Why are creationists so scared of science?

[Archae]

I always get laugh from the "science is ALL WRONG!" creationists, like this guy:

Y'know, I'd like to take a moment to speak as a backslidden yet bible-believing Baptist Christian creationist. I kind of find it galling when various sects of evolutionists proceed to inform ME--- in partial-sentence sound-bite asides, no less-- what it is an ignerrent creationist like me believes....
Money quote of the day (12/29/03):
It?s like discussing the Apollo program with people who think it was all faked, or discussing archeology with those who believe the world is six thousand years old.

Okay, let's address that, okay? The 6,000 year quote is a popular one amongst anti-Christian religion-thumpers. Yes, some christian way back when sat down with a copy of the Old and New Testaments, counted all the generations listed in the bible on their fingers and toes, and came up with the figure of 6 millenia between Adam and Eve and the modern day. But even when they first wrote it down, it was commonly accepted in the Christian community that it was only a rough guesstimate, if that. Due to chronological overlap and the fact that the chroniclers of the bible weren't exactly including calender dates, and the consequential necessary guesswork, the "bible timeline" has been estimated at being anywhere from 6 thousand to 15 thousand or even longer. Yes, there are some people who stick by a rigid 6,000 year calender for bible occurrences. There are also backhill grannies who only use the King James Version solely on the reasoning that "if it was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me." But they are not the rule.

What the dissenter is attempting to avoid by prattling about the "6,000 year christians" is the fact that, although actual, real-life Creationists differ somewhat on the actual age of the earth, they've got a common agreement and a considerable load of material facts that, whether the earth is "only" 6,000 years old or closer to 60,000, there's no way in hell it's even ONE million years old, much less the tens of millions of years insisted upon by the self-anointed.

Extrapolating back just 1 million years, the rotational speed of the earth would have been high enough to stretch it out into a frisbee.

Extrapolating back just 1 million years, the earth's magnetic field would have been "hot" enough to vaporise the planet.

Going back just 1 million years, the gases that force oil gushers to the surface would have seeped into the surrounding porous rock long ago, leaving it lying inert at the bottom of every oil well.

... the depth of dust on the moon would have been several feet, not a mere few inches.
... the sea-silt at the bottom of the ocean would have been hundreds of times deeper.
... and so on and so forth.

There are enough proofs against the "millyuns and millyuns" model, and enough proofs for a young earth model, to fill a dozen pages.....to demand that at the very least even the moderately intellectually honest will take them into consideration and look them over.

But instead we get snide jabs about "ignerrent hicks and their 6,000 years."

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rhjunior/

[DarkPhenyx]

1. They are afraid of it becasue...

...it completely debunks their religion. Notice I didn't say their faith. One thing M. Chriton got right in his diatribe is that if you set out to diprove someones faith you are most certainly doomed to failure.

[Dr.Phool]

18. Burden of Proof

Is on the person making the assertion. Every creationist assertion is easily debunked.

In the debate vs science, the do everything bass- ackwards. They start with the answer they want, and try to bend all of the evidence to support their conclusion.

Real science starts out with a question, and tries to interpret what the evidence tells them, regardless of the conclusion. It's then published and peer reviewed by people, who by their very nature, try to disprove it.

A great source for info on the debate, and articles on creationism, points of debate, church-state issues, atheism, cults,etc., is www.infidels.org. Check out the library section. You'll find everything to biblical criticism to geology to Darwin and Thomas Paine. A lot of modern science too.

[punpirate]

2. Science, by its very nature...

... invites challenge and criticism. Faith does not.

The defense rests.

[WoodrowFan]

3. Amazing

Isn't it amazing that all of these obvious "facts" somehow slipped past every science department in every university in the world for over a century!! GOLLY!!

Ignorance of science is rampant in this culture. Alas, it's not limited to the RW, see yesterday's "did the Pentagon create Iran's earthquake?" thread for some appalling ignorance on OUR side of the aisle.

To answer your question, I have no idea why the idea of an old earth, or of evolution, threatens these "Christians."


BTW, I am a devout Christian and I have NO trouble (zero, zilch, nada) with evolution or the idea that the earth is billions and billions (channeling Carl Sagan) years old.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. He never said that, actually

DO get the book "Billions and Billions". It's more like a "Play it again, Sam"/"Elementary, my dear Watson" kinda thing. Sagan makes fun both of himself and of the misquotings in the first chapter of the book.

$NONEXISTENT_SUPERNATURAL_ENTITY, I miss the guy. And Asimov too :(

[WoodrowFan]

6. damn

Damn, I must have been channeling a bad Carl Sagan impressionist again. I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS (channeling Billy Crystal on SNL now)

[DarkPhenyx]

11. I swear I heard him say it in "Cosmos"

Don't amek me ahve to go back and watch all my tapes again! x(

[Dr.Phool]

20. Why not?

It was a great series. The first thing that got me thinking about the crap that the church taught me.

My personal favorite was his book, "The Demon Haunted World". Sheer genius.

[Archae]

7. Pentagon created the Iran Earthquake?

Where is that thread?

[WoodrowFan]

8. Just do a search

Just do a search on "Tectonic plates". :)

(edited to correct REALLY, REALLY stupid spelling error!!)

[OldEurope]

9. teutonic??? you mean German Scientists again?

ROFL!

[WoodrowFan]

12. ARGH

I was about to correct that but you beat me too it. I meant "Tectonic plates!!" LOL. Geeze is my face red now!!!! Damn Google even gave me hits on the bad spelling!!!

[OldEurope]

13. LOL

Perhaps the teutonic plates is what you find in Nazi´s brains, like the plaques of the Mad Cow Disease.

:toast:

[WoodrowFan]

14. I was going to suggest dinnerware from germany. (NT)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. Michael Schumacher's chin (nt)

[OldEurope]

29. BWAAAAAHHaaahahahh.

good one!

[greyl]

4. A more cutting point is the

Great Forgetting that our culture has gone through.

We all believe that humans appeared on earth as totalitarian agriculturalists who build civilizations that depend on slave labor and toilsome labor, and even so, that WE are the end result of evolution, we are GODS IMAGE.

We are why the earth exists.
Our prophets came to save us, not sea turtles or malibu. They don't care about sea turtles or malibu, because the earth was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it.


Why do creationists dislike science?

Knowledge is their enemy.
That's why.

[izzie]

10. They may say they dislike science but will use it when they like.

They all get into the auto and go to the hospital.And they do not go by field but over man and science made roads.

[greyl]

19. Yes. Splintered Psyche. A serious fuckin disorder. eom

[OldEurope]

27. No, no, they are using

SUVs because they don´t trust the science made roads!
:evilgrin:

[baldguy]

15. Here's another one:

The Grand Canyon is about a mile deep, right? If its anything less than several tens of millions of years old then we would be able to see the erosion happening. The Hoover Dam would have been swept away soon after it was built.

[hyphenate]

16. Part of it is

Complete and blind and unwaving devotion to one book. One book that might make some great light reading (for me, anyhow) that was written over an extremely wide span of years, by as many people (men only--remember that!) as there are monkeys at typewriters, with definite biases and slants, without the desire to make it as factually viable as possible.

I'm not saying that the Bible doesn''t have its good points--it does. However, taking any book so literally and so blindly accepting every single word in it as dogma makes for a very narrow world view. As I said, there were many writers of the different chapters in it, and some were better at writing and some were better at fabricating some stories whole cloth, and yet even others wanted to try to reconcile faith with their own agenda.

One of my dearest friends has become a fundie, and I feel so sad for her, but she feels sad for me because I'm a heathen to her "new" way of thinking. She is still a wonderful person, though, but she can not possibly understand how her new found beliefs are contradicted in everyday life.

According to one interpretation of the bible for example, most "christians" don't accept homosexuality because it's supposed to be a sin. Hmmmm....it appears to me that the original language was either not translated properly, or was written and skewed by homophobes for their own bias. Why? Because for most of written history, homosexuality is a real occurence, and has never truly changed in practice through the centuries.

One of my other close friends passed away in June, and she was a devout Catholic. She had no problem reconciling evolution to her god, pointing out that if her god was all powerful, evolution was likely his method of intelligent design. It is only those who try to find "truth" in the scriptures as they are translated and purportedly interpreted that continue to cloud their own minds with what was never written to be taken literally.

[Warren Stuart]

21. Power not ignorance

For some ignorance is power, it's not a willful disregard for established facts but rather a way of exerting control. By putting up a set of hoops and making people jump through them, they are also establishing the conditions by which a subset of the population can find acceptance through shared goals.

This translates into political power, which has its own corruptive influence, add in a competing sect and the stakes are raised higher. Laugh all you want at some of the absudities that come about. But if you can manipulate people into believing things that are patently false, then there is no limit to what you can manipulate them into doing.

For some knowledge is power, and for those who lack the knowledge, they will feel powerless. For them faith based ignorance is way of leveling the playing field.

[Cannikin]

22. What about the missing bible books....

That were 'edited' during Roman times? The ones about angels breeding with humans to create giants and what-not? Where can I find info on these?

[WoodrowFan]

23. Just look in ABEbooks

Just look in ABEBOOKS.com under keywords for "missing bible books" Unfortunately Amazon's new search mode has made it almost impossible to find these boosk easily.

[Lars39]

25. I lived thru this at Christmas.

"For some ignorance is power, it's not a willful disregard for established facts but rather a way of exerting control."

Trying to have an interesting conversation on anything with someone that is willfully ignorant is impossible.

The spoken responses I received were,"I don't watch the news. I haven't been to see a movie in years.

I don't believe anything on the internet; I only use it to email my church group. I haven't read anything lately but the books in the Left Behind series."

When I had exhausted my repertoire, the fundy was firmly in control, discussing only the things that a woman should discuss: children, food, clothing, church. Silence or invalidating remarks greeted any topic or response that was deemed unworthy to be made by a female to a man.

I am going to stop calling the Southern Bapts a religion; it is now a cult.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

24. I went to Catholic school...

and I was taught evolution in science class, with no religious overtones, just the pure science.

And in religion class, we talked about what we had learned in science class and how it related to the Bible.

A very wise Sister said that the science of evolution was not at all at odds with religion, and she chose to believe that God created the Big Bang all those zillions of years ago.

If only all religiously inclined folks were so smart...

[Cat Atomic]

26. "Creation Science" is interesting. The Christian church has always

adopted prevailing beliefs as their own. It's a great way to recruit.

You don't step onto an island and say, "you're gods are all bullshit". You say, "wow- that god you're worshipping over there is actually MY god. Have you read his latest book?"

You adopt pagan celebrations and call them Christmas.

Today they're trying to incorporate science into religious dogma with things like creation science and biblical archeology- but the two methods simply don't coexist.

For the first time, organized religion faces something it can't just swallow.

[corporatewhore]

28. Because they didnt evolve

[leftofthedial]

30. science relentlessly exposes their superstitious delusions

they fear letting go of their core beliefs, even when those beliefs are exposed as false.

many humans are profoundly irrational, to the point of mental illness.