#creationist debate

[f1yfromtheinside]

Rant time

Okay let's push the fuckin pause button real quick. How are you going to question my beliefs and ideologies, when you can't even remain true to yours and obey the "rules" at your own pleasure. Now I'm not trying to bash religion but let's just be honest for a second. It has been proven by expert shipbuilders in New England that a ship as large as Noah's ark is not remotely close to being able to sail. The mass of the ship would cause the wood to bend and buckle underneath the immense pressure and movement of the ocean, causing it to sink rather quickly. ALSO, if there was a giant flood, how come we don't see animals fossils at different layers. Because let's be honest, a volume of water that massive wouldn't just evaporate out of nowhere. Second point, how do we have trees that have been carbon dated to be older than the "start of humanity". In science, if we don't have an answer to a question, the answer is one of three things: I don't know, let's do some research to find out, or I'll go find somebody who knows. In religion, the answer is: because the bible says so. In terms of validity of an argument, that would be like somebody saying: because I say so when I asked a question as to why they had an opinion. It's just that, an opinion.

[f1yfromtheinside]

Science

I see nothing wrong with people who believe in some sort of higher being as a form of faith or to have something to believe in. But when people come up with this ludicrous idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old or one man was able to build a boat large enough to hold hundreds of animals during a worldwide flood, i get a little annoyed. Again, if you believe in a higher power, good for you, but using the argument "because it's in the bible" has no hard evidence to support your claims. Creationist live in this warped reality that everything our entirety was created in 7 days by one man. So he was able to create something that out dated him by billions of light years? If he was "perfect" why didn't he make humans that were immune to disease and suffering? Why are there ice layers in the Arctic that date back 65,000 years if the earth is only 6,000 years old. "Evolution isn't real" okay so a single individual created so many species, that 6,000 years later we still haven't found all of them? Science doesn't have all the answers either, but at least they have hard evidence of our past and an idea of how idiotic creationism is.

[comicatheist]

Up to debate

   So recently I got around to watching the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate. I know it happened a while ago but every time I looked at the time indicator I just weighed out all the other things I could spend two hours doing instead. In watching it I realized two things. First: Bill Nye is possibly the most patient man on the planet, and second, Ken Ham is a complete moron. (Yes, there's a book that answers that Mr. Ham, but there are thousands of other books that discredit that book at virtually every turn, including the book itself! ) 

   Unfortunately the view of this issue and many others like it are represented to the public at large via the coverage they receive in media outlets. Bill Maher, Bill O'Reily, John Stewart, Rush Limbaugh all represent polar extremes when it comes to liberal and conservative ideas, and while it can be argued each one presents valid arguments on some things, it almost always comes with an agenda to push public opinion. As much as I respect the fact the Maher and Stewart champion to point out and ridicule the inadequate and narrow minded views of their counterparts, there's no delusion that they still have a self interest in what they report, and that facts will be molded to fit that view. Journalism in its true sense doesn't really exist outside of small pockets any longer, and unfortunately as Americans we no longer spend any time dedicating ourselves to research and fact checking, which means a great deal of public opinion is influenced directly by the recycled content shown on news networks and local channels, even though we live in an age when fact checking is as simple as doing a voice search on your smart phone. 

    I digress. When it comes to public debates I think they hold little relevance outside of people who float in the middle of the issue whatever it may be. I've got no problem admitting a bias towards Bill Nye. I grew up watching him in school, and he made learning fun. That said I gave Mr. Ham the benefit of the doubt, even though what I'd seen from him up to that point was nothing outside of the normal Creationist ideas. The first half hour was excruciating. Mr. Ham presented a plethora of arguments against evolution and the invalidity of the so called science it was based on. He put forth a great effort to try and discredit the scientific method and all of its findings by association, even though he continued to refer to the things he, Bill Nye, and other scientists all agreed on. In his entire argument he presented nothing but speculative arguments using either evidence that was irrelevant, wrongfully associated, or had no evidence at outside of "The Book" 

    He even went so far as to declare that secular science has "... hijacked..." the word science and keep creationist scientists out. There was this scenario in my head that was playing out the whole time Ham spoke, and it was of a kid playing hockey in the street when he looked up and saw a bunch of kids had made a tree house. Curious he asked to come up and see what they had done. They agree and take the time to show him how they made it and all the hard work they'd put into it along with why. The hockey kid decides he likes it, but still wants to play hockey too, so he proposes to use the tree house for that purpose. The other kids say no because it's a ridiculous idea, and all hell breaks loose. I equate the creationists stance as being that of a spoiled child. They want to play in the tree house of science, but keep their street hockey religion too. When things don't pan out in their favor they play the victim card, and enough people are silly enough to empathize with them over their fictitious plight. 

    Science has never had an interest in disproving Gods existence. In fact one could argue many inquiries into the natural world have been done in the search of God to further our understanding. In all these centuries of scientific effort though God has not shown himself, yet we gain understanding anyway. As our understanding of the natural world progresses we assign less to God's influence, and more to practical applications of these revelations. If we came across an image from Hubble (Space Telescope) of God picking his nose as he planned Armageddon, I don't think anyone in the scientific community would (after rigorous study and examination to rule out fraud) still hold onto a belief of evolution over intelligent design. It would seem that for Ham and many like him, science serves as a conspiratorial force bent on destroying Christianity rather than being a means of finding factual truth over convenient truth. 

    These things appear to have lead to Hams' idea that he can make science what he wants it to be, and therefor not have to credit the parts of science he doesn't want to. He spent a lot of time in his opening statement and responses to trying to claim the inability of science to assess time frames and happenings based on what cannot be seen. Bill responded to this several times brilliantly, of course Ham and most people in his court were either too stupid or simply chose to disavow it for what it was. 

    "Prediction" was the word Bill used, time and time again in that we use science to predict occurrences in order to further understanding. It might be argued that such a thing cannot be removed as anything else than trying to be prophetic and no more provable than such, except that it can be proven as effective and has been by the discovery of Neptune in our solar system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_neptune

    Neptune's discovery was a triumph in science as it was the first application of Newtonian mathematics used to predict the existence of something that to that point could not be observed directly yet made sense and was measurable by math. The planets discovery came about in it's disruption and defiance of those equations when astronomers tried to deduce the orbit of Uranus and could not do so with the information they had. The consensus was another body must have been tugging (gravity) on Uranus Le Verrier was accredited for predicting the orbit and observable point of Neptune in 1846. 

    I do wish that Nye had more directly opposed Ham on key points, but I understand why he didn't in many cases. Christians no doubt would see Hams' conduct as being noble and just, but in truth he was an ass and committed the same frivolous assertions at points where Bill didn't have an answer by saying "Well Bill there's a book for that." essentially saying because Bill didn't know something, how could he know anything. The gap of having an answer is not justification for immediately tossing aside everything we do know so as to clamor towards a comforting answer. 

   We don't know everything, but since we've realized the importance of reason over superstition we've learned just how much we don't know, and have invented a way to diminish that uncertainty. I know why Nye couldn't answer, and it wasn't because Ham had presented some grand argument to shake his belief to the core (all Ham had was circular reasoning, nothing new) Bill didn't answer because as satisfying as it might have been to throw down the might of knowledge and reason upon Ham, I'm going to assume that the "Science Guy" understands enough to know that making his own assertions for the sake of convenience would unravel his efforts, and make him no better than creationists. 

   I think I can say this on behalf of all true atheists in that, we don't know the origin of our universe beyond the big bang, or how life on earth began. We would like to know, and we have an earnest interest in discovering it, but we are mature enough to accept the fact that just because we lack an answer to that question doesn't give us the right to make one up that suits our liking, because that's not truth. No matter how unsettling it might be, the truth is what matters. 

[officialadult-blog]

So one time I was in my former church's youth group and they were discussing creationism and they made one point for it that at the time I thought was fairly decent and that was that the Bible mentions behemoths with tails like tree trunks that walked the land and the youth leader argued that it could be talking about dinosaurs because what other giant land animal has a tail like a tree trunk? Not elephants, or giraffes, or hippos, or lions, or tigers, or birds or any of that stuff and I just remembered this and suddenly it clicked

fucking asdfghjkl crocodiles. It makes sense 'cause those fuckers are huge, their whole body is log shaped, plus considering the geography, Nile Crocodiles used to reside in Israel until the early 20th century and we KNOW they live in Egypt.

This is why zoology is important, kids

[skeleton-on-parade]

Above all, I despise ignorance. Ugh.

[spookynaut]

Creationist Denies the Existence of the Moon:

[rthompson1624]

Commonly used Creationist debate tactics including verbosity and equivocation.

[renonemony]

Why I Do Not Debate Fundamentalist Pertaining to Science (An Essay)

After getting into a debate with a few Young Earth Creationists (YEC) last night, I have decided to explain why I sparsely partake in debate with these extremist fundamentalists religious types.

Usually, the debate starts when a YEC displays a post on a social networking site such as Facebook that involves someone blatantly attacking modern science with debunked arguments or just plain insults, and then trying to say that what they are proclaiming is to be accepted by one-hundred percent definitive proof. At that point I would come in and say my mind.

Many YEC's use the same arguments over and over again on a regular basis, trying to preach to others their beliefs even after being proven wrong.

The man in the video that the Original Poster posted was entitled, “Dear Mr. Atheist...” He uses tried and failed arguments that have easily been debunked and are not true by any stretch. The main point I had a problem with is that he lied by saying evolution is the same as Geology, Astronomy, amongst other types of sciences. I told the Original Poster that it was not true, and I gave my reasons why. This is when the debates begin.

Creationists have no interest in proclaiming the love of Christ nor to talk about historical context, actual science, the theory of knowledge, etc. They simply want to be right about everything. At this point, a Creationist will usually do an insult that makes no sense and is not relevant. He listed a bunch of logical fallacies, insults, and half-truths, and I simply responded to them with answers that could be easily researched. They usually will then ask for evidence and try to disprove a point of modern Biology with a foundation of Evolution. Well, I went to Google and went to a website which completely refuted and debunked the video. The person said they would read it, right after they insulted my spelling, which shows they have nothing to offer other than childish insults. It's quite ridiculous and repulsive. Well, they of course say they read the website, and decide to change the subject, while the original subject had not been resolved, which is a common mode of deception made by these fundamentalist types.

This particular person went into a tangent about if I believed in the Christ of the Bible. I said I did to a certain degree. He then decided to insult me again. He then asked for some more evidence, and I gave him large pool of scientific peer-reviewed articles from Talk Origins which collects data from many scientific websites, books, magazine articles, and journals and they present the information in a way to understand it. I posted the website. He then said what I was saying was quite funny, as if nothing I said was beneficial to my cause, which is just another typical fundamentalist insult. Then he did a stupid remark about why are there no “in-be-tweens” of primates and humans. Well, anybody with half a brain would know that we have a common ancestor, which I had explained earlier in the posts anyways and he obviously ignored it.

He then decided to try and question my religious beliefs, which is again avoiding my points. Since I had listed two websites (Talk Origins, Science Daily) that provided evidence for my cause, I had every right to put the burden of proof on these YEC's because I had no need to provide any more evidence or articles which aided to my scientific acceptance. Then a third commenter decided to argue with heavily debunked “argument” withthe salt levels in water argument. It assumes that there should be more salt in the earth's water to the point the oceans are nothing more than a salt shaker. The idiotic assumptions in this argument are that the ocean is completely still, there is no evaporation, and that no beaches exist. I gave him a source and he refused to read it, instead trying to attack me by saying it was not listed. I took a picture of it, and he ignored it. The first commenter said he read every single one of the articles in a , matter of twenty minutes, which is impossible since there were over 30 plus articles each having thousands of words or more, which is dangerous for YEC since they claim to believe in Christ yet are willing to lie to promote their points.

Then the commenter stupidly asked for proof, which doesn't exist in science. I had given him articles full of evidence and this commenter did not think this counted as evidence, which means he is denying facts along with being dumb in all forms by simply disregarding this website because it doesn't align with his religious beliefs. I corrected him, which was followed by another insult.

He then told a lie about Darwin, something that has been proven to be a blatant hoax, and then tried to say that Christ was a believer in Young Earth Creationism, which has no ground, since Christ had said barely anything about the subject, other than that he created the world, which I have little problem with.

The commenter came back and said everything I had was against Scripture (with no evidence backing up this lie). He said the article which I had posted with sources and was a from a respected scientific organization and was written by a scientist which debunked the OP was fictional and not real, and was only true in my mind (with no evidence to back up this second lie). With these two insults, I was getting angry because he was making fun of me, and insulting my efforts, so I told him he needed to mature. Then this ass decided to try and call me a coward because I was debating him behind a computer screen. I responded I live slightly west of Minneapolis in Robbinsdale and that I had no form of transportation to get to Stillwater. He then uses the fundamentalist misuse of the term “not of this world”, which he believes aids in his mountain of supposed smart cracks. Then he continued to ignore my points, and I'm trying to get us back on track. He then insults me by saying that the website which listed evidence for modern biology with the basis of evolution is bogus (with no evidence backing his his lie), and called it crap, which shows he never actually read the website, and that he must be pretty pathetic to admit he never read it. What a idiotic dumbass response in my opinion. Then another attack by him saying that I called the Bible garbage. I never said that, that was a blatant lie, a insult, and was just plain stupid with no basis or grounds which was obviously built upon by his anger and brainwashing given to him by the likes of Ken Ham amongst other fundamentalists. Of course, I asked him to prove it, and he could not (another lie courtesy of YEC).

I had all of these lies against him, and he simply just said goodnight, believing he had won. Now, to make my point about why I sparsely debate Young Earth Creationists.

Creationists have no interest in showing the world the love of Christ. They could care less about following the commands of Jesus and Paul, unless it helps them viciously attack someone that has a different idea of theology and whatnot. They are told from a young age that if something does not agree with their interpretation of a book written thousands that has had many different revisions and translations and corruption, amongst scientific inaccuracies and inconsistencies, along with the fact that the books included in the Bible were not decided until post 300 A.D., that it is not true. They believe anything the most conservative of groups tell them. They are not interested in learning, or defending, or questioning their beliefs. They believe that God applauds this behavior, and that they are furthering science.

My last two main points are what . First, YEC's should not take any form of modern science to their disposal. In many ways as it is talked about in the Book of Revelation, it is becoming either all or nothing to accept facts and truth. Science is not a doctrine, nor is it a religious belief; it is simply an interpretation of evidence presented in our world. It is not a faith in the same way as religion is a faith. The modern, secular definition of faith is having the evidence to back up your statement and coming to conclusions and staying true to the conclusions as long as it stands, and if something pops up that causes that conclusion to change, you'll put your faith into what has developed. I would say most Christians would have little problem with that definition. The most fundamentalist of all religions, mainly Islam and Christianity, have definitions of faith in that they trust in things unseen because either their pastor or their interpretation of a book agrees with them on some level. They don't feel the need to present evidence, or prove their points, because everything they believe is one hundred percent true. They believe they can lie, insult, degrade, and anger others, and their God applauds such efforts. That just seems to be very similar to cult behavior. The last point I have to make is that I hear many times when I go to church that if God appeared in front of an atheist, the atheist would still not believe in God. Well, that very phenomenon is happening in conservative Christian houses and churches and internet blogs. The people who study evolution and geology and astronomy amongst all other branches of science have made the evidence of their respective trades readily available, and devote their lives promoting science.

The fundamentalists ignore all this evidence, and still not in any sense believe it, and call it wrong without any basis or ounce of truth. Young Earth Creationists have willingly put fingers in their ears and wear visors that block out facts and truth. I imagine going to Heaven one day, and who knows, I could be completely and utterly wrong. But, I highly doubt that. There may not even be a Heaven, or maybe everyone goes to Hell. The main point here is that people should focus on love and compassion, and should not debate every person they lay eyes on. I admit, I used to do that, and I lost a lot of friends in the process. As James says, let's get our wisdom from the Lord.