RDFRS US:
The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
The Magic of Reality
for the iPad
Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
Roger Stanyard writes:
Wiki defines "sola scriptura" as "the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness". Note that that is not necessarily Biblical literalism. Note also that your definition prevents any Muslim being a creationist.
Sorry, your definition of creationism is way too narrow. The simple fact is that for most of Christendom, let's say AD 800 to AD 1900, most Christians (including most Catholics) would have believed that humans were specially created by God in their present form. (What else would they have believed, before modern evolutionary science?) And in what way is it unreasonable to call that view "creationism", regardless of whether they are full-blown literalists or not?
No, it is not at all strange. You are talking about today! Catholicism tends to accept science (eventually), and certainly since WW2 Catholic schools have uusally presented the scientific account of human origins. We are not disputing that!
But the point is that Hitler's schooling was back in 1894 to 1905! At that time dominant Catholic schooling was creationist (in the sense of regarding man as having been specially created by God in man's current form). What are you trying to argue here, that because Catholic school teaching is not creationist then that it wasn't 100 years ago?? How does that follow?
Anyhow, since this dispute over the meaning of the word "creationist" is somewhat silly, would you accept that the evidence from Mein Kampf is that Hitler was a person who regarded man as having been created by God in our current form (rather than having evolved out of previous life forms)? If so, can you think of a useful shorthand word for that belief? Something beginning with c r ... perhaps?
If you don't accept that Hitler believed that, please present your evidence. My evidence from Mein Kampf is above. Here's another bit of evidence, though it is from "Table Talk" and so less reliable.
You also say:
If you are accusing me of "selected out of context quotes" then please defend the accusation by discussing the context and showing that my quotes are misinterpreted. So far you have presented absolutely nothing at all to support your dissent from what we are saying.
Permalink Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:17:58 UTC | #571441