This is a bit painful to watch. I can imagine housewives everywhere nodding their heads in agreement. The woman in purple speaks the most sense, but I find her attitude annoying.
I think it’s funny at the end when the blond girl (notice I don’t know any of their names but Whoopi) says it’s “more believable to believe someone is behind” the big bang than just believe in a natural universe. I sympathize with her perspective, but it sounds so absurd to me now.
Is it really more believable that an infinitely complex being behind everything? It seems like that would be the least probable explanation available, since infinitely complexity is infinitely improbable. And even if it was so, who or what created the infinitely complex being? Something even more improbable?
(via)
Is it really more believable to believe in an infinitely complex being behind everything?
The hypothesis is made attractive by our in-built propensity to seek agency behind phenomena. However, the hypothesis tends to fall apart when you attempt to place it on a rigorous basis and nail down actual evidence for it.
The woman in purple is the comedienne Joy Behar. From what I have seen, she is far and away the most intelligent of the four. I think her attitude arises from being saddled with the three nincompoops beside her(well, I guess Whoopi isn’t really all that bad).
I think it’s always important to stress exactly what Whoopi was saying – there doesn’t have to be a contradiction. It’s possible to accept evolution and to believe in God at the same time. If Christians view evolution as combating their faith, they will fight it. And, as Sun Tzu taught, the best way to win a war is to never fight at all.
In some ways, those crazy Christian creationists are right. We’re squeezing God out of “existence” – first the sun and stars aren’t angels, then the world is round and revolves around the sun instead of vice versa, and now we’re taking the origin of species away from them too. They SHOULD be fighting this, as stupid as it is to do so, because once everyone has accepted the facts surrounding evolution, there will be that much less need for faith. The battle over evolution is one that we will win eventually. But I see no reason to make it a fight if we don’t have to.
I respect all beliefs, and appreciate peoples’ viewpoints… I think the problem stems more from people not knowing what they’ve chosen to believe than from people who are outspoken about it. It’s the reason I enjoy your blog. You are very clear about what you believe in and what you think is rubbish.
I am a Christian, although I hate the label because I hate the stereotypes of ignorance that come with that label. I follow the model of “pure religion” in the Bible that stems from two verses.
The first is James 1:27- “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
My faith leads me to serve people who need to be served, the poor, homeless, widowed, sick, and dying. And it tells me to be a man of character. Not to get caught up in vulgarity or loose behavior. The same way a president would never be elected if he was a loose man of character for everyone to see… I try to live with a measure of respectability.
The second is I Peter 3:15- “..but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect..”
It is not my job to force my beliefs upon others. But if someone asks me about it, it is my job to answer as knowledgeably as I possibly can. I think the issues you have with Christians, from what I’ve read, stems mostly from their hypocrisy and lack of open-minded thinking. They say they are a non-profit organization yet they go and try to stick their hands into politics and affairs of the state in a way that is just plain wrong, and anyone that has a brain understands it. Christians are for the most part brainless sheep nowadays.
Keep up the writing, and I will check back!
Tim Kurek
http://TheEvolutionofGod.wordpress.com
With the many worlds theory, every variant of physics would be accounted for which makes us lucky and not designed. Yay us!
I haven’t watched the whole thing but the one lady misses the extension of logic which asks, “Who Made God?”
If the producers of “The View” can provide a platform for people like Hasselbeck – people who have no idea about the real world and live in a bubble – then why on earth is there opposition in radio to the “Fairness Doctrine”?
I think that “The View” would be better if it left out the flat-earthers and the evolution-denialists. There would definitely be deeper, more useful discussion.
If “The View” can give a voice to the far right, then why can’t Limbaugh and Faux News stand to provide an opposing viewpoint?
One thing that really drives me nuts is when I hear someone mention evolution and the big bang in the same breath. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. That and people tend to assume that evolution has something to do with the creation of life, which it doesn’t that falls under the topic of abiogenesis, a truly fascinating field. It is possible (though scientifically unsupported) for a creator to have created all life and for evolution to exist.
The argument that because there are many coincidences to make the universe the way we see it today means there is a creator troubles me. There are theories out there that stress multiple universes, alternate realities, etc. The argument that because the probability of the current arrangement is slim falls apart when you introduce the idea that our universe as we know it could be just one in very many.
Extremely painful to watch. It sickens me to see people who don’t know anything about evolution and yet criticize it like they know any better.
“so perfect… the eye… who designed it?”
“combusted and came to”
Ughhh…
Wow, I’m embarrassed for my sex. I wonder if they think they are intelligent and well read (Timothy Johnson?? What was she thinking?). Not that this couldn’t have come from men just as easily. It’s just sad to think that we have mothers and grandmothers out there who watch and eat this stuff up.
It’s more plausible but it’s not more probable. It probably sounds ridiculous to you know because you know a little more about probability theory.
See: conjunction fallacy, explanation here.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/conjunction-fal.html
thats a shame – i’d have thought whoopi goldberg would have been an atheist.
@Tim Kurek:
Whooo--ee! Where have you been for the past eight years?
The issue most of us have with Christians, and any other theists–let’s not be accused of leaving anyone out–has to do less with hypocrisy (though that’s an important factor) and more to do with the fact that we believe that their faith deserves as much respect as any other grand conspiracy theory, and as such we object like hell to being told how to conduct ourselves based on a 2000-year-old book of shepherd’s tales.
We are concerned because the worldview of theists is seen through the prism of religious faith, which is roughly equivalent to the view through the seat of your underpants. It causes the sufferer to make irrational judgements and take silly actions despite the availability of rational alternatives.
Witness that president you mentioned earlier, who believes that his god instructed, or at least enabled, him to start a war that has claimed roughly 600,000 lives.
The phrase “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” springs to mind.
Someone needs to point out to the strange babbling lady in green that we DO indeed think that the David was created by a designer because we have EVIDENCE for it having been so. If we had a series of fossils showing us earlier proto-Davids culminating in it’s existence we would believe it was “natural” (or maybe “divine”) and that the same method of reasoning is made by science when investigating the evolution of life. They should probably help her to look up the word “reasoning” in a dictionary too. As for our existence being based on the “coincidence” of chemicals and conditions on Earth and the fact that if things were slightly different we wouldn’t be here I would direct her gaze at the rest of the universe where such “coincidences” did not occur and life (as far as we know) does not exist.
Why do they always point to the eye and call it “perfect”? There are many species that have far superior eyesight to humans.
Hasselbeck’s David statement is just beyond stupid, but she’s blond, society says she doesn’t have to think. Who she is, where she came from, or why she’s on tv at all escapes me.
I see someone identified Elizabeth Hasselbeck as the idiot. Handbags?
Fricking Handbags?
Someone needs to tell her, despite what people say, she is not really a hosebag – I mean, handbag – and doesn’t need a designer.
Heck, if the is a designer, we all seem to be cheap knock-offs.
Ugh. I agree about the purple lady, but they all drive me nuts. Isn’t the non-Whoopi black lady the one that said she didn’t know if the earth was round?
I really think that the argument that just because something is “beautiful” and complex, that it must have a designer, is one of the worst I’ve ever heard. When I hear people bring up the human eye, I realize they have zero-point-zero understanding of evolution.
…if shes a ‘bad christian’, why does she still claim to BE one? how in the WORLD can someone, who wants to be taken seriously, claim to believe in something if they HAVENT EVEN READ THE MATERIALS FOR THE CLASS?!?!
i think you will find, daniel, as i have been, that unfolding your athiest layers after claiming to believe in christianity, that people you thought were smart and well balanced are not anywhere NEAR either. you might even start to pity your friends and relatives, and find it even harder to trust their judgement on subjects…this has been a very hard realization for me. as, i cant watch tom cruise movies anymore, OR john travolta (and i LOVED john travolta), or leah remini, or madonna OR the view. i even used to be a ‘republican’…
when you start accepting things as they are, things seem to make more sense…