved away: and the mystery is not how long it took for the light to have arrived here, but how the stars got out there in a short time.

There is still the matter that if it was such, the water jacket must have been placed above the distant stars and many light years away even if in our own near neighbourhood. A nonsense.

One could also dispose of the water jacket with the idea that the waters above the firmament were simply clouds, and as they are opaque they appear to be above what is visible: But even then the account could be picked apart by the ancient people of Israel as a vast oversimplification, given the existence of the sun and moon above cloudcover as well as the distinction they are also in the firmament.

No, rather the firmament is the visible chronological or temporal present or even the observable universe or "heaven".

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