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PICTURE GORGE SHOUTS SUDDEN CATACLYSM: But believing is seeing
Creation Magazine ^ | Steve Wolfe

Posted on 11/10/2009 8:45:14 AM PST by GodGunsGuts

Probably you have heard the expression, ‘Seeing is believing’, but is that always true? In fact, quite often it’s the other way around: ‘Believing is seeing’. This is true of geology, for example. Geological evidence does not speak for itself, and so it must always be interpreted. And how we interpret that evidence is always influenced by our beliefs.

A good example of this is found on a roadside interpretive sign near the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in central Oregon. This is where the John Day River flows through a water gap[1] called Picture Gorge. It’s about 300 m (1,000 ft) deep, with nearly vertical walls of basalt.

According to the standard uniformitarian interpretation, the basaltic lava flowed over this area about 16 million years ago. After that, the river slowly cut down through these lava flows over millions of years to form the gorge. But how could a river flow through a long range of hills? You would expect water to flow around.

The creationist interpretation, however, does not have these sorts of problems...

(click excerpt link for remainder plus pictures)

(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: antiscienceevos; bible; catholic; christian; creation; evangelical; evolution; flood; genesis; geology; godsgravesglyphs; intelligentdesign; noahsflood; protestant; science
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To: CottShop

Hey if you find anything else on the San Juan River, be sure to drop me a ping. The fact that the evos won’t answer any questions about the river that they themselves put forward suggests I need to learn more about its formation!


21 posted on 11/10/2009 10:05:20 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: dirtboy

Then you say the gorge was cut before any uplift?


22 posted on 11/10/2009 10:18:01 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change
Then you say the gorge was cut before any uplift?

No, I am saying the river flowed over the buried formation, and then the region was uplifted. Softer formations eroded away, but the Picture Gorge basalt was more resistant to erosion, so it formed a high aread. The river cut downwards through the formation as it was uplifted, forming the gorge.

23 posted on 11/10/2009 10:20:44 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: GodGunsGuts
The fact that the evos won’t answer any questions about the river that they themselves put forward suggests I need to learn more about its formation!

No, the issue is that the YEC theories about the formation of the region's landforms is the same kind of nonsense we've come to expect from your movement.

24 posted on 11/10/2009 10:21:56 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: dirtboy

as opposed to hte nonsense you put forth declaring the earth billions of years old?


25 posted on 11/10/2009 10:24:56 AM PST by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: CottShop
as opposed to hte nonsense you put forth declaring the earth billions of years old?

Nonsense as compared to declaring the earth to be six thousand years old? The theories behind an old Earth, such as the rate of radioactive decay, can be proven by research. Your theories are attempts to shoehorn natural phenomenon into your own preconceptions.

26 posted on 11/10/2009 10:27:32 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: dirtboy

instead of ismpyl saying “we have a different opinion about hte age of the earth’ your side ALWAYS hasto get your little digs in by calling anyhtign that doesn’t jive with your ASSUMPTIONS abotu the age of the earth as ‘psuedoscience’- IF your theory is strong enough to stand on it’s own- then simply let the evidence speak for itself- IF there are problems, cede those problems- your case isn’t bolstered by ad hominems agaisnt htose that oppose your viewpoint- infact, it just goes to point out you feel your evidence is so weak that you must prop it up by ridiculing your opposition


27 posted on 11/10/2009 10:28:15 AM PST by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: dirtboy

[[Nonsense as compared to declaring the earth to be six thousand years old? The theories behind an old Earth, such as the rate of radioactive decay, can be proven by research.]]

Beyond aboput 9000 years- the dates are built on nothign but assumptions- carbon dating can be measured and verified with other means of known ages, yet anythign beyond known ages is nothign but assumptions and has problems associated with hte methods as the links I provided point out- please refer to my previosu post- it would be nice to have a civil conversation for once.


28 posted on 11/10/2009 10:30:32 AM PST by CottShop (Scientific belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge)
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To: CottShop
Beyond aboput 9000 years- the dates are built on nothign but assumptions- carbon dating can be measured and verified with other means of known ages,

Carbon-14 dating is not used to classify the Earth as billions of years old. Try again (this time with, say, potassium/argon dating.

yet anythign beyond known ages is nothign but assumptions and has problems associated with hte methods as the links I provided point out- please refer to my previosu post- it would be nice to have a civil conversation for once.

Sorry, but there is no point having much of a conversation with those who engage in bad science, whether it be global warming believers or young Earth believers - they both start with preconceptions and then craft theories to match those preconceptions.

29 posted on 11/10/2009 10:34:22 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: CottShop
IF your theory is strong enough to stand on it’s own- then simply let the evidence speak for itself-

It does. That's the point.

30 posted on 11/10/2009 10:35:10 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: GodGunsGuts
Creationists have no problem with evidence of uplift, but they often differ on what caused the uplift, and of course the timescales involved.

There are various causes for uplift.

Yellowstone has uplifted 7 inches over the last 30 months, due to magma upwelling.

The Himalayas is currently rising by about 5 mm per year, due to plate tectonics, namely the Indian plate hitting the main Asian plate, with mountains rising at the collision zone.

Plate movement is widely recorded, year to year, in a wide number of places by sensitive GPS measurements.

31 posted on 11/10/2009 10:35:30 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Public healthcare looks like it will work as well as public housing did.)
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To: dirtboy; count-your-change; GodGunsGuts
"I am saying the river flowed over the buried formation, and then the region was uplifted. Softer formations eroded away, but the Picture Gorge basalt was more resistant to erosion, so it formed a high aread. The river cut downwards through the formation as it was uplifted, forming the gorge."

Fairy tale nonsense! - What was the rest of the river bed doing while this cut was made through this very selectively uplifted hard material?

As usual we're expected to accept fanciful explanations in place of common sense.

32 posted on 11/10/2009 10:35:44 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bomb-a administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: editor-surveyor
Fairy tale nonsense! - What was the rest of the river bed doing while this cut was made through this very selectively uplifted hard material?

Doing what rivers do - erode and send out tributaries. The tributaries eroded away the softer rocks on both sides of the basaltic formation. Just as in Pennsylvania, the ridges are resistant to erosion and the valleys are softer rock that eroded away due to tributaries. The underlying geology drives the result of erosion.

This is some of the most obvious and basic stuff in Geology, and applies around the world. The fact that you are even debating it points out the futility of bothering to engage you in such. Later.

33 posted on 11/10/2009 10:40:20 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: dirtboy

The “Lake Misoula” flood used to be called the Bretz Flood after pioneering geologist J. Harlan Bretz who was the first to use aircraft surveying in the 1920’s to analyse large geological land forms. He hypothesized a wall of water 1/4 mile high scouring the Washington/Idoaho/Montana scablands and pouring into Utah to create the Great Salt Lake. For his troubles he was ridiculed and vilified by his peers, refused access to journals, forced from his job and generally made a pariah in his profession. It wasn’t until the 1970’ was his work given formal recognition by academia, but ONLY after the fantasy of a “glacier lake Misoula” presumably broke through its fantasized “ice dam”
and traveled East to West.

Bretz’s hypothesis had the water rushing in from the Pacific Ocean to do it’s sculpting work. He also cites many strings of sediment in parallel lines as though a huge body of sediment and gravel carrying water sloshed back and forth while trapped in the Northwest scablands basin before draining into Salt Lake.

As long as the establishment geologists had a non-global catastrophist rationale for the glaring evidence that a huge flood did occur, they could relax and belatedly offer Bretz the Geological Association of America’s Penrose award of merit, which, I’m happy to say, Bretz told them to shove up their ass.

American Indian author and U. of Colorado professor of anthropology, Vine Deloria, in his later book “Red Earth, White Lies”, tells of Indian myths of the “day the OCEANS took the people away”, ie., a wall of water coming from the West. These Klingit and Kwakiutl myths also are part of the same story cycle that include the Mt. St. Helens like eruption of Mt. Mazama into the 3 Sisters peaks in Central East Oregon, a synchronous event that implies a more far ranging catastrophe that included great geological upheaval beyond flooding. Deloria also attacks uniformitarian ideas of the extinction of most animal species of North America being due to human hunting and predation as well as the central anthropological pillar of the so-called Bearing Straight Migration of peoples North through thousands of miles of inhospitable frozen wasteland before heading south through North America. Good book.

Also, the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies- http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/resource.htm, A british group of peer review journal academicians, has much new information on recent evidence for post-glacial period catastrophic events.

Comet Shoemaker-Levey gave uniformitarians direct non-deniable evidence that catastrophism caused by extra-terrestrial objects is for real and that the Biblical flood myth is but one of thousands from cultures around the world that tell of the same series of horrendous extinction events in recent times.


34 posted on 11/10/2009 10:45:20 AM PST by Yollopoliuhqui (consciousness is a heads up display)
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To: dirtboy
"erode and send out tributaries."

Suddenly you believe in 'trickle-up?'

35 posted on 11/10/2009 10:49:42 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bomb-a administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: Yollopoliuhqui
It wasn’t until the 1970’ was his work given formal recognition by academia, but ONLY after the fantasy of a “glacier lake Misoula” presumably broke through its fantasized “ice dam” and traveled East to West.

Fantasy? Geologists have traced shorelines for the glacial lake.

You are so typical of the YEC types - you cherry-pick one aspect of the story that suits your agenda - catastrophism - and ignore the other aspects.

36 posted on 11/10/2009 10:51:36 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: dirtboy
And that would have required water and a active drainage basin over a very long period of time plus a period of time for the present formation to rise above the surrounding area.

Any thoughts on this?

37 posted on 11/10/2009 10:54:00 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Yollopoliuhqui
tells of Indian myths of the “day the OCEANS took the people away”, ie., a wall of water coming from the West.

There's plenty of geological evidence to support big honkin' tsunamis along the Washington/Oregon coast - including one as recent as 1700. And that support of Native American legend somehow proves your young Earth theories exactly how? As does the collapse of Mt. Mazama to create Crater Lake thousands of years ago?

38 posted on 11/10/2009 10:55:12 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: count-your-change
And that would have required water and a active drainage basin over a very long period of time plus a period of time for the present formation to rise above the surrounding area.

Given the uplift has been going on for about 1.5 to 2 million years, I'd say there has been plenty of time for such. Heck, the Rockies were buried up to their chins in debris and were exhumed over the last ten million years as the region rose about a mile in elevation.

39 posted on 11/10/2009 10:58:08 AM PST by dirtboy
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To: editor-surveyor
What was the rest of the river bed doing while this cut was made through this very selectively uplifted hard material?

BWAAAAAhahahahahaha....the rest of WHAT river bed? The river was already there, PRE-uplift...the basalt formation uplifted perpendicular to the river...very slowly. The river eroded the basalt formation as it rises up beneath the river...over a long period of time. Take a look at Pennsylvania and all the water gaps there.

Too difficult? Rhetorical question...the concept doesn't include Man walking with meat eating dinosaurs.....or pre-Fall vegetarian T rex

I know...I'm supposedly a liberal.

40 posted on 11/10/2009 11:00:10 AM PST by ElectricStrawberry (Didja know that Man walked with 100+ species of large meat eating dinos within the last 4,351 years?)
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