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For over a decade I have enjoyed debating with creationists who are capable of intelligent, rational conversation. Currently I am attempting to share my viewpoints with a coworker who is particularly intelligent and rational, but who is at this point a young-Earth creationist. We take turns posing questions and formulating replies, and have not once lost our cool with each other. At this point I would very much like to share with him what I learned on evolutionofdna.com some years ago while researching for a previous debate, but the site has apparently been down for some years with no sign of returning. Does anyone know a way of retrieving an archive of it, or obtaining what it once held through other channels? If so I would be deeply grateful.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quadrox on Monday September 08 2014, @12:22PM
The difference between the two vies is that there is a solid scientific foundation for claiming that the universe is millions of years old, whereas claiming that god is behind it all has no supporting evidence whatsoever.
In science the point is not to make friends or accept compromises, the point is to figure out the truth. Saying that god is behind everything does not exactly encourage further research, in fact religion encourages blind faith without proof, which is an approach that is fundamentally opposided to all science and learning. Therefore making the sort of compromise that you described is neither good nor reasonable.
(Score: 2) by quadrox on Monday September 08 2014, @12:25PM
Please excuse my atrocious spelling and grammar - what a mess :)
(Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Monday September 08 2014, @01:41PM
I blame god
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @06:01PM
There is evidence for that. [fieldofscience.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmn32480 on Monday September 08 2014, @01:34PM
I agree with you for the most part.
I believe that the whole point was that part about "without evidence to the contrary, your theory is also plausible". This is not complete acceptance, but simply an acknowledgement that there are other theories out there. Some of those theories will be proven, some will be disproven, and some will not have either distinction.
There are things that we don't understand, and cannot attribute (at this time) to any know science. Is it so wrong, that while we look into them, research, experiment, and theorize, that perhaps belief in a higher power is not such a bad thing? If nothing else, it makes you feel a little less insignificant in the ever-expanding universe.
Blind faith is not necessarily a good thing, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, faith is a place to start while answers are being looked for.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @02:28PM
There are things that we don't understand, and cannot attribute (at this time) to any know science. Is it so wrong, that while we look into them, research, experiment, and theorize, that perhaps belief in a higher power is not such a bad thing?
YES, that attributing the unknown to a higher power IS A BAD THING, because if left alone long enough, the religious types will go ballistic when scientists eventually reach those unknown and thus "intrude" into their God's domain. The problem with religion is it cannot accept the possibility that their teaching is wrong. Faith is, by definition, blind.
Famous example: Galileo. Had the Church NOT taken a stand in the Geocentric vs Heliocentric view of the world, they would have no objection to Galileo promoting the Heliocentric view. And why did the Church chose one of the view? Because it was not understood and cannot attribute to any known science at that time.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 08 2014, @10:36PM
It is possible to have plausible belief systems based at least in part by evidence. Even if you argue the "decreasing God of the gaps" there will be room for significant roles for a creator deity to play in the foreseeable future (see: what happened before the Big Bang, dark matter, Heisenberg uncertainty). In fact, I think the empirical dissolution or reinforcement of religious belief will herald in a whole new age, the shape of which we can hardly imagine currently.
As a counterpoint: there are Christians who are extreme hypocrites and do not show any evidence of actually believing what they claim to believe, if you give their actions even a cursory analysis. They are quite numerous. Does this make all believers hypocritical? No. While some people exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect quite clearly, there are others who have complex and compelling relationships with both faith and reality. It may be that the submitter's friend is just such a one. I have known a few myself.
At risk of invoking Godwin, I will just point out that history has shown what happens when groups of people are demonized based on simplistic criteria, and it's not something we want to fall into, particularly if we want to maintain the moral high ground.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @06:55PM
I think that naming your ignorance God and pretending that, having named it, you have converted ignorance to knowledge is a sorry approach to the unknown. --John Popelish
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Monday September 08 2014, @01:57PM
If God designed the entire universe complete with evidence, cosmic background radiation and fossil record and all. to convince human being that the world is billions of years old rather than thousands, well. I'll believe in the old universe, as is evidently He desires me to.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday September 08 2014, @02:19PM
"evidently He desires me to"
There's a fun argument lurking here, where a stereotypical answer to "why does god let evil exist" and "why didn't god help his chosen people in the early 40s in central europe" and "why did god let grandpa die young" and all that kind of stuff is something along the lines of a supreme being can't be constrained by human morality and ethics, who are you as a mere mortal to tell a supreme deity how to behave, etc.
So that argument applied to observations of reality, is God may very well be evil as humans define evil, and being a jerk, he might not want us to pay attention to reality and all that.
Of course the response is something along my personal beliefs of I refuse to worship a deity that pragmatically has made bad decisions, and this tends to really piss off his followers, so in meatspace I don't talk much about how I personally believe the judeo-christian god is a god of evil so I refuse to worship. Think about it... any big human org, whatever they talk about "quality is job one" "we love multiculturalism an diverse opinions" whatever that human group emphasizes is usually a lie, or at best some kind of long term opposite of current reality goal. So all this "jesus is love", stuff thats out there, well, being the opposite is quite realistic for human group behavior. If there is a god, at least WRT how he behaves to us, he is kind of a jerk, isn't he, just observationally? So this whole "ignore the fossil record" thing is pretty much par for the course, if a jerk says it, even if its a really powerful jerk.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday September 08 2014, @03:59PM
God created the universe five minutes ago, with all the layers of rock and fossils in place and the light from the stars all on it's path as if the universe had started 13.7 billion years ago. Just to fool us, 'cause, you know, He's just that kind of guy.
And on the eighth day, when he had rested, he created darkness.
And for all around him he needed a cloak to hide himself from his tired labours.
And the antelope and the deer and the ostrich and the zebra hid
their faces and ran like tiny children
into the shrivelling blackness around them.
And the trees grew hoods and the cows winced.
And all the crops began to droop.
Even the coal rattled in terror for, lo, there was no light anywhere.
And he was well pleased with his labours and he smiled and was unable to find his way out of the room.
Consequently, he blundered around his new creations;
stamping helplessly left and right upon the new buds of his endeavour.
Octopuses, caterpillars, tendons and worms were squashed like buds.
Easter bunnies ruptured like eggs.
At length he found the door, and, fumbling with the handle,
he chanced to knock the key on to the ground.
As he lowered his nose to rummage around that vast appendage where he might see something on the floor,
beheld a ray of light coming in from the hall.
Kevin?Supper's ready.
Mom, I'm locked in!
Kevin... Supper's ready!
Mom!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @07:37PM
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
--Epicurus (341 BCE - 270 BCE)
Trying to use logic to disprove belief systems is bound to fail.
It's a case of "My unprovable opinions are as good as your vetted scientific facts".
...and it's just bizarre that people put such great stock in a book with so many self-contradictions.
Bible Inconsistencies; Bible Contradictions [infidels.org]
Self-Contradictions of the Bible [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @08:04PM
The question of theodicy is really one of shades of gray.
A thoughtful believer will explain it with some form of "suffering builds character" or just because it appears to be evil to you does not make it so. That changes the argument from whether there a god to the nature of good and evil - and whether a happy fluffy existence without any suffering is really a good existence.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:03AM
ah, one of my favorite quotes.
or, if you prefer the softer version, take the woody allen quote:
"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."
I don't think there is a god, though. there are a lot of really confused people on this planet and they are still stuck in the bronze age of thinking. that pretty much explains all of the 'god stuff'.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by carguy on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:52AM
How to deal with the "Are you an atheist or agnostic?" question -- just answer "post-theological"...
http://thehumanist.com/magazine/january-february-2008/features/the-post-theological-umbrella [thehumanist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @05:24PM
The difference between the two vies is that there is a solid scientific foundation for claiming that the universe is millions of years old, whereas claiming that god is behind it all has no supporting evidence whatsoever.
That is a half truth. It isn't that there is no evidence for God being behind it, it is that the question of whether God is behind it is unanswerable. Not just unanswerable with today's level of science (which would simply be a "god of the gaps" situation), it will never be answerable because of the recursion that then follows from asking who is behind God.
No, that sort of "compromise" is exactly the correct one. The line between science and religion should rightly be drawn between the knowable and the unknowable because the very definition of faith is actively choosing to believe something that you know to be unprovable. Any other kinds of faith are just glorified superstitions.