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The Teaching Of Creationism

The general public may have some belief, which is fine. But there are also people, seemingly more intelligent than the average movie goer who not only believe but are willing to spend their time and money searching.

Former astronaut James Irwin led two expeditions to Ararat in the 1980s, was kidnapped once, but found no tangible evidence of the Ark. "I've done all I possibly can," he said, "but the Ark continues to elude us."

Because it didn't exist, buddy![/i][/quote]
 
chris138 said:
The general public may have some belief, which is fine. But there are also people, seemingly more intelligent than the average movie goer who not only believe but are willing to spend their time and money searching.

Former astronaut James Irwin led two expeditions to Ararat in the 1980s, was kidnapped once, but found no tangible evidence of the Ark. "I've done all I possibly can," he said, "but the Ark continues to elude us."

Because it didn't exist, buddy![/i]
Word. Nothing ever reached those lunar heights, did it Jimmy? I fully get why he wanted it to be there, but if only he'd spent that astronomical energy and expense on something more earthly we'd all be remembering him for it. The bible is very largely a fairy tale, and those who pursue fairy tales are inevitably ruined. That is not to say that the principles espoused aren't worthy of very close consideration, but FFS let's be grown up about it all.
 
Creationism is an evolutionary flag to help prevent intelligent, normal-functioning individuals wasting their time conversing with well-intentioned but wilfully narrow-minded fools.
 
Quite. The official "let's not go there" for folk who really consider.
 
When I was a child, we had religion rammed down our throats daily-a reading from the Bible every morning, just for starters.

As we grew older, the few atheists among us were regularly beaten up.

This engendered a hatred of religion.

Next generation saw religion as a way to rebel.

I grew up in York County PA, a hotbed of odd religious ideas-recently, an elected school board put their district into debt for generations by mandating Intelligent Design-and I've disliked organized religion all my life.

Religion comes and goes, but it never disappears-faith is part of most of us.

This has caused all manner of evil.
 
I was raised in a northern UK town where religion was seen as a private matter.
The town was full of churches: C of E, Catholic, Chapel, Evangelical and so on, and plenty of people went to them, but plenty didn't.

Nobody was discriminated against because of their faith or lack of it and nobody was beaten up over it.

I sometimes wonder if this is because the town was quite new. When I was growing up in the '60s, people could still remember their grandparents moving to the town from the country to get factory or engineering work. They'd have felt quite free and in control of their own lives and perhaps they weren't about to give all that up so easily.
;)
 
Faith never harmed anyone. It's a private matter, very much a personal conviction.

Religion has killed more people than bubonic plague.

Many people cannot abide 'otherness', they insist that all must conform(usually to their ideas, imagine that?) People also tend to a snowball effect, whereby the otherness provokes a more and more violent desire to enforce conformity, and a tighter view of that conformity.

Sooner or later, the urge to kill or maim takes over. I remember two schoolteachers discussing some very minor misconduct-"They won't stop it no matter what you do to them!" My way or no way?

This seems to be a fact of human life. There are Hallmark moments, yes, but there are massacres, too, and plenty of them

Ask the question, "Is it really worth a life?" Remembering that we cannot make a life return".

Humanity is but a bit lower than the angels-at least when he uses his mind and upholds what is right-we know what that is, all of us(with a few exceptions).

We must strive to be better.
 
Christian group behind controversial Creationist Museum to build 800-acre theme park with replica Noah’s Ark
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 61267.html

1 / 3
The biblical vessel would be the largest timber-framed structure in the US
TIM WALKER Author Biography LOS ANGELES Friday 28 February 2014

The Christian group behind a controversial Creationist Museum in Kentucky has announced that it has sufficient funds to begin construction on an Old Testament theme park, based around a 510ft replica of Noah’s Ark.

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The 800-acre “Ark Encounter” park would also feature a recreation of a pre-Flood village, a “Tower of Babel” containing an audio-visual effects theatre, and a theme park ride through the 10 plagues of Egypt. The biblical vessel would be the largest timber-framed structure in the US. Officials say they intend to break ground in May, and that the park will open to the public in 2016.

Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis and founder of the Creation Museum, wrote on his website that “God has burdened AiG to rebuild a full-size Noah’s Ark.” Yet after plans for the park were first unveiled in 2010, fundraising proved to be a challenge. The project is expected to cost more than $120m (£72m) in total, and needs at least $70m to complete its first phase. The ark alone will cost $24.5m to construct.

The park is being built by the founders of the Creation Museum. The park is being built by the founders of the Creation Museum. AiG says it has raised $14.4m in private donations. Last year officials from Williamstown, the northern Kentucky community where the park will be located, offered $62m in municipal bonds to investors, most of which it claims to have sold. “God in His providence supplied our needs,” said Ham in his announcement on Thursday. “We’re going to begin construction, and this is going to be great for the area … Let’s build the ark.”

In the announcement on its website, AiG claimed the park would attract as many as two million visitors to the area in its opening year. Development studies conducted by the state are more modest in their predictions, but suggest the park could net the region $119m over 10 years.

The Ark Encounter Park would be 40 miles from Petersburg, home of AiG’s Creation Museum, which promotes the organisation’s literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, and puts forward the belief that the Earth was created a mere 6,000 years ago. AiG and the museum have often been criticised for presenting their claims about Creation as fact. The new theme park could even face legal challenges from those who believe the state’s support for a religious-themed attraction violates the Constitutional separation of Church and State.

Russel Crowe in Noah The the Old Testament is being given a new lease of life with upcoming Hollywood film Noah This week’s announcement comes shortly before the release of Noah, a Hollywood blockbuster version of the Old Testament tale. The $125m film, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Russell Crowe as Noah, opens in US cinemas on 28 March. Ham and his colleagues said the biblical epic would help to raise interest in their project, even though the Hollywood version takes “liberties” with the story of the Flood.

In a bid to appease Christian audiences concerned by the film’s divergence from the biblical text, Paramount Pictures announced this week that it had reached an agreement with the Christian group National Religious Broadcasters to append a disclaimer to Noah’s marketing materials, clarifying its relationship with the biblical version of the story. The message, which will appear on trailers and posters, reads: “The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic licence has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the book of Genesis.”
 
A man in West Virginia is suing education officials for teaching his daughter about evolution, claiming it represents “the propagation of religious faith” and will prevent her from achieving her goal of becoming a vet.

In a four-page complaint filed against a range of local, state and federal educators, Jefferson County parent Kenneth Smith said “evolutionary ideology just doesn’t exist and has no math to back it”.

Representing himself, Smith accused the defendants of violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prevents the state from being biased towards or making laws respecting any religion.

Smith said educators had ignored his “accurate scientific mathematical system of genetic variations that proves evolution is a religion”. ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-daughter-religion-of-evolution-10287709.html
 
I looked up his book online. Things start to go wrong already on the frontpage. He also needs some general writing lessons, his prose was quite bad.
 
What continually amazes me is that most people that argue against evolution do so on the basis of having no understanding whatsoever of scientific processes and principles. They seem not to understand how evidience is gathered, examined and weighed, how an hypothesis is created and then applied, and how the evidence is then assembled to support or disprove a theory.

When someone states in a court of law that the "math" of evolution does not stand up, they really are simply displaying their ignorance and unwillingness to listen to anything other than their own dogma.

The contortions they go through to find what they call proofs for their stance display an stunning amount of blinkered thinking and flawed reasoning.
 
Anti-Darwinism

According to the BBC a group of scientists is challenging the view that Darwinism is the only legitimate theory of the origin of life that should be taught in schools:?

But Darwin's theory has nothing to do with the origin of life. It is about the adaptability of life, once created, to change in order to better fit its environment. Darwin talks of life having been breathed into creatures by a creator. In that respect, it could be argued that Darwin was a creationist.
 
In news I did not expect, the new Danish government will have a minister of science who is a creationist. His name is Esben Lunde Larsen and he's a PhD in theology. He grew up in what is called the Danish bible belt. I think we need to figure out what we can do to get him to resign.
 
He seems to be mildly racist, according to the very brief Wikipedia article about him.
He is also quite young and inexperienced, so there will be plenty of opportunity for 'foot in mouth' incidents. It's a question of time.
 
Being racist is not a hindrance for this position though, being a creationist is. Trying to claim biblical stories are equal to scientific theories, shows he doesn't know what science is.
Interestingly, he's the first person with a PhD to hold this position, which is generally called Education & Research Minister.
 
How did someone with a poor grasp of logic get a PhD?
 
It's in theology.
I know. Yeah, you'd think that'd be 'nuff said - but no PhD relies solely on remembering stuff. There has to be research and reasoned argument in a thesis.
Which is why it's so baffling that he's a creationist.
 
It's in theology.

I only did a 24 lecture module in Theology but it does require a methodological approach. Inability to accept that biblical texts have been altered, added to and copied in error would cause problems in a mainstream University for a PhD candidate. Did he get his from a bible "college"?
 
No, from Copenhagen University. The PhD seems to have been about the writer Grundtvig's views on spiritual freedom. That sounds like the sort of thing you could bullshit your way through.
 
No, from Copenhagen University. The PhD seems to have been about the writer Grundtvig's views on spiritual freedom. That sounds like the sort of thing you could bullshit your way through.

An author, poet, philosopher, historian, teacher and politician. Plus a Pastor. I recently referred to the Irish President as a garden gnome Grundtvig. Ticks all of the boxes apart from the Parson bit.
 
I only did a 24 lecture module in Theology but it does require a methodological approach. Inability to accept that biblical texts have been altered, added to and copied in error would cause problems in a mainstream University for a PhD candidate. Did he get his from a bible "college"?

^^This! I have a PhD in Theology and I am definitely not a creationist. At the pontifical university where I did my studies, biblical literalists would find their views challenged if they didn't accept that the Bible wasn't meant to be a science and history textbook. Even though this Danish politician didn't do his PhD in biblical studies, he must have been required to take courses in biblical interpretation at the undergraduate level. At least that is what I would expect from a well-rounded programme. Presumably he would have encountered approaches to understanding the biblical texts that would cause him to question creationism. Or perhaps he just chose to ignore them.
 
"I'm not a scientist so I can't say if molecules condensed and turned into apes that turned into humans."

Yes, that elovution-stuff is hard Mr Larsen.
 
I think this fits here.

A federal appeals court has rejected a nonprofit group's claim that science standards for Kansas public schools promote atheism.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver affirmed on Tuesday a lower court ruling that had dismissed the lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group calling itself Citizens for Objective Public Education.

At issue in the lawsuit are guidelines adopted in 2013 by the Kansas Board of Education that treat evolution and climate change as key scientific concepts.

http://www.wibw.com/content/news/Co...challenge-to-science-standards-376399741.html
 
Worrying news from Brazil.

SÃO PAULO—The appointment of a creationism advocate to lead the agency that oversees Brazil’s graduate study programs has scientists here concerned—yet again—about the encroachment of religion on science and education policy.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on Saturday named Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto to head the agency, known as CAPES. Aguiar Neto, an electrical engineer by training, previously served as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian University (MPU), a private religious school here. It advocates the teaching and study of intelligent design (ID), an outgrowth of biblical creationism that argues that life is too complex to have evolved by Darwinian evolution, and so required an intelligent designer.

Researchers are decrying the move. “It is completely illogical to place someone who has promoted actions contrary to scientific consensus in a position to manage programs that are essentially of scientific training,” said evolutionary biologist Antonio Carlos Marques of the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/brazil-s-pick-creationist-lead-its-higher-education-agency-rattles-scientists
 
Worrying news from Brazil.

SÃO PAULO—The appointment of a creationism advocate to lead the agency that oversees Brazil’s graduate study programs has scientists here concerned—yet again—about the encroachment of religion on science and education policy.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on Saturday named Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto to head the agency, known as CAPES. Aguiar Neto, an electrical engineer by training, previously served as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian University (MPU), a private religious school here. It advocates the teaching and study of intelligent design (ID), an outgrowth of biblical creationism that argues that life is too complex to have evolved by Darwinian evolution, and so required an intelligent designer.

Researchers are decrying the move. “It is completely illogical to place someone who has promoted actions contrary to scientific consensus in a position to manage programs that are essentially of scientific training,” said evolutionary biologist Antonio Carlos Marques of the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/brazil-s-pick-creationist-lead-its-higher-education-agency-rattles-scientists

Typical Bolsonaro B.S. I mean FFS the Catholic Church publicly endorses the Theory of Evolution. But no, Mr Jair "Let it burn" Bolsonaro wants to turn the clock back to zero if it doesn't agree with his prejudice. Sadly Brazil will continue to pay for electing that very special class of fool.
 
Better still, let us all go to the Creation Museum in Kentucky, America.

https://creationmuseum.org/

The history of the Bible vividly comes to life at the world-class Creation Museum. On your walk through biblical history, you’ll encounter a realistic Garden of Eden, animatronic Noah, Flood dioramas, stunning video displays, and much more. Prepare to believe!

It's full of fun facts such as this:
Meet Ebenezer, our stunning full-size Allosaurus. He’s a testament to the reality of the global Flood of Noah’s day and the truth of God’s Word.

So When Did Dinosaurs Go Extinct?
We can see that dinosaurs still existed during the time of Noah’s Flood because we find dinosaur fossils today that were formed when conditions were right during the global Flood. Dinosaurs could have gone extinct any time after the two of each kind got off the Ark, just like many other animals have gone extinct since the Flood.
 
Worrying news from Brazil.

SÃO PAULO—The appointment of a creationism advocate to lead the agency that oversees Brazil’s graduate study programs has scientists here concerned—yet again—about the encroachment of religion on science and education policy.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on Saturday named Benedito Guimarães Aguiar Neto to head the agency, known as CAPES. Aguiar Neto, an electrical engineer by training, previously served as the rector of Mackenzie Presbyterian University (MPU), a private religious school here. It advocates the teaching and study of intelligent design (ID), an outgrowth of biblical creationism that argues that life is too complex to have evolved by Darwinian evolution, and so required an intelligent designer.

Researchers are decrying the move. “It is completely illogical to place someone who has promoted actions contrary to scientific consensus in a position to manage programs that are essentially of scientific training,” said evolutionary biologist Antonio Carlos Marques of the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/brazil-s-pick-creationist-lead-its-higher-education-agency-rattles-scientists
It'd be nice if they just keep the 2 separate, at least publicly. Their all welcomed to their beliefs - viewpoints but please don't push them on folks.
 
Right, anybody can call themselves a Christian and even go to church, but that doesn't make them one..:)

hitler_church.jpg



gott-m-u.jpg

Slight correction to this. The "Gott Mit Uns" slogan was a 13th century slogan of the Teutonic Order, inherited by Prussia and later the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Belt buckles bearing it were issued to standard Wehrmacht servicemen.

The Nazi (SS) belt buckles looked like this:

SS.png


and their slogan had no mention of God, but stated "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" meaning My honour is called loyalty.
 
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