The Argument from Pandas

March 24, 2014 • 12:07 pm

Sarah Silverman is apparently questioning her atheism on her Facebook page:

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Silverman, is, of course, an iconic figure for many atheists, and is followed on Twi**er by both Dan Dennett and Sam Harris! I don’t follow anyone, but my Facebook page gets updates from her public page.

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77 thoughts on “The Argument from Pandas”

  3. I always have thought of her as a bit manic. I like some of her shtick but she often takes it too far. I guess having few limits is natural for a comedian/comedienne.

  5. God must be a real jerk to give pandas a single source of food. If they could eat stuff other than bamboo they probably wouldn’t be endangered.

    1. ‘Jim Jefferies On Religion Horrible Blasphemy Panda …’ [You Tube] explains much more about the panda than maybe you would ever want to know. (Definitely not safe for any work)

  6. Let’s see, pandas are teetering on the brink of extinction, and humans are working tirelessly to prevent that, but it may well be inevitable.
    Yep, I’m convinced. God exists!

  7. Perhaps you’re all demonstrating an amazingly dry wit and I’ve missed it completely, but you do all know that Sarah Silverman is a comedian?

    You don’t think she’s being serious, surely?

    1. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am aware that she is a comedian and is almost certainly being facetious. I just chose this as an opportunity to emphasize that similar arguments for the existence of god are equally ridiculous.

    2. You don’t think she’s being serious, surely?

      It’s Sarah.

      Surely doesn’t even enter the picture.

  8. The weird thing here is that a sarcastic bit of humor is actually one of the most popular arguments for God. The usual reference is to a flower, or sunsets … or babies. You’re suddenly supposed to feel like a child who has been given such a pretty, pretty present. Someone must love me! Who did this? Who gave this to me? The believer is so touchingly grateful that one must assume or even invent someone to be grateful towards. The Argument from Gratitude. The Argument from Let’s Make Ourselves Grateful.

    I have long had the dark suspicion that many religious people wouldn’t be able to tell atheism apart from apologetics if the tone and vocabulary sounded as if was applauding the idea of faith.

    I mean, consider Life of Pi. As I understand it, the basic theme is that “Religion isn’t true, but the stories are better: believe the better story.” And the religious apparently love this. “Oh, you have to read this book! It’s so spiritual!” It supports faith.

    Wtf?

  10. What animals humans find cute is often related to attributes like shape of face and proportion of head size to body size that we also find cute in young humans. Finding our own young adorable has obvious reproductive advantages over finding them repugnant.

    So, pandas demonstrate evolution in this way too, not just with their “thumbs”. 🙂

  12. Considering the panda’s thumb, which is derived from a wrist bone not one of its fingers, the panda is a superb example of evolutionary kludges and great evidence for how evolution finds crazy ways of doing things that no intelligent designer would ever consider. But they are cute.

  13. This is terrible. An atheist makes one joke, and the whole atheosphere is thrown into… wait for it… pandamonium!

    I’ll leave now…

  14. Actually pandas are a pretty good argument against evolution. Here we have a carnivore with a short, inefficient digestive tract that eats almost exclusively tough, nutrition & energy-poor bamboo. They are also terrible at have sex & procreating. Very hard to imagine how such an animal could have evolved from natural selection. It is almost more plausible such an animal was created by a designer, not particularly intelligent perhaps, but one with a weakness for OMG sooooo Cute!

    1. Actually pandas are a pretty good argument for evolution.
      Bears are omnivores and this one found itself in a meat poor, bamboo rich environment so it evolved to exist on that.
      Also, they don’t eat just bamboo, they eat mostly bamboo but won’t say no to a bit of protein if they can get it.

  15. If it’s a carnivore why does it eat bamboo?

    (Or d’you mean descended from carnivores…?)

    2. Well, it is a member of the Carnivora. As I recall, the only obligate carnivores in the order are the seals/sealions and cats.

  16. That image is strangely persuasive. I, for one, wouldn’t want to deprive a panda of the joy it clearly is expressing at the proposition.

    1. We sure that’s a real panda? It doesn’t have a little tab on its back saying “Hand wash only in warm soapy water” ? 😉

      1. No-one thinks it’s a literal panda, simply that it is analogous to a panda. You do a disservice to atheism by failing to address the real panda argument. And by real I mean analogous.

        1. So it’s an analogous panda expressing simulated joy. I see clearly now.

          I’m just raising the possibility that the metaphorical panda might hypothetically be a replica. A construct, if you will, embodying the essence of panda-ness.

        1. I designed a robotic tardigrade. It’s just like the real one in that it’s just an inflated bag in tardigrade shape with strings inside to move it.
          I didn’t think to give it fuzzy skin though. An eight legged bear! How many legs would a panda have to have before it stopped being cute?

          2. Yeah – legs terminate in fluff – cute. Legs terminate in pointy pinchers – not so much. I did think a bee’s feet looked kind of cute. Insect parts are creepier when the leg parts are used around the mouth.

          3. I’m not so sure about the fluffy legs theory….certain types of spiders aren’t cute despite their hairy legs.

          7. If one waterbear walks in the opposite direction to all the others, is it a retrograde tardigrade?

            /@

            PS. I see they are also called moss piglets. How cut is that?

          15. I think it’s lost in translation….something about retrograde and a machine stuck in reverse.

            T’was a bit silly, really!

          17. Oh, that I got!!!

            My comment was directed at Jesper.

            Replying by email, it’s not always clear you’ve hit the limit and need to make it clear what you’re responding to!

            /@

          18. Yeah, I figured that out after. The email thing has confounded me twice today.

          19. I think the tardigrade that goes the opposite way is a renegade tardigrade but a tardigrade that wears clothes from the 80s is a retrograde tardigrade (yeah, the 80s are retro now – this makes me sad).

            They are also called water bears which is cute too but not as cute as moss piglet. It sounds like a character from Winnie the Pooh.

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