Contesting Evolution: European Creationists Take On Darwin »
Posted By jovial 9 months ago in ReligionThe US isn't the only place with heated debates about Darwin's theory of evolution: Europe has its own hardcore creationists and intelligent design backers, too. Increasingly, they are making their voices heard.
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jovial
Grew up In Brooklyn. Joined the Navy in 1976 stayed in 10 years. Aircraft Electronics tech. Worked for Major Govt. contractor then settled in California ...
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jovial9 months ago
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alakazam9 months ago
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You know something Jovial?
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A few years back I quit looking at just the trees on this issue.
I honestly think that reconciling the facts is going to require more information and I am not sure the Truth is going to particularly please either side.
Like a game of straws without a short stick. :) -
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Tangent0019 months ago
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"The more we learn about microbiology the more impossible for that kind of evolution to exist."
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No, the more we learn about biology (including microbiology), the more confirmed evolution becomes. Nothing in biology make sense without evolution.
The fossil record will never be complete, but there is plenty of fossil evidence that shows transitional species. The evolution of the modern horse is an excellent example, as is the series from ungulates to cetaceans. -
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Endoscopy9 months ago
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The problem is the atheist evolutionists. They have to remove God from any discussion or teaching. It is a matter of principle that God does not exist. Therefore creationists are abhorrent to them. The actual facts of science are there for everybody. The problem of evolutionists that go with the traditional method of small steps over a very long time to create a new species is that there is no proof in the fossil record like Darwin said there should be if his theory was correct. The more we learn about microbiology the more impossible for that kind of evolution to exist.
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judah-hertzComment removed: Hard Banned11 Replies
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Dionys9 months ago
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"Can't we have both?"
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Sure. Creationism and Evolution aren't mutually exclusive and many, MANY Christians believe in both co-existing. It's only Bible literalists who have problems with it, but then they should have problems with all the conflicts within the Bible itself if they're literalists.
The problem emerges, however, when Creationists try to insert their religious debate into the Science classroom. It has no place there, because religion and philosophy isn't science (and science isn't religion or philosophy). You can't currently "prove" God by empiric evidence (but then you shouldn't have to, seeing as how it's from an entirely different dicipline). -
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tadair9199 months ago
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RickyDawkins9 months ago
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A meaningful effort to reconcile science and faith must start by recognizing them as they are actually understood and practiced by human beings. You cannot re-define science so that it includes the supernatural, as Kansas's board of education did in 2005. Nor can you take "religion" to be the philosophy of liberal theologians, which, frowning on a personal God, is often just a hairsbreadth away from pantheism.
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True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. But tension remains. The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith?
There are so many phenomena that would raise the specter of God or other supernatural forces: faith healers could restore lost vision, the cancers of only good people could go into remission, the dead could return to life, we could find meaningful DNA sequences that could have been placed in our genome only by an intelligent agent, angels could appear in the sky. The fact that no such things have ever been scientifically documented gives us added confidence that we are right to stick with natural explanations for nature. And it explains why so many scientists, who have learned to disregard God as an explanation, have also discarded him as a possibility.
-Jerry Coyne
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3574,Jerry-Coyne... -
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Wolfie20079 months ago
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nightschase9 months ago
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It's only the hardliners who say evolution isn't true. I'm an agnostic but I believe that evolution is the answer for HOW not WHY.
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Just because evolution is true doesn't mean god doesn't exist, it just means you can't take the bible literally, which is a bad idea in the first place.-
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hyperbola9 months ago
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Actually there are probably an infinite number of "literal" interpretations of the bible. They are made up as needed to "justify" the prejudices of the "religious". We shouldn't forget that only 150 years ago our "biblical literalists" were using the bible to "justify" slavery.
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Crackpot Christianity and America's Current Moral Degeneration
...Crackpot Christians have a long history of moral degeneracy. Simply look back to America's Civil War and you'll find southern clergymen - clergymen! -- citing verses from the Bible (e.g., Exodus 20-21, Matthew 10:14 and Ephesians 6:5-6) to justify slavery. According to Martin E. Marty (perhaps, our foremost authority on religion in America), "The South especially cherished the most literal readings [of the Bible], because on these terms it could find biblical passages in support of slavery." [Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America, pp. 302-303]
"Scripture, the Confederate clergy advised, even justified secession." [Phillips, American Theocracy, p. 144] And even after Union forces delivered God's just retribution (speaking in Crackpot Christian terms) for the South's evil ways, southern clergymen soon were abetting their perpetuation -- which subsequently spread into America's southern Midwest and across America's Southwest -- by fostering the self-deception of "redemption."
Readers of Michelle Goldberg's new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, can see Crackpot Christianity at work today, subverting America's liberal democracy in an attempt to impose Christian "Dominion" - essentially southern political and religious culture -- over the entire country. According to Ms. Goldberg, "Dominionism is derived from a theocratic sect called Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates replacing American civil law with Old Testament biblical law." [p. 13]. ...
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/crackpot.htm...
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prophyporcritesComment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned8 Replies
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chuck-the-canuck9 months ago
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Speaking only for myself here at “nutscape”, as one of the ignorant unbelieving infidels, it has nothing to do with trying to belittle true believers and everything to do with pointing out the pathetic inconsistencies of their infantile delusions.
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ChefEOD9 months ago
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prophyporcritesComment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned8 Replies
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Hhussk9 months ago
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I don't have a problem with evolution and don't have a problem with religion.
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Currently, science cannot explain creation; it is struggling to figue out how things begin. We should let science continue on its path. Fundamentally, the Law of Conservation is what creates the problem. Basically, something had to come from nothing, and that violates this Law.
The funny thing about Religion is that by the nature of divinity, it automatically resolves the creation problem. In other words, "Since there's a God, he/she/it can defy the laws of Physics because he's God."-
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djn3nunez39 months ago
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My question is can the other super natural creatures that makeup this God's world defy the laws of physics too? Or is that one of the superpowers that only this God can perform?
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Like the ArchAngel Gabrial, or the fallen Angel Lucifer? What about the other Angels?
What about the Saints? Now that they have immortality do they get to alter the laws of the phyical universe as well? -
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Tangent0019 months ago
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"Btw, Dawinism is so outdated and simplistic it's ridiculous to even call it science."
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I see, but 'God done it' is remarkably fresh and complex?
Hey, if someone wants to teach ID in a comparative religions class, knock yourself out. ID doesn't pass the muster of science because there is no science there. There are no experiments to test the hypothesis. -
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Wolfie20079 months ago
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The biggest problem with the evolution/Darwinism crowd, is the scientists who worship at that alter, are using draconian methods to keep scientists who believe in intelligent design from being able to teach in colleges and universities in the United State and/or get research grants. If the theory of evolution/Darwinism is correct then what do they fear. Btw, Dawinism is so outdated and simplistic it's ridiculous to even call it science.
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Tangent0019 months ago
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Well, there have been SEVERAL experiments using fast-generating organisms such as bacteria and fruit flies that show when a population is placed under stress (increased heat, change of food supply, presence of a toxin, etc.) The population will predictably change to adapt to the new condition compared to a control population. When I say 'predictably', understand that some form of adaptation will occur, but the nature of that adaptation is unpredictable.
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BTW, that is not 'proof' of evolution. It is 'evidence' of evolution. -
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toph19739 months ago
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Considering that evolution has been observed in microbiology it's very naive to think that evolution is outdated and simplistic. All one needs to do is google evolution of bird flu to see the mutation (evolution) of the virus.
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Believing that some imaginary friend in the sky created all of this is very outdated and simplistic. Considering there is no provable evidence for anything that any religion teaches says everything one needs to know. That the idea of religion and god is a complete and utter fraud. -
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quackpot8 months, 3 weeks ago
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People can't get research grants to study God because it is impossible to formulate a coherent research proposal.
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It is hard enough to have an excellent and logical research proposal funded. An Incoherent research proposal could only be funded if it were part of a legislative ear mark.
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Charlson9 months ago
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It never ceaces to amaze me that some people let their religious beliefs cloud reality.
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Bible literalists can't accept that maybe the Old Testaments were written not to be taken literally but as a collection of allegorical tales of the past laced with sex and violence.
Besides believing that the world is only six thousands years old, creationists also insist that dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time as man. Don't they realize that the Flintstones was a cartoon and not a documentary?
When they start to insist teaching their theory of creationsim as science; rational, thinking people must rise up and say NO.-
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ChefEOD9 months ago
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You need to look into research done by two men; Leland Ryken in a book titled “The Literature of the Bible” and then also Steven Boyd and his statistical analysis of Ryken’s research. It shows with a probability of .9999 that the Creation Account in its original Hebrew text was written as literal history. Now of course you can disbelieve that history, but to say that they were written not to be taken literally but as a collection of allegorical tales of the past is and can be proven as false.
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ChefEOD9 months ago
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Have any of the proponents of evolution here done any actual research into the science that supports creation or at least a young earth (as well as the false science used to support evolution) or are you all just repeating what you have been taught to say, how you have been conditioned to respond?
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For instance, how many of you realize that back in the 1940s it was proven that carbon-14 dating is reliable to only 60,000 years at its greatest yet that dating method is repeatedly used to “prove” the age of fossils being 100’s of thousands and/or millions of years old? How many of you realize that radioisotope dating is based upon fundamental assumptions that at best cannot be proven and at worst can be proven false?-
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hyperbola9 months ago
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You are lying to us again Chef. There are many types of radioisotopes that can be used for dating. Each has a period of validity depending on its radioactive half life. Your silly assertions would require that the laws of physcis are changing constantly. Do you really believe that or are you just spouting what you have been taught to say?
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Tangent0019 months ago
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"Have any of the proponents of evolution here done any actual research into the science that supports creation..."
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Yes, there is precious little. Most has to do with so-called OOPArts (Out-Of-Place Artifacts), predictions about how much dust there 'should be' on the moon, how much silt there 'should be' off the Mississippi delta. But please, enlighten me. -
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smithichie9 months ago
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Chef, if these dating techniques don't work for 'evolutionists', why do they work for geologists? Why don't oil and other mining outfits hire creationsts instead of paying big bucks for scientists who don't know how to use their own equipment?
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JustTrollKingComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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CHAM9 months ago
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Tangent. He meant just what he said. Whether you subscribe to the Big-Bang, The Pulsation , the Steady State, or the DeSitter model, you either have to take the position that God had nothing to do with any of the theories or that he was the mover and shaker of the universe. In other words, a case for the omnipotent ( See Paul Churchland)
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That being the case - you must choose to believe that it all started from nothing (big-bang), or was always there ( the others ) , differing only in the position at a given time. If there was no beginning ( the others - then there must be no end ) meaning that evolution cannot be in any "time phase" it has to be perfected, because of the lack of time acting on the universe ( its always been acting and will never end - no beginning and no ending). Interesting idea, No?
The big bang, if continued expanding forever, would have to set new boundaries for the Universe. Trouble is, in what was the Universe placed at the time of the big bang? How big was it?
But all this is just prelude in du Nouy's book. His discussions concerning the development of survival paraphernalia ( survival of the fittest ) must go thru stages in which that development is - well detrimental to survival.
Again read the book.-
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Sageparadox9 months ago
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There is a time and place for everything. The creationist act like they are being discriminated against, but yet they do have a place where they are allowed to teach what ever they want to teach untill they are blue in the face. It is called their own churchs. It is not like they dont have their own universities either to pass off their psuedo-science and psuedo-logic unto their poor student for a rediculas fee. Problem is when the majority rejects their arguements of a young earth and the ultimate answer of "God did it", and find that they would rather study real science and hopefully contribute to the search of actual higher knowledge of life, and the physical universe.
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willottica9 months ago
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For any who think that Creationism should be teachable in a publicly funded Science classroom. How would you feel about Science being taught in your publicly-funded (or at least tax-exempt) churches? By all means, let's teach Religion alongside Science... and let's do the opposite as well. Anywhere Religion is taught, let's teach Science alongside - just as an "alternate theory."
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CRYMTYPHON9 months ago
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It would be interesting, - and I think many church-goers would not mind.
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Why not put a periodic chart of the elements in the apendix of the prayer book?
Why not have a stained-glass window showing Darwin feeding the finches?
Why not cannonize Einstein?
If all truth is holy, then 'scientist' is but priest writ large. -
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Dionys9 months ago
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"For any who think that Creationism should be teachable in a publicly funded Science classroom. How would you feel about Science being taught in your publicly-funded (or at least tax-exempt) churches? By all means, let's teach Religion alongside Science... and let's do the opposite as well. Anywhere Religion is taught, let's teach Science alongside - just as an "alternate theory.""
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Well. Not to be snitty about it, but isn't this what all the 'great' scientists like Ricky Dawkins do when they trample on religion and theology claiming they know without a single doubt that God doesn't exist and that anyone who believes in God is somehow 'less' of a person?
Scientists should teach science in science classrooms, and religionists should teach religion and theology and philosophy in religious studies, theology and philosophy classrooms.
But -- Science IS taught in theology these days (as an interesting aside) -- in the form of quantum theology and how quantum physics mimics some of the root beliefs of Christian theology and Buddhist philosophy.
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CHAM9 months ago
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This is an excellent post and an excellent discussion. It has long been argued and is no closer to an agreement than when it began.
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I have in my library a book by Lecomte du Nouy, back in 1947. I also read Amir Aczel's Probability One. Each in its own way deals with evolution or the lack thereof.
Pierre Lecomte du Nouy,a French Biophysicist, in his book "Human Destiny" takes issue with Evolution as taught. He approaches the subject in a Scientific manner, noting that even the most ardent evolutionist must admit that if one goes back far enough, the evolutionist must admit that his belief is that originally something came from nothing. And also must take the position that the Universe is a closed system. At that point says du Nouy, the laws of probability must determine the outcome. And on that premise he begins his argument. The Seriously interested need to read the book.
In "Probability One" ( Certainty ) Amir discusses the P factor and the fact that Carl Sagan, an ardent evolutionist, if there ever was one, finally came to admit in his latter life that what he had been advocating his whole life was extremely unlikely to be true - that evolution on earth was not possible as taught in schools.
Take the time to get the books and take a read.-
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Tangent0019 months ago
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"...the evolutionist must admit that his belief is that originally something came from nothing."
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That is not the case at all. Although science does not know what preceded the Big Bang, it is highly unlikely it was 'nothing'. If he is referring to the emergence of life from organic molecules, then again, organic molecules are hardly 'nothing'.
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aceofspades19 months ago
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"Now how can people say evolution happened and then get ticked off because of a cartoon about a man depicted as a monkey"
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Stalemate - why don't you say what you really mean? this statement has nothing to do with evolution & all to do with the cartoon in the NY Post.- You act like a crusader for God - yet what you say on most threads is an abomination to what most people would perceive to be Godly thoughts.
you sir are a hypocrite of the worst order
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