“America is the worst and best of cultures.”
Klax, I do agree with you here–and with the John Steinbeck quote.
I love my country, and so am very concerned at the direction it’s taken.
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Actually, I believe the “marine incursions” evidenced in the sedimentary rock record are better accounted for by tsunami forces than by slowly, slowly, slowly rising flood waters.
Not strict chronology, as in Genesis 1.
In fact, it’s a bit like the synoptic gospels. Luke’s purpose was, partly, to present a very chronological account of Jesus’ life (see Luke 1:3–“in consecutive order”). Meanwhile, Matthew’s and Mark’s respective accounts were, we might say, roughly consecutive.
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Nobody else does.
Your religious beliefs do not change science.
Really now?
Again, I think you are misreading it. Let me expand with what I think the author is saying:
This is saying the seas rose over the landforms.
This deposition was by the normal process of erosion and carrying deposits downhill via streams and rivers to the new elevated seas where they settled and were sorted. The sea itself did not deposit or scour anything, but gradually rose and was the recipient of deposits.
Which is where the seas rose to cover. The seas rose, sediment washed down to the seas, the seas fell, and that sediment was left high and dry. Saying sediments were deposited when the seas rose is not saying the seas carried the deposits.
Now, interestingly, there actually is evidence of tsunami deposits in the fossil record, but they are unlike the orderly layering of sedimentary deposits, and are uncommon as expected. North Dakota site shows wreckage from same object that killed the dinosaurs | UW News
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The paper in the opening post would be an example. The author is from the Geoscience Research Institute in Loma Linda, CA. That is a creationist organization.
Here is a quote from one of the articles written by the same author:
“Is there an alternative to the evolutionary models? Can we provide a reasonable hypothesis within a short-age biblical Flood model? The answer is yes.”–Raul Esperante
https://www.grisda.org/the-cambrian-explosion-1
All of that is with respect to well preserved fossils, including the preservation of soft tissue. I don’t see anywhere where it says that no fossil whatsoever can form without rapid burial.
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That is poignant Don. I came of age, here in the UK, on Steinbeck above all.
I don’t think you answered my question.
If everything in the bible is 100% true, why bother with anything of science? You’ve made up your mind, its obvious none of the smart people on this forum will convince you, you’ve created a comfortable world for yourself, why burden yourself with the age of the earth?
Fear is the key. I was shocked out of an already dysfunctional first instar childhood, terrorized by domestic violence, by discovering Hiroshima and Auschwitz, aged 10 in '64. That left me a very naked just pre-pubescent second instar. Five years later an American fundamentalist cult told me I didn’t know the half of it. That they were nothing. Mere tasters of Armageddon. For our depravity. And at 15 I was pretty paraphilic like 95% of adolescents. My parents, grandparents, teachers were all morons because they all carried on as if it weren’t real. Much as I do now under the threat of escalating nuclear war starting in Ukraine. I loved science, did what came easy, biology and chemistry with the minimum of advanced maths and physics but knew it was out there. I was lazy. What was the point?
So, I was perfect cult fodder. For 30 years. The deconstruction of the cult allowed me to deconstruct, for another couple of decades. Here I am. Many instars later. Shucked of all just so stories. Too late the imago, the final instar. Or, hope against hope, penultimate.
As Woody Allen knows, it’s all about sex and death, but not necessarily in that order.
With this question, aren’t you implying that one should only go to science if something proves to be untrue in the Bible?
So, the Bible has to be wrong for science to be right. I don’t buy this at all.
The Greek word in the Bible for “truth” is aletheia–which, fundamentally, means “reality” (truth in the gospel relates more specifically to spiritual realities involved in our being saved).
Science deals only with physical realities, while the Bible deals with both physical and spiritualities. The growing knowledge of both is essential to our wellbeing.
In Genesis 1:28, God tells us humans to “fill the earth and subdue it.” Subduing the earth involves growing more and more in the knowledge of the earth and everything that dwells upon it–then using this know to manage these things responsibly. Here is where the role of science comes in.
Absolutely. That was the question faced many years ago for me. If the Bible is true and science is true, then if they are seen in conflict, we are looking at something wrong. I suppose some would say our observations about the world are wrong, but that means living in a phantasy world, so I found that seeing the Bible in a different way was the path to integrating the two.
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Though, of course, we have arrived at different points in our beliefs, I do appreciate your struggle to be faithful both to the Bible and to science, Phil.
And I do share this struggle with you.
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Yes, of course. Thanks!
A good example of this may be the controversy over Heliocentrism within the church.
There are a lot of parallels with the subjects we are discussing now.
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As you know, the point of the rapid, complete, and deep burial in muddy sediments is to escape immediate decomposition by bacteria by sealing out oxygen as much as possible (as well as to escape other scavengers).
Obviously, none of us are in the position to say such conditions occurred with every fossil that formed. But we do know that at least most fossils were buried under tons of sediment (of course, because of erosion of sedimentary rock (and uplift?), fossils can often be found right at the surface.
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Yes, I agree with this example
O.k., let’s look again at the following quotes:
“The Sauk transgression was one of the most dramatic global marine transgressions in Earth history. It is recorded by deposition of predominantly Cambrian non-marine to shallow marine (600-feet deep, DP) sheet sandstones unconformably above basement rocks far into the interiors of many continents.”
So, the Sauk transgression was a “marine”–that’s ocean–transgression. While some of the sands were “non-marine” (from the beach), other sediments were from a “shallow marine” source–that is, a source as deep as 600 feet, in the ocean.
And this source:
Paleozoic Geology (columbia.edu)
“Sauk Sequence: rising sea level in the Cambrian and Ordovician (probably due to fast seafloor spreading) flooded the Laurentian craton resulting in shallow marine deposition; sandstones gave way to shales then carbonates as the shoreline transgressed into the middle of the craton”
So, again, in the above quote, the Sauk ocean flow resulted in “shallow marine deposition.” “Marine” is a reference to the ocean. And (again) “shallow marine” is a description of ocean water out to about 600 feet deep. And this quote says that the flooding Sauk transgression left a “shallow marine deposition” on the Laurentian craton (i.e., on the North American continent).
So, the sediments deposited were from a marine (ocean) source–these are not sediments from the craton.
In fact, check out the Sloss sequence diagrams. They explicitly state that the transgressions and regressions were “marine” in nature–and that their flooding across the continents were accompanied by deposition. In fact, the ordering of the rock facies itself revealed whether the depositing marine waters were “transgressing” or “regressing.” Stationary waters would not accrue, from erosion, such distinct layers (layers, in fact, bounded above and below by erosion zones, called “unconformities”).
Maybe I can illustrate it this way: When you make a deposit into your savings account, the money is being deposited from outside the account, into the account: this is deposition. This is different from what happens after the money has been deposited. Once the money is in the account, it begins to accrue interest.
So, you are confusing “deposit” with “accrual.” You’re saying that the flooding waters of the sequences only “accrued” sediments after these waters covered the earth. But studies in sequence stratigraphy repeatedly use the word “deposit”–not “accrual.” And these deposits were primarily “marine”–i.e., from the ocean, not from the craton..
Nor do anyone else’s beliefs–religious or irreligious–either create or change science. Science is, we might say, an equal-opportunity employer!
Consider this: We know there is evidence of over 40,000 miles of ocean floor rifting, right? And we know that such rifting set some very dramatic events into motion: to begin with, seafloor spreading. And, as a result of seafloor spreading, not only did ocean levels rise (contributing to global flooding), but ocean plates also began to subduct under continental plates. Right?
Now…what results from such subduction? Lots of volcanoes (the “Ring of Fire”) and orogenies.
But there is something else produced at such subduction zones–viz., tsunamis:
“Subduction zone megathrust earthquakes, the most powerful earthquakes in the world, can produce tsunamis through a variety of structures that are missed by simple models.”
What Causes a Tsunami? - Tsunami Geology
“Most tsunamis are caused by earthquakes generated in a subduction zone, an area where an oceanic plate is being forced down into the mantle by plate tectonic forces.”
Now…consider this:
“Oceanic subduction zones are located along 55,000 km (34,000 mi) of convergent plate margins,”
[12] almost equal to the cumulative 60,000 km (37,000 mi) of mid-ocean ridges.[13]
So, the most common cause of tsunamis are earthquakes set off at subduction zones. And, there are 34,000 miles of subduction zones.
We see clear evidence of other products of subduction: 452 volcanoes lining the Pacific coasts…and mountain ranges springing up. But there is still another product of subduction zones–namely, tsunamis. And, with 34,000 miles of subduction zones, there are lots of megatsunamis to account for.
The global Flood model does this.
For you, not for anyone who starts with nature. I have no beliefs in the matter whatsoever. Apart from epistemic belief in rationality. I can no longer start with religion apart from the proposition of God in Christ, which is utterly separate from nature.
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