It’s good to hear this reminder that many religious skeptics don’t characterize themselves as anti-science in general, but just trying to discriminate between what they see as good science and bad science. So do you insist and persist, then, in maintaining that you applied your critical thinking and research in impartial ways to resolve this to your satisfaction? Because many here will be skeptical of your claim to have done that - as they can point to problems with [and highly compelling answers for] each of the problems you brought up.
I’m sure you realize that when you introduce yourself as you have here, you will immediately become “a project” or someone with challenges to be answered. And indeed you can look up many things that have already been said in response to challenges such as polystrate fossils or flood geology, or carbon dating. There are a lot of other Christians who have also researched the evidence and arrived at very different conclusions than you express. So I’m sure you can understand skepticism here too.
I heartily agree with you that teaching critical thinking is very important and undoubtedly is not done well enough in most schools. But I also push back a bit when you characterize today’s scientists and their modeling work as having “no relation to reality.” While it may be true that there is much theoretical and scientific modeling that happens with math and on computers, it is not true to say that such work can enjoy sustained prestige or widespread acceptance if it does not match reality in some way or form. Reality is and remains the touchstone of the empirical sciences.
Feel free to pursue any of these issues in new threads if you care to make them, or existing threads that may already be addressing them.