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.
No you didn't. You were practicing guilt by association. You were saying that since Krauthammer was an MD, and the butcher Mengele was an MD, then Krauthammer is no better than the butcher Mengele and should not be paid attention to.
I returned the favor. Since the butcher Mengele is human, and you are human, then nothing you say should be paid attention to. Because we don't listen to people like that around here.
Because we don't listen to people like that around here
There's no such word as evolutionism. It's not in Webster's and it's not recognized as a term of science.
"It does not even merit "well-supported theories." Well supported theories are based upon more than educated guesses about history."
It's obvious, that your not familiar with science. You've ignored Ichneumon's posts, probably, because they're way over your head. The important point to note is that you don't even try to know to attempt understanding.
"The word "theory" is abused when placed along side the word "evolution" when used to support the notion that man is a derivative of an undesigned, unguided combination of matter beginning with the simplest of life forms and progressing to a more elaborate state."
Please tell me why I should consider your one, or 2 liners, when you are basically ignorant about the subject, and ignore the folks that aren't and try to teach you at least some basics? Do you realize, that you're not competent to make these simple one line conclusionsa and challenge folks that are?
It's part of their big strategy. Make it look like anyone that believes in evolution is a racist atheist. That type of strategy was well documented in Russian tactics for splitting the populace of the US.
Never mind that "Christians" have been more racist throughout history than even a minority of 'evolutionists' have been. It is accepted tactics by these creos to lie about their opponents in addition to lying about evolution. I wonder what they say in their prayers each night?
"Oh God, I have sinned, please forgive me" or,
"Oh God, I lied twenty times today but it was all done in your Glory".
Hmmm. Are you saying that all Christian churches have the same requirements for entry to heaven?
They're too polite for that. Especially in the US that (eventually) learned to accept other denominations without running them out of town and taking their land. But all denominations will tell you the faults of the others. The implication being that they are *correct*, and the others are wrong.
Your former preacher, your sainted grandmother, your former Southern Baptist church, 70's creation movement and etc...Nice anecdotal evidence. You seem to have a lot of that (and that only)!
I was there, and I witnessed what I witnessed. The Southern Baptist Church was(is?) the biggest non-Catholic denomination in America. And I was specifically taught that Genesis and evolution were compatible while I was at a church retreat. Southern Baptists were a little loose on doctrine, but I doubt that my experience was unique. And I do not remember any reference, in any church, of up to 5000 people, the message being preached that evolution was false, and a six day creation was true.
I believed that Genesis and evolution were compatible, even to the extent of writing a report on the possible scenarios of abiogensis while in High School in 1972. I *would* have remembered any such a sermon against that concept, had I ever heard it.
As of the time I stopped attending church when my ex-wife ran off with a guy she met there in 1979, I NEVER heard such a sermon.
They just "speak ill" of poor evolutionary assumptions made in the name of science and also of persons, like yourself, who use those assumptions to attack Christianity.
Interesting wording. "poor evolutionary assumptions made in the name of science". As if you speak for science. And as for "attacks on Christianity", I haven't witnessed any such thing from "science", accept in response to the attacks by creationists on evolution. In general, Scientists leave religion alone, accept when provoked.
I may be full of ancedotal evidence. And you don't have to believe it. But that doesn't make you any less wrong.
"These words clearly express the official position of the Church of Rome. There is no salvation apart from participation in the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. There is no other means of obtaining saving grace."
We have had devout Baptist creos post that their position is not in agreement with their church or their pastor in regards to acceptance of evolution but more in line with the posting of those on the web that they send $59.95 to for the DVD.
Which I don't doubt was one of the motivations of eleni121's disgusting comparison of Krauthammer to Josef Mengele.
The techniques creationists use in this fight are really repulsive. Not to mention un-Christian.
If I had not really met some of these types in real life, I would believe the creos here were just trolls drumming up sales of their $79.95 DVD's.
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not always, but I have read articles/posts/textbooks that say as much
For the third time - I was simply responding to the absurdity of assuming one's scientific credentials on the basis of possession of an MD degree. Possession of an MD degree does not make one a "knower" of science - or of moral science anyway.
What are you darwinists - dense?
"moral science"?
I don't seem to remember any classes in that while I was in college.
At least Krauthammer has *some* claim to know a little biology. That's more than I can say for any of the other conservative commentators out there.
As far as I'm concerned, that makes him the most qualified conservative opinion writer on the subject.
What is disgusting here - and very telling - is the artful exploitation by evolutionists of those who have opposing viewpoints. It seems that the well known criticisms of Darwinists - that they are egomaniacs and absolutists - is probably true.
Closed minded and fearful evolutionists sound just like you: unwiling to open the doors to discussion and dialogue concerning matters of science.
Yes, it is. The unabradged version even has a separate entry.
It's obvious, that your not familiar with science. You've ignored Ichneumon's posts . . .
As a matter of fact, I have responded to them in some detail on some occasions. The fact is, science operates in terms of observable, repeatable experiments to back up its claims. What happened 4.5 billion years ago ipso facto does not qualify as science, but as history and/or philosophy. It falls outside direct observation and experimentation and is thus subject to question at every point on a purely scientific level.
Moreover, if you believe addressing Ichneumon's posts in detail makes for a paragon of scientific knowledge and practice, then you apparently have low standards as to what constitutes science.
Please tell me why I should consider your one, or 2 liners, when you are basically ignorant about the subject . . .
Far be it from me to prescribe what you should or should not consider. Why should I pay attention to your response when it does not directly address the points I have made, but instead engages in ad hominem? Tell me how educated guesses about history are collectively worthy of the name "theory."
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