KBSU is the campus television station for Bemidji State University, and apparently they’ve been broadcasting crap lately — several hours a day have been dedicated to episodes of this feeble series of videos called “Does God Exist?”. It’s awful. It’s basically some self-proclaimed Christian standing in front of a camera and preaching.
For an example of the quality of the thinking going into this video series, take a look at his proof for the existence of god. He literally says that there are only two possibilities: 1) the universe is eternal and uncreated, the atheist position (which is incorrect), and 2) the book of Genesis is correct. Because science has demonstrated the event called the Big Bang, it has proven that the Christian creation story is correct.
Really.
You know, I don’t think a public television has to be constrained to avoid showing inanity like this; in fact, this guy’s video series is so awesomely stupid that they are doing the cause of atheism a small favor by openly discrediting religious “logic”. However, as the television station for a university, I should think they would also be obligated to show something educational, with a little more intellectual heft than the ravings of a self-pithed delusional kook. How about also showing A brief history of disbelief? Bronowski’s Ascent of Man? Sagan’s Cosmos? There’s lots of good stuff out there, and that KBSU is rummaging about in the garbage bin for dreck to fill their broadcasting hours isn’t a good sign.
Leo: The stars predict there is a harem in your future. Unfortunately, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds; it’s more like a knacking yard cooperative, with benefits.
“Because science has demonstrated the event called the Big Bang, it has proven that the Christian creation story is correct.”
Isaac Asimov noted that the Universe either had a beginning, or not. Therefore, the bible story of a beginning had a 50% chance of being right.
a knacking yard cooperative, with benefits
I’ll take it!
Lucky numbers are: 1, 7, 43, 8, i
That’s a whole pile of stupid, especially the document linked by PZ.
Love this one: “Modern-day scientists like Paul Davies and Frederick Hoyle and others are raising elaborate objections to the use of chance in explaining natural phenomena.”
Elaborate does not equal correct
I have to disagree with PZ, here; the station at my college was primarily used to hone the production and writing skills of the communications majors and their associates. I, myself, was a writer for a sketch comedy show produced by a friend (Complete Garbage for the win!). Of course, the producer then married into a crazy fundie cult and changed the show format to a religious one, but that was within his right, and he changed it back after the divorce.
In any case, the problem even a closed-circuit campus station is likely to run into is the licensing of the material you suggested. While some copyright owners might allow educational broadcast over a campus station, more than likely, it’s going to cost. That rules out most pre-produced material.
What this situation needs, in my opinion, is thoughtful counter-programming produced by students. One thing that it shouldn’t be hard to find is a science professor willing to be interviewd with counter points. Hell, they can probably arrange to have the time slot immediately following this crap, and rebut it point-for-point. Leave it to a couple of smart students, and this stuff will become even more of a joke than it is.
You know, I covered a similar topic on my blog, dealing with a similar argument from Geisler and Turek’s apologetics book. My short answer is that if science shows us that time and space began at the Big Bang, then that means the material universe has existed for all of time, i.e. there has never been a time when the material universe did not exist. Since this fits the literal definition for uncreated, the atheistic alternative must be the correct one.
They could also have this series from the BBC on philosophers. Here is Nietzsche.
Another point, would have thought that a writer for the National Review would play down xianity?
“Yes, Kathryn, we want our forces to be honorable and decent. And mostly they are. Even the ones who go drinking and whoring Saturday night, mutter prayers in a foxhole. That is fairly traditional human behavior, which does not bear excessive scrutiny. Whatever Judeo-Christian values we choose to practice and live among here at home, in peace, we are better off not feminizing or Christianizing the military any more than we can avoid.”
The National Review is worried about the over xiantianizing of the military?!
A whole site full of the same boring old c**p, with the same (boring) counter-questions ie if nothing can exist without a creator, who created the creator ? if you then insist that a creator has always existed, I tend to cut out the middle man and insist that the universe has always existed – it’s turtles all the way down again !
Fair enough, questions like what happened before the big bang (if there was a before) are perfectly valid, so is the answer “we don’t know – yet ..” but “we don’t know so god did it” is NOT a valid answer to anything.
Sorry, forgot the link.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmFjMWE4Nzg2ZjlhOTEwNmM1NDU0MjY0MTUyNDE0MmQ=
I like Ranson’s idea — put students to work refuting this guy’s nonsense.
‘”Modern-day scientists like Paul Davies and Frederick Hoyle and others are raising elaborate objections to the use of chance in explaining natural phenomena.”
Really? What has Hoyle published recently?
Thanks PZ. I’m sure they are within their legal rights to air this crap. We are also within our rights to make a stink about it and demand that they either take it off the air or allow a rebuttal. I think we may have a biologist on board already. We are awaiting KBSU’s response.
Ok, I’ll bite. Knacking yard?
Out of curriosity… you post a fair amount in any given day, do you sleep much? Or am I underestimating the power of speed reading?
I admit by my screen name to stupidity, but that article went beyond stupid into the realms of ridiculous.
Knacking yard – the working yard of the knacker, who chops up the carcasses of animals unfit for consumption ready to be rendered down for glue – often the knacker would specialise in doing this with horses which make an especially good glue, so I am told.
As for this Frederick Hoyle – yet another figment of the broadcaster’s imagination. Not only has the one we’re all thinking of been dead for several years it seems that his given name really was Fred.
I’m sure you realize that being associated with a University is by no way a guarantee of appropriateness.
The last state U I worked at hosted porn NewsGroups on their news servers for years and years. It was pretty obvious to anyone who went in to NetNews. I’d be surprised if anyone has bothered to remove them to this day. (the whipper-snappers probably don’t know what NetNews is.. It’s a text based precursor to blog message boards where you can post/read commentary or post/download binary files)
Now, unless someone needed to study pornography, which I doubt, I don’t think anyone would be OK with their state tax money going to this. Personally, I don’t care about the content.. I’m not a prude.. though I do feel that the industry takes advantage of women who commonly have histories of abuse. I just think it’s not appropriate at a U setting.
As for content licensing, this is a problem. Universities are acquiring increasingly sophisticated production capabilities though.
I’m pretty impressed with the Physics with a Bang videos. This is just a fun side project for kids and high-school students to spark interest in the sciences.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=physics+with+a+bang&search_type=
That would be the article linked, not PZed’s.
>Bemidi State University
Actually, the correct spelling is Bemidji.
It is about 130 miles NE of Fargo, ND, real Jesus Camp country.
Pffft. Do these people know nothing?
Here is the truth.
(1)God exists.
(2)God is Google.
That is 100% fact. It must be – it says so on the t’interwebz: http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/Scripture/Proof_Google_Is_God.html
(Apologies (a) for lack of embedded linky thing – I lack the skills – and (b) if it’s bindun.)
PZ, you state:
I do hope you mean that this being the atheist position is incorrect, because it is by no means clear that the universe being eternal is incorrect. All that we do know for sure is that our region of the universe is finite in age. But since we can only see so far out in space and into the past, we can’t really say anything about the age of the universe as a whole. It may be eternal, it may not be.
I expect, of course, that you are aware of this. I was just a bit worried by the choice of words.
These people would do better starting by defining “God” or “gods”…
It is incorrect that that is the atheist position — being an atheist does not entail any necessary conclusion about whether the universe had a beginning or not. I’ll defer to the cosmologists on this one.
I heard this man, John Clayton, speak many years ago. He’s an old-earth creationist and bills himself as a former atheist.
Here’s an exchange of letters between Clayton, atheist turned Christian, and Todd Greene, Christian turned atheist.
Ah, found the details. I heard him speak in November 1992 at the University of Arizona (and contributed to the Q&A), and gave a rebuttal talk to the Arizona Student Atheists on November 24. I got myself on Clayton’s mailing list, and I think I probably have some correspondence with him somewhere.
He came out against the CBS Noah’s Ark hoax in his publication, so I cited that in my “Sun Goes Down in Flames” article in Skeptic magazine.
A little more: Clayton has an M.S. in geology and earth science, and has been attacked by young-earth creationists for his heresy.
LEO: Now is not a good time to photocopy your butt and staple it to your boss’s face (oh no!)
Eat a bucket of tuna-flavored pudding, then wash it down with a gallon of strawberry Quik
“self-pithed” brings to mind a new marketing opportunity: Religious Pithing Kit, complete with eight inch long stainless steel skewers, sharp at one end and with your favorite religious symbol at the other. We’d need a biologist to write the manual, though. Purchasers certainly would need instructions.
False dichotomy doesn’t exist in these people’s worlds. That’s why they use it so much; everything to them is a true dichotomy in their heads. Everything only has two sides. Us or them. Heaven or hell. Good or bad. Cain or Abel. Laverne or Shirley.
“How about also showing A brief history of disbelief? Bronowski’s Ascent of Man? Sagan’s Cosmos?”
It’s sad, but if people are only satisfied with easy explanations, because it’s all they can understand, (and no, the logical reasoning of this guy is not atypical, it represents the vast majority) what can we do ?
“The atheist’s assertion that matter/energy is eternal is scientifically wrong. The biblical assertion that there was a beginning is scientifically correct.”
No and no! The Big Bang is a very solid theory of the beginning of the Universe, and it doesn’t involve the magical old man. Even if we don’t know yet what happened in the first moments and why it happened in the first place, you can’t go around claiming that Science proved God created the Universe. It even crazier to say the Bible is scientifically correct.
We may not know what caused the Big Bang, but some people, like Stephen Hawking, have come up with interesting ideas using String Theory and others.
Furthermore, this guy is dealing with some philosophy. I bet he doesn’t know anything about real Cosmology. Yes, heat death is a very serious possibility, it doesn’t mean matter or energy can’t be eternal. Afterall, why do you think we call it HEAT death? It may be lost in deep space, but it’s still in the Universe. And we cannot know yet if the Universe will eventually slow its expansion, or if it could crush in 10^422 years. (Really high random number)
I guess he likes the idea of heat DEATH, because it comforts him in his belief that there will be an Armageddon.
– A student in Physics hard at work debunking bad astronomical thinking (doesn’t mean I’m right, just that this guy clearly isn’t).
Thanks, Laser Tater, for the sporadic doses of weirdness.
To be fair, the idea of a “beginning” is psychologically incoherent (if not logically). Bertrand Russell once said (paraphrased) that basically, humans really suck at conceiving of and dealing with infinities.
And yeah, I really wish people would stop trotting out the Big Bang Folk-Theory as if it’s common knowledge that that was the “beginning” of the “Universe”.
That’s just nonsense!!!
And saying that that proves your ancient texts is just sheer anachronism… silliness.
Another famous dichotomy: Ginger or MaryAnn?
The sporadic doses of weirdness from Laser Tater are actually from Weird Al Yankovich, “Running with Scissors”. The song is called “Your Horescope for Today”. I sing along with it when I’m driving south to the Colorado Plateau.
Ah pithing. Back in the day when I demonstrated undergrad 2nd year physiology labs I often needed to provide the students with a new experimental subject.
This is the procedure:
1. Whack head sharply on hard object, edge of a bench often most convenient. Aim is to stun the subject.
2. Bend head forward as far as possible.
3. insert a blunt probe into the foramen magnum, push it in deep and wiggle it about.
4. If a high spinal is required reverse probe and destroy upper spinal cord.
Of course these were cane toads (Bufo marinus) ‘They’re vermin, a dangerous invasive species. Using them to teach you is doing a favour to the planet’* But I can’t see a problem applying it to the average YEC fundie. Though you may wish to take the bench to the subject…
*My stock reply to students who came over all animal rights on me. Worked every time.
Dee,
Hence my reference to it being “weirdness”. Weird Al, not just a parodist, but a strange writer of his own material.
Sorry, missed the reference. And weird is right, but lots of fun on long road trips.
In all fairness, let’s not forget that Lemaître, who was a Jesuit priest, and who first came up with the concept of primivial atom (which later got called big bang by Hoyle) did consider that this discovery reinforced his faith.
Not that it has much to do with the nonsense uttered by this guy with his “proof of the existence of God” (always a 100% certainty of crackpottery), but anecdotical at least.
(NB : he was my great uncle, I used to sit on his laps when a child, later came to value very much the quality of Jesuit educational institutions, without ever having felt I was forced to believe in things I did not share)
As an amateur Hovindologist, I’ve gotta give this guy points for originality. He points out glaring problems with a lot of YEC arguments, then introduces a whole new set of loopy arguments of his own.
For instance, he shows photos of fossil deposits in the Grand Canyon and points out that floods don’t sort things by species, so therefore the Grand Canyon was not carved by Noah’s flood.
Near the beginning of episode #19 (“The Flood”), he says that while some YECs say that the Earth’s decaying magnetic field is proof of its young age, these people are wrong: the magnetic field has reversed itself several times in the past.
He then goes on to say that when the magnetic field goes to zero, the “charged hydrogen atoms” (i.e., protons) in the Van Allen belts fall into the atmosphere, and when you combine hydrogen with oxygen, you get water, which caused Ye Floode. I hadn’t heard that particular explanation before.
Adhearence to the literal Genesis isn’t just crazy it is verifiably wrong, and you don’t have to look further then the Bible to show it. In my copy it contradicts itself on page 1. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Genesis are two completely different creation myths complete with different writing style and voice and two completely different orders of creation. I challange any creationist to first reconcile the differences before they try to perform any “research” or otherwise try to “prove” it. If you really want to piss off a creationist just ask: Which came first, Birds or Man?
Answer: Birds come first in Chapter 1. Man comes first in Chapter 2.
#33 TrueBob – With no hesitation: Maryanne. ;p
In English, the equivalent phrase is “to cast pearls before swine”. Biblical (Matthew 7:6), but no less apposite for that.
Off topic real quick sorry…
Steven you don’t happen to be from W-S, NC do you?
Maybe there was something before the Big Bang. This is a new direction in cosmology. We don’t know this yet but there are some clever hypothesis.
1. Colliding branes in a higher dimensional substrate.
2. The multiverse.
3. One physicist claims that time doesn’t really exist. It is an artifact of our brains. I don’t understand this but he is apparently not a kook, publishes, and uses mathematics.
4. Who knows? Always room for another idea.
We’ve only been at cosmology for less than a century. As opposed to killing food with pointed sticks for 100,000 years. The jury is out and we are just getting started.
Pz said:
What I find interesting about this suggestion is that I think it is exactly the kind of thing Mooney was on about before he descended into his present attitude of what I can only describe as petulance. Of course, PZ has not had to make reference to “frames” here, but rather his suggestion embodies the Millian idea that the best way to combat objectionable speech is with more and better speech. There might even be an implicit premise: it can often be helpful to respond in kind (print for print, tv for tv) and in the same place, so that the response has a better chance of reaching the audience exposed to the objectionable speech. Maybe Mooney has something like this in mind when he suggests mass-market responses to mass-market pap like Expelled.
I’m not looking to re-instigate a flame war here or anything; I guess I’m just hoping that Mooney can get to a stage where he stops worrying about the pet theory and gets back to the business of giving concrete responses to concrete anti-science idiocy. The more that engage in this kind of activity the better.
I wager that I’ll get knocked for being overly sympathetic, and maybe that’s even right. But, I don’t mean to dismiss the real, and real serious, mistakes that have been made by Mooney. I just wanna get the band back together, ya know?
What!?! You MEAN “science” has been at it for 100 YEARS and STILL doesn’t HAVE the answer to THE beginning of the universe?????????
The Jury IS not out Missy. JUST open your BIBLE.
Third Monkey, well yes of course, MaryAnn. I just didn’t want to put the answer right there. And if any of you prefer Ginger, you’re wrong.
Okay, so I now know what a knacking yard is. So then what’s a knacking yard cooperative? And how is it analogous to this harem I’m supposed to get?
Last Tuesday, here in Santa Rosa, California, I attended a public, formal debate with the same title “Does God Exist?” Now that I look at this, I see this is, almost word-for-word, identical to the pastor’s side of the debate. Not only were his arguments weak, they were utterly unoriginal. I’m not surpsied in the least.
Sadly, the guy taking the atheistic viewpoint was rather terrible, too. Literally around 90% of his time was dedicated to holding up books written by atheists (of course Dawkins, Harris, and others) and seemingly giving a book report on them. But he failed to counter the pastor’s “arguments” at all, despite the multitude of easy targets he threw up there. Having a little background in cosmology, myself, I wanted to go up there and point out how ridiculous this supposed “evidence” for god was. But nobody did. I found myself imagining how easily someone like PZ would have torn that guy down. But I know the audience went home, thinking the theist side had a much stronger case. Frustrating.
And since when do we send lions to get turned into glue anyway? I’m confused by this one.
Omg UUGg! I went to school at BSU for a whole year. I absolutely hated it! Aside from the majority of teachers I encountered there to be the biggest inept idiots I ever saw, My roomate and I were constantly badgered by the christians on our floor. We had “but jesus loves you! plastered all over our marker board and they’d rewrite that stupid line daily.
Seriously, I still want my 8 grand that I paid out of pocket back k thx bye.
And since when do we send lions to get turned into glue anyway?
Umm.. the lions are the knackers, not the knackees.
Well, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.
I think the worst thing about this argument isn’t his misunderstanding of Big Bang Theory (I’ll admit that my understanding of the theory is rather weak), but the use of the either-or fallacy. If not Big Bang, then Genesis? That logic makes absolutely *zero* sense. Even if you accepted Either Big Bang or Religion (also non-sensical), why would the Judeo-Christian myth get preference?
The illogic of it boggles my mind.
#1:”Isaac Asimov noted that the Universe either had a beginning, or not.”
See “The Last Question”. Please do.
T.A.C @47, I think P.Z. is referring to a pride of lions. As the alpha male, you will have a harem of female lions with which to mate, who also do most of the hunting, producing the knackers yard. But I could be wrong. This fits with the Leo star sign stuff….
Anyone know of any series that could represent the counter-view of such inane programming? I’d love to present KBSU with the alternative and see if they’re willing to broadcast it.
John, I think we should have asked that about 54 comments ago. PZ made some recommendations but I’m afraid they don’t appear to be freely available.
Big Bang theory, Mmmm. Maybe the kooks need a multiple choice quiz to sort out the brazen from the merely frivolous:
The Big Bang Theory was invented by:
1) Madonna
2) James Bond
3) Ghenghis Khan
4) The Mayor of Hiroshima when he asked “WTF was that?”
5) Atheists
6) Cosmologists/Physicists
7) The Devil (to trick us)
8) A flatulent god.
@#57 Peter Kemp —
Option 4 for the inventor of Big Bang Theory (“The Mayor of Hiroshima when he asked “WTF was that?””) is so wrong, but so hilarious. My coworker and I were laughing about it (and feeling like horrible people for laughing) for about five minutes. Thanks for that one.
You’re welcome Etha, black humour from Down Under. :-)
In the history of the False Dilemma, there have been 5 false dilemmas ranked the most fallacious, the most ignorant. This one surpassed them all.
I’m looking forward to the harem (yes … we Leos actually use the word “pride”) in my future. Unfortunately, it’s more likely to be in my past, like so much else.
John Clayton used to be an atheist. Kirk Cameron and Lee Strobel also used to be atheists. At first I thought, “What are we doing wrong?” But then I realize we are better off without them.
As a gay Leo, I have to ask: Is it a girl-harem or a boy-harem?
Growl (with a slight lisp).
Huh.
(Oh yes, first time commenting, been ah…lurking for a while.)
The funny thing is, none of the officials in Christianity (or at least in Catholicism, can’t speak for the splinter groups and versions of Protestantism present in the US and elsewhere) take the book of the Genesis for granted anymore. Everyone knows why Genesis was written and they pretty much also know by whom, even if not by name. The Big Bang theory is widely accepted, the only question everyone there asks is where the Big Bang came from.
One step forward, three backwards. Tsk.
(For the record, I went to a Catholic High School, had finals in Catholic Theology by choice, but have rejected the idea of God and his almightiness since I was oh…12. It was just the best education available and never was thrown out because I could argument my way through theology classes better than most of the faithful little sheep.)
Well, wrpd, I guess yours would be a boy harem. But in this you’re out of luck, knacking cooperative-wise, since you’ll only get other fine handsome fellows who want to lounge around on the rocks looking good, rather than female killing machines who are out procuring the groceries. Cie la vie, I guess, and at least you guys won’t have to worry about maintaining your svelte figures. Perhaps there will be benevolent grocery-procurers in the area who will help you out, purely for appreciation of the aesthetic pleasure you will no doubt provide for them.
Leigh: So sad, but so true.
Purrr.