Welcome to Gaia! ::

Some advice I seriously need to take. I can't help but get angry with creationists... at least, in person. It's easier to talk to them online. Perhaps because they can't interrupt me while I'm talking, or as easily ignore me. Or perhaps it's just 'cos people from my school are dumbasses. Or maybe because I can easily walk away for a minute or two, from the computer, to cool down.

While Honvid makes a lot of absurd claims, I believe these to be the most ridiculous:
1.) Conservation of angular momentum disproves the big bang.
2.) There is a "general theory of evolution." (Is he sure it isn't the Theory of General Evolution, and that there isn't a Theory of Special Evolution to go along with it?)

I wonder if he knows that quantum particles don't "spin" in the same way that macroscopic objects "spin." Sure, he knows the definition of spin in one context, but unless he knows its definition in the context he uses it (ie, to refer to the singularity the universe spawned from... actually, I don't know that it even did "spin", but I'm not an expert on singularities), he shouldn't proclaim intellectual superiority. It seems he does the same with the word "theory"--in layman usage, a theory is an unproven statement, but in scientific usage, it's a coherent paradigm meant to explain certain phenonoma.

I know exactly how little Hovind actually understands about science. He's clearly a layman.

My little tidbits of advice are a part of neo-rationalism. I've been told that my advice is actually found in Buddhist teaching, which raised my opinion of Buddhism slightly.

Contingent, the point about it being impossible to convince somebody they are wrong- beliefs less likely to be discarded are not better. They are what they are.

However, those beliefs are a part of a religion. These beliefs serve as the 'reproductive system' of the religion. Religions perpetuate their own existence over generations by exploiting the weaknesses in people (namely, gullibility). They are, in almost every sense, a virus. They can also be considered a meme virus. However, they do have a physical component.

Bibles spread across the world, sometimes mutating into different languages, (and thus adapting to their environment). They can even mutate into different versions to suit different religions.

Bibles are viruses, and they do evolve. Biological evolution is just a type of evolution; almost anything which humans interact with is a type of virus (in a loose, inorganic term, like computer viruses) and evolution applies to all of it.

Well, as a belief that is likely to survive and be passed on, it's better.
That's why such beliefs have survived for so many ages; heretics were 'evil'.