Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Hey stupid!

It’s one thing to be born stupid and another thing to achieve stupidity through an effort of will. It’s no secret that the Bible Belt and the ignorance belt are congruent. It’s no secret that Belief in mythology over confidence in evidence corresponds to low educational levels and standards, yet America’s ability to draw conclusions from this can only be described as willful stupidity.

I read in Editor and Publisher that a Gallup poll released today shows that more than half of all Americans; some 53% of us, agree with the statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."

Frank Newport who directed the poll for Gallup wrote “Those with lower levels of education, those who attend church regularly, those who are 65 and older, and those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to believe that God created humans 'as is,' than are those who do not share these characteristics."

I draw the conclusion that these people are willfully stupid. These people draw the conclusion that being educated and intellectually honest makes one’s opinions suspect. They have the majority.

Belief in something for which there is a total lack of evidence requires a disbelief in evidence itself regardless of the extent or peremptory nature of it. There is no intelligent argument for Intelligent Design whether that design was completed in a week or in 5 billion years. The opinions of 53% of Americans depend upon denial, ignorance and stupidity.

Perhaps the ascent of Man is subject to the Peter Principle and perhaps the achievements of the best of us are limited by the arrogant stupidity of the rest of us or perhaps it’s the accelerating speed at which new knowledge is being uncovered, that leaves so many behind. Simply put: there is no evidence for the account in Bereshit or Genesis as the gentiles prefer. None, zip, nada. There is a vast and growing body of contradictory evidence none of which requires a belief in magic or invisible beings or miracles or mysterious paradoxes.

But more importantly, all conjectures which require no factual basis are equal; zero always equals zero and therefore any mythology has precisely the same value as any other mythology that relies only on credulity and custom. If the Elohim created us all, then so did Vishnu and a host of others. If things are true because we want them to be, then everything is true and nothing is true and reason is meaningless. If half of us can’t see that or won’t see that or are afraid to see that because they live in the Bible Belt, then a majority of us are simply not rational beings or even honest beings.

3 comments:

I say, I say... said...

Admittedly many so-called Christians don't really know what they believe nor why they believe it... however, it can be proven that the Bible is the Word of God... not to mention it is easy to prove that evolution is untrue. Some of us ("Fundy" Christians) have researched what we believe and why we believe it. A million monkeys on a million type-writers could not produce the works of Shakespeare nor could matter just all of a sudden "appear" and "fall into place". It is impossible, period. The Bible has dozens of fulfilled prophecies that can be verified historically. Including one that was fulfilled 483 years to the day!!! For documentation of this refer to, "The Coming Prince" by Sir Robert Anderson. I hope you will look past so-called Christians like Benny Hinn and Rod Parsley and really research some of the evidence that is out there for all to see. www.thebereancall.org, www.carm.org, etc.

phinky said...

So which version of the Creation story in Genesis do they believe? Do they know that there are two creation stories in the Bible? Watch heads explode when you point that out to them.

Capt. Fogg said...

It is not possible to prove that the Bible is the word of God nor is it possible to prove evolution has not happened and is not happening. These proferred statements are called argumentum ad ignorentiam or ad captium vulgis which are just as they sound: false arguments that will appeal to the stupid and ignorant.

One marker is the attempt to "prove." Proof is for mathematicians, Science deals with evidence which the Biblidiots do not have. You won't find believers reading philosophy or logic or history or theology though. They read tracts and captious websites. None of these arguments stand up to any kind of logical analysis and what they offer as fact is twisted, misrepresented, incomplete or entirely manufactured.

I will guarantee that the fool who wrote that has no background in paleontology, genetics, geology, molecular biology or any other pertinant discipline and is as collosally unaware of the facts as a medieval village idiot.

Of course there are two conflicting stories - that's true of most of Genesis and you're right, these people barely comprehend elementary English much less ancient Semitic dialects. They're belief junkies, belief pushers, vendors of lies and mysteries, frauds and fallacies. They are the worm in the apple, the toad in the well, the termite in the floor joists, the rot in the keel. They are the biggest impediment to human progress and always have been.

There are thousands of creation myths - all of them have equal credibility because none of them have anything to do with any kind of evidence. any argument offering to prove Genesis also proves all other possible myths and are therefore not arguments at all.