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[alway]

It came from ancestry lists, and is actually around 6000 years ago. And you don't know the half of it if you think most of them even think about evolution or fossils or things of that sort. It's quite the feat of delusion; not only do they not think about those sorts of things, they just sort of write out any of the things counter to their beliefs from their idea of science. Which means they essentially live in a bubble in which they have their own versions of science; everything from physics and biology to neuroscience, ect. These edits include everything moving from the point which counters their beliefs outwards to everything obviously dependent/related. For example, they don't believe anything about the big bang, but are perfectly content to believe radio waves and similar phenomena work, because the radio based evidence for the big bang requires actual mathematics and thought to arrive at. Sometimes the substitution of bits is simply the removing from their version of science, sometimes it's replacing it with 18th or 19th century versions which weren't advanced enough to contain the points countering their beliefs. It isn't an issue of something as simple as saying "it's there as a test of faith," it's a much deeper issue of "it's there? stop lieing, I don't see anything there."

[Lord Shonus]

Mainly, I was trying to explain how those that do consider the fossil record and such fit it into their beliefs. The sort that simply ignore it were not relevant.

[Kay12]

It came from ancestry lists -snip-

They don't have to pretend not to see fossils and such... if one believes in a god that can create a world, what exactly would prevent that god from creating a world full of fossils of creatures that never existed?

[alway]

The most common opinion among YEC's is that the fossils came from their religion's great flood; essentially all the dead critters which then more or less fossilized overnight. Which is another part of their alternate version of science: fossils (and fossil fuels) can be created in a matter of centuries. Intellectually, it's much easier to hide problems with your preconceived ideas in the places where you don't have the knowledge to think about the problems; similar to how Deepak Chopra uses quantum mechanics to explain away his belief in what is essentially magic. Acknowledging that something exists which aside from a questionable intervention from a deity should not exist based on your preconceived notions opens you up to much more obvious questioning.

[Euld]

Is there some sort of detailed list that explains how fossils couldn't have come from the Flood?  That's something that bugs me to this day, how so many people say it's pretty obvious that the Flood didn't create those fossils, but never give the reasons why it couldn't...   The History Channel did this often >_o

[Lord Shonus]

It's quite obvious. They're at different geological layers and have been carbon-dated to a spread of millenia. If they were from the flood, they'd be at a uniform depth, layer, and date to the same era.

[alway]

Not sure if a detailed list is possible; there's just too many of them, heh. It became evident even long ago, without the scientific analysis processes and tools.
Even pre-enlightenment era:

"If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from the sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores.
And we find oysters together in very large families, among which some may be seen with their shells still joined together, indicating that they were left there by the sea and that they were still living when the strait of Gibraltar was cut through. In the mountains of Parma and Piacenza multitudes of shells and corals with holes may be seen still sticking to the rocks...."

The most obvious reason is arrangement. If it was one big event in which everything died, it would be more or less one big mess of things with no particular arrangement; rabbits, velociraptors, and trilobites corpses all clumped together. But instead, we see the very distinct evolutionary history which appears very different, with the clear progression of organisms going deeper in the rock.

There's radiometric dating which, again, is altered by the YEC alternate science (or more specifically, they believe nuclear decay rates have dramatically decreased over time). Radiometric dating backs up the arrangements of progression previously seen, as well as showing a vast difference in time scales.

The formation of the quantity of fossil fuels we have also takes much longer than the asserted time. This particular one is either countered with more bad YEC alternate science or explained as 'God put it there as a natural resource for us.' The 'God dunnit' excuse is much more common here than the fossils example, as fossil fuels do have a practical use, whereas with fossils you're stuck precariously close to being between your pure deity trying to trick you or your devil who only has the power to corrupt actually creating things.

I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of others, but those are some of the most obvious examples.

As for the alternate YEC version of science, that originates from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy     (summary)
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Wedge_document    (original document)
It's pretty insidious. Their goals, from the horse's mouth are:
"To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies"
"To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"
Or in summary, they are setting out with aims no less than the utter destruction of science followed by replacing it with far-right Christian doctrine.

[bremarv]

On my way to work today I walked past a lady with hair or, more likely, fake hair wrapped around her right arm from elbow to past her hand and fingers. It was also also wider at the elbow than at the other end, so it formed a sort of lance.

[RedWarrior0]

The main argument against "God Dunnit" for YECs (I'm of the "evolutionary creationist" sector, but there's other things with that). First of all, why would God use hard-to-extract fossil fuels as-is rather than just giving us, say, a system of physics in which one can create clean infinite energy? Another thing is that, if the Bible is the perfectly literal word of God, then Man was created both last among all, but before everything else, and Adam was both created before Eve and at the same time, and other such things. I for one take it to mean this: The first story says, "Everything, not just Man, is the creation of God and deserves treatment as such" and the second says "Man is most important".

Things that made me go "WTF" today: thinking first of all about the size of the universe, and secondly about Graham's Number in comparison. 4 billion light years in every direction. For simplicity, we'll call it a cube that's 8*8*8 x 10²⁷ cubic light years. Every one of those cubic light years is about 365*365*365 cubic light days, each of which is 24*24*24 cubic light hours, each of which is 60*60*60 cubic light minutes, each of which is 60*60*60 cubic light seconds, each of which is 27 x 10²⁴ cubic meters. There are about 10³⁵ Planck lengths in a meter, so 10¹⁰⁵ or so cubic Planck lengths per cubic meter. You take that incredibly large number that results, about 10¹⁸⁵. Graham's number, which has actually been used for something, has at least that many digits. My mind flipped inside out.

[Neonivek]

First of all, why would God use hard-to-extract fossil fuels as-is rather than just giving us, say, a system of physics in which one can create clean infinite energy?

Why doesn't god just zap all tornados into cotton candy?

I think that earth is meant not to be perfect.

[RedWarrior0]

First of all, why would God use hard-to-extract fossil fuels as-is rather than just giving us, say, a system of physics in which one can create clean infinite energy?

Why doesn't god just zap all tornados into cotton candy?

I think that earth is meant not to be perfect.

I'm thinking this discussion is better suited in a different thread.

[Bauglir]

First of all, why would God use hard-to-extract fossil fuels as-is rather than just giving us, say, a system of physics in which one can create clean infinite energy?

Why doesn't god just zap all tornados into cotton candy?

I think that earth is meant not to be perfect.

I'm thinking this discussion is better suited in a different thread.

Just for this, I've unlocked it. If the necro is an acceptable cost to using that thread, anyway.

[Akura]

During yesterday's outreach, we had a girl collapse from what looked like heat exaustion. She looked like she was going to be fine, although the EMTs took her to the hospital to be safe.

She's only 12, but she's taller than my 18-year-old sister, and looks a hell of a lot older than 12.

[ein]

The forums eat up my memory like it's skittles, and Youtube and 4chan, with their custom themes and ricey extensions and copious amounts of graphics and video don't~ :\

[Scaraban]

Just watched a commercial for the t core, weird as shit. I can't really explain why.