Posted on 11/26/2012 2:10:21 AM PST by kathsua
Bill Nye, the so-called "science guy," recently said that the teaching of creation to young people is harmful. I beg to differ.
Does anyone remember Columbine? The shooters were not wearing Christian T-shirts. They were wearing evolutionary t-shirts touting "natural selection." These losers apparently believed that if they were only the results of mutation and natural selection over millions of years, with no God or afterlife, then why not vent their anger and go out with a bang?
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It's little wonder that they were fans of Adolf Hitler, another avid disciple of Darwin, and committed their atrocities on his birthday.
Perhaps it's the dogmatic teaching of evolution that is harmful to young people. Bill Nye and the scientific Gestapo refuse to allow even a hearing for "intelligent design" in the pubic schools. What are they afraid of? The subject of origins clearly has religious connotations for both theism and atheism. It's unfair to accept the evidence for one view as science, and reject the evidence for the other as religion.
Some Christians feel compelled (coerced is more like it) to compromise and accept evolution as God's method of creation. I could do that if the evidence was truly convincing, but it's not. Evolution is simply assumed, not proven.
As Dr. Morris points out, it's an exercise in circular reasoning: They begin with the assumption that evolution is true, proceed to interpret all of the evidence to fit that model, and then offer it as "proof" for evolution. The assumption of evolution becomes the proof for evolution. That's not science. Dr. Wiersbe calls it "a failure to distinguish information from imagination."
I don't mean to insult anybody's religion, but evolution has to be the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, and it's not always harmless, either, as demonstrated by the Columbine shooters. How much better to teach children that we are here because "In the beginning, God created ...," and because of that, life is full of meaning and purpose, for time and eternity.
Some may laugh at us for believing in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden thousands of years ago, but we laugh at them for believing in molecule to man through mutation and natural selection millions of years ago.
One day we'll see who has the last laugh.
No I’m interested in science. I’m saying science doesn’t define God.
You didn't actually read the whole essay, did you? It discusses at length the original Judeo-Christian flat earth belief. People aware of the history of science know, for example, that Galileo was found guilty of heresy for describing a heliocentric solar system.
According to Isaiah 40:22, New International Version, not only is the earth a circle (which is a flat object), the heavens are solid, like cloth:
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
And according to Job 38:13, New International Version, the earth has edges:
that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?
The Bible simply does not describe the universe as we know it to be. Denying that the Bible describes a flat earth, etc., in order to try to make its description of a sudden creation event 6,000 years ago seem more believable is rather dishonest, in my opinion.
BTW, it's very presumptious to assume that scientists don't read the Bible.
I'm talking about real science, not legitimate scientific concepts that have been hijacked for political purposes. The earth's climate is not static; it is either warming or cooling all the time. The ozone hole does form every year when the Antarctic is plunged into darkness by the tilt of the earth. And DDT did cause problems. It is not the fault of science that some politicians see in these real phenomena an excuse to try to restrict our freedom.
I don't expect a lot of consistency in creationist beliefs. Each creationist appears to have his/her own version of creation, which only partially matches the Bible, and their so-called "refutations" of science are all over the map, as well. Adamant creationists do not, in my experience, function within a logical framework.
It's kind of sad, in a way. I think the insistence on believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible harms the Christian faith. Kids raised in a tradition of rigid literal belief but who are also logical, intelligent, and curious about the natural world can very easily decide to throw away their faith when they see that the physical world doesn't conform to the Bible. I recently read about someone who did just that... became an atheist because his Christian parents taught him that science and faith are incompatible.
Science is a methodology for describing the physical world around us. Science cannot define God.
Science cannot define God.
Thats what I said.
Galileo was prosecuted by the Inquisition because his Copernican description of the universe conflicted with the Aristotelean model which the Catholic church had adapted as a result of the influence of Aquinas whose entire metaphysic was based on Aristotle. Further, your quotes for Isaiah are nothing more than similes and metaphors which are used in all literature including the Bible. Here’s a hint: note the use of the word “like” and then look up the definition of simile. Do you really think the Bible considers people to be literal grasshoppers and the sky to be a cloth tent? Whats remarkable is that in 675 BC Isaiah knew the earth was round (and circular shape does not equate to a “flat object”). The Isaiah passages are the prophet pointing out the transcendence and omnipotence of God. The Job passage is pointing out the Justice and reckoning of God. Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed, a pearl, and many other inanimate objects. While the Bible is not a science book, when the original text does touch on matters of science it is always correct. When it touches on matters of history it is always correct.
Bill Nye’s never been all about science, he’s just another Partisan Media Shill.
Smearing Rubio — There are questions only conservative Republicans are asked.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2963289/posts
There are plenty of passages in the Bible which reflect the fact that the people of the time it was written believed the earth was flat. It is less clear whether the flat shape is a circle or square (the Isaiah passage refers to a circle, but other passages talk of the “four corners”).
I understand perfectly well what a simile is; it is perfectly clear in that Isaiah passage that the earth is literally described as a circle (*not* as a sphere or ball), while people are being compared to grasshoppers. You can look back at that post (#42) and see that I did not comment that the Bible states that people are grasshoppers.
I would disagree strongly that where the Bible mentions matters of science it is “always correct.” There are many examples of its scientific inaccuracy, beginning with Genesis and the description of God talking and causing animals to pop out of the dirt.
I think it is dangerous to teach kids that the Bible is inerrant in matters of science. Unless you teach them that the Bible descriptions of the world are metaphorical, you’re setting them up to reject *everything* in the Bible when they find it clashes with the real world. That means they reject the promise of redemption and salvation, as well.
But under you position that everything must be taken in its most literal possible sense this is the obvious conclusion. Further, it we go to the Hebrew for the word tranaslated as "circle" ("Hug") it can mean anything circular in nature. As to the earth being flat you still have failed to show anything in scripture that states the world is flat. You take a few metahpors in isolation which don't make that point in the slightest. I could go to any scientific work, including Newton's Principia Mathematic, and do the same thing to make outrageous, and similarly false, conclusions. "Four corners" is a metaphor used thoughout history to descripbe the complete expanse of something. We can also find the phrase "from one end of the earth to the other" and it never is used to mean the planet is a straight line. And it is much easier for me to believe that God created animals the earth than it is to believe that inert elements just magically combined themselves into something as complex as life. Or that complex information just magically creates itself through a vague undefined process called "mutation", something we never see in real world experience.
But under you position that everything must be taken in its most literal possible sense this is the obvious conclusion. Further, it we go to the Hebrew for the word tranaslated as "circle" ("Hug") it can mean anything circular in nature. As to the earth being flat you still have failed to show anything in scripture that states the world is flat. You take a few metahpors in isolation which don't make that point in the slightest. I could go to any scientific work, including Newton's Principia Mathematic, and do the same thing to make outrageous, and similarly false, conclusions. "Four corners" is a metaphor used thoughout history to descripbe the complete expanse of something. We can also find the phrase "from one end of the earth to the other" and it never is used to mean the planet is a straight line. And it is much easier for me to believe that God created animals the earth than it is to believe that inert elements just magically combined themselves into something as complex as life. Or that complex information just magically creates itself through a vague undefined process called "mutation", something we never see in real world experience.
Context makes it very clear which phrases are meant to be taken literally, and which are meant to be taken metaphorically.
No matter how you try to spin it, a circle is a flat object. We have many terms in our language that reflect the belief that the earth is flat, even though we know through scientific study that the earth is spherical. For example, the sun rises and the sun sets--yet we know that in reality, the rotation of the earth causes the illusion that the sun moves across the sky. Until such time as scientists demonstrated that the earth is a spherical planet located within a heliocentric system, those phrases referring to the flat earth with a small sun racing across the sky were not metaphorical at all. They were thought to be accurate descriptions of reality. Our language is full of "metaphors" that were once thought literal.
If God speaking a word and causing animals formed of carbon to pop fully formed out of silicate dirt isn't magic, then I don't know what is. From a scientific point of view, the slow and steady evolution of life, which is based in very well understood chemical and physical principles, is a heck of a lot more believable than fully formed animals springing from lifeless dirt. The process of mutation is scarcely "vague" and "undefined", as you put it: it is a very specific chemical alteration of DNA that changes the DNA sequence. And it is common, unavoidable, and occurs frequently throughout life.
It's rather funny that not only has Christianity adapted to the reality that the earth isn't flat, but that many people who claim to literally believe the Bible have to try to deny that the Biblical describes the earth as being flat... even while they cling tenaciously to other beliefs that are just as demonstrably at odds with reality.
That's right! 6247 this past October.
Hitler was a creationist who believed in fixed kinds. But don’t let facts get in your way, creationists seldom do.
The conflict between Darwinism and theism is not that God could have used evolution by natural selection. The contradiction is at a deeper level. To know that Darwinism is true as a general explaination for the history of life one must know that no alternative to naturalistic evolution is true. To know that is to know that God does not exist, or at least God does not create. The statement, "God does not exist." is just as much a fact claim as the claim, God exists. So the materialist cannot have it both ways. If God does not exist, tell us how he knows that. Prove it beyond any reasonable doubt by metaphysical materialism claims.
Darwin's five main arguments for decent - neither fossil progression, biogeographical distribution, homology, embryological similarity, nor existence of rudimentary organs - establish common decent beyond any reasonable doubt.
The theory of common descent produces an admirable consilience. But that is just the point. Theories have the property of conscilience; facts do not. Consilience is a comparative notion, and the monophyletic view of biological history has not achieved greater conscilience than a polyphyletic view of biological history. Even invincible arguments from molecular homologies depend upon their efficacy for a priori certainties that similarity cannot be the product of common principles of design. Such certitude, it seems, has been acquired on the basis of naive dismissals of the metaphysics of others propagated by the Darwinist materialist's own metaphysical naturalism.
This statement shows that you are comletely close minded and don't even read the posts you are responding to. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew not English. I pointed out that the Hebrew word which was translated "circle" in the NIV is the word for anything round or circular and is based on the Hebrew word for the curve of the horizon. But you are so wedded to your fantasy you disregard this, assume the bible was originally written in English and stick to this fantasy that circle (a word biblical Hebrews never even heard of) always means flat but don't cite a shred of authority to back that up other than your own imagination. Since you are so close minded I'll just end the discussion there. You teach your kids what you want to and I'll teach mine what I want to.
This statement shows that you are comletely close minded and don't even read the posts you are responding to. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew not English. I pointed out that the Hebrew word which was translated "circle" in the NIV is the word for anything round or circular and is based on the Hebrew word for the curve of the horizon. But you are so wedded to your fantasy you disregard this, assume the bible was originally written in English and stick to this fantasy that circle (a word biblical Hebrews never even heard of) always means flat but don't cite a shred of authority to back that up other than your own imagination. Since you are so close minded I'll just end the discussion there. You teach your kids what you want to and I'll teach mine what I want to.
Now you're assuming that I think the Bible was written in English? Or that I don't read the posts I respond to? Goodness.
It does not matter that the original text was written in Hebrew. That doesn't change the fact that the ancient Hebrews were describing a flat, circular world--completely consistent with the world as they believed it to be. And as all of the ancient cultures in that part of the world believed the world to be. (Hint: if the ancient Hebrews had meant to describe the world as a sphere, they would have used a word meaning "sphere" or "ball." But they used a word meaning "circle.")
The fact is, you're still trying to insist that certain parts of the Bible which its authors and people up until a few centuries ago believed were accurate descriptions are metaphorical. That doesn't fly. Nor does your insistence make the story of animals springing up from the ground any more plausible or believable. You can't spin words to try to make the Bible into a scientific document. No matter how much you try to deny it, you're still picking and choosing which scientifically incorrect Biblical descriptions you will believe as true.
I think that teaching kids that Biblical metaphors (e.g. Genesis) are actual verifiable fact is reprehensible. You're essentially telling them that they have a choice between accepting scientific observations (which they can see for themselves) or a story which is not supported by any evidence. That kind of rigidity is not conducive to promoting faith. People have already become atheist because their parents taught them that Christianity is either/or, and they can see for themselves that the world is not as described in the Bible.
Prove it....”
You beat me to the punch.
Great job!
I ‘ll wait for driftdriver’s response
.”..Creationism is also a myth. Earth is older than 6000....”
Just how old is it????
I bet you are WRONG!
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