How can anyone believe that the world is 6,000 years old?

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Henriksson
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25 May 2009, 12:01 pm

ouinon wrote:
b9 wrote:
how can anyone believe anything?

Good question. Apparently enlightened buddhist monks laugh at the absurdity of it, ( belief ). 8)

.

I wonder why there aren't very many Buddhist inventors...


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25 May 2009, 12:24 pm

Annnnd now the debate once again descends into a discussion of epistomology - and since that's a philosophy, not a science, it will go nowhere, as various nonfalsifiable concepts are presented as if they were debate points (a feature of every philosophical debate I've been exposed to thus far). I'm out of this one, before it goes too far into the realm of namecalling.


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25 May 2009, 1:05 pm

Henriksson wrote:
ouinon wrote:
b9 wrote:
how can anyone believe anything?

Good question. Apparently enlightened buddhist monks laugh at the absurdity of it, ( belief ). 8)

.

I wonder why there aren't very many Buddhist inventors...


they invented the orange robe!

didnt they? :/


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Sand
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25 May 2009, 1:33 pm

ZEGH8578 wrote:
Henriksson wrote:
ouinon wrote:
b9 wrote:
how can anyone believe anything?

Good question. Apparently enlightened buddhist monks laugh at the absurdity of it, ( belief ). 8)

.

I wonder why there aren't very many Buddhist inventors...


they invented the orange robe!

didnt they? :/


And the prayer wheel which is a robotic wind driven something or other that sends repeated messages to the gods automatically. It is the fore runner of automatic telephone message advertising which drives everyone crazy. No wonder the world is going to hell. Those damned prayer wheels have driven the gods mad.



ruveyn
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25 May 2009, 1:46 pm

Sand wrote:

And the prayer wheel which is a robotic wind driven something or other that sends repeated messages to the gods automatically. It is the fore runner of automatic telephone message advertising which drives everyone crazy. No wonder the world is going to hell. Those damned prayer wheels have driven the gods mad.


Think of it as Junk Prayer.

Ruveyn



ZEGH8578
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25 May 2009, 4:22 pm

:D


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26 May 2009, 2:48 am

It is possible to be a creationist and not believe in a 6000 year old universe. The oldest cities are 10-12,000 years old. I think you guys have overlooked the fact that believeing in a young universe is not a prerequite for faith.


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Sand
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26 May 2009, 3:19 am

John_Browning wrote:
It is possible to be a creationist and not believe in a 6000 year old universe. The oldest cities are 10-12,000 years old. I think you guys have overlooked the fact that believeing in a young universe is not a prerequite for faith.


Absolutely not. There are lots of other untenable illogical hooks people use to hold on to their faith. But the young Earth is one of the most vulnerable.



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26 May 2009, 2:06 pm

Maybe this is slightly OT, but I think maybe an even weirder belief I've heard mentioned in this context is the whole 'lion and the lamb' thing.

Basically: it is believed by some Creationists that, as according to Genesis, all animals were originally created as herbivores. It's further believed that after the Fall, some animals started preying on others. (Genesis is not explicit on this; it just says that after the Flood, humans were given the go-ahead to eat meat, and it's assumed that other animals were also carnivorous from that point onwards, if they weren't already.) They further believe, mainly due to some passages of prophecy in Isaiah, that at the end of time when creation is restored, all animals will again be herbivorous and harmless to humans. (I could argue that anyone who thinks herbivores are harmless to humans by dint of not eating meat has never been kicked in the guts by a deer, but that's another subject.)

The thing is, a lot of these creationists claim to have a huge sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world, but I wonder how you can say that if you think like this. Because if you look at, say, a lion, and you imagine what kind of changes you'd have to make to that lion to turn it into a herbivore - well, a lion is a good example, because the cat family are the 'purest' of carnivores and the most specialized for that purpose. Not just the teeth and claws but more or less everything about a lion's body has developed for that particular hunting niche. If it had developed to fit any other niche, it wouldn't be a lion. And to say there's something 'wrong' with a lion because it hunts seems to me to be lacking all appreciation for it.

(I chose this example for another reason: C. S. Lewis - of all people! - used precisely that animal in his own argument for this idea of all animals being herbivores in the restored Earth. And he didn't even disbelieve in evolution. Rather makes you wonder whether any faith that requires that amount of mental acrobatics is really worth believing.)


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Sand
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26 May 2009, 2:17 pm

ThatRedHairedGrrl wrote:
Maybe this is slightly OT, but I think maybe an even weirder belief I've heard mentioned in this context is the whole 'lion and the lamb' thing.

Basically: it is believed by some Creationists that, as according to Genesis, all animals were originally created as herbivores. It's further believed that after the Fall, some animals started preying on others. (Genesis is not explicit on this; it just says that after the Flood, humans were given the go-ahead to eat meat, and it's assumed that other animals were also carnivorous from that point onwards, if they weren't already.) They further believe, mainly due to some passages of prophecy in Isaiah, that at the end of time when creation is restored, all animals will again be herbivorous and harmless to humans. (I could argue that anyone who thinks herbivores are harmless to humans by dint of not eating meat has never been kicked in the guts by a deer, but that's another subject.)

The thing is, a lot of these creationists claim to have a huge sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world, but I wonder how you can say that if you think like this. Because if you look at, say, a lion, and you imagine what kind of changes you'd have to make to that lion to turn it into a herbivore - well, a lion is a good example, because the cat family are the 'purest' of carnivores and the most specialized for that purpose. Not just the teeth and claws but more or less everything about a lion's body has developed for that particular hunting niche. If it had developed to fit any other niche, it wouldn't be a lion. And to say there's something 'wrong' with a lion because it hunts seems to me to be lacking all appreciation for it.

(I chose this example for another reason: C. S. Lewis - of all people! - used precisely that animal in his own argument for this idea of all animals being herbivores in the restored Earth. And he didn't even disbelieve in evolution. Rather makes you wonder whether any faith that requires that amount of mental acrobatics is really worth believing.)


There are many ways to indicate that people with religious beliefs are silly. But you cannot convince silly people not to be silly any more than you can convince a lion to live on grass.



Sand
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26 May 2009, 2:19 pm

ThatRedHairedGrrl wrote:
Maybe this is slightly OT, but I think maybe an even weirder belief I've heard mentioned in this context is the whole 'lion and the lamb' thing.

Basically: it is believed by some Creationists that, as according to Genesis, all animals were originally created as herbivores. It's further believed that after the Fall, some animals started preying on others. (Genesis is not explicit on this; it just says that after the Flood, humans were given the go-ahead to eat meat, and it's assumed that other animals were also carnivorous from that point onwards, if they weren't already.) They further believe, mainly due to some passages of prophecy in Isaiah, that at the end of time when creation is restored, all animals will again be herbivorous and harmless to humans. (I could argue that anyone who thinks herbivores are harmless to humans by dint of not eating meat has never been kicked in the guts by a deer, but that's another subject.)

The thing is, a lot of these creationists claim to have a huge sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world, but I wonder how you can say that if you think like this. Because if you look at, say, a lion, and you imagine what kind of changes you'd have to make to that lion to turn it into a herbivore - well, a lion is a good example, because the cat family are the 'purest' of carnivores and the most specialized for that purpose. Not just the teeth and claws but more or less everything about a lion's body has developed for that particular hunting niche. If it had developed to fit any other niche, it wouldn't be a lion. And to say there's something 'wrong' with a lion because it hunts seems to me to be lacking all appreciation for it.

(I chose this example for another reason: C. S. Lewis - of all people! - used precisely that animal in his own argument for this idea of all animals being herbivores in the restored Earth. And he didn't even disbelieve in evolution. Rather makes you wonder whether any faith that requires that amount of mental acrobatics is really worth believing.)


There are many ways to indicate that people with religious beliefs are silly. But you cannot convince silly people not to be silly any more than you can convince a lion to live on grass.



SystemDown
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26 May 2009, 8:47 pm

There are a lot of things biologists don't understand about evolution, that's why it is called a theory. It is undisputable that it occurs, but there are things that are not understood about it, which is why it is a theory.



Sand
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26 May 2009, 10:03 pm

SystemDown wrote:
There are a lot of things biologists don't understand about evolution, that's why it is called a theory. It is undisputable that it occurs, but there are things that are not understood about it, which is why it is a theory.


Just as there things about gravity not understood and there is a theory of gravity. Nevertheless, people keep falling down.



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27 May 2009, 12:35 am

Sand wrote:
SystemDown wrote:
There are a lot of things biologists don't understand about evolution, that's why it is called a theory. It is undisputable that it occurs, but there are things that are not understood about it, which is why it is a theory.


Just as there things about gravity not understood and there is a theory of gravity. Nevertheless, people keep falling down.

There's a difference in the degree of acceptance there. Last I checked, nobody had a competing theory of gravity (at the practical, every day level).


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27 May 2009, 2:27 am

John_Browning wrote:
Sand wrote:
SystemDown wrote:
There are a lot of things biologists don't understand about evolution, that's why it is called a theory. It is undisputable that it occurs, but there are things that are not understood about it, which is why it is a theory.


Just as there things about gravity not understood and there is a theory of gravity. Nevertheless, people keep falling down.

There's a difference in the degree of acceptance there. Last I checked, nobody had a competing theory of gravity (at the practical, every day level).

You've obviously never heard of Intelligent Falling.


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Sand
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27 May 2009, 4:54 am

John_Browning wrote:
Sand wrote:
SystemDown wrote:
There are a lot of things biologists don't understand about evolution, that's why it is called a theory. It is undisputable that it occurs, but there are things that are not understood about it, which is why it is a theory.


Just as there things about gravity not understood and there is a theory of gravity. Nevertheless, people keep falling down.

There's a difference in the degree of acceptance there. Last I checked, nobody had a competing theory of gravity (at the practical, every day level).


Since viruses, bacteria, insects and larger animals have been seen to evolve from year to year on an everyday level I have never heard of a data base on God creating new species from scratch on a day to day basis.