Playing in the Mud

Mud and moist clay have interesting properties that are exciting for a boy. I played in plenty of mud and clay. It bends when it gets drier; it sticks and leaves imprints when it is wet; it smells earthy; it doesn’t hurt your friends if you throw it at them. I did that, too. But, if mud is full of silicates like concrete, it is rougher and can harden pretty fast. It remains pliable for only a short period. If things get caught in it and buried, a process can start, if conditions are right, for fossils to emerge from things that got trapped in the process. This kind of “mud” is what interests me as an adult.

Now, I pass place after place on interstate highways where large bends and folds of sedimentary rock are apparent — laid bare by the highway excavation so you can easily see them. They had to be pliable when laid down, just like mud is pliable when half dried. In some places, there are huge plates of sedimentary rock at high angles. I have found them with sand-like marks as if they were by a sea shore after a retreating tide and coastal winds have played their part. In other places, where there are public parks, one can find dinosaur tracks on a layer that show how soft a layer was deposited but it got covered with another layer quickly before it all hardened to preserve both the tracks and the layers that were laid so quickly.  At the Grand Canyon there are places where thousands of feet of multiple layers of sedimentary rock show huge bending together but are now hard. In between the layers there is no evidence of erosion. I have seen other places where it appears that rock layers were frozen in places a thousand miles from the sea and a mile above sea level. Something very big and very violent occurred.

What happened? When one sets aside the uniform, slow, gradual, millions-of-years-process that underwrites the typical explanations, the Bible provides a much better fit: a world wide flood full of turbidite flows of material, violence in earth movement never repeated since, and layers upon layers of sediment laid down that had quick hardening properties. The earth’s surface was moved around by water and crustal forces. It takes a significant change in how you see things compared to what is described in popular books and educational material that are predicated on a God-deleted, peaceful, long-age (millions of years) slow change. It’s that same view that takes us back to monkeys, then to something less, then to a primordial soup. It may be a grand story, but it is just that: a story. The Bible, on the other hand, is recorded history. The flood was worldwide and catastrophic in a short period.

So, now I play in old “mud” as I gaze upon the magnificent and widespread evidence of the Genesis Flood from great canyons, to warped rock layers, to the huge areas of sand/rocks (planation surfaces) that are miles from mountain ranges. From an airplane it is simple to see. Specialists have mapped lines of volcanism that are around the world that are now, for the most part, dormant. There are underwater mountains that have been located that show flat tops, where the upper sections were removed by violent waters when the mountain was once on the surface. Continental shelves full of sediment but have materials that came from “inside” the continents. The shelves show astounding results of sheet flows that made their way to the sea as the “new” lands were raised and the ocean areas deepened.

So, whether I take children to see the rock layers marked with water movement, find fossils with marine organisms that can be found in thousands of places far from the sea, or pick up fossilized closed clams that were buried and frozen in time with no chance to open and rot, the evidence of the mighty flood surrounds us.

Go play in the “mud” from an airplane window, or a canoe trip (where I picked up fossils on the Potomac River), or walk down a drier part of Texas creek bed where I found a closed fossilized clam (they can be found in many places). Then, consider the possibility that the bias from a placid ever-so-slow process that yields a concept of millions of years just might be wrong. And, the Bible’s description for the world wide flood, along with its stated cause and effect, just might be true. I know it is. I challenge you to look for yourself, but be prepared to have the popular world view of naturalism or evolution shaken in the process. God even records why it is so important to remember the historical event of the Genesis Flood outside of Genesis because we were meant to remember why it happened (Matthew 24:36-39 and 2 Peter 3:5-7 are examples).

 

A Bible study on biblical creation, which includes the Genesis Flood, can be downloaded free from this site under downloadable courses. It contains some of the significant results from scientists and specialists who believe the biblical account of the world wide flood and subscribe to biblical history, as this author does. A curriculum is being finished for high school level that covers the same topics in more detail. An elementary version will be ready in a year or so.

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