The Creationist Whack-jobs are at it again.

[mijan]

I'm sure by now you've seen the news articles about the amazingly well-preserved fossil of an early primate, dubbed "Ida."  And I'm sure, like the rational person that my friends tend to be, you said, "Hey, awesome!  Early primate!  Maybe it's a direct human ancestor, maybe it's not, but it's certainly part of the early primate lineage.  Cool!"

And then, I'm sure you realized that the anti-evolution, anti-logic, anti-rationality low-brows known as Creationists would come out of their caves and start beating their chests. 

Lo and behold, they have!  And they posted a POLL!  So, please, all my rational friends, go take a look at this poll, and VOTE!!!  Let them know that rational and intelligent people outnumber them, and that there's still hope for our species not to sink into complete intellectual mediocrity.

And PLEASE CROSS-POST.  Everywhere.  Tell everyone to vote.  :D

Comments

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

The poll seems to be closed? There's an editor's note in the article that says the poll results are wrong because it was targeted by pro-evolutionists. LOL

[mijan.livejournal.com]

That's HILARIOUS.

[thelovemachines.livejournal.com]

You ARE beating your chest too.... I think we can hold onto our opinions without the insults, you know? :) It makes an opinion stronger if it requires no hatred to get ones point across.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm sorry I called them low-brows. That was opinion. But everything else I called them (anti-evolution, anti-logic, etc.) was just a perfectly accurate description.

The Creationist perspective of a 6,000 year old earth is anti-scientific, and the pure antithesis of logic and reason. It is DAMAGING to our youth by feeding them misinformation, and setting them up for a false world view.

There's no reason to mollycoddle someone else's statements that are blatantly false. "Hi, everything you say is a fabrication and a myth, but we'll pretend that you have a voice in science because you're loud about your opinions." Not going to happen on my LJ. This is a small personal journal, not a major website.

I have a lot of respect for people's personal religious beliefs - I AM a Unitarian Universalist - but I draw the line with those religious opinions are damaging to society. Should I say nice things about the mother who is KILLING her child by keeping away from chemotherapy treatments? No, she's committing manslaughter, as far as I'm concerned, through sheer ignorance. And to me, Creationism is just another facet of the same problem.

[halo4.livejournal.com]

Is it sad that the first thing I thought of when I saw the article about Ida was "I wonder how the nutjob Creationist assholes will play this?" instead of "wow that's pretty awesome!"?

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and sadly, we were correct.

I mean, we DON'T know if this was a direct human ancestor or a specific missing link in the chain of human evolution. But we know it fits somewhere on the primate family tree. It's early enough in primate evolution that it MIGHT be a human family ancestor. And as time goes on, we'll find more fossils that will fill in more of the blanks.

As you know, scientific theories are tested by whether or not their predictions are accurate. The Theory of Evolution predicted that fossils would be found that represent various intermediate stages between other fossil groups, such as finding other primate-like species that are halfway points between known primate species. And lookie here, we just found another one! Go Darwin go!

[pikacharma.livejournal.com]

No, wait! Look at the way the poll's phrased!

Do you believe you evolved from an ape-like creature?

I'm not so sure the creationists are misguided in marking no. >:D

I mean, they sure as hell don't need to convince *me* they never evolved.

Okay fr srs. Something I totally don't get is why some of the hardcore creationists tend to think that just because evolution happened, it means god\higher power doesn't exist - like to admit that evolution is legit would be to admit that god isn't real. Don't get me wrong, I don't think creationism has any place in the hard sciences, and I sure as fuck don't think it has any place in elementary school science class, but just for the sake of WTF-ery, I don't get how creationism and evolution are necessarily two mutually exclusive beliefs. If god created the earth, and then a bunch of stuff grew\evolved on it, then god technically created that too, he just did it in an indirect and roundabout way. IDK. It just seems rly weird that some people are so desperate to debunk any new piece of the human evolutionary puzzle that comes along because they think it's such a threat to their beliefs. It really isn't. It just adds a new dimension and perspective.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY.

I mean, I have religious beliefs, but I believe that reality presents itself AS IT IS. An ancient universe, an ancient earth, and evolution do not exclude the existence of a higher power at all.

It's the Biblical LITERALISTS that can't handle that idea. They can't handle the idea of the Book being a metaphorical description, or a story from an ancient desert tribe who were trying to understand the universe. Because of that, they will desperately look for any way to ignore or deny the mountains of evidence that demonstrate that our physical bodies, as a species, evolved from other primates.

You see, it's not that we evolved from primates. We ARE primates! We ARE ape-like! We're certainly more intelligent and advanced, but we're still a species of mammal, specifically primates. And you know... I'm not insulted or offended by that at all. I still am who I am, and my Monkey Uncle isn't going to change that. :D

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is most people's concept of what the word "Theory" means. They take "Theory of Evolution" to mean "Something we think could possible be true, but we're not sure." But in science, theory doesn't necessarily mean what it does in lay terms, as you know. People have been studying Music Theory for a lot of years, and I don't think anybody would claim that Music is something that might exist, but is just a theory, so maybe it isn't real *G*. Every time I get to the point of wanting to club Creationists with big sticks, I wearily find myself wishing that Darwin and Co. had never tacked "theory" onto Evolution at any point in time. It would've saved a lot of irritation for the sane people, if they'd just said "Evolution. It happened. Suck it up and deal." I work with fundies who think that scientists have nothing better to do, for example, than sneak around (presumably in the dark of night) "planting fake bones" for...other scientists to dig up...or something.

I love the fact that when approx. 75%of their respondents said they believed in evolution, they closed the poll and are now pouting that evil evolutionists targeted the poll. How about not everybody has their head stuck in a box with earplugs in, sheesh.

Creationism just makes me see red, obviously. It's nonsense. And to entertain the whole "God made the earth" thing, OK fine, I'll go with that. It doesn't mean that God's "day" is 24 hours long. Why do these people insist on dragging the infinite down to their level and making it all so literal and mundane?

Here's an idea grand enough to compete with "creationists"

[the-narf.livejournal.com]

I happen to believe that God *did* create everything -- but by that I mean not just the current universe we happen to live in, but the entire Multiverse of multiple universes throughout all of the possible infinite spaces and times that are out there, beyond our own Universe that began from a singularity 13.7 billion years ago.

And no, I've not just started smoking weed or something. A good summary of this is available here.

Basically, I subscribe to the "cosmic clockmaker" idea. The Presence that is God started everything going, including the entire "omniverse" (my term) which contains all those multiple universes, and the one (probably not the only one) that includes us and other living beings. This Presence isn't apart from its creation, either -- It is pervasive throughout.

In my opinion, the problem with creationists is that they take God and make It small. They want a 'god' that is much more in line with other creation myths like those of the ancient Greeks or the Norse. These gods were personal: they meddled in the affairs of Men; they threw their weight around; they took sides; they loved, hated, adored, scorned; they were emotionally volatile. But, collectively, the mythos was easy to understand. These were 'gods like themselves'.

So the creationists take the bible at face value, interpret it literally, and shrink God to human scale. They desperately want a god they can imprint all of human emotional volatility on; a 'personal' god that can help them win games, contests, conquests; a god involved with every minor detail of their lives. Such a "personal" god requires a "personal" creation, a creation done recently enough that fits the simplistic worldview: 6,000+ years. Far enough back that it's the "ancient past", yet recent enough to comprehend.

What's easier to understand:

A. "God" is a judging, emotionally-volatile being that watches everything you do, takes sides in all your activities, has to be constantly praised and cajoled lest "he" strike you down in a fit of pique, and built the world exactly 6013 years ago (4004 B.C to 2009 A.D)? Yes, "he" loves you, but don't you dare cross "him", because then bad things happen.

B. "God" is our name for a presence that not only completely suffuses the entirety of space and time in this Universe, but also all the other Universes that exist in the infinite Multiverse. Not separate from its creation, but one and the same with it.

Thoughts?

Re: Here's an idea grand enough to compete with "creationists"

[mijan.livejournal.com]

My thoughts -

I happen to agree with you. Plain and simple.

I DO happen to enjoy the Pagan myths, legends, and stories. I enjoy the archetypes presented, and the hearth cultures associated with those legends. I think that the legends of contemporary and ancient religions have been decent teaching tools - NOT about science, but about the human condition. That's why I'm Pagan.

But I also happen to agree completely that humans like to limit their concept of God to a narrow set of stories, thereby making the infinite finite, the eternal limited, and the Divine into their own personal justification for every act of stupidity they can invent. I think that the idea of a truly infinite, multi-dimensional, all-encompassing presence and order to the universe is quite reasonable - far more reasonable than the various versions of "Sky Daddy" watching over our shoulders at every minute to see if we're masturbating to internet porn again.

And I also happen to believe that science trumps any mythology or theology. If science proves that the earth is round, I don't care how loud a religion screams "It's flat!" They're still incorrect. Likewise, if science shows that life on earth evolved over billions of years from simple prokaryotes to the vast diversity of life we currently see, then I don't care how loud a religion screams, "The earth is 6,000 years old, and I ain't no ape!" They're still wrong.

Just my opinion there, of course.

But yes, your Deist philosophy is something I appreciate deeply, and is part of my own thinking.