Does anyone even listen to creationists these days?

[Kadagar_AV]

This is just a quick example of why if someone say they are a creationist 2015, you should just slowly back away... Avoid eye contact... And then just run. Not for your life, of course. They are not muslims. I just mean like, generally run because of sanity reasons.



If you don't bother watching the video, and HELL YES I want to avoid us having to watch idiotic videos to debate.

The main point is:

IF we are intelligently designed, how come the design is so god awful stupid? The video shows how we have inherited physiological traits that today do ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD, but were well functioning when we were back in the ocean...

And then we just kind of rolled on with it, as it worked.

Not because it's intelligently designed, but because it works.



So, any christian fanboy want to step up and have a fight about creation?







* as a sidenote to all non-christians... I can well believe, among another things, that the universe WAS intelligently created. Lots of actual scientific theories would support it, the "We are Sims" one as an example (even if I personally dont put much faith in it, as there surely would be easier ways to calculate than making organisms... ((unless I just believe I am an organism!!??)).

I just find the idea that the CHRISTIAN intelligent design would be "correct" absolutely shocking, as that would go against pretty much everything we have learnt since having sharp minds away from an iron age desert tribe believing society thingy...*

[Fragony]

Even the pope believes in the big-bang theory and evolution.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Eh, that video reminded me of creationist textbooks where they focus on one isolated anatomical feature to try to prove/disprove entire theories of life that cover multiple disciplines.

Such details are, by themselves, useless in disproving much broader theories for the obvious reasons that:

a. They only address a tiny part of the wider theory
b. These fine points are themselves not fully understood, at least not with certainty

Humans are so different from our supposed ocean-based ancestors that there may well be some secondary function which the recurrent laryngeal nerve provides that we do not know of.

Although my argument above would not be sufficient against a comprehensive case which made a systematic attack on creationism; I would say it is enough to dismiss a lone point given in isolation.

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

As I said in a thread not long ago, how do evolutionists reconcile a model which grants hundreds of thousands of years to human development from our more ape-like ancestors to our present selves; with the fact that agriculture, settlement and civilization appears uniformly across the world (in hugely different and isolated environments) within - according to their dating - around a 10,000 year timeframe?

Why did completely cut-off peoples living in totally different environments all become so smart in what would be - in evolutionary terms - not even a blink of the eye?

[Pannonian]

Eh, that video reminded me of creationist textbooks where they focus on one isolated anatomical feature to try to prove/disprove entire theories of life that cover multiple disciplines.

Such details are, by themselves, useless in disproving much broader theories for the obvious reasons that:

a. They only address a tiny part of the wider theory
b. These fine points are themselves not fully understood, at least not with certainty

Humans are so different from our supposed ocean-based ancestors that there may well be some secondary function which the recurrent laryngeal nerve provides that we do not know of.

Although my argument above would not be sufficient against a comprehensive case which made a systematic attack on creationism; I would say it is enough to dismiss a lone point given in isolation.

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

As I said in a thread not long ago, how do evolutionists reconcile a model which grants hundreds of thousands of years to human development from our more ape-like ancestors to our present selves; with the fact that agriculture, settlement and civilization appears uniformly across the world (in hugely different and isolated environments) within - according to their dating - around a 10,000 year timeframe?

Why did completely cut-off peoples living in totally different environments all become so smart in what would be - in evolutionary terms - not even a blink of the eye?

Agriculture, leading to an ever greater proportion of the population not engaged in producing food but instead producing services or inventing stuff. With writing becoming more complex to keep track of the food surpluses, it's meant that intellectual development can span generations. And just about everything else has collected momentum from these two developments. Food and knowledge.

[Gilrandir]

IF we are intelligently designed, how come the design is so god awful stupid? The video shows how we have inherited physiological traits that today do ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD, but were well functioning when we were back in the ocean...

How can you bemoan the stupidity of the design when you haven't fathomed the purposes a guy above might have in mind for us? What if he has prepared us for marine life after the Second Deluge?

Not because it's intelligently designed, but because it works.

Windows Vista?

So, any christian fanboy want to step up and have a fight about creation?

And now seriously: if you are really inclined to have such a discussion, you wouldn't get any because of the ultimately faulty approach.
Creation (for those who believe in it), as anything written in the Bible, is a matter of faith. Faith doesn't require (indeed doesn't brook) discussions and proof-giving. It is a take it or leave it - either you believe it (without any logical arguments and justifications) or you don't (without ..., er, read above). So those who do won't have any discussions with you, because if they do, well, they aren't faithful and aren't believers.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Agriculture, leading to an ever greater proportion of the population not engaged in producing food but instead producing services or inventing stuff. With writing becoming more complex to keep track of the food surpluses, it's meant that intellectual development can span generations. And just about everything else has collected momentum from these two developments. Food and knowledge.

I meant to present "agriculture, settlement and civilization" as a package, not to suggest that they are not directly related.

This package appears uniformly across the world within a Young Earth Creationist timeframe, indeed it fits very neatly with it. It makes a lot less sense with evolutionary theory, which posits that intelligent humans and proto-humans were roaming the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, during which time they became isolated from each other and were living in totally different environments with different wildlife, foodstuffs, potential crops, climates and demographic pressures - only to inexplicably develop the "package" of agriculture, settlement and civilization at almost once without any common evolutionary pressures.

[Pannonian]

I meant to present "agriculture, settlement and civilization" as a package, not to suggest that they are not directly related.

This package appears uniformly across the world within a Young Earth Creationist timeframe, indeed it fits very neatly with it. It makes a lot less sense with evolutionary theory, which posits that intelligent humans and proto-humans were roaming the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, during which time they became isolated from each other and were living in totally different environments with different wildlife, foodstuffs, potential crops, climates and demographic pressures - only to inexplicably develop the "package" of agriculture, settlement and civilization at almost once without any common evolutionary pressures.

There is a time border in the form of the last Ice Age. If you go by the Diamond idea of how civilisation evolved, you'd need an ice age-free expanse across Eurasia, which AFAIK limits civilisation to the last 10,000 years or so. Give some time for agriculture to be discovered and developed, and the time frame fits the so called young earth numbers fairly reasonably.

[Rhyfelwyr]

There is a time border in the form of the last Ice Age. If you go by the Diamond idea of how civilisation evolved, you'd need an ice age-free expanse across Eurasia, which AFAIK limits civilisation to the last 10,000 years or so. Give some time for agriculture to be discovered and developed, and the time frame fits the so called young earth numbers fairly reasonably.

There was no shortage of temperate, desert and tropical regions during the last Ice Age, all with their own ecosystems and evolutionary pressures, and all of which had been present in inhabited areas for hundreds of thousands of years (according to secular timeframes). Why then the sudden advent of civilization?

[CBR]

There was no shortage of temperate, desert and tropical regions during the last Ice Age, all with their own ecosystems and evolutionary pressures, and all of which had been present in inhabited areas for hundreds of thousands of years (according to secular timeframes). Why then the sudden advent of civilization?

Was Agriculture Impossible During the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? (pdf)

Nonetheless, we propose that much about the origin of agriculture can be understood in terms of two propositions: Agriculture Was Impossible During The Last Glacial. During the last glacial, climates were variable and very dry over large areas. Atmospheric levels of CO2 were low. Probably most important, last-glacial climates were characterized by high-amplitude fluctuations on time scales of a decade or less to a millennium. Because agricultural subsistence systems are vulnerable to weather extremes, and because the cultural evolution of subsistence systems making heavy, specialized, use of plant resources occurs relatively slowly, agriculture could not evolve.

Constraints on the Development of Agriculture (pdf)

The development of agriculture was limited by external constraints, mainly climate, before the Holocene and mainly by social institutions after that. Population size and growth was important but ultimately did not determine where and why agriculture evolved.

[Rhyfelwyr]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?

[Pannonian]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?

The various crop + stock combos need to get from place to place, hence Eurasia being the powerhouse of civilisation. If Eurasia isn't hospitable enough, there is no spread of agriculture.

[Rhyfelwyr]

The various crop + stock combos need to get from place to place, hence Eurasia being the powerhouse of civilisation. If Eurasia isn't hospitable enough, there is no spread of agriculture.

Agriculture developed independently and at around the same time in Australia, Papua, the Americas and the Far East from what I have read.

That it happened to lead to civilization in the ancient Near East is I believe to do with the requirements of hosting agriculture in such a place. Max Weber says a fair bit about this - building the irrigation canals in Mesopotamia that were necessary for agriculture meant people had to band together under leaders and develop a system of almost slave labour. This process didn't happen in places that could rely on rainfall etc.

[Kralizec]

The creation and evolution debate by nature covers a tonne of different disciplines - to claim victory on the grounds of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is clearly ridiculous. Worthwhile arguments must look at the bigger picture if they are to make a serious challenge to the foundations of creationist or evolutionist theory.

A fairly well known example is the evolution of the eyeball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

The eyes of squids and octopuses don't have a blind spot like vertebrates do, because the nerve endings are on the rear side of the retina. Which makes complete sense, and which begs the question why this feature hasn't been incorporated in vertebrates.

I'd expect that an expert could name many more examples on the top of his head. These two just happen to be examples that are easily understood by laymen.

[Major Robert Dump]

I do because I am in the Philippines and these girls are so hot, and even the conservative ones dress in pretty much nothing because of the high temperature, and I would totally pretend to believe in god and go to church every sunday and doom my kids to Catholicism if it meant I was allowed to touch her with my penis even for like 4 seconds twice a week with the lights off. It is insane here. Death to America.

[Major Robert Dump]

Yes of course I believe we are not related to primates

[Major Robert Dump]

No really I do

[Montmorency]

Most "anti-creationists" are themselves creationists of a different sort, insofar as they uphold the validity of a "design stance".

[CBR]

CBR, good argument. But aren't a lot of crops grown globally in very different climates?

Today, yes, but it does not look like agriculture popped up in all types of climate at the same time. There seem to have been numerous preagricultural permanent settlements, yet not all grew into the bigger types of civilizations e.g. the big river cultures.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

[Greyblades]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

Mostly in our minds? Perhaps, most of the time I dont really care what people believe when they keep it to themselves and dont harm anyone.

Things get a bit different when they start meddling in kid's education.

Or get on US science councils.

[Ironside]

Agriculture developed independently and at around the same time in Australia, Papua, the Americas and the Far East from what I have read.

That it happened to lead to civilization in the ancient Near East is I believe to do with the requirements of hosting agriculture in such a place. Max Weber says a fair bit about this - building the irrigation canals in Mesopotamia that were necessary for agriculture meant people had to band together under leaders and develop a system of almost slave labour. This process didn't happen in places that could rely on rainfall etc.

A small note, around the same time in this context are more than 2000 years. While small on the huge time scale, it is still calling the birth of you and Jesus a co-current event.

Another evolution thing. Most proteins are shared between species. That means that they do the same function, but are only similar in look. That's very stupid from an optimization viewpoint, but makes a lot of sense from a random chance and "good enough" principle.

[Gilrandir]

Outside the US I think Creationism mostly exists in the minds of its opponents, I get pretty sick of the whole "do you believe in evolution?" question when people find I out I believe in God and want him to send me back in time to save the Roman Empire so we can all have jetpacks and have colonies on Saturn's moons.

In fact, creationism and evolutionism don't contradict each other. The solution that welds them together is to say that the world was created and then all living beings started evolutioning.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.

The anwser is the same as the one to the question "Why did they need Godfather 2?" Because it is the sequel. In case of movies and books the purpose is to get money, in case of testaments it is to get larger flocks of worshippers.

[Husar]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?

I'd call the new testament more a shift in policy as to how you can get to heaven. It does not entirely invalidate the old testament. The prophecies are still relevant as quite a few of them are said to be fulfilled in the new testament, the old testament is seen as a perfectly valid historical document and so on. What changes is that the old testament says you have to sacrifice sheep in order to have your sins forgiven while Jesus says you can only get to heaven if you accept him as your lord and saviour and he will forgive your sins. Therein lies the big change. The old testament is not imperfect, it just contains some outdated rules of behavior that a christian would/should not follow anymore. Take this example where Jesus more or less seems to say that doing some work on a sabbath is okay if you're hungry for example:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/comme...e-sabbath.html

The jewish rules said the quiet on sabbath has to be obeyed but Jesus says the quiet was made so that people can rest, to benefit the people, not to force people to do nothing. He does not invalidate the old law, he just gives an interpretation of the spirit of the law that changes the way in which the old law should be applied. There's a change, some invalidation, some reinterpretation but not a complete invalidation, even some validation of prophecies as I said, Jesus is supposed to be the messiah who was prophesied in the old testament after all (jews would disagree of course).

[Gilrandir]

The old testament is not imperfect, it just contains some outdated rules of behavior that a christian would/should not follow anymore.

I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

[Fragony]

I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

I can think of a book that needs that a whole lot more

[Husar]

I would say that the new testament contains tenets that badly need updating now.

But wouldn't it be god's decision when to update his rules and when not? Certain rules seem to be unchangeable, such as certain sins which prevent you from going to heaven and so on. What has changed is mostly how you can reach forgiveness for your sins.

If there is a god who is all powerful (which is the whole point of christianity and judaism) then it would be useless for a human to demand change as the all-powerful god could just throw you into hell and there'd be nothing you very limited powerless human could do about it.
And that's why such demands are ultimately silly and useless. They only make sense from a perspective that the god doesn't exist anyway and the rules are therefore man-made. But why would a believer put any stock in the demands coming from such a perspective? Why listen to the demands of someone who is a sinner, corrupted by the devil and pretty much nothing compared to the all-powerful god who you serve and who will always have your best interests in mind?

The indirect atheist assumption that deep down all the believers are actually atheists and need to go with atheist social pressures somehow seems pretty naive to me. Quite a few christians believe that the atheists and others will want to persecute and kill them in the end times anyway and any signs of that just mean they are closer to meeting their lord, which is their ultimate goal.

I know, the catholic church is quite different, but where I come from, most of them are hardly considered true believers anyway.

[Rhyfelwyr]

You know, I never really understood why christians are creationists.

I mean creationism is from the old testament and the entire premise of chrsitianity kinda relies on the idea that the old testament is imperfect, otherwise what's the point of the new one.
So why is this part of the imperfect old testement being considered perfect truth when faced with irreputable evidence of it being false?

The Old Testament is just as infallible as the New. The reason we have the two testaments is that the Old prophesied of Christ, while the New revealed him. Christians do not believe that the Old Testament is somehow faulty, we* believe it to be divinely inspired and free from error.

* naturally, I don't speak for all Christians, just what I see as the historic and correct Christian position

[Gilrandir]

But wouldn't it be god's decision when to update his rules and when not?

If there is a god who is all powerful (which is the whole point of christianity and judaism) then it would be useless for a human to demand change as the all-powerful god could just throw you into hell and there'd be nothing you very limited powerless human could do about it.

There is not a line in the new testament written by God, Jesus Christ or even his family. I think you know (in case you don't you can dig deeper) that there had been around a dozen gospels (including Judas') before some hundred years after Christ's death 4 of them were chosen as the best ones (sincerely, I don't know the criteria appiled for the choice) to form the bulk and basis of the new testament. Evidently, this choice was made by humans. Consequently, if the book is in fact a collection of hearsay and was subject to human editing, why not edit it again (and say God ruled it through some revealtion or other)?

[Husar]

There is not a line in the new testament written by God, Jesus Christ or even his family. I think you know (in case you don't you can dig deeper) that there had been around a dozen gospels (including Judas') before some hundred years after Christ's death 4 of them were chosen as the best ones (sincerely, I don't know the criteria appiled for the choice) to form the bulk and basis of the new testament. Evidently, this choice was made by humans. Consequently, if the book is in fact a collection of hearsay and was subject to human editing, why not edit it again (and say God ruled it through some revealtion or other)?

Well, if you believe that the book is the literal truth and the word of God, then it was divinely inspired, both the writing and the selection of what to include in it, although I have never heard how modern christians exactly justify the selection.
Your last suggestion only works for Christians if someone actually did get a divine inspiration to do so because otherwise they would be a false prophet who is intentionally misleading people in service of the devil. Not exactly something you should suggest to a believer.
The bible also says that one should be wary of such false prophets and check the things people preach against the teachings of the bible, so getting such a change accepted in the more literal/fundamentalist christian circles would be quite hard.
To me it sounds like a pretty strange idea though and not like something an atheist could just do and get a lot of people to actually believe in it. Unless you want to dedicate your life to your new christianity and become its guru or something like that. But even then most would probably think you're a devil-worshipping sect of apostates or so. The modern world has already brought about all these kinds of "spirituality" where god becomes more abstract and where the judeo-christian ideas are mixed with east asian religious/philosophical ideas and so on but to fundamentalist believers that's just the so-called "new age" scheme the devil came up with to distract more people from the right path.

Overall it seems as though capitalism and consumerism or the false god mammon as the bible may call it are also really good at drawing people away from devoting their lives to serving god. Although with turbo-capitalism and the whole burnout thing, some people are apparently looking back to when things were more relaxed and life wasn't about being able to afford the next golden Apple calf Watch by next year.

[Gilrandir]

Well, if you believe that the book is the literal truth and the word of God, then it was divinely inspired, both the writing and the selection of what to include in it, although I have never heard how modern christians exactly justify the selection.

If they justify it somehow (which I don't know either), they could extend this justification to at least some modern attempts at updating. Unfortunatley (or fortunately, who knows), religions are all about tradition, keeping, preserving and not swerving from. Any attempts to do the opposite are considered heresy and treated correspondingly.

Your last suggestion only works for Christians if someone actually did get a divine inspiration to do so because otherwise they would be a false prophet who is intentionally misleading people in service of the devil. Not exactly something you should suggest to a believer.
The bible also says that one should be wary of such false prophets and check the things people preach against the teachings of the bible, so getting such a change accepted in the more literal/fundamentalist christian circles would be quite hard.

Like I said, copyright enforcement: listen only to me, and if you listen to others you are a recreant. But it has one more dimension to it: all prophets are extinct and anyone in the future who will pretend to be one is not. As if times around 0 AD abounded in prophets and they have become increasingly scarce since then and eventually modern era is barren and arid.