A Critique of Pure Idiocy.

[Mega Raptor]

As far as evolution vs. creationism goes... I really don't think they're mutually exclusive theories.

You see, for one thing, once life has started, evolution works. Plain and simple. By the very nature of the world, all things are evolving to match their surroundings on some level at all times.

However evolution does not explain where we came from. How life started and how life changes are two different things altogether. And the simple fact of the matter is, that no matter how that spark of life showed up, be it divine intervention or some freak accidental mixing of the right chemicals, evolution took over from there.

[The Giant-Size Man Thing]

True, abiogenesis and evolution are two seperate theories, but they do come hand and hand when it comes naturally explaining where life came from.

[Ai]

naztmann said:

sirisvirus said:

So naz are you saying that my parents are going to hell, even though they are good, caring people that help others, do community service, and go to mass, because they don't take everything in the bible seriously?

I never said they were going to hell. I simply said they weren't christians based on how you phrased their beliefs the first time. True, not everything in the bible is not to be taken seriously. There are parts, like some of the laws stated in Leviticus, that shouldn't be taken seriously in our time. But if they believe that most of the bible is not to be taken seriously, then they aren't christians. There are good people who aren't christians.

I think he means literally. Which actually makes sense.

[NeoEllis]

I never said they were going to hell. I simply said they weren't Christians based on how you phrased their beliefs the first time. True, not everything in the bible is not to be taken seriously. There are parts, like some of the laws stated in Leviticus, that shouldn't be taken seriously in our time. But if they believe that most of the bible is not to be taken seriously, then they aren't Christians. There are good people who aren't Christians.

Ah, but that's an extremely subjective argument, isn't it? As Goji pointed out, seeing Jesus Christ as the supernatural savior of mankind puts you under the umbrella definition of "Christian".

Let's say, for example, that Crazy and X are in a debate of who is the "real" Christian is based on their own relative points of view. There is a passage in the Bible that says, more or less, that a man who's testicles are crushed or who's penis is cut off may not enter Heaven. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that X takes this literally and Craze does not. Crazy renounces X's arcane and literalist view as unchristian. Is X not a Christian simply because Crazy declared him so?

The problem of just who is a Christian and who is not has always been a delicate one. Frederich Nietzsche said: "There was only ever one Christian, and he died on the cross". Does behavior or belief define one's religious orientation? In some respects, I, an Atheist, could be seen as more of a Christian than my fundamentalist counterparts. After, my views on Egalitarianism and punishment are much closer to those of Jesus than most American Republicans. Truth be told, I gleaned the better part of this sense of ethics from my pseudo-Christian-quasi-Unitarian upbringing. However, for the same reasons (that is, Reason itself) that I find myself a Naturalist and not a Creationist, I stepped away idea that one need follow Jesus in order to act as he did. The views of the Conservative Christian on "government handouts" and being "soft on crime" need not be discussed.

So who's the "real" Christian? The man who calls himself the Christian, of course. No one is born a Christian or a Jew or any other denomination, and then sets out to prove it. Rather, one comes into the world and calls them self a Christian regardless of action or inaction, this hinging entirely on the individual's point of view. Christan's are, after all, notorious for shaping their world view to fit their mindset.

So then, what does this have to do with Evolution, and Natural selection? Just as the definitions of religious sects are subjective, so are Christian interpretations of the entire world. Despite the yearnings of those who wish to both stand by reason and still make it to heaven, religion and science simply are not compatible with explaining the same thing. Science is an Objective attempt to understand the world based on established facts. Religion, among other thingss is a decidedly Subjective stance on the way things are and aren't -Evolutionary-Creationism is a misnomer.

The "Here's the conclusion, what facts¹ can we find to support it?" dogma rings true for all sects and religions.

1 Christians may not actually look for facts.

[Xtermo]

Valid points aside, most of that commentary belongs elsewhere.