What to do with a young fundie?

[jeriendhal]

Okay, I'm torn. On the forum of one of the webcomics I frequent, the community is fairly low key and friendly (it helps that there are perhaps a dozen regular posters, tops). One of them is a young man, I believe about seventeen, who generally is well spoken, of a Conservative Christian bent, and willing to argue his POV politely while respecting other's POV.

So today he dropped a note into a thread discussing Global Warming, relative tempertures during the Creataceous Period, and local gravity fields as affected by the recent Tsunami disaster, containing the following words:

"You do know the Earth is only 6,000 years old, right?"

*facepalm*

I want to answer back with a reference to the classic "Why couldn't it have been one LONG miracle?" from Inherit the Wind, but I know it's not going to do any good. This is how the kid was raised, and attempts to use logic and science references probably aren't going to work.

Sigh.

EDIT

Couple of people beat me to it, one pointing out that recorded history does in fact extend more than 10,000 years. Yeah.

Comments

[edg.livejournal.com]

"Yep. What we refer to as the Cretaceous actually only ended last Wednesday."

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Snicker. And the dinosaurs really did wander around with the cavemen. We've got dioramas that prove it!

Patience!

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

I think you can gently suggest that "History" is thousands of years old -- but geology appears to be older. (Leave biology out of it for the time being.) How long does it take clay to become granite? God's record is, after all, carved in stone ...

Re: Patience!

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

What kills me is even that argument won't work for certain segments of Fundyism, because even if a scientist stick incontrivertible proof in their face, they['ll just say, "God just put everything that way because."

Essentially the 'logic' is that God is lying to our faces for our own good.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

As I see it, you've got two choices here:

1) Get into a long argument with him about the whole thing, which has been done about a zillion times before on the Net, and has ended well maybe twice, or...

2) Ignore it. Just pretend that you never saw his post, much like you would ignore a fart in an elevator. He might let it slide, and hopefully the conversation will move along, but be advised that he may continue to make an issue of it, in which case, you probably have to return to 1) above.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I went with Option Two. Fortunately others (including the forum's moderator) are arguing the point themselves.

[nesme.livejournal.com]

I ran into a creationist the other day. I just smiled and said, "you really believe that? Ok..." Of course I had to then defend myself. Obviously I wasn't devout enough because I thought we were all talking monkeys.