From a creationist that I met at NWACC last week

[RobertMadewell]

This is from one of the "experts" on the creationist forum that I attended with Doug. I don't even know if I should respond, because it's stupid and I'm getting tired of hearing crap like this and still be expected to be nice.

Robert - I would very much like you to consider the following.



Firstly, I realize that you do not believe in Christianity, however I do believe you have faith. You seemed to express a belief in evolution to explain life as we see it, but considering the lack of biological mechanisms to make that possible and the lack of transitional fossils in the rocks, it would appear that you do have faith in something. For neither Creation nor Evolution can be proved. I know you mentioned a few fossils, but if we are honest with each other, I think we both can conclude that the evidence one would expect to find is lacking. You want material and nature to be all that there is, but I don’t think your faith is something you are willing to ignore. You want to know what is true, and I don’t think defining science as that which you can see and prove is going to be an honest quest for truth.



Secondly, I hope you will take an honest look at yourself, how you feel emotions, how you have a knowledge of right and wrong, how you love your wife, and how you want justice and fairness, how your conscious directs you, how it moves you when you read about disasters and the desire you have to help people in need…evolution just does not produce those things. I believe you are much more than just an extension of the animal kingdom. You do not act like animal, you were created distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom. You behave as one who was created in the image of God, someone who has a conscious, loves, thinks, and communicates. God has created you to the way you are and have given you dignity, and that is something no naturalistic explanation can give you because it does not have an accurate picture of how you came to be. If you think that material is all there is, take a look at your wife and realize how much you love her. Your experience alone will tell you that there is something more, for there is nothing else that can explain the way you feel for her. On paper you believe it does not exist, but your experience will show you that it does.



If apes and man have the same ancestor, then why should one be locked behind bars in a zoo while the other paints works of art? Consider a Biblical worldview and I think you will understand why that is the case.

[Dardedar]

I'll give these chestnuts a poke. Feel free to pass this on to them.

Firstly, I realize that you do not believe in Christianity, however I do believe you have faith.

This is where they tacitly admit that faith is not a very good reason to believe things, but they want to claim that it is not just them believing things without good reason, "you do it too." The tit for tat fallacy (I think Doug covered this at our March meeting). Just because someone engages in believing things without good reason (faith), it doesn't justify other people doing it also.

You seemed to express a belief in evolution to explain life as we see it, but considering the lack of biological mechanisms to make that possible and the lack of transitional fossils in the rocks, it would appear that you do have faith in something.

If this person is unaware of the well understood biological mechanisms that make evolution possible, they should put down the creationist stories and pick up a science text. Regarding transitional fossils, they can cure this with hundreds of examples here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc ... html#pred4
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb98.html

For neither Creation nor Evolution can be proved.

Again with the, "mine may be no good, but yours isn't either." Creationism is an assertion, one we know to be categorically false, evolution was very well confirmed 150 years ago. There is no other game in town.

I don’t think defining science as that which you can see and prove is going to be an honest quest for truth.

Right, an honest quest for truth should be believing in things we can't see or prove. That makes sense.

...take an honest look at yourself, how you feel emotions, how you have a knowledge of right and wrong, how you love your wife, and how you want justice and fairness, how your conscious[sic] directs you, how it moves you when you read about disasters and the desire you have to help people in need…evolution just does not produce those things.

Nearly all of our human attributes have been observed in our primate relatives. A lot of them can even be observed in goats (joy, pleasure, anger, fear, envy, nurture). This person doesn't know what they are talking about.

[snip...]

If apes and man have the same ancestor, then why should one be locked behind bars in a zoo while the other paints works of art?

Here in the US, we have well over a million human primates locked up behind bars (probably more than apes).

Consider a Biblical worldview and I think you will understand why that is the case.

I considered the biblical worldview and realized that my morals, like everyone else's are better than the morals in the Bible.

[RobertMadewell]

Everything that you covered are things that I told him that night. In one ear and ...

I guess that I am just getting disenchanted with all this debate. Seems that I am expected to know more about their religion and their holy books than they do. Not only that, they pick the debate subject (evolution) and don't even bother to try to know as much as I do about it and I learned about evolution because they are the ones who wanted to talk about it. I am not an atheist because evolution made me one. Evolution wasn't a concern of mine when I decided to identify as an atheist. Their holy book was the biggest concern. Maybe they just want to divert the attention from their mish-mashed contradictory Bible.