How Common is Young Earth Creationism?

Campus for Christ is all over campus advertising for their upcoming debate. Of course, I ended up having a run in with one of their members.

Their members tend to try to strike up conversation with anyone who passes by or shows a faint interest in their event. The person I ended up talking to quickly realized I was an atheist (I don't exactly hide it), and started arguing that there must be a god... because the earth can't be more than a few thousand years old.

I was amazed to find out that I was speaking with a young earth creationist. He seemed convinced that it was a tenable scientific position that more and more scientists are taking (when I asked where the peer reviewed journal articles are, he claimed there was a hidden agenda in the review committees of all scientific journals).

The entire encounter left me wondering - how common are young earth creationists in Canada? The only statistic I could find (from http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=24747) claims "26 percent of Canadians believe 'that God created human beings pretty much in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so'".

The irony of all of this is that, under my sweater, I was wearing this shirt. If 26% of Canadians are young earth creationists, maybe the satire isn't as obvious as I had hoped (Poe's Law in action?).

"What Does It Matter?"

First, let me apologize for my long absence from blogging. I will be making more of an effort, now that I am back in classes, to write blog posts fairly regularly (no promises on this).

Onto this post: while strolling down the halls of my school, I happened upon a poster asking the question "DNA: DESIGN OR CHANCE?" Of course, immediately I knew this was an advertisement for some sort of religious organization - who but a creationist would pose this false dichotomy (natural selection works on chance mutations, but of course this means there is selection involved as well, which is the very opposite of chance)? In the bottom left of the poster, there was the logo for Campus for Christ, possibly the biggest and best funded Christian club on campus (out of the dozen or so that there are). The only other information on the poster was a website: ultimatequestions.org

Apparently William Craig is going to be coming to the University of Waterloo, and debating Christopher diCarlo. I had heard months ago that William Craig was going to be in Waterloo, and that Campus for Christ was interested in hosting a debate with him against an atheist. Someone had left an email address with one of the members of the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers of Waterloo. I emailed the address, showing an interest in co-hosting this event. I never got any information about what was going on, and no one else attempted to contact me, so I didn't know that the debate was still going to happen. Apparently it is, and quite soon, too (for those interested, see the "Ultimate Questions" site and click the "Events" tab).

While browsing the Ultimate Questions site, I checked out the articles they had. While two of the three articles seemed to just be a rehash of the same old design argument garbage, one, by William Craig, was entitled "What Does It Matter?" This is the article that made me decide I need to finally write another blog post.

The article is extremely short, so I will just quote it in full here (if you want to read it without my commentary, go to the Ultimate Questions site and click "articles"). The article outlines three reasons why it makes a difference whether God exists or not. While I don't think I would disagree that it matters whether God exists or not (if a Christian god exists, for example, I would be much more concerned about making sure I get into heaven), Craig's article is actually just an attack on atheism:

The following are three reasons why it makes a big difference whether God exists:
1. If God does not exist, life is ultimately meaningless. If there is no God, then it makes no ultimate difference whether you ever existed or not. True, your life might have a relative significance in that you influenced others or affected the course of history. But ultimately mankind is doomed to perish in the heat death of the universe. Ultimately it makes no difference who you are or what you do. Your life is inconsequential.
Thus, the contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the research of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good people everywhere to better the lot of the human race—ultimately all these come to nothing.
Thus, if atheism is true, life is ultimately meaningless.

This is his first reason. I read this and am shocked. Is he actually saying that alleviating suffering doesn't matter? If we have finite lives, doesn't alleviating suffering and promoting the good just become more meaningful? I have trouble even understanding what he is trying to say here. Simply, he is not seeing people as ends in themselves. I fail to see how, if no one is an end in themselves, any meaning is added if we live forever.

2. If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope. First, there is no hope of deliverance from evil. Although many people ask how God could create a world involving so much evil, by far most of the suffering in the world is due to man’s own inhumanity to man.
The horror of two world wars during the last century effectively destroyed the 19th century’s naive optimism about human progress. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope for deliverance from evil.
Moreover, if there is no God, there is no hope of deliverance from aging, disease, and death. Given atheism, there is no afterlife beyond the grave. Atheism is thus a philosophy without hope.

Craig seems to be very confused here - he seems to think that God is the only possible thing that can save us from any evils. This is one of the things which worry me about theism - the idea that we don't have to work to try to achieve justice, since in the end God just tips the scales and makes everything right again anyways. A simple quote from the Humanist Manifesto II is sufficient to rebut Craig's "point": "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."

Finally, Craig's last point (quoted more for completion than anything else):

3. On the other hand, if God does exist, then there is meaning and hope, and the possibility of coming to know God and His love personally. Think of it! That the infinite God should love you and want you to be His personal friend. This would be the highest status a human being could enjoy! Clearly, if God exists, it makes not only a tremendous difference for mankind in general, but it could make a life-changing difference for you as well.

Freedom2Measure

Sorry for the total lack of blogging in the last little while. Between exams, being in another country, and moving, I haven't remembered to put something up on here. So without further ado, here is the absurdity of the day: this site defends the use of the imperial measurement system based on it being part of America's heritage (so is using pen and paper instead of computers, if by "heritage" you mean something you did for a long time in your history), claims that the base-10 scheme of the metric system isn't better than the inconsistently base 12 and 16 of the imperial system, and to top it off calls the metric system sexist. There are plenty of other absurdities in there, I suggest reading through some of it, it's quite amusing.

It's really obvious that the people who made the site are just used to the imperial system, and mistake their familiarity with the system with superiority over the metric system.

Put it where all can see...

Now you can declare your ignorance with your very own Laminin t-shirt!



For those who have no idea what is going on, check this out.

Crazy BS

Which is crazier, believing that global warming is "the perfect excuse to do what the Left always wanted to do - to destroy faith (Christianity), the family and freedom", or defining abortion so broadly that many contraceptives are included in the definition?

I was somewhat surprised that the crazy right-wing bullshit propaganda about global warming actually came from Canada. This is the sort of thing I would expect to hear coming out of the mouth of Bill O'Reilly (or see posted on Fundies Say The Darndest Things). I guess this country has it's fair share of whackos too. At least our whackos aren't running our country.

Fuck Pastor Mike McClure

Let's talk about rights.
Let's talk about sexual orientation.
Let's talk about you, and an entire homophobic nation.
Will you follow me down?
Can we not seperate ourselves from such hate?
Fear and Loathing in Laramie by Protest The Hero

Gay marriage was recently legalized by a ruling of the California supreme court (it's about fucking time). It's interesting to see some of the conservative religious reactions.

The one I found most absurd was found here, where Pastor Mike McClure, defending his stance against gay marriage is quoted as saying "The state is infringing on the church's rights to follow what the Bible says. I'm not condemning homosexuals."

Apparently allowing gays to marry is infringing on the rights of the religious, because we aren't letting the religious use their zany myths to dictate laws! So I guess the state is infringing on Christians when they don't criminalize lying, worshipping idols, and worshipping gods other than the Christian one.

Here is the runner-up (from the same article): "I'm soul-sick over this," said Pastor Dave Sawkins of Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos. "The Supreme Court is promoting a lifestyle that is destructive," he said. "We're not angry at homosexuals, we're trying to protect the family."

Leave aside for a moment that the Supreme Court isn't promoting anything (just allowing it) and the disgusting assertion that the lifestyle of married gay is destructive. I am wondering how protesting gay marriage could possibly protect "the family". It's like protesting allowing blacks to have some possessions because you are protecting property laws.

I love how these quotes are always qualified with "We're not angry at homosexuals" or "I'm not condemning homosexuals." The thinly veiled attempts to look non-discriminatory while saying blatantly hateful things is either hilarious or depressing... I haven't decided which yet.

It takes faith to sit on a chair...

...According to this article.

See my letter to the editor addressing this horrible article, along with three letters critical of this article, here.

End of the World

"The apocalypse is oh so near,
Soon enough we'll be in darkness."
Second Coming by Good Riddance

Browsing the internet today, I came across this site. I just have to ask: How do people still believe this stuff?

Remember just last year the rapture was supposed to come (as this site used to claim). People sold books based on this claim. Of course, the rapture didn't come. The world didn't end in 2006 either.

I just have to pose the question - why is so much heed given to apocalyptic predictions? Is it simply out of fear that one of them will be right? Well, I guess at this rate, with a prediction being made for every single year, it's very likely that eventually someone will be right...