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So, if the ocean levels have risen post flood, then most of the evidence in the way of sediment would be under the ocean, on the ocean floor.

Yet another way that the flood model is exactly wrong, since sediment layers are thinnest on the ocean floor, and thickest on the continental plates.

you don’t know at what point God will give you over to the bitterness which follows consistent rejection of His mercy in Christ Jesus.

Per Hebrews 6, I'm already screwed. Unless you hold to the unbiblical notion of "once saved always saved".

That really is not very convincing to me, and I’m sure it’s not to many other Christians as well. Either there was a literal global Flood 4000-some years ago or there was not. You say there was not. Many other Christians say there was. Since the two options are mutually exclusive, that means one or the other of you must be wrong. You think that you are right (otherwise hopefully you would change your opinion, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason for embracing an opinion one knows is wrong. . .), that means you must think that the others are wrong. This isn’t some squishy “believe whatever you think is prettiest” thing, it’s a historical event that either did happen or did not.

Bad news: You’re still a primate. :-(

Not sure what the point of this post is. Obviously my and your interpretation of past discussions between yourself and others is going to vary, however, your post was written to me about our current discussion. If you’re accusing me of any of these tactics, please let me know, otherwise this isn’t really relevant.

born again =/= AG’s Adamic/non-Adamic distinction

When it comes to God, the majority view is most likely quite wrong:

Dangerous ground. You don't consider it prideful to think that you alone know the Truth, and all other Christians are mistaken and probably not Christian anyway?

Swimming out of the latrine you've stumbled into, and batheing might clean you up right up..

Goodness, I bet you're glad you are not like other men.

That is certainly true but if that is the reason for the anti-Christianity sentiment I have observed, then obviously the debate is neither intellectual nor academic but rather, it is about earthy power.

Why not all? It's definitely necessary to pay attention when a powerful group is lobbying to pass laws to require you to live by their standards. This does not mean you can't have an intellectual and academic disagreement with their position.

And you might have noticed that "insult" is rather built-into theological debate because it seems every time a new belief springs from another one, both sides insult each other as matter of doctrine.

Absolutely. That was one of the things that really started to bother me while I was still a Christian. At one board the Calvinism/Arminianism debate forum had to be shut down because each side claimed moral authority and then mercilessly bludgeoned the other with it.

Discussions about religion are fundamentally inclined towards "holier-than-thou" arguments, since they tend to involve morality. In an argument about a scientific topic, a person can be mistaken or even ignorant (a situation that can be rectified), but in an argument about religion a person is more likely to be called wrong or morally debased (not so easy to fix). I couldn't count the number of times I've seen the "God, thank you that I am not like other men" speech in one guise or another.

What’s condescending?

Would you consider a post by a Christian to a non-Christian saying, "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God" as condescending? (AG has at least not said this recently, so just speaking in general terms.) If not, I guess there's not much point in talking about this.

If rationalizing my professional opinion as a bias helps your biases—help yourself.

Why should being a psychologist make you less vulnerable to human frailty than others? If that were so, psychiatrists wouldn't ever need psychiatrists.

I've been in the position where a person has been a jerk while arguing on my side and I've overlooked it, only to realize in a different context, hmm, that person really is kind of a jerk. Hopefully I will remember this! :-D

I personally eschew all of the doctrines and traditions of men across the board

Why? Just because something is accepted doctrine or is a traditional interpretation does not mean that it is worthless. It's often quite the opposite. In Christianity many ideas achieved the level of doctrine because they were much debated and consistently shown to be the positions best supported by the Scripture.

As I have testified before, Scriptures are Spiritual per se - they contain the words of God - and therefore, they cannot be discerned like ordinary words.

The trouble is that you are discerning meanings to these words that have not been detected by the majority of Christians at the present time and through the past. Either God is not so good at communicating his thoughts, or he speaks specially to you among many, or you have a creative mind and may draw conclusions that are not really supported.

Perhaps you feel that way because you're on her side. To me the above post seems quite condescending. I can do condescending, but if I do I usually try to either do it directly to you or way behind your back, not on the same thread talking to someone else. Unless I'm really ticked. ;-)

That we will. LOL.

I think The Lord burned the insult gene out of Angel-Gal some years ago.

I've been on way to many Christian forums to believe that hooey. Many times obnoxiousness is positively correlated with one's perceived relationship with the Lord. I'd much rather debate someone who's smarter than thou than someone who's holier than thou.

What would be gained?..

What would be gained from discussing the biblical text??? Shocking! :-D

For instance, many religions have creation beliefs but the greatest number and loudest arguments are made against Christians. The Jews and Muslims are pretty much ignored along with all the others.

Wild guess, but this could be due to the fact that Christianity has much greater influence politically in the US than Judaism and Islam. Judaism is also less likely to take the anti-scientific positions of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity. How about you convert to Islam and try to argue against the theory of evolution and I'll take you up on that as well.

And I see you have the "obliquely insult others" Religion Forum shtick down pat.

The human species has gone through various bottlenecks, but not down to 8 individuals, and not within the last 4000 years. Such a bottleneck would be glaringly unmistakable due to the immense reduction in genetic diversity that would be required. Our species has a much greater range of genetic diversity than the Flood would allow for. An important piece of evidence is the Y chromosome—only one Y chromosome would have survived the Flood, Noah’s. With the variation in Y chromsomes in the human population today, that is simply impossible.

Your distinction between “Adamic” men and “non-Adamic” men is unorthodox and extrabiblical. It is a distinction that the Bible does not make. The word neshamah is used in the Old Testament to refer to any member of the human species (including pagan civilizations such as the Hittites and Canaanites, Deut. 20:16-17) and expanded upon in the Flood account to include any other air-breathing creature. Any other interpretation is simply not in the text. The biblical account does not give any room for such flights of fancy.

The Bible offers an expansive list of what got killed, basically amounting to everything. I can expound if you like.

Well, it failed in its purpose, then, since the population was not reduced to 8 people.