Remember that issue about the banana as an atheist nightmare. Ray Comfort from “Way of the Master” uses a banana to prove that God exists which turns out to be a big joke.
It just proved that Mr.Comfort just don’t have the idea what a wild banana looks like. It’s interesting that Ray Comfort claimed that the modern banana was created by God. The banana was domesticated thousands of years ago, and the modern banana was created by humans via selective breeding and cultivation. The bright yellow bananas that we know today were discovered as a mutation from the plantain banana by a Jamaican, Jean Francois Poujot, in the year 1836. He found this hybrid mutation growing in his banana tree plantation with a sweet flavor and a yellow color—instead of green or red, and not requiring cooking like the plantain banana.
Now let us talk about the hermit crab (Elassochirus gilli). Hermit crabs (both marine and terrestrial) are members of the Phylum Arthropoda, Subpylum Crustacea, Order Decapoda. Unlike their crab cousins, these hermits have soft abdominal exoskeletons. Now here’s the problem.
Christian/Creationist like Mr. Ray Comfort argues that life came from a “Great Designer” – someone who can design Mr. Comfort’s banana.
And who is this banana designer? Why…it’s Mr. Ray Comfort’s God of course – the God that you can read in the pages of the Christian Bible.
Now according to the Genesis account, this God created all living creatures (Gen. 1:24) and this God is…ehem…perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4), making all his creations perfect. In fact, God pronounced it “very good”.
Let us go back to the hermit crabs situation. Since hermit crabs have soft bellies, they will not survive without having something hard to cover their bodies. That’s why they need empty univalve mollusks shells in order to live.
I have some hermit crabs for pet (both marine and terrestrial) and believe me, without a shell to cover their asses; hermit crabs would die in less than an hour. Some hermit crabs will even kill snails just to get hold of that precious shell.
So what happened?
It seems this “perfect god” forgot to give the poor ol’ hermit crab a shell.
If Christian/Creationist like Ray Comfort and ex-child star Kirk Cameron are right about their God creating every creature living in this planet, then looking at a hermit crab only confirms the notion that this Bible-based god is a dimwit.
What is the purpose of these shells-less creature if having no shell will endanger its survival? Where’s the perfect design on that?
Maybe Mr. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron can provide us the answer using the power of the Holy Spirit…or…we can accept the fact that this Christian creation story is just a myth. There are no hermit crabs in the Judean desert and the writers of the Genesis myth are ignorant of the existence of such beautiful crustaceans.
who are we to argue with nature? the hermit crab has been around for quite some time and per my knowledge, it still isnt extinct. this hardly discredits creationism.
Pretty weak argument. The religious nut would argue that it's the way God teaches us… Like a hermit crab that changes it's shell, we should be able to adapt when the situation calls for it. A cactus can serve as a lesson for the reward of hard work, since God surrounded the water inside it with prickly thorns.
"God teaches us His lessons with everything that's around us! Isn't it amazing?!"
David Attenborough had a pretty good way of putting it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough#R…
The article is about Creationist claim of a perfect creation, not on how Christians re-interpret everything to fit their God's infinite wisdom (kuno).
Have a nice day.
"Maybe Mr. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron can provide us the answer using the power of the Holy Spirit…or…we can accept the fact that this Christian creation story is just a myth."
…or wait till modern science figure it out.
Hi Reynor. To answer that, allow me to quote from skeptic.com:
"Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe."
"Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, which involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions. Some claims, such as water dowsing, ESP, and creationism, have been tested (and failed the tests) often enough that we can provisionally conclude that they are not valid."
i am not sure where does this fit in the subject of a perceived imperfection as a factor for what the article is saying about creation and God. what i have said about waiting till science figure it out appeals to the tendency of deriving pre-mature conclusions with complete disregard for exactly what you have been pointing out in terms of scientific method.
//what i have said about waiting till science figure it out appeals to the tendency of deriving pre-mature conclusions//
Is a skeptic making a "premature conclusion" when he says that he has yet to see compelling evidence about Creationism before he will believe it?
"Is a skeptic making a "premature conclusion" when he says that he has yet to see compelling evidence about Creationism before he will believe it?" -innerminds
i would have reservation with the terms used (skeptic and creationsim). we will also be having another set of discussion about the difference of meaning that we have when we say premature conclusion and there's another conflict about negative and positive conclusion…i will not go into details with that here for having to consider the article that we are commenting on and the point I was trying to make -it is not difficult at all to conclude that the author is coming from nowhere near the idea of premature conclusion that we both have however different.
Now what will happened if science figure it out that the Roman Catholic God doesn't exist @ Reynor? Will you accept it?
the question is self-contradicting. it was made with a notion that science (as "modern science" dealing with empirical data) has the capacity, ability, and the know-how in putting God as a subject of experimentation and that science can be used to deal with a philosophical inquiry and/or things of non-empirical characteristic.
it is like asking what if "modern science" has proved to me that I have no soul or that I have no purpose in life? if maybe you can give a example of what kind of experimentation will be done; how will modern science test for the existence of God…like how will modern science subject a God or a non-empirical entity such as a soul into an empirical experimentation to test for its existence…then that would help.
It's just a question @ Raynor. You can answer it directly or not. Remember, this is your own word: "..or wait till modern science figure it out."
Beside, science can also deal with supernatural claims, not just on empirical data (see Howson and Urbach, 1993 for a book-length discussion of Bayesian inference as a
model of scientific reasoning; see also Pigliucci, 2002, 2005)
See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16536268/Can-Science-Te…
John, I think he just said "No, I will never accept it" in his own words.
"Remember, this is your own word: "..or wait till modern science figure it out."
Report" -john paraiso
john, there is a pun intended for having a myopic view of everything around us. to follow his reasoning about the hermit crab is to say that because we feel hunger we can therefore conclude that if there is a god who created us then that god is not perfect for having to created us needing still needing nutrition…and therefore god does not exist.
No @ Raynor, there is a big difference between Creationist claim of a perfect creation and hunger.
Since you mentioned hunger, you might want to check out an old article I wrote titled "If There Was An Intelligent Designer":
https://filipinofreethinkers.org/2010/03/07/if-the…