Young Earth Creationist Arguments. Oh, the Humanity!
Teach the Controversy
As anyone who has been closely following this blog likely knows we have been having a bit of a contentious discussion here that ended less than agreeably. For myself, I have debated whether to talk about it more or just let it lie. While common sense says that I probably should let it lie, the opportunity it affords me outweighs any possible impulse control I have. My wife would surely agree with the opinion that I just can’t keep my mouth shut. Damn my impulsive nature! Damn it to hell. Ok. That’s done, let’s go.
A young Christian man came a callin’ several days ago in search of debate, and that we gave as time allowed. He was always unfailingly polite and a wee bit disingenuously I think, gave himself the airs of a moderate theist. Honestly, I suppose everyone thinks they’re a moderate, so I have a hard time faulting him. Soon however, he devolved into a Young Earth Creationist of a most tenacious sort. His arguments in full are in the comments section here and here. Read them if you wish. If you have never argued with a YEC before, these will be enlightening. It shows how they believe the inanity that they do, and as well as anything, it shows the mechanisms they use to continue to wrap their mind around that which cannot be justified. Like I said, enlightening. Painful but enlightening. Get some aspirin and give it a go.
I’ll try to summarize the technique he used. Others involved in the talk may disagree with my conclusions, and if so (just shut the hell up!) I’d like to hear it. In his defense I must say that throughout the entire multilevel debate he was polite if a bit frustrated. In the end I was the one who dug my spurs in hardest; I was the calculatedly rude one. I don’t mean to make excuses but I have been down this road far too many times. I apologize for being an asshole. I do this a lot.
First, as I alluded to his technique was one of feigned moderation. While talking about the fringe groups of Christians out there, he came across as a light theist in the first few comments, denying being a true literalist. He stressed elements of the Bible’s symbolism as evidence of his non-literal understanding, but the example he kept falling back on, Revelation, made me leery. As we progressed, his literalist basis became more and more apparent, believing fully in Methuselah’s age and the Biblical flood exactly as written. Eventually, after hedging a bit, he admitted being a full Young Earth Creationist claiming that he just didn’t see the evidence for evolution.
The conversation itself involved several issues but central to all was the case of Biblical inconsistencies. Mr. YEC undeviatingly stuck to the conviction that the Bible has no inconsistencies, not even one. His arguing technique consisted of a sinuous line of logic that pretty much boils down to the opinion that atheists lack of any objective hermeneutics, that is a consistent theory of Biblical interpretation. He accused us of cherry picking parts of the Bible to make it look bad, and that to truly understand the Bible, it must be taken as a whole entity not a collection of parts. In his mind one can’t just use Genesis or the Old Testament, but must incorporate the entire Bible into every single discussion about it. One cannot simply pick up Exodus,read it thoroughly and proclaim God an arbitrary bastard. One has to look at any other passages within the entire Bible that may mitigate this bastardy and use that also. He brought up The Origin of Species as an example and said we had to look at that book as a whole not just cherry pick parts of it. He mentioned cherry picking often.
Well, to me this is simply saying that if you find something troubling about a section of the Old Testament, let say that God forcing the Pharaoh to be stubborn and then destroying the Egyptian children because of it ( a subject that any reader of the last ten or so posts must be sick of by now), you must hunt around in other sections of the Bible and find parts that mitigate it. This is bullshit reasoning for when Exodus was written many of the other sections simply didn’t exist. How were those early chunks to have been taken in context at that point? By contrast, the Origin of Species was written as a single work published as a whole. The Bible was written over thousands of years and was never a whole until around the fourth century. Even today, it is a collection of disparate parts, Apocrypha anyone? What were those first Hebrews to do when a question arose in ancient days? Sit around until the rest of the book came out. That’s a long goddamned time to wait for a sequel.
Another thing that yanks my wanker here is the prevalent belief that atheists hold the Origin of Species as some sort of sacred text, like we claim it as infallible as they do their book. What an absolute crock! Every atheist on earth knows very readily that Darwin was a gifted and tenacious man who illustrated a theory of science that changed the world, but nowhere do we believe he is infallible. He was magnificently flawed. Holding on the that vast work of fiction, the Bible, as in fallible, YECs love to think that if they can poke single holes into Origin it will destroy the whole thing, but that only works if you proclaim the work as without error. We know it has errors. Darwin believes things that we know are incorrect today. For a Lack-of-Christ’s-Sake he wrote this book at the beginning of the American Civil War decades before the germ theory of disease or the atomic theory. Of course he had stuff wrong. Why do they always view everything like divine revelation? If it’s not 100% true it should be thrown out?
Multiple times we were accused of not reading his comments fully or cherry picking our data, but his technique involved nothing but these. If I thought that God was being cruel, I was wrong. God was good. I was told that since I used a relative morality scale, I could hold God accountable because I didn’t believe in any absolute morality to hold God to. Because I don’t and can’t understand the concept of true and perfect love, I also cannot judge God when he slaughters millions exercising that love. If God was acting like a jackass, Mr. YEC could find a passage from widely divergent books of the Bible to demonstrate that was not actually the case. Even though the Bible says God will harden the Pharaoh’s heart eight separate times, when it comes down to it the Pharaoh gets the blame. Even when God’s shit-assed craziness became too much to deny, excuses were made. God was angry! Wouldn’t you be? Didn’t the Egyptians deserve it?
Here’s a direct quote.
Finally, where does the Bible say that God must extend mercy to everyone? Isn’t that implying that God owes us something? Where does it say that we deserve mercy? I think by saying that God killed the Egyptians one is saying that the Egyptians didn’t deserve to die. Read the Book; the Egyptians (by way of Pharaoh) brought it on themselves.
Maybe I would be somewhat of a Bastard in the God’s position, but I have never professed to be perfect or omnipotent. I am not God. We should expect better of those we worship. You cannot claim that I can’t possibly understand God’s motives when he’s acting the Lord Genocide but later try to get me to understand him when he slaughters thousands when he is angry or hurt or upset. You can’t have it both ways.
Mr. YEC’s version of objective hermeneutics consisted of starting and ending with the assumption the God is just and good and then omitting or twisting hard every single thing the Bible says in contradiction to that point. This was his speed-of-light constant, unchanging and inalterable. Doesn’t this remind you of the excuses certain mothers will make for their ne’er-do-well sons, constantly defending even the most egregious of behavior? ”Assault? They were picking on him! Rape? That slut was begging for it! Murder? Young Johnny didn’t kill anyone. Why, he was watching TV with me all night.” Young Earth Creationists continually are forced into these compromised positions by the very nature of their assumptions. If you assume that God is perfect and just and that becomes your absolute, then truth or evidence means little. You are simply an apologist, desperately trying to hold on to that slippery eel of religion you value so much. Like meth addicts, you will ignore or use anything can find to support your habit. That initial assumption must be true. It must, damn it.
Why? That’s the real question isn’t it? Why? The answer is simple. Because if that assumption slips. If for one minute you set aside the preformed conclusion that God is the most wonderful thing before or after Pac Man then your entire world will begin to rain down upon you. Without that one spike nailing your absurd pile of belief down, it will begin to melt away in the morning’s heat. If you do not believe that God is righteous with all your heart, with your entire soul, with your whole being then you look at God for what he really is…
Arbitrary and cruel…
Heartless and mean…
A bastard…
Nonexistent!
A masterly summation, KK. What grouched me the most (though I should be used to it from such folks by now) was the way he kept playing the ‘you can’t disprove [whatever]‘ card. This allows people like him to slip in any old nonsense they feel like spouting and then pounce on us for being unsceptical if we so much as look like we’re dismissing it out of hand as the evident claptrap that it is.
Just wanted to make a comment on the pic you used, as it sums up quite neatly the way these people try to (and sometimes manage, unfortunately) sneak religion into science classes. Science lessons in school are supposed to teach children a basic ground-base of knowledge, and some analytical tools. The place for questioning theories is college and university, not school. Not that creationism is in any way a theory; it’s an agenda.
(And if you thought you were the first to be rude, you should have seen some of the things I deleted …)
The person you are speaking of seems to fit right in with a study done in either or both 2005 and 2006 at the University of Michigan. I think it was UofM but might be wrong. It really doesn’t matter how many facts or evidence you present to him, he will actually defend his views more aggressively the more you show him he is wrong. He really isn’t looking for truth but wants to believe those he has trusted most of his life haven’t been lying to him.
The only controversy is that “they” are trying to weasel in their beliefs in the science classroom (as you know). I agree that as atheist we need to understand biblical thinking and combat literalism. Awesomeness.
Kriss
As a somewhat reluctant student of the Bible, I find the most amazing thing about “Christians” is their total failure to READ the book they claim is infallible, literal truth. If they had actually read the book, they would surely have noticed the verses which indicate that the Bible is not meant to be understood literally (2Cor.3:6), or that Jesus believed his Father is the “only true God”, not himself (John 17:3) or that the written version is not necessarily the authoritative source of divine wisdom. (2Pet.1:21).
How often have we heard Christianoids speak of an expedition to Mount Ararat to search for the remains of Noah’s ark? They seem never to have noticed that the text says not one word about “Mount Ararat”; it very clearly says that the ark came to rest “in the mountains of Ararat.” Please note the plural. Ararat is the Hebrew form of Sumerian Urartu, which is a very extensive land located between the Black and the Caspian Seas. The text says nothing whatever about a specific mountain; it indicates an entire range of mountains, hundreds of them, in fact, anyone of which might be the site on which the mythical ark is supposed to have landed.
Nor have they ever asked how a Bronze Age culture could have had any way to write about, even understand modern problems and questions to justify their claim that the book holds all the answers. In fact, they have never asked themselves why their God would have bothered to give tribes of Bronze Age semi-savages instruction that could be meaningful only to people of later times and much more valid information than would not have been available in the Bronze Age, which is when most of these texts were written.
And they have consistently ignored Paul’s warning that the laws of the Old Testament are no longer binding on Christians. All this is why I use the term “Christianoid” to refer to these semi-apes. I consider myself a Christian and consider Christianity to be a body of myth. There’s nothing wrong with myth so long as we don’t mistake it for fact. The effort to take myths as though they were equivalent to science and/or logic can result only in madness–as witness the Christianoids.
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville
Wow KK. Glad to see I inspired a whole blog post. Thank you for referring to me in a kind manner. I was afraid I had come across as a bit rude, and if I did, I apologize.
Unfortunately, I think you missed the big picture here. This was not so much about YEC vs. evolution or anything like that, although that did seep into the discussion. What it ultimately comes down to is (1) context and (2) your insistence on being able to judge God based on (a) love you claimed not to know what a true version actually is, and therefore can’t know what it isn’t either, and (b) a morality that you say has changed since the time in question but can still be applied to that time period.
What you claim to be “BS reasoning” about taking the Bible as a whole when judging for consistency is flawed logic, because you then can’t try to point out inconsistencies in the Old Testament if the Bible doesn’t claim to be the inspired Word of God until 2 Timothy was written. So by your logic you are limited only to any text that was written after this fact. Any beef you have with the Bible before then can only be historical inconsistencies, and that would be a pretty hard thing for you to demonstrate.
I think you took my Origin of Species example a little too seriously. I was merely trying to use a sentence that both atheists and theists would probably be familiar with, especially in regards to its context.
I would like to ask what exactly I cherrypicked to make my points. I think if you go back and re-read my posts I didn’t really even use the Bible except in defense of Biblical consistency to Mr. McAfee and to discuss the number of times God ACTUALLY hardened Pharaoh’s heart in the text. You’ll be delighted to know that I erred in some of my statements regarding my discussion with Mr. McAfee, and contacted him directly to apologize and re-clarify.
What I will reiterate is that my issue was with you thrusting your morality into the middle of your argument and saying that God must shoe-horn into your morality, or He is an evil and capricious being. Again, you can’t do that unless morality is objective and we are all on the same playing field. Otherwise all it really comes down to is your opinion, and any of our opinions are worth fifty cents less than a half-dollar. If you are really on a quest for truth, then you have to take morality at face value for what it is, rather than inserting your ideas and calling them truth. You may claim that I’m doing the same, but I think I’ve proven logically that morality must be objective for us to be able to use it to judge the past, and therefore make assumptions about the character of a being who at the very least was around some 6,000 years before us.
I’m not here making the claim that I know God is good. I am only making the claim that you can’t know that He isn’t either. Any understanding of God can only come from an objective view of morality and love, and therefore an objective view of history.
I will fade away quietly into the night and let you guys decide how badly you want to tear me to shreds. I won’t respond anymore. But I would encourage objectivity in your future “Bible studies.”
Bite your tongues, people.
Excellent post kk.
Bob, re: Christianoids.
I actually preferred your term semi-apes. They don’t use the one major organ that separates us from the rest of the apes, so why should they be considered anything BUT apes? The only thing is, that’s a tad unfair on the apes; they had no choice in the matter.
>>>Christianoids.
I actually preferred your term semi-apes<<<
Daz,
In fact, I am pushing the term "Christianoid" for general use. "Semi-apes" is a term of abuse. "Christianoid" gets right to the heart of the matter. It is derived from the word "Christian" plus the Greek ending "-oid." which means, "resembling the genuine thing." It focuses on the false resemblance and emphasizes that we should not mistake the charlatan for the genuine. And that capsulizes my whole problem with the Christianonoids. They have the Bible which they claim to revere with an idolatrous fervor and to regard as "literal" and "inerrant", while they ignore most of what it actually says in favor of a mess of primitive superstitions inherited from their ancestors, forgetting that (in the south, at least) those ancestors were mostly illiterate share-croppers whose knowledge of scripture is derived entirely from paid flacks who announce from the pulpit each week precisely what their employer (the church) wants the "sheep" to believe. And it never occurs to any of them that their church has a vested interest in keeping the truth from them; the wealth and power of any religion cannot survive inquisitive brains operating freely among the congregations.
So, do me a favor (if you will), use the word "Christianoid", explain it if anyone asks and let's campaign to shine some light into the darkness of the Fundamentalist heresy.
Thank you for your comments.
With love under will,
Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville
Bob,
Nae fret! I was joshing, is all.I liked your use of the term, from a light-hearted angle, and went with it. Certainly I’d never try to use it for real.
Regarding ‘Cristianoids,’ though, I prefer the word ‘fundamentalist.’ It means you can talk about the ultra-extremists of all religions under one umbrella if you feel the need. After all, fundy Moslems are no different from fundy Christians. The name changes, and some of the doctrines, but the easily-lead, ill-educated hatred remains the same.
Here is my first question for YECs. Sabepashubbo, feel free to take a stab.
How did the Dodo get from Noah’s Ark to Mauritius?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo
In a beautiful pea-green boat. He was well prepared for the journey, having taken some honey, and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five-pound note. This passage was severely mistranslated by a Mr. Lear in the 19th century…
Sorry, I really shouldn’t post when drinking!
You never know Daz, it may make for some amusing arguments. At the very least, it can never be worse that a few others that have posted here. So have one on me!
OMG lol that was AWEsome. You most definitely SHOULD post when drinking.
“Shucks!” As Sir Isaac Newton might say. All I did was (mis)quote some Lear lol. We had a great LP (yes, LP — I’m that old!) when we were kids, of Lear poems on one side and Caroll on the other. The only other one I remember as definitely being on there was ‘You Are Old Father William.’ Ho-hum.
Of course, even Lear never mentioned how the kangaroo got to Australia from Turkey. With, of course, the added complication that the whole species seem to have migrated there without leaving any kangaroo-colonies along the route through southern Asia.
http://thinks.com/words/nonsense/william.htm
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/pussy.html
Surely you’ve realised by now Daz… Old bearded one did it to test our faith… Hide all those pesky kangaroos that will confuse ‘em. Oh and damn and blast why not do the same with all these other pouched animals whilst I’m at it. He’s always messing around…. When he’s not slaughtering entire races of people that is.
Finally got round to posting my own take on all this. It’s at http://tiny.cc/i3p70
Sorry ’bout the shameless self-linking, but it’s a tad long to paste into a comment-box.
Lovely rant, Daz! Beauty calculation, too:) Everybody who’s finished giggling over KK’s thoughts above should trot right over to Daz’ for the best Flood calculation I’ve ever seen:) After you’ve washed up your runcible spoon, of course…
It is some of the most beautiful maths I’ve ever seen.
Thank you both! The worrying thing for me about the maths was how long it took me. I passed o-level maths more years ago than I care to remember, and it would have taken me a couple of minutes back then. I’m not even going to say how long it took though — I’d blush.
How went the visiting Amy?
Dang, I missed all the fun.
The visit was great, Daz–thanks for asking:) Gained 9 pounds eating my mom’s pie and bought *way* too many books, which I will naturally recommend to everybody here.
Of course there had to be a *really* interesting discussion on morality while I was away. Fooey. I hate when that happens!
Morality discussions usually bum me out, though, because everybody shouts at each other using the same words to mean different things with no clear idea of where they’re going. In particular: Subjective Morality, Objective Morality, Relative Morality, and Absolute Morality.
A mistake that I notice both theists and non-theists (I used to get really confused by this, too) making when talking about “relative morality” is to say something along the lines of, “Relative morality means you can just do whatever you want. I can’t get mad at you for killing my cat, because you think it’s moral. You can’t get mad at me for molesting your daughter, because in *my* morality it’s OK!” That is subjective morality, not relative morality. Subjective morality implies just what Mr. Hubbo said, and what I said above. I, the subject, make up all the morals to suit myself. Are there people who really do this? Yes–they’re called psychopaths by the rest of us (though a real psychopath would insist he wasn’t one).
There is no such thing as a morality of one. Morality, of any kind, does not exist outside of a group. A *group* defines what is moral, what is OK, never an individual. It is meaningless to speak of morality outside of social species. Humans are a social species–we have morals. Chimpanzees are also a social species–they also have what count as morals (interestingly, they don’t tolerate in-group murder, either [cf. Jane Goodall]). Snakes and frogs are not social species. They can’t be moral or immoral–they aren’t social. There isn’t anything for them to be immoral about. There has to be a group and group conventions as a backdrop for immorality to become a meaningful concept.
Relative morality refers to a comparison of the morals of one group (not one individual) against those of another. Sometimes we compare different time periods. When studying morality (extremely interesting–may I recommend “Moral Minds” by Harvard’s Marc Hauser?), it is instructive when comparing groups to look for moral ideas that come up again and again in disparate groups and time periods. Those are the most universal moral ideas, the ones that nobody really disagrees with. Nobody thinks malicious murder is ok–no culture does, no time period does. The other primates don’t tolerate it, either. All human cultures, and interestingly chimpanzees as well, think war constitutes an exception–killing during war does not constitute murder. At least until the 20th century when humans agreed on the Geneva Convention and decided that, in fact, *not* all is fair in war, and some kinds of killings and treatment during even war are not acceptable. But that’s a fairly new idea–morals, it seems, can evolve.
Secular humanists believe that morality is something that has evolved right along with our bodies, our language, our brains.
That idea really should be a happy one for theists, since it means that the science-minded also think that moral universals can be objectively discovered. Moral Universal is, I think, a better term than Moral Absolute because it implies moral ideas shared by all humans since we all belong to the same species. It means that we should be able to find common ground between theists and non-theists, between disparate races, religions, and cultures.
Sorry to go on–too interesting to stay out of! If I thought Mr. Hubbo would reply, I’d post two versions of the Trolley Problem (thought experiments on moral dilemmas) and get his reaction to compare to everybody else’s. My guess is that his moral response would be the same as everyone’s here.
(p.s.–just finished “The Red Queen” by Matt Ridley and “The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller. Outstanding! Sexual selection has been grossly overlooked! Daz and KK–better put up more book shelves:))
Wow! where were you when we needed you? Swanning off on vacation without a thought as to where that would leave us, that’s where. Pah! Glad you had a good time though!
I’m getting to the point here where it’s not so much the extra bookshelves that’s a problem, so much as the wallspace needed to fit them in. I might have to donate to the local library again, if I can bring myself to part with any. Maybe I could insulate the garden-shed …
On the subject of books, I’m in the market for a decent one about the Normans that doesn’t concentrate overly on their take-over of England, if anyone knows of one. I want something that covers all from the invasion/hostile take-over of northern France, to the same of Sicily and their involvement in the first crusade. I know KK, at least, is a history buff, and any help would be appreciated.
I’ll see what I can find Daz. BTW I liked your Floodospere mathematics. Good, entertaining arithmetic. Thanks. I pretty sure Mr. Hubbo would say that you with your relative mathematics can’t possibly judge God who naturally invented absolute mathematics in which 2 plus 2 equals 4 but only if God wants it to. Otherwise it’s 7 or three or 42. Why is it still absolute? Because God wants it to be, and he’s God. He can!
When you make up the definitions, your power is infinite.
Damn Amy, with a sensible argument like that, where have you’ve been the last month. We could have used a steady hand like yourself in the conflict. You bring up great points. At any rate, it’s good to have you back.
If you are at all interested in doing a book review off of any of these books you’ve written, let me know. I just finished the Dissappearing Spoon and other tales. Wonderful. I want to have a review up soon.
To everyone else, sorry i haven’t posted for awhile. I’ve been in Kansas City for the last week and it’s a bastard trying to write on vacation with my family in the room. That and the hotel my union booked for me charges 10 buck per night per device for internet service, and we have four devices. With every mom and pop motel offering free wifi, I have difficulty paying such an exorbitant amount at a Hilton.
Amy send me a list. Books that is.
Starting new post, as your reply nested in so far that it took the ‘reply’ button away.
Mr Hubbo’s knowledge of maths is even worse than mine. Let’s face it, he introduced an infinity as ‘simpler’ than a sudden emergence. All I know on the subject is admittedly from a couple of TV documentaries and a popular book or three, but even I know infinities are heap big medicine, and not to be thrown around lightly.
Here’s an easy one:
Think of an infinite series of whole numbers. Now mentally divide each whole number into tenths. Now count the tenths. Infinite, right? But the second infinity is, by definition, ten times larger than the first. Now divide the tenths into tenths, and those tenths into tenths … and so on, ad infinitum, so what you now have is an infinity of infinities, each ten times larger than the previous.
Seeing how it’s possible to have an infinity of infinities, try imagining ∞ to the power of ∞ …
My head hurts now. Need Beer! [Insert Homer Simpson sound-byte.]
Doh! Have beer… not helping. Head hurts!
Yeah, the argument that X is too complicated so x to the infinitieth must be true has always annoyed me. Burying hard to understand fact in bullshit always soothe a ruffled mind. Bigger absurdities are always easier to swallow that wee ones.
Yeah, I wrote wee ones.
“… an infinity of infinities” An idea that gives you that nice on-the-edge-of-the-cliff-peering-over feeling:)
I read a book recently on the history of the Pythagorean Theorem where the author refered to that idea as “the infinity that sits between two numbers”. Lovely, no?
” “the infinity that sits between two numbers”. Lovely, no?”
Lovely, yes.
For some reason it reminded me of “the gates were wide that led through the earthward rampart of the Country Beyond Moon’s Rising,” from The Charwoman’s Shadow, by Lord Dunsany. They both have a sort of ‘beyond the vanishing point’ feel to them.
Glad you liked the Gideon’s Dictionary comment. I must admit I chuckled a little myself, when I thought of it. Answering it here, because I’m already double-posting.
@Bob Pendel
Not so fast. Paul was a politician. He wanted to seduce the Gentiles into the church and was pretty sure they wouldn’t want to carve their weewees, give up bacon cheeseburgers or crush perfectly good wine glasses. Ok. So they finally accepted the wine glasses.
But he had no authority to cancel out the old laws. When Haysoos was asked about it he replied that he had come to change the law by not a jot or a tittle. That means that all the silly rules in Leviticus still apply. Do you eat shrimp? Answer the phone on Saturday? Covet your neighbor’s ass? Oh, wait. That one’s still on the list.