(June 19, 2014 at 4:10 pm)Lek Wrote: It does reflect badly on Christianity, but it doesn't invalidate the teachings of Christ or show that Christianity is evil and detrimental to the world or a cause of atrocities.If the actions of its followers reveal to us that it gives cover to those who carry out atrocities or allows them to dupe others into following, then I think we can rightly blame it for being evil and detrimental to the world. The Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the forced conversion of natives wherever European conquerors went-- these were enabled and supported because many of the people involved thought they were working in the best interests of god and humanity. That does reflect badly on Christianity.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
