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Ah, here you'll go all ad hoc on me - it's because of the fall you'll say.

Actually, I'd like to think my understanding that a report of a "fall" as explanatory of inconsistencies, anomolies, decay, etc. is not just an "ad hoc" assumption. It has been reported not only to me but also throughout all human generations known to science, by a source that (as I interpret the evidence presented to me) dates back several thousand years before I was born, that the earth I inhabit was once in a much better condition than it is now.

Now, I am as much at liberty to assert the veracity of this claim as the next observer is at liberty to assert whatever view has been reported to him, even if it were that the earth, the universe, or whatever, is the product of sixteen purple turles wracked by back pain from the intransigent compunctions of a well-travelled frog baked on three stones tossed twice over the northernmost ridges of Mount Everest before certain strikers of rocks fertilized a strain of beans consumed by the beavers that erected a dam resulting in the Mississippi River rats gnawing on the residual cheeseburger discarded by Howard Wilkey as he crossed the Eads Bridge last Thursday at 2:30:06:08:56:30 a.m. Mars Mean Time on his way to a convocation dedicated to the Epistemology of Gophers as Perceived by Hungry Rottweilers.

But I am certainly at liberty, I hope, to present my claim as the more reasonable of the two.

Please note, as possible further evidence of man as being created in the image of God, the words above which were "created" out of nothing science as we know it would able to predict. Like God, only to an exceedingly limited degree, man is a "creator."

I'd like to think my understanding that a report of a "fall" as explanatory of inconsistencies, anomolies, decay, etc. is not just an "ad hoc" assumption.

I know you'd like to think that. To me it sounds like an ad hoc creation - invented just-so to explain inconsistencies, anomolies, decay, etc.

But I am certainly at liberty, I hope, to present my claim as the more reasonable of the two.

Because it is simpler, right? And yet the evolutionary explanations are simpler yet. They fall right of the theory. No ad hoc-ness at all.

as possible further evidence of man as being created in the image of God, the words above which were "created" out of nothing science as we know it would able to predict.

Why do you think I or anyone should find that convincing? If I were to claim that the sun created fire because because they're both very hot, would I convince you? I hope not. Analogy is not science.

I'm curious, what do you say to people who would claim that God is made in man's image? Analogy works both ways you know.