The Creationist Museum

[homeschoolmom]

[i]Bill Nye Exposed[/i]???

[sixpence]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' timestamp='1339799783' post='2445209']
Well, people will buy toilet paper before spending their money on extraneous activities. Interesting to see what happens to them though in the long run.......although the damage has already been dealt.










[i]Why Carbon Dating is Unreliable - by Watt Dise Atum[/i]
[i]The Genius of Genesis - by R. Ale Little[/i]
[i]Dinosaurs and Dragons - by Lucy Fure[/i]
[i]Bill Nye Exposed - by Noah Knuthing[/i]
[i]Just Believe - by Fallacious Lugik[/i]
[i]The Grand Designer - by Steve Eagling[/i]
[i]The Evolution Delusion - by Pore Bawkins[/i]
[i]The Trail of Bones: How the Creation Story was Preserved - by Brook N. Kumpass[/i]
[/quote]

cute

[Ash Wednesday]

Ah, can't help but wonder what Luther would have thought of all this.

[Archaeology cat]

I love how people always try to discount carbon dating to prove the world is younger, but tend to ignore potassium-argon and uranium dating. I've yet to see anyone be able to disprove dendrochronology, either.

ETA: I actually do understand the desire to disprove these things, having been raised in a YEC area.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Archaeology cat

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' timestamp='1339878492' post='2445371']
ETA: I actually do understand the desire to disprove these things, having been raised in a YEC area.
[/quote]
That's interesting. I didn't know that.

I've been shocked recently to learn that intelligent people who I otherwise respect buy into creationist beliefs. For example, a very prestigious theology professor dropped the old Gould quote-mining creationist canard on me. Apparently Gould secretly knew that punctuated equillibrium is evidence of repeated acts of creation in the history of life and that it disproves common ancestry and macroevolution. I'm stilling picking my jaw up off the floor.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1339933995' post='2445495']

That's interesting. I didn't know that.

I've been shocked recently to learn that intelligent people who I otherwise respect buy into creationist beliefs. For example, a very prestigious theology professor dropped the old Gould quote-mining creationist canard on me. Apparently Gould secretly knew that punctuated equillibrium is evidence of repeated acts of creation in the history of life and that it disproves common ancestry and macroevolution. I'm stilling picking my jaw up off the floor.
[/quote]I know what you mean.

My studying archaeology got me in trouble a little back home.

[PhuturePriest]

Bill Nye the Science Guy is razzle dazzle. Seeing him exposed would ruin everything for me as I do not want to see him naked, as I am sure this would ruin everything for everyone else.

[mortify]

I am not a creationist in the strict sense of the word, but at the same time I'm skeptical of the secular dogmas being proposed for belief. There are many serious flaws in the theory of evolution that have not been properly explained, and are left more as mysteries (starting to see the religiosity?) Sadly for the creationists in the creationist museum, their misunderstanding of the geneologies in the old testatment forces them to fit the history of world within 6 thousand years. The reality is those genealogies are not comprehensive, and that rather than listing immediate descendents one after another, actually relate key figures in a much wider time gap. There irrationality is a symptom of their spiritual bankruptcy.

Edited June 17, 2012 by mortify

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1339954713' post='2445520']
There are many serious flaws in the theory of evolution that have not been properly explained, and are left more as mysteries (starting to see the religiosity?)[/quote]
Such as? And what do you mean, not a creationist in the strict sense?

Edited June 17, 2012 by Laudate_Dominum

[Norseman82]

The question I use to stump the hyper-creationists is this: if Genesis is to be taken super-literally (including in matters of science), where is the dome in the sky that holds back the water, and where are the gates that open and close to let out the rain? After all, NASA must have had to find a way to pass through it in order get to the moon.

[mortify]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1339957111' post='2445530']
Such as? And what do you mean, not a creationist in the strict sense?
[/quote]

Creationists are what we see in popular culture: a Christian who believes the universe is six thousand years old, that dinasaurs roamed with the Israelites, and that a flood covered every inch of the earth. These folks, though sincere, base their views on erroneous interpretations. Their principle of giving credence to the Word of God is proper, and something that many Catholics lack. I don't share the notorious views of some of our Protestant brethren, but at the same time I hold to the view that God generated all that we see around us, and that without Him none of this would be possible. The neo-Darwinian formula of mutation, selection, and reproduction sprinkled with time is the only materialist explanation for what we see around us, and it is patantly false. Although one can demonstrate that natural selection occurs, and that at least some mutations are random, it's an entirely different proposition to say that these are the *sole* factors in what brought about something like human conciousness. Scientists have a hard time explaining the physics of the brain, since the amount of activity occurring on the neuro level is so mind blowing, yet, we are to believe that this occured by chance mutations and selection. I'm sorry, but I and most of the world doesn't buy it.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Norseman82' timestamp='1339961978' post='2445545']
The question I use to stump the hyper-creationists is this: if Genesis is to be taken super-literally (including in matters of science), where is the dome in the sky that holds back the water, and where are the gates that open and close to let out the rain? After all, NASA must have had to find a way to pass through it in order get to the moon.
[/quote]
There are creationist who claim that there used to be a canopy of water in low Earth orbit or some croutons.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1339963528' post='2445551']
Creationists are what we see in popular culture: a Christian who believes the universe is six thousand years old, that dinasaurs roamed with the Israelites, and that a flood covered every inch of the earth. These folks, though sincere, base their views on erroneous interpretations. Their principle of giving credence to the Word of God is proper, and something that many Catholics lack. I don't share the notorious views of some of our Protestant brethren, but at the same time I hold to the view that God generated all that we see around us, and that without Him none of this would be possible. [/quote]
I understand the term in a more general sense. There are young Earth creationists, but there are also old Earth creationists who accept that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and so on. There are Hindu creationists who assert, based on their tradition, that the universe is millions of years old. There are Muslim creationists who differ in some respects from Christian creationists; for example, Muslim creationists typically have no problem with the age of the Earth and would find the Flintstones stuff of Bible belt creationism to be goofy.

In a general sense then, I might say that a creationist is someone who denies or qualifies the fact of common descent, and who is motivated to do so by commitment to doctrine. I'll have to think about it a bit more. I'm trying to be inclusive enough here to accommodate crackpots and obscurantists who aren't religious in any conventional sense but who attack evolution for reasons that I can only describe as "special" doctrine. (For example, a crackpot claiming the special creation of Homo sapiens by extraterrestrials might therefore be motivated to attack common descent/evolutionary biology.)

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1339963528' post='2445551']The neo-Darwinian formula of mutation, selection, and reproduction sprinkled with time is the only materialist explanation for what we see around us, and it is patantly false.
Although one can demonstrate that natural selection occurs, and that at least some mutations are random, it's an entirely different proposition to say that these are the *sole* factors in what brought about something like human conciousness. Scientists have a hard time explaining the physics of the brain, since the amount of activity occurring on the neuro level is so mind blowing, yet, we are to believe that this occured by chance mutations and selection. I'm sorry, but I and most of the world doesn't buy it.[/quote]
I think I hear what you're saying, but I've just got to mention first that evolutionary biology is not reducible to a biology 101 bumper sticker slogan. But the main problem I have with your statement is that it is metaphysical. Evolutionary theory explains how populations adapt and diversify, and so on -- and it does so very successfully. Evolutionary theory does NOT address materialism, the meaning of life, the nature of consciousness, the existence of God, moral ontology, or any other such thing. (I hereby invoke [url="http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501/"][i]Finding Darwin's God[/i][/url], by Ken Miller.) Although biology does offer its own valuable insight into many topics of philosophical import - such as the nature of the brain - but hard reductionism to a caricature of the modern synthesis is not evolutionary theory; it's a kind of naive materialist philosophy.
Chance mutation explains everything? I think you're cheapening the richness of evolution. Of course some mutations are random, but so what? Evolution is the opposite of a random process. But I think randomness is a basic part of existence. If you believe in providence and accept that in the muddle and chaos of our daily lives, and in the course of history itself, a divine plan mysteriously unfolds, then why not in the evolutionary history of life, the geological history of the planet, and the cosmic history of the universe? Why are random genetic mutations perceived as such a threat to a theistic worldview but countless other random events are not?

Edited June 17, 2012 by Laudate_Dominum

[mortify]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1339973576' post='2445595']
I think I hear what you're saying, but I've just got to mention first that evolutionary biology is not reducible to a biology 101 bumper sticker slogan. But the main problem I have with your statement is that it is metaphysical. Evolutionary theory explains how populations adapt and diversify, and so on -- and it does so very successfully. Evolutionary theory does NOT address materialism, the meaning of life, the nature of consciousness, the existence of God, moral ontology, or any other such thing. (I hereby invoke [url="http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501/"][i]Finding Darwin's God[/i][/url], by Ken Miller.) Although biology does offer its own valuable insight into many topics of philosophical import - such as the nature of the brain - but hard reductionism to a caricature of the modern synthesis is not evolutionary theory; it's a kind of naive materialist philosophy.[/quote]

I did not say that neo-darwinism addresses materialism, but that it is a product of the latter. A theory founded on the laws of nature excluding any intervention by a Divine hand. There is nothing supernatural about our existence, it is the mere product of variation, selection, and reproduction over millions upon millions of years. That is at least what they'll have us believe but as I mentioned I am not convinced by it. I can't believe that someone can take a look at the complex processes of our body and not marvel about them. How could such processes evolve? The question of design has always been levelled against atheists, and till this day there is no satisfactory response. Micro evolution is not something we disagree with, it is observable but try explaining the human cardiovascular system. Tell me how the AV node and the SA nodes properly coordinated themselves to conduct cardiac signals within 0.19 seconds. How chambers and valves with walls of muscle that do not tire despite constant exercsion managed to locate themselves in the right spot. Natural selection only exludes underiable variations (to an extent) it does not guide evolution in any way. We're looking at a few basic components of the cardiovascular system, and yet the idea of natural explanation for it is absurd. Simpler to believe the human being as a whole system came into being by a Divine Act.

[quote]Chance mutation explains everything? I think you're cheapening the richness of evolution. Of course some mutations are random, but so what? Evolution is the opposite of a random process. But I think randomness is a basic part of existence. If you believe in providence and accept that in the muddle and chaos of our daily lives, and in the course of history itself, a divine plan mysteriously unfolds, then why not in the evolutionary history of life, the geological history of the planet, and the cosmic history of the universe? Why are random genetic mutations perceived as such a threat to a theistic worldview but countless other random events are not?
[/quote]

I don't have a problem with some mutations appearing random, the issue is with random mutations being part of the explanation for the complexity we see today.

[Ice_nine]

I'm mad that I couldn't find the clip from King of the Hill Halloween episode with the "hallelujah house"

would have been totally relevant. Coulda got a few props. It would have been a great day.



In my younger days for a brief time, I was a fundamentalist/creationist/dumbass. Embarrassing few years that was. Whoops. I understand how people can believe this. Their (fallacious) understanding of the function of Scripture is fundamental (or tantamount, that's a fancy word, hope I'm using it right!) to their believe in God. If the Bible (or their understanding of it) is undermined, the very existence of God is thrown into a panicked doubt. Unwilling to relent their belief in God (for which there are many solid reasons, non-ridiculous reasons) they cling to the Bible to the point where it defies common sense.



yup