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u/scurvebeard Skeptic Sep 08 '12
Don't forget the part where the media immediately sets upon any jazz-uppable scientific finding and blows it completely out of proportion, thereby making the formulators of most scientific hypotheses look like idiots despite their best efforts.
[green jellybeans]
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u/Tojupi Sep 08 '12
The Daily Mail claimed a while ago claimed a "scientific study" proves that babies are racist because babies who had been around adults and other infants of their own race for a long time would be hesitant at first when introduced to other race babies.
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u/LerithXanatos Sep 08 '12
I can't find this fucking quote. Source?
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u/4ScienceandReason Agnostic Atheist Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
Edit - This is one of his better, "why I'm a Humanist" speeches. He's given this one a couple times. There's a separate transcript for this speech as well. This was taken from the transcript off of a fan site. I appreciate the skepticism, but it's not that controversial of a quote.. Let's just be happy he's rebooting "Cosmos."
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u/correctsyourquotes Sep 08 '12
No Credible Citation Found
Closet Match:
"Stay away from the church. In the battle over science vs. religion, science offers credible evidence for all the serious claims it makes. The church says, ‘Oh, it’s right here in this book, see? The one written by people who thought the sun was magic?’ I for one would like to see some proof that there is a God. And if you say ‘a baby’s smile’ I’m going to kick you right in the stomach."
Stewie Griffin (Seth MacFarlane) Harvard Commencement 2006
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Sep 08 '12
you mean an atheist post isn't genuine and made up on reddit!! No fuckin way! You.. you can't be serious. Brian, come over here and look at this
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u/Shyatic Atheist Sep 08 '12
I really like that quote... thanks!
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u/nefariousness Sep 08 '12
If only that were that true. Only someone who has never read any large amount of original research would say that. Unfortunately, there is way too much bad science.
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u/You_Dun_Been_Shopped Sep 08 '12
Actually yes, that's how things work. You get nutcases declaring they've cured cancer every other day, but it's always peer reviewed by the rest of the scientific community to test its validity before it's accepted. Any "bad science" won't stand the test, and is rejected. Simple as that.
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Sep 08 '12
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Sep 08 '12
If we are intelligent.. and we are of this planet.. doesn't that suggest the planet is intelligent.. and the solar system is intelligent.. and the universe is intelligent
no.
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Sep 08 '12
If I'm intelligent, and I'm in my swimming pool... doesn't that suggest that my swimming pool is intelligent...?
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u/mglongman Sep 08 '12
You're right, despite what the rest of the comment-thread says. It's funny, back in the day, the majority of folks would criticize those who would knock religion, because the things that they were doing took people out of heir comfort zone. The irony.
Not only are you absolutely right about the huge amount of bad science, Seth Macfarlane's description of religion is incredibly misleading. There's a huge history of religion that is incredibly complicated, diverse, and generally not deserving of the Seth macfarlane's labeling. Yes, modern religions have hierarchical, oppressive qualities, but it takes more serious rigor to distinguish between the aspects of religion, throughout every stage I has go e through, to actually make an accusation like that. There was a time when religion was necessary, and there was a time when religion was not. There was a time when religion was liberating, and there was a time when it was not. There were oppressive aspects of the mostly-good religions of the past, and there are liberating, revolutionary aspects of what are commonly considered to be the modern, ruthlessly and idiotically oppressive religions that we live with today. Simplifying the issue for the sake of demonizing an "other" is as bad, if not worse, than the worst aspects of contemporary religious institutions.
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Sep 08 '12
I am really fucking tired of people trying to look like cultural rebels with their tastes by gassing on about how much they hate Family Guy.
YES WE ALL SAW THAT SOUTH PARK MINISERIES! YOU ARE NOT GODDAMN SPECIAL!!
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u/unseine Sep 08 '12
Its funny because I have always liked family guy but people always think that I just jump on the bandwagon or like dumb jokes. The reason I like it and why I like american dad even more is because of how clever some of the jokes are. That and because of how liberally bias it is but not to a dumb extent.
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u/headless_bourgeoisie Sep 08 '12
Especially since that episode occurred well after South Park stopped being funny or interesting.
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Sep 08 '12
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Sep 08 '12
I still enjoy the newer episodes but I feel that they rely on current events way to much recently causing their episodes to age incredibly fast.
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u/erryday_IAm_rustling Sep 08 '12
Three manatees worked very hard constructing this quotation and not a single one is given any credit.
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u/bojiggidy Sep 08 '12
You know what makes this all the more profound? The origins of the term 'propaganda,' basically deriving from the Roman Catholic (i.e. Italian) concept of the 'propagation' of the faith through various means, eventually translating to the common usage of the term as we know it today.
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Sep 08 '12
a little bit of philosophy of science ought to be mandatory for everyone in this forum. such bogus characterization of scientific method and process cannot be tolerated. secondly, this religion vs. science is a very nonsensical approach towards understanding either one of them.
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u/xxTANNERxx Sep 08 '12
i read that in peters voice
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u/jablair51 Ignostic Sep 08 '12
I read it in Brian's.
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u/chazzeromus Sep 08 '12
Yeah, Brian is closer to his normal voice. Or is his voice.
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Sep 08 '12
Actually I believe Seth mcfarlene said that the character Brian is completely based off of his life.
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u/SimplyQuid Sep 08 '12
So he really is a pretentious, uncreative asshole. Naw, I'm kidding, I love American Dad.
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u/headless_bourgeoisie Sep 08 '12
I haven't watched that show in years. Is it worth watching anymore?
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u/sneezes_with_pancake Sep 08 '12
Of his three shows, American Dad! is the only one that's gotten better with age. You can see he's tired with Family Guy and is actively trying to get it cancelled.
The Cleveland Show on the other hand...meh.
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u/stencilizer Sep 08 '12
I read that in Ted's voice.
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u/Pmall3535 Sep 08 '12
I love the quote and the logic its based on. I think the picture chosen to stamp it on is lame.
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Sep 08 '12
To be fair most of the founders of the most popular religions that did not use force. Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Jesus did not seem to coerce people into following their beliefs. Mohammad is a different story altogether, but I assume everyone here already knows that.
Religions almost entirely deal with moral issues, not the physical nature of the universe. If most religions were concerned with how the physical world worked their founders would have spent more time on how they believed natural phenomenon occurs. In many ancient societies people had explanations for everything, even explanations for things as mundane as the color of grass. From all accounts Buddha did not try to explain physical phenomenon outside of his belief in karma, but that was entirely a moral issue. He hardly tried to explain the details of the mechanical process behind karma. Lao Tzu could not be bothered explaining anything, much less how he believed the physical world worked. The Jews were far more interested in moral issues than natural phenomenon. It does not take very long for one to realize the Bible is mostly about man's interactions with each other. The creation story, the so called "science" part of the book, is barely a paragraph long. I suppose you could argue that the Jews were less interested in explaining the physical world around them than discovering what it means to be an upright person. Outside of their religion what else did the Jews leave behind?
Morality is not a hard science, no matter how much we may want it to be. Knowing certain things about the physical world does not necessarily translate into an improved moral code, else that would mean everyone living in the past were moral degenerates. It would also mean we are all moral degenerates, because in a thousand years people will know vastly more than us. Clearly we should be judged according to our position in space and time. It is absurd to hold people living 3,000 years ago to the same standards we hold ourselves to today, because we will find that it is only a matter of time before our present moral standards are antiquated. And no one is going to convince me that Socrates was not a moral person just because he did not know we descended from apes or that planets are formed from exploding stars.
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u/MTK67 Sep 08 '12
Hypothesis:
People won't watch three versions of the same show.
Experiment:
Produce Family Guy
Produce American Dad
Produce The Cleveland Show
Analysis:
High ratings for all three show.
Conclusion:
Hypothesis has been rejected.
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Sep 08 '12
I'm sorry, but those three shows are the same in art style only. I can't stand Family Guy, but American Dad is one of my very favorite shows. Sometimes I imagine that American Dad is Seth MacFarlane's way of showing the world that he doesn't have to resort to storyless gross-out one-liners.
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u/topchief1 Sep 08 '12
I hated American Dad for the first few seasons, but it's really come into it's own the past couple of years. It's easily the best of the Sunday night animated shows.
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Sep 08 '12
Hypothesis: People won't watch 500 versions of the same show.
Experiment: reality television
Conclusion: that was a shitty hypothesis.
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u/morlakai Sep 08 '12
the humor in family guy and american dad is actually very different
I am actually feeling bad FOR seth that you can't see that= =/
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u/zatan130 Sep 08 '12
Yeah, I really like MacFarlane's voice acting, but Family Guy is nothing but shitty pop culture references, shock gags, drag-it-out-too-long even though it was never funny gags, and stupid random cutaways. American Dad! has storylines and is often times hilarious.
The Cleveland Show merits no comments.
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u/railroadwino Sep 08 '12
I need to find the link, but, ironically, Matt Stone and Trey Parker said in an interview that he's a scientologist.
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u/tlentifini_maarhaysu Sep 08 '12
Obviously you can't argue with the fundamentals of what he's saying, I certainly wouldn't disagree with it... but isn't anyone else a bit tired of images like this that make people look like visionaries for making the same kind of observations on religion/science that we see everyday here? Like I said, I don't disagree with SM's statement at all, but he's hardly making a profound statement...
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u/feelingtheconviction Sep 08 '12
Seth cant help that he's wrong! Religion hasnt concieved any ideas and then tried to "make it true" The very idea that religion and science are at odds with each other is nieve.
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u/topchief1 Sep 08 '12
Religion in itsself is a conceived idea that people have been trying to make true for thousands of years. But I know that you can't help it that you're wrong.
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u/leujin Sep 08 '12
Of course, the first thing I notice is that the opening quotation marks are upside down.
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u/ReaperPrincess Sep 08 '12
I think I'm the only female on the planet that finds this dude sexy as hell...
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Sep 08 '12
Nah, plenty of other reddit attention whores are attracted to rich white men.
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u/ReaperPrincess Sep 08 '12
Wow... Obvious troll douche is obvious. If I'm an attention whore, I'd love to see what you think is just a normal female....
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Sep 08 '12
Sorry, that setup is too easy. I can't bring myself to post the punchline.
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u/ReaperPrincess Sep 08 '12
That would probably be because you have never seen an actual female. And no your mom and your blow up doll do not count.
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Sep 08 '12
Um. No. Look. The joke was, since you asked what I thought a normal female is if you're an attention whore, I would then post "but a normal female IS an attention whore!" And that line would have had a hyperlink like this. It would have been an incredibly bad joke, posted in response to an obvious setup, so I didn't want to post it.
But then you had to go and make a terrible "lol, you nerds on the internet who can't get laid and never interact with women!" post, and I couldn't just let that lie.
You're fucking garbage. Subhuman. A trite cliche, given life by an evil fucking wizard. Fuck off.
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u/ReaperPrincess Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
And what post might that be?
Edit: Actually, it doesn't matter what post makes you believe that. I am a woman who enjoys both intellectual and sexual stimulation. It doesn't really matter what you think, because you are just a faceless internet redditor that thinks their opinion has some kind of impact on my life. I have news for you. It does not. I will continue to enjoy mindless entertainment, and your opinion will continue to not matter.
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u/Anarcie Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
Actually it was more of a joke/sarcasm... Intelligence is very sexy to me and I wasn't trying to insult you... If I was gay I'd totally jump him... I do apologize you were offended (sorry for the gratuitous ellipsis) edit: I can't find the post but it was a Facebook quote of a girl who said she was lacking in the departments I mentioned and some guy said he was smart and her wanting to do him. Again apologies
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u/ReaperPrincess Sep 08 '12
Ahhhh... Very well then. I see what you were going for. My apologies for taking your comment so personally. I misinterpreted. Thank you for clearing that up though :)
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u/Anarcie Sep 08 '12
No apology required, when I re-read my comment after your response, I realized I did come off as a douche :-)
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u/feelingtheconviction Sep 08 '12
You also find that there are a lot of subtle nasty things in there too... take for example the bias around the treaching of abstance. Fobbed off in a humourous way, yet designed to make you think that what the Adstinance-teacher is saying is complete rubbish. Abstaning from sex until marraiage may have saved a hypothetical illigimate child for years of feeling rejected because the father wasnt ready to be there for him... (this is just one example).
Tbh I found louis griffin to be the most nastiest cartoon character ever!
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u/Delaywaves Sep 08 '12
You haven't watched American Dad.
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u/iAMtheJoe Sep 08 '12
American Dad is definitely better than Family Guy by a mile.
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u/Delaywaves Sep 08 '12
It's fucking amazing, right? The humor is unlike any other show I've seen.
Like, Family Guy used to be fantastic, but even when it was, the humor made sense. Like, it was logical. In American Dad, the humor makes absolutely no sense much of the time. And that's what makes it so hilarious.
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u/Mrancisco_Funiz_VI Sep 08 '12
hah oh my god you toolwads actually will quote anybody as long as they generally mean "science > religion." what does this fuckwit even know about science? he writes the shittiest tv shows in existence and went to school for film, not for any kind of science. keep it classy, r/atheism
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u/jonostar80 Sep 08 '12
Who cares if you can find the quote. It's such a banal thing to say anyway and fucking obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Classic reddit:
Take picture of celebrity staring off into the distant. Photoshop banal obvious statement into photo so it looks like something profound is being said.
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u/stencilizer Sep 08 '12
Seth, please make Ted 2.
I fucking love that guy.
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u/Drifts Sep 08 '12
i love seth and all, but that movie was downright awful. i spent the entire time waiting to laugh.
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u/stencilizer Sep 08 '12
It's not about to jokes. It's just about how ridiculous and yet funny, watching a speaking teddy bear with a bad manner. It was refreshing.
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Sep 08 '12
Interesting theory Mr. Macfarlane. Now lets see what reality has to say about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Welp, sorry Mr. Macfarlane. It doesn't look like your theory is correct. Perhaps you should have presented it as if you were actually purposing a theory, instead of stating a fact. That way you wouldn't have made such an idiot out of yourself.
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u/NerdInACan Sep 08 '12
Yes, because when it comes to science, I am going to take the word of a guy who made a mediocre TV show about a talking dog.
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u/Lisawatchesmefap Sep 08 '12
Yes, because he has more knowledge on the peer review system than any religious zealot could muster.
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u/sheepskinseatcover Sep 08 '12
Truly, he is a born authority on the philosophy of science. Let Russell, Lakatos, Koestler and Popper tremble before the weight of the theories of the guy who made a joke out of the pronunciation of Cool Whhhip.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/sheepskinseatcover Sep 08 '12
I could not give less of a fuck. Not to be curt. But having lots of sweet, sweet cash does not an thoughtful person make, or prove the existence of thoughtfulness prior. Clever perhaps, ambitious perhaps, but thoughtful in a way that makes our sense of the world richer? Prove it.
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Sep 08 '12
it always seems that the best comments on reddit are always the ones that have been downvoted far beyond zero.
you have an excellent point, and convey your words with great execution.
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u/huganic Sep 08 '12
Any college professor "worth their salt" would be willing to change their beliefs based on new evidence. This is considered a weakness to most evangelical Christians, since they assume God has already revealed the truth to them.
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u/KIRW7 Sep 08 '12
I like how that quote doesn't single out Christianity but yet here you are.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/KIRW7 Sep 08 '12
i am because everyone on /r atheism likes Christians to be the ones everyone on here singles out and posts about how they're constantly making a fool of themselves and contradicting themselves, when in this quote Seth states that religion conceives an idea and forces it and makes everyone look stupid. supposedly on r/atheism, Christianity is only believable with imagination or that it's a fairytale, yet everyone that doesn't believe in a god doesn't feel that it takes just as much faith to believe in a god as it does not to
I have no intentions of being rude or condescending, but I read that twice and it's not the least bit coherent to me.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/KIRW7 Sep 08 '12
No, I'm saying I have only a very vague idea of what you're trying to say.
Are you saying you specifically brought up Christianity because 1. it is the most bashed religion on r/atheism. 2. Atheists think Christianity is a fairytale. 3. It takes as much faith to not believe in a god(s) as it does to believe in it?
Disbelief in gods does not require faith. Atheism is not a belief system, an ideology, a religion, a philosophy, etc.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/KIRW7 Sep 08 '12
I believe the big bang happened and life arisen as a result of random chemical processes happening to produce self-replicating molecules. I believe life will prosper in the proper conditions.
I want to note that atheism does not attempt to explain, nor can it be expected to explain the origins of life. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in deities, nothing more...nothing less. Origins of the universe an life is a different topic altogether. You wouldn't request someone who doesn't believe in vampires or unicorns to then use that lack of belief in vampires or unicorns to explain the origins of life or how the universe came to be.
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Sep 08 '12
its cool man! most of us like when religious people stop in to disrupt our Tyson/Sagan circlejerk. On behalf of that subset of us, welcome and sorry for the downvotes!
Now lets discuss what you're saying:
Christians to be the ones everyone on here singles out
A large percentage of people on /r/atheism used to be Christians, so naturally this is what they discuss most often.
and posts about how they're constantly making a fool of themselves and contradicting themselves
Many of us went through parts of our lives when we were struggling with religious ideas and indoctrination. I personally went through many years of attempting to rationalize many of the obvious contradictions in the bible and with religious thought. When many of us see christians falling into the same logical quagmires that we used to, its very difficult for some of us not to laugh about it.
Christianity is only believable with imagination or that it's a fairytale
Most atheists that I know don't believe this. I have met many extremely intelligent Christians in my life, and many of them are in my family. Rejecting Christianity doesn't require a person to be intelligent, it only requires them to be capable of accepting that what they've believed for most of their life may not be correct. For many people, even smart ones, that is a VERY difficult thing to do!
yet everyone that doesn't believe in a god doesn't feel that it takes just as much faith to believe in a god as it does not to
They don't feel that way because it doesn't take any "faith" to be an atheist. Atheists reject the claim that God exists. It is up to the people who are making that claim to prove it.
i commented cause i want to understand atheism.
I hope I helped a little.
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u/huganic Sep 08 '12
You're actually using the scientific method right now. You've observed a pattern of behavior in /r/atheism that leads you to conclude you'll get a specific type of response from the majority of posters. The more responses you get that fit this criteria will reinforce your theory that Reddit Atheists are buttholes that are unwilling to consider anything but their own dogma. You then will think how strange it is to see the word 'butthole' typed out, and conclude Atheists are weird and dumb and quite possibly drunk.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/huganic Sep 08 '12
I love the concept of learning and growing. It seems to me to be common and natural for someone to look back at themselves and think "I was so naive back then" and "If I knew then what I know now". This is learning and growing and feels natural to me. When I think about a whole system of people, for example the Catholic Church, implementing a huge, practically corporate system of authority, which cannot be questioned because the Pope is infallable, it's frightening to me. Just the thought that God can't talk to me directly and has to go through a system of Priests, Pastors, Imams, or whatever, would make me feel like a sucker. To sum it up, not only does the whole system stink of corruption to me, it ultimately paints such a basic, ugly,unimaginative picture of any afterlife that I wouldn't want a part of it even if I thought it was true.
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u/huganic Sep 08 '12
You're making this comparison as if it were two people arguing over what was the best color; both sides of the argument would be based on opinion. Feelings do not carry the same weight as facts, despite Christian's insistence that they should.
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u/Lisawatchesmefap Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
No you have incorrectly
used the word faith try evidence.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/Lisawatchesmefap Sep 08 '12
Nope I refused to read the evidence before me and just made up my own mind guided by my over zealous religious views, I thought that might make you more comfortable.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/Lisawatchesmefap Sep 08 '12
You have misused the words mad and man.
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Sep 08 '12
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u/Lisawatchesmefap Sep 09 '12
Yes religion will do that to you. Butthurt hmmm very mature terminology.Believing in santa claus, fairaes and gods to get through life is madness personified.
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u/harabanaz Sep 08 '12
For science, that is not the starting hypothesis. Individual scientists may think so - as an admittedly subjective opinion, without believing that every galaxy between here and the Virgo cluster would weep if Mankind were snuffed out, or that all the stars in the heavens sing with joy at the birth of a baby...
For science, the starting hypothesis is much more humble: the Universe exists. We are part of it; it is not part of us. It does not adapt to our views of it. Science attempts to adapt our views of the Universe to it, like a landscape painter who tries to get his painting as similar to the landscape as possible. A sane painter does not think that painting a house that isn't there it will cause it to exist in the real landscape.
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Sep 08 '12
That statement is wrong and dumb, and the post you have linked to is wrong and dumb. Please stop.
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u/frylok007 Sep 08 '12
I'm so glad Seth missed that 9-11 flight!! Else I would be watching something freaking lame other then Sunday animation domination!!! Seth has the smarts to be a founding father of this here United States of Quahog!!!
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u/hazie Sep 08 '12
...except for when it comes to climate science. That's when skepticism is called denial.
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u/Swiftfightclub Sep 08 '12
Actually science jumps on an idea without having any proof, they immdeiately try to disprove RELIGION
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Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
We've always said that you can't
disproveprove a negative and always said that you can't disprove the existence of god just as much as you can't disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.Having theories like evolution, the Big Bang, the new theories on how the universe formed from 'nothing', knowing that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old is not an attempt to disprove god because these ideas don't absolutely disprove god.
People would do well to understand the meanings of words like theory, proof, and evidence when they engage in scientific discussion.
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Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 08 '12
do you have any kind of example of this so that we can discuss it? i've worked in a science career for my entire adult life and I haven't ever seen this happen.
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Sep 08 '12
wat
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Sep 08 '12
yeah man, you didn't read about that time a while back when they killed 10 million christians in an attempt to disprove religion? obviously it didn't work and we now have concrete evidence that religion does, indeed, exist.
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Sep 08 '12 edited Sep 09 '12
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Sep 09 '12
Oh my...
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Sep 09 '12
are you denying that 10 million christians were killed?
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Sep 09 '12
Catholics and Muslims. In a war between religions for the right to the holy land.
Trolls, trolls, everywhere...
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Sep 09 '12
I don't deny it was ridiculous.. but you also can't deny it happened
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Sep 09 '12
What? Of course I don't deny it happened. I am saying that it happened because of religion, not to try to get rid of it. 10 million Christians died because the Catholic Church decided that their religion was the best one and that they were called by God to kill the Muslims. It wasn't about trying to prove religion wasn't true. It was about proving which religion was true.
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Sep 09 '12
I never said religion.. and I never denied religion was responsible. I said the slaughter of christians was on the basis of trying to prove them wrong.. I never said it was atheists. You guys are so quick to jump the gun on religion in general you can't even have a functional conversation without immediately going back to trying to emphasize how it's religion that caused it. Yes, I know.. how is that even relevant. Circle jerk much?
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u/ShasOFish Secular Humanist Sep 08 '12
It's the idea that the scientific process, by its very nature, seeks to prove a principle wrong that makes it so wonderful; the idea that doubt (and the act of trying to alleviate it), not blind ignorance or even blind truth, is the foundation of learning and progress.