Hello Dear Readers and thanks again for reading my new blog.
This is Post Three on several topics that I feel need a concise objective review to differentiate the Political bullshit dealing with Creationism and Christianity, Evolution, and the Demonization of opposed views against the Christian View and extreme radicalism.
1)Creationism it's place in our society, historically and presently.
2)The Myth of Creationism, both in origin and in opposition of science.
3)Evolution; a simple explanation plus evidences.
4)Demonization of opposed viewpoints and thinkers. Why the war on evolution by creationists is so heated.
Part 1)Creationism it's place in our society, historically and presently.
Creationism has a very long history, one that I could spend way too long writing on. A brief summary of it's beginning points starts in the earliest period of our minds. Some of the earliest stories humans created and passed on orally, account the beginnings of man. The Biblical account is interesting in that is a retelling of an earlier story, at least in the creation of the universe and Earth. Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve on the other hand is a much younger story than that of Noah's Ark or Moses.
While there are many "Adam and Eve" stories that are tied to far older civilizations, from Babylon to Sumeria and half a dozen other ancient cultures which had similar man and woman origin stories. The biblical one seems to be a cross between an Egyptian love tail and the Sumerian origin story. To paraphrase: Both the Egyptian and Sumerian cultures were closely related. In the Great Garden, a sacred space where the food for the land and it's people was grown. It was tended by the innocent and pure of spirit as it was thought that the plants and sacred space would be spoiled by anything other than purity. In a certain sense this worked. Children and unsullied persons picked for the work were trusted with not stealing the food, making tending the plants, and being focused. Let us not also forget the context of this story is during a time when the fertile lands around the Nile were being threatened by desertification. A similar case was true in Sumeria.
In any case most versions of the story is that Adam was a prince, the son of the Pharaoh or a high priest. He was coming into the age of adulthood and he found interest in one of the gardeners. The first was named Lilith (I'm using the English equivalent names here). Lilith eventually would have sex with Adam. As the non-canonical stories of Lilith in Christianity stated, she wanted to be on top. It is thought she was much older than Adam (Adam being maybe thirteen or fourteen and her being in her early twenties), but Adam didn't see this as appropriate as he was of a higher social status or rank. Later, Lilith would be barred from being in the garden for dirtying the sacred space. Presumably by "coming on to" Adam. Later Adam would come across Eve, a girl much closer to Adam's age. They would later have sex in the garden and, upon being discovered, were both barred from the garden and cast out of the city.
The Creation, as described in Genesis in and unto itself is a contradiction. The first version illustrates the pluricity of the early Christian god. Where as the later is later revision that made god singular. Both order of events and how and when our characters were created differ. The two versions in the modern bible are two of many versions that exist in the Torah and other early christian writing. In short, there is no guarantee we had the correct creation story in the Bible and the contradictions between the two we do have suggests a good deal of disagreement between early writers of the orally passed along story. Eventually the canonization of Genesis by Constantine made it's biblical position and temporal context concrete from the religion's perspective. Disregarding it's origins or if in fact the story was ordered according to actual age.
Part 2)The Myth of Creationism, both in origin and in opposition of science.
The myth of Creationism has held a very central position in how we see ourselves. Many of the past and current arguments that favor Creationism and the more modern name Intelligent Design, assures humanity's dominion in the animal order. Creationism asserts we are above animals, better than animals, and we have a god given right to treat the earth, nature, and all that resides in it as we so please. This position of superiority is a difficult thing to give up in light of scientific discovery. When Darwin (and his contemporaries Lamarck, Wallace, Huxley, Lyell)came up with Evolution at roughly the same time presented their concepts of evolution and natural selection it was both heralded as a brilliant theory and denounced by the church as heretical. The idea that animals and plants, and by extension humans evolved and weren't created, thus making us animals and on the same level as all other animals, produced a cultural reaction especially among devote christians. Christians wanted to maintain their world view of god given superiority.
The argument began and continues and it revolves around a belief in a myth, not inherently christian (regardless of it's origins which predate the Hebrew people's existence) and the hierarchical position that belief grants people who hold it. Evolution theorists who question the validity of the Bible are then in opposition of the belief and by association christians. Or at least that is how it is viewed by christians. To say that evolution is fact and their belief isn't is an insult to their faith.
This stems from a tendency for christians (as is the case with all religious people and their religions) to hold blind faith. Where facts and objective observation, empirical testability is the basis for evolution, these things are lost on the person who holds a faith that they hold above all else. Deep faith leads to deep pockets, and minds found in deep holes.
Now, Science as a process, was started as a means to prove god and the christian faith (at least in the European history of the practice...) but as science worked to discover how the world work, the universe, the avenues for god's miracles and the faith narrowed. Eventually mystical and natural phenomena attributed to god became explained through science, the more god shrank in scope. So did the faith in god and so did the value of science to the religion that originally fostered the practice.
3)Evolution; a simple explanation plus evidences.
So to simply state what Evolution is, it is the process by which one form of life adapts and changes to external forces over time.
Evolutionary Theory involves several processes that span many different life forms. From single celled organisms to the most complex living animals plants and diseases.
In recent years a proponent of christians trying to explain observable evolutionary processes away and to discredit complex evolutionary processes, have in the cultural conscious split evolution into Microevolution and Macroevolution. In reality there is no difference between the two.
(Noting that: Microevolution was first coined before the Christian right took the term out of context and applied it incorrectly. Microevolution permanent adaptations that are passed on to the next generation by a parent group.)
Evolution is supported by thousands of man hours of study, research, and experimentation across several research bodies and subjects. From biology and genetics to paleontology, geology, chemistry, and physics just to name a few, all of which have subsets that all study various parts and processes of evolution.
Evolution is also shown to be true through direct observation of plant, insect, bacteria, and viral evolution that is directly observed. Please see index 1 for a list of sources to read for evidences that support evolution.
Contrary to many opposed arguments against evolution, it is not a religion.
Religion relies upon blind faith, a belief in a higher being or creator without evidence that is testable and falsifiable. Evolution operates on observation and the scientific method. It doesn't start with an assumed conclusion, but a question and then searches for the answer by studying and testing and observing. What the theory states is what the evidence says is true.
4)Demonization of opposed viewpoints and thinkers. Why the war on evolution by creationists is so heated.
Sadly there is a common practice by people of faith, or of a specific political, social, or cultural conscious to turn a group that opposes their beliefs into the "bad guy". In many regards this is what the Christians have done for hundreds of years. Dozens of times throughout history Christians have pointed the proverbial finger at different groups of people, who have opposed the Christian religion, faith, or belief, demonizing them, in some cases literally, to mar them and disgrace their views and dissuade others from following them.
In the cases of the pagan love god pan, and the sabbatic goat god, referred to as Baphomet or Mahomet was demonized as various pagan religions were integrated into christianity. The horned goat faced man went from being one of love, fun, dance, and jovial celebration, to dark, evil, lustful or sinful.
The stark contrast of Pan, for example, as it was demonized by the Christians, points to the aspect that many pagan religions adhered to more naturalistic beliefs.
Later we would encounter the Crusades and the demonizing of the Moores (Muslim/Arabic people), later still the demonizing and animalizing of Africans, Asians, Communists, Gays, and Scientists. Even the Templars, a very much Christian order of knights and the first bankers were demonized once they began to oppose church tithing rules and became a threat to religious leaders and the French Emperor at the time. Cross sect demonization also occurred for several hundred years.
This practice asserts, again, a level of superiority for the Christians and their religion over others. By calling things sinful, or wrong, or anti-christian (anti-christ) they get away with extreme prejudice. This is very true during the Black Rights movement, when many white supremacist groups developed including the Ku Klux Klan. Their religious views were used to compound and justify their racially charged views and gave them license to do things, often in the name of god, to people they deemed evil, or bad.
Today we see a massive demonization of scientists, especially evolutionary theorists, who argue against creationism and intelligent design. Though we've also seen a great deal of demonizing scientists who propose and support Global Warming / Global Climate Change. Many of the people who are against these theories are christian, rich, and have a good deal to lose if the world view changes to the secular view presented by scientists.
I'll conclude with this statement by Neil Degrasse Tyson "The good thing about science is that it's true whether you believe in it or not."
Thanks again for reading,
Lord Kristoffer Martin
Index
(1)The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
By Richard Dawkins
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sPpaZnZMDG0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=evidence+for+evolution&ots=tCs_cUd_6C&sig=P5jzm1OjXdV-Vb9LLHHjpZERuH8#v=onepage&q=evidence%20for%20evolution&f=false
Recent evidence for evolution of the genetic code.
S Osawa, T H Jukes, K Watanabe, and A Muto
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC372862/
Structural Evidence for Evolution of the β/α Barrel Scaffold by Gene Duplication and Fusion
Dietmar Lang, Ralf Thoma, Martina Henn-Sax, Reinhard Sterner, Matthias Wilmanns
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/289/5484/1546.short
Evidence for evolution in faint field galaxy samples
Koo, D. C. & Kron, R. G.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1992ARA%26A..30..613K
Structure, organization, and sequence of alpha satellite DNA from human chromosome 17: evidence for evolution by unequal crossing-over and an ancestral pentamer repeat shared with the human X chromosome.
J S Waye and H F Willard
http://mcb.asm.org/content/6/9/3156.short
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
By Richard Dawkins
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=U8AFxmc76rcC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=evidence+for+evolution&ots=nAs0BHu66n&sig=AvM5zQtGmxxbDC7laUKtJSNM7Ig#v=onepage&q=evidence%20for%20evolution&f=false
Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science
By Elliott Sober
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=c1VehakcuuQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=evidence+for+evolution&ots=lmfanJvvqV&sig=Jbz4Gzkk2-kCqzkurGYogvm_sMw#v=onepage&q=evidence%20for%20evolution&f=false
For more, search scholar.google.com for evolution studies and research.
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