The God FAQ.
Everything you wanted to know about God but were afraid to ask...
I actually had most of a blog mapped out giving my perspectives on the creation-evolution battle, such as it is, in time for the 200th anniversary of Chuckie Darwin's birth, and the rough 150th of the publication of On The Origin Of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. No wonder the publishers reckoned he'd be better off rewriting it as a book about pigeons. Maybe they realised the shitfight he'd be entering into among peeps who couldn't accept anything other than their version of god's version of genesis.
Anyway, I had a lengthy and reasonably well argued discourse drafted which went into my perspectives and experiences as an evo devo researcher - basically summarised as 'if the God botherers are right, what the fuck am I getting paid to do then?' - including how I came to the personal conclusion that any role for a 'creator' in biology (or physics, or anything much) was clearly dispensable in terms of an understanding of where we are and how we got here. I'd have talked about the war stories our colleagues in the States told over coffees and mini Guinness-and-beef pies (which confused the fuck out of them) at the Evolution 2007 conference in Christchurch 18 months ago, of the good fight they have to face every day against cashed-up, kiddy-brainwashing corporate religion. I probably would have banged on for quite a bit about the deliberate undermining and discrediting of evolution in particular and science in general by fundamentalist religions - mostly the Christians of the Deep South - in order to sure up their short-term belief strongholds, but which unchecked could result long-term in an Age of Unenlightenment where science and superstition are given equal airtime and precedence in media, education and society... if we're not there already. I'd have forcefully argued why science isn't just a bunch of shit you got taught at school, it's a way of thinking about the world, about asking questions about it and then forming a framework for actually going out and finding answers to them, in a testable way, which religion just fucking ain't. How we don't, and why we absolutely fucking should, teach kids from a young age why scientists inherently deserve to be given more credence than astrologers or naturopaths, for instance - that the point of science is to test shit to see if it's true, then test it again, and again, until you actually have some legitimacy behind what you're saying, rather than a bunch of fairy dust and testimonials from imaginary friends. That everything from the execrable and cretinous PETA Sea Kittens campaign to the systematic funding of 'targeted' climate change research by vested industry interests may contribute, however unwittingly, to the same inexorable decline in scientific intelligence by the community at large. And, of course, a dissection of Intelligent Design (sic), the proposition that basically all of biology is too complex to have been generated by anything other than an omnipowerful creator about which we are not allowed to ask any questions - the most unscientific proposition ever to have wrongly found its way into any school science curriculum (the key element of ANY scientific hypothesis being that it should be TESTABLE) - and in particular the utter demolition of the central tenet, that a designer must have been involved because everything in biology is perfectly designed and fit-for-purpose (to that I give you the star-nosed mole, male nipples and a couple of hundred genetic disorders maintained in the population because of selective advantage under different conditions. Oh yeah, that's designer as fuck.) I'd have probably even gone all concilatory and pointed out that most non-arsehat religious types have no problem whatsoever with evolution as being their creator's chosen mechanism for creating new species - even the Catholics are cool with it - and it's just a bunch of fire and brimstone Old Testament fucktards and medieval-mindset Islamic fundamentalists that are fucking it up for everyone.
Yeah, I was going to go on about all of that, and more. But I won't. Because it all just depresses the fuck out of me, because winning an argument with these demented fucking morons is about as straightforward as trying to eat diarrhoea with a fork, and just about as enjoyable. You can't win an argument with someone too stupid to understand they're losing. One of our PhD students sent this round the lab, subject title 'Funny shit'. Me, it just makes me want to beat my head against a large inanimate object at how unutterably retarded people can be.
Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims. Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example... sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we'd all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!
EnemyPartyII, Christianforums.com [2007-Dec-02]
Apes are just creatures twisted by Satan to mock Jesus by giving EVILolition credibility. Further more they are naturally lust crazed for human women. Since they are not natural creatures they should be exterminated forthwith as the tools of evil they are.
BJ Tabor, Blogs4Brownback [2007-Aug-01]
"Sorry but scientists have just shown that mice DNA is more similar to humans than human DNA. So would evolutionists then declare that humans came from mice? Probably. That's because most people can't think for themselves and are confused about reality. That's why they believe anything scientists say."
Carico, CARM [2007-Jan-09]
"According to evolutionists, it's a fact that aliens ruled the planet before the dinosaurs because that can't be disproven.
We have deformed skulls to prove that these aliens once had ape-like foreheads, and some walked on 2 legs and others walked on 4 legs. And since there have been confirmed sightings of alien spacecraft, that proves that they have come back to check on how things are going on planet earth.
We don't know who the first alien was, but from the few skulls and bones we have, we can tell that there were millions of them. Then when they had explored planet earth, they found it boring and decided to leave but not before some of them had died here which is why we still have their skulls and bones. From them, we can tell what they wore, what color eyes they had, and that they were covered in hair. These are what evolutionists call facts, so we've proven that aliens once ruled the planet earth."
Carico, CARM [2006-Dec-14]
[This is from a comic that is geared towards teens. This is from the comic on Evolution]
Don't you know that evolution is basically a racist concept? Some evolutionists still teach that white people evolved from "negroes" who evolved from apes-- Meaning "white people are more evolved!"
Truth For Youth, Truth For Youth [2007-Jan-01]
For fuck's sake...
So yeah, fuck that. I can't be bothered. If you need fairy dust and imaginary friends to make sense of the world around you... great. Whatever gets you through the day. For some munters out there, it's just as well you think someone's out there watching over your shoulder. I fear for what you fucktards would get up to if you thought they weren't.
The rest of you, those of you with opposable thumbs and an actual interest in how shit got to be the way shit is, go look up the facts - and I do mean FACTS - for yourself. There's a lot of good stuff on the net - and a lot of utter, utter crap too - but A/Prof PZ Myers' blog Pharygula is always worth reading. There's also a bunch of good books out aimed at the popular science market (the unpopular science market is less of a seller I'm led to believe) - new one out which was reviewed in New Scientist recently called 'Why Evolution Is True.' He may as well have called it 'Why Gravity Is True'. The only difference is that we don't have a simple high school experiment for evolution like dropping a tennis ball off a second story balcony onto someone's head, which might be half the problem. It's hard to conceptualise speciation in action without a grasp of the molecular mechanisms (and even with, it's a massively dynamic research field full of shouting matches and egos) - which is how we get into pissy arguments with IDers about the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record - but that's an argument for another day. Not this one. Darwin Day is a day for celebrating evolution, not reminding ourselves that mouth-breathing fundamentalists thinks we's all gurn t' hell, Cletus.
So yeah, I'm not writing that blog about evolution. It's dull. And more importantly... it's all a bit serious. And we don't do serious at the World of Bollocks. What we do is cheap, sensationalist, puerile rubbish full of second-rate, undergraduate knob and plop jokes.
And by Jesus suffering fuck we're proud of it.
Happy Darwin Day everyone.
The Doctor is OUT.
24 comments:
Phew! What a read! I am going to have to go through that again. But in the meantime, god botherer's are so much fun when you answer the door on a Saturday morning half naked, with a crazy look on your face. Fortunately I have two large atheist dogs. Problem sorted.
DD: I've taken to slowly looking them up and down, then saying very quietly, almost in a whisper "I think you're in the wrong place, my friend". You would not believe how quickly they leave.
Yobbo: thank dog that we don't have to deal with people like that down here (though the guy who thinks we should kill all apes because is amusing... I'm sure he could do commercial television here). Also like Prof Myers' suggestion of a loving, omnipotent search engine.
I have an invisible friend. Its a giant rabbit. I don't understand why other people think he's imaginary. And lets not forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Yeah it was a bit of a spleen-venting rant, sorry about that. Or at least it would have been had I written it, which of course I didn't, because it wasn't funny enough.
The God Squad don't seem to take an interest in Chateau Yobbo. Could be my habit of opening the door in my Che-as-monkey 'Viva la Evolucion' T-shirt. Either that or the shrunken heads of missionaries casually deported on spikes about the perimeter of the property.
I should add we don't actually have a lot of aggressive creationists getting all up in our faces, like, down here. What we do have is a bit more insidious - a research dean of health sciences who doesn't actually believe in evolution, even though he purports to be a scientist. As such, stuff gets edited in order not to 'offend', or to appear 'controversial'. Like the 'Happy Darwin Day' salutation that my boss submitted for the departmental daily shout-around email which was mysteriously left off the final version, like one of Virty's posts on the Instrument (or mine, come to think of it.)
"a research dean of health sciences who doesn't actually believe in evolution"
I'm sorry, there's too much cognitive dissonance there for this early in the day. Totally lost for any suitable words, so I'll just shut up a bit.
I do like the shrunken heads themed front garden landscaping idea, but I don't think I'd get it past my wife. On the other hand she seems amenable to adding a mosaic pentagram to our front wall, which may have a similar effect.
Well, he's not been 'officially' outed. But he is wont to comment at the end of journal clubs or research seminars outlining particularly intricate biological systems things along the lines of 'It's enough to make you believe in intelligent design, I mean to think the changes that this could have come about by some random accident...'
Yes. It. Could. And. Did.
Then there's the small matter of obviously incompetent people being promoted to and maintained in tenured positions who happen to attend the same church as he and various other higher-ups in the hierarchy... but best I leave this territory behind before the Tartan Mafia hunt me down and turn me into a sporran. Particularly given my comments on bagpipes recently.
Therbs, just got a chance to read through St Paul's Letter To The Pastafarians in full (heard much of it but never saw the full doc) - that is indeed gold encrusted with more gold. I am at once awed and cowed by the omnipotent power of His Noodly Appendage.
I was firmly in the creationism camp until I remembered that I am in fact God and am far to fuckin' lazy to create anything.
Next time I go to the zoo, I am soooo teasing the apes with my human woman wife. I want to see them beat their lust crazed brains out on the cage bars.
Even God, or an Olympic Pantheon of Gods can't have created Shane Warne. No one is that good*. If we really want the answer to this question - we must ask Shane.
* With the exclusion of the Great Man himself - However, it is of course possible that Warne is God. The more that I think about it - the more that this seems probable
Does that mean I am Warnie????
Don't tell my wife, she will kill me!
Naut, that explains why I have a pic of you fussing with your phone during the meal!!
Dr Yobbo. Glad to see someonelse taking up the can't be 'bothered with ID' tactical nuclear missile. What of course the god botherers haven't seemed to work out is that creationsim is evolution. It took Great Cthulhu and his star spawn many many eons to develop us hairless apes to do their non-euclidean bidding!
Doc, I have had sooo many rants today its simply not funny. What pisses me off even more is that these fucking nut job religious crack headed zealots, have the metal agility of knuckle dragging persons. Which put them far closer to the concept than me. Well some-days anyway. I am happy for all to have their own opinion, its just that these pricks don't seem to want to let people have THE FACTS from the other side and make up their own mind. Darwin theory...CAP THE FUCKERS. Let us strong survive.
Hav, this is exactly the problem - you can't reason with them, because they don't believe in reason, they believe in faith. No matter what you come up with, they just say 'But God did such and such...' Waste of time. I just get sick of them lying to kids and trying to brainwash them - which I reckon is almost akin to child abuse, sending kids out into the world without the mental tools to actually think about things logically and make their minds up for themselves about stuff.
Warnie as God? I know He is meant to move in mysterious ways... which Mike Gatting could vouch for... but not that mysterious. I think using His omnipresence to bone as many slapper English nurses as possible behind His wife's back is probably a misuse of His Godly powers, but who am I to comment on a deity's inability to keep it trousered.
Actually the existence of Warnie proves evolution is true. Evolution very rarely picks the most obvious (ie 'designer') way to generate a particular biological function or even an entire new species out of an existing one. If the Greatest Test Bowler Of All Time (ignoring the Lankan bloke with the dodgy action) was created by Intelligent Design, he wouldn't be a fat, dumpy bogan with a receding hairline and a penchant for baked beans, Winnie blues, texting ropey slappers and banging the arse off other ropey slappers. But that's evolution for you. Survival of the arsiest.
I'm still waiting for them to explain why God gave octopus's better eyes than us (our blood vessels are in front of the retina obscuring vision, octopus's behind) unless Cthulhu was involved?
Furthermore, development of every animal eye in nature - whether the lens-type eye that vertebrates have, the compound eye that insects have, or even the crappy little eyespots that wriggly shit has - is controlled by the same gene, called Pax6. That's not designer. That's fuckin' laziness.
Bangar, you've just answered your own question.
I am so sorry. It is Friday and I am well and trully brain fried so I shall have to return here when my brain decides to work again. If Warne is God it explains why so many females are shitty!! Maggs
Yobbo: I always thought the way nearly all vertebrates have basically the same bones was enough to refute the argument we're talking about. Any counter to that must already be getting into the ineffable to some extent, and therefore retreats beyond testability.
And Bangar, careful what you say or we're all squidfood.
Yes of course Damian but what you're forgetting is that God made them that way. End of discussion. Ah'm gurna give you ten sicowns to git orf mah property 'fore ah give you a new belly burton hole.
I wasn't that keen on the idea of all the tributes and sanctifications that went along with Darwin Day. The dude had a fucking good idea (as did Alfred Wallace, who came up with most of the same ideas at most of the same time, but was too working class to be allowed to address the Royal Society.) His idea did more to change how we think about life than any other abiding concept out there. But he's not a prophet and he's not a saint, and putting him up on a pedestal above and beyond his ideas themselves is a poor idea. All it does is encourage the antagonistic relationship between evolution and religion which the media are too lazy or vested not to put forward as the default case - one set of gods to worship versus another.
Nicely written, Doc. And I go to church most weeks.
Jesus talked at length about our primary mission being to love or at least respect our neighbors and help our fellows up and/or out. At no point have I ever read that He talked at great length about worrying about evolution or homosexuals or God forbid when you should take your one day off for rest.
I find the primary mission given to be more than adequate to deal with. The rest of it doesn't matter all that much to me.
Arguing about some of this reminds me of the first part of Monty Python's Life of Brian:
"Blessed are the cheesemakers?"
"I think He was referring to all dairy producers in general."
Good job, O ye of the large green hat. Your day is coming! (Soon, actually. St Pat's Day is only a month from now).
This turned out more anti-religion than I'd intended, the point of which (as Yankeedog eloquently illustrates) is that there is no reason that evolution and religion actually need to be antagonistic. Any more so that astrophysics or particle physics and religion should be, given they look into the very building blocks and origins of the cosmos. (Always wondered why THEY don't get multibillion dollar campaigns aimed at discrediting their research, or obliging red-state education boards to have the Big Bang taught side by side, with equal emphasis, to a literal interpretation of Genesis? Arsey physics bastards. Mind you we get all the chicks so it evens itself out.)
Ironically the big stupid foam leprechaun hat was a promo gift from that noted Irish brewer, Heineken, in honour of the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final in which no-one Irish at all was involved (apart from various descendents of Irish convict stock who turned out in the gold jerseys of Straya and sucked a suckload of suck.) It's since seen several rock festivals and days at the cricket (pity the poor bastard who gets to sit behind) as well as work Xmas parties, weddings, funerals, the usual. I wear it in this forum mainly to give my arguments the credence, legitimacy and gravitas they deserve. Along with a vague, persistent smell of stale beer.
Oh, right. Its a hat. For a while I'd thought Nautilus' green fucking frog had escaped over to your blog and was starting to munch away on your noggin.
Yeah Doc, I dropped astrophysics at Uni for exactly that reason.
And yes, the stale beer smell is extremely important when setting up the right ambiance for serious discussion. The correct level is important: too much and the carpet gets all sticky. Not enough, and there is danger of the facility turning into a place where cider is consumed
Yup, when it gets to a state reminiscent of the self-adhesive green carpets in the old UNSW uni bar, I'll probably have reached intellectual nirvana. Either that or it'll require disposal as a biohazardous waste.
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