Come with us to the Bible Skeptics Conference in Whitby (East of Toronto) on Friday Feb. 23 and Saturday Feb. 24.
What the heck is a Bible Skeptics Conference? It's not what you think ...
At this conference named after you, the skeptic, we hope to challenge your views on evolution and ultimately the meaning of life. We promise no singing (not that there's anything wrong with that), no offering plate and no pressure to join a denomination or church - just reasonable arguments for the existence of a creator - and that His book is the Bible.It should be a barrel of fun! (The Institute for Creation Research will supply the barrels and the fish.)
15 comments :
Nope, I'm pretty sure you have to bring your own fish. But then the Creationists will turn it into lots of fish!
It's going to be awesome. One more reason to wish I didn't live in the States.
Be sure to take your own Bible, so you can prove that a bat is a bird and that insects have 4 legs. Otherwise, those who are weak in hteir faith might be tempted not to believe you.
I was curious, so I looked at the web page. Uhgg.
"We invite you to examine scientific evidence of the most controversial accounts in the Old Testament (recent creation and global flood)..."
"If there were ANY chance that you could be wrong—and that a literal hell does exist—isn’t that too great a gamble for eternity?"
What do you want to bet they've never heard the term "Pascal's Wager"?
I recognize the name of one of the speakers (Bruce Malone). He showed up here (Ottawa) at a CORE meeting, whose most recent newsletter contained a lengthy article by him. Expect no-compromise (and no-brains) literal-Bible YEC, supported by the Usual Arguments.
Wow, all that and judgment day too!
Hi Dr. Moran, Mike had originally wanted me to come along too, but I probably won't be able to make it.
I'm very discouraged that, yet again, it is two engineers making a fool out of my profession at this conference.
On behalf of my congregation, the American Reformed Pasta Church, I am disgusted that no equal time is given to the One True Intelligent Designer: The Flying Spaghetti Monster. We MUST teach all of the controversies, or risk losing our souls to the heathen Atkins Deniers. All of you "Skeptics" and "Creationists" need to open your minds.
Have fun, but DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID!
So I showed up, wth were you all, argh.
--D.
Well, living 400km away I consider myself off the hook. However, I (and a few friends) were at this event. It was, um, entertaining -- as fine an example of the Gish Gallop as you could ever want to see. With a little bit of Global Warming and Ozone Hole denialism (and a bit of just plain bizarre UFOlogy) tossed in as seasoning.
I couldn't make it last night and I won't be able to get there today either. Sorry. I'm looking forward to hearing how it went.
Malone hit most of the usual ICR talking points (mixing up 'evolution' - linking cosmology, abiogenesis and biological evo). I took notes and had a mirror of the archive on my laptop and was able to bag both his quotes (#41 and #54 by Kitts and Gould on transitionals) plus he did the Grand Canyon, Piltdown, etc etc.
The second speaker was just an Angry Grampaw who kept hraping on 'common sense' then started mocking guys like Benny Hinn and Popoff for selling out Jesus. Oh, long rant on Oral Roberts. He almost did 'Darwin on the Eye'.
Q&A rolls around and I'm figurnig out which to use - I have the Redwall Sandstone, the Early Earth O2 issue, misquotes, etc.
First question was on Grand Canyon, but a softball. Then the next set were what I would call cranks - one guy started asking what they thought about Christmas, why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus...
I was at the back and pointed the moderator to let the one guy ahead of me to ask questions, then the moderator saw I had Mark Isaak's book with me, and while he had said 'great! we need people like you here!' when I was about to step up and ask something, he said 'well, we only have time for one more question before 10PM' and walked back to the front and got some guy to lob another softball. I just laughed.
Went up and said Hi to the ICR speaker, Malone after, told him he'd been given softballs to hit.
I told the moderator I'd see if someone could print out Project Steve and tape it to the wall as they had the sheets listing the 'Scientists Against Darwinism' taped up outside the room.
I won't be going today, the conference is for believers.
--D.
had a mirror of the archive on my laptop
I'll have to consider doing that for the next installment of my local bunch. After returning home last night it took me all of about 30 minutes to find and skim debunkings for two of Cucan's points (RATE project, and Damadian's "persecution" by the Nobel committee). Not that it would have helped: his style was to interrupt replies and try to talk over the challenger. It degenerated into a bit of a shouting match, I'm afraid.
It's also immensely irritating when a smug fool who's just made some incoherent point about trilobite eyes being just as complex as frog eyes (which somehow contradicts evolution), turns around and tells you that you are the one who doesn't understand evolution. I weakness, I'm sure. But I feel better now ;-).
I managed to see most of Friday's second speaker. I agree that it's definitely targeted toward the believers, despite being advertised as a conference for skeptics. The guy I saw went through the standard creationist presentation points so it really was not interesting at all. I suppose the highlight for me was listening to the two old women in front of me talking. When the speaker mentioned Stephen Hawkings one said to the other "that's the one who was brought to life by machines!".
As well, I couldn't help but notice that in the high school's bathroom, Jack Chick tracts had been placed on each of the toilets. I know if I found one of those in high school it would have given my friends and me at least a lunch hour's worth of laughs.
Hi Gentlemen, I am the moderator from the Bible skeptics conference. Thanks for coming. I'm sorry we had to endure some irrelevant questions from Christians in the crowd before getting to you. Please understand that as a moderator I cannot control the questions asked. When I came across annonymous at the back I offered the mic to him. He instead referred me to his friend with the rather dapper hat. He was given all the time he wanted with the mic. His final words before returning the mic were "thank you for your time" I was not aware that anonymous had a question of his own. If any of you come next year please introoduce yourselves and the mic is yours also. Would you like to ask your questions here anonymous ? - Paul MacGregor
Thanks for the comments but it seems most are insults or generalities. To say arguments are useless because they are "old" or have been "rebutted" sound nice - but the devil is in the details. Anything can be said to be rebutted but that does not mean the rebuttal is correct or even logical until examined by someone of the opposing viewpoint. And using "old" arguments are perfectly valid if they have never been adequately answered by evolution believers.
The reason I continue to use evidence like the systematic gaps in the fossil record is because it has never been adequately explained by anything other than Biblical creation. I continue to use the Piltdown Man hoax because it is perhaps the greatest example in the twentieth century of the blindness resulting from educational indoctrination. It was only someone outside of the field of paleontology who dicovered the error. Science can be "self correcting" but the inertia is enormous, especially when the field itself has been defined to eliminate the consideration of the only real alternative to evolution (creation). Even the most obvious truth becomes invisible to heavily indoctrinated students. This seems to me to be the primary reason our current one-sided evolutionary education based system fears letting even a hint of intelligent design evidence, let alone the more logical Biblical creation model, into schools.
I did recieve a few substantive and relatively hard questions at the conference. Those were the ones I enjoyed the most. Could it be that any question which has a logical answer is automatically considered to be "softball" by those wishing to discredit creation?
I'd be glad to carry on a personal correspondence with anyone actually seeking the truth. You can contact me at truth@searchforthetruth.net Carrying on such a dialog is intellectually challenging and I learn much about how to reach those honestly searching for the truth. However, I have better uses for my time than to post and respond to vague insults.
Send the hardball questions and lets peel back the onion skin one question at at time to see which model of origins best fit the actual evidence.
Thanks to those who took time to attend the conference.
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