I'm constantly amazed how much evidence I see on a daily basis that can't possibly be explained by creationists. It boggles the mind that they can ignore so many in-your-face facts and cling to their 3000-year-old mythology.
The latest example is the amazing images of the "black hole" in the clouds of Jupiter caused by a comet strike last week.
Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Austrailia, discovered the scar near Jupiter's south pole last week and sounded the alarm to the astronomy community. The Hubble Space Telescope was quickly aimed at Jupiter, capturing some great images (in the video above).
Try as I might, I can't figure out how a creationist would explain comets, asteroids, meteorites and other planetary debris and space junk. Why would an omnipotent god create a solar system with junk flying around that could destroy his creation? Why would such a god leave junk flying around at all? In fact, if this purported creator's goal was to create humankind for his own enjoyment, or to worship him, or whatever reason purportedly motivated him, why would he even create planets?
What's more, all you have to do is look at the orbits of some of these comets, and a bit of algebra tells us that their orbits are sometimes much longer than 6.000 years. In other words, they've been circling (elipting?) the sun for much longer than the creationists claim is the age of the universe! The only possible explanation is that this mythical creator deliberately created all of the hundreds of thousands of comets, millions of asteroids, and billions of chunks of rocks that we call meteors, not to mention eight extra planets that serve no purpose at all, for no apparent reason, and he created them with orbits that were, for some inscrutable reason, meant to fool us.
He also put all of those photons in the sky streaming towards us from other stars, so that even though these stars are millions and billions of light years away, their light is already reaching us.
This is a mighty strange god, isn't it? Quite the trickster. Or maybe he's just a figment of our collective imaginations, one that some of us have outgrown but others still cling to.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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6 comments:
Dear readers -- I am no longer blogging and after leaving these blogs open for two years have finally stopped accepting comments due to spammers. Thanks for your interest. If you'd like to write to me, click on the "Contact" link at the top. Thanks! -- CJ.
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Sadly, it's posts like this that divide people rather than bring them to an intellectual discussion of merit. If you truly would like to discuss the science and change people's minds being inflammatory isn't going to cut it. I'd really rather see a level-headed debate rather than calling religion a virus and saying that people who believe in a Creator (be it God, aliens or whatever) are dumb.
ReplyDeleteTo play devil's advocate, why do people draw and create artwork that serves no useful purpose? Why do we all crowd Los Angles but leave most of the Arizona desert empty? Is it that hard to believe that a source creator made the universe simply because it pleased them to do so? That humans only exist on Earth because it's the only place that sustains life?
I'd love to see more dialogue on matters like this, but without the bashing.
SupComTabz: I'd love it if you could point out the "bashing". I see critique only.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you are one of those who consider any direct critique of religion as "bashing"?
Not at all Yui, many of my good friends are part of the Skeptics group and we have lively discussions on religion, belief, politics and the like. I'm not one to get my feelings hurt at all. But if this same post was written against atheists (and I've seen them written in such a tone) I would say the same thing. It's a level of condescension that will never make for good discussion.
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by science, by the stars and the universe and love learning more, I just wish there was a way to communicate that with people who disagree without raising their hackles.
Didn't you know Yui that any unanswerable criticism of religion is always referred to as "bashing" or similar?
ReplyDeleteI fail to see any condescension.
ReplyDeleteOdd that it has devolved from bashing to condescension.
Or maybe he's just a figment of our collective imaginations, one that some of us have outgrown but others still cling to.
ReplyDeleteThats bashing. Outgrown? Thats implying that you have matured further than your religious counter-part.Regardless of another persons belief when you make condescending remarks like that it shows your own ignorance.
And I am completely unbiased because I don't know what I believe in.