Not a Kung-fu flick
This stuff is golden: http://wayofthemaster.com/
I'm currently watching the 'debunking' of evolution by Kirk Cameron and his pal Ray Comfort. The kinds of things they do to disprove evolution:
- Ask college students about where we came from. Point out in writing every time they say "I don't know".
- Tell us that the only proof of evolution is in the fossil record. Which is not correct. And then point out how inadequate it is. Which is correct. But then forget to mention all the other bits of evidence.
- Get a chimp on set. Get really upset when the chimp misbehaves. Tell us that this is proof that we could not have shared a common ancestor.
- Suggest that the reason that chimps and humans 'look' similar is not because of shared ancestry, but because God was our common designer, as if that's easier to accept. Why then, do humans and birds look so different? Because we had different designers?
- Go back to asking people on the street about evolution. Bask in their inability to answer.
- Make sure to put finger "quotes" around "fossil" when saying "fossil record".
There's much more good stuff - there's one for atheism, too. "It's funny that we equate the word atheism with intellectual, but it's the exact opposite". Gee, thanks, that's really going to convert me.
The problem (depending on what you believe, of course) with this stuff is that it's so slick, so well produced, that it's very easy to buy into, if you don't know about the larger body of evidence, or if you have never had any formal education on the subject. What if they represented both sides of the argument..?
Here's a bit of fun:
A dingaling has a point at the top for easy entry.
I think you and I have the same problem. Polemicists on both sides - I mean religion vs. atheism, not creationism vs. evolution, I'm not a moron - take the stupidest, most dumbed down, retard-level straw man arguments of their opposing sides, disprove them - as any ten year old can do - and then be amazed that any idiot could've taken it seriously in the first place. This goes for intellectuals like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, as well as "celebrity" experts like Kirk Cameron. Why do you never see Dawkins or Hitchens debating a Jesuit scientist, or Cameron interviewing an actual evolutionary biologist? Because neither side is interested in sharing information. It's just a propaganda war.
Sorry to rant, idiot fundamentalists like Cameron bug me as much as assholes like Dawkins and Hitchens.
No problem - please, rant all you want. Of course, you know that I actually like Dawkins. Mostly because you don't see too many people publicly defending atheism as an acceptable belief system: "Atheist" isn't a dirty word.
I don't know what a Jesuit scientist is, but I'm sure I'd like to see Dawkins debate one, too.