CreationWeb post archive.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-07 08:24pm

And here I am, making our "warning order", and letting them get a feel for how the judging is going to be:

Ze'ev-Eretz
Member

Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 32
Location: Fort Metz'ada
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 1:17 am Post subject:

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

Good day to all!

I would like to announce that within the next few hours (either by late Thurday night or early Friday morning) we will be setting the final grounds for the debate. We have two gentlemen preparing for our team and a panel of five judges selected. I suspect CreationWeb.org has their own chosen champions and their own panel of five judges as well.

Judging criteria: 1-10 scale based on:

Effective use of Evidence
Clarity of Communication
Staying on Topic/Relevancy
Convincing
Civility

It is probably best if the debate is carried out through e-mail, and cc'd to the two primary mods for public posting on their respective boards. This avoids any unpleasent charges of favoritism, or 'home-court advantage'.

Topics are still being hammered out but it appears that Creationism and Evolution will be among the topics selected, however as it stands these are broad topics and should be narrowed considerably to such things like either young/old Earth or bological selection/mutation arguments (for example).

Another topic in consideration is Biblical Morality and Secular Humanist Ethics, again fairly broad. If anyone here has any ideas on good topics, please do let me know here at this thread. I will be posting here again with the more formal version of the outline, so stay tuned.

Thank you for your time, and I hope to see an exciting exchange!

--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

_________________
"Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai elohainu, Adonai ahad"

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-07 08:25pm

Do you thik it possible for them to choose any topic ideas? It's not going to seem fair if they have no choice in what goes on in the debate.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-07 08:36pm

I'm hoping they will offer something we can each agree on-- and since I have already given them an outline of the two most-discussed ideas over here (and the same topics have been raised over there as well) then my primary intent is to see them narrow the fields down within those parameters.

However, I didn't want to dictate that to them, so they may come up with some new thing entirely.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-07 11:30pm

Ze'ev- Eretz
Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 33
Location: Fort Metz'ada
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 4:24 am Post subject:

Kyle Shockley wrote:
[quote="Ze'ev-Eretz" wrote:]

"These descriptions are Bronze Age tribal stories, allegorical, to explain a 4.6 billion year "Creation" from swirling pools of gas and dust. Adam and Eve are allegorical for the first true humans to evolve as such, in full biological form.'

Both descriptions sound like doctrines of faith.[/quote]

Yes, I never doubted, questioned, or challenged the existence or supremacy of God.

I think you assign too much credit to the current cosmologies of secular science (which, by the way, seem to parallel many of the cosmologies of the ancient pagans that the Hebrews were up against. As a Jew, doesn't this set off alarm bells, or raise red flags?).

Absolutely not, in fact, at the time the Torah was given to Mankind, the dominant view of the universe was something akin to what would become the Ptolemaic viewpoint.

In Jewish tradition, we have what is called 'halakhic time'-- for example, during the summer, an hour is actually something like 67 minutes long while in winter the hour is considered to be something close to 54 minutes (I am approximating these, only the most rigorously Orthodox followers adhere to this nowadays). It was done so that there would always be a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night, evenly balanced.

Well, the system also worked in the cosmological sense. In the time before Creation, all of space, time, and so on was compacted. It is halakhic (Jewish law) belief that the first 'day' of Creation was actually billions of years, and as time slowly unfolded due to God's ongoing act of Creation, the next day was several million years, the day after was millions of years, the fourth day was several thousand years, and so on until we reach the last day, a 24-hour day as we know and love it. It was the only belief system that complimented modern cosmology-- milennia before such was conceived of.

By the comments you made towards the very FOUNDATION of the Torah (the creation account), it seems that you have an allegorical view of the OT.

Yes, because it was a wonderful method to unite a Bronze Age society in a common heritage. The Torah was given at a time when the neighbors believed that Athena sprang from the head of Zeus fully grown and armored; that Osiris was chopped up and re-made as a mummy and came back to life. You can't set down a tribe of Bronze Agers and start talking to them about the Hubble expansion limit or the intricacies of hyperbolic space.

The Torah also condoned tribal warfare, blood sacrifice, and acts of genocidal aggression. Back then, that was how a tribe did things. But do they fit now?

Wasn't God's word supposed to be taken literally by all those who were under it? Wasn't a doer of the Law indebted to live entirely under the Law?

Literally? No. We cannot apply exact, literal, 100% Biblical imperatives to the modern world. We can interpret the law and live by the changing codes of moral comprehension because mankind is supposed to develop, not remain stagnant and afraid of the dark. Torah scholars have picked apart parts of the Bible for centuries in ongoing wrangling and interpretations. Did not God give us minds, and reason, and the will to ask questions? Is blind, unthinking faith really what God is after, or the ability of a people to come to him after making a rational, informed decision? If God had wanted unhesistant yes-men, he'd have built robots, not people.

If the Law's historical basis is in fiction...

i did not say that. I said it was open to interpretation due to the difference between a Bronze Age tribe and a modern, rational society.

Remember, all the things that we see were made by God. That includes the expanding rim of the Universe, which seems to back up the 'Big Bang' explanation. That being the case, that means that God made the Big Bang for purposes we have yet to fathom. Same for dinosaurs, continental drift, and that odd null space where electrons go when exploring the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

As for reading the NT, I am currently exploring the book of Acts, but very slowly as I have so much homework (I hope to catch up over my winter break).

Later!
_________________
"Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai elohainu, Adonai ahad"

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 01:32am

Apologist
Member

Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 44
Location: Sacramento, California
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 5:11 am Post subject:

Hmmn.

I was under the impression that this was to be a one-on-one debate.

Anyway, though, I would like to personally speak with, and agree with, my opponent on what the subject of our debate will be.

And, the email thing sounds fine.
_________________
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

-John 14:6

Ze'ev-Eretz
Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 34
Location: Fort Metz'ada
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:29 am Post subject:

Apologist, is it not you and CreationistAllTheWay or Zap81? I thought it was a team event,
but each board's two 'team' members will be dealing with one another one-on-one, anyway.

Also, one of our guys has posited the possiblity of a "Historical Accuracy vs. Biblical Events" concept, are you or your (hypothetical?) partner up for it?

Thank you for your time, and I hope to see some good points made by all.

--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary
________________
"Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai elohainu, Adonai ahad"

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 02:04am

The Apologist
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 45
Location: Sacramento, California
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:58 am Post subject:

Ze'ev-Eretz/Coyote wrote::Also, one of our guys has posited the possiblity of a "Historical Accuracy vs. Biblical Events" concept, are you or your (hypothetical?) partner up for it?
No, I do not think my opponent and I would share enough common ground in such matters.

As I said before - logic, epistemology, theology, etc. These subjects, I believe, will naturally encourage more productive debate.

Ze'ev- Eretz (Coyote)
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:59 am Post subject:

Apologist, please let me know your e-mail and I can share it with my comrades back at
SDnHQ.

Sorry, Zap81, for some reason I was under the impression that you were in on this. In any case, others that might be good are Kyle Shockley, he seems to be quite a well-organized fellow, as is CreationistAllTheWay.. I mean, you guys know your fellows more than I.

Again, thank you and I hope to hear from you soon!

--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-11-08 03:00am

Is one of them going to answer my challenge to debate on young-earth creationism? Or do they all know that they idea is hopelessly indefensible?

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 03:09am

If you go down the path of Logic (impossibly broad fucking topic he's inviting, huh?) then you can easily steer it towards Evolution/Creation events such as young Earth.

I have a feeling most of these people are wholly ignorant of what a debate truly is, you probably saw my posts going after that one guy who thought that his agreement with what the Bible said was "logic".

Once you and WeeMadAndo hear from these guys, I'd bet you can just grab 'em by the nose and steer them towards whichever topic fits your needs. Just bring it up as an example and they'll be trapped. They'll fight with Bible quotes and it will be like Wesley Crusher vs. Darth Maul.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 04:04am

THE DEBATE: Rules of Engagement

1: DEBATE WILL TAKE PLACE VIA E-MAIL
2: DEBATE WILL BEGIN AS OF 0900 (9:00AM) SATURDAY MORNING, US EASTERN STANDARD TIME (GMT -5hrs.)
3: DEBATERS WILL POST THEIR REPLIES WITHIN 48 HOURS.
3: DEBATE WILL BE POSTED PUBLICLY AND UNALTERED AT BOTH STARDESTROYER.NET AND CREATIONWEB.ORG. ALL POSTS WILL BE CC'D TO DARTH WONG AND SBOLLINGER.

For StarDestroyer.net, we present:

2 Gladiators: WeeMadAndo and Durandal
(E-mails must be shared with me, Coyote/Ze'ev-Eretz, within 48 hours or less!)

5 Judges: Neoolong, Vympel, NecronLord, Verilon, Yogi

CreationWeb.org must supply a list of their chosen champions and panel of five judges within 48 hours.

Judging criteria: 1-10 scale based on:

Effective use of Evidence
Clarity of Communication
Staying on Topic/Relevancy
Convincing
Civility

Judges must post Rationale for their grades:
Such as: "the CW rep used his evidence regarding intelligent design very well, so I gave him a 9 on that, but he lost the topic halfway through and went into Old Testament prophesies, so he only got a 4 for staying on the relevant topic..."

Topics Suggested by StarDestroyer.net:
Young/Old Earth Creationism and Cosmology
Secular Humanist ethics and Biblical Morality (including, but not limited to, such topics as intolerance and Commandment law)

Anyone can coach or supply additional research as needed, but outside sources (books, articles, etc) must be accredited. No proof from "some guy's cousin I met at a party".

This message is being posted to both boards, as of right now. Good luck!

_________________
--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

"Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai elohainu, Adonai ahad"

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-11-08 12:30pm

Coyote wrote:If you go down the path of Logic (impossibly broad fucking topic he's inviting, huh?) then you can easily steer it towards Evolution/Creation events such as young Earth.

I have a feeling most of these people are wholly ignorant of what a debate truly is, you probably saw my posts going after that one guy who thought that his agreement with what the Bible said was "logic".

Once you and WeeMadAndo hear from these guys, I'd bet you can just grab 'em by the nose and steer them towards whichever topic fits your needs. Just bring it up as an example and they'll be trapped. They'll fight with Bible quotes and it will be like Wesley Crusher vs. Darth Maul.

I adamantly refuse to debate such a broad topic. I've debated creationists before, and there is absolutely no focus to the debate because they run around all the fucking time. First they bring out that ridiculous thermodynamics argument, then they jump to big bang cosmology, then over to abiogenesis, then they fuck up evolutionary theory, then some religious bigotry, then moral implications of evolution. Scatter some false cause, strawman, false dilemma and complex cause fallacies and a few red herrings, and you have the creationist argument.

It's a consistent pattern. I'll debate the question of the Earth's age, nothing else. If the Bible is shown to be in error with that fact, then it throws the whole concept of creationism out the window, anyway. If they don't like being limited to a specific question, like real debators are, then fuck them. It just goes to show that none of them have sufficient knowledge in the given area to competently debate someone who has taken a graduate-level class in it.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 01:48pm

Zap81
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 5:25 pm Post subject:

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

48 hours? Why the rush?

_________________
Ze'ev-Eretz
(Coyote)
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 6:44 pm Post subject:

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

No particular reason, really, just to get things going. Usually when a person is given a time limit they have a solid parameter to work with, which avoids procrastination (a constant roommate of my own, it seems).

Besides, if it drags out too long, both sides lose their audience!

Hey, I suppose we could say it starts Saturday the 16th (I think it's 16th, maybe it's 17th) giving everyone another week, if you need. I know WeeMadAndo will be finishing exams where he's at (he's in Australia) so I doubt there'd be too much difficulty if you wanted to go that route.

Anyhow, remember I'll need the e-mails of the participant(s) before too long, in any case, so we can finalize topics between them.

Good luck to all!

________________
--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-08 01:52pm

I agree, Durandal, and I am trying to pin them down to something but they are not committing to anything. And I actually don't think they are being purposefully evasive, either, I seriously believe they have no idea what an actual, serious debate approach is. They have logic and faith completely turned around and seem to be of the impression that "Creation and Evolution" is a finely-honed topic. Like walking into a room and saying "The Middle East. Isn't that enough?"

But I'm still working with them on this and hope to have something vaguely resembling an answer with real legs to stand on ASAP...

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-09 01:29am

Sometimes I just want to fucking cry.

Ze'ev- Eretz (Coyote)
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2002 7:04 pm Post subject:

Apologist... we need to narrow down the topic from "Logic" (for example) to something with
an actual point-and-counterpoint that can be made.

Durandal's reply, edited for brevity:

I adamantly refuse to debate such a broad topic. ... there is absolutely no focus to the debate ... First they bring out ...thermodynamics ...[then] big bang cosmology, then ...abiogenesis, then ...evolutionary theory, ...then moral implications of evolution....

It's a consistent pattern. I'll debate the question of the Earth's age, nothing else. If the Bible is shown to be in error with that fact, then it throws the whole concept of creationism out the window, anyway.

So we need to find something solid like young-Earth creationism or History and Biblical Accuracy, with a definite parameter to it. Offering to debate on a topic like "Logic" is like picking a topic like "World Problems" as a narrowly-defined example.

Let me know what works! Later!
________________
--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

The Apologist
Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 12:36 am Post subject:

Why is it that SDnet has two "gladiators"? I will only debate one opponent.

Whoever that is must contact me on this thread, so that we can make our own arrangements.

Also, I cannot guarantee consistent availability throughout the course of the debate, so how about some chronological flexibility? We will begin when we are ready, and we will compose our arguments when we have the time.

Apologist... we need to narrow down the topic from "Logic" (for example) to something with an actual point-and-counterpoint that can be made./quote]

Of course. My point is that logic is (presumably) "common ground" for my opponent and I, so this is where we should start. Other things, such as paleontology, geology, and cosmology are rooted in one's view on logic (and successively philosophy, epistemology, presuppositions, and the like), so I do not think they are conducive to debate. Do we really share enough beliefs to get anywhere in biblical historicity or creationism?

If you truly seek "rational" and "logical" debate, you will want to debate about rationality and logic, not their appurtenances.

It is becoming apparant to me that in this case, "Logic" in not a common ground from whence to commence our operation...

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-11-09 01:33am

I think that he doesn't understand the concept of having a partner in debate.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-09 01:58am

Ze'ev- Eretz (Coyote)
Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2002 6:52 am Post subject:

The Apologist wrote:
Why is it that SDnet has two "gladiators"? I will only debate one opponent.

You will face only one, and if that is the case then our other guy will just be an observer, not aparticipant, and read along with the rest of us. Is anyone else at CreationWeb interested?

Whoever that is must contact me on this thread, so that we can make our own arrangements.

Again, I went to the UserList but could not see an e-mail for you, so please tell me here and I'll forward it to my comrades-- then you guys can come to a conclusion yourselves.

Also, I cannot guarantee consistent availability throughout the course of the debate, so how about some chronological flexibility? We will begin when we are ready, and we will compose our arguments when we have the time.

Some open-mindedness is always appreciated, we have no reason to enslave ourselves to some dictatorial schedule; on the other hand, things must proceed at a fairly reasonable pace, ere this get stretched out to rediculous proportions. We can go as much as a week between rounds, but this has to have an end point somewhere.

My point is that logic is (presumably) "common ground" for my opponent and I, so this is where we should start.

But logic is such an immensely broad topic; it cannot be covered in three or four rounds of common debate. I mean, it is as broad a topic as "Faith" or "Belief". That can go into ancient Druidic rites, Amun-Re, Greek pantheon, Wendigo beliefs, and Spirit Channeling before we even touch Good 'ol Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. See what I mean with this?

Do we really share enough beliefs to get anywhere in biblical historicity or creationism?

Well, that's the idea-- you have opposing beliefs in these areas, but you both recognize what those arenas are and can identify "The Historicity of the Bible" or "Young (Creationist) or Old Earth (Cosmology)" as points and counter-points to one another: they have direct relationships to each other that are recognizable.

Remember, I need your email. Thank you!
_________________
--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-09 09:11pm

If I wasn't being diplomatic, I'd shit myself. These folks don't want to give their e-mails so we can do this damn debate, they refuse to actually pick a subject with a parameter... Here's the latest silliness, but are you sure you'd rather not debate some nice oak, or maple, or perhaps a birch-- something that reacts?

Ze'ev- Eretz/Coyote
Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 2:01 am Post subject:

The Apologist wrote:
Coyote wrote:You will face only one, ... Is anyone else at CreationWeb interested?
I think not.

I was suggesting that we debate issues which pertain chiefly to logic (and the others), not that we debate "logic" itself.

The Apologist wrote:
Coyote wrote:...you both recognize ... and can identify "The Historicity of the Bible" or "Young (Creationist) or Old Earth (Cosmology)" as points and counter-points to one another....
But we have differing views on these because we have differing worldviews. Surely you agree that debating worldview against worldview is more productive than debating subsections of two extensively dissimilar worldviews. There is no point in debating a topic when the differing views on that topic are based on differing worldviews.

Oh, and my email is accessible at the bottoms of my posts, right?

I can send a message, but I do not see your "____@____" address. This is fine for me in my Ambassadorial duties, but when it comes time for the actual face-off, we need to know where to send the messages to.

Thanks for your time!
________________
--Coyote, StarDestroyer.net Emissary

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-11-09 10:19pm

I Got me an E-Mail Address!

Why am I proud of that? I guess because technically we can now begin. Durandal or WeeMadAndo, one of you guys will have to step up to the plate. I understand that we were going to let them go first (give 'em enough rope) so one of you guys let me know who wants to take Apologist on and I'll let him know with your e-mail address.

Here it is:

:The Apologist
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 49
Location: Sacramento, California
Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2002 2:14 am Post subject:

mdevpak@hotmail.com

_________________
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"

-John 14:6