John McCain on teaching evolution

From his 2005 book “Character is Destiny”:

“Darwin helped explain nature’s laws. He did not speculate, in his published theories at least, on the origin of life. He did not exclude God, for Whom the immensity of time is but a moment, from our presence. The only undeniable challenge the theory of evolution poses to Christian beliefs is its obvious contradiction of the idea that God created the world as it is in less than a week. But our faith is certainly not so weak that it can be shaken to learn that a biblical metaphor is not literal history. Nature doesn’t threaten our faith. On the contrary, when we contemplate its beauty and mysteries we cannot quiet in our heart an insistent impulse of belief that for all its variations and inevitable change, before its creation, in a time before time, God let it be so, and, thus, its many splendors and purposes abide in His purpose.”

CNN: “I believe in evolution,” Sen. John McCain said. “But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

Interesting thought. Now if I would remember how I did find your website in the first place…

You shouldn’t, 95% of the population of the world believes in some form of spirituality, myself included. Religious, pattern seeking thinking is fundamental to the way humans think.

Religion will still exist no matter what draconian methods are used to try and suppress it, so it is the act of a fool to try.

I’m just saying that it is ethicaly questionable to teach innocents things that run counter to reality.

Societies themself impose ideological conformity, mainly through religions. 99% of people would agree that murder, incest, rape etc are wrong, and society imposes that judgment on the 1% that don’t agree.

You seem to be implying that the current form of society is the only one possible, and that changing it in any way would require rounding the entire adult population and subjecting them to torture.

Since this has been scientificly proven not to work, and most people KNOW that it does not work, why do you keep dwelling on it?

Yes, because those tactics have met with such great sucess in the past (rolls eyeballs)

My point. Your desire to enforce ideological conformity on the world would require imposing an oppressive dictatorship. After 70 and 50 years of totalitarian suppression of religion in the USSR and PRC respectively, neither seems to have been successful.

I just worry that people like you will someday gain power in this country. You can’t wipe out religion, but you can hurt a lot of people before you’re finally overthrown.

lets assume I’m world dictator, that I’ve finished dismantling the world’s armed forces, fixed the intercontinental economic imbalances, solved the fuel crisis, cured AIDS, and kick started a REAL space program.

Lets further assume that it’s not disolved into a genocidal bloodbath.

I get round to education:

children are taught maths, critical thinking and the scientific method from as early as posible; three languages (not including their native one) at the conversational level; reading, in the same languages AND their native one.

basics covered, we go on to: evolution; evolution of man; cultural evolution – mythology of the greeks and romans, the ancient chinese, the african tribes, aboriginal ausrailians, native americans, semetic peoples and their inheritors (christianity and islam); world history – prehistory, then the greeks, the romans, the chinese, then post imperial europe and imperial china; then modern history – colonialism, the industrial revolution, the great war, socialism/communism, the second world war and finally the cold war.

If a kid then wants to specialise in history they can, but the above is the minimum someone needs to understand recent history.

Teacher will be the highest paid, and most respected of all positions

People should not be allowed to teach children their religious views.

Why?

Because ”religious views” covers a multitude of sins, including but not limited to: All negros are inferior to white men, and the bible says that they should be our servants (It doesen’t, by the way); Homosexuality will be punished by god; Insest is ok if the object is procreation; that the Ayran race is superior and should conquer the world; that bad things happen to people because they deserve it; that disabled people were bad in a previous life and are thus being punished in this one.

Again, how will you enforce this rule? Re-education camps? How about neighborhood and apartment building political officers to check up on each family? In the age of cell phones, it should become a lot easier to report ideological crimes.

Many of the people who do not believe in climate change, not deniers but people working from the information available to them, still think that it is a green/communist/hippy/democrat plot to raise taxes. Sadly, these people are not stupid. They have just been convincingly lied to.

On the subject of religious bigotry, I agree that there are some posters in the comments that show a startling intolerence to people of faith. I like to discribe myself as a ‘militant agnostic’ in that I find zelots of all stripes repugnant, including some of the militant athiests that post here.

To quote Jason(above):
-Although I have what I think is a good basic framework for the accepted science of why the universe behaves the way it does, I can’t in all honesty say I actually “know” it to be true. I believe it to be true, but MY proof is that other (scientists) I believe say it is so.-

I, like most people I suspect, believe in Science (capital S) the same way I believe in computer programing and medicine: I know it works, and the people that perform it have confident, jargon laden explanations as to why it works. That does not lead directly to making definative statments about the existence or otherwise of a supreme being. This is why Athiests sound silly when they say ”Science proves there is no God!” because educated Theists know that science says no such thing, and ignorant Theists conclude that science must be the work of the devil.

Now, having alienated the athiests, I will enrage what few theists have hung on in there.

People should not be allowed to teach children their religious views.

Why?

Because ”religious views” covers a multitude of sins, including but not limited to: All negros are inferior to white men, and the bible says that they should be our servants (It doesen’t, by the way); Homosexuality will be punished by god; Insest is ok if the object is procreation; that the Ayran race is superior and should conquer the world; that bad things happen to people because they deserve it; that disabled people were bad in a previous life and are thus being punished in this one.

Please do not post to say I have radicaly misunderstood a mainstream religion; I haven’t, the people who held these beliefs did.

Religious views can also cover indoctrinating a child from birth to be an assasin for god/allah/jesus/the-greater-good/whatever.

BTW, because I may not have yet annoyed the BA himself:
I think you should separate the bad site from the bad blog so that the people who object to the political rants (which I love) can send people to the site for hoax debunking with a clear concience.

Seems to me that Religion spends an awful lot of time on the HOW in order to justify their WHY. YMMV.

[[I’d like to know what you expect when you visit a blog that educates us in the latest scientific discoveries and then profess belief in imaginary beings who watch over us.]]

An absence of statements that people like me should be held in custody by the government. Or maybe just simple politeness.

[[ Perhaps you enjoy feeling persecuted. If so please don’t take out your anger on me. I’m just the messenger.]]

I tend to get angry when people like you want to confine people like me. If folks like you and Dawkins and Dennett get your way, folks like me will be hiding from the police because of our beliefs. That’s what “persecuted” means.

[[ It’s not my fault the rational world considers your religion ridiculous.]]

The rational world doesn’t do anything of the sort. You and your fellow militant atheists, who conflate atheism with rationalism and even with empiricism, are the ones who make that mistake.

[[That wound was self-inflicted.]]

Right. The straightener will say, “Hey, guy, we’re not doing this to punish you. We’re helping you. You’ve got a disease, through no fault of your own, and we’re going to cure you.”

Watch his religion speech (given in 2006, to a church nonetheless) and you’ll see what I mean.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid353515028?bctid=416343938

I think he is “playing christian” so he can get elected.

Anyway yes it’s nice to hear that our next president isn’t afraid of science. Obama is going to be a huge step up for this country when he takes over for that idiot Dubya. Lookin’ forward to it.

Senator Obama, I think, is using the word “frankly” to mean “the opposite of dishonestly”, and I like that very much.

Incidentally, I was just offered 2 Timothy 3:16 as a bible statement that all of the bible is true, and you know what? It doesn’t say that. As pointed out, the bible is real… more or less. You have to choose a translation that you find credible and hope that the copied sources used are reasonably faithful to the author’s intention. So apparently there are differences on the actual number of the beast… So it’s not -solid- and real.

For the last goddamn time, I didn’t suggest the government should do anything about people who teach religion to their kids. Personally I think it is a form of child abuse but that’s just my opinion. Some children are, through no fault of their own, born into religious families but we all have to accept our lot in life. Fortunately, many overcome that disadvantage and go on to lead rational lives.

I’d like to know what you expect when you visit a blog that educates us in the latest scientific discoveries and then profess belief in imaginary beings who watch over us. Perhaps you enjoy feeling persecuted. If so please don’t take out your anger on me. I’m just the messenger. It’s not my fault the rational world considers your religion ridiculous. That wound was self-inflicted.

No, honey, the dress doesn’t make your butt look big, your butt makes your butt look big.

[wife goes to Yellow Pages, asks a question]

“It’s a-t-t-o-r-n-e-y. Why do you ask?

What action, Albert? Reeducation camps, a la North Viet Nam? Psychological conditioning? What particular brand of atheist fascism do you advocate?

One could argue that religious indoctrination in one particular flavor by a parent is Psychological conditioning.

This is some ugly juvenile hate puke you got here.

Nobody has attacked anyone here personally. So you are saying that being skeptical about the supernatural is equal to hate speech?