The deal with Fundamentalists is that they suffer from a psycological flaw that prevents them from correctly interpreting rational truth, and this flaw is their strong belief in the absolute truth of the bible. Believe in something strong enough, and your mind will find ways to make your internal version of reality conform to this belief. It is as if they were wearing red tinted glasses and those of us without shades are trying to convince them the sky is blue, when they can clearly see that it is red. It is a losing battle.
Ask a young earth creationist about the fossil record, and they excuse it as god testing our faith. (though I would call it lying). Ask them how they got the petroleum in their cars, how the light from distant galaxies could have travaled billions of years, or any other factual evidence for the roughly 15 billion year age of our universe and they will filter it through their belief first, and provide a cop out answer based upon the supernatural. In a way it isn't their fault, it is due to the construction and limitation of our brains.
Everyone has beliefs. It is only when those beliefs are held as MUST be true instead of being open enough to allow confilicting viewpoints that might change those beliefs to enter that the our minds close and we become incapable of reason in regards to anything that might conflict.
It would be easier to get a camel throught the eye of a needle then to get a Fundamentalist to see anything that would question his belief!
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The deal with Fundamentalists is that they suffer from a psycological flaw that prevents them from correctly interpreting rational truth, and this flaw is their strong belief in the absolute truth of the bible. Believe in something strong enough, and your mind will find ways to make your internal version of reality conform to this belief. It is as if they were wearing red tinted glasses and those of us without shades are trying to convince them the sky is blue, when they can clearly see that it is red. It is a losing battle.
Ask a young earth creationist about the fossil record, and they excuse it as god testing our faith. (though I would call it lying). Ask them how they got the petroleum in their cars, how the light from distant galaxies could have travaled billions of years, or any other factual evidence for the roughly 15 billion year age of our universe and they will filter it through their belief first, and provide a cop out answer based upon the supernatural. In a way it isn't their fault, it is due to the construction and limitation of our brains.
Everyone has beliefs. It is only when those beliefs are held as MUST be true instead of being open enough to allow confilicting viewpoints that might change those beliefs to enter that the our minds close and we become incapable of reason in regards to anything that might conflict.
It would be easier to get a camel throught the eye of a needle then to get a Fundamentalist to see anything that would question his belief!
Two great sites:
http://www.ignorantdesign.com/
http://www.passionoftheatheist.com/