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Sarcastic Jackass and Hardcore Skeptic

The various questions surrounding theology have been mentioned with some frequency over the last year. This is mostly, or perhaps entirely, due to the fact that it is becoming increasingly acceptable to lack theistic belief. Despite this, I haven't written a lot of serious debate on the issue. I am not about to start. Some points are better made by others, and I'm inclined to leave this one to the Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams of the world.

I'll do my part for the de-woolification of thinking by promoting those that do it best. In particular I want to point you to the Wonderful World of WinAce, which turns out to be far better than its design would lead you to believe.

A comment - by the eponimous WinAce - at Fark led me to his brilliantly ironic Organisms that Look Designed. This contains the following inspired quote:

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose by God, but we won't admit that even if he comes down from heaven and slaps us silly.

Ditchard Rawkins, Oxbored University Professor of Zoology by day, godless communist sympathizer by night

Digging deeper - or in fact equally deep, but in a different section - I found his Homorous Images for Online Use, further satirising clueless fundies and their arguments. And since I've mentioned the clueless fundies, check out Fundies Say the Darndest Things. Choice quote this time (there are thousands):

If you can quote one Biblical passage that proves God doesn't exist, or Jesus didn't come from God or that the moral standard didn't come from God then I will start to think about what you are saying.

I was all set to laud this site for its satire - and plain old piss-taking - which is great in itself - when I discovered a serious aspect to the site. If you're in a contemplative mood - and I recognise that people surfing the web very often aren't - you may want to look into Questioning Theistic Beliefs. It presents a series of questions designed to ilicit that most dangerous commodities: rational thought. It leans towards questioning biblical fundamentalism, but much of it is relevant to many religions. A question at random:

Does the intentional destruction of every newborn in Egypt as a final demonstration of power to a stubborn Pharaoh seem more consistent with an actual act by a benevolent God than invention by a Bronze Age human writer?

Incidentally, the title of this entry is taken from the site; it's not just an affirmation of my own personality.

Comments:
Sun, 11th Jan 2004 (04:13)

Oh God fix the explorer bug. It's actually making it hard to read your site which is something that I enjoy. Sorry to post this unrelated comment to the topic. maybe I can add something… takes one to know one!

Bet that put you in your place.

Actually, i was just thinking about how funny it is that things do look like they were designed for a specific purpose. If I was around in a time when evolution wasn't really thought about I guess i would jump to the conclusion that many people did. It seems that different creatures were made for specific tasks, and how odd it is that you can eat plants and fruit and such. I guess the only excuse for it being so is the work of some higher power that you can't comprehend because you can't do this stuff yourself.

Now that we can there is no excuse for believing in a higher power. Sure the morals and ideas on how to live can be extracted from certain religions and used in a positive way, but that can be done without the farcical idea of it being a decree of a god. Shame on those now who believe there is a god and don't listen to arguments against. Sympathy for those who can't decide but listen to the debate. Supreme power for those who made that extra grab for glory by thinking freely.

by Djinn
Sun, 11th Jan 2004 (14:25)

I'll fix the explorer bug as soon as Microsoft give me the code. It may well be more practical to simply work around it, which I'll do soon. I'm pretty busy and no-one seems to know what causes this bug.

As for your relevant comment, the point of the design page was that, while it's okay to see all of the amazing creatures that evolution has produced and to think initially that they must have been designed, it's not okay to ignore the truth when it finally comes to light. That's just bloody-minded and, frankly, stupid.

I always make a distinction between those people who believe things that are demonstrably untrue - creationists - and those who believe in unnecessary complexity without cause - theists. Creationists who ignore proof are stupid. Theists who ignore reason are misled.

by Rory
Mon, 12th Jan 2004 (13:45)

What if they're theists, but not a part of any organised religion? surely then they're misleading themselves? And isn't that a pretty stupid thing to do…?

Incidentally, I just looked at the site in Internet Explorer: it seemed fine to me: did you fix it?

by Stephen
Mon, 12th Jan 2004 (22:57)

As I've said before, it's not my place to fix Internet Explorer even if I could. If you meant did I fix the site, then I should point out that the site was never broken. I haven't yet found a workaround. What version of IE are/were you using? Version 6 is the only confirmed misbehaver.

by Rory

About this post

This piece was posted on Tue, 06th Jan 2004 at 13:22.

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