So that's what they mean by "intelligent design", eh?

[serai]

Link by way of txvoodoo.


I have no words. Seriously.

Watch on YouTube

Peanut butter trumps Darwin. Film at 11:00.

Comments

[celandine-g.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think we're his "target market." Sigh.

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

Your icon says it all, really.

[starlit-woods.livejournal.com]

He made my brain hurt

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Now I can't see anything, Mr. Gumby!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

That's the killer, isn't it? That there are people who actually believe this kind of thing.

I think I might forgive the hellacious blinkeredness, if only they'd put some effort into an argument doesn't sound like something out of a third-grader's Friday essay. An Experment About God That I Did With Peanut Butter by Billy Taylor, Age 9. Debates at that level are designed to impress the very ignorant, the very stupid and the very lazy, not people who are inclined to actually think about things.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I wonder if Jesus has recourse to lawyers.

[ladysunrope.livejournal.com]

I have words. What a piece of crap.

I always thought Creationist views were limited to the US but lately some of it seems to be slipping into the UK. A colleague of mine went for a job interview at a church school. She was asked 'How much does the Creation inform your teaching?' WTF? She answered 'Not much' and didn't get the job for which she is profoundly grateful. Now the church school in question was a Church of England school not Baptist or anything we would consider as close to fundamental so it could be an isolated incident because of an over enthusiastic minister. But still, WTF???

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Kind of ignores the amount of energy that gets postulated in the theories about the origins of life that don't include a deity, don't it?

Not to mention that "Evolution" isn't about the origin of "life in the universe", it's about what happens after there's life around to evolve.

[celandine-g.livejournal.com]

That's the killer, isn't it?

No, the killer is that they vote.


But I think this is like having the Brits in Iran "confess" on TV. No one in the West believes that it is genuine but millions of people in Iran, Iraq, and other countries do--and it is great fodder for stirring them up (not that they need a lot of encouragement, thanks to our own president's actions). Double sigh. Why do I feel like I'm sitting on a powder keg and maniacs are dancing around me with torches?

[celandine-g.livejournal.com]

Obviously not.

[belleferret.livejournal.com]

I think if we opened his brain like a jar of peanut butter, there'd be no sign of new life there either.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Ooo, zing!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

*nods* Reminds me of a quote I saw back in the 70's, from Prabhupada, the guy who started the Krishna movement. (Talk about a bunch of fundamentalists!) He said something like "Evolution says we came from monkeys. So why isn't it happening now, huh? How come there aren't any apes giving birth to humans now?" It was the first concrete example I'd come across of a religious leader making a demonstrably idiotic statement about science, something that any sixth-grade student (back then, anyway) could have refuted with ease. I was rather stunned by it, but then I was a rather sheltered and naive kid who'd been raised to think that people had brains and actually liked to use them. More fool, me.

When Creationists complain that secular people think they're stupid, this is the kind of thing I want to wave under their noses. Yeah, we do, kinda. Want to see why?

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Ah, you crush my last Anglophilic illusions. *sob*

[ferretdad.livejournal.com]

This is... pathetic. The introduction is so transparently biased, and the argument is so weak it's ridiculous. It makes me sad that people feel so defensive about their personal beliefs that they feel they must stoop to this level.

I mean, if you want to believe that God created life, go ahead -- no one can disprove it. But don't treat us like idiots to try to convince us. That's just disrespectful.

Sadly, I suspect that they're mainly trying to convince themselves.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

I will never understand the fundamentalist insistence on believing literally in what is so obviously metaphorical. When I went to Catholic schools in the 60's and 70's, the basic interpretation was that evolution is quite real, and that it's the engine that God used to create the world. What the hell is wrong with that viewpoint exactly, that these people feel the need to make complete fools of themselves in front of the world, saying and believing things that are more or less on a par with Santa Claus? It's really the smallness of the universe as they see it that I find appalling. Well, that and the crabbed bitterness of their mean-assed little dictator of a god, so impotent that he needs an army of bull-necked ignoramuses to defend him.

(Spike and I were talking about this very thing today, and we decided it's just another example of the actual disdain they have for their god and his rules. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, but you wouldn't know it to look at these people. They seem to think that despite his actually stating that out loud, it's necessary for them to run around defending him, as if he couldn't do anything for himself. It also proves to me that their god doesn't exist, because if he did, I seriously doubt he'd put up with the way they constantly flout his authority like that.)

[ferretdad.livejournal.com]

I think the insistence on a literal interpretation is an expression of insecurity; an emotional need for solidity in an increasingly fluid world. A small universe feels safer to them than a large one; a literal interpretation requires no thought and permits no confusion. Or, at least, it oughtn't; which may explain why they act threatened when the contradictions of a literal interpretation are pointed out.

Which isn't to say I've got it all figured out. ;/