How we find fossils? And other dumb questions!
I've been mostly lurking on this page for quite a while now. I grew up very very YEC in a religion that thinks believing in evolution will send you straight to hell. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed a public school education growing up.
Nevertheless, I've decided that denying something without even knowing what it really is would be dishonest. So I've spent the past year trying to learn all about the things I was never allowed to as a kid. I know many people here are often dumbfounded as to how young earth creationists can hold to certain views, and the simple answer I've come to is that it's easy to hold to a view when your education purposefully withholds key elements of knowledge from you.
Here are things I didn't know:
I didn't know that we have transitional fossils.
I really didn't know about 99%+ of fossils or basically any prehistoric creatures besides a few dinosaurs.
I didn't know anything at all about geology or how rock layers form.
I didn't know about continental drift.
I thought the only area of science that needed evolution to be true to work was biology.
I didn't know that evolution can be observed in a lab.
I didn't even know the basic definition of evolution (even though I thought I did).
I didn't even know that most sects of Christianity allow you to believe in evolution and still be a Christian.
Growing up, I hated science. I thought it was so boring. But as it turns out - it's fascinating! I just didn't know! But here is what I currently am trying to understand:
How do we know what we know? So we have all of these fossils, but how did we find them? Where are they stored? How can we possibly have anything that's been around for millions of years? My science lacking mind can't comprehend how something wouldn't degrade after all that time?! How can we know when a natural disaster happened millions of years ago? Or what animals ate millions of years ago? I feel like a 5 year old trying to make sense of basic things.
I enjoy reading the sub. I've learned a lot. I've been watching a lot of PBS Eons and feeling like a child. I don't even know what I hoped to get out of this post, but since I can't talk to any real life people about what I'm learning, I just needed to tell it here.