foursquareman

I'm starting this post to battle ignorance (especially my own). Many people (YEC's and evolutionists) are ignorant of what the other side thinks or believes. I am a YEC. I understand that there is a process of evolution at work at the moment. I just don't believe that we as humans originated from lower life forms. I believe humans were created as humans, and the only changes have been minor, such as nose and eyebrow differences etc.

Feel free to post things you feel YECs or any one else believes about your position which is not true or ignorant.

tgamble

How about this?

YECs think the earth is only thousands of years old. They belief Noah's flood really happened. That radiometric dating doesn't work, that evolution is impossible/a religion/ a lie from satan.

They are wrong of course, but that doesn't stop them.

if you deny that YECs belive this, go to AIGs homepage or ICRs homepage and see for yourself. We are not ignorant of what they believe. Why don't you give some examples if you really belief that.

Now why don't you explain why you are a YEC? There isn't any evidence to support such a position.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>

ashibaka

If you are a YEC, does that also mean that you believe that all carnivores were once herbivores? (In that case, what's your stance on Venus flytraps?)

If you don't believe in Noah's Ark or carnivores-were-herbivores or all that, how do you justify young earth creationism? I'm used to seeing debates over the validity of the Bible being injected into evolution discussions. Do you do that, or do you usually argue scientifically?

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: ashibaka ]</p>

Typhon

Greetings and welcome foursquareman,

I applaud your effort. Knowledge should never be a barrier to the truth.

One of the first things I would suggest is to ask how well do you really understand evolution? Have you ever studied it, prior to becoming a YEC, or (I know this hard to do) entirely outside of your beliefs as one?

In other words, you really should set your feelings and religious beliefs about YEC aside for the time being, and make a thorough study of evolutionary facts and theories. Learn as much as you can in this manner, not seeking to compare it, nor approach it as a natural rival or even an enemy to your own beliefs. Learn the basics just as if you were learning physics, or astronomy, or the history of 5th century Britain.

Then ask yourself, does this body of knowledge make sense? It is a logical, rational, and self-consistent approach? What are its flaws, again, not when compared to what you think you already know, or what your beliefs about gods or religion tell you, or based on any scriptures, but simply based off the subject itself and those facts reported by accredited, peer-reviewed scientists in the field. Is there evidence for the claims it makes? Who are the people who have made these claims, and what is still held as being questioned, and what is well established as facts?

This IMO, would be the best way to learn about what evolution is about, and what evolutionists are really saying.

.T.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Mageth

6000 years is only, what 150 40-year generations or 300 20-year generations? How do you account for the wide diversity in human genotypes in only 300 generations (using the more generous number)? (not to mention the even wider diversity in gentotypes of other species, such as chimpanzees) Subtract the years before the flood (which would have created a bottleneck) and the number of generations is even smaller, probably by about 50 generations.

And if you believe in the flood, and in "kinds" that micro-evolved into the diversity we see today after the flood, how do you explain a "common kind ancestor" diversifying into a wide range of species ranging from, say, a housecat to a Bengal tiger, in @5000 years (since, for example, housecats and Bengal tigers were both known to exist at least 3000 years ago, the time to diversify for many "kinds" would be greatly shortened).

foursquareman

Yes, what I wanted to know was what we misunderstood about you. I believe these things, you believe they are wrong. Fine. We both agree to disagree. I don't believe evolution is impossible/ or a religion. I think it is man trying to understand his origins.

Please give me time to answer all your questions. I believe YEC because (don't get upset) I am a Christian. Of my own free will. I am not a scientist and as Typhon suggested (thanks heaps) I will try to put aside my beliefs, and examine science without my preconceptions.

About carnivore/herbivore, I don't know. I will try to argue the best I can, with science and evidence, and logic. Bear with me, I probably don't know as much about this as you do.

Evolution does make sense. But it doesn't fully answer the question of origin. As I understand it, matter is never destroyed or created. All matter just changes. Evolution doesn't answer where matter came from (stop me if I'm wrong).

About kinds, again I am not sure. Maybe you can help me out.
Thanks heaps!

randman

Evolution, as posited here basically has a major flaw. Even if evolutionists could prove evolution can happen on a macro-level (not proven yet), and appeared to happen in some, many, or most instances, that misses the real crux of the matter for the kind of atheist evolution found here. That type of evolution basically posits a theory that because of these things,God could not have intervened, and moreover, refuses to even acknowledge it is valid to consider whether God was involved.

As such, the "open mind" approach does not exist here. What many here want is for you to close your mind to the reality of the spiritual world, accept arbitrary rules that essentially state considering the spiritual is off-limits to the discussion. Once this is done, of course, it is easy to beleive just about anything. Truth has been removed.

What is interesting is that the atheist approach makes right and wrong mere human creations that evolved, but that basically don't exist independently of people's will. There is no truth of right and wrong,but mere custom, but not many evolutionistsare willing to live that out.

They may bash a religious person for their "superstitious beliefs" but they themselves harbor beliefs about right and wrong which are no less arbitrary and superstitious and even more so actually by their own standards. That doesn't matter though. Logic has left the room.

The truth is that there is no evidence that disproves God. All of the evidence is thus compatible and consistent with theistic models, and that is a plain fact.

It is also true that evolutionist models despite their howls to the contrary depend on the idea that common descent arose from a common source, which sprang to life all on its own from non-living matter. The fact this is wholly illogical and unscientific does not stop the athiest evolutionist from believing it for if he ever accepted even the smallest admission of God, it would open the door to the reality of the spiritual world and forever shatter his paradigm which he has based his life upon.

SanDiegoAtheist

Agreed.

I honestly wish a lot more creationists were like this. Entirely too many are completely ignorant of science, and perfectly happy to remain that way. Trying to discuss the pros/cons of evolution and creation with someone like that is like trying to explain calculus to a high school dropout who hates math.

This really isn't the point of evolution. Evolution starts when the first forms of self-replicating matter appear. What happens before then is completely seperate from it. Does it matter where the ball comes from to the theory of gravity? Or is the theory of gravity simply about what happens to the ball when it is dropped? Same thing.

The field relating to HOW the first self-replicating prebionts appeared is the field of abiogenesis, which is a relatively new field (only a few decades old).

The field relating to how matter came about would be cosmology.

However, the point may be moot. It's quite possible that matter/energy, in one form or another is eternal - there is no requirement for it to have come from anywhere.

Same thing as your God. You postulate God as being eternal. Science states that while we don't know, nothing that we DO know requires matter/energy to have an origin (including the Big Bang btw...that is where OUR space-time came from according to current theory, but under several theories, the potential energy for matter was always present, even before the big bang - the big bang simply changed the FORM of that matter/energy into what we see now).

"Kinds" pose a severe problem for creationists - as the amount of mutation required to diversify from the basic "kinds" (which are generally vaguely defined, if at all) into present day variety exceeds by FAR the amount of mutation that we observe going on today. More to the point, if that variation occurred over several THOUSAND years as Creationists claim, how much MORE change would be expected over the 3+Gya timeline that evolution posits? If a "cat-kind" can differentiate into everything from the common housecat, to tigers, jaguars, and other felids in a mere 5000 years, what is to stop a rodent from differentiating into a cat over 60 million years...or even a lowly bacteria into every form of life currently known in 3.6Gya?

That is a VERY VERY VERY long period of time. To put it into perspective, if the entire history of the earth was compressed into a year, the entire written history of the human race would occupy the last 45 seconds of December 31st.


Now to your question...

I think most of us have a pretty good idea of what Creationists believe, although feel free to correct us if we misrepresent inadvertantly.

My personal pet peeve misunderstanding that Creationists have about evolution:

Evolution is NOT a random process. Mutation is a random process, but is only PART of evolutionary theory. Natural selection is decidedly non-random. A creature which lives longer is more likely to pass its genes on. A beneficial mutation (and these have been observed) increases the creatures fitness in it's particular niche, which leads to increased chances of survival and/or breeding opportunities - ergo, more offspring. Over a period of time, this WILL lead to that mutation becoming dominant in a species. Conversely, a negative mutation will be eliminated as those bearing it will have fewer offspring (if any at all). It's a self-sorting process.


Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: SanDiegoAtheist ]</p>

ashibaka

Looks like randman has a good ol' chunk of ignorance for us to battle, huh?

Originally posted by randman:
Evolution, as posited here basically has a major flaw. Even if evolutionists could prove evolution can happen on a macro-level (not proven yet) (really? never heard that one before) , and appeared to happen in some, many, or most instances, that misses the real crux of the matter for the kind of atheist evolution found here. That type of evolution basically posits a theory that because of these things,God could not have intervened, and moreover, refuses to even acknowledge it is valid to consider whether God was involved.

Completely untrue. Atheism is a totally seperate idea from evolution, and, indeed, most Americans believe that evolution was guided by God. There's nothing wrong with believing that; it doesn't make you any worse of a scientist.

As such, the "open mind" approach does not exist here. What many here want is for you to close your mind to the reality of the spiritual world, accept arbitrary rules that essentially state considering the spiritual is off-limits to the discussion. Once this is done, of course, it is easy to beleive just about anything. Truth has been removed.

Let's try a different approach:

Oh, it's just so nice to have a Creationist defining evolution for us! We don't even need to explain anything!

Yes, randman is absolutely correct. To accept evolution, you must first reject any alternate ideas automatically and shut out any thoughts of spirituality. When you're fully assimilated, you're ready to believe in evolution.

I'm still bad at sarcasm, but hey, practice makes perfect.

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: ashibaka ]</p>

Blinn

Um... what evidence is there that proves God?
<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />