Which is worse?

_{January 9, 2012

Intelligent Design}

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Who makes the greater error, he/she who wrongly believes that the world is only 6-10 thousand years old, or he/she who wrongly believes the world is just an accident of physics and chemistry?

Comments

Champignon, Pardon me for asking what you think is an ignorant question. What is the positive evidence that the world is just an accident of physics and chemistry? I am not asking for evidence that evolution is true, for there are many people believe that the world is not an accident of physics and chemistry, but that evolution is true. The way you stated your answer, for you to be right, there must be overwhelming evidence that the world is just an accident of P & C. The truth is there is not much. On the contrary, there is overwhelming evidence - fine tuning of the constants, human consciousness, the observation that many of nature's denizens appear designed, human language, universal morality, etc. that the world has some design to it. This evidence is so overwhelming that well meaning materialists essentially admit it. To justify their materialism they invoke the myth of the multiverse - the generation of many, many, universes of which ours is just one. These materialists, by raising their preposterous theory, in a sense admit that if we just rely on the observable ( what science is supposed to do ), than the design hypothesis is incontrovertible. So they must invent an infinite number of unobservable, undetectable, unfalsifiable ( i.e. unscientific ) things to preserve what is essentially an unscientific faith statement that the world is just an accident of P & C. So even using your criterion ( worse = least reasonable given the evidence ) my opinion is you lose. Using other criterion of worse ( e.g. worse = which position has been exploited for the most mass evil ) you lose by even more.JDH_{January 10, 2012
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The caricature of YEC's doesn't fit. Actually materialism's religious devotion to a certain age for the universe far exceeds the YEC, it is a first principle and no contradicting, inconsistent or missing evidence - which is legion - will ever affect it. Far more evidence is consistent with a young universe and in both cases there is no direct observation of the past! Such is forensic science and it comes with assumptions and interpretations. Ms Liddle's tired, worn out, low brow hack at Christianity is sad. I claim that were the God of the bible here on earth for all to see we would still stiffen our necks and want to do as we see fit. Not an elephant in the room, but a whole universe in the room! Shouting of the Creator. All of us, but particularly the materialist, do not want to be accountable to a higher authority for our own actions.butifnot_{January 10, 2012
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Solar system formation is up in the air right now, with the evidence of different classes of exoplanets throwing the theories into various cocked hats.
No, it was "up in the air" when they tossed it out the window. Surely it must have landed by now. ;)Joe_{January 10, 2012
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OK as long as you understand there are YECs that accept an old universe- see Dr Humphreys' "Starlight and Time"- a relativity-based Creation model.Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Joe: By "the world" I meant the universe, but used that term because it is more reminiscent of the abundance of life around us. Among other things, the necessarily extreme complexity and stunning design evident in living things (there is no "simple life") shows that our existence is intentional, not accidental.Gage_{January 10, 2012
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Dr Liddle: Solar system formation is up in the air right now, with the evidence of different classes of exoplanets throwing the theories into various cocked hats. The medium scale planets in tight orbits just don't fit in with the already patched solar system formation models. More from that nature article:
Guided by the example of our own Solar System, with its distinct sets of large and small worlds, early planet-formation models were based on the notion of ‘core accretion’. Dust swirling around a star in a protoplanetary disk can aggregate into small planetesimals of rock and ice, which collide and stick together. The inner part of the disk contains too little material for these cores to grow much bigger than Earth. But farther out, they can attain ten Earth masses or more, enough to attract a vast volume of gas and become Jupiter-like. The detection, starting in 1995, of Jupiter-sized planets with orbits as short as a few Earth days contradicted these models. The theorists revised their models to allow these ‘hot Jupiters’ to form far from their star and then migrate in. Yet these models predicted that anything reaching super-Earth size should either become a gas giant or be swallowed by its star, creating a ‘planetary desert’ in this size range. Kepler’s discoveries wreck those predictions.
And there are those big boys in eccentric orbits, and there is the issue of planetary expulsions, etc etc etc. Great observations, the theoreticians have some big catch up to do. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{January 10, 2012
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Following your logic through, Elizabeth (though it is, of course, a pastiche of what Genesis 3 teaches), experiencing punishment for taking on moral decision-making is going to make people very careful in the moral judgements they subsequently make.
Well, only if they link the punishment to the offence. That's not going to work if the punishment is visited on descendents of the original offenders.
Unlike the other group, there is very little likelihood of their formulating the concept “world an accident -> morality meaningless”. That might (conceivably) lead in the long term to fairly non-destructive results like the rule of law, just political structures, moral consensus, charitable actions, personal integrity and so on.
It might. It might also, and does, lead to genocide, terrorism, bigotry, and torture. It runs the danger of reducing morality to "what my good book says, never mind what your good book says" rather than the development of ethical structures based on the maximising the welfare of society as a whole.
Conversely, the other position might even (I know it’s far fetched) lead to destructive consequences like – I don’t know, since it’s so hypothetical – justice subordinated to the interests of individual groups, state absolutism, eugenics, dysfunctional social order, or destructive personal lifestyles.
And yet it doesn't seem to, any more (and possibly less) than religious positions do. And there is no reason why it should.
Since the “accidental” view has only been prominent for a century or two, perhaps there hasn’t been time for any consequences, good or bad, to occur. Or perhaps there has.
Possibly because no-one who holds the view that you characterise as "accidental" actually thinks of it as such. Nobody I know thinks that life came about "accidentally" but rather as the result of an awesome cascade of natural processes, to which we owe both the joys and the miseries of our existence. And a moral sense in are capable of desiring to maximise everyone's joys and minimise everyone's miseries.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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For what it is worth, I hope you are right...Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Erratum: "But then I don’t believe that God exists." Should have read: "But then I don't believe that that god exists."Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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Data?: Case in point Super-Earths give theorists a super headache: An abundance of medium-sized worlds is challenging planet-formation models-
By now, it’s not surprising that NASA’s Kepler space telescope is turning up extrasolar planets by the bushel. Last week, at the first Kepler science conference at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, mission scientists announced that the space telescope has identified 2,326 candidate planets, nearly doubling its haul since February. But what has puzzled observers and theorists so far is the high proportion of planets — roughly one-third to one-half — that are bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. These ‘super-Earths’ are emerging as a new category of planet — and they could be the most numerous of all (see ‘Super-Earths rising’). Their very existence upsets conventional models of planetary formation and, furthermore, most of them are in tight orbits around their host star, precisely where the modellers say they shouldn’t be.
Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Except there isn't any data to support the claim that the earth formed acidentally by multiple thousands of cosmic collisions.Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Yes, it can. You forgot about data.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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Yup, question-begging. And if we don't know how the earth was formed then it can't be "informed guesswork".Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Yes. All science is, essentially, guesswork. However, it is informed guesswork, and each time we find we have guessed right, that gives us clues as to what our next guess should be.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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Liz said: “Evolutionary theory and the standard models regarding the age of the earth and the universe have vast amounts of evidence to support them, and are also perfectly compatible with non-nihilist philosophies.” Liz, what non-nihilist philosophies are you referring to. Also, which of those non-nihilist philosophies do you hold to?
A philosophy that says that stuff is worth doing.
Liz said: “YEC on the other hand is directly infirmed by evidence, and requires its holders to worship a creator god who sought to prevent his creatures from acquiring a moral knowledge, then punished them and all their descendents when they disobeyed.” Liz, I am concerned about the way you are distorting who God is.
I'm not distorting how YECs interpret Genesis. It makes for unsupported science and bad theology IMO.
Let me get this straight. God, in love, carefully created a perfect place for Adam & Eve to live, provided a perfect partner for them to live with, provided all they needed, abundantly more than they needed to enjoy life there, and even entered into a relationship with them and met the needs of their hearts and still that wasn’t enough? Because of God’s goodness and grace, they had no unmet needs whatsoever, and in spite of that you are accusing Him of something evil?! You think He should not have tried to prevent them from sinning. You think He should have given them no moral guidance.
He didn't give them moral guidance in that story. In fact, he insisted that they remain amoral (without knowledge of good and evil). He didn't tell them to be good, he told them to obey. Those two things are not the same.
You think He shouldn’t have tried to stop them from bringing a curse upon themselves and the world they lived in. It seems like to you, God was the one who was in the wrong here. Ma’am, I think you have bought the lie of the Evil One just like Eve did.
Well, I don't think the story is literally true, but if it were, then obviously he shouldn't have cursed them. He's supposed to be omnipotent, right? So yes, I think that story is very unflattering to God, and does paint him as rather evil. But then I don't believe that God exists.
It also seems you have a very negative view of worship.
No, I have a positive view of worshiping what is worth worshipping. I think worshipping something evil is bad, though. And worshipping the idol painted as a Creator in Genesis I think is pretty bad. I wouldn't worship a deity who forbade his creatures to acquire knowledge of the difference between right from wrong and then cursed them when they tried to find out. But, as I said, I don't believe that deity exists anyway.
Worship is really not all that bad! Try it, you might like it! God requires worship first of all because He deserves it, but also because He loves us. We were made to worship Him. In asking for our worship, He is actually doing us a favour and seeking our good and His own good at the same time. It is a win-win situation. It is wrong for us humans to exalt ourselves, but it is right for God to require worship because He is the highest Being in existence. He rightfully deserves it. In fact, it would be morally wrong for Him not to require worship because He would be allowing sin. He would be misleading us. We don’t live in a country with a King and Queen, but it is morally right to respect those in authority over us, not because they are inherently greater than we are, but because of their position. However, God is inherently greater than we are. When you meet God, you will understand why He requires worship. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Worship gives us joy, hope, and a renewed perspective. It is a good thing, not a bad thing.
I'm not saying that there isn't a God who is worthy of worship. I'm saying I wouldn't worship the God of the Old testament, even if I thought he existed, which I don't.
It also seems like you think punishment is a bad thing.
I think it can be a good thing if it helps people not to do the thing they were punished for, and if that thing was a bad thing. I don't think punishing people who didn't do the bad thing is a good thing.
For God, punishment is not the goal. Justice is.
That makes no sense to me. Never has. Just behaviour might be a reasonable goal, to which end punishment sometimes serves.
Just as it is morally wrong for a judge to let a convicted criminal go unpunished, it would be morally wrong to allow sin to go unpunished. He warned them ahead of time.
Judges sentence criminals in order to protect the public from wrong-doers, through prevention, deterrence, rehabilitation and sometimes reparation. None of those justifications are relevant to the case of the putative punitive OT god.
Theirs was more than a simple little sin like eating an apple when they shouldn’t have. The actual act of eating the fruit was a result of the sin that took place in their hearts. In order to eat the fruit, they had to choose to doubt God and His love, to rebel against Him, and to become the lord of their own lives. For Adam it was a conscious rebellion. It’s not an excuse, but Eve was deceived. However, Adam was not. He ate knowing full well he was rebelling against God.
How come, if he didn't know the difference between Good and Evil? And why shouldn't he have done, anyway? Obedience to an unjust ruler is not a virtue. How did he know that God was just? As I said, though, I don't believe the story anyway. It's a story. It can be interpreted in some rather wonderful ways. But as literal history or literal theology it makes no sense at all.
Like it or not, sin invites and even demands punishment, just like crime invites and demands punishment.
Nope. The two cases are quite different. I don't know why people get them confused. The first makes no sense; the second makes quite a lot of sense.
God knew this would happen and still He created humans. But don’t misunderstand. It is not as if God enjoys punishing people.
I should hope not. In which case I have no idea why he would do it. Which is one of the many reasons I have no good reason to believe in that god, any more than I have good reasons to believe in Zeus.
No, He would much rather have men repent and be forgiven.
Good. In which case why punish them, unless it is more likely to make them repent? And why visit that punishment on all their descendents, whether or not they did anything wrong? Hardly an incentive to behave or repent.
The cross is proof of this. Even though we were the ones in the wrong, He loved us while we were sinners going our own way. And He even sent His own Son, Jesus into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
Which makes even less sense. Why not just forgive us anyway, and cut out the middle man? Let alone require the horrific human sacrifice of an innocent? What kind of good god is that?
God Himself came and took the very punishment for sin that God Himself requires of us. Why? Because He loves us. He wants to forgive us so that we can live with Him forever in heaven.
And as I said, that makes no sense. Or, perhaps, in one sense, but not in any sense that has anything to do with Adam, that I can see. I can see the argument that to persuade us that He is All-forgiving, He might demonstrate the lengths of suffering He was prepared to undergo, and still forgive. But to argue that this infinitely forgiving and loving God is the same as the punitive tyrant of the OT makes no sense at all to me.
God punishes sin because He is holy and just.
And then doesn't. Seriously, does this make any sense to you?
This is a good thing. You wouldn’t want a God who is not holy or just. Punishing sin is the right thing to do.
Even if it was, which I don't accept, he then didn't do it. So your argument is: God thought punishment was a good thing, not because it makes us better people, or protects the innocent (as human punishment tries to do) but for some unspecified reason called "Justice", even though it lacks the fundamental rationale of human justice systems. Then decided to punish himself instead. Well, even if I had any reason to think any of that was true, which I don't, it wouldn't lead me to think much of the deity who organised it.
But He also found a way to both punish sin and forgive us – the cross where He himself suffered and died for us. You wouldn’t really want to live in a world where there was no punishment, I’m sure.
No, but that's because I think punishing the guilty serves some very important purposes. Punishing the innocent and letting the guilty off scot free makes no sense to me at all.
Liz, you are purposefully looking for something to criticize God for, but your desire to criticize prevents you from seeing His love and grace.
Nope. I am not criticising God. I am criticising a construct, termed "God" by some people who identify that construct with a mythical deity (or deities) featured in many of the books of the bible, particularly the OT. If God is Love, or God is Goodness, or if those two things mean the same thing, then I worship God. I just don't think that God has anything (or much) to do with Genesis.
If you refuse His love, grace, and forgiveness; if you refuse the sacrifice Jesus made for your sins, you invite the punishment that Jesus came to take for you. You will have to pay the penalty for your own sins yourself. Because Liz, although God loves you, He cannot allow your sin to go unpunished forever.
And if that's his attitude, then I'd rather take the punishment. I certainly wouldn't worship such a tyrant. However, as I see no reason to believe that a good God would impose eternal punishment at all, let alone make escaping it contingent on believing in a cobbled-together story that makes no sense, and is actually contradicted by perfectly good evidence. I'll just keep on trying to do the best I can, as most of us do, and when I fail, to seek forgiveness from those I have wronged and do my best to put things right again. And if it turns out (as I doubt) that I do have some kind of life beyond my span, if God turns out to be the guy I thought she was, cool. If not, well, that's a bummer. At least my conscience will be clear.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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Liz said: “Evolutionary theory and the standard models regarding the age of the earth and the universe have vast amounts of evidence to support them, and are also perfectly compatible with non-nihilist philosophies.” Liz, what non-nihilist philosophies are you referring to. Also, which of those non-nihilist philosophies do you hold to? Liz said: “YEC on the other hand is directly infirmed by evidence, and requires its holders to worship a creator god who sought to prevent his creatures from acquiring a moral knowledge, then punished them and all their descendents when they disobeyed.” Liz, I am concerned about the way you are distorting who God is. Let me get this straight. God, in love, carefully created a perfect place for Adam & Eve to live, provided a perfect partner for them to live with, provided all they needed, abundantly more than they needed to enjoy life there, and even entered into a relationship with them and met the needs of their hearts and still that wasn’t enough? Because of God's goodness and grace, they had no unmet needs whatsoever, and in spite of that you are accusing Him of something evil?! You think He should not have tried to prevent them from sinning. You think He should have given them no moral guidance. You think He shouldn’t have tried to stop them from bringing a curse upon themselves and the world they lived in. It seems like to you, God was the one who was in the wrong here. Ma’am, I think you have bought the lie of the Evil One just like Eve did. It also seems you have a very negative view of worship. Worship is really not all that bad! Try it, you might like it! God requires worship first of all because He deserves it, but also because He loves us. We were made to worship Him. In asking for our worship, He is actually doing us a favour and seeking our good and His own good at the same time. It is a win-win situation. It is wrong for us humans to exalt ourselves, but it is right for God to require worship because He is the highest Being in existence. He rightfully deserves it. In fact, it would be morally wrong for Him not to require worship because He would be allowing sin. He would be misleading us. We don’t live in a country with a King and Queen, but it is morally right to respect those in authority over us, not because they are inherently greater than we are, but because of their position. However, God is inherently greater than we are. When you meet God, you will understand why He requires worship. The Bible says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Worship gives us joy, hope, and a renewed perspective. It is a good thing, not a bad thing. It also seems like you think punishment is a bad thing. For God, punishment is not the goal. Justice is. Just as it is morally wrong for a judge to let a convicted criminal go unpunished, it would be morally wrong to allow sin to go unpunished. He warned them ahead of time. Theirs was more than a simple little sin like eating an apple when they shouldn't have. The actual act of eating the fruit was a result of the sin that took place in their hearts. In order to eat the fruit, they had to choose to doubt God and His love, to rebel against Him, and to become the lord of their own lives. For Adam it was a conscious rebellion. It's not an excuse, but Eve was deceived. However, Adam was not. He ate knowing full well he was rebelling against God. Like it or not, sin invites and even demands punishment, just like crime invites and demands punishment. God knew this would happen and still He created humans. But don't misunderstand. It is not as if God enjoys punishing people. No, He would much rather have men repent and be forgiven. The cross is proof of this. Even though we were the ones in the wrong, He loved us while we were sinners going our own way. And He even sent His own Son, Jesus into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. God Himself came and took the very punishment for sin that God Himself requires of us. Why? Because He loves us. He wants to forgive us so that we can live with Him forever in heaven. God punishes sin because He is holy and just. This is a good thing. You wouldn't want a God who is not holy or just. Punishing sin is the right thing to do. But He also found a way to both punish sin and forgive us - the cross where He himself suffered and died for us. You wouldn't really want to live in a world where there was no punishment, I'm sure. Liz, you are purposefully looking for something to criticize God for, but your desire to criticize prevents you from seeing His love and grace. If you refuse His love, grace, and forgiveness; if you refuse the sacrifice Jesus made for your sins, you invite the punishment that Jesus came to take for you. You will have to pay the penalty for your own sins yourself. Because Liz, although God loves you, He cannot allow your sin to go unpunished forever.tjguy_{January 10, 2012
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Gage, What do you mean by "world"? Are you referring to just the earth or the universe? I ask because there are YECs who accept an old universe and a young Earth.Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Elizabeth:
Evolutionary theory and the standard models regarding the age of the earth and the universe have vast amounts of evidence to support them, and are also perfectly compatible with non-nihilist philosophies.
Yeah if queestion-begging is evidence. Ya see in order to determine the age of the earth one has to know something about how it formed. And right now we can only guess.Joe_{January 10, 2012
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Well given the evidence the Hawking/ mainstream position of accident is total nonsense.Joe_{January 10, 2012
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F/N: For some explanation of why evolutionary materialism is logically incoherent and amoral (not merely neutral about/irrelevant to moral issues), cf. here and here. For instance, c. 1930, Haldane noted:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
This challenge to evolutionary materialism is not new. We may read in Plato's The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC; 2350 years ago:
[[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .
By comparison with these longstanding and quite sobering challenges -- which are usually studiously ignored or angrily brushed aside, whatever problems Young Earth Creationists may have with geo-dating etc pale into insignificance. (And, someone above rightly alluded to the positive contributions of Bible-believing people standing in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, to the rise of modern liberty and democracy. To that, we may add, key and indeed foundational contributions to the rise of modern science.) So, there is a place for due proportion in response to consistent Darwinist scapegoating, stereotyping and smearing of the much despised "creationists," for decades now, as "ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked." GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{January 10, 2012
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Following your logic through, Elizabeth (though it is, of course, a pastiche of what Genesis 3 teaches), experiencing punishment for taking on moral decision-making is going to make people very careful in the moral judgements they subsequently make. Unlike the other group, there is very little likelihood of their formulating the concept "world an accident -> morality meaningless". That might (conceivably) lead in the long term to fairly non-destructive results like the rule of law, just political structures, moral consensus, charitable actions, personal integrity and so on. Conversely, the other position might even (I know it's far fetched) lead to destructive consequences like - I don't know, since it's so hypothetical - justice subordinated to the interests of individual groups, state absolutism, eugenics, dysfunctional social order, or destructive personal lifestyles. Since the "accidental" view has only been prominent for a century or two, perhaps there hasn't been time for any consequences, good or bad, to occur. Or perhaps there has.Jon Garvey_{January 10, 2012
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I think Gil is saying that neither scenario has evidence to support it, but at least the YECs have a less destructive philosophy. Which is wrong on both counts of course: Evolutionary theory and the standard models regarding the age of the earth and the universe have vast amounts of evidence to support them, and are also perfectly compatible with non-nihilist philosophies. YEC on the other hand is directly infirmed by evidence, and requires its holders to worship a creator god who sought to prevent his creatures from acquiring a moral knowledge, then punished them and all their descendents when they disobeyed.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 10, 2012
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"Those who believe that the world is only 6-10 thousand years old (which I don’t) don’t bother me. I care about values.." Since you place values above evidence (unless you seriously believe there is support for a young earth), why should we give a damn about any of your opining on science? How revealing....DrREC_{January 9, 2012
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Gil,
Those who believe that the world is only 6-10 thousand years old (which I don’t) don’t bother me...What really bothers me is that Darwinists...
That wasn't the question.champignon_{January 9, 2012
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KRock,
The greatest error is in the one, who wrongly believes their view should even matter; when at the hands of chance, there isn’t any ultimate purpose or meaning in the first place.
That wasn't the question.champignon_{January 9, 2012
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Dear Gage, I nominate you as the recipient of my award for distilling ultimate issues into their essence, with much insight and very few words. Those who believe that the world is only 6-10 thousand years old (which I don't) don't bother me. I care about values, just as Dennis Prager, a religious Jew, does. By the way, as a religious Jew, Dennis is a great defender of Christianity, although he does not agree with Christian theology. What really bothers me is that Darwinists have consistently denied the evidence of modern science which eviscerates the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism. Furthermore, they vilify all Darwinian critics -- no matter how logical, evidential, or mathematical the criticisms might be -- as enemies of science, when, in fact, it is Darwinists who are enemies of the pursuit of truth, which is what science should be all about. Those who wrongly believe that the world (the universe) and human beings are just accidents (stochastic products) of physics and chemistry, in contradiction to all evidence and rationality, are promoting an extremely pernicious and destructive philosophy which is self-evidently false. It's called nihilism.GilDodgen_{January 9, 2012
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Sorry, I doubled up on my post when I was proof reading it.. Yikes...! Lol,,KRock_{January 9, 2012
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The greatest error is in the one, who wrongly believes their view should even matter; when at the hands of chance, there isn't any ultimate purpose or meaning in the first place. The naturalist ends up leaving the game, without ever knowing the score of the game. The greatest error is in the one, who wrongly believes their view should even matter; when at the hands of chance, there isn't any ultimate purpose or meaning in the first place. The naturalist ends up leaving the game, without ever knowing the score of the game.KRock_{January 9, 2012
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Well, the question asks us to assume that both of them are mistaken. Under that assumption, I would say that the greater error is made by the person whose position is least reasonable given the evidence. Unquestionably, that would be the young-earther.champignon_{January 9, 2012
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