Catastrophist geology Noah’s flood Belief Commentary

James Hall geology

Catastrophist geology

• Early geologists didn’t believe
• the strata of the earth evolved
• under the slow natural forces observable today.
• Instead, they thought that the strata and their fossils
• were laid down and deformed over a few thousand years
• in a series of mind-bending catastrophies
• consistent with the views of Christian theologians
• who claimed that the world was only six thousand years old.
• But controversy ensued as geologists began to inspect
• strata and fossils observable in cliffs, canal cuts, and pit mines.
• Geologists who called themselves Neptunists
• believed that rocks formed in our early oceans
• from the crystallization of minerals,
• were populated by fossils from periods of new creation,
• and were later raised and weathered in their present beds.
• Geologists who called themselves Plutonists
• believed that volcanoes and earthquakes
• show that our rocks were formed under heat and pressure,
• then wore down, settled in the ocean,
• and were raised again.
• Sir James Hall, a Neptunist,
• and his friend, James Hutton, a Plutonist,
• argued for years
• until Hall decided to determine the effects
• of different heating and cooling processes, and found
• he could convert hornblende into different types of rock,
• so Hall changed his mind and became a Plutonist.
• Meanwhile, Hutton had already proposed the theory
• that overthrew catastrophist geology.

Noah’s flood

• According to early Christian theologians,
• the book of Genesis has the explanation
• for which geologists needed to strive.
• Noah’s flood washed dead animals and sediments
• into the oceans.
• Belief and reason, literal and figural, historic and mythic,
• observation and interpretation—are all mixed up,
• disorder dying into chaos, life reaching for order,
• each animal climbing over another to survive
• or dying to have its traces misinterpreted,
• subservient to a belief
• subservient to a theory
• subservient to a fancy
• subservient to stupidity and greed.
• A beautiful story ending with a covenant,
• a rainbow put up to symbolize the promise of protection,
• a clever story inspired by ancient observations
• of sea shells and fish fossils in the mountains,
• an ignorant story grasping fictions
• to affirm a world-view separate from reality.

Belief

• I believe
• what I need to believe
• and what I refuse to question.
• I believe what I know to be true
• and what I accept from others.
• I know I make mistakes
• and my beliefs might be mistaken,
• but in believing I do not doubt
• and believe in my believing.
• Belief in an empirical or scientific fact
• is no different from belief in spirits.
• I evaluate it in terms of my beliefs
• and either accept it or reject it.