This is a great encapsulation of the intelligent design theory and the people who support it. Appearing on the view, evolution denier Sherri Shepherd explains how she doesn’t know whether the world is round or not.
Can we tell these people that the sun is habitable and send them all there? (via)
What does she think of the pictures from the Space Shuttle?
Yes, definitely tell them the “sun is habitable”, but caution them that they can only safely land upon its surface at night. That way of telling them will give them the impression that you care, thus they will be more likely to consider your advice sensible.
Why the f*ck is the Bible to be respected and loved? If you choose to worship your particular brand of sky fairy, great, but don’t push the notion that the Bible is inherently worthy of everyone’s respect and affection. Once upon a time not so long ago, the Bible was used to support slavery, war, sexism, murder, and more. Yes, it has also been interpreted in far more positive ways, but I credit the people doing the interpreting, not some collection of often ambiguous and contradictory quasi historical anecdotes cobbled together over decades for possibly less then altruistic reasons (there is plenty of evidence that much of the Bible was written to achieve certain political/social ends by manipulating believers). How many versions of Christianity are there again? Of all of them, Protestant, Catholic, Episcopalian, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Baptist, etc., which is the one to be respected and loved?
At least they all recognized that the new seat warmer is an idiot, even if they were way too polite about it. Come on, who has to “think” about whether the Earth is round or not and why would they need to rush out to a library to find out if they can divine the fraudulent nature of evolution just by laying hands on the good book? Gotta love religion of convenience.
The last quote makes me wonder why she can’t go to the library and figure out that (drum roll please…) Evolution is a scientifically verifiable process?
If you want to wash the taste of that out of your mouth, go here, and what Creationism/ID apologist William Dembski get smacked around by everbody from biology professors to art students. And when he has been beaten to a rhetorical pulp and shown to be utterly disingenuous (claiming he wasn’t aware of a particular’s questioner’s ID when later he immediately guessed her online screen name from his blog), one of his Jesus-freak supporters whines about “how closed minded all these students are!!”
One hopes that the View bimbo will get similarly upbraided soon.
(h/t Pharyngula)
Bill, telling them it’s safe to land on the sun at night sounds like good idea but there’s one problem: no one knows where the sun goes at night. It’s, like, a total mystery …
Well the world is flat thing is just hilarious. I mean it’s obvious you’re not speaking from a very informed perspective when you don’t appreciate the basic physics of the planet. I wonder how Sherri understands the sun rising everyday and the seasons changing. Perhaps that has something to do with taking care of her kids(what sort of non sequitur is that anyways?)
Any argument claiming that the bible negates evolution is just silly. The words written in the bible that most Americans read has been translated and retranslated to the point where you really can’t take any of it on a word for word basis.
Even if you’re a Christian(which I’m not) I think it’s understandable that men wrote the several books that make up the bible. I think it’s understandable because it’s a historic fact. Also, the bible explains that everything in it was written by men. There is no place in the bible that says that “everything contained here is the word of god, spoken by god and written by god”. It’s just not there.
With respect to evolution, there are two creation stories that each have their own perspectives, neither of which can really be taken as anything beyond symbolic reference given that it was written by men making observations based on the world around them. Sure one of those stories talks of god creating the first woman and man, but does it really feel better to think that you were created from dust as opposed to a complicated framework of evolutionary brilliance that eventually created the being called man? I mean whose to say that “dust” wasn’t the start of it and several thousands of years past(which to god was like 6 days) and finally man was created. I guess the argument itself just stifles me because I don’t understand why IDiots can’t give god the sweet credit of creating this mathematically based masterwork that science reveals everyday?
The only evidence in the bible that seems to disrupt the basic time line of evolution theory is the dinosaurs. There is a part of Genesis that seems to allude to dinosaurs existing in the time of man, but that’s all modern conjecture based on today’s knowledge. For all we know, the Hebrews were writing about Alligators or some other creature that doesn’t really exist anymore. We as a modern audience have adopted the dinosaurs into this mold because we have (oops) SCIENTIFIC evidence that dinosaurs once existed.
I mean you can challenge the fossil record, you can challenge carbon dating, but really it doesn’t solve anything. Oh and I should add here to sum up this super long comment that Darwin was a Christian not an atheist. So if Christians don’t want to take the opinion of other respected Christians, maybe they should start another religion.
Anne Rice, of all people, posited my favorite theory of the universe in one of her vampire books, Memnoch the Devil…in which one of the characters (possibly the titular Memnoch) mentioned that God wondered where He Himself had come from in the first place; so he created the universe to watch himself evolve.
Meaning that, over time, a new God would evolve, and would wonder where He or She came from, and would create a new universe to watch themselves evolve. The universe as a cyclical pattern. I’ve always liked it.
@jerry - you assume she’s seen pictures from the space shuttle.
In the sheltered life that this lady has obviously led, I’m going to imagine that the concept of traveling into space and viewing pictures thereof has never come up.
I wonder how Sherri understands the sun rising everyday and the seasons changing.
She probably thinks it’s because Persephone at those 9 pomagranite seeds.
I know exactly why she refused to acknowledge that the world is round, and it goes to the heart of what that Jesus-freak said about open-mindedness. She’s afraid that acknowledging SCIENCE means acknowledging ALL science, including evolution, and in her own twisted way, she thinks that NOT admitting that the world is round is the same as being skeptical and open-minded.
Of course it isn’t, but evolution deniers have so much of science and skepticism completely backwards anyway. They view science as mere opinion but morals as unalterable fact. That total reversal of reality is a perfect illustration of how wrong their world-view really is.
Maybe she is a member of The Flat Earth Society? I’m wondering why God didn’t put that the earth was round in the bible so poor Sherri could have staved off her inquisitors. Oh the difficulties of the true believers does present many crosses to bear.
On the other hand maybe she only used maps or an atlas during geography class. Also, all of the maps in the bible are flat. Maybe someone should introduce her to a globe?
Maybe she gets all her facts from here:
http://www.fixedearth.com/
As the page’s authors suggest:
Take your time.
Check it all out.
Decide for yourself.
man, how i do love the internets …