Creationists

On January 20 2011 03:58 Koldblooded wrote:
I'd say your just as stupid for trying to argue serious points on youtube.

On January 20 2011 03:58 kerpal wrote:
you're arguing on youtube? we argue religion on TL and it degenerates into name calling and ignorance within a page.. do you really think that youtube is a place where that kinda debate will ever happen?

certainly not without enforced audio-preview.

EDIT: damn, too slow with the XKCD reference

On January 20 2011 03:58 kerpal wrote:
you're arguing on youtube? we argue religion on TL and it degenerates into name calling and ignorance within a page.. do you really think that youtube is a place where that kinda debate will ever happen?

certainly not without enforced audio-preview.

EDIT: damn, too slow with the XKCD reference

On January 20 2011 03:59 Igakusei wrote:


Possibly. There actually are intelligent people on there, though.

On January 20 2011 04:01 Xenocide_Knight wrote:


lol the teamliquid religion threads..
gold, just pure gold

On January 20 2011 03:57 RelZo wrote:

Wear this on the streets and you'll be fine

Anyway, these you-tubers are absolutely fucking ignorant,

On January 20 2011 04:13 bITt.mAN wrote:


Isin't a pity that getting the other person's computer to yell at them what you've written is kinda hard. Why can't we just bust out the big-font-size, because all they end up being is a shout-fest

On January 20 2011 03:53 Igakusei wrote:
I've recently developed a bad habit of arguing with creationists in Youtube comments.

Although I was raised a young-Earth creationist, I never understood why people thought we were close-minded (I don't believe I was ever close-minded; just ignorant--as soon as I was presented with the counter-points to all the creationist rhetoric I had grown up with, I changed my mind). I felt like evolutionists were the ones that were close-minded, what with their refusal to consider the possibility that a creator could have done things. I never realized that there was powerful evidence and convincing arguments out there that demonstrated how silly young-Earth creationist models are, and exactly how "grasping at straws" most of their defenses are.

Anyway, these you-tubers are absolutely fucking ignorant, and my attempts to have a rational, enlightened, and logical conversation with them are consistently being met with ignorance, misinterpretation, arguments that went out of style in the 19th century, and worst of all, extreme condescension. I got up at 2:30 this morning to let my sick dogs outside, and read a comment that made me so frustrated I couldn't go back to sleep. So now I'm going to be relying on caffeine to get through P-Chem. This is unhealthy; I need to stop, but I just can't stand being talked down to by people who have absolutely no clue what they're talking about, and refuse to believe that they don't know everything.

Help me stop.

You do realize that like 90% of atheists are just as retarded as 90% of young earth creationists right?

Creationists (of any religion) must be the most ignorant people on earth. If you got any knowledge of natural sciences you'd know that you must reject ALL science in order to accept creationism.

On January 20 2011 04:26 419 wrote:


Believe me, I'm grinning quite widely as I read this. Darmousseh, you are a prophet.

(unless the latter post was written with some sense of irony, but I doubt it)

On January 20 2011 04:21 darmousseh wrote:
You do realize that like 90% of atheists are just as retarded as 90% of young earth creationists right?

On January 20 2011 04:21 darmousseh wrote:


You do realize that like 90% of atheists are just as retarded as 90% of young earth creationists right? If you want a logical debate then talk about it somewhere else, youtube chat is like walking into a hipster party and talking about mainstream anything.

The majority of christians (myself included) don't actually believe in young earth creationism and no church I have ever been too has included it in their list of what they believe and have never heard anyone talk about it in any message. The whole modern young earth belief system didn't even arise til much later in christian history. The simplest argument against it is talking about how we can see stars that are billions of light years away and that we are observing an event that happened billions of years ago. They might suggest something like "The speed of light was infinite" (which doesn't fix the problem) or "It's not actually billions of light years away" (which we can prove using physics) or "God makes it appear that way", but then ask why would God falsify history to support his creation? They will never be able to answer that question, no Christian I ever convinced has been able to and shouldn't be able to. Then also talk about the passage about how God carefully prepared his creation for people and the fact that it doesn't matter if God created us in 6 days or 6 billion years since to God, the passage of time is nothing and that the very first chapter of genesis is actually written in a poetic style unlike the rest of geneis and that the word "yom" actually means week, year, age, along with day and that in context, the word ordering is actually more likely to mean an age (or long period of time) rather than literal day. Here's a great pdf explaining the the understanding of the words and that a better translation should be "a second time" instead of "the second day" to fit the way that ancient hebrew is understood. http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/yom_with_number.pdf

Like I said, don't do this on youtube, no one has ever been convinced of anything they read in youtube comments. If you want a good discussion, find a physics major who is a christian (trust me there are plenty). They are more likely to have a good discussion than some random youtuber.

On January 20 2011 04:21 darmousseh wrote:


You do realize that like 90% of atheists are just as retarded as 90% of young earth creationists right? If you want a logical debate then talk about it somewhere else, youtube chat is like walking into a hipster party and talking about mainstream anything.

The majority of christians (myself included) don't actually believe in young earth creationism and no church I have ever been too has included it in their list of what they believe and have never heard anyone talk about it in any message. The whole modern young earth belief system didn't even arise til much later in christian history. The simplest argument against it is talking about how we can see stars that are billions of light years away ....

On January 20 2011 04:34 Igakusei wrote:


In the interest of full disclosure I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and young-Earth creationism is implicit in their theology. The seventh day of the week is held to be the literal sabbath of the creation week, and it is considered apostasy to change the holy day to Sunday or any other day. As you can see, destroying the creation week destroys one of their fundamental doctrines (it's in the name of the denomination, after all), and so people go to ridiculous lengths to validate their belief in a young Earth. The universe argument is easily dismissed by saying that the "sun moon and stars" section of Genesis 1 and 2 are only referring to our immediate celestial surroundings. Scientific truths that can be accepted with only minor theological adjustments are always welcome; the line is drawn when they cannot be accepted without destroying foundational doctrine.

On January 20 2011 04:32 McDonalds wrote:

Haha, I dunno man. Sounds kind of like you're saying that 90% of computer manuals are just as retarded as 90% of R. L. Stein books.

On January 20 2011 04:42 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


I don't think he necessarily talking about the truth of the groups beliefs (because knowledge equivalent to intelligence anyways), but more about human nature, so idk if that's the best analogy

On January 20 2011 04:34 Igakusei wrote: The seventh day of the week is held to be the literal sabbath of the creation week, and it is considered apostasy to change the holy day to Sunday or any other day.

On January 20 2011 04:46 PetitCrabe wrote:
Go on the Flat Earth Society forum for "intelligent" discussions. It's basically a bunch of pseudo-scientists VS a bunch of pseudo-scientists that believe the Earth is flat. Both sides have a lot of fallacies in their arguments and there are countless threads that go nowhere. Somethings they say on both sides come out from thin air.

I talked to my cousin a long time ago about the forum, and he laughed and said my friends are part of it. I said "WAIT! you have friends that believe the Earth is flat?" and he answered "Of course not, I thought it was well-known that they are a bunch of trolls..."

Honestly, when I was like 10-15 year old and started browsing the internet, I thought it was my duty to argue with everyone I thought were wrong. Now, I know better, it's a waste of time. Everyone on the internet will never change their minds. If you want a serious discussion about anything with someone, it is better to do in private. Arguments on the web are all governed by Godwin's Law anyways.

On January 20 2011 04:05 kerpal wrote:

hey, i made my first ever post in a religion thread (had just started learning BW and had nothing to contribute to the strat discussions, but felt i actually knew something about religion!)

yeah.. they tend to be pretty horrible, before my time, but hilarious when i stumbled on this:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=52109

On January 20 2011 04:34 Igakusei wrote:


In the interest of full disclosure I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and young-Earth creationism is implicit in their theology. The seventh day of the week is held to be the literal sabbath of the creation week, and it is considered apostasy to change the holy day to Sunday or any other day. As you can see, destroying the creation week destroys one of their fundamental doctrines (it's in the name of the denomination, after all), and so people go to ridiculous lengths to validate their belief in a young Earth. The universe argument is easily dismissed by saying that the "sun moon and stars" section of Genesis 1 and 2 are only referring to our immediate celestial surroundings. Scientific truths that can be accepted with only minor theological adjustments are always welcome; the line is drawn when they cannot be accepted without destroying foundational doctrine.

On January 20 2011 04:50 Yurie wrote:


Sunday IS the seventh day of the week. ^^

On January 20 2011 04:26 419 wrote:


Believe me, I'm grinning quite widely as I read this. Darmousseh, you are a prophet.

(unless the latter post was written with some sense of irony, but I doubt it)

On January 20 2011 04:46 McDonalds wrote:

I didn't really say anything about the truth of the beliefs. My original comment contrasted opera and crunkcore but I changed it because I thought people would react with bias about one being more worthwhile than the other without thinking about the reasons why that might be the case.

On January 20 2011 04:50 Yurie wrote:


Sunday IS the seventh day of the week. ^^

On January 20 2011 04:51 Valikyr wrote:


It's quite sad that you do not understand this but I've wasted enough time on people like you.

On January 20 2011 04:50 buhhy wrote:


LOL, I remember RebelHeart and his blogs... Man that discussion really gets my blood boiling...

Btw, to Christians, why can't Zeus be the god, or Odin, or Xenu, or spaghetti monster?

On January 20 2011 04:52 Igakusei wrote:


Hey, let's keep this civil! Can we go at least four pages before this gets closed?

On January 20 2011 04:32 McDonalds wrote:

Haha, I dunno man. Sounds kind of like you're saying that 90% of computer manuals are just as retarded as 90% of R. L. Stein books.

On January 20 2011 04:54 kerpal wrote:


because he just CANT! OK!
no seriously, there are reasons why it can't be xenu, odin, zeus or richard dawkin's magical unicorn, but this isn't that debate... yet
as always, pm me if you'd like to know.

On January 20 2011 04:52 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


your analogy of comparing fiction books to factual manuals really did though, unless the analogy was using some other angle I missed

On January 20 2011 04:21 darmousseh wrote:
You do realize that like 90% of atheists are just as retarded as 90% of young earth creationists right?

On January 20 2011 04:57 darmousseh wrote:


You speak the truth. Computer manuals are very retarded. I would know as a computer scientist.

In general, people have a defense mechanism to defend their belief system (atheists are human too) without considering the rationality of their arguments. Being objective is not a natural thing for human beings.

On January 20 2011 04:54 kerpal wrote:
LOL, I remember RebelHeart and his blogs... Man that discussion really gets my blood boiling...

On January 20 2011 04:54 kerpal wrote:


because he just CANT! OK!
no seriously, there are reasons why it can't be xenu, odin, zeus or richard dawkin's magical unicorn, but this isn't that debate... yet
as always, pm me if you'd like to know.

On January 20 2011 05:07 Tony Campolo wrote:


Believe it or not that was my old account here on TL... Embarrassingly.

On January 20 2011 05:06 Tony Campolo wrote:


I'm sorry but you lost me there. No I did not realise this. As far as I'm aware anyone who is an atheist is already far more intelligent than someone who believes in an arbitrary, intangible being.

Disclosure: I spent seven years of my life between the ages of 16 and 24 as a fundamentalist/Pentecostal Christian who read books by authors such as Lee Strobel and Charles Colson prolifically so am well aware of the Creationist perspective. I am now a 26 year old atheist.

On January 20 2011 04:59 niteReloaded wrote:
The sad thing is that the majority of intelligent people completely miss out on spirituality which once was what religion was all about.
If you dig deep, you can still find it in religion, but it's hard because even religious people nowadays don't understand what their religion was originally about.

In general, people have a defense mechanism to defend their belief system (atheists are human too) without considering the rationality of their arguments. Being objective is not a natural thing for human beings.

On January 20 2011 05:19 Chef wrote:

Is it okay for me to think it's ironic when someone trying to paint themselves as insightful starts using Freudian psychology? Even getting beyond this 'defence mechanism' silliness, even just using the word 'natural' like that is offensive. What do you know about what's 'natural' for human beings? Perhaps, maybe, some people just don't want to believe random crap they're told over the internet, regardless of how much proof either side claims to have (but of course can't call upon due to the limitations of online debate).

There are some topics which can be argued legitimately over the internet. There are many which cannot. When you take a really broad, general topic like 'SCIENCE' or 'RELIGION' you invite yourself to an argument which cannot end. I mean, think about if you wrote an essay on 'SCIENCE' or 'RELIGION.' It'd be about 50 million pages long. That's why you're supposed to narrow down your thesis to something that is specific enough for you to do it justice within the constraints of your medium.

On January 20 2011 05:23 ninazerg wrote:
No matter how rational you and your evidence may be, you can't have a rational discussion with anyone about a controversial topic unless you've set it as a pre-condition for your discussion prior to the discussion taking place.

If you just have a spontaneous discussion with a stranger, and you feel heavily mentally invested in that argument, you have to understand that they are also feel the same way about the argument. It then becomes more of a battle of personalities, because both of you want to convince a hypothetical third party that you can present a strong and crushing argument against the opposing party.

If you don't set any pre-conditions for any kind of debate, then it could conceivably go on forever, or until one person just gets so angry that they simply break down and can't continue. You should never count on your opponent breaking first; they are soulless, godless trolling machines sent from Hell, and never run low on coffee or food. They don't take bathroom breaks and aren't persuaded by logic. They only use their own one logic: That you are wrong and they are right.

There's only one thing you should do, then, if you consider yourself to be a sane, rational human being. If you know you're right, then you need to stock up on coffee and canned goods, because you're going to be in an argument for several decades until your opponent dies off from a cancerous brain tumor, or just accept that your debate isn't really that significant in the grand scheme of things, because it won't change anything on the national scale even if you totally and completely crush your opponent and they renounce their beliefs, and also, realize that your debate isn't contributing to the well-being of your life. You may actually be proud and happy with yourself that you just let it go, and in any case, you at least won't need to spend any time being angry about some unimportant person you've never met.

On January 20 2011 05:19 Chef wrote:

Is it okay for me to think it's ironic when someone trying to paint themselves as insightful starts using Freudian psychology? Even getting beyond this 'defence mechanism' silliness, even just using the word 'natural' like that is offensive. What do you know about what's 'natural' for human beings? Perhaps, maybe, some people just don't want to believe random crap they're told over the internet, regardless of how much proof either side claims to have (but of course can't call upon due to the limitations of online debate).

There are some topics which can be argued legitimately over the internet. There are many which cannot. When you take a really broad, general topic like 'SCIENCE' or 'RELIGION' you invite yourself to an argument which cannot end. I mean, think about if you wrote an essay on 'SCIENCE' or 'RELIGION.' It'd be about 50 million pages long. That's why you're supposed to narrow down your thesis to something that is specific enough for you to do it justice within the constraints of your medium.

On January 20 2011 05:28 VonLego wrote:
The ignorant screaming Christian cliche is actually not what Christianity is about anyways, so please don't paint with broad brush stokes. Be a better person than the ignorant folks who make your blood boil.

Also very few Christians actually believe in creationism, but I fail to see where disproof of creationism is a disproof of God. To sum up my concern: Where did the monkey come from?

On January 20 2011 05:35 Haemonculus wrote:

Imho, it's less skepticism of "a" god, and more skepticism that it's "the" god Christians describe.

Doesn't it seem a tad arrogant to so assuredly attribute your own beliefs to the divine? I mean, less than a third of the world's population can be described as "Christian", and even within such a group there are disagreements. To be so very sure that *you* are right, and those other 5 billion people are wrong just strikes me as absolutely absurd.

On January 20 2011 05:50 PrincessLeila wrote:
You can't objectively prove anything unless it's pure Maths, and pure Maths says nothing about God, humanity, creation of the universe... Sometimes I just *know* I'm right, but looking deep inside me, i see that i'm arguing based on subjective values.

Yeah, that's depressing, i know
That's why many people find some help in religion to answer these existential questions. True science can't (and shouldn't try to) answer these existential questions.

And my English sucks...

On January 20 2011 05:55 kerpal wrote:

yeah, your english is terrible, your highness. i've never heard of half those words!
you're right about math/science etc. people keep asking me how i can be a christian if i study physics. i think more of the physicists i meet are christian than the theology students.

EDIT, although your english is actually wonderful, i realise that sometimes i'm overly sarcastic, sorry if anyone misunderstood.

On January 20 2011 06:12 PrincessLeila wrote:


Yeah, I don't know the right English terms for "objective"/"subjective", "existential questions", "values"... It's franglish

On January 20 2011 05:44 kerpal wrote:

well that's a very democratic way of doing things... i'd assume you are a muslim then? they're the largest single group (as i don't think catholics and protestants can really be put in the same category - it's just not safe!)

whatever you believe there are people who believe differently, if you take that stance for all religions then you're saying that they're all wrong, which is saying that everyone who is religious in the world is wrong, which goes round in a circle again.

by your logic atheism is probably the worst position.

On January 20 2011 06:22 kerpal wrote:

you should hear my french. i don't know french for any of those.

On January 20 2011 09:15 Tony Campolo wrote:
I forgot to add... The quote should more appropriately be applied to Creationists. For those who don't believe in evolution - no proof will suffice. My offer still stands that if any Creationists would like an e-book copy of Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth (his latest book on evolution) feel free to PM me your e-mail address. In my experience though, Christians will rarely read anything on science that is not written by a Christian author (who usually has no scientific background). The same applies for when trying to argue against other religions - they are quick to state that they know what other religions (such as Buddhism or Islam) believe and why they're wrong, all whilst never having read a single book by their adherents' authors - instead prefering to rely on the word of Christian authors writing on such topics.

On January 20 2011 09:42 Haemonculus wrote:

I'm torn on Dawkins.

I agree with a lot of what he says, but I detest the way he says it. He just comes off as an asshole most of the time. Not much better than some of the crazy religious folks who insult atheists and such.

On January 20 2011 05:30 Igakusei wrote:


I'm curious, as my formal education is psychology is extremely lacking. I started taking an intro-to-psych course back in 2002, but dropped out for unrelated reasons. I do remember Freud still being a significant portion of the course, though. What is your opinion on him, and why is anyone who ascribes to his view of psychology automatically silly and un-insightful? Isn't his career still considered the beginning of modern psychology?