I actually appreciate your lack of comment. I pretty much fundamentally disagree with you in areas of faith, but that's ok. It shouldn't preclude some sort of mutual respect, or at least courtesy.

I haven't read Dawkins, and don't choose to. Let's just say it's not my flavor. But I did want to drop a comment while I was by.

Dawkins says of the Bible: "To be fair much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed ,revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries."

I guess he put it rather bluntly, but I would also agree the basic proposition he puts across. Try as I might, and I have over the years, I cant accept passages from the Bible as incontrovertible evidence that a Supreme Deity exists, therefore I have an additional issue with the Bible in a traditional sense. Evidence, that dreaded word which causes so much debate. Clearly if an individual has Faith (of whatever flavour) then the Bible has profound meaning to them, and I can well understand the joy many feel when they study it - great stuff, more power to their elbow, don’t have a problem with it.

Drilling down to the Bible itself, I certainly have a problem reconciling in a logical manner the disparate way it has been put together. Of course things evolve, clearly, but to evolve over such a time frame? No, sorry not for me. For sure explanations can be given, but none that in my eyes ring true, to me its more a case of how do we justify this, than giving chapter and verse. Then to top it all there is the hypostatic union concept to which all the Major Christian Religions signed up to in 451AD - a fact which many are not aware of, let alone know what was agreed. It was a fudge, as the agreement at the Council of Chalcedon states that two natures, one human and one divine, are united in the one person of Christ, they also immediately went on to say that each of these natures, the human and the divine, was distinct and complete. Today’s Spin Doctors would have been proud of that one, especially as it rewrote the whole basic concept of Christianity that had previously been held as "The Truth" at a stroke.

There followed over a thousand years of argument as to how to interpret this interpretation .... the great schism with Orthodox Churches in the 11th and 12th Centuries, which despite various attempts to revoke mutual excommunication still exists to this day. So we have a situation whereby the major Christian Religions are really not in full agreement over very key issues, have rewritten the whole basis of Christianity from what it originally was stated to be, yet in both pre and post hypostatic union eras the same Bible was used to justify fundamentally different concepts of Christianity at the very Core of what it stood for. Hairy Stuff .....

Amidst all this I am meant to take as the word a book collated (arguably) over nine centuries, spanning a huge argument about the basis of Christianity, and calmly take it all on Faith? With the best will in the world, I cant do that. Those that do, that’s fine, I support their right to do so, Religious Freedom is a tenant that should be respected and fought for with determination. Equally individuals should not be surprised at others holding opposite views amidst the previously described "carnage" in basic doctrine and belief amongst all the Leaders of all the Major Religions spanning - now - 1500 years.

I hope those who posses a deep Faith do not take offence, I certainly do not mean to give any, and I chose my words carefully (hopefully) to avoid that - if I didnt avoid it, I unreservedly apologise, no slight is intended, implicitly or explicitly. Its hugely complex, and the combined weight of all Major Christian Religions have not solved it in 1500 years, I doubt we will, but as always I will listen with interest.

When you think you already know everything that matters, you no longer question anything. Truth is if it weren’t for secularists this country would be worse off than the Middle East. We don’t have money buried everywhere. Their natural wealth is allowed them to stay in ignorance for over a thousand years and to not seek anything other than their religion. The only use they have for technology is to become better warriors.

Over 44% of this country believes “The Rapture” is coming and half of those believe for certain it’s coming in their lifetimes. That’s certainly maladaptive to fostering a sustainable future and avoiding global conflict isn’t it? Global conflict is one of the precursors to this event so 44% doesn’t even want to avoid it and the other half might even try and help it along.

Part one; of Zeitgeist offers a pretty convincing explanation of the true origins of religion and I would be interested in hearing a succinct explanation of Christianity’s nearly identical parallels to Egyptian mythology.

Link

Please what do you mean and believe when you describe yourself as a Darwinist?

Good question Lula. The crux of any Christian belief on the forming of man i.e that God created man in six days and rested on the seventh, is refuted by Darwin who has a natural answer to man's existence in the first place. I Quote: "We are beginning to see that the awesome wonder of the evolution from amoeba to man--for it is without a doubt an awesome wonder --was not the result of of a mighty word from a creator, but of a combination of small, apparently insignificant processes." He goes on to explain molecules and chromosomes and their interactions.

The "awesome wonder" could be God's part ( so, is Darwin actually denying God? Perhaps he saw a bigger picture than the one we read into the OLd Testament),but many Christians say that Darwin is at odds with Christian teachings--that by comparing us to the ape man, we may be impure, un-God-formed. I cannot reject Darwin for his studies were logical, scientifically accurate and more feasible than a fairy tale history book (concocted, guessed?, adjusted, reported by hearsay), that is the Old Testament.

Many people reject Darwins theories but look at you fingers and toes. If we did not descend from apes did we just fall into a perfect Garden of Eden.

Darwin will always be controversial and I must state that I am giving my own point of view.

Darwin, and anyone else who tries, will only ever be able to prove micro-evolution, and never the macro-evolution that says 'We came all this way from single cells!'

Why? Because, the only reason macro-evolution came into being was that someone said, 'If this species of bird can have different characteristics based on where it lives, having started from just one type of bird, then species can change into different species!'

Well, look around you. Humans are all different colors, races, etc, whatever you want to call our in born traits. We're not all the same, yet according to the Bible we all started from two people. Therefore, during that time, there was only ONE color/race/whatever. Now we have a lot. So Darwin basically proved that, having started from one race, you can have multiple races. Which is what the Bible says. So Darwin proved the Bible. People then theorized, "Hey, if it can go that far, why can't we have come from apes too?"

Well, if that was the case, then why don't apes evolve into humans now? Why don't the things everything evolved from now evolve into them again? Did it only happen once? Must have happened at least twice, in order that those two evolved that way could reproduce, and they had to be in the same general area. But I'm guessing, theorizing if you will, that these macro evolution proponents are wrong. And they can never prove we came from apes, because an ape won't evolve into a human.

Thanks Adnauseum,



In my view, Darwinism's "molecules to man" theory does indeed deny God, 100%. I haven't read Dawkin's book only several reviews, and none treat Dawkin, as you do here, as a fellow Darwinist. I should like to explore the Godless part of Darwinism and Dawkinism more.

But first, I'd like to make an observation about how history and later, science, has disproven Darwinism. To believe in Darwinism, macro-Evolution theory, that mankind somehow evolved---from nothing to molecule to ape to man---one would have to believe that we have experienced a steady rise from brutality, right?

Both history and science deny this steady rise from one species to another. I say our humanness was created all at once, as Adam was, completely distinct and unique and as "fallen man", we have been not experiencing a steady rise, but falling ever since. History is full of falls. Nations rise to a high state of civilization and decay. If Evolution wants to maintain a steady uplift, history itself proves it wrong.

The Darwin theory will indeed rumble on, as it challenges the very core of some peoples beliefs. As has always been the case as science moves on, Religious theories move their foundations into areas not yet explained by science. The latter ultimately resting on the unique premise that as the new theory cannot be proved to be wrong, it is acceptable – yet in all other aspects of our lives the usual standard is to prove a theory before acceptance.

To say that clear evidence concerning carbon dating etc is not sufficient to show Humans have existed for millions of years, when the technique is widely accepted in other aspects of our lives, is illogical. Prior to Darwin, we were held up by the major Religions as having been created in seven days, and that was accepted literally. Once science came along with carbon dating techniques (amongst others), that blew that apart as it verified the major thread of Darwin theory.

So Religious Theory shifted once more – there quickly grew the theory that seven days was allegorical, in fact a day could be a million years long in the Bible (for example). Such timescales did not fit other time frames implied in Bible texts previously held to be literal. We are now at the stage where the major Christian Religions no longer hold the seven day theory to be literal – yet for 2000+ years it was held as literal on pain of blasphemy.

Same happened with “earth is flat” era which only changed in the last 200/300 years. Prior to that Heaven was “up there”, and Hell was over the edges of the flat earth, to say otherwise was held as Blasphemy. That quickly changed as a round earth was shown to be the case.

Go further back, to the most serious case of rewriting Religious facts. In 451AD the whole foundation of Christianity changed by a huge shift in belief in the very nature of Christ himself. The infamous Hypostatic Union signed up to by all Major Christian Religions, changed the very nature of Christ, and the whole Foundation of Christianity. A change so huge that even now there is great reluctance to talk about it, as it destroyed at a stroke what had previously been held as an unshakeable truth in the nature of Christ himself. Even to this day the major Christian Religions avoid the topic, and the infamous “Great Schism” in the 11th & 12th Centuries was caused by this issue, and the dispute still prevails.

So is there a supreme deity, for my part – maybe. I still don’t know, because as the in vogue comfort blanket of successive generations of Religious theories is disputed by scientific fact, so the previously held “truth” is changed. The latest anti-Darwin theory says that we had to start out of something, couldn’t just come out of thin air 12Billion years ago, and there is a strong logic there. However I cannot make the convenient jump to say therefore there has to be a supreme deity to make it happen, that’s taking an unproven leap of Faith too far.

It also acknowledges the fallacy of a literal seven day Creation, which is the ultimate irony.

It all boils down to either you have Faith or you don’t. To attempt to prove the unprovable with ever shifting theories and baselines to areas where, conveniently, the science of the day cannot verify, and then move them yet again as science proves a prior theory unviable, is not the road to go down. The latter clearly evidenced by the dramatic decline in Christianity during the 20th Century.

Adnausuem writes:



Again, I haven't read Dawkin's book, but I've read some reviews of it, so I hope you'll give me some credit points for that!

According to what I read, Dawkins is an evolutionary zoologist whose stated intention is to win over his readers to atheism. From what you've read so far, do you think he has written it more as a proselytizer than as a scientist?

I am not an expert on Darwin but I believe that, although he was an expert on evolution, he did not turn away from God. In fact (my own comment), there is evidence that Darwin was a believer. However, as for Dawkins, it would be vain to suggest that he is an atheist. I think, rather, that Dawkins is a Realist who "pooh poohs" traditional old-fashioned beliefs and tries to look logically at the religious trends that have swayed man over the years.

After the publication of "The God Delusion", Dawkins has become involved in a TV series that seeks to portray astrology, spiritualism, clairvoyance and TV evangelism as false, harmful, misleading and plain "money grabbing". This is why I like Dawkins. He is probably not an atheist and may not be a good Christian, but he is certainly a logical realist who is not misled by the bulls--t that passes itself off as truth or hides behind the bible.

I'm generalising I know but how many televangelists do you know who do not have question marks behind their names?

This world is full of charlatans and if a guy like Dawkins brings them down, I'm with him. I see no evidence of Dawkins trying to bring others o.ver to atheism. I see him trying to cut the crap out.

Darwin himself didn't attempt to elimate God in his "Origin of Species", it was the extreme "Darwinists", the foremost being among the Socialists, the Karl Marx types, who made the attempt.

It's my understanding that in the last sentence of the first 1859 edition, Darwin inferred God's role as the Creator.

He wrote:

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

In order to make his position more emphatic, he inserted the phrase "by the Creator" after 'breathed' in the second editions and that remained there in all the succeeding editions he published.

These extremists took the theory of natural selection and made it more funny than scientific saying that the structual modifications assumed to result from the struggle for survival of the fittest creatures was transmitted to their progeny leading in the course of very long periods of time to the formation of entirely new species.

Selection is a positive, God-given power which when related to adjustment to changing environments, structural development and survivla, man alone has been endowed. Natural power of selection in creatures below man is non-existant. Perhaps that's why Darwin said years afterward "If I had to commence anew, I would have used the term natural preservation."

Natural selection and all other intellectual levers used to pry GOd from His Creative Throne must fail, for right reason finds GOd to be the Creator and final end of mankind.

Why would you get credit for reading (probably skewed Christian) reviews of a book? Do you want me to refresh my knowledge of Catholicism by reading a Catholic book or by reading atheist reviews of the Catholic book? It's the same thing.

No points for you.

You may be Courageous, but you're not very friendly!   

I'm just saying, go to the source. Anything else is unreliable.

that's exactly what I say about the BIBLE.