[Thatcherite]

I ask: Why can't God's Words in Genesis 1 simply be accepted at their face value?

Because if you wish to accept them at literal face value they are falsified by abundant physical evidence and supported by no physical evidence at all. This had been established by creationist geologists and paleontologists prior to the voyage of the Beagle.

[music_code]

But Genesis 1 is revelation; it tells man the true history of the beginning of things, and since it deals with events that occurred pre-Flood, it would be hard indeed to find physical evidence that directly supports the creation narrative, such as the existence of the garden of Eden, for example.

What is the physical evidence you are referring to that falsifies Genesis?

[grey_whiskers]

Re: Thatcherite's tagline in 1095:

If these threads go on enough, spawning enough purported Patrick Henry clones, then mayhap RWP can do an analysis of their posts and taglines, analogous to the ancestral DNA parsing which he teaches in some of his classes...

We could then discuss the branchings of the genus Patrickus and (quite possibly) find the true common ancestor.

Full Disclosure: Insert your own 'missing [hypertext]link' joke here.

Cheers!