metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
If I were to cherry-pick what some Christian ministers have preached that are patently absurd, would that prove to you that Christianity as a whole is absurd?I did not accuse scientists of being ignorant nor dishonest. Consider what a believer in evolution says; " Richard Lewontin, an influential evolutionist, candidly wrote that many scientists are willing to accept unproven scientific claims because they “have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism." Many scientists refuse even to consider the possibility of an intelligent Designer because, as Lewontin writes, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
In this regard, sociologist Rodney Stark is quoted in Scientific American as saying: “There’s been 200 years of marketing that if you want to be a scientific person you’ve got to keep your mind free of the fetters of religion.” He further notes that in research universities, “the religious people keep their mouths shut.” (Was Life Created?)
"Some" is not the same as "most". Studies have shown that the vast majority of scientists are not atheists. A great many are agnostics (uncertain as to whether there are any deities) or are theists. Biologists are almost an even split between being theists and agnostics/atheists, and yet they rely very heavily on the basic ToE.
Evolution makes for common sense: all material items appear to change over time, and genes are material items. There is not one shred of evidence that suggests that somehow it stops before the "macro-evolution" level-- quite the reverse, as the fossil record along with the genome testing shows that it cannot possibly stop prior to that level.
Therefore, we know that there has been and continues to be an evolutionary process that all life is involved in and affected by. As one researcher said some years ago, there is for more evidence that there has been an evolutionary process than there is that a human has ever walked on the moon. And yet, most people don't question the fact that there have been moon walks.
So, why would a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, teach that there hasn't been an evolutionary process with all the evidence that we have collected for more than a century, and also defy that which is just plain old common sense? Why would they teach followers to ignore the evidence and ignore common sense? I used to belong to one of those churches, btw.
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