Purposefully left title-less.

Alright, alright… I wasn’t thinking at all when I wrote a post and titled it “Creationists Are Pure Evil.” I have since renamed it to My Thoughts on Creationism. Why? One too many people, this time, George Paul Davis III, have missed the point of the post because of the title. Please read the post (and not by title only) before reading the rest so that this all makes more sense.

Angry? No. Amused? A little. However, it’s not the creationists who are amusing — it’s people who get so angry over this stuff. I think it’s funny because the anger seems baseless and programmed rather than genuine.

The first thing a person should do upon feeling “angry” about this is to ask him/herself why they feel that way.

Are you angry because the children do not get to choose what they are taught in their system of education? If that is the case, then I return that question back to you. Do your children choose the curriculum they are given in their own system of education? I was never asked about the curriculum given to me as a child.

I was given several doses of misinformation during my education. In public school, I was taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America as he was trying to prove that the Earth was round. The idea that Christopher Columbus would have had to prove the shape of the Earth to anyone in his time is, of course, nothing more than romantic fancy presented to children in elementary school as a fact (at least, it was taught as a fact in my day — Second Grade/1986). I was also given a set story about things like the Revolutionary War only to grow up and discover that different countries often have very different histories that are used to explain single events (i.e., the British explanation of the Revolutionary War and the American “victory” is quite different). Few people are “angry” over these bits of misinformation, so why is misinformation about dinosaurs so aggravating?

My guess, then, would be that people are not actually angry about the fact that these children do not get to choose whether or not they are given facts as education. Other than that, I don’t really see what exists in this situation that would conjure “anger.”

The worst that will happen to these kids is that they will grow up having been given false information about the origin of species. They’ll grow up thinking that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that men rode dinosaurs, and that lions are meant to eat grass. Big deal. Since when is being wrong such a tragedy? Who here has never lost an argument? These kids will face bigger issues as they grow up – this crap will be the least of their worries.

Even in making that statement, I am overlooking not only my personal experiences with this subject matter, but the confession of the museum scientist in the clip. He was raised to think as a Creationist, yet he does not. I was similarly raised, and I don’t follow the assumptions made by “Creation Science,” either. These kids will have the ability to choose what they believe when they’re older and are exposed to more materials.

Why, then, would this situation create so much “anger?” Religion. Religion has become a hot-topic for people. There is a kind of Retro-Inquisition going on, right now. Religion makes certain people angry – even when they aren’t directly affected by it.

It’s true that I don’t really expect much from the human animal and think that most of these kids will not become enlightened by science as they mature into adults. Rather, I think they will simply adhere to the easiest option – to stick to what one already “knows.”

Easy options are amongst the human being’s favorite type. It’s easy to accept information without proper contemplation, so people do it. For instance, your anger over this particular subject suggests that you blame Creation, an abstract concept created by HUMANS, for certain evils in the world. That’s just naïve.

Religion, and Creation through it, is just a story. It isn’t evil, it isn’t good, it isn’t anything without a human being’s manipulation to create, change or control it. In other words, “religion doesn’t kill people — people do.” You can’t be angry that these children are being given Creation as education without being angry at Creation as a concept. It doesn’t make sense to be angry at abstract concepts, but it does make sense to be angry at people who use them to do evil. What evil is being done here? Some kids are being made wrong. Is that really evil? They won’t grow up to be archeologists. It’s hard to find work as an archeologist, anyway. Thinking that the Flintstones is a documentary won’t prevent these kids from accomplishing great things. You can think that the Grand Canyon was made in a weekend and still be a successful and talented medical doctor – I’ve seen it.

If you are angry at Creation and Religion – or so it seems — because they can potentially cause evil, then you must also be angry at the concept of home-schooling for making this kind of an education possible. Further, you should be angry at the concept that individuals are allowed to make decisions for their own children, because it enables concepts like home-schooling which in-turn enables insane curriculums wherein children are taught Creation as a fact. If you are angry at these concepts then you must also be angry at an innumerable number of abstract concepts in order to make any logical sense as a human being.

Religion is not evil, it’s just silly. People are evil. Teaching kids that snakes can talk is not evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate children into sexual situations is evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate people into committing mass murder/suicide is evil. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate people into giving him/her free money is just a jerk. A person who uses faith in Religion to manipulate movies stars into believing that they are possessed by alien ghosts so they will give him/her lots of free money, I must begrudgingly admit, is kind of talented.

You’re not angry. You’re bored.

Thanks

Ah… “The first thing a person should do upon feeling “angry” about this is to ask him/herself why they feel that way.” For those of you that read the post, you will notice that the entire post was explaining why I felt angry.

No, the point of the post was not that I think that creationism/creationists are evil. I get annoyed with because it distorts the truth. For those of you who read it by title only, I will tell you what the content of the post actually was.

I talked about how much I love science. I talked about how passionate I am about what is true. That is why it broke my heart so much to see it distorted. That is why it made me so very upset. I’m sorry that you can’t understand that I’m not bored, but that I’m passionate.

Even if you can not understand that passion, do you believe that people have a right to know the truth? Do we not despise totalitarian governments that control information, thus brain-washing the people? Why doesn’t this apply to children who’s parents control the information they are fed?

But, yes. A lot of fault falls upon me because I wasn’t thinking when I chose the post title. If I learned anything from The Selfish Gene it was that people pay little attention to content and more to titles. Is this because of laziness, or genuine mistakes? I can understand how titles will make people pre-disposed to read things that aren’t really there. Perhaps it is my fault that people did not understand the post if they actually did read it.

I have the most pointless English assignment ever. I have to write a survival manual, due tomorrow, for a foreign and hostile environment. I have a lot of personal experiences being stranded in a foreign and hostile environment!

It’s not so much that I can’t do technical writing, but I have a very short period of time to do a lot of research so that my information is factual and I don’t get points docked, and it’s not even worth that many points. Half the websites she gave us links to do research on are from loonies who think that the world is about to end.

Survival Risk Quotient: 63
Captain Dave’s Survival Risk Quotient, is updated regularly and attempts to rank how close we are to an all-out global disaster, also know as TEOTWAWKI, or “the end of the world as we know it.” 100 is T EOTWAWKI, 50 is an average threat level and 0 is a peaceful world with no threats, or what it would have been like for Adam and Eve without the Serpent.

From: Captain Dave’s Survival Center and Preparedness Resource

Alright… other than the “TEOTWAWKI” stuff, I found some useful stuff, but this assignment is going under the assumption that we’re not paranoid dooms-day sayers who are planning on having the world devolve into chaos.

So, to save me from the pointless tedium, I’m taking a break and writing a survival guide for the Bible Belt for my own personal amusement.

1. Don’t put your faith in the governments of the Bible Belt. The South has always had a strong tendency to not respect the constitution. Luckily, the South didn’t win the Civil War and still is part of the Union. If they do pass a legislation allowing the teaching of religion creationism in science classrooms, you might be able to take it to the Supreme Court and win.
2. Forget freedom of speech. Putting a Darwin fish on your car sends a beacon to rednecks that you and your car should be vandalized.
3. Be careful with words over five letters long. Rednecks have a highly limited vocabulary.
4. Go to church. Even if you just listen to your iPod in the back to minimize the mind-numbing drivel, you don’t want the community thinking you’re not one of them.
5. Obtain a Romulan disruptor. Let’s see them use a pitchfork against that!
6. Make an escape plan for all areas of the town. If all of the above fail, you’ll need it in case they decide to revive the practice of lynching.

My dearest apologies to the dozen or so people living there who are reasonable.

Back to tedium for me…

Intrigued by the Pharyngula post, I took a look at CrevoScope.

You have “will” which you can spend on either researching in the “library” (you click on something that says “read about science” and then you don’t read about science and you gain knowledge), or researching in the “church” (you click on something that says “study” and then you don’t learn anything about the Bible and you gain knowledge). Then, when you feel you have enough knowledge, you debate people.

It doesn’t really matter how much personal intellect you have when it comes to “winning” in the game. This is the way my second “debate” went after I’d spent most of my “will” in the “library”.

You turn toward your_mom_was_an_ape and say “How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?”
your_mom_was_an_ape replies to your argument with “Well… um… all that matters is that he did!”
Elles smiles with victory.

your_mom_was_an_ape says his own argument: “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”
You think for a moment and say “Scientists say that we evolved from chimps, not monkeys! I guess that God of yours didn’t decide to give you a brain so you could realise this, huh?”
your_mom_was_an_ape nods, enjoying seeing his opponent make a complete fool of himself.

Once again, you challenge your opponent: “How could Noah possibly fit all those animals into a small boat?”
your_mom_was_an_ape replies to your argument with “Well… um… all that matters is that he did!”
Elles smiles with victory.

Elles wins the debate!
You gain 10 exp points

Huh?

Well… more like tomorrow early morning, but according to SpaceWeather.com, the eta Aquarid meteor shower is tonight.

Take it from a student of astronomy, if you really want to see something spectacular, get as far away from the city lights as possible. Me? I’m just going to be in my backyard tomorrow morning, and laughing at all the people who got up even earlier and wasted gas money on driving out all the way…

Kidding. If you really want to do that, I’m sure you’ll have much more fun than I will but I have school.

What I think you really ought to do is get up a few hours before sunrise, make yourself some tea or coffee or a root beer float, get a lawn chair, and look up. Do it at least once before you die.

It’s probably one of the darkest truths I can admit to… I use to be a conservative. Back in my youthful days of elementary and middle school, I listened to people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and I ate up everything they said. I challenged my teachers on everything they said that I thought sounded too Liberal.

Most fearful of all, I have to admit that I had unquestioning faith in George W. Bush. I honestly never dared to criticise a single thing Bush ever said. Imagine being a bipedal version of the sheep in Animal Farm. I must have sounded like… “Conservatives good… Liberals bad… Conservatives good… Liberals bad… Bush is always right.”

Scary?

So now imagine how very refreshing disillusionment must feel. My disillusionment didn’t quite come as a sudden rush, but it feels like I’ve been taking a very deep breath of fresh air for the past three years.

It was around 7th grade that I began to think about philosophy. It was around 8th grade that I began to question everything, and developed a passion for what is true. That’s about the time when I decided that I no longer considered myself Conservative. I’d begun to be a freethinker, but I was still recovering from my past of listening to the likes of Sean Hannity. I still winced at liberal remarks unthinkingly when I first heard them, though when I thought about it, I agreed with them.

I think that one of the things that made my transition slowest was that I had a passionate objectivist, social darwinist, anti-socialism, anti-communism “friend”. But, I’d begun to wonder how it was possible for a person who thought that selfishness was the highest virtue to have friends. It became apparent to me that it was not. Now, I’m free from her paranoid ramblings about how Obama is a socialist, and how we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I finally began to taste disillusionment.

Shortly after deciding that she was wrong afterall, I began reading The Audacity of Hope. I think that the reason why is now that I could see above the smoke-screen erected by my anti-socialist “friend”, I found that I could relate to Obama. He supports science, for one thing. The fact that he’s not an evolution denier puts him ahead of the majority of the people in this country. His father was an Atheist, so it feels like he can sympathize with us more. A lot of Atheists have been disputing whether or not he’s really an in-the-closet Atheist who really just talks about faith to get elected… I think that that’s just wishful thinking because we’ve gone for so long without having presidential races decided based on faith.

But to be entirely truthful, the reason why I had a sudden interest in Obama was because he was accused of being an ‘elitist’ so many times. He’s seen as out-of-touch by many because he uses words like “arugula” where the common man is familiar with “beer” (see the cover of Newsweek). People don’t feel like he shares the same past times as them, like bowling.

I think… I think that he is a victim of anti-intellectualism. I think that people are suspicious, hostile to him because… he’s different.

It’s because of my perception of this lack of acceptance that I feel that I can relate to him.

The parts that I’ve read of his book so far do make me want to believe in him. It would be nice if I could believe that he’s an honest politician (which I believe in about as much as I believe in the Yeti). But I don’t want to have faith in him.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve been avoiding endorsing politicans for so long. It feels like I have to have faith that they are the least bit honest. That part within me which causes me to want him to win, I feel, is based far more in pathos than in logos… and that worries me a bit.

So… I will end this musing, hoping that it will not be seen as exactly an endorsement but just as a musing. Expect my review of his book when you see it.

This week’s Ignunt Fool of the Week is…

Eckhart Tolle

Image Source: His website.

That’s his book. It’s about “spiritual awakening”. He wants us to think positively and be nice to each other… stop being dysfunctional. That’s all well and good, but whenever the man says something about science, as with all New Age “gurus”, his ignunce is clear.

I heard about him in English class. A kid had mentioned that his mum was obsessed with the book because it had been on Oprah, and I was immediately sceptical considering that Oprah was sponsoring it. That dumb bat (no, bats are fine creatures… I will not bring them down to her level) tosh-bag supported The Secret after all, and here we are… still needing self-help. When I told my English teacher my criticisms of the book, I earned the remark… “You know what? I think you need to lighten up and deal with a little spirituality.”

So, I saw the book at a book store, picked it up, and started reading.

“The first flower probably did not survive for long, and flowers must have remained rare and isolated phenomena since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur (emphasis added). One day, however, a critical threshold was reached and suddenly there would have been an explosion of color and scent all over the planet…”

So… we have flowers randomly popping up out of nowhere but they’re not thriving because selection pressure doesn’t favour them… and then, after the flowers are formed the selection pressure is there? Anybody who knows anything about evolution (less than 50% of this country, actually, so he’s not too far behind the curve) can see what’s wrong here.

Flowers don’t pop out of nowhere onto plants for no reason. They evolve from flower-like structures because selection pressure (in this case sexual selection) pushes them to do so. No selection pressure for structures good at attracting insects, no flowers or other structures that serve the same purpose. Not the other way around.

The ignunce continues.

“It is believed that the life forms on this planet first evolved in the sea. When there were no animals yet to be found on land, the sea was teeming with life. Then at some point, of the sea creatures must have started to venture onto dry land. It would perhaps crawl a few inches at first, then exhausted by the enormous gravitational pull of the planet, it would return to the water, where gravity is almost nonexistent and where it could live with much greater ease. And then it tried again and again and again, and much later would adapt to life on land, grow feet instead of fins, develop lungs instead of gills (emphasis added).“

First of all, gravity was not the only problem fish had to overcome. Though it was a bit of a problem, the other more pressing matter was breathing. Hence, the lung fish.

Second of all, it is not believed that life started in the sea. It is verified by fossil evidence that life started in the sea.

This time, he doesn’t use the same fallacy as above. I’m not sure if he actually believes that the organism is getting the traits because it’s trying to evolve, but is it just me, or does that sound like Lamarckian evolution? If this guy really does believe in Lamarckian evolution… FAIL.

“The pain-body (the thing he says makes us depressed), however, is not just individual in nature. It also partakes of the pain suffered by countless humans throughout the history of humanity, which is a history of continuous tribal warfare, of enslavement, pillage, rape, torture, and other forms of violence. This pain still lives in the collective psyche of humanity and is being added to on a daily basis, as you can verify when you watch the news tonight or look at the drama in people’s relationships. The collective pain-body is PROBABLY ENCODED WITHIN EVERY HUMAN’S DNA (emphasis added), although we haven’t discovered it yet.”

Oh, I get it. My ancestors were violent so it encoded something in my DNA. I see.

Show of hands, please. How many people know that DNA is a molecule that manufactures proteins? How many people know a way that acts of violence could encode the DNA within us?

Later on in the book, there was some more ignunt jazz about how everything is a “vibrating energy field” vibrating at a certain “frequency” and because thoughts are vibrating at a different frequency we can not interact with them.

No.

Thoughts are electrical impulses in your neurons inside of your cranium. That’s why we can’t interact with them. But no… we have to have jargon that doesn’t mean anything so that we can sound like we know something.

Most surprisingly, though, is that I didn’t encounter any shit about quantum mechanics in the parts I read. But, still…

How to be a New Age guru.

1. Write a book. No need to do any research. Just make stuff up as you go along that sounds good.
2. Ramble about quantum mechanics. All you need to do is… “vibration, frequencies, ramble ramble, quantum mechanics! Law of attraction, ramble ramble, magnetic forces, vibration frequencies ramble.”
3. Tell people that wanting makes it so.
4. Distort science some more.
5. Go on Oprah.
6. Laugh your way to the bank.

If Stein was hoping for a sympathetic audience for his film, you’d expect it to be an evangelical Christian, right?

Well, not s’much.

My friend, Created Rationalist, has posted his review of the film after his church was invited to see Expelled. It’s not very favourable. He deals at a much greater length with all the cases Stein attempted to present in the film than I did.

But some of those atheist and science bloggers are mean!

Well… yes… Yes I am. How exactly am I supposed to feel about being equated to a Nazi?

Now, unfortunately, there are a few things I must take issue with.

I agree;
–that there is some evidence one way or another of Intelligent Agency in the universe
–that the scientists don’t always do a very good job at explaining how they think life began through natural causes
–that Atheism and Philosophical Naturalism are inherently metaphysical and unprovable
–that many atheists are incorrectly equating atheism with science and trying to create a flase dichotomy of sorts
– that there is an active movement among atheists to devalue religion.
–that science (Evolution in particular) can be used to rationalize evil deeds such as killing off the weak

I suppose that evolution does not disprove god (the deist god), though I would have to say that it does contradict the Judo-Christian god who is supposedly playing an active role in the creation of life on Earth.

For example, if I were guiding evolution along, with the intent of making man in my own image, I would have avoided completely unnecessary evolutionary off-shoots such as dinosaurs. It was only after the dinosaurs had gone extinct that the age of mammals occurred, eventually leading to us. But it took another… oh… about 200 million years before this could happen.

Now, it is true that we’re not sure exactly how life happened, but we have a few equally plausible theories of how it could have started. Essentially, all you need is carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen to create organic molecules, and then you need a self-replicating molecule for selection pressure to take place. The main scientific controversies over the origin of life have to do with whether DNA or RNA came first, or if it started in the primordial soup or elsewhere (like around hydrothermal vents).

Contrary to what Ben Stein would have you believe, most scientists do not really believe in panspermia, though it certainly is the most plausible way in which you could stretch ID to be true. For the most part, all scientific theories of the origin of life are plausible and do not need to postulate supernatural jazz.

Now, as for saying that Atheism and naturalism are supernatural and unprovable… Well, you’re calling naturalism supernatural. You can’t get much of a better oxymoron than supernatural naturalism. Naturalism is based on what is observable and empirically testable. Supernaturalism is based on faith. Very different.

I suppose that you can do science and still be a religious person (Francis Crick, Newton, Kenneth Miller), but you’d definitely have to compartmentalize your brain severely. I don’t really buy into the whole NOMA, or “ways of knowing” relativist stuff. You can seek truth, or you can compartmentalize and only partly seek truth.

Alright, you got me. I’m trying to devalue religion. I was an in-the-closet devaluer of religion and now I’m out.

OK, fine. I am actively trying to devalue religion. What’s wrong with that?

And as for saying that science (evolution in particular) can be used to justify evil though it does no necessarily lead to Nazism…

Evolution by natural selection was not a necessity for eugenics. If you think about it, we had eugenics around for thousands of years before Darwin had the brilliance to think of nature as doing the selection. Darwin did not come up with selection. He came up with selection by nature, which is very different from a human selecting traits that he/she likes.

Before natural selection, we were breeding pigeons, dogs, cabbages for traits that we liked. This was artificial selection, the real necessary component to eugenics.

Hitler, though he tried to make it seem like science justified him, was scientifically ignorant about some things.

For one thing, he was a racist. There is no science supporting racism. Also, based on what I read from Mein Kampf, he seemed to think that being in different races was almost equivalent to being in different species. He begins his chapter on nation and race by talking about how animals in different species can’t mate with animals in different species… and applies that to people in different races, saying that hybrids are inferior.

Being half-Chinese and half-American, I took offence to that. I take offence to anybody who says that Hitler was justifying his madness with science as that would be saying the thing that I love most passionately justifies saying I’m inferior.

I think we should make a clear distinction between Hitler’s motivations and his justifications. Hitler’s motivation was a pathological hate for Jews. His justifications were that he was “breeding a super-human race”. Whether he actually thought he could do that, I don’t know, but it’s clear that he would want to kill Jews anyway. If he hadn’t been aware of the idea of eugenics, he might have justified the holocaust by saying that the Jews deserved to die because they were ruining the economy or something.

That said, I’m glad that the Created Rationalist has enough critical thinking capabilities to see through most of Stein’s lies. Give it some time, and you’ll have both feet in the world of reason.

OMFSM! Telekinesis is real! This video proves it! It’s undeniable!

Why?!? Why did my dogmatic scepticism have to have such a strong hold over me?!? I was a maniac!

We went into Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction to bring freedom and democracy. Well, it has finally been achieved!!!

That is… if you ignore the honour killings…

Like a 17-year-old girl who was beaten to death by her own father for the wretched crime of being in love with a British soldier! The horror.

“You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws.“

-Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police

The feminist within me is kicking and screaming and wanting to throw dung hysterically.

The only reason why I wasn’t actively expressing my annoyance at the Iraq war before was because I agreed in part with Christopher Hitchens, and I was hoping that we might actually bring a bit of democracy to that country even after we’d invaded it for the wrong reasons. I was hoping some good might come out of it.

But, alas, we’ve kicked out one oppressive government and allowed the creation of a theocracy. Epic fail.