Evolution

[pecksniff]

The only reason why the theory of biological evolution is in any way controversial is that certain Protestant Christians (the RCC has no problem with it) are dedicated to believing that everything the Bible says is literally, historically true.

Which is impossible. The Bible says Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great and during a Roman census. The first Roman census of Judea was not taken until 10 years after Herod died. There is not the slightest historical controversy on this point. The main purpose of a Roman census was to facilitate tax collection, and the Romans did not tax the people of their client kingdoms directly, only their provinces.

Why is creationism still a thing, in this day and age?

 

[pecksniff]

Also, is this an issue in any country but the U.S.?

 

[jaF0]

Look in the mirror and you'll see the proverbial Missing Link.

 

[pecksniff]

Look in the mirror and you'll see the proverbial Missing Link.

That was a good movie.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Anti racists like Stephen J. Gould use Darwinian evolution to condemn Protestant Fundamentalists. Then they ignore Darwinian evolution when it conflicts with what they want to believe about the relative importance of environment and genetics when explaining individual and average racial differences in intelligence, as well as in criminal and sexual behavior.

Charles Darwin argued that inherent differences matter in evolution, but acquired differences do not.

 

[pecksniff]

Anti racists like Stephen J. Gould use Darwinian evolution to condemn Protestant Fundamentalists. Then they ignore Darwinian evolution when it conflicts with what they want to believe about the relative importance of environment and genetics when explaining individual and average racial differences in intelligence, as well as in criminal and sexual behavior.

Charles Darwin argued that inherent differences matter in evolution, but acquired differences do not.

Stop hijacking every fucking thread into racial-theory territory.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Stop hijacking every fucking thread into racial-theory territory.

I will continue to post comments that are relevant to the opening comment.

 

[pecksniff]

I will continue to post comments that are relevant to the opening comment.

Racial theory is not relevant to the evolution v. creationism controversy. Racial equality and inequality are equally compatible with the theory of evolution.

 

[colddiesel]

Also, is this an issue in any country but the U.S.?

Algeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Turkey ban the teaching of Evolution altogether. Large majorities of Moslems in most Sunni (Koranic literalist) countries are anti Evolution. Iran and Shia Moslems teach evolution from 4th or 5th grade. So the USA is standing firm against the enlightened Iranians, and alongside some of the most profoundly ignorant and barbaric nations in the world.

 

[pecksniff]

Algeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Turkey ban the teaching of Evolution altogether. Large majorities of Moslems in most Sunni (Koranic literalist) countries are anti Evolution. Iran and Shia Moslems teach evolution from 4th or 5th grade. So the USA is standing firm against the enlightened Iranians, and alongside some of the most profoundly ignorant and barbaric nations in the world.

Does the Quran have something analogous to Genesis?

 

[colddiesel]

Does the Quran have something analogous to Genesis?

Yes, Adam was the first man and prophet in Islam.The Fall story is the same but Adam takes 50% of the blame - not just Eve (Hawa). Remember that Mohammed specifically said that Islam was not a new religion but a higher development of older religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, with a nod to Zoroastrianism. Islam is more about the order of society and law, and did not concern itself so much with Theological speculation and Philosophy as the older monotheisms.. The similarities continue with the Abrahamic succession through Hagar and Ishmael and into Exodus because Moses is regarded as a great Prophet of Islam, (as of course so is Jesus).

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

Does the Quran have something analogous to Genesis?

Muslims believe most of the OT and some of the NT. Moses and Jesus are very very important figures in the Quran. They even believe Jesus is gonna come back to collect some payback. So yeah, they're very cool with Genesis.

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

Also, is this an issue in any country but the U.S.?

Not sure of Israel's stance but Jews or at least many of them believe earth is 6000 years old.
But yeah, kinda seeing this as an attack thread by someone mostly ignorant of religion.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Racial theory is not relevant to the evolution v. creationism controversy. Racial equality and inequality are equally compatible with the theory of evolution.

The reason racial theory is relevant to evolution is because genetics is relevant to racial theory, and because Charles Darwin believed that genetic differences, rather than acquired differences, are important to the evolutionary process. Once we acknowledge that individual genetic differences matter it follows that average genetic differences between the races also matter.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

The reason racial theory is relevant to evolution is because genetics is relevant to racial theory, and because Charles Darwin believed that genetic differences, rather than acquired differences, are important to the evolutionary process. Once we acknowledge that individual genetic differences matter it follows that average genetic differences between the races also matter.

No he didn't you ignorant fucking racist....

Darwin's main point on evolution of species is as follows.

• competition, adaption, variation, overproduction, speciation.
• competition. demand by organisms for limited environmental resources, such as nutrients, living space, or light.
• adaption. inherited characteristics that increase chance of survival.
• variation. ...
• overproduction

All of which are basically adaption to environment. IE adapt, die, or be pushed out as a species.

So no we don't acknowledge genetic differences between race matter, unless you're a piece of shit person like yourself....just hurry up and fucking die already!!

 

[butters]

The only reason why the theory of biological evolution is in any way controversial is that certain Protestant Christians (the RCC has no problem with it) are dedicated to believing that everything the Bible says is literally, historically true.

Which is impossible. The Bible says Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great and during a Roman census. The first Roman census of Judea was not taken until 10 years after Herod died. There is not the slightest historical controversy on this point. The main purpose of a Roman census was to facilitate tax collection, and the Romans did not tax the people of their client kingdoms directly, only their provinces.

Why is creationism still a thing, in this day and age?

education, or the stifling of it, and the damned omnipresence of religion in politics/state&federal governance

 

[JohnEngelman]

No he didn't you ignorant fucking racist....

Darwin's main point on evolution of species is as follows.

• competition, adaption, variation, overproduction, speciation.
• competition. demand by organisms for limited environmental resources, such as nutrients, living space, or light.
• adaption. inherited characteristics that increase chance of survival.
• variation. ...
• overproduction

All of which are basically adaption to environment. IE adapt, die, or be pushed out as a species.

So no we don't acknowledge genetic differences between race matter, unless you're a piece of shit person like yourself....just hurry up and fucking die already!!

You do not understand Darwinism. Competition favors those who are biologically superior. They are that way because they were born with good genes. People like that do not resort to obscene words, adolescent insults, and name calling.

 

[Sean Renaud]

You do not understand Darwinism. Competition favors those who are biologically superior. They are that way because they were born with good genes. People like that do not resort to obscene words, adolescent insults, and name calling.

There is no such thing as biologically superior. This is something that Darwin very clearly had a basic understanding of. There really isn't a lot of reason to bring everything back to Darwin anyway.

The reality to your other point is that if environmental hardships really did create what you like to refer to as "law abiding" which is ultimately a completely meaningless phrase. Aborignes should have been traveling the fucking stars followed by Africans with Europeans, especially Southern being the slowest group.

Australia is land to everything trying to kill you. Including places where the fucking ground has been on fire for ages. That's no bueno. Sharks? Got that. Sea Snakes and Box Jellies? Check and check. Poisonous and/or bacterial land dragons? And lets forget the Megalania and carnivorous kangaroos that are currently extinct. Spiders? Land snakes? Twenty foot crocs that sometimes fight sharks? That place is hell.

Why aren't the Inuit at the top of the food chain. Any place in the Arctic Circle is a tough sell. Hard to grow food, bears and wolves and until recently in the grand scheme of things other large megafauna. Its your logic that doesn't hold up.

Its funny you won't even come out and just call out religion as wrong and move along. It would have helped your credibility.

 

[pecksniff]

Oh dear oh dear, this thread has taken a turn the OP didn't anticipate or want. Drawing attention to Muslim ignorance on evolution as well does nothing for the cause of bashing white western christendom, which I suspect is the real purpose of this thread.

Oh, I hate Christianity, all right, but I hate Islam even worse.

 

[pecksniff]

You do not understand Darwinism. Competition favors those who are biologically superior. They are that way because they were born with good genes.

You don't understand that words like "superior" and "good" have no place in any science. Science makes no value judgments. Competition favors those who are better adapted to survive in their environment. Nobody would call blindness a good thing. But there are species of blind cave fish whose ancestors swam into caves, where eyesight is useless, and the species eventually lost it. An eye is a break in the skin, a vulnerable point for infection, so selection pressure caused their eyes to degenerate into vestigial organs.

A lot of harm has been done by that famous picture showing the "ascent" of humans from a line of simian ancestors increasing in height with every step. It gives the impression that evolution is some kind of onward-and-upward process. It is nothing of the kind. Evolution is like water flowing down a hill, filling a pool wherever it encounters a depression.

Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster's original concept for Superman was not as an extraterrestrial. Rather, Superman was "The Man of Tomorrow" -- a time traveler from a distant future where all humans, owing to the inevitable onward-and-upward process of evolution, would have similar abilities to his. It don't work like that. There is no teleology in evolution.

 

[jaF0]

How long have I been telling you religion is wrong?


Oh ... yeah ..... forever.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Oh, I hate Christianity, all right, but I hate Islam even worse.

Why, what has Islam done to you?

I hate religion as a collective, but there is a special place for Christians that isn't there for Muslims. Muslims hold no real political power in the United States. There there are some who have considerable wealth and probably donate large sums of money to keeping their family back home good in oil money or what not but they are not the ones pushing the "don't say gay", Teach the controversy of evolution, pushing the pro-life agenda. If we are being honest our incarceration rates are a direct result of our religious roots as a nation as is our teen pregnancy and high abortion rates. Islam didn't do that to me.

Personally I'm much more concerned about that fucking family of possums that likes to camp on my porch and terrify delivery people to the point that I have to ask them to come close to the garage at night than I am some lions picking off Iranian goat herders.

The reality for both is that when people on these threads bring up is this an issue outside America we are speaking about the "developed" world in so far as the term means anything.

Gun violence in America is the highest. We're not talking about Nicorauga or Afghanistan. We mean Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and when we're being polite China and Russia are part of the "world."

Evolution, or gay rights are only an issue in the US. While obviously neither is entirely true we aren't talking about Muslim nations where its okay to stone them.

 

[pecksniff]

There is no such thing as biologically superior. This is something that Darwin very clearly had a basic understanding of. There really isn't a lot of reason to bring everything back to Darwin anyway.

N.B.: Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution. By his time all scientifically literate people knew, from the fossil record, that evolution had happened. Darwin figured out why it happens -- natural selection.

He never did figure out how it happens, because the science of genetics was still in its infancy -- there was only Gregor Mendel, in his monastery, experimenting with the cultivation of green and yellow peas.

 

[Rightguide]

Yes, Adam was the first man and prophet in Islam.The Fall story is the same but Adam takes 50% of the blame - not just Eve (Hawa). Remember that Mohammed specifically said that Islam was not a new religion but a higher development of older religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, with a nod to Zoroastrianism. Islam is more about the order of society and law, and did not concern itself so much with Theological speculation and Philosophy as the older monotheisms.. The similarities continue with the Abrahamic succession through Hagar and Ishmael and into Exodus because Moses is regarded as a great Prophet of Islam, (as of course so is Jesus).

Jesus Christ was written about by people who actually knew him. The more important question is did Muhammad actually exist. Nobody who actually knew him wrote about him. He wasn't written about until over a hundred years after his alleged death. There are huge doubts of his historical existence:

https://www.aymennjawad.org/11756/did-muhammad-exist
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/did-muhammad-exist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Muhammad

 

[pecksniff]

Jesus Christ was written about by people who actually knew him.

No, he wasn't. None of the Gospels predates 100 A.D. The oral traditions on which they were based might go back to the apostles, but nothing was written down until Christianity had evolved into a religious movement. (In Jesus' time it was not, it was only a political movement -- see Zealot by Reza Aslan.)