Comparitive delusions

quote:

---

It makes it impossible for another interpretation of the same phenomena to be offered. You don't give enough of the particulars for a person to think about and you don't like your interpretation being questioned because it's "science" and so on, but that attitude prevents your reader from thinking through the evidence, and especially if one is a YEC makes it nearly impossible to sort out enough fact from fiction to have an answer to you. But of course you don't want to hear the creationist's answer anyway. All you want to do is prove to us we're wrong, so there's not much motivation to be very careful about distinguishing the facts from the interpretations and imaginative scenarios.

​

IrishRockhound writes:

​

Imagination and speculation are more the creationist's forte.

​

Boy is that a delusion.

---

Creationists seem very ready to jump to an accusation such as this - that scientists are deluded for thinking that evolution might be true and the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. This shows a lack of critical thinking - that they are ready to point the finger at others, but do not seem to recognise that they could be just as deluded.For example, literalist creationists believe:1) some guy 2000 years ago (it happened so long ago and no one witnessed it, how do you know it really happened?) healed the sick just by touching them, raised someone from the dead, rose from the dead himself, made lots of loaves and fishes out of thin air.2) some being who is supposedly all-powerful (but somehow can't make himself known to anyone who doesn't already worship him) poofed the world into existence and has been screwing around with it ever since for reasons unknown.3) a man can be swallowed by a whale and survive, that humanity started from one man and one woman, that snakes and burning bushes can talk, and that some evil bogeyman called Satan is making people do bad things.All this is in defiance of what doctors, physicists, geologists, biologists, whoever say about it based on their years of rigorous training and research in their particular fields. In comparison, thinking that the world is very very old and creatures can evolve is pretty tame.Essentially this seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. What right does a creationist have to call scientists deluded when they themselves are apparently deluded about a lot of things?IRH Topic promoted from Message 1 (AdminNWR)

I think it's quite clear, Faith. You accused me of delusion because I hold the opinion that creationists' ideas on geology are a result of fevered imagination rather than fact - bearing in mind that I have the training to examine such ideas and come to an informed decision about them.It is a very simple question - what right do you have to accuse me of that, and to accuse scientists in general of being deluded, misguided, of making things up to suit themselves, when you seem to believe without a shadow of a doubt in some very questionable things yourself? You have not offered any proof for your accusations or insinuations, I might add.This speaks of deep hypocrisy on your part, and you are not the first creationist to make this charge against science. That is what this discussion is about - creationists, who believe odd things and make stuff up, accusing scientists of the same.

See, there's the crux of the matter - those who hold the religious line base their world view on faith, and they see fit to consider scientists do the same! Then they accuse them of such without showing any kind of evidence of the truth of that claim.

quote:

---

My reaction to the way people are customarily presented with unprovable conjecture in the supposed ancient scenarios of the ToE and OE is something that's bugged me all the way back before I was a Christian.

---

That it is conjecture is your opinion, currently unproven.Regardless of how you feel about it, again, what gives you the right to start pointing fingers when you clearly believe some very odd things? It is hypocritical of any creationist to say that that scientists believe in a fantasy called evolution (and they do say this) when they believe in all number of bizarre fantasies in the bible.

quote:

---

Mostly the ToE where I would try to track down the evidence for some scenario or another, in layman's terms of course, and couldn't.

---

In the Grand Canyon thread, you dismissed a lot of Rox's posts as conjecture and didn't even ask for further explanation. So pardon me if I consider that you didn't look very hard.

quote:

---

I haven't accused anyone of evil motives -- or delusion or anything else. Oh my mistake -- I did accuse you of delusion about how creationists are the ones guilty of fantasies etc. So you are delusional that we are delusional. That's true.

---

Excuse me? When were you made the final arbiter of what is true and what is not?Normally people who believe bushes and snakes can talk, the dead can rise from the grave, and food can be conjured from nothing are considered deluded or just plain crazy. So when those same people say that the world is only 6,000 years old and the entire geological column is a result of a giant flood because it's written in this old religious book, I consider them to be deluded as I have the training and knowledge to look at the geological column itself and draw a more informed conclusion.It's very easy to call someone deluded because they don't agree with you, like you are doing now. I'm calling creationists deluded because I have examined the evidence, and it does not support their position.

quote:

---

That's my statement. There is no more. It has nothing whatever to do with my religious beliefs and there's no point in arguing with you about all that anyway, as you clearly are not open to any of it and it's just a distraction from the point I wanted to make.

---

Faith, you're calling me and other scientists delusional because we don't agree with your religious beliefs that the world is only 6,000 years old etc., so I'd say it certainly has something to do with them. I don't especially care what point you were trying to make because, right now, I'm making one of my own - that creationists have no right to start pointing fingers about who is deluded until they can reasonably defend their own delusions.{edited for my terrible spelling}This message has been edited by IrishRockhound, 03-17-2006 05:06 PM

quote:

---

Many believers also believe many of these things. I do not consider myself a creationist in the biological/geological/archeological level of earth and its formation, but I of course DO believe that some guy as you so disdainfully call Him DID rise from the dead 2000 years ago! You are confusing two basic issues, here. One does not have to be an atheist or an agnostic in order to be a doctor/physicist/geologist/biologist! In the Book Nook, I point out the behavior of Sir. Richard Dawkins. Dawkins, he himself a "famous" atheist, runs up against one of his colleagues. In fact, even some of Sir. Richards educated friends assert that he gets carried away with his rant against religion in general.

---

Um... perhaps I'd better clarify here.Phat, personally I'd challenge the divinity of Jesus because I'm not Christian and I think 9/10ths of the bible is a waste of paper. Objectively, though, I'm not going to challenge it because I recognise that people believe in it because they have faith and they are Christian.Let's be clear here - there's a difference in acknowledging something because you have faith, and acknowledging something because you have examined the evidence and come to a conclusion about it.I gave that list above because I wanted to present some recognisable examples of things that are believed on faith - from a strict scientific point of view, people who believe these things are deluded. And from a strict scientific point of view, people who accept evolution and the 4.6 billion year age of the Earth are not deluded, because that's what the scientific evidence points to.

quote:

---

I QUOTED A NUMBER OF POSTS AT LENGTH IN ORDER TO MAKE THE NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS.

---

You quoted. You did not offer evidence that one part was conjecture and another part was not. The reasoning you offered was your own opinion, nothing more.

quote:

---

THERE IS NO POINT IN GIVING FURTHER PROOF AS NOTHING I SAY IS EVER ACCEPTED BY ANYBODY.

---

Well, that would mean you offered any proof to begin with. You didn't, as "proof" only exists in mathematics. If you mean evidence, well, you didn't give any of that either - just an endless stream of opinion, and the occasional snide comment.

quote:

---

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. I'VE EXPERIENCED THIS A LOT. DISBELIEVING ME ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS IS CALLING ME A LOT WORSE THAN DELUSIONAL, BUT THAT DOESN'T COUNT, DOES IT.

---

What exactly does your experience have to do with the discussion here? You called me delusional. You insinuated that scientists are misguided or dishonest. Do you mean to tell us that you based that on your experience rather than actual evidence? Unfortunately as we all know, our personal experiences are subjective and not valid (as they are not repeatable).Why should we take your word for it? You've shown nothing to convince us so far, and this post is not helping at all. Believe it or not, it takes more than rhetoric to convince a scientist of anything - and you can feel insulted about this if you want, but you've said far worse and never apologised for it.

quote:

---

YOU GUYS MANAGE TO GET EVERYTHING SO WRONG ABOUT MY MOTIVES AND WHAT I'M SAYING THE WHOLE THING HERE IS RIDICULOUS.

---

We can only go by what you post. If you can't clearly explain yourself in such a way that many people here get the wrong impression about you, then that is a fault on your part, not ours.If you don't like the debate here and think it's ridiculous, then leave, Faith. If you think we're bad people who don't listen and are out to misunderstand you every time, just leave. It's quite easy.But don't think for one second that we will just accept anything you say that we happen to disagree with.{edited for clarity}This message has been edited by IrishRockhound, 03-17-2006 06:52 PM

quote:

---

It is simply a fact that you can't KNOW the age with such certainty and it is self-deceptive to call it a fact. Thank you for confirming that what I observed is actually a reality, and not just my own misreading.

---

Er, no Faith, Nosy is right. Dating rocks is a fact. If you think it isn't, please join the relevent thread and argue your case - because just repeating that it isn't is a tad silly.

quote:

---

Again, proof that it is science itself that has lost its bearings, if it can call an interpretive scheme a fact.

---

You read the quote, right? It didn't say fact. It said "indicate". Maybe this means something different to you than it does to everyone else?

quote:

---

Nobody knows anything about any "sea" -- the FACTS in the case have to do with water-laid down sediments, but what the water conditions were cannot be known with such certainty. The interpretation assumes that this sediment was created and laid down where it was found. This is not necessarily the case. It could have been transported already formed.

---

Faith, if you know any process that can form a chunk or packet of unconsolidated sediment (complete with layers, ripples, whatever) and transport it over any kind of distance without leaving any trace of that process and preserving the chunk or packet entirely intact, then describe it now. In detail, instead of handwaving away with the 'Flooddidit' explanation.

quote:

---

Anything about a "depositional setting" is an interpretation. The "points to" certainly indicates the evidence believed to support the interpretation but it's still only an interpretation. Such an interpretation, while consistent enough with Flood theory to be useful to Floodists, is used in such a way as to disqualify a Flood explanation. Again, it assumes that the layer was created or formed and laid down where it was found.

​

And so on. Don't have the patience to work my way through all of this.

---

Why do you keep repeating yourself? Your entire argument seems to be "it's just interpretation, it doesn't mean anything, the same thing could be used as evidence for the Flood" yet you never present anything further. No explanation, no scenarios, not even a workable hypothesis so far.Either educate yourself about basic geology to the point where you can present such an explanation, or drop it.

quote:

---

...I can't see any justification for treating such a scenario as anywhere near a fact.

---

Well, of course not. You're a bible literalist and such a scenario would be contrary to the bible - and as such you reject it immediately as you believe without a shadow of a doubt that the bible must be right, no matter what it says. And if it was proved wrong, why, that must mean your god was wrong. And then the world would end. Or something. (I assume something horrible as you defend it so rigourously.)To return to the topic of this thread - because of faith, you believe the bible is completely true in every way. This means you believe in many things that I mentioned earlier (talking bushes and snakes, say) that are very much nonsensical. So again, my question - what gives you or any creationist the right to accuse any scientist of being misguided or deluded about science, when you yourself are apparently misguided or deluded from a scientific point of view? And if I may point out, you have not offered anything by way of an argument to show that scientists are deluded/misguided (see the Scientific Interpretation thread), other than endlessly repeating that you are right and we are all somehow stupid for not recognising it - whereas literalists creationists are by definition deluded/misguided from a scientific point of view (because they believe in such things as talking bushes and snakes), and routinely shown to be at best highly ignorant or misinformed about science and at worst completely fraudulent?Is the pot calling the kettle black, Faith?

quote:

---

As I already said, I had this impression about how interpretation is treated as fact in relation to the ToE and OE long before I was a Christian. But I guess I can say it all I want and you will ignore it.

---

Yes, I will ignore it - because that doesn't answer the question. This particular unsupported opinion belongs in the Scientific Interpretation thread, not here.The question, again - what gives you or any literalist creationist the right to call scientists deluded/misguided about science, when you and by definition every literalist creationist are deluded/misguided from a scientific point of view?Is the pot calling the kettle black?So you see, your opinion on how science is presented doesn't answer this question.

Most stuff I can get is Irish geology. I'll see what I can find.You might want to be more specific though - do you want faults, folding, just generally deformed rock?

quote:

---

You accused me of having the opinions I have based on my religious beliefs. That is false. That's all I wanted to say.

---

But that still isn't the point, Faith. This topic isn't about why you hold your particular opinions. You could believe that all of modern geology is a fabrication because the sky is blue for all I care.The point, the question, repeated again here (and this time I'll be as explicit as I can):You are a bible literalist. You believe that bushes and snakes can talk, that a man can be swallowed by a whale and survive, that all of humanity came from one man and one woman. This is contrary to what science says, i.e. that bushes and snakes cannot talk, that any man swallowed by a whale will die, and that a species cannot survive if only two individuals of that species exist. Why you believe this doesn't especially matter - only that you do. From a scientific point of view, you are deluded or misguided about these things.My point is that you are being hypocritical in accusing scientists of being deluded or misguided from a scientific point of view, when you are deluded or misguided from the same point of view. It is the same as any creationist accusing a scientist of distorting or lying about evidence when they are routinely shown to do so themselves - the pot calling the kettle black.My argument is that you have no right to make such an accusation, especially seeing as you refuse to educate yourself about science, despite the numerous articles and papers that others have linked complete with further citations, i.e. in the Scientific Interpretation thread you refused to read holmes' paper which he presented as a response to a question you asked. This is called wilful ignorance, by the way, and many creationists display it.This message has been edited by IrishRockhound, 03-20-2006 03:02 PM

Well, I got all this started...

quote:

---

Of course you would. But the comparison is ridiculous, Mod. You are imposing your own standard on the Bible believer, right down to your caricature of our belief, which of course leads you to your standard conclusion.

---

From a scientific point of view, the comparison is completely valid. And again, from a scientific point of view, Mod's 'caricature' is an accurate if somewhat harsh description of bible literalism. This is because the standard he is imposing is the scientific standard.

quote:

---

But the Bible believer uses a different standard, and by that standard people who deny God are delusional, and science is delusional when it contradicts God. Surely you can at least see the logic of this. Your standard does not apply here. It doesn't matter what you think here.

---

Faith, let me be very clear here - you made some serious accusations about how scientists do their work; i.e. saying that they were deluded, misguided, or dishonest. Simply by making those accusations and attempting to support them you entered the realm of science, and in this realm the biblical or any other religious standard means absolutely nothing. The only standard that matters for how scientists do their work is the scientific standard, because arguing that they're deluded, misguided or dishonest because their work does not agree with your pet holy book speaks of very deep-seated and unacceptable bias.We are arguing under the scientific standard. I made this very clear when I explained to Phat that this is all speaking from a scientific point of view. And from that point of view, the biblical standard is meaningless. From that point of view, people who believe that snakes and burning bushes can talk are delusional; people who rely on evidence to inform them about the world are not.Again, my argument is that you have no right to accuse scientists of such if, from a scientific perspective, you are delusional.(I would like to point out, again, that why you believe snakes can talk etc. is irrelevent to science. You could believe it because the sky is blue, or because a pink unicorn appeared to you in a vision. What matters is that you do believe it 100%, contrary to what science has to say about it; hence, deluded from a scientific point of view.)

quote:

---

And the farther back you go the more dependent you are on witness evidence, and less and less of all kinds of evidence.

---

....The farther back you go, the fewer witnesses you have because people don't live very long. And again witness evidence is considered to be very shaky in comparison to forensic evidence.Faith, do you realise what "millions of years" means? It means that we are completely dependent on the 'all kinds of evidence' you're talking about in geology. It means that geologists are very similar to forensic scientists, except the crime scene is much, much older and there are no witnesses at all. In the exact same way that DNA can convict or pardon someone, the geological evidence left in the rock can validate or falsify a theory - it is simply a matter IN BOTH CASES of knowing what to look for and what it means when you find it, and the process is exactly the same.So you either throw out forensics and modern geology together, or accept them together. You do not have the option of accepting that forensics is valid and modern geology is not, simply because the latter does not agree with your pet holy book.

quote:

---

Afterall, as you point out, no evidence of any kind will disuade her from her irrational views so why go to all the contortions to try to accomodate those views with science in a completely inconistent way?

---

Funnily enough, I think I know the answer.Although Faith may be rock-steady in her belief, there are many, many more who are not and can be dissuaded by evidence and scientific reasoning. How many stories have we heard of fundamentalists who, in the face of the evidence, abandoned the creationist position and became theistic evolutionists instead? They perform these contortions in an effort to stop this.Anyway, to tie this in to the topic - I'm sure a large number of creationists believe that they are doing this for Jesus or something, and so feel completely justified in criticising actual scientists.

That's actually a very good analogy, Schraf.Joe Public looks at a particular cliffside and sees rocks of different colours. A trained geologist looks at the same cliffside and sees history, because by the time you graduate with a degree in geology you've been on so many field trips that it's virtually instinctive to look and evaluate and essentially read the formation like a book. So a trained geologist sees, say, a cross-stratified siltstone formed in a stormy coastal environment interbedded with fossil-rich mudstone, and can think about the how and why and therefores that a layman is simply ignorant about.If you consider a rock formation to be a book written in a dead language, like ancient Egyptian - geologists are trained to be able to decipher what the writing means, even though they can only make guesses as to what the language actually sounded like.