Debating Evolution is a Waste of Time (yeah, I know it's been covered before)

Debating Evolution with religious folk is a waste of time.
With the unknown, one is confronted with danger and discomfort--the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. We all do it, we hear a strange noise and we quickly come up with a guess to explain the noise, i.e., wind, a ghost, a…? All tribes/social groups through time have come up with myths to explain unknowns, answers arrived at not through reason or logic, but to tranquilize the fear of the unknown, providing comfort.

Religious folk form their identities through their religious teachings and any information that doesn’t fit their belief system, triggers feelings of insecurity and fear; emotionally, they feel they are being personally attacked--they must abolish the danger and discomfort they feel. They can’t use reason or logic to evaluate any of the millions of facts supporting evolution--because they are indoctrinated and imprinted as children to feel shame and fear if they question their church's authority.

Don’t waste your time debating Evolution with a creationist; respect the right of others to believe as they wish, but never miss an opportunity to demonstrate the irrational paradox and dangerous delusion that is religious faith.

Anywhere in the world, where education increases, belief in religion declines and inversely, women’s rights increase. The greatest intolerance for religion comes from religious folk’s intolerance of other religions or sub-groups within their own religion.

It's time to tax all religious businesses and for the greater enforcement of the laws separating church and state; including, but not limited to, the armed forces, religious schools and donations to political parties.

Dan Saves Us A Visit To The Creation Museum

[caption id="attachment_2017" align="alignright" width="511" caption="The best picture Dan took in the museum. I smiled when I saw it. :)"][/caption]

Did you miss the Creation Museum Field Trip with PZ Myers last month? I did, and so did Dan, my friend from Rationality Now. But he and his friend decided to go to the museum not long after. He wrote up a 6 part tour that I found amazing, disturbing and depressing. His writing is excellent and thorough, quite interesting and fascinating.

So I wanted to share Dan's investigative tour with you. He sums up my feelings about the place rather perfectly. He has lots of pictures to illustrate as well.

Take a deep breath and dive in:

• Creation Museum Part 1 (which will lead you through to the other 5 parts)


• The Creation Museum Series page, with all the parts listed together

Logical Fallacy Land 2: A Treat For You!

I have a treat for you. Last week I posted a horrid creationism video by John Morris Pendleton and suggested that we practice pointing out logical fallacies by refuting the lies and nonsense he was spewing forth. Not many people commented, and honestly I don't blame you because I could barely handle watching the video myself, never mind muddle through it point by point.

Still, I think there's validity to refuting such arguments as practice. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 39% of Americans say they believe in the theory of evolution, while 1/4 say they do not believe in the theory.

Lucky for us, my friend Brent told me about a set of videos that go through Pendleton's step by step and refute them. How awesome!

Here is the first one of 4. (about 10 minutes long):



For the rest of the videos, click here. Or you can probably get them through the web page of this video.

Logical Fallacy Land 1 - intro

As you may have noticed, there's a new conversation element in the sidebar. I added it so people can leave general comments for the whole site easily. You can be anonymous or sign in with all different kinds of accounts, not just google. It seemed like a friendly way to promote communication.   Someone posted a video in there the other day with a request for help on how to refute "an arrogant christian".

Here is the video. I'll warn you, it's almost 27 minutes long and incredibly irritating to watch.



Honestly, it's so ridiculous, I almost decided to do nothing about it. I suggested to the unknown person to get a copy of Atheist Universe by David Mills because basically that whole book refutes this video in very clear and easy to follow detail, without oversimplifying. It's quite thorough and I highly recommend it.

But then I talked to my mother today. She knows I'm a rather vocal atheist. She is kind of in the middle. She doesn't believe "all that religious crap" but doesn't know what to replace it with. She asked me what I believe about the beginning of the universe, if I believed in the Big Bang Theory. So I explained a bit about that, how science works (evidence and observation), how it changes over time to reflect new evidence and observation, and how that's awesome.

I told her about this video, about creationism and intelligent design, and how silly it was to base anything on a book written over 2000 years ago by desert goat herders who knew nothing of science or how things worked. She asked for a link if I decided to refute the video for the person who left it. She wanted to read it. So I decided I would tackle it after all.

I'm going to do it in stages. It's simply too long to tackle all at once. Also, I welcome your input, suggestions and refutations! Links to research, science, quotes, specific logical fallacies, anything and everything, is all welcome! Specific is good here, I think. So feel free to contribute. We can do this together much more easily than me alone.

The first thing to point out is the Argument from Authority. The guy in the video is a chemist in a lab coat. That is supposed to make him look like a trusted expert. But how is a chemist an expert in geology, astrophysics, astronomy, anthropology, etc? He's not, of course. Whatever background he has is irrelevant to what he's arguing.

Ok, that will get us started. I'm looking forward to your feedback!

The Big Bang, Abiogenesis, and Evolution

Supporters of Creationism and Intelligent Design don't know the difference between these three. Occasionally you'll hear one mention something about Big Bang; but many of them just figure the Big Bang was step-one of Evolution. They are completely oblivious to the theory of Abiogenesis; let-alone the separation of the three.

Why?

I'll not claim to know since I'm not a creationist, and I try to limit my time around them; but I think I've got a pretty decent speculation.

First these are real, accepted, peer-reviewed, and constantly scrutinized theories - and we all know that creationists disregard all real science. Secondly, and I think more prevalently, in their hypothesis Yahweh did it all in one step. So in their mind, they figure since Yahweh did it all in one step (over six days), and since the opposition is just opposing them for the sake of going against Yahweh, the opposition must be saying its version took place in one step too.

I'd love to write a nice long article about the three, but really I'd just be paraphrasing and copying others' work. So how about this instead, here's my three favorite videos on the trio. If you know of other good ones, please share (especially if you think they are better). Arm yourself with knowledge! Make sure you at least know the basics of the three, and most importantly that they are three distinct theories.

Why Are The Religious So Threatened By Atheists?

I've noticed that since atheists have become a bit more vocal, religious folks have become exceedingly nasty about their faith. Their tactics are those of a cornered injured animal - vicious, unfair, ruthless. It doesn't make sense to me. You'd think, considering their beliefs, they'd be indifferent at most to people who are atheists. Why are they so threatened?

Have you ever listened to a pseudoscientist hyping their product? They do the same thing. They tell you they have a secret that only they know. They say everyone is against them, that THEY are holding back information that you can purchase for only $49.95, or 3 easy payments. They make themselves out to be the victims when in fact they are victimizing every poor fool that buys their stupid crap.

The religious do the same. They claim they're oppressed, downtrodden, victimized. When in fact they are the oppressors, the victimizers, the ones with jackboots on the necks of sheeple. Hypocrisy is vile and repugnant, and they use it like it's gold.