slow to anger and of great kindness.

The LORD is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,

and let your faithful ones bless you.

Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might.

Let them make known your might to the children of Adam,

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,

and your dominion endures through all generations.

<I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Doesn't really answer my question...

In fact, after much thought I am now convinced that the biblical account of a worldwide flood (WWF) event contradicts biblical creationism.

God declared his creation "good". He sent the WWF to destroy mankind for "wickedness".

So it seems to me that the WWF event forces the narrator (whoever wrote Genesis) to come up with some sort of explanation for WWF to rescue the protagonist of the story (God) from the contradiction.

The explanation, a "hominum ex machina" if you will, (pardon my Latin) is the fall of man.

Anyway, that's how I see it for now...

I am sorry, but this is simply false. Scientists use radiochemistry for dating samples. It is well-established science, not circular reasoning. You seem woefully uninformed about this branch of science.

Not to pick on you, OCF, but this seems like an excellent example to explain a broader phenomena. Why are so many scientists atheistic or agnostic, and why do Christians feel that scientists have an agenda against Christianity? I answer my own question with the following story:

Two guys go off to college for 4 years. One of them, who happens to be Christian, does not study radiochemistry. In fact, he has never heard of it. The other guy studies radiochemistry. He learns about radioactive isotopes, decay chains, half lives, sample dating, etc.

Now the 2 guys meet on an internet forum, and discuss the fossil record.

The Christian doesn't know about radiochemistry, so he doesn't know how science dates fossils. He makes a very wrong assumption, or maybe he has been misinformed by another Christian who also knows nothing of radiochemistry. So the guy posts something that is totally dumb.

The second guy, who has studied radiochemistry, reads the totally dumb post. The second guy, who has been immersed in science for 25 years, finds the post about fossil dating to be so ignorant and uninformed that he shoots his mouth off rudely. He calls the Christian guy all sorts of things that he shouldn't call him, like "blinded by faith," "ignorant," and "closed minded."

Instead of studying radiochemistry, the Christian guy responds by threatening the untactful scientist with forum moderation. His emotions get the best of him and he digs his heels in, more determined than ever to keep the faith. He feels his faith has been attacked - it is important to him, so the scientist must be a real jerk. Maybe he has an anti-religious agenda, even!

On the other hand, the scientist shakes his head. Why even try to talk to these Christians, he asks himself. They don't know anything, and that doesn't seem to bother them either. In fact, he thinks, they don't seem to even want to learn anything.

The former heaven and the former earth had passed away,

coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people

and God himself will always be with them as their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes,

and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,

for the old order has passed away.”

The One who sat on the throne said,

and God will glorify him at once.>

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.

<<I give you a new commandment: love one another.

As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.>

This is how all will know that you are my disciples,

We also love thinking that runs like this: Darwin devises a theory to explain the fossil record, as he observes it; and then we turn around and say the fossil record proves his theory. This a nice little self-contained system, isn't it?

<lark: Well...no actually. >

God declared his creation "good". He sent the WWF to destroy mankind for "wickedness". >

That which was good became wicked. I don't see a difficulty there. Jeremiah 2:21 I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?

<So it seems to me that the WWF event forces the narrator (whoever wrote Genesis) to come up with some sort of explanation for WWF to rescue the protagonist of the story (God) from the contradiction. >

Instead of simply skipping the made up story of the wwf, this narrator invented another cover story for the madeup wwf story he really didn't have to include in the first place? I am glad this makes sense to you.

<For the record, I don't accept a WWF event as literal truth. Only for sake of argument of this topic I am not disputing it. >

I'm not sure why so many are. I am certain some atheists/agnostics are inclined to enter that discipline. I am guessing not as many become religion majors. I am aware of some becoming atheists/agnostics as a result of their education.

...And then you go on to quote a number of occasions where I use the word "most" instead of "some", and conclude that this implies a "negativity toward Christians".

I think you are failing to make a distinction that I am making. Please observe that when I use the word "most", it is in reference to "creation scientists", not "Christians".

Just to make myself clear, I regard "creation scientists" to be a tiny subset of Christians, and they represent those who pass themselves off as scientific authorities. They provide the source material that gets sold to and perpetuated by pastors, and further disseminated with confidence by their trusting followers, even though they generally have little understanding about science.

In fact, worse that being ignorant about science, they end up being misinformed, because they get both sides of the debate is presented by one side: the "creation science" side -- obviously a highly biased condition.

So, when I speak of "creation scientists", I'm not talking about you, or Christians in general, and I'm not being generally negative toward Christians.

<YouRang: Creation-scientists ignore the fact that natural science requires theories to be testable within nature. If a creation-scientist were asked to explain the observable facts of the universe and of life on earth -- AND they were NOT allowed to consider any holy book (e.g. Bible) or allow for miracles, they would never be able to come up with any theories better than the current theories of cosmology and evolution.

<OCF interjects: You haven't read the creationist literature to make this claim>>

I've seen plenty of it, but perhaps I've missed something. But if you've read something that would change my mind about my claim, you haven't presented it yet.

<YouRang: The Creationist case isn't provable at all, let alone provable by science. They "won't do it" because they can't.

<OCF: It can if you allow them to start with a nonscientific hypothesis of a miraculous creation. You allow science to start with a nonscientific hypothesis of life arising from nonlife.>>

In both cases, I would say that you used the word "hypothesis" when what you really mean is "assumption".

I appreciate that you at least qualify the miraculous creation as an "unscientific" hypothesis. Sure, scientists could "allow" an unscientific hypothesis, but when they do, they are no longer practicing science, and any conclusions they reach cannot be called conclusions of science. I don't see any motivation for scientists to do this, since it doesn't help them at all along their way to find a natural explanation that would improve their understanding of nature.

Apparently it is necessary for me to ask...

Man. I have enough to do. Maybe I'll get around to proving it.>

But <Ohio>, me old mate: this is critical to your whole argument.

OCF: The same way that the assumption that the Easter Bunny delivers eggs by some natural means doesn't represent an assumption of something supernatural. >

Okay, try this: There is no easter bunny and the eggs get delivered by people who lie about it being the easter bunny. I can't prove it, but it's the prevailing natural explanation.

<Life from nonlife is a miracle.> Bald assertion. Nonscientific. Old news.

<So is a human acting rabbit,> Strawman.

<...no matter how hard I try to hide it under the guise of some yet to be discovered natural explanation.>

And yet *every* great scientific discovery in history started out as the "guise of some yet to be discovered natural explanation."

< Anyway, you and science are free to assume anything, claim you are just searching for the elusive evidence, and call it science.>

For an enterprise that just goes around assuming anything and making presumably false claims, science has had astonishing success. Weird.

< You can assume that which is not observable, not testable, not provable, never has been for all the efforts made (just like alchemy)and yet you claim those things are the tenets of science.>

And you boldly (and baldly) assert that it must be a miracle, which is not observable or testable nor provable.

This seems like a good time to make a comment that I've alluded to before. Even if science comes up with a natural way to explain how life originated, it doesn't "prove" that life actually emerged that way. It wouldn't "prove" that God didn't create life directly. It would only be the prevailing view within a discipline that only considers natural explanations.

< It takes great endoctrination [sic] to espouse such a position.>