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Author Topic:   YECism: sect or cult?
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 92 of 97 (821076)
10-02-2017 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 84 by ringo
10-01-2017 3:00 PM


Re: Creation Ministries International
Phat writes:
Logic will never replace belief.
ringo writes:
Sure it will. It has for most members of this forum.
Scientists never believe anything.
ringo writes:
Even you have been known to use logic once or twice.
I do better with humor.

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
An atheist is someone who has no invisible means of support~Bishop Fulton J.Sheen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by ringo, posted 10-01-2017 3:00 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by ringo, posted 10-02-2017 11:55 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 93 of 97 (821093)
10-02-2017 11:49 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by Phat
10-01-2017 4:32 PM


Re: Creation Ministries International
Phat writes:
You are just redefining the reality in which you live.
You don't get to redefine reality.
Phat writes:
If you dont hear his trumpeting, its not my fault. He who has an ear...
If you don't hear his trumpeting, it's because he isn't there. He who has an ear can't hear what isn't there.
He who hears what isn't there is often classified as mentally ill.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by Phat, posted 10-01-2017 4:32 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 94 of 97 (821095)
10-02-2017 11:55 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by Phat
10-02-2017 9:05 AM


Re: Creation Ministries International
Phat writes:
Scientists never believe anything.
That isn't true. Scientists often believe in loyalty, courtesy, thrift, courage, cleanliness, etc.
What they don't believe is things that are not evidenced - and especially things that the evidence shows are false.
Belief SHOULD always take a back seat to evidence. That's the only real point here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Phat, posted 10-02-2017 9:05 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(2)
Message 95 of 97 (821096)
10-02-2017 11:57 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by Phat
10-02-2017 8:59 AM


Re: Creative Zoo International
Phat writes:
How can you expect an invisible elephant to show visible evidence?
You could say the same thing about Invisible Bigfoot or Invisible Zeus or Invisible Long John Silver. It's nonsense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Phat, posted 10-02-2017 8:59 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 96 of 97 (827857)
02-02-2018 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
08-23-2017 10:13 AM


RAZD writes:
YECism is fairly young compared to other traditional (denomination) beliefs, a "form of the religious belief of creationism" and my question is whether this "form" is a sect or a cult?
Not really, but then it is obvious that a rejection of the billions of years a Big Bang belief gives, can only be a relatively new rejection since a Big Bang and evolution in and of themselves are relatively new to the scene. Obviously YEC is only a more pronounced and specific form of biblicism, so to speak but before Darwin and billions of years there would be no need to obviously put the emphasis on the age of the earth, life or the universe. So really YEC is not that new I would argue, but is simply belief in the bible stated differently in response to the relatively new views of evolution and big bang.
It seems an overt mistake to say that YEc or creationism, is against Christianity, in the sense that we seek to believe what the Christian bible says. Believing what the Christian bible says is what Christians have done for centuries, and if the Christian bible didn't say what it says about how human kind got here, and doesn't say there was a flood, etc....then before evolution there would have been many Christian views that would differ with those beliefs. But it seems pretentious to me, to say that we are going against Christianity for believing what the bible says, actually happened. That suggests to me, you see blue as red, and red as blue. For if anything, the creationist position holds true to the bible, that God created the universe as it says, and that He was directly involved. For example when it says God walked in the garden, if that is a metaphor, then what does it mean? Are you saying that if I argue God created mankind from dust and brought forth the animals, by creation and if Noah really existed and there was a flood that I am arguing against what the bible says?
Lol.
RAZD writes:
There seems to me to be a fine line between sect and cult, particularly when the beliefs are strongly fundamentalist, insist on having their own facts and interpretations which are at odds with mainstream beliefs and particularly when they are at odds with the reality of the world around us
But then I would say it only represents a false-dichotomy. You basically seem to be stating your case in this topic. "Yec is either P or X".
My answer; neither.
That was easy for an, "ignorant" person.
I don't think "mainstream beliefs" and "reality of the world around us" can be conflated as the same thing. The mainstream intepretation of what facts mean, aren't the "reality" of the world around us when we consider how many times such interpretations can change.
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RAZD writes:
My position is that YECism is a cult that uses convenient lies, comfortable misinformation, and selective half truths mixed with fantasy, and it relies on general uneducated ignorance to push a set of beliefs that are at odds with reality (the earth is not young, there was no flood).
Any more epithets you want to throw in there? idiots perhaps? Sky daddy maybe? Lying, moronic, half-witt, turds?
"Belief" being the operative word. In "reality" this isn't what I am and it isn't what many YECs are. I mean the likes of Dr Sarfati or Russell Humphreys or Sanford or any other number of YECs I can think of, could sink ships with their PHDs. You state as a bare assertion the earth isn't young and there was no flood but to me that isn't, "reality" and to many people it isn't a reality, it is just a conclusion predicated on tenuous, circumstantial evidence not on any operational science which can repeatably show an evolutionary past actually happened.
So the true question is, why do you need to use all of these epithets against YECs?
Is there some fact which means I reject reality if I don't accept billions of years and macro evolution? Not really, every fact I have ever encountered can usually be explained more parsimoniously without them. Certainly evidence of a flood can be qualified in a logical context, as that which cannot fail to follow and if it does follow the antecedent, is then an argued contradiction if claimed to not be evidence.
I am not a YEC technically but I believe we can qualify many types of direct evidence for a flood. With the issue of age, young age or great age and even with evolution, I don't think we are dealing with something that can be argued to be as strongly defined as, "reality". I don't think that is how a hypothesis operates personally. For me all claims about the past fall under "historical" science and it can be shown there is a difference between the kind of science which gives you, "reality" and the hypotheses which merely exist in a conjectural context, to explain non-repeatable, past events.
So then to test something "reality", like down-force, I can repeatably, as with many other people, have a bus corner at 100mph, and a grand prix car with aerodynamics and wing effect, to test it again and again and again. What I can't do is repeat a global flood or repeat the evolution of a feather from a scale, to see if that is how feathers came to be. It isn't to be a liar to reject a scientific explanation of how life came to be, the only ignorance is our ability to conceptualise the miraculous because we are only left with the effects. So then evolution is the best explanation in a scientific context but that doesn't mean that people are obliged to believe it is the correct explanation because it still depends upon the assumption that all things can indeed be explained scientifically, but is a scientific explanation the actual cause of Bomby?
The amazing bombardier beetle - creation.com
Not likely!
CONCLUSION: I think your whole argument is begging-the-question in that it self-grants the conflation of "reality" with your evolutionary worldview. Whether you like it or not, you can call us as many names as you like but there are intelligent, knowledgable people that don't accept your evolutionary worldview is, "reality". Calling us a bunch of names.....well, that's one option but if you AREN'T ignorant, is that really all you've got? A false dichotomy combined with some propaganda?
Okay then.
(P.S. I don't intend to come across harshly but I must say RAZD, your hate-filled rants seem to increase as time goes on, whereas in the past your posts used to be defined as quality-based and objective. What has happened to you? You seem as savage in some of your writings, as the strongest anti-theist, but if you are trying to convince me I am an ignorant, lying so and so, your problem is I happen to know I am not. So then when you stand before God, and are told you are wrong what will you say?)
Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by RAZD, posted 08-23-2017 10:13 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 97 by dwise1, posted 02-03-2018 2:34 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 97 of 97 (827870)
02-03-2018 2:34 AM
Reply to: Message 96 by mike the wiz
02-02-2018 4:33 PM


Scaramucci was on Bill Maher tonight and he did exactly what Republican guests always do: they spout a non-stoppable torrent of words that is intended to prevent any kind of discussion to take place.
And here you are doing the exact-same thing as you always do. Coincidence? No farking way. It's the same as the standard fundamentalist proselytizing trick (which I first encountered in the Jesus Freak Movement circa 1970 and have seen used over and over again, especially by creationists) of demanding that your opponent give excruciatingly detailed answers to questions that we simply do not have the answers to yet (eg, detailed description of the origin of life, the complete details of bacteria evolving into blue whales). A local creationist uses those "unanswerable questions" as his primary MO, yet at one point in a three-way email discussion he admitted that their purpose was to "make you look stupid." Well, I would answer every one of his "unanswerable questions", questions which he emphatically insisted he really really really really wanted to know the answer to. His response? He would immediately lose all interest in that question and throw yet another "unanswerable question" at me. Or else simply run away. But he never ever would attempt to discuss my answer. That that pattern repeated itself over and over again exposes his efforts to be completely dishonest.
Now, this should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer (engineer-speak; sorry). If the truth is on your side, then just simply presenting the truth should be the best strategy. However, if the truth is not on your side, then you have no option but to resort to dishonest tricks.
OK, so just why is it that creationists must constantly resort to dishonest tricks? Everything that creationists do just screams out that the truth is not on their side. Why is that?
Again, I'll share a bit of personal history. Circa 1970 (Jesus Freakery!), I encountered a few YEC claims which appeared bogus at the time:
  • That living fresh-water clams had been carbon-dated to the thousands of years old; at the time I could only be skeptical but once I got an actual reference to the actual source I found that the creationists had lied about what the source had reported (look up "reservoir effect").
  • That a NASA computer had found "Joshua's Lost Day". That one was blatantly bogus since it attributed to computers such magical powers that even in 1970 people with no contact with computers would know to be impossible (curiously, my sister-in-law told me that that claim had been repeated in a Sunday newspaper insert magazine in the late 1980s). BTW, most sites that address this claim are Christian sites exposing it as being false.
Over the next decade, I had lost contact with the Jesus Freak community. In 1981 Duane Gish of the ICR had a presentation at the university where I was stationed, but the duty schedule prevented me from attending. But that got me thinking. If they were still in operation making those claims of having evidence for a young earth, then maybe there was actually something to their claims.
So I started researching their claims. What I found was that their claims were all false. Furthermore, in on-line discussions with creationists, I increasingly found them to resort to outright lies.
In the intervening four-plus decades that I've been involved with "creation science", I have yet to see any creationist present any actual evidence that supports his claims. Gee, why would that be the case? Could it be that you are all just lying out of your asses? Well, that is most certainly where the evidence is pointing.
So when you see us disparaging YEC, we have very good reason to do so. If you have any actual evidence to the contrary, then you must present it ... devoid of your usual dishonest tricks.
So then evolution is the best explanation in a scientific context but that doesn't mean that people are obliged to believe it is the correct explanation because it still depends upon the assumption that all things can indeed be explained scientifically, but is a scientific explanation the actual cause of Bomby?
On a personal level, that is just too funny! You see, my very first conversation with a creationist was at work and it was based on Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR lying about Bomby. I asked Charles whether "lying for the Lord" was part of Christian doctrine (my own Christian training said "no", but who knows what weird shit those fundies might believe?). Well, at San Diego State University, Thwaites and Awbrey taught an actual two-model class in which they gave half the lectures and the staff of then-nearby Institute for Creation Research (ICR) gave the other half. Duane Gish was a principal proponent of the Bomby claim in which the two chemicals would spontaneously explode when mixed together, so Thwaites and Awbrey performed an experiment in the classroom in which they mixed those two chemicals together. No explosion. Gish muttered some kind of excuse that Schildknecht's article, which was in German, had been mis-translated, etc, etc. In spite of that, the claim continued to be published by creationists. You might want to read the NCSE article on that claim, The Bombardier Beetle Myth Exploded.
Later, Charles and I attended a creationist debate pitting Gish & H. Morris versus Thwaites and Awbrey. Before the debate, we browsed the vendor tables and almost all of them were covered with "Bomby" books, something that Charles did not want to see. As we left, Charles was visibly in shock. He kept muttering "We have mountains of evidence. Why didn't they produce it? We have mountains of evidence. Why didn't they produce it?" Read about that, as well as my own position, at Why I Oppose Creation Science (or, How I got to Here from There).
Mike, if you have any actual evidence, why don't you present it? Why do you instead post bullshit lies?
So really YEC is not that new I would argue, but is simply belief in the bible stated differently in response to the relatively new views of evolution and big bang.
No, if you were honest and self-aware, you would know that that is a lie. You do not believe in the Bible. Instead, you believe in what your own particular peculiar beliefs say about the Bible. You do not believe in the Bible, but rather you believe in your own particular and peculiar theology. Even Faith has stated that you need to be properly guided into understanding the Bible, which means that someone schooled in your own particular and peculiar theology needs to be present to instruct you in how to interpret what the Bible says. What do you think would happen if one were to read the Bible without such guidance? That was my case. Reading the Bible is what turned me into an atheist more than half a century ago. And everything I've seen since then, especially the Jesus Freaks and the YECs, only confirm that I had made the right decision way back then.
 
 
 
Mike, in what you write I see an attitude that you believe that a naturalistic explanation of something would disprove God. Could you please verify that? I mean, an actual creationist should have no problem with, say, the origin of life by natural processes.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by mike the wiz, posted 02-02-2018 4:33 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
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