Bringing Religion and Science Back Together

Steven Colbert is a comedian who pretends to be a right wing talk show host on the Comedy Network. Richard Dawkins is a real scientist who wrote "The God Delusion" and more recently, a book supporting evolution for the masses "The Greatest Show on Earth".

Once again, in this interview, Steven destroyed Richard Dawkin's logic. Although Richard did make one very interesting point, that no matter where in the universe life evolves, it would have to evolve using the same principles of evolution as it did on Earth, such as natural selection. I never heard that idea expressed before, and I would like to know more about it. Questions that spring to mind are: would life on another planet always involve the reproduction and death cycle? Or could one creature accidentally be formed first and then continuously change, grow, improve, and live more or less forever? Anyway that's just a sidetrack.

This is how Steven Colbert destroyed Dawkins. With the simple question "If we have evolved millions of years to be beautiful and to pass on our genes, how come there are still ugly people?" Dawkins was floored, you can watch the episode here

I think I might be able to help out Richard Dawkins, as I have come across this idea before, that the existence of beauty proves God exists. The logic goes like this: because beauty exists, therefore God exists. The fundamentalists take it a little further, and explain human existence this way: God created Adam and Adam was beautiful, therefore he must have been a white skinned European because all those other people (and especially the Neanderthals) were afflicted with major uglies.

I have often argued in the past that there is no proof of what Adam looked like, if he did exist, as there are no photos in the Bible. Creationists counter that he must have been very beautiful, because God created him. And I argue back: but were there not certain parts of his body that maybe weren't so beautiful, and need to be hidden from sight, therefore proving that God could not have created him? Not so, say the creationists, those ugly parts are only ugly because Man has sinned in the eyes of the Lord, thereby bringing us into a state where we are unable to judge the true beauty of the Lord's work, therefore we simply cover up those parts with a Speedo or possibly Fruit of the Looms.

Obviously, once again we have entered the twilight zone of reason, and so I usually stop after Fruit of the Loom, and before things get out of hand. But just last week, scientists revealed the latest "Missing Link" a fossil which might be a human ancestor, "Ardi", 4.4 million years old. The surprise was that she was so human-like, although she would never be mistaken for a prom queen. That can be an indication that we have actually evolved from a human Eve-like figure, and not a monkey at all, and proving that parts of the Bible are correct. It turns out the monkey evolved from Man, and not the other way round.

Picture "Adam and Ardi Smoking Pot", I took the pot smoking pic off the Internet and added the chimp head to Eve with photoshop. My contribution to the advancement of understanding between scientists and religious extremists. Alternate title for the picture "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder"