Creationism vs Intelligent design vs Evolution

[Central Scrutinizer]

All,

 

I couldn't give a shit less what people think and believe in the privacy of their own homes and churches, unless their religion hurts others and the kids in the families. (I do believe there should be a law keeping people from brainwashing their kids with their religious gobbledygook though. Not fair to the kids to have this superstitious nonsense shoved down their throats just because Mommy and Daddy believe in fairy tales. Fucks many kids up it does. Takes them many years of therapy to get this silly nonsense and guilt trip crap out of their lives. I consider it a form of child abuse myself. Teach them to read and write and think for themselves, then let them decide at the age of reason whether or not they want to study the religions of the world and choose one for themselves to follow.)

 

What I do oppose vehemently is these people's religious bodies taking the monies they are given and becoming political action commitees trying to change the laws of the land to their belief system's twisted religious views and to try to force their religious views on the educational system of their country. Once a religion becomes politically active and uses the monies they collect from their parishioners in their tithe baskets to do these things it is time to tax the living shit out of them, because they are no longer a religion, but a political entity trying to impose its will on the (what should be in my view anyway) secular governments of the countries of the world that are needed to be fair, equal, and dispassionate to do their job at governing the people. There should be no gods in government. They don't belong there, they belong in their churches.

 

And what really pisses me off is they are trying to force this tripe and their voodoo beliefs into our public school systems! They already HAVE the fucking right to have their own religious schools, but are they happy with that? No, they want to brainwash us all, believers AND non-believers. And if they could get away with burning the non-religious among us at the stake as witches again, they more than likely would in their superstitious fear of anyone not believing what they believe. In their simple minds their way is the right way, their beliefs are the only true belief, and all else are infidels to be burned in hell.

 

Let me burn in hell, rather than have these fools and charlatans run my life, ruin my country and world, and drag the human race back into the dark ages.

 

Amen brothers. ::

 

Cent

[..]

Cent said:

I consider it a form of child abuse myself. Teach them to read and write and think for themselves, then let them decide at the age of reason whether or not they want to study the religions of the world and choose one for themselves to follow.

Hallejuah brother Cent! Papa & Mama Tiger did just that. Mama Tiger was raised a Southern Baptist, but had her doubts; Papa Tiger was an atheist. They agreed (I learned when I was older) after mucho arguing, on a comprise regading this cub's upbringing. Papa Tiger would say nothing on the religion subject. Mama Tiger was free to send me to church as long as it was not radical. They chose Lutheran because it seemed pretty "normal". At the age of 14, Papa Tiger would set me down and ask if I believed in any of that stuff and if I wanted to keep on going. My uncoerced decision was the final say. Well, I did the Sunday church thing, the vacation Bible school thing, the christian summer camp thing up til I was 14. And Papa Tiger was right there with Mama Tiger at those events. Then the talk. And my response to Papa Tiger was "I think it's a load of BS, Pa". And that was that. Mama Tiger still went to church semi-regulary. And we went as a family at Easter & Xmas just to make her happy.

 

Now with my own kids, I try to instill a healthy skecptism in them and they have it. But Mom is at best a part-time Buddhist in that she rarely goes to the wat, but knows how all the rituals work even if she does not practice them. She lives her life by Buddhist precepts (basically, the Bill & Ted method: "be excellent to each other") as do I, although I argue that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion sice there is no diety. Regardless, my family has no thinking that some sky fairy is going to save them from themself. And they know that they are their brother's keeper, not some mythical creature.

 

Cent said:

In their simple minds their way is the right way, their beliefs are the only true belief, and all else are infidels to be burned in hell. ...rather than have these fools and charlatans run my life, ruin my country and world, and drag the human race back into the dark ages.

And the real problem is that the "American Taliban" simply do not see that they are every bit as bad as the "radical Islamists" they so demonise.

 

Regards,

SD

 

PS -- I agree that anyone should be able to worship anything that they want in their private places and will fight for that right. But extend me the same courtesy and keep your stupid shit out of my life, PERIOD.

[Shit-Spattered Dog]

Cent said:

 

Let me burn in hell, rather than have these fools and charlatans run my life, ruin my country and world, and drag the human race back into the dark ages.

 

::

 

Cent

 

 

Umm, could we get back my Alien theory? ::

 

Shit

[..]

Cent, regarding the tax excempt churches. I agree fully, but it seems that the Busheviks only like pro-war preaching...since nobody has evey chastized Dobson, Robertson, or others for speaking pro-GOP. Heck the GOP schools churches about how to skirt the law, so you can't expect them to prosecute the law breakers, do ya?:

 

From WaPo: [color:"red"]As the presidential race was heating up in June and July, a pair of leaked documents showed that the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign was urging Christian supporters to turn over their church directories and was seeking to identify "friendly congregations" in battleground states.

 

Those revelations produced a flurry of accusations that the Bush campaign was leading churches to violate laws against partisan activities by tax-exempt organizations, and even some of the White House's closest religious allies said the campaign had gone too far...

 

In battlegrounds such as Ohio, scores of clergy members attended legal sessions explaining how they could talk about the election from the pulpit. Hundreds of churches launched registration drives, thousands of churchgoers registered to vote, and millions of voter guides were distributed by Christian and antiabortion groups...

 

According to religious leaders, the conference calls with White House officials started early in the Bush administration and became a weekly ritual as the campaign heated up. Usually, the participants were Rove or Tim Goeglein, head of the White House Office of Public Liaison. Later, Bush campaign chairman Ken Mehlman and Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and the campaign's southeast regional coordinator, were often on the line.

 

The religious leaders varied, but frequent participants included the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, psychologist James C. Dobson or others from the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, and Colson.

 

"They did an extremely discreet job," Colson said. "It wasn't like: 'Do this. Contact these voters.' It was: 'Here's what's going on in the campaign.' It was just keeping people informed, and that's all they had to do. It was respectful of the fact that you're talking to religious leaders who are individuals, who should not be in the hip pocket of any political party."

 

The Bush campaign enlisted thousands of religious "team leaders" in its canvassing efforts. According to activists in battleground states, however, Christian groups were often out ahead of the campaign. [/color]

 

But on the other side of the aisle, the IRS threatens to take away the tax exempt status of a church for preaching that Jesus opposed war. From LA Times:

 

[color:"blue"]The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

 

Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.

 

In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

 

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

 

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church ? " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections. [/color]

 

Cheers,

SD

[Central Scrutinizer]

Shit,

 

Ah no, Erich Von Daniken and his ilk are just as whacked and deluded as the creationists, and just as likely to be able to ever prove his and their fantastic theories and postulations. I believe in evolution, and I believe mankind reached heights of civilization much earlier in time than is conventionally thought today. All the clues and things Von Daniken trots forth (and all the others who later jumped on his band wagon) are just as easily explained as being the work of ancient human beings, modern human beings in their DNA make-up just as intelligent as we are today. These ancient humans, although not as mechanically adept as we are today or industrialized as we have become, had the brain power to do everything put up as being of alien manufacture and origin. And yes, they had their geniuses as well as we do every generation. So it is just as easy to believe in my mind that these anomalies found around the world from ancient times to be the work of man himself, rather than some alien race watching us throughout history. In fact, it's easier.

 

There is not one iota of evidence that we are biologically manufactured by space creatures, nor gods of any sort. And I have full faith that one day soon in the future scientists, if the religious fanatics of the world leave them be to do the science required and let them be adequately funded as they should be, will be able to show the proof of this.

 

Religion and its fanatical adherents has held us as a race back long enough. They've stifled human development for millenium. They've tortured, burnt, maimed, mutilated, and slaughtered the best and brightest of our species for as long as we've had religions.

 

The best thing that could happen to the human race is if all forms of religious institutions were outlawed from having any influence on the governments of the world or our educational institutions.

 

DO I think that there are other lifeforms in the universe? Yes, I do. But are they here meddling with us intelligent apes and watching us for thousands of years. No. And no, I don't think they created us.

 

I have read, and believe plausible, that scientists think that life came to earth from outer space, but not from alien peoples, but from meteorites from an early Mars that was struck by a comet or asteroid, which drove material into space that had microscopic bacteria in it that seeded the ancient earth and started the formation of life here.

 

But you are free to believe what you want. :: The alien feces scenario was a good one. But if they are that advanced to visit our planet from millions of light-years away, wouldn't they have thought of the same thing as our scientists have for many years already? How to decontaminate themselves so as not to contaminate a pristine planet and the lifeforms that may have already started growing on a planet's surface? Surely they would be just as smart or smarter than we are.

 

JMHO. And if they are like the creature in Predator, well, they would have killed us all by now anyways!

 

Cent

[Central Scrutinizer]

Shit,

 

Also, I'd much rather have evolved from some form of terrestial ancient primate than to have been brought about by some celestial alien's shit!

 

Cent

[Central Scrutinizer]

SD,

 

The more that comes out about what this man and his administration have done the more and more I think that he and many of them should be in a prison cell for a long, long, time.

 

Cent

[..]

Shamelessly ripped off from Corkscrew Alf.

 

Cheers,

SD

 

 

 

Friday, October 14, 2005 (pre-journal)

 

This USA Today poll is truly frightening. From my naive perspective I would have guessed that only 5 to 10 percent of those asked if they believed God created humans in the manner laid out in the Bible would have responded with a 'yes'.

 

I wonder what percent of them believe that the earth is flat; or that the sun revolves around the earth.

 

How about Jonah and the whale? (*)

 

And the world wide flood with Noah at the helm?

 

I suspect that if most of those people who said 'yes' to the question about God creating humans as described in the Bible actually sat down and read the Bible ... well, they just might walk away from this big comic book. To truly appreciate the wisdom of atheism you have to know something about religion. (**)

 

-------------

 

How much have you thought about the different explanations for how human beings came to exist on Earth (evolution guided by God, evolution without God's involvement or creation as described in the Bible)?

 

Great deal: 41%

Moderate amount: 35%

Not much: 17%

Not at all: 6%

 

How much does it matter to you which of these theories is correct?

 

Great deal: 40%

Moderate amount: 26%

Not much: 19%

Not at all: 14%

 

Which comes closer to your view about the relationship between science and religion?

 

Agree with each other: 24%

Conflict with each other: 35%

Not related: 36%

 

BIBLE VS. EVOLUTION

Which statement comes closest to your views?

 

God created human beings in their present form exactly as described in the Bible

 

All: 53%

Men: 45%

Women: 60%

 

18-29: 54%

30-49: 50%

50-64: 50%

65 and older: 60%

 

By income level

$75K and up: 37%

$50K-$74.9K: 51%

$30K-$49.9K: 56%

Under 20K: 70%

 

By religion

Catholic: 38%

Protestant: 66%

Non-Christian: 15%

None: 16%

 

Human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life, and God guided this process.

 

All: 31%

Men: 34%

Women: 29%

 

18-29: 27%

30-49: 38%

50-64: 32%

65 and older: 20%

 

By income level

$75K and up: 41%

$50K-$74.9K: 31%

$30K-$49.9K: 22%

Under 20K: 19%

 

By religion

Catholic: 50%

Protestant: 25%

Non-Christian: 31%

None: 29%

 

Human beings have evolved, but God had no part in the process.

 

All: 12%

Men: 17%

Women: 8%

 

18-29: 17%

30-49: 10%

50-64: 15%

65 and older: 11%

 

By income level

$75K and up: 29%

$50K-$74.9K: 12%

$30K-$49.9K: 11%

Under 20K: 4%

 

By religion

Catholic: 10%

Protestant: 6%

Non-Christian: 47%

None: 48%

 

Source: USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup telephone survey of 1,005 on Sept. 8-11. Margin of error +/- 3 percentage points.

 

-----------------

 

(*) Check out this wacky site. Yes, the author of this one believes that Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of a great fish before God allowed it to vomit Jonah on the beach.

 

(**) This explains why so many people who suffer religious training at an early age become atheists.

[Central Scrutinizer]

SD,

 

Thanks, interesting stats and links. Just goes to show how bad it is now. Sad part is the 18-29 year old group. The brainwashing is working it seems. Did notice that the higher your income the less "religious" you are likely to be. I would have liked them to show education levels as well.

 

I do sometimes have my doubts about evolution though. Every time I have seen the Jerry Springer show I can see that many haven't evolved at all. Likely the guests and audience of his show are very religious people though, and go to church every Sunday. ::

 

Cent

[Man at Work]

suadum said:

]The bigger question is "Why do you want to go back?"

 

Cheers,

SD

 

Because I am in F****king Krautland!

 

:cussing: :cussing: :cussing: :cussing: :cussing:

 

MaW