Have any Biblical literalists been to the American Southwest?

Faith, I accept evolution on the evidence, but one always has to keep an open mind, in my opinion. But, to be frank, I don't see why theism and evolution could not fit together.After all, nobody really knows for sure about the big question. I'm attracted to the historical argument--now out of favor--that every culture has always believed in some sort of God. To me, that's significant. It either says something about humanity (we are creatures that tend to believe in God) or it says something about the universe (there is a God).

For heaven's sake, if you feel the need to explain all that which I just got through explaining you aren't bothering to read anything I wrote.

But "Was there a flood?" is not a question Faith is asking. She's explicitly stated numerous times that she "knows" there's a floodd. Instead of asking this question, she's looking for evidence and theories to support her flood.The difference between the two is that when Faith encounters evidence or theory that she cannot accommodate within her flood theory, she rejects whether or not she herself can show it to be flawed.So I don't know why you bring up the point. "Was there a flood?" is a scientific question, but Faith's not asking it. Faith doesn't do science. Science is not only working through empirical data. It's also holding conclusions tentatively and being open to having them falsified. That's why Faith is banned from the scientific forums. Her methodology is backwards. She clearly has the ability to discuss empirical data, but she doesn't show any ability or desire to allow data to falsify her theories--in other words, to approach data scientifically.I hope this is a pretty straightforward and clear distinction. Somehow it's been talked about ad nauseum, but maybe it's being heard only through Darwin's telephone or something. I post this because I'm surprised to see Faith complaining about being banned from the science forums, and surprised to see you trying to support her.So let's iron this stuff out, ne?P.S. Excuse my Japanese accent. English may be my biological mother tongue, but Japanese is currently my "I'm living with my step-mom" tongue.

It is based on witness evidence, the very best kind of evidence there is. All the speculations at thousands of years remove cannot be proved, but a witness from the time itself is worth gold. It is your rank prejudice that calls it "unscientific."

If you are going to impute insulting idiotic straw men to me, expect to be called on it.And deerbreh at least had the grace to admit that shearing occurs along fault lines. That is also what happened under the horizontal "V" layer, and that is all the more likely with many more strata having been there at the time.Good night. All for me tonight.

Never would have known. On an English proffiency scale of 1-10, you're about an 8 (I'm like a 6).You're doing great!

A strawman is when I make up a ridiculous arguement just to knock it down. I don't have to make one up, you're presenting one all on your own.

Haha thanks. Now I'm embarrassed to say, though, ... it was kind of a joke. "Kind of" meaning "completely and utterly."You see, I just came back to the US from Japan (stayed in Tokyo for 18 months). My "joke" was supposed to mean (for those who knew I was in Japan) that I'm still studying Japanese, studying hard. In fact, I live with 3 native speakers now. It's good, good for the studying... but you fall into certain tendencies in how you express yourself.I'm a native English speaker yo. Anyway. Back to the scheduled program.

Sorry I missed reading that paragraph but nevertheless my arguments stand. You are wrong about thinking the V layer to the right had to have formed before the fault. It likely did not. It appears that the fault occurred, the V layer was deposited later. Otherwise the V layer above the tilted layers would be tilted also. It isn't. It is nearly horizontal. The left elevation to the right of the fault likely happened after the fault slip as well.

You will grasp at anything won't you? Why would I deny that? Shearing along fault lines is conventional geology; no need to invoke a flood as you seem to think.On edit: I would again point out that geologists can tell the difference between sheared and eroded interfaces even if it is not always apparent on photographs and diagrams. And geologists are also quite sure that upper layers are deposited after the formation of an unconformity, not before.This message has been edited by deerbreh, 09-09-2005 01:53 AM

I was just making the obvious point that such a question is, in fact, scientific. Nosyned says that that question was resolved in the negative 2 centuries ago, which would be circa 1805, and I accept his
conclusion. I don't know myself. I haven't seen the data.That's the way it is on this forum. You have to keep coming back to first principles. That's good in some ways, bad in others.It's good if one wants to keep an element of doubt in one's mind about everything, which I think is intellectually healthy.It's bad if one is trying to get some information on some specific topic, and one keeps getting enterfered with by general questions.Your English is great.

OK, that's what I was remembering about your position. I suppose they could fit together, sure, but if the Bible is the word of God, they don't, and I guess I've made clear where I stand on that. Except that if the Bible IS the word of God, and He gave it to explain what we have no hope of figuring out for sure on our own, then some of us DO really know for sure about the big question. Otherwise I agree, we're pretty much in the dark, some intuiting that there must be a Creator, some sure there can't be, nobody being able to prove any of it. I agree completely that is significant, even crucial. The idea that we "tend to believe" in anything for no good reason has always annoyed me, however, despite the fact that I know we're prone to do some outlandish theorizing. But I tend to have more faith in human intuition and smarts and honesty than some. It is no doubt why I found it easier than some to believe in the simple testimony of the writers of the Bible.But this is off topic, and I'm quitting for the night, so bye for now.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-09-2005 01:45 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 09-09-2005 01:46 AM

Cool. I'm glad to agree with your simple pointAnd re: english... see my previous post to Nuggin. I didn't mean to misrepresent myself...Take it easy RR.RbE: smilies, per RR's request. Note to self: do not post smilies when responding to RR, holmes, parasomnium, possibly Faith.Good night RR.This message has been edited by Ben, Thursday, 2005/09/08 10:58 PM

Perhaps I'm misreading that, but it seems to me that you are saying that the Biblical flood story is an eye witness account. That's a dubious claim. Traditionally, Genesis is presumed to be written by Moses, not by Noah. That would make it a hearsay account, not normally acceptable as evidence. Some (perhaps many) of the people who doubt biblical literalism also doubt whether Noah was even a real person.

Yeah. And get rid of those smiley faces.You have the authority of various illustrious folks:Holmes
Parasomnium(I'm not sure how Faith feels about the smiley faces. But my guess is Faith doesn't use them).