Atheists prove their smarts by censoring opponents and hiding racist letters.
“Looking at the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world,” wrote Charles Darwin in 1881.1 Here are three more untruths:
1. Darwin’s disciples say: “Early efforts to thwart Darwin were pretty crude. Tennessee famously banned the teaching of evolution and convicted school-teacher John Scopes of violating that ban in the ‘monkey trial’ of 1925.” – Claudia Wallis, reporter, TIME.2
I’m not sure where Claudia Wallis buys her history books from. Needless to say, TIME is spotlighting Tennessee’s “pretty crude” history and burying Darwin’s “lower race” theories because . . .? If this were a line from Jay Leno’s show, it might be amusing.
And how did those long-tempered atheists treat their Christians? The Russian State Commission (headed by Alexander Yakovlev) reveals that in the 1920s and 1930s:
Most priests [approximately two hundred thousand] were shot or hanged, although other methods used by the Communist death squads included crucifying pastors on their church doors [or] leaving them to freeze to death after being stripped and soaked in water during winter.
Charming. For decades, Russia’s godless dictatorship silenced millions and famously banned Christ’s teachings. They were even crucifying believers to doors. No wonder those folks in Tennessee came to question the wisdom of atheists.
Perhaps, Christians were just following God without embarrassing monkeys. I don’t know. John Scopes, the teacher, however, was just lucky he was not a Southern Baptist living in Red Moscow – and it helps to see Tennessee as a “crucifixion-free” zone.
2. Darwin’s disciples say: “It [Bush’s view on intelligent design] sends a signal to other countries because they’re rushing to gain scientific and technological leadership and we’re getting distracted with a pseudoscientific issue . . . If I were China I’d be happy.” – Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), Arlington, Virginia.3
Isn’t questioning the evolutionary theory of evolution progressive? Not anymore. In Wheeler’s books, “they’re” all just hanging onto Bush’s iniquitous words. Seriously. I wonder what Arlington’s intellects think about Islam’s young-Earth creationists and their distractive voices.
Mysteriously, atheistic teachers were never “distracted” by Mao’s killing fields. Or Stalin’s holiday camps in Serbia. Yet, talking about intelligent design, we’re informed, sends a “signal” to Red China. It might even distract scientists from trafficking in human parts. Tissues, anyone?
That said, the National Science Teachers Association’s conundrum runs deep. No doubt, those “other countries” across Africa are really “rushing to gain scientific and technological leadership” after memorizing Bush’s homilies. I can hear the savages. The NSTA members must stop those Africans getting ahead of themselves now! What gives them the right to “gain scientific and technological leadership?”
3. Darwin’s disciples say: “Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error tinkering: a retina installed backward, a seminal duct hooks over the ureter like a garden hose sagged on a tree, goose bumps that uselessly try to warm us by fluffing up long-gone fur.” – Steve Pinker, Psychology Professor, Harvard University.4
The glass is half empty. Pinker jabbers about “a retina installed backward” whereas the Christian sees God’s handiwork in her daughter’s eyes. Pinker – not an optimist, I’m sure – whines about goose bumps because, in his view, they serve no earthly purpose. Pinker loathes creation.
Yet, Leonardo da Vinci, a committed creationist, thought that humans were spiritual beings. He gave us “The Last Supper.” Pinker gives me wind. The erudite Professor cannot explain the purpose of “goose bumps” so the Almighty doesn’t exist.
In the Biblical worldview, however, God states that humans are wonderfully imperfect, but that we will be perfected in the next life. Thus, Pinker’s “clever argument” is not going to convince theologians in hurry. Or Africa. (Hey Harry, is a Harvard goof misquoting God again?)
Even so, the American Psychological Association likens those pesky bumps to “warning signs.” They can, according to the APA, alert us to our fellowman’s anger. Possibly – and I hate to sound controversial – they tell us that a crying baby is cold and needs a blanket.
In essence, a Harvard professor feels that he has “purposeless” bumps on his backside, and I have to reject God? A few decades ago, some Ivy League stars also ridiculed the Bible’s “purposeless” anti-marriage verses until – oops! – the AIDS bomb exploded in San Francisco’s dirty bathhouses (for some odd reason).
Honestly, if a baby’s face is the sign of an incompetent engineer, then give me more God. The Church of Darwin’s scribes have emphasized the so-called negatives: goose bumps, “apelike” aboriginals, Tennessee’s bible-believing Christians, Red China’s happiness. You get the picture. The Apostle Paul, on the other side, offered hope to the “useless eaters” around two thousand years ago. His famous letter to the Galatians (3:28) states: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.”
Endnotes
1. Letters from Charles Darwin to W. Graham, 3rd July, 1881.
2. "The Evolution Wars," by Claudia Wallis, TIME Magazine, August 15, 2005, pages 54-59.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
Sure, Darwin was a racist as we’d understand the term today. So was practically everyone at the time. However, he was far more enlightened than many (most?) contemporary clergymen. He advocated the abolition of slavery long before it was fashionable, and actually argued against most of the racist positions of the day. For some actual context, one might take a look at http://home.att.net/~troybritain/articles/darwin_on_race.htm or http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/darwin_nazism.htm.
The use of the term “Darwin’s disciples” when discussing the erstwhile Soviet Union is also rather surprising, considering that Stalin’s regime (and Mao’s) explicitly rejected evolutionary thinking and went with Lysenkoism – resulting in famine when reality didn’t conform to “worker’s science”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Oh, and BTW, Leonardo Da Vinci was not a creationist the way modern young-Earth creationists are. He understood that geologic evidence simply could not be reconciled with Noah’s Flood. See, for example, here: http://www.colorado.edu/eeb/courses/4800armstrong/Leonardo%20on%20Fossils.pdf
It’s sad that in the 21st century there are still so many people who can only think in a religious paradigm: Any “belief system” can only be conceptualized by them if they think of it as a “church” – thus “believers” in science or evolution must be members of the “Church of Darwin.”
But it is truly despicable when religious propaganda writers conflate science and evolution and Darwin with atheism and communism when they know perfectly well that’s not the case. I’m surprised Ben did not mention the oft-repeated canard that Darwin was somehow responsible for the Holocaust – but he’s Australian and therefore possibly a Holocaust denier like Mel Gibson’s father. (Martin Luther actually bears major responsibility for the Holocaust – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies .)
As Raymond Ingles correctly points out, science in general and “evolutionism” in particular were condemned in Soviet Russia in favor of Lysenkoism. (There are interesting parallels between the pseudosciences of Lysenkoism and intelligent design creationism.)
The NSTA and other actual scientific organizations are equally disappointed and disgusted at the continuing existence of young-earth creationism, whether at the Answers In Genesis Anti-Museum in the United States or in Adnan Oktar’s “Atlas of Creation” from Turkey – but I suspect Ben already knows about that.
But Ben’s screed does serve as another shining example of the methods of creationist writers, who lie and cherry-pick ancient quotes in an attempt to discredit modern science. As Judge Jones said in the 2005 Dover decision, “It is ironic that several of these individuals (sworn witnesses), who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the (Intelligent Design) Policy.” These religious fanatics have lied to us before, and they will continue to lie to us. Remember that.
I am not sure how articles like this are actually relevant to a conservative website. The Judeo Christian values are central to our society, and one does not have to be religious to understand their importance. Articles like the one above do nothing to propagate the conservative ideals.
If conservatives continue to pander to the religious right they will lose the votes of moderates. The democratic party will be happy to take the votes of those moderates.
Good comments by Paul Burnett and Raymond Ingles. Very well said.
Dawkins and Falwell are to the argument as Hitler and Stalin are to politics. None of the 4 are like Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Freedom and liberty are opposed to totalitarianism with the former allowing for religion and science and the later only allowing for power. The article is very relevant to today’s situation and the fight against leftists.
Thanks for the article.
The left is very closed minded and intollerant of any ideas that support unalienable rights. I am sure in time they plan on a constitutional amendment to fix that nasty phrase. Then they can get on course to fine tune all of the laws so we will all love each other. Nice idea but it won’t happen in this world.
Young earth, old earth, just what is the big deal. If we are supposed to be tollerant then what is the problem? One group of people see some data and form one theory and another group forms another theory. Since we don’t have videos of the ancient past documented by people we can trust like Al Gore then we can’t prove any theory. This falls to belief, so be it. Just who is out there actively blocking someone elses belief. Who is saying “you can’t do that / say that / print that / talk about that on the radio”?
Just on the horizon a war is brewing between athiest and people of faith. Right now the pendulum has swung in support of the athiest. They are become bold and starting to organize into political lobbies. Two out comes are possible. People of faith will organize because of the gay agenda sweeping the nation, and the athiest and gays will be reduced to a powerless minority. Or the people of faith will allow the slide of America to continue towards Sodom. Then the United States will go down to a third world country in no time at all.
When the country is run by people with tunnel vision the greater good is not even on the table for discussion. This will lead to destruction.
In a country of ideas no one focused group should ever take power.
fbaginski,
Not “atheist.” “Anti-theist” would be a more accurate term. Atheists are at least intellectually honest.
Mountain Man: Speaking of “intellectually honest,” the buzz is starting that “ID” doesn’t stand for “Intelligent Design” creationism any more – “ID” now stands for “Intellectual Dishonesty.”
(More and more ID sympathizers are forgetting the Big Lie – not to publicly acknowledge that the intelligent designer was the creator God of Genesis – but Ben Stein and Bill O’Reilly violated the Discovery Institute’s rules the other night.)
Paul Burnett,
Can you provide information or a link on the violation of which you are speaking?
Many thanks
The generalization that “Atheists are at least intellectually honest” is on its face false. Some are and some are not, as with any other persuasion.
There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.
Groucho Marx
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
George Carlin
For Carl: Here are a few articles about Ben Stein and Bill O’Reilly violating the Discovery
Institute’s guidelines on “ID is not religion”:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/bill-oreilly-jo.html#more
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/ben-klein-expel.html
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/bill-oreilly-ri.html
Carl – looks like I’ve been locked out of replying to you. Take a look at the Panda’s Thumb website, which is apparently forbidden to mention here.
Carl – I’m trying an experiment here – maybe one address at a time will work:
got to http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/bill-oreilly-jo.html – Bill O’Reilly joins the liberal Darwinist media
Carl – okay, looks like it will accept one at a time – here’s another one:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/10/bill-oreilly-ri.html – ID Exposed: Bill O’Reilly: Right for once, admits that ID is religious
I meant to say that at least SOME atheists are intellectually honest. Except maybe Paulburnett.
Still have that chip is still on your shoulder, I see. Can’t face up to the fact that so many people believe that God created the universe, despite the continual browbeating given by you anti-theists?
Hate is a poor motivation.
If I were a salesman and I had to sell atheism or faith I would have to pick faith. With atheism I would have to say when you die you cease to exist in any way. With faith I can say that you pass to another existance. Now the elites say the masses are stupid and that is why they cling to faith. They say that if they could just understand that Darwin was right they could join the elite club. We know of course that membership is more than a belief in Darwin.
I have just finished reading two books. One “The Edge of Evolution” by Behe, and the other “The God delusion” by Dawkins. One reads like a science book and the other like a New York Times editorial. Can you guess which one reads like an editorial?
I invite everyone to read both sides of the creation debate, it makes great reading. People with an open mind will read many opinions so they can form an educated view on important issues. I read this stuff before bed, sure helps me from staying up too late.
I am sure that most people who use the term ID are in fact using it to include God. I do, and see nothing wrong with it. I am sure there are others who truly separate the two. I see nothing wrong with either view. To me it is a “who cares”.
This whole debate is filled with giant potholes that trap any discussion in a quagmire of terms. This is the smoke screen so people don’t look at the raw data. One side lines up their experts and opinions. The other side argues with their guys. At this point the discussion takes a turn and the validity of the experts is argued. So silly. Very few new advancements in science are a sure thing, most are theories that at best seem to match the measured data. Most have data that is declared an anomaly and use the rest of the data. Of course most people don’t know that.
Fbaganski, let’s place Michael Behe in his cultural matrix. He is a Professor of Biological Science at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. The entire remainder of the biology faculty at Lehigh is mortally embarrassed at his presence there. Here is part of their statement on Lehigh’s website: “The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of “intelligent design.” While we respect Prof. Behe’s right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.” (http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/news/evolution.htm)
Behe was the star witness for intelligent design creationism at the 2005 Dover trial, where he admitted under oath that to define “science” in loose enough terms to include intelligent design as science would mean that astrology could also be defined as science.
“The Edge of Evolution” has received positive reviews – but only in the religious and political media. Unfortunately, all the actual scientists who reviewed it uniformly panned it, with titles such as “Behe’s Dreadful New Book: A Review of The Edge of Evolution,” “Behe’s bad math,” “Good Virus, Bad Creationist,” “Design? Maybe. Intelligent? We have our doubts,” “Intelligent or Silly Design?”
Can you see the common thread here? Intelligent design creationism is almost solely supported by overtly and covertly religious individuals and organizations. Every scientific organization – and now the Council of Europe – says it’s not science, but religion. As Judge Jones said in the 2005 Dover decision, “We have concluded that (intelligent design) is not [science], and moreover that (intelligent design) cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”
Intelligent design creationism is not science. Get over it.
I think Communist intolerance of religion and Christian intolerance of heresy suggest that “true believers” can be very dangerous to civilized society, History is replete with the crimes committed by tyrants, whether religious or atheist. America’s founders were intent on maintaining a secular state, completely neutral to the question of religion. Today the ultra left wants to silence religion and the ultra right impose it. Both are wrong and both positions are contrary to the Constitution. As an atheist I enjoy Christmas and find no offense or danger in my neighbors’ holidays, am not offended nor threatened by a prayer said at a civic meeting. I would only fear a command to pray by a government voice. Otherwise, we have the free choice to pray, or be silent out of courtesy to the beliefs of others. Government schools are not a place to inculcate religious beliefs. That’s the job for parents, churches & private schools.
We could all better behave with respect to the rights of others. Tolerance does not imply agreement, merely granting a right we demand for ourself.
Well, the word must have gone out early to the scientism crowd. I love that cute new name, “anti-theist”. Did it occur to them that if it wasn’t for God an atheist would just be an “a”? I suppose that means they’re now just, “anti”s. And it’s so good to see that the new holy writ of scientism is wickedopedia, so as to fulfill Saint Coulter’s observation of the godless making up history anew each morning.
For Michael Kilpatrick’s information, the only reason I have for identifying myself as an atheist, or anti-theist, which is overkill, is to keep from flying under false colors, since most folks make the assumption I am in synch with them. It generally terminates unnecessary conversation about god. My view is you and I are both atheists, I just disbelieve in one more god than you do, out of the thousands history has recorded. I have no quarrel with the idea of a god or folks who disagree with me. I just want to preserve a secular state as the Constitution and its founders created, and let religion prosper in the private sector to whatever extent folks wish to support and grant me the same courtesy I grant them. This should not be a political issue. The Founders made clear there should be no religious test for public office, but the religious insist on one, contrary to the law. As Jesus was quoted, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto god what is god’s.” If the Christians would just once, in a majority, follow the precepts of the Gospels, life would be saner hereabouts. Paul is a late comer add-on.
Mr. Kilpatrick – do you have any specific bones to pick with either of the Wikipedia articles pointed out here? Do you, for example, think that people didn’t starve in the China and the Soviet Union due to Lysenkoism? Did Martin Luther not write a virulently anti-Semitic work entitled “On the Jews and their Lies”? I’m at a loss to understand what, exactly, you disagree with there…
Raymond Ingles: Mr. Kilpatrick may prefer Conservapedia to Wikipedia. Conservapedia doesn’t mention Lysenkoism or Lysenko, so they obviously never existed. But it does say “Historians debate the impact (Martin) Luther’s writings may have had on German thought leading into the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.”
(My favorite articles in Conservapedia are the ones on Kangaroos and Baraminology.)
Mr. Walker, if you insist on no religious litmus test for public office, why then is the only religion allowed to be yours? (“I just want to preserve a secular state”) And, please, let’s not devolve into a discussion of whether or not atheism and secularism is or is not a religion: go and read your Webster’s before you crank up that particular Edsel.
The way to have a separation of church and state is not to silence the voices of 70-90 percent of the population simply because they belive in a God, but to allow all voices (Atheists, Secularist, Christian, Native American, Wiccan, Hindu and even Satanist) to have a voice heard in public places, with their own litmus tests and checks, in the running of this republic. As to your assertion that the Founders wanted a secular state and made it so in the Constitution: You need desperately to review the writings of Madison, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin again, sir. You will see that their desire (and I am NOT advocating the creation or establishment of a purely Christian state: America was created for ALL religions to flourish) was for the people to be moral and religious, in order to keep those in office from excess and tyranny.
Mr. Walker,
“My view is you and I are both atheists, I just disbelieve in one more god than you do, out of the thousands history has recorded…” This is a nonsensical statement. By way of analogy, being a heterosexual does not require me to couple with every female I possibly can. I selected one woman to marry, but my status as a heterosexual is in no way diminished.
As a monotheist I have very little in common with you theologically. Given your unpleasant, toxic anti-theism, I’m kinda glad.
It’s time to bring up my favorite quote from John Tyler, who succeeded William Henry Harrison as President of the United States. In 1843 he wrote:
“The United States has adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the Constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political institutions… The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid… and the Aegis of the government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it; our system of free government would be imperfect without it.”
I can’t imagine today’s President writing (or thinking) that. The Christian Reconstructionists and Dominionists are fomenting a climate of religious intolerance, and some True Believers are so convinced of the rightness of their cause that they accuse everybody else of heresy and blasphemy. And some of them are so proud of their ignorance that they call it a virtue, and do downright silly things like calling evolution a religion while at the same time they keep trying to pass off their religiously-motivated “Creation Museum” and intelligent design creationism as science. And that’s confusing for some of them, who can’t keep it straight as to whether or not you’re supposed to admit in public that intelligent design creationism is or is not a code phrase for the creator God of Genesis.
If I walk down the street and step on a bug by acident do I lament the loss of the bug. I do not. I do not kill any animal for enjoyment. I try and not kill bugs even by acident. This of course if they are not in my home. I do not hold a high value to the life of a bug or a plant. I can pull up by the roots a plant and eat the carrots or potatos without a second thought. I can catch a fish skin it and roast it for dinner. I feel dominion over this earth and it’s animals.
On the other hand if I were driving down a road and ran over a child that darted out in front of me I would lament the rest of my life. The value of that child is above all the animals of the earth.
We are not animals. We may be housed in flesh but we have a value beyond our coating of skin and flesh. To believe in evolution is placing us in the role of animal. No value. I for one do not believe in evolution and I find it silly that others do. To argue away one’s birthright and place in the universe. If atheist all jumped off a cliff the rest of the world would lament their passing. If all believers jumped off a cliff the atheist would throw a party. Why is it that some people value life so low.
Even the argument about whether or not this has become a religious argument has now been fatally poisoned. Relativism and deconstructionists have rendered language meaningless, as is their purpose and desire. If there is no fixed point, all options are infinite and equal. Among the things now without meaning apart from language itself are history, philosophy, and statistics. You choose to believe in yours, and I choose to believe mine is what it’s devolved into.
If that sorry state on it’s own doesn’t illustrate the religiosity of the debate I don’t know what will. And as further illustration, the godless will now render their “anti” version of all there is left in the way of a rebuttal, “IS NOT!”. There is no ‘debate’. The godless and their useful idiots make statements of faith, are called on them, and then the ad homenims begin, along with one or more of the boogeymen de jour such as, aaaahhhhhhhhh!, the Dominionists are coming! This at the same time that secular humanist atheism is the exclusive State religion legally preached in all government schools (ready? wait for it…”IS NOT?”).
Believe it or not, but there are actually people who believe, religiously, that this country was founded on secularism. I’m not making this up. These folks can tour hundreds of early government buildings, and read old documents, look you right in the eye, and make that case. What do you do with ideologues like that? Join them in the schoolyard romp by responding in kind with, “IS SO!”? Personally I like my heroine Ann (Satan’s only daughter according to the self-anointed elites) Coulter’s battle plan: mock them mercilessly, even if only for the sheer entertainment value of watching them go off like bottle rockets.
I believe, religiously, that more and more people are getting tired and fed up with hearing them whine, complain, and announce endless non-apocalypses. So, I’ll continue to point out reality, work to stave off the godless left’s introduction of the Endarkenment, while lighting fuses and standing back to enjoy the fireworks. Bless their hearts.
Fbaganski: While you do not believe in evolution, evolution believes in you – you are the surviving end result of millions of ancestors who survived to produce you.
You do not believe in evolution for emotional reasons, not for scientific / logical reasons. You are letting your childhood beliefs in primitive creation myths (which are wholly inappropriate for a technical civilization, as the Council of Europe has recently ruled) continue into adulthood. As a species, we now know better – we have enough information to craft a better understanding of our origins.
You are ascribing behaviors and thoughts to a strawman atheist. Unfortunately this artificial construct is simply a projection of what you think you would do if you were an atheist, and you were suddenly released from all those scary stories you absorbed into your subconscious in Sunday School. You can rise above those Death Cult fairy tales of eternal punishment and do something worthwhile with your life instead of helping religious demagogues in their attempt to return to the Dark Ages of ignorance.
there is religion and there is science. adam and eve? religion. the overwhelming evidence as discovered since the enlightenment (evolution, natural history) – science.
teach adam and eve in sunday school all you want but leave science curricula to scientists…
sure, darwinian ideas have and continue to be used to prop up racist and abominable ideologies. racists like the nazis and nihilist/objectivists have both used such to promote self serving eugenics. check out the church of satan/temple of set – both philosophically based on nihilism and ayn rand’s philosophy.
but then look at christianity’s ugly, murderous, bigotted, and bass-ackward history as well…
so i’ll go with the scientists over both cromwellian abrahamic fundyvangelists and randian nihilist satanists…
PaulBurnett:
The Liberals and Left-wingers are fomenting a climate of pseudo-religious intolerance, and some True Believers are so convinced of the rightness of their cause that they accuse everybody else of intolerance, racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. And some of them are so proud of their ignorance that they call it a virtue, and do downright silly things like denying that evil exists, or calling it good while at the same time they keep trying to pass off their pseudo-religiously-motivated “moral relativism” and glorification of debauchery as “alternative lifestyles”. And that’s confusing for some of them, who can’t keep it straight as to whether or not you’re supposed to admit in public that you personally believe in God of the Bible and whether it’s alright to display the Ten Commandments.
I’m trying to think of something I care less about than what the “Council of Europe” has to say. Possibly something from Code Pinkette or the ‘National Academy of High Inquisitors, or, I mean Science’, maybe…
Oh, those wicked scary murderous Christians rampaging all across the landscape, making white coated Saints of Scientism tinkle in their pantyhose and swoon! I’m shocked! Shocked I say. The temerity!
“To educate the mind without purifying the heart is but to place a sharp sword in the hands of a madman.” R. L. Dabney
Science is great for what science is good at. Philosophy is not something science is good at. It cannot tell us anything about a very crucial set of characteristics, experiences and emotions that are empirically unmeasurable, unquantifiable and immaterial. Everyone can name most of them. You may ignore those universals at your own peril…sociopaths do so as a matter of course.
Would the priests of neo-religious scientism grant me the benefit of some of their exalted Reason? Where did all the ‘stuff’ of the universe come from? Can something come from nothing? Can there be an endless series of un-caused causes? How do entropy and ‘beneficial mutations’ coexist? Describe the ‘evolution’ of an eye without the use of magic mushrooms. Are we all nothing more than accidentally animated pieces of mobile meat inexplicably conjured out of nothing, and for no reason, by a blind pitiless, indifferent universe? Are presuppositions (e.g. that God cannot exist, or that information is an un-caused effect) scientific?
Recipe for evolution: Start with nothing. Then, by a process that is a complete mystery to you, Stuff appears. Add billions of years. The Stuff moves around and coalesces into stars, planets and such by that same mysterious process. Add more billions of years. On one backwater planet some of the Stuff gets mixed, heated, and maybe even struck by lightning, and becomes animated (alive), again (somehow) by that pesky mysterious process. Add more billions of years, and season with blind egocentric arrogance and smarmy condescension, a dash of willfully determined ignorance, smother with vitriolic censorship of all opposition and… Oila! You have succeeded in evolving a raving wild-eyed religious fanatic disguised as a scientist, who proudly insists that his family tree is full of monkeys.
The Endarkenment cometh.
religion = genesis
science = evolution
that simple…
Mr. Kilpatrick:
Why do so many people assume that everything started with nothing? What evidence is there for that? So long as you’re decrying ‘presuppositions’… what’s the justification for that one? We’ve seen matter and energy converted between each other, but we’ve never seen matter or energy created out of nothing, and neither have we ever seen it vanish into nothing. If we’re avoiding presuppositions, why assume that something that meets every practical test we can devise for something ‘eternal’… isn’t eternal?
As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think we’ve had the right insights to make sense of something like the origin of the universe. But many things we’ve thought of as inexplicable have turned out to be, well, explicable. “To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.” – Isaac Asimov
If you do, in fact, doubt that the Earth is billions of years old, and doubt that the evidence shows this, I have a modest proposal for you. Take oil companies. Finding oil is a very important and high-stakes issue for them. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are riding on it. When the chips are down and they need to find the most likely spots to drill – what kind of geology do they use? Flood geology, or mainstream? Which one actually delivers the goods?
Why don’t creationists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If “Flood geology” is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn’t anyone doing this?
i just cant look at evolution, natural history, without being absolutely awestruck…i mean, i’m a bad buddhist/gnostic who can take or leave the idea of a personal god, but how can one look at the grand cosmic ballet and not be dumbfounded at the indescribably sublime anarchic order, ordered chaotic struggle that science has thusfar revealed? what kind limited mind must exclude “god” from such a process?
i find it miraculous that we wicked, wonderful shaved apes are descended from the simplest cells, wormlike slugs, fish, slimey amphibians, reptilelike creatures, tree rats and monkey men…who managed to survive fiery massive volcanic eruptions and apocalyptic astroid strikes – events that several times came close to eradicating all life on the planet…
but the wonderful thing about those awful horrible scientists’ way of seeing the world is that you can believe it was all a cosmic accident or that its the fingerprint of “god”…as you desire.
but when some medievalist cromwellian fundyvangelist tries to shove his abrahamic mythology down everyone else’s throat in pure and undeniable contradiction to science, common sense, and the constitution of the united states of america, all i can say to them is – take your kids out of school and fill their heads with all the crazy bassackward crap you want to their and our country’s and our world’s detriment, but cease and desist trying to force those who dont agree to share your delusions!
Not that I understand them, but I know of at least 6 different ways to interpret the Bible:
1. The Historical-Critical Method
2. New Method of Literary Analysis
3. Approaches Based on Tradition
4. Approaches that Use the Human Sciences
5. Contextual Approaches
6. Fundamentalist Interpretation method.
The Fundamentalist Interpretation method is the one satirized in Inherit the Wind. Why does everyone always focus on it?
Attributing evolution to left wing thinking prooves that mainstream america does not understand the theory of evolution.
Creation myths from any religion are easy to understand, whether they are from Norse mythology or any of the modern religions.
I am not an athiest. I beleive in higher powers. But I can put no more faith in an old book than I can mythology from a thousand years ago. Where is this magic? How are todays religions any more relevant than the religions of the past? They are not. Modern religion is equally relevant to the pagan religions of the past.
The success of our society is due more to technology and science than it is to religion. With all the creation myths out there it is nearly a crapshoot that the Judeo christian one is correct.
I am spiritual, certainly not religious, and I can appreciate Evolution for what it is. A tool and not a creatin myth. Maybe a higher power did create all life. Maybe the higher power is in fact the one defended here. If so, I see nothing in any religion that would say evolution could not have occured. If we were in fact created, evolution was the tool used to do it.
Literalism is far to simplistic.
I would of added this if I knew how to edit…
The theory of natural selection was completely misinterpreted and misused by Nazis and other supremacists. Stalin and Hitler understood evolution just as poorly as an indigenous person from New Guinea. They took the simplest staple of the theory and simply… ran with it.
“that simple…” ibbleblibble; indeed
Raymond Ingles: “Why do so many people assume that everything started with nothing? What evidence is there for that?”
The vast horizons of moonbattery are even more far reaching than my poor faerie dust free brain could ever hope to grasp. So…. everything has just always been here? An un-caused effect that simply IS. Well, that settles it I guess: there just can’t be a God alright.
“So long as you’re decrying ‘presuppositions’…”
I never “decried” presuppositions. It would just be refreshing to hear a Darwiniac fundamentalist confess to having them. You have an a priori set of criteria that all answers must proceed from: atheistic materialist scientism. I have my own, and proud of it.
“As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think we’ve had the right insights to make sense of something like the origin of the universe.”
But if there’s anything that can be nailed down as a dead certain fact, it’s that there can be no God involved in it.
ibbleblibble: “….indescribably sublime anarchic order, ordered chaotic struggle that science has thusfar revealed”
I know a young man who went to an anarchy convention once. I wondered who organized it. His car had a chaotic struggle that left him ordering a cab. “Science” has revealed that it’s pants are down in the philosophy department.
“but the wonderful thing about those awful horrible scientists’ way of seeing the world is that you can believe it was all a cosmic accident or that its the fingerprint of “god”…as you desire.”
Not if you’re interested in research grant money, publishing, or keeping your job. They burn ‘heretics’ at different kind of stake these civilized days.
“but when some medievalist cromwellian fundyvangelist tries to shove his abrahamic mythology down everyone else’s throat”
I’d no sooner let my children go to a public school than I’d drop them into a pit of snakes every morning. Whose religion is being legally shoved down the throat of children who are compelled to by law to attend the State indoctrination centers?
Carl: “Stalin and Hitler understood evolution just as poorly as an indigenous person from New Guinea. They took the simplest staple of the theory and simply… ran with it.”
They certainly had an insightful grasp of the atheistic sub-text of it, and followed it through with murderous efficiency.
“The success of our society is due more to technology and science than it is to religion.”
I’m sure that Uncle Joe, and Cousin Adolf would heartily agree. And the evidence that we’re all just naturally nice to each other when we adhere to scienitistic materialism is overwhelming, at least according to scientists. They are the experts after all.
Does Carl understand the difference between micro, and macro- evolution?
Paul Burnett 27, You say that I am a product of childhood indoctrination. You are of course absolutely correct. I was buried in the opinion of science. The big bang and Darwin made perfect sense to me. I held these beliefs and taught my kids the same. Then one day I picked up a book on quantum theory by Bohm. I had read many books on physics earlier in my life but I wanted to refresh my understanding of particle physics before I read the new theories on strings. As I was reading I suddenly realized that I had never understood this subject before and reality was of course more complex than I once thought. I then studied light and found a fingerprint of God. It seems that light knows if it is being observed or not. It also knows ahead of the fact if it will be observed in the future. Before this I was strictly a Newtonian determinist. This crack in the door of science allowed me to cast doubt about my basic acceptance of the theories of science. I then reviewed astrophysics and was not satisfied with the big bang, there were too many problems with it. I did not have an alternate theory I just knew what I thought I knew as fact was indeed based in something which was not based in a solid foundation. Next I went back and studied biology and then molecular biology. I found that the opinions of the science did not in fact match the data. I saw batant misrepresentation of data which of course lead me to toss all of my beliefs in the sciences. I had to find my place in the universe that science used to provide. I was adrift in a sea of bad science. For three years I studied many areas of science and always searched for the raw data. I did not trust anyone. When I tossed evolution because the mechanism of evolution cannot create life I looked at creation science to see if they had answers, they did not. But I did read the Bible for the first time in my life. I had more questions than answers and jumped into Bible research. Again more questions than answers. In time I hit a critical mass of understanding and knew that the scripture is the inspired Word of God. I don’t recommend this path to belief. I have a stack of books over eight feet tall that I read to get to this point.
From a strict science point of view I can argue my beliefs on most subjects. But what I find is people who want me to believe this guy and his opinon or that guy and his opinon. I could care less about every opinon out there. I have done the basic research, I have spent the three years looking over the raw data. I have spent months investigating a single item like the redshift of distant light.
I found it funny that you thought I was brought up in a religious household. I do regret that I did not do this 35 years ago so my kids would not have endured my false teachings. I hate being the mouthpiece of bad science or any bad doctrine.
michael…
just not mentioning “god” is not the same as persecuting christians…is it? do christians require that all others believe in their interpretation of “god”? i have yet to take a science course where the teacher/professor who taught science/evolution said anything like “THERE IS NO GOD.” thats up to the student.
is the christian’s belief in god so fragile that all others must pander to him/her? or is the christian’s lack of respect for those who believe differently so obnoxious that he/she must ever endeavor to force his/her religious beliefs on others and then play the poor persecuted martyr when such is denied?
guess it depends on the christians…
Carl:
“Would of”?
ibbleblibble:
Why is it you liberals never complain about Leftist forced beliefs on university campuses, as in http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8555.html ?
Is it because this form of “religious fundamentalism” is OK because it is the “right” and “correct” belief?
sedona
if the referenced article is indeed legit (and i am inclined to believe it largely is…if a bit overblown) someone should indeed be sueing. nothing like a little litigation to screw with harrassment. look…i used to post from time to time over at dailykos, but lord knows the symbionese liberation army (my pet name for lefty pc wackos) actually trigger my gag reflex quicker than the neofascists on the fringe right.
Mr. Fitzpatrick,
I understand the difference between micro and macro evolution very well. I have taken several 500 level courses on evolution…
I do not ask the question of WHERE life came from. I am confident evolution was the mechanism. I honestly do not see how this disputes a higher power.
Thank you for the correction sedonaman.
Can the article that was submitted by Sedonaman be verified with another source? I am having trouble taking this article seriously. This is not an attack on Sedonaman’s credibility.
fbaginski, et al:
How did the universe get into a reduced state of entropy?
well, it can be a scary old life, lots of uncertainty, suffering, depressing shit. thus spirituality of some form is often adopted to soften the reality blow, reality (oservable, quantifiable) being what science is all about.
in that external, measured, quantified, rationally percieved reality, of which “evolution” is a subset, offers no comforting, easily understood, everything-gonna-be-all-rights, i guess its a natural impulse to reject outright rational objective scientific findings for comforting irrationality…
if reason and rationalism aint making me feel better…eff ‘em! lol…
and when the source of irrational comfort has the force of familial tradition and thousands of years of irrational, fearful, bigotted, pre-scientific method, thought behind it…even better!
actually, however, cutting edge physics in some ways offers the possibility of a return to some form of spirituality, and the idea which seems to me inherent in evolution, that we are almost certainly still evolving into something more complex and capable of comprehending stuff we are currently incapable of comprehending, seems to suggest to me the coming of new faiths based on modern understanding that contradict abrahamic literalism as found in both christianity and islam.
in fact there is indeed an ongoing struggle since the enlightenment between literalist luddite religion, as exemplified by fundamentalist christianity and islam, and that which opposes such, be it mystical versions of the two, eastern religious beliefs, new age esotericism, or simply secular humanism, whether spiritual, agnostic, or atheistic…
the exclusionary, fundamentalist, evangelizing factions of christianity and islam are in constant conflict with everything else as well as each other and will continue to cause trouble and irritation to those who choose to leave them behind, who must ever struggle to balance their own tolerance with the need to oppose the forces of irrationalism who seek to enslave, impose, force themselves upon, and convert.
the above said aside…i have to say that i understand the consternation of some religionists in terms of the wicked and sociopathic potentialities of objective beyond good and evil belief systems. nihilism and randian objectivism (both philosophical underpinnings of modern satanism, both levay’s church of satan an aquino’s temple of set and the cato institute…lol) are favorites of those who wish to wreak self serving wickedness with a free concience, and are therefore not only the refuge of clever ready born/conditioned sociopaths, but a sociopath enabling and shaping sort of religion/ideology for those still possesed of the vestiges of a concience.
and since the modern neocon is philosophically a hell of a lot closer ideologically to a levayan satanist than a classic laissez faire conservative…i gotta wonder how cromwellian fundyvangelists reconcile their unholy alliance with the aforementioned…
i suppose they are not even aware…which is not to be wondered at considering any believe the world was created 6 thousand years ago and all those big funny bones we’ve dug up must e from nephilim of the big secular humanist satanic one world government conspiracy!
wow…that home schooling sure does keep ‘em believing some crazy crap!
ibbleblibble:
If you read the article in the FIRE website, you will notice that their first step is an informal one – a letter to the college president stating the offending program as FIRE understands it, asks for clarification if it is not correct, and asks for the college to cease if what it is alleged to be doing is true. The letter also states that “FIRE is not a litigation organization.” FIRE has, however, worked with legal defense organizations to fight student censorship that it feels is unjustified. The case that comes to mind is Cal Poly’s Steve Hinkle (google).
For a broader perspective on the problems in higher ed, see the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, http://www.goacta.org . They have done a number of studies critical of higher ed, like http://www.goacta.org/whats_new/AEI%20Speech%202-14-05.htm and http://www.goacta.org/publications/Reports/accrediting.pdf
Then there is the National Association of Scholars at http://www.nas.org , specifically,
http://www.nas.org/print/print/More_Crises_than_One–SHB.pdf
“Overblown”? I don’t think so. If anything is overblown, it’s the freedom from accountability and public oversight these institutions enjoy.
Sedonaman,
As you know the universe is heading for heat death. So the universe is ordered today compared to tomorrow. Scripture tells us that the creation is bound by decay. The real question is how did the order happen. If you stay with science there is no mechanism which allows order to come from disorder. Evolution exist in violation of the laws of entropy. If you believe in the big bang then the bang provided the force in which order happened, order being a nonuniform distribution of energy. Of course the question is how did the bang happen. Science provides no answer. Now we can stop here and say maybe one day we will have a working theory or we can look for other answers outside of science. Lets look at scripture for a moment and see if there is something there that may help. In the creation week we see the terms evening and morning used to describe the creation day. What is odd is on the face it appears that the creation process happened at night. But going back to the original hebrew and looking at the words we find that evening (ehreb) is also in the ancient context means difficult to discern and unclear. Morning (boker) means becoming clear easier to discern. Placing these terms in entropy context instead of times of day makes the verse read as we would expect. The day starts unclear and disorganized and ends becoming clear and ordered. So a force outside of the creation ordered the parts in the creation. Once done the universe was then bound with decay. I find it amazing that Moses would write about the creation in terms that makes sense in science before science took up thermodynamics.
Why does anyone even bother to read ibbleblibble’s posts? He spouts endless streams of quasi intellectual nonsense filled with stereotypes and sweeping generalizations. It has become clear that he doesn’t know the first thing about religious people. The irony is, he exemplifies the the very traits he attributes to religionists.
This is the very kind of toxic anti-theist I was referring to in post 6. I sure he goes to bed at night satisfied that he has so elegantly refuted the arguments of theists. Right.
The think that defines ignorance is that the ignorant don’t know they are.