5 responses so far ↓

• 1 Bob // May 9, 2005 at 8:11 am

  How ironic.

  Science was created by the church so many centuries ago to help better understand God’s Creation. Now, there’s a branch of Christianity that is so scared of science that they push reality into the closet.

  This attention grabbing headline is really just that, an attempt at publicity. The rest of the world (that being defined as everything outside of Kansas) is well aware of Darwin’s theories.

  Too bad no one has developed the ‘De-Evolution’ Theory so we could put most of the Kansas crew back into the tress with their ancestors, whether they recognize their own family or not.

• 2 Mike // May 9, 2005 at 9:13 am

  I was pretty amazed when I read that, not because I was shocked, but because my wife and I had predicted that as the next step. We were talking over coffee one night about the different ways that religious groups would begin to deal with Science in general. We determined that the next logical step for religious groups would be to flat out reject, ignore, or redefine Science. Seems like that is coming true.
  I’ve tried to explain to people that I know that are proponents of “Intelligent Design” and “Creationism” that Science does not have the luxury of putting a little lightning bolt over a process and stating that the reason is divine intervention. In Science, you have an answer or you do not. This doesn’t seem to disarm them, which is unfortunate, because it is not the goal of Science to prove or disprove God. In order for God to be God, as an entity, God should not be scientifically provable. Therefore, if it is a matter of faith to accept God, evolutionary theory should be seen as non-threatening. And yet it isn’t.
  As the husband of a Science teacher, and someone with a B.S. in Biology as well, I am disturbed by the idea that educational standards can be so distorted. Let Scientists teach science – you can teach your religious beliefs to anyone that will listen on their own time.

• 3 Bob // May 9, 2005 at 9:29 am

  The really disturbing part is that so many denomnations of Christianity accept Evolution as God’s method of Creation, not as a parallel and competing theory.

  The “Fundamentalists” have given away their God given right to think for themselves and, in the process, make the rest of us think of them as idiots.

  Take a group of people who have given away responsibility for their own thinking, add a political component and you have as serious a threat to American government as there ever has been.

• 4 Rick Horowitz // May 9, 2005 at 9:55 am

  I’m actually starting to see the non-fundamentalists — whether religious or not — being “as serious a threat to American government as there ever has been.”

  Why?

  When was the last time you — and because I know I have one reader who periodically mistakes my comments as aimed specifically at him, let me point out that I actually mean any of you reading this — contacted your congressional or state representatives to tell them how you feel?

  For more on why this is important, please read my article Confronting the Judicial War on Faith.

  The irony is that the fundamentalists, for all their noise, bluster and current influence over the political system, are actually one of the smaller minorities when you get right down to it. They’re turning our government and our schools into a joke because, collectively, the rest of us allow it.

  The “intelligent design” theory versus actual intelligence — that is, Christian Creationism versus Evolution-based Biology — in Kansas is just one example of that. What keeps happening there is that a theocratic school board gets elected, because only about 10% of voters ever vote in a school board election. When they make a mockery of their school system by pushing “science” based on the Bible, rather than real science, they’re either struck down in court, voted out of office in a recall election by voters who have finally awakened after the fact, or both. By the next election, the non-religionists have forgotten what happened, stay home and — voilá — another theocratic school board is elected and the cycle begins anew.

  The only people to blame, then, are those of us who don’t vote and don’t stay involved in the issues by periodically talking to our elected representatives. All it usually takes is less than 5 minutes on the telephone. You spend more time gassing up your car.

  So why not contact your representative today? Heck, you can even tell them you read about it on Unspun™; after they start reading the website, you won’t have to call as often. 😉

• 5 Mike // May 10, 2005 at 9:40 pm

  I’m not sure that Christians need to see evolution as a “competing theory”. While it is a competing theory in the sense that it presents a very different model from those presented by Creationism, Intelligent Design, etc., evolution in and of itself is actually completely unaffected by religious dogma. What I mean is that there is virtually nothing that religion can “prove” that would disprove evolution quite simply because religion is based on faith. Therefore, it is difficult for me to see evolution as a competing theory because religion does not present a systematic methodology for establishing fact that competes with the methodology of Science, therefore evolution cannot be considered a “competing theory” with any explanation of origin presented by religious groups quite simply because they do not present a model of proof that is as stringent as that of Science.
  From a different perspective as well, even if evolution were 100% true in its currently understood form, it would not disprove God. God cannot be proven or disproven given Scientific method. Otherwise, God would not be much of a diety if God could be contained within a controlled experiment or empirical mathematical proof.
  So “competing theory” I cannot buy. Evolution is Science’s answer for the origin of life sans the “lighning bolt” luxury that I mentioned before. In order for anything to be a “competing theory”, the methodology upon which it is based would have to “compete” with the stringent methodology of Science. Basically, what I am saying is that religion needs to stop bastardizing Science and scientific method and stick to issues of religion and morality.
  As far as for what Rick said, I am going to begin contacting my representatives when I see an issue that bothers me. Rick has educated me on quite a lot already 🙂 Thanks again 🙂

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