Objections to Evo-Timeframe Deposition of Strata

Hi JonF,I had trouble interpreting the photographs. Could you add a little explanatory text?The rest of this post is sort of general commentary to everyone. I'm sticking my nose into this thread for the first time and have only read from Faith's last post onward (Message 188). I found that post very insightful, and I can easily believe that she was treated with little tolerance.People like Faith make an invaluable contribution here because they are sincere knowledge seeking people who make no bones about where they're coming from: the Bible is the last word on everything. If science contradicts the Bible, then science must be wrong.One of the neat things about science is the way all the pieces from all the different subfields fit neatly together into a single fabric. You can think of science as a massive and still incomplete jigsaw puzzle of facts and theories that fit together to form a beautiful and consistent though still incomplete picture.To varying degrees we all carry a picture of this jigsaw puzzle in our minds. We know precisely where many of the puzzle pieces belong, and we can explain why they belong where they do because of their consistency with adjacent puzzle pieces.I'm using this analogy because almost everyone has done jigsaw puzzles. We're all familiar with the early stages of jigsaw puzzle solving where we first try to sort the pieces into categories of where they generally go. These pieces must be in the sky because they're light blue and so forth. But understanding the universe is a jigsaw puzzle where we don't have a completed picture to go by, and they're often aren't cues as obvious as a blue-sky colored jigsaw piece.For someone in the early stages of solving the science jigsaw puzzle, any particular puzzle piece could go just about anywhere. When told it goes precisely *there*, the question naturally arises, "Why there?" When told it goes there because it only fits there because of adjacent puzzle pieces, the same question about "Why there?" arises about these pieces, too. Or often more agressively, "No, science is wrong."This can be very frustrating for those informed about science, but we have to understand that most Creationists who come here hold their beliefs not out of knowledge of science but out of ignorance. As we've said here many times, there is no shame in ignorance, we're all ignorant of many things. The problem comes in recognizing when we're actually ignorant of something that we originally thought we knew. My guess is that Faith might have come on a little strong in the beginning because she was unaware of how much she didn't know, but I sense she knows that now.A dialog with Faith about how she justifies her Biblical interpretations and about her views of how to reconcile faith and science would be pretty interesting, but this isn't the appropriate thread for that. The forums [forum=-11] and [forum=-6] would be better places for such discussions.--Percy

You've raised this point several times recently, and I know I'm always glad to see it raised because it seems a core descrepancy in their belief system. There's the observable universe writ by God, and there's the Bible written by men, how do you decide which to give precedence? Overlaying all this is the fact that this is all just our interpretation, so how do we *know* our interpretation of the Bible or universe is correct.Regarding our interpretation of the universe there's a ready answer: we use the scientific method and apply the standards of science. Regarding the interpretation of scripture there is no single standard, and the various religions all disagree to lesser and greater extents. This seems so obvious to us as to not require discussion. They wouldn't care about the imprimatur of science if it weren't for their concern that their religious beliefs are being contradicted before their children in science classrooms. The strategy they employ is to dress up their religious beliefs as science.The recent shift of emphasis from traditional Creationism to ID in the efforts to enter science classrooms is bound to backfire. At some point YEC Creationists will realize that the fact that the IDists carrying the effort forward accept an ancient earth and universe is a contradiction not easily reconciled within a single movement. The old "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophy can only keep the two together for so long.--Percy

If you go back and read the posts just after my Message 199 that you replied to you'll see that the suggestion was to take this side of the discussion to another thread. There's a good reason for this, two reasons, actually.The first reason is that the objection that science is wrong and the Bible is right can be made in any of the science forums. We don't want to have the same discussion spread across multiple forums, and so the science forums are usually confined to considering the issues from a scientific perspective.The second reason is why EvC Forum exists. Creationists claim that Creationism is every bit as much science as evolution, and that it deserves representation in science class. Creationism's status as legitimate science is the primary question that this site was created to consider. Just as Creationists would never present religious or Biblical arguments to school boards considering whether to include Creation Science in the curriculum, one should never raise such arguments in the science forums of EvC Forum. To do so is to concede the religious nature of the theory and lose the debate before it is even begun.There are four forums where it would be appropriate to argue the issues from the religious or Biblical perspective:

• [forum=-1]
• [forum=-4]
• [forum=-6]
• [forum=-11]

If you (or anyone) like, you could propose this topic for one of these forums.--Percy

I was only giving the reasons for confining religious and Biblical arguments to certain forums. I had nothing specific from any of your posts in mind when I wrote. I've written much the same thing many times to many people.But the following *is* a good example of what I was talking about: Members on both sides of the debate should leave religious and Biblical issues out of the science forums. If you were drawn into making Biblical defenses because the issue was first broached by others, then remind them that the science forums aren't the proper venue for such arguments. Members should maintain their focus on the evidence supporting their positions.--Percy

The flood is a very common topic in this forum, which is the [forum=-7] forum. While the flood could easily be off-topic in some threads in this forum, that doesn't appear to be the case here, since your view is that the strata under discussion were deposited by the flood.What I said in Message 241 was, "Members on both sides of the debate should leave religious and Biblical issues out of the science forums." Only if you have no scientific evidence or arguments in favor of the flood would you have to avoid arguing for it.--Percy

From Message 259: If you accept the flood because of God and Bible, that's fine and everyone understands that. But this is a science forum, and if you want to argue for the flood from a scientific perspective then you have to focus on evidence and reasoned argumentation.From Message 271: EvC Forum recognizes a fairly traditional definition of science in which evidence is considered to be observations and/or experiments that can be replicated or at least cross-checked. As such, revelation isn't commonly considered scientific evidence. EvC Forum also recognizes that there may be other opinions about the nature of science and evidence, and [forum=-11] is the proper place for such discussions. I'm glad you're not arguing for the Bible in a science thread. About the flood, if you really feel you're not arguing for the flood then at least please understand that this claim probably makes sense to very few people since all your objections to the scientific arguments are flood-based.To everyone: please, no more mention of God and Bible in this thread. Thanks! Sorry I'm posting this as Percy instead of Admin, but in my previous post I didn't want to be heavy-handed, so I posted as Percy. I'd like to continue to keep this low key, and so I'm continuing as Percy, but if I have to further clarify I'll do it as Admin.--Percy