to be a little perturbed to have discovered that my next door neighbour is a Creationist?

[Greensleeves]

DH overheard our next door neighbour having a row with his wife in the back garden yesterday. He was insisting - belligerently - that the Earth is 6000 years old, Stephen Hawking was an idiot and the moon landing was faked. His wife was cackling and saying things like "but it's basic GCSE physics!".

For the avoidance of dripfeed: he's a dour, ill-mannered git who bellows at his kids all weekend and lets his dog shit on our drive.

”What harm is he doing Op with his beliefs?”
I think the worry is that if someone is batshit enough to believe something like this.....what other unfathomable shite could go through their minds..?

I think maybe some daughters too. Either way there was a whole lot of invest going on at some level...

Or incest even. Pesky autocorrect.

When we’re being told to believe that a man can change into a woman simply by saying the words,”I’m a woman”, creationism doesn’t actually seem that batshit in comparison.

Flying spaghetti monster is used when religious people ask to prove there is no god. You ask them in return to prove there is no flying spaghetti monster- they cant. Noone can for either. Its not an argument

Isn't that usually a response when atheists ask theists to prove there is a God? Why does there have to proof? It's called faith for a reason and should be a personal thing.

I'm an atheist. I have no choice. I don't think you can choose faith. I don't think believing in God is silly though. I think it's probably a wonderful thing. I do think rejecting science is silly though. Because of what was written in a 2000 year old book that we've badly translated.

Rejecting science is not a defining characteristic of having faith. Rational Christians are probably sobbing at the thought they need to believe in creationism else they're not doing it right.

If you lived in NI, you'd be surprised if your neighbour WASN'T a creationist! This place is teeming with them. Oh well, as long as they don't shove their opinions down my throat, I can live and let live.

”What harm is he doing Op with his beliefs?”

I dont give a shit what anyones religious beliefs are. But for too many, they try to force their beliefs/ rules on others

How much homophobia is rooted in religion? The abrahamic all say its a sin.

Why cant i go to Morrisons at 9pm on a sunday but i can on a monday? Gods day of rest

Bishops in the house of lords being able to decide on laws

All of this impacts daily life in the uk

There’s a really good explanation of different types of creationism here.

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/creationism_1.shtml

You can prove a positive. You cant prove a negative.

The onus is to prove there is a god which noone has yet despite the thousands of years and billions of people whove said there is one

Faith just means believing in something with zero evidence of it being true.

It's people who reject the big bang and evolution and believe the earth is around 4000 - 6000 years old, was created in six days and every single human is descended directly from Adam and Eve.

Well, not exactly. A creationist is a person who believes that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation.

So, that makes me a creationist. The definition references neither the moon landings nor the age of the earth. The reason that I struggle with the Big Bang theory? If there was nothing, what caused the bang?

I believe in science. And engineering. And modern life.

I completely reject the concept that faith and science are mutually exclusive . Some very famous scientists are not prepared to categorically state that there is no divine being (God).

I will never evangelise, nor try to convert anyone.

I love my neighbours. I don't have a dog and if I did I wouldn't let it shit on other people's property.

To each, their own

Oh well, as long as they don't shove their opinions down my throat, I can live and let live.

Most kind of you. I'll return the favour

Now I don't follow any religion, although I do believe there are beings in the universe that are beyond our comprehension and could be mistaken for God(s), but I've always thought the religious theories behind the creation of the universe make a bit more sense than the scientific ones (currently).

How was the universe created?

Religious reason - God created it
Scientific reason - Big bang

So what made/was before the big bang?

Religious - all ready told you God!
Scientific - don't know, just happened.

The scientific answer is less conclusive than the religious one, although at least with science they'll continue to question their answer until it can be proven.

No it's not less conclusive. Where does this God come from then?

The cognitive dissonance in this thread is laughable.

Atheist: they better not try to shove their beliefs down my throat!

Christian: has conversation in private

Atheist: eavesdrops on conversation then proceeds to create online thread for public ridicule.

Nope, no shoving of beliefs here.

Engleburt Humperdink 100% created the universe.

Just as conclusive as 'god did it'

What harm is he doing to OP with his beliefs?

Hi honeygirlz,

The rejection of rational truth for which there is incontrovertible evidence is at the heart of many problems we face today from the anti-vaccination lobby to brexit. People who are susceptible to one are susceptible to the others.

I had an interesting conversation with a Jehovah's Witness man who knocked on the door one day many years ago.

I had the normal 'so how do you explain dinosaurs vs the book of Genesis' conversation about the Bible.

His answer 'that's because the Bible was written by people who had to explain the world they saw around them, at the time they saw it. So although it says the earth was created x thousands of years ago, you should interpret the Bible as saying God made the earth and everything on it - the time scale doesn't matter. If they'd have discovered dinosaur bones at the time the Bible was written, they'd have been included in the list. We didn't have the science we have now and in the future our views will change again as the science develops to back our theories. But nothing has ever explained the Big Bang completely - who or what put those tiny pieces of dust or rock or gas in space? It all had to start somewhere and that is what the Bible is trying to explain by telling you that God made the earth, the universe and everything in it."

That's the most sensible man I've spoken to on that subject.

How low do you want to go?

Putting aside the fact that I didn't think anybody would take my comment as a serious suggestion, I think leaving dig shit on your neighbour's drive is pretty low, don't you?

My best friend is a flat Earther and major conspiracy theorist. I have listened to him ramble on rather extensively but I don’t agree with a single word of it.

I ignore most of it tbh and roll my eyes lots.

Putting aside the fact that I didn't think anybody would take my comment as a serious suggestion, I think leaving dig shit on your neighbour's drive is pretty low, don't you?

I think the civil thing to do is to have a conversation with the neighbour about it rather then just ridicule him and shovel a bunch of poo on to his garden. If you did that aggressively and then joked about his beliefs he could take that as you wanting to attack him because of his religion, which is bordering a hate crime. So I would not joke about that, because even if you thought it was a joke, OP might do it and have a serious problem for it.

Meh, who cares? People can believe what they want to. Intriguingly the book of Genesis got things re evolutionary order fairly spot on. Maybe just not the time frame.

@QueenoftheBiscuitTin

No it's not less conclusive. Where does this God come from then?

Maybe conclusive was the wrong choice of word. I meant it as in the religious explanation offers a final answer whereas science doesn't have one (yet).

As I said I'm not religious but a quick Google of your where does God come question turns up these passages.

“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:28).

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

To me that seems like the religious answer is that there is no before God, that God exists outwith the constraints of time and space and has always been and always will be.

Seems a bit of a cop out but again offers a final answer.