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About LinkBacksHere's a 22 part series outlining the stupidity of creationism and debunking Ben Stein's theories. It is shown how little the creationists know about information, and what it does for civilization.
Here is the complete series back to back.
April 16th, 2008, 04:23 PM
Here's a 22 part series outlining the stupidity of creationism and debunking Ben Stein's theories. It is shown how little the creationists know about information, and what it does for civilization.
Here is the complete series back to back.
Excellent series, I've watched it all myself and I'm convinced people on this forum will find it just as enjoyable as I found it. :-D
Meh, can't be arsed to watch it. What does it take the rip out of creationists? Maybe they should do one for atheists.
i agree with SV - it's far too easy to take the piss out of creationists + it's not really very constructiveOriginally Posted by 425 Chaotic Requisition
Meh, can't be arsed to watch it. What does it take the rip out of creationists? Maybe they should do one for atheists
agreed that the main reason why creationists reject evolution is that they don't basic scientific concepts which makes them attack strawmen, but is that laughable ? i'd be inclined to pity, apart from the fact that many other scientific ignoramuses find creationist arguments compelling, and then it's definitely no longer a laughing matter
I disagree. Creationism should be look down upon, ridiculed and laughed at on every account. It should be debunked, refuted with humour and be utterly anihilated whenever it can. We can't end up having the public become deluded by such stupidity. We must fight! Jihad!
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It's good that people expose them for the intellectual dishonest bunch of misinformed and ignorant drones that they are. And we should support people for doing so.
Jihad eh? Allah would look kindly upon you.
except that it doesn't work - take a look at our friend jollybear, and how he resolutely refuses to acknowledge that he doesn't have a leg to stand on
this type of person is totally impervious to debunking especially when accompanied by ridicule
by all means continue to argue your corner, but attempts at irony or sarcasm will only make you look bad, and in any event the best you can hope is a stalemate - unless a miracle happens and a lifetime of indoctrination falls away in an instant
since it's totally useless to try and convince a creationist, the best you can hope for is that you prevent the floating audience from falling for the creationist argument - and that is better achieved by staying away from ridicule
Why do people laugh at creationists?
Because they are funny.
They are like people who deny electricity and sit in dark houses.
It's because of the funny hats and big shoes.Why do people laugh at creationists?
And big red noses
Either from
A) Grizzling in secret because they know they got it wrong.
or
B) Because an evolutionist punched them on the hooter
Honk honk.....
I don't really find them funny. Frustrating, exasperating, enraging, sad, naive, etc. Few things can be as enraging as an obnoxious, arrogant, dismissive and patronizing ignoramus.
Yeah but thank God for:
.......people
they give everyone some kind of 'benchmark' to work with
Back in the day, you could hear a sea of chuckles over the notion we're descended from monkeys, and even fish, or mold. That was funny.
What are they anyway? I don't know because I don't have interest in them If I don't seem interested, I leave them alone and do no judge them. Why do you not give too hoots about them yet still judge them? You know what goes around comes around.
I spent most of last weekend with a creationist and didn’t laugh at him once. He asked the group if it was OK to say grace over the breakfast blueberry pancakes, and I grunted ambiguously as the maple syrup ran down my chin. A very minor imposition, I thought, and not worth fussing over. Besides, the pancakes were excellent and he had humped the ingredients up the mountain, and cooked them, so cut the guy some slack I thought.
The challenge came later that day, Sunday, as we snowshoed down the mountain. The group had become spread out and I was, for the first time, caught alone with a creationist. Sure enough he asked me what my spiritual beliefs are and I told him I’m an atheist. He said that’s all right, you’ll still go to heaven, but you won’t feel very comfortable there because all those who accepted Jesus would be so joyous with God and the angels, while I’d be on the outside of the party looking sadly in. S’OK I said, I’ll hang with the Hindus and bikers and Janis Joplin and old Bertie Russell, although he might have half a foot through the shiny portal, and I’ll bet we have more fun, I said. No I didn’t actually say that as I was biting my tongue trying not to laugh at the creationist, which I never did, despite extreme provocation.
I am not making this up.
That's a lot nicer than him saying you're going to burn in hell. Seriously, a Christian who believes in an all-inclusive heaven is pretty cool in my book.
isn't it rather presumptious to claim to know what the entrance requirements for heaven are ?
Yeah I agree with that.
And Socrates and co, no doubt. Perhaps that's why they say the devil has all the best tunes...
Because that is what god intended. Who are we to question the work of the lord.Why do people laugh at Creationists?
I got a big laugh out of that!
I have been so furious at the Ben Stein propaganda. The dishonesty is so sickening, it greatly increased my respect for Dawkins and inspired me to read the God Delusion. But Creationists are just eating it up. Someone at church saw it and loved it and suggested that I wouldn't find it too objectionable. I informed him just how wrong he was. This boost to Christian ignorance not only makes me spitting mad it makes me rather disheartened in regards to my expectations of the degree of sanity that I can expect from the Christian community.
I don't expect Christians to accept the theory of evolution, but taking this up as a holy cause to spread ingorance throughout the world is another matter entirely. I am thoroughly disgusted.
Anyone here read Dawkins piece on this, entitled "Lying for Jesus"?
I did. Although one can't tell the truth about anything from just reading about it, I did get a sickening preview of the tactics employed by Ben Stein et al in the 7 minute clip you provided in your other thread. So judging from what I have seen of Dawkins's through quotes provided, I am certain that he is telling the truth about how he and his associates were treated at the premier of Expelled. My initial choking distaste for creationists started with Kent Hovind however.Anyone here read Dawkins piece on this, entitled "Lying for Jesus"?
just out of interest, compare the following 2 reviews of the same film, one by the ID organisation Truth in Science : Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and the other from a UK newspaper : Ben Stein releases anti-evolutionary documentary
you'd start wondering whether they're talking about the same film - also goes to show how ID advocates tend to gloss over facts until they become unrecognisable from the real events
It is interesting to see that the British media feels as free to alter the facts as Ben Stein in their efforts to flatter their target audience.
The following poll is more accurate.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in657083.shtml
55% Creationism and no evolution
27% Theistic evolution
18% remaining must include the atheists, agnostics and those refused to choose one of these two categories.
Thus 80% of Americans may believe in God but not all of these are opposed to evolution.
Of course just the fact that 55% is a majority is scary enough, I suppose. Having made it most of the way through, "The Truth Project", which is an attempt to turn Chiristianity in a comprehensive ideology (yeah scary I know), it becomes clear to me how this has happened. It builds a picture of the founding of America (US) based on Christian principles and then points to the "Origin of the Species" as the turning point, after which they see a systematic attempt to dismantle these principles upon which the US was built using the public schools.
I quite agree with the significance it sees in the "Origin of the Species", but as a member of that 27% I just don't agree with this attempt to demonize it. It is indeed a tremendous challenge to the belief in God and the legitmacy of making such a belief an institution of government.
However in regards to the challenge to belief, a challenge is not a refutation by any means, and I think it is quite clear Christian belief can be reconciled with the theory of evolution. So while I do not argue with the priorities that personally chooses Christianity over evolution, I still believe that this is a choice of intellectual laziness. The scary thing is that when this laziness is the choice of the majority, it threatens to make a choice of ignorance over science, a matter of public policy.
However the second challenge to the idea that belief in God should be a principle of government is great deal more problematic. And I think this may be the real dillemna that accounts for this frightening 55%. On the one hand, it is hard to see how we can be consistent in supporting a freedom of religion if it nevertheless going to endorse particular answers to religious questions, including theism versus atheism. On the other hand, it seems pretty clear that one of the founding principles upon which the American idea of freedom is based is the idea that the rights of man are given by God not the State and that the State is subject to and answerable to a higher power.
It is all very well and good to argue, as I have on numerous occasions, that personal morality is not dependent on a belief in God, but it is quite another to say that we have a standard of moral and ethical behavior with sufficient authority that the State can be held accountable to it. I think that this is a challenge to the 45% in America that would defend rationality and science against willful ignorance, that we answer the question, "if not God and the Bible, then what?" In other words, it is not enough to say that it is possible to have moral and ethical behavior without God, we must be able to say what that moral and ethical behavior is with sufficient authority to be able to hold government accountable to it.
Ultimately I believe the authority of such things is found in a consensus of opinion. In the founding of this country the consensus was Christian and "God and Bible" did provide that standard to which the State could be held accountable. Unless a new consensus can be found in this now dangerously divided country that can beat out this 55%, I fear the American experiment may be on its last legs. I don't believe that this is as impossible as it sounds. For I think it quite likely that a large portion of this 55% simply sees no alternative, so I think that if some sort of alternative is put forward, there may be defections. Surely reason is as powerful a force of influence as the current majority, if it is reasonable.
Humanism might be considered such an alternative, but it doesn't appear to have done it for the American people and it therefore behooves us to figure out why. Too much rejection of relgion as a legitimate answer for the individual is certainly a big part of it, and without that you have at least 82% of America that is going to be opposed to this as a threat to their own personal choices. But it even has problems in the liberal sector for it seems like a form of Speciesism and this points to a more fundamental problem with humanism. If it is the dignity and worth of the human being that is the foundation of ethics then what defines the human being? Even the Christian idea of of the worth of man as a child of God is extendable beyond the species to seeing value in all of the natural world as a creation and work of God.
The atheists on this forum have made it clear that they are defined only by a rejection and not by any positive belief. But this represents only a void when it comes to dealing with philosophy of government, which is as useless and irrational as the anarchist. We need something a little more like a positive philosophical affirmation. But then such alternatives are only the first step because it is going to take some thing that transcends the divide between the atheist and the Christian before we will have something that will gain the support of a majority of the American people.
If you want a suggestion from me about where to begin, I would look to the nature and character of living things which rather than being designed are participants in their own creation. This upholds self-dermination as a primal ethos of what it means to be alive. This self-determination is not autonomous, however, but in relationship to its environment from which it learns as a basis for its own development. But a big part of this relationship is the process of perception wherein lies a large part of our self-determination because it is through this that we choose how we are affected by our environment.
In this basic circumstance, we must recognize that some people see God as part of this environment and some people do not. Thus in upholding the the basic right of life to self-determination we must uphold the right to make such choices of how they perceive their environment. So even if we cannot support their idea that it is only in subjection to their particular idea of this God which they believe in, that the State is given its authority, we can recognize that is only if the State upholds and defends this kind of self-determination, that it can be said to be a force for life rather than death.
I love this guy already..
Hello everyone!
Coming from a creationist background myself, all the ridicule and anger shown against any theory put forward by a creationist just led me to defend creationism all the more steadfastly. I really do not think laughing, ridicule, or anger is the best way to approach the misinformation being taught among the creationist crowds.
I now find evolution to be the best explanation to the origins of species and the diversity of species.
It did not take being ridiculed or laughed at, which only fueled my beliefs in creationism since I then began to think I was onto something the rest of the world was trying to suppress and keep hidden.
It took personal research and discovery before I finally could no longer look at the evidence placed before my very eyes, and ignore the truth.
I understand how when an evolutionist sees what he or she thinks are the blatant lies being perpetuated by the creationist camp, it can be a very emotional anger, no one likes a liar. However, many creationists cannot even see that they are lying, and while they think they are helping spread the truth, evolutionists despair at the thought of these misinformed theories possibly poisoning the education of the world's population.
The problem is, most creationists today feel as though all species had to have appeared simultaneously to give themselves proof of the existence of God. And, fueled by faked "evidence" from "scientists" trying to make a name for themselves by forging more monumental proof of evolution (this is much more harmful than anything creationists have done to impede the acceptance of evolution among the majority of people.) They are ever more zealous.
While believing in evolution does not necessarily have to disprove a supreme being, Christians believing in the biblical creation as the only possible explanation gives them a false sense of comfort that the way they worship, and the god they worship, is REAL. And the way others worship and the god or gods they worship are FAKE.
Without this belief that THEIR way of worship is the right way and everyone else is doing it wrong, they would have to question their own religion the way they doubt and question the validity of other religions. People have a hard time admitting they are wrong whether or not they are atheist, deist, humanist, christian, Jew, Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever.
Once I discovered for myself that I could still believe in a supreme being, a Creator who uses all the laws of science to bring about our reality, including evolution, the way people worship and the name they give their creator no longer mattered to me. (I have strong personal convictions that God exists, which explanations are better suited for another topic)
Religion has undergone its own evolution, and now as the world becomes smaller due to technological advances in communication, we will witness a sort of 'natural selection' among the world religions that can go through many different transitions. It can either be as destructive as transplanting a species from its normal region to a region it has never been before, disrupting the checks and balances of entire ecosystems, or it can adapt less violently and "inter-breed" into something new and robust.
Anyway, I have veered off topic a bit but I'm going to wrap up in saying the acceptance of evolution among the creationist crowd will be generations in the making, but as long as we abstain from ridicule laughter and piousness the truth will become accepted where once it was spat upon. ridicule begets ridicule, understanding begets acceptance.
I don't know whether "laughing" is really the correct reaction to it. Perhaps one should be afraid. With lots of concern I observe how creationist ideas make it over the Atlantic Ocean. There are even high-profile politicians (not well educated, just pretending) here in Germany, who start to support those ideas and propose to include them in school.Fortunately, they haven't succeeded yet. I think, it is a matter knowledge (or its absence) about what actually is science and what makes a theory.
I laugh at people who take the bible literaly. Even those who follow the bible admit that some of the words in it aren't to be taken literally yet they still hold steadfastly to their belief in it. There can be both versions of intelligent design and evolution in one belief system. In the beginning the universe was infinetly small, how did that infinetly small universe come to be? Modern creationists would say God or a being of supreme power while non-creationists would say that there is no way to determine and we are still trying to figure that out.
Welcome to the ranks of rational Christianity. We should compare notes sometime. I was actually an evolutionist before I was ever a "Christian", so my Christianity is built on deep roots that was never in conflict with the scientific worldview including the theory of evolution and abiogenesis.
This is indeed what most atheists will never understand. That the religious can no more imagine that God does not exist than that the world itself does not exist.
The objective of this ridicule is no different than the objective of the ridicule of evolution by the fundie Chrisitans, it is, pure and simple, the best that the non rational dogmatic can do to reassure himself of his imagined superiority.
That is a really cool video. I especially like the comments the woman made in the beginning suggesting that our humanity (our difference from the animals) is not something to be found in our biology.
This fits very well with my own theory that our humanity is actually our first religion, which spread through the world quite independent of any genetic inheritance. In this way I believe in an historical Adam and Eve who were the first human beings but not the first homo sapiens (obviously I do not think these are the same thing), because our identity is not to be found in our bodies or in our biology but in our minds. And I believe that our minds are the creation of parent-child relationship between our first human ancestors and God.
A Biblical interpretation which supports this idea understands that the "sons of God" in the Bible NEVER refers to angels but always refers to human beings with a special relationship to God so that He sees them as His children (like in Deut 14:1, Is 43:6, Ps 82, Ex 21:6). Thus Genesis 6 answers the old question of who did Cain and Seth marry. They did not marry their never mentioned sisters, but they being the "sons of God" married the daughters of men. And the "giants" they gave birth to were not some wierd race of extra large humanoids but as it says "men of reknown" (i.e. leaders of men and founders of human civilization). The best that the opposing viewpoint can do is refer to Job which NEVER says that "sons of god" means angels, they just assume that it does.
Well Said Mitchell!
I think my favorite part about the video, besides the part you just described, is when they show them making their own flint tools, and writing in symbols just as our ancestors did not so very long ago! Once I was able to acknowledge that us humans' differences from the animals are not something to be found only in our biology, evolution fell into its rightful place as a valid theory in my mind.
Would a "rational Christian" agree with virgin births, resurrections and an existence in the afterlife?
Atheists certainly do understand the delusions of theists imaginary sky daddies, that they are unable to imagine a world without gods, even though they live in one.This is indeed what most atheists will never understand. That the religious can no more imagine that God does not exist than that the world itself does not exist.
And yet, it is. Strange that, long before Christianity was but a glimmer in Saul's imagination, people were humane to one another. Curious...That is a really cool video. I especially like the comments the woman made in the beginning suggesting that our humanity (our difference from the animals) is not something to be found in our biology.
(Q)
Show me where science has shown how quarks came to be?
Show me where science has shown the cause of the imbalance allowing for matter to able to avoid being annihilated with an equal amount of anti-matter?
Where did the super dense universe of energy come from before the big bang?
Where do the very laws of the universe come from?
There is a point where people attribute too much of an unknown phenomenon to God physically doing something (like literally putting angels in various places in the sky at night to hold candles), but there is also a point where not enough about the unknowns of the universe are attributed to God, such as setting these laws for the universe to follow. What difference does it make if instead of a chariot that carries the sun around the earth, God uses the laws of the universe to make matter curve space-time and give us the experience of a rising and setting sun? If the chariot that pulled the sun around the earth HAD been discovered, would it really make god seem any more real to us? Does the fact that gravity gives us this result instead make God any less real?
I lean more to Deism than modern day Christianity, I am not fully Deist though since I think there is a possibility that God does intervene and influences the laws of the universe into certain directions both in macro situations like the formation of a life-friendly planet, and micro situations like a person's life, though either of these are impossible to prove and is left to the personal opinions of us all.
For example, the odds inorganic elements in turn producing organic elements, which in turn produced organic molecules which then somehow were able to form single celled life, which in turn evolved in such short time (Astrophysical speaking) into what we are now is like a tornado ripping through a junk yard and assembling a fully functional 747! If a tornado accomplished this would you not say the tornado must have had some form of intelligence? Or would you rather say "Oh! what a coincidence!"? Would it be illogical to deduce that the very existence of the universe suggests that whatever caused it had some form of intelligence? Or will you just ignore this miracle and go through life saying "Oh! what a coincidence!"
Really, the decision is your own, it is easier for some to claim that if there were enough tornadoes and enough junk yards, eventually it would work, but I like what Einstein said better, Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
<edit>
That quote fits perfectly with your avatar!
Evidence from high energy physics positron and electron annihilation.
Gamma ray bursts.Show me where science has shown the cause of the imbalance allowing for matter to able to avoid being annihilated with an equal amount of anti-matter?
Unknown.Where did the super dense universe of energy come from before the big bang?
They separated when the universe initially expanded.Where do the very laws of the universe come from?
No, what makes your god nonexistent is your inability to demonstrate such.Does the fact that gravity gives us this result instead make God any less real?
They are the assertions of theists and have never been demonstrated. It's really that simple. Imagining whether gods intervene or not is already precluded by the simple fact their existence is not demonstrable in the first place.I lean more to Deism than modern day Christianity, I am not fully Deist though since I think there is a possibility that God does intervene and influences the laws of the universe into certain directions both in macro situations like the formation of a life-friendly planet, and micro situations like a person's life, though either of these are impossible to prove and is left to the personal opinions of us all.
Yet, it is your fallacious use of that example which is easily turned right back at your gods.For example, the odds inorganic elements in turn producing organic elements, which in turn produced organic molecules which then somehow were able to form single celled life, which in turn evolved in such short time (Astrophysical speaking) into what we are now is like a tornado ripping through a junk yard and assembling a fully functional 747!
If a tornado accomplished this would you not say the tornado must have had some form of intelligence? Or would you rather say "Oh! what a coincidence!"? Would it be illogical to deduce that the very existence of the universe suggests that whatever caused it had some form of intelligence? Or will you just ignore this miracle and go through life saying "Oh! what a coincidence!"
Humans are far more complex than 747's, yet the theist will claim they were created in their current forms, exactly the same way they deny a 747 could be assembled.
Complex forms evolve from more simpler forms given huge geological time frames, slowly, one small change at a time, amounting to millions and billions of changes.
Sans miracles and intelligence.
What's this about the laws of physics being created? From my perspective the laws of physics are simply a product of existence, meaning that the laws and existance are intertwined. Makes sense to me, but perhaps I'm wrong?
In the same manner that the laws and existence are intertwined, if existence came to be then the laws of physics have a beginning as well. Did this beginning happen by chance or was it "Created"?
The laws are a product of existence. As long as there's existence, there's laws because of that existance. Existance causes the laws to exist, if that makes any sense.
By chance?
Those are not the only options. The universe could've always existed, contracting and expanding. Anyhow, there was no "before" the big bang since time started at the big bang, T=0. In that respect time is finite, but it wasn't created. That is, as far as I know, what we know so far.
The contraction and expansion theories have all been debunked. We now know the universe has a defined beginning, and will never contract.
The new theory given by some physicists is that our universe might have been started by intelligent life in another universe and they came from another universe etc...
This theory is flawed as well since it all had to start somewhere!
[spam deleted]
Neither. They exist as a result of high energy electromagnetic radiation cooling as a result of expansion.
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