Meme Madness Monday - Evolution is Stupid Edition

It is interesting to me that Christians still have a problem with evolution. I mean, I get it. They want to feel like a special creation made in the image of their perfect god. But really there is nothing opposing religion and evolution, but it does threaten a literalist reading of the Bible. And there's nothing like projection! So let's get on with the meme take-down!

Meme #1: Use evolution to try and disprove religion - got nothing but D's in biology.

Like I said, this is pure projection. So many Christians want to use their Bible to disprove evolution, so of course scientists/atheist students must be doing the same thing!

Never mind that no, actually, scientists aren't trying to disprove your book. And never mind that there are Christians who accept evolution, but whatever! It's projection.

I have to say that the very concept of "disproving religion" is odd. Especially when some people, notably Christians, will shrug and say you gotta have faith. You can't disprove a frickin' feeling. Rather, you can disprove certain claims a religion makes. For example, we can look into history and archeology to see if the account in Exodus has any basis in reality (spoiler: there's no evidence for that account at all) or we can look at the universe and our world to see if there's any basis for the Genesis creation story (not a spoiler: it's all wrong).

Anyway, I find the formulation of disproving religion to be a strange comment. Even if it were formulated that the person in question was trying to disprove god, I think it would be odd because most atheists simply don't buy into theistic claims.

Still, evolution doesn't seem to be a good place to go to disprove a deity. I mean, the Bible offers a bounty of claims for the tri-omni god. Already Genesis 3 does not depict an all-knowing, omnipresent god and he does not appear all-powerful if iron chariots can defeat him. His pact with Abraham in Genesis 18 strikes me as the same kind of gods you can see in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

But, returning to the meme, there is a kind of argumentum ad hominem. The insinuation is this person is a terrible student who doesn't know what he's talking about so evolution is defeated forever! Let's not forget the further implications that this is a young man, probably just going through a phase, and we don't need to pay attention to him. He'll grow out of it. The memes featuring young male atheists are legion.

The reality is the truth of the theory of evolution does not depend on one random person's ability to understand it or communicate about it. And by the way people need to stop insulting young men who happen to be atheist - and they should stop stereotyping atheism as just a rebellious phase. Let's try to deal with the arguments.

Meme #2: Being an evolutionist... is like bragging you have ape blood running through your veins

This may be one of the dumbest memes I have come across. Even if it were true that we had ape blood, would that be bad? I mean, obviously we don't have ape blood because we're humans. There is that metaphorical use of blood to mean you descend from a line of people who did X and you share that trait, and this would in fact be true. We do share traits with apes.

I guess we're supposed to feel insulted, like we are all savages or whatever negative is supposed to attach to this meme, but I'm not insulted.

And can we get ever get rid of this term "evolutionist." There are people who accept the theory and people who don't. It's not like an organized group or something. The theory is interesting, but it doesn't define my morality or give me a sense of purpose, and except for looking at dumb memes, I don't give it lots of thought in my day-to-day life.

Meme #3: Don't worry baby... you will evolve someday. But mommy... evolutionists say it already happend (sic)

Well, look at that a typo and weird punctuation. You don't say! Who'd've thunk it in a creationist meme?!

Beyond that, the meme completely misunderstands the concept of evolution. No, that baby will not evolve someday. He is what he is. That population may experiences changes in its genes if conditions change to mean that some adaptation becomes more appropriate.

Also, why would evolving take away your worry? Is the baby upset it's not human? That's a ridiculous concept.

I don't know what is really meant by the baby's response that evolution has happened already. Does it mean there are already humans so he/she won't get to become human? Does it refer to itself, as in this is as evolved as it will get? I don't know. It is true, evolution has happened already and we have the diversity of life on this planet. We are still evolving and something new and different may inhabit this earth after the current species perish.

It may appear to the creationist that evolution makes you stupid, but it is clear from these memes that they are not as intelligent as they would like to think!