Posted on 05/12/2006 12:13:47 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.
In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."
Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.
Cheers!
Who left the Church to start his own religion. Why does an ostensibly educated person such as you need to have the obvious pointed out to him?
But it had the authority to torture and murder them; so I'd call that a pretty small comfort.
I never denied the Spanish Inquisition persecuted false converts to Christianity
IE. ---- jews.
Forced baptism by Catholics was not sanctioned by the Church. It did happen, but it was the exception, not the rule. Its occurrances are limited to a handful of historical episodes, like the reconquista of Spain and the Prussian crusade by the Teutonic Knights.
Uh huh, and then the church, it's thinly disguised suggestions having been carried out, stepped in and did the rest--"gosh darn, we're sure sorry about how those out of control knights we constantly bombard with horrifying descriptions of jews got out of hand, but, we can't undo it, sorry, we'll just have to torture you now, and kidnap your children to be brought up catholic--our innocent hands are tied".
The Church never sanctioned mass murder of Jews. There are instances of mobs of Catholics murdereing Jewish villages,
Uh huh. Right after church easter services. As a group, streaming right out of church to go murder all the town's jews. No church involvement there--nosireebob.
but over a thousand year hisotry there are only a handful of episodes. Orthodox Russia is another matter, of course.
Can I quote you on that? "Only a handful". You must have really big hands.
Only a handful of mass extermination of jewish communities, except for that other color of christian, but they don't count because they had their fingers crossed. Such a fine record of restraint must be quite a source of pride.
BTW, why all this talk about Spain?
I don't know, since it's not me who brought it up.
We got on this topic because you originally claimed Hitler got his ideas about killing Jews from the Church.
What other major influence on Hitler's life was actively ghetto-ising, proscribing, and sermonizing against jews for the previous 1400 years or so?
If your hypothesis is correct, Spaniards should have been more eager to murder Jews than Germans. That doesn't fit the facts, though.
Eh? I don't see how that's so very obvious. Martin Luther, arguably the biggest jew-hater in Europe, founded the Lutherans, the other major religion besides the catholics in Pre WWII Germany. If one wanted to pick the hotbed of anti-jewish sentiment in Europe at the start of the 20th century, Germany is a pretty prime candidate.
"The Fall of the Roman Empire" was much better than its remake, "Gladiator." Better cast, better music, better direction, more accurate, etc.
marker
Plato was most definitely a eugenicist. And "modern" eugenics was practiced before Darwin. There were later popularizers, but they didn't invent the concept.
Greek warrior Spartan civilization. Weakling infants were left in the mountains to die.
The Republic, Book 5, Section 1. Plato recommended state-supervised selective breeding of children.
History of Australia. Before Darwin, England exiled criminals to purify the race.
Glad to see you're judging material on its merits, not on its source.
As I wrote, I've checked what Carrier claims, and it's true. Now, it is true I too am an atheist. You can therefore doubt my veracity on the same basis you doubt his. I could, I suppose, post scans of the relevant entries from the two German sources, but who knows, an eeeevil atheist might even fake those.
It is somewhat odd that some atheists seem anxious to claim Hitler as a Christian, but quickly exclude others (such as televangelists) from being Christian, on the grounds of far more menial (sexual) sins.
I have no interest in Hitler's religious beliefs, and post on them merely to counter the often-repeated claim that he was either atheist, Darwinist, or hostile to Christianity. He was none of those. He was an unobservant Roman Catholic.
BTW, I think you mean venial, not menial :-)
I don't exclude televangelists from being Christian. I use the same criteria for whether someone is Christian that the churches use, when they're trying to boost their membership numbers - declared affiliation. If you say you're Christian, I happily take your word for it.
No, they don't. The design inferences you presented in your post are based on a model of the designer (i.e. in most cases humans or in the case of SETI, aliens who are assumed to be similar to us).
ID on the other hand explicitly denies the need for a model of the alleged designer. They want to 'detect' design without knowing anything about the designer such as his limitations, his methods or motivations.
And that's the difference between ordinary design inferences and the "Intelligent Design Inference."
Amazing how you can wave off scripture in a debate.
First, the prophet referred to in the Cretan example is seen in context not as a Cretan but "those of the circumcision" (Jews). Moreover, using simple literary logic, Paul specifically called the saying true: Cretans were lazy, were liars, and were gluttons and that Titus (servant to the Cretans) was to rebuke THEM SHARPLY that they (Cretans) be sound in faith. They were to be guided toward "righteousness" otherwise their doom was sealed. You see, the bible says the unrighteous will be burned up. God's not to keen on certain genetic predispositions and characteristics.
BTW. call it whatever you wish, husbandry is a form of eugenics. Man has been manipulating the gene pool for as long as history can record and the bible specifically speaks of it and endorses it. It is spoken of clearly or metaphorically throughout the bible on the subject of plant, animal, and human eugenics.
It is plain that Jesus destroyed trees that did not produce; however, he fed/supported trees that produced as a hubandman (Is 5:1-7). To produce a better crop, a better strain of crop, one performed eugenics. Conversely, eugenics also requires destruction of unworthy breeds: Jesus told you he would come and destroy the metaphorical unfruitful in a future conflagration. He said he separates goats from sheep. He calls some humans dogs in Revelation 22:14-15 and specifically draws a distinction between wanted and unwanted just as much as Obadiah shows a distinction. Is Christ specific on euthenizing specific humans?
God says that no one can change his mind on prophesy and that the Edomites and their kind will be utterly blotted out, along with the lineages of Gog and Magog (Ez. 38-39; Rev. 20:7-10). Now, that's what I call old fashion genocide!
But it's okay cuz God endorses it--where have I heard that before?
Paul calls his former Jewish brothers vines cut from the vine while gentiles were wild vines grafted in. Jeez Marie, what do you call that? Husbandry? Eugenics? Both. Paul seems to have cast off his Jewishness and condemned those unworthy vines to the shame of future christian history with what could only be described as a calculated attempt to destroy the entire tribe of Jews. What do you think backed up the pogroms and inquisitions but the biblical citations that Jews were Christ-killers, the cast out vines, and the sons of Cain?
My friends lost most of their families in Germany and Czechoslavokia to the Nazis because they were Juden. The survivors never heard of Darwin when they were persecuted. They never saw posters enflaming the population on Crystal Night to hurt Jews because of evolution. The name placed on them was Jew, Juden, Sabbath-keeper, line of Cain, and Christ-killers which was, whether perverted or true, a biblical creation.
Again it must be emphasized, the God of the old testament which Paul states emphatically is Christ the Rock demanded whole tribes be wiped off the face of the earth based on their genetic lineage. David was a man after God's own heart in this bloodlust but Saul was hated because he showed pity and compassion on people. David had his ten thousand Phonecian foreskins while Saul put up crappy numbers. Saul was condemned for his unfaithfulness. Samuel rebuked Saul, "...what is all this bleeting of sheep in my ears...?" Saul says, "I couldn't kill them all or my hostages." Samuel explains, "God has left you." Tehn Samuel slaughters them all. All because of their genetic lineage--men, women, children, livestock with no pity. JUST DAMN!
Is it any wonder that the popes and religious thinkers FEARFULLY pondered whether native americans and negroes were human or subhuman meant to be enslaved as the bible sentenced upon the lineage of Ham and/or Canaan. This bit of biblical treatment for some unworthy humans called Canaanites or Hamites is in your bible and existed long before Darwin or evolution was presented. Eugenics was here long before evolution. You see, when Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun were debating the merits of slavery they had their fingers firmly attached to their bibles not in the text entitled Origins of the Species. That's a fact.
Again, I do not support human eugenics. Unfortunately I know many ministers and religious people not only accept biblical eugenics but vehemently practice eugenics as they jeer and mock evolution.
for someone not knowing how to spell "ostrich," don't be picky about my spelling. Or is that supposed to be Estrich?
for someone not knowing how to spell "ostrich," don't be picky about my spelling. Or is that supposed to be Estrich?
Great Post!!!
Couldn't have said it better myself ...
Hell, no way I could have come close ...
Thank you
I hear you. It's outside my expertise, too, as yopu probably guessed (wait--- I don't have one expertise, never mind this one!) but my impression is just the opposite--- it seems to me that behe has so far refuted the refutations of his examples of irreducible compelxity. I'm biased though, in that the first I read of the issue was Richard Dawkins attempting to hand wave past the issue by claiming that five percent of an eye was five percent as effective as a full eye, which was pretty obviously fallacious on his part. I think, for instance, that Berlinski some years ago plainly got the better of his critics here in Commentary Magazine. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1509 Since Berlinski doesn't himself think that ID is a viable discipline of science, of course, that may count for only so much.
I guess you buy into what Cardinal Newman said: "I believe in design because I believe in God, not in a God because I see design”.
I know SETI hasn't found anything and, like you, I'm fairly sure they never will. The point is, are there such things as legitimate design inferences? In the field of human and animal affairs, the answer is yes. What about the rest of the universe? I think the question is open, but I'm aware THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE as some call them ;) think the question is solved, closed or even illegitimate in principle.
I think much research is taken to confirm the neo-Darwinist synethesis, and it's forgotten that the reason theat a synthesis was needed and achieving it such an accomplishment was that Mendelianism contradicted Darwinism. Crick was right the first time--- DNA appears to be designed and the RNA scenarios (as far as I can tell) look increasingly unconvincing. I'd call the discovery of the cell, the mapping of the genome, all activities that can be usefully gathered under an ID paradigm, although obviously none of them are ID discoveries by IDers unless you count Crick. Richard Smalley, the Nobel winner in chemistry, apparently thought something like this when he said that "The purpose of this universe is something that only God knows for sure, but it is increasingly clear to modern science that the universe was exquisitely fine-tuned to enable human life."
I also beleive that it's pretty obvious that Behe's criticisms have sparked a lot of positive research such as the attempts of Pelger, et al to refute him, so I think he's already contributed to science as a whole.
The biological community as a whole also seems to be coming ariund to the ID prediction that "junk DNA" was anything but.
But hey, we'll see how it works out--- I just think that ID and self-organization and the Lynn Margulis co-evolution theories are each pretty equally critical of neo-Darwinism and the main reasons ID is attacked are cultural and philosophical rather than scientific. I don't think ID is "pseudo science"-- "infant science" or "not yet a science" is more appropriate--- but I make no claims as to whether it will grow up.
"The thing that penetrates the fog to my way of thinking is the fact that Hitler was Roman Catholic and Rome embraces Darwinism. Darwinism is, bottom line, racist as Darwin's original title for 'origin of the species' shows. Rome and Hitler both supported Darwin. Rome and Hitler both supported replacement theology. And Hitler was a dyed in the wool racist just as Darwin *appears* to have been. Rome had already much earlier in History been a plague to the Jews." Darwin just Gave Hitler another excuse. Go figure." (Havoc)
Uhhh . . . other than the exemptions we all get if we've earned enough to quality, what tax exemptions are extended to priests, bishops, and pastors?
I suggest you meet Havoc with his own words.
To wit:
"The thing that penetrates the fog to my way of thinking is the fact that Hitler was Roman Catholic and Rome embraces Darwinism. Darwinism is, bottom line, racist as Darwin's original title for 'origin of the species' shows. Rome and Hitler both supported Darwin. Rome and Hitler both supported replacement theology. And Hitler was a dyed in the wool racist just as Darwin *appears* to have been. Rome had already much earlier in History been a plague to the Jews." Darwin just Gave Hitler another excuse. Go figure." (Havoc)
No. The inquisition only had jurisdiction over baptized people who claimed to be Christian.
IE. ---- jews.
Okay, if you want to call someone who's been baptized and professes to a Christian a Jew.
Uh huh, and then the church, it's thinly disguised suggestions having been carried out, stepped in and did the rest--"gosh darn, we're sure sorry about how those out of control knights we constantly bombard with horrifying descriptions of jews got out of hand, but, we can't undo it, sorry, we'll just have to torture you now, and kidnap your children to be brought up catholic--our innocent hands are tied".
You're taking a few incidents and falsely claiming them to be the norm.
Uh huh. Right after church easter services. As a group, streaming right out of church to go murder all the town's jews. No church involvement there--nosireebob.
That happened mostely in Russia. Extremely rare in the West.
Can I quote you on that? "Only a handful". You must have really big hands.
Yes you can. The number of instances of mobs mass-murdering Jews in Catholic Europe is small, at least prior to WW2.
Only a handful of mass extermination of jewish communities, except for that other color of christian, but they don't count because they had their fingers crossed.
The Orthodox are not relevant to this discussion because the Orthodox Church had zero presence in Germany. This argument, I thought, was about influences on Hitler's ideology.
I don't know, since it's not me who brought it up.
I didn't bring up Spain either.
What other major influence on Hitler's life was actively ghetto-ising, proscribing, and sermonizing against jews for the previous 1400 years or so?
Jews hadn't beeen forced to live in Ghettos for a long time, and the Church never called for murder of Jews.
Hitler, like most demagogues needed a scapegoat. The Jews, being a prosperous minority group, provided a convenient one, just like many other prosperous minority groups provide convenient scapegoats for other demagogues in other parts of the world. Malaysian Chinese, Indonesian Christians, Egyptian Copts, Sihks in India, etc.
Martin Luther, arguably the biggest jew-hater in Europe, founded the Lutherans,the other major religion besides the catholics in Pre WWII Germany.
Yeah, but Hitler was never a Lutheran. The claim I'm disputing is the notion that the Catholic Church is somehow responsible for Hitler's ideas.
If one wanted to pick the hotbed of anti-jewish sentiment in Europe at the start of the 20th century, Germany is a pretty prime candidate.
If by start of the 20th century you mean post-world war one, yes. Turn of the century? Not really. At any rate, I don't see the relevence to our discussion. I don't think any disputes rampant anti-semitism in Germany between the wars.
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