goat37

Haha!
I love how you guys describe the YEC's. "I met one the other day!!!" it's like you saw a leprechaun trying to steal your lucky charms.

It's true though, they do exist most everywhere. My best friend turned into one, he was an atheist. Long story short, he was a very intelligent guy, got married at 17 had a kid, got divorced, thought his life was over, underachieved, married again to a peachers daughter, took up religion as a way of not dealing with life...

Anyway, how one goes from being an avid atheist, physics minded intellectual to a hick YEC is beyond me. Even IF your life sucks (which his pretty much does).

But I have a question to all of you... Have you ever met a /truly/ intelligent YEC? Not one that has read a few books and has a big vocabulary, but one that can truly comprehend and understand the concepts that we believe? Not that they believe them, but actually understand?

I haven't met one yet... Their answer to everything they can't explain is: "God did it". Or they told me to look in the bible, and I tend to say "I can't honestly take any truth from a book who's creators believed the earth was flat." Whenever I try to explain to them how evolution works, big bang, M-Theory, etc... they look at me like I am speaking a foreign language. They just don't get it. I would like a study done to show that people with a certain IQ or mental capacity have no choice but to me YEC's because their brains cannot comprehend evolution or metaphysical procceses. Every scientist, intellectual, mensa member etc... that I have ever met is either atheist or agnostic.

I think we should stop debating with these people and just yearn for our own truth. YEC's will never understand what we say to them, let alone start believing it themselves. Just my .02, and felt like rambling after a few beers.

The_Unknown_Banana

The problem is of course that if you stop debating, then they'll probably get out of control, and start imposing their views on us via schools etc. (As is already happening in some places)

I actually first found out about creationism when a friend of mine took me to a "seminar" held by some respected creationist "scientists" (I'm not sure whether Hovind was there or not, I'd never heard of him before then though) It sounded half plausible to me, until I started looking into it. I only wish I had the knowledge back then that I have now about creationism, I would have stood up and questioned a lot of things.

Sad thing is, my friend is buying into it

goat37

I find people that buy into anything that 'sounds good', funny. I could roll a piece of dog sh*t into tin foil and make it SOUND good.

The problem with most people is that they pin their beliefs to religion and god because it's 'easy'. They don't question it, don't even look into WHY they believe what they do. They are just taught by their parents that God is right, and we should go to church every sunday, blah blah blah...

The thing that I fear the most is ignorance. Not guns, cancer, bombs, etc... kills more than ignorance. If someone tried to convince me to believe in their religion and god, I would listen, then do research to prove them wrong! If I could not, I may not believe it still, but I would be more accepting of the theory. The problem with religious fanatics is that they tell you to take everything on 'faith'. Do you know why they do that? Because what they preach can be proven wrong with just a little bit of time and effort into research and discovery.

I hate it when people tell me "Take it on faith" or "That's just the way it is". That's a cop-out. You're just willing to accept what someone else says because it sounds good and you're too f*cking lazy to be your own person and have your own ideas and beliefs.
The bible is so blantantly invalid that it truly amazes me that people still buy into it. People say "Well, at least the message the bible sends is a good one! That is how we should live our lives!"
WTF??? How many millions of people have died in the name of religion?

Sorry, but I've never heard of an atheist that killed someone else because of God.

But after saying ALL of this... it occurs to me that the 95% of the planet that believes in this crap, need to believe it. The majority of people are NOT very bright. The majority of the people CANNOT think on their own, and discover things for themselves. Let them have religion and God, it's the only thing that can give meaning to their lives.
It is now on the shoulders of us 5% to lead the search for truth and leave the others behind. If the day comes, and we don't blow ourselves up, that we colonize other worlds... can we PLEASE leave religious people behind?

Kathleen13

I don't think that I have ever met a true atheist. My family is Catholic and are firm believers in God. Whenever I try to discuss the topic of evolution with my mom, she rolls her eyes, although she does listen to what I have to say. She has admitted that the bible should not necessarily be taken literally and that she believes that evolution can occur. However, she does not know much about the entire concept of evolution.

Sometimes I think about it though, my parents are not bible beaters, they do not force religion on anyone. They are getting older now and rarely even go to church (not b/c they don't want to but b/c my father is not well). I don't like discussing my "doubts" about God with my parents b/c I think about how, if I was 65 or 70 years old (as my parents are), and had spent my entire life with a strong belief in God and heaven, I wouldn't want my belief of an everlasting life crushed by someone telling me that to believe in God is stupid. My parents are not stupid people, although they don't have college educations, they are not stupid. They are good people who have always lived a good life. I think my parents are more in touch with their mortality than I am (just b/c of their age) and if by believing in God and heaven, it helps them get through every day and eases their minds a little, good for them. My problem has always been with the extremists. The people who kill in the name of religion (how stupid that is), and the ridiculous amount of crap that goes on inside "organized" religion. The scandals and such.....it's sickening.

I guess everyone is different and there will eternally be people with different beliefs and thoughts. I wonder, however, if there will ever come a time when people can respect each other and not try to push extremes on others.

DBT

The fellow I argued with was fully capable of uderstanding,he simply didn't want to.
with him it was a fear of death, compleatly ceasing to exist,
he wanted a heavenly father to save and look after him.
With any problem I pointed out he would look troubled but then
rationalize it in some way,and then he was back in his own cozy
little world.

manderguy

I'd never really given it much thought until six or seven years ago when a friend of mine gave me some creationist books (he being recently fundified by his wife). I'm sure he's a properly indoctrinated YEC these days despite his general intelligence (aeronautical engineering major) and good science upbringing (his dad is a science teacher). Eh. I don't talk to him much anymore for a variety of reasons...mostly his social life is all about his church.

The interesting thing (to me) is that I didn't have anywhere near the background to address the claims made in the books he gave me. After doing some research and reading parts of Strahler's book I realized the horrors of YEC. These days I hassle YECs on the other board I hang out on, keep my eyes on the local school politics, and generally correct people's misunderstandings about evolution. Probably not what my friend had in mind...

In my experience most YECs mix healthy doses of misinformation and fear. What they "know" about the science is usually wrong on both logical and factual grounds. And they fear going to hell because of the old "if Genesis isn't true, then maybe the rest of the Bible isn't true, and if you don't believe, then you go to hell".

I'm continually amazed at the ability of YECs to look at the evidence, close their eyes, and say "no it doesn't". I had one claim the vitamin C data supports separate creation and is evidence against evolution. She wouldn't explain why though... The same person also claimed all the links I provided to religious groups and people that accept an old earth and evolution weren't really Christians.

streamline

I could swear I read a past Playboy Interview (then I moved onto the rest of the magazine), where Mel Gibson pretty much implicated himself as a YEC. He offered up some nugget of wisdom as to why "radio-carbon dating of some rock" sounds awfully fishy to him, or something equally brilliant. Does this mean that Mad Max and Sgt. Riggs are also YECs?

Craig

I actually have. I worked with a guy that was like that, a really really nice guy with a EE degree. He designed ASICs for our company (not that this makes you particularly smart ) and really was intelligent. He just refused to look closely enough at the "other" side of things.

Also, at one point growing up I guess I was one too (a Jehovah's Witness) and I like to think I'm at least of average intelligence.

Milkman Dan

What I really find quite puzzling is that there are intelligent people who are indeed creationists, some even YECs.

An example is Kurt Wise. Heck, I'm sure this guy has to endure the highest level of cognitive dissonance ever.

An other one is David Pogge also known as Do-While Jones. I almost fell out of my chair when I found out that he is a die hard creationist when I followed a link to his website posted on an other forum: http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while or: http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org

Well, his essays on evolution are just :banghead:

goat37

I do not dispute that there are moderately intelligent individuals who are highly educated that promote the YEC belief. But that's all they are, moderately intelligent with a high level of education.

I am talking those we would dub 'genius', like Einstein or Hawking. Even though I doubt Einstein would fair very well on Jeopardy, I do believe he is one of the most 'brilliant' minds in history.

I also think a lot of people with the YEC view have very skewed perceptions and believe what they do because they were afraid to challenge what they believed. Most people are born into their religions. If you take a child, told him nothing about God or Religion, and when he was 30 tried to get him to convert to (pick one) religion, he would laugh and think you are joking.

Why is it that nearly all the events that allegedly occurred that the Bible spoke about, accounted for nowhere else besides the Bible?

I do believe in the 'old earth' theory, that the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. While I believe in this, I cannot even begin to comprehend how someone can believe in the YEC point of view. For that I am biased, but like you, I will defend my position by the insurmountable(sp?) evidence that supports it. My evidence is all of the scientific findings we have uncovered, the theories based off of observations, and the solid facts that just cannot be disputed. Your evidence is the bible, which has a history of inaccuracy when it comes to science. (sun revolving around the earth, anyone?)