“I propose that we round up ALL the creationists in the world and ship them to Australia. There they can set up their own society based on the Bible, and spend their days imposing their belief systems on one another instead of the rest of us. Heck, maybe they can make Mike Huckabee their President.”

Nah, he’ll be too busy governing _your_ nation at this rate …

I second the person who noted that this be okay provided they’re all dropped in the centre of the Gibson Desert without food & water.
(BTW. I’m an Aussie.)

I agree too about the otherperson who noted the crims were medium level mostly poor but industrious / clever-ish crooks – the real criminals -murderes ,rapists, etc .. of the time were executed usually by public hanging. (A few lucky aristocrats & ex-Queens got beheaded by axe or sword instead.) A policy – for the unquestionably guilty & seriously nasty offenders – which I would have no problem with us adopting today.
(Albeit in slightly more refined form.)

The 18th century equivalent of those annoying people who knock on your doors (or stand shreiking in the streets) to spout their religious beliefs – those were the puritannical one’s who went off to found America – a legacy the USA has clearly yet to recover from ..

Hmm .. Can’t help thinking how much better the world would be if the ‘Mayflower’ had just sunk on the way over and been lost with all aboard!

Clearly we Aussies had the better deal Plus we managed to gain independence peacefully rather than with all that massive bloodshed and hatred accompanying the US revolution against George III’s rule…

Darth Robo : “.. just what exactly is it that creationism is doing to prove itself correct and creationism wrong? Science? No, it’s concentrating on pushing legislation through courts, through Government, bypassing that and going directly to the schools and mounting PR campaigns. And you never learn. And this is why the scientific community will never ever EVER take you guys seriously.”

The Creationists don’t care about the *scientific* community or what we think. I don’t think the scientists are their targets outside of a “They’re witches! Burn them, burn them!” fashion …

The people who I think the creationists want – who they’re targeting and focusing on are the masses, the general pubklic who don’t know any better and can be fooled into accepting them and their theocratic rule. They want Religion – their interpretation anyhow – taught as the Unquestionable Word with dissenters burnt at the stake & science and scientists gone.

Its power politics not science that’s the real arena here .. ID-Creationists are disqualified from the arena of science to begin with.

Of course, they’ll never admit this – they try to borrow “scientific” garb for their Dark Ages Inquisitorial nature – but in their secretive deceptive hearts, at the core of their mindsets, this is really who they _really_ are … Christian taliban no less.

Don’t wait for the “threat in Europe to become serious” because, just like cancer, by the time it’s serious it’s too late. The threat is already serious, and they’re building momentum.

We can stop them though, but we need to take it seriously. I know in the past the science community has basically shrugged off Creationists as a problem that no one will take seriously, but this time the virus has built up a spiny protein coat and is a little more resilient to our antibodies. Fight it.

Best way to beat lies is with a bright shining flashlight. Creationists capitalize on the public’s general ignorance of science. The more people we can reach and inform, the more people we can make realize that their stuff is total bunk.

“I see things like the Big Bang theory and evolution as being completely compatible with my beliefs. This does not mean that I feel I can scientifically prove my beliefs nor do I feel it is necessary to do so (faith is required due to “argument from ignorance”). However, faith (both religious and secular) is pointless when it is based on falsities. So, when I find truth I make sure I align myself with it regardless of where that truth came from.

“I’d be much more interested in reading discussions on how people find compatibilities with modern thought and their personal beliefs (again religious or ethically) than I would in reading yet another science vs. religion debate. The science vs. religion debates seem to miss the point, that when truth comes along both should align themselves with it.”

Hear, hear, Caleb.

What the debate needs is for more people like you to step forward and tell the fundies that their claims about evolution, and science in general, do more harm than good. They are extremely unlikely to convince agnostics, never mind actual atheists, and all they do is propagate ignorance and confusion.

Thank you for practising what St Augustine taught.

We had a brief creationistic “episode” back in 2006. Some religiously (evangelical?) inclined school started with the “alternative theories” thing in biology classes. When it became more broadly known, most people where not very happy about it. However, the Minister of Education of the State of Hessen backed that approach, which has drawn a lot of criticism from all directions – scientific institutions, newspapers, even the major churches.

Regarding your Catholic/Protestant and East/West guess: yes, it was in the West, but it wasn’t Catholic (both the school and the Minister are have – different – protestant/evangelical backgrounds). However, I’m not really sure if I should be more afraid of Catholics or Protestant in this regard…

So currently, it’s rather quiet. However, I have that feeling that it’s not over.

PS: Sorry for the Trackback in German – I forgot that it would go off automatically and wouldn’t be much help to a English site.

It seemed to be going fine, until that idiot pope Benny showed up!

“The science vs. religion debates seem to miss the point, that when truth comes along both should align themselves with it.”

See, Mikey? Religious person. Normal person. Sane person. Why can’t you be more like Caleb here?

And while I think on, just what exactly is it that creationism is doing to prove itself correct and creationism wrong? Science? No, it’s concentrating on pushing legislation through courts, through Government, bypassing that and going directly to the schools and mounting PR campaigns. And you never learn. And this is why the scientific community will never ever EVER take you guys seriously.

Now, as students have to pass standardised tests they will, obviously, learn the science they need to learn in order to get good grades, but they are told by their teachers that what they are learning is false.

This is the downside of living in a country which looks down upon overt religiousness. At least in America politicians there go on and on about being religious so at the very least you’ve got an idea what they might get up to. Here they don’t dare admit it for fear of everything thinking they’re a nutter… and then sneak this kind of thing up on you.

I see things like the Big Bang theory and evolution as being completely compatible with my beliefs. This does not mean that I feel I can scientifically prove my beliefs nor do I feel it is necessary to do so (faith is required due to “argument from ignorance”). However, faith (both religious and secular) is pointless when it is based on falsities. So, when I find truth I make sure I align myself with it regardless of where that truth came from.

I’d be much more interested in reading discussions on how people find compatibilities with modern thought and their personal beliefs (again religious or ethically) than I would in reading yet another science vs. religion debate. The science vs. religion debates seem to miss the point, that when truth comes along both should align themselves with it.

Observing the vast drama of all history and the current global state, I’m not sure why this even needs proof.

Who was the world’s scapegoat and whipping boy before 1776? Or 1787 for the pedants.

Doesn’t the Catholic church officially support evolution now?

Catholic != Evangelical

I’m just glad there’s finally a nice juicy example of non-Americans acting stupid, like ALL PEOPLE often do.</i

Finally? Do you people live in bunkers or something?

The Founding Fathers and their Novus Ordo Seclorum

The latter, BTW, means “New Order of the Ages” and NOT “New World Order as the brain damaged conspiracy loons claim. New World Order would be “novus ordo mundi”.

Many of the individual state/colony charters *were* religious. A lot of “Christian Nation” proponents use tyhese earlier documents as evidence. This is big error, because it invotes comparisons between the Constitution and these earlier documents, and the difference is striking, and highlights the secularity of the Cosntitution even more.

Here’s a quote from the Mayflower Compact:

”In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten . . . having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the Ends aforesaid.”

Now the preamble of the Consatitution:

”We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

See the difference? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The FF were very dilligent in excising anything religious from their document in that environment.

My feeling is that they will have a harder time than in the US, because religion in Britain (I won’t try to speak for Europe in general) is so much more ghettoised.

The creationists think that the theory of evolution somehow stops people from being Christians (or conservative, at any rate). They hope to convince secular people of creationism, so that they then accept all the rest of the conservative agenda.

But I think in reality it’s the other way around: people who are already (fundamentalist) religious are the ones who go on to embrace creationism. So where they will make headway in Britain is in evangelical and fundamentalist churches, who are relatively isolated (compared to the US) and whose growth and decline is independent of their acceptance of creationism.

In short, they will find it hard to mainstream creationism because their natural constituency is not in the mainstream the way it seems to be in the US.

“No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”

It’s really interesting that everyone who is employed there is required to confirm this “Statement” before they can be employed there. When I say everyone, I do mean everyone. Anyone hired from the “researchers” to the food staff personel and security guards, have to provide confirmation.

I did a post on Statements of Faith a while back, and stumbled on this.

[[Religion has done more to hold back human progress than any other single thing.]]

Measured how?

http://www.catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolution.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Roman_Catholic_Church

Oh, and to Michelle, that was one of the most beautiful snipes I’ve ever read? Is it original? If so, can I steal it?

I will note that after the most recent Bill Maher show on HBO, it became apparent that, although he’s a liberal atheist, he’s as much a woo-woo as some of our religious types. Case in point: his BELIEF that antibiotics are “bad” and that all we need to be healthy is to stay away from “chemicals”,,,

Woo-woo ism is not the exclusive prerogative of religionists.

Gary 7

and to all USAlish… Ken was sprogged from Oz loins…sadly.

Crikeys.. in the desert with no support? That is unfair to say about any minority no matter how uneducated they really are.

Souths leagues cub are getting rid of their pokies. I think it would be eminently fair if their evolutionary progress would be advanced at the rate a slot machines chance in hell would give them…

Yep, throw the ignorants in the desert, give them pokies, let them advance with every winning row. its just sad that the gaming take is about 20% in Oz…

Damn if i am going to devise a monte carlo model for the aggro twits.. I would guesstimate that between schooners and wins, the creationists should end up as triassic mammal like lizards on the first ladies day.

Pete, wasnt it sad that Jacky Orszaczky died recently… Bass master till the end! Vale the funk-jazz lord and tutor!

why is it when you buy a new pc you feel like Cod yet you type like a halibut?

Why is it that Ken Ham holds so much sway amongst those who would actually like Harry Potter to be real, yet…. grows a beard like those who catch halibut

Dammit… CERN is gonna crank soon.. the 187kg boson will be discovered and

we have all put on weight and the earth will be 45 seconds old

I can sure say there wil be 2000 generations of very unsatisfied women

99.999% of us beer loving, cricket worshipping factualists would reject this Ham character as we would reject his glove wearing superior (yes, its uncomfortable for Ken to have the glove inserted in his most holy of places).

But if staistics is meaningful in the creationist debate…90.0321% of us think that Cod made chardonnay and people should drink it in revealing tank tops at the most fashonable of serveries.

Lets get things really straight… we know that Ken does not have any qualifications in evolutionary biology… in fact, he has a base degree in chem and never understood it. I feel sorry for any of his surviving lecturers.

Praise the Cod that Australians have luminaries like Rex Gilroy. People like him create a shining path that Ham can only grovel at.

Ps… I just went through all the begats.. I came to 3023 years.. even with Rex’s pre civilisation interference by aliens. that might be 3023+/-0.002765 years to be precise

PPS any chance of any one making a realy big post on begatting? I am fifty and.. frankly. i may have forgotten the process . this may adjust my error to 0,002761 years to 0.002767 years

ppps. whee is a reliable Ppe when we need one?

pppps..i was assuming the current year… thats three snakes and a flower pot in mayan calendar years