UK bans teaching of creationism in any school which receives public funding

[Hans_W]

If you would stop making assumptions about me, I’d appreciate it. “embrace modern science” is the old “other religious people embrace it, why not you?” non-sequitor.

Best,
Ed

I had no intention of insulting you, but I responded to your post …

The evidence is plain. Science is inviolate - it cannot study the supernatural since it is outside its remit. However, thread after thread is started here that tries to convince people: “Your Bible is wrong, here, here and here because science tells us so.” That evidence speaks to an ongoing plan to introduce a totally nonscientific ideology into the Truth. What God has revealed.

by asking you if you take everything in Bible literally. That seems to be a very touchy question for many people. God created the universe and everything in it. We wouldn’t call ourselves Catholics if we doubted that. But looking at God’s book of nature has shown us that He created everything in a wonderful way, in a manner we would never have thought possible a thousand years ago, not in our wildest fantasies.

When you hear “Your Bible is wrong, here, here and here because science tells us so.” - that’s atheist propaganda. Please don’t blame it on science.

 

[Hans_W]

All I would ask of your arguments is to allow for the possibility that God made life in a direct supernatural way. That would in no way have to stop people from researching chemistry, physics and thermodynamics of the cell.

I don’t understand why it is acceptable to many Catholics for God to supernaturally create the universe directly but not life or humans.

It’s again me. I just want to comment on your first few lines.

I, and I suppose most Catholics, believe that God created everything, not just the Big Bang, not just the first life forms, not just humans.

I believe that God not only creates everything but also sustains everything at every moment in time. Don’t you think He can do that through the evolution of stars, making the heavy elements from hydrogen, making all the diverse life forms through biological evolution.

If He made humans from scratch, why would He give us exactly the same broken gene which cannot make vitamin C, same as the other primates? Why would He give us a fused chromosome pair, taken from some primates? These are only two out of many examples.

Would God trick us like that? This is a honest question you have to ask if you don’t accept human evolution.

 

[Hans_W]

You have more intricate knowledge of science than I could ever hope to have, and you express yourself in a way that leaves naturalists virtually speechless. It is so obvious to me when you look at human anatomy that we did not “evolve” one cell, one organ at a time. The TOE is little more than protozoan magic. Thank you for caring enough to politely express, in a simple way, the mathematical impossiblity of our lives being “grand accidents”. We should never accept taking a seat in the back of any “science” class. WE have Truth on our side. Rob

The poster you are referring to, Kay, has a veterinary degree and a certificate in theology. I very much appreciate her honesty and I respect her sincerity.

However, these copied remarks from Intelligent Design literature won’t leave an atheist, or naturalist as you prefer to call them, “virtually speechless”. These are exactly the remarks which will make a Christian look ridiculous, because it is mambo jumbo, dressed up as science.

 

[edwest2]

I had no intention of insulting you, but I responded to your post …

by asking you if you take everything in Bible literally. That seems to be a very touchy question for many people. God created the universe and everything in it. We wouldn’t call ourselves Catholics if we doubted that. But looking at God’s book of nature has shown us that He created everything in a wonderful way, in a manner we would never have thought possible a thousand years ago, not in our wildest fantasies.

When you hear “Your Bible is wrong, here, here and here because science tells us so.” - that’s atheist propaganda. Please don’t blame it on science.

I’m not but it’s posted here quite often by numerous people. I’m not blind to that, and I think others should be aware that’s the case.

stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[Hans_W]

I’m not but it’s posted here quite often by numerous people. I’m not blind to that, and I think others should be aware that’s the case.

stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Peace,
Ed

I have seen other statistics showing you that 40% of scientists have religious beliefs. Not much different to the general population. The StephenJayGould statistic has obviously been compiled by atheists, using it for propaganda!

I worked in research in South Africa for 18 years. Some of us were topnotch scientists. Some I worked with for more than 10 years before I realized they were Christians. In fact, the majority was religious and most of them Catholics! I am sure that nobody thought that their work in any way conflicted with their belief in God. That idea wouldn’t have entered our mind.

 

[livingwordunity]

Intelligent Design was invented by Protestants and the vast majority of it’s proponents are fundamentalist Christians.

Actually, intelligent design was invented by God. Evolution is a worthless theory that has no practical relevance. If I deny it the only thing that will happen is arrogant people who think they know everything will ridicule me. Scientists should spend their time trying to find a cure for cancer or something important like that.

 

[Rau]

Actually, intelligent design was invented by God. Evolution is a worthless theory that has no practical relevance. If I deny it the only thing that will happen is arrogant people who think they know everything will ridicule me. Scientists should spend their time trying to find a cure for cancer or something important like that.

I guess you would have a similar view of cosmology, astrophysics and the like? No practical relevance; not much will you happen if you deny it?

 

[Kaninchen]

Actually, intelligent design was invented by God. Evolution is a worthless theory that has no practical relevance. If I deny it the only thing that will happen is arrogant people who think they know everything will ridicule me.

Why are you denying the right of of everybody else to do so?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Today, we are not shocked anymore. Scientists have discovered the Higgs boson. So what. People don’t know what that is anyway. Many have lost this sense of wonder because science and technology come up with new surprises every day. Science is seen, by many, as an explanation for everything. But that’s scientism, not science. And real science gets the blame.

I hope you don’t mind me coming back to this post of yours. It represents an idea I’ve often pondered. Are you familiar with the Wizarding School trope? Modern fantasy treats magic as the genre’s science discipline. If what is supernatural today winds up scientifically understood tomorrow (as per the advancement hinted in Clarke’s Third Law), I often imagine if that’s what an offshoot of ‘supernatural studies’ will look like.

I know of at least one fictional group that applies ‘magic’ to perform the sci-fi equivalent to genetic hybridization, enhancement, and yes, evolution. It gets really harder to separate science and magic when you’ve seen similar concepts growing more popular. I’ve actually grown to appreciate science as a wonder because of it. There’s never really a shortage of discovery.

If I deny it the only thing that will happen is arrogant people who think they know everything will ridicule me. Scientists should spend their time trying to find a cure for cancer or something important like that.

You don’t have to know everything to say you at least know better on a given subject compared to somebody else. Creation literalists love insisting that dragon myths are proof that men lived with dinosaurs. I studied mythology both as a hobby and as part of my literature course in college. Dragons not only breathe fire, they can poison entire landscapes, manipulate weather, and the one in my country’s folk stories even swallowed the whole moon. It kind of makes me wonder if these people really studied the lore or are just cherrypicking it to suit their Evangelical beliefs.

 

[womanatwell]

You have more intricate knowledge of science than I could ever hope to have, and you express yourself in a way that leaves naturalists virtually speechless. It is so obvious to me when you look at human anatomy that we did not “evolve” one cell, one organ at a time. The TOE is little more than protozoan magic. Thank you for caring enough to politely express, in a simple way, the mathematical impossiblity of our lives being “grand accidents”. We should never accept taking a seat in the back of any “science” class. WE have Truth on our side. Rob

Thank you for your kind words. It is true I have an educational background in biology, but I would like to teach laypersons some fundamentals so that anyone can understand the problems with the currently promoted totally naturalistic evolution theory. I feel all Christians are Creationists, in that we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, of all that is visible and invisible, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, through Whom all things were made. Not all Creationists are Young Earth Creationists, and I am open-minded about the age of the Earth.

Cell biology is a mind-opening journey into marvelous wonders. There are more and more videos on the internet about biology, and some come from Creation ministries. Others are from academic sources, most of which still insist on totally naturalistic evolution. It is difficult for me to imagine how anyone can still think biology came about by chance, but I think there are those out there who suspect Creation but are bombarded by the secularists.

I wrote a booklet and made a narrated PowerPoint video called “Creation Biology.” They are similar, but the booklet has more detail and is simpler to get to the references. The video might be a good place to start if you have no science background, and lasts less than 45 minutes. They start simply, but pick up quickly into more detail. I have just finished the video and need to do a little editing, but it should be understandable as it is. It takes several hours to change it from the PowerPoint format into video (and to drive to a college 40 miles from here to get to a program that will do it) and to upload it to Google Drive. So I apologize for a few mis-numbered resources and will change them soon. The address is:

womanatwell.blogspot.com/p/creation-biology.html

Since scientism has historically drawn many people away many from the Christian faith, I feel that some of the amazing new discoveries of biology can be an important tool for the new evangelization. I hope we as Church can help both children and adults to understand.

 

[womanatwell]

It’s again me. I just want to comment on your first few lines.

I, and I suppose most Catholics, believe that God created everything, not just the Big Bang, not just the first life forms, not just humans.

I believe that God not only creates everything but also sustains everything at every moment in time. Don’t you think He can do that through the evolution of stars, making the heavy elements from hydrogen, making all the diverse life forms through biological evolution.

If He made humans from scratch, why would He give us exactly the same broken gene which cannot make vitamin C, same as the other primates? Why would He give us a fused chromosome pair, taken from some primates? These are only two out of many examples.

Would God trick us like that? This is a honest question you have to ask if you don’t accept human evolution.

Hello Hans,

Though you dismiss Third Way and ID advocates, among them are college professors who publish in peer-reviewed papers. Also in the Third Way website is Eugene Koonin, director of comparative genomics at NCBI, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the National Institutes of Heath–a leading US center for science. He is on the front lines of comparing full genome sequences, which began in 1995. I think ID theory has problems, but I do not dismiss the intelligence of the advocates.

Please refer to the references in the blog post below about new discoveries of protein thermodynamics, in that after a few mutations, the function of the proteins drop drastically. This is from a university in Israel. Also, scientists are finding that DNA which was previously thought to be psuedogenes actually do have purposes. That is an answer to your vitamin C question.

My blog post gives references; A preview:

There are other major scientific developments that relate to the Darwinian Theory of Evolution that go beyond probabilities. I will try to give a clear summary and have some references to read if you are interested.

womanatwell.blogspot.com/2014/06/total-natural-evolution.html

I am sorry that I am very busy now, expecting out-of-town relatives, so I will not have time to give you more references. However they are throughout my blog and my Creation Biology booklet, so please feel free to visit.

 

[Hans_W]

Thank you for your kind words. It is true I have an educational background in biology, but I would like to teach laypersons some fundamentals so that anyone can understand the problems with the currently promoted totally naturalistic evolution theory.

Kay, with all due respect, I don’t think that you would be sufficiently qualified to understand, let alone to teach evolutionary science.

The official position of the Catholic Church is to accept the theory of evolution as science. Creationism, Intelligent Design, The Third Way and your “Creation Biology” are not science.

Please accept this and keep this nonsense away from the science class room!

I feel all Christians are Creationists, in that we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, of all that is visible and invisible, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, through Whom all things were made.

As Christians, we all believe that.

Cell biology is a mind-opening journey into marvelous wonders. There are more and more videos on the internet about biology, and some come from Creation ministries. Others are from academic sources, most of which still insist on totally naturalistic evolution. It is difficult for me to imagine how anyone can still think biology came about by chance, but I think there are those out there who suspect Creation but are bombarded by the secularists.

Biology “didn’t come out by chance”, nor does evolution come out by chance. If you want to attack evolution, you should first read up about the basics of what the theory says.

You might catch the uneducated with your “Creation Biology” video, but somebody with high-school biology will find it silly. And it will make Christianity look ridiculous.

Since scientism has historically drawn many people away many from the Christian faith, I feel that some of the amazing new discoveries of biology can be an important tool for the new evangelization. I hope we as Church can help both children and adults to understand.

Scientism has nothing to do with science.

Please spend half an hour reading this thread from post no.1. We had some discussion here about methodological and ontological naturalism and other things relevant to this topic. We don’t want to repeat everything here now for you.

 

[RACJ]

Thank you for your kind words. It is true I have an educational background in biology, but I would like to teach laypersons some fundamentals so that anyone can understand the problems with the currently promoted totally naturalistic evolution theory. I feel all Christians are Creationists, in that we believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, of all that is visible and invisible, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, through Whom all things were made. Not all Creationists are Young Earth Creationists, and I am open-minded about the age of the Earth.

Cell biology is a mind-opening journey into marvelous wonders. There are more and more videos on the internet about biology, and some come from Creation ministries. Others are from academic sources, most of which still insist on totally naturalistic evolution. It is difficult for me to imagine how anyone can still think biology came about by chance, but I think there are those out there who suspect Creation but are bombarded by the secularists.

I wrote a booklet and made a narrated PowerPoint video called “Creation Biology.” They are similar, but the booklet has more detail and is simpler to get to the references. The video might be a good place to start if you have no science background, and lasts less than 45 minutes. They start simply, but pick up quickly into more detail. I have just finished the video and need to do a little editing, but it should be understandable as it is. It takes several hours to change it from the PowerPoint format into video (and to drive to a college 40 miles from here to get to a program that will do it) and to upload it to Google Drive. So I apologize for a few mis-numbered resources and will change them soon. The address is:

womanatwell.blogspot.com/p/creation-biology.html

Since scientism has historically drawn many people away many from the Christian faith, I feel that some of the amazing new discoveries of biology can be an important tool for the new evangelization. I hope we as Church can help both children and adults to understand.

Thank you so much for your efforts. Although I can not view the entire PP presentation immediately, I can tell you after the first few minutes that this will be immensely helpful to me. I am about to commence my quest for an LPN licence next month.

 

[RACJ]

The only reason that I am so tenacious about this issue, Jharek, is because millions of Christians have lost their Faith after coming to believe naturalistic evolution. I think that the entire (protozoa to man) TOE is absurd. It is not possible for me to believe that all our miraculous organs and systems were formed through untold millions of step-by-step random mutations, all of which had to be passed down through each successive generation. And somewhere along the line, organisms developed consciousness keen enough to figure out how to get a man to the moon!
I think our children are being cheated when they are exposed to only one set of theories. Uncircle the wagons and allow Truth to shine through.

 

[RACJ]

Truth and logic should never go out of style anywhere, not even in the UK or Ireland. Notice how you evade my points, but yet you go on and disparage those who have a different POV. That’s fine, b/c it’s impossible to actually EXPLAIN origins and evolution except in the most cursory way. But you still teach it. Rob

 

[ringil]

Or in any portion of the US invested in quality education not religious indoctrination.

 

[Hans_W]

The only reason that I am so tenacious about this issue, Jharek, is because millions of Christians have lost their Faith after coming to believe naturalistic evolution.

And who knows how many Christians have lost their faith because they were told: either God or science.

 

[ringil]

And who knows how many Christians have lost their faith because they were told: either God or science.

Indeed.

I believe it is the Catholic Church’s embracing of science and evolution which attracts and keeps many intelligent people.

 

[Hans_W]

This was a real eye opener for me since joining CAF.
I was always under the impression that the Catholic Church embraces new scientific discoveries.

 

[ringil]

This was a real eye opener for me since joining CAF.
I was always under the impression that the Catholic Church embraces new scientific discoveries.

It does. The internet attracts more “fringy” notions. I have never met Catholics with some of the more “out-there” views expressed here- IRL.

CAF can paint a kind of bizzaro-type picture of Catholicism.