Why do NonChristians Debate Christians here in Biology?

[Warcraft3]

Since I am an old earther I really cant give you evidence for what the YECs believe in, but I do have a question.
I was just wondering if the non-Christians actually get anything positive from debates with the Christians, here in the Biology section. I guess Im asking, why are you guys here? Are you here to just debate or to have a discussion? Are you trying to convince Christians to change beliefs or testing the strength of your own beliefs? Im just curious because my friends span a wide range of beliefs and viewpoints and we frequently discuss our differences, but we never end up in the kind of debates I see here at TWEB.

Even when I attended Penn State and would debate people outside the "willard" building (sometimes large groups gather there to debate becuase of the presence of the "willard preacher") the debates were more like discussions.

So I guess Im just wondering why you spend time posting here and arguing with all these Christians who oppose your viewpoint. Do you get anything positive out of it?

Just poking around for an answer


Russ

[Bald Ape]

EDIT: Moderator's: Does VB have a feature that allows a new thread to be split out from an existing one? If so, it seems this side conversation might be a good candidate. If not, steadale, would you mind opening a new thread with this topic?

Personally, I find myself drawn into evo/creation discussions for many reasons:

• I enjoy debate in the same way I enjoy chess and bridge. It's largely a competitive battle of wits, and I find a little philosophical sparring adds a certain spice to my day.
• It keeps me current. Without science discussion boards, I fear that neither my career in computer programming or my graduate studies in Computer Science would keep my interest in the progress of sciences piqued. I have always loved studying science (I didn't get a B.S. in Chemistry for the smell of sulfur), and these boards provide a great motivation to keep my nose in the books, so to speak.
• I perceive the creationism political movement to be a perpetual threat to our already shoddy science education standards in this country - these discussion boards allow me to keep a finger on the pulse of the movement, and to do what I can to help preserve what quality there still is in our educational system.
• I guess you could call it a morbid fascination - but I do find myself very entertained watching many intelligent people argue in vain for what seem to be utterly untenable positions; namely, that our planet is less than 10,000 years old, and that the creatures living on it do not share a common ancestor.

I'd like to add a few reasons that I am not here.

• To attack, damage, or diminish the Christian (or Muslim, or Judaic, etc.) faith of others. My own Christian faith and perceived relationship with Jesus was, at one time, both an integral and positive part of my life. It is and continues to be such for many of my loved ones - and in that light, I have no qualms with anybody (or everybody for the matter) placing their faith in whatever religious venue best suited for them emotionally and intellectually. In the same token, I'll be the first to apologize for and retract any statements I might make that are emotionally or spiritually hurtful to anyone*.
• To "strengthen" or reinforce my personal atheistic worldview. I have no vested interests in doing so - my atheistic worldview is a strain on my relationship with family and friends, leaves me feeling like an outsider to my community, offers no promise of personal gain in this lifetime, and makes only one ultimate promise: that I will die, and that will be it for me. I don't believe in any gods for the very frank reason that I don't believe in any gods and cannot willfully change this aspect of my character; I sincerely and honestly doubt the situation would be impacted by logging off these boards forever any more than it would be impacted by me spending the rest of my waking life reading a holy book and praying in a church.

*For the record, I don't think a YEC, OEC, or theistic evolutionary Christian viewpoint is inherently more or less spiritually fulfilling than any other religious viewpoint; thus, I don't consider convincing a person to switch from one perspective to the other to be a hurtful act.

[DivineOb]

Yesterday @ 10:58 PM post located here
steadele:

Since I am an old earther I really cant give you evidence for what the YECs believe in, but I do have a question.
I was just wondering if the non-Christians actually get anything positive from debates with the Christians, here in the Biology section. I guess Im asking, why are you guys here? Are you here to just debate or to have a discussion? Are you trying to convince Christians to change beliefs or testing the strength of your own beliefs? Im just curious because my friends span a wide range of beliefs and viewpoints and we frequently discuss our differences, but we never end up in the kind of debates I see here at TWEB.

Well, I think if you look at my posts I do a pretty good of keeping things on a friendly level. I honestly have no interest in deconverting anyone or anything like that. My goal is 1) to fully understand the YEC point of view and 2) hopefully correct people's views to the point that they don't cause their religious views to negatively impact science and the scientific progress we make in the world. The idea that the USA, supposedly the "world's only superpower" is having a serious debate as to whether children should be taught that the earth was created 6000 years go in *science* classrooms would be funny if it weren't so GD sad...

[Socrates]

Bald Ape has shown that he has a bias for trying to justify his apostasy, even if he won't admit it, even to himself. And he's like many of the talk origins • Edited by a Moderator • -- computer programmers pontificating on creation/evolution and science.

If people learned even the science in Creation magazine (and there is PLENTY of real observational science there), they would be far better off than in the government schools. Note also, the pretentiously named and humanist founded and operated National Center for Science Education is not concerned with real operational science by materialistic evolutionary indoctrination and unscientifically quashing all dissent.

[WinAce]

• Edited by a Moderator •

That said, my reasons are as follows:

• Keeping up to date with 'alternative science' and being appraised of the arguments used for it, as well as how to debunk them.
• Hopefully swaying a few lurkers to the side of reason now and then.
• Sheer comedy value. Let's face it, statements like "Because there has not yet been enough evidence for macroevolution presented. There has been sufficient evidence for the resurrection" and "God could very well have put fossils on Earth to deceive scientists, in order to test their faith. And in the case of Evolutionists, they failed the test miserably" are priceless.
• Shooting down opposition arguments so bad you're surprised their dog doesn't type a refutation by randomly pounding the keyboard with its paws is a good adrenaline rush and stress-reliever.

[Warcraft3]

WinAce:

Thanks for the reply. As to the comedy section:

Sheer comedy value. Let's face it, statements like "Because there has not yet been enough evidence for macroevolution presented. There has been sufficient evidence for the resurrection" and "God could very well have put fossils on Earth to deceive scientists, in order to test their faith. And in the case of Evolutionists, they failed the test miserably" are priceless.

"Because there has not yet been enough evidence for macroevolution presented.

As an IDist, and more specifically, as an OEC I remain unconvinced that natural processes alone are capable of producing "macroevolution". While I currently take the "things only have the appearance of evolution, but actually were created view" the furthest view from me I consider to be a possible one would be some kind of "front loading" evolution. But again, since currently I am an OEC of the Hugh Ross variety I do not at this time accept macroevolution.

There has been sufficient evidence for the resurrection

I would advise fellow Christians to replace "evidence" with "argument". I do think the arguments in favor of the resurrection are indeed valid and should not simply be ignored. As far as "evidence" goes the only evidence you can ever get will either be a subjective personal encounter with God or you will witness a supernatural event which will convince you of the Christian viewpoint. I have seen a few supernatural events in my life, but I think they are very rare overall. So sadly, while you may be ready to "see" a miracle, most Christians are not ready to "perform" one.

God could very well have put fossils on Earth to deceive scientists, in order to test their faith. And in the case of Evolutionists, they failed the test miserably"

I have never heard that exact statement before and I can tell you it is a statement I would not make since I disagree with it 100%.

But anyway....thanks for the reply


Russ
:rockon:

[Dr.GH]

I didn't really become involved with creationists issues until several years ago when I was made the Director of Education for a small natural history museum.

Initially, the wide range of scientific misconception, and flat out frauds represented as "truth" by some visitors left me nearly speechless. My bewildered internal wondering of where to even start in trying to clear up such intellectual confusion was actually taken as a sort of victory by some creationists.

I realized that without understanding the sources of such nonsense there was no chance to ever inject a bit of light into the purposefully obscured creationist arguments.

Since that time I have become alarmed at the broad threat to reason, and democratic traditions that the creationist movement represents.

All and all, it is good practice. I have been motivated to more carefully examine several areas of scientific research that I had not paid much attention to in the past. For example, I am a new world archaeologist. There is little chance that I will ever work with materials older than say 20K years. And so I basically ignored all the dateing methods used for older deposits. The E/C debates hace motivated me to "learn up" radiometric methods.

Similarly, like most "stones n' bones" archaeologists, I was only vagely familiar with genetics (most archaeologists and anthropologists actually think they are current in genetics, but we are not).

The E/C argument encourages me to give attention to the archaeology outside the New World, and to read up on Mesopotamia/Mideast archaeology as well as their written traditions.

And finally, I find that I really have a strong hostility to B.S. of the kind spread by the ICR, and AiG. These guys are neither dumb, nor ignorant. And so, they have no excuse for the blatant falshoods they promulgate. I view them as exploiters of admittedly willing victims.

[Warcraft3]

Bald Ape:

For the record, I don't think a YEC, OEC, or theistic evolutionary Christian viewpoint is inherently more or less spiritually fulfilling than any other religious viewpoint; thus, I don't consider convincing a person to switch from one perspective to the other to be a hurtful act.

Thanks for the reply and I certainly agree with the above statement, although I of course(Im an OEC myself) think OEC is the best out of the three

Thanks again for the reply.


Russ
:rockon:

[Warcraft3]

DivineOb:

Well, I think if you look at my posts I do a pretty good of keeping things on a friendly level.

Indeed you do. I appreciate that very much

Thanks for the reply.


Russ

[Warcraft3]

Dr.GH:

That was an interesting story of how you came to debate this topic.

Thanks for the reply.


Russ

:rockon:

[WinAce]

[i]Yesterday @ 11:59 PM As an IDist, and more

specifically, as an OEC I remain unconvinced that natural processes alone are capable of producing "macroevolution".

OK, you remain unconvinced.

While I currently take the "things only have the appearance of evolution, but actually were created view"

If I may ask, why? If you believe your god created things to look like they evolved, why not just accept evolution as his method of creation in the first place?

the furthest view from me I consider to be a possible one would be some kind of "front loading" evolution. But again, since currently I am an OEC of the Hugh Ross variety I do not at this time accept macroevolution.

I found front-loaded evolution unsatisfactory in light of the fact that horse evolution, for one, was marked by inefficient trend reversals, random changes and otherwise below what you'd normally expect from an omnipotent front-loader. There would be quicker evolutionary paths to humans available than waiting 3 billion years while several trillion species go extinct.

I would advise fellow Christians to replace "evidence" with "argument". I do think the arguments in favor of the resurrection are indeed valid and should not simply be ignored.

And they aren't. Mostly, though, applying the lowered standards of evidence necessary to conclude a resurrection would make us conclude aliens visit the earth, chinese alchemists ascended to heaven, emperor Vespassian healed a blind/lame man with his spit, and other bizarre claims no one with over 50 brain cells believes.

But that's not what this topic is for... :D

[Vorkosigan]

If people learned even the science in Creation magazine (and there is PLENTY of real observational science there), they would be far better off than in the government schools. Note also, the pretentiously named and humanist founded and operated National Center for Science Education is not concerned with real operational science by materialistic evolutionary indoctrination and unscientifically quashing all dissent.


There is no such thing as operational and origins science in the sense you use it here in any of the disciplines that study history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Please give some examples of major figures, publications, or works in the field where this distinction is used.

Vorkosigan

[geochron]

I'm an isotope geochemist - I spend my time doing some of the science - radioisotope dating - criticised at places like Answers in Genesis.

While no field of science is beyond criticism, I'm not prepared to let what I consider to be their misrepresentations of my discipline pass unchallenged.

[James]

I don't consider myself a non-Christian, but since I'm new I thought I might tell why I'm here. I'm an amateur geologist who likes to collect fossils, interesting rocks, and the like, and also an avid hiker and camper. I've hiked a number of Appalachian mountains and made some brief forays into the ranges on the western coast of the United States. A few weeks ago, one of my hiking buddies informed me of the unorthodox geological claims made by some literal Bible interpreters while we were looking for some sedementary fossils in a gorge. I was rightly confused as to why someone would believe the claims that he presented, so I decided to go ask myself why some people believed in such things as a worldwide flood.

[tgamble]

Today @ 07:19 AM post located here
Vorkosigan:

If people learned even the science in Creation magazine (and there is PLENTY of real observational science there),

None of it good enough for peer review of course.

they would be far better off than in the government schools.

Public schools teach science, there's no science in creationst journals. At least, public schools try and teach science through it's difficult when parents are constantly trying to butcher science education and have nonsense taught as science.

Note also, the pretentiously named and humanist founded and operated National Center for Science Education

Irrelevent emotional rhetoric. Where's your evidence that it's "humanist founded and operated"? whatever that means.

[QUOTE]is not concerned with real operational science by materialistic evolutionary indoctrination and unscientifically quashing all dissent.

More false accusations without evidence. NCSE IS concerned with quality science ducation which includes evolution.

Considering that AIG has a strict statement of faith quashing all dissent and given that they refuse to hire or accept anyone who doesn't agree with the strict statement of faith, your accusations (even if they were true) are hypocrital to the extreme.