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Author Topic:   The Right Way to Debunk
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 148 (440182)
12-11-2007 7:11 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 4:29 PM


Getting to the Source
WELCOME BACK! We did miss you!
Your suggestion is a good one. The only problem, however, is that the evidence is not 'cold, hard'. It requires interpretations which revolve around logic ('all A are B' type stuff, to be sure). This puts the evidence in an interesting position:
Interpreted logically, it says "evo evo evo".
Interpreted Biblically, it says "what I want".
The problem is essentially with getting people (Creos) to accept the very foundations of logic itself. It is not easy to do, either. We have members who plainly refuse to apply logic to anything mentioned in the Bible (Creation, Flood, etc.); others refuse to apply logic to anything that involves beliefs (the nature of God, etc.).
Why is this so hard for them to do? First, they hold beliefs about the world that bring them to conclude their god is a weakling. They think that without a literal Genesis (for example) that little fairy tale queen god of theirs will just up and vanish”POOF! Second, they think that science and God are somehow completely opposed to one another. Many atheists don't help this one, either; they send off messages telling people that science has disproven God and everything. Creo community leaders love this, of course, because if accepting something as simple as the Neanderthal fossil in that evo book means giving up their god, who would ever accept that!
The approach, in my opinion, must come in three steps:
  1. Make people realise that if God”the Real God, the One True God”exists, He/She/It/They exists no matter what is true of the rest of the world/universe.
  2. If 1 is the case, then there are no assumptions, i.e., given truths, that can be made about the nature of reality, since it can be anything without affecting God.
  3. If there are no given truths, then the only way to get the truth is to go out and look for it”logically, of course.
Here at EvC, it can be easy to get into the trap of thinking the opposing side is arguing 'bad science'. Is it bad? Sure. But, we must realise that for these people it is not about doing science one way versus doing science another way. It is about whether or not God (or their version if Him/Her/It/Them) exists. It is about whether or not they will be given eternal life, whether or not there will be someone there to walk with them through the "valley of the shadow of death". For them, it is not even theology. They have convinced themselves of one reality. They have convinced themselves that anything from a different reality is automatically threatening to their current reality.
Now, you must hand it to them, the reality they've created for themselves is pretty appealing. If such a reality were actually true, wouldn't you do anything you could to hang on to it? (Eternal life? Someone to look after you?) OF COURSE YOU WOULD!! And if one thing you see as threatening that reality is your professor's acceptance of evolution, wouldn't you do anything to get rid of that threat? If one thing you see as threatening that reality is the human evolution book in the library, wouldn't you do anything to get rid of that threat?
Don't you think it would be best to rst convince folk that there is no threat? Once they realise that, the doors are wide open to what they can learn and what they can think.
Jon
Edited by Jon, : I KNEW that comma was supposed to be there!
Edited by Jon, : Conditional

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 4:29 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Kitsune, posted 12-12-2007 3:17 AM Jon has not replied

  
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