Cal wrote:
I'm not getting the why part of this yet.
OK, let me try again.
If something is broad in scope so as to affect the entire world, why is it unlikely it would affect everything in the world?
Of course it would affect everyting in the world. My point is that to match what we see, it would have to affect everything in the world in very specific ways, which are very unlikely.
Let me try another example. Long sections of the geologic column are found all over the world (in fact, most land areas contain one of many long sections - under where I am in Michigan, for instance, the rock below my house makes a stack from the archean up through the precambrian, cambrian, and so on up to the missippian).
Now, when any stack like this is dated, multiple methods confirm each other and give the standard dates. A hypothetical example, say for my house here, take a rock from each of the layers and date it by method one (say by geomagnetic polarity). (each method here is accurate to + or - 5 million years).
Method 1 Gives:
~952, ~521, ~476, ~413 and ~368 million years, respectively, for those 5 rocks
Now take those same 5 rocks, test by Method 2 (say, based on U to Pb)
Method 2 gives:
~954, ~526, ~477, ~414 and ~372 million years, respectively, for those same 5 rocks
Now take those same 5 rocks, test by Method 3 (say, based on coral growth)
Method 3 gives:
~951, ~519, ~478, ~411 and ~366 million years, respectively, for those same 5 rocks
As you can see, the different methods, based on different phenomena, confirm each other. Plus, in practice, this isn't done on just 5 rocks, but on a dozen or more layers, with multiple points for each one - and they still all confirm each other.
Now, if that were because a flood or something affected rocks everywhere on the whole world, then look what it would have had to do.
Take my five rocks. To get those dates using method #1, the "event" would have had to change the
magnetism of each rock to give the precise ages listed. It couldn't have just changed the whole group to the same magenetism, because then they'd all come back with the same age (say, of 0.03 million years).
Now, for method #2 to agree, that same "event" would have had to change the
radioactive isotope level of each rock to give the precise ages listed, which just happened to be the same ones given by geomagnetism. It couldn't have just changed the whole group to the same radioactive isotope level, because then they'd all come back with the same age (say, of 5,856 million years).
Now, for method #3 to agree with #1 and #2, that same "event" would have had also to change the
coral growth level of each rock to give the precise ages listed by the other two methods, which just happened to be the same ones given by geomagnetism and radioactive decay. It couldn't have just changed the whole group to the same coral growth level, because then they'd all come back with the same age (say, of 13 million years).
Now, multiply that whole scenario for every single location on earth that has been tested, and add dozens of other additional methods, again, with all the results confirming each other - giving the same ages for each rock, each fossil, each layer, even though the methods are based on different phenomena, which would have been affected differently by a flood or such.
See why to get that whole consistent, multiply confirmed story in location after location, though different rock chemistries and different local conditions, across literally thousands of locations on earth, God would certainly have been aware of it, and it would have been under his control-
it would have had to have been his will - so to reject the geological timeframe accepted by practically all geologists (and originally framed by Christians), is to suggest that God is deceptive?
Papias