Kevin Schnitzius pointed me to this video, which has been around for a while but was recently mentioned by the Disgruntled Chemist. Skip to about the two-minute mark to get some deep insight into the creationist mindset, which Tara from Aetiology (which has since moved) accurately dubbed the “argument from banana.”
You really do need to see the video, but I’ll spill the beans for the impatient: bananas are the quintessentially designed object. Not only do they fit snugly into a human hand, they even have ridges to allow for a tighter grip, a built-in color-coding that lets us know when they’re ripe, and — my favorite — a convenient pull-tab at the top for easy peeling! What better proof for the existence of God could one need?
I do wonder what they make of the Durian. Perhaps the Designer has a sense of humor?
Update: If you want to know more (perhaps your faith in naturalism has been shaken?), the video comes from a series called The Way of the Master, featuring Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. It purportedly shows in 70 countries, and has been awarded honors by the National Religious Broadcasters association.
I could make a similar argument for the existence of the domestic cat as a pet. It’s clean, doesn’t need to be given a bath or taken for walks, it is small and light enough to sit on just about anyone’s lap – from that of a 3 yr old to a nanogenarian. It stays still on said lap most of the time, contentedly purring while keeping the human warm. It needs very little food and it can keep itself amused with common household objects for a long time. What better pet can a human have?
That’s hilarious. I wonder how he’d respond if asked why there are varieties of banana that don’t fit his specs.
By the way, am I supposed to know who those guys are?
Janet, I don’t think you should feel bad about not knowing who these guys are.
I heard about this crazy banana argument. However, we now have a means to put intelligent design to the test. I claim that bananas are not designed to be peeled by their stem. In fact, it is much easier to peel them from the opposite end. Don’t believe me? Try it. I think there was a thing in Slate about this a while back but I can’t recall the link. The claim there was that all the other banana-eating primates know about this except for us.
I suppose they could just argue that the stem is actually designed to be a handle. Oh well.
Oh yes. That “pop tab at the top” is the wrong way to open one anyway. Open it from the flower end. Much easier. Monkeys know this BTW. Does that make them smarter than the creationist?
Interestingly, religious bigotry doesn’t seem to count as a sin.
Speaking of cats, Georg Lichtenberg presented the following “proof” for the existence of God: He must exist, because the two holes in the fur of a cat are exactly where its eyes are.
During the photo montage of serene nature photos with the God-as-builder/painter voice-over, I’d love for them to show nature at some of its less graceful moments. Perhaps clips of the birth of a giraffe, insects eating their young, mosquitos spreading malaria, etc.; with a voice-over about God’s engineering and design prowess.
The sex life of bonobos would be funny on multiple levels as well.
I found it hilarious at first, then somewhat depressing after seeing the lenght of the clip and thinking of people actually buying these arguments.
It astounds me that people like those shown in the video are so incapable of critical thinking. I can only suppose that they had no non-religous schooling and that they were brain washed at an early age to beleive such silliness.
As far as having them deal with things like the Durian, bonobo sex life, and why churhes get struck by lightning at the same rate as any other building it will never happen. (would be very funny if it did) The creationist mindset is to ignore all data that does not support the pre-existing belief.
And while monkeys are not smarter than creationists at least they don’t deny the evidence that it is easier to open the banana from the flower end.
If the solar system had been designed, the year would have an even number of days. Therefore there is no God. Next question.
I love it! After viewing this banana clip, I must conclude that our Pristine Designer has one dirty mind! On a more positive note, Our Almighty Designer’s obsession with oral sex might become motivation for a large wave of Creationists to convert to Atheism. Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort – what a brilliant strategy to combat the ID movement!
Try opening a macadamia nut. Did God design tool steel nutcrackers? Divine infinite wisdom has a pan-global explicitly poor track record of separating latrines from wells. Test of faith!
If Moses’ Ten Commandments had ferrous metallurgy outlined on their converse sides, the Bronze Age Israelites would have had a leg up on the Hittites. Getting biblical pi correct past one significant figure would have been telling. Yahweh’s little jokes.
Of course, the banana was designed. It’s even named after the genetic engineer who produced it (sometime in the 22nd century if I recall correctly). See Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair.
Since the durian is the national fruit of Malaysia, I feel honour bound to rise to its defense.
While not as well-endowed in the anthropic sense as the banana, it has its qualities :
(a) Like the banana, it has a ripe/not-ripe toggle. Ripe durians automatically drop from their trees, which means that you walk in a durian orchard during harvesting season with a helmet.
(b) It has a quality gauge, namely its smell. The more pungent it is, the better tasting it is.
(c) It’s thorns are natural transport aid. You can pile a hill-worth of them in an open back truck, and they do not slide off each other.
For more details on the banana argument see chapter 2 here.
Fascinating video. They certainly have developed a good strategy for your run of the mill atheist. And, of course, they’re right that atheism is just as much a faith as any religion (but not right that the logical complement of atheism is christianity). If people realize they’re agnostic rather than atheist, they should just stick to agnosticism. It’s the only really scientific viewpoint, in my opinion. What do the atheists here say to their “proving an absolute statement” argument?
I think there was a thing in Slate about this a while back but I can’t recall the link.
I knew I’d seen a link to that Slate article somewhere recently, but it took me a while to find it. Turns out it was in this post on slacktivist.com. (Not a blog I read regularly, but one I happened to read that day.) The Slate article in question is here, though there are a couple of other interesting tidbits in the comments to the slacktivist.com post, too.
Sam Gralla – But the strict meaning of “agnostic” is, or originally was, not just someone who is undecided on the issue of the existence of god, but someone who explicitly believes that it is completely impossible to ever know whether there is a god or not. Which is just as much an absolute as specifically believing that there definitely is or isn’t a god, and is no more scientific.
Of course, nowadays most people don’t use “agnostic” in that sense. But not everyone uses “atheist” in the strict sense you’re referring to, either. Regarding the “prove the absolute statement” bit, I’ve heard many atheists explain that it isn’t that they believe there absolutely, positively, cannot be a god, but that they have seen no reason to believe in a god, and in light of Occam’s Razor think it more likely that there isn’t one. In the absence of compelling reason to believe, disbelief is the default. So in that sense, they mean by “atheist” more or less what you mean by “agnostic”; it’s pretty much just a semantic issue. You may quibble that the word “agnostic” would more accurately represent their standpoint, but the fact is, as I’ve noted above, that that isn’t really what “agnostic” means either, in the strict sense, and there just isn’t a simple word that really encompasses the meaning in question.
Sean, you left out the most important part: helping to peddle this crap is none other than Growing Pains child star Kirk Cameron!
The sun comes up in the morning right around the time I’m about ready to go to work, too. Convenient, well-thought-out design. It’s like the iPod of the Solar System, only bigger.
I assume, then, that creationists only eat foods that are designed for human handling and consumption. I mean, grain has to be ground into flour and then baked into bread, pasta, or some other confection, so clearly it’s not designed for human consumption. Then there are foods that are poisonous or unpleasant until cooked, or that don’t have a not-ripe/ripe/spoiled indicator. Clearly the Designer didn’t intend for us to eat those.
Good luck with that all-banana diet!
I saw this video and ….. God it was funny! 😉 I really liked the argument that God must exist because those who don’t believe in him will say that he does not exist. And that there must be a designer since some person/being must have designed a building, a car, or whatever.
Never heard the “banana argument” before, actually. It was truly convincing. But in reality, I would prefer using the “beer argument”, or the “burger argument”. Any other strong arguments??
I recently flew back to LA surrounded by Pentecostalists (the movement started here and they were all coming for meeting). Being ignorant of Pentecostalism, I had no idea the extent to which they believed in pre-destination – that everything happens because it is ordained by god. This sentiment pervaded every sentence (they were a rowdy bunch) and at first amused but then finally horrified me because it explained why such Christians (for the record, my fellow passengers seemed like perfectly nice, albeit very excited people) can justify doing nothing about, for example, homelessness in cities.
Samantha: It is only fair to mention the fact that there are a large number of religious (some Christian, some not) organistations which do extremely good charitable work. In Dublin, where I am originally from, the St. Vincent de Paul Society do a lot of work with homeless people, so it seems unfair to bring this up as an example.