A Master’s in Creationism
LOL*cough*
Excuse me. I nearly choked on a handful of almonds. My created/intelligently designed oesophagus is just a little too close to my trachaea, making it very easy to block the latter with particles of chewed food whilst laughing my arse right off its hinges when I read stuff like this FOX article:
State Rep. Leo Berman (R-Tyler) proposed House Bill 2800 when he learned that The Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a private institution that specializes in the education and research of biblical creationism, was not able to receive a certificate of authority from Texas’ Higher Education Coordinating Board to grant Master of Science degrees.
So. “Education” and “research” (grin) of biblical creationism (chortle). OK, well, although I’m no theologian or creation scientist (snort) , allow me to sum up the entire proposed course for you:
Image by gadgetdude at Flickr via Creative Commons
Education: God did it.
Research: it says in the Bible that God did it.
Thesis: the Bible says God did it; the Bible is always right because God wrote it; God is always right; the evidence for this is in the Bible which God wrote; my conclusion is that God did it (and is always right, just like the book He wrote).
Well done, here’s your diploma & whimsical ”WWJD” t-shirt that all the kids are wearing. That’ll be several thousand dollars. Hmm? What do you mean you can’t get a job in any university in the world (except Bob Jones U, whom we hate because they always beat us at football)? What do you mean everyone points, laughs and calls you “Flintsone”? Gasp! My God, you’ve been pre-Expelled! Damn you, Big Science! *shakes fist at sky* Damn you all to Hell!
But wait - there’s more! No story about improvident creationist lackwits would be complete without a variation on Ye Olde Argumente From Not Being A Monkeye’s Uncle:
“I don’t believe I came from a salamander that crawled out of a swamp millions of years ago,” Berman told FOXNews.com. “I do believe in creationism. I do believe there are gaps in evolution.
“But when you ask someone who believes in evolution, if you ask one of the elitists who believes in evolution about the gaps, they’ll tell you that the debate is over, that there is no debate, evolution is the thing, it’s the only way to go.”
Well, in the sense of having the only credible, testable and verifiable evidence, evolution is, has been and most likely will be forever the only way to go. And if the number and size of “gaps” in a theory (a theory which, by the way, has been constantly revised, edited and updated since 1859, has literally billions of pieces of evidence supporting it and, very, very importantly - has not been disproven or debunked in any meaningful fashion, ever, by anyone from anywhere) are directly related to how true that theory is, please can you explain how your Bible (which has remained unchanged & ignorant on even the most basic facts of reality, such as the shape of the planet and its positiong in the sky, more or less, since it was duct-taped together in the fourth century) explains anybloodything at all except the roots of fundamentalist lunacy like yours.
But to give you a partial credit, you are semi-correct about one thing: you didn’t come from a salamander from millions of years ago. In fact, both “you” and your salamander ”came from” a self-replicating proto-organic molecule from billions of years ago. Yeah. I thought you’d like that.
Tiresome, pathetic, predictable and laughable as it is, I really wish these moonshine-swilling creationist troglodytes would make even the tiniest, token effort to actually comprehend what the theory of evolution says - and what it bloody well doesn’t say - before not only dismissing it as fantasy (pot, meet kettle) but also attempting to offer (chuckle, snort) Masters’ Degrees (CACKLE) in some allegedly conspired-against-by-Atheo-Neo-Darwinist-Evilutionismists “scientific” alternative!
Science is not some dark, ever-shrouded conspiracy-mill, you cud-chewing half-pate. Just because your precious Bush government was exactly that for 8 years is no reason to project it onto harmless nerds in labs inventing the interwebs or trying to find, oh I dunno, cures for frickin CANCER. So, please, do some actual research and publish something that backs creationism up (and remember to show your work so the other kids can replicate your results) or stand to one side and allow the big kids into the lab to get some frigging work done.
Isaac: Use “Bible” as a search term at this site and you’ll find out just how wrong you are when you say: “You criticize the Bible without knowledge of its background or how it became the handbook of Christianity.” Virtually every person writing for this site was raised in a Christian faith.
Look . . . we don’t have Christian meteorology, Christian chemistry, Christian metallurgy, Christian linguistics, Christian physics, Christian mathematics or Christian anatomy. For the same reason, we don’t need Christian biology. The scientific method used by biology is the same scientific method used by all the other sciences, and you would presumably study those other sciences on their own, (without any “need” to consider them in concert with Biblical teachings).
As stated by every first-rate scientist or philosopher of science, “science” is not a collection of facts. Rather, it is a method by which we make observations, test them, look for correlations among them and theorize about them based only on other observable and testable facts. I’ll admit that there are some theoretical sciences that freely admit that they are more speculative than some other branches, such as metaphysical cosmology (to the extent it deals with the creation of the universe). When we study evolution, though, we are not engaged in theoretical biology. Rather, evolutionary biology precisely accounts for a wide variety of publicly observable phenomena. The Bible doesn’t hold a candle to evolutionary biology when it comes to describing and accounting for all of the plants and critters one finds on earth. When you compare the Bible to the principles of evolutionary biology, side by side, it becomes all the more apparent that there is no comparison.
The motivation at this site is to better understand the natural world, not to make capricious attacks on religious writings. The “attacks” only come when Believers (many of them well-meaning) get in the way of good science, only when Believers argue that we shouldn’t follow the evidence where it leads.
Isaac mentioned the book of Genesis. He might enjoy reading my thoughts on that subject: http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/05/12/gods-attractive-nuisance-the-tree-of-knowledge/.
I agree that recieving a masters of ’science’ degree based on the study of the bible is pretty ridiculous. A doctoral degree in theology from a bible college is more appropriate, but if you focused your studies on creation, the studies wouldn’t be summed up: Education: God did it.
Research: it says in the Bible that God did it.
Thesis: the Bible says God did it; the Bible is always right because God wrote it; God is always right; the evidence for this is in the Bible which God wrote; my conclusion is that God did it (and is always right, just like the book He wrote). I can be amused by fallacy humor, but that circular arguement is old and so often used as an example of christian ignorance, that even us toothless cud gumming moonshine swilling bible thumping hillfolk don’t still use it. Alot of people(if not most)are prejudice, it is not the best we can feel towards others. You might believe we have evolved with prejudice because it has a purpose. Of course, the bible has a different stance on this, most are probably familiar with love your neighbor as you would yourself. It is something higher to strive towards. This is one example, for many the bible is a rich and rewarding source of study, the meaning deeper as you study.
On the subject of science and creationism, although the bible is not meant to be a scientific text, I wanted to point out that modern science confirms that Genesis 1 presents the proper sequence of events. The first mentioned is that light was created, the last that man was created. The creation of plants, animals etc. are mentioned in between in the exact order that scientists now believe they evolved. The belief that light probably came first and man was last are recent theories. I found this online awhile back and saved it…
Moses or whoever else you believe composed the text of Genesis 1, 3300 years ago, somehow found the ONE true sequence of the 14 events mentioned there out of over 87,178,291,200 possible sequences! A human author of Genesis 1 would have had to beat odds of around 87 billion to one (14 factorial) to have magically selected (guessed) the sequence presented in Genesis back then. It seems pretty impossible. If I was faking a religious document, I would write that man was created first as a witness to it all, as we are pretty self-important creatures. So, science and Genesis are in agreement here, except if you read the KJV, where birds are created before the creeping creatures. This version is translated from Greek, Aramaic and then Latin translations and is a watered down source… But, the Hebrews have their own translation of the original text, which is called Bereshit. The Bereshit text for Genesis 1, Specifically, Verse 21 reads:
21. God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms; and all the winged birds of every kind. And God saw that this was good.
The Jewish text therefore indicates a sequence where sea creatures were first, THEN creeping creatures, and THEN the birds. So, that is pretty much in a nutshell the order of it, as science believes.
OK, so what is your point exactly? That some versions of scripture are, in a hugely vague way, more-or-less correct in their description of the order of the evolution of species and some actually aren’t? At all? This stuff is meant to be dictated by God, the least the different versions could do is agree with each other about the specific order of the creation of the universe if people expect them to be taken seriously. It shouldn’t matter which version of what book people consult.
Unfortunately, however, it does. Which necessarily calls the whole body of text - including every variation and translation, for as I understand it noone actually has a first-generation copy of anything - and everything that’s built upon it into question.
My point of view is this: whether you’re going to base your life on it, start a religion around it or give people degrees based on it, any text which claims to contain any wisdom or knowledge or just plain information has to be consistent the whole way through, whichever way you read it, whatever language it’s in, whatever version you’re holding in your hand.
The Bible is no such document. My evidence? Two thousand years later, people are still freaking arguing about which bits are to be taken literally and which are “just metaphor”. The big three still argue about which of God’s prophets is the most awesome - often fatally - and there’s no actual way to tell who’s right. Muslims disagree amongst themselves, as do Jews and Christians. If there is indeed one book that contains everything we’re meant to need, it’d be nice for its author to show up and set everyone straight. I won’t hold my breath though.