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So my girlfriend thinks the Earth is 6000 years old...

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I couldn't date somebody who was religious at all, much less a Creationist. I need to be able to respect a girl's intelligence if I'm gonna feel any connection beyond the physical.
 
Yes the two do correlate. To defend the believe of a young earth is to believe that God created the world. To believe that means believing Bible is true word for word and that is a fundamentalist view. Therefore, her having sex and yet standing for a young earth is a contradiction. The apostle James says it himself: "how can a fountain bring forth clean and poisionous water?" (paraphrased). As long as his girlfriend is cool knowing that she's going to Hell then it doesn't really matter then.

Let us not forget the slight chance the OP is lying and not getting any sex. This could potentially determine if she is going to hell or not.
 
Yes the two do correlate. To defend the believe of a young earth is to believe that God created the world. To believe that means believing Bible is true word for word and that is a fundamentalist view. Therefore, her having sex and yet standing for a young earth is a contradiction. The apostle James says it himself: "how can a fountain bring forth clean and poisionous water?" (paraphrased). As long as his girlfriend is cool knowing that she's going to Hell then it doesn't really matter then.

Ah yes, the great conflict of any religion with as large a book as the Bible: what is the discretionary criteria for deciding which passages are literal and which are open to interpretation?
 
A vast majority of religious people are like this....

I know grown adults that will cover their eyes at the Titantic breast scence b/c it gives them "impure thoughts."...and yet they will revel in watching people get destryoed in a movie like Gladiator.

Lol, what kind of country are you from?
 
Having 1 outlandish belief does not make all of their beliefs outlandish. As Mammoth Jones said, even the smartest people can believe stuff like this.

It amazes me how much humans are being simplified in this thread based on a simple belief that doesn't even affect anything. Who the hell cares?

Her belief doesn't affect me personally because I don't know her. But if I were considering getting into a relationship with that person, you better believe that it means something.

Anyone who believes that the earth is 6000 years old has major problems with critical thinking and judgement. That would reveal itself in tons of ways over the course of a relationship.
 
I do know what the scientific method is. I'm talking about on a personal basis. For example, I've read about wave-particle duality. I know what it is at a (really) basic level.

How do I know it actually occurs, when I've never done/observed experiments for myself? If you think about it, most information is just believing what a large enough group of people tell us. It's trust-based.

Unless you guys have done experiments on everything you currently believe...?

Every single day you're using shitloads of things which are a testimony that science fucking works. This is not blind faith.
 
She may experience awe during stargazing at what God created in the past 6000 years, but that wouldn't be the same awe I experience in thinking that the universe is billions of years old, or what marvellous changes our planet has undergone over countless and huge spans of time. And I never once said that I felt she had to change her beliefs to match my own, you are the one who stated that. I accept her for who she is, I just feel a bit sad about it.

Maybe instead of being super defensive and telling people who think different than you to be more open minded, you should actually listen to what others say and not insult them when their beliefs differ from yours? :)

Dude, your statement was really weak. You were saying that your appreciation for the universe is somehow better because your understanding of the universe is more scientific than a religious person's.
 
I love my girlfriend dearly, but it saddens me to know that she will most likely never be able to learn anything different than what her church has taught her. She will never accept a different viewpoint or even allow the possibility of it. She will never look up at the stars and be in simple awe and wonder at the age of what she is seeing. She will never look at another galaxy through a telescope and wonder how many millions of years ago it looked like that. She will never look at the Grand Canyon and marvel at how long it took mother nature to carve it out. She will never believe the age of the dinosaurs. She will never believe in evolution. She will never believe in the beautiful poetic harmony that we are all ancient stardust billions of years old, scattered across the universe. A universe that was created 14 billion years ago. It's all lost on her, and others like her.

I love this paragraph. Beautifully put. Poetic.

Too bad about the context, though. She may come around, who knows. It would be a...err...miracle. *cough*

:)

You were saying that your appreciation for the universe is somehow better because your understanding of the universe is more scientific than a religious person's.

No, I don't think that's what he was saying. He was lamenting her capacity for learning.
 
A vast majority of religious people are like this....

I know grown adults that will cover their eyes at the Titantic breast scence b/c it gives them "impure thoughts."...and yet they will revel in watching people get destryoed in a movie like Gladiator.

You haven't seen bubbling.
 
Nothing worse than someone who refuses everything that's against his/her ignorant view of the world.

At least here it's only about religion and science and not some racism.
 
It's still faith. You trust in a system. The guy who said that people can test out experiments with their own equipment needs to learn about construct validity.

We put a lot of trust into many components of the system. How do we know that we're measuring what we're claiming we're measuring? How do we know that the results show what we're looking for? It takes years of training and education in various fields to get to the point where we can do these experiments, and the vast majority of people are not going to do that. We put trust in the mathematics that other humans came up with. We put trust in the statistics of random sampling and random assignment. We put trust in the scientists who came up with the experiments. We put trust in the community that replicates the experiments and questions the methods and conclusions.

We glean our understandings of the world through concise summaries of decades of research.

So, yes, we do put a lot of faith in the system. The methods for conducting experiments are fine, but there's a whole lot more to it than that. The human factor is staggering.

We trust science because we see the results all around us. We put a man on the moon. We sent rovers to Mars. We construct tall skyscrapers that tower over us majestically and withstand major earthquakes. We put a lot of faith into science but frankly the results speak for themselves.

And that's what religious people believe as well, I can tell you that.

@Count Dookake:
I'm being genuine. And in the end, I still find that it's faith. Especially with what I quoted above. I'm certain there is a difference between belief in religion and belief in science, but nothing anyone has said thus far has hit on it yet.

It's more interesting because we cannot necessarily disprove a higher beings existence - only ignore it because we have no proof for it.

For the record, in some cases, it's the attribution. In religion, faith is usually put towards a specific being. I guess Maximilian might have hit upon it, actually. In being so specific, they truly enter blind faith. And should they just believe in a higher being, they're going but a step above what is actually testable. Despite the fact many people blindly believe in science, we can indeed go out and test it should we feel the need (most things, not all things - some of which are indeed based on faith as it fits in a model). Belief in a God... well that has no way of being testable. The people who mentioned the scientific method had a nice entryway, but weren't exactly there yet.
 
Lol, what kind of country are you from?

Probably the US.

There was a famous case here in one of our more embarrassing states where a video store was renting out edited versions of popular movies, including things like TITANIC.

Dude got owned, though.

EDIT (for the above): You are again dodging the fact that "faith" has different meaning in these two contexts. Also you are bringing up irrelevant stuff about disproving higher beings. We're done.
 
Because it's not true. It's a belief that undermines a number of useful fields of study that you'd be a fool to deny.

I wonder how far science would have progressed if people did this with conflicting scientific theories. Screw that general relativity garbage look at this quantum mechanics.
 
Sometimes I wonder about all the stuff "the scientists" lead us to believe. Like using carbon dating to say that some fossils are around ~1 billion years old or something like that.

Then say for example, 100 years later we find out that carbon dating results were being skewed by radioactive waves from the sun and it turns out everything is actually +999 billion years older than previously thought. What a headache.
 
At least her church accepts the fact that there were fucking dinosaurs. Try asking a Catholic priest about that...

(I asked once what their official stance on dinos where; I was told sarcastically "well what does the bible tell you?")
 
A vast majority of religious people are like this....

I know grown adults that will cover their eyes at the Titantic breast scence b/c it gives them "impure thoughts."...and yet they will revel in watching people get destryoed in a movie like Gladiator.

Yeah, she is a bit like this. On one hand she is firm in her faith and what the church has taught her. But on the other hand she wears jewelry (isn't supposed to) and she eats bacon (isn't supposed to) and we share a beer or wine now and then (her faith is against all alcohol). So there is hope for her yet!


Or maybe I've just corrupted her terribly....
 
If you've made it this long, I don't know if I could really echo the sentiment that it's time to bail. The only thing I might caution, though, is that if there's any feeling that -- this aside -- this relationship could go the full distance, then there could be some problems down the road (is she going to expect you to go to Church, how will children be raised, where to get married, etc.). Have you had to spend the holidays with her folks, yet?

Suffice to say, I've met some 7th Day Adventists before, and I find the whole thing kind of crazy and weird. But if it hasn't bothered you until now, I say c'est la vie.
 
I wonder how far science would have progressed if people did this with conflicting scientific theories. Screw that general relativity garbage look at this quantum mechanics.

The scientific method hinges on individuals' willingness to abandon what they once held as true. Some people seem to lack that ability, but it's really the only way to move forward.
 
I don't see what the issue is. Just because she believes something now, doesn't mean that will always be the case. People change, if you love her then be patient and give it time.
 
At least her church accepts the fact that there were fucking dinosaurs. Try asking a Catholic priest about that...

(I asked once what their official stance on dinos where; I was told sarcastically "well what does the bible tell you?")

That is not Catholic teaching, but nice try.

There have been some brilliant Catholic scientists throughout the years.
 
Yeah, she is a bit like this. On one hand she is firm in her faith and what the church has taught her. But on the other hand she wears jewelry (isn't supposed to) and she eats bacon (isn't supposed to) and we share a beer or wine now and then (her faith is against all alcohol). So there is hope for her yet!


Or maybe I've just corrupted her terribly....

Don't worry too much.

You'll find out one way or the other when she gets pregnant.


I don't see what the issue is. Just because she believes something now, doesn't mean that will always be the case. People change, if you love her then be patient and give it time.

This is true.

However, people can also change for the worse. In my observation, people become a bit wackier when they have a child.
 
I don't see what the issue is. Just because she believes something now, doesn't mean that will always be the case. People change, if you love her then be patient and give it time.

People rarely do. And sticking around someone cause you think they can change, or worse you can change them is moronic.
 
People rarely do. And sticking around someone cause you think they can change, or worse you can change them is moronic.

Well, if she's already violating some of the tenets of her faith through bacon, jewelry, and unmarried sex, the seeds of doubt have probably been planted. I agree that not everyone will necessarily change, but people can surprise you sometimes.

That is not Catholic teaching, but nice try.

There have been some brilliant Catholic scientists throughout the years.

Including the guy who came up with the idea of the Big Bang! (Not the name though, that was a disparaging addition by people who disagreed with him.)
 
At least her church accepts the fact that there were fucking dinosaurs. Try asking a Catholic priest about that...

(I asked once what their official stance on dinos where; I was told sarcastically "well what does the bible tell you?")

Err? catholicism out of all the denominations is probably the most progressive when it comes to scientific issues like the age of the earth, evolution, dinosaurs etc. That priest was probably a exception, not the norm.:P
 
At least her church accepts the fact that there were fucking dinosaurs. Try asking a Catholic priest about that...

(I asked once what their official stance on dinos where; I was told sarcastically "well what does the bible tell you?")

nice dude. i usually just quote lines from Dogma and wear jorts.
 
She may experience awe during stargazing at what God created in the past 6000 years, but that wouldn't be the same awe I experience in thinking that the universe is billions of years old, or what marvellous changes our planet has undergone over countless and huge spans of time. And I never once said that I felt she had to change her beliefs to match my own, you are the one who stated that. I accept her for who she is, I just feel a bit sad about it.

Maybe instead of being super defensive and telling people who think different than you to be more open minded, you should actually listen to what others say and not insult them when their beliefs differ from yours? :)

Again, all I'm asking is why it has to be an issue that her emotional response towards the scope of the universe is a bit different than yours?

I most assuredly did not say either of you needed to change your beliefs -- I stated that you should be more open-minded about people who believe in what you do not instead of feeling "sad" for them, because that implies condescension - that these people have made a wrong choice along the way and are beneath you because of their beliefs.

It's also amusing how you interpreted anything in my post as insulting, when your original post is far more insulting to your girlfriend by inferring that her religion saddens you, how you feel she is "incapable" of doubting her faith or learning anything new, and so on. You simply cannot say that you accept or respect her when all you want is for her to change her beliefs so you can stop feeling disappointment.

Every single post in this thread is blatantly insulting, calling your girlfriend and practically anyone else who is religious crazy, stupid, a fool, etc... And yet, I'm apparently being defensive for asking that people be more accepting of the fact that the whole world will never believe the same thing. Cute.
 
At least her church accepts the fact that there were fucking dinosaurs. Try asking a Catholic priest about that...

(I asked once what their official stance on dinos where; I was told sarcastically "well what does the bible tell you?")

You're mocking the wrong religion. Catholics generally aren't anti-science.
 
Probably the US.

There was a famous case here in one of our more embarrassing states where a video store was renting out edited versions of popular movies, including things like TITANIC.

Dude got owned, though.

EDIT (for the above): You are again dodging the fact that "faith" has different meaning in these two contexts. Also you are bringing up irrelevant stuff about disproving higher beings. We're done.

Yeah, I kind of answered my own question in the spoilers, so we were done a post before yours.
 
Ah yes, the great conflict of any religion with as large a book as the Bible: what is the discretionary criteria for deciding which passages are literal and which are open to interpretation?

Not everything is open to interpretation - there many points which are clear and concise.
 
Yeah, she is a bit like this. On one hand she is firm in her faith and what the church has taught her. But on the other hand she wears jewelry (isn't supposed to) and she eats bacon (isn't supposed to) and we share a beer or wine now and then (her faith is against all alcohol). So there is hope for her yet!


Or maybe I've just corrupted her terribly....

That's another thing I don't get. How people are supposed to behave is waay higher on the list of priorities for any religion than what did or did not happen 6000 years ago. What's up with people latching on with a death grip on to the latter but being so lax on the former?
 
A vast majority of religious people are like this....

I know grown adults that will cover their eyes at the Titantic breast scence b/c it gives them "impure thoughts."...and yet they will revel in watching people get destryoed in a movie like Gladiator.

Well with that, seeing sexy things and having to fight thoughts about sex is a lot different from seeing violence and having to stave off thoughts about killing someone. You're not going to avoid wanking because you saw some guy stabbing another with his sword, but seeing a beautiful woman might be the slippery slope to groping the rope when you don't wanna.
 
Wait, the whole point of the pyramids being 8000 years old in Stargate is that the oldest pyramid is less than 5000 years old. The character is using that as an argument for alien visitation... which somehow your girlfriend doesn't latch on to as a plot-hole?
 
No, I don't think that's what he was saying. He was lamenting her capacity for learning.


Thanks Rent. I suppose I could have made that more clear, I wasn't trying to imply that my beliefs are more awesome than hers. Although I probably do feel that way deep down.

Hell, maybe I was saying that even though it wasn't what I was going for, LOL. Interesting...
 
You would dump someone for their religious beliefs? That blows my mind, lol. I mean, do you but unless she's forcing you to go to church and all that it really should be a non-issue.

If the ultimate goal of dating is to get married and have kids, then religious compatibility is a serious issue.
 
If you really love her, what's the biggie?

Dumping shouldn't always be the immediate answer.


Now if you're/she's overall very unhappy with the relationship because of it, save the time of both parties and call it off.

Is the Earth being 6000 years old even a Seventh Day Adventist teaching? I've debated with a few and have never heard of this.
 
But on the other hand she wears jewelry (isn't supposed to) and she eats bacon (isn't supposed to) and we share a beer or wine now and then (her faith is against all alcohol). So there is hope for her yet!.

1. Women can wear jewelry.
2. We can eat bacon.
3. Alcohol is better to be avoided and only a sin when a person gets drunk.
4. Christians are better off not dating unbelievers because bad company corrupts Godly morals.
 
That's another thing I don't get. How people are supposed to behave is waay higher on the list of priorities for any religion than what did or did not happen 6000 years ago. What's up with people latching on with a death grip on to the latter but being so lax on the former?

Same reason why some religious people tend to overreact disproportionally to homosexuality compared to other "sins".
 
Ignorance and a disconnect with reality are things I can't tolerate when it comes it a partner of the opposite sex. I would bail out.
 
Sounds like a fun situation. If you're WILLING to deal with it, then just roll your eyes. If you're thinking about kids and the future, etc.....well.

Difficult decision mate. Best of luck with it.
 
Law (Old Testament) vs Grace (New Testament)

Many believe that only the teachings of Jesus are meant to be taken for the modern days. The Old Testament laws were for a different age, to say the least.

when did jesus say "So when my Dad made the earth 4000 years ago..."?
 
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