Richard Dawkins Celebrates a Victory over Creationists

Originally posted by newcovenant
reply to post by Astyanax

 

Can you be an evolutionist who believes in a creator and not get flamed even if you do not think that religion or creation should be taught in schools? I certainly hope the world of enlightened men are open to that.

edit on 18-1-2012 by newcovenant because: (no reason given)

I think a lot of evolutionists are open to that idea.

This is the equivalent to Stalin claiming a victory over his dissenters, when he sent them to the gulags. Why not win the debate in an actual debate. Pretty sad when the only way your worldview will be accepted is when you completely silence the opposition.

Originally posted by kingofmd
This is the equivalent to Stalin claiming a victory over his dissenters, when he sent them to the gulags. Why not win the debate in an actual debate. Pretty sad when the only way your worldview will be accepted is when you completely silence the opposition.

You're not silenced. You still have the opportunity to go to church and practice your beliefs. But those beliefs have no place in a public school science classroom and you don't have the right to force them on other people's children.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
reply to post by Astyanax

 

You call that a victory? Sounds more to me like its George Orwell's 1984.

You WILL teach what we want you to teach or we will take your funding !

You will not give kids a choice on what to believe, you will only force this one view on them or you won't be able to get funding for your school.

Dude.. this isn't a victory, it's a sham.. no matter what you believe about evolution vs intelligent design. These folks just used this creation vs evolution debate to gain power. That is the least scientific thing that could have happened.

If this reflects the state of science today, no wonder so many people choose to believe in ID on faith. Faith gives eternal hope - it doesn't let people down like science and politics do.

Some people shouldn't get funding for schools, that's what people are debating. You seem to have an "original" perspective on this.

Creationism advocates from the US traveled to Istanbul May 2007 to meet with their counterparts, seeking to galvanize their link in the fight to bring creationism to schools and universities in their respective countries. The meeting was endorsed by Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, a member of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). "There are outstanding figures within Islamic theology who have participated in this discussion. There is no reason to be surprised, there is a very rich tradition," David Berlinski, keynote speaker for the meeting and an analyst for the US-based Discovery Institute, an organization that opposes what it terms "neo-Darwinism," told ISN Security Watch. "This is a hot issue. We are in the midst of a worldwide religious revival. Historians 500 years from now will talk about the religious revival of the late 20th century and early 21st century." The meeting appeared to be well received by the audience of college and high school students, drawn from the city's elite education institutions. "Darwinism is, of course, against Muslim belief system as well," Ayse Sayman, a 20-year-old student at Istanbul's Bosphorus University told ISN Security Watch. "That is why it makes sense that it is debated here as well. And counter-arguments should be developed to the theory. That is why I am interested in this."

www.isn.ethz.ch...

Now, you get group like this, opening charter schools.

They have generic, forward-sounding names like Horizon Science Academy, Pioneer Charter School of Science and Beehive Science & Technology Academy. Quietly established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators, these 100 or so publicly funded charter schools in 25 states are often among the top-performing public schools in their towns. The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they'd make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade. But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania. Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and "contemporary Islam's Billy Graham," Fethullah Gülen has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called Gülen Movement operate an "education, media and business network" in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick.

www.usatoday.com...

Do you think it is correct that taxpayer's money should be funding "movements" like this?

Originally posted by HappyBunny

Originally posted by kingofmd
This is the equivalent to Stalin claiming a victory over his dissenters, when he sent them to the gulags. Why not win the debate in an actual debate. Pretty sad when the only way your worldview will be accepted is when you completely silence the opposition.

You're not silenced. You still have the opportunity to go to church and practice your beliefs. But those beliefs have no place in a public school science classroom and you don't have the right to force them on other people's children.

Well then evolution and the big bang shouldn't be taught in a classroom either. It is only a theory. A belief. Just like someones belief in creationism.

I mean, the idea that nothing produced something, and then that some thing decided to organize itself into a highly complex universe for no real reason, is as absurd to me as the idea of creationism is to you.

Originally posted by ManjushriPrajna
I've always found this one of those interesting things humans do. Arguing over the origin of life. Aren't you here now? What does it matter how you got here?

I agree with the whole "we shouldn't argue about stupid $" too.

However, one might think that the beginning of our species may tell us about the END of our species....

reply to post by alienreality


define better.

define worse.

reply to post by Astyanax


I don't want to get into a theological or philosophical argument.
So why are you here, you ask? To hold peoples minds open.
Not so open their brains fall out
but open enough some fresh organic air mingles with the possibilities at hand.

There may be no conscious design behind creation, but I don't think so.
I may be mistaken but I think I SEE the intelligent design itself.

I know hindsight is 20/20, call me naive, presumptuous but I think faith...even if it is an imaginary device made up in the minds of men could have saved souls like Chris Hitchens and George Carlin who went down fighting God tooth and nail.

I sent sympathy to Hitchens near the end and asked him to try belief as an experiment. What do you have to lose? I asked him. It would almost prove the existence of God if he suddenly and miraculously went into remission. God might have wanted him as a spokesperson for faith. I and many others on the fence might have needed it for irrefutable proof ourselves. He would not repent. I respect the character, integrity and independence of the man but I think he could have been more in tune with his own organic nature and trusted how that "organic nature" is connected with the cosmos. "The way" is always forward and when no longer moving that way, not uncommon to self destruct. Few things linger without constantly changing. Faith is a belief in the Supernatural and a way to direct the constantly moving into the stream of positive flow.

Maybe early man already figured out humans need the hope of a God to grab onto even if the concept is not exactly accurate and acts like a placebo. But there is still the other possibility: there is a design and a designer.

What about the God Particle and "spooky action at a distance?"


Here are some thoughts to mull over and perhaps recognize as truth also...




Description of video:

Terence McKenna speaks in 1998 about what is known as 'The Strange Attractor,' or as he refers to it - the transcendental object at the end of time. He proposed that time and history flow towards an event in the perceived future (rather than being pushed by events in the past). Though time as we experience it flows from past to present, perhaps the fundamental nature of time and causal universal relationships is less linear than commonly believed. Could there be/will be/have been an event somewhere along the timeline that set things into motion and allowed for the existence of consciousness and the experience of time itself? Perhaps that event initiated a process that formed a loop which both posed a question and then answered itself (with the help of history and our participation within it).

"The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr. Deasy said. All human history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God." ~ James Joyce, (Ulysses)

reply to post by kingofmd


The opposition isn't silenced, they are called Sunday Schools and Secular schools. Your churches already get tax breaks, and you can worship without prosecution.

As Happy said, your religion is upset because you lost a powergrab.

What always amazes me about these points that creationists make is that they are upset that government isn't teaching their children creationism.

IMHO, a Creator will be proven in the not so distance future using quantum mechanics/physics. There has already been some fascinating research done.
Cosmic Consciousness shows some promise. Yet proving it will be the hard part as we are observers.

Originally posted by bargoose

Originally posted by HappyBunny

Originally posted by kingofmd
This is the equivalent to Stalin claiming a victory over his dissenters, when he sent them to the gulags. Why not win the debate in an actual debate. Pretty sad when the only way your worldview will be accepted is when you completely silence the opposition.

You're not silenced. You still have the opportunity to go to church and practice your beliefs. But those beliefs have no place in a public school science classroom and you don't have the right to force them on other people's children.

Well then evolution and the big bang shouldn't be taught in a classroom either. It is only a theory. A belief. Just like someones belief in creationism.

Again, you're showing your ignorance of science and how it works. See, the Big Bang theory and evolution are based on testable and reproducible results. When you design an experiment, you design it to disprove your own theory.

Creationism in a science classroom couldn't even do that. How do you set up an experiment to prove:

1) God exists
2) That he created everything

What is your null hypothesis? How do you go about testing that?

You can't, and that's why it isn't taught in a science classroom.

I mean, the idea that nothing produced something, and then that some thing decided to organize itself into a highly complex universe for no real reason, is as absurd to me as the idea of creationism is to you.

Where did God come from, then? Was he produced ex nihilo, out of nothing? Or was he himself created? If God is a creator he must be an awful lot more complex than we are, right? Therefore, using your own reasoning, he must have been created because nothing that complex can just spring out of nothing. Therefore, an even more complex entity must have created God.

And don't tell me he always existed. That's not a logical argument, because if God always existed then there always remains the possibility that life always existed and was never created at all.

God is conciousness and your a part of it.
Conciousness creates what you see around you.

Read more here;
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's funny how most of those who want "ID" taught in school are also those who scream the loudest over "gubment all up in my business, evil welfare frauds and evil illegals, etc" eating up THEIR taxpayer money, YET cry oppression , Stalinist gulags and being dragged back to the dark ages when others refuse to support the government funding the disinformation of children with taxpayer's money.

As many have previously stated, you are free to tell your children the entire Grimm's catalog and all the bearded man in the sky and the evil rib-woman stories you want.
You are also free to send them to bible studies, church or wherever you find fit to learn about clay people 6000 years ago.

However, state funded schools MUST be kept secular and as grounded in reality as possible.

It's bad enough children are fed so much crap to start with, in most school systems, why add more confusion and fact-free indoctrination?

Also, I don't think anybody should have an option in even remotely deciding what any child will or won't be taught before they themselves learn the difference between a scientific theory and a theory as used in common vernacular.

This is not just a small victory for Richard Dawkins, it's a victory for reason and the future generation.

The Omniscient Holy Father created the universe and everything in it, and is so super intelligent that he created animals and plants to evolve and adapt to their surroundings. now wouldn't that make more sense than believing one over the other?

I grew up in the bible belt so needless to say not many teachers spent a whole lot of time on evolution. The only teacher who tried to go over it well was heckled in his own class. I feel totally screwed by missing out on that in a classroom. If religious people have a problem with evolution being taught in school then they need to be reminded it is scientific theory..not fact...but hey so is gravity and we teach this theory as fact because even a limited amount of knowledge on a subject needs to be passed down in hopes a future generation can further what we consider fact.

Originally posted by troubleshooter
reply to post by Astyanax

 

I think both models will be superceded.

Yes, I believe that evolutionary theory is inadequate to explain the rates of change that we observe in the few instances where we have genetic change. As such it shows the mechanism of change cannot be happening by this process.

For instance, the change in birth weights of the children of Dutch women after the first and second world wars.

Or nearly any other instance (vinyl eating bacteria, the changes in coloration of the European Peppered Moth); they happened too fast.

Perhaps this could be explained if genetics were being modified intelligently "on the fly" and that evolution was only one possible mechanism of genetic change and that other things were happening too.

Then we get to the problem of genetic damage. We are seeing the degradation of genomes happening before our eyes in historical terms. The human male chromosome has perhaps 50,000 years left in it (according to Sykes). Ginger hair will be gone in a few hundred. This argues strongly against millions of years of evolution.

Evolution alone is as absurd as a recent creation that happened once and then stopped.

Something cannot come out of nothing, i understand that.
Call it god if you will,
But i will call it the Universe, seeing as how we are all contained in it, it is the reason we live, it is the reason we are the way we are.
Universal conciousness,

God of today is described as Being (Being christian, Being jewish, etc)
What if god is not being, you can't just say 'I believe' and have it work.

What if god is 'Becoming',
What if god is just as incomplete as we are?
The universe is expanding, and if god = the universe,
Then the universal conciousness of god (which is all of everything ever) is just that, the ever expanding universe. Ever creating life, intelligent design? Not during the big bang (which i do believe happened as we have semi-proof of this). 'God'(The universe) was nothing before the big bang, but you cant have nothing without something. So there was something, lets call it 'conciousness' on some sort of level. Minor form of conciousness to create something to expand its own conciousness. God.

Notice how the brain activity looks like the universe as well? The tree of life? We are part of god, the universe.

We shouldn't teach either evolution or religion in class.
Scientific proof is an oxymoron
Religious proof is also that.

reply to post by Astyanax


Dawkins is a joke. He hasn't provided any real evidence supporting any of his books. Just another naturalist who wants to make a few bucks.

Richard Dawkins should really learn some humility.

I'm sorry but the man has alwaysed bugged me.

ALS

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Richard Dawkins should really learn some humility.

I'm sorry but the man has alwaysed bugged me.

ALS

Yes, I also think he is a bit arrogant.

I also believe that he frequents ATS.