Free-will is a more irrational belief than young Earth Creationism

I find Con's arguments to be laughable, and basically delusional. Here we have someone arguing that YEC is irrational because naturalism and determinism is true, but free-will is rational because naturalism and determinism are false, LOL! Anyone else see the issue with that reasoning? There are many highly compelling lines of evidence that make it almost impossible for the Earth to have been created "between 5700 and 10000 years ago". My opponent already seems to concede this, however, so it isn't really worth spending too much time on this. Basically, several lines of evidence, such as radiometric dating [1], amino acid dating [2], noticing the massive amounts of time it would have taken for erosion to create natural features such as the Grand Canyon [3], observing ice layering in glaciers [4], and calculating how incredibly long it would have taken for Continental Drift to have brought the continents to where they currently are [5]. Pro seems to be arguing that all of these refutations of YEC are all based in the supposedly fallacious assumption that the measured factors (e.g. radioactive decay, speed of continental drift, and ice formation patterns) have remained constant over billions of years. However, it really isn't unreasonable at all to assume so-- theoretically, it makes very little sense that they would fluctuate significantly, and we have found no signs of such fluctuations having occurred historically; thus, it is really Pro's burden to demonstrate why we should doubt that such factors are constant. And besides all the scientific evidence against it, let's not forget that the base assumption of YEC-- that God exists -- is wholly unsubstantiated. Belief in YEC is completely and utterly irrational; the only way for Pro to successfully affirm the resolution is prove that free will is even *more* irrational than YEC, which practically requires showing that it is logically impossible. Well I guess everyone needs a laugh. Here Con believes that it is reasonable to believe in dating techniques that rely on untested assumptions, but it is not reasonable to believe that free-will is non-existent (which relies on tested assumptions)? If you believe that determinism applies to something as extremely small as a collection of atoms for billions of years, then why would you think that determinism wouldn't apply to the brain for just the lifespan of a human (around 120 years max)? Recently radiometric dating has come under attack from physicists at Stanford and Purdue University, who argue that the decay rates vary with the Sun's rotation - http://phys.org... Recently, soft tissue has been discovered in dinosaur fossils dated to at least 68 million years old or earlier, this is real and has been published in peer-reviewed journals. It was previously thought that if the fossils really were from 68 millions years ago soft tissue would not survive, this brings into question the accuracy of radiometric dating (Schweitzer,Mary H. et al. "Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science. Vol. 307. 3/25/2005.) In short, since the dating techniques used to refute YEC rely on many untested and untestable assumptions, it is much weaker than the evidence refuting free-will (which relies on things that we directly observe here and now). "What is physical matter, the brain, composed of? Grey tissue. Neuron firing. Stimulation of C-fibers. Shifting in voltage. Chemicals releasing. But what is "mind"? The self. Sensations. What something feels like. Beliefs. Desires. Thoughts.... Since we are justified in making the inference that a rabbit and a pouch of chew are not the same thing, we are also justified in making the inference that neural patterns and what I feel... are different things. We can understand everything there is to know about neuron firing patterns, but this won't tell us what something actually smells like to that person. So if the C-fiber stimulation and the pain I feel when I step on a lego were the exact same thing then they wouldn't be such completely dissimilar things. But you could scan my brain however many times you like, identify neurons, but you will never 'feel' my pain. In other words, mind is inherently first-person, while matter is inherently third-person. They"re completely dissimilar. My opponent isn't comparing apples to oranges. He"s saying apples just are oranges." Well this is nonsense. Not knowing what the "mind" is (in a vague sense) isn't evidence that free-will exists Not knowing what the "mind" is (in a vague sense) doesn't negate the evidence telling us that free-will is non-existent Not knowing what the "mind" is (in a vague sense) doesn't show anything. So you're not saying anything. Your quotation doesn't even indicate that it could be possible that free-will COULD exist, let alone show that free-will does exist. We KNOW with 100% certainty that chemical reactions alter consciousness, we know this from direct observation (drugs like alcohol, cocaine, caffeine, etc...change consciousness), it's not speculation, we KNOW it to be true. We can be much more certain that chemical reactions alter consciousness than we can be that YEC is wrong! And since consciousness has not been shown to be governed by deterministic processes, free will can still exist. If consciousness is something special and different then this would mean that something is wrong with all of modern science, but evolution relies on assuming that determinism is true for billions of years, so if you believe that something is wrong with all modern science why would you think that YEC is irrational? It seems highly implausible that consciousness is merely a deterministic function of the brain; it is really Pro's burden of proof to show us that consciousness can actually be explained in materialistic terms. Wrong, it is my job to show it is more rational to believe that free-will is non-existent than YEC. I don't have to show that free-will really doesn't exist, just that it would be more irrational to believe that it does than to believe YEC. I've already shown the evidence, I hate repeating myself: - Libet's experiment, shows that decisions are first made in the unconscious, and that humans merely only feel as if they chose, in 2008 Libet's experiment was replicated with up to 10 seconds - Reaction Time (RT) experiments, shows the free-will perception to come after an action, not before. The order is stimulus-response-perception not stimulus-perception-response (which would be expected if free-will existed). The free-will perception comes at the very end in the RT experiments. - Transcranial Magnetic Stimuli (TMS) Experiments, In these experiments magnetic stimulation was shown to bias the choice of finger movements, even when the subjects consciously felt that they chose the decision to move their finger. The TMS affected the physical brain much in the same way that a TMS would effect electrical devices. - Drugs and chemical reactions altering consciousness - Everything in every field of science Another issue, is that non-determinism doesn't actually support free-will, no model in science supports free-will. - Determinism would be like saying "someone who has an uncontrollable predictable brain disorder, but feels as if they're in control has free-will" - Non-determinism would be like saying "someone who has an uncontrollable unpredictable brain disorder, but feels as if they're in control has free-will" Non-determinism by itself doesn't tell us that human beings can actually control anything, so it doesn't support free-will either! 2) Pro insists that evolution hinges on determinism holding true, but never actually explains why. I did explain why, I guess you just don't understand science. The dating techniques rely on and assume that determinism is true, you can't measure time accurately without assuming that determinism is true. That's the reason, what's so hard to understand about it? Moreover, the brain is not necessarily governed by determinism, due to the indeterministic laws of quantum physics, which leaves us more than enough room to reasonably believe in free will. Uh oh....I thought you were using determinism to refute YEC? Now you're saying determinism is false, therefore free-will exists!!! If you find it rational to believe that naturalism and determinism are false, then why would you think that YEC is irrational? Conclusion: - Con is plain delusional, and uses deterministic dating techniques to refute YEC, but then claims that determinism is false so it's reasonable to believe in free-will, lol - Con hasn't provide any evidence that free-will COULD even exist, yet claims it's likely - Con finds it "reasonable" to rely on many untested assumptions that refute YEC, but not reasonable to believe that free-will is non-existent based on the concrete direct evidence! - Con ignores the fact that neurons are MUCH larger than atoms - Everything in EVERY field of science tells us that free-will is non-existent - Evolution relies on and assumes that determinism is true - The scientific evidence telling us that there's no free-will is based on repeatable experiments and observations we have here and now, whereas dating techniques rely on many untested untestable assumptions - If free-will does exist, this would mean that all of modern science is fatally wrong in some way, which would most certainly have some effect on evolution - Since the scientific evidence telling us that free-will is more objective and concrete than the evidence supporting evolution, it's more irrational to believe in free-will than it is to believe evolution is false I guess I got a flawless victory with this debate!