fuck a creationist

God does not believe in atheists
His presence from creation is quite clear
God does not believe in atheists
It takes a fool to tell him he's not here

God believes atheists can get born again
And become a new creation,
But they'd best admit the world around them first
And ask for their salvation
But to only cry, "Recycle!" is the worst

God believes atheists do have certain rights
To seek and search the scriptures
It says, "Come now, let us reason" that's for them
But it doesn't give them reason to
Make up what God is saying
Until it's no true benefit to them

Blee dop, sklee dop, sklee dilly dilly
Bah donna bee on a Saturday night
If that sounded like nonsense to you too,
Those schools have got some books for you

I guess the non-bald Chick dude considers cancer an evolutionary advancement?

This is such terrific reading, for, well, two main reasons: (a) unlike illiterate 16th-century farmers, the scientific visionaries who put this together seriously don't know that equine hybrids are always sterile; plus (b) their grand theory to replace evolution winds up arguing that ... seemingly different species could "respectively diverge from the same original stock?" I mean, seriously:

Dogs humans and wolves apes (though considered quite different by humans today) probably originated from their same "kind" too.

(Also funny: they evidently reject everything science has allowed us to figure out about dinosaur bones except that they were reptilian? I mean, hell, once you're throwing everything else out the window, who's to say they didn't have feathers? Which: Francine is a bird who wants to be a dinosaur and then learns a little secret about herself: I could totally imagine an ugly-duckling kind of thing where someone's like "hey, you're more highly evolved and your species will be around longer, don't sweat it.")

Ethan, have any of the callers gone on about "indoctrination"?

Humans and apes diverging from a common ancestor over millions and millions and millions of years: RIDICULOUS, DO I LOOK LIKE A MONKEY?

yes, except for when it serves their purposes to think that they aren't. fundamentalism as a freaked-out response to (some aspects of) modernity that is completely enabled by and dependent on (other aspects of) modernity is very very similar across the Christian/Muslim divide. I think there just are many similarites between Christianity and Islam anyway, but in response to Karen Armstrong's read on world religions, I think many of them, even if they are available to metaphorical readings, could become fundamentalized, given the state of the world. There are Christians who read the Bible metaphorically, after all.

I'm really sorry you're dealing with this, and what, but we're all going to have to deal with it eventually.

Is that a ginormous "DUH"? Obviously, yes, the line for the pains and pressures of the real world forms to the right, please take your places. But when you've staked your life or sanity on it, well...that's big.

xp yeah, laurel

EWWW! Dragonlance, how tacky! But considering how many ex-fundies I knew from college who'd point to all manner of things with some kinda loose connection to swords 'n' sorcery (sci-fi/D&D/ren fest/creative anachronisms/Norse and Celtic mythology/prog rock) as the stuff that kinda put them on the path to a vision more secular, I think the D&Dishness of this stuff carries within it -- maybe -- something potentially transformative and redeeming.

On the other hand, I've also noticed that Norse & Celtic mythology is really popular with amongst the bathsit racist set, so I may be indulging in wishful thinking.

I always think of it as: if religion is there to shore us up against the idea that the universe is a cold, value-neutral place, then science seems very threatening. Deeply frightening, even. Because the universe is a cold, value-neutral place. This tug of war has always been going on in one way or another. Galileo, etc.

* Batshit (likely)
* Bathist (unlikely but fascinating!)
* Bathist (literal reading, ie "partial to baths")

right, and this board has more than a few of 'em.

This seems really obvious to say, but it seems that a lot of emphasis needs to be on the psychology of these folks. There's a certain mindset that so cannot handle ambivalence of any sort, or any questioning, or any insecurity, that all things must be literal and straightforward. This shit is scary to some folks, so they have to cling to something. We've talked about this on other threads, too, like the one i did about authoritarian societies. The Bible must be read as literally true, even if it's been (mis)translated over the course of several languages, even if the first and second chapters of Genesis has differing versions of Creation, etc etc etc.

I suspect that somebody like Tep has a fair amount to say on this, but he tends to avoid these threads.

(I wonder how the Museum of Natural History deals with this sort of thing -- bet they have a script all laid out already for callers.)

xpost.

Right, but I don't know that it requires a particular sort of self-loathing to get to that point.

If you start downplaying Jesus' divinity or the literally cataloged powers of God the Father, you threaten the authority, the potency of the only pillar holding up their self-acceptance.

Replace "self-acceptance" with "overall sense of meaning in their lives," and I think it still works.

I guess yelling "READ ONE BOOK" wouldn't be polite, would it?

(b) if religion is there to shore us up against the idea that the universe is a cold, value-neutral place -- somewhere inside of this is a subissue, which is the usual belief among fundamentalists that the absence of religion means the absence of values, and a necessary descent into nihilism and greed and depravity. There's no faith that human beings could adopt positive values just on a rational basis, just at face value. (And this is something that plenty of strains of Christianity make a big deal of reinforcing, stressing that we are all stained and evil and fallen without God -- possibly even that you can't be a decent person without God, ten thousand Biblical exceptions aside.)

XP: Whoops, forgot that extra "a"! Curse no mod powers on sandbox.

Nietzsche comes into play here, too, along with the massive historical misreadings given to him.

that's a good question. Islam strikes me as less interested in love than Christianity is, but God's omnipotence and direct involvement in the world is certainly central.

Another question: how can people who have no problem with such a massive, weird abstraction have so much trouble with the idea of geological time?

I.e. most of these folks don't talk too much about usury, or the forgiving of debts every so many years, or ignoring most of that whole "Sermon on the Mount" thing.

I'll give you $20 if you can remember that guy's name.

His name is That Douchebag. Pay up.

xpost to Laurel.