Ship of Fools: Where to start with creationists ... ?

Thread: Where to start with creationists ... ? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I didn't think there were any 6 day creationists left in the UK, but one of my friends on FB turns out to be one.

He has put this poster up and is asking for questions (spoiling for a fight/discussion, I would think!)

I wonder what would be the best questions to ask him and the best refutes of the idea?

Would my clever Shipmates would help me with this one? I know that evolution is the best explanation of how we came to be and that the earth is billions of years old. But I don't really know the science or arguments for.

The fact is that I haven't met a six day creationist for years!

But I do think it gives Christianity a bad name to let such nonsense go unchallenged.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

I wouldn't start with the science, Boogie. ISTM that the basic reason why creationists cast doubt on evolution by natural selection, geology, radiology etc. etc. is that they feel the Christian faith is at stake. They don't conceive of Genesis 1-3 being non-historical, so they seek out every weakness and flaw in evolution etc. and magnify them into insurmountable problems.

So I'd start with the poetic, polemical nature of the Genesis creation account - how it stands in opposition to other creation accounts of the time (e.g. the Enuma Elish), particularly in terms of the role and purpose of humanity and of the proper focus of our devotion. The Genesis creation narrative article on Wikipedia looks like a good starting point to me, if you're not already familiar with this stuff.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I wonder what would be the best questions to ask him and the best refutes of the idea?

Would my clever Shipmates would help me with this one? I know that evolution is the best explanation of how we came to be and that the earth is billions of years old. But I don't really know the science or arguments for.

Who are you witnessing to, or trying to convince here? Your tactics will be slightly different if you're trying to convince him evolution is true, trying to convince him that good Christians can believe evolution is true (the best you can hope for, I think), trying to convince onlookers evolution is true, or trying to convince sceptical onlookers that good Christians can believe evolution is true.

Ken always used to say that if creationism makes out God to be a liar, because creation makes it look so much like evolution and ancient cosmology are true.

So questions I might ask...
1) Why does so much of creation make it look like evolution is true?
2) Did you know that there were Christians who weren't young earth creationists and rejected the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 even before Darwin?
This is probably a good time to wheel out the quote from
Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad Litteram, beginning, "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience."
3) If the writer of Genesis wanted us to take Genesis 1 literally, why did they put so many prima facie inconsistencies between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? (I'm not saying they can't be reconciled; I'm asking why you have to stretch the text to do so, when it would be so much easier just to make plain what was supposedly meant?)
4) Creationists have a history of asking evolutionists how could (the eye, the whale, etc) possibly evolve. Every time evolutionists have come up with an answer. Why should this time be any different?

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Is it worth arguing with them? I mean, I don't suppose anyone's going to go to Hell for it. They're harmless enough so long as they keep to themselves. But much more important, I'd have thought, to oppose them whenever they stick their heads above the parapet, for the sake of those who might otherwise get a rather mistaken and discreditable (and indeed incredible) idea of what Christianity is about.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Thank you all!

I have started by saying -

"Also, remember there are plenty of good, Bible loving Christians who don't believe in 6 day creation."

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

On the science side, this article by Scientific American is a good backgrounder:

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
On the science side, this article by Scientific American is a good backgrounder:

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Excellent article; thanks for posting.

My one quibble is that I think "nonsense" is an inaccurate term. If something is truly nonsensical you can't refute it; there's nothing in it to hold on to. "Brk zyngmn orfle" is nonsense. "God created life by placing DNA in natural molecule clusters" is not nonsense because it can be talked about, dissected, and refuted.

Also "nonsense" is an unnecessarily emotive and inflammatory word, and this subject really doesn't need that. It may make scientists (or more likely their fans like most of us here) feel good about themselves, but it is unhelpful and adds nothing of value to the discussion.

[ 12. July 2014, 15:19: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on :

Don't know if this is any use, but the Catholic Church allows her faithful a wide latitude of belief in the matter of evolution:

quote:
In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces.
[...]
The Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution, leaving the specifics of either theistic evolution or literal creationism to the individual within certain parameters established by the Church. [A]ny believer may accept either literal or special creation within the period of an actual six day, twenty-four hour period, or they may accept the belief that the earth evolved over time under the guidance of God.

Catholicism holds that God initiated and continued the process of his evolutionary creation, that Adam and Eve were real people (the Church rejects polygenism) and affirms that all humans, whether specially created or evolved, have and have always had specially created souls for each individual.

Catholic schools in the United States and other countries teach evolution as part of their science curriculum.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Occurs to me that one starting question to ask a creationist might be not 'why do you believe it?' but 'why do you think it matters?'

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Just nod, smile, and eye up your route to the door.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Where to start with creationists ... ?

4005 BC and work backwards from there...? [Biased]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I didn't think there were any 6 day creationists left in the UK, but one of my friends on FB turns out to be one.

Unfortunately, there are no lack of 6 day creationists in the UK.

As has been said, don't make science the battle ground. It's the nature of science to not be able to answer all questions and provide an account that is 100% correct on all points - otherwise research scientists would be on the dole queue. That means that there are lots of points a canny Creationist can pick up on and ask "what about ...?". A lot of the stuff on the internet and in popular Creationist books/talks is twaddle - representing a complete misunderstanding of something, repeating something from decades old science that has since been studied in greater detail, or just plain untruth - but, Creationists sometimes pick up genuine minor inconsistencies in the science, admittedly greatly inflating them. Even if you're qualified to address such points with authority you'll have to be a very good communicator of science to explain it, and even then a simple "you're wrong, because the Bible says ..." will tend to convince a Creationist to simply ignore it. Creationists will pick any little point of science that supports their position and dismiss everything else.

As has been said, good points to start are the relative novelty of young earth creationism. You'll be addressing evangelicals, and we can have a rather unfortunate tendency to simply dismiss people from other traditions as "not quite proper Christians", so citing bunches of Catholics or others who accept evolution is unlikely to carry much weight (though, if in addressing a Creationist your intended audience is those who are watching from the sidelines, such an approach can be useful in presenting the "not all Christians have left their brains in neutral" message).

Places to start would be to ask about the authors of the "Fundamentals" series of books at the turn of the 20th Century. None (I repeat, none) of those authors accepted what we would know as Young Earth Creationism (some authors were anonymous, but their essays in the Fundamentals didn't support YEC). An example, James Orr wrote several of the essays on science and the opening chapters of Genesis, he accepted what he called "theistic evolution", that God created new forms of life over hundreds of millions of years.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Is it worth arguing with them? I mean, I don't suppose anyone's going to go to Hell for it. They're harmless enough so long as they keep to themselves.

I can say from over here in the US that the rigid 6000-year-Earth worldview has caused immense damage. Perhaps it's a sort of anti-science mindset that goes along with it; I don't know. But I've noticed that it seems to go hand in hand neatly with things like disbelieving in man-made climate change, and thus in doing anything to stop or slow down ecological destruction.

I'm not making this up. Yikes. Freaking world superpower that SHOULD be helping lead the way to fix catastrophic destruction, and if these people get their way, we'll just kill the world faster. GRRRRR.

As for going to Hell, no, I don't think that someone will go to Hell over it. Alas, there are a fair number of YEC people who believe the opposite--that if you claim to be a Christian but don't believe in Genesis literally, you are at best on a slippery slope out of the faith, and at worst not really believing God, and that you can't be a real Christian and believe in evolution.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

It's always good to point out that you disagree and the evidence for why science has a different view of creation. However it's unlikely your friend is going to change his mind based on facts you point out.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science

Talks about why people discount evidence against their beliefs, and indeed dig in even when what they believed has been clearly demonstrated false (e.g. predictions of earth-ending events). Has direct application to this discussion.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

They aren't going to feel the need to do anything about climate change if they believe we are in the End Times, now are they?

And I've tried conversion on two, and they aren't going to change anytime soon.

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

When I hear about "intelligent design", I wonder why the design isn't better. Any engineer could look at the human body and point out some inefficiencies.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.

Wow, what an argument. Surely humans are generalists, and not all animals are narrowly defined in their diet and habits. For example, crows are great generalists, they will eat biscuits or dog-shit.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.

Interesting. So does that mean ducks and pandas evolved, but rats and raccoons are special creations?

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.

Evolution causes specialization in stable isolated environments. If the environment is constantly changing, either in weather or the presence of varying other species a generalized species is more likely to survive.

I have heard that the design of the human body is evidence of evolution; things like the appendix or the fact that our optic nerves cross from left to right on the way to the brain.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.
Evolution causes specialization in stable isolated environments. If the environment is constantly changing, either in weather or the presence of varying other species a generalized species is more likely to survive.

I have heard that the design of the human body is evidence of evolution; things like the appendix or the fact that our optic nerves cross from left to right on the way to the brain.

No God who was all-loving and all-powerful would have made our knees the way they are.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
They aren't going to feel the need to do anything about climate change if they believe we are in the End Times, now are they?

I think one could argue very strongly that even if the End Times are near, we have a responsibility to act right and stop causing the harm that's visibly happening to God's creatures even without climate change. Heck, there's even Matthew 18:7: "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" Even if it's all going to end, being part of the problem is still not the right thing to do, and one should go down fighting on the right side. (I've sadly actually heard some religious people say that because Jesus says that the poor will always be with us, we shouldn't do what we can to eradicate poverty... [brick wall]

)

I mean, for heavens' sake, if we just worked on the stuff we're already doing without reference to climate change (destroying rainforests and killing all sorts of animals, wiping out bees, fracking with what appears to be increasingly horrible effects (like earthquakes!), etc.) we'd probably make some positive differences on climate change in the process. But that doesn't seem to be a point some people will accept either because dominion over the Earth or something I guess. [Frown]

[ 15. July 2014, 02:45: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I have heard the design of the human body argued as evidence for creationism - if we'd evolved we would be as specialised as ducks or other animals, the fact that we aren't means we are created.
Evolution causes specialization in stable isolated environments. If the environment is constantly changing, either in weather or the presence of varying other species a generalized species is more likely to survive.

I have heard that the design of the human body is evidence of evolution; things like the appendix or the fact that our optic nerves cross from left to right on the way to the brain.
No God who was all-loving and all-powerful would have made our knees the way they are.

Any second-year engineering student could design a better erect biped.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I must admit the argument that humans were generalists and evolution led to specialism so therefore humans were created did somewhat stun me at the time, and I did comment that foetal development and DNA showed some evidence for evolution but the person involved is pretty impervious to science and scientific explanation.

Same group that told teenagers that "some Christians even believe in evolution". It's where I heard most of my wacky ideas. Although I also worked with someone else who was equally adamant about creationism and was unconnected with this group.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
They aren't going to feel the need to do anything about climate change if they believe we are in the End Times, now are they?
I think one could argue very strongly that even if the End Times are near, we have a responsibility to act right and stop causing the harm that's visibly happening to God's creatures even without climate change. Heck, there's even Matthew 18:7: "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" Even if it's all going to end, being part of the problem is still not the right thing to do, and one should go down fighting on the right side. (I've sadly actually heard some religious people say that because Jesus says that the poor will always be with us, we shouldn't do what we can to eradicate poverty... )

I mean, for heavens' sake, if we just worked on the stuff we're already doing without reference to climate change (destroying rainforests and killing all sorts of animals, wiping out bees, fracking with what appears to be increasingly horrible effects (like earthquakes!), etc.) we'd probably make some positive differences on climate change in the process. But that doesn't seem to be a point some people will accept either because dominion over the Earth or something I guess.

You have my agreement there. And to adjust a certain parable, if the landlord comes back to look at the way the tenants have left his property and finds that they have done nothing to maintain it, or to repair their own damage, because they knew he was coming back, he's not going to be very happy, is he? I don't think dominion was ever intended to mean we can do whatever we want including trashing the place.

[ 15. July 2014, 08:32: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
They aren't going to feel the need to do anything about climate change if they believe we are in the End Times, now are they?

And I've tried conversion on two, and they aren't going to change anytime soon.

Both YECs and ACC deniers share a common "I'm right and I've already decided I can ignore the contrary arguments" position. In both cases I think there are useful avenues where conversation can take place, but repeating almost universally accepted science won't be. It'll be banging heads on walls all the way. As I said, it can be useful for any audience to the conversation if you can avoid the temptation to get frustrated and start being irrational (otherwise you both look as bad).

For Creationists, as I said, ways in are Evangelical Christians who accept evolution, and discussion of what the texts actually say.

For ACC deniers, I think the general approach of taking care of the world for future generations works if you don't start with climate change is bad. Go with limited resources (eg: oil is vital to our lifestyle as feedstocks for plastics, pharmaceuticals and other products, isn't it a waste of that limited resource to simply burn it when there are means of reducing fossil fuel use?), pollution, degradation of soil productivity, reduced availability of clean drinking water etc. Those appeal to almost everyone (there is a very small minority who are only interested in themselves and don't care at all about what's left after they die). If talking to Christians then the stewardship and caring for the world God has given us is an approach.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

There was an Earth Sciences tutor at the first OU summer school I went to who was a YEC! And a student in the group I was with who held that it was OK to give the expected answers in order to get a degree, even when one was a YEC.

Apart from the dishonesty, I could never get my mind round two lots of "knowledge" and using each one in the right place.

One of the guys I know genuinely believes that if he abandons Genesis (and AIG, where he learns his stuff really well) he must abandon the NT because Jesus refers to Genesis, and that if he does, he will start to behave in a terrible way. I have told him that from observation I cannot believe this, but he is sure that he would sin. So I have stopped arguing, and going to places where I would meet him. I can't not argue when he sings songs dissing Darwin, but I can't argue when winning would endanger his spiritual well being.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

MOST Christian.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Is the RCC saying that the creatures that were phenotypically identical to A&E, for hundreds of thousands of years before them, weren't ensouled?

Posted by Persephone Hazard (# 4648) on :

I'm not convinced that you can argue against creationism usefully with a creationist, because for the vast majority of them the position does not come from a place of science or reason or logic.

I had a phase, back in my teens, of trying to convince myself to become a creationist. It went something like this: "I'm in a church that teaches that this is the truth, and all my friends here think that this is the truth, and some people I really admire think a bit less of me for trying to dispute it, so clearly it's the right thing to do and I should just tell myself the story firmly and remember that it's right."

In my case it didn't really hold. But I think that might be what a lot of people do.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

That's very common PH. Letting people believe the unbelievable, the unnecessary for us. Vast swathes of Christianity do that.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I didn't think there were any 6 day creationists left in the UK, but one of my friends on FB turns out to be one.

Hate to break it to you, but apparently there's more than just the one in Cardiff [cite].

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

I did have a brief period when, partly due to some poor and unimaginative arguing by a geology teacher (Me: "Why do we assume uniformitarianism?" Him: "What else could it be?" Me, thinking: "My God, almost anything, especially if the Fall affected the physical processes of matter...") and partly because of the college Christian group I hung out with, I flirted with this kind of creationism, but I honestly just wasn't convinced of it. I do think that there are more things in heaven and on Earth than a lot of people dream of (and I am sure that God cares about every triceratops and trilobite as he cares for every sparrow), but I honestly think, on the physical level, the evidence for billions of years and such is pretty conclusive. (I trust--and pray--that we'll get all the wonderful beasties we missed out on in the new creation, and that the velociraptor will lay down with the iguanadon, but I don't believe they were alive at the same time as humans. Which, in some cases, is probably just as well...)

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I didn't think there were any 6 day creationists left in the UK, but one of my friends on FB turns out to be one.
Hate to break it to you, but apparently there's more than just the one in Cardiff [cite].

I've added to their counter! Aargh!

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I think before the question "Where to start" you should ask yourself "Where do I want to go?"

Do you want to convince him creatonism isn't true? You won't succeed, no matter how good your arguments are.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

EXACTLY LeRoc. I went through attacking the anti-scientific absurdity upon absurdity, the lies in creation by the Creator necessary to sustain 'truth', which doesn't work, to attacking the weakness of the faith, which makes YECists go quiet. One can take the war to the enemy and 'win' thereby, but it's the nuclear option: they never come back.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I've been following this thread for some time and remained convinced that it is a waste of time to 'start' with them at all.

Ignorant people won't budge and it is a waste of breath trying to show them where they are wrong.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

It is well to remember the maxim; If you argue with a fool, people may not be able to tell you apart. State the facts and then leave quietly when they ignore the facts.

[ 17. July 2014, 20:50: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

The point is, simply, to let people know that Christians - the vast majority of Christian denominations - are in good standing with God and have no problem with evolutionary theory. And it is the Creationists who are in error (I would go further to argue that YEC is heretical, but that charge needs to be aimed at those who promulgate YEC, not those they delude).

That's it. There's very little point in going any further in a YEC-organised meeting.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

I would not want to argue.

The problem with a choice between God or science is it is a lose, lose situation.

Arguing with creationists, and anti creationists, is futile.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Robert Heinlein:

quote:
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
I would not want to argue.

The problem with a choice between God or science is it is a lose, lose situation.

Apples and spanners. And that is where YEC's fundamentally fail.

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:

Arguing with creationists, and anti creationists, is futile.

Odd way to phrase this. Christians are by definition creationist, hence the necessity of adding the Y and the E to a certain subset.
An anti-creationist would by an atheist, or someone belonging to a religion or philosophy which did not ascribe the formation of the universe to a conscious force.

IME, arguing religion to the non-religious is more successful than arguing science to a science denier, if only ever so slightly.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Karen Anderson in A Short History of Myth argues that fundamentalism is a category error that results from jettisoning mythos in favor of logos. If you accept that the Genesis accounts are mythos, the literal or historical truth of the accounts is moot. But if you insist on reading the whole Bible as logos, as (potentially) verifiable fact, and you further insist that one has to believe those facts to be saved, then any supposed facts that contradict the Genesis accounts are not really facts and can and should be dismissed.

She thinks that this mythos/logos confusion came in with the Reformation, and resulted in the sacraments being taken to be mere symbols, not symbols participating in the thing signified; not mysteries, not mythos. She argues that the ability of every person to have and read their own Bible freed the Bible from the devotional and sacramental context of the Church, and thus moved it out of the realm of mythos and into the realm of logos.

Dunno if I agree, but it is an interesting lens through which to view the whole thing. I had previously been used to seeing fundamentalist literalism as a result of dichotomizing of the Enlightenment. This may repay more thought.

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I've been following this thread for some time and remained convinced that it is a waste of time to 'start' with them at all.

Ignorant people won't budge and it is a waste of breath trying to show them where they are wrong.

I don't know if someone has said this already in which case I apologize, but the aphorism that comes to mind here is, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't arrive at through reason."

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
IME, arguing religion to the non-religious is more successful than arguing science to a science denier, if only ever so slightly.

Or there would never be any conversions, and yet we know there are, on occasion. OTOH I suppose you could argue that some, most, or all of these conversions are not caused by argument, but by some kind of experience that the pre-converted person concludes is of divine origin or import.

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

I usually fall back on my standard reply: God's existence can't be proven, it's a matter of faith. Since no experiment exists (that I know of) to prove God's existence I let my belief be separate from Science. And that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I still believe in God and I still believe in Science. I wonder if Creationists are worried that if we don't mention God in every single thing, God is going to get His/Her feelings hurt and smite somebody? "Oh, boo hoo hoo! My children don't believe I exist! They think they crawled out of the primordial ooze all by themselves! That just hurts, you know?!" I'm sure God really gives a damn whether He makes the pages of the scientific journals.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Argh! Despite my better judgement I've got into a pissing contest with one on Facebook. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

The problem these days is that all the standard lines of evidence are well known the the Lying Creationist Weasel Websites and they have ready-made (albeit bullshit and often dishonest) answers. The average Creationist knows too little science to understand why those answers are bullshit, and why they're dishonest. Like the one I've got at the moment, who thinks Creation.com has debunked the mainstream account of endogenous retro-virus insertions because some of them are functional...

[ 13. August 2014, 10:59: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by Highfive (# 12937) on :

This is why I wring my hands at the passage "Find yourself a believing wife".

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The5thMary:
I usually fall back on my standard reply: God's existence can't be proven, it's a matter of faith. Since no experiment exists (that I know of) to prove God's existence I let my belief be separate from Science. And that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I still believe in God and I still believe in Science. I wonder if Creationists are worried that if we don't mention God in every single thing, God is going to get His/Her feelings hurt and smite somebody?

No. They worry that if every sentence in Genesis isn't literally, potentially-verifiably true, it proves it's not God-breathed, and therefore isn't Scripture, and therefore God may not really exist, at least as Scripture portrays him, in which case their faith, and the life they have based on it, is a lie.

Creationism is based on misunderstanding and over-applying a pseudo-bifurcation based on the writings of the Enlightenment, making there two categories of ideas: the literally true, and the wholly false. Clearly if literalism is the only way for something to be true, the Bible has to be literally true, and if Science contradicts that, then Science has to be wholly false.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Argh! Despite my better judgement I've got into a pissing contest with one on Facebook. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

Oi, that's my friend you're talking about! [Biased]

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
No. They worry that if every sentence in Genesis isn't literally, potentially-verifiably true, it proves it's not God-breathed, and therefore isn't Scripture, and therefore God may not really exist, at least as Scripture portrays him, in which case their faith, and the life they have based on it, is a lie.

Creationism is based on misunderstanding and over-applying a pseudo-bifurcation based on the writings of the Enlightenment, making there two categories of ideas: the literally true, and the wholly false. Clearly if literalism is the only way for something to be true, the Bible has to be literally true, and if Science contradicts that, then Science has to be wholly false.

Amen to both paragraphs. I've known people like that and I have found it very sad. [Frown]

Indeed, I have had experiences in which at one point they were fundamentalists and were looking at me as a woolly-minded not-quite-Christian-enough person, trying to convince them that there were other ways to approach things, and then later when they gave up the faith entirely. The idea that maybe they, or their church, or their understanding of the Bible, could be mistaken on some points, but that Jesus is real and they could trust Him anyway just didn't seem to be on their radar. Whatever happened to "seeing through a glass darkly" being accepted as our status quo in this time here on Earth?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Whatever happened to "seeing through a glass
darkly" being accepted as our status quo in this time here on Earth?

But it's not about us, it's about God.

Is God trustworthy? That's the rock-bottom issue. If the Bible doesn't come down on the right side of the phony dichotomy they have set up, then God is not trustworthy.

The idea that the problem is not with God, nor with the Bible, but with the phony dichotomy, is completely outside their ability to reason. Trying to get them to back up and see the meta-issue is the only way to conceptually tackle it (that I can see), but one they are not prepared to make, having no training in it, and being taught to regard higher thinking as satanic, an attempt to poison and ultimately kill their faith.

Short version: it's a sticky wicket.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

It's a really bad dichotomy, because in the view they espouse, in order to have the Bible totally true, despite it's being interfered with by being transmitted through human interpreters, the universe has to be full of falsehoods, which cannot have been interfered with by humans. They try to make points about people finding what they go out to find and misinterpreting the world to fit their atheist aims, but even so have to retreat into God creating the universe with the appearance of age when it comes to the distance of galaxies. Which is basically God lying. But they seem OK with that, so long as the book doesn't lie.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Short version: it's a sticky wicket.

I never realised that cricket terminology had reached the US West Coast
[Axe murder]

But I suppose the atheist response to the OP question is "Why should I bother?" It inevitably boils down to evolution. For me, on the one hand thousands on thousands of individual discoveries support evolution and related disciplines. On the other side are a few pages of pre-scientific ideas. It's not A versus B as equals; it's that B doesn't even get near the starting blocks.

But then the creationists are going to view me as "lost" so, as I say, why should I bother?

[ 13. August 2014, 23:12: Message edited by: Pre-cambrian ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Which is basically God lying. But they seem OK with that, so long as the book doesn't lie.

Odd, that.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

The idea that the problem is not with God, nor with the Bible, but with the phony dichotomy, is completely outside their ability to reason.

To be fair, I remember being back at the (US, Southern) Baptist Student Center when I was in college, and I remember the way a lot of people, and radio hosts on Christian stations, and the like, would react to secular song lyrics--there was a jarring literality to the way they would read and critique them. So, for example, I remember people being annoyed at songs like "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle, because it's not. Never mind that it's fucking poetry, making the point that "in Heaven, love comes first" (golly, that's even good theology)--they just couldn't see past the literal meaning of the lyrics, or even the title. When George Michael did "I Want Your Sex" and the video showed him writing "EXPLORE MONOGAMY" on a woman's body (this was before he came out, of course [Biased]

), people I knew thought that it was bad because "explore" monogamy wasn't strong enough. (Rather than, say, thinking of it as a step in the right direction that they agreed with, or something.) Ditto "Papa Don't Preach" by Cyndi Lauper (never mind the key point of the song: That now that she's unexpectedly pregnant, she is going to keep the baby rather than abort it, and needs her father's help rather than condemnation, which you'd think would make them happy with the not-going-to-abort-the-baby aspect, but no, of course not. [Mad]

(It's that sort of approach which hampered Christian pop music for a long time, because if you didn't mention Jesus specifically in a song, if anything was poetic enough to possibly allow for multiple meanings, then it might lead people astray... [brick wall]

) And don't even get me started on songs like "Life in the Fast Lane" and "Hotel California" being treated as in favor of the things the songs are explicitly against... [brick wall]

(Interestingly, "Hotel California" (like "Barracuda") is about bad experiences in the music industry, but even if you don't know that, it's not exactly a pro-creepy-cult song if you pay attention to, well, any of it.)

The point of all of this is that near as I can tell, it's often a problem, not with being unable to read the Bible non-literally, but being able to read, full stop.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

There is a condition of mind which cannot cope with things not being literal.

I wouldn't want to say that people with that attitude to the Bible and to song lyrics do have something like Asperger's Syndrome, but it is a bit similar.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
It's a really bad dichotomy, because in the view they espouse, in order to have the Bible totally true, despite it's being interfered with by being transmitted through human interpreters, the universe has to be full of falsehoods, which cannot have been interfered with by humans. They try to make points about people finding what they go out to find and misinterpreting the world to fit their atheist aims, but even so have to retreat into God creating the universe with the appearance of age when it comes to the distance of galaxies. Which is basically God lying. But they seem OK with that, so long as the book doesn't lie.

Okay, I usually stay out of these debates, but this point is rubbing the author in me raw. Why should authors be allowed (nay, expected) to create characters with a largely unknown backstory to add depth to the story that IS told--but God may not? He is an author, a maker, after all. To place creatures in a universe that fairly shrieks newness and betrays its true age (whether that be 15 minutes or 15 eons) at every poke is a piece of clumsiness I'd not expect of the Master Author.

In short, the hypothetical you're discussing is not a case of lying, but of Art.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
In short, the hypothetical you're discussing is not a case of lying, but of Art.

A writer is placing characters in an imitation of the real world, in which all real people do have back stories. There's no other creation with back stories that God is imitating.
There wouldn't be a conflict were creationists willing to say that God brought the world into being with a consistent backstory including Darwinian evolution, deep geology, and cosmology. The conflict happens because creationists normally claim that the backstory doesn't include those things.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
In short, the hypothetical you're discussing is not a case of lying, but of Art.
A writer is placing characters in an imitation of the real world, in which all real people do have back stories. There's no other creation with back stories that God is imitating.
There wouldn't be a conflict were creationists willing to say that God brought the world into being with a consistent backstory including Darwinian evolution, deep geology, and cosmology. The conflict happens because creationists normally claim that the backstory doesn't include those things.

Then maybe the focus of the argument should be there, instead of on God supposedly lying? Saying "your version of backstory is wrong" might be more fruitful.

As for art imitating life and therefore needing backstory--

Yes, it does, I suppose, for human beings. We are derivative, and therefore our art is derivative too. It could hardly be otherwise.

But for God, I think we're going to have to widen the definition of art a trifle. As he is the Origin, we can hardly expect him to do something derivative of something else that doesn't even exist. But if we keep your definition of art, we are basically saying God can't do art--which is just wrong.

In short, I don't think Art requires derivation from something else. I think it has to do with how you handle the materials you have. And if you are so fortunate as to be capable of creating those materials in the first place, well, that's even better.

The other problem is this: God could hardly create any kind of world that did NOT have a fictional backstory. Try to imagine it for a minute. God thinks, I'm going to create humanity, but I can't have them full grown or that will imply a birth, childhood, and adolescence that never happened, and some people will call that lying. Better make them babies. Oops, that still implies birth and pregnancy. Now how am I going to do that without creating a mature mother... which means she has a "lying" backstory as well..."

You see the difficulty.

Similarly, you could have razor sharp new mountains looking as fresh as the day the tectonic plates did their thing, but that STILL implies a backstory involving tectonic plates moving (from where?) and crashing...

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to create any kind of world that hasn't at least an implied backstory. Heck, with the Big Bang plenty of people are doing their best to ferret a backstory for that, in spite of the technical difficulties involved.

I say, let's enjoy the backstories (real or fictional) and stop giving others a hard time over their view of them.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

But what "backstory" are you speaking of? YEC? Believing that is far from harmless.
Or are you saying the billion+ year old universe? Which is science, the same science which underpins our modern world.
Backstory serves the narrative, it is not merely a pretty dress.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Surely, YEC is a dangerous movement, first, because it palpably subverts science, and science education; and second, because it uses lies to spread its message. I used to think that they could be ignored, but not now; they have to be opposed root and branch, and their lies exposed.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

When we enter the world created by an artist we know that is what we are doing. We open the book, or switch on the ereader, we settle down to watch a film or TV drama, we go to an exhibition of model railway layouts (which is what I usually think of in this context)*, and we know what we are doing. We can admire the way the author has constructed their world, the detail in the backstory, the skill in manufacture.

In being part of the real world, that does not apply. There is no opportunity to suspend disbelief. By YECs we are told to accept that the appearance of age is a creative fiction without any evidence that that is what it is, except one of the many creation myths. Without the frame, without the book cover, without the step into the world it is not Art. Why would God do this, create a universe which is so good in its making that it fools anyone who looks at it with care into thinking it is real, and then make their salvation dependent on denying the evidence of their eyes, minds and the tools their minds create to better see the way it is made? There is no point in it.

*I knew someone who intended to make a 000 layout which mimicked the geology of Yorkshire correctly. Don't know if he got round to it. Obviously making the actual geology of Yorkshire would be rather better than that. Setting it up to look like a succession of deltas with buried trees, topped by deep layers of marine limestone and thick layers of continental shelf sandstones - having worked out the circumstances under which those would form from scratch without that sort of thing ever having existed. Clever. But I can't quite get my mind round God as a super model railway man.

Incidentally, I don't think God lies. I do think that YEC's teaching suggest that he does.

[ 14. August 2014, 19:13: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Green Mario (# 18090) on :

The backstory idea presumably is how people can work in earth sciences and still be YEC - as it must be possible to study the backstory, make predictions from the backstory but still not believe it is the ultimate reality as this is explained by the bible. I see the appeal of the idea; I have pondered it before and also the idea even that the fall changed that backstory - hence millions of years of environmental history changed at the point when Adam fell.

Ultimately while its very difficult to disprove as an idea it seems very far fetched (although the fact I can picture it happening is probably due to exposure to star trek and back to the future as a kid); and it's so unnecessary if we aren't assuming that Genesis is trying to be a science text book.

Martin PC - you have mentioned on this thread and others about modern people going back hundreds of thousands of years. Isn't it true that while some people have had skeletons almost indistinguishable from modern people for 100,000s of years something seemed to change much more recently (about 40,000 years ago) in terms of behaviour - called the "great leap forward". Not sure if this idea has been superseded my more modern archaeology but if Adam and Eve where real historical individuals perhaps this is when they lived (not Neolithic farmers after all)??

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But what "backstory" are you speaking of? YEC? Believing that is far from harmless.
Or are you saying the billion+ year old universe? Which is science, the same science which underpins our modern world.
Backstory serves the narrative, it is not merely a pretty dress.

I'm referring to rock layers, fossils, light from distant stars, etc. etc. etc. At whatever point God created the world (and I'm not choosing one, so don't start with me), there would have been backstory. The fact that anything exists at all implies backstory (when and where did it come into existence? Tell me a story...).

And of course I know backstory serves the narrative, I'm a writer. I mean, duh. In this case the backstory serves (among many other things) the cause of science, which is part of our past, present, and ongoing into the future, and extremely useful. Not to mention deepening the whole experience of life in this piece of art, that is, this creation.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
When we enter the world created by an artist we know that is what we are doing. We open the book, or switch on the ereader, we settle down to watch a film or TV drama, we go to an exhibition of model railway layouts (which is what I usually think of in this context)*, and we know what we are doing. We can admire the way the author has constructed their world, the detail in the backstory, the skill in manufacture.

In being part of the real world, that does not apply. There is no opportunity to suspend disbelief. By YECs we are told to accept that the appearance of age is a creative fiction without any evidence that that is what it is, except one of the many creation myths. Without the frame, without the book cover, without the step into the world it is not Art. Why would God do this, create a universe which is so good in its making that it fools anyone who looks at it with care into thinking it is real, and then make their salvation dependent on denying the evidence of their eyes, minds and the tools their minds create to better see the way it is made? There is no point in it.

*I knew someone who intended to make a 000 layout which mimicked the geology of Yorkshire correctly. Don't know if he got round to it. Obviously making the actual geology of Yorkshire would be rather better than that. Setting it up to look like a succession of deltas with buried trees, topped by deep layers of marine limestone and thick layers of continental shelf sandstones - having worked out the circumstances under which those would form from scratch without that sort of thing ever having existed. Clever. But I can't quite get my mind round God as a super model railway man.

Incidentally, I don't think God lies. I do think that YEC's teaching suggest that he does.

I think the problem here is you are taking the experience of an external reader and attempting to say our experience ought to match that. In reality, if the situation I am arguing exists, our position would be much more like that of characters in a really good novel--they do not open or shut the book, they do not suspend disbelief, and in fact, if they can see the ragged edges where novel-building ceases and another reality intrudes, at precisely that point the author has failed in his/her mission. The created world is too thin, the backstory has fallen apart, and the characters in the novel are falling through the resulting hole in their reality. Not a good thing.

Let's assume the YEC position for the moment, for the sake of argument (this is not my own position, by the way). You are arguing that flawless backstory, under YEC presuppositions about the age of the world, is a form of lying. This is a fallacy.

Assuming for the moment that the YEC position is correct, you are arguing that the only way God could be not-a-liar is if he were to make the million/billion-year backstory inconsistent, so as to give away its fictional nature. In effect, you want him to introduce the equivalent of continuity errors in a novel or movie--places where a shirt inexplicably changes from red to green, where the author forgets that a character is an amputee and allows him to do something that requires two hands, where the color of another character's eyes changes from chapter to chapter.
But no great artist willingly does this--much less the greatest artist of them all.

In short, you can conclude nothing from the fact that the backstory of the world appears to be flawless. Of course it does; we would expect nothing else. The real problem for both theology and science would arise if we actually DID find continuity errors. I hate to think what that would imply!

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Why would God do this, create a universe which is so good in its making that it fools anyone who looks at it with care into thinking it is real, and then make their salvation dependent on denying the evidence of their eyes, minds and the tools their minds create to better see the way it is made?

Auuuggghhhh. Missed the edit window, drat.

I do not know any YECs who argue that a correct view of Genesis impacts anybody's salvation. Seriously. And I know a lot of YECs.

I do not think God plays games with us where our salvation is lost if we, in all good conscience, try to figure something out and get it wrong because of something he himself has created. That's just not like him. He's not an SOB.

Yes, there are people fixated on Genesis, and on a particular view of Genesis, and no doubt some of them even fear for their own faith should they begin to doubt the particular framework of interpretation they've been taught; but to think some other Christian believer is going to hell simply because they read Genesis differently? Meh.

All I can say is, I've not met one. And though y'all may have met such people yourselves, I'm offering my experience at least to prove that not all YECs are of this ilk.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

Why would God create a totally consistent back story and then introduce something into the story that subverted the back story?

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Many YECs, especially those who follow the teaching of Whitcombe and Morris, explicitly state that the 'backstory' read by modern science is erroneous. The very claim that sedimentary rocks are the result of a single global flood event in recent history, rather than gradual processes over hundreds of millions of years, is a statement that the 'backstory' is wrong.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

And I have met people who have held that it is important to teach people the truth about Genesis in order to save their souls.

Which must mean that if people believe in the way the world looks, they will not be saved.

There has been the idea that fossils were placed in order to test people's faith. (Philip Gosse.) Now that is not art. It is something else.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Just dropping in to point out that Slacktivist and Frederick Douglass both feel that you can't win the argument with straight reason. People have to much invested in their image of themselves to give up a bit of that easily.

Douglass' advice was "fire":

quote:
Scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

As Slacktivist says, how uncivil. But Douglass was trying to overcome the rigid belief in slavery and subservient conditions for real people and you are trying to salvage what is left of real science from people who have chosen to be ignorant. Their "worldview" prevents facts from leaking in.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

You know, I've never yet met anyone yet who was converted by scorn and ridicule. If anything, such tactics lead to people digging their heels in.

If indeed some sort of fear lies at the bottom of a particular person's reading of Genesis, AND you really want to convert them, why not attempt to address that fear?

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I do not know any YECs who argue that a correct view of Genesis impacts anybody's salvation. Seriously. And I know a lot of YECs.

I have! Happily, they're not in my life anymore.

Some seem to believe that while it does not mean you are unsaved, it is a dangerous "slippery slope," while others specifically make it a salvation issue:

quote:
Why does this apply to Theistic Evolutionists? Because erring from the truth (what the bible says) means that they knew what the truth was. And since they preferred the lie instead, and called it truth. They were also indirectly calling God a liar as well. What is it that has to be said every time someone brings up: That’s not what the Bible says? What you say not only applies to the word, but also applies to God. That is why erring from the truth is bad, and puts the person who does it in danger of losing salvation.

I'm glad the YECs you know are not like that, but there are definitely others who are--and in the former "slippery slope" case, Ken Ham is in the news a lot popularizing his views, debating Bill Nye, etc.

I well remember the look of anxiety on the faces of the Baptist Student Center people I knew in college who were trying to encourage me to see an anti-evolution film that was being put on. [Paranoid]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I remember being told that evolution was the product of Satan; well, I managed not to laugh.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

I think the issue is at least twofold:

(1) The YEC people themselves who believe their salvation is conditional at least partly in believing in YEC, which produces a strain/tension when they might reach conclusions that the Earth is not 6000 years old (and which has at least appeared to lead to some people giving up on Christianity altogether)

(2) The damage that YEC is doing to the sciences, education, and some seriously practical matters like climate change. At least in the US, there seems to be a connection, and giving in to YEC pseudo-science is actually causing definite harm. (It doesn't help that in the US, the culture of YEC-tyle churches is aggressively right-wing, "pro-business," anti-environmental-laws (some have literally tried to argue that those are a veiled attempt at Earth-Mother-worship-idolatry [brick wall]

) and the like. Yes, really. No, I'm not kidding. This worries me.)

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

And of course the high-ranking congressman on the House Science Committee who said that "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell," said Broun, who is an MD. "It's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior." `

(Side note: Another member is Todd Akin, who made headlines for saying that women don't get pregnant from "legitimate rape" because their bodies have "ways to try to shut that whole thing down.")

My country is insane. [Waterworks]

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

Caveats for the above are, of course, that Evangelicals in the UK seem to have a very different approach to various matters, as was discussed on the Evangelical vs Fundamentalist thread, in which if you are a UK Evo, then you are more likely to care about social justice, the environment, and the like. [Overused]

Please come to the US and save us from ourselves!!!

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Argh! Despite my better judgement I've got into a pissing contest with one on Facebook. Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Oi, that's my friend you're talking about!

No, I was the idiot for engaging.

I'm now annoyed with myself that I'm feeling pleased that I and that other bloke basically served his arse up to him on a plate. One of the reasons I like to avoid this is the confused feelings I have about the impact on the recipient discovering they've been sold a pup.

[ 18. August 2014, 08:47: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

Ah, I get you, Karl - and I know what you mean about feeling pleased...

Posted by Acurisur (# 18151) on :

The problem I have with shooting down YEC's and the Genesis account as literal is that atheists that I debate with will point to Christians who don't believe in a literal Genesis account as hypocrites because they say "How can you pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true and which are false? Either you believe it is all true or you believe it is all false".

Which then creates a problem when you say "Science is right here, but Science is wrong here"

Atheists see it as Science Vs God. Not Science and God.

Personally, I believe the Bible is the infallible word of God. I don't know about a 6,000 year old earth because that's not biblical.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
The problem I have with shooting down YEC's and the Genesis account as literal is that atheists that I debate with will point to Christians who don't believe in a literal Genesis account as hypocrites because they say "How can you pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true and which are false? Either you believe it is all true or you believe it is all false".

Leading one to wonder, when did Atheists become so rigid and unreflective? Atheists who say shit like that are more dogmatic and less reflective about religion than most religious people. They are, in fact, walking imbeciles in the question of religion. I suspect any atheists who spew this kind of nonsense are more reacting to their religious upbringing than they are drawing conclusions about the world based on evidence and reason.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

TBH I've never heard that line from Atheists. Only Christian fundamentalists. Most atheists I know seem able to cope with the idea that Christianity is not entirely defined by the Bible.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Or, even defined by one particular interpretation of the Bible.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Why would God create a totally consistent back story and then introduce something into the story that subverted the back story?

He got bored.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
The problem I have with shooting down YEC's and the Genesis account as literal is that atheists that I debate with will point to Christians who don't believe in a literal Genesis account as hypocrites because they say "How can you pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true and which are false? Either you believe it is all true or you believe it is all false".

like K:LB, I've only ever heard Christians say anything like this.

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Which then creates a problem when you say "Science is right here, but Science is wrong here"

not sure how it should. First, atheism =\= scientific background. Atheism only requires the belief god(s) do not exist. There is no doctrine or curriculum.
Second, science doesn't work that way.

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Atheists see it as Science Vs God. Not Science and God.

Of course atheists don't see science and god. They'd not be atheists else.
Not to hammer to vigorously, but the statement "Atheists see it as" is always going to be wrong. Beyond the single defining belief, there are no other guidelines.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I've certainly heard atheists chunter on about cherry-picking Christians, but I pointed out to them, rather elegantly I thought, they every time they quote a 'bad' bit of the Bible, they are also beating the cherry blossom to death. But of course, their cherry-picking is different, innit?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Why would God create a totally consistent back story and then introduce something into the story that subverted the back story?
He got bored.

I just assume that he was trolling.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I've certainly heard atheists chunter on about cherry-picking Christians, but I pointed out to them, rather elegantly I thought, they every time they quote a 'bad' bit of the Bible, they are also beating the cherry blossom to death. But of course, their cherry-picking is different, innit?

I've heard atheists derisively dismiss religion within minutes of discussing how their horoscope will affect their plans.
What's your point?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

That cherry-picking is unavoidable.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Possibly. But i do think there is a difference.
A person stating a belief should have a more cohesive approach to said belief than is necessary for a non-believer.
And certain bits of any religious text will stand out more to an outsider than others., Within the framework of the religion, so are natural targets.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Very cool indeed Mousethief

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
TBH I've never heard that line from Atheists. Only Christian fundamentalists. Most atheists I know seem able to cope with the idea that Christianity is not entirely defined by the Bible.

Christopher Hitchens visited Portland a year or so before he died. As reported in the local paper, he participated in a panel discussion with various people, including some ministers, one of whom made the point that she did not hold some of the positions (YEC etc.) he attributed to Christianity. He said, "Well, you're not really a Christian," something she had probably heard from fundamentalists before, but...

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Particularly "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't arrive at through reason.".

But there's reason and reason, no?

I have a beloved family member who is a classical liberal and more ... a holocaust denier.

They got there through reason.

I love the mythos / logos reversal. It seems to echo the penchant for literalizing the OT and symbolizing away the NT, including the sacrament of the beatitudes.

I'm more and more happy with the OT as liturgy. Which is more than creeping in to the NT.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I've heard atheists derisively dismiss religion within minutes of discussing how their horoscope will affect their plans.

As an amusing side note, I once had an atheist roommate (a fairly aggressive one--he knew I was a Christian but he wanted to put up a poster of Uncle Sam being buggered by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel God "because it shows what religion is doing to this country" [brick wall]

) with whom I had an array of confusing arguments at first about what atheists could and could not believe--every time I said, "but I've known atheists who believe this or that," he'd say "American atheists don't believe that," and we went back and forth until I finally found out that he meant "American Atheists"--the group with that name, and their own logo and so on--didn't believe that--not merely atheists who were Americans... [Killing me]

Posted by Acurisur (# 18151) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
The problem I have with shooting down YEC's and the Genesis account as literal is that atheists that I debate with will point to Christians who don't believe in a literal Genesis account as hypocrites because they say "How can you pick and choose which parts of the Bible are true and which are false? Either you believe it is all true or you believe it is all false".
like K:LB, I've only ever heard Christians say anything like this.

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Which then creates a problem when you say "Science is right here, but Science is wrong here"
not sure how it should. First, atheism =\= scientific background. Atheism only requires the belief god(s) do not exist. There is no doctrine or curriculum.
Second, science doesn't work that way.

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Atheists see it as Science Vs God. Not Science and God.

Of course atheists don't see science and god. They'd not be atheists else.
Not to hammer to vigorously, but the statement "Atheists see it as" is always going to be wrong. Beyond the single defining belief, there are no other guidelines.

You haven't spoken to the militant atheists I debate with on IMDB's Religion, Faith and Spirituality Boards then.

Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
You haven't spoken to the militant atheists I debate with on IMDB's Religion, Faith and Spirituality Boards then.

Does every website have a set of discussion boards now?? [Confused]

This is the movie information site, right? :facepalm:

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
You haven't spoken to the militant atheists I debate with on IMDB's Religion, Faith and Spirituality Boards then.
Does every website have a set of discussion boards now?? This is the movie information site, right? :facepalm:

Holy Shit! They do have such a board. Been a subscriber for years and never noticed. [Ultra confused]

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
You haven't spoken to the militant atheists I debate with on IMDB's Religion, Faith and Spirituality Boards then.

So you can find some atheists who argue this way. My point is not all do.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So you can find some atheists who argue this way. My point is not all do.

Has anybody here claimed so?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So you can find some atheists who argue this way. My point is not all do.
Has anybody here claimed so?

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Atheists see it as Science Vs God. Not Science and God.

Doesn't specifically say all, but near enough.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So you can find some atheists who argue this way. My point is not all do.
Has anybody here claimed so?
quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:

Atheists see it as Science Vs God. Not Science and God.

Doesn't specifically say all, but near enough.

That's quite a leap, from "Seeing it as 'Science vs. God'" to "They insist that the only real Christians are literalists." Clearly this is an enthymeme.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

IME, a lot of atheists would state that there is a "science vs religion" conflict ("religion" being a social construct that exists, as opposed to "God" which, they claim, does not exist - how can you have a conflict with something non-existent?). But, mostly the position isn't that science disproves religion, but they see the main issue as religion interfering with and restricting science.

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I've been following this thread for some time and remained convinced that it is a waste of time to 'start' with them at all.

Ignorant people won't budge and it is a waste of breath trying to show them where they are wrong.

That's a rather pessimistic view of education.

IME, there is a difference between the sort of doctrinaire creationists who turn up on web fora convinced that their PRATT is a knock down argument and for whom the possibility of any kind of religious truth depends on an infallible God-authored book and the sort of people one occasionally encounters in the church porch after Mass who think that acceptance of evolution commits them to all sorts of other stuff which, IMO, it doesn't, necessarily. All of us are ignorant on some level and if you can deliver a teaspoon of enlightenment without a side order of massive condescension it will, from time to time, go down with no ill effects.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I have worked in education for 40 years - Piaget and Fowler suggest that you cannot engage with people more than 2 levels above where they are.

Any more than that and they don't comprehend and write you off.

So, yes, we can engage, but only at a low level to start with, enough to provoke cognitive equilibrium.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
leo: So, yes, we can engage, but only at a low level to start with, enough to provoke cognitive equilibrium.

I'm curious, how would you do this in practice with YECs?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
leo: So, yes, we can engage, but only at a low level to start with, enough to provoke cognitive equilibrium.
I'm curious, how would you do this in practice with YECs?

I was speaking in general.

I don't think I've ever met a YEC - they seem to be an American phenomenon.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Plenty of YECs in the UK.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Acurisur:
You haven't spoken to the militant atheists I debate with on IMDB's Religion, Faith and Spirituality Boards then.

With Catholics you can say what they at least officially believe by pointing to the Catechism. With Christians there's the Trinity and the Bible. Atheists as a group just don't believe in God. I have far more I believe that's in common with e.g. RuthW than I do with e.g. an Objectivist Atheist.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Plenty of YECs in the UK.

Nutters everywhere, just fewer and quieter.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Me previous char-evo church had a table full of YECs at least and the village church has at least one anti-evolutionist brother whom I've had to defend against a zealous evolutionist brother.

We who think we stand in a modern equivalent of food sacrificed to idols, take heed.

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