Posted on 06/16/2010 7:59:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Enthusiasts of creationism on the fringes of the American evangelical movement now have the strangest new allies - in a nation that made atheism its state religion.
Yes, creationism has now reared its ugly and evolving head in Russia, the heart of the "Godless communism" that prevailed in the Soviet Union.
And, as pointed out in a superb blog by Michael Zimmerman in the Huffington Post, the Russian rhetoric sounds strangely familiar.
After giving a lecture last week in Moscow, Hilarion Alfeyev, Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, was reported by Reuters saying:
"The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past... Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."
This is a pretty clear inference that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in school. American creationists could have written the script for him, as they've been pushing the same tactic now for years under different guises, most recently as intelligent design.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Because they are mutually exclusive theories.
>>And what if a teacher were to present them in a science classroom ? Will he be disciplined ?<<
Unless and until this discussion is moved out of Religion, I cannot answer your question.
LOL :)
Well, you said you were going to bed. So am I ... ;-).
Buenos noches Tax-chick. :)
There are no recordings to prove it.
Seriously, the stuff I have read suggests the big brain influence was tool use, and language skills came later.
What I point out is if indeed sophisticated languages (other than basic point and grunt) developed after the big homo sapiens sapiens brain was already there, and that same big brain could develop the theory of relativity or figure out how to transplant a heart and lungs, what mutation triggered the big brain and sustained the big brain? We know a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but a big brain in 98,000 B.C. would have been a waste. Sure fire was big, but rocket science was not.
Compress time, it doesn't matter. We are still the same biological beings as the cavemen of 100,000 years ago. The fact is today I could pull a baby from the dregs of the third world, and put it through the best education system available, and probably produce an above average modern first world adult. By the same token, I could take H.G. Wells time machine, go back 100,000 years, pull a baby out of a cave, bring it to the 21st century, and do the same.
What put a brain capable of a million times more cognitive capability on the planet 100,000 years early?
It is a mystery. But one I have not heard before. How did the human brain make such a leap?
To be clear, Freepers are welcome to discuss science aspects of theology/philosophy on the Religion Forum.
Perhaps they are in most people's minds, but they don't have to be. A "creator" could have simply ignited the initial spark.
It can, and anyone who suggests it can't is questioning the process by which God created and manages the Earthly world.
Genesis 1:20 to 1:27 suggests animals came before humans. Genesis 2:18 tp 2:20 suggests humans came before animals. Genesis 4:15 suggests there were other humans in the land of Nod who were not direct bloodline to Adam and Eve.
Meanwhile, the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Jesuit Priest (and Physicist and Astronomer), Georges Lemaître, and was ridiculed as "Genesis masquerading as science" by the scientists of the day.
I don't doubt that. People believe all kinds of things. Just because someone believes something doesn't make that thing true.
For example, "those people" might have conjured up a notion of a creator in their minds and a unique variation of an evolutionary model. The Islamic god is said to be a creator, and I know of a few imams who claim that evolution was one of the mechanism used by Allah.
Orthodox Christianity teaches a literal six day. Granted there are those who don't believe Genesis 1-11 and Exodus 20:11. Selectively choosing to believe the Bible doesn't change the fact that the doctrine recognizes that it was accomplished in six days.
Of all of the various Evolutionary theories abounding out there (PE, Classical, Catastropy etc.) none of them are compatible at all with "those people" who have invented a "Theistic evolution".
So "those" people don't believe in the orthodox doctrine of Creation or in the current variations of Evolutionary theories (that which is taught in schools), but some wierd convoluted mutant that is in violence to both theories.
Again, I submit that True Creationism and True Evolution (whataever the acceptable variety) are mutually exclusive.
Explain the "Big Bang Theory", first posited by Roman Catholic Priest Georges Lemaître. Was Father Lemaître wrong? Was he evil?
Explain how scientists for 40 years discredited Lemaître's proposal as "Genesis masquerading as science"? Was this all part of some elaborate ruse?
Why then, does God try to deceive us?
If he created the world in six literal days some 10,000 years go, why did he create photos in mid-flight from stellar bodies more than 10,000 light years from Earth?
Why would a benevolent, loving God, create a deceptive, fake world for us, his favored ones, to live in?
If we were created in His image, why would he intentionally lie to us?
You’re making all these giant assumptions, and making even bigger conclusions based on them.
It’s only an assumption that language did not come with tool use. There’s no specific language center, so it’s not possible to tell from fossils.
Exceptionally smart chimps can be taught the rudiments of language. I find it hard to believe that early humans didn’t have relatively advanced language skills.
Should be photons, not photos, in mid-flight.
So let's dump language and say calculus. So some caveman from Quest for Fire had a need to work a second derivative to be sure the coal stayed lit, and hence the math center survived 100,000 years until Einstein came along.
Remember, homo sapiens sapiens coexisted with Neanderthals. But homo sapiens sapiens brains could work college math. How was the college math trait something which drove survival and propagation?
The world was created with stars in the heavens according to the Genesis account. The described purpose of stars did not encompass determining the presumptive age of the universe due to physical laws regarding the speed of light.
Adam was formed an adult. Does this strike you as somehow deceptive as well? It's the same thing. The world was whole, the heavens were whole and stars were there. Taking a purely physical point of view, that means that the light had to have been in progress at the same time the star was created in the Biblical sense. It's not as if the star was created in the Biblical sense and we had to wait a year, ten years or ten thousand years for stars to appear in the heavens.
Because you claim that those passages "suggest" contradictions doesn't make your assertion true. It may very well mean that you have an agenda to deconstruct the Scriptures, can't read without applying a biased template, or you are just trying to be argumentative.
I'm going to assume that you are the latter. In the case of suggesting a contradiction, perhaps you should try examining the narrative styles. In Chapter 1, we are given exact order and specific actions in very specific time frame. In Chapter 2, we are not even viewing the Creation, rather we are looking at the conditions and events that necessitated providing Adam with a suitable partner. That is, it is unsubstantiated eisegesis to say that the phrase "Out of the ground" indicates order, time and action. Especially when only a few sentences before we are given these details in the appropriate literary style. If anything, this is a confirmation that the animals presented before Adam were of the original six day creation (1:24) and not brought in from somewhere afar (or from water, or magic pixie dust).
Now in terms of that purely unsubstantiated assertion that there were other humans in Nod not of the bloodline (direct or not is immaterial) of Adam and Eve is easily explained by the statements of the historian Josephus that A&E had at least 33 sons and 23 daughters. Surely they married among themselves and produced offspring of their own.
Meanwhile, the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Jesuit Priest
So what? Ptolemy had great credentials as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. Does that make him right? I don't get your point. Thousands of years theologians great and small say six-day creation. One dude gets caught up in the cosmology of the age and instantly the Biblical narrative is wrong.
“Why can’t evolution and a “creator” coexist?” ~ ETL
“Because they are mutually exclusive theories.” ~ The Theophilus
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