There's a great "Family Guy" episode ("Airport '07") where Peter becomes a redneck and watches "Cosmos" dubbed over for rednecks. Funny. I wonder how far we are from that becoming a reality.

(Sorry about the ad at the bottom of the clip, it's the only good clip I could find on YouTube.)

Well, since I just now made an entry on the blog about her, this must be the Sarah Palin museum.

Whether the creation story is true, or whether evolution is true, the fact remains that both require faith. Creationists want to believe in an intelligent designer, and evolutionists want to believe we came from a rock. Students can learn critical thinking skills without being taught evolution, just as they can learn it without being taught creation. There's still tons of other science that can be discussed without referring to either.

on the other hand, even if the world did exist before the babylonians created beer, would we want to know about it?

That 40 percent number says more about our educational system than it does about religion.

In Judaism (and most sects of Christianity) there is no obligation to take the creation story literally. Like all narrative passages in the Bible, it is open to allegorical and other interpretations.

Only recently have vocal groups of fundies promoted this nonsense.

Never mind the timing, what about the fact that he seems to have successfully tamed a young T-Rex (and turned it Veggy no less)?!

Not to mention managed to suss out how to weave cloth (presumably from cotton) and taught his child how to write.

Very impressive.....

Amy, you've been snarking at these stooges for years. They're a ridiculously easy target. It begins to seem either [A] defensive or [B] childish. It's like mocking fat people or cripples. It's certainly not funny, except in that liberal, we-don't-laugh-except-to-be-self-righteous kind of way.

Many people are religious. Many more people are religious than are, for example, gay. And you think the fundies ought to get over that, don't you? Eventually, the failure to appreciate the full breadth of human nature is your own.

Andrew: Whether the creation story is true, or whether evolution is true, the fact remains that both require faith. Creationists want to believe in an intelligent designer, and evolutionists want to believe we came from a rock. Students can learn critical thinking skills without being taught evolution, just as they can learn it without being taught creation. There's still tons of other science that can be discussed without referring to either.

How very PC of you. Unfortunately for your moderate stance, evolution qualifies as a scientific theory. Creationism does not.

Ben-David: In Judaism (and most sects of Christianity) there is no obligation to take the creation story literally. Like all narrative passages in the Bible, it is open to allegorical and other interpretations.

I agree with Ben-David. And in related events, Hell froze over.

I HAVE to go to this museum!!! I hear they say that T-Rexes were originally vegetarians before the fall.

Yep. The poll was conducted (or one very similar to it) by a very liberal anti-religioun polysci prof here at UT. Interesting, since I'm quite religious and conservative, and have lived all my life in places that were, yet I've never met one single person who believed that. Can we say polling bias?

Every christian I know and ever have known either takes it as allegory or says a billion years could easily be a day to God, him being outside time and all.

Patrick, please tell christians what they have to believe. You're SO in a position of authority with us, you know.

It's Amy's column, and she can do as she likes. Having said that, too much of even a good thing is still too much.

I'm with momof4 on this one... I've only met one person who believed in the "Biblical timeline", and she was an off-her-rocker fundamentalist (she wouldn't let her kids watch movies that had any other spiritual belief other than Christianity, for example).

I think this poll might have been pretty biased in the way it asked questions. You know, one of those polls that is looking for evidence to back a particular theory up, instead of being objective.

But most religious folks I know believe in a blending of evolution and creationism - that being, they believe that God created the universe, and that the Bible (and other religious texts) is only a vague, human interpretation of that event, as we could never hope to truly understand the way God works.

But in all my 27 years on this planet, I've only ever met one person who believed in the 6,000 year hypothesis. And that came from a woman that still believed that appropriate TV for a 17 year old was VeggieTales. I have a difficult time thinking that all this time, nearly half of America is promoting that belief.

I don't buy it. I don't even think 40% of Christians believe the earth is that young. There are many different views of Genesis 1 even inside Christianity: allegory, literal, day-age, old-earth creationism, poetic, mythical, etc. There are people who believe in theistic evolution, the watchmaker view, and creation by fiat.

76% of America identifies as Christians. But that includes everything from hard-line fundamentalists to people who think Jesus was a pretty neat guy who told great stories. From people who believe that the KJV Bible is the only one Lucifer didn't have a hand in writing to people who believe what Dan Brown tells them about the Merovingians. Given the wide variety of beliefs that fall under the Christianity umbrella I just don't buy that more than half believe in a very young earth.

My present boss believes in the 6000-years-ago version of Earth's creation. He is an otherwise intelligent, college-educated professional. How he can actually believe what he does is unfathomable to me, but there you go.

"Young earth fundies" (which I do NOT believe are 40% of the population) like him aside, the existence of creationism and evolution side-by-side are not necessarily incompatible. Creationism attempts to advance a theory, unsupported by scientific evidence, of how the world came to be created in the first place. Evolution attempts to advance a theory, supported by loads of scientific evidence, of what has happened since. To my knowledge, evolution does not address how, or by what specific agent, it all started.

Whether the universe started with some spontaneous Big Bang, or through the actions of some supernatural force, is and will forever be unknowable. Anyone who claims to be certain of the occurrence of either of these, or of any other cause, is being equally religiously fervent. And, as we know, it usually does no good to try to convert the religiously fervent to another point of view.

I have to admit I'm suspicious of the poll numbers too. According to some sources I looked at (example), only 40-45% of Americans attend church regularly, and as Ben-David points out, mainstream Jewish and Christian teachings regard the Genesis story as allegorical rather than literal.

I will admit this, though: the numbers aren't too far off of some other things I've seen that demonstrate the sorry state of our education system. I can't find the source now, but I saw a poll on risks and hazards which included a question that went something like: "How much radioactivity is it acceptable for a person to be exposed to?" About a quarter of the respondents answered "none", regardless of the fact that the Earth itself is naturally radioactive, and that radioactivity (probably) plays an important role in evolution.

BTW, if I'm remembering my geology properly, the Great Lakes are remnants of the last Ice Age. In terms of geological time, that was just yesterday (~50,000 years).

Oh, if you want a good view of this museum (and its creator) you need to watch Religulous. It was pretty interesting.

And yeah, I don't think that poll is right either. My boyfriend is a software engineer, however, and in the former lab where he worked he had a LOT of Mormon coworkers who believed the whole "dinosaurs lived with humans thing", which I find incredible for a bunch of guys with college degrees.

I know where that creation museum is; my parents live about twenty minutes away. The ironic thing is, even though it's in Kentucky, absolutely no one considers Northern Kentucky 'the South'. It's not what you think of when you think 'conservative bible belt'

I'm not sure I buy the figure, either. I went to a big Christian school in the 'legit' South when I was a kid and we got taught evolution to the point where we picked up the ability to laugh at Creationism from our teacher, who clearly considered it lolworthy. I think there was the chance to 'opt out', but that made you a social pariah at age 12, so no one did.

Then again, we got a first-class sex ed class that apparently outdid the public school by miles. Maybe their instruction wasn't as liberal. Ironic.

Our son got a set of plastic dinosaurs for Christmas from relatives. It came with some scenery consisting of trees and rocky hills. The hills have steps going up the side.

I once went to a creationist museum in, I think, Decatur Alabama. Or maybe it was Athens. Like almost every museum, it was very boring.

Ann, I have run into a few of those, and I still don't know how they live with the cognitive dissonance. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there's a bit of philosophical sleight-of-hand that some creationists engage in to try to explain away fossils and radiocarbon dating evidence. It goes like this: God created the Earth with built-in evidence of an ancient past that never actually existed. All of those dinosaur fossils? God put them in there 6,000 years ago, pre-made with the right amount of carbon-14 so that they will date as millions of years old. There were never actually any dinosaurs, just the fossils. My objections to this are twofold:

1. By the same theory, what evidence do we have to prove that the universe wasn't created... just now? How can you prove that God didn't create you a moment ago, with memories pre-loaded in your brain of a past that never actually existed? Clearly it mocks the very concept of time. Which leads to my next point:

2. What kind of mindset do you have to have in order to believe that God is a practical joker, and the universe is a supersize version of Jackass? I just can't seem to get my brain to bend that way.

Pseudo, a creationist museum in Decatur? How long ago was that? I live in that area, and I don't know of any such. May have to do some investigating.

I'd be shocked if as few as 40% of the population had genuine trouble drawing real distinctions between time intervals of 6000 years, 6 million years and 6 billion years. At a certain point, the spectrum of values involved just collapses into "unimaginably long time" for people.

Hell, for a lot of people 60 years ago qualifies as "ancient history" ...

"In Judaism (and most sects of Christianity) there is no obligation to take the creation story literally. Like all narrative passages in the Bible, it is open to allegorical and other interpretations.
Only recently have vocal groups of fundies promoted this nonsense."

Absolutely true. Hardline insistence on creationism as if it were scientific fact is completley modern. Hell, the concept of scientific certianity didn't even exist until the 19th century.

And BD, this is not an idle matter. This obessesion with the Old Testament (no, not the Tanakh. It's in the wrong language and we the sequence of the books differ in not incosequential ways.) goes back a long way and has borne some very poisonous fruit. Specifically of interest to Jews is the American Protestant self-identification with Ancient Israel that has led both the Christian Zioniist movement but also to the really nasty anti-Semitic elements of White Supremacist ideology.

Creationism is not science-which is why it shouldn't be taught in science class.

When I took geology in college, I was amazed by the number of students who believed in a 6,000 year old earth.They always brought it up in their answers to questions the prof asked to see if we read and understood the material. It seemed very odd to me.

Also, it is possible to believe in evolution while having a belief in god/higher power/ what have you. I find that most people who discount evolution, don't really have an understanding of it and just think if means that we came from monkeys.

...absolutely no one considers Northern Kentucky 'the South'.

Kentucky was a border state during the Civil War. Slavery was legal, but not widespread. At the outset of the war, the state had economic ties to both the north and the south and opted to remain officially neutral instead of taking sides. The Union Army quickly occupied Kentucky as a means of invading Tennessee, ending the state's hopes of avoiding involvement in the conflict.

Ironically, both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in Kentucky.

I don't know how much coal mining had to do with it, but many of the areas of the South that held pro-Union sentiments were coal mining areas at one time or another. The industrialized Union needed coal. The agrarian South did not.

West Virginia was created from the northwestern counties of Virginia that did not want to secede when Virginia did. Several counties in eastern Tennessee also held pro-Union sentiments.

My uncle, aunt and two kids are Born Agains.

Once my cousin, who is a wonderful person and very, very dedicated to her beliefs in a very tiresome way, tried to explain that "6 days" wasn't really like 6 days as we know them. We were talking about Genesis and I was trying to (politely) point out the many flaws in the book. I guess you can come up with a creative explanation for anything if you believe in something enough. Or want it to be true.

I told her the bible lost me at the whole woman is subservient to her man and that the pain of child birth is a curse upon womankind.

Fuck you, very much.

Once my aunt (her mom) cornered me in front of two of my friends to tell me homosexuality is horrendous and that if I am pro-choice I am a child murderer. It was really embarrassing - we'd been having a discussion over dinner and I guess my beliefs upset her enough that she had to continue it afterward. I have *never* seen my friends actually giggle so much in my life.

One week later a package arrive from her, with a note. And a bible with special sections bookmarked and highlighted. As if reading it in the bible will suddenly make me go "ohh OKAY. I get it now!". Props for trying, though.

Why is it people who can accept that Jesus spoke in parables in teaching people (my father's house has many rooms, the prodigal son) can't accept that God may have spoken in parables in the Old Testament in teaching us.

I'm pretty tolerant of religions and their teachings, but this museum goes too far. Teaching kids that humans and dinosaurs co-existed in order to shoehorn the existing fossil record into their belief system is wrong.

A few years I wrote an essay on this: The Argument Clinic.

Since its inception over 150 years ago, the Theory of Evolution has been the target of a more or less relentless Christian jeremiad. Typically, the response from paleontologists and evolutionary biologists has been to parade the facts and show how the Theory neatly ties them all up; clearly, so much evidence in support of something so intuitively obvious must demonstrate the jeremiad mistaken.

As if.

Evolution's antagonists--Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates--are in high dudgeon. That dudgeon is in direct proportion to two things: belief in Biblical inerrancy, and the insistence that rock-ribbed Christian religiosity is the sine qua non of morality. Make no mistake, this argument is not over the Theory's explanatory power; rather, it is over the impact of that power upon the Bible.

In other words, the conflict is between the rhetorical and the dialectical. Evolutionists are using a series of connected statements in order to establish a proposition; their antagonists automatically gainsay anything Evolutionists say because of the theory's perceived impact upon Divinely revealed Scripture.

Without coming to terms with why Creationists are so upset, there is simply no understanding their world view.

(Speaking, BTW, as someone who is convinced naturalistic evolution is sufficient to explain natural history.)

>>Many people are religious. Many more people are religious than are, for example, gay. And you think the fundies ought to get over that, don't you? Eventually, the failure to appreciate the full breadth of human nature is your own.

Exactly correct, Crid. All educated people understand human nature is all over the place, I call it a Bell Curve, not just "all the smart people are left-wing liberal in nature and everyone else is ignorant and stupid." But, don't waste your time here. As much as I admire many aspects of Amy, she simply does not get it, is apparently not capable of getting it, and most here are also incapable of getting it.

In their ignorance of the breadth of human nature, they think they know more than anyone, and that all truly educated people will share 100% their faith based beliefs. Hohohahaheehee.

It's not true, and the sort of intolerance of religious people is far worse then intolerance of gays because the numbers are so much greater.

I believed in evolution. In the Fifties I was a good student, and had it all memorized. Turns out some years later, the evolutionists themselves were forced to admit they were wrong with the 'proofs' they taught us.

Then, I discovered it has been the same since Darwin's day. Evolutionists insist their faith based belief is science -- because they say it is -- and there is proof of it -- because they say there is. They teach the kiddies their version of 'science', then a generation later, they admit they were wrong, but since evolution is science, they will find the proof, just need more money. Maybe next year. Etc., blah, blah.

Same-o; same-o.

Those who know something about science and genetics, realize that what Darwin observed was not an INCREASE in genetic complexity, which is necessary for one species to change to another species, but rather a LOSS of genetic material.

The fossil fish we were taught about in the Fifties, that proved evolution, which lived, then went extinct, millions of years ago, is currently a common food fish in some places in the world. It did not evolve at all.

The worst ignorance in this debate, and it is true on both sides, is the belief there are only two choices, evolution or creationism, and if one is proved or disproved, that means the other is disproved or proved. That is totally irrational.

Amy, I believe we all need to learn to accentuate the positive. In our own lives and in the lives of others.

And, Amy, you certainly have a great number of positives to accentuate.That is why your fans are here, that is why I am here in spite of the negatives.

But, with this extreme and continuing attack on others because they do not share your own faith based belief, which is called more or less atheism, you are not only not accentuating any positives of anyone. You are being just plain RUDE!

I don't like to say that, because you have so many good characteristics, and you take too much undeserved criticism, but you need to hear it. On that other message board, where they delighted in trashing you, I admit it pissed me off, too. But, this rudeness you exhibit does set you up for critics, who don't see the good, only the rudeness.

What you guys do is called cocooning. That means to isolate yourself physically and/or intellectually from anything and anyone who does not share your views and beliefs.

A lot of people do it. A lot of Christians do it. They do not associate with anyone who is not a Christian. Those break-away Mormons who insist on polygamy do it. They only associate with others of the same creed. When you cocoon, you stop taking in new information, you stop receiving negative feed-back when you mess up.

And, eventually, you have leaders of the cocooned group who actually believe its okay to "marry" 15 year old girls, though they are in a nation where that is a felony. And, when the doors break down, they wonder, "WTF?"

On this blog, you folks are also cocooned. That means you get no negative feedback, or if you do, you tell each other, "We are right. Anyone who criticizes us is screwed up."

And, you insult and call names until they go away.

When Amy screws up, which usually involves rude intolerance of anyone who does not share her beliefs, by supporting her, you encourage her to be rude to people who do not share her beliefs. You are not doing her any favors.

irlandes: "the sort of intolerance of religious people is far worse then intolerance of gays because the numbers are so much greater."

Well that's certainly a bridge too far by my count. There's a truly unfortunate tendency among the Dawkins set to dismiss anything said by anyone who's ever been inside a church. On the flip side, there's far too much willingness on the part of too many religious folks to simply dismiss facts that run counter to their worldview rather than to invest a little intellectual capital in developing a belief system that incorporates what we know to be true about the world, the universe and its physical properties. Science and faith aren't mutually exclusive.

That said, back to my point, I have my faith and the "intollerance" I've experienced in my life as a result wouldn't be a drop in the bucket of that experienced by most of the gay people I know. Not by a long, long shot.

My mom is a Jehovah's Witness who believes in the 6,000-year-old earth. She believes the Flood of Noah created the Grand Canyon. I'm not sure what she thinks about the dinosaurs - maybe she thinks the flood killed them, too, but that wouldn't explain why Noah didn't put any of them on the ark. As for carbon dating, well the process is simply inaccurate. And scientists are always setting out to try and discredit the Bible - it's a conspiracy! Also, masturbation causes homosexuality, and after Armageddon, everyone gets a mansion.

Thank goodness I wasn't homeschooled. Although at the time I wished I was, because when you go to school all nutty like that, you are made into an outcast and bullied pretty quickly. (But that was just Christ-like persecution, something which I was supposed to feel proud of.)

I'm not angry at my mom - she turned to the crazy religion because of the abuse she endured in her childhood. Now she's just a delusional old lady who has wasted her entire life believing goofy religious dogma. But she's not hurting anyone. Annoys people, yes, but oh well.

Then, I discovered it has been the same since Darwin's day. Evolutionists insist their faith based belief is science -- because they say it is -- and there is proof of it -- because they say there is.

Roughly a year ago, the chimpanzee genome was sequenced.

As it happens, chimps are one of the few mammals, besides humans, that cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C.

Chimps also have 37 chromosomes, to our 36.

Evolutionary biologists predicted where two genes would have to be spliced, and that the Vit-C mutation would be the same as in humans.

Turns out they were right. Why? because chimps and humans share a common ancestor.

Also, evolutionary biologists predicted there would be a near total overlap between human and chimp genomes.

Which, for evolution to be true, absolutely had to be the case.

The difference between evolution and the alternatives is that the former has deductive consequences.

That makes a difference.

Gretchen, the pain of child birth is a curse upon womankind! An entirely natural one, though.

The average woman's pelvic opening is just barely over 5 inches across. The average infant's head is 4 inches from front to back, and it's shoulders are about 4 3/4 inches wide. That's an awfully tight fit, so tight that the baby has to twist & turn on it's way out. No other female animal has a configuration like that.

Women's pelvises are the size & shape they are because women have to walk upright on two legs. And human baby's heads are so big in proportion to the rest of their bodies because they have to be born with big brains so that they can start learning everything a child has to learn. So blame Nature, not the ancient Hebrews.

Pseudo, a creationist museum in Decatur? How long ago was that? I live in that area, and I don't know of any such. May have to do some investigating.

Some googling reveals that it was Cook's Natural Science Museum, which originated as a way for Cook's Pest Control to train their employees in the different kinds of bugs to kill.

I don't remember what it was that led me to believe that it was Creationist. It is, however, listed on answersingenesis.org as a "Creation Destination".

educational issues aside, because how much of evo vs create question actually affects your daily life...? This is just a media way to deligitimize what Chritians believe both by conflating it with Islam [thereby the crazy], and by taking it's most extreme vision and presenting that as what everyone believes.

Instead of being troubled into figuring out what is generally out there, in terms of belief.

Creation is creation. It happened, regardless if you call it the big bang, or Genesis 1 or that Brahma has been doing it forever. Even scientists would concede that it came frome somewhere, at some time.

Once you get beyond there, the challenge is realizing that humans know nothing relatively speaking. Scientists are building a cosmology based on observation and deduction. Religions are also doing so, except they think they know the source. The question is: what happens when you find out one of your tenets is observably wrong. Scientists usually come to accept they are wrong eventually, given enough evidence [Like Einstein hating Quantum Physics] Religious people don't use eveidence the same way so, they tend not to change...

But what about what you can't observe? How many dimensions are there? What's all this dark matter then? Dark energy? Does shifting really happen that certainly at relativistic speeds? What happens to things that seem to move at FTL speeds like tachyons?

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Nothing, and now we have the crux of the problem.

Science is not philosophy. It doesn't in itself demand you live a certain way. Philosophies do, and religions are philosophy. This is where the antagonism comes from. They want to tell you how to live. But. Amy's philosophy, and her disinterest in the rude people, are little different than most [not all] religions. It's just that she claims no special Divine Right to prosecute it. There's the problem. "I'm the boss of you 'cuz god told me so!" Doesn't fly when there may or may not even be a flying speghetti monster.

So, it doesn't matter if God sneezed Lake Michigan, or aliens punk'd us, or given an amazingly long amount of time the monkeys decided to walk upright, and are curious about the big bright ball that moves across the sky.

We're here now. What're we going to do about it?

I told her the bible lost me at the whole woman is subservient to her man . . .

FWIW, that particular doctrine is not universally held. The Bible verses that are most commonly quoted to support that position are actually about putting other people first. According to this analysis, Paul undermined the Roman doctrine of absolute authority of the male head of household. Calling on masters to submit to their slaves was quite radical for the time.

Irlandes what are you talking about? People are forever disagreeing with each other and getting nasty on this blog. Just ask Patrick or Lovelysoul, or any regular, really.

*****Ann, I have run into a few of those, and I still don't know how they live with the cognitive dissonance. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there's a bit of philosophical sleight-of-hand that some creationists engage in to try to explain away fossils and radiocarbon dating evidence. It goes like this: God created the Earth with built-in evidence of an ancient past that never actually existed. All of those dinosaur fossils? God put them in there 6,000 years ago, pre-made with the right amount of carbon-14 so that they will date as millions of years old. There were never actually any dinosaurs, just the fossils. My objections to this are twofold:*****

Wow. I have never heard of that. That seems like a long way to go to support a theory.

>>Roughly a year ago, the chimpanzee genome was sequenced...Chimps also have 37 chromosomes, to our 36.Evolutionary biologists predicted where two genes would have to be spliced, and that the Vit-C mutation would be the same as in humans.Turns out they were right...

Hey Skipper,
Last year I heard a terrific evolution conference talk by the former Harvard (now Brown) biology Prof Ken Miller, also - unusually -a Catholic!, who was the star witness FOR the side of reason at the Dover Trial.

I remember (& just checked it in his book) that he gave the publication date of the discovery of that all-important "fused" human chromosome as 2005. (I expect it was the full sequencing that came more recently.)

He further said that among molecular biologists, the existence of the fusion had been pretty much assumed as a theory (first posited by Darwin!) finally ripe for confirmation for more than 25 years - and that he was genuinely surprised this wasn't better known by the public!

I was sitting there (in the audience thinking 'well, it's the first I've heard of it - how ignorant am I!') when a VERY brave newspaper science journalist stood up and said:

"I hate to admit it - I've never, ever come across that fact before today. And I'm meant to know about this stuff!"

It created a fabulous discussion - with Miller saying that sometimes he believes scientists are to blame for not more thoughtfully assisting the (informed) public to focus on the most important discoveries being made.

Martin - sorry my wording sucked. To clarify. The pain of childbirth was GIVEN to woman, FROM god, as punishment.

In other words: childbirth used to be this fun, totally pleasant little event. Then god decided to use it as a weapon to control women and ensure they remain the lesser sex.

I put Genesis down after that. I should go re-read that passage b/c I could be a bit off and am going on memory.

momof4: Patrick, please tell christians what they have to believe. You're SO in a position of authority with us, you know.

Oh, goodie! Another jackass who doesn't know how to read.

Can you show me where I told you what to believe? Why, no! Actually, you can't! Why? Because I didn't.

I said that evolution qualifies as a scientific theory! And it does! Conan recently posted the definition of scientific theory, and yes, evolution does qualify!

But here's a defintion:

In the sciences, a scientific theory (also called an empirical theory) comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.

Creationism does not meet this criteria! Hence, it is not a scientific theory! Both certainly do NOT require faith to believe in them.

Not saying one happened and the other one didn't. I wasn't there! I'm saying evolution is a scientific theory, and creationism is NOT! Sorry that offends you. But it's the truth. It's not just my opinion, but it's objective fact. You now know what a scientific theory is, and you can see for yourself. Evolution certainly does meet that definition, but creationism sure doesn't.

Dearest, I couldn't care less what you believe, so I'm certainly not going to waste my time going around telling you what to believe. Why couldn't I care less? Because there are a number of times when I actually believe that if your head was any further up your ass, you could crawl right up inside yourself and disappear completely!

"Interesting, since I'm quite religious and conservative, and have lived all my life in places that were, yet I've never met one single person who believed that"

For some weird reason creationism is a common belief here in Orange County, CA. My first boss believed it, 50% of the people I went to highschool with believed it, even some of my science teachers believed it.

I can remember my biology teacher saying that she did not believe in human evolution and another science teacher saying humans and dinosaurs co-existed.

Eh, it's 40% of people who have the time and inclination to respond to a Harris Poll. Even if the sample size is 10,000, that's pretty small. Join Harris Polls Online to get an idea of how these types of polls are constructed. There are pretty much only absolute choices so you sometimes tick the box that most closely matches your view (or is the least far from your view).

> Exactly correct,

Please don't infer alliance: Your comments are repugnant.

Now, Amy's love of science is often chirpy and glib: 'Ooooohh, here's some cute little subatomic particles!' I've called it scout-badge science: Simplistic little home activities with food coloring and baking soda, always ending with a pat, superficial demonstration of a principle she finds fulfilling.

But real science is about the most challenging thing a person can do, and a lot of us simply aren't up to it. It costs money and it requires concentration we'd like to give other things. That last part is important, because many of us can't understand the reading that modern science requires. It demands endless humility.

And humility is not what Amy's sharing here: She's mocking people who are obviously uncomfortable with the world. The social distance she seeks to make from them is gratuitous, and it folds back upon her: Why is she so offended that Kentucky hillbillies have daydreams about dinosaurs? Lots of people do.

And still worse, it's the precise analog of the stupidity you're trying to share today too. Your folksy, witless chatter about "same-o" and "cocooning" has nothing to do with evolution.

I'm guessing that your feeings have been hurt. I understand, truly I do. It's unpleasant when a scientist (or any educated person) tries to explain something complicated to you, when you just can't get it.

But dramatically lashing out with weird accusations about 15-year girls isn't the correct response. Perhaps evolution is too difficult for you to comprehend. Well, sorry about that. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. Even if the truth doesn't care about you, you should care about the truth. (And for the record, you really ought to try harder to understand evolution. You will get there. I've sent books about it to readers of this blog. Email me if you can't make it to the public library.)

But neither you, nor Amy, should try to reduce these things to opprobrium. You deserve each other when you do.

I often use extra commas, when winding up a longer blog comment.

Very near the Creation Museum, there is a group who has published a pamphlet which purports to explain the fossil record as having been created during the Great Flood, when they say that the Earth was covered in water to a depth of a mile and a half. I received a copy (yes, I live there) from a man who was in the parking lot of a local grocery store telling everyone that AIDS was sent as a punishment to gays.

I didn't bother asking him how this one flood was supposed to have deposited the hundreds of FEET of fossil record he was standing on top of (that's how thick the limestone is in Northern Kentucky). I don't have a problem with Creationism, as long as it comes in the form of something compatible with observable evidence, but this was over the top.

Still, this guy and his group aside, I also question that 40% number. I think it was done with people whom the study conductors already suspected of being Creationist Fundies.

"Creationists want to believe in an intelligent designer, and evolutionists want to believe we came from a rock. "

@Andrew, confusing evolution with abiogenesis is a sure sign that you missed the first day of class.

SwissArmyD-I loved your comment; your insight is perfect.

My grandma doesn't believe in evolution; I was shocked when I discovered that (I was about 13) but then when I thought about it, I realized that she'd never been taught evolution or had any reason to believe otherwise, so her beliefs make sense. I imagine that these numbers will change as older generations die out.

yeah, Gog_Magog... but that is more because most people are looking at them as being perfect opposition...

I think a lot of people you would ask on the street would speak of evolution INCLUDING the abiogen, becuase it's the extent all the way back to the beginning of life...

Crid - be out and proud Creationist Fundie.

Shannon, age has nothing to do with those beliefs, it is fundamental Christians who take the bible as 100 percent accurate who believe this, and new ones are being taught everyday, so it will not "die out". These are the same people that predict the second coming at events like the year 2k and such. Not agreeing or disagreeing, just pointing it out

>>I often use extra commas, when winding up a longer blog comment.

Exactly correct, Crid.

> be out and proud Creationist Fundie

Huh?

I saw the cutest shirt the other day.

It had the word catholocism on the front

On the back it said "Because a priest touching their own genitals would be a sin"

ok, luj wins...

Excuse me, but evolution isn't something you "believe in". It's something you demonstrate.

Something you show people. Go look - especially at the "Transitionals". You can get some viral and bacterial infections from animals because you are built the same way.

And if you want to tell me about "creation", maybe you ought to figure out how to point to it, first.

Because everything you can point to today was converted from something else. No violation of natural laws occurred.

But do you even know what those are, that you are so convinced somebody who dearly loves you did everything for you?

> I imagine that these numbers will change
> as older generations die out.

Man, are you optimistic. People don't reject evolution because it's not available to them; they reject it because other beliefs are more flattering.

Why, take this young buck Radwaste, seated before us in this very (blog) room.

He thinks we're the "leading" life form.

I know! Nutty, right?

Many people are religious. Many more people are religious than are, for example, gay.

...said Crid smugly, as if the two things were mutually exclusive, as if numbers made one more valid than the other.

Ann said (re creationists and fossils) Wow. I have never heard of that. That seems like a long way to go to support a theory.
______________________

This got hinted at in the first half of the 1950s children's book "The Enormous Egg." It's loaded with political (and scientific) humor and hints from page one. I didn't get it as a kid, of course. Quote (not verbatim) from a ten-year-old boy: "I asked my pop about it, and he said there never were any dinosaurs. He said nobody ever saw any. Some crazy scientists found a lot of old bones and they just made up all that business about dinosaurs out of their own heads."

Mostly OT, but anyway:

The next time someone like columnist Betsy Hart (conservative mother of four) says "God will provide" (regarding our alleged socioeconomic need to have more babies than we want) I plan to say (sarcastically, of course): "Maybe God WAS providing all these centuries by keeping the disease and death rate so high so there would always be enough arable land and resources to go around? After all, Homo Sapiens has existed for 300,000 years or so, but it wasn't until barely more than a century ago - 1890, maybe - that ALL doctors started believing in the GERM THEORY and WASHING THEIR HANDS! Coincidence? Maybe God didn't really WANT us to discover germs any more than he wanted us to discover birth control!"

(Of course, even if you believe in a 6,000 year-old Earth, it's still a suspiciously long time for God to withhold such vital life-saving information. So if evolution is "wrong," why is a high "turnover rate" not wrong?)

And, as sci-fi writer Ben Bova has pointed out:

"When I was writing 'Immortality', I saw that all through history, whenever there was a major medical breakthrough, it was first met with cries of disbelief, and then cries of "We've never done that before, so it must be wrong." Organ transplants, as late as the 1960s, were met by cries of "They're playing God. This person's heart is giving out, he's supposed to die." Even lightning rods. Churchmen strongly believed that lightning was god's way of showing displeasure,
and putting up a lightning rod was a satanic way to avoid God's wrath. Churches in New England were among the last places to put up lightning
rods, and for a while the ONLY buildings being hit by lightning were the churches! All those nice tall steeples, with no lightning rods...So the churchmen had to change their opinion about why lightning struck. Cotton Mather, that fierce Puritan preacher, inoculated his son against smallpox, and was roundly castigated by the
other preachers for trying to avoid the wrath of God. To try to avert the wrath of God was wrong - someone even threw a bomb into Cotton Mather's house. Every time you take an aspirin, you're playing God. Every time you put a Bandaid over a cut to avoid infection, you're preventing the natural course, and playing God."

People don't reject evolution because it's not available to them; they reject it because other beliefs are more flattering.

Though it is hard to support a theory you've never heard of, Crid. The lengths that some areas and organizations go to to control information is downright scary. I'm recommending a book again called The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It's fiction, but it nicely details how people that grow up in a cult-like atmosphere get their information. Everything comes through the head honcho. So if Brigham Young, that rock star, comes to your house to tell you that God has told him that the only way to Heaven is to take more than one wife, you'll listen, because everything else he's told you thus far is true as far as you know. This kind of thing was prevalent in Western Society until fairly recently in history, when some control over government was wrenched from the claws of the Church, which coincided with an upswing in literacy.

That's for the extremists, though. For the general population, I do think you're right. For someone who believes in God and lives as such, it must be more flattering to think that I've been created to be specifically as I am instead of a long series of random mutations and culling that led to the present-day humans. But, in the immortal words of Tyler Durden, "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake."

That book sounds deliciously subversive for the era, lenona! That's funny about the dinosaur bones. I've heard people say things along those lines, too: "How do they know those bones fit together that way if there are no more dinosaurs?" Um, because they studied things like that? You can tell how bones fit together, how they walked, and what their diets were. Someone who found a human tibia by itself could, if he were trained, tell what bone it was, whether it was from a male or female, approximately how tall the person was, his age, his diet, and what area of the country he lived in, just to name a few. That's what scientists do. They find information that can be extrapolated to other situations based on current data.

> Though it is hard to support a theory
> you've never heard of

Well, there's "heard of", and there's studied at the collegiate level. I mean, the word's been out on this for quite some time, even back yonder on the prairie and down in the holler. I mean, the goofiest Christian types will say that because I've at least heard of Jesus Christ, I have no excuse for not studying him in great detail and "believing" with all my heart. Well, there's no reason not to hold them, or Irlandes, to the same standard with respect to evolution: How much of the theory, or the surrounding biological science, do you really know? Why didn't you investigate further? Isn't a responsibly intelligent person from the last century and a half going to want to consider this theory in considerable detail?... Or would he just be content to enjoy the woodcut cartoons ridiculing Charles Darwin as the child of apes?

And just to maintain my bi-directional, two-fisted struggle with both Amy and her detractor Irlandes:

> ...how people that grow up in a cult-like
> atmosphere get their information.
> Everything comes through the head honcho.
> So if Brigham Young, that rock star,
> comes to your house to tell you that God
> has told him that...

I think you're working the word "cult" harder than it can be worked. Eventually it becomes like a sort of like Dworkin, who thought every wolf-whistle for a pretty secretary on the street is a literal equivalent of rape. Not every religion is a cult. Calling the Mormon church a cult –certainly for the last century (+)– doesn't make people think less of LDS. It makes cults seem not so dangerous.

This is why Amy's snot is so annoying. It doesn't make religious belivers look foolish, it makes scientific sophistication seem arrogant.

Seeing B.Y. called a rock star brings to mind a favorite internet piece by law professor in Tennessee: We ought not get too smirky about the power of charismatic personalities to claim authority in our lives. It's better to be grateful that modern culture has learned to safely and often amusingly drain that power.

> in the immortal words of Tyler Durden,
> "You are not a beautiful or unique
> snowflake."

I prefer the mocking locution of David Allen Grier: "It's time to heal all the broken teacups."

(Sorry if this is a double post. Had a computer connection issue.)

According to Genesis, the Sun was not created until the 3rd day, so what was the Light on the first day of "Let there be Light"? Religion and Science do not have to be at odds with each other.

Science: The Universe started with The Big Bang.
Religion: "Let there be Light" on the first day.

Science: Molecules coalesced forming the first stars and galaxies.
Religion: "The waters separated" on the second day.

Science: Eventually our own Sun came into being and the planets solidified.
Religion: God creates the Sun and Moon on the third day.

Science: Life first developed in the oceans with microorganisms which eventually become the first sea creatures and plants.
Religion: God creates the fishes of the sea and plants on the earth on the fourth day.

Science: Dinosaurs roamed the land.
Religion: God creates animals and Great Beasts on the fifth day.

Science: Eventually man evolves from an early ancestor common with the apes.
Religion: From the dust of the earth God creates Man on the sixth day.

Science: While the earth and life still changes, human lifespan is but a smidgeon in the grand scheme of things. It takes millions of years for significant changes to be noticed.
Religion: God rests on the seventh day.

Jerry, I was going to quote specific parts of your post, but I really have issue with the whole thing. I am not sure how this explains that science and religion don't have to be at odds with each other. "Life first developed in the oceans with microorganisms which eventually became the first sea creatures and plants" is not at all similar to "God creates the fishes of the sea and plants on the earth on the fourth day." I'm not even sure how to explain it further that that text already does. Your use of "eventually" in regard to science and "God creates" in regard to religion seem to elucidate the innate differences in the two rather than the similarities. What you posted above is essentially the creationism vs. evolution argument.

Jerry Katz: According to Genesis, the Sun was not created until the 3rd day, so what was the Light on the first day of "Let there be Light"? Religion and Science do not have to be at odds with each other.

In the beginning, there was nothing. But God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light.

And there was still nothing, but you could see it better!

Crid, NumberSix is right the early mormon church was a cult, it still is in many ways.

They are taught that the US goverment will fail and beg the church to assume control of the country. They also beleive that they will one day become gods of their own universes.

lenona: This got hinted at in the first half of the 1950s children's book "The Enormous Egg." It's loaded with political (and scientific) humor and hints from page one. I didn't get it as a kid, of course. Quote (not verbatim) from a ten-year-old boy: "I asked my pop about it, and he said there never were any dinosaurs. He said nobody ever saw any. Some crazy scientists found a lot of old bones and they just made up all that business about dinosaurs out of their own heads."

I loved that story.

lujlp, such a typical attitude. Any church that isn't ours is a cult.

Are you a mormon Patrick?

No. I just resent the crass dismissal of peoples' heartfelt beliefs. Unless your religion involves human or animal sacrifice or something along those lines, I would rather treat a person's sincere beliefs with respect.

The Mormons I know seem to be nice, genuine, family-oriented people and productive citizens. I really couldn't ask for much better. Some things they do that I respect. Their priests (which actually include all males) don't give up their careers for a once a week speaking engagement while mooching off the members of their church. They don't believe in smoking or drinking.

For the record, I couldn't be a Mormon. Gays aren't allowed. If that tabloids have it correctly, that's why Marie Osmond's son committed suicide. He was gay in a church that did not accept that.

And for the record, I hate the word "cult." It's an unfair attack, because it's ambiguous. The word means a religion that is unorthodox. You can't defend yourself from that accusation. In what way is the Mormon Church unorthodox? And is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't the soi-disant mainstream religions and anything to brag about.

It's just lazy debating. If you want to talk about their history, which includes polygamy, fine. That's certainly a valid objection. If you want to talk about Joseph Smith's dubious account of how he acquired this amazing Book of Mormon, I'm up for that, too. (Personally, I think it's about the biggest crock I've ever heard.)

But this crass "It's a cult" presented as if it means anything, is a cop-out.

The Goddess Writes: And God Sneezed, And Created Lake Michigan

What bodily function did God exercise to create New Jersey? I'm voting explosive diarrhea.

So your answer is no.

I'll cut you off there.

As you are not a mormon by your own admision then perhaps you should listen when the people who acctually were mormons tell you it is still a cult in many respects

And everyone knows this is how New Jersy was created

http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/Care_Bear_Genocide

Thanks for the comments on Oliver Butterworth's "The Enormous Egg." It's still very much in print. Check out the Capitol scenes with Senator Granderson - you won't believe them. (But it's better to read the book from the start, of course - it doesn't take long. It was also made into a play.)

And:

Barbara Ehrenreich once said that the real difference between ANY religion and a "cult" is size. I have to say that it's certainly true that it's pretty seldom that any non-Muslim refers to Islam as a cult. (Oh, and for the record, according to one source, only 20 percent of Muslims are Arabs. That means 800,000,000 Muslims are not.)

>>I'm recommending a book again called The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It's fiction, but it nicely details how people that grow up in a cult-like atmosphere get their information.

Another big cheer for that novel from me, NumberSix.

I thought it was a stunning achievement (of imagination, on top of facts available elsewhere).

And a cult that takes root and spreads is still a cult (I respect lujlp's view on the Mormons).

Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought the defining characteristic of a cult was insider information and ritual being available only to the anointed - not how many members there are?

"In what way is the Mormon Church unorthodox? And is that necessarily a bad thing?"

Considering Joseph Smith made up his "Egyptian alphabet" all by himself, not realizing that the Rosetta Stone had been discovered and it would expose him as a fraud...

...it's not, and no more so than the next fantasy shortcut to "knowledge".

Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought the defining characteristic of a cult was insider information and ritual being available only to the anointed - not how many members there are?

I agree. Other signs include:

severing relationships with non-members
discouragement of individualism, free will and dissent
emphasis on a charismatic leader

I don't know if just one is sufficient, but the more of those signs are present the more cult-like a religion is.

I know a vegitarian(who eats fish), sees them as a hygine issue.

Though she did buy glue traps, as they were not a 'creul' as the snap traps.

You should hve seen the look of horror on her face when I asked how it was more humane to trap mice on a sheet of glue for them to starve to death while attempting to gnaw off stuck limbs, as opposed to a trap that sattered their entire bodies killing them instantly

damn, wrong thread

> NumberSix is right the early mormon church
> was a cult, it still is in many ways.

Lou, no. These beliefs outgrow your wordplay. It's like saying in "many ways" a car is a bicycle. (Transportation! Wheels! Crashes!)

If you want to say you're pissed at the Mormon church (and we know that you almost certainly do), go ahead. But you don't get to warp the language just because your feelings are hurt. It's not all about you.

"Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought the defining characteristic of a cult was insider information and ritual being available only to the anointed - not how many members there are?"

Your neighborhood church has information & rituals exclusive to it's congregation, but I think you'd be rather shocked if you heard that the preacher & his whole congregation were dead after drinking cyanide. There's a big difference in kind, not just in degree, between it and the Peoples Temple in Jonestown.

For me at least, two characteristics that a cult must have to be a proper cult are:

First, it must be a one-way street - new members can get in, but can never get out except in a casket. Peoples Temple members who didn't want to drink their cyanide & tried to escape were shot dead. There's a death penalty for apostasy in Islam. Sure, some people manage to get out of cults alive, but the threat of death is real & ever-present.

Second, there must be aggressive recruitment & brainwashing of new members & converts. There's an Amish community not far from me. The Amish may seem like a cult, what with their buggies & bonnets & their desire to live apart from the rest of us in the 21st century. But conversions to the Amish church are virtually non-existent. Likewise, you will never encounter a Hasid in a black coat & beard waving his Torah scroll at you & demanding that you convert to Judaism. Regardless of the intensity of their beliefs & their self-imposed separation from the rest of society, I think of the Amish & the Hasidim as clans, not cults.

The Jehovah's Witlesses DEFINITELY do this:

"severing relationships with non-members"
(they call it "disfellowshipping" and it is more commonly known as shunning)

and this:

"discouragement of individualism, free will and dissent"

But they try to weasel their way out of the "cult" moniker because of this:

"emphasis on a charismatic leader"

Since the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society is an *organization* and not a single leader, they say they do not fit the definition of a cult.

Since I rejected all that nonsense at a fairly young age and never got officially baptized as one of them, my mom is still allowed to speak to me. If I had been baptized and subsequently disfellowshipped (or if I had disassociated myself), she would be forbidden from having a relationship with me. The people with disfellowshipped kids have to sneak around in order to talk to their own kids, and if the others find out they apply a lot of pressure.

What's really, utterly sickening is that most of the people who get disfellowshipped come crawling back on their hands and knees, begging to be allowed back in. Yuck! Leaving was no big deal for me - I left home, moved away, and made friends. I got out young, though. The social isolation is so complete that people in their 30's - even if they don't really believe it anymore - are almost incapable of leaving.

I don't care whether you call it a cult or not. It's still a totally shit organization.

I've never met a Mormon I didn't like.

Don't know many Jehovah's Witnesses, so can't say...

> I don't care whether you call it a cult or
> not. It's still a totally shit organization.

Good to know in just those terms.

NicoleK, if you met them, you'd probably think they were very nice. And they do mean well. They honestly think that by converting you, they are going to save your life.

It's just that, for example, I grew up in a very rural area, and there were no other kids my age in that congregation. Most of the kids at school didn't like me much, since I went around trying to preach to them that there was no Santa Claus. My social skills were poor because of isolation, and I wasn't even supposed to have friends who didn't belong to "the Truth." So even if I *had* been invited to any slumber parties (which I most notably was NOT), I wasn't supposed to go anyway.

But this just meant that I had NO friends, so when one new girl at school decided she liked me, my mom was kind enough to let me have a friend. But I was supposed to keep it a secret. Likewise, if my mom got me something for my birthday, it was not supposed to be officially FOR my birthday, and I wasn't supposed to tell any of the other JWs that I got anything at all.

But you know, sometimes kids slip up and say things, so eventually a few people found out that I had a "worldly" friend from school, which left my mom trying to defend why I was allowed this, since "bad associations spoil useful habits." (To them, anyone who is not also a JW is a bad association.) I got around this by bringing my friend to a couple of the meetings - their whole attitude changes, then. Gotta be nice to potential converts!

I can tell these stories and you can decide for yourselves what you think. But I won't stoop to name-calling on these people. I still remember a number of them fondly. Their intentions are not evil, even if the religion itself is completely counterproductive. Most of them are not what you'd call intelligent or well-educated, partly because the Society frowns on higher education.

Many of those old men in the Society's headquarters in NYC, who by the way are sitting on billions of dollars, probably are truly evil. (All that money, they don't pay taxes on their buildings, and they've never opened a single charity.) But I can't quite stick that label on 80-year-old "Ethel," who just never knew any better.

Okay, I've read some comments in reference to my last post, and then I reread what I had written and I feel the need to clarify what I said.

I did not mean that the Mormon church is a cult. The book I referred to dealt specifically with the beginnings of the Mormon religion, which was cult-like in today's standards before the church decried the practice of plural marriage and distanced itself from some of Brigham Young's teachings. It also deals with a present-day actual cult that is a radical sect of the Mormon church. In fact, Patrick, the narrator is a young gay man but was tossed out of the camp for supposed infractions with a girl (when actually it's because the leaders of these sects tend to toss out young men to have better access to the young women themselves, like in the most recent case of the polygamy cult in the news). Anyway, I used that book to illustrate the point that any organization that exercises extreme control over the information available can control what its members think, because nothing else is available to them. This was all in direct response to something Crid said about people not accepting evolution because they weren't exposed to it, versus not accepting because it isn't flattering to them. My beef is not with any specific church or organization, but with those who attempt to control the minds of their followers/constituents/employees/family/etc. through either misinformation or limited access to information.

When I graduated from high school long ago, the girl with the highest grades in the graduating class was a Jehova's Witness. She was incredibly bright, beautiful, personnable, and she would have scooped a fortune in graduate bursaries and scholarships except she wasn't allowed to leave home or to attend university. I can't think about the JW without thinking about what a terrible shame of a waste that amounted to. Still feel awful for that poor girl.

> I did not mean that the Mormon
> church is a cult

I didn't mean to accuse you of saying that. My concern is that there are people visit (and even hosting) this forum who, having taken personal affront, are trying to describe religious belief as a weirder and more exotic condition than it really is. Wording counts.

Yeah, the JWs don't want their kids going out and exposing their sheltered little minds to new ideas. Ironically, that's the very thing that clued me in to the fact that just maybe these people were full of shit. Because why were they so strict about what you could read, anyway? Couldn't their ideas stand up on their own merit? If the only way they can keep you in their religion is to make sure you never learn about anything else, maybe they were hiding something.

One of their books, which I had to read a lot as a kid, because it was directed towards kids, went on for four pages bashing a college education, and then finished up with the following questions. (They do a lot of repetitive reinforcement by making you read paragraphs and answer questions at the end.)

1."Why do secular careers often fail to bring personal happiness?

2.Why should all God-fearing youths consider a career in the full-time ministry?

3.What are the claimed benefits of higher education, and do such claims always hold true?

4.What dangers might university education pose?

5.What alternatives to university education can a youth consider?"

What *DANGERS* might university education pose? Gimme a freakin' break. I remember when I was about 15, not long before I made a break from it, my mom bragging to relatives about the fact that I wasn't going to go to college, instead I was going to spend my life "in service to Jehovah." She thought I was going to get married young and go preach the Word in far-off, out-of-the-way places while making my living as a janitor, the same way all the other "exemplary" young couples did. You were groomed to go spend two years working in their HQ in New York for nothing but room and board and then become a full-time door-knocker.

But you know, at the end of the day, despite all the brainwashing, this is still the USA, and you can't actually tell an 18-year-old they aren't "allowed" to leave home or attend university. Heh ... I became so rebellious, I don't think my parents could WAIT for me to leave.

Full disclosure, though - my dad was never one of them. My mom got into it AFTER they were married and had two kids. Dad just never interfered. He worked all the time, provided a paycheck, and didn't really interact with us kids all that much. Raising us was viewed as Mom's job, and he didn't seem terribly interested. However, I think I always saw his uninvolvement with the JWs as something I had in my back pocket. She pressured him like hell to join, but gave up after years of his steadfast, quiet resistance.

PirateJo:

Couldn't agree more -- restricting access to alternate viewpoints is a huge red flag.

"4.What dangers might university education pose?"

Sounds like something you might hear tossed around on Fox News these days, what with the apparent antipathy towards the "educated classes" and all.

La plus ça change...

I think you're working the word "cult" harder than it can be worked.

Wording counts.

I know that, Crid. Which is why I was referring to a book that is specifically about current polygamy sects (not the entire church) and the early days of the Mormon church, and also why I never used the word "cult," only the phrase "cult-like," which may seem like splitting hairs, but it's an important differentiation to me. I hesitate to use the word cult precisely for the reasons you describe. I think it's grossly overused, and has thus lost much of its threatening connotation. Not every religion or even extreme sect of a religion is a cult. The 19th Wife has an in-depth exploration of how people get caught up in such things and how that makes it easier for them to be duped by scumbag leaders. But these people still had choices to make and they chose to believe and follow their charismatic leader because they hoped it would get them into paradise. It's the kids who grow up in those secluded places that I consider to be in more of a cult, because they haven't had the chance to learn any better, or really at all.

Like you, I don't believe that religious belief is all that weird. It's not actually that hard to understand why some people would rather believe in an omnipotent figure than believe we're on our own down here. A lot of it's about comfort, and you don't have to be brainwashed to get into that. No matter what I think of religion (and I don't like any of them), most religious people I meet in my daily life pose no threat to me, so it's not really my business. In fact, Amy recently said that she doesn't talk to her friends about religion unless they bring it up to her, so maybe it's just the fact that this is her forum to lead that makes her look more snotty about the subject than she may really be. For me, believing in a god would have no bearing on the way I live my life, so I choose not to and only keep up the pretense of praying at certain family events (like my cousin's recent wedding) where it would be rude to be looking around while everyone else has his head bowed. No sense in drawing undue attention.

> this is her forum to lead that
> makes her look more snotty about
> the subject than she may really be

I've no doubt that in person, she's, um, angelic. But I've dared her to actually attend a religious service in her neighborhood, in a patient, non-confrontational way, and tell us about the people she meets, and whether they're worth ridiculing.

She won't do it.

NumberSix, I think Crids rant about wording was directed at me.

And Crid, I agree, wording does count.

Thats why I used the words I did

>>But I've dared her to actually attend a religious service in her neighborhood, in a patient, non-confrontational way, and tell us about the people she meets, and whether they're worth ridiculing.

Crid,
What special insight do you imagine Amy would gain about the people she met in such a context?

Aren't people usually at their squeaky-clean 'Sunday best' during religious services?

I've actually been thinking about attending a Unitarian church service, just to see what it's like. I know they aren't dogmatic, and don't even care whether you believe in deities. If it's full of new-agey, crystal-peddling hippies, I'll probably give it a pass. But I would like to get involved in some kind of charitable effort to help make other people's lives better. I have real, professional skills in money management - not a CPA, but have a BA in accounting and an associates degree in MIS, plus almost 20 years of experience. It does seem to be an area where people are inexperienced and clueless.

I am big on saying we shouldn't have federal programs to help people with their problems, so maybe, in order to be putting my money where my mouth is, I should be willing to step up to the plate and help people on a local level. This doesn't make me religious, just civic-minded, and right now I'm not sure where else to go in order to make myself useful.

Pirate Jo,
Big Brother Big Sister is the one we actively help - I believe they are vaguely church affiliated. (Which doesn't worry this atheist at all!)

I knew a Jehovah's Witness once. I don't think he was too caught up in it, though. He was a roadie for a local punk band.

Pirate Jo, you rock. Churches often have really excellent social service programs, but I do think the quality (or maybe the quality of their motivation for providing such services) varies a lot depending on the community they're serving. I just interviewed this wonderful man who's a pastor at a huge baptist church in a run-down section of Oakland and even though their facility was huge, it had a very different feel from the mega-church complexes I see in the burbs where I grew up. The mega-churches are offering programs (child care, after-school programs, stuff like that) that already exist in those areas, so the constituents can get all their needs met at church. That effort to be an isolated community creeps me out. But it seemed like the Oakland baptist church was offering services because they were the only agency willing to. They had a pre-school and child care so parents can work, they had a health clinic because there are no private doctors or clinics, they had a senior living facility because those people had nowhere else to go. The pastor was so smart and so invested in this community that I don't really care what he believes, he's doing good work.

Two thoughts to impart:

- I think it would be worthwhile to scrutinize the methodology behind that study that found 40% of Americans believed in the young earth. (Also to repeat a similar study in a manner designed to be as objective as possible.)

- Diligent scientific inquiry in many, if not most cases, consists of doing one's best to arrive at the greatest possible state of certainty about a hypothesis. Keeping this in mind, and with due humility, I hypothesize that most people believe in at least one thing that isn't true. In all likelikehood I believe is one or more things that aren't true. But I'm a firm believer in evolutionary theory and a skeptic about the existence of a god.

For a long while as a child I had thought "Let there be Light" meant the Sun until in Hebrew School it was clarified to me that the Sun was created on the third day. That got me to thinking, what was the Light? The Big Bang Theory holds first there was nothing then Bang, the universe started. "Let there be Light!" It clicked.

My point is that Genesis does not have to be taken so literally, as Judaism doesn't demand. Even a Hasidic rabbi I knew during college had said so. I found it interesting that Genesis and Astronomy/Evolution are saying the same story in the same order in different words. According to Evolution life developed first in the oceans. That's what Genesis says - God created the creatures of the sea before all other life. The "Great Beasts" that were created on the fifth day are not specifically defined. Does it mean lions and tigers and bears, oh my? Maybe, maybe not. It could very well mean dinosaurs, taking nothing away from the "story" of Genesis.

Science does not disprove Religion. Religion does not prohibit Science.

Right on, Iconoclast. Your statement about believing things that aren't true reminds me of a bit from comedian Dara O'Briain (thanks, Amy, for turning me onto him; he's very funny!). It's not really even a joke, he just says in response to people saying that science doesn't know everything (and meaning it as an insult) that "Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it'd stop." I think this bit is in the clip on homeopathy Amy posted a while back. Anyway, like you, that's my view as well. I have no problem admitting I've believed something that wasn't true when presented with evidence or new research that says it isn't true. That's what science is: an unending study of the universe. It's never done, and our knowledge expands and reshapes with every new thing we figure out, which, in return, gives us more questions. Pretty amazing, really.

> What special insight do you
> imagine Amy would gain about the
> people she met in such a context?

First of all, "in such a context" is an awfully desiccated way of saying "in church." Exactly how socially distant do you need to be from some before you describe their company as "such a context"?

That's precisely the topic, too. If I talked about blacks, or Asians, or (modern) women, or gays, or the mentally retarded, or any other minority with the shallow, untextured, witless comedy Amy showers on religious people, you'd know perfectly well what "insight" you'd find lacking.

So it's remarkable that you've got the nards to ask. They're people. If she actually went to the trouble of meeting them, she'd be much more circumspect about the jokes, just as freckled Kansas farmboys often stop making jokes about black guys once they've actually worked alongside a few in the service or in college or the Big City.

> Aren't people usually at their
> squeaky-clean 'Sunday best'
> during religious services?

Do you need to ask? Should you give it a try to?... Or are you just afraid that our hostess is too naive about the evil that hides behind a smiling welcome?

(Personally, I think that's why she hasn't done it. She's AFRAID. Easier to throw childish taunts from a laptop than look someone in the eye and take a reading.)

Nope. Doesn't count. Amy, hie thee to the sanctuary. You've spent hours– dozens, maybe hundreds of hours mocking them on you blog since I've been reading it. A couple hours on a Sunday morning might be good fun, if only as research for your next fusillade. (Dunno what you're gonna do if some nice family invites you to lunch, though.) Think of it as an opportunity to accessorize with a hat.

Crid, go watch Bill Maher's Religulous.

I'd rather kiss a camel on the lips. I've seen enough clips of it to know that it's exactly the kind of mockery that Amy's indulging in, and just as unfunny. So why bother?

The thing about Maher and Colbert and Stewart is, when they say something stupid or unprincipled or contrary to what they said the night before, and you call them on it, they'll say "But we're just trying to tell some jokes here!"

And they're not trying nearly hard enough. But making the highest possible number of people sit through a commercial is the business they're in. Is someone like that really going to show the way for you, or are you just comforted to be counted amongst their viewer-zombies? Alice, would you hate to be exceptional?

You might learn how much offense they take at your attitude.

You're right... Not worth the risk. Better to pretend they're not human.

Science does not disprove Religion. Religion does not prohibit Science.
Posted by: Jerry Katz

Your half right Jerry, science does not disprove religion - 9 times out of ten the religion itself proves it is false

But religion does prohibit science. Case in point?
stem cell research, and then ofcourse there is the catholic church which did not recognise the fact that the earh rvolves around the sun until the 1960's

That's precisely the topic, too. If I talked about blacks, or Asians, or (modern) women, or gays, or the mentally retarded, or any other minority with the shallow, untextured, witless comedy Amy showers on religious people, you'd know perfectly well what "insight" you'd find lacking. Posted by: Crid

So crid, what you are saying is that there is no difference between genetic traits, gender, accidents of nature, and the vollentary belief in an powerless 'all powerful' imainsry friend?

You usually arent that stupid.

Considering the fact that if christians a thousand years ago were as kind as christians today like to delude themselves into beliveing, most of todays chritaian would either be pagans or muslims

Amy: "I don't pretend they're not human -- they're just humans who I like who believe in some unfounded stuff."

There's your highly combustible straw congregation, Crid!

No one apart from you has said anything about folks with religious beliefs being somehow alien creatures.

(And personally I always enjoy attending services at the Glide Memorial in San Francisco. We go - as a family, our hulking atheist sons too - each time we visit that city. Very ecumenical tone, wonderful singing, terrific gay preacher last time; and your donations help their extensive homeless program.)

> they're just humans who I like who
> believe in some unfounded stuff.

They're humans who like who you don't want to meet. Or are afraid to meet. (Two hours of your time, including dressing before hand and a drink afterwards to wind down.) You sound like the racists of my youth in the midwest: I'm not racist– I watch that one TV show about that black woman! I just don't want to have to DEAL with them!

> There's just no talk of how my "sign" supposedly
> affects my life.

The stakes are bigger and you know it. If astrologers had WEEKLY convocations in thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of purpose-built halls across the land, I'd go... It would be essential to know what they're getting out of it.

> what you are saying is that there is no difference
> between genetic traits, gender, accidents of
> nature, and the vollentary belief in an powerless
> 'all powerful' imainsry friend?

So poorly phrased and typed that I haven't a clue what you're getting at. And then:

> You usually arent that stupid

Perfect! Hey Lou: Blow yourself. Or at least try to understand that one reason your rage against religion is so hard to share with others (much like Amy's condescension) is that it's adolescent.

> No one apart from you has said anything
> about folks with religious beliefs being
> somehow alien creatures.

Amy imagines they're built for mockery, and I've yet to meet the creature that feels that way about its own life.

> Very ecumenical tone

So they don't really MEAN it,

> wonderful singing

No worse than going to a country music concert or seeing Newton in Vegas,

> terrific gay preacher last time

My own silly needs to flatter myself as a sexual sophisticate were automatically met,

> your donations help their extensive
> homeless program

Actually, err

Actually, they do. The soup kitchen at the church in my hometown does wonderful work that way. Food plus other assistance. I haven't yet heard of an Astrologer's Alliance that feeds the hungry.

Crid - "are trying to describe religious belief as a weirder and more exotic condition than it really is."

I'm sorry Crid, but I don't think it's possible to describe religious belief as weirder than it is. I admit that it isn't exotic, since it's believed by the majority of Americans, but that doesn't mean it isn't weird. The whole supernatural mindset that goes with deeply religious beliefs gives them a very different view of reality. It just seems insane to me. You don't like Amy putting down those beliefs, but you could easily skip the posts that will obviously lead to that.

For those that say that we 'closet ourselves' with people with like beliefs, FUCK YOU! I'm surround by people who believe nonsense, so it's nice to be reminded that not everybody believes that way. I don't have to go anywhere to hear beliefs unlike my own.

Pirate Jo, if my understanding of the Unitarians is anywhere close to accurate, they seem to be more of a social than religious organization. My understanding just comes from reading about them, so I don't claim to be an expert.

I do know someone that believes that the world was created a few thousand years ago. I've know others in the past. Some of them have said that the devil put the fossils there to mislead us. Why an 'all powerful' deity would allow this I have no clue, just as I have no clue why such a being would want to mess with our minds by putting them there itself.

> don't think it's possible to describe religious
> belief as weirder than it is.

Proportion is for wussies? Best of luck to you.

>>My own silly needs to flatter myself as a sexual sophisticate were automatically met,

Naw, Crid.
That gay Glide preacher was brilliantly funny about his teen coming out story - as a Christian! (Trust me, there wasn't a dry seat in the house - guy had his timing down a treat.)

>>Amy imagines they're built for mockery, and I've yet to meet the creature that feels that way about its own life.

True, supernatural beliefs can be mocked. It doesn't follow that either the life or the individual is in any way ridiculous.

But you will keep ignoring the annoying fact that atheists here say they have friends with religious faith.

We don't need to go and gawp in church like tourists in a strange land. We know we are surrounded!

Crid,
1 - if I were capable of blowing myself I'd have died of starvation long ago.

2 - you compared gender and inhereted genetic traits to a vollentary belief in something that isnt real

That was stupid. Deal with it.

3 - we know wht religious people get out of religion. Its the same thing children get from their favorit blanket or stuffed toy.

They get a feeling of security. Its nothing more than a talismin that they cling to to provide them a sense of stability in an inherenty unstable world.

I get that. Hell I'm 30yrs old and I still have the stuffed bear I got just before my step mother started smacking my sister and I around. So I understand peoples need for something that they think gives them stability.

4 - I have no rage twords religion. You may as well get mad at a rock or a fork. Religion is a tool.

My anger whih is primarily born of frutration, is with the people wo practice their religions. Mainly at their willful ignorace of the facts in front of them

Crid - "Proportion is for wussies?" What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

"We don't need to go and gawp in church like tourists in a strange land."

Thread win.

> you will keep ignoring the annoying
> fact that atheists here say they
> have friends with religious faith.

There's no reason to believe them. Nor to doubt that if the atheists here compelled themselves to make new friends in the faithful, they'd stretch their understanding of human nature in essential ways. (And that "annoying fact" thing is presumptuous and book-marketing silly, in an Al Gore kind of way. I'll be sure and tell you when I'm annoyed, m'kay? [Fuckin' lefties....])

> We don't need to go and gawp in
> church like tourists in a strange
> land.

Puh-leeeeze. Yooo aaain't gonnnnna doooo noooo gawkin'. YOU'RE TOO COWARDLY to gawp. You talk as though you move through the world with lightning insights of blinding brightness and thundering loudness, cleverness which the little people are too thick to recognize.... And yet you won't go to the chapel on the corner, where good people take receptive, patient comfort with each other every Sunday, to test their response to your gawping.

> Its nothing more than a talismin

It'd be more convincing if you spelt it rite. If you understand everyone's motives so clearly, how come they don't listen when you tell them it's not working out for them? Is atheism just an excuse for you to share your deepest personal hurts? (Because no one was asking....)

> "Proportion is for wussies?" What the
> fuck is that supposed to mean?

It means (the fuck) that when someone says something is just endlessly weird, as weird as a black hole, as weird as the weirdest thing you've ever heard of and then weird some more, it means (the fuck) that they're trying too hard. Religious beliefs and feelings just aren't that weird... They're a broad human norm, many times more prominent in human life than the gayness to which Tressider is compelled to respectfully genuflect. (Why are coming out stories supposed to be more interesting than reveries of eternal salvation? Aren't each the ruin of a beautiful Sunday morning?) Isn't weirdness exactly the complaint about gays for which we (rightly) have no patience?

> Thread win.

I keep a wide, pulsing thread in my pants. It's a winner.

That "annoying fact" thing still rankles. It's what I hate so much about lefties, the way they imagine themselves to be daring and subversive.

Where's the Whatever guy? We covered this a few months ago. Lefties CANNOT do humor about anything, certainly not about themselves.

>>And yet you won't go to the chapel on the corner, where good people take receptive, patient comfort with each other every Sunday, to test their response to your gawping.

Asked and answered ad. naus., Crid.

Although - dread thought! - d'you mean atheists should keep parking themselves in a pew , like, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday until we finally get "it"?

You do seem awfully keen on enforced church attendance for non-believers!!

>>Nor to doubt that if the atheists here compelled themselves to make new friends in the faithful, they'd stretch their understanding of human nature in essential ways.

You what?

So if, if, IF an atheist happens to cultivate a chum who happens not to be an atheist (and you say you don't "believe" such claims anyway), it's because the former is being super-bendy about something?

Do you even have a clue how grown-up friendships work?

> Asked and answered

Nope. All you guys did, or apparently can do, is double down on the snark.

> Sunday after Sunday after Sunday
> until we finally get "it"?

You're that afraid, aren't you? It's like some sort of 1950's monster go, and if ya git any onya, you'll be a zombie too! You guys aren't sure enough of your own cosmologies to test them –warmly, patiently test them– with other people you might come to admire. Better just to stay naive, and make insults that the third-grader wouldn't laugh at.

> So if, if, IF an atheist happens to cultivate a chum
> who happens not to be an atheist (and you say you
> don't "believe" such claims anyway), it's because
> the former is being super-bendy about something?

I can't read that. Write it again, only better.

> Do you even have a clue how grown-up
> friendships work?

Yes. Eye contact is essential. Without it, there's no tellin'.

>>You guys aren't sure enough of your own cosmologies to test them –warmly, patiently test them– with other people you might come to admire.

Sorry if I've been unclear, Crid.

Yes, I've been to church services. Many of 'em.

I personally have friends who believe in God.

I do not believe in God.

I rub along delightfully with the people I adore - whether or not they believe in God.

Because I notice that people generally tend to observe the proprieties when physically inside a public place of worship (there have been some horrible exceptions, of course!), I wouldn't remotely expect any special insight into the interior character of individuals I didn't already know, based solely on their behavior in church.

In fact, I believe you will likely gain far better insight into the inner character of pious strangers if you closely observe what they do and say outsidethe context of a church service.

Also, Crid?

The Reformation, which many of us consider A Good Thing, got some of its energy from folks similarly noticing a lot of shitty stuff going on under the cover of outward piety.

Just fancy that!

> I wouldn't remotely expect any special
> insight into the interior character
> of individuals

You don't trust your own judgment. Better to stay isolated... As if the concern were that you couldn't detect their venality. Actually, it's more about giving them a chance to reflect on yours.

> The Reformation, which many of us consider
> A Good Thing, got some of its energy
> from folks similarly noticing a lot
> of shitty stuff going on under
> the cover of outward piety.

That's preposterous. Did Martin Luther deliver the theses to "weird" strangers through mockery and condescending blog posts? Just how magical do you imagine yourself to be?

>>That's preposterous. Did Martin Luther deliver the theses to "weird" strangers through mockery and condescending blog posts? Just how magical do you imagine yourself to be?

Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door was a LOT like posting them to a well-trafficked blog on the internet, Crid.

Not magic - it's just communication, baby!

> Luther nailing his 95 theses to
> the church door was a LOT like
> posting them to a well-trafficked
> blog on the internet

Preposterous. Ludicrous. Silliness.

Besides—

> it's just communication, baby!

So why are you afraid to communicate with them?

Crid, you're the only person here who thinks we're afraid to communicate with them. That's all in YOUR head. Just because I'm an atheist who occasionally posts here, along with other atheists who post here, you assume we isolate ourselves from people with other beliefs. You assume we don't have contact with Christians, or friendship anyway.

>> you will keep ignoring the annoying
>> fact that atheists here say they
>> have friends with religious faith.

>There's no reason to believe them.

My, prejudiced much, Crid? We're atheists, so we all hate religious people and isolate ourselves from them. What a load of shit, Crid. You love to use the word snark, but you don't see it in yourself.

>>Crid, you're the only person here who thinks we're afraid to communicate with them. That's all in YOUR head.

Exactly, William.

Crid,
There's not much more to say when you only respond with variations of: "yeah, sez you!..."

I'm outta here.

> you're the only person here who
> thinks we're afraid to communicate
> with them

Point being?

> you assume we isolate ourselves from
> people with other beliefs.

Yes. At least with regard to those beliefs when you move through the world publicly. I'm certain you wouldn't be as smug and insulting with the believers you encounter as you are when mocking them as you do here. You're not that bitter. And if you were, you might well have frequently blackened eyes, or at least the reputation of a troubled asshole.

> variations of: "yeah, sez you!..."

The things people say about each other is our topic today, isn't it?... I think the things that get said about religious people in these comments are vastly, perhaps inexcusably distinct from what you'd say to them in person.

Per the gay analogy, I think you're playing a game they used to call don't ask / don't tell. Religious people are forbidden to present their belief to you in any personal context (and you would NEVER, NEVER approach them to see it in person... Such a thing is just too far beneath you.) So from the bloggy remove of your internet keyboard, these are essentially fag jokes: They aren't funny.

> I'm outta here.

Oh fuck! Jody's GONE!

But Amy is the Martin Luther of the internet!

Cris, why is it you assume that when matters of religion are raised in real life that we wont discuss them the same way we do here while at the same time interjecting our views on religion into conversations on any other topic

Again, I'm ASSUMING you're not that cruel, Lou. You acknowledge these are souls in pain:

Sez yoo:

> They get a feeling of security. Its nothing
> more than a talismin that they cling to to
> provide them a sense of stability in an
> inherenty unstable world.

And the response is mockery?

Not to persuade them... Couldn't be. You have another purpose in mind.

"Evolution not only explains how early primates evolved to become human, but how one species of bird becomes two, and how viruses morph over time to resist drugs. "

He rather blithely lumps together adaptation through selective reduction (survival of the fittest), and speciation (creation of new, genetically distinct species) under the heading of evolution.

Most creationists I've read have no problem accepting adaptation and selective reduction. That's readily observable and verifiable. It's the dinosaur-to-bird speciation that's harder to swallow, given the lack of transitional species.

Most mutations are destructive, resulting in a loss of information, damage to the DNA, etc.. Suggesting that mutations arise as a response to environmental changes suggests some mechanism to ADD information to the system. Improvement, not degradation. This is where a lot of the anthropomorphizing and vague hand waving comes in when trying to explain how this might happen.

Looking at Hubble photos of nebula, swirling clouds of gas emitting all sorts of radiation, both visible and invisible, it's easy to deduce how you could have light without a sun. Also how you could speak of separating the light from the dark as the materials coalesce into solid planetary bodies separate and distinct from the suns.

As a commenter mentioned, the creation account isn't a documentary with a precise timeline. The events described could easily have taken millions of years.

Keep in mind also that theories about how old the universe is are basically wild ass guesses on how much time they think it would take for all this stuff to happen by chance. No way to measure it accurately, given that there are so many variables and unknowns. And that things like the rate of expansion (or contraction) of the universe, even the speed of light, can't accurately be treated as constants.

Makes the math a real bitch.

Steve, you ever seen the studies done on chicken eggs?

At one point in the gestation period chicken embyos sprout a reptillian tail, a few days later the vertebrea dissapear leaving them with the short stump their tail feathers will grow on

> Keep in mind also that theories about
> how old the universe is are basically
> wild ass guesses

Nothing, nothing could be further from the truth.

You're about the seventh guy to pull this stunt on this blog year. 'Nobody knows nuthin', right? It's all just the THEORY. So gee wilikers, if nobody knows nuthin', there's no reason for me not to embrace my silly Christian fantasies.

This is where a lot of the anthropomorphizing and vague hand waving comes in when trying to explain how this might happen.

Maybe we're just not reading the same stuff, but I have yet to see a good scientist ascribe human attributes to dinosaurs, birds, viruses, or any other studied organism, even the ones that are most like humans (some primates). And the "vague hand waving" you think you see is ridiculous. Ever talk to someone in the field about this stuff? You can't get them to shut up about the evidence they've found that means their old theory has been replaced with a newer, more specific one.

Keep in mind also that theories about how old the universe is are basically wild ass guesses on how much time they think it would take for all this stuff to happen by chance.

Love the "[k]eep in mind" here. Like what you've just said is absolute fact and the rest of us have lost our way. As far as the "wild ass guesses," I'm going to refer you here for the definition of a scientific theory. Key words and phrases: "observable phenomena," "empirical data," and "falsifiability." Just because you think theories about evolution are wild ass guesses doesn't make it so. If everything I didn't fully understand wasn't true, then we wouldn't have astrophysics, the internet, or most reality television. It's nice to know that people far more intelligent than I are studying the hard stuff.

Well, let's read it again:

> Keep in mind also that theories about how
> old the universe is are basically wild ass
> guesses on how much time they think it
> would take for all this stuff to
> happen by chance

I'm all lie, says who?

All like, I meant. Why would anyone think that's true? "Wild-ass guesses?"

Sheesh.

http://www.popsci.com/node/36702

#44
theres you a transitional Steve

Lou... Don't bother. Now he'll say there are two missing links, one on either side of that one.