Two Different Stories About the Creation - Faith and Moose only

Proposed as a "Great Debate", perhaps to be opened to general debate later.The following is a variation of Moose message 135, of the YEC vs. EVO presuppositions / methodology topic.To Faith:The essence of your position is that you consider the study of the Bible to be the ultimate authority on how the creation happened, and I consider the study of the creation itself to be the ultimate authority on how the creation happened.Focusing in on geology - Being a quasi-geologist, I essentially think that the story of the creation of the Earth's geology is "written in the rocks". You think it is written in the Bible. I think that you must either think that geologists are incapable of properly "reading the rocks" or that God has presented some grand deception in what he "wrote in the rocks".Why should what has been written in a book, the Bible, trump what has been written in the rocks?MooseNote: I don't particularly like the title I gave this topic ("Two Different Stories About the Creation"), but I am at the moment unable to come up with a better one. I don't want a geology specific title, as I think the discussion may well ultimately go beyond geology. Admin comments/suggestions requested, prior to topic promotion.

You are welcome to take many days to respond to my messages, regardless of the reason. Indeed, I encourage such. I expect that I will not be doing fast response messages.That is an (THE?) advantage of the "Great Debate" format - More thought, less messages, and (hopefully) higher quality messages (and less clutter).No reply to this message called for. Stand by for the real reply to message 3.Moose

You are saying Bible=God. I absolutely contest that. Which of the two (Bible vs. Earth's geology) is the pure creation of God, and which is something that has undergone processing at the hands of man?You have absolute faith in written word, and no faith in what can be seen in the creation itself?We are comparing the content of a book to the content of the creation.MooseFull disclosure: While I do consider myself to be agnostic, in the context of this debate I am some variety of theistic evolutionist.

Technically, you may be correct. Geology is the study of the Earth, just as theology is the study of God. But at the roots of the study of the Earth, is "the geology" of the Earth - The rocks themselves. My bolds. Thank you for that concession. Now I mention the rocks of the Earth again - The products of God's creation, unedited by man. Geology, as in "the study of the Earth", does start with God's revelation, the rocks of the Earth.Returning to something you said in message 3: But God did give us a "manufacturer's manual". The processes of the modern day Earth shows us at least substantial parts of God's ongoing creative process. This is the concept of "unifomitarianism", the modern form being "non-strict uniformitarianism", better termed "actualism". In other words, the modern version of uniformitarianism does recognize that "not of the modern world" catastrophes have happened in the past. But getting far into the concept of uniformitarianism is something for another topic (by the way, one that I have previously started).By studying how geologic processes currently work, we can understand how the geology (rocks) of the Earth came to be created. God did give us "a manual", and the intelligence to use it.Moose

I think your subtitle, "The rocks are mute until we see God through them" is a bit muddled. My guess is that you meant something along the lines of "The rocks are mute until we see them through God". But I actually agree with part of the (as presented) subtitle. My argument is that one of the ways to see God's creation process is "through the rocks". But on the main body of the message. OK - I had to look up the meaning of "inscrutable".Inscrutable Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com: http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozill... But geologists are willing to, and do "take the pains to study them". You are saying "new and greater detailed information can't supplement or supercede old (Biblical) information"? For someone trained in geology, the rocks are neither inscrutable nor hard to read. You may be a "word-understander", but to me the Genesis story contains very little information, and in general doesn't make much sense.On the other hand, "reading the rocks" can yield vast amounts of information. For example, take a piece of granite. Study reveals that it is made up of certain percentages feldspar, quartz, and other minerals. The elemental and even isotopic make up of the minerals can be determined. The orders, temperatures, and time durations of the crystallizations of the various minerals can be determined. The absolute age of some of the minerals crystallizations can be determined. All this and more, from a piece of material the size of your fist.And that's just one type of rock. From a metamorphic rock, the same can be determined. The temperatures and pressures of the metamorphic event can be determined.For sedimentary rocks, the source materials and the processes that those materials went through can be determined. Certainly, any conclusions of a geologic study is open to refinement. The short comment is that there is NO evidence that the processes that are happening now were NOT happening in the past. Mighty big "if" there. How is it that we have had happen a great "Biblical flood", that has left no evidence behind? Some people can "read the creation", others can only "read the limited printed text about the creation". You're saying that "the fall" has left humanity in a state of terminal stupidity?Moose

Will get back to this topic someday, but it may be a week or two, or maybe even next year.Posting this from a friends computer. Mine is more or less operating in the "read only" mode. Major overhaul in progress soon, I hope.Cheers,Moose

I am basically boggled about how to handle this topic. The Bible says essentially nothing about the geology of the Earth, other than that a "great flood" happened. But the geology of the Earth is a vastly complex three dimensional "jigsaw puzzle" of data that can be interpreted by those trained in understanding the processes of rock formation.I'm going to try not to bring in material from other topics, or even from earlier messages of this topic. But one thing you have said elsewhere, is that you think the "great flood" can explain the nature of the Earth's geology. I can only reply to that, "I must suspect that you haven't a clue about the vast complexity of the Earth's geology." I, myself, have only a bare bones understanding, and geology was the area of my college degree.I will quote portions of your most recent message (prior to our chit-chat about how slow I am responding with a real new message). I'm not going to requote my content - Hopefully that won't obscure things to much. The information is there to be seen, even if it is a relatively recent happening that some people, geologists, have learned how to "read the rocks". Just because you can't or won't "read the book that is the Earth", doesn't mean the information isn't there. The Bible, even if it is direct information from God, really says nothing about the nature of the Earth's geology. There is really nothing to supercede. If one is to learn about the nature of the Earth's geology, one must look at the Earth's geology.Well, the remainder of your message seems to be pretty much redoing what was covered above.Well, about three months have passed, and I've finally gotten something posted. No danger of me getting a POTM for this one.Moose

Faith, I have just checked, and you do have posting permissions in the "The Great Debate" forum. I don't know if you are aware of that.Are you interested in pursuing this topic any further? If not, we can close it down. If so, we can leave it open - I'm in no rush to get a reply, so take your time.Moose

I think it is too early to do such. I am considering what my response is going to be, and I do have some specific points in your previous message that I do want to explore.As you probably know, I have gotten myself into another "Great Debate" with Buzsaw (What variety of creationist is Buzsaw? (Minnemooseus and Buzsaw only), in at least generally the same area as this topic.I supply the above link for:1) The long term linking of related topics, for future reference purposes.2) Because anyone interested in this topic might also be interested in that topic. I have also inserted a link to this topic at that topic.Perhaps that other topic is such that it may later be best to terminate it, and bring Buzsaw into this topic.Stand by - There is a reply to your message 17 in the works.Moose