“we must be careful to not change our understanding of scripture based on the shifting sands of current scientific fashions.” This is quite true. The young-earth approach reflects interpreting scripture based on the modernist fashion of treating science as the ultimate truth and claiming that one’s personal beliefs are scientific, rather than on a careful effort to develop the best possible understanding of the text and its meaning in the original linguistic, literary, and cultural setting.
Also, it is critical to distinguish between the latest “science headlines” and fashions from what is thoroughly established. Might tiny anomalies in physics experiments or puzzles in cosmology indicate that our current understanding of gravity needs some adjustment? Perhaps, but don’t get excited about a headline claiming “New challenge to gravity!”. However, the reality that gravity works is not something sensible to dismiss as scientific fashion. Setterfield’s attempt to dodge the fact that his bad claims about the speed of light would create problems with E=mc^2 by claiming that mass was smaller in the past in proportion to his imaginary faster light speeds would mean that everything had far less mass in the recent past. The patriarchs would have passed out from lack of oxygen as they drifted out into space from trying to take a step. No, that is ridiculous; gravity has not changed noticeably within the time for which we can find evidence.
" * All soil life would have died from the sea salt alone (Hmm…really? I like sea salt on my steak.)"
Do you like to be encased in salt? Salt spray kills many types of plants near the ocean. An animal “rescue” organization announced that they had freed a bunch of turtles from a lab and returned them to the ocean. They were freshwater turtles, and putting them in the ocean would have killed them. A saltwater flood would kill most freshwater life. A freshwater flood would kill most saltwater life. But the problem is more extreme, because there are many salt deposits around the world, of various ages. To make a salt deposit, you need to have something extremely salty, not just regular seawater. How does the Dead Sea get its name? Salt deposits are forming today where there’s an extra salt bit of water, such as at a sunny coast or some salt lakes. But in a global flood, the water is all mixed around the globe. Making salt deposits requires turning that whole flood into the Dead Sea. Yes, it would kill almost all aquatic life.
“* Sediment world wide…in the same order everywhere (Hmm…really? You’ve used a lot of shovels!)”
There are similarities and differences in the sediment patterns around the globe. But the similarities are similarities that we should see if global conditions are slowly changing over time - we see matching changes in types of fossils, in ocean chemistry, in climate, etc. around the world, and there are huge numbers of these changes, each one requiring a certain amount of time to complete. And there’s also the occasional weird layer such as from a major asteroid impact or volcanic eruption. Such layers ought to get mixed in with everything else under currently popular global flood models, but we see the layers existing and easily recognized. On the other hand, the varying patterns of regional differences over time as continents move also should not be visible in a global flood model where water is moving rapidly all around the globe.
“* Obviously that takes very long periods of time (Obviously! Right? Obviously!?)”
Yes, obviously. Observe how fast plates move, how fast sediment piles up, how fast rocks harden or erode, and you find that there’s a lot of geology that is very slow. Speeding it up has to have a cause that does not violate the laws of physics; “it happened faster during the flood” can’t just be a magic excuse for ignoring the evidence of vast age. Yes, miracles do happen. No, miracles are not just for convenience (e.g., turning the stones to bread). The idea that God miraculously covered up the evidence for a young earth and global flood to make everything look like He actually created it gradually over a vast period of time is not theologically sound. Miracles have the specific purpose of pointing to God, not removing the evidence.
“* Little erosion would take place as turbulence at depth is minimized (Yeah…I’m pretty sure about that too)”
Little erosion takes place in the deep oceans and deep lakes. Current global flood models would produce extreme erosion at all depths (if one ignores the fact that they would also melt the earth, which interferes with erosion.)
“* The only thing that explains the deep layers of sediment, is deep time (Yes…its the only thing! And very deep!)”
Yes, this is true. It was suspected by the late 1600’s and conclusively demonstrated by the mid-1770’s. All studies since then have increased the support for the need to have vast amounts of time to explain the appearance of the earth. No honest scientific arguments against an old earth have been found.
“* The Rocky mountains were at one time as high as the Himalaya’s (Yes!..I live here…took a selfie…higher than Everest!)”
Not correct. Although there are bits of ancient mountains from continent-continent collisions in the Rockies region, the present-day Rockies are pushed up by compression associated with the ocean-continent convergence, which doesn’t make as tall mountains as the Himalayas. The Appalachians would have been Himalaya-like in the Permian, though exact heights are not certain. We know that they were similar because they were shaped by similar conditions, as well as by the features of the rocks that we can observe today.
“* So just on my own property the geology refutes a global flood (Yes…and your property IS the source of truth!)”
It is a source of truth, because Genesis 1 tells us that God created humans with the responsibility to understand and care for the earth. Also, Genesis 1 tells us that there are no rival gods, rogue monsters, or uncontrolled forces out there - everything in nature is doing things the way God made them to. So we can use the evidence from a local patch of land, as well as the globe and beyond, to understand how creation works.
“* The Bible does not try to teach modern science (Indubitably! Modern Science knows all things! Bible old…SCIENCE NEW!)”
Modern science does not know all things, yet young-earth approaches claim that the Bible is better if we pretend that the Bible is modern science. The fact that modern science is new and the Bible is old confirms that the Bible is not modern science. The Bible does not teach us all things, despite misleading translations of a couple of verses out of context. How do I get from Charlotte to London? Look at a map and make use of what people have figured out about aerodynamics to be able to ride on an airplane. The Bible doesn’t tell us those things and doesn’t need to; we can work those out ourselves. What should I believe about God? What is ethical behavior? Those, we can’t figure out for ourselves and need help from revelation.
“* Sea level ingress and regress, yielding a continuous record both local and general (It’s all about the ingress/regress!)”
Yup, sea level does, and there’s very extensive geological records of it. And that doesn’t fit in a young-earth model.
“* There is nothing about a global flood that is (scientifically) documented. (Of course…unlike…Evil-lution!)”
Biological evolution by natural selection is very well-documented scientifically, as is the evidence against a global flood. Sadly, young-earth claims simply can’t be trusted. It’s like claims that Bigfoot just married a two-headed Elvis clone.
“* It’s not okay that you continue to work against God’s kingdom (No…not ok…I reject His words in Genesis…but that’s ok)”
Young earth models persistently reject God’s commands to be truthful. They do not carefully examine Genesis to find the best understanding. For example, claims to be caring about God’s creation clash with the frequent young-earth and ID support for anti-environmental false claims. Claiming that believing the Bible requires support for quite blatantly bad scientific claims does not advance God’s kingdom; instead, it’s a significant reason for people to abandon Christianity.
“* It’s their way of interpreting Scripture. Let’s not just deal with the symptoms. (Right! They read the Bible! Stop them!)”
Young-earth proof-texting routinely does not read the Bible carefully.
