From: Glenn Morton
Allen, you forget that I used to be a YEC, a publishing YEC. I will put my life history in evidence as proof that I listen to both sides. I spent the first 44 years of my life as a YEC. I didn't change to my present views without critically examining the evidence. Where is the evidence that you consider the other side of the arguement?
I know your history. The issue is not the need for counter evidence, but rather that in realizing that the evidence is really interpretation within a religious paradigm and not pure fact. The standard explanations for sedimentary depositions are assumed to only have happened in the same kinds of environments, grouped under Marine, Non-marine and transitional, which exist today. In other words, the explanations or interpretations of the deposits are done within Actualism which is a corollary of the religious philosophy of Naturalism/Materialism. Thus when one accepts the current interpretations then one is agreeing that the religious philosophy of Naturalism is correct and that the Bible and the Flood are false.
What is needed, is to be able to differentiate between fact (or data) as derived by scientific methodology and interpretation (or explanation) of the facts or data within a specific philosophy. As a creationists, rejecting Naturalism and it's corollary Actualism, I am under no obligation to accept any interpretation which is contrary to the creationary philosophy. I have no right to dismiss real facts or data, but am required to develop new interpretations of the data within a catastrophist model.
From what I have read, all of what you present as "facts" which don't fit a flood catastrophist model are not really facts, but rather, Actualistic interpretations of the facts. When I see you doing this, I realize that you are not making distinction between fact and interpretation. I realize that you made major changes in your beliefs based on Actualistic interpretations of the facts and not on the facts themselves.
When I reject these Actualistic interpretations and present possible Catastrophist interpretations of the real data, I am accused of picking and choosing whatever I want and ignore the rest. That is not the case. I search for the real data and then finding explanations which fit within the Catastrophist model, just as those who believe in Naturalism find explanations of the data within their model.
A case in point. A scientist submits rock samples to a lab which scientifically measures various quantities of isotopes. The lab returns to the scientist data consisting of the measurements of the isotopes. These lists of measurements are scientific facts.
If the scientist accepts Actualism, he may then interpret the data by entering it into formulae from which ages may be computed. However, this information is not scientific fact, but philosophical interpretation of the facts.
The Creationary Catastrophists is under no compunction to accept such philosophical interpretation because of very basic differences in philosophy. Such computed ages have no meaning in the Catastrophist model. The Catastrophists may wish to develop an interpretation of the measured isotopes. Such an interpretation need not address the Actualistic computations of time.
But you may say, I have never been indoctrinated in Naturalism! True. There are no classes in Naturalism as there are for Creationary Catastrophism. What really happens is that Naturalism is assumed. It is "The Given." Naturalism may never be brought up or pointed out. It is simply and subtly there and everything is interpreted within it. The student must head the warning "buyer beware."
Allen
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