Biblical inerrancy vs. physical evidence: continued

The previous thread, “Is Creationism Child’s Play?”, was closed by an admin because it was getting so long that it was loading slowly or not at all. A contributing factor is that PT has apparently been experiencing some kind of denial-of-service attack which is also slowing things down.

I have been out of town and not able to contribute to the thread much, or even read all of it, but apparently it has evolved from mudslinging into a reasonable dialog with a young-earth creationist, Mark Hausam, who actually wants to discuss the issues. Mark has pretty much acknowledged that his belief is based on a literal, inerrant interpretation of the Bible, and that he is willing to invoke miraculous “appearance of age” arguments to explain away physical evidence that conflicts with his interpretation of the Bible. Usually this sort of person is about six months away from complete deconversion from creationism. With the appearance-of-age argument, they have already admitted that the physical evidence on its face is totally against them, and that they have admitted that Last Thursdayism is as well-supported as young-earth creationism (Last Tuesdayism, of course, is unspeakable heresy). Once they’ve gone this far, most people can’t maintain the necessary doublethink for very long (Paul Nelson, John Mark Reynolds, Kurt Wise, and Marcus Ross are about the only exceptions, and they each have the peculiar ability to remorsely drown their scientific conscience whenever reality intrudes upon their textual interpretation).

This sort of discussion should be encouraged so I am starting a new thread for those who wish to discuss the issues. I will be watching the thread to ensure that it remains courteous.