If I ever needed evidence...
Nov. 25th, 2005 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailsa_chanThat the calibre of students at Bath Uni is diminishing, I found it in impact this week.
There was a creationist writing in there.
For anyone who has not come across these people before, they are religieous fanatics who don't believe in evolution. They come in a few forms from the ones who belive the earth is 6000 years old and God did it exactly as in Genesis, to preponents of Intelligent Design who say that most of science is correct, but living things are too complex to have been created though natural means alone.
This isn't a rant about Christianity, by the way as I know most Christians in this country at least are sensible intelligent peopel. I also know there are Muslim creationists and I supect there may be Jewish ones (though I've never heard of any.) I don't even particulally mind if people want to believe the earth is flat, in the centre of the solar sytem and 6000 years old or whatever. What i object to is people who think that is this a vaild scientific viewpoint that needs to be taught to children.
The artical starts:
"Once again, the failures of evolutionary theory expose itself as a humanistic construction designed to squash the problem of who we are."
NO, evolution is a scientific thoery to explain the diversity of the species on the planet. Nothing more. There is no morality of it, any more than there is to the theory of gravity.
Dawin himself was a deist at the time he was travelling on the Beagal and making his observations. He later lost his faith, but that was largely due to the death of his daughter, not because he thought we were "the product of random processes, an uncooridnated jumble of chance."
The aticle makes no attempt to refute evoltion, but instead makes an emotional appeal that evolution is a way to get out of your responsiblity to God. If you belive in evolution then you're just a monkey so you can do whatever you like !!!!111!1!
He also says "The inescapability of a moral dimention demands an Arbiter thant exists above any man or woman to define right and wrong."
If such a being exists, why then is morality so varied across cultures. Hell, I bet there's variety of morality in my friends list. Funnily, since Darwins book was published, civiliation has not gone to shit. There are still lots of Christians who consider themselves accountable before God, and plenty of us who don't, and wouldn't do even if evolution was false.
Anyway. I'll stop ranting now.
But only as I have to start work.
There was a creationist writing in there.
For anyone who has not come across these people before, they are religieous fanatics who don't believe in evolution. They come in a few forms from the ones who belive the earth is 6000 years old and God did it exactly as in Genesis, to preponents of Intelligent Design who say that most of science is correct, but living things are too complex to have been created though natural means alone.
This isn't a rant about Christianity, by the way as I know most Christians in this country at least are sensible intelligent peopel. I also know there are Muslim creationists and I supect there may be Jewish ones (though I've never heard of any.) I don't even particulally mind if people want to believe the earth is flat, in the centre of the solar sytem and 6000 years old or whatever. What i object to is people who think that is this a vaild scientific viewpoint that needs to be taught to children.
The artical starts:
"Once again, the failures of evolutionary theory expose itself as a humanistic construction designed to squash the problem of who we are."
NO, evolution is a scientific thoery to explain the diversity of the species on the planet. Nothing more. There is no morality of it, any more than there is to the theory of gravity.
Dawin himself was a deist at the time he was travelling on the Beagal and making his observations. He later lost his faith, but that was largely due to the death of his daughter, not because he thought we were "the product of random processes, an uncooridnated jumble of chance."
The aticle makes no attempt to refute evoltion, but instead makes an emotional appeal that evolution is a way to get out of your responsiblity to God. If you belive in evolution then you're just a monkey so you can do whatever you like !!!!111!1!
He also says "The inescapability of a moral dimention demands an Arbiter thant exists above any man or woman to define right and wrong."
If such a being exists, why then is morality so varied across cultures. Hell, I bet there's variety of morality in my friends list. Funnily, since Darwins book was published, civiliation has not gone to shit. There are still lots of Christians who consider themselves accountable before God, and plenty of us who don't, and wouldn't do even if evolution was false.
Anyway. I'll stop ranting now.
But only as I have to start work.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
morals
Date: 2005-11-25 08:57 am (UTC)The artical starts:
"Once again, the failures of evolutionary theory expose itself as a humanistic construction designed to squash the problem of who we are."
As apposed to the bible and other creation myths...
The start of Genesis even reads like a simple children's story. Repeation, simple numbers and a whooping great 'moral message' like a bad star trek episode.
ps - Cat, your first techie mission is to figure out which letters ailsa's keyboard is missing...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-25 11:04 am (UTC)Ramen!
Well, that, or eir critical thinking skills improve.
If the artical was pushing an opinion that godlessness= no morality, this person seems to be admitting that e only refrains from deliberatly evil acts because of fear of god's resoponce. Whic I think its quite teriffying.
Paul
If you think that's terrifying
Date: 2005-11-25 11:16 am (UTC)some branches of Christanity and Islam will let you do any evil act you like, as long as you get forgiven afterwards. Not by the person you did the evil act against, but by a priest.
A priest, who told you this in the first place.
Is there a Nobel prize for circlular logic?
Re: If you think that's terrifying
Date: 2005-11-25 12:24 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten about the CU at Bath.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-25 01:17 pm (UTC)Azathoth
Date: 2005-11-25 04:09 pm (UTC)Fungi from Yuggoth
by H.P. Lovecraft
XXII. Azathoth
Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me,
Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space,
Till neither time nor matter stretched before me,
But only Chaos, without form or place.
Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered
Things he had dreamed but could not understand,
While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered
In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned.
They danced insanely to the high, thin whining
Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw,
Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining
Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.
"I am His Messenger," the daemon said,
As in contempt he struck his Master's head.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-25 04:10 pm (UTC)oops sorry
Date: 2005-11-25 04:12 pm (UTC)Paul
Re: morals
Date: 2005-11-25 07:34 pm (UTC)I love Creationists - they're great on toast.
Seriously though, Bath uni is a science-based uni so it's an interesting choice for a creationist. Besides which, Impact should only be read for comedy value - that's just the kind of article I expect to see in there. Something to make me laugh while I was waiting for the next lecture.
Admittedly Creationist theory pisses me off because a lot of my units were concerned with evolutionary theory, so it's a knee-jerk topic for me in that I instantly dismiss most of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-25 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-27 03:11 pm (UTC)bath students?
Date: 2005-11-28 10:48 am (UTC)That the calibre of students at Bath Uni is diminishing"
quoted from the top
Although i agree with the rants on this page, i would like to defend the calibre of bath students as a whole. as i still am one, i dont think im diminishing, and i dont want to diminish. There are however some very very silly people at the university where i study.
I think its wrong to judge the entire university on the opinions of a handful of misguided dicks. Some of us are intelligentish.
also i love the lecturer who said
"If any of you are creationists, come to me at the end of t his lecture and I'll explain why you're wrong."
if i work out which he is i will personally shake his hand.
Thank you elmyra for that one :)
Re: bath students?
Date: 2005-11-28 02:29 pm (UTC)But I also feel that due to the university getting funding based on bums on seats, they have to cater to the lowest common denominator. This was very obvious in my degree, when very basic subjects went straight over the heads over several people. It wasn't their fault, they just shouldn't have been doing the degree. I learned very little in my first and second year, it was largely stuff I covered at A level.
Its not just the creationists that make me feel that the calibre of students is deminsihing, its just that this is qualifiable evidence. I've seen students work their socks off, and I've seen others who sit there "I can't be bothered to revise / study / do coursework I'll do it later." Yet both are likely to come out with a degree from a top rated university. I don't think employers look much at the classification of the degree (oxbridge don't even give a classification). I blame tuition fees for a large chunk of this. However, that's a rant for a different day.
Re: bath students?
Date: 2005-11-28 06:54 pm (UTC)*i SO get the last word* *pout*