A wet threat?

I saw an image online the other day. One that I've seen before, but this time I saw people defending it. The image in question is the one that claims to prove atheists wrong with science. How? By pointing out that there's still water. Yeah... it's as crazy as it sounds. Here's the image:

Obviously there are several problems with the claims being made here. The first of which is that the age of the Earth has nothing to do with if atheism is correct or not. Even if the Earth was old or young, there could either be or not be a God. Though these questions can become intertwined at times, they really are two different questions.

I'm not going to even bother to double-check their math or claims, since doing so isn't even necessary. Yes, if water was a recourse that was used once and then was gone forever, the claims of this image would be true. But water is not that kind of recourse. Water does not just go away forever, it is reused again and again and again.

Lets look at what happens if you live in a city. You drink the water from the tap, you flush toilets, you shower with it, you wash clothes with it, etc. But when that water goes down the drain, is it gone for good? Not at all! It may go down the drain, but it then makes it's way to your local water treatment plant. There is is purified and treated so that it is once again ready for use and consumption. So if you've lived at the same place for a while that uses city water, you've likely drank, bathed, flushed, and washed your clothes with the very same water over and over again. But what about if you aren't on city water, or in the time before waste management systems?

What if you have a septic system? Your water is pumped from the ground from a well. The water is then used in the house like normal, but instead of being sent to the water treatment plant, the septic system does the work. Solid waste finds it's way into the septic tank, while the liquid waste empties into a leach field. This field is made to filter the dirty water some, and allow it to soak into the soil. That liquid (depending on the efficiency of the field, will eventually soak down to the water rable once more. Or it may pool on the surface and evaporate.

The same principle is true for the time before waste systems were invented. A person may drink from a river or lake. Eventually, they will find that they need to urinate. They may do so on the ground for instance. This urine would then soak into the soil, as well as evaporate into the air. When it does evaporate, the water evaporates into water vapor. The contaminates are then left behind on the ground. Eventually water vapor condenses into clouds, and it rains. The water then falls to the Earth again to renew the cycle.

Given the fluidity and recycling nature of the water cycle, you have likely shares water with great names through history. Names any figure that existed in the past. You have likely drank at least one molecule of water that had previously passed through the bladder on, Einstein, Washington, Cleopatra... The same will be true of just about anyone you can name.

The water cycle is hardly new news, and is long and well understood. Young Earth creationist claims proven wrong by second-grade science... Oh how fitting, as well as telling.


-Brain Hulk

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