Comments on YEC experience on this board

@ho_idiotes

Matt, the most common reason for these impasse’s is because there is no group discipline on how disputing age-old controversies is supposed help build trust between irreconcilable audiences.

It has been my view that Peaceful Science was not created to continue the divisive debate on Atheism vs. Creationism. Nor was it created to continue the divisive debate on whether Intelligent Design is a valid interpretation of Creationism.

Instead of these old chestnuts that can never be resolved, it would help build trust between audiences if it was explained that God can design life forms using natural evolutionary processes (which is not the same thing as advocating Intelligent Design).

Hey @gbrooks9, thanks for the response.
I am not so much interested in the reason for the impasses here, I guess i recognise that one exists, and can see some of the reasons. I am more interested in whether people are experiencing benefit from contributing. Also, what kind of things have been helpful and why.

I am singling out the YEC people here due to them seemingly being a smaller proportion of people here, and also the fact that it is not a position I hold

Peaceful Science is about discussing science. As the Dover case ruled Creationism isn’t science. So YECism isn’t considered science here. There lies the problem.

As has been noted many times, you can’t reason a person out of a position they weren’t reasoned into in the first place. No one ever became a YEC based solely on any scientific evidence. It’s 100% religious indoctrination based on a narrow literal reading of Genesis. A rare minority of YECs are honest enough to admit the scientific evidence falsifies their YEC claims but they believe anyway. I haven’t seen any of those here at PS.

That’s the closest we can get to a “middle ground”. There is no scientific middle ground because YEC isn’t science and isn’t based on science.

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Hi Timothy, that isn’t what I am wondering. I am wondering whether they find the interaction here helpful, what they are finding helpful etc. This isn’t to be read as “what they found useful to bring them closer to accepting evolution”.
I am not trying to move past the barriers, I won’t be able to do that

If “design” is beyond the scope of science (which I believe it is), then Peaceful Science must also be consistent about the special creation of Adam and Eve: they would be one-off events that are ALSO beyond the scope of science.

You should try to engage with @stcordova on that subject. He occasionally shows that he’s been reading PS. And he’s remarked that he has found discussion here (and other sites) helpful, though not to my mind in a good way. He more or less exploits the sites to hone his creationist arguments so as to make them less transparently false.

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Special creation of Adam and Eve like the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is outside the preview of science. They are purely choices as to what people want to believe to give their lives purpose and meaning. Take Dr. Collins as a fine example. He uses his faith in the resurrection of Jesus to move his management of science forward.

I have no interest whatsoever in developing a trusting relationship with creationists who deny the theory of evolution. Their belief system is false and should not exist. My interest is to get them to either change their mind, shut their mouths, or be ignored. Those are the only acceptable outcomes.

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@Patrick,

I agree with this.

@Faizal_Ali

Since your position is inherently polarizing, you are the poster child for how NOT to conduct discussions in this group.

I seem to remember you making a similar argument to me before.

I would suggest that YECs reflexively distrust anybody who says “God can design life forms using natural evolutionary processes”, as evolutionary processes requires an Old Earth, which is heresy to them.

I would further suggest, from experience with YEC denizens here, that they often have considerable difficulty getting their heads around concepts that aren’t part of the YEC/conservative Christian echo chamber.

Finally, you have to remember that a fair number of this forum are unbelievers, so cannot, in good faith, claim that “God can” do anything.

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@Tim

And yet … somehow … ID proponents talk about “mutations that must have been designed”.

But they never really explain what they mean by this. This is actually what we should be spending more time discussing … how ID proponents imagine mutations over time, and how “i.d.” (< no capitals!) is different from “I.D.” (< all caps!).

I think the best we can do is discuss whether a conclusion is scientifically supported. The discussion could then turn to whether science is the best method for determining truth (with a little “t”). I have seen some creationists lean towards the position that an old Earth is scientifically valid, but they think that science is still wrong.

Perhaps another path for these discussions is to focus on methodology. We could ask creationists what criteria they use to judge evidence, as one example. For example, how do they determine if a fossil is transitional or how old a rock is?

@T_aquaticus

If this is the best we can do … then all we can do is say:

science does not support the de novo creation of Adam & Eve
or
science does not support the resurrection of Jesus .

Since PS spends an AWFUL lot of time discussing the de novo creation of Adam (and intentionally so!) - - - I wonder if you shouldn’t re-engineer “the best we can do”.

The best we can do is figure out how to discuss the de novo creation of Adam and Eve!

Not all IDers are YECs and not all YECs are IDers. So I’m not sure what the relevance of bringing up IDers is to this conversation.

@Tim

IDers come up because they dominate so much of the Peaceful Science bandwidth!

No, that’s not the cause. The actual cause is a difference in epistemology. You think the only guide to truth is scripture, and empirical data can be ignored. I think the only guide to truth is empirical data, and scripture can be ignored. Having no common ground, neither of us can make an argument to the other.

Oddly enough, you attempt to deal with data occasionally, despite your proclamation that it’s meaningless. It’s been pointed out before that creationists commonly want the cachet of science but are, by their basic axioms, rendered incapable of actually doing it.

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  1. I’d argue that PDPrice, r_speir & thoughtful have between them dominated a fair few threads recently.

  2. Even if IDers are dominant it seems odd to bring them up on a thread about YECs, in response to a comment specifically about YECs (and about an issue for YECs that doesn’t affect IDers).

Oh, that’s a very nice, peaceful and non-polarizing response to my honest opinion.

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