Catastrophes in
   Earth's History

... Via Latin catastropha < greek katastrophe "overturning".

Catastrophism is the doctrine which postulates that major changes in the earth's crust result from catastrophe processes. Catastrophism dominated geologic thought until early in the 1800s when [[James Hutton]] and [[Charles Lyell developed the principles of uniformitarianism. Prior to the acceptance of uniformitarian concepts, most geologists believed the earths fossiliferous strata was the result of the Biblical global flood of Noah.

It is unquestionable that the earth's history has been violent, however, life remains and flourishes. The central focus of the creation vs. evolution debate is whether catastrophes in earth's past were the result of natural processes over millions of years, or God's judgment as described in the Bible.

Several sites of importance such as the Channeled Scablands in Washington State, the Grand Canyon and Mt. St. Helens provide us with evidence of large scale catastrophic processes important for understanding the mechanisms responsible for the formation of the earth's strata. Assuming the geological column was formed during the Noachian deluge, then the flood was also accompanied by numerous volcanic flows and quite possibly meteor bombardments.

However, the scientific community can not recognize the geological column as being the result of a global flood with supernatural connections. The animals which are fossilized could not possibly survive a flood capable of laying these hundreds of feet of sedimentary deposits worldwide, and yet a great many of the fossilized animals are still alive. Their presence is a result of divine intervention, but an atheistic scientific community could never accept this requirement to explain their current existence. Without belief in a miraculous preservation as described n the Bible, the sediments in the geological column must theoretically have accumulated at a rate the animals could naturally survive; (i.e. many local floods, millions of years of gradual deposition).

There have unquestionably been catastrophes, but the scientific community is simply not capable of interpreting the physical evidence of a catastrophe that required divine intervention? If you believe God has been effective in our history during the creation, flood and beyond, you should accept the secular interpretation of geological evidence with extreme hesitancy.

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