Posted on 02/20/2006 5:33:50 AM PST by ToryHeartland
Churches urged to back evolution By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter, St Louis
US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.
Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.
Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.
As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.
It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other Gilbert Omenn AAAS president
There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.
At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.
"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and tax payers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.
"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.
"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."
'Who's kidding whom?'
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.
Some have already heeded the warning.
"The intelligent design movement belittles evolution. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.
"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"
Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.
Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.
Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.
Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.
These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.
I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design Teacher Mark Gihring "The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.
Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."
However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.
"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."
Economic risk
The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.
"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.
"This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."
Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.
But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design will deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.
"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4731360.stm
Published: 2006/02/20 10:54:16 GMT
© BBC MMVI
You're making the unfounded assumption that what was written down is what Jesus actually said and did, and that the writers did not take any liberties in order to make specific points.
Yup...
2 Peter 3
1. Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.
2. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
3. First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
4. They will say, "Where is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."
Unlike my speling.....
Yea!!!
Lunchtime!
I find this a convenient "out." In other words, if we see contradictions and blatant errors in Scripture it's because we aren't one of the "chosen few" who've "had our eyes opened." Independent, objective verification then becomes a tool of the devil. Screw rationalism; one simply needs to believe to make it all better.
Once again, can you not see why I've begun to consider organized religion a confidence game?
I know you won't believe what I have to say, but take a good hard look at what's going on in the ME these days. Compare these events with what's been foretold in the bible. While most are not specifically mentioned, they are required steps for what is to come.
I don't know the timeline, but I can see what's happening. Just remember--science is not the only begetter of truth.
If you think that theories such as the theory of evolution are answers to those questions then you are under a misapprehension. The theory of evolution is no more an attempt to answer those questions than the theory of quantum gravity is. I think your problem may lie in the fact that you perceive (perhaps correctly) that the conclusions of the theory of evolution differ from those of your religion. It doesn't follow from that that the theory of evolution is inherently anti-religious however. Astronomy, geology, paleontology, and physics also conflicts with the religious beliefs of those who think that the Bible tells them that the world is only 6000 years old. That doesn't make astronomy atheistic either. You are quite correct in saying that "why" questions are the province of religion, not science. But scientific conclusions may directly contradict revealed religious faith. Science is not an a la carte menu though.
Yes, but the question at hand in my commenton the earlier discussion, is does God show His mercy by offering Himself a blood sacrifice, or by condescending to assume our nature and destroying the power of death by Himself passing through death?
The former understanding of God's saving grace and mercy--that He offered Himself a blood sacrifice in Our Lord's saving death--is an innovation due to Anselm of Canterbury, widely, though not universally, held by Western Christians, and barbarous to Orthodox ears. The later is the understanding of the Fathers of the Church, sung and proclaimed in every Orthodox parish the world over.
Unfortunately many are lost because they revolt (with good reason) against the barbarous substitutionary atonement theory, but knowing no other reading of the Gospel, reject not only the erroneous theory, but with it salvation in Christ, to the destruction of their souls.
No. It's because either 1) you refuse to see Scripture in the way it was written, or 2) you are unaware of cultural mores in the time it was written.
Without examples, I don't think I can help you any further. Care to provide one or two?
Please continue this only if you are sincere in learning. I am not interested in arguing with someone who has no desire other than to slam another's faith. If you are sincere, then I will gladly help you out. You may not agree with what I say--and that's fine--but I am sincere in wishing to discuss what you see are contradictions and errors.
As an amateur historian, the events unfolding today bear no special meaning to me in regards to any prophesies. The human race has seen strife like this before and it will see strife like this again.
Despite your constant treatment of it as such Christianity isn't the only religion that exists, yet your dichotomy appeared to be either Christianity is true or death is the end of all things. Further, no-one, even the most ardent materialist, has actually demonstrated the non-existence of souls, or that death is the end of all things.
Your error there is one constantly made by creationists on these threads. "Either Christianity my way or atheism". Thus it is entirely natural that we get the evolution/atheism false dichotomy constantly thrust down our throats also. There have been 10,000+ creation myths devised by men. I only disbelieve one less of them than you do.
Perhaps. There are a few more prophecies come true since then, however. You may be correct--we're not in the "End Times" as people say. But I'm still gonna keep an eye out.
As I have explained in an earlier post, you can realize the promises of the Lord today, right this moment. But you first have to free yourself from the limits of your own human understanding.
I have not made a single reference to organized religion. Neither will I. I am hoping to lead you to a knowledge of the saving grace of God and a personal relationship with His Son Jesus Christ. You are getting upset because your arms are too short to box with God and He keeps knocking you on your butt.
Are you a good person?
I see Scripture the way it is written: locusts have four legs and bats are birds; pi equals three, and there is a mountaintop somewhere from which one can see all the kingdoms of Earth.
All of these problems can be chalked up to the writers not knowing any better, which means the author cannot be God, but simply men.
If God ever had a hand in writing Scripture, any evidence of it has long since been papered over by mere mortals with their own particular agendas to enforce.
The prophesies in Daniel and Revelation are vague enough to cover just about any time period. In that regard, those prophesies are very similar to those given by the Oracle at Delphi...
Less is more, or you are me, or believe is disbelieve. :) Oops.
OK.
Not quite accurate. I actually do believe in God. However, I will not ask others to believe what I believe without verifiable, objective evidence. And, I absolutely will not take anyone else's word on the subject without that same evidence.
I'm not sure you'll understand the difference but the difference is profound. There are some 22,000 Christian denominations in the U.S. and each worships a different god because each sees the deity in a distinctly different manner. Every one of those denominations bases their beliefs on the same set of Scriptures and "revelation through the Holy Spirit" -- and yet they cannot agree! The only conclusion one can then draw is that such revelation is highly subjective and colored by an individuals own desires.
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