Originally posted by Josephus
"how did it contain all of the superheated steam prior to the asteroid impacts?"
The bible records in Genesis 2:6 that water/steam came up from the ground in stable conditions, and watered the land.
Are you saying that there were fissures in the Earth's crust prior to the asteroid impact? If so, and if there was a subterranean sea, what kept that water from erupting violently through those fissures? Have you ever cooked in a pressure cooker?
"Unless we have something to explain, like evidence for a flood, it makes more sense to interpret all of these geological features in terms of well-understood gradualistic events known to create them."
You mean, take a uniformitarian approach: that all these things which scientist rely on have stayed the samed for millions and billions of years - without change. To me, this is an illogical approach to science: assume nothing unless something else proves you otherwise. If you rely solely on factual evidence, you will only remain to guess the origin by theory, not science.
If you know how a thing is formed, then see the thing in nature, you must have good reasons for postulating some other event that is not known to form it.
For instance, I have a theory about how ant-hills are formed. According to my theory, ants squeeze apples out of the ground, and the result is the loose mound of dirt that looks like an ant-hill.
My theory predicts that since there are so many ants, we should find a lot of apples on the ground, especially within a few miles of an ant-hill. Of course, I am aware that Apples grow on trees and they fall due to a well known natural law called "Gravity". Until I can prove that Ants have underground tunnels filled with Apples that they sometimes push through the ground, there I cannot interpret the evidence of Apples on the ground as evidence for my theory. We already have a good explanation of how they got there. My theory needs a prediction that can be uniquely confirmed.
I could make a prediction that apple distribution should follow the inverse square law as measured from ant-hills. But if I did that, then I would have to go out in the field and do some research to check my prediction and that would be too hard ... plus I might be proven wrong, if my theory made a unique prediction.
Isn't it strange to you that the ONLY fossils we do find are all found in prehistoric mud, tar, and debris deposits? All fossils we see have required rapid encasement to actually be preserved! Scientist interpret this as meaning seperate incidents of "accidents" while I simply see them loudly proclaiming the same thing: there was a global flood.
It isn't strange that the only fossils found are found in a substrate that allows fossilization (one that begins as a soft material that readily takes an impression, then hardens). What is strange is that fossils are found in practically every stratum of rock, from the highest strata to some of the deepest (though in "pre-Cambrian" strata, very few fossils are found). Radiometric dating confirms that the highest strata are much younger than the lowest, so if fossils are found in the high and low strata, then yes, the only decent interpretation is that they represent seperate incidents of fossilization. That's not hard to swallow, since local floods, volcanic eruptions, and other small natural disasters (or just plain accidents, such as animals being caught in tar-pits) create the correct conditions for fossilization over and over again, even today. Furthermore, some kinds of fossils (i.e. chalk deposits) can be formed just by the slow accumulation of normal, every day, non-catastrophic, sedimentary deposits.
The whole point of my discourse has been to show you that the same evidence evolutions use, can just as easily be modified to support creationist theory: thus supporting my point that whatever you believe, bias or not, you will wind up finding support for it.
But when you actually EXAMINE the evidence to see if a particular interpretation fits, the evolutionary interpretation invariably does (for all kinds of evidence, not just the fossil record). The Flood Model interpretation is always contrived (at best) and only fits bits and pieces of the data. Furthermore, the Flood Model raises more questions than it solves by far.
Then there is the QUANTITY of evidence to consider. The flood model accounts for very little. How does the flood model account for, for instance, The patterns of fossil deposition? Why always dinosaurs below elephants? Why oaks (and modern ferns) above extinct species of ferns?
You haven't brought up any evidence of poor QUALITY, but those considerations can be made too.
The only difference between evolution and creation theory, however, is that one has the written account of observers who witnessed it.
As pointed out above, there are a lot more differnces than that! And by the way, who do you suppose witnessed the flood? I thought that the oldest parts of the Bible were written (according to tradition) by Moses. If you say that God inspired Moses to write about things that God witnessed, you are not only begging the question, but you are asking me to accept hearsay.
"In other words, is there evidence that there was a recent extinction of all life on earth except for a boat-load of people and animals, and ((maybe)) a very hardy fish or two."
Wrong question. I would leave out "recent". Simply ask: Can evidence be found to support a massive extinction of all life on earth? Of course!
Ok, so maybe the great flood was 4 million years ago instead of 4 thousand. That would explain why all of the evidence for it has been erased. However, the global flood does not require just a massive extinction (there is evidence that several of these took place, and we are in the middle of one now!) - the global flood requires a COMPLETE extinction (with the possible exception of one boatload of terrestrial animals). There is no evidence for that whatsoever.
"Chimpanzees could not have had a common ancestor for at least four or five million years. Same for Orangatans. Same for most species."
Again, this is all speculation based on chance, numbers, and theory-fitting.
This is based on observed mutation rates, and current genetic diversity, very carefully studied.
"How do you account for diamonds? They were formed form intense pressure on coal deposits, right? So, was there a second great flood after the first one to turn all of this coal into diamonds?"
It is the prediction of Flood theory that the flood caused the continents to form as they are now today - perhaps from one supercontinent. This massive land change (due to the shifting of the oceans) would render great pressure and energy on anything in it, worldwide.
Sure there was pressure, but where was the coal? Did the coal form during the first two weeks, then the diamonds in the year following?
Don't you belive that is the right answer - at least, whether or not in your mind that it's possible? I encourage people to think for themselves.
The bible records that it rained for just 40 days, but the waters kept growing for 180 days afterwards. It took a long time for that water to receed, a long time for earth to become stable once again, at least perhaps another thousand years, with an exponentially decreasing order of instability.
I guess maybe. "I guess maybe" doesn't make good evidence though.
"Where is the evidence of worldwide uniform deposits of sediments? Where is the one thick stratum with tools and remains of all of those people and animals who were living at that time?"
I wouldn't imagine they would be found for the same reasons diamonds were made: massive world wide land changes would make the earth literally unrecognizable when it was all done.
If that is the case, then why are there plenty of recognizable strata that can be examined now, complete with fossils of the organisms that were buried in them? Why is the clear pattern preserved from the top of the geological column to the bottom, if the earth's crust was basically randomized in the aftermath of the flood? Some accounting has to be made for the "flood stratum". Even if found in large chunks instead of a continuum, it must be found.
"Are you beginning to see why scientists don't accept the global flood model?"
I know why they have all along. No need to point it out. They simply refuse to work on something they see no rational need to, and I agree. If I were them, and if I was guided soley by scientific processes and means, and evidence, I'd still need a theory of some kind to interpret it all because the answers simply aren't that obvious as one would want to believe. Of course, that theory is based on Darwinian imagination. Mine is based on historical witness.
The answers of conventional geology aren't obvious at all. That is why whole lifetimes of research and study are put into it by those who want to find those answers. And, as for Darwinian imagination, conventional geology, old earth and all, was first "invented" by geologists who believed in God as creator, before the time of Darwin. Your answers are not based on a historical witness, but on a strict modern interpretation of historical hearsay, at best.
