Creationists Turn

You know Mammathus I really would like to see them try because if they are honest with themselves then they wuld be far better off playing their own"devil's advocate" since,if they could produce science in that way, then they would gain immeasurable respect. At the same time if they cannot then they must face up to what is their single greatest gain.Like any scientist who has a pet theory that is not born out by the experiments he must let that theory die and waste no more time with it.

Hi sidelined,
My expectations from hard core creationists are extremely low given what I have seen. I would be more interested in seeing the intelligent design folks (some of whom are scientists who suddenly ditch all scientific principles when dealing with evolution) take a crack at coming up with a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. Creationism and ID are thus equivalent because neither can or even attempts to be scientific..on occassion they couch what they say in (often comically misinterpreted and inappropriate) technical jargon...but this does not make it science.But in any case, I don't think that acceptance (and actual understanding of) the theory of evolution would be the end of religion...even the largest sect of christians i.e. the catholic church accepts it. With the hardcore fanatics it would be too much to expect reason, logic, or willingness to learn as that would force them away from their precious dogma....but it is fun to keep posting the simple test required to make creationism/ID a scientific hypothesis and then listen to the sound of the wind blowing when there is no answer forthcoming cheers,
M

I wonder,Mammuthus, how it is since they are so sure that there is a God and he created the world that they are so adamant about how deep their faith is? It would appear that they are not even aware of the discrepancy. I thought by asking those questions to see if they were aware of how the world works or if,as I suspect,they have not the slightest interest.I suspect the latter.

If I can just say, I don't find arguments along the lines of "if you're so right, how come you argue about it so much?" very useful. When you think about it, it's an unfalsifyable "heads I win, tails you lose" theory.

Hi crash,
However, the entire point of this thread that sidelined started was for creationists to actually support their position as opposed to the usual pablum of things like "evolution is not true because you did not see the big bang and my dog did not give birth to a monkey" bullcrap.The issue is, we on the evolution side continuously provide testable and falsifiable hypotheses, our evidence, and why it explains the data better than posulating a pink unicorn did everything....the creationists (and IDists for that matter) have NEVER EVER done this and none in this thread have tried either.What I think sidelined is getting at is that rather than actually think, some creationists put their fingers in their ears and blindfold themselves and just scream "I am right I have faith I am right I have faith" with the fear that if they stop for two seconds somehow their entire world will crash to pieces...so I think sidelines comments are justified if I am reading them correctly.

Crashfrog. My intent was not to insult or even draw a conclusion about their rationality but by a simple understanding of the English language it makes no sense to say you both completely believe with all your heart in a God, afterlife,whatever and at the same time state that your have faith in God.The necessity of faith comes about when you do not have certainty about the belief. They are mutually contradictory.

I guess I equivocate faith and belief. Perhaps I do so in error? Can you help me understand the difference? I understand the difference between faith and knowing of course, as well as the difference between faith and trust.

Not trying to put words in sidelined's mouth, but I think this is what he was getting at with the very quote you used from him.I agree with you, and I think sidelined agrees with us, that at the foundation of both faith and knowledge there is a belief. The degree to which you have (or claim) scientific certainty of that belief you have knowledge, and the degree you lack certainty (but still hold that belief) you have faith.I think he was simply equivocating between belief and knowledge (a form of belief) in his overall post.If I got you wrong sidelined, let me know.------------------
holmes

quote:

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I agree with you, and I think sidelined agrees with us, that at the foundation of both faith and knowledge there is a belief. The degree to which you have (or claim) scientific certainty of that belief you have knowledge, and the degree you lack certainty (but still hold that belief) you have faith.

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Hi holmes..as always you make a good point and provide a well worded post. This is the crucial point..you make your scientific claim with certainty (and admitted tentativity as science does not "prove" things) based on hypotheses that best explain the observations. Furthermore they must be supported by evidence you (meaning the scientific community) gather, and which still remain tentative as they are constantly tested, refined, and if found lacking or not reproducible, discarded. Thus, scientific knowledge runs an eternal gauntlet of quality control. However, creationism falls into your second category where you lack any certainty but still maintain the belief..even when maintaining that belief requires one to completely ignore its conflict with scientific certainty.

This is one of those occasions where it seems my education is at odds with dictionary definition.It has been my experience that belief on the part of religion was absolute otherwise why have any. It has also been my observation that faith is what the believer falls upon whenever their belief is in doubt.It is my quirk in life to have,wrongly it seems,viewed them as opposites. My apologies for the confusion.

Hahahaha etc etc...This is where semantics plays one humongous role in botching communication up.I agree with all of your experiences and observations sidelined, it is simply a matter of what meaning you are using for belief and faith.While you did not write anything incorrectly, it seems you might have been able to rewrite those sentences in a way that avoided confusion between the myriads of meanings possible... which I guess is what equivocation is all about.For example..."It has been my experience that belief on the part of religion was absolute otherwise why have any."In this sentence "belief" is not used as its commonly used noun form: an idea. It could easily be replaced by the word "conviction", as it is the degree of adherence to an idea on the part of religion which is being described. And yes, their conviction to their idea (aka belief, aka faith) is absolute, or it would be worthless."It has also been my observation that faith is what the believer falls upon whenever their belief is in doubt."This one is even more complex. "Faith" can be used to mean an idea (aka a belief) as well as a noun representing what makes a person hold a particular idea. It is clearly the latter one which is being used here.And in this latter sentence "belief" is used in its noun form for the singular "idea". Thus in two sentences there are two different meanings for belief.I guess it could have been even worse. One could also have written "It has also been my observation that faith is what the faithholder falls upon when their faith is in doubt" and not have been wrong... just a lot less clear.This is why I am usually pretty careful in choosing what terms I use, because so many are interchangable in meaning.------------------
holmes

I wholeheatedly agree. I think this is where many non-scientists get the idea that evolution is a belief system. A scientist will say that he believes the evidence supports evolution. A YEC will then pop and claim that his beliefs blind him from seeing special creation. Belief in an interpretation of data and a belief in a supernatural being are quite different, at least to me.

Speaking of yec's where might they be found now?

"They state that he is beyond space and time and one can only wonder at the evidence they have for that."Well, mathematically scientists can prove the existence of at least nine spatial dimensions. If one were to utilize these dimensions one could do things that are incomprehensible to our 3 dimensional mind. Did you know that if one utilize just a fourth spatial dimension that one could turn an inflated basketball inside out without ripping or tearing the ball. If God does exists which I believe he does, then he too would exist and operate using these extradimmensions.Now think of time. We as humans exist in one dimension of time even though we only use half of it, because we can only move forward. Imagine the existence of at least one other dimension of time. For God everything along our timeline would be seen from a bird's eye view and all events along our timeline would appear to occur simultaneously.I am not trying to say that we should give up on explaining things because of this, I think many if not most answers we seek are empirical and meant to be known. I really wish that some branch of Creationism (old earth) would bring fortha working model. Unfortunately this has been delayed primarily for two reasons.1. They are too busy fighting evolution instead of coming up with a model.
2. Also because the scientific community has set themselves up for methodological naturalism which basically states that anything not testable must therefore not exist. Because of this the scientific community has cultivated themselves to beg the question to which the answer will always be naturalism.

You fail to understand methodological naturalism. It does not set a boundary on what DOES exist, but on what can be *scientifically* determined to exist. That is why is is "methodological" - it is about method, and it's limits, not about absolute truths.And much of what creationists claim *is* within the bounds of methodological naturalism. For YECs there is the age of the Earth - only the "apearance of age" argument escapes that, and that is generally unacceptable to most YECs on theological grounds. FOr those who believe in a literal world-wide flood that can be investigated naturalistically (and it has been found that it never happened). We can also test relationships between life through taxonomic and genetic evidence and that supports evolution over creation.That God created life is outside of science. That all life evolved from a common source rather than representing a series of seperate creations is not.