Darwin In The News Again

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by All Shall Be Judged

Oh, just admit that broad terminology ignores the finer points of religions. You know it, I know it, and the Pope would risk Hell over it.

what the hell are you talking about?

[All Shall Be Judged]

Originally Posted by Despanan

what the hell are you talking about?

Catholicism's dogmatic expansions upon Christianity. Christianity warns against false prophets; Catholicism posits one man as God's spokesperson on Earth.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Having been raised an Irish Catholic, in a traditionally Irish Catholic city, I can second the opinion that most American Catholics have drifted away from the Vatican. You really just have to look at the Catholic strongholds in the States to see why. You've got Boston, Chicago, most of New England and California as the really big Catholic areas, all of which are heavily left-wing states. So despite the perception, American Catholics are much further to the left than people think, and when you've got this nutcase as Pope, and a Vatican that seems to want to go back to the 1400's, they're going to lose favor with the Americans. And the Catholic Church in America is almost dead for that reason.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

Originally Posted by Tam Li Hua

Dude, this is been happening for a while now; Christians accepting the idea of evolution isn't really news. XD

Also, evangelicals and protestants aren't the same thing. At all. A protestant is someone who is Christian but not Catholic. An evangelical is a bit more radical than your average protestant denomination.

Just needed to point that out.

An evangelist is a type of protestant. You know there's been over 33,000 different types of protestant religion, all rather similar.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by knightmare

I think there will always be conflict between religion and science due to the focus on empiricism. While science has come a long way, Christians will looks at concepts science has not figured out yet and attribute them to a higher power such as God.

Bingo. One of the basic tricks in religion's bag is to grab something we don't understand yet and attribute it to magic. When some uppity scientist comes along pushing an actual explanation, using as his only sorry excuse the fact that it's correct, it's a real fly in the ointment (biblical reference intentional ). Putting it bluntly, science is a threat to religion because religion thrives on ignorance, and science dispells ignorance. And evolution is an especially difficult case, because it cuts right to the core of religion - human hubris.

Unfortunately, I think the conflict we see between science and desert monotheism in particular is unavoidable. In the States, one of two things will eventually happen. Either the current trend of agonizingly slow acceptance of reality will continue to its inevitable conclusion, or the fundies will finally manage a big enough push to get their mits firmly on the levers of power, resulting in America becoming a permanent intellectual backwater akin to the Middle East. My guess is the former.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by All Shall Be Judged

Catholicism's dogmatic expansions upon Christianity. Christianity warns against false prophets; Catholicism posits one man as God's spokesperson on Earth.

It's a pretty trivial gloss upon the dogma of one man as God on Earth - just one of the many dogmas which not only isn't supported by the Bible, but is plainly inconsistent with it, and which was fabricated more or less out of whole cloth by the Catholic church, but which nevertheless goes on being taken for granted by the very Protestant Christians who attack Catholics for dogmatism.

I sometimes reflect that there is at least one thing I would miss if Christianity were to go. It would be hard to find an equal source of slapstick self parody and assorted other hillarity to replace it.

Here's one that had me in stitches recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLncO5_idk4

[Drake Dun]

I'm now reading a Protestant screed on this question, and realizing that I went too far when I said "out of whole cloth". There are passages in the New Testament in which Jesus says things which could very easily be interpreted as meaning that he is God. OTOH there are lots of passages which stand in stark contradiction to any such notion. Ordinary biblical inconsistency, I guess. My original point stands, but I wanted to correct myself on that before someone else does it less gently. :P

[CptSternn]

I thought this article that was inthe same vein was pretty good...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...RrDXYy3zFydQhw

US scientists defend Darwin from attacks on evolution

CHICAGO (AFP) — While the rest of the world feted the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, US scientists were forced to defend the theory of evolution from a skeptical public and a concerted attack campaign.

Top researchers gathered in Chicago presented papers showing how evolution can be witnessed in everything from the genetic similarities between humans and Neanderthals to the way planets form and crows use tools to catch bugs.

"Evolution is not an idea. It's a fact," James McCarthy, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said Thursday at the launch of a conference whose theme celebrated Darwin's work.

"It's impossible to deny evolution: the development of drug resistant microbes, pesticide resistant insects, there are abundant examples in ordinary life."

But the message has not gotten through to the US public.

Just 40 percent of Americans say they believe in the theory of evolution, according to a Gallup poll published Wednesday.

And previous polls taken over the past decade have consistently found that between 44 and 47 percent believe God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.

"It's a uniquely American problem," McCarthy said.

Evolution is not well taught in US schools and many religious groups advocate a literal interpretation of the Bible.

One such group, which runs a 27 million dollar "Creation Museum" in Kentucky where animatronics dinosaurs frolic with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, is hosting a free conference this weekend refuting evolution.

There are many more working behind the scenes to challenge or limit the teaching of evolution in the classroom, said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education.

"There has been a concerted effort by a pretty well funded movement to educate the public that evolution is weak science, and scientists are giving up on it and making the argument that you have to choose between evolution and religion," Scott told AFP.

The vast anti-evolution movement has developed over the decades, but has been sharply drawn in the courts since the famous 1925 case when a young biology teacher, John Scopes, was put on trial for teaching evolutionary theory in Dayton, Tennessee.

It was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas law making it a crime to teach evolution and ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban the teaching of evolution under the powers of the separation of religion and state.

In 1987, the Supreme Court then ruled it was against the constitution to force creationism to be taught in schools, as that would be promoting religion in the state education system.

In the last decade, a number of attempts have been made to promote the teaching of "intelligent design" -- the contention that life is too complex to have originated without a creator -- as an alternative to evolution.

That theory has also been unable to pass the religious test in the courts, and so anti-evolutionists are instead trying to force teachers to allow for "criticism" of controversial science.

An "academic freedom" bill was passed in Louisiana last year and five other states are currently considering similar legislation, Scott said.

"The latest strategy is not to promote the frank teaching of intelligent design, but to sneak it in through the back door," she said in a telephone interview.

"In the biology business we'd call that adaptation - if nothing else evolves, the creationists do. They're always coming up with ways to subvert evolution."

[CptSternn]

I mean seriously, a 27 million dollar creationism museum complete with cavemen riding dinosaurs. Is that what it has come to?

Cap, why didn't you include the percentage of Americans that believe UFO/aliens are real? "You don't believe in evolution but you believe in little grey men?"
i love polls.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

I mean seriously, a 27 million dollar creationism museum complete with cavemen riding dinosaurs. Is that what it has come to?

http://biochemicalsoul.com/wp-conten...10/2h6yet5.jpg
http://www.thismodernworld.com/3584
http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpres.../biblesaur.jpg

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/i...tor7761838.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...tor5436445.jpg

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/i...nt=trailer.jpg
http://www.creationevidence.org/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/9/105322/6744
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...jesushorse.jpg

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...r7626607-1.jpg
http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/i...o-facepalm.jpg

[HumanePain]

I was shocked to read that only 39% believe in evolution. No wonder money based televangelism continues, people blindly follow anyone appointing themselves religious leaders and then believe without question everything they say. This is how Americans will be led to wars again and again, like sheep.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by All Shall Be Judged

Catholicism's dogmatic expansions upon Christianity. Christianity warns against false prophets; Catholicism posits one man as God's spokesperson on Earth.

Christianity: The Belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Catholics believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Ergo Catholics are Christians.

Anything else is just conjecture over how to go about worshiping him.

[Apathy's_Child]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Christianity: The Belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Catholics believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Ergo Catholics are Christians.

Anything else is just conjecture over how to go about worshiping him.

She said they EXPANDED on it, not that the two are essentially different, and these expansions are directly related to how they go about worshipping Christ. Although they are Christians, Catholics (though mostly orthodox ones nowadays) are also a law unto themselves about plenty of things. My Italian grandparents are pretty psycho about the Pope's right to speak for God, and it sure isn't nationalism talking - they detest Italy.

[Despanan]

Oh really?

Originally Posted by All Shall Be Judged

Catholics: not to be confused with Christians.

and CLEARLY your self-hating Italian grandparents speak for all Catholics.

ASBJ's argument was barely an argument. "Christianity warns against false prophets?"

Who the fuck doesn't warn against false prophets? Does that stop nearly every christian denomination from getting involved, at some point, with some sort of false prophet?

The Doctrine of Papal Infallibility isn't so much about the Pope being perfect, or divorced from sin, or even the voice of God. It doesn't even apply unless the Pope is speaking Ex Cathedra.

Papal infallibility means that the Pope is the voice of the church, which is (at least in theory) an incarnation of the voice of God.

In short, the Catholics have a church. Said church has a leader, and sometimes, when the church argues about the finer points of scripture, said leader has to make a decision. That decision goes.

How the fuck else do you think they should do it?

Papal infalibility is more like how the supreme court is allowed to interpret the constitution. Are the supreme court justices not Americans because America warns against tyrants?