Go to The Reverend Kooka Speaks About Religious Bulls#!t
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Nice work construction body close. wel thought out logical
but then i am partial to science. i too was taught that evolution was a proposed theory and that the student was free to feel the way they wanted really. That never stopped us from saying the pledge of allegence or going to six grade camps that were run by born again staff.
posted by
mysteria
on May 19, 2004 at 8:50 PM
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just an addition
I wasn't alone when I walked out on Gerald Waterhouse's "sermon". My wife, Pat, and year and a half old daughter, Lisa, were there too, and we walked out together.
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 19, 2004 at 9:14 AM
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WWCG - for Kooka's enrichment
In response to AMCG's question.
I was 15 or 16, hanging out in a cousin's farm house while my Dad went out deer hunting (the country, some of the best times of my life -- gonna had to add a blog I think). There was this magazine, with several articles arguing against the Theory of Evolution.
Then there were these ads in another magazine, Capper's Farmer, all about the 12 tribes of Israel and the coming End of the World. They were offered for free. I was sceptical. My cousin's wife (they were in their 40's) said they were legitimate.
I sent off for the tracts and the magazine THE PLAIN TRUTH.
If you have read any of these then you know that the basic premise was that the U.S. was the Tribe of Manasseh, Britain, Ephraim, and several European Countries others of the Ten Lost Tribes.
Germany was Assyria, which was to lead a united Europe against the U.S. and defeat us (this after the plagues and natural disasters that each claimed 1/3 of the lives on Earth).
Then there would be Armageddon, where USSR would lead armies agains Europe. Of course the Temple in Jerusalem would have been rebuilt by then and the "Beast", leader of Europe, would be the "abomination of desolation sitting in the holy place".
Christian holidays were pagan. Jewish Holy Days were what Christians should observe (quartodecimani controversy).
Then Jesus would come, take up his elect (144,000 who would be in "The True Church" -- WorldWide Church of God) into the air (I Corinthians 15 & I Thessalonians) and the dead in Christ would rise out of the ground to meet him in the air (having been saved from the Holocaust surrounding them by being whisked away to Petra) then they would all come down, Christ standing on the Mount of Olives, which would split, and we all would reign with Him for 1,000 years (The Millenium) in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 20?), then after that, an eternity of growth and populating other planets, etc. We would be mini-gods, doing with other planets what God did with Earth (something like that).
I left when I started rereading the Bible and seeing different things there than they were saying. There was no discourse. I walked out in the middle of Gerald Waterhouse's diatribe (it usually lasted 3 hours), when he said "God requires obedience, not knowledge."
That was 1973, when the Big Split happened.
I skipped around to various denominations, have esconced myself (since 1976 -- the year of the prophesied holocaust) in a St. Louis Episcopal Congregation (surprised -- well, I am too, since I still see things from a WWCG perspective in many ways -- and also my new perspective -- but I'm here because this has been a maverick church -- I could leave because of the weight of the hierarchy being shown more now -- they have ways of squelching opposition too -- I've left various churches and wouldn't be Catholic because of their having the same basic philosophy as I walked away from in WWCG.
WWCG has enlightened me to Christian History. You'll see hints of that in what I've said.
Anyway, you asked and I'm telling, although I probably should say it in Kooka's (my son's blog, which I think I will do)
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 19, 2004 at 6:55 AM
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Joseph Campbell, famous Anthropologist on Myth and Religion said it best.
Man is always attempting to explain the unexplain, yet because he cannot explain that which is supernatural, that which is not scientific, that which holds no substance, he must make it so. This he calls religion. Shadow
posted by
Keshet
on May 18, 2004 at 6:56 PM
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wetwend, what were you doing with WWCG?
You seem too cerebral for that crowd.I went to high school at Imperial in Pasadena. If you're from that area then you know the public schools stink. My father thought it was a reasonably good and inexpensive school and I made nice friends but that is one wacky sect. Heard it's all fallen apart. Must have been a result of the ban on cosmetics for women that took effect after I left. All those men saw their wives for the first time and took off. heehee
posted by
AnCatubh
on May 18, 2004 at 5:52 PM
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kooka_lives there is an important point that none have touched on yet.
the minds of humans are very limited. We tend to always place ourselves in the centre of the universe while trying to explain things around us. Explain them with our own limited perspectives and knowledge. Many years ago when the stories of creation were put to print man did believe the universe revolved around the earth and that we were at the centre of that universe. What has changed since then is that a guy named Darwin came along and put forth a half baked or at least incomplete theory of evolution. This theory however is slowly being filled in or completed, edited, revised and re-written as we come to know more as a species. Creation on the other hand is stagnant to a certain extent. " This is how it is because this is how it is " being the creationists mantra..
We will never come to fully understand any of this looking through our limited, tunnel vision lenses. Until we realize just how insignificant we are, until our minds can grasp the size and time relationships of the universe. Until we stop putting ourselves in the centre of that universe.
I would hope that the creationists never accomplish having the theory of creation taught in science class. It would be better suited to a history class.....ancient history class.
posted by
gomedome
on May 14, 2004 at 8:23 AM
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mainly it seems
we're pretty much in agreement here as to evolution and the age of the Universe.
We're in agreement that the universe has been developing for billions of years.
it is how it happened that is in question.
did it all "just happen"? or is it the result of a "master design"?
Herein lies the discourse.
Do we believe in God or do we not?
How can any one convince the other of his point of view?
Or are we just expressing our point of view without really trying to convince the other?
Or maybe, are we putting together our points of view?
Can we come up with an agreeable conclusion?
If one believes there is no God and another believes there is, then we find that East is East and West is West.
Ain't no meeting of these twains unless it's head on.
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 14, 2004 at 7:36 AM
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NOW AND THEN
It was Freshman Biology Class, I had a wonderful teacher named Mr. Prelutsky. We went through the book, saw the drawings of the prehumans -- ape-men, if you will, saw the embryonic comparison of the different animals: fish, salamanders, frogs, pigs, apes, humans -- all looked alike. This was the beginning of my understanding of Evoluion.
Our baptist neighbor upstairs said, "No! That isn't so!" Looking at the drawings of ape-men, he said, "Those aren't ape-men; they're ape APES!" And that was the extent of his opposition to Evolution. I was convinced of Evolution.
Then I began reading tracts coming out of Pasadena, California, from what was then the RADIO CHURCH OF GOD, with Herbert W. Armstrong and Garner Ted Armstrong and read their arguments against Evolution (1958 in case you're wondering) and they were pretty convincing. Much of what they argued back then, from '58 into the 70's, is being used today to refute the Theory of Evolution.
Then I left that church.
Then I read magazines and books and watched such series as PBS's LIFE ON EARTH and saw that there really is a case for Evolution, that it might be a theory in that we don't have a mathematical equasion to definitely prove it (such as 1 + 1 = 2), yet it is a demonstrable process.
And the most demonstrable proof of Evolution lies right here in these debates.
????? you say?
We are a dominant male tribal society. We follow the most vocal and vociferous strong person (mostly male) in an exclusive tribal group to vie with other tribes for dominance. This is from our evolutionary past where such traits were necessary for survival, dominance and continuance of the traits, both mental and physical, needed for survival.Look at the rest of society around you and you can find the same type of behavior. Athletics, whether school, professional, or otherwise, really reflects this. Our tribe is represented by a dominant physical male leading our most fit males against other tribes.
In debating, we are aiming for dominance of our point of view, which is shared by others (our tribe). I am presently engaging in such a tribal confrontation.
But if we do include Creationism along side Evolution in teaching origins, we have to consider several things.
That the Seven Days of Creation do allow sufficient time for Evolution to have taken place, particularly the first few before the Sun and moon and stars were created to tell time, days, weeks, months and so forth.
That the story of the Garden of Eden and subsequent exile and having to make a living from the "sweat of your brow" in farming closely parallels the progression of humans from a hunter-gatherer society to an agrarian.
And of course there are the other creation stories -- we have to ask, do we include them? If we decide that the story of Genesis is our creation story, then what about others whose creatoin stories are different and attending the same classes? Are we then "respecting religion" because of that?
So what do we do? Provide at some point all the creation stories, or provide nothing and just start history with the earliest recorded civilizations?
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 14, 2004 at 7:27 AM
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thoughtful post
and their's merit in much of what you say,HOWEVER,(you didn't really think I was going to agree with you, did you?)
Evolution was taught as fact where I went to public school. Maybe you're older than I.
I disagree that religion won't admit to not having all the facts. I belong to an organized religion that holds(as do I) some things to be true that are incomprehensible to the human mind.
The religions that fervently cling to a strict creationist view don't understand the truth and, hence, are afraid of it. I've never understood that mindset. Many Christians have this idea that if the Bible is the word of God everything in it must be literally true. That's funny for a Christian to think that way because Christ himself used parables and spoke in metaphor frequently to illustrate an idea in a way his listeners could understand. It makes sense that the story of Genesis is told in the same way, as human understanding of these things was very limited. No Hubble telescope back then. Einstein would have been chased out of Palestine.
I'm not sure one can say creationism follows no law of nature. Some aspects of it do fly in the face of scientific evidence, I grant you. But both creationism and the Big Bang theories hold the universe had a relatively rapid beginning and a much slower unfolding, if you will. The idea of sub-atomic particles swirling around in the void and forming a great mass of what-not(not too scientific, I know) isn't any easier to believe than the universe was made in 7 days. Where did those particles come from? What put them in motion? In Nature, everything has an origin, a cause and effect. Everything that moves is moved by something. Where does the moving start? As I'm sure you know Aristotle asked those questions and reasoned that there must be an Unmoved mover. That's a rational defense for the existence of a Supreme Being, Allah, Yahweh, Creator, God, Zeus,Gitchi-Manitou, whatever. The God part of creationism doesn't fly in the face of science. Certainly, the notion that the earth is only six thousand years old does.
Since neither theory is proven, what does it hurt to examine both? It would only serve to enlighten people, if it's done honestly.
Thanks for the post- it got me thinking of writing one of my own on why Christians can believe in evolution. I'll steal all your critics then maybe I'll be in the top three!
Pax
posted by
AnCatubh
on May 14, 2004 at 3:47 AM
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