Why gods are better at magic than at science

One of the cool things about the “God is an imaginary character” hypothesis is that it does such a good job of predicting the actual behavior of the gods. In any situation, you can predict exactly what a god can and cannot do merely by knowing what an imaginary supernatural character can and cannot do. That means that god (or any other magical, imaginary being) can do anything you can imagine—but only in a story. And he/she/it/they cannot do anything more than that.

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Creationist conference to tackle “tough issues”

Science blogger Lofar Pilso reports that Discovery in Genesis and the Answers Institute are planning a major conference on creationism and intelligent design to be held at an undisclosed location in New Mexico some time next fall.

The conference, entitled “Hard Questions: God’s Glory,” will be a departure from creationist conferences of the past. “Evolutionists aren’t afraid to hold conferences where they tackle the tough issues in Darwinism,” said William Ham, of Discovery in Genesis. “This conference will prove that creationists are equally brave, and willing to confront the problems faced by modern creationist theory.”

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Anti-evolution bill nixed by lawmakers

Good news from South Dakota. As the Argus Leader reports:

Senate Bill 114 was killed last week. More accurately, it was deferred by the state senate’s education committee to the “41st legislative day,” which doesn’t exist.

Senate Bill 114 was another one of those stealth creationism bills designed to encourage public school teachers to introduce kids to Genesis under the guise of “questioning” evolution. And you have to love this bit:

Language in the bill is also similar to model legislation from a group that has created intelligent design curriculum for private and home school teachers. Representatives for the Washington-based Discovery Institute say they don’t support teaching intelligent design in public schools.

No, of course they don’t support teaching ID in the public schools. They just design the curriculum (and help craft laws like SB 114) to make it possible for someone else to support teaching ID in public schools. See, that way, when the school district gets sued for First Amendment violations, and loses, the Institute doesn’t bear any of the liability, and are free to move on to the next school district.

Darwin was wrong (even though he was right)

In response to a recent proposal to have February 12 recognized nationally as “Darwin Day,” Ken Ham has issued a counter-call for that date to be hailed as “Darwin Was Wrong Day.” Ironically but perhaps not surprisingly, the AiG web site demonstrates that Darwin’s most famous contributions—natural selection and new species arising by descent with variation from common ancestors—are not only correct, but are necessary prerequisites even for creationist “biology.”

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That’s a hell of an argument

The Christian News Network has caught Bill Nye the Science Guy deliberately and even flagrantly indulging in reasonable thought and rejecting pious fallacies.

In the latest issue of a widely-circulated science magazine, Bill Nye ‘the Science Guy’ defiantly defends his evolutionary beliefs and says that even if he ends up ‘going to Hell,’ it still won’t prove that the earth is young.

Imagine that. You know what else would not be proved if Bill Nye was condemned to Hell by a vengeful God? Lots of things: that the earth was flat, that the sun orbits around the moon, that Jesus was a marmot with an addiction to penny loafers, lots of things. You can threaten people with horrible suffering and/or death unless they believe what you tell them, but that has nothing at all to do with whether or not the things you say are true.

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Ken Ham knows

This article is a bit old, but it recently popped up in one of my news feeds, and I had to smile a little.

Time is actually a created entity. The first verse of the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, emphasis added).

A study of this verse reveals that God created time, space, and matter on the first day of Creation Week. No one of these can have a meaningful existence without the others. God created the space-mass-time universe. Space and matter must exist in time, and time requires space and matter. Time is only meaningful if physical entities exist and events transpire during time.

“In the beginning . . .” is when time began! There was no time before time was created!

It’s a classic example of how superstition can corrupt your thinking to the point that you can look right at the truth and even report what you are seeing, without ever actually seeing the truth you are looking at. If there was no time before time began, then there has never been a time when time (and space and matter and energy) did not already exist. In other words, there has never been a time when the material universe did not already exist. And since there has never been a time when the material universe did not already exist, then there has never been a time when it could have been created. Not even by a God.

Ken Ham knows this. He looks right at it and reports it to us. And yet, as you can see by the way he phrases it, he still believes that at some point in time, God created a universe that did not exist before that point. It’s a self-contradiction, but it’s what he believes, despite what he knows.

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Everything we need to know about God

I was a conservative, Bible-believing Christian until I was in my early forties, and as a believer, the one thing I wanted more than anything else was to understand God. Ironically, it’s only now, after a decade and a half as an atheist, that I’ve finally reached an understanding that truly does explain everything that seems odd or mysterious about God.

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Ex nihilo

Here’s a quick one: young earth creationism likes to claim that God created everything out of nothing, but that’s actually a self-refuting claim. Before you can create anything out of nothing, you must first have nothing, and there has never been a time when God had nothing besides Himself. “Nothing” means nothing else existed, not even time. But there has never been a time when time did not exist, obviously. Therefore there has never been a “nothing” out of which God could create anything.

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A short answer

Just for fun, I thought I’d take a stab at the 22 Messages from Creationists, giving each one a short response. Let’s start with the last one.

22. If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?

If we came from our parents and grandparents, why do we still have parents and grandparents? Or, to put it in Christian terms, if Jesus came from God, then why would there still be a God?

Think, dude. [Read more…]