I didn't have to wait long before these great clips became available on the web. I always loved these shows, and of course the writers make the show, and the writers are not whacko creationists by the looks of these videos. Watch and laugh.
Edited: Youtube keeps deleting these so if you want to view both Family Guy and The Simpsons short videos mocking creationists go here.
The Simpsons dedicated the whole show to the evolution/creation school debate. They pulled no punches, as they didn't mention it was ID vs. evolution but creation vs. evolution. Here is a clip:
I'm always curious how YECs view things like this. Do they get it (yeah right)? Do they realize how ridiculous their beliefs really are (I think deep down they know it but are in deep denial)? Are they mad at The Simpsons and Family Guy (channel block?)? Do they laugh at themselves (I doubt it)?
It is interesting that both these episodes did a first run on the same day (coincidence, or intelligent design?).
Meanwhile all I can do is laugh.
Incidentally, my favorite TV show tackled evolution/creation earlier this year. Watch this, it is short and to the point:
I wonder if Fundies have discussions like Tony and Chris had after the Fundy left.
NOTE: Youtube removed this clip. To view it go here.
I still haven't got a good answer from a Muslim when it comes to not believing in evolution and yet believing that Jews came from pigs and monkeys. I wish they would make up their minds.
ReplyDeleteEvolutionists try to portray the creation/evolution controversy as a battle of science (evolution) vs. religion (creation). This is untrue. The origins controversy is a battle of religion vs. religion, with each side claiming that science supports its belief.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you believe about where everything came from, there are two main aspects to your belief.
(1) Who or what started everything, why, and what does it all mean?
These are purely religious questions. Despite what evolutionists might say, they apply just as much to belief in evolution as to belief in creation. The difference is that creationists deal with these questions head on, while evolutionists try to ignore them.
(2) What were the conditions at the beginning?
Creationists need not limit ourselves to the questions in (1) above. Like the evolutionists, we can ignore questions of meaning and focus on the conditions at the beginning of the universe, earth, and life. Instead of asking Who did it? we can ask What happened?.
So what would the conditions have been like at the beginning? According to creation, everything started at its most organized. While there has been a great deal of diversification and specialization, there has been an overall trend toward deterioration ever since. Thus, we can approach creation as the Initial Complexity model. Evolution , on the other hand, says that everything began in an extremely disorganized state and has become more and more organized through the eons. Thus, we can express the basic idea of evolution as Initial Disorganization.
Using these opposing ideas, Initial Complexity vs. Initial Disorganization, we can make predictions about what sort of evidence we should find in many areas of science (biology, paleontology, genetics, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, geology, etc.) if one or the other is true. We can then apply the scientific method to test our predictions and see which set fits better with what we actually observe.
For instance, Initial Complexity leads us to expect an overall trend toward deterioration throughout the universe, while Initial Disorganization leads us to expect an overall trend toward increasing organization. Likewise, Initial Complexity leads us to expect a sudden, explosive appearance of most of the major types of fossils in the lowest fossil-bearing rocks while Initial Disorganization leads us to expect continual, gradual development from simple to complex.
Besides these predictions, we can make many others that relate to the conditions needed for the origin of life, the structure of the universe, the characteristics of the fossil record, the process of cell reproduction, and on and on. Applying the scientific method to test such predictions is the "science" part of "creation science."
Anonymous, I think you are clueless about what evolutionists think. First off, evolution doesn't deal with the beginning of time, it deals with the observable changes of species throughout time.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as the beginning of the universe goes, scientists have quite a few theories, and I'm sure that within 100 years, the answers will be verifiable through science.
There are not two aspects to my beliefs. I believe what is real and verifiable.
Creationists deal with answers head on, by making stuff up, with complete bull crap.
There's no such thing as an atheist. Oh, I know some claim to be, but they're not being honest with themselves. My basic premise is that the Genesis account of creation is true.
ReplyDeleteIf you believe in evolution, that probably amuses you. You may be saying to yourself, "Nobody believes that stuff anymore!" Well, a few years ago I thought the same thing. I believed in "theistic evolution," that is, that God used evolution to create. If that's your belief, don't feel too smug. There are people laughing at you too. Atheists scoff at creation because it requires a Creator, but they scoff just as much at theistic evolution because it too depends on the existence of God. Atheists claim that they are the only true scientists because anything that requires supernatural intervention can't possibly be scientific.
Is atheism really good science? Let's pretend you're an atheist. Tell me why you don't believe in God.
"I don't believe in something I can't see."
You're right, God can't be directly observed, but can only be detected through what He does. He is invisible.
I'm sure that's not your only objection to belief in God. Let me point out some of the others.
- If God set the laws of nature into effect, then He is not subject to those laws. He is above nature, or supernatural.
"Right. I don't believe in supernatural things either."
- God has existed since before the universe began; He is eternal.
- Where is God? He is everywhere, or omnipresent.
- If God created the universe, he directly intervened in nature at least once. He usually doesn't, though. If I drop a pen He doesn't grab it and force it to the ground. However, he is indirectly responsible for its fall because He set up the laws of gravity. Thus, He is either directly or indirectly responsible for everything that has ever happened in the physical universe. That is, He is omnipotent.
- Finally, who made God? Nobody. He is self-existent.
So, my atheist friend, you scoff at belief in God because of six characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. Let me ask you, then: how did the universe get here?
"It just happened."
Think about what that means. You're saying that there was a series of forces, processes, and events operating without any particular purpose over billions of years. Let's use the term "Random Chance" to summarize the whole series. Here's my first question for you: What does Random Chance look like?
"What are you talking about? You can't see random chance!"
Interesting! You believe in something you can't see. Random chance can only be detected by what it does. It is invisible.
Let's think about some other characteristics of your series of forces, processes, and events known as Random Chance.
- Suppose random chance set the laws of nature into effect. Then it is not subject to those laws; it is above nature, or supernatural.
"Gulp..."
- If the universe is the result of random chance, then random chance has been here since before the universe began. It is eternal.
- Now, tell me: where is random chance found?
"Everywhere."
Oh, you mean it's omnipresent.
- Next: even if Random Chance is directly responsible for only some things, it is indirectly responsible for everything else. If I drop a pen Random Chance doesn't grab it and force it to the ground. However, it is indirectly responsible because it set up the laws of gravity. Since it is either directly or indirectly responsible for everything in the universe, it is omnipotent.
- One last question. Who made Random Chance? Nobody. It is self-existent.
So, dear atheist, you don't believe in God because He has six unscientific characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. Yet you believe in Random Chance which has exactly the same characteristics: invisible, supernatural, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and self-existent. No, my friend, you have no scientific advantage over me. I worship the God of the Bible, but you worship a god known as Random Chance. There is no possibility that God does NOT exist, whether a personal being as revealed in the Bible or a series of impersonal forces as you rely on.
Can I prove the existence of the personal God I believe in? No. Can you prove the existence of Random Chance? No. We both take a step of faith. So what's the difference?
- If I'm right I have the potential to go to an eternal heaven.
- If I'm wrong I'll never know it, because I will live a happy life expecting to meet my Savior. I just won't wake up as I expected to.
- If you're right nothing matters anyway.
- What if you're wrong? As the philosopher Pascal once said, "If I say there is not a God and there is a God, God help me."
With my step of faith I can't lose, even if I'm wrong. With your step of faith you can't win, even if you're right. So which step of faith makes more sense?
Of course, if you're taking the time to read this, you probably aren't an atheist like our imaginary friend. But the next time you encounter someone who claims to be, you can do him a great service by showing him that he, too, has a god. Perhaps you will get him started on his way to the real God. At any rate, whether we believe in creation or theistic evolution, the atheist has no scientific advantage over us.
But how about the controversy between creation and evolution? Couldn't God have used evolution to create?
there has been an overall trend toward deterioration ever since.
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and say it. You know you want to. Please Please. Go ahead
EVILUTION DOES NOT JIVE WITH THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
This Initial Complexity crap is all a thinly veiled attmept to hide one of the most debunked, shotdown, proven ridiculous, creationist' canards ever.
Wow. That was one long post of Begging the Question and argumentum ad ignorantiam.
ReplyDeleteGood job at knocking out two of the favorite creationist non-sequiturs in a row.
Anon, Atheism isn't a science. An Atheist does not believe in God, because there is absolutely no evidence that God ever existed.
ReplyDeleteEvidence of meteor strikes is an example of randomness and how it could have a major impact on life forms on earth.
You believe in Genesis creation? You mean to tell me the earth is less than 10,000 years old?
And of course theistic evolution is a possibility, because we can prove evolution, but we can't prove that the man made God does not exist, just like we can't prove Jesus as a person didn't exist. There is no evidence that either did exist though, so why not believe in the Cat In the Hat?
Throughout our lives people try to persuade us that they know things we can't verify for ourselves. One such thing we hear more and more often is that scientists know evolution to be a fact. But how do they know? How do any of us know what we know -- or at least, what we think we know?
ReplyDeletePart of the trouble in answering this question is that, at least in the English language, we can mean very different things when we say we know something.
1. You might know that a bee sting hurts because it happened to you. You might know how to ride a bicycle because you've done it yourself. You might know what an apple tastes like because you've eaten one. Just about anyone can know any of these things because they are available for all of us to experience personally.
2. You might know that the sun is 93 million miles away because you read it in a book. You might know Jesus died for you because the Bible says so. You might know that a gunshot hurts because you know someone who was shot and lived to tell about it. What you really mean is that you're relying on an authority that you trust, rather than personal experience. (If you wanted to, you could shoot yourself in the foot to be sure that it really does hurt. Until then, you have to rely on someone's word.)
3. You know a million plus a million equals two million even if you've never counted that high. You know that the measures of the angles in any triangle add up to a hundred eighty degrees, even though you haven't measured every triangle that could possibly exist. How do you know these things? You don't need personal experience and don't even need an authority to tell you. You can figure them out through logic.
4. A man who meets the woman of his dreams might say that he knows she's the one he should spend the rest of his life with. A pastor might say that he knows God has called him to the ministry. Nobody else in the world could have exactly the same personal experience as these two people; no authority figure told them the things they claim to know; they didn't figure it out logically. Instead, when each of them says he "knows," he is relying on feeling or intuition.
5. A student in danger of failing because of a late assignment might tell her teacher that she knows she can complete it if given two more days. Any teacher could tell you that this is most likely a case of wishful thinking rather than experience, authority, logic, or intuition.
6. Someone trying to recoup the money he spent for season tickets for a professional sports team might emphatically tell a potential buyer that he knows the team is going to win the championship this year. A paleontologist whose funding is about to be cut off might insist to his financial backer that he knows the new bone he just found is the "missing link." The person who says these things doesn't really believe them, but uses them to gain some sort of advantage. To use an old word, we could call these "bluster," or simply lying.
In summary, most people use the word "know" in any of six ways. (1) Personal Experience. (2) Reliance on Authority. (3) Logic. (4) Feeling or Intuition. (5) Wishful Thinking. (6) Bluster.
Which of these types of "knowledge" can we consider scientific? Since the scientific method requires observation, a scientific statement must ultimately be based on someone's personal experience. In some cases the speaker had the experience himself, but more often he cites authorities. However, in order for this to be science, somebody at the beginning of the chain of authorities must have had personal experience. If not, it's nothing more than storytelling.
How does evolution fit into this?
(1) We should ask if anyone alive has personal experience with it. Of course not! Our ancestors are supposed to have evolved millions of years ago.
(2) Can we appeal to any of our ancestors who saw the process of evolution firsthand? No, because none of them would have been intelligent enough to leave us a written record!
Thus, when people say they know evolution is a fact, they must have one of four reasons.
(3) They think it's logical.
(4) They have a feeling about it.
(5) They want it to be true.
(6) They have a personal stake in persuading the rest of us. Imagine a person who's spent her whole academic career as a professor of evolutionary biology. She realizes that if she admits the possibility of creation, she's going to lose her job. It's not likely that she's going to admit publicly that evolution could be wrong.
With nobody having personal experience of evolution, then, we shouldn't trust someone's feeling or wishful thinking or bluster with something so important as the question of where we came from. The only kind of "knowledge" that could give reasonable support to evolution would be logic.
Be careful! Logic is only reliable if it's done correctly. Even if a series of statements follows a logical structure, it doesn't automatically mean that the conclusion is right. For instance, you could say: All living things need oxygen; the organism I am studying is a living thing; therefore, it must need oxygen. Though the logic is flawless, it starts with a false premise. Certain types of anaerobic bacteria do not need oxygen. The conclusion may sound logical, but it is unreliable. Only if both the structure of the argument and the premises are correct can you be sure that logic will give correct results.
If you think that evolution has anything to do with agenda, then surely you can come up with plausible scientific studies that confirm the earth is young, that man has only been around for less than 10,000 years old and that creation occurred at a certain time. Surely, there is a creation scientist just looking to be famous with all this "provable" crap.
ReplyDelete"(1) We should ask if anyone alive has personal experience with it. Of course not! Our ancestors are supposed to have evolved millions of years ago.
ReplyDelete(2) Can we appeal to any of our ancestors who saw the process of evolution firsthand? No, because none of them would have been intelligent enough to leave us a written record!
Thus, when people say they know evolution is a fact, they must have one of four reasons.
(3) They think it's logical.
(4) They have a feeling about it.
(5) They want it to be true.
(6) They have a personal stake in persuading the rest of us. Imagine a person who's spent her whole academic career as a professor of evolutionary biology. She realizes that if she admits the possibility of creation, she's going to lose her job. It's not likely that she's going to admit publicly that evolution could be wrong.
With nobody having personal experience of evolution, then, we shouldn't trust someone's feeling or wishful thinking or bluster with something so important as the question of where we came from. The only kind of "knowledge" that could give reasonable support to evolution would be logic.
Be careful! Logic is only reliable if it's done correctly. Even if a series of statements follows a logical structure, it doesn't automatically mean that the conclusion is right. For instance, you could say: All living things need oxygen; the organism I am studying is a living thing; therefore, it must need oxygen. Though the logic is flawless, it starts with a false premise. Certain types of anaerobic bacteria do not need oxygen. The conclusion may sound logical, but it is unreliable. Only if both the structure of the argument and the premises are correct can you be sure that logic will give correct results."
[1] & [2] is just blatantly wrong. Organisms do not undergo evolution actively. Single organisms do not experience evolution. Populations do.
[3] thru [6] accurately describe theists but not the scientific method which evolution and be examined with.
I thought you were once a theistic evolutionists. You must have had a terrible understanding of it, no wonder you were easily convinced with the common fallacious creationism arguments.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, random chance isn't an actual thing that exists. It is the absence of design, purpose, or orchestrations. Evolution is only partly random. Natural selection is not random by any means.
Anon has slipped into the twilight zone. It has lots of knowledge about what we think and feel. It knows that we are only fooling ourselves. It knows that we aren't able to think for ourselves. It knows that it knows better about who we are and what we are capable of than we do ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy it is around to tell me about who I am.
-Repeatable, observable events occurring in the present fall within the realm of science.
ReplyDelete- Nonrepeatable past events known through eyewitness accounts are part of history.
- Nonrepeatable past events which were not reported by eyewitnesses lead to a belief, which may or may not be correct. We may use as much circumstantial evidence as possible to come up with the most reasonable guess, but we can never prove what happened without eyewitness accounts.
Evolution falls into the last category. If we reject Genesis as an eyewitness account, so does Creation. Both are beliefs (educated guesses), but neither can be proven.
All is not lost, though. A great deal of circumstantial evidence is available to help us decide whether Creation or Evolution is more reasonable. We need to be aware of three potential problems with evidence.
1. Evidence may be incomplete.
Ever read a good murder mystery? Just before the end you think you know "who done it." At the last minute the author reveals a crucial bit of evidence you didn't know before. You are annoyed to find that the culprit was the butler, not the chauffeur. Why did you reach a wrong conclusion? Because you were basing your ideas on incomplete evidence.
A prime example of incomplete evidence occurred in the U.S. in the 1920s. Noted anthropologist Henry Fairfield Osborn declared that a single fossilized molar tooth found in Nebraska in 1922 came from an extinct ancestor of man called Hesperopithecus. He presented an elaborate scenario showing how Mr. and Mrs. Hesperopithecus looked, what they ate, where they lived, what kind of animals lived nearby, and so on. The 1922 Illustrated London News even printed a double-page picture of them in their native habitat.
Because of Osborn's reputation, many accepted this scenario as fact. Defense attorney Clarence Darrow even alluded to it in an attempt to berate prosecutor William Jennings Bryan at the famous "Scopes Trial" of 1925. In this case, teacher John Scopes was tried for violating a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools. (Perhaps you saw Hollywood's inaccurate version of the trial in the motion picture "Inherit the Wind".)
A few years after the trial ended with Scopes being convicted, another fossil tooth was found, identical to the one Osborn had used as his basis for Hesperopithecus. This one was still in the jaw to which it belonged. The jaw belonged to an extinct pig! (Some say this is a clear case of a pig making a monkey of an evolutionist.)
Why were the "experts" so wrong in their elaborate story? Because they started with incomplete evidence. We should ask ourselves, How much evidence exists about the beginning of everything? We have no way to know. Then how much evidence is still missing? We have no way to know that either. As a result, we should exercise a healthy skepticism and not be taken in by claims based on only a small amount of evidence.
2. Evidence may be deliberately withheld.
You'd be amazed how often this happens. Future articles in this series will give a number of such cases, but for now, here's just one.
Students are told that life on earth began in a mixture of chemicals known as the "primordial soup" which came together into amino acids, which then assembled themselves into proteins, which then assembled themselves into cells. But the chemicals in this mythical soup cannot combine properly in the presence of free oxygen. Therefore, the students are told that the early atmosphere did not contain free oxygen - that it escaped from inside the earth much later.
Geologists know better. It is well known in professional geologic circles that traces of free oxygen -- iron oxide, uranium oxide, and so on -- have been found in even the bottom layers of Precambrian sediment, all the way down to basement rock. But if you check your children's textbooks, this evidence is nowhere to be found. Why not? It's deliberately withheld because it doesn't fit the theory of evolution!
3. Evidence may be falsified.
You've probably heard that a human baby goes through all the stages of evolution as it develops in the womb before birth. This is a bald-faced lie!
The lie started in the early 1860s. Ernst Haeckel, a young doctor on the faculty of Jena University in Germany, was an ardent anti-Christian who wrote over 40 books trying to turn people away from belief in the God of the Bible. When Darwin's The Origin of Species was translated into German, he seized on the growing popularity of evolution.
Haeckel published drawings that he said illustrated his laboratory experiments, in which he had dissected embryos of different kinds of creatures at various stages of development. The drawings clearly showed the embryos demonstrating the stages of evolutionary development.
Others tried to duplicate Haeckel's experiments, but obtained completely different results. Finally, in 1906, Haeckel was confronted with the evidence before a University Court, and confessed that he had forged his drawings! His peers convicted him of fraud, leading to his retirement. That didn't end it, though. After all this time, the lie is still found in many of your children's textbooks.
Think there are no consequences to evolutionary lies? Haeckel's deception was the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's ill-informed 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion on demand. So far it has cost the lives of tens of millions of babies in the U.S. alone.
These are just a few examples we could cite to show the need to be careful as we examine the evidence pertaining to Creation and Evolution. Remember, it may be incomplete; it may be deliberately withheld; or it may be falsified.
Random mutation and natural selection has been observed.
ReplyDeleteFossils show gradual decent.
Creation isn't an educated guess, it is a factless hope.
ReplyDeleteYou have to throw all science out the door to not believe in evolution. And by the content of your posts, you have absolutely no idea about much of what you are spewing at length about.
The Straw-men floweth freely. Embrace them.
ReplyDeleteAnon is trying the typical lying and obsfucation of truth that is the halmark of a good creationist. It is no use trying to reason with it. It is so far from being able to recognize truth and reason that it will be useless.
I bet your leaders are proud Anon.
I shall establish an important and necessary guideline in this discussion of evolution. The word evolution is generally used in at least two different senses, and the distinction between them is important. On the one hand, the word evolution is used to denote the descent of all life from a putative single primitive source. It is the grand sweep of evolution that is supposed to have led from a simple beginning, something perhaps simpler than a bacterium, to all organisms living today, including humans. This descent is supposed to have occurred through purely natural means. Neo-Darwinian theory (NDT), which is the prevailing theory of evolution, teaches that this development occurred through random heritable variations in the organisms followed by natural selection. I shall denote the word evolution used in this sense as Evolution A. When evolution is discussed for popular consumption, it is most often Evolution A.
ReplyDeleteThe second sense in which the word evolution is used is to denote any kind of change of a population. The change can sometimes occur in response to environmental pressure (artificial or natural selection), and sometimes it can just be random (genetic drift). I shall denote the word used in this second sense as Evolution B. Evolution B has been observed. Evolution A is an inference, but is not observable. The distinction between these two meanings of evolution parallels the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution, but the two pairs of terms are not identical. Evolution A is certainly what is called macroevolution, but what is called macroevolution is not identical with Evolution A. In any case, I prefer to use the A and B to avoid having to carry whatever baggage might go with the macro/micro distinction.
The distinction between these two meanings of evolution is often ignored by the defenders of Neo-Darwinian evolution. But the distinction is critical. The claim is made for Evolution A, but the proof offered is often limited to Evolution B. The implication is that the observation of Evolution B is a substantiation of Evolution A. But this is not so. Since Evolution A is not an observable, it can only be substantiated by circumstantial evidence. This circumstantial evidence is principally the fossil record, amino-acid-sequence comparisons, and comparative anatomy. Circumstantial evidence must be accompanied by a theory of how it relates to what is to be proved. NDT is generally accepted to be that theory. The strength of the circumstantial evidence for Evolution A can therefore be no better than the strength of NDT.
The important claim of Neo-Darwinism is that it can account for Evolution A. The public perceives this claim as the core of the controversy over evolution. This claim is also the source of the contention by evolutionists that life is the result of purely natural processes, which ensue from well-known natural laws.
Evolution A is the principle message of evolution, namely that all life descended with modification from a putative single primitive source. The mechanism offered for the process of modification is basically the Darwinian one of a long series of steps of random variation, each followed by natural selection. The variation is generally understood today to be random mutations in the DNA. That primitive source of life is assumed to be sufficiently simple that it could have arisen from nonliving material by chance. There is no theory today that can account for such an event, but I shall refrain from addressing that issue here. That is for another place and another time. What is relevant to this discussion is that the requirement that life arose spontaneously sets, at the very least, a stringent upper limit on the complexity and information content of the putative first organism that could reproduce itself, and thus serve as a vehicle from which to launch Darwinian evolution. The issue I address here is the alleged development of all life by the Neo-Darwinian process of random mutation and natural selection, starting from a sufficiently simple beginning.
Despite the insistence of evolutionists that evolution is a fact, it is really no more than an improbable story. No one has ever shown that the mechanism of NDT can result in Evolution A. Most evolutionists assume that long sequences of microevolutionary events can produce Evolution A, but no one has ever shown it to be so. (Those few evolutionists who hold that macroevolution is really different from microevolution have changed their story several times since they first came out with it, and their mechanism is so fuzzy that I have a hard time telling what it is.)
For Evolution A to work, long series of “beneficial” mutations must be possible, each building on the previous one and conferring a selective advantage on the organism. The process must be able to lead not only from one species to another, but to the entire advance of life from a simple beginning to the full complexity of present-day life. There must be a long series of possible mutations, each conferring a selective advantage on the organism so that natural selection can enable it to take over the population. Moreover, there must be not just one, but a great many such, series.
The chain must be continuous in that at each stage a change of a single base pair somewhere in the genome can lead to a more adaptive organism in some environmental context. The concept of the adaptive landscape is useful here. This concept was first introduced by Sewall Wright[1], but now nucleotide sequences of the mean population genome have taken the place of Wright’s gene combinations. There are a great many adaptive hills of various heights spread over the genomic landscape. NDT then says that it should be possible to continue to climb an “adaptive” hill to a large global maximum (or near-maximum), one base change at a time, without getting hung up on a small local maximum. No one has ever shown this to be possible.
Stop using the ladder of progress fallacy moron!
ReplyDeleteUnless this dude is Spetner, he/she should at least give the author credit. Here is the whole argument and why Spetner is wrong.
ReplyDeleteBloody hell. Those were some long posts from anonymous wingnut. I wondered if he was writing them himself, or just copy/pasting. Evidently, the latter.
ReplyDeleteIt may be hard to believe, but dozens of studies have shown that regularly going to church and praying puts you in a group that has better health and a longer life-span.
ReplyDeleteStudies of more than 126,000 people have shown that those who regularly attend church are 29 per cent more likely to live longer than non-churchgoers. A University of Texas study found that church attenders live up to seven years longer than non-attenders, and the most regular attenders have the longest life expectancy.
A Duke University study of 2391 people who were at least 65 years old found that regular churchgoers who also prayed daily or studied the Bible daily were 40 per cent less likely to have high blood pressure than those who did not. Elderly churchgoers had better mental health and were less likely to have high degrees of a protein associated with age-related illness. (See our news archives for some news articles on these revealing findings.)
Why?
It is probably not hard to understand why. Churchgoers are much more restrained when it comes to many problem-causing areas of modern society. They don't usually have problems associated with drunkenness (for example, medical problems such as cirrhosis of the liver and shrinkage of the brain, or serious road injuries caused by driving while drunk), brawling, drugs, AIDS, gambling, cigarette-related cancers, and such, because these are lifestyles that most churchgoers try to avoid.
This does not mean that an atheist won't reach 100 or a Christian won't die as a teenager. But it does mean if you had to choose who would live longest between a born-again Christian and an atheist, other things being roughly equal you would win a lot more times if you always bet on the Christian.
Born-again Christians also have God's Holy Spirit dwelling in them to help them avoid the problem areas mentioned above. And because they know they can always turn to God in prayer during times of crisis, this may be the reason there is a lower incidence of stress-related problems in their lives.
Boost your career prospects
You also may have better career prospects if you are a Bible-believing Christian.
Most Christians are fairly conservative. They don't usually get involved in attention-seeking gimmicks or fads such as tattoos, body piercing, or fluoro hair. Even in this age of anti-discrimination and political correctness, most employers still lean toward conservative-looking applicants, particularly if it comes to a close choice. So the conservative Christian may have better than a 50-50 chance of getting the job in a close contest, if everything else is equal.
Many employers have found that the Christians they employ generally have an admirable work ethic. Also, the Christians usually don't smoke, drink, or gamble (at least not to a dangerous degree). This means the employer gains valuable work time from them while many other staff take smoke-breaks and have time off work because of hangovers and drink-related problems.
Christians are also much less likely to have gambling problems than people with no religious commitment, so stealing from the company to pay gambling debts is almost unknown from genuine born-again Christians. (See our article on job-hunting tips for Christians if you are a Christian looking for a new job.)
Attract customers to your business … and keep them!
If you run a business, there is a big advantage in being a Christian. Your honesty and commitment to the ethics of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ will spur you on to always do the right thing by your customers, and even to give them more than they expect. This can attract and keep many more customers.
It will not protect you against business downturns, high rents, and many other business-related problems, but if you can build a strong customer base it will surely help! You will be praying for God's protection daily in your business anyway.
Gain greater trust and respect from co-workers and friends
In business and socially, Christians are greatly respected and trusted because of their high principles. Most of them rapidly gain the respect of friends, and the trust of their colleagues at work.
Any truly born-again Christian will tell you that being a Christian is wonderful. They would not renounce their Christianity for anything. This has been shown over and over in times of persecution, when Christians chose death rather than renouncing Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Being a Christian does not guarantee freedom from problems, but it does put you in all the groups mentioned above. And it gives you direct access to the great and wonderful God who created the universe and all life on earth: the God who can answer any prayer, and who offers you not just a longer life, but eternal life!
1. There is no evidence Jesus Christ ever lived even as just a historical figure.
ReplyDelete2. Fundamentalist Christians are either in denial or they are just plain stupid when it comes to science.
3. I would rather live a shorter life accepting the truth, than a long life surrounded by ignorance.
4. There aren't too many Atheists in jail. The place is full of believers.
Again, plenty of unsubstantiated spewing from Anon. If the vast majority of the US population identify themselves as Christians then where are all of the gambling, drinking, whoring, discriminating, failed buisness having, lying, tattooed, smoking, cancer stricken, late to work, stealing people coming from? All form the small minoirty of Atheists?
ReplyDeleteI think not. On average, Atheists on average are more highly educated that Christians. And more highly educated people are more likely to be members of all of the groups you listed above, minus the religiocity. But that shouldn't worry you because you obviously subscribe to the anti-education anti-science mindset.
Let he who is without Sin, cast the first stone. So all Christians don't have these "sins". Shame on you. Your god will be very angry.
I would be willing to bet that the rates of occurences of all the ills of society you so easily throw about are pretty evenly spread across the board with the higher educated groups of both atheists and those with faith being less afflicted.
I guess you ignored the recent study that showed that people who knew they were being prayed (preyed) for and were actually prayed for had more complications after a study doen on heart surgery patients? Humm?
Your fantasy world is just that fantasy. The vast majority of the people I know are with faith and I can sure as hell bet you that I don't come into work hungover, but I know that the guy that sits over there ----> does. And he went to church Sunday.
a couple typos in there, sorry.
ReplyDeleteOnly jesus is his friend I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteMy neice has an imaginary friend too.
Thanks for these; I needed a good laugh tonight. I'd only seen the Sopranos one so far (btw, we have the SAME taste in tv shows)...
ReplyDeleteLisa there is a full version of the Simpsons episode here.
ReplyDeleteThat is if you still need to laugh more.
Thanks BEAJ! I'm headed there now...after all my space critiques, I need a laugh ha ha ha...
ReplyDeleteI wonder if 'anonymous' (brave ID to use there) has read the pieces he/she has cut and pasted?
ReplyDeletewhy are people still believing in evolution??? its all crap and has many many false statements, dont make any sense, and was proven wrong by a lot of people but its still taught in school!!! for one thing, evolutionists still cant explain how and why monkeys turned into man. how can a hairy small tailed tree swinging creature automatically turn into a gorrilla or whatever and then become a man, which has very few hair and can do what any other animals cant do.
ReplyDeletecan animals build a house? a real house? or make a phone? NO!! also, why do evolutionists say that fish turned into land creatures and then some learned to fly. what kind of bs is that?? automatically even if a fish tried to go to land for even millions of years, they would die. they wont breathe or move.
God created all of us, seperately. i know that some aspects of evolution is true, but the theory of evolution is crap. and why do some of u guys make fun of Muslims, the Qur'an, or Islam? if u guys diss the TRUTH, i cant help you when ur dead.
Anon, you have no clue. You don't even know what evolution theory is.
ReplyDeleteIt saddens me to see such quibbles arising from something that should inspire the mind rather than enrage the heart.
ReplyDeleteI will make my point as brief as possible.
In my "OPINION"...
There is only one true fact," I know that I exist." If you can think it then it proves it's self to be true. this is the only fact many of us will ever "know". The religious people can claim their facts and the evolutionary people can claim theirs, but they can not ever know for certain. and even as i say this I must confess that this is my belief not a fact.
Many people claim evolution as a fact, often citing many researchers and scientist but unless you did the research your self you do not actually "know" anything for a "fact". you are believing what you've been told just like the religious people believe what they have been told. evolution is possible, neh, probable, but by no means a fact. the same goes for religion ( no matter whether it be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Bahai, Hindu, Buddhism, Jain, Tao, Shinto, monotheistic, polytheistic, animism , belief in the flying spaghetti monster or anything else your heart desires), remember this is beliefe not fact, you are free to believe what you want but keep in mind two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand years ago people were free to believe what they wanted back when your beliefs hadn't even been considered then. some laugh at the beliefs of older religions and spiritualists and call them unfounded and barbaric, yet is it not possible that in two thousand, five thousand or ten thousand years from now your beliefs will be laughed at as barbaric too?
The sad reality is there are no facts, nothing is ever for certain. even empirical evidence cannot ever truly become fact. I believe in gravity but that doesn't make it any less of a theory. prove to me gravity works. PROVE to me its not magic ( i know it sounds farcical and if you continue down this road it can lead to flying spaghetti monsters and what not but lets assume that my point is clear). I can never truly know if the world around me or the people in it ever truly exist and neither can you. PROVE to me you are not dreaming, PROVE to me I'm not dreaming. PROVE to me we are not in the matrix.
Some evolutionary scientist and believers claim evolution to be a fact, but they have forgotten the default scientific stance is skepticism. Science and logic as they are rely on trying to prove every theory wrong, nothing can ever be proven correct, only held as a working theory until disproved.
Do not jump all over me blasting what i have said, i neither believe evolution as truth nor disbelieve it, I think it is logical in some aspects and less so in others, my opinions are my own just as yours are your own. and I just like you have to find what meaning I can in the little pieces of "proof" and "evidence" we find in life.
Always question!
Be skeptical, but not ignorant!
look for questions not specifically just answers!
On the religious side, I neither believe nor disbelieve. I am not an atheist because the only requisite for atheism is the belief in the non existence of a deity, and that is not skepticism that is denial. YOU can't prove a deity exists, but I can't prove one doesn't. However, I am not an agnostic either, though you may wish to call me one. For agnosticism relies solely on the idea of being open to the idea of a deity. truth be told i am open to just about anything that occurs to ME as plausible or logical,but that does not solely fall on the shoulders of a deity, nor does it DEFINE my beliefs. There is no title for my specific beliefs nor would i ever wish there should be. titles are restrictive and my beliefs include flexibility and adaptation. Everyone has their own idea on where we came from but I know only one thing for sure, whether i was created or evolved i ended up with 1 mind, 1 mouth, 2 ears and 2 eyes, so i find it highly relevant to look and listen twice as often as i open my mouth and speak my mind.
Hear what others have to say,hear what others believe, Look for yourself then try to understand others beliefs before simply telling them they are wrong. Personal beliefs are just that, PERSONAL. no matter what they are you arrived upon them in a way unlike anyone else in time or space.
If you feel the need to label me because it makes it easier to simply lump me into a category based on what i believe, fine go ahead. Call me what I am. call me what any truly logical person can ever be sure of, call me the one thing I can ever surely believe in; call my a solipsist, but don't ever call me wrong.
Ender, you are replying to a very old post. You should comment in a recent post for now on.
ReplyDeleteI know all about philosophy. I assume I'm real and not in a Matrix and I exist. I can't be 100% sure though.
Also, as far as God goes, you can call me whatever you want, but there is as much evidence that God exists as there is that the Tooth Fairy exists. I can't prove either doesn't exist, but I have no reason to believe in either, as both are almost certainly man made concepts.
What is illogical about evolution?
To all that seek the truth about science and creation, visit the following website: http://www.creationevidence.org/cemframes.html
ReplyDeleteThe author and founder was hired to disprove creation. This site now exists to help everyone discover the truth.
On the matter of Jesus, unless you don't believe in HISTORY, you already know that He did LIVE, DIE and RESSERECT.
In case you need proof here is a great source of sources. Most sources are not Biblical.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
Of course, if you never seek the truth, you will never find it. If you would rather continue believing what you think because it is convenient, then perhaps you will never know if you believe the truth or a lie. I, however, KNOW that I believe in the TRUTH, because I seek it, and it is found.
Mary, your source only confirms what I know. There is evidence for belief in Jesus, but no evidence that Jesus himself existed.
ReplyDeleteFROM: Nikos Mastorakis:
ReplyDeleteWe visited last Sunday the well known Attica Zoological Park
http://www.atticapark.com/main_en.htm
and visiting the department with Monkeys we started a discussion
about Darwin's Theory (Evolution). A good colleague from another Military University of Greece (Hellenic
Airforce Academy) had many objections about the Evolutionary Theory and sent me later a
very interesting email. It seems that the controversy still exists and there is no a common
point of Scientists yet. Many WSEAS Members are Biologists, however all of us have our personal
opinions maybe from our families and under the influence of our religions.
I have told in a previous WSEAS Conference on Evolutionary Computing
(Lisbon, 2005) that maybe God uses Evolutionary Computing like an Engineer and so
probably there is not a real contradiction between Creation and
Evolution. It seems that a common point could be an Intelligent Design.
As you can see our discussion cannot be only scientific, but it must
combines personal faith, experiences outside science (religion? miracle?
experience?). The WSEAS Community includes people from all the religions. Many of
them are religious persons. We want to have your opinions.
To this end, we created a Forum (i.e. Blog) with several videos that
we found from www.youtube.com
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
If you are interested to participate in this dialogue ("debate")
you can post your opinions, articles, etc
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
CLICK ON THE LINK:
Post a Comment
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
If your comments are good enough, you will be invited to publish them
in a more official WSEAS forum
(Book, Journal, Educational CD-ROM, etc....)
Any WSEAS Member or friend or any simple visitor of this page can tell
his opinion.
The best contributions (not anonymous please) from our Academic
Community will be invited to be Chapters in a Book or Papers in a
Journal os Magazine or Educational CD-ROM that will be published by
WSEAS. All the opinions towards to one or to the other direction are
encouraged.
Forward this link to your friends and students. We need both popular
and scientific contributions. The Best (criterion: the scientific
documentation only) will be published by WSEAS. All the contributions
must be in English.
CLICK ON THE LINK:
Post a Comment
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/2008/01/creation-or-evolution.html
NEW KEYNOTE SPEAKERS from University of Berkeley and Stanford University added in the WSEAS events.
b) SCR factors for 6 WSEAS Journals
c) New Deadline for the WSEAS Conferences in Harvard and MIT (see the web)
http://sfaka.blogspot.com/
http://wseas-cscc.blogspot.com/
http://wseas.blogspot.com/
http://wseas-mit.blogspot.com/
http://ethnika.blogspot.com
http://spoudastes.blogspot.com/
http://wseas2007.wordpress.com/
http://harvardconferences.blogspot.com/2008/01/dear-wseas-conference-organizers.html
http://wseas2007.wordpress.com/2008/01/
http://www.wseas.us/junk-management-waste-management-new-wseas-conference-in-Crete.htm
http://spoudastes.blogspot.com/2008/01/wseas-students-against-global-warming.html
http://groups.google.com/group/wseas/browse_thread/thread/4bfcbd1215b8de74
http://harvardconferences.blogspot.com/2008/01/dear-wseas-conference-organizers.html
http://harvardconferences.blogspot.com/2008/01/spammers-adding-text-from-books-to.html
http://groups.google.com/group/tellyouropinion
http://www.wseas.org/internetcancer.htm
http://creation-and-evolution.blogspot.com/
Just to let you know: I found a "legal" version of the Homer evolution clip on Hulu that you can embed.
ReplyDeleteI'm still looking for a clip of the Family Guy's version of creation that I can embed, but no luck so far.
Hey Lugosi, this is a very old post and Youtube often takes these type of videos down.
ReplyDeleteYour link btw doesn't work for me because I am in Canada, and it can only be downloaded in the USA.