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
"Idolatry is putting any created being or thing before God."
By this definition then, is it not idolatry to believe inviolate in the words printed in the Bible? Since the Bible is a document, which has been handled, changed, translated etc, by man? Is it not an object, built by man, to attempt to depict God, and therefore, an idol?
As far as I can tell, he still has not admitted that he made a mistake.
What he posted was clearly untrue, was it not?
I would like to know which alleged "group" advocated for the redefinition of pi to pi=3. I tend to think it is a rumor as well. What is the documentation for that statement in the book? Does the author have any? I suspect his source is as reliable as donh's?
Did you get your T-Shirt yet?
Possibly not:
NIV Romans 2:11-16
11. For God does not show favoritism.
12. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
13. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
15. since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
16. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
NIV John 9:32-41
32. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.
33. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."
34. To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.
35. Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36. "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."
37. Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."
38. Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.
39. Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
40. Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"
41. Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
It's the inspired, inerrant Word of Allah God.
Dictated letter by letter to
Mohammed
Moses
Paul by
Gabriel Jesus.
You like the idea of bears mauling chlldren, murdering all the first born infants of egypt in their cribs, and murdering wholesale a nations non-virgin children, and handing all the virgins over to be molested and enslaved? You must be a lot of fun at S&M parties.
Why do I have to defend what is there?
Oh, let me think...oh yea, because you want to re-impose the bible as the law of the land, as in the days when the church cruelly tortured and murdered it's political and philosophical opposition.
You have made your choice, so live with it, as I will with mine.
As I recall, I am not the one who spews out endless bible verse, of generally little or no merit pertaining to whatever is being discussed, but do seem to be specially selected to highlight the most morally objectionable, more or less disgusting parts of the bible. As long as you insist on so lowering the tone, attractiveness, and comprehensibility of these threads, you are not the only one who has to live with your supercilious, callous choices.
Yet, somehow, you manage to do it.
What resolve; what courage!
R U sure you are in the right thread?
NIV 1 Peter 3:18-22
18. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,
19. through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison
20. who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. ....
It can definitely become one!
(Witness the KJV only folks)
Nice post; but WHAT is the REASON?
LOL
You're kidding, right?
So all those footnotes in all those academic papers that refer to books are not legitimate sources? After all, looking it up in a book would require getting off your duff and going down to your local public library.
The group was at Emporia State, in the early 1980's, and had a name something like 'International Society for the study of Pi'. When I get home this evening, I will post exact details.
Posting something untrue does not make one a liar, unless one KNEW it was untrue.
What is your reaction when liberals/MSM call President Bush a "liar"?
The historical and orthodox answer is simply this: All men who are rescued from their state of sin are rescued by faith in Christ. Old and New Testaments alike.
The only difference is that those justified by faith in Christ BEFORE HE CAME trusted in the coming provision God would make for sin. The promised provision came immediately after the fall where God promised that from the "seed" of the woman, one would come who would reverse the effects of that fall and crush the head of the serpent, although he would be wounded in the process (cf Gen 3:16-17). Adam's response to this promise was one of early faith in naming his wife "Havvah"(Eve), which means "mother of life." This promise of a coming "seed" was fleshed out thru the sacrificial system (the idea of guilt being imputed to another, that of holiness, etc), the kingship of David, and various other "pictures" of the coming provision for sin. Before Jesus came, some (the OT term was the "remnant") were the "Israel within Israel." They were the children of the faith of Abraham. Augustine said this the best when he said (it was latin so it is not exactly the same, but it rhymed then, too). The New is in the Old, Concealed: the Old isin the New, Revealed. All persons for all ages are justified by faith in Christ. They trusted in the coming Christ, we trust in the Christ who has come.... and is coming again (so we believe).
Hope that helps.
No, because it's not specifically supported by anything in scripture. All I see is a flat-out statement that there are people in heaven who died before Jesus was born. There's also this, which shows an even greater number of pre-Jesus people in Heaven:
Luke 13:28I'm not an expert at understanding these things. I post; you decide.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
"Your understanding of the Bible seems to come form the idea that it is a book which describes man's experiences of trying to understand God. But it is the other way around. The Bible is the record of God's dealing with man - supremely in the person of Jesus Christ. It is revelation not reason (which is not to say it is unreasonable)."
We shall have to agree to disagree on this one - it boils down to whether or not we believe that the authors truly had the word of God revealed to them, or they were just claiming that, to give credence to their written words. It is based, therefore, NOT on a faith in God, but a faith in the men who set the words to print.
"As Romans 1 makes clear we can know there is God by looking at nature - so no-one is left without excuse."
So, when our observation of nature, in the study of the fossil record, DNA, etc, disagrees with the written words in the bible, specifically Genesis, which are we to believe?
I prefer to believe that God would not have created a fossil record, DNA evidence, etc out of whole cloth, just to mislead.
I do try to confirm them when I see something that just doesn't smell legitimate.
I suspect it was an april fools joke or a hoax. Especially if it was coming from a University.
Then DO it!
Sure. As soon as you demonstrate the I'm a LIAR. Your's is a slander--at most, all you might, but probably can't, demonstate, is that I might have been mistaken.
Yours is the slander, yours is the obligation of proof.
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