Churches speak out in support for evolution

[Acriku]

A change in times? A freak occurrence? An excuse to spark debate on evolution? Some say either of them, as we celebrate Darwin's 197th anniversary (having just missed it by 4 minutes shouldn't dispel that detail). The article describes how nearly 450 churches are celebrating Darwin Day and cherishing the fact that people don't have to choose between religion and science. I am delighted some people are not so behind in the times. And now I close this with an adorable picture of a monkey (it's only fitting).

[Caid Ivik]

450 churches? Well, for me is enough satisfaction, that pope accepts it...altough biology and paleontology aren't things of acceptance and practice as religions are.

[GUNWOUNDS]

here's a link that talks about Zimmerman.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lidarw0212,0,7289620.story?track=mostemailedlink

[GUNWOUNDS]

I've been doing some reading on Feral children  ... its pretty interesting.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_feralc.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_children

Especially the stories about Victor and Genie.  After reading these stories, I think that Humans are Animal-Creatures and that what makes us human is the ability to learn to the extent that we are able to. This doesnt mean that i think we are monkeys but i do admit that we are all flesh creatures with animalistic tendencies. There may be a way to reconcile evolution with religion.... but alot more facts will be needed.... i think that christians want to believe evolution on *facts* and not faith.  Along time ago a monkey's skull had its teeth filed down and was used as a fake fossil to "prove" evolution and people believed it for 50 years until it was exposed as a fake.... and something happened recently were a fake fossil was engineered.... its in antoher post somewhere here on dune2k.

Anyways... the point is that people take religion based on faith because they have to.... there is no way to prove a religion.... but believers dont want to take "evolution" on faith because it is science and science shouldnt be taken on faith... it should be taken on fact.  So IMO there is nothing wrong with staying undecided until all the facts are gathered.  People can embellish the data and say that evolution is as solid as the Law of Gravity, but if that were true then there wouldnt be any debate.  You dont see people debating the Law of Gravity now do you?  I guess its called being skeptical.  I'm skeptical of other religions so why shouldnt i be skeptical of a scientific theory that has hundreds of years of more work to be done?

I dont mind taking a chance and being a fool that believes in the wrong religion, because religion has to be taken on faith....... but i refuse to take a chance on believing in a scientific theory that turns out to be false (like the fools who believed in the monkey skull with its teeth filed down).  I will be a fool for God but i wont be a fool for science.  I agree with Zimmerman that telling someone that they must reject Evolution or they are going to Hell is a false dichotomy...most definately... becuz your salvation is not dependant upon this issue and evolution doesnt challenge the origin of life.  But on the other hand i will not embrace evolution with the same "faith" and open-mindedness that i do with theoretical physics.  Why?  Because Theoretical Physics has an extremely hard time collecting data and performing real-time experiments...so i give it a little room.  Whereas  developmental biology and paleontology is well within its means to acquire the data that we demand.  Therefore we can demand it.  I dont expect a physicist to replicate the Big Bang... but i do expect biologists and paleontologists to cough up more data than they currently have.  Which i think is perfectly reasonable.  To whom much is given much is expected.

Guns

[Anathema]

I read about this on another forum.

Times like these make me miss emprworm, I wonder what the old fella would think of this.

...

I know what Navaros thinks about it though, he also posts on the aforementioned forum:

No legitimate Church would celibrate Darwin's birthday or make statements in defense of his ludicrous idea.

Those mentioned in the article are Apostate Churches that have no connection to God or anything that is good.

This is absurd. Darwin was an evil man who is surely not anywhere close to being with God at the moment.

Jesus warned about men like that. They are called "wolves in sheep's clothing".

No man who has committed the one unforgivable sin: committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by claiming the Word of God is a lie (as Darwin has done) can ever claim to be anything other than an enemy of God and a friend of "the world" (there is no way to be both).

Anybody miss him?  ;D

[Caid Ivik]

sure, Nav always made a perfect atmosphere...

[Acriku]

So IMO there is nothing wrong with staying undecided until all the facts are gathered.  People can embellish the data and say that evolution is as solid as the Law of Gravity, but if that were true then there wouldnt be any debate.  You dont see people debating the Law of Gravity now do you?

Hmm...

A Chinese astronomer from the University of St Andrews has fine-tuned Einstein's groundbreaking theory of gravity, creating a 'simple' theory which could solve a dark mystery that has baffled astrophysicists for three-quarters of a century.

A new law for gravity, developed by Dr Hong Sheng Zhao and his Belgian collaborator Dr Benoit Famaey of the Free University of Brussels (ULB), aims to prove whether Einstein's theory was in fact correct and whether the astronomical mystery of Dark Matter actually exists. Their research was published on February 10th in the US-based Astrophysical Journal Letters. Their formula suggests that gravity drops less sharply with distance as in Einstein, and changes subtly from solar systems to galaxies and to the universe.

The 'problem' with the golden laws of Newton and Einstein is whilst they work very well on earth, they do not explain the motion of stars in galaxies and the bending of light accurately. In galaxies, stars rotate rapidly about a central point, held in orbit by the gravitational attraction of the matter in the galaxy. However astronomers found that they were moving too quickly to be held by their mutual gravity - so not enough gravity to hold the galaxies together instead stars should be thrown off in all directions!

From http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/EinsteinTheory.asp

Damn, I guess they are!

Acr

P.S. I'm just in a silly mood, don't mind me.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Holy Crap!   :O

Cool read.

Hehe nice find, but my point is that people dont debate whether gravity is an attractive force, despite descrepancies of subtle changes in other galaxies.  They said in your quote "The Law of Gravity Works on Earth", and frankly thats enough to support my analogy.  Whereas Evolution's fundamental core of being a force/mechanism responsible for higher lifeforms on earth is still being questioned and hasnt progressed to being able to be agreed on Earth (like gravity) in order for the debate to continue on other planets. :P

[TMA_1]

I say that we need to turn the clock back culturally.

people are always self-assured in nations that are in decline.

[Acriku]

Holy Crap!  :O

Cool read.

Hehe nice find, but my point is that people dont debate whether gravity is an attractive force, despite descrepancies of subtle changes in other galaxies.  They said in your quote "The Law of Gravity Works on Earth", and frankly thats enough to support my analogy.  Whereas Evolution's fundamental core of being a force/mechanism responsible for higher lifeforms on earth is still being questioned and hasnt progressed to being able to be agreed on Earth (like gravity) in order for the debate to continue on other planets.  :P

Haha, I love that image. Anyway, if you've ever read The Stardust Voyages by Stephen Tall, you'd get a good idea of what I would expect studying the evolution of creaturs on other planets would be like (if we find them, ;)). I can't remember how it went, since I don't have the book with me right now, but if you've read it then you'll know. If not, ... read it. lol.

Anyway, I agree the mechanism of evolution is still being debated. The main contender being natural selection, makes sense to me however. If you have genes that give you a disadvantage, over enough time (a large sample is required to weed out freak occurrences) you will die out and the population with advantageous genes will survive. They will take control of the food sources, etc. I've never observed this, but I've also never observed an atom bomb going off but it would make sense to me still that it would be quite hot and things would perish.

That is the theory of evolution, that natural selection mechanizes the species into more "fit" developments. I wouldn't say higher lifeforms, because there is nothing to guide evolution, and nothing to make it turn out more complex organisms.

The fact of evolution, that species have changed over time, into other species, is more supported than you would believe (literally). The fact of evolution is not being debated seriously (in the community of scientists) because it's gone through 150 years of debate to prove itself. And I wholly support fresh debate, because it forces scientists to support and explore more of the field. And so they have over the century and a half.

TMA, you're so right. I miss the good old days where blacks didn't have rights, fundies ran the country, science was cast aside, and ... well I think you get the idea. Nixon rules!

[Egeides]

Self-assurance, science as democracy upheld as true by default instead of argued, following dichotomy with religion as leadership... it should not be like that, never be so statically defined and Darwinism should have been absorbed as a new component for further mutation of traditions/"chains of influence". No dichotomy, dynamism rather than either/or paradigms of then relative religion/science.

Acriku, I miss the good old days where slaves didn't have rights, Optimates ran the country, the value of rhetoric was cast aside, and ... well I think you get the idea. Crassus rules!

Everything is fine. Fetch your pillow, I'll feth mine. Glory to Spartacus, proof of the vivacity and Hegelianism of our democratic ideals. Ok, don't mind me, I'm going back to bed.

[Caid Ivik]

The Sleeper must be awaken!  ;D

[TMA_1]

I didnt mean it in a sense that the ethics of people in the past were somehow better than they are now. i meant that society is rebeling to a point that it is a polarization of what things were like just up to a hundred years ago. society naturally runs from pain by going away from subsistance to abundance, and when this happens a society becomes apathetic and will eventually fall. I am not talking of going back to the victorian era, instead talking of going back to a subsistance based culture, fat chance that would happen though, and most (including me) probably couldnt handle it.

In the end all forms of society have hte problems of going too far to a material culture or an existential culture.