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.
Yeah...what happened, it was fun watching all of the havoc, now no ones saying (typing) much.
Christians are my brothers and sisters.. so long as they are Christians rather than "christians in name only". If they are not Christians, they are still my 'neighbors' and are due respect. I just don't coddle people by supporting their 'self-esteem' via condoning their false beliefs. It's one thing to be nice. It's another to be truthful. Friends tell you the truth. Shallow pretenders lie to you in order to stroke your ego for their own benefit.
United we stand is scriptural though - Tower of Babel. Didn't work out too well. When you mix clay and mire, they don't stick and rather tend to crumble from the irritation between the two. That is the nature of current circumstance. Unity for the sake of unity is folly. The focus of unity must be on Scripture and Christ's message or there is no real unity. And that does not exist.
Was there havoc? lol. Must have missed that.
In the 20th Century? Name one instance.
We were talking about the 20th century, so the previous century would be the 19th, and I believe the last time the Catholic hierarchy kidnapped a jewish child was 1857, if memory serves me. There's a whole huge building that was dedicated to kidnapping jewish children built at the Vatican.
Aha!, We've now gotten to "routinely" persecuted jews. Here's what the Jewish Encyclopedia has to say:
In the beginning, the Inquisition dealt only with Christian heretics and did not interfere with the affairs of Jews. However, disputes about Maimonides’ books (which addressed the synthesis of Judaism and other cultures) provided a pretext for harassing Jews and, in 1242, the Inquisition condemned the Talmud and burned thousands of volumes. In 1288, the first mass burning of Jews on the stake took place in France.
Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Inquisitor Gui:
Working in the area of Toulouse (in modern France), he executed 42 people out of over 900 guilty verdicts in fifteen years of office. He produced a famous work, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis (The Conduct of the Inquisition of Heretical Depravity), which detailed a list of serious heresies in the early 14th century, and how inquisitors should conduct themselves in the questioning of members of particular groups. The groups he concentrated on were the Cathars, Waldenses, false Apostles, Beguines, JEWS, as well as sorcerers and necromancers.
I'm sort of curious what prize is left for you in this argument? You've conceded that Jews were, in fact, a target of the inquisition--you seem to be holding out for them being small targets--which I'll be happy to concede.
"Christians are my brothers and sisters.. so long as they are Christians rather than "christians in name only".
Question for Havoc: Are the Orthodox (Greek, Russian, Coptic, etc) Christians or cultists?
Yeah that was bad, albeit it took place 1,000 years ago. A minor entry though? I don't think so. This one was about as bad as it got before Hitler. Can you name an incident that was worse?
Is this your big defense? That there wasn't anything worse than the wide-spread slaughter of jews throughout southern Germany, France and Italy?
. 240 Origen of Alexandria writes that the Jews "have committed the most abominable of crimes" in conspiring against Christ, and for that reason "the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election".
248 St. Cyprian writes that the Jews have fallen under the heavy wrath of God, because they have departed from the Lord, and have followed idols.
306 The Council of Elvira decrees that Christians and Jews cannot intermarry, have sexual intercourse, or even eat together.
325 Conversation and fellowship with Jews is forbidden to the clergy by the Council of Nicea.
4th century Christian emperors of Rome decree that Christians converting to Judaism, and Jews obstructing the conversion of other Jews to Christianity, will incur the death penalty; Jews can not marry Christians, or hold public office, or own slaves.
c. 380 St. Gregory of Nyssa refers to the Jews as "murderers of the Lord, assassins of the prophets, rebels and detesters of God,. . . companions of the devil, race of vipers, informers, calumniators, darkeners of the mind, pharisaic leaven, Sanhedrin of demons, accursed, detested,. . . enemies of all that is beautiful".
388 A mob of Christians, at the instigation of their bishop, looted and burned the synagogue in Callinicum, a town on the Euphrates. The Emperor Theodosius wants those responsible punished and the synagogue rebuilt at the expense of the bishop, but St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, pressures him to relent and condone the action.
400 St. Augustine writes: "the Church admits and avows the Jewish people to be cursed, because after killing Christ they continue . . . in impiety and unbelief".
c. 400 Calling the synagogue "brothel and theater" and "a cave of pirates and the lair of wild beasts," St. John Chrysostom writes that "the Jews behave no better than hogs and goats in their lewd grossness and the excesses of their gluttony".
413 A group of monks sweep through Palestine, destroying synagogues and massacring Jews at the Western Wall.
414 St. Cyril of Alexandria expels Jews from his city.
681 The Synod of Toledo orders the burning of the Talmud and other books.
c. 937 Pope Leo VII encourages his newly appointed archbishop of Mainz to expel all Jews who refuse to be baptized.
c. 1010-1020 In Rouen, Orléans, Limoges, Mainz, and probably also in Rome, Jews are converted by force, massacred, or expelled.
1081 Pope Gregory VII writes to King Alphonso of Spain telling him that if he allows Jews to be lords over Christians, he is oppressing the Church and exalting "the Synagogue of Satan".
1096 Massacres of Jews takes place in the First Crusade, destroying entire Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne and other cities. The Jewish chronicler reports: "The enemies stripped them naked and dragged them off, granting quarter to none, save those few who accepted baptism. The number of the slain was eight hundred in these two days." The chronicler Guibert de Nogent reports that the Rouen Crusaders said: "We desire to go and fight God's enemies in the East; but we have before our eyes certain Jews, a race more inimical to God than any other".
1182 Jews are expelled from France, all their property is confiscated, and Christians' debts to them are cancelled with the payment of one-fifth of their value to the treasury.
1235 Thirty-four Jews are burned to death in Fulda (Germany) on a blood-libel charge.
1267 The Synod of Breslau decrees compulsory ghettos for Jews.
c. 1270 St. Thomas Aquinas writes that the Jews sin more in their unbelief than do pagans because they have abandoned the way of justice "after knowing it in some way".
1190 The Third Crusade, led by Richard the Lion-Hearted, stirs anti-Jewish fervor and results in the mass suicide of the York Jews in Clifford's Tower on March 16.
1247 Pope Innocent IV writes a wonderful defence of the Jews: "they are wrongly accused of partaking of the heart of a murdered child at the Passover. . . Whenever a corpse is found somewhere, it is to the Jews that the murder is wickedly imputed. They are persecuted on the pretext of such fables. . . they are deprived of trial and of regular judgment; in mockery of all justice, they are stripped of their belongings, starved, imprisoned and tortured". But subsequent history shows what little impact his words had on the church.
In 1227, 1234, 1246, 1254, 1260, 1284, 1289, 1326, and 1368 a series of Councils at Narbonne, Arles, Béziers, Albi , Arles, Nîmes, Vienna, Avignon, and Vabres all require the wearing of a round patch by Jews.
In 1290 and 1294 Jews are expelled from England and southern Italy, then from Bern, in Switzerland.
1294 Jews in France are restricted to special quarters of the cities.
1298 The Jews of Röttingen, charged with profaning the Host, are massacred and burned down to the last one.
1347-1350 During the Black Death, Jews are accused of poisoning wells in order to overthrow Christendom, and many thousands of Jews are killed.
In 1350, 1367 and 1381 Jews are expelled from many parts of Germany, Hungary and then Strasbourg.
1394 The expulsion of Jews from France, begun in
1306, is completed with an edict promulgated on the Jewish Day of Atonement.
1420 - 1432 Jews are expelled from Austria, Mainz, Fribourg, Zurich, Cologne and Saxony,
1434 The Council of Basel decrees that Jews cannot obtain academic degrees.
1435 King Alfonso orders the Jews of Sicily to attach a round patch to their clothing and display one over their shops.
In 1439,1453 and then 1454 Jews are expelled from Augsburg, Wurzburg, and Breslau.
1456 Pope Callistus III bans all social communication between Christians and Jews.
1462 Jews are expelled from Mainz following a conflict between two candidates for the arch-episcopal seat.
In 1467 and 1471 Jews are expelled from Tlemcen, Algeria, then from Mainz again (by the archbishop).
1475 The entire Jewish community in Trent, northern Italy, is put to death on the allegation that it had murdered a boy for religious purposes.
1492 After forcing many Jews to be baptized and then referring to them as "marranos" (i.e. swine), and after an Inquisition in which some 700 marranos were burnt at the stake for showing signs of "Jewish" taint, Spain expels all Jews from the country.
1485, 1497 and 1519 Jews are expelled from Warsaw and Cracow (Poland), then Portugal, then Regensburg (Germany).
1555-1559 Pope Paul IV restricts Jews to ghettos and decrees that they are to wear distinctive headgear.
1566-1572 Pope St. Pius V expels Jews from the Papal States, allowing some to remain in Rome's ghettos and in Ancona for commercial reasons.
1592-1605 Pope Clement VIII includes a ban on all Jewish books in the expanded Index of Forbidden Books.
1826 Pope Leo XII decrees that Jews are to be confined to ghettos and their property is to be confiscated.
1806 A French Jesuit Priest, Abbe Barruel, had written a treatise blaming the Masonic Order for the French Revolution. He later issued a letter alleging that Jews, not the Masons were the guilty party. Beliefs in an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world came from this source; they continue today.
1846 - 1878 : Pope Pius IX restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome's ghetto - the last one in Europe until the Nazis recreated ghettos in the 1930s. Pius IX was beautified in the year 2000 -- the last step before sainthood.
1881 The assassination of Alexander II of Russia was incorrectly blamed on Jews. About 200 individual pogroms against the Jews followed. ("Pogrom" is a Russian word meaning "devastation" or "riot.")
1894 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was framed by antisemitic officers, found guilty and was given a life sentence. The church, government and army united to suppress the truth. Ten years later, he was declared totally innocent. The Dreyfus Affair became world-wide news for years.
1903+ Anti-Jewish pogroms continued in Russia, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the first two decades of the 20th century.
1905 The Russian secret police wrote a piece of fiction, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." A Russian Orthodox priest, Sergius Nilus, published them publicly in 1905. It was promoted as the record of "secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians." The forgeries are still being circulated. They appear from time to time in Muslim media. Wal-Mart stocked them in their online bookstore until 2004-SEP.
1930s Some American clergy used their their radio programs to attack Jews. Father Charles E Coughlin was one of the best known. "In the 1930's, radio audiences heard him rail against the threat of Jews to America's economy and defend Hitler's treatment of Jews as justified in the fight against communism." This history is what the French Jewish scholar, Jules Isaac, was referring to when he wrote, "Without centuries of Christian catechism, preaching and vituperation, the Hitlerian teachings, propaganda and vituperation would not have been possible." ( Jésus et Israel - Paris 1948, page 508, )
1933 In 1939 by Roberto Farinacci, a member of Mussolini's Fascist Grand Council, while speaking on "The Church and the Jews" says: "We fascist Catholics consider the Jewish problem from a strictly political point of view. . . But it comforts our souls to know that if, as Catholics, we became anti-Semites, we owe it to the teachings that the Church has promulgated over the past twenty centuries."
1933 The Catholic Chancellor of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler justifies his anti-semitic policies to the German Catholic hierarchy on the grounds that he is only treating the Jews the way their church has treated them for centuries. He reminds the prelates that their Church has regarded the Jews as dangerous parasites and pushed them into ghettos for 1500 years. (See more below on this page.) 1936 Cardinal Hlond of Poland urged Catholics to boycott Jewish businesses.
1938 Hitler brought back various century-old church laws, ordering all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David as identification. 1940: The Nazis confined Jews to inner-city ghettos. 1941 to 1945: The Nazi Holocaust resulted in the execution of over 6 million Jews, a similar number of non-Jews such as Soviet prisoners of war, Polish intellectuals, and about a half million Roma (Gypsies). Also killed were an unknown number of Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals. Of these victims, only the Jews were marked for total annihilation.
I think you can answer that for yourself.
What is their stance on salvation? Is it works based or faith only as noted by the Apostles in Romans 4, Hebrews 9, 11, etc.. If it is not faith in Christ, it is another form of salvation and thusly a fraud.
That would be the starting point for telling the tail. First and foremost do they have the Gospel message right. If they're mixing faith and works for salvation, they're nothing more than the Judaizers in new clothes. Given that the Apostles spoke directly to this in no uncertain terms, it's staggering the number of people who don't know even that much.
It was a detailed refutation, with post numbers listed, of your "Eh? Interesting, about Russian birth rates, but so what? " addressed to me in post 676.
I can't find the post where I mentioned Googling the Red Queen strategies, but one of the sites I found was completely fascinating. I've bookmarked it and put it on my reading pile. Thanks for the reference to the topic..!
Good night, I'm off to photoshop.
Cheers!
P.Z. Myers talks about "Miller fatigue" and how his approach constititues "putting a coat of Christian paint on the scientific enterprise", but I honestly can't remember where I read him taking genuine heat, as you say, so I suppose I pulled that one out of my a---... Sorry, you know where. Maybe my memory confused him for Ruse, since I'd been reading some of the back and ofrth he;'d been having with Dennett, et al.
As for the fact that scientists, like anyone else, can be open minded, I understand that. But that's not what I meant... Given that it is outside the the "competent reach of science" why would someone buy into, say panspermia? That someone is open-minded doesn't explain why someone accepts any particular idea. I'm just curious as to why the people you talked about found the propositions you were talking about warranted.
I think you're going beyond Hebrews to based on your own philosophical interpretation of it. how do you define faith that leaves Catholic Christians as not having it? Does faith work alongside knowledge or as an alternative to it? If salvation is by faith alone, can faith live alone, unaccompanied by works of love and obedience? I guess your answer is yes, which is fine by me--- but I don't see how you can exclude other Christians on that basis.
You say that, in
Hebrews 9:12 "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]."
Okay, good so far, obviously!
You interpret that as meaning "..having obtained for us That is past tense ownership. There is nothing more to obtain. There is nothing more to offer the Father in heaven in purchase of anything - Hebrews says he already owns it."
That's an interpretation, although an orthodox one. That Jesus eternally redeemed us does not imply that we have nothing to offer him. For instance, God hates sin and one loves when we do the right thing. Does doing the right thing constitute offering God anything? I don't know.... But I wouldn't take God to have cast someone out of the body of Christ based upon their answer. That seems somewhat Pharisee-like.
Remember the Epistle to James:
2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
2:22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
2:23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
2:25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
My point is not that works trump faith. My point is that you claim because of theological differences Catholics are not referring to the same God as you, or you them.
But I don't see how you can definitively claim that.
Abraham prayed to God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. But as far I know, he only knew himself to be praying to God the Father.
It does not follow from "Catholic Sam and Protestant Jane disagree over the relationship between faith and works" that "Sam and Jane are each referrring to a different God".
Suppose Lois Lane believes Clark Kent is physically weak. Bruce Wayne believes Clark Kent is physically strong. But they are both referring to the same person, one Clark Kent.
You can stretch this point too far and say that every theistic religion refers to the same God.... But the point is, God knows who refers to Him and I don't see how we can put ourselves in His place.
Catholics accept Christ as Savior--- I'll guess that's why Martin didn't say the Catholic Church was a cult.
Thanks...if it would not be too much trouble, I really would like to see your Calvinist twist...and, as you suggest, in Freepmail would be fine...I am in no hurry, so take your time...thanks...
All right, lets say Panspermia. There are a number of pretty ordinary arguments that weigh in in favor of it.
In the long haul, the principle that there's nothing special about us has turned out to be correct on quite a few major issues. We aren't the center of the universe, we aren't a special kind of animal, we're part of just one galaxy in millions. We probably don't occupy the unique cradle of life, either.
Also, there is sort of a meta-problem with the long view story of evolution. It's that it seems to be extra-ordinarily fast in the beginning, compared to speed at which it seems to go later. It takes, like 2 billion years to get to Eukariotes from Prokariotes, and then about another billion years to get to multi-cellulars. It's as if the instant the earth cooled, life pooped right out. This does not speak very strongly to the idea that an enormous amount of inorganic experimentation produced life in our ocean. It speaks more strongly to the notion that life is floating around everywhere, waiting for the instant it can take root in some nice newly formed planet.
There is a boatload of other biological oddities that Fred Hoyle goes into in his book on the subject. They're amusing, but I don't take them too seriously, based on the theory that you should bet on the least sensational explanation for something you don't understand much about.
Some examples that stick in my mind: Many tons of spoors, hard-shell viruses, and cysts float out of our atmosphere into space every year. We have no spectacular reason to think that some of these things can't survive viably in space for millions of years. Insects are attracted to a light in insect zappers that has, as far as we know, no natural correspondence on Earth. However, it is characteristic of the light from a certain narrow spectrum of blue-green stars.
You say, "Just read it and ask GOD to show you the TRUTH in it. Just SEE if it is as 'hard to understand' as that nagging, little voice tells you it is! ;^)
But when different people do as you suggest, it often leads them to different religions...on these religion threads on FR, there was a poster, who related their own personal experience...I do not remember in which religion they were raised, and supported through much of their adulthood...but something led them to study another religion...they studied, and prayed, and read the Bible for guidance, and studied and prayer and read some more...and after much thought, and with what they believed was guidance from God, they put off their old faith, and joined a new faith...as I said, I cannot remember what their old religion was, but the new religion they embraced, was Mormonism....
They did as you suggest we all should do...this is repeated all the time...people often question the religion they were raised in, go on to study other religions, study their Bible, pray, seek Gods guidance, and yet they all come to different conclusions about which religion is a truest Christian religion....
So why do so many people after much study, much prayer, much considerable thought, find the TRUTH, to be so different from what other people find to be the TRUTH?
To your list VA, I would also ask about those that believe in living apart from others, living in more closed groups, such as the Amish, those who live in the Amana Colonies, and also I think the Mennonites? Are they also cultists...
I still dont agree that anyone can maintain that a particular Christian religion is a 'cult', as a fact...its merely an opinion, and not a fact...which is fine, we all have our opinions...
Thanks for the interesting answer and for being so gracious, since I had gone on and on about Kenneth Miller.
Fred Hoyle is an interesting guy. Agree with his positions or not, I admire how he follows where he sees biological evidence leading, regardless of the fact that such "oddities" give support to design while at the same time holding against the tide that the steady state theory of the universe (often taken to give support to atheism) is the correct one. In both cases, he follows the evidence where he sees it leading and shows his big balls. At the same time, for the same reason he plainly also likes going out on a limb, and so one might expect that most of his spectacular explanations will not pan out.
Given that there's not much potential for producing testable hypotheses in the case of panspermia theory, what would you call speculation in that area? Philosophy?
Back at you!
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