Summations Only

Hi ForEverYoung,In my opinion you have hit upon the greatest problem with EvC. Long time evolutionist members do not grant new creationist members the same patience they exhibited when they themselves were new here. They tend to skip right to the chase, brief mentions or references to the relevant information accompanied by sarcasm and derision. Right off the bat the new creationist member is subjected to abuse.In their defense, for evolutionist old timers it can be a tough transition from a thread debating an IamJoseph or a Dawn Bertot or a Robert Byers or a Bolder-dash to a thread debating a newly joined creationist. After a dozen or so times, starting a topic over again from scratch by patiently yet again presenting and explaining the evidence and arguments can be daunting and numbing. But that's no excuse, and the member who recently posted that once you've lost the patience it's time for a vacation was right.But new creationists are not without fault. There's nothing like starting off by confidently asserting error (usually perceived as arrogance) to set people off, any people. It's analogous to walking into a room full of strangers and announcing they're all idiots. Some will try to draw the person aside and explain that the those in the room are people just like them, and that they probably didn't realize how rude and obnoxious they were being by just blurting out their honest opinion, and maybe they could tone it down a bit until they get to know everyone. But others will gang up on the newcomer. You're not observing a problem with this forum but a fact of human nature.If I'm recommending greater patience to evolutionists, then to creationists I'd suggest embracing a well known fact: certainty and knowledge are inversely proportional. When you're certain you're right, that's the time to worry and begin a self-examination of the knowledge you think lies behind that certainty.I clicked on your thread list and I see that you've posted 109 messages in 23 threads for an average of around 5 messages per thread, so you havn't yet engaged much in extended discussion. Plus most of your threads contain at least 2 messages that you haven't yet answered or acknowledged.Evolutionists interested in sticking around had better get used to the fact that the hinterlands are breeding scores of eager young creationists every day. There will always be a near infinite supply.--Percy

Real scientific evidence isn't something you can take or leave. Real scientific evidence is replicable and available to everyone, the only disclaimers being that it might require a certain expertise and access to certain technical apparatus.Discussions not anchored in evidence have no connection to the real world and are not scientific. If you've got real world evidence that we reject I'd like to know what it is. Can you provide an example?--Percy

Religious beliefs are based upon faith. Scientific beliefs are based upon evidence. If you're going to take beliefs you hold on faith into a science forum where beliefs are based upon evidence, what do you think is going to happen?Presumably you'll uncover evidence while conducting your gully research. What would you think of someone who rejected your evidence based upon his religion? You seem to be discouraged that your uninformed opinions are not being treated with the same respect given to opinions supported by the research that, by your own admission, you don't have time for. I don't have time to practice the piano, so would I be justified in demanding as much respect for my playing as a concert pianist? I don't have time to study the Bible, so would I be justified in demanding as much respect for my opinions as a Biblical scholar?My willingness to fault evolutionists for a lack of patience for repetitive creationist arguments is tempered by creationists' lack of patience for learning much about the topics they're discussing, and you've just said you don't have the patience to inform yourself before expressing your opinion. The approach most people here on the science side follow is to understand the degree to which their various beliefs are supported by real world evidence. This helps them avoid expressing opinions with greater confidence than can be justified by their knowledge. The problems with marching into discussions with uninformed opinions seem obvious, regardless of topic or who does it. As one creationist once put it, he felt his religious background had provided him a gun loaded with blanks when it came to battling evolution.Here's a good example of one of your uninformed opinions: Most scientists are not atheists. Most scientists in this country are Christian.But you are absolutely correct in saying that you "don't think any evidence is completely solid." In science everything is tentative, including evidence. A good recent example is the faster-than-light neutrino experiments. While they're not sure yet, they now suspect that the evidence gathering equipment introduced a degree of error. Even evidence can be wrong but our confidence grows as evidence mounts and experiments are replicated, though it never reaches certainty.--Percy

The Methodists and Congregationalists are two protestant denominations that do not take a literally inerrant view of the Bible. The Catholics are closer to your views, but even they reject a completely inerrant Bible. They believe the world and universe are billions of years old, and that the account of the fall is figurative, not literal, though still believing that it does refer to an event at the dawn of mankind, whenever that was.--Percy

How can a literally inerrant Bible contain one account that is correct and another that is incorrect? Shouldn't both accounts agree and be correct?Where in the Bible does it say that Genesis 2 is from Adam's point of view? How come the God and Science website doesn't know that Genesis 2 is from Adam's point of view? Just to pick out one thing that is contradictory, Genesis 1 says that man was created after the animals, while Genesis 2 says he was created before. Sounds like a contradiction to me.One explanation offered for this specific contradiction is that God did create the animals before man, but when God needed to choose a helpmate for man he created more animals of the same kinds he had already created.One can make up these kinds of explanations for any Biblical contradiction, but since the Bible doesn't actually resolve contradictions itself these explanations will vary from one apologist to the next, like the way that the God and Science website doesn't seem to agree with you that Genesis 2 is from Adam's point of view. These types of explanations have a name: post facto rationalizations. Guess it wasn't very compelling. All the other world's religions also have reasons why their canon (not cannon) is correct, and I think they're just as compelling. How exactly was it determined just what God does and doesn't do? Well, then, tell us how you figured out exactly how God does work and think, which presumably you have done since you know that he doesn't work and think like us. <...mouthful of potato chips everywhere...>As Feynman said, the easiest person to fool is yourself. Funny, I didn't see any good reasons in your post, just a lot of wishful rationalizations.--Percy

What proportion of last year's revenue would you like?Maybe you need a sponsor. All your messages could begin with, "And now, Onifre, brought to you by..." It would be followed by one of those commercial videos that can't be skipped, like on Hulu. Your income would be proportional to the number of cheers/jeers you get. Looking at your member rating now...hmmmm...maybe hold off on that Mediterranean cruise right now, at least as a passenger. --Percy

So, just curious, what explains this darker Onifre. Trouble at home? Exploring an edgier comedic persona? Drugs? Boredom?--Percy

The Bible didn't originate and doesn't own morality. Many cultures and religions, even those predating the Bible and even the atheistic former Soviet Union, have morality similar to the Bible.Of course, the Bible also supports genocide and stoning and other cruel and primitive acts, so one can't accept everything in the Bible as moral. So how is one to judge what in the Bible is moral and what is not? As Jar noted, it could only be our innate human sense of morality. Extremely common argument from evangelical Christians: Now *that's* utilitarian!--Percy

WWJD.Can I assume self-flagellation is next? --Percy

Why do you care about Christianity? Isn't it your relationship with God that counts? You don't need Christianity to mediate your relationship with God. We already know this is your position. Repeating it again doesn't help it make any more sense. People have already explained why it doesn't make sense. A meaningful response would explain how it *does* make sense.--Percy

Hi ForEverYoung,Victor Stenger is a well known atheist who has a column in this week's New Scientist titled The God issue: God is a testable hypothesis. I don't share many views with the anti-religion set, but he does have one interesting thing to say that touches on the discussion here: If religion is the source of morality how do you explain the fact that atheistic societies like the former Soviet Union did not experience eruptions of rampant immorality with lying and stealing and fornicating and murder at meteoric rates higher than any other country in the world? Why don't crime rates correlate with levels of atheism? Why doesn't the most atheistic country in Europe (France) have far higher murder rates than the least (Turkey), and why do both have rates less than the United States?I'm not asking for answers to these rhetorical questions. I'm more asking why you're taking a stance that seems so totally disconnected from reality. How can you hope to convince many of a position that requires ignorance of the true state of the world?--Percy

When Paul converted so many to the infant church, he didn't just tell them that Jesus was Lord and Savior and that was that. He used evidence, telling everyone of Jesus' great works and of the miraculous events surrounding the end of his life on Earth. Evidence is important.Whenever, wherever and by whomever ideas are debated, facts and evidence are always at the core. If I wanted to convince someone of the ejection theory, how am I to do that if not with evidence? If someone were to ask me, "By what means did you become convinced of the ejection theory?" what would I say?He who can be convinced of something without evidence can be convinced of anything, which is the point of the Hitchens quote you don't seem to like.--Percy

Maybe you guys should all go to the chat room. I'll hang out there for a few minutes in case anyone wants to show up.AbE: It may be a few minutes for me - this laptop didn't have Java already installed.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE.

Me, Jar and Nwr are in the chat room. The chat button is toward the right hand side of the menu bar at the top of the page.--Percy

Hey, guys, TrueCreation is over in chat. He's a real oldtimer as well as the designer of the EvC Forum graphic.--Percy