HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Jan. 4, 2006 Pat Hurley is a writer that I've come to like. I always read his articles, and often, they make me laugh. His latest article is also well written and sensible sounding – and, I agree with his basic premise. Will we change each other's minds here at UK? Will the Christians convert the atheists? I doubt it. I think the journey counts though, and when we take Pat for a ride, maybe he learns or reconsiders his view on something. Or, maybe he understands the other side better. If I never convince a Christian to drop their belief in the world's biggest superstition, then at least I can convince Pat that atheists aren't all evil people that want to change his lifestyle. On the contrary, I think a good case can be made that it's usually religious zealots that want to change everyone else to conform to their own narrow view. Abortion is perhaps the simplest example – choice allows a Christian to bear the child, while the pro-life stance forces everyone to bear the child. My issue with his piece is this paragraph – it shows the value of the current debate at UK: Science, for the most part, is a fact-based study. It only requires faith when you have to swallow its many views on the beginning of man and evolutionary theory. You need a tremendous amount of faith to buy any of the open-ended data that leaves too many gaps to accept wholeheartedly. There is a "missing link" for example, that any scientist will tell you is still MISSING! And, the age-old argument, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" has still not been answered. That is WHY it is an age-old argument and will continue to be so. Science doesn't require any more faith explaining gravity or electricity then it does evolution. Evolution is as real as rocks and stars and authors and toes and priests. Some parts of Christianity are doing a real dis-service to Americans. The missing-link deal is just another myth - what link is missing? The link from ape to man? Men are apes, in every sense. That's where humans are classified in the shrub of life. We have many fossil pre-human ape ancestors – many “links”, as it were. By many, I mean many separate species of “ape-men”, if you like. Now, look at it another way – most of the record of life is missing and will always be missing. So, we might say, that most links are missing as well, because every life-form is a link – a link from the species it evolved from to the species it evolved into. Luckily, fossils are not, in fact, the best evidence for evolution. We don't need every fossil, we will never have 1/100,000,000 of the fossils of life in general, let alone “desired” fossils which "show" what creationists call “major transitions”. Someone who expects a super-complete fossil record to accept evolution has been mislead and misinformed. Why do I say that Americans are ill-served by those pseudo-science spreading Christians? Because Creationism is just an American deal. There is a small Creationist community in Australia, but for the most part, America is it. Our lack of good science education and our general ignorance of science and the constant push from the religious-Right to interfere are entirely related. If they can interfere with science, they can perpetuate themselves and the Biblical-literalism movement. As it is, many college science and engineering programs would fold if not for foreign students, and I blame part of the American ignorance and apathy for math and science directly on Christianity. It's not the atheists which are causing this clash. Evolution is compatible with Christianity, and most of Christendom has no issue with it. So you see, Pat, the journey is very useful, because even if these ideas all happen on separate planes, politics brings them together all the time. By the way, one cool side effect of evolutionary theory is that the chicken-egg riddle is solved! The egg came first. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ This is my second foray into the UK writing discordia. This time around, I want to be a tad more raw - maybe a bit edgier (does that sound "art-see"?) Maybe I'll address even more issues that most Americans consider taboo... About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
