Creationism: An Insult to the Collective of Human Intelligence

Coop,

So, according to your logic, anything that happened before you were born may or may not have happened because you weren't there? You realize that this makes you a Shroedinger's human, right? That's logical fallacy #1

According to your logic, understanding science is tantamount to being self-aggrandizing? That's logical fallacy #2

According to your logic, Atheism is a faith or belief system and Atheists are believers? That has been debunked so many times it's not even funny. Of course, you can feel free to keep your hands over your ears. Technically, logical fallacy #3

You cannot understand why I cannot support your right to do the same? When did I state this? I don't recall telling anyone what to believe or not believe. I espouse opinions, points of view and positions - not the desire to control minds. As well, by your stating that I want to eradicate your beliefs, you are, by default, admitting here, in front of god and America, that you support terrorism and believe that we should tolerate flying planes into buildings, blowing up abortion clinics and murdering physicians. I certainly hope I am mistaken.

I've already explained what fundamentalism is with respect to radical extremists. Either you won't or can't understand it, in spite of it being in plain English.

Al

In response to Coopdetat's comment that about being a "believer in the doctrines espoused by...secular humanist religion" and "i support your right to hold to the faith of your choice."

I'm quite glad that you support the rights of other to believe and hold to whatever faith they may have. You and I are both in agreement about that. The problem with faith and religion comes not in sharing those beliefs with others or displaying those beliefs publicly; instead, the problems with faith and religion come when they cause ignorance and intolerance.

Everyone in this world is ignorant to some degree in all aspects of their own life and the world around them. For instance, a world renown scientist could be a genius when it comes to scientific things but be completely ignorant of how to cook or play a musical instrument because he lacks information and experience on those subjects. While a bit of ignorance is expected in every person, as competent adults in america we are expected to have some basic level of understanding of the world around us. We need to know "the facts" and not the myths and faith based assumptions.

The difference from a fact and a faith based myths is that the former can actually have evidence supporting it while the later's only form of arguing is attacking the evidence that supports facts. Fact is what is real and what can be discovered. Faith is believing in something with no good evidence for it. It's a "give up" where you answer a question with a random answer with no real support or justification.

If all religious and scientific documents and texts were destroyed and forgotten, the religious aspects of society's would differ greatly while the scientific aspects of society would reform in almost the same way. The earth still rotates around the sun, water still shifts into solid ice and gaseous water vapor, and A^2+B^2 will still equal C^2 when calculating the sides of a right triangle. Based on facts and evidence about the natural world, people will come to nearly the same conclusions, though the names of theories and units might differ.

How would the worlds religions develop based on faith based myths? Look at all the differing Gods, religions, and faiths that have risen and fallen in our world. The worshipping of pharaohs, emperors and kings as Gods, the polytheistic beliefs of Romans and Greeks, the ascetic principles of buddhism, the caste systems of hinduism, and the beliefs of islam that stemmed from christianity which stemmed from judaism. Faith is up to the person, the interpreter, and the myths there told while facts are and will always be true observations of the natural world

That being said...You, I, and everyone else in the world are free to believe what we want as long as it doesn't infringe upon the freedoms and rights of other people. Just please take into consideration that in the real world facts and science are taken seriously, while religion is only serious to other practitioners of the religion and the groups being assaulted by it

You are more of a “believer” in the doctrines espoused by your Secular Humanist religion than many fundamentalist Christians are.

This is the fallacy known as the 'Tu quoque' - to tout an old cliche, atheism is a religion like baldness is a hair color.

I am sorry, but given your schizophrenia with regard to fundamentalist Christians it is very difficult to gain any definitive meaning from your writings.

Do you charge for this scintillating psychotherapy? Where'd you get your degree?

God doesn't torture anyone, unless you count isolation from God and all others torture. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth are not from pain but from sorrow in my understanding of it. There are many different beliefs within the "Christian" faith; however, my understanding of it is that Jesus took away the sins of the world. All of them. That is, they have all been forgiven. Even the most heinous ones were put upon Jesus. Well, all but one singular solitary sin which is referred to as the "unpardonable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost". There is some debate about what this sin is but to me it only makes sense that this sin is unbelief. God promises "believe and be saved". If all of our sins were already forgiven at the cross before any of us even thought of Jesus then there must only be the one sin of unbelief left. I believe that a person must die refusing to believe in order to actually commit the unpardonable sin. Believing makes it impossible to commit this sin. ...so simple ... "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein."

You'll like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg

We have a belief system which is shouldered by a little something called burden of proof. That's the idea that we can logically prove what we are saying. Scientific concepts such as the theory of evolution can be applied and falsified, but we are always going to show you how we came to the conclusions.
Saying that we have faith in our arguments is ridiculous because we will change our conclusions based on the evidence, new evidence, that comes to light. Intelligent(ha!) Design is not about understanding the views of the scientific community, and thus shouldn't be considered science anymore than astrology. If you find absolute proof that ID works then show someone this proof and the scientific community will revise their entire perspective to fit the proof but when you are trying to present ID, it's your turn to have the burden of proof, not ours to show that ID is false.

In response to Coopdetat's challenge to find radical extremist fundamental christian sects in the U.S.

I do agree that the majority of christians in the U.S., and in fact the majority of members of most religions around the globe, are good, well-adjusted people with beliefs that may or may not differ from my own. However, in every religion, belief system, and society there are always some who take their beliefs to the extreme. I wouldn't call these people merely fundamentalist; instead, I'd call them "religious extremists", "religious zealots", and religious terrorists.

Even Christianity in America has small sects that are extreme in dangerous ways. Notice i said "small sects". I know full well that these sects do not represent the whole of the christians in the United States, but they are often either overlooked or put up with because they preach their messages of intolerance, hate, and/or ignorance using cherry-picked sections of the bible that they've decided to follow. Here is a list of just a few christian organizations and people that would be considered religious terrorists or christian hate groups. Though I'm sure that you yourself are a good decent person who is simply arguing for what you believe in, please take note that their are in fact extreme christian organizations that should not be ignored.

-Ku klux klan - extremist christian organization that discriminates against social and ethnic minority groups.

-Army Of God - A christian anti-abortion group that sanctions the use of force, threats, assassinations, and bombings to combat abortion

-The lambs of christ - labeled as a christian terrorist organization due to links to several violent incidents

-Eric Robert Rudolf - a man who was responsible for the centennial olympic park bombings as well as attacks on an abortion clinic and lesbian bar

-Hutaree - a christian group that plotted to kill various police officers and civilians whom they believed worked for the anti christ

- Organizations labeled as Christian hate groups - westboro baptist church, american family association, family research council, abiding truth ministries, american vision, chalcedon foundation, dove world outreach center, and traditional values coalition

-And finally, to find groups of christians that are issuing death threats, and wishing rape and murder upon atheists just look up "fox viewers threaten atheists" in google and you'll find an abundance of these threats.

Look idiot, we believe what we are told by science because we are told the results of OBSERVATIONS. The things scientists come up with were discovered as a result of very detailed OBSERVATION. If me or you were to make the same OBSERVATIONS that these scientists made, under the same circumstances, we would come up with the same results. That's why we so often use "proved/debunked/established/accepted/etc." The only unsupported claims of proof and truth are yours, saying that God undoubtedly exists because an old book says so. By that logic, the Grinch is real. What do you mean he's not real? That's different? No it isn't! There's a book about him, hell, there's even a movie! What are you talking about!? I saw the Grinch in the movie with my own two eyes. Well if the Grinch isn't real, who was that green guy in the movie?

"You have failed to identify any radical extremist fundamental Christian sect in the US..."
Ooh, ooh! Pick me! Pick me! Here goes!(inhales sharply) Hutaree, Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, the neo-Nazis, the Branch Davidians, etc. (I just realized that Raymond's got this covered)
Btw that statement was completely unrelated to the point you made earlier.

Buckey,

You obviously don't know what fundamentalist Christians are or what they believe. It is probably a waste of time to attempt to enlighten you in this forum but here goes: Jesus Christ established Christianity; That is why we are called CHRISTians; We follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Radical anti-theists such as you and Al regularly fail to apply scientific methods to your information gathering, especially when it has to do with Christians and Christianity. Either you don't do your own or adequate research, or you just believe what you are told by people you trust or agree with. So, don't take my word for anything. Study fundamental Christianity for yourself. I count many of our founding fathers as fundamental Christians.

"How is a fundamentalist Christian any different from a fundamentalist Muslim?"

-We love our neighbor as ourselves
°(We don't kill "infidels")

-We love strangers that live among us as ourselves
°(We don't seek the destruction of Israel, jews, or anyone else)

-We respect the things that are our neighbor's
°(We are not entitled to take anything an "infidel" has)

-We seek forgiveness and atonement for sinners (which we all are)
°(We do not kill adulterers, blasphemers, or rape victims)

-We do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God
°(Our scriptures don't sanction lying and deceit, they condemn it)

-We enter into the kingdom of heaven when we accept Jesus as Savior.
-We only enter heaven itself when we die as believers.
°("Martyrdom" while killing "infidels" will not grant us 70 virgins or send us to heaven. That only confirms that the individual is not Christian, not a martyr, and not going to heaven.)

You claim that both are equally dangerous? You should review your math, specifically equalities. Opposites can never be equal.

Buckey,
Jesus wrapped it all up in two great commandments: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind; and, love others as yourself. You cannot make fundamentalist Christians into what YOU want them to be just so you can attack that representation of them as if it were real. It is fraudulent to lay all of the attrocities of so called Christians on the backs of fundamentalist Christians. Before any of those things ever happened Jesus told us "For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." Not everyone that comes in the name of Christ or says that Jesus is the Christ is a Christian and that has been the truth since the origin of Christianity. Christians are good people. Those bad people you like to refer to are the ones Jesus said would deceive many. They obviously deceived you.

Just because you have read the entire bible that does not make you an expert on fundamentalist Christian thought just as reading all that is printed in the name of science does not make you a scientist. There are those who come in the name of science that deceive many as well. I am convinced the deceivers are the ones you like. You are convinced they are the ones I like. And on it goes.

Perhaps you missed this in your bible reading, Matthew 7:12-23:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Those evildoers never made it to heaven. They went much farther south.
Even if you discount the existence of God, the teaching of Christ himself (the only foundation of Christianity) condemns all such hateful acts as non-Christian and deserving of eternal damnation. The bible, Christ, and history unfortunately do not support your claims my friend.

To Buckeyenobeliever

I do agree with you about the whole cherry-picking business that people tend to do; however, discrepancies on what the bible truly "teaches" or says come not just from cherry-picking verses that support a person's own views, but also from a person interpreting its passages in different ways to support their own views and beliefs. The bible is a book after all and, like the Qur'an, the Iliad, and all other books and works of literature, its stories can be interpreted in many different ways. Pointing out absurd cherry-picking can be quite easy, but I've personally found matters of interpretation much harder to explain...

I believe that these are some of the verses you were referring to when you said "Jesus himself never preached or taught the law was not to be followed." There are probably more...but these were the only ones remembered well enough to find.

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:18-19

“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)

“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19)

Your book of fairy tales hold no water here.

To PaisTim

In reference to the question “Why is it that no matter where you go in the world you can find a place of worship (to some deity)… but not always find some form of school, hospital, whatever?" that you said was posed by many faith groups and circles. This comment is thus directed towards underdeveloped areas with places of worship to a deity and no real form of any kind of schools or hospitals. The issue of reconciling religion and science in more developed societies that have places of worship along with schools and hospitals is another matter altogether.

I guess the simplest answer would be that creating religious ideas and supernatural explanations is easier than actually studying things. Religion is similar to science in that it is a method of answering questions for which their are unknown answers. They of course differ greatly in that science takes real world observations to draw conclusions. Science and improvement in the real world takes time, effort, careful study, and diligence, and in order to have something studied there needs to be some kind of interest or incentive in the area to be studied. Being able to perform scientific study is also kind of a luxury isn't it? If I were a poor subsistence farmer who had to work in the fields everyday to ensure my family and I survived...I wouldn't really have the time or energy to research things.

People are also fearful of the uncertain. Until a person realizes that its ok not to know certain things, they're going to be afraid and irritated by what they don't know. That's kind of where religion comes in...Why are we here? What's with the big flaming ball in the sky? How do birds fly? God put you there to worship him, the fire spirits put the big ball in the sky to give you light so that you can see, the birds are holy avatars of the wind and its forbidden to harm them for this reason. BAM! Religion answers all these questions, puts people's minds at ease, and so allows them to focus on farming, crafting, and living according to the laws that the head chief, holy men, or church tell them God has created. Supernatural explanations and religious ideals about the real world can also keep people from investigating things since they already provide "answers" to such questions. In some religious societies, questioning religious beliefs is punished by death, or imprisonment - For example Galileo was imprisoned for heresy because he questioned a geocentric universe and told people the earth revolves around the sun.

Though I'm sure there are better examples, I see the growth of science as similar to that of a RTS game's tech-tree. You start off at the very bottom with little to no tech and you upgrade your society and move forward as you expend time and resources in order to improve and strengthen your society. There are many different branches and areas of science, thought, and technology you can focus on and each level of those branches have their own pre-requisites that have to be met before study or thought on the subject can occur - Like having to learn basic arithmetic before learning algebra before learning geometry. Furthermore, studying and upgrading different areas unlocks new things for use in the society such as stronger weapons, better farming techniques to raise more crops, and safer methods of building that allow for the construction of larger more impressive structures. Aside from the coolness factor of having bigger, shinier things, the incentive for researching and upgrading in a game is to strengthen your civilization and ensure they survive.

The problem is that in the real world these incentives aren't always present. If a society in the real world has no interest in upgrading certain areas of society, then that area of society will stay at a low level. An example of this would be...If the main religion of your society taught that sickness and illness was caused by the Gods, then would there be any incentive to study what causes disease if religion already explains it? A sick person in such a society would then focus on appeasing the gods of their society rather than trying to find the true cause of their illness and a realistic method for curing it. And adding even more to that dilemma, questioning whether the gods are the cause of the sickness and/or natural disasters could be seen as a form of blasphemy that would anger them. The people of such a society or culture would be too afraid and too ignorant to investigate the world around them when their religion already "answers" all the big questions. Having people be brave enough to question religion and try to find real world explanations for things would be rather rare in such a situation. Oh, and depending on the civilization they'd probably get killed for blasphemy anyway...

As a final note, in a society where its believed sickness can be prayed away and all the big questions about the world are "answered" with supernatural explanations there's not much reason to have a school or a hospital. The lead holy men/shamans/religious leaders would teach the people "all they need to know" about the world and would "cure" all their diseases by appeasing the gods.

Religions can point out real world problems and then can supply a somewhat real and helpful answer at times. An example would be that some churches offer counseling for things like marriage or daily life and, though a lot of the things they are told in counseling might fall into a religious context, there would be some decent psychological advice brought up.

“What if this religious belief causes more questions than answers?”
From what I remember growing up in my church and from what I still here from people today is that it's a mystery. Its a situation in which a question is answered with something that leads to even bigger questions. These bigger questions are then answered by other things that lead to even larger questions and the cycle continues until it becomes "beyond the understanding of man" and its a "mystery of God". Questioning the mysteries and the questions that grow ever larger would be viewed as a kind of arrogance and demonstration of either an irreverent attitude or pride

“We are all messed up… yet ____ is the answer, nothing else will help but ____”

“We are all messed up… yet ____ is the answer, nothing else will help but ____”
There's probably more situations for such a thing, but right now only four come to mind. These would be situations where religions suppose they are the ONLY answer to things of course. I think situation number four is probably what you were looking for.

In Summary
Situation 1 - real problem that religion somewhat solves by accident or coincident
situation 2 - real problem that religion doesn't fix at all while at the same time prohibiting and discouraging all solutions that are proven to solve the problem
Situation 3 - real problem with no proven solution, so religion makes up a solution that doesn't really fix the problem. It does however make you feel better by making you think you know what causes the problem and how to fix/prevent the problem from occurring again.
Situation 4 - Religion makes up a Supernatural problem. Religion then gives supernatural consequences to the problem. Religion then offers a supernatural solution that requires membership to the religion

Situation one is where the religion points out a real world problem and tries to answer it in some unrealistic, supernatural way that can yield success either through coincidence or a placebo effect. An example would be the belief that we are all damaged mentally and psychologically in some way and can only be helped through religion. I'm a bit skeptical of the only "through religion" part, though I do concede that no one in the world is perfect and we all need a little help. Praying in certain ways has many of the secular aspects of meditation in that its a time in which one calmly reflects over situations and looks over them. Prayer also has the placebo effect of making a person feel better and more secure about their life; though, extreme prayers and supernatural expectations lead to BIG problems that Al actually has a different article on. Another example would be the religious counseling for marriage and such that I mentioned earlier. Although I would personally seek nonreligious help given the choice, if religious beliefs are the only things that keep individuals with more extreme issues from snapping and committing a bunch of violent crimes...Then hey, you keep on believing guys; however, I'd prefer if they kept their views and beliefs private or within their community of faith and didn't force their beliefs on others. And I still think that secular counseling and psychology would help just as much if not more, but I am atheist so I'm probably biased towards not believing in supernatural oriented things without substantial proof.

The second situation would be one in which the religion points out a real world problem that already has manmade solutions but imposes their view that the problem can only be solved through the supernatural. For example, believing that physical illness is a result of sin and God's anger and so can't be cured with medicine. Sickness is thus dealt with through prayer and sacrifice to God. A belief like this is VERY DANGEROUS. One religious sect I remember that believes such things is the "Christian Science Church". Because of its dangerous supernatural views I find its name ironically hilarious.

The third situation would be where religion points out a real world problem that man doesn't have enough technology or knowledge on the situation to combat. An example would be the belief that natural disasters are caused by an angry God. Sure there's real world explanations for why the natural disasters occurred, but believing that prayer and sacrificing to a God can somehow stop natural disasters does place people into a false sense of security. Michelle Bachman brought up natural disasters being caused by God's wrath in a speech that drew the cheers of her supporters - she later claimed in an interview that she was saying this metaphorically. If man ever develops technology to control/counter natural disasters effectively, then this particular belief might die out. That'd be pretty far in the future though if it ever happened at all.

The fourth situation (which is probably what you were looking for) is one in which the religion makes up a supernatural problem, gives negative supernatural consequences for the problem, and thus deals with the problem in a supernatural way. "All men are sinful and can only be helped through this religion". Ok? Sinful? That's a rather negative connotation...Don't know why I really need to get that fixed though. Then the religion tells you "the sinful go to hell where they are tortured for eternity" or "the sinful are cast out into a void and not allowed into heaven" or "the souls of the sinful are obliterated because they are unworthy of an after life". WOAH, religion told me about a supernatural problem I wouldn't have been aware of, with supernatural consequences that are specific to their religious sects beliefs, and my only way to rectify this problem is through the supernatural solutions that this particular religious sect offers. What a coincidence! Though there is the problem that different religions and even sects of the same religion have different definitions for what sin is, different solutions for dealing with sin, and somewhat different views on the punishment associated by sin. Islamic hell is different from Jewish hell which is different from Christian hells. And even different sects of christianity have different versions of hell and criteria for going to and/or avoiding hell. This problem can easily be rectified by converting to all different religions at once. I must warn that this solution does put a severe drain on one's social, personal, and business life. This is because joining the religions means following the religions rules and doctrines which may include but are not limited to: paying a tithe to the church, mandatory meetings during the week/month, willingness to defend your faith in the face of heresy/other religions, and a willingness to actively convert others into believing exactly the same things you do through debate, coercion, and/or threats of violence. Personally, if I was going to go the theist route, I'd prefer to be either a deist or a member of a friendly easy to keep up with religion with little to no rules or doctrines.