Note: I don't intend posting much to this thread, and I certainly won't be attempting to scientifically refute Faith on the geology issues.
Faith writes:
..., because for conventional science the word of God is subject to science ...
I'll suggest that this is wrong. Conventional science simply deals with observed reality.
Sure, there are some people who attack the Bible, and some of those are scientists. But science, as an institution, is not involved in these individual actions.
Many scientists consider themselves to be studying God's creation, and learning how to interpret what God himself carved into the rock, the mountains, the fossil beds. They see nature itself as the word of God, as written by His own hand.
For myself, I see the Bible as the word of man. It was written by man. Only a relatively small portion claims to speak directly of the words and actions of God, but even in those parts it reads as a narrative written by men. But men are fallible, and some of what was attributed to God in the Bible might be mistaken, much as some people today are mistaken in what they attribute to God.
As I recall from my youth in Australia, and as a member of an evangelical congregation there, people at that time were attempting to reconcile the Biblical account with science. Thus there was day-age theory of the creation. There was the theory that the flood story reported a regional flood (the then known world). I'm not sure where the conflict between religion and science started, but it is my impression that it is a mainly American phenomenon, and that it is certain religion groups who chose to attack science rather than the other way around.
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