This will make you feel sick.
(via)
Recent Comments
- Revyloution: Ok, I did it. Now someone needs to put it up... on Agenda – What is this? I don’t even…
- Robster: Are they collecting a bunch of 40 year old virgins to talk about sex? I... on Let’s Talk About …
- Robert: Chill dudes and dudettes, whilst I agree with those issues, not all of them... on Why are atheists so angry?
- Fox: After thought. Common saying where I am from. “If god... on 10 Best “Good Guy Lucifer” Memes
- Fox: Really? Then why is hell seen as Satan’s Kingdom? on 10 Best “Good Guy Lucifer” Memes
- Fox: Well Christians love to just take bits and pieces that they... on 10 Best “Good Guy Lucifer” Memes
Funny $&#!@ From 9 Laughs
I'm one of the contributors to 9 Laughs:
Subscribe by Email
Archives
Ugh.
Yep. That’s pretty much all I could muster after watching that.
Sick indeed. Poor brainwashed children …
And Ken Ham is such a fraud!
And how can those kids believe that we didn’t come from “ape-like creatures” while he looks strangely like a caveman?
Agreed. He reminded of those cavemen from that Geico commercial.
Other than that, this video makes me want to cry. It’s just so sad.
hahaha, so true. I can’t believe how they can get away with this. These conventions or camps or what ever should be illegal.
“Can i look in the Bible and find the words ‘jet airplane’?”
For your next exercise, try looking for the word trinity in your bible.
You know, if he really was such a powerful god, there SHOULD be a word for jetplane or supercomputer in there… Just saying.
Wouldn’t that have been a powerful prophecy?
“And lo, I speak of a time where men and women of the earth shall built great metal machines that cut through the air faster than speech on the wind, and peer into the smallest cracks of earth and the most distant specks of the firmament. And I say unto thee there will be happy meals and shopping malls…”
Haha, yes! So true! THAT would have been a real prophecy :)
Surprisingly there aren’t none like that … ;)
I did a wee bit of lazy mans research and came up with nothing. Ill look again later, but there was a re-write of Genesis that did exactly that. I wish I could find it again, it was exactly the kind of evidence I would need to believe in a book of prophecy.
If anyone knows what I’m talking about, Id love to read it again. They did a great job.
On a side note, I just realized what your name is Elemenope. I always thought it was some obscure science word relating to elements. Then it dawned on me.
L M N O P.
I had a good laugh. Thanks.
:-)
WIN!
Urgh. this guy is horrible. That first mom who commented also makes me sick…
That mom sort of made me a little sick too, but then look at her mannerisms and tone of voice. She feels put on the defensive, but look how she defends her beliefs. She scrunches up her face like she’s unsure really, or knows how simple she is. I mean, “the mainstream” is just trying to tell us how stupid we are… and we’re not stupid, right? Right? It’s just easier… right? Her denial is clicking in her brain somewhere, she knows that’s a terrible answer and she doesn’t have a better one. She’s indoctrinating her kids because it’s easier than letting them be smarter than she is, or one day tell her how stupid she is, and she knows that, and she can’t help herself. I don’t excuse the bad parenting technique, but it’s at least a little better than the outspoken I’m-right-you’re-wrong creatard bullies. Her kids may just have a chance of growing up to recognize what a wishy-washy dolt she is and snap out of it, maybe. Or they could be just like her, but most people with parents like her tend to be able to outsmart them rather easily and at a young age.
Nothing more than a calculated deception to help insure future tithes.
Ken Hamm– I don’t give a sh*t what you believe. Science is about facts, not about belief. Period. And yes, Lady, you people *are* ignorant. And no, Buddy, the Bible is *NOT* a history book.
The stoopid.. it burns!!!!!!
So true as well!
Some books of the Bible are historical. Not particularly historically accurate perhaps (though in some cases that may be debatable), but historical nonetheless.
However, Genesis is not one of those books.
The thing that has always killed me about Genesis is that the position of Jews has fairly consistently been that the book is florid bullshit (er, highly symbolic and metaphorical :). When the people whose book it was before it was yours tell you to take it with a grain of salt, what would possess you to take it seriously?
Yeah, but they killed baby Jesus, so we know they are just trying to trick us so we will go to hell.
Uh, the position of some Jews has been that way, but certainly not all. I wouldn’t try to tell an orthodox Jew that Genesis was “florid bullshit.” I mean, why do you think it is still traditional to circumcise Jews?
The creation story is considered by nearly all Jews as highly symbolic/allegorical. The latter parts of Genesis are taken more seriously. Sorry I wasn’t more clear.
i want to throw up on that guy’s shoes
I’d like to puke in them, so he gets a nice little “surprise” in the morning.
Are you a cat?
Duh, screen name fail.
I would like to throw a shoe at him. Do you think he can dodge shoes like Bush Jr.
Don’t worry, I’ll bring mine so we can have 4 tries instead of 2.
“It just makes sense; it’s easy to explain to your children – the flood, and all…” It’s easy to tell them to shut up and that the stork brought them, too. Definitely go for “easy.”
“Can you look in the bible [the history book of the universe] and find the word ‘computer’? No. It’s a brand new word.” Well, why not? If God really wrote it, he would have been able to predict computers. And any “brand new words.” Duh.
“Who’s the only one who’s always been there?” “God!” So why was this always-been-there being unable to tell us about genetics and chemistry and computers and jet planes and microbiology?
“Because he’s imaginary!”
“Get them while they’re young, Evita; get them while they’re young.”
“Who said the true word?” “Daniel!” He was right. This film did make me feel sick.
“Get them while they’re young, Evita; get them while they’re young.”
As the old saying goes “Give me a child until the age of seven, and I will give you the man…”
You were right. It made me feel sick. I’m sorry, but teaching this shit should be punishable by imprisonment – it’s child abuse.
I was thinking castration…
While I’m inclined to agree with you it’s such a slippery slope to start down if we tell people how to raise their kids.
“God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”
What a tragic admission of intellectual paralysis.
Yet god does not talk to normal people. We need “special” people to tell us what god tells us. So we are hearing what god says through people who have a political and religious agenda to further their own power.
This is the argument that made me an doubter when I was 6. Science is fact. There is clear evidence of evolution that is easy to see and understand. I saw this stupidity when my Sunday school teacher tried to convince us that dinosaurs lived at at the same time as humans. I knew right then that religion was full of it and that the bible was a lie. I knew it was bull when i was 6 and I still know its bull.
I like you already :-)
In elementary school, it was the loaves and fishes story that made me think I was being lied to. As a teenager, it was the virgin birth story. God really needed to get a teenager pregnant? My Sunday school teachers would go on and on about teen pregnancy and the sins involved. The only thing I believe now is that no one should ever lie to children. Life is hard enough to navigate without misinformation from the adults.
I agree, teen pregnancy is not a sin but the way of to salvation since it is in the holy book.
I never understand how people can say that we didn’t evolve from a common ancestor based on us not looking like any of the primates…. Just look at a chimpanzee, the resemblance is there and it’s so apparent that it still has the ability to amaze/freak me out a little bit.
Sagan had it right when he said: “How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’” The pure beauty that is out there is far too good to pass up.
They made us watch that guy in our science class last year in my school. I had loads of fun telling the teacher all the ways he was wrong, starting with how he thought we evolved from apes instead of a common ancestor of apes. The man is ridiculous, if you watch Religulous you can see him get owned by Bill Maher.
Rock on, dude. Speak truth to power, esp. hapless teachers. :)
Surely it must be illegal to show Ken Ham in a Us school?!
Please tell me you go to a private school.
Noooooo . . . not this again. Look, we are apes. And if we are apes, we have ancestors that are also apes. My father is an ancestor who is an ape, not just an “ape-like” ancestor. Similarly, the common ancestor of Homo and Pan was an ape, more specifically a greater ape, more specifically a hominin. Just because our ancestor wasn’t a chimpanzee doesn’t mean it wasn’t an ape.
Why are these people so keen on telling us that dinosaurs lived alongside people, but not other prehistorical creatures? Why doesn’t the Bible mention trilobites, for instance? As far as I can tell, the whole thought process behind this is “kids like dinosaurs, so we can’t very well leave them out of our creation myths.”
And I don’t think sauropods ate grass. Sorry, Job.
Let’s ask Ken Ham if there was a velociraptor on the ark.
Probably not. It would have eaten all the coconuts.
Future Mike Huckabees…And just think…Mormonism is even stupider than this!! Let’s just elect a Romney/Palin ticket, and be done with all this shit. No more thought, no more confusion – just blissful ignorance. I weep for the future and our children.
I weep for the world and all the victims of the future US Evangelical Crusade…
Sad to say I was raised in this shit, brainwashed to the max. It took me a very long time to break free from the bullshit and find my way to sanity. Along the way, religion robbed me of the chance to have a meaningful and healthy relationship with my parents, the pastor and his wife. I resent fundamentalist Christianity more than I can put into words. The abuse being heaped upon these children will likely scar many of them for a lifetime. I feel sad, very sad indeed.
Thank you for your honest words Tabbie. I wholeheartedly agree! Now what can we all do about this? My suggestion is to get evo books in school where children can discover them on their own. Plus, demand answers from your school superintendants and g’vt reps to ensure that evo IS taught in school.
I had the same upbringing, Tabbie.
I still have guilt issues.
It has been ~10 hours from the last time I threw up. Thanks.
The nerve of them! *steaming mad*. Next, they’re going to be telling them that this ‘God’ is love Himself and that He knows each one of them…personally, names and all! That even the very number of hairs on their little heads are numbered and known to Him, that He cares for them *oh the gall* and if that isn’t enough, that they were actually created intentionally with a purpose in Mind (to express the life and nature of Christ in the earth) and that their lives (His life in them) matters, is meaningful (to the degree that it is lived for others, for His eternal purposes) how dare they! Bunk, mere fairy tales I tell you, childish fantasy’s, nothing more. *condescending, growling with one eyebrow raised higher than the other while baring his grisly, yellow stained teeth* Aarrgh
Once upon a time…
Hey, I think you’ll find that atheists do believe in brushing.
Anyway, whether or not god created people individually and loves them all (even the ones he tortures mercilessly because he’s a petulant tyrannical brat) has nothing to do with whether we should teach children that humans walked with dinosaurs and misrepresent the concept of evolution with a horrendously skewed strawman.
I love how God has the power to know the numbers of hairs on their little heads, is supposedly ‘love itself’, knows each and everyone of them, and supposedly cares about them but yet fails to prevent a four year old girl from being kidnapped by a paedophile and subsequently raped and the killed…
UNLESS this is all apart of the purpose He created them in his Mind (to express the life and nature of Christ in the Earth- who oddly enough was only revealed to the Middle East initially and not the rest of the globe which could have aided in salvation and undoubtedly have reduced the bloodshed, subjugation and slavery imposed in the name of Him) and that their lives matter to Him and is meaningful (if you obey ludicrous rules and continuously worship a narcissistic bully who has the prerogative to kill you for turning back to see a city being destroyed, working on the Sabbath, going through normal teenage rebellion – but hey, at least he allows us to marry the women we rape!). *self-righteous grin with one eyebrow raised higher than the other while baring his grisly yellow stained teeth (the result of Satan)* Amen.
Once upon a time…
Hey, the blog’s most ignorant poster arguing in favor of indoctrinating children with ignorance.
Whoulda thunk it?
I wouldn’t call John C the blog’s most ignorant poster…I’d call him the most consistently ignorant poster. Here and there, we get drive-by idiots who tell us that their imaginary sky pops loves us (and will send us to hell!!) or that they are praying for us; however, they appear and then disappear, never to be heard from again.
Not so with John C. His lunacy is as constant as the Northern Star. As such, it is not at all surprising that he’s advocating this kind of lunatic mis-education.
I wouldn’t call him ignorant as an insult, and I hope that isn’t how it comes across.
John’s personal philosophy is based on deliberate and enthusiastic ignorance. He chooses that course, and revels in it, in spite of all the attempts to deliver information to him.
He is, as far as I know, unique in that regard on this blog.
John C, do you even realise how empty and vapid your posts are? You say the same meaningless drivel over and over again – what are you trying to achieve?
One doesn’t have to be an atheist snarling with rage to realize that Ken Ham and those other fundies are full of shit – both in their “facts” and in the way they present those “facts”. It has nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with appealing to the kids’ sense of authority.
I think even the majority of Christians can see this. You’re not one of them, apparently.
Ok guys, this one went all wrong on me. Just now saw all the responses…explanation:
I don’t even know what he said to the kids about ‘creation’, didn’t play it, I was only trying to make a funny (obviously failed miserably) by ad-libbing a hypothetical follow up conversation to the ‘children there is a creator’ sequence that got you guys so hot under the collar. Like ‘the next thing you know he’ll be telling them that this ‘God’ loves them’ (as if that were some strange thing) that God created the world and us AND loves us. (Christianity 101).
I know what fundies teach about the Genesis account, they require a ‘lining up’ of things, ‘evidence’ etc to believe in a similar manner as you guys do on the other side of it, to disbelieve. As far as creation goes, the earth is ancient, certainly not six thousand years old but then that would lead us in to a whole ‘nother discussion on what time really is, temporal, dimensions, etc.
Ok, so here’s your chance to show some mercy back to moi! (go ahead, I’m waiting…and waiting and waiting and….)
From now on I’ll stick to the mundane mystic musings! All the best UF
You have to understand, John, that you are a living Poe. It is often impossible to tell the difference between your serious posts and your jokes.
Fair enough Ty. A ‘living Poe’ huh? I kinda like it, I’ll wear that badge with honor! lol. After all the things I’ve been called, its darn near a compliment, ha. All the best Ty.
I’m glad, because it was not intended as an insult.
Anyone else interested in this time dimension topic? How about starting with the age of Earth?
That would be pretty messed up. Believing that there is a god who cares about each and every one of us is a very stupid thing to believe, and potentially dangerous.
Yes I disagree with what these children are being taught. However I would have to make the point that the difference between Brain Washing and Education is a rather fine line, which shifts depending on your point of view.
The ‘conservative’ side calls the teaching of evolution and secular values brainwashing too.
All in all I find this a very difficult issue to come to a conclusion on. As a parent I feel it is my right to decide how my children are educated. I happen to have a fairly rationalist view of the world, which will to some extent rub off on them. So how hypocritical would it be for me to turn around and tell these other parents that they do not have the same rights, just because I happen to disagree with them?
Fair minded comment Arie, well said.
That may be, but I don’t think many are actually advocating making illegal this sort of parental discretion (except *ahem*Custador*ahem*). But that a thing is legal or even ought to remain so is a far cry from saying it is acceptable or shouldn’t be opposed by other means. A parent may feel it is their right to indoctrinate their children any which way, but nonetheless if the contents of that indoctrination has baneful effects on that child’s later behavior or capacity it is legitimate to oppose it.
Take racism as a family value, for example. There is not much that can be done legally against parents who wish to steep their children in bigotry against different races, creeds, or nationalities. But nonetheless we feel justified in broadcasting messages antagonistic to a racist worldview, promoting art and media that does so, encouraging anti-racism in schools and in government policies. It may be the right of the parent to teach racism, but the rest of society is justified in trying like hell to make sure the ideology doesn’t stick.
Yep.
You’re damned right I think this sort of thing should be illegal. This is intellectually crippling children to the point where they are totally unequipped for (and will in fact fight against) the actual real facts of life. It’s child abuse – mental rape – and I do not think parents have a “right” to do it. Hell, I’d rather teach them nothing until they’re old enough to decide for themselves and then teach them the whole damned lot than indoctrinate kids like this.
I agree with you. Kids right to get a proper education should be more important than parents rights to choose their kids education. It’s not the kids fault to be born in a fundamentalist family, why are they going to have less oportunities than their neighbours?
Your children do not receive a rational education because you want them to.
(Also, I would not agree that it is a parent’s right to decide how their children are educated in school)
Agreed. Children are people too. They are not pets or property for their parents to do with them as they will. They have a right to a genuine education that trumps a parent’s right to force them to believe what they choose to believe themselves. I like Dawkins’ approach to this, that there should not be such a thing in society as a Christian child or a Muslim child. Children generally can’t make such a profound decision about themselves and they usually don’t have all the information available anyway, particularly because their families and religious communities will teach them fairy stories to frighten them into believing one particular point of view and not teach them anything about any others. It’s unfair to cow children into professing a belief in such a manner. Teaching children the scientific method and critical thinking allows them to evaluate whether they think something is true, which is very different from teaching them “this happened because god said so and you trust god, right?”. One is education, the other brainwashing.
but under today’s religious protections, children ARE very like property. Look at the groups who refuse dr care for their sick kids, then the kids die & the parents either get a lite sentence or acquitted. Behind the shield of religious freedom, are those kids any better than property? Their very lives come a distant 2nd to the ego-driven “hear me lord, I am so faithful!” posture of the parents.
We had a wonderful ruling here in Britain last week (against a Relate councilor who refused to give marriage guidance to a same-sex couple) in which the judge said in his summing up that:
“Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.
He said it was irrational and “also divisive, capricious and arbitrary”. ” (full story at BBC
That ruling now applies to all UK law unless Parliament provides a specific exception – and even then the ruling can be used to challenge the law. Lord Justice Laws is my new hero :-)
Lord Justice Laws is his real name? It sounds like “Captain Planet”.
I disagree. Shall we teach untruths to children?
If we had a golden standard or guarantee of some sort as to what is untruth, then it would be much less problematic. But unfortunately even the most enthusiastic scientist can honestly only speak in terms of probabilities. The problem, in point of fact, with most religious doctrine, is that it tends to be unfalsifiable; given the ridiculous multiplication of entities and purported magical powers that their “theory” requires, there is no contrary evidence that could possibly hope to falsify it.
No we shouldn’t teach untruths. However the problem arises when the person doing the teaching does not realize that they are teaching an untruth. It is important to keep in mind that Atheists and Theists do not agree on what is the truth. Then again there is the fine line of useful knowledge which is not strictly true, Newtonian physics (yes I’m drawing a long bow here) we know it makes false assumptions but its good enough.
When dealing with young children is failure to debunk Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy teaching untruths?
What about thinks like Ethics where truth is still harder to define?
And Eric, I could if I wanted to make different educational choices for my children, simply by sending them to a different school. Note that here in Oz all of the following receive some level of government funding:
Montessori
Steiner
Catholic
Anglican
Islamic
Scientology (though they deny the association)
Exclusive Brethren
And these are just the ones I happen to know about, though I really haven’t spent any time looking. I think the only one that might outright reject an application is Exclusive Brethren.
And then there is the infamous choice of Home Schooling.
As teachers, it’s their responsibility to find out.
hmm…so it’s ok to teach little kids these simplistic stories based on silly imaginings because that’s just one viewpoint. Ok. Let’s consider – how many of these kids, upon reaching adulthood, are likely to make any kind of worthwhile contribution to science & technology? I would say none. Partaking in these fields requires you to have a questing mind, & to see the reality of science. So…all of them, I’m sure, enjoy vaccines, computers, microwaves, but if they follow this line of thinking, not only do they damage themselves, they will never be more than passengers in life. Sad, it is.
Question PuntyBunny, are you a scientist? What great discoveries have you made towards advancing scientific knowledge? When you look at a history books how many prominent scientists are there vs prominent figures in other fields?
Science is not the be all and end all of human culture, and the fact remains that the majority of us do not go on to be professional scientists. So does that make us all just passengers in Life?
What about Art and Literature ?
Consider that a lot of these people seem to also think most works of fiction are from the Devil and/or immoral, that lots of art (such as, say, cinema) is evil, and that any music that isn’t religious is sinful.
There’s also the fact that, while lots of them won’t, there are others that could have and won’t because they had the stimulus sucked out of them. It’s one thing to not follow a scientific (hell, even artistic) career because you don’t want to or don’t care for; quite another to be taught it’s evil and should be avoided.
Arie – you are right that there is more to life than science. But for our current world, science is increasingly important. And overall, in any aspect of life, any time someone says “I have ALL the answers”, the corollary is “I don’t need to ask ANY questions.” That is an indefensible position.
But they should have the opportunity to become scientists if they want to. Neglecting their education, and teaching them lies, deprives them of this opportunity.
And even those of us who are not scientists need to have a basic education in science. As citizens of countries with elected governments, it is our civic duty to be informed about issues, scientific and otherwise.
Your point makes some sense when it comes to values.
When it comes to factual matters there is no gray area. Lying to children is bad for them.
Hard to watch – turned it off half way through. I used to believe that stuff myself but after some honest research came to the conclusion that it was untenable.
Yikes. For once in my adult life, I’m grateful for being raised Catholic. I was taught evolution in 7th grade Bio. At least I was only brainwashed about the supernatural and not the natural world too. These kids have double the burden. For a life-long north-easterner like myself, with not much exposure to the evangelical world, this is a real eye-opener.
At 1:54: he actually said “…the hows come…”?
typo: “then hows come…”
he did say that…he sounds like a real genius I tell you
You east-coast intellectuals with your high-falutin’ grammar and spelling. Ham talks just like those regular folks, and that’s why they trust him.
Never underestimate the American propensity to glorify, revere, and wallow in ignorance.
I grew up with exactly this sort of indoctrination. It took me until almost the age of 50 before I could properly discern the truth & reject it once and for all as a pure wishful-thinking fantasy.
I was pondering this video & the comments above for a while. Why is it so disturbing? Suddenly it hit me that the truly evil aspect of this and Ken Ham’s methodology is that it is presented in such away that each child’s better qualities of loyalty & obedience are appealed to as the means to secure their loyalty to this dogma. There is no appeal to them to pursue ‘Truth’ as an entity or ideal. (Never will you hear the likes of Ken Ham or his fundamentalist ilk ever say something like “pursue the truth above all, even if it takes you in directions you didn’t foresee…” ) There is never any appeal for them to be loyal to this ideal of Truth but to be loyal to the “Bible” and to ‘God’ as he is defined there. These children clearly want to do & think the right thing but by conflating Bible, God and Truth as somehow being synonymous, many of them will be screwed up for life. This sort of brainwashing is indeed evil because it is so laden with demonstrable falsehoods.(Sorry John C) Like the mother interviewed in the video, this dogma-defined belief system sets these kids up for a life of defensiveness & the outright rejection of any evidence that doesn’t fit their preconceived ideas.
The core strength of religious thought & belief is that it is fundamentally non-falsifiable with respect to its metaphysical claims. The Bible’s weakness is that it has enough historical and naturalistic detail to be falsifiable in these areas & indeed it proves to be quite unreliable and indeed has been falsified on many fronts. As young people recognize the fact that science falsifies the Biblical version of our beginnings, they will also realize that this ragged collection of Iron age falsehoods could be the work of some omniscient Creator-God.. This is the threat perceived by Ken & his cronies; so they make up an alternative fantasy world draped in scientific language to prop up their Holy Book’s obvious errors.
It’s so pathetic but one has to pity their plight. What if Ken Ham ever became honest and brave enough to evaluate the data on its own terms? He would have to confront the damage he has done to so many lives & the very real fact that he would be an unemployed snake oil salesman. I don’t think he has the integrity or courage for that.
-evan
Ken Ham, or someone very much like him, came to our local, small-town church when I was in the third grade. It was right after my school had done a fairly extensive unit on evolution (the most extensive I ever had, I might add, as it was never gone over again even in high school — and this in Western Washington State!). My mom took me to this guy’s shpiel (the adult version, too). I sat through it and fidgeted the whole time. All of his evidence and all of his arguments seemed infantile and worthless to me — an eight year old. I remember asking at the end of his ‘lecture’ (I use the term loosely) a very specific question about the fossil records of whales in particular (don’t remember the details now), and he stammered his way around and finally sputtered out an answer that received an applause from everyone else, but I remember it being hollow and condescending, as if I, as an eight year old, couldn’t possibly know anything on the subject to begin with.
Clearly I knew more than him and his crazed followers at age 8. Sad.
Witch child! Burn! Burn!
Yes, that would have been their response 200 years ago. The hilarious part is when they tell you that of course only their worldview made this change into a liberal, democratic society possible.
It never ceases to amaze me how fundies will claim Christianity is responsible for Western civilization, science, democracy, modern liberal values, etc. The irony is doubled when they simultaneously advocate the kind of society that opposes all of these kinds of progress.
100 years from now, they will be claiming that Christianity was at the forefront of the gay rights movement, and evolutionary biologists were against it.
Oops…
The sentence “As young people recognize the fact that science falsifies the Biblical version of our beginnings, they will also realize that this ragged collection of Iron age falsehoods could be the work of some omniscient Creator-God..” should read:
“As young people recognize the fact that science falsifies the Biblical version of our beginnings, they will also realize that this ragged collection of Iron age falsehoods could NOT be the work of some omniscient Creator-God..”
I made it 45 seconds in before the rage set in and I had to turn it off.
I believe that Ken Ham is a dickhead.
Please make sure that your children get proper instruction in your belief system. ;)
What is equally terrible is that many of these organizations are able to function, and to spread this nonsense, because they are subsidized by all of us. Tax Exempt! I’d like to see a big push against that – that might take the spring out of the step of people like Ham and others…
Why don’t more people see this as child abuse? What led the parents of these kids (that were sitting there watching) to docilely sit through this B.S.?
Behemoth? That song is “Wabash Cannonball,” which I’ll have stuck in my head all day. (Try Doyle Dykes’ version on YouTube.)
Great analogy about the Patriot missiles, though. They may be slightly more effective than prayer, but not much.
only Sith deal in absolutes
18 million americans don’t believe in evolution???? I wonder if anyone except Sherry from The View believes in a flat earth?
Out of what, 30 million total? Ouch!
285 million I believe – but still a high enough %age to be really scary.
It’s closer to 310 million now.
We’ll never know for sure now since the tea baggers aren’t filling out their census forms.
“(CBS) Most Americans do not accept the theory of evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.” OOOOWWWWOWOWOWOOWOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!
If you believe in God, it’s hard not to believe he wasn’t at least minimally involved in the process. Functionally, most of the second group are identical with the third when it comes to accepting evolution.
Also, I think it would be more interesting to see a demographic breakdown based on age. I strongly doubt the ratio holds the younger you go.
The site says it calls people entirely at random. Older people are more likely to be home so they weight the results so they are not skewed to the older demographics, and yet a high percentage of Americans are in that demographic. It is true that most people believe in god, but I don’t believe the results that half the population considers evolution false and creation myth true. Geez, more than half.
Bottom of page 2:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/02/opinion/main299401.shtml
I’m not entirely positive this procedure is adequate to extrapolate data from a sample of 808. I know that it’s impossible to ask everyone, but 808 random adults doesn’t seem to give me a lot of confidence in the reported results. If someone can make anything with this, I would appreciate it:
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
some days I find some little article pointing out the absurdities of strong xtianity & I post it on facebook. And I have conversations with friends about the way religions here don’t make any sense or seem to help our society. I know I have some alabama relatives who have unsubscribed to my blog…probably some people are offended. And sometimes I wonder…what’s the point? Does it make any difference at all or do I just come across looking critical & sort of bitter?
When I see a video like this, I know I should keep on. The overall boundaries of normalcy in a society change via the attitudes of the most. If my friends, people who like & respect me, see me speak out, perhaps it’ll change the attitude of even a few who are on a fence, & that’s how we slowly reach a tipping point as a whole.
This video is SOOO discouraging. About all I can do is tell myself, there can’t really be THAT many people who believe this rigidly. The thing I can’t really wrap my head around is that they DO BELIEVE. Absolutely. We on this board sometimes yelp out in frustration, why don’t these people see this makes no sense? I guess it’s because they really, truly believe. For me, that is the scariest part. Because you can show them all the proofs & logic flaws in the world & your words turn to gibberish in their ears because they’ve got some kind of impenetrable wall of belief in there constantly playing “lalallalalalaa I can’t HEEEEAAAR YOU!”
And I don’t know how to get past that. And btw, as a mom, I think it’s some flavor of crime to have in your care a young & agile brain & to lead it down such a stifling, dead-end road.
I do the same thing. Lots of the stuff I read here I repost on twitter which is connected to my facebook. I’m sure I’m not the most popular to some people who follow me on either but I’m not going to stop posting the stuff.
And just like you said, this shit here is exactly why I’ll continue to do it.
Disgusting, just disgusting. It should be illegal! Never once did Ham state that it was the FSM that created the world. And they pretend to want to teach the alternative in Science….. I shudder!
I joke but that video really f***’s me off!
I just couldn’t watch this for more than a few seconds.
I love how he says I don’t believe in evolution, I believe the bible is true…well, you can choose to believe in the bible, but you can’t choose to deny evolution…whether he denies it or not, it’s still a fact..
“I don’t believe in gravity, I believe in the bible”
LOL’Z
I lasted less than a minute.
Poor, wrong Ken Ham.
I’m pretty sure if a Muslim cleric had been touring the country, telling people to treat their books as patriot missiles for a spiritual war there would have been mass outcry, a Fox News special and many political comments. Oh wait, there ALWAYS is. I’m not Muslim myself, just pointing out the hypocrisy here, extreme strands of any set of beliefs get dangerous, Christianity is no different.
I respect the parents rights to teach their child as they see fit according to their faith but this is indoctrination.
Also, feel the need to quote Bill Hicks here – “Ever notice how creationists look really un-evolved?” I may just be mean but when he was showing the grandma/granddad “monkey” pics, he doesn’t look all that different….
“Propaganda” is when you disagree with the message and “education” is when you agree. No actual science or knowledge needs be in the mind of the person making the distinction!
a) I had believed in the Theory of Evolution for decades, but having studied Creationism for the past few years, it is clear that it offers the best scientific explanation for life on earth. Even some ‘atheist’ scientists reject the TofE for ‘Intelligent Design’ because of the science and not just scripture.
b) Fact: the evidence is in the *present* and you can come up with any age you like for the earth based on the *assumptions* you make.
c) The ‘millions of years’ age of the earth idea came from a totally ridiculous *belief* called uniformitarianism. It was added to with more false suppositions and over the past two centuries, this myth has become ‘truth’.
d) Uniformitarianism rules out the Great Flood, even though this event best explains the geographical features on the planet.
Question: How can you tell when you have been educated and when you have been indoctrinated?
It’s easy, I was educated, you were indoctrinated :-)
Do you know that
In point a) you are attacking biology
In point b) and c) you are attacking geology, physics and chemistry
In point d) you are attacking arqueology, logic, maths, intelligence and common sense.
So your problem -the problem of most of YEC- is not with biology in particular, it is with all human knowledge. I could answer you why you are wrong, but this time I won’t.
Instead, I’ll ask you for, according to your arguments dismissing any knowledge, be consequent and stop abusing the benefits of scientific method (those include internet). Thanks.
You don’t understand the question. I said how can you *tell* whether you’ve been educated or indoctrinated. But anyway, yes, I consider that I was indoctrinated: into the TofE. Then I started thinking for myself. How is this in any way indoctrination? I have clearly been educating myself.
Point a) In no way am I attacking biology. I am disputing the manmade ideas about evolution.
In Points b) and c) I made statements of fact.
Point d) Common sense, indeed the evidence, points to a global catastrophic flood. This is how we have well-preserved fossils all over the planet: the creatures must have been buried rapidly in order to preserve them. They were protected from the weather and from their remains being eaten.
We also see coal deposits hundreds of feet thick with a layer of pottery clay at the very bottom. How else would you explain this other than an accumulation of trees being swept into a pile by a major catastrophe?
We also know that under the right conditions, coal does not take millions of years to form.
The *evidence* supports the Genesis account. Billions of years is a philosophy based on false suppositions made hundreds of years ago.
“Billions of years is a philosophy based on false suppositions made hundreds of years ago.”
@Stewart – As opposed to your view which is a philosophy based on false assumptions made thousands of years ago by ancient, bronze-age goat herders and shepards who did not understand the world and universe they lived in.
And having wasted 15 minutes of my life on your blog, I see that you have the 2nd most posts tagged homosexuality. So your a homophobe also. If your sky daddy even existed, I hope for your sake that you have never eaten shrimp or lobster as that also is an abomination. Leviticus 11:9-12.
Thanks for stopping by.
“You don’t understand the question. I said how can you *tell* whether you’ve been educated or indoctrinated.”
When you test your “Knowledge” against the real world.
It’s true that science makes some assumptions, as does your bible. The question is which one more closely models and tests its assumptions on the world around it, and which one tries to make the world look like a Fucking Cartoon.
That’s why I’ve never quite understood why there are so many people (like the woman in the video) who think Creationism makes more sense. I don’t know all the science involved, but evolutionary biology is based on evidence we’ve actually observed. When has anyone seen any evidence of an outside intelligence manufacturing a living thing from scratch? And if this did happen, why do so many of them contain useless organs and other unnecessary parts? If organisms were designed, I don’t see how it can be called “intelligent.” I think people who adhere to Creationism do it out of wishful thinking, not because it actually makes sense.
Its clear that you don’t understand how old our planet is and your trying to explain coal formation as one massive flood event flys in the face of conventional geology. Most coals are found in sedimentary rocks deposited in terrestrial river floodplains. They have river channels, levees, and fossil soil horizons. Often soil horizons are found immediately below coal seams, and these are often filled with plant roots. All these structures are similar to modern peat-forming environments. The common occurrence of rooted upright trees that can not be transported (because they have delicate rootlets embedded in the sediment) is compelling evidence that most coals form near the surface in terrestrial environments. However, even more convincing is the co-occurrence of dinosaur footprints and upright trees on the top surface of several coal seams at a Cretaceous-age .It is impossible to interpret these deposits as formed by a single event of short duration. The plants that form coal take time to grow, coal takes time to accumulate and decay, and trees take many years to grow. There are multiple coal seams and multiple tree and footprint horizons. They are vastly unique world wide. Rather than being a significant problem for conventional geology, coal is explained quite easily by analogy to modern peat environments. Coal deposits and associated sediments are an immense problem for any interpretation involving a “global flood”.
I trust the faculty emeriti at Texas A&M for my paleobiology and geology questions maybe , if your really interested in the truth ,you should find yourself a good school and quit relying on folklore .
Personally, in matters such as this where there is wide debate, I would say education presents both sides of the argument (or all all relevant arguments if there are multiple viewpoints), along with their relevant supporting evidence, and allows the person being taught to make up their own mind.
Conversely, I would say indoctrination dismisses other view points without reasonable consideration and asserts their chosen view point as truth (this is why I highlighted the grandma/granddad “monkey” pictures, it is deliberately dismissive of the idea that evolution was a long term process).
By my definition you have been educated and reached your own conclusion. And kudos for you, it’s your decision.
But I’m also of the opinion that an individual should be able to explain why they hold the views they hold without attacking other peoples views. And by this I mean it should be discursive not aggressive. The right of reply should always be available, and some will always differ on what they feel is most significant, but I do think discussion is essential. Presenting the evidence you feel is significant and explaining why you feel it is significant is part of debate and integrity, or so I have always felt.
Thank you, Chazz. I am pleasantly surprised to find a very well thought out reply. You clearly also have a touch of education!
It disappoints me how evolutionists on sites like this generally have already been educated/indoctrinated (delete as necessary) and have closed their minds to any information which might mean they have to rethink what they believe to be true. And they like to call themselves free-thinkers!
Well, do present this great mass of evidence for you favorite flavor of science. I’d love to see evidence that someone’s playing Earth Tycoon with us.
Oh, AiG doesn’t count. People without basic knowledge of biology will not be taken seriously.
I’m very sorry, I think I may have double posted this!
@Stewart Cowan
I’m glad you liked my response, and thank you for replying courteously.
I feel it would be arrogant of me to assume things will never ever change, so I hold that stance that information that is new to me should be considered, even if I don’t feel it changes my position on a topic after I have considered it. Or, I have to be able to give good reason for not considering it and not simply personal bias – my disliking something doesn’t stop it existing or being relevant. Some things remain consistent for long periods of time, some things change quickly, keeps the world interesting.
From what I know, scientific theory works on this basis – you establish a stance, and if new information is discovered to contradict that, or to introduce new factors, you look at what other explanations there are and what this means.
It is a shame people on either side of the debate do not discuss more without it becoming aggressive. I know I use humour (such as the Bill Hicks quote in my original post), but I try to do so without it being insulting, or if it is insulting it is merely to try to reflect an issue in the discussion (such as the “monkey” pics and the deliberately dismissive implications). Similarly, I think it is a shame both sides do not review new information and explain why it does or doesn’t sway them. But, I can bleat on forever about this.
“Personally, in matters such as this where there is wide debate,”
You are being purposefully disingenuous here. The minuscule faction of nutbags who object to evolution and present zero evidence for their position by no means is equivalent to “Wide Debate”.
Apologises, I’m a victim of my own careful wording it seems! I didn’t intend to seem disingenuous.
I was meaning where there is a wide spectrum of debate – from people who solely believe in creationism, those who believe in Intelligent Design, those who believe in evolution but with some spiritual reservations, those who solely believe in evolution. Factor in different faiths and different convictions and I feel there is quite a wide spectrum. That’s just my opinion though.
Careful, Chazz, your genuine search for knowledge could get you labelled as a “nutbag”.
Like you say, there is too much pointless aggression. That’s because there is more than science going on here. To discover that the science of Creationism is valid means that scripture is valid and a lot of people don’t want to consider that.
That’s why they don’t want to talk about the science.
What science?
Bit hard on the reading, are we?
Anyway, I’d love to see your science. Kindly present it?
How can someone discover that Creationism is valid when it’s not? Why do you try to treat it like science when it’s not?
I’m pretty certain it’s been considered and invalidated by many. It’s not a matter of want, you see. Nobody is avoiding the subject as a matter of not wanting to notice it; it’s been noticed and dismissed.
Also, Chazz is more than ok so far. Don’t concern yourself with protecting him from any of us labeling him a nutbag until he is one. He’s just a little bit of a hippie, why can’t we all just get along, kind of person, while you are a nutbag. I bet you still can’t see the difference and that’s what makes your testimony all the more unreliable.
There can be a multitude of sides to an argument. Educators, at least ones in public schools, can’t take the time to present every hairbrained idea under the sun. That said, I’m fine with schools offering courses in mythology and religious studies.
It needs said that much of the bible is seen as metaphorical to 99% of christians… I am strongly catholic but I was raised to believe that genesis isn’t strictly true but is only metaphorical. Ironically here in the uk… Only some schools teach creationism while evolution is part of the curriculum twice
!
One of the big problems is that people now compromise: first, on the historical accuracy of scripture and now, its moral authority.
Christians believed the tales of those 18th/19th C. scientists and tried to incorporate them into scripture. They have done truth a great disservice.
Exactly, Science is fully capable of standing on its own. There is no need to try to buttress it with the antiquated myths, legends and make-believe of scripture.
Yup. Myths are as necessary as artificial hues in food: might make things prettier, but ultimately useless (when not downright poisonous).
Please explain the moral authority of a book that joyfully supports slavery, genocide, and misogyny.
I would have to explain the differences in the Old and New Testaments.
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.” — Ephesians 6:5-8
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.” — Colossians 3:22-25
“All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.” — 1 Timothy 6:1
You were saying?
Paul isn’t saying that slavery is good. It was a fact of life for a great many people and the slaves were called upon to be of good report so as not to bring the Gospel into disrepute.
And you don’t understand how that obliterates the so-called moral authority of the Bible and Christianity more generally? The second greatest crime against humanity, exceeded perhaps only by genocide, is chattel slavery, and the Bible (both new and old testaments) can only muster some perfunctory regulations regarding the practice, rather than making a case for abolition. It is a glaring absence that God nor any of his earthly agents took time out of banning shellfish and condemning divorce to say a word or two about the moral abomination of slavery.
Also the thing about the goats and striped poles. That was one of the most awesome pieces of crazy I’ve ever read.
99%? Here in the US it’s more like 30%.
those poor kids.
ugh. the way they’re abusing those kids’ faith in authority figures is…disgusting. masquerading as trustworthy to warp their minds as they see fit…it makes me want to cry. yes, everyone should be able to believe what they want to. but those kids aren’t old enough to decide for themselves! and anyway, who says evolution and creationism have to be mutually exclusive?
excuse me. i need to go reassess my views on humanity.
Evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive.
I’ll tell you what child abuse is: telling them (falsely) that they are nothing more than evolved pond slime. No wonder kids don’t have much self-esteem these days and try to seek solace in drugs.
Funny that lots of those seem to come from fundamentalist homes. Sucks to be held up to impossible, unnatural standards of imaginary supercreatures.
Then again, pond slime is different from mud, how?
(Unless you’re actually a follower of the True Faith – Wotan’s.)
So evolution is depressing because it says that humans descended from pond slime, but the idea that Genesis says the first man was made out of dirt isn’t? I’m not sure how the latter is any better. Not to mention that I sometimes hear the same people who use the “pond slime” straw man talk about how all humans are inherently sinful. Yeah, THAT’S not a depressing thought.
And you’re probably right about Wotan’s faith, because it teaches that the first humans were made from trees. Pretty big step up from dirt, am I right?
Child abuse is telling them unprovable answers and asserting there are no other answers; be it pond slime or not.
Wait a second — you think people do drugs because they evolved and that’s depressing? I would think their self-esteem should be through the roof that they evolved. I hate to say this, but you’re kind of retarded.
There is no “kind of retarded” here. Just plain retarded.
Sometimes genetics are cruel, as if they weren’t designed.
“I hate to say this, but you’re kind of retarded.”
I rather think you enjoyed saying it. Probably because it’s easier to be nasty than intelligent. ;-)
I really don’t like to pull the R word on people, but I don’t think it was ad hominem, since you use the most retarded logic I’ve ever seen. Recognizing something for what it is, I would say, is a fair sign of intelligence, and intelligence and nastiness are not mutually exclusive. Follow along with me now back to your assertion:
a) The reason I believe many kids partake of drugs nowadays is due to their low self-esteem.
b) The kids get their sense of low self-esteem from being taught that they are “nothing more than evolved pond slime.”
———
That’s a lot less than half-baked. I need not bother debating it, it’s just really that stupid. Congratulations.
I’m glad you liked my response, and thank you for replying courteously.
I feel it would be arrogant of me to assume things will never ever change, so I hold that stance that information that is new to me should be considered, even if I don’t feel it changes my position on a topic after I have considered it. Or, I have to be able to give good reason for not considering it and not simply personal bias – my disliking something doesn’t stop it existing or being relevant. Some things remain consistent for long periods of time, some things change quickly, keeps the world interesting.
From what I know, scientific theory works on this basis – you establish a stance, and if new information is discovered to contradict that, or to introduce new factors, you look at what other explanations there are and what this means.
It is a shame people on either side of the debate do not discuss more without it becoming aggressive. I know I use humour (such as the Bill Hicks quote in my original post), but I try to do so without it being insulting, or if it is insulting it is merely to try to reflect an issue in the discussion (such as the “monkey” pics and the deliberately dismissive implications). Similarly, I think it is a shame both sides do not review new information and explain why it does or doesn’t sway them. But, I can bleat on forever about this.
@Chazz
Sometimes you simply aren’t in the right mood to debate -again- the same repeated “arguments”. One has standards about what an argument should be.
@Stewart
I understanded the question the first time, I was joking about it. Chazz has explained better the answer: education has to give you the ability, the tools, to decide your own “truth”.
You said you educated yourself. May I ask how? Did you perform any scientific test on the fields of geology, biology or physics? I assume not (as I didn’t). So you choose some texts from some authors and read them, and you believed them. Why those, and not other texts?
I can now assume other things, wich probably you aren’t going to agree
1.- Your education was defective, you were taught to believe in things without understanding them.
2.- Also you weren’t given the proper tools to understand logic and the scientific method.
3.- You began your quest after being converted to a literalist sect of christianism, so you choose first the conclusion and then selected the texts wich agree with you.
4.- Science is so hard! It’s easiest to believe a fairly tale. Why should we know difficult things?
Now you can say that’s my opinion because we think different. Yes, it is my opinion, but it is because I have seen your same handiccaps in other YECs and because of your assertion about Noah’s flood, so it is a reasoned opinion.
Let’s begin with a non-extensive list of arguments against Noah’s flood.
1.- The only “proof” of a global flood is in religious texts. It is similar to other previous myths with other gods involved and with different details, but the question is, why aren’t any historical documents speaking about it? Why can’t we see the effects in, for example, the older pyramids?
2.- There is not enough water in the earth to cover fast all the surface.
3.- There are a lot of fishes who need salt water, and others who can’t survive on it. Wich ones you choose to exterminate? Was it hot water or cold water? A lot of fishes have a narrow range of temperatures in wich they can survive, as so do algae.
4.- It is not possible to fit all animal species into the ark, a wooden ark able to navigate. There are nowadays 350.000 described species of coleoptera, much more unknown species.
5.- Plants. How did plants survive under the water? Without plants and algae, who produced the oxygen for us to live?
6.- What did those animals eat in the ark, and even after landing? Vegetarians didn’t have plants and carnivorous couldn’t eat the other animals, or their species would dissapear.
7.- How can you explain the geographic distribution of some families (for example marsupials)?
8.- Viral and bacterial diseases. In order those diseases to survive, each species should be infected. I mean that, for example, Noah’s family members had: smallpox, influenza, mumps, measles, chickenpox, rubella, tuberculosis, pneumonia, tetanus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, syphilis, leprosy, pest, malaria… should I go on? They may have preferred death. The same applies to the other animals on the ark, they should have had a lot of infections of their own species.
9.- Why weren’t dinos (appart from birds, of course) in the ark?
About coal deposits, they are perfectly explained in geology text books or, wait, even in wikipedia!
“Coal begins as layers of plant matter accumulate at the bottom of a body of water. For the process to continue the plant matter must be protected from biodegradation and oxidization, usually by mud or acidic water. The wide shallow seas of the Carboniferous period provided such conditions”. The accumulation on a deposit is because of filtering and because, you know, particles in a liquid suspension tend to sink (without divine intervention, as you should agree unless you believe in the Theory of Intelligent Falling).
“because of filtering and because, you know, particles in a liquid suspension tend to sink”
Sorry, I was thinking about oil, not coal.
A very good point, I didn’t mean it to seem dismissive if that’s how it came across, I know constantly having to justify gets sickening. And there are some arguments you feel just shouldn’t have to be stated.
I’m very used to having to do defend my stances, so I sometimes forget how draining it can be. It’s also one of the reasons I try and stress that it’s just my own approach, not trying to say it should be anyone else’s, if that’s how it came across.
@Francesc,
I would say it is clear that very few people commenting here understand the science they are trying to defend. At least I try.
No, I was a Christian long before I discovered Creationism.
1.- The only “proof” of a global flood is in religious texts.
The evidence covers the earth. Perfectly preserved fossils everywhere which must have been buried rapidly; coal seams ditto; Ayer’s Rock, etc.
2.- There is not enough water in the earth to cover fast all the surface.
There is water in the earth’s crust many times greater than all the water in the oceans.
3.- There are a lot of fishes who need salt water, and others who can’t survive on it.
Evolution *within* animal kinds is a fact and indeed was necessary for all the animals to repopulate the earth with its different climates, etc.
4.- It is not possible to fit all animal species into the ark…
See no. 3
5.- Plants. How did plants survive under the water? Without plants and algae, who produced the oxygen for us to live?
The seeds survived.
6.- What did those animals eat in the ark, and even after landing? Vegetarians didn’t have plants and carnivorous couldn’t eat the other animals, or their species would dissapear.
The scriptures tell us that pre-Flood, all animals were vegetarian.
7.- How can you explain the geographic distribution of some families (for example marsupials)?
I’m not sure!
8.- Viral and bacterial diseases.
Not sure what Noah and his family would have been carrying and what would have mutated through the millennia.
9.- Why weren’t dinos (appart from birds, of course) in the ark?
We believe there were. Again, there are probably only a couple of dozen basic types. The giant dinos would have been taken as adolescents, as like human youth, they experience a growth spurt going into adulthood. The stories of dragons all over the world, including the British Isles up until a few centuries ago, suggest that dinosaurs (a recent word) were still around after the Flood.
The coal deposits I am talking about are surely too thick to conform with this explanation?
Seek help. Not trying to be mean. I just think it’s clear that you need some professional assistance.
The scriptures tell us that pre-Flood, all animals were vegetarian.
So this is where the velociraptor coconut joke comes from.
Evolution *within* animal kinds is a fact and indeed was necessary for all the animals to repopulate the earth with its different climates, etc.
What is the definition of a “kind”?
Wait, where in Scripture does it say animals were vegetarian?!
It doesn’t, but it never mentions actual animal predation until later, and this absence is treated as incontrovertible evidence by creationists. Their standards of evidence are just that special.
Its logical nincompoopetry. There was no death untill adam and eve sinned ergo meat eating animals didn’t eat meat.
Unless of course all animals were like the Smiler in John Varley’s books Gaea, Titan and Demon.
“The evidence covers the earth. Perfectly preserved fossils everywhere which must have been buried rapidly; coal seams ditto; Ayer’s Rock, etc.”
Funny all the Chinese and Egyptian historians never noticed that they were drowning.
Amazing how the Flood was able to sort all the fossils so that, say, large mammals, are never found together with dinosaurs. One would think the different kinds of fossils would be bundled haphazardly together if they all drowned in the same flood.
1.- Fossils are not evidence of the flood. They are older than that and trj has just pointed that they are “sorted” in layers of different sediments.
2.- No, it doesn’t. Or we would see Hydrogen in that table: http://mistupid.com/geology/earthcrust.htm
There is water, but not as much as you need.
And either way, you should explain how was that water inside rocks available for the flood
3.- So evolution exists. Just microevolution and not macroevolution, isn’t it?
By the way, that is a real fast evolution, much faster than biologians have calculated.
“The median extent of divergence betweenS. typhimurium andE. coli at synonymous sites for 21 kilobases of protein-coding DNA is 100%. This implies a silent substitution rate of 0.7–0.8%/Myr—a rate remarkably similar to that observed in the nuclear genes of mammals, invertebrates, and flowering plants.”
That is really awesome, as one of the things discussed by opponents of the TSofE is that there wasn’t enough time for evolution. Maybe you should get coherent arguments.
By the way, this is, by any definition I can imagine, macroevolution:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12750857
4.- You still haven’t defined “kinds”, so I really can’t estimate how many animals are we talking about. So let’s replace that argument with “How did Noah get marsupials in the ark?”
5.- Seeds survived. Ok. while they regrow, how did we get oxygen? Your best chance may be to point to algae or to point that, with very few animals, the atmosferic oxygen may have been sufficient. Moreover, maybe pre-flood animals didn’t need as much oxygen as nowadays. What the hell, maybe they didn’t need oxygen at all! So I’ll forget that question too.
Still how convenient that those seeds survived, and that bees necessary for polinization were in great number inside the ark. We should forget that insects have, in general, a short lifespan, so the vegetarian ones should have died, most of them, before the plants regrow.
6.- Still, animals didn’t had plants to eat. And you should explain why dino fossils have obvious carnivorous teeth, as you said that fossils were produced by the flood and that pre-flood animals weren’t carnivorous.
7.- Uh, ok.
8.- Virus and bacteria evolve pretty fast -well, they mutate as fast as other animals but as there are an awful lot of them evolution is faster, or so I tought till know, I’m not sure- and, in fact, some of those diseases may be pretty recent. But genetic variation’s calculations (as the one I copied on the point 3) still seems to indicate that some of them evolved millions of years ago (yes, before earth was created)
9.- Well, dinos are famous and mediatic, but they are a lot of families extinct. You can see here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archosauromorpha
the phylogeny of Archosauromorpha (phylogenies are still changing with new evidences, the classification still may change a bit next years)
From all those “kinds” of animals, only Archosauria still has representants. Archosauria is a kind? Well, it includes dinos and birds. So you don’t have to explain simply why there are not more dinos, but why they aren’t any of those “kinds”.
Or why, from all the class Reptilia, nowadays only survive members of three orders (And remember, Archosauria is an order which includes dinos and birds, so an order can have huge differences inside)
“The coal deposits I am talking about are surely too thick to conform with this explanation?”
Well, that may be because you are assuming that coal is an entire layer of ancient tree, while coal deposits have to be usually “cleaned” of other minerals and sediments. If you weren’t assuming the young earth I could explain that a delta for a hundred thousand years could generate the deposite as thick as you want it.
How do you explain the velocity of the techtonic movements and the consequent age of the oceanic crust with a young earth?
By the way, I am neither a biologian nor a geologist so I’m refreshing and learning new things thanks to this conversation. Thanks!
So Stewart, those dragons you mention, are those the flying, fire-breathing dragons that hold princesses captive in a castle until a knight comes to slay the dragon and rescue the princess?
Stewart, regarding #3 above, you say “Evolution *within* animal kinds is a fact and indeed was necessary for all the animals to repopulate the earth with its different climates, etc.”
Where is that described in your precious holy book? I have a bible at hand so I will wait for the scripture verse to reference. While you’re at it, I’d like to know the scripture verses that describe gravity, physics, thermodynamics, the basic components of the computer you are using etc.etc.etc.
The bible – an ancient text written by primative goat herders and farmers to try and describe the world they lived in. Written by men to keep other men (especially women) in line.
Stewart I have already described your mistakes in your therory of coal formation and I see you try and use Aryers rock (its proper name is Uluru ) in this thread so I’ll correct you on that geological process as well. 600 million years ago large parts of Central Australia were below sea level in what is called the Amadeus Basin. Rivers from nearby mountains dumped large quantities of sedimentary rocks into the Amadeus Basin which then started to rise out of the sea about 500 million years ago. With little or no vegetation to protect the mountains from erosion, great rivers would have formed carrying tonnes of sediment which would quickly build to form alluvial fans. Layer upon layer would have built up and which would eventually form Uluru from a section of one of the alluvial fans. The sea eventually invaded the area again depositing more sand and mud burying the alluvial fans. Over this whole protracted period the profound pressures and squeezing together transformed the deposited sand, gravel and mud, etc into solid rock. Between 400 – 300 million years ago the area was subjected to another bout of mountain building and landmasses colliding causing more uplift, folding and faulting, breaking up the alluvial fan and the various layers above and below. The future Uluru was a part of one of these alluvial fan sections which has been tilted on its side at almost 90° so all the sedimentary layers are on their side.
After millions and millions of years of continued weathering, Uluru survived the erosion as they were made of harder rock than that which surrounded them. More recently, about 70 – 60 million years ago, the climate was much wetter which then washed sand and other elements back into the low lying land which smoothed out the landscape leaving only Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Atila protruding out of the desert.
This is my opinion, and take it you will: you can believe what you like, but it’s when you start telling people what and what not to do—that’s where I draw the line.
Bullshit. If that is truly your line, then you must be opposed to murder and rape laws as well.
I’m talking solely about religion and religion alone; I thought that’s what this thread was regarding.
And so if a religion, say, encouraged its adherents to kill unbelievers and take their stuff, where would you stand?
You’re still not getting the point; are you?
What am I not getting?
You said: “[Y]ou can believe what you like, but it’s when you start telling people what and what not to do—that’s where I draw the line.” Then you clarified: “I’m talking solely about religion and religion alone.”
So I posit a religion (reflective of some actual religions on Earth) that might cause your criteria some problems. How does your rule deal with them? Is it OK to believe in a religion and pursue its commandments if some of those commandments mean infringing on other people’s lives/property?
Of course not—religion is belief; that’s as much as I can say. You can believe what you like, but please only teach or preach your beliefs to those who choose to listen. More so: don’t teach or preach beliefs to children who are unable to make complex sentient decisions, such as “Is this or is this not complete bullshit?” or “That explains quite a lot, but let’s say what was there before God?”. Questioning and scrutiny is how we progress and develop ideas; the same needs to be done with religion.
So they’re telling these kids what to do and what not to do. That’s not ok. They’re telling me I should not get an abortion. They’re telling gay people they can’t marry, that man+woman is how it should be. They’re telling schools what to teach and government what policies to have. I mean, we’re telling them too, nobody is saying anyone has to have an abortion, but we are engaged in how to best educate children and how best to govern us. It’s unavoidable in a democracy for some majority of people to decide how the rest of us should live. Religion really isn’t neutral and personal as it might seem.
They’re telling us we can’t advertise on billboards and bus posters, while they take their ability to do so as a given. They speak of something called a “war on Christmas” because they can’t have a creche on the town hall property, or store clerks wish them “Happy Holidays.” They remind us that our departed loved ones are in heaven and that we’ll see them again someday until they find out we’re an atheist and that we are going to hell if we don’t listen and repent and accept Jesus as our savior. I mean, that’s not ok with me, and it sounds like it’s not ok with you, but do you think someone’s beliefs remain hidden, personal, and don’t affect anyone else, so there’s no reason to hold it against them?
They are raising innocent children and filling them with utter nonsense, because it’s “just easier,” and alternate beliefs are as valid as the truth. Who will be running this country someday, who already have. There would be no need for atheism if theism didn’t wiggle into so many vital areas, obscuring truth, calling it false, calling it the devil, making a lot of people dumber than a box of hammers about anything, about history, about progress, about technology, and leading them on holy quests in preparation for the rapture.
How are we supposed to be a great and powerful nation if this weight slows us down and turns us in the opposite direction? Is it not right to push back, to point out, to stem this tide wherever we may? I mean, a parent may say, how dare you force science into my kid’s brain, and we are just asking why they want their kid to go through life calling orange ‘blue,’ things that are nobody’s business ‘sins,’ and 3.141593 ’3′, and how is that for the greater good?
If they are so bogged down by this god idea, that glory and salvation are all that matter, and science is trickery caused by satan (how is it that god’s project looks like a 2nd grade diorama and satan’s project looks like it was made by someone with the skills of a professional with several lifetimes’ experience? – if god is god), and whoever falls in with satan doesn’t count as a valid citizen, whose opinions and rational policies are leading this country away from god. Get those children while they’re young, they don’t really count as people until they already think what we want them to think. How does that serve anyone on earth? They are taught to generally ignore the issues on earth except when those issues have a big chance of angering god, and when those issues feed their children information that will tempt them away from god.
Yeah, it’s ok to believe whatever you want, just don’t tell me what to do and how to live, except that these beliefs are inseparable from the political agenda, and it’s perfectly reasonable to indoctrinate children, as they are the property of their parents and not future adults in the greater community.
While part of me is tempted to suggest that Ken Ham and his ilk are engaging in criminal activity by propagandizing children, I’m afraid there’s probably no basis for that argument.
We have to hope that a lot of those kids will overcome the dangerous indoctrination (some posting in this thread, including myself, are living proof that that does happen). ‘Our side’ has to do our best to make folks (young, old and in between) aware of sound scientific theories and aware of how those theories contradict religious “theories” (which would include pointing out the similarities between Christian mythology and various ancient mythologies).
I’m not advocating an attack on religion, per se. Or maybe I am. I’m recalling the story about how Bill Nye upset some folks when he stated that a certain well-established/accepted scientific theory (about the Earth revolving around the Sun, I think) contradicted the book of Genesis. My impression from the article is that the audience accepted the science, and only got upset after he pointed out that it contradicted the Bible. My point being that it’s not enough to promote facts. We have to help people recognize that some widely held beliefs are false. Otherwise, we aren’t helping people overcome cognitive dissonance (something we all engage in, though hopefully not in ways that are as potentially dangerous as believing a lot of the crap that’s spewed by fundies and evangelists).
I just want to know how that jerk got those photos of my grandparents!!!
. That’s going to seriously handicap those kids minds and limit what they could become; sort of child abuse , religious fundamentalists wear their scientific ignorance as a badge of honor. They attack movies and books that depict characters using the wrong kind of magic while thumbing their noses at scientific evidence that disproves their flavor of mysticism. Anti-evolution, pro-creationism school districts pepper the Bible belt beyond all palatability. The war between science and religious dogma is most ferociously fought for the minds of children .
What an absolutely evil b@stard to do that to kids.
And just for the record creationism is NOT part of mainstream Christian. and it is NOT required or normal for Christians.
Mainstream Christian can be as wide or as narrow as you need it to be?
But yes, a lot of christians out there don’t need to be creationists.
Let’s put it this way: creationism is the lazy explanation. “What about this mystery and this strange thing?” “Oh: God made them.” “Well… what about this phenomenon?” “God did that. Yeah; definitely one of God’s.”
I could vomit … Brainwashing children should be banned as a crime.
Stupid people.. Maybe only in USA
Pingback: Create with Yahweh | VoVatia
Pretty tragic stuff – teaching basically crock of the obvious to young minds and the amount of people here like to tilt at strawmen.
Put slightly differently – what are you lot gonna DO about it other than post smug comments anonymously?