Inside the Mind of a Creationist (Hope is Alive in California!)

Metro: Silicon Valley Weekly Newspaper ^ | April 21, 2005 | Najeeb Hasan

[Labyrinthos]

You are asking for "objective" evidence of a supernatural event? Why not take it on faith like we have to with macro-evolution?

I'm not going to allow you to change the rules to my "challenge." If you can't follow directions, then don't waste bandwidth with an irrelevant response. With that said, I do appreciate your admission that creationsism is not "science," but rather a "supernatural event." Supernatural events have no place in science class.

[narby]

I wonder what theories will be the norm 200 years from now?

whatever theories there are in 100 years, almost certianly they will be expansions of what is currently understood. Like Newton wasn't "wrong", yet Einstein eclipsed Newton's work, evolution will undoubtedly stand. Yet I'm sure that more details will expand it.

[bigcat32]

I believe in creation and I agree that creation does not belong in the science class however there are many scientific reasons why the theory of macro-evolution is false. These scientific evidences against macro-evolution need to be included in science class.

[narby]

Why not take it on faith like we have to with macro-evolution?

Calling something "faith" doesn't make it so.

Evolution fit's the evidence in hand.

The evidence of religion is that few can agree on exactly what the Bible actually means. Note the various denominations, and the fact that even creationists fall into different camps of old-earth and young-earth, and various forms in between. It's awfully hard to take the few hundred words in the creation stories in Genesis and extrapolate them into what we see around us without different people disagreeing.

But in science, the fields of geology, biology, genetics and more all agree with each other. "Macro" Evolution is how the world works. My belief is that God created Evolution first.

[js1138]

Many of these observations are not factual and some have even been recanted by science - yet they remain part of the logic that produced the theory.

Here are some creationst frauds, at least one of which will show up on every crevo thread, and which are never challenged by creationists.

1. The Cardiff Giant
2. Carl Baugh's Humanus Bauanthropus (Moab Man)
3. The Burdick mantrack
4. W Cooper's Guadeloupe Man:
5. F Naverra's Wood from Noah's Ark
6. Don Patton's Malachite Man
7. Paluxy footprints
8. Calaveras skull
9. Daniel Wirth and the power of prayer over pregnancy
10. The Da Vinci Code
11. The Bible Code
12. ‘Darwin recanted on his deathbed’
13. ‘NASA computers, in calculating the positions of planets, found a missing day and 40 minutes, proving Joshua’s “long day” and Hezekiah’s sundial movement of Joshua 10 and 2 Kings 20.’
14. ‘Moon-Dust thickness proves a young moon’
15. ‘Woolly mammoths were snap frozen during the Flood catastrophe’
16. ‘The Japanese trawler Zuiyo Maru caught a dead plesiosaur near New Zealand’
17. ‘The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall’
18. ‘Women have one more rib than men.’
19. ‘No new species have been produced.’
20. ‘Earth’s axis was vertical before the Flood.’
21. The speed of light has decreased over time
22. ‘Gold chains have been found in coal.’

[narby]

however there are many scientific reasons why the theory of macro-evolution is false.

And all these reasons are promoted by the religious ID promoters, who have all the scientific rigor of the Sierra Club.

Sorry, but there is no genuine scientific challenge to evolution. Science doesn't even recognize the term "macro" evolution, which is a dodge to allow the accepted evidence of evolution to stand, yet still cling to religious dogma.

[Labyrinthos]

You're making me laugh.

[weegee]

I don't want to see the teaching of "creationism" in science class but at the very least, "evolution" should be discussed as an incomplete theory. One author of a science textbook took the greatest outrage at the idea of a sticker being placed on the book calling evolution a theory.

Man made global warming is also a theory.

Did mankind begin in Asia? Africa? How did man get to South America? Boats from the Southern Hemisphere? Walking down from "Canada"?

Piltdown man has since been stricken from the record but once "he" was a crucial link.

Better to admit to students that we DON'T know everything. And to think that they cannot question what they are taught?

I seem to recall being taught about the Greek and Roman gods in school and what they "did", and how other cultures believed the earth was formed/man came to be. It was covered in "world history".

Apart from violating a "trade secret", what would be the harm in sharing the Scientologists' concept of the origins of man (the aliens bringing these negative personality traits to Earth) with students? Not as "fact" but as theory - it might be good protection against the infiltration of Scientology in other areas of schools (under the guise of psychological counseling).

Only those who go through a full "auditing" know the secrets of Scientology (or those who read courtroom transcripts). Not all Christians or Jews (it IS in the Old Testament) subscribe to "creationism" and is "Intelligent Design" lumped together with "144 hours to create the universe, 6,000 year old Earth"? Intelligent Design says that the vast diversity of life that fills the Earth is not a "fluke" (1 in a trillion floating rocks).

If the left truly believes in Darwinism, why is there an Endangered Species Act to protect those lifefroms who's time has come? Adapt or die.

Why is there a social safety net for those who are unable to "fit into" society? Why have same sex adoption for those who are unable (by choice) to procreate?

[Labyrinthos]

PLease reread my "challenge." Again, I'm asking for the creationists to support their position not by attacking evolution, but by providing objective, positive evidence in support of creationsim that is not based upon a huge leap of religious faith.

[narby]

Personally, I believe Darwin was either a misguided research scientist with incorrect assumptions or a calculating fraud.

Darwin merely found evidence to support what many people were already coming to believe at the time. And litteraly 10's of thousands of scientists have re-verified ever since.

There's an old saying about conspiracies, that any with more than one conspirator are bound to be discovered. If Darwin was a calculating fraud, then his conspiracy has been the most successful the earth has ever seen.

[bigcat32]

There are numerous scientific theories against the idea of macro-evolution and they need to be in the classroom. To say that there aren't scientific based theories against evolution is ridiculous.

[bigcat32]

My answer to that challenge is to read a book called "Darwin's Black Box". I think the author's name is Michael Behe. If you're serious about getting an answer to your question you will read this book.

[Non-Sequitur]

Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, taught his followers that black scientists created the white race in a test tube 10,000 years ago. Is that a valid theory to be taught in classrooms, too? If they don't then are they discriminating against black muslims?

[MineralMan]

"He graduated from high school (his mother was his eighth-grade biology teacher), but flunked out of college after a year and a half."

---

Here's the key line in this article. Sorry, but when I'm talking about biological sciences, if the person with whom I am conversing fits this guy's educational description, I'm outa there.

Judging from the rhetoric from some of FR's creationist folks, it's not an atypical educational background.

[william clark]

Wow, if you had taken a little more instruction in philosophy while you were inundating yourself in the physical sciences, you might realize what an absurd statement you just made.

"Supernatural events have no place in science class."

If one postulates that the creation of the world was a supernatural event, then to presume that thesis to be incorrect before expounding the alternative is to presuppose one's conclusion, a violation of the highest principles of both philosophy and science, and one which leads directly to circular reasoning.

Similarly, you might have learned about the concept of ad hominem argumenation, which seems very popular on this thread. But then, that's what bigotry thrives on.

[gobucks]

Simple question: did the universe have a beginning? If so, what evidence exists that indicates the instigation of the universe is 'only' natural? In other words, under what evidentiary basis do you rule out a designer for the Big Bang?

[gobucks]

"Judging from the rhetoric from some of FR's creationist folks, it's not an atypical educational background."

Sometimes highly educated folks get really really good at their brand of rhetoric too ....

[Gritty]

wacko-nut jobs like this do not further a conservative agenda

Who said this had anything to do with furthering the "conservative agenda"?

If you're looking for a political group which believes in fairy tales, go visit DU.

[jwalsh07]

please provide at least one objective piece of evidence to support your view.

Bioengineering. In other words, if man can do it surely it is possible that somebody or something else could do it. ID is a fact, we can do it, we can observe it, we can repeat it. Adaptation and mutation are facts. We can observe them as well.

To accept one and not the other or the possibility of the other in the face of common sense seems kind of silly to me.