Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant (Religion bashing alert)

Times Online UK ^ | May 21, 2005 | Richard Dawkins

[narby]

If God desired fellowship with man, then why go through the evolutionary process to produce man, when he could have easily created him instantly.

Time is meaningless to God. If it took 3 billion of years of what we call "evolution", then that is "instantly" in Gods eyes.

By definition, there can be no conflict between Gods word, and Gods creation. And Gods creation tells us that evolution occured.

Since humans always disagree on the meanings of the Bible, and there is such massive evidence to support sciences view of "how things are". I think that it's the "creationists" interpretation that is wrong.

[rollo tomasi]

I guess all of human history is a "conspiracy" in your mind. Obviously Constantinople believed his mother's excursions of excavations in Jerusalem instead of some "conspiracy".

[WildHorseCrash]

bump

[TomB]

OTOH creationists look for scientific data which seem to support their theory - i.e. that all species were created as they are and that one species does not develop or arise from another one.

Could you point me in the direction of this research? And what, exactly, would this data look like?

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

Christians are being blamed for pollution? That's one I haven't heard before. (Seems like the desperate victimology of certain sects is resulting in some pretty imaginative persecutions.)

Oh FFS. I'm not an Evangelical Christian, and I'm not a Creationist. Global Warming and the idea that Evangelicals are ignorant dupes are basic tenets of the left. The posted article is a just an example of that sort of leftist tripe, only this time, directed at Creationists.

WTF is so hard to understand? The people who hype Global Warming and ones who bash every belief of Evangelical Chrisitians are basically the same. And, oh by the way, they are the same one's who say the same things about conservatives. I'm a conservative. Get it?

Go Sea-Lawyer somebody else's comments.

[narby]

Check out PatrickHenry's links. There's lots of them. Yes, I'm sure you'll bring out the beef with "micro" vs. "macro". But until a creationist discovers the mechanisim that limits evolution to a micro scale, then logic dictates that evolution continues unabated.

[JohnnyM]

"Why is the origin of man's physical body at all important for any theological belief?"

Evolution deals with origin of man, something that is intimately related with religion.

Are you saying sin and death were not in the world prior to man having evolved? Are you saying that somehow Adam's parent species is not tainted by this sin, since they were not from Adam?

Did Christ die just for this evolved man and not Adams immediate ancestor?

Evolution and the Bible are incompatible.

JM

[N. Theknow]

Correct

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[cyborg]

It's never been observed anymore than creation has. All of PH's links won't show that ANYONE has observed evolution happening. If that was true, it would be world wide. I don't get into debates on cre/evo threads because I already know what I believe and don't care about changing your mind.

[Tantumergo]

"According to your view, the laws of themodynamics are not science. After all, they rely on interpretation and not accumulation of data."

The interpretation arises from phenomena which are observable, repeatable and verifiable because they are phenomena which occur in the here and now in the same timeframe that the observer exists in.

We cannot travel back in time to observe the transition from a world without life to a world with life, or the point at which a new species appeared, and therefore all the evidence that we can ever hope to have will be circumstantial and will be left-overs from a timeframe which the observer can never be a part of.

Both "evolution" and "creation" are theories which relate to events which happened in a different timeframe than which the observer exists in. Consequently there is a fundamental difference to your citation of experiments which are consistently repeatable and verifiable.

[gibonski]

Ping to that!

As I have said before,all liberals are atheist!!

[The_Reader_David]

I suggest you might climb out of your preconceptions, conditioned by the common rationalism of Western secularism and Western Christianity for which Blessed Augustine became the Father of Fathers early on, by reading Alexander Kalomiros's The Six Dawns which can be read at http://www.zephyr.gr/stjohn/frread-a.htm. It explains, among other things, the understanding of Genesis among the Fathers of the Church--with particular emphasis on the Cappadocian Fathers and St. John Chrystostom--an understanding which is remarkably consonant with current science.

The only thing which modern science will collapse is the superstructure of rationalistic Western Christianity with its false assumptions arising from over emphasis on the speculations of Blessed Augustine. (Even protestants who don't know Augustine from Tertullian share them, too, because they are all-pervasive in Western Christian thought.)

I suggest others on the thread read it too.

[narby]

Global Warming and the idea that Evangelicals are ignorant dupes are basic tenets of the left. The posted article is a just an example of that sort of leftist tripe, only this time, directed at Creationists.

The problem is that the "tenets of the left" are basically BS. Socialism is a lousy way to run an economy. Immorality is damaging. Etc. Etc.

But the problem is that they are RIGHT about evolution. Evolution is easily provable to anyone willing to consider the available evidence.

Creationists make all conservatives appear to be ignorant buffoons. Attempting to dissuade conservatives from engaging on this sure-to-lose battle is my reason for posting here.

[JohnnyM]

"By definition, there can be no conflict between Gods word, and Gods creation"

Who's definition??

By this definition then we can say the following:
Jesus didnt walk on water.
Jesus didnt make a blind man see.
Jesus didnt resurrect Lazarus.
Jesus didnt feed 5000 with a few fish and some bread.
and most importantly, Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Why can we say this, because science and nature says it CANT happen, and as you said they cannot conflict with God's Word.

JM

[Tantumergo]

"Evolution has been directly observed."

What do you mean by that statement? Have you seen "macro-evolution" in action - or do you mean the "micro-evolution" which produces genetic variation in an individual species?

[Junior]

I never said "empirical proof that the Bible is historically accurate" (there's good evidence it isn't in all cases). I was talking about empirical proof it is the Word of God.

Dear Lord, why is it I keep ending up conversing with people who are unable to parse simple English? Must be the government education system.

[JohnnyM]

"Creationists make all conservatives appear to be ignorant buffoons."

The Word of God and the Gospel of Christ are foolishness to those who dont beleive. So you better be more concerned with the God who bought you, then with the world who hates you.

JM

[Junior]

We were discussing Dawkins' article, above, not anything else he may have written.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

But the problem is that they are RIGHT about evolution. Evolution is easily provable to anyone willing to consider the available evidence.

Evolution isn't the sole property of the left, the way global warming is. But the tactics they use to argue both views are the same.