Awesome... I wonder what Comfort and Cameron would have to say in response? I'm guessing they'll just ignore your point, think right past it. Usually when I read atheist replies to IDiocy I think "...and then they'll say 'but this and that' andsoforth", but I honestly can't think what reply a dedicated creationist would have, if they fully absorbed what you are saying. Bravo! Best and most concise refutation of creationism I've read yet.

"Why people believe weird things" looks like a book I want to get my paws on ASAP. :)

 

D-Pig: you'd probably also like "Don't Believe Everything You Think", by Thomas Kida. It's all about faulty critical thinking skills.
 

Thanks! I think what I've done is couch what David Hume said about this even before Paley posited his argument in a more modern context, so I can't take all the credit, but these ideas coalesced while I was up in Edmonton doing some work and thought I'd slap them down. We'll see what the creationists have to say. I've got one dangling on the line on my blogger.com version in a previous blog. He's pretty good at arguing, but is extremely disadvantaged by his YEC position. He's been raggin me on the discovery of proteinatious material found in T. rex fossil remains and how they can't have lasted that long. It is indeed a fantastic discovery, but fully explainable. I doubt he actually read the original paper in Science (I did) and just took the IDiot propoganda. He proves my point that the sum total of 'evidence' for creation is simply disingenuous twisted attacks on the Science, completely lacking in positive evidence for his position. The usual false dichotomy. *Yawn*
 

I see a potential escape for the IDiot here. If the universe was designed and created by some willful agent, and rocks are part of the universe, then rocks are part of the design. The biggest problem for IDiots is that if there is a designer, it's a crappy one. 99% of all of the species that have ever occupied space on this planet have gone extinct. Not a great track record.

What I really hate about the creationist position is that they are not willing to say that the universe had no creator, yet the creator had no creator, creation arbitrarily stops with the first creator. They don't see the bad logic here. You invoke creation for the universe, but not for the creator? There is no reason to suggest that creation must stop at any point in an infinite regression. The only logical proposition is if creation as a willful act didn't happen in the first place. Then there is no need for some arbitrary stopping point for when the regression ends.

I think the only way I would ever take them seriously is if they could show me God's signature (not an interpreted one, but something that is literally written where no human could ever have been that says 'Jehovah', just like da Vinci on the Mona Lisa, or 'El Barto was here').

 

Theists turn a blind eye to many things in their religion and religious text. I had a discussion with someone about slavery, and quoted the passages where the bible dictates how slaves are to be treated. She responded that that was silly, since people of that time willingly placed themselves into the slave trade when they were poor. My rebuttal was that even if I except that, there is no place in the bible that the 'bad form' of slavery is denounced, so her assertion that this applied to this more tame version of slavery was arbitrary on her part. And it is. It is the worst form of apologetics. Making excuses for something that we consider to be a heinous crime. Why do we no longer have poor houses if that seems to be okay by her? Why is ANY form of slavery internationally recognized as a crime? It is this cherry picking the items that they like and then making apologetics for those that they don't like that is chilling. On what basis do they make these decisions? It's no different with the IDiots and 'creation scientists'. The pick and choose data which supports their position and twist or simple ignore the rest or (poorly) attempt to discredit it. There's nothing of Science in that. We need to expose these people for what they are: ridiculous. We must hound them in the media, as they hound us on CNN and FOX. As Sam Harris points out, change will come about when those seeking office claiming to be the most God-fearing are exposed as silly. This is a battle, folks. If we do not want a theocracy in North America every bit as restrictive as the one in Iran, we need to speak up now.
 

On god being a crappy designer if he existed...

The universe is imperfect. Why would a perfect being create something flawed?

Think about it.  It was at first blasphemous to suppose that the planets and the sun didn't orbit in perfect circles around the EARTH. For me, this points to a general ego-centricity of mankind. Also, supposing that humans are just another branch of the animal kingdom now seems to be offensive. NOT. PERFECT. Humans are the new ape. Ape2000. But creationists seem to want to believe that we're angelic and perfect. Pain is natural in all that lives. If God exists, he must love pain.

They hold onto their delusions like a spurned lover...

 

I've only got part way into Hitchen's book (pg 33) but I've already learned a few things. That's an important criterion for me when judging a book. I've seen all of Dawkins arguments and I would be hard pressed to justify buying his next one (though I probably would). I need to learn something new. Hitchen's I think provides some much needed fresh viewpoints (something the creationists haven't provided in centuries).

I should put a link to my blogger.com version of this blog. I'm having a fun time with a YEC (and I'm getting rather snide with him, but when someone tries to tell me that Christianity is responsible for modern Science just because they happened to be Christian (at the time, who wasn't?) rather than in spite of their Christianity, I get mean). If anybody wants to wade into that quagmire, go for it. It's fun! (http://shamelesslyatheist.blogspot.com/2007/04/faith-and-science.html)

 

Vic Stenger. A good book, but I would have liked him to expand a bit more. He does give a pretty good explanation of disorder vs order and how order can come about in a universe whose total entropy must always increase.
 

<P>I saw the pathetic excuse for scientific evidence of God too. What a joke! C & C claimed that they wouldn't bring the bible into their discussion, yet they mentioned it over and over again.</P><P>Reading some of the current literature has brought me to the conclusion that "Intelligent Design" is an outright insult. To think that scientists with multiple degrees are doing DNA research, trying to recreate the environment of hydrothermal vents in the ocean, figuring out the existence of carbon-based molecules on a wet planet, etc., etc.,...

...while the IDers simply have to say, "God did it. God did it. God did it. God did it."

It's an outrage. And even more outrageous is that when scientists figure out exactly how it all happened, IDers will probably say that God orchestrated it all.

</P>
 

Yes. What exactly was the point of bringing up the Ten Commandments in their proof of the existence of God? Did they think that their argument was such a slam dunk that they could waste everybody's time preaching? I would LOVE them to try that 'have you ever lied' crap on me. I've got some dingers I'm dying to lay on them...
 

I was making a point to some co-workers about the world wide mess that has been created by religion. The middle eastern ones in particular. It was a risk given the PC climate and militancy of some believers.

I mentioned the bigoted premise that the tiny area in the ME was "the Holy Land" . Appartently the rest of the world and it's people are not worthy of the Creator's "blessing".

As much as I would like to, I cannot engage any of the big 3 religions, Jewish, Christian and Islam, in an arguement about the exisence of God. I include the Jewish religion in the light of the on going turmoil between their religious based state and the occupation of Palestinian territory.
I recognize something greater than myself. It is not another human.

At the risk of violating the rule of not speaking lest you show your foolishness, I'll comment on your points. 

Is  analogy with the bushman anymore scientific than Ray Comfort holding up the painting? It was a ficticous movie.
Humans have appealed to the unknown for tens of thousands of years before the biblical era. As  scientists have known, the modern human that we are today, has been around for a long time. We did not need the tablets from the mountain to know what kind of human conduct was  acceptable. We made it for at least 40K years before Moses, just fine.

I would say that our change to a sedantary agricultural lifestyle and the population explosion that resulted, required empire and clergy to control the subjects. But that is another story.

Humans have always been spiritual. Can you compare that with the religions of today? I'll offer no. I believe it was Jung who said that organized religion blocks any spiritual experience.

I accept evolution , and whatever science can find out about all of creation. I do not feel threatened. Tell me if I am wrong, but M. Kaku quotes Einstein as wanting to know the mind of God. We as humans cannot "know" the mystery. The more the quantum mechanics tinker in their labs the more mystery they find.

We are on our own. The universe is perfect enough for our being right now. As rationalists I see you as allies actually. The irrational overpopulation, overconsumption of resources, endless wars for religious domination, lack of respect for other species are just a few issues the I am sure we can agree on. If you see the Earth as sacred or merely as a home that you would like to keep clean and healthy, it does not matter to me.  There isn't another place to go, we evoloved for here, it is our home. You are still a hunter-gatherer. Maybe in a few  thousand years the next mutation will let us travel in the universe.

Just some thoughts


















 























     
 

Yes, one could say that my Bushman example was less than true. Does this sort of thing have a real world example? Yes, indeed there is. The Bushman in The Gods Must Be Crazy was inspired by the so-called Cargo Cults. No author of fiction could have come up with something as bizarre as this. From the Wikipedia:

"An isolated society's first contact with the outside world can be a shock - often the natives will first assume that the newcomers are spiritual beings of some kind who possess divine powers. With time, however, it will inevitably become apparent that the outsiders are mortal and that their power comes from their equipment (or cargo). Cargo cults tend to appear among people that covet this 'magical' equipment, but are unable to attain it easily through trade. Given their relative isolation, the cult participants generally have little knowledge of modern manufacturing and are liable to be skeptical of Western explanations. Instead, symbols they associate with Christianity and modern Western society tend to be incorporated into their rituals as magical artefacts. Across cultural differences and large geographic areas, there have been instances of the movements independently organizing.

Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices and the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with twigs for rifles and military-style insignia and "USA" painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting cargo. The cult members built these items and 'facilities' in the belief that the structures would attract cargo. This perception has reportedly been reinforced by the occasional success of an 'airport' to attract military transport aircraft full of cargo."

A friend of mine once made the observation that I was not spiritual. I thanked her. I've always equated spirituality with flakiness. My personal definition of spirituality, though, is pretty narrow, encompassing only beliefs lacking supporting data. I think MC Hawking said it best: "Crystal-wearing freaks in need of a smack." The problem with spirituality is that can be dangerous. A case in point is the current popularity of herbal remedies. Glucosamine, a mild example, shows no effects on joint stiffness in double-blinded studies (which is the only way to determine if it works). Anecdotal testimonies can give medicine a start in finding new natural drugs, but are worthless in determining efficacy. But this kind of thing happens with much more dangerous products.

Einstein did indeed say that he wanted to 'know God's thoughts, the rest are details', but you should know that he most definitely did not believe in a personal god (he was a pantheist, not a theist):

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly."

When Einstein spoke of God, he was referring to a rather nebulous version of a universal consciousness, which is nowhere near the Abrahamic version. I think he had more in common with deists.

It does trouble me that you say "The universe is perfect enough for our being right now." That sounds like the anthropic principle fallacy. If life had come before the universe, then it would have to be considered that the universe is perfectly balanced to the development of life. But this is, of course, impossible. It is life that is suited to the universe it finds itself in.

Cheers!

 

<P>What we have here is a pathway of confusion provided by conscious minds to prevent self understanding so that debating issues between reality and images of reality will allow thopse whom wish to control thoughts, can control the directions thinkers travel.</P><P>The only thing that should have been used, is the explanation as to what created the concept of god by any name or names.</P><P>The knowledge to understand is given to anything that exists but it takes a conscious reflection of that knowledge to understand itself. Learning to define what is viewed will not give the definer understanding until they accept the fact consciousness is just a reflected image of physical being that possesses that knowledge.</P><P>Thus God made man in his own image. </P><P>Next all things are a total sums of all its parts. The brain is not the mind to the body, DNA is the knowledge of the total sums of all the generations that produced the body that provides the conscious state of mind.</P>
 

I'm sorry, but this is complete drivel. I mean, completely meaningless. I couldn't understand one sentence, and I mean that in all seriousness.
 

Sounds like a Chopra disciple to me... :)
 

I think this is an example of 'speaking in tongues'...
 

You do realize that just cause something proves it, it does not disprove it either? Besides how can science be the end all when there is so much we still don't understand? The fact that we don't know it all, hell the fact we don't even understand all we know, is proof enough to me that it did not just happen. Besides lets just look at one atheist theroy shall we? The Big Bang, that is the most popular one I know of. But from what we know it cannot be true. Energy is never used or destroyed, it is simply transforded. I changes forms. So how then did the big bang happen? If all is one mass and full of potential energy, how did it transfer? I could not have just happened, something had to do it, and that sometning would not have been part of the single mass.
 

Ah, yes. The fallible Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy and the equally flawed First Cause arguments. I'm surprised you didn't try the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument as well. I'll let Stephen Hawking do the talking here. From "A Brief History of Time":

"There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle parts. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." 

style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" color=#333333>Thus the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy has never been violated. QED.

Also, there are a number of processes which are known to occur not requiring a cause. Typically, these processes (such as the formation and annhilation of virtual particles) occur in the quantum realm. The universe was extremely small prior to the initial expansion and was thus also under quantum rules. Hence no first cause was required.

Science has never made the claim that it has all the answers (read what I wrote in the blog). I leave that claim to religion. There is a problem with the logic that Science must disprove the existence of God. It's ridiculous. It is not up to the atheist to show the theist that there is no God. This is impossible. But the null hypothesis here is not that there is a god, but that there is no god. It is up to the theist, who makes a positive assertion that such a being exists, to provide positive evidence FOR the position that a deity exists. Theists often hide behind the 'Well, you can't prove that God doesn't exist.' It's bad logic because it is up to the theist to make the case.

As to how the Big Bang began, we do not know. But to then run to the supernatural as if it is the only option is to fall into the false dichotomy trap. To jump to the conclusion that the supernatural is responsible is irresponsible and not at all impressive.

I see this all the time. The DI IDiots always say that because Evolution can't explain this, this and this (generally, however, the problems that the IDiots present had long since been solved, but that has never stopped morons like Behe from repeating themselves), then our ID must be true. Poppycock. Again, the false dichotomy. The DI has never presented one shred of evidence FOR ID. Just disingenuous attacks against ToE. Not just unimpressive, but contemptable, and I do not pull any punches with those IDiots.

 

I should expound on this, because there is something that truly bothers me when laypeople attempt to attack some of the most extensively tested theories in Science. I have no problems when people don't understand a concept and ask questions. Hell, not only do I applaud that, I believe that this is mandatory. It's how we educate ourselves, learn about the world around us.

But when someone takes that lack of understanding and converts it into a refutation, that is contemptable. The Law of Mass/Energy Conservation, Second Law of Thermodynamics and First Cause arguments, all made by people simply parroting what their fundamentalist preachers, not exactly experts in Science to begin with, tell them. If knowledge is power, these people couldn't outpace a gerbil in a wheel.

Do you really think that people, smarter than either you or I, that have spent their whole lives collecting data, creating mathematical models, testing those models against the data, refining their hypotheses to the point where they become Theory, would never have thought of something that simple? Just because you learned a little bit about Science in some magazine that you all of a sudden see the fatal flaw that thousands of Physicists missed? And theists call atheists arrogant!

I challenge you to EDUCATE YOURSELF on these subjects! And not that 'christian science' propoganda, either.

 

Well put! As a man of science (of sorts) I also find it offensive and arrogant for people who have very little knowledge of science to simply write off centuries of scientific study as "flawed".
 

sorry, Just because something doesn't prove