“10. [ a banana] Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy.”

I am holding a banana and it is curving AWAY from my face!!!

“George Gallup; “If I could prove God statistically; take the human body alone; the chance that all the functions of the individual would just happen, is a statistical monstrosity.”

Actually, the universe is so enormously vast that the chance of us NOT happening is statistical monstrosity (and who made George Gallup the font of all knowledge anyway?)

However, most of what you say is of course true, and points firmly to the existence of His Noodliness The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Just substitute ‘FSM’ for everytime you have written ‘God’ and you will see what I mean!
RAmen

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To save a group of people a father lets his son be tourtured to death;
A this father is a blithering idiot
B this father doesnt exsist
C if this father isnt worth SHIT as a father
D Lupus
E everything but Lupus the answer is never Lupus

Anyone can make logic statements supporting their claim and make them sound intelligent, thats just good PR. To make a logic statement and a Joke refrenceing House MD ///well that just takes some Noodely Goodness
RAmen

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We are aware God isn’t flesh and blood, he’s spaghetti and meatballs.This poor soul obviously does not like or understand natural selection and requires a more balanced spiritual diet. I pray his noodly appendages touch your heart some day soon.
R’amen

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i would reply to most of that but it’s bed time… (maybe i will tomorrow)

anyway try reading anything by richard dawkins (i.e. the selfish gene, the blind watchmaker, the god delusion). they should rebuff most of “your” points

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I see you’re recounting the flawed arguments from episode 7 of Ray Comfort’s Way of the Master at us. IronChariots.org has a point-by-point breakdown of the flaws in these fallacious arguments, as well as others made in that episode.

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But we share the same opinion, we also think that the world had to have been intelligently designed, we just disagree on whom did the designing. But even so, you should make sure all of your examples apply fully. Bananas used to have seeds, before they were domesticated. Natural selection would cause the bananas that are simpler to hold to be eaten (and spread) more often.

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Christians are so egotistical, to think that everything must have been created by man. Because, let’s face it: God is created to by man to elevate man, to delude us into thinking we’re more important in the grand scheme of things than we really are. Your Coca Cola and building ideas are examples of man-made objects and therefore make no sense to compare to “godliness.” As for the banana, yes, it happens to be so conveniently “pro-human,” but what of the, oh, thousands of other food choices out there that aren’t so obvious? What about the near-impervious coconut, the almost-deadly rhubarb, the hard to find truffle? It is by random chance that the banana happens to be so very convenient. Besides, if it’s so designed for humans, God must obviously greatly approve of oral sex because the banana just screams “LOL I’M EATING A PENIS!”

I ask you, Jonathon: why do Christians insist that atheists and agnostics are “lost” and that we deny God because we don’t want to admit it? Why can’t you accept that not being Christian makes some people very happy? That’s what religion and beliefs are really about: being happy with the world around you. And yet you people can’t seem to go a day without bringing non-Christians down, without believing that your way is the only way. Let us believe what we want, please. And do not attempt to “logically” insult our intelligence.

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He started with the banana….

FAIL.

MASSIVE FAIL.

MASSIVE UTTERLY TREMENDOUS FAIL.

STUPENDOUSLY I WALK AROUND WITH MY EYES CLOSED OR NEVER BOTHER REALLY STUDYING WHAT IT IS I AM TALKING ABOUT, AND AM SURPRISED WHEN I SPEW COMPLETE NONSENSE, OR WALK STRAIGHT INTO A POLE FAIL!

…was specially designed by his imaginary friend, you idiot the banana was domesticated by humans, the natural version is a fibrous fruit that resembles an elongated hand grenade.

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You are one arrogant son of a bitch.

Also, not everyone here is a Atheist.

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“Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
-Epicurus

By the way, Jonathon, the banana hypothesis is false. Humans have been cultivating bananas and manipulating their evolution for a long time.

And simply because one does not understand how a system works does not mean that the system is magical.

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Wow. There so much that wrong in this but I’ll take a moment to point out the largest problem that underlies all of them. While analogy is useful in simplifying a complex explanation into more bite-sized pieces, it is not science. It is not proof. It’s not even a good argument. There is nothing convincing in any of the above suppositions. There’s not even anything really intriguing.

And the banana thing. . . I saw the video on YouTube.

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You’re apparently recounting Ray Comfort’s arguments from episode 7 of Way of the Master at us. IronChariots.org has a point-by-point breakdown of the flaws in these fallacious arguments, as well as others made in that episode.

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Another example of someone who rejects evolution despite having no understanding of what it is. Evolution is not chance. It is a highly non-random process. If you cannot understand and appreciate one of the most elegant solutions mankind has ever obtained for itself (natural selection), I weep for you.
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Plus, have you seen a wild banana? Click here http://cairnarvon.rotahall.org/pics/wildbanana.jpg. If anything, bananas are further proof of evolution because we can use selective breeding to create bananas that are much more desirable.
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Please, please. I beg you. Educate yourself on a subject before you make up your mind on it.

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There is no order to the atom, because of quantum mechanics.

and we don’t say there is no god. we just say that from all observable
evidence, the flying spaghetti monster is god

see, of course a building has a builder.
in the way the beer volcano was created by the fsm.
and everything else was created by the fsm

RAmen

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This has got to be fake. No rational person would cite the banana video as lending credence to ID; it’s too stupid.

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To write that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to write that no one designed the Coca Cola can.

hahahaha…

i just laf. whats the point of explaining anything. you obviously believe totally in this.

good luck, and may you be touched by his noodly appendage some day and see the light.

RAmen

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Q. Have you stopped beating your wife ? Yes or No

Pasta in all its forms exists and is seen everyday. That doesnt take faith. String Theory takes faith. The Big Bang is observable. I have an aunt in Barnet. I havent seen her for some time but I know she’s there. But Jehovah, Yahweh, God hmmm. Not sure.

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HAHAHAHAHA !
Substitute penis for banana!

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i would actually advise you read some dawkins. it really opened my mind on the subject.

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Banana = Bible?
Hmm.

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I completely agree, I don’t know why there are all these Atheists on this site trying to say He doesn’t exist, isn’t it inescapably plain to see that the great FSM created everything. He was even nice enough to give us something delicious yet healthy in the banana. RAmen

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Man I love when these dorks quote mine darwin and einstien. Some of them even quote mine Dawkins as if he actually thinks there is a sky daddy. I dont know why you bother, even a child can see through that. The creationists are so good at quote mining the Bible to make their points they think that this is the correct way to debate.

First this guy quotes the utterly brain dead Ray Comfort with that banana nonsense. As if that ridiculous Masters of the Way nonsense hasn’t been debunked like a thousand times. I guess the pineapple or artichoke are God’s way of saying get the hell out of here! why would god make only one food with all these seemingly good quality? Why doesnt meat come in a a self sealed envelope? Let me guess, god works in mysterious ways.

Then you go into the tired old eye argument…its SOOOOO complex that there is no way it could be natural! Because you are the expert on everything there is about the complexities of the eye and since you say its impossible, therefore it is. Look up: argument from incredulity. Its a tired and old fallacy. Human beings HAVE recreated the functionality of an eye, ever hear of a camera? Not only that we have improved on it, we can see into wavelengths that the eye never needed to adapt to. We can see such incredibly small features that we can see individual atoms. So not only does your god make a crappy camera, we have done much better! So much for the idea that complexity requires a god.

What are the chances you are here writing these utterly inane and easily debunkable arguments? The chances are extremely thin! Wayyyy back, a long time ago out of the millions of people on the planet, a man an woman had to meet, get excited about each other, and make a baby. some time near that event, another couple had to meet, get excited and make a baby. then by strange coincidences, those two babies had to grow up, through all of lifes zig zags and meet, get excited and make a baby, while some time near that time, a completely different set of parents had to meet and make a baby. The chances of this happening each time grew from one in many millions to the changes of this genereation one in six billion. Multiply all those odds together and what do you have? Odds that are too great to imagine to you would actually be sitting there writing a totally obtuse essay with ideas that were debunked over 100 years ago. You are a statistical improbability.

Your entire post shows an amazing lack of understanding about the evolutionary process and total ignorance and lack of appreciation for the timescale involved. You dont know the different between spontaneity and accumulation. Your letter shows a complete and disgraceful lack of understanding of an atheists point of view i.e. very few say there is no god, but there is certainly no reason to believe in one without satisfactory evidence, you may as well believe in anything…the entire reason this site exists, but you are too bone headed to see that. The reality of FSM is no more and no less rational than your pet God (although a beer volcano is better than anything conceived of in the bible, so perhaps the FSM is a little more likely).

Your last paragraph is the ultimate in idiocy. We believe our computers turn on because we know that we as a society have developed them. we know that there are smart people who develop them. Who understand the underlying principles. We have evidence that they work. We know the sun rises because we have evidence that the sun has risen for billions of years and the know the mechanism by which that happens. We know that your ‘electrical waves’ (more amazing ignorance) exist because we have observations that they do, formed hypotheses and tested those hypotheses to find that the tests verify the model (forming theories). Now we can directly measure electromagnetic waves directly.

There is no faith in any of your silly examples, there is observation, hypothesis, test and verification. Something a god bot knows nothing about. If went with your method we would stillb e sitting here in the dark ages with every answer to a question being “Goddidit”. Dead end answers to all of lifes questions.

Your ignorance is blinding. It makes my brain hurt to read all that stupid in your one post.

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It’s what we’ve always feared…Ray Comfort is contagious.

Yikes.

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It’s what we’ve always feared – Ray Comfort is *contagious*.

Yikes.

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The obvious design of the Coke can points directly to the One who made it, for who else but his Noodliness would choose the colors of alfredo and marinara?

The banana is another brilliant example, a perfectly formed miniature noodly appendage that fits in the hand!

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thats a damn good argument you got there…
bit redundant as pastafairinism (sorry for my spelling) is infact a monotheistic religon just like yours (ignoring all the crusaids, general violence, and the fact that we actually read our holy book…)

RAMEN!!!

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The Blind Watchmaker argument has been refuted many times – the crux being that a watch/building/car is not self replicating, self organising system.

“From the atom to the universe is there order?”

Actually from the atom to the universe there is chaos – theoretically predictable disorder. On the quantum level pure randomness seems to prevail… Even on the largest scales no two observers can compltely agree on the state of the universe!

“Did it happen by accident or must there been an intelligent mind?”

Accident implies intent, which implies intelligence. Hardly an either / or question is it?

“What are the odds of 50 oranges falling by chance into ten rows of five oranges?”

Non-Zero. Refuted.

“To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement.”

I agree. I clam zero insight here so I must conclude that the odds of any particular number of Gods existing is equal. Since there is no limit to numeric value the odds of there being X gods tends towards Zero. No conclusion there, so it seems reasonable to choose the mean number of gods as the most likely. If there are a real number of gods we must consider negative numbers (no good reason not to – in which case the Mean is equal to 0. So from a position of no knowledge or evidence the only reasonable conclusion is that there are zero gods.

FINAL TEST:

The man who sees something he does not comprehend and invokes mysticism to explain it is:

A: Afraid of the unknown.
B: Self delusional.
C: Indoctrinated.
D: Has an ulterior motive.

Could it be that your poor judgement is clouding your logic?

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What does it take for someone to understand that the eye was not formed by chance! It is not chance, it’s called natural selection: completely different concepts. This video (not mine) explains part of the process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

I’m sorry but I cant address all of the yes/no questions as they do not build up to a reasonable point, it would be like saying that: 2+2=4, 2×2=4 therefore if 3+3=6 3×3=6? To say that a building has a designer (or a car or anything else) does not mean that man has one too (except of course for our noodly master).

RAmen and may Parmesan be unto Him.

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I seriously hope you are joking… especially about the banana. I mean what about the grapefruit? What sane creator would design a citrus that tased so awful and squirted you in the eye when you tried to eat it with a spoon?

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Jonathon,

You exposed your opinion in a very constructive way. However, evolution is very far from being just plain “luck”. It is an incremental process, like say a Monte Carlo calculation. That means that some system to achieve his next evolution step will perform a lot of try, the great majority of them unfructuous, but a fraction of those try will eventually make it and gain some advantage. You can relatively easily program an algorithm on a computer that will simulate such a process, it’s mathematic really, but on a larger scale.

The thing is, why do some people who claim to believe in God can’t accept the concept of evolution? I think that saying some greater intelligence designed every thing we see takes away much of the sheer beauty and wonder of the world. Nature is by itself self organising, from the quark to the galaxies. If there is a god who started it all, so be it, and very nice of him too, but we’ll never know.

But still, much more could be said, from either “sides”…

By the way, please pardon my foreigner english and what’s a computer wave?

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This looks copy-pasted. Anyway, your technology-faith argument is flawed. The difference between the computer and religion is that if someone wanted to they could go and read a book full of testable facts which would tell them why the computer worked. There exists no such book for any organized religion as far as I know. I agree with part four in that I have insufficient knowledge to make an absolute decision about religion; however you claim that there could exist absolute proof of some religion. I think Douglas Adams wrote some interesting words about absolute proof of a religion destroying said religion, but I cannot recall them. Judging by the end of your essay, you seem to believe in some specific God. By your own arguments you should not. There may exist somewhere absolute proof of the non-existence of your deity. You too have insufficient information to make a decision. Probability arguments seem to me to be flawed as well. Have you calculated any of the probabilities you mentioned? If so, did you compare them to infinity? There has been a great deal of time for these unlikely things to happen, and the bananas are explainable by survival of the fittest.

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This is run-of-the-mill Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort tripe. Not worth trying to argue against, other than the incorrect use of the word “it’s”.

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Oh man… I got bored by the end of the banana example. A banana that you see in the shop is about as close to the natural form of a banana as the minced meat is to a cow. The shape, taste, etc. of bananas that we eat result from breeding at banana farms. A natural wild banana is quite far from the atheist nightmare you describe. And it’s funny you should point out that the peel is bio degradable. Is that not the case with every fruit and vegetable?
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I read the last paragraphs too. I’m glad that the FSM has turned my monitor on for I was so lost before he touched my monitor’s power button.

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Your arguments remind me of something Douglas Adams said in his 1998 speech at Digital Biota 2 when talking about early man looking at the world in which he lived and concluding that a higher being must have made it for him (Great speech. You should read the whole thing here: http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/).

He said, “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’”

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who said there NEEDS to be a builder? you humans are always trying to give everything human traits.
also, please find a hobby.

-veloci raptor

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No, but if you consider OUR ideas about scientific history, you understand OUR logic and would not be surprised when we say that,

A: the banana is somewhat OLDER than humans, and the convenience in shape is more than likely just an outcome of evolution either for it or for the animals that ate it. It happened for a purpose, but that doesn’t mean that someone had to design it.

B: The oranges may have fallen that way if they HAD A PROPERTY OF ATTRACTION, as atoms DO. Why don’t you a.) redo your basic chemistry and biology courses AND b.) Stop making stupid arguments which I would answer if I were in the mood to become less intelligent than I am now. And also if I felt like reading the entire post, which I don’t.

You have no idea how much joy it brings me to give logical replies to people’s MORONIC POSTS.

And yes, the capitalizations make ME feel better, and are not designed to bother anyone, but if they do and that person is you, I consider it a bonus.

I refuse to post my name, because I have already had to fill it in at the top and if you were smart you would know to look for it there.

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who said there NEEDS to be a builder? religious people keep trying to give everything human traits. it drives me nuts.

also, please find a hobby. bananas are for eating, not overthinking.

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Hurray plagiarism! Way to state verbatim the weak arguments which others have already made.

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“God is not flesh and blood; He is an eternal Spirit. Immortal and invisible… like the computer waves. He can can not be experienced unless the monitor is turned on. One should approach the Bible in the same way as the monitor. If it works, enjoy it and if it doesn’t, forget it.”
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It doesn’t, so forget it. Thanks, I have.
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“If you are reasonable, you would have to admit, “Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God.” In other words, you don’t know if God exists, so you are not an atheist. You are an “agnostic.” ”
.
I am guessing you do not believe in our FSM. So, since you also have limited knowledge, you are also an agnostic, by your own logic. You can’t “know” that the FSM does not exist.
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All that statistical stuff you are trying to shovel at us shows a deep lack of understanding of the natural processes by which simple organisms can become very complex, without any help from some supernatural being. We’ve heard this before. It doesn’t work on us. Soda cans are not life forms that reproduce themselves. Your analogy does not hold. You can make that same analogy over and over again, it still is not valid.
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Oh, and by the way, since you are so focused on eyes. Did you know that in the human eye, the light-sensing cells actualy face backwards? What kind of intelligent design is that? That’s definitely not the best way to design an eye, and the octopus has eyes where the light-sensing cells face the right way round. That would indicate that eyes developed more than once, using whatever genes were available to the organisms at the time. How is it that our eyes have a less efficient design than an octopus? Lots of things in biology appear to be similarly jury-rigged. Had any backaches recently? Either god did not do a very good job on designing our spines, or we are suffering from being a bipedal animal that developed from a frame originally developed for brachiating and/or knuckle-walking. I find the second explanation much more likely. Appendicitis? Zits? What’s up with those? Pandas need a thumb to hold the bamboo they eat, and instead of an opposable thumb, they developed an elongated wrist bone instead. And it does not work nearly as well as a real thumb would. Either this kind of stuff developed on it’s own, or the “designer” was drunk at the time (obvious evidence in favor of the FSM).
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I don’t have absolute proof there is no god. I don’t have absolute proof that martians don’t live inside my TV either. There are lots of ideas for which there is no absolute proof that they are wrong. That’s no justification for believing in things for which there is no evidence. I believe in stuff for which I have good evidence. There is plenty of that out there. I see no reason for living my life as if every supernatural idea that someone says is true were actually true. My life is just fine without “faith”.
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“Or do you have an ulterior motive? Could it be that the “atheist” can’t find God… as a thief can’t find the policeman? Could it be that your logic is clouding your good judgment?”.
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Ulterior motive? Are you kidding? With all the pressure to cave in and be a sheep there is in our society today? Blind faith is easy. Thinking is hard. I can’t “find” god because I have seen no reason to go looking for one. I think your lack of logic is clouding your good judgment.
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RAmen
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Open your mind, but not so far your brain falls out.

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Oooh, these posts do make me cranky.

I wonder what the poster’s opinion of emergent behavior is – IE, Conway’s game of life.

And I do rather wish they wouldn’t bias the questions so.

“The person who thinks the Coca Cola can has no designer is:
A. Intelligent
B. A fool
C. Has an ulterior motive for denying the obvious”

Hey, you, reader, choose between me calling you an idiot, evil, or smart. You wouldn’t be any of the others, would you.

And of course, the Coca Cola can is a object with free-will, just like you and I, isn’t it.

*sigh*

To throw more logic right back onto the fire:
1) God is omnipotent (’knows everything, all the time, everywhere, that ever will, has, and is happening’)
2) God gave man free will (’we can do whatever we want’)
… which is true?

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Jonathon,

I immediately see two huge flaws in your reasoning:

1) you think human beings are “the most sophisticated part of creation.” That is pure egocentricity, and based on many faulty assumptions; and

2) you think that if humans cannot understand something, then it can’t be part of the natural world (as opposed to the supernatural).

The truth is, we simply aren’t capable of grasping the immense amounts of time, complexity, flexibility, and space that mother nature has had to work with. Our puny lives last no time at all when compared to the time the universe has been around. Indeed, our puny species has existed for a mere 50 thousand years- again, nothing, when compared with the 14 billion years since the big bang, or even the 4 billion years since the earth was born. Remember- just to emphasize- it takes a thousand thousand to make a million, and a thousand million to make a billion! And, that’s just the time scale- when we add that we know virtually nothing about the universe beyond our immediate neighborhood, the scope or our ignorance itself defies imagination. To think that humans are THE most important thing to have EVER existed ANYWHERE is so completely improbable as to not even merit speculation. Again, complete, blind egocentricity.

I understand the urge to try to come up with explanations for everything. It’s a lot scarier to contemplate the inconceivable immenseness in which we exist- but, still, I prefer to accept that I’m not capable of understanding rather than come up with fairy tales to comfort myself.

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I can’t believe someone is actually using the banana argument. Haven’t you ever been to YouTube, Jonathon?

I can refute this in one argument.

The dessert banana, the so-called “Atheist Nightmare,” was developed by humans for human consumption. The damn things don’t even seed…they have to be propagated artificially by humans. God did not create the dessert banana.

Also:
Allow me to finish that quote. “Origin of Species” Chapter 6: Difficulties of the Theory, under the section entitled “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication.”

“To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science.”

He then goes on (oh, how I wish I could type out the entire section) to discuss examples of primitive eyes and the potential for natural selection to create an eye step by step. Please do not quote Darwin out of context, and if you don’t know if the statement is true or false, then don’t use it. A magnificent idea, if I do say so myself.

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First off the banana thing is just stupid. If god wanted to design fruit just for human consumption why did he only design one of all the hundreds of edible fruit to fit humans so well? Did he get bored after designing the banana and just throw the rest together any old way? What about the coconut why so hard to open?

Test 1.
If you are going to quote mine (pulling a quote out of context) at least take the time to read the book you are quoting. The correct quote is: “To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”The key word in this sentence is SEEMS. What he was saying was that at first glance certain things may SEEM hard to explain, not that they could not be explained as you infer. For your information the evolution of the eye is now very well understood, obviously not by you though. The eye in fact has evolved independently many times in many different animals.
I am not going to bother going through any more of you “quotes” as you obviously havn’t even bothered to research them so rather than me wasting my time I suggest you go and do some proper research.

Test 2
Again I would suggest you go and do some research before you these ignorant ill informed arguments. The whole point of evolution is to explain how complex organisms can come into being small and statically probable steps. The chances that help an animal survive and reproduce will thrive and the ones that don’t will die out. Over a very long period of time combined with changes in the animals’ environment this can lead to a species evolving into a new species. That was the short version of evolution. Go to a library or a book store and pick up a book on evolution for a more in depth explanation. Please don’t come back here with any more stupid ill informed arguments until read a few books on the subject.

By the way you can’t prove that anything doesn’t exists god, aliens the flying spaghetti monster…..anything. What you can show is balance of probability but I won’t hurt your silly little brain by trying to explain it

I have just decided to stop trying to answer your arguments one by one as I have realised that they are in fact all the same dumb argument.

I will say one last thing. It is common courtesy to inform yourself properly of the other persons point of few before critiquing/ridiculing it. I have read the Bible, Koran and many other so called holy books as it would be disrespectful of me to criticises any of the believers of the religions associated with those books without having done so. Please go away and read up a little on what you are talking about, maybe then you will realise just how much shit you just wrote.

RAmen

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Just read over my previous post. Sorry about the grammer/ spelling. Its late I’m tired. :/

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That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Coca-cola has a creator. And that is supposed to prove that evolution is false? Bananas didn’t just appear. They evolved. I didn’t know that God or a creator dropped oranges in a row. Is that in the bible? I never heard that. Evolution is not about ultimate origins. But even if it was, your arguments is comparing apples and oranges, even if they were dropped in a row. By the way, I can’t manuever a glass of wine, a plate of food and the ability to eat at a party. So, obviously a creator didn’t do such a great job with us as he did with the banana!

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hey… He can’t spell Jonathan but the man can do a copy-paste! but is it worth a post? :-)

I’ll tell you one thing… I am what I eat, and I ate supper I cooked myself, so does it mean I cooked myself? HUH!

I submit that nature creates itself too, and it’s dumb enough to do it without a design. yeah. nature is stupid like that. what have you got to say Jonath(a/o)n?

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Intellegent design! Let me first say this, am a conservitave ,and a christian. I believe that all life was created by god, and i think it preposterous to propose that life started when the nutrient rich primordial ooze was struck by lightning and single-cell pre-organisms suddenly sprang to life, and have been evolving ever since to form us, or even a salamander. That being said, i don’t like your argument, it hurts more than it helps.

the original argument , which your areguments rip off, and kind of dumb down, and in the case of the bannanna make somewhat …comical. is called the watch maker analogy, and it goes like this.
You are walking through the woods, and you find a beutifull old pocket watch, you open it and see the painted face and the gold hands, you take off the back and look at elaborate gears, the jewled movement, the delicate spring, and you think , this is so complex and elegant it could not have possably sprung up from the ground like a mushroom, or fallen from that tree like an acorn, nore could it have been made by an ignorant beast like the hive of a bee or or the nest of a bird. NO! this was made by an intellegent thoughtfull and clever being, it had to be madeby MAN!!. But look at man ,What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable. He could not have just formed on his own he must have been created by a being more elaborate, cunning and powerfull than him self, only God could have made man, or any living thing. …And then they stop, and you stop and i agree, we didn’t just happen, and i take that on faith, because i must. But they, and you, arn’t talking about faith, you are using logic, and if you are going to use logic to defend your point, your logic needs to be flawless. And so onto the next logical step……..
Think of god, all power, all knowing, everywhere and nowhere, infinite and existing out side of time, so complex that we mere mortals could not possably hope to ever grasp the true reality of god, He could not have just happened He hade to have been made by an even greater beeing more powerfull and complex than GOD… and it must go on like that ,ad infinitum, ad nausium, and it is turtles, the whole way down.

And that is why i don’t like your argument, don’t use logic if you don’t want your arguement to be followed the whole way through. Trying to manipulate logic to support your side, while ignoring the full scope of your reasoning, is as bad as ignoring the points that you pointed out, even worse, because you claim to have logic and reason on your side

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Long post warning!! I’d like to address just one issue you raised, because you are very confused about the difference between knowledge and truth. A quick review:
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You said, “To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement. And for an absolute statement to be true; one must have absolute knowledge. Here is another such statement: “There is no gold in China.”
Test 4 What would I need to have for that statement to be true?
A. No knowledge of China?
B. Partial knowledge of China?
C. Absolute knowledge of China?
“C” is the correct answer. In order for the statement to be true, I must know that there is no gold in China.
Likewise; to state that there is no God and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there isn’t one.”
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First, the “absolute statement” you refer to is nothing more than a statement. The term, ‘absolute’ adds nothing to the proposition, expressed by the statement, that there is no God.
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Next, you go on to assert that for the statement to be true, “one must have absolute knowledge.” This is not the case, at all. For the statement to be true, all that is required is that there is no God. It does not matter what I know when I make the statement. In other words, the truth or falsity of the statement (proposition) depends solely the existence or nonexistence of God, not the extent of my knowledge. There must be an exact correspondence between the proposition and the actual state of affairs expressed by the proposition, ie, “God exists” and the existence of God.
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If an atheist says, “God exists.” and, in fact, God does exist, would you say that the atheist “knows” that God exists? Of course not. So, you see that knowledge must include an element of belief, as well as an element of truth.
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In your test question #4, you misdirect the reader by maintaining that one needs “absolute knowledge of China” in order to make a true statement about whether or not there is gold there, when, in fact, what is needed to make the statement that “there is no gold in China” true is just that there is no gold in China.
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As it is clear that you believe there is a god who (which?) is the designer/creator of the world, the this is for you. I am sure glad that some unknown entity created cut-and-paste. Here we go:
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Given that there is only one God, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Pastafarians must all worship the same entity (god). See, we already have a point upon which we can agree.
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Let’s be clear that the name of this deity is beside the point. Some name the deity “God.” Some use the name, “Allah,” “Jehovah,” “Yahweh” or “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” The reference is to one and the same entity. If there is only one “God,” then any disagreement we may have is only about the attributes of this deity, not His, Her, or Its existence.
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We Pastafarians believe that the the deity has some of the following attributes:
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He* has many Noodly Appendages.
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He likes beer, strippers and pirates.
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He is not vindictive, vengeful or vain.
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He does not require anyone to believe in him or worship him in order to go to heaven.
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He does not require sacrifices or purity from us.
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He is tasty and nutritious.
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He is REAL and alive today!
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Pastafarians are a community of peaceful open-minded worshipers. We invite you to join us. You have nothing to loose and so much to gain. Besides, we offer a free thirty day guarantee.
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RAmen
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*Some Pastafarian scholars maintain that the FSM is actually a female and should be referred to as “She.” For the sake of convention and because “The Gospel of The Flying Spaghetti Monster”, our sacred text, refers to Him as “He,” we will continue to do so for the purpose of this discussion, intending no disrespect to our Wenches or any female Pirates.

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Ooh that was a big one – I’ll read it all later thank you. I got lost in the noise somewhere but if I summarize correctly you are suggesting a number of other alternative religions that are also totally impossible to disprove. You’ve almost got the point but quite by accident I suspect. On a side note my personal favorite bit in your work of fiction is where Jacob has a wrestling match with god, and get this – god looses. It’s true, cos it’s in Genesis. Jacob kicks the mighty creator’s butt. Creates a universe in 6 days and gets whooped by one of his minions. Oh the irony. Citation – Genesis 32.24 & 25. Oh any by the way, if you don’t understand something, it was the FSM who did it. I have faith that that is true and that’s good enough for me.

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Well, thank you for not yelling at the world who disagrees with you.

Your argument does however, have its flaws:

Very briefly, your comparison of the banana and the Coke can just doesn’t work. When I catch my cans having sex in the garbage can, we can debate both the biology and the evolution of the Coke can, but stating the obvious fact that an aluminum can does indeed have a maker does not inevitably lead to the conclusion that the banana does as well. It is therefore not at all obvious despite your ending quiz.

The Darwin quote you provide is lifted out of context. (Your writing seems intelligent enough that I suspect you know that.) The paragraph reads:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”
I’m not sure what man’s ability or inability to create something from nothing has do with Darwin’s observations.

I don’t know whether or not your quote from George Gallup is correct and complete. Ultimately, I don’t care. I do believe it, though. I wonder if this statistical monstrosity could explain why it took billions of years.

Your Einstein quote is also misleading and again, I believe you know that. Einstein believed in a god that revealed himself in the order of the universe, not in the designer you imply.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your orange reference. If this relates to the statistical improbablity of my being alive, I acknowledge your point. Remember me wondering about the billions of years?

I do love your gold in China argument. Using your own argument, you would have to admit the possibility that your god is a flying spaghetti monster. The alternative to the reasonable mind would be to become agnostic.

Therefore, why are you writing here unless to preach to the choir?

2GsPlease

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Jonathan,
Read your own Propaganda before spouting of such poorly argued drivel at us. Case in point – Answers in Genesis – a very prominent Creationist organisation dedicated to communicating the scientific evidence for a literal interpretation of Genesis – says in its list of arguments creationists should NOT use to prove their points that:
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“Darwin mentioned the absurdity of eye evolution in The Origin of Species.”
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Citing his statement at face value is subtly out of context. Darwin was talking about its seeming absurdity but then said that after all it was quite easy to imagine that the eye could be built step-by-step (in his opinion, with which AiG obviously disagrees—see Darwin vs. The Eye and An eye for creation).
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http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp
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You have not taken the time to understand what we are about, and you have not taken the time to actually think through the crap you have inflicted upon us!
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If you want to have an intelligent debate about the actual issue (teaching creationism as a science) then bring it on, but do some actual research and thinking of your own – don’t just spout dogma you have been spoon fed by idiots.
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Drew
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You, monsieur, leave much to be desired in your explanation of why there must be a God. I myself heard all of these and much more (I am surprised that you forgot about the giraffes and the numerous ways in which the giraffe is prevented from drowning or receiving a brain hemorrhage while it attempts to drink water from a pond) when I was a staunch 7th Day Adventist.

For instance, when you discuss paint cans and buildings, you seem to have forgotten that paint cans and buildings are inanimate objects incapable of reproduction and genetic mutation. ‘Life’ is defined as that which can reproduce without assistance; this rules out even the lowly virus.

If you must know, evolution didn’t occur with the goal of creating humans; evolution is a process (and I honestly can’t imagine any being, really, that would be sick enough to create a species that voluntarily slaughters, maims, rapes, etc. its own without cause).

If you’d like to learn more about evolution, why all genetic mutations do not result in the death of the member (they can become hidden! very cool), etc. I’d advise you to enroll in a biology course. It gets a bit slow in parts, but overall is worth the time and trouble.

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Test 1
As it tastes like malted battery acid, any designer hasn’t much in the way of intelligence. So I’m going to have to go with ‘A’.

Test 2.1
Does a cave count? Are only designed domiciles of interest to you, or will any do? The word ‘building’ presupposes the answer you desire.
How about birds? They can create very impressive contructions. Were these deliberately designed? Did the bird et together with all of his bird buddies and write up some blueprints?
2.2
This presupposes the existance of ‘pigment/paint’.
2.3
This question is so circular it doesn’t get an answer.

Test 3.1
What do you think of as order? Nothing i’ve read on the subject suggests that the universe is anything other than arbitrary.
3.2
This has no purpose besides determining one’s current belief in the matter. It has no other determinable purpose.
3.3
The same as the chances that said oranges will land in any other arrangement. Does this mean that a seemingly random assortment of oranges must have been carefully placed? The likelyhood of such a ‘random’ assortment is the same as a well ordered one.

Test 4
The requirement for this to be true is known as an ‘Alternate Universe’

Test 5
This likewise doesn’t deserve an answer.

Now if you would answer my questions….

1. A benevolent creator that creates a world requiring dentistry would be
A) Stupid
B) Drunk
C) An Underachiever
D) All of the above
E) Non-Existent

2. A creator that made homo sapiens sapiens could be considered
A) Stupid
B) Drunk
C) An Underachiever
D) To have a very odd sense of humor

3. These are
A) stupid questions
B) self-serving questions
C) not noodly enough
D) avoiding actually informing in any way whatever

What about those policemen who are also thieves?

What if the HUMAN evolved to be predisposed to like bananas? And as for that bit about it fitting well in the mouth…Well…Eww. I don’t want to hear that! Did you consider that might not be the best analogy you could have thought of? It has many other conotations. I hope I spelt that right…

Ta.

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……..This hate mail is rather refreshing. The reason we know that Coca-Cola cans are manufactured is because of the evidence for it. We can go to Coca-Cola factories and watch the cans being manufactured. These factories are owned by the Coca-Cola company, which is a commercial company. Commercial companies usually manufacture and sell products to the consumers. We know that Coca-Cola is a soda, and we know that other sodas are manufactured by humans. We see the Coca-Cola lable on the can with infortmation about it. Same for the argument involving the building. We can watch them being built. We can hire people to build them. There are experts in designing and building buildings. Have you actually seen God walking (or floating, flying, swimming, etc.) creating these things?

Next, I don’t claim to have absolute knowledge about the world. But then I could say that Santa Claus is real because you don’t have absolute knowledge about the world. You can “prove” anything using that method. The burden of proof is on you, the person making the claim to back it up.

For the claim about the complexity of the eye, I will refer you to here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

In other words, there wasn’t just one step of evolution that brought humans into existance. We started as much more simple microscopic creatures, and slowly evolved, over time becoming more and more and more complex until we finally hit the level we are at today.

For the idea that the universe is complex, yes, that is true. But that doesn’t really prove anything. You are just saying it is complex. Maybe there are worlds outside our universe, as predicted by String Theory. We could just be one tiny slice in a much more complex world than we originally believed. Also, for anyone interested in String Theory, here is the link to a NOVA video about it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Well, at least Jonathon seems to understand this site is satire. A small improvement from what we have had before.

May you be touched by His noodly appendage,
Spartan

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According to you, if one doesn’t believe in god, that makes them agnostic, because they do not know for sure. Am I right? Let me ask this, are you omniscient? Do you know for sure that god is real? No. That is where faith comes in. Since you don’t know for sure, you’re agnostic too. ;)

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I absolutely agree with you! His Noodley Appendage reached out and created everything! You have renewed my faith in our flying creator! Thank you so much for laying out all this evidence for us!

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Wow, I jst wrote a massive reply, then accidently hit backspace twice so my browser went to the previous page. Wow that sucked, it was like a lion stalking and killing it prey. So I will briefly sum it up for everyone;
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Jonathon, I am sorry you wasted your time writng this whole thing, because it lack validity in everyway possible. And the worst part is yor smug, condencing tone!! If you were even a fraction of as smart as you think you are you would have seen, the flaws in everyone of your arguments.
I.E.
“Test 2:

1. Do you know any building that did not have a builder? Yes? No?

2. Do you know any painting that did not have a painter? Yes? No?

3. Do you know any car that did not have a maker? Yes? No?

If you answered “Yes” to any of those statements… please give details:______________________…”
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Congratulation, you just proved that things that are designed have a designer. Yes, this is true but you would first have to prove that the universe was designed, to prove that the universe has a designer. This is called ‘Begging the question”. It’s a logic fallacy, and your letter is full of it.
“Could it be that your logic is clouding your good judgment?”
-This is possibly one of the best quotes from any hate-mail. Absolute gold!!!!

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Cars have designers, as did the everything to do with Coke, but there is all kinds of material evidence for those things. Just like with His Noodly Goodness, I see his presence countless times in my colander. Faith does not equal reality. As for bananas, my lower colon would also fit them nicely…

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So many errors in your quite random rambling statements here.

Your banana analogy is flawed since you’re talking about the domesticated version of a fruit manipulated to be as it is by man. Look at a wild banana and you’ll see that none of your claims remain.

Darwin and the eye is out of context but don’t take my word on it take the word of answers in genesis.”Citing his statement at face value is subtly out of context. Darwin was talking about its seeming absurdity but then said that after all it was quite easy to imagine that the eye could be built step-by-step”

Einstein used the word god as a literary device. He did not believe in a personal god and never made any effort to hide this fact…again from AiG “Using the normal meaning of these terms, Einstein believed no such thing.”

“To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement.” Ok but then there’s the fact that you can’t prove a negative, so then the burden of proof is on the person that makes the claim of the existence of god. You can’t prove that there is no Flying Spaghetti monster, you can’t prove there’s no invisible pink unicorn and you can’t prove there is no celestial teapot.

I don’t need absolute knowledge to believe in a god I’d only need just a little bit of empirical evidence.

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I would love to get into a discussion with you, but as a person who believes that our time is precious here, I don’t feel like repeating arguments that have been repeated again and again. I would reccomend for my views on the subject matter, Jonathon, that you go watch Inherit the Wind. If nothing else it will give you some culture.

At the end of the day your denial of evidence is just attack on proof, theories have been made, but those who have made them never said anyhting for certain. The weak argument states that things msut be, “just because”, and honestly all you fanatics seem to be just along those lines.

You make a mockery out of the gifts that you got randomly or maybe were given by trying to strip down ideas that have advanced so much for mankind.

Why can’t you take your fervor and apply it to something to better your fellow man, rather than attack him.

If you want more believers, you need to drop the torches and puritanical literalcy and peversions of Religion that caused so many problems in the past.

Put that in your aluminum can and design it.

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Sigh. Ignorance.

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> 10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy.

I’m laughing so hard at that one that it is impossible for me to reply further in any detail. I will have to leave it up to those of you with more composure than I.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the ignorance of christians sometimes.

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“To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement. And for an absolute statement to be true; one must have absolute knowledge.”

you are saying you have absolute knowledge that god is real, and that he is immortal and invisible? I would love to see evidence.

I’m not going to argue with you about all of your arguements, even though i just read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, and could easily cite it and he’d put you to shame. But i would like to say is that for all of the “chances” as you call them, you are substituting god for them. How can you say that god is an appropriate solution for these? What i see is that you see a gap in something, and instead of trying to think of a solution for the gap or to learn about the gap, you then substitute God. This just makes you appear to be either lazy or unintelligent.

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Further to my previous post –
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“3. What are the odds of 50 oranges falling by chance into ten rows of five oranges?”
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Exactly the same as them falling into the specific arrangement that they do actually fall into on any given attempt.
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If your argument is that evolution could not hav occured because the odds against it are too hight then you are arguing that your ornages could not have fallen into the exact arrangement that they did fall in to.
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Also – “God is not flesh and blood; He is an eternal Spirit. Immortal and invisible… like the computer waves. He can can not be experienced unless the monitor is turned on. One should approach the Bible in the same way as the monitor. If it works, enjoy it and if it doesn’t, forget it.”
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You have just denied Jesus, who as the bible says, is God and Flesh and ascended bodily into Heaven, or are you picking and choosing what you believe to be true from the Bible?
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You appear to be as full of self contradiction as is the Bible itself.
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Drew

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Further to my previous post –
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“3. What are the odds of 50 oranges falling by chance into ten rows of five oranges?”
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Exactly the same as them falling into the specific arrangement that they do actually fall into on any given attempt.
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If your argument is that evolution could not hav occured because the odds against it are too hight then you are arguing that your ornages could not have fallen into the exact arrangement that they did fall in to.
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Also – “God is not flesh and blood; He is an eternal Spirit. Immortal and invisible… like the computer waves. He can can not be experienced unless the monitor is turned on. One should approach the Bible in the same way as the monitor. If it works, enjoy it and if it doesn’t, forget it.”
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You have just denied Jesus, who as the bible says, is God and Flesh and ascended bodily into Heaven, or are you picking and choosing what you believe to be true from the Bible?
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You appear to be as full of self contradiction as is the Bible itself.
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Drew
PS – your thing about the Banana (besides revealing a tendancy to Homo Eroticisim in your thought processes) is completely ludicrous!

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How can you possibly consider the guidance of his omnipotent noodlyness to be an accident?

RAmen!

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GOLD!
whoo! first time first timer

wow, man, read a book (besides your bible.)

banana’s were selected to become the fruit we know today, possibly because of humans performing artificial selection, or breeding.

There is a perfectly logical sequence to the evolutionary formation of the eye:
-Cells became photoreceptive, and organisms could determine night from day. Humans have these basic photo-responsive cells behind our knees, as do many simple organisms.
-These cells bgan to form a cup shape, organisms could now sense movement. These cup-shaped photorecepters can be found in a distant relative, the flatworm.
-The cells became an enclosed sphere, as found in a natilus
-A water filled lens provides for clarity. this complete eye can be found in an organism you may have heard of… HUMANS

….If the eye is designed, why is is so fragile despite it’s obvious importance? People have blind-spots, can get floaters, the cornea can become scratched and detach from the inner eye, causing the cavity to fill with fluid and cause blindness.

It is totally true that the random formation of humans is unlikely, but the universe is a pretty big place. Why would so much exist outside of the earth if we were all designed and plopped here by some god? Every body in the universe would have formed life, had it been in the same unique and RARE position that the earth is in.

No one can declare that there is no gold in china with out knowing about china, but no one can say that there IS gold in china without finding some. You find me god, i’ll praise him.
By the way, atheists don’t say that there is no god, but they contend that without reasonable proof of god, god cannot be considered real. I can see that you like analogies, so here is one for you, Jonathon. I would love to believe that there is no one on my planet as ignorant as you, but, in reading this email, i have seen that there is at least someone as dumb as you because this letter is proof that you exist.

My computer works because of tangible electric signal and machines that process them. God is not a ‘computer wave,’ god is an idea. God exists, god is what stupid people call hope and how idiots explain what they don’t care to figure out.

Next time you try to make an argument against logic, try to leave out charles darwin, he was just one guy. you can’t expect him to figure out all of the mysteries of life all at once. In fact, he was a devout cristian and not the only one to theorize evolution by the time he published ‘The Origin of Species.’ And you are missing Peacocks from your anti evolution argument, darwin had some trouble with those too. He couldn’t fogure out why any animal with such poor camouflage could survive.

Basically, the colorful feathers on a male peacock give it no place to hide, therefore a male peacock must be strong and fast in order to support all those feathers and not be eaten. Big extravagant feathers=strong=sexy for all the lady peacocks

wake up, buddy, you are polluting the gene pool.

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P.S., in the words of Valentine Michael Smith: Thou Art God.

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Sophistry, I say, sophism upon sophism. Did he just say that because you can not prove he does not exist, that proves his existence?
Hmmm…

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you are a tosser

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Jonathon, normally I’m a rational person in response to hate mails, but your response is filled with too much holes. Allow me to demonstrate, EXACTLY the same way you did:
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“Billions of years ago, a big bang produced a large rock.”
Incorrect. The Big Bang scattered all the currently-existing particles that were originally compressed in a single point. In another words, the Big Bang STARTED as “something” that exploded into a larger “something” of exactly the same mass and energy proportions. This suggests that the universe may have ALWAYS been been around, instead of having a beginning and an end.
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Test 1, re-worded: The person who thinks the Coca Cola was created by an omnipotent creator other than man and his machines are:
A. Intelligent
B. A fool
C. Has an ulterior motive for denying the obvious
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See where I’m getting? Coca Cola was made by a man. It has no connection with God what-so-ever.
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More re-wording: The Banana: The Anti-Evolutionist Nightmare”
Note that the banana…
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1. is shaped for a monkey’s hand.
2. has a non-slip surface. Perfect for monkeys.
3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late. Monkeys, coincidentally, is one of the fewest species that actually sees colors.
4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper. Perfect for monkeys.
5. Is perforated on wrapper. Perfect for monkeys.
6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper. Perfect for ALL animals
7. Is shaped for the monkey’s mouth.
8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry. Perfect for monkeys.
9. Is pleasing to the taste buds. Including monkeys.
10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy. Perfect for monkeys.
11. Mankind commonly makes connections between bananas and monkeys more than humans to bananas.
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By your theory, the banana was made for man AND monkey. -1 for thinking a banana was made ONLY for man; +1 for surprisingly deep connection between man and monkey.
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“man can’t create anything from nothing”
As far as my knowledge (and this comes from my own observation and carefully tested research) goes, so hasn’t anything else. Not even the Big Bang.
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“Yet the human eye… is a mere tiny part of the most sophisticated part of creation – the human body.”
If you want to single out human kind as the most biologically complicated animal, you are deeply mistaken. Notice that an elephant is larger than we are, yet has a lot of organs common in humans, such as eyes. I can say a similar thing to rats, whom are smaller.
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“If I could prove God statistically; take the human body alone; the chance that all the functions of the individual would just happen, is a statistical monstrosity.”
Absolute bull. Tell me the actual calculations he used to calculate the probability, and I can point out to you all the ambiguous variables he took assumptions of.
And anyways, there’s plenty of time within 3.8 billion years for something as complicated as the human body to be formed by mere chance. I think it’s blasphemy to think the human body remained unchanged for 50 million generations. And Evolution is not only about chance: the theory uses natural selection for biased probabilities, creating a trial-and-error circumstance to a creature’s body.
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“Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of our modest powers must feel humble.”
Wrong context. Einstein was arguing against Quantum Physics, which has very little to do with Evolution. The only connections the two has is that they’re both due to chance biased by the environment around them, and that Einstein could not disprove either.
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“If man can not create the human eye…”
While man hasn’t made a human eye doesn’t mean they can’t. In fact, I want you to prove that we can’t.
.
Test 2, re-worded:
1. Do you know any building that a living creature did not make? Yes? No?
2. Do you know any painting that a living creature did not paint? Yes? No?
3. Do you know any car that man a living creature not construct? Yes? No?
.
If you answered No to any of these, please give a reason why.
If that reason is because an omnipotent force made it, give us physical (not theoretical) evidence.
.
Answer to Test 3:
1. From the atom to the universe is there order?
The answer to this is No and Yes…respectively. Hear that? Atoms, shockingly, are not in order, but the universe is! You are talking about one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics: how is order achieved when everything in the smallest bits have no order. The answer from Quantum Physics is chance and probability, largely from forces of the environment. Einstein’s answer is, get this, “I don’t know”.
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2. Did it happen by accident or must there been an intelligent mind?
And to follow this up, “by accident”.

Test 4, my turn: What would I need to have the statement, “There is no end to prime numbers” to be true?
A. Absolute knowledge of every counting numbers
B. The Euclidean theorem
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In mathematics, even if you can’t iterate through all the near-infinite number of counting numbers, you can still prove prime numbers has no end by a single proof. By the same token, science doesn’t require absolute knowledge of one subject to find it true (for example, water is made out of hydrogen and oxygen: proven).
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“Is it possible that the knowledge you haven’t yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove that God does indeed exist?”
To find any proof, you need to start with a solid definition of God. Man doesn’t agree on these definitions of God (we’re proof). Since there’s no firm definition of god, there is no solid proof of him (equally, there isn’t a way to disprove god either). By your conclusion, we don’t have an ample amount of knowledge of God. This, consequently, is why we can’t prove him either, and that we never will. And by science, that makes God disposable as fiction.
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Test 5, final re-wording: The man who sees a building and doesn’t know it was made by a physical being is:
A. Intelligent
B. A fool
C. Has an ulterior motive. Like you.
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In summary: all your rambling is about man making buildings. With high school knowledge of statistics, I can tell you boldly you should NOT extrapolate these facts to God making creatures, as they are irrelevant. It’s further noting that that there is a very large difference between buildings and creatures: creatures are alive, prone to mutation, and reproduce. Buildings does none of these.
Also, while we can’t prove god made creatures, we can (and did) proven that man can create creatures through cloning, genetic engineering, and other technologies. We may not be good at it, but by the definition of Creationism, humanity should qualify as creators themselves.
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I am shocked that people has so much faith in things that is neither detectable nor observable. I am an animist, but I know I have the power to change the world without any undetectable force. You’re right in saying that I can’t experience the support of God the way you do. But that may be because I use sharp judgment over your flawed logic.

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… and concerning the banana… just because something fits fairly well in your mouth, that doesn’t mean you should put it there,… to go a bit further, just because you think something doesn’t mean you have to say it… or in your case just because you read something somewhere doesn’t mean you have to cut and paste and vomit it all over a perfectly good website.

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I agree. The banana and the human eye was designed by someone. By who you ask? The Flying Spaghetti Monster of course!

RAmen!!

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Orrrrrrrrrrr it could be that it doesn’t matter how improbable it is, all you need is for a replicator to arise once and life begins, which over the ~400 MILLION years it took for life to arise is pretty damn likely to happen at least once.

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A compelling argument. A trifle verbose though. And as any soda pop afficianado knows, The bottle came before the can. On another note. FSMism is a parody religion. Primarily the point is to simply shove a sharp stick into the eye of organized religion. Christianity is far from being the first religion. Just ask any Hindu. Or a Wiccan. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Formed in Rome about 1300 years ago. There are in fact quite a lot of religions that are older than Christianity.
On another note, we’re not denying anything or anyones existence. We’re totally open to all ideas. Unlike you and your brethren. But maybe I’m wrong on that aspect. After all, you people seem to have absolutely no problem in going back and following someone who totally ripped off his followers and used the money for cocaine, hookers, adultery, well the list just seems to go on and on regarding Jim Bakker.
And now Christians are giving him money again! Yikes! The mind boggles! I’ll tell you this. If I wasn’t a moral person I’d start up a Christian church and suck every last dollar out of my followers without a qualm. I’d even sell tickets. Garenteed to preserve your soul or your money refunded. Only $5,000. Cash or money order only. No cheques.

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Wow. Um. I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll just say two things that come to mind, then grab a beer in a bottle that the FSM has designed for easy consumption.

1. If we accept your argument, that a loving god designed all, then we also must accept that he designed the worm in Africa whose only means for survival are eating through a young boy’s eye, making him blind.

2. Yes. It is our LOGIC that is clouding our judgment.

Just because you type more words than most believers, doesn’t make your claims any less ridiculous.

God has given me a headache. I’m going to sleep.

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Lol, watch the video on it from fighting atheist, I believe. The banana is proof of evolution (through his devine noodliness) Look up what a wild banana looks like

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You have just proved you have no concept what so ever of science. Also the entire concept of irriducable complexity is ridiculous… I would explain it to you in detail, but it requires some minor understanding of science which you don’t have.

Funny people like you curse science when it doesn’t fit what you want to believe, but then the second you are sick run to the doctor. Where exactly do you think that medication comes from, I’ll give you a hint- science. Where do you think thinks like plastic, cleanind solvents, paint, etc all comes from? And medication comes from understanding biology, and the EVOLUTION of biology. I realize it’s to much for you to grasp, go hide under your bible, you will never expand knowledge, we will do just fine with out you.

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Jonathon,

All of your writings are sophistry or the result of a gullible mind regurgitating specious positions. Whether it is the former or the latter will be evident in further postings of yours on this thread after your logic and information are exposed as faulty.

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is the only religion that reconciles observation with scripture. So to preach our faith is reasonable – especially when it sarcastically illustrates the stupidity of yours.

On close examination all of your arguments are either the result of turning a blind eye to reality, or deliberate distortion. You must know that once explained, to continue advocating a view that is demonstrably false is perpetrating fraud Jonathon. Understand? -Fizzmick

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Congratulations, Jonathon, you have proven exactly the point of this website! At the end of your well thought out dissertation you state – “One should approach the Bible in the same way as the monitor. If it works, enjoy it and if it doesn’t, forget it.” Even though I’m fairly confident that a lot of your reasoning concerning the facts for backing Intelligent Design will be severly questioned by fellow Pastafarians who are more well-versed than I in irreducible complexity and the evolutionary process in general, the above conclusion says it all. The bible DOESN”T work for us, and shouldn’t be taught as ID in science classrooms. I think even you would agree with that. If you don’t, then I must remind you that our delicious spaghedeity deserves just as much class time as the Xtian god (or any other god) as the intelligent (or unintelligent) designer. How arrogant to think that the god of the KJV bible is the only one worth consideration! I guess that’s “faith” for you. I’ll stick with the FSM Alrighty. Our gospel suggests that life is so much easier and more enjoyable if I do.

May the sauce be with you, Ramen

St. Arrrrgyle of A Sissy,
Pirate Saint of Gay Apparel, fa la la la la, la la la la

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I don’t drink Coca Cola or eat bananas…

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If you are reasonable, you would have to admit, “Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is a God.” In other words, you don’t know if God exists, so you are not a believer. You are an “agnostic.” You are like a person that looks at a building and doesn’t seem to know if there is a builder.
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Its the old fallacy of “We don’t know for sure, therefore my religion wins by default”.
Honestly, that argument is slightly worse than supporting your God’s existence by quoting random books.
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There are many other things wrong with this post, but I’m sure they’ll be gone into by others.

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Pardon me while I dismantle your 8th grade argument.

First of all, the Coco Cola argument is what we in the educated world call a “false analogy”. Specifically, the “watchmaker analogy.” I didnt even think of this one, its been around for a while. Apprently you missed that book in your vast research. The fact that Coca Cola and the universe are both intricate does not justify the assumption that both have similiar orgins. If you look up the watchmaker analogy, I dont expect to hear much of that from you ever again.

And now let us move into the realm of misquotes. Christians are really good at taking quotes out of context to prove a point. I see why, considering their lack of a point and desperate attempt at validation. You first quote by Darwin is actually commonly a common target of Chrisians, lacking the rest of the quote of course.
“if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”

You also comically quote George Gallup. How, exactly, is he any type of authority on the matter? Is it his role as a statistician or his Political Science degree? I could quote my mother if you’d like, she would have the same authority on the matter.

As for your “Test 2″, refer to my false analogy statement.

The third analogy is an easy target. 50 oranges falling into rows. Yea, probably pretty unlikely, unless you drop them, oh, lets say 10 trillion times. Do you think they would form 10 rows of 5 even once?

The person who thinks this arrangement would never come about is:

A. Intelligent

B. A fool

C. Has an ulterior motive for denying the obvious

Funny if you are one of these three, because the latest science estimates around 10 trillion planetary systems. I would say the chances are pretty small that life would never come about even once.

Next is test 4. You really went into this one, wrote alot of stuff. But, alas, it was all in vain. It is based on a false premise, that we are athiests. You either did not read anything about FSM, or the entire concept went over your head. Smart money is on the latter if this posting is evidence of how much of this world actually goes over your head. FSM is not built on athiesm. I am not an athiest, but I do believe in the concepts of FSM.

Your conclusion is typical. Very one sided and built from a giant glass house. God is like computer waves? Computer waves are immortal and invisible? Yea, I have a question. What? I have yet to read an intelligent argument for intelligent design in this forum. They are full of circular logic, confirmation bias, misquotes, and now, false analogies.

I really hope to see a response from you, Jonathan, but I highly doubt I will.

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Well, a coke can and a building have their differences from a universe…but let’s proceed. Comparing not knowing if there is a god to not knowing if there’s a maker to a building is a pretty idiotic reflection. I know that a building was made by someone, but, then, by your logic (that everything that exists has a maker and designer) and by your mentioning of the banana (which, by the way, is designed to be eaten in order to propagate seeds, thus making it very likely it would be easily eaten) being proof of a god that makes things SPECIFICALLY to be pleasing to humans, because they are your god’s ultimate creation. However, if you’ve ever stumbled onto a nest of red ants, you’ll know they are NOT very pleasing to humans, and in fact, are downright bad. So, unless your god has an ulterior motive for making red ants, they shouldn’t exist, because even if the were designed, there is no use that SPECIFICALLY, they are useful to humans. One could argue that ants feed anteaters, which we can eat, but that still seems more like an anteater’s benefit. In response to your “circle of knowledge” we have never stated: If we were presented with irrefutable evidence to the existence of a divine being, we would slap that evidence in the face and walk away. Many of us are atheist or agnostic (or pastafarian) because we are WAITING for evidence to arrive. About your conclusion on the oranges: If you dropped 50 oranges infinitely, for billions of years, at an infinitely fast rate, eventually, they WOULD fall into rows, as it is with the billions-of years old universe forming and the millions of years old evolution forming us. About the eyes, there are fish with two pairs of eyes, and we have seen the second pair of eyes forming (via skeletal structure of the fish’s known direct ancestors.). Now, onto ulterior motive. What possible benefit do we get from denying your god? Our motive is that we’re sick of priests and their like telling us to believe blindly in things they cannot prove. In order for the Bible to work for you, you have to have blind faith in it, you have to accept the over 300 (count ‘em) errors in the bible. An your comparing everything to which there IS NO real explanation to man-made objects is just your sad way of trying to believe that, maybe, if you make a completely erroneous analogy, someone will be dumb enough to fall in line. Making statements with no value, and little meaning, and thinking they’re “deep” died out in biblical times, after a proliferation of them in a certain religious document. (hint: it’s related to “biblical”) So here’s a little test for you, my dim-witted friend.

1) The man who sees an entire universe, of which he knows very little, and wildly and fanatically points to a repeatedly disproven, historically inaccurate, hate-speech mongering book written by people too scared of the universe to try and understand it, and edited over so many years that even the one person of virtue is twisted beyond recognition, and claiming it is the answer is within this highest of scars in any history is

A) Intelligent
B)A complete fool
C) has an ulterior motive

2) The man who claims to already intimately know the ways and motives of any (if any) omnipotent beings is

A) a fool
B) An arrogant fool
C)Intelligent

Answer key 1: B for most, C for intelligent individuals
2: B

P.S. As for bananas being “pleasing to the taste buds”…I’ve never really liked them anyways.

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Your logic proving the existence of a God does not specify who, or what, the creator is. We believe it to be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You believe it to be an old guy in the clouds.
And one question that always bothers me. What created God? Is it any less reasonable to suppose that God has always existed and always will than to think the Earth spontaneously came into being?
Could it be possible the “Christian” needs a security blanket because he is afraid of uncertainty?

And though I may disagree with you, I commend you for your literacy. Thank you, and may you be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

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The banana is “shaped for the human mouth”? Oh dear.. Someone ought to find him quick and tell him that not everything shaped like that should (necessarily) go in there. (Nevermind any other.. ah.. implications of that concept.)

It’s sad to me that five minutes on Google would find him sensible refutations to every single one of his “claims,” but he’d rather sit smugly in ignorance, thinking he has out-clevered us all. Besides, he somehow missed that no one here is claiming that there isn’t a designer – we’re just claiming He is a little noodlier than the creator described by Christianity. ;)

That said, I really think someone needs to make a “The Banana: The Atheist Nightmare” tee. I’d buy it.

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We should all applaud Jonathon’s quest to find real truth, but also pity him for his weak financial state. He’s clearly spent a lot of time researching creationist arguments, but apparently couldn’t afford any books newer than the late 1950s.

Hey buddy, here’s your first step to real knowledge.

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I think you’re preaching to the choir.
Did you not get the point that we do believe there is a God?
And that we believe, or in your words “have faith,” that He created everything with His noodly appendage?

See? We’re not so different.

Now do you get it?

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This is quite an interesting post, it is brilliant and polite.
So let’s start with the banana thing, you seem to think that the banana was made for human use only, but you forget all other animals that might like it, monkeys are an easy one but why so many caracteristics. The shape… look at how they grow, it has the same shape as a penis … it’s just a gravity thing. The taste, the goal of a fruit is to dispere it’s seeds just as the goal of a flower is to spread pollen with bees, so it taste good to be eaten … but it is not in that order, there was probably 10000000 kinds of fruits and the one that survived was probably not those that tasted bad. The banana since it taste good for human and monkeys and other animals were eaten and the seed went out trought faeces and the plant was able to be chosen by the evolution.
Evolution is not a 1 chance on 1000 it is a 1 survivor VS 999 losers.

It is the same thing for the human body. Man it is a complex thing. But take a look on genetics, I can’t pretend to be a genius of some sort about that genes, but if there is 7 000 000 000 completely different ADN codes (7 000 000 winning combinations !) on earth at the time I write this word for you and that the earth is someting like 250 000 000 000 years old, that means that there was already a big deal of different adn codes before the human body was completed…. or even started to change. If human was able to create the chihuahua in 50 years by selecting the dogs that would reproduce themselves only by their phenotypes, imagine how many genes were not selected (because their owner could not reproduce) in that period of time… so even if the human eye is pretty complex, it doesn’t mean that it was created by something more intelligent… Fire or thunder are pretty weird and complex things… and still you wouldn’t say that it’s god that produce each lightening as Thor would do !

Honestly I don’t really understand the orange analogy, of course the chance that 50 orange falls to the ground in 5 lines is pretty weird. But what do you observe in natural life is so organised ? Trees ? I don’t think that there is such thing except snowflakes… but still no snowflakes has a clone….. so I don’t think that gods owns a snowflakes factory… and still there is somewhere an atomic solution to that weird crystalisation thing…

About China, you are right, you have to be sure to make a statement like there is no gold in china… but you also need full knowledge of China to pretend that there Gold is the source of China. By saying that god created the world and the human, you (generic you) are using an absolute statement so are you sure that there is one provable tangible concrete proof that someone created Adam ?

Here in quebec there is such a thing as a building without builder. It’s called the roché Percé and there is also the caves of the Machu Pichu. Those things have been built by erosion. There is also the icebergs that we could see as buildings without intelligent architects. And if you are searching for a nice painting created by genes, just look at two parrots, or the butterflies, a zebra. After you take a look at these remember what i wrote about the banana and the strategic advantage that these phenotypes gives.

Still I really like your way of thinking, peaceful and intelligent and I think you are right on the last part, take what you need in the bible. But you must remember that this movement is not an anti-god or atheist movement. The fer de lance, of the FSM church is to promote Scientific explanation instead of religious obscurantism. And this I am sure that you would agree with me is a nice goal. Because if there is something god would want us to know, it is how to help to build it’s garden/kingdom, for this we have to learn on what he did / how nature works. I am an agnostic pagan/desillusioned catholic and if there is a force out there it surely wouldn’t deny us knowledge if knowledge is for a Good use.

See ya !

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Jonathon,
Mankind typically subjects phenomenon beyond our current understanding with discretion and scrutiny. Your answer for the ‘reason’ why the human eye has “40,000,000 nerve endings and focuses it’s muscles approximately 100,000 times a day. and that the eye has a retina that contains approximately 137,000,000 light sensitive cells” is that its the result of an “eternal spirit” is foolish. As you profess, there are plenty of things beyond our current understanding. It is logical and statistical and thus reasonable that humans lack full comprehension of all subjects. You should not collapse into a pile and call it the result of a spirit. Moreover, citations from ‘really smart guys’ to support an argument is a logical fallacy and an easy way out. Otherwise, thanks for a very nice and thoughtful posting.

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Bananas were not designed by cosmic intervention, but by humans. Bananas are one of the first fruits domesticated and cultivated by human beings a little more than 7000 years ago. Humans have bred bananas selectively for smaller seeds and a tastier banana, in much the same way we have cultivated seedless grapes and watermelons.

The other arguments are just as senseless.

I could argue just as easily that unicorns exist because they really created everything, not an invisible man in the sky. The only reason I could argue this with you, is the complete lack of critical thought behind any of your arguments. Any intelligent person would laugh… at everything you have to say on the subject.

Let’s make this clear. -There is no evidence for the existence of a god-

Spirits, gods, unicorns, leprechauns, faeries, santa clause, and the easter bunny are all examples of fiction. All have the exact same chance of existing.

My ‘good judgment’ doesn’t come from a 2,000 year old book. My ‘good judgment’ doesn’t involve going to *christian*(read: moron) sites arguing my point of view. My ‘good judgment’ doesn’t involve groundless arguments hashed over by a group of people called ‘apologists’. My ‘good judgment’ doesn’t involve fairy tales of bearded, violent, lying old men in the sky.

If I were you, I’d stick with arguing your point to other deluded lunatics.

RAmen

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Of course the Banana was designed by our lord the FSM. I mean, just becuase /wild bananas/ don’t look anything like the ones that have been bred using artificial selection, that doesn’t mean that FSM didn’t spontaneously make them that way…I mean, that’s science. Who cares about /science/?
And I like your analogy to inanimate objects as life forms. Coca cola cans are, like organisms, found in the wild, reproduce, have genetic variation, are millions of years old, share homogenous structures with other organisms, have vestigal organs, and of course, are subject to the pressure of the natural environment.
And yes, those silly evolutionists, thinking that Darwin was right. I mean, to them Darwin was a prophet…again, never mind the fact that the EVILutionists don’t subscribe to every part of his ideas, such as the origin of whales, as they base science on evidence instead of faith in someone. No, please close your ears and mind to that fact. In fact, close your ears and mind to ALL biology!
And yes, of course the evil theory of evolution works just in the way you described. Everything happening at once, instead of, over millions of years, different parts and phenotypes being present in organisms, which, if fit to their environment, survive. Thank you for your obviously well-researched view of how evolution works–er, doesn’t work.
This is why the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is so important to us. Do you see now, how we should all forget every piece of science pointing to evolution (which is all of it in the life science)–no, we should all try to minimize our understanding of this world and subscribe to Pastafarianism. Do you have any proof there’s no FSM? Even if you did; we can’t trust you–you don’t know everything in the universe! Do you believe in spherical cubes? You must be agnostic to spherical cubes, for even if you are the leading scientist in the world of math and physics, you still have limited knowledge.
So thank you for your lovely support of Pastafarianism. Perhaps one day we can propagate faith in Intelligent Falling, as well, instead of that silly old theory of gravity. Spread the word that your Noodly Master, (who does have complete knowledge!) is watching. :)

RAmen

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Okay… the whole banana point shows either you don’t understand the concept of parallel evolution or are simply misinformed. Additionally, you’ll note that the human mind is exceedingly good at finding patterns (such as evidence of design), even where none necessarily exist. It’s a convenient, simple answer to say that the world is designed because it looks that way, but if one looks hard enough for evidence of a pattern with the expectation of finding it, one will be certain of finding it. In other words, it’s ironic when Yahweh says in the Bible that if you seek him with all your heart, you’ll find him, because it’s true. That doesn’t make Yahweh real, though. Preconception is often the difference between good science and bad science. Finally, some of the arguments you’ve made come from a particular evangelism course (”The Way of the Master”), the sole strong point of which is to play on people’s deepest insecurities to scare them into Christianity. These arguments are designed for soft targets who cannot deal with these insecurities on their own, but as such, the arguments will not be effective in convincing an educated person. Thank you for your time and for your civility, though.

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thank you, jonathon, for your useful contribution.

it would seem that the greatest misunderstanding is that this is a site for atheists – it isn’t, it’s for Pastafarians.

another misunderstanding which is held widely is that God is a “person” – clearly God isn’t a person, and we can read about that in the Bible (many people who do read the Bible don’t read the whole book).

my recommendation to all is to read Marcel Proust’s great work – many timeless truths are hidden in its pages, and it would make a great foundation for a religion, a great companion to Pastafarianism.

peace and love to all

RAmen

x

.michael.

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You completely missunderstand the concept of evolution. Only Xtians, orthodox Jews, Muslims or Morons like you cannot understand evolution. Get yourself educated. Btw, it needs a lot of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science to build a computer and its software. Faith is not needed, believe me ;) The bible does not work and this is good so. Anyway, explain me who created the creator, designed the designer? And it’s creator/designer? And so on. The concept of a god does explain nothing. Become a pastafarian, eat spaghetti and be happy!

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hehehehehehehehehe

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hahahahahaha

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Tripe anyone?
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There’s one thing that I always wondered about the banana-theory, and I use the term theory loosely, very loosely, what about the pineapple?

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I do not understand if he is saying that the universe is a can of Coke? I started getting excited when he was talking of aluminum and brown liquid – I thought he was going to talk about a steaming pot of a most delicious spaghetti sauce.

If I may add to the miracle of the banana and perhaps wax a wee chauvinistic, it is also very pleasing to watch a hot girl eat a banana. mmmmmmmm…

It is precisely these same fallacious arguments that I use to strengthen my belief in FSM. Every tasty plate of spaghetti must have a designer. He who does not eat a yummy plate of spaghetti when it is before him is:

A. A fool.

B. Has an ulterior motive.

C. Not intelligent.

May I suggest the disciples of Jesus and the pirates of Flying Spaghetti Monster unite against the real affront to Him on this Earth (Kraft Macaroni and Cheese)?

Rah-men

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I agree it’s wrong to say there’s absolutely no God, but aren’t you saying there’s absolutely no evolution? You can’t know for a fact that evolution didn’t happen. You being just as irrational as any atheist.

Darwin is not our leader and is not infallible. Just because he had doubts about the evolution of the eye doesn’t mean all supporters of evolution must blindly (no pun intended) believe what he does.

There are millions of species of plants and we only eat a few. We can pick the most convient ones from a huge variety.

Also, if the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster were, hypothetically, a satire and a parody, it wouldn’t be anti-God, it would be anti-’teaching intelligent design as science’.

Good approach though, most of the hate mail is irrational babbling and threats.

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Could it be that your logic is clouding your good judgment?”

-Jonathon

*
Rarely have I seen such misuse of the term logic.
Dear Jonathan, please go back to school or a library and read a few real books. Not AiG crap. Thank you.

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I agree it’s wrong to say there’s absolutely no God, but aren’t you saying there absolutely can’t be evolution? To make that claim would make you just as irrational as any atheist.

Darwin is not our leader and is not infallible. Just because he had doubts about the evolution of the eye, doesn’t mean all supporters of evoltion must blindly (no pun intended) believe what he does.

There are millions of species of plants and only we eat a few. We can pick the most convenient ones from a huge variety.

Einstein did believe in God, just not in the normal sense. He saw God as a collection of all the scientific laws and rules.

Also, if the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster were, hypothetically, a satire and a parody religion, it would not be anti-God, it would be anti-’teaching intelligent design as science’.

Good approach with the thought out argument though. Most of the hate mail is irrational babbling and threats.

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Lmao the banana:
That is a wild banana:
http://www.dasmirnov.net/media/users/paul/PBF_02_3_image_04_full.jpg
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I know another object, part of human body, that has a shape that can be compared to that of a banana that is also shaped for human hand and mouth. Anyway you get where i am heading too, and if you dont, then you are probably dont want to know.
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So who created god?
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So where is your proof for your god? If you havent noticed, this site is about the flying spaghetti monster. We believe that the holy FSM created everything. You havent said anything to proof it was your god and not the FSM

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Good points. One thing though: it is FSM that did all that, not God. To state that there is no FSM and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there isn’t one. Thanks for stopping by though.

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That all applies to the FSM as well. Also, you spelt your name wrong: JonathAn.

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how long did it take you to write that fuckin long ass hate-mail. no one is going to take the time to read your shit. you must be some fatass to spend te time to write that much shit about a topic you hate. if you dont believe in the flying spaghetti monster, then go fuck your mom cause nobody cares. did i mention that no one is going to rea your stupid ass shit that waste up a page of crap?

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I doubt anyone will read this.

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Yes, you are right, it is better to worship a zombie jewish carpenter, who will grant you eternal life if you eat his flesh and blood. And the god fellow is somewhat contradicting himself: Don’t you guys down there sin, although I made you in such a way that you find the irresistible urge to sin, therefore I want all of you to go to hell, although I love you all.
The person who creates something, only to gloat about it’s misfortune is:
A) Sadist
B) Loonie
C) He did not create it, just someone told you he created it.

Oh, and which of the wide variety of gods are you refering to? The Jehovists version of god, the jewish version, Christian (and if so, of which version of christianity) version of god – the one that the jews had but had a change of his eternal mind, Universe peoples version of god, Cthulhu, Azatoth, FSM, muslim version of god…?

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The Banana is also perfectly shaped for your ass, maybe you should think about what you “intelligent” person should do with it…

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You are missing a few points here, Jonathon. One of them has something to do with the expression ‘it happened by chance or accident’.

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First time posting, I’m a semi-recent convert – I hope I do my fellow Pastafarians proud. ^^

First off, the banana is also eaten by other animals, monkeys and elephants for example, so to say it’s formed for us is like saying it is formed for the other animals too. The banana is a fruit, therefore is a part of the tree’s lifecycle, it’s design is that when it drops on the ground the seeds feed off the fruit’s flesh and start placing roots thus continuing it’s existance. It is therefore nesessary to be biodegradeable for instance. Besides, honestly, what isn’t bio-degradable in nature, especially among living things. >.> The subjective ‘facts’ namely taste and shape would be more a product of our evolution, if the banana were a main part of our diet.

The eye: I remember having this discussion with my highschool science teacher once >.>. Anyway, it could have evolved from say, something like a flatworm’s eye something that detects only light and dark then maybe something that sees movement to shapes. A lot of our sight is not a function of the eyes so much as the section of the brain that interperts the signals it gets. Those creatures that have more simple body structures also tend to have short lifecycles, along many more advantagous developments to develop over a set period of time.

Sidenote: why qoute ‘famous’ people? It seems rather trite. After all, many people say many things and there can be and are qoutes for everything.

Order and chaos are functions of our mind. Our brain recognized patterns even when there are really none, shapes in clouds for example. And to call out any specific pattern for the ‘oranges’ the chances are going to be astronomically low, even if it’s a random pattern as opposed to an ordered one. You can however, predict where the oranges will land given an understanding of physics, the materials involved and a hugely vast amount of time.

To declare that there is God is to make an absolute statement. And for an absolute statement to be true; one must have absolute knowledge. Here is another such statement: “All gold is in China.”

What would I need to have for that statement to be true?

A. No knowledge of China?

B. Partial knowledge of China?

C. Absolute knowledge of China?

“C” is the correct answer. In order for the statement to be true, I must know that all gold is in China.

Likewise; to state that there is God and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there is one.

Let’s say that a circle contains all the knowledge of the universe. And let’s say that you have an incredible understanding of one percent of all that knowledge. Is it possible that the knowledge you haven’t yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove that God does not indeed exist?

To ‘in summary’: However, the collective knowledge of humanity knows how every single thing we use in daily life is made and how it works, regardless of if we do. It is not faith. If the computer is not on, I do not pray that to turn it on – that’s just silly. I check components starting simply (say, ‘Is the power on?’and moving into the more complex and if my knowlegde is not enough there are others that are trained to deal with it.

“One should approach the Bible in the same way as the monitor. If it works, enjoy it and if it doesn’t, forget it.”

Wouldn’t something that’s filled with condictions especially went applied to the real world, notably on the top of my mind ‘Thou shall not kill’ vs the Crusades, be considered to not be working? Secondly, that’s exactly what I did, yet you decry my beliefs, shame on you for judging others. ‘He who is not guilty cast the first stone’ ring a bell?

Seriously though, did I go to your church’s website and try to denounce your faith with ‘evidence’? No, but perhaps you would like me to. ‘Treat others as you wish to be treated’, isn’t that a moral of some story in your sacred text? If not, it’s good common sense. Respect our faith, if finding it rediculously silly and be done with it. Simple.

Have a nice life. =P

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To declare that there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is to make an absolute statement. And for an absolute statement to be true; one must have absolute knowledge. Here is another such statement: “The Romans had wireless internet.”

Test 4 What would I need to have for that statement to be true?

A. No knowledge of Rome and wireless internet?

B. Partial knowledge of Rome and wireless internet?

C. Absolute knowledge of Rome and wireless internet?

“C” is the correct answer. In order for the statement to be true, I must know that wireless internet was not found in Rome’s ruins.

Likewise; to state that there is no FSM and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there isn’t one.

Let’s say that a circle contains all the knowledge of the universe. And let’s say that you have an incredible understanding of one percent of all that knowledge. Is it possible that the knowledge you haven’t yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove that the FSM does indeed exist?

If you are reasonable, you would have to admit, “Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no FSM.” In other words, you don’t know if the FSM exists, so you are not Touched by his Noodliness. You are in denial. You are like a person that looks at a Pirate and says that the world isn’t warming up.

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Research: the moron’s worst nightmare.
The Banana fallacy, as ‘t is called, talks about the banana – the Cavendish banana. The Banana has a history of about 8000 years of cultivation – it has a designer, namely Papua farmers. If you ever see a wild banana, YOU would be the one with nightmares. It’s big, has a tough skin, has big seeds. The Bible does not explain why He would create such a disgusting and unhandy fruit. Pastafarianism does: He was drunk.

And Oh Noes, not the Darwin and the Eye quotemine AGAIN. Even AIG is fed up with this one. Try reading the lines that follow it.

Everything has a creator, Jonathon. Even your article: it was created by someone else (or likely even more than one) and you copy-pasted it here without second thought. What’s your point other than showing you completely lack any knowledge on biology, astrology, geology and the scientific method?

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Firstly, I’d like to thank the author from refraining from using words similar to 1337, LOL etc. and showing that they no only know how to write in sentances, but also how to structure an argument :D

However, here’s my reply.

I won’t deny that a coca-cola can came about by chance. Thats obvious enough – it was made in a factory! However, since you are referring to the gradual rise of life, then evolution seems to cover all the corners in terms of this.

The big mistake people seem to make is referring to evolution as “Blind chance”. It isn’t. It’s much more than that. Yes, chance has an minute effect on it, but that effect is negligable. What is important is how the small chances, such as, say, having a slightly better immune system, are saved – if the new feature isn’t useful, it will tend to cause the organisms it is present in to die out. If it is useful, they will tend to survive. So, overall, organisms which are better adapted to survive, through chance mutations, survive. Then THOSE animals develop chance mutations, which make them better, but the odds of them getting to that stage from their starting point (a better-than-average organism) is much more likely than from their original starting point (an average animal). Obviously this can be taken much, much further, and we end up with life today. If you can’t see how there is enough time for this to happen, think how long a century is. The earth is 460,000 centuries old (and has had life for about 360,000 centuries). Plenty of time, don’t you think?

The banana argument can also easily be used to support evolution – originally, the banana would have been used to transport seeds, like all other fruit. Anything which made the banana more appetising would have been useful, and so the features you quoted would have evolved! (Think about it – the tress which have bananas which are more likely to be eaten are more likely to have offspring).

I don’t know the evolution of the eye off hand, but im sure it can’t be too difficult to find.

Yes, Darwin did write that. But he then went on, through the rest of the chapter, to show how the eye could come into being. It’s a quote taken out of context! (Im my opinion, worse than a misquote…)

I Don’t know about the other quotes, but they are quite possible taken out of context too.

You argue that without full knowlegde of the universe you can’t prove there isn’t a God. That argument works both ways – can’t prove there is a god either. As an athiest *cough* i mean pastafarian…i have looked at the evidence and decided that there seems to be no need for a God. Yes, we don’t know everything, but how can you argue that a god exists form that? It seems more likely that we could never understand how the universe started, than there was a God to start it.

And i find theif/policeman analogy quite insulting. I really, really do. it kinda let the tone down of a well written argument. But at least you put more effort into this than the other people who write hate mail/concernd criticism…

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That was long!! Without capital letters? Without cursing? It seems -only seems- to be rational! And it’s more correct grammatically than will be my answer
–
“Billions of years ago, a big bang produced a large rock…” Well, how it sounds to you:
“6000 years ago a God created the world. He was in heaven -where is heaven? Mont Olympus? Above us? In a satellite? He was surrounded by angels – fairy-like and without sex, boring- who didn’t have free will -wait! one of them was send to hell for weanting to be like god. So he created the man -he get bored in less than a week?- and woman from a man’s rib. He loves mankind, but he insists in killing them… he demands to worship him…”
Given these two options, I think the first is more probable
–
“The Banana: The Atheist Nightmare”
Of course not! The banana was designed for God to be used like a primitive dildo…humorous! Do you know that other bananas are smaller and aren’t shaped for the human hand?So the perfect designer needed to improve his design…
–
“To write that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to write that no one designed the Coca Cola can” – Evolution is not an accident! Is probability and survival!
–
The eye “problem” was explained in terms of evolution by Charles Darwin in the same book you are quoting, 2 centuries ago… but the IDiots are still explaining this “problem”
–
“If I could prove God statistically”
A free advice: if you don’t know a word about statistics -the example with the oranges was a good laugh- don’t try to use it.
I saw that example: try to get all the telefon numbers of all the people that won the lottery in any state of USA for the last ten years, order it for date and state. The chance to get this secuence of numbers is very close to 0, so God is playing with the lotttery…
–
“To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement”
Well, we are not saying that we are sure that there is no god, but we don’t need them to explain the evolution. In fact, the existence of your God ant the ID is as plausible as the FSM ant the Unintelligent Design, may His noddly appendage touch you.
–
” If you are reasonable, you would have to admit, “Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God.””
I admit that more or less: “Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I don’t have any scientific reason to believe that there is A God”. Can you see the difference?
–
In summary, I agree with you: My computer is magic! Inside my monitor is a Dwarf painting the words, reading it directly from my mind…

RAmen

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Where do you start to reply to this? I’ll pick a couple of points.
.
Your computer analogy is wrong. The step of faith would be switching on the world’s only computer every morning hoping it would work, because somebody assured you it once worked two thousand years ago. The “computer waves” are observable those who understand computers.
.
The banana seems to me to indicate the exact opposite of what you suggest. As a piece of design it is rubbish — a fruit with no seeds. It has evolved from a functional, but difficult to eat, fruit. Not in this case by natural selection, but (like most modern food crops) by selective breeding over thousands of years. By sowing seeds only from the plants with the largest proportion of defective (i.e. seedless) fruits, and has designed the banana. You have no doubt seen the creationist video of your banana story. It is so good that when I first saw it I assumed it was a comedy sketch. I am sure I will be one of many linking to this, but check out the debunk youtube video at:
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLqQttJinjo

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As for the eye, the evolutionary line is pretty clear:

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/ridley_eyes.gif

As you can see, one eye in the row could easily have evolved from its more simple predecessor; the simplest being a spot of light-absorbing molecules as present in some bacteria. But I agree, the whole process may have well been pushed forward a little bit by His Noodly Appendages, just to bring fashionable eye patches into existence in due (evolutionary) time.

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Hahahaha I hope we don’t really need to explain this :p It is his noodlyness who has created this – notice, the banana is in shape with a foreshortened appendage.

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The Atheist’s Nighmare:

Yellow Bananas as we know them today have been selectively bred by farmers over many generations; bananas that are natural look very different and do not have many of the characteristics that are mentioned in that article. Bananas have not always been how they are described in that article.

The same is true of things like carrots – natural carrots can be a variety of colours – orange carrots we know well today were selectively bred for by dutch farmers.

“Orange-coloured carrots appear in the Netherlands in the 17th century. The Dutch were the first to make the orange carrot. They Dutch made the orange carrot to be less bitter than the yellow varieties.” – Wiki

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@ Jonathon (thon?)
How is it that you religious people are never able to see beyond your own prejudice and are always trying to fit everybody else into your narrow frames of mind?
.
You got everithing wrong:
.
-nothing happens by chance or by accident but an almighty maker is not the only alternative;
.
-the banana example proves nothing: think about the coconut, or the pineapple;
.
-the Darwin quote on the eye is accurate but truncated: it goes on “however…” and it explains how the eye was indeed formed by evolution and natural selection;
.
-Einstein’s quote is neither confusing nor contradictory. His “spirit” can mean lots of different things and we know for sure that it is not supposed to mean any sort of god;
.
-I do not know the odds for 50 oranges falling in 5 rows of ten but I know that it is higher than zero, therefore, if you try long enough it is a certitude that it will happen. If you find this mind boggling it is because your mind is very easily boggled;
.
-Nobody declares that there is no God, we only declare that many people have been searching for gold in China for a long time and to the date have found no evidence that there might be some;
.
-in summary you are confusing faith with experience: my experience makes me expect that the computer will work when I turn it on (I am however prepared to find out that sometimes it might not be the case) while your faith tells you that a God exists despite the experience of the entire humanity to the contrary.
.
Do you agree that you got it all wrong?
.
Or do you have an ulterior motive?
.
RAmen

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Can’t sleep!! Bananas will eat me!!!!!!
.
St John the Blasphemist
Saint of Gastronomical Nightmares

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Oh dear. The banana thing. Creationists and fruit again. It’s testament (no pun intended) to the poor reasoning of ID that none of the features of a banana described preclude the banana evolving so that other primates (yes, monkeys and apes can peel bananas too!) could spread banana seeds. Yes, wild bananas have seeds even if the ones in a supermarket don’t. Perhaps a knowledge of biology that extended beyond what can be found on a grocery store shelf would help this guy’s comprehension of evolution.

Also, none of the features described are absolutely unique to the banana. Analogues and homologues of these characteristics are seen in other fruits and berries – exactly as would be expected from characteristics that have arisen through evolutionary processes! The banana teleology falls flat for the same reasons that the old chestnut about bacterial flagella does (trust me, I have a PhD in microbiology).

And now oranges. Oranges! The new weapon in Creationisms War on Reason (or is that just in Florida). Yes, it is extremely unlikely that 50 oranges would fall into 10 rows of 5. But if oranges that were in the correct positions were kept and the ones that were not were discarded, and then another 50 were dropped, and then this process was repeated again and again and again, you WOULD end up with 10 rows of 5 eventually. That is because this process would be SELECTIVE rather than totally random, in the way that evolution works through natural selection. The difference being that natural selection is not an intervention by a celestial orange sorter, but an inevitable consequence of competition for finite resources.

It’s amusing, though, to see this person use the “no gold in China” argument deployed by Dawkins in “The God Delusion”. Here however, a typical Creationist attempt to move the goal posts by trying to change the meanings of words (in this case “atheist” and “agnostic”) is supposed to turn this argument around. It does not, of course. While a hypothetical person who states that they “know” there is no god would be termed a “strong atheist”, an atheist is simply someone who does not BELIEVE in a god. An atheist is in almost every case is not a strong atheist but someone who states simply that “while there may be a god or gods, on the basis of all of the available evidence, it does not seem remotely likely that there is”. An agnostic says “I just don’t know.” These are FUNDAMENTALLY (again, no pun intended) different viewpoints.

I do agree with the last point, however. I DO have an ulterior motive. I am a biologist. A scientist. My motive is to learn about how living things work, to learn the TRUTH about life and the universe around it based on evidence, reason and experimentation. If evidence and reason told me there was a bearded misogynist in the sky who farted the world into existence, then I would believe that. But it does not. So I don’t.

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That’s the most brilliant proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real I’ve ever seen! Now bow before our noodly master!

Along with a banana that He made so perfect it only took humans 10000 years of selective breeding to make it as large, seedless and tasty as it is today. What was He thinking? And we actually tampered with the banana’s ability to defend itself against parasites, which is a problem if we want bananas to ever grow in the wild again. (this directly from http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0719-02.htm).

Since a pineapple is clearly unintelligent design, as anyone who ever tried to open one will testify, we can but assume that He was really drunk when designing it. Which further confirms that FSM is indeed the Creator, as no other Creator deity was ever portrayed drunk.

Praised be the Flying Spaghetti Monster, creator of strange fruit!

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Should this post have been posted on an atheist website?

We here believe, that in the beginning, the Flying Spaghetti Monster created everything,
but just as some painter designed the Mona Lisa and forgot the eyebrows,
and Americans invented mass produced cars,
then shortly after gave up updating the designs,
he created the sauce of everything and left it to be developed, or to rot?

But like the painter of the Mona Lisa he will not come back to correct his mistakes,
but he left a paint pot.

Roy

Ps.
If it helps you can even pray to the FSM with exactly the same results as to praying to anything else.

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A lot of your statements seem to imply that if God didn’t create everything, then everything must have been caused by random chance.

This argument is often used by people who deny evolution – for example, with the watch argument (If you put all the parts of a watch in a bag and shake it, what are the chances that it would form a working watch? Somehow some people think this also works with evolution). Arguments like these are not valid – watches parts are neithing living, nor can they evolve.

Recently, I saw an experiment someone did with a simple piece of coding, where watch parts randomly grouped together. The ones that were more like functioning watches were the only ones that managed to survive (instead of survival of the fittest, it was survival of the ones most like watches) and thus, the only ones to reproduce, and over time they evolved from simple pendulums to fully functioning watches.

Make of it what you will – it seemed fairly trustworthy, but it could have been a hoax. A lot of arguments that are used to show how things could only have reached how they are today if there was a diety seem to assume that any other way is purely by chance – which it isn’t.

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@ Jonathan,
I applaud your convictions. You truly believe yourself and your attempts to prove them. However, comparing inanimate objects and their creators (paintings, buildings), to the evolution of biology is not like comparing apples to apples, it is like comparing apples to cities. No comparrison. When I turn my computer on I don’t know how it works, but somebody does. When I see examples of evolution I don’t fully understand it but somebody does and is understanding it more everyday.
If you choose to close your mind to research, learning, and full, although complicated, explanations of the world we live in then that is your choice to make.
I for one will never allow anyone to tell me “it’s that way because something I have no proof of made it that way and if you don’t believe me that something will punish you.”
Sounds like persuasion by use of fear to me and I’ll have no part of it.
RAmen!!

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I have to say, Jonathon you are possibly one of the most intelligent “Hate mail” senders I have had the honor of reading. Of course you are trying to show us the “light” and the error of our ways but none-the-less.
Good points.

Thought, shouldn’t logic decide our judgment?
Instead of taking a snakebite victim to the hospital should we just pray for them to become well, although no one has survived the venom before without treatment?
Should we put faith in place of logic and judgment?

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An actual well-thought out argument.
.
First off, I would like to congradulate Jonathon on his letter. I believe that it was well organized and very well argued. Applause all around.
.
Now I would like to point something out to Jonathon.
.
We are not necessarily atheists; I myself, like you said, am an agnostic because I do not believe in the establishment of religion. I am, however, quite spiritual. Praises to his Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
.
Jonathon, please note that the FSM and pastafarianism are not are way to disprove the existence of a god; but rather to point out the flaws in your own christain views. It is satire designed to poke fun at intelligent design; like you said, “The odds that ten oranges would fall into a straight line is mind boggling. Let alone ten rows of five.”. But what are the odds that there is an omnipotent and omniscient being in a place that is pure bliss and happiness and all that he(I say he because that is how the patriarchy of Christianity refers to it)does is watch every single thing we do? The odds are mind-boggling.
.
I’d rather take my chances with the oranges falling in to ten rows of five; odds and probability say that it is bound to happen eventually.

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Pushed the button before I was ready.
.
At least you know for a FACT that the oranges will eventually fall into their rows. Can you say you know for a fact that god exists? You couldn’t unless you were omnipotent. And if you were, that would make you god, wouldn’t it? And for some crazy reason, I don’t think that you are god.

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Good arguments, though I admit I only scanned a lot of it. But your own point is that it’s faith. ID is faith. It shouldn’t be taught as science.

Gonna go get a banana…

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I agree 100% with everything you have posted, Jonathon. We all know that the universe is created. It is only the manipulations of that supreme being’s noodly appendage that makes it seem to be otherwise. But we are arguing over which intelligent designer it is. As the name of the theory is INTELLIGENT design, I would postulate it is the being that knows enough about M-string theory, carbon isotope ratios, biology, chemistry, genetics, astrophysics, geology, and every single other scientific field to utterly confound them, and set up a iron-clad chain of logics among all fields that support each other. I don’t remember what bible verse it is that claims it. I know it is in the Gospel, though.

Were I to use a atheist, pro-science viewpoint to pick apart your arguments (which I’m going to guess you are copying verbatum from the flyer I found on the bus a couple of months back.) it would look something like this:

1) Your Coca-Cola theory would be perfectly valid in a seriation. In a world where thousands of similar cans, perhaps one is blue and white, perhaps one reads ‘Coca-Kola’, but the important thing when remembering the “Watchmaker” fallacy is context. Sure, a coke can, or watch, out in the middle of a forest is an abberation. In the middle of a pile of cans or a wall of watches, it is a commonality.

2) The banana? Did you just take that from a ID website, or from one of those flyers they ‘hide’ on the back of buses? At least you didn’t trot out the old “Carbon Dating is wrong!” argument. To deflate your banana argument, I’d just like to ask: What major civilizations are based upon this wondrous fruit? Certainly the Greeks and Romans… No? How about the Kingdom of David… Not domesticated yet. Huh. Egypt? Happarapa? Mesopotamia? Olmec? Maya? Zu Dynasty? None of them? God made this perfect food for humans, then made it so that it was finicky and would only grow in very limited places, then didn’t even see fit to give this divine gift onto any of the civilizations. Sounds like the Banana is well designed, but the creator doesn’t have the slightest clue about distribution.

3) The coke can again. Hey, I got a question for all the “GOD DOES EVERYTHING” crowd. If He is so amazing, why does He reuse so many parts? Your average Sci-fi hack can come up with a dozen creatures more unique then anything found here on Earth, yet just about every Cordade has a pair of eyes, almost identical. Speaking of eyes, why is it that all the IDers always forget that eyeballs didn’t evolve once on earth, but TWICE. God flexing his design Intelligence by using the exact same design yet again? What about flight? That managed to pop up twice in identical fashion among two animals who have no real similarities. Echolocation? Again, at least twice, and that is at least as complex as an eyeball. If you look, again and again, you see animals and plants filling the same nitches (’guilds’) in different ecosystems in identical ways. Even if they are on opposite sides of the world, they manage to come to the same conclusion. Ostriches, Emus and Rheas? Africa, South America, and Australia. They can’t fly, so how did they get there? On the backs of coconuts?

4) Your test #2 is inherently flawed. Unless you are saying that GOD built buildings… Even evengelical Pastafarians don’t claim that. A mountain, a tree and a midget, sure, but buildings?

5) Test 3 is laughably flawed. Otherwise we would accurately predict the weather, earthquakes, and gambling would never been invented. Chemistry and medicine would work 100% of the time with 100% of the people. Speaking of people, you wouldn’t have any. Most biologic functions require a bit of inefficiency to protect them from unbalancing. To say nothing about how genes are passed on. Chaos and disorder is everywhere, especially if you pass the Heinsberg limit.

6) Your test #4 suffers from the fact that nobody in the group you are trying to demolish has ever said there is no god, outside of the rants of certain priests. The official scientific position is “Not enough evidence” This is what is known as a “Straw man” in common vulgate. It would be like if I said “Why do all Christians hate bricks?” No matter how you answer this accusation, you are acknowledging the fact that it is based upon, that Christians hate bricks.

7) God is building buildings again? Tell him to knock it off. The housing market is oversaturated, and the market is crashing.

A long list of straw men. Probably the same arguements were used back in the Renasance, and still failed to do anything but inspire the faithful.

So thank you Jonathon, you have inspired me. Truely He is great in all things, and in his Noodly Wisdom has created all things around us and made them Good. I especially like the bananas. They should become a holy meal for a religion. Ours already has one, but I think Christianity could use some bananas. They have lots of fiber in them, helps you clean out your system.

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tl;dr

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Oh how i love how these people think they can prove God exists by trying to prove how statistically improbable it is that we exist, or how it is impossible for us to prove that God doesn’t exist.

Here goes:

Test 1:

A banana is a fruit and the simple fact is that the chances of one edible object fitting into some random blueprint for a perfect edible product is extremely high. People love to eat Lobster, but is it a lot harder to eat, does this mean that we are not supposed to eat it, or that God does not in fact exist because not all edible objects are made easy for us to eat. (I would also like to point out that most of us eat Bananas the wrong way… look it up on Google… the so called tab to open it is in fact the wrong side to open it on).

Test 2:

Yes, a cave has no builder and yet there are many caves that are quite habitable. The fact that we chose to improve on on our environment is our own choice. In fact i would go as far as to say if god does exist then he did not build us very nice houses.

Test 3:

It is highly unlikely, but not impossible, the pure fact that it only happens once in a million times does not mean that it will never happen, in fact if you do it a million times a day for a million years it will happen at least once a day.

Test 4:

Flip this argument over, to state that there is a god is an absolute statement… follow on from there… this kind of proof wouldn’t stand one second against any statistician. The simple fact is that you cannot prove that there is in fact gold in China, so how can you say that we who say there is no gold in China are wrong. And if you are assuming there is gold in China, what FACTS are you basing this on?

Test 5:

If a man sees a building or a painting and thinks there is no builder then he obviously does not know what a building is. Could he be looking at a large rock formation? Or is he looking at a skyscraper? How can you use the fact that some things are created perfectly for man (sic) a banana AND the fact that man has to build his own houses because god didnt build adequate ones for him as an argument that god exists… surely these statements contradict eachother? Either god creates everything perfectly for us, or we have to build it ourselves… ther eis no middle ground here… you are saying god does exist… we are simply saying that we don’t see enough proof that he does. Unless of course you are talking about HIM, then i stand corrected, his noodly appendage would never create such conundrums!

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Interesting….

However:

Why do humans still have an appendix? They serve no digestive purpose and all they can do is kill you by getting infected.

Why do we sometimes bite the insides of our mouths? What kind of perfect design is that?

Why do some lizards have small, useless stubs that used to be legs, even though they only move by slithering like snakes?

1. Evolution does not question the existance of God as such. I shouldn’t think it will ever be possible to prove or disprove His existance

2. “If man can not create the human eye then how can anyone in their right mind believe that it was created by chance?”
Evolution isn’t the story of things evolving and it all “falling into place”. It’s the story of billions of random changes happening in the world and those changes that are useful surviving. By “useful”, I mean able to survive. Naturally, only very few of these things are any use at all.

3. To claim that a 2000 year old book written by people with limited knowledge of the world around them is truer than the life’s work of an intelligent scientist who based his ideas on observation and logic is an INSULT to Charles Darwin.

4. Naturally of course, the above points are merely what the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes us believe by making ALL empirical data suggest evolution. Pastafarianism is no more untrue or unlogical than Christianity, Judaism, Islam or any creed you might come up with. Maybe one day, His Noodly Appendage will touch you too.

RAmen

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well…i wonder how long you thought about that one …besides do you really wanna make it seem bad??? FSM?

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Hello Retard,
Yes the eye from from evolution, a single cell, when they formed multicellular organisms the ones that developed sensory details survived to reproduce, and eventually that trait was amplified. During the time, if someone didn’t accept a god, they wouldn’t be taken seriously and most of them were prosecuted. Yes, people build things with the resources they have a round them, an evolutionary trait that makes us as animals successful, but all do you really think it’s more likely that the laws of physics were created?! Some times the religious right are total morons, you think that the laws of physics didn’t exist before then? The big bang started with a single point of matter, an atom that was very dense, so the structure of the atom already existed, there was chaos and very little order at the beginning of the universe, and because we are a tiny, tiny planet we haven’t been able to experience it to the fullest, aren’t we lucky! Though if the sun doesn’t go out we will eventually collide and be swallowed by a massive black hole at the center of the Andromida galaxy. So why would “gods” favorite creations be guaranteed a horrible death? And his masterpiece destroyed? Because there is no god (aside from his holy spaghetti monster. And in answer to your last statement, have you ever actually read the bible? Because I have and it is so full of contradictions, a page after the one where it says thou shalt not sleep with a man as thou sleeps with a woman, it says to stone your daughter do death if she sleeps with anyone you haven’t consented her to! Also the bible was written 300-500 years after Jesus’ death, if he existed, so it was made up by other people against he teachings and will. Don’t pick and choose your morals from the bible and don’t tell people they’re wrong, perhaps your logic has been blinded by your religious brainwashing. FUCK YOU!

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Dear Jonathon,
`
What you and your like fail to understand is that evolutionary theory is not accident. Evolutionary theory is about responses to pressures. Why is the Bannana shaped the way it is? Evolutionary theory would predict that at somepoint in the evolutionary development that that shape for the fruit contained an advantage that allowed more members of the species to reproduce. Evolution neither proves nor disproves a god of any form. It is a mechanism, a process by which diversity occurs. Could it be the tool used by a designer? Who knows, thats a question for philosophy not biology. The fact of the matter is that the science supports evolution, the evidence supports it, and more importantly reason supports it. What creationism argues is that there is no natural mechanism, there is only the supernatural. What the evolution proponents argue is that there is a natural mechanism, and whether there is a supernatural force that is the cause of why things are the way they are is irrelavent to the study of the natural world. To put things into your coke can arguement, science does not try and explain the why it is that way (in the case of your arguement that is because its what the designer wanted it to look like) but instead trys to explain the how it was made (what tools did the designer use to make it? What steps where involved? etc.), Explaining the hows proves nothing in regards to the designer. Finally, demonstrating arguements counter to the philosophy of atheism does nothing to discredit or disprove evolutionary theory as I have pointed out. The beautiful thing about science is that it is based on observable, testable evidence, and regardless of your religion or philosophy the evidence does not change.
~
RAmen

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I love the example of the Banana as “The Atheist Nightmare”, since it is one of the fruits that did indeed have a creator: man!

Just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#Cultivation
or look at the picture of a wild banana, the large seeds make them uneatable. There has been a lot of cross-breeding and cultivation going on in order to create our current, sterile, asexual, perversion-of-nature bananas.
The banana that this guy attributes to “God” is small, almost round, full of seeds, very impractical and really disgusting if you try to eat it.

But his God didn’t stop there, he obviously also created Pineapples, Coconuts and of course Broccoli – just to mess with us. :)

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Wow that was the largest case of misquoting ever! Maybe if you did some actual research you would have discovered that was only part of the quote, taken entirely out of context and is merely his rhetoric setup. However misquoting him like this is a very popular way of trying to prove a false point so thank you for conforming to the norm of uninteligent people, using cheap tricks to try and prove a point. The actual, entire quote from the origin of species is as follows (it is very long):
“ORGANS OF EXTREME PERFECTION AND COMPLICATION.
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.”
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition (above from Project Gutenberg)

Therefore if you were to do some actual research you would have found the truth, not just a popular misquoting that the news media today enjoys to use for celebrities, and politicians.
If you read all of that good for you, Thank you and
RAmen
James, Self Appointed king of pirates.
P.S. the source of the info for this post was http://www.aquaticape.org/darwin.html
Thank you

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@Jonathon

You said:

“to state that there is no God and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there isn’t one.”

But wouldn’t it follow that to state that YOUR god is the correct god and all others are false then you are stating that you are omniscient? Can you be absolutely certain that god isn’t a Flying Spaghetti Monster?

By the way, your logic, while eloquent, is completely irrelevant. No one can know with certainty what is truth, but we can make an educated guess. Science relies on educated guesses, religion relies on a story that a group of people made up a long time ago in order to control a larger group of people.

Here’s my test for you Jonathon:
A person who believes in a story that a group of people made up a long time ago, over science (based on educated guesses) is:

A. Intelligent

B. A fool

C. Has an ulterior motive

RAmen to you!

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Another cut and paste special from an original thinker – ims.truepath.com/atheist.html

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Okay… so I think all you’ve done Jonathon (is like like a marathon of Jonas?) Is that it even more likely that the universe is governed by the FSM and not just randomly lumped together.

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>”The alternative, that it happened by chance or accident ”
.
But that isn’t the only alternative is it? There are many alternatives including “Natural Selection” for which the evidence is overwhelming.
.

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Oh my, copy-and-paste-tastic…

Think i’ll confine myself to the banana.

“1. is shaped for the human hand.”

Or is it that the human hand is shaped for the banana, or just possibly it evolved that way to fit more seeds on the same amount of stalk?

“2. has a non-slip surface.”

so does a nightshade plant, doesn’t mean that I want to eat it.

“3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late.”

or Green – still growing, yellow – not getting any more moisture (ready to fall or be taken off), black – starting to decompose

“4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper.”

that’ll be where it was connected to the tree?

“5. Is perforated on wrapper.”

Do you mean the peel that can come away from it in strips, which is not unique or because there are pores in the skin (which is normal for pretty much every plant/animal)?

“6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper.”

It’s made by a tree. Trees don’t know how to work shrink-wrap machines, so they have to use part of themselves, and trees are generally biodegradable given long enough…

“7. Is shaped for the human mouth.”

you clearly have a very strange shaped mouth

“8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry.”

I’m sure that i mentioned it being attached to the tree by that?

“9. Is pleasing to the taste buds.”

Depends on the tastebuds, I can’t stand them.

“10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy.”

I’m sure this is going back to fitting lots of seeds on a small stem? How about if you hold it the other way round, then it curves away from you, making it harder to eat, is this proof of the non-existence of your god or just her sense of humour?

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Can’t you nutjobs just make your letters short? Nobody wants to read them when they are a mile long so just cut to chase and quit wasting our time.

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Jonathon,
Finally someone post on this sight with insight, proper grammar, and intelligence. For this I applaud you. Your arguments are compelling and rational and no where are we “damned to hell” for believing something else.

Now or course your coke example has a creator, it is a product of man, same for a house, etc. These are human creations and no one denies this, that would be stupid.

Let’s look at your oranges. Would it be amazing that 50 oranges fell into 5 rows of 10: yes, it would. But what if the floor was grooved/slanted, making the oranges pre-disposed to fall in those rows? Well isn’t this kind of how proteins work? Amino Acids bond together to form proteins, these longer chains form peptides which form basic genetic codes. Amino Acids are “pre-disposed” to bond in certain ways to certain other amino acids. And the amino acids are created from atoms that want to bond to other atoms in “pre-disposed” ways. Oxygen does not by chance bond to Hydrogen; they are attracted to each other to balance their nuclear masses. It’s not a total random process, a pretty incredible process though.

Ok now “The Banana: The Atheist Nightmare”. This one made me do some research myself. Now this is what the web tells me from a number of different sights. I don’t have an encyclopedia with me now, but I will check that and will repost if I am wrong here. What I found is the banana does have a creator…man. Man bred two varieties of African wild bananas, the Musa acuminata and the Musa baalbisiana to make the current banana we know, made for a human hand and mouth with a great taste.

Now my opinion, stripped of the sarcasm of FSM because you posted seriously, I will. I don’t deny God. But God is all powerful and all knowing. In his infinite wisdom why would he place evidence that we gradually changed over time, that the Earth is billions of years old and then create everything individually only a few thousand years ago? Could he not use the laws of physics, the laws of nature and evolution to create us?

So what is more foolish: To blindly believe in a book that was written nearly 3000 years ago by man from an oral tradition, that was then translated again and again to make the current Old Testament that was used to answer questions people had about their world around them and unite them in common tradition; or to look at evidence both for and against evolution and come up with a rival theory that is scientifically testable.

Remember, evolution is a theory – it is a hypothesis that is backed by provable evidence from geology, paleontology, physics, etc.
ID is a hypothesis that can not be backed by provable evidence. Just because evolution could be disproved as a whole (though there is not the evidence to do this) does not mean ID is true.

For those that read the beginning and end:
May you be touched by his noodly goodness.

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a building that has no builder. yes. a cave
a painting that has no painter. yes. a sunset
a car (locomotion) that has no maker. yes. a flattish piece of wood upon which to sit

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That’s a classic mistake. Evolution has nothing to do with “chance” or “accident”, it’s a process based on one main principle, only the most adapted creatures survives (including banana trees). All these “evolution nightmares” have been demystified a long time ago…

“Could it be that your logic is clouding your good judgment” replace logic with faith, and this will sound much better.

Of course, keep in mind that evolution evidences have been created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster to trick us.

Benoit – May the pasta be with you

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I would first off like to point out how pleasent it is to get a Hate mail filled with a lodgical argument instead of yelling and cussing.
.
What I noticed most about your resoning was that everything has to have a designer. While that is true with inanimate objects, that is not the case in living beings. Natural selection deos not work with inanimate objects because:
1. They can not reproduce
2. They can not gain a genetic advangage because they cant produce
3. Even if they could use natural selection, it wouldn’t have any preteters it could defend against
This is why the coke can did not just appear from the sky. But, dispite the above argument, you have the wrong site. We quite agree with you with one small added detail: We believe in UD not ID. We beleive that the Flying Spaghetti Monster must have either been dunk or stupid when he created us. So, I think you should talk to a Non-Theist Organization.
.
Sincerly,
.
Concerned Pastafarian
(Ramen)

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Jonathon,
.
(Long Post Warning). Thank you for you post…it was interesting, though a bit rambling and I intend to respond to it in full.
.
First, the Coca Cola analogy. It simply makes no sense. I’m not sure you understand evolution…unless you are equating a coke can with the origin of inanimate objects like stars and planets, you cannot have a point. Coke cans don’t reproduce, they don’t have genetic material, they don’t have any kind of behavior whatsoever. If you ARE equating them with inanimate objects like rocks, etc., then the analogy simply falls apart seeing as planets and suns simply are the amalgamation of mineral and elemental forms thrown together by gravity…they were randomly produced but have order simply because they have mass and are therefore subject to gravitational force.
.
Second, the banana analogy. Hmmm…the banana fits the human hand so it has a designer; does that mean that a cactus that doesn’t fit the human hand doesn’t have a designer? I mean, what designer would put anything on earth that would harm his chosen people? A “nonslip” surface? Haha, nice. You see, Jonathon, natural selection is a beautiful thing of NATURE. The banana, being a fruit, is the means by which the banana tree reproduces. The fruit of a plant is highly adapted to be the best method for that species to successfully further its kind…the banana is not different, only our taste buds have adapted to find sweet things yummy and thus we like bananas when they are yellow. Had bitter fruits been better for us nutritionally, we may have adapted taste buds that would have preferred a green fruit, however, this is not the case and so, you think it is purely design. As for the “wrapper” and “tab” and “perforation,” well, ditto, Jonathon, these are perfect examples of adaptive strategies for reproductive success. A simple counter argument suffices: the banana is easy to peel and fits you mouth oh-so-well, but what about nuts? Nuts are hard to get into, difficult to crack, and if you don’t get all of that shell off of it, can hurt your teeth…so, no designer, right?
.
Answer to Question 1: B: A Fool.
.
What document are you referring to here??
.
Thirdly, the eye. The favorite choice of ID and Creationism alike! So, the eye is the pinnacle of design, right? No flaws in the eyes, right? Think about why so many of us wear glasses/contacts, have glaucoma, cataracts, a detached retina, lazy eyes, color blindness, or flat-out blindness? Could it be design flaws? Not if they were designed by a perfect being! Listen, the eyes are wonderful adaptive mechanisms, but it is easy to see how they might develop given enough time. Simple sea creatures may have developed light sensitive cells on their dorsal surfaces, those with the light sensitive patches survive because they can tell via a change in lighting if a predator has swum overhead. Therefore, because such morphological features are heritable, these cells are passed through generations and become more developed. Soon, a depression forms around the light sensitive cells and this allows the organism to tell what direction the predator is coming from…these survive better than their flat-backed counterparts. And on and on, in tiny steps that allow for better and better vision! Is that so hard to conceive? What is more at the root of your comments, Jonathon, is that you believe that humans are the pinnacle of creation instead of what we really are…a weak animal that has adapted brain power and manipulatory tactics to overpower our lack of morphological adaptations!
.
Regarding Einstein…he isn’t infallible and he is entitled to his opinion just as you and I are entitled to ours! Get over it!
.
Question 2: Answers: No, No, and No. So, what did you just prove, exactly? That man-made things are, by definition, made by man? Congratulations!
.
Fourthly, the orange analogy. I’m going to humor you here, Jonathon, but this is an absolutely ludicrous analogy and I suggest you stop using it. A quick lesson in natural selection: In sexually reproducing organisms, there are features that are heritable (genetic material that is passed from father and mother to offspring). Heritable traits that increase fitness (survival and reproductive success) are favored because they are passed on to offspring at a higher rate than traits that make offspring less fit. If, based on your example, oranges that fell into neat and orderly rows caused them to reproduce successfully, and this was a behavior that was genetically heritable, then eventually you would get way more than 5 oranges in a neat row…and all through natural selection (if the tree was dropping the oranges and not you)! Wow!
.
Fifthly, god and absolute knowledge. Based on scientific and philosophical research, I have found, personally, that there is not evidence that god exists and therefore I state quite clearly that I don’t think there is a god at all: this makes me an atheist. However, being a scientist myself, I am familiar with the scientific method which involves hypothesis testing and keeping an open mind with regard to the results: if hypotheses are proven incorrect that greatly affect even large scientific principles, scientists are quite ready to reject those principles and find alternates based on new hypotheses. If god was found to exist based on new evidences, I would happily reconsider…however, I do not consider myself agnostic for saying this. In other words, if scientific research showed that gravity was not, in fact, the main force at play in the universe, I would reconsider how I define gravity; however, I do not consider myself agnostic about the presence of gravity right now!
.
Lastly, with regard to your comments about computers, technology, etc. These are not some amazing things that no one can understand…they were created through scientific thought, research, and application! Come on, Jonathon, can’t you see what you’re saying here??
.
You accuse us of it, but I think it goes right back at you: Could it be that poor logic is giving you bad judgment?
.
P.E.T.

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A few facts for you to chew on. I won’t address all of your argument because I have better things to do but here are a couple of:

1. The banana that you know and love (Cavendish banana) was in fact “designed” by modern man. It is the product of selective breeding to remove the seeds, increase the size and ripening time. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana

2. Atheists do not declare that there is no god through an absolute knowledge of the universe. They simply state that since there is no empirical proof of any god known to exist we must conclude that there is no god until it is proven otherwise.

3. Your logic is easily turned on itself since you must also disclaim absolute knowledge of the universe and can therefore not prove the existence of your god.

4. While you are at it, please prove to us that there is a greater likelihood of your “god’ than any other god, like the FSM. Please also note that if you try to cite written accounts of the existence of your god, like “The Bible”, you must then explain to us why other gods like Odin, Zeus, and Horus do not exist since they were written about and believed in by people more than a thousand years before your christian god was written about.

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Jonathan –

I, for one, am intrigued by your long-winded and seemingly rambling and vapid rant. You’re right, of course: from everything that I’ve understood about the Christian god, his work is very comparable to that of the Coca-Cola corporation. Not at all like that Muslim god, Allah, who could be compared most accurately to PepsiCo.

I think the best way to proceed from here (in the interest of a fair comparison between our divine masters) would be to arrange a debate between your “Jehova” fellow (family name?) and our beloved FSM. If you can touch bases with your boss, and get him to show up for such an event, I’m pretty sure we can arrange for His Noodly Appendage to grace the proceedings and contribute. Just go ahead and have him post with whatever subject he’d like to tackle, first, and we’ll see what happens.

Kindest regards!

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Most of your post is complete drivel but I will comment on a few things
.

.
I don’t know any atheist who would make such an absolute statement; it is the religious people that claim absolute knowledge on the nature on the universe. I don’t know what world you live in but on earth it is usually the person that makes a claim of something that must prove he is right. It is not up to us to disprove God but for you to prove His existence.
.

.
You forgot option D. The man doesn’t exist!
Everyone knows buildings must be built because we see people building them, no theorizing is necessary! Pointing at something that was obviously made doesn’t mean that everything in (and including) the world was made on purpose by an intelligent force.
.

Actually I do know how a computer works and if I didn’t I could find people who do. The information is available to people who want to know, this is not the case with your deity of choice.

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Blast that Ray Comfort and his impeccable grasp on logic!

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Bananas:
1: The human hand evolved to grasp things – therefore it is capable of grasping a banana, among other items.
2: Other fruits do not have nonslip surfaces. Were they not designed?
3: The banana’s purpose is to facilitate spreading of the plant’s seeds and thus its genes. If the banana is picked and eaten before the seed is ready the seed will not germinate. Thus it is evolutionarily advantageous for the fruit to “advertise” ripeness
4: This is the stalk which connects the fruit to the tree
5: See 3. If the fruit could not be opened, the seed would not be dispersed.
6: It is biological material – of course it biodegrades.
7: See 1 and 2.
8: See 1 and 2.
9: See 3. If animals did not like the taste, the fruit would not be picked and the seed not spread.
10: I don’t get this one. If I turn a banana so it no longer faces me, does god cease to exist?

Jonathon, what you have succeeded in doing is inadvertently to demonstrate the mechanism for evolution by means of natural selection. Over millions of years, those plants have managed to reproduce successfully which have been fittest to do so – in the banana’s case because they have invested energy and resources in creating fruit which will attract animals, including humans, to spread the plant’s seeds.

Test 1: B

Eyes: Darwin did indeed write the quote you use. I have seen it many times quoted by creationists. They neglect however to note that in the very next sentence he starts to explain how it could happen. See http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA113_1.html for further explanation.

I will leave the Gallup for the moment as it touches on chance. More on that later.

Einstein: his belief or non-belief in a god is at best a subject of argument. His last words on the subject were “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Test 2:
1: No
2: No
3: No

The oranges. Now were are into chance. Agreed, it is highly unlikely that 50 oranges randomly dropped on the ground would form the shape you describe. However, this is a very bad analogy to evolution by natural selection. Evolution emphatically does not progress by chance alone. Yes, there is an element of chance, but the crucial driver is natural selection. See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance.html for further explanation.

Test 3:
1: Debatable
2: Neither
3: I cannot be bothered to work it out. In any case it is irrelevant as explained above.

“To declare there nis no God…” etc. I agree that to make a positive declaration that there is no God is not logical. It is logically impossible to prove an absence. However, this is not the position of most atheists.

Atheism is not a belief in the nonexistence of God. It is the absence of belief in a deity. I hope you can see the difference. I, for example, do not say “There is no God”. Mostly I do not think about it, but if asked, I say “I see no evidence of the god you speak of so it seems logical to conclude that it probably does not exist” (obviously I don’t say it in exactly those words). If you were to give me irrefutable proof of a god’s existence that I would change my postion.

Test 5: B

Fair play to you for engaging in a polite and intelligent manner unlike some of the comments I’ve seen here. I hope you’ll find I’ve tried to reciprocate.

Oh, and First. Yay me.

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This is such a sad misinterpretation of logic. I’ve heard this argument too many times and unfortunately, it holds just enough “logic” to persuade certain people.

What this guy should realize is that if the world was created like a house or a row of oranges or whatever, a) it’s so complex it would’ve been a right pain to create, and b) it could just as easily have been created by the FSM. Ramen!

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So who/what made God?
Was God designed?

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Uuuhhh, according to the coca cola website Coke was made by John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist.

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Alright I’ll start with the banana.

First off, the modern banana is a domesticated product. It is in no way a wild type.

Wild type bananas look absolutely nothing like, nor do they contain the same properties listed by the above poster. The modern banana was control interbred and selectively grown by human beings for hundreds of years to create the plentiful and pleasing product that we now consume today. Much in the same way that humans have grown selectively bread tomatoes to have vibrant red color, or cross bread tangerines and pomelos to get tangelos, or the significant and well recorded history that man has had with the domesticated dog and the domesticated horse. In fact humans are still creating new breeds of dogs today such as the suddenly popular Puggle (pug mixed with a beagle). An interesting fact is that all modern domesticated canines were bread from a single species of wolf, and then selectively interbred for size, coat, and build to create the diverse and unique breads we see today.

In other words the banana is a testament to the human intelligence. It was created rather recently by human determination and like all other domesticated products has absolutely no connection to a divine being.

The banana is most certainly the theists “nightmare” as its mention as a proof for gods existence not only shows the ignorance of the theist but also the relative stupidity and most certainly a lack of education.

You would be more served to mention the intricate symbiotic relationship between bees and flowers, although of course this is easily explained by the great crane that is evolution. Which, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with chance, in fact it is the exact opposite of chance. Any educated high schooler would be able to explain the various points of evolution to which the original poster is either ignorant of, or simply does not care to understand beyond the fact that it does not agree with what his/her parents had taught him/her.

We could just pretend that the wild type banana was specifically created, since the original poster is apparently capable of believing anything, including far fetched fairy tales.

But what would that mean? Is it a proof of “Gods” existence? Especially a god that holds such powers as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence? Does a banana prove Jesus’ almighty power? Or does it prove Krishna’s almighty power? Or the Flying Spaghetti Monsters almighty power? In reality it only proves that there was some “force” that drove the banana to take the shape it did. Much in the same way that Humans were the force that created the Domesticated Banana. Up until genetics were combined with natural selection we didn’t have an adequate explanation for this informational gap. For some people “god” filled this gap. But why is the default answer “God”, it could be any number of forces, just like the case of the domesticated banana (which was humans). We now have a much more beautiful and simplistic explanation to such events and that explanation in the biological realm is Evolution.

So stop following this poorly conceived illogical proof:
1) Things in the universe are very complex and interconnected
2) Things are so complex that I am either unwilling or unable to try to further my understanding of them (complex beyond my limited understanding)
3) God must have created them.
Conclusion) God exists and has exactly all the properties that my parents/peers told me he has.

Think about all the scientists that were boggled by the discovery of micro-organisms, what if they had just stopped and said “You know what, Jesus/Allah/Zeus must have made these things, so I dont need to investigate any further.” We as a race would still be dying from polio, and small pox, and the common cold.

“God” was not the answer in the case of the domesticated banana, he was not the answer in the case of micro-organisms, and he is in no way the answer for any other point of existence that the theists are either too ignorant or too lazy to investigate. The Christian god had no influence in these cases, nor anything else, because he does not exist.

As for your quotes you have horribly misrepresented Einstein and Darwin, and show absolutely no knowledge of their written works. I suggest you take a moment to read Darwins “Origin of Species”, which is from where you have taken your quotation about the eye. Darwin bated you just like he bated all other christians before you. He uses the quote below as a literary device to keep the reader interested. Its a rhetorical setup:

“To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree”

After which, he immediately explains why it “seems” improbable and how evolution explains it exactly down to science, every last part and how evolutionary forces acted to create the final complex product we call the eye. He bated you in and then pulled the wool out from over your eyes, the only problem was that you were tugging down too hard on the wool blinding you because it felt comforting and warm and because your parents told you to do so.

Its time to peek out from under your bed sheets, you and all theists are like a scared child cowering under his blanket of security, unwilling to check and see if the monster he thought he saw was real. You cower behind the cozy unchanging religious doctrine for fear that the world you thought you knew as a child might actually be something else. In fact something much more grand and interesting.

Darwin far exceeds any explanation of the complex eye then I could ever give, so I suggest you take a second and read his works, if you don’t find anything interesting than you can go back to church and pay the priest to forgive your sins. But if you do find something interesting then I suggest you pursue it and stop settling for blatant ignorance as an answer to everything. Either you will redouble your faith, or you will learn something new, in any case it cant hurt.

I will come back and disseminate the rest of your arguments as soon as I can, or let my faithful shipmates do it for me. For His is the Carbohydrated Goodness that will reveal all things.
RAmen

FULL DARWIN QUOTE:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.”

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Johnathan, What if the same can said Budwieser? Is that proof the the can was preveted by an evil entity and therefor there is a “Satan”? The banana fits a Human hand? Does not all simian hands have an opposible thumb and fit a banana as well? Your premise is skewed to your conclusion, then your logic follows and analogy is always suspect. I am however blown away by your summery that I “took a step of faith” to turn on my computer? And Then “God is not flesh and blood; He is an eternal Spirit. Immortal and invisible… like the computer waves.” Computer waves… You know.. your argument was consisent throughout and then fell apart like sox coming off a sweater coming out of the dryer. And as analogies go, that one is dead on.(Look it up kid, maybe you will get a chance to think for yourself and not present others arguments as your own.)

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Mmmm….sweet brown liquid.

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Mmm…..sweet brown liquid.

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I believe you stumbled upon the wrong website. Here, we believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, blessed be his noodles.

Anyway, here’s some information:
1. I agree with you, the creation of a coke can from nothing is rather improbable. The forces of nature tend towards Pepsi cans.

2. The banana was cultivated over thousands of years. Look at wikipedia’s entry on bananas. Wild bananas are very different from their cultivated counterpart, which are very yummy. Wild bananas are not nearly as convenient, though they may be yummy too. I haven’t had one.

3a. It appears that things sort of work out? Things sort of seem like they follow laws, though we’re still trying to figure out how those laws work exactly. I’m not sure I’d call atoms orderly, since the paths of elections seem rather random, Zombie cats and all.

3b. Did this happen by accident? I’m sure the Flying Spaghetti Monster had some reason to make physics so interesting in general scale, while being dreadfully dull when you get down to the specifics.

3c. The chances of the oranges lining up like that are rather low, but the chances increase when the oranges are dropped constantly over a period of billions of years. Different oranges, of course, since oranges get all smooshy when dropped.

4. This is actually an important part. Science cannot tell us anything for certain, we can only go by observation. And any observation we make is subject to intervention bye His Noodly Appendage. And again, you must have posted to this website by mistake. We believe very strongly in our God, and are as certain as anyone can be towards his existence.

5. Since you didn’t provide us with an answer, I suppose I’ll choose C. When someone goes around questioning things which have lots of evidence behind them, they’re usually arguing with a teacher, or on the internet. My dad is a contractor, most houses I’ve seen were made by someone. There is the possibility of a house being formed naturally, but it’s not the general case from what I’ve witnessed in my existence. Maybe that sort of thing happens more often where you are? I should travel more.

As for computers, it took a few years of college, but I understand how it all works pretty well at this point. When I turn on my computer, I KNOW why it works. Just because something is complicated, and a lot of things are, does not mean they are magical. Except maybe raisins. I’ve never been sure about those.

And for your ending, again, this is not an atheism-based website. We understand that there is a God, and that God had two meatballs and eyestalks.

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I’m bored, so I’ll reply to this. :P This hate mail has so many problems with it I hardly know where to start.

To begin with, with your first analogy, you use a coca cola can, which is technology. Technology cannot be compared to life in this sense, because technology cannot reproduce, nor can they have natural mutations, nor do they compete for resources in order to survive. Using them as a parallel to living organisms is false and misleading.

As for the banana, I can’t believe your actually using this as a sensible analogy. I saw this on a YouTube video, and it’s so obviously ridiculous that I wonder how anyone can take it seriously. The banana has evolved this way to make itself more appealing to animals to eat, so it can reproduce. It’s shaped perfectly for the human hand because the human hand is *remarkably* similar to the hands of apes and monkeys, and it’s no wonder that the banana would evolve to fit *their* hands. It’s pleasing to the taste buds because our taste bud have *evolved* to find it pleasing, because it is good to eat. If it tasted horrible, we wouldn’t eat it, and would therefore miss out on good food. I can’t be bothered to point out the other easy explanations to this, as they should all be pretty self-explanatory.

Then you use technology as an analogy again, which is already proven to be of no use.

As for the eye argument, this has been disproven so many times it’s untrue (metaphorically :P). Here’ll be your answer: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html. The quote you have got from Charles Darwin has been quote mined from his book; after he says this he goes on to prove that although it *seems* ridiculous, there is actually a way this could happen, way before any of you creationists even thought it up.

Something else you need to know; evolution does not happen by chance. It happens by natural selection, which is the very opposite of chance. So everything you say here is just useless.

Albert Einstein was a pantheist (look it up), and did not believe in a personal god of any kind. Quote mining him does not make your argument any more valid, nor does it disprove ours. Besides, Isaac Newton was a mystically minded alchemist, but does that mean everything he said about gravity and the laws of motion are by definition false? Of course not.

Using technology again, and then useless chance arguments, yawn. :P

Finally, you try and put the burden of proof on atheists. Which is rather silly, because you’re doing it on the website of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is basically suicide. :P

I’ll say to you: “Let’s say that a circle contains all the knowledge of the universe. And let’s say that you have an incredible understanding of one percent of all that knowledge. Is it possible that the knowledge you haven’t yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does indeed exist?” (Assuming there’s no evidence yet for His Noodliness, just for the sake of argument.)

The fact is, you can say this about anything, but that doesn’t mean that all those things are true. It’s impossible to prove a negative, so saying God must exist because you can’t prove he doesn’t is just pointless, or we’d have to believe everything that anyone ever comes up with.

You seem to have a bad understanding of what atheism is or encompasses. You are talking about “strong atheism” which is the active denial of gods (”I believe there is no god”). Most atheists are “weak atheists”, who don’t know for sure there is no god but assumes there isn’t because there’s no evidence yet (”I don’t believe in a god” – sounds similar, but has an important difference), on the same basis that someone might not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (for the sake of argument again ;) ). Agnostics are people who don’t take the probability into account (that it’s more likely there isn’t a god than there is, so it’s safe to assume there isn’t), and so refuse to take a position.

The computer is wholly different from a god, because if we wanted to, we *could* find out how it works, and moreover there are people around who know how it works and can explain it to us in an understandable and believable way. With a god, no one really knows for sure, unless they are deluded. (Incidentally, electricity doesn’t travel in waves, it’s a stream of electrons. :P)

In summary:

1. Technology cannot be compared to life.

2. Bananas evolved to be like that in order to reproduce faster.

3. Irreducible complexity etc. is rubbish.

4. Quote mining is stupid and lends no credibility to your arguement.

5. Putting the burden of proof on atheists is just silly.

6. Most athiests just don’t believe in a god, they don’t strongly deny there is one.

7. Electricity doesn’t travel in waves.

There you go. That was vaguely amusing. :)

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The problem is, by disproving our god, you disproved your god…..

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If only he had looked into the pineapple argument before trying to deal with the banana: http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/08/banana-and-peanut-butter-arguments-on.html

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Don’t you just love a nice loaded question plus someone that can copy and paste someone else’s bull so well? Explain the perfect utility of the prickly pear if you would be so kind?

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I apologise in advance because, even though single minded people such as you, for the most part, only humour the other side of the argument. I am going to systematically oppose your point of view and make you see logic.
I will repeat this but only to solidify it in your consciousness. Just because our existence is so mind bogglingly improbable, does not mean that it has to have a creator. Say if you were to flip a coin, and it were to land edge on, even though it is incredibly unlikely, it is possible, but it did not require that something supernatural made it land edge on.

Have you ever wondered why your “God” whoever he may be, did not fill the universe with life? The reason why the universe is not teaming with life is because it is incredibly unlikely, but none the less, in a universe, the likelihood is that it occurred somewhere, and that occurrence was us.

What you do not seem to understand is, given time and space enough, the most improbable things will almost definitely, eventually occur.

All these examples you give are pure chance and natural selection, the bananas that grew to suit primate needs, were more successful and so spread and thrived.

You give the examples of; a coke can, a car, a building, a painting, but I put it to you that these are things that you know have been made and a simple minded person can only answer yes, but in the ungraspable vastness of our universe, however improbable there is a possibility that a copy of the Mona Lisa could miraculously be created without it being humanly painted.

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I always thought the bannana argument simply proved evolution. It can be used either way.

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Seriously.

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ah, but the problem with that little oranges question is that if you drop the oranges enough times, they will fall into the requested lines. sure, it might take a billion trillion tries, but (here comes the analogy) there are millions of planets, and on each planet, billions of cell mutations are happening each day (each second, even)… so why isn’t it possible that one of those mutations is the start of a chain that eventually leads to the evolution of humans?

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So Jonathon, who designed your designer?

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well….seeing as the scientific belief of a mans creation is like a 1 in a 1,000,000,000,000,000. or however many zeros you please, the universe has existed a long time and I chose to believe the right conditions would have came along since it might have existed about 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 years. which means that chance might have happened about 10,000,000,000,000,000 times. and…if you drop oranges enough times….it would happen i think…..

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Test #6

Explain the process of evolution by natural selection.

Too late, you’ve already failed this test. Evolution by natural selection is precisely NOT random. It doesn’t need a designer either, just the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. You fail to grasp this, and I assume that is why you posted these tired old (and actually laughable, I mean a banana, come on) arguments. You also obviously haven’t taken an elementary stats class. If you can correctly explain to me what evolution by natural selection actually is, and demonstrate a knowledge of the idea of statistical certainty, then I will take you seriously.

The burden of proof lies upon you, my uneducated friend. Not me. If we see (in the broadest sense) nothing, we say nothing is there. We may be wrong, but in the case of God, the chance is very, very, small. So small I feel confident saying there is no God. In the exact same way I feel okay in saying that a murderer committed a crime, even though it has not been established 100% that they killed someone, only “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I have way more than reasonable doubt as to your God’s existence, and no reasonable doubt as to his non-existence.

I have way better proof as to the existence of His Noodly Worship then I have for your God. I even have a graph!

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Couple of points for you. Firstly look up evolution, it has nothing to do with chance or luck, its about developing to suit the world around you.
Next i would like to point out how you talk about god being existing, then you say that to make a statement you need absolute knowledge on the subject, are you telling us you have absolute knowledge on god and the creation of the universe, if so you seriously be telling scientists and the church and the government etc etc, not an internet based parody religion.
I would also like to say we are not absolute atheists complaining about religion, i for one am agnostic. The idea is not to stop religion or any such nonsense, just to prevent it from having any negative affects in our lives, like replacing science in science class.
Finnaly, if bannanas are so perfect how come not everyone likes them, I for one cannot bare to touch them. your imagination there was very much alive: “indicators” fruit changes colour as it ripens, its called development. Yes it almost certainly is lucky chance in this case, out of all the fruits and vegetables in the world this one does happen to have a number of qualities valued for human consumption.

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You’re obviously an intelligent man. I must say I’m glad to see something other than the usual “Wut teh fuck is ur fucking problem?” You present a good argument Jon. Let me retort. Not all of us think things evolved by chance. I am a firm believer that evolution is based on chaos in order in chaos in order. Have you read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. One of the characters is a scinetist who deals with chaos theory, and he talks about fractals. Fractals are things that look the same no matter how many times you multiply them. The universe is basically a giant fractal. What looks like chaos on the small scale is actually ordered, it has a system. Evolution has a set path, it’s probably happened on thousands of other planets all across the universe, exactley like ours.

Now, who draws out this grand scheme. Maybe it’s chemical formulas, things set in stone since the beginning of time, maybe it’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster, maybe it’s this “God” fellow. None of us really know for sure.

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backwards science and logic doesn’t make something so, there are innumerable variables you never took into consideration.

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Jonathon why don’t people like you with long winded emails always miss the point? Are you really that ignorant or just plain stupid.
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If you took the time to click about you would realize this has nothing to do with Atheism. It has to do with treating Intelligent Design as science when it is not. That’s It. You admitted yourself there is no proof, no flesh and blood.
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Again, although some may be atheists on this site not everyone is an atheist. Personally, I have no issues with anyone having faith. Each must do their own thing to get through this life and if believing in GOD is what someone needs in their life, all the power to them. However, faith in something does not make it science. That it!
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So I think your faith is “clouding your judgment” because you fail to comprehend the simple purpose of this site. Your blinder’s only cause you to see this as an attack on faith, GOD, or whatever when that is not the case.
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Additionally if you are going to quote Charles Darwin with what he stated how about reading the entire quote from Darwin. Most people like yourself have the habit of taking pieces out of context to try to prove a point when in fact they missed the point all together. Missing the point game is something you are good at considering Charles Darwin and evolution has NOTHING to do with how life started, meaning genesis.
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In closing, believe what you will. If a Designer makes you sleep better at night then that is fine and that is your opinion. It should not be taught as science!
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RAmen!

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*Laughs* Wow, the ol’ watchmaker argument again. I can understand why they still use it of course, it was only refuted about 150 years ago… man, some people are stupid. And this one also apparently has nothing better to do than type out an essay length version of it. And it’s still no more correct than it was when Paley first proposed it.

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“the banana……Is shaped for the human mouth.”
i thoguht it was shaped like a dick…wait a minute! i believe this guy just came out of the closet!

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I normally don’t reply (in other words, I am a lurker) but I know the refutations to all your “Tests.”

A) If the banana is an atheists worst nightmare, then the pineapple is a creationist worst nightmare. Why would God create such a stupid fruit? Not only is it difficult to open, but the bush produces only one fruit per year and sweeten varieties had to of been bred just for normal consumption.

1) I’m not sure where you were going with that, but I’ll refute both points. The coke cola can has a designer because we have documented proof of the designer (Earl Dean). Pointing to our eye and saying “Ah ha! This thing is much too complex for us to designer! Clearly it must have been designed by someone smarter!” is a logical fallacy (actually two fallacies). You are assuming everything needs a designer, a very bad assumption to make as many of your other “tests” also rely on this assumption. Unfortunately, the burden of proof to show that everything needs a creator is yourself. Pointing to complex systems and shouting “Ah ha” does not qualify.

Oh and I’m going to ignore your misquotes. Context is key.

2) Again assuming everything needs a creator.

3) I’m guessing you are trying to make the point that the chance of evolution is so small that we could never have arose. Unfortunately, you are not up to date on the theory of evolution. As simpler organisms (bits of protein) develop ways of reproduction (self replicating bits of protein) they drastically increase their odds of survival (giant self replicating bits of protein). Granted, it does take a bit chance (atom collisions) for these proteins to orientate themselves correctly, but once reached the process can continue indefinitely. And then we move up from there.

4) Of course we need absolute knowledge to know things are absolutely true. But we only need relative knowledge to know things are relatively true. For example, we could use a radio frequency that vibrates only gold and run it through all of China while measuring the vibrations. With that we would know if there was gold in China or not.

Also, on your circle of knowledge bit, I can refute your claims with your same example. This “circle of knowledge” bit is nothing more than a metaphor for observations, so I’m not going to use it. So far, in your lifetime, you must have observed a certain amount of things that has lead you to the conclusion of God. Likewise, I have observed a certain amount of things that has lead me to the conclusion that there is no God, besides FSM. Since you stake the claim that God does exist, I stake the claim that you have not seen enough to know that no god exists, besides FSM. So until you know 100% of everything, which you yourself said you don’t, you don’t know if God exists anymore than I know FSM exists. But I have observations supporting my claims and I have a good guess that all you have is a feeling and an old book. We didn’t make computers on feelings sir.

5) Again, assuming everything has a creator. An atheist can’t find god because he has a pretty good guess that there isn’t one there. He can read all the sacred books supposedly written by gods and find how they don’t apply to the natural world. He uses only logic to form his judgments, observations to support his logic, and his handful of senses to make his observations. Anything else is superfluous superstition.

-Ben

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Why do we keep receiving atheist hate mail? Is there an atheist website with a similar web address as this humble center of knowledge of the FSM?

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*sigh*

OK, I guess it’s my turn this time. Jonathon, please try to pay attention.

“Billions of years ago, a big bang produced a large rock. As the rock cooled, sweet brown liquid formed on it’s surface. As time passed, aluminum formed itself into a can, a lid, and a tab. Millions of years later, red and white paint fell from the sky and formed itself into the words “Coca Cola… 12 fluid ounces.”
Of course my theory is an insult to your intellect, because you know that if the Coca Cola can is made, there must be a maker.”
No, your theory is an insult to my intellect because you give no evidence to support it. This is a common problem when discussing religious theories.

“Test 1.

The person who thinks the Coca Cola can has no designer is:

A. Intelligent

B. A fool

C. Has an ulterior motive for denying the obvious”
this is on the same level as asking someone if they have stopped beating their wife yet. I think perhaps that Jonathon has an ulterior motive for denying the obvious.

The banana example puts the cart before the horse. People evolved in an environment in which bananas were a potential food source. The ability to exploit that food source is a survival trait. So the retention and refinement of this ability is a natural course for evolution to take.
Your “points”, one by one:
1. The banana is not shaped for the human hand. The human hand is an incredibly versatile tool, very good for grasping and manipulating an incredible variety of shapes, including that of a banana.
2. The surface of a banana is no more or less non-slip than the majority of seed pods in nature.
3. Outward indicator of contents – same as any plant, edible or not.
4. A tab for removal of wrapper (it is difficult to treat your post serously, sir, when you persist is being rediculous) is inaccurate. It has a stem, a differentially evolved portion of a leaf that has a slightly more fibrous texture, giving it sufficient rigidity to be grasped and pulled.
5. Perforated wrapper – the casing of the banana is formed from four modified leaves that separate before they tear when appropriate force is applied to the stem.
6. Biodegradeable wrapper – all plants are biodegradeable.
7. It is shaped for the human mouth – no, the human mouth is shaped for things roughly the same size and shape as a bite of a banana.
8. Has a point for ease of entry – no, it has a point because banana leaves are long and narrow, and the casing is formed of modified leaves.
9. It is logical that bananas should taste good, why would we evolve so that something that was a beneficial food source would be otherwise?
10. It is only curved towards the face if you hold it that way.
And you posit that to claim the banana happened by accident is “even more unintelligent than to write that no one designed the Coca Cola can.” I disagree. The banana evolved to its current configuration as a seed dispersal mechanism. If no one picks it, the seeds fall to the ground below the parent tree, and have a very small chance of growing, because of all the shade from that tree. If someone picks it and eats it, the undigested seeds (the seeds are very small, less likely to get crunched in the chewing process, especially since the banana has evolved into a soft fruit, not requiring much chewing) are transported to the point where they are pooped out (in a handy mound of fertilizer), which is unlikely to be in the shade of the parent tree, and therefore a place where the seed is more likely to thrive. Notice the frequent reference to probabilities. This is how evolution works.

“If man can not create the human eye then how can anyone in their right mind believe that it was created by chance? ” So that means that flipping a coin and getting tails twice in a row isn’t chance either? How much can happen by chance before it can’t be by chance? (Hint – develop a concept of how long the time periods involved in major evolutionary advances are). Evolution does not claim that the eye was created by chance, but rather by many many chances over many many years, some of which increased the likelihood that the individual would survive and continue to pass the particular change on, and some of which decreased that likelihood. When that happens enough times, you get stuff like the current version of the human eye. So I ask you, if man can not create the human eye then how can anyone in their right mind NOT believe that it was created by chance?

George Gallup; “If I could prove God statistically; take the human body alone; the chance that all the functions of the individual would just happen, is a statistical monstrosity.” Really? Can I see the calculations? I refer you again to the hint above.

Einstein is quoted to have said:
“Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of our modest powers must feel humble.”
I was unaware that Einstein had knowledge of the opinions of everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science, especially since he has been dead for quite some time, and people are still interested in the pursuit of science. Einstein was, after all, a human. Humans are not perfect. I don’t remember seeing anything that makes me think Einstein never made a mistake, so why should I think him the ultimate reference on a subject that was not his forte? He dealy in physics, not metaphysics.

“Test 2:

1. Do you know any building that did not have a builder? Yes? No?

2. Do you know any painting that did not have a painter? Yes? No?

3. Do you know any car that did not have a maker? Yes? No?

If you answered “Yes” to any of those statements… please give details:______________________…”
This is the exact same idea as test 1. Ask a question about something that has the sasme fell as the topic under discussion, but has no relevance. Coke cans, buildings, paintings, cars are items that are human-made, “created” in very short periods of time, requiring no self-organization, not animate, requiring no archaeological or prehistoric evidence or interpretation thereof to justify their form or existence. The evolution of life (if that’s what we’re talking about) is something that is subtly ongoing, and has been for BILLIONS of years. Again, please refer to the hint above.

“Could I convince you that I dropped 50 oranges onto the ground and then by chance fell into ten rows of five oranges? Logically, anyone with an intelligent mind might conclude that someone put them there. The odds that ten oranges would fall into a straight line is mind boggling. Let alone ten rows of five.”
Drop those oranges once a minute for two billion years, and I betcha they line up more than once. Show me the calculations for those “mind boggling” odds, please, don’t just throw it out there and expect me to believe it. (sound familiar?)

“To declare that there is no God is to make an absolute statement. And for an absolute statement to be true; one must have absolute knowledge. Here is another such statement: “There is no gold in China.”

Test 4 What would I need to have for that statement to be true?

A. No knowledge of China?

B. Partial knowledge of China?

C. Absolute knowledge of China?

“C” is the correct answer. In order for the statement to be true, I must know that there is no gold in China.

Likewise; to state that there is no God and to be correct then you are stating that you are omniscient. You must have absolutely certain knowledge that there isn’t one.”
This is your best argument, Jonathon. However, if you take the time to read some of the information on this site instead of leaping to conclusions and assuming things for which you have no evidence (a common trait of the hyper-religious), you will discover that in general we pastafarians do not deny the existence of god. We simply believe in a different one than you do, or in some cases, several different ones. Why do you feel that our god does not exist? Do you have absolutely certain knowledge of this? Please don’t hold it back, we are anxiously awaiting enlightenment.

“Test 5 The man who sees a building and doesn’t know if there is a builder is:

A. Intelligent

B. A fool

C. Has an ulterior motive”
More of the same. I think by this time we have all figured out who has the ulterior motive.

“There are plenty of things that we have faith in that we do not fully understand. Most of us do not have a complete understanding that when you turned your computer on as to why it worked. You took a step of faith that turning it on… that somehow that it would work.”
Bad analogy again, friend. If my computer doesn’t work, I can call tech support and get it fixed. If your prayer doesn’t work, can you call tech support and get it fixed? Or if they can’t fix it, can you get a new god?

You sound like you have the potential to be intelligent, Jon. Intelligence is not blind acceptance of everything your parents tell you. Intelligence involves inquiry and investigation, and forming opinions based on the results thereof. Opinions thus formed are not necessarily facts, but they night be. Opinions based on absorption and regurgitation of dogma are rarely, if ever, facts.

RAmen to all.

ET

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Jonathon

I would like you to be very assured that I personally have faith.

I have total faith that religious fanatics like you will pop up and demonstrate their complete ignorance of science, logic and common sense far too often for one to believe in our educational system. Congratulations on yet another nonsense composition, the only thing missing from it was a prayer for we poor unfortunate nonbelievers.

Now wait before you get upset at my comment; your composition was well formatted, virtually free of grammatical errors and was mostly comprised of easily understood words. See, I said something nice about it. But sadly it did not organize those words into anything resembling logic. Although I am not an expert in logic, with this composition you seemed to have created an entirely new branch of logic that I hereby christen as head-up-the-ass (HUTA) logic. One must have their head up their ass to find any real truth and meaning in it.

I assume that my comments will little to dissuade you from further spewing your HUTA logic, but first before writing again, please take a hint and read http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html. Here you will at least learn a bit about framing your composition in a manner that might at least cause a soon to be ex-believer into pausing for a quarter of a second.

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Geez that was long. Apparently you have absolutely no concept of odds and therefore will not survive in Vegas. Bananas are tasty, but I think Chimpanzees enjoy them too, along with gorillas, so is there a correlation that our evolutionary primate bretheren enjoy bananas, possibly(they are not always user friendly and you can still eat them even though they are black). Plus other animals and even some fungi enjoy bananas, but according to you it was only designed for humans. And what about the other fruit in the world that is not so cleverly evolved for human hands, i dont think coconuts and grapefruits are easily handled or curved to eat, but they are still tasty and so we eat them for subsistence. And I don’t think that a coke can could evolve being that it has no DNA or living cells, it is composed of inorganic Aluminium alloy with an inorganic paint sprayed on it, and of course a human designed it and made it because its a freaking aluminium can! Oh yeah and the oranges, however improbable that they may fall in that order it is not impossible, so it can happen. When I turned my computer on I know that if it has a power supply from a power plant that the microchips, fans, hard drive, etc. will work and I will see an image on the screen. I’m tired of typing, but I hope that you take some more Science classes to understand the evolution of life on Earth and that his noodly goodness touches your brain. Ramen!

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OK then, first off, the banana evolved into that shape and taste because then it was more likely to be eaten and pass on it’s genetic code.

Secondly, just because some things are manufactured/designed (tests 1 & 2) does not mean all things are, for instance, some things are made of chocolate, but that doesn’t mean all things are.

(3) It is possible for those things to happen by chance, as it did here on Earth/our Universe. It happened on this planet/in this Universe but not necessarily on/in others. The chances of it happening on/in one planet/universe are low, but the chances of you being alive on/in one of those planets/universes is 1, as you can only be there if it happens.

(4) To state that there is a God is an absolute statement as well, yet I doubt you have any more knowledge on the subject than every Atheist on the planet. Also, the court system says beyond all reasonable doubt, and I am sure beyond reasonable doubt that there is no god, as I am sure beyond all reasonable doubt that there is not an invisible teapotdirectly between us and Mars.

(5) I know (in the reasonable doubt sense) that my computer will turn on because there is evidence that it will turn on, eg. it has turned on before, but there is no evidence that there is a God, so why should I believe that?

-Dr Dagger

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I’m with you Jonathon,

clearly Coca-Cola, the banana, and China could not have just evolved over billions of years. They must have been designed by a designer.

And a designer that clever couldn’t just appear out of nowhere–he, she, or it must have been designed into existence.

So before the designer who brought us Coca-Cola, the banana, etc., there must have been a designer’s designer.

But, wait! Before the designer’s designer could appear, there must have been……

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Dear Jonathon,

Let me reply to your (very old and already debunked) points.

Cans of Coca-Cola are not alive and don’t reproduce, so your analogy is inapproriate.

The Banana: The Atheist’s Nightmare (my personal favourite)
First of all, you seem to know nothing about bananas. The bananas you buy at the supermarket are domesticated fruits, presumably bred by inhabitants of Papua-New Guinea about 9,000 years ago. A wild banana looks nothing like a domesticated banana and is not really edible. Even Ray Comfort (who came up with this ridiculous argument) admitted defeat on this one.
But I’ve got another one for you. You have the atheist’s nightmare, I have the theist’s nightmares: *rolling drums*
introducing the coconut and the pineapple
the coconut
1. is a pain in the @ss to crack open
2. tends to have laxative properties when consumed in excess
3. can easily kill you if happen to pass under a coconut palm at the wrong moment
4. truly testifies to the existence of the FSM, it is modelled after the FSM’s meat balls, and is found primarily in the tropics, where Pirates, the FSM’s Chosen People, originated
the pineapple
1. is also a pain in the @ss to cut
2. has lots of black spots inside you have to remove
3. can make your tongue bleed because it containes lots of enzymes

About your tests:
You’re comparing non-living artifacts, of which we know they are man-made, with living self-reproducing organisms. This is getting boring and repetitive

The “no gold in China” thing:
I could make a similar statement and you’d have to agree with me:
“there are no leprechauns floating in space”
What would I need to have that statement to be true?
A. No knowledge of space?
B. Partial of space?
C. Absolute knowledge of space?

The answer is C
HOLY NOODLE !!! There are leprechauns floating in space as we speak!!! Amazing !!!

Now try it the other way round, which is the way things work in life:
Is there gold China?
Dig at select spots where gold is most likely to be found (and be prepared to loose many miners, mine safety in China is pretty crappy)
If you’ve tried all the spots where gold normally occurs and haven’t found anything, you could say there probably or most likely is no gold in China

And about the buildings: we know what buildings are, we see them beeing built all the time, and we see the people building them, they are called construction workers. Praise the construction workers, the mighty creators of buildings.

I hope you see how faulty your logic is, and that there can be only one conclusion: the world was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster, who (among many other deeds) made coconuts in the image of his meatballs

May you be touched by noodly appendage, Jonathon

RAmen

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We appreciate your lengthy attention to detail Jonathon, but there is one glaring flaw in your argument. You are trying to apply rules of logic to religion, when it has already been established that logic and common sense are diametrically opposed to religion, and are therefore incompatible.

In other words, religion as a whole (not just Christianity) has almost never made any sort of sense, at all. Trying to piece together a coherent social structure out of the writings in the various archaic, semi-coherent, contradictory and badly edited religious texts can only result in insanity or a brain aneurysm. So please, put your logic away and enjoy a big plate of pasta…it’s on us. Trust me, you’ll feel better.

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also I believe you plagiarized almost all of this

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Oh my GOD. This is just absurd circular reasoning!
.
If bananas taste good, it is because it’s nutritious and then our organism has encouraged us to eat it through evolution. Furthermore, have your forgotten that monkeys may eat bananas? This is just broad nonsense. We eat bananas BECAUSE it fits our needs. If we were made another way, we would maybe eat SOMETHING ELSE.
.
All your other examples are as silly as the former.
.
Oh and by the way…. who the f… designed the designer? Nonsense question with nonsense answer, for you postulated that this designer just existed and was ETERNAL spirit. Think that is a bit cumbersome as an hypothesis, don’t you?
.
See ya, I must go to do some handjob. It appears that my penis has the same shape as the bananas, and is at the necessary height for my hand to grab it, and that it’s pleasant when I do it! And after that they tell God was against masturbation…

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Johnathon, let me just start off by saying that this is by far the most rational, well-contrived argument against atheism and evolution I have ever heard in my life. You forced me to re-examine my beliefs in a way nobody else has even begun to succeed in doing. Almost every other person who posts on this website essentially tells Pastafarians to go to Hell. Your argument has restored some of my faith in the intelligence of humanity. I really wish I could talk to you face to face so that I could consummately articulate all the ideas I have, but I will try to do my best in writing.

You make the point complex life is so improbable that it is almost definite some sort of intelligence designed the universe. This is not true. Even you cannot deny that it is at least possible, however remotely, that complex life could appear by chance. Now, consider this. In order for us to notice the fact that it is almost (the operative word being almost) impossible for complex life to exist by mere happenstance, we ourselves must be a form of complex life. You see, no matter how unlikely it is for complex life to appear, the universe is so vast that it has to happen at least once, even if the chance is infinitesimal. And because we must be a form of complex life to realize this incredulity, we would have to be that one instance. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t even have the capacity to be wondering about this.
If our system did not work so well, if we did not have things like bananas with features like biodegradable wrappers, we would never have been able to get to the point that we are at now and consequentially would not be able to notice how incredible it is that we have gotten here.

Still, the argument does raise some questions about the validity of evolution. Perhaps it is wrong. It very well could be. But really, what is there that we know to be correct without a shadow of a doubt? For all you know, you could have an extra arm protruding out of your back, but you could be insane and selectively ignore any sensory input that would lead you to believe this without even realizing it. It’s an extremely far-fetched premise, but not an irrefutable one. When you get right down to it, all the information you have of the world passes through your senses, and they are not invariably honest. Really, then, you cannot be completely sure of anything.

Obviously, if all this is true, anyone who believes that evolution is right beyond any sort of doubt is delusional. However, anyone who believes in God beyond any sort of doubt is equally delusional. As you said, we have only a taste of the knowledge in the universe. There could be something out there to disprove evolution, but it is just as likely that some form of information out there could invalidate your entire argument. Why, then, believe in God so vehemently? There exists always some chance you have committed some act of misconception somewhere.

This is all extremely disheartening. So, I offer this as reassurance. True, if you want to be technical, nothing, not even your own existence, is certain, but what is the point of debate if you will only invalidate everything? What’s even the point of living? Because of this, I choose to make the assumption that everything is basically the way it seems on a fundamental level, meaning that I do not have a third arm growing out of my back, meaning that I am a human being, meaning that I live on the planet earth, and so forth. I assume that my senses are bona fide. Once I have made these assumptions, the ramifications are obvious.

I put faith in science because it has empirical evidence to support it, and because it has bestowed obvious benefits upon humanity. I put no faith in any form of religion because there is no legitimate evidence to back it up. I assume the theory of evolution is right, but I remain open to new evidence and stand ready to listen to whatever arguments the next credible theory makes.

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All of these arguments were pilfered from Ray Comfort, evangelical christian. He was involved in a debate on ABC which covered these arguments, dubbed ‘RSS vs. Banana Design Squad’. Here’s the debate, which highlights several of the many flaws in the above post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh3oIo6pvLM&feature=related

Three more things. Firstly, I didn’t base my assumption that my laptop would turn on on ‘Faith’. I based it on past experience. I’ve switched my PC on many times, so it’s reasonable for me to assume that the next time I do so, it’ll work. Faith is based on… well, nothing. It’s beleif in untestable premises.

Secondly, logic does not cloud judgement. That’s an idiotic suggestion. Judgement based on anything other than logic isn’t judgement at all. It’s called ‘guessing’.

Thirdly, what on earth does ‘finding god’ mean? I’ve never been given a lucid definition of the phrase.

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Ah, one more thing. Suppose God did design the banana. Why didn’t he put all of the components of a balanced diet into them, and why didn’t he put banana trees all over the place? Also, why did he make some fruit poisonous? Bad joke perhaps?

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Johnathon, let me just start off by saying that yours is by far the most rational, well-contrived argument against atheism and evolution I have ever heard in my life. You forced me to re-examine my beliefs in a way nobody else has even begun to succeed in doing. Almost every other person who posts on this website essentially tells Pastafarians to go to Hell. Your argument has restored some of my faith in the intelligence of humanity. I really wish I could talk to you face to face so that I could consummately articulate all the ideas I have, but I will try to do my best in writing.

You make the point complex life is so improbable that it is almost definite some sort of intelligence designed the universe. This is not true. Even you cannot deny that it is at least possible, however remotely, that complex life could appear by chance. Now, consider this. In order for us to notice the fact that it is almost (the operative word being almost) impossible for complex life to exist by mere happenstance, we ourselves must be a form of complex life. You see, no matter how unlikely it is for complex life to appear, the universe is so vast that it has to happen at least once, even if the chance is infinitesimal. And because we must be a form of complex life to realize this incredulity, we would have to be that one instance. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t even have the capacity to be wondering about this.
If our system did not work so well, if we did not have things like bananas with features like biodegradable wrappers, we would never have been able to get to the point that we are at now and consequentially would not be able to notice how incredible it is that we have gotten here.

Still, the argument does raise some questions about the validity of evolution. Perhaps it is wrong. It very well could be. But really, what is there that we know to be correct without a shadow of a doubt? For all you know, you could have an extra arm protruding out of your back, but you could be insane and selectively ignore any sensory input that would lead you to believe this without even realizing it. It’s an extremely far-fetched premise, but not an irrefutable one. When you get right down to it, all the information you have of the world passes through your senses, and they are not invariably honest. Really, then, you cannot be completely sure of anything.

Obviously, if all this is true, anyone who believes that evolution is right beyond any sort of doubt is delusional. However, anyone who believes in God beyond any sort of doubt is equally delusional. As you said, we have only a taste of the knowledge in the universe. There could be something out there to disprove evolution, but it is just as likely that some form of information out there could invalidate your entire argument. Why, then, believe in God so vehemently? There exists always some chance you have committed some act of misconception somewhere.

This is all extremely disheartening. So, I offer this as reassurance. True, if you want to be technical, nothing, not even your own existence, is certain, but what is the point of debate if you will only invalidate everything? What’s even the point of living? Because of this, I choose to make the assumption that everything is basically the way it seems on a fundamental level, meaning that I do not have a third arm growing out of my back, meaning that I am a human being, meaning that I live on the planet earth, and so forth. I assume that my senses are bona fide. Once I have made these assumptions, the ramifications are obvious.

I put faith in science because it has empirical evidence to support it, and because it has bestowed obvious benefits upon humanity. I put no faith in any form of religion because there is no legitimate evidence to back it up. I assume the theory of evolution is right, but I remain open to new evidence and stand ready to listen to whatever arguments the next credible theory makes.

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sorry about repost; it didn’t seem to be working for whatever reason.

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Hi Jonathon,

You have some good arguments for why people shouldn’t argue against the possibility of God. Maybe you’re right. Maybe no one can ever be sure, given the fact that the existence of God is nonfalsifiable. However, that’s simply not how people live. People live as though God is real and does exist. They live in a way in which their afterlife is based on moral action in this life. Good thing they can ask for forgiveness for all those petty sins. One thing I wanted to point out to you is some work being done by Developmental Psychologists on how children attribute design and intention to artifacts and animals.

http://www.bu.edu/childcognition/publications/index.html

It is argued in some of these papers that we intuitively reason about design in artifacts. Perhaps, these intuitions carry over into thinking that we too were designed? Just look at how complex we are! Natural selection can’t possibly do that in a few billion years! Well, just think for a minute. Are we designed perfectly? Evolution works on what architecture is already in place. You would think if we had this great, benevolent creator, he would at least get it right the first time. See some of Paul Bloom’s work on this topic. No sir, I’m still not convinced by your argument.

The most I’ll give you is “I don’t know.” But with that said, I will live my life as such and not associate myself with any religion or any God. I do admire the magnificence of our world, our mind, and the universe. I am dedicating my professional life to the study of human cognition. You don’t need religion to get that it’s amazingly complex.

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So if I can’t log how do I contact someone in charge?

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We are Pastafarians… We believe in the flying spaghetti monster and agree with you not go find some other site to preach your imaginary friend at…

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Hi, Jonathan,

Try googling “infinite regress” with Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button.

Mayfly

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Hi Jonathon,

Try going to Google and entering “infinite egress”, then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

Mayfly

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Hi, Jonathon,

Try going on Google and entering “infinite regress” then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

Mayfly

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Hi, Jonathon,

Try going on Google and entering “infinite egress” and then hitting the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

Mayfly

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The banana was designed for the human hand? OK, how do you explain the coconut? And I think if you dropped 50 oranges on the ground for a few billion years then yes, they probably would organise themselves into five rows of ten AND ten rows of five at some point.

And YOU have to prove the existence of god, we don’t have to prove anything!

Ramen that.

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This is probably the most hilarious thing I’ve ever read.

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WTF? Is this person just trying to collect the stupidest creationist ideas from around the tubes in one place? It’s been done, doob. You don’t need to do it again. Please stop.

All this [crap] has come before, and will come again.

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This guy is onto something, if Larry Flynt sees this blog how long before we see a post entitled: “The cucumber: The puritan’s worst nightmare.”

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The person who wrote this is:

- A. The last years winner of the Nobel prize for psysics;
- B. A North-Korean atheist who wants to test our believes;
- C. A banana;
- D. Another self-made diet-guru who wants everyone off carbs.

If you haven’t answered a,b,c, or d, you’re right.

This author is a true Pastafarian. He proves without any doubt, that our beloved FSM should be thaught worlwide at every school from Afghanistan to Zanzibar. The truth is out there, from the blank noodles of China, to the spicey Bahmi of Bali, trough the Motherland of Italy to the rich, cheesy and fullfilling unportable plates of the America’s.

Hell, personally I think – and I’m aware of being a kind of a Luther here – that we Pastafarians should stop our cravings for being peers of scientists. We’re all way deeper than them. Scientists (and their develish sons the engineers) build stuff. But who feeds them? Who provided the building blocks to grow from helpless babies to the strong and viral men and woman they are now?

Food for thought. Scientists create gaps. Carbs fill it.

rAMEN

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You assert that things can’t exist without a creator. Who, then, creates the creator of the universe? As soon as you respond that something has to start the chain of creators/creations that this notion implies, I simply ask what creates that ultimate creator? If you can live with the collection of creators as a well ordered set and if you’re a fan of Zorn’s Lemma, then you can get an ultimate creator out of the whole mess. Is it possible? Yeah, maybe. It seems much more unlikely this is the case, however, than the possibility that the universe simply IS.

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Impressive, someone with a slightly intelligent arguement that realizes pastafarians don’t actually believe in FSM. I guess not everyone is stupid.

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Your entire premise here seems to be faulty, you are comparing objects that are completely different in order to make a point. A coca cola bottle is evidently not made by chance, but in the same respect neither is a banana. The Banana is the product of evolution, bananas that were (1) shaped to fit a hand were more likely to be picked up by animals with hands, this increases the odds that they are eaten and so their seeds are spread, increasing the number of bananas that carry those traits. the same can be applied to all of your first 8 points, the 9th is related more to the evolution of human taste buds and their affinity for objects that contain nutrients. Your first “test” is invalid as your comparing apples (or in this case coke bottles) to oranges (bananas). I’m not going to comment on your second point in relation to quotes from Darwin and Einstein, as i don’t know the context the quotes were given in, and so their meaning is next to unknowable. Your second test is once again a fallacy, your are *once again* comparing different objects. Your third analogy is unrelated because the universe is in no way orderly and conventional, and as you ignore in your third test, the universe is governed by simple (in most cases) laws of physics, without which nothing can exist coherently. In test four you do raise a good point, there is no way we can prove that there is no god, we can only disprove the things that are attributed to him. It would be absurd to say that “it is not possible that there is a god,” a more correct statement would be that “there is no reason to believe that there is a god.” Your final point is a little misleading. God is not in anyway like a light wave. If he was we could detect him, ergo he wouldn’t be god.

Q.E.D your argument is faulty, you have failed to prove anything

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Just a quick thought. A Banana isn’t necessarily for a human. Monkeys of many shapes have been eating them long before we came along. Evolution as well took millions and billions of years so in that time the eye forming is quite possible. Finally to know if there IS a god wouldn’t you have to be omniscient yourself to know, and i am guessing your not.

RAmen

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Well, I suppose that issue is settled. Coca Cola is GOD.

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Look. The trouble with analogies is that they aren’t always accurate. Example: Have you ever gotten a nail to work the way you wanted it to by hitting it on the head? I daresay you haven’t. Employees, too, then–if they don’t work the way their employer wants them to, shall he also hit them on the head?

In addition, what you say about absolute statements is logically sound and makes perfect sense. Atheists do not know for certain that there is no god. Likewise, Christians do not know for certain that there is God.

(Pastafarians, of course, know for fact that there is indeed a Flying Spaghetti Monster. This is truth.)

Break the word “agnostic” down. a-gnostic, from Greek a-knossos, without knowledge. You bring up an excellent point when you say that we have only a small amount of knowledge and cannot know that there is no God. Neither can any religious person know that there is a god, a goddess, or one great jolly pantheon. If you think about it the way you’ve set it up, we are all agnostics.

(Except Pastafarians.)

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And who created your creator?

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This hate mail is quite funny, if only because the writer believes his arguments to be unanswerable by evolution. There is no need to debunk this because if Jonathon really cared about evolution as science instead of evolution as a belief he would already know that his over generalizations are either: 1) not an accurate analogy, or 2) easily debunked.
In other news: arrrrrrrrrrrrr
And may our noodley master have mercy on you
RAmen

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Okay, you’re more reasonable than a lot of the people posting “Hate Mail”, so I’ll take a minute here.

FSM isn’t atheism. It’s about schooling. It can be based on agnosticism (and you seem to be leaning towards agnostic theism) as much as on atheism.
The entire issue is, Should we teach intelligent design in schools? FSM is a way of giving a resounding “NO!”
Even considering all that you’ve said, intelligent design isn’t science. Parents can offer it as an alternative explanation if they wish. Evolution is a scientific theory. I don’t say “scientific theory” like that settles it. That’s just what it is: theory. But it’s science. Intelligent design isn’t. So should we teach science in a science classroom, or faith?
A: Science.
B: Faith.
C: Stop Teaching.
Well, A makes sense. Science class = science, no? B doesn’t. Faith =/= Science. And vice versa. It would be an implicit lie to teach Intelligent Design, in spite of any merit it may have, in science classes. As for C… well, that’s not really an option at all, is it? If schools took that approach, they’d be failing to carry out their duties as an educational institution.

As for probabilities… If you’ve taken enough algebra, you’ve seen the way probability works. The order of complexity involved in an object would be the denominator in terms of “Probability that ____ evolved by chance”. But what’s the numerator? The number of times that this evolutionary process could have taken place. And for that, we need to take into account the sheer size of the Universe. It’s mind-bogglingly large. Neither of these things – order of complexity and size of the Universe – can be quantified in any way, but I must say that I doubt that the complexity of an eye even competes with the number of planets in the Universe with, say, liquid water.

If you want to work in terms of probability, the chances of life evolving from single celled organisms to multicellular constructs is much higher than you seem the allow for.
Also, don’t bash agnosticism. It’s a perfectly respectable view. There is evidence that God exists, but highly probable alternative explanations for much of that evidence. There is evidence that a building had a builder, and not much to explain it’s existence if there was no builder. Assuming that someone did it is not unreasonable because there doesn’t seem to be a sufficient alternative explanation. In truth, we can’t know. If it turned out that the building was formed by chance, you might not believe it, but it COULD be true. But what are the chances of that? Infinitesimally small.

Atheism is as (logically speaking) baseless as theism. There’s no proof either way, and viable explanations on both sides. I admit, my ability to argue this is impaired by the fact that I, personally, simply don’t understand faith at all.

A final point: you spoke of encapsulation in your finale as though it was comparable to the existence of God. It really, really isn’t. When I press the button to turn on a computer, I might not know what’s going on because the makers of the computer have encapsulated their processes, hidden them from the user, and thereby made their product usable by others who do not understand its workings. I have an expectation for a few clear, logical reasons. The company has promised me that t