Bill Nye: “Creationism is not Appropriate for Children”

Well, if I recall correctly, atheists want to:

1] Subjugate religion
2] Force churches to disband
3] Indoctrinate children
4] Rule the world
5] Put their hands in the air and wave them like they just don't care

 

I am totally down with #5, but all the rest sounds like too much work for me.

 

We atheists will...

1] Subjugate religion - With a big stick.
2] Force churches to disband - With a big stick.
3] Indoctrinate children - IN THE SCIENCE CLASSROOM!!
4] Rule the world - They shall kneel before Zod.
5] Put our hands in the air and wave them like we just don't care - Don't be ridiculous, man. We're not monsters.

 

What about Antitheists then?

 

They just sit around arguing about finding a better name.

 

They should concentrate on learning their instruments.

 

Well, there is a small minority of "evangelical" atheists who embarrass the rest with vocal intolerance of any sign of religious beliefs, no matter how traditional and watered down. At Christmas they probably go down to the mall and tell three-year olds that Santa is a fraud.

You could argue that they're not so much atheists as religious fundamentalists whose adopted religion is a belief in No-God, the next logical step after moving from polytheism to monotheism, and more strident against monotheists than monotheists were against polytheists. Fortunately they're a small minority.

The most amusing thing I've run across are strident agnostics who were trying to codify agnostic beliefs. I guess they were worried about having the wrong doubts.

 

What's even worse are Pollytheists, who worship parrots.

 

It amazes me that this debate exists. Creationism is an item of faith, not of science and thus doesn't belong in science classes. Even if you believe in Creationism, there's no scientific aspect to it- as a matter of fact it's there to try and refute science.

 

Meh, beats Pantheists, who trusts a guy whose half goat anyway?

 

I have no problem with creation stories being taught in school. However only as part of a mythology or comparative religions class. And even then multiple creation myths would have to be discussed.

 

"I don't think it extends to electrical appliances. I'm not a FRYING-pantheist!" - Dave Lister

 

I'm beginning to suspect there's more to the terms "hardshell Baptist" and "soft-shell Baptist" than I had assumed. Maybe it has something to do with crabs, like Big-Endians and Little-Endians in Gulliver's Travels.

 

Yeah. The apatheists started to say the same thing, but just trailed off and resumed playing XBOX.

What if we were to get jiggy with it instead?

They can join the Uncle Theists. [boo!]

They could call themselves the Quarrymen. I heard that name's no longer taken.

[boo!]

 

Do Baptists walk sideways? I'd never noticed.

 

No, but some of them have a wide stance.

(I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.)

 

I was going to clarify some remarks I made earlier in the thread, and explain why I said some of the things I did, but it's not worth the effort.

Bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that the efforts of people to corrupt science and science eduction for religious reasons are unwelcome and will not be tolerated. Attempts to dress the vehicles of such efforts (which are analogous to pathogens) up in scientific jargon fail because the bread and butter of science is detecting falsehood.

Of course, the reason why science education is targeted is transparent: it is necessary to compromise the ability of practicing scientists to detect falsehood in order for counterfeit science to be passed off as genuine, and the only way to undermine that ability is to delude the minds of practicing scientists.

This is one reason why I said upthread that creationism is really a political movement, rather than an intellectual one.

 

Or, after Cain slew Abel, he went off to the land of Nod where he knew his wife and started a family. This would mean that Cain married either a sister or a niece or some other relation and their children had children, etc. Of course at this point, there's the question of why her origin wasn't mentioned, but even more so the fact that inbreeding had to have taken place.

How do they explain it? They claim "it is not a problem early on in the human race because the genetic line was so pure." What folly. The birth defects tend to arise because the genes are too closely matched. But in any case, the argument always falls flat because someone will say "God permitted inbreeding for a period of time so that there wouldn't be birth defects." And only once it started to become a problem, was incest finally banned in Leviticus.

That's what gets me the most, is how people concoct assumptions for things excluded from the text. So much for the perfect work. "But if it covered everything, the book would become too unwieldy." That's just a cop out for obvious flaws/shortcomings. If the loose ends were tied up, I don't think it would've increased the book by more than 10%. It's clear that there are about a dozen specific "holes" that are raised as imperfections. It's not hundreds. Why not prevent those ambiguities or imperfections to exist in the first place? THIS is a real problem, because if it causes significant confusion or entices people to question their faith, then it's not a perfect work.

 

Well, the story also omits how Adam and Eve traveled from the Russia to the fertile crescent. Obviously the Garden of Eden was in the old Soviet Union because where else could two people have no house, no clothes, and one piece of fruit between them and think they were living in paradise?

The Adam and Eve story in the Koran is a bit more interesting because in it Allah made Adam from black mud, obviously the same genetically active bio-material the Ancient Engineers were playing around with in Prometheus.

 

I prefer the Book of Lilith.