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Post by Catlover on Mar 14, 2005 14:33:36 GMT -5
Hi all, I was reading this last night:- secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_21_4.htmlGet this paragraph:- "Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand." So what Kurt Wise (unfortunate surname) is saying is that even if all the evidence suggests that Scripture is wrong, he will "still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence." I find that rather sad. A scientist who would rather believe words in a very poorly written book over scientific evidence and dare I say it, proof. In the words of Richard Dawkins "it could mean that we are completely wasting our time arguing the case and presenting the evidence for evolution." What are your views on this? Catlover.
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Post by solidsquid on Mar 14, 2005 15:07:45 GMT -5
Textbook example of cognitive dissonance at work.
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Filter
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An opposing thumb has made all the difference!!
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Post by Filter on Mar 14, 2005 20:01:06 GMT -5
Textbook example of cognitive dissonance at work. I love that term. Wikipedia: A person in a state of cognitive dissonance will then seek consonance. There are various ways to achieve this. However, changing a cognition gives some discomfort: one has to reflect and admit to oneself that one has had a wrong cognition.
I was never a creationist, but I can tell you as one who was raised in the church, achieving consonace may indeed cause some discomfort. But it's worth it!
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Post by Dragon*of*Heaven on Mar 14, 2005 23:07:41 GMT -5
I must answer this with a quote from one of my favorit authers a Mr Terry Goodkind wrote: People are stupid, they will be live any thing as long as they ither want to belive it or fear it is true." Also another quote comes to mind in light of this Contradiction To Reason. A contradiction cannot exist in reality. Not in part or in whole. TO believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belife in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random random impulse that strikes your fancy_ to imagin something is real simply because you wish it were.
( ill skipp some diologe and move to more of the meat of the point)
Faith is a device of self-delusion, a slight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.
By the same token miss (or Mrs, Mr) Cat lover this Mr Kurt Wise is addmiting, much to his stupidity, that if lightning strikes he would rather belive that it is zuse on a tantrum instead of negitive and positive electricity meeting. Which has been proven by the way.
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Post by Mistwalker on Mar 22, 2005 4:51:33 GMT -5
It's simple. He rejects objective reality for the comfort of his fantasies. All christians do this, he's just honest about it.
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SSS
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Post by SSS on Mar 22, 2005 8:43:13 GMT -5
It's simple. He rejects objective reality for the comfort of his fantasies. All christians do this, he's just honest about it. Yeah, I showed my Christian roommate the thread and asked her what she would do. She refused to even aknowledge the hypothetical scenario of strong evidence coming along to prove creationism wrong.
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Post by solidsquid on Mar 22, 2005 10:15:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I showed my Christian roommate the thread and asked her what she would do. She refused to even aknowledge the hypothetical scenario of strong evidence coming along to prove creationism wrong. That's extremely sad.
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Post by Mistwalker on Mar 24, 2005 4:13:22 GMT -5
The delusion christians have is very comforting. They get eternal life in a wonderful place beyond all desription. It's a big scary leap from there to reality. I understand why they cling to their beliefs, despite the evidence.
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Post by Dragon*of*Heaven on Mar 28, 2005 23:51:22 GMT -5
what you say is true mistwalker but as responcible adults isnt it our responsibility to seek the truth and accept it as truth even though it hurts. I mean you cannot blame people who did not know any better it helped them to go on, but when shown the truth clinging to thought less faith is childish is it not? I mean I dont think that I want people running the world who cannot see and accept the thought that when you die your body turns to ash and is recycled into the earth or any other place you happen to be on.
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Post by william on Apr 5, 2005 3:59:52 GMT -5
I loaned my book of quotes, of evolutionists admitting their failure to prove much of anything to an atheist. He never gave it back. All atheists are comforted by the false beleif that all Christians have blind faithand are not willing to examine the evidence for evolution and an old earth.
Well sorry to spoil your cognative disconuts, but I dont beleive in blind faith and the Bible doesnt require that I do. so lets hear that evidence!
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Post by william on Apr 5, 2005 4:02:57 GMT -5
it should be considerd that many Christians,including myself have had what we consider to be miricles happen in our own lives which might have to be adressed befor they are going to abandon their faith.
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Post by Enuffalready on Apr 5, 2005 5:21:24 GMT -5
it should be considerd that many Christians,including myself have had what we consider to be miricles happen in our own lives which might have to be adressed befor they are going to abandon their faith. I think that it has been considered. Miracles are always in the eye of the beholder. I have seen many cases where people claim miracles without giving any credit to the contributing factors here on earth. Many great medical teams have taken a back seat after the patient they worked so hard to cure says it was a "miracle from god." The point I am making is that you can call anything you want a miracle and it still can fall right into the category of dellusion.
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Post by solidsquid on Apr 5, 2005 11:01:51 GMT -5
I loaned my book of quotes, of evolutionists admitting their failure to prove much of anything to an atheist. He never gave it back. All atheists are comforted by the false beleif that all Christians have blind faithand are not willing to examine the evidence for evolution and an old earth. Well sorry to spoil your cognative disconuts, but I dont beleive in blind faith and the Bible doesnt require that I do. so lets hear that evidence! It's cognitive dissonance theory and it holds that there will be dissonance if there is something contrary to what a person already believes. This dissonance must be reduced so behaviors for reduction ensue. In the case I referred to, the individual claimed that there is no evidence for an old earth yet claims they would change their mind if there were. I've also seen many quotes from "evolutionists" that seem to imply a rejection of the theory. Pretty much all I have seen have been quote mines.
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Post by william on Apr 5, 2005 15:10:12 GMT -5
It's cognitive dissonance theory and it holds that there will be dissonance if there is something contrary to what a person already believes. This dissonance must be reduced so behaviors for reduction ensue. In the case I referred to, the individual claimed that there is no evidence for an old earth yet claims they would change their mind if there were. I've also seen many quotes from "evolutionists" that seem to imply a rejection of the theory. Pretty much all I have seen have been quote mines. Even as a beleiver, I frequently see things called miricals that I would ascribe to natural causes. I will give you the oprotunity to debunk my personal mirricle latter, I suppose you might say it was a psyycotic eppisode combined with one hell of a coincidence, that left me with quite an impression. but I hope you could atleast imagine how it might have effected even a reasonably rational person.
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Post by justn7 on Apr 12, 2005 22:34:42 GMT -5
I can see where that quote would look kind of dumb. What he is saying here, though is that Scripture for him is the ultimate authority of truth. He also says "if" all scientific evidence were against creationism, he would still believe in it. I agree - this is not a smart statement. Because the universe (uni - single, verse - spoken sentence; opposite of prose which is written sentence) was spoken into existence by God, all scientific evidence does point toward creation and an age of approximately 6,000 years.
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