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Author Topic:   What evidence is needed to change a creationist
Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 6 of 144 (444896)
12-31-2007 10:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lithodid-Man
12-24-2007 3:33 AM


It's almost impossible to change the beliefs of a die-hard Creationist. It does happen from time to time, but we're dealing with a mindset specifically set up to deny that the sky is blue if it disagrees with religious teaching. "If the evidence disagrees with the Bible, the evidence is wrong."
The mountain of evidence disproving 6-day Creation or a young Earth is under constant "attack," with fundamentalists arguing that the evidence is a lie from Satan (or even God as a test of faith), or the typical arguments from ignorance because they simply don't comprehend the evidence. Some even disregard the evidence because of intellectual laziness - the Bible story is just "easier to believe."
I mean, we're talking about a group of people here who choose the stone age mythology of a tiny sect of monotheists over observational evidence and logical inference tested repeatedly in laboratories. Because the stone age mythology is "easier to understand."
Apparently "ease of understanding" is more important than factual accuracy. Hear that, University students? Forget the Periodic Table of the Elements - sure, it's a highly effective and accurate model of the basic building blocks of matter, but it's hard to understand and remember! The old elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water are all we should believe in! Because it's easier!
Our arguments here at EvC and elsewhere are typically not intended to sway an actual Creationist. Rather, the point is to dismantle their arguments over and over again and show the silent lurkers who may be sitting on the fence which side has the weight of evidence, and which side has the weight of a collection of old books that essentially amount to a self-contradictory fairy tale.
The rare occasion where a Creationist is actually swayed typically stems from pointing out the gaps in that person's knowledge. Let's face it, typical High School educations are woefully insufficient for really understanding scientific principles like Evolution, Cosmology or Geology. The reason we have to respond to PRATTs so frequently is that Creationists are constantly lied to, and don't understand enough of the science themselves to comprehend why it's wrong. How many times have we seen Creationists who honestly think that the Theory of Evolution predicts that we should find weird half-bull, half-frog chimeras evolving? Or dogs evolving into cats, or lizards, over the course of as little as a few generations? When the actual Theory of Evolution and its actual predictions are explained to a Creationist who's actually listening and is intelligent enough to comprehend what they're being told, sometimes we can make progress and penetrate the ignorance and the strawmen.
Other times, faith in the Bible/Koran/etc needs to be shaken. The vast majority of those who believe the Bible is literally true have never even read it. The vast majority of those who believe the Bible is an excellent moral guide have never even read it. Is it any surprise that they don't go over the contradictions or ethically disturbing parts in Sunday School? If a Creationist bases his belief on a perfectly literal Bible, showing him the textual history of the books that make it up (with all of the translational errors and other changes that we can actually read, because we have the conflicting versions and can see exactly how the text changed over time) can break the belief in infallibility enough to allow consideration of real evidence. (I was never a Creationist, but my Christianity was eventually dissolved through educating myself about the real history of the books of the Bible, and examining its stories against evidence from the real world regarding things like the Flood.)
These are the things I've seen that can actually convince a Creationist (or the fence-sitters, who are far more often the real targets of the debate). Those like our friend tesla, who say things like "prove we don't exist," are unlikely to be convinced by anything external. Until individuals like him accept that "why" is irrelevant with regard to determining the facts of Cosmology, Geology, and Biology, until they accept that experimentally verified predictions and observational evidence trump the stories they were told as children, it is highly unlikely we can ever change their minds.

Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Lithodid-Man, posted 12-24-2007 3:33 AM Lithodid-Man has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by macaroniandcheese, posted 12-31-2007 11:30 AM Rahvin has not replied
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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 76 of 144 (449066)
01-16-2008 11:00 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by ThreeDogs
01-16-2008 9:52 AM


Re: For the sake of the argument?
You must have the chemicals, etc., to come together naturally, and you must have them at the right moment in proper proportion.
Just a quick note: no, you don't. Chemistry dictates the ratios in a molecule, but that doesn't mean you need to start out with the correct ratio.
For instance: water consists of 2 Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom. Do Hydrogen and Oxygen need to exist in the right proportion for water to form? Do you actually need to posses exactly 2 moles of H for every mole of O?
No. H2O will simply form from the "materials" present, and whatever is left over will just have nothing to combine with.
If I am baking, and my recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar and 2 eggs, but I have exactly 1 cup of sugar and 6 eggs, does that mean I can't follow my recipe? Of course not - the leftover eggs just don't get used.
Formation of organic molecules like proteins re the same way. They do self assemble, through simple chemistry - we've even seen it happen in the lab. The building blocks need to exist, but we know they did from evidence about the ancient Earth and observing similar bodies like Titan (which is full of organic molecules like methane).

Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by ThreeDogs, posted 01-16-2008 9:52 AM ThreeDogs has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 79 of 144 (450514)
01-22-2008 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Volunteer
01-22-2008 11:17 AM


Re: "Creationists do not understand Science."
I may not be a scientist,but I do understand what Robert Jastrow has to say about the Big Bang. As you probably know, Robert Jastrow now sits in Edwin Hubble's chair at Mount Wilson observatory. In addition to serving as the director of Mount Wilson, Jastrow is the founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. His credentials as a scientist are impeccable.
Which means nothing, as it is an appeal to authority. Who a person is is irrelevant to the argument.
Jastrow writes, "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and bibical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." Jastrow, God and the Astronomers,11.
One little similarity is all it takes to match Genesis? Really? So, the whole 6 days thing, the creation of day and night before the Sun, the misordered creation of living things, and all of the other problems with Genesis are irrelevant as long as the Universe has a beginning?!
If that's not a perfect example of special pleading, I don't know what is.
"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth.
No, they found that the universe once existed as a dimentionless point into which all matter and energy were compressed. The word "began" is the product of our limited language and linear existence - since time is one of the dimensions that existed as a single point, it's not possible to describe a "before" for the Bing bang and more than it is possible to ask what is North of the North Pole. This does not invoke a Creator, or even have any relevance to Genesis - the Universe expanded, and is expanding, and we can extrapolate the expansion backwards to a single point. Speculating on additional entities without a specific reason to do so (especially when tying it to a specific entity, the God of Genesis, discounting all other Creation myths) is just that - speculation.
And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover...
How nice. But the root of scientific inquiry is "I don't know," not "I can't know." There is a large difference, and assuming that it is impossible to ever understand the forces at work in the Big Bang is neither scientific nor rational.
That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact." "A Scientist Caught Betwee Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today, August 6,1982.
And all from a respected scientific journal called...oh, wait. No, this was from Christianity Today. Not the most unbiased source, now is it.
By speaking of the supernatural,Jastrow brings to mind the conclusion of Arthur Eddington. Although he found it "repugnant," Eddington admitted, "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural."
Arthur Eddington, The Expanding Universe(New York:Macmillan,1933)178.
And now a quote from 1933? Anything we don't understand looks supernatural...until we examine and understand it. Airplanes would have appeared to be supernatural, and the forces governing their operation unfathomable to the stoneage nomads who invented the Genesis myth.
Even though I'm not a scientist and don't understand science, I guess that I'm in pretty good company believing that God created the universe with a Big Bang.
You're certainly not in bad company. But there is a difference between believing it is so and claiming the evidence supports such an assertion.
It's interesting - Creationists will accept anything a scientist says so long as it agrees with their pre-existing conclusions. The moment a scientist disagrees, suddenly we don't know how the Universe worked in the beginning, suddenly all logical inferences are based on faith, etc. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.

When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Volunteer, posted 01-22-2008 11:17 AM Volunteer has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by Volunteer, posted 01-23-2008 10:59 AM Rahvin has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 85 of 144 (450722)
01-23-2008 11:30 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Volunteer
01-23-2008 10:59 AM


Re: "Creationists do not understand Science."
Now why would Jastrow and Eddington admit that there are "Supernatural" forces at work?
Because some scientists are Christians, and have faith in the existence of the supernatural. That does not mean that it exists, and you'll notice an absence of this sort of speculation in actual scientific journals, where assertions must be backed up with evidence. There is a very large difference between believing in the supernatural and actually proving it to exist. A bare statement from incredulity on the part of a pair of scientists certainly proves nothing whatsoever.
Why couldn't natural forces have produced the universe? Because these scientists know as well as anyone that natural forces were created at the Big Bang. In other words, the Big Bang was the beginning point for the entire physical universe. Time, space, and matter came into existence at that point. There was no natural world or natural law prior to the Big Bang. Since a cause cannot come after its effect, natural forces cannot account for the Big Bang. Therefore, there must be something outside of nature to do the job. And that is exactly what the word supernatural means.
You have a very strong misconception of what Big Bang theory actually states.
No natural forces were "created" at the Big Bang. The Bang was the result of those natural forces, which are a property of the Universe. Our laws of physics are our models of those forces - we create the laws to describe the forces we observe, but there was no need to "set" or "create" the forces in the first place.
Nothing was created in the Big Bang - it simply changed from one form into another. We know that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The Big Bang was the brief period of time where the dimensions of the universe (length, width, height, and time, with the possibility of others) expanded from the single point of the Singularity. There is no "before" the Big Bang, any more than you can say that something is farther North than the North Pole. Time is a dimension, and it existed as a single point in the Singularity along with all of the other dimensions. That single point contained all of the matter and energy we see today, simply in a different form.
There is no actual evidence that suggests anything supernatural about the Big Bang. Appealing to the authority of a single scientist's quote in an almost 30-year-old Christian publication or a quote from 1933 are hardly arguments. Both of the quotes you posted are arguments from incredulity in the first place, meaning they're logically invalid statements on their face.

When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Volunteer, posted 01-23-2008 10:59 AM Volunteer has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 115 of 144 (467970)
05-26-2008 1:14 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by Hawkins
05-26-2008 12:07 AM


What evidence is needed to change a creationist?
To put it short, the same evidence that you want people to "believe in" relativity.
Difficulty itself will not gain any credibility. So in case you have difficulties showing the same evidence, stop calling yourself a scientific theory. Simple as that.
Relativity?
Relativity is one of the most solid theories in science, like the Theory of Gravity or the Theory of Evolution. Are you sure you're talking about what you think you're talking about?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by Hawkins, posted 05-26-2008 12:07 AM Hawkins has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by Hawkins, posted 05-26-2008 1:30 AM Rahvin has not replied

  
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