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.
This is all very interesting sociolgy. And I mean that sincerely. But, again, at best you are showing a correlation, not causation with evolution being the causal element. Further, even if all the evolutionists pass without leaving offspring, two things are certain: one, evolution will still be true, and two, some of the more enterprising, inquisitive, scientific and intelligent offspring of those who are left will rediscover it.
So again I say by implication you are a follower of Hitler because you are a Christian, and Hitler embraced Christianity.
All I get from your link is a blank page.
I'll assume you are talking about the list of approx. 400 signers to DI's statement of doubt.
The statement I read, if the same one as those on the list signed, did not say they accepted ID or creation. What it did say was that they had doubts about a mechanism of evolution to account for all the complexity in life. It does not rule out any other evolutionary mechanism, nor does it reject evolution. In fact the way it is worded many scientists who despise ID would sign it.
I suggest you read the statement and not just try to flaunt the list.
Using a larger list of random authorities to counter a charge of using the appeal to authority fallacy simply extends the charge, not refute it. If you want to use authority correctly, remove all the names that do not work in evolution related fields. Then compare it to the rest of the authorities in evolution related fields. Probably in the range of 100s of thousands of scientists.
You guys are all so intent on proving that we all came from the same two people, then you should've no problem marrying your kids to those of other races, just to prove your faith in your "creationist" theory.
"Creation also implies Providence. It is this which doctrinaire Darwinists reject."
Naturally. Because there's no scientific evidence for it.
Chemistry - its very complicated.
Just look at how stars can form, how rivers are formed, etc
Thank you for your comments.
Further, if all you know about Islam is that it is "religion that inspires its young to murder the innocent" then you are more of a damned ignorant, bigoted fool than I took you for. Try reading a real history book for once.
As for how most Christian would feel about having their faith compared to Islam? I don't know. How would you feel if someone held the pig-ignorant bigoted views about your religion that you feel for others. Given Jim Jones' Kool-Aid cult, the Branch Davidians in Waco, the Inquisition, the 30 Years War, pogroms, witch burnings and Martin Luther's writings on the Jews, one could come to the conclusion that Christianity, especially of the Protestant kind is the religion of insane, bloodthirsty murders, and suicides.
My grandchildren are mixed race. You were saying?
I could interpret your comments as assuming that a lot of folks here are racist, and I just don't find that to be true whether we're talking about creation freepers or evolution freepers.
I think conservatives are the truly accepting people in America who want actually to evaluation folks on the content of the character and not on the color of their skin.
I'm sorry, I can't agree with that.
Darwin did not deny divine creation. He was unsure of how life started.
If you check other threads you will find posts by both creationists and 'evos' that claim Darwin was a Christian throughout his life.
It's one of the reasons he was so funny.
Marx did admire Darwin. Darwin did not know Marx. Any relationship you perceive in this was one way. Any link between Marx and Darwin, whether true or not, has no bearing on either the validity of evolution nor on the development of the theory of evolution. It does not change the views or the practices of the scientists involved in any evolutionary field.
I really have no idea why you insist on making the link and then try to convince us it matters.
well said
Darwinists(like Dawkins) don't reject Providence because of the lack of scientific evidence: they reject it dogmatically, asserting that no such evidence could exist.
Yeah, so? Haven't you ever seen a polite refusal before? What did Darwin say that has you all worked up? He graciously declined the "honor," and he also said, in effect, that he didn't know beans about economics.
Is that the extent of your "evidence" for a Darwin-Marx connection?
Some might well do so out a sense of dogma, but the majority reject it because it isn't scientific.
Thank you.
Yes, but can it be verified by more than one source?
Narby, Narby, Narby....
You may have to quit playing with your E friends: you are starting to act as bad as some of them.
Kinda like the bumper sticker:
Makes me want to add to it:
I don't smaoke, so the odds are I'll vote more often than you.
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