It is an observation that people are more likely to believe what someone they perceive as credible has to say.

However, it is also true that the perceived credibility of a person is no guarantee that what they have to say is true in whole or in part.

Thus, it is recommended that people not do what comes naturally to them in this regard, since it is no guarantee that the person they trust is correct about everything.

It's a necessary evil when the source of credibility is making comments which have no relevant consequences on their acceptance or rejection therof, but it becomes more necessary to question statements and messages on their own merit, the more importance one places on truth.
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If Hitler says 1+1=2, and Jesus says 1+1=3, one is right and the other is wrong, and who they are has nothing to do with it.  Nor does their being right or wrong have any actual effect on the truth of anything else they say.

People rejecting or accepting these propositions based on who that person is occurs, and people also adjust their suspicions on what else a person has to say based on the truth of their other claims.

But this is a result of bias, and is something you and I must discard in order to truly be sure we are seeking truth instead of affirmation from authority.

Just a rhetorical question here but, if it is proven that Evolution does not exist in the macro sense of the term, does it matter how old the Earth is?

So your question is if our way of determining the age of the earth is in any way contingent upon speciation?

No, Geology and Biology are completely separate fields.  Different people performing different tests in different subject matters for different reasons.  Their results, as time goes on and measurements become more accurate, tend to become more parsimonious with each other, which is to be expected.
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If we take for a moment the idea that speciation (sometimes referred to as Macro-evolution, though not often in the scientific field) does not take place, it would be completely irrelevant to the results we would receive in radiometric dating of rocks and other ways of measuring geologic ages.

Going to assume you meant hypothetical, rather than rhetorical here, if for no other reason than so I can give an answer. :)

If you mean "does it matter" in terms of, "does our estimate of the age of the earth depend on evolution happening/have happened" then, no.  Our estimates of the age of the earth are most based on radiometric dating, and that wouldn't wouldn't be affected by any changes in the field of biology.

If you mean "does it matter" in terms of "would anyone care how old the earth is," I'd say yes.  Surely some people wouldn't care (and some people don't care now), but for many, there's a natural curiosity about the world we live in, and trying to find the answer to that question is valuable just to satisfy that urge.  Also, investigating the earth can help us learn about what might be going on out in the rest of the universe.  Again, that may be of trivial importance to some people, but others have a natural urge to want to know those kinds of things.

From a religious perspective, I suppose even if evolution were disproven, there might still be a conflict between science and biblical literalists over a 7 day creation of a 6k year-old-earth and a 4.5 billion year old earth.

Might I suggest considering the "Gap" Theory of Creation.

Without Evolution, an Old Earth and literal Creationism is still totally possible.

Yes.  Old Earth Creationism.

Creationism is still possible with Evolution, too. Just not Special Creation.  Even with abiogenesis, Creationism is still possible.

It's the specifics of that creation that are up for revision, really.

The thing is that there are different levels of factuality as well, 1+1=2 is tautalogical- a oundational and defining truth from which other facts can be derived. In essence it is a defining statement about the numbers 1 and 2.
"The front of that house is red" on the other hand is a demonstrable proof- if you doubt it you can go look, but on the other hand most people will trust a source rather than go out and check to see if the front of a given house is in fact red.
"Raising taxes will weaken teh economy" on the other hand is a testable truth, but not a demonstrable one. It cannot be proven true- if you raise taxes and the economy does get wrorse that does not mean that it will always happen but if you raise taxes and teh economy gets better it is proven incorrect.
"Raising taxes will ussually hurt teh economy" on the =other hand can be examined, debated, and looked at rationally, but while there is certainly a rational approach to the question there is still evidence that can be debated.
"Obama has helped the country more than any Republican could in the last 3 years" on the other hand, has less evidence involved.
The less available evidence tehre is, teh more the credibility of teh person delivering the message matters.
now lets zip ahead in this scale to teh far end, what someone termed religious truth earlier- which by their definition cannot be tested or disroven. If it is a presumed truth for which tehre is no *possibility* of evidence, then credibility of the source is the only thing that can be counted on to measure it's validity. Saying "Oh it can't be tested or disproven, and questioning teh character of the source is invalid as well" pretty much labbels it pure BS automatically, since there is no otehr reason most people can concieve that a message should need to be so sheltered from any form of scrutiny beyond an acknowledgement that it cannot hold up to scutiny.

So as not to derail the topic, we'll discuss this here.



Perhaps you'd like to distinguish them?  Others have tried, and it was proven in Kitzmiller v. Dover that the same people who were behind trying to push Creationism into schools simply changed the name once it was clear that Creationism wasn't going to pass the Lemon Test.

In other words, Intelligent Design is a renaming of Creationism for the soul purpose of deception, and one of the major witnesses is caught on record lying to the court judge during the case.

Or perhaps your statement was intended to say that the findings of the United States District Court, and the results of the evidence being provided by both sides who assuredly had both more to gain and put more work into it than either you or me, simply don't matter because they didn't come to a result that you liked?

Frankly, I'm one to trust the court's ruling on this, especially after reading the transcripts.  More so than I am to trust a rebuttal that simply states "nuh-uh" and nothing more.

Court Transcript:

http://www.aclupa.org/legal/le...trialtranscripts.htm

Might I suggest taking a look at John Ankerberg, and other such promoters of Intelligent Design.

Besides, Anthony Flew is not a Christian, but he beleives in Intelligent Design. If ID was Creationism with glasses and a fake moustache disguise, then he would be Christian. But he isn't.

Not necessarily. One can be a theist without being a Christian. Intelligent Design is a proof of a form of Creationism, in my opinion, but even if it were undoubtedly true, that doesn't necessarily prove that Christianity is true. That just suggests there's a deity of some kind.

In my opinion, Christians often tend to jump the gun on that one. They assume that, if they can prove a god exists, they've proven Christianity. I don't see that's the case. They still have to prove that this god is indeed their own. Which, to me, is actually harder than proving that a deity exists.

Creationism isn't Christian, either, you must remember; there are Hindu Creationists, Pagan Creationists, each with a different Creation Myth, but Creationists nonetheless.

So it does not follow that Anthony Flew need be Christian to be a Creationist.

although the only Hindu creationist I've met also believes in evolution, believing that it mirrors the spiritual evolution via transmigration of souls.

My understanding was that Creationism was the belief that the Christian God made the world (and universe) in 6 days, 600 years or 6,000 years at some period less than 60,000 years ago, while Intelligent Design is the belief that an omnipotent or near-omnipotent being created the world (and universe) over a period of time some time ago. I would be interested to know if I've missed some specific detail that really differentiates the two beyond that.

That's not my understanding. While I think it's true that, for the most part, there's the implication that if one espouses "Creationism", they're talking specifically about the story of Genesis, and the traditional Christian form of it, Creationism in general simply means the belief of this universe being created by a deity, deities, or some other supernatural force.

Intelligent Design, in the classic sense, is an argument for Creationism, similar to the Onological Argument or the Cosmological Argument are arguments that have the conclusion that God exists, and Pascal's Wager is an argument with the conclusion that everyone, including atheists, should convert to Christianity. That is, Creationism is I.D.'s conclusion, and the premises are that the universe shows evidence of design, and that anything that is designed has a designer. There's been a recent push for the debate of I.D. to be publicized in a form of "Neo-Creationism", which tries to present the idea in a more "secularized" manner. That is, instead of using the Bible, one tries to use science or the universe to prove Creationism, or, to at least, argue that it's a valid interpretation.

That said, I.D. has been around in some form at least since the days of Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. It's just been revived of late.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:03, Wed 25 May 2011.

It's all creationism, even back then the terms are pretty much indistinguishable.

It'd be humorous if it weren't so insulting that the general attitude towards Charles Darwin among Creationist Rhetoric is that he's offering an alternative to God, or leading people towards Satan.  Because Darwin was a Creationist.





It shows that they either haven't read the book, or don't care, or both.  Usually the latter for the ones with television programs, since they have a vested interest in keeping the cause alive, no matter how misguided, because it makes them money.

There is also a question of bredth of definition- in teh broadest terms creationism is simply the idea that this universe was created by something resembling an entity as opposed to dumb luck or pure accident. In practical terms however within the US whenever it ahs been taught it has been taught along the axis of christian theology- each sepcies was individually created and the lifespan of the universe is a few thousand years. Now if a school wre to offer comparative creationsim as a humanities class and include how varrious creationist models today include evolution they might actually pass muster with the courts, but instead the people supporting the fight would rather fight the science.

In reply to silveroak (msg #742):

I agree with silveroak.  Creationism can be taught in a humanities class along with other theological arguments and theories.  That would be the proper venue for such discussions.  But not in a science class since science is what should be taught in science class.  I know, crazy.

I remember us learning about a lot of the Native American creation myths and stories in school, specifically the Pacific Northwest tribes since that's where I went to school.

Very interesting stories about how the Crow (or was it the Raven) stole the moon from God and so he hurled the sun at him and that's why the Crow/Raven is black and why the moon only comes out when the sun isn't around....or something like that.  It was a long time ago.

In the case of defining what religion is, semantics plays an important part.  The fallacy is the opposite of what I'm doing:  i.e., not having a definition of the term being used and letting the debate run wild.  But the point is that the term "religion" is being thrown around in a form that is all-inclusive, rather than realizing that the specific beliefs are so subject to personal interpretation as to render scientific attempts to discredit entire bodies of religion completely uncredible.


That's not my definition of religion.  You're creating a straw man argument.

Much of religion can actually be objectively proven.  What I said was that religion also incorporates elements that HAVE NOT YET been proven true or false, thus requiring FAITH.  (I do not think many religious people would disagree with that.)  Or, more to the point I was making, they are subject to INDIVIDUAL INTERPRETATION.

So what we are looking at here is not a "definition" of religion, but specifically at the portion of religion that requires faith or interpretation, not proven facts.  And yes, that by tautological definition has not been proven yet.  Once it is proven, "faith" or personal interpretation is no longer required.

But the point is that people have personal interpretations of scripture and religion.  Every individual is at least a little different in interpreting it than someone else.  Therefore, every individual (except maybe one person) is necessarily wrong on some points of religious interpretation.  Because of this, there can be no one definition of "religion" or any particular religion.  Rather, there are a myriad interpretations of the same body of scripture or beliefs.

Therefore, to use the proof of evolution or any scientific discovery as some sort of "proof" against religion would border on asinine.  All it can do is disprove certain individuals' personal interpretations.

Contrary to what you said, this is not a "definition" issue at all.

Heath, I think either I completely misunderstood what you were arguing before, or you've altered your position a bit with this post.  What I understood you to be saying before was that anything that is objectively true or false isn't "religion," in your view, so science could never contradict it.  Now you seem to be saying only that portions or religions can't be proven or disproven, which I could certainly agree with.

Back in post 714 you said:
[emphasis added by Tycho]

To me this sounds quite different to what you said in this more recent post:

[emphasis added by Tycho]


Certainly agree with you there.


Okay...but do you see how that might seem to be in conflict with some of the stuff you said earlier?


Yep, again, agree with you on that.


Yeah, I'm happy with that.  But, from what you had said earlier, it sort of sounded like you felt that this was impossible--anything an individual might believe, which could be proven or disproven, wouldn't actually be "religion."  It'd mythology or whatever else.  If all you're saying is that we can't disproven every single religious belief that anyone anywhere, at any time might hold, then yes, I'll certainly agree with that.  But that really wasn't the message I picked up reading your earlier posts.

I'm still pretty convinced that scientific findings can conflict with people's religious beliefs.  We can call them "their own interpretation of religion" instead of "religious beliefs," but to me that just seems like a labeling issue, not a statement about what actually can or cannot happen.

You are calling "religion" and "faith" the same thing.  I am saying that the portions of religion that require "faith" cannot be objectively proven.  Certainly there are parts of religion that can be objectively proven, but religion AS A WHOLE cannot, and this is because of the portion of religion that requires faith.  To my knowledge, every religion requires some degree of faith, and therefore no religion can be proven or disproven.

If we take this a step further and say, hypothetically, that an entire religion is proven true, then the element of "faith" is removed from the equation.  At that point, the religion is reduced to worship and principles of goodness.

So back to the original point, if religion is just faith, "worship" and principles (how to behave, etc.), then proving evolution right or wrong is irrelevant because science, by definition, is different than religion, with different goals.

So if a fact like evolution "disproves" a religion, it is likely that it is only disproving someone's interpretation of facts in the religion because it will not disprove faith, worship or principles of goodness.  This only helps narrow down what can be correct factual interpretations of religion, not the correctness of the religion itself.

Now, maybe some people have a rigid interpretation of facts in their religion.  But I am not aware of any religious fact that is so necessarily entrenched in the religion (and can be proven or disproven by science) that the whole religion (not just a sect or interpretation) is proven false.

If I am wrong, name me such a fact and how it is disproven.  You will likely see that it is an issue of interpretation, not religious fact.

I'm also a little confused here, on a few points;

1) I agree that everyone's interpretations of religion will vary to some degree. However, we can still broadly categorize religions. For instance, if your 'personal interpretation' is that God is god and Jesus was his son who died for our sins, we categorize you as Christian. If you believe Krishna is god, and Jesus was just a really smart guy, we can say you are not Christian.

Most religions share a certain staple of beliefs that define that religion. Christianity is defined by the belief that Jesus is the son of God and died for our sins. If you don't believe that, you need to find a different term for yourself. A few hundred million people share that belief. They branch off into different particulars; some believe Jesus white or black, some believe he's the literal son of God, some the spiritual, some believe he's part of the trinity, some that he's become a god by his own right. But they all share that core (again, by definition).

So if you come in and let's say build a time machine, and prove that Jesus actually didn't die for our sins, then that would be 'disproving' the defining staple of 'Christianity' and a critical staple of all those hundreds of millions of personal interpretations.

Of course, you can't prove that Jesus is the son of God. Even if you caught Joseph snogging Mary, you can say matters of the spirit are separate and untestable. So that is part of the religion that is based on faith and can't be tested.

2) You seem to be saying that some matters of religion are based on faith, i.e. believing in something that has not be proven, and that should those things be proven, they would no longer be matters of faith, therefore matters of faith cannot be proven. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you're trying to say, but when I'm reading your posts, it's what I'm picking up.

And of course, it's not true. I believe in Jesus and, as a matter of faith, I believe he was a physical human born in the neighborhood of 0 BC in or around Bethlehem. These are matters of faith to me, and I've never really cared to go out and test them (nor do we have absolute, objective evidence on the matter). However, if someone built a time machine, they could definitely prove whether there was a fellow named Jesus born at that time and place, which means they could prove (or disprove) my matter of faith.

Yes, that matter of faith would then shift from faith to knowledge (or from faith to delusion, depending on how I handle it). But the point is, the original matter of faith was addressed using objective fact-gathering, tested and proven (or disproven).

Some people are going to get their faith tested very severely this October when their faith that the rapture is scheduled for then is put to objective, fairly absolute testing.

I can agree with that.


Here I disagree.  "Irrelevant" is a strong word.  For some people, the world being 6k years old, evolution never having happened, and the bible being a literal account of history is a very important (to them) part of their faith.  The theory of evolution calls all that into question.  To tell them "its irrelevant" seems a bit nonsensical to me.  It's like telling a christians that it's irrelevant if Jesus never existed.  Sure, some form of a christianity might be possible without believing jesus ever existed, but it would be very different from what pretty much every christians believes.


Again, fine, but it sounds like a labeling issue.  You're not telling me what can or can't happen, you're telling me what I can call it.  You can call it what you like, I'm not too fussed, as long as we can agree that the conflicts can, have, and do occur.


Yes, a great many of them, I'd say.  In fact, I don't know that I've met many religious people at all who would have no real problem with fundamental statements about their religion's past, etc., turned out to be false.  I don't know many christians who'd just shrug and say "ah, well, not really that important" if it were proved that Jesus didn't exists.  I don't know any Muslims who'd do the same if we switched "Muhammed" for "Jesus" in that statement.  I don't know many LDSers who wouldn't think it'd matter if it were found that Smith never had the golden plates he claims to have had.  You might call that all "rigid interpretation of the facts of their religion," but I'd say it's definitely the norm, not the exception.  And if you're asserting people are wrong for having such beliefs, I think you'll have to make a stronger case.

As a semi-hypothetical question:
If you believe that all Gods are meta-psychic constructs of teh human subconcious in recognition of greater truths that we have to humanize in order to begin to comprehend them
*and*
you believe that Jesus is such a construct, of a similar archetype to say Dionysus and Pan- Gods of liberation and freedom from opressive rule..
then would you categorize that as Christian?

I ask because I do know people who do hold these beliefs who describe themselves as Christian pagans.