Sunday, November 24, 2013

What YECs Claim as Evidence for Their Beliefs

Here is a response to a claim by The Thinking Atheist on Facebook that there is no geological evidence for a literal biblical flood. The response is unedited (except for the boldface emphasis of one sentence, which is mine).

* The mid Atlantic ridge, the tilt of the earth on its access, the Ring of Fire, the coal and oil deposits the giant animal and human skeletons and jumbled bone graveyards, the layers of human and dinosaur footprints side by side, layered deposits, (like the Grand Canyon), that were formed by swiftly moving water. The entire geography of the planet shows that the mountains arose, the valleys sank down and the water rushed off. Clams are found petrified in the closed position found on top of mount Everest. diatomaceous earth is the result of millions and millions of sea creatures being destroyed at the same time. These things prove that there was a world wide flood. I have only barely scratched the surface of these kinds of examples. You must have lived under a rock to make the claim that there is absolutely no geological evidence for a global flood. There are literally mountains of proof.

This is the perfect example of why it is utterly useless to debate a young-earth creationist. This is what they regard as evidence of a worldwide flood. It is also unequivocal evidence that YECs have no clue about how to interpret geological evidence. Real geological evidence leads to conclusions that are good at making predictions or that can be experimentally verified. Every single point made by this YEC is used only to strengthen his pre-existing conclusion that the Flood was real. It doesn't matter to him, apparently, that every one of his interpretations of the evidence is incorrect.

The Mid-Atlantic ridge, for example, is caused by rising magma oozing up between a diverging plate boundary. It has nothing at all to do with a flood. Neither does the Ring of Fire. There are no cases where human and dinosaur footprints lie in the same rock layer. The Grand Canyon contains strata of sedimentary rock that look nothing whatsoever like the sorting of sediment that takes place in the aftermath of a flood. Mountains were not caused by any flood. It even says in Genesis that the flood waters rose above the mountain tops, so how could the flood have created the mountains?

Geologists are very familiar with how all the geologic features mentioned in the above diatribe actually formed. They have done actual research and experimentation to prove it. They have used this knowledge to predict the answers to other geological questions that were previously not understood well. YECs have to use something that sounds scientific in order to convince themselves and others that the earth is really only 6000 years old. Real evidence that can be verified and corroborated shows them nothing of the kind, so it has to be twisted or ignored.

It saddens me that there are adults in this modern world who refuse to give up on the God myth. It's a sign of just how far we, as the human species, need to go before we can truly call ourselves an advanced society.