God V Science (again)

close
more_vert
handofdave H
handofdave Sep 16, 2008 12:34:22
Replying to nigelswift

Yes, exactly. I don't have a beef against all religion, as the fact is that the vast majority of people raised with religion are not zealots out to drag us all back to some neo-dark ages, like the bloody Taliban, or in a slightly less drastic way the Xtian fundies.

I concede that there is a possibility that we are the product of some other creature's doing. The universe is chock full of recursive, scalar patterns... physics creates the same pattern in the pinwheel of a galaxy, a hurricane, and the water going down a drain, for example.

The fact that we humans exist, and have developed the capability to mold our environment, build things, even tinker with our own DNA actually is a point the 'creationists' can employ in their argument... if we are so talented, who's to say there isn't some older race of being out there who had a hand in our world?

That said, creationism does not belong in the science classroom, of this I am absolutely sure.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Sep 16, 2008 14:25:02
Replying to handofdave

"That said, creationism does not belong in the science classroom, of this I am absolutely sure."

Yes yes yes yes.

Back in the good old days, long ago, when I were a lad and teachers taught stuff, my Biology teacher spent weeks on evolution and in the last ten seconds she said "Of course, some people believe Genesis instead".

T'was adequate....

M Merrick
Merrick Sep 16, 2008 23:21:13
Replying to handofdave

handofdave wrote:
The fact that we humans exist, and have developed the capability to mold our environment, build things, even tinker with our own DNA actually is a point the 'creationists' can employ in their argument... if we are so talented, who's to say there isn't some older race of being out there who had a hand in our world?
I think this misunderstands the motivation of creationists. They are not going with a theory that fits the evidence, they are going with the evidence that fits the Bible.

It can't be an older race. The bible made clear it's one being. To say 'an older race' would be blasphemy.

nigelswift wrote:
Back in the good old days, long ago, when I were a lad and teachers taught stuff, my Biology teacher spent weeks on evolution and in the last ten seconds she said "Of course, some people believe Genesis instead".
Genesis has two creation stories, though. Chapter one has God making light, water, land, plants, animals, and then lastly man and woman at the same time. Less than a page later, at a time before the earth has plants, he makes the first man from dust who has 15 verses of mooching about getting lonely before God pulls out a rib and builds a woman.

The key thing is that it's all laid out and nothing evolves. Evolution is at odds with the idea of the eternal soul. I cannot see how anyone can square the two.

As I rabbit on about at length here, either everything has souls (in which case you're a mass murderer ever time you walk on grass or chop vegetables); or God introduced souls at some point in evolution (a bit mad given that the first ensouled child will have had anatomically indistinguishable parents); or we have some better grade of soul; or the whole thing's bollocks.