Oh, dear. Earlier, I wrote about Ken Ham’s visit to the Pentagon, a soul-shuddering thought if ever there was one, and it seems Ken has read it. He has replied with a blog entry titled Biology Professor Calls Me “Wackaloon”. Ken, Ken, Ken. You act shocked at the thought that one guy publicly stated that you were Mr Flaming Nutbar, but you shouldn’t be. Millions of people, including some of the most knowledgeable biologists in the world, think just about every day that you are an airhead, an ass, a birdbrain, a blockhead, a bonehead, a boob, a bozo, a charlatan, a cheat, a chowderhead, a chump, a clod, a con artist, a crackpot, a crank, a crazy, a cretin, a dimwit, a dingbat, a dingleberry, a dipstick, a ditz, a dolt, a doofus, a dork, a dum-dum, a dumb-ass, a dumbo, a dummy, a dunce, a dunderhead, a fake, a fathead, a fraud, a fruitcake, a gonif, a halfwit, an idiot, an ignoramus, an imbecile, a jackass, a jerk, a jughead, a knucklehead, a kook, a lamebrain, a loon, a loony, a lummox, a meatball, a meathead, a moron, a mountebank, a nincompoop, a ninny, a nitwit, a numbnuts, a numbskull, a nut, a nutcase, a peabrain, a pinhead, a racketeer, a sap, a scam artist, a screwball, a sham, a simpleton, a snake oil salesman, a thickhead, a turkey, a twerp, a twit, a wacko, a woodenhead, and much, much worse.
You’re a clueless schmuck who knows nothing about science and has arrogantly built a big fat fake museum to promote medieval bullshit — you should not be surprised to learn that you are held in very low esteem by the community of scholars and scientists, and by the even larger community of lay people who have made the effort to learn more about science than you have (admittedly, though, you have set the bar very, very low on that, and there are 5 year old children who have a better grasp of the principles of science as well as more mastery of details of evolution than you do.)
Maybe you should write a blog entry calling attention to each insult given to you. I think that’s your calling, and it’s probably god’s intended mission for you in life, to inspire contempt.
(I encourage each and every one of my readers to express their true feelings about Ken Ham in the comment thread here. Then I want Mr Ham to write an indignant post complaining that “So-and-so called me a “disgrace to brain-damaged clowns””, or whatever — that’ll keep him occupied for years, and will distract him from his campaign of abusing the minds of young children. Be creative.)
I’m still waiting for the good news that PZ has stage 4 cancer of the balls, liver, pancreas, and throat.
I’ll be throwing a party on that glad and joyous day.
In the meantime the I wish the 98% of the evopigs who post here good luck with their GH or other animal contracted STD.
The schlemiel is an inept perpetrator; the schlimazel is the unlucky victim (literally, Schlimm=bad, mazel=luck,fortune).
The canonical example from Leo Rosten is that the schlemiel spills the soup; the schlimazel is the one that the schlemiel spills the soup on.
I just Googled “‘Ken Ham’ piglet rapist” and came up with this as #5:
Google can be such a riot! There’s no “piglet rapist” forum though (yeah, I just had to go and look)….. :-)
Another Saturday night, no date, no vino, and nothing better to do than ruthlessly bust on a mental defective =sigh=
And may you have good luck with yours!
Although, really, you shouldn’t have done that with your mother. You know that I officially disapprove of such antics.
Ken Ham was recently seen staring very hard at a can of frozen orange juice. Someone asked him what he was doing, and he just pointed to the orange juice label, which said “concentrate.”
A bible thumping simpleton with cognitive powers no greater than the animatronic dummies that populate his fake museum.
Ken Ham phallically administers thalidomide to the minds of your children and then makes them wait for the Second Coming.
Wow, such a display of strong emotion from PZ when he thinks he has arch enemy Ken Ham’s attention. Never seen him rant like this since I have been visiting the blog…
You’re a clueless schmuck who knows nothing about science and has arrogantly built a big fat fake museum to promote medieval (bleep)
All this over a prayer? Well I know it’s deeper than that and certainly more people engage in a discussion when someone rants…I’m afraid PZ who himself doesn’t like to engage people in the blogs, you can’t tell him (Ken Ham or anyone else) how to think in a lab…Admit it, PZ he angered you, he stirred your emotions big time, you wanted to stir people up…How dare creationist build a museum, how dare people think of other conclusions in the lab besides naturalism…And no PZ, your not going to get Ken Ham cursing you out…He’s a professional when presenting his viewpoint unlike you!
By the way, Citizen Z @#148:
Given the dietary requirements of Muslims which defines pigs as non-halal, a Muslim Ken Ham would have to be even more of a turkey.
Are there any other Aussies interested in bringing a class action against Ken Ham for bringing our beloved brown land into disrepute. I’m sure that in the Maquarie dictionary under “Cultural cringe” there’s a picture of him.
Oh Keith, you were just so accurate about your predictions for Expired. I am sure your prediction of PZ’s cancer is just as on target.
What dark and murderous fantasies you display. No wonder you seem to think you need such a stern sky daddy to keep your sins in check.
And Keith, according to the teachings of the little guy(Jeebus), thinking of sin is the same as committing sin. You murderous bastard.
Micheal, you highlight PZ’s main point and then go off about prayer. Ham is actively working at reducing the knowledge of the general population and you think the complaint is about prayer. It is the fact the a group of people who have the fates of millions in their hands takes seriously the opinion of this deluded person. Methinks you need the mote removed from you eye.
To those who accuse this merry band of being unitellectual, I offer not merely a series of insults used by Shakespere in his works, but a glorious quote from King Lear, Act II, scene II (I’ve changed the characters for relevance):
Science: Fellow, I know thee.
Ham: What dost thou knowst me for?
Sci.: A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rouge; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggard, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.
Ken Ham rapes baby pigs? I’m not surprised.
While recently visiting a small Fort Lauderdale museum I read that Indians (native Americans) lived in that area 10,000 years ago. I was reminded that Ken Ham believes the entire universe was magically created 6,000 years ago. There is no word that can accurately describe the stupidity of Ken Ham.
Wow, Zarquon (#329) I don’t think I’ve *ever* seen nor heard anyone else use the fontema insult before. d00d!
Ham, you gabbling limpet!
“Dear Ken Ham:
“You are the boil on the ass of humanity. You’re an infantile fuckwit whose insistence on the truth of fairy tales promotes nothing but ignorance and hate. I’ve known syphillitic penises smarter than you (and this is after the disease has progressed to general paresis). You, sir, suck leper donkey dick, and moreover I believe you swallow…”
Well, that was fun. Who’s for Chinese?
If science doesn’t work then why do the lights keep coming on every time I flip that switch on the wall?
Get a grip Ken.
@ Autumn #513
I’m way ahead of you. See #397
:p
There are no conclusions in science other than naturalism.
#508
Yeah, Ham’s a professional alright. A professional liar. A professional scam artist. A professional child mind molester.
As far as his viewpoint goes, can delusion be called a viewpoint?
As for PZ, he starts the fire. We fan the flames. And with any luck we’ll burn this bastard right off the face of the planet or at the very least take every single shred of false credibility away from him so he can’t damage anyone else. Like he did to you.
All this over a prayer?
No, “all this” over every lie Ham has told, over every effort he has made to promote ignorance, over his ostensible life’s work of pushing back the boundaries of enlightenment to let in the darkness. “All this” is nothing – NOTHING – compared with what he has done and what he intends to do.
Poster boy for pretentious prevarication. Must be religious.
He is a noxious weed from Australia. Now where’s my Roundup?
I see Keith is back, and in good form.
Keith, get away from the computer before Nurse R. sees you. You’ll lose rumpus-room privs for a week. And stop hiding your meds under your tongue. They don’t do you any good sitting in the flowerpot, covered with your spit.
Ken Ham is a waste of skin.
Kevin & Avnon…you are supposed to love the sinner.
Such unchristian sentiments in your posts..straight to HELL for you …..Hahaha….you blew it
@ Wild Bob,
Forgot to mention that I hadn’t read the whole thread, and glad I’m not the only one to appreciate that passage, but how could you leave out the part about beating “into a clamorous whining” he who would “deny the least syllable of his addition”?
That’s my favorite part, and the part that Ham is so close to deserving.
@ Autumn,
You caught me. I cheated. You’ll have to ask Melvyn Bragg. He assembled a bunch of Shakespearian insults into a dialog in The Adventure of English and left that bit out.
Oops.
Ken Ham believes that people were created from dirt and T. rex was a vegetarian. That should be enough cause for ridicule.
I imagine that Ken Ham’s Brain is no where as delicious as Francis Bacon’s.
Ken Ham. That’s what I would call him. It might not be very creative, sorry PZ, nor would Ken be very insulted by it. But I laugh my ass off when I hear the name and if anyone called me a ‘Ken Ham’ I would cry like a baby. He’s made his own name into enough of an insult I laugh at Hormel Ham, Oscar Myer Ham, Petridge Farm Ham… Maybe his family will sue to make him stop using his paternal identity.
Just for lulz…
Ken Ham – EPIC FAIL
ken ham is a mind abusing waste of skin and oxygen who should be locked in the same prison cell as kent hovind and his kneemail. I can not bring myself to capitalise his name because that would be giving the worst aussie since Chopper Reid (at least he is funny) Please take ray comfort and dissapear to some small coral atoll threatened by global warming.
Your comments section is not safe for adult children.
Mr. Ham needs to stop lying to children, needs to stop misleading adults, and needs to fucking GETA CLUE!!
ken ham is a mind abusing waste of skin and oxygen who should be locked in the same prison cell as kent hovind and his knee-mail. I can not bring myself to capitalise his name because that would be giving the worst Aussie since Chopper Reid (at least he is funny) Please take ray comfort and disappear to some small coral atoll threatened by rising sea levels.
Mr. Ham needs to stop lying to children, needs to stop misleading adults, and needs to fucking GETA CLUE!!
I TOTALLY forgot my favorite description for Ken Ham in my previous comment. Wally Warning – No Monkey. Youtube-search it. I swear it’s about Ken Ham.
@502 Thanks. I know I should learn more Yiddish, but I really dislike people who speak “Yinglish” so i kind of subconsciously avoid the language.
What a phenomenally stupid man.
“creationist museum” – I so agree with that:
Creationists should be all displayed in museums.
For public interest, representing things and beliefs of the past.
When people believed the Earth was flat…
I am amused.
I can actually relate to that. What the hell has for example Daniel Dennett and the atheist philosophers actually accomplished other than make people like *you* feel superior to everyone else? Did Dennett invent something useful? I haven’t heard … but many of you clowns think he’s fabulous.
You’re not contrasting Dennett with other philosophers, I hope. He is perhaps the only philosopher in history to produce something useful. For starters, you might want to look up the intentional stance and the multiple drafts model of consciousness.
Well, I always new that Mr. Ken Ham was a wacko, we all know that. Some people might just argue that every one of us are alowed to behave on a stupid way, We all can make mistakes, but that guy, Mr Ham, well, he abuses of that right and turns it into a privilege.
Pathetic =/
Its great to see how the change in attitude by atheists and other defenders of reason,when we stopped hiding in the closet and turned on the believer’s delirious babble and started revealing,exposing,debating and ridiculing it, has made the creationists nervous,and how in their futile efforts to argue the unargueable(is that a word?) they just show the world what close-minded deluded fools they are(and as in a few examples above,dangerous,misogynistic and murderous fools).
So I say,lets have more 500-comment threads with insults to dangerous deluded dupes that threaten the education of our children !
Ken ham engages in fecal cognition.
Ken Ham is a parasitic slime mold with a fungal infection.
Ken Ham has none of the qualities possessed by a necrophiliac pedophile.
Ken Ham has a mighty brain
It’s of this brain we sing
For unlike any other brain
It doesn’t do a thing.
Ken Ham, a new species of feces.
Ken Ham can kill an erection in a 14 year old boy.
Ken Ham was refused a circumcision to spare the world the sight of his glans.
Ken Ham is bilge water on a shit barge.
When Ken Ham speaks of Satan, Satan gains friends.
Ken Ham is lower than the boundary layer between Earth’s crust and the mantle.
Ken Ham makes Baby Jesus homicidal.
Ken Ham can’t wipe his own ass, because he doesn’t know where to start. Or stop.
A myxobacterial slime mold is a more advanced life form.
Smarter too.
His intestinal flora are in the process of deserting him.
Ken Ham has the odious habits of a tasmanian devil, without the charm.
If brains were gunpowder, Ken Ham couldn’t make a flea fart.
Ken Ham is a deeply ignorant and foolish person, who seeks to distribute his misinformation to young minds, thereby crippling another generation’s intellect as well as his own.
Ken Ham – you are dog’s vomit!!!
If ken ham was broken down to his component atoms and those atoms were reassembled as pond scum, it would reduce the average iq of pond scum. Globally.
This vile outpouring of hateful savagery will hinder rather than help the cause of secularism. No-one deserves this kind of treatment.
Hey, I got a new one. Ken Ham is a J.
to say that ken ham is a neanderthal would be an insult to neanderthals… although the resemblance is uncanny
“This vile outpouring of hateful savagery will hinder rather than help the cause of secularism. No-one deserves this kind of treatment.”
if anyone deserves it it’s ken ham
J has no problem with the illegal invasion of Iraq and the resulting hundreds of thousands of deaths, other than that it didn’t work (see A smattering of news from the wicked world of religion), but regards this thread as “a vile outpouring of hateful savagery”. So if George Bush and Tony Blair had called Saddam Hussein lots of nasty names, he’d have been the first to condemn them.
J wrote: “This vile outpouring of hateful savagery will hinder rather than help the cause of secularism. No-one deserves this kind of treatment.”
With creationists and other religious dogmatists, rational discourse almost completely fails.
Hence the importance of ridicule, satire, sarcasm and, yes, even insult. These people, of which Ken Ham is a prominent member, so very richly deserve it!
J has no problem with the illegal invasion of Iraq and the resulting hundreds of thousands of deaths, other than that it didn’t work…
The “illegal” part is open to debate, as Christopher Hitchens frequently points out. And yes, I’m not ashamed to say I probably would have supported those efforts to remove an evil dictator if I thought it could have been accomplished at sufficiently low cost (which it couldn’t).
Ken Ham is exceedingly intellectually dishonest, just like many (probably most) human beings. Condone this sort of treatment of a fairly ordinary person (by American standards, at least), and you’re on a very slippery slope.
The “illegal” part is open to debate
Not to honest debate it isn’t. The UN charter makes quite clear that military force is only legal if either in self-defence, or when specifically authorised by the Security Council. Also, of course, the “removal of an evil dictator” was neither the professed nor the actual motive. That you find calling a professional liar rude names unacceptable while planning and waging aggressive war is “open to debate” us all we need to know about your morality, J.
It really is to bad that mother wasn’t Pro-Choice
and used the option
J, man up and stop being a puss.
Seriously.
No, seriously.
Neil – I think PZ makes a pretty valid point here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php
And perhaps I’m out of line, an intellectual lightweight attmepting to distill his thoughts, but…
Sometimes it doesn’t genius to spot bullshit.
“…sophistic abstract reasoning, modal realism, comparative statistics of possible model worlds…”
Gimme a break.
Sometimes it doesn’t *take* genius to spot bullshit.
Oops, probably emphasises my point if anything ;)
That you find calling a professional liar rude names unacceptable while planning and waging aggressive war is “open to debate” us all we need to know about your morality, J.
Open to debate if “planning and waging aggressive war” has the goal of removing an evil dictator from power, yes. Pontificate as you like, but there’s no knockdown argument against the notion that oppressive tyrants should be removed if their removal can be effected at little financial and human cost.
Spreading ignorance and religious narrow-mindedness… How sad.
Poor Ham, he will now realize that after this deluge of derogation, wackaloon was really a compliment.
And the few religites posting on this thread, are obsessed with a veneer of nicety so much that they have confused inane and insipid ‘polite’ phrasing as being as important as substantial content.
Though it is fun to do what we have doing, going full creative throttle on making up insults, the real important lesson of this thread, is that there is an persistent underlying substantial basis to the insulting, that Ham is a dangerous individual who is preying on kids and their intellectual potential. Simply, Ham is an anti-intellectual bastard and an emotional coward and his pathetic ‘polite’ bleatings can’t hide that perturbing fact.
@ Logicel,I didnt feel that the hate and murder postings from keith and some of the other creofascists were particularly polite,to be honest.
@ J above :
While I defended you in another thread regarding your view on religion recently,your political views are really a mess man.So who gets to decide who the evil dictator is,and who to remove and who to leave in power,what should the criteria be?And if I was an american soldier,why do I have to lose my life because some douchebag decides that evil dictator X has to be removed? And as to “at little financial and human cost”,tell that to the families of the little human cost victims.Thats just naive thinking.
and thunderf00t called venomfangx the poster
child for creationist stupidity ….to me THIS *sshole takes the cake
well, ken ham is simply just a con artist..ive heard that he has a vicious temper as well but that 2nd is hearsay
brightmoon@564
I’m inclined to agree that Ham is number 1 among active creobots for sheer stupidity, in the face of strong competition from Ben Stein among others; but both Vox Day and Tom Willis surely outrank him with regard to outright Christofascist malevolence.
While I defended you in another thread regarding your view on religion recently,your political views are really a mess man.So who gets to decide who the evil dictator is,and who to remove and who to leave in power,what should the criteria be?
The same, of course, can be said about opposing tyrants like Hitler. I think the near consensus is that a lot of harm might have been circumvented if military action was threatened before he was able to turn Germany into a military superpower. And even if he wasn’t internationally belligerent, do you think it would be OK to sit back and let him ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of German Jews?
Philosophers try to look for nice and neat ethical systems, which they feel gives them the kind of “absolute criteria” you seem to be asking for. But I think they’re wasting their time. There are some slippery slopes that we just have to live with. (And there are some which are entirely gratuitous, such as the one created by treating Ken Ham so brutally.)
Ken Ham = Me Khan.
I prefer Ricardo Montalban’s knowledge of science, myself.
Yes, Clinteas, you are correct about those insane commenters who wrote murderous comments, but I suppose I left them out of my synopsis because I regard them neither being Christians or religites, but demented animals (not meaning to cast aspersions on rabid dogs.)
Regarding ridiculing or ridiculing IDiots, this is PZ Myers’ blog, he wants to ridicule, it is his choice, and it our choice to read his posts, and there are some atheists who do not want to stop reading posts written in a style that causes them discomfit, so they try to meddle and change the style which is just too stupid. Or worse, they try to ‘commandeer’ the atheist ‘movement’, saying that this blog is destroying the movement. Give me a break and some friggin’ evidence first before I can even seriously consider these objections.
Ken Ham:
You think you’re god’s gift, you’re a liar
I wouldn’t piss on you, if you were on fire
(Repeat)
Aggression and treaty-breaking should certainly be opposed, by force if necessary. In Hitler’s case, the first opportunity to do so was in 1935, when he remilitarised the Rhineland – as he admitted to his generals, if France had reacted by sending in troops, as it was entitled to do by the Treaty of Versailles, he would have had to withdraw – and quite possibly his regime would have fallen. In Saddam Hussein’s case, the first opportunity was when he attacked Iran in 1980 – but instead, outside powers (USSR, France, USA, UK) supplied him with arms and diplomatic support. In 1990, an extraordinarily wide coalition was able to be assembled to throw him out of Kuwait – after which he was, in fact, little or no threat to any of his neighbours, and there was no legal or moral justification for the invasion of 2003.
Ken, you ignorant slut! You are an an ass-faced, shit-for-brains. Your wheel is turning, but the hamster is long dead. Your elevator doesn’t go all the way upp. You’re in good company with the Pharyngula Dungeon trolls. [Insert witty insults here]. May you be eaten last! (Although it will hardly matter for your sanity, such as it is).
Ken Ham is a quite simply a salesman, an opportunist. He’s selling the new hot thing that the market is demanding, which happens to be creationism (which says more about the market than anything else). He’s got no integrity, no knowledge and no conscience.
Hopefully, after a couple of years of peace and growth in this country, he and his ilk will be out of the mainstream.
Ken Ham is so full of shit his eyes are brown
We have an expression in Danish which I would have loved to share with you all, but I don’t think there’s any way short learning quite a bit of Danish… :o(
It sums Ham up pretty well. For the rest of the Danish people on here, Ham is “lige til at lukke op og skide i”.
The bare meaning is something like “ripe for opening up and taking a crap into”, but I think the Danish language was designed with that particular phrase in mind – it is extraordinarily concise in Danish.
Bloody hell. This is what I get when I don’t log on for a couple of days.
Thanks everyone for not leaping to the conclusion that everyone from Queensland (Ham’s home state – and mine – in Australia) is chock-full of similarly-minded creeps.
Because it isn’t. It is, however, a place where cousins breed with each other, and occasionally bring forth an ugly, deranged mutant like Ken. It would explain the developmental issues, both physical and mental.
In Australia, fundies are grown (well, crapped out) for the export market.
We should take some consolation in knowing that when the inevitable happens and creationism has gone the way of the dinosaurs it lies so much about, Ken Ham will be remembered as this: a worthless piece of shit who tried his hardest to make our world a worse place for humanity. His unfortunate descendants will change their names to avoid the stigma of having had such a monstrous, repugnant scumbag contribute his defective genetic material to their gene pool.
And since i’m not above being puerile: I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his gums were on fire.
Ken Ham’s campaign to distort the minds of the youth makes me sick.
Let’s put this in the form of a joke:
“A biologist walks into a bar and loudly proclaims:
-Ken Ham is an idiot!
A man sitting at a table replies:
-That thing you said is very offensive to me.
-Oh, so you are a Ken Ham supporter?
-No, I’m an idiot.”
[drumroll]
In Saddam Hussein’s case, the first opportunity was when he attacked Iran in 1980 – but instead, outside powers (USSR, France, USA, UK) supplied him with arms and diplomatic support.
I know you’re all desperate to show off you knowledge of history, but take another look at what I said after mentioning Hitler:
And even if he wasn’t internationally belligerent, do you think it would be OK to sit back and let him ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of German Jews?
Intentional belligerence isn’t the sole issue, in my mind, so going on only about how to deal with international belligerents misses the point. I like to see dictators who oppress their own people taken down if and when it’s expedient to do so. This is not a sneer-worthy position. Don’t pretend otherwise.
Anyway, this thread has nothing to do with my opinion on policy regarding tyrants. You only brought it up in a spiteful attempt to get a witch-hunt against me started.
Neil B. (Comment #92):
Yes we would, since we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that regularity and consistency. It’s a necessary prerequisite for our existing in the first place (or to put it another way, the prior probability of our finding ourselves in such a world is 1). If we found ourselves in a world without regularity and consistency, then that would be a fact standing in need of explanation. Of course, in such a world we wouldn’t be able to exist for very long, let alone function, so we wouldn’t be in much of a position to ponder the issue.
So I’m afraid that there are good reasons for not taking your anthropic “philosophical theism” seriously.
Back on topic, if anyone runs out of Shakespearean insults for the dismal Mr Ham, try the Captain Haddock Insult Generator, a few clicks of which gives us:
Miserable blundering barbecued blister!
Ectoplasm!
Vermicelli!
Balkan beetle!
Slubberdegullion!
Pickled herring!
Prize nincompoop!
Poltroon!
Thundering son of a sea-gherkin!
Another handy list of Haddock-isms is here.
And, to add the latest internet meme to the insults:
Kent Ham is NOT aware of all internet tradtions
even if he [Hitler] wasn’t internationally belligerent – J.
I know you’re eager to show off your ignorance of history, J., but you’re going too far here. International belligerence was the core of Hitler’s policy. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Rwanda in 1994 would be much clearer examples. There I concede there would be a strong moral case for intervention even against international law – but no-one tried it (the unfortunate Cambodians had to wait until the KR made the mistake of attacking Vietnam). Because contrary to your naive views, J., there are no virtuous great powers. As long as we have a competitive, militarised states-system, there will be strong selection pressure against any emerging, and against politicians within great powers promoting such policies. About the best we can hope for is to limit international aggression by punishing aggressors.
As an Aussie I am so proud that Ham had to go to another country to peddle his malignent Dark Age mind-cancer.
I’m sure his ancestors will change their name rather than be associated with the embarrasing legacy of his actions.
I know you’re eager to show off your ignorance of history, J., but you’re going too far here. International belligerence was the core of Hitler’s policy.
Of course it fucking was. Obviously I was using a hypothetical, dumbass.
Continue deluding yourself into believing that the West is on no morally higher level than the parts of the world which are steep submerged in barbarism. By all means continue spreading your braindead anti-American propaganda as if it’s the Uncontestable Truth. I’m now too bored by it to bother arguing against you any longer.
…steep submerged in barbarism.
Still submerged in barbarism, even.
J, I know you think I should pretend to be as ignorant of history and politics as you are in order to give you a fair chance in an argument, but I’m afraid I just can’t manage it. Sorry.
Because contrary to your naive views, J., there are no virtuous great powers. As long as we have a competitive, militarised states-system, there will be strong selection pressure against any emerging, and against politicians within great powers promoting such policies.
Oh yes, and this is all thoroughly uncontroversial stuff, isn’t it? Someone who doesn’t without hesitation accept it as Uncontestable Truth deserves nothing less than scorn and derision, and doesn’t have a right to express his opinion on anything else, e.g. how we should deal with Ken Ham.
J, I know you think I should pretend to be as ignorant of history and politics as you are in order to give you a fair chance in an argument, but I’m afraid I just can’t manage it. Sorry.
Or alternatively, I’m not prone to reciting barely relevant fact after barely relevant fact in a pathetic endeavour to show off.
Loose your bag of wind elsewhere.
J,
Opinions expressed with bumptious certainty, but without the knowledge to argue for them rationally, deserve scorn and derision, whether they are advanced by you, or by Ken Ham.
Ken Ham is the reason “Jesus wept” (according to mythology).
Ken Ham is a boning Fido wackaloon.
Why not directly challenge him to present some of his positive scientific evidence for a creation, and go one-on-one in presentation and rebuttal with him for a few rounds? Correction – for one round since he doesn’t have any positive science, all he has is a sour grapes whine and it’s a bad year at that.
Opinions expressed with bumptious certainty, but without the knowledge to argue for them rationally, deserve scorn and derision, whether they are advanced by you, or by Ken Ham.
You keep going on about “knowledge”, I notice. Evidently the actual logic of my arguments isn’t of consequence. What matters to you most is whether I have dressed my posts up in unnecessary facts relating to history and politics.
It might be difficult for you to get your head around this, but I don’t operate like that. I supply facts only when I feel they’re helpful. And certainly it’s unfair to expect me to go into detail just to defend myself against your spiteful personal attack on me, which had very little to do with this thread in any case.
To return to the original point:
These attacks on Ken Ham aren’t a good idea, in my opinion. You’re playing right into their hands. If they ever want a good example of how nasty atheists can get, they’ll simply direct people to this thread.
Note that this has nothing whatever to do with my ideas on foreign policy regarding dictators.
Alan Kellogg,
because of you, I spoilt my coffee all over my shirt ! What a good laugh though ! :-)
Logic that starts from false premises is liable to lead to false conclusions even if sound. Ken Ham starts from the premise that the Bible cannot err – and so, validly, concludes that the evidence for common descent must be flawed. you start from the false premise that “the West”, and in particular the elites of the US and other western powers, are fundamentally more virtuous than the rest of the world; and come to similarly absurd conclusions. Your false premise has been absorbed from news sources largely controlled by those elites, and the information necessary to start analysing what they say critically is largely historical.
I’m a welfare mom living in a rotting trailer in Texas and even I can definitely state here publicly that Ken Ham is the axis of all ignorance. (But now I’m scared. Will Ken Ham contact the religious right/government in Texas and have my food stamps taken away?)
Wow. 591 comments…
You are lying. I repeat: what you say is wrong, and you know it.
Wake me up when an atheist throws a bomb into a church.
Really. Pointing and laughing is what you call “nasty”? Get a grip.
Bah. Those you have to see in the original French. BACHI-BOUZOUKS ! ORNITHOLOGUES ! CHAUFFARDS ! PHYLACTÈRES !
Why do I always get to these parties too late?
Anyway, I can’t put it any better than the late Freddie Mercury – this seems appropriate:
You suck my blood like a leech
You break the law and you preach
Screw my brain till it hurts
Misguided old mule with your pig headed rules
With your narrow minded cronies
Who are fools of the first division
Kill joy
Bad guy
Big talking
Small fry
Is your conscience all right
Does it plague you at night?
You talk like a big business tycoon
You’re just a hot air balloon
So no one gives you a damn
You’re just an overgrown schoolboy
Let me tan your hide
A dog with disease
You’re the king of the sleaze
Insane
you should be put inside
You’re a sewer rat
Decaying in a cesspool of pride
Should be made unemployed
Make yourself null and void
You forgot Mrs. Tilton’s favorite: “gobshite”.
P.S. Excuse me if someone offered this gem of Irish invective somewhere in the 595+ comments above.
Ken Ham has the brains of a retarded goana.
Look, if atheists say “Ken Ham is an idiot” then that washes off his back. He expects that. This, however, is what should sting:
“I am a Christian. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. Ken Ham, you’re an idiot. You should be ashamed to sully the good name of my faith with your egomaniacal, scientifically bankrupt, scripturally twisted, unashamedly manipulative swindle, disguised not at all by the lashings of self congratulation and smarmy self righteousness you exude”
Or… to pinch a couple of lines from Monty Python and add Ken’s name to it:
“Have you heard the news? Ken Ham’s having an arsehole transplant!”
“Yes, but have you read the Stop Press? Apparently the arsehole rejected him…”
Elwood Herring@600 An alternative punchline:
So he’s had to cancel his speaking engagements for the next six months!
Does that mean they’ll stop referring to Stalin as an example of “how nasty atheists can get”? Sounds good! Bring them on!
Someone told me that witch hunts didn’t amount to much. Witch burnings were exceedingly rare so you probably don’t have anything to worry about!
He’s a four-flushing, cut-purse, knife-in-the-back, choad, as amply documented by his former colleagues in Australia, whom he casually shoved aside in his maniacal quest for Mammon. But there’s a bright side to it all: he has also become to them the living embodiment of the following passage:
Matt 7:15-20
15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
16 By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.
Such sterling examples of godly behavior as Ham’s invariably turn victims to re-examine the message the false prophet delivered, by the very standard contained in the scriptures he flogged them with. If the tree is rotten, its fruit is suspect.
But I sincerely doubt that would trouble him in the slightest. He’s weeping over his lost soul–all the way to the bank. Gawd almighty, he makes a better atheist than any of the free-thinkers here!!
Hmmm.
Any similarity to the Viennese question “have they shat into your brain”?
(Hmm. Phonetically, this question starts with “hamster”. Coincidence???)
I am quite convinced that Ken Ham has a very small penis.
“If they ever want a good example of how nasty atheists can get, they’ll simply direct people to this thread.”
Should we respect stupid assholes like Ken Ham who make a living by ruining the lives of children? I don’t think so.
Religious extremists who are constantly lying about science to defend their idiotic childish Genesis creation myth need to understand they will be ridiculed for the rest of their pathetic lives. They need to know if they don’t learn how to respect the wall of separation between church and state, they will be attacked relentlessly. The breathtaking stupidity of religious beliefs have been respected far too long. Morons who attack science and science education, and who lie to children about science, deserve to be ridiculed. If it was up to me they would be put in prison.
Oh, but J – what’s a little name-calling in the scope of history? It’s not like 60,00 dead witches or anything.
*snort*
Ken Ham is wrong about evolution.
Hi guys,
My first ever post here as I thought that I would answer PZ Myers plea for my personal comments on Ken Ham.
Coming from N. Ireland I unfortunately know about Biblical creationists and their efforts to get their shite taught in the educational curriculum so I would like to say to Ken…
You are an ignorant f*ckwipe.
And why the hell do you not go to the big oil companies with your stunning news on fossils and scientific predictions and make billions? Because it does make it look like you are an atypical briandead fundamentalist whose plan is to make our kids as stupid, wilfully ignorant, arrogant and dishonest as you.
Phew glad to get that of my chest!
Once again, proof positive that, “You can’t fix stupid!”
Oh, wait, I’ve got a civilized poke:
Ken Ham is a non-Bright!
Kseniya, I think you meant 60,000 dead accused witches. But the point remains correct; J cannot tell the difference between name calling and organized murder.
Let us go further. The Hamster is anti-Bright! The Hamster is a Black Hole. His existence makes all of us just a little bit more stupid.
PZ, I must complain. Being compared to Ken Ham is an insult to every airhead, ass, birdbrain, blockhead, bonehead, boob, bozo, charlatan, cheat, chowderhead, chump, clod, con artist, crackpot, crank, crazy, cretin, dimwit, dingbat, dingleberry, dipstick, ditz, dolt, doofus, dork, dum-dum, dumb-ass, dumbo, dummy, dunce, dunderhead, fake, fathead, fraud, fruitcake, gonif, halfwit, idiot, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, jerk, jughead, knucklehead, kook, lamebrain, loon, loony, lummox, meatball, meathead, moron, mountebank, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, numbnuts, numbskull, nut, nutcase, peabrain, pinhead, racketeer, sap, scam artist, screwball, sham, simpleton, snake oil salesman, thickhead, turkey, twerp, twit, wacko, and woodenhead.
Love your list PZ.
And yes, Ken Ham and his posse of pea-brained pseudo-scientists are what I can only describe as ignoranus (ignoramuses who talk out of their ass). They’re a menace to society and should get a restraining order that forbids them (or any of their works) to come within 100 meters of children under the age of 18.
Ken Ham is, as we’d say in Dutch “een totaal van de pot gerukte klotzak met het verstand van het achterend van een varken.”
Yes, Janine, of course. I figured that goes without saying, given that there’s no such thing as a witch (in the 15th-century sense). ;-)
Ken Ham is an ass upon which everyone has sat, except a man.
As I pointed out in #493, KH has qualities clearly associated with extremely high social intelligence and analytic ability. Extremely high.
But here we have 500 comments, most of which proclaim him to be stupid & dumb.
Now, I’m not unaware of the comic nature of the thread, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Pharyngulytes have a generally poor comprehension of the requirements for the effective promotion of a worldview.
The fact that no one complimented #313 also speaks volumes.
Janine ID
Ooo….I like it! Ken Ham is so dense he is a Black Hole of stupidity. He is a mind warping vortex sucking innocent children and naïve adults down to their intellectual doom.
“…treating Ken Ham so brutally…”
Oh, boo, hoo. This is as mild as it gets. He already knows we hate him for being a liar to children, an anti-scientist, and a brainwashed moron. We aren’t even saying this stuff to his face. It is on ONE website. If he doesn’t like it, all he need do is not read it.
Honestly. If this sort of thing is “brutality,” then I hate to see what you call real brutality.
I have to slightly agree with Ken Ham on this one. Calling him a “wackaloon” is unprofessional and insulting to wackaloons.
Wow, 0.5% of the people at the Pentagon are fucking morons, I would have thought it to be much higher.
Oh, and Ken, you’re and idiot of the worst kind.
o hai. in teh bgining Ceiling Cat maded teh ken ham, but he did not eated him bcuz teh ken ham wuz teh pleh x 666. he lefteth teh ken ham in teh sandbockx wher he blongeth. & he cometh bak & watreth teh ken ham sumtiemz, but teh ken ham did not gro.
& Ceiling Cat sed, bhold he groweth not, nor doth he cliem out form teh sandbockx, and bhold it is teh g00d dat he climeth not out form teh sandbockx, but bhold, a gret stink (iz not so gret akshuly, is teh ick) ariseth out form teh sandbockx & iz ofensiv un2 my almitey nostrulz. & even teh glade sentd oil fan doth not hideth teh stink.
& Ceiling Cat sed bhold, mai hy00min slaev cometh 2 tek teh ken ham out form teh sandbockx. maded hy00minz wuz teh g00d idea aftr all. & teh hy00min slaev taketh teh ken ham out form teh sandbockx & putteth him in teh great watrz called Toylet & flusheth him.
& Ceiling Cat sed unto his hy00min slaev, y u pol00teth mai watrz dish? u hath maded it a s00perfund siet. but bhold, i hav lernd hao 2 flushz mai watrz dish mai self. & bhold, i shal flush my watrz dish 4 40 dais & 40 nites, so that it shal b kleen.
& bhold, Ceiling Cat flushedeth his watrz dish 4 40 dais & 40 nites. & the watrz dish wuz clensd ov all its unkleennes.
dis is teh wurd ov Ceiling Cat. kthxbai.
[teh lolcatz bibel. i hearts it.]
To play off of Farb in #603:
Ken Ham is the False Prophet your mother warned you about.
#618: Nearly everyone complimented #313. You obviously missed the end of that post, which calls him an “oxygen thief.”
And you say:
“As I pointed out in #493, KH has qualities clearly associated with extremely high social intelligence and analytic ability. Extremely high.
But here we have 500 comments, most of which proclaim him to be stupid & dumb.”
You are obviously missing the reason for which we are saying what we are. Intelligence is multifaceted.
Pardon me. We complemented that. And the finest form of flattery is, to some, mimicry.
Ken Ham? Ken Ham? Who the fuck is Ken Ham?
Ken ham is, well, Ken Ham. I can think of no worse of an insult.
Ken Ham is the translucent secretion of an elderly canine’s perianal fistula. Ken Ham is the corn in your polyp. Ken Ham will be found with a manwhore in a bathroom stall. Ken Ham is a little more disingenuous and dishonest than the average Pharyngula concern troll, but does a better job of not wetting himself.
“KH has qualities clearly associated with extremely high social intelligence and analytic ability.”
He believes the entire universe was magically created 2,000 years after people started breeding cows. You call that high intelligence? I call it brain-dead and a disgrace to the human race. He actually built a museum designed to abuse children with his stupidity.
Ken Ham is scum. He should be deported or put in prison.
An intellectual disaster of biblical proportions.
#93 – Bobc – I am the guilty party in twitting someone in a theatrical manner for the use of the word ‘wackaloon’. To whom ever that person was, I’m sorry.
Bobc, you have proven me wrong. ;) Now that I’m covered in thick, sticky, smelly codswollop you may all pelt me with cheetos for the rest of the day.
Oh, and Ken you’re a hamtard.
So who thinks Hamster is actually stupid enough to believe that the world really was created in 6 days and who thinks he’s deliberately lying to gullible Xians just to make a buck?
I’m personally going with the second.
Wow…already 632 comments….this was definetely a biggie!
Among the pantheon of creationist sub-losers, I think you would need to take a trip to Kent Hovindville to find anyone nearly as much of an intellectual disaster as Ken Ham. His favorite thing : Telling children to ask scientists “Where you there?” when discussing evolution. I wrote something similar on his little blog.
Wow…already 632 comments….this was definetely a biggie!
Among the pantheon of creationist sub-losers, I think you would need to take a trip to Kent Hovindville to find anyone nearly as much of an intellectual disaster as Ken Ham. His favorite thing : Telling children to ask scientists “Were you there?” when discussing evolution. I would ask Ken Ham : “Were you there when PZ Myers supposedly wrote about you?” No?!?!?! Then how could you possibly know about it? From “evidence?” LOL…the Bible says to trust in the Lord silly, and not your “human” judgment.
This person is a liar and a con artist extraordinaire. He isn’t fit to sweep the floors at the Pentagon, let alone lecture to anyone, most especially children.
Oh, how we wish we didn’t know……….. but to make a long and woeful story short, Ken Ham is a Young-Earth Creationist Fundy Mental Case and founder of Answers in Genesis. He gets way too much publicity for $#!+ like building a creationist museum, which is the biggest waste of $27 million since the last hour and a half of the occupation of Iraq, and just about as destructive.
@ Gary Bohm: I just posted an answer that got hung up because of too many links. But in a nutshell:
Ken Ham is pretty much what almost everyone here says he is.
Ken Ham is almost as ignorant as his followers.
“So who thinks Hamster is actually stupid enough to believe that the world really was created in 6 days and who thinks he’s deliberately lying to gullible Xians just to make a buck?”
Good question. Is Ken Ham the most stupid person in history, or is he the most dishonest person in history? Perhaps he is both.
Wow-
I go away with my youngest son for Cub Scout camp for one day and I come back to a thread with 650+ responses.
Am I going to spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon reading insults to a bubbbleheaded nitwit with a bad beard? You bet! back up to comment #1.
He’s the donkey rapingest.
Oh sorry, did I type that out loud.
Q: What do you get if you cross Ken Ham with a pig?
A: Nothing.
Why? Because there are some things even pigs won’t do.
Now now, calling him names is one thing, but it’s hardly fair to reveal intimate details of his sexual shortcomings in a public forum such as this.
Aw Hell-
I knew I couldn’t make it past a couple of posts before I had to get one in-
Now, I certainly wouldn’t advocate doing this, because it would be very, very wrong, – but imagine how funny it would be if during the night someone were to rearrange one of the Genesis displays in the Flintstone Museum featuring Adam, Eve, and the T-Rex were re-arranged so that they were animitronically performing a vivid, bestial menage-a-trois with Adam promiscuosly pounding the dino in the derrier and the lisentious lizard performing the old cretacious cunnilingus on an exhilarated Eve?
Eesh! – back to therapy for me
An Ode to Ham :
This night I shall dream of your bedazzling pink hair and pig-eyes.
Wrapped in echoes of your mellifluous penis-music,
I long to sip from your avocadoful lips.
In my dreams, we fly on the exquisite winged potato of ness — skimming vast continents of hands and bonobos.
The depths of all the oceans of the universe shall never separate our oranges.
Brilliant as deep fried fish cakes, the seas greet us from afar.
In the twilight we feast on chocolate-coated and tender hearts of love
Adorned in white silk, we pluck our glistening love chimes from our chests.
I press the chime that you wear around your neck against my hand-muffin so that our avocados melt into one.
You will always be my little ken ham-cakes face, the pig of my own freaking eye of love.
Consider this a follow up to my previous comments on the subject:
Why is Ken Ham a twit? Only Ken Ham doesn’t understand!
And few people say it better than Thunderf00t in his excellent and laudable and eminently watchable series.
Ken Ham is not worth the time or trouble to personally insult.
His “museum” and actions, although, are worthy of all forms of ridicule, disrespect, etc.: They provide evidence enough against any form of intelligent design.
Found unsuitable for soylent green, he’s to full of shit.
Late to the party as usual.
Ken your scientific credibility is equal to your intellect… zero still equals zero, right? Or do you religious morons not believe in math anymore as well?
“Now, I’m not unaware of the comic nature of the thread, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Pharyngulytes have a generally poor comprehension of the requirements for the effective promotion of a worldview.”
Wank, wank, wank.
I’m with Remy-Grace. I’ve met many people intellectually challenged enough to believe all the ridiculous crap that Ham peddles as “science,” but the evidence strongly suggests that Ham hisself ain’t one of ’em.
OTOH, I think Neil Schipper is taking some of the insults in this thread waaaay too literally.
Benjamin Franklin @ #644 said:
Funny, but a bit sophomoric. (Like this thread’s not ;P)
I’d just make some costume changes to the neanderthals. They lived like the Flintstones, make ’em look like the Flintstones… Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty, Pebbles, Bam Bam. Of course, one of the dinos would have to be painted purple.
Make sure your display includes the Great Gazoo. I know the creationist establishment refuses to consider the evidence for alien involvement in the Garden of Eden, but we must demand they teach the controversy!
Forty-three years ago someone from Zatox crashed on Earth. Can’t someone take a stand for him?
Ken Ham you ignorant slut. You accuse PZ of bias against Christians, and imply that he would not have the same bias against Muslims.
BBZZZZZTTT WRONG! PZ – and me – are biased against All IDIOTS THAT BELIVE IN MAGIC SKY FAIRES!
Kenny – Use some of the money you have conned out of all the old women and kids that have visited your Flintstone’s Museum and buy a clue.
And BTW – Hammy, why does a fine upstanding idiot like you not allow comments on your own site? Afraid of what your “faithful” might read?
If I can manage to say something novel after 600 posts, I deserve an award.
Ken, I’m surprised, and of course saddened, that you are somehow not quite so stupid as to be incapable of learning a human language. Perhaps your interest in dinosaurs stems from your discovery that you are not the only being in known existence to have such a staggering brain-to-total body mass ratio. The majority of your brain, by mass, seems best suited to tasks such as body temperature regulation.
You’re right, Ken, you could not possibly share an ancestor with a chimpanzee, a gorilla, a lemur, a marmoset, a sparrow, a flatworm, or a clubmoss. This would indicate survival of the least fit, rather than the fittest, a concept I am committed to attempting to teach a finch in order to prove once and for all that even an organism with a CNS small enough to fit in a hazelnut is more intelligent than you.
Ken, you are as witty, brilliant, charming, attractive, and useful as tapeworm vomit fermented in the purulent sebum of a naked molerat coated in Tinea cruris.
This is damned depressing. None of Hamtards followers have shown up to call PZ a wackaloon? They must be all on their knees talking to themselves and hoping bits of PZ get struck off by gawds mighty lightening bolts.
I happened to be reading Bertrand Russell’s essay “Has Religion Made Useful Contributios to Civilization?,” which was first published in 1930, when I came across the following statement: “Nobody nowadays believes that the world was created in 4004 B.C….”
I wonder what Russell would think if he could come back to 21st century America to discover that a significant percentage of people (a.k.a. Young Earth Creationists) now hold this view?
That is one million + 1…yes Mr. Ham your superstitious beliefs scare the daylights out of me.
Comically enough, I have found that both Christians and Muslims are fond of insisting that the non-religious are unwilling to attack the beliefs of the other.
“Sure, criticize me because I’m a Christian, but you wouldn’t dare say the same thing about Muslims.”
“Sure, criticize me because I’m a Muslim, but you wouldn’t dare say the same thing about Christians.”
It seems that the people who make these statements rarely pause to consider how presumptuous they’re being.
Kseniya, I think you meant 60,000 dead accused witches. But the point remains correct; J cannot tell the difference between name calling and organized murder.
See, this is another reason why object to this thread. Many of you people yourself can at times be as intellectually dishonest as creationists.
Obviously I think persecution of “witches” always was unspeakably horrible. This doesn’t mean I think it was ever one of the main social evils.
What a shameless, low-stooping misrepresentation.
Gads go away for half a week and what happens, who let the pharyngulas out???
So many fun posts, so many expectedly stupid ones like that from keith at #501 – sad to see the intellectually disarmed try to take a shot.
I notice Neil B. has apparently vanished, maybe because I quit believing in him. By the way, does Neil B. equate to Neil and Bob, or is that just what you do on the weekends?
And J. J, I printed out all of your posts, I will take them to read in the smallest room of my house, as is appropriate. Your thoughts will be in front of me, and then, they will be behind me.
As for Kenny the Hamster, well…how does one top what has gone before.
Ciao y’all
Alas, I fear Ken the Ham does believe every word he says. There’s no more pathological – or is it patho-illogical? – liar than one who lies to himself and believes his own lies.
Are you an expert on witches J?
Good point JeffreyD. I went to bed for the night one evening and *zoom* Brenda has vanished. The time zones on this blog must be incrediable. :)
There’s a Firefox extension called TrackMeNot that sends random phrases as fake web searches to hide your search trail and confuse data-profilers. It displays the current bogus search phrase in the bottom bar of your browser window, and a couple of minutes ago it threw this gem:
“world renowned creationist ministry”
Ahhhhhhhhh, the irony.
If Ken Ham were any dumber, he’d forget to breathe.
Thank you, I’ll be here all night, second show is different from the first. Tip your waitresses, and try the veal.
I’m just checking to see if 666 comments is the max… that would be funny.
This is yet another of those occasions that illustrates just how much better the world would be if Bill Hicks were still in it.
To be at his show and yell out ‘hey Bill, what do you think of Ken Ham and his
museumtheme park for fundy morons?’ would no doubt bring forth an expletive-ridden tirade of (forgive the expression) biblical proportions.I’ll attempt to paraphrase, using one of his other ‘bits’:
Aussies have seen this?
NAiG:
“Dr Carl Wieland should say “sorry!
Dr Wieland’s article A sorry day-with an unlikely twist, in which he claims that a draft of the “Sorry-Day” speech Prime Minister Rudd delivered to the Australian parliament on 13 February 2008 is in CMI’s possession and contains the following words:
Prior to 1861, missionaries were prepared to accept according to the principles of their religions, that Aboriginal people were every bit as capable as Europeans. But with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origins [sic] of the Species in 1859, a new theory starts to take hold and the conception that Aboriginal people are a ‘disappearing race’ starts to take hold in Australian public life. This had equally catastrophic consequences for Aboriginal people and communities. [Wieland’s emphasis]”
http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/CMI_sorry_speech.htm
Has anyone informed Australia’s indigenous population that Oz is only 4000 yrs old?
“Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.” – Albert Schweitzer
Whoo hoo!!!! I was the triple six! I’m honored!
Biff – 666- As the Grand Poohbah of the Liars & Fornicator’s Union, Local #666, I congratulate you. Well done!
Isn’t the number of the beast 616 or something like that?
Also, Ken Ham is a poopface. Poopface!
If Ken Ham had another brain, he’d be a half wit.
Ken Ham is a complete and utter moron.
Wowbagger@668:
I think Lewis Black has taken up Bill Hicks’ mantle on this one.
Oh, and more from Lewis Black (same clip):
Didn’t PZ link to this clip at some point?
Ken Ham is a dipshit (it’s the only one I could think of that hasn’t been *taken* already).
NAiG:
“Dr Carl Wieland should say “sorry!
Dr Wieland’s article A sorry day-with an unlikely twist, in which he claims that a draft of the “Sorry-Day” speech Prime Minister Rudd delivered to the Australian parliament on 13 February 2008 is in CMI’s possession and contains the following words:
Prior to 1861, missionaries were prepared to accept according to the principles of their religions, that Aboriginal people were every bit as capable as Europeans. But with the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origins [sic] of the Species in 1859, a new theory starts to take hold and the conception that Aboriginal people are a ‘disappearing race’ starts to take hold in Australian public life. This had equally catastrophic consequences for Aboriginal people and communities. [Wieland’s emphasis]”
http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/CMI_sorry_speech.htm
I don’t think for one second that it would have been in a single draft or even considered to say that. It’s just absurd, let alone factually incorrect and completely ignorant of history. If Carl Wieland truly believed it, then he is both a threat to others and himself. Though after seeing just who the person was on Wikipedia, I can safely say this is another case of Lying for Jesus.
Ken Ham, you are a douchebag: an old, outdated, useless tool that provides nothing but irritation and risk for all kinds of unpleasant damage and harmful growths.
Benjamin Geiger, #677, wrote:
I’m not familiar with Lewis Black (I’ll have a browse around teh internets and see what I can find) but I’ve seen that quote a few times. And it’s exactly what I thought when I first heard about the creationist’s dinosaur
theoryblatant lie for Jesus – have these people been watching The Flintstones and thinking it’s a documentary?Cultural Anthropologist nailed it!
♪ ♪ ♪
@Wowbagger
If you watch The Daily Show, Lewis Black has a segment on there where he does rants (usually to do with religion)
Eh, I content myself with free-to-air. I occasionally caught the Daily Show ‘Weekly World Edition’ on SBS but don’t remember any Lewis Black bits.
I read some of his quotes, though, and there’s a definite ‘Hicksiness’ to his work. Good to know there are people fighting the good fight. Had pancreatic cancer not taken Bill when it did I’m sure the state of the world in recent years would have made his head explode. He had enough scorn for the actions of Bush Snr; he’d have blown a gasket ragging on Dubya.
what a thoroughly entertaining thread!
thank you, pharyngulists!
ken ham is a worm-infested turd.
Congratulations, Biff the Bartender #666!
And yes, according to some Bible manuscripts, the Number of the Beast is either 616 or 615.
A few more descriptions of Ken Ham, courtesy of classic Beavis and Butt-head:
a dillhole
a buttmuch
a fartknocker
a turd burglar
Sorry, Ken Ham, that should have read:
a buttmunch
I apologize if my typographical error offended you.
Piece-a-shit godbag!
Ken Ham, I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
FRENCH GUARD
Not to start a Dino Catz flood or anything…
But this is too funny:
[IMG]http://i28.tinypic.com/2h36dm8.jpg[/IMG]
or
http://i28.tinypic.com/2h36dm8.jpg
Did you remember hooplehead?
Ken does a great job representing creationists, and in that role, I have no criticisms of him whatsoever.
Hammerhead @ #674 said:
[Bruce Dickinson]
SIX!… ONE SIX! The Nummmmber of the Beast!
[/Bruce Dickinson]
Nah. Just doesn’t sound right, dude.
Ken Ham, I bounce my boobies in the general direction of your aunties!
FRENCH TART
The ultimate insult, from Waiting for Godot:
Critic!
Ken Ham – Some of the nearly 700 comments about you above may be less than 100% accurate, and I almost felt sorry for you. Then I remembered hearing you say that Richard Dawkins wants to stop teaching children about religion so that he can indoctrinate them with his atheistic views (on a Guardian Science Weekly podcast). You must know that Professor Dawkins advocates the teaching of comparative religion to children, after all he’s said it consistently for years in many different media. So then i thought that, well, if you live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword. All of which is a rather long winded way of saying that maybe you deserve it because you’re utterly dishonest.
I didn’t see it, so I will have to go the looney toons route:
Ken Ham… what a maroon!
Also, Ken is so dense he bends light.
Enjoy!
Let’s make it a round 700, wotthehell.
Dammit, and-u-say, you beat me to it!
Woot! I got post #700!
I, too, am surprised at the lack of Hamsters coming to defend their shepherd. Odd that.
Nick Gotts, various
I set the 2000 election down after we crossed the river, why are you still carrying her?
It can be the monster we invent to scare children with: ‘kids, if you’re weak-minded and credulous then the Ken Ham will come and take you away to his lair, where he will suck out your remaining critical thinking skills and replace them with sucky fairy-tales cooked up by a bunch of Bronze Age pastoralists who had yet to travel outside their small corner of the middle-east.’
Maybe the barrage of naughty language is keeping them away. Nitwit might be too offensive (I’m sure nits would take offence at the comparison with Ken Ham) for some of the church followers to take. Ken Ham may have grown up in Queensland where the foul language is enough to make God want to kill Egyptian babies, but that’s why he’s in the USA now. Bunch of farken softcocks
Why single out Ken Ham? Anyone who refuses to read through the evidence for evolution and continues to believe in creationism is dumber than tits on a bull.
And let’s not keep this eloquence confined to the English and, was that czech and hebrew I saw earlier? languages:
Señores y señoras creyentes en el mito de la Creación: hagan el favor de sacarse la cabeza del culo.
Rich Charlebois, #610
You can indeed fix stupid, and since Ken is male it’s an outpatient procedure.
“Ken Ham?” I hear someone query…
Long talk, no thought.
Naughty…naughty?!
…I have a cunning plan –
Let us all clench a turnip between our buttocks and wave them in the direction of Ken Ham’s aunties.
Your title for this post cracks me up every time I think about it. It’s like the start of an A. A. Milne chapter. That alone is somehow a withering swipe at Ham, the better for its subtlety.
For anyone who missed it:
“The interview was going well. Ham was spouting nonsensical creationist rhetoric, and I was in full-blown retard mode.”
http://buffalobeast.com/117/let_there_be_retards.htm
Where the hell is wOO+?
G’night you heathen elitist bastards. I gotta round up my Aussies to roost, and head to bed myself.
9:14 pm Oregon time, PZ is speaking on Free Thought Network. :)
Homo creotardus fucktardus = Ken Ham/Goddidit
Hey Ken! Here’s a tip: don’t start with the conclusion.
jmsr
PS seriously, what is ~wrong~ with you?
Ken Ham is an affront to pork lovers everywhere. Even most porcine creatures have more cognitive capability.
Hmm, I’m late to the party. Even so, I am compelled to register my contempt for Mr. Ham’s ass-hattery. He’s a well-funded fraud who seems hell-bent on dragging America back to the days when superstition reigned.
Id settle for creationists being people so frightened of their imaginary God, that they have set themselves the task of beliving a bunch of lies that they imagine their imaginary god wants them to belive.
The central mental problem of the fundamentalist is that they actually know that that they don’t really believe the things they pretend to belive, but as nonbelief will condemn them to an eternity in the lake of fire, they must conceal from themselves the fact that they don’t belive it. And this while living in the real world.
Thus, despite the clearest injunctions in the bible against it, christians will sue one another, and then invent the craziest and flimsiest excuses why its ok, and go to enormous effort to pretend even to themselves that they belive those excuses – excuses which usually don’t even pass the laugh test. Ditto christians divorcing – you know that fundies divorce at a greater rate than the general population?
Foul Ol’ Ken.
Hmmm. . .Ken Ham? You mean the guy who is probably the best living proof of evolution? I mean, c’mon, look at that face. If there’s any human who looks like he was descended from an ape. . . .
What a dunderpate.
I know, I know, evolution doesn’t say we’re descended from apes, just that we share a common ancestor with apes. However, the above should be simple enough for Mr. Ham to at least grasp, should he wade this far through the comments.
As much and as satisfying as all this is, I am reminded of the scene in “Thank You For Smoking” where the lobbyist father is explaining to his son how he sells things so well.
After a discussion on which ice cream is best the son comments “but you haven’t convinced me at all, I still like chocolate!” to which good ol’dad responds “I’m not trying to convince you, it’s them I’m after” and motions to the crowds in the park.
We may not convince Ken, but we can get (some) of the people. You got me!
Oh btw, he really REALLY pisses me off and I let my still-creationist (and much loved) friends know that. There, I almost insulted someone!
Obviously you’ve never met my brother!
Seriously, he’s had a terminal case of Fundy Dementorism for at least 25 years. He and my SIL didn’t speak to our mom for at least 6 months after she let slip that she prefers “my” kind of sacred music (i.e. Bach, Mozart, et al.) to their kind of whatever-that-is they sing at their church. I don’t know whether they took it personally – my bro actually writes that $#!+, for Basement Cat’s sake! – or it was just the principle of the thing.
All I know is, he and I don’t talk about anything; we just kind of eye each other warily. Fortunately he’s out on the left coast and I only see him about once every five years. But I’m willing to swear on a stack of LOLcat Bibulz that he absolutely believes every word of it.
Which is more useful: Ken Ham or an actual ham? No question! A ham could actually feed some hungry people, ham’s ministry is about spreading ignorance not prosperity.
My Enquiring Mind has been wanting to know too….. In the mean time, here’s a wÒÓ†ism to tide everyone over:
(.)(.)
(There. Now you can’t say I never did anything for you.) =8-O
Cuttlefish is AWOL too! W’zup w’dat? No, waitaminnit – Cuttlefish is out of the country, gallivanting around Europe on a Grand Adventure.
What a shameless, low-stooping misrepresentation.
Posted by: J
Sorry J. I usually ignore what you have to say. I just had to give Kseniya a good nature ribbing. And you so hate name calling because you are such an adult. Sod off you silly little git.
Back to ignoring you now, you bright ray of sunshine.
Ken Ham is a knobgoblin.
OT but newsworthy: George Carlin passed away about 9 hours ago. I’m stunned.
Perhaps a creationist canadian will have the last word on a summer night here.
Ken Ham is important man. He has achieved already prestige and fame in the English-speaking world not to be equaled by any poster here including this Myers guy I never heard of before.
Ken ham went to this prestiges breakfast and so won.
All these posters demonstrate how important they see Ken Ham as a agent of change/influence in the intellectual arena of the public mind.
Surely the quality and credibility of the anti-Hamiticism expressed here is not the stuff of modern evolutionisms resistence to advancing , exciting modern creationism.
Just keep rolling that wheel of truth Hamster. God, the true Christians, Creationism everywhere, and the common sense of the public are cheering for you. The good guy.
Surely the quality and credibility of the anti-Hamiticism expressed here is not the stuff of modern evolutionisms resistence to advancing , exciting modern creationism.
Just keep rolling that wheel of truth Hamster. God, the true Christians, Creationism everywhere, and the common sense of the public are cheering for you. The good guy.
Posted by: Robert Byers
This is a joke? Right? …exciting modern creationism…?
Sorry dude. You are denied the final word. The words you left have little meaning. But have pleasant dreams of frolicking with dinosaurs under the stern watching eyes of big sky daddy.
Editing post 727 to be more consistent with reality:
Perhaps [a panty sniffing] canadian will have the last word on a summer night here. [Perhaps not]
Ken Ham is [a syphilitic] man. He has achieved already prestige and fame in the [child molesting] world not to be equaled by any poster here including this [heroic] Myers guy I never heard of before [to my detriment].
Ken ham went to this prestiges [or perhaps prestigious] breakfast and so won [the matching luggage but not the BIG MONEY].
[I sniff my butt sometimes]
All these [smart and cuddly] posters demonstrate how [fucktardesque] they see Ken Ham as a agent of change/influence in the [un]intellectual arena of the public mind.
Surely the quality and credibility of the anti-Hamiticism expressed here is… the stuff of modern evolutionisms [I just made that up] resistence [I meant resistance. Really] to advancing , exciting modern creationism. [Tried, but couldn’t, write that last bit with a straight face]
[I masturbate to photos of Fred Phelps]
Just keep rolling that wheel of truth Hamster [wait, hamster wheels don’t go anywhere] [hey, it makes sense then!]. God, the true Christians, Creationism everywhere, and the common sense of the public are [idiots]. The [bat faced, knock kneed, pigeon toed, goat felching, toenail biting, chronically masturbating, scab eating, weak bearded, nose picking, unevolved, pinkeyed, asshatted, half witted, three nippled, skidmarked] guy [so ugly that blind people throw things at him and do not miss].
This service brought to you by the cast and crew of Traffic Demon Urban Racing.
robert, “prestige” is not synonymous with “notoriety”.
Isn’t the number of the beast 616 or something like that?
Nah, I tried calling it, and just got “Number unobtainable”. 666, from the UK, puts you through to the Australian police.
Ham makes the worst childhood nightmare seem cuddly, loving, and delightful.
Alan Kellogg@704 Because people are still dying, being tortured, in prison without trial because of it.
Anyone had dozy wazzock?
As in “Ken Ham is a …”
You said to get creative, PZ, so I worked on it a bit :)
http://jimrational.blogspot.com/2008/06/ken-ham-wackaloon.html
– Jim Rational
Dear Ken,
In addition to all the above, I think you’re a twunt.
Love and kisses,
Baldy
“I set the 2000 election down after we crossed the river, why are you still carrying her?”
First off, what river? And secondly, oh…maybe because it was an illegal action that led to the most disastrous presidential administration in history. Lay it down, sure. And be condemned to repeat it. Fuck that.
Rey Fox,
The “river” is a reference to a Zen Buddhist fable of two monks who come to a river where a woman is standing on the bank, unable or unwilling to wade across. One of the monks gives her a piggyback, despite the rule that monks should avoid touching women. Some time after, the other monk, who has been brooding, reproaches him for his action. The second monk replies “Brother, I put that woman down on the riverbank. Why are you still carrying her?” Why Alan Kellogg thinks it relevant here, I’ve no idea. Maybe he’ll tell us.
#736: Dammit! I just search the page for thr term “twunt” hoping I could bethe first to use it.
Its been 24 hours since I last checked – but apparently Ken Ham is still a cucking funt.
I think this comes as no surprise to anyone.
When I read about Ken’s “work”, I can’t help but feel sorry for whatever village lost its idiot.
@741 – Ken’s a far bigger idiot than a village could possibly need – clearly, Australia’s lost its national idiot.
Ken Ham is an ass hat!
Nick Gotts, #733
So September 11th 2001 happened because George W. Bush stole the 2000 Presidential election? You’re the first person to imply the Democrats were behind it.
Nick Gotts, #738
I see you’re like a lump of coal, not much into reflection.
V. late but can i just add:
stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder.
tks.
If I can, I will gladly carry her all the way to…
JAIL
TO THE
THIEF
Alan Kellogg@744. I simply don’t understand what you’re getting at. Would you be kind enough to give a clear explanation, so I can disabuse you of whatever misinterpretation of something I said (I have no idea what) you have acquired?
Iraq and Guantánamo happened. Hello-o!
(Obviously, we don’t know if President Gore would have ignored the warnings of 9/11 lying on his desk…)
Awww, Hammy has a boo-boo.
He is openly hostile to the scientific community, but expects everyone to not be hostile to him, and throws a hissy-fit over being called a “wackaloon”. My, how very mature.
Ken ham: a foot-long turd in the cider barrel of humanity.
Ken Ham: a few scorched sinuses short of a firebreathing T-rex.
Alan Kellogg,
I see you are into the same sort of deliberate obscurity we expect from the likes of Salt and Brenda von Ahsen; invariably a cover for lack of any substantive argument to advance. I’ll know to ignore your stupidities in future.
Ken Ham is a disgrace to the meat that shares his surname.
Gordy @ #699:
Yep, Ken Ham is a lying sack of crap. Since it’s clear he has no respect for the truth, and no capacity for honesty, there is no reason to limit criticism of him to the facts (though the facts are pretty bad to begin with). He doesn’t have any qualms about making shit up, why should anyone show him any kind of courtesy? One could even call him a piglet rapist, and it would be no less honest than what Ham spews daily, for a living. The man’s entire life is founded on fraud, and he has the gall to whine about the slightest criticism?
It’s not our fault that Ken Ham’s moral compass points straight to the gutter. If he doesn’t like the taste of his own medicine, he should stop force-feeding it to children.
Ken Ham, you are an uneducated close minded hypocritical ignoramus who deliberately lies to people by using their faith so you can make some money and gain fame.
You claim that you are a follower of Christ. So, Instead of wasting almost 30 million dollars on a house of lies, why didn’t you donate that money to combat poverty?
You are a crackpot fraudulent lunatic that thinks the entire Universe was instantaneously created about 1000 years after glue was invented.
Simply put Mr. Ham, you are a terrible person that needs to fade into obscurity.
Ken Ham: for novelty use only.
Ken Ham is a festering sack of pus!
You got Ham’s character right, but I take issue with the word “gonif” (with one “f” or two). In Yiddish, it means “thief.” Ham has many flaws, but this is a new one on me.
Thank you all for your incredibly articulate and scientific arguments against Ken Ham’s character and the information from the Answers in Genesis website.
While it is a little shocking to see the depth of hate, we creationists are encouraged that you see Mr. Ham as such a threat.
A better approach to discredit him would be attempting to pick apart the site with all your ‘scientific evidence.’ In fact, why don’t you give us just ONE “lie” that is on http://answersingenesis.org/ and then we can actually engage in a scientific discussion.
No doubt, many of you prefer to indulge in the foul and irrational personal attacks, but you might just try a civilized discussion –
And you might even learn something factual other than the silliness that you believe to be true!
Ken Ham is a numpty.
Oh, this is TOO easy… lemme see… how about “Dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago.” That’s a good one, and there are countless others.
Fuckin’ Christards…
Ken Ham is a pathetic poseur, a perveyor of pretentious puffery, and a Pecksniffian pin-head.
Warning: do not use a personal flotation device.
Thanks Nick @ 13
“Gormless”.
Ken Ham is not only a wazzock, he is a gormless wazzock.
2 days away from the office, and see what fun I miss.
some IDiot wrote: and then we can actually engage in a scientific discussion.
_____
Scientists do not debate with Creationists, you creotard! Astronomers do not debate with astrologists, etc.
A Bush-appointed conservative Christian deemed ID to be Religion at the Dover trial.
Educated people who do not embrace ignorance for a living only ridicule your kind–hence the colourful language on this thread.
We can start with the title: Answers In Genesis. Uhh, there’s no answers in the Genesis. It’s really not the place to look for answers.
Ham is several slices short of a Ham sandwich.
In fact, why don’t you give us just ONE “lie” that is on http://answersingenesis.org/ – wiyc
So many to choose from…
Extrasolar planets suggest our solar system is unique and young
An outright, barefaced, shameless lie. The characteristics of the extrasolar planets detected depend heavily on what planets are easy to detect, so do not even show that our solar system is particularly unusual. Even if it is, this is absolutely no evidence that it is “unique and young”.
Some IDiot wrote: While it is a little shocking to see the depth of hate, we creationists are encouraged that you see Mr. Ham as such a threat.
_______
We see Ham as a threat because he is wrong and dangerous as he sucks in gullible folks like you into his vortex of swirling stupidity. We don’t take kindly to people who apply leeches, bloodlet, and drill holes into skulls either.
I love that one of his big defenses in his blog post is that he only spoke to 100 out of 23,000 people. While that makes me feel a little better, I’m not sure how it makes the Ham-brained one feel like he’s winning anything.
What a wackaloon.
J, overlooking for the moment that I was half-joking, the painful fact remains that you obviously JUST DON’T GET THE POINT.
Talk about dishonest. You elide over counter-points as if they had never been made, by declining to acknowledge that they ever have been made. Talk about shameless.
Pffft. And you wonder why you get so much shit here. You bring it on yourself, more often than not.
If AIDS were a person, that person would be Ken Ham. He’s deceptive and his ideas infect the unprotected.
Who is your creator-
How can you “engage in a scientific discussion” with someone who states that “No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”?
Man and woman living alongside dinosaurs is a lie.
A worldwide flood only survived by Noah & 7 other humans is a lie.
Hen Ham isn’t so much a threat as he is a fool.
Dismissal of reality results only in delusion. Are you prepared to accept evidence if it contradicts your theology? That, in a nutshell, is why engaging in scientific discussion with bible literalists like Ham is a waste of time.
Next!
.
.
Kseniya-
elide – To eliminate or leave out of consideration ?
Yeah! I love learning new words.
Thanks
Yeah, Ken. Even the Christians I know think you should give it a rest.
After following the link to read the chief wackaloon’s indignation, I was highly amused to find that his previous post was one welcoming a baby donkey as the “newest staff member” of the creation museum. With that kind of quality recruitment program, they’ll soon double the average IQ of their staff…
Personal attacks ARE civilized in this context. One of the primary goals of every civilization is to expand and apply knowledge. In promoting ignorance over science, creationists are enemies of civilization, and Ken Ham is at the forefront of this assault.
Since we can’t literally tar and feather him, we do the next best thing–public ridicule and humiliation. While it may be foul, there’s nothing irrational about it, it is the only reasonable response to the willful ignorance of creationists. Scorn is exactly what he and you deserve (although I would PAY to see a feather covered Ham on YouTube…)
Ken Ham is a Tofu Pup in the great Meat Market of Life.
Traffic Demon wrote: wait, hamster wheels don’t go anywhere
Good catch! It appears that Robert Byers knows the real truth and can’t completely repress that knowledge.
Codswallop: Ham’s as much a thief as any other con artist.
“No doubt, many of you prefer to indulge in the foul and irrational personal attacks, but you might just try a civilized discussion.”
No thanks.
Also, dear Ken:
I believe that god called you to visit the pentagon. It’s just that you received his message about 6.5 years late or so. Why did you miss your September appointment? After all, god’s OTHER messengers were right on time!
Ken Ham: the original steaming pile of bullshit.
Ken Ham, Robert Byers, and whoisyourcreator: just three more reasons I’d rather hang out with atheists and agnostics any day.
Vanity of Vanities, saith the Preacher’s Kid: All is Vanity.
I appreciate the alphabetized list of names. The word that comes most to my mind is not a noun… disingenuous.
Ken Ham: Moron.
Ken Ham, “who is your creator”, etc, etc…
I’m curious how your fractal dishonesty fits in with your supposed beliefs, because if what you say is true you will probably be needing NOMEX briefs in the future, and if not, then you all are Jones wannabes, and evil incarnate. Which would it be?
To paraphrase that one smart guy: You can’t scientifically discuss beliefs that weren’t arrived at scientifically in the first place.
I doubt he’ll come back, but I am perversely curious as to how wiyc could nswer this question, regarding that lovely little bit from the AIG mission statement:
“No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”
*ahem* Why?
Re: #38. Christian clergy speak at Pentagon prayer breakfasts all the time, probably weekly, and PZ doesn’t say “boo” about it. It’s the particular kind of Christian Ken Ham is that is worthy of ridicule.
Ken Ham is a douchechugger.
Geez, PZ, stop being so polite – he’s hardly worth the restraint!
I find more intelligent, truthful, and noble beings than K.H. in my cat’s litterbox.
Ken Ham is one of the Pharisees, and he doesn’t even know it. But God does.
Which is more useful: Ken Ham or an actual ham? No question! A ham could actually feed some hungry people, ham’s ministry is about spreading ignorance not prosperity.
Wow! Almost 800 – where the hell did the French soldiers go?
Ken Ham is a coprolite.
Can you believe there are actually Ken Ham supporters in these comments? Wow… my favorite so far, #337
“Truth will out. Freedom of Inquiry will have its day. We will follow the evidence where it leads, whether you approve or not, even if, especially if it flies in the faith of today’s scientififc dogma.”
Oh my… on another planet…
“A better approach to discredit him would be attempting to pick apart the site with all your ‘scientific evidence.’ ”
It’s already been done hundreds of times, WIYC.
Also, I went to the AIG website. I could find no mention of Phil Collins anywhere.
If you’re an idiot then someone stands up and call you an idiot. Nothing unscientific about it.
A good argument can be made that Ken Ham is just a good actor who really doesn’t believe in all the bile he vomits daily, after all is said and done, it is a job he gets money for. Lying for a living, sure why not, it wouldn’t be the first time nor profession to do so. In conclusion, FUCK YOU KEN HAM.
Maybe AiG can try to hire Chris Crocker to make a “LEAVE KEN HAM ALONE!” video ; ) Not that he would do it.
Ken Ham’s slogan: “Mo’ mammon, mo’ mammon.”
Peter Vaht@795 Good actor? Nah, he’s just a ham!
Allow me to say what Ham is in Spanish (as this seems not to have been covered adequately), and I will do so in many different ways…
Firstly, a completely incomprehensible man-child (I apologize to all men and children they don’t deserve that) who is so blinded by the brilliance of his idiocracy that he wants to spread it like cancer to all small children and innocent animals.
*ahem* to continue… WARNING: this is NOT nice language and for those of you who are more, polite, I would suggest you do not look up the translation.
He is (Él es…) asqueroso, un mariposo, un roscón, un voltiado, una marica, un maricón, un animal, un imbécil, un chingao, un bruto, un baboso, una chorra, un mariconazo, un cabron (really bad don’t use!), una conchuda, (fits beautifully) El dumbass más grande en el mundo, un pelotudo, un pendejo, un pringao, un mocoso, y para el finale, un baboso.
Alright, some of those are pretty bad, others not so much but just wanted to vent, and probably some of that was directed at ben ste…ste…. can’t even type it. You-know-who.
(by the way that’s not bad syntax I just don’t think That Name deserves to be capitalized.
Ken Ham is a slackjawed, bag titted, crosseyed jackanapes.
*come on 800!*
It is not Ken Ham that is the problem. He is just another weak and thoughtless vessel that allows his monkey brain to submit to an imaginary alpha-male figure, his Jeebus Monkey God. No, the problem is Ken Ham’s despicable worldview. That is the real problem.
Ken Ham is a quack. I blogged once about one of his really silly articles.
http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/archives/419/god-did-not-make-klingons
@ efp #711
ROFL =gasp= MAO =coff= Absofucking =wheeze= lutely =snort= fucking brilliant! Gimme some =choke= oxygen! =turns blue, passes out=
Seriously, that performance deserves an Oscar – or maybe two. Got any more footage?
And how fucking dare ANYONE out there make fun of Ken Ham after all he’s been through! He came here all the way from Australia, he built his own museum, and now he gets invited to speak at a Pentagon prayer breakfast. All you people care about is reason and logic and science. HE’S A HUMAN! *sob* What you don’t realize is that Ken’s giving you all this publicity and all you do is write a bunch of crap about him. He never got a science degree. He founded Answers in Genesis for a reason, because all you people want is ANSWERS ANSWERS ANSWERS ANSWERS ANSWERS! LEAVE HIM ALONE! *sob* You’re lucky he even writes on his blog about you BASTARDS. LEAVE KEN ALONE! Please! Matt Nisbet talked about professional communication – if Ken was a professional he would have pulled off the prayer breakfast no matter what. Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to pubicly bash someone who doesn’t know any better? LEAVE KEN HAM ALONE! Ple-ease! Leave Ken Ham alone right NOW! I mean it! Anyone who has a problem with him, you deal with me, because he’s not well! *sob* Leave him alone….
Ken Ham is one bat-shit crazy deluded goober, and living proof that evolution != progress. I mean, seriously: guy looks like a Neanderthal, only with less depth perception.
@803: It’s not the same without the wailing and gnashing of teeth video, Chris. ;)
Why waste valuable electrons on Ken Ham? As I see it, every electron, muon and scrape of dark energey has far greater value than Ken Ham. So, I’ll stop here so as no more electrons get hurt.
@Alex #798: Best string of Spanish insults I’ve heard since I left California 35 years ago. But you left out hijo de la chingada.
About as sharp as a sack of wet mice. (My apologies to Foghorn Leghorn.)
Ken as a good obedient IDiot, can you go find yourself a nice round room and go and sit in the corner.
Oh, no! We forgot Scuzzball!
1. A person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible
– rotter, dirty dog, rat, skunk, stinker, stinkpot, bum [N. Amer], crumb, lowlife, scum bag, so-and-so, git [Brit], bugger, sleazebag, scuzz [N. Amer], sleazeball, scuzzbag [N. Amer], ratbag [Brit], scuzzbucket [N. Amer], slimebag, slimeball, scumbag
Ken Ham is, as they said back in KY, as useless as tits (or was it teats?) on a boar-hog.
That being said, it’s always sad when a friend tells you about his trip to the Creation Museum and how much his kids loved it. I’m torn between wanting to help eliminate his ignorance and banging my head against a brick wall. He’s smarter than that, dammit!
Short version: Ken Ham is a chancre on a warthogs anus.
Long version: Does Ham deserve this abuse? Yes. There are two
kinds of stupid. One is involuntary stupidity,an unfortunate
combination of genes and environment leaving one incapable of
intelligent thought. These people deserve compassion and help.
Then there is a second kind of stupidity, voluntary stupidity.
Stupidity as a character defect. Ken Ham is not stupid in the first sense, he clearly can budge the needles on an EEG. His ability to carry out as ambitious a project as his “museum” testifies to that.He is, however, guilty of gross aggravated stupidity of the second type (call it culpable stupidity).He has made a successful career as an enzyme in the fools parting with their money process. He preys on the first kind of stupid and uses the proceeds to spread the second.As such he actively blights our future and contributes to keeping this country from achieving its potential.He is getting off easy.
@ who is your creator #759 >
If you’d like an example of Ken Ham lying, check my post #699 (also quoted in post #754, just above your own contribution). You can download the podcast from here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/audio/2008/apr/14/science.weekly.podcast
Go on, listen to Ken Ham knowingly and deliberately grossly misrepresenting someone else’s views. You might even call it a “foul and irrational personal attack”. Ken Ham is dishonest. He’s lying to us and he’s lying to you.
@ phantomreader42 #754 >
I understand your anger, but I don’t really wish to stoop to Ken Ham’s level of inaccuracy, however humourously, because it just gives people like “who is your creator” an excuse to ignore the real issues. Sure, it’s no worse than Ken Ham but my ambitions in life stretch considerably higher than being “no worse than Ken Ham” and I hope yours do too. The truth is damning enough without the need for us to make anything up.
* Finally, in light of PZ’s recent blog post, I would like to point out that I am NOT Gordy Slack ; )
The Traf woke up feeling the poetics…
::throatclear::
Ham’s lover searched all the day-o
for his loins to come out and play-o
But it was too small for hope
even with a telescope
made by the sage, Galileo!
Some monkeys looked under Ham’s kilt
to see if he would rise or wilt
but he won no ribbons
from baboons or gibbons
even squirrel monkeys laughed at his hilt!
The best description of Kenny Boy is that he is a “Knob”!
OMFG! If you didn’t click the link in post #711, I highly recommend it. (As long as you can have a sense of humor about the mentally challenged. Some people can’t.)
I think George could’ve substituted Ken Ham for Dan Quayle in that “three types” joke. Stupid, full of shit, fucking nuts. KEN HAM IS ALL THREE!!
late to the party…but…
Ken Ham is the poster child for retroactive abortion.
David, #747
Thus putting a greater burden upon those of us supporting same sex marriage, recognition of transexual and intersexed rights, reversing and correcting assaults on civil rights, improving education overall, rebuilding the infrastructure, overthrowing the tyranny of the efficiency expert, and other stuff. Thanks for your support, chuckles. Guess we won’t be asking for your help the next time somebody qualifies an anti gay proposition for a ballot somewhere. You’re too busy bitching about old crap.
David, #749
Iraq happened because 9/11 happened. Before 9/11 Bush was exploring “options”. After 9/11 Bush was exploring invasion support from Congress.
Nick Gotts, #752
It is a rare fellow who recognizes when he is outclassed. Since you are not one of them, your response is to be expected.
(Don’t worry about puzzling that out, somebody will come along and put it into terms you can comprehend.)
alan @744:
You’re the first person to imply the Democrats were behind it.
I think you read that wrong, Alan.
he wasn’t implying anything, it was a direct accusation, and most certainly not leveled at the left.
the criticism of the left is spinelessness, not criminal behavior.
let’s keep the two issues separate.
Two monks were traveling, and arrived at a riverbank where a woman was standing, wary of chancing the rapid waters.
The first monk picked up the woman, and they all forded the river together. On the other side, the first monk put the woman down, struck her in the head with a rock, raped her unconscious body, climaxed, and then tossed her in the river.
Seeing that the second monk was outraged at this crime, the first monk sneered, “I got rid of the bitch as soon as I was done with her. Why are you still carrying her?”
I’m a little worried about J’s long absence, since every one of his posts explicitly called for George Bush’s violent ouster.
What?
He meant which violent tyrannical dictator intent on depriving entire nations of their civil rights?
You’re joking, right?
Ken Ham – proof that there *is* carbon that would be better off as dioxide…
Ken Ham is a deluded, idiotic and twisted shithead fucknut who wasted $27 million on a perverse mockery of a museum in order to brainwash young children into accepting a ridiculous fallacy of the development of the Earth. The building should be torn down and the parts used to beat Ham to death.
Ken Ham – The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead. (After Googling ‘list of weird insults’ and trawling through many low-quality pages)
Ken Ham is a wank stain.
Ken Ham is as welcome as a fart in a spacesuite
@efp
“The interview was going well. Ham was spouting nonsensical creationist rhetoric, and I was in full-blown retard mode.”
http://buffalobeast.com/117/let_there_be_retards.htm
Hiiiii! efp
Just came across that last week. Funniest thing I’d read in ages :)
THREE-O-NINE! THREE-O-NINE!
Cheers
Gordy @ #813:
Since when have these frauds needed an excuse to ignore the real issues? Making shit up is the entire focus of their existence. They reject the very idea of truth, substituting their own delusions. They have no qualms whatsoever about slandering anyone who dares question them. But oddly enough, if you just blatantly make shit up about THEM, they get all indignant, as if they understood on some level that it’s wrong to lie. But they never seem to connect this to their own behavior, no matter how many times it’s pointed out. Sometimes onlookers do get the hint though.
There’s this dead guy they claim to be following that supposedly said to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Since they lie about others constantly, it seems either they love being lied about, or they’re pretty shitty “christians”.
At least the authors of “Weird Kentucky” saw fit to include the Creation Museum as weirdness.
What can you say about a man who’s doing more to harm the future of the American scientific educational process than almost any other single individual?
PZ said it.
To roundly plagiarize Emo Phelps, Ken Ham wouldn’t know a straight line if you showed him an electroencephelagram chart of his brainwaves.
Weird Kentucky Buy the four-volume set and get free shipping.
Iraq happened because 9/11 happened. – Alan Kellogg
I know I said I’d ignore your stupidities, but this post has finally enabled me to connect your various silly remarks: you think that Iraq would not have been invaded had it not been for 9/11, hence you think, or more likely pretend to think, that I was implying that the Democrats were behind 9/11, as a response to the stealing of the 2000 election.
I must say in defence of my failure to understand what you were getting at that I could hardly be expected to allow for this degree of inanity. I’m truly astonished that anyone could believe what you say you do. This wasn’t even the official lie – which was that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction”. The neocons were determined to dominate the Gulf region, as anyone who has glanced at the PNAC document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (2000) would see: “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. Bush’s former treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, has stated (to CNN on January 11, 2004) that removing Saddam Hussein was “topic A” with the Bush regime right from the start. 9/11 almost certainly delayed the invasion of Iraq, because Afghanistan had to be attacked first. It also made the subsequent occupation much more difficult, because of the USA’s shortage of troops. Manufacturing a causus belli has never been very difficult for US presidents – from the USS Maine in 1898 to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. If you really think it would have taxed the neocons to have found a way to invade Iraq, as they were determined to do, without 9/11, I have to ask whether your parents know you’re accessing a site like this.
Iraq happened because 9/11 happened. – Alan Kellogg
I know I said I’d ignore your stupidities, but this post has finally enabled me to connect your various silly remarks: you think that Iraq would not have been invaded had it not been for 9/11, hence you think, or more likely pretend to think, that I was implying that the Democrats were behind 9/11, as a response to the stealing of the 2000 election.
I must say in defence of my failure to understand what you were getting at that I could hardly be expected to allow for this degree of inanity. I’m truly astonished that anyone could believe what you say you do. This wasn’t even the official lie – which was that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction”. The neocons were determined to dominate the Gulf region, as anyone who has glanced at the PNAC document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (2000) would see: “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. Bush’s former treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, has stated (to CNN on January 11, 2004) that removing Saddam Hussein was “topic A” with the Bush regime right from the start. 9/11 almost certainly delayed the invasion of Iraq, because Afghanistan had to be attacked first. It also made the subsequent occupation much more difficult, because of the USA’s shortage of troops. Manufacturing a causus belli has never been very difficult for US presidents – from the USS Maine in 1898 to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. If you really think it would have taxed the neocons to have found a way to invade Iraq, as they were determined to do, without 9/11, I have to ask whether your parents know you’re accessing a site like this.
I fail to see why Iraq is germane to this thread except possibly that G-Dub-the Shrub and Ken-the Hamster have only one brain cell between them, and the day GDtS decided to bust up a former ally that never did anything to us except send us cheap oil was the Hamster’s day to use it. Maddass Insane was just an excuse for GDtS to:
[1] vent his frustration at not having eliminated Osama,
[2] put a mock-righteous spin on his bigotry and paranoia,
[3] huff and puff and wield his Weapons of Mass Distraction,
and possibly
[4] finish the job his daddy started in 1991.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Oh, and Ken Ham is the trichinosis in a real ham.
Well, Saddam did attempt to have Bush Sr. assassinated. That’s a little less benign than simply being an oil supplier…
Was that before or after we kicked him out of Kuwait and spent over a year putting the fires out?
Oh, definitely after. It was a grudge thing. (Not entirely unlike the current thing.)
Well, Saddam did attempt to have Bush Sr. assassinated. That’s a little less benign than simply being an oil supplier – Kseniya@838
Oh, I wouldn’t say that ;-)
@ Kseniya: That’s what I thought. “Y’all trahd to keeul mah daddy, ya snake-suckin’ tumbleweed-fuckin’ hornytoad! Weeeullll, ah’ma fixin’ ta keeul yore whole dadburned country an’ see how y’all lahk it.”
@ Nick: I wasn’t about to say that, but I was thinking it very loudly!
(p.s. Ken Ham is a snake-suckin’ tumbleweed-fuckin’ hornytoad.)
Ken Ham hasn’t once been able to open a bag of M&Ms without them exploding all over his lap.
Dear Mr Myers,
May I humbly suggest that each of those words used to describe Mr Hambone now feels a little dirtier for it.
PZ, you can add my favorites to your list. They are balloon brain, blintz brain, and gourd brain.
PZ: I always thought this video on Youtube about Mr Ham, the museum etc. by someone called Cory Evans was really funny:
Wowbagger at #682
I’m not familiar with Lewis Black (I’ll have a browse around teh internets and see what I can find) but I’ve seen that quote a few times. And it’s exactly what I thought when I first heard about the creationist’s dinosaur theory blatant lie for Jesus – have these people been watching The Flintstones and thinking it’s a documentary?
That’s pretty much .
The link appears to be wrong. Here’s the correct one. I always laugh at this:
(Whoops. I messed up a bit in my last comment. Trying again:)
Wowbagger at #682
I’m not familiar with Lewis Black (I’ll have a browse around teh internets and see what I can find) but I’ve seen that quote a few times. And it’s exactly what I thought when I first heard about the creationist’s dinosaur theory blatant lie for Jesus – have these people been watching The Flintstones and thinking it’s a documentary?
That’s pretty much it.
Found this in a quick YouTube search
I’d prefer coining the neologism of “Ken Hamm” to specifically reference all things stupid and non-scientific. That way, in a sense, his very parents are even mocking him.
The words “Ken Ham” and “science” go together about as well as “splash zone” goes with “donkey show.”
Ken Ham: one turn of the coat hanger too few.
Kanned Phlegm’s quote – “it is only Christians one is allowed to be intolerant of nowadays, it seems.” Hallelujah! It’s about time. If this is what intellectual america is going to be accused of every time we show them how stupid, counterproductive and childish their world agenda is, then let’s just step up and revel in it. Every day we are assaulted with their idiotic dogma: the bible on billboards, churches either every 3 miles or horrific mega-churches blotting out the sun, shrill church bells ruining a quiet afternoon, and there’s not enough space to go into how saturated TV, films and the media are. So this guy picks the one physical thing that we have, museums, last bastians of hope for humanity where science is supreme, and defiles the whole concept with cheap plastic creationist horseshit. How can we not see this as a dirty bomb in the so-called culture war?
We are here writing like 3-year-olds to blow off the steam that they build into our lives.
Ken is an all-singing, all-dancing constipation of human knowledge. We can only take solace in the thought of some future generation that has shucked off all religion and superstition (let’s say, year 5037) and finds clips of his animatronic lunacy that immediately become a world joke, then an interplanetary joke and finally an official holiday on Mars with parades and floats celebrating how silly primitve humans were. Ham Day -yeah!
Where’s our return fire? I’m waiting for scientists to prove that religion is a genetic ailment. Even better, how about a museum dedicated to showing how bizarre and archaic religion is? Someone build it right next to his.
It’s time to replace all polish jokes with the word “christian.” How many christians does it take to screw up a museum? Etc.
Alan Kellogg, are you completely out of your mind? The election theft is the crime that led to all following ones. It is the root of the problem.
Greater burden? You cannot possibly be serious.
Since no one else has come up with it yet, mammy-whammer.
Dagger (post #521) has it exactly right — creationism is nothing more or less than the intentional abuse of children through targeted misinformation. Kent Hovind is precisely where he deserves to be, albeit for tax evasion rather than endangering the mental welfare of untold numbers of children.
Ken Ham is the antichrist, he probably got somewhere on him the number 666, and I bet that he grows horns. He is a devil in human form, who came to destroy reason, and make our country look stupid. Mr. Ham you must know that evolution was discovered by Darwin and not invented as you think in your stupid head. You’re a freaken devil and all the evil. Go back to Australia you have polluted our country enough. You have no clue about science, you stupid idiot. I’m going to call you all kinds of names, because to me and to many people in the world you are an idiot who needs not only a good psychiatrist, but also an exorcist who will help you get rid off the devil in you.Do you even know that Christians killed more people through out the history than Hitler and Stalin combined? and you blame science for all the evil in the world, you stupid idiot. I guess you do not know the history well.
I don’t think for a nanosecond that this will be posted – but here goes! In the ‘beginning’, there was NOTHING – neither time nor space nor matter. ‘Then’, a point-singularity in the ‘middle’ of this timeless nothingness exploded (no reason), thus CREATING (oh horrors!) space, time, and matter. ‘Later’ (again for no reason), life arose spontaneously (somehow, apparently, bringing death with it!) and even managed to ‘figure out’ a way to produce INTELLIGENCE and REASON. Now tell me – WHO believes in fairy tales, and WHO is doing the brain-washing? EVERYTHING in P Z Myers’ original rant, together with the posts following (from fellow ‘no-hopers’, I presume) more aptly describes YOURSELVES! I assume that you are all ‘happy’ to ‘live with’ a doctrine of pure hopelessness – it’s sad really.
You know, if you are going to make a point about the shortfalls of atheism as a worldview, it would really help to understand the basics of what you are talking about. If you are going to reference the Big Bang, read up on cosmology. If you are going to talk about the origin of life, check up on organic chemistry and abiogenesis. And if you are going to talk about how we got here, actually read up on evolution. That way, next time you want to make a point about the “atheist fairy tale”, you won’t look like a misinformed ignoramus.
Oh dear. It seems that Ken has gone and upset the established order. He has dared to think for himself and let the evidence speak. What a pity! Ken is truly imprisioning the world by teaching that they have value and that there is a purpose to life. How dare you, Mr. Ham! How dare you compete with the popular beliefs of our time. Its not like anything ever got accomplished by challenging the views of the current world! This is truly a tragedy!
People without a REAL answer ALWAYS resort to name-calling. Which part of my posting was inaccurate?
Keith Allen, #861, wrote:
Did you read Kel’s post? It was quite obvious – the part where you confuse cosmology (big-bang theory) and abiogenesis (the beginning of life) with evolutionary theory. The latter is concerned with neither of the former. It explains the diversity of life on this planet, not how that life originated, nor how the planet was formed.
The beginning of the universe doesn’t mean that there is nothing before that. It’s just that as far as our universe goes, that’s the beginning of time. Why do you think there’s effort put into theoretical concepts like String Theory?
The only people who allege spontaneous generation are creationists. No biologist things that life just spontaneously came about, rather it was a series of events over a long period of time. We have already synthesised amino acids, and even a nucleotide base using set processes.
It was a survival strategy plain and simple. There are plenty of animals out there other than us that can use problem solving, the problem of explaining intelligence is no more so than explaining any other mechanism. Yet the evidence for evolution and common descent is overwhelming, evolution happened and we descended from apes. The fused chromosome in our DNA that us unfused for chimpanzees is a fantastic piece of evidence.
So please please please learn what you are trying to mock before you mock it, otherwise you look like a misinformed ignoramus.
P.S. Misinformed ignoramus is not an insult, it’s a descriptor of your lack of knowledge on the subject.
Actually it was his complete misunderstanding of cosmology and abiogenesis that irked me. Built up two straw men then finished it off with a call to personal incredulity when it came to evolution. Three fallacies in a row.
Wowbagger (only the fearful and insecure use name-handles) – NOTHING in my original post was inaccurate. My description of the Big Bang theory (which you obviously recognised) was taken from Stephen Hawking’s “A Briefer History of Time”. The Theory of Evolution (and I am not referring to Natural Selection – a TRUE science) relies on spontaneous generation of life just to ‘switch on its engine’! If you think ‘religion’ to be a myth, you may well be correct – but PLEASE don’t claim either of the above ‘theories’ to be anything more than ‘religions’.
Keith Allen,
Only insecure, patronizing fools capitalize random words to give them extra validity in a debate.
No, it doesn’t. See, you keep getting basic science wrong.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is indeed a TRUE science.
And while abiogenesis is currently a hypothesis, or rather several hypotheses, they are part of that TRUE science that is called organic chemistry.
As you would know if you actually studied the science.
Actually in A Brief History Of Time, Hawking talks about a boundless universe with no beginning or end. Don’t lie.
No it doesn’t, it just relies on life being there. It says nothing about the origin of life, that’s what abiogenesis seeks to explain. How life originated and how life diversified are two very different questions, evolution only seeks to explain the latter. Again, don’t lie.
Ahh, the evolution is a religion argument. Despite all the evidence, it’s dismissed as a religion because the misinformed ignoramus here doesn’t know better. What of the gradual emergence of life in the fossil record, not to mention the scores of transitional features and the gradual change in morphology through the ages? What about the genetic code, the similarities between species, our almost identical code we share with other apes and our fused chimpanzee chromosome? What about the spread of life, how there were no placental mammals in Australia until some mice came over 5 million years ago? We have in Australia an abundance of marsupials only seen as well in South America – though they were mostly wiped out by the more successful placental mammals invading from the north.
There’s just so much evidence for evolution, to deny it is like saying the sun and all planets revolve around the earth. There’s more evidence for evolution than there is for the holocaust, it’s one of the most widely supported scientific theories and we know more about the mechanisms behind evolution than we do about gravity. Yet I don’t see you calling gravity a religion…
Kel
Sorry – when I replied the first time, your ‘explanation’ had not come up on my screen. I was NOT mocking, merely making a comparison between two opposing belief-systems. Actually, to receive a ‘complaint’ about such on THIS site is extremely ironic! By the way, on a humorous note, bananas have around fifty percent of our DNA – and monkeys like bananas (as do many humans – maybe THEY are the ones ‘descended from apes’!). On a more serious note, you seem to be suggesting that ‘survival’ generated ‘intelligence’. How is it possible to be aware of ‘survival’ without having ‘intelligence’. Also, if there is neither ‘reason’ nor ‘purpose’, ‘survival’ has no meaning.
Ad hominems will get you nowhere. How would my using my ‘real’ name make any difference to the content of my posts?
You lied, Keith Allen. You are a liar. The phrase ‘The Theory of Evolution… relies on spontaneous generation of life…’ is a lie. Evolution, simply put, is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. It makes no claim regarding the origins of the first organisms.
Then you lied again, Keith Allen. Where did I write that religion was a myth? You are lying again, liar. You should be careful. If you’re a christian your god has warned you not to bear false witness. Then again, so many of his adherents are liars; why should you be different?
No, sadly, religion is not a myth. The gods that adherents of religions worship are most definitely myths – but religion itself, in all its ugliness and hatefulness and oppression and limitation of human progress is a sickening, horrifying reality.
My belief system is built on evidence and will change over time as better explanations come about. This is the difference between science and religion.
Though you’ve missed my point. If you are going to call atheists irrational, then you better get their beliefs right. How would you like it if I said “God is a 3-toed bunyip who did a happy dance to create the universe out of waffles” and called it Christianity? Your misunderstanding of basic science is what I rallied against, at least get it right. After all, bearing false witness is a thou shalt not by God’s law!
SIWOTI!
What does survival have to do with intelligence, per se? There are trillions of organisms that survive and reproduce quite well with no intelligence whatsoever. Are you one of them?
And there are viruses that reproduce fantastically well as well, regardless of whether they are “alive” or not.
And that makes no sense whatsoever. Please reboot your brain; it’s clearly spouting gibberish.
Who says you have to be aware to survive? Most life on this planet isn’t aware of itself, it’s only a very small subset that is.
Who says life has to have meaning? Do you really need judgement in the next life in order for your life to have meaning? But in order to break the perception that without God, it’s nihilism, here’s some wise words for you:
If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing.
And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…
are you saying animals ponder their own existance and ask the why’s and wherefor’s of thier reality. Keith, you are an idiot. Are you sure you shouldn’e be on a differnt thread? We have one specially designed for you.
Wonderful – I am accused of the ‘evolution is a religion argument’! Please, please, please look up the FULL (by the way, I use capitals for emphasis – not for validation – don’t be so patronising) dictionary definition of ‘religion’. Have you not considered your own Dawkinsian ‘elephant-hurling’ tactics with your claim: “There’s just so much evidence for evolution …”? Dawkinsians ALWAYS use ‘evolution’ and ‘natural selection’ as one and the same. If there’s really so much evidence for the Theory of Evolution, tell me just ONE proven example of a species changing into a completely different one. Also, ‘manufacturing’ lifeless so-called ‘building blocks of life’ is not synonymous with ‘creating’ life. In closing, I did not lie about the cosmological ‘beginning’ – now you are semantics-hurling. Oh, why would you assume I know nothing about cosmology or abiogenesis – I could equally assume that you know nothing about logic or common-sense – the only ‘background noise’ out there in the Cosmos is God crying out: “How much evidence do you need to realise that the Universe and Life were CREATED?”
There are several on this page:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
Even if we didn’t have any observed speciation, that wouldn’t matter. The fossil record, the morphology and distribution of life, and the DNA sequence including our fused chimp chromosome all point to common ancestry. If as you say Goddidit, then why did God go to such great lengths to show a 13.7 billion year old universe, a 4.6 billion year old earth, and 3.5 billion years old life that gradually emerges? I suppose he’s omnipotent and all, but to make all the evidence point to an old universe and old planet? That’s being deceitful. I suppose if you don’t obey the 9th commandment, God doesn’t have to either.
Because what you said was wrong.
You could, but again you would be wrong.
What do you think “a species changing into a completely different one” means? If you think it means magically transforming in one single generation, you’re obviously wrong.
We have the fossil and genetic evidence that shows that a couple of million years ago, there was a particular species of ape whose descendants, in separate populations, became that species known as Homo sapiens and the genus known as Pan, which itself has split into two species, Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes.
No, it’s not. But it will be of it can be shown how those building blocks can combine to metabolize and reproduce.
Bullshit.
God does not say anything, ever.
The universe at large is saying nothing more than “I radiate at 3 Kelvin”, and it isn’t saying it in English, it’s saying it in electromagnetic radiation at 3 Kelvin.
Wow! I certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons! It would be intensely amusing if it were not, in reality, so sad. It is amazing to hear atheists (I was once ‘one of you’) quote from ‘a book of myths’ (as you call ‘it’). I have lied about NOTHING – the FULL Theory of Evolution DOES rely on spontaneous ‘outbreak’ of life, and you ‘all’ know it – but this ‘reality’ is a thorn in your sides (as it was for Darwin – who turned his back on God upon the death of a daughter). Whether you accept it or not (or even believe it or not), God does exist – without this belief/knowledge, there can be only hopelessness/despair. Name-calling is the last, desperate ‘throw of the dice’ for those who fail to see the obvious – there is so much evidence for design/creation that it should be considered as fact (to borrow from your own words – as you did from the ‘book of myths’).
Nope. The theory of evolution relies only on reproduction, variation in reproduction, heritability of traits, and variation in the ability of an organism to survive.
Abiogenesis is indeed an important hypothesis for biology in general, but the theory of evolution does not rely on abiogenesis.
Are you even capable of thinking about what you write a single second after you write it? You’re specifically saying that Darwin, originally a believer, rejected God from out of hopelessness and despair, then you say that without belief, there can only be hopelessness and despair.
Which is it? Despair leads to lack of belief, or lack of belief leads to despair?
And have you lost a beloved child to a painful death from disease? I ask only out of curiosity.
Utter bullshit.
There is zero evidence for design or creation. That’s why it’s not considered to be a fact.
And if God really existed, he would speak for himself in plain language understandable by all, instead of relying on losers like you to speak for him.
Keith Allen:
You have revealed your deepest fear.
“without this belief/knowledge, there can be only hopelessness/despair.”
How does the existence of God (let alone knowledge of his existence) give meaning to life?
But you know what, Keith-i concede. You win, creationism is absolutely right. Let’s look into the implications of science that are now brought to bear in this new light of reason, this triumph of faith!
And here’s another! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
Well, what a to do! You’re using the old “I’m right and you’re wrong” tactic – which is even more desperate than name-calling. It’s akin to “Give me back my ball – I’m not playing anymore”. ‘Speciation’ does not equate to ‘change of species’, as in: dogs remain dogs, cats remain cats, moths remain moths (there’s a ‘good one’ for Evolutionists), elephants remain elephants (even when hurled), fish remain fish, whales remain whales, apes remain apes, ….. – and humans remain humans (frogs don’t turn into princes!) – some with pent-up hatred for any who believe the obvious. The irony of this exchange of views is that P Z began it by using the couplet ‘soul-shuddering’ in the second sentence (assuming that “Ooh, dear.” constitutes a sentence). You have a SOUL, P Z?
Only Evolutionists and atheistic scientists (and, unfortunately, Theistic Evolutionists) totally accept those incredibly long time-scales quoted – you NEED such vast time-scales for Evolution (and you know which ‘type’ I’m referring to) to have even the remotest ‘chance’ of working. As for fossils – these can only be formed under rapidly generated pressure (doesn’t that ‘book of myths’ have something in it which might just provide the required conditions?). Finally, try this on for size:
If you don’t believe in ‘life after death’, you could only possibly know that you were wrong. On the other hand, …. – an ‘interesing’ exercise in logic. I have nothing to fear but fear itself – “Some things are true whether you believe them or not.” (a quote from the film City of Angels – which can ‘work’ for all of us). Oh, how can you possibly know that God never speaks to anyone? Is it because He has never spoken to you? Have you ever tried speaking to Him?
Keith the Liar, bleated:
No, Keith. What you did was put a pigeon – yourself – amongst the cats – us. With predictable results.
You deterioration into not only all-caps (a sign of desperation) but scare quotes (a further sign of desperation) gives away just how much you’re frothing at the mouth right now, ranting and raving and resorting to even more lies as you realise how hollow and empty your pathetic belief in your non-existent god is.
The lies continue. You’re even lying about lying – lying2 if you will. How life began is irrelevant to the theory of evolution, ‘full’ or otherwise.
More lies. I neither believe in nor accept your god’s existence, and I am neither hopeless nor despairing. I’ll leave that to the christians.
No, it’s the response of people like us to the pitiable attempts at logic made by those with limited intellects – such as yourself – for the sake of amusement. You are a sadly deluded cretin with all the reasoning power of a warmed-over blancmange.
Really? Then present it. Surely if there is evidence, prominent, peer-reviewed scientific journals would by fighting tooth and nail to be the first to reveal it to the world. Why are you, an obvious genius, withholding such an amazing find from the human race?
No, Keith the Liar, I know why you haven’t presented your so-called evidence: it is as flimsy as your arguments and your intellect. Stick to lying; it’s all you can manage.
Stop lying, it doesn’t and you should know that. Evolution relies on life being there, it doesn’t matter the origins. Whether it’s a series of events, or intervention by aliens, all you need is replicating organic forms and the theory of evolution comes into play.
Of course humans are only going to give birth to humans, and elephants are only going to give birth to elephants. We are still not only apes, but fish too! Once two populations of the same species are isolated for long enough through a variety of means, eventually interbreeding will be impossible and those two populations are now different species. If this were to happen to humans, which of the two different species would you count as human? They both are. But as time goes on the morphological and genetic structures of the different populations would vary enough that the macroscopic changes would be noticeable. A cat is only ever going to give birth to a cat. Whether in 10 million years time the cats of then will look like the cats of now is another thing entirely.
Could you please inform yourself on the basics of evolution before you talk about it any more? It’s painful to watch someone so ignorant of it all try and give a lesson to those who aren’t.
Keith Allen, you’re sure messed-up. You deny science out of fear of reality, and ask us to play with your imaginary friend.
There, there.
I wonder if Keith has read the passage by Nietzsche entitled “the Madman”? I can fully understand why he thinks that without God there is despair, we have killed the holiest of holies.
It’s easy to live without God. You just live.
Kel,
Funny you should post about madmen.
I suspect that, based on the deterioration he’s displayed over the course of posting, Keith the Liar2 has, overcome with impotent rage, lost it completely and smashed up the PC he was using and has since collapsed on the floor to gnaw on the carpet and froth at the mouth.
Which’ll get the straitjacket put back on him and earn him a trip to the padded cell with his internet privileges revoked for at least a couple of weeks. If he’s lucky they’ll let him keep his tinfoil hat.
Ah, Loons for Jesus™. Hours of fun.
Believe it or not, I have actually been chuckling over some of your responses – I’m truly sorry (please be assured that this is not sarcasm – and I am not lying about it!). I have rarely been so entertained – yet know I should not be feeling this way. Do you all realise that, before I ‘resurrected’ this ‘thread’, it had ‘died’ on September 18? You should all be rejoicing that you can ‘vent your spleens’ all over again. It must be some time since you had such a ‘god-sent’ opportunity (judging by all the ‘foaming at the mouth’ language you all seem so ‘expert’ at). One of my favourite scriptures says: “Fools mock, but they shall mourn”. Again, this can work either way – but be assured (I’m repeating myself!), God does not require ‘fear’ of Himself, but ‘respect’ and ‘reverence’. By the way – what time is it where you are? It’s 9pm on December 3 here in New Zealand.
There are always idiots out there peddling snake oil, it just happened to be your turn today.
Kel: There are always idiots out there peddling snake oil, it just happened to be your turn today.
Seriously, could we get the trolls on some kind of schedule? It’s feast or famine out here. We need some consistency from these guys.
If God requires anything, he can tell us exactly what it is himself, in plain language. Who the hell are you to say what God does or does not require?
There’s always a case of SIWOTI somewhere, but like our early ancestors to ensure a regular food supply we must migrate. Can’t always expect the meal to come to us.
Posted by: Keith Allen | December 3, 2008
Believe it or not, I have actually been chuckling over some of your responses – I’m truly sorry (please be assured that this is not sarcasm – and I am not lying about it!). I have rarely been so entertained – yet know I should not be feeling this way. Do you all realise that, before I ‘resurrected’ this ‘thread’, it had ‘died’ on September 18? You should all be rejoicing that you can ‘vent your spleens’ all over again. It must be some time since you had such a ‘god-sent’ opportunity (judging by all the ‘foaming at the mouth’ language you all seem so ‘expert’ at).
Keith, sorry to burst your bubble but you bringing up an old thread is old news. All of the finest trolls do that.
As for you “disproving” evolution by pointing out that there could not be that much time, I have to point out that dozens of other ignorant posters have also “disproved” evolution in the three months this thread went in active. Take a look. You are nothing special. You are just an other person who, finding that existence and time is far more large then your limited imagination can handle, crawls back to a comfortable myth.
You are nothing but sport here. And just to point it out, Kel, Wowbagger and (I might be mistaken on this) John Morales are in Australia.
You don’t have a good track record so far, you are either a misinformed ignoramus or lying through your teeth.
Keith:
We realise you’re a common, run of the mill godbot.
And you find it amusing that we find you ignorant, deluded and infantile? Right.
By the way, threads aren’t dead until PZ kills them (closes them).
—
Janine, I’m at GMT +09:30, and you’re spot on.
Yeah, it’s half past seven in the evening where I am. I’m currently preparing dinner and installing Grand Theft Auto IV.
Don’t you ‘guys’ have any manners? I politely asked what time is it where you are? Sorry, I just realised that I used the words ‘manners’ and ‘politely’ – I don’t want to fully (maybe that should be fuel-ly) inflame you all! Seriously (a bit of an oxymoron for you all), I laughed out loud at the latest responses – I truly feel ashamed of myself – really. I especially found “Who the hell are YOU to say what God does or does not require?” amusing – are you sure you’re an atheist? I am not in the least bit perturbed by all your ‘rantings and ravings’ – just to inform you all, I do have a degree in science, and I will always respect science (which does not mean that I accept EVERY hypothesis/theory ‘of the day’ – I even respect your beliefs, even though I disagree with some of them – not ALL). Have fun – even if it be at MY expense – I do like to be generous. Seriously – what time is it ‘there’?
I know Jesus said to treat others as you wish to be treated, but if you are just going to lie and misrepresent science so you have a straw man to lay your god down on, then why should we should courtesy to you? Being a misinformed ignoramus without a shred of propensity to correct that ignorance doesn’t make you endearing to us in the least.
By the way, you haven’t asked about my beliefs yet? You’ve ranted about atheists by misrepresenting science, why haven’t you asked anyone here about what they believe theologically? Oh right, that would be courteous.
Keith,
Why don’t you pray to your god to tell you the time here? Do let us know what her answer is.
Yeah, if you pray to your god to turn my bottle of water into a bottle of vodka and it works, I’ll convert right here and now.
Keith:
0. It’s not a couplet, it’s a hyphenated idiom; “soul” here refers to the psyche.
1. You forgot geologists, physicists, cosmologists etc.
2. Only YECs say this.
3. You might have a degree in science, but you clearly don’t accept science, as per 1 & 2 – not to mention your clear misunderstanding evidenced by your use of hypothesis/theory as if the terms were anywhere near synonymous.
I already told you – you appear to be innumerate, too.
As to manners and politeness, you barged in with bombastic and ridiculous assertions, and when questioned on them you retreated into faux-indignation. What did you expect?
*sigh* still water.
In other news, my attempt to turn water into ginger beer is working well.
Kel 1 – Judeo-Christian deity 0
Keith the Liar wrote:
Why should we believe someone who has flat-out lied multiple times? I suspect that what you really mean is that, whenever you speak to people about science, they respond by saying ‘BS’; you’ve just assumed that must have meant you had a degree in it.
Keith Allan (full of) BS – sounds about right to me.
Ah, NOW I get it – you all worship the ‘almighty’ P Z! This is a PROFESSOR, no less, who asks his followers to be childish in the way HE is. How infantile is it for a PROFESSOR (!!!! – even as a ‘lowly’ TEACHER, I would be absolutely ashamed) to make such a request? Ah, but his ‘sheep’ are ever obedient and follow unquestioningly. How loudly you all bleat when opposed – if you are truly faithful to your beliefs, there can be no need for name-calling and character assassination. I, too, disagree with SOME of Ken Ham’s beliefs – but he seems to me to be both sincere and caring (I hope I did not use two more words there which might upset you all). I have to confess that my previous post WAS intentionally sarcastic (it’s an unfortunate weakness of mine), but none of the other posts were (it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not). Enjoy your sport ‘little children’ (no sarcasm here – it’s meant to be a ‘command’ from the ‘omniscient’ P Z) – words (no matter how derogatory) cannot harm me.
Are you done trolling?
BobC: Ken Ham is an asshole who abuses children with his breathtaking stupidity. He belongs in prison. [emphasis added]
Please tell me you’re not serious. Don’t get me wrong – I totally agree that Ken Ham talks total nonsense and that his “Creation Museum” is a joke.
But I also believe in the essential liberty of free speech; and no one should be put in prison for expounding their views, however absurd those views might be. As long as he isn’t using public money to promote religious ideals – which he isn’t; he’s using private donations – then he has a right, both legal and moral, to say whatever he wants without fear of reprisal from the state. Free speech only for views you find palatable is not free speech at all.
You, of course, have an absolute right to call him an asshole – and I’m not saying you’re wrong. But instituting state persecution of those with a particular viewpoint would, IMO, be far more destructive for our society than any number of creationists.
Stop projecting. It seems like in your little mind that the only way someone can think something true is if it’s a religion to them. This is not the case.
Keith @905, you’re a one-trick pony.
The text says one thing, the subtext another.
The very concept of independent thought is scary for you, isn’t it? ;)
There, there. It’ll all be allright.
Ah, the usual exchange with an ignorant brain-dead anti-science arrogant creobot !
Can I play or is he already on his way out ?
Walton,
BobC is an atheist and yet manages to scare the shit out of all the commenters here. He has on several occasions called for every man,woman and child in Iraq to be killed as retribution for 9/11. I’m surprised he has not yet been sent to the dungeon.
Ah, the irony. Keith Allan the Liar dances to Ratface Ken Ham’s tune and yet describes other people as followers. The Liars for Jesus™ are almost as good at projecting as they are at denying facts.
Walton,
BobC, on this blog, has advocated the destruction of Iraq and I believe Afghanistan as well. He’s stated that, while he finds abortion disgusting, he supports abortions for religious (or just fundamentalist – I can’t recall) people. He’s repeatedly referred to religious people as “subhumans.” And this isn’t the first time he’s suggested that fundamentalists are “traitors” or should be jailed. BobC is a nutcase. Responding to his rants serves no useful purpose.
*sticks head into thread and looks around*
Pharyngula’s finest arguing with a braindead creo zombie troll….business as usual…
*Goes back to playing Cricket2007*
negentropyeater, you can still play – the creobot has provided plenty of material to work with, and claims to be amused by our responses.
SC at #913: You’re right, and I won’t respond to him again.
Returning to the main topic of the thread, a couple of thoughts about Ken Ham and creationism in general.
I’m about to make a comment which may seem stupid at face value, but think about it: I would assert that creationists are, in fact, atheists’ strongest weapon. Creationists present a straw man version of theism, which can be easily deconstructed by anyone who knows anything about biology, physics, history, geology or philosophy (or, indeed, anyone who can look at the evidence and think straight). I am confident in saying that the God in which Ken Ham believes – a God who created heaven and earth in seven days a few thousand years ago, and who designed every plant and animal step by step – does not exist; and if Ken Ham’s views represented the mainstream of religion, I would be an absolutely convinced atheist.
As someone else has pointed out above, belief in Biblical literalism, even without any extraneous evidence, is intellectually unsustainable, because the Biblical narrative contradicts itself in places. Ham-style Christianity is, therefore, laughable and must be rejected by all right-thinking people. Which is possibly one of the reasons that there are so many atheists amongst the educated; no bright person wants to be on the same side as the likes of Ham.
But what it is important to remember is that there is a sustainable middle-ground. I emphatically do not believe that the Genesis narrative is literally true. It probably contains bits of truth; Noah’s flood, for example, is probably a cultural memory of a great flood from the Black Sea basin which did cover much of the Ancient Near East within the relevant timeframe (this is further supported by the existence of similar flood myths in neighbouring Near Eastern cultures, such as Babylon). Similarly, the patriarchs might well have existed as historical figures (we simply don’t know), but it is very doubtful whether many of the Biblical stories about them are true. And when we get to the unpalatable narratives of Numbers and Joshua – detailing, in essence, a genocide – I would suggest that, while it’s highly likely that the Israelites did indeed massacre the surrounding nations, it’s exceedingly unlikely that God genuinely told Moses and Joshua to do it. A God like that would, simply, be evil (as some have pointed out on other threads).
But I believe that, while the Bible was written by humans for human purposes – and is fallible, having been largely transcribed from oral traditions transmitted over generations – this does not preclude its being inspired by the agency of the Holy Spirit, nor does it prevent God speaking to us through its narrative. We should rarely, if ever, use it as a guide to history, and we should never use it as a textbook of science. But it still contains much that is inspirational and valuable. That’s why I am a liberal Christian and not an atheist – but I despise the likes of Ham as much as you do. The man is a joke.
This Keith Troll seems particularly juicy, his comments display an arrogance and an ignorance of basic scientfic concepts which is breathtaking.
Why does this kind of Troll always end up claiming it has a “Science degree” ?
Yet he describes the Big Bang as an explosion “in” the “middle” of nothing ?
Hey Keith Troll, just a question if you have a Science degree, where’s the “middle” of nothing ?
Color me unsurprised.
I dont need a weapon.Im not out to convince anyone.But I am concerned about the large number of creationists and so called moderates that tolerate them,especially in the USA.
It doesnt work that way Walton.Its no good pointing at a creationist when talking to a moderate christian and saying,look how braindead stupid that one is,doesnt that convince you that Im right?
Walton,youre a nice guy,but you are also a very confused guy…These positions would,to the neutral observer,seem pretty much incompatible.You just cant have it both ways mate…
Clinteas: These positions would,to the neutral observer,seem pretty much incompatible.You just cant have it both ways mate…
Yes I can. You are expounding the false dichotomy which, oddly enough, is implicitly adopted by both conservative/fundie Christians and hardline atheists: either the Bible is “true”, in the sense of being a literal and accurate exposition of history, or it is “false” and hence worthless. Since we can prove that a literal reading of the Bible is incompatible with empirical facts and observed reality – and is, indeed, inconsistent even with itself – this would, if these were the only two options, make religion an intellectually unsustainable position for anyone remotely educated and open-minded.
But, as I keep pointing out, there is a third way. I believe that the Holy Spirit can, and does, work through the agency of fallible human beings in inspiring them to do good and to speak truth. Human beings are still imperfect, and so the outcome is imperfect. When I say that the Holy Spirit “inspired” the Bible, this does not mean that it was dictated verbatim by an infallible voice from the clouds. It plainly was not, and so “sola scriptura” is a red herring. Rather, I mean that the authors of the Bible, being ordinary humans, were trying to rationalise and understand their own encounters with the divine – and sometimes, of course, they got it very wrong. But the Bible is still a worthwhile and inspirational text, and still tells us something about the nature of God.
And I think we can probably accept that the most important part of the Bible – the Gospels, and the teachings of Christ – are historically reliable enough that we can rely on them as a guide to faith and ethics. And even if they’re not a completely accurate historical representation, where’s the harm? Jesus’ teachings are still a good ethic by which to live, if one understands them properly.
I will say, however, that the Bible – being, as I said, written by fallible humans, and flawed in many parts – should take second place to our own moral consciences in guiding our actions, because I believe our instinctive moral compasses to be guided by the Holy Spirit. So where the Bible appears to be promoting something which seems to us immoral and senseless (which the Old Testament does in many parts), we should go with our own innate sense of decency, rather than an ancient and fallible document which was written for a very different, and more barbaric, cultural and historical setting.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate…
Walton, when you rally against creationism but believe in the holy spirit. How do you rationalise that a belief in a holy spirit is any more rational than believing the universe is hand-crafted by God?
Walton @ 919,
Indeed.It does.
I knew you had it in you !
Walton, you’ve essentially echoed one of my own personal thought on religion, which is that the best evidence against christianity is christians themselves – particularly idiots like Ken Ham, who, I’m ashamed to say, is from my home state of Queensland in Australia.
But even the non-literal believers don’t make sense to me. It’s impossible to read the bible and honestly believe that the god in it to be good, kind and loving. I find Numbers (31 in particular) to contain some of the most horrific, monstrous acts ever written as fact or fiction – all ordered by the bloodthirsty, hateful judeo-christian god who watches on with spiteful glee as innocent women and children are butchered.
Were the worshippers of this god honest about what a malevolent nightmare it is that they revere then I might have some respect for them – but they don’t. They lie to themselves and the lie to others about it when claim they worship a good god, a kind god, a god who cares for them – who cares for every human.
I find this all beyond ridiculous. It’s saddening and infuriating and depressing all at once.
Your god, if he existed, would be a monster. To shift the blame and say the evil acts committed in his name were due to ‘fallible humans’ is the worst kind of dodge, the description of a true coward who refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
If god couldn’t get it right then, why should we expect that he’s changed? He can’t change; he is, by definition, perfect. That you can even contemplate him capable of making mistakes is antithetical to almost every aspect of judeo-christian theology.
While there are some aspects of the bible that are, as you wrote, ‘inspirational and valuable’, they are hardly unique to the bible, and more a case of pointing out the obvious positives human society has developed over the years.
So we can take Jesus’ teachings as being the product of the development of human compassion, not the influence of a divine being – it lessens it that it had to come from a god for us to learn it. We should be proud of having achieved it rather than praising a god for coming to us in human form and handing it to us.
Honestly, I think you’ve only really got lingering shreds of belief there. Your posts seem to be more about you convincing yourself of the need for faith than it is about convincing us. You can live without a belief in god, Walton. It adds nothing and subtracts much.
Walton,
do you believe the Holy Spirit is guiding those people’s instnctve moral consciences who condemn homosexuality or abortion ?
Whatever your answer, how do you know this, and why would a religious person know better ?
I used to call myself a cultural Christian. Never believed in any of the myths, the virgin birth, the resurection, the miracles, but seemed to think like you that there were valuable moral lessons in the Bible. But then there were also all these terrible ones, eg on women and abortion, on homosexuality, so it was all about picking and chosing. Then I asked myself, why do we need this, can’t we come up with the valuable stuff without the Bible ? Of course we can, so what’s left of my “cultural” Christianty ? Nothing much really.
Having said this, I never managed to reject entirely some sort of generic animism. It’s still in the back of my head, I believe it’s based on hope and wishful thinking but that’s what it is, these are strong enough and I can’t get rid of it, it’s just too difficult. “I don’t know, neither do you” is my most honest answer to the question “Is there something after death ?”.
But then that means that whatever there is or not, we can only use reason and evidence to guide us.
Kel
Do you really believe in trolls? You Evolutionists seem to believe anything (just enjoying a bit of fun myself – this site cracks me up)! Walton, even though I think you don’t share my beliefs, thank you for showing civility – such a breath of fresh air. Creationists really are absolutely no threat to ANYONE or ANYTHING – and do not demand that their beliefs be taught in state schools (because it would be taught ‘badly’ by the likes of yourselves – I do not mean this as an insult; you really WOULD teach it without conviction). Such beliefs belong in Church or in the home. If you feel ‘unsafe’ in your bastions of science, your faith must be extremely weak. Oh, sorry about the ‘couplet’ thing – and hypothesis/theory was meant to be read as hypothesis OR theory (it’s getting late and I am getting lazy)- and I didn’t forget those other ‘-ists’, I ‘lazily’ grouped them all together as ‘scientists’.
‘negentropyeater’ – is this a ‘fancy’ way of saying ‘poorreader’? I wrote ‘middle’ to implicate the total illogicality of the Big Bang theory – but ‘little children’ wouldn’t understand that. The real number line (in Mathematics) is usually ‘said’ to have zero in the ‘middle’, negative numbers to the left, and positive numbers to the right. In reality (excuse the unintended pun), it has no ‘beginning’ and no ‘ending’ (like God?) and, therefore, has no ‘middle’ – where would be the middle of infinity? You may now realise that my degree is in Mathematics (with Physics – by the way, that guy Isaac Newton Troll was a devout Creationist, as was Louis Pasteur Troll, as was James Clerk Maxwell Troll – interesting ‘family’!), and the numbers simply do not ‘stack up’ either for the Big Bang Theory or for the Theory of Evolution – go on P Z’s obedient flock, bleat on (oddly enough being an anagram of ‘notable’, as were the three scientists aforementioned).
Internet trolls are not a myth, I’ve seen them.
Anything? We aren’t no stinking creationist. Here’s a challenge, show me any peer review document that shows the world to be less than 4 billion years old. The age of the earth is well established through several dating techniques, and the gradual emergence of life is there to see for anyone who isn’t a retard.
As for believing in anything, show me a bunny in precambrian rocks and I’ll renounce evolution. I won’t convert to Christianity, I’d need to see proof of Christ’s divinity and resurrection.
So come on, people have shown you peer reviewed research to support their views. What do you have to support yours? I’m betting nothing more than the mythology of middle-eastern herders.
@Wowbagger
For this, I thank you sir! Made my day.
@Keith Allen #924. Where is the logical fallacy bingo when you need it most?
Walton #916 & 919, the only difference between you and a creationist is the creationist has faith despite the evidence, whilst you have faith without evidence.
To use Daniel Dennett’s phrase, you seem to have belief in belief.
You’ve got to be kidding – your antinomianism notwithstanding, Jesus was a demagogue and his ethics are an insane and contradictory mixture of self-abnegation and intolerance.
Compare Matthew 5:44 with Matthew 11:20, for example.
Not that he wasn’t prophetic: Matthew 10:34-38.
Keith Allen, can you even show one source that states that evolution demands spontaneous generation? Come on, back up at least one of your basic assertions… otherwise you are nothing more than a liar. Bearer of false witness, breaker of the 9th commandment.
Keith Allen,
you seem to have decent intellectual capabilities.
It saddens me everytime I see a person that could have contributed something useful to mankind,when that person has been the victim of religious indoctrination and brainwashing,to see their desperate efforts of keeping their sanity by creating this huge cognitive dissonance….
I hope for you that your doctor doesnt believe that next time you come down with a multi-resistant bug,aquired from exposure to multiple antibiotics,and evolved into a killer.
Newton died almost 150 years before there even was a theory of evolution. There wasn’t even Lamarkian evolution at that stage.
As for troll
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll
Isn’t it nice you can lie for Jesus?
Keith Allan, #924
Congratulations – you got something half-right. Now if you can only make it the rest of the way there might be hope for you. I’m not holding my breath, though.
Tell me Keith, do you believe aeroplanes fly or are carried by invisible pixies? Do you believe it is the rotation of the earth that causes gravity, or is it that everything is held in place by leprechauns? Do doctors heal using medicine, or is it prayer that banishes germs and stitches skin together?
I’m going to assume it’s the former – the result of science and our understanding of it – in each example. Possibly a great leap on my part considering your demonstrated poor grasp of reality, but I’m feeling a little optimistic.
Why is it that you accept that science has the answers for flight, gravity and medicine and yet is at a total loss to explain how life on this planet is so diverse? How can humans have managed to get thousands of tonnes of metal into the air and around the world and yet be so wrong about the plants and animals having been created?
How can we have worked out that it is the rotation of the earth that keeps everything from flying off into space and yet are so clueless about the real reasons DNA exists and adaptation occurs – i.e. your god testing our faith?
Why is it that we’ve realised that tiny, microscopic organisms cause harm to human bodies but can be banished by careful use of other microscopic organisms and/or chemicals and yet have missed the obvious truth that it’s all the result of sin stemming from the fall?
Simple version, Keith – why wouldn’t science, which is about finding the truth and benefiting humanity, want to come up with the answers you already have? How does it benefit them to choose not to believe that ‘goddidit’ is the answer to everything?
Oh, and you probably didn’t realise it, but all three examples I used of science in action have something in common: they’re all theories. Just like evolution.
False, False, False
He also believed in the Occult and Alchemy.
“Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians.” – John Maynard Keynes
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
Keith Allen,
Keith Troll,
No, you wrote this because you don’t understand it.
Want one more example of your phenomenal ignorance :
Which numbers ?
And neither Pasteur nor Maxwell were “devout creationists”.
Lets see.
Posts on very old thread, check.
Confuses abiogenesis with evolution, check.
Trot out ID without referencing any scientific literature, check.
Allege god/creator without demonstrating physical proof, check.
Us capitals inappropriately, check.
Get defensive and personal when errors demonstrated, check.
Yep, looks like we got ourselves a live creobot. This one looks about a 3 on a 1-10 scale. Just too ignorant to be fun.
Pasteur seems to have been a very bad creationist:
Pasteur was also a devout Catholic. If he were alive nowadays he would have to accept evolution since the Church does.
As for Maxwell I’m too busy/lazy to look it up. Even if it’s true, so what? Science doesn’t have inerrant prophets like religion does. Many physicist admire Einstein greatly, but think he was dead wrong in regards to quantum mechanics. Darwin turned out to be dead wrong when it came to the mechanism of inheritance. Despite what you keep repeating, science does not operate like religion.
Feynmaniac,
Completely false.
Pasteur Vallery-Radot, his grandson, wrote in 1939 :
Quick translation :
“Both my parents have always maintaned that Pasteur didn’t practice his religion. My father spoke of his spritualism, and certainly not of his Catholicism. Both my parents would get very irritated when a priest would falsely attribute him affirmatons about his faith. Everything that has been written about Pasteur’s supposedely Catholic faith is absolutely false”.
Even Maurice Pasteur Vallery-Radot, a militant Catholic and a distant relative admitted in 1994 that Pasteur never went to mass.
Usual lies and misinformation from Catholics, you find that surprising ?
No he is lying. No bones about it. Dead on lying. And if corrupting the minds of children with his lies, distortions and flat out wrongness is caring, then yes he’s very very caring.
Kel: Walton, when you rally against creationism but believe in the holy spirit. How do you rationalise that a belief in a holy spirit is any more rational than believing the universe is hand-crafted by God?
It isn’t any more rational, but it’s non-rational rather than irrational.
As I understand it, it’s irrational to believe something, on a basis of faith alone, where the evidence militates against it – so it’s irrational to be a creationist. Treating personal feelings and ingrained beliefs as epistemically superior to empirical observation is an irrational outlook. Therefore, believing, through faith alone, that the Earth was created in seven days in 4004 BC is a fundamentally irrational outlook, considering that all the available evidence suggests that the universe is far older than that.
However, there are many aspects of human experience which are non-rational without being irrational. The uplifting sensation created by a great piece of music, for example, is a non-rational reaction. But it isn’t an irrational reaction, because we’re not using it to draw an inference of fact which contradicts empirical evidence.
Likewise, a feeling of the presence of God, and of the Holy Spirit, in one’s life is a non-rational feeling; I can’t justify it by reference either to direct empirical evidence, or to logical inference from such evidence. But it isn’t irrational, because it’s a personal feeling, and I’m not elevating it over empirical observation and established facts.
Correction:
Me: …considering that all the available evidence suggests that the universe is far older than that. – Apologies, “universe” should have read “Earth”.
Pasteur was so not a devout Catholic that he was a staunch defender of compasional euthanasia. He even practiced it on a few of the 19 russians who he couldn’t save from rabies, we’re talking 1880s !
Pasteur as a “devout catholic” is a complete historical manipulation of the truth from Catholic apologetics. A pack of lies.
negentropyeater,
Damn it! I just remember hearing somewhere he was Catholic and had said the phrase in your quote: “J’ai la foi du charbonnier breton”. I should have fact-checked it.
Thanks for the correction and the translation, I haven’t taken French since high school.
Wow. Name calling. This is a good thing for both anti-theists and Christians to engage in. Look at us, world! We can shame someone’s beliefs.
No one can prove that this is a good thing to do. It might be fun but it is not good.
The latest comments were fairly mild.
A person’s right to hold beliefs should be respected. However, the beliefs themselves, when published here, are fair game for criticism. Pointing out beliefs are stupid and why they are stupid is part of debate.
If you don’t want your beliefs refuted don’t post here.
Agreed. But name-calling, condescension, and mocking cannot be substituted as criticisms and refutations.
M, you are not a regular poster here. Who appointed you to be our politeness officer? The internet is a rowdy place and we are a rowdy bunch. Your concern is noted, but rejected.
We have good reason to believe that it did not happen:
http://ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html
It was probably all war pr0n and political propaganda. Although some of it might have been created so as to justify then-current military atrocities.
Redhead-
Thank you. I was just making an observation, not trying to be a politeness officer. I’m just confused as to why the concern is rejected…because rowdiness is the best way to discuss ideas/objections? Please don’t be defensive, I am only asking. Thanks.
Walton #940 wrote:
Examine this more closely, though — you’re skipping God from one category into another.
Feeling as if one is in the presence of God or the Holy Spirit is indeed a non-rational, personal feeling. It is like getting “the chills” when listening to Beethoven, or feeling a deep sense of love and longing for the girl next door. You don’t have to rationalize or justify a feeling as a feeling. It is what it is. If you have it, then you have it, and know you have it.
But you’re not claiming that God is, literally, a kind of feeling.
God is supposed to be a person or being — and you’re inferring its existence from the feeling. God is in the same category as Beethoven’s music, or the girl next door. They are real things outside of your self which evoke emotions within you. And now you can make all sorts of errors in reasoning once you step out of your emotions and begin to make inferences on what the emotions are about.
You must be the reincarnation of Beethoven, or you wouldn’t love his music so much. The girl next door must love you back, or else you wouldn’t feel what you feel. You’re drawing conclusions on facts, and now you can be wrong or irrational. Pointing out that the feelings themselves are non-rational won’t help.
If you weren’t trying to be a politeness officer, then why sound like one. Around here, if you aren’t willing to defend your position, don’t post.
Not all ideas are equal. Some ideas, like creationism/ID, are so stupid that they don’t rise to the level of polite debate. Creationism is pure religion, and if someone posted here claiming that we would be much politer than the usual poster who wrongly thinks his belief in creationism negates 150 years of published science. Only science, published in scientific journals, will refute science. So if creationists try to proclaim evolution is wrong without being able to cite any scientific literature we will set their lies straight with vigor. We are teaching them science if they are willing to listen. If not, no loss.
Red-
Well stated response. I guess frustration would be my main reason for sounding like one. I agree and I hate it when one side or other makes a defense/statement that is ill or uninformed and then does not back it up in any way.
Ignorance on both sides of the aisle is the worst threat and the hardest one to argue with/against.
Thanks for your time and clarification.
I find that kind of pandering equanimous platitude nauseating and insulting. Truth is, there’s precious little ignorance on this side of the aisle and great towering slag-heaps of it on the other. If creationists spent one hour trying to understand what evolution actually is, rather than constructing an absurd pastiche that can be attacked from a condition of abject ignorance and stupidity, there’d be many fewer creationists. I’d hazard a guess that the average atheist even knows the Bible better than the average creationist. Invincible pride in mind-numbing ignorance is worn like a badge of honour, it is the hallmark of creationism. To equate ignorance “on both sides of the aisle” is just bullshit.
M, evolution has probably over a million scientific papers backing it one way or another. The creationist side, has, at best, a handful of refuted papers.
Now, how is it an even debate on the facts? There are not always two sides to an argument.
Red,
But isn’t the idea of “understanding what your enemy (or opponent, or whatever) believes/thinks in order to defeat/engage them” valid?
I’m not arguing in favor of ID, but more generally about how to argue effectively.
M, how we argue is up to us. We tend to be blunt and use facts. You want everyone to play nice. Sometimes when dealing with people you need to get their attention before they listen. We have dealt with too many creobots who require the equivalent of a glass of water in the face to get their attention. So we don’t always play nice.
If you really want to discuss better argument methods, get off this old thread and go to one on the front page.
Because all the people that claim that God speaks to them contradict themselves, or contradict each other, or contradict reality.
And that as well. If God were real, he could and would speak to everyone in plain language.
Of course. How do you think I became an atheist?
If God were real, it would be his responsibility to answer when spoken to, or when people claim to speak for him.
Thanks, Red!
The difference as I see it is that believing in the holy spirit is a type 1 error in thinking: believing a falsehood, while creationism is a type 2 error in thinking: rejecting a truth. To me a type two error is far worse than a type one. (errors defined by Dr Shermer)
Sastra at #950:
God is supposed to be a person or being — and you’re inferring its existence from the feeling. God is in the same category as Beethoven’s music, or the girl next door. They are real things outside of your self which evoke emotions within you. And now you can make all sorts of errors in reasoning once you step out of your emotions and begin to make inferences on what the emotions are about.
You must be the reincarnation of Beethoven, or you wouldn’t love his music so much. The girl next door must love you back, or else you wouldn’t feel what you feel. You’re drawing conclusions on facts, and now you can be wrong or irrational. Pointing out that the feelings themselves are non-rational won’t help.
I see your point. And yes, I would be the first to admit that I could be wrong, and that I could be as deluded as the man who believes himself the reincarnation of Beethoven because he loves Beethoven’s music.
However, the distinction I was really trying to draw is that the idea of the existence of a Holy Spirit is compatible with – though not a necessary inference from – the empirical evidence. In other words, taking into account observed reality, a Holy Spirit might exist, but need not exist.
In contrast, creationism stands in direct contradiction to observed reality. Thus, believing in creationism entails a rejection of one of our basic epistemic assumptions: that observation, and logical inference therefrom, is a reliable guide to reality. In other words, it requires a rejection of empiricism – which, in turn, entails a rejection of modern science and virtually all of useful human knowledge.
A belief in the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, only requires the rejection of the principle of Occam’s razor (that the best explanation is the simplest one). And there is no necessary reason why a person should subscribe to the principle of Occam’s razor.
By the way, [shameless self-promotion coming up] I now have my own blog, which can be found at http://nevercallretreat.blogspot.com if anyone is interested.
Only if you ascribe no testable attributes whatsoever to the “Holy Spirit”.
You can only believe in a God that does nothing, and/or cares about nothing, and/or knows nothing — about anything to do with humans, anyway.
I think this is arguable as well, if only on the grounds of basic sanity.
If you reject parsimony, why believe in just one “Holy Spirit”? Why not two, or three, or seventeen, or 101, or 9 billion, or 1057?
Good afternoon ‘little children’ – Ive had a good sleep, and am refreshed, renewed, and ‘ready to rumble’! I really tried my best yesterday to ‘debate’ in a serious way, but then realised that none of you are capable of reciprocating. So, whilst I cannot join in with all the name-calling and hateful remarks, I can (and will) be condescending. My goodness, you little chappies have been very busy while I slept – did you miss me? Did poor Walton have to endure your noxious animosity all by himself? Maybe not – I see that ‘M’ provided some hate-frenzy feast for P Z’s obedient flock. You ‘people’ are actually WAAAY funnier than that ‘religulous’ Bill Maher – and he’s a professional comedian! I guess that YOUR ‘godhead’, or ‘unholy trinity’, would be P Z Myers, Dick Dawkins, and Bill Maher – two professors and a comedian (oh, let’s be honest – three comedians). I am definitely not surprised by your dismissal of Isaac Newton, but even Stephen Hawking (who now occupies the Chair Newton once did) poses the question “What breathes life into our equations?” – and he is not noticeably religious. Albert Einstein (not known to be religious) once said “God does not play dice with the Universe”. Louis Pasteur actually claimed to have devised a scientific experiment to prove that abiogenisis is impossible – personally, I think that anyone with common sense already KNOWS that! To repeat myself (teachers often do!), it is glaringly obvious that the Theory of Evolution cannot ‘get started’ without abiogenesis (just a pompously constructed word for ‘spontaneous occurrence of life’). As for peer reviews – you all KNOW that ‘scientific’ journals allow no dissention to Darwinism. I nearly fell off my seat when I read that science is about finding truth! Did you deliberately omit the words ‘but we cannot allow God to get a foot into the door’? What exactly do you mean by ‘truth’? Jesus Christ was asked this question by Pontious Pilate – He didn’t waste His time by answering such an obviously self-centred person (please note, Owlmirror). However, He did tell His followers :”I am the way, the truth, and the life”; He also referred to Himself as “the light”. Are scientists searching for THIS truth? Well, maybe a very small minority of them, but most are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7, but reading verses 1 through 8 provides a remarkably prophetic vision of TODAY. I was reluctant to quote scripture, but ‘the flock’ have done so). So, ‘rowdy little children’, enjoy your fun – although SOMEONE ‘out there’ deems me too ignorant to be ‘fun’. Before I forget, ‘why do scientists go to such lengths …’? I think it might well be due to an anagram of ‘spider’ – without the ‘s’. Scientists of the ‘ignorant’ past sometimes believed that their inspiration came from God – even today, some do.
yawn
Amen Rev. YYaawwnn.
No, we didn’t miss you.
Fuck off.
Chimp & Nerd,
I see your yawns and I raise you a zzzzzzz.
Wowbagger wins the thread. KA loses.
You’re nothing but rumble.
No, he didn’t.
You’re once again exposing your enormous ignorance by confusing “spontaneous generation”, which was the theory that complex life could arise from simpler chemicals within the span of a few days, with abiogenesis, which seeks to understand the organic chemistry which resulted in the origin of life.
Pasteur, and others before him, showed that the air is full of spores that will gladly grow on culture of simpler chemicals. He did not prove that abiogenesis could not happen, and neither has anyone else.
They require evidence and don’t allow lies, in other words.
You mean Jesus couldn’t give a true answer.
So? If Jesus still exists and is real, he can tell us exactly the same thing, himself.
I’m sitting here listening, and he isn’t talking.
Scripture proves nothing at all.
Really. You’ve never heard of theistic evolution?
Bwahahaha!
Keith,
My cat’s breath smells like cat food.
-Ralph Wiggum
Supertroll, writes in one huge text block so no-one could be bothered to read it. I suppose that’s better on citing any source for those original assertions.
KA, for the scripture to mean something, first you have to prove god exists. After that is proven, then you must show the scripture is the word of your imaginary god. Until that is proven, all you have is a work of fiction.
So, tell us where to find the physical proof for god so it can be examined by scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers to confirm that it is divine.
Let’s bring back Tenocious G. At least his arguments were hilariously bad. Keith’s are just boringly bad. Plus, Teno didn’t come in, complained about insults instead of real conversation and then preceded to make insult everyone.
Keith Allen, how long did that fester in your large intestine before you finally presented us with you “greatest gift”. This is an old and abandoned thread, feel free to decrarate as you please and make yourself at home.
All I can say is that you really love the smell of your own shit. Now roll in it like a good little naked mole-rat.
I wish PZ would quit buying cheap trolls. There are much better ones on the market, I saw them on Hell Boy II.
On werd to that, he could have made it interesting by bringing up actual problems in science. Talk about where the known meets the unknown and discuss the processes of information gathering. Instead he just sent out a series of insults, misrepresentations of science and did some general godbotting. Meagre troll, at least he’s fuelling PZ’s retirement fund. :P
I suspect that even the half-decent trolls are on holidays already and have sent out some sort of religulous equivalent of the bat-signal* to the members of the third- and fourth-string teams to come try their hands. KA is so insipid he makes me long for Kenny – at least the latter knew how and when to use paragraph breaks and single-quotation marks.
*The silhouette of a human head with the brain removed and a bible in it place, perhaps.
You’re just claiming to miss TG and Kenny because they aren’t actually here to crap all over the place.
You would all change your tune tout suite if they actually showed up.
*shudder*.
Patricia, looks like you are feeling better. Definitely a bit of twirling sashay in your posts today.
HIs comments are like the adult voices in Charlie Brown.
“Whahwah wahhh whahwahwawawahhh whuwawahhh.”
Chappies? What are you a fuckin’ Lord of the upper house?
Here’s a question Keith. How old is the earth my good chap?
Can you answer that question ol’boy?
This guy is more interesting.
Walton:
Best of all, the rejection of Occam’s razor comes with all sorts of bonus benefits. For example:
(a) Astrology not working for you? Blame it on a government conspiracy! NASA, the same organization that faked the moon landings, tried to cover up aliens and the face on mars, and deceived innocent American children with the round earth myth, is now feeding astrologers bad astronomical data in order to ruin the predictive abilities of astrology, and thus drive people away from it. All it takes is the rejection of Occam’s razor.
(b) Want a pet invisible unicorn? All it takes is the rejection of Occam’s razor.
(c) Don’t want to accept global warming? You too can believe the IPCC is part of a world-controlling conspiracy of climate scientists living high on the public dollar, faking data to terrify people and get big government grants, and eco-terrorists faking ecological disasters. All it takes is the rejection of Occam’s razor.
Walton #160 wrote:
As Owlmirror already pointed out, you already do subscribe to the principle of Occam’s razor. What you’re talking about here is making an exception — but only if the belief is so vague and innocuous that there are no real testable consequences. Anything and everything can fit. You don’t derive it from starting from scratch and forming it as one hypothesis among others. You start out with it, and see if it can be twisted into a shape where it doesn’t actually conflict with anything.
No, it won’t fit in coherently with the reality science has revealed to us. We no longer accept mind/body dualism, and vitalism as a theory is dead. “The Holy Spirit” is very like those claims for “healing energy” or “mind power” — intuitive, but mistaken.
But you’re not trying to be consistent and coherent. You want to make an exception just in one small area, and approach the concept of the Holy Ghost not like a science theory, but more like it’s a matter of taste. Belief in the Holy Spirit “works” for you, and doesn’t harm anyone, so what’s the problem?
Depends on whether you’re asking the question socially, to other people — or whether you’re asking the question to yourself, as part of the process of truth seeking and forming a consistent philosophy. In the first case, I’d say that, as long as we’re just talking about getting along with each other, then what the heck. Sure, it’s okay. You seem to have your head on straight — in other respects. Okay.
Only you can answer the second question.
Keith Allen #963 wrote:
Not necessarily — is God a testable hypothesis? How would it be falsified, theoretically?
Good afternoon ‘little children’ – Ive had a good sleep, and am refreshed, renewed, and ‘ready to rumble’! I really tried my best yesterday to ‘debate’ in a serious way, but then realised that none of you are capable of reciprocating. – Keith Allen
Only a complete moron suffering from the delusion that he’s clever and sophisticated scatters scare-quotes as thickly as this.
In the ‘beginning’, there was NOTHING – neither time nor space nor matter. ‘Then’, a point-singularity in the ‘middle’ of this timeless nothingness exploded (no reason), thus CREATING (oh horrors!) space, time, and matter. ‘Later’ (again for no reason), life arose spontaneously (somehow, apparently, bringing death with it!) and even managed to ‘figure out’ a way to produce INTELLIGENCE and REASON. Now tell me – WHO believes in fairy tales
Again, stop lying.
Owlmirror wrote,
No, I wouldn’t. Honestly. It’s KA’s irritating, dimwitted, cut’n’paste writing style that bothers me, not his baseless non-arguments, which belong in the Not Even Wrong category. Those other two idiots were annoying but in a more tolerable way.
Even Pete Rooke’s a couple of steps up on this assclown – at least when he’s not analogising.
Salutations to the bleating ‘flock’ – my, you are really quick with your responses – especially Patricia (how very feminine and SOOOO well-reasoned!). I wrote a ‘long’ response because your ‘flock’ is so large. Why don’t you all nominate a ‘champion’ (as the Philistines goaded the Israelites to do) to engage in ‘single combat’? By the way, in response to the ‘zzzzzz’ remark, I have three ‘Z’s’ of my own regarding the Theory of Evolution – there is no evidence of ‘amoeba to man’ evolution – NOTHING, as in Zero, Zip, and Zilch. There, ‘little children’, you really have something to get rowdy about!
You think man evolved from amoeba?
Evidence we evolved from apes? Staggering. Evidence that Mammals all share a common ancestor? Again, staggering. Evidence that mammals evolved from reptiles? Again, staggering. Evidence reptiles evolved from amphibians? Again, staggering. Evidence that amphibians evolved from fish? Again, staggering. Evidence that humans evolved from fish? Well it’s all in our body.
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0375424474
Keith Allen #988 wrote:
If you became convinced that the evidence supported the Theory of Evolution, would you no longer believe that God exists? Or, would you retool your understanding of God, and now believe that God worked through evolution?
How much is riding on this, for you?
KA@988,
No, baseless assertions without even the appearance of any attempt to support them with evidence and argument are really not worth getting rowdy about, you silly little troll.
KA @988 is in full troll mode, without disimulation.
The most notable feature of this troll is the apostrophephilia.
Insipid.
Fixed.
Keith tell us what you reject.
Please get specific and show your work.
KA – You are a second rate troll. I don’t even have to loosen my corset strings to deal with the likes of you. Is that the best you’ve got?
‘I’ ‘like’ ‘this’ ‘word’ ‘!”1”1”one”!’
Keith, you came up zero with no proof for your imaginary god. Poor delusion boy. Get with the program, you are the one who must prove yourself, not us. Show us the physical proof for your imaginary god.
Keith Allan bleated:
So, Keith’s a woman-hater. Colour me unsurprised. It’s in the bible after all.
Fuck ewe, you old goat.
Keith please cite the specific research you refute and provide us why you find this science to be wrong.