An Article by Guest-Writer ParrotLover77

[Note: My life is momentarily complicated by a Michelle Duggar paternity suit. It’s going to take me a few days to settle up (ever wonder how they make ends meet?), so I won’t be able to blog. ParrotLover has graciously volunteered to help out. With his DNA, I should be able to get off the hook. In the meantime, please enjoy this article that he has written for us. Thank you, ParrotLover! You can also visit his own website. Buy some music. Look at parrots.

All of the artwork in this article is from the brilliant Heathen World. Visit them too.

—Ron Britton, editor-in-grief]

Ron has been very busy and asked me to submit a guest article on BoF to keep the content fresh.  I was honored that he would think a mere tech blogger could write for his amazing blog!  Then I was slammed with some of the worst writer’s block I’ve had in ages.  What the heck do I blog about?  Well, I had a few ideas about politics and religion, but nothing came to fruition.  The fingers just didn’t want to strike the keys.  So I decided to visit our old friends at the Answers in Genesis website for inspiration, and boy did I find some!  So today I will discuss an article written by Ken Ham (founder and president of Answers in Genesis–USA) called, Do I Believe in UFOs? Absolutely!

In his article, Ken is trying to convince the reader that life simply cannot exist elsewhere in the universe, because the bible says so.  Is there ANYTHING the bible cannot do?  It slices, it dices, it turns your brain to mush!

Let’s dig into his article and get snarky. *rubs hands*

Occasionally at conferences, someone will ask, “Do you believe in UFOs?”

What conferences would AiG attend where attendees ask that sort of question?  Maybe the alien abductee and literal creation kooks are cut from the same mold…

I usually answer, “Absolutely! Any flying object that can’t be identified is a UFO.”

Wow, that’s actually very intelligent… and almost snarky (me like)!  I almost didn’t expect Mr. Ham to start out so sensible.  Indeed, the word UFO has been, for quite some time, used in contexts it wasn’t meant to be used.  Unidentified Flying Object means just that: it’s flying, it’s an object, and it’s unidentified.  That doesn’t mean it’s from outer space carrying little gray men with big black eyes equipped with a variety of anal probes.

I then continue, “But do I believe in UFOs piloted by Vulcans, Klingons, or Cardassians? The answer is a definite no.” Sorry, Star Trek fans!

Why is he apologizing?  Are there Trek fans that would actually be offended by that statement?  I’m a fan of the Trek, but I certainly don’t believe the aliens made up on that show are real nor have any possibility of being close to real extra-terrestrial life.  After all, Trek’s bastardization of the concept of evolution really doesn’t fit into reality (every planet has a humanoid—what are the odds!).  But I understand that it’s a lot of work just to get a different looking humanoid alien.  One that is TRULY alien would be well over budget and difficult to script.  But I digress… Skipping a little…

A good friend of mine, Dr. Clifford Wilson, author of the million-copy bestseller Crash Go the Chariots, did a lot of research on UFOs. He once told me that he concluded that by far the majority were either misunderstood natural phenomena or misinterpreted manmade objects.

That’s a very reasonable conclusion.

However, he did conclude there was a very small percentage that couldn’t be explained, and he allowed the possibility of some supernatural origin—albeit evil. But regardless, he, like me, does not believe in intelligent physical beings on planets other than our earth.

Fascinating.  So, intelligent life originating on planets other than Earth is far-fetched, but evil supernatural spirits—why, that’s completely plausible!  Very Chick.   So, Mr. Ham has some amazing evidence to back up this very broad conclusion he has come to, right?

A number of leading evolutionists, like the late Dr. Carl Sagan, have popularized the idea that there must be intelligent life in outer space. From an evolutionary perspective, it would make sense to suggest such a possibility. People who believe this possibility contend that, if life evolved on earth by natural processes, intelligent life must exist somewhere else in the far reaches of space, given the size of the universe and the millions of possible planets.

Okay, first of all, Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not an evolutionist (whatever that is; I guess I’m a “gravitist” since I believe in gravity).  Also, evolution has nothing to do with whether or not a planet can support life and whether life can begin to exist out of the biochemical building block precursors to life (as is speculated to have happened on earth billions of years ago).  That process of the origins of life is known as “abiogenesis,” NOT evolution.

All that said, evolutionary theory does seem to postulate that if life arises, it will eventually become clever if given the correct external pressures (at least if it is similar to life on Earth).  As for intelligent life capable of using radio communication (as per SETI)—that’s just mathematics (again, not evolution).  There seems to be a pretty good probability of there being intelligent life out there somewhere.  Whether or not we will ever communicate with them, nobody really knows because we don’t have enough information.  We listen for them because we don’t think they’ll land here like Stan Romanek’s aliens.

One can postulate endlessly about possibilities of intelligent life in outer space, but I believe a Christian worldview, built on the Bible, rejects such a possibility. Here is why.

Remember that amazing evidence I wanted?  Yes.  I was let down.

During the six days of creation in Genesis, we learn that God created the earth first. On Day 4 He made the sun and the moon for the earth, and then “he made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16).

Far be it from me to criticize a deity, but why did it take three days to make the earth when it only took one day to make all the other matter in the entire universe?  Talk about a learning curve!  I guess when you begin by making “day and night” before you make the planet you are making the day and night for; you are starting out on the wrong foot.

From these passages of Scripture it would seem that the earth is very special—it is center stage. Everything else was made for purposes relating to the earth. For instance, the sun, moon, and stars were made “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Genesis 1:14).

It seems a little bit inefficient to make the great majority of the universe (which is unimaginably vast) just as sign posts and time keeping devices for the inhabitants of this little blue planet.  But this is what one truly believes when one’s reason hitchhikes its way to a dive bar, drinks too much, and drives its car into the river.

Okay, so Mr. Ham goes on and on about how the bible clearly says that the Earth is very very VERY special because the bible says so.  Let’s skip down to the part about aliens.

Now here is the problem. If there are intelligent beings on other planets, then they would have been affected by the fall of Adam because the whole creation was affected. So these beings would have to die because death was the penalty for sin. One day their planet will be destroyed by fire during God’s final judgment, but they cannot have salvation because that blessing is given only to humans.

Screw you, aliens!  You didn’t know about a religion on a planet billions of light years from you, so you are screwed for eternity!  No matter that you didn’t have anything to do with “the fall.”  The deity of the cosmos is going to create you, throw a temper tantrum, and punish you, because of what the first human did.  And there is NOTHING you can do!

When Jesus Christ stepped into history, He became the God-man. The Bible calls Him “the last Adam” and the “second man” (1 Corinthians 15:45, 47). He became the second perfect man (Adam was perfect before he sinned)…

Hold on here, Hammy.  Isn’t that basically saying Adam was perfect until he wasn’t?  If Adam was perfect, he would never have sinned!  Oh wait, I forgot.  It’s all womankind’s fault for tempting poor innocent Adam.  And as a result, we’re all paying for it (even those innocent space aliens).  Talk about a bad temper!

…and He took the place of the first Adam by dying for the human race. As the first Adam was the representative head of the human race, so Jesus became the new head, the last Adam. So there can be no other Savior, only Christ. Jesus now sits in the heavens, still in human form, sitting on His throne next to the Father. If Jesus stepped out of His human form, we would no longer have a Savior. He remains the God-man forever.

Okay, that last bit of babbling made no sense, but I wanted to include it just for its laughableness.

But note, Jesus didn’t become a “God-Klingon,” a “God-Vulcan,” or a “God-Cardassian”—He became the God-man. It wouldn’t make sense theologically for there to be other intelligent, physical beings who suffer because of Adam’s sin but cannot be saved.

You are correct; theologically it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Now, regarding animal life and plants, we cannot be so dogmatic because the Bible does not state whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. Based on the passages about the heavens and earth, however, I strongly suspect that life does not exist elsewhere.

Okay, so let me get this straight… Animals and plants (wait—aren’t humans animals?) can exist elsewhere in the universe, because, heck, the bible is mute on that issue.  But intelligent life certainly cannot exist because that would mean God would have to punish them for eternity for not being around when Jayzus came to save us all from the first human’s mistake.  This is draining the batteries on my logic-meter. 

So the next time you hear someone talking about UFOs, think on the Scripture passages quoted above, and use them to segue into a presentation of the gospel: “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).

Remember, UFO abductee loons are just confusing alien anal probes with the pleasure that is the holy spirit.

I’m trying to get caught up on a couple of things from last week. Here’s one of them. You may have seen this on Pharyngula. As PZ Myers explains:

A couple of college students in Toronto…took offense at the patent absurdity of the “Bible and Bible Studies” section of a large bookstore at Yonge and Eglinton, and decided to help organize the shelves by filing their contents more appropriately. They quietly moved the contents to other places in the bookstore, like Fiction, Humour, Sexuality, Erotica, Cuisine, Parenting, Mental Disorder, Parapsychology and the Occult.

I actually did something similar on a much smaller scale last year. One of the culprits of the Toronto incident describes the event in more detail at his blog, Phaedron Rising.

What I wanted to bring to your attention, though, was his follow-up article:

Many comments on Pharyngula suggested that Science shelves should be bereft of such gems as Michael Behe’s intelligent-design manifestos, or any book on new-age pseudoscience.

It’s with this that I must take issue. When, in my email to Dr Myers, I referred to the democratic marketplace of ideas, I was not paying lip service. It is a fundamental tenet of western democratic society that as long as nobody is literally hurt, every opinion has a right to be heard. I’m not saying that every opinion is worth the paper it’s written on, just that anyone has every right to make their case. This is especially the case in the rigours of the scientific process, where any theory—new or old—is continually vetted by a process of peer review and critique.

In the case of Behe’s ID idiocy and New-Age acupressure guides, they belong squarely in the science section. The questions that they address (Who are we? How did we get here? How can the flow of Chi affect my basement grow-op?) are fundamentally scientific ones. Just because a particular author’s answer to a real scientific question is completely insipid does not mean that it does not belong on the Science shelf.

Call me Naïve, but I truly want to believe that in the great marketplace of ideas, theories will ultimately rise and fall on their own merits.

If you want to rid your local science section of wastes of wood-pulp like Behe’s books on Intelligent Design, here’s how to do it.

Let his opinion be heard.

There is only one appropriate response to a ridiculous proposition, and that response is thorough ridicule. Give Behe and his ilk a seat at the table. Engage him. Expose his ideas for the unscrupulous shams that they are. I’m not advocating that anyone treat fools with kid gloves—far from it. All I’m saying is, give these people just enough intellectual rope to hang themselves with, then help them build their gallows.

That article sums up some of what we do here at BoF. It’s great fun pointing out how foolish the “freedom fighters”, Concerned “Women”, and Family “Researchers” are, but our fun has a very real purpose. These people want to pull our society back to the Dark Ages. Ridiculing these ideas is one of the best ways to expose them for the frauds that they are.

Possummomma calls our attention to Kent Hovind’s blog. As you’ll recall from the last time we discussed this creatard, not only was he committing crimes against education (by telling people the Earth was only 6000 years old and poofed into existence by a magical sky daddy), but he was also committing crimes against the government. Specifically, tax evasion. He is now serving a ten-year sentence for the latter crime. He’s gotten off scot-free on the former.

Apparently being locked up isn’t good for this guy’s mental health. He was obviously crazy before, but now even more so. A lot of his posts are his fantasies of talking to God. OK. Lots of theists think they talk to God. But Hovind’s are clearly the mind of a crazy man.

While I was torturing myself by actually reading the blog, I came across this gem in the comments. (You can find it in this thread.) It’s by somebody calling himself “for Jesus’ name: Phillip-George (c)1974”:

…the bible got it right. basically there is no biblical distinction between planets and stars:_ the modern distinction between a planet and a star is arbitrary and scientifically useless.…

the modern distinction between planets and stars has yielded nothing useful.

Sane Blog says it best:

As reported in this CNN article, the pope has reaffirmed the catholic position on birth control. It is difficult to imagine a single policy which has been responsible for ensuring more poverty of women, disease and the blocking of development in Africa and other impoverished nations of the world. The catholic church does not love preventing suffering - the catholic church actually loves suffering.

Go read this post at Violent Acres. It’s hysterical!

Church services always started off quiet enough with the organ playing and parishioners quietly whispering greetings and shaking hands. But among the kids, there was a kind of electricity in the air. Half of the time, we could barely contain ourselves. We knew that if things went well, it was likely we’d see some crazy ass shit.

(via Pharyngula)

This week’s Cectic illustrates common fundie logic:

I found a good blog called Playing Chess with Pigeons, by Troy Britain. He mostly focusses on evolution and creationism. He has a lot of good articles. You should check it out.

What really caught my fancy was his explanation of the blog’s title. I’m going to reprint most of it here, with my comments:

The title comes (apparently) from a very amusing description of what it is like to debate creationists about evolution Scott D. Weitzenhoffer made in a comment on Amazon.com regarding Eugenie Scott’s book Evolution Vs. Creationism: An introduction (2004):

Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

I love it! That’s a great description. My blog has received its share of creationists, and the metaphor is pretty accurate. Troy continues:

Man, have I been there. It’s not just that antievolutionists are often completely ignorant of evolutionary theory, the state of the evidence, and the history of science. There have also been numerous times where I have been debating an antievolutionist or responding to their claims that I would have to take time to explain their own arguments to them. [emphasis added]

“No, you meant to say ‘Piltdown Man’ was based on a human skull and an orangutan jaw, not on a pig’s tooth. That was ‘Nebraska Man’ and it was based on a peccary tooth.”

That sure sounds familiar! Not only do they get it wrong, but they all seem to get it wrong in the same way!

Troy finishes with:

Add to this their constantly moving goal-posts, their tendency towards scatter-shot (keep throwing stuff against the wall and hope that something sticks) mode of argument, their constant digressions to irrelevancies, non sequiturs and other logical fallacies, and it gets pretty breathtaking.

I was going to flag a few examples of that from my blog, but that pretty much covers every creationist who visits us.

…Earth. He’s down on the whole Earth Day thing. Here’s what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council wrote about Earth Day:

An estimated billion people are celebrating Earth Day around the world, but few seem to understand its true motivation. Today isn’t just another reminder to use recycled paper or drive energy-efficient cars.

That’s right. A billion people are wrong! Only wise Tony Perkins knows the true agenda. And what is that, Tony?

It’s a calculated attack on the sanctity of human life.

Holy crap! Here he goes again! Everything Tony doesn’t like somehow always comes back to abortion. In fact, let’s see far Tony can get before using the A-word:

Population¹ control² is³ inextricably⁴ linked⁵ to⁶ the⁷ environmental⁸ and⁹ abortion¹⁰ movements.

Ten words!! Woo Hoo!! Tony made it into double digits! The man’s a stud! Now let’s see how long he can go before calling somebody a radical or an extremist:

For¹ years², the³ Sierra⁴ Club⁵ and⁶ other⁷ green⁸ militants⁹ have said that the best way to consume fewer resources is to have fewer children.

Only nine this time. Poor Tony’s staying power isn’t what it once was. Let’s see what other thoughts Tony is spooging at us:

Their own website says, “Talk to your decision-makers and demand an increase of funding for voluntary family planning programs and access to comprehensive sex education for young people.”

And this is bad how? Let’s try not doing those things and see what happens to the abortion rate.

Last year, Optimum Population Trust released a paper that was even less subtle. It claimed that children are “bad for the planet”…

That’s because they are. The amount of resources one member of the developed world consumes in his lifetime is staggering. Does Tony deny this? Does Tony even think about sustainability? Or is he too busy thinking that God created this world just for him and his fundie buddies to despoil any way they can?

…and called on nations to reduce the global population by five billion—which would only be possible by forced abortion and sterilization.

OPT said nothing of the sort. Their web site calls for a gradual decline to a world population between 2.7 and 5.1 billion people. This does not require, and nowhere do they suggest, “forced abortion and sterilization”. Tony is just making stuff up, and his followers are too stupid to know they’re being manipulated by this devious slimeball.

The slimeball continues:

And how could we forget Barry Walters? The Australian professor published an article last year advocating a “baby tax” for every couple with more than two children.

That’s exactly the sort of thing that governments should be doing, especially if you don’t want “forced abortion and sterilization”! It’s the government’s job to look out for the common welfare. Global population growth is out of control. Populations are already on the hairy edge of being unable to feed themselves. Add in the environmental degradation caused by decades of non-sustainable resource exploitation, plus the expected changes in rainfall and growing regions caused by global warming, and it would be suicidal for any government not to try to curb population growth. Just how suicidal is Tony Perkins? I thought this guy was “pro-life”.

The crisis du jour is global warming, but even that is just another excuse to fund “Planet” Parenthood and similar groups.

Har har. Tony sure is funny with the puns! No, Tony. Global warming isn’t “just another excuse to fund” Planned Parenthood or “murder babies”. Global warming is a real problem today, and an even bigger problem tomorrow. We have to take serious steps yesterday if we want to prevent some serious catastrophes.

Stewardship of God’s creation is the responsibility of every Christian.

So then why are you such a colossally piss-poor steward, Tony? You’re breaking God’s heart!

But we must realize that there’s a greater threat to the environment than climate change or scarce resources—and that’s the threat of environmental extremism that elevates the planet above people.

Guess what, Tony? We aren’t valuing the planet over people (well, most of us aren’t, anyway. There are extremists in all movements.). The concern over global warming is based on our concern for every other human being on this planet, and their ability to survive into the future. You only care about people between conception and birth. For once, why don’t you think about the people who have already been born?