10,000 Clergy Endorse Evolution

[Killfile]

The University of Wisconsin has collected 10,000 signatures of clergy from almost every religious tradition endorsing Evolution as both compatible with and a logical outgrowth of Faith.

Citing biblical stories such as Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden as methods of transmitting moral and social lessons across generations, the letter states unequivocally that Intelligent Design is not the interfered stance of the Christian community at large.

To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator.

[Tempest]

And of course with any mention of Intelligent Design comes...


THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!




Link to Wikipedia if anyone is totally clueless to the Great Spaghetti Monster.


But honestly, I am abstaining from the vote. My duty as a Christian and my duty as a Logical human being who accepts science are in conflict.

Ramen.

[MrFelony]

I have no problem in combinig my religous faith along with scientific truth's. is it so hard for a religious person to believe that god designed the earth intelligently THROUGH evolution. but i gues it requires taht you dont take the bible literally

[panasonic]

well, can we trust these clergymen? are they all that educated to begin with? now, dont take it as if im disrespecting priests, im a Catholic and i respect these individuals in society, however, many of them lack the knowledge of what we learn today in school.

ill use my mom as an example. she says that she did really well in biology 40yrs ago. however, she doesnt realize that the material we learn today is very different from what they learned. according to her, they planted things, grew things etc. I on the other hand, havent planted a damn thing in bio class. i learn about cells, organs, diseases etc.

my point is, can we really take their point of view that seriously considering what they learned in school compared to us has evolved greatly?

[Tempest]

I think we can assume if these guys are willing to practically become pariahs and possibly relieved of their positions in their bhurches, that they are up to speed, or at least aware of the latest in bioglogy and evolution theories.

[halfnhalf]

If you get a flu shot, then you support evolution. If you dont have wisdom teeth, then you are a current example of evolution (bitches, im higher up on the evolution chain!).

Seriously, i dont get it, are the ever changing flu shots intelligently designed to keep changing??

[Eldo]

ill use my mom as an example. she says that she did really well in biology 40yrs ago. however, she doesnt realize that the material we learn today is very different from what they learned. according to her, they planted things, grew things etc. I on the other hand, havent planted a damn thing in bio class. i learn about cells, organs, diseases etc.

I just wanted to comment on this. While the education quality wasn't up to or comparable to today's standards, don't forget the major scientific achievements were made in the last 50 years - for example such as the discovery of DNA by Crick and Watson, the proposition of the central dogma, mapping Amino acids, etc. It wasn't only sorely because the education quality was poor back then, it was also because most biology discoveries were not made or integrated by many schools as part of the program. We could name the functions of many organelles in a cell which many prestigious scientists could not. Biology is an ever expanding area, every year new discoveries are made and theories disproven.

I would presume that the clergyman would definitely do their research before making such an important and controversal decision, if you should doubt their education or intelligence. Evolution is a very controversal and touchy subject, everybody should at least know the basics and the gist of it, so ignorance or failure to grasp what evolution is no excuse. While some may not have been as educated as others, what's stopping them from borrowing out or buying a big good book of biology?

The proposition of this intelligent design is to save the churches own skin - the conversative ones. Some hardcore clery found it hard to believe that humans decended from apes, whereas the bible writes that God created them in his own image. Evolution somewhat contradicts the bible as its written. It is my opinion that was the reason why Intelligent Design was proposed, to integrate religion with science, so religion does not become redundant as science disproves and challenges its many aspects. The church has been feeding on the people's ignorance for centuries, and with the accumulation of knowledge, many people started to doubt beliefs and religion as a whole. Just my two cents about it, no matter how wrong I am.

[panasonic]

i never said that they had a bad education, its that what we learn today are recent discoveries that they didnt have back then. and yes, the spokespeople for the clergymen may be educated, they should be if they are spokespeople. however, the other clergymen in that 10,000 may not be as well informed as these select individuals. thats what concerns me, they may just push their support because they have fellow clergymen doing the same thing

[Eldo]

I do think it's actually not quite possible that the masses of clergymen signed for endorsing evolution just because everyone else did it, and they wanted to be popular, but not improbable though (think very slim chance for that scenario). Jumping on the bandwagon sounds highly improbable to me, if they don't know shit about it, don't sign it. As I said previously, knowing only the concept of evolution is enough for the clergymen, since that is all they need to know to get their panties in an uproar.