The LA Daily News posted an article about Darwin in which they immediately drew the fallacious parallel between evolution and atheism, basically right from the get-go. This is the very beginning of it:
Around Hollywood and the rest of the U.S., billboards carry the messages "Imagine No Religion" and "Praise Darwin - Evolve Beyond Belief."
Across the Atlantic, hundreds of buses traveling the roads of England are plastered with the sign "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
As scientists and organizations around the world prepare to mark Charles Darwin's 200th birthday on Feb. 12, his theory of natural selection presented in "On the Origin of Species" still arouses a tempest of controversy - mostly centered on the question of whether life is the result of chance and natural processes or divine design.
So immediately I got annoyed. I posted in the comments section, along with many others who took issue with the whole “raging debate” angle of the article, that implies the long-disproven ‘theory in crisis’ argument creationists often insist on making. To make up for the long time without any content, I’m going to go ahead and list my favorite comments with terrible arguments and/or insane statements in them, linking to appropriate responses within the comment, or reacting in red double brackets if a single link won’t really work.
- Dale Z: “Let''s either 1) Some divinity created us...OR 2) The sun, shining on a rock spontaneiouly generated molecular life. Hmmmm, even if one were not religious....option "1" is more likely. I really don't see why there is a debate.” [[me neither, but it’s a shame you don’t understand why]]
- simply: “James is simply "delusional" - as is any darwinist. they believe their world is flat, when the evidence contradicts their conclusions!!! [[irony overdose detected]] science is defended, but when one takes a look (which we all should) one realizes that it is just pseudo science that they believe in.”
- Jonathan Razon: “It is my earnest prayer that God will enlighten the mind of those people advocating the rejection of God's existence and instead praising Darwin. "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are saying......"”[[this is just amazingly condescending and arrogant]]
- Danny: “It's actually nice to read an article that gives the Intelligent Design community a chance. I'm one of the "wackos" who believes the universe is far too complex to be accidental. Have you heard of irreducible complexity?”
- M Bergeron: “The teaching of evolution in the states is all about the capitalist publishers who have made tons of money passing off a theory as if it were fact.” [[he then goes on to insist the story would be much different if creationists were allowed to indoctrinate in public school, as if church isn’t enough. Uh, yeah, it’d be different, as in more-people-brainwashed-into-rejecting-established-science different]]
- lll: “darwin was an idiot.
it is proven scientifically the time for selection process to turn the nearest creature of humans into human being is more than the scientific age of earth and solar system.” [[now we reached the ones who are just randomly making things up]] - Craig: “there is enough evidence that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead to stand up in a modern day court of law.” [[…what?]]
- JBS: “Darwin does absolutely nothing to explain how any of these species that naturally select traits got here in the first place. Let me repeat that--ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.” [[Uh, firstly, Darwin’s dead. Secondly, species don’t “naturally select [their own] traits”. Nature (the environment) does that. Thirdly, evolution is part of biology. You know, biology: The study of living things. Any special reason you’re demanding for something within the study of living things to explain events that occurred prior to the origin of life?]]
- garf: “There is a physics theory that says anything left on its own will fall into a state of randomness.
In other words stars are burning out and mountains are falling down. How then would life achieve higher and higher levels of order when everything else in the universe is doing the opposite?” - Regulas: “The debate continues because the non believers and so called atheists do have a god, it's Darwin. [[These people are so simple-minded that they can’t see anything except through the lens of “competing religion”]] The tree huggers have a messiah, Al Gore and their cult is global warming. Both of these are lies but Darwinism is straight from Satan himself in his on going effort to destroy our faith in the the creator, God. [[see also]] The same science the darwinians praise so much has already shown that the simplest one celled organism is so complex the odds of it ever just coming into existence by chance is so large it is impossible. Darwin himself denounced his own theory, I repeat, theory of evolution as a falsehood before he died. [[Even Answers in Genesis is willing to admit this argument is nonsense]]
I brush the dirt off my feet after trying to convince one of these non believers their is a creator and you will meet him one day unless you choose not to like they do. I feel sorry for them and their lack of faith. [[arrogant fool]]
Okay, ten is more than enough; I’d be here all day if I were to point out everything that was dumb in those comments. I did refute a lot more stuff than is written here in those comments, if you want to take a look there.
