Just another anti-Flood posturing at EvC mistaking the usual fantasy for science

Just another typical comment on another Flood thread at EvC.

We can tell from your last post that you still believe the geologic record is consistent with a flood, but you ignored all the posts explaining why a flood doesn't deposit sediments in ways that resemble the layers of the geologic record.

Well, of course, and I generally ignore them too because it can only be the usual fantasizing in the service of their bias. They can never imagine the Flood properly and only impose their own speculations on it based on their own biases. Why is it so hard for them to honestly recognize that is what they are doing? There can't be the sort of evidence they so aggressively insist be acknowledged because there can't be the sort of similarity between an ordinary everyday flood and THE Flood. Of COURSE we ignore such supposed explanations. All daydreams from the Darwinian presupposition.

How much credit do you think you deserve for ignoring all this information? If what we post to you doesn't matter, why should we bother?

Why don't you require of yourselves that you recognize your own methods aren't really scientific but just as speculative as any Floodist's? And the Floodist has the advantage of an ancient revelation against your purely invented theory.

While there are some people who will always be snarky , even normally polite people will become snarky when ignored.

No doubt, even though all they've had to offer is just more variations on the usual fantasy.

Debate isn't you talk, I talk, you talk, I talk. Debate is you talk, I react to what you say, you react to what I say, etc. What you've got going here is you talk, we react to what you say, you talk, we react to what you say, you talk, etc. How about responding to the information you've been provided?

What, information about how a local flood proves THE Flood didn't happen? Yes, I suppose our creationist should take more care to address the opposition's posts but since all they could possibly be is imaginative efforts at shooting down his points rather than taking them seriously I can understand why he might not. Yes, I know, I could be wrong, this could be one of those threads where the creationist really is out of bounds, but the complaint from the other side just sounds awfully familiar.

They are awfully certain that the evidence does not support a worldwide Flood, and yet every explanation offered for how the strata could have formed piecemeal over millions/billions of years is far more irrational than what they think they are answering.

And an earlier post shows that as usual it's really all about authority anyway. All those geologists just can't be wrong.

In order for there to have been a recent world-wide flood, generations of geologists and their research going back to the late 1700's would have to be wildly wrong. For so many geologists over so long a period of time to be so wrong would require the source of the error to be incredibly well hidden

. Yes, it IS well hidden, it's in the basic assumptions of the whole invented fantasy edifice that they keep mistaking for science.

It is unlikely to be found in a blender of dirt and water or anything else so simplistic.

True, it won't be found in any one bit of data but even that bit of data might contain truth that simply can't be seen because of the prejudices that prevent it. But more to the point it won't be found in ANY bit of data put forward by a creationist there because of the strong bias against it and the ease with which contrary interpretations can be pulled out of a hat to serve as a rebuttal. [In this particular case the creationist was answering an assertion about how the flood would have left things jumbled and mixed. It's a perfectly decent answer. If you stir up sediments with water in a blender they sort out into layers. It's a good answer. A worldwide Flood would not have left things jumbled but in layers. Instead of accepting it as a good answer they object that such an example doesn't describe the layering actually seen. As if the blender example were meant to account for the whole geo column. No, it was meant merely to demonstrate that swirling water deposits sediments in layers, and it ought to be accepted as a reasonable answer.]

Creationists often don't argue these things very well and even the better ones shouldn't even be trying. But that doesn't change the fact that the evolutionists are deceived from the getgo and the whole debate itself is a big joke.

He goes on to object that the creationist simply doesn't know enough Geology and that his focus on God keeps him from desiring to study it. This may be true of this particular creationist, or it may not be. This is a standard position there but just reading up on basic Geology doesn't tell you much about the issues under debate. So far Dr. Adequate has put up a great deal of basic Geology and so far it doesn't even touch on anything that supports or denies the possibility of the Flood. The only thing that did relate was a post that was more of an aside than a lesson in Geology, in which he gave his own beliefs about buried "landscapes." So I'm still waiting. In other words, one could know a great deal of basic Geology without finding anything of much value in this debate.

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Upthread from this conversation is a post by Coyote who always argues the same line, claiming to have given the evidence that completely does in the Flood claims:

Given the massive amount of contrary evidence in the archaeological and geological record, I can't believe anyone could support the notion of a global flood during relatively recent times, ca. 4,350 years ago. The early creation geologists gave up on that idea just about 200 years ago--and they set out to prove the flood! Evidence showing the global flood never happened during recent times has only accumulated since then, while no credible evidence has been found to support such a flood.

In my career as an archaeologist I have tested probably over 100 sites whose time spans included the date most often attributed to the global flood by biblical scholars, ca. 4,350 years ago. I have never found evidence of either massive erosion or sedimentary deposition at that time period.

What I have found instead is continuity of human cultures, mtDNA, fauna and flora, and sedimentation. The things that must have occurred if there was a global flood at that time--discontinuities in all of those areas--are not found.

The same results are reported by my colleagues elsewhere in the United States and around the world.

But lest you think that we are idiots and can't see evidence for floods, I would direct you to various websites on the Channeled Scablands in eastern Washington. Post-glacial floods repeatedly scoured that area as ice dams in western Montana periodically held back and released meltwaters. We can establish the dates of the floods and their extent. Here are a couple of good websites for your edification:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/...logy/publications/inf/72-2/sec5.htm

http://hugefloods.com/Scablands.html

Coyote accepts without question the dating methods of today's science. That's the beginning of the problem. They will not consider that methods that deal with the past can't be hard and fast as they claim they are. As usual they talk as if they were fact, as if they could prove their claim in the laboratory, which of course they cannot. Their tone of certainty is unscientific and perhaps would never have been adopted if they didn't feel the need to quell the creationist claims. A creationist cannot and will not accept their dates. What's the point of continuing to debate such things since there will always be this impasse?

Coyote's argument in fact should be regarded as a PRATT (Point Refuted A Thousand Times) on the evolutionist side because it's certainly been answered over and over.

I can't believe anyone could support the notion of a global flood during relatively recent times, ca. 4,350 years ago. The early creation geologists gave up on that idea just about 200 years ago--and they set out to prove the flood! Evidence showing the global flood never happened during recent times has only accumulated since then, while no credible evidence has been found to support such a flood.

Unfortunately the early creationist geologists were looking for the wrong kind of evidence for the Flood, as are the archaeologists Coyote is talking about.

In my career as an archaeologist I have tested probably over 100 sites whose time spans included the date most often attributed to the global flood by biblical scholars, ca. 4,350 years ago. I have never found evidence of either massive erosion or sedimentary deposition at that time period.

Of course he can't find evidence of the Flood. He's looking for specifics he's dreamed up that are way too small for such a Flood. Just like those early creationist geologists.

Of course their timing is wrong to begin with. All settlements that would be studied by archaeology, same as all the great empires including the Egyptian, that science places back before the Biblical time of the Flood, do not go that far back, were all built since the Flood.

"Massive erosion?" -- Try erosion on the scale of entire continents being denuded of their sediments, which were then redeposited in layers all over the earth. You won't find this at a particular depth in an archaeological dig. You're going to have to stand up and survey the entire landscape. You can't dig down to find the evidence, because in reality it's everywhere. ALL the strata are evidence of the Flood, all those layers of sediments that have been given names and time estimates in the millions by modern Geology. That's the evidence for the Flood.

What I have found instead is continuity of human cultures, mtDNA, fauna and flora, and sedimentation. The things that must have occurred if there was a global flood at that time--discontinuities in all of those areas--are not found.

Not if what you're digging around in all occurred since the Flood. You're looking for paltry "discontinuities" among post-Flood phenomena.

And then the usual argument about the ancient limited floods:

But lest you think that we are idiots and can't see evidence for floods, I would direct you to various websites on the Channeled Scablands in eastern Washington. Post-glacial floods repeatedly scoured that area as ice dams in western Montana periodically held back and released meltwaters. We can establish the dates of the floods and their extent. Here are a couple of good websites for your edification:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/...logy/publications/inf/72-2/sec5.htm

http://hugefloods.com/Scablands.html

Yes, they can see THAT evidence, though they misread the timing as usual since they have to conform it all to the Geo Time Table. It's interesting to read about those floods, the draining of massive lakes, and there is no reason to doubt that they are interpreting the data correctly as far as the physical events go. Lake Missoula was rapidly and catastrophically drained, possibly in two days, according to the article, but since that seems a little too fast for them they suggest perhaps it took a month.

These facts are consistent with the usual Floodist interpretation. After the Flood it should be expected that there would have been standing bodies of water, including those HUGE standing bodies of water, Lakes Missoula, Lahontan and Bonneville in the western USA. Since Floodists also believe that tectonic and volcanic forces were released during and after the Flood, it would make sense that the dams that held back these lakes could have been suddenly broken as the land to the east rose and the Rockies were formed in that area by tectonic movement.

But the scientists insist on their own methods and conclusions, especially their ridiculous timing, instead so what's the point of arguing any of this?