Sure there is. Something cannot be said to be random if its outcome is already known.
Ahem.
Creationists do it with imagination.
So it can be said that the actions of murders were programmed this way from the get go? That kinda rules out a loving God at least…
Then what about the literal Creationists? Is it in their imagination that hatred of certain types of people is a good thing and justified?
Actually, Galileo’s theories were removed from the Index and actually published with an Imprimatur within 100 years of his death in 1642, so you’re off by a bit over 100 years. And since Christians have not only accepted evolution as a scientific fact, the two most prominent individuals to provide the information to rescue Darwin’s theory by providing a mechanism (which Darwin could not provide) to explain how it works were Christian–Mendel and Dobzhansky.
No, Creationists do it really, really quickly when compared to evolutionists. 
I think the whole ‘then their belief system will come crashing down’ is a little overblown. Though there is a component of that I think it’s a little more basic.
Every creationist I’ve met in real life was taught by their pastor/priest/whomever that evolution is atheist propaganda (and that atheists are their enemy that seeks to burn down all the churches and drive religious people into the hills) and have never bothered to research otherwise. It’s almost pathetic when you hear the exact same arguments from different people in nearly the exact same words.
Creationism is what they’re taught is THE TRUTH and THE TRUTH cannot be questioned in the slightest. You must not look at other sources. Now most creationists are pretty passive about it in that they don’t bring it up unless you happen to be talking on a tangent topic however as in any group you’ll find some people that are proactive.
As for the notion that these people know going in that they’ll be bashed you have to remember the mindset. A couple of churches I went to taught active witnessing and made us think that if a person wasn’t saved it was pretty much because they never heard of Jesus so we should bring the news. I see that same type of behavior in these threads. The OPs think we haven’t heard the news or haven’t heard the news ‘correctly’ or we’d all be converted. All of our arguments to the contrary is us being ignorant but if they just reach one person and save one tiny soul from the evil atheist notion that our grandfathers were monkeys well praise Jesus that’s just the first flake in a blizzard of conversions.
ps and no you cannot be a good Christian and believe in evolution. Are you crazy? They’re mutually exclusive (in their minds of course)
I posted this elsewhere, I think, but it’s apropos here as well:
“The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There’s one other thing I’d like to point out. For most people on this board, questioning assumptions comes naturally and is a good thing. Face it. If we weren’t a lot of curious creatures, we probably wouldn’t have stumbled across this place in the first place. Everyone isn’t like that. I spent a lot of time interacting with a Fundamentalist who used to hang out here and questioning her basic assumptions really was difficult for her. She couldn’t see why someone would want to ask, “What if?” or imagine other explanations for things, no matter how many times Polycarp and I asked. A thing was what it was and that was that. If anyone said otherwise, they were wrong.
There are also people who teach that it is very sinful to question one’s religion because that might lead to falling away from it. Such a person could point to any number of former Christians around here as proof of that. One is to believe without questioning because faith is supposed to be sufficient for everything. If you question things, you’re faith cannot be real enough or strong enough, because if it were, you wouldn’t be questioning. (Yes, I know. Classic circular reasoning.)
There is also no such thing as partially right or partially wrong. A friend of mine who used to be a Fundamentalist Christian said that at the time there was no such thing as a grey area, only straight black and white thinking. If any part of the Bible could be proven false, the whole thing could be false which would mean their entire faith was a lie because the Bible was a lie. If the Bible was wrong about Genesis, how can we know it was right about Jesus Christ?
Finally, to some Christians not being a Christian has very dire consequences, namely an eternity of very real, tangible, intense suffering. They’re convinced unbelievers are damned to hell and that is a terrifying prospect. Because they are Christians they are Right, no matter what else is going wrong in their life, mo matter what else they do. Christians are Right!! If someone attacks them or disagrees with them, if someone actively dislikes them, that person is only doing so because they are Wrong and out to attack the faithful. I remember trying to explain why I don’t necessarily consider all Christians to be good people to the woman I mentioned earlier because of the way some people treated me when I was a teenager. Her response was, “Maybe they weren’t Christians.” The people in question were members of a local church’s youth group, but I still don’t think she got it.
I think what we’re up against is people with a very strict, inflexible mindset who are genuinely trying to correct misguided assumptions which lead to very real, negative consequences. I think they really are trying to correct what they see as errors and it never occured to them that acceptance of evolutionary theory can enhance faith rather than destroy it. I suspect the response they get may well perplex some of them which is why some don’t return. How can someone like me have faith which is as strong and Christian as theirs yet reject a basic tenet of their belief?
So, we as a community respond the way we always do: by trying to fight ignorance. We’ve got some incredibly knowledgeable people in these debates and I’ve learned a lot from them. Me, I try to explain how evolution and Christianity aren’t incompatible and how my faith is enhanced by what I know of science. Will we win? Who knows. I, for one, am still enjoying the fight, though.
CJ
“The idea that all ideas are partly true, partly false, and partly meaningless is partly true, partly false and partly meaningless.” — Hagbard Celine
When I was a creationist, I really wanted to believe it (for a variety of reasons, most of which are outlined above) and it was fairly easy to go on doing so; the whole system acts as a buffer, insulating the believer from exposure to any kind of detailed information on physical science; for example, we wouldn’t have read any articles in scientific papers (or even science magazines) about, say, the fossil hominid called ‘Lucy’, but we’d have gobbled up articles that creationist sources have to say about the scientific press, or the evidence. Honest inquiry is identified as lack of faith and is discouraged.
I have quite a lot more to say about this, but perhaps later…
A nitpick to the nitpick …
It’s messier than that. Your reference to the Imprimatur is no doubt to the one granted in 1741 to a complete edition of Galileo’s works. But the Dialogue was still on the Index at this stage and this Padua edition was only allowed on condition that the edition adhered to the changes imposed by the local Inquisitor. The edition therefore excludes several of the shorter (but particularly crucial) works and accompanies the Dialogue with the 1633 judgement and two prefaces approving of Galileo’s recantation. Numerous marginal postils were also edited or omitted so as to make the work more hypothetical.
The Dialogue, together with De revolutionibus, also remained on the Index when it next appeared in 1757, though this edition drops the general ban on books promoting Copernicanism. There is, however, some evidence that Benedict wanted to remove them at this stage; from Heilbron’s The Sun in the Church (Harvard, 1999; 2001, p208):
As it was, the 1757 Index entries stood unchallenged through the 18th century. The assertion that this remained in force until either 1822 or 1835 is usually made lazily, though George Coyne S.J. has argued that the latter date applies.
It’s undoubtedly true that the Catholic Church’s practical opposition to the teaching of Copernicanism evaporates in the first half of the 18th century and that there are examples of theological colleges openly teaching it before 1757. But a degree of official censorship did technically still remain through the rest of the century in that the editions of Galileo and Copernicus that did have an imprimatur were incomplete.
- You’ve read the Illuminatus! trilogy ? Cool.
- I think you’ve somehow messed up the quote, I don’t have a copy of the text in front of me, but I don’t remember the catma being discussed in those exact words.
Creationists do it by the Book.
Hah! I like that one much better Miller.