The fun side of Intelligent Design

The Joy of Arguing with Fundamentalists.

First thing to remember when arguing with a fundamentalist is that you can't win. Don't go into it with the expectation of changing their mind, if your really really goo you might get them to think about their faith for a moment, but even thats not likely. So whats the point you say, well there's two points one is that its fun, the other is your goal (if your into goals) which is to make anyone who overhears the argument realize how silly the fundamentalist sounds. Your not debating the person your talking to, your giving a speech to those who will listen. Its also a good idea to go into the argument with the mindset of just wanting to screw with the person, otherwise you'll feel like you didn't accomplish anything, with this mindset as long as you have fun and the other person get all flustered then your winning, oh and extra points for every time they tell you your going to hell.

Now you can get into attacking the bible. This is highly entertaining and I recommend learning as much of the bible as you can stand for the amusement of knowing the bible better than the person who thinks its the source of all truth. Which brings me to a side subject, its funny but it seems like on average the most knowledgeable people on the bible (outside of clergy) are atheists. Which is ironic, but makes total sense, oh and is the only part of this post (which I found because of Planet Atheism) that I disagree with, I also wanted to point out that post because its what got me going on my post today, so thank you. Yeah, if you spend much time talking to atheists, it seems like far more of them are at least fairly well versed in the bible, sometimes because of an overbearing parent that tried to force religion on them so they studied the bible so they could point out the flaws, or they just wanted ammo for these discussions after they embraced atheism. Anyway I personally am not particularly knowledgeable in the bible, but I do wish to read it in the near future, so I'm not going to tell you what verses to use against theists. theres other sites for that, you can start with the previously mentioned Planet Atheism or Deep Thoughts both of which have a fairly comprehensive list of atheist sites. Then you can go to The Skeptics Annotated Bible and search for more. So if thats not what I'm talking about then what the hell am I talking about. Good question.

If someone brings up intelligent design then here is what I do. Immediately say, ok, its a scientific hypothesis (its not yet a theory) so what have they done to test it? What are the results of their years of research? They'll start bringing up bacteria flagellum motor's and the like, to which you can nod if you like, and say ok so finding some flaws in an established theory, what I asked was what scientific research has been done to test the hypothesis of ID? Many of the people who are particularly adamant about ID have been home schooled or taught at an evangelical christian school, so they will have very very limited knowledge of the scientific method. Ask them if they have read any peer-reviewed journal articles on the subject. You may need to explain what a peer-reviewed journal is, then you can explain that none of the proponents of ID have ever submitted an article on ID to any scientific journal. Then cut them down say that its pathetic when people think that by pointing out a few holes in a theory that it must be wrong, tell them that in REAL science one of the tenets is that you never assume any theory is correct no matter how much evidence there is, hell Gravity could be wrong, but I doubt it. Then turn the tables around again just to keep 'em on there toes. (this only works with the literal translation folks) Your bible on the other hand you claim was written by or at least directly inspired by an infallible omnipotent being. Therefore any flaw that is clearly more than a simple typo proves that at least one of your theories is invalid. It either proves that the bible is not directly inspired by god (or through a muse), or it may prove that god is not infallible, the other option being that there is no god, which of course is my hypothesis, and I have not yet been able to prove myself wrong. hmmm.... heres an idea. Offer a test, but first put it in context, by the bible, and the old testament in particular clearly god is willing to kill sinners. The ultimate sin is to deny gods existence. The bible also claims that god is good an will save the devout. So here is my challenge, I will deny gods existents publicly then tell him that if I am wrong he should strike me dead where I stand. The believer on the other hand has to put themselves in a life threatening situation and ask god to save them, this could be jumping off a building, standing on train tracks, jumping into a lion pit (been done), or whatever they choose. So both of you are risking your life for your faith, although the denier also faces the possibility of eternity in hell, while if they die they'll go to heaven. The key is not actually carrying out the challenge (although some have) but the persons response to it, are they willing? If so they are at least honestly devout, but if they are not willing to then they do not truly believe at which point you tell them to STFU already.

And thats how I deal with fundamentalists and ID because they're the same thing.