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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
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Message 125 of 860 (692443)
03-03-2013 11:03 AM


Coolbeans Shotgunning PMs
Coolbeans has started sending me PMs asking creationist questions that are unrelated to any discussions that we had been involved in. I'm certain that I'm not the only one to be subjected to this.

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


Message 374 of 860 (765985)
08-08-2015 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 372 by Percy
08-08-2015 11:49 AM


Re: Grump, grump
Tangle may be on the right track, but it's only part of the picture.
The pattern that I have seen play over and over again for the past few decades has been that the creationists joining the fray were not experienced veterans, but rather new recruits whose heads had just been filled with nonsense (eg, creationist PRATTs). These new recruits are either recent converts or kids who had been raised in the faith, but mostly new recruits, I would think. Of course, they are not prepared for the truth about their claims. After a few of these encounters, the creationist would eventually learn how worthless his claims are (though there do appear to be a small number who are incapable of learning). A few continue on in the fray, though knowing what claims or discussions to avoid, and some even switch sides after finding their creationist position to be false, but most of them simply leave the fray forever and some possibly even start on the path of losing their faith.
So what are the statistics for new converts? Have they gone down? We do know that fundamentalist/evangelical churches are hemorrhaging their youth they had raised in the faith, such that they're losing 65% to 80%, leaving only one kid in five staying. Most of those youth leave religion altogether, making the unchurched a rapidly growing section of the population.
Without their carefully-trained youth to take up the fight, all the creationists have are the new converts. And if there are far fewer new converts, then there will be far fewer "Christian warriors."
So what are the conversion numbers like nowadays?

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


Message 377 of 860 (765991)
08-08-2015 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 376 by Faith
08-08-2015 8:00 PM


Re: Grump, grump
Aye, it's been done to death.
But part of that is that certain parties refuse to deal with the issues.
Honest evaluation of one's position could prove fruitful.
Edited by dwise1, : Parties, not parts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 376 by Faith, posted 08-08-2015 8:00 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 378 by Faith, posted 08-08-2015 9:42 PM dwise1 has replied

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


Message 379 of 860 (765993)
08-08-2015 10:04 PM
Reply to: Message 378 by Faith
08-08-2015 9:42 PM


Re: Grump, grump
With all due respect, I have often attempted free and open honest discussion with creationists. That has never ended well. No creationist has ever been open to an honest discussion.
Sorry, but that is our experience.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 378 by Faith, posted 08-08-2015 9:42 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(5)
Message 413 of 860 (770930)
10-16-2015 2:28 AM
Reply to: Message 410 by Faith
10-15-2015 11:02 PM


Re: The Undead Argument
Faith, have you ever encountered a person who drove you to the point of having an uncontrollable desire to grab them and shake them awake? Well, Faith, for all of us here, you are that person. Which is why I have promised myself that when I cannot exercise my best judgement, I need to keep well away for any nonsens ... er, ... anything that you post.
I am a retired US Navy Chief Petty Officer, albeit out of 29 years of service in the Navy Reserve, preceded by six years active duty in the US Air Force (which just immediately reduced me in the esteem of fellow sailors, though I would remind them to review the casuality statistics from WWII which show the Army Air Force's casualities to far exceed those of the Navy and US Marine Corps combined -- like everybody else, we have paid our dues many times over in blood). Throughout my decades of service, we NCOs, petty officers, chief petty officers were constantly being trained in the ways of management.
One recurring topic was communication -- if you were starting to fall asleep, now is the time to wake up! All communication involves a communications channel which consists of a transmitter, a medium, and a receiver. For effective communication (ie, the transfer of information) to occur, all elements of the communications channel must be in functioning properly.
Within any communications channel, this gives us three places where communications could break down. First comes the medium. For a worse-case scenario, we are trying to pass the word to all the workers on a factory floor while work is in progress. It's noisy, the acoustics are lousy, and hardly anybody can hear what is being said. So then here the medium is wrong. If The Word is to be passed down verbally, then it should be done in a setting where other auditory distractions are absent. Having written communications is another consideration, especially for those who were absent.
In our case (which I am building), the medium is the forum itself, all in written form, so acoustics should have no meaning.
Admittedly, choosing the next element is very close between the transmitter and the receiver, but since the important one is the transmitter, I shall choose the receiver. Still, it is so very close, since you are yourself a receiver.
Now we have the receiver. The message comes through the channel and whether it is received or not depends on the receiver. That would immediately mean that the message would have had to have been crafted for the receiver. If you are an admiral passing The Word to your unit commanders, then you would have crafted your message for them, but if you're passing The Word to the fighting men on the front lines, then your message would be very different -- think of George C. Scott's speech at the beginning of "Patton", a speech directed at the individual fighting men.
And we also have the receivers to consider, including their perspective, their experience, and their knowledge. For example, if you were giving a brief that included classified information, your presentation would be very different when briefing an audience with a minimum of top secret clearances as opposed to troops with a minimum of confidential. Also (assuming a combat environment), a brief given to the general troops would have to be different than one given to troops who are intimately involved in what's actually going on.
So, IOW, if you try to bullshit somebody who knows better, then they will catch you in your lie each and every time.
Of course, there is also the scenario when the audience is hostile to the message. But that places the onus on the transmitter to send the message in a form that the receivers could consider.
That leaves us with you, the transmitter. If your message isn't getting across, then why is that? The communication medium appears to be clear. The receivers are rejecting it. Why is that? It is in a form that they cannot accept. So what could you do?
I am a dancer, a partner dancer. That means I do partner dancing. In partner dancing, you have a couple who dances and one person is the leader and the other is the follower -- traditionally, a male leads and a female follows, but that can be rather flexible (eg, once for practice a woman tried to lead me in Argentine Tango and I tried to follow). There is a general rule in partner dancing that if something goes wrong then it's the leader's fault -- actually, there are a lot of things that the follower can do to sabotage a move. It wasn't just 28 years of on-the-job training in marriage, but also practicality that prompted me to accept the leader's responsibility. While I can try to lead her, if she doesn't listen then what can I do? Well, I can do my utmost best to lead her as clearly as I possibly can! I have no direct control over her. Eg, in a salsa class in a bar, a drunken woman jumped in to balance the class (typically, it would be two men to one woman). We needed to turn her to her right, but this woman insisted on turning to her left despite all attempts to lead her. Still, even in such extreme conditions, the most that I can do is to provide the best lead that I possibly can.
In less extreme situations, I as a leader (transmitter) would experience situations where the follower (receiver) wasn't receiving the lead (the message) properly. Maybe it was her fault, but what good would it do to blame her? In silver and gold level ballroom, I learned that what sabotages a move can be very subtle; eg, while she seemed to be at fault, it was because she was responding to something subtly wrong in my frame or in my lead, something I was not aware of, but which resulted in a cascade of failure as the entire move fell apart.
From all that I learned that I can only be responsible for what I do. And that I must do that to the best of my ability. I cannot improve my partner, so I must improve myself. I accept responsibility for all problems that arise, since no matter where the fault actually lies I still must always work on improving myself.
Faith, you are the transmitter. The medium is clear. If the receivers are not receiving your message, then you need to transmit it in a form that they can receive.
Never blame your follower! You are the transmitter, so you are the leader. You are responsible for getting your message across. It is not the receivers' responsibility! You cannot do anything about them! You can only do anything about yourself! So do it already!!!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 410 by Faith, posted 10-15-2015 11:02 PM Faith has not replied

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


(2)
Message 417 of 860 (771095)
10-20-2015 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 415 by Admin
10-19-2015 8:44 AM


Re: Free Faith...
I hoped {Faith} might begin seeing some things a little from other people's point of view, but that never happened.
Nor could it ever.
It has been my long-standing personal bias that what drives people away from Christianity is the fact that "creation science" is completely and utterly false. Statistics have shown that 65% to 80% of the youth raised on "creation science"-type theologies are not only fleeing those theologies, but actually running away as fast as they can abandoning all religion in the process.
My own personal prejudice and bias is that the reason for that are the lies their parents and religious leaders had raised them on about science. But former "bathed in the Blood of the Lamb" most fundamentalist Ed Babinski (https://www.facebook.com/edbabinski) posted a blog that says something different.
I do not have a viable link to that original blog. So from memory, that blog verified that college education contributed very heavily towards deconversion. But it wasn't the science education that was at fault, but rather the humanities education.
A fundamentalist student, as well as students from other similarly theologically restrictive backgrounds, has been taught to view everything in a very restrictive manner. The humanities not only includes philosophy but also English Literature. Philosophy courses exposes the students to other ideas, other perspectives. So does literature courses, in which the student must be able to view things through the writer's perspective, which is to say through someone else's perspective.
That blog had cited the novel experience of perceiving something from another perspective as being more damaging to the "fundamentalist" mind than the facts of science.
At all costs, Faith must maintain her own theological focus. To "begin seeing some things a little from other people's point of view" would only weaken her position. Would only weaken it. She cannot allow that to happen, at any cost.
That is her curse. I cannot say that that is any kind of gift.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 418 by Faith, posted 10-20-2015 2:25 AM dwise1 has replied

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


Message 420 of 860 (771098)
10-20-2015 2:54 AM
Reply to: Message 418 by Faith
10-20-2015 2:25 AM


Re: Free Faith...
I sincerely apologize for that post.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 418 by Faith, posted 10-20-2015 2:25 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 421 of 860 (771100)
10-20-2015 3:06 AM
Reply to: Message 418 by Faith
10-20-2015 2:25 AM


Re: Free Faith...
I sincerely apologize for that post.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 418 by Faith, posted 10-20-2015 2:25 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 422 by Faith, posted 10-20-2015 3:21 AM dwise1 has replied

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


(1)
Message 424 of 860 (771114)
10-20-2015 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 418 by Faith
10-20-2015 2:25 AM


Re: Free Faith...
I apologize. I do not remember the last two posts.
However, I believe my original point is still valid regardless of how late in your life you had converted. If anything, conversion as an adult makes for one who is even more strongly entrenched in their separate mentality. An adult who had converted would always know in the back of their mind what ideas or information they must guard against, whereas a child raised on that nonsense would not have those defense mechanisms installed and so be far more vulnerable to having their eyes opened.

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


(1)
Message 425 of 860 (771115)
10-20-2015 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 422 by Faith
10-20-2015 3:21 AM


Re: Free Faith...
And yet there is still an unspoken need for you to reject evolution and science at all costs. Even when you finally work out the truth on your own (such as when you rediscovered for yourself and argued quite well how microevolution leads to macroevolution) you then go to extremes to cover it up (as you then immediately started redefining the world in archetypical lawyer manner).
Someone who has been raised in the faith will navely believe what she had been taught and so be very vulnerable to the effects of reality. However, someone who has converted later in life will know what reality is, even if she denies it, and will know what to guard herself against. And, yes, seeing things from someone else's perspective is part of what you must guard against.
BTW, "Morris, Gish, all those guys" lied to you. True, those lies did agree with what you had come to believe, but they are lies nonetheless.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 422 by Faith, posted 10-20-2015 3:21 AM Faith has not replied

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


Message 631 of 860 (828748)
02-23-2018 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 628 by Coyote
02-22-2018 12:26 PM


Re: Why do we have so few creationists
Lies are lies. Period.
Regardless of whether the person telling the lie does so knowingly or believes that lie to be true, it is still a lie and they are still spreading a lie.
The consequences of telling and spreading a lie is the same whether the person telling and spreading that lie knows it to be a lie or thinks that it's true. The consequences are exactly the same.
The only difference is one of moral judgement, since a person has to know that she is telling a lie in order to be a liar. But that still does not make that lie not a lie. A lie is still a lie and still has the same consequences.
BTW, creationists have indeed been caught deliberately lying. On a Yahoo Groups forum (ruined when the moderators dropped out leaving only one moderator, a creationist, who immediately turned it into his own private dictatorship), a creationist tried to use the sea sodium claim, so I corrected him and he fully admitted that that claim was false. Then a few weeks later there he was using that exact same claim on a new-comer, that exact same claim that he knew was false and had admitted was false. When I reminded him of that, he ran away.
Similarly, in their two-models class when Duane Gish was the guest speaker, Thwaites and Awbrey refuted Gish's bombadier beetle claim by mixing those two chemicals together and, lo and behold, they did not explode spontaneously as Gish had claimed. Gish acknowledged that his claim was wrong, but then he continued to use that same false claim with the full knowledge that it was false; ie, he was deliberately lying. Since then the ICR has reworded that claim slightly.
In 1981 on a PBS-TV program, Duane Gish made up lie on the air. In response to Dr. Doolittle's story of comparing human proteins with chimpanzee proteins and trying to find a protein that was different (they did finally find one, but not before rumors had started that the differences between humans and chimps were purely cultural{grin}), Gish claimed to have evidence of a protein that shows humans and bullfrogs to be more closely related. When asked about it, Gish insisted that it did exist and that he had documentation of it. When asked for that documentation, Gish insisted that that documentation existed and that he would send a copy of it. Of course, he never delivered on that promise. Then he found excuses to absolve himself of the responsibility to support his obviously false claim. It turned out that his source was a joke he had once overheard (seriously!). This was a case of Gish deliberately lying. For more information including actual quotes, read my page, THE BULLFROG AFFAIR.
On that same page is the story of Walter Brown's rattlesnake protein claim, which is another deliberate lie. He had to word it very precisely in order to claim it to be technically true. Then when he was observed telling a group that false claim, the observer, Robert Kenney, started to explain the truth about the claim, whereupon Brown immediately changed the subject. Walter Brown knew full well that he was lying.
Leading up to that, Robert Kenney had gone to the ICR in order to ask Gish for the documentation of his false protein comparison claims. Noticing a copy of the article which refuted those claims, Gish referred him to former biologist Gary Parker, whom Kenney could never find, not even at his scheduled office hours.
The ICR promised to send Kenney that documentation, which of course never happened. Deliberate covering up of their deliberate lies.
In his false moondust claim, Henry Morris falsely claimed that his source was a "1976" NASA document, when in reality his source was another creationist, Harold Slusher, who misquoted that 1965 NASA document as well as misrepresenting its publication date -- that "1976" date was very important to Morris because he was trying to refute the observation that creationists keep using out-of-date sources. When I wrote to Morris with questions, Gish responded. When I found the NASA document in the university library and learned the truth, I wrote to Gish with a xerox copy of the document's cover. Gish insisted on the "1976" date. I wrote back with the same xerox copies and Gish never replied again. Two astronomers went through the same evolution only with Henry Morris and they got the same bum's rush. A year or two later, I went to a local Gish presentation after which I asked him about that claim. He feigned complete ignorance of it, but took down my name and address to send me the information I requested. Suddenly my subscription to the ICR newsletter, Acts & Facts, was cancelled -- even Dr. Eugenie Scott was shocked that Gish would sink so low as to do that. Again, deliberate lies and cover-ups of their lies. See my page, MOON DUST.
So then even though many creationists actually do believe their lies, many creationists are undeniably lying deliberately. I have written (and need to rewrite) an attempt to analyze what's happening.
Most creationists don't know any better and simply accept what they're told; these same creationists normally don't get out and present these claims to non-believers, so their false beliefs are never exposed to the truth and challenged. When they do venture out to proselytize or to do battle with the Enemy, they quickly learn which claims to avoid using because they are proven to be false -- whether or not they allow themselves to admit to themselves that their claims are false, they do nonetheless learn to cover up their claims' weaknesses. The more active a creationist becomes, the more they experience contact with non-believers and the more they are exposed to the truth and the more their claims are challenged and are exposed as lies. So the primary factor is how active a creationist is, which will determine how much he is exposed to the weakness of his claims, etc.
The next question is how a creationist reacts and responds to learning that his claims (and hence his beliefs) are false. My opinion is that they cannot help but respond with increasing levels of dishonesty, starting with self-deception and delusion which can escalate to outright deliberate lies and deception.
One of the reasons why we have so few creationists is that they cannot withstand exposure to the truth about their claims. Most creationists cannot maintain the necessary levels of dishonesty while also deceiving themselves into believing that they are not being dishonest. As a result, the only creationists who stick around end up being the most extreme cases.
I have met honest creationists before. Merle was a creationist on CompuServe who, unlike all the other creationists there, would make honest attempts at discussion and would actually research his responses. After about a year, he had switched to the evolution side. Honest creationists simply do not last long. Only the dishonest ones have any lasting power.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 628 by Coyote, posted 02-22-2018 12:26 PM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 640 by Phat, posted 05-30-2018 8:40 AM dwise1 has replied

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


Message 642 of 860 (834147)
05-31-2018 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 640 by Phat
05-30-2018 8:40 AM


Re: Why do we have so few creationists
You wrote:
Phat writes:
I disagree. In a forum conversation, there are differing points of view and interpretations of data. If a person is ignorant of the lie, and if the lie can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be a factual falsehood, this still gives no one the right to brand an individual as a lier.
And yet I had written (as you just quoted me):
DWise1 writes:
Lies are lies. Period.
Regardless of whether the person telling the lie does so knowingly or believes that lie to be true, it is still a lie and they are still spreading a lie.
The consequences of telling and spreading a lie is the same whether the person telling and spreading that lie knows it to be a lie or thinks that it's true. The consequences are exactly the same.
The only difference is one of moral judgment since a person has to know that she is telling a lie in order to be a liar. But that still does not make that lie not a lie. A lie is still a lie and still has the same consequences.
So just what the hell do you think you are disagreeing with? The fact that I had said the same thing that you just said? What?
Let me put that part in bold for you:
DWise1 writes:
The only difference is one of moral judgment since a person has to know that she is telling a lie in order to be a liar. But that still does not make that lie not a lie. A lie is still a lie and still has the same consequences.
If you want to disagree with me on something, then do so. But if you can only disagree with me by accusing me of having written something that I very clearly did not, then please refrain from doing so.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 640 by Phat, posted 05-30-2018 8:40 AM Phat has replied

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


Message 733 of 860 (870148)
01-13-2020 12:15 AM


Spam, Spam, Spam!
New member lasky1994 is posting spam in German and either Norwegian or Danish.

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 738 of 860 (876029)
05-11-2020 6:52 PM
Reply to: Message 737 by Admin
05-11-2020 4:59 PM


Re: Richard Wang
So now he's trying to open yet another topic.
Really?

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Replies to this message:
 Message 739 by JonF, posted 05-11-2020 9:16 PM dwise1 has replied

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


Message 740 of 860 (876033)
05-11-2020 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 739 by JonF
05-11-2020 9:16 PM


Re: Richard Wang
Or it could be the typical creationist practice of not reading (or listening to) what others say.

This message is a reply to:
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