Must evolution be true for atheism to stand?

I doubt the Religious Right has anyone as vicious, stupid and purely greedy as Ann Coulter. Personally I think she is taking them all for a ride, hence the $1.5 million dollar property in Palm Beach (isn’t she the one who ridicules liberals as all living in million dollar mansions?).

It’s not as if she says anything intelligent. She is the walking stereotype of the blond, anorexic bimbo right down to dressing like a $2 hooker while lecturing everyone about morality. She also lectures about family and marriage and remains unmarried to this day. (Can anyone spell l.e.s.b.i.a.n perhaps?)

Even on the issues where she and I agree she is embarrassing in her viciousness and irrationality. Where we don’t agree I’m glad she is out there for the same reason -- she discredits the arguments I find absurd by her irrationality and cruelty.

I would like to address one silly statement she made: “Although God believers don’t need evolution to be false, atheist need evolution to be true.” Typical of Coulter she packs more falsehoods and twisted logic into a sentence than anyone else.

So “God believers”, her stranger term for theists, can be evolutionists. I agree. I know many people who are theologically infested who are evolutionists of one type of another.

But as an atheist I can’t think of a reason why it is necessary for atheism for evolution to be true. Coulter doesn’t really say except by quoting someone saying evolutionary theory made lots of people atheists and quoting Dawkins saying it makes him a “fulfilled atheist.”

Neither of those statements indicates that the veracity of evolution is necessary to atheism. Neither of them say that. I suspect that what Coulter meant to say was something else entirely. She is a bad writer in my opinion and often says things in a confused way -- but that is how her thinking works -- badly.

If she said: “Although God believers don’t need creationism to be true, atheists need it to be false,” then she would be correct. If there was a creation by a God then atheism false. But atheism can be true and evolution false without a problem.

Atheism pre-existed Darwinian theory. And if Darwin never came along, and no one else replace him, I’d still be an atheist. My atheism has nothing to do with evolution. And the atheists I know are not atheists because of evolution.

What would happen if evolution were disproved? Nothing in regards to either atheism or theism. A god is not proven if evolution is disproved. Only the fundamentalist needs to disprove evolution, not all theists because only the fundamentalist needs a literal creation to support his reading of the Bible. Most other Christians are more intelligent than that and thus don’t have to disprove evolution. So if evolution were false that does nothing to prove the existence of a god.

And neither does it falsify atheism. If evolution were disproved (and I don’t think it will be) neither theism nor atheism are touched in any manner whatsoever. Coulter is just off her rocker -- again. Still!

What it means to the atheist is simple. It would only mean that we don’t know the answer to a question. Now I know a lot of people use God as a gap-filler. Anything they don’t know they explain away by dragging a deity into the picture. But the atheist sees no need for that. The lack of an answer to a question, even an important question, is not a license to invent answers. That is what the theist does. He invents a deity to explain that which is not explained any other way.

We don’t know everything. We never will know everything. We learn more each day but what we don’t know is immeasurable. There will always be questions for which we don’t have answers even as the number of questions answered grows. Because each new bit of knowledge gives us more questions.

The atheism does not need evolution to be true. He does not creation to be false if he is to remain a rational atheist. If evolution is wrong then it just means that there is some other way that life came into existence and that doesn’t necessarily mean a supernatural way.

Let us go back prior to germ theory. The Christian of the day attributed disease to God’s will or demonic powers. Perhaps it was God punishing sin or Satan trying to test the faith of someone. The atheist didn’t accept those witch-doctor theories at all. But prior to Pasteur confirm the germ theory of disease the atheist simply didn’t know the answer to what was the cause of disease.

Before Pasteur other thinks formulated the theory of germs, men like Fracastoro, Bassi and Henle) but he was the first to prove it. Sure some religiously infected individuals still dream of other explanations but even most theists accept the germ theory of disease. By the way it is still called the “germ theory of disease”. I note that because some of the scientifically illiterate fundamentalists argue that since we speak of the “theory of evolution” that proves it isn’t a fact. The same people would normally say that germs cause disease even though that is still called a theory as well. But they don’t know that. There’s a lot they don’t know. But unlike them we atheists, don’t invent a God to explain anything we don’t know.

There is no reason that atheism needs evolution to be true. None. If falsified tomorrow atheism would still be a sensible position since atheism never rested on evolution. Coulter once again has no idea what she is talking about. But if she did make sense the Religious Right wouldn’t be showering her with millions of dollars in book sales.

PS: This is our 400th posting here.

Theopublicans blame Jewish plot for evolution.

One of the “Good ol’ boy” Theopublicans in the Theocratic State of Texas (yet once again) got himself into some hot water. Republican Warren Chisum sent out a flyer promoting a God-fearing Christian web site that will debunk evolution and promote godly science based on the Bible. Chisum is a good Christian -- hence he was the author of a constitutional amendment which explicitly denies gay couples equal marriage rights before the law.

And the flyer in question was the work of another elected Republican, Ben Bridges of the George state legislature -- George is another hotbed of intellectualism. And according to the Dallas News the memo says that evidence “long hidden” shows that evolution was plot imposed by the Jewish “Pharisee Religion”. It says: “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

Bridges is taking heat for it as well and denies he knew anything about the memo which sent people to a web site run by a fundamentalist bigot. The bigot in question, Marshall Hall says that he penned the memo with Bridge’s knowledge and permission. Hall says: “I gave him a copy of it months ago. I had already written this up as an idea to present to him so he could see what it was and what we were thinking.” Hall says his wife has been Bridges’ campaign manager for the last ten years.

Bridges was asked if he disavowed the theories of Hall but skirted the issued while implying that he might: “I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory.” Oh, goodie! We have an elected Republican who thinks the idea of an ancient Jewish plot to impose evolution makes more sense than natural selection in nature. In Georgia this guy is probably considered a moderate. And to show what kind of education one can expect if this man had his way consider this gem of wisdom from him: “I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?” I suppose there is a corollary that which apparently Mr. Bridges has put into practice: “Rather than risk learning a lie why learn anything?

Back in Texas Representative Chisum articulately stated: “The stuff that causes conflicts between religious beliefs, you know, I’d never be a party to that.” The man obviously learned public speaking at the George Bush School of Articulation and Grammar. Chisum says: “I don’t agree with bashing Jews, that’s for sure.” Apparently gays are another matter entirely.

Chisum says he never went to the web site he was promoting and was just being a “Good Samaritan” for his fellow Republican legislator. He says: “It that’s a sin, well, shoot me.” Tempting offer, Mr. Chisum. But then it would probably do not good. You couldn’t hit a vital organ if you tried. He’s a Republican so he has no heart and he’s a Christian fundamentalist so he has no brain.” And it would be a very bad idea to put holes in his body considering what he’s obviously full of -- you wouldn’t want that many decades worth of crap seeping out and endangering others.

So what is on this web site? --- and I assure you that with the web layout they use you can’t accuse them of being guilty of “intelligent design” whatsoever. On the front page you learn what Biblical science is like. We already know you have to throw out evolution and you need to believe the earth is supposedly only 7,000 to 10,000 years old. But there are other Biblical beliefs it promotes. One is the “Earth is not rotating”. No spinning globe whatsoever. Equally important is the claim that it isn’t “going around the sun” either. The web site in question provides 67 “scriptural references” to prove that the sun is moving not the earth. And he provides even more Bible quotes to prove that the earth can’t move!

And if the Bible says it then it just has to be true.

They argue that the earth is the center of the universe and the universe revolves around the earth. And the reason people don’t realize this is because of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity. I’m not making this crap up. This is what these lunatic Theopublicans in Georgia are claiming.

They argue that there “is a list as long as your leg of highly organized One World Government conspiracies. Some have been around for centuries, even millennia. Others are more recent.” And all this conspiracy stuff “was prophesied over nineteen hundred years ago in the New Testament of Jesus Christ! That is something to think about, isn’t it?!” Cue the music for the Twilight Zone.

Now the conspiracy is “SATAN-INSPIRED” this “science” web site says and has one goal “to bring about a One World Government that can establish a One World ANTI-CHRIST religion.” (Please not they write with these excessive capitals not me.)

So while there are just dozens of conspiracies pushing Satan’s plan “there is, nevertheless, One Particular Conspiracy that embodies and yet transcends all the others.” And it does so because: “God foreordained that it be this way because this particular conspiracy is special to His Plans. This particular conspiracy is going to play an irreplaceable and completely understandable part in His Perfect Plan.”

Apparently Mr. Hall’s theology not only teaches him science but history as well. Because he discovers the “granddaddy of all One World conspiracies” to be the “same one Jesus encountered in the Pharisaic Establishment headquartered in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago.” This is starting to sound like a book Mel Gibson will be filming. Hall says this Pharisaic plot today “is in position of control globally and doing business through state-of-the-art technology capable of handling its global transactions almost instantly.” This Jewish plot, says Hall is the “age-old Satanic conspiracy which the heartbeat” of all the other Satanic one world conspiracies. And in case you didn’t know Talmudic Judaism, according to Hall is in “control of the pornography industry and all the media” .

This is the sort of “theology” that one often finds rampant in fundamentalist sects. It is exactly the sort of things I heard as a kid at the local Christian school. And this is what the Republican Party has become since it started recruiting Christianist nutters from the American South.