Are Creationists shooting themselves in the foot?

This is a question I posed in another thread that can be found here http://EvC Forum: YEC without the bible, possible? -->EvC Forum: YEC without the bible, possible?I was discussing the side-effects of the Young Earth Creationist movement and decided it would make an interesting discussion in and of itself.So my question is as follows:Is Young Earth Creationism doing more harm to its own agenda than good? Two examples I can think of are:1. Turning potential converts away by making it appear that a rejection of scientific knowledge is a prerequisite2. Inflicting doubt among believers by claiming that the only way to interpret the Bible is from a Young Earth Perspective, forcing them to choose between their faith and scientific evidence.What good (for Christians) has the Creationist movement achieved since it started? And does it outweigh the cons?Please share real-life examples if you have any.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

3. If a valid reason to doubt evolution ever did come along, it would be ridiculed as anti-science and associated with creationism. I experienced this a couple of years after I joined the debate. People I respected had always told me that evolution was an obviously false idea promoted by atheists to undermine Genesis. I believed them. Then I joined a debate forum like this one. I found out, over the course of two years, why young earth creationism isn’t a scientifically defensible position. One person in particular, an agnostic biologist, was particularly helpful. He walked me through most of the debate, point by point. After those two years were over, I was ready to reject both creationism and my faith.At that point, out of curiosity, I got a copy of Darwin’s Blackbox from the library. Frankly, that book changed the course of my life. Unlike any of the dozen or so YEC books I had read, Behe took the time to extensively discuss the objections to his work. After reading the book and going through his online articles, I was able to present a reasonably defensible case for intelligent design to the same evolutionary biologist who had shredded my creationist beliefs. Afterwords, I continued to study other aspects of ID and became more open minded about Genesis.

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Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do.

Good point. Given their current track record even a valid argument from them would probably be ignored. Feel free to add any more items to the list. I keep getting references to this book. Sounds like a real eye-opener. I'll have to check it out.

You just shot yourself in the foot.IDists have tried for years to disassociate themselves with biblical creationism. They haven't done a very good job, but they have tried nonetheless. With that single sentence, you've not only associated ID with biblical creationism, but you've shown us that YOU are still trying to cling onto the unsupported beliefs that you were force fed when you were a child.

Don't get your hopes up that much. The entire basis of the book relies entirely on two kinds of ignorance: (A) ignorance of what is and (B) ignorance of what could be. Since this is off topic, let me just briefly tell you what I mean by that.(A) Irreducible complexity relies on ignorance of what is. Behe gave the example of a mouse trap being irreducibly complex because he couldn't imagine or fathom any part of it being removed and still being a mouse trap. As has been pointed out many times now ever since his book came out by the various people in the field, you could remove the board of the mouse trap and still have a viable mouse trap. All you need to do is put the remaining parts on the floor.(B) Irreducible complexity relies on ignorance of what could be. Again, with the mouse trap example. Behe, couldn't imagine or fathom any part of the mouse trap being removed and the remaining parts still have any usefulness to them. As demonstrated by many people ever since the book came out, you could remove the holding bar and have a perfectly good tie clip.To tie this back to the subject at hand, Behe's argument relies on ignorance, not scientific knowledge. As a matter of fact, the entire premise of ID relies entirely on ignorance of the biological systems. This is identical to god-of-the-gaps. If we don't understand something, well there must be an intelligent designer behind it. How is Jupiter's Big Red Spot maintaining itself for centuries? Well, there must have been an intelligent designer behind it.With that said, I'd like to add another example to your list.4. One either must throw away one's creativity and ability to reason or become a liar if one wishes to support the ignorance based concept of creationism and ID.

The topic of this thread is the effectiveness of creationism, not irreducible complexity or Taz's opinions about me. In that light, I think its best to simply point out that the "argument from ignorance" misunderstanding has been pretty widely discussed by the ID camp. If you actually read Behe's argument, it becomes pretty clear than the it takes the form of an inference to the best explanation. (which is based on knowledge, not ignorance)Edited by Fallen, : grammar

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Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do.

The problem is, that in the case of Behe, the old "can't see the forest for the trees" syndrome.. He lets his religious views interfere with his scientific rational. His adherence to ID is just that, an attempt to correlate science with scripture.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Actually, I think both are related to the theme of this thread. I pointed out that not only are the outlook of creationism affected, creationists' intellectual development are hindered by their own doing. That's why creationists are shooting themselves in the foot everytime they indoctrinate their kids. I don't know about you, but if I have children I'd want them to be the best that they possibly can, not hinder their intellectual development by filling their heads with superstitious doctrines written by people thousands of years ago.As far as the part about you, I just wanted to point out how you demonstrated perfectly how the intelligent movement has attracted the creationist crowd and therefore effectively shooting themselves in their collective foot. After all, didn't you say that ID openned your mind again to genesis? That's exactly what IDists claim they don't want.Regarding the irreducible complexity thing, you're refusing to see what my argument is about and instead insisting on focusing on the example. You're staring at the bush instead of examining the forest. Muahahahahahahaha!Again, let me point out what Behe's main argument boils down to. He couldn't think of how the bacterial flagellum could develope over time, so he called it irreducibly complex. Unfortunately for him, biologists have shown for years now how such mechanism could have developed over time and that they have also found simpler mechanisms (earlier versions of the flagellum) that serve other purposes beside propulsion. Like I said, ignorance of what is and ignorance of what could be.Instead of investigating further into the matter and performed honest to god experiments, Behe shot himself in the foot by coming up with the notion of irreducible complexity and stopped doing science. Not only that, IDists and creationists alike collectively shot themselves in their collective intellectual foot by refusing to do real scientific investigation right there and began proclaiming an all-powerful deity magically creating the flagellum as is.The reason I'm bringing this up is because my parents made me shot myself in the foot many times over when I was growing up. Goddunit was the explanation for everything. Can you imagine the kind of hinderance involved in my intellectual development? When I began to read about intelligent design, I saw almost the same arguments used by creationists. They effectively shot themselves in their collective foot by not doing science but instead try to impose their doctrine through the legal process.

I don't understand. How do you go from my statement that "I became open minded about Genesis" to the idea that "intelligent design promotes a creationist view point?" In my opinion, the creationists are very close minded about Genesis, in the same way that I once was. Intelligent design, on the other hand, has nothing to say about Genesis.

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Forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do.

My thought on the matter is as follows. You sounded like the psychic that told me to keep an open mind for her psychic ability to work.But lets suspend my connection there. What do you think about genesis in regard to what ID says?

The percentage of the U.S. population who describe themselves as having no religion has doubled since 1990 (from ~7.5% to ~15%). At the same time, those describing themselves as Christians have decreased as a proportion (from ~85% to ~75%).It's impossible to assess to what extent the creationist movement is responsible for this, and what is down to other factors, but I'm sure that creationism has played a role.It can be taken as an axiom that, in a clash between religion and science, science will triumph in the long term, so it is religion that needs to adapt and (ironically) evolve in order to survive.

We are not making it appear that a rejection of scientific knowledge is a prerequisite. No scientific facts are rejected, or requested to be rejected. I don't think anyone is forced into young earth belief. I would argue that biblical inerrancy is what born again Christians (me), promote.There is no reason to doubt the bible, when we look at scientific facts alone. We have no reason to force the bible to fit evolution when evolution is nowhere near fact.The whole point of being born again is that you give everything to Christ (your life in all areas). It is clear that Christ was the second Adam, according to the NT.It would do far more harm to request that a new Christian believes that Adam was a metaphor, and Christ suffered on behalf of this metaphor. It would do more harm to say that when it says "it was very good", in Genesis, that it meant that cancer and killing, and bloodshed and suffering was, "very good".The world is already full of wishy washy false Christians, watering down the bible, to the point where they actually have churches where they promote that Christ himself was a metaphor.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

No, you're doing you're darndest to conceal it.That's why you feel obliged to mouth tripe about how "evolution is nowhere near fact".The question is, what happens to people duped by this sort of hogwash who subsequently discover that you're not telling the truth?

Let me get this straight YOUNG EARTH creationists actually accept the fact that the earth is old, and that evolution happened and is still happening today? So, populations DON'T change over time? I thought you accepted scientific facts? Don't contradict yourself.

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I hunt for the truth