Kenyan Christians Want to Stop Museum's Evolution Exhibit

Foxnews ^ | 2/7/07 | Associated Press

[scottdeus12]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement.

The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

[scottdeus12]

"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."

[DarkSavant]

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn..."

St. Augustine - On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis

[Coyoteman]

Ban this handsome young lad???

---

Fossil: KNM-WT 15000

Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)

Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)

Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)

Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)

Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)

Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38

[MeanWestTexan]

That's a great quote.

[USMMA_83]

Oh you are in a for a whipping by our creationist crowd....

[RunningWolf]

Yep take 80 or so bones for the torso(were they found together like within a reasonable distance from each other?) glue together even more broken and misaligned fragments to make up a composite skull that resembles the imagination of the researcher, make a guess that it is all say 1.6 mya or so, give it a name and place in the chart, then make interpretations on that.

And you end up with 'the hard scientific fact of evo' /sarc>

Calling any sort of assemblage like that a fossil is a gross distortion.

[PatriotWarriorINL]

Yet the Atheist-Darwininsts say there is no contraversy! LOL!

[scottdeus12]

"Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) took great pains to create and project a powerful image of himself beyond the churches and towns where he wrote and taught in Roman north Africa. He succeeded in this self-presentation beyond his wildest dreams."

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html

So I'm assuming St Augustine's quote is from the era above...1500 years *before* TOE was introduced. Not sure why you posted it...??

[UpAllNight]

--Not sure why you posted it...?? --

Because the meaning still applies today as it did before. Ignorant Christian rantings make all Christians look bad.

[Coyoteman]

Here is a longer version of that quote:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and the moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and they hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions [quoting 1Ti. 1:7].

St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1:42-43.

[UpAllNight]

"For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions ."

Some words are timeless.

[DarkSavant]

I don't know the particular religious beliefs of you guys, but I've personally known many people who believe in God and Christ, but refuse to actually go to Church or call themselves Christian because they don't want to associate themselves with the whackjob theories that are espoused in the name of religion. It's heartbreaking really.

[USMMA_83]

The Christian Church is seeing a slow death. It's because of the whackjobs out there who beat the bible to death without knowing what the words mean or imply. It's like the clips we see of the Muslim children in madrassas...reciting by rote...and then we have the dino crowd...who believe the earth is 5000 years old or some nonsense like that.

[Alter Kaker]

That's a tremendous quote. If St. Augustine were alive today, there'd be holier-than-thou types on this very forum proclaiming him an unbeliever for not looking at Genesis as a science text.