Randi Rhodes Forums

You might have thought it was all over after the 2005 decision by the US district court of Middle Pennsylvania (pdf), which ruled in the case of the Dover Area schools that teaching intelligent design is unconstitutional. You might have guessed that they wouldn't come back after the 1987 US supreme court decision in Edwards v Aguillard, which deemed the teaching of creationism in Louisiana schools unconstitutional. Or maybe you figured that the opponents of evolution had their Waterloo in the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial in Tennessee.

They are back. There are six bills aimed at undermining the teaching of evolution before state legislatures this year: two each in New Hampshire and Missouri, one each in Indiana and Oklahoma. And it's only February.

For the most part, the authors of these bills are singing a song we've heard before. Jerry Bergevin, the Republican sponsor of one of the New Hampshire bills, says of evolution that "It's a worldview and it's godless." He blames the teaching of evolution for Nazism and Columbine. Josh Brecheen, the sponsor of the Oklahoma bill, wants to stop the teaching of "the religion of evolution." These legislators, and their colleagues in Missouri and Indiana, trot out the hoary line that evolution is "just a theory" and that real science means saying that every point of view is just as good as any other.

more

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... us-schools

I know it isnt doable, probably, but the problem isnt that 30% or so of our population are as dumb as barn doors, it is that we are trying to live in the same space...

Create two countries, for real

Still at it

Missouri prayer measure to appear on August ballot



get the feeling disturbing the peace would mean religious minorities doing the same thing.

To take the other view point for a minute:

In an age of the genetic modification of everything it is not "stupid"
that homo-sapians existance is believed to be by design.
Such design is what people see in every living thing touched by our science.
Nobody would Call Monsanto god, but scientists adoration of GMO isn't far off the narrative.

OK, now back to not really giving a shit...

I think part of the problem is that the religious right has been very good at falsely framing the debate as a Bush-esque either-or proposition: "Either you're with God, or you're with those Godless Darwinists". Hence the polls that say almost half of Americans are creationists. And admittedly, it doesn't help that the most vocal proponents of evolution (e.g. Richard Dawkins) are also outspoken atheists.

No one talks about the possibility of Evolution coexisting *with* spirituality.

Well, almost no one:
http://www.thegreatstory.org/

Actually, I wonder who "designed" the platypus or the dodo bird. If they were designed, it had to be by a committee.

I would say it, "No one in their right mind would want to talk about the possibility of evolution coexisting with spirituality."

I've tried to talk about it. No one I've spoken with seems to want to listen to someone who wants to talk about the possibility of placing self between rock and hard place. I think it's a different question for people who need to coexist their spiritually with evolution, than it is for those who do not. I saw little point in talking about it with people who do not, they have no conflict.

I also think those who do, may get stuck because they don't understand that evolution is a model, a thing and noun. God is a proper noun, some are quite uncomfortable with the idea of saying, person.

I however believe proper nouns tend as a whole enjoy the act of making, followed by the act of playing, with models.

As it has here, people tend to forget to type "theory of," before the word, "evolution." That's important because, "theory of," says to a reader "it's a model," the theory of evolution is a model.

A model coexisting with spiritually is pretty easy to fathom.

But no one wants the hear about it, trust me.

... Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, among others, the man who coined the term "Omega Point" and "noosphere" ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

... and various 'theistic evolutionists', among others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution

This quote may answer that question, even though it is aimed specifically at Christianity:

"The possibility of a reconciliation between science and religion is rapidly gaining popularity, not only among those who call themselves "creationists" but also among the general public. Millions yearn to believe that science and the Bible are ultimately compatible, perhaps even complimentary. {...} But is agreement genuinely possible between science and the Book of Genesis?
No, Genesis and the scientific method are mutually exclusive. They can not be reconciled. How, then, do we explain the wildly popular belief that the Bible and science are, in the end, harmonious?
Generally speaking, religious-minded individuals know little about science. And science-minded individuals know even less about the Bible. With each camp sadly uninformed about the other, reconciliation seems possible and desirable to both sides. In reality, agreement is only possible by (1) perverting science, as the Fundamentalists do, or by (2) perverting the Book of Genesis, as the non-literalists do." -- David Mills, Atheist Universe, p. 143. 2006 Berkeley: Ulysses Press

"Generally speaking, religious-minded individuals know little about science. And science-minded individuals know even less about the Bible..."

It occured to me today that the rural people who are more likely to believe in some form of creationism are farmers and ranchers. These people live with breeding and altering plants and animals. They design life for a living, you could say. So, they do in fact know something of science. Their occupations is the basis for science. They have been doing these experiments for thousands of years. I remember it is in the Bible where Jacob altered the flock he was taking care of by feeding them different plants, so that some would produce black or spotted lambs...
...lost my train of thought...anyway, those that believe in creationism are living with the creative history of their occupation, and within the creative forces of nature.
Not stupid...
(the gods they followed back then were actual people, high priests and rulers, not a mystical unifying principle as we do now. Up until the end of WW2 religions worshipped some person on a thrown in a forbidden city: China, Japan, Tibet, Rome. So, maybe it follows that the ancients viewed god as a person that was involved with the husbandry and breeding of humans...but I digress)

Well, the stupidity comes into play when those same people who rely on the science for the livelihoods look down their noses at the science because some a-hole with a Bible told them to, despite the millennia of evidence to the contrary.

Today another angle occured to me:

That those most likely to believe themselves to be created by god have throughout history, and around the world, have been the aristocratic elite. For millenia they have delared themselves to be decended from the sun, or various divinitys'. They still worship the sun in the form of lucifer. Call themselves illuminated and sons of light. They view this belief as justification for divine right to exploit us. As for the rest of us, they do not believe us to be fully human, and treat us as cattle...

Point is that creationism is just as likely to come from the top,
as a doctrine to secure the power structure of the elite.

I don't know of any research on this, it seems you'd be hard pressed to prove this. (I'm not defending or supporting creationism). In fact the downtrodden, though history, have often resorted to religion for areas of support and to promote to themselves that all people are created equally by Gd, and deserve to be treated as such. To break down " the power structure of the elite," to use your words. This is certainly true of monotheistic religions.

But yes, I'd have to agree, that religion has also been (mis)used to "secure the power structure of the elite."

Hard pressed to prove what exactly?
That the aristocracy believe that they alone were decended from god?
(Their divine right doctrine.)
That they would be likely to promote creationism for their own benefit?
They have ALWAYS dumbed down the populace to control them.
What other class really has a vested interest in promoting creationism?
Who benefits?

In fact the downtrodden, though history, have often resorted to religion because they had no other choices left to them by the elites. Theocracy has ruled governments for ten thousand years, until the nineteenth century. This secular and scientific rule is still brand new. And it is being forced on the downtrodden with just as much force as anything that came before it. It really wasn't until the internet came along that most of us downtrodden had any choice at all in where we could obtain information about anything. The elites are desperate to grab that power back, and throw the information age back into the dark ages.
That's who benefits from creationism, not the downtrodden.