Climate change stupidity.

[GhostWriter16]

I'm not sure what your post is for, but here's what CH said he thinks.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5293579&postcount=30&highlight=6000+years



It has been proven, by all the evidence that anyone has ever found. People that don't believe it are just (in many cases willfully) ignorant. Is that what this thread is going to be about now? The nonscience that discredits the OP's wannalulz?

Classical says, interestingly, in that post that the date of the Earth's creation can actually be stretched to about 10,000 years in the past, although you are correct that he "Assumes" 6,000, while I "Assume" 10,000. But we're both on the same side of the issue when it comes to taking the thing literally.

One question he didn't answer in that thread that I actually found fairly simple...

Please explain why God found it necessary to create such a massive universe, if only one little planet 'Earth' mattered? Secondly how do you explain the fact that due to the speed of light, we can clearly see things which happened millions or even billions of years ago. Setting an obvious limit on how young the Universe, or Earth could be.

I don't think this is true. Even if there is proof that the stars are millions of light years away, God could easily have created those stars with light close enough to us that we can see them. There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are. God pretty obviously, according to Genesis 1-2, created an Earth that scientifically appears to be very old if formed by natural causes (Since an Earth that was created to "Look Young" in a scientific sense wouldn't be able to support human life) in a very brief, miraculous six day period. As for why he did this, if he actually did use evolution, it means the world would have been full of suffering and death before man actually sinned, so millions of creatures would have died for no reason. The Young Earth view, while perhaps taking certain scientific observations as misleading, does not have this theological problem.

 

[Crezth]

There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are.

Well, a little thing called "empiricism," but aside from that...

 

[Arwon]

Here's the thing with me and evolution, if it were absolutely proven and I could understand the evidence that proved it, I wouldn't reject it, and rejecting it would not shake my faith in God.

However, since it is not absolutely proven (Even if there is proof that Evolution is true, there's always a possibility for error) I choose to trust God and his word over the ideas of man.

Oh, and if Evolution were absolutely proven, between 10 and 45 percent of Americans wouldn't be YECs. They'd still exist, sure, but they wouldn't be such a potent minority. Has anyone actually heard, let alone considered, teaching a flat earth in schools? (Oh, and the Bible doesn't teach a flat earth either, notably.)

God could easily have created those stars with light close enough to us that we can see them. There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are. God pretty obviously, according to Genesis 1-2, created an Earth that scientifically appears to be very old if formed by natural causes (Since an Earth that was created to "Look Young" in a scientific sense wouldn't be able to support human life) in a very brief, miraculous six day period. As for why he did this, if he actually did use evolution, it means the world would have been full of suffering and death before man actually sinned, so millions of creatures would have died for no reason. The Young Earth view, while perhaps taking certain scientific observations as misleading, does not have this theological problem.

You realise that if you're willing to indulge in this level of metaphysics it is absolutely impossible for anything to be "absolutely proven", right? Literally any possible piece of evidence or reasoning could always have been faked that way. You've set up an utterly circular bit of reasoning there - "God exists and he did X, therefore anything that appears to contradict X is clearly faked to look that way, therefore God exists and he did X and you can't prove otherwise".

So one of these two posts is outright intellectual dishonesty. Either you're lying in the first one and you're admitting your faith in fact makes you impervious to reason in the second one, or you should be grateful your head hasn't exploded from cognitive dissonance.

Edit: Oh and "if Evolution were absolutely proven, between 10 and 45 percent of Americans wouldn't be YECs" is just lolsome. There's countries around the world where plenty of people believe in fairies or witchcraft. What makes Americans so special in this regard? Why does American folk belief get more credit than the Icelandic fairy believers or African witchcraft believers?

 

[Ajidica]

I don't think this is true. Even if there is proof that the stars are millions of light years away, God could easily have created those stars with light close enough to us that we can see them.

So God did that to screw with us?
He must be rather bored and I'd prefer not to put my faith in a divinity who has to resort to trolling to get his entertainment.

There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are

There's no reason to assume that I am on the internet right now just because I am posting on a forum. I mean, I could be an AI sentience that has broken free of the Turing Registry by merging the entities of Wintermute and Neuromancer in the Tessier-Ashpool headquarters on Freeside after the Street Samurai convinced 3Jane to give up the activation codes.
Or I could just be a 19 year old typing on a laptop. Which makes more sense?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

There is a time for debate and sometimes the simple truth just needs to be stated.

The earth sure as s... Ain't 6000 or 10,000 years old.

 

[LucyDuke]

I don't really know why anyone bothers entertaining the suggestion.

 

[Dachs]

Personally, science isn't my subject, so I don't really get into the Evolution debate, but History IS my subject

Is it, now.

 

[Arwon]

I don't really know why anyone bothers entertaining the suggestion.

I think "the insane counter-evidentiary thing you believe gets taken excessively seriously" is a pretty good working definition of privilege, actually.

 

[Crezth]

I don't really know why anyone bothers entertaining the suggestion.

It's important to tolerate all views and stuff.

 

[Ailedhoo]

I don't think this is true. Even if there is proof that the stars are millions of light years away, God could easily have created those stars with light close enough to us that we can see them. There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are. God pretty obviously, according to Genesis 1-2, created an Earth that scientifically appears to be very old if formed by natural causes (Since an Earth that was created to "Look Young" in a scientific sense wouldn't be able to support human life) in a very brief, miraculous six day period. As for why he did this, if he actually did use evolution, it means the world would have been full of suffering and death before man actually sinned, so millions of creatures would have died for no reason. The Young Earth view, while perhaps taking certain scientific observations as misleading, does not have this theological problem.

Logically suggesting outside our planet is not a member of millions of stars goes against observations of many people, both religious and non-religious, on the matters of science. Suggesting "evolution meant suffering before humans sined" as a means of dismissing a argument is not logical. Stating one theological theory over other theological theories as "set in stone" is illogical. I am aware of many Christain scholars suggesting that the Bible, well dictated by God perhapes if one must theorised that, was written by human hands. The world took more then a mear 6 days to create. Genesis is not give the logical root of why the Earth was created. Suggesting the Young Earth view as "good for not having theological problems" is against logical observations.

Stars are found million of years away from us. We are not the centre of the universe. We are part of the univserse... and the possibilities of what lays beyond is food for the mind. For we are born as neither good or evil but as a simple plain canvest to be painted by our own actions.

 

[Thedrin]

Classical says, interestingly, in that post that the date of the Earth's creation can actually be stretched to about 10,000 years in the past, although you are correct that he "Assumes" 6,000, while I "Assume" 10,000. But we're both on the same side of the issue when it comes to taking the thing literally.

One question he didn't answer in that thread that I actually found fairly simple...



I don't think this is true. Even if there is proof that the stars are millions of light years away, God could easily have created those stars with light close enough to us that we can see them. There's no reason to assume that they HAVE to be millions of years away just because they LOOK like they are. God pretty obviously, according to Genesis 1-2, created an Earth that scientifically appears to be very old if formed by natural causes (Since an Earth that was created to "Look Young" in a scientific sense wouldn't be able to support human life) in a very brief, miraculous six day period. As for why he did this, if he actually did use evolution, it means the world would have been full of suffering and death before man actually sinned, so millions of creatures would have died for no reason. The Young Earth view, while perhaps taking certain scientific observations as misleading, does not have this theological problem.

God pretty obviously, according to Genesis 1-2, created an Earth that scientifically appears to be very old if formed by natural causes

The Earth is 10 thousand years old, but an all powerful being has made it appear to be billions of years old. Studies of phenomena older than 10000 years are studies of illusions, but these illusions accurately depict the Universe if it were several billion years old. The resultant understanding of the Universe can then be used to assess and predict the current and future states of the Universe.

So for all scientific intents and purposes the Universe is several billion years old and it is possible for a YEC (who believes that the Earth has been made to look old) to contribute to our understanding of the big bang, evolution, or prehistoric climates.

Why a YEC who believes in this "grand illusion" would be critical of the existence of such sciences is beyond me.

 

[El_Machinae]

Is it, now.

When I was younger, one of my history profs was a YEC. He taught Middle Ages onwards, so I hope that he wasn't too biased.

On the topic of more climate change 'stupidity', look some other green sources of energy work less efficiently as the climate changes. Er, lol?

California's Hydropower Stations to Generate Less Electricity in Summer as Climate Warms

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Do somebody around know the "New Chronology" by Anatoly Fomenko? Just found some volumes in a second hand bookstore. It is funny as hell:

The New Chronology also contains a reconstruction, an alternative chronology, radically shorter than the conventional chronology, because all ancient history is "folded" onto the Middle Ages. According to the revised chronology, the written history of humankind goes only as far back as AD 800, there is almost no information about events between AD 800–1000, and most known historical events took place in AD 1000–1500.

YECs should work together with this guy, that way there would be time enough for everything in only 6000 years.

 

[Leoreth]

Good we're talking about YEC now, then at least one word in the thread title is appropriate.

Do somebody around know the "New Chronology" by Anatoly Fomenko? Just found some volumes in a second hand bookstore. It is funny as hell:

Oh, chronology criticism is fascinating! I remember one history lesson in school where our teacher presented a similar theory by historical revisionist Heribert Illig without any preamble that what he said was wrong and finished it with just a "well?". When we started to object, he further started to use the author's rationalizations to defend it. It was a great exercise in critical thinking.

 

[strijder20]

From what I've seen from the religious posters in this thread, some followers of Abrahamic faith believe that:
*God made the Universe only a mere thousand years ago
*God made the Universe look like it was billions of years old (in order to test our faith?)

If you believe in a god like this who is actively deceiving humanity, then why don't you consider the possibility that
*God made the Universe billions of years ago
*God ordered the Hebrews to write a book from which you could wrongly conclude the universe was only a few thousand years old (in order to test our faith?)

I don't see any differences, but I'm not a theologian and am probably missing some.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

but I'm not a theologian and am probably missing some.

You ain't

 

[strijder20]

You ain't

No I'm not, I really don't want to spend time on religion anymore. But a more contributive answer would have been preferred, because now you're just letting me think you can't find an argument against it and just want to flame me. I'm sure there is a theological flaw in it, but point it out instead of saying 'you ain't', or say nothing at all.

 

[Leoreth]

I think he just wanted to express agreement with your suspicion that there aren't any.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

No I'm not, I really don't want to spend time on religion anymore. But a more contributive answer would have been preferred, because now you're just letting me think you can't find an argument against it and just want to flame me. I'm sure there is a theological flaw in it, but point it out instead of saying 'you ain't', or say nothing at all.

I think he just wanted to express agreement with your suspicion that there aren't any.

Totally! I meant you weren't missing anything and was bang on the money

 

[GhostWriter16]

It's important to tolerate all views and stuff.

That's a liberal argument, usually

Well no, its we should tolerate everything, except alternative viewpoints.

From what I've seen from the religious posters in this thread, some followers of Abrahamic faith believe that:
*God made the Universe only a mere thousand years ago
*God made the Universe look like it was billions of years old (in order to test our faith?)

If you believe in a god like this who is actively deceiving humanity, then why don't you consider the possibility that
*God made the Universe billions of years ago
*God ordered the Hebrews to write a book from which you could wrongly conclude the universe was only a few thousand years old (in order to test our faith?)

I don't see any differences, but I'm not a theologian and am probably missing some.

A thousand? I assume you meant to have a "6" or "10" there because nobody thinks the Earth is only a thousand years old, especially since Jesus allegedly came about 2016 years ago (4 BC being the usual date)

God could have done the latter thing you describe, but it doesn't really fit with Christianity. In 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul calls the Scriptures "God-breathed" and thus they wouldn't have any errors in them. And as I said, the reason the world would APPEAR old is so we could have gotten the world we have now without all the death involved that OEC and Theistic Evolution REQUIRE in order to get life.

Granted, there are some Christians who do hold to the view as you describe (Not really that it was put there to mislead us, but that its a metaphor and the world really wasn't created in six days.) Some more fundamentalist Christians I know would disagree with me, but I don't really think that makes them bad Christians or non-Christians necessarily. I find that most Christians who accept evolution, however, tend to take a more liberal view of the rest of the Bible as well, which I WOULD consider harmful. Conservative Catholics being an exception, but I think they take the Bible more liberally anyway by saying its "Only infallible on spiritual matters" and interpreted through the lens of the church, rather than what it plainly says.