Creationism game

[cbtfan]

Could you Evolutionists please explain the singularity?

 

[bankside]

Yeah; except that ID believes everything science, down to the age of the universe. The only difference is that whereas Science says that "It just happened, all nice and coincidental-like!", ID says that God probably started the ball rolling and touches things up here and there.

Scientists do not say "It just happened, all nice and coincidental-like." They say "We have no data to support either a divine precursor nor any other precursor. We don't know."

Intelligent Design propagandists look at the same lack of data and conclude that God started the ball rolling. Scientists carefully find data, and then use theory to relate the data into a coherent picture of what is going on. ID propagandists do not bother with the data part. Without data, however, it is not science.

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

I don't think CERN would agree with your statement.

Actually, they would. Not only have a number of prominent physicists been devout, but there seems to be a trend towards ID from physicists. Even Einstein had a belief in God (not a personal one, admittedly, and it gets rather complicated, but the point here is that he wasn't exactly a complete atheist).

Scientists do not say "It just happened, all nice and coincidental-like." They say "We have no data to support either a divine precursor nor any other precursor. We don't know."

Actually, they would have just said that they don't know and look for a solution. Interestingly, the scientist's personal beliefs wouldn't stop him from looking for that solution.

Intelligent Design propagandists look at the same lack of data and conclude that God started the ball rolling. Scientists carefully find data, and then use theory to relate the data into a coherent picture of what is going on. ID propagandists do not bother with the data part. Without data, however, it is not science.

ID believers are just as good at science; creationists wouldn't have even bothered. Again, it's interesting that the stereotype is being pursued and not the actual ID scientist; not all religious types are the ignorant gay-bashers you want them to be. Some of them are actually intelligent and willing to look for the truth, whatever it may be. It's weird how many gay men say that they are more than just a stereotype, but have no problem pushing stereotypes on other people. Judge not lest ye be judge, eh?

RG

 

[Shepherd 2]

Actually Corny, as an Episcopalian I am having a good day. We own Charles Darwin, a fully trained priest of our denomination who put forth the theory of evolution. I like it like that too. But I laughed myself into exhaustion when I read the cartoons you posted. Thanks.

Shep+

 

[Dolmance]

Could you Evolutionists please explain the singularity?

You're asking the wrong people, love. Evolution is a biological theory; the singularity is cosmology and theoretical physics

 

[CGHJ]

You're asking the wrong people, love. Evolution is a biological theory; the singularity is cosmology and theoretical physics

That's not the singularity he's talking about. He's talking about the Technological Singularity, "the theoretical future point which takes place during a period of accelerating change sometime after the creation of a superintelligence."

Basically, once we invent an artificial intelligence smarter and faster than us, it'll be able to invent things faster than us, including AIs faster and smarter than itself, which will then be able to do the same, on into infinity.

I have no idea what the poster means by "explain the singularity" or what it has to do with creationism, other than there are many that posit the fact that

A) The singularity is inevitable and
B) One of the results of this unbelievable advancement will be hyper-realistic simulations a la The Matrix and
C) There will be millions of said simulations, much the same as there are many millions of versions of World of Warcraft and The Sims being played, then
D) Odds are, since there's only one reality and many millions of simulations indistinguishable from reality, then
E) Logic tells us that we have about a million times greater chance of being in one of these simulated realities than the one 'true' reality.

So creationsim is true, it's just that we were created by some geek and we're all living in a simulation on a desk somewhere.

It blows me away that anyone in this day and age still believes in creationism. But then again, people believe the moon landings were faked, too, and these people believe there's a leprechaun living in a tree that disappears if you look at it too closely:



However, I am totally prepared to accept Intelligent Design, if you'll accept that it's just as plausible, since no designer is specified, that the Original Designer is a Flying Spaghetti monster:

All hail His Noodly Goodness!!! And much props to WinternKnight. Here's my favorite:

 

[JustMe891]

AAAH AAAH AAAH I CAN'T HEAR YOUUuuu


(yes a few .. but people laugh at them and point fingers)

Yep we've a few here in the UK, always good for a laugh!

 

[landers]

Actually, they would. Not only have a number of prominent physicists been devout, but there seems to be a trend towards ID from physicists. Even Einstein had a belief in God (not a personal one, admittedly, and it gets rather complicated, but the point here is that he wasn't exactly a complete atheist).

Being devout does not mean religion is responsible for most scientific advancement. Besides, no real scientist would look at something they can't explain and say God must have done it.

 

[CGHJ]

Being devout does not mean religion is responsible for most scientific advancement. Besides, no real scientist would look at something they can't explain and say God must have done it.

I wish that were true...there's actually a lot of scientists that believe in ID, or are [gasp] creationists. Well, they're real scientists in the sense that they conduct science experiments and prolly think of themselves as real scientists. I for one would with you that no real scientist would look at something they can't explain and say God must have done it.

I don't understand it myself, and look forward to the day when this ridiculous superstition is finally stamped out.

On another note, when I was looking up info on the Flying Spaghetti Monster , I found out about a great religion called "Last Thursdayism." It goes like this:

A) creationists believe that the world was created 6000 years ago
B) However we are surrounded by evidence to the contrary. There are stars whose light has taken billions of years to reach us. There are dinosaur bones, and geologic strata, etc etc.
C) Therefore God must created all this evidence just to throw us off his trail, for some bizarre reason.
D) Since God is all powerful and able to create evidence of a billion year history where none exists, it is therefore logical that he could have created the world last Thursday and created all the evidence from then on back, including your memories of your own childhood, old newspaper clippings, and so on.

Not likely to be sure, even for a concept as looney as creationism, but there's absolutely no way you can prove it's not true.

Now someone tell us why in the heck God would go to the trouble of creating mountains of evidence to disprove his existence. You can't say "to test our faith" because back in the old days he showed up all the time...the whole 'appearing in the clouds' and 'parting the red sea' and 'stopping the sun in the sky' and 'talking face-to-face with Moses' (and presumably 'sending his only son to Earth') things being dead giveaways.

In fact, where's He been recently? All he'd have to do to convince everyone in the whole world would be just ONE of his old tricks. Just one! I'm pretty sure if the sun stopped moving through the sky for an hour, it would make a believer out of me. Maybe we're in that simulation after all...and the kid that created us got bored or his mom won't let him play Sim Universe until He gets His homework done

Discuss...

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

Being devout does not mean religion is responsible for most scientific advancement. Besides, no real scientist would look at something they can't explain and say God must have done it.

At this point, I'm not sure which are worse: Fanatic creationists who believe in a literal interpretation of Gen 1:1-22 or religion-bashers who can't wrap their brains around the concept that you can be spiritual and logical. Yeesh....

1) Religion isn't responsible for most scientific advancement. Rather, the various religions have sponsored or otherwise fostered most of the advancements until the last century or two, when governments and businesses took over. I'm not understanding why that's such a leap; after all, the only group that had the time and the money to do any kind of scientific research were the men in monasteries. Not only that, but they were honestly curious about God's invention and saw nothing wrong with delving into the secrets of the universe.

Time+Money+Curiosity generally equals scientific advancement. And that's borne out by history; until the 18th century, most of the advancements came out of some sort of religious exploration. Sure, there are exceptions such as da Vinci, but in general, clergy made the best scientists...

2) Creationists may say that "God did it", but ID generally don't. It's sort of a weird idea, but the idea is to figure out why the Fibonacci series is so present in nature, or why DNA is such a perfect double helix, or even why water crystallizes when it freezes. Faith in God doesn't hinder curiosity, but rather inflames it, as the devout person seeks to uncover what secrets God has hidden in nature and what lessons can be learned from it. ID'ers hate creationists because they've decided that they know all that they need to know, and they're done with learning; they see a rainbow and see only a promise, whereas an ID'er sees the beauty of light being refracted by millions of raindrops.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what form "God" takes; it can be some "sky god", a generic "Supreme Intelligence", "Buddha", or even the Great Noodliness Itself; the point is that an ID'er sees Nature as a puzzle left by Someone Greater, that organized and created the rules and left it for others to solve it. Yeah, you can argue that it's a crutch, but it's interesting that very few greats haven't believed in something greater than themselves, even if that Something Greater was merely in the destiny of mankind...

RG