Re: Flood Deposits in Mesopotamia [Was: Special Creation]

 for Bill and David O.
Bill wrote:

>>>

>>>>Well, I don't keep archives that far back, and I don't remember that exchange. Chalk it up to getting older. I guess I'm going to have to start archiving what I said and what you said so's I can remember it. We've been friends for a long time.<<<

GRM:Well, I often type quotations into emails and if I don't save my old emails, I won't have those quotations available.  Yeah, we have been freinds debating the area for almost 10 or 11 years now to the best of my knowledge--you took a several year break. I didn't.

>>>Considering the wealth of information that's available from Google and Wikipedia, it's not surprising that some folks turn to it. But if/when I present you with something I've Googled, it's for your expert opinion. I hope you realize that your two books gave me a great deal to think about, and that while I'm intrigued by Dick's Fischer's approach, by no means have I dismissed yours. I'd characterize both approaches as possibilities under consideration.<<<<

GRM:It isn't googling per se that is maddening with many YECs and some OECs. And let me make this clear it wasn't you. It is the fact that they choose an article that they interpret (without understanding) to support their position and then act as if they can stand behind the guy who wrote the article like a kid who stands behind his bigger brother and taunts his opponents. And I really am tired of watching Christians evade logic, data, evidence etc. all in order to hold to a pre-disposed position for which they claim they have evidential support but for which they never present or never deal with the logical contradictions in their position. Such behavior is no better than that engaged in by the young-earth creationists whom they look their noses down at.

GRM:In the case of the Flood, one has to have a flood which pushes the ark north of Bagdad, yet there is no evidence of a sedimentary nature that the area was ever flooded more than what a normal river flood can do. That isn't logical to believe that there was a flood where conveniently the evidence has disappeared. If it were that we couldn't actually check to see if the evidence were there that would be something different, but we can check, we can walk the ground and we don't see any such evidence and we should.

****

David O wrote:

>>>I'm not playing geologist. <<<<

GRM:Yeah you are. When I tell you that there should be some widespread flood deposits, you play a geologist by trying to tell there wouldn't be any, or that they would all be eroded away. That is making statements about geology. When you me that a glacial dam burst wouldn't be the same you are playing geologist.   What do you know about river floods from your legal education? You are playing geologist. I wouldn't mind if you had actually studied the area more than over the past few days.

>>> I haven't suggested that I have any theory about this that anyone should believe, or that I'd even be competent to suggest one.  <<<<

GRM:Bull, You have suggested a tsunami, you have suggested that sediments will be eroded way. You have suggested lots of things without understanding what you are speaking of. That is playing geologist or sleeping in a Holiday Inn Express.

>>> What I did suggest is that from the very tiny, uniformed amount of poking around I've been able to do, it seems to me that your interpretation and the data you're providing are very selective.<<<

GRM:And you think you are NOT being selective when I have over and over pointed out that there are no flood sediments in northern Iraq, an area across which the ark must travel on its way to that lush vacation spot in Turkey, and you over and over selectively ignore that fact?  And when you don't ignore it, you engage in a bit of quote-mining on my web page (admittedly off an area where something disappeared) but you chose to selectively quote JUST the lines you wanted without so much as noticing that they didn't fit with the quotations lower down on the page. That isn't selectivity on your part? what is it?

GRM:And when you admiringly cite your googled paper about the tsunami, you SELECTIVELY quote only the part that agrees with you, ignoring the fact that the paper said:

"It was pointed out by Lyons (2001), and by Master (2002), that the proposed impact structure has not yet been investigated on the ground, and has not been proven to be of impact origin. Until it has been properly studied, and dated, it is pointless speculating about its possible role in ancient history.  SHARAD MASTER and Tsehaie Woldai, "THE UMM AL BINNI STRUCTURE, IN THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHLAND S OF SOUTHERN IRAQ, AS A POSTULATED LATE HOLOCENE METEORITE IMPACT CRATER: GEOLOGICAL SETTING AND NEW LANDSAT ETM+ AND ASTER SATELLITE IMAGERY " Economic Geology Research Institute, Information Circular 382, p. 8

GRM:That isn't selectivity? What is it? You are projecting your own behavior onto others, David.

>>>  Do you think it reflects some kind of intellectual or spiritual immaturity on my part to want to study and understand this better for myself before I go out on a limb about it? <<<<

GRM: I suggest that like many yecs you are out there looking for what supports your position selectively rather than actually wanting to understand geology as it relates to this issue.

>> Or do you think it would be wiser for me to take as gospel the word of a guy I've never met and know nothing about other than from some statements on email, whose views are contested by others in the ASA, and who tenaciously holds to an extremely unusual theory that he believes is the only way to save Christianity from the clutches of atheism?  <<<

GRM: You can find out about me by doing your favorite sport--googling. But I will tell you, when I start dealing in a new area about which I know nothing, I don't go tell the experts in that field on day one how wrong they are. I LISTEN. As to whether or not you believe the word of this guy, I really don't give a flying flip.  The behavior exhibited by you has caused me many times over the past few years to doubt whether Christians really can deal with data, logic, logical contradictions in their views or whether they even care about the truth rather than their own sophistry at supporting their position.

GRM:And don't mistake the opposition to my theory with the concept that I spout factual nonsense.  While my theory was opposed here on the ASA, I posted it twice (several years ago) on Talk origins, a place where they eat christians for breakfast when they spout factual nonsense. They love to point out the factual errors, logical contradictions and other errors of fact that the Christian apologists engage in.  When I posted my theory, there was silence. No one came after me on any factual item.  I finally asked why I was being ignored and a couple of guys said, that they thought my theory daft but they couldn't find anything factually wrong with it.

GRM:Now, if the goal is to match facts with one's apologetics, there is nothing else to do other than to account for the huge genetic variation in the human race and move Adam back (so long as one wants to preserve biological descent from Adam--you can dump that and go toward's Dicks view of Adam, apart from his falsified flood views). There is also not a shred of evidence that anything more than a normal river flood passed through the rivers of Iraq. If that is what you believe Noah's flood is, then fine, no problem.  But I see lots of contradictions, logical and observational with that view and what the Bible says.