Beliefnet: You devote four of your eleven chapters to evolution, and say that Darwin's theory of evolution is "about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor." So what do you think really happened? Did God create the world in six days? Did he create each species separately? Did he set a chain of causation in motion? Did he "cause" evolution in the sense that all the species are related to each other but God guided their descent?Coulter: These are unanswerable questions--except the latter. God did not "cause" evolution because evolution doesn't exist. Thus, for example, He also didn't "cause" unicorns. My faith and reason tell me that God created the world and I'm not particularly interested in the details. I'll find out when I meet my Maker.
Did God create the world in six days? Did he create each species separately? Did he set a chain of causation in motion?
She doesn't know or care. She's not interested in the details.
Are any creationists or IDers interested in the details? It reminds me of the dialog in the movie "Inherit the Wind."
Drummond: Now listen to this. This is Genesis 4:16: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife." Now where the hell did she come from?Brady: Who?
Drummond: Mrs. Cain. Cain's wife. If, in the beginning, there were just Cain and Abel, and Adam and Eve, where did this extra woman come from? Did you ever stop to think about that?
Brady: No, sir. I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.
Drummond: Never bothered you?
Brady: Never bothered me.
Drummond: Never tried to find out?
Brady: No.
Drummond: You figure somebody else pulled another creation over in the next county somewhere?
Brady: The Bible satisfies me. It is enough.
Drummond: It frightens me to think of the state of learning in the world if everybody had your driving curiosity.
12 comments:
You can't expect intelligent dialogue from Coulter on evolution. She obviously has no clue. I would like to see someone ask her if she considers herself an expert on what evolution theory states. Asking just for her views will get you nowhere.
I would like to see her in a debate with Ken Miller.
But it will never happen.
Coulter said, "My faith and reason tell me that God created the world and I'm not particularly interested in the details."
Iznomneak's response: "Those nasty details seem to get in the way of reason."
Please enlighten me if this is an ignorant question, but why does it matter how the universe came into being? Educational inquiry aside, why is it that people spend so much time and energy fighting over whether the universe evolved or whether God created it?
We weren't there. None of us. We believe what we believe based on what we perceive to be facts. Some people perceive scientific evidence as fact. Some people perceive religious documentation as fact. But we don't know what happened. And we probably never will.
The universe is a mystery of greater vastness than our minds can hold.
Anonymous, a response to your post can be found here:
http://p089.ezboard.com/fsabdiscussionboardgeneral.showMessage?topicID=4630.topic
Iznmoneak, I appreciate your response to my earlier post. In answer to your questions, I have absolutely no idea how old the earth is.... I'm not a fan of the "young earth" argument. Carbon dating and all that...yes, things seem old. But since I wasn't around millions of years ago, I can't say that I'm 100% for or against evolution. I'm skeptical that the intricacy of the universe could have come about without intelligent design, but I don't think "intelligent design" rules out the possibility of the evolutionary process, either.
You said that the post was on Coulter rather than cosmology, and of course I don't disagree, but since the Coulter interview was about cosmology, the topics seemed to me to intertwine.
You did a great job analyzing each of my sentences without actually answering my question. Why does it matter--to you--whether Coulter is wrong or right? Why does it matter--to you--how the universe came into being?
And don't just write some pat answer about not wanting to be "intellectually vacuous." I really want to know why you think this is so important.
I thank you for your response as well. The SAB discussion board is a better place for these discussions than a single threaded anonymous blog. Someone can easily impersonate you (and me) on the blog. I will continue to update the posts at the SAB discussion board and this will be my last link from the blog. I encourage you to register with EZboard (it's free) and continue this discussion at the SAB discussion board. Please note that Steve Wells, the author of this blog, is also the owner of the SAB discussion board.
The response can be found here: http://p089.ezboard.com/fsabdiscussionboardgeneral.showMessage?topicID=4630.topic&index=13
"I'm skeptical that the intricacy of the universe could have come about without intelligent design,"
Why? It seems far more reasonable to have a universe with a simple concept behind its creation rather than one which has a concept behind it that is more complex than anything found in it. That sort of logic would seem to imply you can't have anything simple unless something more complex was there first. That would be much like the universe requiring the watch before cogs could be built.
Drummond shows Brady a fossil of a fish in a rock said to be millions of years old.
Brady: (paraphrasing) I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than the age of rocks.
lol
I read two answers from that interview and couldn't go on. She didn't even answer the questions, just spit out some misdirection.
Funnily enough last Saturday night I was in conversation with a deeply religious mate about our different approaches to scripture ever since we were kids. I brought up the whole who the fuck did Cain marry if there was only Adam, Eve and him as living humans and then onto quite a few other contradictions or blatantly odious references and story-lines in the Bible (Lot and his daughters; the flood; Abraham and Isaac; the Levite and his concubine etc etc). We have done this quite a few times over the years but it seemed that this was finally the moment where he had to admit with touching honesty that he didn't understand science, didn't understand history and didn't even understand scripture as he had never read it objectively.
To be fair I have worked with qualified scientists that didn't understand science!
"He also didn't "cause" unicorns"
I thought he was supposed to be a creationist Christian. The Bible has unicorns. He believed that god created everything. Thus he should think that god caused unicorns. It is pathetic how little the majority of Christians know about there own religion...
"He also didn't "cause" unicorns"
I thought this guy was supposed to be a creationist Christian. The Bible has unicorns, and if there is not evolution then according to him god "caused" unicorns. It is pathetic how little Christians know about there own religion.
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