I think I understand. Are you saying that looking at creation is a way to spur worship? How does this relate to positive explanation for non-Christians?
It is great that you have found constructive criticism helpful In places, that is a true encouragement to hear. If we can’t admit our understanding is flawed in some areas, even if not all, that is a worrying sign.
You have done that for me, to be sure.
I am a near Swamidassian (to possibly coin a phrase and avoid referencing things to GAE all the time, but am torn between William Lane Craig’s version and that of @swamidass. @jongarvey books have been a help towards starting to swing me to a more recent version than Dr Craig’s.
I find myself in the position of approaching the Bible as an act of communication, and treating it as such. Doing so leads me to the question of admitting that what is a clear and intuitive reading to me is not going to be that of the original recipients. There is too much cultural difference there. I highly recommend Hilber’s book that I have referenced elsewhere and is on the main page of Peaceful Science.
That said, I recognise that the key issues are clear enough, but am comfortable with there being ambiguity. That is present right through the Bible.
Do you have any thoughts on how YEC views could be better accommodated here? I definitely struggle with some of the aspersions about motive that get flung around from both sides, and that is as a casual viewer.
You don’t think God is able to communicate clearly in a cross-cultural manner, such that his word can be understood by everybody? The Bible itself is clearly intended to be brought and communicated to everybody in the world, so I would expect for God’s communication to be plain enough that its basic meaning is not obscured by cultural differences.
That is a reasonable response. I do think that it is clear in the important bits, I guess ti could illustrate my view with the following question/statement. Are there any parts of the bible, any verses that without a cultural knowledge of the biblical world from non-biblical sources would be obscure to us and not easy understandable? I think that there are.
I don’t want this thread to turn into a debate on my views, but am happy to do that on a different thread if you want.
I just created another thread on the Bible as a Communicative Act. If it gets approved then I am happy to engage there, but I would prefer this one to be a discussion around how YEC see the board, what they find helpful, what they are getting out of it etc.
I’d have to think on that one. It’s not my worldview.
Yes, accusations bother me as well. It’s not productive.
I think non-Christians especially but some Christians too have a hard time trying to adopt a YEC worldview and do not try to understand how that would affect how scientific data is synthesized (for lack of a better word). Scientists fit new information into quantum mechanics or cosmology by adjusting the model all the time. From what I see, YEC scientists do it, and it’s like they’re not actually allowed to change their minds or adjust to new data or they’re being hypocrites. It’s weird. I do tend to be judgmental, but sometimes from the other side here it’s on its own level. There’s not much respect. But I have to take the beam out of my own eye a lot, if I’m honest.
If a Christian says they have all the answers, they’re lying. Even as YEC up until a couple of months ago, I have no idea what the first few verses of Genesis were talking about. I was comfortable with that even though I had questions, until I decided to ask more questions. I have learned I can’t fear my questions. Ironically, I came to this forum because a Christian musician lost his faith because he feared the questions. I thought of that one day, wondered if he had done an interview, watched those with Sean McDowell, clicked on the one with Swamidass and here I am. Causality is weird when someone losing their faith led me to ask more questions and get more answers. In God’s providence, I’m grateful.
MODERATOR NOTE: We all use acronyms out of habit but they can sometimes be a mystery to readers, especially newcomers to this forum. I don’t know of an easy solution but it can be helpful if at least the first use of an acronym in a given thread is spelled out. Thus, to show an extreme example:
"When I was a OEC [Old Earth Creationist] reading articles at AIG [Answers in Genesis] and ENV [Evolution News & Views] . . . "
Questions are opportunities to learn and to grow, if properly managed. I have sometimes had to live with a bit of cognitive dissonance in my life which invariably gets resolved at some point.
I didn’t know that, that is interesting. I think I ended up here after seeing Genealogical Adam and Eve on Amazon and then stumbling across things on it on YouTube. I tend to hit periods of intense interest in things with only a few being stable across time. That was my “creation month”. Now it is just interesting to follow the occasional thread where it looks like something worthwhile is being introduced.
Yep, this is me too. Funnily enough, here is Jon Steingard again; I just saw he had done another interview. The problem of suffering is what made him lose his faith, so I’ll definitely have to watch this one. From the other ones I’ve seen so far, he’s likely to talk himself back into faith. It’s very interesting to me to watch this in public. It’s impressive that certain people are willing to be so open. Anyway, this is way off the original subject
My Experience as a Born again Bible believing person exposing the Hoax of Evolution has been bad. I got the typical Atheist sarcastic statements suggesting I was uneducated etc. That said, I have never had anyone debunk my points.
I will say there is a difference between YEC and my view. The age of the earth has nothing to do with the age of Life.
If you want my view it is that the same fish ferns foul foxes flying bugs and much more that are living today are in the fossil record, like jam on toast but the billions of intermediate species of things with developing legs, livers and eyes forming are all missing. There is such a drastic obvious flaw in the so called science it can only be considered garbage science. The fossil record debunks this Idea of Evolution.
Hey, good to see you and thanks for your thoughts.
Re the sarcasm and the dismissal of your education and views, the education one grates one me where it happens and is just a general comment. I think raising questions of educational level in an area that is being used to support a point is fair. When I used to be persuaded by ID I had read loads of books on it. That said, when trying to evaluate technical papers used to support the theory, and those sent in response I was just lost. It would have taken me years of study to just get to a point that I could do justice to that information.
On dismissing your views but never debunking, I have been largely channel lurking for a while here. It is a phenomena that fascinates me - certainty on both sides that a point has been debunked / not debunked respectively. I have seen some threads that I see as a complete and utter debunk of a view, and yet the proponent of that view digging in hard and denying there is any problem. Not suggesting that your views have had that happen to them as I haven’t read them, but I don’t know how we could better encourage changing of minds on issues across the board where it is needed.
So, here is my experience on the board watching some YEC arguments, and some Intelligent Design and a proposal as to why they are being met with frustration and dismissal. I am going to make some generalisations here, and relying on my experience as a former believer in ID.
These aren’t a direct criticism of any one post or poster, but hopefully something constructive that can help you get your views across.
I see a lot of arguments being posted here as assertions that they are a problem for a view. These are often posted as bare facts with no real question behind them of “how does this fit in”, or “is this understanding correct”. To me, these assertions come across as something that was read in a book, or perhaps even a number of books. As a casual on-looker these frustrate me as they don’t demonstrate evidence to the scientists here that the issues are properly understood beyond the level of a quote.
A lack of citation of evidence. I don’t believe people are generally stupid, and if they hold a position they may have heard many talks on the subject and read a lot of things that they cannot remember. They still have reasons for what they believe even if they can’t always cite it. That said, I can’t image how frustrating it must be for someone to have to deal with an objection to their view when no actual hard data is given which can be assessed.
I don’t think every post should have citations behind them, but unverifiable assertions or arguments based on them aren’t a good starting point. It will just cause hostility
Just reading a book on something doesn’t make you an expert, no matter how complex or well persuaded that book is. You are going to have to be aware that the people you are arguing against have also read many books, and for the professionals here, been exposed to a LOT more material with a much wider breadth. You aren’t just making a point that is in isolation when you make an argument, you can’t expect people to abandon views that they see supported in countless other ways. My point is that an argument can be made, it may even be a good argument, but unless it can tackle the mass of underlying reasons that that view is held, it isn’t a conclusive argument at all. Again, here is where citations from both sides would be helpful
Just because a source you cite supports your view, it doesn’t mean the source is correct. This obviously cuts both ways, but you have to be willing to discuss why the source you cite is relevant and why they are correct. If you cannot do that, you may come across as though you do not actually understand the issue - just that author’s presentation of the issue.
Technical terminology is technical and what is taught even at basic college (university here in the UK) level can be a simplification of the real issues. If you are using terminology, you have to be open to the possibility that you don’t fully understand that term or its implications. As an example from my area of interest - there is a too easy identification of the Greek article with the English definite article “the”. I have seen many arguments elsewhere on the internet that fail to take into account the mass of work that is done on how this “simple” word is used (even in English actually). These fail to take into account all of the data, rely on generalisations and basically frustrate the heck out of me. I get the feeling that some scientists here are feeling that way about some of the use of terminology
EDIT - just because a term is easily understandable in the English vernacular, don’t assume that scientists aren’t using it as a technical term, or with a different definition than in common usage. Even between theories in the things I am interested in, the same term or the same annotation can be used in different ways depending on the theory
If you want to persuade people, and this is across the board, try to not go after responses to too many posters. The threads get confusing and make it seem that you are ignoring arguments which is quite possibly because you don’t have time to hit all of the stuff coming at you. I would love to see you camp on your main point and develop it without it being pulled into 20 different directions. It would certainly help me understand your arguments better and have a better chance of accepting them
Unfortunately, for the most part I think it is the original poster who will have to choose the direction and what part to focus on. This is also frustrating as it doesn’t show that you have answers to all the side points raised. But hey, there can be a different thread to address that.
As I said, these are just provisional and incomplete thoughts, not intended as a criticism of any one post of poster. I am not addressing the fact that these same issues may be present in some posts and posters on the non YEC / ID side, myself included, that is a separate issue. My hope is that this can start a constructive dialogue on how to present an argument to the professionals on the board that won’t just result in frustration.
I would love your hear your comments, as a lurker on the board it would be great to see the dialogue improve.
Great thread. I comment here pretty infrequently, so it’s unsurprising I missed it the first time around.
I’ve been commenting here for something like 6-7 years. I came here mostly because of @swamidass ’ public critiques of Michael Behe, and I stayed for the epic arguments. I actually enjoy engaging people of different views, so that’s why I come. Early on, the moderation was horribly, unbelievably biased. Moderation has gotten much better and more fair, though I still think sometimes threads get locked early when the conversation goes the “wrong” way. But in general PS has done a great job genuinely trying to make moderation fair. But the improvement came too late for a lot of bigger names on the YEC/ID side who used to comment here more often.
I don’t know that I’ve really changed my mind on much because of this forum, other than clarifying the views of others for me. I came here largely after I made up my mind about such things, but I don’t think that’s different than most others. The purpose of engaging in argument with different points of view is to find errors in your own position and fix them. That’s why I come here. You’re going to have a problem if your goal is to persuade. Most people who will participate in any forum like this have already made up their minds and are beyond persuasion. Most of the value I get from the site is learning how to rhetorically present my position to a hostile audience. That is very helpful, because there are lots of people hostile to my position, lol.
I have used comments on this forum several times in papers I’ve written for my course of study at Biola University in the MA in Science and Religion program, particularly surrounding the Mere Theistic Evolution thesis. Also in regards to Josh’s debate with Behe, which I attended in person. I think it’s a good place to go to get some of the really serious, deep in the weeds, scientific arguments about some things in a way that is accessible to me as a layman.
Not sure how helpful I have been, but Josh did ask me to write an article for the site once, which I declined. I think it was a summary of Craig’s book discussion at ETS. I was writing up a critical review of the book for another site at the time, which is mostly why I declined. I’ve also had people here ask me for information on things before, since I am knowledgable about YEC. There are some points of agreement between YEC and some scientific materialists, particularly around biblical interpretation. YECs can generally agree with the scientific materialists that the Bible does say what it plainly appears to say. We only disagree on whether it is true or false.
