Latest creationist moron [April 12, 2007]

[sketerpot]

It turns out that he was raised a fundamentalist Christian, and as old as the age of 20 he was more hardcore into it than his own parents. Even got married (virgin) to another one like him. Anyway, he decided to take a degree in Biology and made helping to prove Evolution wrong the theme of his thesis. He investigated, he researched, and he became an atheist

I have a similar happy feel-good story about a professor at my school. He was a crazy Pentacostal who decided that God wanted him to spread the word of Jesus. He decided that in order to do this he needed to know the Bible backwards and forwards and be well-versed in all the arguments. Naturally it didn't work out as he planned. He became an atheist, got a degree in theology, and now he's a professor of Old Testament theology whose hobbies include holding atheistic smackdown-debates in front of thousands of people. Yes, thousands; they packed a huge auditorium a few years ago, to the point where fire marshals were turning people away at the doors. And they say nothing cool ever happens in Iowa....

[Setesh]

Haveing nothing better to do:

Lianardo Da'Vinci once was quoted as saying, "In the absense of evidence of any other sort [the Bible and general nature] my thumb alone would convince me of a creator.

I searched for this quote. My only hit across all 6 search engines was (brace yourself), this thread. So my first thought is, maybe he got the quote wrong.

So I started hitting the quote sites, nothing even close, infact this doesn't even sound like something he'd say.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

(source: BrainyQuote


Dipshit should pay attention to that last one especially. Note also I sited my fucking source, asshat.

Back on topic. Somehow I can't see Leo making dipshit's quote having read a few pages of what he did say. To quote another great master(bator): "I smell slander!!!"

[Feil]

That's because Leonardo da Vinci never said anything of the sort. It's a (mis)quotation of something ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton: "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."

Of course, I couldn't find any sources for this quote earlier than 1997, and the only sources I could find were two books of pulp theology (neither of which, of course, bother to cite an original source). It may well be an invented quotation along the lines of those attributed to Darwin, Einstein, etc.--particularly in light of this much better-sourced quote:

"To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing."

which was published in a biography by Richard S. Westfall, which was rigorously checked for errors and which cites the original document, the notes for Opticks, which have been dated to 1704 and are written by Newton himself.

[Darth Wong]

Religious people like to cite Newton because he was a famous scientist and he was well-known to be very religious. They never take note of the fact that God never crops up in any of Newton's scientific theories.

[grimskunk2]

"It is not that a link is missing [from evolution]; the whole chain is missing. -Dr. Dino

Oh and, if Dr. Dino is so wrong, I dare you to get into a debate with him. Virtually all of the time his opponents are left speechless, and have to start doing what you claim that us Christians do.

In the event this guy is still reading these forums:

There are all kinds of debates with Dr. Dino showing his lack of integrity and scientific knowledge. I would suggest this site: http://www.kent-hovind.com/

Here are a couple great videos showing Hovind's debate with actual scientific information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNZCcTcOPV0&eurl=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWdiT9iH44&eurl=

[Galvatron]

Religious people like to cite Newton because he was a famous scientist and he was well-known to be very religious. They never take note of the fact that God never crops up in any of Newton's scientific theories.

Didn't he also practice alchemy? Newton is a mixed bag, IMO.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Religious people like to cite Newton because he was a famous scientist and he was well-known to be very religious. They never take note of the fact that God never crops up in any of Newton's scientific theories.

Didn't he also practice alchemy? Newton is a mixed bag, IMO.

Practiced it? Ye gads, he wrote enough on alchemy to choke a horse. A perfect example of why appealing to an authority, even Newton's, can only end in tears.

[Darth Wong]

I believe I read somewhere that he spent something like four years on the subject. And then, of course, there's Lord Kelvin's infamous statement that heavier-than-air manned flight is impossible. Creationists, however, tend to assume that famous scientists are like prophets, when in fact they were just people who contributed ideas. Some of those ideas are still used, and some of them went nowhere. Creationists also tend to assume that there's some kind of doctrine of scientific infallibility, much as their religion holds certain authorities or scriptures to be infallible. Hence, they do not understand that the credibility of science is not impacted in any way by the fact that scientists have made mistakes in the past; in fact the method requires people to be going off in multiple directions at once, some of which will invariably fail to pan out.

[Darth Raptor]

IIRC, Lord Kelvin's objection to the idea of an old Earth wasn't theological, but thermological. He reasoned that if the planet were really billions of years old, the interior would be cold and all but dead by now. He simply failed to account for gravitic tidal forces and nuclear radiation.

[Darth Wong]

IIRC, Lord Kelvin's objection to the idea of an old Earth wasn't theological, but thermological. He reasoned that if the planet were really billions of years old, the interior would be cold and all but dead by now. He simply failed to account for gravitic tidal forces and nuclear radiation.

That's all relative anyway; he estimates an Earth that was millions of years old, not billions. The idea of an Earth that is merely thousands of years old was utterly preposterous even then. Creationists who cite his speculation are barking up the wrong tree even if you ignore the new information that has come out since then.

[Surlethe]

IIRC, Lord Kelvin's objection to the idea of an old Earth wasn't theological, but thermological. He reasoned that if the planet were really billions of years old, the interior would be cold and all but dead by now. He simply failed to account for gravitic tidal forces and nuclear radiation.

That's all relative anyway; he estimates an Earth that was millions of years old, not billions. The idea of an Earth that is merely thousands of years old was utterly preposterous even then. Creationists who cite his speculation are barking up the wrong tree even if you ignore the new information that has come out since then.

Distance is a nice analogy to illustrate the age discrepancy between a creationist young earth and the actual universe: 6000 years is to 13 billion years as one footstep is to the distance between New York City and Havana. As for the age of the Earth, you find that it's the difference between a footstep and the distance between Toronto and Richmond, VA. If we apply this analogy to Lord Kelvin's estimate of the Earth's age, we find that it's still comparing a footstep to about ten miles, which is about a day's hike.