Check This Out 


My custom Google News page picked up this article on the "The Conservative Voice" I don't know exactly where Google gets it's list of news sites it's picks from, but there you go. The entirety of the article consists of a single thought: That it's completely ridiculous that someone should think that God didn't create man. Let's look at this for a minute, and take their assumptions one by one:

1. It's less ridiculous somehow that some mystical being created man out of thin air.

So here we have the assertion that to believe WITH NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that some random being created us all in our modern form rather than the scientifically demonstrated process of evolution. There is just no arguing against this position. Sure you can say "But who created the creator?", but to those True Believers out there, it just doesn't matter. Nothing will sway them from what they know. They are the worst kind of dishonest thinkers - able to justify anything if they just believe it. This is exactly the core type of thinking that breeds religious terrorist groups, both here and abroad.

2. The theory of evolution can't tell us where all life originated.

This strawman I see everywhere. The theory of evolution does not say how life got started. It concerns itself with how life can transition from one form to another, period. This, obviously, leads to the question of the first life forms and how they got there, but as of now, we simply don't know for certain. There are many hypotheses out there, some with more evidence than others, but they have absolutely no bearing on the theory of evolution as it's currently known. However, here saying God placed the start of life on Earth is a little less disingenuous, but still, it's just a jump to a conclusion based on nothing. One might also say that that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it. Without evidence, it's just as valid.

3. Our world is too complex to have come from nothing.

Again with the random assertions. This has been dealt with in so many places (start here) and I don't have the time to type them all up. This has been brought up and beat down time and time again (it's the whole argument behind Intelligent Design.) But again, no amount of evidence to the contrary will sway the True Believer.

4. Evolution is for atheists.

Well, for radical people who write articles like the one being discussed, that probably seems true. They basically believe that anyone who accepts the theory of evolution can't possibly believe in God. Well, there are a lot of people who would disagree with that, but that wouldn't make them True Believers, like the article's author.

I almost think that this article is a parody - it can't possibly be serious. It's got stuff like this in it: "Darwin was used by the devil to give the anti-God folk something to talk about, debate, get mad about, scream about, and have school committees for. Darwin was simply another mortal down through history who was instrumented by forces of darkness to war against Creator God. So what's new?" Yeah. The Devil. The "forces of darkness." This guy has a whole imaginary stable of enemies, just waiting to pounce on unsuspecting mortals to do evil.

And for the ultra-right wing: "We believers will not even tolerate evolution being mentioned let alone taught. Why? Not just because evolution is atheist-based but because it's as lunatic as anyone can conjure." Ahhh... nice and tolerant. This guy even thinks Bush is too lenient, because he advocated teaching both intelligent design and the theory of evolution.

No, this has to be a parody. That's the only way this could get on a semi-mainstream news and opinion site. 

 

Posted: Wed - August 10, 2005 at 10:37 AM          

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