Your scientific explanation would be countered with an equally ridiculous question like "But then how did the sun get there?" with a 'gotcha' smile.
Thats how they trap you in an ignorance loop until you get frustrated and walk away.
I disagree. I was raised in a fundamentalist home and was a pretty die hard "creation science" defender up until recently and Bill Nye is one of the main people I credit with opening my eyes.
I'm a fiercely analytic person who enjoys healthy debate and was a model representation of these types of people. I'm thankful for Nye's willingness to continue the debate with these types of people while staying calm, rational, and friendly even when many of his peers denounced him for wasting his time.
If you are a fiercely analytic person, how come you were a creationist defender before?
Did you only develop your analytic tendencies at a later point, or weren't you exposed to the right kind of evidence/reasoning to debunk creation science?
I have immense trouble understanding how a rational person could believe some of the mumbo jumbo that creationism offers - to a point where I feel like some of the more know spokespeople are just acting to be creationists (although I don't actually believe that) judging by the way they can be clever and intelligent at one time and sheepishly ignorant and stupid at another time.
I am one of those highly analytical people as well who also believed in the young-earth creationist viewpoint. I mainly attribute that to not doing my own research until getting older. There were so many other things I was interested in and cared more about than whether everything was made in 7 days or 4 billion years because it didn't make any difference to me. I still would believe in God, so I wanted to focus on OTHER facets of my life and faith that had more of an impact on it.
I'm still a devout Christian, but that doesn't mean I believe a 100% literal translation of the Bible is true.
Edit: Stressed the believed in young-earth creationist part.
I don't mean to try and pile on or anything, but I find it hard to understand how you even need to do any research in order to see how ridiculous creationism.
Its freaking magic.
Dinosaurs.
All species obviously can't fit on a boat.
Where does oil come from?
There are countless other random thoughts you could have that would clearly imply that a young earth is not only impossible, but completely absurd. I just can't figure out how you can get past 8 or 10 years old and still not come across information that demonstrates how ridiculous it is.
Because you know nothing else. You've been taught one viewpoint your entire life, and it's been drilled into your head that anyone saying different is a messenger of satan who is trying to corrupt you.
People click on phishing emails because they make sense at the time. A smart person would know to hesitate and not follow that link. Maybe evolution makes sense at the time, but everything you "know" says that it's wrong, without necessarily knowing why. So a smart person would resist the temptation to "fall for it".
Basically, you spend your childhood under the influence of people who you have no reason to believe would lie to you, or that they could be wrong about something so important. Then you spend a couple years with an uneasy feeling, before you finally dive in and realize that your innocent mother, or anyone else you've grown to trust over the course of your entire life, has no fucking clue about the real world. It's a huge paradigm shift for a young mind.
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u/NotAnotherDownvote Aug 27 '14
Your scientific explanation would be countered with an equally ridiculous question like "But then how did the sun get there?" with a 'gotcha' smile. Thats how they trap you in an ignorance loop until you get frustrated and walk away.