... on One Real Stake with Creationism (quora)

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on One Real Stake with Creationism (quora) · HGL's F.B. writings : Debating Bas Verschoor on Göbekli Tepe : Noah's Altar or Nimrod's Babel? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Tower of Babel Against a Preaching Atheist

Q

If the Abrahamic God exists, why did humanity first learn of him only in the last 5000 years, even though humanity was around for 200,000 years?
https://www.quora.com/If-the-Abrahamic-God-exists-why-did-humanity-first-learn-of-him-only-in-the-last-5000-years-even-though-humanity-was-around-for-200-000-years/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

ARq

Answer requested by Miloš Milohanović

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Tue

Heaven and Earth were created 7216 years ago.

Humanity has been around since 6th day from creation.

Adam and Eve learned of Him immediately on being created.

200 000 years is a misdating and most of the men dated that old (or even just 40 000 or 20 000 years ago) certainly at least had heard of God.

It is later that you find polytheism of idolatry smudging up the original revelation so that the God of Adam and Noah was no longer recognisable in most of them, and not correctly recalled in any, except the Hebrew one true tradition.

Miloš Milohanović

14h ago

So says a book written by nomads a few thousand years ago who had no contact with people from Asia who’ve never seen the whole world get flooded or anything similar to that. Also, God apparently created things like ancient weapons and cave drawings to physically and chemically look and behave like they are waaaaaay older than they really are all for the sake of testing our faith.

Seems legit.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1h ago

"So says a book written by nomads a few thousand years ago who had no contact with people from Asia who’ve never seen the whole world get flooded or anything similar to that."

You are:

• exposing prejudice against nomads;
  
  
• presuming you can reconstruct who had contact with whom better than the evidence from texts can.

Not a good methodology in history.

"Also, God apparently created things like ancient weapons and cave drawings to physically and chemically look and behave like they are waaaaaay older than they really are all for the sake of testing our faith."

How come this classic strawman keeps getting repeated so often?

Am I really and truly the first YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST you ever debated in your whole life or are you a liar?

I am myself involved in redating of cave drawings, I place them between Flood and Babel.

Updated

with ensuing debate following day

Miloš Milohanović

16h ago

I trust a nomad to be a nomad and to do nomad stuff better than any non-nomad. No scientist nor historian nor mathematician could do nomad stuff as good as a nomad. That being said, no nomad could do science, math, history stuff as good as scientist, mathematicians or historians. If a dentist offered to perform am eye surgery on me, I would be extremely prejudiced, too. So yes, in a way, I am prejudiced against nomads who tried to explain how the world functioned without using microscopes, telescopes, communication technilogy and the scientific method. Sorry, not sorry.

Well, you very well might the first one who said it openly. Glad to debate with you, representative of Young Earth Creationists.

But my argument wasn’t truly a straw-man. Your arguments are factually incorrect and me pointing that out is not a straw-man. The Earth has scientifically been proven to be a certain amount of years old (I don’t have the approximate number in my head and obviously finding the oldest piece of rock is hard but the Earth is nowhere near as young as you claim it to be).

Lastly, as a languages and communication student I can assure you that texts are not a measurement of truth. Texts can create reality. A contract creates an arbitrary bond that exists in some sense but doesn’t exist as solid matter or a force field. The Creationism story of Genesis certainly is true in the fictional world of the Abrahamic religions and I don’t doubt that, just as I don’t doubt that Harry Potter is a real wizard in his own universe. That is what a text does, it counstructs a reality, but our own reality is something different.

If texts had any other power, them the napkin religion would be the true religion.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

16h ago

"I trust a nomad to be a nomad and to do nomad stuff better than any non-nomad. No scientist nor historian nor mathematician could do nomad stuff as good as a nomad. That being said, no nomad could do science, math, history stuff as good as scientist, mathematicians or historians. "

BY saying that, you express the theorem that a nomad is neither a scientist nor a historian.

That is what I call prejudiced.

" If a dentist offered to perform am eye surgery on me, I would be extremely prejudiced, too."

Even if the dentist also was an optician at med school? Then that would be prejudiced against dentists.

"But my argument wasn’t truly a straw-man. Your arguments are factually incorrect and me pointing that out is not a straw-man."

The strawman is there in supposing I pretend the things were "created to look older" than they are.

They do simply NOT look older.

That is an error about what the evidence actually proves or at least implies.

You may or may not have a case against that position, but summing it up as "God created things to look older" is a false summing up.

"Lastly, as a languages and communication student I can assure you that texts are not a measurement of truth."

In the context of being taken for history (as opposed to novel writing) they are.

It takes a great deal, if at all possible, for a community to start out writing a novel and end up taking it for history.

I don't think it is possible.

Miloš Milohanović

15h ago

Again, even if a nomad was a scientist, he could not possibly have been better equipped and have more knowledge than not one, but hundreds and thousands of chemists, physicist and geologists of today.

But even if I am prejudiced, which is not a bad thing per se as I have pointed out already, you calling me prejudiced is nothing but an ad homimem. So, yeah, what else is there to say? I trust hundreds of peer reviewed papers more than the book of a few nomads who may or may not have been scientists. I really trust that the countless scientists of today who have better equipment, more advanced measuring tools and general understanding of laws of chemistry, biology, physics and geology could determine the age of the Earth better than anyone from the past 100 years, let alone by people who knew (nearly) nothing of lazers, elements, molecules, chemistry and physics in general, evolution, cells, layers of the planet Earth, fossils and tectonic movements.

Of course, all of them might be wrong but you’d have to have proof for that and sadly, the Bible doesn’t really represent a proof that the countless scientists of today are wrong - and that is for reasons that have been explained by far more competent and patient people than me, so I’ll let them take over:

Is there any evidence that proves that the Bible is true?

Do you believe that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old according to science, or 6000 years old according to the Bible?

https://www.quora.com/What-is-some-evidence-that-proves-that-the-Bible-was-fabricated

Hans-Georg Lundahl

15h ago

“he could not possibly have been better equipped and have more knowledge than not one, but hundreds and thousands of chemists, physicist and geologists of today.”

Except by divine revelation.

“ I really trust that the countless scientists of today who have better equipment, more advanced measuring tools and general understanding of laws of chemistry, biology, physics and geology could determine the age of the Earth better than anyone from the past 100 years, let alone by people who knew (nearly) nothing of lazers, elements, molecules, chemistry and physics in general, evolution, cells, layers of the planet Earth, fossils and tectonic movements.”

There are creationists today who correspond perfectly to the criteria you have for trusting today’s scientists.

Why don’t you trust them too?

“Of course, all of them might be wrong”

No, there are creation scientists as well. Flood geologists, baraminological biologists and geneticists, and well equipped modern historians defending biblical history.

Why don’t you trust them as much as the other set?

“or reasons that have been explained by far more competent and patient people than me, so I’ll let them take over:”

I’ll take some debate there too, willingly, but are you saying you trust others without having full overview of the arguments yourself?

Miloš Milohanović

13h ago

Because pseudo-science is not science. As there are Christian scientists who don’t ignore science, I am bound to say that Creationists suffer from a serious case of confirmation bias. Now, that could theoretically apply atheist scientists, but why would there be Christian scientists who accept that, for example the Earth is hundreds of thousands of years old? Yet somehow there is not a single atheist scientists who claims the Earth to be 6–7k years old. Weird, huh?

Divine revelations don’t seem to happen all too often now that scientists have happened to do their own research and stopped relying on divine revelations. I wonder why? And boy do I wonder why people of East-Asian ethnicities never had “revelations” of the Abrahamic God. Or the Native Americans. God sure does love people residing…. Where exactly again?



Oh, but I guess the Bible is proof that those revelations happened?

Also, I have a vague overview of the arguments and I seriously don’t want to repeat them and continue a ridiculous debate about the age of the Earth as that wasn’t even the question that I asked. This is risking to become a battle of endurance and I must admit that religious people wield the sword of Argumentum Ad Infinitum way better than I do.

It’s one thing debating an ordinary Christian but a totally differen thing debating a creationist.

But as I said, the age of the Earth is not something that is up for a debate, at least not in the sense of whether it can be measured in thousands or in hundreds of thousands of years.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6m ago

"Because pseudo-science is not science."

Right. And as a text expert you are professionally speaking about as good as I at differentiating them.

"As there are Christian scientists who don’t ignore science, I am bound to say that Creationists suffer from a serious case of confirmation bias."

Is there no alternative explanation?

Like, when it comes to confirmation bias, you having that, due to school upbringing?

Like, when it comes to "Christian scientists who don't ignore science", these being a bit, shall we say, timid, alternatively, not being Christian at all, but vaguely Deist with a dash of Jesus-worship added to Voltaire's and Rousseau's new gospels?

"Now, that could theoretically apply atheist scientists,"

Thank you! That is a good observation.

"but why would there be Christian scientists who accept that, for example the Earth is hundreds of thousands of years old?"

Timidity or voluntary syncretism.

"Yet somehow there is not a single atheist scientists who claims the Earth to be 6–7k years old. Weird, huh?"

Not really. Since big-bangism with evolutionism is the positive religion of most Western Atheists currently, an atheist accepting an Earth 7000 years old would be the equivalent of a Christian denying the resurrection or a Jew denying Moses ever lived.

Only, those equivalents do exists, due to a cultural predominance of Atheism (which is not "a religion if bald is a hair colour", but which is evolutionist religion without adding Christianity or Islam to the mix).

As a man concerned with texts, I consider you might be able to know that.

"Divine revelations don’t seem to happen all too often now that scientists have happened to do their own research and stopped relying on divine revelations."

We are 100 years after the Marian Apparitions of Fatima.

"And boy do I wonder why people of East-Asian ethnicities never had “revelations” of the Abrahamic God."

How about that Buddhist village, before French conquered Indo-China, who saw the Blessed Virgin (not using that name, but describing Her so Catholics recognised her) protecting a Christian village they had been going after?

"Or the Native Americans."

You have perhaps heard of Our Lady of Guadalupe?

Or why Yaquis converted to Catholicism without any Spanish soldiers involved?

"Oh, but I guess the Bible is proof that those revelations happened?"

God revealed Himself to Noah who built an Ark. The Flood happening and the Ark floating are proof enough the revelation was genuine.

This happening has ample historical proof outside the Bible, like somewhat garbled versions in Babylon and Siberia, Perú and Oceania.

Not forgetting Greeks mixing Flood with the family histories of Abraham and Lot, or Norse and Egyptians mixing it with creation of Earth.

"Also, I have a vague overview of the arguments and I seriously don’t want to repeat them and continue a ridiculous debate about the age of the Earth as that wasn’t even the question that I asked."

Come ON! The question you asked very seriously DOES involve whether man is 7000 or 300 000 years old!

You rely on scientists, you have only a vague overview of their arguments, you are shy of debating them, and you confidently proclaim humanity is 200 000 to 300 000 years old!

Let us get a bit straight what nomads ARE good at.

"Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawud al Gossarah, literally hajji Halef Omar, son of hajji father-of-Abbas, son of hajji David al Gossarah, is one of Karl May's literary characters. Hajji means 'one who has performed the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca'."

Hadschi Halef Omar - Wikipedia

Hajji Halef Omar happens to be a nomad. He is able to recite his full name among the Hajji part of his ancestry, and if he had no Hajjis among them, no doubt he would go on past his grandpa with no problem. He's fictional, but the type fairly certainly does exist.

Nomads are no more likely to be without lore than city dwellers, and memorising family history is sth you don't need expensive apparatus for.

In other words, the chapters of Genesis are credible as reliable nomad historiography.

If you are really and truly interested in texts and languages as you just claimed, you might be able to realise that.

But as to the six days preceding creation of man (when earth was dark and void, all of days 1 to 5, early hours of day six), for that, we do rely on divine revelation.

Compared to that of Moses, the one given through the norse sibyl or the nine muses seems to be very fleeting and elusive as far as divine company goes : in other words, less reliable.

Updated

on Our Lady's Nativity

Miloš Milohanović

1h ago

So, apparently, somehow, all the scientist rely on an inherently wrong system of measurment in all fields of science, including geology, chemistry, physics and biology. That would be the only explanation of how they can be wrong about the age of the Earth.

Yet, somehow, with all those fake systems and measurements, the scientists crrated the very PC you’re using to discredit them, and the Internet connecion you are using, and somehow it works? Coincidence? Maybe. But the doctors also heal way more illnesses than ever before using the data apparently provided by a completely wrong scientific system. Cars and trains and planes fly and are SOMEHOW predicted when they will arive somewhere (nevermind the fact that it wasn’t a creationist who designed cars or planes based on the pseudo-science of creationism) and those predicions are based on a completely wrong system of measurement.

Or somehow, scientist manage to create millions of great things based in their system, but got that one thing about the age of the Earth wrong despite constant reevaluation.

Seems VERY legitimate.

Seriously, do provide a better computer or Internet technology relying solely on the Bible and divine revelations. Scientists are by now able to inhibit AIDS, but do provide a true cure for it by relying on a book written by nomads a few thousand years ago. Desgin a better car or transport system based on the scientific data frim the Bible. Pray to God to tell you when hurricanes will strike and then tell the people to evacuate. Do turn off the TV, shut down the Internet and stop going to the doctors. Stop relying on the science that is apparently inherently wrong.

No atheist relies on the Bible in any way except for the occasional use of the phrase OH GOD, which some try to avoid. You believe that the worldly needs aren’t needed anyway as you will gain eternal life in heaven. Why rely on the inherently inadequate technology and medical stuff then, anyway? If you live, it was Gods plan, if you die, it was Gods plan. Seriously.

Thank you for your input anyhow.

Creationist contradictions [not linking]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

"So, apparently, somehow, all the scientist rely on an inherently wrong system of measurment in all fields of science, including geology, chemistry, physics and biology. That would be the only explanation of how they can be wrong about the age of the Earth."

You are naive on two things.

• It being ALL scientists;
• it being ONE system. And also in this connection, it being a system of measurement.

You can measure how much carbon 14 there is in today's atmosphere in relation to carbon 12. I am not claiming any scientists is wrong on that one.

You can measure how much carbon 14 there is in a particular sample in relation to carbon 12. I am specifically relying on such measurements.

Then you can ASSUME the lower carbon content in a sample compared to the atmosphere is due to ONLY decay, which old earthers do.

You can also ASSUME the lower carbon content in some older samples compared to today's atmosphere is ALSO due to a lower original carbon content (that means carbon 14 compared to carbon 12) in the atmosphere back then. That is what Young Earth Creationists, specifically Creation scientists, do.

And note, please, for carbon 14 you can at least get relatively good indirect measures on how long a half life is, even so the carbon 14 halflife has been considered as measured to 5568 years by Willard Libby but corrected to 5730 years (Cambridge halflife).

The indirect confirmations which led to the minor correction are possible because after as little as 2000 years, there is a significant and measurable decay. And 2000 years, these last, we have plenty of historically dated material. Material we don't need a scientific dating of because we know when a thing is from.

With halflives ranging 100 000's or millions or billions of years, you can't make that kind of correction, therefore no real measured half life.

Also, unlike carbon 14 method, there is another fairly totally uncheckable assumption old earthers are making apart from half life, namely that for instance all lead of a certain isotope in a sample including that isotope and uranium or all lead in it exceeding the usual percenttage of that isotope in lead, comes from the uranium, and with thorium you get another lead isotope. With potassium argon you make a leap of faith to arguing no argon simply came from the air (which contains argon) rather than from the potassium, despite volcanic eruptions actually travelling some part of their road from liquid lava inside earth to solid volcanic rock through precisely the air.

And even so, these methods are considered an air tight (!) argument earth is so old that carbon 14 content can't be in an initial buildup stage in the atmosphere.

No, there is NOT any system of "measuring" age. You measure content of such and such isotopes and you CONCLUDE about age, depending on that measure but also on other premisses. No, there are plenty of fields of science which don't depend on these conclusions at all.

You will certainly not be a bad engineer, nor a bad doctor, if you reject the potassium argon dating of Laetoli.

"Yet, somehow, with all those fake systems and measurements, the scientists crrated the very PC you’re using to discredit them,"

I am NOT discrediting Turing et al. involved in computer science. There are no two schools of computer science (about the present). Obviusly, if some dream of creating in the future artificial intelligence, that is perhaps a school of thought which is not creationist (and not very intelligent) - but which does not change the computer science used for making PCs or repairing them today.

"and the Internet connecion you are using, and somehow it works? Coincidence? Maybe."

Not at all. The internet connection was not made by a palaeontologist being confident in dating démise of T Rex to 65 million years ago, it was made by an engineer who knew why connections work and ultilately by engineers knowing how to exploit connections to mimic some of the simpler expressions of intelligence.

"But the doctors also heal way more illnesses than ever before using the data apparently provided by a completely wrong scientific system."

The medical science does not involve Earth being dated to 4.5 billion years of age. It DOES involve an experiment on Escherichia coli which shows that after 20 000 generations (one per half hour for bacteria) Escherichia is arguably still the same kind of being it was. Some are now able to digest citric acid as well as glucose.

"Cars and trains and planes fly and are SOMEHOW predicted when they will arive somewhere (nevermind the fact that it wasn’t a creationist who designed cars or planes based on the pseudo-science of creationism) and those predicions are based on a completely wrong system of measurement."

I never said that either metres or feet were wrong measures of distance, nor that kilometres per hour or miles per hour were wrong measures of speed.

"Or somehow, scientist manage to create millions of great things based in their system, but got that one thing about the age of the Earth wrong despite constant reevaluation."

Well, the reevaluation of age of the Earth is not done against practically relevant RESULTS for consumers AND it also is systematically excluding one set of scientists : the Creation scientists. But sure, it is constantly reevaluated. There was a time when Earth was 20 million years old, there was another time when a supposed at least Pope was confident it was fully 5 billion years old, and consensus now - excluding YEC of course - seems to be 4.5 billion years old.

None of this checked against written history from 20 million years or 1 or 2 or 4 or 5 billion years, because on the story believed, there was no one around able to write anything. So, very much less checkable than half life of carbon 14 against ancient artefacts, for instance.

"Seriously, do provide a better computer or Internet technology relying solely on the Bible and divine revelations."

Why should I? I am no engineer. Creation Science also does not mean science and technology must rely solely on the Bible, it solely means it can't rely on something contradicting the Bible.

"Scientists are by now able to inhibit AIDS, but do provide a true cure for it by relying on a book written by nomads a few thousand years ago."

Again, why should I? Inhibiting AIDS is the job of some medical men, whose work in doing so I take seriously. It is based on studying things that medical men can study in the present.

Like what an HIV virus looks like and what a dead HIV virus looks like which is no longer harmful. Or what immunity system should look like, what immunity system looks like when AIDS has taken over and what it looks like if you die from AIDS.

As far as I know, there is no topic in that field which depends on a false assumption, if there is, I would not know what the false assumption was, and I would also not be able to detect it, as long as it did not very explicitly contradict the Bible.

Even if a medical doctor inventing an AIDS cure were saying "I assume the Bible was made by morons of the Middle East in prescientific times when they knew nothing" I would not presume that this presumption was relevant for HOW he did his research. Perhaps it could be relevant for his using illicit means of gaining knowledge, like Doctor Mengele, but that would still be a matter for a judge to put him in prison, not for medical faculty to discard his results.

"Desgin a better car or transport system based on the scientific data frim the Bible."

Again, why should I?

"Pray to God to tell you when hurricanes will strike and then tell the people to evacuate."

Reminds me, William Tapley claims to have Biblical clues to more disasters along the many waters of the US. His words were to either get away from the coast (and presumably from Mississippi river too?) or be ready to do so at a moments notice. Depends on how you read a certain prophecy, but that was his reading.

"Do turn off the TV, shut down the Internet and stop going to the doctors. Stop relying on the science that is apparently inherently wrong."

Again, I did not say that science in general is inherently wrong. I also don't say wikipedia is inherently unreliable, just because there are articles with vandalism and other ones reflecting national biasses in knowledge.

"No atheist relies on the Bible in any way except for the occasional use of the phrase OH GOD, which some try to avoid."

Those trying to avoid it are in fact relying more on the Bible. Not avoiding it involves breaking the II Commandment.

And if you ask med school about blood letting and hygiene, you will find med school is relying more on the Bible now than 200 years ago.

"You believe that the worldly needs aren’t needed anyway as you will gain eternal life in heaven."

That is not a valid conclusion. Living without certain worldly things is a life of what is called austerity. Living austerely for the sake of eternal life is recommended, but not compulsory.

Or at least not compulsory on so wide a scale as you suggest. One Christian will live without either internet or doctors or cars, out in the wilderness? Fine, I respect him. It is called a hermit; and I recognise a hermit is better than I. But as I arguably know more about the Bible than you do, I arguably also can tell that I am not obliged to be a hermit just to be obeying the Bible, just to be a Christian.

"Why rely on the inherently inadequate technology and medical stuff then, anyway?"

As to actually RELYING, you have a point. There are houses in the Caribbean as well as in Texas which were very recently shown to be inherently inadequate to Harvey and to Irma. I don't watch much TV, but the news yesterday morning about Irma was so prevalent over everything else, that when they switched to the weather forecast, they explicitly said it was about weather in the Metropolis as opposed to the DOM-TOM of e g Caribbean. In other words, it was not going to be as disastrous as what had just been heard.

"If you live, it was Gods plan, if you die, it was Gods plan. Seriously."

In certain situations, you have to do that anyway, even if you have full confidence in modern medicine. Which I don't have on every plane (especially medical ethics), but on most.

"Thank you for your input anyhow."

You are welcome.

[Your link]

Look, I am here to ARGUE. Not to be bullied with more and more material to "read up on".

You already gave three links I have not yet taken a look at, and this is lazy time for you, and, should I answer, work for me. Skip it. I took time to answer you, I may take time to answer that. But I don't have a bilocation like Padre Pio enabling me to answer both you and that link at the same time.