[SEGUET]

"Those people are as fervent in their beliefs as Christians are in believing God created Earth."

Why limit your comment to Christians, excluding the other religions of the world?

As to evolution v creation - Who is to say that God does not have a sense of humor?

Yes, the one we've all been waiting for ... the Darwin Award 2002.

The candidates have finally been released! For those not familiar
with the Darwin Award, It's an annual honor given to the person
who provided the Universal human gene pool the biggest service by
getting KILLED in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

As always, competition this year has been keen again. Some idiots
appear to have trained their whole lives for this event!

---

DARWIN AWARD CANDIDATES

1. In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and
drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through
an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

2. In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker,
who "totally zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100-
foot-high cliff on his daily run.

3. Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he
had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach goers
said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from
the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom
Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet
of sand. People on the beach, on the outer banks, used their hands
and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of
Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers
using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200
people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

4. In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA,
as he fell face-first through the ceiling of bicycle shop he was
burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had
placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base
of his skull as he hit the floor.

5. According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena,
20, was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey
Hoffman, 23, who was trying to prove that a knife could not
penetrate the flak vest Berrena was wearing.

6. Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Byville,
Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a
revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the
trigger.

7. In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel
Kolta, 27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus
earning a tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their
snowmobiles.

DARWIN AWARD HONORABLE MENTIONS

1. In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a
millipede with a shot from his 22 caliber rifle, but the bullet
ricocheted off a rock near the hole and hit pal Antonio Martinez
in the head, fracturing his skull.

2. In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to
clean out cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in
favor of a propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first
and second floors of his house.

3. Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, New
Jersey, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick
of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM,
the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the
window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice
the window was closed.

RUNNER UP

TACOMA, WA - Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several friends
when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped
from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The
conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the
walkway of the bridge at 4:30 am. Upon arrival at the midpoint of
the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope.
Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out
that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable
was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the
bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and
tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall
into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby
fishermen. "All I can say," said Bingham, "is that God was watching
out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for
it." Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER

PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed
his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and
more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-
up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under
200 pounds of poop! Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich 46, was
attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when
the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the
elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr.Riesfeldt to the
ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious
as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him",
said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no
one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an
hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he
suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents
that happen."

[FreedomFriend]

Yep, isn't it great that New Yorkers move here and tell us that we have to accept evolution, despite the fact that there is no logical basis for it. They even try to deny us our Christian foundation, all the while not willing to compromise on a sticker that says that evolution is just a theory with many holes. To me, there is no compromise, as evolution has no fact. Only CREATION is a possibility.

[ClearCase_guy]

A transplanted New Yorker, Selman wants people to know he believes in God. A practicing Jew, he attends temple several times a year.

While the textbook advisories are vague, Selman and many other parents think the school board discussions that produced the inserts reflect a conservative Christian intent.

Well, he doesn't sound terribly religious -- but he wants to cloak himself in his faith so that his opponents cannot attack him. And since when is scepticism about evolution inherently Christian? Has he read his holy book? I believe the Jewish faith mentions Adam and Eve and the creation of the world by God. If he is a Jew, why doesn't he believe?

Maybe he's one of those atheisitic leftists who promote their anti-America agenda by saying, "I'm religious and I've always voted Republican, but this issue has really made me question all that ..."

[JCG]

Speaking of evolution, isn't this a fine example of the legendary pencil-necked geek?

America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

[FreedomFriend]

This is a Patriot

[FreedomFriend]

I take that back, as he won't refer to himself as a supporter of Creation. I should read better.

[Aric2000]

And just so you know, I don't care how many socalled holes you think are in evolution. Faith based beliefs, such as creationism should NOT be taught in schools.

Facts only, if you want your child to believe in creationism, teach it to them at home, but your christian, Jewish, muslim, Buddha, hindu, etc ad nauseum faith based beliefs do NOT belong in the classroom.

If you want your child to have a faith based education, then send them to private school.

[gore3000]

A counterpetition is now circulating among pro-evolution parents, who will demand that the board maintain "traditional academic standards and integrity in the sciences."

I think the real question that needs to be answered is whether evolution is science. It sure does not seem like it to me. Let's look at the evolutionary and the Intelligent Design explanation for the eye:

He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing this treatise that large bodies of facts, otherwise inexplicable, can be explained by the theory of descent, ought not to hesitate to go further, and to admit that a structure even as perfect as the eye of an eagle might be formed by natural selection, although in this case he does not know any of the transitional grades. His reason ought to conquer his imagination; though I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at any degree of hesitation in extending the principle of natural selection to such startling lengths.
From: Origin of the Species, Chapter 6

Compare the above with the quote below on the same subject:

What is needed to make a light sensitive spot? What happens when a photon of light impinges on the retina?

When a photon first hits the retina, it interacts with a small organic molecule called II-cis-retinal. The shape of retinal is rather bent, but when retinal interacts with the photon, it straightens out, isomerizing into trans-retinal. This is the signal that sets in motion a whole cascade of events resulting in vision. When retinal changes shape, it forces a change in the shape of the protein rhodopsin, which is bound to it. Now part of the transducin complex dissociates and interacts with a protein called phosphodiesterase, When that happens, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability chemically to cut a small organic molecule called cyclic-GMP, turning it into 5'-GMP. There is a lot of cyclic-GMP in the cell, and some of it sticks to another protein called an ion channel. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions into the cell. When the concentration of cyclic-GMP decreases because of the action of the phosphodiesterase, however, the cyclic-GMP bound to the ion channel eventually falls off, causing a change in shape that shuts the channel. As a result, sodium ions can no longer enter the cell, the concentration of sodium in the cell decreases, and the voltage accross the cell membrane changes. That in turn causes a wave of electrical polarization to be sent down the optic nerve to the brain. And when interpreted by the brain, that is vision. So this is what modern science has discovered about how Darwin's 'simple' light sensitive spot functions.
From: Michael Behe, 'Design at the Foundation of Life".

Now which one of the two is science and which one is not? Which one belongs in a science class?????

[Commander8]

I intend to send my children to a Christian School where they'll be far away from this debate.