Evidence of the flood

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I have been told (and taught) that it is vital to believe in an inerrant literal Bible

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Vital for what reason ? It's not something the Bible teaches. And you would think that any truly vital doctrine should be mentioned there.And the Bible itself gives us plenty of reason to suspect otherwise - such as the fact that the Flood story is two different accounts mashed together. Or Faith's rejection of Isaiah 7 in favour of her interpretation of Matthew 1:22-23 (aided and abetted by the silly Blue Letter Bible commentary she found online).This does not seem to be a doctrine that respects the Bible at all, more an excuse for men to put their words in God's mouth.

You'd do better asking why Faith believes it given the evidence she has to ignore. The Flod is so much worse than real geology at explaining the strata and the fossils that it isn't even funny.

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You fail to recognize that what you call the "real" geology of the strata and the fossils is what I've over and over pointed out is a screaming absurdity:

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Because you are obviously wrong to say so.

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the fossil contents made to represent things that once lived where that layer of sediment they are buried in now is, how impossible that is physically, how it's like reading tea leaves more than any kind of objective science.

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Of course it isn't always the case, there are examples where we have evidence of transport (and sometimes even if fossils being eroded out of earlier rocks and incorporated into newer rocks). But why not ? If we find a collection of bones buried under a landslide, for instance, why should we not think that the bones are those of creatures killed and buried by the landslide ?

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The evidence for sequential shallow seas is likewise open to better interpretations

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Then come up with one that is objectively better. The Flood certainly isn't it.

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And none of this can be tested to be confirmed or disconfirmed.

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We can certainly look at what occurs today and see how that fits with what we see in the rocks. We can run simple experiments too. And we can widen the search for evidence. The results are, of course, that mainstream geology does well, while the Flood does very, very badly.To give just one example, the order in the fossil record has been known for two hundred years. And Flood geology still has no explanation. That alone is enough to rule the Flood out of contention. And no calling the order an "illusion" - whatever you mean by that - is hardly going to work without some substantial argument. A finding that has stood for two hundred years, with evidence coming in throughout that time is not at all likely to be an illusion.

Faith, you certainly are a lying hypocrite but that does not mean we can't tell the truth about you. And, under U.S. law the truth is an absolute defence. I'm sure you'd love to abuse the legal system to silence critics, but since you aren't disgustingly rich you aren't going to manage that anyway.

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my answers to your "evidence" are really quite sufficient.

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The order of the fossil record is an established fact that has survived 200 years of continuing investigation. Insisting that it is an illusion on the sole ground that it destroys your arguments is not anything like sufficient. Nor is the insistence that it should be ignored because you claim to have an overwhelming case. Your case is pathetically weak, and even if it was the order of the fossil record is too big to be ignored even then. Minor anomalies might be ignored but major features certainly cannot.

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I've given plenty of evidence and argument even on this very thread, but that doesn't count of course because Evo Decrees it's wrong.

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You are the one who tries to to argue by decree. You are the one ignoring or rejecting most of the evidence.All it seems to boil down to is that you believe that the geological record should prove the Flood. It doesn't, you can't admit that, and you'd rather drag yourself down to Hell than accept that you were wrong. In the unlikely event that Christianity is true I hope you think it's worth it when you're actually burning in the fiery pit.

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I know it proves the Flood.

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You mean that you - somehow - really, really believe it despite the fact that it is obviously false.

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I've made the case multiple times, better on other threads but even this one says it in bare bones fashion.

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You've made low-quality arguments - without anything like the level of analysis or evidence that have gone into mainstream geology. And you've rejected large quantities of evidence to the contrary.Consider the example of fossil abundance. You made the claim that it was evidence for the Flood - which only really makes sense of the only alternatives would predict lower quantities which is not true. When it is pointed out - again - that the abundance is greater than we should expect if fossils were due to the Flood you just make the ad hoc assumption that the pre-Flood world would support that much life.That is not a good argument by any stretch of the imagination. It's just repeating an assertion which has already been rebutted on other threads, and without any answer to the rebuttal.

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It's a matter of honest seeing, as I said But that isn't going to happen is it?

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If you refuse to honestly see what is going on that is your problem.Give me one good reason to think that the order in the fossil record is an illusion. A genuinely good reason based directly on the fossil record itself. If you are seeing honestly you have one. If you don't you're just making up excuses.

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In defense of Faith, I feel that she strongly believes that if secular folks were honest within themselves, they would believe that a global flood (Hint: Bible=Truth=Jesus) is a potential reality.

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That hardly fits her behaviour. It doesn't explain why she maintains that "honest seeing" would confirm that her arguments are correct when anyone who does look honestly at the evidence and her arguments can see that she's ignoring massive amounts of evidence that she can't reasonably explain - and bad as her arguments for the Flood are, her arguments against mainstream geology are often even worse.Faith is never one to admit her failings unless they can be used as excuses for worse failings. Consider the issue of the maps again. Faith insisted that she had found a real contradiction in mainstream geology based on her interpretation of a map she couldn't read properly. Despite the obvious implausibility - any half-way sensible person would have found ways to check - she insisted she was right and had real evidence, right up until the point where it was absolutely obvious to anyone that she was wrong - that the mountains she thought were the Rockies were off the Western shore of the present continent. Only then did she admit that she couldn't read the map properly - and if she'd been honest she would have admitted it right from the start.Add to that the fact that the literal Flood is even more important to her than that argument, that she has said that if the Flood occurred it must show in the geology and you can see why she is so committed to her falsehoods.Admitting that the geological evidence is against the Flood would mean admitting that she doesn't have her boasted "discernment" (and we know for a fact that she doesn't so she's only fooling herself there) and that would be a big blow to her false pride. So she can't do it. I guess that Christian humility is just beyond her.

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For the record, let's define precisely what evidence is and is not. Can everyone list their interpretation of the definition?

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Strictly speaking - and to an extent that leads to weird edge cases - evidence for a hypothesis is any fact that is more likely if the hypothesis is true than if the hypothesis is false.However, when there is a generally accepted alternative hypothesis we should really be comparing the likelihood given the two hypotheses.This is why saying "the strata and the fossils are evidence of the Flood" is silly. There are features of both the geological record and the fossil record that speak very strongly against their being produced by the Flood. Cherry-picked features might conceivably support the Flood, but once you make the broader claim the cherry-picking is out.

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Instead of saying "if you honestly look at the fossil record.." you would have to say:
"If you look at the fossil record under the idea that things were placed by natural mechanisms..." you will run into the real answer to Faith's issues. She doesn't think the fossil record was placed by "natural mechanisms" she thinks it was placed by a God-inspired-world-wide-Flood which may use some "natural mechanisms" to place things that can be verified by her interpretation of the Bible... but it may also use "supernatural mechanisms" or perhaps "natural mechanisms we do not yet understand" to place things that cannot be verified by her interpretation of the Bible.

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I think that represents a severe misunderstanding of Faith's claims. Faith does not insist that some supernatural mechanism happened to produce the order in the fossil record - indeed, such a claim would be ad hoc and still be insufficient to turn the fossil record into evidence of the Flood.Instead she insists that the order is somehow not real - despite two hundred years of research confirming it. She can give no reason why it should be considered an "illusion" other than her other "evidence" for the Flood, which would be a weak argument even if she had solid evidence - the fact that she does not makes that argument worse than useless.So really all we have is Faith making obvious excuses - which an honest assessment would see as hopelessly implausible - to reject a very strong piece of evidence against her views.

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That's why I put in the part about 'or perhaps "natural mechanisms we do not yet understand" to place things that cannot be verified by her interpretation of the Bible.' which she's talked about many times.

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Except that isn't really any better. There is no reason to think that any natural sorting mechanism should arrange for all trilobites, from the largest to the smallest, should end up before the Triassic, or to think that the huge variety of (non-avian) dinosaurs should be only found in Triassic to Cretaceous - emphasised by the fact that the Great marine reptiles such as icthyosaurs appear within that period, yet none of the marine mammals do.

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The point, however, was to show how she defines things "honestly" or "objectively" based on how they fit according-to-her-interpretation-with-her-Bible as opposed to "against reality."

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If you said that is how Faith effectively defined them I would agree. However, I don't think we can justify a claim that Faith literally defines honesty as agreeing with her, no matter what an honest-in-the-normal-sense evaluation would say. Yes, Faith does use private definitions without telling anyone but that one would go a little too far. It makes the whole point of talking about "an honest look" nothing more than deceptive abuse.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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but indirectly I believe there is no way the time periods conception of the geological column holds up

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That is your opinion, and one that has a number of problems.

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he didn't account for the flatness over huge distances or the tight contacts,

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Aside from the fact that there are areas that are a long way from flat, depositional environments will tend to be low-lying - often sea bed or wetland. Larger areas are not obviously a problem in general, and we'd need to consider specifics to say more.

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the fact that to get the layers we actually see would require that nothing be living there when they formed.

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If you mean that nothing can live in areas where sediment is being deposited that is not a fact, it is a bizarre fantasy.

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Another indirect objection is the one about the trilobites and the coelacanths. It can be rationalized away but to my mind it's pretty telling on the face of it: two fossilized creatures that occur in many "time periods" amounting to I think hundreds of millions of years, without any changes that suggest anything close to a change from one species to another

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Certainly new species of trilobite appeared over time (many of them - and larger taxonomic groups too), and modern coelacanths aren't even the same genus as fossil specimens. So this version of the objection is just plain false.

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But the trilobites and the coelacanths that just happen to have been buried in so many time periods demonstrate what we can see of the speed of microevolution in real time: it takes at most hundreds of years to get some striking new varieties of just about anything, and they always remain recognizably whatever it is they are

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Given ideal circumstances it can be quick - however you have to wait for ideal circumstances to show up. The original population of lizards didn't change, remember ?

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Sure you can rationalize this away: you can claim it just happened this way, there's no reason we have to assume any particular time frame. But we do. You don't have the necessary transitionals to prove mammal evolved from reptile, it's a huge leap based only on belief in the ToE.

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Yes we do. You participated in a discussion about them, remember ?

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From these observations I conclude that assigning hundreds of millions of years to the geological column/fossil record is wrong.

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Since your observations are largely false and selective at best there is not much of a case there.

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And of course rapid deposition of the strata makes far more sense, which is what would have happened in the Flood.

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I guess that it makes no sense to you that your opinions could be wrong. However on the evidence rapid deposition only makes sense for some strata - and none at all for many others. Let alone the evidence for long gaps in deposition and massive erosion in many places all over the world.

Just one more note: according to Wikipedia there are 17,000 known species of trilobite. Seventeen thousand. How can you say that they don't show "anything close to a change from one species to another" ? Are you really assuming that trilobites are just one species ?In fact, Trilobita is classified as an Order, the same as Mammalia (which includes the monotremes).Some more quotes: While this is a bit technical the take home point is clear - lots of evolutionary change: And there is more in the second paragraph.

Faith, your "evidence" includes the assertion that trilobites show no signs of evolving into a new species. Given the fact that trilobites form a taxonomic Order with thousands of species and plenty of evidence for evolutionary change, how should we treat your assertion ?Indeed, what does it say about you that you would even make such a claim ?

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As a breath of fresh air in the context of your ridiculously stupid crazy taxonomic system. LOOK at the trilobites, DUH. They are all trilobites, all of the same species.

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The people who have looked at trilobites say otherwise. Even looking at the variety of trilobite fossils without the detailed examinations made by the experts makes it plain that there is considerable variety.Indeed, just look at the simple illustrations for the "fact sheets" on the left hand side of this page

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Perhaps it says I'm one of the honest few here, and someone who can see reality where the ToE makes a confusing mess of it.

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Because telling ignorant falsehoods is a sign of "honesty" and "seeing reality" ?

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I've also made the case, as I'm sure you recall, for microevolution decreasing genetic diversity down to the hypothetical inevitable point that evolution must become impossible.

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If you remember, you dismally failed to make that case and it was even shown that evolution could continue after reaching the point where it allegedly became impossible.

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I put all my theories and observations together, of course, so that if this is true, the trilobites are all trilobites, all variations within their own genome.

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Since you are almost certainly wrong that isn't much of an argument.

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It hangs together, and it's one of the many facts that destroy the absurd theory of the geo time scale.

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Using an assumption that is almost certainly false to prop up another assumption that is almost certainly false doesn't help build a solid case.Really your argument comes down to boasting that you have special insights that nobody else can see. Even when those "insights" are obviously false. That isn't going to convince anyone with any sense.

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Eh whut? Whoever said these varves formed DURING THE FLOOD? What an utterly ridiculous idea.

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So you are saying that the strata containing the varves, and the fossils within them were NOT formed by the Flood? That's an interesting admission.

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RAZD, I HAVE NEVER EVER said the varves formed DURING THE FLOOD. I say only that the STRATA that make up the GEOLOGICAL COLUMN, on which the GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE is based, were formed in the Flood, by waves and tides and precipitation.

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Faith, you do realise that - as I pointed out earlier the Green River varves are rock - they are a part of the Green River formation, not sediment as in the other examples.So your claim here contradicts itself.