How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana’s creationists

io9 ^ | January 15, 2013 | George Dvorsky

[EveningStar]

For Zack Kopplin, it all started back in 2008 with the passing of the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill made it considerably easier for teachers to introduce creationist textbooks into the classroom. Outraged, he wrote a research paper about it for a high school English class. Nearly five years later, the 19-year-old Kopplin has become one of the fiercest — and most feared — advocates for education reform in Louisiana. We recently spoke to him to learn more about how he's making a difference.

[spirited irish]

“They deny the very thing that brought them into existence.”

Spirited: Yes, and because they do they have reduced themselves to dead bodies that somehow speak and walk.

Ideas really do have consequences.

[YHAOS]

You give the impression that your materialism entitles you to claim objectiveness for anything you opine, and that opposition to your view can not be objective. We share no common assumptions so, while speaking to one another is possible, discussion is not. Discussion with a propagandist, as with any Liberal, is never possible.

Apparently, you would have us believe, as a matter of objective fact, that 2 billion people around the world crack open their bibles to adore “special” little busses that will take them to a land of “fairy tales.” Further, you would have us believe that such a claim must be accepted as a common assumption, because . . . well, you are, after all, you.

What you are is a child of Darwinian Materialism. It is your ultimate religion. It is your position that anything a Materialist asserts must be admitted as objective. But you dare not preach the doctrine, so you must indulge in propaganda practices so blatant they amuse the whole Forum.

What you practice is known as the fallacy of the Hijacked Concept. It is the practice of appropriating a concept while denying the validity of the generic root upon which the concept logically depends. It is closely related to the The Stolen Concept. The slogan “all property is theft” is it’s most frequent example.

You go so far as to hijack The Pope into your calumnious propagandizing schemes. You quote The Pope as saying that evolution is a “truth which enriches our understanding of life and being and such”; and use this to assert your opinion“ and as such is NOT a creationist..”

You think your quote of Pope Benedict is your open sesame to slander any Christian who disagrees with you (on anything)? What you can’t stand . . . what you gag on – what you flee in terror from . . . is that Pope Benedict went on to observe (according to the same MSNBC report you cited) that evolution does not answer all the questions: “Above all it does not answer the great philosophical question, ‘Where does everything come from?’” That’s as quintessentially Creationist as is philosophically and religiously possible, whether or not the Pope calls himself a Creationist. Pope Benedict’s question, “Where does everything come from?” is a question that Darwinian thought cannot answer, but it is a question that goes to the very core of Creationism, and it is an endless nightmare for you.

So, cling to your little intellectually dishonest out-of-context quote (a characteristic your superheroes The Darwinian Mullahs claim to particularly hold in contempt), just as you have refused to hold up your end of the conversation in every thread involving any of the issues provoked by your categorical declarations.

Now we come to your feeble offering of a “definition”:
“creationism
1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.”

Re my message#167 “If you’ll check the definitions of “Creationism” you will find that they cover quite a wide range of philosophical ideas involved in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” You will see that I reference definitions - plural – indicating the truth, which you dare not recognize, that Creationism is a complex religious tenet of the Judeo-Christian tradition. You even lack the honesty to quote the full definition in the reference you cite:
“2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, especially in the first chapter of Genesis.
“3. the doctrine that God immediately creates out of nothing a new human soul for each individual born.”

Actually, there is a considerable variety of definitions of Creationism to be found, many apropos to Judeo-Christianity, and exhibiting a wide spectrum of views and understandings:
(beginning with a selection from my own collection of dictionaries:

Creationism noun 1 the belief that the universe and living creatures were created by God in accordance with the account given in the Old Testament.
. . . . . Compact Oxford English Dictionary, revised edition 2003

Creationism n 1 In philosophy, the doctrine that matter and each new form was created by a direct exercise of the Divine power; opposed to evolution.
. . . . . Webster’s Universal Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged, 1937

The original 1828 Webster’s Dictionary doesn’t show the word ‘creationism’ or ‘creationist’ but simply defines the word ‘Creation’ as “The act of creating; the act of causing to exist; and especially, the act of bringing this world into existence (emphasis mine). I include this last because it most closely reflects the understandings of the men who were key in the creation of The Constitution and The Bill Of Rights – hence the First Amendment – and was authored by a man who was a correspondent with many of these men and was himself an authority on The Constitution as well as the English language.)

And, following, see a selection of other ordinary and modern definitions:

n the belief that God created the universe
. . . . . Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition

n a doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis.
. . . . . Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, 11th Edition - no change since 1880

n 1. the doctrine that God creates a new soul for every human being born. n 2. the doctrine that ascribes the origin of matter, species, etc. to an act of creation by God, specif. to God's creation of the world as described in the Bible.
. . . . . Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed. 2005

n 1. the doctrine that the world, life, and matter were created out of nothing by an omnipotent god, rather than that they evolved from other forms. n 2. the theological doctrine that each human soul is created out of nothing for each individual born.
. . . . . The Wordsmyth English Dictionary

n Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.
. . . . . The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

n 1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed. n 2. (sometimes cap.) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, esp. in the first chapter of Genesis. n 3. the doctrine that God immediately creates out of nothing a new human soul for each individual born. Cf. traducianism.
. . . . . Infoplease Dictionary - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

n The literal belief in the account of creation given in the Book of Genesis: “creationism denies the theory of evolution of species.”
. . . . . UltraLingua English Dictionary

n. The doctrine that a soul is specially created for each human being as soon as it is formed in the womb; -- opposed to traducianism.
. . . . . Webster's Revised Unabridged, 1913 Edition

Creationism (Latin creatio)
(1) In the widest sense, the doctrine that the material of the universe was created by God out of no pre-existing subject. It is thus opposed to all forms of Pantheism.
(2) Less widely, the doctrine that the various species of living beings were immediately and directly created or produced by God, and are not therefore the product of an evolutionary process. It is thus opposed to Transformism.
(3) In a restricted but more usual sense, the doctrine that the individual human soul is the immediate effect of God's creative act. It is thus opposed to Traducianism.
. . . . . CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA

It is more than a little presumptuous to reserve for yourself exclusivity in commanding the lexicon. You wish your meaning of ‘Creationist’ to prevail, and for the ordinary complex meanings to disappear into the night. You know those who can dictate the meaning of terms in a discussion can attain political domination. For that reason alone you must be contested.

There are a number of ‘special’ terms for some Creationist ideas: Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Day-Age Creationism, Gap Creationism, ‘Evolution’ Creationism (whatever that is), Intelligent Design, Modern Geocentrism Creationists, Omphalos Hypothesis Creationists, Creation Science Creationists, Gap Creationists, Progressive Creationists, Neo Creationists, Intelligent Design Creationists, Creation literalists, Evolution Theist Creationists, Micro-Evolutionary Creationism, Progressive Creationists, Flat Earther Creationists, “hard core” Creationists, and, your very favorite, “Special” Creationists (I do not represent the above as an exhaustive list).

Most any one of them, or others (or a combination), might suit your purpose in describing the philosophy you oppose, but you refuse to follow the norm. You wish to pillory all Creationists by attempting to associate them with heinous, traits and with snide references to their intelligence. When you stigmatize the generic term with your array of vile implications, you are seeking to destroy the norms and conventions of meaning for the purpose of calumny, malicious aspersions, and political domination.

You rate a huge FAIL.

[metmom]

ouch....

burned....

[allmendream]

I read what you write but all I hear is the crying of a spoiled brat who thinks he owns the language. You don’t. Creationism as defined is USELESS. Crying about it to me doesn’t change that.

I will readily admit that evolution and the theory of natural selection does nothing to answer the origins of life or the meaning of life or what God values in us all or any number of questions. But it is the only useful scientific model that explains how species change and have changed.

The Pope is not a creationist as defined. Neither am I. Neither are many millions of Christians. Crying about it and trying to use non standard definitions will not change it. Creationism as defined is useless. Science is useful. Creationism and Christianity are not synonymous.

[xzins]

God is the only realistic explanation of incredible complexity of life and all that is. Any other explanation is an impossible dead end.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your splendid essay and testimony, dearest sister in Christ!

I stand before the Glory of God, made so manifest to me, or I imagine to any other person with the eyes to see it (thanks be to the Holy Spirit!), so to marvel before the Beauty, Truth, and Goodness of what the Lord has wrought in His Creation, while being dumbfounded that He should give such special attention to a certain class of biological beings that He has made — that is, Man, created for divine Sonship from the Beginning.

Al Glory be to God!!! for you and me and everyone and everything else in His justly created order!

Amen!

In short, my belief is that both the natural and the moral (spiritual) laws find common Source in the Will of God the Father, as expressed and constantly projected into the created world by his Son, His Truth, the instrument of divine Will, via the Holy Spirit.

Amen!

I aver that the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences (Wigner) is like God's copyright notice on the Cosmos.

[metmom]

I read what you write but all I hear is the crying of a spoiled brat who thinks he owns the language. You don’t. Creationism as defined is USELESS. Crying about it to me doesn’t change that.

Look who's whining talking....

The king of making up definitions on the run.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights and testimony, dear brother in Christ, and thank you for the NASA link to the deep space image!

Indeed, as betty boop discusses elsewhere on this thread, lots of people tend to reduce problems to whatever they can wrap their minds around.

Some see the physical world through the Newtonian paradigm and shudder when others point out that there are more effective mathematical models for living systems (Rosen, Shannon et al)

Some cannot envision God doing something more than they can comprehend and so tend to superimpose their own human properties and logic onto Him. You gave an example of Michelangelo's beautiful painting, the Creation of Adam. Though beautiful, it wrongly portrays God as an old grey-haired man on a cloud.

And some cannot seem to factor in that space and time are part of the creation, not a restriction on or property of the Creator of them. Or that He is not restricted by the "identity problem" or the "law of the excluded middle" and so on. They are also part of the creation.

Hoping to find some common ground, I have pointed out on crevo threads that when we consider inflationary theory and relativity, that 13 billion years from our present space/time coordinates is equal to 6 equivalent "days" from the inception space/time coordinates (Shroeder et al). In other words, that both statements are true.

But it doesn't seem to help nor is it all that important. Indeed, one of the most delightful reactions I recall reading on a crevo thread went something like this: I believe that Jesus Christ is God enfleshed, born of the virgin Mary, that He made wine out of water, healed the sick, made the blind see, walked on water, raised the dead, was crucified for my sins, arose on the third day, is sitting on the right hand of God the Father and will come again some day. And you think I should have a problem with Creation Week? LOLOL!

[Alamo-Girl]

Creation is central to God's essence I believe (and ours). Creation that is continuous is going to look a lot like evolution.

So very true, dear brother in Christ, thank you for your testimony and insights!

[TXnMA]

Brother, we are in pretty close agreement -- except on your concept of "continuous creation".

In my view -- as a believer and as a scientist -- is that God performed only one act of CREATION -- of space, time, matter and energy ...all that is and ever will be -- where absolutely nothing had existed before. (Ex nihilo)

And then, He FORMED all that we see or can detect -- either through direct intervention, as when He, in His own good time, formed the physical body of Man from matter He had already created (the "dust of the ground") -- or via processes and laws that he put into place as part of His (unique) act of creation. And, of course, those FORMATION (not creation) processes are still ongoing.

I am convinced that the aforementoned continuing formation proceeds essentially "on autopilot"-- controlled by the laws (PV=nRT, E=MC^2, V=IR, F=MA, etc, etc.) that He established at Creation. In fact, my scientific work depends on -- and validates -- that viewpoint.

But, personal experience has proved to me that He, on occasion, does directly intervene in the progress of His creation. There are instances where He, IMHO, "puts things back on plan" by overruling his own physical laws and making adjustments that ignore those laws. We believers call those events, "miracles"...

Those events are, indeed, rare. And, indeed -- like chaos theory's hypothetical "flap of a butterfly's wing in Amazonia" that, through cascading natural amplification triggers a hurricane -- may be mostly undetected by us.

Nonetheless, I am convinced that He monitors the progress of all of His creation in real-time and in the minutest detail -- and that He is completely in control of its continuation.

I am immeasurably blessed that, as an observational scientist, I have had a lifetime of examining and discovering the beauty, intricacy, majesty and sheer genius of His creation and its ongoing formational processes. And that He has allowed me to derive a lifetime of awe, pleasure, worship -- and sheer joy -- through those observations!!

So, please permit me to re-state your last paragraph -- in my terms:

Creation and formation are central to God's essence I believe (and ours). Formation that is continuous and under the control of His Will is going to look a lot like evolution.

(FYI, I mostly use the term, "development" where I have used "formation" here, but I stuck with "formation" for consistency with Genesis. Furthermore, unless I am strictly discussing Darwin, I typically substitute "development" for "evolution".)

Fair enough?

To HIM be the glory!!!

[grey_whiskers]

You failed to see the application?

A soul can begin at a known point in time, and extend "forever after", just as a ray can in space.

God can be forever in both directions, just as a line.

So I didn't understand why a soul lasting forever would need to imply that it had existed from all eternity.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Along this line another much-vaunted philosophical relic is the presumption of atheisim. At face value, this is the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not eist.

This is only the general application of the null hypothesis which is used within science to minimize the number of false positives (Occam's razor and all that). It is very useful for winnowing competing models; but it lies open to the systematic weakness of false negatives.

Plantinga is very good at discussing the philosophical difference between physics and metaphysics: in particular, much of what underlies the scientific method is metaphysics which originally derived from Christianity; now that the "general" regularity and (shall we call it?) "categorizability" of the Universe is well understood, many pretend that such regularity is not only reasonable on its face, but well-nigh inevitable; thus undercutting (in their mind) the "need" for a Creator to "explain."

But in doing so, they in fact are making serious metaphysical errors which are not apparent to non-philosophers; they pretend in response that as long as they can more or less accurately predict the behaviour of nature with their models, then their metaphysics doesn't matter, or have been substantiated after the fact.

I may need to write an essay on this and one or two related topics...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

+1

[grey_whiskers]

But, personal experience has proved to me that He, on occasion, does directly intervene in the progress of His creation. There are instances where He, IMHO, "puts things back on plan" by overruling his own physical laws and making adjustments that ignore those laws. We believers call those events, "miracles"...

Two quibbles.

1) I don't think it is necessarily true that all miracles violate the laws of nature; it may be that he simply "steps in from outside of the Universe" to manipulate things without our knowledge, and then lets nature take its course from that point. To those of us just looking at the events unfolding, it *looks* like a miracle.

An analogy. According to Newton's laws of motion, an object at rest stays at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. You know, like the screen door which stays shut unless moved by a gust of wind or a cat climbing up it.

But if God or an angel or The Invisible Man^TM tiptoed up to the door, pulled it open, and then let it shut, it would look miraculous to us -- because, even though the door was obeying the laws of physics in opening to the pull, and then slamming shut, all we would see is a door opening "by itself".

Creation ex nihilo is different, as presumably the laws are defined at the same time as the cosmos over which they hold sway.

And two other discontinuities would be The Fall and Good Friday / Easter, where the relations of matter and spirit are changed in a discontinuous fashion.

2) God also works through the hearts and minds of Men to effect his will.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Try reading Mein Kampf to find out what Hitler really thought, instead of mindlessly reposting gnu.atheism or alt.reddit drivel.

Primary source materials are better than cut and paste of paraphrase from secondary sources.

You know, like you atheists are always complaining about the unreliability of the Bible because of the supposed prevalence of oral transmission during ancient times.

But somehow, smearing Christians doesn't just protect against such distortions, it justifies them.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Sorry, just now noticed your second sentence.

The time in Heaven is "Eternity".

Nobody on this side of the pearly gates has defined a Jacobian to map between that coordinate system and ours.

Obligatory red herring: Since God is the "unmoved mover" does this imply the existance of a true inertial reference frame in Him, and therefore, that General Relativity is invalid in Heaven?

Follow up: Riddle me this, Batman. "In Him is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all." Is it applicable to the preceeding, or a coincidence?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

It was the Orthodox Christian persecution of “heresy” that made Islam a worldwide religion. But for the persecution of the Ghassanids Mohammed’s religion would be a quaint tribal anachronism constrained to the Saudi Arabian peninsula.

Your timeframe for this development, please?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

How ignorant to label anything they don't understand as *magic*.

Arthur C. Clarke's third law was predated by Jesus (and even then Clarke garbled it), see Matthew 17:20.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Try reading up on the history of classical thought -- note that for the longest time (until technology began to catch up, and the transition in thought from scholasticism to empiricism was mated with beginning to ask for mechanism rather than "motivation"), the "natural sciences" were thought of as sickly weak sisters to the other disciplines.

The shoe definitely is on the other foot now.

Cheers!

[Sherman Logan]

for the longest time ... the "natural sciences" were thought of as sickly weak sisters to the other disciplines.

I am perfectly well aware of this, thank you.

That doesn't mean those who believed this were right. Once the scientific method was developed, it was in fact quickly shown that they were wrong.

It should be pointed out that metaphysics and the other purely speculative disciplines reached wildly diverse results, not only between different civilizations such as the Middle East, Europe, India and China, but within those civilizations. So which of these results are we to accept as "the truth" and on what basis can we base that conclusion?

Science, otoh, properly done will reach exactly the same conclusions whether the experiment is performed in Palo Alto or Peking.