Summations Only

She's a creationist. Creationists can't do honest. It just does not work for them and instead works against them. The common term for an honest creationist is "ex-creationist" and even, solely because of creationism's false theology, "ex-Christian".

I agree.If faith were a true creationist, then she would believe that God actually did create the world. That the true Word of God is His Creation.The Bible was written by Man, transcribed by Man, translated by Man, misinterpreted by Man. It is the Word of Man. Yes, it is what Man has to say about God, but it is still the product of Man. For the Bible to be perfect, Man would have to be infallible. That belief in Human Infallibility is simply the biggest camel of Christianity that I cannot even begin to swallow.If she were a true creationist, she would not insist on placing the Word of Man before the Word of God. The only way she could maintain that position would be to believe that God deliberately created the world to merely appear to be ancient. That had already been tried in 1857 in Phillip Henry Gosse's Omphalos Argument. Instead of being the ultimate defense of the Bible from geology, it proclaimed God to be a Cosmic Liar.Faith needs to stop denying the true Word of God.

Watching Faith at work reminds me of a science fiction novel from the late 1960's, Macroscope. The basic premise was the discovery of a new particle and of interstellar communications using that particle. There was one message, The Message, that would teach the viewer all kinds of advanced technology, but laid atop The Message was another message, The Destroyer, that would destroy the mind of the viewer as soon as he started to understand The Message. The group of protagonists were able to obtain that protected technology by having the least bright among them, Archer, view The Message without understanding it and then he would tell the others who could understand it and make use of it. Thus Archer had to repeatedly walk the very narrow tightrope between watching the Message and understanding it.That is exactly what we see so many creationists doing as they have to learn enough science to try to bolster their claims and arguments while at the same time keep from understanding it since to do so would destroy their faith, as we have seen happen to so many creationists (eg, scienceishonesty, whose topic had spawned this one).Faith admits that she is not here to learn anything. Of course she isn't, because if she were to actually learn something about geology then she would see that her ideas are wrong. And since her theology holds her faith hostage to those ideas, actually learning would amount to spiritual suicide, according to her theology.I'm quite certain that Faith will keep her own faith safe, shielded by her armor of ignorance and her vigilance in maintaining that ignorance. And most creationists will likewise be able to maintain their protective ignorance, but in their case they do so by not even trying to puzzle any of it out. But many creationists will not succeed, especially the ones raised on "creation science", because they will actually believe it and will not know when to look away and when to keep themselves from understanding. The figures we see from the evangelical community itself is that 65% to 80% of those raised in the faith will leave it.So Faith is one of a relatively small segment of the creationist community in that she is trying to think through how the Flood could have done everything she believes that it did and yet have done so through naturalistic processes -- that restriction in itself makes absolutely no sense; in a religion based on miracles, why arbitrarily rule out miracles? In order to make her case, she needs to learn everything she can about geology and the physics involved in geology. But by learning that, she will find that the case she is trying to make is groundless and just plain wrong.She is walking that tightrope between The Message and The Destroyer. I do not at all envy the position she places herself into.

"... our fallible intellects." Remember those words, because they are about to come back to haunt you.You are told to believe. What? What your teachers had taught you. You know, the big people with fallible intellects (no, the haunting hasn't begun yet). But what happens when what you were taught turns out to be wrong? Yeah, right! Fallible humans with fallible intellects having taught a long chain of fallible humans with fallible intellects who must have gotten everything absolutely right. Fallible humans with fallible intellects who taught fallible you with your fallible intellect, who likewise have gotten everything infallibly and absolutely right. That demands human infallibility, which is something that I just cannot believe in.Now, I do realize that your choice to believe those things is a matter of faith and I do recognize the role and value of faith in most matters. But when matters of faith clash headlong with reality and what one believes is demonstrably contrary-to-fact (as your claims about geology are), then I become very concerned with how one deals with that conflict.There is also the question that I had raised before as to what "God's word" necessarily is. I fully realize that we do not agree on this question, but I believe that we can find some kind of common ground.You would contend that "God's word" would be your own particular interpretation of the King James Version of the Bible. Since I cannot believe in human infallibility, I see the ancient writings, their transcriptions, their compilations, their translations (since you also have some language training, you should know that all translations are acts of interpretation), their interpretations, the doctrines based on those interpretations, the understanding of those doctrines, all by fallible humans with fallible intellects for what they are: certainly not the Word of God, but rather a compilation of Man's thoughts regarding God (which can be of great value in and of itself).I am certain that the two of us will forever disagree about the status of the Bible and whether it can truly be regarded as the Word of God. This is a known point of disagreement between us, so now let's look for a point of agreement.

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America On-Line (AOL) was one of the pioneers who brought the Internet to the average user; until then, you pretty much needed to be part of an organization, government or educational or whatever, to be able to get an account. AOL also offered its members the ability to post their own web-sites; that is how I first built my own site. And then one day AOL suddenly went out of the web-hosting business.One highly pertinent site on AOL was posted by George H. Birkett circa 2000. He was a grandfather and a devout Christian. After all our sites were taken down by AOL, I never found his site again, leading me to believe that he never re-posted it. Google'ing his name, I find a number of obituary notices and similar genealogical postings, the most recent of which are from about seven years ago, so I assume that he has since passed on.What is pertinent is what he wrote about The First Testament of God (obviously, broken links removed):

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Do you get the picture? I'm just beginning to. I'm reading from a scripture revealed to me a couple years back, written by God in His own hand. It's all of God's creation and how His creation works and it teaches me more about God than any other source. It needed a name. I called it "The First Testament of God." I just read a new chapter. New for me. It was written long ago. It's titled: "Forever change."

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Blending Faith with Reality
George H. Birkett

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It is for us to discover, to ask questions that defy answers. My mind and your mind are just two of the infinite number of pages that compose The First Testament of God. There are billions of pages written in a language common to all and yet impossible for one human mind, impossible for the collective minds of all of time to absorb them all and it's still being written. The First Testament of God is all of God's creation and it is a work in progress.

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Evolution ??
It is not something to be believed in.

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Compare the scientific method to the first chapters of Genesis as an explanation for the existence of all things. Are these words a gathering and accumulation of evidence? Is there yet more to be gathered and accumulated? Does this (biblical) evidence have a behavior from which we can observe and thereby extrapolate truth? Are they irrefutable and consistent with new things we learn of our world and God's creation? Are "scientific creationists" willing to accept errors and new evidence that compels them to discard old ideas and theories for new knowledge and understanding?

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There's the rub. Attempts to fit new evidence, new knowledge and understanding into these few scriptural passages entails re-writing the whole and only irrefutable words of God. We're in a bind. We 're forced to ignore "The First Testament of God." That, in my perception, means we must ignore our God gifted intellect. That is why we must choose between God and science.

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The contest (creationism vs. evolution) demonstrates just how creationists cannot afford to reject old notions for new knowledge. Unlike the scientific method there is no provision for the failings of men. Such provision would imply a failing of God. And so, we must choose between God and science.

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What are the real reasons for the creation / evolution dispute?

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Yeah, there is one real big, big however. The more we learn the more we marvel at just how wondrous this creation thing is. There is so much to be learned and one of the things we have learned is that it is designed so that accidents WILL happen. Some accidents will work and others won't. Nothing is forever and all things will change and from what we can tell of this "accident" design change will be forever! Forever. It's so incredibly complex and yet in its way it's kind of simple. Now comes the biggest however, the biggest question: Who, What, designed creation to evolve? All the accumulated minds of science in all of accumulated time will NEVER be able to answer that question.

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Now comes another reason for the dispute. Creationists know. . ., they will deny it but somewhere in their gut they know, that they have invested their faith and beliefs more in a finite book and less in an infinite creator God. They know their faith is built on a weak foundation and they are desperate to shore it up. It has to do with a mix mash of complex and often irrational man-made theologies.

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So here, I suggest to those who espouse the six day creation theory that theologies were made by men and creation is the design of God.

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One last reason for the dispute. The nasty one. "I'm right and you're wrong, even if I'm wrong." That is what their heart is saying in the midst of all their arguments. I hear them saying "I'm a true believer and you are not." Yeah, it's a "me is better than thee" kind of ego thing.

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Faith, you are a creationist, are you not? Now, "creationist" does cover a lot of territory; I have read pages by knowledgeable evangelicals who decry how the "creation science" crowd has usurped that title to become YEC. But despite all the nit-picky detailed differences that YECs want to impose, the single definitive characteristic of all creationists is that they believe in Divine Creation; eg, For example, Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, PhD Biology, a foremost opponent of "creation science" and a Catholic (I see your knee jerking!), publicly declares himself a creationist by virtue of the fact that he believes in Divine Creation.Faith, do you truly believe the world (and the universe, but I will allow us to leave that out of it if you wish) is the produce of Divine Creation? That is to say Divine Creation by your god? -- mind you and everybody else, I am assuming that we are talking about YHWH, AKA "The God of the Bible", and not some private little deity that you have devised -- sorry, but one thing I have learned about creationists over the past three decades is to not assume anything about them.Faith, I am an atheist. I am also an agnostic, which is not the same thing. I am agnostic in that I do not believe that fallible human intellect can study nor understand the supernatural, which by definition is beyond our ability to comprehend or even to detect. You may believe otherwise, as I'm sure you do; just mark this up as yet another point where we disagree. My understanding is that agnosticism ("we just do not know for certain") is the only honest position to take with regard to the supernatural, which includes all human dealings with the gods. From honest agnosticism, you can either turn to an atheist position or to a theistic position in which you invent gods in order to deal with all kinds of unknowables. Or you could take the third alternative -- in every dilemma, there is always a third alternative.Despite my own beliefs and yours, we must be able to agree on this one point: if you are a creationist, then you must believe in Divine Creation. Which means that you must believe that the world (and universe) is the way it is because your God had made it so.Do you believe that or do you not? If you do not believe that, then please explain why and explain what you do believe contrary-wise. Yes, I've encountered that: NotW stickers and all that nonsense (lots of money to be made with such paraphernalia for all the "born again" yuppies' SUVs).But where are you to draw the line between the illusions of secular life and hard-core reality? Your fundamental problem is that your pipe-dreams conflict with rock-hard reality. How really should you respond to that? Theology starts out believing in human infallibility, that humans could actually pass on complete and absolute truth. As such, theology has no mechanism built into it to detect and correct for error.Science knows from the start that it is dealing with humans, that humans are fallible, and that error will be present and will insert itself. Science makes a study of error and how to minimize it.On top of all that, the goals are completely different. Here is what I worked out comparing "creation science" with actual science:

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Now, it is quite true that science is a flawed and fallible human endeavor which has made many mistakes. And it is also quite true that scientists are fallible humans and that they have their biases as do all humans. And it is also true that not all scientists are honest and that some have perpetrated hoaxes. And the same is also quite true about creation science. But that does not put scientists and creationists, nor science and "creation science", on an equal footing.

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Although both camps share many of the same human foibles that plague us all and everything that we do, there are still certain fundamental differences between science and creation science and between scientists and creationists on the whole. Fundamental differences that make all the difference in how those two human endeavors approach their research and scholarship, their mistakes, and their hoaxes.

Science / Scientists ...	Creation Science / Creationists ...
What they are trying to do:
1a. The scientist is either trying to make a new discovery or to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous discovery, hypothesis, or theory.	1b. A creationist is normally not trying to make a new discovery, nor to test or find corroborating evidence for a previous claim. As rustyb puts so succintly in his signature, "I already know the Truth." There's little use in trying to discover something new about the "Truth" that you already know a priori, nor is there any use in testing it (which would probably be sacrilegious anyway), nor to try to add to its Completeness. Rather, what a creationist is normally trying to do is to come up with convincing claims and arguments against anything that appears to contradict "the Truth" that they already know. ​
How they measure success:
2a. The success of the scientist's efforts depends directly on the quality of his research and on the validity of the studies that he bases his research on. Therefore, a scientist is motivated to verify his sources and to maintain high standards of scholarship.	2b. It doesn't matter whether that creationist had done a proper job of researching the claim, or had even researched it at all (though it does help to make it more convincing if there's something in the bibliography, even if that source had never actually been looked at -- remember that NASA document?). It doesn't matter if the claim or argument is valid, just that it sounds convincing; after all, the creationist already "knows" that it must be true.
Scholarship
3a. Since scientists depend so much on the validity and quality of the work of other scientists, the scientific community is motivated to police itself against shoddy or falacious research.	3b. When you research some other creationist's claim, you're not depending on that claim being true or valid; you're only depending on that claim sounding convincing.
How they handle dishonesty:
4a. Thus, a scientist who is discovered to be performing substandard or dishonest work loses his credibility and his standing in the scientific community.	4b. And if a claim is discovered to be false or a creationist is discovered to practice questionable methods, none of that matters, just so long as they still sound convincing. A creationist is far more likely to face censure for theological lapses than for shoddy or questionable scholarship.
ditto
5a.	5b. Of course, if a claim starts drawing too much negative publicity, then it is no longer convincing and must be dropped, as quietly as possible, until everybody has forgotten about it, whereupon it can be resurrected and received as a "new" claim.
How they handle mistakes:
6a. Mistakes and hoaxes will still happen in science, but the near-constant scrutiny and testing will uncover them.	6b. Mistakes and hoaxes will also happen in creation science, but in this case there is no mechanism in place to uncover them; indeed, there is much resistence to uncovering creationist mistakes and hoaxes.

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Bottom line: science recognizes the existence of error and the sources of error and seeks actively to minimize error. Theology and "creation science" denies the existence of error (at least in its own writings) and does nothing to correct for it. the Word of God is literally written into the rocks themselves! And yet you will place your own puny fallible intellect over that of God Himself? Just who do you think you are? Greater than God? What "weapons"? Ignorance? Denial? Delusion? Lies? Deception?And how many have become atheists because of such weapons which are more worthy of being the tools of Satan than of YHWH? Now, I know that I have pointed at least one creationist to the Answers in Genesis multi-part interview with Dr. Kurt Wise. Was that you?Dr. Kurt Wise, PhD Geology with studies in paleontology under Stephen J. Gould. Early on, he gained a reputation as being one of the very few honest creationists that could be found. Creationists would bring their "evidences" to him and he would honestly test them and report them for what they actually were, which in each case refuted what the creationists wanted to claim them to be. At a notable International Conference on Creationism, his speech took creationists of all fields to task for not having developed anything even approaching a cohesive and comprehensive creation model -- most such work had been done by geology, but it was still woefully inadequate.How honest is he still? Last I heard more than a decade ago, he was working with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Send a virgin to work in a brothel for a decade and see how pure she still is. I'm not saying that I know how honest he still is, but I cannot be very optimistic.The incident that Faith refers to is one day when Kurt Wise took scissors to his Bible. With his knowledge of the actual evidence and of his theology's teachings, he cut out of the Bible everything that his theology taught him he had to reject in the light of the evidence. That left his Bible in tatters. In the end, while fully acknowledging how the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolution and an old earth, he sided with his theology.By bringing him up, it appears that Faith wants to appear to don the sheepskin of Dr. Kurt Wise, but she does so falsely. Dr. Kurt Wise fully recognized the vast body of evidence against his position and he understood it completely, whereas Faith still ignorantly denies and ignores the evidence. Faith, you are no Kurt Wise, so please to not mention his name in vain.Edited by dwise1, : slight clean-up in aisle 10

That was an example of my having learned something from on-line discussions. I first started studying "creation science" in 1981 and first started engaging in on-line discussions around in 1987 on CompuServe. Then some time in the mid- to late-90's I spent some time on a Yahoo groups forum which went way south when the last non-creationist moderator left and draconian rule kicked in -- all it took to get suspended was to ask a creationist to support a claim.When I first got started, I assumed that they just didn't know that their claims were wrong, so I tried to explain the truth to them. I certainly was not prepared for the viciously hostile responses I got. It seemed that the best guarantee to get a creationist mad was to take his claim seriously and try to discuss it with him.Then I became enlightened in that Yahoo groups forum (pre-creationist take-over). A creationist regular there used that tired old sea-salt argument claiming that that showed that the earth wasn't any older than millions of years. I pointed out two things: 1) that claim is wrong and here are the reasons why, and 2) the time frame he wanted was about 10,000 years so claiming millions of years didn't make any sense. He had to concede the reason why his claim was wrong, but he held onto those millions of years firmly because "at least it's not BILLIONS of years like science says!" That told me that they don't have any actual model that they're developing, but rather all they want to do is to refute what science says. Science is trying to build a comprehensive model to explain the world and universe and so has to take all the evidence into account, whereas "creation science" just wants to negate what science has found and so it can get away with ignoring most of the evidence and even with using claims and arguments that conflict with each other. That got me thinking about the fundamental differences between scientists and creationists, which led to a forum post which I later converted to that table.I had also asked him why he had to resort to such lame and unconvincing arguments, to which he replied, "The only reason you don't find it convincing is because you're not convinced already." Another light bulb switched on. I could never understand how they could rely so freely on lies and deception, but now it had become clear to me. Their goal is to convince people, both the public (for political support), intended targets of proselytizing, and themselves (perhaps the most important for them). They couldn't care less whether a claim were true or not, just so long as it sounded convincing, the more convincing sounding the better.And as for that creationist having conceded that his claim was not true, a couple months later I spotted him feeding the same false claim to a new-comer. Since he knew that claim to be false and had even admitted that it was false, he was deliberately lying to that new-comer. I called him on it in the open forum and he skittered away faster than a cockroach when you turn the lights on. OK, I realize that I should not have made that comparison. It's too insulting to cockroaches.Though Faith seems to be a bit different from most of the creationists I have encountered over the years. She at least puts on some appearance of trying to discuss her claims. At least better than trying to chase us away with extreme nastiness which would be typical.

My understanding of Dr. Steven A. Austin is that he was hired by the ICR to earn a PhD Geology from an accredited university. As they paid his way through school, he wrote articles for them under his pseudonym, Stuart E. Nevins, who was identified as a graduate student in geology. He claimed that he used a pseudonym to avoid prejudicial treatment. Certainly, he would have attracted some very long discussions, but then Dr. Kurt Wise, PhD Geology, studied openly as a YEC and even studied under Steven J. Gould, so playing the prejudice card seems unwarranted.Now, there isn't anything wrong that the ICR paid Austin to earn his degree and that Austin published under a pseudonym. The first thing wrong was the ICR's motivation, which was to be able to use that degree to push their nonsense. They had had their noses bloodied too many times over their repeated use of paper mill degrees and I guess that they just couldn't find any real practicing geologists who would work with them -- indeed, when Glenn R. Morton and several other ICR-trained geologists went to work in the field for oil exploration companies, they all suffered sever crises of faith when they had to face and work with rock-hard geological evidence that the ICR had told them did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning; Morton himself was driven to the verge of atheism.From the start, Austin as Nevins displayed his willingness to lie for his masters. As a graduate he wrote things in his articles that any first-year undergraduate would have known to be false. And since he graduated, he has used his knowledge to collect just the right samples that would yield bad dates so that he can "prove" the entire method to be wrong.

Basic to your groundless assumptions is the magical one that all geological processes were somehow magically suspended while those layers upon layers were laid down. Please explain how that could have happened, that only certain continuous natural processes would have arbitrarily been suspended for extended periods of time. And even more importantly, why do you insist that such a thing had happened? Your assumptions truly make no sense whatsoever.You may remember hearing mention of ex-YEC Glenn R. Morton, a working geologist with field experience in oil exploration. Both he and his fellow ICR-trained YEC geologists whom he had hired on in that work were completely unprepared to face on a daily basis the rock-hard geological facts that the ICR (and all of YEC "geology") had taught him did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. They all suffered crises of faith and Morton himself was driving solely by young-earth creationism's theology to the verge of atheism over a ten-year period ... until at the last moment he was able to arrive at a scientifically accurate harmonization, albeit one which most creationists would reject out-of-hand, I'm sure.What had really caused problems for Morton was when he started working with seismic data. Using sonar technology, we can see what lies beneath the surface of the earth. In 1998, he wrote the web page, Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look, one section of which, Buried River Channel, discusses some of that seismic data. Morton has taken his pages down; as I understand the situation, he felt that atheists were using them to attack religion. Unfortunate as that is, others have reposted some of his pages. Here is one such reposting of Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look: http://glennmortonspages.wikispaces.com/...ts.+A+Second+Look At the top, please note the links to the "controversy" regarding Morton's pages.About a third of the way down the page, you will find the section, Buried River Channel:

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Buried River Channel

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Three dimensional seismic data has been utilized in the past few years in the search for oil. When displayed along a reflector, interesting geologic features are found buried deeply in the earth. Below is a river channel which is buried at a depth of 1670 feet deep under the Texas prairie in Baylor Co. Texas. If all the geologic strata were deposited in a global flood , then this can not be a preflood river channel since there are about 5,000 feet of other flood sediments underneath this river. The white is a limestone in which the river eroded its channel (dark). Oil wells drilled outside of the channel find limestone at this level, but wells drilled into the channel fail to find any limestone here but instead find the sands and shales deposited by the river. The erosion of the limestone requires a lot more time than the young earthers will allow. ( The original can be seen in AAPG Explorer, June 1993, p. 14)

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Here is my attempt to display that image here: OK, you'll have to go to that page to see it; I'm certain that you, being dedicated to ignorance, will not, but others will.A meandering river channel eroded into limestone. We all know that cutting a meandering river channel takes a lot of time and slow-flowing water; we learned about those processes in high school or early in college, just to show how basic that knowledge is. But even if you want to try to challenge how long it takes to cut a meandering river channel, this does still reveal your basic assumption of no erosion until all the layers had been laid down to be completely wrong. And this one meandering river channel eroded into limestone is only one of many all over the world, though admittedly others may well have eroded into rock other than limestone.Faith, yet again, please please please learn something about geology! Yes, I do understand that due to health and mobility issues you are not able to go trudging out into the field yourself to look at the geology yourself first-hand. For the questions you sent me I honestly and sincerely realized that you should talk with an actual geologist for answers, but your response was to start screaming at me hysterically. And the more I repeated my advice the worse your hysteria became.But my advice is still sound. You are pretty much restricted to using the Internet for your research. Stop listening to the creationists; they will only lie to you. Ask geologists. Or perhaps more aptly, study geology. I remember more than a few creationists over these past three decades absolutely refusing to learn what evolution really teaches, because they believed that in order to do so they would have to start out by "believing in" evolution. Bullshit! They were falsely applying the goals of religious "education" to science education. The goals of religious "education" is to indoctrinate the student, to tell the student what he must believe. The goal of science education is that the students understand the concepts, and explicitly not to dictate belief in those ideas -- refer to various science education standards that have been published, such as California's (my link appears to now be broken) and its Anti-Dogmatism Statement reprinted by the NCSE at http://ncse.com/...a/voices/california-state-board-education. For another real-life example of indoctrination vs. learning-about, please consider that while on active duty, the USAF taught me Marxism. Would you really think that the US Air Force wanted to turn me into a Marxist? Or rather, wouldn't the goal have been one of learning about my enemy? As was taught by General Sun Tzu so many centuries ago (Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy)):

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31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."

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Faith, you do not know your enemy (science). And far worse, you do not know yourself. You are ignorant of both your enemy and of yourself.Faith, from the very beginning (I first started studying "creation science" in 1981 and discussing it on-line circa 1987) I have always held the position that I do not care whether you or any other creationist are opposed to evolution. Go right ahead and oppose evolution all you want to. All that I insist upon is that you do so honestly and truthfully! Except for extremely rare occasions, I have always been disappointed. And in most of those rare exceptions, those rare honest creationists ended up switching sides. Like scienceishonesty, whose return had triggered your latest spurt of participation here.Most of "creation science" consists of attacks against strawman arguments, against gross misunderstanding of evolution and of all the other sciences. Creationists fight mightily, but it's always shadow-boxing and never against the actual opponent. If a creationist really and truly wants to fight against evolution and an Old Earth, then he has to stop shadow-boxing and actually face the opponent that he has named.This means that creationists who truly want to take up the fight have a very strong vested interest in learning everything they can about evolution! So that they can address the actually weaknesses and problems with the theories instead of mere strawmen. And YECs concentrating on old-earth vs young-earth need to learn everything they can about the sciences involved in old-earth views, including geology and physics.So then, Faith. Are you just going to continue to put on a transparent show and thoroughly discredit Christianity? Or are you actually going to take on your named opponent and try to do some actual good?Edited by Admin, : Fix image.

Yes, you create a pathetic strawman, term taken quite literally from a stage dummy made out of clothing stuffed with straw so that the "big brave heroes/tough guys" in the play could make a big grand show of beating him up and throwing him all around the stage. Though from what I've read in medieval and renaissance times that dummy would have been filled with blood and animal entrails, strictly for show, mind you.You still trot that piece of tripe before us: And yet the evidence is still right there in front of your eyes (assuming that you have not yet again hidden them from the truth!). A meandering river channel eroded into limestone. One of so very many. Every single one prominently extending its middle finger at your sanctimonious proclamation of " layers upon layers upon layers, with NO cutting or other disturbance". And, of course, you chose to completely ignore the very existence of vast amounts of physical evidence that shows that you are wrong!So what if you are wrong? I've been wrong, many times! Learning that you are wrong about something is actually a good thing. That means that you can learn from your mistake. That you can correct some idea that you were wrong about. That you can learn! I'm sorry, but a mind that refuses to learn is already dead. Why anybody would fervently want such a death is quite literally beyond my ability to understand.But still, the evidence yet again is working against you. You cannot imagine that any kind of erosion could have occurred to the various layers of strata. And yet empirical seismic data definitely show the existence of erosional markings in the buried strata, those markings being meandering river channels eroded into pre-existing layers, eg limestone. They exist! You cannot magically wish them away! They exist! As much as you want to ignore their existence, we will not allow you to ignore them! You want to lie to us? That is your choice, but our choice is to insist upon the truth.Here's another fairy tale from "creation science" land. A local creationist activist (and the most outrageous liar I have encountered) repeated a ridiculous claim given to him by a recent speaker at one of his meetings. This claim was that the entire issue about the depletion of the ozone layer was a complete fabrication based solely on a laboratory experiment and was a prime example of "bad science". This activist listed a number of questions that he then took to the "experts", sales representatives for air conditioning companies (I am speaking the complete and absolute Truth here!). None of them could explain how a very heavy refrigerant molecule could make its way into the upper atmosphere, so as far as he was concerned he had proven his point.I did a quick Google search and within 15 minutes I found the FAQs pages of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the very people who actually work with this kind of stuff!). Every single "unanswerable question" that this guy had listed was addressed there. Furthermore, NOAA reported the results of repeated direct and empirical measurements they had made of the earth's atmosphere, which showed that those refrigerant molecules were most definitely present in the upper atmosphere. His response was to run away.Later, I found that he was still posting that ozone-layer claim in its original form. After several heated emails over the matter, he finally relented and took that page down, after 13 years! What was his strongest argument? Because he himself could not understand how heavy molecules could have distributed themselves into the upper atmosphere, then it could not possibly have happened Think about that. He could not figure it out, so it could not possibly have happened! Do you remember when some others asked you, Faith, when you had become God? This is the exact same situation, where the creationist has imagined himself to be omniscient.This guy is a mechanical engineer. Furthermore, he is a state licensed mechanical engineer, which does really mean something, because that means that he is really supposed to know his stuff! Which includes all kind of physics. You want to talk about good expert witnesses? Those are the MEs. They really need to know their physics. I knew another ME who did a lot of work as an expert witness in court. From the skid-mark evidence he could determine who was travelling how fast in what directions, etc, at the time of the accident. MEs really have to know their physics.So here's this creationist ME who cannot even begin to imagine how a heavy molecule could have made its way up into the atmosphere. Every ME has to know about most all of physics, especially a licensed ME. A very well-known part of physics is fluid dynamics. Gee, imagine a knowledgeable ME who is totally ignorant of fluid dynamics. The exact-same fluid dynamics that will cause large particles, even boulders, to be carried into sediments indicative of rapid flooding.My main point with this creationist ME is that his ultimate argument was that he personally could not understand how those heavy refrigerant molecules could have made their way into the upper atmosphere, therefore such a thing was completely and totally impossible, even though they have been directly and empirically detected. He was totally and obviously wrong and for good reason.How does this pertain to you? You are exactly like that creationist ME, though I consider you to be much more personally honest than he is. You cannot understand why the world is like it is, but it still is that way. Your theology cannot accept the world being the way that it actually is. I'm truly sorry, but I cannot do anything about a false theology. PSI thought about it shortly, but then decided why not?You're a creationist. Who created the world? The universe too, but I'll settle for the world for right now.Have you come up with your answer yet? I'm quite sure you do not want to say it, but it's "The Creator". Right?Faith, I have a really big problem with "creation science". And I mean besides it's having been created from the very start as a lie and deception and all. My really big problem with it is the false theology that it drags in with it. That's the false theology that if the world is really how we find it to be, then Scripture is meaningless and God doesn't exist. Now, I'm just fine with that personally, but I lived through the 1970's "Jesus Freak Movement", so I also know something about how those people think and what they value. That makes that "creation science" theology one of the stupidest and most self-destructive things that anyone could have ever imagined!Regardless of any theological preconceptions, the way in which the Creator has spoken to us should be through The Creation. What does It say? What does the evidence say? And, no, you are not allowed to ignore any of that evidence, not one single word!Edited by dwise1, : PS

So much to respond to. And, of course as you have yourself admitted, you would only ignore the pearls that I cast before you, the swine (it's your metaphor, you do realize). That kind of attitude just boggles the mind of normal thinking people.If you have no idea what you are talking about, isn't that the time to just simply shut up? If you have nothing to contribute, then why insist on sharing your uninformed random ... sorry, but it's very hard to call them "thoughts". Do you remember Larry Hagman's anti-smoking PSA in which he said that his mama had always taught him that if he can't same something nice about something then don't say anything, whereupon he stopped talking about tobacco? If you don't know anything about the subject matter under discussion, then you don't have anything to say about it. Duh?But if you want to discuss something, then it is your responsibility to come into that discussion knowing as much as you can learn about it. To instead insist upon remaining stubbornly ignorant of the subject matter is not only unconsconable but also just plain stupid. I remember all too well from two years ago when you started screaming hysterically against the very thought of needing to learn something about geology, let alone the very suggestion that you should talk to a geologist about the details of the geological evidence.In short, when you want to discuss something, you really do need to know something about it, so insisting on remaining ignorant of it is very counter-productive and, again, just plain stupid.And you don't even need "become an expert in all the sciences". What a silly idea! You only need to learn the basics -- and hopefully a bit more -- about the particular subject matter that you are attempting to discuss. Though, certainly, nothing in science lies in isolation (unlike in theology, nicht wahr?), so being able to work with how sediment deposits does necessarily require some knowledge of physics. Sorry, but in reality (you know, that other realm you keep trying to deny) everything is interrelated, unlike how everything exists in isolation in your theology-fueled universe.If you want to discuss depositation, then you need to understand how depositation happens. That involves a certain amount of physics (sorry, but reality is reality, after all; nothing I can do about that). If there is something about depositation that you don't know, then you need to learn about it. It is completely useless and counterproductive to simply ignore it or insist that it just does not exist. Sorry, but reality trumps delusion and self-deception every time.In short, when something is brought up about depositation that you don't understand or agree with, then what should your response be? To immediately declare it wrong without even knowing anything about it? No! Instead you should ask about the physical evidence. When they talk about the details in the layers of rock, you need to ask about those details, not insist that they only observe the rocks from an extreme distance (you did insist on that).The question of lithification has also been raised and that is a question that you have indicated that you want to discuss. Shouldn't you want to know something about the processes that are needed for lithification?Nobody would ever expect you to be an expert on the subjects being discussed. But at the very least we expect you to know something about what you are saying.Is that really too much to expect of you?

You persist in ignoring JonF's references to Matthew 7:3. Or perhaps you simply haven't read the Bible yet:

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Matthew 7:3-5 (KJV)

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3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

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4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

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5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

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Faith, Jesus says that you are a hypocrite. Some day, you should try reading the Bible to see what Jesus thought of hypocrites.Faith, you one of the most flagrantly hateful and abusive Christians I have encountered since 1970. One of the most powerful arguments against Christianity, as per Matthew 7:20.Oh yeah, you probably don't know that one either:

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Matthew 7 15:20 (KJV)

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15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

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16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

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17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

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18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

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19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

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20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

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You are yet more of the evil fruit that the tree of your theology brings forth, thus revealing that theology to be false as per the Matthew 7:20 Test.I would assume that anti-religion atheist groups have awards for those who do the most to contribute to the growth and spread of atheism. If we locate one, we'll submit your name for consideration. Your untiring efforts to discredit Christianity should not go unrewarded.

Predictable Faith. Doesn't actually care what Jesus or the Bible actually said. Just believes in her own infallibility. Makes me so glad that I'm saved.You really are doing the anti-religion factions of atheism a great service.

Here is her answer posted later that same day (Message 1509): No, she does not accept the processes of lithification, but rather insists on her "Mudpie Model". Yet again, she is ignoring the facts and working hard to avoid learning anything that's inconvenient.At least the rest of us and the lurkers for many years to come have and will have learned.

What happens when you add water back?Submerge dried clay into a bucket of water and it returns to being wet clay again. It returns to being what it was originally. Drying it did not change it.Submerge a dried mudpie into a bucket of water and it returns to being wet mud again. It returns to being what it was originally. Drying it did not change it.Submerge a sedimentary rock into a bucket of water and ... it becomes a wet rock. It does not revert to being the original sedimentary material. That original sedimentary material had lithified, had become rock! It was changed by the processes of lithification.We've described the processes of lithification, which you insist on ignoring. Even if you were to subject a mudpie to compaction -- presses are very common and can be constructed using a car jack --, it will still be dried mud, not sedimentary rock, and when placed in a bucket of water and allowed to soak it will revert to being wet mud.You ideas about lithification do not hold water. How stupid!

God's Word is written in the rocks. You persistently deny God's Word.The Bible is only a book.