Objections to Evo-Timeframe Deposition of Strata

Faith in another thread makes the assertion that the modern geologic concept of the deposition of strata makes no sense:

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But the idea that the strata could have built up over billions of years is ridiculous on the face of it. A few feet of perfectly horizontal evenly deposited sediments is supposed to have occurred over a few million years? What, at a rate of a millimeter a century? No rain, no wind, no flooding, no erosion, no earthquakes, no disturbances? Over huge swaths of planet earth? In all the mountains that were pushed up after it formed, in all the deserts, everywhere one looks? Then precisely sharply demarcated from another similar formation of a different kind of material equally homogeneous and neatly laid down bit by tiny bit for another umpteen million years with another neat horizontal demarcation and so on and so forth and that's taken as real?

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I don't understand their objections, for two reasons:1) The strata do show indications of all of the above processes occuring, and yet, there they are. And of course, the strata are neither perfectly homogenous, nor perfectly horizontal. Nor is the column the exact same over all of Planet Earth. So clearly a number of her objections stem from the fact that she clearly doesn't know what the geologic column is.2) It's your assertion that flooding, among other things, would have prevented strata from forming; your alternate model, therefore, is that the geologic strata were laid down... by a flood? Did that make sense to you when you came up with it?Like I said, I don't understand these objections. I hope Faith will join us here to elaborate on them. The only things that seem ridiculous on the face of it, to me, are her ill-conceived objections.

They aren't neat, though. That's what I'm telling you. They're eroded, they're watermarked, they're twisted and shattered by earhtquakes - they're all the things you say they should be. So what's the objection, exactly? Why? They might mix around the sediments before they became stone, but once a sediment was buried under other sediment, what process would prevent its solidification?For that matter, let me correct you on something. Most of the sediments we're talking about aren't billions of years old. The vast majority of the sediments, though, bear no signs of catastrophic deposition. And moreover, many of them bear marks that can only occur at the surface of a body of water, not underneath it - wave marks, wind erosion, etc. And we find them that way buried, so clearly those marks do not entirely postdate their deposition.Of course, the immediate objection to your argument is that the waters of a worldwide flood would have nowhere to drain to. So help me out, if you really have something here. But the fact that you just posited that a worldwide flood could simply "drain away" doesn't instill me with confidence that I'm talking to someone actually willing to think things through.

Uh, I don't think anyone proposed that flooding never happens anywhere. But the idea that there was a worldwide flood is untenable on the face of it.And you never responded to the inherent contradiction of asserting that floods would destroy the geologic column and then asserting that the geologic column is the result of a flood.

But we have contemplated it, as have others. For about a hundred years.How come you're the only one that sees it as "obvious"? That doesn't give you pause, maybe?

Look, I've seen the layers in the places you mention; I've seen plenty of layers here in Missouri because this area (I believe) used to be under an enormous ancient sea.The layers aren't straight or neat. No neater than a flat field or a lakebed.I just don't understand what processes you believe would utterly prevent deposition. Even eroded sediments have to end up somewhere. That stuff has to deposit somewhere.

Dupe deleted.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-17-2005 16:25 AM

One part of one layer of the column was proposed to form in water; not the whole thing. How can evidence of a local flood be evidence of a worldwide flood, especially when such a flood is impossible; not to mention, contradicted by evidence?Is that what you're saying? That because it flooded somewhere, it must have flooded everywhere at once? How does that make sense to you? How so? Are you proposing that the miles of sediment represented in the geologic column would have simply been suspended in the air and water for all those millions of years? Does that really make sense to you? That a physical process could prevent deposition, forever? No evolutionist is proposing that the whole column formed in water.

Blew it to where? And why wouldn't it deposit there? Washed it to where? And why wouldn't it deposit there? Like we keep saying, they're not neat; they're eroded and cracked and broken and bent. They show the exact signs of what you say must happen.What planet do you live on, exactly? Where wind and rain tear up the soil every hour? Do they have plants where you live? Do they grow things, like food? How do you suppose that happens if the soil is getting blown all over the place like you say?Do they have lakes where you are? You know, bodies of water that aren't moving? What do you suppose is happening to the soil that washes into them? Or the lakebeds under them?Don't you think there's any place on Earth that might be still for a few years? Or that might get so blown over with sand or soil that sediments underneath that blowover might be protected?Did you notice that there's still sand in the Sahara? How can that be with all this blowing around you're so certain happens? Which is a really funny thing to say, since we observe it happening.

No, all it takes is one irrefutable counterexample to disprove a theory. We have thousands of such examples for the Flood model.

No, it isn't. Evidence of water in once place at one time is not evidence of water in all places at the same time.

It's consistent with everything; hence, useless. It's consistent with a theory that we know can't be true, so what's the point of pointing it out? "Evidence for the geologic column"? No, the "evidence" for the geologic column is that I can drive a mile from my apartment and see part of it. The column is there, no question. Which, of course, we do. The sediments themselves explain how they got there, if you have the wit to see.

Oh? Is that why it's impossible to grow food on planet Earth? Because the wind keeps blowing the soil all around?

It doesn't take nearly that long to form the sediments. And after they become stone, and are buried, they're resistant to the effects you mention.There's all manner of places on Earth where sediments might deposit without the risk of being blown or washed away. Like here:Or here:Or here:Somehow, despite your claims that the atmosphere keeps sediments from settling, we observe them settling just find almost everywhere in the world. And we aren't choked to death by all the sediment you claim must be in the atmosphere. Look, buddy, I'm the one looking around at a world full of settling sediments; you're the one so certain that you can't keep dirt in any one place for any length of time. But somehow we grow plants just fine, and there's hundreds of feet of sedimentary layers underneath our feet. You're the one who thinks an impossible flood somehow sorted fossils by, among other things, complexity of shell suture, a property of mollusks that has no hydrodynamic or mechanical consequence. Why would I have to start over? The solidifed sediments don't go anywhere, come hell or high water. Do you honestly think we're proposing that mud and dust sit in the same place for all of a billion years? before they solidify? Where on Earth did you get such an idea?

Where else would they be? Think it through.

Why, convincing you, of course. Or anybody else who might be reading this. People need to know that the Flood is nonsense. Anyway nobody's twisting your arm to make you post here, so if it's such a burden, why do you keep doing it? You don't know anything about me, or about my thought processes. If you did you would know that I used to be a creationist, just like you. Believed in the Flood, and everything.So I had exactly the opposite preconceptions that you say I did. But I was convinced by the evidence. Just because you're not up to the challenge of convincing me; just because your arguments are inept and poorly-reasoned, doesn't mean that I couldn't be convinced of the validity of the Flood argument. Sorry, but that's what it means to be arguing for an erroneous position. That disadvantage you percieve is the fact that we have evidence for our side, and you have only ignorance. Except for the fact that its contradicted by all that evidence, yeah, I suppose it has a sinister simplicity. I wouldn't call that "elegance." It's about as elegant as a shotgun blast to the abdomen. Don't you get tired of saying the same wrong thing over and over again? Look, I can go down the road and see the sediments; they weather the wind and the rain just fine. No disruptions whatsoever. They've been there, exposed, since they blasted through a hill to lay the highway like 50 years ago. That is exactly what we see in the strata. It doesn't take a billion years for them to turn to stone, and once they do, they don't get disrupted. How come I keep having to repeat that?