3 ms·

>What claims? There are so many denominations of protestant Christianity alone that I don't think you could even go so far as to say that "Abrahamic religions m

>What claims? There are so many denominations of protestant Christianity alone that I don't think you could even go so far as to say that "Abrahamic religions make claims." Maybe one specific sect makes a claim. Creationism is pretty much de rigueur for all Abrahamic religions. There are others, but that one gives the lie to all of them.

whatshisface 5y ago
You can't disprove creationism, only young-earth or otherwise Tolkienesque creationism. There's always another variety that doesn't involve believing the thing you can demonstrate is wrong. Frankly, we don't really know whether the universe was created or not. We know a few specific things about topics covered in creation myths, but if you ask someone about them you will see response ranging from "nah I don't think that part is right," to, "if you look closely you'll see that what it's really saying is..." The platonic ideal fundamentalist only exists in atheist cultural myths. ;) It would be awfully convenient for atheism if believers in religions weren't also trying to square away contradictions, but they are, and they have brains too - about the same brains because we're all the same species - and they're not entirely unsuccessful unless you count the activity of squaring away contradictions itself as evidence that the divine author lacked foresight into what people would think when they read Genesis millennia after it was put to text. The essential question about apologetics is, how reasonable is to to put a lot of effort into coming up with interpretations, when the text was supposed to be written to teach you? If the only way to correctly interpret the text is to get the information elsewhere, that doesn't speak highly of the text as a vehicle for knowledge. The rejoinder is that the Bible, or the Torah, or whatever, was not written to be a science textbook, and its value to us as a textbook did not matter at all to the author. Given that religion is focused more on saving souls that it is on natural history, it doesn't seem like such an unreasonable picture of the motives involved to say that the divine coordinator would gladly confuse generations of internet forum posters in exchange for a little more symbolic significance in the text. The rejoinder to that is: why would God be dealing with tradeoffs? Well, at this point we've completely submerged ourselves into arguing about the personality of the creator.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >You can't disprove creationism, only young-earth or otherwise Tolkienesque creationism. His noodly goodness[0][1] will reward you for your faith! Arrrh! [0] https://www.spaghettimonster.org/ https://www.spaghettimonster.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Well, I think we can all agree that the FSM is not demonstrably false - to be demonstrably false is to be falsifiable, and unless they made a mistake somewhere in coming up with their parody canon there's no reason why it should have to be. In fact I think the entire point of the FSM is to illustrate that creation myths are not falsifiable.
    - nobody9999 5y ago
      I didn't say that the hypothesis of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator was falsifiable, I said that some of the claims made by those who believe that hypothesis (Abrahamic religions) are demonstrably false. I then contrasted that with the simulation hypothesis, that doesn't make such claims. That doesn't make the core hypothesis of either one falsifiable. Rather, it (at least to me) makes me less likely to entertain the (non-falsifiable) hypotheses that surround themselves with demonstrably false claims than those that don't.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        I understand what you're saying, I'm just not sure what the falsifiable claims are. If you're saying that creationism is wrong because many creationists are wrong, that sounds like some kind of fallacy.
        nobody9999 5y ago
        >If you're saying that creationism is wrong because many creationists are wrong, that sounds like some kind of fallacy. That's doesn't even bear a resemblance to what I said. Apparently, my communication skills are quite poor, so I will cease to attempt to use them in this context[0]. [0] Or you're being deliberately obtuse. But I don't claim that as I try to assume good faith.

whatshisface 5y ago

You can't disprove creationism, only young-earth or otherwise Tolkienesque creationism. There's always another variety that doesn't involve believing the thing you can demonstrate is wrong. Frankly, we don't really know whether the universe was created or not. We know a few specific things about topics covered in creation myths, but if you ask someone about them you will see response ranging from "nah I don't think that part is right," to, "if you look closely you'll see that what it's really saying is..." The platonic ideal fundamentalist only exists in atheist cultural myths. ;) It would be awfully convenient for atheism if believers in religions weren't also trying to square away contradictions, but they are, and they have brains too - about the same brains because we're all the same species - and they're not entirely unsuccessful unless you count the activity of squaring away contradictions itself as evidence that the divine author lacked foresight into what people would think when they read Genesis millennia after it was put to text. The essential question about apologetics is, how reasonable is to to put a lot of effort into coming up with interpretations, when the text was supposed to be written to teach you? If the only way to correctly interpret the text is to get the information elsewhere, that doesn't speak highly of the text as a vehicle for knowledge. The rejoinder is that the Bible, or the Torah, or whatever, was not written to be a science textbook, and its value to us as a textbook did not matter at all to the author. Given that religion is focused more on saving souls that it is on natural history, it doesn't seem like such an unreasonable picture of the motives involved to say that the divine coordinator would gladly confuse generations of internet forum posters in exchange for a little more symbolic significance in the text. The rejoinder to that is: why would God be dealing with tradeoffs? Well, at this point we've completely submerged ourselves into arguing about the personality of the creator.

nobody9999 5y ago
>You can't disprove creationism, only young-earth or otherwise Tolkienesque creationism. His noodly goodness[0][1] will reward you for your faith! Arrrh! [0] https://www.spaghettimonster.org/ https://www.spaghettimonster.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Well, I think we can all agree that the FSM is not demonstrably false - to be demonstrably false is to be falsifiable, and unless they made a mistake somewhere in coming up with their parody canon there's no reason why it should have to be. In fact I think the entire point of the FSM is to illustrate that creation myths are not falsifiable.
  - nobody9999 5y ago
    I didn't say that the hypothesis of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator was falsifiable, I said that some of the claims made by those who believe that hypothesis (Abrahamic religions) are demonstrably false. I then contrasted that with the simulation hypothesis, that doesn't make such claims. That doesn't make the core hypothesis of either one falsifiable. Rather, it (at least to me) makes me less likely to entertain the (non-falsifiable) hypotheses that surround themselves with demonstrably false claims than those that don't.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      I understand what you're saying, I'm just not sure what the falsifiable claims are. If you're saying that creationism is wrong because many creationists are wrong, that sounds like some kind of fallacy.
      - nobody9999 5y ago
        >If you're saying that creationism is wrong because many creationists are wrong, that sounds like some kind of fallacy. That's doesn't even bear a resemblance to what I said. Apparently, my communication skills are quite poor, so I will cease to attempt to use them in this context[0]. [0] Or you're being deliberately obtuse. But I don't claim that as I try to assume good faith.