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Creationism and Truth (Creationists are a 'threat')
Plesiosaur.com ^ | unknown | Richard Forrest

Posted on 10/05/2006 7:32:38 AM PDT by Imnotalib

I don't like the term 'evolutionist' - would you call a physicist a 'graviationist', or a "weak nuclear force-ist"? I'm a vertebrate palaeontologist, and evolution is an enormously robust theory without which it is virtually impossible to make sense of any of the observations I make in my field.

I am not averse to engaging in debate with creationists. I won't call them 'scientific creationists' - what they represent has little to do with science. It is as a simple matter of definition that if you start an investigation stating that anything you discover can only be explained in terms of a literal interpretation of the bible, it isn't science. I live and work in the UK, where creationism is not much of an issue. The situation is very different in the USA. Although it is easy as a European to laugh in a smugly superior way at the antics of the Americans, I think it is a mistake to do so. The growing political influence of Christian fundamentalists in the US, who are closely associated with creationists, is a threat to the rest of the world. Their agenda includes the strict censorship of science as taught in American schools, and the idea of a scientifically illiterate America dominated by religious fundamentalists fills me with horror.

(Excerpt) Read more at plesiosaur.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creationism; creationist; plesiosaur; religion; science; truth
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This guy clearly doesn't understand the theory of creationism. Why do scientists think that if they can explain the mechanism by which something happens, it automatially rules God out? Doesn't it make sense that God would work through the physical laws that he created? Does he have to wave a magic wand for these folks to be convinced it's God?
1 posted on 10/05/2006 7:32:39 AM PDT by Imnotalib
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To: Imnotalib
"I don't like the term 'evolutionist'... "

Wonder if the guy would prefer "evo-loser"....

2 posted on 10/05/2006 7:38:38 AM PDT by tomzz
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To: Imnotalib
You are essentially describing a variation on 'intelligent design' rather than creationism, which says that there has not been any macro evolution.
3 posted on 10/05/2006 7:40:38 AM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (These days you are either nervous and uncomfortable or you are braindead!)
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To: Imnotalib

? The statement you just said is consistent with theistic evolutionism and perhaps with some forms of "intelligent designism", but not with young earth creationism, which is what the above scientist was objecting to. Young earth creationism requires massive divine intervention and circumvention of the laws of nature.


4 posted on 10/05/2006 7:41:16 AM PDT by ahayes (My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.)
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To: Imnotalib

I avoid arguments on evolution and intelligent design.
It's a "no win" discussion either way since both are "faith based".

But I meet creationists who have never read the Bible, and Darwinists who have never read Origin of the Species.

'Can't change either of their minds.

But neither of them are as irrational as the pro-abortion person who is also against capital punishment.


5 posted on 10/05/2006 7:50:18 AM PDT by Rhetorical pi2
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To: Imnotalib

>>>I don't like the term 'evolutionist' ->>>

Because that implies that I am not the allseeing, allknowing surpreme intellect that I think I am.


6 posted on 10/05/2006 7:50:36 AM PDT by sandbar
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To: Imnotalib
the idea of a scientifically illiterate America dominated by religious fundamentalists fills me with horror.

Oh yeah, a-hole, what about a scientifically illerate Muslim world dominated by religious fundamentalists? Does that fill you with horror, because that is more a reality than the America you described, you ignorant P.o.s.

7 posted on 10/05/2006 7:58:22 AM PDT by Catholic Canadian (Formerly Ashamed Canadian - thank you Stephen Harper!)
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To: tomzz

Wonder if the guy would prefer "evo-loser"....
_________

I tend to think he couldn't care less what you might call him, but he'd likely chuckle at the childishness of the epithet.

What I find interesting in all of this is the notion that the so-called young earth creationists are mostly a US phenomenon. That point is made in this article, and has been stated by a few of our freepers of British persuasion.

Is it true, and if so, why is that?


8 posted on 10/05/2006 8:05:31 AM PDT by dmz
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To: Imnotalib

"The model of the Universe built by science is vast beyond our understanding, old beyond our comprehension, complex beyond any possibility of our ever understanding even a fraction of the whole. Which model is closer to the mind of God?"

Sorry, but you don't fight bullshit with more bullshit.


9 posted on 10/05/2006 8:13:40 AM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com)
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To: Rhetorical pi2

"
But neither of them are as irrational as the pro-abortion person who is also against capital punishment. '

Or the pro-lifer against abortion "except in the case of...."


10 posted on 10/05/2006 8:14:50 AM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com)
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To: dmz
>Is it true, and if so, why is that?

Americans are better consumers than the people of other nations, quicker and more certain to reject inferior products including inferior science theories such as evolution.

11 posted on 10/05/2006 8:23:10 AM PDT by tomzz
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To: dmz

Another example is English "cars". How long do you think Americans would tolerate something like Lucas making the electronics for all their cars?


12 posted on 10/05/2006 8:25:04 AM PDT by tomzz
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To: Imnotalib
Actually evolution is a philosophy. Some say that there is so much evidence that evolution can not be argued against. These "facts" are only data and they can be argued either evolution or creation or for both sides. Scientific method was invented by Christians in the middle ages so to argue that creation in nonscientific is false.
13 posted on 10/05/2006 8:36:41 AM PDT by mountainlyons (Hard core conservative)
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To: Imnotalib
" - what they represent has little to do with science."

And of course to the prideful, arrogant 'scientist', science is all there is. But his statement is not quite true anyway; actually what we (Christians) represent has nothing to do with science. Our vision transcends what the eye sees, and our souls are anchored in the Absolute, Eternal God. "Evolutionists" are anchored only to themselves in this fleeting life, and are doomed to live without any meaning in their lives beyond their own puny brain power. Their vision is limited to what their retina processes and their 'empirical' brain can comprehend. Beyond this they see nothing. Just as an animal will invalidate something he can't smell, the evolutionist will invalidate something he cannot 'prove' with his brain. Both live in a base, soul-less world of the senses.

How empty and vacuuous the evolutionists' lives must be as they age and their brains deteriorate, and all they have left to 'anchor' themselves to is a scrapbook with pictures of dinosaur bones and dashed hopes of discovering the 'missing link'.

14 posted on 10/05/2006 9:25:40 AM PDT by TheCrusader
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To: mountainlyons

Scientific method was invented by Christians in the middle ages so to argue that creation in nonscientific is false.
_____________

Your logic is faulty. It does not follow that because Christians created the scientific method that one of their religious beliefs (creationism) automatically becomes scientific.


15 posted on 10/05/2006 9:35:58 AM PDT by dmz
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To: TheCrusader

As opposed to living in an imaginary world filled with strange visions, unnatural practices, and undemonstratable invisible entities?


16 posted on 10/05/2006 9:37:33 AM PDT by thomaswest (Just curious.)
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To: TheCrusader

Your post is very poetic. Not necessarily true, but very poetic. You have a gift for stringing words together.

I understand that Benedict may be rolling it back a bit, but his predecessor had no real issues with the theory of evolution, and one could hardly truthfully suggest that John Paul was living "in a base, soul-less world of the senses."


17 posted on 10/05/2006 9:42:43 AM PDT by dmz
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To: Imnotalib

To rebut this guy, read Ann Coulter's latest book "Godless". Her last 4 chapters completely eviscerate Darwinian evolution theory.


18 posted on 10/05/2006 10:37:31 AM PDT by Gunner9mm (www.libertycall.us)
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To: Imnotalib
The growing political influence of Christian fundamentalists in the US, who are closely associated with creationists, is a threat to the rest of the world.

LOL! Nothing like a little hysteria to perk up an otherwise stupid article.

19 posted on 10/05/2006 10:41:58 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: Gunner9mm

The only thing Ann's writings on evolution eviscerated was her credibility as a writer on topics outside her area of expertise (politics).


20 posted on 10/05/2006 11:02:13 AM PDT by dmz
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