*Falls asleep*

*discard

Self-discarding this video (discard called by original submitter eric3579)

Tags changed from "earth" to "earth, creationism, intelligent design" by gold star member joedirt.

Tags changed from "earth, creationism, intelligent design" to "atheism, creationism, intelligent design" by gold star member joedirt.

Upvote simply because this kid obviously does his homework. But do we really still need to devote precious oxygen to convincing dumb people that lightning isn't caused by gods fighting? I don't care if they're in the majority, I'm tired of stupidity being treated as an equally valid "point of view."

You're dumb, you're dumb, you're dumb. Can we move on?

Upvote for properly doing homework.

Edit:
Alright, my own reason...: upvote for not being a pretentious douche, who doesn't properly research before making moronic statements in video form. :-)

Sorry gwiz, that upvote reason was taken. You've gotta come up with your own. Maybe you can upvote for great hair?

I love Al. He could use a shot of personality, but his arguments are great.

Sean. Is. A. Robot.

Upvote for nice editing technique.

Upvote (feels good to do that after making account from lurking here for a month ) For a relatively concise, well established counterargument, that clearly does what it set out to do. Kid did his homework and covered his bases.

I don't have a downvote to give, but this would have benefited greatly from a few hours spent watching TV carefully. Yes, he did his homework, and very likely wrote a script. But he shot it in a chopped-up manner, over two different days, with two different microphone placements, so he sounded (at times) like different people. It's not like he's shooting on 35mm film - he has the luxury of infinite re-takes. He should have used this version, after the first edit, as the practice version, and edited his script and rehearsed it so he could deliver each bit without breaks.

Am I being harsh? We're the smart ones here - we should appear smart as well.

upvote for robotronic response.

best part is he presents where the other kid's info first appeared in creationist literature.

Hmm, maybe it's just me but I didn't watch this and think, oh that kid's argument sucks because he has amateur production values. Just as I wouldn't think his argument was more credible had he been wearing designer clothes. So to answer your rhetorical question, yes you are being harsh.

... yes, totally too harsh. its not like he's getting paid to do this; he's just some average dude. youtube is great.

9:59 is close enough to 10 minutes to justify a *long

This video has been marked Long (called by gold star member bl968)

This "VenomfangX" is quite a character among YouTube circles....He takes a mean refutin' and keeps on a tootin'. Never understood why dumb people rashly gravitate towards making complete fools of themselves on the interwebs.

This is like a thesis written with various pens and pencils, on crumpled coffee-stained paper with a huge number of poorly spelled words. I'm suggesting that it would be considerably more pleasant to watch if he'd give it a bit of a polish.

religion should never try to prove their views arnt just faith with science, they always end up looking stupid.

As much as I like the guy, he is a bit smug which rubs me the wrong way.

*nature

Video added to nature channel (nature called by gold star member grspec)

There now the argument for why the creationist\evolutionist battle don't have to exist?

God's time is not the same than man's time. Is really probable than a ''few'' thousand of year in human time worth one divine day. seven divine day = seven-x thousand mortal year.

* cheers of the now pacified world.

He lost me at "Supernatural gods," how the shit-friken good can he be at doing his homework when he thinks creationist Christians believe in multiple supernatural gods....

Good point, peroxide. After all, "God/Yahweh/Elohim/Jehovah/YHWH/Jesus/I Shall Come to Be What I Shall Come to Be" is the only *real* invisible man we should believe in. All those *other* invisible men are just fairy tales!

(doncha just hate it when atheists know more about your holy book than you do?)

Went to college with Al. He was always hilarious and a good guy, this video is very much in his style of person - such that I think it is great editing and deserves an upvote. While its true that a bit of polish in places might have helped, I believe it is still a great watch.

Knock them creationist straw men down (and thanks for having good facts Al.)

"But do we really still need to devote precious oxygen to convincing dumb people that lightning isn't caused by gods fighting? I don't care if they're in the majority, I'm tired of stupidity being treated as an equally valid "point of view.""

Yeah, yeah we do. See the problem is that mainstream media in the US is enamoured with the damn creationist view of things. While there are still so many, many people who know that it's bunk, sometimes they have a problem refuting the creationist somewhat plausible sounding attacks. Sure you may know that what they're saying is shite, but you can't pull out of your brain the exact counter argument to refute them right then and there (cause, you know, you have better things to do than trying to prove things you already know to be true), so it's nice to have little pieces like this that allow you to go "Watch this and realize how WRONG you are"

Let me sum up for those who can't be bothered watching it all:

-Creationist guys says some dumb things, trying to defend his opinion.
-Al (the guy in the video) decides to defend his opinion by trauling websites which contain rebuttles. He presents them in the most boring way possible. He does exactly what his opponent does- relies on someone elses understanding (or what has been written on the 'net), not really knowing what is true or not. Al could easily be as wrong as the guy he's trying to correct, and it's doubtful Al would ever know.
-Dumb people on the internet say, "Yay, go Al! You're really smart!"
-Al shouldn't try video editing again.

Al could easily be as wrong as the guy he's trying to correct,

No, while the guy may have some problems making this exciting, he clearly has several sources, updated info, and corrections taken into account. He explains where the creationists arguments come from, and why its always wrong. The creationist simply assumes, as they always do, that a bible-loving pseudo-scientist has the last word.. Their "Science" is "A Scientist once said" without taking any rebuttals, further explanations or proof to the contrary into account. if some scientist from the 19th century said something, anything that could be seen as support for creationism, it seems that kind of "Science" is above all critisism.

When "science" "proves" the bible, suddenly "science" is more than good enough.

lol. for a video that was discarded, making it to #3 is kinda ironic.

i thought it was well done, and there was actually a bit of humor in there. but not too much, it is Science afterall!

The creationist simply assumes, as they always do, that a bible-loving pseudo-scientist has the last word.

I'm a creationist, and I don't think this this way. I don't believe the earth is 6000 years old as some do, but I fit into the category you're referring to. Perhaps it'd be smarter not thorwing everyone who believes in creation into the same pot as someone like Shaun, who isn't too well researched.

He explains where the creationists arguments come from, and why its always wrong.

No he doesn't. He says the source of Shaun's arguements come from incorrect statements made by a few creationists. Al then offers up statements and current understandings from a bunch of other scientists. That's largely the same thing as Shaun the creationist did, and Al's just as much at risk of being proven wrong himself at some point in the future... except for the odd point, such as pointing out that something did or did not happen. The only plus in Al's favor is that he can actually get his stats correct when quoting them.

When "science" "proves" the bible, suddenly "science" is more than good enough.

I agree with you that this is often a problem.

Perhaps it'd be smarter not thorwing everyone who believes in creation into the same pot as someone like Shaun, who isn't too well researched.

Well, its kinda difficult to know for me, he was referring to Young Earth Creationists(YEC), the kind that believes 6000 years, so thats who I was addressing as well..

That's largely the same thing as Shaun the creationist did, and Al's just as much at risk of being proven wrong himself at some point in the future... except for the odd point, such as pointing out that something did or did not happen.

Not really.. theres some things that we just know to be true that is very,very unlikely to be wrong, Scientists currently "believe" the earth orbits the sun, its not something likely to be "corrected" in the future. Evolution is also firmly placed in this category of knowledge, there is no real chance they "could be wrong, just like YEC's" Evolution is not only extremely likely to be true, but it also provides a flawless, elegant explanation to all forms of life. This is why the "Guided by God" and "Started by God" is almost as nonsensical as the "6000 years" claims. Provided that you understand the evolutionary process* , the invoking of God into the process or at the start of it, really becomes absurd.

*For the record, I did NOT fully understand evolution before I read books about it, despite the fact that I thought I did, so before concluding on creation I really recommend reading something like "The Blind Watchmaker" or "The Selfish Gene" It really does explain it like you've never had it explained before..

i agree with coupland when he says:

"But do we really still need to devote precious oxygen to convincing dumb people that lightning isn't caused by gods fighting? I don't care if they're in the majority, I'm tired of stupidity being treated as an equally valid "point of view."

You're dumb, you're dumb, you're dumb. Can we move on?"

on an unrelated matter, what happened with the discard? it magically jumped back on queue or what? i do not understand.

nobody knows WHY the earth is not 6000 years old. We just know it isn't. Why God chose to make it billions of years ago and then put creationists on it is not mine to reason. *
*please note use of smiley.

Shaun just got pwned. PWNAGE!!

For me, the most beautiful evidence of evolution is in shared molecular biology across all of life.

Something else I want to throw out there is that Darwin (and Wallace) proposed the mechanism of Natural Selection to explain evolution, but evolution was noted and used for things like categorizing life well before a solid mechanism was discovered to explain it. A famous earlier mechanism before natural selection was Lamarck's acquired trait theory of evolution, where using a certain thing(say, your neck) a lot would lead to the next generation having a better adapted part (to explain giraffes, for example). Learning about previously debunked theories like Lamarck's is great fun because that theory is not outright ridiculous on some levels, but natural selection in comparison has so far been exactly applicable to every level of biology thrown at it in the past 150 years, through incredible leaps in understanding. And, because it relied on things like the world being tremendously old, its power echoed through other disciplines like geology and astronomy.

So true bamdrew, I'm really almost pissed at myself for not reading books like "The Selfish Gene" earlier, and bitter about the educational system, because it gives such an incomplete understanding of evolution. Now that I do understand it atleast a little better, I wish it was like its own class in school, sidelining Math and english and such.

Its almost baffling that we spend several hours a week understanding the grammar of the language we happen to be born into, but the only thing we ever hear about evolution is "We started as bacteria, that became fish, then frogs, then apes, and now we are humans.. Now spell HUMAN for me"

umm.. i'v never heard the "shinking sun" thing

"As much as I like the guy, he is a bit smug which rubs me the wrong way."

That's totally irrelevant to the subject of the video.