Let's Have No More Monkey Trials - To teach faith as science is to undermine both

Time Magazine ^ | Monday, Aug. 01, 2005 | CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

[wallcrawlr]

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."

Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.

In this slippery slide from "reason" to science, Schönborn is a direct descendant of the early 17th century Dutch clergyman and astronomer David Fabricius, who could not accept Johannes Kepler's discovery of elliptical planetary orbits. Why? Because the circle is so pure and perfect that reason must reject anything less. "With your ellipse," Fabricius wrote Kepler, "you abolish the circularity and uniformity of the motions, which appears to me increasingly absurd the more profoundly I think about it." No matter that, using Tycho Brahe's most exhaustive astronomical observations in history, Kepler had empirically demonstrated that the planets orbit elliptically.

This conflict between faith and science had mercifully abated over the past four centuries as each grew to permit the other its own independent sphere. What we are witnessing now is a frontier violation by the forces of religion. This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer.

How many times do we have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God. Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

[b_sharp]

His substantial number of posts contain substantial amounts of the insubstantial.

[Blzbba]

"Very interesting tagline......"


Yeah, like my handle, I picked it up from a video game (Rome-Total War) that I've been playing that lists many famous quotes by famous philosophers or generals. Quite fascinating!

[Elsie]

 

Well, were the descendants then half Gods.
.

 

Well...   not exactly...

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NIV Genesis 1:26-27
26.  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
 27.  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

 

NIV Genesis 5:1-5
Genesis 5

 

 1.  This is the written account of Adam's line.   When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
 2.  He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man. "
 3.  When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
 4.  After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.
 5.  Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

 

NIV Genesis 6:1-8
 1.  When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
 2.  the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
 3.  Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with  man forever, for he is mortal ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
 4.  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
 5.  The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
 6.  The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
 7.  So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."
 8.  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

 

 

This verse...

 

 Genesis 6:4.  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

 

...says NOTHING about the N  being the OFFSPRING of the SoG and the DoM: they were ALREADY there!

 

 

SoG are the offspring from the early Adam/Eve lineage and the DoM are the offspring from the LATER Adam/Eve lineage, nothing more.

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NIV Numbers 13:33
  We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

 

EVERYTHING got wiped by the flood: there was NO WAY for these supposed 'angelic' offspring to have survived to THIS point in time.

 

 

 

Topics: Nephi'lim

 

Text:  Gen. 6:4; Num. 13:33, R.V.), giants, the Hebrew word left untranslated by the Revisers, the name of one of the Canaanitish tribes. The Revisers have, however, translated the Hebrew gibborim, in Gen. 6:4, "mighty men."

[Sloth]

Not based on material evidence.

'Creation science' types would disagree. But still, an individual researcher only has direct contact with a small amount of physical evidence, and I would hypothesize that many on this thread have never personally observed ANY physical evidence regarding evolution (as in fossils that would be cited in a research journal, etc., as opposed to "my dog has 4 limbs and so do I"). In other words, they have faith that the testimony of other researchers is accurate.

[Junior]

[there is a concern stemming from he recognition that it has been used in many cases to advance philosophical or social causes that violate fundamental American beliefs.]

This concern seems to me to be extremely overblown.

Indeed. There was once a concern about the moral implications of Rock-and-Roll. That came to naught, too.

[b_sharp]

And significantly, why specific sequences in hominids only?

[Elsie]

And, you are probably a LIAR!

[Junior]

Naw. I still chat with the Almighty every day.

[Junior]

I looked up the Three Stooges on Wikipedia. I never knew they were so prolific.

[wallcrawlr]

ha ha...yeah, he forgot to add that one.

[Elsie]

E=MC²

 

 

of course, the equation was re-arranged when GOD said...    "Be!"

 

 

M=E/C²

[Elsie]

....you've made numerous false statements about the theory...

Therefore:

You're a LIAR!

[Junior]

Or simply ignorant. The latter can be cured.

[b_sharp]

"Respectfully, the only ones who don't understand it are the ones that are making these claims. Evolution does not violate entropy for several reasons. For one, it is not a closed system - we have the sun."

Biological organisms also excrete entropy.

[Doctor Stochastic]

And the marsupials, swimming like lemmings, from Anatolia to New South Wales, carrying their own private eucalyptus variety with them.

[atlaw]

Just curious, Elsie. Why do you enjoy Narby's loss of faith so much? Do you figure this makes more room for you in heaven? Or maybe you just like to entertain thoughts of others sufferring in hell for all eternity.

An explanation of your repeated references to it, and your exceedingly odd and nasty enjoyment of it, would be rather revealing.

[b_sharp]

"which actually states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases.

Please also notice it is not necessary for entropy to increase.

[Elsie]

 

 But Genesis will not let them.

 

Just Genesis??????

 

 

(Psttt.  if you "E" folks don't read all of this; maybe you are 'afraid' to!)

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NIV Deuteronomy 4:32
  Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?

 

NIV Psalms 89:47
  Remember how fleeting is my life. For what futility you have created all men!

 

NIV Psalms 104:30
  When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

 

NIV Psalms 139:13
  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

 

NIV Psalms 148:4-5
 4.  Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
 5.  Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.

 

NIV Isaiah 40:26
   Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.

 

NIV Isaiah 41:19-20
 19.  I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together,
 20.  so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

 

NIV Isaiah 42:5-6
 5.  This is what God the LORD says-- he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
 6.  "I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.

 

NIV Isaiah 43:1
  But now, this is what the LORD says-- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

 

NIV Isaiah 43:6-7
 6.  I will say to the north, `Give them up!' and to the south, `Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth--
 7.  everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."

 

NIV Isaiah 45:7-8
 7.  I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and  create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
 8.  "You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it.

 

NIV Isaiah 45:12
  It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.

 

NIV Isaiah 45:18
  For this is what the LORD says-- he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited-- he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other."

 

NIV Isaiah 54:16-17
 16.  "See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc;
 17.  no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me,"  declares the LORD.

 

NIV Isaiah 57:16
  I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me-- the breath of man that I have created.

 

NIV Isaiah 65:17-18
 17.  "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
 18.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.

 

NIV Ezekiel 28:13-15
 13.  You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire,  turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings  were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
 14.  You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
 15.  You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.

 

NIV Malachi 2:10
  Have we not all one Father ? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?

 

NIV Matthew 13:35
  So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world."

 

NIV Matthew 25:34
  "Then the King will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

 

NIV Mark 10:6
   "But at the beginning of creation God `made them male and female.'   (Not umpteen eons later; after lots of Evolution takes place!)

 

NIV Mark 13:18-19
 18.  Pray that this will not take place in winter,
 19.  because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now--and never to be equaled again.

 

NIV Romans 1:20
  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

 

NIV Romans 1:25
  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

 

NIV Romans 8:20-22
 20.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
 21.  that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
 22.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 11:8-9
 8.  For man did not come from woman, but woman from man;
 9.  neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

 

NIV Ephesians 3:8-9
 8.  Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
 9.  and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

 

NIV Colossians 1:16-17
 16.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
 17.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

 

NIV 1 Timothy 4:4-5
 4.  For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
 5.  because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

 

NIV Hebrews 4:13
  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

 

NIV Hebrews 9:11
  When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here,  he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation.

 

NIV Hebrews 9:26
  Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world.

 

NIV Hebrews 12:26-29
 26.  At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."
 27.  The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
 28.  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,
 29.  for our "God is a consuming fire."

 

NIV 2 Peter 3:4
   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."

 

NIV Revelation 4:11
  "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

 

NIV Revelation 10:6
  And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!

 

NIV Revelation 13:8
  All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.

 

NIV Revelation 17:8
  The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come.

[Elsie]

Thank you for admitting there is a Planner.

You're not hopeless after all!

[Elsie]

Nope; you didn't go re-read it!