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Let me run through, for a moment, what I see happening again and again in creationsim vs evolution threads.

Some random n00b posts something like



thise invites response from similar pubescent americans (sorry america but it is mostly true), with the odd non creationist thrown in the mix and getting and getting spammed under by the mass of people who know nothing about the subject. Then one creationist makes a pseudo scientific response which is too confusing for most people to deal with.
Then someone, commonly one of us, tears that down with logic and sarcasm, inviting a response from the creationist who posted it.
What results is a one on one death match, with two or three posters making huge hour long posts against each other, while the rest are simply crowded out of the mix.
Apart from a few screaming zealots, bible on one hand, keyboard in the other and foam dripping out of their mouths.

The zealots still in the conversation are almost never going to be educated by us. The ones we could reach leave, after being bombarded by things they don't understand and continue to spread their low level fallacies around.


How can we change this cycle? And actually help people for a change.

Hmmm...good points, I'm commonly guilty of both.


More the second really.

It's just get's so hard to avoid the second. The wealth of mistakes on their part just invites counter-quoting.

It can be hard at times, especially when they expect that, and crow about anything you don't counter-quote as being something you can't answer.

Actually you've got to give people some credit. It takes time for a person to change; change means 'difference over time'. So naturally, in the course of a rapid debate, you'll rarely get someone to shift their paradigm so dramatically.

However, if you can force people to consider what they say, then you can sow a seed of doubt. Over time, their old ideas will erode. This doubt might carry on to their community and though it might take a hundred years, creationism will eventually be rejected.

You've got to remember that small changes in the present lead to very big changes in the future. If some guy six thousand years ago had decided not to have another child, there could be fifty million less people in the world today.

Gaia is one of the largest, if not the largest forum in the world, and the regularlity of communication and guarantee of a large readership makes this a very good place to disseminate ideas.

In short, keep at it, your words will have an effect.

It's not a question of right and wrong. You can't help being who you are. If you're ignorant, and if you think that things like faith and trusting the Bible are a good thing, then you won't even want to change.

There are many problems with ignoring them.

1) They use that as evidence that we have no standing and they are correct.
2) They spread their lies about and pollute other people minds.
3) There are so many of them, soo sooo many.

Yes, you can certainly 'erode' someone elses way of thinking. Remember guys; logic is on our side. If you make a logical, irrefutable argument, then even if the other person doesn't appear to listen, the very biological make up of his brain itself is changing his mind. The mind wants to be logical; that's how it works.

Many of us grew up as Christians, most I think, and many of us are Christians. So no we are not uneducated on the subject. We do know what we are talking about.

Possibly your interpretation of our attitude is coloured by your belief that we obviously cannot understand Christianity correctly, of we wouldn't be anti creationism.

Obviously I am making a few assumptions here about you. I apologise for that.

Possibly the fact that we don't really discuss Christianity in any great detail here also contributes to that. This is because Christianity has little to bear on the subject.