So that centre of scientific excellence and intellectual hotspot known throughout the world for producing minds of staggering genius, insights into the mysteries of physics and great free thinkers has astounded the world once more. Where am I referring too?
KANSAS
There, on the BBC wesbite, was this news story that simply astounded me. Not only do the board of education there wilfully disobey the Constitution where Church and State are to be seperated but they blatantly disregard the needs of children to understand what is in line with accepted scientific theory. Creationism is idiocy unleashed. I have gone into this in some depth over at Harvey's in reposnse to more lunacy but let me expound my argument further:
In nations that practice other religions, even in nations where Islamic extremists are in power and Communist countries, they may very well change history, who won World War 2, that they are good and Western democracies are evil but even they accept the fact of evolution. China has an outstanding archaeological program that is constantly unearthing new fossils that help fit together the evolution of the planet and help us identify the origin of species.
During World War 2 the Nazi's perpetrated the Holocaust. Overwhelming evidence, eye witness accounts, confessions, film and documents all point to this and yet there are still people that STILL deny it ever happened. In Germany it is an OFFENCE to deny this. Yet they still do. Maybe we should rename Creationists to Evolutionary Deniers? Overwhelming evidence points in one direction yet they stand that and go "No, no. The Bible is right. 7 days to create everything as is."
The Bible is a collection of writings over a 1000 year period. Judiasm has a branch of scholars that are dedicated to interpreting their religious texts. Imans in Islam (should) perform a similar function. They do not take it as absolute. Why do these people?
Posted by AlexC at November 9, 2005 12:59 PMAnd remember that the state song of Kansas is:
"We're Not Too Crazy About Newton's Theory of Gravity, Either".
:-)
http://badexample.mu.nu/archives/128188.php
Posted by: Harvey at November 12, 2005 02:25 AMI think fundamentalists of any stripe take their religious texts literally, or rather, interpret them as they will and then claim they're taking the texts literally.
Also, you might be interested to learn there is dissent within Creationism. Most Creationists follow the "New Earth" point of view, that God created the world in 7 days.
A smaller but growing group has the "Old Earth" point of view, that what would be a day us would not necessarily be a day to God. His day might be several million years long.
Posted by: Ballpoint at November 17, 2005 01:00 AM