Evolution? How?

Good reading of Rex's stuff. Its nothing new but its crap. Uniformitarianism works, We all know its possible to deposit a 100 ft thick turbidite deposit in an afternoon. However,we see deposits of flysch, sorted sands , environmentally similar deposits that are hundreds of thousands of feet thick. The Chatanooga shales are over 20K ft thick of anoxic oily slays,
The Mt St hElens deposits range from 120 ft thick to a few inches. These deposits are seen all over thewest and the contouring of their isopachous (equal thickness) structure shows us how they were deposited and where the deposits origin was,nothing of greter significance. In the world "**** HAPPENS" the ability to analyze its data is what separates science from science fiction

Your point on salt was silly. There are vast deposits of bedded salt in evaporites all over the earth, All the salt that comes from sed processes, gets accumulated here and there and if the evaporation rate is great enough the salts get deposited and preserved. So these deposits , by storing miles of salt form the Salina beds, the Gulf diapirs, The Germany salt beds etc etc. Again, we can show how the salt beds by their chemical and sed thickness, appeared in paleo time. Certain salts like KCL will deposit before NaCl, so we can see actual rings of specific chemistry that surround large bedded salt areas. The big salt beds that occur in the US cover parts of PA, NY, Ohio, Indiana ,and Ky. They grade into coal beds and oil shales
The relationship between global tectonics and deposition is a whole science/inductry in itself. When entire rift zones tear apart forelands, the erosion of the foreland fills the basins surrounding, very similar to E US where we have a deposit of thick continental margin sediments (We also have a spreading ocean center that isnt any older than the Jurassic along its margins, thats because we can compute the movement rate and compare the foram fossils from the Jurassic margins)
Geomagnetic "stripes" have allowed us to date rocks back to just before the Cambrian (mostly nbecause earlier rocks have been smooshed by subsequent metamorphism) We can correlate all kinds of radiometric v Stratigraphic v geomagnetic data reallywell (see Marsh 1984, its a really old chestnut). There are no arguments here, some really smart guys have done lots of research in this area

There is NO friggin evidence ANYWHERE on the entire planet that shows that there was once a single event flood similar to what Jack and Rex and the rest of the young earthers confess. This is the easiest of lessons to convey. If you give me some slack I can easily give a lecture on the planet wide strat column.
Ryan(02) and others have completed a study showing that once, around the Caspian and Black seas, there was a regional flood in prehistoric (post glacial times) The sediment data shows huge buidups of fluvial sediment, the glacial deposits show a terminal moraine that was severely eaten into, and there were water buried archeological artifacts along what was the original margin of the CAspian This, they speculated was the source of the Judaic Historic flood tales, Also a Holocene flood in the Tigris valleys probably gave rise to the Gilgamesh stories which predate the Noachian flood myth by a fewcenturies.

I can shoot major scientific holes into your flood myth that , to me, seems to be the center point of your entire belief. As Ryan said, "we can easily find reasons and sediments all over the planet that show that there WASNT a flood."
If there are entire countries and planetary areas that have no flood deposits how can you connect the dots to create a " world-wideflood myth"? The ability of another patriarch who could build a really huge continent sized coffer dam to keep his country dry while ALL THE WORLD WAS FLOODED IS A REAL ENGINEERING FEAT. sCREW THE guy with the ark. Noah was nickel dime next to this guy.
Sorry for being so short here, weve got a family engagement and I just couldnt let Rex post that POS without some response, even a quickly dashed off one like this.

Rex, there are thousands of sedimentology books out there that just take your "evidence" apart . My favorite is still Blatt and Berry "Principles of Stratigraphic Analysis 1991. It goes into depositional environments and the science of stratigraphy based on tectonics, basin geology, fluvial and lacustrine processes, deltas, reefs, deep ocean basins, glacial features etc etc. Its a process that you shuld try to understand before you try to argue.

I can see why but you guys read to much into my post. I did not say believing in a God means you cant think and are illogical. But to assert something on the basis of a divine entity (such as Creationism) does so. After all if God can do anything he can fake evidence for one thing, bend logic for another, and play games wiht us humans. THere isnt anything he cant do. All you need is faith that he can do it. That is why science assumes abscence of divine entity. Otherwise we would get nowhere. It's fruitless to assert Creationism because it only rests on your faith in God. The hardcore evangelicals would embrace it in midst of overwhelming evidence against it. After all they can just say God faked the "evidence" to weed out infidels or something. To assume a divine entity when approaching science basically throws all knowledge, logic, and evidence out the window. Not jsut simply believing in a god.

Yes , but I can prove that the "Flood" did not occur.
The Creationists have a difficult row to hoe. They must make up all sorts of magical conditions and suspensions of logic and math and science in order for anything they support to occur.
Science is generally lazy, it tries to find the simplest , most direct way from A to B, without invoking evil spirits, water vapor clouds, deeming that a flood occured, stating emphatically that pre flood animals were vegetarians, creation of people from dust and short ribs, and a whole bunch of other unbelievable myths that they accept as truth.
Then the Creationists try to argue that science is riddled with guesswork, it may be but , all the scientists working can talk from the same script.

The Bible is a door that swings both ways... both Christians and scientists can misinterpret it...

I am saying the Bible teaches both evolution and creation because they both happened.

Now Christians can inflate the creation aspect and the scientists can inflate the self generation aspect but neither can negate the actuality of either. Because they both are irrefutably part of our past...

Christians and scientists are just words too.. I prefer to put both words together and let them both present what they have to teach... I like to know things from a scientific perspective and I like knowing the various perspectives that only God can conceive of and share. Somewhere in the heart of my being the truth will emerge and let itself be known. Not out of faith but out of reason, spirit and then faith (believing).

The danger with the Bible is in the misinterpretation of it... but anything can be misinterpreted so that can not be blamed on the Bible. People would find another thing to derange. There is the chance that people will first misinterpret but over time finally find clarity and read/understand the Bible and see what it is actually trying to say. There are many roads, but only one to truth...

People blame the Bible for the way people interpret it... so they are part of the problem, because they do not go into the Bible to find out who is right or not... So they cannot stand on any biblical ground and counter the radical Christians with their own book...

Scientists do not trust the Bible to vindicate them...

So on matters of life and the physical universe they ignore a useful advocate... God's word.

Genesis in not really a story meant to push the idea of "creation" but a story about personal morality. That in one single act one's life can go from paradise to hell. That higher reason comes with a cost that one must face their own conscience. That a moral conscience is the image of what is eternal and awakening in us all.

Eve "saw" the apple and it "looked" good to "touch"...

Noah teaches that paganism is a murderous flood that leads to worship of the elements, animals and ultimately self deification which are all forms of idolatry. The promise of deliverance is faith in God.

God did not write Genesis to be scientifically correct. He wrote it to be aesthetically correct. If that was the case God would have mentioned placing the sun before creating the earth. But this story is from God's perspective as the creator. Yes, Genesis does teach evolution but from God's perspective it is all creation. We see evolution when we look back God looks ahead many billions of years and sees creation.

I agree with RexRed's characterization of Genesis. To me, reading Genesis is like reading poetry: very evocative, relying on imagery rather than clinical facts.

I have no problems with his personal intepretations. However, Rex must understand that hes in a very uncomfortable "middle zone" that invokes two mechanisms and demands no proofs.
Hed be in a most uncomfortable position with both Evangelical Christianity which takes a worldview that the Bible is literal, and with science which also says only that Genesis is but a nice lesson plan for morality.
Even in this thread, the strict Creationists have been less than understanding with Rex's position.

"Genesis is but a nice lesson plan for morality. "....the morality of a psychopath.

Again, I am just thinking out loud... Only part of this post is in answer to your post but it all somehow relates.

Then what is the devil, a sound minded spirit? They both cannot be dysfunctional. God many times intentionally took the blame for things in the old testament (this why you see things the way you do) because he did not want humans to realize how powerless they were against the devil at the time. When Christ came we were finally able to know the truth and see the spirit realm in it's fullness. We were also given power to discern "spirits".

Now we know things like: God did not cause the disputed flood. The Bible says God caused it to rain forty days and forty nights... But God did not cause the flood... The devil did... The devil had a motive for killing all humans... If he could wipe all humans from the face of the earth then Jesus Christ could not be born and he could not triumph over evil and "bruise the head of the serpent"... God told Eve and Adam in the garden that woman would bear a seed/son that would bruise the head of the serpent... Well bruises to the head are usually fatal. And the serpent would bruise his [Christ's] heel.

So here is one example of a story [the flood] that you have blamed God for that is not really God. One must really look closely at things in the Old Testament to understand them. That is the way God choose to write them and God is God... So, the devil would rather live in a world devoid of human life than have Christ come and redeem humans and in the process dethrone the devil...

In the story of Noah:

The devil did not have to kill all life. It was not that life was evil continuously and God couldn't stand it... It was humans that allowed the devil in... This evil gave the devil the power to attempt to cause the end of all human life... God was seemingly powerless to stop the prince of the power of the air [The devil is biblically, the God of this world]....

Now lets take a quick look at this historically/scientifically... roughly about 6-8000 years ago the Bible tells of a flood that nearly wiped out humans and vital majority of animals...

We know Modern humans crossed the bottlneck between Africa and Turkey, we know the black sea also flooded very same area of the bottleneck at roughly 6000 years ago... they jive with the timelines of the Flood and Adam and Eve and the appearance of the first civilizations.

Well if modern humans left Africa a million years ago roamed the northern hemisphere Europe/Asia and about 6000 years ago became civilized and settled in a certain valley in modern day Turkey... This was before Stonehenge this was before any pyramids or Egyptian language... this was when there was only one city and all humans lived and worked in that one vicinity on the earth. This does not mean that primitive human life had not trekked all over Europe/East Asia by this time but the current evolution of humans and most domesticated animals lived in harmony there in this one valley in Turkey.

It was where they took the last step of evolution together and became the humans and creatures of today. Everyone depended on the valley for survival. There was no life outside the valley there was only one crude urban Mecca. There would have been a vast variety of humans that lived in this valley before the flood and after the flood survivors would have scattered abroad and could represent the various distinctions in races we see today. It take 100 thousand years for a humans skin color to change. In this valley just above the bottle neck of Africa there would have been a variety of very crafty people to have crossed the bottleneck and survived. The same with the animals that could swim and cross..

Another note:
With this known bottle neck between Africa and Turkey and this relates to the story of Adam and Eve crossing from Africa and populating this valley in the first place... By Noah's time the population had turned into an outpost for modern humans. All the devil had to do was wipe out modern humans from this valley an he would have succeeded in his evil intent. At the time it would not have to be a global flood to kill all humans. The catalyst was the formation of the Black Sea which is now a sea of acid... So where are certain fossils of creatures that evolved over the last million years? Maybe at the bottom of this once fertile basin that the Black Sea today occupies. The story of Noah and Adam and Eve seem to have some sort of historical truth to them because they do explain some of the dilemmas that are facing in evolution and the pathology of humans and animals. It is to say the least certainly plausible and I do not disagree with things I am not sure of.

I know this is a long post and I have just been rambling on but I trust the inherent message of the Bible and I believe it contains both eye witness accounts from both Adam and Eve, Noah and many more historical truths... I believe these two stories survived Africa and survived Turkey to live and be read and understood today.

I am trying real hard to teeter on this line and not stick my foot in my mouth and say something that is not laughably scientifically inaccurate or disrespectful to God.... I think I have done ok...

I'm coming into this veeeeeery late. 109 pages!

I don't want to be annoying and respond to the very first post by saying soemthing somebody else has already said. So does anyone fancy giving me a brief summary of what's going on in this thread at the moment?

agote, Just read the last few pages, and you'll be up to speed.

Chinese civilization started around 10,000 BCE, when a group called the Yangshao (yahng show) settled near the Huang He River. Archaeologists have uncovered many Yangshao villages in northern China. In one village, they found the remains of farmhouses, built partly underground, with plaster floors, and roofs held up with wooden posts.

About 3,000 BCE, another farming group appeared, the Lungshan people. The Lungshan were very advanced for their time. They harvested silk, and used it to weave fine fabrics. They used the potters wheel. They baked strong bricks in ovens, and used them to build their homes. They worked together on flood control and irrigation projects. They had great engineering skills. Legend has it that their "Great Engineer", Yu, founded the Xia (sometimes called the Hsia) Dynasty in about 2,000 BCE. There are no written records. Our knowledge of their life comes from ruins of their town, ancient stories and legends. This story tells us quite a bit about ancient life in Xia times.

Copied from this web page...
http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Chinalife.html#XIA


My point is, is this two different species of humans? Did one replace the other?

Here is a website that sets the Yangshao people at a later date... after the proposed Biblical flood.

"Yangshao Culture occurred in the late period of Neolithic Age about 4,950 to 6,950 years ago."

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/history/prehistoric/yangshao_culture.htm

http://www.warriortours.com/cityguides/xian/banpo_village.htm

http://www.turizm.net/turkey/history/paleolithic.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/09/020911072622.htm

http://vetinarilord.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_vetinarilord_archive.html

I saw a show the other night about the real story of Noah. Apparently the word in Hebrew for land is the same as earth. It is very possible that there could have been a translation error, and that the flood really didn't cover the earth, but just a large area.

And maybe it's possible that a DeLorean can be made into a time machine. Who knows.

thunder-many a historian and archeological scholar has come up with the same conclusion. Geology is unable to find a single footprint of any deluvian sediment that unites the planet in a single flood event.

No matter how hard we try to prove otherwise, the evidence just aint there.

RexRed,

You may find interesting reading in the National Geographic documentary, The Journey of Man by Dr. Spencer Wells. Here is an article that describes his work.

There Really Was an Adam Somewhere in East Africa

and here is a link to a National Geographic interactive web page about the documentary. There is a lot of interesting information here.

http://www.nationalgeographic.ca/features/journeyofman/

Be sure to click on "The Journey" tab and within it the "markers" and "The People".

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC98/pdf/1634.pdf

There is a flood event...

but it happened much earlier...

if you dig anywhere in the earth any place on the earth you will find this thin but substantial layer of death...

South America

The asteroid that hit the earth would not have caused such a problem except that it hit an enormous gypsum deposit. This caused an ash to be deposited in the atmosphere of the earth and "total" earth wide blackout of the sun for months. Yes, this happened long before the Bible's Noah but you could call it a flood... Most all humans died... [ark] Anyone in antiquities who organized workers to dig deep and analyze the ground would have found this "strange" layer everywhere they dug. It is black and covers the earth world wide.

rex.Sorry, but there is no continuous and contiguous "flood-layer" on the planet. While there may be water laid sediments all over, they are separated from each other by time and tectonics.
Geologists have been studying environments of deposition for years and weve got a pretty good picture of the earths crust and what caused what.
So, whoever gave you that "layer of death" crap is probably someone who is , by oversimplification, trying to make valid an impossible point.
If there was a flood, the sediments would have been laid down at the same time. If you scan great areas of the earth there are places with n o water lain deposits at all, even after our sed record begins about 3.8 billion years ago.
If we extend sedimentary records for great distances for a specific period in geo time, we find that water laid deposits like the Salina basin that extends from Ny state to about Michigan, we have deposits of beach sediments and then there exists a gradual erosion field where the earth was uplifted and was dry land with streams and swamps and mountains , all in the same age period.
The idea of a local flood, in the Caspian has been pretty much documented to have occured in paleolithic times, as well as periglacial flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates. Humans were living along these basin margins and could have given birth to flood legends for their tribal record.
Im not denying that theres probably some truth in the origins of their legends but to invoke a worldwide flood and make it part of a "scientific" record when we know positively that it did not occur , is trying to create a truth built entirely on deception and misinformation.

You should read Simon Winchesters "Map that Changed the World". Its a quick read and gives a sense of history to the development of geologic maps , and how one man unravelled what all the various strata in the English countryside and their map positions mean