Why do these godless academics keep trying to subvert the universal truth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

I find it amusing that the Fundies who support "Creationsism" find it so hard to understand that Evolution is really nothing more than God playing with DNA "Lego Blocks".

They boldly assert that God is all powerful, buy deny his ability to do, on a cosmic scale, something their toddlers have no problem mastering.

They must think God is almost as stupid as a Fundamentalist.

Oh this is soo important because if we dont teach evolution who is going to be cloning animals?
We need adherents of the religion of science to get all the wonderful GMOS--just mix in a little bit of christian dominionism with a secular twist and you are all set.

Another disaster in the making…

Pinheads and god. I read where some idiot on another thread left a comment about extinction saying basically who cares because we could clone whatever right back into existence with our knowledge and abilities. Wow, what a scary thought. And what an idiot to think this is a way to manage life and the world around us. I wonder how that person or those of his or her ilk, gee, I wonder who they are … would feel about being able to control the weather. Hopefully something better thought out than the extinction theory but I wouldn't count on it being anything other than self-anointing and self-serving. But I digress…

The Catholic church, which was responsible for writing and/or compiling the Christian Bible acknowledges that it includes some outright fictions (the story of the birth of Christ for example) and has accepted the theory of evolution. So, why do the protestants who rejected the original church take its canons as fact even as contrary evidence is unavoidable?

By taking measures against outbreaks of mutant strains of the bird flu King George implicitly accepted evolution as fact, but he and the fundamentalists are too stupid to realize it.

I disagree with one proposition voiced in the article: I do not believe religion (superstition) has any potential to contribute to a better future.

Science should stop calling evolution a "theory." It just gives the goddies a semantic place to hang their hats.

If there is a god he owes the world an apology.
Hoa binh

"A 2006 Gallup poll showed that almost half of Americans believed that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years."

We have a crisis of education in this country. It goes a long way to explaining the predicament we are in.

Along with the shocking quote above is the fact that many Americans, about one third if memory serves, still believe the following: Saddam was involved in 9/11, Al-Qaeda operated out of Iraq, Iraq had WMD and it was discovered.

The main problem is not what is taught, but how it is taught and the academic standards for the public.

You could also say this lack of education explains the success of the Republican Party, and maybe even its existence as a viable major party right now in America. Afterall, most of this Party's supporters, in the rural hinterlands, are suffering terribly as a results of the policies its party adopts. The only way to explain this is, again, a very poor level of education.

twoblueday wrote:

"Science should stop calling evolution a 'theory.' It just gives the goddies a semantic place to hang their hats."

The goddies? Maybe you mean people like Francisco J. Ayala, a professor of evolutionary biology and philosophy at the University of California-Irvine, who told US Catholic Magazine in an interview that "the evidence for evolution is so strong that we often speak of it as the 'fact' of evolution. It is no longer an issue that occupies scientists nowadays, because the fact that evolution has occurred and accounts for the history of organisms is certain, just as science is certain that the Earth revolves around the sun." Or perhaps you're thinking of Dr. Stephen Barr, professor of physics at the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware. Speaking to IgnatiusInsight.com, he said that "the Creationists deny that evolution happened. They are charging off an intellectual cliff. There is overwhelming and convergent evidence from many directions for the evolution of species. So it is embarrassing that this 'Creationism' versus Evolution battle is still going on." I guess you might also be thinking of Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University and coauthor of the standard high-school textbook Biology. Miller, of course, was an expert witness for the plaintiffs at the Dover trial. All of these guys are Catholics, and therefore, "goddies." What's your problem with them?

Yes, there are idiots in Christianity. There are idiots in the progressive movement too. Why take something as nonsensical as creationism and use it to slander everybody who believes in some sort of "god?" Atheism is not a requirement for the scientific mind. Just look at Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Lavoisier, Ampère, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin and almost every other founder of modern science. Just look at Fr. Georges Lemaître, who came up with the hypothesis of the primeval atom, known today as the big bang theory. There is clearly not a contradiction between being a "goddie" and being a person of science. Katherine Schori, a marine biologist, is probably one of the best examples of that. She's the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Here's a great lecture with some excellent arguments against Intelligent Design given by "goddie" Kenneth Miller at Boston College: http://frontrow.bc.edu/program/miller/

that intelligent ppl can be religious is not an argument in favour of religion. it just proves anyone can make a mistake.

newton practiced his nuttery on the poor saps he ruled over and came up with great theories about natural phenomena. he was an idiot some days and really smart on others.

'goddies' can be dumb more often than not. and a displeasure to deal with.

The "theory" of evolution, as it is presented, is a child's understanding of physics and biology. As usual, the article cites several non-related "proofs" which, together or singly, don't prove anything. A case in point: The dinosaurs evolved from basic material. Once dinosaurs were extinct, supposedly because of a catastrophic event, then why didn't they re-evolve? How could the basic material which, following the rules of survival of the fittest, previously evolved into dinosaurs then evolve into virtually all totally new species after the extinction? Especially notable since the DNA of dinosaurs and the DNA of modern species is different and, according to their own hypothesis, in a world governed by natural selection the dinosaurs certainly would have been dominant over the much weaker and slower modern species.

Those mediocre thinkers who like to refer to themselves as "scientists" never do attempt to explain all, or any, of the inconsistencies which plague their goofy "theory of evolution", and there are more of them than the so-called "proofs". The "evolutionists" operate on exactly the same scientifically baseless belief system as the creationists, so claiming superiority of intelligence is unwarranted and simply reveals limitations. Neither of the creationist categories, that is, the "creationist" camp and the "evolutionist" camp, have a succinct explanation for all life on this planet, so a third way must be explored, whether that be local evolution mixed with an introduced element or some other combination. Anyone who claims unconditionally that they have the answer, without actually having it, is just presenting themselves as a fool or a tool.

"A 2006 Gallup poll showed that almost half of Americans believed that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years."

I've heard this statistic before and it truly scares me, but even scarier is the vehemence with which certain misguided Bible-believers want to impose their views on others, at the expense of rational thought and scientific inquiry. Good for the NAS, and good for the judge in Dover, and good for the Catholic professors. But what else could clear-thinking people do?

mirf59: I agree that we have a real crisis of education at the root of our troubles. Certain members of my own hardworking family love W., against all evidence that he is not one of them and couldn't care less about people like them, except to profit from the sweat of their labor. It defies logic. I guess it is his dumb-ass way of speaking. ( As in: "He's just as dumb as us (sic).") Push a few fear buttons, tell a few lies, manipulate the media, co-opt the fundamentalist ministers (or let them co-opt the politicians--it is so incestuous it's hard to tell), and if people are ignorant enough, they will be persuaded and they will follow. For example, they will start caring and fearing if they hear Spanish in their local grocery store, just as they are told to care and fear.

We should not forget that the Southern Baptists seceded from the national Baptist organization over the abolition of slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention They've twisted the Bible to justify slavery and after that became impossible, segregation. Similarly, the Bible is used to justify the subservience of women in many churches.

And yet, we have government funds going directly into church programs in violation of the constitution. It is frightening how far we are removed from separation of church and state.

Chris Hedges deals with the real danger of fundamentalism in his book, American Fascists. I'm sure there are other good books out there as well.

JMcneil, There is both the FACT of Evolution(evidence of change in living things over time) and the THEORY(explanation of questions surrounding the FACT of Evolution). There are multiple, independent lines of evidence which have been thoroughly subjected to the scientific method which has demonstrated beyond a REASONABLE doubt that evolution is the only way to scientifically explain life's diversity and unity through DNA. Creationism is NOT science in any way and should never be taught in a science class, except as a demonstration of what a NON-scientific explanation for life is.

"I find it amusing that the Fundies who support "Creationsism" find it so hard to understand that Evolution is really nothing more than God playing with DNA "Lego Blocks"."

And I find theistic evolution amusing. Terry Pratchett nailed them (sorry) in his book "The Last Continent", asking the question: "what would a god who used evolution to develop species be like?". Especially the bit where that god says "I'll just do another beetle - that always relaxes me".

PaulM,, and what was the Creator thinking when he created banana slugs, who, after having sex, chew off each other's (private) parts?

If you won't preach intelligent design in our schools, I won't teach evolution in your church.

The evolution-deniers had better be careful. This could backfire big time on them. Since churches are now receiving public funding for their social programs, it is entirely possible that a reactionary group of science-minded people begin insisting that churches teach evolution as a "different school of thought." After all, the public-funding gambit is what gets their foot in the door of public education -- you can teach, or not teach, anything you damn well please in a private school.

But now churches are getting public funding. Since that comes from my tax dollars, I insist that my views on religion be represented in those churches.

You can't have it both ways.

Evolution is not a religion. Creationism is a purely mythological religious belief system with absolutely no objective (this is an important distinction) evidence to back it up.

People can believe in what they want. I worship the FSM personally. The issue is the distinction between a self-correcting logical system of thought we can use to investigate the world around us, and pure speculative conjecture based on nothing besides texts with origins shrouded in corruption and myth.

I don't believe that evolutionary biology has grounded to a halt. I don't think that any biologist has ever claimed to be able to address every detail about why we are here and how life came to be. But they are at least in the ball park. And they are learning more each day. Some joke about seven days 10,000 years ago isn't worthy of our attention.

Apparently to creationists "evolutionists" or "darwinists" are just brain-washed religious idiots who have faith in evolution and materialism. They worship some religious leader named Darwin.

This is the real tragedy. Somehow evolution has been misconstrued as a faith.

I suggest everyone concerned with this issue read the following:

The Counter Creationist Handbook (talkorigins.org)
Scientists Confront Creationism and Intelligent Design
The Selfish Gene

Then read the Answers in Genesis website and every other crazy creationist encyclopedia out there so you know what we are in for.

"By taking measures against outbreaks of mutant strains of the bird flu King George implicitly accepted evolution as fact, but he and the fundamentalists are too stupid to realize it."

It as simple as that

ÈIf you won't preach intelligent design in our schools, I won't teach evolution in your church.È

That kinda says it all too

My non-denominational God created evolution.

"'goddies' can be dumb more often than not. and a displeasure to deal with."

Aww, poor baby. Too bad everyone is not as brilliant as you... or as socially graceful.

My gut (so irrational of me, I know) tells me your contempt is not just for religious people, it's for anyone who is not like you culturally. And the fact is, those groups overlap, because close to 90% of the earth's population disagrees with you. I don't request that you find another planet, so perhaps you should learn some manners if you want to achieve any positive change on this one.

The left is just soooooooo self-destructive, it's deeply frustrating. Study after study find that over 80% of the US agrees with progressive policy ideas, and over 80% believe in God. Deal with it, or else stop pretending that you really give a shit about the outcome. If you care about economic and social justice, you will fucking well learn to accept and talk to people who believe in Allah, Jesus, Buddah, tree spirits, who cares what? If you don't care about justice, then by all means continue to call them all mentally ill, and thus do the bidding of the Karl Roves of this world.

For the most part, ..what juvenile responses in this thread. If anyone can't discuss the topic in a rational manner, then they should refrain from wasting other's time by having them read through the same unintelligble bombast, post after post. No thinking person really expects any "true believer" in evolution "theory" to respond to their queries with logic, because there are no definitive answers that can be given. But if you are going to proselytize your "evolutionary faith" then at least you should be able to utilize some science and some logical arguments to stress your point, especially since you profess to believe so ardently in science, and save your passion for impressing your girlfriend/boyfriend because you just come off sounding like the hypocritical Jimmy Swaggerts of the world when you follow your childish, and selfish, agenda.

In case the small thinkers of the world don't understand it, I'll make it clear. There are those people in the world who don't believe in the creation of the world in six Earth days and who also don't believe in the even more infantile creation of the universe in an instant. And they don't care if there are a billion followers of their own view or even if there is only one other. And they don't believe in "evolution theory" as the description of everything because it clearly isn't. From what I know, those other people categorize both of those previously mentioned categories of belief as a subset of the same belief system and do not regard one more highly than the other because neither use logic. Both utilize a mixture of science and belief, to different extents, and that makes both of them unreliable.

If you can't fathom that there can be a third dialectical, then you aren't even in the real discussion.

jmacneil, the next time you are in a hospital and need antibiotics, take those antibiotics which were first used 40 years ago. Since you don't accept evolution as fact, the microbes you are fighting have never evolved and should be easily killed. DDT was an effective pesticide in areas in which it was first used. Why do you think that repeated DDT applications have been less effective? What intelligent designer created useless and dangerous 'wisdom' teeth in humans? What are dinosaur fossils all about? Only evolution can explain most of life's puzzles in a unified way! Your argument presumably for an intelligent designer would require an infinite number of increasingly more complex Gods(designers), each creating the one(s) less complicated. We see self organization constantly, from crystal formation to snowflakes without invoking a designer. You seem to want to invoke a creator to explain evolution's gaps in knowledge. There is NO SCIENTIFIC evidence for an intelligent designer.

Natural selection within species is not in dispute. And funny how all of the defenders of "evolution theory" use it and "natural selection" interchangeably, when any breeder could clearly delineate between the two.

A second confusion is to argue against an "intelligent designer" or "God(s)" when no such inferrence was associated with the third dialectical. The third dialectical adheres to pure science and does not hold with gods or baseless assertion or speculation.

All religion is a mental disorder. Belief in a mystic deity to assuage your fears of the unknown and your fear of the religious dogma you been inundated with since childhood is insane.

There is no god. Not as you know him. The only reason you believe in him is that you are afraid of the cancer lightning bolts he might throw your way or the hell fire he might send you to. If you believe in a God, without any empirical evidence to support this belief, then you can not speak of what is science because you simply failed the most basic test of what science is.

And Science is ALWAYS right. It is just our fallible human understanding of what is actually the state of the natural world that is deficient, not science. Science, you see, is constantly evolving. Science is constantly updated. The theory of a singularity, is a strong one. But if tomorrow scientist find evidence of a pearly gate with saint peter sitting out in front and he tells them the world is only 6,000 years old and can prove it, the theory of the singularity will be discarded immediately.

Again, understand that science IS the natural world and all its functions. Science is never wrong. It can be used to discover dangerous daisy-cutter clusterbombs if that's what practitioners of the scientific method decide to do with their time.

On the other hand is the mental disorder called creationism. Although it is highly likely that the structure we see in the larger and smaller universe is part of another being or world, creationism, without any collaborating tangible evidence is the product of a child's mind.

Creationism, is a hopeful fantasy forced on unsuspecting young minds by religious zealots who themselves, are not really sure if they believe in their own spaghetti monster, so thereby take comfort in forcing a young pliable mind into defective thinking like theirs; a mind who would probably reject the silly nonsense of an all knowing god explained by an old man in a robe performing senseless rituals if it wasn't misrepresented to him as fact.

I look at the Bush Administration and see no evidence that Christianity is a good thing. Millions of rotting corpses would probably tell you the same thing if they could.

Sorry Earth, there is no god. Take better care of your planet.

Jmacneil:

What exactly are you saying? What I hear is someone who is trying to think rationally and logically but can't quite get past a lifetime of religious indoctrination. It's understandable, but regretable. Evolution was a "theory" many many years ago. It is no longer. It is FACT! There are plenty of definitive answers to be given; there are no definitive answers to be given on the creationism side of the argument...NONE. Why would one expect "believers" in evolution to post fact after fact as to why they are correct? Would you expect a poster who claims the earth is a sphere to post fact after fact as to why that is so? It is self evident evolution is real and happening. There is no need to argue the point any longer. If you really think there is any doubt that evolution is not real, then educate yourself. But it requires an open mind. What you call a third dialectical sounds more like a vestage of some belief you once held more dear than you do now. Evolution is fact. That is a certainty. There is no room for discussion. We may not know the entire evolutionary record, and we probally never will, but evolution is as real as you or I. You have to fit this fact into your belief system, because regardless of what you believe, what really is will not change just because you want it not to be so. If you can't overcome that, then it is you sir who is the small thinker.

There's one thing I've asked of Creationists which usually silences them: If schools are required to teach a Christian-compatible Intelligent Design, then why not a Satanic Cult explanation as well? Wicca, pagan, Native American, Hindu, Buddhist -- or Joe Schmoe's version of how humans came to be?

If science isn't adequate by virtue of empirical studies, deductive and inductive methods, experiment, repeatability, C-14 dating, etc. then the field is wide open indeed.

jmacneil, the FACT of Evolution(descent with modification OR the creation of new species from old species OR the change in the DNA of a population of a species) has been pretty much established beyond any REASONABLE doubt. Using independent lines of evidence(biochemical, fossil, embryological, or other), the THEORY of Evolution offers powerful explanations for the driving forces for creation of new species from old. The main objection to Evolutionary theory was the time needed for new species to evolve. This objection disappeared when the modern age of the Earth was established at about 4.6 billion years. Vestigial structures(useless remnants from previous ancestors), homologous structures(the bones of a bat wing are similiar in design but not function to a whale flipper), embryological evidence(species most closely related have more similiar developments than less related species), DNA and fossil evidence create an overwhelming case for the FACT of evolution. No other plausible SCIENTIFIC argument has ever been proposed.

Humans are apes, deal with it creationists!!

@ the troll jmacneill

The scientific method asserts hypotheses, tests them against the data, and chooses the simplest hypothesis that fits the data, and is reproducible through experiment. Try understanding this, please. This applies to other armchair scientists.

Evolution is a hypothesis that best fits the data. No hypothesis fits ALL the data, more often than not because some of the data are poorly sampled. The hypothesis of creationism fits the data extremely poorly, and is irreproducible. Hence creationism is not considered by any thinking person who understands the scientific method.

I propose the hypothesis that you are a poorly-read, narrow-minded fool. So far, this hypothesis matches well the data in hand (your posts above).

Can I get a RAmen folks.

Jmacneil, how is the thrid dialectial which you refer to as "pure science and does not hold with gods or baseless assertion or speculation" different from what we know as science. And you know what, science is what allowed us to discover evolution.