People don’t “believe” in evolution - it simply exists and doesn’t require anyone’s beliefs to work. Some people are aware of evolution’s existence and some people are not, but none of this has any effect on the issue. If creationists succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and eliminated every reference in the world to evolution, it would still exist. Even if nobody ever learned about evolution and everybody forgot evolution existed, it would still exist. And at some point in the future, people would once again discover the existence of evolution and the fight would start all over again.
Creationism, on the other hand, is just an opinion. And an incorrect one.
It still looks just awful. If you look at the context carefully, he would have it that teachers could choose to leave evolution out altogether but could introduce discussions of other so-called “theories.” Besides, why should the study of evolution be dropped from a high school science curriculum in the 21st Century? Further, teachers are not supposed to teach outside the curriculum. Bush and the person who tried to explain what he actually meant are trying to cover all bases and then just leave the issue confused.
Not exactly. Groups of Christians have slaughtered their opponents in the name of Christianity. Christianity itself teaches against such acts. I would think that the majority of Christians have never participated in trying to kill the opposition unless talking to death counts.
Horrid science classes on the topic, or none at all.
I didn’t learn about evolution until after high school, though we did read Inherit the Wind. No debates about it, really, only I wish I hadn’t read it as some sort of laughable relic, especially since it’s more relevant than ever. Any discussion I have with 20-something Americans who don’t believe in evolution always ends up with them likening it to one of Kipling’s “Just So” stories.
Historians specializing in this subject are very much divided on all the reasons that the Crusades took place. But one reason is not at all in serious dispute. The Crusades were in large part a response to literally centuries of aggression against Christendom by the Arab-Islamic world.
The victims of the Inquisition number no more than a few thousand at best, and pale into insignificance when compared to the atrocities of such secular figures as Stalin and Hitler.
Again, we are talking about no more than a few thousand victims. What is more, the worst offense were committed not by the Church, but by secular authorities. Anyone accused of witchcraft would have worked very hard to get his case transferred to a Church court rather than a secular one. Unlike secular authorities, the Church didn’t generally use torture against those accused of witchcraft, and the food and lodging afforded to those in Church custody were far better than those afforded to the poor wretches in secular prisons who were accused of witchcraft. What is more, the Church generally required little more than a renunciation of the Devil and a reaffirmation of faith in the Church to set matters straight; by and large, it was the secular authorities who burned “witches” at the stake.
All in all, Christians have far more serious complaints against secularists than vice versa. Considering that Stalin and Mao killled hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Christians, the balance sheet still weighs much more heavily against secularism than it does against Christianity.
Well, I’m no Christian, but God damn! You’re a piss poor advocate for secularism!
Ah yes but those things evolving is not proof nor even scientific evidence of evolution is the sense of macro or mega evolution (macro evolution which is changes from one species to another and mega evolution being adding of genetic material), but what is not repeatable and unproveable is past evolutions.
Evolution in the sense of the unobservable past can only be consider an extention of a philosophy that states we can extrapolate what we see now into the past.
most of the Creationism vrs evolution issue comes down to a rather simple mindset difference.
creationists, those who seriously think a 2000 year old book, a book written before we had technology much beyond the wheel and bows, a book written when people had virtually no idea how to experiment to learn new things is the litereal truth.
Evolutionists, willing to believe that the tons of scientific evidence supporting the theory that has been amassed in the last 100 or so years is more credible.
every conversation I have had with a creationist ends politly in disagreement or I get told I am going to hell and they arent so NYAH NYAH NYAH.
ignorance, willing, blind, deliberate ignorance. if Xians want people to stop calling them loonies (I am talking about the fanatics here) then they might consider updating their beliefs to some point in the last century.
I dont think you can arbitrarily toss out The Bible. Your basically saying that it is impossible for this text to have been inspired which cant truly be proven, and there is the possibility that they are right, there is little internal contradiction in the New Testament, and non that can not be explained away. I am not saying they are right Im am just pointing out that it is a possibility, even if it is slim.
But what makes you think anything gained through the senses is any more credible?
Well, there is a possibility that any given book, holy or not, is true.
At some point you have to look at your holy book and say “Well, it’s a holy book. Every religion has them. Every religion’s is different. It’s a little unlikely that I’ve got the only one that is right. Indeed, my holding this holy book is more of a product of history and geography than anything else. What are the chances that I just happened to be born in a time and a place of a people whoes holy book, which although it closely resembles the countless other holy books, is actually the true and unwavering history of the world.”
To an athiest/agnostic, choosing any given book and believing in it literally and wholeheartedly is insane. Arguing that your book and your book alone is right is…kind of a bizarre claim, and certainly not a very defensible one. Most of us are Christian by birth and culture, and that is really kind of a flimsy for deciding stuff like how the world was created.
I realize that this was intended to describe the argumentation rather than the poster and that it is a rather mild epithet, but it will still be a good idea to address only the arguments and not the posters one is debating.
We can observe the result of evolution just fine. You might as well claim we’re all in the Matrix, or were created five minutes ago with false memory. The kind of denial of evidence you propose borders on solipsism. Your micro/macro/mega evolution distiction is religious terminology, not scientific, by the way. It’s nothing but yet another desperate attempt to deny reality.
The Bible is a collection of archaic fables; it has little to say about the real world. You might as well use a fantasy novel for a science text. The possibility of it being true is less than the chance I will spontaneously quantum jump to Alpha Centauri.
The religious just have better marketing. They know that every adult human is faced with an unconfrontable fear of death. They have an easy solution. Evolution, for the past few decades in the U
The religious just have better marketing. They know that every adult human is faced with an unconfrontable fear of death. They have an easy solution. Evolution, for the past few decades in the US, has been at the top of their targets. Simple 'nuff.
Not all religions target evolution. Just some of the more popular and vocal US ones.
Scientists, with their beautifully constructed logical theories and empiric reasoning, are farting against thunder. They basically are trying to convince people, at some level, to dismiss the basest human emotion, the fear of death, in exchange for a handful of theories. It doesn’t matter that they happen to be right. It doesn’t matter how much science has accomplished. Still it is like the beautifully constructed crystalline structures of the Doozers. Stupid freakin’ Fraggles come by and just munch on them for a snack.
No way. Just observant. Just because I happen to be on a few different losing teams (born Jewish, chosen scientist, chosen Democrat) doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the strengths of the other sides.
Evolution happens to be right. Religion just happens to have good marketing. I personally have met far too many highly intelligent believers to dismiss religion out of hand. It is just that some of the popular and vocal religions in the US happen to go after religion.
I read a great article about the head Jesuit astronomer talking about the fallacy of the God Of The Gaps. He made a God, confined to Gaps, seem so small and insignificant as opposed to his huge, all-embracing God. His God, almost synonymous with Love, existed on a plane not approachable with observation. It was really a beautiful concept coming from a man far smarter and more scientifically versed than me.
Err, make that “some of the more popular and vocal religions in the US happen to go after evolution”.
I’m not going to claim my atheistic worldview is right. All I’m saying is that it is far, far easier to win people over to religion than it is to make people not religious. Since (some) religion goes after evolution, evolution (which happens to be right), suffers.