Modern creationism makes no sense

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Ummm.... I don't see the issue. In either case, it is an action to be accepted I think.


Umm.... ok, I don't think that this really gives us much basis for comparison. Like at all. Unless you want to say that blowing someone's brain off and having gay sex should be regarded as the same thing.


I actually don't think it is really much of the same thing. Even further, I don't think you have a full understanding of the issue. Rage where there is a desire to kill somebody is actually somewhat common:
"In a study directly examining the prevalence of homicidal fantasies, Kenrick and Sheets reported that 68 percent of undergraduate students endorsed having at least one homicidal fantasy. Approximately 30 percent of men and 15 percent of women endorsed having such fantasies frequently."
http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/content/full/33/4/484

And yeah, as I said earlier, the basis of comparison is pretty freaking ret*d.


Well, they probably don't "HAVE TO" act on their sexual feelings, just as most men don't "HAVE TO" gratify their own sexual feelings, but even among Christian men, somehow the porn goes on the computer screen and the hands get moving.

Once again, I have my doubts that changing an orientation is as simple as pressing some button. Maybe if the program used some drug, I would believe it, but I have my doubts.


Ok, that's nice, but we're talking about a theory that has lasted for longer than either of us have been alive. Not only that, but *all* evidence is fickle for that matter.


Ok? Your situation isn't relevant, unless you want to argue that we shouldn't teach heliocentrism in schools either.


That's not a problem. If science conflicts with cultic fantasy, then science should win, period. Science is based upon evidence. Science is adaptive. Science is the best way mankind has found to reliably come close to anything we'd want to call truth. This isn't even that contestable, just look at this youtube video by Dawkins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYigmGyN2RQ

The man is perfectly on the mark here.



Um.... well, not if they are theoretically contingent upon the truth of evolution.

Evolution isn't meant to study the origins of life, period. A theory of gravitation does not have to explain electromagnetics as well if the issues can be reasonably separated.

AngelRho, do you not listen. EVOLUTION IS THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION, PERIOD! ALMOST EVERY SINGLE BIOLOGIST ACCEPTS EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AS CORRECT! Heck, there was a project by a major scientific organization to show that there are more Steves with PhDs in science that believe in evolution than there are creationists with PhD's. AngelRho, you aren't actually establishing any point, or proving anything, your efforts so far just seem perhaps like a failure to engage an issue. One theory is legitimate, and the other is BS, and this question of legitimate vs BS isn't just this "personal relativist" question, but rather it goes back to parsimony, explanation of data, and so many other things.

No, it really f*****g doesn't. If you pulled your head out of the sand (your a**) you could pretty obviously see this.

Creationism vs Evolution HAS NO BATTLEGROUND. Evolution won before I was born. The most you see is an artificial public debate kept up by conservative Christian propaganda groups who thrive on their will to deceive the masses, betray truth, and work to destroy legitimate education for promoting their nihilistic cult, one that is willing to sacrifice all things to a theistic black hole.
http://itself.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/ ... lack-hole/

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 22 May 2010, 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nah. I only deny that objective reality et al. is the end of the story. Think of it this way: One can stand in the middle of a road with an 18 wheeler bearing down on him, possibly fully aware of the impending consequences, and yet feel powerless or even unwilling to move out of the way (for whatever reason). Yet it is still possible up until that final moment to move out of the way, the driver may attempt to brake with enough time to avoid hitting that person, steer in a different direction, or that person may have a friend or good Samaritan to pull him to safety.

It's the larger picture that is most important, not whether THIS theory is correct or THAT theory is correct. I can certainly see and understand how creationism and evolution are NOT mutually exclusive. How I approach what and how much of each, if any of one or the other at all, is entirely up to me. I'm a believer first and foremost because of the sum of experiences I've had up to this point in my life make it impossible for me to change my mind. Pure objectivists are no different. I see one alternative, they see another. After all, if I'm stuck staring down one 18-wheeler and you're stuck staring down a different 18-wheeler, how are either of us to know that changing our positions won't put us in the path of an 18-wheeler coming from the opposite direction? Then we're BOTH dead wrong.

Yes, how crazy I must seem for thinking that evolution is fact!

You are a sad person, and I pity you. Your sight has been so perverted that even blindness would be preferable to your condition.

So says the blind man.

Yes, I'm the blind man! Me and the vast majority of the scientific community!



You're pathetic. It's a shame to think that you probably have/will taint your children with your primitive beliefs.

The real shame is that science seeks objectivity, not condescension based on one's personal opinion. The ONLY thing that science can do is inform. By what measure am I pathetic? Just because I disagree with you? What's keeping me from leveling the same charge against you because you choose to be disagreeable?

I'm pathetic because I go against the grain of what SOME people think? OK. But then you're pathetic because you choose to go unquestioningly along with a group you happen to like and believing things that make you feel comfortable. You have a hard time with someone calling your dogmatic beliefs into question because those kinds of issues make you do something you don't really like: To actually THINK and draw your own conclusions. You'd rather just take "the vast majority" and rubber stamp it as your own.

I've NEVER been adept at very many kinds of conformity--not as a student in the classroom, not within social settings, and certainly not within my own church. The fact I'm still a Christian at all flies in the face of my personal norm, and it's only a solution that has held up over time because of my willingness to call so many things I've been taught, both at school AND at church, into question. And yet, from the time I was a child through the present time, the ONLY thing that seems to remain consistent is my spiritual sensibility. Rather than accusing my beliefs of primitivity (the root of primitive means "first," by the way), you should ask yourself why it is we've come to such radically different conclusions. It COULD be your thinking is just as primitive, only varying from mine in the direction that it has gone.

But you just keep on going that way. If perfect conformity to your "vast majority" keeps you from making up your own mind and allows you to sleep at night, far be it from me to interfere. But don't post something in a public forum if you aren't prepared to be challenged on it.

The problem is that you seem downright intellectually dishonest. Science seeks objectivity. However, those who do not listen to science can be labeled as having character flaws, given that science is a very good source of information. Poke does not disagree with the scientific community, so he can't be labeled for seeming dishonest.


If by "some people" you mean the scientific community? Well... they're modern society's providers of knowledge/truth, and your disagreement is driven solely by the fact that these things disagree with what makes you feel comfortable. I mean, if someone disagrees with what is most likely true, then why shouldn't we consider this being pathetic?


I am not sure that poke is doing what you claim he is. If anything, you're closer to this.

Additionally, "actually THINK and draw your own conclusions" is not a real option for us people without the PhDs to analyze all of this. This is basically struck home in this article right here: http://biologos.org/blog/would-you-like ... at-theory/ In an essay by a guy with a PhD in physics. I mean, trusting the scientific orthodoxy isn't just a good thing to do, at this point it is basically the only sensible thing that intellectually honest people *can* do.


No, we know that dishonesty is somehow involved in this whole mess.


AngelRho, I'll make this simple and clear: you're wrong. Your opinion is wrong to the point where it isn't even an intellectual option, and you avoid recognizing this fact through all sorts of dishonest behaviors. This isn't "Oh no, we're afraid of AngelRho challenging our precious beliefs", this is really more that you don't have good arguments, objections, or anything like that, and are basically holding to a hidden dogma that we can't even begin to deal with. I mean, your entire argumentative strategy is more defensive than anything else, and you don't even really put forward your meaningful alternative. Rather, everything you do here is to say "Well, scientists can be wrong, and reasonable people can disagree", but... you haven't substantiated that scientists can be wrong if they all are unanimous on an issue or that your disagreement is actually reasonable. As such, I don't think that either is applicable in this situation.

You mean you THINK I'm wrong. Neither you, nor poke, nor anyone in the scientific community can provide "smoking gun" evidence in favor of evolution. Short-term adaptive variation, limited speciation, some nice museum exhibits... But macroevolution in process? The scientific community seems to think it takes too long to provide proof. It's impossible to take a correct hardline stance on something like that. It's like trying to prove the existence of God. It can't be done.

Maybe it happened that way. Maybe it didn't. Science has always adjusted its position based on the available data. If believing in the Biblical creation is something that people could reasonably have done based on faith, then there is nothing wrong, either, with accepting it on the same basis now. Further, the fact that people do so, not just myself, only points to the fact that science is not conclusive enough to convince everyone. If Evolution announces itself with the sounding of trumpets accompanied by the singing of the heavenly host, then there's a slightly better chance I may give more credence to it. Maybe I'll make it to the other side and St. Peter will tell me, "Not that it makes a difference now, but you were wrong about that whole evolution thing." If so, so what? What, if anything, has believing in the power of God to work the impossible cost me because I reject one silly theory?

That's what it boils down to, in my opinion. One silly theory. The OP says creationism makes sense. I say it makes no more or less sense than evolution. A case can be made either way. All that's left is what you do with the evidence--reject one in favor of the other or accept/reject parts of both.

In this case, you don't have absolute proof that I am wrong. Condescension and insults have absolutely no bearing on the facts either way.

Well, no, I mean that it is unreasonable to consider your position correct.

AngelRho, are we to consider murders insoluble because there was nobody who was a definite witness? Obviously not. Instead we use forensics. In the case of evolution, we have a fossil record, and all of these other things that you dismiss as being useless.

It's pretty easy to take a hardline stance on anything, but that being said, evolution is all but mathematically proven. It is the theory that by far, makes the most sense out of all of our results. There isn't a lot of room for open speculation given all of the evidence, at least speculation that doesn't assume false histories.


Umm.... that's fallacious reasoning. If something could be reasonably done in the past, that does not mean that it could be reasonably done in the present. Our stock of knowledge is continually changing. It isn't reasonable to believe in Zeus now, but it was in Greek days. It isn't reasonable to believe in a flat earth, but in the past we had no evidence otherwise. It isn't reasonable to hold to Aristotelian physics now, but in the past it was all the rage.


Umm..... no. You're reasoning ends up being circular. If being utterly devoted to an idea is good in the past, then it is good now, and if science can't change the minds of people who are blindly devoted, then the science couldn't have been so good anyway. I mean.... you've just created an unbreakable epistemic circle of nonsense. There is no reason to consider you honest at this point.


And this is why we hate you, consider you dishonest, consider you primitive, and think you're a nut. This isn't a "silly theory" this is one of the major theories in biology. A theory with massive influence on how we regard the subject, and that crosses all sorts of lines, including psychology, anthropology, zoology, genetics, and so on and so forth.

I mean, all you are even doing is making the same assertion over and over and over about how "they're equal" when the very idea of equality is questionable. Between two theories, one will often explain more, it will be more parsimonious, or something else, so "equal" doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, all you offer is a blind relativism for a situation that scientists have *already* said "there is only one good answer to this", so.... no. I don't see you as honest.


I don't *need* absolute proof that you are wrong. If someone kept on saying that Richard Nixon was actually an alien, do I have the absolute proof that this person is wrong? No, but the person espousing this claim is still an idiot.

I mean, this passage from one of Richard Dawkins' books is frankly sufficient to get at what the position is for the scientific community and those who follow that community:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 805656.ece

"Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact." (the rest of what he wrote is also of great value)

AngelRho, you aren't an honest person, period. Your stand isn't even an honest stance, as Poke, myself, and likely others have made it clear why we think there is no longer any debate over the truth of evolution, but you just assert that there still is a question without any real substance. It is deeply annoying to have a person who can't think their way out of a paper bag as an intellectual opponent.

Can you please define what you think "smoking gun" evidence is? The fact of the matter is, ALL the evidence available corroborates evolution as fact. Not a single scrap of evidence corroborates creationism, not even the so-called evidence you claim to have put forward in this thread.

Regarding the sentence I put in bold above, you cannot cherry pick on evidence so that it supports the theory that you are comfortable with. In order to be objective, you have to take into account all the evidence and look for the best explanation that corroborates all of it. That bold sentence indicates nothing more than Awesomelyglorious being right about you being intellectually dishonest because you appear to admit that you would ignore any evidence that would contradict your belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Show me a single scrap of evidence that you think contradicts evolution and either me or someone else will tell you why it does not.

Last edited by Jono on 23 May 2010, 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely silly. Along those same lines, if evolution can be reasonably done in the past, then it can't be reasonably done in the present. It's roots are--when?--in theories made public in 1859, though some ideas go back even further, right? So it's fallacious to believe something can work just because it worked in the past?

Circular arguments: If you want to talk circular arguments, look at your own. Take evolution itself. Arguing evolution doesn't make sense unless you argue evolution. What does that have over creationism? Arguing creationism assumes creation. They're BOTH circular. If that is the basis for honesty, then you aren't honest, either.

It is a real shame that you promote hatred against those with whom you disagree. Going strictly on Biblical text (as opposed to how it may have been misused at times), one could never express hatred for another person. Sure, we aren't without our shortcomings, but hateful thought and actions are discouraged. I'm very sorry to see that science has made you a hateful person. I'm also sorry you find it annoying, but I can't help that expressing my views on creationism makes you feel uncomfortable. But I've said before that much of the problem is that people in general dislike being wrong about something. If it is true that I'm wrong, I can accept that. But I can't help it if the psychological impact of anything I've said has stirred up cognitive dissonance in your own thinking.

Jono: Those arguing strictly in favor of evolution ARE cherry-picking evidence in favor of evolution. If it's fair to evaluate evidence in favor of evolution, why can't it be fair to evaluate evidence against it?

I gave you examples and the basis of my reasoning. "Our stock of knowledge is continually changing. It isn't reasonable to believe in Zeus now, but it was in Greek days. It isn't reasonable to believe in a flat earth, but in the past we had no evidence otherwise. It isn't reasonable to hold to Aristotelian physics now, but in the past it was all the rage. "

You are failing to understand this, and your response reflects that. If you had picked a larger text of my response, then your own response would just look silly and childish.

That being said, yes: it is fallacious to hold that something *must* work now because it has worked in the past. One needs more substance. I tend to hold Karl Popper's falsificationism as one of the better responses, as it denies a necessary relationship, and at best holds a working relationship.

AngelRho, your response makes no sense, a theory is a model for best interpreting historical data. It isn't circular. Neither are actually circular. Both are instead trying to make a coherent picture of reality. Even further, you likely don't really understand my total position, so I doubt that your claim that I am using a "circular argument" is really that valid.


I promote hatred against people who seem to clearly deserve it. You clearly deserve it.

"Science has made me a hateful person"? Wow....

"stirred up cognitive dissonance in my own thinking"? Are you trolling???

Frankly, they are not. If valid evidence against evolution actually existed then it would be fair to evaluate it. However, you still haven't provided any.

I'm not the one spewing hatred against someone I disagree with. Looks to me like you're the troll here! It's not my fault that simply making a case for something I believe inspires such rage. I do my best to present my ideas with a clear head and calm demeanor. Your own, admitted hateful attitude seems to be clouding your judgment on this matter.

An empirical falsification of the theory of evolution would make the front page of the New York Times.

ruveyn