Kingdom of Priests

When Cultures Collide in "The Pit of Hell"

Thursday June 18, 2009

I did a radio interview today with a fellow down in Texas who had a real preacher's style. Entertaining guy but at one point he asked, letting his voice rise and rise like he was at the pulpit, "David, would you not saaaay that Darwinism is a lie, from its top to its bottom, sprung straight from the pit of Hell!?" 

There was sort of an awkward pause. I'm a pretty mild and soft-spoken kind of person. I didn't want to disagree with him, but I couldn't quite echo his sentiment, neither the style nor the substance. "Well," I offered, "that's not exactly the way I would put, though I like your formulation! What I would say is that it's a delusion with, um, some very negative social consequences." I felt bad about having to disappoint him.

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Comments
BigJ
June 22, 2009 10:13 PM

"I guess that's the beauty of orthodox religion; uncomplicated, easily digestible bite sized morsels for simple people."

Clearly you need to study the subject a little more closely. Religion is hardly uncomplicated, nor is it easily digestible for "simple people", as you call them in your condescending manner. I guess us simple folk will simply have to acquiesce to your superior intellect...eh?

Your Name
June 23, 2009 1:24 AM

I for one believe firmly that the bible is the only word of God, and must be interpreted literally. That is why in the face of mass scientific lies, I cling to passages that refer to the four corners of the earth, and thus believe the world is actually flat, and all those pictures are just mock ups.

I was criticized for secretly buying an asian teen, and then beating her when she did not obey me. I quickly took the athiest naysayer to the bible and showed him where the bible explicitly states that not only may I own a slave, but that I also have the right to beat the slave, even to death, so long as the slave does not die before sundown, for the slave is surely my just property.

And like the Mormons, I also believe that I have the right to have as many wives as I want, and that the only rights they are to have are as to what rights I give them. Did not many great servants of God have many wives?

All those things those athiest scientists call stars and planets and microscopic realities are just reflected illusions.

When I was in college, one of my professors pointed out that when Moses and the Jews parked, and when Moses went up the mountain and got the 10 commandments, that they were parked next to the ruins of Mesopotamia, where thousands of stone tablets called Hammarabi's Code were laying around, and that if he broke a hundred of them, he could go back and in five minutes get some more. The code had been inscribed on stone. He suggested we read the code, notice the profound similarity of the code not only to the 10 commandments, but also to the "Laws of Moses." Well, I read the code, and told him it could only be a coincidence.

Its so sad that so many other cultures belive "their bibles" are true, too. Its just so sad - they are condemned to that awful pit from hell those scientists and their lies sprang from.

Your Name
June 23, 2009 2:18 AM

The real question isn't science or religion. It's can we as a species learn to live with eachother on a planet and not ruin it. Then the answer can be science and religion. A whole lot of praying and a whole lot of flipping words and jargon some people don't understand is not the answer to the current question. Are we arrogant as individuals or arrogant as a species?(You will solve the world's problems or you assume someone else will??)...Get up and recycle or plant a friggen tree! or develop paint-on solar film, or get to your church and go on a mission to teach kids in Hondoras how to farm, or send aid to refugees. Adopt a friggen child instead of making more. I want to see staind glass solar panels on churches and bipartisans votes!

Now whose's with me? And feel free to make jabs. I do enough good for the planet (I start community gardens (yes multiple), recycle, I don't smoke, I don't liter, I zero my carbon footprint, all foodwaste goes to compost, I shop local(I will someday have an electric car) People like me because i'm honest, with execelent family values. If im a candidate for hell then god is crooked.

And as much as I wanna say something to Smart Thinking for his/her...err...interesting portrayal of fact...Sometimes Yahoo news has typos...in their umm...science news...so...the corresponding age and size of the sun.. i make mistakes like that all the time. Your argument was well formatted though! And would have been logical given correct data.
Go Green!!!!!

Gabriel Hanna
June 23, 2009 3:04 PM

As Smart Thinking shows, it's not just evolution that creationists make stuff up about.

They also have to invent things about astronomy, nuclear physics, and if they ever find enough intelligence to work through the math, quantum mechanics.

There is no reputable astronomer who thinks the Sun was bigger than Earth's orbit since it condensed out of the interstellar gas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution

Go that link and the first thing you will see will be a graphic showing where the sun is on the main sequence. It will expand to be larger than Earth's orbit in about 5 billion years, but has not done so yet.

But perhaps Smart thinking is really an expert in stars and nuclear fusion and he can explain to us his new theory of stellar evolution, which I am sure is under peer review even as we speak.

Chris
June 23, 2009 4:14 PM


"Smart Thinking" - what an ironic handle.

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About Kingdom of Priests

David Klinghoffer is an author and senior fellow in the Religion, Liberty & Public Life program at the Discovery Institute. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Jewish Forward. A California native, he currently lives on Mercer Island, Washington, with his wife and five children.

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