Disproving Gravity

I had a little fun playing around with Google Earth today (work is really slow). I remembered hearing from some Creationists (I think Answers in Genesis) that the elevation of the terrain at the entrance to the Grand Canyon (the top of the canyon) is higher than the terrain outside the canyon. Google Earth seems to suggest that that statement is accurate.

Why is this interesting? Well, let's start by taking a look at what Wikipedia has to say about how the Grand Canyon was formed:

The longstanding scientific consensus has been that the canyon was created by the Colorado River over a period of six million years, but research released in 2008 suggests a much longer 17 million year time span. The canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) and attains a depth of more than a mile (1.6 km). Nearly two billion years of the Earth's history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. The “canyon started from the west, then another formed from the east, and the two broke through and met as a single majestic rent in the earth some six million years ago. The merger apparently occurred where the river today, coming from the north, bends to the west, in the area known as the Kaibab Arch.”

If the Colorado River carved out the Grand Canyon, then it stands to reason that at one time there was no canyon there at all, just a river flowing along from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. But in order for the river to carve out the terrain where the entrance is now located, it would have had to flow up hill!!! In addition, if Google Earth is accurate, the rim of the canyon increases in elevation at several places in the canyon. It had to go up hill several times!

In other words, to believe the “scientific consensus,” you must suspend logic. You must believe that water is not bound by the laws of gravity. You have to disbelieve the laws of fluid dynamics that state that water will always take the path of least resistance. Take a look on Google Earth. You'll see that the canyon is carved in a more-or-less east-west direction. As you move your cursor south of the canyon, the elevation drops. So why is the canyon where it is, and not several miles to the south? Folks, the river may have carved the bottom few feet of the canyon, but there is no way that canyon is the work of the Colorado River and nothing else. That canyon has been there at least as long as the river that flows through it, if not longer.

But why, you ask, would the scientific community tell us something that is so easily disproven? The only answer I can come up with is to maintain their story of “millions of years”. I believe that canyon was carved out in a matter of hours, maybe days. I believe it was created as the waters of a global flood receded. The “scientific community” wants to keep all discussion of a global flood within the doors of religious institutions, even if it can explain things much better than can men in pith helmets and lab coats.