I had a mother into fundamentalism and I rejected in fast and cold very early in life, and took a science/ math path. You can be religious and embrace science simultaneously, however, religious fundamentalism is plain, pure poison.
But you need to set different standards. Where you will be scientific about your work. You cannot be about your beliefs. And you will need to reject most of the bible for example.
@themplar You don't need to reject the bible; if it's allegorical & not doctrine, you can interpret it however you want. Jews manage just fine by considering their holy book alive; if you can't reinterpret it, it's a dead book, & no longer holy. I'd rather encourage people to believe in science first, & let them make their own interpretations of religion. You probably get more atheists that way 😅
Can we show 'the atheist' that physics, geology, biology, astronomy, paleontology, and archaeology are all wrong? No we can't, so 'the atheist' must have a psychological problem. Thanks for all your videos, Erica, I'm a sixty year old teacher and I'm really learning loads from you.
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence from multiple fields of science, including genetics, paleontology, embryology, and comparative anatomy. The similarities in DNA sequences and developmental patterns between different species provide strong evidence for common ancestry and the gradual process of evolution over millions of years. Additionally, the observation of natural selection in action, as well as the numerous documented instances of speciation, provide further evidence for evolution. For example, the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and development of new species of animals on isolated islands, have been well documented. I don't believe your god would want you to be that naive. You have been given free will, please use it to educate yourself.
In other words, fundamentalists can't get through with any reasonable arguments, because they don't have any. So they resort to projection. Which doesn't work either. In the end, reason will prevail and fundamentalism will be left where it belongs: In the past.
@@Innerspace100 Except during backlash against their waning power, revivalisms can still happen, we just have to answer kid's questions honestly to the best of our evidence and ability, without scaring them into religion's blissful ignorance.
I was raised YEC, and I still have (very deconstructed) faith. I love how safe you are for theistic evolutionists. It also means I can share your videos with YEC, because you're not attacking their faith, you're attacking lies and bad science. PLEASE keep on keepin' on.
Agreed. I've tried watching Aron Ra but he's so anti any religion it was hard to watch. I don't mind being challenged, but I do mind being mocked relentlessly. I like how Erika clearly delineates YECs and the rest of us.
@@alexgould9244 hell, I'm an atheist and have a hard time watching much of his content, specifically for his mockery and overly broad generalizations of theists.
I love how they just assume that if you're not a creationist you must be an atheist as if no other religion on earth existed. It really shows how closed minded and in a bubble they are.
But it also explains so much. They are deep into false dichotomies and is kind of core to their identity. It's the old "if you're not with us, you're against us" reasoning. They will, if pushed, argue that other Christians, and certainly those of other religions are "actually atheists" if they don't profess YEC. This is where the emotional energy to care about YEC comes from. They do tend to believe that absent YEC, then you, me, anyone else is going to hell. Which is why the actual science and evidence is such a heavy lift for them. It literally scares them. Not long ago, atheist meant "you don't believe in my God.". You can find 19th century writing like that for instance . The YEC crowd, in the end, effectively and sometimes literally will believe this and sometimes say it outright.
I KNOWWW i grew up going to a YEC school and it was always creationists vs evolutionists/secularists, nothing more. when some of the kids ,including me, we're like "what if it's a mix of both, like god isn't capable of making a universe as complex as the one "evolutionists" have is just redundant to me
As a nerd about the differences between Christian denominations, it also sticks out that they don't just assume, "anyone who isn't a young-earth creationist = atheist", but "anyone who isn't a young-earth creationist _and our specific flavour of conservative Protestant_ = atheist". For example, Lutherans, another Protestant denomination whose conservative branches reject evolution, would never use the language of "accepting Jesus into your heart". Or in my denomination, Eastern Orthodoxy, the resident young-earth creationists (they're a minority, but they're there, mostly among converts) rarely, if ever, argue for their position from "the plain reading of Scripture".
I'm actually embarrassed that I bought my children up with a YEC understanding of beginnings. I was a " born again, spirit filled Christian." Not any more. I'd rather be on the side of those that think a bit. Thanks Erika. I'm always happy to see a new video from you.
I have nothing but respect for someone who was raised with this sort of indoctrination and who won free of it. And I mean that regardless of whether you're still Christian or not.
Why so? Christians are responsible for the Scientific revolution ... and ... the development of the FREE world. Christians are still ... the majority of Nobel Prize winners. What has Atheism, Humanism & other Religions given Mankind? Remove Judaism & Christianity ... from world History ... and the Human Race is completely screwed ... because we all know for a fact ... Human nature is corrupt ... which is why we make & enforce Laws ... and .. Man needs a moral guide or compass( eg God) to think & do good, not evil. Why are you embarrassed by a Creationist who does not know the evidence for God, Creation & a young Earth? I do know the evidence and is simple & obvious & irrefutable. And it starts with Man ... being a "natural" INTELLIGENCE ... with freewill & Nature ... to think, believe, say & do as he/she wants ... created or destroy, love or hate, purify or corrupt, obey or disobey, be just or unjust, believe or not believe .... AND ... make, operate, improve, maintain, fine tune ... physical or nonphysical FUNCTIONS ... for a reason/purpose. The Machine Analogy .... is simply an OBSERVATION of natural phenomena ... NOT a proof. The Scientific method is simply: 1. Observe 2. Hypothesis 3. Test & predict 4. Conclude 5. Refine. Only a moron Atheist who does not know the scientific method ... says they have DEBUNKED ... an observation. lol. And ... all systems ... are Functions ... with purpose, form, processes, properties & ....design. Figure out the rest because Sir Issac Newton provided the .... OBSERVATION ... over 300 years ago, before the scientific method was developed, and before Atheist & Humanists started to .... corrupt the sciences with their Theories. You do realize Charles Darwin ... was a Humanist and hard core Racist, and that their is actually zero evidence ... natural & natural processes .. can make,operate & improve ... the simplest physical Functions 13.7, or 4 billion years ago ... or ... 2 million years ago ... or any quantum particle, field & force today ... or ... the simplest Function made by Man ( an INTELLIGENCE). Hmmmmmm?
Evolution depends on random mutations to provide for the appearance of sight, hearing, touch and every other complex biological system, yet there aren't enough random events in the entire history of the universe to be able to pull 150 numbered beads in order from a box. Yet you believe that evolution can do anything. When your high school biology teacher told you that evolution occurred over billions of years, he lied to you. Billions of years aren't nearly time enough. Multiple trillions of years aren't time enough. It just doesn't work that way.
Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.
As a gentle modern Christian ape with an interest in palaeontology and paleoanthropology, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your channel; not only because it’s informative, entertaining and accessible but also because you don’t dump on religion as a whole. All my other favourite vulgarisation channels on this topic express contempt for people of faith in a more or less veiled manner, and while I still watch them because the content is good, the “I’m better than you because I have no sky daddy” vibe is off-putting. I could see it from people living in countries where hardcore literalists have a real influence and traction; but one if my favourite palaeontologist TH-camrs does it too, and he’s from a country where young earth creationists are a tiny extremist fringe and the chance of intelligent design being taught in schools is exactly zero. I also admire your restraint. Contrarily to many, I’m lucky enough to never have been harmed in the name of religion. If I had been raised a young earth creationist to later find out these people are talking out of their ass, I would be a lot angrier than you are.
Having been raised a young earth creationist, I didn't get to learn anything about evolution or science until I was an adult and man, science is SO COOL. I've become obsessed with evolution especially, our earth is amazing!!
I'm so glad I found your channel. I grew up YEC, was told "there's no real evidence for evolution" and who knows how many other untruths. I was obsessed with paleontology when I was young, but was driven away from those interests as I grew older because of my YEC views and being told everything science was saying was hogwash. I'm just now getting to dive into this amazing stuff, and your videos are always fascinating.
I really enjoy your videos. I'm over 70 and was raised conservative Southern Baptist in a very observant and devout household. While i recall some eye rolling and scoffing about being descended from apes, i never once heard or was taught that Genesis was to be taken literally or that the earth was 6000 years. It boggles my mind that here we are, 60+ years on, and belief in a young earth is a thing. I am a Christian and I'm so happy that I found a denomination where Christians are to love one another, care for the marginalized and for creation, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoner, heal the sick, etc. The time wasted trying to argue people into religion boggles the mind.
My grandfather was a fairly prominent Australian scientist during his lifetime, and maintained a strong Christian faith until the end of his life. He referred to science as "the investigation of God's methodology", and frequently took me on trips to the Australian Museum of Natural History. Grandpa had no problems reconciling his faith with his scientific understanding of the world, and nor should any reasonable Christian.
I mean admittedly no there shouldn't be an issue with a Christian or well any religious person saying that science is the study of God's or a gods methodology. But I also would like to point out that you can have all these scientific occurrences without a god too. It's of course up to the individual to decide if they are religious and I hold no negative view of the decent religious folks. It's the ones who try to insult anybody who disagrees with them, same as an atheist making an unwarranted assault on character towards a religious person. We all should just get along.
@@Aliyah_666 Yes, that's true. Every observable phenomenon may well have a naturalistic explanation, and I strongly suspect that this is the case. However, we can't definitively show that deities do not exist, and I think there's still room for God as the Prime Mover for those who believe in deities.
Growing up my dad always said that either the whole bible is true. He'd always say if it's not, how can we be sure any of it is true? I probably realized around 20 that creationism was dumb and why, and now I find it difficult to believe in Christianity as a whole. "Oops" Edit: also thank you for your videos, you are one person who has helped me a lot to understand more about *actual* science I never was allowed to learn in school.
Parts of the bible are true... the various letters are true... as they represent what the writers thought. The laws contained in various parts of the bible are true... as they represent the laws/customs of the people who wrote those portions practiced. The rest? Good portion is poetry that are on the same level as historical fiction... the remainder is just pure fiction. The church narrative is also pure fiction, based on events that never happened the way they were described, if they happened at all.
The most specific, time sensitive, unambiguous, not open for interpretation, prophecy in the entire Bible... Fails in every possible way it is possible for a prophecy to fail. It is the prophecy about the city of Tyre.
What utter delusion, to judge the Bible as something it was never intended to be. Does Shakespeare’s use of the Four Humours invalidate his plots? Does your calculus textbook’s lack of cooking recipes invalidate its mathematical instruction? No. The Bible was written in an Ancient Near East context thousands of years ago for scriptural instruction. It was never meant to be a geology textbook, nor a post-Stubbs historical treatise, nor anything else. You (atheist or YEC) are the idiot for judging it as something it was never meant to be.
Is there anybody who like me who never accepted young earth? Even as a young boy? My way of dealing with it was to keep quiet. And get the hell out of Dodge when I could.
@@jimwyatt9894 Plenty have and plenty do even if they have creationists/evangelical upbringings and "everyone" arounds them spouts creationism. They often feel isolated and alone for a long time. They often feel they can't or shouldn't speak up because their local society will slap them down hard. Especially including their own family and parents particularly. One used to have to go to college to find out the truth if that's where you were raised. Nowadays, if you're lucky and miss all the misinformation, the internet can still function that way. Where I was raised, both views were available. The local society was full of Dutch Reformed, which meant a lot of creationists, even including some of the biology teachers. But even they ended up treating evolution correctly in Earth Science or Biology in the end because in those days, teachers taught science in science class even if they did make a few asides to the contrary. However, there's a lot of kids who aren't so lucky. Homeschooling is popular in no small part so that parents can avoid this very topic.
@@jimwyatt9894Being raised as a *Latter-Day Saint,* we were taught that mankind (from Adam) has grown over time to come to understand existence and the universe better _[Adam is translated as "man". So, he could be at that point in evolution that God breathed self-awareness into him.]_ As such, God had revealed to them the laws and understanding of His Plan as they were prepared to accept it. So, the Old Testament illustrates one level, the New Testament another, and continued revelation today represents yet another. With that framework, the writers of Genesis wrote as they would understand things revealed to them. The early Christians were ready for more refined ideas, and so forth. This way, what science is revealing is simply our learning "the way God did/is doing it". Of course, I am not LDS today, I am agnostic. But that line of reasoning made it easier to live in a science-based world.
Do I adore Gutsick? Yes, yes I do. Why? She is a well educated young lady. I could listen to her read the dictionary. I would say " phone book " but many people wouldn't relate to that. Keep doing What you're doing Erica. You have a fan in this auld Englishman. 🇬🇧🇺🇸💜
I like to consider myself literate, with a fair grasp of the English language but Erika sends me groping for my dictionary nearly every other sentence. True, it's generally for field specific terms but yeah.
I also noticed that some people go for abiogenesis now in order to defend young earth creationism. This is really strange since abiogenesis is a complete different topic. As you said - you don't need to know who manufactured the car when you want to know whether the car has crashed into the tree.
It's not so strange if you think about whom they're trying to convince (keeping their own sheeple together or evangelizing people who have no strong grasp on our understanding of how the world works in the first place).
These videos are wonderful. When I was a highschool biology teacher I was constantly having these fights with parents - and it always seemed so silly: we never talked about *god* in class. I never understood why it was so threatening.
You mean you don’t? Huh. I thought the practice was fairly widespread. We always serve grilled baby as the sacrifice. Might want to check around - maybe someone in your area knows the current rites. 🤷♂️
As someone who took an apologetics class in High School (which was mostly YEC), I was absolutely shocked how little we talked about the basic theology stuff you learn in University. Never once was the Documentary hypothesis discussed in the HS class when it’s literally Theology 101 in University.
As a Brit I try to understand US college - it seems that it is more a mixed range of subjects. In UK we sign up to college/University for a particular course. Eg I did biochemistry with microbiology so didn't do any humanity topics. and the English or history students didn't do science modules. I think we specialise much earlier than in US which has the strength of deeper knowledge in our area of study, but misses some of the wider input.
This is not an accident. My sister managed to go to divinity school and become a minister. I frankly don't know how she managed it. At divinity school, they _do_ teach this stuff, at least at the good, honest ones. But you had better have a very solid faith -- and maybe a talent for compartmentalizing -- to come out of that with one's faith intact. Things like the Documentary Hypothesis and the Q document are big surprises to the average believer in the pews, whether "liberal" or "conservative". It just isn't brought up. YEC, after such training, is a very heavy lift. I can only assume fundamentalists train their ministers very differently or train them to ignore what they learn somehow.
Are there good controls for the documentary hypothesis? Like, if you take a collection of modern books by the same author, would the same method "prove" that those books were from multiple authors?
@@helenr4300 A US bachelors in Science emphasizes math and science. A bachelors in art coverts the humanities. All require some minimum number of credits in humanities, arts, math and science outside your core.
@@helenr4300 "I think we specialise much earlier than in US which has the strength of deeper knowledge in our area of study" ... no. Our degrees simply take longer on average. Most UK STEM degrees are (generally) 3 years worth of coursework, while they almost invariably require 4 or even 5 years of study in the US (as a quick aside, our Master's degrees also take longer despite lacking coursework outside the field of study). In the US, you tend to take all of the UK STEM course equivalents PLUS the liberal arts core curriculum your school requires (usually a semester or two worth of study for most STEM degrees). Often, your other core classes will compliment your actual major (i.e. electrical engineering for some Computer Science majors). You can get a BA (Bachelor of Arts, as opposed to the typical BS) in a STEM degree - which is generally less rigorous in major studies - and likely more in line with what you are thinking. HOWEVER, even that isn't always the case. In universities where the BA is the only option for a particular STEM degree - you will likely just end up taking all the same major courses of a BS, plus more liberal arts and field-related core courses. Also, at some older institutions (like some Ivy Leagues), BA students often have access to, and often end up taking, all of the same STEM courses as their BS counterparts with prospective employers in mind (with the degree types largely determined by a slight difference in core curriculum or a difference in college of admission within the university). All this to say... it is absurd to think that a Bachelor's Degree in a STEM field, across all of the UK, almost invariably/consistently confers a significantly deeper knowledge of a given field of study than in the US. US STEM degrees themselves can vary drastically from one institution to the next anyway. If UK STEM degrees were consistently more rigorous in major studies, one might think we would be falling over ourselves to hire people from the UK (instead of MIT, Stanford, UChicago, UC Berkeley, the Ivy Leagues, [insert list of world renowned US institutions]). We are not.
If anyone came to one of those conferences and asked how the first single-celled organism "found someone to marry" I think the speaker's response would be: "...what?" I think there'd be a whole lot of "did I hear that correctly" and incredulous laughter going around that conference and a couple of people nervously looking around wondering if this was some troll stunt and they were about to get invaded by people picketing with signposts or something. Or perhaps some kind of prank with hidden cameras.
I think a point is that science has little problem with unanswered questions. Unanswered questions just show that there is more to learn. YEC seems to have a problem with unanswered questions and just fills them in with something like "God did it" :)
I almost literally fell out of my chair laughing when they brought up Hovind's "the first lifeform had to find someone to marry" bit. I also scared the crap out of my poor cat because the initial squeaky bark of laughter that came out when the text-to-speech narrator said that was...well, unique! But seriously, if I'd thought that Genesis Apologetics had any credibility, they would have lost all of it at that moment. Thank you for the laugh, Erika!
Erika being uncharacteristically close minded by denying that cell marriage happens. Hey pal, some of my best friends are cells and their marriage was beautiful!
Erica is so awesome, one of the greatest role models anyone could ask for. I can't wait for my grandkids get a little older so I can watch your vids with them.
I say this a lot but it is such a good point. Evolution is so well supported that even entirely unrelated fields like economics supports the theory of evolution
I grew up as an old earth creationist (Jehovah's witness to be precise, and honestly taking a small risk writing this on my main YT account as I'm not out out) and the videos you and others make have been really great to catch up on what evolution actually is after some 25 years spent denying the whole thing.
Given the greatness of the universe and how incredible that even one blade of grass is, I have faith that God exists, but I don't think He's a guy with a long white beard sitting on a cloud somewhere. Nor do I believe in most creation myths, I think the description of the big bang sounds remarkably like the Genesis creation story. I think it's miraculous that this solar system has everything we needed to live here on the Earth and if God used the laws of physics and biology to make us in the fullness of time that's just as amazing as the 6 days story. Remember that story was used to regulate society as much as anything.
Not being able to prove God is the point of Faith. Faith is pretty much the only thing we can give to God, and it would be kind of worthless if we could prove it. It's like saying I believe it's going to rain when it is already raining, so what?
@@tamyramcgough6862 I can respect that take, because it doesn't deny evident reality. I disagree with you, but I have no reason to try and change your mind as that belief in and of it's self doesn't hurt either of us.
I just love how leaning on faith is a great thing when it comes to creationism, and suddenly unacceptable when it comes to other religions, like buddhism, or, in their view, "evolutionism" (not saying that accepting evolution is a religion, I'm saying they say that, and it's a double standard).
It is a combo of guilty conscience and freudian slip. They know that faith is a vice and as such try to accuse atheists of it, but in the process end up exposing themselves.
Seeing Aron being equated to Nye, Gervais and Dawkins just absolutely delights me. Let's hope the more general audience will also know his name in the future like the others. He deserves that.
Aron is F-tier. He lacks the fundamentals to debate well or communicate without error, and he Gish Gallops and pontificates. Gervais is funny, Dawkins is scientifically accomplished, and Nye had a great kids show. Even Sagan and Tyson were/are great public scientists.
@@richardhouseplantagenet6004 I disagree and so do about 300k people on youtube. But, hey, I don't trust you one bit when I see your other reactions on this channel. Especially your comment about science was really ridiculous and without merit.
I want to add on to the love. Your videos are great. I wish I had gone into a hard science field, but academics be rough. Don't stop sharing and continue helping everyone learn about science ❤❤❤
As someone who is both a biologist and a religious person (not Christian, but still), I appreciate your strategy. I think it's much easier to convince YECs if they don't feel like their entire faith is under attack
@@MaryAnnNytowl that's true, but not all of them. You can't convince everyone, but as seen from this comment section some YECs may question what they're taught - tho undoing indoctrination can take a while. This at least removes a barrier to convincing some people - it's easier to write you off if you come out swinging anti-theist style
More specific, their identity is so strongly entwined with their beliefs, that criticizing/debunking their beliefs is felt like a personal attack. There is no rational thinking involved, only feelings. Therefore they cannot be reasoned out of their false beliefs.
The believe their faith is a deck of cards that will entirely collapse if one element is conceded. Remember, it is the literal and inerrant belief in the Bible (except where they can use Hebrew synonyms or symbolism to not be literalists...especially for prophecy). Ultimately they are literalists as long as you accept their interpretation.
"Oh yeah, well who did the first cell get married to? Checkmate, atheists!" I have pretty low expectations for these people, but they still manage to disappoint me.
Abiogenesis is actually an incredibly simple concept. The main theoretical issues were resolved decades ago. Now it is, at a fundamental level, pretty much just choosing which specific mechanism was used out of a list of options. It is about identifying which specific theory is the correct one among a list of options. (note: I am simplifying a bit but that’s because this is a TH-cam comment section. I could vomit up the more technical science but then basically no one would understand this and what’s the point of that)
Creationists always talk about the astronomical odds of chemicals randomly colliding into life forms, but when they’re repeatedly mixing on a planetary scale over the course of ≈1 billion years: is it so hard to accept the improbable occurred?
@@charliemallonee2792 They don’t understand how parallel processes that can interconnect work. They know the math for one individual… “track” but they have no idea how to handle when there are two tracks going in parallel and they intersect. Let alone when we are talking millions and billions of tracks
@@jloiben12 Your millions and billions is the number of starting points for the more interesting tracks. Without anything to eat them bacterial mats would have filled the shores, with hard to estimate numbers easily in the 10^20th range for number of simple cells, all of which can exchange DNA, so that 10^20th gets a factorial applied to it. The number of mutations per day back then was already astronomical.
I love the accusation from YEC that the rest of us have to have an irrational FAITH in abiogenesis when they have a totally irrational and unanswerable FAITH in their deity.
Not only that, creationists insist on lumping in abiogenesis with evolution. At this point, one has to regard this as dishonest because the two problems were _always_ separate. The abiogenesis problem says nothing about evolution and never did and vice versa. If you or anyone wants to believe God created the first cell or the first 10,00 cells or some such, the state of science can't say it is wrong other than a generalized aversion to supernatural explanations. But it cannot provide a complete alternative yet. However, once you get to those 10,000 or so cells, evolution completely explains everything that happens after that. This line is pretty clear and consistent, but creationists always want to blur it. We should never let them.
When my friend Abigail Katherine O'Genesis finishes writing her book then we can say it is in a Book and therefore it must be believable. 🧐Everyone who is not a YEC is an atheist ? .... 99% of YEC DNA is anatomically indistinguishable from Flat Earth Planetary Orbit data.🙃
The Urey experiment in which Urey mixed water and some gases (carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide) in a glass beaker and subjected it to lightning-like charges of electricity and got amino acids explains how the biochemistry of life came into existence. Oxygen was absent; in another flask he added oxygen and got nothing of the sort. These experiments are replicable, Abiogenesis is impossible in an oxygen-rich world that Life itself created. Our own biochemistry (our biochemistry is full of derivatives of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide that an oxygen-rich environment would destroy) attests to origins very different from what we know and need for survival.
aye good on you for doing that! We all grow up with gaps in our education, but not all of us go back to fill them. Makes a big difference, I think. (plus learning new stuff is kinda fun anyway lol) edit: too many exclamation marks
Where's the evolution? Oops "None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another…Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic [e.g., bacterial] to eukaryotic [e.g., plant and animal] cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan Linton, phd bacteriologist
Millions of years never happened. Can't have fossilized tracks preceding the actual animals by millions of years. They were trying to escape a flood. A worldwide flood. How many years are we talking about? 10 million between trilobite tracks and trilobite fossils; 35 million between amphibian tracks and amphibian fossils; and 10 million between dinosaur tracks and dinosaur fossils. That is a curious pattern indeed.
Prior to 1950s YEC was rare in the church. But then it made a jump into Protestantism from Seventh Day Adventists with a new book on Flood Geology (think it was Morris?). It was probably helped by poor theological training in seminaries and Bible colleges so pastors didn’t know what previous pastors and theologians knew.
Yea I think it was Morris who wrote the popular flood geology textbook. Have you read "The Creationists" book by chance? It's a really excellent history of creationism and how it's changed over time (evolved, if you will)
@@gyrfalcon0077 I haven't. I found a 90s djvu copy (pirated), but I notice Amazon has a hardcover updated to 2006, which should cover the intelligent design folks (and maybe the Dover trial itself and the judge's ruling, which was scathing in places). I'll buy the updated copy. Thank you for highlighting it, much appreciated!
OMG thank you for saying the thing about faith at @7:20. Idk why so many Christians pretend that there's literally evidence of Jesus. If there was like.. "fossil evidence" that proved the divinity of Jesus (somehow) then it wouldn't really mean much to believe that Jesus is the son of God, would it? It'd just be science. That sentence felt very weird to type lol
The Roman emperor Tiberius is documented by 10 sources. That simple Carpenter has 40. The life and crucifixion of Jesus holds legal ground. Funny how people think science and God don't go together. It's like looking at a painting with a microscope to prove Rembrandt ever existed. Should ask a Geologist about Young earth. Not bone collectors
I did not realize you came out of a Young Earth Creationist background. Kudos to you for pursuing a career in science. Science is so much more fascinating and fun then theology. edit: changed theory to theology spellchecks strikes again
Science is more fun than theory? Or theology? Building a theory is fundamental to scientific rigor. Sorry if I sound nitpicky, but as has been brought up so many times, robust theories that hold together and cover all the known facts are essential to scientific inquiry.
I appreciate your approach to this topic and your ability to explain. It has helped me to find my interest into genetics and has inspired me into the current genetics major! just wanted to say thank you
I think you are underselling the origin of life knowledge that we do have. We know from Miller Urey that biomolecules can form spontaneously in prebiotic environments, we know that some biomolecules autocatalyze, we can observe selection pressures on those biomolecules, we have seen spontaneous vesicle formation and division. Sure, we don't have every single step of the process, but I'd argue we aren't far off of a comparison of having a few Australopithecuses, a few Homo habilises, a few Erectuses, a few neanderthalensises, etc. When you have multiple parts of the chain figured out, you can get a good shape of the whole thing. Sure, we might run into some unexpected thing which dramatically changes the understanding, but that would be on the order of quantum physics for atoms or relativity for gravity, significant shifts in our understanding, but we were kinda mostly right all along.
I don't think she's actually underselling it. It feels more like she's pointing at the absurdity of conflating two things that can very well stand on their own.
Having lost the argument the classic tactic used in politics and religion is to forget your own position and attack your interlocutor's any way you can. Absolute rule: never analyse your own failed argument.
Erica keep on keeping on man - i just enjoy your educated perspective so much. My boyfriend recently told me he's "not sure" about human evolution and you were the only thing on my mind lol - I'm no science whiz, but your videos at least make me feel like I'm not crazy. Thanks you and Cheers!
I always appreciate how you distinguish between Christian faith and the YEC version. I loved my science, as a high school student I got a special deal on the New Scientist (think UK version of Scientific American) and loved it. Others my age looked forward to the TV on Thursday nights for Top of the Pops show - I Looked forward to the show that came after - 'Tomorrow's World' with science and tech. My degree was Biochem and microbiology though haven't used it since. Basically I found that I liked discovering what people had discovered, but the idea of a lifetime figuring out one tiny corner was not for impatient me, nor was facing teenagers to teach high school science. I ended up now as a Church minister, I did use my science literacy during the pandemic, about viruses and vaccines, but don't see any contradictions between accepting evolution, and all of science, and holding a faith. They respond to different questions about life and meaning, they are different genres.
I find the contortions of YEC about creation and the flood embarrassing. In 1800s there was the double whammy of the Critical Theories about Biblical texts (who wrote what and when and not assuming the tradition is correct) and then Darwin. Neither ruled out faith, but both made a proportion of Christians paranoid about being undermined. And so were born the extreme literalists. At that point they began to paint themselves into the corner they are now stuck in. Because they need the Bible to be fully literal (despite the mix of genres and styles) that means that the creation and flood, age of the earth etc has to be literal or none of the Bible can be trusted. Their extreme view means that people either have to accept their attempts to argue YEC or totally walk away from faith. The irony is that their extreme defense of YEC actually leads to more atheists than all us 'liberal' science accepting believers. Yet they think they are building faith, when actually forcing people to reject faith when faced with the realities of science, due to their narrow interpretations.
@@helenr4300 you are right on the nose with that one. They are doing the exact opposite of what they want to do, but they can't bend enough to change for fear they'll break. I think the only thing keeping them afloat, currently, is the quiverful and other "have tons of babies" movements in the Christofascists/YEC folds.
@@helenr4300I think your assessment is pretty good. I came from a fundamentalist background and am an atheist and that pretty much describes my path. I think that coming from a strict background though where most people are quite well informed about Christian doctrine gives a different perspective on the faith than liberal theologies and that's why people walk away entirely instead of shifting to a more liberal persuasion. Liberal Christianity has its own warts and fundamentalism is much easier to proof text. So if you understand doctrine and scripture well enough to critique fundamentalism the liberal theology doesn't have a lot to offer you except things like community.
re."They respond to different questions about life and meaning, they are different genres." not really, that is just a cop out that apologists cling on to.
What does one bring to sacrifice to the Golden Morganucodon? I don't wanna be unprepared when I make my pilgrimage. Thank you, Erika, for what you do. I can't afford much but I can leave this well-deserved like and comment for the care and feeding of the ever-voracious Almighty Algorithm, in hopes It shares your wit with still more people! 💙💙
probably zero sicne there is a lot of atheist who got raised christina and figured ouzt it is nonsense simply by reading the bible and asking smart questions
I am grateful that I was taught evolution in middle school. I remember being taught about a common ancestor in the form of a gibbon like creature. The sophistication of the data has improved markedly, and I believe will continue to mature. Thanks for contributing to my knowledge base.
!2 years of religious schools, including 8 years of summer bible camp, yet none of it took with me. I recall thinking in 1st grade that religion was not important. By 8th grade I was scoffing at the beliefs of my teachers and fellow students and by 15 I was calling myself an atheist. It was tough making and keeping friends but throughout this period in my life but I felt I could not make myself believe in fairy tales and by 5th grade I gave up completely on this fool's errand. At 55 now I have known a long life without fear of supernatural beings and while it is still a struggle to make and keep friends, I would not change a thing. SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS! ALL gods and ALL supernatural phenomena are constructs of our minds, nothing more.
The idea that everything is a construct of the mind and nothing more is itself a construct of the mind and nothing more. So there is no reason to think that idea is true. Science, math, physics, etc. are also constructs of the mind. Now what? The question is whether these mental concepts correspond to reality. The reality is that God is the only explanation of reality. There is no other. God is the non-contingent source, being and foundation of all reality. This is what the evidence shows.
@Doctor Knows , actually reality CONFIRMS mainstream science ideas. There is nothing in nature that confirms a God . I’m Christian that’s why we rely on faith and not natural phenomena. Science doesn’t deal with supernatural phenomena!
I mis-heard "If you wanna support me in a free way" as "if you wanna support me on the freeway", like you were shaking a cup at an off-ramp 😅 Anyway, just discovered your content, and I appreciate your blend of information and humor. I'll have to subscribe and listen to more. Cheers!
You bring up a major point. There is no reason a Christian has to be a young earth creationist. I often say that God believes in evolution. I'm a Christian and I approve your message!
It depends on the sect of Christianity. Most do reject YEC because, YEC makes zero sense and has been debunked. But if you come from a position where everything in the Bible has to be true, then YEC has to be true or the Bible is false.
Thank you for my newest headcanon: that antibiotics exist as God’s way of punishing bacteria for the sin of premarital fission. Finally, a moral panic I can get behind!
It probably was a wild big primordial soup orgy with Alice, Bob, Charlie and the others. Everyone with everyone. And that's how we ended up with tigers, lions and that golden rat. 😆
I gave you a mention to my paleontology group on Facebook tonight and got a huge response from your fans in the group and hopefully earned you some more! We love your work!
I find it hilarious when creationists say we think we came from rocks. They think a magical senior citizen emptied out his dust buster and made man then ruffied him, ripped out his extra rib (because a perfect being made a mistake and gave his own creation too many bones) and then made a brand new person by the time the man woke up and he just awoke to something hes never seen and they were just like, "s'up?" to each other. They truly are the strangest of us apes.
You do know that if you take a rib out, so long as you leave part of it there it will grow back don't you? If you're going to try and discredit the creation account, you should at least know what it is.
And now I'm suddenly thinking of TF2's "Meet the Medic"... God: (to Adam) Oh, don't be such a baby. Ribs grow back! (whispers to an angel) No, they don't.
@@tonyabrown7796 It might not grow back at all, or it might not grow in the proper shape and you end up with a deformed rib. Cut or broken bones have a habit of growing back with deformities or just lumps (known as calluses) at the site of the break because the body is trying to reinforce that spot so it won't break again. As for discrediting the creation story, it's just plain fiction, along with most of the Bible. The stories are apocryphal, trying to describe how the world worked from an ignorant (meaning uneducated) perspective. These were primitive people, they didn't know how pregnancy properly worked, for crying out loud.
@@tonyabrown7796 yes, ribs are bones that can regenerate under certain conditions. So can other bones. Sometimes fingers can regenerate, especially those of young children.. So can the liver:-)
There's no mystery to that. Firstly, Abel didn't. Secondly, while it doesn't give any names, Genesis is very clear that Adam had more sons and daughters after Seth. And there were no rules against incest until Moses' time. Abraham, for instance, was so special that from all of humanity, he was the one picked out to father God's chosen people... with his wife/half-sister. So the pretty clear explanation is that Cain, Seth and their brothers married their sisters. Classic Biblical family values.
@@CharlesPayet No...I'm telling the witch to go and the hence. I needed some hence because I can't spell thee! Oh dear what a goofball I am. 🤦🤦 Thanks Charles. I've corrected the error 👍👍
@@pencilpauli9442 LOL thank you for taking my response in the goofy spirit it was intended. Because how often does one get the opportunity to correct old English grammar on the Internet? 🤣😂🤷♂️😁
"prove how life started or believe in god" Is the same as "Prove your parents out the presents under the tree or believe in Santa" "Show how mass warps spacetime or believe Poseidon controls the tides"
Gutsick, you are a treasure! Love these videos, and it's great to hear that people are now finding your material and changing their mind on YEC. Coming from a YEC background myself (although changed my mind a long time ago), I find you are one of the best communicators on this topic. Is fantastic to see your love of science and scientific integrity. These type of video critiques of YEC material are just gems... I've kept them in mind for when people bring up the topic.
The biggest problem with regards to Christianity is that evolution, population genetics, and bio geography make it abundantly clear there could not have been a literal Adam and Eve. This makes the core theology of Christianity irrelevant.
@@uncleanunicorn4571 so while many people believe in a literal Adam and Eve many don’t. So if you’re super fundamental in your faith than yes it’s not compatible but if you’re more loose with your interpretation then it’s fine sort of lol
@@uncleanunicorn4571 Did you even watch Erica's video, in which she respectfully separated the issues of personal faith and affirmation of science? And how she didn't feel it necessary to invalidate someone's faith? It's a good example to follow.
Touring the naval aviation museum in Pensacola, Florida is an eyeopening jaunt through the EVOLUTION of aircraft from the canvas and sticks models of the early days of aviation, to the aluminum piston powered planes of WWII, to the modern jet powered, electronics packed aircraft of today's navy. Truly amazing to see manufacturing technology progress small step by small step to the latest version of aircraft and spacecraft. A very similar EVOLUTION experience can be had by touring any natural history museum. It seems that EVOLUTION over time can be observed in all aspects of the real world. (Even in the UNBELIEVABLE supercharged diversification/evolution of the Noah Types into today's millions of species.)
Predicting this now: abiogenisis in a lab is going to start the argument thusly- "It is measurable and repeatable Therefore it PROVES THE CREATOR because Scientists created it."
I just got the latest issue of Science with several articles on the latest primate genome project containing over 800 complete genomes of extant primates. I can't wait to see what you do with all that new information which is not good news for YECs and antievolution folks
Hello GG... I read of Lee Berger (?) _et al_ producing 3 papers on Naledi having some form of formal burial process and cave art. What's your take on this?
My favorite simple argument against the Flood is, if you cover the Earth with water and kill everything, what do you have to eat when the flood subsides?
Prosecutor: Literally every piece of evidence we possess shows this man committed this murder! Defense: The prosecutor doesn't have a time machine, therefore my client is innocent. Christian jury: NOT GUILTY!
I haven't been Christian since 1970, but is it productive to alienate Christians who do accept science? Most of that sort are also against bigotry and theocracy and for the planet. Can't we target the trouble makers (YEC by design are anti science and environment and human rights) and not pretend that they're all the same? Because it's disgusting when hateful fundies do it. All sweeping generalizations are flawed.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Mitochondria, you may bond with the Eukaryotic Host Cell.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Useless fact; husband comes from Old Norse for farmer, and Wife is Old English for woman
I had a mother into fundamentalism and I rejected in fast and cold very early in life, and took a science/ math path. You can be religious and embrace science simultaneously, however, religious fundamentalism is plain, pure poison.
Amen...I agree...it's not religion...it's the literal interpretation of religion.
Absolutely 💯
But you need to set different standards. Where you will be scientific about your work. You cannot be about your beliefs. And you will need to reject most of the bible for example.
@@beauyerks7413
The god of confusion certainly moves in mythsterious ways.
@themplar You don't need to reject the bible; if it's allegorical & not doctrine, you can interpret it however you want. Jews manage just fine by considering their holy book alive; if you can't reinterpret it, it's a dead book, & no longer holy. I'd rather encourage people to believe in science first, & let them make their own interpretations of religion. You probably get more atheists that way 😅
Can we show 'the atheist' that physics, geology, biology, astronomy, paleontology, and archaeology are all wrong? No we can't, so 'the atheist' must have a psychological problem. Thanks for all your videos, Erica, I'm a sixty year old teacher and I'm really learning loads from you.
There is an overwhelming amount of evidence from multiple fields of science, including genetics, paleontology, embryology, and comparative anatomy. The similarities in DNA sequences and developmental patterns between different species provide strong evidence for common ancestry and the gradual process of evolution over millions of years.
Additionally, the observation of natural selection in action, as well as the numerous documented instances of speciation, provide further evidence for evolution. For example, the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and development of new species of animals on isolated islands, have been well documented.
I don't believe your god would want you to be that naive. You have been given free will, please use it to educate yourself.
In other words, fundamentalists can't get through with any reasonable arguments, because they don't have any. So they resort to projection. Which doesn't work either.
In the end, reason will prevail and fundamentalism will be left where it belongs: In the past.
A good teacher never stops being a student. ^.=.^
@@Innerspace100 Except during backlash against their waning power, revivalisms can still happen, we just have to answer kid's questions honestly to the best of our evidence and ability, without scaring them into religion's blissful ignorance.
I admire those that take on the responsibility of teaching others. Kudos 👍
I was raised YEC, and I still have (very deconstructed) faith. I love how safe you are for theistic evolutionists. It also means I can share your videos with YEC, because you're not attacking their faith, you're attacking lies and bad science. PLEASE keep on keepin' on.
💯
Your username is fucking great
@Daemon Vok
I had to look up Parasauralophus 😆 🤣
What is your favorite Dinosaur?
Agreed. I've tried watching Aron Ra but he's so anti any religion it was hard to watch. I don't mind being challenged, but I do mind being mocked relentlessly. I like how Erika clearly delineates YECs and the rest of us.
@@alexgould9244 hell, I'm an atheist and have a hard time watching much of his content, specifically for his mockery and overly broad generalizations of theists.
I love how they just assume that if you're not a creationist you must be an atheist as if no other religion on earth existed. It really shows how closed minded and in a bubble they are.
But it also explains so much. They are deep into false dichotomies and is kind of core to their identity. It's the old "if you're not with us, you're against us" reasoning. They will, if pushed, argue that other Christians, and certainly those of other religions are "actually atheists" if they don't profess YEC.
This is where the emotional energy to care about YEC comes from. They do tend to believe that absent YEC, then you, me, anyone else is going to hell. Which is why the actual science and evidence is such a heavy lift for them. It literally scares them.
Not long ago, atheist meant "you don't believe in my God.". You can find 19th century writing like that for instance . The YEC crowd, in the end, effectively and sometimes literally will believe this and sometimes say it outright.
I KNOWWW i grew up going to a YEC school and it was always creationists vs evolutionists/secularists, nothing more. when some of the kids ,including me, we're like "what if it's a mix of both, like god isn't capable of making a universe as complex as the one "evolutionists" have is just redundant to me
In their mind, everybody is split into their group (YEC christianity) and everybody else. The details of everybody else don't matter to them.
As a nerd about the differences between Christian denominations, it also sticks out that they don't just assume, "anyone who isn't a young-earth creationist = atheist", but "anyone who isn't a young-earth creationist _and our specific flavour of conservative Protestant_ = atheist".
For example, Lutherans, another Protestant denomination whose conservative branches reject evolution, would never use the language of "accepting Jesus into your heart". Or in my denomination, Eastern Orthodoxy, the resident young-earth creationists (they're a minority, but they're there, mostly among converts) rarely, if ever, argue for their position from "the plain reading of Scripture".
I'm actually embarrassed that I bought my children up with a YEC understanding of beginnings. I was a " born again, spirit filled Christian." Not any more. I'd rather be on the side of those that think a bit.
Thanks Erika. I'm always happy to see a new video from you.
I have nothing but respect for someone who was raised with this sort of indoctrination and who won free of it. And I mean that regardless of whether you're still Christian or not.
Love to hear it. Lots of people believe new born theists/Yecs are lost causes but you are evidence that that's not the case. Thx for sharing. ✌
Why so?
Christians are responsible for the Scientific revolution ... and ... the development of the FREE world. Christians are still ... the majority of Nobel Prize winners.
What has Atheism, Humanism & other Religions given Mankind?
Remove Judaism & Christianity ... from world History ... and the Human Race is completely screwed ... because we all know for a fact ... Human nature is corrupt ... which is why we make & enforce Laws ... and .. Man needs a moral guide or compass( eg God) to think & do good, not evil.
Why are you embarrassed by a Creationist who does not know the evidence for God, Creation & a young Earth?
I do know the evidence and is simple & obvious & irrefutable.
And it starts with Man ... being a "natural" INTELLIGENCE ... with freewill & Nature ... to think, believe, say & do as he/she wants ... created or destroy, love or hate, purify or corrupt, obey or disobey, be just or unjust, believe or not believe .... AND ... make, operate, improve, maintain, fine tune ... physical or nonphysical FUNCTIONS ... for a reason/purpose.
The Machine Analogy .... is simply an OBSERVATION of natural phenomena ... NOT a proof.
The Scientific method is simply:
1. Observe
2. Hypothesis
3. Test & predict
4. Conclude
5. Refine.
Only a moron Atheist who does not know the scientific method ... says they have DEBUNKED ... an observation. lol.
And ... all systems ... are Functions ... with purpose, form, processes, properties & ....design.
Figure out the rest because Sir Issac Newton provided the .... OBSERVATION ... over 300 years ago, before the scientific method was developed, and before Atheist & Humanists started to .... corrupt the sciences with their Theories.
You do realize Charles Darwin ... was a Humanist and hard core Racist, and that their is actually zero evidence ... natural & natural processes .. can make,operate & improve ... the simplest physical Functions 13.7, or 4 billion years ago ... or ... 2 million years ago ... or any quantum particle, field & force today ... or ... the simplest Function made by Man ( an INTELLIGENCE). Hmmmmmm?
Evolution depends on random mutations to provide for the appearance of sight, hearing, touch and every other complex biological system, yet there aren't enough random events in the entire history of the universe to be able to pull 150 numbered beads in order from a box. Yet you believe that evolution can do anything. When your high school biology teacher told you that evolution occurred over billions of years, he lied to you. Billions of years aren't nearly time enough. Multiple trillions of years aren't time enough. It just doesn't work that way.
Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.
When Moses entered the camp and saw the Golden Morganucodon, he became angry, very angry indeed.
As a gentle modern Christian ape with an interest in palaeontology and paleoanthropology, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your channel; not only because it’s informative, entertaining and accessible but also because you don’t dump on religion as a whole. All my other favourite vulgarisation channels on this topic express contempt for people of faith in a more or less veiled manner, and while I still watch them because the content is good, the “I’m better than you because I have no sky daddy” vibe is off-putting. I could see it from people living in countries where hardcore literalists have a real influence and traction; but one if my favourite palaeontologist TH-camrs does it too, and he’s from a country where young earth creationists are a tiny extremist fringe and the chance of intelligent design being taught in schools is exactly zero.
I also admire your restraint. Contrarily to many, I’m lucky enough to never have been harmed in the name of religion. If I had been raised a young earth creationist to later find out these people are talking out of their ass, I would be a lot angrier than you are.
Having been raised a young earth creationist, I didn't get to learn anything about evolution or science until I was an adult and man, science is SO COOL. I've become obsessed with evolution especially, our earth is amazing!!
I'm so glad I found your channel. I grew up YEC, was told "there's no real evidence for evolution" and who knows how many other untruths. I was obsessed with paleontology when I was young, but was driven away from those interests as I grew older because of my YEC views and being told everything science was saying was hogwash. I'm just now getting to dive into this amazing stuff, and your videos are always fascinating.
Me too!
I would like to see that evidence
@@elguapo2831sure man, regard some fossils sometime, they're cool
I really enjoy your videos. I'm over 70 and was raised conservative Southern Baptist in a very observant and devout household. While i recall some eye rolling and scoffing about being descended from apes, i never once heard or was taught that Genesis was to be taken literally or that the earth was 6000 years. It boggles my mind that here we are, 60+ years on, and belief in a young earth is a thing. I am a Christian and I'm so happy that I found a denomination where Christians are to love one another, care for the marginalized and for creation, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoner, heal the sick, etc. The time wasted trying to argue people into religion boggles the mind.
Good for you. As a Christian as well I am happy to have been raised to appreciate what science tells us about the creation.
Me also ! I truly like that my late dog and I were actual relatives . Being kind and protecting the planet are more important
My grandfather was a fairly prominent Australian scientist during his lifetime, and maintained a strong Christian faith until the end of his life. He referred to science as "the investigation of God's methodology", and frequently took me on trips to the Australian Museum of Natural History. Grandpa had no problems reconciling his faith with his scientific understanding of the world, and nor should any reasonable Christian.
True.
I mean admittedly no there shouldn't be an issue with a Christian or well any religious person saying that science is the study of God's or a gods methodology. But I also would like to point out that you can have all these scientific occurrences without a god too. It's of course up to the individual to decide if they are religious and I hold no negative view of the decent religious folks. It's the ones who try to insult anybody who disagrees with them, same as an atheist making an unwarranted assault on character towards a religious person. We all should just get along.
@@Aliyah_666 Yes, that's true. Every observable phenomenon may well have a naturalistic explanation, and I strongly suspect that this is the case. However, we can't definitively show that deities do not exist, and I think there's still room for God as the Prime Mover for those who believe in deities.
Growing up my dad always said that either the whole bible is true. He'd always say if it's not, how can we be sure any of it is true?
I probably realized around 20 that creationism was dumb and why, and now I find it difficult to believe in Christianity as a whole. "Oops"
Edit: also thank you for your videos, you are one person who has helped me a lot to understand more about *actual* science I never was allowed to learn in school.
Parts of the bible are true... the various letters are true... as they represent what the writers thought. The laws contained in various parts of the bible are true... as they represent the laws/customs of the people who wrote those portions practiced. The rest? Good portion is poetry that are on the same level as historical fiction... the remainder is just pure fiction.
The church narrative is also pure fiction, based on events that never happened the way they were described, if they happened at all.
YEC has turned more people away from Christianity than all atheists together ever will.
The most specific, time sensitive, unambiguous, not open for interpretation, prophecy in the entire Bible...
Fails in every possible way it is possible for a prophecy to fail.
It is the prophecy about the city of Tyre.
What utter delusion, to judge the Bible as something it was never intended to be. Does Shakespeare’s use of the Four Humours invalidate his plots? Does your calculus textbook’s lack of cooking recipes invalidate its mathematical instruction? No.
The Bible was written in an Ancient Near East context thousands of years ago for scriptural instruction. It was never meant to be a geology textbook, nor a post-Stubbs historical treatise, nor anything else. You (atheist or YEC) are the idiot for judging it as something it was never meant to be.
True and literal and different things.
What does our wonderful *Gibbon* have for us today?
It is awesome!
Is there anybody who like me who never accepted young earth? Even as a young boy? My way of dealing with it was to keep quiet. And get the hell out of Dodge when I could.
@@jimwyatt9894 Plenty have and plenty do even if they have creationists/evangelical upbringings and "everyone" arounds them spouts creationism.
They often feel isolated and alone for a long time. They often feel they can't or shouldn't speak up because their local society will slap them down hard. Especially including their own family and parents particularly.
One used to have to go to college to find out the truth if that's where you were raised. Nowadays, if you're lucky and miss all the misinformation, the internet can still function that way.
Where I was raised, both views were available. The local society was full of Dutch Reformed, which meant a lot of creationists, even including some of the biology teachers.
But even they ended up treating evolution correctly in Earth Science or Biology in the end because in those days, teachers taught science in science class even if they did make a few asides to the contrary.
However, there's a lot of kids who aren't so lucky. Homeschooling is popular in no small part so that parents can avoid this very topic.
@@jimwyatt9894Being raised as a *Latter-Day Saint,* we were taught that mankind (from Adam) has grown over time to come to understand existence and the universe better _[Adam is translated as "man". So, he could be at that point in evolution that God breathed self-awareness into him.]_ As such, God had revealed to them the laws and understanding of His Plan as they were prepared to accept it. So, the Old Testament illustrates one level, the New Testament another, and continued revelation today represents yet another. With that framework, the writers of Genesis wrote as they would understand things revealed to them. The early Christians were ready for more refined ideas, and so forth. This way, what science is revealing is simply our learning "the way God did/is doing it".
Of course, I am not LDS today, I am agnostic. But that line of reasoning made it easier to live in a science-based world.
Do I adore Gutsick? Yes, yes I do.
Why? She is a well educated young lady. I could listen to her read the dictionary. I would say " phone book " but many people wouldn't relate to that.
Keep doing What you're doing Erica. You have a fan in this auld Englishman. 🇬🇧🇺🇸💜
I like to consider myself literate, with a fair grasp of the English language but Erika sends me groping for my dictionary nearly every other sentence. True, it's generally for field specific terms but yeah.
With or without the Yellow Pages?
@@Mark_Agamotto1313_Smith Yellow Pages was a seperate book, However I would say with.
@@dogwalker666 We would get the white pages AND the yellow pages as one book. Made for a rather THICK book.
@@Mark_Agamotto1313_Smith I bet it was, Gosh.
I also noticed that some people go for abiogenesis now in order to defend young earth creationism. This is really strange since abiogenesis is a complete different topic. As you said - you don't need to know who manufactured the car when you want to know whether the car has crashed into the tree.
It's not so strange if you think about whom they're trying to convince (keeping their own sheeple together or evangelizing people who have no strong grasp on our understanding of how the world works in the first place).
These videos are wonderful. When I was a highschool biology teacher I was constantly having these fights with parents - and it always seemed so silly: we never talked about *god* in class. I never understood why it was so threatening.
You would think all us "evil"utionists prostrate ourselves and make sacrifices to Lucy's skeleton as obsessed as YECs are with Lucy
You mean you don’t? Huh. I thought the practice was fairly widespread. We always serve grilled baby as the sacrifice.
Might want to check around - maybe someone in your area knows the current rites. 🤷♂️
@@CharlesPayetHey they don't call them "baby" back ribs for no reason lol.
As someone who took an apologetics class in High School (which was mostly YEC), I was absolutely shocked how little we talked about the basic theology stuff you learn in University. Never once was the Documentary hypothesis discussed in the HS class when it’s literally Theology 101 in University.
As a Brit I try to understand US college - it seems that it is more a mixed range of subjects. In UK we sign up to college/University for a particular course. Eg I did biochemistry with microbiology so didn't do any humanity topics. and the English or history students didn't do science modules. I think we specialise much earlier than in US which has the strength of deeper knowledge in our area of study, but misses some of the wider input.
This is not an accident. My sister managed to go to divinity school and become a minister. I frankly don't know how she managed it.
At divinity school, they _do_ teach this stuff, at least at the good, honest ones. But you had better have a very solid faith -- and maybe a talent for compartmentalizing -- to come out of that with one's faith intact. Things like the Documentary Hypothesis and the Q document are big surprises to the average believer in the pews, whether "liberal" or "conservative". It just isn't brought up.
YEC, after such training, is a very heavy lift. I can only assume fundamentalists train their ministers very differently or train them to ignore what they learn somehow.
Are there good controls for the documentary hypothesis? Like, if you take a collection of modern books by the same author, would the same method "prove" that those books were from multiple authors?
@@helenr4300 A US bachelors in Science emphasizes math and science. A bachelors in art coverts the humanities. All require some minimum number of credits in humanities, arts, math and science outside your core.
@@helenr4300 "I think we specialise much earlier than in US which has the strength of deeper knowledge in our area of study" ... no. Our degrees simply take longer on average. Most UK STEM degrees are (generally) 3 years worth of coursework, while they almost invariably require 4 or even 5 years of study in the US (as a quick aside, our Master's degrees also take longer despite lacking coursework outside the field of study). In the US, you tend to take all of the UK STEM course equivalents PLUS the liberal arts core curriculum your school requires (usually a semester or two worth of study for most STEM degrees). Often, your other core classes will compliment your actual major (i.e. electrical engineering for some Computer Science majors). You can get a BA (Bachelor of Arts, as opposed to the typical BS) in a STEM degree - which is generally less rigorous in major studies - and likely more in line with what you are thinking. HOWEVER, even that isn't always the case. In universities where the BA is the only option for a particular STEM degree - you will likely just end up taking all the same major courses of a BS, plus more liberal arts and field-related core courses. Also, at some older institutions (like some Ivy Leagues), BA students often have access to, and often end up taking, all of the same STEM courses as their BS counterparts with prospective employers in mind (with the degree types largely determined by a slight difference in core curriculum or a difference in college of admission within the university).
All this to say... it is absurd to think that a Bachelor's Degree in a STEM field, across all of the UK, almost invariably/consistently confers a significantly deeper knowledge of a given field of study than in the US. US STEM degrees themselves can vary drastically from one institution to the next anyway. If UK STEM degrees were consistently more rigorous in major studies, one might think we would be falling over ourselves to hire people from the UK (instead of MIT, Stanford, UChicago, UC Berkeley, the Ivy Leagues, [insert list of world renowned US institutions]). We are not.
If anyone came to one of those conferences and asked how the first single-celled organism "found someone to marry" I think the speaker's response would be: "...what?" I think there'd be a whole lot of "did I hear that correctly" and incredulous laughter going around that conference and a couple of people nervously looking around wondering if this was some troll stunt and they were about to get invaded by people picketing with signposts or something. Or perhaps some kind of prank with hidden cameras.
Don’t single-called organisms reproduce asexually through mitosis?
Most YEC questions stump me every time, but not because they are so good and well thought out.
You're making the world a better place, Erika.
I think a point is that science has little problem with unanswered questions. Unanswered questions just show that there is more to learn. YEC seems to have a problem with unanswered questions and just fills them in with something like "God did it" :)
And once they get to goddidit, they stop investigating and learning.
That's so cool that people tell you they left Young earth Creationism because of you! Great job. It must be so satisfying.
I almost literally fell out of my chair laughing when they brought up Hovind's "the first lifeform had to find someone to marry" bit. I also scared the crap out of my poor cat because the initial squeaky bark of laughter that came out when the text-to-speech narrator said that was...well, unique! But seriously, if I'd thought that Genesis Apologetics had any credibility, they would have lost all of it at that moment. Thank you for the laugh, Erika!
'Cells marry'. I cried with laughter!!😂
It was quite the wedding! 😂
Erika being uncharacteristically close minded by denying that cell marriage happens. Hey pal, some of my best friends are cells and their marriage was beautiful!
Prejudiced against cytosexuals!
@@simongiles9749 I don't believe in prokaryotes. Stop pushing your woke agenda on me! /s
Erica is so awesome, one of the greatest role models anyone could ask for. I can't wait for my grandkids get a little older so I can watch your vids with them.
I say this a lot but it is such a good point. Evolution is so well supported that even entirely unrelated fields like economics supports the theory of evolution
I grew up as an old earth creationist (Jehovah's witness to be precise, and honestly taking a small risk writing this on my main YT account as I'm not out out) and the videos you and others make have been really great to catch up on what evolution actually is after some 25 years spent denying the whole thing.
Best wishes. Keep asking questions. Just be careful who you ask.
My question about The Flood is: "Why did it not achieve the intended outcome?..... Appears to have failed the mission statement at the outset.
I was talking with a YEC and he asked "Where did life come from then?" And I said God made it. They blue screened.
Yup, all evolution requires is for Abiogenesis to have happened how is not important as evolution is about what happens next.
Given the greatness of the universe and how incredible that even one blade of grass is, I have faith that God exists, but I don't think He's a guy with a long white beard sitting on a cloud somewhere. Nor do I believe in most creation myths, I think the description of the big bang sounds remarkably like the Genesis creation story. I think it's miraculous that this solar system has everything we needed to live here on the Earth and if God used the laws of physics and biology to make us in the fullness of time that's just as amazing as the 6 days story. Remember that story was used to regulate society as much as anything.
Not being able to prove God is the point of Faith. Faith is pretty much the only thing we can give to God, and it would be kind of worthless if we could prove it. It's like saying I believe it's going to rain when it is already raining, so what?
@@tamyramcgough6862 having faith despite the glaring lack of evidence is not a virtue
@@tamyramcgough6862 I can respect that take, because it doesn't deny evident reality. I disagree with you, but I have no reason to try and change your mind as that belief in and of it's self doesn't hurt either of us.
I just love how leaning on faith is a great thing when it comes to creationism, and suddenly unacceptable when it comes to other religions, like buddhism, or, in their view, "evolutionism" (not saying that accepting evolution is a religion, I'm saying they say that, and it's a double standard).
Exactly! Even in this apologist video, he says something about "evolutionists have to have MORE faith....." as if faith became suddenly bad
It is a combo of guilty conscience and freudian slip. They know that faith is a vice and as such try to accuse atheists of it, but in the process end up exposing themselves.
@@chrishollandsworth6700 It's not like creationists are best known for their rational analysis or reflective thinking.
@@chrishollandsworth6700 They do it to level the playing field.
As a Christian I find this comment odd. What exactly do you think “faith” is to us Christians?
Annual pilgrimage to the Smithsonian.....not the worst idea anyone has ever had.
Being a pagan sounds awesome!
Seeing Aron being equated to Nye, Gervais and Dawkins just absolutely delights me. Let's hope the more general audience will also know his name in the future like the others. He deserves that.
Aron is F-tier. He lacks the fundamentals to debate well or communicate without error, and he Gish Gallops and pontificates. Gervais is funny, Dawkins is scientifically accomplished, and Nye had a great kids show. Even Sagan and Tyson were/are great public scientists.
@@richardhouseplantagenet6004 I disagree and so do about 300k people on youtube. But, hey, I don't trust you one bit when I see your other reactions on this channel. Especially your comment about science was really ridiculous and without merit.
I love this channel. Thank you for fighting delusion and stupidity. Humanity is grateful for your work.
I want to add on to the love. Your videos are great. I wish I had gone into a hard science field, but academics be rough. Don't stop sharing and continue helping everyone learn about science ❤❤❤
YEC: "Is it fossils, genetics, geology, physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry that is wrong....or is it us?" 🤔
"Am I so out of touch?
No, it's the children who are wrong."
Again, thanks, Erika. I have been an unashamed fan for some time now, and you continue to be wonderful.
As someone who is both a biologist and a religious person (not Christian, but still), I appreciate your strategy. I think it's much easier to convince YECs if they don't feel like their entire faith is under attack
The problem is, they seem to think anything and everything is an affront to their faith.
@@MaryAnnNytowl that's true, but not all of them. You can't convince everyone, but as seen from this comment section some YECs may question what they're taught - tho undoing indoctrination can take a while. This at least removes a barrier to convincing some people - it's easier to write you off if you come out swinging anti-theist style
If they dropped the fantasy Young Earth part they might be taken seriously, But Young Earth is so impossible.
More specific, their identity is so strongly entwined with their beliefs, that criticizing/debunking their beliefs is felt like a personal attack.
There is no rational thinking involved, only feelings. Therefore they cannot be reasoned out of their false beliefs.
The believe their faith is a deck of cards that will entirely collapse if one element is conceded. Remember, it is the literal and inerrant belief in the Bible (except where they can use Hebrew synonyms or symbolism to not be literalists...especially for prophecy).
Ultimately they are literalists as long as you accept their interpretation.
"Oh yeah, well who did the first cell get married to? Checkmate, atheists!"
I have pretty low expectations for these people, but they still manage to disappoint me.
I have to admit, I wasn't disappointed. I loved it 😄
The first cell married his best friend. They booked an officiant through Facebook.
me when i make up fake arguments in my own head and claim i was disappointed by them
Easy. The first cell went to land of Nod to find a wife like Cain did. Next question.
"Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."
Voltaire
Abiogenesis is actually an incredibly simple concept. The main theoretical issues were resolved decades ago. Now it is, at a fundamental level, pretty much just choosing which specific mechanism was used out of a list of options. It is about identifying which specific theory is the correct one among a list of options.
(note: I am simplifying a bit but that’s because this is a TH-cam comment section. I could vomit up the more technical science but then basically no one would understand this and what’s the point of that)
Creationists always talk about the astronomical odds of chemicals randomly colliding into life forms, but when they’re repeatedly mixing on a planetary scale over the course of ≈1 billion years: is it so hard to accept the improbable occurred?
@@charliemallonee2792
They don’t understand how parallel processes that can interconnect work. They know the math for one individual… “track” but they have no idea how to handle when there are two tracks going in parallel and they intersect. Let alone when we are talking millions and billions of tracks
@@jloiben12 yeah, don't bother them with details. Their little brains get stuck between gears when you do.
@@MaryAnnNytowl I know I know
@@jloiben12 Your millions and billions is the number of starting points for the more interesting tracks. Without anything to eat them bacterial mats would have filled the shores, with hard to estimate numbers easily in the 10^20th range for number of simple cells, all of which can exchange DNA, so that 10^20th gets a factorial applied to it. The number of mutations per day back then was already astronomical.
Wow, Aron along side Dawkins and Nye. Another notch in his belt. Well done.
Can you drop a link to that, plz? I have *GOT* to see this!
Love your content! Keep going!
I love the accusation from YEC that the rest of us have to have an irrational FAITH in abiogenesis when they have a totally irrational and unanswerable FAITH in their deity.
Not only that, creationists insist on lumping in abiogenesis with evolution. At this point, one has to regard this as dishonest because the two problems were _always_ separate. The abiogenesis problem says nothing about evolution and never did and vice versa.
If you or anyone wants to believe God created the first cell or the first 10,00 cells or some such, the state of science can't say it is wrong other than a generalized aversion to supernatural explanations. But it cannot provide a complete alternative yet.
However, once you get to those 10,000 or so cells, evolution completely explains everything that happens after that. This line is pretty clear and consistent, but creationists always want to blur it. We should never let them.
When my friend Abigail Katherine O'Genesis finishes writing her book then we can say it is in a Book and therefore it must be believable. 🧐Everyone who is not a YEC is an atheist ? .... 99% of YEC DNA is anatomically indistinguishable from Flat Earth Planetary Orbit data.🙃
The Urey experiment in which Urey mixed water and some gases (carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide) in a glass beaker and subjected it to lightning-like charges of electricity and got amino acids explains how the biochemistry of life came into existence. Oxygen was absent; in another flask he added oxygen and got nothing of the sort. These experiments are replicable,
Abiogenesis is impossible in an oxygen-rich world that Life itself created. Our own biochemistry (our biochemistry is full of derivatives of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide that an oxygen-rich environment would destroy) attests to origins very different from what we know and need for survival.
Thank you for helping fill in the gaps in my knowledge due to being raised YEC.
aye good on you for doing that! We all grow up with gaps in our education, but not all of us go back to fill them. Makes a big difference, I think.
(plus learning new stuff is kinda fun anyway lol)
edit: too many exclamation marks
Where's the evolution? Oops
"None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another…Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic [e.g., bacterial] to eukaryotic [e.g., plant and animal] cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms.
- Alan Linton, phd bacteriologist
Millions of years never happened. Can't have fossilized tracks preceding the actual animals by millions of years. They were trying to escape a flood. A worldwide flood.
How many years are we talking about? 10 million between trilobite tracks and trilobite fossils; 35 million between amphibian tracks and amphibian fossils; and 10 million between dinosaur tracks and dinosaur fossils. That is a curious pattern indeed.
I’m so sorry you grew up on that. But it’s never too late to learn I know I’ll never stop!
@@idontwantahandlethough my whole life is too many exclamation points 😂
I never tire of your boundless (read: perverse) enthusiasm for this topic.
You've just introduced me to The Truth Chronicles and I can never thank you enough for this. I'm forever indebted to you
I love Aron’s series on how we know with 100% certainty that the flood did not happen. I hope y’all collaborate more in more videos in the future
"Cells getting married" 😆😆🤣 How can they say that seriously!??
Prior to 1950s YEC was rare in the church. But then it made a jump into Protestantism from Seventh Day Adventists with a new book on Flood Geology (think it was Morris?). It was probably helped by poor theological training in seminaries and Bible colleges so pastors didn’t know what previous pastors and theologians knew.
Yea I think it was Morris who wrote the popular flood geology textbook. Have you read "The Creationists" book by chance? It's a really excellent history of creationism and how it's changed over time (evolved, if you will)
@@gyrfalcon0077 I haven't. I found a 90s djvu copy (pirated), but I notice Amazon has a hardcover updated to 2006, which should cover the intelligent design folks (and maybe the Dover trial itself and the judge's ruling, which was scathing in places). I'll buy the updated copy. Thank you for highlighting it, much appreciated!
I follow GutsickGibbonianity! ❤
You are so much fun to watch in your argumentation and manner. 😀
Aron was singing your praises,again on the blaspemers bible/Joseph's myth stream
He's not wrong about museum exhibits being based on shrines, because that is what a museum, a shrine to the Muses
It's always nice when quoted etymology is actually commonly accepted. Thanks for the little side quest.
OMG thank you for saying the thing about faith at @7:20. Idk why so many Christians pretend that there's literally evidence of Jesus. If there was like.. "fossil evidence" that proved the divinity of Jesus (somehow) then it wouldn't really mean much to believe that Jesus is the son of God, would it? It'd just be science. That sentence felt very weird to type lol
The Roman emperor Tiberius is documented by 10 sources.
That simple Carpenter has 40.
The life and crucifixion of Jesus holds legal ground.
Funny how people think science and God don't go together.
It's like looking at a painting with a microscope to prove Rembrandt ever existed.
Should ask a Geologist about Young earth. Not bone collectors
I did not realize you came out of a Young Earth Creationist background. Kudos to you for pursuing a career in science. Science is so much more fascinating and fun then theology.
edit: changed theory to theology spellchecks strikes again
Science is more fun than theory? Or theology? Building a theory is fundamental to scientific rigor. Sorry if I sound nitpicky, but as has been brought up so many times, robust theories that hold together and cover all the known facts are essential to scientific inquiry.
@@barrylangille3523Spell checker strikes again should be: science is more fun then theology, not theory.
@@tomschmidt381 I should have known.
@@tomschmidt381 I'd suggest an edit, then, and an explanation of the edit [changed theory to theology], on your first comment.
@@MaryAnnNytowl I fixed the text. Too bad the comment field does not accept HTML strikeothrough operator .
Would love to see you do a video with Forrest Valkai. Two science lovers together. Awesomeness.
Edit: I must have missed them. Do more!
They did a video together on his channel
Yup she has
They’ve done a few together, but I wish they would do more!
They did a one hour conversation on The Thinking Atheist’s channel :)
@@bubgerkirg that one was awesome, and I really wish they would do more like that.
I appreciate your approach to this topic and your ability to explain. It has helped me to find my interest into genetics and has inspired me into the current genetics major! just wanted to say thank you
Another thoughtful presentation. My wife loves you too!!
I think you are underselling the origin of life knowledge that we do have. We know from Miller Urey that biomolecules can form spontaneously in prebiotic environments, we know that some biomolecules autocatalyze, we can observe selection pressures on those biomolecules, we have seen spontaneous vesicle formation and division. Sure, we don't have every single step of the process, but I'd argue we aren't far off of a comparison of having a few Australopithecuses, a few Homo habilises, a few Erectuses, a few neanderthalensises, etc. When you have multiple parts of the chain figured out, you can get a good shape of the whole thing.
Sure, we might run into some unexpected thing which dramatically changes the understanding, but that would be on the order of quantum physics for atoms or relativity for gravity, significant shifts in our understanding, but we were kinda mostly right all along.
I don't think she's actually underselling it. It feels more like she's pointing at the absurdity of conflating two things that can very well stand on their own.
Having lost the argument the classic tactic used in politics and religion is to forget your own position and attack your interlocutor's any way you can. Absolute rule: never analyse your own failed argument.
Erica keep on keeping on man - i just enjoy your educated perspective so much. My boyfriend recently told me he's "not sure" about human evolution and you were the only thing on my mind lol - I'm no science whiz, but your videos at least make me feel like I'm not crazy. Thanks you and Cheers!
Apologetics, in my opinion, is not about conversion, its about prevention of deconversion.
This is one of your clearest videos on YEC-ish. Congratulations!
I always appreciate how you distinguish between Christian faith and the YEC version.
I loved my science, as a high school student I got a special deal on the New Scientist (think UK version of Scientific American) and loved it. Others my age looked forward to the TV on Thursday nights for Top of the Pops show - I Looked forward to the show that came after - 'Tomorrow's World' with science and tech. My degree was Biochem and microbiology though haven't used it since. Basically I found that I liked discovering what people had discovered, but the idea of a lifetime figuring out one tiny corner was not for impatient me, nor was facing teenagers to teach high school science. I ended up now as a Church minister, I did use my science literacy during the pandemic, about viruses and vaccines, but don't see any contradictions between accepting evolution, and all of science, and holding a faith. They respond to different questions about life and meaning, they are different genres.
I find the contortions of YEC about creation and the flood embarrassing. In 1800s there was the double whammy of the Critical Theories about Biblical texts (who wrote what and when and not assuming the tradition is correct) and then Darwin. Neither ruled out faith, but both made a proportion of Christians paranoid about being undermined. And so were born the extreme literalists.
At that point they began to paint themselves into the corner they are now stuck in. Because they need the Bible to be fully literal (despite the mix of genres and styles) that means that the creation and flood, age of the earth etc has to be literal or none of the Bible can be trusted. Their extreme view means that people either have to accept their attempts to argue YEC or totally walk away from faith. The irony is that their extreme defense of YEC actually leads to more atheists than all us 'liberal' science accepting believers. Yet they think they are building faith, when actually forcing people to reject faith when faced with the realities of science, due to their narrow interpretations.
@@helenr4300 you are right on the nose with that one. They are doing the exact opposite of what they want to do, but they can't bend enough to change for fear they'll break. I think the only thing keeping them afloat, currently, is the quiverful and other "have tons of babies" movements in the Christofascists/YEC folds.
@@helenr4300I think your assessment is pretty good. I came from a fundamentalist background and am an atheist and that pretty much describes my path.
I think that coming from a strict background though where most people are quite well informed about Christian doctrine gives a different perspective on the faith than liberal theologies and that's why people walk away entirely instead of shifting to a more liberal persuasion. Liberal Christianity has its own warts and fundamentalism is much easier to proof text. So if you understand doctrine and scripture well enough to critique fundamentalism the liberal theology doesn't have a lot to offer you except things like community.
re."They respond to different questions about life and meaning, they are different genres." not really, that is just a cop out that apologists cling on to.
What does one bring to sacrifice to the Golden Morganucodon? I don't wanna be unprepared when I make my pilgrimage.
Thank you, Erika, for what you do. I can't afford much but I can leave this well-deserved like and comment for the care and feeding of the ever-voracious Almighty Algorithm, in hopes It shares your wit with still more people!
💙💙
I do sometimes wonder how many great minds have been lost to religion, science denial and creationism.
probably zero sicne there is a lot of atheist who got raised christina and figured ouzt it is nonsense simply by reading the bible and asking smart questions
Once one embraces science denialism, by that alone, their “great” minds are lost.
@@vanguard9067 If they deny science they have no min at all.
@@EBDavis111 exactly. Never had it, never will.
I am grateful that I was taught evolution in middle school. I remember being taught about a common ancestor in the form of a gibbon like creature. The sophistication of the data has improved markedly, and I believe will continue to mature. Thanks for contributing to my knowledge base.
!2 years of religious schools, including 8 years of summer bible camp, yet none of it took with me. I recall thinking in 1st grade that religion was not important. By 8th grade I was scoffing at the beliefs of my teachers and fellow students and by 15 I was calling myself an atheist. It was tough making and keeping friends but throughout this period in my life but I felt I could not make myself believe in fairy tales and by 5th grade I gave up completely on this fool's errand. At 55 now I have known a long life without fear of supernatural beings and while it is still a struggle to make and keep friends, I would not change a thing. SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS! ALL gods and ALL supernatural phenomena are constructs of our minds, nothing more.
The idea that everything is a construct of the mind and nothing more is itself a construct of the mind and nothing more. So there is no reason to think that idea is true. Science, math, physics, etc. are also constructs of the mind. Now what?
The question is whether these mental concepts correspond to reality.
The reality is that God is the only explanation of reality. There is no other. God is the non-contingent source, being and foundation of all reality. This is what the evidence shows.
@Doctor Knows , actually reality CONFIRMS mainstream science ideas. There is nothing in nature that confirms a God . I’m Christian that’s why we rely on faith and not natural phenomena. Science doesn’t deal with supernatural phenomena!
@@gfujigothe first you have to demonstrate God in action for God to be a candidate explanation for reality.
I mis-heard "If you wanna support me in a free way" as "if you wanna support me on the freeway", like you were shaking a cup at an off-ramp 😅
Anyway, just discovered your content, and I appreciate your blend of information and humor. I'll have to subscribe and listen to more. Cheers!
You bring up a major point. There is no reason a Christian has to be a young earth creationist. I often say that God believes in evolution. I'm a Christian and I approve your message!
It depends on the sect of Christianity.
Most do reject YEC because, YEC makes zero sense and has been debunked. But if you come from a position where everything in the Bible has to be true, then YEC has to be true or the Bible is false.
Thank you for my newest headcanon: that antibiotics exist as God’s way of punishing bacteria for the sin of premarital fission.
Finally, a moral panic I can get behind!
My answer to "What if I prove it right" is always: "What if instead of asking stupid questions, you just get it on with and prove it"?
I like when you deploy your sick moves and then dunk on people who are wrong.
Oh, @Gutsick Gibbon!! Your bold laughter at ridiculous creationist arguments is like the first drops of rain on a dry and parched landscape!
lmfao I lost it at "find someone to marry" oh my yes, an RNA wedding
"Do you, strand of ribonucleic acid, take this other strand of ribonucleic acid, to form into a double-helix?"
How about the marriage that occurred the first time a nucleus got… intimate with a cell?
It's the divorce that got me. I don't think they finished paying for the reception.
It probably was a wild big primordial soup orgy with Alice, Bob, Charlie and the others.
Everyone with everyone. And that's how we ended up with tigers, lions and that golden rat.
😆
I gave you a mention to my paleontology group on Facebook tonight and got a huge response from your fans in the group and hopefully earned you some more! We love your work!
I find it hilarious when creationists say we think we came from rocks. They think a magical senior citizen emptied out his dust buster and made man then ruffied him, ripped out his extra rib (because a perfect being made a mistake and gave his own creation too many bones) and then made a brand new person by the time the man woke up and he just awoke to something hes never seen and they were just like, "s'up?" to each other. They truly are the strangest of us apes.
You do know that if you take a rib out, so long as you leave part of it there it will grow back don't you? If you're going to try and discredit the creation account, you should at least know what it is.
And now I'm suddenly thinking of TF2's "Meet the Medic"...
God: (to Adam) Oh, don't be such a baby. Ribs grow back! (whispers to an angel) No, they don't.
@@DenisK21 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I totally peed my pants a little lol.
@@tonyabrown7796 It might not grow back at all, or it might not grow in the proper shape and you end up with a deformed rib. Cut or broken bones have a habit of growing back with deformities or just lumps (known as calluses) at the site of the break because the body is trying to reinforce that spot so it won't break again. As for discrediting the creation story, it's just plain fiction, along with most of the Bible. The stories are apocryphal, trying to describe how the world worked from an ignorant (meaning uneducated) perspective. These were primitive people, they didn't know how pregnancy properly worked, for crying out loud.
@@tonyabrown7796 yes, ribs are bones that can regenerate under certain conditions. So can other bones. Sometimes fingers can regenerate, especially those of young children.. So can the liver:-)
I've been sharing your channel lately with friends!
Great vid as always. You’re an awesome content creator
Proud to support you Erica keep up the great work!
The irony of the "...found someone to marry..." argument is where, exactly, did Cain and Abel find someone to marry?
There's no mystery to that. Firstly, Abel didn't. Secondly, while it doesn't give any names, Genesis is very clear that Adam had more sons and daughters after Seth.
And there were no rules against incest until Moses' time.
Abraham, for instance, was so special that from all of humanity, he was the one picked out to father God's chosen people... with his wife/half-sister.
So the pretty clear explanation is that Cain, Seth and their brothers married their sisters.
Classic Biblical family values.
@@pandora8610 You do realize the whole incest thing was my point, right? Classic Biblical family values, indeed ;)
Same place as that one Folgers Christmas commercial.
I just want to say that you are a pretty good presenter, and knowledgeable about your subject matter.. and I can sincerely appreciate that..
"Away from me witch, with thy esoteric questions! Get theE* hence!" 🤣🤣
Edit: Spelling error corrected thanks to @Charlie Payet
“…theE…” 😂😜
@@CharlesPayet
No...I'm telling the witch to go and the hence.
I needed some hence because I can't spell thee!
Oh dear what a goofball I am. 🤦🤦
Thanks Charles. I've corrected the error 👍👍
@@pencilpauli9442 LOL thank you for taking my response in the goofy spirit it was intended. Because how often does one get the opportunity to correct old English grammar on the Internet? 🤣😂🤷♂️😁
"prove how life started or believe in god"
Is the same as
"Prove your parents out the presents under the tree or believe in Santa"
"Show how mass warps spacetime or believe Poseidon controls the tides"
Gutsick, you are a treasure! Love these videos, and it's great to hear that people are now finding your material and changing their mind on YEC. Coming from a YEC background myself (although changed my mind a long time ago), I find you are one of the best communicators on this topic. Is fantastic to see your love of science and scientific integrity. These type of video critiques of YEC material are just gems... I've kept them in mind for when people bring up the topic.
Thank you: sound points, well made. Best wishes for Kenya!
As someone also raised YEC, but who thought and read my way out of it in my early adulthood -- with my faith intact -- I so enjoy your snark.
The biggest problem with regards to Christianity is that evolution, population genetics, and bio geography make it abundantly clear there could not have been a literal Adam and Eve. This makes the core theology of Christianity irrelevant.
@@uncleanunicorn4571 Yeah, it kind of undercuts the whole idea of original sin and the need for salvation.
@@uncleanunicorn4571 so while many people believe in a literal Adam and Eve many don’t. So if you’re super fundamental in your faith than yes it’s not compatible but if you’re more loose with your interpretation then it’s fine sort of lol
@@rationallyruby it seems completely pointless. There is no necessity or urgency to any monotheistic religion if there is no literal truth.
@@uncleanunicorn4571 Did you even watch Erica's video, in which she respectfully separated the issues of personal faith and affirmation of science? And how she didn't feel it necessary to invalidate someone's faith? It's a good example to follow.
Touring the naval aviation museum in Pensacola, Florida is an eyeopening jaunt through the EVOLUTION of aircraft from the canvas and sticks models of the early days of aviation, to the aluminum piston powered planes of WWII, to the modern jet powered, electronics packed aircraft of today's navy. Truly amazing to see manufacturing technology progress small step by small step to the latest version of aircraft and spacecraft. A very similar EVOLUTION experience can be had by touring any natural history museum. It seems that EVOLUTION over time can be observed in all aspects of the real world. (Even in the UNBELIEVABLE supercharged diversification/evolution of the Noah Types into today's millions of species.)
Predicting this now: abiogenisis in a lab is going to start the argument thusly- "It is measurable and repeatable Therefore it PROVES THE CREATOR because Scientists created it."
I just got the latest issue of Science with several articles on the latest primate genome project containing over 800 complete genomes of extant primates. I can't wait to see what you do with all that new information which is not good news for YECs and antievolution folks
If I would not have been brought up as a fundamental Christian and home-schooled I probably would have become a computer scientist.
Never too late to learn!
Came to say this! I’m mid-40’s and have had several careers, soon to start a new one!
I was not saying poor me, just noting how those systems do not give a person adequate education and also stifle a person's potential
@@MindGap-2020 Humanity got robbed of its potential for a millenium!
@@MindGap-2020 What did you become instead?
You are so informative and funny at the same time. Teacher of the year.
Hello GG... I read of Lee Berger (?) _et al_ producing 3 papers on Naledi having some form of formal burial process and cave art. What's your take on this?
I so enjoy your videos dealing with YEC. It's like watching a toothpick going up against a mighty oak.
My favorite simple argument against the Flood is, if you cover the Earth with water and kill everything, what do you have to eat when the flood subsides?
You have the Best hand movements of any fighters for true logic of evolution...and well kept nails...lol love your content
Prosecutor: Literally every piece of evidence we possess shows this man committed this murder!
Defense: The prosecutor doesn't have a time machine, therefore my client is innocent.
Christian jury: NOT GUILTY!
You deaf? She drew the line between YECs and everyone else, not Christians. The vast majority of Christians are not YEC.
@@richardhouseplantagenet6004 anti-theists have a really limited understanding of religion. They will lump like 2 billion people into one view.
@@richardhouseplantagenet6004 Everyone else got the joke, friend.
@@richardhouseplantagenet6004 Erika just wants to be polite, she have believer friends after all.
I haven't been Christian since 1970, but is it productive to alienate Christians who do accept science? Most of that sort are also against bigotry and theocracy and for the planet. Can't we target the trouble makers (YEC by design are anti science and environment and human rights) and not pretend that they're all the same? Because it's disgusting when hateful fundies do it. All sweeping generalizations are flawed.