I’m always interested in two primary topics: U.S. Politics and religion (especially their relationship to each other)and because I work evenings I have missed the last few presidential debates. So, Wednesday morning, this CNN.com story caught my eye; the headline: “Debate evolves into religious discussion” seemed to have been written just for me!
The lead paragraph captured my interest right away:
“During the first GOP presidential debate last month in California, three Republican candidates raised eyebrows by indicating they did not subscribe to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, a widely accepted scientific concept about the origins of life.”
“Raised eyebrows”? The CNN writer has apparently not been paying attention to the relationship between the Religious Right and the Republican Party — I’d be surprised if any of the Republican candidates mounted any whole-hearted defense of Darwin’s theory . . . or perhaps I’m just a bit guilty of stereotyping Republicans.
I’m admittedly not a student of evolution but, as I understand Darwin’s theory, we all evolved from some other life form so any dedicated religious person would have to reject it because most every monotheistic religion holds that God created man in His image and, according to some sources, this happened just about 10,000 years ago.
An interesting and short read on the subject of Darwin’s theory is available at National Geographic online; at this link they provide a preview into a longer article titled “Was Darwin Wrong?” (and a link to print the entire article).
Some interesting facts from this preview article:
“According to a Gallup poll drawn from more than a thousand telephone interviews conducted in February 2001, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us. . . . 37 percent of the polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin—that is, divine initiative to get things started, evolution as the creative means . . . only 12 percent, believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god. (This) statistical breakdown hasn’t changed much in two decades. Gallup interviewers posed exactly the same choices in 1982, 1993, 1997, and 1999 . . . the creationist conviction—that God alone, and not evolution, produced humans—has never drawn less than 44 percent.”
Not that it matters what I think but my personal view is that Intelligent Design Theory wraps the whole argument up nicely (and logically). The obvious complexity of this world is not likely to have been a random event and the biblical version of creation (if taken literally) is just too unreal — especially since the entire bible is known to be a product of the mind of man.
Links:
CNN.com: Debate evolves into religious discussion
National Geographic: Was Darwin Wrong?
Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate: Defending Religion in America?
What bloggers are saying:
Regaining the Center: 2008 Presidential Religious Tests
Phonelesscord: Raise Your Hand if You Don’t Believe in Evolution, in a Subtle/Nuanced/Well-Reasoned Way
News and commentary by: Whymrhymer can also be found at the My View from the Center and at The American Chronicle Family of Journals
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackID is not a scientific theory. It invokes miracles and is therefore simply a religious statement. Make belief.
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