Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by 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.
Like THIS guy??
2 Peter 21. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5. if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6. if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7. and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8. (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9. if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
10. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
11. yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
12. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
14. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed--an accursed brood!
15. They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.
16. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey--a beast without speech--who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
17. These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
18. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
19. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
20. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
21. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
22. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Stoning adulterers must REALLY get your panties in a wad!
Sorry - don't buy into myths of talking Donkeys nor do I buy Noah's flood tale nor did Solomon have strength through his long hair. If you want to get into thinking myths are real the Greek ones are better and many seem to have been based on truth (Cyclops' may have been inspired by the Greeks unearthing the bones of wolly mammoths for example).
Monotheism (whether directed at a god or the state) is the single most destructive meme to have ever developed. Polytheistic religions were far more tolerant of alternative belief systems. Sure, human sacrifice was practiced by numerous polytheistic religions, but these were to make the gods happy, and many times the sacrifices were volunteers. Monotheism engages in mass slaughter to prevent lapses in faith and indeed, makes it a tenet to destroy the unbeliever one way (conversion) or another (death).
I have yet to see any material evidence for the existence of God presented in any of these threads. If I've missed it, please point it out.
I did. Perhaps you just didn't bother to ask if I had.
In short, just what in the hell is your actual point in waving around a phrase yanked entirely out of any recognizable context,
In short, what in the heck is your point in waving around a phrase yanked entirely out of any recognizeable context?
Again, do you have *any* actual point? If so, what in the hell is it?
You like that phrase don't you?
ROFL!!!
You actually started rolling on the floor laughing at how I copied-and-pasted a few sentences out of your text? You, my friend, have problems.
What *GALL*. Frankly, you owe me a huge apology
Do I? I don't thinks so. But since you seem so put out that I dare argue with you, here's a little *consolation*, since you like these *stars* so much, I'll start using them a lot.
you little snot.
So now we've sunk low wnough to personal insults. It's a pity there aren't a couople more of us, we could start an all out flame war.
MILLIONS of generations
Circular reasoning. The Earth is so old because these processes are so long, therefore it has to be old. But how do we know these processes are so long? Because the Earth is so old...
They're neatly cataloged and databased as a result of the Human Genome Project.
Thank you for not posting the entire database in your comment. It gets tiring how evolutionists insist on at least once every thread posting an info dump and then dancing around giggling at how clever they are for copying and pasting thirty pages of someone elses work. instead of reveling in your total ignorance, *and* being an insufferably smug jerk about your lack of education.
Just to surprise you, I think I'll give it a read. I'll get back to you. As for being an insufferably smug jerk, well, lest I get my comment pulled, and therefore losing twenty minutes of work replying to your *insufferably smug* post. As for there being thousands of pages, well, I bet there were thousands of written works about the sun rotating around the Earth. Quantity does not ensure quality.
Evolution doesn't violate the second law of THERMODYNAMICS (not thermal dynamics). However, your bringing it up on this threads is further evidence of the law of conservation of creationist arguments which states that creationists will continue to use the same lame arguments even after they have been discredited numerous times. BTW, you really should read the answers in genesis website. It is a creationist website that has, among other things, a list of arguments that creationists should not use because they have been debunked and using them destroys the credibility of creationists.
You are going to think that, whether it is the truth or not, because that is what you want to think.
Last I heard, the number was 400. But hey, if you want to think it is a 'small number' that's okay.
I'm pretty sure that can be taken as an axiom -- a self-evident truth not amenable to further decomposition.
;-)
Additionally, I think Ben missed my point. We do indeed see identical viral insertions occurring at the same location, and this is studied, but in and of itself is not an unlikely phenomenon. What is unlikely is the explanation that viruses independent insert their DNA into the genomes of two different organisms at the same location out of the trillions of locations that the could do so. It is much more reasonable to come to the conclusion that a single insertion occurred in an organism that is an ancestor of BOTH organisms in which the insertion is found.
Oh you've SEEN spacetime curvature? You've SEEN atoms? Really, you must have some kind of super-bionic vision to have SEEN these things. These theories have precisely the same status as evolution; all are inferred from and are consistent with all the available evidence.
Apes don't have tails.
THe "400" bait-and-switch was exposed several threads ago. And, since you were on that thread, I'm certain you remember it.
"Great White Throne Judgment"
So it's White, eh? Sure it's not black or brown? Sounds like a racist stereotype to me.
Yeah, and the earth is flat too. Here's a link so it must be true!!
www.flat-earth.org
Christian faith also falls into the #1 category.
Actually the statement you quoted is the logical fallacy in this "proof." This premise is false. For example, substitute integers for worlds, and odd integers for inhabited worlds any you'll see that it's a false premise. BTW, it you are unfamiliar, this "proof" appears in one of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker trilogy novels, and is meant to be toungue-in-cheek
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