the truth shall set you free

I noticed that Durango Bill’s Creationism = Willful Ignorance has surfaced on del.icio.us. This is an old page (2002), but I’m not surprised it’s popped up again with the explosion of the Evolution vs. Creation debate online.

I’m not going to address this page in full (yet), but there are a couple of brief points that I feel are worth making. Basically, I’m annoyed that evolutionists are constantly complaining that creationists misappropriate and misrepresent facts and figures. Then, in the same breath they argue against religion as a whole, misrepresenting creationist arguments and generalizing sectarian beliefs to the whole of “Theism.” This isn’t surprising, for while evolutionists are calling creationists “willfully ignorant”, they are upholding a theory that requires willful ignorance of a whole host of geological and biological dilemmas. I plan on dealing with these problems at length, so stay tuned.

Durango Bill seems to have amassed quite a following (if links are any indication); however, one must suspend rational thought in order to give credence to his claims. He begins by claiming that “Creationism is Ignorance of Geology”:

The greatest geologic fiction that the Creationists adhere to is Noah’s Flood. (Please see the bottom of this page for some insight regarding the Flood story.) Their Biblical interpretation says this flood covered “all the high mountains” (see notes at end), which by necessity would also have to include the ~29,035 ft. elevation of Mt. Everest. (They claim the marine limestone at the summit of Mt. Everest is proof that it was covered by water. Actually, Mt. Everest has been lifted out of the ocean (and is still rising) by the northward movement of the Indian subcontinent and its resultant subduction under the Asian continent during the past few tens of million of years.)

Even this introductory statement is extremely problematic. He says that one of the problems of the flood account is the claim that the waters covered “all the high mountains”, and this would have to include mountains as high as Everest. Yet, he argues against his own point in the following statement(s). First of all, he acknowledges the marine limestone atop Everest (which includes marine fossils), and then he concedes that “Mt. Everest has been lifted out of the ocean (and is still rising)…” Thank you, Bill, you affirm that (1) topography changes over time and (2) Mt. Everest would not have been 29,000+ feet at the time of the flood. People are linking to this guy in seriousness?

He goes on to ask two hard-hitting questions about the flood that should apparently baffle the flood account:

1. Where did the water come from? and Where did the water go?
He continues to argue his point using the flawed 29,000+ ft. concept that he refuted to begin with, so his conclusion carries no weight. From a naturalistic point-of-view, it is not unreasonable for all of earth’s land mass to be covered with water. Deep water. After all, there is more than twice as much water than land on this planet. Remember? That’s surface area, too, not the miles of depth in our oceans. There is also compelling evidence for the antediluvian super-continent, Pangea. In fact, many evolutionists subscribe to the idea of an ancient super-continent, as well. Is it logical to concede that there might have once been a single consolidated land mass and then argue against topographical change or worldwide flood?

There is actually evidence in the natural world that points to a cataclysmic event in earth’s history - even a flood. Pangea, marine fossils atop Mt. Everest, tropical foliage preserved in Arctic ice, etc.. The list goes on and on - and trust me - I’ll get to that.

But what is the point, really? Our account of the flood comes from the Bible, and those who believe it occurred believe that God initiated it. Thus, what is the point of asking “where did the water come from and where did it go”? One can speculate all day on rational possibilities, but what it really comes down to is that if a Deity had the power to initiate a world-wide flood at His whim, it’s silly to think he’d have trouble “coming up with the water” or “finding a place to put it” afterwards. Atheist run into the same problems when trying to argue against Creation, in general. If a superior being was capable of creating this universe, how does it follow that we can limit an omnipotent creative process by our understanding of that creation? There are deeper questions to be answered that many dishonest people are willing to gloss over with misuse of “science.” We cannot expect to gain knowledge without really thinking. Think. Think about things first and we can all make more progress.

Related Articles:
» In Defense of…the Genesis Flood [Part I] (Part II)
» An Examination of Noah’s Ark and the Global Flood
» Where Did all the Flood Waters Go?