In His Name We Pray, Ramen

"Part cult, part satire, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster now exists in its own world, where science is only as real as we believe it to be; where, according to The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a book by Henderson published in 2006, heaven is a place with a beer volcano and a stripper factory; where the Pastafarians dress up in 'full pirate regalia' at the directive of Him ... because 'He becomes angry if we don't'; and the devout end their prayers with the exclamation 'ramen.'"

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Even as a christian i like FSM. It shows me what parts of my religion are stupid and superfiscial and what parts realy matter. And yes, inteligent design belongs amoung the stupid things.

This is ridiculous. It is past time we reject false idols and religions in favor of a deeper understanding of the true nature of the Force.

down with FSM! up with IPU!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn

On a gaming based website I'd hardly expect to see such a clear anti-religious article, and hell, I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's entertaining. A few notes on the first couple of pages annoyed me though

6,000 years is not accepted by all believers of creationism, "10,000" is more common; and not all or even most creationists disbelieve in dinosaurs, they are in the Bible. The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

On Adam and Eve and their children and incest. Theoretically, Adam and Eve were genetically perfect, or as near as God would have wanted it. However, when cells prepare to divide or combine genetic codes, they pull their DNA apart, each part of the double helix being torn from the other. When the cell creates a copy half (for cell division) or when this combines with another half (sexual reproduction) it doesn't match up perfectly when it's locked together. I might be confusing DNA strands with Chromosomes, but the principles remain the same. When the two are put together they don't match up perfectly. This is how micro-evolution occurs in advanced animals, but at the same time potentially harmful errors are created though holes or mis-alignments. Naturally the body tries to use something rather than just a hole or a misaligned segment, but when it has nothing to substitute, it has to accept the error. Hence genetic defects. The longer time goes on, the more unstable our genes become, more flaws are apparent, and thus the exact same mistakes are going to be more common inside one's own family, so in the current time, incest is inviable for creating a child without massive genetic defects. Eventually, without re-sequencing, the human genome could become so problematic that genetic defects would be unavoidable with any mate. Going back to Adam and Eve and their local family, their genes were much less flawed and thus they could afford to go into incest to create more children. It is only after all these thousands of years that the flaws are being presented in such high numbers. This also explains the extremely long lifespans of humans described in the Bible. Ages like 920 years are ridiculous as we live such relatively short lives, usually ended by heart failure or various problems which are potentially the results of widespread genetic defects that are simply so common, that they are the norm. Some changes in genetics proved beneficial, like the increase in melanin around the equatorial regions which helped them to cope with the intense sunlight received there.

I never realised Pastafarianism was so deep. And enjoying theological debate and some fundie-baiting in equal measure, I can't help but love this article.

Plenty to muse on - I'll just get my macaroni off the hob.

Jacques 2:
On a gaming based website I'd hardly expect to see such a clear anti-religious article

I don't think that an edition on myths could be complete without an article concerning the biggest, widest spread myths of all.

Jacques 2:

6,000 years is not accepted by all believers of creationism, "10,000" is more common; and not all or even most creationists disbelieve in dinosaurs, they are in the Bible.

And they also say that since no meat was eaten before the fall of man, veloceraptors and T-rexes had those big, sharp teeth so that they could eat plants more easily.

Jacques 2:

The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

The Bible:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his
sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook
compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he
can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

Ok, so he describes something big and strong. It's a completely generic, and no surprise it can be applied to one of the MANY species of dinosaur. Now if it had some exact dimension, or described something more distinctive than a tail, you might have something worth looking at here.

Jacques 2:

On Adam and Eve and their children and incest. Theoretically, Adam and Eve were genetically perfect.... The longer time goes on, the more unstable our genes become

If Adam and Eve were so perfect, why did God make their DNA polymerase (the stuff that copies DNA) so imperfect? Oh, right, because imperfect DNA replication can lead to novel phenotypes, which is part of evolution!

BTW - It wasn't clear if you believe what you said or if you were just playing devil's advocate (irony much?) so either way, nothing personal here, just pointing out the problem with this belief.

Jacques 2:
6,000 years is not accepted by all believers of creationism, "10,000" is more common; and not all or even most creationists disbelieve in dinosaurs, they are in the Bible.

While it may be off by 40% when comparing 10,000 years with 6,000 years, I don't think the point of the article is lost, as the difference being compared is on the scale of orders of magnitude. Thousands vs. Billions.

On Adam and Eve and their children and incest...Some changes in genetics proved beneficial, like the increase in melanin around the equatorial regions which helped them to cope with the intense sunlight received there.

I lack the degrees necessary to refute any of this with any authority, but I can say that I get the impression from reading it that whoever came up with this explanation started with a goal, and subsequently selected factoids that supported it, rather than letting the evidence lead.

oneplus999:

Jacques 2:

The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

The Bible:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his
sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook
compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he
can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

Ok, so he describes something big and strong. It's a completely generic, and no surprise it can be applied to one of the MANY species of dinosaur. Now if it had some exact dimension, or described something more distinctive than a tail, you might have something worth looking at here.

I think you're missing the salient point, that is that most creationists do not say dinosaurs didn't exist, but that the dinosaurs didn't exist so long ago. They point to dragon myths and various ancient histories that claim fantastical creatures live.

And there is a very big difference between populist creationism and intelligent design, which the article fuses together to create a 60 foot strawman. Not that it really matters, the article is really about Pastafarianism. Also, I think the whole origins argument is misguided. Scientists waste their time trying to convince the fundies, fundies waste their time trying to disprove the science. If the model works in science, let it work in science. That's my view.

EDITED: Posting in class, bad idea.

I followed that as it came about and am now delighted at how many people recognize my WWFSM sticker.

If you'd like evidence, look at the rise in various childhood conditions, such as ADHD (which I know, like anybody else, isn't always true for every kid that claims it), autism (also linkable to flu vaccines containing minute amounts of mercury thought to be in-potent till recently), bipolar disorder, etc. etc. think about it and our life spans, the only reason they are increasing in comparison to the past few centuries is better living conditions.

As for "no meat eaten before the fall of man," don't take what you see on The Daily Show to stand for all creationists either, and yes I watch the Daily Show and often find it funny. Animals are part of a natural system, and they were meant to balance each other out. Too many herbivores means the plant population won't be sustainable, too many carnivores and the herbivore population won't be sustainable, too many plants leads to a vast increase in insects and their ability to effectively attack larger creatures (see ticks and other various parasites). Humans were vegetarians and existed outside the system until the fall, as they were in the garden where their sustenance was provided by fruit and berries. When we were placed into the system, we had a rough balance, but intelligence gave us an edge.

There have been tales of dragons as far back as we have stories to recall from. Dragons much fit the idea of Dinosaurs, giant lizards. It is often the "breathing fire" bit that gets us to thinking that it's impossible. The Bombardier beetle, however, shows us otherwise, it combines two chemicals that form a superheated spray, and when it feels it is without hope, it detonates itself. It's not quite fire, but it burns a high temperature, much like fire, and it is so quick, something similar could be confused with it. Dry brush might spring into flames after being sprayed, further suggesting that fire came from the beasts mouth. We have wiped many species from this planet, mammoths with tusks the size of several grown men, is it so hard to believe that we could have killed off the dinosaurs? Many species could have died in the flood as their eggs were carried on board the Ark. Eggs would be brought aboard rather than full size animals, much like young animals of other species would be brought aboard.

Jacques 2:
If you'd like evidence, look at the rise in various childhood conditions, such as ADHD (which I know, like anybody else, isn't always true for every kid that claims it), autism (also linkable to flu vaccines containing minute amounts of mercury thought to be in-potent till recently), bipolar disorder, etc. etc. think about it and our life spans, the only reason they are increasing in comparison to the past few centuries is better living conditions.

Sorry to jump on a tangent here, but I feel it's important to note that the claim that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines is not supported by more current research... most notably, that autism rates haven't declined since the removal of mercury-based preservatives, and that the rate of autism in vaccinated children is no higher than that of non-vaccinated children.

Pet peeve, and a fear that parents will leave their children vulnerable to proven killer diseases because of mistaken fears about the preventative care, mean I'm compelled to post this. Again, apologies for the diversion.

-- Steve

I don't honestly think that the Flu we commonly know is going to kill any healthy 4-40 year olds. But thanks for the information, though I have to think, how can mercury not harm the brain?

It's easy to regail Religion as such. It's easy to mock dogma and fable and the blind, obedient, stupid sheep who think God is a wise Bearded Father in the sky or a Flying Spigetti Monster or anything so rediculous.

"There are two kinds of faith: stupid and smart. Where the atheists fall apart is when nobody bothers to explain the difference to them, and I speak as one of them; overcoming the stupid kind of faith inevitably leads to a denigration of the smart kind, because they both look the same from the outside," said Jacob, and he put it incredibly well.

There's the Stupid Faith that values obedience and submission and order above curiosity and observation, the kind that demands you not eat certain foods or mix with certain people or take your children to the doctor. The kind that will have you charging full speed ahead to some promised Paradise like a rat in a maze, the kind that will crush all opposition because it is Wrong, that would destroy the dangerous Questioners for asking why, why are these Truths you've given me so shallow that they don't explain what I can deduce with my own senses? That's the kind of faith that leads to Hate and War.

Then there's the Smart Faith. The kind that brings people together, provides the Hope that will keep you going when everything is lost. The kind that brings Strength out of nowhere, because it's bigger then what you can see, simply by it's nature it exists against and above all reason and words and intellect that could be leveled against it.

That's the kind of faith that we smart-ass Atheists can't really make fun of. The kind that gives strength out of nowhere.

PS. Hey Russ,this is the song for you. It exploded from the cluttered depths of my head-space upon reading the last sentence of that article. Fear the Ism song!

Keljeck:

oneplus999:

Jacques 2:

The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

The Bible:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his
sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook
compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he
can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

Ok, so he describes something big and strong. It's a completely generic, and no surprise it can be applied to one of the MANY species of dinosaur. Now if it had some exact dimension, or described something more distinctive than a tail, you might have something worth looking at here.

I think you're missing the salient point, that is that most creationists do not say dinosaurs didn't exist, but that the dinosaurs didn't exist so long ago. They point to dragon myths and various ancient histories that claim fantastical creatures live.

And there is a very big difference between populist creationism and intelligent design, which the article fuses together to create a 60 foot strawman. Not that it really matters, the article is really about Pastafarianism. Also, I think the whole origins argument is misguided. Scientists waste their time trying to convince the fundies, fundies waste their time trying to disprove the science. If the model works in science, let it work in science. That's my view.

EDITED: Posting in class, bad idea.

Yes, because folklore is far, far more reliable than carbon dating. To decide that carbon dating is wrong, we have to throw out alot of what we think we know about elementary particles and atomic physics. To decide that folklore is wrong, it means that we have to admit that (gasp!) people make stuff up sometimes.

The intelligent design movement came out of the Discovery Institute, an organization run by old-school creationists.

Now I'm going to go into personal opinion/speculation, rather than fact
It's a political wedge to force their agenda into public schools. Better education in this country has made it harder to keep kids beleiving in what they want them to beleive; to keep paying in cash and attending services. If they can confuse the issue and obscure the teaching of science in classrooms, they cripple people's ability to logicaly evaluate facts.

Jacques 2:
If you'd like evidence, look at the rise in various childhood conditions, such as ADHD (which I know, like anybody else, isn't always true for every kid that claims it), autism (also linkable to flu vaccines containing minute amounts of mercury thought to be in-potent till recently), bipolar disorder, etc. etc. think about it and our life spans, the only reason they are increasing in comparison to the past few centuries is better living conditions.

While we're pulling things out of our nethers, [sarcasm]look at the rise in various childhood conditions as a result of our medicating everyone into normalcy. People survive diseases they otherwise would've died from (or that would've caused them to be avoided as mates because it made them seem "crazy"), and go on to breed their deficiencies into the rest of the population. If we'd just let the Bipolars kill themselves before they had a chance to procreate, we wouldn't have all these bipolar people running around! Similarly, I could probably chart the increase in average age to the decline in the number of pirates in the world. Better living conditions are obviously not the only reason: fewer pirates AND better living conditions.[/sarcasm]

Per living conditions, is it your claim that Methusela had better, worse, or comparable living conditions to what we now enjoy? Based on that comparison, how long WOULD she have lived had she had comparable living conditions and medical care?

On the vegetarian/vegan thing, I think you can talk to many modern-day veggies/vegans and learn that we're pretty capable of living without meat. [sarcasm]What I've always wondered is why we give animals so much more moral weight than plants. Plants are living things too! Plant murderers, the lot of you...[/sarcasm]

There have been tales of dragons...

As an alternative, maybe way back in the remnants of our pre-human brains, we have an evolutionary fear of large lizards, and of fire. Makes fire-breathing, giant lizards even scarier. Or, mayhaps, people in the olden days were capable of fiction, just like us. Honestly, I have no problem imagining a scenario where we killed off the dinosaurs. It isn't my imagination that's lacking though; what we're lacking is evidence of their co-existence, and the lack of evidence makes it difficult for me to believe.

I am not a Creationist, nor an advocate of intelligent design. Actually, I had a mini orgasm when I looked upon His Noodleliness.

THAT said, I would like to point out that advocates of intelligent design would probably greatly resent being lumped into the same group as Young Earth Creationists.

Before you even begin any discussion of the matter, you should probably be aware of three different groups:

1. Young Earth Creationists -- Not exactly the MOST popular breed of creationist, by any mean. Not to say they don't exist, just that you'd be wrong to say that every creationist believes this.
2. Old Earth Creationists -- Creationist who compromise on the rules on the age of the earth. And this group probably includes a wide variety of creationist branch offs from the Young Earth model. Around the time of Darwin, for instance, a popular theory was that there were multiple creation events.
3. Intelligent Design Advocates -- Many times they are not creationists at all. While many creationists may support this view, there are actually a fair deal of respectable scientific minds that do as well. And many times they're arguments sound very good -- especially to anyone not well versed in science. If they have no proof, then the least that could be said is the raise interesting questions. AGAIN, I am not an Intelligent Design-ist, so take that grain of salt as you will.

So Yeah. I fault the article immediately for that. Even a heavily biased article, I think, should try to have some pretense of objectivity.

Mairsil the Pretender:
Yes, because folklore is far, far more reliable than carbon dating. To decide that carbon dating is wrong, we have to throw out alot of what we think we know about elementary particles and atomic physics. To decide that folklore is wrong, it means that we have to admit that (gasp!) people make stuff up sometimes.

I am not a creationist, or an ID'er, so you are largely preaching to the choir there. I agree, the fact that nearly every culture has dragons isn't a very good argument for a younger earth. But the salient point remains, Creationists by and large don't reject fossils as evidence for the existence of dinosaurs, what they reject is the dating methods as you pointed out. I'm in complete agreement with Uszi, there should be some pretense of objectivity here.

Mairsil the Pretender:
intelligent design movement came out of the Discovery Institute, an organization run by old-school creationists.

Look at Uszi's post, that means nothing to me. Also, there is the possibility that fellows at the Discovery Institute figured out they were on the losing side of the argument and adapted their hypothesis. You know, like scientists are supposed to do? Not saying that they are practicing good science, but they are sure doing a better job than Ken Ham.

Mairsil the Pretender:
I'm going to go into personal opinion/speculation, rather than fact
It's a political wedge to force their agenda into public schools. Better education in this country has made it harder to keep kids beleiving in what they want them to beleive; to keep paying in cash and attending services. If they can confuse the issue and obscure the teaching of science in classrooms, they cripple people's ability to logicaly evaluate facts.

I disagree, though I respect that it's only personal speculation. It is possible to be Christian and simultaneously agree with Evolution. There is no monolithic Christian entity (unless you are Catholic j/k) so the possibility for conspiracy here is small. I would hope that a question of origins would not make or break a person's faith, though it seems to do so in most people. The Churches would mainly be kicking people out for questioning their orthodoxy, which frankly a lot of Churches of this type do regularly. Almost comically so.

Second point I'd like to make is that this is indeed political. I think the real motivation is that the parents want their children to grow into good Christian boys and girls, and they have been brought to believe that evolution is the modernist devil. It's not a concern for coins in the coffer as much as a concern for what their children are learning, which I believe is totally understandable. This is the only way to make sure their kids are learning what they believe they should learn short of homeschooling or putting them in parochial schools, both of which are very expensive. So they change the curriculum. It's a matter of indoctrination, whether in truth or in falsehood.

Third point I'd like to make is that the teaching of science in the classroom is already obscured. Textbooks cannot keep up with the good science. One is more likely to learn how to "logically evaluate facts" in a philosophy class. As an example, I'm sure you've heard the story of the peppered moths in London, how before they were mostly white and later became black from the soot. As it turns out that was faked, and it is generally regarded as such, however textbooks haven't edited it out yet. Or how about the hypothesis that humans go through evolutionary stages in embryonic form? Turns out those aren't gills and that's not what we do. Both are widely regarded as false, are taught in the classroom, and are easy pickin's for Ken Ham.

Also, evolution in a school environment lacks nuance. It's easy for a young creationist to ignore it since it's so poorly represented. I know many public educated friends and other people who believe that evolution says we are decedents of apes, not a common ancestor. Here's another example of the problems in teaching evolution:

http://www.livescience.com/history/070831_hn_family_tree.html

Science changes faster than politics or than the printing press can handle. Science classes do themselves in. And they can only do the best they can.

Uszi:

3. Intelligent Design Advocates -- Many times they are not creationists at all. While many creationists may support this view, there are actually a fair deal of respectable scientific minds that do as well. And many times they're arguments sound very good -- especially to anyone not well versed in science. If they have no proof, then the least that could be said is the raise interesting questions. AGAIN, I am not an Intelligent Design-ist, so take that grain of salt as you will.

I'm afraid you have fallen prey to the ID campaign of misinformation Though they would deny it, ID was designed to be as close to creationism as legally possible. While it may not use the word "god" it was in fact just a repackaging of creationist ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandas_And_People
Instead of "god" they describe an "outside force", which just happens to be a sentient force capable of directing evolution across the history of life on earth. Gee how many entities can we think of who can do that?

The idea that it is backed by scientific evidence is also a lie. There have been no peer-reviewed studies supporting ID, and it's really not even testable as a theory, since the intervention of an "outside force" is not reproducible in the lab (as the theory was designed to be).

So, for #1, it's crap because of radiometric dating (actually not carbon dating since it is too short term, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossils#Further_discoveries they use Argon and uranium dating).

#2 Really doesn't sound too different from ID, unless this is the "evolution is god's way of generating life" idea, which is still stupid to me, but ok. On a related note you wouldn't get your paycheck this week if FSM didn't let it happen.

#3 ID doesn't raise interesting SCIENTIFIC questions, since they don't meet the definition of a scientific hypothesis, which includes that it be testable and disprovable.

Keljeck:

oneplus999:

Jacques 2:

The most detailed descriptions come in Job, of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The behemoth was something massive, with a tail like a tall cedar tree in terms of length, and it had bones like bronze (relatively strong) and iron. The leviathan had a hide covered in shields, and what's a lot like shields: scales, and was an amphibious or primarily water dwelling creature of massive size.

The Bible:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his
sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook
compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he
can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

Ok, so he describes something big and strong. It's a completely generic, and no surprise it can be applied to one of the MANY species of dinosaur. Now if it had some exact dimension, or described something more distinctive than a tail, you might have something worth looking at here.

I think you're missing the salient point, that is that most creationists do not say dinosaurs didn't exist, but that the dinosaurs didn't exist so long ago. They point to dragon myths and various ancient histories that claim fantastical creatures live.

????

I made no claims either way, I was just pointing out that a few lines in a book written few thousand years ago in fact does not contain an eye-witness account of a dinosaur. There are two creationist explanations of fossils that I am familiar with:

1. Fossils are god's way of testing you, there were no dinosaurs.

2. There were dinosaurs before the flood, and the flood wiped them all out, and caused rapid fossilization... somehow.

Unfortunately the book of Job takes place AFTER the flood, so unless he fit that creature's ancestors on the boat, it's not a dinosaur.

Also, I think the whole origins argument is misguided. Scientists waste their time trying to convince the fundies, fundies waste their time trying to disprove the science. If the model works in science, let it work in science.

Scientists wouldn't have a problem with what fundies believe if the fundies didn't try to get everyone else's children to believe the same thing, a la Kansas education system.

Jacques 2:
If you'd like evidence, look at the rise in various childhood conditions, such as ADHD (which I know, like anybody else, isn't always true for every kid that claims it), autism (also linkable to flu vaccines containing minute amounts of mercury thought to be in-potent till recently), bipolar disorder, etc. etc. think about it and our life spans, the only reason they are increasing in comparison to the past few centuries is better living conditions.

Increasing occurrence or increasing ability to diagnose? Considering the drastically decreased child mortality rate, you really can't claim that genetic disorders didn't exist in the past, we are just better at helping people live with the problems. Considering that there is no data presented in ancient documents on the rate of various genetic diseases, on what are you basing the claim that there is now more?

Jacques 2:

As for "no meat eaten before the fall of man," don't take what you see on The Daily Show to stand for all creationists either

I haven't watched the Daily Show in a while, but I'll assume someone said this there, as well? Regardless, you missed the point of my comment, which was that a 10,000 year old Earth is just as ridiculous and unfounded as a 6,000 year old earth which is just as unfounded as a velociraptor eating plants.

Jacques 2:

There have been tales of dragons as far back as we have stories to recall from.

And once again you have countless dragon myths to compare to countless species of dinosaur and you actually take a few common attributes as evidence that dragons are based on dinosars? PLEASE take a statistics class or a social psychology class before you hurt yourself.

This thread should have been locked from the start. No good shall come of discussing religion on a forum. Besides, the enlightened understand that the ducks are truly our immortal saviours. :roll:

Good article. If you can't laugh at your beliefs, you shouldn't reproduce.

Keljeck:

Mairsil the Pretender:
intelligent design movement came out of the Discovery Institute, an organization run by old-school creationists.

Also, there is the possibility that fellows at the Discovery Institute figured out they were on the losing side of the argument and adapted their hypothesis. You know, like scientists are supposed to do? Not saying that they are practicing good science, but they are sure doing a better job than Ken Ham.

Yes, but they update their theories to be as close to creationism as possible without breaking the first amendment, as opposed to updating a theory to be in line with conflicting observations :)

Keljeck:

It is possible to be Christian and simultaneously agree with Evolution. There is no monolithic Christian entity (unless you are Catholic j/k) so the possibility for conspiracy here is small. I would hope that a question of origins would not make or break a person's faith

I've always thought the same thing. I still considered myself a xtian long after learning about evolution because it never occurred to me that the two were incompatible. It really wasn't until I took social psychology and learned about how easily our brains are fooled into false pattern recognition and following the crowd mentality that I realized religions are made up.

Most biblical interpreters no longer see Job (or Isaiah)'s animals as dinosaurs. The writers of the King James version often substituted animals from other mythologies into the Bible when they were unsure of what animal the writers were referring to, and the results of that practice continue to this day.

I personally am a fundamentalist Christian, and I don't really like the idea that we all believe the same thing. I've personally decided that Creationist/Evolution debate detracts from the core message of Jesus's teachings. Obviously, the actual Origin of Species is important to scientists studying that sort of thing, but, to the everyman, it doesn't really matter much. It's similar to Einstein's work. Many people I've talked to about it can't understand that time isn't absolute. Do I press the issue? No. Let them believe what they want to believe.

Of course, certain parts of (most versions of) Christianity don't afford you the luxury of letting people remain in the dark. Fortunately, origin beliefs aren't one of them. Just say God was ultimately responsible, and leave it at that.

(My belief? Uh, Evolution theory is incomplete, particularly in the area of Ambiogenesis. Still, most of it is as right as we can get with our limited information. I just find it ridiculous to allow violations of Cell Theory in order to create life, but have only the flimsiest explanations on why it's allowed.)

oneplus999:

????

I made no claims either way, I was just pointing out that a few lines in a book written few thousand years ago in fact does not contain an eye-witness account of a dinosaur. There are two creationist explanations of fossils that I am familiar with:

1. Fossils are god's way of testing you, there were no dinosaurs.

2. There were dinosaurs before the flood, and the flood wiped them all out, and caused rapid fossilization... somehow.

Unfortunately the book of Job takes place AFTER the flood, so unless he fit that creature's ancestors on the boat, it's not a dinosaur.

And my argument was that creationists read ancient accounts of flying lizards and think that they are somehow historical. I'm not trying to defend them, I'm trying to correct the argument against them. It doesn't help to create a strawman when the real thing will do.

There are two arguments, but the argument that God may have created the world last tuesday isn't accepted by the higher ups. It's mostly a thing mothers tell their children. Most creationists argue that the dinosaurs died out after the flood as a result of a climate shift. But they managed to live on for awhile, sometimes they get desperate and try to argue they still exist today in far jungles.

oneplus999:
Yes, but they update their theories to be as close to creationism as possible without breaking the first amendment, as opposed to updating a theory to be in line with conflicting observations :)

They're trying to change the language to be more inclusive. Not necessarily to infiltrate our schools and teach scientific heresy.

oneplus999:
It really wasn't until I took social psychology and learned about how easily our brains are fooled into false pattern recognition and following the crowd mentality that I realized religions are made up.

Heh. Actually, our brains are hardwired into religious thought. I've seen a couple articles on it, very interesting. I'd like to look into some naturalistic evolutionary explanations for this. I believe Richard Dawkins considers it an accident of evolution that never quite went away. Personally, I'm a Christian.

trickly:
The writers of the King James version often substituted animals from other mythologies into the Bible when they were unsure of what animal the writers were referring to...

Most humorous example being the translation of Ox into "unicorn."

trlkly:
I've personally decided that Creationist/Evolution debate detracts from the core message of Jesus's teachings.

I agree, but for a creationist, the fall of man is the cause for everyone to be sinful, necessitating Jesus to die for those sins. Here's a the problem for xtians who accept evolution: at what point did pre-man with a continuously evolving brain get a "soul"? Assuming that animals don't have souls and humans do, at what point in this evolution did god decide these human children have souls and moral decisions to make, but their parents are soulless animals? This MUST have happened unless you want to say that all animals in our evolutionary history, including bacteria, have souls and go to heaven.

trlkly:

Obviously, the actual Origin of Species is important to scientists studying that sort of thing, but, to the everyman, it doesn't really matter much. It's similar to Einstein's work. Many people I've talked to about it can't understand that time isn't absolute. Do I press the issue? No. Let them believe what they want to believe.

Right, let them believe it, but it becomes a problem when they try to force that belief into a secular school system, as FSM was protesting.

trlkly:

(My belief? Uh, Evolution theory is incomplete, particularly in the area of Ambiogenesis.

Evolution is NOT a theory that presents an answer to the origin of life, there are many theories that attempt to answer this, and they fall under the separate field of abiogenesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
The inherent problem is that evolution continues to occur to this day and is easily observable in the fossil record while abiogenesis can't be witnessed so easily, so we may never know for sure how it first happened.

trlkly:

Still, most of it is as right as we can get with our limited information. I just find it ridiculous to allow violations of Cell Theory in order to create life, but have only the flimsiest explanations on why it's allowed.)

Because before there were cells, the world had a completely different set of environmental conditions to take into account. Obviously the first cell couldn't come from a previous cell, but this isnt violating cell theory, its just an obvious exception. Enter abiogenesis theories.

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Yes, but they update their theories to be as close to creationism as possible without breaking the first amendment, as opposed to updating a theory to be in line with conflicting observations :)

They're trying to change the language to be more inclusive. Not necessarily to infiltrate our schools and teach scientific heresy.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what they did. The courts rejected teaching of creationism in schools because it was a violation of the separation of church and state. They replaced god with "an outside force" and tried to get it in again. Read up on the history of "Of Pandas and People" before you speak so kindly of their intentions.

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
It really wasn't until I took social psychology and learned about how easily our brains are fooled into false pattern recognition and following the crowd mentality that I realized religions are made up.

Heh. Actually, our brains are hardwired into religious thought. I've seen a couple articles on it, very interesting. I'd like to look into some naturalistic evolutionary explanations for this. I believe Richard Dawkins considers it an accident of evolution that never quite went away. Personally, I'm a Christian.

Right, it is an accidental byproduct of advantageous behavior. First, it is good to follow what your parents teach you. Since parents have better judgement than children, children who blindly follow what their parents say would be more likely to survive than ones that decide to see if lions and tigers and bears are really as bad as they say. This, coupled with memory heuristics that make "facts" in our brains hard to change has the byproduct of propagating religion.

Ah, I see people are having fun with creatonism truths.

DreamerM:
It's easy to regail Religion as such. It's easy to mock dogma and fable and the blind, obedient, stupid sheep who think God is a wise Bearded Father in the sky or a Flying Spigetti Monster or anything so rediculous.

"There are two kinds of faith: stupid and smart. Where the atheists fall apart is when nobody bothers to explain the difference to them, and I speak as one of them; overcoming the stupid kind of faith inevitably leads to a denigration of the smart kind, because they both look the same from the outside," said Jacob, and he put it incredibly well.

There's the Stupid Faith that values obedience and submission and order above curiosity and observation, the kind that demands you not eat certain foods or mix with certain people or take your children to the doctor. The kind that will have you charging full speed ahead to some promised Paradise like a rat in a maze, the kind that will crush all opposition because it is Wrong, that would destroy the dangerous Questioners for asking why, why are these Truths you've given me so shallow that they don't explain what I can deduce with my own senses? That's the kind of faith that leads to Hate and War.

Then there's the Smart Faith. The kind that brings people together, provides the Hope that will keep you going when everything is lost. The kind that brings Strength out of nowhere, because it's bigger then what you can see, simply by it's nature it exists against and above all reason and words and intellect that could be leveled against it.

That's the kind of faith that we smart-ass Atheists can't really make fun of. The kind that gives strength out of nowhere.

You call is smart because, ultimately, it's believing in a concept which is deemed perfect by nature, and superior and above everything else and infinite +1 blah blah?

The real smart thing to do is this:

Rest assured that you don't know, and may never know.

That's just about it. Paradoxally, uncertainty is the one unique truth.
Everyone will, one day or another, return to the unknown. The fears of death, loss, pain, loneliness, are nothing measured against the fear of the unknown.

This is where all those myths begin. Amon-Ra, God, Allah, Xenu, Buddha, etc. same bunch of made up guys.
It's most exciting to imagine what sort of predigested food for the lazy brains people of the future will believe in, say in 4,000 thousand years from now.

Besides, there's this best seller also full of stupid faith, pseudo intellectual one liners and hearsay imbued in ancient writing which sounds cool and class, espcially when pronounced in latin, and can be traced back to tablets which contain the most idiotic and fascist rules to be followed by man.
Like when life isn't already hard... just add a good load of absurdism to it, just to be sure.
10-14-15 commandments, old, new, you name it. Actually, the old one was even better in some ways.

Robert A. Heinlein
"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."

Napoleon Bonaparte
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."

Ramen.

oneplus999:
Here's a the problem for xtians who accept evolution: at what point did pre-man with a continuously evolving brain get a "soul"?

And that's where the Creationists get hung up, that and the Bible teaching that before the Fall there was no death. I would say first of all, that the soul is granted when we have sentience. Second of all, since I brought up the death issue, I would say the death should be understood as a spiritual death, not necessarily a physical death. If evolution is to be taken at its current word, that means the creation myth is a true myth, in that it teaches us a much deeper story than at its literal face.

oneplus999:
Right, let them believe it, but it becomes a problem when they try to force that belief into a secular school system, as FSM was protesting.

And the Creationists were protesting the secular school system forcing their belief on their children.

oneplus999:
Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what they did. The courts rejected teaching of creationism in schools because it was a violation of the separation of church and state. They replaced god with "an outside force" and tried to get it in again. Read up on the history of "Of Pandas and People" before you speak so kindly of their intentions.

What they were trying to do is redress the essentials of creationism into something more easily digestible by the public at large. I suppose the difference is that I am sympathetic to their views. That's why before I said that the debate is useless and if the evolution model works in science then that is that. If parents don't want their children to learn evolution it isn't going to kill their children. It only effects them if they are trying to get into biology, at which point they would obviously have to either be reeducated, find another profession, or somehow by some miracle convince people of their views.

oneplus999:
Right, it is an accidental byproduct of advantageous behavior. First, it is good to follow what your parents teach you. Since parents have better judgement than children, children who blindly follow what their parents say would be more likely to survive than ones that decide to see if lions and tigers and bears are really as bad as they say. This, coupled with memory heuristics that make "facts" in our brains hard to change has the byproduct of propagating religion.

I don't buy that explanation. The portion of the brain in question is the temporal lobe, when stimulated it can give people spiritual feelings, like they are not alone. It's not a matter of conditioning, a part of the brain has the effect of spirituality. This can't be explained by children following their parents or memory heuristics. All that it explains is the form in which we conceive of the divine.

Keljeck:
1. Be careful bandying about with the term "sentience". Not everyone agrees on what it means, and depending on the interpretation, you're giving most mammals a soul. I don't believe that's what you're trying to do, so you might want to be more specific.
2. If by the "secular school system forcing their belief on their children" you mean, promoting a rational approach to science, then yes, they were forcing their beliefs. Personally, I interpret "secular" not as the bogey-man its often used as (a nice term for "atheist", non?) but as it's intended: separate from religion. Public school, being paid for and run by the government (at least in the US), is inherently a secular organization. They do their best to leave religion, and "beliefs" out of it. That's the whole point. It is not the school's place to teach theism or atheism, or even fence-sitting. They're not teaching religious belief. They're teaching science. (Key takeaway: "secular" does not mean "anti-religion". It means "not religious". Big difference.)
3. I cannot help but see ID as an attempt to inject religion into a secular curriculum, by taking religious belief and supporting it with pseudo-science. Can you prove, or disprove, the existence of an "external force"? If it is not a testable hypothesis, then it has no place in the classroom.
4. I think you and oneplus999 are talking about two slightly different things when dealing with the mental roots of religious behavior. oneplus999 just seems to be talking about why people seem so beholden to believe what their parents told them. You're referring more to the spiritual centers of the brain. Separate issues. Evolutionarily (this is being anally extracted, like the rest of this conversation), I'd guess it might be feasible for such a part of the brain to be advantageous, if it promoted the community. Decreased selfishness, increased sense of community with others, increased tribal cohesiveness and subsequently durability in times of stress. Plus, whoever met an atheist that wasn't angry or depressed about it (maybe not all the time, but come on, its not all sunshine and rainbows)? It's sad being a greater-purposeless random conjoining of atoms, which had as much chance of existing as not existing in this particular space-time dimension.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

-- Epicurus.

Arbre:
Ah, I see people are having fun with creatonism truths.

I am leaving that whole side of the debtate alone. All I'm going to say is that old standby: if we ever could prove concretely that God existed, then He no longer would. So those people who think they need to "prove" a Divine creation account of the world are missing the whole point of religion.

Arbre:

You call is smart because, ultimately, it's believing in a concept which is deemed perfect by nature, and superior and above everything else and infinite +1 blah blah?

Yes, I am calling it superior, because sometimes you need something to be.

Arbre:

The real smart thing to do is this:

Rest assured that you don't know, and may never know.

We don't have to know, because Hope, that abstract force that will keep us reaching for the Better against all reason, is kind of the whole point.

And Hope is what's going to save your ass from Despair.

You really want to have this debate with me? I guess I must assume the answer is yes, as you obviously wouldn't be assuming I wouldn't answer (and thus you would seem to have beaten me) since I stated that I don't like to talk about this sort of thing. So I'll go over to the Dark Side, just for you.

oneplus999:

trlkly:
I've personally decided that Creationist/Evolution debate detracts from the core message of Jesus's teachings.

I agree, but for a creationist, the fall of man is the cause for everyone to be sinful, necessitating Jesus to die for those sins. Here's a the problem for xtians who accept evolution: at what point did pre-man with a continuously evolving brain get a "soul"? Assuming that animals don't have souls and humans do, at what point in this evolution did god decide these human children have souls and moral decisions to make, but their parents are soulless animals? This MUST have happened unless you want to say that all animals in our evolutionary history, including bacteria, have souls and go to heaven.

Humans began to have "souls" the second they did something God told them not to do. The only command we have recorded for other lifeforms is "Be fruitful and multiply." As long as they do that, they survive. They stop? They die. We had an extra commandment. We violated it. We now have a soul. Why were we given an extra commandment? I guess because we got smart enough to actually understand it. Or God created us from scratch. It doesn't really matter. We are the ones who broke the world that God created, and we have to fix it.

Of course, I don't have to point out that Jesus didn't actually teach about the Fall of Man, do I? Because that would be a nitpick. Speaking of which...

trlkly:

(My belief? Uh, Evolution theory is incomplete, particularly in the area of Abiogenesis.

Evolution is NOT a theory that presents an answer to the origin of life, there are many theories that attempt to answer this, and they fall under the separate field of abiogenesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
The inherent problem is that evolution continues to occur to this day and is easily observable in the fossil record while abiogenesis can't be witnessed so easily, so we may never know for sure how it first happened.

Okay, so that's just being nitpicky. I spell the word wrong and you think I don't know what it means? The problem is, no matter Wikipedia says, the various abiogenesis theories are often lumped up in the bigger version of the Theory of Evolution. If not, how could a creation vs. evolution debate even exist? Since creation is an abiogenesis theory (if you'll allow me the liberty of calling something that isn't quite scientific a theory), it would be like comparing apples and oranges.

trlkly:

Obviously, the actual Origin of Species is important to scientists studying that sort of thing, but, to the everyman, it doesn't really matter much. It's similar to Einstein's work. Many people I've talked to about it can't understand that time isn't absolute. Do I press the issue? No. Let them believe what they want to believe.

Right, let them believe it, but it becomes a problem when they try to force that belief into a secular school system, as FSM was protesting.

I agree. That was kinda my point. Neither side should care enough to try and get the other side to change its opinion. Also, I wasn't really addressing FSM here, but the various posters that came later. I guess I didn't make either one of those points clear. Sorry!

trlkly:

Still, most of it is as right as we can get with our limited information. I just find it ridiculous to allow violations of Cell Theory in order to create life, but have only the flimsiest explanations on why it's allowed.)

Because before there were cells, the world had a completely different set of environmental conditions to take into account. Obviously the first cell couldn't come from a previous cell, but this isnt violating cell theory, its just an obvious exception. Enter abiogenesis theories.

That's the flimsy excuse that I'm talking about. None of the various abiogenesis theories have proof (sorry, I mean compelling evidence) that their required environmental conditions (particularly the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere) ever existed, as oxidation occurs even in the lowest layers of sedimentary rock. I just think it's silly to assume that Cell Theory has an exception without that evidence. But you're right. It may be lost to us forever. Kinda makes it unfalsifiable, doesn't it?

I'm hoping that scientists are really are really trying to separate the theories of abiogenesis and evolution in the public mind. As it stands now, almost every book I've ever read about evolution assumes abiogenesis as its starting point. A lot of these are textbooks, so I guess I'm agreeing with FSM on that point. We need more accurate science books. Or maybe we should get rid of the book format all together, and actually teach the kids real science. We've got the resources.

OMG!
Why on earth do we need such a dabate in here?

Gamers hate to be mocked and blamed as potential "amok-running-killer-freaks" for no reason or just because they know what a FPS game is.
We all get pissed if gamers are described as "Counterstrike-Only-Playing time-ticking bombs" or "sleepers" by people who obviously have no clue what they are talking about.

Why do we have the need now to mock others?
Why blame Crationism or "intelligent design"?

Especially when its obvious that this article was written without doing any good research on what "intelligent design" and that stuff is about.

Well no, I am not going to defend Creationism and that stuff for there are so many hypotheses (not theories!) that are just bullshit (sorry) - but to tell one thing:
from the scientific view the evolution hypothesis (not theory!) has no proof.
Huh? Yupp, got it right. There is none!

Millions have tried to find proof/evidence for the evolution - but all failed ...

If you think you can give evidence - just tell me :) I would get a billionaire immediately because there are lots of companies that will award you if you have any evidence.

And to end this: NO! Saying that something written in a "science" book is proof enough for the evolution is totally crap! Remember the bible itself is written in bookform and has been called a truthful book centuries before "science" was born.
[so all that changed was the definition of science but the TRUTH is still out there :)]

YOli-4:
Well no, I am not going to defend Creationism and that stuff for there are so many hypotheses (not theories!) that are just bullshit (sorry) - but to tell one thing:
from the scientific view the evolution hypothesis (not theory!) has no proof.
Huh? Yupp, got it right. There is none!

There is very little "proof" of anything in the universe. For example, "prove" that yesterday happened, and that we all didn't spring into existence, fully formed and ready to go, memories in place, 5 minutes ago? Mostly, science just goes on what has more supporting evidence. As the answer to the question: "How did we become what we are today?", Evolution has more evidence which supports it than Intelligent Design does. For example, the fossil record fits both the evolutionary model, and the ID model. But, evolution and geology generally explain the fossil record, while ID requires a 3rd-party, unseen force to make its claim. Scientists take issue with the completely unverifiable nature of ID. They are not anti-religion (in fact, scientists can still be theists, and sometimes are.)

@trlkly: I'd rather not allow you the liberty of calling it a theory, because the muddling of the meaning of that word is part of what contributed to this mess in the first place. ID is conjecture, evolution is theory (afaik). Also, I don't think he was nitpicking about your spelling of abiogenesis. He was just pointing out that abiogenesis and evolution are two separate (though potentially complementary) things. Your original statement had implied that they were two parts of a whole.