I just realised why so many Muslims are against evolution. At least partly why. It's because they've read books by a supposed Muslim scientist who "disproved" Evolution. I've also seen people reading his other books, like "Quran Leads The Way To Science" which ironically only gives the name of only one Muslim scientist in his 'Scientists of Faith' lists. [1]
This person is of course Adnan Oktar, who is better known as his pen name Harun Yahya.
Did you know this guy has no scientific background? There's no mention of him having qualifications in biology, chemistry or anything scientific for that matter. Not even on his own website. [1] For a guy who is so against materialism, he really loves his Versace suits, Versace shirts, Versace tie and Versace sunglasses. He's even got a Versace tie-clip thing [1].
Never mind many of his books are inaccurate and erroneous. He also has poor grasps of scientific facts and theories. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. He also distorts hadith to serve his own meaning. [1]. He also cannot take criticism well, trying to censor/ban anything that disagrees with him in Turkey [1] [2] [3]. For someone who claims to have disproven Evolution, he doesn't even understand the concept of Darwinisn. [1] In that video he also shows himself to be fond of conspiracy theories.
Did you know this guy is trying to avoid getting into jail after being arrested for "creating an illegal organization for personal gain"? [1] [2]
A Turkish TV video of Harun Yahya's "arguments" being refuted by someone else. Also, you can see how irritating broken English can be. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
Here are my own about evolution vs creation: [First] [Hoax?]
For me he doesn't sound like a reliable source at all. For anything.
Friday 27 February 2009
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Buses II
Sequel to Buses.
Number One:
Something for National Day. Kedewasaan Bernegara. Being proud of our Sultan's obscene spending habits.
Number Two:
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, I find it absurd that he's always angry at me all the time. He knows what I was going to do, and he made me do it using his will, yet he's mad at me anyway?
Number Three:
The fear of hell. Manipulating our fears, using them to make us believe. Don't do this, or else you'll get tortured in Satan's fiery abode.
Actually, I feel sorry for Satan. Allah is a twat for punishing Satan. He knew all along it was going to happen anyway. He knew by creating Adam & Eve he would make Satan jealous. I mean, I would be. Satan wasn't top dog anymore. It was a case of nepotism of godly proportions. I'll say it again, Allah is a twat.
There's also a theory that the supposed '72 virgins' promised to martyrs could've been mistranslated. It could mean raisins.
Number Four:
The hypocrisy of men (and boys). After an afternoon of making fun of gays, they go home, turn on their PCs (or Macs) and start masturbating to lesbian porn. Apparently they don't want to be turned gay with dicks everywhere in hetero porn.
Number Five:
Why is faith good? says Bill Maher. Having faith does not make it true. I mean, Hitler had faith in Nazism. Tom Cruise has faith in Scientology. Does faith make it true?
Number Six:
Islam as having all the answers. Anyone who claims to know all the answers, I'll treat with extreme suspicion. Especially one who follows a dead person who claimed an indescribable powerhouse is watching over us and that we shall all not eat for thirty days in a year and wash our hands from right to left 3 times for each, and do the same things with other parts and then do a serious of rituals in a building that costs hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to make.
Number Seven:
Self-explanatory. Well, kind of.
Number One:
Something for National Day. Kedewasaan Bernegara. Being proud of our Sultan's obscene spending habits.Number Two:
If God is omniscient and omnipotent, I find it absurd that he's always angry at me all the time. He knows what I was going to do, and he made me do it using his will, yet he's mad at me anyway?Number Three:
The fear of hell. Manipulating our fears, using them to make us believe. Don't do this, or else you'll get tortured in Satan's fiery abode.Actually, I feel sorry for Satan. Allah is a twat for punishing Satan. He knew all along it was going to happen anyway. He knew by creating Adam & Eve he would make Satan jealous. I mean, I would be. Satan wasn't top dog anymore. It was a case of nepotism of godly proportions. I'll say it again, Allah is a twat.
There's also a theory that the supposed '72 virgins' promised to martyrs could've been mistranslated. It could mean raisins.
Number Four:
The hypocrisy of men (and boys). After an afternoon of making fun of gays, they go home, turn on their PCs (or Macs) and start masturbating to lesbian porn. Apparently they don't want to be turned gay with dicks everywhere in hetero porn.Number Five:
Why is faith good? says Bill Maher. Having faith does not make it true. I mean, Hitler had faith in Nazism. Tom Cruise has faith in Scientology. Does faith make it true?Number Six:
Islam as having all the answers. Anyone who claims to know all the answers, I'll treat with extreme suspicion. Especially one who follows a dead person who claimed an indescribable powerhouse is watching over us and that we shall all not eat for thirty days in a year and wash our hands from right to left 3 times for each, and do the same things with other parts and then do a serious of rituals in a building that costs hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to make.Number Seven:
Self-explanatory. Well, kind of.
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Buses
I'm sure this will offend people. But what I hope most is that it'll make people smile. Here I'll discuss a few things aided with some bus ads. A few months ago I stumbled onto an article saying how atheists in UK put ads on buses saying 'There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.' I thought that was brilliant. Now in tribute to that I've made these (not on real buses) using an online bus slogan generator (no Photoshop, as it turns out).
Number One:
A lot of muslims cannot accept criticism. Some are very anti-Western or anti-Semitic. Even in islamic books and so-called 'ceramahs' you hear these people blaming the Jews and spreading hate. 'Yahudi' this, 'Yahudi' that. I don't know about you but I'd call that hate-mongering and obscenely racist.
Number Two:
This is an inside joke. A few posts ago, I wrote about sex and violence. And I used eating chocolate and smoke pot as weird analogies for sex and violence respectively. Read that. Although right now it doesn't make sense, it will after you read it.
Number Three:
Sex. This was just intended to be humorous. But intention does not equal output. I really don't get it why sex outside marriage is unacceptable (other than because of religion) and then in marriage it suddenly becomes good, or in some people's cases nauseating and repetitive. Refer to previous posts for detailed discussion.
Number Four:
This is for people who use religion as an excuse to do horrible things. Of course for me religion itself gives a lot of excuses to do bad things (like treating your wife as second-class or beating up your children, just to name the milder stuff).
Number Five:
The art of taking quotes out of context. People used to quote Einstein as being religious just so that they think one the greatest human minds ever agreed with them on religion. Truth is, he was not religious in the way you think. It's more spiritual. This is his reply to that claim:
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press
Number Six:
The four wives thing. Mysogyny and sexism at its best.
Number Seven:
We'll ignore facts. We'll ignore science. We'll ignore evidence. Because Islam is the one and only truth.
Of course when the science is compatible with Islam, we''ll have no problem accepting it. We'll use it as a weapon to convert or humiliate unbelievers. Any other scientific facts that aren't compatible with Islam can go to hell.
Number Eight:
I'm getting tired of hearing "God will punish you for that" or "I'm only doing what God would want me to do." Who are you? God's chosen representative on Earth? The 26th Rasul? Or the 124,001st prophet?
Number Nine:
Self-explanatory.
Number Ten:
What I think of the Quranic God. He commits so many acts of violence and has such a bad temper, he should either be in anger management or a maximum security prison. He also seems like an angry child.
Number One:
A lot of muslims cannot accept criticism. Some are very anti-Western or anti-Semitic. Even in islamic books and so-called 'ceramahs' you hear these people blaming the Jews and spreading hate. 'Yahudi' this, 'Yahudi' that. I don't know about you but I'd call that hate-mongering and obscenely racist.Number Two:
This is an inside joke. A few posts ago, I wrote about sex and violence. And I used eating chocolate and smoke pot as weird analogies for sex and violence respectively. Read that. Although right now it doesn't make sense, it will after you read it.Number Three:
Sex. This was just intended to be humorous. But intention does not equal output. I really don't get it why sex outside marriage is unacceptable (other than because of religion) and then in marriage it suddenly becomes good, or in some people's cases nauseating and repetitive. Refer to previous posts for detailed discussion.Number Four:
This is for people who use religion as an excuse to do horrible things. Of course for me religion itself gives a lot of excuses to do bad things (like treating your wife as second-class or beating up your children, just to name the milder stuff).Number Five:
The art of taking quotes out of context. People used to quote Einstein as being religious just so that they think one the greatest human minds ever agreed with them on religion. Truth is, he was not religious in the way you think. It's more spiritual. This is his reply to that claim:It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press
Number Six:
The four wives thing. Mysogyny and sexism at its best.Number Seven:
We'll ignore facts. We'll ignore science. We'll ignore evidence. Because Islam is the one and only truth.Of course when the science is compatible with Islam, we''ll have no problem accepting it. We'll use it as a weapon to convert or humiliate unbelievers. Any other scientific facts that aren't compatible with Islam can go to hell.
Number Eight:
I'm getting tired of hearing "God will punish you for that" or "I'm only doing what God would want me to do." Who are you? God's chosen representative on Earth? The 26th Rasul? Or the 124,001st prophet?Number Nine:
Self-explanatory.Number Ten:
What I think of the Quranic God. He commits so many acts of violence and has such a bad temper, he should either be in anger management or a maximum security prison. He also seems like an angry child.
Sunday 1 February 2009
Evolution vs Creation: Hoax?
I forgot to discuss one of the most ridiculous things people say about Evolution in my previous post.
That it is a hoax.
How is this idea even credible? How can people be in so much denial that they fail to see how a hoax is impossible. I use the word impossible here to mean extremely, undeniably, next-to-impossible unlikely. The chance of it as a hoax must be somewhere between 0% to 0.0000000001%, surely.
Think about it for a second. Let's assume for a second that all the scientists in the world agree to everything, to every single detail. How would they even begin selling this hoax? Are they under some secret scientific umbrella corporation that is bent on misinforming the public and telling lies about one of the most important scientific theory in the history of civilisation? How would you get in into this secret society? How would you qualify? Do you just have to believe in evolution? Why has nobody ever blown the whistle? Not even rumours of a secret pact between scientists to keep evolution alive. Surely if such a society exists there would be ex-members who see it as wrong and reveal the 'evils' of such a society. Even religions have ex-members like that. But there's none whatsoever here.
There's so many ground for them to cover in terms of secrecy it's really just practically impossible. There is no secret society of Evolutionists.
Okay. Say the idea of Evolution is only an idea concocted by the elite few, and all the other scientists follow it because it is by the elite. That is not how the scientific community works at all.
Any theory has to be published in scientific journals, however elite or famous or influential you are, and these theories are scrutinised to the smallest detail by some of the most brilliant minds in the planet. If it's wrong or incredibly unlikely, then no matter how many scientific discoveries you've made or how much contribution you've made to the scientific community, it is still wrong.
If Evolution is as weak as the Creationists want us to believe, it would've never passed this rigorous process in the first place.
And what was Darwin's motive to commit this alleged 'hoax'? Such a theory in his time would alienate him in such a religious environment. He published his articles and books because he researched it thoroughly and had reasonable and sufficient evidence to claim it happens in nature. There were death threats and disbelief thrown at him from a variety of sources. That doesn't seem like the universal recognition a fraudster would want to strive for.
This is an excerpt from a website that claims evolution is a hoax:
"But how, exactly, did these changes take place? What are the mechanisms and required steps? How did the bones form? Or the muscles? Or the nerves, or the auditory and olfactory systems?"
Clearly they don't understand how evolution, be it macro or micro, works. And that's the problem. Creationists do not bother to understand how the theory works.
Here is another problem.
Scientists start from the evidence, or to be accurate, clues. From these clues, they work out the puzzle and then make a conclusion. If any evidence shows the contrary, they go back to step one, work out the puzzle with that extra piece and make another conclusion. Science gets revised. It evolves.
Creationists on the other hand begin from the conclusion, and from that they try to find evidence that supports their conclusion, therefore ignoring any evidence showing the contrary. So when they hear a theory that is completely against theirs, they dismiss it without considering its plethora of evidence, and then try to disprove it through a process of highly selective deductions.
Evolution is without evidence, you say? That is a laughable statement. It has been observed in real-time, and through fossil records. For references, see my previous post.
From what I've heard or read so far, the basic argument is this. Many of the living beings on Earth are too complex and too perfect for it to be borne out of evolution. Therefore it must be an Intelligent Designer.
Again, natural selection and Evolution explains the complexity. Through millions and millions of years of genetic mutation and adaptation. Too perfect? No, nothing is perfect. By the way, complexity is a different thing from perfection. You can be perfectly simple, or complexly flawed.
People say the eyes have to be formed perfectly from the start. What good is half an eye? Or a blurry eye? This argument is extremely flawed. Our eyes are not perfect. It gets damaged. There are people with short-sightedness or long-sightedness. It is not as light-sensitive as other animals'. Some people will develop cataracts. And there are animals with 'half-eyed' features. Some have eyes that can only tell them if it's day or night.
We humans are so prone to diseases that we cannot be said to be perfect. Our bodies are frail little things. We cannot hear far. We cannot smell far. But evolution has stopped for us at the moment because we don't need it. Technology does the evolving for us. We do not need strong, fast legs like cheetahs because we have created cars. We didn't evolve any defense mechanisms like shells because we have no more predators anymore.
This is more like a rant rather than a proper scientific article. Sorry about that.
And oh, this article made me laugh, because of its ignorance and stupidity:
If Earth is that old, history records should stretch back to millions of years (!)
Edward Current's brilliant satire on the faulty reasoning of religious apologetics (you can even replace when he says The Bible with The Quran, and it makes sense):
Occam's Razor Is Simply Wrong!
Godless Scientists Are Ignorant!
Stop Taking The Bible Out Of Context!
God Only SEEMS non-existent!
An Atheist Meets God
That it is a hoax.
How is this idea even credible? How can people be in so much denial that they fail to see how a hoax is impossible. I use the word impossible here to mean extremely, undeniably, next-to-impossible unlikely. The chance of it as a hoax must be somewhere between 0% to 0.0000000001%, surely.
Think about it for a second. Let's assume for a second that all the scientists in the world agree to everything, to every single detail. How would they even begin selling this hoax? Are they under some secret scientific umbrella corporation that is bent on misinforming the public and telling lies about one of the most important scientific theory in the history of civilisation? How would you get in into this secret society? How would you qualify? Do you just have to believe in evolution? Why has nobody ever blown the whistle? Not even rumours of a secret pact between scientists to keep evolution alive. Surely if such a society exists there would be ex-members who see it as wrong and reveal the 'evils' of such a society. Even religions have ex-members like that. But there's none whatsoever here.
There's so many ground for them to cover in terms of secrecy it's really just practically impossible. There is no secret society of Evolutionists.
Okay. Say the idea of Evolution is only an idea concocted by the elite few, and all the other scientists follow it because it is by the elite. That is not how the scientific community works at all.
Any theory has to be published in scientific journals, however elite or famous or influential you are, and these theories are scrutinised to the smallest detail by some of the most brilliant minds in the planet. If it's wrong or incredibly unlikely, then no matter how many scientific discoveries you've made or how much contribution you've made to the scientific community, it is still wrong.
If Evolution is as weak as the Creationists want us to believe, it would've never passed this rigorous process in the first place.
And what was Darwin's motive to commit this alleged 'hoax'? Such a theory in his time would alienate him in such a religious environment. He published his articles and books because he researched it thoroughly and had reasonable and sufficient evidence to claim it happens in nature. There were death threats and disbelief thrown at him from a variety of sources. That doesn't seem like the universal recognition a fraudster would want to strive for.
This is an excerpt from a website that claims evolution is a hoax:
"But how, exactly, did these changes take place? What are the mechanisms and required steps? How did the bones form? Or the muscles? Or the nerves, or the auditory and olfactory systems?"
Clearly they don't understand how evolution, be it macro or micro, works. And that's the problem. Creationists do not bother to understand how the theory works.
Here is another problem.
Scientists start from the evidence, or to be accurate, clues. From these clues, they work out the puzzle and then make a conclusion. If any evidence shows the contrary, they go back to step one, work out the puzzle with that extra piece and make another conclusion. Science gets revised. It evolves.
Creationists on the other hand begin from the conclusion, and from that they try to find evidence that supports their conclusion, therefore ignoring any evidence showing the contrary. So when they hear a theory that is completely against theirs, they dismiss it without considering its plethora of evidence, and then try to disprove it through a process of highly selective deductions.
Evolution is without evidence, you say? That is a laughable statement. It has been observed in real-time, and through fossil records. For references, see my previous post.
From what I've heard or read so far, the basic argument is this. Many of the living beings on Earth are too complex and too perfect for it to be borne out of evolution. Therefore it must be an Intelligent Designer.
Again, natural selection and Evolution explains the complexity. Through millions and millions of years of genetic mutation and adaptation. Too perfect? No, nothing is perfect. By the way, complexity is a different thing from perfection. You can be perfectly simple, or complexly flawed.
People say the eyes have to be formed perfectly from the start. What good is half an eye? Or a blurry eye? This argument is extremely flawed. Our eyes are not perfect. It gets damaged. There are people with short-sightedness or long-sightedness. It is not as light-sensitive as other animals'. Some people will develop cataracts. And there are animals with 'half-eyed' features. Some have eyes that can only tell them if it's day or night.
We humans are so prone to diseases that we cannot be said to be perfect. Our bodies are frail little things. We cannot hear far. We cannot smell far. But evolution has stopped for us at the moment because we don't need it. Technology does the evolving for us. We do not need strong, fast legs like cheetahs because we have created cars. We didn't evolve any defense mechanisms like shells because we have no more predators anymore.
This is more like a rant rather than a proper scientific article. Sorry about that.
And oh, this article made me laugh, because of its ignorance and stupidity:
If Earth is that old, history records should stretch back to millions of years (!)
Edward Current's brilliant satire on the faulty reasoning of religious apologetics (you can even replace when he says The Bible with The Quran, and it makes sense):
Occam's Razor Is Simply Wrong!
Godless Scientists Are Ignorant!
Stop Taking The Bible Out Of Context!
God Only SEEMS non-existent!
An Atheist Meets God
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
