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Goodbye Jesus

Just something I found interesting


Flyby Stardancer

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Consider, for example, some of the many things that the scientific myth of human evolution doesn't address. Affirmation of a sense of individual worth or importance; living right, by codes of morality or standards of conduct; the evocation of strong emotional bonds of solidarity to a community; or simply how to get through the day and feel good.

 

This is, of course, not to defend creationism, by which fundamentalist Christians seek to subvert science education in America. It is to suggest, however, that the rejection of science by ordinary citizens is a reflection of the failings of scientists, not of the failings of those ordinary citizens. Representing creationism as science is quite simply a fraudulent claim. But it is crucial to note that science provides a restricted set of answers to a very large set of questions that people in all cultures have; and that science may easily be judged inadequate if we look beyond the sole criterion of empirical validity. Evolution provides the most empirically valid explanation that we have for the present existance of life. Period.

 

But why should it really matter whether we are descended from arboreal hairy primates or not? Either way, we are still human, and engaged in the construction of a civil and just society. Either way, you still have to earn a living, put food on the table, cope with injustice and suffering, and find meaning in your life.

 

The reason it matters to so many people is that scientists have mad it matter, and they've done so in the worst possible way. They've taken a proposition that does not matter much and has little effect on the lives, cares, and worries of everyday people--"We are descended from apes"--and stretched that into a series of additional  propositions, often both authoritative and odious.

 

Read this and thought it might be a possible explanation as to why there are so many Fundies so deeply against science and its logical reasoning. Just some food for thought.

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Read this and thought it might be a possible explanation as to why there are so many Fundies so deeply against science and its logical reasoning. Just some food for thought.

 

 

That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th. This is directly related to why most Christians get emotional toward evolution, in that Christians "try" to walk, seek God on a daily level and really dont even think about science.This daily "seeking" is hard to accomplish alot of times, yet trying to prove the world was created less than 6000 years ago. Too much for my plate of things to do. LOL. Ijust keep curious, and keep in practice of my beliefs.

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That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th. This is directly related to why most Christians get emotional toward evolution, in that Christians "try" to walk, seek God on a daily level and really dont even think about science.This daily "seeking" is hard to accomplish alot of times, yet trying to prove the world was created less than 6000 years ago. Too much for my plate of things to do. LOL. Ijust keep curious, and keep in practice of my beliefs.

 

 

Your unjustified, unverified, pie in the sky beliefs?

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Your unjustified, unverified, pie in the sky beliefs?

 

YoYo

That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th. This is directly related to why most Christians get emotional toward evolution, in that Christians "try" to walk, seek God on a daily level and really dont even think about science.This daily "seeking" is hard to accomplish alot of times, yet trying to prove the world was created less than 6000 years ago. Too much for my plate of things to do. LOL. Ijust keep curious, and keep in practice of my beliefs.

 

Hey, I figured you didnt see my response to well, so I copied it to you. If you want a debate about all the justification or verifaction of my beliefs, Good Luck. I already know the out come of our debate before we would even begin, Agree to Disagree. I was commenting on the topic of "why" "fundies" are so deeply attached toward the evolution topic from a Christians POV. No debating with you and me. Sorry.

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Hey, I figured you didnt see my response to well, so I copied it to you. If you want a debate about all the justification or verifaction of my beliefs, Good Luck. I already know the out come of our debate before we would even begin, Agree to Disagree. I was commenting on the topic of "why" "fundies" are so deeply attached toward the evolution topic from a Christians POV. No debating with you and me. Sorry.

So that's a yes.

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That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th. This is directly related to why most Christians get emotional toward evolution...
There's part of the problem right there, because it's not just evolution that is in contradiction with the Bible. Evolution takes all of the heat for what modern science has to say. Even you, when talking about the biblical world view versus science, you say "evolution" when you really mean "modern science". Evolution is relative only to the field of biology. The Bible also butts heads with modern astronomy, geology, and physics.

 

For example, evolution has nothing to do with projections about how old the Earth is. Geologists knew that the Earth was much older than 6000 years well before Darwin's day. So why does evolution get hampered with this? Because of idiots, like Ken Ham and Kent Hovind, who spread misinformation and choose to lash out at evolution, because it's the most iconic representation of all the fields of sicence which oppose the biblical world view.

 

There's also no reason for evolution to take the rap if an astronomer says something about star formation or the layer of dust on the moon. Yet that doesn't stop Answers In Genesis from printing an article blasting a mistake that was made about moon dust and then blaming evolution for it. That's as cowardly as it is dishonest.

 

I agree with the article in the principle that it's not necessary to force evolution upon people as though evolution is important to every day living. However, I think it is, to some degree, important to the intellectual growth of society, that society at least have some understanding of modern science.

 

For example, it's not "important" that we know that the world is a sphere, but for certain vocations, such as in navigation of ships and whatnot, it's vital that people don't have to be broken from an apriori belief that the world is flat. This is the sort of circumstance in which scientific education is important. Unfortunately though, there are still flat-earthers, sad to say, but proper education keeps that to a minimum.

 

And I can only envision a professor giving his students, the future genecists of the world, the proverbial role of the eyes, when trying to teach them something about how genetics works, and one of them blurts out, "I'm a Christian, and I don't believe that new information can arise from random mutation." Unfortunately, this does happen. I've had the misfortune of meeting people who've engaged their college professors over such matters, and I cringe that people like this are attempting to go into fields of genetics.

 

The best science can do is to simply provide the information while deconstructing those who continuously, and dishonestly, attack evolution for claims that evolution never made or is simply not relative to. The Hovinds and the Gishes of the world must be exposed. I would be content with stripping the liars of all credibility.

 

Eventually, I think society will catch on. I'm only a little annoyed that I probably won't be around to see it.

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That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th. This is directly related to why most Christians get emotional toward evolution, in that Christians "try" to walk, seek God on a daily level and really dont even think about science.

There's another part of the problem contained in these sentences. Instead of setting personal beliefs aside and examining the evidence with cool detachment, our xtian friends do get emotional about it. It is mildly understandable. People are reared (brainwashed/socialized) to believe that the Genesis account is fact. When they encounter resistance to that, they resist. Unfortunately, their emotional resistance is more becoming of children than it is of adults.

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That is very true, in regard to "Fundies"LOL. I believe in the ole' traditional Bible God that worked 6 days and rested on the 7th.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how Christians manage to justify that one.

 

Why would a GOD even need 6 days to make anything?

And why would a GOD need to rest?

 

Human traits and weaknesses are applied to Biblegod within the first couple pages of the BWB (badly written book) within one of the first stories we learned when we were christians.

 

Christians never question it....but then they never applied real questions about thier beliefs with the intention of getting real answers (and not rhetoric) either. If they did, they wouldn't be Christians....they'd be us!

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From the originally quoted posting by Mark J., entitled "What it means to be 98% chimpanzee":

 

"But it is crucial to note that science provides a restricted set of answers to a very large set of questions that people in all cultures have.. Evolution provides the most empirically valid explanation that we have for the present existance of life. .. scientists have... taken a proposition that does not matter much and has little effect on the lives, cares, and worries of everyday people--"We are descended from apes"--and stretched that into a series of additional propositions, often both authoritative and odious."

 

I haven't seen the whole, of which the above is a part. But the above is very bad.

 

Humans and chimpanzees are descended from some common ancestor way back. We are not 98% chimpanzee. It may be true that 98% of the genetic makeup of humans coincides with genetic makeup of chimpanzees. Very different claims. A goodly percentage of human DNA maps with cat DNA. It means nothing to say "we are X% cat." Strike out the title.

 

The theory of evolution is a theory about how living species originate. It is not a theory about meaning of life, ethics, aesthetics, etc. etc. So strike out sentence one above.

 

The theory of evolution does not purport to explain the origin of life on earth. It's not a theory of abiogenesis; that's a different question. Strike out sentence two.

 

Evolution does not stretch out a whole theory about how humans should live. Evolution in fact can be made consistent even with Christian doctrine, in the main. Many Christians who are not fundies don't think it's a problem to say God used evolution as a mechanism to produce the human body and just did a little something to breathe in a human soul at some point. Moral philosophy operates by different methodology and principles, and addresses different questions, than evolutionary biology. So strike out the last sentence above.

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Why would a GOD even need 6 days to make anything?

And why would a GOD need to rest?

Christianity is soooo screwed up, especially if you take these books literally.

 

I've forgotten a lot of these, because I've spent so much time arguing against creationism. I forgot how fun it was to use the Bible against apologists. Every Christian debater I've ever heard always defines God as a limitless being in some way. He's infinite and all-powerful. Yet he needs to rest, which implies limitations.

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