Institute for Creation Research - No really, it's a thing.

Admittedly, I have my own issues with those who are religious, full of faith, and worship at the altar of science under the direction of its priests and prophets. That said.

Our sciences have proven their value and accuracy many times over. All anyone need do is look around them to realize our civilization utilizes the discoveries made by those who have dedicated their lives to the many disciplines of science, every day. Additionally, when scientists make a big blunder, and they have made many, it may take a while, but it will get corrected at some point. They're also usually willing to say "We don't know" when they frickin don't know. They don't claim inerrancy.

Unlike the bible, which is full of contradictions, errors, and scientific conundrums like the sun and moon standing still, and a world-wide flood we still have no evidence for, among others. If the bible is inerrant, so is Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. So is the Epic of Gilgamesh. So is the Sumerian story of creation.

It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief.

If they were being truthful. That last part is the reason they reject it. Every other reason is secondary.

In a video uploaded to YouTube, Seewald asked the institute’s Dr. Jason Lisle if he could prove that God existed.

Lisle explained to the 19 Kids and Counting star that atheists don’t really exist at all. “The evidence of God is ubiquitous. It is everywhere,” he told Seewald. “In fact, Roman 1 tells us that God has revealed himself to everyone, and what that means is, there is really no such thing as an atheist.”

In other words. No. But I can rationalize to myself that you don't exist if you're an atheist. Will that do? I feel sorry for this mans kids, and the world he unleashes them on when he's through destroying their ability to think critically.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I find it interesting that such an 'Anti-science' group insist on using the words 'Institute' and 'Research' in their title to make them sound more credible.

Here in Ireland we have a well known very touchy and hair trigger litigious 'Institute' that promotes right wing catholic (un)thinking who like to wrap themselves in 'scientific garb' and spout dogma with rigid inflexibility

Also many people don't understand the word 'Theory' very well, but I suppose that once talking snakes and a 'six day' construction project count as 'facts' its anything goes.

a reply to: HumansEh

Yea it's similar to how Fox News likes to call itself "News"

originally posted by: bobbypurify
a reply to: tothetenthpower

I'm a Christian, and I'm not tired of being treated like an idiot. I don't even know where these YEC exist. Seems like a giant strawman used to rip apart Christian beliefs and is a total bastardization towards interpreting Genesis. Why do they get so much attention? I've yet to meet one person who believes this in real life. And if they did, so what?

Just read some articles at ICR, and you'll see why they get so much attention. It's because they are constantly in attack mode when it comes to science and evolution, and because it's based on pure ignorance. It's true that YECers are a small minority amongst Christians. The reason folks focus on them is because they are the ones who yell the loudest and as the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. These guys constantly post anti science rhetoric in this section that is based on complete ignorance. If you do not do this, then you have no need to worry and the thread is not about you or other rational Christians.

People aren't attacking all Christians, they are focusing on a specific group that posts things that have been proven wrong and insists they are true with no scrutiny. It is an attack on irrationality, fundamentalism and intellectual dishonesty. It's definitely not a straw man. Just look at the top threads in this section. They are almost all irrational attacks on evolution.

It is quite amusing to observe science become a religion, and see its followers squirm when pointed out. No, this doesn't mean I reject science. It means I don't subscribe to all of its tenants, until proven fact

Science is a method of fact discovery. Even when mistakes are made or invalid hypotheses are proposed, they get corrected because that is how science works. You don't need to adhere to a method of study. You don't need to believe in it or place faith in it. It works because it can be verified, unlike most religions or belief systems. People defend science because of irrational attacks by creationists. They aren't worshiping it and adhering to dogma blindly. Attacking it is not justified and nobody claims that science is 100% truth or infallible. It does eventually get us to where we are going, however, and has helped us progress our society to previously unimaginable heights.

I'm responding to you. Is it an abuse to have a different worldview and interpretation of life than the mainstream? You can think whatever you want about anyone but claiming they're abusing their children for not aligning with your worldview? I'll leave that particular judgment to you

Blindly rejecting science with zero scrutiny is detrimental to the kids. It's one thing to teach them what your beliefs are. It's completely different to rely on ignorance to teach anti science positions because a snake oil salesman like Ken Ham says so. Children need to be taught critical thinking instead of being punished for it. Yes, indoctrination is abuse because you pound your views into their head at a young impressionable age as absolute truth rather than faith, forever shaping their psyche and creating a purely emotional connection to the blind faith which causes them to irrationally defend their position and do the same for their children. It's probably the only reason religion is dying slow rather than it being already dead.

I love when folks rush into a thread, barely read the OP, and then demonstrate every fallacy that was mentioned in it.

originally posted by: Jim Scott
First, I expect a lot more than 46% are creationists.

Appeal to popularity fallacy. YECers are probably more like 30% but it's tough to get an exact number, since they don't poll everyone.

Second, if you follow the truth, you will be, too.

Flat out wrong. Your subjective interpretation of "truth" is not the actual truth, it is your belief.

A lot of top scientists are creationists.

Appeal to authority fallacy.

You may be confusing hard science with soft science.

Can you define the difference for us? I know you're not just making these terms up (yes he is).

There is almost no hard science to support an old universe.

Flat out lie.

Big bang? Big bust. Big bang was based on Hubble's discoveries. He found the expansion of the universe, and said there were two possibilities: either it was created (and we can't have that), or it started from nothing by itself. Had we taken both as possible, we would be on the right track to finding the solution. Now, hard science shows that the Milky Way is at the center of the universe (quantum red shift).

Pure BS. Please back up that claim. Big Bang theory doesn't state the universe started from nothing. It states that all energy and matter was very close together and then expanded. Once again you use appeal to authority about one man's opinion and you are talking about the theory as it was first proposed, not as it stands today, a common fallacy used by creationists.

The only way for science to reconcile the discoveries of hard science is to create imaginary solutions: dark matter, dark energy, multiverse, etc.

LOL. Dark matter is proven and the effects of dark energy can be measured. It is called dark because we don't know the cause of it. We know it's there. Multiverse is a theoretical physics position, not a physical scientific one. String theory is based on math, not physical evidence. Oops!

It is highly likely that these solutions will never be proven, and can therefore be considered to be faith-based.

Back in the dark ages, people said the same nonsense, and look at all the technology we have now thanks to knowledge gained from scientific discovery and research.

Therefore, your world view will dictate how you interpret the facts.

World views make up facts. Science does not. It tries to figure out how things work. Scientific facts aren't up for interpretation.

You can believe a drawing of a cave man, or you can believe the hard science.

So you think the drawing of a cave man holds just as much weight as hard science? I'm lost on what point you are making here.

IMHO, scientists are firing those who believe in creation, and reject any evidences for creation. The Bible said this would happen, and said it 2000 years ago.

Please quote me where the bible mentions anything about science or scientists. They didn't even exist back then and for the first thousand + years of Christianity science was frowned upon unless it exactly agreed with the bible. The fact is that there is NO objective evidence for creation or a creator. Maybe one day we'll discover this, but as it stands now, there is nothing but appeals to ignorance and blind faith in ancient stories. Besides, your claim is false because as you said above many scientists believe in god (although you are wrong because most "top" scientists do not).

I find this thread sort of amusing since I read it right after reading this one.

Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans

MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.


“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”

Yes it is satire, but it really does describe an actual problem.

Some time ago I posted video with Dr. Tyson explaining what happens to every scientific truth, mainly talking about climate change denial as well about science denial.

Here is what he said:

“Every great scientific truth goes through three phases:
* First, people deny it.
* Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible.
* Third, they say they’ve known it all along.”

We are at second stage within this question, but seems that with this 'wanna be scientific' institutions, it might take bit longer to get to third final stage where denial will replace - Bible said it all along...

a reply to: SuperFrog

I feel like places like ICR or the Creation Museum exist to keep us perpetually at phase 2 though... It's like these ignorant people realized the same thing and designed countermeasures to keep us from progressing past the "conflicts with the Bible" nonsense.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: SuperFrog

I feel like places like ICR or the Creation Museum exist to keep us perpetually at phase 2 though... It's like these ignorant people realized the same thing and designed countermeasures to keep us from progressing past the "conflicts with the Bible" nonsense.

Almost makes one think it's a conspiracy, doesn't it?

a reply to: Klassified

Yes, almost. BUT there ARE people using these ignorant Christians to promote their own conspiracies (we are discussing this very thing in the NLBS thread about the US being a Christian Nation).

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: SuperFrog

I feel like places like ICR or the Creation Museum exist to keep us perpetually at phase 2 though... It's like these ignorant people realized the same thing and designed countermeasures to keep us from progressing past the "conflicts with the Bible" nonsense.

Yes, it looks this way.

Interestingly, even with this, still seems that trend is actually against them and that more and more young educated people are turning their backs to nonsense. They talked about it on NPR other day...

Survey Shows Number Of Christians In U.S. Is Declining

A Pew survey shows the share of Christians in the U.S. is declining, and the number of adults who don't identify with organized religion is growing.

Was thinking to create topic back when I heard this on radio, but never did thanks to time around holiday.

After Year Of Atheism, Former Pastor: 'I Don't Think God Exists'

I think he sums it up well...

"I think before, I wanted a closer relationship to God, and today I just want a closer relationship with reality," Bell says.

originally posted by: SuperFrog
Some time ago I posted video with Dr. Tyson explaining what happens to every scientific truth, mainly talking about climate change denial as well about science denial.

Here is what he said:

“Every great scientific truth goes through three phases:
* First, people deny it.
* Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible.
* Third, they say they’ve known it all along.”

We are at second stage within this question, but seems that with this 'wanna be scientific' institutions, it might take bit longer to get to third final stage where denial will replace - Bible said it all along...

That's funny. Stage 3 is what many scientific theories have become in the eyes of creationists. A good example is Galileo's heliocentric model of the solar system. It was denied at first because of the conventional understanding and because it conflicted with the earth being the center of the universe as claimed in the bible. Now, it is extremely rare to find somebody that denies this fact, and since goal posts are constantly moved, they now claim the bible has agreed with it the whole time. It's funny how that works and to see this pattern happen with pretty much all scientific discoveries is a bit disturbing.

Originally thunder and lightning were thought to be the anger of the gods and justified people believing in them. Once we learned the truth about that, everybody moved the goalposts to something else and then to something else, and as more and more was discovered it eventually got all the way to "We don't know what caused the big bang, therefor god did it". They just insert their god in any gap of scientific knowledge. Once we learn more about that, I guarantee it will happen again. We'll learn the cause for the big bang then god will be moved to the position where he caused the cause and it'll just never end with the fallacies until we discover every single thing there is to know about the universe. I wonder what folks will say then. I applaud rationality, especially for folks like the pastor above who can break the cycle of indoctrination of blind faith as fact.

a reply to: SuperFrog

Do you want to know what the fundamentalist Christian response to all of this is? Closed knit communities that create a bubble of ignorance (usually using ICR or Ken Hamm for their "facts"), force the women to breed like rabbits, then indoctrinate them young. That way they have a large population of young people brainwashed into ignorance (I feel for them since none of them have the proper education to get a real college degree) to fight the coming "scourge" of atheists and Muslims.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: SuperFrog

Do you want to know what the fundamentalist Christian response to all of this is? Closed knit communities that create a bubble of ignorance (usually using ICR or Ken Hamm for their "facts"), force the women to breed like rabbits, then indoctrinate them young. That way they have a large population of young people brainwashed into ignorance (I feel for them since none of them have the proper education to get a real college degree) to fight the coming "scourge" of atheists and Muslims.

The kicker is, they will claim persecution because of their faith, instead of examining the facts, as Buddhism has...

a reply to: Klassified

Oh yeah I forgot about that! Classify all criticism of the faith as persecution against the person.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower

Most, if not all of the actual science, says that Genesis is a load a bullocks. That's not an opinion, it's the view of millions, upon millions of scientists, all around the world.

I hate it when people appeal to authority.

Great! Another "you don't think like me, so I will bash the # out of you" thread........and from Tenth no less.
It seems that "evolutionists" are getting more and more like the Catholic Church of old. "Think this way or else".
Look I know many of you think you have all the answers or that your path is the right one. This is also why many of you same people do not like religion or religious people. You feel the same way about them as they do about you.
I have a saying "All the knowledge we have now is but a drop in the ocean of knowledge yet to learn."
Young Earth? Old Earth? Evidence for both but lean heavily towards old earth.
Evolution or Creation? For me it's Creation then adaptation.
Why? I have not seen enough hard evidence for evolution. That is MY point of view....don't like? Ok.
We ALL, EVERYONE OF US, have something we believe or do that someone else does not agree with. Simple fact of life. GET OVER IT.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Klassified

Oh yeah I forgot about that! Classify all criticism of the faith as persecution against the person.

This needs to be quoted again for effect.

there is a very strong possibility what we've managed to do with this planet and our culture etc has been done many times on other planets probably for similar reasons
in other words what we have here might not be all that unique in the big picture
probably lots of really weird stuff out there in space weve never seen before

originally posted by: bobbypurify
Maybe quit pointing fingers and treating people like subhumans for daring to think against the mainstream. In 100 years, odds are our entire notion of the "Big Bang" will have adapted and changed, rendering what you know now ignorant.

And that is the power of science - changing your notion of what is true when faced with persuading evidence and / or when offered a more reasonable explanation.