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Author | Topic: Does Evolution Require Spreading The Word? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6247 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
No, hopefully though the ignorant clergy can learn from reality. Hopefully the ignorant clergy can also learn from the educated minority of other clergy theologically. Again the presumptuousness is amazing...the minority clergy that signed the list are educated? while the rest of the clergy who didn't sign the list are ignorant? So by definition, clergy who accept ToE are "educated" while those who don't are 'ignorant'??!! And again, you're mixing your terms...making it sound like proper theology is only held by the "educated" clergy; who are the educated clergy? those that accept ToE of course!! I forgot you were elected high priest/spokesman of Christian theology
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jar Member (Idle past 92 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Sorry, but YOU were the one who characterized clergy that support ID or Biblical Creationism as ignorant and I was simply using YOUR terms. I think that it is apt though. Yes, to again quote you, "So by definition, clergy who accept ToE are "educated" while those who don't are 'ignorant'??!!"
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6247 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
oh no i didn't; show me where I characterized clergy that support ID or Biblical Creationism as ignorant...
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jar Member (Idle past 92 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Ignorance is not shameful. Wilfull ignorance may well be.
The point I was trying to make is that reality is not something you take a vote on. If Christian Clergy are promoting Biblical Creationism they are either ignorant, mistaken, deluded or dishonest. The former two can be sovd through education, the later two are unlikely to be resolved. The fact of Evolution, of an Old Universe, of there never being a world-wide flood needs to be taught to those who do not understand. It is also, IMHO, a good idea to show them that they can retain their belief in GOD and particularly Christianity at the same time. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6247 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
Well, as an 'ignorant' Christian I consider myself to be as educated both theologically and scientifically as most people...and there is no logical discrepancy between my belief in God and my skepticism of ToE, or my belief in a world-wide flood...
On the other hand, you may wish to consider how well your viewpoint harmonizes with God's when we have his own Word that speaks against ToE...
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jar Member (Idle past 92 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Well, as an 'ignorant' Christian I consider myself to be as educated both theologically and scientifically as most people...and there is no logical discrepancy between my belief in God and my skepticism of ToE, or my belief in a world-wide flood... In the US I would say that is probably an accurate if sad assessment.
On the other hand, you may wish to consider how well your viewpoint harmonizes with God's when we have his own Word that speaks against ToE... Yet we have a better source, one that GOD left us directly, the very Universe we live in, that must be balanced against some book written by men and meant to be a guide on theology and not a science text. When it comes to Biblical Creationism and ID the evidence is in, the answer sure: Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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mjfloresta Member (Idle past 6247 days) Posts: 277 From: N.Y. Joined: |
You talk about the direct evidence God has left us (science), yet you ignore the direct communication he has left us (his word)..
You say you trust the bible to be an accurate guide to theology yet you doubt its accuracy... It's like people saying that Jesus was a good man but not God...that's impossible; he's either God - as he said he was, or he was a liar, and a pretender, claiming to be the deity of the universe when he was not... Similarly, when it comes to God's testimony about himself and his deeds, you can either believe him at his word - or not; But don't claim to accept his word and then not believe anything he says...
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jar Member (Idle past 92 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
You talk about the direct evidence God has left us (science), yet you ignore the direct communication he has left us (his word).. No, I accept his word. It is called reality. It's called the universe. It is called fossils and mountains and valleys and old worn rocks and the stars and Evolution.
You say you trust the bible to be an accurate guide to theology yet you doubt its accuracy... I don't doubt it when it comes to theology, but it is not a great source for either science or history.
It's like people saying that Jesus was a good man but not God...that's impossible; he's either God - as he said he was, or he was a liar, and a pretender, claiming to be the deity of the universe when he was not... Well frankly, even if Jesus was but a tale told round the campfire, the message would still be valid.
Similarly, when it comes to God's testimony about himself and his deeds, you can either believe him at his word - or not; But don't claim to accept his word and then not believe anything he says... LOL When you find something GOD wrote, you let me know. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
So the matter still remains that we have 10,000 clergy with Master's of Divinity and Doctor's of Theology who know nothing about science (officially of course, not No, of course not, the clincher is, as it always has been, the scientific evidence. The Clergy Letter Project merely demonstrates that theologians find science compatible with Christianity, and (together with vast numbers of scientists who are theists) give the lie to the Standard Creationist Rubbish about how "evolution is an atheist theory, blah, blah." Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
We have 10,000 clergy who have a specific theology about Life Origins; but they are heralded as authoritative despite the counter-position held by 350,000 thousand clergy. How did you find out what the other 350,000 think? I take it your method did not involve gathering evidence in any way, 'cos that would have involved effort.
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jaywill Member (Idle past 2194 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: |
Hi Dr. Adaquate,
I get told that "evolution is a religion" and that "to believe in evolution requires faith", and, on this thread, that those pesky "evolutionists" "spread the word", that evolution is "messianic", and the implication of your post seems to be that if we're going to teach children evolution we might as well teach them to sing hymns to Darwin. I was being a naughty troll. But I give some serious reply to your inquiry. I can understand some people saying that a kind of religion has developed around the theory of evolution. This came home to me from two insidents. One was while I once noticed that the Boston Globe newspaper had taken out space to defend the teaching of evolution in school. They took out a entire full length page and filled it with nothing but a photograph of a aged bearded Charles Darwin. I wondered why the sparse article should be accompanied by a huge mug shot of a distinquished aged old man. It struck me as an appeal to people's religious sensibilities to be awe struck by this massive image of "the great sacred Father" of Evolution. The second incident came when I visited a high school which had a poster depicting the common themes of evolution theory. These eyes stared out intelligently at the viewer amidst a ape like being with arms raised as in benediction. A kind of light was depicted around the figure and the progression of the fiqures was meant to portray that man gradually emerged as intelligent from these lower animals until he kind of "blesses" human civilization with his higher insight. The art work struck me as something worthy of comparison with any fresca on St. Peter's Biscillica or on any stain glass window of religious edifice. It doesn't surprise me that some critics feel the belief in evolutionary theory has become a religion. Now to your point about teaching evolution to kids. I would want it to be taught to my kids (who are now in their twenties) as a theory. I think they certainly should learn about the theory. And I think problems that some scientists have (yes both of them) with the theory should not be suppressed. I think that is good education.
There is something about this which puzzles me. Again and again, when you're trying to say that evolution is stupid, you compare it to Christianity. It's like you're saying, over and over, "Hah! Evolution! It's as dumb as Christianity!" Christianity is a religion. When it acts as a religion it is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Evolution is suppose to be science. When it acts like science it is doing what we expect. When it aderents act like religious folk - like the artists and propogandists of the above situations I discribed, then it does look stupid because it is behaving as a religion. What was I suppose to do when I opened the newspaper and saw that huge picture of the sacred father figure, fall on my knees and say 10 Hail Darwins? When Science acts like Religion it does look stupid. And vica versa.
Now if I want to compare something to something ridiculous, I pick on flying pigs. I would never seek to ridicule any propostion that I considered silly by comparing it to the Christian faith. Well, I think flying pigs are pretty ridiculous. But I also think that a ape / monkey or what have you as a "primate" giving birth one day to a human being is also ridiculous. If someone shows me it occur one day that will seriously alter my sense of it being foolish. Besides in evolutionary theory the flying pig is not that bad. Well, you almost have that in the giraffe who stretch and stretched and stretched its neck until it evolved into the long necked creature that we see today. Maybe the head will gradually dislocate from the neck and the two little knobs on the top will evolve into wings. Then perhaps the neck (without the giraffe head) will evolve in the future into some kind of snake like furry creature. I'm not sure how evolution will handle the big rump and four legs in back. Maybe that will evolve into the nest with four stands that the furry serpantine giraffe neck hatched from. Don't sneer at me. I was taught that all the animals gradually evolved into their present characteristics by natural selection. The turtle shell, the elephant trunk, the jelly fish, the bees, termites, ants, all evolved into their characteristics over huge amounts of time with natural selection navigating through near infinite possibities. I don't think that change in species is ridiculous. I think the limitless change proposed by some evolutionists is ridiculous.
Creationists do this all the time. In effect, you say of evolution, "How stupid, it's a religion, how stupid, it requires faith, how stupid, the believers "spread the word", how stupid, it's "messianic", how stupid, they might as well be singing hymns, how stupid"; and yet having told everyone how utterly stupid that would be, you would of course wish that they should join a religion which requires faith and spreads the word and is messianic and sings hymns. I have tried to state that when it behaves as science theory it is not stupid. When it behaves like something you have to believe because we just know that we know that we know - well people with religious convictions know religion when they see it. Don't be surprised that they point out that Evolutionist are then behaving like a religion.
Which you have just explained to them is the hallmark of absurdity. I confess, I am puzzled to think what you are trying to achieve by holding up Christianity as the benchmark for ridicule. Clever. You couch the discussion cleverly. But as I said. When evolutionists behave as scientists who actually don't know for sure some of these things it deserves respect. When they behave as highpriest of ultimate truth about things that they actually do not know because they weren't there to observe it, then they're behaving like a religious faith. I think some truth can be arrived at through scientific study and some truth cannot. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
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MangyTiger Member (Idle past 6607 days) Posts: 989 From: Leicester, UK Joined: |
But I also think that a ape / monkey or what have you as a "primate" giving birth one day to a human being is also ridiculous. If someone shows me it occur one day that will seriously alter my sense of it being foolish. Well it is completely ridiculous. That's why no proponent of evolution would ever put forward such an asinine idea. The only times I've ever seen it put forward is by people who clearly don't have the slighest idea about what evolution actually is.
Besides in evolutionary theory the flying pig is not that bad. Well, you almost have that in the giraffe who stretch and stretched and stretched its neck until it evolved into the long necked creature that we see today. I see I can rest my case... Oops! Wrong Planet
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Annafan Member (Idle past 4832 days) Posts: 418 From: Belgium Joined: |
jaywill writes:
But I give some serious reply to your inquiry. I can understand some people saying that a kind of religion has developed around the theory of evolution. This came home to me from two insidents. One was while I once noticed that the Boston Globe newspaper had taken out space to defend the teaching of evolution in school. They took out a entire full length page and filled it with nothing but a photograph of a aged bearded Charles Darwin. I wondered why the sparse article should be accompanied by a huge mug shot of a distinquished aged old man. It struck me as an appeal to people's religious sensibilities to be awe struck by this massive image of "the great sacred Father" of Evolution. The second incident came when I visited a high school which had a poster depicting the common themes of evolution theory. These eyes stared out intelligently at the viewer amidst a ape like being with arms raised as in benediction. A kind of light was depicted around the figure and the progression of the fiqures was meant to portray that man gradually emerged as intelligent from these lower animals until he kind of "blesses" human civilization with his higher insight. The art work struck me as something worthy of comparison with any fresca on St. Peter's Biscillica or on any stain glass window of religious edifice. It doesn't surprise me that some critics feel the belief in evolutionary theory has become a religion. You certainly have a point here. I would even say that quite a few people who take the 'side' of evolution, nevertheless don't have a correct understanding of it. (but then, it's quite a complex affair and not easy to get a feel for how it works, certainly not when you're surrounded by popular misconceptions even when they are not aimed against evolution) On the other hand, one could take the view that a bit of drama and missionary approach is almost a necessity. Not what we would like ideally, but a functional compromise. Because of the background knowledge that is needed, the overall complexity, the lack of exposure of the general public (in general) to serious science, these complex issues start off with a serious disadvantage. The "meme" of religion has a natural advantage. It's unfortunately not obvious that truth and facts get to the surface all on their own. So sometimes the truth will have to hijack mechanisms/methods like propaganda and appeal to emotion in order to break into ignorance. Even if this same tactic at the same time offers ammunition to the opposition... It needs that little push, after which it should be able to stand on its own.
jaywill writes: Now to your point about teaching evolution to kids. I would want it to be taught to my kids (who are now in their twenties) as a theory. I think they certainly should learn about the theory. And I think problems that some scientists have (yes both of them) with the theory should not be suppressed. I think that is good education. That's all fine, but there is a strong misconception that there are "problems" with the theory. That is, any "problems" that would deserve extensive coverage in a course on the level of kids who would get an introduction into the whole idea of evolution. Evolution as a 'fact', and some of its main mechanisms are very strongly established and experience no meaningful scientific controversy. That's not to say that unknown factors and subjects of debate (around the relative contributions of the mechanisms, the historic details etc.) should be kept silent. But they should be thaught like what they are: the normal sort of gaps that still exist in even strongly established theories, simply the consequence of the fact that new answers automatically lead to new questions.
jaywill writes: Well, I think flying pigs are pretty ridiculous. But I also think that a ape / monkey or what have you as a "primate" giving birth one day to a human being is also ridiculous. If someone shows me it occur one day that will seriously alter my sense of it being foolish. That's certainly not evolution.
jaywill writes: Well, you almost have that in the giraffe who stretch and stretched and stretched its neck until it evolved into the long necked creature that we see today. That's also certainly not evolution as we understand it now.
jaywill writes: Don't sneer at me. I was taught that all the animals gradually evolved into their present characteristics by natural selection. The turtle shell, the elephant trunk, the jelly fish, the bees, termites, ants, all evolved into their characteristics over huge amounts of time with natural selection navigating through near infinite possibities. I don't think that change in species is ridiculous. I think the limitless change proposed by some evolutionists is ridiculous. It's what the evidence points to, and what would be expected in the absence of any hard boundaries between the so called "micro" and "macro" evolution.
jaywill writes: I think some truth can be arrived at through scientific study and some truth cannot. And the truths that cannot (or that you don't want to) be arrived at through scientific study, what do you do with those?
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jaywill Member (Idle past 2194 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: |
That's certainly not evolution. Is this another way of saying that there is no point at which we can identify a living thing as "human"? Are you saying that there is no point in which we can say that a non human life reproduced a human life? Or are you saying that evolutionary change only occurs during the course of the particular living things life span?
And the truths that cannot (or that you don't want to) be arrived at through scientific study, what do you do with those? I'm not sure if the parenthesis portion implies that I prefer not to believe that all truth can indeed be arrived at through scientific study. Is that the implied meaning of "(or that you don't want to)"? Do you envision a society where spirituality or philosophy is no longer needed? Do you envision a society finally discarding the idea of revelation, prayer, communion with God, intuitive senses of right and wrong, or trust in the messages of morally exemplarary people? I think things like revelation, faith in God, and faith in a god's desire to communicate the otherwise unknowable to people, philosophical speculation are the tools other than scientific study that people use to arrive at truth. I think when you sit across the table from a scientist who is in tears at undergoing a painful divorce, it comes home to you that some problems cannot be worked out with a slide rule. And some forms of truth must be attained apart from the tools of science. Do you imagine that a society might cause my expectation to be one day obsolete? Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Well, I think flying pigs are pretty ridiculous. But I also think that a ape / monkey or what have you as a "primate" giving birth one day to a human being is also ridiculous. If someone shows me it occur one day that will seriously alter my sense of it being foolish. The theory of evolution states that this is impossible. Any such observation would destroy the theory of evolution.
Besides in evolutionary theory the flying pig is not that bad. Well, you almost have that in the giraffe who stretch and stretched and stretched its neck until it evolved into the long necked creature that we see today. You seem to be thinking of Lamarckism, which is also contrary to the theory of evolution. What the theory of evolution actually says is that natural selection favored early giraffids which had longer necks. No giraffe "stretched its neck".
Then perhaps the neck (without the giraffe head) will evolve in the future into some kind of snake like furry creature. I'm not sure how evolution will handle the big rump and four legs in back. Maybe that will evolve into the nest with four stands that the furry serpantine giraffe neck hatched from. Again, your idea of what the theory of evolution is is grotesquely ignorant to the point where it becomes laughable.
I don't think that change in species is ridiculous. I think the limitless change proposed by some evolutionists is ridiculous. But the changes are not "limitless" They are strictly limited by the need for each change to result in a viable organism.
I have tried to state that when it behaves as science theory it is not stupid. When it behaves like something you have to believe because we just know that we know that we know ... But in fact, the theory of evolution rests on evidence; which is why all the "examples" you have given are in fact of things which the theory of evolution says did not happen and claims which are not made.
But as I said. When evolutionists behave as scientists who actually don't know for sure some of these things it deserves respect. When they behave as highpriest of ultimate truth about things that they actually do not know because they weren't there to observe it, then they're behaving like a religious faith. How does this differ from historians teaching you about the Roman Empire? Or linguists reading the ancient Egyptian script? Or geologists saying "these marks were made by a glacier"? Or a forensic pathologist saying "this man was shot from behind at point blank range"? Or an epidemiologist saying "You have malaria, you must have been bitten by a mosquito"? Or an archaelogist saying "This artifact is Celtic". Of course science can tell us about the past, it's one of the most interesting things about it. Yet creationists only apply their magical alternative scientific method to evolution, 'cos they don't object to the Roman Empire. In other fields of study, they know damn well that there are ways to know about the past without being an eyewitness. When it comes to evolution, they deny it.
I think some truth can be arrived at through scientific study and some truth cannot. And I think that the people ideally placed to know the difference would be scientists, not armchair philosophers applying ad hoc arguments to a subject of which, excuse me, they are evidently ignorant. "A monkey giving birth to a human being." For crying out loud, man, if you don't know what the theory of evolution is, how can you hope to criticize it? You have not criticized the theory of evolution. You have criticized what you think it is. Next up, why don't you tell us that the theory of gravity is "what goes up must come down" and then point out that this is contradicted by our ability to launch geosynchronous satelites. Or that the second law of thermodynamics says that "everything becomes more disorderly", and then smugly point out your ability to tidy your apartment. Of course if you get the theory wrong, you can then prove the wrong theory not to be true. This is because only the right theory is right. This simple fact seems to be the basis of 50% or more of creationist rhetoric. I repeat my earlier challenge --- can anyone show me a single creationist website which accurately states what the theory of evolution is before trying to refute it? Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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