What Makes us Human?

Actually theres no linking of fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal apart from an evolutionist's imagination.This hierarchial pattern is useful only to an extent.

You are in a Christian area, denying that a Common Creator could be an explanation?

Not as blurred as you are making out.I think you can see that the neanderthal skulls you are attempting to present as evidence of ape?to man are in fact nothing of the sort.The habilis fragments have been filled with plaster of paris.They are some extinct ape.You can see when you take your indoctrinated goggles off thats theres no connection between the chimp skull and the human ones apart from some atheist telling you their is one.Some of those skulls are animal,some are human, thats basically it.

They look different because they are different.Once again you are attempting to connect them is a result of your preconcieved ideas,instead of just looking at what they just are.

Difficulty comes with trying to match up the biblical kinds with the manmade phylogeny.I prefer to stick with the very basic kinds as reptile,fish mammal,amphibian etc.

In one way it should not seem strange at all. Gap Theory became popular in the 19th century as a response to the the discoveries of geology, that did not fit a young earth interpretation. Day Age and Analogical Day interpretation followed soon after and by the time modern Fundamentalism started up, all of the authors of The Fundaments were either Gap Theorist or some sort of Day age. As you say: When our observations of the world don't seem to match what the scripture says we are meant to dig deeper for the meaning of scripture not change it to suit our observations. The problem is, as science developed it no could no longer fit the Gap Theory. So Gap Theorists could either follow its founding principle and keep digging for the meaning of scripture, in which case they would no longer be Gap, or ignore the contradictions between Gap and science and insist dogmatically on Gap.

I don't know how dogmatic you are on the topic, but I have come across a lot of Gap Theorists who are highly dogmatic. I suppose modern Gap can only survive by being dogmatic and insisting that the Gap interpretation of different passages are the only true interpretation. But this dogamatism is very much at odds with the willingness to search out and explore the meaning of scripture that we see in many earlier proponents, and you seem to advocate in your statement.

In one way it should not seem strange at all. Gap Theory became popular in the 19th century as a response to the the discoveries of geology, that did not fit a young earth interpretation. Day Age and Analogical Day interpretation followed soon after and by the time modern Fundamentalism started up, all of the authors of The Fundaments were either Gap Theorist or some sort of Day age. As you say: When our observations of the world don't seem to match what the scripture says we are meant to dig deeper for the meaning of scripture not change it to suit our observations. The problem is, as science developed it no could no longer fit the Gap Theory. So Gap Theorists could either follow its founding principle and keep digging for the meaning of scripture, in which case they would no longer be Gap, or ignore the contradictions between Gap and science and insist dogmatically on Gap.

I don't know how dogmatic you are on the topic, but I have come across a lot of Gap Theorists who are highly dogmatic. I suppose modern Gap can only survive by being dogmatic and insisting that the Gap interpretation of different passages are the only true interpretation. But this dogamatism is very much at odds with the willingness to search out and explore the meaning of scripture that we see in many earlier proponents, and you seem to advocate in your statement.

Can you compare a lacuna in a text with a change in rate of expansion in spacetime?

It became "popular" in the 19th century because it was needed then but the understanding that there is a gap between between Gen1:1 and Gen.1:2 is very old.

If you want me to ignore syntax, grammar and the semantics of Gen.1:1&2 and say there is no gap? Then I guess I'm going to fall into your "highly dogmatic" type because it is there. Why it's there, what it means, when and how did it happen? Those questions I'm open to for discussion.
peace

They are both made up to satisfy a theory.

Wasn't Gap theory brought up not to satisfy another interpretation of Genesis but to replace Ussher's young earth creationism? And it is an interpretation of a text, not a scientific model of the natural world.

Of course, any scientific theory will adapt and develop as we get more information, or the old theory is abandoned because it simply does not fit. We used to think atoms were solid and the planets travelled in circles. If you really want to stretch the word 'gap' I am sure you could fit it to any scientific theory, that we had a 'gap' in our earlier information, that there is a 'gap' between the nucleus and where the electrons are usually found, a 'gap' between the expected circle and the elliptical orbit. If you want to use the word gap that flexibly I am sure you can, but it means any parallel you want to draw with the gap method of interpreting of Genesis is meaningless.

Well, it's easy to just say I'm wrong, but you haven't actually shown it. Exactly which skulls are human and which are chimp? And how can you tell? You say that Homo habilis is "some extinct ape", but did you know that neocreationists can't actually agree over whether it's human or a non-human ape? They've flip-flopped over the issue several times:
Comparison of all skulls
One would think that if the differences were so obvious, it should be a simple matter of drawing a single dividing line between apes and humans. But evidently it's not.
(By the way, there are only three Neanderthal skulls in the mix.)

So again I ask: what are they? How would you classify the skulls I posted and what criteria do you use to distinguish one from another? Please be explicit.

Interesting that you would define a "kind" so broadly. I don't think I've ever seen a neocreationist do this before. So when Noah brought one of each "kind" onto the ark, did he only bring four or five animals onto the ark?

Also, what about fossils that transition these "kinds" you're referring to? What about Tiktaalik, the fish with legs?

What about Hylonomus, the reptile with a skull like that of an amphibian?

What about Probainognathus, the proto-mammal with both a reptilian and mammalian jaw joint?

You keep telling me that I've got all these preconvictions that influence my position on this matter

but it strikes me that maybe you haven't even given thought to some of these things.

I could be wrong,

and if I am, I hope you'll provide a framework that does a better job explaining the patterns we see in God's creation.