So, as many of you may have heard, a new edition of 'The Origin of Species' was handed out on November 22nd (the anniversary of the original book) to many of the most popular colleges. There was a slight catch, however; in this copy, they altered it just a bit by adding in a 50 page introduction to the book. Now that wouldn't be all too bad if the introduction did not state the following things:
1. Adolf Hitler's undeniable connection to The Origin of Species.
2. Charles Darwin's racism
3. Charles Darwin's 'disdain towards women'
as well as many various 'flaws' and 'hoaxes' of the whole thing while, at the same time, pointing out the balanced and correct views of creationism.
Well. Where do I start.
I guess I can start with the advertising video that was put out on youtube for anyone who wanted to see it. The star of said video was actually someone I recognized, Kirk Cameron, one of the actors in 'Growing Pains'. Apparently now he wanders around preaching about Christianity. Anyway, he starts out the video horribly with something like this:
"Every day, our God given liberties are being taken away from us"
Well I don't know what 'God given liberties' you're talking about because your liberties are clearly stated in the constitution; something given by man.
He goes on to say three things:
1. Children can no longer pray or open a bible in public.
2. The Ten Commandments are no longer allowed to be displayed in public
3. Pastors are not allowed to hand out bibles in schools.
Well, for one, kids are allowed to pray in public as well as open bibles. I mean sure they might be looked at kind of funny and maybe some very prejudiced people will tease them about it but that doesn't mean that they can't do it at all. Second, the Ten Commandments are actually allowed to be displayed, that's why they're at churches and such; I'm pretty sure that they're just not allowed to be displayed on government properties. Nothing religious is allowed to be displayed on government properties though, so it's not that big of a problem. The last thing is true but I don't quite get it; nothing religious at all is allowed to be handed out at school so... what?
Getting back to what I was talking about earlier though, Kirk continues to talk about how great the introduction to the new Origin of Species is going to be and all that jazz. I'm pretty much just frustrated by the whole thing; I mean I have nothing against other religions and I don't have a religion myself but... really? Why would to do that so such a widely respected and quoted book? The origin of species was revolutionary and changed the way that everyone looked at life, and to take that and put an introduction that basically disses it throughout the whole thing it just dumb.
The worst thing though it that a lot of people, such as myself, who got angry at it were told that we were very much overreacting about the whole thing and that we all needed to settle down. If you reversed the roles however, how do you think that they would act? If we started giving out bibles with a 50 page introduction talking about how wrong it is, people would throw riots; at least I assume so.
Anyway, a lot of the opinions I have I share with one girl who shared her opinion on the topic as well as picked apart Kirk Cameron's little advertisement.
The 50 page PDF of Ray Comfort's introduction can be read here.
Kirk Cameron's advertisement can be seen here.
Cristina's video can be seen here.
1 comments:
Yay! Comments work now! :^)
I haven't done it yet, but somewhere in my future I've set myself a reading project: All Darwin's major works.
It's a little shallow for me to say this, never having read ANY of his stuff myself--still, he's one of my biggest heroes. Though I haven't dipped into his books, his theory of natural selection is so stunning to me, and explains SO MUCH (not just evolution and ecosystems, mind you), that I can't help but admire the guy.
A friend of mine who HAS read a decent amount of Darwin tells me that the guy was an excellent writer to, and that his books are fun. Someday, hopefully soon, I'll make the time for it and dive in.
As far as the religious attacks on Darwin's science...well, this debate has been raging for a long time and shows no signs of stopping now. The irony is that I personally see few reasons a person couldn't be Christian and still believe in Darwin's theories. But I guess that's not for me to say, not being a Christian myself.
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