What About That Global Flood?

For the first Q&A Sunday, I’m going to respond to Catherine’s statements and questions from a Facebook thread on my wall. She’s been waiting extremely patiently for this response, so I will make it worth the wait. For the original thread you can click here. If you aren’t my friend on Facebook you won’t see it so just send me a request.

Her comment:

The flood is less in conflict with evolutionary thought, more with geology. Since geologists can look at layers of the earth, the thought is that a global flood would show a layer of silt or sandstone (probably wrong terminology since I only took one geo class in college). Geologists can see localized floods in the strata, and also ash layers from volcanos, or compacted sand from desert environments, but there's no similar aged flood layer from all parts of the earth. Also seashells on mountains are explained by mountains being pushed up by plates moving. So question, if people that believe in the whole earth flood don't believe in plate tectonics or modern geological theories, what are earthquakes? Scientific theory explains the ones we have here as one plate subducting under another, basically melting under the plate that has most of the US on it. I'm curious what the alternate theory is. Thanks!

I’d like to just start by pointing out that Darwinian evolution is intricately tied to geology. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was, in large part, inspired by the book Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell. Without this book Darwin may never have penned On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (bold print mine). Lyell’s theory of uniformitarianism was a major influence to Darwin as he traveled and studied the different animal species. I don’t want to get too heavy into this point because it’s a peripheral issue, but needless to say, uniformitarian geology and Darwinian evolution may as well be conjoined twins, so close is there relation and dependence upon one another.

To quickly illustrate this symbiotic relationship before moving on, there are two facts well-known to those involved in these areas. One is that the fossils are dated based upon what rock layer they are found in, and two, that the rock layers are primarily dated by which fossils are found in them. This is circular, and it continues to be a hilarious tragedy to me that the two fields seem to be willingly ignorant of how the other goes about the dating process. Of course radiocarbon dating is also employed but has been shown to be unreliable in many cases. Again, I’m sidetracking a little so I’ll move on.

Catherine made a statement that there’s no single-aged flood layer globally. This is true, but no one in the worldwide flood camp believes there is, nor would they ever consider it, because the belief is that ALL sedimentary layers were deposited during the global flood. This is a classic example of two very different paradigms interpreting the same data through their respective lenses. We all agree on the following points:

1. There are sedimentary layers
2. There are fossils in those layers
3.  Certain kinds of animals are semi-consistently found in relatively the same layers around the world

So, these are things we all believe. The Darwinist will look at these facts and come to vastly different conclusions than the Young Earth Creationists, but these facts alone are not enough to draw a firm conclusion. This is a puzzle, an enormous puzzle for which we do not have all the pieces. Realizing that no one has all the pieces, there are things that the Darwinists do not factor in at all, and in doing so are showing either that they are ignorant of these other facts, or that they are aware of them and are deliberately suppressing these truths.

Add to these three points the fact that there are histories, oral and written, from every major people group on Earth, societies both primitive and sophisticated, which tell of a global flood. Many of these flood legends closely mirror the biblical story.

Then bring in the puzzle piece called the Cambrian Explosion, which features only fully-formed life forms with no evolutionary predecessors, and every animal phyla is contained in the Cambrian System – so picture, instead of an evolutionary tree (which was a figment of Charlie’s imagination), an evolutionary field of trees; each tree representing all of the major kinds, and the branches all of the rich variation within each kind. This is far more consistent with a creation model than the common descent model, and incidentally harmonizes perfectly with a global flood.

Mix in the fact that the layers of Geologic Column (which does not actually exist – ask me for more info) were dated prior to any kind of radiometric isotope dating process was invented. The Geologic Column itself must be pieced together, inverted, rearranged, or otherwise forced in hundreds of locations all around the world.

There are many more evidences for a global flood, but the above puzzle pieces, when added to the rest of the facts, go a long way to piecing together a picture much more consistent with the biblical account of creation and a catastrophic flood. Just a couple more quick facts for your consideration, before I finish responding to Catherine’s comment:

1. There’s fossil evidence of rapid burial of plants and animals all over the world. Animals are found fossilized which were buried while giving birth, fighting with one another, and other activities not common to animals dying a slow death and being slowly buried by sediment over millions of years. 
2. Also, trees have been found going through multiple layers of sediment, which indicates a rapid burial.

The common response by evolutionists is that all of this evidence is really just pointing to local floods, but in many cases a local flood could not account for the findings. Again though, bringing the other pieces in, especially the hundreds of global flood legends, only cognitive dissonance could account for a rational, intelligent human not putting two and two together here.

Phrased another way, if every culture has an ancient tradition of a certain global event, and then scientific evidence of this event is also found, even if that evidence could possibly support a contrary theory, Ockham’s Razor tells us that the best answer is the simplest one. If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck…

The explanation Catherine offers for seashells and other aquatic fossils being found on mountaintops is outdated. She mentioned only having taken only one geology class in college, so we’ll give her a pass on this one, but this explanation was formulated prior to the current understanding of plate tectonics. Besides, this explanation flies in the face of one of uniformitarian geology’s most sacred beliefs, the Geologic Column! Even if geological forces could account for the sea floor being pushed up so far, these fossils should still be way, way down in a lower sedimentary layer.

In response to the last portion of the comment, we do indeed believe in plate tectonics. A belief in the very scientific theory of plate tectonics does not require an unscientific belief that every mountaintop that contains aquatic fossils was once a seabed.

According to the global flood theory the waters sprang up from below the crust of the earth in addition to the water canopy falling down as torrential rain. This process pushed up the mountains and carved out the valleys, rapidly burying plant and animal life exactly how we find it today in the fossil record. If there was a global flood you would find the slowest and lowest creatures primarily in the bottom layer, moving up you would find the faster and higher-dwelling creatures, and the fastest and most intelligent would be primarily in the highest layers, but likely much less frequent since they would have been much higher and therefore not buried as commonly as those that were lower and slower.

There is so much more that could be said, but I’m well over a thousand words now, so I’ll leave the rest for another time. Thanks to Catherine for her questions, and for being a good sport as I use them for blog-fuel. And congratulations on being the first to have your question featured on Q&A Sunday at the view from here!

To submit a question for consideration just messages me on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll let you know if I’m using your question in advance.

Lessons in Bad Philosophy: Dawkins Edition (part 4)

To all those who hung in there for this entire series (part one, part two, part three), thanks! It's been a fun ride, and I am glad to be finally taking a look at Dawkins' unfounded conclusion to his unsound premises. So, without further ado.

Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist.

As I said in the first post in this short series (and as Bill Craig points out in On Guard), even if all of the premises were sound this conclusion simply does not follow. We have seen how none of them are sound, but for the heck of it I'll address this unfounded conclusion as well.

It has been rightly observed and communicated by many an apologist over the centuries that in order to know there is no God one would need to have comprehensive knowledge of the entire universe, both the visible and invisible realms, and also be able to soundly refute thousands of years of spiritual experience, not to mention the myriad of near death experiences of  people who would bet their lives (pun definitely intended) that what they experienced was more real than this physical life. This is clearly impossible. As impossible as swallowing the ocean. 

Now, Dawkins thinks he's clever and has, no doubt after decades of being told the above, reworded the statement to leave an air of uncertainty. He has changed it from "there is no God," which is the only truthful way for an atheist to phrase is, to "God almost certainly does not exist." This slight change, in all honesty, doesn't really do much to lessen requisites which must be present for him to be able to make such a statement authoritatively. 

To illustrate my point, let's say I took one of those handheld metal detectors to the beach, put on my crazy person visor and Bermuda shorts, and braved that scandalous lust-factory in search of buried treasure (for the record, I love the beach and I don't think it's a sin to go there). If I wanted to be able to authoritatively state that there is almost certainly no metal under the sand at that beach I would still need to have covered a good 95% or more of that beach with my metal detector. Sure, it's not 100%, but it's close enough,

Dawkins thinks that his wording exempts him from needing to qualify as an omniscient being in order to justifiably make his statement, but in reality he would still need to be nigh-omniscient before anyone should take this conclusion seriously. But then he would be something so close to God that he may as well be God, and then he would have to either be a theist, which he is clearly intellectually and emotionally opposed to, or deny his own existence, and that would be even more ridiculous than ignoring a universe full of evidence of a divine designer.

Lessons in Bad Philosophy: Dawkins Edition (part 3)

In this, my third post in this series (start here), I'll address Dawkins' last three premises in his argument against God, and then in the fourth and final post I'll sink my teeth into his conclusion that "God almost certainly does not exist."

Let's jump right in.

4) The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.

Now, Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and deserves some respect for his years of study and decades of experience, so I won't speak as forcefully against this premise as I do the more philosophical examples. I will, however, offer two quick points which illustrate that at the very least Darwinian evolution is NOT the most powerful explanation for anything, and at best, it is pseudo-science which belongs in the history books rather than the science books.

The first is that Darwin himself predicted the fossil record would be overflowing with transitional species by now, and yet science has yet to offer a single unchallenged "missing link" between any species and another. If Darwinian evolution were true then the fossil record would be absolutely teeming with these transitional species. In fact, there should be far, far more of these than of the fully-formed species we find in all corners of the record. So, even if there were a handful of fossils which science categorized as transitional species, which there is not, it would still be inadequate evidence for a system of speciation which requires hundreds or thousands of in-between stages for each fully-formed species.

Secondly, Darwin stated: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." The field of biochemistry alone has demonstrated this very thing. In fact, there is no organism that could have been formed in this way because every organism contains organs, processes, and other aspects which are irreducibly complex - meaning that they absolutely cannot lose a single feature of their construction without being rendered useless, which would have caused them to be rejected by natural selection. A few examples of irreducible complexity in nature are the human eye, the blood clotting factor, and cilia. For more on this get your hands on Michael Behe's fantastic book, Darwin's Black Box. 

5) We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics.

Let's see if I understand what he is saying here. It seems like Dawkins is trying to tell us that there are no antiquated, unfounded, unscientific, wildly speculative, marginally theoretical explanations for physics. I guess I disagree here as well, since physicists such as Stephen Hawking seem to be absolutely overflowing with these sorts of ideas. 

6) We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.

This is nothing more than the blind faith of a committed atheist. This kind of thinking is ironically (and hypocritically) identical to the "God-of-the-gaps" fallacy atheists are so quick to accuse proponents of intelligent design of committing. See, physicists have yet to come up with any explanation at all for the physical world (i.e., the time-space-matter continuum), so otherwise intelligent atheists like Dawkins commit the "no-God-of-the-gaps" fallacy by inserting a yet unknown naturalistic explanation into gaps like this. The really sad part is, unlike theists of old who had no explanation for natural phenomena like lightning and such, who then attributed these phenomena to God, these atheists are so intellectually and/or emotionally committed to atheism that they purposefully exclude what seems to be the most logical explanations for things like a highly-ordered, extremely fine-tuned, indescribably massive, energy-laden, life supporting universe, the irreducible complexity of every living organism, the existence of an undeniable moral code, and plenty of others. 

These guys can maintain hope that someday they will find all the naturalistic explanations they've been dreaming of, but if they are smart and sincerely desire truth above all else, perhaps some of them will finally see the insurmountable heap of evidence for design as... well, evidence for design!

Next time: Does God almost certainly not exist?

Lessons in Bad Philosophy: Dawkins Edition (part 2)

As I promised in my last post, today I will be offering some responses to the the first three premises of Richard Dawkins' syllogism which he has said encapsulates his primary argument against God from his book, The God Delusion. We'll just tackle the first three in this post.

The very first thing, which needs to be addressed right away is that, as William Lane Craig points out in his book On Guard, even if every one of his premises is sound his conclusion simply does not follow. This is just a textbook example of a biologist playing a philosopher (and not the only example!). Dawkins is clearly not qualified to form a coherent, logical argument against God, and he proves that with this abysmally unsound syllogism.

That said, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and still look at each of his premises to see if maybe he had a good idea but just didn't know how to form it into a logical argument.

1) One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

In other words, "because we know there is no designer we just can't figure out why everything we see exhibits so many signs of having been designed."

Because Dawkins has an a priori commitment to naturalism - he has ruled out a designer before ever looking at the evidence - he simply cannot understand why the universe and everything in it boast so many features which seem to evidence design.

2) The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.

Again, to paraphrase for those who aren't fluent in atheist-speak: "Because everything looks so designed, the temptation to believe that what looks like design is actually design is unavoidable." Or, "Just because it looks like and swims like and quacks like and has the same DNA as a duck, isn't proof enough that it's a duck."

Dawkins' prior assumption that there is no creator comes out more with each of his premises, betraying the fact that he has an agenda which is far more important to him than actually following evidence where it leads. 

3) The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.

Out of all of his premises, which are all pretty ridiculous, this one will probably be the most misunderstood, and therefore may be prematurely accepted. It may seem like a good argument at first to dismiss the designer argument because it seemingly only pushes the question one step back. After all, when atheist thinkers like Francis Crick suggest that we were seeded here on earth by aliens, we rightly ask the inevitable question, "well where did those aliens come from?"

Isn't this the same thing? It actually isn't. See, in our argument against the alien-seeding theory we are justified in asking that question because, well, aliens aren't eternal, uncreated beings. Crick, Dawkins, and other atheists who resort to this alien-of-the-gaps theory will submit that those aliens had to have evolved somewhere, somehow. This really does push the question back.

Conversely, Dawkins' argument here falls flat because God is described in the holy Bible as an eternal, uncreated, infinitely powerful and intelligent, immaterial Spirit. He needs no explanation because He is a necessary Being - meaning that exists by a necessity of His own nature.

And there's another, more practical and philosophically oriented argument against premise number 3: You don't need to be able to explain the explanation if its is truly the best and most likely explanation. Think about it, when we look at Stonehenge we don't need an explanation of its designers, or to even know if they were human, alien, superhuman, or divine. The best explanation for Stonehenge is that intelligent being(s) designed it. In the same way, we don't need an explanation for a designer of the universe and of life in order to recognize that one must exist. A designer is the best and most likely explanation. Period.

In the following entry we'll look at premises 4-6, and save the conclusion for its own post. See you next time!

Lessons in Bad Philosophy: Dawkins Edition (part 1)

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. 

1 Peter 3:15

Based upon the Lord's instructions here, as transmitted through His servant, Peter, every Christian should be prepared to give a reasoned defense of the Faith. Now, there's no way that every believer can know how to adequately answer every argument against God, there are several arguments that every believer should prepare to answer. This is one of those arguments.

Richard Dawkins, who is probably the most high profile of the vociferously rabid, God-hating "New Atheists" of our day, summarized his central argument against God (from his best-selling The God Delusion) in the following syllogism:

1) One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2) The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.
3) The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.

4) The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.

5) We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics.

6) We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.

Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist.

Well, it's obvious the man is no philosopher since the conclusion wouldn't follow from the premises even if all six of them were sound. But we should still all be able to refute the faulty premises here and of course the "conclusion."

If you don't think you could interact with this argument in a meaningful way, take this as a challenge from God. This is the loudest and most unrelenting spokesperson for the anti-God movement presenting his central, and therefore seemingly most compelling argument against God as creator. If there's one intellectually-oriented atheist argument we should be prepared to answer with confidence it is this one. 

In my next post on this topic I will offer some arguments against a few of these premises and in subsequent entries I'll take on the final three premises and I'll finish in my last entry in the series by refuting the conclusion. Keep your eyes peeled for that!

Evolution of a Fairy Tale

I was just thinking about that "theory" called evolution... allow me to vent for a few minutes and don't be shy with the comments.

Do you know that on the biochemical level every single step of evolution - be it classic Darwinian or neo-Darwinian, or even Stephen Jay Gould & Niles Eldredge's Punctuated Equilibrium - is a statistical impossibility. Each step, and there would be trillions upon trillions, would be on the level of miraculous, which naturalistic science is doing their best to stay away from when it comes to anything but their precious evolution.

Ok, imagine you wake up tomorrow and decide to play the California State Lottery. The odds of winning are almost as good if you don't play. But you do. You buy one ticket and you win one million dollars. You do the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. In a few years science finds out how to extend our lifespan by a million years. So you play and win every day until you die, one million and thirty-one for me.

This is so absurd that no one would ever believe a story like this. The odds of biological evolution happening are far, far worse, and yet people believe it. The reason people believe it is because they are told to, or because they fear the alternative - namely and omnipotent God. Our textbooks are full of outright lies and evidence which has been proven wrong for over forty years in some cases, and yet here we are. Evolution, being taught as fact. It's not a fact. In fact, according to the very discipline scientists follow it can not be a fact.

Here's why:

The study of origins, including evolution, can prove nothing. It is forensic science, which tries to deduce how something may have happened. But there is never a certainty. There is a point where a thing can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but evolution is on the opposite end of the spectrum from that. Evolution, scientifically, can not be a fact. It is a "theory" at best, which is a stretch of the definition. Honestly, it's an idea. It is an idea about origins which was popularized by Mr. Darwin and has since become accepted as fact. We have no more evidence for evolution than Darwin had. We actually have less. With the fields of paleontology, genetics, biochemistry, biology and cosmology, to name a few, we have seen Darwin's ideas smashed to bits. Nevertheless, evolution marches forward.

If you are reading this and going, "what an idiot, evolution is a proven fact" the burden of proof is on you. I am saying you are wrong. I am giving reasons why you are wrong. I can give many, many more but no one would read the blog if it were that long. I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. I just want people to believe things because they have studied them out for themselves. This includes my faith. I would never tell someone "just believe". If someone is going to believe something they should know why they do.

Thanks for reading. Questions, comments, click the button that allows you to comment and shoot. Just know that I am not interested in debating for the sake of debating. I am simply presenting what I believe to be truth. If you honestly want to dialogue in a mature, adult manner, cool. But, if you are one of those God-hating atheists who can't find anything better to do than flame message boards with childish, filthy language, you are wasting your time posting here. Just keep it mature and all is well.