Pheobe Debates The Theory of Evolution

Original scene from the show... Friends. ^ | NA | NA

[Mr.Atos]

I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...

Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!

Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.

Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.

Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.

Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!

Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?

Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!

Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!

Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?

Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?

[AndrewC]

See above. Sorry, but it was an attempt at humor I thought best kept out of the arena. You are missing your gall bladder. :^)

[Junior]

Neither the song nor the poem speak to despair over meaning in life. They speak to the transient nature of life. A thousand years from now nothing you will have done or said today will make any difference. Ten thousand years from now the world may only know you as a museum specimen; all your words, your deeds; the people you loved and who loved you, will be "dust in the wind." Now, you may be enjoying eternal life with the Almighty, you may be expiating your sins in purgatory (don't start) or you may be wallowing in a lake of fire, but to this world it will not matter whether you lived or died, just like it doesn't really matter to you about all the hundreds of millions of people who have lived and died over the last few millennia. To you, their lives are nothing more than "dust in the wind."

[Right Wing Professor]

But it was originally Christmas music that was co-opted by the commies.

You have some evidence Kije was plagiarized? From where? Source?

[Lurking Libertarian]

Selection does not create any new genetic information, it destroys it.

Mutation creates variation within a poulation. Then selection comes along and weeds out the variations that can't survive. The ones left all (or disproportionately) have the beneficial mutation that, before selection, existed only in a small number of individuals.

[exmarine]

As for atheists, Ayn Rand was a atheist, and a great writer and philosopher.

She may have been a talented writer, but her philosophy doesn't have a leg to stand on. Hers is the philosophy of self-centeredness and her moral principles have no foundation other than in her own mind. In other words, she was a moral relativist masquerading as a purveyor of objective moral truth.

[AndrewC]

Excellent choices. "Shrove-tide Fair"

[Aric2000]

Fine with me, I have no idea how many are fundamentalists, but most of the freepers that I know, do not claim that their religious beliefs somehow trump or compete with science, or are at all scientific, or can be PROVEN scientifically.

I find the Fundie claim that they can as hilarious, and downright silly.

The flood happened, not according to science, god made the earth in 7 days, not according to my science, Eve was a clone of Adam, and the earth is less then 10,000 years old, sorry, not according to ANY science that I know of.

You can believe what you want, it's fine with me, but to try and force your religious beliefs on science is insane, and I find some fundamentalist trying to do that as either A: insane or B: completely uneducated as far as what science is.

And GW may be what you would consider a fundamentalist Christian, but I do not see him trying to force any type of literalist interpretation on science, by cutting funding to scientific studies that might not show that genesis is literal.

I like religious people, they are some of the most trustworthy people in the world, because they have a principle to guide them, but when the principle becomes something to beat people over the head with and get fanatical about outside a religious venue, that is where the problem starts.

I don't enjoy being accosted in Pioneer square by a fundie with a Save the heathen attitude, I don't enjoy watching fundamentalists claim something is scientific, when in fact there is NOTHING scientific about it. I don't enjoy watching a fundamentalist that is supposed to be tolerant, attacking a person for their religious beliefs, just because they do not believe as the fundamentalist does.

As per you attacking cobaltblue in an earlier thread about being a christian etc.

I find the whole thing abhorent. But that's just me.

You guys are the ones that started this socalled flamewar, and then get all offended when we do the same to you, that which you do to us. I just have an easier time with it, because my religion does not teach turn the other cheek. If attacked I have EVERY right to A: go on the offensive, or B: defend myself. I have chosen to defend myself, with an offensive here and there.

Don't like my tactics, quit using them.

[conservababeJen]

There is so much bullshit in your last 2 posts that it stinks too bad to weed through.

You have a very false impression of not only "fundies", but Catholics as well. I would explain how, but I doubt you care to hear, or would even "get it" for that matter.

I have shown you nothing but respect & friendliness since you were big enough to take me off your "virtual ignore", and here you are paying me back for that by calling my faith "hilarious".

I don't need to say anything more about your last few posts on this topic because who, what and how you are is now perfectly clear and I have no further interest in playing nice with you. Now I regret even trying.

[exmarine]

Discussing transcendant ideas with you or RWP or CobaltBlue is like trying to explain to an animal what it is like to see in 3-D. (No offense intended) So, there is no point in taking this any further. You have your view and I have mine but both cannot be true.

[Lurking Libertarian]

I don't see any reason for Aric2000 to be telling jokes about St. Peter and the pearly gates at this juncture, nor Junior's story about the blonde in the red convertible. Both seem unnecessarily provocative to me.

I agree.

[Right Wing Professor]

Discussing transcendant ideas with you or RWP or CobaltBlue is like trying to explain to an animal what it is like to see in 3-D.

So you aren't going to back up the assertion that Prokofiev co-opted Lieutenant Kije from pre-existing Christmas music? And you're claiming that what you know and we don't can't be articulated?

(FWIW, many animals see very well in 3D)

I don't know if AlamoGirl's proposal is going to work. There are lots of adjectives I want to use here, and none of them fall within the scope of the code-of-conduct.

[Right Wing Professor]

Stravinsky? I haven't heard it, but I'll look for it.

[exmarine]

I will take your word for it. I misread your post. However, Nazis would call Wagner's music beautiful as well. It's just a propaganda tool intended to provoke an association between their evil doctrines and a piece of music. The fact is that communism is ugly and all one has to do is look at any communist country to see its fruits. The fruits of Communism are oppression, persecution, murder, devaluation of human life, absolute dictatorships, and despair. It is responsible for more deaths in the 20th century (perhaps 100 million or more) than any other ideology in history. Tell me more about its beauty. You just argue for the sake of arguing, and I don't have time for your polemics. I have other fish to fry. Believe as you wish.

[exmarine]

So you aren't going to back up the assertion that Prokofiev co-opted Lieutenant Kije from pre-existing Christmas music? And you're claiming that what you know and we don't can't be articulated?

See my #1313. I'll take your word for it. Can you make the exception the rule? Keep trying.

[conservababeJen]

As per you attacking cobaltblue in an earlier thread about being a christian etc.

What are you talking about.? I never attacked cobaltblue about her Christianity.

Lastly, before I try this novel VI thing...

Welome to the wonderful world of the Internet where NO ONE can "force" Religion or Science (or really anything) on anyone. We Discuss. That is what discussion boards are for. If you don't want to discuss a "fundy's" biblical stance on science, then feel free not to.

[Aric2000]

As I said before, keep your religion in a religious venue, and we will not have a problem. When you try and force your way into science, is when I find it hilarious.

I was born and raised a catholic, so don't even go there, you are clueless, 90% of my family are catholics, and I love EVERY one of them, but they are also tolerant of my beliefs. As is my friend Larry, who is a JESUIT priest.

Give me tolerance, and I will be tolerant in return, give me intolerance, I will jump you so hard it will make your head spin.

You and ALS and some of your ilk are some of the most intolerant and dare I say bigoted pack of bible thumpers that it has been my misfortune to meet, you attack first, and then whine when we jump you back, then you calm down and become a bit more tolerant, and then one of you becomes a jerk, and I attack, then you all jump me again, and we start all over.

Yeah, I jumped ALS last night, he hadn't posted in quite a while, and then he posts to me links to posts, he was being a jerk, and I had said NOR had done anything. I was under the impression that he had already read and agreed to A-G's contract, and therefore got a little pissed off when he starts in on me AGAIN. So I jumped him, he cried and whined, and sure enough you all came to his defenses and jumped me back.

Then you get all offended that I actually defend myself.

Bizarre, just plain bizarre, but if ALS had not acted like a jerk, I would not have jumped him and NONE of this would have occurred. SO, what is the solution? ALS quits acting like a jerk, and I quit with the jumping his case.

[whattajoke]

Jen,

good afternoon. I had hoped you'd have removed or changed your tagline by now.

not that you have to at all, I just thought that since creationist thinktanks suggest that perhaps it's not the best line of argument, you'd as well.

[conservababeJen]

I've done that too! I blushed the whole day.

[exmarine]

And you're claiming that what you know and we don't can't be articulated?

Yes, I claim to have knowledge you don't have. I said no offense intended. If you want to feign offense, then send the post to the Admin Moderator. I'll stand by it.

I don't know if AlamoGirl's proposal is going to work. There are lots of adjectives I want to use here, and none of them fall within the scope of the code-of-conduct.

I never signed on to A-G's idea and I never will. If you think something I say is abusive, report it. I certainly will.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Can anyone think of anything beautiful that came out of the USSR?

Well, in the early days there were the films of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko, but once Stalin came along there wasn't much.