To be fair, it is a "serpent" that is mentioned in Genesis, not a snake. Everyone knows that some serpents have the power of speech. Vis:
Posted on 06/21/2006 8:33:46 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
In a veiled attack on creationism, the world's foremost academies of science on Wednesday called on parents and teachers to provide children with the facts about evolution and the origins of life on Earth.
A declaration signed by 67 national academies of science blasted the scriptural teaching of biology as a potential distortion of young minds.
"In various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied or confused with theories not testable by science," the declaration said.
"We urge decision-makers, teachers and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature.
"Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet."
Citing "evidence-based facts" derived from observation, experiment and neutral assessment, the declaration points to findings that the Universe is between 11 and 15 billion years old, and the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
Life on Earth appeared at least 2.5 billion years ago as a result of physical and chemical processes, and evolved into the species that live today.
"Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin," it said.
The statement does not name any names or religions, nor does it explain why it fears the teaching of evolution or the scientific explanation for the origins of planetary life are being sidelined.
Signatories of the declaration include the US National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences and their counterparts in Canada, China, Germany, Iran, Israel and Japan and elsewhere.
It comes, however, in the context of mounting concern among biologists about the perceived influence of creationism in the United States.
Evangelical Christians there are campaigning hard for schools to teach creationism or downgrade evolution to the status of one of a competing group of theories about the origins of life on Earth.
According to the website Christian Post (www.christianpost.com), an opinion poll conducted in May by Gallop found that 46 percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.
Scientists say hominids emerged around six million years ago and one of their offshoots developed into anatomically modern man, Homo sapiens, about 200,000 years ago, although the timings of both events are fiercely debated.
Nearly every religion offers an explanation as to how life began on Earth.
Fundamentalist Christians insist on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, in which God made the world in seven days, culminating in the creation of the first two humans, Adam and Eve.
A variation of this is called "intelligent design" which acknowledges evolution but claims that genetic mutations are guided by God's hand rather than by Charles Darwin's process of natural selection.
US President George W. Bush said last August that he believed in this concept and that he supported its teaching in American schools.
The academies' statement says that science does not seek to offer judgements of value or morality, and acknowledges limitations in current knowledge.
"Science is open-ended and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding emerges," it adds.
OK, I went back and had a look at some of your references. I don't see what you're saying. For example, #29 said that creationist arguments will have no effect whatever, since science will simply ignore them.
I do agree with you about some creationists extending their arguments to project doom upon those who do not believe in their particular deistic interpretation. I ignore such silliness, generally, or poke fun at it.
I will agree that many who see the Creationism/ID trend as a threat to science teaching say that frequently. I tend to agree with them.
Frankly, in our primary and secondary schools, very little time is spent on the origins of the universe and on evolution. There's simply not time, and the children are not equipped to really understand it. Instead, more practical science is taught, through reading, experiments, demonstrations, and the like. The goal, really, is only to engender an interest in the sciences and to teach some rudimentary things that will be useful to non-science students.
It is not until the university that any real information is imparted, and that only to those who are engaged in majors involving science. The general education science classes are mere extensions of the rudimentary stuff from the lower grades.
Kids do misunderstand what they are taught, it's true, but it would be even worse if a bunch of unscientific concepts were taught alongside scientific ones.
It's just not that big a deal. That so many here reject evolutionary theory is a good indication that nobody's being indoctrinated in it. For most folks, it's completely irrelevant to their lives.
Seems to me we have many more important things to worry about than this silliness.
I believe the earth/universe to be approx 6,000 years old bc, as a christian, I believe the Bible first and foremost. Furthermore, carbon-dating and radio isotope dating presume uniformitarianism (things remaining constant/consistent over time) - even though just about anything that science can measure shows periods of inconsistency (i.e. the reason most folks reject global-warming) - often times great inconsistencies.
Last, I don't think any christian should accept evolutionary creationism. Either God did it as stated in Genesis or not. If not, then the Bible and my faith are both frauds. Evolutionary creationism is simply trying to be accepted by mainstream and/or science. My faith is not open to a popularity contest. Anything that directly contradicts the Bible (as evolution does) is imho incorrect - often the errors/assumptions have not been revealed. Introduce incorrect assumptions into any theorem and the results follow GIGO (garbage in garbage out).
Tearing away at Genesis is tearing away at the very foundations of christianity. My apologies to all that I may have offended with these remarks - just don't expect a retraction too.
I think creationists have brains. I don't think they use them.
Aren't you the same one who, on a different thread, suggested you could not have been intelligently designed due to the location of your private parts?
"There are plenty still around that refer to LDS as a cult, not to mention those who Consider Catholicism a subsidiary of Marx, Inc. There's currently a thread denouncing Presbyterians.
"
Well, I've seen some of that nonsense, but not in the crevo threads. Seems to me that it is the religionists who are bashing each other far more than the atheists bashing the Christians.
I can't imagine why I'd care that someone believed in some deity or another. That's their business, and none of mine.
Having been an atheist evolutionist I know that no argument will change that opinion. But I changed.
The Bible even says that if your dead close relative comes back from the dead and warns you to believe, you will still not believe. Belief in the "foolishness" of the gospel does not happen because of a natural process of hearing both sides and concluding that the biblical answer makes the most sense.
there will be no mixing the metaphors of the fabulous furry freak brothers and cheech and chong on this thread!
Strange for a group whose main theology is procrastination.
Uh, actually, one of the first measurements of the speed of light was a "one-way" event.
"I believe the earth/universe to be approx 6,000 years old bc, as a christian, I believe the Bible first and foremost."
Nobody minds that you believe that, honestly. We think you're incorrect, but we don't mind if you believe it.
We do, however, mind if you insist on teaching that belief to children in our public schools. You can teach it to your children, or to other children in your church's Sunday School, but not to all children in public school.
Yours is a purely religious belief, and it runs counter to the religions belief of many, even a majority of Christians.
Even if we do it in separate messages?
Who the heck are you, anyhow, Norbert the Narc?
Light is not created by chemical reaction. It is produced by a change in state (energy level) of the electron.
Never been done. Can't be without running into the two-clock problem.
To be fair, it is a "serpent" that is mentioned in Genesis, not a snake. Everyone knows that some serpents have the power of speech. Vis:
If any of my dead relatives came knocking on my door, I would instantly become a hard core true believer. There would be the proof I've been waiting all my life to see. I would almost certainly still believe in evolution, too, due to the accumulated evidence. I would not neatly fit into anyone's rigid doctrine, nor would I necessarily align myself with any organized religion. I doubt I would go to church, either. But, you show me enough convincing proof of the right type and you get a convert. No proof, no convert.
"To my understanding that means the growth of creationism, in this person's view, spells the "doom" of science.
"
The person who wrote that marriage simply dismissed the impact of creationism on the sciences. He didn't predict that it would be the "doom" of science at all. He just said that science would ignore it. And that's exactly what science does. It ignores supernatural stuff. It can't study it, so it is simply ignored.
Just because you never heard of it doesn't mean it can't be done ...
Geico uses a talking gecko.
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