First discussion with a liberal fundy

[Guest Joseph]

Ah! I see now!

I guess my confusion before arose because we're presupposing that our methods of calculation are reliable.

 

If man does not take or accept the reality given to him through empirical science as actual then we will do nothing more than be back in the dark ages accepting mythos as reality and accepting the rule of theocracies because we do not think ourselves capable of self rule.

 

Evidence driven science has been demonstrated factual. Anyone making a claim that it is not factual must offer equal or greater evidence to make such a claim. And by such I would fall back to Carl Sagan for an answer, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

 

When my fundie friend said "but god fiddled with the decomp", what he was trying to say was that the decomposition was not a reliable indicator of age.

 

Actually it is much worse than this. Your friend has admitted that science has disproven a literal meaning of his ancient text he calls holy. At such a point you get to smile at him and let him wiggle while he tries to re-shape his world view to fit his text into the reality science presents. His choices are few but normally they end in either saying God is a liar (text does not equal reality), the text is at fault, to interpretation of the text is at fault, or perahps that science is at fault.

 

Again, the only way he can "hold" on to his artifact (text) as without fault is to then either accept that science is at fault, or that God has lied to mankind, and given these choices (abandon your text, abandon good science, or God is deviant) the normal faithful person will simply say that "God works in mysterious ways." And when you call them on the carpet that to work in such a fashion would make God relatively evil they then backtrack and say it is SCIENCE that is at fault, not God.

 

Extremely predictable saddly.

 

The last possible place they could retreat to is "interpretation" and say that Genesis is not literal and thus "time with God is not as with man" or perhaps "a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years with God." The latter is the cop-out Paul took in the NT when he was questioned about his mangod not returning when he predicted it would.

 

Which was exactly what my fundie friend was suggesting. How am I supposed to refute the all-powerful and untraceable workings of god though?

 

Occam's Razor does this perfectly.

 

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/OCCAMRAZ.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor

 

Isn't that why they smacked on the 'god' factor in the first place to defeat the date test on fossils?

 

The problem with their world view is that facts which go against it are automatically labeled as "wrong" without due reason or evidence to do so, even if said facts were demonstrated experimentally, and by such they must label the factual as a lie or their god as a liar in order to continue to live in their world view. This leaves them in a sense of cognitive dishonesty or cognitive dissonance which they defend merely through threats (at least I'm not going to hell) and/or ignorance for the most part. Talk to your average creationist and you will understand the level of ignorance it takes to follow such ancient tradition over evidence driven science.

 

Nonetheless, I'm most grateful for your patience.

 

Cheers

 

No worries.

Edit was for spelling an grammar, and no I'm not claiming it is perfect now, HEH.

[♦ ficino ♦]

The whole thing is so sad. Sad what they have to do to their own minds to explain away the obvious. Sad what they have to believe about their friends who don't swallow the dogma.

 

On the "lying" point: I went to an evangelistic rally years ago, and one of the things the preacher said was to attack the TOE. He said, "what if God created the rocks with built-in age, just to freak unbelievers out?" He said God might have planted the fossils in the rocks when he created the rocks, and the rock strata would be created with partially decomposed isotopes, so millenia later, the godless would think the earth was older than Genesis indicates.

 

The funny thing is, during his sermon, everyone started coughing. I at first thought, why can't they control themselves, they're interrupting the sermon? But the coughing spread and it became apparent that some substance was released into the ventilation system. They had to evacuate the hall. Maybe some kid couldn't take it anymore and set off a stink/smoke bomb. Or was it... hmm, now who could it be... maybe.... SATAN????????????

[Guest Joseph]

(snip)On the "lying" point:  I went to an evangelistic rally years ago, and one of the things the preacher said was to attack the TOE.  He said, "what if God created the rocks with built-in age, just to freak unbelievers out?"  He said God might have planted the fossils in the rocks when he created the rocks,  and the rock strata would be created with partially decomposed isotopes, so millenia later, the godless would think the earth was older than Genesis indicates. 

 

The funny thing is, during his sermon, everyone started coughing.  I at first thought, why can't they control themselves, they're interrupting the sermon?  But the coughing spread and it became apparent that some substance was released into the ventilation system.  They had to evacuate the hall.  Maybe some kid couldn't take it anymore and set off a stink/smoke bomb.  Or was it... hmm, now who could it be... maybe.... SATAN????????????

 

Even spookier, perhaps it was the actual Deity that exists and doesn't like being called a liar. HEH.