How God Did It, Not Why

This entire literary endeavor to separate Biblical literalism from observable reality was prompted by the fact that one supposedly erudite scholar managed to propound on American National Public Radio (with a presumably straight face) the "fact" that the Colorado River's Grand Canyon, a notable feature of the high plateau of Northern Arizona, was formed in one brief but eventful period of runoff when all the waters accumulated on Earth by the Great Flood associated with the Biblical patriarch, Noah, drained back into the ocean through this one channel — thus carving the canyon.

At least, this "scholar" paid some obeisance to the process of erosion, though he may well be subject to review in his concepts of timing or geography. For anyone who cares to take the time and look closely can determine — given the observable rate of down-cutting and the total volume of material removed — that the ongoing carving of the canyon must have begun some thousands of millennia before the alleged globally catastrophic flood. Moreover, if, as we are told, Noah's flood did cover "the whole face of Earth" — even, therefore, the highest of mountains — it would mean a worldwide oceanic depth of another five or more miles and thus require an off-planet storage facility for all that water.