Creationists Alledging Darwin Has Bought More Sin Into The World (evolution, faith)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ganesh*|*Retro & Vintage Tees*|*6 Dollar Shirts
For those who need a shirt. They also have Jesus riding the Dinosaur and the others that will not really spark controversy because I have already found that most people do not get it.
My 10 year old said "That's Charles Darwin on your shirt", even though he had to ask what the cartoonish looking Ichthyostega was called.
Seriously, I have said before, I like that book by Dawkins Blind Watchmaker. I agree that evolution takes it's own path, not as a result of a predesigned idea, but as though a blind watchmaker were putting pieces together without being able to know or see what the final result may be.
I've always wondered if "creation science" and things of that ilk exist because the amount of money that one can make being being one is pretty significant. Making cash off of true believers doesn't seem to be too tough.
I've always wondered if "creation science" and things of that ilk exist because the amount of money that one can make being being one is pretty significant. Making cash off of true believers doesn't seem to be too tough.
I think it manifest as to why creation "science" came into being. Accepting evolution destroys the Genesis story and thus the literal truth of the Bible. Accepting evolution means that man was not made in the "image of God." Evolution drops a large and embarrassing turd upon the authority of every Christian fundamentalist preacher out there. Evolution represents a threat.
What is instructive is the uniqueness of of the Creationists' concern. They have no problem embracing scientific estimates of the nearness of the stars or that black holes exist, and these are doctrines which do not come with any more precise proof than does evolution. No one has traveled to the stars with a measuring tape, not one has visited a black hole and made close observations of its properties.
But the distance to the stars and black holes represent no threat to religion, so they go unquestioned by the creationists even though the same orderly theoretical process as the doctrine of evolution was used in formulating the calculations which establish these phenomena. If there was some aspect to the theory of gravity which made it impossible to believe in the virgin birth, then there would be "Anti Gravity Science" being promoted by the same bozos.
Only evolution comes under these pseudo science attacks because it wrecks their myths. The response has been this pathetically desperate "Creation Science."
I wouldn't over credit these spokespeople for The Lord. The standards demanded by their audience are so low as to be undetectable with an atomic microscope.
As an example, in another thread I mentioned the 700 Club's special devoted to debunking "that ridiculous doctrine of evolution." They heavily promoted their special guest who was going to come out and absolutely prove that evolution was false, everyone on the show was really excited about this guy.
When he finally did come out and explain his unassailable proof, it turned out to be....."Jews have been circumcising their infants for thousands of years, yet no Jew has been born already circumcised."
.......therefore evolution is impossible.
I kid you not, that was really it. And the hosts and audience on the program went nuts with self congratulatory celebration. Evolution had been disproved for all eternity.
Or there's always this spectacular presentation by Ray Comfort and his young and agreeable side-kick, the once child actor (and thus credible?) Kirk Cameron: the famously infamous banana proof of God's Intelligent Design:
... which is that the common produce dept. banana is perfectly formed as is for use by the human hand: it' shape, easy "pull-tab" opening "system", it's outer non-slip surface (? ). it's color-coding for "ripeness" [and I quote him now: "green, not ripe; yellow: just right, and black? No good!" Oh my...]
The original wild banana, btw, looks like this; hardly best fitted to a hominid hand by any standards:
Oh opppps, huh? Another case of speakin' before thinkin'!
In fact, the modern banana is the product of a lengthy process of continued forced breeding (indeed, an example of real-life Intelligently Designed Evolution as it were, forsaking any natural selective processes). It's exactly like domestic dog breeding (often cited as an explanation of how real "evolution" works... ho hum...), since, obviously, no natural dog breed, branched out from wolves as they all have, would normally find any natural advantage in looking like this...
Nope: just dog "breeds" is all, quite apart from naturally driven Evolution which did, in fact, produce these different lineages, each with a specific adaptive advantage:
The endlessly tiresome repost from Christian denialists that all we ever actually see are simply "breeds" amongst the world's growing number of actual and defined "species", is simply unscientific bluster and deflection. In fact, non-stop evolution occurs in response to ever-changing or unoccupied niches, into which an unadapted species can and obviously will "invade", like a child taking on a bowl of candy left on the table. All it has to do is await, and then test in the real world, the endless presentation of chance mutations, a precious few of which shall better adapt an existing phenotype to a new opportunity.
S'OK though: deniability is an adaptive trait in itself. Too bad it always leads to a path of intellectual darkness and self-annihilation!
I think it manifest as to why creation "science" came into being. Accepting evolution destroys the Genesis story and thus the literal truth of the Bible. Accepting evolution means that man was not made in the "image of God." Evolution drops a large and embarrassing turd upon the authority of every Christian fundamentalist preacher out there. Evolution represents a threat.
What is instructive is the uniqueness of of the Creationists' concern. They have no problem embracing scientific estimates of the nearness of the stars or that black holes exist, and these are doctrines which do not come with any more precise proof than does evolution. No one has traveled to the stars with a measuring tape, not one has visited a black hole and made close observations of its properties.
But the distance to the stars and black holes represent no threat to religion, so they go unquestioned by the creationists even though the same orderly theoretical process as the doctrine of evolution was used in formulating the calculations which establish these phenomena. If there was some aspect to the theory of gravity which made it impossible to believe in the virgin birth, then there would be "Anti Gravity Science" being promoted by the same bozos.
Only evolution comes under these pseudo science attacks because it wrecks their myths. The response has been this pathetically desperate "Creation Science."
Excellent synopsis. I've always thought it was interesting that right wing Christians so adamently opposed to the idea of climate change. You'd think it would be a perfect means to provide all the apocalyptic stuff that they believe will happen. I mean, God is going to have to have a mechanism for all the storms and earthquakes etc that is suppose to happen.
However, Christians, like most right wingers see the idea that climate change is all about doing damage to business and the free enterprise system and deem it a "hoax" even though over 80% of all climate scientists are in agreement that warming is occurring. The Christian right wingers see this in much the same vein as I see the "Creation Scientists" in that they believe that the scientists are just all about the grant money. That they are fudging the data in order to stay in business so to speak.
It's a darn shame that scientists didn't determine that climate change was caused by flatulence during gay sex. If they had then the Christians would be all about it.
If there was some aspect to the theory of gravity which made it impossible to believe in the virgin birth, then there would be "Anti Gravity Science" being promoted by the same bozos.
Only evolution comes under these pseudo science attacks because it wrecks their myths. The response has been this pathetically desperate "Creation Science."
Mostly it's evolution, but not entirely. In my exchange with this guy I unintentionally got a rise out of him when I was rebutting him on one of the typical "long odds" ID arguments by saying we don't know how rare life even is -- it was really a side issue but I mentioned that our perspective on this may change in the future if we discover life, e.g., elsewhere in this solar system. Much to my surprise he was so threatened by the very idea that he felt it necessary to mention "hydroplane theory" as a possible source of life on other planets being seeded from Earth itself. In other words he's so wedded to the idea that earth is the only place that god created life (which isn't even a position required to support his theology) that he's prepared to dismiss life on other worlds that might be discovered, by saying that it must have originated on earth. In other words, it cannot independently be either created by god or evolved. That really surprised me. Especially when, as I pointed out, "hydroplane theory" doesn't come from a scientist in any field related to the theory (e.g., a geologist), but from a mechanical engineer who is a creationist (who is in turn enough of a crackpot to give some other creationists pause). And, I am not sure that the theory was even intended to explain the seeding of life on other worlds in the first place, even incidentally. What a stretch! They have a Chinese wall built up around every aspect of their dogma and it's not going to budge an inch no matter what is discovered or learned.
"Hydroplane theory" is also not a theory but a hypothesis -- that there was a huge amount of water under the earth's crust pre-flood and when the Bible speaks of the "great fountains of the deep" being "broken up" this water was released in such a fashion as to flood the earth and pretty much mix up its crust. I suppose what he was suggesting was that this was so violent that some material from earth, including "some extremophiles", must have splashed into space and found its way to Mars or Jovian moons or anyplace else we might discover life. I kid you not. They accuse evolutionists of "weak arguments" against "overwhelming odds" and then they come up with stuff like this!
It's a darn shame that scientists didn't determine that climate change was caused by flatulence during gay sex. If they had then the Christians would be all about it.
You probably should not be giving them ideas like this. The same people who have determined that the earth was made in six days would have no problem determining the cause and effect relationship between homosexuality and environmental calamity. In fact they have already suggested such a relationship, wasn't Hurricane Katrina sent to destroy New Orleans because of its toleration of gays?
Thanks for your kind words. I closed it out this morning as it was going in circles, but I claim no particular brilliance other than an understanding of how to talk to someone who inhabits the belief-system that I came out of some twenty years ago.
It has struck me forcefully how little that system has changed since the mid 1970's when I was probably the most deeply into it as a student at one of their Bible Institutes. That particular institution went belly up in the 1980's, more or less because its demographic figured out that they could attend schools that were accredited, yet still church-sponsored and approved, for not that much more money, and have the flexibility to transfer academic credits to literally thousands of other institutions rather than just a couple. I still get snail mail from their alumni association, inviting me to reunions, and from what I read there, absolutely nothing has changed since 1975 and probably since 1945. It is that way with "creation science" also; Henry Morris has died but his spiritual heirs carry on in exactly the same manner. Hurlbut's proud declaration to me that he "speaks the Truth to power and to mobs" and does not care how out of step he is even with other Christians pretty much says it all. It is also no surprise that in addition to being a creationist, he is a denier of global warming, although I doubt his claim that he was instrumental in breaking the "climategate" non-scandal.
I will say one thing about his parting shot at me, as he apparently needed the Last Word ... regarding Richard Lewontin. I am sure that he is referring to this out of context quote: Amazing admission - Lewontin Quote but I do commend anyone to read the full article: RICHARD LEWONTIN: Billions and Billions of Demons. Lewontin makes a lot of the same points I do about science. He is not afraid to talk about science's failures. Attempts to sweep science's problems and shortcomings under the rug in an effort to assure continued funding do unintentionally give gadflies and auteurs like Hurlbut plenty of fodder for out of context quotes and "aha! gotcha!" types of digs. A little less arrogance and more humility would go a long way here.
You lasted longer than did I. When he said life evolving on a moon was a bizarre suggestion from you, I couldn't take it any longer.
You stated it correctly, and everyone here knows it: Creationism is a manifest fraud to make money and meant to give the unscrupulous believer an argument in the face of what is clearly overwhelming evidence.
Lost on the poor saps is, that not all arguments are created equally.
I also got a chuckle when he stated his blog/foundation is a not for profit institution and he had a tax exemption application pending... Not fot profit? .....rigggghhhhttttt...... Tax exempt? Was there any doubt?
One word: sleazy.
"One last thing… When Creationism fails to make it’s claims and doesn’t succeed at actually doing anything except duping and fleecing an unscrupulous segment of the population….
Will you keep all of the money?"
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
). it's color-coding for "ripeness" [and I quote him now: "green, not ripe; yellow: just right, and black? No good!" Oh my...]
