Creation Seminars

Originally posted by dj2becker
You obviously haven't watched the Kent Hovind Creation seminars either.

I might be persuaded to go through one of his videos and rebut his points. However it seems that they are only available in RealVideo format and don't actually run at all. They just freeze my computer. Maybe it's a defence against skeptics watching them?

Well I found .mp3 versions and I can't stop laughing. His jokes are just so unfunny they are actually funny and the serious bits are just seriously funny.

"Are plants really alive?"
What?!

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Well I found .mp3 versions and I can't stop laughing. His jokes are just so unfunny they are actually funny and the serious bits are just seriously funny.

"Are plants really alive?"
What?!

I didn't know you could laugh at things that are not funny😉

Originally posted by dj2becker
I didn't know you could laugh at things that are not funny😉

And you really believe everything this crackpot says?

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
And you really believe everything this crackpot says?

Well maybe you should debate this poor "crackpot" and prove him wrong...

Originally posted by dj2becker
Well maybe you should debate this poor "crackpot" and prove him wrong...

I bet you would do better than the Evolution profs that are supposed to know the ins and outs of everything...

Originally posted by dj2becker
I bet you would do better than the Evolution profs that are supposed to know the ins and outs of everything...

I'm sure I would.

Care to give me what evidence Hovind gives for a young Earth? Just the idea would be fine. Does he talk about dissolved metals in the ocean? Does he mention the magnetic field of the earth?

I would listen to the seminars but they seem to be mostly filler and boring to boot.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
I'm sure I would.

Care to give me what evidence Hovind gives for a young Earth? Just the idea would be fine. Does he talk about dissolved metals in the ocean? Does he mention the magnetic field of the earth?

I would listen to the seminars but they seem to be mostly filler and boring to boot.

Well it would be better for you to listen to it for yourself:

But here are just a few:

All planetary rings still exhibit intricacies which Should Have long ago disappeared.

All known comets burn up their material with each pass around the sun and Should Have a maximum life expectancy of 100,000 years.

The outer solar system planets should have long ago cooled off.

The spiral galaxies Should Have long ago unspiraled, and the uneven dispersion of matter in the universe Should Have long ago dispersed.

Originally posted by dj2becker
You clearly demonstrate that you have never watched his seminars. I suppose you reached a verdict before you even saw it.

Actually I have watched large portions of some of his videos.

Their was a time, when like you, I embraced everything Ken Hamm, Duane Gish, Henry Morris, or Kent Hovind or whoever else told me. For about 5 years of my pre-college education, the curriculum I studied and was taught was written from the special creationist perspective. When I watched the debates, I didn't have a sufficient biology background to know who was making crap up. I wanted the creationist to win so I saw it that way. My teachers and classmates did too. How could I have known then that Kent Hovind was a sham, despised even by other creationists?

So you see I used to be a passionate about the suject as you are. I thought evolution didn't have a leg to stand on. Then I went to college, sat in biology, listened to why people accepted evolution, and asked them my questions (or often didn't because I had already begun to how some of them were misplaced). You know it never hurts to give the otherside a fair shake. To openly ask yourself, "Am I wrong?" I've done just that with both special xtian creationism and with evolution. Right now the overwhelming evidence for evolution and the contrasting dearth of evidence for the other (like the Emperor's New Clothes) leads me to accept evolution.

Extra: Just a little bit of advice. How do you evaluate whether Kent Hovind has knowledge of science or not? It can't be based on the appeal of his message. Con-men will tell you what you want to hear.

I have a link to a little kids paper placemat that Hovind designed. He sold some to this restaurant owner down in the south. Read what it says and then tell me that you think Hovind isn't a quack. I'll get the link up here in a bit.

Originally posted by telerion
Actually I have watched large portions of some of his videos.

Their was a time, when like you, I embraced everything Ken Hamm, Duane Gish, Henry Morris, or Kent Hovind or whoever else told me. For about 5 years of my pre-college education, the curriculum I studied and was taught was written from the special creationist perspective. When I watched the ...[text shortened]... ays and then tell me that you think Hovind isn't a quack. I'll get the link up here in a bit.

If Biology opened your eyes, then why is it that you never even answer one of the simplest questions that I have asked:

How did life form from non-life without intelligent intervention?

If you fail to answer this simple question, then I would more freely accept that your Bio profs blinded you...

Originally posted by dj2becker
If Biology opened your eyes, then why is it that you never even answer one of the simplest questions that I have asked:

How did life form from non-life without intelligent intervention?

If you fail to answer this simple question, then I would more freely accept that your Bio profs blinded you...

Biology didn't "open my eyes." I just learned things. I did not take any classes that dealt with abiogenesis. Nevertheless, I did take a class that spent a month or so covering the basic mechanisms of evolution. It was interesting stuff.

Your request is ridiculous. It would be like saying that my physics professors blinded me by teaching me about gravity because they couldn't show me that a graviton exists or empirically prove string theory, which supposedly unites QM, CM, and GR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

If you're going to cast aside an entire branch of knowledge because I, an economics grad student (not a biologist), cannot give you a satisfactory account of abiogenesis, then I'm afraid it's your loss and not mine. I am telling you that I don't know. I think you and some of your creationist heroes would do well to claim some agnosticism once in a while as well.

Originally posted by telerion
Biology didn't "open my eyes." I just learned things. I did not take any classes that dealt with abiogenesis. Nevertheless, I did take a class that spent a month or so covering the basic mechanisms of evolution. It was interesting stuff.

Your request is ridiculous. It would be like saying that my physics professors blinded me by teaching me abou ...[text shortened]... me of your creationist heroes would do well to claim some agnosticism once in a while as well.

I'd be willing to look at one or two of the specifics things that did open
your eyes to the lies of creation. If you can outline them in such a way
to show me how what you learned that deal the death blow to your
creationist views. I had asked others for some science papers so we
can look at together, but none were forth coming. I only ask that what
you bring is not an attack on a person, but the science.
Kelly

Originally posted by telerion
Biology didn't "open my eyes." I just learned things. I did not take any classes that dealt with abiogenesis. Nevertheless, I did take a class that spent a month or so covering the basic mechanisms of evolution. It was interesting s ...[text shortened]... would do well to claim some agnosticism once in a while as well.

He doesn't listen to how H,O, C and N , the chemicals of life were all present along with a greater solar energy.
Nor does he listen to radio-astronomical data concerning aminoacid clouds in interstellar space.
He thinks Thermodynamics is intelligently designed for the purpose to prove an intelligent designer. Although , he has no clue how Brownian Motion can and does play a part in forming complex chemical compounds.
His idea of Probability Theory starts with an arbitrary single event out on many possible events and after discarding the one he doesn't want, he uses the probability of that single event in his next step.Never once does he the distribution on the other events (all of which are organic chemicals)which are still present in the mix.

btw I didnt bother to visit the site ,,my info is from the people here that preach creation science

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'd be willing to look at one or two of the specifics things that did open
your eyes to the lies of creation. If you can outline them in such a way
to show me how what you learned that deal the death blow to your
creationist views. I had asked others for some science papers so we
can look at together, but none were forth coming. I only ask that what
you bring is not an attack on a person, but the science.
Kelly

I must decline KJ. I'm pretty busy right now and so I must restrict my outside research on this forum. I will spend ample time here though ranting. 🙂

I wonder why you don't search for some good papers on your own? Why wait for others to bring them to you? I'm not really interested in persuading you any longer. If you are really interested in why almost every natural scientist accepts evolution, then I encourage you to invest some of your own time in the research.

I can't really give you any silver bullet arguments that destroyed my creationism. It was, like my deconversion, a gradual process (no pun intended). I guess one thing that was nice was that I no longer had to preform mental gymnastics to make my hypothesis fit the data. I no longer had to think that nearly the entire science community was under the control of Satan, conspiring to hide God from students, and/or in open rebellion to God because they thought that they were too smart for him. I also no longer had to feel like accepting evolution and accepting Christ were mutually exclusive (this allowed me to holdn to my xtianity for a while longer). These weren't reasons, but things did fit a lot better. In the end, evolution just made sense and special creationism didn't.

I had already realized that many of the creationist leaders that taught me distort science, intentionally or not, in order to pose many of their criticisms. The other criticisms usually amount to questions which biologists had yet to discover the answer to. They seem to miss the forest for the trees, disregarding the mountain of evidence supporting evolution and instead focusing on a mole-hill gap in our knowledge. Meanwhile, when special creationism is put to the question, it must always retreat to Goddunnit, and I felt that this disatisfactory. Whereas before I thought that scientists might be conspirators, I then began to ask myself, "Who really has an agenda in this? Is it millions of scientists from varied backgrounds and religions and with a passion for their subject and knowledge of the natural world? Or was it a small band of religious people, some educated in biology, most not, who felt that evolution undermined the most important thing in the world to them: their faith?"

In the end, I just couldn't believe it any longer. I don't think the Great Flood happened. I don't think that lions were originally vegetarians. I don't think the earth is less than 10,000 years old. I don't think that a great vapor canopy surrounded the earth and then disappeared into the earth. I don't believe that plants existed on earth before the sun. I am perfectly capable of making up grand ad hoc reasons for how these things did happen or just ignore the problems, but in the end I am much happier facing my disbelief honestly and looking forward to what new and exciting truths I may discover about the world.

Originally posted by telerion
I must decline KJ. I'm pretty busy right now and so I must restrict my outside research on this forum. I will spend ample time here though ranting. 🙂

I wonder why you don't search for some good papers on your own? Why wait for others to bring them to you? I'm not really interested in persuading you any longer. If you are really interested in why ...[text shortened]... ief honestly and looking forward to what new and exciting truths I may discover about the world.

It goes to a lot of what is done here, if anyone brings up a paper what
normally is done is the person who wrote it becomes the issue. If
they hold a religious view that has God in it, that becomes the issue,
again not really going to deeply into the points brought up.

It is a common thing that occurs instead of the points and only the
points getting addressed which is really all that matters we get the
Morris or Bebe hate speach.

I don't care what people think about Morris or Bebe, I'm more concern
about the points brought up. You said you were swayed away, I simply
want to know why and how. I understand you have a busy schedule,
so if you said in a month if I'd remind you, you'd do it I'd be happy.
Kelly