Young Earth Creationism Vs. Science (Statler Waldorf Contd)

[Thor]

The old earth crowd loves to operate like this. We will throw out any method that yields a young earth, and then we will tell the young earth crowd that they don’t have any evidence because all we have done is ignore their evidence.

What utter crap. Please reference anything from a legitimate scientific source that indicates the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old. Good luck with that.

They also ignore the biggest problem of all, we have never observed a single mutation that actually increases information and affects morphology. Until this is observed, and observed to happen quite frequently, Evolution will always be a fairy tale and based on blind faith.

The "fairy tale" is the idea that an all powerful, invisible being created the universe and everything in it by willing it into existence.

Well then Evolution is not a Scientific Theory or Principle, because it is certainly not based on the “evidence”.

Then you've obviously never bothered to do any research. The evidence for evolutionary theory is overwhelming. You might as well be arguing that the Earth is flat.

It asserts that things which have never been observed not only happen but happen millions of times (mutations increasing information).

Speciation HAS been observed. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Being an Evolutionist actually does require rites and practices. You must adhere to certain presuppositions (methodological naturalism) in order to be considered part of the Darwin Religion.

What garbage. There are no "requirements" to be an evolutionist. We don't have a club with written rules and secret handshakes.

Atheists love to try and act like agnostics when it suits them, yet the two are mutually exclusive.

More bullshit here than in a cow pasture. "Atheist" and "agnostic" are NOT mutually exclusive. "Atheist" means one doesn't believe there is a god, and "agnostic" means you admit that you don't know for sure. One can certainly NOT believe and, at the same time, say "I don't know for sure". I can certainly say "I don't believe there is a deity, but I don't know for sure", just like I can say that I don't believe the government has alien spacecraft hidden at Area 51, but I don't know for sure.

You’d never see an Agnostic-Theist, just like you will never see an Agnostic-atheist

I am an agnostic atheist. I would even say that MOST atheists would also classify themselves as agnostics. I am 99.99999999% sure there is no god. But I'm not 100% sure. And I have met agnostic theists.

Since non-living to living matter is impossible by naturalistic means the Bible at least gets it right by ascribing a supernatural cause to this event.

How do you know that living matter coming from non-living matter is an impossibility? Source?

Unlike many atheists, who believe humans are direct descendents of a common ancestor which arose from non-living matter, but instead this happened by naturalistic means haha. So it’s quite humorous you are bashing Christians for believing something you also believe in.

There's a big difference between believing that non-living matter could have become living matter in chemical reactions that took place on an early Earth, and believing that life sprang from the fingertip of supernatural deity.

Most atheists believe man is just glorified pond scum and just one of the animals. So you are the one who cheapens human life.

Actually, since we believe this is the only life we get, I would say we cherish life much more than any believer.

From a human perspective, what the Nazis did was indeed "wrong"!

Oh really? Why? It was just humans out competing other humans. Remember when you answer this; don’t borrow anything from my worldview.

The Nazis were not "out competing other humans". They were murdering the citizens of conquered nations. They even murdered their own citizens! This has nothing to do with "competition". It was simple hatred.

So you say that morals are relative but then proceed to make a morally absolute statement about 18th and 19th century slave trade, nice.

Yup, morals are relative. And in my view (along with nearly everyone else in the world) keeping your fellow human beings in chains is wrong. But if I grew up on a 18th century Virginia plantation my views may have been different. I'd like to think otherwise, but I can't know for sure.

If morals are relative to one’s culture then you can’t say that the slave trade was wrong, since people then thought it was right.

Well, since my morals tell me salvery is an abomination, I sure as hell CAN say it was wrong. Just like I can say that it is wrong to perform human sacrifice even though there were societies that thought it was the right thing to do.

I am sure you are aware that slavery in America was abolished by a movement led by “devoutly” religious people.

And the Southerners who supported slavery were also devoutly religious. So, at best, this is a wash.

It’s a good thing that they didn’t view blacks as separate species like Darwin did.

First off, Darwin did not believe that blacks were a "separate species". And even among Abolitionists you would have been hard pressed to find people who would have said that blacks were equal to whites. And the Southerners (again, devoutly religious) certainly DID view the African slaves as a lesser race. Nice try, but you can't take the high road here.

It’s just one more case where the Bible was right and the science of the day was wrong.

Yes, the same Bible that Southerners used to justify owning slaves. And science trumps the Bible every time. Who was in error when Galileo observed that the Earth revolved around the sun and the church opposed it?

I am NOT a "Darwinist" (and I'd be willing to bet that no one in this forum is a "Darwinist"). Our position is quite simply that Evolutionary Theory is sound. This is NOT the same as "Darwinism".

Oh really? Let’s look up the definition of Darwinism shall we?

Darwinism-noun
the Darwinian theory that species originate by descent, with variation, from parent forms, through the natural selection of those individuals best adapted for the reproductive success of their kind.

Either you don’t believe in this theory, or you are most certainly a Darwinist. So stop trying to play the semantics game.

Gee, thanks for the dictionary definition. I say I'm not a "Darwinist" because there are aspects of his original theory that have shown to be in error. Therefore, I do NOT subscribe to "Darwinism", I subscribe to Evolutionary Theory. Understand now?

Well surely you don’t think racism is morally acceptable just because the majority of people in Darwin’s time were racists?

Can you show me where I said this?

Oh wait, yes you do, you said that morals were relative to one’s culture. So if the culture of the time believed whites were superior there was nothing morally wrong with this viewpoint.

Oh, good grief!

This is not what I said!

I said that morals are influenced by your experiences, culture, schooling, etc. This was not a judgement that slavery or racism were "okay" because that is how the society viewed things.

If you actually read what he is saying, he is saying that blacks are evolutionarily closer to gorillas than whites are. This viewpoint of course could directly lead to (and did) the view that there was a superior Aryan race that needed to be restored.

So what? Where did Darwin propose the genocide of an entire race of people?

As to the “you think Jews weren’t persecuted before Darwin came along” argument. This is a complete non-sequitur.

No, it's not. Because the Nazis would have persecuted the Jews with or without Darwin.

I can understand why you would get so defensive when someone criticizes Darwin, nobody likes their religious figures being criticized.

Criticize Darwin all you want. Like I said, I'm not a Darwinist. I just get bothered when people try to discredit Evolutionary Theory by linking Darwin to the Nazis. Because it's bullshit.

And as for Darwin being a "religious figure".... you just want to keep beating the tired old drum that Evolutionary Theory is somehow a "religion", don't you?

This is the exact same non-sequitur argument you used above, and it is just as insufficient this time. Who knows what would have happened if Darwin had never come along. The Nazis may have still wanted to conquer smaller nations but they would not have had nearly as powerful of a tool for unifying the masses as they did with Darwinism.

And your evidence for this statement is......?

I hope we get to talk about some of the atrocities that occurred in the Atheistic Soviet Union too! That will be fun.

The atrocities committed by Stalin had nothing to do with atheism. He was a power hungry bastard who killed to maintain his grip on the country. On the other hand, I can find LOTS of atrocities committed by theistic governments!

Keep trying to stand up for Darwin, it makes you look foolish.

I'm not standing up for Darwin. I'm standing up against the dissemination of unsubstantiated crap.