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I am sitting on my hands to resist the temptation to send this to my creationist aunt and uncle (who are otherwise great people).

MisterTea 2y ago
Simple rebuttle: the devil put those foot prints there to test their faith.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  I've never heard this line from a real creationist, only ever as a strawman. Anyway, as far as I recall they don't (officially) have any problems with fossils like this. They'll just say the split happened during the Flood, like everything else.
  - Windchaser 2y ago
    The amount of energy it takes to split two continents and send them thousands of miles away from each other would be enough to boil off the oceans. Just think of the incredible amount of rock that has to be melted and resolidified (all of the rock in the rock floor between the two continents, or that was previously elsewhere). And resolidifying means releasing heat. Yeah, this simply can't happen in just hundreds of years.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
      If the initial premise is that an all powerful being created, well, everything. I am not sure that arguing the specifics of how manipulating continents is physically demanding is going to sway hearts and minds.
      - andrewflnr 2y ago
        Creation scientists actually do go pretty far, though, in trying to make things as physically plausible as they can. I think they're aiming for a theory where God makes specific events happen, like creation itself, or unleashing water in the ground and air to generate the Flood, but aside from that physics pretty much runs as designed. And to their credit, this would be sort of a local minimum in divine interference required for the theory... if the rest of the physics worked. Ed: though I suppose that implies less than it ideally would about the attitudes of random believers on the street, who might well be a lot less principled about where they let divine interference into their model...
    - andrewflnr 2y ago
      Yes, that's a much more relevant counter-argument. I did add the qualifier "officially". :)
  - deleted 2y ago
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- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Or as Pratchett put it, put there as a prank.
- insickness 2y ago
  I subscribe to Bertrand Russell's hypothesis that the earth was created five minutes ago. Events that you remember do not necessarily have to have happened; memories were put in our minds. Impossible to prove wrong.
andrewclunn 2y ago
Dang those dinosaurs were really good jumpers back when they lived 6,000 years ago...
Fauntleroy 2y ago
It's absolutely impossible to reason with people like that, and I have to imagine you're already well aware. Evidence means nothing when "belief" can replace it.
- patrickmay 2y ago
  Exactly. It's on the Topics Not To Discuss list at family gatherings.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    I was having a discussion about the creation story in the Bible with my aunt one time and my dad walked in and said what are y'all talking about? Whether the creation story is literal. He said, and it amuses me to this day, no one takes the creation story literally! So there he was, in a strong relationship with a sister who he had known his entire life and didn't know that she took the creation story literally whereas he took it more poetically. And they grew up in the same household.
ijidak 2y ago
Or, you could send them this: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201401/creation/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201401/creation/
Loughla 2y ago
The problem is the greasy headline where it says matching. While it makes for good script on headlines, it makes terrible arguments for creationists. They use that vaguely misleading headline as a reason to discredit the entire premise of the article. Source: my creationist family members who did that.
- ada1981 2y ago
  Send them Elok Musk talking about Nick Bostrum. If you believe in Simulation Theory, you are a creationist!
tgv 2y ago
Is it worth it to be right?
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Why? Did they ask you to send them pictures of dinosaur footprints or something? Leave them be, you're not going to convince them of anything (if they are set in their beliefs) any more than they will convince you, no matter how much you'll claim "well I believe them if they show me proof". You wouldn't, as they can just point all around you for proof but you're not accepting it, and neither would they if shown proof of dinosaurs on different continents from millions of years ago. Their beliefs don't affect you, or, only as much as you let them. It really doesn't matter that you're right. What do you think you look like if you send them "proof" without them asking for it?
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MisterTea 2y ago

Simple rebuttle: the devil put those foot prints there to test their faith.

andrewflnr 2y ago
I've never heard this line from a real creationist, only ever as a strawman. Anyway, as far as I recall they don't (officially) have any problems with fossils like this. They'll just say the split happened during the Flood, like everything else.
- Windchaser 2y ago
  The amount of energy it takes to split two continents and send them thousands of miles away from each other would be enough to boil off the oceans. Just think of the incredible amount of rock that has to be melted and resolidified (all of the rock in the rock floor between the two continents, or that was previously elsewhere). And resolidifying means releasing heat. Yeah, this simply can't happen in just hundreds of years.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    If the initial premise is that an all powerful being created, well, everything. I am not sure that arguing the specifics of how manipulating continents is physically demanding is going to sway hearts and minds.
    - andrewflnr 2y ago
      Creation scientists actually do go pretty far, though, in trying to make things as physically plausible as they can. I think they're aiming for a theory where God makes specific events happen, like creation itself, or unleashing water in the ground and air to generate the Flood, but aside from that physics pretty much runs as designed. And to their credit, this would be sort of a local minimum in divine interference required for the theory... if the rest of the physics worked. Ed: though I suppose that implies less than it ideally would about the attitudes of random believers on the street, who might well be a lot less principled about where they let divine interference into their model...
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    Yes, that's a much more relevant counter-argument. I did add the qualifier "officially". :)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Or as Pratchett put it, put there as a prank.
insickness 2y ago
I subscribe to Bertrand Russell's hypothesis that the earth was created five minutes ago. Events that you remember do not necessarily have to have happened; memories were put in our minds. Impossible to prove wrong.

andrewclunn 2y ago

Dang those dinosaurs were really good jumpers back when they lived 6,000 years ago...

Fauntleroy 2y ago

It's absolutely impossible to reason with people like that, and I have to imagine you're already well aware. Evidence means nothing when "belief" can replace it.

patrickmay 2y ago
Exactly. It's on the Topics Not To Discuss list at family gatherings.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  I was having a discussion about the creation story in the Bible with my aunt one time and my dad walked in and said what are y'all talking about? Whether the creation story is literal. He said, and it amuses me to this day, no one takes the creation story literally! So there he was, in a strong relationship with a sister who he had known his entire life and didn't know that she took the creation story literally whereas he took it more poetically. And they grew up in the same household.

ijidak 2y ago

Or, you could send them this: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201401/creation/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201401/creation/

Loughla 2y ago

The problem is the greasy headline where it says matching. While it makes for good script on headlines, it makes terrible arguments for creationists. They use that vaguely misleading headline as a reason to discredit the entire premise of the article. Source: my creationist family members who did that.

ada1981 2y ago
Send them Elok Musk talking about Nick Bostrum. If you believe in Simulation Theory, you are a creationist!

tgv 2y ago

Is it worth it to be right?

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Why? Did they ask you to send them pictures of dinosaur footprints or something? Leave them be, you're not going to convince them of anything (if they are set in their beliefs) any more than they will convince you, no matter how much you'll claim "well I believe them if they show me proof". You wouldn't, as they can just point all around you for proof but you're not accepting it, and neither would they if shown proof of dinosaurs on different continents from millions of years ago. Their beliefs don't affect you, or, only as much as you let them. It really doesn't matter that you're right. What do you think you look like if you send them "proof" without them asking for it?

deleted 2y ago

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