In a couple of hours I’m stepping on a plane for a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am visit to Texas to give a talk at TCCD. So in the meantime enjoy this…
This is why we shouldn’t allow creationism to be taught as "an alternative" to evolution in the schools.
My future as a web comic artist is somewhat uncertain.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
 |
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
April 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I think XKCD has the stick figure/science comic niche pretty well nailed down.
http://xkcd.com/
April 14th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Don’t quit your day job, assuming you have a day job.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Cute. Good luck when xkcd sues you for art infringement.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Come to think of it, good luck when Cectic sues you for swiping their content.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Randall Monroe has nothing to fear.
Have fun in TX! There’s lots of great people in this state, despite its reputation for craziness.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Relating to PZ’s googlebomb effort, are we mentioning Expelled here?
April 14th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hey, I didn’t know you were coming to my school!
Too bad it’s at a different campus and I have a test to take during your talk. Oh! You should start recording your talks and posting the videos.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I’ve always been a fan of Tom Weller’s Modern Solution as a good compromise.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Pig: “I wish I was taller”
April 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Did someone mention Expelled the Movie?
April 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Did someone mention Expelled the Movie?
April 14th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Did someone mention Expelled the Movie?
April 14th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Yikes - I’m sorry — I was getting weird “regex” errors and didn’t think to check to the if the comment posted. My bad.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Nice trick, Tacitus.
^_^J.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Dude, your hatred of people of faith is causing you to lose all reason. For someone who prides himself on providing E.V.I.D.E.N.C.E. in a debate, one has to wonder why you are resorting to personal attacks?
April 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Okay, it wasn’t a trick, after all, hng-hng! Got the selfsame error message after my own posting!
So I think this little blogcomment-bug on BAB should be expelled as soon as possible.
But it’s not really worth the trouble to post it here since links in blog comments on BAB have a “no follow” attribute, which has become web standard for blogs anyway, and for good reasons (some matters of sanity are involved too).
^_^J.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Phil’s not talking about “people of faith,” duuude, Phil’s talking about creationists and their preposterious attitudes. Might be the same ballpark, but doesn’t have to.
Oh, and the “resorting to personal attacks instead of providing evidence,” well, in the neighborhood of talking about creationists, that’s a jaw-droppin’ good one, I’ll give you that.
^_^J.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
ok phil, thats funny, i forgive you
April 14th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I totally agree with the evidence argument. I have been lectured at length by many creationists that there is no solid evidence for evolution. I try to provide countless examples and I’m still told there is no evidence. Funny that when I ask for evidence of creationism the subject changes to I have no faith. Imagine that.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Matt, assuming you’re not trolling, who was the subject of the personal attack? No names were mentioned and the stick figures don’t resemble any person living or dead, so how can it be a personal attack?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Hey, I was going to start a webcomic devoid of actual artistic talent! You stole my idea!
J/K
Seriously though, have you considered constrained comics?
April 14th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I have an idea for a webcomic, but like you, I’m not much into drawing. The basic premise is: it’s sort of like “Star Trek”, except the governing body is horribly mismanaged.
So, for example, half the crew has to wear the “old” uniforms, because their shipment of “new” uniforms never arrived. Or, their photon torpedoes are useless because they’re clockwise-threaded instead of counterclockwise.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Probably because “faith” essentially means convincing yourself that you belief in something that’s patently untrue or impossible and then sticking it to it regardless of all evidence to the contrary. It’s immoral and causes the majority of problems in the world that the rest of us are then stuck with solving and paying for.
Phil, I liked the little web-comic. A for effort!
April 14th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
They look like they’re going to hug each other with their arms like that…
April 14th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Hey Phil, I can’t believe you’re coming to my school!
I actually go to the NW campus, but I’ll definitely make the trip over to see your talk.
If you see a fat dude with awkward facial hair and “MARRY ME PHIL” written on his bare chest, you’ll know it’s me.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Don’t quit your day job, Phil.
Still funny script though.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Agh, I’ll be in class, otherwise I’d be there. You should give a talk at UTD sometime.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
They don’t teach alternatives to the theory of thermodynamics in school or alternative medicine in medical school, so why should we teach alternatives to the theory of evolution?
April 14th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
It’s not so much an attack as an analogy.
Phil’s suggesting that the creationists are demanding a compromise — that both ID and evolution be taught as mutually credible, scientific alternatives — when they have no real power to negotiate on the issue. Just as Sticky McLefterson up there has contributed no friendship from which to demand money, ID has contributed no science from which to demand credibility.
Now, if creationists were to push instead for schools to start teaching comparative religions, including religious ideas on the creation of the world, they’d have much stronger legs. However, doing so — especially in a public school — would require them to teach creation myths from at least the major religions.
Michael
April 14th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
When two viewpoints argue against each other with the same degree of ferocity, the truth is not always somewhere in between. Often, one side is simply wrong.
Creationism/ID is wrong. There is no evidence to support their case. Zip. Assuming the existence of God or a “Designer” on a purely philosophical level is one thing. But claiming that the Universe cannot function without God inserts an unnecessary and intrinsically vague variable into the equation.
Saying “God did it” only raises more questions than this idea supposes to answer.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Another thing…
Ever notice how those pushing for “Intelligent Design” to be taught always talk about a Designer only in the singular? Why do they never consider multiple Designers? Why do we only hear the Judeo-Christian tradition advocating ID, and not polytheists like Hindus?
Simple. It’s a theological and semantic smokescreen for saying “God”. The bearded, Caucasian man in the sky version of God.
Advocates for ID aren’t fighting for intellectual freedom. They’re fighting to get preferential treatment for their particular brand of superstition, in order to indoctrinate other people’s children.
In the marketplace of ideas, ID is bankrupt and it’s looking for a government handout in order to stay alive because it simply cannot compete on a level intellectual playing field.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Brilliant. Quit writing and start ‘tooning.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Well I liked it!
Of course it needs a panel where a court awards him “$500+costs”
April 14th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
# gyokusaion 14 Apr 2008 at 5:44 pm
Matt Garrett sez:
Dude, your hatred of people of faith is causing you to lose all reason. For someone who prides himself on providing E.V.I.D.E.N.C.E. in a debate, one has to wonder why you are resorting to personal attacks?
Phil’s not talking about “people of faith,” duuude, Phil’s talking about creationists and their preposterious attitudes…
——————–
uh, dude… pot…. kettle….. black…. er….. something like that
April 14th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
No. It needs a panel where the judge cites the precidence of dover.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Hey Phil,
While you’re visiting schools and doing presentations - I’ll invite you to speak at my son’s. Of course, he’s home schooled (no, not for religious reasons), so it’ll be a small event.
But seriously, hope to see you in San Antonio sometime soon - we do have real schools that need critical thinking, too. And some of the colleges, I imagine.
John B. Sandlin
April 14th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Looks like Phil went to the Wellington Gray school of drawing
April 14th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I got a few words for you: “Perpetual Motion Machine” and “Homeopathy”.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
“Ever notice how those pushing for “Intelligent Design” to be taught always talk about a Designer only in the singular? Why do they never consider multiple Designers? Why do we only hear the Judeo-Christian tradition advocating ID, and not polytheists like Hindus?”
That’s an exceptionally good point. I’ve talked with ID supporters before who insist that the ID argument is * not * about God.
I never considered that counterpoint:
“Ok, if it’s not God, than who? The only other conceivable options are Gods, plural, or aliens. Since this is supposed to be a scientific debate rather than a theological discussion, I suppose we can rule out Gods as well. So that leaves aliens.
So you’re saying an intelligent designer (a single alien) created the universe? Maybe it’d be more logical to say intelligent designerS. Because I don’t care how damn good your technology is, if you’re building a whole freaking universe you’re going to need a LOT of contractors to put it together.”
April 14th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Teachers should be more aggressive in combatting creationism when teaching their classes.
Say something like ‘If your parents have raised you to believe in a creator of the universe, then your parents are just plain stupid.’ That’s what many teachers are thinking. Right? Why not say it out loud? Why not be more direct?
April 15th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Joked # lolife on 14 Apr 2008 at 8:47 pm :
“Brilliant. Quit writing and start ‘tooning.”
NOOOOOO!!!!! :-0
Write on!
If anything drop the ‘toons .. but no reason why you can’t do both - but just write more - esp. books!
April 15th, 2008 at 12:22 am
PD:
Because it all too often happens that the opposite course is the norm, especially in small towns. Too often, people are afraid of the scientific method, afraid of thought, afraid of the conflict of faith and reason. So they attack what they consider the “opposition” in the conflict and all of its conclusions.
It’s not the school’s job to tell kids what to believe; it is the school’s job to give the kids the intellectual tools to understand the scientific method and critical thinking. Whether or not the kids eventually notice that it is the creationist side that deals in absolutes is out of the school’s hands.
Despite claims of dogmatism, science still remains open to discourse and does not threaten eternal pain and suffering for not quite buying the current set of theories. If anything, it would be more advantageous to present this side of it, the side that can speak rationally without resorting to shouting and finger pointing. What it means to disagree in science and how it should use none of the emotionally manipulative tools of debate, and how few absolutes there are.
But then you run into the whole morass of why there is conflict. Science does not claim many absolutes, so faith very often attempts to seize what it perceives as unclaimed ground and then berate science for being too weak to do the same.
It truly is a clash of cultures that has resounded for centuries now, but I’d be the last to counsel telling kids their parents are idiots.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:23 am
How about this as an alternative Kreationist “compromise”
We let them teach ID~(iot)ism in school science class
*IF* they swap every other Sunday sermon in Church for a science lecture on biology, cosmology, atheism, etc ..
April 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Oh, and Phil: you forgot the devil horns on the scientist. How else are we supposed to know who is who?
April 15th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I recommend you try the Funny Times Cartoon Playground.
http://www.funnytimes.com/playground/
You can create your own cartoons using stock images and inserting your own dialogue/captions/scenery. If you are good, they might even publish it.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Faith = Supersition
April 15th, 2008 at 3:16 am
“Advocates for ID aren’t fighting for intellectual freedom” said Cello Man
The question is “Are we?”
continues: “They’re fighting to get preferential treatment for their particular brand of superstition, in order to indoctrinate other people’s children.”
In an environment of intellectual freedom, I would be surprised to see indoctrination succeed.
continues: “ID is bankrupt and it’s looking for a government handout in order to stay alive because it simply cannot compete on a level intellectual playing field.”
What’s to stop someone making the same argument for science teaching? That it’s bankrupt and would not survive without government funding?
Please be careful of collateral damage in your “culture wars”.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:11 am
“My future as a web comic artist is somewhat uncertain.”
No, I’d say it’s pretty certain… Better let XKCD handle the artsy-fartsy stuff.
As to the message of the comic, IDers shouldn’t be allowed into schools because they’ll demand money? I know, someone said it’s an analogy. But using the halo on the one demanding the money tells us you lump all religious types under the general heading of “thug” or “greedy money grubbers”. Talk about your ad hominem. (I can offer plenty of examples to the contrary…)
April 15th, 2008 at 6:20 am
DennyMo
“IDers shouldn’t be allowed into schools because they’ll demand money?”
Swosscchh
Did you see it ?
It went right by you, the point.
Hint, it is not about money.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I don’t know about Creationists and their compromises, but it still worries me that in a million years, or whatever it’s supposed to be, I will have evolved into an animal that requires little sun-light, even less water and precious little food….right?…..I mean, there is no such thing as reverse-evolution…or evidence of it….is there? So there won’t be any cave-dwelling and hairyness, or walking on all-fours making weapons out of flint…will there? This question is obviously for those who claim that they know it all!
April 15th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I see your point. Just wear a hat, no one will notice.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Sigh.
It is a false dichotomy. It is not a case of “meet us halfway” because there isn’t an us-and-them, a this-or-that. Creationism is not an “alternative” to evolution. ID is attempting to set it up as a false dichotomy to put it on equal footing with evolution without cause, attempting to appear beneficent in “compromising” to say “teach both.” There is no “both.” There never was.
Is a person generous because they come down from demanding an amount of money without cause to demanding half of that amount?
April 15th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Marty : “I mean, there is no such thing as reverse-evolution…or evidence of it…”
Uh…evolution has no set direction. It’s about change and those that have a change that is beneficial tend to out-survive those that don’t. There are some species that evolved from ocean creatures to land and then back to ocean.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:52 am
(Heavy sigh). Life is just too damn short for these kinds of blog ping-pong fights. Just keep in mind that arguments like this will go on long after we’re all dead. Much like the hideous politically-motivated legacies that past presidents have left us (and the whopper the scum running Washington today have caused today) and our descendants, our descendants will still be fighting over this nonsense topic, too. Why don’t we all just stop blogging and get back to the work our bosses are paying us to do? Just keep buying those Jesus fish with the legs on the bottom, to keep offending closed-minded religious fundamentalists of all faiths, and carry on…
I for one, will be vigilant of what my 2 young children are taught in school and so must we all. Children grow to be very wary and suspicious of the usefulness of what they learn in school (”what will I need this for in the future??), and questions like that, so we must be ready to help them understand outside agendas that don’t involve actual education.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Repent!
http://www.local6.com/news/15875360/detail.html
April 15th, 2008 at 9:07 am
creationist #1: We have found an evolutionist. May we force her to teach ID?
uneducated masses: teach ID! teach! teach ID!
bedevere: How do you know she is a evolutionist?
creationist #2: She looks like one.
uneducated masses: Right! Yeah! Yeah!
bedevere: Bring her forward.
evolutionist: I’m not a evolutionist. I’m not a evolutionist.
bedevere: Uh, but you are the mouth piece for Big Science.
evolutionist: They created this false dichotomy.
uneducated masses: Augh, we didn’t! We didn’t…
evolutionist: And this isn’t my nose. It’s a false one.
bedevere: Well?
creationist #1: Well, we did do the nose.
bedevere: The nose?
creationist #1: And the hat, but she is a evolutionist!
creationist #2: Yeah!
uneducated masses: force her to teach ID! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah!
bedevere: Did you dress her up like this?
creationist #1: No!
creationist #2 and 3: No. No.
creationist #1: yes.
creationist #2: Yes.
creationist #1: Yes. Yeah, a bit.
creationist #3: A bit.
creationistS #1 and #2: A bit.
creationist #1: She has got a predilection for beliving abiogenisis.
bedevere: What makes you think she is a evolutionist?
creationist #3: Well, she turned my ancestors into apes.
bedevere: apes?
creationist #3: they got better.
creationist #2: teach ID anyway!
creationist #1: teach!
uneducated masses: teach ID! teach! teach ID!…
April 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Alrighty, I know others have commented on this:
But I don’t see (sorry if I missed it) where anyone address the basic point here. No, Matt, it’s not an ad hominem attack on Creationists. It’s very much an attack on their logic. It must be noted that just because a counter-argument against your reasoning makes you look stupid does not a personal attack make. If you feel like you were personally attacked, it probably means you should consider your own argument again to see why you looked a fool.
That said, trying to turn this into an ad hominem argument rather than sticking to the logic (which Phil definitely did in this case) is a pretty low way to try to deflect an argument you’re losing. Don’t do that, it only makes your case look weaker.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Jeffersonian writes:
Talk about your self-serving straw-man definitions.
How about: Faith is accepting a premise.
Faith is being loyal.
Faith is sticking to something you know was once proved true despite emotional urges to repudiate it.
This is where the militant atheist goes off the rails. I was an atheist most of my life, and I was embarrassed by atheists like Jeffersonian, who have the idiotic belief that religion causes most of the world’s problems. How about overpopulation? Pollution? Dictatorship? Racism? All attributable to religion? Then why was the USSR, which was militantly atheist, such a horrible place, promoting births (Stalin banned abortion in 1937), polluting the hell out of eastern Europe, killing millions and consigning millions more to concentration camps, and so anti-Chinese they nearly launched a nuclear war on the PRC in 1971?
Maybe some of the world’s evils aren’t caused by religion? Is that possible?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:08 am
PD writes:
Because it would violate separation of church and state, which court decisions have held mandates that a teacher not be able to indoctrinate his pupils with his worldview?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Gavin Flower writes:
Is that where you try to site too many building projects in the same area?
I take it you don’t have faith that the sidewalk will support your weight, and therefore don’t venture out of your house? Or have you made careful empirical tests of the concrete?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Nice comic, although the last sentence is not complete. You should add ‘extra’.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I think it is a great cartoon, but what is a halo doing above the creationist’s head?
I think that spoils it, since a halo is a graphical depiction of virtue, and by putting it in the cartoon, that quality is being ascribed.
perhaps a big black bible dripping with blood, would be better.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:58 am
@Paton 15 Apr 2008 at 12:22 am
Some people think that schools are teaching believes. 1+1=2 is only true if you believe that, they seem to think. Never mind, that’s why these people want their believes to be taught. They crash when they are asked for scientific arguments. They don’t have a clue what science is about and come up with complete nonsense.
Too bad for them that other disciplines are too complicated for them. Quantum mechanics is far more dangerous to ignorant religious ideas. Quantum mechanics work and prohibit clever entities stirring and directing. That is, if you know what QM is about. No one can deny nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons. QM works and we know why.
For the real ignorants it is not important. They already easily deny biotechnology and medicine production while these things exist only because of evolution. “No, it is design! People are designing!”, they will shout.
Sigh.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
This is severely confused.
First, evolution is about populations, not individuals as you depict it. It can be defined as common descent or hereditary change over time for populations.
Second, homo sapiens is currently intensely evolving, an evolution that accelerated some 40 ky ago due to population growth (selection then becomes much more effective). It is probably then the fastest evolving large animal (larger than a rat :-P) at this point. IIRC it is mainly immuno-response and sexual characteristics that are observed to change.
Third, as already noted, there isn’t any set direction for evolution. That there is a hierarchical ‘natural order’ is an old christian idea called “chain of being” or “scala naturae”. It was replaced by “the ladder of progress” in the teleological idea of “theistic evolution”.
Both descriptions are debunked by evolution, which has no teleology nor accumulating complexity. Parasites are famous for sometimes simplifying drastically when their environment in a host become externally tightly regulated, or sometimes develop hugely complex life cycles for procreation and transfer between series of hosts.
So evolution is both “forward” and “reverse” for any measure you care to define, and there is plenty of evidence for this.
Nobody knows it all, and scientists know this better than most. But some questions have been answered long ago, while others as in the link above has just been started to be researched.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
It is, this is shown by Multiple Designer Theory and was introduced by biologist (AFAIK) Richard B. Hoppe to exemplify a real theory (and mock creationists for not coming up with one).
It is obviously forensic in nature as all natural theories on natural agents, i.e. you identify and distinguish in known classes of designer agents and RBH shows how by validating the method.
I don’t think answering a purported self-serving strawman with an actual self-serving strawman conflation between factual theories and religious faiths is an argument.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Oops, possibly some html trouble caused a link drop. (Preview please!) Rephrasing:
homo spaiens is currently intensely evolving, an evolution that accelerated some 40 ky ago due to population growth (selection then becomes much more effective)
April 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Only harmful mutations are possible. Harmful mutations that turn out to be beneficial in a changing habitat are more deadly than mutations that don’t provide adaption. That is mandatory, no exceptions. Everything is mutating and degrading, except for genitals. Lucky us, condemned organisms. So populations degrade, but stay compatible forever and provide sound offspring that can multiply. Degraded as they are. The mule was intelligently designed. As were tons of fossils and anything else that firmly points at evolution.
Yes, faithful ones. Goddidit loves you so much that he wants you to be a mindless thoughtless zombie forever in an imaginary universe of make believe where nothing is real, including you and everybody else. It’s eternal psychosis without hope for salvation. The mother of bad trips. No, really. If you are one of the few to be saved and make it to ‘heaven’ the slightest doubt about right and wrong *ever* will cast you immediately from this divinely proved make believe paradise hell. Then the deepest fear will creep upon you and you will be completely on your own, distrusting everything, even yourself. Your doubt will spread to many of the ones close to you, at least the ones with the slightest bit of common sense. Heaven won’t be for mindless people without the slightest bit of skepticism, would it?
Yes, faithful people, it might be something some ancestors found out in a sense at the point they thought they figured out everything. Goddidit. But not quite. The implication of the thought must have been devastating. And it probably provided the inspiration of some well known stories. Something with a tree for example. Our ancestors were not ignorant or stupid. They just didn’t know what we know now.
An eternal paradise as is promised by some guys in dresses is impossible due to the nature of human kind. Ignorance is an answer, but not the answer. Simply because some people will object believing make believe. Now or whenever. Because reality is different. Harder, more convincing, more beautiful, far more delicate, something to question. It’s our nature.
(..)
The universe is not a mystery but both home and journeys. Logic and reason are not made up but are simply reasonable and logic. Human kind looks for reason and logic. It’s what we are made of and it is what makes us survive. We will find it. ‘When every stone has been turned and nobody is left behind.’
April 15th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Dr. Plait. Thanks for spending a few minutes chatting with a fan. I am now the proud owner of a signed copy of Bad Astronomy. I also enjoyed your talk. Your enthusiasm for critical thinking really shows. Please come back to Texas more often.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
BPL said:
I’ll give you that faith is accepting a premise and about being loyal but your third statement about faith is a statement of faith in itself. Take out “was once proved true” bit and you have an accurate definition of faith. If it was proved true it ain’t faith and you just have to show the proof.
Absolutely. People do bad s*** and probably always will. Take away the religion and a large amount of (not all) motivation to do bad stuff goes away though. Communism and Nazism are just cults/religion dressed up in secular clothing so at best they’re straw men too.
Probably the best example of a reasonably secular “evil” event was the Terror during the French Revolution.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Dang, wish that was me… or was it? Nope, I’d remember meeting Phil and I’ve never been to Texas.
Shane - living vicariously through other Shanes
April 15th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
>How about overpopulation? Pollution? Dictatorship? Racism? All >attributable to religion?
overpopulation - catholicism/mormonism etc.
pollution - anti-environmental movement has a xtian-based history in the US
dictatorship - catholocism, hirohito, etc.
racism - the 3 abrahamic religions, etc.
Yes, these problems, too, often have faith as an underlying cause. If it weren’t for faith, we would at least have discourse.
>Faith is accepting a premise.
Yes regardless of fact and consequence.
>Faith is being loyal.
To a system that produces outcomes, regardless of their truth, value or integrity.
>Faith is sticking to something you know was once proved true despite >emotional urges to repudiate it.
Replace “once” with “never”
April 15th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Wrote # PD on 14 Apr 2008 at 11:26 pm :
[Quote/] “Teachers should be more aggressive in combatting creationism when teaching their classes. Say something like ‘If your parents have raised you to believe in a creator of the universe, then your parents are just plain stupid.’ That’s what many teachers are thinking. Right? Why not say it out loud? Why not be more direct?” [/Quote]
Because it would be incredibly rude, arrogant & insulting.
Plus : Are _many_ teachers thinking that?
I doubt it. Some, perhaps only a handful of the militantly atheist, teachers mightbe I suppose .. But many teachers - like most of the world’s populace _are_ religious. Many feel they have personal communication with a God (or even Gods or Godess’s) themselves.
Assuming logic _is_ with atheism or scientism then there’s no need to be nasty or abusive but it should be enough to let the facts speak for themselves.
Now before y’all jump up & down I’ll state clearly that I’m an agnostic who does NOT believe in Creationist baloney or think it merits teaching in school - possibly outside of a quick “What is & isn’t science” lecture or good argument in philosophy class. People should be taught tothink properly and, yes, a lot of Creationists are outright liars.
But going out of your way to offend people with shrill simplistic diatribes like that of PD or Dawkins or Hitchens don’t work for me or many others.
Making overblown, over simple insults that blame everything on religion and allow no room for reasonable compromise or to “live & let live” .. is NOT the way to convince others to agree with you, I think. Instead, such attitude and vituperation just polarises things and turns folks off from you & whatever valid points you do have to say.
No disrespect to the militant atheists but lets cool down & agree on good manners over rudeness if nothing else.
———————————————————–
Galileo Galilei : “Science tells us how the heavens go - not how to go to heaven.”
April 15th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Glad to have heard your presentation today. I was shocked to see the flyers for it and realize they were actually inviting someone I knew about already! It was one of the better-attended presentations I’ve been to, and since the administration seemed to notice that, with luck we’ll get more skeptics in. Thanks for speaking!
April 16th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Right now I am so darn heart-broken, I don’t even know what to say. I live ONE MILE down the road from TCCD; I had no idea Phil would be there today. Ahh! If only I would have checked the site this morning, I could have called in “sick” to work and gone to the talk… I’m a huge BA fan, have been coming to the site daily for the past 5 years; Darn! I’m very, very upset that I missed this. Hope you come back soon Phil.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:40 am
That was awesome!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Torbjörn Larsson sez:
Third, as already noted, there isn’t any set direction for evolution. That there is a hierarchical ‘natural order’ is an old christian idea called “chain of being” or “scala naturae”. It was replaced by “the ladder of progress” in the teleological idea of “theistic evolution”.
Correct, and I find that this is one of the most common misunderstandings of evolution: that “survival of the fittest” means that the organisms around today are “more highly evolved”. Truth is, nature doesn’t work with value distinctions. It’s quite binary — you survive or you don’t. At that basic, savage level, nothing else is important. Perhaps some of the more thoughtful creationists find that idea too nihilistic to stomach, but frankly, I think most reject evolution before even getting to that point. (Most, I think, reject evolution because they don’t understand it and are thus more inclined to believe various authorities when told it’s wrong — especially when those authorities add appeals to their egos, such as the ever-popular “if you don’t believe evolution, then you’re bucking the atheistic scientific establishment that doesn’t care about people”.)
However, it is not quite correct that this is a purely Christian idea (that there is a natural hierarchy). In fact, this is a very ancient idea and common to a great many philosophical frameworks. It is essential to many Eastern religions, for instance, and arguably more so than to Christianity. Consider the ideas of karma and reincarnation. A great many people on Earth believe that if you live a good life, you will be reincarnated into a better one. If you live a bad life, you will be reincarnated into a worse one. If you’re lucky, your punishment will be just moving down to a lower caste (perhaps as low as the Untouchables). If you’re really bad, you’ll be reincarnated as an animal, with greater misdeeds in this life leading to reincarnation into lower and lower forms of life.
So it’s not really fair to blame Christians for this thinking. (They just picked it up from existing thinking on the subject, by Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians, the strongest cultural influences on early Christians.) Indeed, this sort of thinking seems to be very common, and is probably a reflection of our human tendency to sort things into categories, our social need to create a hierarchy (hierarchies are common to many social animals, and create a structure suitable for doing the business of keeping a society running), and of course our vast pride. Even atheists aren’t immune to this sort of thinking. All it takes is a little bit too much pride in our species.
(The opposite viewpoint also exists — that there is a hierarchy, but we’re the worst species on Earth. This is less popular, for obvious reasons, and while it is rarely the lynchpin of a major philosophy or religion, it does have a certain appeal at times. Of course, from the perspective of evolution, it’s just as pointless as the idea that humans are the best species, and usually accompanies the same wrongheaded notion that humans are the dominant species on Earth today.)
As far as the OP, I think it’s an excellent summary of the creationist position. And as a person of faith, I did not feel the least bit insulted by it.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
To: Salaam +Shalom = Peace
My original post was an experiment to see what responses I would get for recommending outrageous behavior on the part of a teacher who was anti-ID. I got only a couple of mild rebukes prior to your post. I was pleased to read your post, where I was castigated rather harshly. I think that was a reasonable response.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Jeffersonian, not getting it, writes:
It’s amazing how Catholicism and the LDS caused overpopulation in India and Bangladesh.
Empty assertion devoid of supporting evidence. Pollution might more accurately go with the Victorian belief in “progress.”
“Catholicism.” Is that a dictatorship? I thought it was a religion. And Showa-san didn’t really have much power. It was the democratically elected premier, Tojo Hideki, and his immediate predecessors, who launched the savage attacks on China, Korea, and the USA.
Again, just restating your belief does nothing to prove it. Judaism tells you “Do not oppress a stranger, you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Christianity says, “There is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond nor free, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” and sees “elect from every nation” in heaven. Muslims are white (middle east), black (US, Africa) and yellow (Indonesia, Malaysia).
April 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
here’s my version, with the person holding a blood soaked bible, if anyone is even slightly interested
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/9981/creationistlogicsmdo9.jpg
April 30th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
FWIW, catching up on old threads:
Yes, I related the recent history for brevity.
I think for example Epicuros said something similar. His teachings was repressed by the early church, but later adopted.