Summations Only

No, I'm not merely objecting to preconceived ideas as such, I know we all have them, I'm trying to get it noticed that they actually exist on your side and make a barrier to this discussion that's frustrating to a creationist who is coming from a completely other frame of reference. I'm just saying your iron grip on your paradigm makes it hard to get another perspective into your thought processes, another way of thinking about exactly the same facts that explains them just as well or better. It's like having to dismantle the entire system before even one single point can be made. Or something like that.And by the way, I have your post 105 next on my agenda after responding to Coyote's 104, if I don't get swamped by the other posts in the meantime.ABE: But in the context of laboratory tests, which I just realized was the context of the post you are replying to, that's one place where it could possibly be recognized as an interference in a more direct way than in the theoretical discussions, since I'm sure you all agree it would be an interference with the principles of science itself if it were shown to be the case. Objectivity, scientific neutrality, all that.Edited by Faith, : add last thought.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well all you've done here is recite the Creed as usual, PaulK. Yes, you really believe you have the evidence and that I've never said anything that really challenge its, and that's the barrier I'm talking about.Of course geologists will know a lot of things I don't know but I reserve the right to consider their interpretation of the geological column wrong, in fact silly. I mean really really silly for the many intuitively obvious reasons I've given which anybody ought to be able to see if you'd just make the effort.As for the super genome, that was a first attempt to make sense of what must have happened since the Flood, or even since the Fall. Since those first thoughts I've come to see that the reduction of genetic diversity I kept talking about all the time is in fact a reduction to more and more homozygosity, so that the further back you go the more heterozygosity you should see in the genome.That idea was prompted by a look through one of my old creationism books. It's a far more satisfying idea than the idea of a genome with a different structure such as polyploidy which was one thing I wondered about.This way the original created genome is simply the same genome as we know it now only with all that junk DNA actually functioning and some great percentage of heterozygosity in the whole that has since also been lost. The percentage of heterozygosity today is something like 6%, I don't know if it could have been as high as 100% ever but say 80% at least in the original genome. As death and disease entered the Creation. genes began to die too, starting with some of their alleles until finally whole genes no longer functioned and became dead DNA.The 95% of dead DNA now in the genome seems to fit rather nicely with the bottleneck of the Flood, and the small percentage of heterozygosity in the remaining functioning part as well. Reduced genetic diversity is a condition of increased homozygosity and can ultimately lead to dead genes. All the same process.Oh I know how offensive this all is, but I'm not going to give up. Maybe some day something I say will make sense even to you.

About the other side of the fence, which you first wrote as "offence" which I decided to take as a pun though I see now it wasn't. I probably can't really know what it's like to be on that side but I've seen how many silly ideas on the creationist side come through here, and I can easily imagine that being confronted with ANY ideas, silly or not, that come from nonscientists and don't follow scientific protocols and treat well-trained scientists as wrong about their own field on what seems like such a flimsy basis, must be felt as an extreme offense by those on the inside, going back to that word. But how should we deal with that if we DO think you're wrong? Say a lot of polite respectful words? I don't think so.I've seen some good creationist arguments, however, that you guys treat as trash, and I think my own arguments are good, even though the work of an amateur. And it seems to me that it's a combination of your being intellectually paradigm-bound, along with the expectable pride in your trainnig and your work that closes you to even a reasonable idea from a creationist, in other words it IS an offense, to your pride. That's understandable.But all this started with an offense to Christians and to the true God way back there somewhere, Hutton for sure whose ancient earth contradicted the Bible, followed by evolution which contradicts the Bible. But I do have to keep coming back to the fact that the creationist ideas in Hutton's day and in Darwin's day had already taken leave of the Bible, they were really unbiblical ideas, like strange ideas about fossils and the Flood that bore no relation to the Biblical account or the character of God, and the idea that God continued to create new species for this or that purpose long after the Creation week which ended with His resting, after which there was no more creating which the creationists somehow failed to take into account. Such denials of the word of God by supposed Christians DESERVED God's raising up unbelievers like Hutton and Darwin. Darwin's thinking was necessary just to answer all that nonsense about whimsical creations, and again, I think God allowed that because the creatonists WEREN'T true to His word.If we don't obey God He'll turn us over to the anti-God forces we follow in our hearts anyway. Judgment begins at the house of God says scripture.So we're the ones who are responsible for evolutionism and all the anti-God stuff that goes with it. We want to bring it down because it is an offense to the true God, but until WE change it probably isn't going to happen, so my own efforts are probably going to keep meeting with resistance too until something different happens in my own outlook. I don't really know what that is. I guess I could take time out and fast and pray for a week or two. Maybe I should do that. Bringing people to God is the most important thing, I just keep thinking that if evolution could be shown to be the house of cards I know it is the result would be people returning to God. But again maybe that's not the method God has in mind.Oh well, I guess this is a science thread and I just went off on a tangent. But it IS related to science at least. If I get banned that will give me a reason to fast and pray.Just posted this and saw your line about not knowing why it's offensive toyou. Could be. Will have to think about it later.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, forever, I'd seen some of your posts on the subject of the Flood, and find your choice of where to place the Flood arbitrary and contrary to the Bible, as well as ridiculous considering the scale of a worldwide Flood. Such a Flood wouldn't have left such paltry evidence on the planet. If it didn't form the entire geological column it certainly didn't form one particular layer of it or anything that would have to be searched for at all.If we don't start with the Bible forget the Flood altogether. If it didn't occur when the Bible says it occurred there's no point in thinking it occurred at all, you've completely rejected the Biblical witness. This is an either/or, it's either the Bible or it's establishment Geology. It would be far better that you do geology with the old earth assumptions and forget the Bible altogether than try to make God's word conform to human thought.Also, it would be unusual if you'd "fought my side" of this as most creationists don't explain the entire geological column by the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, scripture doesn't describe what the Flood did to the earth, it's entirely an inference that it would have left evidence on such a prodigious scale.Creationist arguments that supposedly derive from the Bible don't have to have direct scriptural evidence, they just have to fit the general revelation and above all they must not CONTRADICT the Biblical revelation. Explanations in terms of an old earth or huge periods of time contradict it.Further evidence for the geological column as the result of the Flood includes the billions of dead things within the column that would have lived before the Flood and died in that catastrophe.And as I keep saying on various threads the appearance of the strata, especially as seen in the Grand Canyon where it's most exposed, shows nothing whatever that would explain it in terms of successive ages. There's no difference in their condition or general appearance whatever. The only disturbance of the entire column that occurred there -- or anywhere -- obviously occurred after the entire stack was formed. That's when the canyon was cut. No canyons were cut in earllier layers, go take a look.It was after the strata were already laid down wherever they occurred that they were subjected to all the different kinds of disturbances such as the twisting and buckling caused by tectonic forces, and the unconformities as well.The look of the strata suggests sudden deposition of the whole kit and kaboodle in one event. And there is other evidence for that I've also mentioned, such as Steve Austin's study of the nautiloid layer in the redwall limestone of the GC, where such a huge number of these creatures are found the only reasonable explanation is that they died in a catastrophic event.In other words there's a lot of factual stuff you have to take into account to see how it fits the revelation of the Flood. And again, none of it can contradict the Bible or you're out of bounds.If you believe the Biblical witness you have to reject any explanation that requires death to have occurred before the Fall, which eliminates evolution right there. Death is the consequence of sin and the Flood was God's judgment on the world for sin, saving only a very few out of the disaster. Evolution is the only other explanation for the dead things in the strata, and it contradicts the Biblical witness.And so on and so forth. Can't argue the whole thing in one short post.ABE: This is interesting, however. I tend to avoid the creationists on this forum because I so strongly disagree with most of your arguments, at least those that touch on the issues I usually argue about. I also disagreed with foreveryoung's but we agree on conservative issues and got onto that track of argument for a bit and I put the creationist stuff aside for the moment. But it might be interesting to have a thread where nothing but creationists argue out these things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : to add some stuff, the last paragraph particularly.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : Grammar corrections and etc.

Found this wonderful blog on Biblical Geology, perhaps it's already been linked here but it's new to me and I intend to spend a lot of time on it as well as its sister website Tas Walker's Biblical Geology.He has three recent blog posts on the Creationist/Conspiracy Road Trip. Good stuff.
http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/tag/conspiracy-road-trip/In one post he points out that Maxwell the host of the trip speaks of skulls supposedly having been "carbon dated" to millions of years.In another he points out that the geologist Prothero hypes himself as a scientist who "observes," but when he talked about how long it would have taken to form each of the layers that's not observation, that's pure interpretation, or imagination.Same in the other post where he describes Maxwell is looking at the canyon and saying he "sees" millions of years. Blogger points out that no he doesn't "see" millions of years, what he sees is a big canyon. He's IMAGINING millions of years.Nice to find someone who's already worked out all the answers I've so laboriously come to on my own (because I usually find creationist web sites to be too huge and too technical. This guy's website is accessible.I know you're all happy for me.Catch ya later.

Ham's discussion was good I thought, dealt with all the points other creationists took note of, including me at my blog. We're all on the same page, we all build on each other.Obviously this discussion on this thread is futile, however, all of it, the polarization is so wide. There is no agreement from any of you for even a single point made by a creationist that I've ever seen here, no matter how hard we might work to be thorough in our reasoning. I might as well continue to argue on my blog instead.Evidence for the Flood doesn't need to be searched for, it's plain as day in the entire geological column, best demonstrated at the GC. The idea that you've all "looked and haven't found" is just absurd. But what you "see" -- by your data -- is those millions upon millions of years instead, like a veil over the canyon really. But that's the way it is, that's what you "see" and nobody is going to get you to see it any other way.Now I note that the creationists have answered me, and if I have to explain the time factor of the Bible I know that discussion is hopeless too, extra time has somehow been "found" there and all my arguments that it is not there but imposed on it aren't going to make any difference. The argument by ICANT that an inference from the Bible is adding to the Bible is just too absurd to even consider, and anyone who would say that is beyond reaching. "Finding" millions of years in the Bible IS adding to it, unfortunately.Well, so much for attempts to communicate at EvC. Futility and hopelessness.I thought I might try to answer Tangle's post since I have considered the chalk cliffs many times before and think I have at least some idea how the Flood formed the features of England including the chalk.Maybe I still will I don't know.

Yes, Faith, I can see what you mean about how the walls of the Grand Canyon sure LOOK like there's no difference in age from bottom to top.Yes, Faith, I've always thought it's forcing things to find millions of years in the Biblical text.Yes, Faith, an inference obviously isn't adding anything, that's quite clear.Etc.

Well, we AREN'T "looking through deep time" for the Flood. It DID occur about 4300 years ago -- and the Bible itself is the source of the calculations. I don't know why there are those other dates, either, it's depressing that there's so much discrepancy. I go with Morris. It's all recent time. It's just that the entire geological column was laid down IN THE FLOOD around 4300 BC [ABE: correction 4300 years ago or about 2300 BC], so it isn't "deep time" at all. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The schist was formed after the strata were all laid down, through the pressure of the weight and the volcanic eruption from below.

The Flood didn't "create" anything, it laid down loose sediments in layers that it carried from who knows where.The weight of the stack, some two miles deep or so, put pressure on the lowest layers in conjunction with the volcanic magma and heat from below, to form the granite and schist.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

From all the bazillions of tons of loose sediments carried in the Flood waters that had been scoured off the land mass in the early stages of the Flood.

Well we could argue about which side of this debate has the most minds that are rusted shut on their particular beliefs.I was glad to find the Biblical Geology guy because he's one, and there are others, who does believe the Flood accounts for the entire geological column as I do, even though most of the creationists who come through EvC don't accept that idea.

schist is a metamorphic rock that takes heat to form.

I did research on all that but some time ago and don't feel like looking it up again right now. If I have it wrong I have it wrong. It takes heat and or pressure to form metamorphic rock as i recall and granite is a volcanic product. I'm only responding to jar's challenges, you seem to be introducing another subject. Perhaps you could be more specific.