An Unpleasant Debate with a Scandinavian

New blog on the kid : A Yogi was Very Sure of "Science" · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Two Quorans answering "What is the best answer to someone who says the universe is only 6,000 years old?" (quora, obviously) · New blog on the kid : An Unpleasant Debate with a Scandinavian · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Other Answers, Where I do Arguing on Matters Not Persons, Crossing words with Iñaki Rodriguez under Two Answers

Q

What is the best answer to someone who says the universe is only 6,000 years old?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-answer-to-someone-who-says-the-universe-is-only-6-000-years-old/answer/Vidar-%C3%98ier%C3%A5s

Vidar Øierås

Written Mon

You can tell them that Moses and his followers was not astronomers and that they was wrong and modern science is right.

However, some people believe in things that is obviously incorrect. You can’t change them. Because, ignorant people has throug their childhood learned and accepted incorrect information without questioning any obvious mismach between reality and what they have learned.

Such people are mainly called religious or crackpots. Religion and common sense is sometimes far, far apart.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You can tell them that Moses and his followers was not astronomers and that they was wrong and modern science is right."

Moses was probably as good at planar astronomy as any Egyptian nobility.

If he wasn't, that does not change God spoke to him.

The rest of your diatribe reminds me that your country's school system produced one Breivik's disrespect of Fundies and thereby exaggerated his appraisal of disadvantages with having Pakistanis in your country (one of them was pulled out of your country some time ago by his father and then killed the mother in law of a shrink).

The rest of your diatribe in other words reminds me to be thankful neither to be in Sweden nor with "søte bror".

Vidar Øierås

God spoke to him? How do you know that?

Reading the Bible doesn’t enlighten our knowledge about the age of the universe.

God is a man made idea that has for thousands of years been used to control primitive people. It has been learned through generations. And more people has been killed in the name of God than any other reason.

If the bible told you that 1+1=3 because God told us so, would you deny that 1+1=2?

The universe is older than 6000 years. The Bible is wrong, science is right.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"God spoke to him? How do you know that?"

• 1) He said so, Israelites heard him;
  
  
• 2) If he said so, he was lying, or delusional or speaking the exact truth;
  
  
• 3) If he had been lying or delusional, God would not have made miracles for him;
  
  
• 4) God did make miracles for him, all the way from the Burning Bush to the last piece of mannah;
  
  
• 5) Therefore it is true and a known truth (reasonably) that God spoke to Moses.

"Reading the Bible doesn’t enlighten our knowledge about the age of the universe."

It doesn't enlighten Breivik’s or yours, but that is because you are not the most reasonable men in the world.

Both of you look like bad "Norge-vitsar", he has more dignity as having been unduly mistreated in prison.

Note, if he had been executed, as death penalty, that would not have been undue mistreatment, but isolating him simply to break him down is undue mistreatment.

"God is a man made idea"

If mind is prior to matter, how does that not spell out "God is"?

If matter is prior to mind, how can mind produce ideas like "God"?

"that has for thousands of years been used to control primitive people."

Apart from the fact that primitive people are sth you look down on, what exactly does the phrase even mean?

"It has been learned through generations."

Yes, like A, B, C, like 2+2=4, like water is wet, grass is green, heaven is blue ....

"And more people has been killed in the name of God than any other reason."

You forgot that Marxism and other versions of evolutionism (National Socialism was arguably more pantheist than strictly atheist) has killed more in a century than men have killed in previous five or ten centuries put together.

"If the bible told you that 1+1=3 because God told us so, would you deny that 1+1=2?"

If the Bible told anyone 1+1=3 (apart from fertility, man plus woman equalling three in the first pregnancy and similar), it would not be the Bible.

"The universe is older than 6000 years. The Bible is wrong, science is right."

You seem to believe that if I believe the Bible I have no mind and no sense of believing anything except what I am told, and so telling me that sufficient many times might get me around to evolutionism. No, I am not that and it will not and your manners are odious.

Vidar Øierås

Just have in mind that the Bible was written by humans. Humans makes mistakes all the time, and still people believe in them. If God still exist, he would have no problem making us 100% sure he is present outside our own imagination.

Hearing voices is a diagnosis. It’s called schizophrenia.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Just have in mind that the Bible was written by humans."

Physically written, yes.

Sometimes however dictated by God (as with Moses part time, as with St John on Patmos) or given by automatic writing (as with St John's Gospel).

"Humans makes mistakes all the time, and still people believe in them."

Humans making mistake include scientists. If they made mistakes "all the time, everyone, everywhere" we would have no reason to believe scientists either.

If "all the time" either is "someone some place" or exaggerated, that is no argument the Bible would be mistaken.

"If God still exist, he would have no problem making us 100% sure he is present outside our own imagination."

He hasn't.

He won't make it troublesome at all on Doomsday.

And He didn't make it troublesome to Israelites witnessing Moses' miracles in the thousands.

He didn't make it troublesome to Christians, those witnessing St John's miracles either.

"Hearing voices is a diagnosis. It’s called schizophrenia."

If Moses or St John had been delusional, God would not have validated their claims to other people in their presence by miracles worked for them.

I don't believe the diagnosis either.

Some cases of "hearing voices" involve no actual hearing of sound where no sound is there physically, but involve emotional relevance of imagination to someone answering loud.

That is not delusion, it is a neurosis of solitude, as with Benn Gunn. A diagnosis of schizophrenia would usually make solitude worse and thereby turn on a vicious circle socially.

Some when a person is really and truly convinced of having someone speak to them is God, other times the Devil. Too bad for them if the Devil can have shrinks of the modern type to punish such a man for even being honest.

And some cases are fever.

There is really no need to posit a diagnosis like schizophrenia, but it keeps money rolling in from tax payers to medical institutions, and pharmaceutic companies.