You get me wrong, it isn’t that I had a bad experience, I think I had a very good experience, being exposed to all sides and being able to look at history and make the decision. It is easy to look at these arguments on both sides with a skeptic approach. For example, the diatomaceous earth mines argument is very illogical because we see current buildup of diatomaceous elements (microorganisms, shells, corals, etc.) in many areas of the world, without the need for ‘fountains of the deep to burst’.
The layers argument due to the ‘sorting action of water’ isn’t logical counter argument because we see short period layers within time frames we can measure, such as the history of settlements. They provide us with a micro time view of what happens on a macro level. We can see these layers being created in our own history.
I haven’t seen a textbook (except maybe young elementary level) that states the Colorado alone created the Grand Canyon on its own. Most refer to the river, but also the uplift of the Colorado Plateau. At that much of what we see is actually the plateau uplift. These tectonics created cracks and fissures that helped the river carve out the sculpture of the canyon. Many of the features where also created from ancient seas rising and receding over and over. At that, even with the dam control of the river, we see carving going on to this very day. If we can see this in the short period of our observation, the nature of what would happen over greater time periods would be massive, especially considering that the river level greatly dropped when the Gulf of California opened.
But overall, saying a gap in knowledge damns the theory isn’t a good approach because much of our faith is filling in gaps in physical knowledge.
“we see short period layers within time frames we can measure, such as the history of settlements”
and almost invariably, the accumulation of that material is caused by macroscopic events, not by just sitting there & accumulating dust - the exact opposite of the “layers” lunacy