Creationism's Legacy: Anti-intellectualism

Originally posted by nj2day
I don't think the one's that do that though are anti-intellectuals, I just think they want to inject their own propaganda into the brainwashing of our youth...

Its easier to keep a church going if the next generation has already been brainwashed into thinking their views are legit, or scientifically valid

Yea. Where I'm from that's what Catholics do instead of knocking on doors and generally evangelizing. They make more Catholics than get more Catholics.

Ether way, it's still gonna develop an anti -- you know what I'm sick of typing it out so I'm just saying -- AI generation. Once they've been indoctrinated till 7, you have their minds for life and they are AIs.

[edit on 10/30/2008 by Good Wolf]

meh.. yah, I can see that...

brainwashed kid=brainwashed adult... thus more AI's...

Point conceded... well done

reply to post by redled


The Catholic Church is in complete agreement with the scientific evidence of evolution. Their God was clever enough to start with the big bang and have everything evolve from that instant of creation. The Catholic Church realizes that the Bible was written by many people over thousands of years and started as oral tradition. They know it is not to be taken literally but is an allegorical collection of stories that are to guide one along the path. The Old Testament and the New Testament are often at odds with one another and the old often contradicts itself. That is what happens when things are handed down and misinterpreted and mis copied over many generations. The Old testament was written in Aramaic and the New Testament was written in Greek, the universal language of the times. Some gospels may still be out there [Phillip, for example] that were never included in the early church teachings.
The problem is not that some uneducated folk are denying the age of the universe and our solar system because a crazed Anglican bishop counted days and guessed that the world was 6,000 years old based on stories that were considered important enough to write down without considering how the concepts and words for time periods had changed. The problem is not that these same uneducated folk have Bible Colleges that ordain other uneducated folk who can repeat what they were told, with conviction. The problem is not that these ordained ministers preach and tell their flock what they want to hear ["If you accept Jesus, you will be saved, no matter what"]. The problem is that they are forcing their beliefs on others by trying to teach "Intelligent Design" in science classes. ID doesn't belong in science classes because it is not science, it is religion. It would belong in a religion class that would be explaining how an all knowing God would have to do things piecemeal instead of at the instant of creation. Maybe the God of the ID folks is a second rate God if he/she can't figure out how to create from the beginning. Would the ID folks forego the Christian Bible for the creation story of Gilgamesh? How about the creation story of the Cherokee tribe? Both are as valid as the Christian Bible if we are considering alternate theories.

We must be wary of the anti-intellectualism that our brothers are promoting 500 years after the Catholic Church burned witches at the stake. Perhaps they are envious of the record and just trying to catch up by forcing their dogma on an unsuspecting student population. They should teach ID in Sunday School but allow children to learn about science unhindered by those who would try to reinject their own religious beliefs in our schools. Praying over test tubes is not the way to do science.

As Voltaire said, "Love the man that searches for the truth but beware of the man who has found it."

reply to post by pteridine


I'm really surprised that that was brought up way more often. Love of God(s) brought about the curiosity for truth, but that faith also fenced the curiosity in once it became a threat.

[edit on 10/31/2008 by Good Wolf]

Originally posted by BluegrassRevolutionary
reply to post by Good Wolf

 

I could not agree more.

And people wonder why the US is falling way behind in the areas of math and science. We as a society should not tolerate such non-sense. Creationism is a BELIEF, evolution is a SCIENCE...there is a big difference.

right right.. i agree...

but what if my own rationalism led mea to the deduction that a separate intelligent species genetically created and influenced early stages of my specie's civilizations.

wouuuulld I be anti-intellectual if i used reason to deduct this?

like... as in .. not the "hocus-pocus-invisible-god-hand-creation-i-can't-imagine-how-he-did-it-because-god-is-unimagineably-greater-than-me-and-i'm-a-lowly-gullible-cre ationist-human.. ..."

but actually test tube nano-manipulation of genes... and embryos in vats type of "creation"


enter... the most massive monkey wrench your argument could have imagined.



edit: - holy crap ok.. I had no idea this thread was 22 pages long.
just saw the first couple posts.. i'm sure what I said has been brought up a few times already.

-

[edit on 31-10-2008 by prevenge]

reply to post by prevenge


No actually. It's ALL been about evolution, ID, creationism and anti-intellectualism. No ones talk about GM in early evolution, but it's not really relevant.

reply to post by Good Wolf

I'm really surprised that that was brought up way more often. Love of God(s) brought about the curiosity for truth, but that faith also fenced the curiosity in once it became a threat.

Yeah ... agreed ...

This is just speculation but ...

Back, back in the days, a lot of discoveries about the world would have been made during the search for the divine.

People wanted to find out where the sun god slept at night or where the Earth ended and the Heavens began etc

During these early adventurers journeys, these original seekers of the truth, they would have realised that many of the things that they thought were acts of their gods where in fact controllable by them, humans.

Some of this knowledge was shared or stolen and became common in it's use like fire for example.

Of course, these discoveries led to other things being kept secret or hidden and used for manipulation and power. Still happening today, we can see ...

But it's ironic, in the context of this debate, that what began as the search for things in the assumption that "God did it", resulted in the increase of intellectual knowledge.

Edit - addition of info


[edit on 31/10/08 by Horza]

reply to post by Horza


Also you could say that there are two kinds of faithful followers.

A) The one who practices their faith by looking for the divine and makes discoveries.

B) The other is the one who practices their faith by making up stories and mashing them up with events thereby making discrepancies with actual history. Successive generations feel that these stories have some kind of divinity (word of God) in these stories. The stories, not being based on fact, conflict with real facts causing frustration. The B's gain a "We are right, they are wrong" mentality and become literalists.

Edit: Rewrite for clarity.

[edit on 10/31/2008 by Good Wolf]

[edit on 10/31/2008 by Good Wolf]

Originally posted by prevenge

but actually test tube nano-manipulation of genes... and embryos in vats type of "creation"

The idea that humans have been put here by an alien species does not have the evidence behind it to be considered as an alternative to evolution.

For me the evidence that shows that all life has evolved from a common ancestor right here on Earth is very clear.

Now, how that common ancestor came to be is a different story altogether.

The idea that the common ancestor of all life was put here by aliens could be considered, as a hypothesis for the theory of abiogenesis

Abiogenesis has no answers as yet so any idea and their supporting evidence can be presented for analysis.

Is there any evidence to support ... how do you say ... GM?

reply to post by Good Wolf


Well that and Catholicism has been around long enough that they don't have to be aggressive door to door salesmen anymore. They kinda started the Church thing after all...

Which reminds me, I need to finish adding the flux capacitor to my time machine...

Originally posted by Horza

The idea that humans have been put here by an alien species does not have the evidence behind it to be considered as an alternative to evolution.

Depends on what you're looking at... or should I say through. If it's through a microscope then no. But if you're studying archaeological finds and the world's religions and mythologies, then there is evidence. **evidence being different then proof**

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy

Depends on what you're looking at... or should I say through. If it's through a microscope then no. But if you're studying archaeological finds and the world's religions and mythologies, then there is evidence. **evidence being different then proof**

Hey hiya LL

Yeah, I guess there is evidence in those fields to suggest human/alien contact in the past.

But then to make the leap to the conclusion that we are GM experiments placed here by those aliens is a leap to far for me.

There is an hypothetical argument that we have been GM after we evolved ... like the interbreeding and artificial insemination stories that are about.

But I stress AFTER we evolved in that one.

reply to post by Horza


A lot of proclaimed abductees will tell you we're still being GMd.

reply to post by Horza


In fact most of these theories are actually inline with the theory of evolution. As it goes they say aliens intervened in the evolutionary processes that were already taking place.

reply to post by Good Wolf


I might

I would like incorrect information removed from school textbooks. If evolution falls due to that, so be it. I am not suggesting replacing that with creationism or intelligent design.

EVRs, being viruses, may be selective of their positions in genes. Cancer, a virus, seems to be selective of it's position. I have read that cancer moves to it's place in the body. For example, lung cancer injected in a stomach cancer location would move to the lungs, etc.

If EVRs are selective of their positions in genes, they may also be in similar locations in dogs, cats, rats, etc.

reply to post by Jim Scott


Some are, some aren't. Only a few have developed gene selection.

sorry NJ gonna have to prod ya with my pointy stick for the sake of national pride

Originally posted by nj2day

They would have had a different technology structure all together... remember, the South Americans were very technologically advanced, and were very astute at some of the sciences...

Apparently you fail to recognize that technology grows exponentially when multiple cultures meet up and share ideas... The Chinese were technologically superior to the Europeans less than 700 years ago. Where would Europe's technology be if Marco Polo never set sail?

same place it is now Marco polo's jorney is seriously questioned he fails to mention very important bits and he did nothing for technology that all came down the silk route

and the arab nations were the most advanced on earth around the 14th century ..... look what fundamentalism does for a people

Where would northern Europe be without Julius Caesar and Rome? when Caesar got to Gaul, it was inhabited by people using stone age technology... same with the British Isles.

when ceaser got to britain we had been mining tin and trading it with thier north african enemies(carthage for over 400 years)

it was a lot more advanced then the romans would have you beleive, we had after all been trading with the romans(and become semi romanised) before they even sailed from france and we had probabily the most organised religeonous structure in northern europe (gauls came to learn druidism in wales)

i also think one of the advancing factors has been war not just cultural sharing, we have replaced enviromental pressure with our own version,

as we have become adept at agricuture and animal husbandry there was less pressure to find food stuff etc that should lead to semi stagnation, without real predators we had no pressure from that angle either so we built in our own, we became our own predators for resources and food

essentially we replaced the natural enviorment with ourselves, suddenly we have to grow more food to replace what was taken, improve buildings/defences to withstand attacks weaposn to defend our selves, which inspires better weapons to attack better weapons to negate defenses etc

its home spun factors that have driven our evolution, i think this may explain why our cousins didnt take off as we did, they didnt breed fast enough to put them selves under pressure

if there was more of them we possibley wouldnt have been here at all

pahh britian using stone tools .. [/patriatism]

sorry back to topic

Originally posted by DangerDeath
But, this is what I really want to expose.
I once saw a TV show on polar wolves. It was about a pair of wolves and they had cubs. Now, one of them will go and hunt, the other will stay and take care of the little ones.
The hunter catches a hare and brings it home. Now both grown wolves start tearing the hare in two.
The voice-over tells us that they are FIGHTING over it, and explains to the audience that this is normal instinctive behavior which purpose is SURVIVAL.

no they wernt fighting over it yes they were sharing in a way (they still have a pecking order if they wernt the alpha male/female so one would feed first then the other)

but i think your view of survival is VERY limiting

yes they share, capuchin monkeys in experiments share nuts equally amongst them selves if they co-operate to gain access to the food, and a million other instances in over a hundred other species its called mutual survivability,

why do wolves hunt in packs? becasue its easier to bring down thier prey in a pack then alone and the size of the prey can be increased if a wolf becomes sick or injured and cant really help in the hunt it still gets fed(unless its terminal then they will be driven out) it just drops down the pecking order until its back to full health

they may have not been fighting for the food but that doesnt mean survival doesnt exist. its just your view of survival seems a bit skewed


unless your getting all phylosophical about all life comming to an end

But in modern human ideology, there is no such word - sharing.

yes there is look you just used it

This is such a powerful idea, isn't it? And is it really impossible to get rid of its influence once and for all?

powerful but wrong and a bit emo

guess what evolution to the rescue with a happy face, why do you feel pity for strangers you dont know who are crying or need help

why do you then help some of those strangers knowing/expecting them not to pay you back

yes you guessed it mutual survivabilty your preprogrammed to feel comopasion and the desire to help other people even complete strangers, it came about when our small groups huddled in our caves we depended on everyone to help with our survival so we shared and co-operated and now we live in much bigger groups and that instincts still there

how about that survival exists and you dont have to be all melodramatic about it

smile its natures way of making things good

reply to post by noobfun


Mutual survivability.

Let us not forget the tendency for dolphins of protect other animals in the water from sharks. Mythbusters proved that sharks won't attack prey if a dolphin is in direct vicinity.