Have you researched stromatolites?

Why does purity require rapid deposition? How rapid? Where did the deposited material come from?

Upright stumps require small amounts local rapid deposition. You can not conclude from a 5 ft high upright stump in a 1000 ft thick layer that the entire 1000 ft was deposited rapidly.

How does she account for the distribution of the material around the global?

In short - she has done a hand-wave, and not provide a model that accounts for almost any of what we actually find there.

This, sadly, is the high end of 'creation science'. The dregs are much worse.

/Bevin

Heh, first 'exegesis' and now 'evangelical': clearly my use of scientific terminology is much more precise than my use of Christian/theological terminology! What should I have said: 'Bible-believing fundamentalists'? Anyway, I hope you understamnd what I meant, and will address the substantive issue, not my faulty terminology.

Indeed, professor, I look forward to addressing the issue. However, I must take a brief leave from the forum for a day. I am not ignoring your post, simply will be on the water. Tomorrow I must sail my boat (the 'Renegade') from the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, near the Golden Gate bridge, all the way to the top of San Pablo Bay. I estimate an 8-hour trip. I expect to be a bit tired at the end of the day, so will get back to the forum on the morrow.

Regards, Dave

No worries at all: you have my envy, and my very best wishes for the sail! We're hoping to get into sailing a bit ourselves when we move to Australia in a month or so...

Thanks for the best wishes! I needed them this morning. I came close to 'buying the farm.' Started out as a routine trip, didn't think I needed a life jacket, nor the life raft, which sat in the cabin deflated. After leaving the strait, a very strong wind picked up, with steep, cresting seas abeam. Think of riding the 'corkscrew' roller coaster for two hours straight! Anyway, the situation got very dangerous. I could not leave the tiller to look for my life jacket, and the water is cold and deep. I also realized thatI was losing ground as well, being blown backward. I finally turned around. By God's grace, I made it back, alive. Now, I will say, ALWAYS wear a life jacket . . . AND keep a life raft lashed atop the cabin.

It feels very good to be able to sit here and type this post! And, ahh, yes, back to topic. Will do that in the next one.

Dave

Some people have all the fun! God is great.

/Bevin

Indeed, a beautiful vessel. Nothing quite like ocean sailing. It is simply fabulous.

But now, back to business. It is a bit late tonight, but I would like to briefly respond in regard to 'Bible-believing fundamentalists' and evolution. I would say that is a non-sequitur. By definition, a Bible-believing fundamentalist takes the Bible as it reads. A fundamentalist eschews higher criticism. Some fundamentalists believe in verbal inspiration (which I do not.) The way that a person could profess belief in the Bible, and also believe in long-age evolution, would be to NOT believe in the Bible as it reads, hence would not be a fundamentalist.

Dave

Okay - back to business - the White Cliffs of Dover.
We lack any short-age Flood-based explanation for them. A hand-wave by a retired biased geologist does not suffice.

This is a huge problem - and it is only a small piece of the whole problem.

So we have on one side a literal reading of an archaic collection of books which can not be reconciled with, on the other side, a vast amount of scientific evidence.

There are three choices

• ignore the issue
  
• ignore the science, assuming it is wrong
  
• drop the literal reading, and understand more of the origin of this collection of books.
  

The more I looked at the science, the more convinced I was that, while some details were unclear and others would no doubt turn out to be wrong, the big picture and most of the gross details were right.

So then I looked at the collection of books, and understood that

• God inspires people, not books
  
• God-inspired people are not flawless
  
• the books are a selection of flawed writings
  
• the books are part of the information God gives me to show me the way to heaven, not to teach me science and history
  

Looking at this, any SDA should have said "of course, we have been saying that about EGW for years".

/Bevin