Geology v. Religion

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martha said:
It's thread like this that make me miss our FYM fundies. I'd love to hear their thoughts on this crap. :love:

It would certainly make this thread a whole lot more exciting. :drool:
 
redhotswami said:
What do you mean?

No "science" in the world will ever negate the Vatican's tendency toward misogyny or homophobia, for instance.

In other words, "science" is "acceptable," as long as it is considered "irrelevant" to their traditions and authority.

To give credit where it is due, however, their general acceptance of science is greater than that of most Christian denominations.
 
martha said:
It's thread like this that make me miss our FYM fundies. I'd love to hear their thoughts on this crap. :love:

Originally posted by Axver
It would certainly make this thread a whole lot more exciting. :drool:
You know, in the unlikely event that you're actually being sincere, that's hardly a good way to solicit a contrasting opinion. Why would anyone want to set forth one when they're being pre-emptively mocked before they've even opened their mouth?

By all means, constructively state your own opinion and constructively disagree with others, but why even bother to come here if you're not willing to civilly extend to others a chance to do the same? :shrug:
 
Actually, I was being sincere. To a point anyway.

Those guys were all over stuff like this, pointing out how their scripture justifies this kind of "thinking." Justifying the replacement of science with their own theology, no matter what. I was hoping to get some kind of answer as to why my own government has caved in to the fascist ways of these people.

I also know that these guys have left FYM because they do feel mocked, and I'm one of the mockers. I think it's the old heat/kitchen thing. If their belief system is so tenous that they can't defend it in light of this kind of issue, then they can go crawling back to the comfort of their own forums and message boards, where no one challenges them and makes them admit that the crap they promote is exclusionary (to be kind) and downright ridiculous (to be honest). This is, above all, a U2 board. I wouldn't go on to one of their Christian boards, post my beliefs, then get all pissy and self-righteous when challenged.
 
Ormus said:
No "science" in the world will ever negate the Vatican's tendency toward misogyny or homophobia, for instance.

Oh well of course! You're talking about THEM. They don't speak for all of catholic ideology. They think they do :wink: They're just out to maintain their regime, and thus react with misogyny and homophobia when they feel threatened.

Plenty of other leaders in the catholic church though disagree. They just don't get to wear snazzy red robes and prada shoes.

I've basically found two very different communities in the catholic church. One is all about securing their power, and teaching their parishoners that the only way to be holy is to come to them for sacraments.

The other is an all-inclusive type of community. The leaders act as members of a community, and don't distance themselves or try to sit higher than everyone else. They embrace everyone, hold hands and sing kumbaya and drink together. AND, they love electron microscopes :D
 
martha said:
I also know that these guys have left FYM because they do feel mocked, and I'm one of the mockers. I think it's the old heat/kitchen thing. If their belief system is so tenous that they can't defend it in light of this kind of issue, then they can go crawling back to the comfort of their own forums and message boards, where no one challenges them and makes them admit that the crap they promote is exclusionary (to be kind) and downright ridiculous (to be honest). This is, above all, a U2 board. I wouldn't go on to one of their Christian boards, post my beliefs, then get all pissy and self-righteous when challenged.
Well, this thread isn't really the place for an involved discussion of this issue (which is bigger than this one thread, and not limited to religious standoffs either, for that matter). But with all due respect, I think you flatter yourself and some others unduly to chalk it all up to "the old heat/kitchen thing." If someone gets soured on this place altogether because they can't handle being the lone advocate for some particular POV, or failing to win anyone over with their arguments on some specific handful of issues out of the many we discuss, then fine, that is indeed their own problem. But if regular expressions of open contempt and hostility are also part of the reason, then that much is a failure of the community here collectively, and has nothing to do with anything so high-minded as what "challenging them" suggests. I would feel the same way about it if FYM happened to be dominated by sociopolitical conservatives and some were falling into a pattern of snide remarks like, "I wonder what some of our resident feminazis think about this policy" or "Well our forum terrorist-lovers must be salivating into their lattes at the latest public opinion polls". Who wants to waste their breath debating someone with that attitude?

And FYM is, of course, not a place for U2 discussion in any case; as the description says, this is an off-topic forum for discussing politics, spirituality, religion and world events.

Like I said, I don't want to further derail this particular thread, especially since at this point there's no reason to conclude that anyone here in fact has strong disagreements with the opinions (on the thread topic) discussed thus far in the first place. But to the extent that you're making a case for open expressions of personal contempt somehow being equivalent to challenging someone through debate and discussion, that, it seems to me, is disingenuous and cheap. We can all do better than that.
 
martha said:
Actually, I was being sincere. To a point anyway.

Those guys were all over stuff like this, pointing out how their scripture justifies this kind of "thinking." Justifying the replacement of science with their own theology, no matter what. I was hoping to get some kind of answer as to why my own government has caved in to the fascist ways of these people.

I also know that these guys have left FYM because they do feel mocked, and I'm one of the mockers. I think it's the old heat/kitchen thing. If their belief system is so tenous that they can't defend it in light of this kind of issue, then they can go crawling back to the comfort of their own forums and message boards, where no one challenges them and makes them admit that the crap they promote is exclusionary (to be kind) and downright ridiculous (to be honest). This is, above all, a U2 board. I wouldn't go on to one of their Christian boards, post my beliefs, then get all pissy and self-righteous when challenged.

If I was a lesbian, I'd be on you...after doozer, anyway.
:drool:

In seriousness, I agree with what martha has said and implied. There's a level of ludicrousness to the views of some groups in society who have been represented on here, and it is ironically this which keeps me coming back continually despite the frustration that I know is felt on both 'sides'. What remains constant is the remaining question of 'why can you not see the error of [insert philosophy here]?'
I think the aspect of domination of any given sociopolitical group is a little moot. Of course we do sometimes see the lone soldier battling on, but more than enough there is a small group of fundies who stick together like a delightful pile of clag and thus promote their own united front. In the end, it still will come down to the fact that if their convictions are not strong enough to withstand any form of onslaught, then they're either incredibly thin skinned, or privately in denial of what they truly believe. In either case, this is not the forum to be entering if you want to stick to guns you do not wholly believe in if you are not upfront about accepting the well known forum truth that aspects of the claims you make will be ripped to shreds. In short, either come in here being open that you are not 100% on your views, or if you are 100%, then enter knowing full well exactly what environment this is. I dont think there's any plot or hidden agenda (which you didn't imply at all, yolland) to gang assault the minority conservatives on here.

At the end of the day, their views can be repulsive. I'm never going to make excuses for that. I dont accept their intolerance. It has fed mine to a great extent, in that now I can barely tolerate listening to any form of lecture on religion, I dont accept those who do not accept gays, I dont accept those who think that I am an absolute sinner, I dont accept those who automatically assign judgement to me or anyone. As a result of theirs, they've fed mine. So be it. I make no bones about that. As always, I question how on earth someone can come to the belief that their kinds of thoughts are just.

However, this is not for here!
I bow out for knowing this is the wrong soapbox.
:wink:
 
yolland said:
Well, this thread isn't really the place for an involved discussion of this issue (which is bigger than this one thread, and not limited to religious standoffs either, for that matter).
I disagree. This thread is aboiut Christian Fundamentalists run amok, interfering in science and government, injecting their dubious theology into things where it doesn't belong. I think it's a fine place for this discussion.


yolland said:
I would feel the same way about it if FYM happened to be dominated by sociopolitical conservatives and some were falling into a pattern of snide remarks like, "I wonder what some of our resident feminazis think about this policy" or "Well our forum terrorist-lovers must be salivating into their lattes at the latest public opinion polls". Who wants to waste their breath debating someone with that attitude?
I've responded to posts like this myself. Hell, that's what some of these guys have actually said. Thye're constantly making much more insulting remarks and associations.

yolland said:
there's no reason to conclude that anyone here in fact has strong disagreements with the opinions (on the thread topic) discussed thus far in the first place.
I'm fairly confident that some of the people I'm talking about do indeed think that the ideas being ridiculed here do really make a lot of sense when viewed through their narrow religious prisms. They just aren't around anymore.

yolland said:
But to the extent that you're making a case for open expressions of personal contempt somehow being equivalent to challenging someone through debate and discussion, that, it seems to me, is disingenuous and cheap. We can all do better than that.
I just don't hide behind my religion when I express contempt for them. I don't claim to ask WWJD when I say these things.


yolland, I will defer to your mod status and drop it, but I make no apologies for disliking these people and what they stand for. I think it's "disingenuous and cheap" for these people to constantly be using their religion to bully, exclude, and justify medieval thinking.
 
Yes, where are the "fundies?"

I couldn't help but notice there are none quoted in the article and a google of “In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology” results only in hits for sites mocking these same unquoted "fundies." (Try it)
So it appears to me that what we have is one noted geologist, Jeff Ruch, giving his opinion, which then takes off into "fundie"/America bashing in the blogosphere and FYM.
I'm sorry...did I say "noted geologist?" Of coarse what I meant to say was "noted bureaucratic lawyer" Jeff Ruch. I googled his name as well (since he's the only person actually quoted) and found that in 2004 he said of Bush administration Special Counsel and Ave Maria Law School graduate Scott Bloch.
"Scott Bloch's personnel practices are taken straight from The DaVinci Code rather than the civil service manual."
I'm not even sure what that means except to say that maybe Mr. Ruch shares some of y'all's prejudices against "fundies." Which would make ALL of this outrage and frustration completely self-contrived.

But with all due respect, I think you flatter yourself and some others unduly to chalk it all up to "the old heat/kitchen thing."
:up:
 
INDY500 said:
in 2004 he said of Bush administration Special Counsel and Ave Maria Law School graduate Scott Bloch.
"Scott Bloch's personnel practices are taken straight from The DaVinci Code rather than the civil service manual."
I'm not even sure what that means except to say that maybe Mr. Ruch shares some of y'all's prejudices against "fundies."

That's quite a conclusion you reached. Logical reasoning. :up:
 
INDY500 said:


of coarse being the much more logical conclusion to be reached.

No, that's an observation from living abroad and being a member of the scientific community.
 
it seems that people who don't believe in evolution, don't.

evolve, that is.

if you don't believe in evolution, you have to give back your opposable thumbs.

seriously, folks. i'm sick of this superstitious bullshit.

and that's what it is. and i find it interesting that, say, we'll get people who whine about, say, Affirmative Action, but then support the right for creationists to be included in the annals of scientific knowledge.
 
"This thread is aboiut Christian Fundamentalists run amok"

But is it really? Seems more like some politicians hoping to snag a few more votes from a large voting base....

no, not that either...

Let me get this straight -

The National Park Service sells some crazy books, CDs, posters and other stuff in their stores (i've been to them, lots of different books).

One book claims a possible link to a great flood (bibical perhaps) and PEER demands a review of the book by the Park Service (oh yeah, they probably will get right on that).

PEER releases their own press release about how SLOW the park service is to review this book and remove it. YAWN!

So, the Director of PEER claims obvious catering to this voting base.

THIS IS ALL SUCH BULLSHIT.

There, how's that for a "fundy" response.

Did you know the Bay of Fundy has the largest tidal range due to the Goddess Luna's sexual power?
 
Now we're getting somewhere. I'll wait for some cited articles in the responses.

I know I read about this very issue way back before in the LA Times. I'll have to check everything out when I'm in the Park in April.
 
Martha,

I cited the articles. They were from the first posted article, a self released news item quoting from itself.

Articles cited. So mote it be.
 
Irvine511 said:
it seems that people who don't believe in evolution, don't.

evolve, that is.

if you don't believe in evolution, you have to give back your opposable thumbs.

seriously, folks. i'm sick of this superstitious bullshit.

and that's what it is. and i find it interesting that, say, we'll get people who whine about, say, Affirmative Action, but then support the right for creationists to be included in the annals of scientific knowledge.
One can argue against affirmative action and against creationist literature being distributed by a government agency without being a hypocrite. The issue isn't that they are claiming that a Noachian flood carved the Grand Canyon; which is obviously absurd; but that it is being sold at a national park information centre. The US has enshrined the seperation of church and state in it's constitution and has maintained that division a good deal better than most other countries, the downside of not suffering under a state church of paying taxes for religion is that people aren't as put off towards faith, but that is a seperate issue.

Flood geology doesn't explain the Grand Canyon as well as the uniformitarian model; putting it in the context of Noah's flood and selling it from an outlet payed with taxes must cross into unconstitutional territory.
 
Actually the Park bookstore is owned and run by an independent organization, the Grand Canyon Association, though they apparently have an arrangement of sorts where all books they sell are formally approved (or not) by Park officials first. They also sell books presenting Native American cosmogonies of the Canyon, which like Vail's book are sold in the inspirational section, not the science section, according to what I've read. So, I don't think a case could likely be made that for them to sell the book there is unconstitutional.

Now, if there is an actual policy in place preventing park rangers from discussing the age of the canyon as determined by mainstream geology, that, IMO, is a more serious issue. However, I've read articles on this case now in the Los Angeles Times (January 7, 2004--presumably the article martha referred to), the New York Times (January 18, 2004), the Washington Post (January 20, 2004), the Albuquerque Tribune (January 27, 2004), the Arizona Republic (January 12, 2004) and Nature magazine (January 15, 2004), as well as assorted other, more "fringe" sources (bookseller newsletters, religious news services, etc.) and I have yet to find anything other than the PEER press release making that claim. According to the Washington Post article, the Park's then-public affairs officer Maureen Oltrogge said that
The souvenir shop on park grounds is run by the Grand Canyon Association, but the National Park Service approves what may be sold there. The book, which is found in the inspiration section of park bookstores, is a "medium seller," Oltrogge said, with about 300 copies sold since August.

Park rangers are instructed to give a scientific view of the age of the canyon and how it was created, based on currently accepted geology, Oltrogge said. If park visitors raise questions about creationism, rangers are supposed to defer to science, she said. "National Park Service policy on interpretation is to teach current geological science," Oltrogge said, adding: "We also recognize there are other beliefs out there. We don't teach that. We teach current accepted geological science and history. Of course, they get questions during their interpretive sessions. You avoid confrontation."
In the LA Times article, then-NPS chief of interpretation for the Pacific Region Deanne Adams made the same assertion. I also looked at PEER's own letter to the NPS Director (.pdf) (alluded to in the press release anitram posted) and, unlike the press release, that letter does not make the accusation that rangers are not allowed to state the age of the Canyon; rather it complains that there's no official training or directives provided to rangers as to how to field questions from creationists specifically, which is quite different from what the press release suggests. (The letter is mostly about the Vail book issue.)

I couldn't find any more recent articles from major papers about the case, so I have no way of confirming whether PEER's claim about NPS interpretive policy is in fact now true. I do find it a bit strange, however, that no rangers or park officials were quoted on that (as they were by several major papers back in 2004, e.g. the quote above), and also, as I mentioned earlier, that the Park's own official visitor brochure (.pdf) as well as the FAQs section of their official website clearly state the Canyon's age. So, all that leaves by way of indirect confirmation is Axver's anecdote about what he overheard at Mammoth Cave, but I'd be kind of reluctant to make assumptions about NPS policy based on that alone, no offense Axver.
 
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yolland said:
[B They also sell books presenting Native American cosmogonies of the Canyon, which like Vail's book are sold in the inspirational section, not the science section,

PEER's own letter to the NPS Director (alluded to in the press release anitram posted) and, unlike the press release, that letter does not make the accusation that rangers are not allowed to state the age of the Canyon; rather it complains that there's no official training or directives provided to rangers as to how to field questions from creationists specifically, which is quite different from what the press release suggests."


Much ado about nothing then???
 
Perhaps. Just now I came across a piece published today by a columnist named Gil Spencer. (This is not "the" Gil Spencer of East Coast journalism fame, but rather his son, who to judge from a few other pieces of his I glanced at, is a decidedly second-rate conservative writer for a decidely second-rate Greater Philadelphia area newspaper called the Delaware County Daily Times. His bio is of less interest than what he has to allege, however: )
Is there a copy of this executive order somewhere? A memo? Has a park ranger been suspended for telling visitors the estimated geological age of the canyon? Fired? Not according to PEER. It provides no evidence that anyone has been ordered to shut up about anything having to do with the geology of the park.
...................................................
I called PEER Tuesday and talked to its director Jeff Ruch. I asked him point blank if park rangers were being punished or otherwise prevented by order of the Bush administration from informing visitors of the geological age of the Grand Canyon.

He admitted they were not. "We are not suggesting (they are) being censored...," he said. "We are not alleging censorship so much as a lack of guidance."

Guidance? If rangers need guidance they can click on the NPS’ own Web site that says the canyon contains a 2-billion-year-old rock record. If the Bush administration is attempting to sell a Bible story and suppress the canyon’s real age, it’s doing a pretty poor job.

Ruch denies that PEER intended the readers of its press release to believe park rangers were being ordered to shut up. "I can’t speak to the impression we left (to readers)," Ruch told me. "What we said was accurate."

No, it wasn’t. Here is what Ruch said in his own press release: "In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology."
.................................................
There is a decent case to be made that any book that proclaims the Grand Canyon is only 6,000 years old shouldn’t be sold on federal property. But that case should be made decently, which is to say honestly.
So...I think this piece pretty much pushes the issue into black-and-white territory. Either Gil Spencer is lying, or whoever wrote PEER's press release was lying. One way or the other--someone should be ashamed of the risks they're taking with their employer's reputation.

-------------------------------------------

ETA: And now one of the blogs that initially carried PEER's press release, Seattlest, is running a retraction, also based on having contacted PEER (and in their case, the Park's current PR rep as well).
...Jeff Rook, who wrote the release, said that others have indeed contacted the PEER office and complained of being misled. "If they felt misled by it, we're sorry." There is no intentional obfuscation required when answering questions about the chasm's age in response to creationist queries or pressure. "At least not this week," quips Rook. Rangers and interpretive staff are free to discuss its scientific history with impunity.

The PR rep for the park service, Dave Barna (arguably, not someone PEER trusts all that much, obviously), adamantly told us that the Grand Canyon is as old as scientists say it is, and no-one who works for the park would be asked to say otherwise...
 
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My god, we live in a country with a dumb president. I thought Moses did it, or was it the meteor that killed the dino's.

:banghead:
 
True, and I just may get a chance to check that one out firsthand myself this spring--we live only a few hours' drive from Mammoth Cave, and were actually talking about taking our older two kids there during spring break. We did take our oldest son about three-and-a-half years ago, and they definitely talked about the geology of the cave at that time, but I haven't been there as recently as Axver has. (And their official website, too, has visitor brochures, FAQs, and curriculum materials for teachers, all of which openly discuss the age of the cave and all that.)

I am just very, very skeptical that the National Park Service, or any one individual park, would actually have an official policy forbidding rangers from stating the age of the park as estimated by geologists. I don't doubt, though, that they probably tend to opt for smiling and temporarily playing along with creationists who get confrontational with them--American public service organizations, like libraries, license bureaus and so forth, tend to train their employees in the standard American business "customer is always right" approach--and to that extent, I can see why it might be a good idea to have a clear-cut official set of answers rangers are supposed to provide such visitors, if they don't already, rather than just giving them general guidelines and leaving the rest up to individual rangers' judgment...as they apparently generally do at present, based on my reading.
 
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Justin24 said:
My god, we live in a country with a dumb president. I thought Moses did it, or was it the meteor that killed the dino's.

:banghead:
News just in, it wasn't a meteorite alone, score one for the stamp collectors (obtuse reference to a Alverez quote that was a quote of Rutherford).
 
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