(October 23, 2015 at 5:54 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:(October 23, 2015 at 5:00 am)Blondie Wrote: Debate was the best word I could use here. My brain isn't functioning at the moment.
I wasn't trying to insult you for using that particular term. It's quite literally what the Creationists are trying to do, present their case as if they represent a legitimate "other side of the debate", when in reality there's no debate... just people putting out a lot of propaganda to make it look like there is one. They believe that it is a win for them if they can look like they have a viable alternative to offer, that of the literalist view of the Bible, and to be fair they manage to do an incredible job of convincing people that there is in fact a debate among scientists.
There just isn't one. No serious, working scientist has the first issue with evolution and descent from common ancestry.
The fact that I so often hear "well I'm just not sure what to think" tells me how successful the propagandists have been at making it appear there's a controversy, that scientists don't know what they're talking about, etc.
It truly breaks my heart to see it, not because I'm anti-Christian, but because I think that ignorance of who we really are as a species is critical to understanding our place in this world (and its ecosystem), understanding why we act and think the way we do (including belief in group-think ideas such as religion, sports, fascination/obsession with sex, and nationalism, for examples), and to preventing the sort of backward slide into religious fundamentalism that gutted the scientific advances of the Muslim and Roman worlds, 90 and 1800 years ago (respectively). Consistently, almost 50% of Americans report belief in a 6000 year old world in which we were magically and specially created, and even among the other 50% most people think that evolution is "not enough" to explain how we got here... so, magic. America can continue to go the way of scientific progress, or we can step back into common ignorance by favoring magical explanations over reality; we have the historical examples of this happening. When it happened to the Romans, we got the Dark Ages, a millenium of war and fanaticism. When it happened to the Muslims, we got a millenium of war and fanaticism. I don't want that for my country or my planet... since this time, we have nuclear weapons.
I did not take it as an insult. Just couldn't think of a better term for it and creationists says debate. I think there are alot of misled Christians who will dismiss science all together those are the ones that are truly ignorant. I have never dumped science in the name of religion or belief. I love science and math. Someone told me that I should have been a math teacher at one point and time. I am not going to condemn it. I would hate to think where we would be if science or math was completely out of our picture as a human race as a whole. The up and down of the Middle East with the Muslims, those people are seriously ignorant. The ones who are not ignorant keep the other Muslims ignorant by means of control in the name of thy holier than thou religion. They ban any or all of science and its advancements.
