Shaun the Sheep and the Carnival of the Godless
Carnival of the Godless #99 is ready for your perusal over at Oz Atheist. I found two articles especially worth mentioning.
The first is “Intelligent Design and Life Expectancy” at Odd Nectar. It raises one of hundreds (thousands?) of questions about Intelligent Design creationism:
[I]f we’re so intelligently designed why, in the absence of modern medicine, would anyone be lucky to see their 45th birthday[?]
The reason I find that question fascinating is because the only explanation I’ve ever heard has come from young-earth creationists (YEC). They believe that Adam and Eve lived to be over 900 years old (despite the Bible saying that you will die on the very same day that you eat the nasty apple!). Moses and Noah supposedly lived quite a few centuries as well. YECs claim that life expectancy has been getting shorter since Biblical times! (The recent increase due to medical advances is just humans interfering with God’s will.) YECs claim that the genome continues to degrade (That’s why evolution is impossible. You can only get worse, not better.).
I’d be curious to see what the typical old-earth ID creationist claims is the reason for our short lifespan. Since they claim that ID creationism is completely non-religious, how do they explain that one?
The other article I liked was from Vjack at Atheist Revolution. His article is called “You Might be a Militant Atheist if…” It’s another look at extremely enthusiastic atheists, whether they exist, and what to call them. I tackled this topic back in February. I called them “fundie atheists”. My conclusion is that they do exist, but are probably quite rare. Vjack has different thoughts on the matter. Go check it out.
And finally, bow down before Shaun!!
September 1st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Yes, some fundies do claim that our life spans have been getting shorter. My mother’s church, the Seventh-Day Adventists, are one of that bunch. I remember being told about Methuselah (lived to be over 900!!!), Noah (over 500 yrs. old when he started banging out the ark!!!), and Enoch, who didn’t ever die, but just sort of walked off into the sunset with God after a few hundred years. Supposedly it took a while for the perfect offspring of the immortal Adam and Eve to succumb to all the hideous consequences of Eve eating that fruit; but Satan and sin slowly wore us down to the point where we were croaking in our twenties during the Middle Ages. One of my questions always was – what the hell did those sons of Adam do with all the time they had on their hands? Hell, people were lucky to see 50 in the nineteenth century, but that was plenty of time for Thomas Edison to come up with all of his inventions… How come, with our pathetically sin-shortened lives, we are able to come up with cures for all kinds of diseases, invent machinery, computers, cars, planes and space shuttles, decode the human genome, etc., etc., – while those old bastards in the bible did nothing?
Just another in my long, long, list of biblical improbabilities. These people are truly, and perhaps congenitally, incapable of logical thought.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
The fundie reasoning is easy-in the glory days of Christianity, the Almighty God kept us alive for 500+ years. Since the Renaissance, we’ve been steadily less God-fearing, so God, being the merciful dude he is, has been progressively cutting our lives shorter. Conclusion: the more we use science and not religion, the shorter our life spans will be.
Yes, I am aware that the above explanation doesn’t explain why our life spans were so short in the Middle Ages (which was more fundie then Texas) and why our lives are now progressively becoming longer with better science. I’m sorry, but I’m just too rational to think of an explanation that fits into fundie logic.
BTW Sue Blue-have you ever thought of your own blog?
September 1st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I find myself wondering how on earth anyone can claim ID is “non-religious?”
…There’s probably a fundie “explanation” *cough* but it would probably make my brain hurt, and it’s of course, most likely one I (and any other person with decent reasoning skills) will likely to call bullshit on.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 am
LadyRavana-more fundie logic: ID creationism isn’t religious because it’s the truth! (Honestly I think I actually read that quote somewhere on FSTDT)
Also, ever heard of Feministing.com? I think you’d like it.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 am
Thanks for the mention. Always appreciated.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:29 am
So, like, what’s the point of living so long to the Christian? Seriously. If you have “immortal life” with your favorite Sky Hippie when you die, what’s so great about living so damn long? Wouldn’t it be better to shorten your suffering and die in your 20s so you can on with the good stuff?
Personally, I’d find a lot to do in 900 years. I always have a project of some sort going on! Planning for retirement would be a bitch though. I’m not sure I could save up enough for my remaining 840 years by age 60.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 am
The explanation is pretty simple. It’s stupid as all get out, but it’s simple. Their explanation is “IF YOU SAW A CHAIR IN THE WOODS WOULD YOU THINK IT EVOLVED OR WAS CREATED?”
See? Simple, but incredibly, incredibly stupid.
September 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I saw that link on Odd Nectar, and I found it a very unconvincing argument.
LOL at this: “Planning for retirement would be a bitch though. I’m not sure I could save up enough for my remaining 840 years by age 60.”