Posted on 06/03/2005 6:25:25 PM PDT by Crackingham
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has withdrawn its co-sponsorship of a showing later this month of a film that supports the theory of "intelligent design."
The museum said it would not cancel the screening of the film, "The Privileged Planet," but would return the $16,000 that the Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes a skeptical view of the Darwinian theory of evolution, had paid it.
Proposals for events at the National Museum of Natural History are reviewed by members of the staff, and it shares sponsorship of all events. After the news of the showing caused controversy, however, officials of the museum screened "Privileged Planet" for themselves.
"The major problem with the film is the wrap-up," said Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman.
"It takes a philosophical bent rather than a clear statement of the science, and that's where we part ways with them."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One of the truly wonderful attributes possessed by most human beings is a sense of humor and the ability to laugh.
If, indeed, we are "in the image" of a Designer, then this thread must be providing exquisite pleasure and delight to that Being!
Oh, well, one day we'll know, won't we? Or, will we????
Looking over my shoulder here, I've got somewhere between 300 and 400 historical books and books on history, a bit different than "history books" which are cursory works and summarize the editors opinions. These are a fraction of the material I'm familiar with. Additionally, I have a higher degree in European Medieval History. Your "high school" education is unfortunate, but not so much as you reliance upon it. So is your phobia concerning Christianity. People such as yourself take any connection to Christianity by people committing acts, as proof of the responsibility of Christianity for those acts. What is telling about this is that you make no similar connection to other religions, organizations, etc. Thus, you can make the absurd pronouncement that Hitler was a Christian. The woodcuts to which you refer, show how dangerous a little bit of knowledge can be. Propaganda is as old as History. One of the most common methodologies in the middle ages was for the local Prince to drum up support for his next campaign by depicting the enemy as heretical. Often this took the form of showing them persecuting faithful Christians. Later, Protestants greatly exaggerated the inquisition for the same reason. Finally, Europe wasn't converted in a day. Extreme barbarism like tossing their own children into pits to fight with dogs for the purpose of entertainment, wouldn't be expected to stop all of a sudden, and it didn't. A great deal of the heart of Europe wasn't converted until after the year 1000. Christianity brought a great deal of peace and civilization to Europe. The fact that evil did not cease is not surprising. Princes heavily indebted to Jews often began pogroms against them to get rid of their creditors. Was this done in the name of religion? Of course, what idiotic evil monarch would say, "Kill these people, so that I won't have to pay them back." Much better to say to the illiterate masses ignorant of Judaism, "These are wicked Christ killers." Of course, it takes a while for the effects of such evil to dissipate, so when too many new borns died or the like, a spontaneous persecution could occur. The Church during this time tried to hold a flock which contained hundreds of languages, differing peoples with histories of animosity and brutal customs, and a secular rule of warlords. Complicating this, was a precarious communication line that could take months and was almost always microcosmic in its scope. Not surprising then that even with the best of intentions, the Church would not be able to act decisively or that many of decisions now seem grossly unfair. By your standards of guilt, you must also find the US government directly responsible for instigating the actions of the KKK, but you have no such standards, just a deep dislike of Christianity.
Ok, mr. long winded history guy, let's try a few specifics. To what institution was the inquisition attached? What institution persecuted Galileo and burned Geordono Bruno? Where is the bull of excommunication drumming Hitler out of the Catholic church? Where is Hitler's request to be dropped from the roles of the catholic church? What institutition published the encyclical called the "Hammer of Witches"? What institution built a building in the Vatican dedicated to kidnapping Jewish children to be spirited off to distant lands and raised Catholic? Which Pope personally supervised the mass drownings of Anabaptist children?
Waving your 400 history books around like a magic talisman, muttering about how course common knowledge is and burbling on endlessly about how nobody can really know anything about issues that are quite prominent, impactful, and well-known, is a bunch of incompetent malarky compounded by arrogance. If you have evidence in these 400 books of yours that the Inquisition wasn't part of the Catholic church, or that the Church didn't author the "Hammer of Witches", or incite the Crusades, or that Galileo wasn't really persecuted by the Catholic church trot it out
Yes, plain as the nose on your face, as you immediately than acknowledge:
Of course, what idiotic evil monarch would say, "Kill these people, so that I won't have to pay them back." Much better to say to the illiterate masses ignorant of Judaism, "These are wicked Christ killers."
Who provided these monarchs with this cover story? The difference between and excuse and a reason is just point of view.
The church could not act decisively because it had no wish to. The church has issued multiple Papal Encyclicals denigrating jews, heretics, and women. Hitler did not invent forced ghettoization for Jews, yellow arm bands for jews, or employment restrictions for jews; Popes did, by encyclical. Furthermore, jew-hatred is endemic in church theology. It is fundamental to Catholicism that, although remorse and confession, or even simple savage innocence, can remit any other sin, if you know OF jesus, but do not accept his as savior, you are irredeemably damned. This is the Doctrine of Salvation.
If, on the other hand, you are an orthodox jew, it is fundamental to your faith that, because there can be no other Gods before Him (this is a Commandment, it might possibly be covered in your 400 historical works), Jesus is just a good man, and salvation is derived from obedience to the word of God. This is sometimes called the Doctrine of Works, as opposed to the Doctrine of Salvation, and a jew is reminded of it, every day when he says the shema.
This fundamental conflict is the persistent wellspring of officially voiced (and you don't get more official than a Papal Encyclical) denigration of jews coming from the Voice of Peter. Trying to pretend the Church has no culpability in the events we've been discussing, given that the church itself acknowledges its culpability, is remarkably silly, even for a person whose mananaged not to know who is responsible for the Inquisition with his 400 history books.
So, instead of beating me down with arguments from your 400 history books, you've decided to call me a pig and patronize me. Well, bless you too.
Science does call for a lot of faith though. For example, ... .... ..... ..... ..... ......
Give it a rest. Natural scientists are not bowled over by the news that scientific theories do not rest on unimpeachable epistimological/ontological foundations. Scientific theories are routinely outdated, for heaven sakes.
I advise you to stick to preaching about how nobody knows nothin' about history--it's equally pointless, but you won't put your audience to sleep quite so fast.
Reading is a skill. I didn't call you a pig. I used an analogy with a pig in it. Had I said, "Its no use trying to fill a leaky bucket" would you have then charged me with calling you a bucket? Perhaps you would.
As I've so repeatedly said, you've so thoroughly shown, and why I won't commit to trying to give you a dissertation in European History, you have both of your fingers shoved to the second knuckle into your ears (this is a colorful exercise in visualization to make a point, so don't argue with me about which knuckle it is or that you are reading, not listening).
Its most amusing that my original observation that scientists can be illogically dogmatic has so violently stirred the hornets' nest (that's a colloquialism, no one is actually calling you a hornet or a nest). There is almost nothing so telling as someone screaming, "I am not upset."
As opposed to "logically dogmatic"? The observation to which I was responding, was that belief in scientific theories requires faith. & I believe I was agreeing with you.
screaming, "I am not upset."
Arguing with you is not actually the same thing as being upset, but given your acuity of focus thus far, I am not surprised at your confusion.
More vague, patronizingly unctuous buffalo turds, in place of actual detailed arguments.
So, if I said "some patronizing jerks apparently couldn't argue their way out of a paper bag so they revert to vindictive, irrelevant playground tactics." You'd be just a bloody boob to object, right?
Object? I'm laughing. I can do that. You did go and mix your apples and oranges linguistically speaking, but I have to put some limits on your course of study unless you pony up some tuition. You strike me as the sort of fellow who responds to, "Have a nice day." with "Don't you dare tell me what to do!" So, have a nice day.
Indeed, you once again proudly refute claims of such common knowledge that they've made it into high school history books, by claiming I'm too braindead to understand them. How remarkably pursuasive.
Indeed. In fact, you seem to mistake it for argument.
You did go and mix your apples and oranges linguistically speaking,
You made an oblique reference that you could disown referred to me, I did the same--I refered to "some people" not to you, I can't imagine why you would think so. Whether that's an analogy or not is irrelevant.
but I have to put some limits on your course of study unless you pony up some tuition. You strike me as the sort of fellow who responds to, "Have a nice day." with "Don't you dare tell me what to do!" So, have a nice day.
And you strike me as the kind of fellow who tries to win fights by primping and displaying, instead of fighting. You make a big deal out of your 400 history books and try to ride that pony with a bunch of vague, unsourced nonsense that contradicts commonly known history in defense of a church that acknowledges its own guilt, followed by reams of patronizing, irrelevant drool.
Ah yes, the high school history book makes its appearance as an irrefutable source once again. Among my favorites are a 1953 Soviet secondary history book, a 1917 British encyclopedia set, and a U.S. high school history book from 1941. Interestingly, they can't seem to agree about this common knowledge you're referring to. A societies depiction of history at a given time can be excellent historical research in itself. Although, I must say that the shocking and often brutal opinions put into such works from before mid century are refreshing. No need to search for what the intended inference is.
Simply looking at a current U.S. high school text's handling of recent history is painful. U.S. textbooks are far more concerned with counting the number of eurocentric historical references and ethnic faces than they are history. Perhaps you have something from third grade that could be a clincher?
Indeed, you brought it up. Something about needing to read a book, being ignorant, etc. But then I don't have your high school history book, so you have me at a disadvantage.
Indeed I do, as you don't have a ghost of a prayer of demonstrating that the Catholic church isn't responsible for the Inquisition, the Crusades, or the persecution of the Anabaptists, and countless others, as the Catholic church now admits in the "We Remember" document. --no matter how many history books you own, or how much patronizing smoke you blow.
I never "disowned" that my analogy referred to you, oblique or otherwise (I thought it was rather direct). It referred to you in the sense that it analogized the fruitlessness of having a discussion with you. The problem is that you took it to be a direct comparison of physical attribute, something that I most certainly did not intend.
For the record, I do not believe that you are now, or ever have been, a pig.
Which brings us to a sense of humor. A sense of humor and perspective is quite handy in rhetorical argument. It often prevents things from coming to blows. It also aids a person in keeping an open mind, vice simply waiting for the other person to stop talking, so that the next attack can be commenced.
I believe that good, but misguided men, and bad yet deceptive men, have acted in the name of the Church to visit much harm on people. However, taken in whole, the Church has had a civilizing effect on the world. I do not find the failure of the church to make men Godly, as the failure of the institution that you do. To me, you are doing the equivalent of blaming the Founding Fathers because FDR put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps. I see the Church as the Constitution in this sense. An ideal, which is sometimes failed by men. I don't think the answer to FDR's questionable action is to disavow the Constitution, which is what I perceive your approach to the Church is.
I would caution you that "historical facts" are nefarious for their frailty. High school history is packed with accepted facts, which didn't really occur, but have been retold through so many generations that they have simply taken on a life of their own. Winston Churchill referred to this humorously in his, "History of the English Speaking Peoples v.I." In reference to King Arthur's existence he summed with, "Its true, its all true, or it aught to be! And more and better besides." His point (in context) was that the acceptance of King Arthur as real during the Middle Ages tremendously affected that period's history, regardless of its eventual truth.
As there is no doubt of brutalities committed by Catholics, Protestants, etc. There is equally no doubt of the gross exaggerations which followed. Fledgling history students regularly fall into the trap of taking contemporary records as "the facts". The falsity of this is exhibited in "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and the "Carolingian Chronicles". By the Frankish count, they killed ten times as many Saxons as there were in existence.
The depth, or lack of, Christianity is also missed. Conversion was not overnight. Yet school books will refer to Christian Europe during periods when Christians were definitely the minority, and segments of Christian kingdoms were still pagan. Yet all actions are portrayed as those of Christians.
This thread is on ID versus Darwin's theory of evolution. I'm not too versed on ID, but I do think Darwin's theory has been debunked as a complete answer, and likewise validated as occurring. The fossil record shows spurts of tremendous creation unsupported by slow evolution or observable patterns of mutation. I haven't heard a good explanation for this, and I'm unsure of what "threat" exists from ID. It was my point that scientists are too quick to reject ideas. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems that you wouldn't have to believe in God or ID to listen to a theory that some process has rapidly created new life at various times outside the explanation provided by Darwin or mutation. It doesn't seem that hard to accept dark matter based solely on observation of its effects.
For about 1400 years, repeatedly, because, as I pointed out, central catholic doctrine, particularly regarding jewish beliefs, promotes it.
However, taken in whole, the Church has had a civilizing effect on the world.
Well, that's a commonly expressed theory, perhaps we should ask Galileo. I thought the iron maiden and the thumbscrew were particularly inventive civilizing tools, and I must say I really appreciate the civilized and merciful treatment that witches were afforded following the publication of the Hammer of Witches, and that jews, albigensians and moslems were afforded during the crusades.
Some serial killers are known to have been good fathers. Do you think they should have been therefore exhonerated?
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