Just have to get this off my mind!
Today, I was visited by two christian teenage girls trying to “spread the word of god”, as they would probably call it. They held a bible in my face and asked whether I, too, thought that “this book” is not being held high enough in these times.
My honest reply was that “this book” was of no worth to me and that I personally detest the christian religion (yes, using those words, but in a friendly voice). Upon being asked what I believed in, I replied that I was an atheist. That initiated a conversion taking a good 30 minutes.
To be fair, I’ve thought a lot about my personal values and my own mental image of the world. Unlike most people, if something contradicts with my personal model, I am willing to reevaluate this model. True, this is a bold thing to say, the statement itself being subject to my own standpoint, but when your mental explanatory model hasn’t conflicted with any of the experiences in your life for a long time (and you’re actively looking for such conflicts and are actually willing to see them), I think you can assume your model is amongst the more down-to-reality ones.
They started the discussion by asking why I despise christianity, which I honestly answered by explaining that I believe that christianity glorifies weakness. Protect the weak, love your enemies (not in the “love to hate” sense as far as I understand it :D), don’t envy others, be modest and so on. They seemed baffled, as this is not a mainstream reply in our christian social conditioned world.
Being asked why, I explained that this is evolution. Survival of the fittest, human nature. So there we were, discussing evolution vs. creation, a favorite amongst theists vs. scientists. They objected that humans have a natural tendency to be friendly towards each other, which I told them was just another part of evolution, social behavior, forming of groups for increased chances of survival.
They seemed to turn 180° with that and brought up that “these groups are now all falling apart” and that “god is the only solution to bring them together again”. Not wanting to rudely reply that their statement doesn’t really make sense, I just followed up telling them that I’d hold a human in higher esteem if he, for example, didn’t murder others because he truly understood the value of life instead of just being friendly because he wanted to play his role as a christian and because he is afraid of going to hell.
This couldn’t be countered, so the conversation continued by them telling me that science hadn’t found the link between ape and man and that there were no half-man-half-apes (”monkeymen”) running around. So god must have created humans. By mere chance, there was a documentary on TV just the other day that meticulously explained the development of modern-day humans (if interested, see here: Human Evolution at Wikipedia) which I recited, effectively killing this direction of the discussion, too.
Then they tried to sell me on christian values. That christianity could bring an end to conflicts in this world. I replied that I thought of conflict as something useful and inherent to humanity. Trying to make me feel guilty, I was explained that this is easy to say for someone in a wealthy, peaceful country and that someone suffering in Iraq right now would want to rip my head off for saying that. I accepted that I might hate this view when I was in that situation, but that I hold it true nonetheless. They reference Gandhi, who, so I was told, said that if everyone would strictly follow the 10 commandments, world peace would be upon us. I admitted that there is not much evolutionary progression in modern warfare when someone presses the famous “red button” having strong and weak beings alike be blown to pieces.
Attempting to hit the dent I had given, I was told about how they believed in that the bible has to be followed exactly, eg. no sex before marriage and no divorcements. I objected and said that I thought differently. Making it obvious, I asked whether divorcement is such a bad thing if the marriage is a living hell. As it turns out, in their beliefs, this wouldn’t happen if both partners were christians. Stating that I think that people change over time and that just acting as if they understood each other was not my idea of a honest and happy relationship, the second girl became angered (I had only talked with one of the girls, the other standing silently in the background) and hissed that I naturally was able to say that without putting any thought into it. I didn’t get the chance to comment because the first girl resumed her discussion seamlessly.
I was asked how christianity could have spread as far as it has if it was all just a lie. My personal belief is that religions are subject to evolution just as much as alive beings are. Ideologies battle each other in people’s minds and the strongest continues to spread itself. I told them this.
Going for the same point again, they asked me why I thought these two girls were standing in front of me, spending their time to spread the bible. Again, trying to be honest, I told them that in my humble opinion, they were misguided and wasting their time. They asked why I thought people were devoting their entire lifes to god. I told them that from my standpoint, these were all blinded souls that turned to god because they might not be able to life without some imaginary backing or they just didn’t want to go against the flow.
They instructed me that Jehova’s Witnesses were all about going against the flow, being looked down upon for their fundamentalist beliefs. That in WW2, not a single Jehova’s Witness had armed itself or helped the Nazis. They queried whether I didn’t also think being christian would make people more strongly uphold their values and that Atheists sold out as soon as danger approaches.
The opening sentence seemed like a blunt manipulation attempt (in terms of “if you’re proud of going against the flow, join us, we’re known for going against the flow!”). I can recall that this didn’t annoy me long enough to formulate any reply, thought 
Next they stated that intelligent youths often ask older people about their decisions. My manipulation alert sensor was already on stand-by, so as soon as I heard the term intelligent people, I was about to object that this was a blunt attempt to coax me into choosing their standpoint to appear intelligent. I said nothing in the end.
The misery of the world was then cited, and that god would be coming very soon now. That even science predicted the end of the world. Yeah right. About a month ago, after watching Al Gore’s famous presentation about global warming, I had researched myself what scientific prognostications had been made about the future of our planet. Most assumed that within 50 years, the polar ice caps would be gone, causing the gulf stream to cease flowing which would cause a new ice age for europe. I truthfully relayed that information. One thing I didn’t was that, during my research, I had also found a list of end-of-the-world forecasts that had been made since virtually about the dawn of time and by every generation of man since then.
Accepting my bit of information, they told me that god was now coming and he was the only way of being saved. I simply told them that I didn’t think so and that mankind will survive because that’s what mankind does best. With this, they told me that they were sorry to hear that and offered me a flyer about Jehova’s Witnesses, which I declined.
–
I’ve been thinking about what I should have replied if I just were a little bit more brave and whether I should have attacked their beliefs instead of just defending mine. I think, in a honest discussion, both sides should enter the discussion ready to change their views. In retrospect, I don’t have the feeling that these two girls were willing to even consider their own view as being flawed. It looked more like they were walking from door to door in an attempt to infect the minds of as many people as possible, imitating the flu. Their standpoint seemed to have the consistency of foam, it bent, moved and adjusted all the time trying to match anything I showed to value.
While this shallow discussion hasn’t shaken my beliefs at all, what’s really unsettling is that these teenagers are as a matter of fact unknowingly training how to indoctrinate people. They’ll get better with every person they talk to and discover, over time, more and better replies to common contradictions that now still baffle them because they attack their standpoint in unexpected ways.
These are the exact people I wouldn’t want next to me. They don’t have the backbone to just object when they disagree, instead they continuously reformulate their ideas and even invert their standpoints silently, never really being ready to defend their standpoint if they believe it is right and never exposing their actual views for discussion in fear of them to be challenged. Normally, over time, they could reflect on themselfes and be ready to stand up to others (call that personal development), but I fear they will just idealize their evasive behavior and see their salvation in everyone else also becoming too timid to criticize the other’s beliefs — in everyone just becoming christians.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Heloo ,Iam from Brazil, so sorry my English
I read you commnets about two girls who visited your doorstep in a preaching work activity.I must tell you that the same thing happens here each 15 days in my neigbourhood.You ´ve said that “These are the exact people I wouldn’t want next to me.”
I wold not say taht since a mystery that has puzzled some scientists is related to the fossil record. If evolution proceeded over aeons of time, we should expect to find a host of intermediate organisms, or links, between the major types of living things. However, the countless fossils unearthed since Darwin’s time have proved disappointing in that respect. The missing links are just that—missing!
A number of scientists have therefore concluded that the evidence for evolution is too weak and contradictory to prove that life evolved. Aerospace engineer Luther D. Sutherland wrote in his book Darwin’s Enigma: “The scientific evidence shows that whenever any basically different type of life first appeared on Earth, all the way from single-celled protozoa to man, it was complete and its organs and structures were complete and fully functional. The inescapable deduction to be drawn from this fact is that there was some sort of pre-existing intelligence before life first appeared on Earth.”
On the other hand, the fossil record closely matches the general order of the appearance of living forms found in the Bible book of Genesis. Donald E. Chittick, a physical chemist who earned a doctorate degree at Oregon State University, comments: “A direct look at the fossil record would lead one to conclude that animals reproduced after their kind as Genesis states. They did not change from one kind into another. The evidence now, as in Darwin’s day, is in agreement with the Genesis record of direct creation. Animals and plants continue to reproduce after their kind. In fact, the conflict between paleontology (study of fossils) and Darwinism is so strong that some scientists are beginning to believe that the in-between forms will never be found.”
May 10th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
If that happens every 15 days, your neighborhood must be thoroughly infested with christians
When a scientist truthfully says “we’re not sure” or admits that “we don’t know yet” (something you christians simply aren’t honest enough to do), an unbiased human being would accept that an established theory might be wrong and a better one will eventually be found in the future. The christian mind instead uses this possibility for error and acts as if that was an irrefutable evidence that science has it all wrong and religion must be correct.
Donald E. Chittick is a creationist, which makes him a flawed scientist. He misuses his position to support an absurd claim (that of christianity), something a true scientist would never do without solid facts indicating such.
This is exactly the kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense I expected my blog to be flooded with when I wrote the article.
May 10th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Maybe I can underline the absurdity of christianity from the standpoint of an unbiased human being by pointing you to the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” which is based on just as solid scientific backing as is creation theory.
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
June 14th, 2007 at 2:48 am
You should read God’s Debris by Scott Adams. I think you will find it a good read. But that’s my thought.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I’ve just read a few chapters of it. I couldn’t really associate with anything the book tries to bring across. It seems tailored to your typical non-religious christian (like the 4 billion people in the book). So far, Scott Adams just expects to have this kind of person that has never put much effort into his own mind to read the book.
I guess he is right in that older people with a mind set on rails would not be able to let themselfes in on shifting their own belief system to reason with Scott’s ideas. But what about someone who is perfectly able to follow those ideas with his mind yet still dares to analyze what he’s being presented?
For example, what about just accepting that free will is simply a human term for the complicated process in which the human brain makes decisions based on internal and external stimuli? The old man would probably say that then, if you knew all the stimuli and could simulate a human brain, you could predict a human, and thus, our future is already written. So what? From the view of my brain, I’m still experiencing my life and making decisions, even if every single of my thoughts could be predicted if you had the right resources.
Then there’s your usual term-twisting, like when the word “understanding” is morphed into a never-achievable perfectionist state. There isn’t only black and white, knowing how something reacts to the induction of a specific state *is* understanding. There is no other form of understanding, like a mythic soul-partnership to a molecule or machine that gives you a reasoning for what it does.
Unbased claims like that religious people make better decisions and live a happier life seem ridiculous from my point of view. “Better” is a subjective term. No, I’m not migrating to the term-twisters here, I’m merely saying that for me, helping society is not “better”, nor is it an inherent wish I have. If someone sacrifices his life to safe another one (or ten other people), that’s weakness in my eyes. He just demonstrated that his genes are inferior and prone to self-destruction. Racism? No. Individualism.
“Religions are just maps that lead to a common goal” — Who says there is a goal?
“Everyone is right when he says his religion is correct even if they contradict each other because they are just different views of reality that you can work with” — I could accept that, if it wasn’t such a poor replacement for deciding on your own motives. I would hold someone in higher esteem if he did something good (whether in my reader’s view that means sacrificing himself or letting the 10 other people die) because of his own unaltered views and not because it happens to be requested by his religion.
I thirst for an inspiring, thought-provoking read, but so far, these are all thoughts I’ve had before. Maybe I’ll finish reading later.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:46 am
mm…i believe nothing, religion included, should say something obvoiusly not true. but, i wonder, if we consider only evolution, how is that we have things absolutely against the natural selection? example: a friend get sick or he’s chronically sick.
should we kill him for natural selection(he is weaker than us)? or leave him die? we fight for him! to save him!
and also, why do we love ART and colors, poetry???? why do we wonder about the future?for what evolutionistic reason?
why are we scared about death even when old and useless in a biological point of view?
why is that we like to see a sunset etc etc…..
ok, my parents told me this since i was a kid, but now i’m 25 and i reason with my head.
still consider this to be logic, something evolution does not explain, and that could move me to think about an intelligent far superior being that created humans with feelings and sense of consciousness and even a conscience that can trouble us, with a pourpose in mind.
i think this opens the way to many questions, but still i really understand why people from every part of the world in practically every period of the history believed in a kind of god… if they (or some of them) lost the “faith” is maybe also for the mess that religion in general has always done….power games…….
my opinion!! greetings from italy:) nathan
June 29th, 2007 at 1:54 am
another thing, if my pourpose in life is simply to give life to another human so to continue the species, and then die, i’d really like to shoot myself!!!only this??who cares then!!i don’t really care about having 1000children! not even getting married…maybe….. and then if i shoot myself, for natural selection, nobody should care, 1 weak less on the earth!! sorry…need to tell u……
June 29th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Hi!
I believe that from the standpoint of natural selection, sick people should neither be killed nor should they be helped. Either their bodies can fight the illness and survive by themselfes (= keep the genes in the pool) or they don’t have the neccessary fitness (in the darwinian sense) and other individuals, who can better withstand that specific illness, will survive.
On the other side, we humans succeeded in becoming the dominant species on this planet partially due to our tendency to form social groups which support its individuals to increase the total chances of survival vs. other species (group or pack-forming is a concept also seen in many other species of mammals). Just that where in the past, we kept someone fed until his broken leg was healed, today we try to make anyone with any illness survive and sabotage our own evolution.
See it? There’s nothing going against evolution in helping others. It’s just a once useful instinct that has somewhat turned against us.
Our interest in learning new things and inventing stuff makes perfect sense as well. Inventing and using tools has increased our chance of survival. For example, being able to crack open nuts with big rocks, later using spears to hunt and even later using bows instead.
Music and entertainment helps social groups reduce tensions and keeps people from attacking each other. The ability to become angry at someone is a price we had to pay for the more and more dedicated brain. Even apes and, to a point, wolves, have something you could call rituals that bind together the members of a social group more closely
But even with these beliefs, I don’t particularly feel like shooting myself in the head right now. I can enjoy music and art and sex. Heck, even dolphins are known for practicing recreational sex and playing games with each other, so why shouldn’t we!
Of course, finding a purely logical sense to life (like, a reason why the universe exists) might be an impossible task, simply because there is no such reason…
June 29th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Quote:
Reflect upon yourself for a minute:
Is it really that it makes no evolutionary sense, or should you, from the beginning, have taken into account that you simply did not understand yet why it makes sense?
Instead of accepting the state of not knowing yet, you just felt inclined to “patch” that gap in your knowledge with a supernatural explanation, eg. “god made it so”. Question solved, gap closed and mind settled. Or is it?
People can always take the easy route and build one convenient delusion upon another, or they can face the cold, hard truth. Now, that raises the question why on earth anyone would want to go the truth route instead of the happy delusion.
June 29th, 2007 at 9:24 am
As for my personal reasons, I am comfortable with the idea of us all being just animals in nature’s evolution game. In fact, I find that role romantic. I dearly love nature (it is what made me, not god!) and I have the feeling religion is punching it right in the face with its glorification of weakness.
And the conclusion?
Don’t feel weak or strong because of some temporary illness or achievment - just life!
No need to be concerned with your evolutionary success in day-to-day life. After all, it is of absolutely no consequence to you as an invividual. Any effect you will have will occur when you’re long gone.
And if you, like me, decide that you want to gain knowledge about the hows and whys, then by all means, do gain knowledge and strive for the truth, don’t settle for some fictional delusion that tries to make you feel low, unworthy and filthy for being your true self.
July 1st, 2007 at 6:05 pm
i agree with you in many things.
i think that evolution is part of our nature.
we evolved in many races for example, black white etc etc…and natural selection works even now.
and inside races we still evolve, according to external circumstances and so forth.
what i don’t really understand is why we should have this conversation if only because of evolution.
animals(mammals or whatever, even though living in communities etc etc)do not wonder about their future, they do not get depressed coz they don’t feel any purpose in life, they are not afraid of death, as most of us do.
they do not invent any God nor a kind of life after death to solve their fears and worries.
fears and worries that come from our mind, but that do not find any possible explanation in mere evolution.
some people could not care at all about these things, but if only 1person does so, a simple explanation “we come from a sensless explosion and casual following of events” does not make much sense.
not more than believing in a God.
and also, sorry, but if i am sick and in need of help, and u help me coz u only want to save my genetic code,i would reasonably think, that it’s really better for me to die.
these are supposed to be my friends, my family?
naaahhh, i can’t believe that
in animals, instinct is all, in humans it’s not.
evolution should not provide these things.
things that are useless and maybe even a danger to survival.
and this is only the…..”emotional” (if i can say) aspect of my not really understanding evolution.
let alone the “practical” explanation of evolution.
i studied for 2years biology.
evolution would mean creation of life from non life
and second, evolution from 1species to another(not new race, but SPECIES with a far more different genetic code).
well, there are only two things(about evolution) that through experiments and established fisical and biologycal laws had been established: it’s absolutely not possible to create life from non life, and second, it’s not possible to find nor to create a new species from an old one, you do not find 1 single example today.
(MY GOODNESS ON WHAT DOES EVOLUTION STAND UPON THEN????)
when you try to modificate 1 single gene(or when it happens naturally)it never gives you a new species, but only an imperfect new being that is not even fertile and not able to give life to new borns(like horse and donkey)….only MINOR characters can change, giving new races but never species………
also, our cells, even the most simple in the earth, are too complex, complicated..
there is the external cover…genes and 1000 differet parts.
you touch one, or remove the most simple of these parts and the cell dies.
you take a part of this cell outside the cell, and it immediately dies.
it’s like if the cell is able to survive only the way it’s formed.
no substantial modification is allowed.
then:
how could that cell get to existance by itself??
there were no phases to be created, it had to “appear” exactly as you can see it today.
we cannot find anything between non life and life.
the incredible cell or nothing.
and no growing fase in the middle.
how can evolution axplain ALL these things?
it’s simply impossible.
maybe, when believing in evolution, we really try to find a fast and easy solution, maybe even easier than God.
last thing and i conclude……sorry to be so long…
E=mc2
famous law saying that from energy you can get substance.
and viceversa.
examples: from athomic bomb(substance)you get energy, in the sense that you really transform part of the substance into energy
that’s why it’s so effective, more than other bombs.
with huge quantity of energy you can produce small microns of substance reversing the process(it has been proved)
now
and..if god(incredible but true)as the bible says, is a form of energy(we evidently do not know)with a kind of intelligence and feelings, might sientifically use part of his own energy to create, substance and life.
might sound strange(even to me)but this(only option to evolution)would explain how life got to existance, why there are different species, and, most of all, why we are made in such a complex way, with all our feelings emotions questions in mind etc etc…
I don’t expect you to agree with everything, but don’t you think that this reasoning it’s not all this…illogical and superficial, it’s not an easy to find explanation to difficult questions, but a valid option in the discovering of the so called…”truth”?
by the way, thanx, i will for shure fight for the truth. never giving up to others ideas nor surrendering to superficial answers, ready to change my mind in front of new acquired knowledge, doing the best to be my real self….
natan
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Thanks for your thoughts, I was hoping you would reply
Your main reasoning seems to be that, because the universe doesn’t make sense or because we, as humans, can’t explain something, there must be a god that is responsible for this.
My standpoint simply is that there doesn’t have to be a sense and that there are things we can’t yet explain. Some scientific results my be dead wrong, but science accepts that fact, it doesn’t try to sell 1600 years old writings as the ultimate and untouchable truth :o)
There is something called the “empirical method”. It’s what science is based on. You base your reasoning on things you know and from there, you make assumptions and conclusions about the things that you don’t know. If you’ve ever played a game of Windows Minesweeper, you used this method. If you did everything right, all the bombs are flagged but you never saw even one of them. You just concluded, by the numbers, where the bombs must be.
Now nothing, and I repeat, nothing, gives reasoning to conclude that there is a god. If we weren’t raisedp in an environment where such belief was common and accepted, we would laugh at the mere thought of believing in something like christianity.
I could as well propose the idea that there is an ufo floating behind the head of each human that’s invisible and undetecable to all other humans. Nobody could prove me wrong, so it must be true, mustn’t it? Reasoning allows us the say that the chances of that holding true are very, very small and so it’s off to the land of frauds and funny ideas with this concept. Exactly where religion should be.
That exactly is what evolution is not. That’s racism. If human-made laws decide which genes spread and which die, we’re quickly down the path of degeneration.
It’s the whole point I tried bringing across in my past messages. Evolution just happens, you don’t help someone based on whether you think his genes a good or bad, you help him because you’ve got an emotional attachment to him. You won’t even know whether his genes were good or bad.
I haven’t studied biology myself, but this is an often-used argument that countless creationists tried to use already. There first one is a misused version of the simple statement that scientists have not succeeded (yet) in creating life from dead matter in a laboratory (plus the fact that, unfortunately, when it happened some billion years ago, no one was around to observe it). The second statement is a blunt lie.
Take yourself as an example. There is strong evidence that humans developed from a common predecessor with the apes. Before that evidence had been found, countless christians attacked science with this “missing link” argument. The standpoint of science simply was that such heritage was very likely but no good evidence hadn’t been discovered yet. I can wholeheartedly recommend www.evolutionfaq.com to clear such misconceptions.
You conclude that a complete cell would have to come into existence all at once because some artificial or natural mutations led to infertile or otherwise disadvantaged creatures. However, random mutations occur all the time and are a basis for evolution to occur. It is assumed that the DNA of the first lifeforms was much simpler than what we have today and gradually developed to its current state. Once again, I recommend you to check out www.evolutionfaq.com, where you will find this explanation: “No scientist believes this is how life formed. Instead, most theories of “abiogenesis” begin with simple self-replicating peptides. The smallest self-replicating peptide is only 32 amino acids long. It can and does form naturally, and has the ability to replicate itself, just like DNA.”
Last but not least, evolution is established science. There have been a lot of well-educated bright minds debating over evolution theory for the past 100 years, so I’m willing to bet my money on evolution. If there was evidence that evolution was wrong (like you suggest), it would be a thesis, not a theory. Even the church has publicly accepted evolution some ten years ago (isn’t it funny how those theists always cry “liar!” on anything that contradicts their beliefs just to make a 180° turn wehen they’re close to being ridiculed?)
This sounds like popcorn science. Because matter and energy are transient, there must be a god that is made out of energy? How does one lead to the other?
That’s just using something that fascinates people and wedding it with religion so they gasp and gawk at it. Maybe that would be a quickshot idea about the nature of a god, but that’s no evidence for its existence.
…
So in conclusion, not wanting to insult you, but I do think that your reasoning is illogical and superficial. :o)
I cannot see any truth in religion, it’s just a delusional old book, possibly plagiarism, that was modified by a few romans to soothe and make controllable ancient slaves. The morals it preaches are so sick and degraded it repells me. If you are being bullied around, of course you’d love a holy book that tells you that you’re a good person for not fighting back.
I shall close with two citations from Mark Twain, which I think apply to you:
I like my heartless world and I prefer saying “I cannot explain it” to saying “god must be responsible.”
July 4th, 2007 at 2:51 am
I think that if God exists, he thinks of religion even worse than you. He did not create religions.
I got a heart, so i cannot believe in a heartless world.
I wish you anyway a meaningful life, whatever and wherever these meanings you would be able to find.
nathan
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
interesting read, i have to say however that you appear as biased as the jehovas witnesses with your views as are they with theirs.
at the end of the day, to beleive in the bible and its teachings requires faith.
to beleive in what you beleive would require faith also as it is only your point of view and there is no fool proof evidence backing up anything you say.
for the record, charles darwin was a creationist and conceded in his book that there must have been a higher intelligent power, so for all these evolutionaries thinking charles darwin had it right, they only have half the story, the rest is speculation and that dreaded theory word meaning to make something up.
so for someone that is apparently so open minded having faith in their own beliefs and yet are so critical of others having faith in their beliefs, you arent so open minded after all.
i used to be an aetheist, and am now an agnostic, believing that a higher power is possible, but im not convinced. i keep looking at the evidence on both sides and maybe one day when the evidence is too overwhelming one way or the other, ill pick a side of the fence to sit on.
ps. youd make a good politician
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I do my best to analyze my own views and their origins to not become biased, and though it may still happen from time to time, I’m pretty sure that in this matter, I’m not biased at all.
People growing up in pro-christian cultures are heavily biased. So much in fact, that neutrality would appear to them as an anti-christian attitude.
To get an idea of how religion sounds from a neutral point of view, let me give you a short summary of scientology. Basically, they believe that some million years ago someone named Xenu ruled a big Galactic Confederacy. He called his people to some planet under a false pretense (a tax refund I think), where he put them to sleep, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up using H-Bombs, after which he constructed a gigantic space cinema for the souls to show them an epic 70 hour movie that traumatized them (they call this “incident 2″ if you want to google it up).
Asserting you are open-minded, upon hearing that, your reaction would probably be along the lines to think that this is highly unlikely (if not the word “ridiculous” comes to mind). But some day, people come running to your door, trying to convince you to follow this belief and base your entire life on that. And when you send them away, other people come and call you biased. Seriously, who is biased here?
Sorry, but what I stated in my earlier posts was merely established scientific knowledge. In other words, fool proof evidence and not a point of view. There is no belief and certainly no faith involved, it’s knowledge countless people have proven through hard work to hold true.
And Christopher Columbus died with the belief that the Sun circles around the earth. So what?
Also for the record, “theory” in colloquial use means theoretical speculation. But when you read “theory” in scientific publications, “theory” means validated knowledge that’s proven to hold true beyond reasonable doubt (look it up in a dictionary if you don’t believe me).
It’s not like good ol’ Darwin wrote his thesis, nailed it to a wall and people then used that for all times to come. Darwin had the original idea, the scientific community took it up (open-minded as they are) and found it to be usable. In the past 100 years, evolution theory has gone a long way and finally became exactly that, a theory. Heck, gravity is only a theory. We could also assume that things are being pushed downwards by divine power — it’s just not very likely.
…
I know, everyone, including me, holds their own ideas and beliefs dear. Whenever someone challenges these beliefs, our first and foremost reaction is to defend ourselves. Like a machine, we start looking for flaws in the other’s beliefs and never even once consider that the controversial view might indicate a flaw in our own beliefs. I’ve got the impression that people coming here are just following this “defense script”.
Sometimes I may sound harsh in my criticism and it really doesn’t help that everyone trying to persuade me uses tavern-wisdom or half-truths in his argumentations, but please don’t call me close-minded or biased just because I don’t let myself be convinced by invalid arguments.