I'll throw a coal into this fire

[EHocking]

...
The other part of my argument for scientific creationism is some young world beliefs:

1. the sun has been shown to be shrinking and would be touching the earth 200 million years ago according to uniformitarianism
...

I'll allow others to deal with the science, but this statement reminded me of another discussion quite a while back on usenet which demonstrates how this sort of extrapolation can be abused.

This, on the extinction of the dinosaurs (quoted by me on sci.skeptic).

"One of the best explanations I've heard was a thread drift from an astronomical discussion on how fast the moon's orbit was moving away from the earth. Someone asserted 1cm per year/decade/century.

Needless to say someone did the backward calculation and concluded that the dinosaurs (the tall one's at least) were wiped out by the moon orbiting the earth at a height of 6 feet."

I can only guess that your shrinking sun calculation is based on a similar error.

 

[Ashles]

I can try to look at the link sometime, although it sounds like I'll be in for quite the snore.

That's what is slightly worrying.

You believe you have scientific evidence against evolution.

We provide you with a link that explains scientifically and in detail why your information is incorrect. And it is a really interesting site.

Yet strangely you are not interestd in reading it.

Are you not interested in knowing whether information you have is incorrect or not?

If you are happy to ignore scientific evidence and choose to believe something different then that is entirely your right.
But unfortunately you can't then try to use scientific evidence to prove the non-scientific viewpoint.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

However, if God blatantly proved his existence to us like that, we wouldn't believe in him on faith, and therefore we wouldn't really love and respect him.

...snip...

Have you considered that this didn't stop Jesus proving himself before and after the resurrection? What has caused God to change the "rules"?

 

[Ladewig]

. However, if God blatantly proved his existence to us like that, we wouldn't believe in him on faith, and therefore we wouldn't really love and respect him.

What are you talking about?

1) Why should anyone have love and respect for an entity that refuses to make its existence known? My parents have made their existence known to me and I love and respect them. You seem to be suggesting that any love and respect for God would be diminished or eliminated if God suddenly appeared.

2) Why does God care if we love and respect it?

3) If God really does care about our love and respect, then why does the God of the Bible do so many things that would make any rational being feel anything but love and respect - e.g. killing innocent children in Noah's flood, killing innocent children during Passover, telling Abraham to cut the throat of an innocent child, etc.


- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Here's a quick piece of advice. If you are not willing to change your mind about creationism after being presented with evidence against it, you probably aren't going to be cut much slack with your aura and God theories. So enjoy the polite phase while it lasts.

Lasltly, for a more detailed account of why it is silly to love and respect a being who refuses to make its existence known, please read Kissing Hank's Behind

 

[supercorgi]

Your comment about masturbation is one of the reasons I hate what religion does to people. How much grief, shame and pain did you go through because you were made to feel guilty about a perfectly natural act which had no adverse consequences to anyone?

Ah but...

CHORUS:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

GIRL:
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.

CHORUS:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

MUM:
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.


etc. Thanks to Monty Python

Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

[rppa]

first off, to compare auras to occultist witchcraft is just wrong. "witchcraft" refers to "magick" which refers to things like communicating with demons, raising the dead, and shooting fireballs out of your fingers.

I'm pretty sure that those who claim to be Wiccans would disagree entirely with that characterization, since they would tell you it has nothing to with either communicating with demonds, raising the dead, or shooting fireballs out of their fingers. Spot on otherwise, though.

And finally, on the masturbation topic...clearly I have sparked some ridicule for my comments on it.

Really? I missed that ridicule. I saw considerable anger at the culture that led you to feel what many considered unwarranted feelings of guilt and self-disgust. But I didn't see anyone ridiculing you. What I mostly saw was pity and sympathy.

Using the term "sick" was an opinion I guess...an opinion I clearly thought was shared by more people.

Bingo. A major step forward, the ability to distinguish between opinion and "fact". Even if you'd found your opinion was more widely held, it would still not change its "opinion" status.

*shrugs* I'm sorry if I offended anyone and I guarantee it wasn't my intention.

I don't see evidence of this "offending".

The only thing I've seen people bristle at so far is that old creationist stuff you trotted out. These lists are full of distortions and misstatements, and some of them were debunked decades ago. Yet the same distortions keep cropping up. I don't want to get into one of *those* debates, but you shouldn't be too surprised that when you post blatantly false material, people will attack the material.

You're free to believe in creationism, but I find it telling that when someone is told an argument is based on falsehoods, they continue not only to believe the conclusion, but to repeat the falsehoods.

 

[metamorphium]

Hi gecko,

I understand why you are seeking for such things. I think that a lot of us has been there too. But you know what? When you discover how marvelous and magical is the real world when you learn how it works and discover things which are sometimes hard to believe but you can always prove them you have to be a skeptic because you have no time for things you have

1, convince yourself they are true
2, rely on illusions / tricks / self persuasion / placebo to keep believing in 1

But the problem I see with your post is similar to eg. ufo sighting. The more you know about astronomy the less ufo you see. If you fight against evolution, you should know it and understand it. Especially in case of evolution and genetics when you understand the basics it's hard to doubt since it's so logical and fitting together. If you believe in auras you should be well aware about optical illusions. The list could go on and on. Only with understanding of the real world you can eventually come with something new without decepting yourself.

Also be careful about that site. It belongs to Chalko (so called PhD. in laser physics) who - surprise - sell some kind of expensive T-shirts supposed to harmonise your body. Also this guy is very rude on forums if someone disagrees with him which looks like those T-shirts are not much harmonizing for him.

Oh and lucid dreaming works. It's not paranormal, but woo's are using this brain effect (I don't know if it has been explained how it works) to prove some paranormal stuff which is obviously not present. It's typical to pseudo science to throw a few valid pieces of information (testable) to throw you off track and make you more susceptible to their claims.

 

[Ipecac]

I'm pretty sure that those who claim to be Wiccans would disagree entirely with that characterization, since they would tell you it has nothing to with either communicating with demonds, raising the dead, or shooting fireballs out of their fingers. Spot on otherwise, though.

Really? I missed that ridicule. I saw considerable anger at the culture that led you to feel what many considered unwarranted feelings of guilt and self-disgust. But I didn't see anyone ridiculing you. What I mostly saw was pity and sympathy.

. . . [snip for brevity]

You're free to believe in creationism, but I find it telling that when someone is told an argument is based on falsehoods, they continue not only to believe the conclusion, but to repeat the falsehoods.

RPPA, excellent post.

 

[gecko]

if you think that this isn't stuff i consider, think about, look into, examine, you are wrong...

there is more to the decisions i make than just reason alone. And you won't be able to find God if you dismiss everything to coincidence or chance. You have to follow what you feel once in awhile, of course examining the reasonable evidence also.

 

[gecko]

Oh and lucid dreaming works. It's not paranormal, but woo's are using this brain effect (I don't know if it has been explained how it works) to prove some paranormal stuff which is obviously not present. It's typical to pseudo science to throw a few valid pieces of information (testable) to throw you off track and make you more susceptible to their claims.

Don't forget that its also "typical" for people to only embrace things after someone else has concluded they are true. However, many things that haven't been proven are probably true, right? So we have to think for ourselves once in awhile, bearing in mind that there are things that can't be explained or are unknown.

EDIT: And this is what really starts to bother me I suppose. As a skeptic, you should assume that God might be real, but rather you are just assuming that he isn't. Sometimes you jsut have to accept that there are things that can't be explained. Can you explain love? What, do you think its some super-human chemical reaction to make humans reproduce? If you really think that, clearly it hasn't happened to you, since its really something more. Its on the spiritual level just like a relationship with God.

There is more to the world than meets the eye. Even the eye of greats like einstein! Eventually you have to accept that there is so much going on, there are so many testimonies, that SOMETHING has to be out there!

 

[gecko]

Nope that doesn’t make sense.

You have mentioned that you are a Christian. Then according to that religion your God has “proven” his existence over and over again in the past. He has appeared to an instructed MANY humans and sent his own son to die for our sins. If he could do SOOO much in the past a simple television appearance today does not seem to big an issue.

You're really missing the ball on this one. If God is a loving God that gave us free will to choose or reject him, why would he so blatantly prove himself to us? Wouldn't he want us to find him? Trust me, as someone who has found this...I can attest to this. How amazing it is. I mean, c'mon, would all these people really live and die for God just because they're afraid of dieing? Isn't it possible that there really is something you're all missing, something that the reason of a fallible creature like a human can miss?

 

[DangerousBeliefs]

EDIT: And this is what really starts to bother me I suppose. As a skeptic, you should assume that God might be real, but rather you are just assuming that he isn't. Sometimes you jsut have to accept that there are things that can't be explained. Can you explain love? What, do you think its some super-human chemical reaction to make humans reproduce? If you really think that, clearly it hasn't happened to you, since its really something more. Its on the spiritual level just like a relationship with God.

But, love isn't an all-knowing, all-powerful being who lives in the sky.

I believe it is possible a being of supra-high intelligence designed the universe to support life (I just find find such a possibility extremely unlikely). But then, such a being would not a God in the sense that he was all-knowing or all-powerful. Nor would it be a personal God which is looking after me specifically.

 

[DangerousBeliefs]

why would he so blatantly prove himself to us?

Prove? I'd say he went out of his way to confuse the issue. What proof are you speaking of?

 

[Palimpsest]

You're really missing the ball on this one. If God is a loving God that gave us free will to choose or reject him, why would he so blatantly prove himself to us? Wouldn't he want us to find him?

Well, apparently he didn't use to. With the plagues of Egypt and the pillar of fire and the feeding of the multitudes and all sorts of sign, the Bible doesn't describe a discreet god or loving god. When I read the Old Testament, I see a jealous, "in-your-face" deity that sets out rules and punishes those that disobey. In the bible, people didn't rely on faith to "know" God. Funnily enough, that still didn't stop them from straying and sinning. So I guess having proof of God doesn't remove our free will?

 

[AOK Tiger]

Gecko,

Don't forget that its also "typical" for people to only embrace things after someone else has concluded they are true. However, many things that haven't been proven are probably true, right? So we have to think for ourselves once in awhile, bearing in mind that there are things that can't be explained or are unknown.

Trouble is my own personal opinion, faith and “feeling” is based on an incredible range of flawed human perception and misinformation and just general lack of expertise.

I like my own opinions too.. but when science and logic reject them,,, SO DO I !

EDIT: And this is what really starts to bother me I suppose. As a skeptic, you should assume that God might be real, but rather you are just assuming that he isn't.

You really don’t understand a sceptical position at all. The sceptical position is ASSUME Nothing is real until evidence shows it is. The DEFAULT and logical position is assume NO god until some sort of evidence points to it !

Sometimes you jsut have to accept that there are things that can't be explained.

No you don’t have to accept that.. my position is EVERYTHING can be explained.. eventually.

Can you explain love? What, do you think its some super-human chemical reaction to make humans reproduce? If you really think that, clearly it hasn't happened to you, since its really something more. Its on the spiritual level just like a relationship with God.

Love is EASILY explained. It is the word applied by humans to a combination of various basic human needs, companionship, lust, friendship, reproduction etc etc. Most of these same things can be applied to animals too but to a lesser extent. Eg why does a Mother beast lose its own life defending its young ? Love ?

There is more to the world than meets the eye. Even the eye of greats like einstein! Eventually you have to accept that there is so much going on, there are so many testimonies, that SOMETHING has to be out there!

Testimony.. shmestimony.. do you get yet our unreliable human testimony is ? It is basically worthless in terms of scientific evidence.

You're really missing the ball on this one. If God is a loving God that gave us free will to choose or reject him, why would he so blatantly prove himself to us? Wouldn't he want us to find him?

LOL.. I’m missing the ball ? You really have to come to terms with how illogical and contradictory is a God that would hide from us then condemn us to hell for not finding him. A God that has appeared PLENTY in the past but NEVER anymore. A God that would love us but sentence us to a pointless interim existence on Earth ?? If any of this makes sense to you you are not thinking critically enough.

Trust me, as someone who has found this...I can attest to this. How amazing it is. I mean, c'mon, would all these people really live and die for God just because they're afraid of dieing?

So those Muslim suicide bombers have WAY more faith than you.. is their God any more believable ?

Isn't it possible that there really is something you're all missing, something that the reason of a fallible creature like a human can miss?

I am sure there are zillions of things I am missing.. but I am not inventing illogical Gap Fillers to cover for them !

 

[arthwollipot]

Don't forget that its also "typical" for people to only embrace things after someone else has concluded they are true. However, many things that haven't been proven are probably true, right? So we have to think for ourselves once in awhile, bearing in mind that there are things that can't be explained or are unknown.

I see where you're trying to come from here, but I simply do not believe that there are things that can't, in principle, be explained.

Materialistic science has done so well at explaining things that the ancients attributed to gods or the supernatural. What reason is there to suppose that there is some "barrier" which stops certain phenomena from being explainable?

EDIT: And this is what really starts to bother me I suppose. As a skeptic, you should assume that God might be real, but rather you are just assuming that he isn't.

Um, sorta kinda not. As a skeptic you should not assume the existence of anything unless it is conclusively demonstrated. So you start from a position that states a phenomenon doesn't exist, then start looking for evidence that it does. Sure, you're open to the fact that the evidence may demonstrate its existence, but you don't start by already believing it exists. So while you are sorta kinda right with your statement that a skeptic should assume that God might exist, you are also sorta kinda wrong.

Sometimes you jsut have to accept that there are things that can't be explained. Can you explain love? What, do you think its some super-human chemical reaction to make humans reproduce? If you really think that, clearly it hasn't happened to you, since its really something more. Its on the spiritual level just like a relationship with God.

You are underestimating the power and complexity of chemical reactions. Also the human brain. Also the ability of natural selection to reinforce these ideas. Also the...

Yes, I have been (am) in love. Yes, it's a chemical reaction. A marvellous, incredible chemical reaction. Not a super-human one, but a very human one indeed. There is no spiritual level, because it can all be explained on this one.

There is more to the world than meets the eye. Even the eye of greats like einstein! Eventually you have to accept that there is so much going on, there are so many testimonies, that SOMETHING has to be out there!

Ah. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.

Yes. But we're working on it.

 

[SherryA]

Gecko, I think I'm older than you and many, if not most, of those who've posted in response to your original statement. Most of the replies from forum members were cool, cogent, and wise. Mine will border on hysterical.

I am a fifty year old woman, a writer of supernatural fiction. I was also a chronicler of people's beliefs. I was never an actual believer in the paranormal, but I was fascinated by the humanistic aspects of belief: What do we believe? Why do we believe? These were the questions that interested me. These are serious questions. I don't like it when people minimize them. Folklore is important. Myth is important. Religious concepts are important. These are legitimate subjects, worthy of note, maybe worthy of study, because all these things are records of who we have been, who we are, and when the day finally comes when we comprehend the world as it is, folklore, myth--and maybe even religion--will still be valuable, if only as records of who we were.

But literal belief in many of these things is a leach on your brain, I'm telling you.

Why? Not because it's stupid to be intriqued by the so-called unknown, but because it blinds us to what is right before our eyes. Tell me why people are more interested in UFOs than in galaxies? Why are you more interested in auras (optical illusions) than in the incredible complexity of the human animal these auras supposedly surround? WHY? Why don't more of us realize what a phantasmagoria surrounds us, one that our own senses and hard science shows us? If there is a god, he/she/it is in the details. I'm talking about the details you can see with your own eyes, or under a microscope, or under a telescope. Sure there are things we don't know. When I learn all there is to know that we already know, maybe I'll get started on the unknown! I don't have time for that, not in this--possibly my only--lifetime.

While promoting my books, I came into contact with thousands and thousands of TRUE believers in ghosts, Bigfoot, Tarot, you name it. I was accosted by many people who were convinced they'd been abducted by aliens. The sheer weight of the numbers of people who are caught up in such things amazes and depresses me to this day. Why? Because there's so much in the real world that ought to blow our minds.

If you were my son, I'd advise you to go ahead and explore these things to the hilt, but test them, test them, test them, as others on the forum have instructed you.

Then feast your mind on what we know. Read, or just read parts of Carl Sagan's DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD, SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, PALE BLUE DOT; read books like THE SECRET LIFE OF DUST, A BIOGRAPHY OF WATER. Walt Whitman wasn't being overly-poetic when he said "every leaf is a miracle." ---Sherry Austin

 

[Ladewig]

You're really missing the ball on this one. If God is a loving God that gave us free will to choose or reject him, why would he so blatantly prove himself to us? Wouldn't he want us to find him?

I have all sorts of things I want to say, but let me instead just sum it up by saying: "Go read as much Mark Twain as you can."

 

[gecko]

I think I'm going have to confess that I really have no interest in doing as you advise...

First of all, this life is short, and I think trying to understand the world is hopeless. We will never be able to understand it, so we're better off just living in it to the best of our abilities instead of just sitting around studying. This is, of course, just my opinion...

I don't know what good all this reasoning and research will do me. I already accept that my mind is too feeble to understand the absolute. I think it is from this inabilty to understand that non believing may really come from. Its just something innate, something you feel, something you somehow know and cannot shake, at least for me.

Yeah...I realize I can never explain it...what can I say? I want to give you some advice of my own though...stop looking around and thinking about the world on this scientific aspect, and just look at the world. In all its marvel and beauty. How everything works. Take a deep breath of the air. Try to forget about all the tags and labels you have for this world, and just revel in this beautiful, God created earth...and know that the little nit picky rules and regulations of science really mean nothing.

 

[ilk]

I think I'm going have to confess that I really have no interest in doing as you advise...

First of all, this life is short, and I think trying to understand the world is hopeless. We will never be able to understand it, so we're better off just living in it to the best of our abilities instead of just sitting around studying. This is, of course, just my opinion...

I don't know what good all this reasoning and research will do me. I already accept that my mind is too feeble to understand the absolute. I think it is from this inabilty to understand that non believing may really come from. Its just something innate, something you feel, something you somehow know and cannot shake, at least for me.

Yeah...I realize I can never explain it...what can I say? I want to give you some advice of my own though...stop looking around and thinking about the world on this scientific aspect, and just look at the world. In all its marvel and beauty. How everything works. Take a deep breath of the air. Try to forget about all the tags and labels you have for this world, and just revel in this beautiful, God created earth...and know that the little nit picky rules and regulations of science really mean nothing.

I have a piece of advice for you: If you think understanding the world is too hard, don't think you are in a position to tell other people how to live their lives. That's just some common sense, science and religion don't come into it.