Need help refuting a creationist.

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-24 09:15pm

Hi, it's my first thread here, tho I have been visiting stardestroyer.net for awhile now. Props to Wong for a great site.

Anyways, I'm involved in a long, drawn out creation vs evolution "debate" and it's gotten to the point of ridiculousness, and I need help. I've already introduced Wong's YEC refutations, along with talkorigins, sciam, skeptic and such, but as is to be expected they kinda bounced off ye olde wall of ignorance.

Here is the link to the 14 page monster...

http://forums.tfarchive2.net/vBulletin/ ... adid=11759

I am Strafe there as well, and the creationist is Sheba.

BTW yes I am a Christian, and so is she, so I'm sure that should be amusing in some odd way to the majority of the posters here.

Any thoughts on what avenue to take now? Seems like whatever I say is ignored and then the same tired old YEC arguments are used again and again...and the 14 pages is a lot of stuff to tread through, so I'm sorry in that respect.

Thanks ahead of time.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-01-24 09:29pm

SUPER ATOMIC POKE OF DOOM!!!

Sorry, gotta poke the newbies. Go through Mikes site, quickies are a good start. Also, try the skeptics Annotated Bible for some good gaffs in the argument of Biblical infalibility. It's what happens when a document is written by humans.

Also, one of the new threads has a pic of a new transitional fossil find.

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-24 09:39pm

Majin Gojira wrote:SUPER ATOMIC POKE OF DOOM!!!

Sorry, gotta poke the newbies. Go through Mikes site, quickies are a good start. Also, try the skeptics Annotated Bible for some good gaffs in the argument of Biblical infalibility. It's what happens when a document is written by humans.

Also, one of the new threads has a pic of a new transitional fossil find.

Trust me, I've done all that. I even emailed Mike and he responded to one of her posts, but it keeps on going.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2003-01-24 09:45pm

First, welcome!

Second, post the relevant stuff here, and I'll do my best to help. I'm not going through 14 pages of debate to guess your doubts

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-24 10:00pm

Well some biggies are

1)She seems intent on the speed of light being much faster in that past. She brings stuff from Setterfield to back up her points, but no matter how many refutations of that we provide it never is enough.

2)In addition she is intend on a global flood occuring despite the whole part of Noah being fried to a crisp. I've shown her this site and talkorigins view on it to no avail. She seems to think Baumgardners runaway subduction theory works fine.

3)And finally she is adamant that the dinos and man lived together, which ties in to her total disregard for the dating methods we use. Is there some site I can point her to that will show her that the dating methods are reliable beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Of course those are just some of the big ones. She also says that at one point every animal was a vegetarian, but then the fall happened and they now eat meat...I mentioned that that would make God a deceiver, but she seems to have no problem with that. There really is just a plethora of stuff and more of it comes out all the time. Heck she thinks that Noah's sons were supposed to have repopulated the earth in time to not only give us all the different races of humanity, i.e. asian, caucasian, eskimo, native american, african and so on, but also found the empires around the world. I know it's ridiculous, but that's the stuff she's spewing out.

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-01-24 10:04pm

I've rarely seen anybody more idiotic than this.
Ask them where the water from the flood came from, and where it went.
Try http://www. creationweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=327

Remove the space, no direct links.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-01-24 10:12pm

On #3.

Ask her if she believes exinction occurs. Does she still think Dodo's are still around? How about this one species of Hawaiianinsect that died out before it was even described, and how its counterpart Flower is being kept alive only by the work of a few scientists. Or the Moa, Thylacine, Great Auk, Stellar Sea Cow, etc.

Ask her how these species went extinct in the first place--they died out because they could not compete with other organisms that were introduced to their habitat by humans (most of them, anyway. Other's were hunted to extinction).

Ask her about what she knows about a species niche in an ecosystem, and how fubar life would be if all organisms we know to exist, existed at the same time.

Ask her about top predators in the various biospheres in Post-flood times. Were the top predators of the Savana's of North America Saber tooths, Cynodonts, Allosaurs, or WHAT?

How can she rationalize so many species co-existing and NOT competeing with each other?

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-24 10:13pm

Exonerate wrote:
I've rarely seen anybody more idiotic than this.

Just when you think she's hit a new low, someone hands her a better shovel.

Ask them where the water from the flood came from, and where it went.
Try http://www. creationweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=327

Thanks, exactly the kind of stuff I need.

[Edit] Thanks as well Majin Gojira

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-01-24 10:31pm

For #1, Durandal has a good essay that shoots down her argument:
http://www.daltonator.net/durandal/topi ... decay.html

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-25 03:37pm

"Transmutation of species UPWARD has NEVER been proven. Bats could NOT have evolved from something else. In all the fossil record bats are the same from top to bottom. Birds from Dinosaurs? NOT PROVEN. In fact, a hoax was used to justify it..."

What's the best way to counter that? I've tried TalkOrigins, but she dismisses it because in her mind TrueOrigins.org automatically refutes anything TalkOrigins says...

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-01-25 03:45pm

the bat's thing is hard to do, I do not think we have any transitional fossils.

She's going to go into the "Evilutionist Conspiracy" mode after this.

She thinks it's just one fossil (Archeopteryx Lithographica)...little does she know that their are many Dino-bird transitive forms. Bird-like Dinos and Dino-like Birds

Here's a link to some examples.

http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/avialae.html

yes, an entire section of Bird-like Dinosaurs...or...Dinosaur-like Birds.....

She's gonna cry "Conspiracy", and you just call her "Stupid".

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-01-25 03:46pm

OH! I Just remebered, some of the earlies bat fossils had rather long, rat-like tails.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2003-01-25 03:50pm

Strafe wrote:"Transmutation of species UPWARD has NEVER been proven. Bats could NOT have evolved from something else. In all the fossil record bats are the same from top to bottom. Birds from Dinosaurs? NOT PROVEN. In fact, a hoax was used to justify it..."

What's the best way to counter that? I've tried TalkOrigins, but she dismisses it because in her mind TrueOrigins.org automatically refutes anything TalkOrigins says...

There's pratically nothing to counter. Evolution is not about "Transmutation of species UPWARD". That's her particular strawman of the theory. There's not such a thing as upward or downward, animals just tend adapt to the surronding conditions. Sometimes, complexity is an advantage. Sometimes it's not.

Also, ask her what she means by "proven". In science, there's not such a thing as absolute proof, so ask her what would she consider to be acceptable evidence. Also, ask her WHY can't bat have evolved from something else. There are plenty descriptions of bat evolution around. Use them as counter arguments.

About birds and dinossaures, again absolute proof does not exist. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence. Ask her about the hoax and then dismount is as a strawman (it must be an old, beaten up, creationist argument, so it is surely easy).

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2003-01-25 04:03pm

::SLaps self in forehead:: Jesus! She thinks Evolution works like it does on POKEMON!!! CURSES AND EXPLITIVES!

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-01-25 04:54pm

Majin Gojira wrote:::SLaps self in forehead:: Jesus! She thinks Evolution works like it does on POKEMON!!! CURSES AND EXPLITIVES!

Damn, you're right. Gah, that's just plain stupidity.

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-01-25 05:48pm

Ask her about biogeography - how come all the marsupial and monotreme mammals live in Australia? How did they manage to cross Wallace's Line after the flood when the placentals couldn't?

lgot · Post by **lgot** » 2003-01-25 09:42pm

Well, there is marsupials in America as well, but that is hardly the point.
What does she thinks of the members of sea-living mammals like Whales and dolphins ? Are them like fingers because God wanted us to find it amusing ?
Or fishes with primitive lungs ?
Of the Cigana, a old specie of bird of Amazon that have fingers when it is very young ?
Try her to look all sharks. Does not she think they changed ? A lot...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-25 09:53pm

People like this are immune to reason. It doesn't really matter what you say; they will simply ignore everything they can't deal with.

You should not and cannot debate a creationist in the hopes of changing his or her mind. None of the creationists on my hate mail page changed their minds. You can only debate them to show how stupid they are for the world to see.

Strafe · Post by **Strafe** » 2003-01-25 11:02pm

Darth Wong wrote:People like this are immune to reason. It doesn't really matter what you say; they will simply ignore everything they can't deal with.

You should not and cannot debate a creationist in the hopes of changing his or her mind. None of the creationists on my hate mail page changed their minds. You can only debate them to show how stupid they are for the world to see.

Yeah, but I continue nonetheless in case that other people who are on the fence on this issue, may see the debate and realize that YEC is complete B.S., and thus reject it.

Tho after 15 pages I think it's time to stop wasting time...but thanks all for the help, all this stuff makes her arguments look more and more ridiculous by the second.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-01-25 11:22pm

Is that #2 the one about the entire earth being covered by a spherical canopy of 'water' that god smashed into the earth when he decided to drown all life not deemed fit to survive, the eugenecist PIG!:D
If it is ask her why the Noah never mentioned the sky being brighter and changing color, from what I guess would be a deep red to blue. The refraction of light through a sphere of water as immense as presupposed, and if ice then far greater, wound make the light frequency far lower. If that doesn't work, ask her whether Noah noted all the stars that had suddenly appeared, as refraction would have completely blotted out the stars. And if that doesn't work, ask her why she would condone mass murder on the part of her deity, as destruction of thousands of species down to the last two of a chosen few could not be construed in any other way. Not only that god would have destroyed the Neanderthals, Austrolopithicean and other Early homonids, as well as most Homo Sapiens, most of whom would have had vestiges of sensience, and thus would make this GENOCIDE.
Not only is it perposterous, it's a horrible thought in either case.

Malecoda · Post by **Malecoda** » 2003-01-28 07:53pm

After a while, you give up on stupid people. You put the information out, it's their responsibility to decide how to respond to it. Don't take on the onus of other people, it'll make ya nuts.

Besides, we need stupid people, for how would we be able to tell if we were in the right without them?

I went to school with a YEC. I mean, there were 6000 other students, so it wasn't just him. But what killed me was, he was a MATH major. He was getting 100% USRDA of thermodynamics and logic every day, yet he persisted in the "Earth is 6000 years old thing". Come to think of it, there was a GRAD student who felt the same way. Only his argument was better than the undergrad's: he didn't try to rationalize his belief with shitty science, he just said "Oh, God put the geologic column and fossil record and so on and so forth to confound us". The other guy, OTOH, stood there in a full computer lab and drew me a picture on the white board to illustrate his argument abt the magnetic field of the Earth declining exponentially and such. After a while, you just have to say "fuck it, they're not worth the effort".

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-28 07:56pm

Malecoda wrote:I went to school with a YEC. I mean, there were 6000 other students, so it wasn't just him. But what killed me was, he was a MATH major. He was getting 100% USRDA of thermodynamics and logic every day, yet he persisted in the "Earth is 6000 years old thing". Come to think of it, there was a GRAD student who felt the same way. Only his argument was better than the undergrad's: he didn't try to rationalize his belief with shitty science, he just said "Oh, God put the geologic column and fossil record and so on and so forth to confound us". The other guy, OTOH, stood there in a full computer lab and drew me a picture on the white board to illustrate his argument abt the magnetic field of the Earth declining exponentially and such. After a while, you just have to say "fuck it, they're not worth the effort".

Absolutely. You may have the facts and the logic, but what they have is endless determination and obstinacy. Like Darkstar, they will always win in their own minds.

Malecoda · Post by **Malecoda** » 2003-01-28 08:00pm

Oh, and for the record, I'm a Christian, only very loosely. I am not sure how to respond to arguments abt God; it's just as valid to me to say he lives on the outside of the universe; it was him that was the big bang. There is Erdos's concept of the Great Big Book of Theorems in the Sky. It's a beautiful thing--you don't use science to quash your own wonder, it's actually the awe at the mystery of the universe that can drive your inquiry. So it's sad to me to see these YECs wrap everything up so neatly. If there is a God, I'm fucking SURE he's insulted by that crap. God didn't put us here to be boneheads, see what I'm sayin? It doesn't matter so much if or whether we call it God or Godhead or Big Bang or whatever, the thing that matters is the beauty of the mystery and the elegance with which we can look at it. You think, if God put us here, he'd give a shit that we use our brains to analyze our origins? Shit, if he's anything like me (and isn't he? Aren't we "made in God's image"?) he'd be happy as shit that we use the gifts he gave us. People who shut themselves off from input are Goddamn fools, pun incidental but well-placed.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2003-01-28 08:13pm

Also, as a rational person, you consider yourself to have a point of concession where you will admit defeat if/when the proper evidence arises, so that unless you impossibly have all the evidence, all the possible solutions, and think up everything to totally smack down the other argument, you'll always have a small shadow of doubt that'll keep you from feeling 100% right (but that's a given and shouldn't affect anyone who's gotten over sophomoric solipsim and highschool-level philosophy).

On the other hand, a fundie will always feel 100% coreect. They will believe that evidence follows conclusions, and totally warp or lie to themselves about observations in order to fit their own beliefs. They will never back down from an arguemtn because they feel they don't have the proper information or don't understand the other side correctly (in fact, they prefer to misunderstand the other side), and will only shut up if they realize you can't be converted with simple drivel.

This is yet another reason why I detest fundies and extremely devoted or faithful Christians and I don't feel they should be counted upon to be rational or sensible in general.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-01-28 10:58pm

Wow, I've never seen so much ego in one place before. Probably the worst thing to say as a newbie here and also considering I enjoy this site and board.. but WOW.

Well, first of all innerbrat, you said:

how come all the marsupial and monotreme mammals live in Australia?

That is true, Prototherias (your monotremes) do live in that zone only.. but we have the order didelphimorpha here in the states you know, and they're from the infraclass Metatheria aka Marsupials.

Secondly.. I'm afraid to do this.. but ah, hell.. Darth Wong:

You should not and cannot debate a creationist in the hopes of changing his or her mind. None of the creationists on my hate mail page changed their minds. You can only debate them to show how stupid they are for the world to see.

Gosh golly gee, thanks.. I'm stupid. You out of all people should know that there is a difference between theory and law and that one is accepted almost by faith. Evolution and creationism are just that, theories and I choose one ultimately by faith. Does that mean I dismiss evolution? Hell no. In fact, I have a major midterm coming up on the evolution of vertebrate anatomy.. I just don't believe in the big bang theory and such. I do believe that we are evolving, the universe is evolving.

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