cheap trick behind the most devastating lie in the history of mankind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_Poll ^ | 10/15/2003 | self

[Qwinn]

"Those that defend evolution, understand that it is the best scientific theory to explain the evidence, and I say that with all candor and confidence."

I have no dispute with that at all. In fact, sure, I'll agree wholeheartedly, there is currently no other theory that satisfies scientific criteria as well as the theory of evolution does.

"Evolution is not a religion." Not exactly, no. But some people do worship it as part of their religion. I guess it all depends on what your definition of "religion" is ;)

I think there's various levels of defining "religion":

Step 1: Religion is a system of beliefs. (Wirestripper's)

He's absolutely right. And indeed, religions, and atheism, and the theory of evolution all fall under this criteria. Which may mean it's too broad. Let's try and make it more specific.

Step 2: Religion is a system of beliefs that attempts to explain how we came to exist.

This does narrow it down, all mainstream religions do take a stab at answering this question (not sure if Tao or Buddhism do, tho I tend to think of them more as philosophies). To the question of "How did we come to exist?", the Catholic says "God" and almost all Atheists would say "Evolution". Even most agnostics would at least say "Evolution was involved".

So you are right, evolution is not a "religion". But for the hardcore atheists... the ones for whom Atheism is a religion, evolution is not itself the religion but the center of worship, just as God is not a religion but the Catholic religion's center of worship.

But we're still too simple. I think there's a step 3 to defining religion which is, in my mind, most accurate:

Step 3: Religion is a system of beliefs that attempts to explain HOW -and/or- WHY we exist.

This is where atheism becomes unique as a religion. All other religions (and now we include Taoism and Buddhism) do indeed attempt to answer WHY we exist, but atheism doesn't. Atheism doesn't even try. Atheism is purely concerned with the How.

The fact that atheism doesn't even attempt to explain Why is what troubles me about it. In the vacuum that renders life as generally purposeless, with survival and self-gratification as the only potential purposes inherent in it, it is clearly going to be devoid of social obligation.

Since social obligation is a requirement of civil society, atheists attempt to form philosophies to explain why human behavior should be expected to rise above that of animals. Secular Humanism is one good example. Marxism is another. The problem, though, is that with no answer to the "Why?" question that mandates consistent civility, morality becomes completely fluid. Ethics become completely subservient to convenience, and the ends always justify the means. And if the civil society that provides the reason for those philosophies breaks down, the beliefs that justify not killing and generally humane behavior are completely disposable - whereas even without society the religious person's moral inhibitions survive.

You undoubtedly have heard a litany of the atrocities of religion, particularly the Catholic Church. Me, I think the Church has had more than enough enemies (Protestantism, Communism) to have generated a tremendous amount of propaganda against it, and most of the "atrocities" I've read about haven't held up to close scrutiny. But FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, let's accept that they're mostly true.

You've heard a whole bunch of people point to the atrocities of religions past and claim that that clearly demonstrates that religion has a worse track record than secularism. What they completely fail to address is the fact that secularism and atheism as a basis of society are newborn infants compared to religions. They have 6,000 years of recorded history to track the sins of nations and men ruled by religions to find all the dirt among all the good. Societies based on secularism and atheism don't even historically register until at most 300 years ago, and ever since their track record since then has been almost universally atrocious.

With states that mandated adherence to atheism (China, the Soviets, etc. etc. etc.) and actively forbade religious expression, there has existed wholesale slaughter on scales never before seen in history.

In the secular states that were less hostile to religion and permitted it's free expression, their worth as governments pretty much directly contribute to the respect toward religion within that culture. Take France of the 18th century. This is the secular government that in an orgy of anti-religious bigotry put a whore on the steps of the Bastille and crowned her the Goddess of Reason, while the guillotines dropped day and night. Meanwhile the United States, with a very strong respect among it's population for religion, has a pretty excellent track record for prosperity and civil society among it's people. Meanwhile, today's France, which is mostly secular, lets 15,000 of their elderly die during a heat wave while everyone's off on vacation and never even seems to acknowledge that this was a bad thing. Certainly no qualms about putting the same environmental policy into the EU Constitution that also kept them from putting air conditioners with freon that would have saved almost all of those lives.

Religion has been a massive civilizing force in world history. Without it, we'd still be killing each other with clubs and spears because there would never have been a reason to civilize in the first place. The evils under it's rule have existed but they have also been self-correcting. The arguments against slavery (and the impetus to go to war over it) were completely based on the Christian philosophy of all humans as equal under God. Actually, contrary to the propaganda, the Church as an institution was always stridently opposed to slavery as far back as the 14th century.

The reason slavery went on is not -because- of religion, as so many anti-Christian bigots claim, but because everyone ignored the Church that spoke out against it, just as abortion goes on today because everyone ignores the Church.

I am certain though that if society eventually comes to universally believe that abortion is abhorrent (as slavery is universally abhorred today), after the propaganda mill of those with a grudge are done, they will look back and claim "Organized religion didn't do enough to stamp out the horrors of abortion". Exactly like today's propaganda claims that Pope Pius XII didn't "do enough" about Hitler when the truth is that during the several years that Hitler was unopposed, he was the ONLY one brave enough to speak out against him -at all-. That's the unjust irony of the way that religion's history is viewed through atheism's lens.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

"As I said, their means were limited. But, if you don't like that example, you might try Saddam. He was reputed to have killed somewhere in excess of half a million, in a much smaller country in a much smaller span of time. I don't think it's very reasonable to pin that on evolution."

I don't blame it on evolution per-se, anymore than an atheist blames their perceived evils of religion's history on God. What I blame Saddam on is the moral vacuum that arises from atheism. Religion attempts to answer both the How and Why of existence. Evolution provides the easy answer to the How that lets people stop worrying about any Why that might prevent them from doing whatever the hell they want, including the mass-slaughter of innocents.

Qwinn

[Ogmios]

Ahh, that is where you hit it on the head.

How, that is answered by science, why, that is answered by religion.

Science can never answer why, it can answer how, but it can never answer why.

Religion claims to know the answer how, but it doesn't, but why? That is a question only religion can answer...

So we tend to agree, I like it!!

[dangus]

You can't blame evolution for totalitarian, atheist states... Ever hear of Napoleon?

[dangus]

Communism is based on the theory of evolution, just like nazis.

Actually, no... Nazism was certainly compatible with evolution, but Hitler ubermensch had its origins closer to Roman mythologies.

OTOH, True Marxism is incompatible with evolution, as it claims a radical egalitarianism.

Your arguments falsely equate atheism with a belief in evolution, which is simply downright ignorant. You don't need to be atheist to believe in evolution, and you don't need to believe in evolution to be atheist.

[dangus]

>>>>You MUST remove the diety to enslave a people.

>>That's not even remotely true.

Well, you must remove ties which are external to your system. Catholics got it worse than Russian Orthodox under Soviet rule, because they Rome was external.

[Ogmios]

Oh, and another thing, only human beings have ever come up with an answer to why?

Why? Because we are the only ones that care.

A majority of us care about why, that is why we are theists, but a number of us don't care about why, they are the atheists.

So, the question is this, is it more intelligent to ask why, or is it more intelligent to not ask why?

Theists say, I care about why, atheists say, I'm here, why should I care about why I am here?

Why is for religion, how is for science, some of us care about one or the other, a vast majority of us care about both.

And those of us that care about both, have no problem with science and religion. Those that only care about why, have a problem with science, those that only care about how, have a problem with religion.

[dangus]

>>Religion of all stripes are responsible for more death and destruction than any atheist ever conceived of.

Pure bu!!sh!t. THe big lie of the American left that has been repeated so many times by our enemies that even the good guys believe it... Look at any war, and you'll see it has much less to do with religion than people think... It wasn't Luther or the Popes who commanded all the bloodshed in Germany, for instance... It was the god-damned evil princes. And in North Ireland, it's the communist-left (Irish) vs. the Apostate heirarchy (England). Look at the NRA's platform (government-sponsored abortion, homosexual rights, marxist economics) and their methods (terrorism) and you tell me that it's a religious war.

Who are the great war-mongers of all time?
Adolph Hitler
Mao Tse-Tung
Joseph Stalin
Idi Amin (!)
Napoleon
Vladimir Lenin
All atheists, every last one of them.

Now look at the one truly violent religion: Islam. Why so violent? Because it's one "religion" which doesn't care what you believe, so long as you obey. The cognitive dissonance inherent makes it real easy to breed whack jobs.

[dangus]

>>Do you really believe living under a theocracy is a free society?

Sure... if the religion is humanistic (in the true sense of the word... unfortunately "humanism" has become a flase synonym for atheism, which it is closer to the antonym of.)

[Qwinn]

Sorry, I'm really not being clear. I don't blame totalitarian atheist states on evolution. I blame the worst totalitarian states on the moral vaccum that exists where genuine religions don't.

Evolution is just the soup-of-the-day enabler for atheism. It could be anything, like this Lysenko theory Stalin supposedly believed in. I'm blaming atheist philosophies such as Marxism that have embraced evolution as the way to discredit not only religion but the need to answer any questions that religions address.

Qwinn

[dangus]

>>Your the one defending christians who have been responsible for such things as giving blankets full of small pox

See, that's the thing... 93% of Americans CLAIM to be Christian, only about 40% have any knowledge of Christianity at all. So Christianity gets blamed for everything that gets done. You point out to me where the bible, or an ecumenical council, or a saint ever advocated giving blankets full of small pox to Indians, and them we'll talk.

[Ogmios]

Most, if they think about it, will realize that it is the extremes that cause the problems.

The world is on a pendulum swinging right and swinging left, religious theocracies, antireligious dictatorships, one extreme to the other, both are just as bad as the other.

A mix, that is the ticket, and that is what we have in this country, right down the middle, sure it goes a little far right and a little far left now and again, but it is self correcting, and it will correct itself, and will continue.

You think that it has gone too far left, and it will come back right, but then it will come too far right, and will have to go left again.

The left has the advantage right now, but the pendulum is swinging.

[Qwinn]

"And those of us that care about both, have no problem with science and religion. Those that only care about why, have a problem with science, those that only care about how, have a problem with religion."

Excellent! I'm filing this one away. I think you're on to something here.

Qwinn

[dangus]

>> "Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."
>>-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"

Go read the rest of the book, instead of quoting out of context.

[dangus]

>> That you don't brew DNA out of amino acids in ten seconds is also a very strawman model of abiogenesis. Strawman models are for lawyers, not scientists. Do you at least see the problem?

Actually, abiogenesis is a grave problem for evolutionary science, and one which makes the scientists look bad. The stuff about creating "Life in a flask" and such is so pure bulls--t, scientists lose credibility. In fact, although I categorically reject young-earth creationism, I must concede that abiogenesis *is* simply an article of faith.

Creationists: Don't miss a point! abiogenesis is not essential to evolution! Evolution means that natural processes were used in creation, it does not mean that there is no God!

[Ichneumon]

Go read the rest of the book, instead of quoting out of context.

I have read it, and it's not out of context. Nice try though.

[Ogmios]

All this deep thinking has worn me out, time for bed.

Have a great night...

[dangus]

>>I'm still pretty sure Marx was all about Darwin,

Sorry, but natural selection is the enemy of radical egalitarianism. What makes you think Marx was Darwinist? Not saying for sure he wasn't, but if he was, he contradicted himself, and it was a contradiction his followers immediately remedied.

[Aracelis]

Evolution means that natural processes were used in creation, it does not mean that there is no God!

There are those of us within the evolution-camp that firmly believe in a Creator. Please do not make this very common mistake.

[dangus]

>>Hitler was Catholic.....

No, Hitler was brought up in a nominally Catholic household. Hitler himself denounced Christ as an invention of the Jews to weaken the white race.

Quit citing left-wing anti-Christian propaganda as if it were truth.