I do not want to be responsible for any strokes, pulmonary embolisms, cardiac arrests or other health problems that may result should they learn of this recent scientific discovery:
Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have found that a tiny zircon crystal discovered on a sheep ranch in Western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4bn years ago.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday, researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth’s crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it.
Especially don’t tell this guy. It might give him a sad.
Often, people challenge biblical creationists with comments along the lines of, “I believe God created, and I don’t believe in evolution, but He could have taken billions of years, so what’s the big deal about the age of the earth?” […]
… So why [do we] emphasize it? It’s important because the issue ultimately comes down to, “Does the Bible actually mean what it plainly says?” It therefore goes to the heart of the trustworthiness of Scripture. As such, compromising with long ages also severely undermines the whole Gospel message, thus creating crises of faith for many as well as huge problems with evangelism.
Carbon dating is not effective!!!
“They used uranium dating…”
Uh…Carbon dating is not effective!!!
It’s no good putting up rational arguments against the snake oil salesmen.
The last rational argument that actually made sense (until additional evidence trashed it) was William Whewell’s review of The Origin of Species in 1859. Whewell’s main argument is the same one that Einstein had with quantum theory: God doesn’t play dice.
In the 1960s, J. B. Phillips tackled the religious side of the issue adequately with his book Your God Is Too Small, which is the “liberal” theology that the charlatans are setting up as a straw man.
The anxiety about “severely undermines the whole Gospel message” is the tell about the anxiety that the charlatan’s exploit. Is it really the age of the earth that is the issue or the fact that it is a precondition for keeping those tithes coming into the pockets of the charlatans. Huge problems with evangelism to persist in forcing people to believe your frame of a book in the face of substantial and growing evidence. Huge diversion in making that the most important part of the gospel message that distracts from obvious passages about the treatment of the poor or the corruption of the powerful or the failure of all idolatry.
Just another data point that says that that form of Christianity is focusing on a gnat and ignoring the camel. And making good money doing it. And not really understanding the term “crisis of faith”.
Newsflash! God made a 6,000-year-old zircon crystal appear 4.4bn years old!
Omnipotence, dude.
And his noodley appendage laid it there for us all to find;
Ramen
Sorry, but this is just a little more of that “satanic science” that GOPer Paul Broun warned us all about.
I’m beginning to think of this whole thing like chocolate. To the people who don’t like chocolate, I say, “More for the rest of us.” So to the people who don’t believe in science and the age of the earth, etc. I say, “More for the rest of us.” We get to be on top of all this, and they get to wrestle around like hogs in the holler. We get to progress and move with the business of further evolution while they get to live in their tiny, dark caves. More light for the rest of us.
I don’t understand. Cosner is right. Setting up an alternative reality causes cognitive dissonance.
Look up the history of non-Euclidean geometries. Most of the originals (Reimann, Omar Kayyam [yeah, the Rubaiyat guy], and others) all went nuts from the dissonance … and booze and sex and drugs but still…
If Xtians can’t believe ALL of the stuff pushed down their throats, then they can’t believe ANY of the stuff.
Yes, I imagine that would cause severe problems.
Why would this creates problems or health issues for them? Their response to it is the same it has been for generations, to fossils and all the other “so-called evidence” that heathen scientists put forward: Satan put those rocks (or fossils, or whatever) there to confuse you and make you doubt the word of God.
Like every other argument of theirs, it boils down to a tautology. That can’t be true, because it can’t be true. This must be true, because it must be true. Faith is a powerful force.
But then, so is LSD. No matter how good a trip you’re on, though, you still can’t flap your arms and fly.
The argument is based on the idea that nothing in the Bible could mean anything except literally. Yet even they interpret it. (For example, the extremely non-traditional Scofield Bible — the “bible” of the rapturists, etc.)
Besides fundamentalists, there is another group that relies on the literal interpretation of the bible — atheists (or at least most of them). Because that way it’s so easy to prove the Bible means nothing.
Neither of these groups have more than the most rudimentary conception of language, and apparently know nothing about semiotics, poetry, metaphor, ancient thought, etc.
Do you seriously wanna go there? Most atheists I know are well-educated, literate, and are not literal thinkers. To the extent that you can possibly characterize a disparate group united only by a negative (what they don’t believe), the demographic data supports the first two parts of that as well. (Dunno how you’d objectively measure “literal thinker,” unless, of course, you just mean it as the opposite of “magical thinking.”) That, by the way, is true across counties and cultures – religiosity correlates inversely to education and literacy.
Most self-identified atheists I’ve talked with don’t deny either the historical importance or the value of at least some of the mythology and moral teachings of organized religions – but the basic, non-negotiable assumptions simply don’t speak to them. If, for example, you think that the idea of an all-powerful life force, that we call God or G-d or Allah, created and (perhaps) oversees everything, is simply preposterous, there isn’t much room for you in a monotheistic religion, no matter how much you appreciate poetry and allegory.
The other thing I’ve noticed about people who make a point of publicly identifying as atheists (as opposed to the much larger group of folks for whom religion just isn’t a part of their lives) is that many of them are survivors of fundamentalist or otherwise spiritually abusive upbringings. They then make a show of moving as visibly and far as they can in what they see as the opposite direction. The hectoring that can sometimes generate (as with former smokers or drinkers, say) can be annoying. But to equate religious fundamentalists with atheists as spiritual literalists is, I think, a complete misreading of both the motivations and the thinking of an awful lot of atheists. It makes me think you’ve never talked with very many in any kind of serious – or respectful – way.
That’s why I said “most” rather than “all”. I don’t think we disagree on anything but statistics, and I’ll admit, I don’t have the statistics.
Your point about the most vocal atheists being former fundamentalists is plausible, and would corroborate my point that they think the same way. Whoever they are, it’s the kind of atheists that pipe up on discussion groups on every possible occasion that I was thinking of.
Your other point, about poetry, etc., is the most serious issue. I suppose it comes down to what one thinks poetry actually is.
“Literal meaning” is a hilarious business with these guys. There is a branch of literal believers who hold to the King James bible too. They seem to completely ignore the original languages the Bible was written in as well as modern advances on our understanding of those languages. It’s like here was something holy about the early 1600’s in England.
When I encounter these folks, I like to point out that there is proof that Shakespeare wrote that version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_46
I get what you mean, but I also think you’re flat out wrong about atheists. I’ve read a couple of blog posts from atheists doing some really poor literal interpretation, but these are a very small minority. My impression is that they were psychologically abused with this crap early on and they’re still trying to deal with it.
No, by far most of this literal interpretation idiocy falls within white evangelical groups and the country would be a lot healthier and happier if they just woke up and stopped the nonsense.
Pew had a nice piece on evolution, but I suspect young earth believers fall into the same buckets proportionately.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
Not particularly on the atheism thing. I’m an atheist, and not believing in the fundie version of god is only one tiny part of not believing in god(s). I also don’t believe in new-age god, g_d, Allah, Shiva, Zeus, Thor…the list is as long as the list of gods that humans have believed in over the course of our history. I’m an atheist because no one has ever come up with reliable evidence for the existence of any divine being, and what we know of the origins and existence of the universe doesn’t require one. Most of the people I know who are active in the atheist movement also don’t believe in all those other gods. That the argument most often ends up being about fundamentalist god in the US is because the people who are most often vociferously arguing with atheists are fundamentalists, so those are the most practiced arguments. Give me some real evidence and I am likely to change my mind. So are most atheists. However, that evidence thus far has yet to be provided.
My devout Presbyterian mother taught me that the stories of miracles in the Bible are there to teach us to appreciate our mundane mortal life on Earth. The whole point of these stories is that these things don’t literally happen. These stories help us to focus on what we do have and how to cope with reality.
These YEC folks refuse to take the Bible at its own word when it explains what it’s good for. 2 Timothy 3:15:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”
This is the strongest claim the Bible ever makes for itself. And what it claims (as in the Wesleyan tradition), read in its strongest sense, is that every part of the Bible may be relied on for theology and for moral instruction. It does not itself claim to be reliable history or science.
The fathers of the church understood this, which is why they regularly sought out what they called the anagogical meaning of biblical passages.
Absolute literal truth is projected onto the Bible by fundamentalist preachers because it gives them absolute authority where they stand in the pulpit. And it’s projected onto it by their flocks because it allows them to rely on the preacher without having to trouble themselves with thinking.
Of course, 2 Timothy need not even be read in that strongest sense. Literally, it states that “All writing inspired by God is profitable…” That may not include every verse of Scripture. And it may, as William Blake took it, mean that all great poetry is profitable in the same ways.
Well, I’m an atheist and my primary complaint against organized religion usually centers on how religion affects government and public institutions. I am against prayer in school, anti-science teachings, and the Ten Commandments on government or school property. If you want these things, go to a parochial school.
I was raised in a low-key Protestant household, no fire and brimstone, no abuse of religious nature, or of any nature, actually. I never believed; I was a skeptic from the start and since my mother took us kids to church, I volunteered to babysit in the nursery so I didn’t have to sit through sermons.
I eventually quit attending church and am willing to let bygones be bygones unless I feel an infringement on my turf. I graciously accepted offers of prayers when my son was gravely ill with leukemia, but I did not pray, nor did I convert back to religion for comfort. My son recovered and I still do not believe in God.
So you can’t paint religious believers or non-believers with broad brushes. I’m not out to condemn religion, but rather the injustices caused in the name of religion.
OT, but I just want to say that I know one person who lost his child to leukemia, and I know another couple that is going through treatment now with their 4-year-old (now 5). I am so sorry you had to go through that, but I was so relieved to read that your son recovered.
I have immense respect for anyone who can go through that with their child and come out the other end as a whole person, which you obviously are. I am very glad you comment here.
Thanks, WaterGirl. 🙂
When he was diagnosed at age three, it was in 1990. The oncologist took me by the hands and said, “You know, we have a 75% cure rate now” and we were one of those lucky ones. Now the cure rate is closer to 90%. I hope your friends will see the success that we did.
Facing a life-threatening illness in your child can be one of the toughest battles you’ll ever face. We struggled for years through chemo and outpatient treatments. People would say, “I don’t know how you do that” and we’d reply that there was nothing else we could do. I learned how to give heparin through his chest port and if you’d told me I’d be handling needles and dressings before this all happened, I’d have said you were crazy.
But it worked, we worked, and now my son is 27, is working in marketing, and seems happy. We certainly are.
Yes, the cure rate is very high. I think treatment is something like a 4-year regimen now, regardless of whether the child seems to be in remission partway through. Maybe it’s helpful to be able to think “we just have to get through the next 4 years”.
That’s one of the things I have felt is such a travesty with the way we have fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least in Vietnam, you knew when you were coming home, and could think “I just have to make it through the next xx months.” These indefinite tours are just wrong, and I feel certain that it makes it a million times tougher.
“And on the seventh day….he maketh it appear very, very old.”
Applause!