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Creationism: God's gift to the ignorant (Religion bashing alert)
Times Online UK ^ | May 21, 2005 | Richard Dawkins

Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites

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1 posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:23 AM PDT by billorites
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To: billorites

Actually, I tend to believe in evolution, and that it is all part of God's plan.

Funny how so many who take evolution as an article of faith constantly try to alter our behavior to prevent global warming or whatever the useful environemtal meme of the day is. If evolution works as advertised, will a 2 degree change in the earth's temperature really cause mass extinctions? Wouldn't the most adaptable species prosper, while those that are less adaptable will either migrate, die out, or evolve? If evolution is such a basic scientific principle, who are we to attempt to halt it?

They constantly preach the awesome power of nature, all the while trying to convince us to freeze nature in stasis like a fly in amber.


2 posted on 05/25/2005 4:01:14 AM PDT by A Balrog of Morgoth (With fire, sword, and stinging whip I drive the Rats in terror before me.)
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To: billorites

One of the most fascinating bits of science lately is that Palies now believe that all modern men (and women) are descended from one woman who came out of Africa-imagine that. It reinforces the biblical version of creation. I have never believed evolution contradicted the biblical version-things evolve...so?


3 posted on 05/25/2005 4:03:49 AM PDT by nyconse
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To: billorites
" ... The isolated quotation [organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”] strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear."


What a pomous English a$$. This bloke has as much of an idea of what people in Kansas think as the U.S. Senate.

4 posted on 05/25/2005 4:06:15 AM PDT by G.Mason ( It's people like you, that make people like me, people like you!)
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To: A Balrog of Morgoth

Science deals with the physical world and the 5 senses. Anything past that world (creationism, Intelligent Design, Global warming, etc.) are not science, but metaphysics.
Science depends on an objective study of verifiable phenomena. Any speculation as to the cause or the moral correctness of said phenomena are beliefs and belong only to philosophical discussions of a metaphysical nature.Religion begins where science ends.


5 posted on 05/25/2005 4:17:33 AM PDT by photodawg
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To: billorites
The Bottom line is really quite simple....

(1)Do you believe in a creator God and the words & teachings He's given us in His book?

(2)Or do you choose not to believe.

You're side may be correct. Our side my be right. BUT If our side is correct, I sure wouldn't want to be in your place at the last roundup!

6 posted on 05/25/2005 4:28:47 AM PDT by patriot_wes (papal infallibility - a proud tradition since 1869)
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To: billorites

Dawkins isn't religion bashing. He's creationist bashing. There is a big difference.


7 posted on 05/25/2005 4:32:39 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: PatrickHenry

Ping.


8 posted on 05/25/2005 4:35:48 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: billorites

I'm afraid I don't see any 'religion bashing' here; Dawkins is simply criticizing creationist canards.


9 posted on 05/25/2005 4:36:38 AM PDT by snarks_when_bored
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To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
EvolutionPing
A pro-evolution science list with over 280 names.
See the list's description at my freeper homepage.
Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

10 posted on 05/25/2005 4:37:48 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: Junior
Dawkins isn't religion bashing. He's creationist bashing. There is a big difference.

Dawkins is an atheist who despises all religion.

He particularly hates creationists and reserves most of his venom for them, but it's not just creationists he hates.

11 posted on 05/25/2005 4:38:54 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: patriot_wes

the bible was written by man and while god is perfect man is not...


12 posted on 05/25/2005 4:40:51 AM PDT by thejokker
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To: nyconse
Boy are you taking that out of context. Sure, the descendents of a single woman 200,000 comprise the entire geneology of the human race. However, this does not imply that she existed by herself. The phenomenon has been documented time and again. The residents of Pitcairn Island, for instance, descended from the Bounty mutineers, have had the number of surnames dwindle over the past two centuries. If trends continue, they will eventually be reduced to a single surname.
13 posted on 05/25/2005 4:41:02 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: patriot_wes
You're side may be correct. Our side my be right. BUT If our side is correct, I sure wouldn't want to be in your place at the last roundup!

Amen brother!

Well said and another reason for non-believers to reconsider - what will they really lose if they live as if God does exist? On the other hand . . .

God Bless

14 posted on 05/25/2005 4:42:11 AM PDT by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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To: billorites
Watch all the so-called conservatives who will applaud this raging leftist assh*le as he bashes Kansans.

Any other Eurotrash writer who showed such overweening, obnoxious contempt for Middle Americans would be derided - Robert Fisk wouldn't get a pass.

But Dawkins will get one from many FReepers.

15 posted on 05/25/2005 4:42:57 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: patriot_wes
(1)Do you believe in a creator God and the words & teachings He's given us in His book?

Herein you are making an assumption that the Bible is God's Word. You assume that because the Book claims to be the Word of God, and people you respect claim it is the Word of God. You have no empirical evidence that this is actually the case.

16 posted on 05/25/2005 4:42:59 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: wideawake

So? His supposed hatred for religion does not come across in this article. So claiming this is "religion bashing" is a bald-faced lie -- of the kind that Dawkins decries in the article.


17 posted on 05/25/2005 4:44:42 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: Junior
If trends continue, they will eventually be reduced to a single surname.

Preposterous analogy. Surnames are not a proxy for genetics and Pitcairn is hardly a proxy for general population.

A person receives only his father's surname, while he receives both his mother and father's heritage.

And Pitcairn's population and genetic diversity is dwindling because the more resourceful young Islanders leave the Island never to return.

18 posted on 05/25/2005 4:45:52 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: wideawake

They most certainly are, as they are inherited too. Whole lines die out, leaving only a few to continue on.


19 posted on 05/25/2005 4:46:56 AM PDT by Junior (“Even if you are one-in-a-million, there are still 6,000 others just like you.”)
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To: Junior
What a splendid essay! Too bad the thread has such a provocative title. That may mislead some overly-sensitive mod. But I hope the content of the article will triumph over the title.

Dawkins is entirely correct when he complains about the practice of creationists when they pounce on out-of-context quotes and trumpet them as if it somehow proving their (otherwise vacuous) case. I posted this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating this one extra time:

Henry M. Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, recently made this candid admission [bracketed comments are mine]:

A great need -- but very expensive -- is that of more high-quality scientific research. We have been able to accomplish much significant research with our limited staff and our graduate students, but much more is needed, especially in the various problem areas [hee hee] of geology, archaeology, anthropology, and astronomy. In the secular world, this type of research is very largely funded by government grants. We, of course, do not have access to government funding [I wonder why], and would not accept it if we did [yeah, right], so this is a serious inhibiting factor. In the meantime, even though we do not yet have answers to all the problems in scientific creationism, the answers we do have are better than those the evolutionists and "progressive creationists" have. We can at least do literature research, using the experimental data acquired by evolutionary scientists and reinterpreting such data in terms of Creation and the Flood. The modern creation revival has, in fact, largely been developed by this process.
Source: ICR AND THE FUTURE.

20 posted on 05/25/2005 4:51:40 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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