When they deliberately misquote scientists to the point where they are basically outright lying so they can try to back up what they say. But they ignore all the other scientific research contradicting them.

Scientists don't make a lot of money. There are far more lucrative professions but scientists can be quite passionate about educating and increasing our awareness and knowledge of the world. So for creationists to take their good work and abuse it to achieve the opposite is quite disgusting.

Right!

It's downright insulting to suggest their prime motivation is discrediting fairy stories. I mean, come on!

Some people seem to think "science" is a massive conspiracy. They couldn't be more wrong, while typing away on their science powered devices.

When they use one section of their holy horseshit to "prove" another section of their holy horseshit.

Numbered list only to separate them clearly. They're really in no particular order.

1. That stupid "Doesn't believe in god/hates him anyway" meme. It's perfectly reasonable to take issue with fictional characters, especially when the other party thinks they're real.

I made this analogy before, but I know Miss Havisham isn't real, but that doesn't preclude me from talking about her fictional actions and attitudes. Because she's a terrible fictional person, much like god.

2. How they conflate the claim (the bible) for being evidence of the claim. The bible is not evidence of itself, period.

3. How the bible is this great book, but it can only be properly understood by having supplemental information, which, not coincidentally, makes the really heinous shit in there slightly less heinous. Which is complete bullshit. A well written document, let alone a supposedly divinely inspired one, should be complete. It shouldn't rely on external information in order to explain what it's really trying to say.

4. How apologists repeat the same assertions-as-arguments over and over and over and over... as though repetition somehow bolsters what they're trying to push.

Ignorance. Majority of religious people are poorly educated and lack even the basic understanding of science and philosophy. With wide-eyed naivety they keep arguing against clumsily constructed straw-men, regurgitating the same centuries old arguments, that have been refuted before they were even born.

Sure, it's understandable, since science requires a lot of effort to comprehend, while religiously based cosmology and ethics can be explained to a child in 30 min, or so - just like any fairy-tale. But it's incredibly frustrating, having to teach basics of science to grown-ass people, before it's even possible to have any form of actual debate.

Them saying something like, "Go to Hell," I respond with "Fuck you," or "If a Supercomputer was calculating for a Billion Years, it could not APPROXIMATE how many Fucks I don't Give," and finally them saying, "Don't Cuss."
That is 100% SelfRighteousness.

I'm really only bothered if they seem to be playing rhetorical games instead of debating honestly.

(September 20, 2015 at 10:38 am)I_am_not_mafia Wrote: When they deliberately misquote scientists to the point where they are basically outright lying so they can try to back up what they say. But they ignore all the other scientific research contradicting them.

Scientists don't make a lot of money. There are far more lucrative professions but scientists can be quite passionate about educating and increasing our awareness and knowledge of the world. So for creationists to take their good work and abuse it to achieve the opposite is quite disgusting.

Just posting this to give a double-Kudos.

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Addendum: Fresh out of college, I lost a serious girlfriend because I took a $29,500 per year job in biology over a $48,000/yr job offer in a non-science field (it made her angrier than I could have possibly imagined!), in part because I knew it would help me get a scholarship/stipend in graduate school eventually, but also because I was/am passionate about science. Many of us do. So when they quote-mine scientists and/or say that evolution is a big scientific conspiracy done for grant money, it makes me see red.

(September 20, 2015 at 10:48 am)Minimalist Wrote: When they use one section of their holy horseshit to "prove" another section of their holy horseshit.

How could I forget this?

For some reason we can't do the same with Noddy goes to Town.

The completely unwarranted sense of superiority I feel oozing from them.