Well now hold on a second there, CTD. Someone made what I felt to be an attack (however mild) about my personality, my character. I responded in kind by defending it with an explanation.
I can fully understand being opposed to threads getting derailed. It happens in forums all over the internet. But if you're against derails of this sort I kindly ask that you direct them at the instigator, not the person defending themself.
If someone made a personal slander about you CTD (not that you really went that far with it Jeanie but a comment *was* made), how would you react?
The right of any creature to defend itself has no more dedicated advocate than myself.
But why did you accuse me then for defending myself? You said you're the number one advocate for defensive standpoints. I don't get why you would accuse me the way you did then.
I didn't accuse you. I pointed out something that's frequently overlooked.
I also note that your paraphrase is inaccurate concerning what I said about self-defense. I hope this isn't a symptom.
I pointed out that this is a forum because your posts included challenges to present cases and trash talk about creationism being unable to withstand evaluation.
OK, now this is really an unfair statement. I've always been the sort of person to mind his p's and q's. I'm very careful how I word things (call it a professional habit due to the nature of my job). If there's anything - ANYTHING - I've said here which can be construed as trash talk, I'd like to know.
But I thought that's what followers of Christ do anyway, no? I understand that there are people out there in the world today who believe obviously false things, such as extreme superstitions or that the sun revolves around the Earth. But I'd find it hard to believe that anyone actually posting on an internet forum in the year 2008 would believe things like: one man held every single living thing on the planet in a boat or that women come from the magical conjurings of a man's rib.
I get discussing the origin of the universe and such. You can't exactly prove that so it's open to a wide variety of beliefs. But most biblical stories are clearly lessons, not real tales. I would have to guess anyone trying to defend most of them (Noah's Ark, etc.) would be continually backed into a corner, using self-contradicting statements as evidence. At least, that is, I'm not sure how I would try to defend such things.
I fail to see how this can be construed as anything other than trash talk. You even included straw men: "one man held every single living thing on the planet in a boat or that women come from the magical conjurings of a man's rib."
Your story already contradicts itself. You claim you don't know this & don't know that, yet you produce this conclusion: "But most biblical stories are clearly lessons, not real tales." If you know half enough to reach such a conclusion, you're aware that your straw men do not accurately reflect the history contained in the bible.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I know very little about creationism and am here asking for feedback on the subject. If I want to know about evolution, the library in the insitution I work for is chock full of them. If I want to read up on creationism, however, my sources are surprisingly sparse (or more aptly put, nonexistent). It is for this reason that I am not challenging creationism, per se, so much as questioning it. I apologize that you take offense to my asking questions about this subject.
I don't take offense to people asking questions. I advocate seeking truth, and asking honest questions is one of the best ways to learn things.
This is a very strong indicator that you either haven't reviewed the threads, or do not care to address the issues contained therein therein.
Well there are literally tens of thousands of threads here. Please understand that a great deal of it is rather daunting and much of it is filled with argumentative diatribes. It's not uncommon on discussion forums for old topics to crop up and be rehashed, particularly when new arrivals show up. That being said, I am reading some of the discussions here and trying to catch up (hence my silence) but I do ask that you cut me some slack. If I ask something that has already been raised, I humbly ask that you forgive my ignorance as I clearly may have overlooked something (likely a needle in a haystack).
I count 88 threads at present in the Creation vs. Evolution forum here. Reading all of them would take most people quite a while; but one doesn't need to read every last thread to get a pretty good idea what some of the issues and evidence are about.
The job of doing this in the future (the task of those who may arrive later) is made easier when folks discuss things in the appropriate thread. It is made more difficult when they dart from topic to topic within one thread. If your task is more difficult than it needs to be, we know one practice which bears a lot of the responsibility.
Creationism is both a doctrine which guides one in understanding spiritual issues, and a scientific pursuit. Although even a good number of creationists may not have given it sufficient thought, creationism implicitly denies the false dichotomy between "science" and all matters supernatural.
Now see, this last clause here in your final sentence is what makes me pause. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it seems to imply that creationism is not science.
You're reading it wrong. There is nothing inherently unscientific about investigating things just because they're labeled "supernatural".
And this is the very question I am trying to come up with here.
I get the desire to have creationism in school. That's fair enough. It's a topic and people may want to know about it. What I don't understand and am trying to get an answer to is why it should be labeled science when, more appropriately, it would fall under the category of either religion or philosophy. What part about creationism is scientific?
Again you present a conclusion without anything backing it up. I have not said I want creationism in school; this is something you assume.
The scientific aspects of creationism include historical research, scientific models, hypotheses, laws, theories, and the applications of all of these.
As always, I ask these questions in the politest tones, even if they don't "sound" that way. A text based format is often sterile and a poor conveyor of emotions. Be that as it may, I am saying this to reassure readers that I am asking questions openly and politely. These are not challenges, they are not accusations.
I try not to concern myself with 'tones' when they're unclear; but focus on content.
Its good to see you back Mordred.
Oh I never really went anywhere
I'm more the listening type who likes to throw his two cents out every now and again. Plus I think I've got my answers as far as creationism goes, what it is (and what it isn't).
Well, that was quick!
Creationism is basically belief that we and the earth were literally created by God.
Not so. Creationism is the belief that the universe, life, reality, etc. are too complex to have been conjured into existence all on their own and that they require a creator. Who that creator is is open for debate, since creation does not represent any one religion.
Actually, it's both a 'belief' and a valid scientific conclusion. One can become a creationist by either accepting it as sound teaching, or by investigating the evidence. Many prefer both methods.
When you say it's the belief that we were literally created by God (with a capital 'g') you seem to be suggesting the Christian god (correct me if I'm wrong). Arguably speaking, you could believe in the Ancient Greek deities (not that anyone does in this day and age) and still be a creationist. This much I know. It's how creation claims to be a science and what is scientific about it which I haven't yet acquired an answer to yet.
The broad definition (perfectly proper) of creationism encompasses 'Intelligent Design'. It is a convention that 'ID' be used to refer to the broader creationism, and 'creationism', 'OEC' or 'YEC' be used for narrower purposes. Not everyone complies.
Yeah, but Jeanie, you're still using creation to represent Christianity and this simply isn't so. For the sake of argument, an entire panel of religious people, including Moslems, Hindus, Christians and many more, could represent one single creationist organization.
There are even agnostic IDers. They acknowledge the scientific conclusion that a creator must exist, but claim the identity cannot be discovered/proven/whatever...
But as far as human history we believe that human history started the 6,000 years ago as stated.
Whoa, wait a second. Why do you believe this? Please don't interpret this as rudeness on my part but as I'm sure RAZD has mentioned in previous posts, there's a difference between reality and what we want things to be. There is so much evidence of civilizations (not just pre-civilization hunter/gatherer tribes but CIVILIZATIONS) of people predating 6,000 years. To deny that is like saying every historian, archeologist and anthropologist is a deceietful liar or somehow spent their entire education misinformed. In order to back up this sort of assertation (saying that humans have only existed for 6,00 years) you'd have to come up with a whole heck of a lot of facts! AND you'd have to disprove all the historians, geologists, and so on.
We have a thread entitled "History Rules". I should be interested in seeing you back up your assertion that "every historian" believes in evotime.
I'm not being rude when I say that you must undersand how far fetched this is to me. If humans did not exist more than 6,000 years ago than God (of some religion or other) deliberately designed things to look like they existed more than 6,000 years ago.
Parroting such old propaganda? You don't seem to be very objective, if I may offer an observation.
And that's fair enough. But these people aren't the type to come on discussion boards and try to prove everyone else how they're right. They quitely hold their beliefs to themselves. This is what I mean about me not wanting to come across as though I'm questioning someone's religion. I'm not questioning yours, I promise I never will. It's the small details (or, well, not so small if you ask me), like saying humans have only been around 6,000 years. How can you disprove the mountain of evidence which indicates the contrary?
Ah! One of the mythical "mountains of evidence" we keep hearing about.
Just to save some time, you might want to review some definitions of evidence. For some reason, some people maintain conclusions are evidence. Others are fond of advancing assumptions as evidence, and some prefer circular reasoning. If you have actual
evidence evidence supporting evolutionism or evodates, you may be hailed by quite a few as a hero. If you have more of the same old sham evidence, I personally would prefer that you present it in one of the threads that's already hopelessly derailed.
I don't believe in Jesus Christ. I see more historical evidence for Caligula and historical figures far predating the the common era than I do for Jesus Christ. But I will never say someone is wrong and try to disprove them in this way. That's their religion, their belief, just as I have mine. Nor do I believe there was ever one man and one woman whose names were Adam and Eve. That's my personal belief, I ask that you respect it, just as I respect your belief that they did exist. These are the things I'm not here to discuss. It's details which can be scientifically proven (is the Earth flat, and so on) which I think need to be addressed.
Did you happen to catch our Flat Earth thread?
