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My challenge to creationists

Frozenwolf150 said:
If they're going to claim, without evidence, that God has agency and can switch up the results whenever he feels like it, then the idea of creationism being a legitimate science goes right out the window. Thus creationism shoots itself in the foot again.
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It can still be a legitimate science. It just wouldn't be an experimental science, but a combination of history - trying to find out what happened - and psychology (the why God did it). Or, perhaps we'd be better off just leaving it where it is, in the theology camp.

Coincidentally, someone asked me tonight if my wife (who is Baptist) was a creationist. So I asked and she was. But, the reason I had to ask was the subject isn't at all important to her, as I assume evolution isn't really of much interest for most secularists who aren't in a related field.

Because I care about this stuff it seems rather more interesting to me than it probably is generally. I'd put it on par with WWII, or maybe WWI. Something that happened one way or another, but most people are focused on other things. Certainly the truth matters, but frankly, some truths don't matter much.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
If they're going to claim, without evidence, that God has agency and can switch up the results whenever he feels like it, then the idea of creationism being a legitimate science goes right out the window. Thus creationism shoots itself in the foot again.
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The problem with creationists is that even if we were to grant that it is true for argument's sake, they still have to show that this creator is in fact
  • a god and not just an alien scientist or even little brat playing with his chemistry set.
  • the only god or head god and not just a demon or lesser god.
  • a good god and not just a brat god.
  • the god of their scriptures and not the god of others or no one’s at all.
  • [point 4] + has not long since changed his mind and given up on the whole human race and gone to another universe or galaxy to create a whole new set of toy soldiers to play with.

Furthermore, even if they were to prove all the above, they still have to prove that s/he/it can actually change anything despite having created it all. It does not necessarily follow that just because he created it that he can then change anything. I can start a chain-reaction and be the one that made all bits and pieces and brought them together to bring it all about but I am sure no one would doubt that I can’t change anything once the reaction starts.

So they really have a long long way to go even if we were to grant them their little wishful thinking.

I really do not need to prove that there is no god in any way what so ever. All I need is to prove to them that their god is impossible and then wait for them to come up with another god.

This of course has been done ad nauseam for all versions of gods that have been invented or envisioned or hoaxed by humans since the beginning of them doing so.

The easiest version of a creator to prove as an utterly abhorrent monstrosity of the benighted and warped human delusional vicious mind is the monotheistic god of Judaism and its illegitimate daughters and illegitimate granddaughters and illegitimate great-granddaughters.
 
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marplots said:
Because I care about this stuff it seems rather more interesting to me than it probably is generally. I'd put it on par with WWII, or maybe WWI. Something that happened one way or another, but most people are focused on other things. Certainly the truth matters, but frankly, some truths don't matter much.
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Thats about the sum total of it. It really does not matter how we think we got here, or how we really did. Outside of the medical industry, evolution really does not impact our daily lives in any meaningful way.

There are over 750,000 words in the Bible, seems truly pointless to get hung up on the first couple of hundred.
 
Definition of God

Loss Leader said:
Heck, I'd settle for an internally consistent definition of god.
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Do you want it in a single sentence, or maybe just a word?
However, if you are willing to pay attention for at least a few minutes, I can point to the route you may want to take to get your answer.
For starters, our know universe is just a very small part of the total universe, so it's going to take time and effort.
The Creator and the being we think of as god are two different beings, neither is quite as we imagine, omnipotent, omnipresent, autocratic, etc.
The Creator manages matter; god is a more local being, say we have one for our solar system where he manages the quality of life for all living beings, has nothing to do with religion, etc
Telepathy is the universal means of communication, this is how the fetus in the womb communicates with his mother, this is how god communicates.
Learning telepathy is somewhat like learning a foreign language, but once mastered, it enables one to communicate with god or the Creator and ask them your questions. You will be surprised.
 
Nay_Sayer said:
So we need least one imaginary concept to prove a bigger imaginary concept, makes sense.
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Exactimo. And you know why it makes sense? Because it's so crazy! Why would anyone waste their time saying something to obviously crazy! Right? It has to be the straight dope.
<drumroll>
The argument from WTF.
 
Kathie Bondar said:
Telepathy is the universal means of communication, this is how the fetus in the womb communicates with his mother, this is how god communicates.
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Actually no, it works through chemical and cellular interactions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19799474

Kathie Bondar said:
Learning telepathy is somewhat like learning a foreign language, but once mastered, it enables one to communicate with god or the Creator and ask them your questions. You will be surprised.
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They say that when it comes to foreign languages, you always learn the swear words first.
 
arthwollipot said:
No, it's not a good challenge, because I don't know of any creationists that believe that creation is ongoing. God did all of his creation in the six days of Genesis and that's it. So your challenge is impossible to fulfil.
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At the very least they can make predictons about evidence for Creation, that we might find in the future, that would otherwise be missed out on by everyone else studying Evolution.

marplots said:
Can you be more specific? What I mean is, how do I know you won't just hand-wave any example away with the comment, "that's not God?"
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If it was evidence in the form of design documents (specs and/or blueprints, etc.) that made predictions and fresh insight into medical science, that would otherwise be missed out by everyone else studying Evolution, I would say that is pretty hard to hand wave away.

I wouldn't have any examples to share, though.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
Oh come now. Even creationists have had to admit that life still demonstrates minor changes and adaptations, long after the initial creation was completed. After all, we can directly observe these changes. However, they say this only constitutes "microevolution" not "macroevolution" and therefore doesn't count. If a creationist really does believe that life today is static, then they are beyond help.
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Well, I have personally encountered creationists that say exactly that. The changes we see are adaptation, not evolution. Sure, the peppered moth might get darker in response to sooty walls, but it doesn't spontaneously evolve into a bird!

Remember, these people do not understand evolution at all.
 
The reason I posed this specific challenge, i.e. the bolded part, is because creationists will often resort to the line, "Well, you can't SHOW me evolution happening before my eyes, therefore it's a lie!" I usually link them to one of the following:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://phylointelligence.com/observed.html

Then I realized I was wasting my time, as they don't like to read things like that. Creationism needs to stand on its own facts. Therefore, the burden of proof is on creationists to show me one instance of the creator in the act of designing something new.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
The reason I posed this specific challenge, i.e. the bolded part, is because creationists will often resort to the line, "Well, you can't SHOW me evolution happening before my eyes, therefore it's a lie!" I usually link them to one of the following:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://phylointelligence.com/observed.html

Then I realized I was wasting my time, as they don't like to read things like that. Creationism needs to stand on its own facts. Therefore, the burden of proof is on creationists to show me one instance of the creator in the act of designing something new.
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Hell, you can throw them for a loop by asking them to define "god". :D
 
marplots said:
And, as an all-powerful being, he would do these things at your behest?

I have another idea. God doesn't want you to believe. He has created you as you are, to demand the evidence you demand and reject the evidence others consider sufficient. We are not testing God here, we are testing mankind, in the manner of separating the wheat from the chaff.

But as to your question, have you ever seen someone undergoing a conversion experience? It is thought to be a direct action of God (or, some would say the Holy Spirit) on a particular person to alter their whole worldview. Or, if you like, you could ask believers about answers to their prayers. In either case, it is God's hand in the world, in real time and in 3D.

My suspicion is that neither of those impress you much, because, although you can observe them, you do not experience them directly.

Do you see the problem?
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The conversion experience prooves that humans are capable of emotional upheavals, it says nothing about the existence of god.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
Then I realized I was wasting my time, as they don't like to read things like that. Creationism needs to stand on its own facts. Therefore, the burden of proof is on creationists to show me one instance of the creator in the act of designing something new.
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Except, as I said, they don't believe that the creator will ever be found in the act of designing something new. Your challenge to creationists is exactly as effective as the creationists' challenge for evolutionists to show them a half-horse half-dog.
 
arthwollipot said:
Except, as I said, they don't believe that the creator will ever be found in the act of designing something new. Your challenge to creationists is exactly as effective as the creationists' challenge for evolutionists to show them a half-horse half-dog.
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The nature of God doesn't change, according to them. If God created things at one time, he should still be creating things today. If even creationists are forced to admit that things still adapt on a small level, then it should be possible to observe the hand of God in these changes.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
The nature of God doesn't change, according to them. If God created things at one time, he should still be creating things today. If even creationists are forced to admit that things still adapt on a small level, then it should be possible to observe the hand of God in these changes.
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You're underestimating the extent to which creationists can rhetorically twist out of these assumptions, in my opinion.

I've seen it argued that the nature of God has changed, several times. There was the Creator god, which rested on the seventh day and stopped creating. Then there was the God before the flood, who put his bow in the sky as a covenant of his change of heart. Then there was the Old Testament God, who was vengeful and led Moses and his people to the Promised Land. Then there was the New Testament God, who was forgiving. And lastly there is the God of Revelation, who is all fire and brimstone again.

I've seen it argued that there is such a difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God that they might actually be considered to be two different Gods.

Anyway, there's certainly no support in the Bible that I am aware of for continuous creation. A theistic evolutionist might support that, but I don't think they're the people you're trying to get to.
 
Kathie Bondar said:
Learning telepathy is somewhat like learning a foreign language, but once mastered, it enables one to communicate with god or the Creator and ask them your questions. You will be surprised.
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If I learned telepathy, I wouldn't need to learn foreign languages, right?
 
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