Saturday, October 10, 2009
My reasons for wanting to kill myself when talking to a young earth creationist: irreducibly complex
Being quite the masochist, I indulged today in a little facebook sparing with a young earth creationist who somehow managed to find his way onto my facebook friends list. I thought it was a good example of how these sort of 'conversations' should go. The text is as follows, and I'll try to update it if it happens to continue... and if he doesn't block me of course. I would remove names to protect the innocent, but I'm just too lazy.
2 hours ago · · Like / Unlike
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The only reason you like Dawkins is that he bashes religion, primarily Christianity. There's no science in anything he says at all. He's just your run-of-the-mill atheist peddling the same refuted talking points atheists have peddled for centuries.
My 12 year old cousin knows how wrong that is.
And, actually, I believe it's 10,000 years old.
Srsly, someone get a 6th grade earth science teacher on the horn.
Real science attempts to understand the world, and is open to credible new ideas. If we discover some new information tomorrow which ... Read Morecompletely changes our understanding of the world, science will change and attempt to make sense of the new information.
Religion will never incorporate new information, and it continuously bends logic and reason to try to prove its own validity. Religion will simply deny as false anything that contradicts its tenets. Religion will never accept new information.
There's a neurological equivalent of an electrical fire going on here and your bucket of water response is not going to put it out. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
Personally, I think Dawkins was correct when he said that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public."
Rip: I do ... Read Morebelieve there is scientific evidence for my belief, having to do with the problems and errors of radiological dating and many other bodies of evidence. Answers in Genesis is a good place to start for some of that evidence.
I have a longer, more in-depth argument to make, but once again you've sucked me into your facebook vortex when I'm trying to do work, dammit.
Also, I don't see how you can think the Earth is only 10,000 years old (radioactive decay dating aside) when we can date trees using dendrochronology back 11,500 years.
Take Kris' last response for example. He says prove there is no god, as if this is some sort of in your face slam dunk and hey what about this random assertion by this random atheist. What do you say to that?
One can only laugh and mock, knowing that you'd be better off trying to reason with someone who thinks Elvis is still alive.
I've tried to hash this stuff out with Kris before. Don't bother. You will be profoundly disappointed.