Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
6 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/7


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Why is uniformitarianim still taught?
jasonkthompson
Junior Member (Idle past 5143 days)
Posts: 9
From: Dallas, Texas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2010


Message 76 of 89 (548124)
02-25-2010 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by New Cat's Eye
02-25-2010 5:16 PM


Re: Creationists use inductive logic.
I think I just did a search for "uniformitarianism" on google and it brought me here. I was doing research for my talk show/podcast "The Drawing Board" on OurPlanetLive.org. It's live tonight at 8pm central, you should give a listen! (I hope that's not technically solicitation; the program discusses the same thing as this thread!)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by New Cat's Eye, posted 02-25-2010 5:16 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 77 of 89 (548125)
02-25-2010 5:34 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 5:22 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
1) It is reasonable if the Bible is true. No one has ever disproved the Bible, nor will they ever, because it's very difficult to disprove something that is true.
The Bible says that the Earth was made before the sun. Its wrong.
Actually, YEC's don't ignore any evidence. Ever. We look at the exact same evidence that evolutionists look at, it's just a matter of interpretation. We have a bias that the Bible is true, instead of the bias that there is no god.
Science doesn't speak on the matter of the existence of god (and you don't have to be an atheist to accept evolution).
Science is an attempt to explain the natural universe by only natural phenomena. It rules out God a priori, and therefore is blinded to the truth.
But it doesn't. What if god IS natural? Then science would certainly study her.
2) The scientific method is inherently inductive. It may start with a hypothesis, but that hypothesis can be refined based on the results of the experiment. That makes it inductive. Example: of course the current hypothesis of all life evolving from a single organism "works." That's because it's been refined based on what we have discovered scientifically since we dived into the investigation.
Induction is a little different than that. It works like this:
Let: We have only observed black ravens. We will hypothesize that all ravens are black. The conlusion that all ravens are black is tentatively held until a non-black raven is observed.
Whatever problems you have with that, just remember that with it, we put a man on the moon. It works.
With evolution, the theory has held up and has not been falsified and has explained the facts better than anything else. There's no reason to not accept it (except for religios conviction).
like in the "dating" of rocks that were formed in the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. The rocks known to be between 6 and 12 years old, but K-Ar dating showed their ages at between 300,000 to 3.4 million years! Why would you put your trust in that method??
You really should look further into this PRATT (Point Refuted A Thousand Times). There's nothing wrong with our dating methods. And don't trust creationist websites because they have been shown to be liars.

To avoid cross-posting, I'll reply to your reply here:
I think I just did a search for "uniformitarianism" on google and it brought me here. I was doing research for my talk show/podcast "The Drawing Board" on OurPlanetLive.org. It's live tonight at 8pm central, you should give a listen! (I hope that's not technically solicitation; the program discusses the same thing as this thread!)
Will you be discussing the "problems" of uniformitarianism?
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 5:22 PM jasonkthompson has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 6:08 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
jasonkthompson
Junior Member (Idle past 5143 days)
Posts: 9
From: Dallas, Texas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2010


Message 78 of 89 (548127)
02-25-2010 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by New Cat's Eye
02-25-2010 5:34 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
Yes I will be discussing the "problems" with uniformitarianism, or at least with the simplified version that is taught in science classes today.
I wasn't there when the earth and sun were made, so I can't say for sure that the sun was here before the earth. If the earth existed before the sun, it was miraculous.
Science doesn't speak on the existence of God because it intends to explain nature without God. It's the same thing, for all practical purposes. God created nature, therefore God is supernatural. He has the ability to affect natural processes and has on many occasions. Those are "miracles."
I don't doubt that man went to the moon, but did man evolve from nothing? Evolution only explains the facts better than any other non-biblical theory.
Where was the false dating results of those rocks refuted? I'm pretty new to this subject and I'm not a science expert, so I don't know. Could you give me a link or a source?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by New Cat's Eye, posted 02-25-2010 5:34 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by ZenMonkey, posted 02-25-2010 6:17 PM jasonkthompson has not replied
 Message 80 by lyx2no, posted 02-25-2010 6:42 PM jasonkthompson has not replied
 Message 81 by New Cat's Eye, posted 02-25-2010 7:24 PM jasonkthompson has replied

  
ZenMonkey
Member (Idle past 4510 days)
Posts: 428
From: Portland, OR USA
Joined: 09-25-2009


Message 79 of 89 (548132)
02-25-2010 6:17 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 6:08 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
Isn't there a website that compiles PRATTs? It appears that Jason here would do well to start with that, then come back and ask questions.

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 6:08 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
lyx2no
Member (Idle past 4716 days)
Posts: 1277
From: A vast, undifferentiated plane.
Joined: 02-28-2008


Message 80 of 89 (548135)
02-25-2010 6:42 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 6:08 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
I don't doubt that man went to the moon
You weren't there: you were born in 1985. Why don't you doubt it?

You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 6:08 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 81 of 89 (548143)
02-25-2010 7:24 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 6:08 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
Yes I will be discussing the "problems" with uniformitarianism, or at least with the simplified version that is taught in science classes today.
Oh dear. You're doing a disservice to Christianity.
I wasn't there when the earth and sun were made, so I can't say for sure that the sun was here before the earth. If the earth existed before the sun, it was miraculous.
Why would all of God's creation be revealing to us the impossibility of the Earth being created before Sun if that isn't the way it happened?
Science doesn't speak on the existence of God because it intends to explain nature without God. It's the same thing, for all practical purposes.
It intends to explain nature, period. It has nothing to say about a god that is outside of nature, its not "without God", there's no qualifier like that there.
The 'rules' end up with us being able to not have to include god, but it has no intention of excluding god. So it’s not the same. (albeit it being a minor, but very important difference)
God created nature, therefore God is supernatural. He has the ability to affect natural processes and has on many occasions. Those are "miracles."
Okay. And?
I don't doubt that man went to the moon,
Where you there?
but did man evolve from nothing?
Of course not. And there's never has been "nothing".
Evolution only explains the facts better than any other non-biblical theory.
So why aren't the scientist jumping on board?
Biblical apologetics does not yield "theories". It makes deductions from false premises that the Bible cannot be wrong.
Where was the false dating results of those rocks refuted? I'm pretty new to this subject and I'm not a science expert, so I don't know. Could you give me a link or a source?
I could probably spend a lot of my time explaining it in great detail to you. And all you'd have to do is fall back on to "I wasn't there", "It must have been a miracle", "I still assume the Bible can't be wrong"...
{If you build your faith upon such a weak foundation as the Biblical inerrancy, (please don't tell me you're one of the nutjobs who say they would denounce Jesus if even one error is pointed out in the Bible), then you're destined for either a catastrophic collapse, or misperceived (unless falsely assumed) support.}
... so I'm not gonna put a lot of effort into it.
Basically, they used a dating technique with a minimum detection that was greater than the age of the sample. Like measuring the width of a hair with a yardstick...
quote:
ZOMG! It measured to 0.01 yards! That's over 9 millimeters! What a bogus technique! This thing couldn't measure anything...
I spent all of a few minutes googling and found the AIG and ICR articles (lies) on the subject. I did find this one from the "other side":
Young-Earth Creationist 'Dating' of a Mt. St. Helens Dacite: The Failure of Austin and Swenson to Recognize Obviously Ancient Minerals
I haven't looked through it so I don't know how good it is. It certainly looks more thorough than my explanation, if you care to really see both sides of this issue. Perhaps others here would care more enough to give you something better.

Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence.
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith.
Science has failed our world.
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
-System of a Down, "Science"
He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.
-Avenged Sevenfold, "Bat Country"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 6:08 PM jasonkthompson has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 8:15 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 82 of 89 (548144)
02-25-2010 8:03 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 5:06 PM


Re: Creationists use inductive logic.
I don't believe that YEC's ALWAYS reason deductively in every aspect of life, that would be absurd. But in the realm of origins, creation and evolution, the reasoning is deductive.
I still think you are obviously wrong.
IF YECs reasoned thusly:
quote:
The Bible is absolute truth.
Uniformitarianism contradicts the Bible.
Therefore uniformitarianism is not true.
Then you would have a point. But YECs don't do that. Some might, but the inductive leap that all do can be falsified by a single example. I present Michael J. Oard who says:
quote:
Changes in temperature or chemistry of the water could force the rapid precipitation of silica over a local or regional scale, sometimes with radiolarian organisms within the precipitate.
He then goes on to discuss some ideas based on the above. You can read the whole thing here. Here is taking a specific set of examples from the literature, and attempting to draw a general conclusion about how changes in chemistry and temperature in a completely different circumstance could have the same impact as the examples.
Induction.
Indeed - there is so much pseudoscience behind Creationism I'm surprised you've missed it. YEC websites aren't a sequence of deductive statements. They are filled with inductive reasoning as a means to trying to prove the earth is young (or as a means of persuading people they have proven the earth is young, if you're more cynical like me).
I have more than a single example, indeed I have enough to make an induction that, on the whole creationists tend to use induction when they are talking about origins.
Here's a good one, easier to understand my point but not on topic so is used merely to illuminate the point above:
quote:
The universe is fine tuned, and demands a designer.
What is this based on ?
The supposed fact that all of the things that we have encountered that are fine tuned are designed intelligently therefore we can inductively conclude that another thing that is fine tuned is designed, QED.
Come on - induction is all over the place, you can't miss it!
jason, in another post writes:
Science doesn't speak on the existence of God because it intends to explain nature without God.
Newton, if he could hear you say that, would say something incredibly clever and derisory if he even deemed it worth his time to look at, let alone cogitate. For Newton, science was a way to understand god beyond mere anthropomorphic notions:
quote:
We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion. For we adore him as his servants; and a God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find, suited to different times and places, could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build. For all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind, by a certain similitude which, though not perfect, has some likeness however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.
Edited by Modulous, : added Newton quote

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 5:06 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
jasonkthompson
Junior Member (Idle past 5143 days)
Posts: 9
From: Dallas, Texas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2010


Message 83 of 89 (548145)
02-25-2010 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by New Cat's Eye
02-25-2010 7:24 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
Come on now, I'm a reasonable person. I don't necessarily doubt anything just because I wasn't there, especially when it is recorded by people (like the moon landing was).
Why would all of God's creation be revealing to us the impossibility of the Earth being created before Sun if that isn't the way it happened? Like I said, it's a miracle. It doesn't seem possible that it could be so, but it is. That's pretty much the definition of a miracle.
The 'rules' end up with us being able to not have to include god, but it has no intention of excluding god. So it’s not the same. (albeit it being a minor, but very important difference) Then why are there so many unanswered questions in science?
And there's never has been "nothing". How can there never have been nothing? Everything in the physical world has to have a beginning. As for the beginning of God, I have no idea.
So why aren't the scientist jumping on board? Because they rule out the existence of God a priori and any unanswered questions they have they say "we'll eventually know the answers."
Biblical apologetics does not yield "theories". It makes deductions from false premises that the Bible cannot be wrong. Prove that the Bible is wrong and then we'll go from there.
I saw that article on the K-Ar dating thing, and if that is the case, and I believe that all rocks are younger than 10,000 years old, why should I trust any radiometric dating results?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by New Cat's Eye, posted 02-25-2010 7:24 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Coyote, posted 02-25-2010 8:40 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 84 of 89 (548147)
02-25-2010 8:40 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 8:15 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
Biblical apologetics does not yield "theories". It makes deductions from false premises that the Bible cannot be wrong. Prove that the Bible is wrong and then we'll go from there.
The flood. That myth has been disproved many ways.
I saw that article on the K-Ar dating thing, and if that is the case, and I believe that all rocks are younger than 10,000 years old, why should I trust any radiometric dating results?
If you want some specific information on radiocarbon dating, which I do some of, go to the bottom of the PRATT thread in Free for All and make a post. I'll be glad to explain anything you want concerning that dating method.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 8:15 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 85 of 89 (548149)
02-25-2010 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 12:36 PM


A creationist honest about his bias!
Let me be the first to congratulate you on your honesty. Very few creationists state their anti-evidence bias so openly or bluntly. In fact, I know of only two, Kurt Wise, and a former poster here named Faith. If only all creationists were so true to the biblical injunction not to lie.
However, given your self-professed dismissal of anti-biblical evidence, one is forced to wonder why you have come to a creationism/evolution debate site.
If you are here to try to convert us heathens, I can assure you you are wasting your time and effort. I am confident that most or all of us here know considerably more on the topic than you do (many of us have been studying it longer than you have been alive), and certainly understand the arguments you make much better than you do yourself. As a result, we know that your arguments lack any force whatsoever.
If you are here to educate yourself, take care. A few heathens here came here with that purpose in mind and found themselves rejecting all that they believed on the subject when they arrived.
If you are here to hone your debating skills, I fear you will find this place very daunting and frustrating. You will find you are always butting your head against an opponent with a mountain of evidence who has already heard all you have to say and already knows the answers to it. Either that or you will have to resort to dishonest debating tactics to even stay in the discussion.
I'm not trying to sound arrogant, although I recognize that I may come across as such. I'm simply speaking from experience. As it so happens, I registered here exactly 4 years ago today (yay me!). Everything that I've seen from every creationist here (or anywhere else for that matter) falls squarely within one or more of the three alternatives I've described above.
In any event, welcome! If nothing else, we shall be linked by a common anniversary.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas Jefferson
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack Obama
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 12:36 PM jasonkthompson has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 87 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-26-2010 12:48 AM subbie has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 86 of 89 (548153)
02-25-2010 9:34 PM


Topic Reminder
There are many active threads at EvC Forum. This thread's topic is uniformitarianism. Please take discussion of other things like induction/deduction, God, the Bible, and so forth, to threads where they would be on-topic.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
jasonkthompson
Junior Member (Idle past 5143 days)
Posts: 9
From: Dallas, Texas, USA
Joined: 02-25-2010


Message 87 of 89 (548169)
02-26-2010 12:48 AM
Reply to: Message 85 by subbie
02-25-2010 9:07 PM


Re: A creationist honest about his bias!
This is the last post I'll make here (sorry for being off-topic!). I do have a bias, but it is not an anti-evidence bias. AGAIN, it is all a matter of how you interpret the evidence. I don't reject any evidence at all, and neither do creationists. If it is seemingly in conflict with the Bible, I investigate to see how one could interpret it to fit the biblical account. And I haven't been stumped yet, at least with some help.
As Michael Shermer said, you can way all the evidence, and it comes out to about 50/50. You have to make a leap of faith one way or the other, and clearly y'all have made the leap confidently enough to insult anyone who has an opposing view and use vague arguments against what they haven't even said (like all YEC's never use inductive reasoning). So I bid you good day, I'm off to read my Bible. I wouldn't mind if Jesus saw me reading His Word when He comes back.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by subbie, posted 02-25-2010 9:07 PM subbie has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by anglagard, posted 02-26-2010 3:23 AM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 88 of 89 (548190)
02-26-2010 3:23 AM
Reply to: Message 87 by jasonkthompson
02-26-2010 12:48 AM


Another One Bites the Dust (que - Queen)
jasonkthompson writes:
This is the last post I'll make here (sorry for being off-topic!). I do have a bias, but it is not an anti-evidence bias. AGAIN, it is all a matter of how you interpret the evidence. I don't reject any evidence at all, and neither do creationists. If it is seemingly in conflict with the Bible, I investigate to see how one could interpret it to fit the biblical account. And I haven't been stumped yet, at least with some help.
As Michael Shermer said, you can way all the evidence, and it comes out to about 50/50. You have to make a leap of faith one way or the other, and clearly y'all have made the leap confidently enough to insult anyone who has an opposing view and use vague arguments against what they haven't even said (like all YEC's never use inductive reasoning). So I bid you good day, I'm off to read my Bible. I wouldn't mind if Jesus saw me reading His Word when He comes back.
Another challenge unmet, time to confirm bias instead of ask questions concerning personal infallibility.
Also, where did Shermer say that? seems out of character.
They really do need to teach critical thinking in Texas, fortunately my JC is doing that very thing, due to an obvious gap in outcomes relative to other similar college students.

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman Rushdie
This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-26-2010 12:48 AM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 89 of 89 (548198)
02-26-2010 3:47 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by jasonkthompson
02-25-2010 5:22 PM


Re: Creationists are not hypocrites
There are several threads I'd like to follow up with you. For one, I share Subbie's sentiment that you are, unlike most creationists we have encountered, open and honest about where your bias lies, as is Kurt Wise (no relation, of which I'm quite certain having done the genealogy of my family; "Wise" is a problematic "English" name, because there are so many different German surnames (and other nationalities as well) which got translated to "Wise" after their arrival on our shores)) -- Answers in Genesis used to have an interview with Kurt Wise, but I don't know whether it's still up; Kurt Wise also had a reputation for having refuted several creationist claims due to his insistence on truthfulness, yet the last I had heard of him, which was a number of years ago, he had fallen in with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) crowd, who are not in the least known for being at all honest.
So to keep this somewhat focused, I'll pick this particular statement of yours:
Secular scientists are equally dogmatic. Science is an attempt to explain the natural universe by only natural phenomena. It rules out God a priori, and therefore is blinded to the truth.
First, please let me point out that the demographics of the scientific community does follow the demographics of the general population, in which the vast majority is some form of theistic. Admittedly, atheists and agnostics are slightly more represented in the scientific community, but that still leaves us with most scientists being theists. That directly contradicts your implication that that they are atheists who "[rule] out God a priori."
Second, I would like to point you to a thread that I had started: EvC Forum: So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY) (sorry, but I have not yet learned how to get a link to a specific post) (try So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY) - AdminMod). Specifically in the "intelligent design" (ID) agenda, they want to completely reform science to include "God" in the equation. My basic question was just how the frak this ID approach was supposed to work. IOW, if the "God of the Gaps" theology of ID were to be truly applied to the working of science, then just how could it possibly work?
OK, let's get you fully grounded here. There's purely theoretical, "pie in the sky" stuff (a theme song of the only 15-minute atheist programming decades ago, "there'll be pie in the sky when you die ... that's a lie", as opposed to on-going countless hours of Christian radio programming), and then there's the nitty-gritty completely-practical "but does it even WORK?! stuff.
OK, so do please join that thread and supply an answer to the question of just exactly and precisely how the answer-nothing response of "God-did-it" would work in science. I am completely serious here! Just how exactly would "goddidit" fit into science and still make it work?
Let me tell you a bit about myself. Circa 1970, the "Jesus Freak" movement began, in which the hippies of the 60's started "turning on to Jesus" -- "Jesus Freak" was their own term for themselves. There were some "Jesus Freaks" in my high school friend's family -- and they also sucked in my friend's mother. I learned a lot about Christian fundamentalism as a "fellow traveller", during which I could never see that as a viable option. Circa 1970, I was exposed to two creationist claims: that living fresh-water clams were falsely carbon-dated as being thousands of years old and that a NASA computer revealed that Joshua's "Long Day" actually happened. I rejected both claims out-of-hand. A full decade later, circa 1981, an ICR road-show arrived at our local university, but my military duty schedule precluded my attendance. However, I was interested to learn that creationists were still around. So I started to investigate their claims. And what I learned in very short order was that they were lying through their teeth. Let me be very straight about this. When I thought that creationists might actually have something going for them, I was honestly looking for their actual evidence for their claims. From the very off-set, I found that they were lying through their teeth.
That was in 1981. Ever since that time, I've been looking for a truthful creationist source. Do you know what I've found? Absolutely, frakin', nothing! In three decades! Longer than you've even been alive, from what I've gathered.
OK, in the mid-80's at a local mall, a creationist was running a fossil shop. And he organized some "creation/evolution" "debates"at that mall. Yes, I participated. One thing I learned was that most creationists had no idea what the official "creationist" party line was. But there was another thing. One young creationist came up and announced that that he had some "recent scientific findings that would blow the evolutionists away." What he actually had was Setterfield's old stale and fully refuted "decay of the speed of light" claim. Immediately, half the room (the "evolutionist" half) burst into uncontrollable laughter, and then that half of the audience immediately tried to explain to the poor fool what exactly was wrong with his claim. The poor kid was totally blown away with that reaction ... I have no idea where he is at present because of that encounter.
Here's the thing, Jason. Creationists are professional liars. I'm sorry, but that's just the plain truth about it. Sure, their followers may sincerely believe that "creation science" is true and zealously spread those lies without knowing the truth. And in some cases even the professionals who create those claims did so out of pure incompetence and self-delusion. Or some professionals whose MO is almost purely one of gathering others' claims and presenting them (such as seemed to be Hovind's MO) are in the same boat as the clueless followers. But we have also encountered cases of deliberate deception, such as Walter Brown's rattlesnake-protein claim.
But the real damage that "creation science" does is far worse. It teaches its followers that its claims must be true or else their religion is false and God doesn't exist. And because its claims are false and contrary-to-fact, "creation science" accomplishes something that noone else has ever been able to accomplish. Science does not try to disprove God, nor could it ever do that. There is no possible scientific test or argument that could disprove the possibility of God's existence. But "creation science" has created such a test: if the world is as we find it to be, then God does not exist. Many Christians have lost their faith because of that "creation science" teaching. Hovind would quote a Christian home-schooling video that "75% of all children raised in Christian homes who attend public schools will reject the Christian faith by their first year of college."; rather than schools being hostile towards religion as he was implying, I think that the real reason is that the kids learn the truth and then apply "creation science's" lesson to reject their faith.
We've seen many former creationists. One was Glenn R. Morton who used to write creationist articles; he also ghost-wrote the creationist section of Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict." Everything he knew about geology he had learned from "creation science", but when he went to work as a field geologist, he found himself day-after-day, all day long, staring at rock-solid evidence that he had been taught did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. Several creationist geologists he had hired suffered crises of faith, while he ended up being driven to the verge of atheism by creationism. His website is at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ and at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/person.htm he offers "Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle", including his own. You need to read those.
Are you at all familar with the Matthew 7:20 test? Ever since 1981, I have studied "creation science". And everything I've seen presented by "creation science" has been a lie. So since creationists tell us that Christianity must relie on lies and deception, then why would anyone ever want to believe in such a system? You may think that "creation science" is a wonder salve, in reality it's pure spiritual poison.
Edited by AdminModulous, : added alt link for thread for d's benefit.
Edited by dwise1, : cleaned up ending

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by jasonkthompson, posted 02-25-2010 5:22 PM jasonkthompson has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024