Hello, my delightful denizens. I’m taking some time from the commandments idea to get something off my chest. I often expect disappointment after perusing the immense amount of religious articles of self-deception that live on the Internet. Especially, about the theory of evolution. And the problem isn’t always what people believe, I know all the stories, and I’m often happy to discover a new one. Myth can be elegant when respected for what it is: stories created to explain the condition of the societies that embrace them. As collections of human thinking, myths are early attempts at philosophy, and whilst their content is false, their intentions are primarily noble.
What frustrates me from all the cute nonsense out there is the willful self-deception most believers commit.
Now, self-deception is harmless when resulting from George’s need to feel pretty in that new red-coloured shirt or Bob’s want to think that their new high heels make their legs look fantastic. To want to feel sexy in anything you wear is acceptable. But to willfully misrepresent a critical scientific theory like evolution is simply reprehensible.
Note: If you are one of those people who say “but it’s just a theory,” punch yourself in the throat because you’ve also misrepresented language, and I have an extraordinary place in hell for people like you.
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Today, and only in the last thirty minutes, I have read opening paragraphs claiming that evolutionary theory “tries to explain how physical forms came to be” or that “Evolutionists claim that life came from nothing.” You can go on for hundreds of pages about the strawman arguments about evolution posed by religious apologists all over the world. And even if their belief systems are to blame for their self-indulgence, I blame them explicitly for not verifying the information they attempt to counter.
Abiogeneis is the branch of evolutionary biology that attempts to explain the origins of life, and most real scientists will tell you that it is, by far, an incomplete framework.
Evolutionary theory does not explain the origin of life. And it explains metaphysical concepts like the soul only as mechanisms coded into human behaviour to assist social cohesion. The soul, evolution says, is an idea created to help humans make decisions about how to treat others. And even in that frame, it didn’t stop people from being assholes to each other.
Wanting to believe something doesn’t make it true or accurate. Verify your sources diligently. Discard beliefs that aren’t honest, especially, when letting them go is difficult.
Some tell me that validating faiths is a nice because, like certain myths, those faiths make people feel better about themselves. And when someone tells you the same, remind them that the road to my house is paved with good intentions.
A disappointed prince of lies
