cheap trick behind the most devastating lie in the history of mankind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_Poll ^ | 10/15/2003 | self

[Truth666]

Here are the some of the results of a 1999 Gallup poll on creationism, evolution, and public education :
49% believe that human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.
Evolution theory is the most important weapon to twist people's minds.
For 99% of the people the most important REAL reason for believing in it : a trick that costed a few bucks, 100 years ago.
Even more incredible : the trick has remained the same until now.
Only lately, with very fast computers that allow virtual reality software to perform convincing enough, have we seen some effects added to the base trick.
I wonder who is the first Freeper to find out the trick behind the most devastating lie in the history of mankind.

[Stultis]

You MUST remove the diety to enslave a people.

That's not even remotely true.

'Tis so. No society with a well established system of Jenny Craig clinics and Weight Watchers circles has ever succumbed to tyranny!

[VadeRetro]

And what I find funniest of all is the unbelievable amount of ego it takes to NOT JUST believe that science is capable of solving any problem, but also that THEIR OWN INTELLIGENCE and analytical abilities are so God-like that they can with relative ease determine exactly what happened 600 million years ago based on wholly insufficient data, when they -still- can't figure out how to throw a bunch of amino acids into a soup and get a DNA strand out of it.

That looks kind of non-sequitur and shrill. I'll admit you're already hot because Sentis attacked your sincerity, but it's hard to imagine an agnostic scientist inventing the sort of difficulties that you have. The relative paucity of Precambrian fossils (a situation related to the paucity of unmetamorphosed and unsubducted Precambrian sediments) is to be expected, given plate tectonics and time. Nothing in the situtation indicates that what evidence we do have is misleading.

That you don't brew DNA out of amino acids in ten seconds is also a very strawman model of abiogenesis. Strawman models are for lawyers, not scientists. Do you at least see the problem?

[Qwinn]

"If you are supporting the silly young Earth creationism you are either a false agnostic, a fool, or a troll."

Did I say I thought creationism was proven? Hell no. In fact, I made it obvious that I believed this spittle-flying belief in Darwinism is just as unproven as the Bible - which would -not- indicate that I believe the Bible itself is "proven".

What I believe is - we don't know! We don't have -nearly- enough evidence to know. It is clear that there is such a thing as genetic mutation and it is clear that it can lead to changes in a species over time... that doesn't even come CLOSE to proving that every last form of life on earth evolved from a bunch of randomly floating amino acids that just happened to form into a DNA strand that just decided it'd be fun to start self-replicating, especially when all our vaunted scientific knowledge can't even come close to replicating the situations that make that possible.

How old do I think the Earth is? Last I heard, 4 billion years, but I believe that "fact that only a whaco wouldn't believe" was recently revised to 6 billion. And I believe that the age of the Universe, for a decade or two pegged at 10 billion years, has recently revised to being at least 15. In fact, both those figures have been revised so often (and the last revision so recent) that the only obvious thing is that it is absolutely sure to be revised again and are almost certainly inaccurate where they are pegged now.

And in light of the fact that science is continually having to revise it's findings, to presume at such an incredibly early stage of scientific inquiry into the question that it has taken ALL factors into account is the first and foremost stupid blunder scientists make. Science based on ego ain't science.

My answer to "Is there a God?" is "Insufficient Data". What is so hard to understand about that? I don't believe I have sufficient data, and I don't believe -you- have sufficient data to answer that question. It may be that we won't have enough data to answer that question for another thousand years.

One of the "facts" that I take into consideration, and that to me is far more obvious than the age of the universe, is that it is absolutely undeniable that there is something called a "religious sense". That billions and billions of human beings throughout history have experienced this sense as palpably and real to them as my own eyesight is to me.

I'm not so self-righteously arrogant that I'm ready to be the blind man frothing at the mouth that light can't possibly exist just because I can't see it. Atheists just dismiss the religious sense as the obvious symptom of an unstable mind - a more arrogant dismissal can hardly be imagined.

What's clear is that atheists are so sanctimonius in their beliefs that they have already predetermined what they expect to find from the evidence and they WILL, without doubt, make those facts reflect their preestablished conclusion.

What is apparent to me, is that both sides of the debate sport a large share of intolerant zealots. But the atheists are the most sanctimonius by far. Well, wait, that's not fair, let me reword that. Let's say that the average atheist is far more likely to be insufferably sanctimonius about his own beliefs than the average Christian is to be about theirs. But the extremists on both sides are equally as whacked.

Qwinn

[Ichneumon]

Atheists pound on their unproven Darwin just as hard as Baptists pound on their unproven Bible.

Define "pound on Darwin", please. I don't think I've *ever* seen anyone go around "pounding" the notion. What *does* happen very frequently is folks defending evolutionary science from the ever-present ridiculous and false attacks. You know, like post #1 in this thread, for example.

[Ichneumon]

And atheists are capable of INFINITELY more evil in their pursuit of indoctrinating everyone into believing only what they believe than anything Christianity has ever produced.

"Infinitely"? Okay, sure, whatever you say.

[Lessismore]

I know for a fact it is at least 44 years and one day (if my birth certificate will suffice as evidence) beyond that I am not really sure of anything!

How do you know your birth certificate is real?

The universe began 7 days ago; it just looks old.

[js1138]

Dunno. Most of the creationists who could actually post a grammatically-correct sentence have offed themselves in the last few days.

Yes, it really costed their side..

[js1138]

why is evolution the most devastating of all lies ?

Because in your universe you are in charge of the truth?

[Physicist]

Prometheus

Some people think that man first walked erect,
To carry simple tools, or throw a spear,
The fossil record proves this incorrect:
Walking predates tools, two million years.
Others think that walking freed the hands,
To gather and to carry precious food,
But this selects the group and not the man,
And won't select at all when times are good.
I think 'twas FIRE that taught the ape to stand,
It's fearful, but it's pretty, warm and bright,
One stoopéd ape picked up a fire-brand,
And banished cold, and predators, and night.
Encumbered, thus unfettered, torch in hand,
An ape, tempered by fire, became a man.

[VadeRetro]

My post 68: Four or five fossil species were wrong because most lists [link] now say there were more?

No wonder the post was confusing. I botched the link!

Intended this, but actually this web page is a better example of a list of species. The executive summary:

[ChemistCat]

I'm sure the Bible would be a lot longer if He had taken the time to explain EVERYTHING. ;-)

-----

I guess this is one survey I agree with...I believe in evolution, about 49%. :-D

[Doctor Stochastic]

Are you referring to the Communist's (mostly Stalin) execution of the professors who taugt Darwin's theory? These guys were executed for teaching Darwin's version of evolution. One must assume that the Communists were against them for some reason.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Does that forbid a silken chador?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Are you sure that the Earth and Universe (along with your artificially aged birth certificate) were not created Last Thursday? Note that the question may be revised before the day after tomorrow.

[Qwinn]

"One must assume that the Communists were against them for some reason."

*nod* I'll admit I didn't know about this - I'm still pretty sure Marx was all about Darwin, didn't know Stalin broke with that. I would still argue that most of the brutality in Communism still descended from Marxist theory, which itself was influenced by Darwinism.

What seems much more significant to me though, is that it backs up my belief that atheists can be such zealots that they'll eat their own. They even have their own sects, and kill each other off over the most minimal differences. How cute. That actually removes the last difference I could perceive between them and the most militant religious zealots.

Qwinn

[Cold Heat]

You picked the right path. I will correct just one thing with the starting point : not a monkey but the artist's view for any part of the missing link. So to start with, we have an imaginary human ape walking, like this :

Yes, I thought that was what you were getting at.

That is why I said that making a monkey walk was a neat trick.

I don't by into Darwin all the way, and I can't accept the Biblical version, so I have my own idea.

I believe that man's evolution was jump started by some person/place or thing as yet unknown.

The possibility that God had a hand in it, I cannot deny or prove. It also could have been a event or another space traveling species that was experimenting.

I can accept that.

I never could see how that monkey went from all fours to Ozzie Osborn.

[RadioAstronomer]

Does that forbid a silken chador?

That is almost a certainty. LOL!

[Qwinn]

Out of this thread, your views most reflect my own.

Qwinn

[js1138]

What seems much more significant to me though, is that it backs up my belief that atheists can be such zealots that they'll eat their own.

Sorta like the "Christians" who pop on these threads to accuse Catholics of being atheists?

[Cold Heat]

Yes, I am in agreement with your views on atheists and religious zealotry as well.

I am not sure what that means?:-)