Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

mlsoft -- the following post by SoxFan -- #msg-8536238 -- states why I have persisted in this argument -- facts and theories are the province of science -- beliefs are the province of religion -- there can be no compromise with the effort to insert beliefs into science classes
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There is and can be no intelligent or meaningful compromise between science and religion on this issue. As with arguments over the motions of the planets and the causes of human disease, ultimately one side will be accepted, i.e., "proven," and one side will be rejected as being inadequate to the job at hand. Creationism will be kindly requested to take its religion back home where it belonged all along in a democracy guaranteeing religious freedom. Its very presence in governmental and academic deliberations is an affront to the separation of church and state.

After all the idle debate, it comes down to a matter of human self-concept. The real issue here is whether we, as a people, ought base our views of life on supernatural conjecture (to become transcendentalists, supernaturalists and self-righteous fundamentalists) or on empirical reality (to become empiricists, realists, and thoughtful, caring, responsible citizens). In the end, the choice is ours, to have a view of life based on faith in faith itself or a view of life based on what we know and what we care about.

Ferdinand Magellan, as if writing to creationists and fundamentalists, put it this way. "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church" (Magellan witnessing the eclipse of 17 April, 1520).

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This is just the way the world works, just beneath the surface. God is never apart from honesty and human truth, as God is never a part of dishonesty and falsehood. The path to human intellectual maturation and self-comprehension is the path to human spirituality and the God of all people. Faith in the human truth, faith in the human mind, and faith in humankind is faith in God.