YEC 2

[Januarymadness]

Right I am going to bite. I shouldnt have looked at the facebook but I did.

Mr Ruggles you have made some horrible accusations. You have claimed everyone who disagreed with you was an atheist who lacked logic and reasoning. You were wrong on ALL counts. Many people told you they were Christian or Theists, they just didn't agree with you. The thread was also full of valid scientific arguments which were well worded and full of logic and reasoning.

You have also accused us all of being bullies. Something I saw no evidence of. Not agreeing with someone is not bullying.

So please do feel free to justify your off board comments here as speaking behind peoples backs is really not on.

Please could someone link to the old thread. Thanks

I don't generally like the word sin, especially not used in relation to toddler's/children's behaviour. Possibly people who are religious are more comfortable with it than non-religious people?

I grew up in the 70's and 80's and well remember the term 'living in sin' when unmarried couples lived together, gay people were sinners and so on. It's not a term that sits comfortably with my liberal viewpoints.

But in the context of this thread, I disagree with Best's use of the term 'inherently evil' to describe people (all people as I understood it) and the way he then progressed this to toddlers, touching something they had been told not to, as 'sin'.

Children are not sinful in my eyes. The whole term has awful, judgemental connotations in my eyes. And I don't think that religion and morality necessarily go hand in hand, or are mutually exclusive either.

Just to be clear - Sabrina, I agree very much about toddlers, and I too recall - and dislike - the old language of sin as in 'living in sin'.

But don't you ever puzzle over how horribly people can behave? Grown-up, conscious people? Hitler, or maybe just the murderers - both of them - on trial in Mold. Don't you ever read the Relationships thread and gasp about how hateful and hurtful and violent people are? John Henry Newman says, we only have to live for a while to see that somehow the world is broken.

Yes, absolutely sieglinde. I do ponder that - all too much, unfortunately. But I can't believe that all humanity is inherently evil, there is too much good and beauty in the world.

I think a lust for power, possessions and riches is a genuine human frailty which genuinely exists, in some individuals more than others, and is responsible for a lot of the world's ills.

I'm going to ponder this some more when the children are in bed

All of us commit sins - in the sense of not being perfect. God never ever stops loving us, even for a second, but we can reject his love if we like; we're free to say no to him. If we do, he will take us back in a heartbeat.

The idea of sin suggests objective morality. I just don't subscribe to that, which makes sin a bit ambiguous and entirely subjective.

Still, if God will take you back anyway, then what's the fuss all about?

Very well put, Pedro.

He'll take you back, but going back involves saying goodbye to whatever was keeping you from him, Pedro.

And I think there is objective morality and it's summed up in love as the first law. Do unto others. Love your enemy. The people I just listed were a long long way from that. I don't think we should relativise away acts like genocide, child murder, and spousal abuse.

Agree about goodness in the world, Sabrina. But not always, and not for everyone. Lots of people lead lives of utter misery because of the actions of other human beings.

I just find the term 'sin' controlling and manipulative.

1. You broke the rules of our gang - that's a sin and you're a sinner.

1. You can get back in our gang by saying sorry to our gang leader - if you don't, bad things will happen to you.

(Sieglinde - it's not particularly a Catholic thing, it seems to be common to a lot of religious thinking.)

There are some terrible ills in the world - but is it fair to say that people are inherently evil, as Best did? I can't agree - because I think I'm a good person, and most of the people in my life are good people.

It is arguable whether religious morality is the cure for the world's troubles though. I would argue it isn't - In a lot of situations religion is a tool to gain power, money and control over others.

He'll take you back, but going back involves saying goodbye to whatever was keeping you from him, Pedro.

So you can rape and murder, but as long as you say goodbye to your crimes you're alright in His book? Sorry, I just don't accept that as a way of teaching people to live.

And I think there is objective morality and it's summed up in love as the first law. Do unto others. Love your enemy.

Do unto others is a good start, but not everyone would consider the same things acceptable. For instance, some people find physical pain to be sexually exciting, but would not be an acceptable thing to bestow upon others necessarily.

No, morality is intrinsically linked with human wellbeing. Not objective, but subjective and certainly not dictated by some higher power.

I don't think the concept of people being inherently good or evil is helpful really. Some people behave better than others for a wide variety of reasons.

More helpful to try and understand why, and what to do about it, than to judge. Which boils down to politics - education, health, and justice systems.

Religion has historically had a big role in how people think about education and justice. It's wrong for religion to be just another branch of politics though - it's difficult to vote out a corrupt religion with outdated thinking.

There are some terrible ills in the world - but is it fair to say that people are inherently evil, as Best did?

I guess it depends on your definition of evil. But based on my own definition I'd say it was not fair to say at all.

Back on the issue of whether children (or rather humans I suppose) are predisposed to believing in a supernatural being.... perhaps, and in fact there's a very good reason for that which is linked to one's predisposition to attempt to make sense of the world (and we're assuming no knowledge of the history of science or access to its instruments) and also to a natural tendency to take orders and knowledge from parental figures, but it's pretty unlikely that a child, with no guidance, would settle on the god of the new testament as their god of choice. I'd also be surprised if from a hundred isolated children, any 2 came up with an identical god. Especially since Christians don't seem to be able to agree on one and they have a book which tells them everything they need.

It's very easy to see how primitive man would have judged such strange events as thunder, lightening, rainbows, shooting stars, eclipses etc as deities showing their anger/pleasure at them. Religion was a fantastical explanation of many things that are now scientifically explainable. We are genetically programmed to "look up to" someone - mainly a parent, but also possibly a deity or higher power- in order to learn/explain things. Stories around a deity explained why thunderstorms/eclipses/Haley's Comet happened very nicely before science came along and explained it properly.

I'm with Sam Harris on this - "religion is basically a failed science."

The basics of 'morality' are what works. So it's a matter of being co-operative with others while not excluding competition; it's useful and effective to help other people and be nice to them because then they will do the same to you. It's useful and effective to agree certain codes to live by WRT property and autonomy because otherwise you end up with 'person with biggest stick who hits the hardest WINS' and that doeesn't work terribly well because there is always someone with a bigger stick who can hit harder. Superstition-based morality is about one group/class of people claiming to have the biggest, most special, invisible stick that everyone else will be hit with. The superstitious sometimes like to bleat that their version of morality is absolute when it's actually the reverse.
'Do Not Kill'... well, unless it's outsiders, unbelievers, or anyone who's spoken back to the self-identified bosses. Do Not Steal - unless you're part of the self-identified superior class and then you can take what you want because your imaginary friend says so. Etc.

Ok, I'd like to point out a couple of things. First, SGB I've seen the connection between some Christian fundamentalists and misogyny, HOWEVER I've yet to see anything like that from Best. I'd be among the first to denounce it, but I just don't think he's like that. There are other reasons why he treats the things presented to him the way he does, which brings me to my second point...

Many of you have provided evidence, debunked his evidence, or questioned his 3 primary assumptions (1st post, #9), always to little or no effect. No doubt folks around here realize he sees things differently from most everyone else, but do you know how he sees things? We should take a minute and try to understand the nature of the beast, er, Best. First, he sees mainstream science as making many starting assumptions (eg. naturalism, uniformitarianism, Copernican principle, atheism, etc...), so it's perfectly reasonable for his side to have their own. "We may be biased, but you guys are too... so we're even."

Appealing to the weight of numbers won't work either. Point out to him that 99.99% of scientists in a given field don't support his current proposition, and he'll just say that they're all just slaves to their biased (likely he'd say evolutionary) teaching. If you have 10, 100, or 1000 individuals all regurgitating the same thing, then they just count as one voice with one opinion - no more.

The above two points inform his outlook on peer review. Mainstream science reviews it's own work and they're biased (see above), so it counts for nothing. Because of the same bias, creationist papers will never get a fare shake from the mainstream, so not submitting papers to them in the first place makes perfect sense. Meaning creationist papers are reviewed "in house" so as to be treated fairly. (personally, I assume this means being passed around the lunchroom at the ICR, but of course I'm biased...)

Having adjusted the playing field so, creationist material (I refuse to call it science) can be presented on an equal footing as an opposing opinion that has equal weight to the now devalued mainstream science.

Perhaps now you can understand his resilience to all of the evidence that has been presented and points that have been made. I'm NOT saying that he can't concede a point or argument (he can, and has), nor am I saying that he cannot be swayed by evidence (he can). I am saying it's an uphill battle. If this was all evident to everyone here, then I'm sorry for wasting your time, I just felt it needed to be said. And Best, if you think I've misrepresented you anywhere in here, by all means set the record straight!

Age I think you have a brilliant point. I would urge anyone with an interest in any acedemic subject to look into research ethics. Any paper which doesn't look into or consider internal bias, or look to ways to address such bias should not have much weight given to their argument.... Which is why I have a problem with creationist papers in creationist journals. They hold no weight because they have no interest in making their papers as impartial as possible, where as that is a fundimental aim of most mainstream science.

Pedro wrote So you can rape and murder, but as long as you say goodbye to your crimes you're alright in His book? Sorry, I just don't accept that as a way of teaching people to live.

What are you suggesting, Pedro? A good hellfire sermon? The sin against the Holy Ghost? Um, who is benighted here? Yes, God can forgive rape, and murder, and even genocide. Humans may have to resort to justice, though.

He added:

Do unto others is a good start, but not everyone would consider the same things acceptable. For instance, some people find physical pain to be sexually exciting, but would not be an acceptable thing to bestow upon others necessarily.

Frankly, this is simply silly. Of course it doesn't mean this very special case. Do unto others means putting their welfare and good alongside or even before yours.

I also find it particularly hard to understand why Best seems to feel that any mainstream science myst be atheistically biased. There are plenty of Theist schollars in every scientific field and they certainly have no vested interest in proving the bible wrong. So how does that make an equal playing field. That lacks the logic that Best is so proud of.

I'll point out again that I don't have starting assumptions and I don't believe that science has either given that it's the pursuit of knowledge.

On the forgiveness side. If you believe that God forgives rape and murder and you believe God is the entity who you must ultimately report to, what's to stop you committing atrocities towards your fellow man? The idea of this objective morality is flawed when it doesn't consider the wellbeing of others.

Jan indeed - your point about science not being secular is a good one. My current boss is evangelical christian (after a beer or two) and is a physicist and a fellow of the royal society.

age I think it is also important to think about the emotional investment levels of the people here...I heard a radio programme talking about the people who genuinely believed the world would end last year and how they came to that place and how they dealt with it not happening. It was eye opening!

I think the situation is that in the absence of the bible and organised religion, some people would presumably still come to the conclusion that there was a higher power. This is because they feel it in themselves. Similarly there are still a lot of things that science cannot (yet) satisfactorily demonstrate could arise by chance. Some people believe our success to date in converting the magical to the understood means that one day all those gaps will be closed....other might not.

However, I don't think that in the absence of the bible and organised religion, ANYONE would look at the available evidence and come to the conclusion that the universe is 6500 years old.

Or in other words an unbiased (but still faith based) look at the evidence excluding the bible would NEVER subscribe to YEC.

The only and main reason that any one would think that YEC is a viable theory is because they read the bible as the literal word of God.

So - the real nature of this 'debate' is how much weight to give the evidence coming from the world around us as opposed to the bible.

Clearly those people who believe the bible to be the collected musing of ancient desert tribes etc. are going to give it a fantastically lower weighting than those that think it is the literal word of the universal creator.

This does not strike me as a 'debate' that can make progress...
...and in the end I think I am mostly in it because I LOVE explaining science!

best had already agreed to stop calling mainstream journals 'secular' after I pointed out yesterday that many scientists have faith in various religions.

I agree that this debate won't get anywhere. As age pointed out, best thinks we are biased (as is all mainstream science) as we believe in evolution. So any mainstream publications will be just as biased in his view as creationist articles are in our view. That leaves both sides at an impasse.

I'm still enjoying the discussion though!

Best - your position really doesn't make logical sense though.

The REASON you think the world is 6000 years old is because the Bible (apparently) says so.

The REASON most scientists don't think the world is 6000 years old is because the evidence doesn't point that way. NOT because they are trying to disprove the Bible or 'prove' evolution (for whatever motive).

Best - surely you get that??

thats the clearest Ive seen it put Lizzy

inherently evil

You can make a case for humans being inherently evil if your definition of good includes worshiping one particular god. Since we are not born with the default position of worshiping the old testament god then 'we are all born evil'. Not a very good case obviously.

Back in the real world I'd say that people were born with a tendency to be selfish, slightly offset by a built in need to cooperate. Then parents teach them the current social expectations with varying success.

Btw saying "the old testament god" feels clumsy. Don't we know his name? :)

God can forgive rape, and murder, and even genocide

Heaven is going to be pretty unpleasant isn't it. An eternity living alongside rapists and murderers. I know they will be very apologetic rapists and murderers, but if they raped/murdered people you know then I think it will be awkward and uncomfortable situation.

You know what, if I die and end up at the pearly gates and St Peter shows up and starts checking my rap sheet, I think I'm just gonna say, "you know what, I'm sorry I didn't believe in you guys, but to be honest, if there's somewhere else you can send me, that'd be grand."