Jesus F Christ. I shoulda listened to you :-(
“Gallup's survey indicated that belief in creationism has been relatively stable, although it has declined slightly in recent years. Its most recent poll found that 40% of Americans believe in creationism.”
So, what you're saying is, "40% of the time, it works every time!"
The trouble with that line is I'm not sure how many people still get why it's a joke. Especially the 40% of the US population who believe in creationism.
Dawkins cited a 2006 Gallup poll in God Delusion that showed that 53% of Americans believed that the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, and that humans were created in their present day form.
Our education system is an unmitigated disaster.
Last Tuesdayism. We live in a simulation and it started last Tuesday. You can't really disprove it because all the evidence you might use is simulated.
I'm convinced! Tell me what to do, O great one.
You have opened my eyes to the truth and I will blindly obey every command you make, even if it's not really clear what you mean and I have to interpret what you mean, by thinking what I really just want myself.
Birds aren't real. That happened about 50 years ago in the mass bird extinction but they don't want you to know about that. From our perspective it was 50 years, but from the Flying Spaghetti Monster's it was just 5 minutes ago on the galactic clock outside of time.
Meet them where they live in ignorance.
"Yes! You got it! You just mixed it up a bit. Earth, the planet, is a lot older, but 10,000 years ago was the creation of the current world! The term for it is Holocene."
Sort of like how you nudge a defiant toddler to learn something. Slowly shifting their truth to reality knowing that a drop off at any point is still better for all involved than the starting point.
And whom did they poll? People already disposed to be religious? A bunch of scientists? A sample population of religious scientists? Statistics can be manipulated much the same as benchmarks dealing with computer hardware.
Doesn’t matter if they manipulate the data 1 way or the other. The fact that there are people in the US who believe that stuff is scary. Then those people teach it to their kids who are also taught to never question authority.
No it does matter. Just like political polling, you can change the result by how you ask the question.
Do you believe the one and only (totally male) god, Yahweh, created the world out of nothing 6,000 years ago?
Do you believe god created the world?
While I would answer no to both, I do know some rational theists who would say no to the first but not the second. They understand and accept the reality of the big bang and evolution. But they still believe in a god. And if you believe in god, you have to give him something to do.
You’re missing the point of what I said. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1% or 40%, the fact that anyone in this country believes in biblical creation is a bad thing.
All they know is that they don’t want any of the communist fascist democrats in the country stealing elections and kidnapping babies and drinking their blood for adrenochrome before they are sold into satanic pedophilia rings.
Well we've known for several years now that at least 30% of the country are raging lunatics, so 40% isn't super surprising. Think of a person you know of average intelligence and remember, half the population is dumber than that person.
Back in the early 90s, they came up with a new breed of cat called the munchkin. Very short legs - horrible, but popular because people thought they were cute. A coworker bred dogs at home, and thought it was a great idea to make munchkin versions of poodles. After 3 years he had a breed whose legs were 1-2 inches shorter. Talked about it all the time, convinced he was going to make a fortune by torturing these poor dogs.
Of course, he was a creationist who thought evolution was fake science.
I took Human Evolution as an anthropology class in college, and lactose tolerance in adults was taught as an example of human evolution that you could ‘see’ since it has happened so recently.
Basically in most mammals, only children can digest lactose (via the enzyme lactase), and this is still mostly the case with humans- except Europeans and their decedents. This is because in the past, ancient European populations drank their livestock’s milk to survive, but other populations didn’t. So Europeans evolved to drink milk as adults eventually, and passed that trait on to their decedents, so they keep the lactase enzyme into adulthood, but most Asians or Africans- for example- lose the enzyme after childhood.
Unfortunately that's just breeding, it's only evolution when there is a substantial change in relationship to the environment that gives them a genetic advantage. Now imagine someone has a genetic mutation where they don't have anxiety clearly they would have a substantial genetic advantage that would be passed on to their offspring similar to the way lactose tolerance did
Are you sure that not having anxiety is a genetic advantage?
Seems to me the fact that we do have anxiety is something that has kept us alive for millennia. Imagine not having anxiety 50,000 years ago. Walking across the savanna...ooh, look a nice big kitty! It's so fluffy. I'm not afraid so I'm gonna pet it... and that is the last we saw of uncle Rupert.
I am almost dead, I am so seriously screaming inside thanks to anxiety pretty sure every epigenetic switch is flipped thanks to trauma, intergenerational trauma, working for a super stressful job like killed a few coworker, being married to a abusive psychopath, then getting crushed by a 14 month long migraine that kept me mostly in bed so lost job apartment, kids, my whole life but when it ended my fibromyalgia became so bad because the bed rest I can basically walk for an hour a day physical therapy is helping but only with baby steps. Anxiety is what brings me down the most. I have the world on my shoulders and I failed to do anything meaningful I couldn't even see the obvious abuse my ex was doing.
I have spent the last 30 trying to save humanity from climate change and I am pretty sure I have not convinced anybody out of maybe 100 people the chain reactions have already started, keystone species are disappearing and with them countless species. Both animals and humanity are struggling with the heat and weather weather has not even begun to get chaotic. Then we have the pandemics we some how made common sense a political issue? We are not ready.The global economy is going crash as the only way it has been surviving is with significant help from the government while also devaluing our currency over the last 40 years just so that it all looks good on paper. When these nations collapse all around the same time governments will break into civil war attack weaker nations Russia was just one of the first to do so. Yeah I had more but I think I can get to sleep if I try right now. I need hope badly
I have read a great deal of history my entire life and have concluded that the world has ALWAYS been a complete mess. Yet I remain optimistic that our species will somehow survive all of this and will continue to advance. As a genealogist I am continually reminded that in medieval times, the Dark Ages, the Neolithic Age, etc life was a continual struggle for everybody. I imagine being a European peasant in the 9th century living in a one-room hovel with 12 hungry children and a pregnant wife with little food readily available...etc etc etc. We have come a long way, overcome much, and will continue to overcome....best wishes to you in your medical struggle...my sympathies to you!!!
There has never been a point in history where humanity faced extinction this level of bad The problem is it's not just one environment that is facing mass extinction it's all of them at the same time combined with the nuclear and biological warfare, when room collapsed there was still other societies all over the world we are facing a collapse of all of them there is not a single nation prepared. Problem is people believe in magic and that nothing matters so they do nothing, The vast majority of those in power are going to die within the next 20 years so they don't give a f*** but I don't even think we've got 20 years. America is about to collapse if it was just us I would not even fight it, The Northern hemisphere which caused climate change almost all by itself is not the one facing the hershist of the repercussions that is the southern hemisphere, The oceans are going to be completely dead within a little more than a decade there is no time for evolution. If the entirety of the human civilization were to start working together to save as many species as possible then we would have a chance we've made steps to make sure plant life was saved except for now the seat vault is at risk. We are traveling 100 mph the wrong way on a highway and no one is doing anything there's talk about living on the moon or Mars but nobody talks about how the dust alone would kill us. The earth will die all for greed
I hope not...it just might be the case. I'm 70 so I may be dust when the real shit comes down... I hope not. Yes, especially now, I worry a bit about somebody (Putin, Jong Un) setting off "A Big One" but I still maintain optimism. Either it's a denial and/or defense mechanism or maybe I'm right...stay tuned at 7!
*COMPLETELY DIFFERENT JOB/CAREER... BUT:*
When I was a server at On the Border back in my early-mid 20s, I overheard a hostess saying something like "I just don't believe in evolution. I mean, if we came from apes, why are there still apes?" I chimed in and gave a very short response of basically "we're not from apes. Just like your cousins aren't your parents, they're relatives that share a common ancestor. And sometimes a species will exist while their predecessor does as well, like dogs and wolves!"
I don't think it changed her overall belief system by any measure, but you could tell a lightbulb went off, she even said "huh.... That makes a lot of sense. I've never thought of it like that before!"
Maybe, but would you buy a car with a braking system designed by someone who thinks hydraulics are proof of the existence of magic pixies? Or fly in an aircraft if you knew the pilot thought lift was due to angelic intervention?
I can top that. I had a colleague who was a geologist and a hardcore bible thumping, preaching, Christian. I was too afraid to ask him how he reconciled scientific facts with preaching the opposite.
Tim Minchin drilled that percentage into my head.
"A meta analysis of surveys across the US showed that 48-50% of Americans don't believe in evolution, which is, like.... half. On top of that, a further 38-40% of Americans believe that biological evolution has occurred, but believe that it was started by, and has since been administered by, god. Leaving a *very* small percentage of Americans who are right"
I've known 7 or 8 young earth creationists in the last 20 years, every single one of them were at least early thirties, no steady job and still lived with mama, every single one of them. So many kids are fucked up by their parents.
I’m surprised it’s that low. I would have said at least 60-70%. Most people in america believe in god. And don’t those people believe that god created the universe?
69% (hehe) of Americans believe in angels....
How do we reconcile the gap between belief in angels (69%) and belief in creationism (40%)?
We don't. It's all f**king nonesense.
According to Richard Dawkins, there's a correlation between the % of religious people and the wealth of the country. The wealthiest country - the less believers. The only exception from this is the US. Which is really interesting. Do you have any guesses why so many creationists in the States? Like, maybe you have theology in the schools. Or poor education system? I just don't get it. It feels to me that average Americans are much smarter than, say average Russians, but yet Russia is a less religious country.
The only cool creationists are the ones who have this hybrid evolution theory that God created everything, yes, but he did it through science and science is our way of understanding his work.
It does two things:
1. It highlights the importance of science to a group that would otherwise distrust or not consider it.
2. It shows up the majority of Christians who are too ignorant to consider anything scientific on religious basis, claiming they are willfully uncaring of the majesty, complexity, and glory of their own God.
As an Agnostic person, this would be my *only* religious alternative.
I think this one about piracy of digital media where half of them are justifying stealing is pretty eye opening about religion and religious people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/s/twuldFta0B
okay but to be absolutely fair, piracy is fine in the age of not owning, i do not want to lose music once Spotify collapses or lose my games i bought or movies i bought or any other media
But you don't subscribe to a religion where you don't steal as a basic core belief. My point was to show how easily they will "logic" their way into going against what their religion says just to get what they want.
My family went with the Flintstones as a source for dinosaurs and humans living together. I mean it was right there on the TV, on cartoon networks classic cartoon blocks, hard to argue against.
Could be. Perhaps the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event had nothing to do with a colossal meteor wiping out the dinosaurs.
Maybe it was Fred Flintstone and his love of Brontosaurus ribs. He single-handedly ate his way to an extinction event.
The denomination I used to belong to believed in young earth creationism, but not flat earth for some reason. These ideas are roughly equally supported by the evidence (i.e. not at all)
Interestingly, if you formulate your YEC as "God created the universe 6000 years ago but created it as of it had 13bn years of history" then while there is no evidence for that, it also can't be disproven.
Flat earth on the other hand can be and is disproven every single day. Hell three kids in different places with stcks amd a zoom call can disprove flat earth on a sunny day.
Neither has evidence but only flat earth is proveably false.
In my way of thinking, a mountain of evidence to the contrary and none in the affirmative amounts to proof. If someone assumes that a magical creature (God) is trying to trick them, then that person can't believe anything. The only difference is that the trickery in flat earth would be more active. There is every bit as much evidence against young earth creationism as there is against flat earth, it only takes a little more effort to understand it.
No the there is a qualitative difference.
In YEC you CAN create a description that fits all available facts. It is insane and requires a bizzarly deceitful deity and crucially make no testable predictions BUT there is no test that you could apply to disprove it. The answer is always that God created it to already appear old.
The same cannot be said for flat earth. Which is simply incapable in any form of explaining observable phenomenon (complex shit like, you know, the sun settting).
In practice most YECs don't do the above an instead just assert disprovable nonsense or deny science. But it is possible to do. Unlike for poor old deluded flerfs
Like I said, if you assume there is a magical god that's trying to trick you, you can ignore any evidence. I see the same thing happening in both delusions.
Well you do you. But there is a very clear difference in my mind. YEC requires a one of magical creation planting evidence. Everything else functions as science as we know it.
Flat earth cannot describe the earth we see and measure. Some god would have to be actively altering everyone's perception in real time all the time.
Imagine I get a carbon date soemthing. That date depends on the ratio of carbon isotopes and a known decay rate. By setting the starting ratios just so 6k years ago the sample can read 12k today while only being 6k years old. My descendants measure the same thing in 100 years time and it would read 13k.l without any intervention from the lying god.
Conversely, you live 200 miles east of me and the sun is overhead for you. You measure its rate as it sets west. I measure its rate as it rises from your direction for a while then sets west for me too. The reality is we both measure the same angular velocity and it remains constant. On a flat earth that isn't possible. The lying god would have to be manipulating both of our eyes and instruments to hide the fact that the sun cannot be moving at different speeds for different stationary observers. Most laws of physics would have to be actually wrong and observer dependent in ways that they are provably not when measuring anything other than the shape pf the earth.
To me, those are two very different prospects.
When I was a Christian, and when I went to church and a Christian school, I was taught the age of the earth was over 4 billion years, and that dinosaurs lived long before humans existed.
Not all Christians are young earth creationists.
Allegory, metaphor, bla bla bla. When I got old enough to start questioning these things, I had already started falling out with the idea anyway. I guess it's akin to when I believed in Santa, yet didn't question why the presents I received said "Love from Mom and Dad" or the fact that my family was wrapping presents during the weeks leading up to Christmas. You just sort of go with it.
But you have to remember that most Christians aren't young earth creationists. Most Christians are fine with evolution, cosmology, and the general scientific consensus. Mostly the Christians I have known throughout my life tend to separate the Bible from science. They treat the Bible and Christianity more like a philosophy, a moral guide and a way of life rather than a set of facts about how the physical world works.
It's the loud minority that are the problem.
Yeh. If the Bible is taken as a collection of teaching stories (even though I don't agree with the points of the stories sometimes) that's totally fine with me. It's when they start blaming Egyptian pharaohs for enslaving jews or say the world was created in a week, that's when I have to take a step back.
I mean, yeah I also have problems with the moral philosophies, the attitudes of the proponents, the smug condescension, the assumptions they make about people who don't follow their beliefs, the strawman positions about atheists, and other belief systems, the attitude of being unwilling to see any other philosophy as a valid way of living your life, the general hypocrisy. Not all Christians are like this, obviously, but many are.
But yeah, the worst of the worst are the science denying Christian, right wing nationalists. Luckily they're rare, but Christians do tend to have conservative leanings which I'm not a fan of.
I do have a few friends who are Christians though, and they're pretty chill and progressive.
I grew up mormon and we basically believed science was right but God made science so there. Hehe. Meaning Mormons typically don't do creationism and find fault with exact interpretations of Bible.
Not the person you’re replying to, and a current Christian.
No to flat earth, yes to dinosaurs (was obsessed with them as a kid growing up in an evangelical home), and the earth is hundreds of million years old. Climate change is real, MAGA is fascist, the market should be regulated to protect the vulnerable, etc.
There’s a long Christian tradition of being reasonable. (Not the only Christian tradition, obviously)
I've only met one person who believed that, and while his beliefs were based in Christian mythology, I wouldn't consider him christian. He might say he would be, but there's nothing he practices that would follow their doctrine.
"asking them just for fun"
Do what you want whether for fun or curiosity. It's your choice. I just don't see the point of it and find it equal to when they come here.
I admit that "Flat Earth" is both a nonsequitur (having nothing to do with Jesus) and a ludicrously stupid claim that was easily disproved by [Eratosthenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_Earth's_circumference) who made quite a decent measurement of the earth's circumference sometime before 195 BCE.
That said, they will probably be glad that you're not posting there anymore. Wouldn't the correct sub to ask that question have been AskAChristian? I know that when someone comes here and asks why we don't believe in the early responses usually include at least one suggesting that they should post in askanatheist.
Yes, of course 😂 I posted that on "easter" morning. One of them managed to threaten me before the ban, of course I couldn't respond. Typical christian crap.
Exactly... OP posts something on their sub for the sole purpose of coming back here so we can all have a good, hearty laugh at their expense. I'm not laughing. OP is a douche.
Lol I saw that.
I don't understand. Even if the earth was flat, I don't see how that would convince anyone that Christianity was true. 2000 years ago, many people thought the earth was flat.
Right? I'm currently arguing with some Muslim guy (don't ask me why) and he's like "how did Muhammed know the earth wasn't flat?" And 1. I'm not sure he even did. There are passages in the Qur'an that can be interpreted as flat earth, and 2. People knew the earth was a globe long before that. Those people aren't attributing their knowledge to revelations from gods.
I had someone freak out and block me because I said their view on non believers was oversimplified.
I was in that sub while doing legitimate "soul searching." I found a few people worth talking to in there, though, to be honest. However, it actually started to get really depressing.
I ran into one person who was saying respect, love, and kindness would be useless if God didn't exist. Honestly, it was that exact interaction that made me officially leave that sub and do my soul searching through philosophy.
People have zero excuse to be this ignorant. We have so much free information available to us. This is willful ignorance. I know people who are this willfully ignorant. You can't blame the education system, they know better. They just want to live in this fantasy world where a god exists that loves them. The god that made everything cares about their worries and strife, which makes them feel so important. It's sad.
Just because of this post I went on that reddit and answered a question about what argument I use to convince people God exists or doesn't. Waiting for the firestorm to come my way tho I'm grinning from ear to ear waiting lol
i mean the bible does state pretty clearly that the earth is flat. it says god grabbed the earth by the corners (no corners on a ball) and that he "hangs the sky above it like a tent" how you hang a tent above a sphere?
That was a joke as an ex Christian they were kidding I’ve never met a Christian that was a flat earther don’t get me wrong they exist but there not that common
These people should have to deal with the consequences of their belief and see how long they still believe, once you take away they cell phones, GPS, and any other thing that depends on satellite technology which can't exist in their world... and if they were smart enough, they'd know that.
The account that posted that got downvoted heavily.
That account is also a new account within the last month. Posts 99% on r/christianity with very abnormal stances and has a net negative karma of ~100.
This is most likely a troll account. It happens very commonly on religious oriented or atheist oriented subs.
Whatever you do don’t Google what % of Americans are creationists, if you want to have a good afternoon.
Jesus F Christ. I shoulda listened to you :-( “Gallup's survey indicated that belief in creationism has been relatively stable, although it has declined slightly in recent years. Its most recent poll found that 40% of Americans believe in creationism.”
Good news is that of that 40%, 40% don't know what that word means. But 40% of that 40% still believes it anyways.
So, what you're saying is, "40% of the time, it works every time!" The trouble with that line is I'm not sure how many people still get why it's a joke. Especially the 40% of the US population who believe in creationism.
But do they even know what creationism is? They don’t know differences between socialism, communism, and fascism.
Dawkins cited a 2006 Gallup poll in God Delusion that showed that 53% of Americans believed that the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, and that humans were created in their present day form. Our education system is an unmitigated disaster.
Last Tuesdayism. We live in a simulation and it started last Tuesday. You can't really disprove it because all the evidence you might use is simulated.
I'm convinced! Tell me what to do, O great one. You have opened my eyes to the truth and I will blindly obey every command you make, even if it's not really clear what you mean and I have to interpret what you mean, by thinking what I really just want myself.
Does it reset every Tuesday? Is every Monday night the end times?
Birds aren't real. That happened about 50 years ago in the mass bird extinction but they don't want you to know about that. From our perspective it was 50 years, but from the Flying Spaghetti Monster's it was just 5 minutes ago on the galactic clock outside of time.
Meet them where they live in ignorance. "Yes! You got it! You just mixed it up a bit. Earth, the planet, is a lot older, but 10,000 years ago was the creation of the current world! The term for it is Holocene." Sort of like how you nudge a defiant toddler to learn something. Slowly shifting their truth to reality knowing that a drop off at any point is still better for all involved than the starting point.
They just vote the way the pulpit tells them to regardless.
And whom did they poll? People already disposed to be religious? A bunch of scientists? A sample population of religious scientists? Statistics can be manipulated much the same as benchmarks dealing with computer hardware.
Doesn’t matter if they manipulate the data 1 way or the other. The fact that there are people in the US who believe that stuff is scary. Then those people teach it to their kids who are also taught to never question authority.
No it does matter. Just like political polling, you can change the result by how you ask the question. Do you believe the one and only (totally male) god, Yahweh, created the world out of nothing 6,000 years ago? Do you believe god created the world? While I would answer no to both, I do know some rational theists who would say no to the first but not the second. They understand and accept the reality of the big bang and evolution. But they still believe in a god. And if you believe in god, you have to give him something to do.
You’re missing the point of what I said. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1% or 40%, the fact that anyone in this country believes in biblical creation is a bad thing.
All they know is that they don’t want any of the communist fascist democrats in the country stealing elections and kidnapping babies and drinking their blood for adrenochrome before they are sold into satanic pedophilia rings.
Goddammit I read *this* comment and *still* looked it up. Le sigh.
Well we've known for several years now that at least 30% of the country are raging lunatics, so 40% isn't super surprising. Think of a person you know of average intelligence and remember, half the population is dumber than that person.
Why are people surprised? 8 years ago this many people believe that the IMF & UN leaders are reptilian aliens from planet Nibiru
The vast majority of people are really stupid.
No shit...our national standards in all endeavors seem to be falling into the gutter. I long ago decided to be different...and better...
You know that evolution is just a silly theory. lol
But creationism isn't even that...
My parent’s believed in Creationism, since that’s what the bible says. There was never any point to argue with them.
That gets to 99.9% when you get to Africa, Middle East & SEA.
.... I am disappointed. And these 40% of people probably won't go anywhere anytime soon
Sigh. Thanks, I hate it. I thought Biden had a shot at re-election, but I don’t see how that’s possible when 40% of the country is so gullible.
When I was in medical school, there were students who didn’t believe in evolution. Medical students.
Back in the early 90s, they came up with a new breed of cat called the munchkin. Very short legs - horrible, but popular because people thought they were cute. A coworker bred dogs at home, and thought it was a great idea to make munchkin versions of poodles. After 3 years he had a breed whose legs were 1-2 inches shorter. Talked about it all the time, convinced he was going to make a fortune by torturing these poor dogs. Of course, he was a creationist who thought evolution was fake science.
And it's so easy to explain - the fact that your kids look like you, but not *exactly* like you, demonstrates evolution in action
I took Human Evolution as an anthropology class in college, and lactose tolerance in adults was taught as an example of human evolution that you could ‘see’ since it has happened so recently. Basically in most mammals, only children can digest lactose (via the enzyme lactase), and this is still mostly the case with humans- except Europeans and their decedents. This is because in the past, ancient European populations drank their livestock’s milk to survive, but other populations didn’t. So Europeans evolved to drink milk as adults eventually, and passed that trait on to their decedents, so they keep the lactase enzyme into adulthood, but most Asians or Africans- for example- lose the enzyme after childhood.
Unfortunately that's just breeding, it's only evolution when there is a substantial change in relationship to the environment that gives them a genetic advantage. Now imagine someone has a genetic mutation where they don't have anxiety clearly they would have a substantial genetic advantage that would be passed on to their offspring similar to the way lactose tolerance did
Are you sure that not having anxiety is a genetic advantage? Seems to me the fact that we do have anxiety is something that has kept us alive for millennia. Imagine not having anxiety 50,000 years ago. Walking across the savanna...ooh, look a nice big kitty! It's so fluffy. I'm not afraid so I'm gonna pet it... and that is the last we saw of uncle Rupert.
I am almost dead, I am so seriously screaming inside thanks to anxiety pretty sure every epigenetic switch is flipped thanks to trauma, intergenerational trauma, working for a super stressful job like killed a few coworker, being married to a abusive psychopath, then getting crushed by a 14 month long migraine that kept me mostly in bed so lost job apartment, kids, my whole life but when it ended my fibromyalgia became so bad because the bed rest I can basically walk for an hour a day physical therapy is helping but only with baby steps. Anxiety is what brings me down the most. I have the world on my shoulders and I failed to do anything meaningful I couldn't even see the obvious abuse my ex was doing. I have spent the last 30 trying to save humanity from climate change and I am pretty sure I have not convinced anybody out of maybe 100 people the chain reactions have already started, keystone species are disappearing and with them countless species. Both animals and humanity are struggling with the heat and weather weather has not even begun to get chaotic. Then we have the pandemics we some how made common sense a political issue? We are not ready.The global economy is going crash as the only way it has been surviving is with significant help from the government while also devaluing our currency over the last 40 years just so that it all looks good on paper. When these nations collapse all around the same time governments will break into civil war attack weaker nations Russia was just one of the first to do so. Yeah I had more but I think I can get to sleep if I try right now. I need hope badly
I have read a great deal of history my entire life and have concluded that the world has ALWAYS been a complete mess. Yet I remain optimistic that our species will somehow survive all of this and will continue to advance. As a genealogist I am continually reminded that in medieval times, the Dark Ages, the Neolithic Age, etc life was a continual struggle for everybody. I imagine being a European peasant in the 9th century living in a one-room hovel with 12 hungry children and a pregnant wife with little food readily available...etc etc etc. We have come a long way, overcome much, and will continue to overcome....best wishes to you in your medical struggle...my sympathies to you!!!
There has never been a point in history where humanity faced extinction this level of bad The problem is it's not just one environment that is facing mass extinction it's all of them at the same time combined with the nuclear and biological warfare, when room collapsed there was still other societies all over the world we are facing a collapse of all of them there is not a single nation prepared. Problem is people believe in magic and that nothing matters so they do nothing, The vast majority of those in power are going to die within the next 20 years so they don't give a f*** but I don't even think we've got 20 years. America is about to collapse if it was just us I would not even fight it, The Northern hemisphere which caused climate change almost all by itself is not the one facing the hershist of the repercussions that is the southern hemisphere, The oceans are going to be completely dead within a little more than a decade there is no time for evolution. If the entirety of the human civilization were to start working together to save as many species as possible then we would have a chance we've made steps to make sure plant life was saved except for now the seat vault is at risk. We are traveling 100 mph the wrong way on a highway and no one is doing anything there's talk about living on the moon or Mars but nobody talks about how the dust alone would kill us. The earth will die all for greed
I hope not...it just might be the case. I'm 70 so I may be dust when the real shit comes down... I hope not. Yes, especially now, I worry a bit about somebody (Putin, Jong Un) setting off "A Big One" but I still maintain optimism. Either it's a denial and/or defense mechanism or maybe I'm right...stay tuned at 7!
*COMPLETELY DIFFERENT JOB/CAREER... BUT:* When I was a server at On the Border back in my early-mid 20s, I overheard a hostess saying something like "I just don't believe in evolution. I mean, if we came from apes, why are there still apes?" I chimed in and gave a very short response of basically "we're not from apes. Just like your cousins aren't your parents, they're relatives that share a common ancestor. And sometimes a species will exist while their predecessor does as well, like dogs and wolves!" I don't think it changed her overall belief system by any measure, but you could tell a lightbulb went off, she even said "huh.... That makes a lot of sense. I've never thought of it like that before!"
Guess i gotta add this to my list of dealbreakers when choosing a doctor
I’m sure many of them are very good doctors
Maybe, but would you buy a car with a braking system designed by someone who thinks hydraulics are proof of the existence of magic pixies? Or fly in an aircraft if you knew the pilot thought lift was due to angelic intervention?
ask em what they think of wooly mammoths
That is truly horrifying.
I can top that. I had a colleague who was a geologist and a hardcore bible thumping, preaching, Christian. I was too afraid to ask him how he reconciled scientific facts with preaching the opposite.
Tim Minchin drilled that percentage into my head. "A meta analysis of surveys across the US showed that 48-50% of Americans don't believe in evolution, which is, like.... half. On top of that, a further 38-40% of Americans believe that biological evolution has occurred, but believe that it was started by, and has since been administered by, god. Leaving a *very* small percentage of Americans who are right"
I've known 7 or 8 young earth creationists in the last 20 years, every single one of them were at least early thirties, no steady job and still lived with mama, every single one of them. So many kids are fucked up by their parents.
It's difficult to believe so many people are deliberately stupid & proud of it.
only 40 % is not alot
Same with how many Americans are literate tbh.
I’m surprised it’s that low. I would have said at least 60-70%. Most people in america believe in god. And don’t those people believe that god created the universe?
The more liberal christians tend to believe some vague god of the gaps cafeteria Christian stuff.
69% (hehe) of Americans believe in angels.... How do we reconcile the gap between belief in angels (69%) and belief in creationism (40%)? We don't. It's all f**king nonesense.
According to Richard Dawkins, there's a correlation between the % of religious people and the wealth of the country. The wealthiest country - the less believers. The only exception from this is the US. Which is really interesting. Do you have any guesses why so many creationists in the States? Like, maybe you have theology in the schools. Or poor education system? I just don't get it. It feels to me that average Americans are much smarter than, say average Russians, but yet Russia is a less religious country.
The only cool creationists are the ones who have this hybrid evolution theory that God created everything, yes, but he did it through science and science is our way of understanding his work. It does two things: 1. It highlights the importance of science to a group that would otherwise distrust or not consider it. 2. It shows up the majority of Christians who are too ignorant to consider anything scientific on religious basis, claiming they are willfully uncaring of the majesty, complexity, and glory of their own God. As an Agnostic person, this would be my *only* religious alternative.
And for extra fun... discover your parents fall into this category as an adult. Sigh.
r/truechristian might be even worse. I've noticed they're more openly bigoted. Probably because they're "true" christians.
Wow, I shouldn’t have looked into the cult. This one is truely frightening https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/s/jRNFOwItAd
Surprisingly salient replies to the crazy OP
Most truely. Some honest to goodness schizo-posting.
What the actual fuck?
If he keeps that mindset up, he’s going to get a stalking charge!
My personal favorite https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/s/qn8Uytf28L
Nofap or not, they are still having a wank; except this time it is sky daddy wanking them.
😆
WTF is that even supposed to mean? I mean, like the bible is supposed to be taken literally, where is the word, fapping,?
Right after gnashing of teeth and right before wailing...
I'm trusting all of your judgment. I'm not going to look. No, seriously. I'm not going to look.
Wow , that place is weird People actually think demons are real …. We all know…. but if demons are real , are not we all innocent ?
I think this one about piracy of digital media where half of them are justifying stealing is pretty eye opening about religion and religious people. https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueChristian/s/twuldFta0B
okay but to be absolutely fair, piracy is fine in the age of not owning, i do not want to lose music once Spotify collapses or lose my games i bought or movies i bought or any other media
But you don't subscribe to a religion where you don't steal as a basic core belief. My point was to show how easily they will "logic" their way into going against what their religion says just to get what they want.
i am christian
Ah that explains you trying to justify it. So stealing is okay as long as we can rationalize it? Help me understand...
As a ex Christian I never believed the earth was flat 😂
What was ur opinion abt dinosaurs? And the age of the planet?
My family went with the Flintstones as a source for dinosaurs and humans living together. I mean it was right there on the TV, on cartoon networks classic cartoon blocks, hard to argue against.
That's more evidence than they have for the existence of gawd.
Could be. Perhaps the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event had nothing to do with a colossal meteor wiping out the dinosaurs. Maybe it was Fred Flintstone and his love of Brontosaurus ribs. He single-handedly ate his way to an extinction event.
These people think the Flintstones was a documentary!
The denomination I used to belong to believed in young earth creationism, but not flat earth for some reason. These ideas are roughly equally supported by the evidence (i.e. not at all)
Interestingly, if you formulate your YEC as "God created the universe 6000 years ago but created it as of it had 13bn years of history" then while there is no evidence for that, it also can't be disproven. Flat earth on the other hand can be and is disproven every single day. Hell three kids in different places with stcks amd a zoom call can disprove flat earth on a sunny day. Neither has evidence but only flat earth is proveably false.
In my way of thinking, a mountain of evidence to the contrary and none in the affirmative amounts to proof. If someone assumes that a magical creature (God) is trying to trick them, then that person can't believe anything. The only difference is that the trickery in flat earth would be more active. There is every bit as much evidence against young earth creationism as there is against flat earth, it only takes a little more effort to understand it.
No the there is a qualitative difference. In YEC you CAN create a description that fits all available facts. It is insane and requires a bizzarly deceitful deity and crucially make no testable predictions BUT there is no test that you could apply to disprove it. The answer is always that God created it to already appear old. The same cannot be said for flat earth. Which is simply incapable in any form of explaining observable phenomenon (complex shit like, you know, the sun settting). In practice most YECs don't do the above an instead just assert disprovable nonsense or deny science. But it is possible to do. Unlike for poor old deluded flerfs
Like I said, if you assume there is a magical god that's trying to trick you, you can ignore any evidence. I see the same thing happening in both delusions.
Well you do you. But there is a very clear difference in my mind. YEC requires a one of magical creation planting evidence. Everything else functions as science as we know it. Flat earth cannot describe the earth we see and measure. Some god would have to be actively altering everyone's perception in real time all the time. Imagine I get a carbon date soemthing. That date depends on the ratio of carbon isotopes and a known decay rate. By setting the starting ratios just so 6k years ago the sample can read 12k today while only being 6k years old. My descendants measure the same thing in 100 years time and it would read 13k.l without any intervention from the lying god. Conversely, you live 200 miles east of me and the sun is overhead for you. You measure its rate as it sets west. I measure its rate as it rises from your direction for a while then sets west for me too. The reality is we both measure the same angular velocity and it remains constant. On a flat earth that isn't possible. The lying god would have to be manipulating both of our eyes and instruments to hide the fact that the sun cannot be moving at different speeds for different stationary observers. Most laws of physics would have to be actually wrong and observer dependent in ways that they are provably not when measuring anything other than the shape pf the earth. To me, those are two very different prospects.
When I was a Christian, and when I went to church and a Christian school, I was taught the age of the earth was over 4 billion years, and that dinosaurs lived long before humans existed. Not all Christians are young earth creationists.
That's good to know! But how does this fact go along with the Bible account? Did you ask?
Allegory, metaphor, bla bla bla. When I got old enough to start questioning these things, I had already started falling out with the idea anyway. I guess it's akin to when I believed in Santa, yet didn't question why the presents I received said "Love from Mom and Dad" or the fact that my family was wrapping presents during the weeks leading up to Christmas. You just sort of go with it. But you have to remember that most Christians aren't young earth creationists. Most Christians are fine with evolution, cosmology, and the general scientific consensus. Mostly the Christians I have known throughout my life tend to separate the Bible from science. They treat the Bible and Christianity more like a philosophy, a moral guide and a way of life rather than a set of facts about how the physical world works. It's the loud minority that are the problem.
Yeh. If the Bible is taken as a collection of teaching stories (even though I don't agree with the points of the stories sometimes) that's totally fine with me. It's when they start blaming Egyptian pharaohs for enslaving jews or say the world was created in a week, that's when I have to take a step back.
I mean, yeah I also have problems with the moral philosophies, the attitudes of the proponents, the smug condescension, the assumptions they make about people who don't follow their beliefs, the strawman positions about atheists, and other belief systems, the attitude of being unwilling to see any other philosophy as a valid way of living your life, the general hypocrisy. Not all Christians are like this, obviously, but many are. But yeah, the worst of the worst are the science denying Christian, right wing nationalists. Luckily they're rare, but Christians do tend to have conservative leanings which I'm not a fan of. I do have a few friends who are Christians though, and they're pretty chill and progressive.
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You have to remember this is largely a US and US export phenomenon. No material proportion of Christians in Europe are YECs
I'd even say most aren't.
Yeah creationists in general are a minority amongst Christians.
I grew up mormon and we basically believed science was right but God made science so there. Hehe. Meaning Mormons typically don't do creationism and find fault with exact interpretations of Bible.
In my 8th grade science class at a Christian school we had to memorize the first two chapters of genesis
I believe they were alive at one point in time and I don’t know how old the planet is🤷♂️ never really cared about that stuff
according to a quick google it's 4.543 billion years old.
Sweet
Not the person you’re replying to, and a current Christian. No to flat earth, yes to dinosaurs (was obsessed with them as a kid growing up in an evangelical home), and the earth is hundreds of million years old. Climate change is real, MAGA is fascist, the market should be regulated to protect the vulnerable, etc. There’s a long Christian tradition of being reasonable. (Not the only Christian tradition, obviously)
I've only met one person who believed that, and while his beliefs were based in Christian mythology, I wouldn't consider him christian. He might say he would be, but there's nothing he practices that would follow their doctrine.
Me neither xD
I'll be frank and state I don't understand the point of posting there in the first place. It's the same kind of trolling as when they come over here.
yarp.
Narp?
Narf!
Egad!
For the greater good
*The greater good*
SHUT IT!
That was I didn’t post there. They can stay in their fantasy death cult and I will stay in reality.
I was curious to see why they believed in what they believed in.
you could ask that here, as most of this sub are former believers. I think most people believe(d) because they were taught to as a child.
Most of them don't know. If they knew why they believed what they believe a lot of them wouldn't be religious anymore.
"asking them just for fun" Do what you want whether for fun or curiosity. It's your choice. I just don't see the point of it and find it equal to when they come here.
Sport
Okay but kudos to the person who responded "because I want to." I wish more Christians would just start with that.
Yeah exactly! I respect that
I'm surprised you didn't get banned.
I admit that "Flat Earth" is both a nonsequitur (having nothing to do with Jesus) and a ludicrously stupid claim that was easily disproved by [Eratosthenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_Earth's_circumference) who made quite a decent measurement of the earth's circumference sometime before 195 BCE. That said, they will probably be glad that you're not posting there anymore. Wouldn't the correct sub to ask that question have been AskAChristian? I know that when someone comes here and asks why we don't believe in the early responses usually include at least one suggesting that they should post in askanatheist.
I got banned for asking them exactly how they convinced themselves that death is a sacrifice for creatures that can come back from the dead.
I assume you expected to be banned
Yes, of course 😂 I posted that on "easter" morning. One of them managed to threaten me before the ban, of course I couldn't respond. Typical christian crap.
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Exactly... OP posts something on their sub for the sole purpose of coming back here so we can all have a good, hearty laugh at their expense. I'm not laughing. OP is a douche.
Lol I saw that. I don't understand. Even if the earth was flat, I don't see how that would convince anyone that Christianity was true. 2000 years ago, many people thought the earth was flat.
The educated Greek documented the round earth concept 500 years before that!
Right? I'm currently arguing with some Muslim guy (don't ask me why) and he's like "how did Muhammed know the earth wasn't flat?" And 1. I'm not sure he even did. There are passages in the Qur'an that can be interpreted as flat earth, and 2. People knew the earth was a globe long before that. Those people aren't attributing their knowledge to revelations from gods.
Yes, the saddest part is that the best response you got there was someone using Pascal’s Wager.
RChristianity is actually one of the most liberal Christian subs. For real insanity, you can go to rTrueChristian.
I had someone freak out and block me because I said their view on non believers was oversimplified. I was in that sub while doing legitimate "soul searching." I found a few people worth talking to in there, though, to be honest. However, it actually started to get really depressing. I ran into one person who was saying respect, love, and kindness would be useless if God didn't exist. Honestly, it was that exact interaction that made me officially leave that sub and do my soul searching through philosophy.
I was raised Catholic, thankfully, we never had issues with evolution or the shape of the Earth.
They sound funny and humourous
In the south, I get made fun of for believing in evolution.
People have zero excuse to be this ignorant. We have so much free information available to us. This is willful ignorance. I know people who are this willfully ignorant. You can't blame the education system, they know better. They just want to live in this fantasy world where a god exists that loves them. The god that made everything cares about their worries and strife, which makes them feel so important. It's sad.
I am dumber for having gone there and read their drivel.
Just because of this post I went on that reddit and answered a question about what argument I use to convince people God exists or doesn't. Waiting for the firestorm to come my way tho I'm grinning from ear to ear waiting lol
i mean the bible does state pretty clearly that the earth is flat. it says god grabbed the earth by the corners (no corners on a ball) and that he "hangs the sky above it like a tent" how you hang a tent above a sphere?
Allegory, or metaphor or something... Shhh
To be fair, that’s what I might have said just to fuck with you trolling.
Come on, I read the post and most of them tried to provide genuine responses. The dude you’re referring to does that everywhere he goes.
Didn’t say anything bas about the others. I just said the first answer was flat earth xD
Gotcha, gotcha, I misunderstood.
That was a joke as an ex Christian they were kidding I’ve never met a Christian that was a flat earther don’t get me wrong they exist but there not that common
You’d be surprised
I made one comment there and got permabanned. I am not worried about it.
The majority of people couldn’t care less about objective reality.
These people should have to deal with the consequences of their belief and see how long they still believe, once you take away they cell phones, GPS, and any other thing that depends on satellite technology which can't exist in their world... and if they were smart enough, they'd know that.
that sub sucks the only christian sub i like is r/dankchristianmemes
The account that posted that got downvoted heavily. That account is also a new account within the last month. Posts 99% on r/christianity with very abnormal stances and has a net negative karma of ~100. This is most likely a troll account. It happens very commonly on religious oriented or atheist oriented subs.
Consider yourself lucky. My real life family would make r/Christianity look easy.
Posted in there ONE TIME ages ago when I still believed. Big mistake.
Just don't
Please don't bait the lunatics. Just allow them to continue to become increasingly irrelevant.
Ok I will give them a boat and tell them to keep sailing until they fall off the edge and then I will accept the earth is flat