Debate:Is Conservapedia representing a conservative POV or a Young Earth Creationist POV?

From Conservapedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DavidBG (Talk | contribs) at 14:50, May 3, 2010. It may differ significantly from current revision.

Jump to: navigation, search
! THIS IS A DEBATE PAGE, NOT AN ARTICLE. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Conservapedia.
Your opinion is welcome! Please remember to sign your comments on this page, and refrain from editing other user's contributions.
New Users: Please read our "Editing etiquette" before posting
Conservlogo.png


Conservative

Am I to understand that not all conservatives are Young Earth Creationists? --Cranky Joe 00:18, 21 February 2008 (EST)

I should leave it alone, but it never hurts to put information out there.
Anybody can jump onto a domain registrar's site and secure any domain they like. I wish there was some authority ehich could be appealed to through which "Conservapedia" could be forced to change their name, but that's not how it works. This site rigidly presents a narrow set of theological views which are often at odds with consevativism.
I don't presume the authority to determine what sort of title would be appropriate for this wiki, but it is a shame that the choice domain name for a wiki which would actually present the constellation of political, historical and philosophical views which comprise conservative thought is rendered unavailible by this site.
It's clear that the domain name, by which a tiny group of militantly solipsistic biblical literalists presume to misappropriate the mantle of conservativism for themselves and their narrow worldview, has been seized by conservativism's critis as an opportunity to indulge in ramming their pitchforks into strawmen with a howling vulgarity and volume.
I've never seen Conservapedia cited by a single conservative blog, yet the stats show that Conservapedia is at least very popular with the left. A Google search of "conservapedia" returns 160,000 hits, 4,100 alone featuring the term "wingnut," and every one which is not a hit to Conservapedia itself is a hit to a leftwing site eager to accept and amplify Conservapedia's claim to represent conservativism.
Conservapedia went online at the beginning of 2007. by March it was ranked way down at 1.8 millionth in Alexa. Then the left discovered it. By the end of the month, Conservapedia rose 1.2 million places to 600 thousandth. Conservapedia has been enormously successful as a target for derision and trolling. There are no fewer than two wikis and three blogs dedicated to "monitoring" and "countering" Conservapedia, which now stands at 46 thousandth after a spike caused, as far as I can tell, by a circulating leftosphere gag about the popularity of Conservapedia's entries on homosexuality.
There is of course no aknowlegement in any of the leftosphere blogs that these rankings reflect their own activity on Conservapedia. Such is how Conservapedia came from being unintentional self-parody to constructed strawman.
I could go further in discussing what this all says of the left - their contempt for pluralistic discourse and corresponding eagerness to construct their opponents in their absence as black fools in a manechean fantacy construct - but that's getting far from the particular issue at hand. "Conservapedia" is the issue; The name.
I created this account and logged in the first, last and only previous occasion with good faith intention to participate in what might at least be a resource analogous to DKosfopedia. Instead I found much which raised questions for me. I raised those questions on the main talk page and got my answer in stark terms: this is an exclusively christian project, and if I didn't like it, I could start my own.
That being the case, if this site isn't about conservativism at all, change your name, please.

16:47, 23 February 2008 (EST)

Young Earth Creationist

I would have to say YEC. Most of the science articles have a YEC POV at the bottom. If Conservapedia was representing the conservative POV then you would not see YEC POVS for everything without seeing some other conservative POV. (comment from User:Tims --Aulis Eskola 18:35, 10 May 2007 (EDT))

This just all goes back to the problem of using terms like conservative and liberal as blanket terms. Obviously not all conservatives are YEC, but the adminstration of this site appears to believe the word conservative encompasses certain beliefs and there is no grey areas. And I imagine in doing so they will alienate a good chunk of the population who consider themselves conservative.
But the fact of the matter is, it's their site, they can call it what they want and run it how they want. People can get on here and post all they want about how it's not fair and balanced, how it is irresponsible, etc, but it isn't going to make a lick of difference for how this site is managed no matter how valid the complaints are. The only real way to effect any kind of change on a site like this is if you are conservative, but bothered by the rampant YEC articles, or whatever, is to just state how this doesn't match your personal ideologies and and walk away. I believe the atmosphere is too unstable to actually convert someone, and the end result will be like-minded people running a wiki for like-minded folks, and there is nothing wrong with that. --Colest 16:03, 9 May 2007 (EDT)
"Day". Could the 7 "days " in which God created the earth (Genesis, English translation, ? from Hebrew, from?)

have as accurately been translated as "epoch" or "period of time"? Is the only valid translation "one revolution of the earth"? If God's "day" could be a billion years, 365 billion revolutions of the earth (and I do not see why not), all conflict with science on this point disappears. LA Times recent selection to put-down conservatives becomes moot. [User: Howard Long, conservative scientist, June 22 2007 9AM PDT

To answer your question, the answer is "no", because the Hebrew word used for "day" here means a literal, 24-hour day. DebateKid 17:17, 30 June 2007 (EDT)
What about the passage in the the Bible about (paraphrasing, because I don't know the exact verse) "a thousand years is as a day int the mind of God, and a day a thousand years"?--Freiberg 14:45, 10 August 2007 (EDT)
What about it? I think we all use metaphors sometimes. But that doesn't mean everything we say is a metaphor. The question is one of context - does the context indicate that the passage is meant to be a metaphor? Besides - it wasn't God himself saying that - it was Peter talking about God, and the passage in question was about the end of the world, not about creation (2 Peter 3:8). CobraA1 14:51, 4 December 2007 (EST)


Young Earth Creationism isn't the conservative viewpoint. It's the religious fundamentalist viewpoint. YEC contradicts every branch of science ranging from geology to astrophysics. Intranetusa 14:13, 16 March 2008 (EDT)

Try looking around the site, Intranetusa. I'm sure you'll see that evolution isn't all it's cut out to be, either. :P David Talk 10:50, 3 May 2010 (EDT)