Background

For many years, Mr. Michael J. Oard and other young-Earth creationists (YECs) have misrepresented the work of geologists to promote a false young (6,000-10,000 year old) Earth and a worldwide Noah's Flood. A good example of Mr. Oard's misrepresentations and misunderstandings of modern geology may be seen in his 1997 monograph, Ancient Ice Ages or Gigantic Submarine Landslides? (Creation Research Society, Monograph No. 5, Chino Valley, Arizona, USA). In response to the countless errors, enormous amount of critical evidence that he ignores in the very literature of his bibliography, logical fallacies, terrible misquotations and fundamental misunderstandings of science in this monograph, I wrote a detailed rebuttal entitled: Ancient Ice Ages AND Submarine Landslides, but NOT Noah's Flood: A Review of M.J. Oard's Assault on Multiple Glaciations, which is posted at No Answers in Genesis! and frequently linked at this website. After several years, Mr. Oard has finally attempted to respond to a few of the many critical issues in my 1999 essay through a couple of chapters (Oard, 2009a and 2009b) in his 2009 book with Dr. Reed: Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geologic Questions. Like his earlier works, Oard and Reed (2009) and Mr. Oard's 2009 chapters are full of misconceptions and errors about actualism, sedimentary geology, ancient glaciations and varves. In the detailed essays at this website, I expose some of these errors and cite numerous 21st century articles that demonstrate that Mr. Oard has misquoted and misrepresented the geologic literature in a vain attempt to push a dead YEC religious agenda that is even rejected by many evangelical Christians. Although I believe that Mr. Oard, Dr. Reed, my friend Dr. Aaron Hutchison (not Hutchinson as spelled in Oard and Reed, 2009), and the other authors of Oard and Reed (2009) sincerely believe what they have written, I think that the evidence in Oard and Reed (2009) and other articles by Mr. Oard clearly shows that despite any geology courses that these authors might have taken or any degrees that they might have earned in geology, they are simply not familiar with this science. In their zeal to promote their outdated and misguided Bible interpretations, they have made many sloppy mistakes, frequently come to illogical conclusions and too often grossly misinterpreted and ignored critical evidence that refutes young-Earth creationism even in the very scientific literature that they cite. In the upcoming years, I will periodically post essays at this website that will provide arguments and evidence that show that the authors of Oard and Reed (2009) are mistaken and that their assumed Biblical interpretations are far less reliable than the actualism and geologic results that they attack or ignore. While the authors of Oard and Reed (2009) repeatedly claim to believe in the supernatural and oppose the naturalism of actualism, I see no examples given in Oard and Reed (2009) of any miracles occurring during Noah's Flood. Instead, I only see Mr. Oard, Dr. Reed and the other authors of Oard and Reed (2009) awkwardly relying on the laws of chemistry and physics from the actualism that they hate to prop up their long-dead Flood geology.

To best understand the arguments in my essays and the profound differences between reliable modern geological science and fatally flawed young-Earth creationism, readers should be familiar with the contents of Oard and Reed (2009) and its references. If readers do not wish to purchase Oard and Reed (2009), many libraries can obtain a copy through interlibrary loan. Nevertheless, my essays are designed to contain enough background information and links to Internet sites so that individuals that do not wish to obtain and read Oard and Reed (2009) should see the reality of Earth history and easily comprehend the differences between these two of the many opposing sides in the creationism versus science debate.

Kevin R. Henke

May 12, 2014