Why do people laugh at creationists?

Originally posted by Benarius
Where does all the water that flooded the whole planet come from ?

The fact that the flood story can be found in several different ancient cultures proves two things; 1. That there was some type of flood event in ancient times, probably from the melting of glaciers at the end of the last ice age, and 2. That unless every culture built an ark, and someone other than Noah had the sense to bring the insects along, due to their necessity to keep ecosystems going, or that the entire planet did not flood, just the ocean levels rose about 360 feet because of it.

If you've ever question beliefs that you hold you're not alone
But you oughtta realize that every myth is a metaphor
in the case of Christianity
and Judaism there exist the belief
that spiritual matters are enslaved to history
The Buddhists believe that the functional aspects override the myth
while other religions use the literal core to build foundations with
See half the world sees the myth as fact
while it's seen as a lie by the other half and
the simple truth is that it's none of that and
somehow no matter what the world keeps turning
Somehow we get by without ever learning
Science and religion
are not mutually exclusive
In fact for better understanding
we take the facts of science and apply them
And if both factors keep evolving
then we continue getting information
but closing off possibilities
makes it hard to see the bigger picture
Consider the case of the women
whose faith helped her make it through
when she was raped and cut up left for dead
in a trunk her beliefs held true
It doesn't matter if it's real or not cause
some things are better left without a doubt and
if it works then it gets the job done
Somehow no matter what the world keeps turning

I dont laugh at all creationists just the ones that think the earth is only 6000 years old. That is just plain nonsense. I guess God made the rocks to test out to be billions of years old, but just for a practical joke. Actually, that would be kind of cool if he was a practical joker. How can we see objects 100s of 1000s of light years away if the earth is only 6000 years old and it was created first?

Oh yeah, and my monkey ancestors kicked your monkey honor students $%^

[edit on 19-9-2008 by justsomeboreddude]

reply to post by JaxonRoberts


The "flood story" is in fact pretty limited, appearing in pre-Judaic Sumerian stories, then being adopted into Judaism, and spreading from there. it makes a good story - Lone cultural hero saves world from angry god - and so it wound up being absorbed into the body of myths by a lot of people, after Christian and Muslim missionaries encountered them. There are plenty of post-contact cultures that didn't absorb this myth as well, for whatever reason. Plus we have to figure in the problem that a lot of old mythology was collected, translated, and reproduced by these same missionaries. We already know that the idea of Quetzalcoatl being a "white, bearded, crucified god" is a complete fabrication of the Jesuits - I wouldn't doubt that the addition of a global flood to the Greek story of Pandora's Box is also a Christian addition, since it doesn't seem to mesh with the greater body of Greek myth at all.

What causes a Creationist to be a Creationist?
The answer is:
Fear!

Part of an interesting article found here.

reply to post by chapter29


Sure , maybe it is fun for the small minded to laugh at creationist but before you call all creationist ignorant I would ask you to do some serious studies before completly blocking out creationism.Even if evolution is true then it was God's way of creating.We also need to take into account that our time is not Gods time.Research many different time scales, dont try and box God into a nice little package , it wont work.

Please take time and look at this site or many of the others where very knowledgable scientists explain creationism.Beleive it or not there is more than the catholic and protestants.Some follow the word of God without being blinded by the "CHURCH".Some actually use science as well.


www.creationism.org...

Quote from site:

In 1953 Stanley Miller performed an experiment which rocked the world! He showed that passing a spark through a chosen mixture of gasses will form amino acids, the building blocks of proteins which are the main ingredients of living cells. Given an inch, a mile was taken. We were taught that lightning strikes provided the sparks that formed the amino acids which concentrated in an “organic soup,” and linked together to form proteins. These were claimed to have gotten together with DNA to form the first living cell.


But amino acids will not link together to form proteins! It was a bit like claiming that if bricks formed in nature they would get together to build houses. Proteins are so hard to make that in all of nature, they never form except in already living cells. Never! This scientific fact stands in stark contrast to what was taught.


Many atheists understand, but purposely side step the really difficult question which is, “Where does the information in cells come from?” They substitute made up stories about where one of the materials that caries information might have come from. But there is no way that chance, clay, “organic soup,” or natural selection could invent the chemical code of a first cell, and use it to write information instructing the cell to make just the right proteins, fold them properly, and send each one to the only place in the cell where it will fit.


The term “science” once meant “knowledge discovered by experimentation, observation and objective investigation.” To be scientific, a thing had to be observable, testable, and repeatable. When one scientist did an experiment, others could repeat his experiment, and obtain the same results. If no one who repeated the experiment came up with the same results, those results had been “falsified” (shown not to be true). Science thrives on this definition. It helps us understand how things work, but it is a big problem for those who don’t believe in the Creator. They claim that a first cell came together spontaneously from mindless chemicals, but this is an opinion about ancient history. It is not observable, testable, or repeatable, so it is not science. Public schoolbooks should not teach it


I hope the mods give me a break for pasting so much but I do so because I fear no one will go and look into any of this on their own.This is just a very minute portion of the argument for intelligent design.I would just think that someone who calls someone else ignorant because they beleive in creation resaerch and come back and try and debate that facts instead of name calling without resaerch to back it up.

reply to post by savagediver


Dude, are you kidding me? 95% of scientists accept evolution. Given that ratio, who do I trust? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... tough one!

reply to post by savagediver


One big problem?

Evolution proposes nothing in regards to the origin of life, or the function of cells. All evolution has to say on these subjects is that life exists and cells function.

You see, friend, evolution discusses the processes by which one population of an organism may, through genetic drift and natural selection, become a different species than the original population of that organism. In order to begin this discussion, there needs to be at the very least, two organisms. While trying to figure out where those two organisms came from is fascinating, it is not a subject that evolution covers.

Think of it this way. Chemistry covers the various reactions that elements and compounds have, the structure of molecules, etc. Correct? What it doesn't do is try to explain the origin of an atom. Does the fact that chemistry doesn't also cover the realm of nuclear physics to explain the origin of the molecular building blocks it discusses, invalidate the school of chemistry?

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Science made me a creationist not fear.If you are so brave and so wise research this site and show me scientifically the proof where billions of years go by and lightning strikes and "poof" there is life, this is not very scientific.


Fry, a philosopher of science, in her book which explains the work of each of the leading origin of life researchers makes this clear:


“… origin of life research consists in looking for a naturalistic alternative to the idea of the creation of life by a designer.”[Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 184]


Irreducible complexity


Fry also responds to the very influential book, Darwin's Black Box, written by Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry who makes the point that even the most simple cell could not function without a certain number of essential parts. He illustrates with the common mouse trap, the kind with a base, a wire that snaps down, etc. If even one part of a mousetrap is taken away it will not catch mice. Behe calls this “irreducible complexity.” Whether it is a mouse trap or a cell, things that are irreducibly complex will not work at all unless a number of essential parts are working together.


Fry calls the search for a naturalistic explanation of life an attempt to “reduce the irreducibly complex.” She says first life researchers are attempting to find some way in which a cell could have functioned without the irreducible complexity that could only have been brought about by intelligent design. Each researcher has hoped thathis idea would succeed, but none has. Why not?


In order to live, a cell must at least have parts that will let it:


•Separate itself from the water around it,


•Take in food, and expel wastes,


•Use food to make the energy and materials that the cell needs to do its work,


•Make the working parts that permit the cell to do these things,


•Contain the information that directs these activities,


•Reproduce.


A first cell could not have lived to produce a second cell if it lacked the parts necessary to make possible even one of these abilities! This is irreducible complexity, and it is evidence of design. Many dead cells, however, have the necessary parts. For a cell to live, life is also necessary.


My question to Fry and to the first life researchers, each with his doctor’s degrees, standing as it were on the shoulders of the scientists who came before him is: “If after many more years of accumulating knowledge and ability, some brilliant scientist succeeds in creating life in a test tube, will he have shown that life just popped up without an intelligent creator?”

Research and then make up your mind.From what I have seen so far on this thread I just dont see the science against intelligent design......yes that means a creator.I am debating here.Those who say "poof" it just happened on its own show me your proof and explain to me where the info in dna comes from.That is just one of the steps.Lets see some "science" on where this info came from.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Perhaps you should familiarize with the God of the Gaps argument:

The term God-of-the-gaps argument usually refers to an argument that assumes an act of God as the explanation for an unknown phenomenon, and is a variant of an argument from ignorance. Commonly such an argument can be reduced to the following form:

There is a gap in scientific knowledge.

The gap is filled by acts of a god (and therefore also proves, or helps to prove, the existence of said god).

One example of such an argument, demonstrating how God is supposed to explain one of the gaps in biology, is as follows: "Because current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it must be God who caused life to start." This example is widely used in the debate of "intelligent design vs. evolution", since the religious side of intelligent design often tries to discredit the theory of evolution for not accounting for the origin of life.

The God-of-the-gaps argument is the target of frequent criticism, often over the fact that the so-called "explanation" it provides for unexplained phenomena is not really an explanation, but rather an argument from ignorance.

wiki

and Argument from Ignorance:

Two common versions of the argument from personal incredulity are:

"I can't believe this is possible, so it can't be true." (The person is asserting that a proposition must be wrong because he or she is (or claims to be) unable or unwilling to fully consider that it might be true, or is unwilling to believe evidence which does not support her or his preferred view.)

"That's not what people say about this; people instead agree with what I am saying." (Here the person is asserting that a proposition must be inaccurate because the opinion of "people in general" is claimed to agree with the speaker's opinion, without offering specific evidence in support of the alternative view.) This is also called argumentum ad populum.

An argument from personal incredulity is the same as an argument from ignorance only if the person making the argument has solely their particular personal belief in the impossibility of the one scenario as "evidence" that the alternative scenario is true (i.e., the person lacks relevant evidence specifically for the alternative scenario).

Quite commonly, the argument from personal incredulity is used in combination with some evidence in an attempt to sway opinion towards a preferred conclusion. Here too, it is a logical fallacy to the degree that the personal incredulity is offered as further "evidence." In such an instance, the person making the argument has inserted a personal bias in an attempt to strengthen the argument for acceptance of her or his preferred conclusion.

wiki

This is exactly why people make fun of creationists.

Creationism is faith based...evoloution is fact based..if the FACTS were presented in a court of law....evolution will win every time. Fossils are facts..the bible is heresay

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


The OP was why do people laugh at creationists.As far as evolution I can buy into that as a way God choose to create life.But like you I am not concerned so much as to how we were created as to why we were and what we should do now that we are here.Just bringing back the original topic which was why do people laugh at creationist, but I will play the evolution game with ya and might even buy into a bit of it but evolution in your terms is not explaining creation which was the topic of the op.

Quote:


Later evolutionists decided that the huge amounts of time had never really existed. Why? Fossils of ancient bacteria were found and dated at 3.55 billion years ago. According to those who believe in an old earth, this is only a half billion years after the earth had cooled down enough to support life. These fossils, “… look identical to bacteria still on Earth today.” [Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 57.] The, evolutionists say that a great deal of time would have been required for the first primitive life to evolve enough to look like modern bacteria, so very few years could have been available for the first life to form.


De Duve, a Nobel scientist wrote of these fossils:


“Advanced forms of life existed on earth at least 3.55 billion years ago.…It is now generally agreed that if life arose spontaneously by natural processes…it must have arisen fairly quickly, more in a matter of millennia or centuries, perhaps even less, than in millions of years.” [Christian de Duve, “The Beginning of Life on Earth,” American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 428.]


De Duve was announcing the new time frame which leaves: No large amounts of time for chance to form proteins or RNA, nor for natural selection to perfect RNA. No time for RNA to make proteins. No time for information to accumulate gradually if information did not require a mind. No billions of years. No millions of years. No time!


The odds are so overwhelmingly against each step in the spontaneous generation of life that even the atheists freely admitted that life could not have formed without huge amounts of time. Today most of them admit that the time never existed either. Now they simply state, “Life must have formed rapidly.” If it did, it should be easy to duplicate in the lab. The fact that no one can is evidence.

reply to post by NJCARGUY


They were, and it did!

Evolution vs. Creation in the Courts

reply to post by savagediver


And again, you post more stuff about the origin of life while never touching on an actual argument regarding evolution.

I think the problem is the framing of this particular topic. "Evolution" covers a process by which organism populations change and develop, while "creationism" is basically using "god did it" to every question in every field of science. The two can't be directly compared. One (evolution) has a narrow, well-defined focus that is capable of review, proof, and revision, while the other (creationism) is board, sweeping, incapable of review or supporting proof, and will not allow revision.

Originally posted by NJCARGUY
Creationism is faith based...evoloution is fact based..if the FACTS were presented in a court of law....evolution will win every time. Fossils are facts..the bible is heresay

What you seem to dismiss so easily is that there are some who believe that there are both creation and evolution.Also evolution has to start somewhere, so explain to me where evolution starts and how it started there if you can.It started with creation first.

First of all, try to stay on topic. There are literally dozens of threads where you can regurgitate all the creationist and ID nonsense you want.

The topic here is "why do people laugh at creationists".

reply to post by savagediver


Actually, I explained where evolution starts. And it doesn't start with the initial development of life, but immediately after the development of the second organism. Pay attention please, I hate failing students

reply to post by savagediver


what your missing is creationism is VERY DIFFERENT from believing in creation

you believe God made life and let it loose and evolution got it where it is (this makes you a religeous evolutionist)

you believe god made life reaslied he had messed up a bit and poked and proded until it got where it is (religeous intelegent designer)

the earth was made in 6 days, god made all animals exactly as they are, in no way shape or form did he modify them, and in those days he made man and plants and the whole universe and in many cases they also believ the earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old only (now your a creationist)

they are simple explanations and theres more to it but basically if you believe evolution then that makes you a religeous evolutionist. god, lightning, puff the magic dragon, t doesnt matter who made it thats down to your personal belief but something somewhere some how created at least 1 life form that was able to procreate

only when procreation starts does evolution begin, its a process of whats happening

thats like demanding newtons laws of gravity explain why you dont like the taste of marmite





[edit on 19/9/08 by noobfun]

[edit on 19/9/08 by noobfun]

Errr...let me see, because it's stupid, ridiculous, and as been disproved by everyone with an IQ of more then 20...

Could that be the reason?

Originally posted by NorthWolfe CND
Errr...let me see, because it's stupid, ridiculous, and as been disproved by everyone with an IQ of more then 20...

Could that be the reason?

yes i dont belive teletubbies would be a good medium to teach advanced quantum physics either

clarity or lack of what you are arguing for/against

so ill make my own context for fun ^_^

[edit on 19/9/08 by noobfun]