"As far as the evolutionary debate is concerned, it is really over, and if the religious community does not know that Darwin won, they are simply not abreast of the times."
"
"Some people are approached through the mind. Others are approached through the emotions."
"...I wish you well. However, survival rate in that context (WCG) please know, is not high."
yeah, right; darwin won: meanwhile secular nations are struggling to control nationalism and the rise of the religious right...
ReplyDeleteseems to me the rise in the secular graph has peaked and is angling down as the world is increasingly realizing that secularism has failed the everyday man...
Regardless as to how it is presented, humans are generally seekers of enlightenment. We see mystery behind our existence, and want to know just what the heck is going on. Most religions and philosophies throughout history have been devoted to bringing mankind up to speed, enhancing us and making us functional on a higher level. We want to get past the notion of a dispassionate universe and somehow transcend the laws of probability.
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism was capable of being accepted as enlightenment back in the '50s, '60s, and early '70s, and some were able to continue accepting it as this even as we witnessed the chinks appear in the armor, and observed as it fell apart. Obedience to the picked and chosen legalism and dogma did not make us worthy of receiving any sort of enlightenment or special insights which would have validated our beliefs. As Armstrongites, we never did assume the role of a chosen people, and we never did become an international blessing to the world around us. In fact, we were encouraged to remain inconspicuous and secretive.
Bottom line, it did not work, and the promises somehow were all detoured and delivered to other addresses.
BB
Good anlysis, BB. We'd just gone through and had come perilously close to losing World War II. We were deathly afraid of the Russians, especially after they got "the bomb." And, we had nothing comparable to today's internet which makes facts readily available. So, most of us were innocent "sitting ducks" for Herb's bombast. It sounded factual to us, and we ate it up. It took a long time for me to clear my mind of the BS.
ReplyDeleteAllen C. Dexter
John Spong meant that Darwin wins the evolution vs creationism perspectives . It’s a good science done well thing. Not a statement about secular vs religious cultures. Religious cultures have brought us most of our present day wars and strife. Take Christianity , Judaism and Islam out of the news and world peace breaks out.
ReplyDeleteNonsense all.
ReplyDeleteThere is evidence of humanoid murder and strife from 300.000 bc.
True Armstrongism, the Armstrongism that HWA participated in was enlightened and garnered many international awards that cannot be paid for.
Just this week oart of that legacy disappeared as the USA and Israel abandoned UNESCO which was heavily supported by our secret diplomacy no one seems to know about while it was all published. The blind were leading the deaf and blind it seems.
We are entering the time of the gentiles and they better have accepted some of our BI values or we will be subservient.
Nck
I repeat myself. Name ONE scientific fact that can be demonstrated in lab to show a new species coming from a previous one. You can't, beyond evolution offers no answer to how life started, other than ridiculous fairy tails of lightning and a soupy pool.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who examines the extreme complexity of any cell (there's no such thing as "simple cell"), can see, if they are not blinded by their bias, that there is design beyond any human's imagination.
Who cares what an evil and sick organization, as the Catholic Church, says.
Spong was Episcopalian, not Catholic.
Delete"yeah, right; darwin won: meanwhile secular nations are struggling to control nationalism and the rise of the vulgar, profane, amoral, bigoted, hateful, religious right..."
ReplyDeleteFixed it for ya.
Seems to me that the racist KKKristians are scared because their power base has been eroding for decades. Sure, they may win a few battles, but they've done little else but cede ground ever since Gettysburg. No reason to assume this isn't more than a blip, the last gasp of desperate and disgusting people.
the kkk is one tentacle of a far right movement that is clearly not limited to the us, and frankly news reports show that they are not nearly as significant as bannons movement, for example, or the far right parliamental gains in germany, france and the netherlands, for instance...
Deletenot to mention the fact that the science types have suffered significant setbacks in their funding and political support under this neanderthal of a potus we elected...
those are not wins, those are clear examples of peaked secularism, and the world devolving towards open hostility, clearly a spiritual matter...
The discussion doesn't even get off the ground if we insist on relabeling groups erroneously for dramatic effect, using sweeping generalities, applying cliches, and creating strawmen. Basically, some people who don't realize that globalism, or global management of global problems, has forestalled World War III want to return to experimenting with nationalism. The wave his is going to set off is going to blow back on us in unintended ways unless we quickly correct it next election cycle.
DeleteBB
the point is that there is a rise in right wing nationalism in europe and the us rooted in race and so called "christian values", and those movements, although not mainstream, are rocking the boat from france to serbia, from coast to coast in the us...
Deletethis movement has spawned donald drumpf as potus, and is yet again repeating history in germany where they are gaining more and more seats in parliament...
secularism is failing the common man in the western world, it has never caught on in the orient/middle east, and the western world is of late spending billions on wars and its subsequent refugee crises, all in a failed bid to impose secularism on foreign soil...
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ReplyDeleteAnon 203
ReplyDelete"Show me one...."
Tiktaalik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvDQCa7rleI&t=184s
Anon 203 said "I repeat myself. Name ONE scientific fact that can be demonstrated in lab to show a new species coming from a previous one. You can't, beyond evolution offers no answer to how life started, other than ridiculous fairy tails of lightning and a soupy pool.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who examines the extreme complexity of any cell (there's no such thing as "simple cell"), can see, if they are not blinded by their bias, that there is design beyond any human's imagination."
____________________________________________________
Your in Davy Packs cult I take it?
I was privileged to have about 20 minutes with Dr. Shubin alone as he showed me this fossil and the implications. Wonderful find after 5 years of hard work just where he said it had to be.
ReplyDelete"I know all the fossil fish at 370 million years. I know all the tetrapods fossils from 350 million years old. In the rocks of 360 million years old there has to be a creature that has fins and feet, gills and lungs. Those rocks are in Canada. Bingo! Tiktaalik!"
Neil Shubin
The classic fossil identification of a mammal is in the arm and leg bones. "One bone (humerus/femur) Two bones (ulna/radius/tibia/fibula) Lots of bones (Carpals/Tarbels) and sticks (fingers/toes)" Even fossil whales and some modern have these remnants inside their bodies.
ReplyDeleteDo your homework without your preconceived notions
Nck says: We are entering the time of the gentiles and they better have accepted some of our BI values or we will be subservient.
ReplyDelete_______________________________
Still buy into Herbies shit do you?
Plan your life around it and you won't be able to function as a human being should.
"I repeat myself. Name ONE scientific fact that can be demonstrated in lab to show a new species coming from a previous one. You can't..."
ReplyDeleteYes, we can. Easy. Human chromosome 2 forming from the joining of chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13, now reclassified as chimpanzee chromosomes 2a and 2b.
"The evolution of African great ape subtelomeric heterochromatin and the fusion of human chromosome 2." Genome Res. 2012. 22: 1036-1049.
"...evolution offers no answer to how life started, other than ridiculous fairy tails of lightning and a soupy pool."
Ignorance on display. RNA World Hypothesis is a tentative offered answer. Reaching back to Stanley Miller is a straw man.
"Anyone who examines the extreme complexity of any cell (there's no such thing as "simple cell"), can see, if they are not blinded by their bias, that there is design beyond any human's imagination."
ID is simply an argument from more ignorance. It is saying, "You don't know, therefore magic." "Magic" explains nothing.
But let's cut to the chase. You aren't arguing for design. You think it's a partial proof, a stepping stone to proving Yahweh. But it isn't. Even if everything were designed by a cosmic creator, it could have been designed by Zeus, Krishna, Quetzalcoatl, or some other deity you've never even heard of. If you're trying to prove Yahweh, this advances you exactly no distance whatsoever toward your goal. All your work is still ahead of you.
Finally, you believe in a creator deity. You believe this creator deity was neither created nor designed, and yet still exists. So according to your own logic, that means you agree that something can have infinite capability, contain all information, and possess consciousness and still need not have been either created or designed. So then why should I believe anything else necessarily needs to have been either created or designed either? If you can assert something without proof, I can successfully dismiss it without proof.
Dennis, This book by Bishop Spong came along at just the right time for me too. He articulated very well why biblical literalism (and the fundamentalist view point about Scripture) doesn't work. Finally taking the time to read Darwin's On the Origin of Species convinced me that evolution was the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet. Nevertheless, although I certainly understand it intellectually, it continues to intrigue me that you and I have reached such different conclusions about things spiritual (in light of the fact that our journeys have gone over much of the same ground and are both willing to acknowledge the pivotal role that this particular work played in our respective thinking).
ReplyDeleteArgh, out of all the interesting directions this thread could have gone in, we get the endlessly rehashed "NUH UH I DiNT COME FROM NO MUNKY" :)
ReplyDeleteFor me it all gets back to the issue of was jesus resurrected or wasn't he? Jurists of very high standing have insisted that the resurrection of jesus is the most solidly proven fact of ancient history. (I didn't suck this out of my thumb.) Now if the resurrection is factual, then jesus is pretty amazing and I should heed him, and he testified to creation. So, I suggest that it is unreasonable to dismiss creation as information about the beginnings of this world while still maintaining belief in jesus as God.
ReplyDeleteRSK
ReplyDeleteI do agree.
For instance where Spong talks about the wide varieties of (christian) religion to meet peoples variety of experiences and needs. There s more on the letter and I didnt even read the book.
Thanks Dennis for sharing this moment of Catharsis. (the Life of Brian and The name of the Rose, were some of mine.) Of course all imbedded in a wider awakening and life experience, maturing etc.
Nck
James,
ReplyDeleteYou know me!
If asked by an Italian, we have our families, our catholic church, the Irish have their country, hell even the black man has their music, but what do you people actually have? I would answer, I have the United States and you people are merely visitors.
Nck (geronimo's head talking)
Congratulations, Dennis on quoting a scholar. A rare action among the Christians here.
ReplyDeleteBishop Spong wrote a book that greatly advanced my adoption of losing my belief in any gods. I found a book of his at a library sale and it helped me greatly. "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" was published in 1998, six years after my leaving the WCG.
On page 29 he said...
...the steady and relentless advances in knowledge altered forever our ability to believe in the God content that stood at the heart of our sacred tradition.
Page 40...
The God we once worshiped had been obliterated before our eyes.
Page 45...
There is an increasing sense even among believers That the word "God" now rings with a hollow emptiness.
Jim Baldwin