Have any Biblical literalists been to the American Southwest?

Local particulars don't address the overall fact of the stratification of the worldwide geological column and its enormous fossil contents. Also, not everything is the result of the Flood.

Actually strictly speaking it is not the evolutionists who postulated the way geological layers have been laid down. It was the geologists. It just happens that evolutionists accepted the science of geology and creationists don't. In fact the "notion" of OE preceeded Darwin and was one of the "notions" that informed his theory.

I've done a fair amount of reading about the composition of the layers of the Grand Canyon / Grand Staircase area. Meanwhile the overall fact of the worldwide stratification itself is evidence for a great flood. All that is erosion over the last 4500 or so years since the Flood. Material falling off the cliffs naturally falls into slopes, and leaves spires behind. From what I have read about the Southwest, most of the dramatic formations have been caused by normal weathering, and in fact some of the most precarious formations have a habit of disappearing in a very short period of years because of that. The same weathering processes that create the amazing shapes also eventually destroy them. They've even discussed trying to find a way to preserve the most striking ones from these natural processes. The cold winters are a major element in the process: ice forms in cracks and breaks off pieces of the spire. The pieces tumble down to the sloping base. Eventually there will be no more spire at all. See above. I would think it had once been a lot more substantial than it now is, a few thousand years ago, its spire-ness being the result of the aforementioned thousands of years of the effects of weathering. The receding flood with its no doubt thousands of temporary rivers and lakes would have started the sculpting, but not down to the dramatic spindly formations we see today. Anything that the receding flood waters had carved down to such extreme spindliness WOULD have been washed away. Amazing place, isn't it? I would really love to hang out there for a while myself, dig some fossils. I've enjoyed reading up on the Southwest over the last few months.

I know, deerbreh, I know the history. Sorry I'm not always precise.

Every time you postulate a world wide flood you are using the Bible in your arguments, regardless of whether you got there by reading creationists or by reading the Bible yourself. I think Nuggin's point was that no one ever came up with the idea of a world wide flood by studying geological layers. However, Hutton did come up with the idea of an OE by studying geological layers. If you are intellectually honest you have to deal with that truth regardless of whether you find it convincing for yourself or not. In fact, it clearly is NOT obvious that a flood is the better explanation, otherwise geologists, who know something about sediments ahd how sediment layers form and erode, would spend a lot of time explaining why a flood can't be the explanation. In fact, they never talk about why it couldn't be a world wide flood except when challenged by a creationist.edited out extraneous word.This message has been edited by deerbreh, 09-08-2005 03:23 PM

Seems to me that slow buildup theory would have just as much of a problem with this as flood theory. Myself, I picture tides and waves building up at least some of the strata, perhaps tidal waves that reach over huge swaths of land depositing a certain kind of content at a time, and receding for very long periods (days? weeks?) while another layer is formed by rocks tumbling down from higher places, before another wave washes over the land carrying another cargo of sediment and living things. Whatever was the case, the flood was something unique not only in scope but also behavior, and not to be compared with local floods. It involved massive tectonic and volcanic activity according to most creationists, that could have caused enormous waves and certainly stirred up sediments and killed enormous quantities of living things in the deep ocean areas, and washed them over the higher land areas. Not if layers were established one at a time with some period for settling before the next washed in.

I've read Hutton. So he was wrong. It happens. Funny how people take him so seriously now although basically his thinking was extremely primitive.And once again, if I don't use the Bible in my argument it is totally out of bounds to answer my argument as if I had.

You'd sound a lot less foolish if you would address the actual arguments that are used instead of making up such ridiculous straw men.

1. We have had the conversation about soft sediments before. I showed that the sediments were hard when they deformed. This is a fact. Remember? The facts are not debatable.2. Nuggin was talking about granite which is not a sedimentary rock and thus your reply makes absolutly no sense. But again we have talked about this....

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Problem here Faith is you are stacking your "seems to me" up against the whole science of geology. Doesn't that bother you even a little bit? On what basis do you claim such confidence? If it is belief in the Bible, then say that, but don't think for a minute you are getting your confidence from the rock layers, because you can't be. Virtually no one who studies rock layers full time agrees with you so how is it that you know so much more than they do?

And once again, if you are talking about a worldwide flood as fact you ARE using the Bible. The flood did not come from a geology textbook. It came from the Bible. So it is not out of bounds to attribute your arguments to the Bible. It is dishonest for you to say that you are not using the Bible. This is not a scientific forum but honesty is still required.

You did not discuss the Appalachians, but gave another example as if it applied and never showed that it did. You have said nothing about what condition the Appalachians were in when they were folded, and your examples of stressed rocks were not from the Appalachians. You yourself admitted that had the rocks actually been soft, the stress indicators would not have been so dramatic as they are on hardened rocks, but microscopic. Someone posted a site a long time ago showing the folded strata of the Alleghenies that exposed them to erosion. You never addressed that, then or now.Nuggin has not yet addressed anything I've written. If he's talking about granite he doesn't bother to say where.

Geologists (who would be in a better position to know than you, with all due respect) believe that Hutton got it mostly correct. The only major issue where they would disagree is that Hutton proposed a virtually infinite age for the earth whereas modern geologists believe it is close to 4.5 billion years. Again, on what basis do you challenge modern geological science other than the Bible?

Since I do my best to follow the geological reasoning and leave out religious considerations, your job is to deal with the geological reasoning and to leave out the religious considerations. Pulling rank is not fair argument.

Time as a member is irrelevant to discussion.It's inappropriate and irrelevant to insinuate that a debator hold a position simply becuase it's the most commonly agreed upon position at the site. Yes, we know it's hard to be a YEC here. It should be hard to be wrong. Playing martyr won't get you anywhere.Evos have to think plenty hard to discuss the topics we discuss here, Faith. Some Creationists do, too (though others just like to cut n paste from Creationist websites). It takes a startling amound of research and investigation to simultaneously debate biblical accuracy, geology, abiogenesis, and evolution along with the host of other topics we all discuss here. Implying that Evolutionists are intellectually lazy simply becuase there are more evos than creationists here is insulting and dishonest. Those of us who are honest debators (and this often includes you despite your stubborn refusal to accept or provide evidence) must do a lot of legwork to debate here, regardless of which side we debate from. Faith, you are using the Bible. The only thing that suggested a Flood was that old book you believe is literally true. The sources that "opened your eyes" started from the Bible, too. Nobody has seriously examined the evidence and concluded that there was a global Flood without the idea being suggested by their own faith in the Bible. It is entirely appropriate to recognize that the Bible is, and always has been the beginning and end for a discussion with you, becuase to you the Bible trumps any evidence and all observation must be filtered through your Biblical worldview. Again, time spent here is irrelevant to the arguments. Nuggin's point is valid. The Mods should call Nuggin out for stating the fact that you have only a layman's understanding of math or geology, and that you frequently demonstrate that you certainly don't understand the geology you have read about? Nuggin may be crossing the line into insulting just a bit, but it's true that you don't seem to understand geology at all beyond what you have read from Creationist sources, which are dubious at best.When we have trained geologists here getting angry at you (to the point of making such a scalding post that she got suspended, but was still entirely true) for misrepresenting their field, your position on understanding geology is not very strong.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.