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Fundyisms: Earth is flat and how old?


CyborgKin

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4 hours ago, JemimaPuddle-Duck said:

I think that is a belief of only a very small percentage of creationists. 

Do you mean YECs are a small percentage of creationists or people who think the evidence of an old earth is meant to deceive us constitute a small number of creationists? The statistics I've seen indicate that between 40 and 60 percent of American adults could be classified as YECs. There is so much evidence that points to an extremely old universe, from cosmic background radiation to the fossil record, that it seems like the "don't believe the evidence" approach is the only way to maintain a YEC perspective.

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10 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

The statistics I've seen indicate that between 40 and 60 percent of American adults could be classified as YECs

I refuse to believe it.  My mind doesn't compute.

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17 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Do you mean YECs are a small percentage of creationists or people who think the evidence of an old earth is meant to deceive us constitute a small number of creationists? The statistics I've seen indicate that between 40 and 60 percent of American adults could be classified as YECs. There is so much evidence that points to an extremely old universe, from cosmic background radiation to the fossil record, that it seems like the "don't believe the evidence" approach is the only way to maintain a YEC perspective.

The Sam Cooke approach seems to work too... You know, "don't know much about history, don't know much about biology, don't know much about science book...."

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23 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

people who think the evidence of an old earth is meant to deceive us constitute a small number of creationists?

The people I know who are YEC just don't believe that there is evidence of an old earth. They will say science actually proves young earth, not old earth. 

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16 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

I refuse to believe it.  My mind doesn't compute.

This is generally considered the "gold standard" in terms of ascertaining American beliefs on creationism and evolution:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

Creationists are a plurality at around 40-ish percent followed by theistic evolutionists. Among regular churchgoers, the percentage of creationists goes into the high sixty percents.

9 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

The Sam Cooke approach seems to work too... You know, "don't know much about history, don't know much about biology, don't know much about science book...."

I agree with this too. Ignorance really is considered bliss in far too many circles.

 

3 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

The people I know who are YEC just don't believe that there is evidence of an old earth. They will say science actually proves young earth, not old earth. 

The problem with this position is that actual peer-reviewed science (not the stuff put out by Answers in Genesis, which is a "ministry" not a laboratory) doesn't support a young earth. YECs may sincerely believe that the science supports their position, but all that shows is their ignorance of how science and the scientific method work.

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4 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Eratosthenes in 205 BC was light years ahead of flarfers.

 

For some reason, when I read this, I started singing, "Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication...." (Jesus Christ Superstar, anyone?)

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47 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

The problem with this position is that actual peer-reviewed science (not the stuff put out by Answers in Genesis, which is a "ministry" not a laboratory) doesn't support a young earth. YECs may sincerely believe that the science supports their position, but all that shows is their ignorance of how science and the scientific method work.

I know that(now) and you know that, but most of the people I know think they are very well educated and that "real" science proves a young earth. There are some YEC who do believe that evidence of an old earth was placed here to deceive, but I don't know any people who do. Just from my experience I would say that it is more common for YEC to say that there is no evidence for an old earth instead of saying the evidence is there to trick folks. 

Three or four years ago we discussed a blog by a YEC who was planning to "teach" Christians how to debate with atheists and people who don't believe in YEC. Her approach was very much that old earth science is fake while young earth is not. I can't find the blog now, but it was a great example of how someone can think they are highly educated about science while actually not having a clue. 

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10 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I know that(now) and you know that, but most of the people I know think they are very well educated and that "real" science proves a young earth. There are some YEC who do believe that evidence of an old earth was placed here to deceive, but I don't know any people who do. Just from my experience I would say that it is more common for YEC to say that there is no evidence for an old earth instead of saying the evidence is there to trick folks. 

Three or four years ago we discussed a blog by a YEC who was planning to "teach" Christians how to debate with atheists and people who don't believe in YEC. Her approach was very much that old earth science is fake while young earth is not. I can't find the blog now, but it was a great example of how someone can think they are highly educated about science while actually not having a clue. 

Creationism is one of my personal favorite flavors of fundyism, specifically because I love the sciency lingo. 

So I'm not surprised if people with a less than rock-solid background in science get convinced about "Creation Science", especially when it fits into their general beliefs. 

Actually, current science of evolution, not to mention geology and astrophysics is not easy to understand and while I feel reasonably confident about understanding biology, for most of the astronomy and physics I need to take people's word for it. Only that I'd rather trust some actual physicists like the guys at CERN than some self-appointed experts at AiG. 

Full disclosure: I belief in God, who loves life in all shapes and forms as it is ever changing and evolving. One day when I'm dead and gone to heaven, I hope for a pet dinosaur.

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On 8/24/2016 at 2:17 PM, December said:

 

Count me in as another one wondering why we don't get those epic lifespans anymore! :my_biggrin:

A Jehovah Witness told me that the further away mankind got from the fall, the more life span decreased, because of cumulative imperfection. Earlier humans were closer to Adam and Eve, so their degree of perfection was higher. I'm not sayong I believe any of this, but hey, its an explanation.

Another interesting thing I have read is that ancient writers used big numbers to reflect order of magnitude, not exact quantity. 500 years old? He was a really old man. Fed the 5000? He fed a whole lot of people. The cultural background of scriptural writings is important for gaining a more accurate understanding of meaning. Writers surely weren't addressing 21st century English speaking people.

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9 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

For some reason, when I read this, I started singing, "Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication...." (Jesus Christ Superstar, anyone?)

Thanks for the earworm, @Four is Enough...I think.

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16 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Do you mean YECs are a small percentage of creationists or people who think the evidence of an old earth is meant to deceive us constitute a small number of creationists? The statistics I've seen indicate that between 40 and 60 percent of American adults could be classified as YECs. There is so much evidence that points to an extremely old universe, from cosmic background radiation to the fossil record, that it seems like the "don't believe the evidence" approach is the only way to maintain a YEC perspective.

Sorry, late night FJing. ;-) Yes, I mean that I think the amount of creationists who believe Satan has deceived the masses by making the earth seem old is very low.  Most just truly believe the earth is young and that there is evidence to prove it. 

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I still like the idea of Satan sneaking around to hide all those fossils....

There must be some irony in this, seems to me that one of the states with the highest percentage of creationists (Utah!) also has some of the coolest dinosaurs (Utahraptor!).

Remind me to travel the US one day to visit all the fantastic museums you've got over there :my_cool:.

 

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On 24/08/2016 at 6:26 AM, The limit does not exist said:

I read some comments and I think I'm more confused about why these people are squabbling over 25 years but the idea that Noah was 500 when he started having kids and 600 when the flood happened is totally agreed upon. 

Also, why does their God hate everyone that he would reduce life spans by such a large margin?!?!

#science

It's usually considered to be because of the fall - the further from perfection we get, the shorter lifespans became.  Each generation listed has shorter and shorter lives, until we reached a plateau of about 70 years, although that's now being increased again by medical care.  That's the most common explanation I've heard.

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On 24/08/2016 at 5:51 AM, CyborgKin said:

https://biblescienceforum.com/2016/08/23/world-not-yet-6000-years-old/

Apparently because of a misinterpretation of how long the Israelites spent in Egypt, the Earth is maybe only 5975 years old.  I.e. we have 25 more years until a round 6000.  Who knew? ;)

I'm actually not shocked by this.  According to the Jewish calendar, which is calculated by adding up the ages of the main figures in scripture since creation (ie the same as what this guy has done), it's the year 5776, about to switch over to 5777.  Not sure why his calculation is slightly different though!

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On 25/08/2016 at 1:40 PM, Cleopatra7 said:

Given that YEC think that the appearance of an old earth was created to deceive humans, such people are already discounting rational and empirical evidence. They think that being a "Bible-believing Christian" means believing everything the Bible says, even those aspects that have been disproven by science or are contrary to reason. At this rate, I expect there to be pi deniers since the Bible posits a different definition of the number.

What's this pi denying thing???? I've never come across that before!

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2 hours ago, BobTheWalrus said:

It's usually considered to be because of the fall - the further from perfection we get, the shorter lifespans became.  Each generation listed has shorter and shorter lives, until we reached a plateau of about 70 years, although that's now being increased again by medical care.  That's the most common explanation I've heard.

The one I've heard is a combination of mutation buildup over time, and the genetic bottleneck caused by Noah's flood.  Also the Tower of Babel bottleneck, in which the world population was fragmented into smaller sub-populations, might have had some effects.  So basically inevitable natural genetic degradation and inbreeding.

For example http://creation.com/genetics-and-biblical-demographic-events http://creation.com/noah-and-genetics

 

1 hour ago, BobTheWalrus said:

What's this pi denying thing???? I've never come across that before!

http://creation.com/does-the-bible-say-pi-equals-3

People taking this non-issue to mean pi is actually 3 is kinda nuts, but that kind of person has to be ignorant of most mathematics including the meaning of what pi actually is, so I'd dismiss them as general crazies with wrong ideas about most things.  Like, most creationists would look down on them :P

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I really don't get this - in the Bible Adam and Eve's sons go on to "marry the daughters of men". I'd taken it to mean Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the Hebrews, as opposed to "men" who'd be the ancestors of the Gentiles. Or you could just not take the Bible literally and think "and God created the universe" = the big bang, "he separated heaven and earth" = the milky way gets formed, "he created man to his image" = he breathed the first specks of DNA into that first living cell, hence started the evolutionary process that would lead to an intelligent species, etc etc.

But if you take it very literally, you have either a human race that'd be started with some serious incest ie Eve sleeping with her sons to get some daughters and some nasty free-for-all after that - unless you can explain off those "daughters of men" who can't have been in God's image. Mating with some orang-utans?

Creationists baffle me.

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In regards to the question "Whom did Cain marry?" I remember a children's Bible story book(it may have been the one you used to see in doctor's offices all the time)that flat-out admitted it was one of his sisters, because he didn't have a choice.  Once the earth was sufficiently populated, God decreed that marrying your sibling was off-limits.

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What creationists say:

http://creation.com/cains-wife-explanation-gross-and-disgusting

http://creation.com/cains-wife-brother-sister-intermarriage

9 hours ago, smittykins said:

In regards to the question "Whom did Cain marry?" I remember a children's Bible story book(it may have been the one you used to see in doctor's offices all the time)that flat-out admitted it was one of his sisters, because he didn't have a choice.  Once the earth was sufficiently populated, God decreed that marrying your sibling was off-limits.

Pretty much.  But it's more about mutation buildup than population level.  There was no need for it to be wrong before then, like there was no need for us to forbit first-cousins... oh, I just googled that and found first-cousin marriage is legal in Australia, despite the 300-400 times greater chance of severe genetic problems in offspring.  Welp.

http://www.lawstuff.org.au/wa_law/topics/Marriage (that's one state's page but the others are the same in that regard)

 

It's intersting that many places outlawed close marriage well before we knew much about genetics.

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On 8/24/2016 at 3:29 PM, notsocommon said:

All of the pictures of me are flat, paper thin, too!  Does not mean my backside isn't fluffy!

We call that "an addition to the back porch" around here. :)

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9 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

It's intersting that many places outlawed close marriage well before we knew much about genetics.

I think it would have been empirically visible that in places where cousins marry as a norm people get visibly stupider within a few generations (there always are remote villages where it's just a lot harder to find someone your age you're not related to).

There's a legend in the Pyrénées mountains, between France and Spain, (where in some remote villages you do see a lot of cousin marriages - in some cemeteries literally all tombstones have the same names on them) that any passing (male) traveller would be kidnapped, kept in a barn a little way away from the village, and that all the womenfolk would take turns "visiting" him. Clearly not the truth, however the elderly lady who told me about it (with a twinkle in the her very blue eyes) didn't have a single relative that didn't have brown eyes. And it's a part of the world where people are reasonably dark. And blue eyes is a recessive gene.

(telling this mostly for the joke factor, but even if there were to be a grain of truth in it, it would show instinctive genetic diversity awareness)

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Wasn't there some posts here a few years ago about a home-school mom who taught her children the earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around a stationary earth?

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On Saturday, August 27, 2016 at 6:05 AM, formergothardite said:

The people I know who are YEC just don't believe that there is evidence of an old earth. They will say science actually proves young earth, not old earth. 

That is absurd. 

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18 hours ago, skrmom said:

Wasn't there some posts here a few years ago about a home-school mom who taught her children the earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around a stationary earth?

Also absurd, and incredibly sad. There are civilizations we can easily trace back 12,000 years, and not through carbon dating (accuracy of this method seems to be a major point of contention). Just the layers, and understanding how the planet's ecosystem works...YEC is yuk. This is how ppl justify raping the planet. 

My grandmother honestly believes god put oil on the planet so our cars would run real good...

We can't change the way we take care of the planet if we don't understand it. Refusing to believe facts because it interferes with your opinions is ludicrous. Instilling ignorance and false belief systems, whilst insisting in blind obedience? That's criminal. And is also what leads to periods of 'dark ages'. 

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On 23/9/2016 at 11:06 AM, Foudeb said:

I think it would have been empirically visible that in places where cousins marry as a norm people get visibly stupider within a few generations (there always are remote villages where it's just a lot harder to find someone your age you're not related to).

There's a legend in the Pyrénées mountains, between France and Spain, (where in some remote villages you do see a lot of cousin marriages - in some cemeteries literally all tombstones have the same names on them) that any passing (male) traveller would be kidnapped, kept in a barn a little way away from the village, and that all the womenfolk would take turns "visiting" him. Clearly not the truth, however the elderly lady who told me about it (with a twinkle in the her very blue eyes) didn't have a single relative that didn't have brown eyes. And it's a part of the world where people are reasonably dark. And blue eyes is a recessive gene.

(telling this mostly for the joke factor, but even if there were to be a grain of truth in it, it would show instinctive genetic diversity awareness)

Seriously, dark people on northern spain? Not exactly accurate, and i'm from the south. And my mother's eyes are light blue/greenish. Only one in the family to have them, the rest of us have brown or hazel eyes. Don't forget that the average spaniard will have a great deal of celtic blood in them

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