Why won’t creationists participate in open and honest debate?

[Edx]

A small comment on this: the whole water as fuel thing is ridiculous, to say the least. Water is not a fuel source. What this guy appears to be doing is using electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide, then reacting the two to reform water. Hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide do indeed make water, and will release energy in doing so, but you don't gain back as much energy as you put in originally.

Why does that really matter though? Would we eventually run out of water?

 

[Ondoher]

Why does that really matter though? Would we eventually run out of water?

Since you need more energy than you gain, where does that extra energy come from? The burning of fossil fuels. In the end, you're just using hydrogen as a battery. And not a very efficient one.

 

[Morcova]

....

This thread is messing with my mind... well atleast the derailing of this thread....

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars


Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please?
If I open my door
In cars


Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars

 

[Aron-Ra]

....

This thread is messing with my mind... well atleast the derailing of this thread....

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars


Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please?
If I open my door
In cars


Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars

Damn! Now I've got this stuck in my head again.

 

[Nomad2112]

No human was alive at the moment the Universe came into existance.

Now you can choose to believe one of two mutually exclusive explanations:

1) It came into existance all by itelf, creating itself from an absolute void containing nothing at all.

2) God, who exists outside space-time as we know it ( this is obvious seeing as He would have to, by default, existed PRIOR to the creation of the Universe and is therefore outside of it) created it.

Both require faith, even the "scientifically accepted" notions must admit that they have no idea what happened in the very first billionths of a second the Universe existed.

Add to this the fact that evidences offered by each side are not accepted by the other as being valid, and you have a recipe for a dispute that only the deaths of those involved will settle once and for all, because then they will find out for certain whether or not God exists.

But for me, Option #2 above makes the most sense. Just as a huse cannot build itself, neither can the Universe bring itself into being from nothingness.

You don't have to agree with me, but remember that puts the onus on you to prove my position wrong, and I really do not believe that can be done.

However, please fell free to try.

 

[Tomk80]

No human was alive at the moment the Universe came into existance.

Now you can choose to believe one of two mutually exclusive explanations:

1) It came into existance all by itelf, creating itself from an absolute void containing nothing at all.

2) God, who exists outside space-time as we know it ( this is obvious seeing as He would have to, by default, existed PRIOR to the creation of the Universe and is therefore outside of it) created it.

Why would this be obvious? If God can exist outside of space and time, why can't branes exist outside of space and time and give rise to our universe as it is, as has been theorized by a number of astronomists? What's the use of adding a god to this?

Both require faith, even the "scientifically accepted" notions must admit that they have no idea what happened in the very first billionths of a second the Universe existed.

So what? That we don't know what happened prior to those billionths of a second doesn't mean we haven't got a clear idea on what happened after that. What we don't know doesn't invalidate what we do know.

Add to this the fact that evidences offered by each side are not accepted by the other as being valid, and you have a recipe for a dispute that only the deaths of those involved will settle once and for all, because then they will find out for certain whether or not God exists.

But for me, Option #2 above makes the most sense. Just as a huse cannot build itself, neither can the Universe bring itself into being from nothingness.

How is that relevant to teaching the theory of evolution?

You don't have to agree with me, but remember that puts the onus on you to prove my position wrong, and I really do not believe that can be done.

However, please fell free to try.

Why would I have to prove you wrong? Do you feel the need to prove me wrong when I tell you about the 2 meter tall, invisible pink unicorn in my 1.5 meter tall closet? It seems obvious that, since you are the one claiming God exists, you should also provide the evidence in favor of that claim? Why should I believe you if you have no evidence?

 

[Chalnoth]

No, they don't both require faith, because the first can be supported by evidence. By proposing a scientific theory of how the universe may have begun, you can draw predictions that must fit or the scientific theory is false. This is what people working in the field of cosmology are doing today, and we have mapped the universe back to when it was only about 10^-30 meters in size. We are currently working out ways of finding more about this early universe through future experiments, as well as theoretical models that might be testable in the future.

And, by the way, we see things occurring spontaneously all the time when we look at the world of the very small. Quantum mechanics describes how this is possible.

 

[Aron-Ra]

No human was alive at the moment the Universe came into existance.

Now you can choose to believe one of two mutually exclusive explanations:

Only two?

1) It came into existance all by itelf, creating itself from an absolute void containing nothing at all.

2) God, who exists outside space-time as we know it ( this is obvious seeing as He would have to, by default, existed PRIOR to the creation of the Universe and is therefore outside of it) created it.

What about all the other options? I mean, if we can make up magic invisible ghosts chanting magic words to "abra-cadabera" everything out of nothing, then why would we imagine only one of them? All the oldest myths involve a whole pantheon of them. Another perspective holds that existence itself is merely an illusion, the dream of a sleeping god, as it were, everything being spawned in the mind of Brahma who awakens every 4.32 billion years. Or maybe the universe was created by a god, but it was Lord Krishna, rather than your god. Or it all sprung from the cosmic collision of the yin and yang, the forces of opposition detailed in the Tao te Ching. So many options.

Both require faith,

No they don't. Faith is only required by those who decide in advance what they're going to believe, and who also decide in advance never to let anything change their minds about that no matter what. Both are the very opposite of the scientific perspective.

even the "scientifically accepted" notions must admit that they have no idea what happened in the very first billionths of a second the Universe existed.

True enough. But that admission also proves that no faith is involved.

Add to this the fact that evidences offered by each side are not accepted by the other as being valid,

Because one group believes only tentatively, and only as according to what is rationally-supported by evidence and logic, while the other denies reason itself in order to preserve the mythos of magic.

and you have a recipe for a dispute that only the deaths of those involved will settle once and for all, because then they will find out for certain whether or not God exists.

No, not even then. When you and I die, neither of us will 'know' anything anymore or ever again.

But for me, Option #2 above makes the most sense. Just as a huse cannot build itself, neither can the Universe bring itself into being from nothingness.

Houses cannot reproduce themselves, that's true. But living things can, and can't be built.

You don't have to agree with me, but remember that puts the onus on you to prove my position wrong, and I really do not believe that can be done.

However, please fell free to try.

Actually, we propose evolution, and we can prove it any number of ways. You're propose that it was all done by magic instead, and making positive claims puts the "onus" on you to back them up.

 

[Nomad2112]

"So what? That we don't know what happened prior to those billionths of a second doesn't mean we haven't got a clear idea on what happened after that. What we don't know doesn't invalidate what we do know."

Actually, it does. All scientific knowledge builds on what was discovered before, and more importantly, on how those discoveries were interpreted. World view is everything.

"How is that relevant to teaching the theory of evolution?"

You cannot "evolve" if you do not have a Universe to exist in. I should have thought that was obvious.

And seeing as your entire point appears to hinge on whether or not there is a God to do the creating, I thought I'd cut out the fluff and get to the real heart of the matter as I see it:

Does God exist?

Creationism is not only about life on Earth, it's about the entire nature and origin of the Universe.

Evolution is only the most convienient battlefield, not necessarily the best one.

 

[Aron-Ra]

I thought I'd cut out the fluff and get to the real heart of the matter as I see it:

Does God exist?

Then you missed the point! Most Christians are evolutionists and most evolutionists are Christians, including many of the really famous ones. One of the world's leading paleontologists is even a Pentacostal preacher! So no, whether God exists or not isn't even relevant to the discussion of evolution.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

No human was alive at the moment the Universe came into existance.

Just to play devil's advocate: it is possible that an organism that fits all requirements to be human, existed prior to our universe existing.

Now you can choose to believe one of two mutually exclusive explanations:

1) It came into existance all by itelf, creating itself from an absolute void containing nothing at all.

2) God, who exists outside space-time as we know it ( this is obvious seeing as He would have to, by default, existed PRIOR to the creation of the Universe and is therefore outside of it) created it.

Why are these mutually exclusive?
The options I would give are:

1. The spacetime continuum began expanding from a singularity ex nihilo
2. The spacetime continuum began expanding from a singularity ex deus
3. The spacetime continuum never began expanding; instead, the temporal dimension is cyclical, with the Big Crunch causing it's own Big Bang.
4. The spacetime continuum does not exist. Our sensory input is fabricated, our reality an illusion.

I could go on.

Both require faith, even the "scientifically accepted" notions must admit that they have no idea what happened in the very first billionths of a second the Universe existed.

This does not constitute faith. Faith is believing in something for no rational reason. Scientific assumption is not make-believing something in the place of the unknown (i.e., Science does not put a deity in wherever it lacks understand; it simply says 'we don't know', and moves on). This is different to faith.

Add to this the fact that evidences offered by each side are not accepted by the other as being valid, and you have a recipe for a dispute that only the deaths of those involved will settle once and for all, because then they will find out for certain whether or not God exists.

Arguable. If you go to the traditional Christian interpritation of hell, then you would never, by definition, experiance the only god, and thus would not know.
Besides, Creationism has offered no evidence that has stood up to falsification. Without evidence, Creationism is nothing more than a fanciful idea.

But for me, Option #2 above makes the most sense. Just as a huse cannot build itself, neither can the Universe bring itself into being from nothingness.

Actually, a house already exists before it is built. Likewise, the universe may, in fact, come from a previous Big Crunch.
Also, creation ex nihilo has been observed in things such as the Casmir effect, Hawking radiation, and Quantum Foam.

You don't have to agree with me, but remember that puts the onus on you to prove my position wrong, and I really do not believe that can be done.

On the contrary, you merely say that 'Creation ex deus makes more sense to me' without justifying this blatent violation of Occam's Razor. Since there is no evidence that a creator god was involved, there is no reason to invoke one into your belief system, nor into the scientific mainstream.

 

[Chalnoth]

The options I would give are:

1. The spacetime continuum began expanding from a singularity ex nihilo
2. The spacetime continuum began expanding from a singularity ex deus
3. The spacetime continuum never began expanding; instead, the temporal dimension is cyclical, with the Big Crunch causing it's own Big Bang.
4. The spacetime continuum does not exist. Our sensory input is fabricated, our reality an illusion.

Don't forget this one!
5. Spacetime has always been expanding.

 

[MarkT]

- straight over to front wheel drive plastic composite bodies with iron-based front-mounted water-cooled fuel injected engines which can only run on unleaded fuels and sink like stones in water. Just in that one lineage alone, there still can be no nested heirarchy!

We're interested in the frame. According to the definition, if it has a steel frame, it is a car. You wouldn't create a subgroup for a black moth would you? Well, plastic bodies and fuel injectors are just alternatives of existing traits.

VW makes cars and what you described is a car by definition.

You can group some cars into the protocar category; cars without internal combustion engines. That would include steam driven cars. And you can group cars that have an internal combustion engine into the true car category; much like true birds. Electric cars and solar powered cars are recent ideas and they would go into the experimental car category.

You could create a nested hierarchy if you wanted to. But you don't want to. You could group 18 wheelers and buses into a subcategory of car; those with more than 4 wheels.

Only one thing is clear. Once you define a car, everything else is unimportant. Differences like CD players and fuel injection are just 'coat coloring'.

 

[bobhope]

No, Mark, that's not true.

 

[Aron-Ra]

We're interested in the frame. According to the definition, if it has a steel frame, it is a car.

Then some Volkswagen Beetles aren't cars after all. Some of the earliest cars had wooden frames. Some of the newer ones don't have steel frames anymore either. No sir, you can't define a car by whether it has a steel frame.

You wouldn't create a subgroup for a black moth would you? Well, plastic bodies and fuel injectors are just alternatives of existing traits.

But those alternatives are what a nested heirarchy would be based on, and they don't apply in this case because they can appear and disappear on any model in any year.

VW makes cars and what you described is a car by definition.

Not all Volkswagens have/had steel frames.

You can group some cars into the protocar category; cars without internal combustion engines. That would include steam driven cars. And you can group cars that have an internal combustion engine into the true car category; much like true birds. Electric cars and solar powered cars are recent ideas and they would go into the experimental car category.

The Stanley Steamer was no "protocar". It held the land speed endurance record for sixty years until it was finally broken by the Corvette ZR1 in 1989.

Notice the gas lights? You said cars had to have electric lights. Cars that are all electric aren't either "proto-cars" or recent ideas either. However you slice it, you can't use "internal combustion" in your definition. There are also jet and rocket cars, and these are still cars. A car must be defined as a transport carriage because "car" is derived from "carriage". What kind they're made of or what kind of propulsion they use isn't important. Are these cars?

Does it need wheels, internal combustion, or steel to be a car? What about train cars and trolley cars?

You could create a nested hierarchy if you wanted to. But you don't want to. You could group 18 wheelers and buses into a subcategory of car; those with more than 4 wheels.

If you think it could be done, then do it. Only then will you realize how impossible that is.

Only one thing is clear. Once you define a car, everything else is unimportant. Differences like CD players and fuel injection are just 'coat coloring'.

No, as you'll see if you actually try to do this, they matter a great deal.