Poor PZ Myers. His inbox is constantly bombarded by crazies. Recently he received this little beauty, but since he’s a busy man (and since his correspondent clearly has no way of debating him on scientific grounds), I’ve taken it upon myself to answer this rant for him. Prepare to be assailed by the legions of stupid…

1. Whilst agreeing that random patterns occur naturally by chance, DNA however, consists of code, which requires a designer.

DNA does not consist of “code”. It consists of an arrangement of genes made up of combinations of purines and pyrimidines, which are naturally occurring organic compounds. You may as well say that sucrose is a code.

2. How do you explain the paranormal, such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine – I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.

Human minds are set up by evolution to see causality before anything else, partly as a survival mechanism and partly because we have a good imagination. Either that or you have some sort of neurological disorder…

3. Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?

Been there, done that. I was a happy-clappy for years, believing wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. It still didn’t do squat.

4. The law of cause & effect – in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.

Argument from causality? I assume you’re positing God as the first cause – so what caused Him?

5. Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.

Er.. yes it can. Evolution by natural selection springs to mind.

6. Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must.. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.

Actually, you can detect emotion, memory and thought, though you need a lot of pricey equipment. Your average hospital will have all the neuroimaging equipment you might need, though.

7. Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the ‘theory of evolution’. It’s a fairy tale for grown ups!

You have misused the word “theory”. In science a “theory” is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. That fits with evolution. How’s the theory of gravity working out for you?

8. Atheism is a faith in that which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no ‘good news’ to preach in atheism.

Athiesm is the absence of faith, not a faith position. As for good news, how about, “You don’t have to slavishly follow the dictates of some imaginary superbeing in order to lead a fulfilled and happy life!”

9. How much of the atheist’s faith relies on anger with God as opposed to genuine disbelief in God?

See above – we don’t have faith. If we did, the answer would be: “none”. How angry are you with the fairies/aliens/leprechauns/dragons that you don’t believe in?

10. Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don’t believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don’t they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don’t they leave this ‘God nonsense’ alone?

Because people like you insist on ramming it down our throats, into our schools and into our government. Because religion is a cancer, ruining lives and stifling progress, and it needs to be fought.

11. What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don’t understand or know what came first. I don’t care – they both exist!

The egg came first – chickens evolved comparatively recently. As to what created God – human imagination has a lot to answer for… (Kudos, by the way, for neatly answering your own point number 4)

12. Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.

It is highly improbable, though not impossible, that I will win the Lottery. I do not, however, live my life on the basis that I have fourteen million quid coming my way at the weekend – to do so would be foolishness.

13. How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?

Read some Darwin, FFS!

14. How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?

*head/desk* see 13.

15. What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we’re supplied with?

What?! We’re omnivores, we can eat practically anything that isn’t rotting. How is this even an argument?

16. Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we’re provided with.

Yep. I fail to see your point. Are you saying a different number of senses would disprove the existence of God?

17. What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?
18. What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?
19. What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?
20. What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?

I’m taking 17-20 in one, since the rebuttal is the same in each case: if the setup were different, we would not have evolved. Something else, geared to live in a hotter/colder/differently-atmosphered environment would perhaps be thinking about this instead. The Earth is not built for us – we are built for it.

21. The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!

Quoting Hoyle now, are we? Again – read Darwin. Natural selection is not random chance.

22. We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work, yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.

When was the last time God operated your toaster? We can measure the effects of radio waves, electricity, microwaves etc. that’s how we know they’re there. If you don’t believe me, stick your fingers in an electric socket.

23. Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.

Second Law of Thermodynamics argument. Because the Earth is not a closed system, it is not subject to progressive entropy. Once again, you demonstrate your inability to grasp basic science.

24. Our ‘inventor’ of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; “I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions. wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire – people made a religion of them.” Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbours the next day. “What shall I speak about?” She asked. He replied; “Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?”

Ah yes – that would be the quote from Lady Hope. As Henrietta, Darwin’s daughter, pointed out: “I was present at his deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. . . . The whole story has no foundation whatever.”

Lying for Jesus? Eusebius would be proud.

25. Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we’ve no-one to be accountable to.

See the post and discussion on morality at Theist Vs Atheist.

26. If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn’t he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.

Man does behave like an animal – a highly complex, socially adept, intelligent, reasoning animal (obviously I exclude creationists from this definition…)

27. ‘Chance’ isn’t the cause of something. It just describes what we can’t find a reason for.

That’s not a very good definition of “chance”, but I don’t really see what your argument is here. Are you again trying to claim that evolution is a “random” process? Go back to science class, do not pass Go…

28. Science & logic do not hold all the answers – many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.

Really? Who are these “many people”? Christians, perchance? Are they making any effort to find out what these forces are?

29. Look at the date/year on our calender – 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus’ existence.

That would be the calendar system created in the 1580s, then, which got the date of Jesus’ birth wrong by at least six years (in one direction) or four years (in the other)?

30. Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!

I assume you include all the Muslim, Bhuddist, Hindu, Sikh, Mormon, Taoist and Jain martyrs in this grouping as well. They must all be right, then, surely?

31. Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.

You need to read some Biblical historians, rather than just listening to the guy in your local pulpit. The Pauline epistles were written around this time, the gospels, much later. Paul was not an eyewitness. We have no eyewitness accounts of Jesus life, not even in the work of the many historians who were working around that time and in that region.

32. From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaological evidence to confirm many details we’re provided with in the Bible.

Cite it, then!

33. Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.

I refer you to Ebonmuse’s post on the topic. Lots of prophecies in the Bible turned out to be false. Most of those that weren’t have been shown to have been written after the events they predict (eg. Daniel)

34. The evidence from liturature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.

Really? Again, would you like to cite your sources?

35. From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.

So the whole Galileo “Earth revolves around the Sun” thing passed you by, eh?

36. Science can explain ‘how’ something works, but not ‘why’ something works.

Actually, it often explains why. Again, evolution is a good example – it explains “why” we see the diversity of species with similar genes around us in the world. The Big Bang explains “why” red-shift occurs. Gravity explains “why” an apple falls to the ground. Science is obsessed with the question of “why”!

37. Science is constantly recorrecting its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present ‘discoveries’ may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.

So you hold that believing something in spite of conflicting evidence is more acceptable than changing your views to fit reality? Well, you’re a Christian, so that shouldn’t surprise me…

38. Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn’t explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.

Evolution says absolutely nothing about how life started – you’re thinking of abiogenesis, which explains precisely that.

39. The two people who discovered Jesus’ empty tomb were women. Women were so low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn’t – we’re left with the historical & Biblical truth.

How many women? Was it just Mary Magdelene (John 20:1)? Was the other Mary with her (Matthew 28:1)? What about Salome (Mark 16:1)? Or were there a whole bunch of them (Luke 24:1, 10)?

40. Think about Near Death Experiences. It’s naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn’t have otherwise known, an african man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing “a dream”. We’re not silly – we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.

Again, citations would be good. Here, for your edification, is a layman’s piece on the neurological explanation of NDE.

41. There are many skeptics who didn’t believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.

And many ex-Christians are now atheists. People change their views. So?

42. Albert Einstein said; “A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”.

Other Einstein quotes that may interest you:

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.

During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man’s own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

In any case, Einstein was a physicist – a brilliant one, but still a physicist. Rowan Williams is a skilled theologian, but if he published a paper on particle physics I would want some pretty major supporting evidence before I relied on it. If you’re going to posit the argument from authority, choose an appropriate authority, please.

43. A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. “Who threw that?” He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; “No-one threw it – it threw itself!”

Funny story. Not an argument for God, though.

44. It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.

Really? So positing an omnipresent superbeing with human attributes but inhuman powers, who loves you personally but damns all sinners to an otherdimesional place called Hell, who became a human for a bit but was still a god, who revealed himself to a small tribe of backwards nomads in the Bronze age but has deigned to show himself since is more sensible than the Big Bang theory (and see here for why it didn’t create “something out of nothing”)? Have you met my friend, Mr Occam?

45. Stephen Hawkins has admitted; “Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?”

Well, no – that would imply adding an anthropomorphic element to the universe, which it doesn’t have. Have you read Hawking (please note the correct spelling of his name), or did you just pull that quote off some apologist website? If you’ve been reading his work, you might also find he also makes the point that if, as he believes “the universe is really self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have no beginning nor end, would simply be. What place then for a creator?” Brief History pg 157

See, I can quote-mine too!

46. We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.

You provide a definition of your idea of God. Again, that’s not an argument – that’s just defining terms.

47. If we are the product of evolution – by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?

I’ve addressed this before – see points 17-20.

48. Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!

Which missing link are you referring to? Transitional fossils? We’ve found a few of those recently. Or are we talking Bigfoot here?

49. God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?

How about a big, flaming sign in the sky saying “I AM REAL. SORRY FOR THE DELAY”? Or just one independently verifiable miracle? I’d even settle for a burning bush.

These numerous ways – they wouldn’t have anything to do with irreducible complexity, would they? Just a thought.

50. Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.

Or he was a fictional character. Or he was a misguided but still talented teacher. Or he was mad. Or he existed, but subsequent chroniclers put words in his mouth which he never said. You present a false dichotomy.

YOU DECIDE!

I’ve done so, thanks.

Congratulations if you got through all that. It’s one huge exercise in begging the question, not to mention the list of other logical fallacies she commits. You might also be amused to read back over the list and note that nowhere, not once, does she actually provide anything that could be considered a proof of God. Plenty of failed attempts to disprove evolution, and several confused assessments of science and atheism (which the author seems to think are interchangeable), but no argument for God.

I’m trying to get hold of Debra Rufini’s e-mail so I can pass this list back to her – I’ll keep you posted if she replies.