Banana Who?

Dear Atheist Bob,

I present to you “The Banana: The Atheist Nightmare.” Note that the banana:
1. is shaped for the human hand.
2. has a non-slip surface.
3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late.
4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper.
5. Is perforated on wrapper.
6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper.
7. Is shaped for the human mouth.
8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry.
9. Is pleasing to the taste buds.
10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy.

Are you stupid enough to say this is all coincidence?

Chad in Charlotte

Dear Chad,

Skeptics and evolutionists first began encountering this argument when Kirk Cameron and Brian Sapient presented it on Youtube as part of their series on nonsense. I will address your points one by one, but I will start by showing you this:

This is a cross section of a banana as they appear in the wild. Note the abundance of big, fat seeds which you may recall are absent from the bananas you eat. Why is this? Because bananas have been selectively cultivated (bred) to be more suitable for human consumption. But even before we came along to augment them for our own needs, natural selection was doing part of the work for us: the reason plants grow sweet fruit is so that animals will pick it, eat it, and scatter the seeds through messy eating or through their leavings. The more hospitable the fruit, the more successful the plant. The bright colors, the ease of extraction, the delicious taste — primordial marketing.

Your points:

1. is shaped for the human hand. The banana probably came about in proximity with primates, as suggested by their handle-like shape. Brachiating primates travel far in the treetops and use their hands to grab and eat fruit — the banana probably adapted to suit these needs, as the tastiest and most convenient fruits tended to be eaten first by primate and hence spread the farthest.

2. has a non-slip surface. Most surfaces on Earth are non-slip surfaces. I suppose you think that’s for mankind’s benefit too.

3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late. This has more to do with the our preference for eating them when they’re at their most ripe. Green and black bananas aren’t actually bad for you (with the exception of bananas so old they’re rotting).
Furthermore, cultivated bananas are much brighter and unblemished in color than wild bananas. Humans are mostly responsible for the uniformity of the color-coding system.

4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper. See answer #1.

5. Is perforated on wrapper. Wild bananas are actually tougher and more difficult to open than cultivated bananas.

6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper. Everything humans eat is biodegradable. Furthermore, “biodegradable” is not a virtue; it is a preference which gains utility in proportion to the abundance of non-biodegradable materials in our surroundings. We currently value things that decay because we don’t have enough room for everything to be permanent.

7. Is shaped for the human mouth. No it isn’t. It isn’t even bite-sized. We have to eat it one bite at a time as a result.

8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry. This is really just a third manifestation of #4 and #5.

9. Is pleasing to the taste buds. As stated above, this is part natural and part artificial. We farmed them to be pleasing.

10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy. No it’s not. Only half of all bananas I’ve eaten were pointed anywhere near my direction. The rest I had to turn to eat.
 

Pope and Circumstance

Dear Atheist Bob,

Bill Maher is in hot water for, among other things, alleging the Pope is to blame for the child molestation fracas. Even though you’re an atheist, do you think Bill should lose his job for crossing the line of decency?

Sincerely,

Bethany Thewlis in Pacoima, CA

 

Dear Bethany,

I don’t think Bill is the one who should worry about his job security. All he did was take a few jabs at what I think is a pretty easy target. He didn’t ruin anyone’s life.

In contrast, Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla if ya nasty) was in charge of the Catholic Church during the child molestation scandals, and as such was responsible for the conduct of his clergy. The Church’s behavior was completely inexcusable, and grounds for papal dismissal. God agreed.

Atheist Bob

Phantom Limb

Dear Atheist Bob,

How do they know?
How do you actually know anything about God without having to have faith? Is there anyone who actually knows something in reality? It would be nice to hear from someone who doesn’t have that glassy look in their eye like they’re in a dream world.

Sincerely,

Dwight in Frankfurt

Dear Dwight,

I believe in God because he answers the prayers of thousands of amputees every year by growing their severed limbs back for them. Miracle!

Oh, wait, no he doesn’t. I forgot: he never ever heals amputees. He only heals people with internal sickness that already has at least a small chance of healing on its own anyway. Amazing that in all the millions of cases of people who claim to have been healed by God, not a SINGLE ONE has been the regrowth of a severed limb.

In fact, in what is certainly the most profound coincidence in history, NO miracle God has ever performed has EVER left so much as a shred of verifiable proof for science to look at. So many millions and millions of witnesses to miracles, and NONE thought to collect some sort of proof for skeptics.

And just in case the similarities between Christianity and cult superstition was lost on anyone up to this point, some Christians will complete the picture for you by recalling the old standard retort recited by so many psychics, crystal healers, new agers, pagans, and cultists before them: “It only works if you believe.”

Atheist Bob

Roman Charges

Dear Atheist Bob,

Is there a moral decay in America that parallels that of Rome?
If you don’t think so then do you think that morals even exist, and if they do, do they even matter?
What do you think these morals are based on? Religion, social climates and changes in human behavior and understanding, the survival of the fittest ideology?
Are Americans their own worst enemy?

Sincerely,

Roger in Fresno

Dear Roger,

That’s a gross oversimplification of the history of both Rome and the United States. It’s tempting to look back at Rome and say, “they failed because they did this and this and this wrong.” Here are the problems with the statement “Rome failed due to moral decay.”
1. Rome had a much bigger problem: military overexpansion. The empire expanded so far that it was nearly impossible to handle by one emperor. This is why Diocletian split the empire into two parts, the Western and Eastern Empire.
2. Rome didn’t get less moral: by contemporary standards it got MORE moral. Some historians blame the fall of the empire on the rise of Christianity. In light of this, the statement becomes, “Rome fell due to moral transition.”
3. Only half of Rome fell. When we talk about the fall of Rome, we’re actually referring to the fall of the WESTERN empire. The Eastern Empire remained for almost a thousand more years as the Byzantine Empire, until it was conquered by Muslims.
4. Rome had a much more direct cause of its fall: the last Roman Emperor was deposed by force by the Germanic chief Odoacer. Some historians look back on this and say it was a long time coming, due to the influx of Germanic peoples into Roman culture. Modern anti-immigration advocates often cite this cultural pluralism as a cautionary tale, though it should be remembered that the only tragedy of the Fall of Rome was that it was followed by the Dark Ages, and the connection between the two isn’t all that established. Human kind is doing just fine without the Roman Empire.

Atheist Bob

Palmistry

Dear Atheist Bob,
How is palmistry able to give such accurate predictions ?
What is the science behind it?

Chazz

Dear Chazz,

Palmistry is junk. It’s a way for swindlers to make money off of gullible people. 

From Wikipedia:
“The practice of chiromancy [palmistry] is regarded by many as a pseudoscience, and no hard scientific evidence has been found to back up claims of veracity. It should be noted that the information outlined below is representative of modern palmistry; there are many – often conflicting – interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various “schools” of palmistry. None of these interpretations have been verified by any objective scientific research.”

One technique used by palm readers but also used bysalespeople, interrogators, church pastors, hypnotists, psychics, graphologists, palmists, astrologers, and con men is called “cold reading,” which, generally speaking, refers to any technique with which the interviewer finds information from the interviewee without any prior knowledge.
More specifically, it refers to a handful of techniques (such as “shotgunning”) that usually involve the interviewer tossing out several general facts or questions to see what elicits a reaction and getting more specific from that point on.
2 years ago
Source(s):
www.wikipedia.org
http://www.skepdic.com/coldread.html

Atheist Bob