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18:00 Not sure when this film was made, but this apparent failure to explain the flagellum is out of date.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.

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?

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!

an atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything

Wrong Ray, very very wrong.

How many times do you need to be told that an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in a god or gods. End of story. That particular belief doesn’t define what an atheist believes about other things, however, what it does do is to free our minds and open them up to the possibilities that begin to present themselves.

Trying to figure out what happened immediately prior to ‘The Big Bang’ isn’t easy. Our current physics models don’t work in the first few seconds after that event, so trying to extrapolate back from there opens up a can of worms. It is hoped that if we ever figure out the so called ‘Grand Unified Theory’ that it will answer a lot of these questions. However, there are still many theories that are quite interesting, here are two of which I find interesting.

The first postulates that space and time oscillate around these singularities. These oscillations stretch back infinitely in time, with no beginning, and no end. This is an explanation that should be particularly attractive to theists, as they should be quite comfortable with the concept of something that has no beginning.

The second idea actually supports Mr Comforts original quote. Quantum theory and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle actually suggests that tiny amounts of energy (and thus matter) can in fact spontaneously be created for very short periods of time. The effects of this have actually been observed. Whether this could in some way allow for the creation of a much larger amount of energy – and thus our universe – is unknown, but it’s certainly intriguing. If you want to learn more about this and other aspects of Quantum Theory, I can highly recommend Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You by Marcus Chown (his other books are very good too).

At the end of the day however, the fact that we currently are unable to give a definitive answer to ‘where did the universe come from’ as a very long way from proving that Goddidit.