Conflict Thesis and the Scopes Monkey Trial

Faith & Science Conversation
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141

I don’t think you would find a denomination with such a doctrine or statement, but AIG certainly is not shy about the association, as this excerpt from their book One Race, One Blood shows:
“Most people do not realize how intimately connected the popular idea of evolution and the worst racist ideology in history are. Ken Ham and Dr. Charles Ware reveal the compelling history of the effect of an evolution-based belief system on the history of the United States, including slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and abortion.’
Of course, Ham does not say specifically that evolution is the sole cause, only that it is intimately connected. Ironically, listing slavery as an effect, when of course slavery predated evolution by a century or two in the Americas and Darwin’s family were staunch abolutionists at a time when Southern church denominations came into being because they supported slavery, and indeed many church leaders were slaveholders. Also ironic in that some of the schools that AIG promotes were the last holdouts in admitting black students, and later in banning interracial dating.
It is to his and AIGs credit that they no longer hold those views but the attempt at deflection is not a good look. And that quote strangely talks of the Civil Rights Movement as if it were a bad thing, rather than a reaction to a great evil. It was certainly a tumultuous time in the USA, but something that was necessary.

It is true that proponents of eugenics used Darwin’s theories as a measure of justification, but ironically also, they were looking to eugenics because they did not trust the evolutionary process and wanted to be their own intelligent designers.

Overall, while I do not agree totally with your position on original sin, I would wholehearted agree that the propensity to sin that seems ingrained within us has certainly manifested itself in these evils of individuals and society.

I think your observation regarding that the mark of Cain and later the curse of Ham were used by religious people to justify racism is true at one level, though ultimately other factors are also present.

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142

AIG and Kent Hovind have either stated or insinuated that evolutionary theory contributes to racism, and there are probably others I haven’t heard. As I said above,

humans have always been trying to find ways to appear superior to one another and have used whatever ideas they could to gain an advantage, be that evolution or scripture. I’m glad Jesus calls us to a better way.

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143

I agree that on the surface it appears that religion is responsible for racism, for many who have not studied deeply into biblical theology, it certainly appears that God even condones slavery (because he talks about it in the book of Leviticus).

I however, look a little further beyond those statements and try to understand not what was said, but why.

why did God give directions on when a slave should be released and given His freedom?

Doesnt this suggest God was in fact agreeing with the idea of slavery in the time just after the Exodus?

I do not believe so, for in the New Testament, he inspired his writers to go to great lengths to discredit the idea that there is such a thing as class separation. Jesus spent a great deal of time with those who the Jewish leadership considered were below them…of lesser importance. There even came the new doctine that there is no difference between jew or gentile.

Remember Peter’s dream/vision of the sheet that came down from heaven containing unclean animals? (Acts chapter 10) That is the point of this dream…it was not about what foods we eat, it was talking about human equality.

Contrary to many early religious beliefs, slavery was not condoned by God. However, God did give us some insight into the notion of slavery in Genesis Chapter 3 being a direct consequence of sin

16To the woman He said:

“I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children.

Your desire will be for your husband,d and he will rule over you.”

So how does this apply to atheists exactly?

The covenant that God had with His people (the new covenant) was that instead of individuals looking to the tablets of stone for their morality (10 commandments), God would instead write those laws on our hearts and in our minds. This is built into all humanity, however, those who choose:

19](Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery;)The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; 20idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Galations 5)

…these are the people who engage in the racist, sexist, immoral behaviours that are contrary to decency. I think we find such individuals hiding among all world views because we are all sinners by nature despite knowing it is wrong innately (due to the covenant God made).

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Do you have any of those statements? Hitler was baptized a Catholic but his religious beliefs are complicated; He was neither a Christian nor an atheist. There were Nazi Christians in Germany at the time but Hitler was not one of them.

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145

Yes it was.

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146

Ok, show evidence of this…i hope you know your theology when you do.

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In fact i do… lots of them.
The trouble is,we cannot post them online in forums because they get automatically flagged as pro Hitler and removed…but you can search for them yourself…they are not difficult to find.

Here are two that might not get removed…

As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice

In a 1928 speech, he said: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian.”

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No theology needed here; it’s a brute fact that the Bible condones slavery. Real, chattel slavery. Even sets a price on slaves, with men going for more than women.

Here’s a video: Does the Hebrew Bible Prohibit “Forced Slavery”?

[Addendum: The Hebrews also practiced sex slavery]

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Hitler was neither a Christian nor an atheist. We should not believe what he said.

In a 1928 speech, he said: “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian.”

Do you have a reference?

151

Darwin claims to be doing science. This is not the way that science is done. Science is predictive or not at all. It is not science to say that something happens because it happens.

152

Natural selection is entirely predictive. We can predict that there will be traits that result in increased reproductive success, and that those traits will become more and more common within a population over time. We can see this both at the morphological and genetic level.

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153

If that is the case, what happened to the dinosaurs, to the mammoths, and to the Neanderthals? If these species thrived at one time, why did they die out at another?

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The dinosaurs are still with us:

It is unknown why mammoths went extinct. It could be because of predation by humans or quick changes in the environment that didn’t give them enough time to evolve. The Neanderthals were most likely outcompeted by H. sapiens who had evolved traits that gave them an advantage.

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155

They (along with almost every other animal over 20 kg, and a bunch of smaller things) coundn’t make it through the extreme environmental changes from the Chixulub Impact.

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156

“Survival of the fittest” is a catchy phrase but rather inaccurate. In evolution (or for that matter, in everyday observation), the fit enough survive. Another problem is that there are myriad different factors that must be balanced for organisms to survive. A feature that helps fitness in one situation may be irrelevant or even harmful in another situation. So “survival of the fittest” tends to promote misconceptions of some sort of ideal fittest organism and intense competition to reach that point, rather than the reality of there being many strategies to manage well enough to survive and reproduce.

Competition and cooperation both have potential to be effective strategies for evolutionary success. Specifically in the case of humans, very strong and long memories make it very likely that “put the other person down” strategies for self-advancement will backfire eventually and that cooperation is the smarter option. But the balance is complex, if one is solely considering biological success.

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157

Thank you, Timothy.

Survival of the fittest does not accurately describe evolution because it talks about a struggle within the species fir survival rather than how life forms adapt or fail to adapt the environment.

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Survival of the fittest includes interactions with the physical environment, with others of the same species, and with others of different species.

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159

We’ve been down this road before, Roger.

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Survival of the fittest as defined by Darwin, Malthus, and others isa life and death struggle for existence. T. aquatius, you cannot define it as something else without destroying what Darwin said.

Symbiosis is a technical scientific term for situations where plants and animals share the same habitant and work together to increase the amount of resources for all. It can be as simple as plants providing fruit for animals and animals helping to spread seeds for plants. it is also humans helping one another as they grow plants and animals for food for each other. It is not pirates and other criminals.
who survive by robbing others.

Symbiosis is the way nature uses enable plants and animals to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, that is adapt to the many habitants of the world.

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Yes, plants make fruit so that animals will eat them and disperse their seeds, but the ecological story does not end there. Because then animals compete with each other over access to that fruit. And the individual that can eat the most fruit and reproduce the most will be the “fittest” in the biological sense. There are not unlimited resources in nature.

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