HOME | DD

Description
By .
Please direct all comments and favorites to the artist's original submission .

"Evolution implies that there is no God, therefore...
Belief in evolution leads to atheism, therefore...
Without a belief in God there can be no morality or meaning, therefore...
Without morality and meaning there is no basis for a civil society, therefore...
Without a civil society we will be reduced to living like brute animals."

-Bryan's Last Speech: The Most Powerful Arguement against Evolution Ever Made.

This is the primary reason that Creationists object so vehemantly to the theory of evolution; the belief that we evolved from animals and were not created by God means that there's no reason to behave as anything other than wild animals.

But what does it even *mean* to "behave like animals"? This assumes that all animals act the same way, and they do not. A moose acts nothing like a shark, a jellyfish acts nothing like a kangaroo, and an ant does not behave like an eagle. Animals behave differently from one another, use different strategies for survival and have different characteristics and adaptations; a herd of wildebeest will scatter at the arrival of a predator and leave the weak behind, while a herd of musk oxen will cluster together and form a wall of defence to protect their young. To lump them all together like this is erronious.

Many people are surprised to hear that Chimpanzees love meat. They hunt baboons and colobus monkeys and small deer. Hunting animals is more difficult than foraging for bugs and fruit, and chimpanzees appear to recognise this. In a society of "brute animals", a stronger chimp would have no qualms about merely stealing the meat from a weaker one, but they don't; if a chimpanzee manages to make a kill, he earns the right to ownership of the kill. He can choose as he wishes to either keep all the meat for himself or share it, and the other chimps, no matter how high or low they are on the pecking order, cannot merely take his prize away; they hold out their hands and beg for a peice. In light of this, chimpanzees appear to have a basic concept of chivalry, fairness and courtesy.

Of course, Chimpanzees also wage war against other troops of chimpanzees, commit murder and infantcide, and aren't above raping and pillaging either. However, they also work together, treat eachother kindly most of the time and, as described prior, show empathy towards eachother. These are not uniquely human qualities. To write them off as "brute animals" is folley. They have a complex, functional hunter-gatherer society that manages to work just fine without any kind of religion.

Religion is not the only basis for morality. There are practical reasons to work together and to treat others with kindness and respect. "Brute animals" seem to understand this just fine; why don't Creationists?

Description
By .
Please direct all comments and favorites to the artist's original submission .

"Evolution implies that there is no God, therefore...
Belief in evolution leads to atheism, therefore...
Without a belief in God there can be no morality or meaning, therefore...
Without morality and meaning there is no basis for a civil society, therefore...
Without a civil society we will be reduced to living like brute animals."

-Bryan's Last Speech: The Most Powerful Arguement against Evolution Ever Made.

This is the primary reason that Creationists object so vehemantly to the theory of evolution; the belief that we evolved from animals and were not created by God means that there's no reason to behave as anything other than wild animals.

But what does it even *mean* to "behave like animals"? This assumes that all animals act the same way, and they do not. A moose acts nothing like a shark, a jellyfish acts nothing like a kangaroo, and an ant does not behave like an eagle. Animals behave differently from one another, use different strategies for survival and have different characteristics and adaptations; a herd of wildebeest will scatter at the arrival of a predator and leave the weak behind, while a herd of musk oxen will cluster together and form a wall of defence to protect their young. To lump them all together like this is erronious.

Many people are surprised to hear that Chimpanzees love meat. They hunt baboons and colobus monkeys and small deer. Hunting animals is more difficult than foraging for bugs and fruit, and chimpanzees appear to recognise this. In a society of "brute animals", a stronger chimp would have no qualms about merely stealing the meat from a weaker one, but they don't; if a chimpanzee manages to make a kill, he earns the right to ownership of the kill. He can choose as he wishes to either keep all the meat for himself or share it, and the other chimps, no matter how high or low they are on the pecking order, cannot merely take his prize away; they hold out their hands and beg for a peice. In light of this, chimpanzees appear to have a basic concept of chivalry, fairness and courtesy.

Of course, Chimpanzees also wage war against other troops of chimpanzees, commit murder and infantcide, and aren't above raping and pillaging either. However, they also work together, treat eachother kindly most of the time and, as described prior, show empathy towards eachother. These are not uniquely human qualities. To write them off as "brute animals" is folley. They have a complex, functional hunter-gatherer society that manages to work just fine without any kind of religion.

Religion is not the only basis for morality. There are practical reasons to work together and to treat others with kindness and respect. "Brute animals" seem to understand this just fine; why don't Creationists?