Reason Magazine mocks people of faith

[Brett85]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/05/how-really-to-debate-creationists-bill-n


Yesterday, Ken Ham, nutty founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum in Kentucky debated Bill Nye, the Science Guy on the evidence for Young Earth Creationism versus that for Evolutionary Science. A lot of media outlets, e.g., the DailyBeast and Slate, are tut-tutting Nye for participating in a debate that provided Ham a platform from which to spread his nonsense. Sadly, it is true that rank demagoguery has a much easier time being entertaining than does a careful exposition of science. But there is a way to beat Creationists at their own game - mockery. More on that in a moment.

I got to know Ken Ham when I reported on the 2005 Creation Mega-Conference at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. I noted in my reports from the conference, "Creation Summer Camp" and "The Myth of Millions of Years," that the Ham was the author a lavishly illustrated children's book, The Dinosaurs of Eden. In that book, children garbed in biblically appropriate duds frolic with pet dinosaurs and their parents saddle some up to ride and carry cargo.

At the Mega-Conference, I learned that Noah's ark carried at least 1,000 different species of dinosaurs and (paradoxically) all dinosaur fossils were all created from being buried by Noah's flood. In addition, starlight appearing to travel millions of light years (more than 6,000 years since Creation) can be explained by the fact that God created a "mature" universe. The Young Earth creationists also decried the Intelligent Design creationists for being too namby pamby. Ham asserted that the Big Bang must be rejected as inaccurate because Genesis explains that God created the Earth and the waters on the third day and THEN the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day.

So how to beat back this kind of nonsense? I humbly suggest the approach I took when Michael Shermer and I debated Discovery Institute intelligent designers Stephen Meyer and George Gilder back at the 2008 Freedomfest. See the YouTube of my ten minutes of opening remarks, "Intelligent Design by Purple Space Squids," as nicely illustrated by Memosphere below:

[jkr]

#fuckreasonAGAIN

[Origanalist]

They really are on the cutting edge. Nobody thought of doing that before.

[LibertyEagle]

Oh, that was a brilliant move. :rolleyes:

[rambone]

Ronald Bailey is the same douche who supports forced vaccination, forced quarantine of the sick, and considering disease to be a crime.

Also he was advocating for a federal individual health care mandate before Romney or Obama made it happen.

And he calls these positions "Libertarian."

If you want to understand Reason and Ronald Bailey, study up on the "Skeptics Society." You'll start to see really statist positions in the arena of public health, endlessly shilling for vaccinations, evangelical atheism, disdain for anything resembling a conspiracy theory, and fawning over new corporate science fads (even if we have no idea of the long term effects).

Reason Magazine advocates forced vaccination… and forced quarantine (http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/reason-magazine-forced-vaccination/)

[NewRightLibertarian]

These are the same guys who tried to sabotage Ron Paul's campaign in 2008. They are about as libertarian as Sean Hannity.

[fr33]

They mocked *some people of faith. IE those that claim all the dinosaurs and microbes were loaded into the ark. There are a lot of people of faith that don't believe that particular story.

[Matt Collins]

Reason is NOT monolithic. Not everyone there is the same.

[Acala]

Good science depends on the continuous attempt to prove its theoretical statements false. As soon as someone begins mocking critics of a scientific theory, science has left the room.

[FriedChicken]

Good science depends on the continuous attempt to prove its theoretical statements false. As soon as someone begins mocking critics of a scientific theory, science has left the room.

Any person of science should agree with this - however they seem to check this rule at the door when dealing with earth origins.

[FriedChicken]

They mocked *some people of faith. IE those that claim all the dinosaurs and microbes were loaded into the ark. There are a lot of people of faith that don't believe that particular story.

Granted. But the headline to the OP is still correct since it didn't specify *all people of faith.

[Brett85]

They mocked *some people of faith. IE those that claim all the dinosaurs and microbes were loaded into the ark. There are a lot of people of faith that don't believe that particular story.

Yeah, I didn't say that they mocked all people of faith. But all Christians believe in some form of creation, even if you believe that God created everything through the process of evolution.

[Legend1104]

I don't have any problem with people believing whatever scientific version of the creation of everything you want, and I personally don't believe that anyone will be saved by the blood of Christ through convincing them that the earth is Younger than others say. I wouldn't even usually discuss this with anyone unless they asked. I am not offended when some claim that the Earth is millions of years old but God created it or that the Earth is really Young, but I do have a problem with any Christian, Atheist, or other groups saying that anything in the Bible is false or wrong. Atheists I can understand but when a Christian says something like "I don't believe in Noah's ark or in that other story over their," then I have a problem. Either you believe the Bible is the Word of God or you don't. You can't pick and choose which part your think God inspired and which you didn't because if you believe some of it is correct, you have to believe all of.

For example say you believe in the part that discusses Christ but not the ark story. Jesus specifically talked about Noah as if he was a real man, not a fable. If you believe the ark was not true, then you must also believe that Jesus Christ was not God because he obviously didn't know that the ark story was not true. All of it ties together. Why would a supreme God want to give use a book that told us about him, while at the same time attaching his name to another group of stories that are not true. What kind of God would do that.

[FriedChicken]

There is surely a countdown taking place where this thread will become a 20 page argument that all sides will be represented in in the first 4 pages and everything cycled over and repeated after that.
But before that takes place, and I exit the conversation, I'd like to say this:

I'm a Creationist and I believe there is some scientific evidence to back up my views.
So I think that saying my position is 100% faith at the expense of the rule of science is false - however I do have to admit that to believe what I do it DOES take faith and is absolutely totally rooted in faith and without faith it is impossible to believe it.
The area that takes faith is the existence of God even though I don't have any theories on "God's origin". (I'm not trying to turn this thread into a philosophical discussion about the origin of God).

But Evolutionists seem to be in the same boat as me from the way I see it.
Every evolutionary theory has to start out with some basic ingredient ... dust, dirt, matter, whatever. Some theories even say "nothingness" which ... oook.... If you're referring to "nothingness" then you're recognizing it as, actually, "somethingness". You have to have faith that whatever start to the origin of the universe was there. You're entire belief in evolution is rooted in this faith and without faith in that thing's existence you cannot believe in evolution.

Anyways - my point is that regardless of which theory you subscribe to I don't see either as being non-dependent/completely based on faith.

Whatever you think this world came from, either from God or evolution, the original ingredients needed can never be explained.
I'm sure someone will tell me that they can (maybe from both sides of the argument) but, at best, all you can do is offer a hopeful theory without any evidence supporting it whatsoever as we can literally not study "nothing" to see how "something" can come from it.

My view?
God always has been. No beginning and no end - its what I believe even though I can't fathom how it is possible. That is why its called faith ... if I knew "how" this was possible I wouldn't need faith to believe it.

Evolutionists are guilty of the same thing. Whatever stray molecule, matter, anti-matter, gas, rock, mineral, whatever ... whatever it was that slowly lead to other things just always was. There was no beginning to it. If it came from something else (even if you call that "something" "nothing") where did that come from?
In order to believe the evolutionary theory you have to have faith that something, somewhere, no matter how small always existed and from whatever that thing was all life eventually began.


So ... both theories require faith. That is my long winded point and I'd just like to know if any evolutionists here agree with me and gather their thoughts on that.

Thank you.

[erowe1]

Mocking people of faith is one of Reason Magazine's prime directives as I understand it.

Of course, they themselves are people of faith. But watch their conniptions when you tell them that.

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

[otherone]

“Goldsmith said there are two classes of people who dread ridicule–priests and fools. they cry out that it is no argument, but they know it is. It has been found the most potent form of argument. Euclid used it in his immortal Geometry; for what else is the reductio ad absurdum which he sometimes employs? Elijah used it against the priests of Baal. The Christian fathers found it effective against the Pagan superstitions, and in turn it was adopted as the best weapon of attack on them by Lucian and Celsus. Ridicule has been used b y Bruno, Erasmus, Luther, Rabelais, Swift, and Voltaire, by nearly all the great emancipators of the human mind.”

–G.W. Foote (From his essay “On Ridicule,” Seasons of Freethought, pg. 269)

more.... (http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/flowers/108ridicule.htm)

[Lucille]

"Talking to [Rand], I realized how impossible it has become to communicate with her at all… It’s the darndest thing, but professed atheists (one of whom she is which) are really more bigoted than any adherents of any religion, except perhaps Whirling Dervishes."
-Isabel Paterson (http://lfb.org/today/why-isabel-patterson-is-great/#sthash.8MOuQspB.dpuf)

[Ranger29860]

Evolutionists are guilty of the same thing. Whatever stray molecule, matter, anti-matter, gas, rock, mineral, whatever ... whatever it was that slowly lead to other things just always was. There was no beginning to it. If it came from something else (even if you call that "something" "nothing") where did that come from?
In order to believe the evolutionary theory you have to have faith that something, somewhere, no matter how small always existed and from whatever that thing was all life eventually began.

Thank you.

Your making the mistake of confusing evolution with abiogenesis. One deals with diversity of life and the other the origin of life :)

[RandallFan]

Reason endorses great Libertarian Conservatives like Jeff Flake who almost cost the GOP a seat.

[heavenlyboy34]

/facepalm @ Reason mag. They do have an interestingly ironic title for their publication, though.

[FriedChicken]

Your making the mistake of confusing evolution with abiogenesis. One deals with diversity of life and the other the origin of life :)

Well ... I'm totally unfamiliar with even the term abiogenesis so you could be right. lol.
I still think I have a valid observation regardless of whatever terms I used - in order for evolution to work, if it does work, is to start with something. So if you believe in evolution then its a requirement to believe there was something to start with for that process to use. There really is no way to take faith out of the foundation of any view about how the world came to be.

[Ranger29860]

Well ... I'm totally unfamiliar with even the term abiogenesis so you could be right. lol.
I still think I have a valid observation regardless of whatever terms I used - in order for evolution to work, if it does work, is to start with something. So if you believe in evolution then its a requirement to believe there was something to start with for that process to use. There really is no way to take faith out of the foundation of any view about how the world came to be.

Evolution simply explains why the life we have is different from both what else their is and what their was. It does not try to explain where life itself comes from. Abiogenesis is the research behind life from no life.

Evolution is not a philosophy it neither seeks to explain where life comes or how. Only the rules that govern its diversity. So no faith needed just facts and evidence. Now if you want to talk origin of life the sure there is some assumptions their since its still a new science so their is leaps of faith happening. Evolutionary theory does not need faith of where life began because its theory's are not dependent on it.

[GunnyFreedom]

They are both right, and they are both wrong. Time dilates as you approach a singularity. The amount of time that passes as a raw metric is entirely dependent on perspective to the singularity. Six thousand over here, 13.8 Billion over there. The Big Bang is nothing more or less than the most massive singularity that ever was or will be. "And said God, 'Light, be.'" BANG "And light was." Both are right, and both are wrong. The Earth is BOTH 6000 years AND 4.5 Billion years old. At the same time. These debates are silly.

[osan]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/05/how-really-to-debate-creationists-bill-n


They should be charged with fraud...calling themselves "Reason"... good grief.

[Acala]

I don't have any problem with people believing whatever scientific version of the creation of everything you want, and I personally don't believe that anyone will be saved by the blood of Christ through convincing them that the earth is Younger than others say. I wouldn't even usually discuss this with anyone unless they asked. I am not offended when some claim that the Earth is millions of years old but God created it or that the Earth is really Young, but I do have a problem with any Christian, Atheist, or other groups saying that anything in the Bible is false or wrong. Atheists I can understand but when a Christian says something like "I don't believe in Noah's ark or in that other story over their," then I have a problem. Either you believe the Bible is the Word of God or you don't. You can't pick and choose which part your think God inspired and which you didn't because if you believe some of it is correct, you have to believe all of.

For example say you believe in the part that discusses Christ but not the ark story. Jesus specifically talked about Noah as if he was a real man, not a fable. If you believe the ark was not true, then you must also believe that Jesus Christ was not God because he obviously didn't know that the ark story was not true. All of it ties together. Why would a supreme God want to give use a book that told us about him, while at the same time attaching his name to another group of stories that are not true. What kind of God would do that.

But different parts of the Bible had different sources, sometimes separated by great lengths of time. And the decision which scriptures to include in the Bible and which to exclude was made by men, was it not? So would it be unreasonable for a person to believe, for example, that Leviticus is really not relevant to what Jesus taught, indeed is maybe contrary to what Jesus taught, and the decision to include Leviticus alongside the teachings of Jesus was human error?

[heavenlyboy34]

They are both right, and they are both wrong. Time dilates as you approach a singularity. The amount of time that passes as a raw metric is entirely dependent on perspective to the singularity. Six thousand over here, 13.8 Billion over there. The Big Bang is nothing more or less than the most massive singularity that ever was or will be. "And said God, 'Light, be.'" BANG "And light was." Both are right, and both are wrong. The Earth is BOTH 6000 years AND 4.5 Billion years old. At the same time. These debates are silly.
+rep for this good gentleman^^

[Natural Citizen]

The Big Bang is nothing more or less than the most massive singularity that ever was or will be.

But, how do we know this? Was it really a singular phenomenon? The most massive? And just where does ever and will be fall in the "time" department?

Of course, I'm not expecting for you to answer this but just thinking out loud, I suppose.

[Ranger29860]

They are both right, and they are both wrong. Time dilates as you approach a singularity. The amount of time that passes as a raw metric is entirely dependent on perspective to the singularity. Six thousand over here, 13.8 Billion over there. The Big Bang is nothing more or less than the most massive singularity that ever was or will be. "And said God, 'Light, be.'" BANG "And light was." Both are right, and both are wrong. The Earth is BOTH 6000 years AND 4.5 Billion years old. At the same time. These debates are silly.


This so out of my area but I have to ask. If the time/space distortion that existed before the big bang was a singularity, then the moment it ejected most if not all of its mass it would cease to exist. So why would we still see a time dilation effect when the singularity that would be causing it no longer exist.

As far as my understanding goes (very limited) the big bang was the ejection of the mass of the singularity, similar to the way a black hole bleeds it contents out over time and eventually disappears. So the Big Bang is not a singularity and its aftermath should not have the same effect that a singularity that existed before it would have.

[GunnyFreedom]

This so out of my area but I have to ask. If the time/space distortion that existed before the big bang was a singularity, then the moment it ejected most if not all of its mass it would cease to exist. So why would we still see a time dilation effect when the singularity that would be causing it no longer exist.

As far as my understanding goes (very limited) the big bang was the ejection of the mass of the singularity, similar to the way a black hole bleeds it contents out over time and eventually disappears. So the Big Bang is not a singularity and its aftermath should not have the same effect that a singularity that existed before it would have.

The reason time dilates in the vicinity of a singularity is not because it is a classical singularity, but because of the massive concentration of gravity in a small area. As matter expands from the (point/region/whatever) of the Big Bang, the local area will still have these massive gravitational fields associated with time dilation, even if they are no longer technically a point singularity. This effect will dilute as the matter further expands, leading to a lower concentration of gravitational forces, so the time dilation will become less and less and less, eventually leading to the point where both internal and external perspective timeframes finally 'synch.'

The takeaway is that time does not dilate as you approach a singularity because it is a singularity, but because of the massive gravity well that accompanies a singularity. If we assume the basic theory of the Big Bang as correct, then even after the onset of expansion this gravity field will exist in that region, given the presence of so much dense matter.

One of the chief indications of the probable truth of this postulate, is the fact that there is matter in the universe further away from the speculated point of origin than would be allowed for if that matter had been travelling at the speed of light since the time of the Big Bang. Since we know (via the theory of relativity) that matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light, there must be some other phenomenon to account for matter having travelled further from the point of origin (the Big Bang) than is allowed for by pure speed of light. One phenomenon can indeed account for that, and that is time dilation departing from the Big Bang that dwindles to no dilation as the local gravity fields reduce to current normals.

[Legend1104]

But different parts of the Bible had different sources, sometimes separated by great lengths of time. And the decision which scriptures to include in the Bible and which to exclude was made by men, was it not? So would it be unreasonable for a person to believe, for example, that Leviticus is really not relevant to what Jesus taught, indeed is maybe contrary to what Jesus taught, and the decision to include Leviticus alongside the teachings of Jesus was human error?

I think if you make the determination that Jesus was God and that the God of the Bible is "THE" God then you should also reasonably make the assumption that God choose to be known to man and that he did it through written text (because if he choose some other medium then that would be the one that people today use to learn about who God is). Therefore, it should also be reasonable to assume that he would seek to preserve that written message so that what he wanted man to know would not become corrupted by corruptible man. Hence, even though technically the Bible was written by the hand of man and the books placed in the Bible were chosen by man, God was in charge of the whole process.

[GunnyFreedom]

But, how do we know this? Was it really a singular phenomenon? The most massive? And just where does ever and will be fall in the "time" department?

Of course, I'm not expecting for you to answer this but just thinking out loud, I suppose.

That's the Big Bang Theory itself; all of the matter that composes the entire universe compresses to a point singularity that then explodes and sends all of that matter back out into a massive expansion that would ultimately become our current universe. That it was a 'singularity' is a matter of pure theory, but no other structure in the universe could account for such a concentration of matter.

That is is/was/will be the most massive should be self evident. "All the matter in the entire universe" cannot be increased upon by any (known, scientific, naturalistic) means. "Is" and "was" are a given, there has only been one "Big Bang" so far as the theory goes. "Will be" is speculation that at least some (if not all) of the matter expanding from the point of origin will continue to expand until/beyond the heat death of the universe.

There was once a sub-theory to the Big Bang theory that postulated the universe expanded/contracted/expanded/contracted but scientists have since settled on an expanding universe. My personal feeling is that even if there WERE a contraction in another 50Bn years ± that at least some of the matter expelled from the Big Bang would have reached escape velocity, such that Big Bang 2 would start from a (even if insignificantly) smaller mass reservoir.

[FriedChicken]

Evolution simply explains why the life we have is different from both what else their is and what their was. It does not try to explain where life itself comes from. Abiogenesis is the research behind life from no life.

Evolution is not a philosophy it neither seeks to explain where life comes or how. Only the rules that govern its diversity. So no faith needed just facts and evidence. Now if you want to talk origin of life the sure there is some assumptions their since its still a new science so their is leaps of faith happening. Evolutionary theory does not need faith of where life began because its theory's are not dependent on it.

Thank you for the more in depth explanation.

I disagree with your conclusion that since evolution doesn't attempt to explain the origin of life that it doesn't require faith.
Creationism doesn't attempt to explain the origin of the Creator - using the same logic it doesn't require faith either.

However, in reality, both theories are not possible without certain, unexplained, key factors. So to believe that one or the other took place without knowing how those factors came to be is having faith that those factors WERE in fact in place even though it is impossible to explain how.

Breakdown of what I'm trying to say:
Evolution REQUIRES there to be some form of ingredients for it to take place. Just because it doesn't attempt to explain the origin it still requires them ... since there is no explanation for the the ingredients it is required that the 'believer' 'have faith' that those elements needed were 'just there'.

Creationism has the same unanswerable question about where God came from and requires the 'believer' 'have faith' that he was 'just there'.

If evolution requires no faith based on the fact it doesn't try to explain the origin of life than creationism should be said to not require faith either because the theory doesn't attempt to explain the origin of the Creator.


Evolutionary theory does not need faith of where life began because its theory's are not dependent on it.

Without life evolution wouldn't be possible. So it is vitally dependent on the assumption that life began (one way or another) and you have to have faith that such an occurrence happened in order to believe Evolution.
Perhaps another way of looking at this is Life is to evolution as God is to creation. You can't have one without the other and each require faith to believe in.