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To: Cicero
Ben Stein is NOT attacking Darwin.

No, Ben Stein's attacking Western Civilization.

Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means. Creationism -- which is a euphemism for rejecting the concept of science and scientific knowledge -- rejects that premise.

There is no controversy as far as the facts go. But creationists insist that there is, insist that their unequal, invalid view should be placed on an equal field with science, that there shouldn't be criteria for testing ideas and their validity. "Teach the controversy," they cry, as if our society were incapable of differentiating real from imagined, right from wrong. You call yourself after the great Roman orator and statesman, yet I think Cicero would have been appalled by a line or argumentation that rejects reason and inquiry.

44 posted on 04/28/2008 12:36:22 PM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Alter Kaker

Yep, we all know that Western Civ and Modern Science have NOTHING to do with the Judeo-Christian religion.

At least, all the enlightened folk who aren’t stupid, right?


50 posted on 04/28/2008 12:40:32 PM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Alter Kaker
Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means.

Really?

I thought Western Civilization was predicated on rational thought, which encompasses not only science but philosophy and theology as well.

Socrates and Aristotle did not have the modern idea of "the scientific method" and yet they were able to speak about rationality in both the natural world and the meta-physical world.

When did science co-opt all rationality? Why is the study of meta-physical areas now an affront to Science, and according to you, Western Civilization?

54 posted on 04/28/2008 12:41:56 PM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: Alter Kaker
Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means.

Yeah, that's all Western civilisation is based on.

Schmuck.

65 posted on 04/28/2008 12:50:22 PM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Here they come boys! As thick as grass, and as black as thunder!)
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To: Alter Kaker
Ben Stein's attacking Western Civilization.

Because there was no Western Civilization before Darwin.

Michelangelo was an evolutionist. And so was Bach. Or so you would have us believe.

85 posted on 04/28/2008 1:16:56 PM PDT by Maximilian
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To: Alter Kaker

You got to help me out. If I believe that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” I am attacking Western Civilization?


92 posted on 04/28/2008 1:30:06 PM PDT by carton253 (www.headquartersanv.blogspot.com -- for conversations about the Army of Northern Virginia.)
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To: Alter Kaker

We’re not talking about creationism. We’re talking about intelligent design, which is in fact different.

I would also point out that the rise of western science and technology took place under Christian auspices. Darwin was late to the party.


202 posted on 04/28/2008 5:26:56 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Alter Kaker

Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means. Creationism — which is a euphemism for rejecting the concept of science and scientific knowledge — rejects that premise.”

Set aside the many competing explanations of the Big Bang; something made an entire cosmos out of nothing.
It is this realization— that something transcendent started it all— which has hard-science types... using terms like “miracle”.


258 posted on 04/28/2008 7:35:25 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: Alter Kaker

Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means. Creationism — which is a euphemism for rejecting the concept of science and scientific knowledge — rejects that premise.”

Set aside the many competing explanations of the Big Bang; something made an entire cosmos out of nothing.
It is this realization— that something transcendent started it all— which has hard-science types... using terms like “miracle”.

Gregg Easterbrook


259 posted on 04/28/2008 7:36:21 PM PDT by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get.)
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To: Alter Kaker
...But creationists insist that there is, insist that their unequal, invalid view

No bias there, huh?

Science IS a religion, and it seems you must be one of the high priests. Unless one accepts that everything came about from nothing, that life began from nothing, and that there COULK NOT BE EVEN A POSSIBILITY OF GOD, you are a heretic, and have "invalid"views.

ROFLMAO...

292 posted on 04/29/2008 3:48:36 AM PDT by WVKayaker ( "Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome..." I. Asimov)
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To: Alter Kaker
Western Civilization is predicated on the belief that objective knowledge can be accumulated by rational, testable means.

Yes, and that follows from the notion of design, purpose, teleology, and intelligent creation.

309 posted on 04/29/2008 8:26:09 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (see FR homepage for Euvolution v0.4.2)
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