Random Quote

In a thread on the SA forums, a therad about christianity and fundamentalism in general, someone wrote this post about fundamentalists and I guess christians in general, about how they aren't really open to other ideas. Comes from my frustration at people asking "please give me proof of your evolution lies" but they don't want to hear what you have to say.

"I think at a fundamental level this debate is flawed, from Evolution vs. Creationism, to the whole gamut of God vs. Science. The reason is this: the believers don't argue in good faith. They can never be convinced they are wrong. No amount of evidence is good enough for them to say, "Well, shit, look at that, I guess the Bible is wrong."

Science is based on the premise that we have to accept new and occasionally unintuitive models that both describe observations and predict future observations. New observations that we make that don't match current models invalidate the models and we toss them out and look for new ones.

Fundamentalists are interested in none of this. They already have their model, the Bible. They are not interested at all in furthering thought by the generation of new models. Their model does not predict anything verifiable. Instead of utilizing observations to verify or negate their model, as scientists do, fundamentalists view observations as an inconvenience that they have to discard using flawed arguments.

Scientists move forward. Science is an ever-changing field; new technology allows us to make ever more accurate observations, and these often defy current models, and so we create new ones. Fundamentalists don't move forward. They have their answers.

I think this describes the situation best: scientists are open to being wrong, and in fact, aside from personal emotion attached to pet theories, scientists love being wrong. Having new observations stream in that show current models are broken is awesome--it's a challenge, a new way of thinking to create. Fundamentalists have based their entire lives on not being wrong. If one aspect of their book is wrong, than their whole belief system is shattered. Hence, they never argue in good faith--they will make no concessions, will never give an inch, will never agree that they might have been misled.

Therefore, it is stupid to debate fundamentalists, because no real debate is possible. "


another quote from here geocities lol

"After all, if we were to declare all questions about the Bible to be off limits, how would we ever know how the book would stand if questioned? If the book is indeed inerrant, shouldn't the case for the book be even stronger after it is questioned and found to stand firm?"