A creation scientist is coming to my college...?

Question

what are some questions I should ask him?

Creationists believe Adam, Eve, animals, and dinosaurs (all vegetarian including T-rex) were made 6,000 years ago and that evolution, the Big Bang, etc. are all evil ideas made up to attack Christians. Are there any science people out there (or theistic evolutionists) who have ideas for what I can ask?

Answer 1

Does he really call himself a "creation scientist?" Wow.

The temptation, of course, would be to ask him questions in the realm of "How can you possibly think that...". However, I think asking a thoughtful question might get a different kind of response.

Here's a nice list of questions on various aspects of creationism:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/stumpers.html

One I would want to ask is "Would you agree that creationism can be taught in schools if it is part of religious studies, as opposed to part of the science curriculum?"

Answer 2

> A creation scientist
That's an oxymoron (which means he's probably a moron whose brain isn't getting enough oxygen).

> what are some questions I should ask him?
Just which "creation story" are you espousing?

If it's the Biblical one, do you trust the word of Moses? You know he was an unreliable source, since we know the so-called Great Flood didn't cover the whole world.

Why aren't there any fluffy bunny fossils in Cambrian strata?

Where is G-d now? Are you sure?

If the Earth is only 6000 years old, why does it look like it's so much older? That would be deceitful, wouldn't it? And G-d isn't the Deceiver... and the Bible doesn't say that Lucifer helped make the Earth.

How can you be sure it's the god of Abraham, and not someone else, who did the creating? Can you give me a source other than Moses? Don't you know about Moses? He had a chip on his shoulder over his exile from Egypt, and decided to get revenge by skiving off with the working class, using their superstitions to get them to agree to the plan. Afterward, he had his gang of thugs, the Levites, skewer anyone who was discontented with Moses's leadership or who questioned Moses.

Answer 3

first of all, you should not assume that this:

"Creationists believe Adam, Eve, animals, and dinosaurs (all vegetarian including T-rex) were made 6,000 years ago and that evolution, the Big Bang, etc. are all evil ideas made up to attack Christians."

is accurate. creationists believe all kinds of batty things. try to find some of the guy's writings or preferably transcripts of debates he's taken part in before to find out what claims he is trying to defend. it's little use asking about the age of the earth if he's an old earther, for instance.

Answer 4

Ask him why basically every single, last piece of evidence in physics, chemistry, archeology, cosmology, astronomy, biology, and geology indicates a universe billions of years old. If he uses the mature earth argument violent quaker mentioned, ask him if that means God is intentionally misleading us by having his bible say one thing and the universe he created saying something else.

If he talks about the flood, ask him why 6 different cultures from the same region and time period also have stories about a great flood, but don't mention anything about Noah or all the animals.

Oh! Also ask him how the 2 of every one of the 20 million different kinds of animals we have on earth (plus food for them all for 40 days) managed to fit on an ark about the size of a football stadium. If he says God shrunk them (or something equally convenient) ask him why God was willing to shrink them, but he couldn't be bothered to turn one of the elephants (or rhino, whatever it was) into a girl when Noah brought two male ones



But seriously, just sit back and watch. You're not going to sway this guy, he believes what he believes. If you ask a simple pointed question and his answer is obviously BS, you might stop a few people in the audience from buying it, though.


edit: find a biology or geology teacher on campus if you know one, and talk to them about what they think about this

Answer 5

Don't bother. There's really no point in it; he's just coming to cause trouble, and if you try to debate him you'll be simply adding to the credibility of his arguments. The problem is that these guys revere real academics, and if you debate him--even if you're a student--you'll have lent legitimacy to his stuff.

This is not a scientific or intellectual exercise, He does _not_ want to hear anything new. What he wants is to write an adventure story about how brave he was--in the academic lion's den, so to speak--to take back to his church tell on his lecture circuit.

The best defense is to have only those kids who are creationists themselves attend. You have other things to do.

Answer 6

i'm not a scientist, nor have I researched the obtainable counsel in sufficient component to declare one way or the different. i understand that there is a huge form of info to assist an Earth older than 6000-ten thousand years. whether the measurements used are off base, i for my area do not think of they may well be off by skill of billions of years. additionally, the negation of a concept, as an occasion, Darwinian evolution, does not immediately make an opposing concept maximum suitable. The greater documents it fairly is gathered, the smaller our margin of errors will become, so we would desire to maintain finding and reading. The greater we discover with regard to the actual worldwide we live in, the greater i'm for my area surprised by skill of the complicated great factor approximately God's creation, each and every time, it is not appropriate lots to me. He gets the honour the two way!

Answer 7

First off, you should listen to his arguments yourself and evaluate them critically, for yourself.

You could ask how the light from stars millions of light years away reached earth in 6,000 years.

You could ask why the variability in highly conserved portions of chromatin DNA sequences between species indicates speciation occurred millions of years ago.

Probably, he'll use the "mature earth" argument, which states that God created the earth with fossils in the ground, light from stars all the way to earth, and trees hundreds of years old. This argument, that an omnipotent God created everything to look billions of years old, cannot be disproven by science because it is not repeatable. It is, by every definition, religion.

2n2222's idea is pretty good, too.

Answer 8

I would ask him what his evidence is that a designer created anything. Without using any biblical references. Ask him why he always attacks scientific evidence (when he calls himself a "creation scientist") and never provides any real evidence of his own.

Ask him where god came from and how that happened. God was always there is no more answer than the bible is the answer.

These people always want to put science on the defense by questioning any tiny discrepancy and never offering any proof of their own about their goofy ideas. We need to learn to put them on the defense and quit "respecting" their beliefs.

Answer 9

Woah.

Don't ask him anything. Just listen talk about what he has to say... if it gets too boring then sing a song in your head, or ask yourself.. what am i doing this weekend?

He doesn't care what people say, try not to get brainwashed though.. Sometimes they are good at that. And if you HAVE to ask a question... Ask him to explain it all over again because you weren't listening. Or just ask what was eve's favorite color.. OR ask him if he knows who eve is... yes the rapper. (H) oh yeah...

P.S yes.. I'm a catholic.. to a certain extend... wanna hate about it ? then ask a question...


plus 2

Answer 10

Ask all those questions. Another good question is to ask him to explain the decay of uranium to lead. This decays at a specific rate. This is the basis for how we know how old the earth is.