Comments on: Pokemon Prove Evolutionism Is False

By: sarah smith

sarah smith — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 03:38:01 +0000

I think every one should believe in want they wants to believe in. We don’t have listen to one person’s ideas. I’m 10 and have and will always love and believe in pokemon.I think moore people,”kids” believe in pokemon.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 17:11:19 +0000

The most noteworthy aspect of this website is not what it says about our conceptions of creationism, creationists or creation scientists, or indeed what it says about our conceptions of ourselves as supposedly smart, rigorous non-creationist people. What is really food for thought is why someone would make such a site. Mischief? Political conviction? Social experiment? Who does these things? There are others, lots of others I’m sure. Slightly freaky example is http://www.wholesomewear.com/ which I am hoping is what at least some anglophone cultures refer to as a piss-take. Are they done by bored web-designers looking for a job or some sort of geek-fame? It’s doin’ my head in man.

By: ArchPundit

ArchPundit — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:15:44 +0000

Intellectual orthodoxy should not be confused with intellectual rigor. Creationism is stunning in that it is bad theology, bad science, and bad politics all rolled up into one. I feel no more responsibility to take creationists seriously than I do flat earthers because they both rest on the same sort of nonsensical ideas of what science and faith are. One group just happens to not have as effective of a lobby.

By: Russell L. Carter

Russell L. Carter — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:30:16 +0000

“There is room for everyone’s ideas under the tent.” No, sorry. There is a difference between science and religion, and in education the distinction must be made. The medicine that cures your physical ills is different from the medicine that soothes your soul. I’m totally ok with a great big tent for the latter. Just don’t try to push science into it.

By: MadJayhawk

MadJayhawk — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 06:02:27 +0000

m@Butler: Disingenuous? I was under the impression we were talking about creationists in general and not about creationism as a political movement when I wrote my comment. It was totally unintended disingeuousity. Most political movements are harmful to children and society and are fundamentally dishonest except the ones you favor. Bad political movements (the ones I do not favor) are a necessary evil in life. I can tolerate, without getting white knuckles, anyone harboring and expressing ideas that are different from my own carefully thought-out midwestern white-bread opinions around my offspring or myself. Being exposed to a diversity of ideas, no matter if most sane people consider the ideas hopelessly wrongheaded, is good for children and even adults at times. There is room for everyone’s ideas under the tent. Demanding intellectual orthodoxy, even good orthodoxy, is bad. Once someone gives the okay to whack people or movements like the creationists or creationism because they deserve, as you say, the scorn and ridicule of everyone who disagrees with them, who is next? The Muslims? The Jews? The Buddists? The Democrats? (If there is ever a vote on this, I vote, after carefully making sure my chad is not hanging, for the Hillaryites. I am not 100% openminded.)

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 02:31:34 +0000

I reckon that Lydia’s right here – just because people hold apparently irrational beliefs doesn’t mean that they can’t be deeply intelligent. But, as she also says, they’re usually smart enough not to be argued out of their beliefs either. Some parts of creationist “science” are magnificent in a skewed kind of way, constructing a very complicated quasi-scientific structure to shore up a deeply non-scientific (and in some respects anti-scientic) worldview.

By: m@butler

m@butler — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:14:36 +0000

MC Hawking minces no words about creation science. The rest of the site is pretty funny too, in a mildly offensive sort of way. As for madjayhawk’s “diversity and inclusion” line, it is disingenuous. No one is challenging the right of creationists as individuals to hold their beliefs, any more than we challenge astrologers or UFO enthusiasts. However, creationism as a movement actively promotes a political agenda – to compromise science education – that is harmful to children and to society. And it does so in a way that is fundamentally dishonest: it presents arguments as scientifically grounded which are in fact pure theology (and rather crude, literalist theology at that). For this creationism deserves all the scorn and ridicule it gets.

By: Lydia Nickerson

Lydia Nickerson — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 22:57:50 +0000

I find that one seldoms goes wrong doubting the intelligence of creationists.

Even when it makes you look like a complete ass.

Do you know very many fundamentalists? I've known a fair number, indeed I'm related to entirely too many. People who believe in creation science are not by definition stupid. Some of them are almost frighteningly bright. I knew a physicist, once, who did top-notch work who was a creationist. I have no patience with creationism, and no sympathy for the cynical proponents of same. However, I think that opposing someone effectively requires that you be able to see your enemy clearly. We intellectuals find it so entertaining to look down on those stupid, hick bible-thumpers who didn't finish 8th grade. Although all of you know better than that (I hope), you still seem to have that attitude. Fighting smart people as if they are stupid is not a winning strategy. What creationists have, instead of a lack of intellectual processing power, is the ability to engage in subtle self-delusion in select, narrow areas. They choose the things they will believe in, and which they will disbelieve, ignoring the links between the two and the ways in which one requires another. Of course, with something as multi-purpose as God, that's not as hard to do as it is for people who believe in a rational world. These are people who are capable of towering feats of logic, elegant and extensive rhetoric, elaborate explanations for extensive swaths of normality, they are capable of putting together an argument to make the most seasoned debater blanch, but they are fundamentally irrational. Therein is the problem. No rational argument can win. They are smart enough to avoid getting trapped by their own logic box, and capable of resisting all attempts to get them out into the wider world. That logic box is a security blanket, an irrational protection against the "cruelty" of the rational world.

By: Ezra

Ezra — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 22:44:23 +0000

I was surely had, but remember, jack Chick publishes his tracts in all seriousness – so for those of you who think that this was simply to ludicrous to be real, I beg to differ. I have great respect for many creationists, but I am all too aware of the leaps of faith many are willing to make, especially when they have had little contact with the sciences. If i sound elitist, I apologize, i mean merely to be a realist. Meanwhile, pat Robertson is using his national show to ask God to “retire” (sounds like a mob hit) 3 supreme court justices.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 22:42:56 +0000

until I came to the “matrimonial thong” in the merchandise. With just a touch more authenticity, I could even be talked into swallowing that. I doubt the thong is kosher, myself.

By: ArchPundit

ArchPundit — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 22:38:39 +0000

===Even when it makes you look like a complete ass. It was probably a set-up used to sucker in those intellectually superior individuals who continually look down their haughty noses at other people’s belief systems while singing the praises of diversity and inclusion. A set-up? No, a satire that was a little too close to reality. Go visit http://www.drdino.com/ and then look up what Patriot University is: http://www.geocities.com/odonate/patriot.htm That isn’t satire—which is more over the top? I can’t tell. I don’t buy the notion that creationists are somehow equally valid in their world view when they start trying to use science to support what it does not support. The world isn’t postmodern. Diversity and inclusion aren’t buzzwords for being so open-minded your brain falls out.

By: Chad Peterson

Chad Peterson — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:23:17 +0000

Ezra picked out a good name for his website, ‘Not Geniuses’. I had someone fool me last week, though.

By: MadJayhawk

MadJayhawk — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:00:11 +0000

I find that one seldoms goes wrong doubting the intelligence of creationists. Even when it makes you look like a complete ass. It was probably a set-up used to sucker in those intellectually superior individuals who continually look down their haughty noses at other people’s belief systems while singing the praises of diversity and inclusion. Reel ‘em in Billy Bob. We got us ‘nother one. Hehe.

By: Lydia Nickerson

Lydia Nickerson — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 20:33:28 +0000

I was raised in a small, fundamentalist sect. (I escaped at the age of 18.) I could not tell that the site was a parody, until I came to the “matrimonial thong” in the merchandise. With just a touch more authenticity, I could even be talked into swallowing that. I didn’t review the site in careful detail, but what I saw was so subtle a parody as to not be funny, for me. It wasn’t outrageous, it was just depressingly familiar.

By: erik wedin

erik wedin — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 20:14:53 +0000

While the site may be fake (I beleive it started with OBJECTIVE: Landover Baptist Shutdown, which was also by the Landover Baptist people), the links at the bottom appear to be real, and those are scary enough.