This Must Be What They Teach At Creationism School

There are many things sillier about a talking snake than a talking human which is descended from single-celled organisms. But you know what, maybe that doesn’t matter so much. Reality can be quite silly sometimes.

What’s really silly is taking an ancient book as evidence for a talking snake.

the artist’s mistake was that he or she didn’t realise they were making the assumption that talking snakes is as credible as amoeba evolving into humans.

they’re also making the mistake that just because they’re too stupid or willfully ignorant to understand something that automatically means that people with an ounce of intelligence or curiousity find their ignorance convincing.

Here’s a clue for creationists – we don’t respect your ideas as much as we respect evolution because your ideas are completely irrational. Something has to be rational before it can be compared to evolution.

Rich Wilson

I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s not a point you can make. There is nothing you can show Patton that will make him realize, that even if he doesn’t accept evolution, there are ‘non silly’ reasons for other people to accept evolution.

While this is undoubtedly true I still think that making the point is worthwhile. Someone else may read it and realise the error that Patton has made even if he doesn’t.

While this is undoubtedly true I still think that making the point is worthwhile. Someone else may read it and realise the error that Patton has made even if he doesn’t.

Exactly. Debates don’t get the people engaging in them to admit they were wrong on the spot, particularly when they involve deeply held beliefs that are based in emotion and not rationality. However people who are watching (or reading) the debate and are maybe less invested in the belief, and don’t have their pride on the line because they’re lurking, can be open to persuasion or at least planting the seed of doubt. People brought up creationist can and do come to their senses in many cases, and they do in part because those of us on the side of scientific thought don’t write them off as lost cases and fight creationism.

Well said, Claudia. I was taught creationism, but I learned evolution.

For the sake of clarity, I am going to close the comments least this turn into an evolution vs. creation thread….which is not the point.

“The point is not evolution vs. creation, the point is evolution is silly and I’m not allowing any arguments to the contrary. Even though I asked ‘Are they really that different’ in the title.”

Patton took his ball and went home. Nice argument for creationism genius.

For the sake of clarity, I am going to close the comments least this turn into an evolution vs. creation thread….which is not the point.

Translation: “You’re forcing me to confront the contradictions in my belief system, and it’s scaring the crap out of me.”

Meanwhile, the name of the blog is “Reclaiming the Mind”. From their “Visions & Beliefs” page:

We believe that God has called us to have a impact on the church and culture by taking back what rightly belongs to God – the mind. We live in a time of anti-intellectualism, skepticism, and confusion. Our goal is to reclaim the mind by energizing the church providing resources for intellectual engagement.

Right. Then, of course, the usual blather about everyone else going to hell, yadda yadda – ’cause it’s what they live for.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – fundies have absolutely no sense of irony. They are the least introspective people on the planet.

I’ve discovered, in middle age, that I’m a segregationist. We need to have a separate area of cyberspace for these people. We could call it “IdiotWeb”.

Hell no! That’s what makes the interwebs so wonderful. It makes us talk to each other. And no one may have changed C Michael Patton’s mind, but I guarantee others who read what he was saying thought differently than they had before.

The internet is The Great Rationalizer, even if the religious feel the need to cut off comments at times. But most people like to let their thoughts be heard, which ultimately leads to discussion, which ultimately leads to more rational discussion for many.

Typical religious site. Their comments are heavily moderated and apparently they don’t like posts that are not inline with their views.

I posted an argument against the authors claim that “Atheism is the most irrational worldview.” I feel like I had a well thought out post that wasn’t threatening or rude in any way. The post was taken down in minutes.

The irony is that it was in a thread that encourages christians to study and challenges atheists; apparently atheist challenges are not welcome.

If you remove the “Are they really that different?” tagline, the cartoon’s actually kinda funny, even if ridiculously reductionist in the lower half.

Thanks for the link friendly. Were I to do this over again, I would not have posted this!

It is funny, when I created it, the fear from others was that creationists would get mad because I was saying that snakes talking was so bizarre. My point was not to make any truth claims either way. I was not attempting to imply the validity of either snakes talking or evolution happening. My point was that the world is full of bizarre things. Even if evolution was God’s means in creating the world (which I have no problem with), it is bizarre. And to laugh at one without laughing at the other is comical, in my opinion. Conceptually they are not THAT different.

However, with the history of the debate, I can understand how people would automatically see it as an attempt to belittle evolution.

Oh well, mark this up to one of those posts you wish you did not post. I just need to get out of the comic buisness. Blast you iPad!

Aww his poor brain was doing too much thinking, he really needs to stop thinking for awhile.

If you rub a butter knife against a brick, it doesn’t turn into a carving knife. All you end up with is a dull butter knife.

The only thing I think I need to take Sean to task on is his statement, “At no point is [Genesis] meant to be taken as historical fact….” I have never heard of a creation myth that wasn’t intended to be taken as historical fact by those who believed in it. Is Sean actually suggesting that religionists believe that God sent Jesus to bring humans salvation, or an angel appeared to Mohammed, or Krishna wrote the Baghavad Gita and not believe the other stories that are part of those traditions?

Actually, you have to take Genesis, particularly the first few chapters, and compare them to other Ancient Near Eastern myths. Jumping straight to Jesus is leaping over a LOT of literature in between that spans a multitude of genres/modes.

Genesis shares many traits with other ANE creation myths. The key difference would be that God exists outside of creation, whereas others have the gods as part of creation. Unfortunately, the YEC crowd seems to miss this point entirely and instead adheres to a literal (read: word-for-word) reading that tries to force a scientific/historical angle that was never intended (or present).

I absolutely believe that you can read Biblical text and treat each of the books as they were intended. Accepting the historicity of one area doesn’t necessarily require every story be read as history. For example, I’m of the opinion that most of the Old Testament is rooted in civilization myth imagery. From what I understand that would make it consistent with some of the other tribal writings/oral traditions of that time.

Patton isn’t an idiot, from what I’ve read, though I stopped reading Parchment and Pen when it seemed to be becoming more populist and doing more cheerleading for theism, as it’s clear that I’m not the intended audience.

Anyway, in this case, the question is, if think that a talking snake is at first sight absurd and reject the idea on that basis, why are we not also justified in rejecting evolution if we find it at first sight absurd? The snake-rejecters seem to be engaged in special pleading, assuming they don’t also reject evolution.

It seems to me that CMP is correct to say that if one rejection at first sight is justified, the other is, but this ignores what we learn if we dig deeper.

In Absurdity Heuristic, Absurdity Bias, Yudkowsky has it: the absurdity heuristic fails when “we have information about underlying laws which should override surface reasoning.”

In this case, we do have evidence for evolution and, if we don’t have theological pre-commitments which bias us, we accept it as very probable on the basis of that evidence even if it initially seems unlikely because we personally have never seen an amoeba evolve into a person.

So Patton is wrong to say, given the total evidence available to us, that “neither is more likely” or “neither is more scientific”: we have never seen a snake talk and getting deeper into the scientific evidence would presumably show us why that was biologically unlikely; we have never seen an amoeba evolve into a person, but getting deeper into the scientific evidence gives us overwhelming reasons to think that is what happened.

In the most literal reading, as in, “I watch large scale speciation happen before afternoon tea” yeah, it isn’t true. In the sense of, there used to be these things but now there are these other things that are deeply linked through the fossil record, his claim is obviously true. Especially if you include his 2nd sentence where he clarifies what he means.

Like I said, strickly speaking it is untrue.

Any “demonstration” of the development of man from single celled life forms would be a secondary and equivocal use of the term.

It’s one thing to demonstrate the merits of a given inductive argument based on known evidence, it’s quite another to perform a scientific demonstration.

To say that single cells becoming talking men is “demonstrable in real life” is overreaching considerably.

I’ve stopped arguing with people who think “the Flintstones” is a documentary film.

I saw a billboard today that lead me to a site called Friendly Atheist. What a misnomer! I am on the fence about some issues, but found nothing helpful on this blog, but I did find a lot of hateful name calling about people who have a different set of beliefs. The billboard I saw seemed like it was going to lead me to something helpful. The wording “You don’t need God – to hope, to care, to love, to live.” After reading this and other blogs, I see that nobody on this site cares about anything other than convincing others of their point of view by referring to evidence, but not quoting the location or source of evidence. That is not helpful. I was hopeful for a short time that this site could offer a way to carry out the statement on the billboard. I am not finding it. The only love I see evidence of is love of self, not for others. Maybe I don’t need God, but at this site I did not find hope, care, or love that I can use to live. Oh well, off I go on my search.

So according to the cartoon people aren’t born through reproduction, anyone who is a talking man has always been a talking man, no fertilization of an egg, no infanthood, childhood, puberty, etc. A talking man cannot come from a single cell. AMAZING!!!

And this completely answers someone’s statement that “To say that single cells becoming talking men is “demonstrable in real life” is overreaching considerably.” because we demonstrate it every time we track someone’s pregnancy to adult hood and not even creationists argue against development.

This is a fail. Human reproduction requires two cells.

“Human reproduction does require two cells.”

After fertilization, the zygote is a single cell. Nine months and some years after that, you can indeed have a talking man. Or woman.

Modern single-celled amoebas, on the other hand, are happy to remain so.

Dawkins does point out in The Greatest Show On Earth that if you go back far enough, yes, the common ancestor was a single-celled something-or-other.

Yeah, most creationists use circular logic, which I can’t stand at all. Ever seen the contradictions in the bible picture? http://atheistcolby.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/BibleContradictions-ReasonProject.png

I’m 100% for the logic, and I’m not sure much about anything religious, but isn’t the snake supposed to be the devil/Satan? Would that explain the talking [because talking demons are much more likely than talking snakes…?] ?

Yeah, show me a zygote that came from one cell with nothing added to it.

Ya need two.

Doesn’t everyone know that amoebas didn’t evolve into humans? Amoebazoa is a sister kingdom to animalia, not an ancestor.

In fact, the mere existence amoebas disprove a central thesis of intelligent design: It shows that the information capacity of an organism’s genome is essentially unrelated to its biological complexity. Polychaos dubium, for example, is a single-celled organism whose genome is 200 times the size of homo sapiens.

While I respect Sean for taking the time to defend evolution, I must say that I cringed when he brought out the “No one believes in evolution anymore than they believe in gravity” argument. I don’t know who invented this argument, but it has become quite prevalent and it makes no sense. I believe in evolution. I believe it is true because it is supported by a vast accumulation of evidence. The idea that scientists don’t “believe” things and that facts can’t be “believed” is silly. Why do people think this is an effective argument? Just because people “believe” in God doesn’t mean all belief is faith-based, any more than the fact that some theists claim there is “evidence” supporting God’s existence means that “evidence” can’t be applicable in a scientific arena.

/pedantry