Growing the Geologic Column

Where you stand determines what you see and what you do not see; it determines also the angle you see it from; a change in where you stand changes everything.Steve De Shazer

Of Faith, Faith, Faith. How quickly you forget.All the 22-ish tuffs I've documented are extrusive. And you acknowledged that: {emphasis added}And your theory must address the rocks in the ground, because A) your cockamamie made up geological column is irrelevant to the real world; the real world is the context here and B) you acknowledged that fact also: So get crackin' and stop claiming there's only one extrusive event that's relevant.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

And yet they exist. (Of course you have no clue about what they are like or not like, you just make stuff up) You are claiming a world-wide flood. That requires explaining world-wide geology.

Message 1255
Message 1269It's amazing that you haven't figured out that when you say "I never said X" it's easy to find examples of you saying X. And here's another: Science does not contradict God. It contradicts your simplistic and unrealistic interpretation of the Bible. But, of course, you claim both explicitly and implicitly to be infallible in your interpretation of the Bible.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

.Edited by JonF, : Dupe.

Hi Faith,Obviously I'm still around 150 messages behind, but I wanted to comment on this: I hope you're talking about "the great sedimentary rocks" to make a point that will lead back to the topic about growing the geological column. I thought this diagram from JonF made the point especially well that not only are volcanic deposits of basalt and tuff interspersed with sedimentary layers, this process has been continuous for a long time right up to the present day: By the way, "great sedimentary rocks" is not an actual term within geology so far as I am aware, and as I pointed out in previous posts, layers just as "great" are still in the process of formation today.As others have mentioned before, you've mistakenly cast the Grand Canyon region as telling the full story of geology around the world, as if the Grand Canyon layers were the definition of "typical" and anything different is an exception. It's easy to make this mistake because there is far more information about the layers of the Grand Canyon region than most other regions of the world, but that's only because the Grand Canyon makes those layers so easy to study. We can't study layers currently being formed because since they're in regions of net deposition there can be no canyons cut through them. The only way we can know the inner details of new sedimentary layers forming on sea and lake bottoms is to drill cores. It isn't like at the Grand Canyon where you can literally see all the layers before your very eyes. And most geological layers do not have canyons cut through them. We can't show you images of sedimentary layers interspersed with volcanic layers if no canyon has been cut to expose the layers.You're taking this lack of data about non-exposed layers as compared to the copious data available about the Grand Canyon layers to draw the conclusion that what happened at the Grand Canyon is what happened everywhere. That conclusion is wrong. In particular, both tectonic and volcanic activity have never been absent during the entire history of the Earth. But much of that activity is concentrated at plate boundaries, and the Grand Canyon region isn't remotely close to any plate boundary.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Heh, heh...What's strange to me is how God usually manages to do whatever fundamentalists want him to do.Where does God say that the earth is 6ky old, for instance? Other than the fact that those guesses are supported by evidence, such as concordant radiometric dates. Then you explain the concordance of dating by different methods. You explain why radiometric dates confirm the relative order of geological events. Could be. So, what is it? Can you? You mean that you are just guessing? Well, track it down for us. Support your statements. You mean the forests of Carboniferous age? The ones with completely different plant life? This is an example of how YECs take an unrelated factoid and turn it into a theory. Yes, salts are leached from the rocks. But then they end up in the oceans and lakes. Those bodies of water evaporate. Into the atmosphere.And your answer is that "the salts are leached out of the rock". Please address the deposition, not the source. For terrestrial fossils, yes. However, marine fossils, particularly microfossils, are not that uncommon.But, once again, you avoid the details. Why is there a such a rigid order of fossil sorting in the fossil record? How is that? Why do we have fossils forming today? Please explain why this is not possible in mainstream geology.There are too many misconceptions here. What is 'rapid burial'? Why do we need 'great pressure'? Why are such conditions 'rare'? Again you take a skeleton of irrelevant and misconstrued factoids and cover them with a tissue of disjointed YEC logic and come up with a Yexplanation that defies the evidence. Why are there no flowering plants or mammals in the Cambrian System?

Okay, you'll have to think about it when your mind isn't elsewhere, but you then go on to say: You say you've received the impression from standard geologic cross sections that volcanism was absent until after the Flood, or at least late in the Flood, but everyone else who looks at geologic cross sections has no trouble finding evidence of volcanism across all time. You could only become convinced otherwise by considering only *some* geologic cross sections. This happens because the geologic cross sections that contradict your views are ones you've said you'll think about when your mind isn't on other matters, or for a variety of other reasons. Or these geologic cross sections could be in messages from people you're currently ignoring.Until you start forming views in reaction to all the evidence instead of your own personal interpretation of Genesis, the odds of your views being consistent with reality are vanishingly small.I do agree with Moose that you are working very hard and making a magnificent effort (I may be giving away comments he's made to me privately, and if so I hope he doesn't mind). I admire your tenacity and ingenuity, and I wish more people here had your writing talent. But if you're sincere about finding scientific as opposed to divine explanations of the evidence then your efforts will be doomed until you begin considering all the data.I know you're outnumbered. It's remarkable you've been able to keep up with so many posts, something more noticeable to me now that I've fallen so far behind. Keep up the good work, but follow the evidence and don't worry so much about where it leads.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

You have to leave your assumptions aside. Even if you know in your heart that the Bible is true, if you're really doing science then you have to build your position from the ground up using scientific evidence and arguments.If it is assumed for the moment that the Bible is true and that there was a worldwide flood around 4300 years ago, then your main task must be explaining how it is that all evidence of that flood is missing. It makes no sense to point to ancient layers formed over millions of years and irrationally and mindlessly state again and again, "They say 'Flood' to me."--Percy

But science doesn't contradict God, just your fallible human-made theology that has serious issues with reality.Your beliefs and dogmatic assertions have nothing to do with God nor with the Bible. Rather, they revolve around your theology. While you maintain dogmatically that God wrote the Bible, that is only because of your theology. And while you maintain that your theology is also infallible, that is seriously and tragically wrong. Theologies are purely Man-made. Fallible human assumptions about God and about the Bible, fallible human interpretations of God and of the Bible, fallible human interpretations about God and the Bible, fallible human pronouncements based on their fallible human theology.God wrote the rocks; that is the true Word of God. Science reads and listens to the rocks and follow the evidence that they provide. Your theology blinds you to the true Word of God as you chose to replace it with the Word of Man. Your theology misleads you to reject reality and to reject the evidence. You repeatedly and stubbornly refuse to look at the evidence, hence refusing to listen to the true Word of God.If your religion cannot deal with reality and hence contradicts God, then so much for your religion.

Whether it's a paleontologist examining a footprint from millions of years ago or a detective examining a footprint from a crime committed the night before, they're both interpreting evidence. In fact, all our conclusions are interpretations of evidence, whether for something that just happened, for instance the driver in front of you going through a red light, or for something that happened long ago, for instance the light from an ancient supernova arriving at a telescope.If you don't believe that evidence from long ago can be interpreted properly, then why are you looking at evidence from long ago? If you truly think that something happens to evidence when it becomes very old that makes it impossible to properly interpret then you should be focusing your attention on explaining to us just why that is. The "tilting while buried" scenario is absurd, and why it's absurd has been described for you many times, for example, Message 278 in the Depositional Models of Sea Transgressions/Regressions - Walther's Law thread. Above I used the example of a detective interpreting a footprint at a crime scene. You're like the detective who, after finding that the footprint belongs to his best friend, starts seeking "other interpretations."--Percy

I'm sure this question has occurred to everyone: If you're just now beginning to get a picture of the situation and are presumably still constructing that picture, how is it that you've already arrived at your certainty? In a scientific sense, that is, not a faith-based sense.--Percy

But you're describing precisely what you yourself are doing, trying to make the Flood fit "humanly created science." And going very, very wrong.You should stop doing what you just complained about others doing and stop insisting that the Flood followed the natural physical laws of the science.--Percy

All I'm talking about is specific points I haven't studied for pete's sake, the volcanic layers for instance. Has nothing to do with the other issues I have studied.

Perhaps you could say I'm trying to make science fit the Bible, but certainly not the other way around. The Bible is God's production, but Old Earth science is humanly created. I do think it follows natural laws, but the "of the science" part is something else since the Old Earth is false.