Why we should not expect many if any Creationists

What does respecting sincerely held beliefs mean to you? Refraining from stating any position that is different from a creationist's? Accepting without challenge any statement based upon sincerely held beliefs? I hope not.Respecting sincerely held beliefs means not mocking them and so forth. Science constructs its theories upon a foundation of evidence. It is the opposite of giving stories in a book precedence over evidence, as telling anyone who disagrees to go soak their heads is the opposite of respecting sincerely held beliefs. One can only demand respect that will in turn be shared.--Percy

Your stated "position" carries the weight of official policy here, and to take sides on such a basic point of view is definitely disrespectful.Go soak your head is the appropriate response to a similar disrespectful assertion of a point of view, and all the more appropriate when the disrespectful assertion carries the weight of authority, such as for instance by declaring Steno's principle of original horizontality out of bounds at this site on the basis of a highly questionable experiment. Go soak your head means You don't know what you are talking about. And I am not in a position to determine official policy here, you are.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

IOW screw the sincerely held beliefs of others and no respect for them, your beliefs and incredible misunderstandings* should be officially accepted by all."Steno's principle of original horizontality out of bounds at this site" is a tremendous distortion of what Percy actually said.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Before you get out of hand again I'm going to step in as Admin. The behavior you exhibited before your most recent exit was unacceptable and will not be tolerated. All that protected you from suspension was that I was a participant in the threads where the unacceptable behavior was occurring. When you extended your misbehavior to the The Story in the Rocks - Southwestern U.S. thread I issued a Moderator Warning, after which you disappeared. I will not permit you to reappear to continue the same misbehaviors, in any thread whether I'm a participant or not. This is the last warning you will receive.Please, no replies to this message.

No one doubts or even cares if you believe that the Bible is a historical truth. You are of course perfectly free to hold that belief.However pointing out that that belief is simply false and not even supported by what is actually written in the bible stories or that there really isn't even such a thing as "The Bible " or even some universally accepted list of what books make up the Bible is not disrespecting your beliefs but simply fact and reality.The Bible, even in the few places and areas where it mentions things that really are historical (Jerusalem did exist, there really was a diaspora) those things are contained in folktales and fables.The fact is, Faith, (and it is every bit as factually valid as your beliefs) is that your God like all gods and this universe itself will continue to exist only until Brahma awakes. Your God will grow and change and evolve as shown in the Bible stories but once Brahma awakes all this dream will cease to exist until Brahma once again falls asleep and dreams anew.

I could of course assert the traditional position of historical Christianity with as much dogmatic certainty as you have asserted your false dogma but what would be the point?

The point Faith is that there is no disrespect shown to your strongly held beliefs but rather only a presentation of the actual evidence that contradicts and refutes even the traditional position of what you consider as historical Christianity.Remember, the validity of the beliefs and actual beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church are the traditional position of historical Christianity, and in fact is the historical Christianity.

ICANT, that sounds quite like a debate to me. Obviously there are no judges here, but often those 'tellings' include citing evidence, and critiquing the evidence presented by others. I would be quite satisfied to see more debate of that kind here. Perhaps we would see more of that if an event similar to the Dover trial would occur again. Surely you are not arguing that high school debates are the only kinds of debating or legitimate argumentation that might exist. Surely not ICANT.

I disagree with you about both points. It is disrespectful to call my belief a myth when it is regarded by its adherents as historical reality, and you are wrong about the Roman church. The RCC is not historical Christianity and never was. Historically it was a deviation from the true Church that took on its apostate form starting in the seventh century, invented its whole history out of thin air and has bamboozled its members and most of the rest of the world into thinking it's the true Church. You can stop now, jar, why take over this thread with all this anyway?abe: The RCC is really a continuation of the pagan religions of Rome. The fancy garb is from Rome, the mitre resembles that worn by the priests of the pagan god Dagon, the title Pontifex Maximus is the title of the leader of the pagan religions. Practices that have nothing to do with Christianity but derive from paganism include the rosary, lighting candles, the sign of the cross, the monstrance, parading a wooden effigy/idol of a god as the RCC does with the "virgin Mary," praying to the saints, which are nothing but renamed pagan gods and many other things. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Evidence must be the foundation for deciding whether a belief is myth or reality. People are permitted to state their position on such matters without being deemed disrespectful. That brings discussion on this issue to a close.Please, no replies to this message.Edited by Admin, : Grammar.

If case you had not noticed Faith, I was actually the person that started this thread and your posts are great support for my contentions. The topic is "Why we should not expect many if any Creationists" and that can be extended to explain why we should not expect to see many if any so called "Biblical" or "True" Christians and that post is a great example of why those assertions are true.You, and many others, honestly believe your beliefs should be acknowledged as more than just beliefs even when confronted with actual facts.Science on the other hand demands a certain level of honesty AND doubt as well as a willingness to be shown that a position or belief no matter how strongly held, is wrong.This is a site devoted to debating. That means when you post here, even your most strongly held beliefs are open to challenge and critical analysis.It is no more disrespectful to challenge others beliefs than it is to challenge whether or not there was some world-wide flood during the time humans have existed.But such challenges should be supported by reasoning, facts, examples, evidence or logic.It is that basic challenge, the idea that strongly held beliefs should not just be challenged but rather continuously challenged on one side and the idea that strongly held beliefs should be accepted as factual and NOT challenged that creates the conflict and tension between the two groups.But today, particularly today, the means to gather data and present challenges is greater than at any time in the past and the basic democracy of open communications makes it increasing difficult to keep ones strongly held beliefs from being challenged.Thus, the avoidance movement, the retreat from challenge and the lack of both Creationist and Biblical Christian participation at sites like this.Your right to hold such beliefs is secure but there is no right to not have those beliefs challenged.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

That is disrespectful of you to call their belief a myth invented out of thin air, when it is regarded by it's adherents as historical reality, Faith.

Quite so. For one thing, we didn't toss a coin to see who would argue for which position. Well, I didn't. If you did, that might explain where you went wrong.

A second thing: when you debate issues of science, data (evidence) is what counts. Debating tricks/techniques/tactics might appear to carry the issue (such as creationists and their gish gallop, etc.) but those things do not hold up for long in the face of accumulated evidence, which is the forte of science.

Yes I knew when I wrote it that I was setting up that very response. Interesting that the same logic applies whether the belief system is true or false. I have no problem being disrespectful to a false religion that sends people to Hell in the pretense of saving them.And now I expect to get back a similar response, that just as I have no problem disrespecting the RCC, you all have no problem disrespecting my beliefs either. Always a false moral equivalence.As for evidence, I listed some things that the RCC has in common with the pagan religions of Rome, far more things that are recognized to be specifically Catholic than the Bible is, although they also incorporate parts of the Bible into their system. It's possible for a Catholic to be saved by focusing on the Biblical truth to the exclusion of the superstitions, but how many have such a pure focus is hard to know, and unfortunately a great many Catholics rely on the superstitions to save them -- leaving their salvation to the priests for instance, who have no power to save them; praying to "Mary" for instance, who also has no power to save them, and of course isn't the Mary of the Bible anyway; or counting the beads of the rosary as they repeat a formulaic prayer, a prayer that may even derive from the Bible but has no value when repeated over and over, only when prayed from the heart; and in general performing all kinds of mechanical actions as if they could save them.
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All that should be evidence that Catholicism is not based on the Bible and therefore not Christian. What the Reformation did was restore the Bible to its rightful position as the Authority for believers, while condemning all the pagan superstitions as antichristian. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.