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August 27th, 2012
11:31 AM ET
Bill Nye slams creationismBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN)–Famed TV scientist Bill Nye is slamming creationism in a new online video for Big Think titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children." "Denial of evolution is unique to the United States," Nye begins in a YouTube video posted on Thursday. The video quickly picked up steam over the weekend and as of Monday morning had been viewed more than 1,100,000 times. Nye - a mechanical engineer and television personality best known for his program, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" - said the United States has great capital in scientific knowledge and "when you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in it, it holds everyone back." "Your world becomes fantastically complicated if you don't believe in evolution," Nye said in the Web video. Creationists are a vast and varied group in the United States. Most creationists believe in the account of the origins of the world as told in the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories In the creation account, God creates Adam and Eve, the world, and everything in it in six days. For Christians who read the Genesis account literally, or authoritatively as they would say, the six days in the account are literal 24-hour periods and leave no room for evolution. Young Earth creationists use this construct and biblical genealogies to determine the age of the Earth, and typically come up with 6,000 to 10,000 years. Your Take: 5 reactions to Bill Nye's creationism critique The Gallup Poll has been tracking Americans' views on creation and evolution for the past 30 years. In June it released its latest findings, which showed 46% of Americans believed in creationism, 32% believed in evolution guided by God, and 15% believed in atheistic evolution. During the 30 years Gallup has conducted the survey, creationism has remained far and away the most popular answer, with 40% to 47% of Americans surveyed saying they believed that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years. Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human origins "The idea of deep time of billions of years explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your worldview becomes crazy, untenable, itself inconsistent," Nye said in the video. "I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems," he said. Creationists' beliefs about the origins of the Earth are often a narrow focus, based in large part on religious beliefs, and while they reject evolution as "just one theory," they often embrace other fields of science and technology. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter In "The Genesis Flood," the 1961 book that in many ways help launch the Young Earth creationism movement in the United States, the authors write: “Our conclusions must unavoidably be colored by our Biblical presuppositions, and this we plainly acknowledge." Their goal for the book was to harmonize the scientific evidence with the accounts in Genesis of creation and the flood. The idea of creationism has been scorned by the mainstream scientific community since shortly after Darwin introduced "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By 1880, The American Naturalists, a science journal, reported nearly every major university in America was teaching evolution. "In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it. So..." Nye ends his video. soundoff (14,640 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 Next » |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Why are atheists so afraid of Christianity? They are always trying to stamp it out and belittle it. Wake up before it's too late for you.
Ah yes, the resort to veiled threats.Ya gotta love it when a Christian scorns you with the hinted admonition that you will "go to hell" .
Out of all the silly superst.itious beliefs of the Christians, I think the myth of hell is my favorite. Think it through. I don't have to kill, I don't have to steal, hell, I don't even have to litter. All I have to do is have a reasonable, honest and rational disbelief in the Christian god and he will inflict a grotesque penalty upon me an infinite times worse than the death penalty. And he loves me.
Let's subject this "cherished Christian doctrine" to the probing light of say.......fifth grade mathematics.
Approximately one hundred and ten thousand million (110,000,000,000) people have lived on Earth. Given all those who have, over the centuries, rejected the Christian god, or who have otherwise committed mortal sins, there must be literally thousands of millions of people burning for all eternity in the cosmic oven of hell set up by their all-loving god. Some must have been burning for thousands of years by now.
About 100,000 people die every day. There must be a constant stream of thousands of forlorn souls every day into the one way pit of hell their “all-merciful” god set up and maintains.
But, far, far worse than sheer overwhelming numbers is the extent of the punishment. There is no way out, no parole, no time off for good behavior. You don’t just burn, you burn for all eternity. Billions of people and thousands of daily new arrivals burning for all eternity!
No criminal justice system in the history of the Human race, even those established by the most despotic of tyrants, comes close to matching the unfathomable barbarity of their “infinitely benevolent” god.
Hitler murdered six million Jews in his concentration camps, but compared to the Judeo-Christian god, Hitler was a bleeding-hearted wimp. A goose-stepping girlie-man. Their “all-caring” god not only burns billions more than Hitler, Pol Pot and all other dictators and tyrants added up, he keeps doing so to them for all eternity! I would not wish a bad sunburn on a person simply because they have a different religion to me, let alone fry them for all eternity.
It is also odd that their all-loving god is also all-knowing and knows which souls will go to hell before they do. He even knows it before they are born, and yet he still creates them. He is worse than a psychopathic teenager than breeds litter after litter of kittens so he can slowly roast them in ovens.
That is the problem with using the same deity to be both the carrot and the stick. It gets really silly really quickly.
How they believe this utter garbage in the 21st century completely eludes me.
There was nothing in Nye's perspective that is anti-Christian. To believe so, is to have a very narrow view of God's universe and power.
Perhaps the better question is why are Christians so afraid of science?
I think it's just that they can't get around believing in something without any proof. They just think that's wrong.
Stimulating Collin, don't hesitate to post more, and on other cnn articles
Nobody is "afraid". Having a belief about something is all fine and good, until the FACTS prove otherwise. Bill N. is talking about science. Science is based on FACTS. Creationism is based on BELIEFS. The problem in the US is there are too many people that don't know the difference.
why are christians so afraid of atheists?
Don't you get tired of calling people afraid? No one I know is afraid of religion or Christianity. Some people are afraid of the supposed 'Christians' – and with good reason, given some very unstable behavior exhibited by some of them – but I don't know anyone afraid of the actual religion.
Here's the thing some religious people don't understand – religion is a faith. It's a belief system. It had no validity in science, which is based on fact. I have no problem with religion being taught in schools, in fact, I think it's important everyone have an understanding of different world religions because it will help people understand other cultures as well as see what leads some people to do the things they do. HOWEVER, it should be taught as a humanities class, and not associated at all with a science class. Everyone should learn science as science, and that includes understanding what Scientific Theory is and why it's an entirely different definition of 'theory'. Evolution is science. Creationism is but one religious story of how the world began.
Colin: Awesome. Never mind the thought - what could a person possibly do for all eternity in heaven, that won't eventually become HELL.
We are not "afraid" of "Christianity". The problem arises when such foolishness is portrayed as truth. If Grimms fairytales were taught as "truth" you might have a problem with it. The fostering and support of ignorance serves nothing. Read your Buy-Bull again and replace the word "god" with "giant flying spaghetti monster" and see how believable it sounds. To hide from reality in a book written by men who wished to dominate and control all those they could for financial gain is not something to brag about.
You have it just backwards: It's christians who are trying to impose their beliefs on everyone and it's christians who are afraid of atheists. As an atheist, I would vote for Obama, in spite of the fact that he's a christian. Would you vote for an atheist?
You have it just backwards: It's christians who are trying to impose their beliefs on everyone and it's christians who are afraid of atheists. As an atheist, I would vote for Obama, in spite of the fact that he's a christian. Would you vote for an atheist?
Are atheists trying to force christians to have abortions or use contraceptives? Are they making it difficult for them to avoid contraceptives and abortions? Or are christians trying to prevent atheists from using contraceptives and having abortions? Or is it christians who are trying to make it difficult for those who disagree with them to use contraceptives or have abortions?
Think about it. You can believe what you want, but the claim that atheists are trying to force their beliefs on christians simply does not hold water.
Bill Nye seems to be making some big jumps here. I'm sure there are some pretty great engineers in that 46% or creation believers. His assertion that faith is anti intelligent is also pretty arrogant.
Who cares what an engineer "believes" in? ALL scientists understand that to believe requires a leap of faith, and that actual science is based on facts. You don't "believe" in facts. Facts do not require a leap of faith.
One good thing about this article is that it doesnt conflate creationism with intelligent design. I am open to intelligent design myself, not so arrogant as to assume we can know all the answers. Also aware that science does not explain everything.
And what designed your designer?
Science doesn't say it knows everything. Unlike Christians.
where's the intelligence in humans walking around on modified hands? if feet weren't an unintelligent design, podiatrists would be few and on welfare
@sceptic: huh? feet intelligent design? REALLY? ummm here is the "intelligence" behins us walking on feet (your hands are modified feet, not the other way around) IT ALLOWED US TO SEE FURTHER so we could see things that wanted to eat us before they could eat us. case closed
Intelligent Design is merely a religious way to meld science with God. It's as if people are saying "ok, ok, let's say there is evolution and there are other scientific theories, but let's insist that something we don't really know and can't prove but totally believe in is behind it all, because otherwise we can't possibly accept evolution and other scientific theories." God requires a leap of faith. Nothing we know about science does. I think THAT's what is so scary about Science – that we ACCEPT (not believe) what has been proven without worrying so much about how it all began.
Oh my creationist friends, proof of evolution is all around you. Now, before you declare me “stupid,” “evil” or part of a worldwide conspiracy to deny the truth of your talking snake theory of life on Earth, please take five minutes to read this.
The classic definition of a species is that two members of the same species can breed and produce fertile offspring, but cannot mate with members of a different species. A human of any race can mate with a human of any other race, but none of us can mate with a chimpanzee, for example. So, all humans are in the same species, but we are all a different species to chimpanzees. Easy stuff.
Indeed, it is often easy to tell that two organisms are of different species just by looking at them. Compare, for example, a dog to a horse. Where it gets a little complex, however, is where you have two organisms that look very similar, but are of different species, or two different species that look very similar. Dogs are a great example of both. Compare a lighter-coated German Shepherd to the wolf. They look very similar, but are of a different species. Likewise, a Great Dane looks very different to a Corgi, but they are of the same species, Canis lupis familiaris, the domestic dog.
Why are Great Danes and Corgis considered to be the same sub-species (along with German Shepherds) but wolves and German Shepherds not? Same reason as humans. Great Danes, German Shepherds and Corgis can and will mate and produce fertile offspring, but virtually none of them will mate with a wolf, absent human intervention. However, and this is where evolution kicks in, all breeds of dog alive today descended from wolves. In fact, it is likely that they all descended, ultimately, from a small pack of wolves that were domesticated in the Middle East some 10,000 years ago. Some research suggests Manchuria as the location, but I digress.
What happened was that humans noticed that certain, less aggressive wolves were handy to have around. They ate pests and garbage and alerted the camp when predators lurked nearby. So, humans began to intentionally feed and try to tame them. The tamer, less aggressive wolves were less afraid of human interaction and less likely to harm their human hosts. They, therefore received more food and protection, which gave them a breeding advantage, and they passed on this favorable trait, call it “tameness,” to their offspring.
The tamer offspring were constantly chosen (probably unknowingly) for care and support and the wilder, more aggressive members of the litter discarded, perhaps for biting or avoiding humans. After hundreds or thousands of years of inadvertent selection for “tameness” the camp wolves started to become dependent on their human hosts and to even look different to their still wild ancestors. They lost the extreme aggressiveness that helped them in the wild, became less streamlined and tooled for the kill and had less adrenaline that causes aggression. In other words, they slowly became, in a sense, fat, dumb and happy. Doggie dough-boys. Girlie-men compared to their wild cousins, still red of fang and claw.
These first domestic dogs were so popular with humans that their “use” spread and humans all over the globe – from Australian Aboriginals, New Zealand Maoris and other Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all began to use dogs. Then something else happened. Humans actually noticed that, if there was a specific trait you liked about your, say male dog, you could breed it with a female with the same trait and the offspring would inherit that trait. If, for example, a hunter-gatherer only ever allows the fastest male dogs to breed with the fastest female dogs, after many years of such selective breeding the resultant dogs would differ so much in body shape, leg length and, perhaps, lung capacity from their ancestor as to be considered a separate breed.
No one set of offspring would differ greatly from its parents, but it will differ a little more from its grandparents, and even a little more from its great-grandparents etc., until we go all the way back to the original dog, which will be quite different in appearance.
Bang – dog breeding was born. Humans selected for speed, resulting in the Greyhound, smelling and tracking ability (Bloodhounds) ability to herd sheep (Collies and Australian Shepherds) appearance (Dalmatians and Pomeranians) size (Chihuahuas and Great Danes) and a host of other traits.
As with most human activities, as our knowledge increased, dog breeding improved and exploded in the 1900s, with the current 600 or so breeds of dogs all descendent from the original wolf. Many breeds of dog alive today evolved over the past few decades and did not even exist as late as 1900. But, every last domestic dog, from the Teacup Chihuahua in Paris Hilton’s purse to the Great Danes of European car advertisements, are the end result of selective breeding down different paths from the original wolf.
Most breeds of dog do not (and likely cannot) breed with wolves for a variety of reasons, including allopatric and/or human induced separation and mating rituals. Not only that, but put almost any domestic dog in the wild and it would not survive a month. A wolf is much more likely to eat a Shih Tzu than bonk it. They are separate sub-species. In the struggle for life, the domestic dog species originated through means of selection as a favored race from the original wolf. If this last sentence sounds familiar, that is because it is. It is essentially the full ti.tle of Charles Darwin’s seminal work: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”.
So there you have it, my Bible-cuddling friends. Evolution in motion. Undeniable, living in every suburb, licking ours face, fetching our sticks and messing on our sidewalks. Macro-evolution. A well recorded, understood, DNA mapped and uncontroversial case of evolution of one sub-species – Canis lupus lupus, the Eurasian wolf, into another, Canis lupus familiaris, the domestic dog.
There are many, many others examples of evolution all around us by the way. Even the most cursory of research into any branch of horticulture or animal husbandry quickly reveals that the size, variety, health, longevity and resistance to disease of most of our domesticated plants and animals were the thing of dreams as recently as 100 years ago. Indeed, biotech companies like Monsanto would quickly fall behind the market if they did not spend millions each year on Darwinian selective breeding programs. Why do you think horse breeders spend thousands of dollars to have a fast racehorse mate with their mare?
Wheat is another great example, as are gra.pes. The species of wheat that we in the West use for bread only developed in the last few thousand years as a result of two episodes of sympatric speciation (different to selective breeding, but an agent of evolution none the less) and the various Shiraz, Char.donnay and Pinot Noir gra.pes we enjoy today, in the form of wine, were all developed and perfected in the last 100 years or so.
So, Adam or Eve, the next time you kneel down in your church and take your weekly dose of the body and blood of your dead Jew, you might like to reflect on the fact that you are actually eating proof of evolution and washing it down with proof of evolution.
“Body of Darwin?”
Amen!
Thanks for explaining how all those animals got on the ark. We just didn't need as many. Just a pair of wolves.
Nobody designed God. That's why He's God.
What an idiot! God will take care of it all! You'll end up where you belong, whether you believe it or not! Not all creationists believe the 24 hour rule. In fact very few do. God's time is in no way comparative to man's time. I suppose you believe we just go "poof" and vanish into thin air?
HAHAHA... a bit over the top all those dog eugenics examples. It's simpler - antibiotics of 50 years ago won't work on the same organisms today. Why not?
What Darwinism fails to explain is the origin of life. The big bang theory is just that a theory. I have many theories all of them are false. What makes the big bang theory true? Scientist are always proven wrong. They tell you coffee is bad then a decade later they tell you is good. If we can't determine whether coffee is bad or good how can we determine how the universe started?
Rueben. Darwin did not urport to. Discounting evolution becuase it does not explain abiogenesis is like discounting the belief gases because it does not predict the weather.
the theory of relativity is just that, a theory!!!! THAT HELPED PRODUCE THE ATOMIC BOMB! If i didnt know what nuclear fission was and had no explanation for it, i could come up with all kinds of excuses to prove to other ignorant people why that mushroom cloud over their was GOD.
This is why most black bears in the northeast USA are afraid of people. We've been killing all the aggressive bears for so long, that only the "whimpy" ones have survived. Otherwise, black bears are just as aggressive as grizzly bears (as seen in more remote regions away from people).
Bill Nye did not say anything anti-Christian (or even anti-religious). Many folks accept the notion of evolution *and* God (or a "Higher Power" or whatever your preference is). I believe in God and evolution but I respect those who hold different views.
I do believe evolution should be taught in schools but in a way that allows for reasonable dissent by those who disagree. The trick is to find what's "reasonable" and there are some folks who won't compromise on this subject.
I like your thinking Colin, but species do not significantly or observably evolve over 10's of years. Evolution is slow. And I'm pretty sure all wolf-dog hybrids are fertile. Another point: Just because I don't "want" to mate with your sister, and am therefore unlikely to, isn't evidence that we are different species.
Have you ever spoken to a Christian and asked what they believed about evolution or are you simply regurgitating what you've heard Christians believe?
@NJPilot There is room for reasonable dissent against evolution. Simply demonstrate evidence supporting your alternate theory. This is how science works. The reason you feel there isn't room for dissent, is because all reasonable alternatives to evolution have been considered and found lacking decades ago. Evolution is the best answer that fits all of the available evidence. It would take some pretty strong evidence to topple the mountain that has been discovered and built brick by interlocking brick.
it is funny, i wonder what the ancient Greeks thought as their mythology religion was starting to sputter out? i wonder what the ancient Egyptians thought as their religion started to sputter out? i wonder what the ancient Romans thought as their religion started to sputter out? the point is, all through history people have believed in something and truly believed their religion was the true religion. but just as sure, each of those have eventually faded away and regarded as just stories for people who did not understand their world. a thousand years from now they will say the same thing about the religions of today.
I can understand your point but I have a question for you. What about Paganism? We "worship" nature. Will that sputter out too? I am Pagan and I believe in evolution. But I also believe in Spirit. Not a god or goddess perhaps as most people view spirit. I view spirit as an element – the 5th element in addition to fire, water, earth, & air.
@Epidi, I am willing to bet the 5th element is your favorite movie.
Epidi: There are more elements out there then 5...
Everyone has a religion and Mr. Nye's religion is Evolution. He cannot force his religion down anyone's throat. I will also like to remind Mr. Nye that there are lots of Christian scientists out there that have contributed immensely to the development of science here in the US and the rest of the world.
God is sovereign and he allows people to believe whatever they want to believe to His glory. It is funny that some secular religious scientists have discarded the Big Bang Theory in search of Singularity because they just discovered in their infinite knowledge that they do not know what banged.
By the way does evolution only apply to animate objects? I am yet to run into an Evolutionist who can explain to me why evolution has stopped or maybe I do not understand what evolution is all about.
Please guys, enjoy your religion, practice it, but do not shove it down anyone's throat: Religious plurality without oppression nor suppression is what makes America stand out in the comity of nations.
Evolution, a theory, like its Egyptian, Babylonian, Persia-Medes, Greek and Roman counterpart religions will sputter. Christian stays on until the Second Coming!
utyondukaa, i'm not sure why you think evolution has stopped. by its definition evolution occurs over long periods of time. consequently you are very unlikely to see big changes in the animal world occurring in your lifetime (at least changes that you would notice). it is not like today a giraffe has a long neck and tomorrow they all have short necks.
as for the Christian religion staying on until the second coming, that is why it is called belief. i'm sure the ancients all "believed" their religions were true and would be around forever.
The Big Bang Theory so many are banging on about was thought out by a Catholic priest. The name Big Bang Theory was used derogatory. It was thought out in 1931, so the people that talk about Darwin and the Big Bang Theory as Darwin died before the theory was published. The bible and christianity is not a "theory" as some think it is. They don't understand the concept of theory. Evolutionists can see the divinity of the earth, life and even the bang that started it all. It's just that most do not believe in a "guy sitting in the sky" that was responsible for it.
But it was because Lemaitre [sic?] was doing science. Not religion.
Saggyroy, It's more a point that evolution and christian believes do not need to clash but also that the people that go on about the evils of this theory don't realise it has come from their own caders.
Be honest if you were shipwrecked on a desert island what would you rather have with you: The bible or a survival handboook written by Bill Nye?
the survival handbook
I would think the Survival Handbook would be SO much more useful.
How was the matter and or energy created?
And the Laws of Thermodynamics........
the tooth fairy, billy?
Yes you could be right, or it could be FSM, or whatever.
Does it matter how it was created? If you believe God created it – how did God come about, why did he bother creating things, and from what did he create them? Why only one God – why not more than one? And if there was only one – Was he lonely???? Bored???? How many universes did he create while he was at it? Is he still creating them?
Bill Nye's Atheist beliefs are an obvious shot in the arm to the very Atheist DNCNN.
They constantly post pro-Atheist articles from Stephen Hawking.
With CNN, there's room at the table for everyone's beliefs. Unless, of course, those people say Grace before eating...
Maybe they do that because Stephen Hawking and Bill Nye are smart guys, and have something intelligent to say...
CNN is atheist? Or are you just expecting every media outlet to constantly feed you what you agree with?
@Matthew, NOTHING can create NOTHING. Logical or illogical????
make it even more staight forward- "Can something come from nothing?"
make it even more straight forward- "Can something come from nothing?"
Stupid and completely unscientific comment by Bill Nye that refuses to acknowledge facts easily established – (1) fails to mention the fact that the industrial revolution rapidly occurred in the context of many societies that were more creationist then than now. (2) creationism is not UNIQUE to the United States – what a noob! (3) many early scientists (the ones we can thank for science as a discipline such as Boyle, Faraday, Joule, Newton, Kelvin, Kepler, Pasteur) and many present day scientists are creationists.
EVOLUTIONIST: There are no scientists in the world that believe in Creation!
CREATIONIST: Here’s a list of scientists that believe in Creation.
EVOLUTIONIST: Those are all idiots and not real scientists.
Actually Burt, you’ll find that most (ex-Christian) atheists don’t believe for one or more of the following reasons:
The concept of an immortal being makes no sense to us.
The concept of an all-powerful being makes no sense to us.
The concept of an all-knowing being makes no sense to us.
We tend to have a good working knowledge of the age, size and history of the Universe and the idea that a being would create the entire thing – with 400,000,000,000 galaxies, EACH with 100, 000,000,000 starts and even more planets, then sit back and wait 13,720,000,000 years for human beings to evolve on one planet so he could “love them” and send his son to talk about sheep and goats in Iron Age Palestine makes no sense to us.
The answers usually proffered for what we see as basic logical flaws in Christianity – “you have been blinded by your lack of faith” “God moves in mysterious ways” “God is outside the Universe” or “our minds are too small to understand the greatness of God” are never satisfying to us. We see a retreat to mysticism as the first refuge of the cornered fool.
The common argument, “well, what caused the Big Bang?” with the implication that, because we have only theories and no iron clad explanation for the Big Bang yet, [the Christian] god must have caused it – does not make sense to us. “I don’t know” does not equal “god” to us, much less the Judeo-Christian god. We feel the answers to such a question are much more likely to be found in Einstein’s equations, quantum physics, large particle accelerators and radio telescopes than in Genesis Chapters 1 through 20. We’re crazy aren’t we?
We do not see miracles in things like tornadoes missing a certain trailer in a trailer park, cancer going into remission or Tim Tebow winning a football game.
We understand that Christianity is one of many, many religions in the World, and we don’t think that we were lucky enough to have been born in the one part of the World that “got it right”.
We tend to have a basic knowledge of history and know that there is nothing magical or special about the supposed history of the Jews, gospels, letters, apocalyptic story (Revelations) and other materials that found their way into the Bible, in that they are largely indistinguishable from the other mythology and religious writings of the time and region.
Human beings are terrified of their own deaths and we see the various religious beliefs that try to “wish it away” such as reincarnation, living happily ever after in Heaven with Jesus, having your own Mormon planet etc. as nothing more than childish stories for the more naive, timid minds among us.
We do not see morality as predicated upon a belief in the supernatural. We accept that one can be moral without believing in the supernatural and that doing so is no guaranty that one will conform to the norms of society that people call “morality”.
“You can’t prove God doesn’t exist” is not a convincing argument to us, as in inability to disprove something is a far cry from it being true. We cannot prove that the Hindu gods Shiva or Vishnu do not exist either, nor Santa Claus for that matter, but that is hardly a reason to believe in them. It is almost always impossible to prove a negative in this sense.
When one looks at the various Christian beliefs that were once firmly believed – Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, people living to be 700 or 900 years old, the Red Sea splitting, water turning into wine, talking snakes, a man living in a whale’s belly, people rising from the dead, Jesus driving demons out of people and into pigs – but which are now acknowledged by most thinking people to be mere mythology, it is pretty hard to give a lot of credibility to what’s left.
It is hard not to consider Christianity as based on circular reasoning. Most Christians believe in God because the Bible says so, then turn around and say they believe the Bible because it is the word of God. To draw an analogy, “I believe Obama is a great man because his biography says so, and the reason I believe his biography is that it is about Obama, who is a great man.”
In short, the more one comes to understand mother nature, the less reason there is to believe in a god and the more one understands human nature, the more one sees why so many of us still do.
So, the next time you proudly proclaim that you know the secrets to life, death, the origins of life on Earth and the origins of the Universe, because your parents or priest taught you some comforting stories from late Bronze Age Palestine as a ten year-old, you might like to consider where your beliefs fit into the bigger picture.
In short, grow up, stop cuddling your Bible and face the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death with a bit of intellectual and emotional courage. Coward.
*thunderous applause*
More thunderous applause! Excellent!
You, Sir, are my new best friend.
All hail imaginary Satan!
Silly Jews and converts (Muslims,Christians,ect.), I Mock all your God's and Faith's. Now either your God is imaginary, or he's more afraid of me than I am of Him! (like I've always said without having ever been struck down by his "wrath"). You faithful idiots (Muslims,Jews,Christains) will go the way of the Dinosaurs.
God created light on the 1st day but didn't create any light source i.e. the sun and stars until the 4th day. Makes plenty of sense amirite?
Thank you, Bill Nye! The bible is a ridiculous fairy tale and religion (ALL religions) are just simple-minded morons repeating what their simple-minded moronic parents taught them. Their ignorance is truly dumbfounding and makes me weep for our future.
Matter can not create matter in and of itself all by itself without some eternal source. Bottom line....if there was ever a point in time, which there most certainly was, when there was NOTHING......without an eternal source, there would STILL BE NOTHING. The belief in the existence of God does not require any faith at all. Because the acknowledgement of the existence of an all powerful and eternal being is the purest science and the purest LOGIC that there is. Basically, if there is existence, which there most certainly is, GOD MUST BE.
Actually, your argument would lead to an infinite progression of gods, because, if your assumption that nothing can come from nothing is true, the question immediately arises "what created god." Now before you say "God was always there" think about why you cannot simply say "the Universe was always there" and also why you can have actual knowledge the "god was always" there or whether you just made that up to fill a logical gap.
This is the silliest thing I've read today. Thanks.
I hesitate to say that "your logic is flawed" because you haven't applied any logic whatsoever to your statement. I hope that you live and work in a hole so that you poison the fewest people possible with your line of thinking.
So what created god? Or is it turtles all the way down? Do you see where your argument goes down a slippery slope?
@Colin, God has no creator. He has no beginning and he certainly has no end. Infinite progression of gods??? If they were "created" they wouldn't be gods would they??? They would be created beings such as we are who will have an end. All matter has a beginning. All Matter was created. Even the the so-called "god particle" was created by intelligent design.
That simply isn't the case.
@Matthew, NOTHING can create NOTHING. Logical or illogical????
I know you must be pretty proud of yourself by sounding like your making a valid scientific argument for an all knowing fairy in the sky, but your not. Matter out of nothing? Look up the collision of branes, virtual particles and an expanding singularity. Be humble, be agnostic.
Funny to read the whole discussion. Nobody saw neither Santa Claus nor God but the latter wins in popularity for some unknown reason
No one ever saw love or hate but they do exist.
The worst part of creationists is that they exclude themselves from nature, and have no connection to the universe. Their spiritualism is artificial.
I spent 35 years in the space business with some of the brightest scientists and engineers. Those who believed in God contributed as much or more to space progress than any atheist scientist or engineer. The Strategic Defense Initiative (known as Star Wars by the atheists) was sold to President Reagan by men who believed in God. It was also a major contributor to the downfall of the Evil/Godless Soviet Union. Only extremely feeble minds would believe that this amazing universe, which is only one of many, could have come into being by random chance. "God does not play dice with the universe" Albert Einstein
But actually, if there is a God, he does play dice, in the form of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein was wrong sometimes, and his believe that randomness had no place of our universe has been proven wrong.
Didn't anybody watch Prometheus? We were placed here by engineers trying to create new life. Debate over. Now watch out for LV-223 or LV-426. I've seen nothing but bad things from those two planets.
Yes. The Big Giant Head has warned me.