The following is taken directly from Uncyclopedia.
Linguistic Creationism is a theory stating that all of the natural languages could not have developed naturally, so they must have been intelligently designed by God when he destroyed the Tower of Babel.
ARGUMENTS FOR LINGUISTIC CREATIONISM
Irreducible Complexity: If you remove letters from the word “book” you get “ook”, “bok” and “boo”, all of which are nonsensical and hence not sustainable by usage for subsequent evolution into meaningful words. It is thus impossible that the word “book” developed from any other word, it must have been created by God so in order to be used.
Improbability of spontaneous linguistic genesis: It is highly improbable that even the simplest English sentences were formed from alphabet letters spontaneously, since the odds of monkeys banging away on hypothetical typewriters and in so doing generating a readable and semantically meaningful text is vanishingly small. Hence the English language must have been divinely created and bequeathed to us by God.
Anthropomorphic Principle: All of the sounds and words in spoken languages can be pronounced, and appear perfectly designed for us. If languages developed by mutations, they would have words like “wthgrrlndyksl” and “gvprtskvni” which would be impossible to speak and understand, hence, the change in a language can only be harmful and languages must have been created as they originally were.
Absence of transitional languages: There are no written texts in Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-European and other hypothetical old languages which may be demonstrably shown to be linguistic precursors of the English language. Since no visible stages of development, or transitional manuscripts, were found we can suspect all these transitional languages never existed and English was intelligently designed as it is now by a God proven to exist by the Scriptures.
First speaker problem: If Modern English arose from Old English, who did the first speaker of Modern English talk to?
Sun–son homonymy: In the English language, the tongue spoken by Baptists, God’s own people, the words for the physical source of all light and the spiritual source of all light are homonyms. This suggests that God is trying to remind his chosen people of their Lord and Savior through his creation of language.
Contradiction with the 2nd law of thermodynamics: The idea of a language spontaneouly arising into human usage and evolving from simple words over the years into its complex nature today from nowhere contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics as applied to information theory, which states that (linguistic) information will only degrade over time.
Brilliant… as usual. Now if only creationists would think why this argument fails reveals exactly why creationism in all its forms equivalently fails.
My hopes spring eternal.
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I can’t claim it. This is from Uncyclopedia, which is truly brilliant.
But yeah, it does frame the lunacy quite well 🙂
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I’m convinced; sign me up John!
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Hoorah! Our Blessed Book Club meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and tithe is only 8% 🙂
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This is so brilliant I not only cried while reading it (openly and proudly, btw), I also wet my pants. Just brilliant. I gots ta write me an article for Uncyclopedia. That’s my kinda book. I could do one on Pants Creationism. If pants began as dresses, where’s evidence of the one-legged transitional “pant’? Where?
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YES, a thousand Yes’s!!! I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. That, sir, is your baby!
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A baby wearing a one-legged pant, mind you. 🙂
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Did you write the linguistic article for Uncyclopedia, btw?
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Me? Oh gawd no! I wish 🙂 Whoever did has a flair for the absurd which I’d humbly bow down before.
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As do I. Whacky brilliance used to prove a point is always high in my book of cool shit to bow down to.
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It’s called a condom
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Naw. Those are basically just tiny one-legged bathing suits. Where’s the fossil evidence for skirts transitioning into one-legged pants and one-legged pants transitioning into two legged pants? It’s not there because god designed each of these items separately. This proves atheists are a-holes and evolution, and Richard Dawkins, are full of poop. “Nuff said. Case closed. Point proven. 😀
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Pants were created by Satan. Did you notice all the dudes in the Bible wear dresses? “A cock in a frock” in the words of one my favorite movies. Pants are a sign of the devil and all who wear them are devil worshipers. And the same for trousers and slacks. The only godly dress is a dress.
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$Amen$ Reminds, for some strange reason, of a line from the movie, “Ted” that goes, “There are no chicks with dicks. There’s only guys with tits.”
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Please tell me you have made this up. This is hilarious.
It reminds me of that joke about a white couple who wanted to adopt a child. The social worker suggested that they adopt a Chinese child but the couple seemed reluctant. Being pressed by the social worker they meekly responded that they couldn’t adopt a Chinese baby because they didn’t speak the language…!
>
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LOL!
And no, this isn’t mine. i wish it was. It’s from Uncyclopedia. The link is at the top.
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Obviously a malevolent Creator designed languages. They are used to convey incorrect and hostile information all the time, thus spreading human misery way beyond one or two minds that imagine it. Furthermore, taking the existence of religion into account as evidence of the existence of TOOAIN, such a thing could not have happened without language as a facilitator.
Plus, the idea that languages could arise from tribes of people making sounds that gradually changed over time into the words we use today is just silly.
Great post!
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Ooooh, you’re a genius! Yes! I hadn’t looked at our mischievous Creator from this perspective before, but you’re right. A whole chapter can be written on the perversion of language, the mechanism of confusion. Great stuff 🙂
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Effing brilliant! I am in awe!
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Not mine, but I do agree, it’s a great article.
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Hilarious John! Love the welcome note: “Welcome to the Mother Ship of amateur comedy writing! (Amateur means we don’t pay you to do it.)”
Thanks for sharing. 😀
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That made me laugh, too 🙂 They just needed to follow that with, “smiles are free.”
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hahahaha! True! Clearly they didn’t have you writing for them. 😀
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So brilliant that I had to steal it and repost it myself! Thanks for sharing.
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Knock yourself out, but credit where credit is due, and that goes to Unclycolopedia who published it. The link is at the top.
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cited you both for good measure
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Reblogged this on Primate's Progress and commented:
To the arguments used here, I would add the following:
Linguistic evolutionists cannot explain the origins of language. Therefore the theory of language evolution fails its very first test
If English is derived from German, why are there still Germans?
No one has ever observed one language change into another. Were you there?
The real reason why people deny that the different languages were created by God, is so that they can use bad language. After all, if language is not God-given, there are no objective standards and anything goes.
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“If English is derived from German, why are there still Germans?” Hilarious!
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That one got me, too. I’m still cleaning the coffee off my keyboard 🙂
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I can see Ken Ham’s face, “Were you there?”
I love your additions. You should sign onto Uncyclopedia and add them.
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I’m postulating an unsubstantiated hypothesis that Ken Ham is, in reality, the resurrected Abe Lincoln, minus the high I.Q. and cognitive skills, of course. The odds of two men wearing the same oddly formed beard within 200 years of each other are astronomically improbable. Therefor, they must be the same guy.
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“The real reason why people deny that the different languages were created by God, is so that they can use bad language. After all, if language is not God-given, there are no objective standards and anything goes.”
Fuckin’ A!
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*Smile*
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When I read the title I said to myself: okay, I have studied linguistics. Its some time ago, but I can write something about this. However, when I saw the actual arguments, I decided that I better invest my time into something else. I am not so young again and I better invest my time on intelligently designed things. Just one thing, about the absence of transitional states of language.
I suggest to protect us from this terrible temptation of the devil, the devilish belief that languages developed historically, lets say a prayer together and repeat it three times:
Fæder ūre, ðū ðē eart on heofonum,
Sī ðīn nama gehālgod.
Tō becume ðīn rice.
Gewurde ðīn willa
On eorþan swā swā on heofonum.
Urne gedægwhamlīcan hlāf syle ūs tōdæg.
And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas,
Swā swā wē forgyfaþ ūrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd ðū ūs on costnunge,
ac alȳs ūs of yfele.
But lets forgyfaþ them, because the don’t know what they are doing and blessed are the poor in spirit, and so on, amen.
(Sorry, my knowledge of old-english grammar is a bit fragmentary, so I don’t know the right form of ” forgyf” hiere).
I suggest the authors of such theories visit a university library (there are such institutions in many english-speaking and non-english-speaking countries – such buildings have doors and one can enter them) and have a look at the rich collections of manuscripts (and editions of texts from such manuscripts) from antiquity, late antiquity, the middle ages, etc. The emergence of modern german, english, some of the romance languages etc. are actually well documented.
But such efforts will probably be wasted. It does not make any sense to take sense to people thinking non-sense. If you shield yourself from any scholarship and science, you can of course invent any kind of nonsense. It is actually possible to believe in anything and if you just ignore any evidence and logic, you can keep such a belief.
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I do believe that’s one of the best comments I’ve ever read! 🙂 Applause, my good man! Applause!
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Oh my goodness. I am willing to wager that any first year Literary Theory student would be able to pull this nonsense apart and not even break a sweat. Jacques Derrida must be spinning in his grave.
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*this nonsense
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fixed
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Just learned that this isn’t actually far from what Creationist believe.
http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v06n1p25.htm
http://creation.com/origin-of-language
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Could it be the old ‘boiling frog thing? You know—nobody notices incremental changes? Ol’ God may not be all that keen on evolution is other fields but She were clever enough to kick it off with languages.
As for knocking down that tower, that’s just a nasty myth. God would never be so mean as to risk hurting anyone. I still think that one of the greatest philosophical works of modern times is Billy Connolley’s “The Man Who Sued God” …
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She is a clever thing, and at times, dastardly.
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A dastard bastard …
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No recognised Mum and Dad, no parents married in law or by religion.
Yup. A bastard …
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(-_Q) [face palm]
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Yep
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FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT I AM WILLING TO ACCEPT 90% OF THE BIBLE AS TRUE, EVEN ALL THE MURDERS COMMANDED BY GOD, BUT THE TOWER OF BABEL IS RISIBLE AND EASILY DEMONSTRATED AS A SILLY FABLE. .WE CAN TRACK PERFECTLY THE EVOLUTION OF LATIN OVER 2,000 YEARS INTO SEVERAL DISTINCT LANGUAGES. EVERY STAGE OF EVOLUTION IS ABSOLUTELY DOCUMENTED. THE SAME GOES FOR NOAH AND HIS BEASTS, JUST AS AN EXAMPLE, HOW HE CAPTURED 15,000 OF SPECIES OF BIRDS?
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Kangaroos and penguins, included 🙂
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NOAH CAUGHT THE ANIMALS BY YELLING AT THEM UNTIL THEY GOT ON THE ARK. THE ONLY ONES THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT WERE THE DEAF ONES. CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING, EH?
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Freaking brilliant!
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And true, too!
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I kept looking to see if the author was Ken Ham 🙂
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Ha! Reads like an AIG post, doesn’t it?
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I am convinced! The logic is irrefutable!
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Praise be He!
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When I read, “Linguistic Creationism” by John Zande, atheist, my first thought was, “This just has to be another atheist hallucination!”
But then you mentioned the Baptists and the cold hard truth of reality set into my bowels and made them go, “Oye!”
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LOL! SOM, you’re a treasure 🙂
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great, SOM’s innards speak. That would certainly explain the source of what he writes.
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SOM has many Muses
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But very few fuses as he’s burning at far less than 10 watts.
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And they speak Yiddish apparently….
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I am convinced. You have healed my unbelief. Where do I report?
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We’ll hold our first meeting up in Rio, this Sunday. I believe we should celebrate this baptismal event by infiltrating a Greek tour group where we will chant (in multiple dead languages and exotic but forgotten dialects): “It’s all Greek to me!”
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I am showing up for the inaugural meeting
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Brilliant display of creationist logic. Even though it appears to be in jest, it captures the ass backwards ignorance we are all so familiar with seeing. I swear there are days I want to give them some credit for intelligence. Other days I just wonder how they get their shoes tied, and am amazed at how they figured out which hole the food goes into.
Nooo Mak! Come back!
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I spent a portion of yesterday chatting with a Young Earth Creationist. I feel less human today.
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You poor bastard! Can I get you something? A cold beer? A stout shot of bourbon? An ice pack? Anything?
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Bleach, industrial strength, I need to clean my brain 🙂
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Bleach is quite effective. Bourbon is more fun and achieves the same effect after a while. 🙂
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Very well, drown me in it.
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Damn that must have been one bad experience. I have a bottle of Crown Royal you can have. (I have been drinking on the Old Charter)
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well, considering that the bible itself says that the creation of languages at Babel is nonsense (the chapter before insisting that people already spoke different languages), linguistic creationism is already a heresy!
It’s amazing just how utterly silly the magical bible is.
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Ken Ham disagrees! He even wrote a “paper” on it, complete with a academically-sounding Abstract:
Take a look, its hilarious.
https://answersingenesis.org/tower-of-babel/the-development-of-languages-is-nothing-like-biological-evolution/
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What a joke. Just when I think Ham’s idiocy and blatant stupidity can’t get any more surreal, I read something like this. What a dork!
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wow. I can just see that bs being used by any ol’ racist asshole.
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I’m not sure it’s a contradiction. The NLT translation of Genesis 10:25 reads:
Eber had two sons. The first was named Peleg (which means “division”), for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups. His brother’s name was Joktan.
Given that the Tower of Babel story appears between two lineage accounts of Shem’s descendants, I’m inclined to argue the passage is linking Peleg’s name to the ToB event (which occurred ~111 years after the great flood, based on the genealogical timeline found in Gen. 11:10-16).
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I could agree with you that contradiction might not be the best word. it does how how pointless this god’s actions were sicne there were already people who didn’t speak the same language.
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LOL — Brilliant post. I’m late to this “brilliant” party, but I did bring bourbon. Only the best for my friend: Black Maple Hill 21 Cask 7. That should do the trick.
Cheers. 🙂
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Looks like we have a Hoedown from Hell brewing 🙂
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Let’s do it as A Ken Ham cosplay! We all dress like Ham, beards included, and drink until our blabbering sounds as idiotic as his words do when he’s sober.
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Hell no. If we’re going to do cosplay I’m coming as my hero, Alice!
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Cooper? 🙂
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I’ll be sure to wear my best boots.
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Meow 😉
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lol
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“contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics as applied to information theory, which states that (linguistic) information will only degrade over time.” I’m sensing some irony here! Lol! Great post, John.
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I didn’t write it Mary, merely spreading the Good Word 🙂
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I find it amusing how so many creationist folk cite the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as ‘proof’ that Evolution is wrong. Perhaps one day I should ask one of them to tell me what they know about the First Law of Thermodynamics to gauge their knowledge of science (though having said that i am not sure myself what the first law is).
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The first law of thermodynamics is: Don’t Light Matches Near Gasoline Tanks. It’s Very Dangerous.
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It is an odd argument to toss onto the table, especially given that giant, hot, yellow thing sitting in the sky pumping free energy into the earth system 24hrs a day…
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The fuel bill for that thing has to be NUTS!!!! I wonder who gets stuck with that every month? Just glad it ain’t me.
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Yeah, but the earth is a closed system because of that invisible sunblock god smears on everything including sparrows that then fall to the ground and the ‘styling gel’ people put on their hair… all ways to facilitate his Asperger’s need to count everything.
And we ths god suffers from Asperger’s because we can align the symptoms revealed to us in the OT to YAHWEH’s autistic leanings:
:average or above-average intelligence (the suffering of Job is particularly clever)
:difficulties with high-level language skills such as verbal reasoning, problem solving, :making inferences and predictions
:difficulties in empathising with others
:problems with understanding another person’s point of view
:difficulties engaging in social routines such as conversations and ‘small talk’
:problems with controlling feelings such as anger, depression and anxiety
:a preference for routines and schedules (come on… burnt offerings?) which can result in stress or anxiety if a routine is disrupted
:specialised fields of interest or hobbies (especially how human gonads are used)
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If I had an award to give, you’d get it, Til.
You interested in jumping into an ID debate that’s beginning?
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Sure… God willing…
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You know David?
appliedfaith_DOT_org
It’s the second post, “Reaching the Most Intolerant Religion”
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Except Esperanto. Perhaps it does explain why Esperanto failed – it was against the design of God.
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The Devil’s work, absolutely! What the god God ruins and defiles Satan must not mend.
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Wassamatta with all of you? Can’t you see the pure LOGIC behind this?!!?! Indeed!
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Jxsotrignt’d!
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This was an enjoyable read, thanks for posting it. Lol MY LANGUAGE DEFINITELY DIDN’T COME FROM NO MONKEY! *fails arms wildly in agitation*
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Here, a banana, now go and sit down 🙂
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That’s officially the silliest thing I’ve ever seen. Good find! haha
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John, you’re making my head hurt! Please tell me that you’ve made this all up and no one is actually this stupid.
My ex was a linguist by the way. He took his Historical Linguistics class while we were together, which amusingly sounded like Hysterical Linguistics with his accent.
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It’s tongue N cheek stuff from the link John provided. Awesome stuff though, and so like real YEC arguments it’s hard to know it is a joke. Love it!
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Sadly, it’s not entirely fictional: Creationist Linguistics (From the University of Pennsylvania Language Log site).
Man, these people are fucking scary. Good thing they are more or less irrelevant.
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The hole just gets deeper, doesn’t it 🙂
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Jesus. I should’ve known, nothing that completely idiotic could entirely be fictional. What a true group of idiots creationists are. They’re not marginal enough. Let’s give ’em their own island. They’ll have every convenience provided for them there that the science of 4000 years ago provides. Outta be a blast for ’em.
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It’s a little dispiriting that we’re not clever enough to out-stupid them.
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LOL! But, no, this isn’t my work. The good folk at Uncyclopedia wrote this. The link is at the top.
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I followed the link but I couldn’t figure out what Uncyclopedia is. I poked around on the internet and I did find a couple of references to creationist linguistics, but it seems pretty marginal even among creationists. At the point someone starts believing that I’d love to know how they hold down a steady job, or do anything in modern society. Heck, I don’t think they could function in an ancient society either.
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Reblogged this on notestoponder and commented:
Ponder this into the realm of absurdity…..
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Dammit! I so thought I’d coined this term! And when you ruined it for me a year ago, it hurt … this is just like another stab to my poor creative pride. But I guess I have to admit this is much funnier than mine. 😉
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I should have thanked you, you were the inspiration. Had to post something and it was sitting in a file. But I didn’t write it. The gentle folk at Uncyclopedia did.
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Well, it certainly deserves a wider airing. I wonder if you can entice any real creationists over to read it.
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I wish! But they’re all avoiding me since I introduced The Owner of All Infernal Names to the world. They really, really don’t like Him 😦
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He did that to you on purpose. To make you lose all your Christian buddies …
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Well, He is naughty that way. To be expected, really, being maximally mischievous and all.
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Excellent, John.
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