According to Geneses 1:26:

Let us make man in our image, in our likeness

and pretty much all classical western religious art depicts god as some big grey bearded elderly gentleman in flowing white robes. So, if God made us to look like him then that means he basically just copied a pre-existing design i.e. his own. That’s plagiarism not Creation or Intelligent Design. Nothing to be revered here.

Yes, I’m ignoring modern apologetics which tries to claim that the passage in Genesis actually means we’re made in Gods image ‘spiritually’ or some other such guff. Hey, if they can ignore evidence why can’t I? Not that I consider any of the arguments of apologetics to be valid arguments mind you.

Please remember that I took these notes as the video was playing. I’ve copied them here unedited – spolling mistooks, abysmal punctuation and grammar unaltered.

First few minutes, Behe and Meyer! This should be awful

Overly dramatic music

Are we dealing with Evolution or Abiogenesis?

Bill Dempskey too!!!

Up to 10 mins, OK, not too bad. Standard documentary fayre – narrator with deep gravelly voice, a bunch of names all with impressive sounding titles Dr, Prof etc.

10:00 Aaargh! Darwinism! You lose. It’s called Evolution numbnuts.

And almost straight into micro-eveolution being ok, but macro not being possible.

11:20 Funny how basically every other evolutionary biologist does the same thing but comes up with a very different answer.

12:00 again with Darwinism. Also, seems to think that Evolution hasn’t progressed as a theory in the 150years since publication of Origin.

12:15 OK, onto Behe and his discredited idea of irreducible complexity it seems.

12:30 Nope, you weren’t taught Darwinian biology, you were taught evolution that was started by the ideas of Darwin. There is a difference.

14:00 And none of that knowledge has dented Evolutionary theory at all, in fact it’s completely supported it.

16:00 Hahahaha Bacterial Flagellum. FAIL!

18:00 Not sure when this film was made, but this apparent failure to explain the flagellum is out of date. It has been explained quite successfully.

19:00 The Mouse trap analogy. FAIL. Every single one of those parts works as something by themselves. Just because they don’t necessarily work as a mouse trap individually means nothing.

20:20 Not quite. You need to explain what function they do do individually or in smaller groups. Or at least show they aren’t detremental to the organism.

20:45 Please tell me they aren’t going to mis-quote Darwin about the eye. Please!

22:00 OK, no eye, thankfully.

23:00 A tail that didn’t function as a flagellum would be selected against? What if that tail did do something useful that wasn’t a flagellum? What then?

23:50 And Behe was an idiot.

24:10 And is was religiously motivated.

25:40 Assembly instructions? What, bacteria shop at IKEA too?

28:20 It’s no use, it’s Turtles all the way down. Pity, I was almost starting to … nah.

29:30 Game over man! Game over.

29:35 Oh, wait…

30:50 So, because Darwin couldn’t explain how life began, that means that his theory – which works on the assumption that life has already begun by some other mechanism – is wrong? Fail.

31:50 So, Darwin speculated, nothing more. He never proposed a theory for the origin of life.

32:30 Let’s be clear, using evolutionary principles, is not saying that evolution had any hand in it.

34:30 OK, on to proteins, this is all way beyond my pay grade so I’ll probably mostly shut up for a while now.

37:00 Oh hang on, I see where this is going.

37:51 He said it, he said Computer Code! As a programmer he’s now encroaching on my territory.

40:39 Again, not sure how old this film is, but recent studies have shown that certain proteins can indeed spontaneously assemble.

41:30 And we’re back to saying that DNA is computer code.

42:50 Oooh, name dropper. You worked at NASA huh.

44:20 Chemical evolution theory – proved or disproved has not bearing on the veracity of biological evolution.

44:50 You’re not serious are you? If you have thousands of people doing it constantly for billions of years … well, what do you think will happen?

45:40 Wow, wasn’t expecting that. So, you just basically said that biological evolution was irrelevant for causing the start of life. So why have you just spent so much time going on about how we can’t explain the start of life? I’m a bit lost here.

46:20 Oh please, please, don’t lets have an apparently respected scientist just say ‘GODDIDIT’.

46:30 Bugger, he did. Oh well, you just lost all your science privileges. Hand in your lab coat at the door on your way out.

48:00 All very pretty for sure, but I’m hoping that you’re going to actually give a SCIENTIFIC explanation for it all that isn’t GODDIDIT. Or are you hoping we won’t actually notice that lack?

48:50 I love how this bit is suddenly accompanied by uplifting music. YAY, go GOGDIDIT, I love you now because this video has made me feel so much happier.

51:10 Sure, it’s ‘possible’, but it’s not likely. It doesn’t explain anything, it just poses more – and usually unanswerable – questions.

51:20 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is PRECISELY what most of the ‘scientists’ presented in this film have done. FAIL

52:10 Because science is about explaining the universe around us, and it must be repeatable and testable. A guiding intelligence doesn’t fit, not when it could change it’s mind and make everything work in a different way when ever it felt like it.

52:29 Nope, because we KNOW how they were made.

54:10 And humans are INCREDIBLY bad at judging how probably an event actually is.

55:15 Peridolia, so, your God really does have nothing better to do that make shapes in grilled cheese sandwhiches huh?

55:55 Nope, because we frequently observe PEOPLE DRAWING IN THE SAND. If we had never observed that we mmight come to all sorts of conclusions. Most of which would be wildly wrong. It’s interesting that you’re not claiming the very regular almost symmetrical ripples left in the sand by waves – which do look at least as ‘designed’ as the writing were created by an intelligence. Is it because you also know how they were formed?

57:00 Huh? SETI? WTF?

57:30 And just to be clear before they carry on, even if we never detect such a signal it does not disprove intelligent life beyond earth. Also, irrespective of the type of signals received, it says precicely ZERO about non intelligent life.

58:50 Oh WOW. In one breath you say we haven’t found any other life, then in the next you say that the life here on Earth is the BEST! Statistically irrelevant sample anyone?

1:00:00 GOD OF THE GAPS! So, presumably when scientists DO find the answer you’ll STFU?

1:01:21 There is no comprehensive case. They’ve still COMPREHENSIVELY failed to provide the actual evidence that both proves intelligence and disproves evolution.

1:02:00 And so far the evidence has pointed comprehensively away from intelligence.

1:02:30 Again with the uplifting music to add gravity to what these idiots are saying.

1:03:09 GOD OF THE GAPS again. Proves nothing.

1:03:45 If there was a supreme intelligence that wanted the world to be understood, then why did he apparently make it so difficult. If I want my young daughter to understand something I explain it in nice simple terms for her. I don’t give her a book on electronic theory and circuit design so she can understand how to use her MP3 player.

1:04:10 Pity we also find irrationality, pain, and suffering. All things that we would expect to find if the universe wasn’t guided by an intelligent agent.

1:05:21 And what do you think will happen in the 22nd century when all that is explained by naturalistic methods just as you are dismissing what happened in the 19th century?

1:06:54 OK, (C) 2002, so that explains why some of the claims are so out of date then.

Well, yes, that was almost completely awful. Very little actual substance to the arguments. I can sum  the whole thing up with … “We don’t yet understand how it happened so we’ll just go with GODDIDIT.” But my hopes weren’t high to be honest.

As usual, I’ll just take a minute to remind everyone I don’t claim to be a scientist of any kind. I’m just an interested bystander. I welcome reasoned and informed discussion. If I have made an egregious error then I am happy to be corrected – especially if you can provide evidence to back up your position that will allow me to learn my mistake.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6925781.ece

BHA Please Dont Label Me poster

First off, this is not a campaign by Richard Dawkins. Prof Dawkins was a prominent supporter of the original “There’s Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life” advertising campaign. It wasn’t his campaign, he just provided some money and lent his support. I too provided money to that campaign does that mean it’s mine too?

Secondly, the article basically proves the point of the advert, but completely fails to realise it. Those kids are the children of “Evangelical” parents, they aren’t evangelical kids. Not yet anyway. Maybe they will grow up to be evangelical, and that’s fine. Or maybe they’ll grow up to be Buddhist, or Muslim, or maybe even atheist. But foisting a world view on them when they are far too young to make an informed choice is infringing on their rights to self determinism.

I am a Sci-Fi fan, but no one would label my daughter as such as a result. I am a software engineer, but that doesn’t mean that my daughter is too. My daughter is an atheist, but she told me that.

Thirdly, this campaign is not in any way shape or form about infringing on the rights of the parents to raise their children under the umbrella of the parents faith, nor to restrict their ability to teach their children about their particular brand of religious dogma. So all the commenter’s on the article really need to learn to read and comprehend.

GAH!

Come on people, what the hell are you thinking? No matter how you dress it up neither Creationism nor Intelligent Design is science. It poses no testable theory. It is not falsifiable. There has never been a paper written about it that has been subjected to peer review in any repultable science journal.

It’s NOT SCIENCE.

You can’t teach it in a SCIENCE classroom.

Just like you can’t teach Woodworking in an English classroom. Or Cooking in a Physical Education class.

Please, for the sake of our children, keep the science curriculum strictly scientific. Don’t let educational standards fall any further.

If you absolutely have to teach Creationism then there is already a classroom to do it. It’s the Relgious Studies class (which, by the way, I’m still pissed that no-one told me I could opt out of when I was at school, it could have saved me from a huge amount of tedium).

1.      Which evolved first, male or female?

Neither obviously. They evolved at the same time.

2.     How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?

Stupid question, see 1.

3.     List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.

Err, what? Radioactive dating, and all other methods used to date old and very old stuff are very accurate – if they’re used properly by someone trained in their use. It’s when that simple guideline isn’t followed that the bizarre results Creationists like to crow on about occur.

4.     Why hasn’t any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?

Because evolution doesn’t work like that. If this sort of thing occurred it would actually disprove evolution.

5.     Which came first:
…the eye,
…the eyelid,
…the eyebrow,
…the eye sockets,
…the eye muscles,
…the eye lashes,
…the tear ducts,
…the brain’s interpretation of light?

Which eye? There are many different forms of eye on different creatures. The mammalian eye is very different from the cephalopod eye, which is very different from the eyes of insects.

It also doesn’t take long to realise that there are many perfectly functioning eyes on creatures that don’t have all those parts. How many insects have eyelids, eyebrows, eye lashes or tear ducts?

Lastly, it doesn’t take a lot of research to find a proposed route for evolving a mammalian type eye. Go read a biology website. Or even Wikipedia.

6.     How many millions of years between each in question 5?

Well, given that some creatures have eyes that don’t have all those parts, and eyes have existed in one form or another for hundreds of millions of years, then I’d have to say, at least hundreds of millions of years.

7.     If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can’t all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?

That’s one of the definitions of a species boundary, the inability to interbreed.

8.     List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!

Easy, a quick google for the evolution of the elephants trunk leads to this article. Yet again it’s amazing what 5 minutes research and Google can do.

As for the millions of dollars in rewards, give some proof that that exists, and that you will judge it fairly, and I’ll be right over with a big empty suitcase.

9.     Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?

Erm, no, they aren’t. Transitional fossils abound. Is it really asking too much that you take just 5 minutes to Google these things before asking such an inane question?

10.     Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)

Because a coin cannot be created by a process of mutation and natural selection. Human life was.

11.     Why aren’t any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?

Who says it isn’t? The fact that a tree dies tomorrow and doesn’t turn into coal by next week shows nothing. These things took millions of years. OK, if you think the earth is roughly 6,000-10,000 years old it’s a problem, but it’s just a tad older than that.

12.     List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.

Why 50? Why do you think there are any? What would that prove if there was, or wasn’t?

13.     Why hasn’t anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?

Because the reward is almost certainly bogus. Plus, what does that have to do with proving evolution?

14.     If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?

Who says it is? There are many who would claim that there is one species in particular that is vastly over populated (have a guess which one that is?).

15.     Why hasn’t evolution duplicated all species on all continents?

Why would it? Evolution throws up creatures that are suited to the environment they find themselves in. Given that each continent has a different environment, the evolutionary pressures are also different and so will generate differing solutions.

There, that wasn’t so hard was it?

So it was that a week or so ago in the kitchen of my place of work (I work for a large US based international IT company with offices in most countries) a cardboard box appeared, with a note attached requesting that milk bottle lids be left therein. No further information was given at all. Being the human sheep (sheople?) that we all are, milk bottle tops began to appear in the box.

I however, was a little more sceptical. I wanted to know what the collection was for, what purpose was being served by the collection of small pieces of plastic. I suspected that it might be for some charity thing or other but I couldn’t imagine what exactly. For all I knew it was for the local KKK chapter, or maybe the BNP – two causes I absolutely don’t want to support. So I simply wrote ‘WHY?’ on the note. For a couple of days that question went unanswered. But when the response came, it didn’t help. All that happened was that the portion of the notice I had written on was ripped off! Unperturbed I wrote another question. I simply asked if there was a reason for the collection, or if it was just a strange fetish. I figured that should be provocative enough to elicit a genuine reply.

A couple of days later a real response came. Again my question was ripped off, but this time an additional bit was added to the note. Apparently the collection was to help get a wheelchair for a disabled child. At last, some real information, and who wouldn’t want to help such a worthwhile cause?

But, I’m still a sceptic.

So, I fired up Google, and searched ‘wheelchair bottle tops‘. Imagine my surprise (not) when I find that there are loads of people collecting milk bottle tops, and no-one seems to know exactly what to do with them. Many people are calling Hoax, and I can understand why. There may have been such a scheme once, but it obviously did the rounds, and the origins are lost and the scheme is gone.

But the idea persists. Some big hearted people catch a whiff of the idea, and unquestioningly perpetuate it. If just a few more people would ask ‘Why?’ when presented with a command the world may be a better place.

It’s a great allegory for religion I feel.

*I don’t wish to denegrate sheep with this comparison. Sorry if it offends any of my Ovis aries readership.

P.S. If anyone genuinely does know what to do with these tops here in the UK, and can provide a web link to back it up, I’ll be sure to pass it along to the mystery collector. If there is a genuine cause that can be supported, then I’m only to happy to help out.

Take a look at this article by Tom Clark at Naturalism.org; it’s about the misguided notion that in some areas faith can give us genuine answers to questions before which science is impotent.   This is the NOMA (”nonoverlapping magisteria”) refrain that we hear constantly from organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Science Education, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Are there “ways of knowing” that are not only unique to faith, but provide real answers about the nature of the universe?

From Why Evolution is True
Via Richard Dawkins.net

It’s an interesting article, and it got me thinking.

Let us assume that the basic premise that:

there “ways of knowing” that are not only unique to faith, but provide real answers about the nature of the universe

is valid, and see where it takes us.

Science is all about observing a phenomena is nature, and trying to describe how and why it happens. It relies on the use of empirical evidence to create hypothsis that can be tested over and over by independant parties.

So, if there are ways of knowing that are beyond science, how would we know about them? The only way we can know anything is through our decidedly physical brain being fed information through the five senses. We then think about it, and come up with answers – not necessarily the correct ones, but naswers none the less.

The knowledge of faith, if it is to be beyond science must come to us via another method. But that method still must interact with the physical brain. So, if the premise is true, we may not be able to discover the knowledge, but we absolutely should be able to know the method by which we come to know it. If the ability to know even that is beyond science, then how can we be sure that any knowledge gained through the premise is based on any truth? Indeed, how can we even know that there is any knowledge to be gained? How do we know that we aren’t just ‘Making Shit Up’?

But when you start reading some of that massive content, that’s when the brain melt will set in. It’s just a constant barrage of idiotic drivel. The use of so many logical fallacies, over and over. The repeating of straw man arguments that have long since been torn down again and again. It’s a mark of a truly faith-based mind that it can still believe that any of this would still hold any weight. The only people that it could convince in any way are those that don’t need convincing in the first place. For those whose minds actually work properly we can see it for the brain fart that it actually is.

Now, I will grant the author one thing (and pretty much only one thing), it must have been a monumental labour of love to create the site. To be able to concentrate such huge amounts of inane, baseless, stupidity into one place… it’s almost a work of art!

For those who don’t know, it’s a reference to the last book in Douglas Adams Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (book 5!)

To all those theists who wonder why us atheists care…

We care for many reasons.

We care because we don’t like seeing people waste their time praising a God that doesn’t exist and looking forward to an afterlife that they will never find when they would be better off spending their time enjoying the all too short time that we are given on this world.

We care because we don’t like to see the harm that blindly following doctrine does to people and society, especially when it flies in the face of evidence and reason.

We care because we don’t understand why our taxpayer money should go to subsidise religious organisations (the fact that churches etc don’t pay tax means there is less money in the government coffers, so us tax payers have to pay more to make up for it).

We care because we understand the freedom that non belief gives us. The freedom to marvel at the beauty of a natural universe. The freedom to make our own life choices without having to worry that someone is keeping score (this does NOT mean being able to act without morals).

We care because we don’t believe that one group of people should hold a privileged status over another group purely on the basis of a choice they have made (and religious belief is most definitely a choice).

We care because despite what the theistic may say and believe, religion is forced upon us in so many little ways day in and day out.

We care because forcing beliefs on very young children who do not have the mental faculties to question or evaluate what they are told borders on abuse.

These are just some of the reasons why we care.

Well, lets have some accurate results please!

It’s simple, if you think some major catastrophic event is going to happen soon, then stick a date on it (or at least a rough time-frame), and accept the consequences of being wrong. As a minimum the consequences should be that you must stand up and make a very public apology, even better if you keep your mouth shut from then on. You can’t warn people about coming doom, be wrong, and still expect to be taken seriously. Furthermore, if you follow some religious organisation whose leaders continually make failing predictions, then you really should seriously reconsider your membership of said organisation.

So, Apocalypse or STFU!

For instance, an intellectually honest theist must be able to say something like ‘I believe in God, but if xxx should happen, or evidence for yyy should be presented then I may have to alter that belief.’

As a (hopefully) intellectually honest atheist I deny the existence of any gods. I would however have to seriously consider that position if for instance a DNA sequence present in all life was found to decode as ‘© 6000BC God’. Or if a god appeared undeniably before me and a (statistically) large crowd and was able to uncontestably demonstrate their divinity.

Now, science does make many extraordinary claims. It doesn’t take much reading on the subject of Quantum Theory for the average Joe to come to the conclusion that more than a few scientists might need to check their medication. However, if you persist, and continue reading, and follow the evidence you begin to understand that the whole framework hangs together. The big ideas like Quantum Theory and Evolution have mounds and mounds of independent evidence that corroborates the central theory. They are so far beyond the point where unpicking a single small thread would cause the whole fabric to collapse.

There are many theists that do accept the findings of science, and they believe that religion and science are not mutually exclusive. I can respect their views because they at least think with their minds as well as their hearts. However I can offer no respect for those that simply reject science because they feel that it attempts to undermine their beliefs. There are those that say that there are questions that science can never answer. Well, never is an incredibly long time. Just look at the things that science has pretty much completely explained in just the last 100 years that were completely unknown before that and you should come to understand that such a position is untenable. It may take a long time, it may be that an answer doesn’t come in the lifetime of anyone alive today, but surely an answer will come eventually. If we can ask the question, then that question falls within the remit of science, and it can be investigated.

Darwins theory of Evolution is not just a best guess. It is a theory that has been subject to investigation for 150 years of investigation. It has seen the discovery of whole new areas of biology (genetics and DNA for example) that have done nothing but support the theory. Sure, Darwin got some details wrong, but scientists have modified the theory as new evidence required they do. The central idea however remains, and just gets stronger and stronger as time goes by.