Actually I’m British.
The issue may be that I’m not sufficiently familiar with which names/events are in Genesis (especially the later chapters) and which are in other books of the Torah.
I beg your pardon Roy. And it’s no lack on your part not to be familiar with the minutiae of Genesis. I’m a survivor of 50 years of diminishing - 80% exported American - fundamentalism.
Lions, tigers and bears? Oh my!
I once saw a YEC claim that the reason lions, tigers and bears (and cheetahs, pronghorns and springboks) didn’t make it to Oz but the marsupials did was that the marsupials, by carrying their young, were able to travel at maximum speed at all times, and weren’t slowed to the speed of their offspring.
Naturally, I asked them how the emus and goannas also got there.
4 Likes
No worries, mate.
1 Like
The problem is the lack of potential falsifications for a worldwide flood. I have yet to hear a YEC describe the types of features a geologic formation would need in order to falsify a recent global flood. Instead, YECs dream up all sorts of nonsense to explain away each and every feature in geology which often contradict one another. A good corollary is Flat Earthers where their individual explanations for different phenomena contradict each other when they are put into a single model, not to mention the absurdity of many of those explanations.
7 Likes
Which is even more infuriating than their lack of actual science in the first place.
2 Likes
They have absolute fundamentalist literalist faith in a text, why do they need science? How can they possibly be re-educated?
Capitalism is the only possible long term remedy. God help us!
Many of your comments fly past me uncomprehended, but this resonates. I’m often reminded that when someone says that it is not about the money, it is about the money. In other words, greed and self interest is the main motivator in life. Where the money goes, so goes the majority of the crowds.
1 Like
Aye Phil. Capitalism ended the slave trade and finally slavery, Nazism, Japanese Militarism, Apartheid, and watered down Leninism-Stalinism where they encroached on democratic capitalism. At present it’s in (US, i.e. dominant) capitalism’s domestic interests to pander to any conservative forces, to reduce tax and regulation. And the time has come for it to fully assert hemispheric dominance, having exposed Europe as second rate. Israel is its perfect proxy, Syria is got incredibly real; Iran next.
And education will continue to trickle down, even in the US, despite the humbling of Harvard. Capitalist education.
There are many cases where YECs change their mind when faced with the overwhelming scientific evidence. The best we can do is show them the evidence as well as the misrepresentations common in YEC arguments. The rest is up to them.
There are cases where YECs acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence for the scientific consensus but still honestly state that they can’t accept it because of their religious beliefs. I actually respect this type of position more than the denial common in YEC. This is a bit of a long quote from Todd Wood’s blog, but all of it is necessary in my opinion. It is worth noting that Todd Wood earned an advanced degree in the biological sciences which means he had to come face to face with this evidence.
I hope this doesn’t turn into a rant, but it might. You have been warned.
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.
I say these things not because I’m crazy or because I’ve “converted” to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I’m motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)
Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn’t make it ultimately true, and it doesn’t mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution. I am motivated to understand God’s creation from what I believe to be a biblical, creationist perspective. Evolution itself is not flawed or without evidence. Please don’t be duped into thinking that somehow evolution itself is a failure. Please don’t idolize your own ability to reason. Faith is enough. If God said it, that should settle it. Maybe that’s not enough for your scoffing professor or your non-Christian friends, but it should be enough for you.
I think that’s all I want to say today. Rant over.
3 Likes
I know Todd’s account. And he and Dembski still believe. Poor guys. Revolutions are over when their enemies are dead. But there will always be reservoirs of fear and deprivation. Has any visitor here ever been de-conditioned?
There will always be people who are attracted to iconoclasms. For example, I’m sure there will always be a few Flat Earthers running around out there for the foreseeable future. Other examples are the Plasma Cosmology crowd, anti-vaxxers, and 5G towers cause viral infections crowd. There seems to be a part of human psychology that finds it rewarding to disagree with the scientific consensus and be part of a perceived persecuted group who holds some scientific truth that only they can see.
2 Likes
Aye, one of evolution’s spandrels.
Thanks. I’m one, starting in highschool and then even more strongly in community college.. I have to say it was the kindness of the profs who took their time explaining it to me–not just the facts. I identified with them and knew they were well motivated. I think there are several on the forum who had similar experiences.
5 Likes
Reminds me of the story told by Mary Schweitzer of dinosaur blood fame who went into her biology classes as a YEC.
In her early 30s, Mary decided to go back to school in her home state, at Montana State University, to earn a teaching certificate. Out of curiosity, she audited a paleontology class taught by Jack Horner, whom she approached at the start of the class.
“I said, ‘I’m a young Earth creationist. I’m going to tell you you’re wrong about evolution,’” she recounts. “And he said, ‘I’m an atheist. Have a seat.’”
She accepted his invitation, and the ensuing semester changed her life. She couldn’t ignore the mounting body of evidence Jack presented that challenged her theories about the history of the world. By the end of the semester, she decided that the theory of evolution and evidence for an ancient planet were better supported than the idea that the earth was only a few thousand years old.
“I knew I wasn’t gonna throw away God,” she explains. “I can’t. I know him personally and I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.” Instead, she came to see her passion for science and her religious beliefs as deeply interconnected—the more she studied the world through a scientific lens, the more it put her faith into perspective.
“It’s a false dichotomy that you can’t do faith and science,” she says. “If we could test and measure God the way we test and measure science, we wouldn’t need faith.”
Mary H. Schweitzer: A Paleontologist Against the Tide • The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
5 Likes
That’s a good one! I never was assertive or condemning, by the way–I only asked them some questions based on the YEC books I’d read. They were really kind. In fact, I felt terrible that I was slowing down the class, but they were careful to listen to me.
I have no belief as strong as Mary. I’m a bit more like a pessimistic Puddleglum.
2 Likes
(In retrospect, I think that my questions were a bit annoying, but in the long run, I was so grateful for their treating me kindly and patiently).
1 Like
Not that I could list out for you. And especially (I suspect) not a sudden change in one dramatic visit. People usually take time to change. Again I can’t (and wouldn’t if I could) list any names, but I have seen posters here post surprising things where I remember thinking … “wait a minute don’t I remember that same poster just a few months or years ago writing something very differently than what I see here and now?” And I don’t recall that surprising change ever being in the direction of them becoming less scientifically aware or less accepting of real science. Of course the stream of those who are not here to learn but are here “mouth only” so-to-speak is readily apparent, and they are easily recognized.
That’s my non-scientific, non-researched, and indeed highly subjective observation I’m left with from spending a few years around here. Maybe it’s just my hopeful confirmation bias flaring up, but I hope it’s more than that.
4 Likes
It took me 40 years of de-reconstruction. From gap theory and anti-evolution for 20 to GAE until I realised it was all unreal history. And I was led in that by my - American - cult. It didn’t come from me, I can’t claim any agency in the matter. My faith continued for another 10 years. Blossomed in the emergent. And died instantly one afternoon.
This site, everything about it. about everyone, is living proof of the total power of evolution. To explore, to progress, to unpurposed “that’ll do” complexity.
The main reasons why I read it and see it as myths and not history is for a few short reasons.
- Science does not support it.
- The bulk of biblical scholarship from top schools don’t support it.
- Plain and simple truth is that it’s just blatantly obviously so. It’s not complex to realize the mud people who got tricked by a flying talking snake inside a garden with magical fruit on a flat world unearth a dome is not literal.
1 Like