"Hard to Believe"

[Scrawly]

Different people are different. (Obviously.) Someone who's strong in his faith can fish in the seas of unbelieving scholarship and benefit both himself and others with what he finds. That's not the vibe that I get from Scrawly in this and other threads, though. Scrawly has had, and is having, a difficult life in general, divorced from fellowship/friendship in general and the local church in particular. His needs are great and many. He's not trying to be the next Ravi Zacharias. He's trying to make it until tomorrow, and for that he needs not the innoculation that comes from reading and discussing unbelief and unbelievers. He needs what I said in the post you quoted above. He needs the centrality of the gospel preached in his life and lived in his presence by Christians who know him personally, can hear his doubts personally, and can pray with him and for him.

This is also true. Even though I subscribe to Calvinism, I never want to be over-confident.

[Phat8594]

Hydrological sorting is a term that shows up a lot in creationist YEC literature and is sometimes used in an attempt to explain the rigid sorting of fossils by type in the sediments

Ahh...so its the YEC's who screw up the term. A better term would be hydrodynamic sorting. Hydrologic though? I think not. Its like when people call concrete "cement". It drives me nuts! Cement is just the powder!

sorting according to density could be expected only in still water, not the kind of turbulent waters expected in such a massive and violent event. There in reality would be no sorting expected from that kind of event, but rather just a chaotic jumbling of items mixed in with the sediments.

Thats actually not quite right. When water moves, you have to take into account momentum, force, etc. So mass and particle size actually play a role in how things move, and when / how fast they deposit, etc

[oxmixmudd]

Ahh...so its the YEC's who screw up the term. A better term would be hydrodynamic sorting. Hydrologic though? I think not. Its like when people call concrete "cement". It drives me nuts! Cement is just the powder!





Thats actually not quite right. When water moves, you have to take into account momentum, force, etc. So mass and particle size actually play a role in how things move, and when / how fast they deposit, etc

well, my explanation for THAT is that since I tend to take it on the chin every time I try to get technical in Christianity 201, I was trying to keep my explanation oriented at a less technical audience. Whenever one does that detail is lost and whatever shortened analogy one uses tends to be less correct than a more complete explanation. (and if you have a better way of summarizing the difference for a less technical audience, feel free to respond and let me know what it is. I'll be glad to use it henceforth).

The main point is that the fossils are NOT sorted according to the physics one would expect of debris being carried by water and later deposited.


Jim

[Phat8594]

(and if you have a better way of summarizing the difference for a less technical audience, feel free to respond and let me know what it is. I'll be glad to use it henceforth).

Well, I just wouldn't use the term "Hydrologic Sorting". Granted, that's what other people use, but thats probably due to ignorance of what hydrology is. Suffice it to say...I think the term "Hydrologic Sorting" is a misnomer of sorts.

But perhaps we are getting a little esoteric here...

[oxmixmudd]

Well, I just wouldn't use the term "Hydrologic Sorting". Granted, that's what other people use, but thats probably due to ignorance of what hydrology is. Suffice it to say...I think the term "Hydrologic Sorting" is a misnomer of sorts.

But perhaps we are getting a little esoteric here...

yeah, probably right there ... but google "Hydrological Sorting" and see what topic comprises 99% of the hits

[Phat8594]

yeah, probably right there ... but google "Hydrological Sorting" and see what topic comprises 99% of the hits

yep...like I said...I think people say it out of their ignorance of what hydrology is. A lot of people think hydrology is the same as hydraulics is the same as hydrodynamic.


And as I said before...its the same type of thing with concrete and cement.

Type in cement truck into google, and good luck finding a REAL cement truck. What you will actually see are a bunch of concrete mixing trucks. Again...just another misnomer.

[MooseOnTheLoose]

I wouldn't worry about things, Scrawly.

Some people believe in a magical world where puddles of goop come alive, fish turn into people and lizards grow wings and take to the air.

Incredible huh?

[Teluog]

The first mistake you made is in the very first sentence of the dialogue, so I couldn't even get passed the rest. Genesis doesn't say Satan was in the form of a snake. It merely identifies him as "the Serpent." But this looks like it was just an idiom since he's often identified as a serpentine creature throughout scripture. Secondly, "beast of the field" (in the KJV) is the Hebrew word chay, which means "living being," so a better translation would be: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any living being of the land which the LORD God had made." We don't know what form Satan was in, but from a logical point of view, I doubt Satan appeared as a snake. I would imagine he appeared as a glorious being that captivated Eve.

It sounds symbolic to me, like an ancient myth would, so the skeptic in your example might be on to something about parts of Scripture being ancient myth (and why not? God can inspire myth as much as poetry and literal history, not to mention the term "myth" used by historians does not mean a fake, false legend but merely a story--historical or not--used to formulate a culture's worldview). I think the skeptic needs to be listened to and his or her common sense acknowledged. We need to get a better understanding of Scripture in order to present it to a world that continues to move away from the ancient middle-eastern mindset. It's kind of necessary, I believe, if we are going to successfully bridge our culture with the Bible. I honestly suspect that much our teaching is itself a hindrance to the spread of the gospel.

Of course, you can never rule out the stubbornness of the depraved heart.