Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

spendi, What are you afraid of? That you might end up in hell-fire if you don't believe in the jesus myth?

I didn't just watch the PBS documentary on the IDiots lame and pathetic attempt to somehow reinvent the Monkey Trial, I read the transcripts. A dismal, nonsensical rhetoric as an an opinion of the trial in trying to twist the judge's words into a criticism of the trial itself doesn't wash.

The trial was breathtakingly inane. It was manicured so that it didn't upset anyone's delicate sensibilities. Evolution has no example of any such thing as sensibilities never mind the more delicate ones.

you must be joking. the born-over fundies are nothing but ready to be incensed at any given moment.

a couple of years ago i was looking at the ratings on the parents television council website. out of all of the entertaining, educational and dramatic programming available, the only show to get a green light was....(wait for it) Seventh Heaven ???
that's it?? nothing else was wholesome enough for the bible slapper's countenance? pathetic. american idol, a simple talent show was yellow lighted for cryin' out loud.

It was posited on the infantile notion, as are anti-creat posts on here, that you can tear institutions down without bothering about what is to replace them. As street vandals do.

ever read thomas paine?

To try to compare Christianity with a belief in a flat earth or in UFOs is too childish to discuss. As is a comparison with psychiatry.

aw heck no. fundies believe the earth is round; but only 6 thousand years old. and that cave men who couldn't make shoes made saddles so they could ride around on dino the dinosaur.

on the other hand, i have personally seen several human made aircraft that would be entirely plausable as a ufo if we did not know where they were from. such as the harrier jet. there are no winged creatures in nature that can ascend straight up in quite that fashion, and then flip it's wings over and zoom, zoom away.

christianity is quite comparable to psychiatry. you go and tell some guy all of your neuroses, he sells you his book to read, then demands you pay him for listening. if he actually did listen is usually open to debate.

One has to feel very sorry for any kids who find themselves in a classroom with idiotic suggestions of that sort being put before them with the authority of the government. And repetitively too.

because there's nothing idiotic about the whole convoluted and self contradiction of christian doctrine ?? dude, ya need to ease off on the sacramental wine. it's clouding your ability to discern between reality and fiction.

the kids that one has to feel sorry for are the ones who have the misfortune to be born into a family that eschews all logic in favor of archaic dogma. from the first breath, those poor kids are told that the world is a wicked place, that we are all born evil and full of someone else's sin. that every normal and natural urge they have is something dirty and merits shame.

that it is evil and wicked to dance at all, to hear, sing or play any music that is not just dripping in christly obsequiousness.

drinking blood and eating of flesh ? and repetitively, too ? are you kidding me? sounds more like Resident Evil to me. you don't think that's idiotic ?

I do indeed think that's idiotic. I wasn't talking about that stuff you see.

but you don't think it's irrevocably intertwined ? at least in the way it is presented ? i'm not sure about islam, or even judeaism, but with born again, or fundamental christianity, there is only one acceptable teaching of how humans came to populate the earth. and according to christian interpretation of scripture, intelligent design figures not at all.

imagine telling a fundamentalist christian that you believe that the story of god taken a rib from adam to create eve is nothing more than a rudimentary explanation of the first amoeba dividing? there'd be fireworks for sure.

it only adds to the the contradiction that fundamental christians are the foremost and loudest proponents of i.d. because of that. so how else can i see it ?

The reason you are, as I keep pointing out, is because of how easy it is to denigrate. One might just as easily talk about an atheist society cloning deliberately IQs of 70 or less to provide an easy to manage workforce for the dirty, dangerous and repetitive jobs. I don't see what moral or ethical objection to that there might be in evolution theory. The general idea has been floated in fiction. Some people think a more tender version already exists in the educational system.

first up, i don't consider a person who doesn't believe in the divinity of christ to be an atheist. until fairly recently in america, an atheist was a person who had no believe in any kind of higher power. to keep things clear as to what i do believe in, i believe, because there is good reason to, that there was/is a creator that must have been/be of a higher order than man. but i really don't believe that it is the same creator alluded to in the abrahamic religions.

i don't believe that one must be a christian or even an adherent of i.d. to believe that cloning drones is wrong. only to be an enlightened human being with the good sense to know that you would not like it to be done to you. therefore, we shouldn't do it.

if you mean that there is a lack of parity in the american educational system, i would have to agree with you there. which is why i can only shake my head when people complain about government spending on education. survival of the fittest only holds up when all are given an equal start; whatever that start may be.

you are in the u.k. ? i have a reason for asking that is germane.


But even allowing that there is a significant number of people in the US of the type you depict, which there certainly isn't here, what disadvantages do you see in it and what advantages do you see in them changing their behaviour.

i see no disadvantage to me personally if a person wants to pursue whatever faith they wish in their personal life and house of worship. where it becomes a problam for myself and others is when it spills out into areas and institutions that are meant to be secular in nature such as education, government and the military, for instance.


How do you account for the Burning Man movement. Or the church in Texas which has a congregation of 40,000 every Sunday.

they seem to be about the same to me in function. and like i said, what bothers me is when their spiritual stuff gets dragged into the aforementioned bodies. why ? because there's so many different spiritual beliefs, most of which are at odds with each other, that to include them in the mechanics of civilization is counterproductive, in my opinion. much time gets taken up trying to accommodate ( or not) instead of using the time for the original purposes of education, government and a military.

How do you know what the real motives of such a congregation are?

from what i can see, both are there to claim bragging rights on the largest number of people and to get money from them for gold watches and even bigger churches. i will say that i feel not so much hostility for some, such as osteen and schuller. at the very least they seem more intent on inspiration than castigation and threats of brimstone.

Psychiatry is about freeing the inner self. Christianity is about disciplining it.

i have to disagree. in my life, i've tried both. i have to stick to my previous assessment.


I'm not sure what reality is a lot of the time. It has a look of a floating bank of seaweed. I've read Naked Lunch though. And de Sade. Both are a part of reality.

know the feeling. i tend to think that we all do live in separate realities that intersect. perception is how we measure, but is our perception reality? hi-yah... have you ever read the thing about how a solid cone and water perceive each other when the cone is introduced, point first, into the surface of the water. interesting take on perception. i can't remember where i came across it. i'll try to remember and post if i find it.

People of religion seems to love war, and are responsible for the most destructive ones in modern times (and in history).