****GREAT DEBATE TOPIC - MESSAGES BY FAITH AND MINNEMOOSEUS ONLY****
============================================================
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 have no idea why the complexity of the Earth's geology should preclude the possibility of a worldwide flood.
I will quote portions of your most recent message.
Yes, but my point was that modern geology is a very new thing, and if you are going to say that the rocks reveal the mind of God you have to account for the fact that for the vast majority of human history they didn't reveal one explanatory thing to humanity, who remained deaf and blind to any supposed message in the rocks. Who do the rocks speak to? Only a very few very recent scientists? How can that be said to be any kind of communication from God to humanity?
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.
I'm sure the "information" is always wherever, but that doesn't mean that anybody is ever going to be able to "read" it. If a modern electronic gadget fell into the hands of an illiterate tribe on a remote island, what are the chances they'd ever figure it out? But as you say, it's full of "information" about itself. In principle it's understandable. What's the point of emphasizing this? It doesn't say anything about how much geologists really know about the rocks and the Earth, how much they have yet to learn, etc. It's not about the rocks, it's about human abilities, and a human-collected reservoir of knowledge, and humans aren't God.
Maybe you need to drop all this stuff about "the book that is the Earth" and the "mind of God as seen in the Rocks" anyway, as that tends to take us off into mystical territory that's probably irrelevant to what you really want to say.
If all you are saying is that the Bible doesn't talk about geology and the rocks do, there's no argument (even though talking rocks is still a bit too mystopoetical for purposes of this discussion). Then it doesn't matter how long human beings have had any ability at all to read the rocks, as it were, it is certainly true that there is more "information" about the rocks in the rocks than in the Bible. Very true. Nevertheless, that information is not readable in itself, it requires a lot of study, and it is read by fallible creatures, and the science that is trying to learn its language it is open to correction. Geology is the knowledge, not the rocks, and geology is fallible because it's a human creation. (Again, we really need to drop all this poetical hoo ha. Rocks don't talk and are not readable in any sense comparable to books.)
If the Bible, regarded of course as the word of the infallible God, had said absolutely nothing at all about geology, there would be nothing to argue about, but since the Bible says there was a worldwide Flood not too many millennia ago, and geology, which is nothing but the fallible studies of rocks by fallible minds, has since come along and had the unmitigated chutzpah to declare it couldn't have happened, we are therefore in this argument.
But this is only going to get us back into other arguments. Such as: just in logical terms Geology cannot possibly say the flood did not happen, since you cannot prove a negative like that. Second, EVERYTHING that is postulated about the history of the earth cannot be positively proved. History simply is not like physics or chemistry in which what you observe in the present may be repeatable thousands or millions of times, and demonstrates the working out of laws about the constant predictability of phenomena, which over the years have been discovered or formulated, however that should best be put, and continue to be discovered or formulated. Material bodies always fall down etc. Atoms obey laws that are reliable and testable. On the other hand, history is the record of a series of one-time events, and in the case of the history of geology the record of that history is a bunch of illiterate rocks. You can know a lot about the composion of the rocks or the terrain etc etc., but its history is going to be forever a matter of plausibilities and never anything more certain that that. Etc. etc. etc.
Edit: Just for kicks, to paraphrase JAR:
quote:
quote:
If the Flood happened, then the Flood happened regardless of any evidence that the Flood did not happen.
If the Flood didn't happen, then it did not happen regardless of any evidence it did happen.
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.
The thing is, if it contradicts the infallible word of God, it's FALLIBLE Geology that has to rethink itself, not the INFALLIBLE word of God.
Well, the remainder of your message seems to be pretty much redoing what was covered above.
OK.
I don't know if there is any future for this thread. Do you want to open it up to others, as you originally suggested in the OP is a possibility?
==========================================================
****GREAT DEBATE TOPIC - MESSAGES BY FAITH AND MINNEMOOSEUS ONLY****
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : Fiddling around for the sake of clarity, assuming it will be a while before Moose gets back to it anyway.
™ Version 4.2