We cannot say that there is no evidence of a global flood, I can google evidence for a global flood and many articles written by scientists provide evidence for the global flood.
What we can say is much stronger than "there is no evidence". What we can say is that there is overwhelming evidence that a global flood
did not happen. That is, the evidence there contradicts a global flood.
As Gluadys noted,
Rev. Adam Sedgwick -head of geology at Cambridge and President of the Royal Geological Society -- in 1831 (not 1835) stated definitively that the evidence contradicted a global flood.
Christ's_Warrior, you can always find evidence
forany theory, if that is all that you are looking for. After all, you can find evidence the earth is flat. Early Christians did. This is why evidence
against is so important.
Evidence
for only counts if it comes about by an honest attempt to show the theory wrong, and that attempt fails. That is what we have in the evidence supporting evolution. Scientists have been trying to show it is wrong ever since it first popped into Darwin's mind -- starting with Darwin. But all attempts have failed to show evolution to be wrong.
What I will agree on is that scientists on both sides of the equation have certain biases and presuppositions that they may apply to the same thing and two different results are produced based on this.
Creationists try to trot this out, but it won't work. Remember, young earth and a global flood were
the accepted theories in 1800. If the "biases and presuppositions" were operative as you say, those scientists would never have rejected young earth and a global flood to begin with.
So you can't have it both ways: you can't say scientists have biases and presuppositions in the matter when they went against those supposed biases and presuppositions to reject young earth, special creationism, and a global flood.
What we have is a phenomenon seen in science: we have a few people who, for biases and presuppositions outside of science, refuse to accept that a favorite theory is falsified.
You provided evidence of the bias and presupposition yourself when you want creation to take 6 days, but will allow those days to be long. This goes against the plain evidence of the text itself where the authors went to great lengths to have six
twenty-four hour days. Notice we have "morning and evening" for the first 3 days when there is no sun. Why? So those days are limited to 24 hours.
So, Genesis 1 does not tell us at all how God created. So we have to ask: what were the authors trying to tell their audience? When you do that, and put yourself into the position of the people at the time Genesis 1 was written, then it all becomes clear. But first you must discard your bias and presupposition that Genesis 1-3 is trying to tell us how God created.
For e.g. The Grand Canyon took millions of years to form or the Grand Canyon was formed during a global flood in a short period of time. How do we conclusively prove either? Is it not ultimately based on the persons interpretation of the available data?
No. First, you have created a strawman. The layers of sediments exposed in the Grand Canyon took hundreds of millions of years to be laid down. The Canyon itself was formed in a few million years and part of that formation was due to local floods as lava dams on some of the rivers broke.
Second, if you look at the lay of the land and say that the Grand Canyon was formed as the Flood waters drained, you have evidence that says this could not have happened. The land tilts
towards the Gulf of Mexico -- to the southeast. But the canyon goes to the
southwest. If the land was set and the Flood waters drained off, those waters would have to go to the southeast and cut a river going that direction. That the Colorado River goes southwest shows that the river has been cutting its channel over millions of years as the land rose and assumed its current position.
Again, look for the evidence against.
On another note, where do we draw the line with scientific research on our origins. Secular scientists are trying hard to work out how we got here and they don't take kindly to God being the answer.
That is not true for most of them. What science does is look at
how God created. Did God create by poofing every species into existence in its present form? NO! Does the evidence say that the diversity of live arose by evolution? Yes. So evolution is how God created.
(even though many of you are theistic evolutionists, this does not sit well with main stream scientists).
Actually, it does. What it does not sit well with is a
small minority of scientists who are also militant atheists. They are as determined (and misguided) to have science "prove" their faith as creation scientists are to have science "prove" a literal interpretation of the Bible. Neither side is correct about the science.
Scientists are adamant that life somehow came into existance through non life and that non life came from a "God" partical via a cosmic explosion. So what do we do when we are told that their is evidence for all of this? Do we abandon God because the interpretation of evidence tells us that God is not needed in the existance of the universe?
No. Instead, chemistry becomes how God created life. Big Bang is how God created the universe.
Nothing in what you have said says that God is not needed in the existence of the universe. You have made the same mistake as the militant atheists: you have said that "natural" = without God. There is nothing in science to justify that equation. Ironically, it is Darwin in the Fontispiece to
Origin of Species that states the scientific problems with that equation:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is
stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.
Think about that. Butler is stating a hypothesis (from Chrisitan theology) that God is necessary for
any and every "natural" process to happen. What is the scientific evidence
against that hypothesis?
NONE. What's more, the way science is done science
cannot get any evidence either for or against the hypothesis. It's a limitation of science called Methodological Materialism (or Naturalism). The militant atheist scientists have gone nuts trying to deny MM but they can't.
So, as a Christian you have a
belief that God is necessary for all natural processes. Therefore anything and everything science finds tells you
how God created. Atheists have a
belief that the processes run on their own and that God does not exist.
Science itself is agnostic and can't tell you which belief is correct.
