by Jim Payton
Chapter 11
Over dinner, as they washed and dried the dishes by hand and while sitting having several cups of tea afterwards, Eti and Janet talked. They discussed such diverse subjects as the geologic column, carbon dating, species, the universe, quantum physics, rotational relativity and goodness only knows what else. The majority of it could hardly be called discussion. Mainly it consisted of Eti answering Janet's questions. Eti enjoyed answering. He found Janet was like a sponge and able to absorb and correlate facts easily. Before they knew it, midnight had come and gone. They retired for the night.
Janet awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon and coffee. Pulling on a dressing gown, she hurried out into the kitchen to find the table laid and Eti sipping coffee. As soon as Eti heard Janet, he poured a cup of tea and handed it to her as she came through the door.
"What's all this?" asked Janet. "I normally only have toast and a cup of tea for breakfast if I have anything at all. I suppose you are going to tell me you have been for a run as well?"
"Oh yes old lady," said Eti. "Had my run, done my exercises, showered, and prepared breakfast. Besides you old ladies need your beauty sleep."
Eti sidestepped Janet's mock punch.
"Not so much of the old," said Janet. "Only four years older, or three and a bit depending on the time of year. Perhaps you should go back to Mrs.
"Honestly though, thanks, this is lovely."
Janet and Eti polished off plates of bacon, eggs, hash browns and tomatoes. Over follow-up cups of tea and coffee, they began to lay out their plan of attack, so to speak.
"Before your arrival, Eti," said Janet. "I was trying to work out how and where to try and prove evolution wrong. As a layperson, I knew I would be up against it with the PhD's against me so I was hesitant to go into that area. With you to assist though, perhaps we could have a go. If you were to attack the theory of evolution Eti, how would you go about it?"
"Scientifically there are weak areas. The geologic Time Scale would be one. Basically, it provides dates for the various layers of sediment and rock and the various crustaceans and other life forms in them. In other words, if you find a certain life form preserved in rock, or petrified wood etc., you would check the Geologic Time Scale. If you found it in the Silurian period of the Paleozoic Era, you would 'know' that it lived 430 million years ago. The problem is that the whole thing is based on a circular argument. The evolutionists say the earth is four and a half billion years old. If, in the Hedeon Eon, which is the oldest time frame, a certain type of fish is found fossilized in a rock, evolutionists would say that fish was about four billion years old. Based upon that, wherever that certain type of fish is found, the rock it is in must be four billion years old and wherever such a rock is found, any fish found in it must also be four billion years old regardless of where they are found. As you can see, one leads to the other. It is what is generally called a circular argument. Certain assumptions have been made and then figures are made to fit the assumptions and therefore 'Prove' it. That's a bit simplistic but do you get the picture?"
Janet nodded.
Therefore," continued Eti. "Other figures could 'prove' a different age. That must not be allowed however. Now, the average guy on the street isn't going to be bothered checking any of that out. He just takes what the majority believe and leaves it at that. Because things are so technical, the majority of people don't delve into it. They just assume the people with letters after their names talking millions of years with complicated formulae, must know what they talking about."
"So really we would be fighting an uphill battle?"
"Yep."
"Okay, what say we found the Garden of Eden?"
"The Garden of Eden! Well, yeah that would make a few, to say the least, sit up and take a bit of notice. How would you prove that though? We would have to find a piece of rock with 'God was here' written on it or something. Maybe if we widened the search we could go for stone tablets with the commandments written on them, or better still; Noah's ark. They would at least point to a young earth."
"Still, if we were able to find Eden or the Garden of Eden somehow, it would throw the whole thing wide open wouldn't it?"
"Possibly."
"Surely more than possibly. Evolutionists regard Genesis as a book on a myth. To prove it was true would make them have to rethink the whole relationship between the Bible and science wouldn't it."
"True," agreed Eti. It would be a pretty big ask though. It was probably in present day Turkey and over the years I think earthquakes and even Noah's flood, would have eroded and changed the shape of things."
"Hasn't some one located Eden in Israel or North Africa or something?" asked Janet.
"Yeah, but I think the evidence is pretty thin. It is a bit like Mt. Ararat being where the ark came to rest. Locally Mt. Cudi is said to be the correct site. Tradition and local place names relate to Noah and the ark. Also, Noah's tomb is traditionally said to be at Cizre, not far from Mt Cudi. Always go with the locals I reckon."
"You know quite a bit about it all don't you Eti?"
"I must admit that I have checked a few web sites about it all. As a geologist, it interests me greatly. The problem is locating exactly the area referred to in Genesis.
"The Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers hang together okay, but there is a bit of a problem with the Pishon and Gihon Rivers. We have to accept that things changed after Noah's flood. When Noah landed and found a couple of rivers, it would be logical for him to either name them after rivers he knew, or assume that they were the rivers he had known before the flood. Who is to say which way he went? No actual current river source coincides with the Pishon and Gihon, although scholars suggest that the Pishon could now be the Uizbun River, and the Gihon the Karkheh River."
"Okay then," said Janet. "Let's make our number one priority an attempt to locate the Genesis Garden of Eden. Failing that, let's have a go at proving Noah's flood to have been world-wide, rather than a local one like evolutionists maintain?"
"It's a big ask," commented Eti. "It won't all end once we've got the location though. We will then have to find associated things like fossils and other provable evidence, but hey, if you are willing, so am I. We will need to set some ground rules though, costs, funding and all that sort of thing."
"I suppose it will be pretty expensive."
"A lot depends on how we attack it. My suggestion would be that we leap whole-heartedly into it. Go for it in a big way. We will make it a fully scientific task. I will make it the task I undertake for my Doctorate. That will be interesting. Also, of course, whatever we do find will be peer reviewed. That is good in one way but possibly bad in another. By that, I mean that if we find nothing then that will bolster the evolutionists to the detriment of creationists."
"Agreed," nodded Janet. "But we're after the truth and that is what matters. There is the saying 'that if it is of God then it will succeed and if it is not then it will not succeed.'"
"Okay," said Eti. "I'll see my Director and listen to his objections and how such a project must fail and will ruin my future. He'll agree in the end however.
"I will also ask around to see if anyone else is interested and then we will need to raise some funds and start advertising."
"Advertising?" asked Janet.
"Yeah. That will help generate funds. We'll also organise a website with blogs and Twitter and Facebook to get interest up and running. Maybe we can get weekly columns in some newspapers. The whole thing."
"Don't you think that's going a bit overboard?"
"Nah. Remember the old saying, 'In for a penny, in for a Pound'? That's going to be us. I think you will be greatly surprised at how many will come on board. You will end up being a celebrity. The Paparazzi will be all over you, lurking in the shrubbery to get your picture and find out what you are eating."
"Go on with ya," laughed Janet.
TURKEY