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06 March, 2010

Evidence of Things Unseen

Faith is the highest of all virtues in any religious group whereas peer review and correct methodology are the highest in science. The reason study after study has shown a correlation between IQ and atheism and/or liberalism is because people with higher abilities to reason and understand logic are less likely to take words as evidence and more likely to think critically about what they are told to believe. How could a person with these abilities not one day look at the most important belief in their life-the belief in God-and not examine the reasons behind the belief. Investigating and not finding any evidence for the Bible or Koran or whatever it may be would not make the person angry like it does the Young Earth Creationists who soapbox on street corners, it would impel them to change their hypothesis.

There is a war, however, from the right on the legitimacy of science. But instead of actually using the scientific method that has brought us knowledge of our Cosmos, a higher standard of living, the curing or prevention of numerable debilitating diseases and conditions and the technology we all use to live in comfort, they simply accuse Science of doing exactly what religion has been doing for thousands of years.

First, they say that evolution is "only a theory" that "Darwinists" believe in without any evidence at all. They do not understand the difference between the colloquial use of "theory" and the scientific definition of the word, else they would drop that argument altogether because "theory" is, in a scientific sense, just a system to explain evidence and facts. The fact of evolution is already there, Darwin's theory of evolution explains the mechanisms of evolution. You can read more here. In their uneducated and angry minds they are convinved that "believing" in a "theory" is equal to believing in a 2,000 year old book that has been handed down from king to king, thus science should not be held in any esteemed regard because scientists won't endorse teaching the Judao-Christian creation myth in public schools.

But what have they done there? Not only are they completely misunderstanding evolution, science and the definition of a word, but they are not defending their position at all. "Evolutionists {their word, not ours} believe in evolution without any evidence at all!" But there is no evidence that the stories in the Bible are true at all. So to degrade the act of believing something without evidence is just degrading their own beliefs. Not only that, but no evidence is good enough for them. They have a book. We have fossils, DNA, variation, biology, zoology, research, transitional forms, etc.

Second, they claim that Evolution claims that life came from nothing. Again, they are merely projecting their own beliefs onto science that they continue to fail to understand. Evolution explains how life forms change, not how they got here. For the latest on the origins of life, look up the chemistry behind Abiogenesis. It's intriguing stuff. It is, in fact, the Creationists that insist life came from nothing. God either made Man out of mud, which was made by God from nothing or god simply created Adam out of nothing, depending on which creation myth you choose to believe in Genesis, as there are two accounts in the first book of the Bible.

Is it any wonder that these are the same people that claim that a handful of meteorologists, many with ties to funding from Exxon Mobile and other energy companies, constantly deny Climate Change? Is it any wonder that these people buy into right-wing spins and demagoguery and populism while never once looking at who right-wing economics and policies are actually protecting: the richest 1% of the nation that hold 70% of the nation's wealth?

It's amazing that any group in this day and age would hold faith as something to strive for. It's like saying that wearing a blindfold while wandering around the Grand Canyon is something everyone should hope to do in their lifetime.

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