Spanking the Biblical Literalists… Again

Another comment from zdenny has come up that is so amazingly full of misinterpretations, disinformation, irony, misinformation, foolishness, and utter bullshit that I decided to make my response into its own post rather than another reply in the comments.

Dan said, “But you’re an expert on that, Denny, you believe countless things that have absolutely zero science supporting them.”

Correct. Yes, I did say that. Hey, zdenny is starting off fairly well! He’s one for one!

I am curious as to what you think I believe that has zero science to support it. I am not aware of anything. Keep in mind that science is merely a process and not an end in and of itself. Science is merely man’s way of discovering the operation of nature.

When I refer to ‘science’, I most often refer to a system of acquiring knowledge, that system being based on what has come to be called the scientific method. In some contexts I use the term ‘science’ to refer to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.

In my comment about zdenny’s beliefs, my intention was to imply that he requires either no evidence or evidence of an extremely suspect nature in order to support that which he professes to believe. In other words, I think he is (or was, at some point in his life) extremely gullible.

I present here some statements from zdenny’s own blog posts which should be considered indicative of his beliefs and his “logic”:

• “The elites are pushing for a one world government which is also predicted in Scripture.”
• “The aim of the One World Government is exactly this form of control that will be obtained on a progressive basis one program at a time.”
• “As is the case, Christians have built the medical field into the greatest achievement in the history of man.”
• “The goal of Liberalism is power and control over humanity. There is no love in Liberal philosophy since God cannot be known.”
• “Liberalism is opposed to freedom including free speech and freedom of religion as evidenced by the court rulings that are limiting these freedoms everyday.”
• “When Jesus rose again from the dead, he opened the door to each individual being able to participate in the nature of God through the Holy Spirit.”
• “Christianity has an objective claim that demonstrates Christianity is true. The objective claim was verified by multiple eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection was empirically verified as a historical fact using the scientific method.”
• “Jesus stated that He was the Son of God. Jesus predicted that he would rise from the dead. The hypothesis was confirmed when Christ did in fact rise from the dead. The hypothesis was confirmed by multiple witnesses. The claim has therefore been confirmed as a historical fact scientifically.”
• “The resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfills the standard used by the scientific method. A Christian is being reasonable and rational when he believes Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection was confirmed through empirical observation by multiple witnesses.”
• “If Christ did in fact rise from the dead for which we have numerous eyewitnesses, then Genesis is true because Jesus considered Genesis to be accurate.”
• “The Bible talks about the coming One World Government. You will not be able or buy or sell in that government unless you take the mark of the beast. In this one world government, your kids will not even be your own. The dangers of unmitigated liberalism without a strong Christian presents will lead to horrific abuses of epic proportions.”
• “In fact, there is also no physical evidence for gravity itself; yet, everyone believes in gravity. We know that gravity exists because of the effect of gravity seen on objects. In the same way, a person can see the love of God because of the effect it has on us within.”

Some of these statements express extraordinary claims. I would be happy to see any of the extraordinary evidence that would be required to substantiate these claims. Some of these statements provide examples of zdenny’s logic. Such logic is easily refuted. Unfortunately, zdenny appears to have an extremely poor understanding of the rules of logic, and refuses to accept that any of his logical statements might be false.

If you think that Genesis is unsupported, you just need to realize that scientist by a large majority believe that something came from nothing in the big bang. It took some time for science to catch up with the Bible, but it finally did.

Incorrect. The term Big Bang, as used by cosmologists, refers to the idea that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition¹ at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day. This does not mean that something came from nothing. For a very good explanation of the nature of time and the universe, I suggest the book “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes” by Stephen Hawking.

¹ Hawking, S.W.; Ellis, G.F.R. (1973). The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20016-4.

To make things even easier for zdenny, he might take a look at this recent video from my YouTube friend, AronRa. It’s called “Where did EVERYTHING come from?”, and was made in response to questions posed by a person who takes the Bible™ literally.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANtpsunRYIs

Of course, I really don’t expect zdenny to watch this video. Like so many other evangelical/fundamentalist/whatever christians™, he would probably refuse to watch any such things on the grounds that it would be against “god’s will™” or some such thing. Interesting that we “closed-minded” atheists will actually read literature written by the religious, yet the “open-minded” religious people frequently refuse to read anything that would not bring them “closer to God™”. For zdenny to take a bit more than ten minutes out of his Christ-inspired™ life to view what he would probably call “secularist propaganda” would be more than I could expect.

In regards to the six days of creation, I don’t believe we know enough about the universe as of yet to be able to demonstrate that to be the case in fact; however, it is a possibility as science deals in the realm of hypothesis and confirmation of the facts.

Incorrect. We know enough about the universe to understand that it was not created by zdenny’s God™ during a six day period. I welcome any empirical evidence which supports zdenny’s idea that it is a possibility. Based on measurements of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation, measurements of the expansion of the universe using Type Ia supernovae, and measurements of the correlation function of galaxies, the universe has a calculated age of 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years. You can verify some of the scientific data used to reach these conclusions in Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Data Processing, Sky Maps, & Basic Results, published in the Astrophysical Journal, 2008. [PDF file linked is hosted at NASA’s Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis.]

I just don’t like the fact that you are so closed minded. Rather than thinking in the realm of possibility, you think within the realm of a closed box which is very unhealthy for you and for everyone around you.

Irony Overload! I just don’t know what to say to this. Is zdenny honestly that fucking stupid, or is he a malicious liar? There can really be no options besides these two. My response to statements so fucking stupid as to destroy any irony meter that I might conceivably construct must be this:

Science has prospered in a Christian context exactly because we are open minded. Science is like putting a puzzle together. We know what the final picture will look like since it is in God’s Word; however, man is still putting the puzzle together and sometimes forces the pieces together which other come along and change as they follow the process. Science is fun as a result and the discoveries have really been awesome.

Science has prospered in a Christian™ context? Shall we ask the opinion of several people who have been involved in scientific study? How about Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, or Giordano Bruno? What might they have to say about Christianity’s support of science?

Some scientific research can be likened to putting a puzzle together. Stating that you know what the results will be, even before the study is done, is a complete failure in scientific terms. If a person holds those beliefs, they neither know nor care anything about the scientific method.

As a matter of fact, science has never demonstrated that the Bible is in fact wrong…even evolution has not been directly observed. The evidence for evolution has to be interpreted and the conclusion inferred as stated by Dawkins himself. That is why it is called a theory rather than a fact.

Let me try to get this through zdenny’s thick fucking skull one more fucking time. The person making the positive claim assumes the burden of proof. End of fucking conversation, you stupid motherfucking little prick! If you claim that the earth was entirely covered by a flood a few thousand years ago, it is up to you to produce evidence supporting your claim. You, zdenny, must prove that your positive claim is correct. No one is required to prove you are wrong. Hint: Your Bible™ is not evidence.

Of course, here we go again with the “It’s only a theory” bullshit. I’m going to go over this one more time for zdenny’s benefit. He really seems to have difficulty understanding this. Well, I think he understands the concept, but he refuses to accept it because the Discovery Institute would think poorly of him if he did accept it.

A scientific theory or law represents an hypothesis, or a group of related hypotheses, which has been confirmed through repeated experimental tests. Theories in physics are often formulated in terms of a few concepts and equations, which are identified with “laws of nature,” suggesting their universal applicability. Accepted scientific theories and laws become part of our understanding of the universe and the basis for exploring less well-understood areas of knowledge. Theories are not easily discarded; new discoveries are first assumed to fit into the existing theoretical framework. It is only when, after repeated experimental tests, the new phenomenon cannot be accommodated that scientists seriously question the theory and attempt to modify it. The validity that we attach to scientific theories as representing realities of the physical world is to be contrasted with the facile invalidation implied by the expression, “It’s only a theory.” For example, it is unlikely that a person will step off a tall building on the assumption that they will not fall, because “Gravity is only a theory.”

—Prof. Frank L. H. Wolfs, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Physics 113 Laboratory Experiments, 1996 – 1997, APPENDIX E: Introduction to the Scientific Method

[Why use Professor Wolfs’ words? I have no reasons other than the fact that they are succinct and appropriate. Oh yes; they also happen to be fucking correct.]

God Bless!

I do not completely doubt zdenny’s sincerity, but it’s meaningless nonetheless.