Creationist myths

[Keeblergiant]

I'm tired of reading through all of these posts and just having a random creationist myth pop out of nowhere. This is the official place to ask the question, you ask it and I'll (and possibly others too) will answer it...it doesn't matter what it is, from the fossil record to the apparently finely tuned physical constants of the world.

[Forgotten Rebel]

Okay well here's one to get this started.

As a creationist, how would you explain the beginning of the world. I know there are different branches if creationism, but let's say for the kind where God placed people on Earth as fully developed humans. How many did he place? If he only placed Adam and Eve, inbreeding would have wiped out this species a long time ago. If he placed many people, then are we to read Adam and Eve as simply a nice little story?

How can creationists explain away almost 150 years of scientific proof that evolution has and still is taking place? I mean, you look at a pre-science era, namely when the bible was written, can you blame people for thinking that some magic creator placed them there rather then a complex evolutionary process? If you do a cross-cultural sweep, every single religion/culture has it's own creation story. Most of them have to do with a similar case of Adam & Eve, i can not believe that this is a coincidence. The only reasonable explanation is that at some point, thinking beings needed to explain why they were there. Since science was not an available tool, they came up with the only logical conclusion, that someone had placed them there. Since they predated reliable methods of recording history, they had no knowledge of their past, or how they came to be, which is why all these people spread throughout the world came to the same conclusions, untill of course a more logical scientific conclusion was reached, evolution.

I find it extremely difficult to accept that we were simply placed here at the hand of some mystical being for some unknown reason. How can you explain cultural diffferences/religious difference/language differences/physical appearance differences if we all were placed by the same hand, and evolution had not occured?

Just a few questions to help this thread get started. Cheers.

[Keeblergiant]

If he only placed Adam and Eve, inbreeding would have wiped out this species a long time ago. If he placed many people, then are we to read Adam and Eve as simply a nice little story?

You're wrong. This is God...he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to protect Adam and Eve from the genetic defects of inbreeding, he can.


How can creationists explain away almost 150 years of scientific proof that evolution has and still is taking place?

God put the proof there to decieve the foolish.


If you do a cross-cultural sweep, every single religion/culture has it's own creation story.

Don't worry about the other heretics...if you don't accept Jesus Christ then my omnibenevolent God will burn your ass in hell for the rest of eternity.


The only reasonable explanation is that at some point, thinking beings needed to explain why they were there. Since science was not an available tool, they came up with the only logical conclusion, that someone had placed them there.

Actually, the commonly held idea is that we evolved a brain that was capable of "spiritual" feelings, and this led to religion.


I find it extremely difficult to accept that we were simply placed here at the hand of some mystical being for some unknown reason.

Why is it hard to believe? I mean, the proof is right in front of your face!!! The bible says it's true, duh!


How can you explain cultural diffferences/religious difference/language differences/physical appearance differences if we all were placed by the same hand, and evolution had not occured?

Ummm...God made the cultural, linguistic, and physical differences and stupid people deviated from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Ha. You can't falsify religion...it's perfect.

[jjserio]

Picture this..

Two elementary students log onto the internet to research a school project. The goal is to obtain useful information on the subject given using the world wide web. They are not supplied with guidelines & questions to answer rather are given a wide spectrum subject that they will teach themselves about for making a class presentation. The subject these two students are researching is dinosaurs.

A simple google search brings them to a very informative site.. www.answersfromthebible.com

Here they start to learn all kinds of fascinating facts. Within minutes they have their notebooks filled with the needed information on dinosaurs. Oh boy is Mrs. Eva Lution gonna be impressed with what we know.

Thrilled about the info gathered they start to put together the presentation.

Adam says.. "im gonna show this picture taken at the Dinosaur National park in Texas, see these are human footprints right next to the dinosaurs."

Eve says.. "Then i'll show that a fossilized human finger was also found at that location."

"Great!" says Adam.. "Then we can provide more proof that man lived with dinosaurs by showing these 3,000 year old ancient ceramic sculptures of dinosaurs that couldn't be confused with any still existing reptilian species."

"Yes!" says Eve.. "For extra credit we can make a timeline of the history of earth as god created it."

"Okay." Says Adam.. "We'll start with the human species 10,000 years ago."
------------------------------------------------------

You see the point i'm trying to make here. When Mrs. Eva Lution hears their presentation shes going to be confronted with a serious problem. She will most likely choose not to involve the internet in her classroom, or certainly provide them a list of links to visit. The amount of misinformation outweighs the amount of information. If your not smart enough to understand the difference the outcome is obvious.
(Mrs. Eva Lution will give you an F)

[Forgotten Rebel]

Humm, that's odd, I seem to remember saying logical conclusions...


You're wrong. This is God...he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to protect Adam and Eve from the genetic defects of inbreeding, he can.

Inbreeding is a fact. Two related people have sex, good chance the offspring will be deformed in some way. If you need proof, look at the Southern Bible belt (ironically), or the movie Deliverance.


God put the proof there to decieve the foolish.

Who's to say God didn't put proof of evolution for the intelligent to find? This is not an actual explaination Keebler, tisk tisk.


Don't worry about the other heretics...if you don't accept Jesus Christ then my omnibenevolent God will burn your ass in hell for the rest of eternity.

That's odd, there seems to be a lot of Jebus followers walking around these days who have accepted evolution. Hace you ever seen the Jesus fish bumper sticker with legs... Once again, we come to the arguement of a loving God who will torture me if I don't do what he wants. I'm not saying let's jump on the band wagon here but think about this for a second. Before the days of easy access to travel, say around Jebus's time. You couldn't proove evolution, it was only when we became able to explore the world around us through experience that evolution was found. Face it buddy, there is far too much proof that evolution is true. How can you explain something like a 99% match to gorilla/monkey DNA? How can you explain fossils that seem to follow an evolutionairy process? How can you explain countless trials done over generations of rats/mice that show evolution is true?


Actually, the commonly held idea is that we evolved a brain that was capable of "spiritual" feelings, and this led to religion..

I'm having trouble accepting the term 'commonly held idea' because I hardly doubt that it is common among anyone but extreme fundamentalist christians. But do they have any PROOF/EVIDENCE to back up their hypothesis (note, a 2000 year old book written by God knows who [pun] is not considered reliable proof).


Why is it hard to believe? I mean, the proof is right in front of your face!!! The bible says it's true, duh!

Humm what should we trust, a bible written 2000 years ago by people of which we namely don't have any historic records about whether they actually exist...or should we believe the actual proof/evidence that all suggests evolution has/is taking place. I find it hard to believe that God placed a bunch of dinosor bones on the earth to decieve anyone, what is he, some kind of asshole prancster? Isn't the devil the one that is suppose to decieve and God will always show us 'the light' and deliever us from confusion, so why would he plant false eveidence to confuse people?


Ummm...God made the cultural, linguistic, and physical differences and stupid people deviated from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But why would he make these differences for shits and giggles, nothing better to do, bored on a Sunday afternoon? Seems to me, one hand, one people, one language would make more sense, especially in order to keep people in line. You wouldn't have to speak in tongues that way. Okay, so God made people and people deviated from him, how do explain that other religions are in fact older then Christianity, many even pre-dating the old testemant. God put those religions there first, then made Christianity? Humm, doesn't really make sense to me. What about the proof we have of how climate changes over 1000's of years changed physical appearances of people?


Ha. You can't falsify religion...it's perfect.

As I said before, I'm marching straight to my university/college and requesting a refund, stupid me didn't realize I could have got a real education from the bible! FR starts to weep, then cries about the 1000's he has wasted.

[stewey]

Well, I have my own brand of "creationism"...

God created the Universe, which in turn allowed evolution to take place.

[Forgotten Rebel]

Well, I have my own brand of "creationism"...
God created the Universe, which in turn allowed evolution to take place.

That would be the Jesus fish with legs I mentioned above, you didn't come up with this one on your own stewey.

I find it no wonder that so many Christians are begining to adopt such a radical idea like 'evolution'. Remember, this also the same creation story which placed the Earth at the center of the universe. Which was disproven by Copernicus and every other physist/scientist since then. Also, this was the same creation story which placed the sun revolving around the earth, which has also been disproven beyond a doubt by mathematics/observation/science/physics.

[Keeblergiant]

The amount of misinformation outweighs the amount of information.

Are you calling creationism a myth!? HERESY!


Humm, that's odd, I seem to remember saying logical conclusions...

Yeah, well I was thinking more about questions creationists have towards evolution, not the other way around. However, it was rather interesting, because everything boiled down to "Goddidit."




Inbreeding is a fact. Two related people have sex, good chance the offspring will be deformed in some way. If you need proof, look at the Southern Bible belt (ironically), or the movie Deliverance.

God can make exceptions...he is God, after all.




Who's to say God didn't put proof of evolution for the intelligent to find? This is not an actual explaination Keebler, tisk tisk.

There are no explanations with God...everything can have two sides.


That's odd, there seems to be a lot of Jebus followers walking around these days who have accepted evolution. Hace you ever seen the Jesus fish bumper sticker with legs... Once again, we come to the arguement of a loving God who will torture me if I don't do what he wants. I'm not saying let's jump on the band wagon here but think about this for a second. Before the days of easy access to travel, say around Jebus's time. You couldn't proove evolution, it was only when we became able to explore the world around us through experience that evolution was found. Face it buddy, there is far too much proof that evolution is true. How can you explain something like a 99% match to gorilla/monkey DNA? How can you explain fossils that seem to follow an evolutionairy process? How can you explain countless trials done over generations of rats/mice that show evolution is true?

God did it.




I'm having trouble accepting the term 'commonly held idea' because I hardly doubt that it is common among anyone but extreme fundamentalist christians. But do they have any PROOF/EVIDENCE to back up their hypothesis (note, a 2000 year old book written by God knows who [pun] is not considered reliable proof).


Actually, it's something that fundie Christians attack, because it is a part of evolutionary psychology and also suggests that God doesn't exist.



But why would he make these differences for shits and giggles, nothing better to do, bored on a Sunday afternoon? Seems to me, one hand, one people, one language would make more sense, especially in order to keep people in line. You wouldn't have to speak in tongues that way. Okay, so God made people and people deviated from him, how do explain that other religions are in fact older then Christianity, many even pre-dating the old testemant. God put those religions there first, then made Christianity? Humm, doesn't really make sense to me. What about the proof we have of how climate changes over 1000's of years changed physical appearances of people?


God did it.




As I said before, I'm marching straight to my university/college and requesting a refund, stupid me didn't realize I could have got a real education from the bible! FR starts to weep, then cries about the 1000's he has wasted.

You don't realize what I meant by the statement. By saying it's not falsifieable, I'm saying it's not science.

P.S...I hope you realize that I'm not a theist, let alone a creationist.

[Forgotten Rebel]

I kind of figured that since pretty much every response was God did it, we don't know why.

A little note you should keep in mind if your ever dealing with a christian who is trying to use logic to proove anything. Most catholic/christian arguements follow the exact same pattern and I'll outline some basic arguements and how to easily refute them (including creationism) simply on the basis of their faulty logic.

The basic logical conclusions follow the pattern of Premise 1, add Premise 2, and you come out with a conclusion.

Lets look at one easy example to illustrate my point.

Premise 1: All divine beings drink at my local bar
Premise 2: God is a divine being
Conclusion: God regularly drinks at my local bar.

Now, on basics of logic in and of itself, it is not a flawed conclusion to make. If I were to use this in arguement, however, an intelligent person would point out that although my 2nd premise is by definition true (it is not dealing with is there a god) but my 1st premise is highly doubtful in that it preclude the conclusion. The first premise has already reached the conclusion arguement, so the logic is hevaily flawed.

Now, some real arguements used by theists against athiest are as follows.

Premise 1: 'X' can exist only if there is a God
Premise 2: But 'X' does exist
Conclusion: So, there must be a God.

in place of 'x' can be any number of things morality, love, creationism, causation, the universe, etc. An atheist can infact rebut this logic in two ways. 1, by rejecting the first premise by providing an alternative explanation say, evolution in our case.

The other way to reject it can be more easily understood using this example.

Premise 1: Satan (or angels, ghost, etc.) can only exist if there is a God.
Premise 2: But Satan does exist
Conclusion: So, there must be a God.

In this case, it easy job for the atheist to shoot down the second premise just as easily as we shot down the first premise in the above example.

Now I issue a challenge to all religious people out there. If you can proove to me, through logic, that God exists, I will convert back to Catholicism. That's right, honest to god (hehe) I will. Remember, you have to find some phenomina which combines two characteristics, 1) It must be something we can reasonably expect an atheist will accept, and 2)it must be something that could no exist unless God existed.

Do not fall into the traps like the faulty logic above. Good luck all.
Premise 1:
Premise 2:
Conclusion:

[Forgotten Rebel]

I've decided to start a new thread based on my above post, the title will be something like, Proove God Exists/Help Convert An Atheist.

[stewey]

That would be the Jesus fish with legs I mentioned above, you didn't come up with this one on your own stewey.

I find it no wonder that so many Christians are begining to adopt such a radical idea like 'evolution'. Remember, this also the same creation story which placed the Earth at the center of the universe. Which was disproven by Copernicus and every other physist/scientist since then. Also, this was the same creation story which placed the sun revolving around the earth, which has also been disproven beyond a doubt by mathematics/observation/science/physics.

I didn't intend to imply that I created it on my own. However, I do believe it to be the most solid.

Where did everything come from? Where did the "infinitely dense point" in the big bang come from?

[Keeblergiant]

Where does this eternal being with magical powers come from? Neither one is more answerable than the other.