IDoNotGetIt

49. God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?

More preaching.  I don’t wear glasses and I thought your god was infinitely powerful.  What the hell do you mean “what more can God do?”  He can create the universe but he can’t provide me with convincing evidence of his existence?  What kind of impotent god do you believe in?

It is such a pleasure to argue with intelligent people.  One of my co-workers is an intelligent person and as a biology major in college, he knows much more than I do about biology.  So whenever I have a biology related question, sometimes I run it by him before going to the web for the answer.

Today, this got us into an interesting discussion because although he accepts evolution, he still believes that it needed god to “kick-start” it.  His reasons for this are complicated but can be distilled down to… what enabled the first pieces of organic material to replicate and encode data.  “The real chicken or the egg question” as he put it.

My response was that it is still more believable that it happened for natural reasons that we do not yet fully understand than that it happened magically.  He argued with me over this, saying that I was applying faith to my argument.  I said no I’m not and made the following statement.  “it is always more probable that X happened for natural reasons than that X happened for magical reasons” and ask him if that was a true statement.  He seemed to agree but in a very noncommittal way.  I explained that this is why my view was more rational than his.  At this point he changed the subject to entropy, I took this as a victory.

The entropy was a very brief argument as I quickly explained that those laws only apply in a closed system with no energy input which is not the case for earth, thanks to our nearby star.

48. Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!

Yes.  As a matter of fact I’ll say this, the missing link that will satisfy people who do not believe evolution, does not exist.  Every time a missing link is found, it just creates two more missing links.  It’s like Zeno’s dichotomy paradox.

“The” missing link is a red herring.  It will never be found and more importantly, it isn’t necessary to prove evolution.  The proven facts that make up the theory of evolution are unequivocally substantiated and grounded in science.  The proverbial missing link is just another idiotic card (like the “it’s just a theory” card) that creationist and their ilk like to trot out every now and then to make sure no rational person takes them seriously. It’s ok guys, we know you are ignorant fools, you don’t have to constantly reinforce that knowledge by showing your massive ignorance of the scientific process.

47. If we are the product of evolution – by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?

This actually made me laugh out loud.  I tried to remember if I was ever childish enough to ask a question like this, even when I was a Christian.  I don’t think I was.  What a monumentally silly question this is.

Evolution is a fact, yes we are still evolving as is every single other life form on this planet.  Evolution is a product of life as we know it, it has always occurred and it always will, it can’t be stopped.

So to answer this asinine question, Yes, it just happens that we exist here today.  I’ll let you in on a little secret, there is nothing special about today, different people lived here a few centuries ago and they could have asked that same silly question.

46. We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.

This is just preaching.  Save it for your fellow followers.  I don’t believe in god (any of them) and therefore don’t have to waste my time contemplating silly questions like this.

45. Stephen Hawkins has admitted; “Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?”

How pathetic do your beliefs have to be to force you to grasp at any little insignificant thing that comes out of the mouth of any, authoritative, public figure you can find?  First it’s Albert Einstein and now Stephen Hawkins.  And this is the best you could do?  This is supposed to be a compelling reason to believe in god, Hawkins asking “why does the universe bother to exist?”

44. It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.

As I’m trying to think of an answer to this, I realized that it was the good ol’ “do you beat your wife often?” question.  If I disagree with it, it seems like I believe that “nothing created something out of nothing” and if I agree with it I’m saying I believe in god.

So how many fallacies are in that one sentence.  At least two, loaded question and false dichotomy.

Perhaps, it is that the universe wasn’t created in the manner that Christians like to pretend it was.  Perhaps its creation was of a natural origin not requiring any intelligent being.

43. A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. “Who threw that?” He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; “No-one threw it – it threw itself!”

Once again, I’m almost speechless.  This is a reason to believe in god?  Well, I guess you got me.  This is inarguable, right?  How could I deny the existence of god in the face of this kind of evidence?  Oh wait a minute, I see it now.  Ha ha, you almost got me, but I see your strawman.

The formation of the planet we live on (henceforth, the world) happened but I’ve never heard anyone other than theists claim that it “just happened” aka “god did it”.  The formation of the world as we know it is described in great detail by astrophysicist and geologist.  I highly recommend you research it.  It is extremely interesting.  And if, in your research, you find something that says “it just happened”, you aren’t reading a science book, you’re reading a religious book.  Throw that away and get the truth.

42. Albert Einstein said; “A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”.

Here we go again with more Argument from Authority.

There are, as usual, many problems with this “proof”.  We’ve got cherry picking, quoting out of context and appeal to misleading authority all rolled up in one.

Lets address the cherry picking first.  I remembered the second part of this quote but hadn’t heard the first part.  Although they are presented as one quote here, they are actually two different quotes from a symposium Einstein did called “The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion” in 1941.  They (Christians) have cherry picked these quotes from this symposium because they seem to support their claims.  However here is the first sentence of that quote in context.

Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God.

I especially like that he specifically said, hey the rest of this is “essential” to the point and they still left it out of the quote.  This kind of thing leads me to believe that they are intentionally being deceptive.

So he’s saying, essentially, that the concept of god is outside the realm of science and therefore there is no conflict.  Now lets look at the next part of the quote, here is the quote in the context of the paragraph it was pulled from.

Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I disagree with this paragraph, only on some insignificant points.  There, most definitely, is not a “dependency” between religion and science.  Religion may be “that which determines the goal” but it isn’t necessary for it to be so.  Also having science being filtered through religion only hampers our advancement in science, it isn’t necessary or helpful.  “Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding”, damn straight.  I disagree with his assertion that “this source of feeling… springs from the sphere of religion”.  That is his opinion and I don’t have a problem with him, or anyone else believing that, but I, personally, disagree with it.

But here is where the “quoting out of context” comes in to play again.  Look at “there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith.”  The next sentence is where the quote is pulled from.  Based on the context of this paragraph, I sincerely believe that he misspoke and should have use the word “faith” in place of “religion”.  It would make sense compared to everything he said previously.  He is defining faith as the belief that the laws of the universe are rational and comprehensible to reason.  In this case “science without faith is lame, faith without science is blind.” is absolutely true.  If faith is the belief that the universe obeys laws and is comprehensible to reason, then science IS lame without faith!

41. There are many skeptics who didn’t believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.

Hmmm, lets see.  This looks, suspiciously, like the Bandwagon Fallacy.  Hey everyone else is doing it, you must be wrong if you aren’t doing it also.

I’m not a sheep, you’re going to have to do better than than if you want to change my mind.