There are those who make up contradictory ideas and theories about the existence of species
They will each be given a weekly weed ration and a case of beer a day in order to make their stay in the FEMA camps much more pleasant. :-)
I donj't care about the individuals - if they want to be narrow-minded and ignorant, let 'em, though if I were a Christian (which I'm not) I'd accuse them of belittling their God as well as their own, the anonymous Genesis author's and everyone else's intelligence.
What worries me far more seriously is the commercial Creationist / "Intelligent Design" lobby, for their malevolent attempts to enforce Genesis as "true", sometimes wrapping it in pseudo-science to make their case seem respectable. Their main and most dangerous routes are establishing schools which promote their view over science, and upholding idiotic laws that make teaching evolutionary theory illegal. That is frankly Stalinist.
I've wondered their motive, and my conclusion is not based on theology but insidious power-lust. Their aim is to bring up generations of schoolchildren unable to think for themselves and use their natural curiosity about the world around them, to reject education in favour of approved rote-learning, and to accept blindly only what they are told to think. If Genesis says "X" then "X" you must think you know, and argument is banned.
Unless perhaps to ponder the inescapable corollary that if the Universe was created in 6 days 4000 years ago, as likely a notion as Barney Rubbled taming a dinosaur to use as a living crane*, then we are all descended from a group of illegitimate siblings (the un-married, sinful, Adam & Eve's own children).
Oh, and as good little Creationists / ID types presumably we must despise science but use all its benefits like clean water, transport and electricity, and spread "God's Word" via the Internet. How does that work?
*[The big sauropod dinonaurs like that depicted in The Flintstones, all died out in a major extinction event 65 Million years before Man appeared; and some dinosaur genera were extinct by then anyway.]
They might come to enjoy marijuana and alcohol though... :-)
...Until the great, reptilian 'harvest,' anyway. :-)
I just love it when the adherents of one belief try to ridicule the adherents of another belief on the merits of the former's presumed basis in 'science.' :-)
For me (as a Christian who believes 'intelligent design' and Darwinian theory are not mutually exclusive), the issue is simple: Let both sides have their say. Let each test their theories in the crucible of reasoned (if not scientific) inquiry, and let the best theory win. I'm not emotionally invested in either one. Why? Because hitching one's epistemological, existential or theological wagon to one version or the other of events or processes which took place anywhere from thousands to billions of years before any of us were born is pointless. We're here. To X extent we evolved. To X extent we were created. Figure out the percentages as best you can and cease making judgements about the quality of another person's method of inquiry. Fair enough?
...Oh, and stay the hell out of other people's lives. If they wish to raise their progeny in ignorance--and thus intellectually hamstrung for life--that's their business...or it is until such time as we make our children the property of the state.
Let's do. I accept your idea of letting the ideas speak for themselves. I will gladly debate you on that. Fair enough?
Messiah?? Really?? And just what do you mean by "become of"?? In my opinion, they will likely continue living their lives believing whatever they want, up until the time of their permanent dirt nap. At that time, their acceptance or non-acceptance of evolutionary theory will become utterly moot.
The same thing that happens to all of us. They will croak and not care.
'Fraid that is one unassailable Fact of Life. And I took your use of "messiah" as purely figurative, not as some sort of title!
Incidentally Charles Darwin was not the first or only one to formulate evolution, but his Origin of the Species, in which he puts forward a model of successful adaptation, is the best known publication from his time.
I already subscribe to Darwinian theory. I'm content to believe that evolution was the primary tool which God used to create life on earth. Unless you wish to argue that Darwinism and creationism are mutually exclusive theories, your efforts would be wasted.
And could you please stick with the same avatar/username? Thanks.
Anyone who proposes an alternate theory will be accused of 'intellectual dishonesty.' You should see what happens when proponents of ID try to discuss the more scientific aspects of their theory with Darwinists or...gasp!...propose that alternative theories be taught in school. :-)
Indeed. Darwin was a theist, but I don't think he was looking for a promotion. :-)
I did not say the creationists cannot believe it for themselves, although I think they narrow their own outlook on things.
Nor did I say you can't believe in both God and modern scientific knowledge.Nor do I assume children should be the property of the state - my main criticism was in manipulating them to follow one purely-theological idea rather than being taught to analyse, to ask for themselves, to use their natural curiosity and intellect a Christian would say God-given, to select their own beliefs when the grow into independent adults.
It is that I find very wrong, and I could accuse them of not staying out of other's lives when they support dictatorial laws against teaching evolution.
Believe in the Book of Genesis if you wish, or any other creation myth; but do not force your (or others') children to do so when they should be free to decide for themselves. Otherwise you are being cruel to them - though they would have a perfect tight to reject your idea when in time they do learn what it was their school was forbidden to teach, or their parents tried to deny them.
I believe in liberty. Ironical that some don't because it offends merely theological dogmas they have adopted for themselves by their own choice, and can themselves choose to reject if they change their mind. We live in countries like the UK & US, Western Europe and the like, not Saudi Arabia!
Although it is presented and taught as fact, it is still only one more theory. There's a lot of difference between fact and someone's theory. Now in fairness to Darwin and his "Origin of Species", I accept the idea of natural selection, but draw the line at the evolutionary process. Since evolution has become as much a political question as a scientific one, 'ole Darwin himself probably wouldn't recognize his own ideas today. At any rate, I don't think Charles Darwin is any sort of messiah and as we say here, I'll pass on that.
PolkPlaces is right that evolution and natural selection are still called theories is is not a reason to dismiss them, for two reasons.
Firstly, they fits all the evidence so far found, and no-one has found a genuine alternative to explain what we see and know.
Secondly, they are still theories because they are still capable of refinement as new knowledge develops. The method by which adaption works at a molecular level is becoming understood, and it is at this level that natural selection really works. Each gene consists of a molecular code so vast and complex that tiny variations in it occur very commonly.
For a very simple example, it stops us all being clones. At an adaptive and evolutionary level, the changes that "work" tend to be retained and passed on.
This is why we humans occur in several races, as we adapted to regions of climates very different from our African origins.
Those DNA changes or mutations that fail, possibly leading to fatal illness, are not passed on to a widespread degree. Nor are minor changes that merely give us our individual traits.
Charles Darwin's and others' work has not been over-turned, simply revised as flaws in it have been identified and eliminated, and its strengths increased by later research. If he could come back to day he would be very impressed by it all - he was a true scientist, realising that a theory is subject to continual test and re-appraisal until. The basis of his theories still stands.
Incidentally, Darwin was also religious, as were most people in his time, but he recognised that you cannot take the Bible literally. It was written by unknown people expressing their beliefs in a time when they had no scientific knowledge on which to draw. Modern theologians - people who study the subject genuinely - agree. Otherwise you fall into an intellectual and theological dead-end that stops learning and debate; sometimes for very wrong motives.
I regard creationists as belittling their God, let alone themselves, because the more we learn about astronomy, geology and palaeontology, the more we understand the sheer distance, time and power scales involved, the greater the entirety we see. If there is a God driving it all, for us merely to parrot as if unassailable truth, an unknown author's summary of Bronze Age tribal beliefs, turns Him/Her/It into some sort of celestial conjuror and stifles the intellect that deity gave us as our greatest gift.
It also belittles that author because he had none of our knowledge of how Nature works, but somehow he produced at least a logical order to replace the phantasmagorical hotch-potch seen in other ancient creation myths.
Religion asks three basic questions: who made it all, why, and for whom? None of these three is answerable in any explicable sense, and they rely on the utter lack of evidence, test, review, corroboration. Worse, it often rejects these philosophical qualities, not on theological grounds, but to suit a crushing, dogmatic and anti-intellectual escapism.
Science asks two basic questions: how did it happen, and how did and does what we see, happen and work? These use observations and evidence, and are subject to study, to test, review, corroboration; and if new evidence emerges, to revision of the theories until we can be as close to the truth as possible.
The classic example of the division between these two approaches - between dogma and intellect rather than between science and religion - is the history of astronomy, in which the early Church fiercely defended an increasingly untenable support of a geocentric universe, because although devised under a pre-Christian polytheism, it suited the authority's arrogant view of Man's place in the Universe, and of the Church within Mankind.
In some ways the rise of anti-cultural Islamicism, and of commercial creationism in the US (which tried to muscle in on the British education system) are a modern revision of that 17C struggle. Ironically, early Islam encouraged science and culture while Western Europe wallowed in Vatican-ruled ignorance and superstition. Eventually, the West caught up and recognised science and religion do not serve each other but can co-exist. You cannot reject knowledge that shows ancient books to be mistaken; but you can be a palaeontologist, geologist or astronomer while still be a practising Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist.
Sadly, it seems some in what likes to call itself "The Free World" want to turn the clock back - and in dishonestly selective ways, for motives they seem very reluctant to reveal.
