15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense [THE FINAL DEBUNKING]

Scientific American ^ | 17 June 2002 | John Rennie

[jlogajan]

Very nice ad hominem. Trouble is, it doesn't explain away the fossil record, nor does it explain who created the creator. Keep trying. You might get back on subject and actually offer something of relevance -- the closest thing to a miracle I can think of.

[VadeRetro]

It doesn't take a PhD in geology to "know" that one can fold layers of soft, wet, mud, sand and silt. You can't fold a solid rock. Even if you could, how would you maintain the fairly uniform layers? Over millions of years, wouldn't you expect to find thicker deposits of newer layers at the bottom of the folds? Those sedimentary layers I mentioned are uniform in thickness were folded while they were wet and soft. I said nothing that violates physics.

I probably did get a little testy last night. My apologies. I shouldn't post to other people while I'm posting to AndrewC.

Yes, you can fold solid rock. You don't need catastrophism (and catastrophism produces wrong results anyway) because we can observe and measure the very tectonic forces that moved the continents around still moving and warping them today. The Himalayas are still measurably rising right now, just as fast as they ever were. The sea floors are measurably spreading, right now. Over geologic time scales, the rates of change we have now are enough to produce the history of continental drift and collision you see on pages like this one. The links on the left of the page give you a map series from the late Precambrian.

Well, are you able to look at a piece of evidence without viewing it through the eyes of an evolutionist? When you see a fossil, what to you see? Is your view of the existance of the fossil not affected by your presupposion of the truth of evolution?

I assume the fossil is the surviving physical trace of some ancient life form.

I've already said that I see the fossil differently. I do not deny it's existance. For me, I believe the fossil got that way differently than you say it did.

This seems rather cagily phrased. Are you saying the fossil was created in the ground--faked?--as opposed to being what it looks like? I've heard of the Omphalos hypothesis, frequently satirized as Last Thursdayism. You can go there if you want. It can't be disproven, but they'll teach it in science classes over my dead body.

[AndrewC]

And Genesis is not a scientific description of the origins of the universe.

True, but irrelevant to your error.

[AndrewC]

You are welcome. I must attend business and will be incommunicado for a while.

[jlogajan]

Feel free to explain how acceleration and gravity are identical and yet one is constant at all vertical displacements and one varies with the inverse square of the displacement.

[Junior]

No error. The fellow wished to know what the Biblical value of pi was, so I posted the exact reference. Hey, I don't write this stuff, I just report it.

[AndrewC]

Feel free to explain how acceleration and gravity are identical

I'm sorry to inform you that identical and equivalent are 2 different words.

The question was

I have a question for you. Is acceleration mathematically equivalent to gravity?

If you don't like the General Relativity part, go dig up Einstein and argue with him.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Works for me.

[yendu bwam]

Most conservatives oppose abortion. But think nothing of the death penalty or killing someone they dislike

Well, that's because in the minds of many, killing a wholly innocent partly or fully formed child is fundamentally different from killing a serial child rapist or a cop killer or a mass murderer. You may not be able to see the difference, but most people do. (I am against both, but I can clearly see the difference between the two!) What's harder to explain are those (liberals) who are up in arms about the death penalty (saving serial child rapists), while promoting and supporting things like partial birth abortion and even letting babies die after they're born, if they were born during an abortion procedure. For them, things like second hand smoke are more important.

[Doctor Stochastic]

(Darwin started his search with the question of how things could exist without God: Not as an indifferent scientist).

Could you post a reference where Darwin says this is his starting point?

[yendu bwam]

Hey Newcats - Can't find other examples you posted. If you repost, will be happy to respond! yendu b.

[yendu bwam]

Hey Jlogajan - They're equivalent in that if you were in a closed space, you couldn't tell if the force holding you to the floor came from being accelerated, or from gravity (absent tidal gravity considerations in a non-uniform field). See books on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity - you'll truly fund them interesting.

[yendu bwam]

You're winning converts to Christianity right and left. You are truly doing the Lord's work. Keep it up. The Churches will be overflowing soon and new construction will have to start in earnest.

Hey Jlogjan - Christianity implores people to do good and be their best and most selfless in life. Why so much scorn for it?

[yendu bwam]

I mean, who the hell wants to live that way? Why would anybody in ancient Rome want to live that way? The decision to become a Christian, once the opportunity presented itself, was probably the easiest decision anybody in Rome ever made.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

[newcats]

Hey Newcats - Can't find other examples you posted. If you repost, will be happy to respond!

Very easy to follow a thread back, but here it is for you....
"Like thou shall not kill? Love thy neighbor as thyself? The good Samaratan? ANY of the Beatitudes? Please give me examples....."

You talked about the first one.

[VadeRetro]

You're assuming God is no wiser or capable than you are. You're also assuming you can deduce in your mind the purposes God had for doing the things He did and allowing the things He allowed. Your standard is your own competence and intelligence. You cannot rise above it.

This looks a little like Arthur C. Clarke's statement, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Let's take a look at an intriguing parallel.

The Kevin Curry paraphrase: "The intervention of a sufficiently powerful, knowing, and widespread entity is indistinguishable from . . . no intervention at all."

What strikes me is that, while neither version can be easily disproven, old Arthur's statement had a certain intuitive quality to it. It looks true. People reading it for the first time tend to accept it at once as an insight to the situation.

Kevin's version, on the other hand, makes me scratch my head and say "Why would that be?"

[newcats]

And a few more...just for fun...... Turn the other cheek....love thy enemy.....
In response to yours on killing...does the Bible make exceptions to the 5th Commandment? In fact, are there any exceptions to any of G_d's laws?
Did He just forget to add them?

[yendu bwam]

Well, President BUsh (a conservative) has been going around the country thoughout his whole presidency telling people to "treat a neighbor or shut-in as you would want to be treated yourself". In general, conservatives have more faith in people's good will and neighborliness to solve local societal problems than they do in the state to do so. Welfare, as an example, though well-intented, has had a large part to play in the destruction of the black inner-city family in this country. Many conservative and religious families teach their children to be good Samaritans in situations like car accidents. But people now caution against it, so that you're not sued by people who turn to lawyers (generally supported by liberals) to blame those who were trying to help and save lives.

[scripter]

Regarding the value of pi in 1 Kings 7:23, is a cubit the same length for everyone? The answer is no because a cubit is a unit of linear measure from the elbow to the tip of the middle (or longest) finger, which is different for me and you. Unless somebody can state they know the exact measurement for a cubit thousands of years ago, which nobody can as there is no such exact measurement, it's rather clear approximate measurements are being used here.