Young Earth Old Universe

[frankbaginski]

I never said an underground ocean exist. There are some wacky models out there that say that. That being said the fountains of the deep were on the earth. They did open. Do we find water in pockets in very deep earth, sure do.

[frankbaginski]

Geology

The science of geology has an interesting past much like biology. Most of the western thought up until the 1800's held the Biblical view of creation and the flood. Then naturalist started trying to remove God from creating man, the animals, and the world. They were saying that the world had a natural creation and all features of the physical world were due to natural events and no supernatural events were involved. This idea that no supernatural events were required to explain all of nature soon turned into a filter for all future academic work. So before you could suggest a theory for anything you first had to assume that naturalistic methods were responsible. The connection to the raw data was not as important as the assumed methods. The more the theory hoisted the naturalistic banner the more it was pushed by the seculiar world. Those who chose to examine the data and point out that the theory did not lead to the conclusions listed in the theory were ridiculed and shunned by academic circles. The naturalistic worldview became a self fulfilling prophesy. Genesis was under attack.

Several theories were written which tried to reconcile the Bible with this new science of geology. The “Gap Theory” and “Day Age Theory” were written by people with a theology background. Why these men saw a need to take scripture and shoe horn it into a naturalistic worldview is beyond my understanding. The next wave of naturalist made no attempt at covering their agenda. By now many people of faith were being told by their ministers that sections of Genesis were in error or it was just a nice story. Since the 1850's this naturalistic view has grown to the point that nearly all college professors believe and teach this view as fact. Tens of thousands of ministers today also hold the naturalist view of creation. Just what is in the geologic record that would cause this huge shift in belief. In my research I did not find a reason based on the data for this shift. Just as with evolution the theory became an infectious thought that rolled over belief in scripture.

Scripture has a purpose and it is not to supply a geologic history of the earth. There are several passages that discuss geologic events but they are in the context of the environment of the people being discussed. You can think of these descriptions as snap shots of the earth at various times in the past. In much the same way most of the geologic record is made by catastrophic events in the earth's past. This creates another series of snap shots of the past. To suggest that these two sets of data must fit into a naturalistic worldview is a fool's game.

I have already included a history of the earth earlier that shows a suggested scriptural timeline with geologic events. I included this to show that the current data can be overlayed on scripture and a theory can be written which shows a fit with Biblical events. Just as easily someone could use the same data and could come up with a theory which does not overlay scripture and creates a timeline with vastly different ages for the events. Every theory makes assumptions before the data is viewed. In my case I believe in a six day creation and an earth that is less than 8000 years old.

I am sure that many of you reading this must think I am making this stuff up. To those I ask a question: How many hundreds of hours have you spent studying the data in geology and biology? Do the study and then form your own opinion.

Granville Penn, the grandson of William Penn argued in the early 1900's against the rising fad of naturalism. He argued that for God to create the universe and then to let dust self organize is against scripture and shows God as a naturalist and not the creator of all things. I for one agree with Mr. Penn on the grounds of scripture and because it is impossible for dust to self organize. In Granville Penn's day the complexity of the cell and all living creatures was not known. I am sure he would have easily accepted the knowledge and acknowledged God for His design and power. The naturalist did not antisipate the level of complexity of life or design in the cosmos. Their job of defending their theory is becoming more and more difficult with each year that goes by.

Sometimes people can be buried in data and miss the big picture. This happens to me all of the time. I need to stand back and view the tall trees of the data to gain a valuable perspective.

Biblical snap shots

The earth is created

Then the animals are created

Very large animals are in early scripture and not in later scripture

No description of evolution in the scripture

A world wide flood


Geologic snap shots

Precambrian, no animal fossils, after that an explosion of life.

Dinosaur bones found but no more dinosaurs.

Fossils do not show changes from the start to the end of geologic ages, no sign of evolution.

There is geologic evidence of massive water erosion all over the earth.

So from afar the big events seem to line up pretty well. The details as to when and how each event happened are not known and many people have come up with numerous theories to explain it all.

A Changing World View 1750 -1850

We had a drastic change in world view during the late 1700's to mid 1800's. One of these was evolution and the other big one was geology. In order to understand what happened and why we need to know about the key people who influenced geology in this period. One person that we will examine is Charles Lyell 1797 — 1875. He was a lawyer and a geologist. He wrote a three volume set of books on geology in 1830 — 1833 called Principles of Geology. His theory is that the past is like today. He is considered the father of uniformitarism. He and Charles Darwin were good friends and wrote many letters to each other. Thankfully those letters and others are still around for us to examine. Reading his personal correspondence gives us some insight into his agenda.

The following letter is one of thousands from this time frame that shows the agenda of the naturalist to subvert the Word of God. The letter was written by Charles Lyell to George Poulett Scrope 14 June, 1830.

“I am sure you may get into Q.R. (Quarterly Review) what will free the science from Moses, for if treated seriously, the (church) party are quite prepared for it. A bishop, Buckland ascertained (we suppose [John] Sumner), gave Ure a dressing in the British Critic and Theological Review. They see at last the mischief and scandal brought on them by the mosaic systems.”
Lyell 1830

This letter shows that the publications at that time were happy to print the naturalistic view point. We also see that a bishop was running interference for them as well and this lead to Mr. Ure (who disagreed with them) being ridiculed in another publication. Charles Lyell who was an atheist was supported by the clergy in his efforts to knock down the historical foundation of the Bible. So strong was this wave of thought that only recently is it being challenged at the academic level.

Now you can disagree with me because of the beliefs that I hold. You may say that I am not looking at the data without my own rose colored glasses. That would be a fair assessment. But the rocks scream out on their own. Many geologist today are rejecting the assumptions of Lyell and his idea of uniformitarism.

The following letter was written in 1981 by Derek Ager in The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. Mr. Ager was an atheist and a geologist with no axe to grind for the Bible. He is writing about the founding fathers of geology and how their ideas which are now dogma were based on their world view and not on observation of the rocks.

“My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field…
In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed 'catastrophic' processes.”
Ager 1981


Now here is a man that is trying to let the data speak for itself. It should be clear to everyone that the data is one thing and opinions about the data are quite another matter.

After the creation and flood the Bible has some jems in the text dealing with the earth's physical past. As I stated before these are just snap shots and should not be used to form a comprehensive physical history of the earth.

I will only use some passages from the book of Job. This is the oldest book in the Bible and contains passages that indicate dinosaurs were around during Job's day. Also during Job's time is when the ice age was impacting the earth after the flood. Of course we can't say for sure but it is interesting none the less to read about.

He removes the mountains, and they do not know
When He overturns them in His anger;
He shakes the earth out of its place,
And its pillars tremble;
Job 9-5,6

We know from looking at rocks and the different layers that some formations are twisted and folded over. We also know that a large geologic event can and does affect the rotation of the earth. The recent sea floor rise off the coast of Indonesia caused a tsunami and a change in the rotation of the earth.

He puts his hand on the flint;
He overturns the mountains at the roots.
He cuts out channels in the rocks,
And his eye sees every precious thing.
Job 28-9,10

Yet another reference to the overturning of mountains. The channels in rocks can come from many sources but to get impressive cuts like the Grand Canyon or the Columbia River Gorge you need massive amounts of water moving boulders the size of houses.

If I wash myself with snow water,
And cleanse my hands with soap,
Job 9-30

Like the streams of the brooks that pass away,
Which are dark because of the ice,
And into which the snow vanishes.
Job 6-15,16

Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water,
Or a path for the thunderbolt,
Job 38-25

From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind,
And cold from the scattering winds of the north.
By the breath of God ice is given,
And broad waters are frozen.
Job 37-9,10

There are many references to ice and snow in the book of Job. Now Job lived in the land of Uz which is by the city of Beersheba. This city is west of the Dead Sea. Others place the land of Uz on the Syrian plateau. In either case the following applies. I looked up the average temperatures for Beersheba and found that their average low for the month of January is 39 degrees. Not exactly what I would consider a frozen waste land. The young earth model shows an ice age at 2900 BC with extinction of the dinosaurs around this same time. The earth's axis would have a greater tilt at this time as well. The ice age would be caused by a hot Atlantic ocean. The hot ocean was due to the land mass of North and South America breaking away from the single continent of Pangeia. The ocean was made hot from the volcanic fissure in the new Atlantic Ocean that was thousands of miles long. The massive movement of land would cause many tsunamis in all the waters connected to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Am I a sea, or a sea serpent,
That you set a guard over me?
Job 7-12

It is very interesting that a guard would be placed over the ocean. If tsunamis were common then this would make a lot of sense. If a guard saw the water recede then a warning could be given to get to higher ground.

He stretches out the north over empty space;
He hangs the earth on nothing.
Job 26-7

As it turns out there is a thinning of the stars in line with the north pole. This reference to empty space could be referring to this observation. The earth is spinning on its axis around the sun in the vacuum of space. This means that the earth is hanging on nothing.

He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters,
At the boundary of light and darkness.
Job 26-10

When you look at any large body of water you can see the curvature of the earth. You will also notice that ships disappear over the horizon as they sail away. So the curvature or roundness of the earth is easy to observe. One has to wonder why in Job's day this was common knowledge and much later man thought the world was flat. There are two ways of looking at this verse. One is to be on the earth and see the curvature on the sea and land. The other is to imagine you are seeing the world from space. In this case the circular horizon on the face of the waters could be the shadow edge between the part of the earth that is lite from the sun and the part that is shadow. This could be a reference that the earth is a sphere.

“Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you;
He eats grass like an ox.
See now, his strength is in his hips,
And his power is in his stomach muscles.
He moves his tail like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.
His bones are like beams of bronze,
His ribs like bars of iron.
He is the first of the ways of God;
Only He who made him can bring near His sword.
Surely the mountains yield food for him,
And all the beasts of the field play there.
He lies under the lotus trees,
In a covert of reeds and marsh.
The lotus trees cover him with their shade;
The willows by the brook surround him.
Indeed the river may rage,
Yet he is not disturbed;
He is confident, through the Jordan gushes into his mouth,
Through he takes it in his eyes,
Or one pierces his nose with a snare.
Job 40-15,24

The behemoth seems to me to be a brontosaurus or another dinosaur like it. It is written about as living in the same time as Job. It also appears to be hunted.

The ice age changed things just too fast for the dinosaurs. They needed to move to better locations away from the drastic weather. The vegetation changed rapidly as well. It may be that their food supply could not migrate to the new temperate locations on the earth fast enough to feed them. The great tsunomis of this time could easily bury the dinosaurs deep enough to allow them to turn into fossils.

Mount St. Helen

On May 18, 1980 at 8:32 am the volcano Mount St. Helen exploded. One half cubic mile of rock and debris mixed with steam blew the north face of the mountain across the surrounding landscape. In six minutes one hundred fifty square miles of forest were blown over and cooked with steam. This short blast was the equivalent of twenty million tons of TNT. A plume of hot ash came out of the top of the volcano over the next nine hours. The blast energy for this nine hour period was four hundred million tons of TNT. The next day the ground temperature on the north side of the volcano was five hundred degrees.

Spirit Lake a four square mile lake near the volcano was hit with part of the blast. The water in the lake was pushed away from the volcano making an 860 foot high wave that washed up on the hills on the far side of the lake. The trees on these slopes were uprooted and pulled into the lake when the water returned. The trees made a two square mile floating mat on the lake.

In total there were three eruptions, the second occurred June 12, 1980, and the third on March 19, 1982. These three eruptions laid down 600 feet of strata. In addition to the main eruptions there were secondary steam explosions from trapped snow and ice, the largest was on May 23, 1980.

The first eruption laid down hot ash, the second eruption caused a pyroclastic flow, and the third eruption created a mudflow. The debris from the first eruption blocked the Toutle River, water from the river gathered behind the natural dam for two years. The mudflow from the third eruption unblocked the river.

Catastrophic Event

The eruption and geologic changes around the mountain are well documented and supply us with physical evidence of a catastrophic event. Many assumptions in geology that are generally accepted as fact have been shown to be wrong.

Geologic assumption: Many fine layers of sediment are the result of thousands of years of deposits.

What we see at Mount St Helen: Many fine layers of sediment laid down in six minutes.

Geologic assumption: Canyons are cut from streams over thousands of years.

What we see at Mount St Helen: A canyon one fortieth the size of the Grand Canyon was created by the mudflow of the third eruption. The stream in the canyon is due to the canyon. The canyon created a place for the stream, the stream had nothing to do with the creation of the canyon. The canyon was carved out in one day.

Geologic assumption: Coal is made from thousands of years of forest sediments slowly covered and heat pressed.

What we see at Mount St Helen: The logs floating in Spirit Lake have lost their bark from rubbing against each other. The bark has settled on the bottom of the lake and is being buried by new sediments. This has created a possible alternate explaination for the creation of coal.

Geologic assumption: Standing petrified forest were buried in place and over thousands of years became fossilized.

What we see at Mount St Helen: The floating logs in Spirit Lake are sinking root end first. They are becoming fixed in the new sediments standing straight up. If they become fossilized they would appear to have been fossilized in place but were actually transported there by water.

Geologic assumption: Canyons carved out of solid rock were created by glaciers or water over thousands of years.

What we see at Mount St Helen: In one day a mudflow carved out a canyon one hundred feet deep. Solid rock was eroded by the force of the mudflow in hours.

What Mount St Helen shows us is our basic assumptions of slow sediments and slow erosion may not explain our geologic past. Using the data gathered from this catastrophic event we should reexamine what we see in the rocks.

[frankbaginski]

Himantolophus says,

"I find it AWFULLY convenient that you slow down time just in time for the emergence of the great civilizations. If man cannot observe it even if it was happening, then how do you know it actually happens in the first place? It's a double unknown in that it's not happening today NOR can you prove it was happening if you were there 5000 years ago. See my post on making up stories to fit beliefs."

What others have done is apply Einstein's theory of space time to the data of red shift quantum steps. I did not make up the theory of relativity, it has been shown to predict aspects of physics for many decades. If you know of a better theory about space time I would love to hear it. I would think that it should be published so the rest of the world could benefit from your insight. The data gathered on the red shift quantized light has been gathered by many observatories around the earth. If you don't think their data is accurate or is made up I would like to know your source because I have have found that data from these sources all match independant checks. Now it is a little difficult to plot the time dilation because it needs differential equations to solve. This is because the speed of light is changing the same time that the red shift is happening. This makes plotting the time dilation a task that only someone who is trained in math could handle. I did not hear anything in your post that would indicate you don't trust math.

Now the light coming from distant sources started some time ago so it supplies a historical fingerprint at the moment it started on its journey to the earth. If you know something that would interfere with that light traveling to earth and change its fingerprint again I would like to hear what that could be. I try and deal with data and models that can be checked or compared to gathered data. The models I will show have many holes in them and over time the holes are getting fewer and the models are changing. They are however better than the currently accepted models taught in our schools. The number of anomalies that current theories have is terrible. What is worse is that the anomalies are glossed over or left out of most curriculums. This is a disservice to the students.

Again I ask that you take the data and find a better fit for it than the one I have presented. The current theories don't work at all and the predictions of the theories fall apart.

Many things in nature allow us to see the past by the remains of the past. A burnt out volcano, fossils, and the like. If I would use your logic then we should ignore geologic structure and animal remains because we were not there to see the volcanos or the animals die. I think that most of the evidence of our past would be swept aside. Since these remains are all we have then we are stuck with this limited view and we should do our best to fit them into a model. When new evidence is found like quantized light we modify our model and keep looking. I thought this is what science is all about.

[frankbaginski]

For those that find this subject interesting I would recommend a book called "In Six Days". It is a collection of fifty papers from fifty Phd's about how the earth was created in six days. Some of the material I have on this thread came from this source.

[Himantolophus]

Some of the events and predictions I have posted require supernatural processes to be carried out. Some of these have happened in the past such as the creation itself. I have also referenced supernatural processes predicted for the future. My belief in God makes it easy for me to accept the past and future supernatural processes without question. Where natural events and processes are evident I have tried to supply enough detail to allow someone to get a good feel for the event and if they so desire to do their own research. I have a lot more data to present on this thread and do not need it taken off on the evolution path. I would be very interested in a world history lesson by someone who has done independant research and also has that history linked to scripture. The model I propose has that purpose in mind. So if you know of a better model that supports scripture I am all ears. But a science lesson that I had 30 years ago in physics or biology is not the purpose of the thread. I would hope that many models of the past supporting scripture would be available for Christians to ponder. I have seen many and this one that I am posting is the best mix that I have found so far.

Supernatural processes aren't science... You come across in this post as one of those "I have accepted God and went on a spiritual quest to determine the Past, and therefore I know more than you do". Do you expect to throw out all this stuff on the thread, and just expect everyone to bow down to your brilliant theory? I am wasting my time typing all this stuff on this thread just to put out a contrasting viewpoint so people don't get sucked in by your baseless explanations. I see numerous problems.
1. You say evolutionists throw out "billions and millions" and eloquent vocabulary to "wow" their audience into believing them. You said this to me in another post. I see all of this mumbo-jumbo as the same tactic. You can spew Scripture all you want and it doensn't change their meaning to me. You can make up these stories all you want, it still looks ridiculous to me. If you are trying to lure more "on the fence Christians" to Christ, there are better ways to do it. Try going with stuff that God is clear on.
2. Why don't YOU get this published? That's right, you won't get into any good scientific journal... I have no theories posted on this thread. I have no background in physics so I wouldn't be looking to get anything published. I accept the version of space-time put forth by secular science, check the literature on that.
3. You took years and years to find this stuff out? I could have made this story up in a day or so. If you want I could post my own story based on supernatural forces that would look just as good as yours. I have refuted your whole story post-by-post and I didn't even need to go to literature. I just used common sense for most of it.

I will move on to the essay next but I feel like it will be a waste of my time. The point of a debate is to put out evidence and refute what the other person counters with. You put out lots of words and I try and counter with my own words.

[Himantolophus]

What others have done is apply Einstein's theory of space time to the data of red shift quantum steps. I did not make up the theory of relativity, it has been shown to predict aspects of physics for many decades. If you know of a better theory about space time I would love to hear it. I would think that it should be published so the rest of the world could benefit from your insight. The data gathered on the red shift quantized light has been gathered by many observatories around the earth. If you don't think their data is accurate or is made up I would like to know your source because I have have found that data from these sources all match independant checks. Now it is a little difficult to plot the time dilation because it needs differential equations to solve. This is because the speed of light is changing the same time that the red shift is happening. This makes plotting the time dilation a task that only someone who is trained in math could handle. I did not hear anything in your post that would indicate you don't trust math.

Again, I don't have any background in physics and I've told you this in prior posts. I don't appreciate the thinly veiled attacks on my intelligence. I am only 26 years old and I am getting my Masters in Marine Biology. I definately intend to get published in the future. I don't know you so I don't know if you have gotten published. If your idea is so revolutionary and obvious, I'd be running to get this out in the public!

Now the light coming from distant sources started some time ago so it supplies a historical fingerprint at the moment it started on its journey to the earth. If you know something that would interfere with that light traveling to earth and change its fingerprint again I would like to hear what that could be. I try and deal with data and models that can be checked or compared to gathered data. The models I will show have many holes in them and over time the holes are getting fewer and the models are changing. They are however better than the currently accepted models taught in our schools. The number of anomalies that current theories have is terrible. What is worse is that the anomalies are glossed over or left out of most curriculums. This is a disservice to the students.

Again, you are saying that the thousands of physicists are wrong and you are right? Why don't you publish this if it is so earth-shattering. All of theoretical physics is theoretical, yours included. You admit your theory has holes... so does the scientific one. We still have lots to learn.

Again I ask that you take the data and find a better fit for it than the one I have presented. The current theories don't work at all and the predictions of the theories fall apart.

For the third time, I have nothing to add on the physics subject. If I attempt to throw out stuff I don't understand I'd be hurting my own argument, so I won't touch it.

[Himantolophus]

Most of the western thought up until the 1800's held the Biblical view of creation and the flood. Then naturalist started trying to remove God from creating man, the animals, and the world.

What was the motivation for this? This is a huge assumption to make. You have to prove that all of 1700-1800's scientists were atheists with an agenda. It wasn't the case.

This idea that no supernatural events were required to explain all of nature soon turned into a filter for all future academic work. So before you could suggest a theory for anything you first had to assume that naturalistic methods were responsible.

Since you cannot find tangible evidence from a supernatural source, it is untestable. What scientists found was that the data supported a timescale different from that seen in the Bible. Many of these discoveries were made before evolution was even an idea. You also have to analyze what we had to work with from 0-1700 AD. Not much. I'd say Man believed in YEC because they were naive. Science was absolutely primitive from the Fall of Rome to the Renaiissance so we didn't know any better. Is it a coincidence that things began to change ONLY when we began to look more closely?

The connection to the raw data was not as important as the assumed methods. The more the theory hoisted the naturalistic banner the more it was pushed by the seculiar world. Those who chose to examine the data and point out that the theory did not lead to the conclusions listed in the theory were ridiculed and shunned by academic circles. The naturalistic worldview became a self fulfilling prophesy. Genesis was under attack.

Yes, it was a HUUUGE conspiracy to refute the Bible. That's the reason scientists wanted to become scientists... we all hate God and Jesus <rolls eyes> You ignore that the scientific method requires one look objectively at the data. How could someone look at the data with an evolutionary bias if they didn't even know evolution. On the contrary, YEC's look at the evidence with a Biblical bias. So in your logic, I could say that YEC's are trying to destroy science!

Several theories were written which tried to reconcile the Bible with this new science of geology. The “Gap Theory” and “Day Age Theory” were written by people with a theology background. Why these men saw a need to take scripture and shoe horn it into a naturalistic worldview is beyond my understanding.

They are trying to find a theory that is befitting of the actual evidence AND the Bible. I don't see a problem with that at all. If there is an explanation that supports both sides, that would be great!

The next wave of naturalist made no attempt at covering their agenda. By now many people of faith were being told by their ministers that sections of Genesis were in error or it was just a nice story. Since the 1850's this naturalistic view has grown to the point that nearly all college professors believe and teach this view as fact. Tens of thousands of ministers today also hold the naturalist view of creation.

So now you are saying all secular science is wrong AND the majority of religions. It is quite likely that it was a story. Who's to say the Egyptian Creation Story isn't right? You are less than 1% of scientists and less than 1% of religion and so YES you must be right.... hahahahahahahahahahaha

Just what is in the geologic record that would cause this huge shift in belief. In my research I did not find a reason based on the data for this shift. Just as with evolution the theory became an infectious thought that rolled over belief in scripture.

What geologic record did you look at? You never answered any of my questions based on the geologic record. The entire Flood scenario you lay out is the opposite of what we see in the geologic record. YEC is an obsolete idea that has only been bypassed because it is backward to what we really see. YEC's are blinded by an overwhleming desire to MAKE everything fit what they read in the Bible. YEC don't care about the data! They could get published if they had data! Science today is based on data. Look in any journal, you have data in every page!

Scripture has a purpose and it is not to supply a geologic history of the earth. There are several passages that discuss geologic events but they are in the context of the environment of the people being discussed. You can think of these descriptions as snap shots of the earth at various times in the past. In much the same way most of the geologic record is made by catastrophic events in the earth's past. This creates another series of snap shots of the past. To suggest that these two sets of data must fit into a naturalistic worldview is a fool's game.

You admit that the Bible is not a science book here yet you try and make up these elaborate theories. If the Bible "glosses over" these ideas, then how can you justify ANYTHING you put on this thread? You say the Bible focuses on the people, why not keep it as a "book for the people", not the animals and Universe.
Yes, there are catasrophic events in Earth's history, but there are periods of catastrophe (meteors, volcanoes, Ice Ages) sprinkled into a uniformitarian Earth. Earth has remained uniformitarian for the last 4000 years of recorded history. A few isolated volcanic eruptions, quakes, and tsunamis are not considered catastropism. Since 4000 years is 60% of Earth's history, you have proof that 60% of Earth's history is uniformitarian.

I have already included a history of the earth earlier that shows a suggested scriptural timeline with geologic events. I included this to show that the current data can be overlayed on scripture and a theory can be written which shows a fit with Biblical events. Just as easily someone could use the same data and could come up with a theory which does not overlay scripture and creates a timeline with vastly different ages for the events.

So, if both sides are biased, then you cannot prove one side is right or wrong... so IF they are both based on different interpretations, then by logic both are equally possible. BUT, your explanation goes against the rock layers and science is fully in sync with it. Without using any scientific jargon, we see layers of rock, one on top of the other, meaning that the lower one were layed down before the one above it (and so on up the column). The fossils in each layer were obviously laid down when the rock layer was laid down. We find different fossil assemblages in each layer that progress from simple to more advanced (with some stasis in some groups). Interpret please...

I am sure that many of you reading this must think I am making this stuff up. To those I ask a question: How many hundreds of hours have you spent studying the data in geology and biology? Do the study and then form your own opinion.

I have and so have millions of other scientists. And we have come to another conclusion. I have studied marine biology for years, and a whole lot more hours than you, believe me, and the patterns of distribution and relationships all FULLY fit the evolutionary explanation. You challenge me on physics, I dare you to challenge me in marine biology
If I showed this post to my colleagues at NOAA, DNR, Grice Marine Laboratory, and CofC they would have a good laugh at your story. These long posts by me are an attempt to make Christians reading this forum think about things logically before they accept stories like this.

Granville Penn, the grandson of William Penn argued in the early 1900's against the rising fad of naturalism. He argued that for God to create the universe and then to let dust self organize is against scripture and shows God as a naturalist and not the creator of all things. I for one agree with Mr. Penn on the grounds of scripture and because it is impossible for dust to self organize.

So, there is another YEC, how surprising. This is supposed to sway me? The complexity argument is completely untestable. YEC's throw out the words "the DNA molecule is so complex and codes for all this stuff, ect. ect. it couldnt have evolved". Over the course of billions of years, I believe it is fully possible for this to evolve. DNA only had to be created one time for it to work. Then it would be modified over time by evolution. All living things share the same structure of DNA and the same organic molecules. This indicates a common ancestor. If all animals had different biological systems, then I'd be forced to accept creationism since it's impossible that DNA could re-evolve multiple times. I finish by saying "isn't it possible that God created the first cells and therefore DNA, thus removing the complexity argument?"?

Sometimes people can be buried in data and miss the big picture. This happens to me all of the time. I need to stand back and view the tall trees of the data to gain a valuable perspective.

On your "snap shot" example. Of course you can make SOMETHING in the billions of years of Earth's history fit the stuff you see in the Bible. Of course there was a beginning, a beginning of life, large animals, erosion events, and catastophes. I could support my ideas by saying modern geologic thinking is a stop-action movie that fits exactly what we see in the geologic record. The Bible cannot explain all the action that occurs between each snapshot. If the Earth's history was indeed a short series of snapshots, maybe, but Earth's history requires alot more time.

The following letter is one of thousands from this time frame that shows the agenda of the naturalist to subvert the Word of God. The letter was written by Charles Lyell to George Poulett Scrope 14 June, 1830.

You say "subvert the word of God", I say they saw evidence contrary to the story and thus had "reasonable doubts". An example is when you believed in Santa Claus when you were a kid. Your parents and friends told you about a man that lived at the North Pole, that came on Christmas, went down chimneys, and left gifts. You believed it because you were naive and the evidence seemed to point to this conclusion (you only got gifts on Christmas morning). You saw the men in Santa suits and bought the Santa's helper story. Then, as you got older, you thought about the impossibility of a man going to billions of houses in one night. You thought about how reindeer couldn't fly and how some people don't have chimneys. You stayed up trying to see what was going on and maybe found out from your friends that Santa was not real. Then your parents told you the truth and it all made sense. Your parents got the gifts, snuck out to put them under the tree at night, and ate your cookies. It all makes sense.
The origins of modern science go the same way. Early scientists were naive and didn't set out to disprove God. Lyell was an atheist so obviously he had an agenda, but Darwin was a Christian so he didn't. Christian scientists began to observe their surroundings and began to have their doubts on if the Biblical story was accurate. As you see, no one has ever disproved God, just the Genesis stories. I don't see this threatening to God...

So strong was this wave of thought that only recently is it being challenged at the academic level.

YEC's have been trying to challenge science since the 1800's and they are getting nowhere. If I could present it in a grpah I would. YEC's are a tiny minority in the scientific community that cling to an obsolete belief.

Now you can disagree with me because of the beliefs that I hold. You may say that I am not looking at the data without my own rose colored glasses. That would be a fair assessment. But the rocks scream out on their own. Many geologist today are rejecting the assumptions of Lyell and his idea of uniformitarism.

Yes, we both have our own beliefs and we will not change them. I agree. But in your own account there i are only a few catastrophes interrupting almost constant uniformitarianism. Your YEC concept of uniformitarianism is more extreme than mine! Nothing is truly uniformitarian, scientists recognize that everything is continuously changing and that catastropes have occurred in the past.

The following letter was written in 1981 by Derek Ager in The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record. Mr. Ager was an atheist and a geologist with no axe to grind for the Bible. He is writing about the founding fathers of geology and how their ideas which are now dogma were based on their world view and not on observation of the rocks.

[/quote]
Well, this quote can be used today by yourself. Creationists have said the same thing for years. Geologists recognize that there have been numerous catastrophes in the geologic past (but no global floods). You have to explain, besides the Flood, how life survived these post-Flood catastrophes relatively intact because geology says we had multiple huge catastrophes.

[Himantolophus]

I will only use some passages from the book of Job. This is the oldest book in the Bible and contains passages that indicate dinosaurs were around during Job's day. Also during Job's time is when the ice age was impacting the earth after the flood. Of course we can't say for sure but it is interesting none the less to read about.

I interpret "he" in that quote as meaning "God" causing all that commotion, not a dinosaur. You have to tell me how all the non-Biblical evidence points to dinosaurs and humans living at different times. YEC's have many embarrassing incidents of forgery trying to find this evidence (see Ica Stones and those footprints).

We know from looking at rocks and the different layers that some formations are twisted and folded over. We also know that a large geologic event can and does affect the rotation of the earth. The recent sea floor rise off the coast of Indonesia caused a tsunami and a change in the rotation of the earth.

This is explainable by accepted geologic processes as well. I would like to see a published source for this distubance of the Earth's rotation because I've never heard this before.

Yet another reference to the overturning of mountains. The channels in rocks can come from many sources but to get impressive cuts like the Grand Canyon or the Columbia River Gorge you need massive amounts of water moving boulders the size of houses.

Up to interpretation. Slow erosion over thousands to millions of years is also capable of doing this. There are many flash flood events in these canyons that can easily move boulders. Those passages talk about rivers having channels (which all rivers must have to flow), the snow melt flowing into rivers (common sense), and the arrival of winter (when cold air from the north causes snow and rivers to freeze).

There are many references to ice and snow in the book of Job. Now Job lived in the land of Uz which is by the city of Beersheba. This city is west of the Dead Sea. Others place the land of Uz on the Syrian plateau. In either case the following applies. I looked up the average temperatures for Beersheba and found that their average low for the month of January is 39 degrees. Not exactly what I would consider a frozen waste land.

just because the average temp is 39 degrees doesn't mean snow cannot fall. This must be the avergae WINTER temp, I assume. If you look at the average temp. in the southern US, you would assume no snow, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen in a few weeks of under-average temps. A few references to snow and ice doesn't equate with an Ice Age.

The young earth model shows an ice age at 2900 BC with extinction of the dinosaurs around this same time. The earth's axis would have a greater tilt at this time as well. The ice age would be caused by a hot Atlantic ocean. The hot ocean was due to the land mass of North and South America breaking away from the single continent of Pangeia. The ocean was made hot from the volcanic fissure in the new Atlantic Ocean that was thousands of miles long. The massive movement of land would cause many tsunamis in all the waters connected to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

no evidence for any of this. See my first retort on page one. MANY problems.

It is very interesting that a guard would be placed over the ocean. If tsunamis were common then this would make a lot of sense. If a guard saw the water recede then a warning could be given to get to higher ground.

what about the animals? and I'm sure if a tsunami was racing towards the coast at 100 m/s that a guard would not see it coming until it was too late to evacuate. Or did they have a seismic warning station?

As it turns out there is a thinning of the stars in line with the north pole. This reference to empty space could be referring to this observation. The earth is spinning on its axis around the sun in the vacuum of space. This means that the earth is hanging on nothing.

Of course there are fewer stars toward the celestrial N. Pole. As you look further away from the galactic plane, you will see fewer stars.

He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters,
At the boundary of light and darkness.
Job 26-10

This is a perfect example of the ambiguity of the Bible. You see a reference to a round Earth, I see it as a flat Earth. If you stand in the desert and spin around 360 degrees, you see a horizon all the way around you. Therefore, you physically see a flat Earth yet a circular horizon.

The behemoth seems to me to be a brontosaurus or another dinosaur like it. It is written about as living in the same time as Job. It also appears to be hunted.

This can be any large mammal or reptile. The ONLY part that says dinosaur is the "tail as a cedar" reference. This can easily be interpreted as a strong and/or stiff wagging tail. Why doesn't the author note his smooth, scaly skin or his long neck, or his huge feet?

The ice age changed things just too fast for the dinosaurs. They needed to move to better locations away from the drastic weather. The vegetation changed rapidly as well. It may be that their food supply could not migrate to the new temperate locations on the earth fast enough to feed them. The great tsunomis of this time could easily bury the dinosaurs deep enough to allow them to turn into fossils.

And yet we see no dinosaur fossils with Ice Age mammals. Your theory is valid for mammoths but not dinosaurs.

The eruption and geologic changes around the mountain are well documented and supply us with physical evidence of a catastrophic event. Many assumptions in geology that are generally accepted as fact have been shown to be wrong.

Yet Mt. St. Helens only left this impact over the immediate vicinity of the mountain. Catastrophes are fully accepted by science. Polystrate fossils are formed by flash floods that pile many layers of sediment on top of standing trees over a short time. The different types of layers are caused by differential sorting which shows why we see different types of layers split by the tree. The asteroid impact 65 million years ago left a worldwide layer of meteorite material at the K-T boundary. Explain why the flood layer isn't obvious? And you don't have a "flood layer" you assume there were three floods.

What we see at Mount St Helen: A canyon one fortieth the size of the Grand Canyon was created by the mudflow of the third eruption. The stream in the canyon is due to the canyon. The canyon created a place for the stream, the stream had nothing to do with the creation of the canyon. The canyon was carved out in one day.

BAD comparsion. The Volcanic eruption was the equivalent of 20 million tons of TNT in a span of minutes while the river erodes over a long period of time. It's like comparing digging a 6 ft. hole using a spoon and a stick of dynamite and saying the rates should be equal. And yes, it is obvious that if there is a canyon blasted out of the Earth, then eventually a river will take it's place. Go back to that river today and I'm sure the canyon will be slighly more eroded than it was in the 1980's.

What we see at Mount St Helen: The floating logs in Spirit Lake are sinking root end first. They are becoming fixed in the new sediments standing straight up. If they become fossilized they would appear to have been fossilized in place but were actually transported there by water.

ANOTHER bad comparison. You are comparing an event happening instantaneously with an even taking weeks to years. Of course an eruption blowing away a forest will bury trees on their sides and upside down. Trees being buried in a flood plain take much longer. Take examples of fossilized trees (polystrate) with insect burrows in the top of the stump. Obviously the dead tree stood for years dead and insects were able to eat away at the exposed top. Over time, the whole tree was buried and fossilized. You see trees on certain coasts (Caper Island in SC for example). Advancing beaches are slowly eating up coastal forests, leaving dead trees in the surf. As the ocean piles up sand, the trees will be buried and fossilized and these trees will be seen in the future as a polystrate fossil.

What we see at Mount St Helen: In one day a mudflow carved out a canyon one hundred feet deep. Solid rock was eroded by the force of the mudflow in hours.

What Mount St Helen shows us is our basic assumptions of slow sediments and slow erosion may not explain our geologic past. Using the data gathered from this catastrophic event we should reexamine what we see in the rocks.

mud and rock flowing at the velocity of a pyroclastic flow will take out anything. Look at the ehergy involved! Another bad example. The rates of erosion are directly related to the type of rock they erode. That's why we see different erosion rates of mountains today and the reason we don't see canyons everywhere. Wind and Ice also erodes just as well as water s you see different formations in the desert SW as compared to the East Coast. Glaciers and water also have dramatically different erosional patterns. A U-shaped valley with associated glacial deposits and moraines is obviously glacier and river valleys in soft rock have deeper and steeper canyons with faster rivers and v-shaped valleys. Slower rivers have shallow, u-shaped valleys.

In conclusion, Mt. St. Helens proves that catastrophes happen, yes. But it doesn't do anything to disprove the slow geologic processes we see elsewhere.

Ok, I've wasted enough time on this. I responded to it all. Do your picking and choosing what you want to respond to.

[Gman]

For those that find this subject interesting I would recommend a book called "In Six Days". It is a collection of fifty papers from fifty Phd's about how the earth was created in six days. Some of the material I have on this thread came from this source.

Frank... The Phd advocates I've always seen for YEC have a Christian bias. Can you name some of these scientists that aren't Christian?

[frankbaginski]

Himantolophus,

Gretchen Cook-Anderson/ Dolores Beasley
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-0836/1753Jan. 10, 2005 RELEASE : 05-0011 NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth NASA scientists using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation.

Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and Dr. Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. said all earthquakes have some affect on Earth's rotation. It's just they are usually barely noticeable.

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/ja ... quake.html

"just because the average temp is 39 degrees doesn't mean snow cannot fall. This must be the avergae WINTER temp, I assume. If you look at the average temp. in the southern US, you would assume no snow, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen in a few weeks of under-average temps. A few references to snow and ice doesn't equate with an Ice Age."

I said this was the average LOW temperature. I went to an Israeli website for historical weather. This of course does not mean it does not snow or have ice. The point I was making is that it seems different than today.

"what about the animals? and I'm sure if a tsunami was racing towards the coast at 100 m/s that a guard would not see it coming until it was too late to evacuate. Or did they have a seismic warning station?"

It is silly to ask about a seismic station in 2900 BC. Being a marine Biologist you should know that a tsunami recedes the water before the wave comes ashore. This is the watch I was refering to.


"This is a perfect example of the ambiguity of the Bible. You see a reference to a round Earth, I see it as a flat Earth. If you stand in the desert and spin around 360 degrees, you see a horizon all the way around you. Therefore, you physically see a flat Earth yet a circular horizon."

You did not explain the main point which is the boundry between light and darkness.

"This can be any large mammal or reptile. The ONLY part that says dinosaur is the "tail as a cedar" reference. This can easily be interpreted as a strong and/or stiff wagging tail. Why doesn't the author note his smooth, scaly skin or his long neck, or his huge feet?"

I have to look at what was written not what was not. I guess the part about he holds the Jordan in his mouth did not impress you. It did me. But we are all different.

"And yet we see no dinosaur fossils with Ice Age mammals. Your theory is valid for mammoths but not dinosaurs."

Fossils are very rare. To make one requires almost instant burial and a sterile environment. This takes a major catastrophe. There are people trying to make fossils in a natural environment, so far they have been unsuccessful. You can make them with a heat and pressure chamber. An Ice age does not supply the instant deep burial required for fossilization. Now in Russia we have frozen mammoths but they are not fossilized. In fact mammoth steaks were offered in some restaurants in Moscow.

"Yet Mt. St. Helens only left this impact over the immediate vicinity of the mountain. Catastrophes are fully accepted by science. Polystrate fossils are formed by flash floods that pile many layers of sediment on top of standing trees over a short time. The different types of layers are caused by differential sorting which shows why we see different types of layers split by the tree. The asteroid impact 65 million years ago left a worldwide layer of meteorite material at the K-T boundary. Explain why the flood layer isn't obvious? And you don't have a "flood layer" you assume there were three floods."

You fully accept differential sorting to explain polystrate fossils but refuse to allow this same process to explain varves. The Mt. St Helens catastrophe is a small one by historical standards. But we can learn from this event what to expect to find in large ones. The Missoula flood which carved out the scablands of easterm Washington. The Bonneville flood which carved out the Columbia gorge. The Yellowstone Caldera which deposited ash across the United States. The great ash deposit across the Rocky Mountain area (source unknown). These are bigger events but are still small compared to ancient geologic events.

"BAD comparsion. The Volcanic eruption was the equivalent of 20 million tons of TNT in a span of minutes while the river erodes over a long period of time. It's like comparing digging a 6 ft. hole using a spoon and a stick of dynamite and saying the rates should be equal. And yes, it is obvious that if there is a canyon blasted out of the Earth, then eventually a river will take it's place. Go back to that river today and I'm sure the canyon will be slighly more eroded than it was in the 1980's."

The third eruption was small and caused more heat than anything else. The heat caused a rapid ice melt which turned into a mudflow which caused the features I talked about. If you take data from the first eruption and apply it to the third your argument seems made up. If you are not aware of the events and the detail you should look it up before you post. Look up March 1982 eruption. I found this report on the internet at ICR.org. If you don't trust them then find another source, the data is the same.

"An explosive eruption of Mount St. Helens on March 19, 1982, melted a thick snowpack in the crater creating a destructive sheetlike flood and mudflow which downcut the rockslide and pyroclastic flow deposits north of the volcano. The largest steam explosion pit (shown in Figure 3 as it was previous to March 19) overflowed its west rim and cut a deep ravine into the 1980 pumice deposits to the west (Waitt et al. 1983). The flow formed anastomosing channels over much of the hummocky rockslide debris allowing cataracts to erode headward and established for the first time since 1980 a dendritic integration of the North Fork Toutle drainage. Erosion has occurred intermittently with most of the established drainage lines being formed in March 1982.
The new drainage of the North Fork of the Toutle River is shown in Figure 5. A miniature "Grand Canyon" over 100 feet deep divides into several tributary drainages. The upland flat between the tributary canyons has already been severely altered by rill and gully erosion. Figure 6 shows one of these canyons in detail. Most of the major excavation of the new canyons of the North Toutle River appears to have occurred during the mudflow erosion on March 19, 1982. The new headwaters of the North Fork of the Toutle River contain other smaller drainage channels that connect steam explosion pits. One smaller channel, believed to have been breached by mudflow activity between explosion pits on March 19, 1982, is shown in Figure 7. The breaching should have occurred rapidly, and it is reasonable to suppose that this gorge formed in a single day."

I will respond with more later.

[frankbaginski]

Evidence of the global flood from the days of Noah

The three major catastrophic events in the earths past are the global flood, continental separation, and the ice age. The global flood occurred first then the next two catatrophic events, this would distort or destroy a lot of the structure left behind. So to find the flood evidence we need to first look at the ice age then the continental separation.

The ice age left dramatic evidence of its work. Glacier cut valleys, scared landscape, and local flooding from glacier melt waters. So these areas are changed since the flood and we would not expect to see coordinated material from the flood. Going back in time we now come to the continental separation which caused massive tsunamis and mountain building. So in those areas deformed by this process we would again not expect to see coordinated evidence of the flood.

We can separate out those areas that we would not expect to see evidence. We now need to figure out what we should see.

One first has to understand the weather of the earth before the flood. It did not rain. The ground had fountains that watered the ground. And indeed there were rivers. We know that mountains allow wind currents to push water rich air into cooler air which makes rain. So the atmosphere was probably different than we have today, I would suspect that the air retained it's warmth even at higher elevations. The mountains were probably lower as well. In looking at ancient geology most movement was vertical not horizontal like today. So this world does not fit into what we see today.

The cause of the flood is supernatural so we would not expect to see evidence of the cause but we should see evidence of the event. The biggest events in geology are plate movements. The ancient plate movements are vertical. The plates below the oceans rose as the continents dropped. The ocean water pushed over the land knocking down most small landmasses. The angular momentum of the water made giant circular walls of water around the centers of some continents. Friction slowed the waters so eventually even the centers were covered. With a rising seafloor and dropping continents it is easy to calculate the requirements for a completely submerged earth. Vertical movement was everywhere on the earth. Equalibrium had to be reestablished so some areas sank and others rose. The water that rushed over the land would erode the land flat even if the sediments were hard or soft. There would be a massive movement of this top layer and the rock would be worn round like rock you would find in a river bed. The rocks would run into each other so we should expect to find concussion marks on the boulders that remain. We would expect to find the layer of rock and soil in places that have no historical water to make the layer other than the flood. As the water was rising and falling we should see wave erosion that would knock some features flat.

The vertical movement after the flood would create areas where a horizontal layer of eroded rock and debris would be found at different elevations. Mountains too big to erode away completely would have water cut valleys at different elevations. Old volcanos would have the surrounding rock eroded away leaving the center volcanic rock center.

We do indeed find these features on every continent. In the United States we find many eroded vocanos like Devils Tower or Ship Rock in New Mexico. Similar erosional remains can be found in Monument Valley in Utah. Some geologist say that the surrounding rock was eroded away over 40 million years ago. But the erosion rates of the volcanic centers would have leveled them long ago. Yet they still stand.

The flat layer of round rock debris can also be found in the United States. A flat area around The Little Rocky Mountains in Montana is capped by a round rock debris layer. Another is the Flaxville Plateaus of northeastern Montana. This same rock debris can be found on the top of uplifted mountains like Beartooth Mountain in Montana, and Lookout Mountain in northeastern Oregon.

In 1967 Lester King in his book “The Morphology of the Earth” said that the continent of Africa is 60% covered in planed erosion layers. This was denied by others but was eventually supported by C.R. Twidale in 1998.

As for water cut valleys where there is no water you can go see The Shoshone Water Gap at the southern end of the Rattlesnake Mountains west of Cody Wyoming. Or you can go to the Unaweep Canyon wind Gap that cuts through the Uncompahgre Plateau of western Colorado.

These examples are not explained using normal geologic processes. The flood would make these geologic features easily.

[Himantolophus]

I'd apologize for not replying sooner but you're probably sick of me anyway

I find it very hard to argue things my way if you are looking at things another way. You say you have studied from both perspectives... you should know that much of the stuff you posted as "evidence" can be explained by both your theory and my theory. If these things were so puzzling, scientists would have to come up with new theries to explain them. So far, all of this fits into regular geology.

Thanks for the source on the Indonesian earthquake. Very interesting...

I said this was the average LOW temperature. I went to an Israeli website for historical weather. This of course does not mean it does not snow or have ice. The point I was making is that it seems different than today.

Ok, but it doesn't change anything I said. If you average the low temps for a year, 39 is pretty low to me. I could see a few episodes of snow and ice that the Bible could be reffering to.

It is silly to ask about a seismic station in 2900 BC. Being a marine Biologist you should know that a tsunami recedes the water before the wave comes ashore. This is the watch I was refering to.

The seismic thing was a joke. When the waters recede prior to the tsunami, that gives the populace only a few minutes to start running. See vids before the tsunami in Indonesia... the water receded out to sea and flooded in in the span of a few minutes. If that landslide occurrs in the Canaries, experts say that the East Coast would only have a couple hours warning EVEN with seismic warning stations!

You did not explain the main point which is the boundry between light and darkness.

I was playing Devil's advocate in this case because I DO believe the Bible points to a round Earth. I see your point here.

I have to look at what was written not what was not. I guess the part about he holds the Jordan in his mouth did not impress you. It did me. But we are all different.

Jordan River? I interpret this as drinking from the river and many animals do this. Plus you need to address why the author didn't speak of the rest of his "dinosaurian" anatomy which would have been very obvious if he was a sauropod. If you are giving a description of such a remarkable beast, you wouldn't leave out scaly skin and a long neck!

Fossils are very rare. To make one requires almost instant burial and a sterile environment. This takes a major catastrophe. There are people trying to make fossils in a natural environment, so far they have been unsuccessful. You can make them with a heat and pressure chamber. An Ice age does not supply the instant deep burial required for fossilization. Now in Russia we have frozen mammoths but they are not fossilized. In fact mammoth steaks were offered in some restaurants in Moscow.

The Moscow thing must be an exaggeration. I for one would not eat even the best preserved steak if it was sitting around for 1000's of years
Fossils are INDEED very rare and hard to make. That's why we only have bits and pieces of many of these creatures. If they died before they could be buried, most likely they were fragmented or destroyed before they could fossilize. That's why we find alot of fossils in marine environments and in old river basins. It is easier to bury things in aqueous environments. Fossilization requires the same timescales as evolution. It is folly to try and make a fossil in a human lifetime. That's why we find that all animal remains taken in the last 10000 years are subfossil in nature. So, this does nothing to hurt or help your argument or mine.

The Mt. St Helens catastrophe is a small one by historical standards. But we can learn from this event what to expect to find in large ones. The Missoula flood which carved out the scablands of easterm Washington. The Bonneville flood which carved out the Columbia gorge. The Yellowstone Caldera which deposited ash across the United States. The great ash deposit across the Rocky Mountain area (source unknown). These are bigger events but are still small compared to ancient geologic events.

I don't doubt what St. Helens did and what it was capable of. It proves that we have catastrophes but it doesn't prove a global flood or quick plate tectonics. It was a tiny, localized event, gelogically speaking. You have to provide one example of our plates moving fast in the last 4000 years of recorded history. They have stayed pretty much the same with only minor changes (mtns a little higher, lower, islands have gotten a little bigger or smaller). Modern geology supports catastrophes on a small scale (one volcano eruption, a tsunami), medium scale (volcanic super eruptions, small asteroid impacts, changes in the axis) and large scale (large asteroids, large scale climate shifts, Ice Ages). All of these events and mechanims are supported by today's evidence. Your's may be supported by the Bible (even this is iffy) and theoretical evidence at the present.

The third eruption was small and caused more heat than anything else. The heat caused a rapid ice melt which turned into a mudflow which caused the features I talked about. If you take data from the first eruption and apply it to the third your argument seems made up. If you are not aware of the events and the detail you should look it up before you post. Look up March 1982 eruption. I found this report on the internet at ICR.org. If you don't trust them then find another source, the data is the same.

Again, this shows local, catastopic effects from pyroclastic flows and snowmelt-caused mudflows can do alot of damage. I don't think a 100 ft. gorge is comparable to the Grand Canyon however. Just from the material in the flows themselves, I say it was closer to unconsolidated rubble and ash than solid rock. Plus the meanders and oxbows seen in the Grand Canyon could not have formed from a Flood draining, especially a fast draining.

[Himantolophus]

your second post looks like something I've read from you before on another topic. It looks familiar to me. I've covered this on another post I believe.

These examples are not explained using normal geologic processes. The flood would make these geologic features easily.

I can explain them. Maybe on a YEC timescale it can't be explained by my theory but on an old Earth yes:
Devil's Tower and Monument Valley: said formations are composed of a different rock than the surrounding rock. Over time, wind and water eroded the surrounding rock away and the exposed monolith is left behind. This type of erosion is found only in certain parts of the world, mostly arid. If a flood did this, it would be everywhere on the planet.
Little Rocky Mtns flat area: geologists believe that early in it's formation, as Pangeaea split apart, the level of the land dropped in certain areas (Sahara and North America). This formed a shallow sea that is supported by fossils found inland and on top of mountains. When this land sank, it was composed of a different rock. Turned into a lowland, this same rock may have collected erosional conglomerates over time. In millions of years, as the same area was uplifted in the formation of the Rockies, the pebble-topped mountains were uplifted and eroded. Now, we see these formations capped with stuff that shouldn't be there. So, not one event, but many consecutive events, can leave this same feature.

In 1967 Lester King in his book “The Morphology of the Earth” said that the continent of Africa is 60% covered in planed erosion layers. This was denied by others but was eventually supported by C.R. Twidale in 1998.

Well I'd agree that ll of the continents and even the continental shelves are dominated by erosional deposits. No questions from me. Doesn't disprove modern geology. The deep seas have no deposits however and this is a big problem for your flood.
Rattlesnake Mtns. and the like: this area was once a shallow sea and also if Ice Age meltwater impacted this region they easily could have carved these features. Just becuase water isn't present now doesn't mean it was never there in the past (and I don't mean a Global Flood amount of water either).

My point, in your opinion it isn't explainable for modern geology

[frankbaginski]

Himantolophus,

Yes given enough time and a list of possible historical geologic events one could explain the features I talked about. But, in those long ages the erosion would not have left the flat surfaces. We see erosion making inroads into the flat surfaces now and if we extend them over long ages all of these features go away. You have to look at all of the processes that are taking place. If you do your choices are very limited as to how the features got there.

Old earth geologist ignore the speed that erosion takes place. If they did all of their old earth theories and assumptions get destroyed. When I look at the whole picture with a young earth the anomalies go away.

After you finish your degree in marine biology I suggest you take up an investigation of the anomalies of science. It may lead you to some strange conclusions. Who knows you may end up a YEC like me.

[frankbaginski]

In order to see science in the light of a young earth there are few parameters that you need to wrap your head around to make the jump. I will describe these as anomalies to science and will describe why a young earth model fixes these problems of science.

The first of these is evolution. Now I have to be careful because I have to separate out Darwinian evolution. There is genetic sellection on a gene level and we also know of specialization based on different parts of the DNA turning on and off due to evironmental influences. These mechanisms help us adapt to the environment and to have differences in our speices so we are not all alike. We also have mutations which occur in nature that we have seen in very large populations of parasites and viruses. These appear to help any species to adapt but they are not a mechanism to produce new species. Now Darwin said that over vast times simple step by step changes occured which lead from the first cell into all of the variety of life we see today. The problem with that is that too many of the steps in that process require multiple steps at the same time. These steps are to big for the Darwinian process to work. That process relys on mutations and mutations are ruled by chance. Chance just can't make the mutations required because there is not enough time and there is not enough population of the host to make it work. Now the big lie from the Darwin camp is that natural sellection drives the process, and the environmental pressure sellects the mutation which leads to a better species. But they jump over the point that natural sellection only can pick from available mutations. Those mutations are again ruled by time and host population. So the big elephant in the room with Darwin is the lack of available mutations to accomplish his theory. Since time is a big factor in the evolutionary process if you remove long ages then there are two elephants in the room with Darwin. Ask any Darwinist to break down the simplest life into to Darwin steps to form any other lifeform. They cannot do it. If the steps are simple why can't we have one, or two, or many.

Now in the young earth model God created the animals and man at the same time. Yes we have common parts and common processes, that is because we have a common designer. The steps between species was accomplished by supernatural forces we have no idea about.

The second is astrophysics. Current thinking in astrophysics is the universe is 15 billion years old and the universe is expanding and accelerating into space. The basis for all of this is the red shift of light from distant sources. This is assumed to be a doppler effect which results in an expanding universe. The model must have a start to this expansion so we have the big bang to start the universe. Now in this explosion small variations allowed gas to collect and stars were formed. All of the heavy elements were formed in supernovas. The gas recollected many times and we have planets and stars and galaxies. The current model says that the galaxies are expanding so fast that soon they will traveling at or near the speed of light. Their light will no longer make its way to us and our night sky will go black except for a few local stars. There of course is a small problem. The light from distant sources is quantized which means it is in red shift steps. The doppler effect cannot cause this step function. So the whole model must be thrown out. There is another problem. The speed of light has changed over time. A change was seen over the last 40 years. When one looks back at all of the historical measurements of the speed of light you see it slowing down. The current theory assumes a constant speed. This makes no sense in an expanding universe model. Just the stretching of space would cause changing in the constants of physics. Einsteins and Maxwells equations predict this. But of course the step function elephant and the changing speed of light elephant sit in the corner and every one looks the other way. Now a new model has been developed that accounts for the changing speed of light and the step function of the red shift. This new model shows that the age of the earth is young and distant light indeed traveled millions of times faster in the past. It also shows that radioactive decay was faster in the past as well. But to accept this model means throwing away all that science has believed for the past 100 years. How can scientist admit that they were all wrong. It will take time, probably another 30 years but it will happen one day that science will reset on new theories. There is already a growing number of phyicist that are pushing for this to happen. You will not find this in the New York Times. So we have one theory with anomalies and the world of science is happy with it. We have another theory which fits the data and does not have anomalies but the old school in most cases won't even look at it.

The third is geology. Using the old earth model and slow processes geology has overlayed a very old timeline on the geologic history of the earth. The assumed processes are slow so long ages are described. This of course makes for a selffulfilling prophesy. Circular logic is the worst kind. If you take away the long ages by admitting that atomic decay is not steady as you go back in time then geology must be reexamined in this new light. There are many features in the world which are young when you measure them. River deltas are one, the granites of the world are young when you consider the helium in side of them. Geologist for the most part refuse to consider any catastrophic event. The Missoula flood took 40 years to be accepted. Actually all of the people who rejected had to die first. This is not science this is personal beliefs. So the elephants in geology's house are young ages and catastrophic processes.