The fight over Darwin - Teaching evolution in schools

[Khuutra]

bazmeistergen said:

Absurdity does tend to suggest that something is not true when there is a wider, evidenced and more holistic interpretation available.

I wonder why one would choose that particular explanation of creation. There are far older creation stories than the one's found in the Bible. The absurdity of Genesis when faced with a more reasonable, evidenced explanation means it is NOT as true as an actual scientific explanation. How big would an ark have to be to fit on the millions of species of land-based creatures? How did these animals get food? Why didn't some the animals eat each other? Why did god choose to wipe out many sinless animals? Why did birds get away with it? How come we find fossils dated as older than a few thousand years?

Your biologist quote is very nice, but the logic behind the materialistic view presented does not have to be accepted a priori for it to be more sensible. There are many things materialism cannot explain, but to jump into senseless mysticism is farcical. Leaving the questions unanswered and open is a far more radical and dangerous position than simple dogmatic belief. The other thing about the quote is that it seems to forget about the good things science has produced, including longer and healthier life, time-saving devices, energy-creating gizmos and so on.

I don't understand literal interpretations of the bible. It makes god much simpler and a bit stupid. A god that created the infinite beauty of the universe with all its cascading changes through time would be far more magnificent than the idiot redneck view of god of genesis.

Hey now, the God of Genesis was not an idiot redneck.

He was, however, a slave-owner who was terrified of the potential of his own creation and tossed Adam and Eve out of the garden so that they could not be like God and the rest of the gods (because Genesis refers to a Heavenly pantheon that is like God, if you remember).