Title: "Best Critique of Evolution You Will Ever Hear" Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Sep 1, 2017 Author:PNN Post Date:2017-09-01 17:33:27 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:15520 Comments:71
I have been saying this for decade or more. Evolution only works with in species and there has never been a species to species change.
Faith is faith. They claim science when in fact it is no different than religious faith. Creationism should be taught right along with evolutionism because both are just as plausible as the other.
The problem with creationism is that it pretty much cannot be proven. I've considered it a "default" theory, which can be embraced when no other theory, such as evolution, is found to be satisfactory.
If one is to embrace creationism because of lack of satisfactory proof of evolution, then a logical question is, if proof is a requirement to believe, then where is the proof of creationism?
The narrator asks if evolution observable, demonstratable, repeatable and quantifiable, but those requirements are completely lacking in creationism. To be fair, one must judge both by the same measure, and creationism most certainly fails on all 4 points.
So far as I know, evolution theory does have more to explain than has been explained thus far, namely how a new species can arise that has more genetic coding than the species it supposedly evolved from. On the other hand, science is claiming that much unused genetic material exists in plants and animals. For example, chicken DNA supposedly has coding for growing teeth. I would consider DNA coding for teeth in chickens to be evidence in support of evolution. I also read that Bananas, have about 50% more DNA material than us humans do, in spite of being a far simpler form of life.
I do understand why it is important for bible-believing Christians that creationism be the explanation for the origin of life, and it's because it's the only way man (us) can have an immortal soul existence. If all life is simply a complex biochemical reaction, and man evolved from animals, then we are the same as animals and face the same fate as animals. We live and die, gone forever. A very bleak thing indeed.
My personal understanding and outlook on the matter allows both for evolution and an immortal soul existence, without any conflict whatsoever. The human race may well have evolved from apes and lower life forms, including bacteria without compromising us as immortal soul entities. And frankly it makes a huge amount of sense. And, Ironically, it does allow for both evolution and intelligent design. I consider it possible that it is a combination of the two.
I do understand why it is important for bible-believing Christians that creationism be the explanation for the origin of life
I think that the main reason is that if Genesis is taken as allegory and not as literal fact, then the whole rigidly literalist structure of fundamentalist theology comes crashing to the ground. For if Genesis is allegory, then the Gospels, or Paul's letters, or anything else on which they build their religion may also be allegory, and they lose the ability to insist on the literal application of those things they like that run contrary to sentiments of other Christians.
I think that the main reason is that if Genesis is taken as allegory and not as literal fact, then the whole rigidly literalist structure of fundamentalist theology comes crashing to the ground. For if Genesis is allegory, then the Gospels, or Paul's letters, or anything else on which they build their religion may also be allegory, and they lose the ability to insist on the literal application of those things they like that run contrary to sentiments of other Christians.
Key words, "may be".
Certainly it's easier, mentally, to be able to embrace the bible as the literal "Word of God" than it is to subject it to scrutiny in which parts of it should be taken allegorically and which parts literally. That does open up a possible pandora's box of context, understanding of the day, the history and experience of the individual authors and so on. I think someone told me once that taking the bible as 100% divinely inspired is warranted because it's essentially the only road map we have, and with the element of faith that God most certainly would not have left mankind ignorant without some book that shows the way to salvation. Ergo, the bible must be the word of God.
Certainly it's easier, mentally, to be able to embrace the bible as the literal "Word of God" than it is to subject it to scrutiny in which parts of it should be taken allegorically and which parts literally. That does open up a possible pandora's box of context, understanding of the day, the history and experience of the individual authors and so on.
The Catholic Church chooses to do it the harder, more intellectually rigorous way, which requires scholarship and historical knowledge, as opposed to feelings and simple (and erroneous) shortcuts. The problem with the easy way is that then the Bible collapses into a welter of contradictions and other problems, such as "What's in the Bible". Each of those decisions then has to be made by short-cut (to defend the whole original logic), and it all then collapses into a "You just gotta BELIEEEVE" argument, asserting that one has to believe in what the critical eye observes is essentially unbelievable BECAUSE OF the contradictions. Which is why the Catholic approach, which is a lot harder, is nevertheless what you have to do if you want to arrive at a theology that is internally consistent and can stand up to the obvious problems with the text. Pretending the problems are not there doesn't do anything but alienate thinking people and render the whole thing unbelievable.
Contradictions. Is that the shit they teach in the Catholic cult. Trust the shithead popes who have a history of murder and covering up for pedophiles. No thanks. The Bible that you dont believe says you shall know them bh their fruits. The catholic church has some stinky rotten fruit.
And the Lutheran Church burnt 50,000 people as "witches" in Germany during Luther's period of rule. Also slaughtered Anabaptist peasants in great numbers.
And the Presbyterian Church burnt 20,000 people as "witches" in Scotland during the same period. Also slaughtered tens of thousands of Irish peasants to take their land.
And the Church of England executed convents and religious people and lay people who would not agree that the King of England was the head of the Church, presided over centuries in which Catholics were deprived of all civil rights, and unleashed armies into Ireland to kill the Irish for being Catholics.
And the Baptist Church upheld slavery and segregation, because blacks wore the "Mark of Cain" and bore the "Curse of Ham".
None are clean. None are without terrible sin. Not one.
Except maybe the Quakers. If we all agree that our historical churches did great evil - because they ALL did, every single one except the Quakers - and then, for that reason, we all agree to abandon the historical churches and join the Quakers, that is an acceptable solution for shutting down all of the old churches for all of their old evils. None is clean. All are killers - except the Quakers.
So, if the standard of judgment is "Your church once killed people and therefore is invalid", the entirety of Christianity that predates the late 20th Century is invalid, except for the Quakers.
You will know them by their fruit? Then we should all be Quakers, as they have no bad fruit.
Amid the evil, the Catholics do have the virtue of having the largest global network of charity, orphanages, schools, hospitals and irrigration projects of any religion, and larger on an international scale than any national government either. So on those grounds, charity in the present, we can see a lot of fruit in the Catholic Church. More than the Quakers, who have fine words and clean hands, but no ability to structure actual human organizations that provide relief for people on a permanent basis. Quakers are clean, and had a good run in the anti- slavery and women's suffrage movement. But today they are largely inert.
Catholicism is not clean historically, as people are not individually, but it has admitted to and repented of those sins of the past, and does great charity work today.
The Lutheran Church, Anglican Church, Presbyterian Church and Baptist Church still do not own up to the sins of their church pasts. They excuse it by "the times" as opposed to frankly admitting, as the Catholics do, those were sins and great evils done by my Church. We were wrong. And then today building vast charitable networks across the poor areas of the world, foreign and domestic. The Catholic Church formally acknowledges its historical sins, and seeks to make amends for them in the present.
Which of the Catholic enemies does that?
They don't. They don't confess their institutional sins. They still point at the Catholics and say "they were worse", but it isn't true. In the period where the Presbyterians burnt 20,000 people alive as "witches" in Scotland, precisely zero people were burnt as witches in Catholic Ireland. While Lutheran Germany was burning witches everywhere, Catholic Germany burnt none. The Catholics had gotten over that centuries before.
We certainly can talk about the sins of the Catholic Church. There were many. They are acknowledged and repented. Let's also talk about the murders and tortures and horrors perpetrated by all of the old Protestant Churches as well. We Catholics talk about sins of our Church, and you Protestants talk about the sins of our Church too. You don't admit to the sins of your own.
What are sinners to do? Repent and do better. Catholicism has done that. Protestantism has never formally and publicly repented its sins.
