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Creationist Bets $10k In Proposed Literal Interpretation of Genesis Debate

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-would-darwin-do? dept.

HungWeiLo writes "A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge. Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be 'scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.' For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It's also not the first such trial he's tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the 'Life Science Prize,' proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate."

15 of 1,121 comments (clear)

  1. Easy... by dmgxmichael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Chapter 1 - Male and Female are created simultaneously.

    Chapter 2 - Adam and Eve are created in that order.

    One of the two accounts must be false - they are mutually exclusive factual statements.

    Genesis is a collection of myths with no more truth to them then the parables.

    1. Re:Easy... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If that were the only discrepancy then that could easily be tied in a detail of the creation of man. how about the complete order of how things were invented in the two creation myths? one man was created on the last working day, while the other man was created first and he was seen to be bored so all the things were created in the world for him.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:Easy... by Daetrin · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If you think those are the same account of events, then you're failing at both reading comprehension and history.

      As others have already elaborated, it's well established that the two accounts are from two different traditions. But even your own links describe a clearly different order of events, even ignoring whether Adam and Eve were created at the same time.

      Version 1

      25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

      26 Then God said, âoeLet us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.â

      Version 2

      18 The Lord God said, âoeIt is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.â

      19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

      In the first version it was animals first and then mankind, in the second version it was man first, then animals. (And then woman.)

      If you want you can accept them as two stories from two different traditions, one of which is literally true and one of which is metaphor, or you can accept them both as metaphor. But they can't both be literally true.

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      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    3. Re:Easy... by Capsaicin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      True, but that's the most glaring [discrepancy].

      It's only a discrepancy if one fails to recognise that we are dealing with two separate myths. The fact that they are 2 separate stories will be obvious to any naive (in the sense that they have not since childhood been exposed to harmonising accounts) and objective reader. Even the deities are obviously different, and not merely by name.

      The second account is clearly the easier target from a scientific PoV. The most glaring internal (to that myth) problem comes in the 2nd 'verse' of this account, Gen 2:5, where we are told that plant life did not exist for two reasons. 1. YHVH-Elohim (a[n editorial?] joining of names that is soon abandoned) had not yet caused it to rain AND there was no man to tend the ground. So what we need to do to "disprove" this account is to show plant life growing independently of human cultivation. Not a big ask. More interesting is the question of what kind of culture could have given rise to a myth that makes such a presumption, which might seem absurd to forest based peoples for instance (HINT: Mesopotamian irrigation cultures).

      But to treat the 2nd account as Science, as a literal account of physical origins, is of course knuckle-headed. Worse still, it is simply to miss the beauty of the text, and its actual insight (which should be apparent to believers and non-believers alike, though both for different reason like to miss it) into the human condition. And (and this is why I find this difficult text so interesting), it's complex role as a witness to the origin of ancient near eastern civilisation.

      As you put it ... "nutjob."

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    4. Re:Easy... by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was born in a Baptist family, a family which believes every word in the Bible is literally true and cannot begin to fathom the very possibility that any of it was false.

      And of course your family is 100% representative of not just Baptists in general, but the entire spectrum of Protestantism, from Anglicans (basically Catholics minus the Pope and the homophobia) to Calvinists to Quakers to Pentecostalists to...well, pick up a phone book and look under "Churches".

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    5. Re:Easy... by Sique · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Believing in reality is not necessary for reality at all. One of the most important aspects of reality is, that it is real. No faith needed. A wall is just there, and even if you stop believing in the wall, you will still hit your head if you try to run through it.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    6. Re:Easy... by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact is that the Bible is chock full of metaphor and parable, and understanding what is literal and what is not requires education.

      God filled his book with logic traps to trick the people who want to believe in him?

      Only a Christian could come up with logic like that to justify all the mistakes and impossibilities in the Bible.

      It makes sense - "literal truth! Praise Jehovah!"

      It doesn't make sense - "Oh, that's a parable/metaphor. You need to be specially educated to understand that part."

      --
      No sig today...
    7. Re:Easy... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't worry, the major religions of today wont last forever. No one kills in the name of Zeus any more. Give it time.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Easy... by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fuck Christianity. The only thing it has going for it is that it's not quite as evil as Islam.

      So that whole thing about "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is, according to you, complete bullshit and not worth considering?

      Your point is so much irrelevant that I don't even know why I spend time answering it. Do you mean to say that "do unto others as you would have them do to you" is patented by Christians and nobody else should ever use it?

      Religions are a mix between a set of faith and a set of values. When we say it's complete bullshit we mean it as a whole, not that every idea ever produced by a Christian is bullshit.

      Grow up. Realize these are just fairy tales. You're probably big enough to decide for yourself what's good and bad. No need for a 2000 years old book for that.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    9. Re:Easy... by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes. However, the other guy does bring up a good point. There are such things as biblical scholars and they generally don't take the bible literally. This includes both Jews and Xians. Pretty much anyone with half a brain has gotten past the whole "word for word" idea a long time ago.

      Given the nature of the work, it's kind of necessary really. You either adjust or sound like some toddler from the bronze age.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    10. Re:Easy... by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're probably big enough to decide for yourself what's good and bad.

      Sure, but I don't have the hubris to think that my uninformed whims and impulses are the best possible moral decisions anyone could make. So it's useful to have a handbook, even a set of fairy tales as you put it, to put things in perspective.

      I'm not asking you to come to Jesus or anything. I'm just asking you to dial back the contempt a little, and recognize that like it or not, that 2000 year old book of fairy tales has had a profound and enduring influence on Western civilization. And even to entertain the possibility that its influence was not all bad.

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
  2. Ah by no-body · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If nobody shows up for this nonsense and bets $ 10,000, it's proof that this religious believe system is true...

  3. reductio ad absurdum by Vornzog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The universe came into being 6 seconds ago, in exactly the state we see now, with all of our memories intact.

    Prove me wrong.

    Hint - it can't be done. You can always reintroduce the possibility of some omnipotent force. By carefully framing the question, proving it wrong becomes impossible. Instead, you have to unask the question. Western philosophy spent then entire last century trying to unask the premises Descartes set forth for exactly that reason.

    This isn't a scientific question, it isn't in a scientific arena, and any scientist thinking they can 'win' the debate/bet is on shaky ground. Not because the science is bad, but because it isn't about science at all...

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    -V-

    Who can decide a priori? Nobody.
    -Sartre

  4. Already ceded the relevant argument by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a church near where I work that has a sign in the window: "Come in and learn the latest scientific evidence for Biblical truth!"

    I always smile when I see it, because they don't seem to realize they've already surrendered the epistemological war -- by admitting that weighing scientific evidence is the proper way to ascertain the truth (or falsity) of a claim.

    Sure, they can fight a rear-guard action for a while by looking for scraps of evidence that appear to support Scripture (or whatever their take on Scripture is), but unless God starts making public appearances is an independently verifiable, repeatable manner, then the church has already laid the groundwork for their own logical impeachment.

    The whole bedrock of religion is faith -- to believe that some things are true regardless of whether there is evidence for them or not. Once you've tacitly admitted that evidence is required, then faith is superfluous, and the church becomes just a group of extremely amateur scientists whose theories can't hold up under examination.

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    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  5. Oink! by TiggertheMad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason no one takes this idiot up, is because the odds are in the houses favor, and he knows it.

    Never wrestle with a pig. You will end up covered in mud and the pig will enjoy it.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!