A Drunken Madman

... but there is a political controversy, and a religious controversy.

What brought this on? Well, as a couple of previous posts have intimated, Sydney Atheists popped on up to Toongabbie Anglican Church over the weekend. During the discussion afterwards, I was chatting with a member of the congregation, I believe one of the pastors. Sorry dude, forgot your name, but you'll soon know who you are.

The conversation, paraphrased, went something like this. I'm 'J', Mr Christian is 'X'


And so on it went, careening off the sanity highway and into the underbrush of nutbaggery. I hadn't really expected to run into such clear creationist talking points in Toongabbie, though with hindsight perhaps that was excessive optimism.

Let me expand on my responses, because while they may sound flippant, they are actually pretty much factual, allowing for a litle conversational latitude.

The conflation of 'theory' with 'hypothesis' is a well-known gambit among creationists, and it exploits one of the common-usage definitions of the word 'theory'. Trouble is, when a scientist uses the word theory, he/she actually means a well-supported framework of explanations for observed phenomena. The theory of evolution, or more accurately, the modern evolutionary synthesis, is as close to a fact as the theory of gravity and the theory of plate tectonics.  It's been very very well tested and has not yet fallen over. I don't expect it to fall over, though I expect details to be refined.

So is there a scientific controversy?

Frankly no. As I mentioned earier, there's a political and religious controversy. The vast, overwhelming majority of scientists working in biological sciences accept the modern evolutionary synthesis. They simply would not be able to produce useful work without it, as it underpins so much of modern biology, especially in microbiology, where evolution by selection can be directly observed, and in molecular biology, where some of the most exciting advances in genetics are being made.

In other sciences, where evolution is less relevant, there is a higher proportion of dissenting scientists, notably among engineering disciplines, where design is at the forefront. This is not surprising give that these are design-oriented people, but the proportion that question evolution is still not a high proportion. It's vanishingly small, perhaps in the order of a percentage point at most. This is generally where the "reputable non-religious scientists" referred to above are drawn from. Think tanks such as the Discovery Institute salivate openly over these scientists, because they are a source of scientific credibility and authority, while at the same time being entirely clueless over the actual facts of the modern biological synthesis.

Bias? Sure. I'm biased towards the scientific explanations, and I will absolutely hold up my hand and say it.

Thing is, reality also has a notable pro-evolution bias. Honest, rigorous observation shows that evolution is a fact.

So don't deliberately tell me that there's a scientific controversy about evolution. Because I will take your talking points apart, piece by piece, until you look even more stupid than you already do.

Now, I don't expect you to just believe me outright. I also don't expect to be able to convince you with hyperlinks, which you'll notice are quite thin on the ground in this post. This is a choice I've made deliberately, because I don't expect you to trust a hyperlink handed to you on a plate by an avowed darwinist such as myself.

The deal is this: Lie about evolution in my presence again and you will be taken to fucking tiny pieces, either verbally or in hypertext. Do some research, and not at the Discovery Institute's website. Try science, because science is the best authority on the subject of science. Do not be taken in by the warmed-over creationism called "intelligent design". Do not trust what ministers tell you on the subject of biology, do not trust what engineers or neurosurgeons tell you on biology, and especially don't trust Casey Luskin. On anything.

That is all.

Bitches don't know about Uke tech

A contingent of Sydney Atheists ran a little sidequest this evening, off to Toongabbie Anglican church in Sydney, where the specialised subject was: "Tough Questions: Does God Exist"

Firstly, this is not a tough question, though I will admit some people have trouble.

Secondly, well, nothing in the sermon added substantively to existing knowledge, which while not entirely unexpected, was slightly disappointing.

We did, however, get a new argument for the existence for god.

It goes like this, and forgive me if I'm misremembering. If you're annoyed about this, L2 read my title bar.


And that's it. The argument from the inability to smell one's own brain. WIN.

This is awesome.

Things they did right (this is a short list)

• Immediately dismissing the Ontological and Cosmological Arguments outright, along with the argments from Design and Moral Law. The pastor at the dais at least has this under control.
• Not immediately burning the atheist interlopers at the stake

err.... that's about it. Teleology still loomed large, despite the argument from design having already been dismissed piecemeal.

The sermon focused, apparently, on John 1: 1-18, which for some reason, always reminds me of this:

The failure is still coming folks, don't let the uke distract you. Looming large within the sermon was Psalms 14 verse 1. Against my usual practice, I shall actually post the text of this fucker, because this is good:


You hear that, assholes? You atheists are all fools! Hahahahaha!


[emphasis mine]

Oh, wait! Shite! I just called atheists fools, and whoever shall say "thou fool" is in danger of hellfire! Stick a fork in me, Jesus, I'm done!

Cans't thou say, PETARD*?

Also, a fool hath said in his heart "there is no god"; The wise man hath said it out loud.

Cluedo also featured in the sermon, which was moderately unxpected, since I myself am a proponent of the Argument From Sherlock as a rebuttal to scriptural arguments. Allow me to digress and explain this.

Sherlock Holmes clearly existed, and was clearly something more than the common man. We have a long series of stories told by a close confidant of Sherlock. These stories tell of Sherlock's amazing adventures in apprehending criminals, in essence solving problems of sin, during the late Victorian era, over 100 years ago.

Sherlock died, tragically, by falling over the Riechenbach falls, as Watson reports.

Yet Holmes reappeared shortly afterwards; resurrected, one may say, and was met by Watson who at first did not recognise him.

Holmes often astonished those around him. Some may say in a miraculous manner. We have documentary evidence of the existence of Holmes, written by eyewitnesses. Better still, we have a museum, in the very house Holmes used as his spiritual home.

The only downside is that Holmes was entirely fictional.

Those readers who know me will know what comparison I'm drawing here

Anyway, back to Toongabbie. Having spread fallacy all over the building, we moved on to more singing, which incidentally must be a massive moneyspinner for certain publishing companies. Every song sung had a prominent copyright notice at the foot of the lyrical powerpoint presentation. This is a subject for a later blog.

After the singing and praying, we moved on to a prayer, delivered by the bass player of the church band.

Now, I'm a bass player myself. Admittedly not exactly a hard-working gigging, kinda Guy Pratt sorta Victor Wooten sorta awesome all-styles all-day kinda bass player, but nonetheless a bass player. I would have gone insane playing the root-note garbage this pooor man was cheat-sheeting all evening, and clearly that's what happened.

You see, our friend had no idea there were atheists in the room

I'm sure if he'd known, he would have hurriedly re-written the prayer for the night, which can be summarised thusly:


At which point, it was all pretty much over and we, in essence, took off our masks and revealed ourselves.

Or, more specifically, got asked about our opinions, and were honest.

You see, no-one had asked us anything, up to that point, which may have outed us.

So, conversation ensued. Some highlights:

• Do you feel angry about the 2004 Tsunami? (answer: no. Being angry at plate tectonics is not productive. L2 ask questions)
• What if the Tsunami did good for society? Would you then still be indifferent about causes? (see above)
• And my particular favourite, for which I shall break out of bullets. Regarding the Bible's reliability and historicity, isn't it amazing that all the gospels are so consistent with each other?
  

Errrrr.... no.

Don't invite an atheist, who is packing an annotated bible, to agree with you on the consistency of the gospels

I give you Matthew 28, concerning the discovery of Jesus's empty tomb:


Then I give you Luke 24


OK, so. First up. How many women turned up?

• Matthew says just the two. Mary Magdalene, and "the other Mary". Fine, whatever.
• Luke refers to "the women who came from Galilee" from an earlier passage, and "certain others with them". And that's just two of the four gospels.
• Mark mentions Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome.
• John Says it was JUST Mary Magdalene.

Can these guys not get it together?

• Worse, Matthew mentions an earthquake, and angel, a moving back of the stone, and a smug fucking stting-on-the-big-heavy-stone moment while the women watched.
• John says the stone was already moved by agencies unknown and there was nothing in there.
• Luke says the tomb was already open, and two dudes in shining clothes were hanging about there.
• Mark says the stone was moved, and one mysterious dude was there, ready to impart a bit of info.

I mean, fuck. Can these guys really not agree? Honestly? This, you would think, is relatively important.

OK, fair enough. If you lock me and three of my friends into separate rooms and ask us to retell the story of Cinderella, I'm sure we'll differ in some elements, but let's face it, none of us are willing to base our entire lives on Cinderella.

Seriously, L2 consistency.

And please, do not claim that the writers of the four gospels were direct eyewitnesses to the events concerned and at the same time didn't know each other. I mean, please. Do I have to expand on this? Honestly?

Anyway, there was some relatively good discussion, once you get past the swimming-in-treacle aspect of getting past the logical fallacies. Toongabbie Anglicans are nice people, but fundamentally they're on the other side of the barrier between belief and disbelief and it's a hard barrier to cross.

I got prayed for by a rather pleasant young lady who is getting married in a few weeks. I wish her luck, and I'll be sure to let you know as and when the personal revelation shows up. You're not the first to pray for me though, sorry.

And for the guys that somehow tried to imply that we'd somehow blame someone for tsunamis? L2 nature. And L2 talk to atheists. Stop anthropomorphising nature and look up the Intentional Stance, which I introduced you to earlier. You might see where you're misfiring in your view of reality.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, hopefully next time we'll have some more substantive discussion, and maybe you'll be less insulting in your closing prayers.

Or maybe not

Maybe, it's just possible you'll come up with some better proofs, and maybe you'll convince us all with some solid evidence rather than re-hashes of prior arguments, logical fallacies and misplaced intentional stance evaluation

Or maybe not

DM

p.s. Dear friends, it's late. Please check my grammar, spelling and general fail levels, and post corrections in comments


* It's only two letters from retard, so it's not that difficult.