Apparently, all the collected evidence of the last hundred and fifty years of research is just Satan making things look that way. At least according to a discussion on Google+.
I can understand the appeal of this claim. The evidence supporting evolution is overwhelming and the evidence supporting creationism is almost negative. This way, the poor kid can continue to believe in his chosen religion/deity/worldview without ever having to deal with actual evidence. It’s a great big steaming mug of cognitive dissonance with whipped religion and a cherry touch of arrogance and immunity to self reflection on top.
I really feel bad for these kids. Several months ago, one kid (I happen to know he’s only 19 or so), was arguing that slavery was OK as long as it was done the Bible way. Anyway, the poor guy at Google+ is so messed up that he thinks an imaginary creature is purposefully changing everything our senses are telling us in order to prevent us from following another imaginary creature.
This belief system makes him totally immune to any form of logic, reason, or evidence. He’s following Martin Luther when that infamous person said
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but — more frequently than not — struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
Ignore reason. Ignore evidence. Because, in the words of a more recent public figure
“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.” – US Representative Paul Broun
These are our leaders and our children who are being taught that SCIENCE is from the devil.
Think about this just for a second. What is our society built on? In spite of the religious may wish, churches haven’t built the internet, cell phones, computers, modern medicine, sanitary systems, or anything else that is the structure of our society.
Our culture, well, that’s a different story. The leader I mentioned above, Paul Broun? He thinks that health care for everyone is wrong and continues to vote against it. Churches continue to support and petition man/woman only marriages. And religious leaders continue to claim how abused and restricted they are, even though they remain a majority and all but a handful of US congress people (in the entire history of the United States) are openly religious.
This kid (and the many, many more like him) are utterly and completely immune to facts, evidence, reason, and logic. Martin Luther has won a great victory with this kid.
The human brain is not as unique as I used to think it was, but it’s still one of the few brains on this Earth capable of reasoning… and that trait, that ability is being purposefully weeded out of our society by religion.
They haven’t won. Atheism is on the rise (in spite of some of our best efforts to destroy it*). I think that the breeding population still tends to remain massively religious. More and more smart people are waiting later and later to have children. And when even a few of the children become as brainwashed s the kids I’ve been talking to recently, it just continues the cycle.
That’s why education is so important. Especially of younger children. They have to be taught how to reason, logic, and what evidence is and how to correctly acquire it. I hate to describe it this way, but we’re trying to brainwash them to think for themselves. It’s a strange way of putting it (and probably not particularly helpful). But that’s what we have to do.
Think of reason and logic as an inoculation against the brainwashing of religion.
I’m afraid that some people, even young people, are just too far gone. I mean, what do you say to a kid who believes that evidence is a direct influence of the thing that he is most afraid of in his entire life?
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*If you don’t understand this comment, just be thankful. Atheism as a group has suffered some setbacks in the past few years, but as a choice, as a lifestyle, it continues to increase.
