Creationist Debunking Game

[Laurens]

I thought I would be cool to have a topic in which we all chip in and debunk various creationist claims. It might even prove to be a useful resource if enough people get behind it. I'll start by posting my first debunking:

Reliability of Genesis

Genesis contains two different creation stories, one in chapter one, and another in chapter two. If you go through each account and make detailed notes about the order in which events took place you will notice several major discrepancies. Are the animals created before or after humans? Is "man" the first living creature to be created or the last? Are man and woman created at the same time or at different times? Genesis chapters one and two will each provide different answers to these questions.

How can there be such major discrepancies between Genesis one and two? They belong to the same book, right? Actually, if you analyse the Hebrew text one may notice further discrepancies. The two chapters use a different name for God, and their writing styles appear different. Why would this be so? The only reasonable answer is that Genesis one and two had different authors, and the separate texts were combined at a later date.

The first chapter of Genesis is ascribed to an author mysteriously titled 'P', and it describes 'Elohim' creating the world in 6 days. The title 'P' refers to 'Priestly source' (the name of the source is unknown), and is the most recent of the proposed four major sources of the Torah, dating to around 550-400 BCE.

The second chapter of Genesis is ascribed to the J, or Jahwist narrative which describes 'Yahweh' creating the earth in a different manner. This text is much older, dating from around 950 BC.

This shows us an important fact. The Bible is not reliable. Genesis one and two cannot both be true. Man and woman cannot both be created separately and at the same time. Animals cannot come both before and after humans. Why should anybody regard the book of Genesis as the basis for any kind of science when it does not even agree with itself?

And this is not to mention the various scientific blunders of the book of Genesis. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to consider a book containing two contradictory and ancient myths to be a literal account of history.

 

[Balstrome]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

I think that while it's fun to stretch one's mind in these types of exercises, we usually forget the first point of discussion. They still have to show that the bible is an accurate document to work from, before entertaining anything else from it.

In other words, is there anything in reality that suggests that the bible may not be accurate, and collect a reason list of those things for the believers to disprove, before we open their book.

 

[Laurens]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

In other words, is there anything in reality that suggests that the bible may not be accurate, and collect a reason list of those things for the believers to disprove, before we open their book.

The contradictions contained within the text prove that it cannot be accurate, Noah cannot possibly take seven of the "clean" beasts (Gen 7:2) and two of them (Gen 7:9-10) at the same time, the fifth and the sixth plagues in Egypt cannot both have killed all the livestock in the land, history cannot allow for both to be true (in the latter, had the livestock died during the fifth plague there would be no livestock to wipe out with the sixth despite the claims that it did just that) either one is true and one is false, or neither are true, the cannot however both be true at the same time.

The Bible is riddled with such contradictions, and this proves that it is not accurate, and therefore there is no reason to even consider the Bible as the framework for reality.

 

[ProcInc]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

I propose a way to improve this thread:

Somebody gives a creationist argument (quoted or paraphrased) and it is in turn replied to. The best responder to the argument (determined by who gives the argument I guess) Then repeats the cycle.

If you think this is a good idea Laurens, provide another argument

 

[Laurens]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Ok

Creationist claims:

Most mutations are not beneficial
There are no transitional fossils
New information cannot be added to the genome

(I'll think of some more later)

 

[WarK]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Ok

Creationist claims:

Most mutations are not beneficial

I thought they thought all mutations were detrimental.

 

[Laurens]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Ok

Creationist claims:

Most mutations are not beneficial

I thought they thought all mutations were detrimental.

Yeah that wouldn't surprise me or something like:
99.999999999999999999999% detrimental

 

[ProcInc]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Haha well personally I meant one at a time. when I am all finished with work I will provide an answer (probably to one)

 

[Laurens]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Oh right, so we could do it kinda like a forum game I guess? The person debunks the claim of the person above, then posts a claim for the next person to debunk? That could work.

P.S. Apologies for my over use of 9's

 

[ProcInc]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Exactly, like a forum game. It should be fun

 

[Laurens]

Re: Collective Creationist Debunking?

Is there anyway of changing the title to something like 'Creationist Debunking Game'? Do I have the power to do that myself or...?

 

[Memeticemetic]

Is there anyway of changing the title to something like 'Creationist Debunking Game'? Do I have the power to do that myself or...?

Yes. I think you have the power to do it yourself. But it's moot for now since I changed it for ya.

 

[Laurens]

Okay so we'll ignore all the gibber jabber in between, and go from my first post.


I would like the next person to debunk the claim: Noah's flood explains the geological column

 

[ProcInc]

Noah's flood explains the geological column

The problem with this claim is that it is so broad that it takes merely one observantion to make it false. The problem with that being the observation can be claim simply to be an aberration agains the multitude of other "evidence" left unsaid.

That being said, the most basic arguments against it involve many of the things we see in the geological column.

For instance, we shouldn't expect a global flood to produce deserts followed by savannah, followed by desert and savannah again while the entire area is underwater. Yet many deserts have had this cyclical change in the past recorded(such as the Sahara desert).

Nor should we expect the geological column, if it is all a flood layer, to contain flood layers! We are able to distinguish between specific local floods in the geological record to astounding accuracy and the rest of the column. If all of geology was a flood layer, it would need to be explained how a different flood occurs inside a flood.

These of observances as well as others such as the fact that floods don't produce separate sediments (Creationists like Hovind claim they do but he is wrong, especially if larger grained materials are in layers above lighter grained sediments) are enough to show that this claim off the bat has problems.

Those aside, if the geological column was so easily explained by a Noahian flood then creationists should at least be able to properly describe that which we already know about the geological column (whether or not they can predict further) and they wouldn't have three conflicting accounts (From the same author!) of how fossils are ordered.

_______________________________________________

Here is my creationist claim:

The HAR-1 gene disproves genetic evidence for common ancestry in humans and chimps because the similarities between the base pair of those in chimpanzees and humans (18 base pairs different) is 9 times greater of that between chimpanzees and the common chicken (only 2 base pairs).

Evolutionists must simply pick and choose which similarities and differences are analysed to determined the "phylogenetic pattern" (or tree of life) they value so much as evidence.