Thanks! It seems to me that the debate comes into play when YEC try to explain the Grand Canyon in terms of Noah's flood. I wonder, as a student of the Bible myself, if the debate is ultimately pointless. The Bible is perfectly consistent with an old earth, and has always been, especially geologically speaking. Even Bible Literalists (a minority) have taken that position since the turn of century (uh... the one before last!...man I'm gettin' old) or even earlier. Seems to me, considering the findings of science so far, that appears to be the correct way to interpret it. I've always thought so, myself, just from the text, but science also seems to bear that out.
There's still plenty to debate about of course. lol Certainly there is a debate about how long human beings have been around, or Noah's flood, etc... But from a Biblical standpoint, the one thing that it WOULD claim is that at some point before human beings existed, and later with Noah, the Grand Canyon would be under water. There may have been other times in the ancient past, well, obviously there must have been. Still, none of those instances are required to cut the Grand Canyon out of the rock if the earth has been around for 5 billion years. And Noah's flood would have been extremely brief anyway, and would have occurred after the canyon was formed to a great extent.
So I guess my point is, I can, from my perspective as a student of the Bible, easily and literally fit what I'm hearing about the Grand Canyon into the Bible account. There are other issues that I might debate, but not the Grand Canyon. Occasionally, what we are debating isn't necessarily what the Bible says, but what people claim the Bible says. And occasionally the people are wrong on both counts. Having said all that, we're all still learning.
This message has been edited by adrenalinejunkie, 06-22-2005 02:05 AM
This message has been edited by adrenalinejunkie, 06-22-2005 02:06 AM