Please let's not bring religious arguments here. They're predictable, which makes them uninteresting, which makes them off topic.

I agree with the conclusion but that reasoning makes no sense.

From the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting."

It took me years to understand this dynamic, so of course I'd be interested in how the reasoning is wrong. But [email protected] would be a better place to communicate that at this point.

Btw, if you're going to tell someone this, you should say why. Otherwise they can't learn and the comment is uninformative.

Threads on Uber, Facebook, Apple, the NSA etc. are pretty predictable. Are we deeming them off-topic too?

"Pretty predictable" is already something different, and those topics have a steady influx of new information to mutate them at least somewhat.

The other factor, of course, is the heat with which these things burn. When they burn to a crisp, the crisps are all the same.

> I am so sad that he won't be able to enjoy this discovery as much as I do, because he'll be focused on debunking the scientific assertion that this fossil is 110 million years old.

In the whole scheme of things, I'm sure he enjoys plenty of things you don't. Just like any other 2 different people. That he doesn't enjoy this as much as you do is nothing to mourn about.

Can you tell me more about this friend? I have many in my hometown area who are similar, so I'd be curious to hear about other archetypes.

I once briefly dated a girl that believed in horoscopes and was dead set that it is a pre-determinator of a person's personality.

And I knew another girl that believed in the healing power of gem stones.

I released that irrational beliefs take many forms, not just religious (which creationism comes from), and it is a common human feature to explain things that you can't understand in ways that might make sense to you.

You must be kidding, the tissue escaped normal bacterial decay because it was away from normal conditions. And contrary to what the title indicates, what was discovered was fossilized remains (i.e., rock), not the original tissue of the monster.

Are your beliefs faith based or based on something else? Honestly curious.

> It seems far simpler an explanation that the dinosaur was buried by a massive flood

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like it was caused by a giant flood.

Honestly, as far as explanations go for why you'd find a land animal so far out to sea, getting caught in a flood is not a bad thesis. Consider what must have happened to an immense number of fauna when glacial lake Missoula blew, for example! But the fact that this is the only one of its type found so far in the area does not speak for a large one. Something as simple as dying while fording a river is another possibility.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Missoula

Why is that more believable? I mean the quorum of scientists are typically a good guide for someone not a specialist themselves.

I am just glad you are not trying to tell me that the earth is flat.

Well, but then I do ...

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org

Can you imagine anything that I could say or explain that might convince you otherwise?

Can you of yours? I agree with your beliefs I am guessing, but still this battle over who alone holds the authority of correctness is itself distressing.

It is difficult to imagine. A large part of it would have to be evidence of a elaborate conspiracy, and if I began to ever uncover such a thing I'd probably start by questioning my sanity. Imagine how difficult it would be for someone to try to convince you that not only did the Holocaust not happen, but neither did all of WWII- as a biologist I'd say YEC would be about as equally difficult to convince me of.

> It is difficult to imagine. A large part of it would have to be evidence of a elaborate conspiracy, and if I began to ever uncover such a thing I'd probably start by questioning my sanity.

Heh, you aren't the only one. I used to wonder how it could possibly happen that so many theists would be wrong about all these miracles and stuff.

I, and every other atheist I've encountered, would be happy to be proven wrong with reliable evidence. Something like the book Contact's (spoilers) message in the digits of pi, perhaps.

"Evidence is Satan's doing" means no amount of evidence can ever change your mind.

You immediately jumped to asserting your correctness, as if this is the only possible axis around which anything can rotate. I know you believe and your belief system has a definition of what counts and does not that is designed by the circumstances of its inception to make the assertion of any other symbol sets to analyze the world as invalid and undeserving of consideration. But I am not arguing about this, but rather the Right to Power derived from the nature of this argumentation is itself a tiresome way to engage about the world and what there is to find in it.

I'm quite comfortable with the scientific method's track record of discovery and utility, thanks.

Would you please stop? If you want to argue about Satan and the scientific method, I'm sure other internet forums would be happy to host that.

A belief too, or in your words a way of thinking about things that makes you comfortable.

That's no rebuttal.

I, unfortunately, have had the entirely opposite experience. All the atheists I've talked with discount any evidence brought forward by scientists, or articles I have read in journals. The ones I have met are closed-minded.

I'm an atheist that would love to read a journal article describing the discovery of evidence for the existence of God. Do you have a source?

Perhaps we should take this into private messages, I'll message you my reply.

Edit: oh it looks like hacker news doesn't support private messages, I guess I won't be replying.

I was looking around for it when you mentioned it, but didn't see any PM system either.

I wrote a fairly long reply addressing each one of those sources, the kind of thing I didn't want to turn this comment section into, but I deleted it once I realized that there was no pm or email to send to.

Just to summarize my thoughts on it, and probably the thoughts of most people who you would show those to who would reject it, none of those links are actual scientific evidence for reasons that many thousands of books, blog posts, podcasts, videos, etc discussing the problems with young earth creationism have already addressed. We're not closed minded, we just have substantially different criteria for determining what is valid evidence and what is not than do young earth creationists, and we believe we have very good reasons for having those different criteria. I'm not looking for a debate and won't participate in one here, just giving you some insight on the probable reasons why other people you have shown this to have discounted it. If you would like to get a better idea of why we don't consider your sources to be valid evidence I would suggest that you take some time to read a few well-reviewed books on the topic from the perspective of scientists who don't believe in young earth creationism.

Looks like you are the one focused on his beliefs