Talk:Creationism
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[edit] How This Promotes Ignorance, Education Policy de-evolution, Global Warming:
'Creationism' may be a term associated with the Christian Creation Myth but it is not logical or helpful to the mission of RW to operate on the assumption that that particular creation myth represents its primary denotative meaning.
Question: What causes RW editors to stonewall or argue against rewording pages or structurally redesigning RW to reflect understanding of this? Fear of providing fodder for arguments against teaching evolution; separation of church and state; global warming remediation, etc?
Privileging the Christian creation myth privileges the Christian creation myth; it promotes the Christian religion. It 'canonizes', lends credence to, and elevates Christian ideology (which is highly disassociated from science and physical matters) over all ideologies associated with religions and spiritual beliefs which are not or are much less disassociated from the natural world; these range from much less to not at all antagonistic toward science. The ideologies or cultural pov represented in these numerous 'alternative' (hello?) religions and spiritual belief systems are simultaneously discredited, further minimized and marginalized by this privileging of Christian creation myth. This is out of keeping with RW mission in that allowing such entanglement with the institution of Christian 'Creationism' trolling is like wasting time cavorting with satanic chlorofluorocarbon 'angels'; time that would be better spent towing indigenous emergence creation stories free of the rising ocean whirlpools, drowning in reverse down the sipapu hole.
By dint of the influence of the whole Judeo-Christian-Muslim branch of religion and Christianity in particular, this telling and retelling of Christian Creation Stories reinforces and lends status to the most disassociated branch of religion and drags a particular perception of religion into places where giving it canonical status among religions interferes most profoundly; look at how much energy has gone into this here.
That is understandable to a degree under the premise that most if not all (Western world) arguments against educating our citizens (about evolution 'as if' it were fact, about global warming 'as if' it were not a 'debate', about separation of church and state 'as if' there is a point in maintaining it) in public schools are derived from Christian religion or operate under the pretense of being derived from it. But after a point, relegating so much of our resources to reactive, defensive engagement with that rather than creative tactical offense merely increases the fallout and influence of Christian creationism and anyone associating themselves with it.
The point? What does this have to do with RWs mission?
These Christian 'creationism' arguments are designed to distract, they are designed to affect democratic participation and public policy and whether genuine or disingenuous, well-laid or not, they gain enormous traction due to the cultural dominance of this particular religion and branch of religions (which, by the way, does not represent the more 'scientific' emergence creation myths but rather the ideological type which identifies with the human mind as 'creator'); many citizens who are religious but not Christian, or neither, are swayed by these arguments. The degree to which we engage with these arguments has a huge impact on our ability to promote well-informed public dialog, functional democracy and public policy which reflects healthy relations with sound science.
--Greeneggs (talk) 16:53, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
- What? --Inquisitor (talk) 18:24, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
- Devoting so much energy and attention to 'refuting' Christian Creationism gives it POWER, gives those who use it to shove the fossil fuel industry further down our throats POWER; it keeps the Christian Creation Story at the top of the food chain, and the Great White Hunters of Science have wiped out the Buffalo Wolves of other creation stories that would cull the Christian Creationism sheep herd down to size and keep that damn Christian Creationism and all the purposes it serves in check here more effectively than the Great White Hunters of science do. 'Effectively' as in effective medicine, man! hah; how's that for brevity? Did that make more sense?
- I'm telling you: The Bush Administration put a brand new English textbook in my son's hands in a public school well north of the dixie line and East of the Missippi. It had a Chapter on 'History' beginning with the Christian frigging Genesis -Creation MYTH provided as a frigging EXAMPLE of HISTORY, and a Chapter on 'Mythology' beginning with the EXAMPLE of a NATIVE AMERICAN CREATION STORY. FK that MF shit! You all are going right along with it. Okay, I got the paper bag.--Greeneggs (talk) 04:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Significance of how creationist one is
This I quote from our article:
"While people who believe in this model accept scientific explanations for the development of the universe, their presumption that there exists an unobserved supernatural first cause means that they are no less creationist than people who subscribe to YEC."
What do we even mean by that? The wording is written as if there was an "amount of creationism" that people can have while at the same time basically telling the reader that you are either creationist or you aren't and that there isn't any "amounts" in between, which is a contradiction of meanings within the same sentence. But that is a minor concern with this sentence and is more a criticism of the wording than the overall meaning. More importantly, why do we even need to say that you are either creationist or not? That seems rather like a given that's not worth mentioning. Nullahnung (talk) 15:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- It reads that the intended point is that this fake "compromise" position is still just as wrong on the science, and that people take it on as a kind of inoculation against the ridicule that creationists receive, and the article is trying to express that it's not valid to this end. "Just as creationist" is an attempt to express that. Ikanreed (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- If everything you say is the case, then it would be much clearer (relatively) to put the words you have just written in the article than to just have "just as creationist". It seems to be a phrase of which the intended point only becomes clear when you have gone through the necessary initiation into the context, thus not very reader-oriented. Nullahnung (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- Wow, that's pretty judgmental on its face. Ken Miller (Cell biologist who argued for evolution in the Dover trial) really is quite different from Ken Hamm. Yet both are Christians and believe in god. Saying Ken is "no less creationist" than Ken Hamm is flatly absurd.One tin soldier (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- The legal standard of 'presumed innocent until proven guilty' might aid in assessing the relevance of actual belief, which cannot be scientifically verified. Technically, belief doesn't exist, in that sense, by default, because the existence of belief is an unproven scientific theory. Belief (in fact or fiction) 'could' be conditional, bifurcated, presumed, professed, a pretense, a rhetorical device. Statistically, what anyone -credentialed or not- can 'report' about their own or anyone else's opinion or belief can be useful, but as a means of measuring actual fact, data gathered thus is notoriously flawed and easily manipulated. So does the pseudo-science of quantifying belief waste resources barking up the wrong tree? In the case of Creationism and its 'theoretical' impact, is the glorious art of bullshit part of a category of reality that is more scientifically significant than believed?--Greeneggs (talk) 17:36, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
- Ok I'll bite. So I'll just start with the first sentence I take clear issue with - your second. (Though the first is none too clear.)
- You state: "Technically, belief doesn't exist, in that sense, by default, because the existence of belief is an unproven scientific theory."
- First of all "belief" obviously exists as people "believe" things. Whether or not they should believe them might be open to question - but the reality that people believe things (to varying degrees) seems to be unquestionable.
- Secondly you go on to state that "the existence of belief is an unproven scientific theory". I'm guessing that you mean "hypothesis" rather than "theory" here, but even if we allow "unproven hypothesis" I'm still not sure what you mean. Could you clearly state "the scientific hypothesis of belief" to which you object that we can understand your point?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 19:43, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
- The legal standard of 'presumed innocent until proven guilty' might aid in assessing the relevance of actual belief, which cannot be scientifically verified. Technically, belief doesn't exist, in that sense, by default, because the existence of belief is an unproven scientific theory. Belief (in fact or fiction) 'could' be conditional, bifurcated, presumed, professed, a pretense, a rhetorical device. Statistically, what anyone -credentialed or not- can 'report' about their own or anyone else's opinion or belief can be useful, but as a means of measuring actual fact, data gathered thus is notoriously flawed and easily manipulated. So does the pseudo-science of quantifying belief waste resources barking up the wrong tree? In the case of Creationism and its 'theoretical' impact, is the glorious art of bullshit part of a category of reality that is more scientifically significant than believed?--Greeneggs (talk) 17:36, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
- Wow, that's pretty judgmental on its face. Ken Miller (Cell biologist who argued for evolution in the Dover trial) really is quite different from Ken Hamm. Yet both are Christians and believe in god. Saying Ken is "no less creationist" than Ken Hamm is flatly absurd.One tin soldier (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
- You write the following: It reads that the intended point is that this fake "compromise" position is still just as wrong on the science, and that people take it on as a kind of inoculation against the ridicule that creationists receive, and the article is trying to express that it's not valid to this end. "Just as creationist" is an attempt to express that. It is flatly absurd to compare Young Earth Creationists to creationists who simply believe that G-d created the universe. What this comes off as is that you are saying that accepting something like Isaac Newton's clock and clock-maker theory is "just as creationist" as the idea that the universe was created in six days less than ten thousand years ago. There is a belief which you are undoubtedly familiar with called the "G-d of the gaps" which attributes that which is unknown by science to a Supreme being for lack of any other explanation. In addition one can always maintain that a "G-d of the gaps" created "the universe" if only because the word "universe" in the language of the bible can be translated and interpreted however we damn well please. Now to argue the merits of the "G-d of the gaps" definition would create a heated argument between me and you, but from the point of view of this agnostic putting people who believe in a "G-d of the gaps" in the same camp as true believers is insulting because the former is willing to accept science and the latter is not. I understand that atheists view any belief in G-d as contradictory to science, as an agnostic I fundamentally disagree with this specific assertion. However I disagree with your characterization for another reason. Attempting to say that being a Young earth Creationists is no different than believing that G-d created the universe is wrong because the two approach religion with fundamentally different philosophies. The former tries to make science comply with religion and the later makes religion comply with science. The result of these two philosophies is that the former is visibly crazy and the latter is not visibly crazy. Alsto003 (talk) 21:54, 30 August 2014 (UTC) Alex
- If everything you say is the case, then it would be much clearer (relatively) to put the words you have just written in the article than to just have "just as creationist". It seems to be a phrase of which the intended point only becomes clear when you have gone through the necessary initiation into the context, thus not very reader-oriented. Nullahnung (talk) 16:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
For me the implied equal condemnation of all creationist beliefs just shows how dogmatic this atheistic rejection of God-explanations is. For one thing, we can pretty much be sure that some universes (also counting simulated realities; though arguably not "real" physical universes, their simulated nature may be undiscoverable for entities living inside these realities) are artifically created. Since we have pretty much nothing to go on to determine the ratio of artificial universes to natural universes, declaring the hypothesis as absurd or irrelevant would be pretty damn presumptive. And if we consider the hypothesis that we're living in an artificial universe, would it be so odd to ascribe all sorts of out-of-this-world properties and powers to our creator entity? They would hail from a different universe after all — who knows how different?
Regardless of whether there are any creation narratives that might have some merit to them, however, labeling YECs and deists as "equally creationist" is just plain bogus. Young Earth creationists, using a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation myth, would have to believe in a large number of creative acts by God — the creation of the universe, the creation of light, the creation of a separation between terrestrial and celestial "waters", the creation of land, the creation of plants, the creation of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, the creation of water creatures and airborn creatures, the creation of land animals, the creation of Adam, and the creation of Eve. Deists, on the other hand, would believe only one of these was directly caused by God; the first one. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 01:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
[edit] Goo-to-you
- A couple of questions
is saying evolution is created by the Illuminati to get rid of god an example of a false dilemma?
And is a creationist saying "goo to you" a sign to dismiss anything else he says?— Unsigned, by: 68.116.121.14 / talk / contribs
[edit] Creationists are the dumbest people on the planet
I love how they come in here and give out to people for "mocking" creationism. Creationism deserves to be mocked. Anything this fucking stupid deserves to be mocked. If I believed that the reason women feel pain during childbirth is because a talking snake told one to eat an apple, then I would deserve to be mocked too. Parogar (talk) 02:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
- Are you now or have you ever been a participant in /r/atheism?--ZooGuard (talk) 16:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
Who cares! He's dead right!
[edit] Proofs against creationism No (XXX) and (XXXI)
Nobody has ever reported any dinosaur/trilobite/hallucigenia ghosts (even if one accepts that ghosts are at least partly 'the mind finding images' and related phenomena).
Nor do the reincarnationists claim to have been such in previous lives.
It appears that both phenomena have a limited 'remembering time' within which the creationist timespan would fall.
Therefore creationism is invalid. 86.134.53.34 (talk) 10:03, 13 April 2015 (UTC)