The Future of the Origins Debate

[Wasted Sapience]

Thousands of years ago, people thought lightning and thunder were caused by gods. A naturalistic explaination was discovered, and the gods were and obsolete explaination. Hundreds of years ago, people thought the world was flat. Observation showed it was a sphere (almost). Not too long ago, leeches were thought to cure people. No doctor today would dare use them for anything.

Science, observation, and naturalistic explainations always win in the long run. Magic never wins. But everytime magic fails, its supporters retreat to the next line of defense.

My prediction is that in the future, assuming the naturalistic explaination of origins wins out in the public mind, people will still be trying to "scientifically" prove that there is a god. These explainations will likely rely heavily on misunderstaning chemistry and physics. We've seen the proto-types already. Ever heard someone say that no one knows how gravity works, and that God is the force behind it? Or the improbability of abiogenesis? That the strong and weak nuclear forces must have been created?

Is there any way to prepare future generations for this upcoming breed of Creationism?

[David B]

The god of the gaps keeps getting smaller.

But, sadly, the god of the gaps is terrain only of thinking, reasonably informed, theists.

Most creationists, as far as I can tell, will just keep on telling lies to the young and gullible.

The only way I see to counteract that is not to stand silent in the face of bullshit.

Though I now understand that sometimes personal circumstances necessitate being circumspect about how you start talking about it..

David B

[Atrus]

It will only get worse. As the 'God of the Gaps' slowly decreases or becomes more insubstantial, the tenacity to hold onto these ideas will only increase, eventually polarizing the moderates.

[llanitedave]

Yeah, but at least the leeches are making a comeback. (http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/answers/2004/ANS01294.html)

[Bubba]

Leeches..comback...Ken Ham never went anywhere did he?

Seriously, I think the future of the debate is people becoming less and less rational and going deeper into denial. Thus creationism will do well.

Just my two cents. My faith in Humanity is kind of at an all time low.

Chris

[naturalist.atheist]

My prediction is that in the future, assuming the naturalistic explaination of origins wins out in the public mind, people will still be trying to "scientifically" prove that there is a god. These explainations will likely rely heavily on misunderstaning chemistry and physics. We've seen the proto-types already. Ever heard someone say that no one knows how gravity works, and that God is the force behind it? Or the improbability of abiogenesis? That the strong and weak nuclear forces must have been created?

Is there any way to prepare future generations for this upcoming breed of Creationism?

Talk about evolution, there is a new variant of theist. These are people that "believe" that god made the universe to make itself. So everything can be explained naturally but god still did it.

[Wasted Sapience]

Talk about evolution, there is a new variant of theist. These are people that "believe" that god made the universe to make itself. So everything can be explained naturally but god still did it.

Kind of creepy... I've actually wondered about that myself. Maybe the universe is so well designed that it created itself, or didn't need a creator? Or there was only divine intervention during or after the Big Bang? Of course, that's deism, or deism mixed with the naturalistic explaination of origins. And deism doesn't claim to give us all those fun happy things fundamentalism does like a sense of meaning, divine image, or an eternal afterlife.

[Goathead]

Talk about evolution, there is a new variant of theist. These are people that "believe" that god made the universe to make itself. So everything can be explained naturally but god still did it.



This seems to be the most infuriating one ive come across so far, they accept all that you can possibly say and then smile while telling you God created all to be as it is - therefore we must come back to personal experience.

And we all know how tenacious "logical faith" can be.

[KeithHarwood]

Hundreds of years ago, people thought the world was flat. Observation showed it was a sphere (almost). Not too long ago, leeches were thought to cure people. No doctor today would dare use them for anything.


That the earth was curved north-south was accepted 3,000 years ago and probably known from neo-lithic times when traders started travelling long distances. That it was a sphere was obvious over 2,500 years ago when it was realised that an eclipse of the moon was earth's shadow.

Doctors today certainly do use leeches. They are important especially in plastic surgery for reducing post-op haematomas. In fact, there has been a world-wide shortage of medical leeches for many many years now.

[Funkytrip]

Personally I think creationist will have an easier time convincing the gullible in the future as the 'line of defense' has been cut back to highly complex matters such as the Big Bang. Because it is so complex, it is easy to make simplistic one liners about it, which is hard to debunk without becoming very technical and losing the audience.

Once the discussion about evolution has ended, the next line of defense will be abiogenese and Big Bang theory stuff... good luck explaining that to the masses against statements like "yeah right, like everything was created from a dot"

[J. T.]

They will deny that other apes ever existed.