Hi all, as things are nearing an end, I am finishing my participation with a summary.
Message 1: over a year ago I registered on this forum, a fundamentalist christian young-earth creationist. I started participating in a topic all ready to "prove to some evil evolutionists that creationism was right!" and got utterly destroyed. I was so embarrassed I left the forum and didn't come back. Some time later, thanks in part to seeing what an idiot I was, I am now actually an atheist who accepts the theory of evolution. Should be interesting debating from this new perspective.
This is not the first time I have seen this kind of transformation on this forum, and to be frank, this is one of the reasons I like to participate. Another is that I have learned a lot from debate on other threads - debate with all viewpoints.
The biggest problem that people of faith have, is when their beliefs come into conflict with the hard evidence of reality. Confirmation bias gives way to cognitive dissonance, and cognitive dissonance is resolved by changing ones belief/s. Neither are conducive to an open mind investigation into the ultimate questions of "life, the universe, and everything" (Douglas Adams).
Richard Dawkins has said "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)" (from
Ignorance is No Crime), and he goes on to discuss these in detail and concludes:
quote:
I don't withdraw a word of my initial statement. But I do now think it may have been incomplete. There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under "insane" but which can be more sympathetically characterized by a word like tormented, bullied, or brainwashed. Sincere people who are not ignorant, not stupid, and not wicked can be cruelly torn, almost in two, between the massive evidence of science on the one hand, and their understanding of what their holy book tells them on the other.
I would label this last condition deluded, and note that there are two essential categories
quote:
de•lu•sion -noun
1.
a. The act or process of deluding.
b. The state of being deluded.
2. A false belief or opinion: labored under the delusion that success was at hand.
3. Psychiatry A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness: delusions of persecution.
(American Heritage Dictionary 2009)
First, Delusion
(1b,2), like ignorance, is curable: evidence that the earth is very old can cure one of the false belief in a young earth.
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Second, Delusion
(3), like insanity, may not be curable, certainly it is not easily cured. Holding on to the belief that the earth is young in spite of the mountains of evidence that show the earth to be very old is this kind of delusion.
Delusion is a non-rational state on the borderline between rational and irrational.
Delusion
(1a) is wicked, whether consciously engaged in (ie lying) or unconsciously engaged in (passing on false information to others without verification). When creationist sites engage in passing on information that has been shown to be false they are engaging in this kind of delusion.
It is also noteworthy that these categorizations for denial of the evidence of reality can be extended to other branches of scientific knowledge.
One thing that saddens me is when an ardent theist discards their delusional beliefs, and goes to the other extreme to become an ardent atheist. This may be a psychological reaction as well, like the people that give up smoking becoming the most ardent anti-smokers.
For me, the logical position is agnostic, and this is for the simple reason that there is insufficient evidence pro or con to reach a valid conclusion from evidence. Any other position is either belief or assumption. I came to be an agnostic\deist from being an atheist, when I realized that it was not supported by the evidence.
When it comes to ultimate questions of "life, the universe, and everything" (Douglas Adams), science is adept at determining how things happen, but it is not adept at answering questions like "why is there life in the universe?" This question asks if there is a purpose to life, and that is a discussion better left to philosophy and religion - pursued with an open mind, but not devoid of skepticism.
Next we come to the question of "intelligent design" - the hypothesis that evidence of a causal agent for the creation of "life, the universe, and everything" can be detected.
The major problem I have with ID as it is pursued today is that the proponents are confirmed theists first (Christian, etc) and IDists second
(2). The hypothesis is not pursued with an open mind when the proponents are committed to creationist beliefs: ID Creationism is a branch of creationism (as is YEC and OEC), and it suffers from the same problems that creationism suffers from.
A secondary problem with ID is that the hypothesis is not testable nor falsifiable, and thus it cannot be considered a scientific hypothesis.
If ID were pursued with an open, yet skeptical, mind, unencumbered by any preconceptions, then it would be deism. Deism can be defined as the belief that god/s created the universe as it is. This too is not testable nor falsifiable, and thus it cannot be considered a scientific hypothesis.
Deism is not a branch of science, it is a philosophy and a rather undefined\informal faith. Deism uses science to further understanding of "life, the universe, and everything" ... just as physics uses math to understand physical properties. Physics is not a part of math, deism is not a part of science.
Enjoy.
(1) - See
Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 for some of the evidence that shows the earth is older than YEC beliefs, or to pursue further discussion on this topic.
(2) - See
Is ID properly pursued? for greater detail of my thoughts on ID, or to pursue further discussion on this topic.
Edited by Zen Deist, : footnotes
Edited by Zen Deist, : clrty
™ Version 4.2
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