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15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution’s truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere–except in the public imagination.
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as “intelligent design” to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a “wedge” for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God.
Here are just some of the questions. The answers and seven more questions can be found in the article.
1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.
2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest.
3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.
4. Increasingly, scientists doubt the truth of evolution.
5. The disagreements among even evolutionary biologists show how little solid science supports evolution.
6. If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.
8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.
#80 Graham….. Well, you’ve got me! Along with “normal, straightforward meanings to the words in the stories” I forgot to include “plus a shred of rational thought.” You assume that my problem lies in the fact that I haven’t read the stories, but the problem is really that I have read them. If you refuse to assume the innocence of infants and children too young to have earned a death penalty, then you illustrate one of my biggest complaints against religion — that it encourages and even insists on the complete suspension of rational thought (along with your conscience).
Suspension of reason is precisely what’s required to assign group guilt to all the men, women, children, and infants of an entire town, such as Sodom, or cities where Israelite armies conquered and slayed the entire population — often known as ethnic cleansing today. Their slaughters were superficially justified by the supposed wickedness of the indigenous peoples, people even unaware of what “laws” had earned them this death penalty imposed by the invading army. But make no mistake — it was ethnic cleansing of the “promised land.”
And your recitation of God’s conversation with Abraham over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah shows another characteristic, one that strikes at the heart of God’s omnipotence. At no time during that discussion does your god ever consider the possibility of punishing only the guilty among the people. The choice is always between destroying the entire city, or saving the entire city, and what number of righteous people would be required to sway his decision. An omniscient and omnipotent god could be more discerning with regard to whom he punishes. Otherwise, his knowledge and power to punish only the guilty is completely wasted. The concept of such Biblical group guilt completely contradicts human experience and rational thought.
Your defense of the Great Flood genocide, and god’s observations and decision-making process also contradicts rationality. The Lord saw that the “wickedness of man was great in the earth,” yet Noah and his three sons, along with their genetically diverse wives, were somehow righteous enough to be spared. Wow! What are the odds that the only eight people righteous enough to continue living would all be in the same family? Four of them were biologically related, and four of them were from other clans (and Noah’s wife having both sets of ties). Yes, the odds are positively astronomical, or irrational as the case may be. And the form of death penalty that your god chose to impose on humanity was hardly the most merciful he could have picked. An omnipotent god could have simply erased the entire population with a mere thought, yet your god felt the need to cause the suffering and panic that accompany drowning. Are drowning infants panic-free?
I find it ironic that to believe as you do, you must switch off the whole wing of your brain that makes you so special as a human being, Graham. Maybe your god doesn’t want you to be so special after all, at least not so special that you think rationally.
# 87
Why must an answer exist to the question “Why are we here?” What’s the reason for an ants existence? Man’s problem over the rest of the species on earth is that it is intelligent enough to ponder the question. The sad thing is that it makes man think it is more important than the rest of life….
#80
> A man hits his wife and she stays with him only if he
> repents by going to anger management and working on their
> marriage.
Perfect example of why the Bible should be viewed with a skeptical eye. The wife divorces the bozo and finds someone that won’t hit her. In other words, she never forgives the bastard unlike what the Bible claims she should do.
RE: Noah
What a guy. So, we’re led to believe his thought process was something like: “Wow did I screw up these man-things. Welp, like an echa-a-sketch I’ll just wipe them out. I don’t really care for them honestly so no worries. Although there is this one guy that isn’t too bad. I’ll keep him and the pets and trash the rest.”
RE: Sodom and Gomorrah
#92 kind of beat me to this point. Why the collateral “righteous” damage of killing innocents along with the guilty? We know from the Egypt story that he is presumably capable of punishing only the “wicked” so why not do it here? Why is wiping the city even an option unless he just doesn’t really care? Abraham has to haggle with the guy to keep from wiping out the righteous.
As I mentioned before, people that take the Bible literally are adverse to being shown all of what is in it. They want to pick out the items they like and ignore the rest. The Bible is a book of stories in which some of those stories use real events and people as the characters.
#30 – I am a Christian and a Creationist and I have a point:
I’d pay to see something like that…
(after reading the rest of that guy’s post, it was obvious that like any sideshow attraction, it just wasn’t true)
#92, Gary, your comment on the Great Flood of 3486 BC got me thinking. I hope you aren’t offended by where I’m going with this.
During the Great Flood of 3486 BC, all life was washed away, excepting Noah Arcbuilder and Sons. This included all the women with child. To waste the lives of all those fetuses, so innocent, so fresh, so loving, and so alive must be a shame. Yet, the very same groups that proclaim the Bible’s integrity the loudest, also decry the abortion of a fetus. Why would their god destroy those who are so pure they have yet to draw a breath not have set an example for modern society. If god can destroy fetuses because HE doesn’t want them to survive, it certainly sounds like he condones the practice.
To slowly suffocate while your host mother drowns must be truly horrible. If god is an abortionist though, it must be OK.
Last word … though I question if you have actually read anything I’ve written so far.
Flat world – Psalm 103.12 – East vs. West. Flat Earth makes no sense in this case.
Historical evidence – apparently scientists who look at bones in the ground are better evidence than the words of people who were actually there.
Lot – I never said he was perfect.
Man who hits his wife – I hope you never do anything wrong … you’ll lose your family. Apparently no one can ever change.
Noah – I don’t even think you understand the whole genetic problem. Apparently a man, his wife, their sons and daughters-in-law can’t believe and follow the same things because …?
Infants killed – One fundamental thing you overlook: children go to heaven. If they die, they miss out on a lot of problems and go straight to the good part.
Why are we here? – To paraphrase a previous post, it’s amazing the squirming you atheists, or anti-atheists, heathens, whatever you people call yourselves, do when creationists actually give you a question you can’t answer. “I’ve lost brain cells just reading that question.” It seems like you should stop reading. You need all the brain cells you have.
So now I’m turning off part of my brain … the part that listens to philosophical bull which never answers anything I say but expects everything from their answers. If you think less of a person for that, well, considering your posts, I don’t really see how that is possible. Apparently Christians are: anti-science, anti-logic, anti-humanitarian, etc. Considering the way you’ve been unable to logically (remember, I’m a mathematician) argue anything which I have been unable to give an answer, I definitely pray the you will have a perfect life. Anything less and your life will probably fall apart. It won’t be God punishing you, it will be you.
If I forgot to mention your argument, I didn’t think it logical enough to require an answer, or I forgot. It’s late and I’m going to bed. Have fun, flamers taking what I say out of context.
#96 Mr. Fusion, no, I’m not terribly offended. But the thing that does offend me most about abortion (besides the imposition by the state of a pre-determined decision) is the persistent denial by religious factions of the same logical incongruity that you bring to the fore. As you point out, those factions declare this very form and state of life that their god included in his own group massacres to be unalterably protected by that same god, and all those who violate that protection are wicked, except of course their god who by definition alone is “good.” Again, they disengage their conscience when contemplating their own god, so that his acts of evil cannot be deemed as such.
Sometimes Dramamine can relieve the dizziness caused by attempting to step inside the religious viewpoint 😉
Graham #97 writes “Infants killed – One fundamental thing you overlook: children go to heaven. If they die, they miss out on a lot of problems and go straight to the good part.”
Then killing infants and young children isn’t really the act of evil that I thought it was? They go straight to heaven? The next logical step in that line of reasoning is that the greatest sacrifice a person can make is to kill a child. The murderer may doom himself to an eternity in hell, but the child will gloriously go straight to heaven. I’ve seen stories of people in the news who have made that very sacrifice. I guess I simply didn’t understand that they should be admired for their selflessness. We really should change our laws immediately!
P.S. You failed to address the inhumane method he used to kill these innocent infants and children in the flood. Apparently he didn’t mind causing them to panic and suffer on the beginning of their trip to heaven.
Hey Graham, you nailed it. Whats wrong with all religions is they leave no bones, so those crazy scientist have nothing to look at, unlike you folks who can read the words of people who were really there, only slightly modified by a few thousand years of being passed from story teller to story teller and converted to a couple dozen different beliefs.
Graham – firstly, respect is due for defending your beliefs in a mostly calm and considered way. If more people would do that on both sides then this would be a lot more civil.
However you have failed to answer the broad general questions about the horror and cruelty portrayed as the hand of God in the bible, merely showing other moments where god was kind and loving.
All that does is make god look dangerously unstable, and possibly psychopathic.
You also seem unable to frame questions and answers from the point of view that there is no god – infants dying and going straight to heaven isn’t a good thing if a) there is no heaven, so they are just dead and b) those things were just done in gods name, not actually commanded by god (see The Crusades).
Yes I know you believe there is a god, I actually respect that a lot, I wish I could hang up logic and reason in that way to believe in an afterlife. It would be a huge comfort I’d imagine. However the number of logical fallacies you use to try and prove the bible as true is frightening.
Some points about the bible:
1) It is not complete, and never will be. Many of the books that were voted out or in at various times have been lost. Not to mention there is no satisfactory explaination from biblical literalists as to why a book of “gods word” can be holy one time and rubbish the next.
2) It is not fact. Pi is not 3, bats are not birds, and those are just two of the famous examples.
3) It is not consistent. The bible contradicts itself many times. This makes sense when it is seen as a historic work of recorded oral history, but not when viewed as an infallible word of god.
4) It is not the basis of modern law or morality. The basic moral laws in the bible have been around before it, and parallel to it, in many societies and belief systems: like not killing, not cheating, generally being nice. Modern laws reflect social consensus, not religious fervor. When they do you have a theocracy like Iran.
5)It is not the literal word of god. It was written, edited, and distributed by man. Not to mention mistranslated a few times. What version of the bible do you read? KJV? NWE? ULE? NTE? There are many more, and thats just the english translations. How can a literal word have versions?
I have no problem with religion, it is unquestioning lack of reason and the extremists that come from the combination of that and religion that bug me.
And a note to Uncle Dave, who apparently made the decision this morning to feed this post through the DU homepage loop a second time…..
Both kudos and curses to you, Dave. As interesting as these discussions often get, and as excellent an opportunity as they present for the sharpening of our logic, it was really time for me to take an extended break. I couldn’t quite start today, though, as I saw poor Graham flailing about in the stormy seas of heretical dissent. I couldn’t resist throwing him an anchor.
Oops, was that supposed to be a life preserver? 😉
The headline said “Scientists disprove…”, but all I see is John Rennie, some hack for the magazine. Who’s lying here?
Gary, John doesn’t allow us to repost stories to the top — on such matters he’s like Bush: he’s The Decider. I’ll pass on the curses, but will shamelessly take the kudos, so, as Elvis would say, Thank you. Thank you very much.
Graham,
“As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103.12
On a spherical earth there is no “polar” east and west, this citation only makes sense if the earth is seen as flat having a far eastern & western endpoint. Now, if the citation said North from South, you might have been able to make some point, by inferencing the poles, but even then…
Historical record. Oral tradition is certainly one valid approach of verifying a historical fact, certainly a good starting place. However, Creationists and ID want to play in the field of science, so an independent historical record is part of the game. The lack of a complete historical record is one of your main claims against evolution, right? So, where’s the independent historical record to a biblical genesis of any kind? That’s my point. There isn’t one.
Please, stop implying murder is okay or justified. There are only a handful of cases where it is justified and you’ve not touched on any of them. Saying God does a “make good” by putting babies in heaven, is distressing, at best.
#103 Timbo, interestingly, your two-word quote (“Scientists disprove…”) supposedly excerpted from Uncle Dave’s headline is 50% erroneous, not including your ellipsis in that calculation. Additionally, I would point out that the article by Rennie is an obvious compilation summarizing the work of many scientists, with appropriate citations and references to additional material.
Are you purposely baiting us by giving us your impression of an obtuse person? I’ll simply answer your question (“Who’s lying here?”) with another question: Is anyone lying?
Wow, I’ve been on the sidelines way too long in this. I didn’t realize this was still going on.
I would like to point out in response to one really offensive comment about morals/conscience from Graham in post #72. The comment was:
If you believe there is no God and therefore no law for which to follow, what possibly could a conscience be based upon?
This is one of the most offensive comments I’ve seen. I see or hear some version of it pretty frequently too. So, let me try to make a few points about this.
1) There is a morals section of the brain. It evolved for whatever reasons it did. Presumably, morals helped our survival as a social species in some way. I can think of many ways in which this might work. The important bit though, taken from The Naked Brain (an excellent book IMHO) is that this section of the brain has even been located.
2) Morals, across every culture studied in the particular way that involves hypothetical examples that sound like “if a trolley is coming down the tracks and about to kill 5 people, would you throw the switch on the tracks causing it to take another track where it would only kill 1 person?” There are many other questions designed to test very specific conditions of morals. Interestingly, across every culture tested, the answers come up the same, regardless of religion, if any, of the subjects.
3) So, humans have innate morals, whether they’ve read your book or not. And the morals are similar across many cultures. Therefore, morals do not come from the bible.
4) Most people who claim to believe the bible today still do not actually stone to death: homosexuals, rape victims, people who mix cotton and wool, people who work on the sabbath, etc. Therefore, even the religious among us are applying morals and todays norms in the way they pick and choose the sections of the bible to believe, with the exception of fundamentalists of course. Fundamentalists often do believe the bible so strongly that it clouds their morals to the point of murder.
So, please do not assume that atheists, agnostics, and even antitheists are amoral. In fact, I have even seen reports showing a positive correlation between religiosity of states and countries to increased incidence of violent crime.
So, perhaps, just perhaps, the bible creates actively bad morals. Perhaps there is a reason that there is a growing number of antitheists, especially very high profile ones that make the news and bestseller lists.
#107 Misanthropic Scott, I’ve seen you make one of the points contained in your item #4 before, and I think it’s an especially important one in a couple of respects, regarding the “pick and choose” phenomenon. Firstly, I agree that it does reinforce the notion that the true source of moral rules is often within oneself even in the religious community, as believers choose the religious rules to embrace and which ones to reject (with appropriately tortured reasoning). But secondly, it also allows those fundamentalist fanatics who choose to embrace the more violent interpretations of religious code and punishments, based on their own innate impulses, to do so under the presumed auspices of the Almighty, with the corresponding moral certainty that any man who opposes them is really opposing God himself.
I think the most dangerous aspect of religion has always been the moral certainty believers derive from divine approval. When you have the knowledge and satisfaction that God is on your side, any force that opposes you is surely inspired by Satan, and must be overcome at all cost.
On the other hand, I miss those great Christmas pageants we used to have in church when I was a kid. Oh, to be innocent again… (deep sigh)
Discussion got OT for a while there. Referring to the early articles, I realized that the word “theory” isn’t well understood.
I like and apply Poppers ideas on theories, proof and true/false. To summarize:
1. A theory is a model – based on observations – that attempts to predict future observations.
2. A theory can never be proven to absolutely correct – it can only be disproved.
3. A valid theory must be possible to disprove/falsify. Otherwise it’s mere speculation or belief.
4. A strong (good) theory is characterized by a high success rate in predicting future observations, but more importantly by being resistant to attempts at falsification. In fact, when formulating a new theory one should also suggest at least one experiment or observation that could potentially falsify it.
Strict adherence to the “scientific method” usually requires acceptance of Poppers ideas (they have been modified somewhat since his death).
Based on these definitions the theory of evolution is a valid theory, and a strong one. It has been subtly modified over time as new evidence has appeared contradicting certain aspects, and grown stronger as a result. Is it absolutely true? No, of course not.
ID & Creationism on the other hand does not predict anything as far as I know, but instead attempts to falsify evolution. By the above definitions it thus does not deserve to be called a theory at all. Even so, if it was a theory – can it be falsified? If not then again it’s mere speculation and/or belief.
Religion is for the individual…
To teach him the basics of GETTING ALONG with each other.
government is for the interaction of MORE then 1 person.
God, has taken his time to TEACH us what is needed. The problem comes when we Leave to explore the world on our own, and forget the basics. What our fathers TRIEd to teach us, and learn on our OWN.
If you dont Learn from the past, you will RELIVE it.
Gary,
Responding to your comment that somehow religion is dangerous because if offers a moral certainty and breed fanaticism (if I read you correctly) .
I think fanatics are fanatics and they grab what’s handy. Hence, we have Nazis, and Stalinists, who were easily among the worst mass murderers in the world. The Hutu massacres & Bosnia were based on tribalism/nationalism.
I think this murderous fanaticism is an illness that it is part of the human condition. Eliminate all religions tomorrow and these guys would still find something to justify whatever purification they think they need to see. The central problem is when these guys get going, they’re hard to stop.
BTW, thanks to Scott for his lovely post on what ID would look like if there really was ID, post #62.
#111 Rob, indeed, you’re right (at least in the sense that I agree), and I don’t mean to suggest that religion is necessarily at the root of the violent impulses that these people display. The thrust of my point was that when the violence is reinforced by their interpretation of the religious code (as it nearly always can be), then the moral certainty they derive from religion helps inspire them to withstand any assault on their principles, for such is tantamount to an attack on God.
I’ve seen arguments both ways on Hitler’s alleged private religious beliefs, but the fact is that his writings and speeches were peppered with references to the Almighty Creator, Heaven, and other images drawn straight from the Bible. In Mein Kampf, he described Jews as being inwardly alien to “true Christianity.” Whether or not one would consider Hitler sincere in his religious beliefs, it is clear that he used religion as a tool to help convince Germans that they were acting in God’s will and fulfilling a divine destiny. Obviously, he didn’t act in any way that I would consider Christian, but many people in history have claimed to be Christians while doing great evil, and we can never be certain that they didn’t actually believe they were acting on behalf of Christ. Modern-day Christians always disavow evil historical actions with the standard disclaimer that the perpetrators weren’t “true Christians,” such as the Crusaders, and the Spanish inquisitors.
Moral certainty can be a scary thing, but you’re certainly correct that people can do great evil even without it. But I do think that religion offers an additional source of inspiration, especially when recruiting new followers to their cause, as we see currently in the Middle East. In a sense, there’s a similarity to Hitler’s use of religion to attract followers to his cause.
By the way, I’ve enjoyed some of your other comments on this topic.
I just want to point out that I have demonstrated such remarkable restraint by not littering this thread with my insightful comments, despite the fact that some of the born again posters are in such rich need of a Biblical thrashing.
Thank you Misanthropic Scott, Gary Marks, and others, for picking up the slack. I couldn’t have sat this one out without you 🙂
I’m sorry, OhForTheLoveOf, I didn’t realize your were exhibiting self-restraint… I thought for sure that someone had shackled you and lost the key 😉
I noticed that none of you godless evolutionists answered BubbaRay (except to snipe at his spelling.)
Doesn’t the theory of evolution fundamentally conflict with the third law of thermodynamics?
When the universe is “banging” and evolving it violates our fundamental understanding of physics — it should be cooling and decaying.
And don’t flame me! I believe in evolution but I also recognize a fair question when I hear it.
PS: Isn’t that photo of the chimp and the typewriter a reference to the Infinite Monkey theory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
It’s an interesting theory which I’ve heard used for and against evolution.
You godless evolutionists have any answer for that?
The third law of thermodynamics? Did I miss evidence that the universe is approaching absolute zero? I suppose I don’t understand your question.
115
Thermodynamics is not concerned with the detailed description of a system but deals only with the relationship between initial and final states of a given system. Themodynamic calculations don’t rule out (or in) and intelligent creator – it just has no bearing on the calculation. Entropy happens, get over it.
The monkey theory? Oh come on! Can you say circular argument? Can you say argument circular?
Both of them are red herring arguments since they have nothing to with the evolution debate.
113, OFTLO,
I second your sentiment. I too was so awed by the arguments presented by several posters, I felt no need to weigh in. Besides, these fine people made much better points then I would have.
Thank you all, gentlemen. I tip my hat to you in admiration.
Greg Allen – The third law “As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant.” doesn’t apply. You probably meant the second law, as that’s the usual ID/Creationist argument:
“There is no process that, operating in a cycle, produces no other effect than the subtraction of a positive amount of heat from a reservoir and the production of an equal amount of work.”
The second law is only applicable to macroscopic systems. The second law is actually a statement about the probable behavior of an isolated system. The earth, hell, the solar system, the galaxy, isn’t an isolated system.
So… answered. The Infinite monkey theorem has nothing to do with either sides argument. Anthropomorphic principles have a lot to do with religion in general and ID in particular however.
115,
You are correct with one important exception. The Earth is not a closed energy system. Anyone who has spent time outdoors knows the sun* throws a massive amount of energy on us constantly, enough energy to power the miraculous dynamic engine that is nature. I agree that God created life, where I diverge with creationist ID people is the mechanism used to create us.
True ID would start at the Big Bang, the best evidence of divine intervention there is. The creation of a universe where life can exist is the real miracle. The affinity of organic systems to form complex relationships is another, and all one needs to get from there to here. All interpretations of what happened in the middle must address all evidence available to be credible.
*As a local temperature anomaly in space, our sun will also burn down and out eventually, but we can tackle that a few billion years from now if you’re panicky.