Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

It looks like it’s religion week on the doco scene, and here’s the first one. I thought it was adequately entertaining. It’s a two parter and the first part was already on Sunday, but you can watch the first part (or bits of it) on the SBS website. The 2nd is on this coming Sunday.


This program captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools.

Time: Sunday 8.30
Channel: SBS
Duration: 65 minutes

I don't get why these people seem to believe that evolution and the bible are mutually exclusive

Because most conservative christians believe that they are.

What he /\ said. There's still a push in many parts of the world (fine, mostly in America) to ban evolution from schools and only teach creationism. It's bad enough that they brainwash their own kids but doing it to others reinforces my desire to speed up the death of religion.

That said.... here we go:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5054745.ece

That pope dude agrees with you Glen (and many others).

They just dun like evolution, alright?!

Interesting article, Trev. I wonder why Hawking's directing the talk on evolution...? Good for him.

Spank you.
There is another article there called '10 surprising Darwin quotes' or something.

Basically he lost his faith in Christianity but he was never an atheist.

I noticed that second article but didn't read it at the time... now I can't because it's gone.

More like "Out of Context Darwin Quotes For People Unfamiliar With Metaphor."

Yeah, i've gotta say Darwin was quite a strong Christian when he died, or at least his memoirs would suggest so quotes like "when i see His glorious face" and the like- he did however lose a lot of respect for the organised church.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't a Christian, and I'm almost positive he wasn't a "strong Christian". At least this is what I've heard from fairly reliable sources that don't have specific 'agendas.'

It seems likely that he's beliefs were what Trev mentioned: some form of Agnosticism.

There's not really any reason I can think of as to why he would keep his Christianity hidden if he was Christian, since his wife was strongly Christian and it pained her immensely (I hear) that he was agnostic, let alone what she would have felt if he had said he was an atheist (which he certainly may have silently been). Combined with the fact that the vast majority of people at the time were Christian and it would have been very difficult to go against the trend.

I know it doesn't really matter, because it's besides the point whether he was or wasn't (he most surely was Christian when he set out on the Beagle) but I just wanted to put that forth, because to suggest that he was a strong Christian just doesn't seem to add up.

I have heard (though not read it for myself) that in his "theory of evolution" he was attempting to show the Glory of God in how diverse he had made the animals- funnily enough i heard this from one of my beach mission contacts (not a christian) who was deriding the whole idea, because he said that Darwin's theories were warped due to his Christian thinking... perhaps we should all investigate further?

Possibly. I think it is true that his realisation that the standard 'creation' story didn't hold water anymore wasn't a major impetus in his waning faith—he may have personally felt it not too contradictory with his beliefs, but I think it was more other emotional/personal things that contributed to his losing his faith e.g. the death of his daughter at a young age.

Having said that, Darwin was acutely aware of the indifferent nature of Nature, expressed in at least this one lovely quote:

"What a book a Devil’s Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature."

That's only one quote, and he did express views about the beauty of nature etc. and maybe this was because of his personal belief in a creator (personally I doubt it), though, needless to say, that doesn't mean it's an inherit part of his theory but more just his own personal opinions. After all, we've come along way in understanding since the mid 19th century, and yes, Darwin may have been incorrect in some specificities of his theory inthings he couldn't foresee, as any theorist will be.

It would seem Darwin died a non-christian, i read about it on Christianity.net, which had excerpts from the biography (by some dude called Moore), and specific quotes- it's interesting to note that people aren't sure about the death-bed conversion story, so they say "it probably didn't happen"... having said that, i don't know but the evidence is suggestive!

I still don't think evolution and the bible are incompatible- regardless of what others say, i'm not going to limit God to what i think He should've done.

Glenjamin wrote:I still don't think evolution and the bible are incompatible- regardless of what others say, i'm not going to limit God to what i think He should've done.

Sure. I wasn't trying to convince you otherwise.

Sorry, i wasn't having a go at what you'd said more this:

Tom wrote:Because most conservative christians believe that they are.

Which is kinda like saying

Insert Name Here wrote:Most atheists agree with Dawkins' "The God Delusion"

Not really accurate.