Posted on 06/13/2007 8:30:23 AM PDT by presidio9
The three Republican presidential candidates who indicated last month that they do not believe in evolution may have been taking a safe stance on the issue when it comes to appealing to GOP voters.
A Gallup poll released Monday said that while the country is about evenly split over whether the theory of evolution is true, Republicans disbelieve it by more than 2-to-1.
Republicans saying they don't believe in evolution outnumbered those who do by 68 percent to 30 percent in the survey. Democrats believe in evolution by 57 percent to 40 percent, as do independents by a 61 percent to 37 percent margin.
The poll also said that those who go to church often are far likelier to reject evolution than those who do not. Republicans are likelier than Democrats or independents to attend church services, according to Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll.
At the GOP's first presidential debate last month, the 10 candidates were asked which of them did not believe in evolution. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo raised their hands.
The Gallup survey, conducted May 21 to 24, involved telephone interviews with 1,007 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Republicans? All varieties of people disregard Darwinism.
Many biologists and physicists are skeptical as well. Darwin’s theory is just that-—a theory. Not fact as some evo dummies like to posit for some bizarre anti Christian reason.
Correction, most people don't have a clue about evolution, not just most Republicans. But also, most Christians don't have a clue about the Bible beyond a sunday-school level of understanding. I would doubt any more than 10% has opened a Concordance to see the real meanings of some of the terms used and probably even less know what a Pesher is.
I am a scientist dipsh_t.
For a scientist you are sure hard on science, and seemingly a poor representative of your profession.
All good scientists are skeptics and not full of themselves. We use theories until they break, but we are ready for most any of them to break at any time. I like it when they break!
I know what theories are, and how to use them. I'm a scientist too, remember?
In fact, in cosmology we are desperate for a new intuitive leap that will let us throw away so much of the crap we keep playing with now. Its cumbersome, ugly (full of squigglies), full of patches and cartoon-like simplifying assumptions...and disagreements, incoherences, inconsitenticies...
nature is beautiful, science is ugly.
Can't agree with you on science being ugly. I see it as beautiful, as is the nature it seeks to understand.
What made you so bitter?
Don’t post to me again until you clean up your language.
I’m going to actually dispute the results of this poll. I just don’t think they are accurate. The way they asked the question probably implied that you either believe God creates the universe or that evolution happened, probably didn’t allow for the idea that Evolution was guided by the hand of God, the official Catholic position
Gen 1.14 says "lights" ... not light. Light was not created in Gen. 1.14 ... it was created in Gen 1.3 "Let there be light". Please read the text.
... but also explicitly recognizes (in the last clause) that the days could not be divided before then.
It says nothing of the sort ... read the text ...
4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.
The text in Gen 1.4-5 explicitly claims that GOD did the separation of the days prior to Gen 1.14. God separated the light (day) and the darkness (night) in verse 4. It also states that the concept of a "day" was defined BEFORE the creation of the sun. Evening and morning ... evening and morning ... evening and morning ... then the sun ... evening and morning ... etc.
All that we can understand from the text of Gen. 1 is that God created light, HE separated the light (day) from the darkness (night), and that evening and morning marked the beginning and end of a day. Then after the sun was created, the SUN separated the day from the night.
So you have a progression like ...
Day 1 - God separated day/night
Day 2 - God separated day/night
Day 3 - God separated day/night
Day 4 - Sun created to separate day/night
Day 5 - Sun separated day/night
Day 6 - Sun separated day/night
Day 7 - Sun separated day/night
etc ...
When someone comes up with a foreign interpretation for a straightforward passage, I always wonder if there is an underlying theological problem the new interpretation is trying to solve.
LOL.
You just do not get it. I'm not bitter! I love it! but i don't worship it!
Science is not my God. It is not a religion at all. Though God has given me a great passion for it. i love knowledge i love pursuing knowledge. i love creating new problems, then solving them (or not. LOL)
Nature is beautiful. math is beautiful. but both are pretty ugly after man's done using them.
Don't be so reverend. Wear a hawaain shirt on friday or something.
hmmm...i'd rather be called a "dipsh_t" than your insult to me.
LOL.
(you'r fun) I bet your face is red.
Is it more of a stretch to believe that the word "yowm" possessed one of three accepted meanings and referred to an indeterminate block of time as corroborated by all physical evidence, or to believe that there was day and night before the sun (especially when both interpretations are equally consistent with the plain language)? Do you believe the Earth is 6000 years old?
I've been saying this for years! These young earth folks done seem to want to take that into account. Surely God must work on a HUMAN timeframe, right? /s
Yes it does. You just hide your eyes and refuse to acknowledge it.
The retroviral segments in ape and human DNA that back up previous morphological studies about how much time has elapsed between the species split, and which species split from which, is as direct evidence as one will find for almost any historical event. Even if you imagine that God created the species, via this DNA record we understand how He did it, and how many millions of years it took, and the process He used is a thing science calls "evolution". It is as simple, and as well understood as any scientific process that one also might call a "miracle of God", like the rain.
I agree. It's quite possible to have faith and accept the conclusions of science, and understand they are two entirely different things. But when creationists attempt to diminish science by labeling it "faith", they lose.
“Sad to see the republican party so out of touch on this.”
If there is any consolation, the Republican party is getting smaller—fewer folks for you to worry being so out of touch.
The only conflict occurs if one assumes that the modern English translation is an accurate scientific treaste of the events. I don’t have a conflict because I read Genesis as a pesher (the ‘why’ of Creation and our place in the world.)
I'm only vaguely familiar with the Qumran Pesharim, but, in my opinion, there is no conflict between Genesis 1:5 and Genesis 1:14....at least not a necessary one.
The former, is from the perspective of God, and the latter is from our perspective. Now, one can argue that they could indicate two different lengths of time for the definition of day, but one can not say that such a proposal is inferred, or necessary.
The lights that were created in the firmament of the heavens on day four, the sun, the moon (reflective light) the stars, etc., were different from the "light" that was created on day one. At least that's the way I read it. What that light was....I don't know, and I don't pretend to know, but there is nothing in the language of the text that indicates both frames of reference, God on day one, and ours, or the earth, on day four, must necessarily infer two distinct time durations.
If, from God's perspective, on day one, he created light and divided it from the darkness as representing what we know as a twenty-four day, then I see nothing in the text that contradicts it...and it seems perfectly reasonable that he would do the same for us, as to be seen from our perspective via the sun, on day four.
I can understand reasonable people making arguments that might imply something different, but it is not reasonable to make an argument that such is necessarily inferred. There simply is no evidence for that.
Genesis 1:5 has the light, day/night etc being created before the Earth, Genesis 1:14 has it happening after.
The only conflict occurs if one assumes that the modern English translation is an accurate scientific treaste of the events. I don’t have a conflict because I read Genesis as a pesher (the ‘why’ of Creation and our place in the world.)
I'm only vaguely familiar with the Qumran Pesharim, but, in my opinion, there is no conflict between Genesis 1:5 and Genesis 1:14....at least not a necessary one.
The former, is from the perspective of God, and the latter is from our perspective. Now, one can argue that they could indicate two different lengths of time for the definition of day, but one can not say that such a proposal is inferred, or necessary.
The lights that were created in the firmament of the heavens on day four, the sun, the moon (reflective light) the stars, etc., were different from the "light" that was created on day one. At least that's the way I read it. What that light was....I don't know, and I don't pretend to know, but there is nothing in the language of the text that indicates both frames of reference, God on day one, and ours, or the earth, on day four, must necessarily infer two distinct time durations.
If, from God's perspective, on day one, he created light and divided it from the darkness as representing what we know as a twenty-four day, then I see nothing in the text that contradicts it...and it seems perfectly reasonable that he would do the same for us, as to be seen from our perspective via the sun, on day four.
I can understand reasonable people making arguments that might imply something different, but it is not reasonable to make an argument that such is necessarily inferred. There simply is no evidence for that.
Only from our perspective. See my response to mnehrling, post #114.
Well, the vast majority of science is theory. the validity and utility of a theory is taken on faith.
We engage in science because we have faith that the results will add meaning to the existence of mankind.
However, i think the "creationists" may be refferring to those scientists (usually camp followers) who use the science to attack the religious faith of others, and who claim to live by the supremacy of science.
Such men do use science as their own religious faith. I know one professor in particular. She/he believes science is sufficient and that those who know of higher things are idiots. but he/she is so insecure in her own religion of science that she must endeavour to atack Christianity at every possible turn.
Ah, yes, here you go again with the Dem Central technique.
"Scientists have been told that they are not wanted here" [Coyoteman]"FR in the last year or so has taken a decided anti-science stance" [Coyoteman]
"FR has turned anti-science in the last year or so" [Coyoteman]
"The reception scientific research receives at FR is dismal, based more on ignorance and superstition than scientific knowledge." [Coyoteman]
"The left is fond of saying conservatives are anti-science" [Coyoteman]
You know, the whole existence of day and night comes from sitting on a planet that rotates. God’s not confined to a planet so Genesis is clearly written to reflect the POV of man - and its limited by what he could understand at the time.
Man couldn’t understand the planets traveling in elliptical orbits for billions years -this is before we knew what a ellipse was or how much a billion was or that the planet rotated at all.
Jesus spoke in parables to help people understand so I don’t think its odd that the old testament uses parables too.
Dwelling on the details of a grand parable risks missing the point.
>>Science and religion do not compete.<<
They may not inherently compete but they certainly have competed and they definitely are brought into competition for various purposes.
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