Met another creationist recently and he literally said:
''Scientists brainwashed you into thinking evolution and the Big Bang are real, just like how North Korea brainwashed its people into thinking Kim Jong-Un is a god.''
I tried to explain that we trust scientists because they have evidence, but he kept interrupting me and probably said shit like ''oh, you're such a misguided sheep'' or something.
I assume you guys must have seen that one before. How did/would you respond to it?
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Personally, I would smile slyly and then turn and walk away while singing this song. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIMvSp01C8
Hmm...groovy!
Perfect song.
rmfr
@Tin Man
Nice song choice! Haven't heard it for years. :-)
"How did/would you respond to it?"
Ask them how many scientific facts they deny that don't in any way refute any of their religious beliefs. If they are deciding which scientific facts are true based on whether they refute part of their religious beliefs, the it is they who have been brainwashed, as their approach is demonstrably closed minded as it demonstrates obvious bias, unlike accepting all scientific facts as they are all based on the same strict methods of validation.
While they're pondering that ask them why Francis Collins head of the human genome project, and a christian, has stated that the evidence from genetics alone proves shared or common ancestry and species evolution. His claims for why he believes in a diety are laughable of course, but he is too good a scientists to deny obvious facts.
Great point! Couldn't agree more. Religious nuts really tend to take science as a buffet.
Isn't that exactly what athiests keep calling people who believe in gods? Hypocrite.
There's a difference. The atheist world view is based on evidence. The theist world view is based on anonymous, questionably-translated texts from the bronze age and ''personal experiences''.
Speaking of personal experiences, there are people who claim that they were abducted by aliens, have telepathic communications with mermaids, etc. People of vastly different religions believe that they've talked with god/gods of THEIR own religion.
Besides, calling me a hypocrite would be ad hominem, which has nothing to do with whether god/gods exist.
It was in fact not just ad hominem, but an ad hominem fallacy as his attack made no attempt to address your post content. Michael appears to be a very troubled young man who is letting his emotions do his thinking almost exlusively.
Ask him this:
"What evidence, hard empirical evidence, can you provide that proves the existence of your God?"
He won't.
rmfr
I think he'd either say ''I have personal experience'', ''the Bible says so'' or ''you can't prove I'm wrong''. (Sigh)
Then, "Hearsay is worthless as hard empirical evidence. No. I cannot prove you wrong; however, think on this, if it cannot be falsified or proven, then it is not evidence."
rmfr
"I think he'd either say ''I have personal experience'', ''the Bible says so'' or ''you can't prove I'm wrong''. (Sigh)"
1) Personal experience by definition is not objective evidence, and as you rightly say it would validate *all personal experience, including alien abduction stories and starving dehydrated sailors claiming they were rescued by mermaids.
2) The bible can't validate it's own claims any more than the Harry Potter books can.
3) Unfalsifiable claims are claims that can't be falsified *even if they are false, this doesn't validate them, it merely makes them impossible to learn anything from, in science these are called "not even wrong" and are considered useless.
Michael: "Isn't [hypocrite] exactly what [non-believers] keep calling people who believe in gods?"
Like the Pope denouncing fake news when he employs a "Chief Exorcist" and supports teaching children there is such thing as a "Holy Ghost" and they may go to hell for their sins?
How about all the pastors who preach morality and are then found guilty of crime?
What about Creationists who claim their theories are supported by sound science?
Religionists who claim to support One-Law-For-All and, simultaneously, religious courts?
Folk who claim to support separation of Church and State while putting "In God We Trust" on court walls and on money?
Talk of equality while insisting LGBT couples of good character cannot marry or adopt children?
Christians talk of respect but only 58% of USAmericans would vote an atheist for POTUS?
Freedom of and from religion. What about religionists who don't accept the "from" bit?
Religionists who say they support children's rights while practising religiously motivated child genital mutilation?
Or animal rights but also ritual slaughter?
(This could be a very long list!)
Michael appears to imply that "atheists" call people hypocrites unjustly. What about religionists who think they see exactly the same hypocrisy?
theism is a mental illness. i try not to argue with the mentally ill
Yep, and all that truly describe it are Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Schizophrenic Disorder, and Inferiority Complex Disorder.
However, if being Absolutist is NOT a mental illness, it sure as Hell imitates some...
rmfr
If a person believes you're a brainwashed sheep without any evidence, then he should look in a mirror. When a person has no evidence to justify their beliefs it is very difficult to reason with them, as generally in such cases, no evidence would change their mind. The best strategy is perhaps to demonstrate that science is a philosophy that has produced tangible results through its knowledge.
Whenever I face one dedicated to the denial of science, I give them just one question. I am fully trained in first aid. If I see you choking, do you want me to perform the Heimlich maneuver or just pray for them? One is science, one is religion, make your decision.
But if one rolls it back, one can easily demonstrate science in action, from the internet to cell phones, to an automobile. So you explore the threshold where they accept science (since it is so convenient) and reject science because it contradicts their beliefs.
^^^ this, so much this (david killen's reply.)
@David Killens: So you explore the threshold where they accept science (since it is so convenient) and reject science because it contradicts their beliefs.
I see a parallel in the anti-corporate/anti-globalization activists who organize protests using Samsung and Apple phones and turn up wearing Levis and Reeboks or cheap Walmart clothing from sweat shops in Pakistan.
No doubt they, like the religionists, have all kinds of convoluted arguments to justify their selective rejection of capitalism. I think Kurt Vonnegut summed up this tendency best in his cuckoo clock analogy (in "Mother Night" I think). He said that perfectly sane people who became Nazis were like cuckoo clocks with a single cog missing from one of the wheels. They tell the time perfectly for most of the day, but skip a minute or two every 24 hours.
You can't reason with someone who doesn't know what reasoning is.
Um..... The same scientists that are curing diseases, taking men into space, exploring the bottoms of the oceans, inventing computers and other amazing machines, replacing limbs with prosthetic devices so people can live normal lives, curing deafness, curing cancers, and extending the life of the human body from 40 years to 70 to 100, do you mean those scientists?
Well that's precisely correct, and in stark contrast ask any theist what objective knowledge about the world and universe their religion has provided the human race that science could never have provided. Expect the answer to be suitably vague.
David's post nailed it nicely for me, I don't go to a priest for medical advice, anymore than I will take the subjective denials of evolution by Breezy in an atheist forum, over the scientific world's validation that it is an evidenced scientific fact.
"Creationist says"
what do you expect of them to say?
isn't it ironic? do you believe on that saying "thinkers are doers"?
hahah....hahahah....if were brainwashed then what about theists? huh?
Hi. I are a aytheeust. An' I dunnot beeleeve inda Buy-bull. I are onlee beeleeving inda sighense stuff. So dat mean I are no having no ah-bill-ah-tee of thanking. Dem derned sigh-un-tists dun warshdid muh branes...Huh-huh-huh... Dey dun tawt me on-lee lodge-ick an reezuhn. Butt muh branes shore dus smell purty now. Huh-huh-huh...
@ ''Scientists brainwashed you into thinking evolution.
Absolutely true - faith and belief are all that is required to believe in evolution. You do not need any of the facts. DNA records, Transitional Forms, Ring Species, Spontaneous Mutations, Vestige Limbs (Like humans born with tails or fish with feet and lungs), Chromosome number 2, and the rest. The real fact of the matter is this: "IF HUMANS CAME FROM MONKEYS, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE MONKEYS." That's just basic logic.
@ Scientists brainwashed you into thinking the Big Bang is real.
Absolutely true. Even Einstein first dismissed it outright when it was presented to him as a possibility. He knew it was foolish. Einstein told Lemaitre (the guy that invented the Big Bang) ""Vos calculs sont corrects, mais votre physique est abominable," which means "your calculations are correct, but your physics is abominable!" Then Einstein succumbed to the Grand Inquisitors of science. Believe or lose your job and never be published again. What else could poor Einstein do? Then Hubble came around with his stupid ideas of cosmic background radiation. Sheesh - what a twit. The earth is flat and the universe revolves around it. Everyone knows that to be true. Just watch a flat earth video.
@ You are such a misguided sheep!
You really are such a misguided sheep.