I would not call the Greeks unintelligent for accepting the geocentric theory. I would not call the ancient Hebrews and Israelites unintelligent for believing God created the Earth about 3,000 years before they lived. I would call anyone who currently lives and continues to believe God created the Earth 6,000 years ago unintelligent, at least in this instance, but usually generally unintelligent. YEC believers and nonbelievers tend to correlate in respective unintelligence and intelligence, according to studies. And you don't address my point that there ARE views of creation compatible with modern science and biology, and yet YEC proponents choose not to believe in these other possibilities. This is certainly the instance where, to use the phrase that you love, a deity can be acknowledged to have been involved in a scientific process. God may have initiated the Big Bang, and he may have initiated the process of evolution.

@jpgredsox
Yes, there are views compatible with science. Actually, if you read my post carefully, you'll realize that even YEC is compatible with science. The difference between your proposed view and YEC is the amount of religious weight that you compromise.

The correlations are convincing. Unfortunately, it is only a correlation. There are other factors that affect this relationship, namely the education system. It's rare that Creationism is taught in schools (Scopes Monkey Trial). When you grow up in an environment when Evolution and Big Bang Theory is taught, you tend to move toward that belief. Given that, it's very natural to expect the mentioned correlation.

The OP linked believing in young earth creationism to low intelligence. These people still hold on to a book that was written thousands of years ago, and has been proven wrong numerous times, when a single wikipedia search shows their fallacies. They must be arrogant and stupid, or they put their trust in authority figures who deliberately lie to them.

If the true cause is intelligence, then the question arises whether intelligence is a valid criterion to judge human beings. I say yes, but I imagine many people (especially YEC) disagree.

However, I think they're being misled. The catholic church has a history of purposely stating wrong things, to spread their teachings. Think about "homosexuality is a choice", or "condoms cause AIDS", that kind of stuff.

To all those in favor of YEC, please stop saying 'you can't prove it', or 'respect everyone's opinions'. Those are "get out of jail free" cards, to be pulled when you've got no arguments to support your case. Basically, combined they mean that anyone can state anything anytime, and no-one has the right to tell them they're wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSByCb8lqY&feature=related

@basvanopheusden
Can you really prove the lack of existence of a God?? No you can't. Therefore you can't call it unintelligent for those who do believe in a God. Following that, if there is a God, then YEC is clearly valid and possible.

Oh, I completely agree with intelligence as a criterion for judging people. But as I mentioned before, there are plenty of intelligent people who believe in a Deity.

"To all those in favor of YEC, please stop saying 'you can't prove it', or 'respect everyone's opinions'." <<<<< To this I say, ROFL! When you're main argument is "scientific proof", of course I'm going to respond accordingly. I also never asked anyone to respect opinions, merely beliefs. The existence of something isn't an opinion. Whether something exists or not is a solid fact (arguable if you're talking Quantum physics in certain environments, but we're not). If you don't know what a belief is, go look it up.

Again and again read through what I stated. Science doesn't disprove YEC when religion is taken into account. Heck, even without religion, science doesn't disprove YEC. Read through what I say before responding. The new posts I'm making right now are pretty much just restating what I said before. Read carefully. Understand the word choice. It's all intentional; I have a fairly solid grasp on the English language and I know how to use it. Keep that in mind, and realize what exactly I'm saying.

The only thing to be realized from what's been said is a startling lack of understanding of what empirical data does exist to contradict YEC.

The main supportive evidence against YEC is the radioactive decay dating methods used on meteorites.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_against_a_recent_creation

Who cares what people believe? I mean really, what does it matter that YECs exist and want to discuss their beliefs? This "debate" is stunningly uninteresting wherever it occurs since you either have two wildly uninformed people fighting, two people well informed on incompatible subjects fighting, or one informed person making the other look stupid. Who cares???

For the record, I totally accept an old Earth and evolution. Not incompatible with belief in God or Christianity at all.

It matters when religion encroaches on science in the science classrooms...

Does it though? And if it does, why should it even matter? A flawed idea of natural history is no more damaging to a kid who grows up to be a plumber than a flawed idea of calculus is.

I see where you're coming from here but pick your battles. Or, more accurately, let the people actually on school boards worry about minutae like that.

Yes, it does. And the people on the school boards actively push religion into the classrooms when it does (or, at least, they do here in Louisiana, and they have in Texas as well, as I recall).

And while it might not matter to Future Joe The Plumber, it does matter to Future John The Astrophysicist...

Ok, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in YEC. But here goes the defense.

Christians in general, believe in an all-powerful God. Keep that in mind. Next, Christians (including me) believe that the Lord is looking for faith in mankind. Keeping that in mind, here goes the argument: the Lord is trying to hide his existence to mankind. Why? Because He wants us to have faith in Him even though we can't prove his existence. Now some people take this even further and say that God created evidence against discovering direct connections to Him.

Armed with this knowledge, you can see why YEC believers maintain their beliefs despite all this scientific evidence. It's unreasonable to many people, but just pretend for a second that you believe all that mentioned in the first paragraph. Can you really now say it's unintelligent to believe YEC? No. It's a completely reasonable theory.

So basically... quit bashing what you don't understand.

For the record, the OP is bashing those who believe in YEC, not the theory itself. I'm not saying YEC is accurate and true. I'm telling people to quit bashing the believers.

"Keeping that in mind, here goes the argument: the Lord is trying to hide his existence to mankind. Why? Because He wants us to have faith in Him even though we can't prove his existence."

What kind of sociopathic asshole hides himself beyond human sensory detection and then sends humans who, seeing no data to corroborate a theory of His existence, very understandably don't believe He exists to a place of eternal fiery torture?

No, Situation, that is NOT reasonable by any stretch of the word. Taking these ridiculous premises and working from there in no way advances understanding of reality.

And when those who actually believe this inane nonsense try to ram it down the throats of people who see through the crap by usurping school boards to force this crap into science classrooms in high schools throughout my home state and throughout other states in the country, you better believe I'm going to bash them for it.

Boooo for this even being a serious discussion. There is no god. If you give "god" a human-like set of characteristics then every single thing that god does can be judged from our limited perspective. That does not work. Hence this entire discussion. Science is made up of facts, and quantifiable data, religion is not.

And YEC is not a completely reasonable theory. By any means. Reasonable means explainable by reason, and the earth being 6,000-10,000 years old cannot be explained when there is solid scientific evidence to say the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Homo Sapiens as a species are older than 10,000 years old. YEC is complete bullshit.

John the Astrophysicist should be smart enough to see that on his own. How could he advance in his career otherwise?

As for school boards, I only seem to hear stories about attempts failing, even in Texas. This is a problem which is wildly over-hyped. The strength of the scientific arguments and weight of the data is enough to carry the day, as we have seen. The idea that the country is full of rubes pushing for Flood Geology in every classroom makes for a good story, but it's hardly as influential as you think. Non-religious people seem to only hear the squawks of the most stubborn, marginal, Protestant sects and ignore the passive acceptance and faith of the overwhelming majority. The poll from earlier is either bunk or counts people saying "Yeah, God made the world. Have a nice day!" as belief in YEC. Even my otherwise traditionalist Catholic school taught evolution, albeit in a careful way. This is a non-issue which only serves to inflame passions and prejudices on both sides.

"What kind of sociopathic asshole hides himself beyond human sensory detection and then sends humans who, seeing no data to corroborate a theory of His existence, very understandably don't believe He exists to a place of eternal fiery torture?"<<< If He offered evidence, then it wouldn't be faith that people believe. It's faith He's looking for. Now to create evidence against His existence... well, that's a bit far-stretched, but a people believe that.

Seriously though, considering how many people actually believe this, do you really think it's lack of intelligence that leads to these beliefs? It's not. It's just a difference in beliefs, not intelligence.

I fully agree that people shouldn't be shoving their beliefs everywhere. But generally that's not what's happening. There are minor cases, where radical nutjobs do this. That's not a lack of intelligence, but overzealousness. Then there are other cases where the shoving is done by the government (Scopes Monkey Trial anyone?).

Again and again, the OP was about the intelligence of these people, and I'm saying it's not a lack of intelligence.

A couple of points.
1: this debate matters. I find it uninteresting, full of logical fallacies, and ignorance. However, when people who 'believe' this are members of government, and are basing their political ideas on this, then yes, it does matter.
2: Whether you ask me to 'respect someone's opinion', or 'respect someone's belief', it results in the same. Anyone can claim something, use a metaphysical argument to show that I cannot, strictly speaking, prove him wrong, and get away with it.
3: Please read this entire discussion, search-and-replace "GOD" with "flying spaghetti monster", and see which side you're on now.
4: Reasoning according to the Situation's beautiful paragraph about why YEC believe what they believe (which is actually quite clear and well-written), one might also establish that the Earth is 5 days old. No one can disprove that. If God is all-powerful, surely he can manufacture memories? In fact, according to that reason, God could have done literally anything, covered it up, and we wouldn't know. Meaning that, again, anyone could claim anything and get away with it.

The true acid test of Christianity lies in the only source that truly and completely supports it: the Bible. If the Bible is the word of God, then yes, Christianity is true. If the Bible is a historically accurate description of events (most importantly the part about resurrection and stuff), Christianity is a valid belief. If, however, the Bible is a book written by men, with paticular socio-political objectives in mind (reforming Judean society), then Christianity becomes shaky at best.

That is not to say that Christian morals are wrong. One can have perfectly good morals without resorting to religion. In fact, take the ten commandments, take out the ones about God, and you've got a set of moral rules that isn't entirely unreasonable. I personally would adhere to different ones, and that's the debate we should be having.

I don't know about other countries but there's only 1 YEC in the Czech Republic that is widely known. He's also 9/11 and Bin Laden conspiracy guy.

...

England, Canada, how's your intelligence levels?
Mind if I crash on in a hotel room of yours?

Because my country is STUPID.

And yeah, I'm an elitist, pompous, over-confident prick oa an asshole...

But most of the world will agree here--

Our country is stupid.

So mind if I crash until my nation grows up and gets itself to a goddamn biilogy class that DOESN'T mind saying "You're free to hold your beliefs on faith, but as far as science goes, your Creationist-centric, Young-Earth and Intelligent Design theories are BULLSHIT. Now, please turn to Chapter 1: "The Universe: Yeah, This Is How It REALLY Works."

@Yeoman,

"Something based on belief cannot be proven, because it isn't science. Only science can be proven, because science can be reproduced by every person on the planet. Belief cannot. You wanna learn more? Attend a class of theory of science. "

No, certainly science can NOT be proven beyond needing faith. We have no way of knowing that the laws of physics will continue past today like they have in the past, apart from believing nature to be regular. But it might not (continue to) be.

'It's going to remarkably easy to prove that theory to be false. Think fossils, carbon dating, ice cores, and pretty much the entire science of geology. '

Can you prove Last Thursdayism false? (Last Thusrdayism claims that the earth was created Last Thursday, intact, in it's current form, populated by humans, animals, plants and fossils, with photons in the cosmic background appearing to be billions of years old

'Just like nobody can prove the existence of God, nobody can prove that God does *not* exist.'

'Can you really prove the lack of existence of a God?? No you can't. Therefore you can't call it unintelligent for those who do believe in a God.'

But neither can they disprove the existence of fairey's, mulit's in a game of diplomacy, the Mars orbiting teapot, and the flying spaghetti monster...

just because something can't be disproved, doesn't mean you should take it's chance of existing seriously.

For example, you should not assume there are multi's in your game unless you see some evidence. (and yes, sometimes it is hard to tell, except if you're playing this version: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~orathaic/multiswebdip/ :p)

"It's also dangerous for society to be calling people unintelligent for holding a religious belief, as the OP has suggested. Unless of course that belief is violent, which of course, Creationism is not. "

I think it is dangerous for people to teach creationism in a science class, but sure, teach the controversy, include the response from science "Flying Spaghetti Monsterism" - see: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

But do it only within the context of a comparative religion class.

Besides this, the official line of the Roman Catholic Church (perhaps not the most popular Christian group in America, but according to wikipedia there are about 1.1 billion Roman catholics world wide, making them a significant proportion of total Christians) is that God created the Universe via the mechanism of the Big Bang (~ 13.7 billion years ago, though they do not say when)

The correctness of Basvan's points cannot be overstated. It is a perfect description of the fallacious and absurd tactics the religious use in order to try and get away with their asinine, illogical, and unsubstantiated claims.

'We have no way of knowing that the laws of physics will continue past today like they have in the past, apart from believing nature to be regular. But it might not (continue to) be. '

Yes, and the entirety of scientific thought and much philosophy is based on the idea that the sun will rise tomorrow just as it did today.

That some aspects of reality will continue to be the same from one day to the next. This assumption which underpins so much could be compared to the assumption that some divine creator inspired the writing of various books about how humans *should* live.

If you dismiss this point the whole of science unravels. And you can no longer trust anything (you can't even trust that the bible will say tomorrow what it said yesterday)

Yes, orathaic, what you say is true. All of science IS based on this belief. (Philosophy, of course, is what pointed out that it can't actually justify the belief -- specifically, or at least most famously, David Hume).

That does not mean that it's a justified assumption, though. As you say, the whole of science unravels without accepting this point that it cannot support. My only point was that science can NOT "prove" anything absent some sort of faith commitment. (Nothing, I will note, in the materialist world view makes this proposition actually probable. Quite the contrary).

To be fair, the poll being referred only had 3 options to choose from, 2 of which involved some support for evolution (natural or god directed). The 3rd was "God created man in last 10,000 years". I wonder how many of these people simply chose the 3rd option because any support for evolution, even god directed, is anathema.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx

Good point Putin.

I get to say this very rarely, so I thought I would. I've actually seen you make two very good posts of late. Good work.

@Orathaic, You don't even know what the thread is about do you... This is about the people, not the belief. I don't think anyone here believes in YEC (not that I'm condemnign it). The point is, unless you understand it, don't put down the people who do.

@Putin
So religion is out to get humankind? Those in the church are out to deceive the rest of the world? Think about what you're saying. I'll give you this, Basvan does have some valid points. Other than that, your post is completely absurd and without ground. I'd be willing to bet that a majority of Christians are of higher intelligence than you. Logic is not always a good source of information. For instance, what would logic tell you about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle? Their beliefs are completely substantiated. They base their beliefs on a being that they (including me) think to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Given this, you can't really blame them for taking religion over science: a man-made source of information.

Main point: you're mentally slow and you really have no idea what's going on. Read through your post, and think about it. If you truly still stand by it, then you the help of a mental institution.

@basvan
Your point 1) Political ideas based on YEC? You'll have to clarify

Your point 2) Considering you can't prove him/her false, you should respect his/her beliefs. If he/she is forcing you to share beliefs, that's different. But for the vast majority of YEC believers, let them believe what they believe and don't criticize.

Your point 3) Flying Spaghetti Monster belief isn't shared by a fourth of the world's population.

Your point 4) Not entirely true. The thing is, they don't randomly choose a belief, and then make something up to back it up. They base their beliefs on already-founded religious teachings. This difference is very significant in that their claims aren't pulled out of thin air. So yes, one could claim Last Thursdayism, but they don't. There's nothing to back Last Thursdayism, there are teachings to back YEC.

The Bible (at least the Old Testament) is indeed the Word of God (impossible to prove or disprove). It also tells historically accurate stories (shared by records from separate nations including the flood and, incidentally, a story similar to Adam and Eve). There are some shaky sections (the author is unclear) in the New Testament, but the books with the most important teachings regarding this topic aren't debated about.

Also, try reading the Bible before attempting to interpret it. The Bible wasn't written to reform anything. It's a recording. It's a compilation of recordings with just the purpose of recording. The purpose is for Christians, not reforming outsiders. There are no socio-political purposes.

@obiwanobiwan- same thing I said to Orothaic, nobody's claiming YEC is true. I'm merely saying that you shouldn't criticize people for believing it. Yes, science disagrees. But those who believe YEC don't base their beliefs on science, do they? Lol. Try reading the posts before responding.