The evolution/creation ANSWER (End!)

How many threads are or have been active on this subject in this last 6 weeks? Ten? Each one comes at it from a minutely different angle than the others, then they all come down to the same thing. Which is: educated people giving reams and reams of information explaining to creationists how and why evolution is a reality, has been proven repeatedly, and in true scientific circles, no debate about the fact of it even exists. The particulars of how it occured, yes. The fact of it occuring is not in dispute, and has not been for a very long time.

On the other side, we have creationists. They pose ridiculous questions, make meaningless assertions, and brush aside everything they can’t explain with a “God made it that way, we can’t know why.” (Let us not forget that, for the most part it appears that most of the believers here do not dispute evolution, they simply accept what is obvious: if God created the earth and all life in it, he apparantly used the mechanism of evolution.)

Why does this debate even exist? Well, the answer lies in another thread question here in Great Debates: why do the religious feel the need to bring others to their belief while atheists do not?

Insecurity.

Here’s the question we must ask when viewing the debate dispassionately: who has an axe to grind? Who has an agenda? Who needs to prove that what they believe is true? Well, there’s no question that the fundamentalist believers do! They preach, proselytize, condemn, judge, etc. They are very concerned with making as many people as possible believe as they do. If they can convince anyone that separate creation is true, that bolsters their belief system, and they are always concerned with everything that bolsters their belief system, and hostile to anything which appears to threaten it.

Do the evolutionists have an agenda? No. People who accept evolution have zero need or reason to persuade anyone, except in the service of reducing the ignorance in the world. But the evolution scientists themselves don’t have any real agenda, apart from the quest for knowledge, like all scientists. They aren’t preaching any religion, they don’t need to have a belief system bolstered, all they want is to understand and explain. There is no particular truth they want, they have no desire for the facts to fit any preconceived notion, they simply want as many facts as they can get. They want as much truth to be revealed as possible. And of course, if they are the revealers of new truth, they will get accolades and career boosts. But not by proving anything preconceived! They only “win” by revealing what IS, not what ANYONE wants to be. And has been pointed out previously, the original evolution scientists were themselves Christian, and had no desire to prove that God did not exist, they simply sought to understand how He did what He did. And many of todays are also believers. They just don’t let that make them ignorant.

This being the case, who has the more trustworthy argument? Who is the more believable advocate? Who is more likely to have truth? The ones who need you to believe with them? The ones who are threatened by information that doesn’t (they THINK) support thier beliefs? The ones who are on a campaign to make others think as they do? Or the ones who are simply trying to increase the understanding and knowledge of the whole human race, without any preconceived ideas of what the answers may be?

It’s kinda like witnesses in a murder trial; who ya gonna believe: the accused found with the bloody knife in his hand, or the innocent bystanding witnesses and forensic scientists?

Well, guess what: OJ was guilty.

So we can stop arguing now that I have laid out who is full of it.

Thank you, and good night.



I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.

C’mon, Stoi, tell us how you really feel.
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(Or do you have a secret agenda?)


Tom~

Evolution is a smoke-screen with the creationist crowd. What they are actually trying to do is have their Christian beliefs declared a scientific fact.

… and the risk of ignoring them is that they wind up getting people elected to critical posts (like school boards) where they can influence the curriculum.

Discarding the teaching of evolution (as in Kansas) is only one of their goals. They would also remove from literature classes any works that do not conform to their standards of what is Right and True.

It’s scarey.

How about a standard answer for the next person who posts the There isn’t any evidence for evil-lution, so you might as well convert to my religion topic. I propose,“dear madame or sir, you are member #(fill in the blank) to pretend to ask for evidence of evolution. Please refer back to the last (fill in the blank-1) topics on the subject for the answer. Thank you and go away.”

Slythe, maybe you could come up with a general form letter for stuff like that. I know alt.folklore.urban had such a form response to post to ignoramuses who wrote messages about things like flowing glass, friend-of-a-friend stories, etc. :slight_smile: I used to have a copy, but alas, no more.

Don’t want credit, “bro”. Send cash. ;).

Hey, David and slythe, maybe we can get Opal to add it to the Flame Mail Generator at the Teeming Millions home page (http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/flamegenerator.html). It also appeared in the latest SD book. It’s pretty funny stuff.

I like that idea! Ok, who’s gonna ask OpalCat? :slight_smile:

I’m a non-militant athiest from Birmingham, Alabama, so I’ve gotten an earful of religious rationalizing over the years, and I know how the religious right will answer the idea that evolutionists have no axe to grind…

“They’re trying to destroy christianity, aren’t they? Trying to promote secular humanism! That’s their axe! Secular humanism! Teach children that they’re animals and they’ll behave like animals!” And so on…

AAron-

I’ve heard of that argument before. That is probably why, according to a poll I’ve seen, more than 80% of the population of American prisons claim to be Secular Humanists. Those people have evil ideas inserted into their heads, and cannot live a law-abiding life, as they have never been taught a real morality, just a simple punishment scenario.

Um, wait, I misread the data. The prison population is overwhelmingly identify themselves as Christians, with evangelical denomination predominating. [sarcastic] Nevermind [/sarcastic]

Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
Homo vult decipi; decipiatur

O.K., I just popped a message off to OpalCat about this.

Your wish is my command (as long as it’s cool)

It’s done.


>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions

Interesting that so far no creationists have responded to this.



I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.

What are we gonna say Stoid? Are we going to argue more? Nah, it’s too much of a hassle, and nobody’s mind is changed anyway.

The day will come when the truth is revealed to all.

Adam


“Life is hard…but God is good”

There isnt’ anything you CAN say, and that’s pretty much the point.



I am #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower.

stoidela: maybe this has surved a purpose after all…no more creationists. you convinced them that evolution is the true religion in this world…
beware, they might write a book about you!

bj0rn :wink:

Sure,there is some things we could say,but like Arg said,everyones mind is closed.

Not everyone’s mind is closed, vanillanice. Just some people.

Open-minded viewpoint: “Let’s look at the world around us, gather as much information as we can, and figure out how things work.”

Closed-minded viewpoint: “I know how things work. Anyone who says otherwise is evil and wrong, and must be working toward some hidden agenda.”

Sound like a familiar debate?


Of course I don’t fit in; I’m part of a better puzzle.

vanillanice:

Oh, the irony!
I’d be willing to bet that between those who have attacked scientific knowledge and those who have defended scientific knowledge, more defenders of science have read creationist tracts than opposers of science have read scientific literature.

(Any bias that may be found in the above statement is purely in the eye of the beholder. < eg > )


Tom~