Pudd Needs A Crash Course

[Legion]

Pudd, our relationship may be damaged beyond repair, but I still wish to communicate some things here.

 

In the past, I went round after round with my stepdad about evolution. But eventually I saw it as a mostly futile thing.

 

- I know evolution to be fact.

- I know there is a difference between evolution as it is, and has been and will be on one hand, and our current understanding of evolution on the other.

- Evolution is not the end-all-be-all of biology. There are also considerations of physiology and most biologists do not concern themselves with the study of evolution; they basically study physiology.

 

I have come to accept my stepdad for the asshole that he is, and I've also come to appreciate the challenges he laid before me. For in trying to do battle with his ego and ignorance, I did battle with my own.

[Overcame Faith]

Here are a couple of science forums you may want to consider reading and/or joining. I haven't read many of the posts, but they seem to be populated by a lot of people who are willing to answer questions in many areas.

 

http://scienceforums.com/

 

http://www.thescienceforum.com/

 

http://www.sciforums.com/

 

These forums may supplement some of what members on ExC who have an outstanding knowledge of science are offering you.

[LivingLife]

Pudd there is no short-cut to learning this stuff. I am giving pointers and expect you to research. The info is long reads, much harder than babble shite. Fundies do not understand science so the babble "explains" it to them in terms they can grasp.

 

Thanks for the info and pointers, LL. I really appreciate it. It's kind of hard to know where to start when you know so little.

 

Just a quick question- that site that refutes Answers in Genesis, is this the link for it? http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/

That's the very one. There is heaps of info and links and will also be a good pace to start to find out what you need to study up on.

[blackpudd1n]

Here are a couple of science forums you may want to consider reading and/or joining. I haven't read many of the posts, but they seem to be populated by a lot of people who are willing to answer questions in many areas.

 

http://scienceforums.com/

 

http://www.thescienceforum.com/

 

http://www.sciforums.com/

 

These forums may supplement some of what members on ExC who have an outstanding knowledge of science are offering you.

 

Thanks for that, OCF. I was actually also thinking today of going back to high school next year and doing the science classes- physics, biology, and chemistry. Our education system is pretty cruisy- they'd let me just sit in without doing the assessments if I wanted to if I just got prior approval. Otherwise I might see if one of the local high school teachers would sit down with me once a week for an informal tutorial. I'd prefer that more.

 

I'm going to go check those forums out now

[blackpudd1n]

Pudd there is no short-cut to learning this stuff. I am giving pointers and expect you to research. The info is long reads, much harder than babble shite. Fundies do not understand science so the babble "explains" it to them in terms they can grasp.

 

Thanks for the info and pointers, LL. I really appreciate it. It's kind of hard to know where to start when you know so little.

 

Just a quick question- that site that refutes Answers in Genesis, is this the link for it? http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/

That's the very one. There is heaps of info and links and will also be a good pace to start to find out what you need to study up on.

 

Awesome, I'll have a look around it

[Guest Valk0010]

Well if you someone brings up adam and eve as the cause of sin, I would tell them, guess either god is omniscient and really neglect and stupid or not omniscient and still neglect.

 

Could you please expand on why you would say that?

Well because God, then by his own action, damns his own children to hell if he is omniscient. He is creating creature so they can be destined to suffer. He is creating us sick and punishing us for not being well. He is creating suffering by his actions. That is anti any sort of sense of omnibenevolence. Now of course you could say well, god can do whatever he wants he is god, but that violated the appeal to authority fallacy. Just because someone in power does something logical it doesn't automatically make them right. And either logic is true or it isn't. So if god is supposed to be logical, then you have a contradiction, and a disproved god. Free will considerations here, are mute, because one doesn't have to have bad and good options, to still have a ability to make choice. The ability to make choice is the epitome of what free will is. Heaven having free will is a perfect example of that. It also makes no sense anyway, without that. Is it still wrong, to force a crackhead into a crackhouse by gunpoint? Essentially god is doing that to us. putting us the crackheads, into a crackhouse by gun point. The gun is his action of creation, are addiction are ability to sin, and the crack house being earth. You know what is going to happen. The crackhead will use. Now by christian logic, then the crackhead deserves being damned to hell. But wait of minute then. Did we get created and put into this situation without our own choosing, and against things we can't conquer. Its a situation that only has one conclusion. Disaster. No loving god or all knowing or all powerful god, could do what the Christian bible says without that god being evil.

[bornnormal]

HI pudd!

I admire your determination to learn about science.

If I would not have a solid, basic understanding of sciences I guess I would start at basic physics first to understand the structure of the atom.

http://martin-bell.suite101.com/the-structure-of-the-atom-simple-explanation-a110564

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom

(note that quantum mechanics goes way beyond that structure, but you should not care about quantum mechanics at all, because it's fuckin' incomprehensible )

 

then

I would learn about basic chemistry, so I can understand how these atoms can form elements and how the elements can form molecules.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element

 

...so all we need now is gravitation and some basic mechanics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation#Newton.27s_theory_of_gravitation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_mechanics

 

...after that you will have a solid basis, so you can look into the big bang theory on where the lighter elements could form in the first place. Then by using your knowledge of gravitation you can imagine how stars could form. Then look up nucleosynthesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis

 

It's not an easily digestible topic, but since by now you have a solid understanding on atomic structures, elements and gravity you can get the basic principles out of it.

 

Now you have all the stuff in the world. Basically you know what God knew at the end of the 2nd day of creation.

I think this would be a solid base on which you can build up you scientific knowledge. Now you can imagine how the celestial bodies go around each other in space, what is matter made of and how it can form other types of matter.

 

If you would really want to acquire a complete worldview then I think there is no going around the basic elementary/highschool stuff:

http://scipp.ucsc.edu/outreach/index2.html

and

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/General_Chemistry

and of course

http://archive.org/stream/biologyforbeginn00moonrich#page/n7/mode/2up

 

I am hugely grateful for my "communist" education which had a huge emphasis on sciences even in elementary education.

It is great to have a sort of system approach to the world, where you can fit the new scientific informations into, or onto your existing framework.

 

I can not stress enough how your hunger for knowledge amazes me!

[Ouroboros]

So basically, in order to have enough water to flood the earth, we'd have like oceans hanging above us. That much water couldn't just disappear that quickly, either. And an olive tree wouldn't survive it, either.

Right.

 

Most plant and animal life wouldn't survive. And there would be a lot of decay and diseases afterwards. If Noah and family survived, they most likely died from a slew on infections and illnesses.

 

I live in a flood area. We flood when the rivers and land are already saturated with water, and it's high tide, so there's nowhere for the water to go.

And how much water do you usually get in mm or inches per hour in your area?

 

If the whole earth flooded, there'd be no-where for the water to go either, hey. It would take forever for it to evaporate.

And if it all was evaporating, it would go back to that miltes thick layer of suspended ocean over our heads. We don't have it. So where did it go? (And a note, the ice bergs at the polar caps are far from enough. Ice is not compressed water, it takes up more space than the amount of water that froze, so the ice caps would have to have the volume of a much larger amount of water.)

[Thought2Much]

So basically, in order to have enough water to flood the earth, we'd have like oceans hanging above us. That much water couldn't just disappear that quickly, either. And an olive tree wouldn't survive it, either.

Right.

 

Most plant and animal life wouldn't survive. And there would be a lot of decay and diseases afterwards. If Noah and family survived, they most likely died from a slew on infections and illnesses.

 

I live in a flood area. We flood when the rivers and land are already saturated with water, and it's high tide, so there's nowhere for the water to go.

And how much water do you usually get in mm or inches per hour in your area?

 

If the whole earth flooded, there'd be no-where for the water to go either, hey. It would take forever for it to evaporate.

And if it all was evaporating, it would go back to that miltes thick layer of suspended ocean over our heads. We don't have it. So where did it go? (And a note, the ice bergs at the polar caps are far from enough. Ice is not compressed water, it takes up more space than the amount of water that froze, so the ice caps would have to have the volume of a much larger amount of water.)

 

Silly heathen! God created all of the water for the flood as he needed it, and took it all away when he was done with it! Duh!

 

Seriously, though, I wonder why God would have had to go through such a complicated process to remove all humans except for one family from existence entirely. You'd think an all-powerful, all-knowing being could just say "BAM! You're all toast!" and everyone except Noah and his kin would just vaporize, and nothing else on earth would be affected. The entire idea of a flood just doesn't make sense from start to finish.

[Ouroboros]

Silly heathen! God created all of the water for the flood as he needed it, and took it all away when he was done with it! Duh!

God magically compressed water into tiny bubble out in space. (btw, water can't be compressed, that's why it's so magical.)

 

Seriously, though, I wonder why God would have had to go through such a complicated process to remove all humans except for one family from existence entirely. You'd think an all-powerful, all-knowing being could just say "BAM! You're all toast!" and everyone except Noah and his kin would just vaporize, and nothing else on earth would be affected. The entire idea of a flood just doesn't make sense from start to finish.

I know.

 

And if God put that huge ocean of floating water in the air... for what purpose? It must've been for the sole purpose of creating the flood! So God planned to kill all humans from the first day of creation. Amazing.

 

On another note, how can there be day and night under a 6 km thick layer of water? No one would be able to see the sun, moon, stars at all for all those years, from creation to the flood. And the birds, would they fly up and swim in that floating ocean? Weird. Perhaps that where the fly-fish came from first?

[Zephie]

Hey Pudd, right there with ya. My BF is a chemist/horticulture major at school. He knows so much while I know so little. I'm hijacking his books eventually. Anywho, perhaps the simplest thing is to google some basic concepts. The sad thing is that no matter how much evidence you present to fundies, they will not listen. They will just keep asking for evidence.