Self-Mutation #fundie

Self-Mutation #fundie freeratio.org

How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Were both not written by humans?

If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then science can not be relied upon.

If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it.

I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence.

91 comments

old comment by ME

Bible - written by superstitious, misogynistic, old men that had no concept of the world and were trying to explain it through supernatural means, and filled with multiple scientific inaccuracies. Other than a few bits of history, it cannot be verified.

Science - ever changing, ever questioning, and adding knowledge on top of knowledge, verifiable, testable, falsifiable, and repeatable. NOT a conspiracy by the Illuminati. (People still believe in the illuminati?)

Tell you what; I won't consult a science book to prove the distance from the sun to the earth. I will, however, pay to put you on a missile launched straight for the sun that will measure the distance it travels as it travels. Sadly, I will only be able to pay for a one way trip.

Also, you cannot consult the bible on scientific matters because pi does not equal 3.

old comment by Mister Spak

"How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Because the bible writers are wrong and the scientific writers are right.

"Were both not written by humans? "

Was the Koran not written by humans? Does it therefore have the same credibility as the bible?

"If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then science can not be relied upon. "

If the bible is just a 6000 year old Sumerian creation myth then the bible can not be relied upon.

"If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it. "

You are a fucking retard.
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/ypop/Classroom/Lessons/Eccentricity/

"I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence."

I find it very unfair that atheists have to back up their opinions with facts but fundies can blither any idiocy that pops into their heads and nobody is allowed to challenge it.

old comment by chaosof99

Science is based on understanding. We don't expect you to blindly believe what we say about for example the distance between earth and sun because we say so, but because we can actually show that it is true. There is a logical and mathematical string you can follow along until you end up at the result. You can understand it if you aren't a complete retard, you can work it out yourself and prove that the result is actually true. In non-mathematical science, where positive proof is not possible, you can repeatedly demonstrate that you arrive at the same solution, even through different methods, cross-confirming the result.

Religion on the other hand is based on obedience. When you cite the bible, it is different from when we cite scientific evidence, because you just say "it's in there so it must be true, and that's that". You don't show why it is true, how you come to that conclusion, or even that it is actually true. You aren't even allowed to question the thing and that is patently intellectually dishonest because questioning the statement would lead to further inquiry which would show flaws, whereas science is completely based on questioning and thus corrects the results if it finds those flaws. Religion is stuck with all of the flaws it accumulates.

Understanding trumps obedience. Science trumps religion!

old comment by TWoozl

Mutie... eccentricity in Earth's orbit and other empirically observable behaviors in the solar system allow us to readily determine that the sun is roughly 93 million miles away. No book needed. Just basic instrumentation.

Roughly, because if you weren't quote-mining so you can spew inaccuracies, you would know that Earth's orbit isn't perfectly circular, and you might actually have an education.

Now, if creationist nonsense was actually operating on an intellectually sound level, it too would have established research methods, and it would actually change when it's verifiably wrong. It doesn't. You can't verify Creation without slamming your palm on an ancient book, one that's fraught with errors and fallacies. In short, you can't even operate at a grade school level of logic and integrity.

Now go and sit in the corner. You fail logic forever.

old comment by Swede

Science is not written by humans, it's tested, scrutinized, peer-reviewed and then scrutinized again by humans; lots and lots of humans, who all would love to find any fault with the old teachings.

Fixing: "If the Bible is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then the Bible can not be relied upon." Hey, that actually makes sense!
The Bible is just a conspiracy by the Niacea Council, after all.

If you can cite scientific books as evidence, then go ahead. Those are the books with actual evidence in them, ya know.

Citing the Bible is like citing the Poetic Edda, or the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales or Baghavad Gita or Pippi Longstocking. They all have just about the same amount of evidence for their accuracy: zilch, nada, niente, none.

Atheist don't have a book of "There is no evidence for the existence of any gods. Until such time I remain an atheist.", so we don't have any specific book to cite. Guess we'll have to cite from the same scientific books then, dumbass.

old comment by Big Jilm

Proving or not proving the distance to the sun has jack shit to do with atheism or theism for that matter.

Ok, say we can't prove how far the sun is (incorrect premise, but we'll go with it for now anyway) -that still doesn't support the existence of the standard god-definition.

I think you are just lazy. Those "scientific books" are collections of studies and meta-studies, cross-reviews, and testing -a lot of time, effort, and work to observe how nature works in various forms.

Science doesn't deal with the question of god so it doesn't have to be a threat. Science is the observation of nature (or reality for some people) -if God exists (nope) then Science could just be how she "diddit."

old comment by rw23

> If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it.

Actually, I think I could. I might struggle a bit at first, because it's been a long time since I learnt this stuff at school, but I reckon I could work out the basics such as the Earth-Sun distance. After all, this process is how scientific textbooks first came to be written.

> I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence.

But surely you can just go back to first principles and demonstrate through observation, rational argument and calculation that your Biblical evidence is correct? No?

old comment by farpadokly

"Were both not written by humans?" Yes, but here's the thing; humans have been known to make stuff up. The Iliad and the Odyssey were also written by humans, and also cannot be cited as evidence. Science, unlike the Bible, is all based on empirical evidence. That means it's based on observation of the world through the senses. Then hypotheses are formed about the world which are tested through repeatable experiments. The Bible is mythology, poetry, parables, laws, allegories, and stories with no historical evidence supporting them. So the factor that makes us give weight to one text and less weight to another is evidence.
In ancient Greece, people did try to measure the distance of the sun from the earth. And now, after hundreds of years of cumulative effort, we have an accurate figure. But the whole effort was based on something very simple; observation.
Even if the events in the Bible were based on eyewitness accounts (which is doubtful) they are so improbable and unverifiable that we have to cast doubt on them, just like we do with the Iliad and the Odyssey. An assertion by someone is not evidence on its own. It has to be tested and verified by others using very strict criteria, and only then can it be accepted as fact.

old comment by Paler_Face

How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Because we have evidence that the bible is wrong, and that science is right.

Were both not written by humans?

Scientists are rather better educated than the biblical authors.

If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then science can not be relied upon.

Good thing it isn't then, isn't it?

If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it.

So? The lack of knowledge from a single atheist doesn't mean that 'Jeebus love U!' is automatically a true statement.

Also, you can google the number, and you can google websites on how to measure that distance:
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=400

I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence.

That's because the bible is demonstrably wrong, and is never corrected, but science books are the result of observation, critical analisys, peer review, and all the other stuff that forms the scientific method.

Also, "BAAAWWW!!"

old comment by Anon2

How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Were both not written by humans?

There are many different kinds of books. There are poetry, novels, epics, theater plays, learning material, technical information, ...

The Bible is religious fiction.
A scientific book provides quantified information.

The problem of many fundies is, they view rational quantified information as 'only technical information', and therefore somehow inferior. I once had a conversation with a fundie who seriously proposed that Genesis must be right "because it is written in such an impressive style", but on the other hand science must be wrong because it is "not human and boring".

But the truth of a text is not determined whether it sounds great or not. The Bible is as true or wrong regarding reality as the Odyssey, a Shakespeare play, or Harry Potter. And it becomes completely ridiculous when fundies think that their beloved religious fiction provides quantified information about reality. Like YEC, that Noah's Ark really existed, or that Mary gave really birth as a virgin. Noah's Ark is an allegory, NOT the description of a real event.

And if I may add: The Odyssey, a Shakespeare play, and the Harry Potter series are a MUCH better read than the bible.

old comment by

You don't understand science, so you can't grasp why scientific publications - specifically peer reviewed ones - are considered reasonable sources of information. They don't make unsupported assertions (as a general rule) but report the results and conclusions of experiments and observations. Scientific conclusions are not accepted out of hand. Other scientists attempt to repeat the tests and independently verify results. Most scientific fields have a body of results that are the product of thousands of people working millions of hours over decades if not centuries.

The Bible OTOH is one long and rambling unsupported assertion that incorporates a number of smaller unsupported assertions. Furthermore, attempts to indepenently verify either it's main assertion (there is a God) or any of the smaller ones (Noah's flood, Jesus' resurrection, Pi=3 to name a few) have failed. For this reason, it is not considered an adequate source of evidence for scientific purposes. Or for a lot of other purposes either.

old comment by KittyKaboom

How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Proof. Science provides observable truth.

Were both not written by humans?

The bible claims to be written by god. Science, once again, is observable truth.

If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then science can not be relied upon.

Lol, que?
If frogs have two legs then cake must be equal to eleventy-twelve mushrooms.
See, I can pull crazy shit out of my ass too. Doesn't make either statement correct.

If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it.

If I told a christian, "Prove to me it's possible to raise people from the dead and walk on water, or that a bat is actually a member of the avian family, or that rabbits chew their cud without consulting the bible," you wouldn't be able to do it.

I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence.

I find it painfully stupid that fundy christians don't hold their bible to the same litmus test with which they judge everything else. If it's observable, it's proof - unless it's in the bible. Then physically observable truths become false; the bible says that insects have four legs, therefore it must be true and the front two appendages are not actually legs. There's just something wrong with the way insects are (and have always been) observed if the data contradicts the bible.

old comment by TB Tabby

How can you say "The Bible writers were wrong" but "the scientific writers are right?"

Easily. Watch: "The Bible writers were wrong and the scientific writers are right." Rolls off the tongue nicely, doesn't it?

Were both not written by humans?

Ah, but the Bible's writers were ignorant Bronze Age goat herders with no evidence whatsoever to support their claims, while scientific literature is written by SCIENTISTS, who base their claims on evidence and research, cite their sources, and most importantly, will change their minds in the face of sufficient evidence.

If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati, then science can not be relied upon.

Good thing it's not, then. If you think it is, could you present some evidence? Science WORKS, man. If you disagree, I suggest you throw out all that deceitful Illuminati technology and go live n a mud hut.

If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it.

Or we could use observations and calculations to determine the sun's distance from the earth, same way the astronomers do it. Again, if you think they're wrong, get out there and prove them wrong with some evidence. If you can provide it, they'll listen.

I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence.

Wrong. It IS fair. It's COMPLETELY fair. The scientific textbooks have undergone the stringent peer-review process, with scientists looking high and low for errors because they care whether or not the claims they make are true. The Bible is presented as truth with only a claim that you have to believe without question and threats of a fate worse than death for people who don't. The definition of "fair" is not "unfair in your favor."

old comment by Anon-e-moose

"I find it very unfair that atheists can cite scientific books as evidence but I can't cite the Bible as evidence"

Okay. Show me a talking snake.

It's okay, I can wait...!

"If I told an atheist, "prove to me the sun is 93 million miles away from the Earth without consulting a scientific textbook" you wouldn't be able to do it."

(*Whips out laptop with WiFi broadband connection; taps a few keys*)

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit

[/smartarse]

And there's a good reason why the phrase '[citation needed]' exists, Self-Mutilation. One word: Facts.

"If science is just a conspiracy by the Illuminati"

'If.' [/Spartan Laconic Wit]

Equally, if your so-called 'Bible' has any credibility whatsoever. The book "Angels and Demons" was written by a human. Said book isn't a non-fiction one, nor is the film based on such a documentary. Ergo...:

image

Q.E. and D.

What colour is the sky in your dimension? Hello, Reality calling Self-Mutilation, can you hear me?!

"Were both not written by humans?"

So you - a fundie - are finally acknowledging the simple fact that your so-called 'Word of God' is nothing more than the drug-fuelled* ramblings of a bunch of Bronze Age goatfuckers with ideas above their stations, is that what you're saying? Honesty. So refreshing in a fundie. Scientific facts >>>>> 'beliefs'. Every time. Not many gaps left. Good.. So-called 'Faith'?:

'There's a sucker born every minute'

-PT Barnum

Moral: 'Fair'? All's fair in Love and annihilating the arguments of fundies. >:D

*- Have you actually read Revelation with a sane, questioning, critical eye? The only possible way that could have been written - by said moronic Bronze Age goatfuckers was whilst under the influence of industrial-strength hallucinogens. Not exactly material worthy of the Plain English Campaign's 'Crystal Mark' award, it has to be said.

old comment by Joe Mama

The problem with the method of thinking with fundies like Self-Mutation here is that they're so used to believing that the bible is evidence in and of itself. Ask them why they think any part of Christianity is true, and they'll reference the bible. So they must end up thinking that scientists just do the same thing. Just write something down in a science textbook that you want people to believe, and the entire scientific community references that book as evidence. However, that's not the way it works in the real scientific world where peer review and the scientific method are used. Therefore, what's put down in scientific journals and textbooks are facts that have stood up to scientific scrutiny. However, books by themselves aren't evidence, but they may contain information which is evidence.

The bible, on the other hand, was written thousands of years ago without using the scientific method or peer review. Or, peer review was done by equally superstitious and backwards people. Fundies who insist the bible is equal to scientific textbooks are just being ridiculous.

Oh and adding an Illuminati conspiracy theory to your argument is a one-way ticket to crazytown.

old comment by GodotIsWaiting4U

I would indeed have difficulty proving the PRECISE distance, certainly, because that requires some pretty damn careful mathematical calculations and accounting for all kinds of crazy shit like atmospheric refraction of light and yadda yadda yadda. I CAN, however, prove that the sun is very far away, by setting up a pair of cameras, one in Seattle and one in San Diego, and having them both take a picture of the sun at the same time while measuring their angle with the ground. This sets up a triangle between the sun and each of the two cameras, and by measuring the known side and the two angles one can get the lengths of the remaining sides, and thus the rough distance of the sun from the earth.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

@Canadiest

"Because here's an example of Christian evidence.
Jesus walked on the water, many have tried since but can't therefore Jesus is the son of God.

Think I over-simplified religion? Nope, That's it, unproved assertions backed by myth. Science has no truck with such unproven and untested assertions.
And then there's the stuff that's in the Bible itself that is wrong or undecided about. Insects not only never have four legs, ancient depictions and descriptions are accurate outside of the Bible. How wrong can ya be?"

The "Top Gear" Middle East Special. The trio at the Sea of Galilee:

image

Jeremy Clarkson on the Sea of Galilee. Jeremy Clarkson. J.C.

Thus the Second Coming is already here. PROTIP: Jeremy Clarkson is an Atheist.

So to you knowledge is a great evil conspiracy that should be dismissed in favor of a ridiculous story. I doubt that it's very productive. When I see a claim like "I asked him to show me right now and he couldn't", it's just evidence of arrogance and denial. The world is a little more complex than simplist fantasies and you have to put your own effort into education. The result of not doing so is this kind of ignorant nonsense.

If you accept that all scripture is human, what makes ancient people's mythology so special? Also, science textbooks are generally not only the opinions of the author, they're a summary of established knowledge disseminated in a way so that it can be learned gradually.

A "self-mut[il]ating Christian" posting self-defeating arguments, it looks a lot like trolling, too...

Self-Mutation #fundie freeratio.org

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