December 23, 2006
FROM THE ARCHIVES: IF CHRISTMAS, WHY NOT DARWIN DAY?:
Evolution of a holiday? (Kristina Henderson, February 12, 2003, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)Today, as most calendars note, is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. But a bevy of secular humanists, atheists, scientists and educators are pushing Feb. 12 as "Darwin Day."Charles Darwin, known for his groundbreaking work on evolution, "The Origin of Species," happens to share a birthday with the 16th president.
Darwin Day proponents believe that the naturalist's theory that men evolved from apes warrants a federal holiday, even if it means sharing the day with the president who led America through its Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in states in rebellion. [...]
Though Darwin was a good naturalist, he does not accurately describe the origin of humans, said Frank Sherwin, a writer and researcher at the Institute for Creation Research, who added that Darwin should not be celebrated in the manner some organizations have chosen.
"What people have done is magnified this idea of origin of species and made Darwin the high priest of secular humanism," said Mr. Sherwin, whose Christian ministry in Santee, Calif., works to integrate science and the Bible. "Darwin himself would be very shocked with the kind of high accolades that are given to him about an unproved, unobserved and untested idea of his."
This seems perfectly appropriate to us, Darwinism partaking of the nature of a religious belief, it's only fitting that it get its own Saint's Day. [originally posted: 2003-02-22] Posted by Orrin Judd at December 23, 2006 11:20 PM
OJ:
Even as an atheist believer in evolution, I think this is over the top, which your riposte matched in sarcasm.
Besides, there would have to be a host of similar days: Einstein, Maxwell, Hubble, Adam Smith, etc. Days. Maybe it would be better to have a Rational Inquiry day.
To contradict your riposte, though, Rational Inquiry is a process; hence, it has absolutely nothing to do with religion.
Regards,
Jeff Guinn
Jeff:
It's a process that y'all believe to be uniquely and exclusively capable of rendering "truth", making it one step above augury.
I don't work on Isaac Newton's birthday (December 25).
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at February 22, 2003 11:05 PMMr. Hertzlinger:
Yes, but do you use an apple for Communion that day?
Scientists are expected to back up their theories with observable evidence, ask a religious man for that he'll just say "it's in the bible blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe, you're not supposed to question the Word of God you ignorant masses" I guess Darwin should just thank his lucky stars that he didn't get tried for Heresy like Gallileo did. Gallileo was right.
Science has no crusades, inquisions or witch trials on it's consciense. Science makes a better religion than Religion makes a science.
MarkD:
That's insipid. Science has given us Hiroshima, the Tuskeegee experiments, Zyklon B, etc., etc., etc., and ultimately explains nothing. Science can't tell you whether the uses of any of those things was good, bad, or indifferent. It's an often useful tool that folks have conflated into a religion because they think that makes them superior to the religious, a bigotry no different than that of any ugly moment in the history of any religion.
OJ:
Rational inquiry merely is a process to separate the knowable from the unknowable. In so doing, it refuses to make conclusions from ignorance. Christian eschatology would be an outstanding example of just that.
Science, or the technology that derives from it, has been put to horrendous uses. But religion has a particularly gruesome track record in that race.
The difference is, rational inquiry has given us antibiotics, the germ theory of disease, refrigeration and saran wrap.
Along those same lines, religion has given us:
[crickets]
Regards,
JG
JG:
Religion has given us morality, Western Civilization, democracy, capitalism, Bach, Michelangelo, etc., etc., etc.
It too can be put to evil uses, but rather fewer have died in sectarian violence than have died as a result of your favored rationalisms: Fascism, Communism, moral relativism (abortion and the like), etc.
OJ:
First, if religion is responsible for democracy, why did it take the enlightenment and theist political philosphers to think of it? Similarly for capitalism.
Also, Communism and Nazism are best understood as religions themselves. (If they were rationalisms, they would have tolerated rational inquiry; if they did, I must have missed it.) That is to say, undiluted belief in revealed truth, no matter its source, typically leads to slaughter.
Regards,
JG