…and this is a 
I get email
Category: Kooks • Religion • Stupidity
Posted on: June 17, 2008 12:02 PM, by PZ Myers
I just got an email listing 50 "proofs" for the existence of a god. It was also sent to a large number of skeptics, and included a plug for the dumb-as-bricks author's book — she's a flea who writes an imaginary scenario in which Richard Dawkins gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus! If Debra Rufini's imaginary dialog is as bad as this list of "proofs" — more like a collection of cliches, bad quotes, and lies — I can't imagine wanting to slog through it.
Any one of these I'd happily rip to shreds, but 50 at once? The distilled dementia herein is overwhelming, and I'm sure she counts on that.
It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:
Whilst agreeing that random patterns occur naturally by chance, DNA however, consists of code, which requires a designer.
How do you explain the paranormal, such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine - I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.
Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?
The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.
Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.
Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must.. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.
Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!
Atheism is a faith in that which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.
How much of the atheist's faith relies on anger with God as opposed to genuine disbelief in God?
Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?
What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!
Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.
How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?
How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?
What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?
Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.
What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?
What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?
What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?
What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?
The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!
We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work, yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.
Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.
Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions. wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbours the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"
Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.
If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.
'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.
Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.
Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.
Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!
Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.
From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.
Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.
The evidence from liturature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.
From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.
Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.
Science is constantly recorrecting its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.
Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.
The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were so low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.
Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.
There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.
Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".
A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"
It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.
Stephen Hawkins has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"
We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.
If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?
Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!
God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?
Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.
YOU DECIDE!!!
OK, I've decided. Religion is a joke told by the irrational, believed by the brainless, and propped up with flapdoodle and moonshine, and Ms Rufini is a perfect example that confirms my diagnosis.
Comments
I always love this one coming from believers in the uncaused God.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:05 PM
I didn't get very far. Pretty much what I saw was argument from ignorance, argument from complexity, wishy-washy feelings, anecdotes, argument from ignorance, argument from ignorance, wishy-washy feelings, and on and on and on x50.
Posted by: Dennis N | June 17, 2008 12:06 PM
"Autobiography of a Flea?" Really? That's rich...
Posted by: Milo Johnson | June 17, 2008 12:09 PM
"50. Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known."
She's so close to the truth!
Posted by: Jay | June 17, 2008 12:10 PM
Reading those 'proofs' it becomes obvious you cannot argue her out of her position: logic and reason are not tools she has mastered.
Or as a buddy of mine is fond of saying about arguing with fundies: you cannot use logic to refute that which was not arived at logically.
Posted by: ElJay | June 17, 2008 12:11 PM
Someone needs to make a bingo card out of these.
Posted by: Shaden Freud | June 17, 2008 12:11 PM
I couldn't get past #18 or so before my brain shut down in protest.
Posted by: Carlie | June 17, 2008 12:12 PM
DNA agrees that random patterns occur naturally by chance? Learn to write.
More importantly, it wouldn't have been called a code if it required a designer. It doesn't look like a designed code, with rather odd redundancies existing for no purposeful or functional reasons. Furthermore, selenocysteine and pyrrolysine are clearly not a part of the original "code", being evolved to exist through modifications and strange adaptations of stop and other codons.
Indeed, DNA is exactly the kind of molecule needed for evolution, reasonably conservative, while being able to incorporate both mutations and recombinations. In a sense, it can be considered to have been predicted by evolution.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:13 PM
I don't get it. which one of these is actually a proof?
Posted by: techskeptic | June 17, 2008 12:14 PM
Professor Dawkins getting psychiatric help from jesus... I'm not going to lie, I would pay big money to see that.
Posted by: Annie | June 17, 2008 12:14 PM
Snappy answers to stupid questions:
'How's explain 'Why's.
Not according to the Bible, apparently (fun with apologetics).
Easier still to think that nothing was explicitely 'created'.
There's definitely a missing link in that sentence, a link between concepts (between what and what?).
Great, but where can I find God's glasses? Why would he need any?
I HAVE!!!
Now, how long until Walton wanders along and claims these are easy pickings (which they are), but won't offer anything substantial (which he can't)?
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | June 17, 2008 12:16 PM
"Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof." I can't help but scream "Exactly!" at that point. It's nice that that can be used in argument against pretty much the rest of her email.
Posted by: locksmyth | June 17, 2008 12:16 PM
I like the one "improbable does not mean impossible" immediately followed by (essentially) "life is too improbable"
Logic, UR doin it wrong.
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 12:16 PM
Your collection of "proofs" is complex, yet clearly mindless.
By the way, other than where you are begging the question, you are generally invoking a false dilemma. And while it's been fun answering a few of the most pathetic ones, it's not productive enough for me to continue (I may respond to a couple more, or so).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:17 PM
I'm sort of persuaded to start beieving that God does exist, just so I can mock Him and ridicule Him for allowing such stupid people to be His most vocal advocates.
"Yeah, I believe in God. And he's a farkin' idiot!"
Posted by: Hoosier X | June 17, 2008 12:18 PM
could this be Kenny? NDE as proof and didn't he also use the calendar as proof of God?
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 12:19 PM
You know, anytime someone says that something can't come from nothing, I ask them if they've ever heard of "virtual particles".
Posted by: Calladus | June 17, 2008 12:19 PM
Where are all these proofs she talked about? All I see is a list of 50 random logical fallacies.
Posted by: Duke | June 17, 2008 12:19 PM
Jesus WAS a con man. Isn't that obvious?
Posted by: Steve_C | June 17, 2008 12:20 PM
Glen:
Heh, she actually addresses your concern in "proof" number 11.Apparently, she doesn't know what caused God, but only that something did... And that thing exists, too!
Alas, she fails to notice the high g forces as she plunges into circularity...
Posted by: s1mplex | June 17, 2008 12:20 PM
"Science is constantly recorrecting its findings."
this was probably the only thing she got right, although her unstated major premise is wrong
other than that, i could only skim this pile of feces
Posted by: andrew | June 17, 2008 12:21 PM
I was just struck by lightning.
Weird.
I'm gonna lay down for a minute.
Posted by: Hoosier X | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
The funniest part is that a lot of her "proofs" of God work against each other:
That just cracked me up. She's arguing against herself.
Posted by: Wes | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
So, your proof of god is, "This has already been proven!" Hey! That doesn't count! I almost fell for it...
Posted by: Dennis N | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
This has to be a joke. It still amazes me the capacity of people to NOT think. This woman needs help.
Posted by: gcapet | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
I couldn't make it past #10 without rushing back to the coding of deadly dull accounts reports that I should be doing. I suspect the whole thing is a ruse by my boss to increase productivity...
My Brain Hurts!
Posted by: stoat100 | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
*facepalm*
It is the only action I can take...
Posted by: Sam B | June 17, 2008 12:22 PM
PZ you've been fooled. This flapdoodle couldn't have been written by an adult human being. No one could be this stoopid.
My chickens did it.
Posted by: Patricia | June 17, 2008 12:23 PM
50. Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.
Or he was a charismatic man with a few good ideas who has been subject to ther biggest "telephone game" in history.
Posted by: ThePetey | June 17, 2008 12:23 PM
So, uh, a baby can detect emotions, but a scientist can't?
There's a great deal of research on the psyche and the emotions that will have to be stopped. Oh, unless this statement was just yanked out of someone's colon.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:23 PM
ElJay @ #5
We have a similar, but shorter, saying where I'm from:
"You can't fix stupid"
Posted by: flame821 | June 17, 2008 12:24 PM
Admittedly few animals behave as badly as Fred Phelps and his crew, but this woman seriously needs to get out to a singles bar some Friday night.
Posted by: BT Murtagh | June 17, 2008 12:24 PM
Well, in her defense, just because a lot of stupid people believe in God doesn't mean there is no God.
I believe in God.
But he's very dumb.
Posted by: Hoosier X | June 17, 2008 12:26 PM
You can't correct someone's error unless you understand where and why they are making it. I thought this list was interesting, because you can find a lot of the same themes running through all the "proofs."
I noted these common mistakes:
1.) The assumption that thoughts, emotions, and abstractions are non-physical, mysterious things which can't be explained by science. I think this is the foundation for a lot of confusion -- and belief in the supernatural. The woman's views are simplistic, but typical. People seem to have a natural tendency to view the world in dualistic terms. It takes education and thought to think your way out of it.
2.) The Puddle Fallacy: the environment was created and shaped in anticipation that we were coming -- just like the holes in the ground anticipate the puddles which fit into them. There's a lot of egotism here.
3.) Personal stories, anecdotes, and eyewitness testimony should always be believed, because people are reliable. If you doubt this, there's something wrong with you. You're small. People do -- and should -- believe things they like, from people they like.
As PZ says, there are so many kinds of mistakes it's hard to know where to begin. Someone would have to classify them into types of errors.
Posted by: Sastra | June 17, 2008 12:26 PM
I feel vaguely cheated; half of these aren't arguments for anything, let alone the existence of a deity.
Posted by: MartinM | June 17, 2008 12:26 PM
The writer must not understand the concept of what a "proof" is. As I was reading the list, I was looking specifically for items that would be considered as arguments for a God (even if they were true), and there are just a very few of those - I'd grant that #1, #4, and #5 could possibly be lame arguments for the existence of God. The rest of the list is just a stream of unconsciousness.
But my favorite is #50: "Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known."
Posted by: Curt Cameron | June 17, 2008 12:27 PM
I keep seeing those horrid Dow ads up there... I can't take a science site seriously when they allow killers (Bhopal, anyone?) to advertise on their site.
Dow is a company who's goal is to make money, and to kill people who get in their way. They have no interest in science for the benefit of all, but rather, they patent and destroy nature, making seeds that will not reproduce and corn that poisons the earth.
From 2007 - http://www.petitiononline.com/NoToDOW/petition.html
• Earlier this year, the company was fined $325,000 by the US Securities Exchange Commission for having paid $200,000 in bribes to Agriculture Ministry officials for expediting the registration of three of its pesticides. One of the registered pesticides, Dursban (chlorpyriphos), is freely sold in India whereas it has been withdrawn from use in domestic settings in the US owing to its demonstrated deleterious effects on the mental development of children. An enquiry by the Ministry and another by the Vigilance Commission is currently ongoing.
• In 2005, Indian Oil canceled a technology tie-up with Dow Global Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, because the company had attempted to sell a Union Carbide technology by passing it off as its own.
• Dow is exerting tremendous pressure on the Indian Government to get the Government to absolve it of all liabilities related to Bhopal. Letters unearthed by the Bhopal survivor groups indicates that Dow has written to the Indian ambassador in an attempt to dictate the Government's course of action in a case against it for environmental clean-up in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
PZ, please, please ask ScienceBlogs to reconsider this ad revenue.
Posted by: Christopher Wing | June 17, 2008 12:27 PM
Quite so, except for the "addresses" part (well, you know what I mean).
It's just, well, who cares if I can't show that God has a cause or is an effect? I believe, and doing science isn't belief, so screw that nonsense.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:27 PM
How can these possibly be proofs. There's not even an epsilon!
Posted by: James Crooks | June 17, 2008 12:28 PM
Milo said, "Autobiography of a Flea?" Really? That's rich... I can't claim to have actually seen it (or even seen the cover of it), and in fact it may not even really exist, but I do remember hearing several years ago about a pornographic film called "Autobiography of a Flea".
Hmm...now she's got me imagining a porn flick with Richard Dawkins and Jesus.
Posted by: Christopher Waldrop | June 17, 2008 12:28 PM
Glen D @30;
She seems to be referring to Dr. Egnor's "where is altruism" argument for God (and doing it badly). It looks to me like this entire list is just a compilation of bad argument for God plucked from the comments section of this blog, but with no thought given to what the arguments actually are. Just that someone used it, and she can't answer it, so it must be a good argument. But with a list that long, inconsistencies are almost inevitable.
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
My brain shut down by #8.
Posted by: Snitzels | June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
Darwin's deathbed conversion to the Lady Hope (item 24) has been disputed by Darwin's children and grandchildren. Her story has major holes in it, including the complete lack of evidence that she ever actually saw Darwin.
The better explanation is that Elizabeth Hope visited the famous Darwin residence, and not finding Charles Darwin returned home to America and made up the story out of whole cloth in order to impress her friends.
Posted by: Calladus | June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
"How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?"
That second one is actually an excellent question, but God sure ain't the answer.
Posted by: astroande | June 17, 2008 12:30 PM
@ #6 (Shaden Freud):
Someone already did.
Posted by: Berlzebub | June 17, 2008 12:31 PM
Someone needs to make a bingo card out of these.
Then you get a bunch of people together, flip through random pages of AIG, and see who wins.
Posted by: Eric | June 17, 2008 12:31 PM
Now we're getting somewhere.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 17, 2008 12:31 PM
I'd love to know where this originated so I could read the comments (and maybe provide a few of my own.)
Posted by: Vernon Balbert | June 17, 2008 12:32 PM
"The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something."
(Then a couple entries later) "What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!"
Wait, what happened to cause and effect? Huh?
Posted by: Lawdog | June 17, 2008 12:33 PM
@ #6:
Awesome. It's a shame there's 50. Maybe we could drop one, and make a 7x7 bingo card. That would work. Alternatively, we could add a few more to make an 8x8. Obvious omissions include "the 2nd law of thermodynamics disproves evolution!" and "if we came from monkeys..."
Posted by: Brain Hertz | June 17, 2008 12:33 PM
Well i'm convinced ...
Posted by: Kampar | June 17, 2008 12:33 PM
By the way, Rufini, you could probably find answers to every one of your "proofs" in the Pharyngula archives.
We've dealt with the same canards so many times that we only pick and choose the most humorously bad ones at this point.
At least Thomas Aquinas's "proofs for God" are interesting and make one think. They're mostly based on faulty assumptions, which is why they're worthwhile to consider, for by doing so one's thought processes may be sharpened.
Your "proofs" aren't even written in logical form, and most of your faulty assumptions are trivially easy to counter.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:34 PM
uuggghh ....my brain is being overloaded by waves of sheer stupidity.
But I thought of one she missed...
#51. If there was a designer, he/she would never have created someone as stupid as this.
Posted by: Richard | June 17, 2008 12:34 PM
That doesn't prove anything other than the fact that people who believe in god are intolerant, weak-minded assholes.
That broad's freakin' nuttier than a box of squirrel poops.
Posted by: Dan | June 17, 2008 12:35 PM
Posted by: Curt Cameron | June 17, 2008 12:35 PM
This reminds me of the sort of insipid forwarded list type emails you'd get from your grandmother. Except this one is full of more concentrated stupid than usual.
Posted by: Dan | June 17, 2008 12:36 PM
The profoundity of the ignorance displayed in this sentence is staggering. I am astounded that this person actually manages the most basic logical processes.
Posted by: Ale | June 17, 2008 12:36 PM
For reasons outlined in the LJ post I'm putting as my URL, I'm inclined to think Jesus was a well-intentioned con man.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | June 17, 2008 12:36 PM
How come PZ gets quality email like that? All I get are spams about eliminating debt, enlarging my manhood, buying watches, joining online casinos, getting millions for letting Nigerian widows access my bank account, buying meds online, and tips on hot stocks.
Posted by: PatrickHenry | June 17, 2008 12:37 PM
Of those 50 statements, she at least got one sort of right:
37: Science is constantly recorrecting its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.
It's a shame religion can't do the same. It's also a shame her grammar and general sentence structure are so ditzy, though it isn't surprising.
Posted by: Ray M | June 17, 2008 12:37 PM
It would be a waste of time to refute all of these one by one, but it's still inspiring to use material like this to sharpen the formulation of our arguments. I've learnt a great deal about science thanks to the sheer frustration of dealing with mindless creationists!
Posted by: Gustaf | June 17, 2008 12:37 PM
Oh, and #33?
Posted by: BT Murtagh | June 17, 2008 12:37 PM
You sure this wasn't written by Denyse O'Leary?
Posted by: waldteufel | June 17, 2008 12:38 PM
"#50 Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known."
He was a sincere speaker of the Truth and just like L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones, Joseph Smith, Sun Myung Moon, Muhammad, and David Koresh right?
Posted by: Scott D. | June 17, 2008 12:38 PM
More than half those 'proofs' justify turtles all the way down as much as they do Jehovah.
Classify this idiot as a bigot through ignorance.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | June 17, 2008 12:38 PM
Actually - I call Poe. No-one, but no-one is dumb enough to call this a proof:
A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"
Posted by: Kampar | June 17, 2008 12:39 PM
@41
Good point.
I'd like to reverse it, and note that although Egnor writes better and is superficially more sensible and logical, his "arguments" are just about as bad as these 50 "proofs". One has, however, to cut through the many supporting faulty premises with Egnor, hence one must write a lot more when knocking down Egnor's ignorant twaddle.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 17, 2008 12:39 PM
The only thing that this list proves is Poe's law.
Posted by: Mike | June 17, 2008 12:40 PM
Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in?
Fred Phelps and family, Peter Labarbera, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly are atheists? Who knew.
Posted by: Mena | June 17, 2008 12:40 PM
Re 57
The profoundity of the ignorance displayed in this sentence is staggering. I am astounded that this person actually manages the most basic biological processes.
there, fixed it for you
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 12:40 PM
Ugh. That's unsettling. As an IT manager I see all manner of lists forwarded through my mail system every day. I hope I don't see this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 17, 2008 12:40 PM
Wow, and holy freaking crap! To respond to that maniacal ranting would give it undue credence! All I can think of to say is the remark by one of the Johnsons in the movie, "Blazing Saddles", after the drunk spewed forth an incoherent babble of drunkeness and slurred speech:"Now who can argue with that?"
Posted by: Holbach | June 17, 2008 12:41 PM
Congratulations, a great lesson how to cram every single logical fallacy and discredited canard into only 50 "proofs".
Posted by: Paul The Burptist | June 17, 2008 12:41 PM
@ Brain Hertz
Exactly! I was just thinking "but she left off 'If We came from Monkeys...'"
Posted by: APJ | June 17, 2008 12:42 PM
PYGMIES AND DWARVES
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 17, 2008 12:44 PM
Who is Stephen Hawkins? O_o
Posted by: Kseniya | June 17, 2008 12:45 PM
#38: apart from the error of stating 'Evolution describes the way life possibly started' this is a good point. Evolution doesn't disprove god.
'Course it doesn't exactly help either.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | June 17, 2008 12:45 PM
Fractally stupid
Posted by: CJO | June 17, 2008 12:45 PM
Content (or lack thereof) aside, this is really poorly written.
Posted by: fsb | June 17, 2008 12:46 PM
What/who knew that a defender of The One Truth would have such horrible grammar?
Posted by: Seamyst | June 17, 2008 12:46 PM
Actually, quite a lot of these are pretty good questions. Her mistake is thinking, "because God exists" is the only answer to them.
Posted by: SteveM | June 17, 2008 12:46 PM
Ow! That's a lot of crazy to read in one sitting.
Posted by: Ranson | June 17, 2008 12:46 PM
Okay, shall we divvy the sucker up into ten sections of five? Or will merely citing the Wikipedia definition of Begging the Question fifty times suffice?
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | June 17, 2008 12:47 PM
I couldn't finish the list, but--
1) These are not proofs.
2) I am *really* starting to hate the word, "complexity". It is now the hot-button word for Christians, along with "Jesus" and "Hell".
It would take forever to address each one of these snippets of synaptic misfirings.
Posted by: Inky | June 17, 2008 12:48 PM
It ain't Kenny (same genus though). He would have used the secret dead uncle as an example instead of the blue paperclip.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 17, 2008 12:49 PM
Wow, some of those don't even parse. It's either that or I have evolved a mental filter to protect me from ODing on stupid.
Posted by: Lynnai | June 17, 2008 12:50 PM
Well, if you Google Debra Rufini, you get two modest hits, one for the author of "Social Misfits" - a book written by a qualified hypnotherapist / psychoanalyst and ex-Samaritan and another for a Kate Bush look alike based in Hampshire, UK (oh noes, my home county).
Interestingly, the picture of Ms. Rufini the author on the dust jacket at Amazon UK is strikingly similar to the mug shots of Ms. Rufini (a.k.a. Kate Bush) on Fake Faces UK, even down to the straw hat.
I wonder if they are in fact related, or indeed related to the purported Ms. Rufini from the email.
I suggest the email was poe'd out (using the verbal form of Poe) to see just what kind of a reaction it would get from the readers of this blog and others ...
Posted by: Kampar | June 17, 2008 12:51 PM
If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.
Someone doesn't pay much attention to the news...
Posted by: wintermute | June 17, 2008 12:52 PM
I'd like to note one more aspect of someone putting out 50 "proofs".
Only one actual proof would be needed. Even Aquinas's five proofs were more than anyone would need, if they were truly sound. One wonders if he didn't realize that there were questions to be asked about at least some of them.
But why 50 "proofs"? Almost certainly because the person knows that not one of them is very convincing. It's really kind of like Dembski's "research," throw out so much bullshit that sounds reasonably good to you that you're sure that at least one of them wouldn't be knocked down by your critics. Even he, like Rufini, knows that a lot of it is mindless pap, but you just keep what better minds don't knock down.
Yeah, she probably knows that a lot of them are lame. 'There must be some that will stick, though, if you chuck out an entire 50 proofs coming from ignorant theists.'
Sorry, Rufini, most of them are so bad that all we'll do with respect to them is to tell you to Google using "bad proofs for God" and s