Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution

The naturalist outraged the church, prompting a bitter debate that still sets creationists against evolutionists. Now a sinister link has emerged between his work and the recent spate of high-school killings by crazed, nihilistic teenagers

You wouldn’t know from the celebrations of Charles Darwin’s life this year that the amiable Victorian gent portrayed in those TV drama-docs pottering around the garden of his home in Kent has been fingered as a racist, an apologist for genocide, and the inspiration of a string of psychopathic killers.

The Darwin double anniversary (2009 marks both the bicentenary of his birth and 150 years since the first publication of On the Origin of Species) has featured much vanilla hoopla: the Royal Mail issued commemorative stamps; Damien Hirst designed the dust jacket for a special edition of Darwin’s masterpiece; Bristol Zoo offered free admission to men with beards, and the Natural History Museum served pea soup made to a recipe devised by Darwin’s wife, Emma. The conclusion of dozens of lectures, articles and education packs for schools has been that Darwin wasn’t just a brilliant scientist, but a thoroughly good egg.

With hardly a mention that his name has been associated with some of the most infamous crimes of modern history, it is as if there has been an unspoken agreement to accentuate the positive. Certainly, the milquetoast Darwin played by Paul Bettany in the recent film Creation provided little hint that there might be a dark side to the great man’s bequest to posterity. The film focuses on Darwin’s inner conflicts in the years leading up to the publication of On the Origin of Species. The scientist is reluctant to make his ideas public, not because he has foreseen dire social consequences, but chiefly because he

And faith in God isn't without proof. Read the Gospels some times.

Nonsense. The word of a 2000-year-old book written by Man is no kind of scientific evidence of God's existence; but I do not need scientific evidence any more than you do to be convinced of his existence. Such is the nature of faith.

And saying that "...faith is about belief without proof. Science is about proof without belief." doesn't make science somehow superior to faith as is always the implication.

Nowhere did I say or imply that science is superior to faith. As a matter of fact, I explicitly said that they are complementary. One cannot replace the other.

The smugness and sense of superiority that always comes across when evos make that comment is unjustified as they operate on faith as much as those whose faith is in God instead of man.

I am an "evo", so your comment strikes me with the same sort of smugness and sense of superiority that you allude to. Do not paint everyone with the same brush - that is called prejudice.

[E]volutionist believers have nothing to fear and should embrace Christians as part of the natural occurence of things.

I do not deny your point. The problems occur when fanatics on both sides point and scream, "YOU'RE WRONG!"

In any case, to respond to your changing of my comments, many Christians feel that there is an obligation to challenge any deceit that threatens the physical and spiritual lives of themselves, their families or others.

Case in point, by implying that evolution is somehow "deceitful". Science cannot be deceitful. It is either true or untrue. If it is untrue, then it is not science; it is fallacy.

It's pretty obvious that evolution has been and is still used as a "scientific" bludgeon to attack Christians and others.

It is also pretty obvious that religion has been used as a bludgeon to attack evolutionists; as evidence, I need only to point to many of the posts on this very thread. There is fault on both sides.

The problems occur when fanatics on both sides point and scream, "YOU'RE WRONG!"

The thing is, how can one side claim to be right without essentially meaning that the other is wrong? The impasse starts right at the beginning, i.e., the question of who or what was responsible for the creation of heaven and earth? Whether anybody on either side says it civilly or rudely, the deadlock remains.

The frightful idea that the Lord exists, imo, is the very reason that folks will keep darwin's theories on artificial life support until death and hell are swallowed up. On the other side, some Bible believers who are intimidated by unsupported insults, along the lines of being "luddites" or "unscientific", have made huge efforts to accept the idea that both could have occurred (i.e., started by the Lord, evolved by design).

Case in point, by implying that evolution is somehow "deceitful". Science cannot be deceitful. It is either true or untrue. If it is untrue, then it is not science; it is fallacy.

I really believe that darwin's theory of evolution is fallacious and I believe that promoting it as science is deceitful.

It is also pretty obvious that religion has been used as a bludgeon to attack evolutionists

I get your point. I also believe that those folks who call themselves Christians while harming and deceiving people "in the name of Christ" will suffer a worse judgement than those people who have used evolution against believers in the Bible. Either "side" is free to repent, of course.

Please provide a link to support your contention that this is what they're doing.

Your wish is my command.

Fudging radioactive decay rates -
It is true that in today’s world, radioactive decay rates seem constant, and are unaffected by heat or pressure. However, we have tested decay rates for only about 100 years, so we can’t be sure that they were constant over the alleged billions of years. Physicist Dr Russell Humphreys suggests that decay rates were faster during creation week, and have remained constant since then.
Creation.com - How Old is the Earth?
Fudging the fossil record -
The creation record in Genesis indicates that man and dinosaur did indeed live together. Man was created on the sixth day of creation week and dinosaurs probably on the fifth.
Institute for Creation Research - The Paluxy River Tracks
Fudging the speed of light and the expansion of the universe -
My theory proposes that the cosmos was at that critical size during the fourth day of Creation Week. While one ordinary day was elapsing on earth, billions of years worth of physical processes were taking place in distant parts of the universe. This allows starlight from even the most distant star to arrive during or soon after the fourth day, the same day God created all the stars.
Seven Years of Starlight and Time - D. Russell Humphreys

I agree. In my opinion, the scientific evidence supports evolution. In your opinion, it does not. I seriously doubt that this question will be resolved in our lifetime, if ever.

But in all fairness, I have yet, when I have asked, to be presented with scientific evidence FOR creationism. Instead, I'm presented with "evidence" AGAINST evolution. Sorry, but if creationists wish for creationism to be considered a valid scientific hypothesis in opposition to evolution, such evidence must be shown.

I really believe that darwin's theory of evolution is fallacious and I believe that promoting it as science is deceitful.

At the risk of repeating myself, until scientific evidence for creationism is presented, I believe that evolution is the best explanation we have.

Either "side" is free to repent, of course.

Of course. Such is the nature of the system.

Do not paint everyone with the same brush - that is called prejudice.

Tell your evo compatriots that as well.

They're great at lumping every non-evo in the 6 day, 6,000 year, YEC the whole Bible must be read literally with no consideration of grammatical style category, and then mocking them as ignorant, talibanesque, flat-earther, Luddites who are going to take the whole world back into the *Dark Ages*.

That’s no answer to the request to provide links to demonstrate that “God is playing some sort of cosmic joke on all of us by fudging the fossil record, radioactive decay rates, the speed of light, the expansion of the universe, etc., ect., ad nauseum - just to make it LOOK like the universe is billions of years old instead of only 6000”.

Show that creationists say that God is deliberately playing mind games to deceive humanity about the age of the universe.

That’s what you contended.

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