There goes the reliability of your methodology right down the tubes.
You are right. It is, of course the same methodology used in
any scientific research, and therefore is no more reliable than any science.
1. How can you know that your data was properly collected? This is much trickier than you think. Most dating techniquest (yes, even isochron) depend upon many assumptions that simply are not verifiable. Therefore your data collection is always suspect no matter how "proper" you were in collecting it.
You are right. There can be no absolute certainty. The best we can do is limit ourselves to the minimal "assumptions", (i.e. the world is real, not illusion, no one is tampering with reality for the specific purpose of skewing our data, the measuring devices that were working correctly when calibrated are still working correctly when used, etc..), be sure we are rigorously cross-checking results, be sure we are attempting to falsify hyposthesis, repeating experiments and observations of others to check their results, etc...
Never absolute certainty. After all Bob may have created the universe and everything in it last Tuesday, complete with the fossil record, and false memories in each individual of a life before last Tuesday.
My epistemology is centered on removing as much uncertainty is possible, under the basic assumption that natural phenomenon (at least many of them) can be understood.
2. "from nature" eliminates the possibility of the supernatural. But if it is possible we were created supernaturally, then you cannot rule it out in your analysis by limiting your observations to nature. Otherwise you are simply setting yourself up to come to the wrong conclusion.
Wrong here. If the supernatural exists, then nothing prevents it from leaving evidence in the natural world. About the only way it could avoid leaving evidence in the natural world is by not impinging on the natural world. If the supernatural world does not impinge on the natural world, then for practical purposes it does not exist. Remember, the natural world is merely anything that we have the potential to perceive through our physical senses, as opposed to our emotions or intuitions.
Agreed. But you can work out that little detail with God when you bow before Him.
The Bible says that every knee shall bow. Does that mean I won't have a choice in the matter? Suppose I meet God and, while I am impressed with His power and His might, I am not impressed with His track record as a moral agent... When I bow down before Him, can that really be called worship, or could it better be called fear? Is this what He craves?
Also agreed. I did not stake my eternal soul on creation vs. evolution. In fact, I believed in evolution for many years after becoming a Christian at the late age of 33 (after being a card-carrying evangelical athiest). I changed my mind about creation vs. evolution long after I dealt with the issues that are really important.
If non-evolution is not a core belief of your religion, I assume you had solid rational grounds for abandoning the theory of evolution. This isn't the thread, but if you would like to start a new one to discuss, I would be interested to hear. Maybe the reason you abandoned it was because you realized it didn't make sense to you. Maybe the reason it didn't make sense to you was because you never properly understood it. On the other hand, you could be the Nobel-Prize winner who has found evidence that falsifies common descent. Either way, it would be worth finding out which!
But we can't choose what we believe.
Ah, so you are a Calvanist.
Ha ha!

I like that one, Nick!