Why Won't Creationists Learn?

This is very very simple.The bible is the LITERAL word of God.THEREFORE any science that disagrees with the bible is wrong. You don't actually have to understand the science, as a fundie you just need a simple question - "is this in conflict with the bible?" if the answer is yes - then the science is wrong. That's the start, middle and end of it.It's a total waste of time - trying to convince a Fundie is like trying to convince a crackhead that "hell that pipe IS burning your lips" - they just cannot understand what you are saying. The crackhead/fundie had to want to change for themselves, you will never never manage to explain to them why or how they have got it so wrong.You are just going to get 100s and 100s of posts explaining in long very dull detail how in fact you just don't understand the point they are trying to make because you are an EVILutionist and oh by the way did you know that those diagrams were fake and scientists lie.And so on and so on....I do understand what you are trying to say (and I agree) but it's utterly pointless, you might as well talk to a wall.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 11-Aug-2005 01:42 PMThis message has been edited by Charles Knight, 11-Aug-2005 01:44 PM

But that's not true is it? Look how Brian and others take to pieces people's arguments because a) they HAVE read the bible and b) they know this historical context in which it is placed.You might be right about the "spiritual" side of it but you are entirely incorrect about the "factual" side of it.

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1. They absolutly do not care about looking silly and thus will say thing similar to the analogies in the OP. A person educated in the subject matter sees it as total gibberish and a person without the knowledge or the audacity would not have said anything at all.

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It's to do with fear and the worldview that they have built for themselves. Fundementalists tends to be people who have invested their all in the bible (or other holy text) and their religion. It is at the core of their being. If the bible is not the LITERAL world of god, then it opens up all sorts of painful and difficult questions. If it's not all true, maybe none of it is true? If none of it is true, what will happen to me when I die? What is the purpose of my existance? Those are questions they already have answers to - they have the certain word of God to fall back upon.Let me reprint something from another thread:

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This reminds me of a conversation I had with a JW a while back, we were talking about the Kingdom and the claim of that cult that it would be on earth. The person I was discussing it with found it physically painful to discuss the matter, they actually started to shake - just from a discussion!

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Further to this - we started looking at my bible and when they read elements of it aloud, what they read wasn't on the page. I cannot remember the verse but they kept subbing in "earth" for "heaven". It was truely mindboggling stuff, they just struggled to see what was quite clearly on the page.in your debates with Faith, you think you are debating science, you are not - you are attacking her as a person at the most basic level, you don't mean to do that and that's not what you intend to do but that's the reality of dealing with fundementalists.They are their belief in the most literally sense.

It's not true for some of the younger ones who come in here and don't actually know very much about anything (including the bible). You will notice that they will appear with the "it's not a theory not a fact" or "how come there are still apes" and then disappear when they realise what they know is wrong. Some do stick around and those willing to learn don't tend to stick to their hardline viewpoints.The worst seem to be those who come to their position via religious conversation due to some tramatic and hurtful event (divorce,rape, abortion, drug abuse, just generally being a waster). Those are generally beyond reason the bible has to be literally true because it made the bad things go away.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 11-Aug-2005 02:38 PM

You have entirely missed my point -If we want to argue about the mysteries of God and the spiritual messages of the bible - you have a point.If I want to argue that the bible says that Jesus was a one-legged black man from harlem and I knew this from reading just a couple of pages of the bible, then you can would quite clearly think I was off my rocker. If I kept arguing this (and refuse to actually find out anymore about the bible) even when you pointed out in detail where I was wrong, then we have a real problem and it's clearly on my side.The problem we have here is that an unwritten law that it's ok for creationists to talk nonsense in regards to the sciences because if we did not - we would be talk to ourselves..Let's not tell lies to each other, That is the heart of the debate.This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 11-Aug-2005 03:56 PM

Part of the problem is that people never get any training on how to do a search using the internet.For anything of value, you should always go straight to the advanced search on google. I have often held that it should be mandatory on all university courses for students to learn a) how to search for information and b) how to use endnote** But that's just me EndNote | The best reference management toolThis message has been edited by Charles Knight, 12-Aug-2005 02:32 PM