Did the Flood really happen?

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Yeah, well, it is the only thing that works and it does work.

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It only works in the sense that you like it. There’s plenty of contrary evidence, such as the Cardenas lava at the Grand Canyon.

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However, I think I get more mileage out of criticizing the silly establishment understanding of the geological column and the fossil record.

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I don’t know why you think that. Maybe it’s because you prefer doing other people down then inventing silly fantasies? It’s not as if you have any real evidence for either.

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I agree that the dating methods are the biggest challenge to any Flood theory, but I still suspect that there's some slippage in the way the atomic decay methods are calculated and applied...

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Nowhere near enough. You need a massive error, and you need it consistent across all the methods of dating that go back more than 10,000 years- which includes non-radiometric methods like carve counting. And yet you have no plausible mechanism at all.Oh, And there’s plenty more challenges to the Flood. The absurdity of Flood Geology itself is an apologetic invention created to try to deal with the fact that there is no real sign of the Flood in the geological record.

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...and yes I know there's the supposed fossil record, and it's very suggestive too of course...

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It’s more than suggestive. It is very strong evidence against Flood Geology since there is no way for the Flood to produce that order.

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...but since the strata themselves defy the whole establishment conception of time periods it's out the window anyway.

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As I pointed out in the very post you are replying to the strata contain much evidence that support s the conventional view over Flood geology. To the point where it is Flood geology that should be thrown out.

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Slow transgressions and regressions are based on observations that are probably better explained by phases of the Flood, but that's something I have to work on.

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You have a habit of calling things likely because they fit your views - even if they are absurdly unlikely. Especially as the Biblical Flood story has very simple phases. The rain falls, drowning the land. The rain stops and the land remains flooded. The water gradually recedes.

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Large scale deformation of rock after lithification. Well lithification doesn't take anywhere near the great spans of time you all impute to it and if the post-Flood tectonic pressures can raise mountains, they can certainly be the cause of such deformations. You are all so enthralled with the establishment view you'll never even seriously consider what I'm proposing, but some day someone will.

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The time required for lithification depends on the rock. But I think we can say that even if it took mere centuries, your view would still be in deep trouble, because the deformation also has to be slow - rock cannot be rapidly deformed.

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Strata that could not be deposited by a flood. Well again we've got an interpretive conflict here. The Flood fits overall so all such conflicts will eventually be resolved.

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The Flood does not fit, at all. That is why you keep having to make things up to try and explain away the evidence.

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Oh but the strata and the baziillions of fossils certainly ARE evidence of the Flood, and not evidence against

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No sane person would believe that. And I don’t think you’re that crazy.

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Only such a worldwide inundation could possibly explain the great extent and thickness of the strata,

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Only continued deposition over long periods of time can explain the thickness. The Flood isn’t even great at explaining the extent - which is not, as I explained in the post you are replying to - a problem for the mainstream view,

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... and so many fossils are wonderful evidence of exactly what the Flood was supposed to do: wipe out all life on the land, plus of course plenty from the oceans as well

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The fact that the majority of fossils are marine is in fact one piece of evidence against the Flood as an explanation. and you cannot conclude from the fossils that they were deposited in a short space of time or that all - or even most - land animals were wiped out in a single event. Moreover, since the order of the fossil record conclusively rules out the Flood the assertion that fossils are evidence of it is obviously untrue,

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Just because you like the establishment interpretation doesn't make it right and as I say it's physically impossible for the strata to represent time periods, just impossible.

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I’m arguing from evidence, not personal liking. On the other hand your assertion that it is physically impossible for the strata to represent time periods is such nonsense that even you don’t understand it. Which suggests that you say it just because you like it. You can’t know it’s true if you don’t even know what it means.

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No, you can't think a rock a hundred feet thick that extends for thousands of square miles dould be the burial ground for a very particular set of living things.

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And yet there is no real absurdity there. Sediment is deposited. The remains of some of the animals and plants that die get buried in that sediment (sometimes well after death). Conditions change. Different sediment is deposited. Eventually the original sediment is buried so deeply that it slowly turns to rock.

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I plan to work on this one more too but it's quite clear to independent thinking that it couldn't have happened.

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Die-hard dogmatism is not independent thinking by any stretch of the imagination.

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There is no reason to think exceptions make any difference to the overall explanation, the variations in size of some of the strata for instance, or the monadnocks which are just intrusions into the strata.

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The existence of exceptions is sufficient to disprove a universal. And we do have evidence that the monadnocks were eroded, rather than being intrusions (you’ve even pointed some out, though you didn’t know it). Your idea that they are intrusions is simply something you made up. With no real evidence.

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I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop referring to an alternative theory as "falsehoods

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Calling something an alternative theory doesn’t make it any less false.

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Yes it is physically impossible for the strata to have formed according to the time periods scenario.

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That is another ridiculous falsehood that you invented. Which you have failed to support every single time it has been discussed.

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And yes I agree that the establishment theory has superficially persuasive evidence.

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It has far more than that, which is why it is accepted science. But even superficially plausible evidence is more than you have offered.Edited by PaulK, : Fixed a quote tag

It is far more plausible than Flood geology. As has been shown.If just thinking would find absurdity, you could point it out, but you never have. Meanwhile you invent absurdities to try to explain away the evidence against Flood geology.

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there's only one; the idea of two is a misreading by someone who doesn't understand biblical exegesis

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There are two versions of the Flood story that have been mashed together, as can be plainly seen if you study it. And I wonder what rule of biblical exegesis command you not to see what is right there in scripture.

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Oh but I have pointed it out.

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No, you have made up things which can be seen to be absurd without requiring much in the way of thought at all.

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Living things would be displaced by the formation of a slab of rock, they would become extinct and could not be the genetic source of evolution or anything else to pass on to the next supposed Time Period

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Which living things are going to be displaced by the lithification of deeply-buried sediment? and how is that supposed to harm animals living on the surface?

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All sorts of fancy ideas about how sediments were slowly deposited and animals kept living on top of them just fall apart.

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You’re going to have to come up with something better than the idea that the surface has to suddenly turn into rock for no apparent reason.

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They would have to be bured very deep to become lithified and then they would have to be exposed, all the dirt on top of them eliminated for them to end up as a simple flat rock in the geological column, and this would have to happen to every "time period" in the entire column. It is impossible, it is absurd, it couldn't have happened.

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Why would they have to be to be exposed ? Not all strata are. And the time periods aren’t the strata anyway. And, of course, we do know that massive erosion has occurred over the time the strata (in aggregate) were being deposited. And given time there is no reason why it could not happen.

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The only sensible explanation is the Flood, which sorted the sediments, which we know water does under many circumstances, and buried whatever creatures were still living as the sediments washed over them.

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But that is genuinely absurd. Water is rather limited in it’s sorting and there are things that could not have been sorted. Not to mention the fact that if the strata were sorted by water action, the fossils should be sorted in the same way - and they aren’t.

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You cannot get "time periods" out of the strata but they do make sense as the depositions by the Flood waters that buried the bazillions of living things.

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Obviously we can say that there was a period of time when the sediment was laid down. We have evidence that tells us that the whole thing took a great deal of time. We have evidence that let’s us correlate the strata and - even without radiometric dating - see that strata in different locations were deposited at around the same time. So, time periods do make a great deal of sense. Which is more than can be said for Flood geology.

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Yes you've got all that putative evidence, but if it's true that the standard scenario is physically impossible, which it is, plus other problems, then that evidence is simply going to have to be reinterpreted.

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You have not shown that the standard scenario is physically impossible. Only that you will invent nonsense which is in no way part of the standard scenario to try and say so.And, of course, you don’t accept that physical impossibility is a valid objection since you are quite prepared to invoke physical impossibilities in your own arguments.Since I - unlike you - do reject physical impossibilities I will stick to the standard scenario rather than going for your ridiculous fantasy.

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I've shown it. It's just hard to conceptualize

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So what is the actual physical impossibility?

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No it's not easy to explain, you have to spend some time on it thinking it through, like some puzzles.

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But when you think it through you just start making up nonsense about the surface turning to rock. That - at the least - tells us that you don’t know that there is any real impossibility.

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A deep column of layers of slabs of rock that span continents cannot ever have been landscapes in which creatures lived

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That has simplification and exaggeration in it, but never mind. You still haven’t shown any real physical impossibility in the mainstream view and you are still happy to assume physical impossibilities when it suits you. So why should any rational person accept your view ?

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That a whole complicated landscape with hills and valleys and plants and rivers and streams and rocks and grass and trees could end up as a flat slab of rock in a deep column of rocks of different sediments.

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And yet we see as much of that as can be seen. We see buried monadnocks, filled riverbeds, fossil trees, even buried rocks eroded from earlier formations.Of course we only see depositional environments or sometimes an erosional environment as it was when deposition started. That’s all that is possible.

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Such a situation lies beneath most of the midwestern United States, but the surface is as I described, with enormous variation in the landscape.

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Much of which is an erosional environment. That is not going to be preserved as it is, because it can’t be preserved until the net erosion stops and net deposition begins.

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That surface is a version of what we have to imagine existed in each of those slabs of rock that lie beneath it in layers that go very deep, but that surface we know isn't ever going to become a slab of rock like that because that simply does not happen. It never happened, it can't happen, those slabs of rock cannot ever have been landscapes, something else has to account for them.

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It seems to me that you are concentrating on your slab of rock’ terminology and ignoring the fact that surface features are found in the geological record. Ever mind that many layers are marine, or that many layers simply succeed each other as the material being deposited changes - as in the case of transgression and regression.

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You have no way of explaining how it COULD happen either. I

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But I do. You have no way of explaining how the fossil record could be ordered as it is. Isn’t it odd how you never seem to apply your own objections to your own ideas. A good critical thinker would - by definition.

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If you refuse to see it then it is a refusal because there is no way to make sense of it on the usual scenario.

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I don’t refuse to see it. I know that it is not true.

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However, the Cretaceous is not a marine layer, it's a terrestrial layer and often has dinosaurian type fossils IIRC, reptilian anyway. It's not marine however

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What on Earth are you talking about ? There are plenty of marine strata from the Cretaceous. It’s known for having more sea than most eras. That’s why it has so much chalk - which is where the Cretaceous name comes from.There is no single Cretaceous layer - and that is true for every geological period.

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Oh good, more evidence for the Flood, all given the usual ad hoc rationalizations of course.

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I will grant that you are desperate enough for evidence for the Flood that you will try and take this - despite the fact that the Earth was never entirely covered by water even in the Cretaceous. And other eras were dryer - even though you think the Earth was flooded then.And of course you follow up with your usual false and hypocritical accusations. What a surprise.

So, when are we going to see any actual sign of this alleged physical impossibility?You’ve tried making up a fantasy about the surface turning to rock.You’ve tried denying the existence of surface features in the strata.Given these obvious failures it seems you are just desperately fishing around for something you’ve never found. While claiming that you’ve already provided the answer. Not impressive.

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Not until you spend the timethinking it through as I suggested.

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I have, and there’s nothing. You obviously haven’t found anything either.

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What fantasy? It's clearly what has to have happened and it's impossible.. Even if it did happen anything living there would die because of it.

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The fantasy about the surface turning to rock. Which is certainly not part of the mainstream view. And no, it is not clearly what has to have happened at all. It’s just proof that you didn’t think it through.

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I don't remember discussing that in this thread, but yes I certainly deny them. valleys, rivers, trees? I've seen the surface of lots of the stratified sedimentary rocks. Occasionally little holes where some little creature managed to live in the wet sediment for a while before dying, occasionally raindrop impressions, occasionally footprint impressions of some creature running from the next wave that was probably drowned in it, or the next wave, no sign of any landscape

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And yet you’ve been shown riverbeds, pointed out a buried rock, seen references to buried valleys and certainly you know about fossil trees. So yes, your denial is a falsehood and you know it.

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A very odd idea of failures

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If you’re reduced to obvious untruths it can hardly be called a success, can it ?

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Funny, I'm neither deperate nor flailing. It's very clear that you could not possibly get from the landscape of a "time period" to the huge flat rock that goes by its name.

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But there isn’t a huge flat rock that goes by it’s name. There are collections of strata that are dated to that period, all of them attributable to environments that can be identified from the rock and its features.

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Oh well. it's hard to please an old earther/evolutionist.

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It’s hard for you because you can’t be bothered to even come up with a decent answer. When you repeat an idiotic straw man should I be pleased ? Maybe I should. It shows that you haven’t got anything, it proves that you haven’t honestly thought about it it shows that you can’t even be bothered to come up with a good lie.

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Sedimentation of just ONE sediment that falls down from mountainsides just doesn't compute. Dirt, including the dust that settles in houses, isn't likely to be made up of a single sediment, and yet the strata are mostly composed of layered single sediments.

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No, they aren’t.

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You don't bother about the Flood so you can just make up whatever you want that you think accounts for i

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No, we don’t make things up. You have to because you insist that the Flood did it.

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But a huge quantity of water accounts for it very nicely.

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No, it doesn’t. How could it? Just postulating a huge quantity of water doesn’t explain even the presence of sediment.

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AND again, it's impossible for there to have been a landscape where there is now a slab of rock in the geological column.

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So far you’ve made up a silly strawman and tried to pretend that the surface features aren’t found. And you call that success. Well it certainly isn’t a success at supporting your assertion. So, when are you going to make a serious case for it?

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Oh the things I've been "shown" here and laughed aT

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Laughing at the truth doesn’t make it false.

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Some have made up tall tales about depths of dirt over a single sediment, whose collecting as a single sediment has no sensible explanation in the first place,

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Not really. Most formations are mixed. And as I pointed out Walther’s law does a lot to explain the extent.

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Anyway a great depth of dirt over it makes it lithify into the rock, and somehow the dirt itself doesn't lithify or if it does it becomes the next rock in the column meaning it too has to be of a single sediment and represent a whole time period....

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Noe you are being silly again. Mocking things you refuse to even understand doesn’t make you look any better.The pressure is typically required for lithification. The material above will obviously experience less pressure. So naturally some of it won’t be under enough pressure to lithify. And the idea that a single sediment represents a whole time period is just another silly strawman you made up.You may be laughing, but it is your arguments that are laughable.

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Look there is no way this scenario every happened.

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So you can make up silly scenarios.

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And if it did anything living on it would have to die.

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Why? The surface is hardly affected by the lithification going on far below.

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And only a particular collection of fossils are found in such a rock...

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Only a particular collection of species are found in a given region today. So what is the problem?

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Oh come ON, this is ridiculous.

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The only ridiculous parts are the ones you made up.

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The Flood is the only reasonable explanation

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The Flood is not even a reasonable explanation.Let me know when you come up with an explanation of the order of the fossil record, That alone kills the Flood as a reasonable explanation before we get on to all the other major problems.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Most are very SLIGHTLY mixed but the homogeneous rocks, especially the sandstones and limestones, are typical and enormous. Besides the examples in the American Southwest think of the Tepui of South America and the Cliffs of Dover.

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Limestones are typically mixed. [url=https://geology.com/usgs/limestone/]This page boasts that some limestones are up to 95% pure calcium carbonate. I know of a highly pure sandstone, but that’s something of an exception.

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Ya don't get a FLAT surface from lithification under a huge depth of dirt.

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The compression will make it flatter. And if the surface was already pretty flat to start with that’s likely to be enough. And we know that there are surfaces that are far from flat.