Monday, November 03, 2008

Floods and idiots

At the mouth of the Colorado River is a mass of sediments. These sediments are in layers, one layer for each spring flood that swept down the Grand Canyon and out the mouth of the river. These layers are like the rings of a tree, one for each year that the Colorado River has been flowing into the Gulf of California. You can drill down into this sediment with a coring drill and pull up core samples and count the layers. There are approximately five million of these layers, meaning that the Grand Canyon is at least five million years old.

Unless... unless you're one of the "young earth" creationists. Then these layers were created WHAM! 6011 years ago last Monday. Now, why God would create layers that say that the Earth is at least five million years old, the "young earth" creationists won't say, or they'll mumble some pious bullshit about "the Lord works in mysterious ways" which basically is the same thing as sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" Because if God created these layers 6011 years ago, these layers that are identical to the spring flood layers that we can count for the 6010 years afterwards, it means that God deliberately is deceiving us. I.e., that God is a liar. And that's not quite what these folks want to say, but it's what they're saying anyhow.

So anyhow, here's the deal. You can believe your lying eyes. Or you can believe the natterings of idiots who say that God is a liar. Me, I'll choose what I can see for myself over the natterings of some fool who hasn't a clue and is trying to cover up his cluelessness with hand waving and bullshit, thank you very much.

-- Badtux the Old Earth Penguin

1 comment:

  1. But... but... I thought fossils were supposed to be a test of our faith.

    Oh wait... what am I thinking?

    Unfortunately, too many people cannot comprehend the fact that science and faith can coexist. Just because evolution happened (and is still happening) does not mean that God does does not exist. I mean, what is a day to someone who is omnipotent? Couldn't evolution be the mechanism that God used to create life?

    Unfortunately, many religious wack jobs tend to shun anything remotely scientific or scholarly (I've been told that I'm going to hell for being college educated).

    ReplyDelete

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