Our wise as fuck prez has already weighed in quite recently on the intelligent design "debate". He says both sides should be taught so that people will understand what the "debate" is about. There is no debate, but that doesn't matter. There is no other side to teach because it can pretty much be summed up in the untestable statement "that shit's just waaayyyyy too complicated and awesome for anyone but the big guy upstairs to have did it, p.s. the human eye is designed like a camera, trippy, huh? that proves god did it". That's not a scientific statement. IT CAN'T BE TESTED. That's the problem. You can't just say "it's too complicated for it to have evolved". You have to investigate it and offer and alternative, testable, explanation. And lo and behold, I bet if you do wait a bit for science to catch up on, say, the evolution of the blood clotting cascade, which is something those intelligent design people bring up, there will be a perfectly plausible explanation for how this could have evolved bit by bit. Just because it's extremely complicated doesn't mean it can't be the result of evolution, especially when you factor in the little matter of vast stretches of time that the human mind can't really comprehend.
In a bit, I will post my review of the Savannah BBQ place by Jack's.
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19 comments:
yeah, these intelligent design tards are really chaffing my hide. i've considered myself agnostic for most of my life but they're making me want to be an atheist. i just wish they would give up the ghost. but, i suppose these debates cycle. so, maybe this will just strengthen the opposition to develop some uber-impenetrable argument that will be impossible for those ID folks to clauber with their non-science.
Oh, I love it when you people of science get all bent out of shape, rightfully, by these intelliegent design rubes.
Seriously, however, the mind reels. The number of people (including certain heads of state) actually take ID seriously and want it taught in schools is baffling; it's like some surreal, putrid nightmare from which I can never awake, and I have to hear arguments in its favor so nonsensical in their half-or-less logic ("Look at Mt. Rushmore? Could that have happened by erosion? I think not") that sometimes I feel I may just have to shuck it all and start and a new life holed up on a houseboat out by Locke...
Great post Becky! You tottally sum it up. Really, ID should be taught in a philosophy class and not science class. Dudes, science has never lied about what it is about. It has changed naturally and people use it for their own goals, but it's about empircal data, theories, and peer review. ID, will perhaps is the other side of the intellectual coin, ain't science. We all see it as a sneaky trick. But thats what the right is doing. And reallt they have already won. Muddy the discussion. Put some doubt in there. Then people will think it's opinion.
Charles
ps. by the way agnostic = athiest. And don't be afraid, I am an athiest, too.
No, that's wrong. Atheist =! agnostic.
I don't know if there's a god. I really doubt it but I can't prove there isn't. So I'm agnostic. Being an athiest is sporting a belief that requires no proof. Just like intelligent design.
I just text messaged god about what he/she think about you whom haven't decided. He/she says your a douche and saying "you don't know if he/she exists" is, for now, to him/her, a big fat no.
And I'll answer the whole God thing right now.
"God if you are real, make me shred like eddie Van Halen..."
(charles gets his guitar...doesn't shred like Van Halen)
Told you.
Charles
sorry dude, agnostic doesn't mean atheist. it means you simply don't believe in an organized religion.
but, it's probably a damn similar debate as to wether Catholics are really Christians or not. being that they believe in Christ and all.
Forget text messaging; I just checked out God's blog (not surprisingly, it's registered at a Tokelau country code domain) and gave he/she an earful regarding his/her very existence, and also on the issue of intelligent design. People from apes? A higher force responsible for the human iris, hitchhiker's thumb and the platypus? Only the holy blogger knows for sure, and I'll await the answers.
Unless God happens to just be some local Libertarian Party co-chair living in his elderly mother's basement while under house arrest.
charles. i was gonna take you up on the whole atheist v. agnostic debate but i see other people already did. and i think my arguments that they are different were well-represented by anonymous who posted right after you. but, part of me is wondering if you have a trickier reason for equating agnosticism with atheism (like, totally dissing the post modern paradox or something), so i wouldn't mind talking it over with you some day.
can somebody find me a link to that video of the monkey evolving into a human? you know, that proves evolution happened the way we were taught in third grade.
Katy, your rendition of angnosticism is slighty different than the one I am framiliar with. My understanding is one might think organized religions to be bunk, but still belive in God. Agnosticism as far as I know means you are undecided about a mono-theistic God. Or atleast that is the way I think we are all using it. The point I make is the big "G" God in question might see your indecision as atheism. If you died today would you be agnostic, a theist or an atheist?
Furthermore, everyone cliams to be agnostic. Why? I guess it just bug s the shit out of me that everyone gives up on the question. Why not just pick a side from best availible evidence? I think we all deep down are afraid to call our selves athiests. I have to go to the dentist. thoughts?
charles
Charles-this is a dangerous and fascinating subject. Grace and I were talking about it last night and agreeing that it's odd how you can know someone so long and not know where they stand on this subject. I'll come right out and say I'm an atheist. In fact, I don't understand at all how anyone can be anything but an atheist. I don't mean that in a flip way, I mean I really cannot put myself into the position of what it would feel like to feel there's a God. In case anyone was wondering.
I think you have a lot better chance of finding truth as an atheist than as an agnostic. At least I think that's the case for faith-based conceptions of god, where faith is defined as something like unverifiable belief. As an agnostic (which I think means an absence of faith in god, as opposed to atheism, which is a rejection of faith), you always have to entertain the possibility that there's some mysterious unknowable force at work. So if you're interested in questions like "why are summer days longer than winter days?" or "why did my dog have to die?", you always have to consider "because that's God's unknowable plan" as an answer. I've decided I'm better off ruling that out.
Ben
hey Charles.
funny thing is, i've been atheist most my life. i long ago picked my side and i'm ok with it when i die.
agnoticism only differs from atheism in that atheists take a stance that there is irrefutable proof there's no God. just like theists say there's proof there is. agnostics are on the fence. (probably i'm reiterating here what someone else has said).
but, i have heard many people call themselves agnostics when they believed in some notion of God, yet disregarded all forms of organized religion. and honestly, i can totally respect that opinion.
one more look at Intelligent design....
http://www.venganza.org/
“Agnosticism only differs from atheism in that atheists take a stance that there is irrefutable proof there's no God. Just like theists say there's proof there is. Agnostics are on the fence. (Probably I’m reiterating here what someone else has said).” - KT
Well, that’s not entirely true. It all depends on what your notion of refute ability. I have seen most every argument for god under the sun and in the end the only one that really holds water seems to me to be that you have to take it on faith. Now don’t all chuckle in unison, our entire rational universe that science has constructed for us is, in reality, is based in faith. However, faith doesn’t stand alone and instead uses logic and reason to propel it forward. But I digress.
I take issue with “agnostics” because I don’t think this world lends itself to fence walking. Sure it seems like the cant-get-you-laid issues of philosophy might be a clear exception, but I always wonder what’s at stake if we all walk the fence? We make all kinds of decisions without the notion of complete certain. Why not the existence God? Will there ever be enough information for anyone to determine this for sure? If your notion of proof is like that of science, I don’t think so. Agnosticism, for me, is like staying in a safe kind of spiritual adolescences. If God doesn’t exist, it might be good to move on for a multitude of reasons. If God does exist, you either be pissing him/her off by being an atheist or have his her pity for being wrong. If you are really committed to really knowing the true how could a God be angry? Unless it was an unjust God. Who wants to worship that? I’d rather live as a good person with the eye of this evil God at my back.
Lastly, I would like to say it’s not like the issue is completely dead for me. I still think about it and if one day I come across a reason to believe, then I will, and admit I was wrong. But I am not afraid to say I am an atheist today.
Charles
charles,
not that you're still reading the comments. but, for me, agnosticism is an intellectually honest conclusion. if you admit that parts of scientific knowledge are faith-based then how can you claim anything to be absolutely irrefutable? i guess what i mean is that when you think about how knowledge is mutable and logic can be so easily divorced from reality to the point of holding no actual merit in the physical world (like mathetmatical concepts that don't have existence in physical reality), then how can you ever claim to know whether or not there is a god? the facts on which people base these beliefs can be argued so many different ways and in many cases just fall back into humanity questioning its own system of values (how can God be just if yada yada yada happens? well whoever said god was supposed to be good? whoever said god was supposed to care about anything? whoever said god was anything like man?)
i'm an agnostic because i don't think we can know one way or the other. it's not because i'm sitting on the fence weighing the arguments for or against. i don't think either side is convincing and both require faith to be a card-carrying member of the club.
anyways, you're probably just going to say that no believing in any absolute truths is a slippery slope that contradicts even itself. and it is. but, i've been stuck in that paradox for about six years so what are you going to do? that's why i'm agnostic.
If "no believing in absolute truths" means believing that all beliefs are fallible, there's no contradiction I can see.
Only if you're absolutely sure (or think you know with certainty) that all beliefs are fallible is this a contradiction. And I don't think the "beliefs are fallible" position is incompatible with what I consider to be a strict atheist point of view. For example, I believe there's no god, and I think there are good reasons to believe this, but I could be wrong. Just like I could be wrong about a lot of things I believe, like that nobody's going to read this comment.
On the other hand, if "no believing in absolute truths" means something weird like "there's no true answer to the question of whether there's a god", I have nothing to say.
Ben
#1 a-gnostic means :without knowledge ,in this case, of "God" .a-theist means : without "God" two different things, not at all synonomus(sic) with eachother. An atheist has deduced from the empirical evidence given them that "God" does not exist. An agnostic has realized that there is in fact no empirical evidence to support either supposition.
A believer, at least in my case, feels a prescence that cannot be empiricaly varrified to exist. This isn't "faith", for those who've felt it,it happens to some people ;they feel God. Now if one has never felt this there is no reason they should believe it exists. If you told me you saw a ten armed elephant on 16th st. yesterday I probably wouldn't buy it (though Hindu deities are an oft appearing and dissapearing bunch). What gets all our panties in a bunch is when we try to make sense of the feeling ,or lack of feeling,of God. How to make sense of something that cannot be proved to exist or not exist. Since no evidence can be presented on either side we're left with two options #1 the universe is fucking weird and it enters are brain through our sesnes, consequently how it ends up looking and feeling is entirely dependent on our own senses , so you don't feel God but I do ;that doesn't affect Gods existence for me or Gods non-existence for you.We each sense existence through our own little scopes. #2 I'm right your wrong. this is a popular option in our history and is still used by many to defend an opinion. Hence we get the whole sad history of religion, hell , martyrs, sin etc....and the brilliant history of religon, St. Francis, Pyhthagoras, Sufism, Gnosticism etc... It all depends on whose senses this information is being taken in by whether a positive or a negative reaction , in relation to the outside world,occurs. whew what a godamn windbag I am.
Breaks down like this...you got believers and doubters. Agnostics are the doubters who need a different term juuuuuuuuuust in case God is watching and might be getting pissed. Agnosticism is merely faith-based ass coverage, too Swiss for my blood. I say, take a spiritual shit or get off the theistic pot.
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