Understanding creationism:<br/> An insider's guide by a former young-Earth creationist

Looking forward to it.

Dang, now I'm going to have to check PT even more often!

To me as an interested non-scientist having read a great deal of creationist literature and scientific material adapted for non-specialists, Mr MacMillan's outline seems spot on and I am looking forward to succeeding chapters of his writing.

A question that arises is the following: How does one account for people with excellent academic backgrounds in biological sciences - PhD's from respected universities and so on - being fanatical creationists? I have in mind some of the staffers at Creation.com. It would be most interesting to see explanations for this phenomenon either by Mr MacMillan or others commenting here.

Creationists accept certain aspects of variation, adaptation, and speciation, but they artificially constrain the mechanism for adaptation to produce an imagined barrier between “œmicroevolution” and “œmacroevolution” (Part 2).

diogeneslamp0 said: Looking forward to it.

They understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention.

I remember years back on Usenet that even people arguing against creationists seemed to buy into this distinction between “predictive” and “historical” science. I had never heard such a distinction before, but after puzzling over it, I wondered at the narrow interpretation of “predict.”

Obviously predicting the future course of evolution is rarely possible, but that’s not what the word means in science. It means making an observation that confirms a hypothesis, so among other things, finding a fossil more or less where you expected is confirming a prediction.

The scientific method is always a predictive process, and evolutionary science is no exception. I feel that even people who should know better have been too quick to concede this (but maybe things are better now). Based on your article, I think I have a better idea of how this arbitrary distinction has been injected into arguments over creationism. I think anyone who claims that evolutionary biology is not “predictive” needs to be called on it before the whole discussion goes down the “only a theory” rabbit hole.

"I will attempt to explain why creationist claims persist in the face of contrary evidence, even when individuals are otherwise well-educated".
And it is explained very well.
I wonder if this explanation can be generalized to help explain other areas where claims persist in the face of contrary evidence even among otherwise well-educated individuals. My first thought is that just as young earth creationists have adopted a defensive posture toward evolution, those who are uncomfortable with the conclusions of climate science have adopted defensive postures and view climate science as somehow created to harm the fossil fuel industries.

callahanpb said: I remember years back on Usenet that even people arguing against creationists seemed to buy into this distinction between “predictive” and “historical” science.

My 2c: It is like learning to speak; learning your first language. Religious indoctrination is a very common occurence and if that as most often is the case, is fundamentalism, how can it be unlearned?

There are so many things wrong with the hackneyed “Were you there?” shtick that it is hard not to get miffed by the disingenuousness of the ploy; but I suspect that YECs like Ham enjoy poking “evilutionists” just to “make them demons squirm”.

The irony is that Ham demeans the “knowledge of men” while at the same time relying on the historical hearsay written down by men fighting among themselves during the political intrigues of the Nicean Councils over which writings were to be included in the Christian holy book.

Furthermore, Ham himself criticizes other Christians as though Ham himself is the One True Spokesman for all that is supposed to be Christian. Yet there are thousands of denominations within Christianity alone; and many of these denominations don’t like each other very much.

Ham is but one among many “entrepreneurs of sectarian religion” who make their living bilking a subset of religious believers by stoking suspicion, fear, alienation, and smug self-righteousness.

If there is one major “fault” with the US Constitution’s first amendment, it would probably be that it puts charlatans who hide behind religion outside the reaches of the law. On the other hand, that “fault” may also allow the rest of us to see first hand what some people will do in the name of religion to make money.

Unfortunately, in recent years, bending the intent of both the First and Second Amendments has established the rationales for the extreme self-indulgent behaviors of a few at the expense of everybody else.

P.T Barnum was right about there being a sucker born every minute; and there will always be someone else born to exploit them. As much as Ham would hate to admit it, he is actually a Social Darwinist.

They understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith.

Always love your insight, Dave. Seriously looking forward to this series, especially as an ex-creationist; I was able to get myself out of that trainwreck of theology in early high school so I never got into it deep enough to understand how they justify (to themselves) all the fallacious logic in their more "advanced arguments".

Don Luigi said: A question that arises is the following: How does one account for people with excellent academic backgrounds in biological sciences - PhD's from respected universities and so on - being fanatical creationists?

Those who claim to discount merely human reasoning when it conflicts with what the Bible says ...

How many of them resist the finding of modern science about the Earth being a planet of the Solar System? Perhaps they can persuade themselves that the "true meaning" of the Bible is compatible with heliocentrism, but no one ever has come to such a conclusion without modern science guiding the - well, how can one say that they did not discover the "true meaning" by anything other than "merely human reasoning"? For something like 2000 years, no one saw that.

How many of them follow the "merely human reasoning" that Moses couldn't have written Deuteronomy 34, while claiming that the Bible says that Moses wrote the Pentateuch?

Replace the Modern Synthesis (Neo-Darwinism): An Interview With Denis Noble
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzan-mazur/replace-the-modern-sythes_b_5284211.html

"[W]hat Haldane, Fisher, Sewell Wright, Hardy, Weinberg et al. did was invent.... The anglophone tradition was taught. I was taught, and so were my contemporaries, and so were the younger scientists. Evolution was defined as "changes in gene frequencies in natural populations." The accumulation of genetic mutations was touted to be enough to change one species to another.... No, it wasn't dishonesty. I think it was wish fulfillment and social momentum. Assumptions, made but not verified, were taught as fact."

No conserved molecular mechanisms that might enable mutations and natural selection to result in the evolution of biodiversity have ever been validated by experimental evidence. Thus, what we have is a theory that some people still believe in more than 80 years after it was invented. What's worse is that Darwin placed 'conditions of existence' before natural selection and tried to ensure that others did so by repeatedly telling them not to jump into natural selection without consideration of what we now know to be the nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction in species from microbes to man.

The biophysical constraints on ecological adaptations that arise due to ecological variation make evolutionary theorists appear what Dobzhansky (1964) described in the context of bird watchers and butterfly collectors. There are now clear links from food odors to nutrient uptake and the altered microRNA/messenger RNA balance that enables amino acid substitutions to differentiate cell types in individuals of all species. See, for example:

Interspecies communication between plant and mouse gut host cells through edible plant derived exosome-like nanoparticles
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mnfr.201300729

This was reported as: http://news360.com/article/240380784 Amazing Food Science Discovery: Edible Plants ‘Talk’ To Animal Cells, Promote Healing

"With the recent discovery that non-coding microRNA’s in food are capable of directly altering gene expression within human physiology,[1] this new study further concretizes the notion that the age old aphorism ‘you are what you eat’ is now consistent with cutting edge molecular biology."

Theorists tend to ignore cutting edge molecular biology, physics, and chemistry. Claiming that Creationist ignore evidence seems inappropriate.

Umm, let me guess. You're selling 'dietary supplements', right?

Just Bob said: Umm, let me guess. You're selling 'dietary supplements', right?

Don Luigi said: How does one account for people with excellent academic backgrounds in biological sciences - PhD's from respected universities and so on - being fanatical creationists? I have in mind some of the staffers at Creation.com. It would be most interesting to see explanations for this phenomenon either by Mr MacMillan or others commenting here.

harold said:

They understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith.

Yes, I agree that they do this. But there's something more. Because if this was the issue, then being shown that many Christians accept science would be sufficient to allay their objections. But instead, on learning of Christians who accept science, they reject them as "not true Christians".

John Harshman said:

Don Luigi said: A question that arises is the following: How does one account for people with excellent academic backgrounds in biological sciences - PhD's from respected universities and so on - being fanatical creationists?

They seem generally to divide into two sorts: the ones who went into their education as creationists and had sufficient willpower (if that's the right word) to maintain their beliefs in the face of all the evidence they were exposed to and those who in later life had a religious conversion and decided that evolution had to go because it conflicted with their newfound fundamentalism.

TomS said: How many of them resist the finding of modern science about the Earth being a planet of the Solar System? Perhaps they can persuade themselves that the "true meaning" of the Bible is compatible with heliocentrism, but no one ever has come to such a conclusion without modern science guiding the - well, how can one say that they did not discover the "true meaning" by anything other than "merely human reasoning"? For something like 2000 years, no one saw that.

eric said:

They understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention.

This is completely baffling. So many contributors to these disciplines have been religious people who have sincerely expressed their discoveries in pro-theist terms (understanding god, glorifying god, etc...). Its a sort of backwards reasoning: if it damages my faith, the intent must've been to damage my faith. Um, no. To make an analogy: while wolves kill sheep, you can't infer from that that every cause of sheep-death is a wolf.

I think that most theorists have not followed the scientific progress that took serious scientists from the gene-centric view of evolution to what is now detailed in the context of biophysically-constrained ecological adaptations manifested in morphological and behavioral phenotypes. See for examples: A Challenge to the Supremacy of DNA as the Genetic Material http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2014/03/20/challenge-supremacy-dna-genetic-material/

Rehashing the pseudoscientific nonsense of evolutionary theory in attempts to make Creationists appear to be ignorant has failed in the past to do anything more than reinforce the fact that evolution doesn't make sense in the light of biology. See: Combating Evolution to Fight Disease http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6175/1088.short "...Theodosius Dobzhansky famously noted that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” but perhaps, too, “nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of biology.” Although the latter might be an exaggeration, an important gap is being filled by molecular understanding of the genesis of variation that confers the ability to evolve."

Ecological variation confers the ability to ecologically adapt by nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled reproduction. Until evolutionary theorists explain how biodiversity arises (e.g., via mutations and natural selection -- or whatever), Creationists will probably continue to follow Darwin's lead by focusing on 'conditions of life' that are nutrient-dependent and not dependent on mutations and natural selection of anything except food.

Am I the only one having trouble pulling coherency out of our new visitor's posts?

James V. Kohl said: I think that most theorists have not followed the scientific progress that took serious scientists from the gene-centric view of evolution to what is now detailed in the context of biophysically-constrained ecological adaptations manifested in morphological and behavioral phenotypes. See for examples: A Challenge to the Supremacy of DNA as the Genetic Material http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2014/03/20/challenge-supremacy-dna-genetic-material/ Rehashing the pseudoscientific nonsense of evolutionary theory in attempts to make Creationists appear to be ignorant has failed in the past to do anything more than reinforce the fact that evolution doesn't make sense in the light of biology. See: Combating Evolution to Fight Disease http://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6175/1088.short "...Theodosius Dobzhansky famously noted that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” but perhaps, too, “nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of biology.” Although the latter might be an exaggeration, an important gap is being filled by molecular understanding of the genesis of variation that confers the ability to evolve." Ecological variation confers the ability to ecologically adapt by nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled reproduction. Until evolutionary theorists explain how biodiversity arises (e.g., via mutations and natural selection -- or whatever), Creationists will probably continue to follow Darwin's lead by focusing on 'conditions of life' that are nutrient-dependent and not dependent on mutations and natural selection of anything except food.

They conceptualize evolutionary adaptation as a series of individual changes, missing the entire mechanism provided by the population as a whole (Part 3).

Mike Elzinga said: There are so many things wrong with the hackneyed “Were you there?” shtick that it is hard not to get miffed by the disingenuousness of the ploy; but I suspect that YECs like Ham enjoy poking “evilutionists” just to “make them demons squirm”. The irony is that Ham demeans the “knowledge of men” while at the same time relying on the historical hearsay written down by men fighting among themselves during the political intrigues of the Nicean Councils over which writings were to be included in the Christian holy book...

callahanpb said: Obviously predicting the future course of evolution is rarely possible, but that’s not what the word means in science. It means making an observation that confirms a hypothesis, so among other things, finding a fossil more or less where you expected is confirming a prediction. The scientific method is always a predictive process, and evolutionary science is no exception. I feel that even people who should know better have been too quick to concede this (but maybe things are better now). Based on your article, I think I have a better idea of how this arbitrary distinction has been injected into arguments over creationism. I think anyone who claims that evolutionary biology is not “predictive” needs to be called on it before the whole discussion goes down the “only a theory” rabbit hole.

david.starling.macmillan said: This gets into the why, but not so much the how. The motivations for denying science probably have some commonalities from person to person but are still highly variable. The mechanisms required to make that sort of cognitive dissonance sustainable are more easily defined.

While theorists continued to remain ignorant of cause and effect, it became clear that mutated genes were not responsible for biodiversity.

Molecular biology: A second layer of information in RNA http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/505621a

Carl Zimmer wrote: "Others maintain that as random mutations arise, complexity emerges as a side effect, even without natural selection to help it along. Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity/

Since mutated genes and natural selection have been eliminated from evolutionary theory, I've seen no revision that restates the argument for the theory that typically is touted in discussions like this one.

What is it that theorists now claim should be compared to Creationist's beliefs. Is anyone willing to say anything more than evolution "just happens?"

James V. Kohl said: Is anyone willing to say anything more than evolution "just happens?"

James V. Kohl said: While theorists continued to remain ignorant of cause and effect, it became clear that mutated genes were not responsible for biodiversity. Molecular biology: A second layer of information in RNA http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/505621a Carl Zimmer wrote: "Others maintain that as random mutations arise, complexity emerges as a side effect, even without natural selection to help it along. Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity/ Since mutated genes and natural selection have been eliminated from evolutionary theory, I've seen no revision that restates the argument for the theory that typically is touted in discussions like this one. What is it that theorists now claim should be compared to Creationist's beliefs. Is anyone willing to say anything more than evolution "just happens?"

Helena Constantine said: The Christian cannon was fixed a long time before Nicea (by action at the grass roots level, oddly enough) congregation by congregation throughout the second century).

david.starling.macmillan said: In short, the rejection of biological evolution by otherwise-intelligent scientists with strong academic backgrounds is made possible by the accumulation of many many major misconceptions and misunderstandings of actual fact.

Mike Elzinga said: There has been a lot of blood spilt over doctrine, just within Christianity alone; and the disputes continue even today. The “authorities” of dogma don’t agree among themselves. The bottom line remains; Ken Ham can’t trust his sources in support of his own proclamations of what his holy book says.

The "common" usage of "prediction" is in fact a "guess" about what is going to happen in the future: the direction of some thing. Since "evolution" (and similarly, geology) is about what happened in the past, you can't make a "prediction" about the past.

Helena Constantine said: The Christian cannon was fixed ...

Scott F said:

They conceptualize evolutionary adaptation as a series of individual changes, missing the entire mechanism provided by the population as a whole (Part 3).

While I had always accepted the notion of Evolution, it wasn't until I started reading here and elsewhere about Evolution actually works. I also had understood it to be a series of individual changes. Evolution was your Mom having kids, writ large: individuals changing individually. Only recently did I come to understand the concept that individuals don't evolve; populations evolve. I now envision Evolution as a meandering river delta in several related but distinct ways.

Helena Constantine said:

Mike Elzinga said: There are so many things wrong with the hackneyed “Were you there?” shtick that it is hard not to get miffed by the disingenuousness of the ploy; but I suspect that YECs like Ham enjoy poking “evilutionists” just to “make them demons squirm”. The irony is that Ham demeans the “knowledge of men” while at the same time relying on the historical hearsay written down by men fighting among themselves during the political intrigues of the Nicean Councils over which writings were to be included in the Christian holy book...

The Christian cannon was fixed a long time before Nicea (by action at the grass roots level, oddly enough) congregation by congregation throughout the second century). Here are the minutes of the council (confusingly called cannons in church terminology): http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm You can see for yourself that they don't touch on the issue. Here is a good popularizing article by Roger Pearse debunking the anti-Nicean fairy tales that circulate in the atheist community. http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html I understand even Dawkins (or his minions) went off the deep end about Nicea last Easter.

Scott F said: I think part of the confusion (sometimes intentional) are the scientific and "common" usages of the term "prediction", just like the problem that creationists have with the term "theory". The "common" usage of "prediction" is in fact a "guess" about what is going to happen in the future: the direction of some thing. Since "evolution" (and similarly, geology) is about what happened in the past, you can't make a "prediction" about the past. All you can do is make a post-hoc "story" about the past, a "guess" based on our personal biases. As such, your "guess" is as good as anyone else's "guess". Since you're both just making up stories, short of having a time machine, there's no possible way to "test" which "story" was the right one.

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: This gets into the why, but not so much the how. The motivations for denying science probably have some commonalities from person to person but are still highly variable. The mechanisms required to make that sort of cognitive dissonance sustainable are more easily defined.

In all the time I have been watching these characters – since the 1970s – the pattern that sticks out most clearly is that they systematically bend and break scientific concepts in their own minds in order to fit with their sectarian beliefs. On several occasions I have watched a number of them do this in real time. Their thinking processes are stubborn and bizarre; and they seem to know they are doing it. If perchance anyone happens to notice the misconceptions and offers a correction, the process is quickly diverted into word gaming by the creationist.

The problems begin when they have to write research proposals on their own. Lasting in a research institution that relies on cutting-edge research is out of the question for them in the long run. Better to go to sectarian colleges or third tier secular schools that put more emphasis on teaching courses with large numbers of students who aren’t going into science.

phhht said: You see, Jimmy, it isn't enough to just deny. You must provide some alternative. Otherwise people just laugh.

John Harshman said:

david.starling.macmillan said: In short, the rejection of biological evolution by otherwise-intelligent scientists with strong academic backgrounds is made possible by the accumulation of many many major misconceptions and misunderstandings of actual fact.

This is clearly so for some people, and may in fact explain Jonathan Wells. But it can't explain either Kurt Wise or his student Todd Wood, both of whom seem to understand evolution quite well and in considerable detail. I suspect it can't explain Dean Kenyon either, but I'm less sure of him.

ksplawn said: There doesn't seem to be any fundamental, unchanging reality underneath the teachings of Scriptures, so there's nothing concrete against which to test all the many interpretations people come up with. Aside from questions of internal consistency and historical context, just about any take-away is as valid as the next and instead of performance and accuracy separating the winners from the losers, it comes down to entirely insubstantial metrics of tradition or personal opinions.

Mike Elzinga said: I doubt that anyone will ever see Ken Ham putting his life at risk by taking a stand for social justice for slaves, women and children caught up in human trafficking, voter’s rights, battered women, and the poor.

phhht said: But creationists believe in gods, Jimmy, and gods are not real. They are fictional characters, like Harry Potter or the Avengers. Until creationists can demonstrate the reality of gods, they will be laughed out of the room.

In my opinion, Ham is sincere, but so misdirected as to render that sincerity all but meaningless.

He genuinely believes that evolution causes people who would otherwise embrace the fundamentalist evangelical authoritative approach to Scripture to reject it. Since he cannot conceive of any gospel other than the one derived from fundivangelical Biblical authoritarianism, evolution thus becomes the biggest possible threat to fundamentalist Christianity in specific and the stability of society in general (because obviously society can't function without fundies holding it together at the seams against the onslaught of devilish postmodernism).

You can see the attitude in the AiG daily articles. They jump on every conceivable idea or cultural event to try and find something about which to point to creation. Their theology and soteriology are constructed to demand it.

I look forward to more from "mac" - or would you be rather known as "david" or "dsm"?

My hope is that there would some more permanent record of what he has to say. It promises to deserve more than ephemeral existence in a blog.

david.starling.macmillan said: against the onslaught of devilish postmodernism

ksplawn said: Am I the only one having trouble pulling coherency out of our new visitor's posts?

TomS said: I look forward to more from "mac" - or would you be rather known as "david" or "dsm"?

Helena Constantine said: Here is a good popularizing article by Roger Pearse debunking the anti-Nicean fairy tales that circulate in the atheist community. http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html

david.starling.macmillan said: They imagine that their preconceived perceptions of genre, context, and meaning represent some privileged "plain interpretation" that everyone else in the world and in history would share if they just shed all their godless atheistic secular biases. That's what they need to be challenged on.

What I completely missed when I held this facet of YEC belief was that just because a theory is based on the past doesn't mean it can't make predictions about the future. It can and does, particularly with respect to discoveries. Common descent and deep time (as hypotheses) consistently and accurately predict so many specific discoveries. Tiktaalik comes to mind. The average YEC's mind would be blown if he realized that models based in the past can make testable predictions about discoveries and trends in the present.

They imagine that their preconceived perceptions of genre, context, and meaning represent some privileged “plain interpretation” that everyone else in the world and in history would share if they just shed all their godless atheistic secular biases. That’s what they need to be challenged on.

FL said: Which will also raise a pesky but inescapable question of exactly how a Panda can honestly accept the biblical and supernatural Resurrection of Christ as a historical fact, while not likewise accepting other supernatural historical claims of the Bible as historical fact (including those of, say, Genesis Creation Week).

Seems pretty simple to me. The person believes chapter X is allegory but chapter Y isn’t.

I don't entirely agree with the analysis.
​
​Sure, there is no denying that the creationist mind may often see danger in the theory of evolution as something anti-religious. It is also hard to deny that science in general, if taken seriously, tends to deconstruct religious beliefs and destroy at least the most naive views on the subject of god or gods.
​
​But does this justify a leap towards the presentation you are making here? I don't think so. There is probably a more complex rationale behind your analysis, and it is okay not to elaborate on it here - but I certainly see a big gap analysis missing between my observations as just described, and your conclusions on the subject of how and why there is such a thing like creationism.
​
​As far as I have observed, this "creationist fear" didn't fall out of a blue sky, by accident or by simple misinterpretation of science, or "misapprehensions concerning microbiology and DNA" as you put it here. It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

So it isn't exactly like some silly conspiracy theory came out of the sick brains of religious people, out of the blue, and there popped up this phenomenon known today as creationism. No, there was something more substantial going on behind all of this, and it wasn't just science. It was a certain application of science that did'd really do a great service to the world's scientific endeavor.

I'm not saying this is a good excuse for Christians and other believers - like there's nothing to blame them. They can be blamed for not thinking properly. But not everyone is such a good thinker. Not everyone is good in separating science from atheism. And it isn't exactly like there was no reason at all for this aberration to occur, like everyone was trying to sell the world science without attaching atheism to it. I don't believe this reflects how it really happened.

But today, the damage has been done, and in the end people will have to come to terms with all this. But one thing I know for sure: science is not so hard to accept really. Atheism is a different matter, and atheism that puts a claim on science (directly or indirectly) is more a part of the problem than it ever was a part of the solution.

There is really no use arguing with someone who doesn't even understand the concept of evidence, let alone falsifiability. Floyd is mentally impaired to the point where he can't even see how crazy he is. He just can't stand it if anyone doesn't believe exactly the same things that he does.

FL said:

Seems pretty simple to me. The person believes chapter X is allegory but chapter Y isn’t.

So why isn't chapter Y an "allegory" as well?

"...created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention."
Recently I had a friend express to me in no uncertain terms that the Mars Rover missions were for the sole purpose of trying to prove that God did not exist.

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this. I don't even know how it might be done. Even Dawkins is pretty good at separating his religious views, (or lack thereof), from the actual practice of science. Now if you are referring to methodological naturalism then no, you are dead wrong. That is in no way shape or form atheism.

Jimpithecus said:

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this. I don't even know how it might be done. Even Dawkins is pretty good at separating his religious views, (or lack thereof), from the actual practice of science. Now if you are referring to methodological naturalism then no, you are dead wrong. That is in no way shape or form atheism.

It is kind of like reading the work of young-earth creationist Todd Wood. Todd is a very conscientious scientist and is clearly convinced that evolutionary theory is very robust. He is, further, willing to jump into the fray when someone else, such as Fuzz Rana at Reasons to Believe or Stephen Myer at the DI, gets it wrong. But HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IT. His biblical six-thousand year creation model won't allow him to accept the ramifications and extrapolations of the evolutionary model as they apply to the fossil record because, to him, there is no fossil record. I simply don't understand.

Todd is a very conscientious scientist and is clearly convinced that evolutionary theory is very robust.

Here he is in his own words: http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

Thanks for the link. There's not much to dispute in the first paragraph. It seems more like he is doing evolutionary biology, but just chooses to do it the hard way. His candor is as refreshing as his mental block is mystifying.

E.g., I could start with the assumption of a geocentric universe, work out appropriate non-inertial reference frame, and claim that as the "truth". It would be complicated, but could be made consistent with observation. Next, I might note that standard (not geocentric) astronomical calculations give identical results and are easier to work with. If I were honest, I would acknowledge the "robustness" of the latter and even suggest them as a convenient coordinate system for doing long calculations. But these are identical theories. Most scientists would agree that the one that's easier to use is preferred, not just by Occam's razor, but because it saves effort in doing calculation.

After all that, you could assert "But the earth is still the center of the universe." and I'm not sure where to go with that. In a sense, it is because you've defined it to be, but it's not a very satisfactory conclusion philosophically and it's a completely meaningless statement scientifically.

Jimpithecus said:

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this.

It is kind of like reading the work of young-earth creationist Todd Wood.

eric said:

Jimpithecus said:

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this.

It is kind of like reading the work of young-earth creationist Todd Wood.

That doesn't support jcmmanuel's point at all. If Alice says "atheists don't separate x from y," and Bob challenges "I don't know any atheist who doesn't separate x from y, name one" then responding "creationist Todd Wood separates x from y" does not address Bob's challenge.

Jimpithecus said:

eric said:

Jimpithecus said:

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this.

It is kind of like reading the work of young-earth creationist Todd Wood.

That doesn't support jcmmanuel's point at all. If Alice says "atheists don't separate x from y," and Bob challenges "I don't know any atheist who doesn't separate x from y, name one" then responding "creationist Todd Wood separates x from y" does not address Bob's challenge.

Actually, I didn't mean to address it at all. For some reason, I got confused about where the comment would end up. You are correct that it does not.

"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal, material process with unique understanding and potentialities."

Jimpithecus said: Here he is in his own words: http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

DS said:

jcmmanuel said: It may be embarrassing for an atheist to admit (I certainly find it embarrassing) but many of the atheists I have encountered in debate do not separate their atheism from our science (when I say "our" science I'm talking as a humanist rather than atheist).

Sorry but I don't know anyone who does this. I don't even know how it might be done. Even Dawkins is pretty good at separating his religious views, (or lack thereof), from the actual practice of science. Now if you are referring to methodological naturalism then no, you are dead wrong. That is in no way shape or form atheism.

phhht said: It depends, of course, on what you mean by atheism. If you mean acting and thinking and speaking as if no gods exist, then I believe that is what many scientists do. I think Dawkins does that in his science. This is not to say that there is any a priori commitment to the non-existence of gods, only that gods are (so far) utterly useless to science, and never appear in its practice or products. Of course you may prefer to call this state of affairs agnostic, but to me it appears tantamount to atheism.

"1. Omphalism" Thanks. I learned a new word. I'm familiar with the concept of course.

For some reason, when I first read it, I guessed (incorrectly) it meant navel-gazing, so the connection with navels is lodged in my brain somewhere.

OK, navel-gazing is Omphaloskepsis. Should have looked that up first.

So it seems that the only examples of people who can't separate their religious beliefs from the practice of science are creationists. No atheist examples whatsoever. Got it.

Just like it would be easy to separate your non belief in unicorns from the practice of science, but not so easy to separate a belief in unicorns from the practice of science, especially if one sees unicorns behind every phenomena.

eric said: When I do math and I don't pray or think about God, it's not atheistic math, it's just math.

DS said: So it seems that the only examples of people who can't separate their religious beliefs from the practice of science are creationists. No atheist examples whatsoever. Got it. Just like it would be easy to separate your non belief in unicorns from the practice of science, but not so easy to separate a belief in unicorns from the practice of science, especially if one sees unicorns behind every phenomena.

Math is atheistic in the sense that when you do it, you act and think and speak as if there are no gods.

You should probably also mention that there are paid professionals who work to distribute misinformation to support creationism.

This is going to be a great series!

callahanpb said:

Math is atheistic in the sense that when you do it, you act and think and speak as if there are no gods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan 'Ramanujan credited his acumen to his family goddess, Mahalakshmi of Namakkal. He looked to her for inspiration in his work, and claimed to dream of blood drops that symbolised her male consort, Narasimha, after which he would receive visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content unfolding before his eyes. He often said, "An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God."'

Don Luigi said: To me as an interested non-scientist having read a great deal of creationist literature and scientific material adapted for non-specialists, Mr MacMillan's outline seems spot on and I am looking forward to succeeding chapters of his writing. A question that arises is the following: How does one account for people with excellent academic backgrounds in biological sciences - PhD's from respected universities and so on - being fanatical creationists? I have in mind some of the staffers at Creation.com. It would be most interesting to see explanations for this phenomenon either by Mr MacMillan or others commenting here.

I agree that Ramanujan's results can be verified independent of his religious belief. He was also an especially unusual case.

But assuming the account is accurate, he viewed the process of doing math as a religious devotion and treated the resulting proofs as revealed knowledge. So I'm not sure Ramanujan would agree that when he was doing math, he acted and thought and spoke as if there were no gods. He knew other mathematicians, such as Hardy, who did not share his belief and presumably would have conceded that there were other ways to get mathematical results. I just felt that your characterization was too absolute.

FL said: Which will also raise a pesky but inescapable question of exactly how a Panda can honestly accept the biblical and supernatural Resurrection of Christ as a historical fact, while not likewise accepting other supernatural historical claims of the Bible as historical fact (including those of, say, Genesis Creation Week). FL

The word "misinformation" is used in the introduction. There is also a significant amount of disinformation in creationist literature and other media - deliberate lies constructed with malice and forethought. (That's why we call it the "Dishonesty Institute.)

callahanpb said: I just felt that your characterization was too absolute.

From the OP: "[Creationists] understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith."

From the OP: "[Creationists] understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith."

Please do not feed the Martinez troll. I will allow it those 2 comments and no others.

Ray Martinez said:

From the OP: "[Creationists] understand the theory of evolution, along with mainstream geology and a variety of other disciplines, as a philosophical construct created for the express purpose of explaining life on Earth apart from divine intervention. Thus, they approach the concept of evolution from a defensive position; they believe it represents an attack on all religious faith."

"I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable." Charles Darwin (1859:6; London: John Murray)

phhht said: Nobody needs gods to use it {mathematics} or teach it or understand it.

But like the phoenix (or maybe Jesus) you just keep coming back from the dead and asking new, problematic questions. They hate that.

eric said:

phhht said: It depends, of course, on what you mean by atheism. If you mean acting and thinking and speaking as if no gods exist, then I believe that is what many scientists do. I think Dawkins does that in his science. This is not to say that there is any a priori commitment to the non-existence of gods, only that gods are (so far) utterly useless to science, and never appear in its practice or products. Of course you may prefer to call this state of affairs agnostic, but to me it appears tantamount to atheism.

Personally I wouldn't call it atheist or agnostic. Maybe I'd call it secular, but all three terms IMO suffer from the fact that they may imply to the reader some opinion or practice of science that just isn't there. I'd much prefer no adjective at all. When I do math and I don't pray or think about God, it's not atheistic math, it's just math. When I drive and am not thinking about God, it's not secular driving, it's just driving. And when I go into the lab and I'm thinking about the lab experiment and not theological issues, its not agnostic science, it's just science. Adding an adjective implies some sort of intentional avoidance of theism or purposeful distance from theism, when the real truth of the matter is that nobody is avoiding anything, they are just focused on their jobs/hobbies/whatever.

Scott F said: What more proof could you want that God placed the bones there for the kiddies to find? Especially after their parents had paid $1,000 per head (IIRC the video correctly) for the opportunity to do "real" Christian Science. Of course, one wonders what it would have "proved" if they had not found any bones.

phhht said:

eric said: When I do math and I don't pray or think about God, it's not atheistic math, it's just math.

Math is atheistic in the sense that when you do it, you act and think and speak as if there are no gods.

Scott F said: The amazing thing is, it seems that the creationists don't appear to do "science" that way. To them, there really is a unique "Christian Science."

Just Bob said:

Scott F said: What more proof could you want that God placed the bones there for the kiddies to find? Especially after their parents had paid $1,000 per head (IIRC the video correctly) for the opportunity to do "real" Christian Science. Of course, one wonders what it would have "proved" if they had not found any bones.

And curse my suspicious little mind, but the whole thing sounds suspicious. Here's my suspicious suspicion: Somebody besides the jesus-kids found the fossil--either adults with the ministry company while they were in the general area, or maybe the landowner, who then leased the site to the jesus-company so the jesus-kids could "find" it, conveniently on the last day of jesus-fossil-camp, conveniently after praying. Makes the parents think their thousand bucks wasn't wasted, and is great advertising for next year's crop of impressionable sheep young explorers. Nah, they wouldn't do something like that, right?

Interesting -- it never occurred to me that they had not "prefound" the fossil. (Yes, I am old and cynical, but at least I have not always been old.)

Also, I have never run across the idea that God decreed logic. I am not a philosopher, but it reminds me of the Euthyphro problem: Could God have decreed logic differently, or is God merely the vehicle that delivers logic? If the latter, then logic (or mathematics) is somehow superior to God. Has such a question ever been discussed seriously? It has certainly been asked of morality.

James V. Kohl said: While theorists continued to remain ignorant of cause and effect, it became clear that mutated genes were not responsible for biodiversity. Molecular biology: A second layer of information in RNA http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/505621a Carl Zimmer wrote: "Others maintain that as random mutations arise, complexity emerges as a side effect, even without natural selection to help it along. Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity/ Since mutated genes and natural selection have been eliminated from evolutionary theory, I've seen no revision that restates the argument for the theory that typically is touted in discussions like this one. What is it that theorists now claim should be compared to Creationist's beliefs. Is anyone willing to say anything more than evolution "just happens?"

phhht: The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced you're making an impossible distinction. Or possibly, I just don't understand what a non-atheistic endeavor would entail.

Thought experiment. We have in one corner a Pentecostal church member who is going to demonstrate speaking in tongues. In the other corner, Ramanujan is going to come up with a new formula for calculating pi. Both explain their religious beliefs to the audience. Both appear to go into a trance. After a period of silence, the Pentecostal begins a long series of utterances. At the same time, Ramanujan begins scribbling furiously and fills a notebook with equations.

When it's all done, Ramanujan doesn't do a stellar job explaining his reasoning to the layperson, and credits his family goddess for the insights. But his formula, when applied by a non-mathematician is seen to converge to pi out to as many digits as he likes. Further analysis by mathematicians confirms that it is in fact a formula for pi.

The Pentecostal explains that he was filled with the Spirt and his words are of an ancient language that he does not actually understand. Indeed, no one present, including scholars of ancient languages, can understand or identify the language.

So which of these exercises was atheistic? Assuming both people are honest, they each considered their experiences to be religious devotions. Of the two, Ramanujan's seems to me to be more miraculous, because it cannot be faked. Obviously, I think that Ramanujan's results came from his own brain, carrying out advanced reasoning at an intuitive level that he attributed to a goddess, while the speaking in tongues was a human artifact of more dubious value. But whether these are atheistic or religious activities seems to be more of a subjective judgment than anything intrinsic to the activity itself.

So maybe I'm getting caught up on a minor point, but I just don't think that there is anything specific to mathematics that would make it atheistic, though I concede that there are few practicing mathematicians that attribute their insights to divine origin.

eric said:

Helena Constantine said: Here is a good popularizing article by Roger Pearse debunking the anti-Nicean fairy tales that circulate in the atheist community. http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html

That was interesting, but I don't necessarily think the conclusion follows from the evidence he gives. "There was no disagreement! Well, except for these guys who were banished and told all their writings would be burned" is not a very compelling argument that there was no major disagreement. It's not compelling for two reasons: One - the documents cited talk about exactly that thing you're saying didn't happen - doctrinal disagreement, settled at and by the council. Two - that's an extroadinarily coercive environment, and so we can't really infer sincere agreement from stated agreement, even "enthusiastic" stated agreement. Put yourself in that situation. You're in a meeting. Some other guy (Arius) disagrees with the leader. The leader responds by exiling him and telling him all his works are going to be burned. You disagree too. What do you do? I think most people in that situation would just keep their mouth shut and go with the flow. The response to Arius reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas where DeNiro walks around the table with a baseball bat. Of course there was enthusiatic agreement from the guys not yet hit with the baseball bat! What else would you expect?

Perhaps we need to remember that at root atheistic means without (reference or attribution to or influence by) gods. It does not mean opposed or hostile to gods (antitheistic).

FL said:

They imagine that their preconceived perceptions of genre, context, and meaning represent some privileged “plain interpretation” that everyone else in the world and in history would share if they just shed all their godless atheistic secular biases. That’s what they need to be challenged on.

My guess is that, on the inevitable day that Pandaville calls on you to defend (in specific detail) your belief that Jesus' Resurrection is a historical fact, you will likely find that you are relying on some fundie-style "plain interpretation" (and some fundie-style "genre-context-meaning") standards yourself. Which will also raise a pesky but inescapable question of exactly how a Panda can honestly accept the biblical and supernatural Resurrection of Christ as a historical fact, while not likewise accepting other supernatural historical claims of the Bible as historical fact (including those of, say, Genesis Creation Week). FL

callahanpb said: phhht: The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced you're making an impossible distinction. Or possibly, I just don't understand what a non-atheistic endeavor would entail.

Well my goal wasn't to refute your point. It was just impossible to read what you said without Ramanujan coming to mind. I find the idea of mathematics as a religious devotion rather touching, and a lot nicer than most of what passes for religion.

callahanpb said: Well my goal wasn't to refute your point. It was just impossible to read what you said without Ramanujan coming to mind. I find the idea of mathematics as a religious devotion rather touching, and a lot nicer than most of what passes for religion.

John Harshman wrote: "They seem generally to divide into two sorts: the ones who went into their education as creationists and had sufficient willpower (if that’s the right word) to maintain their beliefs in the face of all the evidence they were exposed to and those who in later life had a religious conversion and decided that evolution had to go because it conflicted with their newfound fundamentalism"

John, is that "willpower" or is it "won'tpower?"

Matt Young said: Also, I have never run across the idea that God decreed logic. I am not a philosopher, but it reminds me of the Euthyphro problem: Could God have decreed logic differently, or is God merely the vehicle that delivers logic? If the latter, then logic (or mathematics) is somehow superior to God. Has such a question ever been discussed seriously? It has certainly been asked of morality.

Helena Constantine said: My only point is that Nicea had nothing to do with the cannon, which is a mistake I've seen many atheists make.

the scene with the baseball bat was in The Untouchables, by the way.

If I'm correctly understanding the intent of the comments re: Nicea, there seems to be a disconnect in word use.

I think Helena Constantine is using "canon" in the sense of "a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine" -- in this case, the list of books that should be included in the Christian Bible. And of course, Helena Constantine is correct to note that the canon was established well before Nicea.

I think eric is using "canon" in the sense of "a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council." And of course, eric is correct to note that adoption of the Nicene Creed and the condemnation of Arianism are such decrees.

eric said:

phhht said: It depends, of course, on what you mean by atheism. If you mean acting and thinking and speaking as if no gods exist, then I believe that is what many scientists do. I think Dawkins does that in his science. This is not to say that there is any a priori commitment to the non-existence of gods, only that gods are (so far) utterly useless to science, and never appear in its practice or products. Of course you may prefer to call this state of affairs agnostic, but to me it appears tantamount to atheism.

Personally I wouldn't call it atheist or agnostic. Maybe I'd call it secular, but all three terms IMO suffer from the fact that they may imply to the reader some opinion or practice of science that just isn't there. I'd much prefer no adjective at all. When I do math and I don't pray or think about God, it's not atheistic math, it's just math. When I drive and am not thinking about God, it's not secular driving, it's just driving. And when I go into the lab and I'm thinking about the lab experiment and not theological issues, its not agnostic science, it's just science. Adding an adjective implies some sort of intentional avoidance of theism or purposeful distance from theism, when the real truth of the matter is that nobody is avoiding anything, they are just focused on their jobs/hobbies/whatever.

That's "canon", by the way. I see a typo has gotten itself repeated. "Cannons" are for pirate ships.

Helena Constantine said:

James V. Kohl said: While theorists continued to remain ignorant of cause and effect, it became clear that mutated genes were not responsible for biodiversity. Molecular biology: A second layer of information in RNA http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/505621a Carl Zimmer wrote: "Others maintain that as random mutations arise, complexity emerges as a side effect, even without natural selection to help it along. Complexity, they say, is not purely the result of millions of years of fine-tuning through natural selection—the process that Richard Dawkins famously dubbed “the blind watchmaker.” To some extent, it just happens." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity/ Since mutated genes and natural selection have been eliminated from evolutionary theory, I've seen no revision that restates the argument for the theory that typically is touted in discussions like this one. What is it that theorists now claim should be compared to Creationist's beliefs. Is anyone willing to say anything more than evolution "just happens?"

Do you have dyslexia? In the passage of Zimmer you quote he is talking about how genetic drift contributes to evolution. How can you possibly read that as throwing out the role of mutation in evolution (unless you're just lying to deceive the ignorant, and in that that case you're probably in the wrong place)?

Aceofspades25 said: You should probably also mention that there are paid professionals who work to distribute misinformation to support creationism. This is going to be a great series!

harold said: "Cannons" are for pirate ships.

harold said: For whatever reason he has a self-serving bias. He wants the theory of evolution to be "overthrown". It could be religious/political, or it could just be the old "I'm just as smart as famous scientists" bias.

SWT said: If I'm correctly understanding the intent of the comments re: Nicea, there seems to be a disconnect in word use. I think Helena Constantine is using "canon" in the sense of "a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine" -- in this case, the list of books that should be included in the Christian Bible. And of course, Helena Constantine is correct to note that the canon was established well before Nicea. I think eric is using "canon" in the sense of "a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council." And of course, eric is correct to note that adoption of the Nicene Creed and the condemnation of Arianism are such decrees.

eric said: I don’t necessarily think the conclusion follows from the evidence he gives. “There was no disagreement! Well, except for these guys who were banished and told all their writings would be burned” is not a very compelling argument that there was no major disagreement. It’s not compelling for two reasons: One - the documents cited talk about exactly that thing you’re saying didn’t happen - doctrinal disagreement, settled at and by the council. Two - that’s an extroadinarily coercive environment, and so we can’t really infer sincere agreement from stated agreement, even “enthusiastic” stated agreement. Put yourself in that situation.

A good example is FL and others’ “argument from list.” We modern folk find lists of names and objects somewhat boring. We would never put a long list in a story or novel (unless intentionally trying to be avant garde or wierd). So someone like FL looks at a list in the bible and infers it must not be a story, because no modern western author would write a story that way. But in fact such lists do occur in ancient literature, so that inference is just wrong; the people who wrote the bible simply didn’t share FL’s opinion on what makes good literature.

FL said:

david said: They imagine that their preconceived perceptions of genre, context, and meaning represent some privileged “plain interpretation” that everyone else in the world and in history would share if they just shed all their godless atheistic secular biases. That’s what they need to be challenged on.

My guess is that, on the inevitable day that Pandaville calls on you to defend (in specific detail) your belief that Jesus’ Resurrection is a historical fact, you will likely find that you are relying on some fundie-style “plain interpretation” (and some fundie-style “genre-context-meaning”) standards yourself. Which will also raise a pesky but inescapable question of exactly how a Panda can honestly accept the biblical and supernatural Resurrection of Christ as a historical fact, while not likewise accepting other supernatural historical claims of the Bible as historical fact (including those of, say, Genesis Creation Week).

why isn’t chapter Y an “allegory” as well? Especially if Y challenges my current belief system (for example, atheism or agnosticism) just as much as X does?

jcmmanuel said: there is no denying that the creationist mind may often see danger in the theory of evolution as something anti-religious. It is also hard to deny that science in general, if taken seriously, tends to deconstruct religious beliefs and destroy at least the most naive views on the subject of god or gods. ​ ​But does this justify a leap towards the presentation you are making here? I don’t think so. There is probably a more complex rationale behind your analysis, and it is okay not to elaborate on it here - but I certainly see a big gap analysis missing between my observations as just described, and your conclusions on the subject of how and why there is such a thing like creationism.

Hrothgar said: Recently I had a friend express to me in no uncertain terms that the Mars Rover missions were for the sole purpose of trying to prove that God did not exist.

Jimpithecus said: It is kind of like reading the work of young-earth creationist Todd Wood. Todd is a very conscientious scientist and is clearly convinced that evolutionary theory is very robust. He is, further, willing to jump into the fray when someone else, such as Fuzz Rana at Reasons to Believe or Stephen Myer at the DI, gets it wrong. But HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IT. His biblical six-thousand year creation model won’t allow him to accept the ramifications and extrapolations of the evolutionary model as they apply to the fossil record because, to him, there is no fossil record. I simply don’t understand. Here he is in his own words: http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

The Ray Martinez troll said (quoting Darwin): "...the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous."

Just Bob said: curse my suspicious little mind, but the whole thing sounds suspicious. Here’s my suspicious suspicion: Somebody besides the jesus-kids found the fossil–either adults with the ministry company while they were in the general area, or maybe the landowner, who then leased the site to the jesus-company so the jesus-kids could “find” it, conveniently on the last day of jesus-fossil-camp, conveniently after praying. Makes the parents think their thousand bucks wasn’t wasted, and is great advertising for next year’s crop of impressionable sheep young explorers. Nah, they wouldn’t do something like that, right?

eric said:

phhht said:

eric said: When I do math and I don't pray or think about God, it's not atheistic math, it's just math.

Math is atheistic in the sense that when you do it, you act and think and speak as if there are no gods.

Is math amusical because when I do it, I act and think without any consideration of the principles of music? Is math alegal because when I do it, I act and think without any consideration of the principles of law? Is it also ahistorical, aliterary, abiological, achemical, aphysical, ahorseracing and so on, and so on, and so on? It just seems silly to me to proclaim that any action any human does when not thinking or considering gods is atheistic. There is, IMO, a big space between "not considering God for the moment" or "not using principles of some theology in ones' work" and "atheism."

Helena said to FL: Its only you post-modernist fundamentalist types who are perverse to think any such thing actually happened.

SWT said: I think Helena Constantine is using “canon” in the sense of “a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine” – in this case, the list of books that should be included in the Christian Bible. And of course, Helena Constantine is correct to note that the canon was established well before Nicea. I think eric is using “canon” in the sense of “a regulation or dogma decreed by a church council.” And of course, eric is correct to note that adoption of the Nicene Creed and the condemnation of Arianism are such decrees.

ksplawn said: Constantine himself didn’t really lean strongly one way or the other on the Arian isssue, a pattern that held true for many Christian issues with him. He saw the fracturing schisms of the Christian community as a major threat to social stability and thought that settling the issues was more important than settling them in any particular direction. Rather than approach the internecine squabbles as a partisan participant, he treated it more like a matter of contract law and presided over some church disputes as if from his official Imperial capacity as head of the judiciary hearing complaints and disputes.

Mostly that's the impression I got from Mike Duncan's excellent History of Rome podcast after powering through the whole thing last year. The relevant episodes here are the very late 130s, covering Constantine's reign (I remembered the G this time).

It also lines up with what I just looked up on Wikipedia five seconds ago, so maybe I didn't misremember. :) Still, I should probably double-check before posting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Constantine#Religious_policy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism#First_Council_of_Nicaea_and_its_aftermath

That was my understanding of it as well, but I wasn't sure how reliable my memory was. I minored in history, but didn't spend too much time on that period.

david.starling.macmillan said: Even so, he's breathtakingly honest. Which is nice.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Even so, he's breathtakingly honest. Which is nice.

1. Must one adopt Omphalism to be honest about Creationism? It sort of seems so, for doesn't Creationism require that things were, from the beginning, basically the way that they are now. And I don't see how, for example, mammals can exist other than in a state that has the appearances of their having had a history: They have knowledge which, for mammals, can only be learned from experience; They cannot exist with an empty digestive tract; etc. Does accept Omphalism along with the belief that the world is designed so as if life has been evolving for billions of years? Or does he have way of rejecting Omphalism? 2. Does his honesty extend to accepting Geocentrism? Or does he allow that modern science, in that case, overrides the plain sense of the Bible? (The sense that everybody for about 2000 years did not doubt.) Does his honesty extend to accepting that Moses wrote Deuteronomy 34? Rather than accepting that the Bible says that Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch, but we must compromise on the difficulty on accepting that it is unseemly that he would write about his death, burial (no one knows where), and how later generations would view him as a prophet? Or does he not believe that the Bible says that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch?

Anyone that believes in evolution shows a complete lack of knowledge or completly ignores the vast body of evidence of ancient advanced technologies, advanced civilizations, and completely ignores occult knowledge that nearly every major military is currently using. These are things that can't just be skipped over for convemience.

david.starling.macmillan said: a few poetic things here and there that aren't meant to be taken seriously.

david.starling.macmillan said: You don't have to be an Omphalist to accept creationism, but you do have to disregard everything we know about geology. Anything that appears to be very very old is simply slated into "a side effect of the chaotic and unpredictable natural forces involved in the global flood" and thus handwaved. That's their golden ticket; nothing we see now was created in its present form; everything we see now is a product of the Flood which managed to somehow produce a world we mistake for being billions of years old.

The typical approach to geocentrism is that although the Biblical authors probably believed geocentrism and God never saw fit to correct this belief, God made sure that no references to geocentrism made it into the Bible beyond a few poetic things here and there that aren't meant to be taken seriously. And then anything else that's obviously geocentric is "nuh-uh"d away.

Most fundies accept that Moses didn't write Deut 34.

Oh, goodness, FL is not postmodern. He is the farthest thing from postmodern. He is the essence of modernist fallacy.

FL said:

Seems pretty simple to me. The person believes chapter X is allegory but chapter Y isn’t.

So why isn't chapter Y an "allegory" as well? Especially if Y challenges my current belief system (for example, atheism or agnosticism) just as much as X does? FL

I think "created in God's imagine" is probably the least controversial part of Genesis to take literally among Christians, for sort of obvious doctrinal reasons.

Cannon (a word I habitually misspell) is simply the list of books that are to be accepted as scripture. Doctrine is something else entirely, going to how to read those books. Its clear that Nicea had nothing to with the former, but can see and hear atheists all over the internet complaining that Nicea omitted books like I Enoch and even went so far as to fabricate the existence of Jesus (I guess they would have had to write the Gospels as well as decide which ones to include). No one here went so far, but it's something that immensely annoys me.

I insist that fundamentalism is post-modern. It simply was not a way of reading scripture that was available in traditional culture. Once modernity, in particular science, cast doubt on the whole religious enterprise, fundamentalism was created as a new way of reading scripture: "if that damn Darwin says the Bible is false because of evolution, I will by God read it as science and prove Darwin wrong." What could more post-modern?

If Adam and Eve were created in God's image (both of them?), that creates the question which of the current ethnic groups has the closest resemblance to Adam and Eve? Or are they all more or less equidistant from it?

jsmappy said: Anyone that believes in evolution shows a complete lack of knowledge or completly ignores the vast body of evidence of ancient advanced technologies, advanced civilizations, and completely ignores occult knowledge that nearly every major military is currently using. These are things that can't just be skipped over for convemience.

callahanpb said:

david.starling.macmillan said: a few poetic things here and there that aren't meant to be taken seriously.

This seems like enough wiggle room to drop "young earth" entirely.

TomS said: It is a violation of the "Creationist 2nd Law of Thermodynamics", as well as ID's claim about the probability of Complex Specified Information appearing by chance. Either the extremely detailed patterns of geology, including fossils, is the result of "regularities", or it was intelligently designed to appear that way.

harold said:

Oh, goodness, FL is not postmodern. He is the farthest thing from postmodern. He is the essence of modernist fallacy.

The overall religious right is a purely postmodern phenomenon. I don't mean in style, although it is post-modern in style - reality-denying, word-game playing and so on. I simply mean that historically.

callahanpb said: I think "created in God's imagine" is probably the least controversial part of Genesis to take literally among Christians, for sort of obvious doctrinal reasons.

Helena Constantine said: I insist that fundamentalism is post-modern. It simply was not a way of reading scripture that was available in traditional culture. Once modernity, in particular science, cast doubt on the whole religious enterprise, fundamentalism was created as a new way of reading scripture: "if that damn Darwin says the Bible is false because of evolution, I will by God read it as science and prove Darwin wrong." What could more post-modern?

Henry J said: If Adam and Eve were created in God's image (both of them?), that creates the question which of the current ethnic groups has the closest resemblance to Adam and Eve? Or are they all more or less equidistant from it?

jsmappy said: Anyone that believes in evolution shows a complete lack of knowledge or completly ignores the vast body of evidence of ancient advanced technologies, advanced civilizations, and completely ignores occult knowledge that nearly every major military is currently using. These are things that can't just be skipped over for convemience.

bigdakine said: Why would a God need to drink?

david.starling.macmillan said: His [Todd Wood's] biology allows common descent, but his geology doesn’t, so he sticks with young-earth creationism.

Just Bob, you know the secret promises, we are not allowed to speak that word.

So someone like FL looks at a list in the bible and infers it must not be a story, because no modern western author would write a story that way. But in fact such lists do occur in ancient literature,

I’m an agnostic Christian. I don’t know that the Resurrection happened. I’m not 100% certain that the Resurrection happened.

We may be operating under differing definitions of “postmodern”.

Cannon (a word I habitually misspell) is simply the list of books that are to be accepted as scripture.

FL said: ...Phhht's no-compromise "Theism is a Delusion" atheism...

phhht said: But I don't say that all theism is delusion, FL. I just say that you are deluded.

Madhava and the son of Pandu blew their divine conch horns: Hrishikesha his Panchajanya, wealth winner his Devadatta; wolf-bellied Bhima blew Paundra, his great conch horn; King Yudhishthira blew Anantavijaya; Nakula and Sahadeva blew Sughosha and Manipushpaka; and Kashya, top archer, and Shikhandi, of the great chariot, Dhrishtadyumna and Virata and invincible Satyaki, Drupada and the sons of Draupadi, all together, O Lord of the earth, and strong-armed Saubhadra, each blew their own conch horns.

The birds and the airplane did fly Oh, Ravi Shankar's music made me cry The Who exploded into fire and light Hugh Masekela's music was black as night The Grateful Dead Blew everybody's mind Jimi Hendrix, baby Believe me, set the world on fire, yeah His Majesty, Prince Jones smiled As he moved among the crowd Ten thousand electric guitars Were groovin' real loud, yeah

Being able to rattle off a long list of heroes, say, is a show-off technique for an oral storyteller.

And including or working in somehow the traditional ancestor of the local magnate earns a bigger tip. Homer knew which side his bread was buttered on, as did the compiler(s) of Numbers.

david.starling.macmillan said: my point is that big broad pronouncements about how Constantine or some other leader dictated everything at Nicea are simply unsubstantiable.

And the more obvious point is that there was nothing whatsoever in Nicea that had anything to do with the formation of a canon. Nada.

FL said:

So someone like FL looks at a list in the bible and infers it must not be a story, because no modern western author would write a story that way. But in fact such lists do occur in ancient literature,

Yes, and Eric came up with an excellent example: a nice "list" selection, from the Iliad. Which easily proved that the particular selection Eric quoted was not a parable.

Just Bob said: Being able to rattle off a long list of heroes, say, is a show-off technique for an oral storyteller. And including or working in somehow the traditional ancestor of the local magnate earns a bigger tip. Homer knew which side his bread was buttered on, as did the compiler(s) of Numbers.

prongs said:

bigdakine said: Why would a God need to drink?

Because He has the likes of FL pretending to represent Him here on this Earth.

W S Gilbert wrote: Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

And God drinks The MacAllen 18, except on high days and holidays, when He drinks the 25.

It seems to me that the Council of Nicea did in fact coerce agreement on essential dogma, and did so for one overriding reason: to enforce unity on the Church so that it could help impose it on the Empire. The former aim was worthwhile in itself, if it could be achieved without the stress producing actual schism; but the latter would be rewarded with a golden prize, namely, establishment. The Church would become an Imperial institution and its officers would become dignitaries and magistrates.

The pressure to codify and conform was huge. Perhaps the Council did not itself physically threaten dissidents, as such. But the Emperor was watching, and if you think that the whole range of the techniques of coercion were not thoroughly familiar to him, or that their employment would necessarily have been visible to us now, I think you need to think again.

John Harshman said:

david.starling.macmillan said: His [Todd Wood's] biology allows common descent, but his geology doesn’t, so he sticks with young-earth creationism.

I don't think I've ever seen Wood express any opinions on geology, and I think you're wrong here. He's said this fairly clearly on several occasions: it isn't the science or the data, of whatever sort, that convinces him of creationism. It's the bible and his faith in its inerrancy. He doesn't see how the empirical data can be reconciled with that literally understood Genesis, but he accepts that there must be some way that he hasn't figured out yet.

FL said: I want to heat things up this time around. Especially with plenty of fuel like this mess:

I’m an agnostic Christian. I don’t know that the Resurrection happened. I’m not 100% certain that the Resurrection happened.

That is one sad paragraph. Sheesh. I'd seriously rather join Dave Luckett's "Agnostic Atheist" religion, or even Phhht's no-compromise "Theism is a Delusion" atheism, than any kind of nondescript "I-dunno-maybe-si-maybe-no" Christianity like that. Forget about 100 percent certainty (for the moment). David, are you even TEN percent certain that that the Resurrection happened? And, more importantly, on what specific basis do you say it happened at all?

callahanpb said: I admit I'm intrigued by the "list" angle, though I don't think it proves much. To the extent that I'm familiar with the Book of Numbers, for instance, I think it's intended as historical record, because it does seem pretty boring. On the other hand, lists can be used poetically.

eric said:

david.starling.macmillan said: my point is that big broad pronouncements about how Constantine or some other leader dictated everything at Nicea are simply unsubstantiable. And the more obvious point is that there was nothing whatsoever in Nicea that had anything to do with the formation of a canon. Nada.

It might be helpful to develop a parallel scenario and see whether you agree. Let's say Pope Francis calls a meeting of all the cardinals to discuss feeding the poor. They all come to general agreement about how much money the church is going to spend feeding the poor. But also, at some point during the meeting, even though it's entirely off topic, it's decided (by someone) that Pius' encyclical accepting evolution will be destroyed and any RCC priest who defends that position it will be exiled and their writings burned. Everyone agrees to that too, including Francis. Now, later you're discussing this meeting on PT and upset that the meeting changed RCC doctrine away from good science. But someone comes along and posts - "what are you talking about? That meeting had nothing do with RCC doctrine! It was just about feeding the poor. How can you say it had any impact on doctrine?" Doesn't that sound like and incredibly weak and naive defense?

Dave Luckett said: On lists and other markers:

W S Gilbert wrote: Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

Dave Luckett said: And God drinks The MacAllen 18, except on high days and holidays, when He drinks the 25.

I think what Kohl was saying was, "eat your spinach - you'll turn into Popeye." Or something. A shame I spent all that effort on a doctorate, when all I had to do was wait for internet hucksters.

That was a very clear and helpful analysis of YEC. I look forward to your account of how you came to leave it.

harold said:

We may be operating under differing definitions of “postmodern”.

It's not a strictly defined word, so yes, we probably are, and I'm not going to make a huge deal out of that right now. I certainly will defend my usage. It refers fundamentally, no pun intended, to a temporal period. It's an awkward term, because "modern" can mean either "a certain Western historical period that is usually said to have started around 1500 and probably ended some time in the second half of the twentieth century", or it can simply mean "contemporary". And I actually use it both ways, thus contributing to the confusion. However, what I do want to make clear, is that the religious right is new. It's a creation of the postmodern era. It has antecedents but it's fairly new.

Cannon (a word I habitually misspell) is simply the list of books that are to be accepted as scripture.

I believe you just did it again. I'm fairly sure you meant to say "canon". It's pretty easy to do. I almost did it typing this comment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon I'll go further and say that for me post-modernism reacts against modernity by creating a pseud-critique or modernity based on spurious reasoning, spurious history, or anything else spurious. Examples are feminism and Marxism. Look at deconstruction: it means ignoring the meaning the author imputed to the text, denying that such a thing is even possible, and substitutes a new meaning entirely created by the reader. That is what fundamentalists do. FL, for instance, is completely ignorant of the meaning of scripture, but he's made some new meaning in his imagination and pretends that its the meaning of scripture. Once he has identified modernity as the problem (he's call it the world, no doubt), he has nothing left but rhetoric to combat it.

eric said:

david.starling.macmillan said: my point is that big broad pronouncements about how Constantine or some other leader dictated everything at Nicea are simply unsubstantiable.

It doesn't matter who holds the baseball bat because we know someone did, and it's the bat that's the issue. The fact that the penalty levied by either the council in general or by some leader of it included exile and burning all the writings of the one known dissenter says to me that they squelched dissent at the point of a sword.

And the more obvious point is that there was nothing whatsoever in Nicea that had anything to do with the formation of a canon. Nada.

It might be helpful to develop a parallel scenario and see whether you agree. Let's say Pope Francis calls a meeting of all the cardinals to discuss feeding the poor. They all come to general agreement about how much money the church is going to spend feeding the poor. But also, at some point during the meeting, even though it's entirely off topic, it's decided (by someone) that Pius' encyclical accepting evolution will be destroyed and any RCC priest who defends that position it will be exiled and their writings burned. Everyone agrees to that too, including Francis. Now, later you're discussing this meeting on PT and upset that the meeting changed RCC doctrine away from good science. But someone comes along and posts - "what are you talking about? That meeting had nothing do with RCC doctrine! It was just about feeding the poor. How can you say it had any impact on doctrine?" Doesn't that sound like and incredibly weak and naive defense? The outcome is more than the agenda.

eric said:

FL said:

So someone like FL looks at a list in the bible and infers it must not be a story, because no modern western author would write a story that way. But in fact such lists do occur in ancient literature,

Yes, and Eric came up with an excellent example: a nice "list" selection, from the Iliad. Which easily proved that the particular selection Eric quoted was not a parable.

You're shifting the goalposts. Your contention is that a list implies the author is relating factual claims. The Illiad selection included in its listing multiple sons of gods and goddesses. Do you think Homer was relating fact when he mentioned these demigods? I'm fine saying Genesis isn't a parable. It could be non-parable fiction of any number of a wide variety of types. The point of the Illiad list is to show that lists are included in ancient fiction, so the presence of the list in Genesis is not evidence that Genesis was intended as nonfiction. Neither Homer nor the Bible can be considered fiction. The authors of both works are reporting traditions that they accept as the foundation of their communities. Fiction is a specific genre--its does not mean any writing that is not true. Fiction is purposefully creating a story you know to be false for the purpose of entertainment (yes it was defined that way in antiquity).

david.starling.macmillan said: which means the "true" meaning is whatever the average bloke off the street would take it to mean. And they substitute themselves in for the aforementioned average bloke.

Helena Constantine said: I'll go further and say that for me post-modernism reacts against modernity by creating a pseud-critique or modernity based on spurious reasoning, spurious history, or anything else spurious. Examples are feminism and Marxism. Look at deconstruction: it means ignoring the meaning the author imputed to the text, denying that such a thing is even possible, and substitutes a new meaning entirely created by the reader.

Sylvilagus said:

Helena Constantine said: I'll go further and say that for me post-modernism reacts against modernity by creating a pseud-critique or modernity based on spurious reasoning, spurious history, or anything else spurious. Examples are feminism and Marxism. Look at deconstruction: it means ignoring the meaning the author imputed to the text, denying that such a thing is even possible, and substitutes a new meaning entirely created by the reader.

What you are describing here as "deconstruction" has nothing to do with deconstruction. Sounds more like Reader Response theory. Deconstruction does not deny authorial intentions or ignore them, but it does complicate them. What you describe is something like the Intentional Fallacy of the so-called New critics of the 30s and 40s. Your characterization of both feminism and Marxism as postmodern I find equally problematic, at least under any academic definition of postmodern that I am familiar with. In philosophy, Marxism and PostmoderniSm have generally been antagonists. The notion that a mid-19th century political philosophy could be postmodern seems to stretch the term to such extremes as to be no longer useful. As for feminism, while some branches of feminism since the late 70s have been heavily influenced by postmodernism, other branches of feminism, including the Marxist feminism common in the mid70s would tend tore eject postmodern assumptions. Feminism (and Marxism) is such a broad category with such diverse even competing schools of thought and practice that to lump them together under a single term like postmodernism again seems not very useful for understanding.

david.starling.macmillan said: Of course Nicea had a huge and far-reaching effect on the subsequent development and exploration of Christian doctrine. No one is disputing that. But "canon" is not doctrine. "Canon" is a reference to the body of sacred work considered to be authoritative. Doctrine may have been defined at Nicea, but Nicea neither decided nor dictated nor defined anything respecting canon, because the canon had already been decided long before.

Helena Constantine said: I'll go further and say that for me post-modernism reacts against modernity by creating a pseud-critique or modernity based on spurious reasoning, spurious history, or anything else spurious. Examples are feminism and Marxism. Look at deconstruction: it means ignoring the meaning the author imputed to the text, denying that such a thing is even possible, and substitutes a new meaning entirely created by the reader. That is what fundamentalists do. FL, for instance, is completely ignorant of the meaning of scripture, but he's made some new meaning in his imagination and pretends that its the meaning of scripture. Once he has identified modernity as the problem (he's call it the world, no doubt), he has nothing left but rhetoric to combat it.

Neither Homer nor the Bible can be considered fiction. The authors of both works are reporting traditions that they accept as the foundation of their communities. Fiction is a specific genre--its does not mean any writing that is not true. Fiction is purposefully creating a story you know to be false for the purpose of entertainment (yes it was defined that way in antiquity).

callahanpb said:

david.starling.macmillan said: which means the "true" meaning is whatever the average bloke off the street would take it to mean. And they substitute themselves in for the aforementioned average bloke.

Thanks. In years of following evolution/creationism discussions, I missed this, and have been baffled how anyone could interpret the Bible literally. I can see how under the circumstances, a group of people could believe they're not cherrypicking, but just separating out the obvious literal truth from the obvious poetic flourishes. I also doubt very much that two isolated groups with different cultural backgrounds would actually reach the same conclusions that way, but the YEC community is one tightly knit self-reinforcing group.

I would say my understanding of how to decide what the Bible means is almost diametrically opposite to the above principle. An ordinary person, just reading the Bible and sussing out its meaning without officially sanctioned guidance is basically on the road to heresy.

I'm not religious now, but I don't get why evolution is supposed to be relevant one way or the other.

The main reason I have trouble believing in religion is that religions tend to disagree on many details unless they have the chance to collude first. This suggests to me that the details are probably made up by people and not revealed by God.

TO: David

Your topic is also being discussed here:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/YvPrvNiwG5o/zM9pck8xTgkJ

This is the Talk.Origins Usenet where there are no pro-evolution moderators to save you. The person who started the topic is like you, an Atheist-Evolutionist. So I encourage you to come on over and defend your claims where there are no biased moderators to shield you from seeing your amateurish errors.

Ray Martinez said: TO: David Your topic is also being discussed here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/YvPrvNiwG5o/zM9pck8xTgkJ This is the Talk.Origins Usenet where there are no pro-evolution moderators to save you. The person who started the topic is like you, an Atheist-Evolutionist. So I encourage you to come on over and defend your claims where there are no biased moderators to shield you from seeing your amateurish errors.

eric said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Of course Nicea had a huge and far-reaching effect on the subsequent development and exploration of Christian doctrine. No one is disputing that. But "canon" is not doctrine. "Canon" is a reference to the body of sacred work considered to be authoritative. Doctrine may have been defined at Nicea, but Nicea neither decided nor dictated nor defined anything respecting canon, because the canon had already been decided long before.

Ah, okay, you're drawing a distinction I wasn't, probably because I'm a layman in this subject and not using the terms as specifically as an expert does. I'm fine with the statement that orthodox theology was defined (doctrine) but not the list of books (caNon).

Excellent article - looking forward to the rest of the series.

A very small subset of creationists that are very difficult to understand are those that acknowledge evidence for evolution but still practice creation science. Two examples are Kurt Wise and Todd Wood. It would make sense if they simply walked away from the discussion. But why still look for evidence (or reinterpret the evidence) that would prove evolution wrong, they have already admitted defeat?

Another question is, how much deception is being practiced by creationists, particularly ones with advanced degrees in related fields? Creationists are sometimes accused of willful deception but if they really believe what they are saying then they are just wrong. There could be different factors involved like self delusion, group delusion, Morton's demon, and gross incompetence (for the credentialed creationists). False accusations of deception (which can goe in both directions) will make engagement much worse or even impossible.

The description of the creationist 'defensive posture' is very good. There seems to be at least one very debilitating consequence for many discussions based on this defensive posture (at least something I've noticed in my attempts at dialogue), that is creationists won't accept anything an evolutionist says. Because creationists see themselves as defenders of the truth and evolution as evil, an evolutionist position on anything must be flawed. This can hold for trivial issues that have very little consequence to the overall discussion.

Ray Martinez said: TO: David Your topic is also being discussed here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/YvPrvNiwG5o/zM9pck8xTgkJ This is the Talk.Origins Usenet where there are no pro-evolution moderators to save you. The person who started the topic is like you, an Atheist-Evolutionist. So I encourage you to come on over and defend your claims where there are no biased moderators to shield you from seeing your amateurish errors.

david.starling.macmillan said: ... But "canon" is not doctrine. "Canon" is a reference to the body of sacred work considered to be authoritative.

Please do not reply to the Martinez troll. It is welcome to use the bathroom wall without interference from reality-based scientists.

The main reason I have trouble believing in religion is that religions tend to disagree on many details unless they have the chance to collude first. This suggests to me that the details are probably made up by people and not revealed by God.

david.starling.macmillan said:

I would say my understanding of how to decide what the Bible means is almost diametrically opposite to the above principle. An ordinary person, just reading the Bible and sussing out its meaning without officially sanctioned guidance is basically on the road to heresy.

Indeed. This, imho, is why fundamentalism has taken such a grip here in the United States. Our most important cultural values are exceptionalism and individualism; these, applied to religious practice and biblical interpretation, invariably lead to fundamentalist biblical Docetism and a form of gnostic heresy.

Henry J said:

The main reason I have trouble believing in religion is that religions tend to disagree on many details unless they have the chance to collude first. This suggests to me that the details are probably made up by people and not revealed by God.

Yep. You'd think that if some being(s) with god-like powers wanted people as a whole to know some set of details about something, then people as a whole would have converged on those answers. At the very least, said being could produce a movie that presented a god-like being solving problems by means other than mistaking every problem for a nail. Henry

Mark Buchanan said: Excellent article - looking forward to the rest of the series. A very small subset of creationists that are very difficult to understand are those that acknowledge evidence for evolution but still practice creation science. Two examples are Kurt Wise and Todd Wood. It would make sense if they simply walked away from the discussion. But why still look for evidence (or reinterpret the evidence) that would prove evolution wrong, they have already admitted defeat? Another question is, how much deception is being practiced by creationists, particularly ones with advanced degrees in related fields? Creationists are sometimes accused of willful deception but if they really believe what they are saying then they are just wrong. There could be different factors involved like self delusion, group delusion, Morton's demon, and gross incompetence (for the credentialed creationists). False accusations of deception (which can goe in both directions) will make engagement much worse or even impossible.

Pierce R. Butler said:

david.starling.macmillan said: ... But "canon" is not doctrine. "Canon" is a reference to the body of sacred work considered to be authoritative.

Seems like neither you nor Helen Constantine has bothered to check a dictionary on this point. F'rinstance, my dumb little "widget" dictionary lists your meaning as its second definition of "canon", following "a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged". More to the theological point, consider that the Catholic Church's "canon law" does not derive directly from the (Catholic version of the) bible, but has been reworked several times on the basis of currently-accepted/useful doctrine.

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

I would say my understanding of how to decide what the Bible means is almost diametrically opposite to the above principle. An ordinary person, just reading the Bible and sussing out its meaning without officially sanctioned guidance is basically on the road to heresy.

Indeed. This, imho, is why fundamentalism has taken such a grip here in the United States. Our most important cultural values are exceptionalism and individualism; these, applied to religious practice and biblical interpretation, invariably lead to fundamentalist biblical Docetism and a form of gnostic heresy.

Wasn't that the whole point of the Protestant revolution/reformation thing that Martin Luther started? That people should be free to interpret the Bible for themselves, in their own language, without the Church having to interpret the Latin for them?

It's always amusing that your basic Protestantism (personal relationship with God) has been turned on it's head by the Fundamentalists who insist that theirs is the only true way to be a Christian. Sure, FL will say that he's never said that those "others" aren't Christians. But in the same breath, he'll berate them for doing it all wrong, and that while they may be Christians, they're still going to Hell for not believing what FL believes.

David,

What's Doug "Squirt on the Nanny" Phillips got to do with the Allosaurus?

(I became an anti-creationist for the joy of writing sentences like the above.)

I thought the Allosaurus was donated by Michael "hey slaves, get me a mint julep" Peroutka. That other paragon of morality.

david.starling.macmillan said: they suppose that perhaps someday they will make sense of it all in a way that jives with their interpretation of the Bible.

david.starling.macmillan said: But yes, one would have thought that the individualistic exceptionalistic authoritarian approach to the Bible would have been disproven the first time it became apparent that no one ever agreed with anyone else. Apparently not, though. "See, you just aren't looking at the TRULY plain-sense interpretation. You've got such-and-such a bias. I'm the one who's REALLY got the plain-sense straightforward common-understanding interpretation. Listen to me."

diogeneslamp0 said: What's Doug "Squirt on the Nanny" Phillips got to do with the Allosaurus? (I became an anti-creationist for the joy of writing sentences like the above.) I thought the Allosaurus was donated by Michael "hey slaves, get me a mint julep" Peroutka. That other paragon of morality.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: they suppose that perhaps someday they will make sense of it all in a way that jives with their interpretation of the Bible.

Excuse the pedantry, but the verb "jive" means, among other things, to speak deceptively, as in "don't jive me". The verb "gibe", among other things, means "agree with". Some unkind people might think that jiving is what is going on today.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: But yes, one would have thought that the individualistic exceptionalistic authoritarian approach to the Bible would have been disproven the first time it became apparent that no one ever agreed with anyone else. Apparently not, though. "See, you just aren't looking at the TRULY plain-sense interpretation. You've got such-and-such a bias. I'm the one who's REALLY got the plain-sense straightforward common-understanding interpretation. Listen to me."

What strikes me of the disregard of the history of Biblical interpretation, to the deliberate ignorance of it. I often point to this book which gives a sample of how the Bible was interpreted in the culture which produced it, a couple of centuries BCE-CE: James L. Kugel The Bible As It Was Belknap Press of Harvard U. Press, 1997 ISBN 0674069404

PS, on the subject of the maggot-infested colostomy bag that is Doug Phillips....

If you've ever been interested in the abuses of the Purity Culture and Biblical Patriarchy movements or are curious about how those teachings warp sexuality and make abuse so easy to cover up, I'd encourage you to read the civil lawsuit filed by the victim against Phillips. It's extremely accurate to what I know of the inner workings of sexist authoritarian fundamentalism.

david.starling.macmillan said: The history of Biblical interpretation is as big a problem for fundamentalists as every other aspect of history, and they revise it to their liking just as assiduously. I can't tell you how many times I heard about Augustine and Newton and tons of other big-name Christians through history being "basically six-day young-earth creationists"...when in fact they weren't at all. Newton explicitly rejected the idea as ridiculous.

david.starling.macmillan said: All of the evidence is "reinterpreted" with the presuppositionalist lens. Which is why it's so important to be able to point to exactly where they make claims that are categorically, unambiguously false even within their interpretation schema.

david.starling.macmillan said: When it comes to morally devoid prolapsed rectums like Doug Phillips, it's often annoying to see other Christians trying to avoid the topic of his fall even if they never agreed with him in the first place. I guess there's this idea that talking about it will make other people think he's representative of Christianity in general. Of course that's ridiculous. Scandals are going to happen regardless of the political or religious leaning in question; hushing it up only makes it seem like it's something that is expected. The only good that can be done is by openly and unambiguously condemning the abuser and welcoming the victim.

david.starling.macmillan said: PS, on the subject of the maggot-infested colostomy bag that is Doug Phillips....

david.starling.macmillan said: PS, on the subject of the maggot-infested colostomy bag that is Doug Phillips.... If you've ever been interested in the abuses of the Purity Culture and Biblical Patriarchy movements or are curious about how those teachings warp sexuality and make abuse so easy to cover up, I'd encourage you to read the civil lawsuit filed by the victim against Phillips. It's extremely accurate to what I know of the inner workings of sexist authoritarian fundamentalism.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: The history of Biblical interpretation is as big a problem for fundamentalists as every other aspect of history, and they revise it to their liking just as assiduously. I can't tell you how many times I heard about Augustine and Newton and tons of other big-name Christians through history being "basically six-day young-earth creationists"...when in fact they weren't at all. Newton explicitly rejected the idea as ridiculous.

And Augustine wrestled with the problem and eventually decided that the six "days" were not periods of time, but, if I recall correctly, something like a description of the six parts of what was created.

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said: PS, on the subject of the maggot-infested colostomy bag that is Doug Phillips....

Amusing. Trying to outdo diogeneslamp0?

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said: PS, on the subject of the maggot-infested colostomy bag that is Doug Phillips.... If you've ever been interested in the abuses of the Purity Culture and Biblical Patriarchy movements or are curious about how those teachings warp sexuality and make abuse so easy to cover up, I'd encourage you to read the civil lawsuit filed by the victim against Phillips. It's extremely accurate to what I know of the inner workings of sexist authoritarian fundamentalism.

The Huffington Post has an interesting article on Doug Phillips, as background on the case.

Scott F said: The Huffington Post has an interesting article on Doug Phillips, as background on the case.

In Reconstructionist theology, Christians are to exercise dominion over all aspects of culture. That task is given primarily to men; women are to seek dominion by supporting the dominion of the men in their lives (first and foremost by bearing as many children as possible), Phillips has developed that view into a full-blown movement known as Quiverful or Biblical Patriarchy. He teaches that it is men who are created in the image of God who is also male and that women are to be in complete submission to their fathers and husbands "in all things," as commanded by their reading of Ephesians. This movement rejects autonomy as unbiblical and opposes exposing young women to any influences (including leadership, education, self-sufficiency) that might make them more independent and less compliant/submissive or "feministic" as a violation of their God-given natures.

These factors create what social scientists label a Total Institution. A young woman in this community is carefully kept from outside influences, and marginalized from inside sources of power and protection, rendering her incapable of confronting abuse or giving real consent to a sexual relationship. Phillips was in a position of authority over her as her pastor, counselor, and employer and in this context would have been acting on behalf of her father (who was apparently unaware of the circumstances).

He [Phillips] argues that the relationship was consensual

At the end of 2013 Vision Forum Inc. sold off its assets and closed its doors though Phillips appears to still own the company.

@David:

I have been too busy to participate, but read your article and comments, plus some of the others. No one can explain the workings of evolution-deniers better than a former one. Unfortunately it's rare to find one who's so willing to talk about it. You have clarified a lot about at list one "kind" of denier, specifically a YEC believer who stopped short of becoming a full-fledged anti-evolution activist. I don't know if Morton's Demon was mentioned on this thread, but surely you are aware of Glenn Morton and how his awareness of it led him to reject YEC. It seems to explain those who are not quite Omphalists but not fully aware that they are playing favorites with the evidence (and definitions, and quotes - all the tricks of pseudoscience).

I look forward to the rest of your essay, and hope to have the time to ask some questions. For the record, I was technically a creationist (OEC, not YEC) as a child ~50 years ago, but accepted evolution as soon as I heard of it. Only 30 years later did I learn how "creative" creationism was, especially in how it has been "evolving" the "don't ask, don't tell what happened when" strategy.

check out http://www.raisingthetruth.com/ for one side of the allosaur story and Doug Phillips

Mr. MacMillan, I kinda suspect that this series of blog-posts might end up being worth collecting into book form, perhaps with additional material to shed light on points which the blog-posts (for whatever reason) may not have addressed as thoroughly as might be appropriate. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of making a PDF of this first post in the series. If you're curious, this PDF can be downloaded from the following URL…

http://cubist.on-rev.com/stuff/und-cre.pdf

…and if you think there's merit in the notion of an (eventual) book, feel free to get in touch with me at [ cubist[at]aol[dot]com ].

Sure, FL will say that he’s never said that those “others” aren’t Christians. But in the same breath, he’ll berate them for doing it all wrong, and that while they may be Christians, they’re still going to Hell for not believing what FL believes.

Sure, FL will say that he’s never said that those “others” aren’t Christians.

I’d assume FL is a good old classic AiG creationist on this point. “You can still believe in evolution and go to heaven, but you’re compromising and hurting the gospel and leading other people to doubt God’s Infallible Word.”

Scott F said: So the guy spends his life building a society in which women are property, subject to the dominion and complete control of the men who have been placed over them by God, places himself in a position of control and authority over Torres, and then claims that their relationship was entirely "consensual". What a Biblical tool.

Frank J said: I have been too busy to participate, but read your article and comments, plus some of the others. No one can explain the workings of evolution-deniers better than a former one. Unfortunately it's rare to find one who's so willing to talk about it. You have clarified a lot about at list one "kind" of denier, specifically a YEC believer who stopped short of becoming a full-fledged anti-evolution activist. I don't know if Morton's Demon was mentioned on this thread, but surely you are aware of Glenn Morton and how his awareness of it led him to reject YEC.

Morton wrote: Morton's demon makes it possible for a person to have his own set of private facts which others are not privy to, allowing the YEC to construct a theory which is perfectly supported by the facts which the demon lets through the gate. And since these are the only facts known to the victim, he feels in his heart that he has explained everything. Indeed, the demon makes people feel morally superior and more knowledgeable than others. The demon makes its victim feel very comfortable as there is no contradictory data in view. The demon is better than a set of rose colored glasses. The demon's victim does not understand why everyone else doesn't fall down and accept the victim's views. After all, the world is thought to be as the victim sees it and the demon doesn't let through the gate the knowledge that others don't see the same thing.

FL said: Sincere Kudos to Mr. MacMillon, however, for providing the necessary correction:

I’d assume FL is a good old classic AiG creationist on this point. “You can still believe in evolution and go to heaven, but you’re compromising and hurting the gospel and leading other people to doubt God’s Infallible Word.”

Precisely. That's a refreshingly more accurate summary. Thanks for putting that on the table, David.

So there you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth (or more likely the other end). As long as you are discussing religion, Floyd is bound and determined to infest these threads. If we discuss science on the other hand, it is guaranteed that Floyd will run away screaming. It's his kryptonite, don't you know. That is what I would recommend, either that or an exterminator.

Perhaps David will discuss the scientific evidence that convinced him that YEC was wrong. Perhaps Floyd will learn something, perhaps not. At least he might go away.

But I don’t say that all theism is delusion, FL. I just say that you are deluded.

FL said:

But I don’t say that all theism is delusion, FL. I just say that you are deluded.

Thanks Phhht. With the above statements, particularly the first sentence, you have now repudiated the position of "It is a fact that there are no gods." In fact, to some extent, you have rationally undermined atheism itself on this one.

DS said: So there you have it folks, straight from the horse's mouth (or more likely the other end). As long as you are discussing religion, Floyd is bound and determined to infest these threads. If we discuss science on the other hand, it is guaranteed that Floyd will run away screaming. It's his kryptonite, don't you know. That is what I would recommend, either that or an exterminator.

FL said:

But I don’t say that all theism is delusion, FL. I just say that you are deluded.

Thanks Phhht. With the above statements, particularly the first sentence, you have now repudiated the position of "It is a fact that there are no gods." In fact, to some extent, you have rationally undermined atheism itself on this one. FL

FL said: Sincere Kudos to Mr. MacMillon...

gnome de net said:

FL said: Sincere Kudos to Mr. MacMillon...

**Uh, FL — Dave's last name is MacMillan.**

prongs said:

bigdakine said: Why would a God need to drink?

Because He has the likes of FL pretending to represent Him here on this Earth.

I also find it amusing that our creationist trolls will argue their interpretation of the Bible to death (except with other creationists), but they will never, ever have an opinion on the history of how the Bible was actually put together, despite detailed written records.

"What is the canon of Scripture?" http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-of-Scripture.html

FL said: Therefore, for those Pandas who are seriously interested in how the biblical canon came about, here's an easily-understood explanation: http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-of-Scripture.html

Bobsie said:

FL said: Therefore, for those Pandas who are seriously interested in how the biblical canon came about, here's an easily-understood explanation: http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-of-Scripture.html

Sorry FL, but I really don't think your link is legitimate Biblical scholarship. The "statement of faith" kind of exposes it's less than credible scholarship bias. Don't you think? Or maybe you don't really understand what constitutes real scholarship.

Section 1: The Bible We believe the Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God (Matthew 5:18; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). In faith we hold the Bible to be inerrant in the original writings, God-breathed, and the complete and final authority for faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17). While still using the individual writing styles of the human authors, the Holy Spirit perfectly guided them to ensure they wrote precisely what He wanted written, without error or omission (2 Peter 1:21).

FL said:

Sure, FL will say that he’s never said that those “others” aren’t Christians. But in the same breath, he’ll berate them for doing it all wrong, and that while they may be Christians, they’re still going to Hell for not believing what FL believes.

Sure, FL will say that he’s never said that those “others” aren’t Christians.

This part is true. However, the rest of the paragraph is bogus.

Scott F said: If it is true that "The Bible" was "inerrant in the original writings", and errors are known to have been introduced over time, then one can only conclude that the Bible as read today cannot possibly be inerrant. But that's not what they say. It was both "inerrant in the original writings", and that it is also written today "without error or omission". I wonder which "Bible" these people are talking about?

Scott F said:

Scott F said: If it is true that "The Bible" was "inerrant in the original writings", and errors are known to have been introduced over time, then one can only conclude that the Bible as read today cannot possibly be inerrant. But that's not what they say. It was both "inerrant in the original writings", and that it is also written today "without error or omission". I wonder which "Bible" these people are talking about?

The "Bible Gateway" lists 46 different versions of the English translation of the bible alone. Each of which, I'm sure is "without error or omission", and must be read literally word for word.

Scott F said:

Scott F said: If it is true that "The Bible" was "inerrant in the original writings", and errors are known to have been introduced over time, then one can only conclude that the Bible as read today cannot possibly be inerrant. But that's not what they say. It was both "inerrant in the original writings", and that it is also written today "without error or omission". I wonder which "Bible" these people are talking about?

The "Bible Gateway" lists 46 different versions of the English translation of the bible alone. Each of which, I'm sure is "without error or omission", and must be read literally word for word.

One common thread that I read about from former theists is that actually studying the Bible and learning it's history was one of the factors that lead to their "deconstruction". It was certainly a factor for me.

Scott F said: One common thread that I read about from former theists is that actually studying the Bible and learning it's history was one of the factors that lead to their "deconstruction". It was certainly a factor for me.

First of all, we know that even with texts by modern writers, it can be impossible to determine what the "original text" might be. In the case of the Bible, we have in its own words how at least one "original text" (Jeremiah) was irretrievably lost. Who knows has happened in the construction of manuscripts behind those which we have? How many different versions have the authors, secretaries, editors and compilers produced? Is it even meaningful to speak of a text which could be the one capable of being described as being inspired? There must be, even for someone who accepts divine inspiration, a more complicated notion of the divine action. Especially for such a person.

Secondly, I will not bore the readers with repeating once again the most obvious cases where next to no one accepts the plain text without relying on mere human reasoning to arrive at a teaching that they are prepared to accept.

So when do we get the next installment of this series?

callahanpb said: So when do we get the next installment of this series?

Scott F said: One common thread that I read about from former theists is that actually studying the Bible and learning it's history was one of the factors that lead to their "deconstruction". It was certainly a factor for me.

Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.

Scott F said: Considering that we no longer have "the original writings" on which the Bible is based, and that the numerous translations are known to contain errors, and that what is in or not in "The Bible" has varied over the years, and (in fact) there is no single book today called "The Bible" that all Christians agree on, it is remarkable that this "scholarly" web site can claim that "The Bible" is "infallible".

fnxtr said:

Scott F said:

Scott F said: If it is true that "The Bible" was "inerrant in the original writings", and errors are known to have been introduced over time, then one can only conclude that the Bible as read today cannot possibly be inerrant. But that's not what they say. It was both "inerrant in the original writings", and that it is also written today "without error or omission". I wonder which "Bible" these people are talking about?

The "Bible Gateway" lists 46 different versions of the English translation of the bible alone. Each of which, I'm sure is "without error or omission", and must be read literally word for word.

(snicker) Genetic entropy. (snicker)

The inerrantist can claim that there is divine intervention which preserves the original text and the faithfulness of the KJV translation. In fact, I have come across arguments which claim that because there are faithful copies, that is proof of divine intervention.

David Starling MacMillan -

Here at the end of the thread I'd like to add a thought, that might be interesting to address in the future.

Some people are creationists and some are not.

But also, some people are unreachable, and some are not.

Over the past few weeks I've had conversations with unreachable people on non-creationism topics. They use the some of the same fundamental tactics as creationists. 1) Conspiracy theory denigration of critics. 2) Ignore arguments they can't address (or even rarely shift their position to deal with an individual argument but snap right back to the extreme position in other contexts), blithely unbothered that a challenge they can't meet is out there. 3) Cherry pick and nitpick at opponent statements that they think they can find something wrong with, while ignoring the obvious. 4) Generally use a nastier and more "superior" tone than a critic who is actually trying to engage, but cry crocodile tears and claim to win because of opponent "name calling" if anyone is mildly rude to them. 5) And of course, just literally repeat statements that have been shown to be factually incorrect, or even outright logical fallacies, ignoring the fact that they have been shown to be wrong.

An obvious example of this behavior pattern is climate change denial.

However, another interesting example I saw related to nicotine addiction. Some people now smoke "e-cigarettes" instead of regular cigarettes. I happened to point out that it's probably better than smoking regular cigarettes (with the caveat of severely limited data), but it's still nicotine addiction, and there is some evidence that the cardiovascular ill effects of smoking, which are considerable, may be at least partly due to nicotine. It turns out a denial movement has grown up, claiming the nicotine is completely beneficial (these claimants will usually, but not always, concede that smoke may be harmful, and concede that nicotine is habit forming). A major component is a claim that "big pharma" invented the health risks of smoking as a plot to sell nicotine replacement products like gum and patches. "Big tobacco" and "e-cigarette companies" are given a pass, even though smoking cessation products literally destroy their own market (if they worked and everyone quit there would be no more market for smoking cessation products).

Looking at some of your creationist stage output, you seem to have used most or all of the techniques I mentioned.

Yet you were "reachable". Others clearly aren't.

What is the difference between creationists who can eventually be reached, and those who can't?

I suspect these may play a role -

1) Sheer ratio of reality to denial. Jonathon Wells types are rare; most unreachable creationists are able to avoid science and to fill their hours with creationist reinforcement.

2) Sense of rejection by creationist community - people who are gay or otherwise ostracized within the creationist community appear, unsurprisingly, to be more likely to leave it.

3) Creationism as a background from early childhood, rather than a chosen reaction to personal or social conditions. Contrary to the idea that children are the easiest to indoctrinate for life, adolescents often tend to re-evaluate taken for granted childhood institutions. Someone who was "born again" into creationism as an adult is far less likely to be "unborn" later.

TomS said: The inerrantist can claim that there is divine intervention which preserves the original text and the faithfulness of the KJV translation. In fact, I have come across arguments which claim that because there are faithful copies, that is proof of divine intervention.

harold said:

TomS said: The inerrantist can claim that there is divine intervention which preserves the original text and the faithfulness of the KJV translation. In fact, I have come across arguments which claim that because there are faithful copies, that is proof of divine intervention.

The canned mainstream right wing "conservative Christian" response is almost always that KJV is "the inerrant version".

TomS said: But even at that, things are more complicated. Which KJV?

In addition to any manuscripts that were lost, there were fifteen commandments to start with, but Mel Brooks dropped one of the three tablets.

The good news is, I got Him down to ten. The bad news is He's not budging on adultery.

What I want to know is, are they in order of importance?

Not killing, I note, is way down the list. Does that mean that it is less of a sin to commit mass murder than to 'take the Lord's name in vain'?

FL said: I find it interesting that this so-called "Science" website winds up putting the "how did the biblical canon come about" topic front and center.

Scott F said: If it is true that "The Bible" was "inerrant in the original writings", and errors are known to have been introduced over time, then one can only conclude that the Bible as read today cannot possibly be inerrant. But that's not what they say. It was both "inerrant in the original writings", and that it is also written today "without error or omission".

[FL has] stated on more than one occasion that a person can only be a Christian if they believe in the literal Resurrection as the atonement for and forgiveness of Original Sin, that a Christian can only believe in Original Sin if they believe in a literal Adam and Eve, a literal Eden, and a literal Fall. That if a person does not believe in the literal truth of all these things, that that person cannot, by definition, be a Christian, despite what that person may claim.

ksplawn said: Different linguistic traditions have preserved the texts differently, and different sects have maintained even their own distinct versions of a canon. Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, and Protestant versions of Christianity each have differences in this regard: they include different sets of books in their Biblical Canons today. So which "Bible" is inerrant? This, too, is just one of the more superficial layers of the problem when claiming that "the Bible" is inerrant. The real issues that should shave away all the confidence of an inerrantist are the difference between OLD documents that make up the shared canons. The manuscripts that today's bibles, in all modern scholarly and vernacular translations, are based on. Because there are a few severe differences among the many manuscripts that we have. For just one example, our oldest complete manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 16:8. Here, Jesus' tomb is empty and the women run away in awe and fear. That's where it leaves off. The story about Jesus subsequently appearing, resurrected, before the skeptical disciples and charging them with spreading his teachings across the world all happens from 16:9 onwards, and this story is not present in oldest texts. This may be significant, since Mark is believed to be the oldest of the Gospels and our oldest existing copies lack the resurrection. On the other hand, some not-so-old manuscripts include it and there is evidence that a few Church Fathers knew of the longer version. Apparently, there were major differences between the authoritative copies in circulation at the time! How could an incomplete version of Mark be preserved and used in the daily life of a Church and be inerrant when there are other, different versions floating around, in use by other Churches? Which one is the original form?

It's generally true that most knowledgeable and learned Bible scholars are aware of these issues and do take them into account, whatever prior beliefs and misconceptions they might have carried into their early Bible education. It's a tiny minority of the more fanatical and/or the less knowledgeable who remain ignorant (or willfully ignorant). On the other hand, it's unfortunately true (at least in the US) that the most popular Evangelical flavors of Christianity do not touch these issues. You can live your entire life in many churches, even rise up through their ranks to the top, and never even brush up against the existence of these historical and textual problems. A cynical person might pin this on the lack of any knowledge qualifications or "quality control" in many of these sects' hierarchies. The merits that figure into their meritocracies don't always include "knowing a lot about the history of the Bible and Christianity."

Scott F said: One common thread that I read about from former theists is that actually studying the Bible and learning it's history was one of the factors that lead to their "deconstruction". It was certainly a factor for me.

Same here. And just as a broken clock is right twice a day, I think many fundagelicals fear that this is true generally. Which is why many of them reject all or most higher learning about the Bible and try to sidestep the ugly issues with it.

TomS said:

harold said:

TomS said: The inerrantist can claim that there is divine intervention which preserves the original text and the faithfulness of the KJV translation. In fact, I have come across arguments which claim that because there are faithful copies, that is proof of divine intervention.

The canned mainstream right wing "conservative Christian" response is almost always that KJV is "the inerrant version".

But even at that, things are more complicated. Which KJV? The original KJV contained the Apocrypha, if you buy a KJV today, it is not likely to contain the Apocrypha. Of lesser importance, there have been changes in the KJV toward more modern English. But even a spelling change or a change from an obsolete verb form is recognizing the priority of "mere human judgement" over the supposedly inerrant text.

harold said: Although I personally love the way the KJV is written, it also coincidentally happens to be one of the more ambivalent translations. It's written in a now archaic form of English, and because it was written by a committee, words chosen as translations are often deliberately nuanced. So by a "happy coincidence", the "inerrant" version happens to be one of the versions that you can best claim says whatever you want it to say.

harold said: You were "reachable". Others clearly aren't. What is the difference between creationists who can eventually be reached, and those who can't? I suspect these may play a role - 1) Sheer ratio of reality to denial. Jonathon Wells types are rare; most unreachable creationists are able to avoid science and to fill their hours with creationist reinforcement. 2) Sense of rejection by creationist community - people who are gay or otherwise ostracized within the creationist community appear, unsurprisingly, to be more likely to leave it. 3) Creationism as a background from early childhood, rather than a chosen reaction to personal or social conditions. Contrary to the idea that children are the easiest to indoctrinate for life, adolescents often tend to re-evaluate taken for granted childhood institutions. Someone who was "born again" into creationism as an adult is far less likely to be "unborn" later.

david.starling.macmillan said: This is one of the things that makes it really difficult to explain to an otherwise-sincere fundamentalist why certain translations really should be changed. The dominant doctrinal views at the time the KJV was translated caused the translators to (sincerely or otherwise) make particularly-nuanced translation choices in ambiguous or murky areas. And then it remained the only translation for centuries. Both doctrine and language has changed since then, but every single major English translation since has been done by people whose doctrinal approach was informed, positively or negatively, by the translation choices made in the KJV.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: This is one of the things that makes it really difficult to explain to an otherwise-sincere fundamentalist why certain translations really should be changed. The dominant doctrinal views at the time the KJV was translated caused the translators to (sincerely or otherwise) make particularly-nuanced translation choices in ambiguous or murky areas. And then it remained the only translation for centuries. Both doctrine and language has changed since then, but every single major English translation since has been done by people whose doctrinal approach was informed, positively or negatively, by the translation choices made in the KJV.

Interestingly, this is true even of the "Douay-Rheims" Catholic translation, in a sense. There is an original Douay-Rheims which was completed in 1610. But there was a major revision of that by Challoner in 1758, who was influenced by the KJV. However, I wonder about the 20th Century Catholic version, the Jerusalem Bible, which has its roots in a French version.

The crucial point is their insistence that the resurrection was a real, historical event. That still blocks the road to heaven for people who otherwise might come to realize the healing, liberating effect that a proper understandig that realization of the symbol of suffering, death and resurrection means.

Paul came down pretty hard on the necessity of a real, physical resurrection event. To him, the narrative of sacrifice and service and laying down one’s life was positive in this life, but ultimately fruitless without the hope of eternal life. No matter how much good was done by following Jesus’s example in day-to-day life, the promise was a hollow one. The resurrection was the proof that love really was the answer, that evil and death could not ultimately claim victory. It was in this mind that he wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” While I can certainly see how a fictive resurrection can be a powerful metaphor, and that this interpretation certainly could have existed early on, that’s not really what we see in the early church. Even if not everything in Acts is 100% accurate or was written entirely in the first century, it’s not unreasonable to think that it could accurately reflect what the early church was like. The resurrection seems rather important to them. To them, the resurrection proved the validity of Jesus’s words and gave them hope that love and justice could ultimately win, that they could trust in God for their own eventual resurrection no matter what they faced. There are other possible interpretations, of course – the whole of the New Testament could simply be edited to seem like this when it was originally nothing of the sort – but I don’t find that very likely. All in all, the most reasonable explanation seems to me that the early Christians really did have faith in something real, something actually witnessed in history. I can’t prove it, of course, but it’s not inconsistent with my understanding of history or reality in general. Certain formulations are, such as ones that depend on a literalist infalliblist interpretation of the Bible, but I have no interest in such fallacies.

Yup. The choice is between reality and campfire stories. That's a tough one, all right. (eyeroll)

Yawn. Stretch. (Waitin' for the next reality post by Dave.)

Interestingly I have embroiled myself in a debate with what appears to be a Mormon apologist about the Book of Mormon. In the course of the discussion I have learned a lot about just how a-historical the book really is. I already knew some things, like the lack of horses, wheels, or metal tools in Pre-Columbian societies. But in checking out his claims I was confronted with everything about the LACK of evidence for any Near-East migration to the New World. When he drew comparisons with Mayan writing or buildings or whatever, I not only found those to be lacking but also things I'd never thought about: their number system was totally different, as was the calendar (obvious when you think about it). The lack of any written records (where writing existed), the lack of archeological artefacts or ruins, the lack of specific named fauna, the lack of heritable traits, basically the complete and utter dearth of any physical, linguistic, or genetic evidence where all these things have been investigated. All signs point to the story in the Book of Mormon being a total fabrication. But the defense of it was as tenacious as many YECs' arguments for their pseudoscience, and bore similar elements ('Real scientists study all views, just a hundred years ago we didn't know horses ever lived here, plenty of science supports the Book of Mormon and many secular scientists accept the Mormon view!' etc.)

This was really my first time wading into Mormon-specific apologetics and such. So far the discussion seems to have turned, with the apologist claiming that the Book of Mormon wasn't supposed to be a "historical narrative" despite being "written by people in historical times with strong historical relevance[.]" Well, if there's absolutely zero evidence of any history to it prior to the early 1800s, what then?

Yes, indeed, the physical, actual reality of the Resurrection was always part of Christian belief, right from the point where they began to think of themselves as a separate body from other Jews, within a generation or so of the event itself. Paul was completely unequivocal about it, in the early 60's.

That insistence is in the creeds, all of them. It's bedrock to Christian belief.

Yes, and?

This is not an antievidential assertion, like the Genesis-is-literal-fact nonsense. There's no evidence that there was never a Resurrection. There is only a void of evidence. Now, you can say that you shouldn't accept a non-evidential proposition on faith. Sure. I think that, myself. But there is an important difference between accepting such a proposition and actually denying evidence to the contrary.

Which is the real issue. The FL wedge strategy above is as trifling as it is obvious. Oh, sure, antitheists and antiChristians argue that Jesus was never resurrected from the dead. But that's never really been the point here. The point is that the theory of evolution, the facts of common descent and deep time, and the mechanism of natural selection, account for the origin of the species, AND GENESIS DOESN'T.

I reply to FL at the Bathroom Wall. There because I call him stupid.

Dave Luckett said: Yes, indeed, the physical, actual reality of the Resurrection was always part of Christian belief, right from the point where they began to think of themselves as a separate body from other Jews, within a generation or so of the event itself. Paul was completely unequivocal about it, in the early 60's. That insistence is in the creeds, all of them. It's bedrock to Christian belief. Yes, and? This is not an antievidential assertion, like the Genesis-is-literal-fact nonsense. There's no evidence that there was never a Resurrection. There is only a void of evidence. Now, you can say that you shouldn't accept a non-evidential proposition on faith. Sure. I think that, myself. But there is an important difference between accepting such a proposition and actually denying evidence to the contrary. Which is the real issue. The FL wedge strategy above is as trifling as it is obvious. Oh, sure, antitheists and antiChristians argue that Jesus was never resurrected from the dead. But that's never really been the point here. The point is that the theory of evolution, the facts of common descent and deep time, and the mechanism of natural selection, account for the origin of the species, AND GENESIS DOESN'T.

ksplawn said: Interestingly I have embroiled myself in a debate with what appears to be a Mormon apologist about the Book of Mormon. In the course of the discussion I have learned a lot about just how a-historical the book really is. I already knew some things, like the lack of horses, wheels, or metal tools in Pre-Columbian societies. But in checking out his claims I was confronted with everything about the LACK of evidence for any Near-East migration to the New World. This was really my first time wading into Mormon-specific apologetics and such. So far the discussion seems to have turned, with the apologist claiming that the Book of Mormon wasn't supposed to be a "historical narrative" despite being "written by people in historical times with strong historical relevance[.]" Well, if there's absolutely zero evidence of any history to it prior to the early 1800s, what then?

david.starling.macmillan said: He still doesn’t understand why I’ve chosen to believe in God...

phhht said:

david.starling.macmillan said: He still doesn’t understand why I’ve chosen to believe in God...

Neither do I.

Well that’s probably more of a lack of explaining on my part for you. For FL, it’s an inability to overcome extreme cognitive dissonance. I don’t think he CAN understand.

Finally, the Resurrection actually means something completely different to Floyd than it does to me. To me, a real historical Resurrection is proof that love is more powerful than death, that condemnation is a lie, that hate is powerless, that evil cannot last forever. To Floyd, for whom the Resurrection is simply proof of his whole twisted religion, it means that death is more important than love, that condemnation is absolute, that hate is necessary and good, and that evil will last forever as his God happily tortures for all eternity all the gays and the atheists and the agnostics and the Muslims and the feminists and everybody else Floyd hates so fiercely.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

"Sure, it would sort of suck if I die and there’s nothing else on the other side. Mostly because I cherish loving and learning and experiencing, and there’s a lot more to this fantastic universe than I can possibly experience in the hundred or so years my meat-brain will last."

FL is the only one who seems nervous. I wonder why.

So here you are, describing in detail what you stand to lose if the Resurrection is false and Atheism is true!!

Did you forget that you were supposed to be DISAGREEING with that Pauline text you quoted?

There's only one thing to do with the Gospels:

Each and every one needs to decide for himself what to do:

Search for the truth by studying the extant scholarship, or to go for apologetism with the intent of reaching an understanding in accord with his faith and what his religious preferences migh be?

Apologetism is, to my eyes, an ugly phenomenon. It's not interested in truth, it's purpose is to bolster faith.

All my life, my approach has been to serach for truth wherever that would lead in the eternal struggle between a rational world vs a world subject to one or more magical forces.

I have yet to find reasons to accept magicism. Whatever mysteries therw may be "out there"; they are not what religious apologetists want to believe. The mysteries that matter are within "The Kingdom of Heaven".

I read the sentence "The Kingdom of Heaven is within" as it stands and reject the apologetic interpretation that it means "within reach". If that should be the meaning, why wasn't that what was written? Within what reach? Anyone reached it?

FL said: A lot of babble that made me yawn.

FL said: Just like Rolf and Phhht, they can see what you're really saying, and they can figure out what it means for their own atheism, agnosticism, and anti-supernaturalism.

Well, I for one am shocked, shocked! I tell you that religion has come up in the comments on a post entitled ...

Understanding creationism:
An insider’s guide by a former young-Earth creationist

Thankfully someone has had the clarity to point out this nonsense for what it is. Could we please get back to talking about creationism and and drop all this talk about religion and our related perceptions as if it had anything to do with it?

I'll be back later, my good friend runs a fan forum about the BlackHawks and wants to discuss the last playoff game. I made him promise to not talk about sports however, bores me to death.

Floyd is so scared that he might be wrong that he can't even consider the possibility. But he erroneously assumes that everyone else is just as afraid as he is. Maybe some day he will realize that others are not afraid to face up to reality. Maybe he will realize that ignoring reality doesn't really get you anything. Maybe he will realize that when you lose your belief in fairy tales, that's all you have really lost, because there was never anything else to lose. Maybe he will finally realize how important it is to actually study nature and learn about reality. After all, ignorance is the only thing that he really has to lose.

FL is the only one who seems nervous.

Ah, good old creationism back on the table, huh? Fine with me, hopefully for FL as well. He may start with some evidence for YEC.

In my teens the question arose, What is death? What would it be like to die? Naturally, the related question arose, Where was I before I was born? Also, Where am I when I'm asleep? After a lot of careful thought, it became clear that if I was anywhere before I was born, I don't know about it. When I'm asleep, I don't know about it.(*) When I die, I won't know about it. If I can avoid a painful death, it will simply be a going to sleep. I will cease to exist, just as I did not exist before I was born, just as I (my consciousness) do not "exist" when I'm asleep.

As David notes, this is certainly a sad thing. There is so much in the world and in our future history that I want to know and experience. How is it all going to turn out? What are we going to be able to do next? Sure, I'd like to live forever, or at least for a long time. But why? To know, to learn, to experience. And if I don't? If my life is snuffed out after a mere 90 years? Sigh… Have I "lost" anything? Nothing that I don't have today, certainly.

Sure, it's a sad thing to contemplate. But scary? Nope. Never was, and never will be.

(*) As an aside, I had one experience when I was young, of laying down on my back for the night, composing myself, and closing my eyes. I took one deep breath, let it out gently, … and in the next breath it was morning, I was awake, and had not moved. Time had passed in literally a heart beat. Strangest thing.

All my life, my approach has been to serach for truth wherever that would lead in the eternal struggle between a rational world vs a world subject to one or more magical forces.

FL said: The Pandas are used to ME trying to burn things up, because they know I'm an Evil Troll. But YOU are supposed to be on their side, one of the Kewl Panda Dudes, by now! So why are YOU playing with Biblical matches? You are making them nervous, dude. You better stop acting like a fundie Christian around here! FL

Shorter FL: Is there anything rationally wrong with an irrational world?

Dave Luckett said: FL can’t imagine a mind that generates its own authority from rational thought about the evidence. Authority, to FL, is not intrinsic to evidence, nor to rational thought. Rather, authority flows from an external source, outside the evidence and outside the conscious mind itself. This authority is absolute, and the source, whatever it is, unimpeachable.

Rolf said: I read the sentence "The Kingdom of Heaven is within" as it stands and reject the apologetic interpretation that it means "within reach". If that should be the meaning, why wasn't that what was written? Within what reach? Anyone reached it?

Scott F said: David is acting like a rational human being, trying to make sense of the hand that life has dealt him, dealing with reality in the best way he knows how. There's a broad spectrum between "belief" and "non-belief". It is not a bi-polar distribution. phhht may not understand it, and FL obviously could never understand it from the perspective of a rigid authoritarian, but the rest of get it. What David has found is a comfortable place for him, where he no longer has to deny reality in order to live his life. And for most of us, that's just fine. What David believes doesn't harm us, it doesn't upset us, or make us nervous. The fact that David believes something does not invalidate our existence, nor reduce us in any way. David isn't out there insisting that we believe what he believes. He isn't threatening us with eternal damnation, or calling us names for not believing what he believes.

Maybe magic is like a volcano. Oh sure, back in great-great-grampa's day, the mountain used to smoke and belch fire, but no one believes in magic like that any more. The world is a rational place, yes sir. Until, Pompeii.

But every few hundred years or so, the magic breaks out of hiding, we set aside rationality and reason, the laws of physics are set aside once more, and miracles happen again. Funny thing about miracles, though. They seldom support the currently dominant religion. Most often, the "magic" forms a *new* religion. It's as though the gods get tired of the same-old same-old. Magic needs to spice things up now and then with Islam, or Mormonism, or Scientology, or whatever.

Magic. I bought a bottle of that one time at a carnival. After a while, it evaporated, and the laws of physics resumed their course, the sun kept marching in its path about the earth, and the stars kept spinning round through the night sky.

david.starling.macmillan said:

Dave Luckett said: FL can’t imagine a mind that generates its own authority from rational thought about the evidence. Authority, to FL, is not intrinsic to evidence, nor to rational thought. Rather, authority flows from an external source, outside the evidence and outside the conscious mind itself. This authority is absolute, and the source, whatever it is, unimpeachable.

Not only is FL's authority extrinsic to the evidence, it is separate and distinct and independent of the facts themselves. To FL, a statement made by the Authority must be Absolute Truth even if FL has no idea what the statement was referring to or why it was originally made. Making truth into an absolute, distinct from any specific provenance, divorces it from meaning. Absolute Truths become answers in search of a question, solutions in search of a problem, keys in search of a lock. In order to make any use of these Truths at all requires FL to invent his own questions/problems/locks to fit around the Truths. No wonder fallacious prooftexting is the status quo in fundamentalism.

david.starling.macmillan said: Mormon apologists are an exemplary case study in religious pseudoscience and pseudohistory. The claims made in the writings of Joseph Smith are so specific and yet so devoid of any evidence that it's usually obvious even to a hardened YEC how foolish they all are.

Floyd, of course, does. It's all black and white to him; he wants a Line In The Sand and a Choice To Be Made and an Authority To Be Believed.

david.starling.macmillan said: I can't tell you how liberating it was to realize I no longer needed to maintain belief in eternal conscious torment.

FL said: It probably should be mentioned that Mr. Phhht has asked two other Christian Panda TE's -- I mean sincerely asked with all politeness -- to explain to him what they believe and why they believed it. They refused (no joke, they refused).

FL said: ...is there anything rationally wrong with you and I simply accepting the existence of a "rational world" or rational universe in which BOTH the natural (natural laws) AND the supernatural (miraculous events) co-exist?

And I have asked you, Flawd, over and over again, why you believe what you do. You too refuse to say.

phhht said: If I am wrong, then go ahead, Flawd, explain what makes you think that gods are real, but patient 1's non-existent bloody man is not real

Scott F said: The Ministry of Truth in all its glory. Reality is what the fundamentalist claims it to be.

‘But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny — helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.’ ‘Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.’ ‘But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.’ ‘Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.’

FL said: How many times have I given you answers and responses (even if you disagreed with said answers) to your various questions?

I do admit that I've refused to do that "Patient One" schtick with you.

callahanpb said: Despite having a clear respect and love for Chinese culture, he definitely held on to Catholic beliefs (which he tried to recast in terms of Confucianism).

FL said: ...all the pre-Fall animals were herbivores (the Bible DOES say that they were all herbivores)...

No, it does not (say that all Pre-Fall animals were herbivores). Cite chapter and verse, Flawd. Go ahead. Put your money where your mouth is.

Then God said (to Adam and Eve), "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." "And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

FL said:

Then God said (to Adam and Eve), "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." "And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

FL said: if no death existed on Earth prior to the Fall, that would mess up and shut down the Theory of Evolution.

Then God said (to Adam and Eve), "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." "And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

The "no death before the fall" meme has always been fascinating to me because it seems to provide fairly adequate proof that the compiler of Genesis (and the oral traditions he was drawing on) really did not grasp certain fundamental concepts of biology (this would apply as well to all literal readings of the plethora of "golden age" myths found in most ancient cultures).
1.) the verses quoted from Genesis seem aware of biological categorization that roughly corresponds with observable large animals and insects (things that crawl on the earth ?)but not of microscopic organisms, including the millions of species that covered Adam and Eve -- and the all the beasts of the field, birds of the air, and the earth-crawlers (presumably reptiles, amphibians, insects, and any other macroscopic organisms -- inside and out, unless one wishes to grant that everything that hath the breath of life in it is the escape clause (not sure what the Hebrew is there)to cover the rest.
2.) Extremophiles and other Archaea presumably converted from plant eating to sulfurous compound eating AFTER the fall.
3.) predatory microscopic organisms like amoeba started their predations post fall as well.
4.) organisms that eat the manure of herbivores were still herbivores (you are what you eat, after all) even though they were given every green plant to eat ... even those mustard seeds, which as we all know, are the smallest seeds.
5.)organisms that devour the bodies of dead organisms were presumably created (in an unmentioned special double secret creation) after the fall. (or were originally lying down with the microscopic lambs and got rudely re-purposed after the fall and thus resent the humans who cast them out of their former Eden of NOT having to devour dead and decaying bodies.
6.) parasitical organisms that devour the blood of living hosts, implant larvae in living hosts, ad nauseam, were similarly created or re-purposed after the fall.
7.) viruses (well, RNA-based life may have ridden down to the ground with the falling Lucifer (and yes, we all know that the Lucifer in Isaiah may NOT in fact be SATAN)...who knows
8.) Will SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE PLANTS!!! All those beasts, birds, and crawling animals killing innocent (well, everyone was innocent then)trees, shrubbery, flowers, algae, fungi (plants?), plant death = cessation of something that hath the breath of life in it or NOT?

Condorcet said: 3.) predatory microscopic organisms like amoeba started their predations post fall as well.

4.) organisms that eat the manure of herbivores were still herbivores (you are what you eat, after all) even though they were given every green plant to eat ... even those mustard seeds, which as we all know, are the smallest seeds.

5.)organisms that devour the bodies of dead organisms were presumably created (in an unmentioned special double secret creation) after the fall.

6.) parasitical organisms that devour the blood of living hosts, implant larvae in living hosts, ad nauseam, were similarly created or re-purposed after the fall.

plant death = cessation of something that hath the breath of life in it or NOT?

eric said: Remember, no evolution occurred because evolution is a myth. It was, um, descent with modification without the evolution stuff.

eric said: Presumably all these immortal edenic animals did not shed intestinal cells, because otherwise the offal-eating organisms would be eating dead parts of animals...and the plants would've been eating dead parts of animals, too. Well, I should have thought of applying Occam's razor here: the simplest and most elegant explanation is that at the instant of the fall, God simply rebooted the entire creation to its current system of how things work on a microscopic level, including all the new species of microorganisms now needed inside and outside of all macroscopic organisms to handle all the cell shedding, etc. Nope, I'm pretty sure FL would tell you that vultures existed but ate fruit or grass or something. Wow! I didn't even think about obligate scavengers amongst the beasts of the field and the birds of the air! I was thinking of maggots and billions of microscopic organisms who clean up all the bio-waste. Not. According to FL, plants do not have the breath of life. His notion of what is alive is closer to some notion of soul or elan vitale than it is modern notions of 'working metabolism.' Wow! This is my first visit to the comments section here (I did read through the entire thread before presuming to comment myself. Perhaps I have been mistaken then that the kingdoms of the viruses, the bacteria, the Archaea, and perhaps even the multitudes of Eukaryota below the level of crawling along the earth ALSO lack the elan vitale? So, point of knowledge, what kind, if any, of intestinal bacteria (and, I guess, skin, hair, pubic, foot, etc. bacteria) existed on Adam and Eve pre-Fall?

there was no death before the Fall

Rolf said: I don't say it is insanity, but it certainly comes very close.

Rolf said: In view of all evidence of carnivorous life in the fossil record, does that mean there were dinosaurs roaming the planet as late as after 'the fall', a few thousand years ago?

Remember that the YECs only have days to weeks passing between Creation and the Fall.

FL said: Phhht wrote,

No, it does not (say that all Pre-Fall animals were herbivores). Cite chapter and verse, Flawd. Go ahead. Put your money where your mouth is.

Genesis 1:29-30, of course. Humans and animals alike, even the T-Rex and the Allosaurus. All herbivores. (Which means there was no death before the Fall, as Romans 5:12-17 makes clear. And of course, if no death existed on Earth prior to the Fall, that would mess up and shut down the Theory of Evolution.) So briefly, here's the text.

Then God said (to Adam and Eve), "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." "And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

FL

Condorcet said: Well, I should have thought of applying Occam's razor here: the simplest and most elegant explanation is that at the instant of the fall, God simply rebooted the entire creation to its current system of how things work on a microscopic level, including all the new species of microorganisms now needed inside and outside of all macroscopic organisms to handle all the cell shedding, etc.

Perhaps I have been mistaken then that the kingdoms of the viruses, the bacteria, the Archaea, and perhaps even the multitudes of Eukaryota below the level of crawling along the earth ALSO lack the elan vitale?

So, point of knowledge, what kind, if any, of intestinal bacteria (and, I guess, skin, hair, pubic, foot, etc. bacteria) existed on Adam and Eve pre-Fall?

eric said: As I understand it, that is something like Dembski's belief (also a very omphalos-like explanation, because Dembski's idea is very omphalos-like). Dembski has proposed that the fall propagated backwards in time, creating an entire new history prior to eden. AFAIK, no real theologian believes it, just Dembksi. Crazy and stupid, but hey, I just report the creationist stuff, I don't endorse it.

What I would say, however, is that they tend to care less about the details of their ideas the further away from human you go. So for instance with "kinds" - they'll express very detailed ideals about whether earlier hominids count as human or not, drawing very fine distinctions based on minor features. But when it comes to insects or plants, they kinda handwave away the millions of different species and seem fine with the idea that an entire taxonomic order (or even bigger grouping) counts as one "kind."

"it's still bacteria"

david.starling.macmillan said: Remember that the YECs only have days to weeks passing between Creation and the Fall.

Even FL can see that Genesis 1:30 doesn't mention eating flesh. He therefore is deriving the "no carnivory before the Fall" position from silence - if flesh is not mentioned, it means that no flesh was eaten.

He is evidently applying a principle which is the direct opposite of the usual one. Silence usually means consent, that is, what is not actually prohibited is permitted. FL holds that in this particular instance, silence means prohibition.

He doesn't apply this principle elsewhere in scripture. Nowhere does the Bible mention a paid clergy, nor a Creed, nor Sunday observance, nor a Church hierarchy, nor antibiotics, nor chemical fertilisers, nor air travel, nor motor cars, nor nylon - but FL is happy to accept all those, despite its silence. Why is he insisting on the argument from silence at Genesis 1:30?

Of course there isn't a how-you-say reason. FL needs there to be no carnivory before the Fall, to make an argument against evolution. If there were carnivory before the Fall, then there was death before the Fall. If death, then reproduction to replace. If reproduction, then imperfect replication. If some were eaten, but some managed to escape being eaten long enough to differentially reproduce, then natural selection cuts in and evolution must follow. So voila! No carnivory before the Fall, says FL, and here's the Bible saying there wasn't, kinda sorta, if you squint right.

But here's an odd thing: there was animal reproduction. The Bible says so - Genesis 1:28, still referring to the pre-Fall world: "Be fruitful and increase, and fill the Earth."

Know what happens when an animal species is introduced into an environment where there are no predators or parasites? I'm an Australian. Let me tell you about rabbits. Or not. It's pretty grisly. God knew He needed predators and parasites, pretty pronto. Or another miracle, to hold population constant once comfortable carrying capacity was reached. Maybe, I dunno, He didn't want the extra hassle.

(This is another argument that God anticipated the Fall. He knew Adam would sin. That's why the Tree, the snake, the walk in the Garden in the cool of the evening, the playing dumb, the curses, the expulsion... and the need for redemption, the vicarious sacrifice, the redemption, the whole nine yards.)

Of course, as eric points out, all this is false to fact in itself. Evolution would still occur. And it only applies to animals. Plants were being eaten, even on the FL take. You think plants don't evolve in response to selection pressures like that? Apparently FL doesn't. But then, FL doesn't think about the things that FL doesn't think about.

Which is why FL is FL.

david.starling.macmillan said: Remember that the YECs only have days to weeks passing between Creation and the Fall.

FL said: Phhht wrote,

No, it does not (say that all Pre-Fall animals were herbivores). Cite chapter and verse, Flawd. Go ahead. Put your money where your mouth is.

Genesis 1:29-30, of course. Humans and animals alike, even the T-Rex and the Allosaurus. All herbivores. (Which means there was no death before the Fall, as Romans 5:12-17 makes clear. And of course, if no death existed on Earth prior to the Fall, that would mess up and shut down the Theory of Evolution.) So briefly, here's the text.

Then God said (to Adam and Eve), "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food." "And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

FL

Dave Luckett said: And it only applies to animals. Plants were being eaten, even on the FL take. You think plants don't evolve in response to selection pressures like that? Apparently FL doesn't.

DanHolme said: And sharks, presumably?

And in some shark species, like the grey nurse shark, practice carnivory in utero, with the big embryos eating their brothers and sisters (they have teeth in the womb). A pregnant shark may start out with 40 embryos but just one is born, having eaten all the others. After birth, the survivor must skedaddle before his own mother tries to eat him.

Quite an intelligent design.

eric said: I have no idea how creationists deal with archaea and other stuff that isn't either plant or animal. I also don't know what they say about single-celled organisms that might blur the line between animal and plant. What I would say, however, is that they tend to care less about the details of their ideas the further away from human you go. So for instance with "kinds" - they'll express very detailed ideals about whether earlier hominids count as human or not, drawing very fine distinctions based on minor features. But when it comes to insects or plants, they kinda handwave away the millions of different species and seem fine with the idea that an entire taxonomic order (or even bigger grouping) counts as one "kind."

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Remember that the YECs only have days to weeks passing between Creation and the Fall.

You would think that a "perfect" creation would last a bit longer than it took to make it. It obviously didn't go through any QA before being released. Or is that just the chance you take with The Universe (v1.0)?

Rolf said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Remember that the YECs only have days to weeks passing between Creation and the Fall.

That explains it, carnivores just survived until flesh was declared kosher.

eric said:

DanHolme said: And sharks, presumably?

Seaweed and/or algae mats I guess. If anything, the ocean ecosystems are even more of a problem for FL's brand of literalism than the land ones, because with some minor exceptions practically everything from plankton on up is carnivorous.

diogeneslamp0 said: And in some shark species, like the grey nurse shark, practice carnivory in utero, with the big embryos eating their brothers and sisters (they have teeth in the womb). A pregnant shark may start out with 40 embryos but just one is born, having eaten all the others. After birth, the survivor must skedaddle before his own mother tries to eat him. Quite an intelligent design.

david.starling.macmillan said:

eric said:

DanHolme said: And sharks, presumably?

Seaweed and/or algae mats I guess. If anything, the ocean ecosystems are even more of a problem for FL's brand of literalism than the land ones, because with some minor exceptions practically everything from plankton on up is carnivorous.

But plankton is basically like a plant, right? Sort of? Please please please? Creationists will talk at length about how the predatory capacity of sharks is so clearly designed...yet deny death prior to the Fall. Really?

Fictional YEC David said: One of the challenges in defending a Biblical, God-glorifying model of Earth's history is explaining the diversification of life after the Flood of Noah's day. The rate at which the various "kinds" on the Ark would have had to diverge into the species we know today is extremely high, higher than we observe today. Atheistic evolutionists who want to challenge the authority of God's Word often mock Biblical creationists on this point, calling it "hyper-evolution" and making Christians out to be foolish. Some sincere creationists have suggested extremely high mutation rates to allow this to take place shortly after the Flood, perhaps due to residual radiation from the mechanisms that produced the deluge, but such explanations usually end up causing more problems than they solve. Rather than depending heavily on man's fallible ideas about science, we should turn to God's infallible Word for our answers. Psalm 104 is a majestic narrative about the sustaining power of God over His creation. This chapter has been traditionally identified with the creation narrative in Genesis 1, but that might not necessarily be the case. Verses 6-9 unambiguously describe not the creation week, but the historical Flood itself:

You covered [the Earth] with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.

These emphasized statements -- that the waters covered all the mountains, and that they will never again flood the earth -- can only refer to Noah's Flood. If these referred to the waters being separated from the dry land on Day 2, they would be proven false by the Flood, as it covered the Earth in water, and the Scripture cannot lie. So this entire chapter must be read as discussing what God has done after the Flood took place. Further verses talk about God planting the cedars of Lebanon. The chapter named very specific creatures: storks, wild goats, hyraxes, and lions. We know that these are all species which came into existence after the flood, as goats descended from one sheep-goat kind on the Ark, lions descended from one feline kind on the ark, and so forth. Verse 24 is key. "How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures." While the creation of each baramin reproducing after its own kind was accomplished during the six-day creation week, this may not have been the only time when God's creative power was extended into our planet's created biosphere. At the end of Genesis 8, God tells Noah, "Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it." This "increasing in number" could be understood to refer not only to the quantity of living creatures, but the kinds of living creatures. These verses seem to indicate that God's creative hand could have been involved in recreating the diversity of life using the animals Noah brought on the Ark. Psalm 104:24 says, "How many are your works, Lord" -- implying that the creative works of God extend perhaps beyond what we would expect. Just as God added thorns and thistles to the world following the curse at the Fall, God could have added new genetic information to successive generations immediately following the Flood in order to fill the Earth more rapidly and help every kind of living creature adapt to the changed environment. This demonstrates God's mercy alongside His justice -- He wiped the Earth of wickedness, but added new creative works so that the restored world could thrive. This is not the same as evolution. Every kind of animal still reproduces after its own kind, but each "tree" descending from every kind carried on the Ark could diversify more rapidly if God added new genetic information. This can explain why different families have different levels of genetic divergence within their Biblically-created kinds despite all recently coming from individual pairs on the Ark.

david.starling.macmillan said: But plankton is basically like a plant, right? Sort of? Please please please?

david.starling.macmillan said: First, it's painfully obvious special pleading, and they really want to appear to be invoking divine intervention as rarely as possible (and, when they must invoke it, they want it to seem as regular and predictable as possible so they can still appear to be doing science).

Dave Luckett said: Of course, as eric points out, all this is false to fact in itself. Evolution would still occur. And it only applies to animals. Plants were being eaten, even on the FL take. You think plants don't evolve in response to selection pressures like that? Apparently FL doesn't. But then, FL doesn't think about the things that FL doesn't think about. Which is why FL is FL.

davidjensen said:

david.starling.macmillan said: First, it's painfully obvious special pleading, and they really want to appear to be invoking divine intervention as rarely as possible (and, when they must invoke it, they want it to seem as regular and predictable as possible so they can still appear to be doing science).

It's sort of like their own version of Occam's razor. Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest supernatural assumptions should be selected. Ham's razor?

david.starling.macmillan said:

Fictional YEC David said: Just as God added thorns and thistles to the world following the curse at the Fall, God could have added new genetic information to successive generations immediately following the Flood in order to fill the Earth more rapidly and help every kind of living creature adapt to the changed environment. This demonstrates God's mercy alongside His justice -- He wiped the Earth of wickedness, but added new creative works so that the restored world could thrive.

Scott F said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Fictional YEC David said: Just as God added thorns and thistles to the world following the curse at the Fall, God could have added new genetic information to successive generations immediately following the Flood in order to fill the Earth more rapidly and help every kind of living creature adapt to the changed environment. This demonstrates God's mercy alongside His justice -- He wiped the Earth of wickedness, but added new creative works so that the restored world could thrive.

I think Fictional David missed a point, one which seems to go to the heart of the matter. Aren't sharks and other carnivores part of that "wickedness"? God created killing machines, and predator wasps. Seems pretty wicked to me.

Scott F said: But Biblical literalism doesn't allow that. It's the cherry-picking, head-in-the-sand literalism that seems to be the primary sticking point. The literalist can't accept that the Bible is true allegory. The literalist must stand on his head and spin clockwise on Tuesdays to read the Bible as true history. And that's why we continue to discuss the Bible here, because the YEC, the Literalist, uses the Bible to put limits on what God can and cannot do, and to put limits on what Science can and cannot reveal about God's creation. The Literalist imputes his own limitations onto God, because he can't understand anything else.

david.starling.macmillan said: Oh, but we deserve it, because eating that fruit was just SOOO much more wicked than every natural evil and natural disaster than has happened in the 6000 years that followed.

Jason Lisle wrote: ...star formation is riddled with theoretical problems. It has never been observed, nor could it truly be observed since the process is supposed to take hundreds of thousands of years.

TomS said:

Scott F said: But Biblical literalism doesn't allow that. It's the cherry-picking, head-in-the-sand literalism that seems to be the primary sticking point. The literalist can't accept that the Bible is true allegory. The literalist must stand on his head and spin clockwise on Tuesdays to read the Bible as true history. And that's why we continue to discuss the Bible here, because the YEC, the Literalist, uses the Bible to put limits on what God can and cannot do, and to put limits on what Science can and cannot reveal about God's creation. The Literalist imputes his own limitations onto God, because he can't understand anything else.

I'm not sure that I understand your two statements: that the Literalist uses the Bible to put limits on what God can do; that the Literalist imputes his own limitations on God.

callahanpb said: There's nothing new about the notion of the jealous, vengeful God of the Old Testament, but this is the first time I've ever thought God as Captain Queeg of The Caine Mutiny.

(KJV) Genesis 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given . . . meat: and it was so.

AiG, to its credit, has gone to great lengths in distancing itself from this view, depicting its versions of Adam and Eve as rather dark-skinned with vaguely Middle-Eastern features, trying to take into account as many ethnicities as possible. Which is nice of them to try and do. In their fictional universe.

Yardbird said:

AiG, to its credit, has gone to great lengths in distancing itself from this view, depicting its versions of Adam and Eve as rather dark-skinned with vaguely Middle-Eastern features, trying to take into account as many ethnicities as possible. Which is nice of them to try and do. In their fictional universe.

Prig point, David. "and" is a conjunction so, I'm sure you know, the phrase "to try and do" is functionally inaccurate. Just a personal fingernails-on-the-blackboard.

TomS said:

Yardbird said:

AiG, to its credit, has gone to great lengths in distancing itself from this view, depicting its versions of Adam and Eve as rather dark-skinned with vaguely Middle-Eastern features, trying to take into account as many ethnicities as possible. Which is nice of them to try and do. In their fictional universe.

Prig point, David. "and" is a conjunction so, I'm sure you know, the phrase "to try and do" is functionally inaccurate. Just a personal fingernails-on-the-blackboard.

Hendiadys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendiadys