Article: 1875 of alt.psychology Newsgroups: alt.psychology,sci.anthropology,sci.cognitive,sci.psychology.misc,sci.psychology.theory From: "Wolf Kirchmeir" Message-ID: References: <8e0e3045.0304241219.35d1b691@posting.google.com> Reply-To: "Wolf Kirchmeir" X-Newsreader: PMINews 2.00.1205 For OS/2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Why do creationists think as they do? Lines: 40 Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:09:45 -0400 (EDT) NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.228.30.144 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1051225790 64.228.30.144 (Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:09:50 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 19:09:50 EDT Organization: Bell Sympatico Path: news.meer.net!sea-read.news.verio.net!dfw-artgen!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nf3.bellglobal.com!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: archive.mv.meer.net alt.psychology:1875 sci.anthropology:1426 sci.cognitive:2432 sci.psychology.misc:113 sci.psychology.theory:123 On 24 Apr 2003 13:19:59 -0700, darth_versive wrote: >The questions you ask--"Why do apparantly intelligent people decide to >abandon reason and substitute observed facts for a bunch of fables? >Is warm fluffy comport better than reality? Is it some sort of >infantile regression?"--are very good questions. I'll try to answer >each in turn: That question as written is unintelligible, since it means to replace fables with observed facts - which apparently is not what the original poster meant. (It also confuses theories and facts, but let that pass.) Anyhow, if you read creationists' arguments. you'll see that there are two notions that they can't get past: a) if humans evolved from animals, then there is no God-given morality. And if there is no God-given morality, then anything goes. (Many creationists seem to think that if were is no God wielding a big stick, we would all "act like animals," which I consider a libel on animals.) b) chance cannot give rise to order, since chance is just a variety of randomness, and randomness is the opposite of order. In general, we believe what we believe, and then search for reasons. Doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on, that's how you operate Or, if you like, that's how human brains work. Look at the kinds of belief that people are willing to change on the evidence, and you will find they do not come anywhere near their core belief system. (That's why "brain washing" doesn't work.) -- Best Wishes, Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON "Not that brains are everything -- you'll also need a skull to put them in." (Nancy Franklin, 1997)