Posted on 02/24/2009 7:04:56 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
It's surprising that none of his contemporaries noticed that.
Rather mundane. Alternatives are available, such as evo-Boeotian, evo-flibbertigibbet, evo-ament, evo-badaud, evo-sawney, etc.
Following God is not a ruse. I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll pray for you.
When you have a 180 IQ (and aren’t a 180-IQ idiot like Richard Dawkins) you don’t need a sense of humor.
This argument reminds me of the attempts to delegitimize the Founding Fathes because some of them owned slaves. Is “all men are created equal” less true because they didn’t mean slaves and women—because the person who wrote that line couldn’t entirely shed the attitudes of his day?
“I apologize if I am too tough on you in this post, but the Big Creationist Lie, BCL, if you will, is alive and well on this and the many threads on the subject. It is shockingly Talibanesque.” [excerpt, emphasis mine]If Creationism is a lie, then all your rights are granted to you by your government, who may rescind them if they wish.
Thanks for the link of that; that post was before my time here so I never saw it before. It’s before yours too, come to think of it. Must be a way to find gems like that without having to slog through every post.
I loved this part:
“And therein lies the rub. In order for you to prove the theory of evolution and to have it universally accepted by all people as true fact, you must first completely destroy the Holy Bible and all it teaches us.
There can be no Creator. No God. No miracles. God cannot possibly have created the Earth or the Heavens or Man and every Creature that walks swims or crawls. There was no Adam and Eve. No Garden of Eden. No original sin. There was no Noah. No Ark. No flood. No Moses. No burning bush. No Ten Commandments handed down from God. Jesus cannot possibly have been the Son of God, nor could he have died on the cross for our sins. The Resurrection could not possibly have happened. There is no Saviour and no Salvation. No life after death. No Heaven. No Hell. No God. No Satan. No good vs evil.”
That is EXACTLY what the evo-atheists want to happen. They want to tear down everything that is good and Holy in the world. There is no middle ground with them.
“Darwin's use of the word "races" was the common lingo of the time to describe different species. In fact, in the book you have never read, he discusses "races" of trees, birds, and barnacles.” [excerpt]Nice whitewash job.
How about this gem:
Thomas Henry Huxley, a close personal friend of Darwin’s and an indefatigable champion of evolution (who frequently referred to himself as “Darwin’s Bulldog” opined,
No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average Negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathus relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out on by thoughts and not by bites.”
Read the post. It is the big creationIST lie, not what you said. But I do acknowledge your cleverness!
Not only that, Darwin's cousin Francis Galton opined that Jews were specially adapted for parasitical existence on other nations.
Read more here: Inbred Science
Thanks.
Amazing that so many racists hung around with Chuck, yet he was untainted; his thoughts and motives were only wholesome and pure.
Wholesome and pure only to those who refuse to see the truth. As the title of his book shows, he was consumed with racial prejudice and invective.
And when he said,
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”
...he was talking generally about flora and fauna.
The evo-cultists will try and pretend that race in the 1850’s meant “variety” or “subspecies”, but we all know that in the Origin “race” meant black and white, and that he was talking about the superiority of the white race. The book is filled with race hatred. Are we supposed to go by what lying evo-atheists tell us or what Darwin said himself? lol
When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with species closely allied together, we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species.
What you 'know' is demonstrably wrong.
Being dogmatic about a religious beleif does not neccesarily make one like the Taliban.
Consider these two doctrines:
1) "God commands you to love you neighbor as yourself"
2) "God commands you to kill unbelieving neighbors".
Now I would have to think that you would have an interest in which doctrine your neighbor was dogmatic about?
It seems to me a bit slanderous to lump Christianity with Islam. The founder of Islam promoted the example of military force to make people convert. The founder of Christianity did no such thing. No doubt various dispicable acts such as the Spanish Inqusition now spring to your mind. But consider how much they were poor examples of Christianity. If you care to call the instigators of these horrors Christians (I don't) you should at least admit that if anything...they were not fundamental enough...but rather were quite the apostates to what Jesus taught.
So the problem is not fundamentalism, the problem is what one is fundamental about.
The people annoying you seem to be those who would like to turn the Bible into a science book. It isn't. It is much more important. But it has nothing to do with the kind of punishment you would have coming to you for blasphemy under the Taliban.
Oh, and yes--just to nit pick--science actually does require faith. As just about all knolledge does. Heck about the only thing one can be sure about is one's own existence as a soul. Even the existence our bodies and the rest of the natural world must be accepted on our faith in the veracity of our senses.
Put another way, the scientific method seems reasonable to my mind, and I presume yours as well. But suppose our reasoning is not valid. How else can we know that the scientific method is valid? We must have faith in our reasoning, or at the least on the authority of some other person (whose reason we trust more than our on) that the scientific method is a valid approach to discovering truth. As for me, I think its only really useful for things in the natural world which we have the power to conduct controlled experiments on...and that kind of leaves any transcendent willful beings like God out of the petri dish.
“So the problem is not fundamentalism, the problem is what one is fundamental about.”
I completely agree. I have stated I know plenty of fundamentalist Christians who have no problem with science.....alas I know many who ARE in science.
The “problem” - and the reason I post on these threads is that when folks use their interpretation of the Bible to try to control other people - in this regard, the most militant of creationists - they are present on this and other threads - who want to control other people through their interpretation of religion - are very similar to militant Islamists, hence the comparison to the Taliban.
I do not think your example of two doctrines is representative of any of my posted views.
The scientific method is tolerant of opposing views - if they have gone through the scrutiny of peer review. The scientific method actually relies on breakthroughs and new insights - it’s how science is done. It is the best way that man has created to advance understanding.
militant creationism is driven by fanatical fundamentalism - you are going to hell (or are not truly Christian, or....) if you do not believe x,y and z.
They create a victimization mentality by claiming that all ideas are equal, and the scientific community is biased against THEIR science - when it is not true. “Creation Science” simply has not provided the level of proof to refute centuries of study and understanding. Should new ideas come from “Creation Science” and pass muster - it will be incorporated into the body of scientific knowledge. Sometimes it takes persistence and more research, but facts and research and data always wins in the end.
Take the global warming debate....Politics has no staying power in science when facts contradict the political goal, but obviously politics is present - just as it is in every organization, including religious organizations of all sorts.
“The people annoying you seem to be those who would like to turn the Bible into a science book. It isn’t. It is much more important. But it has nothing to do with the kind of punishment you would have coming to you for blasphemy under the Taliban.”
Yes, you have identified my source of bemusement in this debate. But do you really think Christianity could not devolve into the destruction of those who are “not pure enough” for fundamentalist adherents given time? I absolutely do, and I point to history as the guide.
When you have a group of people selecting who goes to hell and who does not - there is misery and mayhem down that path. I am not slandering Christianity making the comparison with dysfunctional and murderous religious enthusiasts of other faiths- because that is, in fact, part of church history.
“Put another way, the scientific method seems reasonable to my mind, and I presume yours as well. But suppose our reasoning is not valid. How else can we know that the scientific method is valid? We must have faith in our reasoning”
I don’t disagree with you - but “faith” in process cannot be compared to religious faith in any meaningful way - which is why I have stated many times that science and faith cannot be mixed - they are different things that are not mutually exclusive. I think you agree with that. Militant creationists have to believe that somehow Darwin is elevated to god-like status amongst the scientific community, when it is not true - he posited a theory, and it has been scrutinized for 150 years and still basically exists. He may well be wrong - but his basic principles have been accepted through no small effort and research.
I think most of science agrees that science and faith are different. I’m fairly certain militant creationism does not agree with that principle, and in fact believes that there is a great degree of mutual exclusivity involved.
Thank you, by the way, for the reasoned dialog. It is a pleasure to discuss this topic in this way.
In onse sense this is impossible, in another sense it has already happened. People who claim to be Christian and then persecute their neighbor do far more to slander Christ than the the harshest of critics.
However Islam is quite different. A follower of Islam who persecutes a Jew may be following the teachings of Mohammad quite well by so doing.
As for science vs religion, I do not see them as generally in conflict, although I beleive certain doctrines may be in conflict with scientific discoveries. For example, I am skeptical of infering a 7000 year old Earth from Gensis in part because of scientific discovery (evolution et al aside, astrophysics suggests a much older universe).
I see no cental doctrine of Christianity in conflict with science, and interestingly I see some support. For example the Big Bang theory (which I have recently learned was first proposed by a French astrophysists who was also a Catholic Preist) does indeed support the theological notion of a universe created at a particular time as opposed to a universe that simply always existed. This I find rather a large problem for central naturalist doctrine. I will grant that universes "beyond" this one have been theorized...but I wonder how much these are really thought expermiments driven by naturalist fundamentalism rather than examples of pure science.
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