The Creation Museum
- Thread starter superstring01
- Start date
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
No, he is right. All religion, by definition, teaches that an invisible, illogical supernatural universe exists, from which imaginary creatures capriciously and often angrily wield forces that interfere with the behavior of the natural universe. Since all evidence gathered since science as we know it was founded half a millennium ago consistently reinforces the truth that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior, this is, indeed a lie.
Religionists are told to accept it on faith, specifically an unreasoned faith. This does indeed work against rational scientific thought. Faith is a normal part of life, but only so long as it is a reasoned faith.
Unreasoned faith is a detriment to civilization and should be stamped out because it encourages people to behave irrationally.
You seem to believe that we atheists are antisocial people who do not share humanity's instinctive commitment to help others and work for the betterment of civilization.
I wonder why that is, since there is no evidence to support the assertion. Especially since it is the religionists who start most of the wars, and who appear to be attempting to destroy civilization and take us back to the Stone Age, when there was no science so no one questioned religion.
Your assertions have hereby been peer-reviewed and falsified. Do not repeat them on SciForums or I will consider banning you for trolling, which is against the rules.
Then how do you explain places like the creation museum where the owners knowingly tell lies to people?
are they in fact atheists?
or are they motivated by a supernatural being other than god? his opposite number perhaps? he is after all referred to as The Great Deceiver
That is not accurate. Many religions have more sophisticated and aware levels, or schools of thought, that do not posit such beings or such context for them - there is wisdom in many religions, often easily recognized by the willing.fraggle said:
The kinds of arrogant garbage we run into in defenses of "creationism" are not the whole, or even representative of the whole, of religion.
To claim otherwise is to advance a strawman argument, and its inadequacy becomes a shield for fundies. One of the strengths of the polemics of people like Dawkins, say, is their greater care and humility in specifying the factions or aspects of religion they inveigh against.
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Uh no, religion by definition is to believe in the unbelievable. If you are talking of some other thing (for lack of a better word) then spell it out, give us specific examples instead of talking around it. I'm certain that what you specify will either fall into the same bucket or will in fact not be a religion. :shrug:
And my initial point that started this was that any religion by allowing belief in unfounded/unprovable/supernatural ideas is an affront to science and rational thought.
superstring01
Moderator
Yes, and we can see the history of theist morality, answering to a higher authority. Need I remind you that Christians ethnically cleansed the Americas with the assistance and in the name of numerous church officials (insert your favorite church here). Christians wiped our whole villages during the Crusades. Christians burned thousands of witches in Germany. Christians invented “impalement” in Romania (Vlad the Impaler gets named after that wonderful torture). Christians tortured thousands of Maranos, Jews and Muslims in Iberia (Tomas de Torquemada, a Christian Catholic Priest acting on the orders of the Christian Monarch and the Christian Pope funded his program). Christian priests in Europe wrote books like “The Hammer of Witches”. Christians fought wars of succession over the British Crown in the hopes of preserving their particular faction (Catholicism or Protestantism). A Christian Czar and head of the Russian Orthodox Church wiped out hundreds-of-thousands of his own people building a new capital (St. Petersburg). Christians (in church on Sunday, no less!) falsely accused dozens of men and women of being “witches” here in America resulting in the hanging and drowning of 20 of them. 11 Christian slave states—championed by the churches of the south, who claimed that blacks had no souls—fought for the CSA over the issue of preserving the institution of slavery (amongst other issues). The Christian King Leopold II, of Belgium, oversaw one of the worst exterminations in human history in the Congo. The Christian head of the Church of England (King-Emperor George V), the Christian head of the Lutheran Church of the 2nd German Reich (Kaiser Wilhelm II), the Christian head of the Orthodox Church of Russia (Czar Nicolas II), the Muslim head of the modern caliphate of the Ottoman Empire (Sultan Mehmed VI), the Catholic clergy-enthroned monarch of Austria-Hungary (Emperor Charles I, now a CATHOLIC SAINT) and the Catholic clergy-enthroned monarch of Italy (King Victor Emmanuel II) all pushed for, started and fought a war between 1914-1918 resulting in 21 million dead. The Christian nation of Germany wearing “Got Micht Uns” (God With Us) on their belts, rounded up the Jews, gays, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and other “undesirables” and exterminated them in death camps. Along the way, they received massive support from the German Lutheran and Catholic churches. Notably, yet not exclusively, a Christian Catholic Priest (Josef Tiso) was head of the Czech SS and directly responsible for the massacre of millions of ‘god’s chosen people. Christian terrorists in Ireland waged wars over SECTS of one religion (Catholicism or protestantism). And this is just the SHORT LIST.
Then there is the long list of Muslim atrocities which include clitorectomies for women, witch hangings, an addiction to "dark ages" level of development and social philosophies, an inability to innovate or contribute to the industrialized world beyond supplying oil, theocracies, honor killings, never-ending terrorism in any number of nations, a complete disregard for basically any human right, an inability to avoid wide spread corruption, chronic oppression of women, execution of gays. . . and the list goes on.
Buddhism? Not exactly innocent. The Buddhists who dominated Tibet had a nasty habit of skinning "dissidents" alive, oppressing women, gays, etc.
Japanese Shintoists? With the emperor as its earthly god-head, they proceed to conquer much of East Asia and slaughtered millions before and during WWII.
Show me a religion, and I'll show you the most grotesque, mutant slaughters, oppression, corruption and evil in human history. Nothing, NOTHING compares to what people do with and in the name of religion.
And don't fool yourself into believing that "atheist states" like the USSR or China were ever "atheist". They were nationalist, which is just a fancy word for "state worship". They even fit the cookie-cutter perfectly: songs, marches, visits to "hallowed" shrines of their fallen heroes/patriots, icons built in the image of communist idols. In fact, they are indistinguishable in any way, shape or form, from religion except that they don't believe in a god.
Each seek to subjugate individuality and personal accountability and substitute the dominance of a superior power (state, god, angels, demons, whatever). Religion and its hand-maiden, nationalism are responsible for about every human atrocity in history.
On the other hand, you have secular humanism, liberalism (not to be confused with "leftism", which is another debate) and libertarianism. Show me ONE SINGLE secular humanist who has ever conquered another nation, oppressed women, gays, minorities. In fact, we can see, right now, the absolute moral authority of secular atheist humanists over all other religious or moral beliefs: in the nations where it has taken hold, you actually have transparent, open, honest, functioning, accessible government. You have lower crime, higher standers of education and overall superior life satisfaction. You can find these places in Europe and--to some degree--in North America, Australia and New Zealand. Maybe in a few years, we'll see it in some Eastern Asian nations.
On the contrary, the more religious a nation is, the higher the crime (government sanctioned crime fits just as well) tyranny, oppression and overall desperation.
~String
Totally not the same thing. They are not claiming that they BELIEVED these things they are saying that they BELIEVE these things now.
I think 99% of Christians cringe when they see museums like this.
I often wonder what the makeup of people who visit the museum is. Are the remaining 1% sufficient to keep such museums open? Or are the majority of visitors going to see an amusing display of religious extremism, the way someone might go to a circus sideshow?
Pfft. That only proves they evolved carnivory at some point! Clearly their message was too subtle for the lay inquirer.
I would actually visit in that vein. But only if could be promised a screaming argument with a tour guide.
What a terrible overspecialization you have made.
Let me know when you're going. I want to scream too lol. How to start it off though.... I've got it. Infect them with MSRA to prove to them that evolution exists.
jk
I would so visit this place, and intend to.
I want to see what percentage of the audience dissolves in hysterical laughter.
Provided I can still count while laughing.
Unbelievable...
Pfft. Shows what you know. They all died in the Flood. Anti-sceantist!
Let me know when you're going. I want to scream too lol. How to start it off though.... I've got it. Infect them with MSRA to prove to them that evolution exists.
I would so visit this place, and intend to.
I want to see what percentage of the audience dissolves in hysterical laughter.
Provided I can still count while laughing.
Unbelievable...
I've thought about that, and they must get a lot of critics passing through; and any Darwinian critic worth his or her salt would probably start a fight, as I would. So they must have prepared for that: a jelly doughnut says their tour guides are overproportionally young attractive women, because you won't start a vicious argument with them.
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Hey brother can you see yourself as a DICTATOR I have to play by your rule or otherwise I am out.
Brother . Were did you got this that religionists are attempting to destroy civilization ? Check it out most of the well known scientists including nobel prize were people who professed a faith .
Brother who brings the backward man into the society are your kind or religiours charity organization ?
Brother Can you tell me How did Mao, Stalin , Pol pot, I forgot the Albanian clown name , and many other of your kind contributed to upgrade civilization .
Now Brother get pissed, and punish me, because you have the power , show me your open mindness.
superstring01
Moderator
He never said you had to play by his rules, so spare us the histrionics. In fact, it's theists who have the longest history of murdering people who disagree with them.
He said, "appear to be", as in: they (theists) have started more wars, wiped out more people and destroyed more civilizations in the past ten thousand years than anybody else.
That's sort of like patting the pyromaniac on the back for saving his kids from the fire he started. Sure. . . I mean, yeah, he saved them from the fire. But since he started it, the whole "HEY YOU DID GOOD" thing is sort of negated.
Theists have created most of the international issues that have forever plagued mankind. That there are a few decent theists out there who save the occasional human life is far outweighed by the gazillions of people killed because of them.
You've just shifted the goal posts which is common to most theists and is exhibit "a", in the evidence that most theists are liars and outrageous hypocrites.
- At no point did Fraggle support or advance any of those ideologies. That they were atheists is secondary. They were, first and foremost, megalomaniacs, autocrats, authoritarians, sadists, sociopaths who bought into corrupt socio-economic ideologies that put individual human beings ubservient to an all powerful state. . . .
- . . . which sound sort of familiar doesn't it? Religion created patriotism. In fact, the two were completely inseparable until basically (and well after, in fact) the American Revolution. Church and State walked hand in hand, and both oppressed individual rights and personal liberty. Patriotism is just religion re-branded and Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism is just religion rebranded as state worship. As I pointed out earlier--if observed from a million miles away--they are indistinguishable. They have festivals, songs, marches, beheading, oppression, witch hunts, idol worship and a priestly hierarchy that dominates the masses.
- Any ideology that seeks to put humans at the bottom of a higher power; that seeks to force humans to set aside their own good common sense in favor of some autocrat (imagined or real) is destined to cause war and strife.
No. Punishment for heretics and apostates; for dissidents and protesters is what theists do. No one is advocating for religious vocalists to be punished. But we can all name the religions and quasi-religious ideologies that seek to oppress people who differ from them.
~String
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You have taken a nice defensive position for the underdog ( atheist ) The way as you a re pointing out The theist are the evil and the atheist are the good and benevolent.
Could you express the good that the atheist are bringing to mankind