LTTE Fundy Pastor comments on evolution

[hyphenate]

This guy sounds a little more intelligent than most fundies seem to be, but he complains that humanists (code word for atheists) are too narrow-minded. This is the kind of off-handed opinion which I found in my ex-friend, using the word "humanist" as a slur, with nothing but basic derision as the whole motif of the poster/author. Of course, to another fundie, he probably qualifies as a genius, but in terms of overall wisdom, he is missing the mark.

I would have happily let the author go on without any comment, except where he wrote the codswallop about the "inerrant word" of the bible. It's this kind of idiocy which makes me less able to tolerate the radical religious right--if beliefs on the far right could only be expanded a fraction to get rid of the legalistic and "inerrancy" bullshit, perhaps I could happily be more tolerant of them.
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Bible does not contradict science
By: May 26, 2008

Editor:

<snip>

As a pastor and student of science, I am no expert on either. However I will respond on the basis of scientific fact and scriptural truth to many of the statements made. First let me admit my bias, something humanists don't do. I am unapologetically biased toward the revealed truth contained in the inspired and inerrant word of God. This does not contradict science; as a matter of historical record all sciences have their roots in theological endeavor. So when I am faced with contradictions I choose a bias that agrees with the creator of all, not the theories of His fallible creatures.

His first bias was clearly toward religion; he quoted Claude Bernard on doubting with regard to science then applied this doubt to faith. Bernard also said of theories and hypothesis, "They are never final, never to be absolutely believed." The writer chooses science over religion when he uses phrases like "religious superstition, and blindly accepting." He obviously believes that religion is manmade and that those of faith are blind sheep. He also made it clear that those who oppose the faith of their childhood are the enlighten ones.

But his true bias came through in his discussion on science. To say our school system attacks evolution is laughable, and I recommend watching "Expelled." To say there is no evidence against evolution shows that he has either marginalized those facts or is ignorant of them. For example, why does the fossil record contain millions of fossils (evidence of a worldwide flood) and has no evidence of transitional species? Punctuated equilibrium and millions and billions of years is the only way macroevolution can be "believed."

<snip>

The theory of evolution has had negative affects on medicine and society; 134 organs once thought to be vestigial are all now known to serve very important purposes. Evolution was also widely used to support bigotry and racism in the late 1800s, seeing its full effect in Nazism, not to mention its use today to kill off inconvenient people though abortion and assisted suicide.

It is clear from these facts that the writer is not interested in honest scientific endeavor, because this would include questioning all theories and testing all their claims, but evolution is a sacred cow of the enlightened scientific community that has voted it into fact.

Pastor Robert Portier
Saint Paul Lutheran
Sevierville

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19720408&BRD=1211&PAG=461&dept_id=169695&rfi=6

[BlooInBloo]

1. It's always good for a laugh when idiots talk about science and religion being compatible...

Even Kant knew they weren't.

[Th1onein]

11. They ARE compatible

It is only when idiots assume that the folklore in the Bible, or other religious tomes, is "inerrant" and take it literally, do they become incompatible. In other words, it is only in the NARROWEST of interpretations of either that religion and science become incompatible.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. I want to know more about 134 non-vestigial very important organs.

[uberllama42]

13. Didn't you hear?

The muscles that move your ears are essential to scaring away demons and keeping them out of your head. Proof positive that God designed humans.

[Liberal Veteran]

14. I can't move my ears! Does that mean a demon got in there and made me gay?

:rofl:

[immoderate]

3. "...millions of fossils (evidence of a world wide flood.)"

What an idiot. A bias in favor of the biased. :rofl:

--IMM

[timtom]

4. So, did you write a LTTE offering

an intelligent confutation?

[hyphenate]

7. No....

I just found the LTTE today. Perhaps I will send a response, but I also don't live anywhere near the newspaper or the city in which it is printed. That might be a factor.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Yawn

Can't they ever ever ever EVER come up with anything NEW? Just the tired, old all-ready disproved bullshit.

I hope they find evidence of life on Mars. I really, really do. They'll probably say it's hoax or the devil put it there.

[varkam]

6. I stopped reading when he brought up Expelled.

The fact that he referenced that movie is more than enough to make me believe that Pastor Portier doesn't understand thing one about evolution.

[TZ]

9. Actually he does a little bit

He mentions "Punctuated Equilibrium" which is a theory of the MECHANISM of evolution. He clearly doesn't truly understand the theory I think, but he's quoting a legit theory (which I happen to strongly disagree with though). I will give him that, he's probably read and misunderstood Stephen Jay Gould..someone who IS NOT a creationist, but whom I am not surprised to see is being hijacked by the fundies.

[varkam]

18. Point taken, however...

Someone who thinks expelled is an effective refutation is either completely lost or is not interested in truth but rather in ideology.

[sutz12]

8. I believe that if you actually look at the historical record...

Science has had its greatest explosion in the advance of knowledge since The Enlightenment, whose biggest affect was that of throwing off the religious restrictions that had been laid on scientific research and endeavor.

That is always the fundies' goal, IMO, the repeal of The Enlightenment.

[hyphenate]

17. Geez!

Everybody knows that the apple that Eve ate and shared with Adam was the key to knowledge! The "heirarchy" has always been terrified that people will get a little too smart and overthrow them.

I tried to tell a creationist that, but she put her fingers in her ears and kept saying, "la, la, la, la, la...." :rofl:

Seriously, the "dumbing down" of the masses has been in effect for millennia now--technology today has helped to make that situation less prevalent, but there are still too many nations who keep their populations rather harmless by bolstering mythology and superstition.

[TZ]

10. He's what I would call a technobabbler or self taught "theorist"

He's read enough to know some basic terminology but he obviously lacks the true depths of understanding of these topics that scientists have. Sounds to me like he's read pop Science magazines and from that believed he is "educated".
In other words, he's a self taught foolish psuedointellectual.

[uberllama42]

12. Portier and his ilk are a pox on civilization

We'll all be better off when his superstition is dead.

[Aristus]

15. Anti-evolutionists try to refute fossil evidence through reductio ad absurdum arguments.

If they ask to see "transitional fossils", show them Eohippus, Mesohippus and the modern horse; all perfectly transitional and remarkably ordered descendants with modification.

Then they will ask to see "transitions of the transitions". Where are the "in-betweens" of THOSE fossils? And you could show them transitional specimens from now until the end of the world, and they would refute over and over the evidence clear and distinct before their own eyes...

I'm a Christian myself, but I'll tell you, some of the people laying claim to that appellation plunge me into despair. :grr:

[struggle4progress]

16. The Nazis were interested in power rather than philosophy. And they grabbed for power in the most

cynical manner imaginable: they set out to recruit in all sectors of German society (the existing anti-semitic Woton societies, in the jails, in the universities, among the unemployed and among the demobilized Army ...). For this reason the Nazis often had to tell entirely different tales to different groups. So they recruited locally respected people to push their own individual enthusiasms as "the Nazi plan" and then dropped those same "spokesmen" when the useful idiots became less useful. So it sometimes means very little to find an example of a German in the Nazi era claiming an idea reflects Nazi views

It is idiotic to read this period as illustrating the influence of subtle philosophical ideas. The Nazis themselves were essentially immune to subtle philosophical reasoning, and their program for Germany did not involve much in the way of philosophical seduction: in full bloom, it involved terror and indoctrination. In the early days, Nazi thugs rioted and then blamed the government for not keeping order -- or claimed that they had merely been defending themselves against some spooky group. The original Nazi "eugenics" had nothing whatsoever to do with racial theories: they collected badly wounded WWI soldiers from across the country (under the guise of providing better care) and then exterminated them (claiming it was the merciful thing to do). The concentration camps were first populated with political opponents of the Reich

One should distinguish between alleged motives and material motives: Nazi racial theories merely provided a convenient justification for pillage. By targeting Germany's Judaic community, the Nazis solidified their political support among anti-semitic Germans and seized substantial assets, that could be redistributed: some got art treasures;others, houses; still others, products manufactured by slave labor; still others, some new mattresses stuffed with human hair ... But the action also reinforced the terror underlying Nazi rule, for the German observer saw the Communists and homosexuals and Jews taken away in stages, none ever to return

The idea of laying all of this at Darwin's feet seems to belong to Richard Weikart of the Discovery Institute, who has written a whole text on the theme. "In Weikart’s account, Haeckel simply packed Darwin’s evolutionary materialism and racism into his sidecar and delivered their toxic message to Berchtesgaden" writes Robert Richards (of the University of Chicago) in an essay (pdf link) examining Weikart’s thesis. Unsurprisingly, "scientific" efforts to justify racism predate Darwin; meanwhile, plenty of anti-Darwinian creationists also attempted to justify racism. Particularly interesting in Richards' essay is the discussion of some Nazi efforts to recruit Haeckel and other Nazi efforts to oppose recruiting him, on the grounds that Haeckel's science is insufficiently volkish

The pastor is a Missouri Synod Lutheran, which means that he is a Biblical literalist. The Nazis, of course, also dragged up and spread about some antisemitic crap written by Luther: to my knowledge, it had largely been forgotten before that (except perhaps by a few specialists). I do not think that crap was ever taught as Lutheran doctrine -- no one I know was ever exposed to it in a Lutheran church. But we Lutherans mainly ignored it (as idiotic and embarrassing) -- and did not get around to actually denouncing it until about a decade ago. So if you uncharitably feel like heckling the pastor, you can throw that at him: I personally think it would serve him right