Church Signs on CNN iReport

I just did the rare double facepalm upon seeing that sign. How are people still asking this question?!?!

If Americans evolved from Englishmen, why are there still Englishmen?

If Italian, French, and Spanish evolved from Latin, why is there still Latin (the official language, to this day, of the Vatican)?

If rock and roll music evolved from jazz and the blues, why are there still jazz and the blues forms of music?

Need I go on?

If african-americans evolved from white people, how come there are still white people???

Laugh all you want, but the sad fact is that most people think "ladder" not "tree", and they do so for the same reason I did decades ago, which is that they just don't give 5 minutes' thought to what evolution really is. But they do have that cartoonish caricature firmly engraved in their minds.

And "most people" includes millions who accept evolution (or the caricature), often for the wrong reason. Only a minority are the "Faith Baptist" types, who are lost causes anyway.

If Protestants evolved from Catholics, why are there still Catholics ? If flowers evolved from ferns, why are there still ferns ?
Gah - ignorance truly is bliss, I wish I had ignored the Faith Baptist sign.

Take a look at the RationalWiki article "How come there are still monkeys?"

"http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/How_come_there_are_still_monkeys%3F"

If the Baptists evolved from the Catholic church, why does the Catholic church still exist?

TomS said: Take a look at the RationalWiki article ...

Let the retards display their ignorance for all to see. Any thoughtful informed person will see right through their nonsense. Once the masses realize the level of stupidity embraced by these cretins, such churches will lose all credibility. People will eventually learn the truth and leave the churches in droves. It is very hard to keep em down on the farm when they have high speed internet and financial incentives for getting a real education.

They might as well put up signs saying:

"If the earth is round, why don't we all go spinning off into space?"

"If the earth goes around the sun, why does the moon follow it like a puppy dog?"

"If humans cause global warming, why is there still winter?"

Yea, that should increase their membership and attract the most sophisticated intellectuals to the flock. Here is a better one for you:

If evolution is true, why are people still so ignorant about it?

That would make a good sign for the entrance to every university, college and community college in the country. Then we could start getting people to hold up signs with football scores in church choirs, or go into church with scientific references painted under their eyes. Maybe then someone would realize how annoying and counter productive that kind of crap is.

nonsense said: If african-americans evolved from white people, how come there are still white people???

So many concepts in science poke holes in theist doctrine. Their myths and fairy tales are bogus with or without evolution. Why does evolution get the brunt of the attacks rather than geology, astronomy or other 'believed' sciences. Part of it is a willful misunderstanding of the scientific term 'theory' but that cannot be all.

In answer to their sign: There are still monkeys so that preachers can have parents.

Reinard said: I just did the rare double facepalm upon seeing that sign. How are people still asking this question?!?!

Actually some of those quotes were fun:

HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS

TEXT WHILE DRIVING IF YOU WANT TO MEET HIM.

Apparently the pastor has a black sense of humor. "I like!"

The real question is, "If human beings were specially created, why are there apes and monkeys *at all*?" Evolution would demand that there be similar forms, both alive and extinct -- and what do you know, there are. Creationism can mumble something about the Creator resorting to "common design," or try to argue that apes are simply animals and not really so similar, but a look at chimpanzees in particular (they have hands! with fingernails! and human-like external ears!) makes that argument look a little lame. The common genetic defect that prevents most of the primates (including us) from being able to produce vitamin C within their bodies when most of the other animals can just about clinches the case.

Now, if people stood alone, with no other obviously similar animals anywhere close, say, if no other primates existed and there were no signs of any in the fossil record, if it seemed that people really had spontaneously popped into existence at some point, then the Creationists might have something. As it is, with every delicious, healthful, refreshing glass of orange juice a Creationist has to drink to get his vitamin C, there's a grinning metaphorical ape perched on his shoulder saying, "Howdy, Cuz!"

Deklane said: The real question is, "If human beings were specially created, why are there apes and monkeys *at all*?"

This sign was near where I lived (Bozeman, MT) back at Mother's Day:
http://thedispersalofdarwin.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/a-perfect-farewell/

Michael D. Barton, FCD said: This sign was near where I lived (Bozeman, MT) back at Mother's Day: http://thedispersalofdarwin.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/a-perfect-farewell/

Ron Okimoto said: If the Baptists evolved from the Catholic church, why does the Catholic church still exist?

One wonders what the sermon was like. It might have been reasonable. The question is so obviously dumb that it is hard to picture a sermon in support of the question. This is my argument from incredulity. :-)

One guy actually said to me, "if evolution were true,then all life would become human,since we are the highest life form."

My friend once actually said, and I quote: " if evolution is true and the big bang really happened then why isn't everything perfect by now?"

Then again he things black holes get full and throw out matter, that if an asteroid struck earth to create the moon it would send the earth into save, and that 13 families control the entire world.

But goshdarnit he is good entertainment.

Oops i meant space

If you look at the posted sign and I'm sure similiar ones, you can readily see that the monkeys are hard at work thinking up signs to post like this.

Aha ! I have it ! The monkeys are still around to bash on typewriters in order to re-create the works of Shakespeare !

:-)

"Stupid monkey! I told you to write the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, not the complete works of Shakespeare!"

This is too well punctuated to be real. The comma is a dead giveaway.

Gary said: One guy actually said to me, "if evolution were true,then all life would become human,since we are the highest life form."

Highest life form? Then potheads would be the pinnacle of existence.

"Like KOZMIK, man!"

A more accurate parallel would be "If I'm descended from my grandparents, why are my cousins still alive?"

truthspeaker said: A more accurate parallel would be "If I'm descended from my grandparents, why are my cousins still alive?"

A few of my favorites:

"If paper comes from trees, why are there still trees?",

"If adults come from children, why are there still children?",

"If Christians came from Jews, why are there still Jews?", (to which the good pastor would probably reply; "We're still working on that!")

Anyone else feel a contest coming on? But take heart, there are probably a few youngsters attending this church that will see how ludicrous this is and start to wonder how the good reverend, who supposedly is responding to a call from god himself to spread the word of truth, could come up with such nonsense. This is how the seeds of skepticism are sown - a process called Atheogenesis.

My version is "If God made man from clay, why is there still clay?"

I actually used it against a girl who tried the monkey argument and I just got a blank stare back.

Reed A. Cartwright said: I actually used it against a girl who tried the monkey argument and I just got a blank stare back.

When asked this, I ask in return if they have any cousins. When the reponse is yes, I ask them why they are still alive. If I don't like the person, I tell them they are too stupid to exist.

Reed A. Cartwright said: My version is "If God made man from clay, why is there still clay?" I actually used it against a girl who tried the monkey argument and I just got a blank stare back.

Slightly OT, another common misleading sound bite that I hear much more often than the "monkeys" one is the "chiken/egg" one. My reply is "Which came first, the ribozyme or the ribozyme?" Not one of the few dozen people I mentioned it to had a clue what I meant.

my favorite is "if the pilgrims came from plymouth, why is there still plymouth"? ... and this also shows up a nice facet of intuition pumping: it's better to say "if A evolved from B ..." because it cuts off the plymouth analogy as a response; but it's even better to say "if B evolved into A...", since this suggests an assumption that B should necessarily have disappeared. I think it's telling that creationists are only too keen to use any faux argument that relies on false intuition, but they're generally not bright enough to use the third version, preferring the second and sometimes even the first for it's jimmy-stewarty town-hall direct manner

If Federal/Constitutional Democracy evolved from Monarchical/Parliamentary Democracy, how come there is still Monarchical/Parliamentary Democracy?

MrG said:

Michael D. Barton, FCD said: This sign was near where I lived (Bozeman, MT) back at Mother's Day: http://thedispersalofdarwin.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/a-perfect-farewell/

Heh! Yeah, that's off I-90, isn't it, I saw that going to Spokane. I would think it more in character for Butte.

I vote that the open palmed blow to the forehead that occasionally results when someone asks the question in the original photo be referred to as a "chimp slap."

On a cross-country trip I was driving through Georgia and noticed an awful lot of churches. I didn't get a picture, but the most memorable sign had an arrow pointing up the side street and read "Church for Sale."

Oh, a funny one I just remembered. Last week I passed a church with a sign saying "Mosquitoes: proof that God is not benevolent."

All actual arguments from various web sites ...

John_S said: If you leave a jar of peanut butter, it will never turn into a living creature (I think there's an actual YouTube demo of this).

John_S said: Evolution is false because:

Scientists weren’t there to see it.

If we evolved, how come we don’t have useful stuff like wings or a third eye?

Darwin was a racist.

Hitler was a Darwinist.

So were Mao and Stalin.

Evolution is a religion, not science.

Evolution was invented so we can act like “animals” and don’t have to listen to God.

Darwin denied evolution on his death bed.

How come we never see monkeys in the zoo suddenly turn into humans?

When a tornado hits a junkyard, it never creates a 747.

A Tudor never evolves into a ranch house.

If you leave a jar of peanut butter, it will never turn into a living creature (I think there's an actual YouTube demo of this).

There are no transition fossils.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are just “micro-evolution”, not a change of “kind”.

When can I expect my cat to turn into a dog?

How can we evolve unless we already have a brain to figure out how to do it?

How could a monkey become a person over billions of years when they don’t live that long?

If we used to be monkeys, why can’t we talk to them?

If all animals were descended from a common ancestor, how come they can’t all mate with each other and produce non-sterile offspring?

All actual arguments from various web sites ...

John_S said:

If you leave a jar of peanut butter, it will never turn into a living creature (I think there's an actual YouTube demo of this).

If any creationist is reading this - a quick tip: Forget peanut butter. You will find all the Godless Darwinists in the supermarket aisle stocked with detergents. They are using washing powder for farming the enzymes for abiogenesis research. If you don't believe me, go and see for yourselves. They are the ones who faintly smell of iodine or sulphur.

This traveling evangelist list this church as one of his destinations.

Faith Baptist Church, Pastor Rick Osborn, 2241 Kilpatrick Rd. Nokomis, FL

These signs seem to be especially popular with Baptist churches. In fact, one site for making fake church signs is called "baptist-church.signgenerator.org". In fairness, sometimes they're rather clever. One I saw on the way to work said "Talk to God - free minutes, no roaming charges".

CNN is losing ratings to Fox etc. this is a desperate attempt to say they are not hostile to Christians after decades of hostility. They need to allow diversity of people and not just diversity of signs. Hopeless liberals.

By the way. It makes sense to people that if evolution is going on by biological change then the previous ones should of vanished.
its a good point.
Yes they are mistaken in thinking evolution is saying all primates were evolving up to humans.
Yet the instinct is right that its unlikely creatures stay in one body form while cousins go crazy with change.

Okay, leaving aside "should of" instead of "should have," RB has a fair question.

The answer is, that monkeys are still around because 1.) they evolved to exploit forest canopies, where there isn't a lot of either competition or predation; and 2.) they have a symbiotic relationship with their food source. Fruit trees thrive and spread when their fruits are eaten, and then their undigestible seeds are deposited elsewhere, along with a nice packet of fertilizer to help them get started.

As far as why apes didn't out-compete monkeys, new-world monkeys were never in the same place as apes. Why old-world monkeys weren't replaced by apes is a legitimate scientific question. Chimpanzees, for instance, have been known to kill and eat monkeys. But the general answer is that apes and monkeys are inhabiting slightly different ecological niches. (Not to mention the fact that there are many different species of monkeys, inhabiting different niches from each other.) Why don't you try reading some studies of monkey species, Robert? You might begin to understand just how solidly based evolution really is.

Robert Byers said: Yet the instinct is right that its unlikely creatures stay in one body form while cousins go crazy with change.

Byers wrote:

"Yet the instinct is right that its unlikely creatures stay in one body form while cousins go crazy with change."

Really? Now why exactly would that be? maybe you could cite a scientific reference providing some evidence for this assertation? Do you think that sharks are a problem for evolution? Exactly how different do you think that humans and chimps are genetically? Is that level of change "crazy"?

Ah, the old creationist gimmick of: "Geology claims the landscape changes through slow processes of erosion and other gradual geological change. Geology claims that the landscape changes through rapid processes of catastrophic change like caldera eruptions. Geology is a fraud."

Wait ... oh, right, they actually make these sort of claims about evolution. Hmm, to the extent they talk geology they generally don't like the "gradual change" angle.

hoary puccoon said: Okay, leaving aside "should of" instead of "should have," RB has a fair question.

Johm S--

I'm afraid I don't get your point. Are you saying natural selection never acts on gross morphology? According to a short check on the web, there are about 160 different species of monkeys, so obviously they have undergone a lot of genetic differention. But nobody was asking if monkeys had undergone evolution like everything else. Byer's question was about that particular body plan we identify as monkeys. Why is it wrong to say they survived and flourished because of their morphological adaptations?

Ooops-- differention should be differentiation.

Anyway, forget it. I knew if I tried to give a polite response to a creationist that I was sure to get sliced, diced and julienned from the other side. You're right, I'm wrong. I'm out.

hoary puccoon said: Byer's question was about that particular body plan we identify as monkeys.

John_S said: Evolution is false because:

Scientists weren’t there to see it.

If we evolved, how come we don’t have useful stuff like wings or a third eye?

Darwin was a racist.

Hitler was a Darwinist.

So were Mao and Stalin.

Evolution is a religion, not science.

Evolution was invented so we can act like “animals” and don’t have to listen to God.

Darwin denied evolution on his death bed.

How come we never see monkeys in the zoo suddenly turn into humans?

When a tornado hits a junkyard, it never creates a 747.

A Tudor never evolves into a ranch house.

If you leave a jar of peanut butter, it will never turn into a living creature (I think there's an actual YouTube demo of this).

There are no transition fossils.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are just “micro-evolution”, not a change of “kind”.

When can I expect my cat to turn into a dog?

How can we evolve unless we already have a brain to figure out how to do it?

How could a monkey become a person over billions of years when they don’t live that long?

If we used to be monkeys, why can’t we talk to them?

If all animals were descended from a common ancestor, how come they can’t all mate with each other and produce non-sterile offspring?

All actual arguments from various web sites ...

Not church signs, but there was a hotel near where I use to live that had a sign like this. Once during a cold snap it read: "It's too cold to change this sign." The deep freeze went on for a week or so, at which point the sign was changed to read" "It's still too cold to change this sign."

Robert Byers said: CNN is losing ratings to Fox etc. this is a desperate attempt to say they are not hostile to Christians after decades of hostility. They need to allow diversity of people and not just diversity of signs. Hopeless liberals. By the way. It makes sense to people that if evolution is going on by biological change then the previous ones should of vanished. its a good point. Yes they are mistaken in thinking evolution is saying all primates were evolving up to humans. Yet the instinct is right that its unlikely creatures stay in one body form while cousins go crazy with change.

hoary puccoon said: Ooops-- differention should be differentiation. Anyway, forget it. I knew if I tried to give a polite response to a creationist that I was sure to get sliced, diced and julienned from the other side. You're right, I'm wrong. I'm out.

Dale Husband said:

Robert Byers said: CNN is losing ratings to Fox etc. this is a desperate attempt to say they are not hostile to Christians after decades of hostility. They need to allow diversity of people and not just diversity of signs. Hopeless liberals. By the way. It makes sense to people that if evolution is going on by biological change then the previous ones should of vanished. its a good point. Yes they are mistaken in thinking evolution is saying all primates were evolving up to humans. Yet the instinct is right that its unlikely creatures stay in one body form while cousins go crazy with change.

What a nice pack of lies that is. CNN is no more hostile to Christianity than simply reporting facts about it would indicate.......oh, that may be the problem, eh? BTW, ever heard of "living fossils"?

JDE said: I'm convinced this kind of ignorance isn't a simply a result of poor education; it's inherent stupidity, coupled with authoritarianism on steroids. There's no lifting these people out of their mire. Our only hope for human continuity is to minimize their effect upon society (i.e., don't let them vote) and prohibit them from breeding. Of course, neither of these will ever be done. This is the reason we're screwed. If smart people evolved from dumb-asses, why are there still dumb-asses?

John_S said: That's why I don't pay a lot of attention to polls about belief in evolution. It's like asking the "man on the street" if he believes in the general theory of relativity.

But I guess I'm less pessimistic than you - I still holding out hope for better education.

hoary puccoon said: Okay, leaving aside "should of" instead of "should have," RB has a fair question. The answer is, that monkeys are still around because 1.) they evolved to exploit forest canopies, where there isn't a lot of either competition or predation; and 2.) they have a symbiotic relationship with their food source. Fruit trees thrive and spread when their fruits are eaten, and then their undigestible seeds are deposited elsewhere, along with a nice packet of fertilizer to help them get started. As far as why apes didn't out-compete monkeys, new-world monkeys were never in the same place as apes. Why old-world monkeys weren't replaced by apes is a legitimate scientific question. Chimpanzees, for instance, have been known to kill and eat monkeys. But the general answer is that apes and monkeys are inhabiting slightly different ecological niches. (Not to mention the fact that there are many different species of monkeys, inhabiting different niches from each other.) Why don't you try reading some studies of monkey species, Robert? You might begin to understand just how solidly based evolution really is.

Robert Byers said:

hoary puccoon said: Okay, leaving aside "should of" instead of "should have," RB has a fair question. The answer is, that monkeys are still around because 1.) they evolved to exploit forest canopies, where there isn't a lot of either competition or predation; and 2.) they have a symbiotic relationship with their food source. Fruit trees thrive and spread when their fruits are eaten, and then their undigestible seeds are deposited elsewhere, along with a nice packet of fertilizer to help them get started. As far as why apes didn't out-compete monkeys, new-world monkeys were never in the same place as apes. Why old-world monkeys weren't replaced by apes is a legitimate scientific question. Chimpanzees, for instance, have been known to kill and eat monkeys. But the general answer is that apes and monkeys are inhabiting slightly different ecological niches. (Not to mention the fact that there are many different species of monkeys, inhabiting different niches from each other.) Why don't you try reading some studies of monkey species, Robert? You might begin to understand just how solidly based evolution really is.

My readings always show its not solidly based. Saying monkeys etc just had it so right they didn't need to evolve away is still not a answer to the power of the criticism. If things change and time surely brings fantastic change to enviorments then its unlikely that people or anything would be so stressed yet cousins be unstressed the whole way. It requires such need to bring evolution see new results and yet evolution is saying sometimes nothing changes despite great time passing. Its a instinct of people to see this as unlikely. Your asking for a unlikely idea of evolution and then alongside the idea of no/little evolution. if your saying things don't change then why think anything did? If fact i notice that 20-40 millions years ago evolution says great numbers of creatures looked like they do now. From horses to pronghorns . It doesn't add up.

...

This (mesohippus, c. 40mya) apparently looks like a modern horse to Bob.

...

Nah. No point, really. He's hermetically sealed.

Byers wrote:

"My readings always show its not solidly based. Saying monkeys etc just had it so right they didn’t need to evolve away is still not a answer to the power of the criticism. If things change and time surely brings fantastic change to enviorments then its unlikely that people or anything would be so stressed yet cousins be unstressed the whole way. It requires such need to bring evolution see new results and yet evolution is saying sometimes nothing changes despite great time passing. Its a instinct of people to see this as unlikely. Your asking for a unlikely idea of evolution and then alongside the idea of no/little evolution. if your saying things don’t change then why think anything did? If fact i notice that 20-40 millions years ago evolution says great numbers of creatures looked like they do now. From horses to pronghorns . It doesn’t add up."

Still no references eh? Still no grammar either. Look dude, sometimes the environment changes, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it changes in one place and not so much in another. Sometimes mutations occur in one population and not another. Sometimes drift occurs differently in one population compared to another. What is observed is exactly what one would expect from just such processes. So what is your problem? If evolution doesn't occur at exactly the same rate in every place all the time it can't happen anywhere? Bull puckey. Thats crazy talk.

Horses have not remained the same for forty million years, neither has anything else. Just because something looks about the same as it did before doesn't mean that it hasn't changed genetically. You really should read some scientific literature if you want anyone to take you seriously. Come back when you some references to back up your incredulity. It doesn't add up!

If evolution isnt true, why is your reasoning still so much like a moneys?

Thats crazy talk.

Robert Byers said: My readings always show its not solidly based. Saying monkeys etc just had it so right they didn't need to evolve away is still not a answer to the power of the criticism. If things change and time surely brings fantastic change to enviorments then its unlikely that people or anything would be so stressed yet cousins be unstressed the whole way. It requires such need to bring evolution see new results and yet evolution is saying sometimes nothing changes despite great time passing.

Robert Byers said: If things change and time surely brings fantastic change to enviorments then its unlikely that people or anything would be so stressed yet cousins be unstressed the whole way.

John_S said: What is the basis for assuming that it's "unlikely that people or anything would be so stressed yet cousins be unstressed the whole way"? To take an analogy, millions of people left Italy for America after the First World War. Millions didn't. The descendants of the ones who left eventually spoke English. The ones who stayed continued to speak Italian. Is it so unlikely that one group of people would speak one language while their cousins spoke another? In one case, the people who stayed had no "stress" to change their language. The people who left needed to learn English to survive and earn a living, so they did.

...I’ve been seeing reports of early work on a complementary “virome”. It seems the complex human microecology also includes an extensive set of viruses – and they may well be a necessary component of the whole.

oops, wrong thread. That'll teach me to use tabs.