Is this it for creationism?

[Jose Fly]

For the last few years or so I've noticed a decided decline in the number of people trying to advocate and/or defend creationism online. Not only that, I've also noticed a definite decline in the quality of arguments they put forth, and that many of the ones who are left seem to mostly argue via empty assertions.

I believe both stem from the same overall cause....creationist organizations really don't have any new arguments.

To illustrate the above, consider Talk Origin's "Index to Creationist Claims". Note that it was last updated sixteen years ago (2006) and how it still pretty much covers just about every argument you can expect to see an internet creationist make, even today.

This tells me that creationist organizations really don't have any new arguments, and because of that, online creationists have nothing new to present and therefore are reduced to relying mostly on argument via assertion.

Question for debate: Am I missing some new creationist arguments, or is what we've been seeing from creationists over the last sixteen years all they have?

Subquestion for creationists: Given that the arguments in the TO Index have not had any impact on science, do y'all have any expectations that repeating those arguments will change anything?

[Jose Fly]

OK. Just another unsupported claim then. Nothing new.

Exactly, and is one of the points of this thread. Creationists have no new arguments (and haven't for some time now), so they're left with just empty assertions.

Of course one of the questions that raises is....why then do folks like us bother trying to debate them? Is there really even anything left to debate?

[Miles]

OK. Just another unsupported claim then. Nothing new.

Exactly, and is one of the points of this thread. Creationists have no new arguments (and haven't for some time now), so they're left with just empty assertions.

Of course one of the questions that raises is....why then do folks like us bother trying to debate them? Is there really even anything left to debate?

My guess is to knock some of the all-knowing smugness off their faces.

.

[Inquirer]

You are the one seeking support, evidence, but you can't see what is plainly true because your God - scientism - tells you what to believe and you obey your God, you believe lies, you are enslaved and don't know you are enslaved, this is the truth.

Let me fix that for you.

You are the one seeking support, evidence, but you can't see what is plainly true because your God tells you what to believe and you obey your God, you believe lies, you are enslaved and don't know you are enslaved, this is the truth.

In other words, that was not a great argument. But then I am convinced that you don't have one.

It wasn't an argument it is a fact. You have no idea why anything is what it is, why you exist, why the universe exists, why there are laws in nature, it is a mystery to you. I do know though.

No you don't. Sheer hubris.

You ask for evidence and cannot understand because you believe the lie there is no God. God is the only explanation yet you prefer to believe the lie.

God is merely an invented explanation.

Is this what you'd call an unsupported claim? strong atheism?

Make up a magical being that can do anything and you suddenly have have an answer to every question without actually having any answers at all.

Make up a magical natural process too, same thing yes?

Please don't pretend to read my mind. I have no preference regarding the existence of gods.

So why did you claim it was made up?

They make no difference to me whatsoever.

Yes they do else you wouldn't spend time discussing them in a forum dedicated to debating christianity.

So long as you embrace this irrational lie you'll never recognize the evidence that's all around you and therefore there's no point showing you evidence, all evidence is rejected because you prefer the lie, you despise God and cannot understand these things because your starting point for your worldview is a lie.

More Christian mind reading on display. Maybe the explanation is that the attempted indoctrination in my childhood failed.

Naturalism is a lie, scientism is a lie - you believe these lies - no mind reading here.

Everything I say to you is true, yet your blindness prevents you from seeing, you worship scientism so anything that conflicts with scientism is rejected, it isn't evidence you need but help.

Once again, sheer hubris. I worship nothing. I regard worship as one of the most worthless activities anyone can engage in. And to cap off your diatribe we get the ad hominem, the last refuge of a scoundrel as they say.

Dream on.

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #28]

You have no idea why anything is what it is, why you exist, why the universe exists, why there are laws in nature, it is a mystery to you.

Why does there have to be a "why" for any of this?

Is that a joke? a "why" question asking why I ask why?

Some things we simply don't understand yet. The universe materialized and stars, planets, comets, etc. all eventually came into existence.

Really? which conservation laws allow for this magical "materialize" and things "come into existence" how can you willfully abandon science then pretend your being scientific?

Whether we understand the detailed mechanims behind this is irrelvant ... it happened.

Some of us do understand "In the beginning God..." that's the answer - why fight it?

There doesn't need to be any reason for "why" the universe exists (unless it is to support the existence of some imaginary god). I exist because my parents reproduced, there is no need for any other explanation. Humans exist for the same reason every other living thing exists ... the result of reproduction. It isn't complicated.

That's called believing in magic.

I do know though.

You obviously think you do ... no different than any other believer in gods who conveniently use them as explanations for things that they don't understand or can't explain otherwise.

At least I don't abandon all pretense at rationalism claiming we live in a universe governed by laws yet at the same time not governed by laws, think before you post some of this stuff, it might embarrass you later.

So long as you embrace this irrational lie you'll never recognize the evidence that's all around you and therefore there's no point showing you evidence ...

As you constantly say ... it is interpretation of the evidence that counts. You obviously believe that your own personal interpretation is the only one that can possibly be correct. After all, you claim "I do know though" as if that were the last word on the subject. You don't know, you believe.

... you despise God ...

For many atheists (like myself), there are no feelings towards god beings one way or the other. I don't believe they exist simply because I've never seen any convincing evidence that they do exist, and they aren't needed to explain nature or anything else.

There is a need, things happen for reasons, science is predicated on this belief, therefore everything we observed has or had a reason - you can't claim to apply science and at the very same time claim things can happen for no reason whatsoever.

To paraphrase you "Everything happens for a reason except those things that happen for no reason" - as it is written "The wise have become fools".

It is as simple as that. If it turns out gods do actually exist ... great. I'd love to have the chance at eternal life in some heaven-like place. But I believe that is a fairy tale and humans don't have afterlives any more than plants or ants. There's simply no evidence that any such thing is actually true.

Everything I say to you is true ...

Sure it is ... if only you could demonstrate it behind just stating the claims. There are people who are absolutely convinced the Earth is flat and insist that everyone else believe the "evidence" that is all around them, and get defensive when they don't. How is your stance any different?

Your own confused post is evidence I'm right, you try to argue for science yet at the same time you're prepared to abandon science in order to avoid the horror of admitting God is real.

[brunumb]

They make no difference to me whatsoever.

Yes they do else you wouldn't spend time discussing them in a forum dedicated to debating christianity.

Putting aside the other fluff that amounted to nothing more than science denial required to prop up religious belief, imaginary gods make no difference to my life. On the other hand believers peddling their stuff do. I started off on discussion boards like this trying to find out exactly why people held their beliefs and after many years reached the firm conclusion that the primary reason is indoctrination. Now it has reduced to something of a pastime watching others engage Christians in debate and seeing my conclusion regularly confirmed.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #34]

Is that a joke? a "why" question asking why I ask why?

No ... maybe you just missed the very simple question. So let's take just one item from your list to keep it simple. You claimed us atheists had no idea why we exist. My point was that there doesn't need to be any reason for us to exist ... like a higher purpose or we're meant to fulfill some role. Life originated on Earth by whatever mechanism and it diversified over time into a huge number of different living things. We are one of them that came along very recently.

Really? which conservation laws allow for this magical "materialize" and things "come into existence" how can you willfully abandon science then pretend your being scientific?

You're (again) confusing "we don't know everything" with "god did it." This is standard creationist reasoning though, so no surprise. I'm not abandoning science though ... just the opposite. I'm not buying the god did it explanation and am instead waiting on a scientific explanation.

Some of us do understand "In the beginning God..." that's the answer - why fight it?

Another lazy god did it explanation. Show that any god exists, then you can claim this entity actually is responsible for something. Until then, it is a uselss explanation for anything.

That's called believing in magic.

The mechanisms for how plants and animals reproduce is pretty well understood. It is not magic. Have you never learned about the birds and the bees?

At least I don't abandon all pretense at rationalism claiming we live in a universe governed by laws yet at the same time not governed by laws, think before you post some of this stuff, it might embarrass you later.

I never made any such statement or claim. That's you making up stuff again. Why not follow your own regular advice and either quote me directly, or don't bother. Your interpretations and paraphrasing are nearly always wrong.

There is a need, things happen for reasons, science is predicated on this belief, therefore everything we observed has or had a reason - you can't claim to apply science and at the very same time claim things can happen for no reason whatsoever.

And the point you constantly miss is that the reason may not yet be known by science. That does not mean that the default answer is god did it.

To paraphrase you "Everything happens for a reason except those things that happen for no reason" - as it is written "The wise have become fools".

That is not paraphrasing anything I said. Again, you're making up your own interpretation and spouting it back out as if the person you're responding to said it. So I'll ask again to follow your own advice and quote directly ... your reinterpretations are usually wrong.

Your own confused post is evidence I'm right, you try to argue for science yet at the same time you're prepared to abandon science in order to avoid the horror of admitting God is real.

You clearly were confused, and I'm not prepared to abandon science. I'm arguing on the side of science while you're doing just the opposite ... claiming gods are responsible for things before any gods have been shown to exist.

[William]

OK. Just another unsupported claim then. Nothing new.

Exactly, and is one of the points of this thread. Creationists have no new arguments (and haven't for some time now), so they're left with just empty assertions.

Of course one of the questions that raises is....why then do folks like us bother trying to debate them? Is there really even anything left to debate?

My guess is to knock some of the all-knowing smugness off their faces.

.

Yep...it seems apparent that there is the aspect of ego ping-ponging/loop-de-looping involved with some of the less mature dynamics. Standard stuff, but avoidable too.

[JoeyKnothead]

The mechanisms for how plants and animals reproduce is pretty well understood. It is not magic. Have you never learned about the birds and the bees?

Someone try to put him out. 911 says roll him on the ground. Paramedics are on the way.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #1]

New arguments are only needed when observations are made that doe not meet predictions. There are have not been any new observations that creation theory has not predicted. Take for example new observations of the James Webb telescope has shown that there have always been fully formed galaxies. This is a problem for deep-time theories, not creationist theories. This is actually a prediction that creationist theories have made for decades.

Big bang theory predicts that things should look larger the further away an object is because the light from those objects should have been given off when the object was much closer.

Earth Science Guy's prediction here. I predict that there will be more theories like the ones below on how light can travel faster than the speed of light.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180961233/

One way speed of light.
https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/archive/ ... tantaneous.

The next decade should be interesting in the field of cosmology.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #39]

Take for example new observations of the James Webb telescope has shown that there have always been fully formed galaxies.

Always? This is the latest article I can find for Webb observations of the "most distant" galaxies:

https://newatlas.com/space/james-webb-m ... es-record/

Note that none of the observations mentioned have been confirmed as being galaxies, or gone through peer review and publication. Also, the oldest one is 235 million years after the Big Bang, about 135 millions years after the first stars are thought to have formed (numbers from the article). In no way does this confirm anything predicted by "creation science."

Earth Science Guy's prediction here. I predict that there will be more theories like the ones below on how light can travel faster than the speed of light.

The first article is purely theoretical, and only refers to the very early universe when temperatures were still extremely high. They don't give any values in the article, or time frames, and only say the "early universe." The press release and New Scientist articles don't provide details either, and the actual paper is behind a paywall. In any case, the implication from the extremely high temperatures required is that it was a very short time after the Big Bang ... long before any stars formed or even atoms.

The second article is the typical creationist approach to find something that could, possibly happen, making the assumption that it does, then using that to make science fit a creation model. It references AIG (of course) and has this statement:

"It is impossible to measure the one-way speed of light. For all we know, it could be instantaneous."

Round trip measurements, and practical communications (eg. from rovers on Mars to/from Earth, spacecraft to/from Earth, latency in satellite internet that uses geosynchronous satellites, etc.) don't show any reason to believe the one-way speed is any different from a measured two-way speed, but this article latches onto "it could be instantaneous" and makes the giant leap of claiming that this is the case based on some incoherent rambling about how light interacts with matter. The results in the following pure, unadulterated nonsense"

"Ladies and gentlemen, I posit that light radiation travels at an instantaneous speed, and that the time lapse during measurements of its round-trip speed are due to the interaction of the EM wave with whatever particle the light is reflecting off of before returning to the detector. The implication is that the measured round-trip speed of light is a measurement of the time it takes for 'light to bounce off a surface by energetically interacting with it,' rather than the actual SPEED of the light itself."

So somehow light doesn't reflect from a mirror, but interacts with it in such a way that any round trip delay is caused only by the interaction at the mirror and the speed of light is actually instantaneous! Maxwell is rolling in his grave. This magical, unexplained interaction apparently is the same whether the mirror is silver, gold, aluminum, a dielectric coating or anything else. This is right up there with Humphreys' planetary magnetic field gibberish. Of course it is only published in an AIG article where actual science is not required. If there are advances in cosmology in the coming years, it won't be from these guys!