<Oil deposits are commonly found under great pressure in porous rocks. That would indicate the oil had been in the deposit a relatively short period of time.>

According to whom?

I'm no geologist but my understanding is that oil is a <fossil fuel>, formed by the anaerobic decomposition of plants, trapped and preserved in sediment (is this what you mean by "porous rocks"?), then buried deeply and slowly undergoing chemical transformation to what we recognise as oil because of increased temperature and pressure over many millions of years.

Bottom line...oil takes <millions of years> to form.

“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,

the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,

he will testify to me.

And you also testify,

Well, I know of him, but not really much else.

I see (from Wikipedia) that he sees no reason for science and religion to be at odds with each other, and that he argues against a literal interpretation of the creation account in Genesis. IMO, it is unremarkable that he is, as you say, a scientist in good standing. Many good scientists are Christians.

you have made great above all things

your name and your promise.

When I called, you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

Your right hand saves me.

The LORD will complete what he has done for me;

your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;

forsake not the work of your hands.

<Your right hand saves me, O Lord.

“Now I am going to the one who sent me,

and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’

But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.

<But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.

For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.>

And when he comes he will convict the world

in regard to <sin> and <<righteousness>> and <<<condemnation:>>>

sin, because <they do not believe in me;>

righteousness, because <<I am going to the Father

and you will no longer see me;>>

<“I have much more to tell you,> but you cannot bear it now.

<But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.>

<He will glorify me,>

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

<Everything that the Father has is mine;>

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

<twinlark: According to whom? I'm no geologist but my understanding is that oil is a <fossil fuel>, formed by the anaerobic decomposition of plants, trapped and preserved in sediment (is this what you mean by "porous rocks"?), then buried deeply and slowly undergoing chemical transformation to what we recognise as oil because of increased temperature and pressure over many millions of years.>

<I guess I should just say "according to whom?" and repeat myself and that would count as a reasoned response.>

No, and nor was my question in this respect meant to be a reasoned response, merely an attempt to elicit a reasoned response. Let's stick to reasoning, not knee jerk reactions.

I'm using geology - and therefore the collective wisdom of geologists - as my particular "whom".

<Anyway, are you aware of any geological formations that are not, to some degree, porous?>

Yes - impermeable rocks are not porous. What's your point? Crude oil reservoirs <need> porous rocks to accumulate in. They're not <placed> there. Oil is comparatively light and often travels upward - and sideways, sometimes for considerable distances - through rock layers until either reaching the surface or becoming trapped within porous rocks reservoirs by impermeable rocks above.

<If not, how do you account for the fact that we find oil deposits under great pressure?>

Not all oil reservoirs have pressure. The guysers do, of course, but others have lost their pressure through mining or through other depressurisation events, at which time miners have to supply the pressure to force oil out of its reservoirs.

<Are there some self creating pressure cookers that allow in the sediments and then afterward create an impermeable layer so that not only the sediments but resultant pressure can't escape?>

No. The pressure cooker built up around the the vegetable matter and zooplankton that had died and fallen to lake and ocean beds.

BTW, your use of the term "self creating" here is a red herring. These processes follow the laws of physics and chemistry. Personally, I think you'd be better off arguing that God created the laws of physics and chemistry that enabled these developments. Whether these laws are self-created is a far more to the point than whether the processes they generate are self created.

By way of an analogy, humans create machines to manufacture goods. God's work in creating oil has been to allow the machinery of the universe (laws of physics and chemistry) to create manufactured goods, including oil. We are after all made in God's image are we not, and I presume that refers to other than our physical appearance.

<If I gave you any materials you wanted today to maintain a pressure filled environment, allowed you to introduce oil into it after it was built, with the appropriate valves, you couldn't reasonably hope to build something that would still be functional millions of years from now. And yet you affirm this happened by accident?>

You're assuming the pressure filled environment was built first, but the whole process was co-evolutionary, and probably a very low probability one at that. For every kilogram of vegetable matter that underwent the transformation to oil, there were probably 1000 tonnes that didn't. In any event, many oil reservoirs ceased to be functional as geological events and upheavals ruptured the reservoirs.

Here's the thing about statistics - a low probability event becomes more likely over time. Your chances of throwing 10 heads in a row in one over two to the power of 10. You probably won't get 10 heads the first time you toss a coin ten times, but if you keep it up long enough, you most likely will in due course do so. If millions of people did that for years, the probability of 10 heads occurring approaches certainty.

<And yet you affirm this happened by accident?>

I do no such thing.

“Amen, amen, I say to you,

whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

<Until now you have not asked anything in my name;

A reasoned response? You wanted me to tell you who says oil is routinely found under great pressure?

<You're assuming the pressure filled environment was built first, but the whole process was co-evolutionary>

Not really, but to play along I will allow you to build today some type of environment, be it mechanical, geological, whatever, using any materials you wish, any co-evolutionary methods of pressure you wish, and you expect it will last millions of years? You affirm the whole process was co-evolutionary. That is an assumption. What is your evidence for that claim?

<Here's the thing about statistics - a low probability event becomes more likely over time. >

Yes, time is the God of the evolutionists. Given enough time, that infamous roomful of monkeys will type out Shakespeare. But you'd expect to find pages and pages of Grisham littering the floor, wouldn't you?

The canard in all that is the Scientists presume the conclusion, saying "Here we are. I guess this was just the random result of gazillions of years of random processes." Somehow I'm not impressed with such logic. In the same way, if I found a collection of Shakespeare, it would be ridiculous for me to say "Hey, I guess a roomful of monkeys created this."

<It's part of an inevitable process that occurs when the laws of physics act on matter in the way that it does.>

<At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we stand at an historical faultline between vast, colliding monoliths of thought. These living fossils rise and fall in competitive fluctuation, straddling a deep, layered axis of polarities manifesting as seemingly irreconcilable dichotomies competing for control of the collective mind. (the exoteric vs. the esoteric; science vs. religion; materialism vs. idealism; reductionism vs. holism; rationalism vs. empiricism; continuity vs. quantum; etc.)

Violently clashing in reverberating fits throughout the distorting echochamber of history, beneath their rigid exteriors these polarized ideologies, methodologies, territorial alignments and paradigms secretly and unconsciously feed each other through the differences which oppose, interrelate and unite them. On the surface, they seem wholly at odds, and yet deep within they remain locked in a tight symbiosis of interpenetratinginterfaces. And <<through us>>, these living monoliths grope and crash their way, ever onward, inward and upward, to a deeper, vaster, higher, more coherent, comprehensive and organic coalescence.

No. I wanted to know who reckons its only been there for a maximum of a few thousand years.

<What is your evidence for that claim?>

The evidence uncovered by geology, and the research, discovery and general scientific method its practitioners used and continue to use.

<Ohio>...science is fundamentally about deriving theories from the <evidence, evidence, and nothing but the evidence>. Religion is about other things...faith, belief, devotion, morality, spiritual guidance.

<Yes, time is the God of the evolutionists.>

No. Time is what enables change. Time is the measure of change.

<But you'd expect to find pages and pages of Grisham littering the floor, wouldn't you?>

With sufficient monkeys, typewriters and time, why not?

<"Here we are. I guess this was just the random result of gazillions of years of random processes.">

Not at all. This is the result of gazillions of years of processes directed by the laws of the universe God created.

<In the same way, if I found a collection of Shakespeare, it would be ridiculous for me to say "Hey, I guess a roomful of monkeys created this.">

See last comment, and previous comments about circular reasoning.

<So for millions of years, the high pressure oil reserves that do exist maintained that exact same pressure? It didn't decrease one millionth of one percent a year? It just miraculously managed to stay at exactly the same pressure for all that time?>

No. Quite the opposite in fact. Where oil reservoirs still exist they exist, <as I said earlier>, under different pressures from zero to guyser pressures. They vary from reservoir to reservoir, and through time for each and every reservoir. A lot of oil never even accumulates in reservoirs while a lot of other oil has escaped from reservoirs. What we see are the the small fraction of reservoirs that <still exist>.

You seem to have a real problem with time. Why shouldn't God work in millions, billions or trillions of years? It would be no challenge at all for an omnipotent deity.

That's outstanding wordsmithery! All the more amazing that Morrison's book about a seemingly dry philosophical idea is so long!

Yo James - yes, Joel Morrison does have quite a candy-ass repertoire at his disposal, and I have the ebook in excellent condition; it's a monumental work. Though initially I was able to cut through the material with relative ease - also considering my "affinity"(rather "big word" in this context perhaps) with Spinoza, which he shares and casts an intriguing light on....

But by now I have indeed hit a wall of some kind, and in all honesty need some time and energy to "read up" on subjects that are essential in understanding and following his train of thought. But it's indeed very challenging ("dry" at times... maybe the wrong term though), and at times I just rely on my education in Latin and Greek, from my schoolyears, to translate the "new" words he assembles with regularity! ;)

Did you already know about Morrison or some of his work?

To me it seems he's outthere in his orbit leaving many contemporaries far behind him... Still digesting though; some 50 pages I have gone through sofar.

<SEVEN HUNDRED TO GO>!!

<Part of my bemusement with this debate is

(a) that it's happening at all, not just here but anywhere on any significant scale>

<OCF: What is your evidence for that claim?>

<lark: The evidence uncovered by geology, and the research, discovery and general scientific method its practitioners used and continue to use.>

The small fraction that miraculously managed to survive millions of years under just the right pressure. Not increasing or decreasing a millionth of a percent a year. I guess I'm not into science fiction.

<You seem to have a real problem with time. Why shouldn't God work in millions, billions or trillions of years? It would be no challenge at all for an omnipotent deity. >

It's really the people who deny an ominipent God who are the primary movers of the idea that it has been going for eons.

<I still don't see why you can't accept the possibility that science is merely uncovering the wonders of God's creation. Science and religion can move together, but not when religion wars on science.>

<Ohio Chess Fan> Just because 85% of the members of the National Academy of Scientists admit to being atheists, and just because NAS President Neil deGrasse Tyson demands to know "what's wrong with the other 15%," doesn't mean they have an axe to grind--does it? I mean, if you can't trust these guys, really, who can you trust?

<Did you already know about Morrison or some of his work?>

As it happens now. I was going to ask who you were quoting but I thought I'd find out myself, via the ever-reliable Google...

<I am more or less completely, heh, reforming my belief systems and go out of my way to start <as> clean, fresh, unbiased, "as possible.">

<So we've found evidence showing it happened over millions of years? The discovery has been going on for millions of years? We have been using the scientific method for millions of years?>

The evidence has been around for millions of years, the discovery and formal study of that evidence using the scientific method has been around for a couple of centuries at most.

<The small fraction that miraculously managed to survive millions of years under just the right pressure. Not increasing or decreasing a millionth of a percent a year.>

There is no such thing as "the right pressure". Where does this come from? I mentioned earlier that oil reservoirs are at different pressures, from none to guyser high pressure. And...well let me just repeat what I said earlier as the response to your riposte:

<No. Quite the opposite in fact. Where oil reservoirs still exist they exist, <as I said earlier>, under different pressures from zero to guyser pressures. They vary from reservoir to reservoir, <<<<<and through time for each and every reservoir>>>>>. A lot of oil never even accumulates in reservoirs while a lot of other oil has escaped from reservoirs. What we see are the the small fraction of reservoirs that <still exist>.>

<It's really the people who deny an ominipent God who are the primary movers of the idea that it has been going for eons.>

The Catholic Church is OK with eons, and that was how I was taught during Religious Doctrine, which is what my religion lessons were called back in the sixties. Eons are far more impressive time scales for an omnipotent deity to work with than a few millennial don't you think? A bit like the difference between a school assignment taking a week and a PhD thesis taking 5 years.

<The Bible says different. As for science uncovering things, why is it such a large % of the scientists are strongly opposed to God? Not just apathetic, but actively in opposition. That's not coincidence. The bias is unmistakeable. And you want me to sit at their feet and get them to explain how it all happened?>

Science is about natural not supernatural explanations. Science is a discipline, a trade if you like which is bound by the rules of the guild, the main one being "thou shalt use evidence to construct your theories and evidence to rebut them". Science is work in progress. Watch that space as IMO the Big Bang Theory is ready to crumble...

Religion isn't a trade (or shouldn't be but the number and style of televangelists prancing around has me wondering), nor does it rely as heavily on actual evidence as science: it's about faith, belief and devotion. It should (and often does) simply let science do the scutwork of finding out how creation actually works <in terms of natural explanations>.