zappepcs's Journal: The Meme With No Name

It just occurred to me as I drink my ritual Sunday morning coffee, there is a new "Meme With No Name" (TM) growing on the intarwebtubes: Creationists are stupid!

Sure, that sounds like flame bait but this is MY journal and I can do that here :) There are plenty of well educated people who refute christian evangelicals and creationists and more specifically those that would have creationism taught in science classes or have evolution removed from science classes.

There are several reasons that I find their work both good and encouraging:
1 - These are *public* schools we are talking about, thus my money and how it is spent.
2 - This argument falls full force in the realm of separation of church and state. Despite any argument as to whether the constitution clearly demands such, it's a damn good idea and we should go ahead with making it so.

One thing I've noticed (and will try not to repeat here) is that there are plenty of folk who make themselves look foolish arguing one side or the other. Communication is an art, not something inherited from Ms Giles in 1st grade. We could *all* use a bit more work on learning to communicate.

It is paramount to know what you are arguing about if you are to do so effectively. I'm not inviting anyone to argue here BTW. I'd like to see a parser to detect false argument. That would be a huge and awesome piece of code :) Sort of an acid test for arguments. I know there are sites with helpful tips for logical debate, but I'd like to see that in code somehow. A non-biased reference to grade arguments with. A true step toward AI perhaps.

I call it a MWNN because it is becoming popular on many public forums and news sites to publish or aggregate stories and articles about creationism, atheism et al, and the resulting arguments. In my own view it is clearly simple to see the logic of the atheist argument vs. creationist or ID arguments. The former has evidence and logic and argument that does not rely on the opposition being wrong, the latter has faith and the self entitlement of ignorance, and plenty of argument as to why evolution is wrong so creationism must be right.

Perhaps the MWNN will get a name soon. I hope that it does before we see dogma driving violence in the USA as it seems to drive violence in many places around the globe. Ignoring PC, can we start calling a spade a spade? Argument based on faith = ignorance, where the value of argument is a presentation of self justification or presentation against the knowledge of someone else. Some people just are not happy till you believe as they do. I'm reasonably certain that is how wars have started in the past, although you might also put it down to ignorant behavior, greed, and general malevolent behavior of mankind in general.

I wish I could find some statistics regarding those who believe in ID or creationism and how many of them believe that we should keep troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries. I wonder how many of those God loving individuals hate non-christians?

Update: Some edifying links:

Argument? http://community.livejournal.com/endcreationism/260243.html
MWNN http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/
WTF? http://www.creationmuseum.org/
Science? http://75.125.60.6/~creatio1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=7
MWNN http://www.atheistnation.net/video/?video/01732/atheist/atheists-an-increasingly-outspoken-minority/
MWNN http://dbzer0.com/blog/resources-for-atheist-bloggers
Atheism http://wrongintheirmindtanks.blogspot.com/2008/07/effective-atheist-activism.html

How could I have forgotten this? http://www.venganza.org/

Awsome http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-09/eth.html

Chacham

[Captain Splendid]

The real problem with creationists isn't what they believe, it's that they think they're the tip-top of faith. Meanwhile, us poor fuckers who believe in unicorns and fairies get shafted. That's discrimination, mate.

Re:

[zappepcs]

That just reminded me to include a link to the one thing that makes me feel good in this world when I flail through a day thinking about this argument: The Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM should get much more credit than it does, especially for all the great things it does in our lives. His noodley appendages have touched us all, enriching our lives, enlightening our outlook on life and those we are forced to deal with daily. Thanks to the FSM I need no other imaginary friends.