It also serves as a substitute for having to explain the same thing over and over again to each new wave of creationists. Not all of us have time compose anew the same responses to every creationist who wanders through, and even if we had the time we have better use for it. It's perfectly sensible to say, "here, this was written to address your issue, go read it, then if you still have any questions let us know". That is, after all the very purpose of a FAQ -- to save everyone time by providing newcomers a resource by which they can come up to speed on Frequently Asked Questions. I'm surprised that you seem not to immediately grasp that.
IOW, the link poster himself must be able to support his position with his own words.
And I can. I'm just not going to invest the time to personally educate every newcomer on old issues. But when people have further specific issues not addressed by the FAQ, *then* I'll spend a bit of personal time on it -- see my recent post to CalConservative, for example.
For example, I could respond to your links by posting links that give evidence to the contrary.
Feel free, if you think there are any good ones. I've looked around, and I haven't found any. I *have* found some that monumentally manage to miss the point, though, but those don't count.
I followed your links, however, and was amused to find not only very a very superficial dismissal of the problem,
Because it's a superficial "problem". Oh look, tree trunks buried a few feet deep in sediment. Let's all faint and pass out from the amazing miracle...
Hardly the "particular problem" you claimed it was.
but the explanations for the limited examples actually indicated that some sort of flooding actually caused them, but surely not the Great Flood.
Why is that "amusing"? Pointing out that ordinary floods (i.e., regular geology) can produce something that creationists try to claim could "only" be produced by a megaflood producing the entire geologic column in a year is a fine disproof of their mistaken assumptions.
You also apparently failed to note that volcanic ashfalls can cause them as well, along with other sorts of phenomena.
One article went so far as to imagine a hypothetical situation in which a polystrate fossil could have been formed-- a nearby levee breached etc etc.
Because such things do happen -- they are observed happening naturally today, and there are clear signs in the geologic column of them happening in the past. What's your point here?
There would, of course, have to be a nearby levee in the case of all polystrate fossils which are found all over the world.
*snort*. There's a name for that type of logical fallacy, but I'm too tired to recall or look it up right now.
Hint: There are other ways for floods to occur, and there are other ways for deposition to occur besides floods -- the FAQ file even mentions some.
Don't wast my time with sloppy reasoning.
Another interesting-though-not-unusual approach to the problem goes like this: "This anomaly has been dealt with years ago so we no longer have to try to explain it."
Fascinating -- and who said that, please? No one on this thread. Why don't you take Mr. Straw Man out and put him back in the cornfield where he belongs?
There were a few folks in the beginning who just laughed instead of explaining the errors in the base post, but I'll wager that their actual motives were more like "I don't have time to dig out the FAQ on this, but other people will likely do so in short order, so I'll just post a HA!"
Feel free to ask them if you're curious about their motivations. Don't just presume.
[wild tangent snipped]
Finally, there was a link to tips on debating creationists. I had to laugh out loud when I read the reasons why evolutionists lose debates: It's because the audience of the debates are too stupid to know that the evolutionist won!
Wow, that's a REMARKABLY dishonest twisting of:
The second problem is that the evolutionist debater has an upstream battle from the start. Evolution is a complex set of ideas that is not easily explained in the sound-bite razzle-dazzle of the debate format. Evolution applies to astronomy, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, biology, geology -- you name the field, and evolution will relate to it, like as not. Most audiences have an abysmal understanding of basic science. How are you going to bring an audience up to par? The goal of a debate (I assume) is to teach the audience something about evolution and the nature of science. This is possible in a debate format, but it is difficult to do well, because it is not easy to do quickly.Or do you just suffer from really bad reading comprehension?
No more links, please. You'll have to spend some time at the keyboard and give your understanding.
I don't *have* to do anything at your behest. If you, or anyone else, keep asking Frequently Asked Questions, you're going to get the FAQ file to help you come up to speed.