Ok so the Doctor Who blogs went down the swanny when the
motherboard in my old computer decided to stop working. I will catch up with
the last few episodes when I get them on DVD. Today I thought I’d write the
first it what I hope will be a long line of ranty, opinionated blogs about well
whatever’s been on my mind really. This week, well last week actually but let us
not split hairs I watched a show on BBC 3 about one of my favourite subjects;
Creationism. If you haven’t seen it I’ll put in a link below.
The show; Conspiracy road trip, presented by comedian
Andrew (no I don’t know who he is either, oh maybe I saw him once on an episode
of the mock the week?) Maxwell takes a group of people on a journey to challenge
their view point. It is a series other episodes have dealt with UFO’s and the
7/7 bombings. The creationism episode got me thinking and got me angry so this
is my take on the subject.
I must first point out for those of you that don’t
already know or suspect. I am an atheist. I’m what Richard Dawkins would
describe as a category 6 atheist. I’m certain beyond any reasonable doubt that
there is no God. Of course if there were some irrefutable evidence akin to a
huge man in sandals, white smock and gigantic beard standing affront me (I’m
picturing Gandalf the white on steroids) I would have hold my hands up and
admit he existed. Whether I’d worship him is another question entirely.
I was in a way raised Christian, don’t get me wrong it
wasn’t enforced belief or anything but I did for a few years attend church on a
Sunday morning even on Christmas morning and that was really hard. In all that
time I can never really say I believed in God I might have said I did I may
have labelled myself as a Christian but the truth is I had more faith that Santa
Claus existed than God. Since discarding my “faith” I looked at the world in
the only logical way, through science. To me Darwin, Wallace and Dawkins make a
lot more sense than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Science is a progressive world view constantly moving and
changing old theory’s or ideas replaced by new ones all governed by available
evidence. In contrast religion but more specifically creationism tries to fit
the observed world around a belief system. Creationists today are seemingly
going to ever more ridiculous lengths to make the word of God fit with current
scientific thinking. It’s the blind and unreasoning black is white attitude
they hold that really rubs me up the wrong way.
In the show the road trippers go through some their
beliefs while they meet scientists who refute them. One of the kookier
creationist theory discussed was that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s
flood, something to my knowledge not specifically mentioned in the bible. Now
we’ll get into the subject of the great flood later, for now this section of the
programme gives a perfect example of blind faith. Despite being shown a fundamental
principle of water, it cuts along straight lines and that in the Grand Canyon
there are curves in the valley which would be impossible to have come from a
flood event. The response isn’t logical; it’s just to say “well maybe God did
it differently that one time”. A mind set like that is both baffling and
frustrating and makes the debate between evolutionists futile.
Another well warn “theory” in the creationist arsenal is
that the earth is around 6000 years old. This means and I’m happy to be
corrected on this, creation came into existence 4000 years after the
agricultural revolution. On the face of it the young earth theory could and
should be dispelled by a well-educated primary school child. Even if you ignore
the geological evidence that puts the age of the earth at around 4.5 billion
years old. You still have a rather pesky fossil record showing a huge variety
of species of animals and plant that have evolved, gone extinct and become fossilised.
After all, 98% of all life that has ever existed on earth is extinct.
To believe this all happened within the 6000-10000 year
time frame set out by creation “scientists” is a little hard to swallow. Yet
there are fully grown adults living among us that believe just that. They could
be doctors, politicians or scariest of all teachers. Yet in society we accept
this, let me ask you this though would you leave a fully grown adult who still
believed in the Tooth Fairy with your children? I’ve digressed haven’t I?
Back on topic, though along the same lines we return as promised
to the subject of Noah’s flood. Creationists tell us that the Ark carried 16000
animals plus Noah and his family for 40 days and 40 nights oh and the dinosaurs.
Unfortunately for the creationists the science says no. Problem 1; the biblical
dimensions of the Ark is far larger than any wooden boat known to have existed.
The physics of the material simply doesn’t allow for a ship of such scale to
function properly even if it were built now it simply wouldn’t work.
Problem 2a; Where on earth did all those animals fit? Large
as it sounds the Ark would not be big enough to fit all those animals on.
Problem 2b; there are far more different species of animal than 16000
especially if we’re bringing the dinosaurs too. I mean there are some 400,000
species of beetle alone and that’s just the ones we know about. Problem 3; To
quote Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park “that’s one big pile of shit” If we
assume Noah has somehow managed to make peace between the lion and the lamb and
the T-Rex and the Triceratops they must have been working around the clock to
clear the faecal matter away. Perhaps though, this is the etymological origin
of the nautical term poop deck.
There are far more problems I could mention but you get the
idea. Of course there could be even more fundamental problems than this and the
creationist will always have a response for it. It’s always the same response. You
know the one I mean by now. They simply say that God did it and this supposed
to be good enough that we don’t scrutinise any further.
The God card as I like to call it makes repetitive
appearances in every single discussion I have ever had with a religious person.
Even the most liberal examples of the breed will resort to it when there are no
more answers. This makes a great deal of sense in some ways, religion is after
all, a way of explaining the world around us just as science is. As science
fills in more and more of the gaps, religion becomes less relevant and in my
opinion, superfluous to the needs of the modern world. I believe those who show
resistance to science are simply frightened of the concept they have no more
purpose in existence than a potato or a fruit fly.
This is the arrogance of human kind coming to the fore. It’s
the same mind set which makes some believe they are not animals. That somehow
they have taken a different path to every other living thing in the history of
the earth. They are not animal, mineral or vegetable but a fourth way, a better
way one that also conveniently gives them an excuse to treat the planet and the
rest of its inhabitants with despicable contempt. Well I have news for anybody
who thinks that way, if humans were to disappear from the face of the planet tomorrow
the world would carry on as normal. Furthermore in around 100 million years, no
time at all when considering the age of the earth the existence of the human
race would have cosmetically at least disappeared altogether.
Yet armed with this knowledge I can still get out of bed
every morning, go to work and live a happy life. The reason for this is I don’t
live my life with my head in the clouds, I don’t think of myself as the pinnacle
of creation, more an ape that got lucky. Most of all I accept that the life I
live now is the only one I have, the fact I don’t believe in an afterlife doesn’t
mean I have no morals as some religious people believe. I don’t steal; rape or
murder because I think of those things as being fundamentally wrong not because
there is some overseeing nanny waiting to fire a thunderbolt up my arse if I
do. If you ask me someone who would do any of those things if they thought they
could get away with it are the ones you need to be watching.
If I could sum up my thoughts on God and religion it
would be fairly accurately done so with this sentence. You show me the unicorn
and I’ll feed it a sugar lump. I don’t, as most people believe hate religious
people. I hate religion and become frustrated with the lack open mindedness
displayed by religious people. I find a general lack of curiosity to be one of
the biggest failings in any person, religious or not. I don’t know how anybody
cannot look at the world and want to know as much as possible about it. That is
what I get from science.
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity
has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Richard Dawkins, The
God Delusion.
