All Hail Darwin!

So I was surfing around the internebs, and I found the above article...

I can't quite express how funny this article is. The idea of reversing normal roles and sides of an issue, with the evolutionists at the "this looks like a person stain" and the Religious folks at "its just a stain!" I think this shows the absurdity of both sides. Its not that it is a stain or not, its that people are fighting over a stain, or a sandwich, or what have you.

I just think that if I had a stain of some sort that looked like Darwin or Jesus in my bathroom... I would just think they were stalking me anyway. So there! (insert emoticon sticking out tongue here)

Why not?

I guess that I really am different from most other people.

I was driving around today on work business, listening to of all things: NPR. Who knew? Oddly enough, it gives me time to listen to national and world news affairs when I would otherwise be listening to terrible* music. I find it to be pretty neutral as far as bias goes and It even seems to keep the news distinct, if monotone. The broadcast topic was all on a bunch of American Clergy on Sunday all Speaking politics from their pulpits. The IRS wants to take away their Tax-exempt status because they are "going from a religious group to a political group." These churches did this as peaceful protest to The very thing the IRS did. To be fair, the different churches involved all had different messages, including supporting both major candidates. The issue is not who the churches support, its that they support anyone at all.

The churches are claiming two things gives them the right, nay, the responsibility to preach politics from the pulpit. 1st, Freedom of speech, one of those things that is both massively important and ridiculously insane to do at the same time. There is such a fine line between speech that is free and speech that is destructive. No one can draw it. The promise that anyone can say anything and not be arrested for it. I miss those days. The other thing giving them this "duty" is "separation of church and state" They claim it was put in the 1st amendment to protect the religion from government. That the government cannot do anything to harm a religion. So they cannot tax them for speaking about politics. Right?

Well, lets post that troublesome first amendment and then talk all about how awesome it is: (From www.usconstitution.net a fairly useful site!)

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified
12/15/1791. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of
grievances.

So, the government cannot support or prohibit any religion. The government will leave your religion alone. You have to leave the government alone though. Why, it doesn't say that, does it? It does. By having a religion try to put a specific candidate into office, you are effectively trying to set our government up to follow your religion, which it cannot do. This is why we set up recognized religions as Tax-exempt. We don't touch them, they don't touch us.

And of Freedom of Speech? It is also guaranteed by the first amendment. I lets me state any opinion, as long As I can declare it first. For instance, In my opinion, President Bush is a doodie-head.** Nothing being said there is treason, and opinions are what is being protected against. So, that allows priests, holy men and more to state their personal opinion. They can do that.

The combination of the two is the crux of the issue. If a church priest says "I support candidate X," then he is stating his opinion and it is no big deal. If a church priest has the church itself say "We (the Church) support candidate X, and so should you," That church is no longer in safe first amendment territory. They didn't leave the government alone. Why? Well, to start, any person or organization can give up any rights they have at any time. A confession of a crime is an acknowledgement that the confessed is giving up their 5Th amendment rights. If I said something that committed treason, like speaking secrets to an enemy, then I could have my stupid butt arrested for saying it.

So, when a church gives up its rights to be ignored by the government by preaching politics from pulpits, The Government is well within its rights to do anything to the church. They could tax them, charge them with crimes (even relating to being religious!) and more. The government gets free reign over the churches rights to free speech and religion. So, churches out there: please keep your religion out of my government. Thank you. Feel free to as citizens of the US, support candidate X, but not in churches. Cause, then you give the government free rein on your rights. And never give up your rights. Ever.

* - I think its not bad personally, but others would disagree.

** - My opinion really is that President Bush is a Doodie-head.

Evolutionists, Creationists, and Spore! Oh My!

This thing started when a die-hard creationist started a blog to denounce Spore to the world. I had intended this originally a response to her main points about how evolution is wrong. I went over it at length somewhere else, suffice to say this is a separate entity.

Intelligent design in Christianity is founded on two basic principles. Some power (god) created the universe and All of the animals at the same time. Since his design was perfect, they haven't changed since. So, 6000 B.C. cheetahs, and skunks, and polar bears all came into being within a one day period. The requirement for this system of ecosystems is belief in the Intelligent Power that did it all. The Church logic behind this is:

God exists because the Bible says He does.
The Bible is correct because it was divinely inspired.
Therefore, God exists.

Meanwhile, the theory of evolution works allot differently. The concept arises from the term natural selection. Natural selection happens when a generation passes down good traits to their offspring and don't pass down bad traits. For instance, two male wolves are hunting separate prey. One happens to have longer legs, to run faster with. He catches the deer he's after, and successfully breeds a new generation. The other wolf has short legs and cannot catch the deer he chases. This wolf dies without ever reproducing.

If the population consists of only short and long legged wolves, over time the long legged wolves will become the more prominent part of the species. eventually the differences between long legged and short legged wolves will be enough to warrant calling them different species. At this point when one species becomes two, do we consider them evolved from the original one. The main part is that evolution is measured in generations, not in time.

Proof of evolution is found several places. Neighboring species, fossil records, genetic records. Proof is not in a book, but in something that cannot influenced by human hands.

So, we have our competing theories. Lets check, at first glance they do seem contrary. One is orderly and perfectly maintained. The other seems random at best and chaotic at worst. One sets the age of the planet as much older than the other. One is completely ridiculous, while the other is true.

Really? Is one true and one false? My personal beliefs being what they are, I cannot simply agree with Intelligent design. however, I will not just say the theory is bunk either. Back to that logical train of thought, there is a problem with it. Its circular logic. Logical sequences can only work if the pattern works with all possible outcomes, which circular logic fails at quite spectacularly. Now, one can say that its impossible to combine those theories.

God made all creatures the way they are in the present day.
God made all creatures perfectly.
Evolution changes creatures over time.
Creatures that are perfect don't change.
Evolution Exists.

The logical conclusion is that if evolution exists God cannot. This is based on the circular argument in that god exists because the Bible says so, and that the bible is perfectly accurate because God divinely inspired it that way. To simplify:

Evolution says creatures change.
The Bible says creatures don't change.
If the bible is wrong then it is not divinely inspired.
Therefore God cannot exist.

Here is the crux of the issue. The easy fix would be to say the bible was wrong on how, but that God still did this "through" evolution. that he uses it as His tool. I expect that this "fix" would just make people mad though. It doesn't really solve anything. It just lets the evolutionists win without a struggle.

The place to make the change is proving the existence of God. All of these philosophers over the last 2000 years have struggled to prove God exists. And their one triumph in that regard is the circular logic above. But as much as it cannot prove that He exists, it also cannot prove he doesn't exist. That is why its an invalid argument, it cannot do anything for either side. Its impossible to prove that God exists. Its similarly impossible to prove that he does not exist. Science doesn't test a principle to prove it. Science does experiments to Disprove the theories and the ideas.

Anything that you disprove is not true. If you cannot disprove it, then it is true. Notice you can keep testing, but you cannot prove anything. You can only get the list of possible causes smaller and smaller. Its not that evolution can be proven, its that it cannot be disproved. Its not that God can be disproved, its that the Bible can.

Imagine trying to explain evolution to a gorilla who knows sign language. You teach it the language perfectly, and you can even hold small conversations with it. The current Intelligent design theory might well be the results of how the gorilla best understands the concept. It might only be able to understand "A long time ago, I (God) made everything."

This is where Spore comes in. It is a game where you guide a species from the evolutionary beginning of a single cell through the space age. The player takes the place of God. and then uses the tools inside that system of evolution to plan their planet.

In the end, I still don't believe God exists. But that doesn't stop the possibility that He doesn't.