Once Upon a Time – Part I

An obvious indication of global water activity is the very existence of sedimentary rocks all over the world, which by definition, were formed by the erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments by moving water with the sediments gradually converted into stone after they had been deposited.

The Grand Canyon from the air. Note the vast horizontal sedimentary strata in the walls, which were deposited as the waters of Noah's Flood were rising. That is the scale of catastrophe caused by the Flood
    To a correct understanding of the Book of Mormon, it is imperative that we fully understand the actual reality of the scriptural-based Flood of Noah. If the Flood did not occur, then those who claim an Earth that is 4.55 billion years old and the reality of the geologic column would have maneuvering room to make their points; however, if the Flood did happen, as Moses tells us, then evolutionists do not have a leg to stand on, for the entire geologic column would collapse as well as their interpretation of the data they have collected.

Showing several layers of sedimentary rock formed from water and wind as they pile up into layers, sometimes on land and sometimes at bottom of an ocean, river or lake, sometimes called "sandwich rocks," such as sandstone, shale, and siltstone; some are made from materials left as water evaporates and others from once living things
    So let’s look at “sedimentary rock,” which is a type of rock that is formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles (called detritus, which is any kind of gravel, sand, silt or other material produced by erosion or the decomposition of organisms or any disintegrated material) to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution. Thus, particles that form a sedimentary rock by accumulating are called sediment and before being deposited in the Earth, were formed by weathering and erosion in a source area, and then transported to the place of deposition by water, wind, ice, mass movement of earth or glaciers.

During the Flood, as the waters rose, sedimentary layers were formed as rock, water, wind and sediment piled up, layer on layer, and why sedimentary rock layers are found all over the world; as the flood waters later receded, huge canyons and valleys were carved out of the sedimentary layers
This sedimentary rock is a thin veneer over a crust consisting mainly of igneous and metamorphic rocks and can be seen as a recent deposit. Though making up only about 8% of thee volume, it covers extensively the continents of the Earth’s crust.

Left: Nicholas Steno, the Father of Modern Stratigraphy; Center: John Woodward, Sr., Isaac Newton's hand-picked successor at Cambridge--both highly respected scientists of their day whose principles are still in use today; Right: Stratigraphy shown in the build up of layered sedimentary rock
    So how did this sedimentary rock get “laid down over the entire crust” of the Earth? In the early days of geology of the the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the dominant explanation for the sedimentary rocks and their fossilized contents was that they had been laid down in the great Flood of the days of Noah. This was the view of Steno, the "father of stratigraphy," whose principles of stratigraphic interpretation are still followed today, and of John Woodward, Sir Isaac Newton’s hand-picked successor at Cambridge, whose studies on sedimentary processes laid the foundation for modern sedimentology and geomorphology. These men and the other flood geologists of their day were careful scientists, thoroughly acquainted with the sedimentary rocks and the geophysical processes which formed them.
    In common with most other scientists of their day, they believed in God and the divine authority of the Bible. Evolution and related naturalistic speculations had been confined largely to the writings of social philosophers and rationalistic theologians.

However, toward the end of the 18^th century, and especially in the first half of the 19^th century, the ancient pagan evolutionary philosophies began to be revived and promoted by the various socialistic revolutionary movements of the times. These could make little headway, however, as long as the scientists were predominantly creationists because evolution obviously required eons of geologic time and the scientific community, including the great Isaac Newton himself, was committed to the Usher chronology, with its recent special creation and worldwide Flood.
    Unfortunately, there were those in the scientific community who preferred the glory days of the ancient Greek and Oriental philosophers that expanded into great reaches and cycles of time over endless ages and wanted to return science to that belief system. However, in order to do so, the Flood had to be displaced, therefore, it was necessary, first of all, to remove the Flood as the framework of geologic interpretation.
    It was clearly understood that this process would not simply be a stressing of “modern” thinking, but a complete removal of any and all religious dogmas that promoted diversionary ideas like the Flood. Therefore, despite the reality of what science found, and the scores of papers, studies, and work that had been done to show the reality of the Flood, it was all discarded in favor of geologic uniformitarianism—that is, Uniformitarianism is the scientific observation that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past" and is functioning at the same rates.
    Thus, Geologic catastrophism, that is the immediate and short-lived, violent events (Flood), possibly of worldwide scope, that led to drastic changes in the geologic events, simply did not exist. In this way, geology embarked on the convincing of mankind that catastrophism did not occur but that all we see was the result of uniformitarianism, sometimes described as gradualism (such as erosion), created our world as we know it.

 This was accomplished in two stages: first. the single cataclysm of the Flood was replaced by the multiple catastrophes and new creations of Cuvier (far left) and Buckland (left), each separated from the next by a long period of uniform processes; second, these periodic catastrophes were gradually de-emphasized and the uniformitarian intervals enlarged until the latter finally incorporated the entire history.
    This was no accident, but a very deliberate program of disinformation and a replacement of misinformation until the original concept (Flood or other cataclysmic events) disappeared from the scene. Was it not for religion keeping the events alive, there would be no knowledge today of any Flood whatever or anything else despite that almost every culture, civilization and society on the earth has a very similar Flood story in their ancient legends and myths. Forget that post uniformitarian studies of Flood events have shown that Mt. Everest and the Himalayan range, along with the Alps, the Rockies, the Appalachians, the Andes, and most of the world's other mountains are composed of ocean-bottom sediments, full of marine fossils laid down by the Flood. Mt. Everest itself has clam fossils at its summit. These rock layers cover an extensive area, including much of Asia. They give every indication of resulting from cataclysmic water processes. These are the kinds of deposits we would expect to result from the worldwide, world-destroying Flood of Noah's day.
    It is also extremely significant that this drastic change to uniformitarian revolution was led, not by professional scientific geologists, but by amateurs--men such as Buckland (a theologian), Cuvier (an anatomist), Buffon (a lawyer), Hutton (an agriculturalist), Smith (a surveyor), Chambers (a journalist), Lyell (a lawyer), and others of similar variegated backgrounds, led the charge into this world of uniformitarianism. The acceptance of it, then laid the foundation for the sudden success of Darwinism in the decade following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin frequently acknowledged his debt to Lyell, who he said gave him the necessary time required for natural selection to produce meaningful evolutionary results.

Left: Mount St. Helen’s on May 17, 1980, 9:00 A.M.; Right: Mount St. Helen’s on May 18, 1980, 8:35 A.M.
    Christians held the dominant scientific beliefs up until the 19^th Century, that were founded on the biblical narratives of Creation and the universal Flood. Other ancient flood myths have been discovered since then, explaining why the flood story was "stated in scientific methods with surprising frequency among the Greeks, an example being the account of the Ogygian Flood by Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus around 100 A.D.
    In fact, Earth’s history was viewed as the result of an accumulation of catastrophic events over a relatively short time period, before the depth of geologic times was introduced. In this way they were able to explain the observations of early geologists within the framework of a short Earth history.
    Nevertheless, the actual facts or geology still favored catastrophism, and flood geology never died completely. Although the uniformitarian philosophers could point to certain difficulties in the Biblical geology of their predecessors, there were still greater difficulties in uniformitarianism.
(See “Once Upon a Time – Part II,” for more on this and why the Flood is the pivotal key point of this matter)