# Idiotic Creationist post... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 20, 2001, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127 "2001-08-20T13:41:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/201 "2002-11-22T20:09:59Z")
Having avoided reviewing this thread, I was unaware that I’d been called out as an authority and “refuted” by another poster. So, ignoring the insults in the latter’s post (as **David** asked) but quoting the post containing them to discuss it: > [@](#): > > The idiot polycarp(sp?) appears to try and appease evolutionists by combing it with creation. You can’t. He’s never taken the time to find creationist organizations that can supply him with the insurmountable evidence for a young universe. He’s fallen into the trap that thinking that “most” people believe in millions of years, then it must be true, but he then tries to throw God into the equation. Well, I have read material from ICR and something called _Answers from Genesis_, but you’re right. I’m not interested in deep study of anybody who tries to make the first chapter of the Bible into a cosmology textbook rather than a witness to God’s power and goodness in His act of creation. As for the “trap,” I’m capable of reviewing rates of sedimentation, average rates of igneous flow, and means of radiometric dating and the possible fallacies they can introduce, and I suggest to you that _the evidence of the world that God created_ suggests an origin somewhat in excess of 4,300,000,000 years ago, with significant multicellular life prevalent somewhere around 750,000,000 years ago. If you care to suggest that He was the sort of trickster god who might plant false evidence to deceive people, that’s your privilege – but I won’t believe it of Him. > [@](#): > > If everyhings been evolving over millions of years, then exactly what part does God have? He just happened to wander by our planet and decided to make a nice place for those evolved humans on earth when they die? What does God care about us if he didn’t create us? He didn’t “wander by our planet” – He caused it and the Universe in which it exists to come into being. And I think it’s well within His capabilities to put together a Divine Plan in which things occur in order, in accordance with natural law, over a long period of time. That would include creating us, caring about each and every one of us, and so on. > [@](#): > > Then again, maybe polycarp has some warped version of God creating man millions of years ago, but heres a new problem. Adams lineage can be traced back to 4000BC and the Bible clearly states there was no death before Adam. So apparently theres creatures on this planet for millions of years without ever dying?!? Well, the first question I have is **Cite?**. Where in Scripture does it say that “there was no death before Adam”? Not that he was the first man, or something of that sort, but the exact words you’ve said. Assuming a literal-six-day creation,if God created bacteria on one of the first five days, it would stand to reason that some of them died before Adam was created. Second, and I’m confident you won’t buy into this but for the benefit of third parties following, there’s some strong textual evidence that the _toledoth_ sections of Genesis – the genealogies linking the main “story” portions – were introduced about the time of the return from Exile by a “Priestly redactor” precisely to link the main accounts – Creation and fall, the Flood, and Abraham and the other patriarchs. > [@](#): > > CHrist quoted Genesis, Christ believed in 6 literal days of creation. To throw in millions of years is calling God a liar. Nope. Christ quoted Genesis. I quoted Genesis. I don’t believe in six literal days. Unlike you, Christ was quite capable of taking a story as a story, not insisting on its literal truth value. I’m fairly sure that he never knew a Samaritan man who came across a Jewish mugging victim on the road to Jericho and gave him a helping hand – but that didn’t stop him from **making up** the Parable of the Good Samaritan to teach us a lesson about inclusion and exclusion, and which God favors (a lesson some Christians might do well to look at, based on some posts I’ve seen elsewhere.) Second, if God is the God of Creation, and if Creation bears witness to a vast age as it does, then to insist on **the manmade doctrine of the literalness of Genesis 1** is to call God a liar. I hate playing this game, but **I’m not, you are**. > [@](#): > > Polycarp needs to make a stand to either take the whole Bible as truth or throw it out. To me he’s a spineless weasel whos afraid to stand up for truth against the evolutionists by trying to buddy with them by taking their wacked out dating system. Thanks. I stand for the Bible as truth. I don’t stand for the whole text as a literal history; it neither is nor was intended to be. (You might do well to read a bit on what was considered proper in Classical reportage, as in Greek and Roman writers ascribing speeches to their historical characters well after the event that we **know** were not taken down verbatim, but which express in strong words the points the characters actually made, presumably in similar but not exact words to those written. I stand for God’s truth – as found in the Bible and as found in the world He made. But there’s one more thing you may need to take into account: we have very explicit instructions by the Man Whom we believe to be God Incarnate in human form. And the amount of bile and hatred you’re spewing in defense of Young Earth Creationism is not what He told us to be doing. In His name, I strongly urge you to tone down the polemic language and witness to His love and mercy, as He told us to do. BTW, I count as close online friends two YEC gentlemen who **do** obey their Lord and Savior’s instructions about how to deal with others. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/202 "2002-11-22T20:14:23Z")
I like you, Poly. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/203 "2002-11-22T20:19:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by banjoboy \* > \*\*In case you guys are interested, there’s an organization offering a bung-load of money to the first person that can demonstrate empirically how life can come from non-life. If you evos out there are interested, i’ll send you a copy. 🙂 \*\* And you posted this 14 months after the fact because…? ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/204 "2002-11-22T20:22:43Z")
Me too. Even though I don’t agree with him on his interpretion of things… I’ve never noticed a propensity to invent facts, lie, diliberately misquote, etc to support a faith based opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/205 "2002-11-22T21:43:29Z")
I can’t believe I read this whole thread. I’ll give myself an excuse by saying that I missed it the first time around. I admire the patience you all exhibited. You know who you are. My blood was boiling and I knew that these posts were from over a year ago. Simply amazing. My hats off to you. ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/206 "2002-11-22T21:58:54Z")
“evos”? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/207 "2002-11-22T22:38:20Z")
> [@](#): > > “evos”? Like provos, but using classrooms instead of bullets. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/208 "2002-11-23T02:40:18Z")
Are we not men? We are evos. ---
**Author:** ![hardcore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@hardcore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardcore)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/209 "2002-11-23T03:02:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by banjoboy > \*In case you guys are interested, there’s an organization offering a bung-load of money to the first person that can demonstrate empirically how life can come from non-life. Interestingly enough, there are scientists currently attempting to do something very close to [creating life from non-life](http://www.msnbc.com/news/837988.asp?0cv=CB10/). Hamilton O. Smith, a Nobel laureate, and J. Craig Venter, a famous geneticist, are trying to create a man-made single-celled organism. Of course, even if they are successful, creationists and IDiots will scurry to the next gap in knowledge and demand that _it_ requires supernatural intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/210 "2002-11-23T12:06:29Z")
Interestingly enough, successfully producing life from nonlife in a laboratory quite enhances the philosophical position of IDers. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/211 "2002-11-23T13:18:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Interestingly enough, successfully producing life from nonlife in a laboratory quite enhances the philosophical position of IDers. \*\* Only for those ID’ers that don’t know the processes by which life was created in a laboratory. ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/212 "2002-11-23T15:12:41Z")
I’ll agree with Lib on this one. I don’t think it would be supported really, but I.D.ers will point at this and say, “look, life in the tube… it was **designed**.” They would be right that time, but… ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/213 "2002-11-23T15:31:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Interestingly enough, successfully producing life from nonlife in a laboratory quite enhances the philosophical position of IDers. \*\* Not really: experiments to produce life in a lab (according to what I’ve read) center on creating the correct conditions for life to _occur_, for the building blocks to form by themselves. They’re not building an engine one part at a time, they’re simulating early earth conditions. To my understanding, they’ve been somewhat successful already, having seen basic amino acids form–not life, but the necessary precursors to life as we know it. To offer philosophical support to IDers, some scientist would have to construct life via nanotechnology (or some such), starting from a blueprint of some kind. And even then, it would undercut their argument as much as anything, since it hardly seems godlike to create life if 21st century humans can do it. ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/214 "2002-11-23T15:49:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hansel \* > \*\*Not really: experiments to produce life in a lab (according to what I’ve read) center on creating the correct conditions for life to _occur_, for the building blocks to form by themselves. They’re not building an engine one part at a time, they’re simulating early earth conditions. To my understanding, they’ve been somewhat successful already, having seen basic amino acids form–not life, but the necessary precursors to life as we know it. > > To offer philosophical support to IDers, some scientist would have to construct life via nanotechnology (or some such), starting from a blueprint of some kind. And even then, it would undercut their argument as much as anything, since it hardly seems godlike to create life if 21st century humans can do it. \*\* That is pretty much what this one is… building life artificially. I would agree if they were doing more abiogenesis work, but this time they aren’t. The id position states that the complexity of life implies a designer. Here will be life they can’t point to and say it was designed. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/215 "2002-11-23T17:22:34Z")
The are artificially setting up conditions for life to exist. A tenet of theistic evolutionists, not necessarily IDers. IDers suggest that the designer maniuplates the experiment, I.E that molecular life could not form naturally in ANY condition, and therefore presumes an intelligent manipulator (not necessarily a designer). There is no manipulation, other than setting up ideal conditions. The premise that it strengthens the Iders philosophical position is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/216 "2002-11-23T17:26:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Epimetheus \* > \*\*The are artificially setting up conditions for life to exist. A tenet of theistic evolutionists, not necessarily IDers. IDers suggest that the designer maniuplates the experiment, I.E that molecular life could not form naturally in ANY condition, and therefore presumes an intelligent manipulator (not necessarily a designer). There is no manipulation, other than setting up ideal conditions. The premise that it strengthens the Iders philosophical position is wrong. \*\* Negative. They plan to “manufacture” a life form in this experiment. This is not equivilent to the Miller-Urey Experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/217 "2002-11-23T17:36:43Z")
Well I either totally misread that article, was linked to a different article (yeah, thats the ticket) or something. ☹ Interesting though, I don’t see how it proves ID though, since they say the cells are of a type that have never existed. > [@](#): > > If the experiment works, the microscopic man-made cell will begin feeding and dividing to create a population of cells unlike any previously known to exist Or thats what I read into it, may be my bias. ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/218 "2002-11-23T18:02:27Z")
The arguement could be this. 1. Life itself, and many features of living things are just too complex to have arisen without a designer. 2. Here is an example of a new life form. And look, it had a designer. It isn’t a logically rigorous arguement by any means. In fact, I would judge it as fatally flawed. I still think it would be used though. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/219 "2002-11-23T18:55:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Interestingly enough, successfully producing life from nonlife in a laboratory quite enhances the philosophical position of IDers. \*\* It would depend on the particular IDer. There is at least one I can think of of the top of my head who claims that life is too cpomplex for **humans** to create, therefore it must be designed by a greater intelligence. If (when?) humans **do** succeed in creating life, it would demonstrate that a _divine_ intelligence is not required. And that just opens up a whole can of synthetically-created worms I don’t think many IDers are ready for. ---
**Author:** ![scotth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@scotth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127/220 "2002-11-23T19:09:21Z")
D.F., I see where you are going, but I think you miss the thrust of my arguement. How about this way: 1. If this organism required a creator… 2. Doesn’t that imply that all organisms require a creater? The arguement clearly does not follow, but I could easily see it be forwarded by I.D. proponents precisely because this arguement does not follow in exactly the same manner as many of their other arguements. The scientist are trying to create an organism that has the minimal set of functionality to live (like modern organisms). If the paranthetical is left unsaid, I think you can see where this might lead arguement wise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiotic-creationist-post/77127.md?page=12)