Re: surprising letter from a creationist to me

skyeyes wrote:
On Sep 29, 6:19 pm, "The Bicycling Guitarist"
<Ch...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I had written a source of fundamentalist Baptist literature and asked why
they are in such denial of reality as to cllaim evolution is not scientific
or not real.

David Cloud himself (the founder of the site) wrote back and said "If the
bible is real evolution is a lie" and went on from there. What is surprising
to me is the "If" that started the sentence. That to me shows some hope of
an open mind to truth, in spite of all the falsehoods in his literature and
on his web site.

He next threatened with hellfire anyone who does not accept Jesus. What a
loving way to convert people; NOT!

I wrote back and said that if he what he said was correct then the Bible is
false because evolution is not a lie. He has not yet replied.

I grew up Conservative Baptist, and I'm familiar with the breed you
speak of. Good luck with your efforts, but I hope you're not holding
your breath. Trust me on this: you won't get anywhere with mere
*facts*.

People like Cloud are motivated mainly by fear of death, which their
pastors carefully inculcate into them, if they don't have enough of it
naturally. They want more than anything *not to have to die [cease to
be concious], ever*. They perceive the answer to the problem of death
to be an equation for salvation in the Bible. In order for the
equation to work, every party of the Bible has to be taken as factual
- for if any part is just metaphor or fiction, then can you trust the
equation for salvation, which is accepting Jesus as your Personal
Savior? Their answer to this is "no," and then they work the logic
bass-ackwards: "I know that God offers eternal life [sic] through
Jesus' offering on the cross, therefore, Man must have fallen in the
Garden of Eden, and therefore, evolution is false, because the Bible
has to be true in order for me to have eternal life."

So you can pummel them with all the logic and data and evidence and
factuality you want, but they're not going to change their minds,
because if they do, then they'll have to accept the possibility that
they will some day cease to exist, and they can't handle that.

Of course, this is something of an oversimplification. There are also
elements that appeal to their need to be seen as "special" and in
possession of esoteric knowlege that worldly people don't have, and of
being redeemed when all the rich, educated, smart people that made
them feel like ignorant rubes in this life will be (to their way of
thinking) condemned to hellfire for all eternity. But needing
assurance that they will never go into oblivion is, I'd say, about 85%
of their motivation for the way they think.

As a former fundie and OEC, the *only* tactic that I've had any
success with is a direct confrontation of the fundy's fear of death.
And it takes a while. But if they can wrap their heads around the
fact that someone can live without fearing the condition of being dead
(as opposed to the process of dying, which is an important distinction
to make), and can have a joyful, meaningful life, then there's a ray
of hope.

I do not understand the fear of death, or people who fear death. Avoidance of pain I can understand, and surely nobody wants to die too soon, but... death is simply a part of life. (The last part, as it happens.) There's a lot I want to do before I die, but I can't remember ever being upset at the notion that my end WILL someday come, and though I can put it off, I can't avoid it forever.

We come from nothing and we go back to nothing;* everything between is a gift.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
* "What've you lost? Nothing! Cheer up y'old bugger!"

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: a good person is a person who...
    ... as children, and we make up the most egregious lies to defend them, ... there would only be one immortal species; it is the inclusion of death ... in the process of life that makes evolution work, ... Evolution is just a natural process. ...
    (misc.writing)
  • Re: surprising letter from a creationist to me
    ... bible is real evolution is a lie" and went on from there. ... has to be true in order for me to have eternal life." ... success with is a direct confrontation of the fundy's fear of death. ... I do not understand the fear of death, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: God=G_uv proves 40k B.C. Creation
    ... "blind Evolution" is sufficient to explain it. ... if it can be established at the "biomolecular" ... an OBVIOUS "first detection" of the existence of "Life After Death" ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: OT: Death
    ... Human beings and the lives of human beings are a lot more sophisticated mentally/psychologically/emotionally, etc. than evolution would need them to be. ... Why have we evolved all of this complexity if the objective of life is to do nothing more than replicate genetic material? ... I've been told that I have an old soul, and that old souls naturally "sense" this, and that the world right now is mostly young souls, who don't sense this as readily. ... If I'm wrong, I will have lived more at peace with life and death than those people, so I'm happy to be wrong about it, and I'll never know the difference anyway. ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • Christof Koch
    ... Simpler Origin for Life" from earlier this year by Prof. Robert Shapiro, ... Life began with the appearance of the first RNA molecule. ... before proteins and DNA in the evolution of life. ...
    (talk.origins)
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