Hey Bobby, just looking at your site, and I wonder to myself why you got so carried away with your whole FSM thing. I understand your point- religious fundamentalism is getting in the way of a progressive world. The fact that some schools only want to teach Intelligent Design is a bit scary. But then again, it’s probably difficult for you to try and teach your kids something that is being contradicted at school. And religion is not a bad thing in and of itself. A lot of people live good productive lives, and are even directed towards them by religious faith of some sort. Again, religious fundamentalism in all its guises is a bane, and it makes rational belieivers in God (among whom I count myself) feel defensive about their religions when there is actually no need to be. Kind of like the one kid in class who misbehaves and spoils it for everyone else.
This is precisely why I am writing. If your website offered a concise and clear explanation of why you think ID is an incorrect theory or should not be taught in schools, then maybe you’d actually be reaching people who disagree with you, rather than just those who already think the same things.
I think interested and well-informed debate between opposing viewpoints is fundamental for progress of our ideas and society, but that’s not what your site is promoting. Your site simply appears to be a way for you to prove your own popularity to yourself, and make a few bucks with merch and this book while you’re at it.
The fact that you decide to take an extreme approch to this matter is something which is all too familiar of late. I see America raging with political, moral, religious, and social debates. People are hugely polarised. But this isn’t getting anyone anywhere. People are standing on soapboxes as soon as they find something they disagree with just to shout "I disagree," and when asked about their beliefs they respond "I believe the opposite of what that guy said." People are not informing their ideologies with solid values, and so as soon as the argument is over nothing is resolved, and people are just floating around like helium balloons after a little kid’s birthday party.
The problem is that while they’re fighting, nobody sees the middle ground, and so the easy solutions get missed. I don’t think ID and Evolution are incompatible theories.
Look, it’s easy: all life on this planet evolved from DNA. DNA is a really really awesome molecule, because look at all the things it has adapted into to populate our planet! Someone really smart must’ve designed that stuff.
Or you can take it a step back, if you’re going with the ridiculous improbability of DNA forming by coincidence: Wow, a planet showed up with just the right conditions to create this awesome molecule…
or Wow, the universe has laws and constituents which are capable of producing all this life from such basic things…
The point is that nobody, not even the scientists, can explain the reason the universe is this way, or what happened at the moment of its creation. At that point, all we have is our best guess, our gut feeling, and at that point it really doesn’t matter what you believe.
The sort of intervention which the FSM is capable of refers to a very specific sort of belief in God, and pointing out that that particular sort of belief seems silly to you does not bear any relevance to the question of the initial creation of the universe.
Some people just don’t want to put everything down to "dumb luck" which is what science (for all the understanding it offers) ultimately does.
Whatever your opinion of religious faith, you have a right to express it, I’m just a bit puzzled by the way you chose to express yourself if you did actually want incite some sort of awareness or change about the matters which concern you. If you were just trying to piss a few people off and have a few people on your side laughing with you, then maybe you should have just pulled more pranks in high-school, or got the jocks together to beat up some freshman. That’s basically what your website acheives with its current content.
Of course, if you have no interest in changing people’s minds about these issues, then I guess I don’t have much else to say, except that your logic is horribly flawed at several points, even in terms of serving as analogous to what Christians say about creation.
Pach
“I think interested and well-informed debate between opposing viewpoints is fundamental for progress of our ideas and society, but that’s not what your site is promoting.”
To promote debate with ID is a ridiculous notion. It Is Not Science. It should not be in any science classroom nor any science textbook. It’s religion.
“The problem is that while they’re fighting, nobody sees the middle ground, and so the easy solutions get missed. I don’t think ID and Evolution are incompatible theories.”
Not only are they incompatible theories, they’re not even COMPARABLE theories. ID is “I have a hunch it’s this way cause I like how that sounds” and evolution is a SCIENTIFIC theory (re: all but solid fact) based on huge mountains of unbiased empirical evidence from thousands of researchers throughout time, with more coming in every day.
Look, the problem here is that you are arguing that since there’s two viewpoints, they should be given equal debate time in the education of the public. Nonsense like that is why the media still thinks global warming is a 50/50 fencesitting issue but the scientific community has come to a concensus. It’s nonsense to say that just because a competing ‘idea’ comes along to challenge a scientific theory, that they should both be given equal weight. I’m afraid evolution has a lot of evidence for it right now and intelligent design has none, merely hypotheses (which is not science).
“Look, it’s easy: all life on this planet evolved from DNA. DNA is a really really awesome molecule, because look at all the things it has adapted into to populate our planet! Someone really smart must’ve designed that stuff.”
What designed ‘that stuff’ was vast amounts of time and innumerable amounts of test runs on genetic programs. You run a few trillion possible programs, some with different modifications here and there, and some run better or worse in the current environment. With time and innumerable more test runs, the ecosystem of genetic programs becomes more robust and sublimely complex creatures gradually show up, disappear, are replaced by more efficient ones, and so on. The “design” is indeed calculated and computed, and the calculation is done by ribosomes making proteins out of genetic code. Life designs itself, and the environment performs QA on the resulting programs and machinery.
“Some people just don’t want to put everything down to “dumb luck” which is what science (for all the understanding it offers) ultimately does.”
If you think evolution can be reduced to the phrase “dumb luck”, you clearly have a facile and superficial understanding of how evolution works.
To quote John, “i had intended to respond to pach’s criticism but happily found that it had already been done from several angles and far more eloquently and logically than i would have managed. nice responses.”
In addition, and a bit off topic, I keep seeing the word evolution used in the past tense. Why is it that everyone seems to think evolution has stopped? To think our misguided, matter-devouring collection of destructive civilizations are the pinnacle of evolution of all life in the universe is pure hubris, indeed.
The problem with arguments like this, like arguments almost everywhere, is that while they may change a few people’s minds, there’s no huge collective of argument for a reasonable debate. If that occured, ID – and religious literalism as a whole, really – would be crushed instantly. Instead, we go on having these little battles everywhere, pitting the most rabid of both sides against eachother, changing few minds and merely dissolving information into the internet.
From my point of view, it is a shortcut but I want a shortcut to the end of the start depending on how you want to see it.
I believe we were designed but, I want to know the logic… I want to be binary.
[Abstract maybe but the formula is there]
If the forums are ever back up, rational and sane people on both sides of the religious/non-religious issue would be welcome. (They’ll be back, Bobby’s upgrading them. YAY! on behalf of the forum folks.)
We’ve moved beyond the yelling and such, and have a concerned and supportive ‘family’ that spend a lot of time on (1) helping kids deal with ID and Creationism really being taught in school and (2) dealing with the pressures of religious discrimination. We also have a lot of other serious discussions and a whole lot of fun. Some sheer lunatic fun…
But people who cannot properly spell “gnashing of teeth” probably won’t like it there…
I strongly disagree with you when you say that, “Religion is not a bad thing in itself.” Most religion is a body of primitive minds trying to understand the awesome complexity of the universe. Belief (or however its spelled) is religion, just like hope, and when someone has a belief that is different from another persons belief, there is always a power struggle between strong ideas.
I am only 15, but after weighing the pros and cons of religion, Im inclined to believe that the help that churches and other religious groups give others is somewhat dwarfed by the fact that, throughout history, uncountable people were slaughtered, enormous power was wielded by the WORST people to have it, and countless other atrocious crimes against humanity were all comitted in the name of Jesus, God, Allah, Yahwey, and even in the name of Buddha (probablly mispelled sorry). And all of those religions have good ideas that make society work (like being kind to others, no murder, no stealing). This is why they are so popular and coveted.
I got off topic sorry. Anyway, this is why I dont agree with you. However if you want to “enlighten me” I would enjoy speaking with you.
Live by jesus’ teachings, and dont be a hipocrite.
-Connor
P.S. What god would want you to worship him for like a 20th of the life he gave you? I like to think that god has a sense of humor, that thinks sex rules, and wouldn’t create a hell because hes |>awesome
Pach.
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Did it ever cross you mind that prehaps Bobby keeps this site going as a common meeting ground for those opposed to such ideas. Non-theists dont have churches so a great way of keeping people informed (and entertained) is a website like this.
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“just looking at your site, and I wonder to myself why you got so carried away with your whole FSM thing. ”
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This is like me saying I wonder why you have churches and all met there when God can see everywhere so no special place of worship is needed.
Wow… I haven’t seen this post before. Must return for well informed debate.