Religious fundamentalist are trying ?to relegate to a back room its world-famous collection of hominid fossils showing the evolution of humans’ early ancestors.? Please see the entire article at Scientist Fights Church Effort to Hide Museum’s Pre-Human Fossils – Yahoo! News. Please create a blog entry asking reader to write to the National Museum of Kenya, urging them to stand strong again religious fundamentalists.Trenton J.
Scary article, from our friends at SI.http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20061203/sc_livescience/scientistfightschurchefforttohidemuseumsprehumanfossils
How about some outrage for that big o’ cross people. May be its just me, but if I believed in a creator and my messiah had been brutally murdered on a cross, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to make that cross the symbol for my religion.
Alexatheist — I think you’re describing aspects of sub-Saharan Africa AFTER European influence. It may not have been a happy-go-lucky region before the European input either… but then, we can also point to plagues, inquisitions and a couple of World Wars to show what a hell-hole Europe could be at times.
I’m all for preserving human fossils, as is Mr. Leakey. He worked to preserve them in Kenya, where they were found, and I think that’s a good place for them. I don’t get the impression that they’re about to be destroyed; it seems more like some Christians want alternative labeling. As a few posters have suggested above, put the collection in Kansas and there will still be some Christians who want alternative labeling.
The problem is fundamentalist Christianity, not Kenya.
rna2dna:
Deception?, Not from the church in Kenya. I do see proponents of an idea trying to stifle any dissent by refusing to engage in debate on the topic.
The Yahoo article clearly states that the Pentecostal church ?wants[s] the human fossils de-emphasized.? And that, apparently, is all. No mention of destruction or attempts to deceive anyone. Given the blatant bias of the article in favor of Leakey? position (e.g. the fossils aren?t human?they?re of Homo erectus and Australopithecus which are separate and distinct species from Homo sapiens?so I can argue that Frazier is engaged in deception of his own.) to Frazier?s credit, he at least quoted what the church?s motivation is: ?The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact.?
Oh, I definitely understand the problem. It?s getting you to see it from my perspective that I?m working on.
tmarkville:
What, no cross? What about the hippie in Depends nailed to it? Can we at least keep him? You cannot possibly want to deprive the world of its best hung ornament…That’s preposterous! ~sniker~
“Religion + Orgasm = God”
tmarkville
The cross is necessary. Christ had to be crucified because it would have been SO-O-O-O difficult to make necklaces depicting a stoning. How to affix all those incoming rocks? Such a jeweler’s headache!
This is way off topic: I read a quote once, I thought it was here, that said something like
“How important is the truth to you? Is the truth so important that once you learned the truth you would abandon all that you once believed? If the answer is no, then you are not ready for the truth.”
Does anyone know what I’m talking about. If you do, where can I find this, and who said that?
Thanks
rna2dna:
In actuality, the article in question is marginalizing the church’s protests:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1868904,00.html
“‘It’s creating a big weapon against Christians that’s killing our faith,’ said Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who is leading the hide-the-bones campaign. ‘When children go to museums they’ll start believing we evolved from these apes.’ Not surprisingly, the bishop’s remarks have infuriated scientists who consider the museum’s collection to be unrivalled anywhere else in the world. Its fossils include those of the 4 million-year-old apeman, Australopithecus anamensis, the 1.5 million-year-old remains of the Nariokotome boy, the most complete skeleton of an ancient human ever found, and a series of other bones that highlight crucial phases of our evolutionary past.”
Also:
“When museums put it out there that man evolved from apes, theologically they are affecting many people who are Christians, who believe God created us,’ says Bishop Adoyo, the chairman of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, which claims to represent churches of 35 denominations with nine million members.”
So I wouldn’t listen to any of jcc’s soft-soaping crap ‘stifle the dissent’, when clearly it’s 1-sided.
Why are they calling it the ‘hide-the-bones’ campaign, after all?
darwinluvsu, are you out there? Came across this one today….
I thought about these poor African fossils that no one there wants to keep and I finally came up with the perfect solution: let Madonna adopt them!
Bones:
Don’t ever ask that! As those who know me can tell you, I’m waaaaaay out there…
Gene Roddenberry had a lot of good Atheist quotes including the one you posted. But how about this one from Monty Python (had me laughing for a long time):
“Oh, Lord, please don?t burn us, don?t kill us or toast your flock. Don?t put us on the barbecue or simmer us in stock, don?t bake or baste or boil us or stir-fry us in a wok.”
Krystalline Apostate, thanks for the link, it shows how pro-christian the yahoo article is. I had done some searching before I sent a nice polite plea in defense of the bones to the museum but, didn’t find the article that you linked to. I don’t know if Kenya realizes the importance of what they have and how it can help them but hopefully they will.
Yeah, jcc’s last few posts have been rather revealing for me. rainbows4dinosaurs does a good job of analyzing jcc so maybe I should not.
darwinluvsu and those posting quotes:
Those are fun and true too
great quote Bones.
rna… analyzing jcc is simple because he is transparent once you strip away all the b.s.. he believes in god as the ultimate truth. everything else pales by comparison. how can any human measure up to a god?
how can what any human says be believed compared to what a god says? so folks like jcc only feel worthy because they think they are espousing what god wants. and if you aren’t espousing the same drivel then you need to be converted or ignored.
that’s it. case closed.
The church’s leaders will now have this to deal with in their own back yard.
“A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples of East Africa. It is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes that occurred as recently as 3,000 years ago, a team of geneticists has found.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/science/10cnd-evolve.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1165813200&en=459da82e1510cecf&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
“A research team led by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland has now resolved much of the puzzle. After testing for lactose tolerance and genetic makeup among 43 ethnic groups of East Africa, she and her colleagues have found three new mutations, all independent of each other and of the European mutation, which keep the lactase gene permanently switched on.
The principal mutation, found among Nilo-Saharan-speaking ethnic groups of Kenya and Tanzania, arose 2,700 to 6,800 years ago, according to genetic estimates, Dr. Tishkoff?s group is to report in the journal Nature Genetics on Monday. This fits well with archaeological evidence suggesting that pastoral peoples from the north reached northern Kenya about 4,500 years ago and southern Kenya and Tanzania 3,300 years ago.”
Does an atheist have to hold to humanist or naturalist philosophy??
won2have
No. An atheist is a person who at a minimum does not hold a belief in the reality of gods. From that point they (we) can and do hold a myriad of differing positions and philosophies – or none at all.
http://www.thegodtheory.com/index.htm
Interesting thoughts
Why then does or would a person observe what seems to be such a perfectly designed place, with apparently designed “things” and dismiss them. Its like me seeing a paper clip on a piece of paper and thinking, “how did that paper clip get there. Did the paper create it? What random particles of air produced this clip?
Does that makes sense? It seems that atheists see the faults of something first and immediately assume its origins are impossible and irrational.
won2have
Because we are evolutionarily programmed to look for and find patterns – even where none exist. This is why most atheists promote the use of reason and logic over faith. It allows us to more reliably distinguish the real from the imagined.
I do not think i know the correct language or verbage to describe how confused and hypocratic i feel that the atheist position seems to be.
“Because we are evolutionarily programmed to look for and find patterns – even where none exist.”
So, I looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck – it must a be a horse. Short i know. Apologies. Because of the presupposed idea that “there can be no god” all evidence or apparent design or seemingly purposed complex “things”
results in anything but god, at least as a starting point. It seems like such mangles logic. Take god out of it all. Replace with baseball. A cut field, lines drawn, dirt in a weird shape. All simple things, by themselves. Yet if they show up together, you’d not question how did the grass get to look so even? “Hmmm, the lines are made of chalk and really straight…weird? The dirt is shaped quite oddly. Hmmm no one did this though because i know that turf grass professionals do not exist, I’ve never met one. Man i can wait until a game evolves on the area. Wow what will that be like!?!?”
I get it. If we did not see how the paperclip got there, god must have created the paper with the paperclip already in place. Thanks.
in a vacuum of paper clips and paper floating around….YES God did put the paper clip there.
Here is some more xian craziness from Kenya:
http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=2214&eeid=5095227&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=2&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt
Now I have heard it all!
wonton2have:
I see your argument from design, and raise you an argument from poor design.
http://www.answers.com/topic/argument-from-poor-design
“The argument from poor design or dysteleological argument is an argument against the existence of God, specifically against the existence of a creator God (in the sense of a God that directly created all species of life). It is based on the following premise:
1. An omnipotent omniscient omnibenevolent creator God would create organisms that have optimal design.
2. Organisms have features that are suboptimal.
3. Therefore, God either did not create these organisms or is not omnipotent, omniscient or omnibenevolent.
The argument is structured as a basic Modus tollens.
The argument is often used as a counter argument to the argument from design, and it is criticized by those who use that argument. If the argument from poor design is found to be acceptable, the argument from design is flawed as a consequence. The goal of the argument is to point out that the “creation” contains many defects, therefore intelligence wouldn’t make a practical theory for the origin of our existence.”
Read the whole thing. It really puts the kibosh on your ‘paperclip’ theory.