Yeah, well, I’m sorry to say this, but the way you see things is often 180 degrees from the way things really are. This is yet another example.
So you’re blaming scientists for your inability to accept reality? Sorry, Adam, that blame belongs to one person and one person only – look in the mirror to find him.
Sure you will. I never had any doubt of that. I gave up on you a long time ago, Adam. I’m hoping to have rational discussions with rational people. You can stay and watch if you want, but if this is the sum total of your input, you’re better off not posting.
By the way, you never did explain why you came back (or at least I never saw you answer any of the numerous people who asked you about it). Did God change His mind about your participation here?
What possible relevance to the truth (if any) of your theory of creation could David’s view have? Either you have a case to support your view or you don’t. From all I’ve seen, you don’t.
Oh, and Adam: Folks here long ago learned that you are unteachable.
I understand it perfectly, as I have explained time and time again. Perhaps it is you who has the comprehension problem (in addition to your apparent inability to control your anger). Indeed, I have said repeatedly that this is precisely what creationism is – a religious belief. Faith, not science. If somebody wants to believe it, that’s their choice. But if they want to claim it’s scientific and/or should be taught in the public schools, that is a giant step beyond. And that is where the problem lies. Understand?
Why on earth do you get the idea that I do?
Because they are “so much more valid,” good friend, at least according to science. And science is what I’m talking about. Get it?
My, my, my. Such anger. I bet your creator wouldn’t approve. All in all, I’m thrilled to hear it. And your opinion means approximately nothing to me right about now. And, frankly, your opinion means pretty much nothing to science either. You want to believe that? Fine, have at it. You or anybody else want to make scientific claims about it? Then you’re going to get called on it. The Straight Dope exists to fight ignorance, not propagate it. Get it? I’m not setting a trap – I’m asking people to back up their claims. I’m not “hunting” anybody. A couple of folks decided they would pontificate on the validity of creationism and evolution, so I gave them a thread to do it. Funny how I haven’t seen anything even approaching evidence from them (or you, for that matter, but I guess you’re too busy thinking up new insults).
If you don’t like the debate, then don’t read Great Debates. From this example, there will certainly be no loss.
Dangit! I meant to include Rousseau’s follow-up in that message, but forgot. So here it is.
Rosseau said:
Gasp! The horror!
Maybe you should start by reading a little more carefully. If somebody tells me they are a creationist purely on faith, then good for them. The problem arises only if they follow that by saying that creationism should be taught in public schools or if they try to attack evolution or promote creationism as science. In fact, a couple of the folks from the Left Behind message board, when they came over here, stated outright that they believed creationism as an issue as faith. That pretty much ended the discussion as far as that went.
Except that most creationists aren’t that honest. They do not admit it is solely based on faith, but try to make scientific claims for it. When they do so, it is perfectly correct to call them on it and ask them to back up their claims, don’t you think?
You judging somebody else’s understanding is amusing. That said, the point was that a couple of folks were posting about creationism being scientific. So I created a thread for them to explain it. I spelled it all out in the OP.
Maybe you need to try to prove how smart you are. I don’t. But I am here to fight ignorance. “Creation science” is ignorance pretending to be truth. I will fight against it.
Noooo. Not inflammatory at all. How could anybody think that?
Again: what possible difference can that make on the validity of your claim? After all, it is the Creationists who wish to have their view taught as scientific fact in the schools. Here’s your chance, as DavidB said way up near the top of the page, for you to prove it is scientific fact.
What I see, now, though, because you are unwilling to postulate your view without first knowing mine, you have no intention of addressing the issue which, of course, is “Creationism: Fact or Fable?” But what you apparently are ready to do, as evidenced by your insistence on knowing by belief, is to attack my belief and not address the actual issue.
As my beliefs can have exactly 0% effect on the validity of the creationists’ account, that belief is irrelevant.
Because there were a couple of other threads that were being invaded by creation/evolution discussions. Rather than send them flying completely off on a tangent, I created this. Yes, Ben had a thread on it, but it was involved with other discussions. This was specifically for creationists to post their alleged evidence, especially since, well, you and Pashley both avoided direct questions about it in those other threads (alas, you’re still doing so here).
You have a lot of nerve complaining that I haven’t contributed hypotheses. My hypotheses are the same as the rest of science. You are the one claiming something different, yet you ignore every request to share them with us. Yes, you have expounded philosophically upon some things, but, as I noted, that seems to put you in the theistic evolution camp. Well, are you? If so, why are you acting like a creationist? If not, why not? Answer a question already!
Indeed. Isn’t it odd that none of the otherwise vocal creationists have actually contributed anything worthwhile here. You know, like the evidence they claim to have? Instead, we’ve seen flames and whines and complaints. But no evidence. Odd, indeed…
I don’t know about other people, but I came kind of late to this board and I don’t have time to read 300+ posts.
~Rousseau
Violence perpetuates violence and ignorance perpetuates ignorance.
When I say ignorance I don’t mean your use of it, but rather YOUR ignorance. This may seem like an insult, and in a way it is, but I rather see it as my opinion.
My problem with the blindness of religion is that as I said before perpetuates ignorance. Because of this characteristic of religion science was pushed back hundreds of years(dark ages anyone?).
Personally I respect religion for many things, morals, guidance etc etc, but I can not stand blind faith.
Religion without science is blind
Science without religion is lame
- Einstein
And in the context of the actual issue at hand in this thread, that of “Creationism: Fact or Fable?” (or “Creationsim: Scientific - Yes or No?”), the correct wording of your cute little quiz above is as follows (Essay remarks in italics are Monty’s):
ONCE AGAIN: How does David’s beliefs factor into the validity of the creationists’ assertions?
If I go into the realm of the empirically unprovable, I must play by their rules. Specifically, it is not only impossible but presumptuous and arrogant for me to claim as empirical, scientific fact that God does not provide love, inspiration, guidance, and comfort to His believers. I cannot prove that God does not come before that which is measureable and deducable.
When you come onto our (adherents to rational, scientific and empirical inquiry) turf, you have to play by our rules. If you want to claim as a legitimate scientific theory you have to compose a falsifiable hypotheses and attempt experiments or offer evidence which would tend to falsify such hypotheses.
If you wish to refute a theory, you must specifically avoid well-understood logical fallacies, notably argument by ignorance and my personal favorite, argument by stupidity: “I don’t understand X, therefore X must be false.”
If you want to claim that you believe in God, and that you ascribe no qualities to Him that are empircially verifiable, then be my guest. Several well-respected collegues here do indeed claim such belief.
If you wish to present actual rational or empirical evidence for a proposition, Rah! Even if your understanding differs completely from mine, I’m interested in hearing about it.
If you just want to claim your belief is fact, regardless of rational evidence, then with all due respect please do it on your own time.
There are plenty of places for you to be as foolish as you wish and people will like you for it, e.g. most Usenet newsgroups. Here, you just expose yourself to ridicule, whether expressed openly or merely from people thinking, “oh here’s a post by X, I won’t bother that idiocy.”
I think the rationalists here have a tendency to give too much benefit of the doubt to obvious Fools. IMHO, life’s too short. Let them post, ignore them, and they’ll either break the rules and the moderators can boot them, or they’ll get bored and go away. Let’s save our energy for the real debates.
Sorry guys. I tried posting a message at about the 40 post count…but it never went through.
David: I came back because this place is literaly addictive to me. And, I’ve changed. Maybe I had to leave, in order to change, but I think even you’d agree that my approach has been different. I like it here. And I’m sure you can’t blame me. Sorry for not answering that question earlier.
You and I have a very different view of reality. There’s no getting around this. Don’t you think that the theory of evolution requires some faith from it’s “followers.” Sure, I know very well that many things can be tested in a lab, and there is plenty of evidence for micro evolution, which I like to call adaptation, or the mighty work of God’s hand. But, 4.5 billion years of what you call evolution cannot be recreated in the lab. You take educated guesses at what happened long ago. You have one piece of a puzzle when you find out about ribozymes, or protein homology (which I admit I am ignorant about), but isn’t there alot that you truly don’t understand? Aren’t you actually relying on faith?
Bored2001: I am a creationist. I think maybe you quoted Mealworm and thought he was me. I (Adam/ARG220) strongly believe that God created every atom in the universe, and created everything for a purpose. It was all done according to His plan, from the first, to the last.
David:
David, what evidence do you want? Can I ask you to look in the mirror? Aren’t you evidence? For a creationist, the “proof is in the pudding.”
For those who believe in evolution: Please answer this honestly. Does it take faith to believe in, at least some parts of the theory of evolution? Whether it’s from Big Bang, or primordial ooze…any part of the spectrum. Might I remind you that this faith is not blind, if you answer yes. But, it is faith, nevertheless.
Monty: That was Trouts, not Tracer. And, yes, you are correct that my beliefs don’t factor into the equation here. That said, I’ll go ahead and answer, though not quite with the easy checkboxes.
Trouts said:
Some do, some don’t. However, simply accepting the theory and fact of evolution has nothing at all to do with God.
Do I deny it? Well, let’s see what my dictionary has to say about that word: “to declare (a statement) untrue; contradict” By this definition, I don’t deny the existence of God, because I wouldn’t declare it untrue, as I don’t think it is possible to know for certain. But the next definition makes things a little stickier: “to refuse to accept as true or right; reject as unfounded, unreal, etc.” By this definition, I do indeed deny the existence of God, because I don’t accept it as true. There are a couple other definitions, but they generally fall into one or the other area like those above.
That one is a definite NO.
Hmmmm. I think you’ve misunderstood a bit. I am not “a man of faith in God,” though there are others here who are definitely religious and have faith in God and still accept evolution without a problem. Where do the creationists differ with them? Because the creationists refuse to accept scientific evidence, instead choosing blind faith in a more-or-less literal reading of their holy book.
But if creationism is based on faith, then it isn’t a theory. That’s the problem- I hear too many creationists going on and on about how scientific and logical creationism is and how stupid evolution is, and if you try to talk to them about it scientifically, they will gladly do so until they realize that they aren’t as smart as they thought they were- at which point they will tell you that you just don’t get the idea of faith, and maybe if you weren’t a self-righteous prick so full of your own intelligence, you’d come to understand how faith works. To be honest, one of the reasons I respect batgirl is because when her explanation of homology failed, she didn’t rant about how I was a dishonest evolutionist and how I didn’t understand that it was all about faith, or that evolution is “just a theory.” Instead, she went off to study the question in order to come up with an intelligent, scientific answer. And it’s worth pointing out that few creationists view creationism as purely a matter of faith until they start losing an argument- that’s how they can argue that creationism is a scientific theory which can be taught in schools, and CalifBoomer has certainly posted links to creationists who argue in that fashion. So I have to say, in conclusion, that your rather insulting attack on David has essentially no basis in reality. Maybe you view creationism as a matter of blind faith rather than of scientific proof, but then again maybe you aren’t the person this thread revolves around.
But I thought that God had told you to leave. So were you wrong about that, or did God change His mind, or what? Yes, you have been different – at least until that message you just posted in this thread.
I certainly won’t disagree with that. I view reality objectively (or at least as objectively as a human can, I think); you view it as an extension of your faith.
No, I don’t. That is a standard creationist ploy, but that doesn’t make it true.
You may call it an “educated guess,” but I call it a perfect example of the way science works. Perhaps if you understood the way science works, you wouldn’t say such things. But we’ve been through that before and I already know that asking you to understand science is somewhat like asking a tree to do algebra.
Sure there is a lot we don’t understand – if we understood everything, science would be over and done with. But that’s the difference between science and religion. In science, if we don’t understand something, we admit it and try to find it out. In religion, if you don’t understand something, you make it up. I’m sorry, but your religion is not terribly far removed from the ancient religions that posited a god for everything because they didn’t understand how anything worked. The sun “rises,” must be a god. It rains, must be a god. Etc.
I think we’ve been pretty clear: The scientific type.
Sure, but that’s not evidence – just a great-looking guy! (Ok, so that’s fantasy. )
I could just as easily say the same thing and ask, “Aren’t you evidence of evolution?” But I bet you wouldn’t accept it.
No. For a creationist, the proof is in the faith. And that’s fine, as long as they leave it there. But when they pretend there is scientific evidence to support them, that’s when I get annoyed.
Evolution is not a “belief.” I don’t “believe in” evolution. I accept it as a fact and scientific theory.
See above. No.
The Big Bang has nothing to do with evolution. And people wonder why I get annoyed with creationists. Hell, you guys don’t even know physics from biology!
No, it is not faith, no matter how much you’d like it to be.
But I see that you have turned the conversation away from its main point, as Monty has pointed out about others, above. Do you have scientific evidence to support your claims for creationism, or do you only have belief and faith?
I am not quite sure where I fit into your little tirade about the treatment of batgirl in the Creationism questions thread, and I am certain that I don’t really care. Perhaps you should save your righteous indignation for those who are impressed by it.
you posted:
This is not entirely correct. I posted on 02-21-2000 04:13 AM with highlights of evidence for evolution (pseudogenes, geographic proximity, jury-rigged design, etc.) and a brief listing of sciences that were based in evolution and a 5 billion year old earth. I requested her explanation of these and asked for evidence supporting her theory. She never responded, but to be fair, I don’t think she ever posted after my post.
Likewise, I have asked you several questions you have not chosen to answer, instead inquiring about the position of others. Since this is a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance, you may assume that most posters hold the current scientific view expounded in textbooks and at sites like http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html This information has been presented to you before, and I recommend you review it to understand my view.
Since your position likely deviates from the current scientific norm, it behooves you to state your belief in order to move a debate forward. It is difficult to determine what you believe, as you post links to places like ICR, you make statements indicating that you agree with evolution, and you wax ineloquently about dogs transforming into rabbits. Outline the CalifBoomerian theory of everything and we can debate the differences from the mainstream.
By the way, I love your little monkey pic, but one piece of friendly advice. If the picture doesn’t reside on your server, I would copy it to your server (if allowed) and reference it from there so as not to “steal” bandwidth. If it is on your server, simply ignore this remark.
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