Posted on 01/04/2009 5:39:47 AM PST by PurpleMountains
All across the country, archeologists, paleontologists and biologists are taking part in what is perhaps the greatest example of political correctness in history – their adherence to Darwinism and their attempts to ostracize any scientist who does not agree with them. In doing so, they are not only ignoring the vast buildup of recent scientific discoveries that seriously undermines the basics of Darwinism, but they are also participating, due to politically correctness, in a belief system that indirectly resulted in the deaths of millions of people – those slaughtered by the Stalins, the Hitlers, the Maos, the Pol Pots and others who took their cue from Darwinism’s tenets.
(Excerpt) Read more at forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com ...
All that I have to add is that the New England Primer was the school textbook of the age and for another hundred years or so. In their formative years, this is what they would have used to learn how to read and write. And it is very Christian and includes some disturbing anti-Catholicism as well.
We've come a long way, baby.... But whatever we've become, it is crystal clear to me that this nation's founding ethos was thoroughly Christian.
To quote out of context is intellectually dishonest. Yet it's amazing how often this happens nowadays, and nobody seems to notice, or care.
Caveat emptor!
Sometimes I wonder whether this nasty habit is a legacy of Jacques Derrida's literary theory, deconstructionism. In that theory, the author's point of view and purpose in writing are held to be perfectly irrelevant to the meaning of the text. Thus the "text" is reduced simply to so many words on a page, and you can interpret their meaning basically any way you want to. With the author (i.e., context) out of the picture, there's nothing to stop you.
Thanks so much for writing, YHAOS! It's always such a pleasure speaking with you.
Sorry to quote myself here, but my statement represents only half of the enormity being perpetrated against reason itself by "killing" the author in order to "free up" the possibilities of "textual meaning." For the next thing such folks tend to do, is to resurrect the authorial corpse in order to "cite" him as an "authority" of the deranged, deracinated "textual meaning" they favor.
Talk about intellectual crookedness — and outright crooks!
Thanks ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your kind words of support!
And thus we come to the moment when the disintegration of the rigor of Western intellectual thought can no longer be denied, but all Science (Materialistic Methodology) can do is sit around on its collective backside and howl about Christian ‘interference’ in the life of the Republic.
****But more importantly, I think your term for this is “irreducible complexity,” and that somehow “proves” an Intelligent Design.****
You do this so often that I’m now going to use the following acronym....YPWIMMA.” That stands for “you’re putting words in my mouth again.” I can’t “prove” ID just like you can’t “prove” macroevolution. What the morphology of the bomardier beetle shows is that it takes a huge stretch of the imagination that all of those pieces would have evolved at the same time....and spare me the lecture, please. They would have all had to have been there together or he wouldn’t have survived.
****Well, I believe (along with most church teaching), that ALL of nature, not just some specific parts of it, is “intelligently designed” by God from the beginning. So God did not just occasionally intervene to make things happen — instead, He made the Universe to develop the way He wanted it to from the beginning.****
If you believe that God Intelligently Designed it from the beginning and since you obviously think that you know the mind of God, perhaps you can tell me why you think a God powerful enough to create the universe would take billions of years to create it’s inhabitants. Instead of creating a cell, why didn’t He create everything else....was He not powerful enough? Not intelligent enough? What?
And by the way....I reject what you call “most church teaching”. I don’t know that it is and I really don’t care if they do. Even if it is “most church teaching” it carries no weight in this argument. Majority opinion does not define truth. Truth defines truth.
****But my beliefs are just that — theology & metaphysics, not science. Science can only look for natural causes for natural occurrences****
We’ve been down this road as well. Your statement is false. Science tries to assign a natural cause for EVERY occurence, not just natural ones. If they don’t have an answer they make one up and hope it sticks.....kind of like pond-scum to people evolution.
****I’d consider you a friendly & sincere propagandist for a Big Lie.****
The feeling is mutual...I think the exact same thing about you.
****Bottom line: you want us to belive that science itself is a Big Lie.****
I don’t think science is a big lie....I think they’ve created a construct that won’t allow them to seek the truth.
They view things forensically through the lens of evolution and only through the lens of evolution. When you do that you are not seeking truth....you are trying to validate your worldview. It goes something like this:
“The answer is evolution, now what’s the question?”
They like to say they’re going wherever the evidence leads but since they built a mechanism that only allows natural explanations that’s all they are ever going to find and often times they have to twist and turn the evidence to make it fit.
****And I share the view that God created the Universe for His own purposes, but I also think He made the varios physical processes comprehensible by mankind.****
Me too.
****And so it has been for centuries now. That is the progress of science — pushing “God” further and further away from our understanding of physical nature.****
Ask yourself if that makes any sense. They are trying to “understand physical nature” by pushing God (who YOU say is the Creator) further and further away. Good luck with that.
****But, imho, in all this time God’s handiwork has been clear for ANYONE to see, regardless of what the scientists say.****
Here are the numbers:
From Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691, p. 313 (1998) © Macmillan Publishers Ltd.:
“Our chosen group of “greater” scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers.”
Nice.
By the way....NAS stands for “National Academy of Sciences”.
Scientists shun God because in all of their disciplines God is shoved aside in the classroom from grade school through grad school. We are told about this in Romans 1:25:
“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
You want to read a very good book....I’ll even send you a copy if you’ll put your address in my mailbox.
It’s called “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel who had been an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He became an atheist in High School Biology class when he figured there was no God necessary.
His wife became a believer in Christ so he set out to prove to her that Christ never existed in order to “save their marriage”. When his investigation was complete he became a believer and in fact became a minister.
“The Case for a Creator” was the follow-up. Whether you agree with it or not it will force some mental gymnastics on you that will make you sharper.
Let me know if you’d like me to send you a copy.
First of all, to anyone still reading these posts (?), I would refer you back to betty boop's post #1,627, which in my mind is exactly right.
My only point on this is that our Founding Fathers (& Mothers) were in no sense religious fanatics or orthodox fundamentalists. Yes, they understood our basic need for religion, supported their churches with money & time, and agreed with most of Christianity's basic principles, but they were never going to attempt shoving anyone's particular religion down anyone else's throat.
Now, in answer to your question above -- I think we want our government leaders to be as, how shall I say it, "omni-religious" (?) as possible -- meaning, they are determined to protect all legal religions, while intending to impose none. For this purpose, I'd say our Founders' religious beliefs were exactly ideal.
And, btw, this question relates to that of Creationism / Intelligent Design versus Evolution in the sense that, the former -- being religiously motivated -- would impose religion in a public (read: government) science class.
As for the merits of Trinitarianism versus Unitarianism -- well, first let's note that Unitarianism today is nothing nothing like it was in John Adams' day. Back then, Unitarianism was essentially ancient Christianity -- before the credes of Nicea and later transformed New Testament theology into something a Roman Emperor could love. Today's Unitarians are who-knows-what, if-any religion?
But we should also note that a number of undisputably Christian churches today teach some form of unitarianism. I could even list some of them for you (and some of those denominations may surprise you), though don't suppose that has anything to do with evolution...
Here's the important point: churches which teach some form of unitarianism today represent no more than 5% of all Christians. But most of these denominations we would call "fundamentalists," and many are listed amongst the fastest growing churches.
My personal opinions on this subject, as on virtually every other, are exactly reflected in the writings of our Founding Fathers & Mothers. ;-)
Apparently this is what you consider an argument, and a "refutation" of my arguments. Sorry, but I don't agree.
I take it that you consider your words here to be an argument? Sorry, but I don't consider that you've said anything at all. Seems to me, all you do is insult -- and then complain about being insulted!
I'll say again, the proper scientific answer to a question about God is, "I don't know, because that's not a scientific question."
Of course, any scientist is entitled to his or her personal opinions, but if they claim their personal opinions are a "scientific finding," worthy of a scientific "theory of God," then the same rules would apply as to anti-evolutionism: where is your research published in what peer-reviewed scientific journal? And if the answer is, "no where," as it surely is, then we may reasonably conclude the scientist is just trying to puff up his personal opinions.
"Macroevolution is not observable, it is not testable or repeatable and it sure isn’t falsifiable.
"I know....scientists say that macroevolution can be extrapolated from microevolution....to this I say Hogwash and if you even think about it for a millisecond instead of swallowing that bilge you’d realize it as well."
Do you not see your most basic problem here? "Macroevolution" is not only not science, it's not even a real word. It's just made-up, by creationists, as a straw man to be shot down. It's a theological term intended to identify the point at which evolution violates the biblical concept of "kinds."
Real scientists never use the term "macroevolution" -- not that I've ever seen. That's because they don't recognize the biblical idea of "kinds." For science, there's only one term: evolution, and it refers to any and all changes, small, medium or large.
Of course, science recognizes the word "species," but that word itself is a convenient construct, for categorization purposes. Any number of examples can be cited where it's not certain if we are talking about one species or two.
And consider this: what exactly is the "scientific" definition of the biblical word "kind"? Is it synonymous with "species" or is it something else?
Take the example of deers. In the Bible, deers would be one "kind," right? But in science there are 34 different species of deer, and who-knows-how-many sub-species, which may or may not successfully interbreed? Add to that the fossil record of extinct species of deer, and we are now talking about dozens and dozens of different species.
Well, scientifically, how many "kinds" is that, and which ones of those were biblically "created," versus those which arose through ID-acceptable MICRO-evolution?
Here's the bottom line: real science does not play those games, only religiously motivated Creationists / Intelligent Designers do.
I'm sorry to say this, but I seriously think (;-)) there must be a school somewhere for half-wits -- that is to say a school for otherwise normal people who wish to become half-witted. And the first thing they teach at this special needs school is: reject anything and everything found on Wikipedia!
Well, I don't agree. I think Wikipedia is perfectly acceptable for the vast majority of inquiries where you need a quick and simple definition.
I'd further say, if you specifically disagree with something quoted from Wikipedia, then you must yourself supply us with a more authoritative & reliable source.
So, let's see now... what source did you cite?
Did you ever consider the example of Darwin himself? What scientific journal did he publish in? Who at the time peer-reviewed his work? Answers: none and no one. But his book was quickly bought-out and accepted by many scientists, and along with much debate, many peer-reviewed scientific articles have been published on the subject ever since.
No one is stopping Creationists / Intelligent Designers from publishing their own peer reviewed articles in their own publications. Indeed, I'd hazard to guess, there are whole library shelves full of Creationist - ID literature, with mass distributions to thousands of churches & religious schools. So you can't pretend your ideas are somehow being suppressed.
But if you want published in real scientific journals, then you'll have to meet the standards of those journals, and so far, you haven't done that, have you?
schaef21:"I could really care less what Eugenie Scott says. She’s going to trash anyone who disagrees with the orthodoxy."
My opinion is that Eugenie Scott speaks in the voice of science itself. So, when you trash her words, imho, you trash all of science.
Did you ever wonder why anti-scientists have a hard time getting published in scientific journals?
Let me know when you figure it out will ya please?"
I don't know of any scientific theory called "pond-scum to people." Can you cite the publication and author where this hypothesis is laid out & then confirmed scientifically?
I do know, Darwin speculated that life may have started in some "warm little pond" eons ago, but I don't know what scientific hypotheses have ever been proposed in this regard, much less which ones are confirmed as theories.
Possibly you can tell us that? ;-)
So you and the ID-Creationists claim. And your scientific research, results and "proof" to verify that is what, when, where and by whom? Have you considered the real scientific research of others with different results?
Your whole suggestion seems ludicrous to me, on the face of it. Since the fossil record shows smaller deer-like proto-giraffs going back 50 million years, and a sudden growth-spurt only in the last million years, it seems super-obvious to me that giraffes remained at a smaller size until all necessary physical features had evolved to allow them to reach higher tree branches.
So you have not actually made an argument here, but you did insult me -- becoming more and more YHAOS-like, I see. Let's see, is that micro- or macro-evolution? I suspect macro, since YHAOS seems to me a different "kind" of critter! ;-)
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