Blog keywords: Antidisestablishmentarianism, arc, Bible, church, conspiracy, creationism, enlightenment, flood, geology, history, ignorance, Noah, politics, power, science, religion.
The first section here is essentially a copy of my last post on a thread about "Creationist Geology and Young Earth Theories" (with some minor amendments), to put this blog into context.
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Quote Jolyon: "If you have to invent the idea of a god because you think the universe is too complex to have come into being without a creator then where did god come from?
If you say that god always existed or came from nothing, then why not skip a step and say the same for the universe."
Jolyon (with thanks to Carl Sagan)
"It's turtles all the way down" Pete N. (with thanks to Terry Pratchett)
Quote Don Saathoff: " . . . imagine a three-dimensional pulsing wave-form....infinite in all directions.....and we are currently entering the apex of the wave...still
expanding....no proof of this...no supporting hypotheses....just a fun thought!!!" Don
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If it' a 3-dimensional wave, then it must be a "Fun, Fun, Fun" thought?
We are all surfers on an infinite wave - If we wipeout, we can just pick it up in another dimension! Far out man!
"Breaker News - USA Flooded by Tsunami!"
Sorry! a bit facetious & off-topic, but now that I've got your attention, (gets out soapbox), here is my "sermon for the day":
I've cut the rest of what I started to write here, and I'm going to transfer it to a blog on this one, as it's getting a bit long and personal. If you like my "grumpy old man" ramblings and/or you are a fan of conspiracy theories, or simply curious about what I have to say about creationists etc., (and have half an hour to spare!) then please read that blog, but if not, move on to the next post - I'm not trying to convert anyone, more letting off steam and having a quiet rant in the face of the arrogance we get from "Creationist" preaching. This will probably be my last post on this thread, unless there is anything anyone wants to discuss with me directly in an enlightened, rational, scientific manner, (which I doubt, on this topic anyway, as I think I will have covered most of what I have to say about creationists for now in my blog). (see below)
Pete N.
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"Creationists - Crackpots or Conspiracy?"
OK, so here is the question: Are "Creationists" simply crackpots who can be laughed at, religious nuts who can be ignored in the hope that they'll go away, or is there some hidden agenda? Call me paranoid if you like, but I think there may some element of the latter in the behaviour of at least some of them. I didn't want to hijack the discussion thread with a long, rather personal dissertation on my reasons for that thought, so I've put them here instead.
(Oh, and in case you are wondering what the connection is between the Beach Boys and Creationism, it was Don's comments on 3-D waves, ending with "Fun" that prompted the thought "Fun, Fun, Fun,", and that, in combination with thoughts of the Flood, after reading some of JB's nonsense, reminded me of the opening line of "Surfin' USA" - "If everybody had an ocean, across the USA . . ." , and so, here we are.)
Re:
"Creationist Geology and Young Earth Theories"
I have read through some of the discussion on the
"forum concerning Creationism" that Barry referred to in his opening post on the thread referred to above, and as so often before, when dealing with fundamentalist religion and the "creationist" attitude, I found it to be full of non-sequiturs, misinformation & leaps of irrational faith.
With respect (small "r") to the validity of "Jollybear's" comments on the above forum, which start from the premise [quote Jollybear] "I believe in the bible and its acount in genesis 1 of 6 literal day creation, and then a history of no more then ten thousand years. Again, i dont claim to have exhustive knoghledge (sic) of science as i assume many on here do, but i do have exhustive knoghledge of the word of God which i believe to be the bible[/quote], frankly, most of these are ill-informed irrational ramblings, and some are just total BULL****.
Not only are they supposedly backed up by a string of fallacious arguments and the misuse of scientific terminology, but there are so many misrepresenations (e.g. the red herring of sample contamination) and quotations out of context, and he shows such a high degree of sub-literate arrogance [quote Jollybear] "it (The Bible) dont need updating like that, because its PERFECT TRUTH. And that which is perfect dont need updating because its allready perfect[/quote] (when comparing the long-term lack of change in The Bible with the frequency with which scientiifc textbooks are revised), that it would seem to be a waste of breath to try and discuss geology (or any other science for that matter) with people who think like that.
Statements such as this one also gave me a bit of a chuckle: [quote Jollybear]"The dead sea scrolls that were found, which were dated very old, back when a original copy would be, was compared to our modern bible of today and was shown that nothing was changed in its message, doctrins, stories ect,[/quote]. Dated? By what? By accepting the date on the letterhead as authentic? By having a commisioner for oaths interview the author?
" I John, on thys, ye 1st day of April 37AD, do solemnlie and verilie sware, that I, beying of sound mynde, have read ye calendar (© Dec 36AD, Herod & Sons, Jerusalem Free Press) accurately, and nor yet have I addded centifugally separated extracts of toad, or magical foszil residues from those drownèd in Noah's flood, to my manuscripte parchmente, in order that it might give false evidence as to it's C14 content, to falsify it's veritable antiquity to confuse thoes who do hanker after ye grate truth two thousand years hence."
Hardly! Any dating of a ~2 thousand year old parchment was presumably done by determining the carbon isotopic ratios, perhaps in combination with some form of archaeological stratigraphy? But according to JBs' thesis, The Bible is the absolute, complete, unambiguous and unalterable, literal truth, requiring no sworn affidavits or independent objective evidence to verify it, and yet he quotes the "dating" of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their correlation with the words of The Bible in support of that claim, but denies repeatedly that isotopic dating and stratigraphy are valid techniques in the determination of the age of rocks, minerals or fossils! Talk about selective evidence!
Furthermore, that arrogance is combined with naivety and gullibility, and downright ignorance. Ignorance of the in-depth true meaning of everyday English words such as "evidence", "logical", "objective", and "rational", let alone the scientific meaning of "element", "compound", "theory", or "hypothesis", or terms such as "pH", "solubility", "entropy", etc. He also seems to be unaware of (or prepared to totally ignore) the logical and rational approach necessary to begin to understand the application of complex technologies such as isotopic age determination, or concepts such as thermodynamics, rates of erosion, stratigraphy, geological unconformities, relative vs. absolute sea-level, plate tectonics etc. [quote Jollybear]"For instence the layered sedements is not evedence of a earth forming over billions of years, but by a catestrophic flood, noah's flood. Its our evedence, not yours."[/quote] . . . [quote jollybear]"As for the contenents breaking apart through millions of years, i dont believe it. I believe it was through noah's flood"[/quote].
So, not only ignorance of scientific facts, but a determination to charge straight past them into another repetition of the old chestnuts about Noah, the flood, the 10,000 year-old Earth, dinosaurs living contemporaneously with man etc. etc., even when those facts are spelled out for him in plain English. (Which they need to be, for not only is his grasp of the language tenuous in matters of spelling and basic grammar, but fails dismally in matters of complex syntax and continuity). When confronted with questions such as Barry's about how the lions survived after they had eaten the wildebeest and antelope on the Arc, he simply says something to the effect of "I'll get back to you on that one", and proceeds to post more irrelevant nonsense. Nice one that, about the lions, Barry! - not to mention of course, the leopards, tigers, wolves, grizzly bears, African hunting dogs etc, or the fact that wildebeest would now be extinct if Noah only took two of them on board, and those were fed to the lions! Or did Noah have a generator and a well-stocked freezer on board to cater for all those carnivores? Even with just two individuals of each of the world's species on board (and enough food to feed them all for weeks), that arc would have made a modern supertanker look like a rowing dinghy! (and as for mucking out the dung, Hercules had a comparatively easy task with his stables!)
I do not dismiss the possibility that there is very likely to be a factual basis to the legends of the flood - they are widespread in many cultures, and it seems very unlikely that they are totally unfounded. Perhaps there is some sort of global memory of the rise in sea level at the end of the Great Ice-Age which has been handed down through the generations by verbal folk-lore since Palaeolithic times (A bit like the Aboriginal "Dream-Time").
Another more parochial possibility, which links to the arc story, is that there is some evidence that the Black Sea was at one time (during man's early agricultural period, but before written history), cut off from the Aegean, and that it's level stood much lower than the contemporaneous global sea level (much like the Dead Sea does today, relative to the Mediterannean). Without checking references (and I can't remember where I read it, but it certainly wasn't on a creationist website!), I cannot say exactly when that was, but for the purposes of the following thought-experiment (and I don't claim it to be anything more than speculation, but I'll try not to make it too wild, or make irrational assumptions), it doesn't really matter.
Let us assume for a moment, that at that time the population of the Middle East was very tiny compared with the modern sprawl we call civilisation, and almost everyone around the Black Sea lived along those low-lying shores, with only uninhabited wilderness further inland. At the time the Bosphorous was breached (perhaps by an earthquake on the North Anatolian Fault?), the level of the Black Sea began to rise. Some small community was cut off on a shrinking island by the rising water, and an enterprising farmer built a boat large enough to carry a breeding pair of each of his domestic livestock (perhaps just two goats, two dogs & two donkeys) to higher ground when his farm was almost inundated, and everyone else evacuated the island, taking only what they could carry in their small fishing boats (perhaps no more than coracles, which could carry just one or two people, and some food). Since no-one else for many miles around managed to save their livestock, he then became a local hero because he was able to re-kindle the local community's economy by breeding fresh stock from the only animals available. Like many verbally transmitted stories, his fame (and the reported numbers of animals his boat carried) grew in the telling and the story became established as a feature of the folk-lore of the region. From such small beginnings, myths & legends grow. (cue Rick Wakeman! - and don't start me on Arthur, Jennifer (nee Guenivere), Tintagel, South Cadbury Hill, and Glastonbury, or I'll be here all night! [*note 1]) Far-fetched? Yes, perhaps, but I find such a hypothesis a damn sight more plausible than a story about a supertanker-sized floating zoo!
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I see "creationism" as a smokescreen, and that's all it can be, unless every one of those people agressively promoting creationist beliefs really is as irrationally muddled as they seem to be, but I think that might be a dangerously naive assumption. Undoubtedly,
some (most?) of it's followers are simply deluded, blinkered, religious zealots, but I also think there is large calculated element of "Control Freak" in what their leaders are doing, which is much more sinister. I suggest that it could be being used in a cynical, political way, to support an attempt to restore the power that was held by the Church before the Reformation and the enlightenment - and still is held in so many ways. Think of how many people in this world have many very personal aspects of their lives dictated by views and policies ultimately emanating from Rome rather than their Iocal government - attitudes to abortion, contraception and divorce being amongst the most obvious.
I share the concept that although the Roman Empire's power diminshed for a while after the Goths caused a bit of aggro in Italy, it never really collapsed. It simply moved it's HQ to Byzantium, and on the Fall of Constantinople, the HQ reverted to the west, by which time the real power base had been established in The Vatican, and was no longer under the control of an Emperor but the head of the Church. Why do Bishops wear Imperial Purple? - Does the title "Holy Roman Empire" not ring any bells? - are there more than etymological connections betwen the titles Caesar, Kaiser an Czar/Tsar and those who inaugurated those titles? (think imperialism/power/control.) If you want to read up on what happened during the hiatus between the two phases of the power of Rome, and the power shifts from secular to religious authority during the Dark Ages, then "Charlemagne" is a good starting point.
Anyone who tries to claim that the Protestant Reformation in England was simply a ruse by Henry VIII to get a quick divorce, and not a political war is in denial, and needs to read a bit more history. One of the main driving forces behind the Spanish attempt to invade England in 1588 (see "Armarda") was the desire to put a Catholic monarch back on the throne of England, and extend the inquisition to those rebellious English heretics who had stuck two fingers up to the power of Rome. The same argument was still continuing almost 200 years later in the form of the 1745 rebellion - see "Charles Edward Stuart", the 'Young Pretender' (aka "Bonnie Prince Charlie"), the catholic son of the last catholic king of Britain. (Born 1720, in
Rome, died 1788 where? yes, you guessed it, in
Rome.) In many ways the vehemence with which he was fought by the English was more because he was a catholic with the backing of the catholic French monarch than because he represented the exiled Scottish House of Stuart.
I am not religious, but I accept the right of those who are to hold their faith-based beliefs, so long as they don't try to convert me to their irrational point of view. What I will not accept is is the arrogance and bigotry of the evangelical fundamentalists, particularly those who believe that they have the God-given right to use any techniques of illogical argument, and devious appeals to people's spirituality and cultural heritage (i.e. Genesis in the case of the creationists) as obfuscation to bring back the unenlightened wanderers (read "sheep" or "flock", or whatever other pastoral euphemism you care to use) to the fold/state/mind-prison of that political tool called organised religion. One of the things that disturbs me so much about fundamentalists, is that they seem to glorify ignorance and unquestioning acceptance of religious authoritarianism - it's as though they are fighting to reverse the enlightenment, and wish to return us to the Dark Ages.
I am happy to debate any matter of belief/faith/doubt/rationality in a fair way in open forum, and I have written this to state my personal views on the matter of "creationism" (particularly that perversion called "Creation Science"), and have it on record. But I have put this in a blog, rather than cluttering up a current discussion topic with what is a rather long-winded, very personal, and somewhat political point of view, containing some potentially highly controversial statements. This is partly so that it is closely and more permanently linked to my public profile, and easily available for further discussion here if anyone chooses to do that, and also to emphasis the fact that this is a personal statement, and in no way reflects any views other than my own, and certainly does not presume to represent the views of other Mindat members or the Mindat management.
It goes against the grain rather strongly to write the following statement, particularly here on Mindat, but those who know me will see it for the emphatic statement it is intended to be: I probably have more sympathy with "crystal healers" than with creationists. They may be deluded and irrational, but their intentions are usually sincere and they don't intend any harm or wish to control the world. I don't think one can always complacently say that about evangelical fundamentalists.
Pete N.
I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories in general, but it's worth remembering the dictum "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're
not out to get you."
Note 1: I have been here all night anyway - I just realised it's almost 5am! So I am going to post this now and go and get some sleep.
