Would the Brown's suggest opening up Geology to those who say the earth is flat? Or Astronomy to those who say the Sun revolves around the Earth? How about those who say the earth is hollow, or that man has never orbited the earth or set foot on the moon, or that Pi is actually 3.0 and not 3.14? If they're standing for academic freedom rather than science then shouldn't they be supporting those theories in the classroom as well?
I notice Mary and then Floyd made the same points sequentially
There will be no academic freedom until we can teach what I think is the truth about creation:
Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion.
From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Om. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu’s navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu’s servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord’s command.
Vishnu spoke to his servant: ‘It is time to begin.’ Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: ‘Create the world.’
A wind swept up the waters. Vishnu and the serpent vanished. Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth. With the third part of the flower he created the skies.
The earth was bare. Brahma set to work. He created grass, flowers, trees and plants of all kinds. To these he gave feeling. Next he created the animals and the insects to live on the land. He made birds to fly in the air and many fish to swim in the sea. To all these creatures, he gave the senses of touch and smell. He gave them power to see, hear and move.
The world was soon bristling with life and the air was filled with the sounds of Brahma’s creation.
There was nothing in the beginning but seemingly almost endless chasm called the Ginnungagap. Ginnungagap was a void like the Greek Chaos. Ginnungagap was bordered by Niflheim, which is the place of darkness and ice, far to the north; and Muspelheim, a place of fire, far to the south. Out of this chaos the first being came into existence from the drop of water when ice from Niflheim and fire from Muspelheim met.
This first being was Ymir, a primeval giant. The frost-giants called him Aurgelmir, but everyone else called him Ymir. Ymir became father of a race of frost-giants.
Ymir was the father of six-headed son that was nourished by a cosmic cow called Audumla. Audumla fed herself by licking the salty rime-stone, until that stone was licked into a shape of man. This stone-man was named Buri and he was the first primeval god. Buri was the father of Bor.
Bor married the giantess Bestla, the daughter of the frost-giant Boltha. And they became the parents of the first Aesir gods Odin, Vili (Hoenir) and Ve.
Ymir grew so large and so evil that the three gods killed Ymir. The blood that flowed from Ymir’s wound was so great that almost all the frost giants drowned in the torrent. Only the frost giants Bergelmer and his wife escape the flood in a chest, arriving on the mountain of Jötunheim (Jotunheim), which became the home of the giants.
Yggdrasill and the Nine World
Odin and his brothers then used Ymir’s body to create the universe. This universe comprises of nine worlds. They placed the body over the void called Ginnungagap.
They used his flesh for creating the earth and his blood for the sea. His skull, held up by four dwarves (Nordri, Sudri, Austri, and Vestri), was used to create the heaven. Then using sparks from Muspelheim, the gods created the sun, moon and stars. While Ymir’s eyebrows were used to create a place where the human race could live in; a place called Midgard (Middle Earth).
A great ash tree called Yggdrasill (”World Tree”) supported the universe, with roots that connects the nine worlds together. One root of Yggdrasill extends to Muspelheim (”world of fire”), while another root to Niflheim (the “world of cold” or “of ice”). Niflheim was sometimes confused with Niflhel; Niflhel being known by another name – Hel, was the world of the dead. Hel was sometimes used interchangeably with Niflhel by many writers, as the world of the dead.
The name, Yggdrasill, means “Steed of Ygg”. Ygg is another for Odin, which means, “Terrible One”. Therefore, the great tree means in English, “Steed of the Terrible One”. Odin’s horse is named Sleipnir, but I found no connection between the tree and Sleipnir.
While one root was connected to Asgard (home of the Aesir), another root to Vanaheim (home of the Vanir). The frost giants lived Jötunheim (Jotunheim). Midgard was the world for human. Alfheim was home of the light elves (ljósálfar). There was also the underground world for the black elves (svartálfar), called Svartalfheim. The dwarves inhabited the world of Nidavellir.
Aztec Story of Creation
Quetzalcoatl, the light one, and Tezcatlipoca, the dark one, looked down from their place in the sky and saw only water below. A gigantic goddess floated upon the waters, eating everything with her many mouths.
The two gods saw that whatever they created was eaten by this monster. They knew they must stop her, so they transformed themselves into two huge serpents and descended into the water. One of them grabbed the goddess by the arms while the other grabbed her around the legs, and before she could resist they pulled until she broke apart.
Her head and shoulders became the earth and the lower part of her body the sky.
The other gods were angry at what the two had done and decided, as compensation for her dismemberment, to allow her to provide the necessities for people to survive; so from her hair they created trees, grass, and flowers; caves, fountains, and wells from her eyes; rivers from her mouth; hills and valleys from her nose; and mountains from her shoulders.
Still the goddess was often unhappy and the people could hear her crying in the night.
They knew she wept because of her thirst for human blood, and that she would not provide food from the soil until she drank.
So the gift of human hearts is given her.
She who provides sustenance for human lives demands human lives for her own sustenance. So it has always been; so it will ever be.
Maybe with so many competing stories of creation, Christian churches should be required to teach alternatives like evolution and the Hindu, Norse, and Aztec stories.
ping for later
Dr. William Provine of Cornell U, for all his atheism, in his mechanistic perspective and his absolute certainty, sounds positively medieval.
With due apologies to medieval thinkers.
“Ironically, Darwin’s evolutionary theory is based is atheistic naturalism, a religious belief.”
My impression of the evolutionist approach is that it includes a fervent desire to ignore, and if ignorance doesn’t work, to suppress and ridicule, any and all inquiry into an examination of the circumstances described by the comment quoted above.
Darwinism is a religion, but this fact cannot be adequately discussed because Darwinists know it would hurt their credibility.
The NYTimes would have served better in times past defending the Roman Empire, the Nazi socialist, and as a corrupt mouthpiece for the former USSR. The times never did like alternative and diverse opinions.
Now that teachers can't be disciplined for “critical thinking” and “objective discussion” there is nothing to prevent them from critically examining religious beliefs.
A young earth and the global flood should be among the easiest to apply “critical thinking” and “objective discussion” to.
There is no credible scientific evidence supporting either belief, and teachers will now be free to state this. And there's absolutely nothing the fundamentalists can do about it because of the silly law they just got passed.
This is how the left wins the public argument - by appealing to people’s sense of emotion - i.e sympothy. Emotion wins everytime - this is how we have homos, minorities and women dictating policy to the majority. Rather than a colorblind society we have race, sexual preference and gender based discrimintion.
IF the right wants to win the cultural war they will unfortunately have to engage people from an emotional (ie. sympathy) level. People are sheep and for the most part idiots. In fact the more educated one is, the less common sense they have.
“If evolution is true, the rocks should contain billions times billions of fossils of the ancestors of the complex invertebrates. Yet, not one has ever been found.”
-Duane T. Gish, in his book The Fossils Still Say No.
More from Gish:
“Errol White, an evolutionist and expert on fishes, in his presidential address on lungfishes to the Linnean Society of London, said: ‘But whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lungfishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing…’ Later he went on to say, ‘I have often thought how little I should like to have to prove organic evolution in a court of law.’”
If you read Gish’s book, or research the fossil record, you will see that there is no (zero) fossil evidence for transitional forms. Not just transitional forms between fish and amphimbians, but also between amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, and all the countless species between which transitional forms must have existed in the path of commmon descent if evolution is true.
Such as finding useful explanations, which probably would seem to silence something but doesn't silence anything except by contrast with useless conjecture.
What a stupid argument. If your thesis cannot be proven consistently by different observers, then it’s trash.
Maybe they need a monkey-god idol, huh?
“Evolutionists use a variety of methods to silence alternate viewpoints. They say people are trying to “inject religious views into science courses.”’
I always wonder WHICH religion are they talking about. They never name a religion.
Many evolutionists don’t even want a HINT of God, and that is their problem.
More evidence of the phony political liberals posing as conservatives alert.