…and this is a 
I've been telling you this for how many years?
Category: Creationism
Posted on: January 29, 2007 9:46 PM, by PZ Myers
You really must take a look at this video clip from an HBO special on American Christianity and specifically creationism.
I just got finished watching Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God documentary on HBO and was taken aback at what has become an increasing trend among American christianists. This particular part on evangelicals and evolution (and what they teach their children about the science of evolution) was very disturbing. The "secular progressive" War on Christmas has nothing on the evangelical War on Science.
It's distressing stuff — especially the scenes with the poor kids being brainwashed by that despicable liar, Ken Ham — but seriously, it's going on everywhere and has been for years. I just gave you a list of creaitionist activities going on here in the progressive, liberal state of Minnesota, and I can tell you that those people will sound exactly like the kooks in the video clip; don't think creationism is only the domain of backwoods hicks in the South.
Have you looked in your backyard lately? I guarantee you that there is a church near you where Ken Ham and Kent Hovind and Duane Gish are quoted reverently.
The saddest part: there's a kid in the video who says he wants to grow up to be a biochemist and work for the institute of creation science and win a Nobel. Nope. Never going to happen. He needs to take a long hard look at the status of the gomers who are telling him the Behemoth of the Bible is a dinosaur—they're lying to him.
Comments
With regard to creationism in our midst, did y'all see this this excerpt from a Bob Jones University-published 11th grade "Christian biology" textbook?
Just, wow.
(Sorry, it's a snapshot from a Flash animation so the text isn't cut-n-pastable.)
Good on the UC system for drawing the line somewhere, I guess. But I agree with LG&M that it's amazing they are allowed to certify any courses at all.
Posted by: melior | January 29, 2007 9:59 PM
If he goes to the right bible college, he might get to the ICR.
I sometimes wonder what kids like him go through when they get to college (assuming it's a real institute of higher learning) to study biology. How many maintain their faith in the face of the evidence? How many realize that they've been had? Does anyone on this blog know people who came into college like that?
Posted by: FishyFred | January 29, 2007 10:01 PM
I forgot one of the tolerable categories of creationist bio students: How many do the work to fully understand the theory of evolution and THEN set out to debunk it?
Posted by: FishyFred | January 29, 2007 10:12 PM
I would love to smash Ken Ham and that other guy over the head with a heavy metal pole and give them severe brain damage. Unfortunately there's no way to reason with them or reeducate them, we might as well take their preexisting brain damage up a level or two.
Posted by: DaveG | January 29, 2007 10:22 PM
I too caught this little gem on HBO. Check out my blog posting about it:
http://truthspew.blogspot.com/2007/01/danger-of-channel-surfing.html
Posted by: Tony P | January 29, 2007 10:22 PM
Try ordering something from usplastic.com. (out of Lima, Ohio). Along with your order, you'll receive, free of charge, a booklet with christianized talk of atomic science! They even have a big "Christ is the Answer" sign and a white cross on the property that you can see from the highway.
The founder ("Dr." R. Stanley Tam) prayed to god to shower him with money, so he put up the monument in appreciation when god turned him into a rich bastard. He also put 100% of the company's ownership into a foundation that's building churches in third world countries. At least that's what the literature says. Sounds like a fishy tax scheme to me.
Yes, it's everywhere. Really creepy.
Posted by: Mrs. Peach | January 29, 2007 10:33 PM
The woman who says that "the bible is just easier to explain to your children" is indicative of a lot of problems.
Instead of force feeding your children fairytales as truth why not teach them to think for themselves?
Its identical to teaching children that the Easter Bunny is real and when they are adults trying to prove it "scientifically"
Posted by: Paul | January 29, 2007 10:44 PM
People like Ken Ham are complete scum. He exploits people's ignorance and preys on children for his own gain. He's despicable. He ought to be in jail.
Posted by: George | January 29, 2007 11:03 PM
This represents a massive failure of education, in that they don't even understand the difference between "believe" and " provisionally accept based on the evidence". That Ken Ham is the biggest, brassiest bullshitter I have ever seen. I know none of this is news, but that was so disgusting I had to vent,and my wife is sick of listening to me on this subject. Jesus Fictional Christ in an Imaginary Sidecar! OK I feel marginally better...
Posted by: Shoveldawg | January 29, 2007 11:27 PM
The good news is that perhaps that kid will grow up and pursue a real education in the hopes of being able to "prove" creationism. I've seen several instances where that's happened and the kids have realized just how wrong creationism really is.
Posted by: Jon Voisey (aka. The angry astronomer) | January 29, 2007 11:32 PM
I don't feel better. I feel . . .
Sadness, that well-meaning parents choose an explanation purely on the basis of the fact that it's easier to understand. Anger, that Ken Ham and those like him prefer to push their slop on those least able to defend themselves; like a lot of other religious practices, this amounts to child abuse. Determination, that something like this will never happen in my neighborhood without being challenged.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | January 29, 2007 11:36 PM
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle made some observations about Alexandra Pelosi's documentary last week. He noted the anti-evolution obsession of the wingnut Christians. Some excerpts and links here.
Posted by: Zeno | January 30, 2007 12:03 AM
FishyFred:
One of my good Catholic friends took an evolution course with me. She was very reluctant to take it as she believed in creation, but by the end, she had been convinced by the preponderance of evidence, and took it in stride like a mature adult. Once she realized evolution was not out to destroy her faith or offend her, she found it quite interesting.
Funny story from said class:
The first day of class, the professor was explaining the difference between ID and real science, and she put up a slide showing a scale of ignorant worldviews from Flat Earthers up to Old Earth Creationists. The whole class was giggling at the idea of people who still believed in a flat earth, but the giggling eventually ceased as the prof went up the scale, until a rather heavy silence greeted her as she got to ID. I guess it was cool to laugh at other stupid beliefs until it hit a little close to home...
Posted by: Shigella | January 30, 2007 12:10 AM
Watching clips like this, I have a difficult time even conceptualizing the interviewees as human beings. They, fish-eyed and decorticate, seem more like proto-hominids unaccountably given the ability to form random burts iof words.
It's really unsettling to watch people like the first woman interviewed smile their way thorough the whole process; it just doesn't make sense to me that people spewing such idiocy aren't ranting and raving at the tops of their lungs. I mean, calling the idea that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago "preconceived" yet treating the Bible as something vetted? I wanted to smash the glasses of the woman who complained that the public-school system was "biased." What a drain on humanity these barking bungholes are.
Thanks to mostly irreversible childhood conditioning, these folks really don't have any brains at all left in their damned heads, and the people who believe that the poopoo they expel should be met with kid gloves and faux tolerance are wrong. I've always been polite to the walking turds who occasionally wash up on my porch trying to sell me Jesus, but I think from now on I'm going to have to whip out my weenie and piss on their newly shined shoes, then shower them with projectile vomit, then yel "FUCK YOU, SIR/MA'AM!" at them. What worthless scum.
Posted by: Ira Fews | January 30, 2007 12:14 AM
I felt really sad after watching that. I had a bit of a "wow, that could have been me" type feeling. If someone like Ham had gotten to me when I was that young, how would I have turned out?
I do get some measure of hope from the girl wanting to grow up and "prove" creationism, like The Angry Astronomer pointed out. Curiousity and education will always be the enemy of the creationists, though for many of these kids, the psychological branding they undergo in this clip could prevent them from truly experiencing either.
Posted by: Matt the heathen | January 30, 2007 12:18 AM
This is distressing to watch because you want to reach out and smack anyone who uses arguments based on personal incredulity. It's like watching someone actively switch themselves off because they don't want to hear any of it. They don't care and they will go to great lengths to push an anti-listening agenda; so far in fact that they will make random stuff up to convince themselves they don't have to listen.
The only comfort I can offer people here is that I went through all kinds of somewhat similar crap in grade school, and I turned out otherwise. I don't recall any specific anti-evolution movements in my grade school, which seems to be a bit of an anomaly in hindsight. I did however get the "rock music is devil worship" treatment, which I found rather silly on its face even then. I was told AC/DC meant all kinds of anti-social and satanic things, and that all these 70s and 80s songs were about devil worship. It was always about satanic rituals and drug use. I recall almost nothing about sex (other than the usual scaring into abstinence crap that didn't work anyways) and evolution as major evils. Again, I guess I got lucky.
One other thing I do not recall is auditorium speeches like this on with Mr. Ham, with all kinds of feel good crap that is intentionally covering up real truths.
There is hope that millions of children will not be led down an anti-science dead-end path that will deplete our country of its precious minds. But good people need to get the word out. Ignorance fills gaps and makes way for evil where due vigilance is not on guard.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | January 30, 2007 12:50 AM
The Nobel-seeking kid doesn't realize it, but he wants to grow up to be Jonathan Wells. Sad.
Posted by: Kseniya | January 30, 2007 12:56 AM
PZ, as a recent graduate of UMM, I at first only heard vague ramblings about you & your blog. When I first checked it out, your blog seemed unusually bitter and angry. I now understand the reasoning behind your anger. If I were you, the mere existence of Ken Ham would leave me sleepless at night. If you ever get the chance to meet Ham, could you let us all know? I want a front-row seat to watch you rip him to shreds.
Posted by: Mac | January 30, 2007 1:08 AM
I found another preview of the documentary containing this magical moment: Ted Haggard, saying "You know, all the surveys say evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group."
Priceless.
http://tinyurl.com/ype5kf
Posted by: keiths | January 30, 2007 1:31 AM
"--they're lying to him" -PZ
Yes and No. We need more of Magical Thinking
why?:
http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2007/01/the_nuisance_of.html
Posted by: Chopra Says So | January 30, 2007 2:28 AM
What I found funny about the presentation that Ken Ham was making was that he showed the pictures of monkeys made to look like humans and then asked - "Does your grandfather look like this?" All the kids and Moms laughed. What he should have asked is - "Do I lokk like this?" Because seriously, have a look, that mock up picture of an ape looking like a human looks just like him.
I bet the kids would have said, yes, he looks like you, if they had been asked. ;)
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | January 30, 2007 2:29 AM
Seriously, check the video, the poor dude doesn't even realize that he looks like the mock up picture of the "ape-human."
The camera focusses on the face of a small boy soon after, and I figure that that small kid is thinking exactly what I thought. And that is that Ken Ham resembles the "ape-human" picture! lol
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | January 30, 2007 2:43 AM
Oh hell. I regret clicking on that last link to Chorpa's blog. I'm so much dumber now for doing so. The worst though are the people who argree with the nut. I'd feel sorry for them, but I no longer have the brain capacity...
Posted by: Michael | January 30, 2007 3:01 AM
I grew up in a very religious home(even my sister is a pastor) and I have taught both sunday school and evolution (with my biochem background at university) I especially taught evolution in the church. I wasn't the only one; my church had taught it to me, when I was younger before the schools had, maybe my situation is unique.
I am completely appauled at the claims this moron is making in the video. Unfortunatly in every niche there are absolute idiots. Not all religious people are so damn stupid mostly just the loud ones.
I do not claim to be religious now, but I have certain respect for some relious people and the actual good work they do.
For instance: On the down side My aunt is going to be teaching a course in Asia about how to include religion in their schools. That is total bunk.
On the upside My sister has gone three times now to Rwanda with huge care packages for children and volunteers to run a local refuge for children in need. That is pretty good.
Anyway, once in while some religious nut does something so stupid for PZ to rightfully blast him. I felt I should defend some of the ones who are trying to do good and not just indoctrinate.
Posted by: John | January 30, 2007 3:52 AM
One of the frustrating defences that people throw up when you start criticising religion is "oh, but religious people do good, how can you be against that?". The more dishonest religious defenders (like that Fox News slug on the other thread) use it to imply that because you're against religion, you must be against the good things it does, and are therefore a Bad Person and a Danger to Society.
Yes - religion inspires people do good and selfless things. But it is neither necessary nor required for people to do good and selfless things. There are other things that can inspire people to selfless acts that don't require them to suspend critical thought, buy into farcical myths and reject the evidence of the real world.
Posted by: Paul | January 30, 2007 5:02 AM
We need to keep in mind that the *political*
aim of the anti-evolution movement is the primary
goal, not the scientific one, and that this is
only one of many campaigns in a movement to mold
society into something that believes whatever it
is told. It is much easier to recruit young people to
go fight the Phantom Menace if critical thought
and sound judgment disappear.
Would a more effective response result by convincing
believers of all kinds that they are being manipulated
into fufilling the long-term political goals of an elite?
That the believers are being seduced away from their
divinity by the "Uncle Screwtape" types at the top who
are actually leading them?
Posted by: Dark Matter | January 30, 2007 5:18 AM
May I be a kind of Devil's Advocate?
But first: my "spiritual" journey tracked from having been reared a Southern Baptist, to veering off into the Gurdjief thing, to back to a more nuanced Christianity, to reading about and accepting the purely naturalistic force of evolution. Presently, I'm a reluctant atheist or non-theist.
Here's what I find remarkable and, if I might be blunt, suspicious: the atheist confession that annihilation at death constitutes no existential problem, that being an atheist is a well-integrated, healthy response to life; I think, rather, something odd is going on with that perspective -- the approaching, crushing extinction of oneself should, in a deeply reflecting mind, color one's remaining days with chronic angst and, as Unamuno said, "The Tragic Sense of Life."
Or -- maybe pathos is a symptom of a diseased consciousness and the true human way of living should be more akin to the blithe, unconcerned passage through time of a tree or some other unworried flora.
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 8:14 AM
[i]Have you looked in your backyard lately? I guarantee you that there is a church near you where Ken Ham and Kent Hovind and Duane Gish are quoted reverently.[/i]
I don't think that's true, actually. I grew up in religious circles (my father is a pastor), and I've known and debated a number of local creationists, yet I've never ever had anyone quote Ham, Hovind, or Gish on me IRL.
Of course, I live in Sweden - I think you're overestimating how famous these guys are in the world at large.
Posted by: Nescio | January 30, 2007 8:31 AM
My parochialism is exposed -- I was just thinking of the United States. It's everywhere here.
Posted by: PZ Myers | January 30, 2007 8:38 AM
Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but I had a very unsettling experience the other day that I needed to share with like-minded people.
I was talking with two intelligent, scientific, non-religious friends, who vehemently agreed with each other that both creationism and evolution should be taught in SCIENCE class to:
a) shut up the people who want to remove evolution altogether
b) to present "alternate viewpoints"!
I was so upset I didn't know what to say. I have argued these points with non-scientists but with scientists... I was lost.
Posted by: Shewie | January 30, 2007 8:45 AM
Tim B. Says:
"Here's what I find remarkable and, if I might be blunt, suspicious: the atheist confession that annihilation at death constitutes no existential problem"
and
"the approaching, crushing extinction of oneself should, in a deeply reflecting mind, color one's remaining days with chronic angst"
I have to disagree Tim -- Having been an Agnostic/Atheist for about 20 years now, it's not something which really bothers me. I can see that it could make someone feel as you think it ought to, but I prefer to try and make as much of the life I have as I possibly can.
My legacy won't be eternal life in an imaginary afterworld, but the effects of my life on the lives of the people who surround me. Towards that end, I'm involved in many charitable/educational organizations, and work never takes precedance over my family.
If I had the power to choose to live forever, it would be very tempting -- there are far too many experiences available for the short time we have, but denied that choice, I choose to live the life I have to its fullest extent, rather than dwell upon an imaginary afterlife I won't be experiencing.
Posted by: David | January 30, 2007 8:46 AM
Religion is a disease. It's knowing that fact that makes us "hardline atheists" so impatient sometimes with the wishy-washy "agnostics" and the "religious liberals". Having just a mild dose of typhoid is still not a good thing. You're still carrying a contagious, dangerous illness.
For Tim B.- I don't especially like the fact that I'll die someday. (Well, let me qualify that- I find the idea of eternal life, no matter how pleasant, to be utterly horrible and nauseating, as it must be to anyone who makes a serious effort to imagine what it would really be like.) But instead of sitting around marinating in angst, or passing blithe and unconcerned through time, I choose to do my best to make my existence, while it lasts, useful to others as well as enjoyable to myself. Try it sometime. You'll feel much better.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 8:46 AM
Shewie says:
"I was talking with two intelligent, scientific, non-religious friends, who vehemently agreed with each other that both creationism and evolution should be taught in SCIENCE class"
I can agree with that, as long as it's taught properly: including a listing all the evidence supporting evolution vs. all the non-evidence not supporting the other theories. It might stop some of the nonsense that the ID supporters are spouting for the media about scientists supporting ID, and ID being a "competing theory".
ID can only stand to lose if people are honestly exposed to its lack of structural underpinnings.
Posted by: David | January 30, 2007 8:54 AM
Perhaps it's just a matter of personal nature and nurture that leads to either angst or life-to-its-fullest (David) and eternity-as-nausea (Steve). But I wasn't really trying to promote something beyond the grave. I was insinuating that maybe evolution has produced a horrible quirk -- human self-consciousness. And that maybe the proper default is mortal despair. And that (this will infuriate many) living positively might be a sort of false psychological buffer or bravado some foks put up to keep the slithering beast of extinction at bay.
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 9:11 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 9:33 AM
Hi Tim B
All of us will die.
Forever is too long for the human mind.
Just look at what the Idea does here on earth.
Posted by: ts | January 30, 2007 9:45 AM
Heidegger spoke of "everydayness" in his philosophy as a way of revealing an inauthenticity of being. Finally, as an atheist, his thought trailed off into the fog of "gods" and Holderinesque poetic diffuseness. The striking thing to me is that he remained disquieted by existence, straining to possibly absurd lengths to situate himself in existence.
Whether the ranting and raving of the radical Christian Right or the rigid rationality of a scientific, naturalistic orientation, both seem to me somehow disconnected from the awesomeness/awfulness of being. Even the wondrous sense of natural discovery that animates the scientist strikes me as at a certain philosophic remove from the chronic shock of being an existent that I think deep awareness should instill. The old something-rather-than-nothing problem, I suppose.
But since my musings nudge against notions of progress and, instead, impact a blank wall of doing and being, I certainly don't advocate too much awareness. Maybe as Steve inferred, I'm just depressed. Perhaps electro-shock therapy or illicit opiates.....
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 10:11 AM
Being comapassionate and useful is a hell of a lot more important than the kind of "authenticity" promoted by ex-Nazi "philosophers". In my opinion, anyway.
I'm a biologist. I feel a very deep awe at the complexity, diversity and long evolutionary history of living things. No crap German "philosophy" is required for that feeling- reality is quite awe-inspiring enough for those who bother to investigate it rather than sitting around gazing at their own navels.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 10:18 AM
Michael said:
In fact, there is genius in Chopra's latest article:
Chopra said:
All we need to do is convince Big Pharma that there is money to made in a pill that cures god-worship.
(Actually we'd still need a cure for the ridiculous pearl-clutching that causes people to flinch and squirm irrationally whenever it is implied that people are machines.)
Posted by: llewelly | January 30, 2007 10:32 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 10:37 AM
Death is starting to look a lot better once you consider the alternative: being stuck with the likes of Tim B and Heidegger for all eternity.
...ok, just kidding, but if existence is the problem, how does existing for ever solve it?
Posted by: windy | January 30, 2007 10:39 AM
Like when people say, "How can this be all there is?" What do they mean by "this"? We've got Hubble photographs, the Grand Canyon, the Himalayas, organ transplants, vaccinations, great white sharks, monkeys that care for paraplegics, air travel, Brothers Karamazov, democracy, the Beatles, Naomi Watts, Einstein, etc., etc.,--I mean, what more do they fucking want?!
Posted by: Will E. | January 30, 2007 10:46 AM
My splitting moment came in the fifth grade. I was chatting with the school librarian (who also taught the Bible class I went to on Wednesday afternoons) about the differences and similarities in the evolutionary sequences presented that morning in science class with that presented in Genesis I and II. She cut me off with some sort of comment that only the Bible could be believed. The rest was nonsense. At that moment, I opted for Darwin.
This is not to say that I abandoned all belief in the 'numinous'. I just stopped looking outside of myself for such. Whatever God is, or is not, it cannot be found through the idolatry of a book.
Finally, those like myself do not do good works because our God(s) command such. Rather, we have found that doing good works is one of the most effective ways of developing that inner understanding upon which we rely; the Buddhists call this "Right Action", "Right Speech", and "Right Livelihood".
Posted by: pluky | January 30, 2007 10:46 AM
"the approaching, crushing extinction of oneself should, in a deeply reflecting mind, color one's remaining days with chronic angst"
But why? You didn't exist before you were born and you won't exist after you die. So? It was ever thus. Make the most of the time you have. To respond to mortality by spending your whole time brooding about it would be the least sensible thing to do imaginable. Besides the damage to your own wellbeing, it would prevent you from making things better for others, in particular for your descendants. Surely that's the appropriate way to transcend the limitations of the self in an atheistic universe.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | January 30, 2007 10:56 AM
Ken "Grandpa Monkey" Ham did not follow his own logic:
Can you find the word 'jet plane' in the Bible? No, there weren't any jet planes in those days.
Can you find the word 'computer' in the Bible? Of course not, there were no computers in those days.
Can you find the word 'dinosaur' in the Bible? Hell no, dinosaurs died out long before those days.
Posted by: mark | January 30, 2007 11:11 AM
Thank you all for your opinions and suggestions.
Conversation is stimulating, even when one's attempt to get at some irritable, nagging aspect of mind and cosmos is contrued as a character defect or an unwarranted grasping after meaning. Perhaps I've insufficiently shed my religious, mystical skin -- still traipsing after some numinous ghost behind the quantum motivations of matter and energy. Less a desire and striving for eternal life than an answer to "Why?"
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 12:00 PM
I think a lot of you are unknowingly proving to Tim B that you haven't really thought deeply about consciousness and the end thereof, and that your lack of thought on the subject is a crude coping mechanism.
Honestly:
"If existence is the problem, how does existing for ever solve it?"
"What more do they fucking want?!"
"You didn't exist before you were born and you won't exist after you die."
These are not deep reflections. There is a very real terror involved with being both alive and conscious of life's inherent transience. It drives some to madness, some (ironically) to suicide. It drives others to make the most of their finite experience. And it merely hangs over some like an ominous cloud. Some prefer self-imposed madness and weave elaborate mythologies in which they are somehow immortal. Some just try not to think about it.
If one is to live, sanely and healthily, after confronting this terror, I don't think there is any choice but to erect "psychological buffers". But they needn't be false or delusional. They can simply be honest, humble reactions of life in the face of death - many of which have been mentioned. Personally, I advise Steve LaBonne's solution, and I bid strength it pursuing it.
As far as consciousness being a "horrible quirk" of evolution, I think its benefits outweigh its ultimate drawback. Considering that everything dies, I'm glad to be a conscious organism. But that is only this organism's opinion.
Posted by: AC | January 30, 2007 12:03 PM
"But I wasn't really trying to promote something beyond the grave. I was insinuating that maybe evolution has produced a horrible quirk -- human self-consciousness. And that maybe the proper default is mortal despair"
I don't think that's the default, I think that's something instilled by being brought up religious.
I wasn't, so as a lifelong atheist, I have no sense of anything being "missing."
So the fact that I'm not immortal is no more difficult to face than the fact that I don't have x-ray vision or other superpowers.
If you brainwash kids into thinking that they'll grow up to be Superman and worse - that if they don't manage to it means they're a bad person, then maybe they will be depressed adults, but its not the default position.
If anything is the default, its just incomprehension, pushed out of the way by "what's for supper?"
Posted by: craig | January 30, 2007 12:05 PM
"But I wasn't really trying to promote something beyond the grave. I was insinuating that maybe evolution has produced a horrible quirk -- human self-consciousness. And that maybe the proper default is mortal despair."
Someone on Askville once asked simply "why?" and my response to them was this: "the question isn't why, the question is HOW."
There is no "why" in the sense that you mean it. The question doesn't even really make any sense. "How" is the one we can try to answer, and its more interesting anyway.
If I'm wrong and there IS a god and eternal life, then after spending a few minutes playing with the easter bunny, I'll be doggedly looking for the God Manual.
Posted by: craig | January 30, 2007 12:11 PM
Whoops, my second quote was supposed to quote a different message.
The proper quote:
"Less a desire and striving for eternal life than an answer to "Why?"
Posted by: craig | January 30, 2007 12:13 PM
I do not have the stomach to listen to any of the creationists if I have the choice, sorry.
I learned in childhood not to listen or believe people who said things that sounded fantastic just because they said so. I guess I have been "protected" somewhat.
I once got into a discussion with a guy who said he was an atheist turns out what he did not believe in was a God Being of some kind and understood all religions as believing in some kind of God being. That may be an over simplification both in what he thought and what religions in general think.
Not every "religious" world view includes an afterlife.
It is not necessary to live a "moral" good life.
reason and evidence can lead to truth regardless of belief.
B.S. should be labeled as such whenever and wherever it is found no matter who says it!
I do not always manage to say what I think clearly but I do appreciate the discussions I read on this blog and agree with a lot of what is said here. Anger may be my reaction to the fundamentalists but I do not think anger is a very useful way to "fight" fear and lies.
whish I knew of a better way.
Posted by: uncle frogy | January 30, 2007 12:30 PM
"If existence is the problem, how does existing for ever solve it?"
These are not deep reflections.
So do you have an easy answer my oh-so-shallow question?
Heidegger's existential angst was brought up. Do you think, if Heidegger awakened in the afterlife and found that it would last forever, it was suddenly fluffy bunny time for him? No more of those pesky questions about the meaning of existence?
Posted by: windy | January 30, 2007 12:42 PM
What would it *mean* for the "proper" response to life to be mortal despair? Surely the proper response, as far as attitude goes, is whatever has the best consequences; that's unlikely to be mortal despair.
Posted by: g | January 30, 2007 12:44 PM
Ms. Pelosi also said in an interview about this movie that she was "on their [the fundamentalists] side" in the culture war, because on their side is "Jesus" and on the other side is "Paris Hilton." She also said that the people she profiles are not "holy-rolling Jesus freaks."
Furthermore, she said she's raising her child with religion because if one doesn't, the child becomes (finger quotes, dire tone) "unchurched" and is thus fair game for extremism. I shit you not.
Posted by: Djur | January 30, 2007 1:16 PM
g,
Thanks. "Proper" is the wrong word. "Axiomatic" is closer. And by "mortal despair," I mean a sense of the tragic ("despair" may also be imprecise). It has much to do with Kolakowski's theme in his book *Metaphysical Horror."
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 1:20 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 1:23 PM
To amplify on a comment that came out a little harsher than I intended, I think you should contemplate the possibility that it's really the terror that needs to be "constructed" and that requires a good deal of mental energy (often supplied by religion) to maintain, rather than what you call "psychological buffers".
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | January 30, 2007 1:27 PM
Djur:
...? Oh, Alexandra Pelosi. You had me thinking of the more prominent Pelosi. Don't scare me like that.
Posted by: Rey Fox | January 30, 2007 1:28 PM
Tim B. wrote
I don't look at my atheism as being a "response" to life, anymore so than
accepting a heliocentric model of the solar system as a "response" to life.
It's just a matter of looking at all the evidence before me, and trying to
determine the nature of reality. The response comes after that, trying to
determine how to live my life. I think others have coverred that well,
already - namely, take advantage of the time we do have, and live life to the
fullest.
Secondly, "atheism" does not necessarily imply disbelief in souls. Most
people who call themselves atheists also doubt souls and ghosts and those
sorts of things, but not all. Maybe it's just because I was Christian for so
long, but I'm still trying to figure this one out. Either possibility offers
intriguing questions - if souls do exist, what is their nature? How can we
study them? Are souls merely passive, experiencing everything the brain does,
or can they somehow influence the brain, and if so, what would be the
mechanism? If souls don't exist (and this is where the evidence seems to
point), and our awareness is merely the result of physical processes, what is
it about the processes in our brains that creates this awareness? Is it
something to do with complexity, and if so, what other complex systems might
be self aware? Plants? Computers? Planets? Galaxies? I'm not trying to
sound all new age here - just trying to understand where awareness comes from.
Somewhere else, Tim B. wrote that maybe the issues he was bringing up was the
"something-rather-than-nothing problem." This problem has nothing to do with
atheism. I had the same problem when I was Christian. Only since God was
supposedly the source of everything, I guess then I would have termed it the
"Gord-rather-than-nothing problem."
Finally, on the issue of mortality, I do feel that the sense of loss I feel in
facing my own mortality comes from having been a Christian. If I'd never had
the promise of living forever, I wouldn't have anything to feel loss over.
Oh, and on topic, what Ken Ham is doing is despicable. I can usually feel sympathy for most religious fundamentalists - they were brainwashed as kids, and do honestly believe they're doing whats right. But watching Ham do what he's doing to an entire auditorium of children, it's hard to feel any sympathy for a man like that.
Posted by: Fatboy | January 30, 2007 1:33 PM
Did you catch that part with Haggard questioning his acolytes about how many times a day they had right-wing sex and how often their wives climaxed?
I'm not a violent person, but if he had asked me that personal question on camera (or even in private), I doubt I'd be able to resist a reflexive, very unJesus-like pastor thrashing.
And did you notice the chronic weird gleam in Haggard's beady eyes? I've seen that look before: the restless scheming of a narcissistic exploiter.
Posted by: Tim B. | January 30, 2007 1:35 PM
Who is to judge whether my response to life is proper? God? Heidegger?
Posted by: Nescio | January 30, 2007 2:00 PM
I thought that Zaphod and Marvin were both meant as caricatures, but apparently the latter just had the "proper response to life" ;)
Posted by: windy | January 30, 2007 2:11 PM
"Ms. Pelosi also said in an interview about this movie that she was "on their [the fundamentalists] side" in the culture war, because on their side is "Jesus" and on the other side is "Paris Hilton." She also said that the people she profiles are not "holy-rolling Jesus freaks."
Furthermore, she said she's raising her child with religion because if one doesn't, the child becomes (finger quotes, dire tone) "unchurched" and is thus fair game for extremism. I shit you not."
ugh. sickening.
Posted by: craig | January 30, 2007 2:19 PM
How could an emotional attitude be "axiomatic?" "I will cease to exist" might be an axiom of someone's belief system, but "My impending nonexistence really sucks" isn't really something that could carry a truth value.
Also, consider that people generally choose to read/watch tragedies for entertainment. Getting to act out your own personal tragedy could be quite pleasurable--who hasn't planned out their ideal death scene?
Anyway, the majority of Christians seem to spend much more time and energy considering Hell than Heaven, yet most are not cripplingly depressed over the risk of eternal torment. Likewise, the ancient Greeks and Sumerians didn't seem to mope much over the prospect of spending eternity in a gloomy, boring underworld. It really doesn't appear to be natural for humans to worry overmuch about what happens when they die.
Posted by: Anton Mates | January 30, 2007 2:21 PM
Here's what I find remarkable and, if I might be blunt, suspicious: the atheist confession that annihilation at death constitutes no existential problem, that being an atheist is a well-integrated, healthy response to life; I think, rather, something odd is going on with that perspective -- the approaching, crushing extinction of oneself should, in a deeply reflecting mind, color one's remaining days with chronic angst and, as Unamuno said, "The Tragic Sense of Life."
What's the alternative? A fantasy God and no angst? No thank you.
There is nothing odd about the fact that we die. We die. How one feels about it will no doubt vary over time. A young person might not think about it much. A middle-aged person will dwell on it more intensely. An older person might have regrets and learn to accept the eventuality of death. A terminally ill person might look forward to it.
There's a lot more to it than angst. There's happiness at being alive (Richard Dawkins has written some fine words on this topic). There is wanting to make the most of the time that one is given. There's laughter and comedy and wonder and the awe of discovery that help to get us through life with grace and intelligence.
I get as down as anybody about the fact that I won't be around one day, but I don't focus on it for too long, because it gets in the way of making the most of the days I am given.
Posted by: George | January 30, 2007 2:54 PM
I feel the need to join in the chorus here.
Knowledge of ones mortality need not lead to despair. I don't need immortality to be happy. There are ways to make the world a better place than the one we were born into, and any success that outlives me is more than enough success for me.
The claims that there is no morality or meaning without God and that atheism necessarily leads to nihilism are vacant claims, claims rooted in a despairing view of the nature of humanity and a lack of faith in anything earthly and tangible, claims that betray a belief that the material universe and everything in it is completely devoid of meaning or purpose. That's far more nihilistic than anything I've been able to come up with here in my private little secular paradise. But leave it to the self-righteous to project their own fears onto everyone else.
Posted by: Kseniya | January 30, 2007 3:01 PM
The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posted by: Kseniya | January 30, 2007 3:15 PM
Ms. Pelosi also said in an interview about this movie that she was "on their [the fundamentalists] side" in the culture war, because on their side is "Jesus" and on the other side is "Paris Hilton." She also said that the people she profiles are not "holy-rolling Jesus freaks."
Furthermore, she said she's raising her child with religion because if one doesn't, the child becomes (finger quotes, dire tone) "unchurched" and is thus fair game for extremism. I shit you not.
Sigh. So, I guess she has taken churchlessness off the table.
Posted by: George | January 30, 2007 3:24 PM
Steve LaBonne: *Ex*-Nazi? Heidegger expressed sympathy for the Nazis in his last public presentation, in the 1960s. (An interview with a newspaper, as it happens.)
AC: Sure, some people are terrified that they exist, or that they won't some day. But some of us aren't, and that's what you were hearing from us.
I'm happy to exist, for now, but I know that I'm finite. Immortality would be boring; I'd do everything n times and still have infinite years to go.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | January 30, 2007 3:29 PM
Watching the video and seeing all the anti-evolution billboards scattered throughout the bible belt got me thinking. Obviously the propaganda campaign there is prevalent and ubiquitous, and some injection of sensible science, no matter how slight, is direly needed.
How much does it cost to rent a billboard? Would it be a worthwhile endeavor to start a fund for the purpose of erecting pro-science messages in various locals throughout the country? Why not a rural billboard that says "Evolution is a fact of life. Get the real information at www.talkorigins.com" or whatever?
Sure, it might seem like very little, but perhaps it could send one or two high school students to a library to check out the vast evidence supporting evolution. Something needs to be done to counter creationist propaganda.
Posted by: H. Humbert | January 30, 2007 3:51 PM
Perhaps I've insufficiently shed my religious, mystical skin -- still traipsing after some numinous ghost behind the quantum motivations of matter and energy.
FWIW, I have some sympathy for Tim B's position. As Steve Labonne suggests, this feeling is probably something mostly or only experienced by those with an extended religious period (either from childhood, or acquired later).
Partly, there's a kind of sadness that this thing I call "me" will, in a few more decades, cease to exist, and that in not too many more decades, my desiderata in the form of other's memories of me, or of artefacts I leave behind, will also pass into oblivion. Against the backdrop of earth (or even human) history, we are as ephemeral as mayflies. In addition, there's a loss of the sense of the numinous -- of a universe pregnant with meaning (a concept I now find incoherent).
The process, I think, is a kind of grieving. But like grief, one does get over it and move on (but while in progress, I think it deserves a humane respect). And I think (again agreeing with Steve L.) that a love of science -- of the world of ideas in general, what Feynman called "the pleasure of finding things out" -- can help enormously. Many of us (I won't guess how many, but I suspect it's behind a lot of religious, philosophical and scientific impulses) have this desire to, as it were, "locate ourselves" in the larger picture, to know our place in the universe. I don't think there's any tool better than science with which to do that.
Posted by: Steve Watson | January 30, 2007 3:56 PM
Paris Hilton is an Evolutionist? That is like SO so kewl.
Not necessarily. In an infinite universe there are an infinite number of things to do, so even with an infinite amount of time you could do "everything" an infinite number of times and still never run out of things to do. Ever.
Ever. :-|
Which leads me to this thought: People desire (and seek) immortality because they can't conceive of what it really means. I'm not sure I can, either, but I suspect human consciousness just isn't cut out for it.
Posted by: Kseniya | January 30, 2007 4:00 PM
They're out and about in Calgary. My friend's g/f is part of this church that keeps talking crap about the "lack of a fossil record" and "the universe is too complicated to happen by chance". It's everywhere - and the moment I naysay it for the stupidity it is, people tell me that I have to treat their beliefs with respect if I want my beliefs to be respected.
I give them the spiel about how equal time is crap, and I've already lost them.
Posted by: Patness | January 30, 2007 4:26 PM
"How much does it cost to rent a billboard?"
I'd be willing to bet that you would not find a billboard company that would accept your ads. "Too controversial." "We don't accept political ads." "No attacks on religion, that's hate speech." Etc.
Posted by: craig | January 30, 2007 4:40 PM
Tim B said:
"maybe evolution has produced a horrible quirk -- human self-consciousness. And that maybe the proper default is mortal despair"
I grew up with no concept or awareness of religion in any manner until I was about 12-13 or so.
Honestly, during this period I never felt "despair". Life was life, I knew people and things die.. simply accepted that as "natural". Also I found nature, the world, the universe to be of wonder. I found Grand Canyon to be amazing and the natural history behind it was simply fascinating to me. And so on..
When a classmate exposed me to the Christian religion and it's concept of God.. and finding out it was a common belief held as true by many plus to the concept of hell.. I was deeply shocked. Religion was utterly alien and I had a great difficulty understanding it. For about a year I was highly stressed, depressed, anxious and fearful as I learned more snippets about the Christian religion. It did NOT "make life better" for me.
Eventually I started to just boldly question the validity of religion, it just simply didn't seem to stand up on it's own legs so I eventually realized religion was all man-made. That helped me get over the shock and my mental condition improved considerably after that.
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