AdamD,
I fear you may have missed my point. I was trying to make the comparison that, whereas Atheists such as yourself (and I) would merely think anyone not accepting evolution was foolish (or ignorant), some creationists think that anyone who does not agree with them should burn in hell.
I consider that to be a fairly stark comparison.
The other comparison of course, was the difference between Australian culture -which I'm sure no one would suggest is perfect- which does not even allow for the death penalty, and a God which considers eternal pain and suffering to be a perfectly acceptable punishment to several crimes we would consider to be fairly trivial.
This is what I do not understand. Why would anyone want to worship a god whose moral standards are lower than their own?
As I said, the Christian God is clearly not a Christian.

re: "The problem with Darwin’s thinking was that he ascribed creative tendencies to undirected matter"

Dan, I say Darwin did no such thing. If you can contradict me on this, then I suggest you quote chapter and paragraph of Darwin's texts, supporting your assumption.

One does not have to attribute "creative tendencies" to matter. That is like attributing "selfishness" to genes, as Professor Dawkins does. Matter is not creative, genes are not selfish, willows do not weep, pines aren't lonesome. This lapse between the literal and figurative world encourages much wooly thinking and many fatal mis-steps in discussion.

The problem of self-organisation of molecules into progressively complex hierarchies, in the face of thermodynamic constraints, is real but no more proof against the molecular origin of life than Newtonian physics is proof against the theory of relativity.

Thermodynamic constraints are vastly different from thermodynamic impossibility.

I can't offer you any thermodynamic mechanism of molecular transition from non-living atoms, through self-replicating molecules, to simple cells showing the necessary and sufficient attributes of organically evolving life. That does not preclude the existence and continuing operation of such a mechanism, or render it permanently incomprehensible to humans. Such a possibility is no more mysterious than the spirituality associated with human dieties, including the God of Abraham.

As for your comment that
"The Christian church is about getting the foundations right so that progress can be achieved. In the scientific domain, that means getting the basis right for correct thinking."

I would suggest that the crux of Christian thought and action is to be found in the story of the Good Samaritan, which is nothing to do with science or technology, and independent of any creation story, literal or otherwise.

Grim,
You say that other people besides Runner have claimed that not believing in creationism can send you to hell.

I didn’t notice anyone. Were you referring to someone on this thread or another?

Sur Vivor,
Since you gave your opinion on what is the essence of Christian teaching, I’ll give my opinion as well. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. With the second most important being: love your neighbour as yourself. So what you said about the Samaritan was pretty spot on.

The bit about loving God with all your mind (from the first of those two commandments) is the bit creationists are about. They want to integrate all thinking; science, theology, and all other domains, into a cohesive unit. They don’t think it is acceptable to rip out certain key chapters from the Bible so as to side with a majority position.

Unfortunately for those who might not want to admit it, the Bible makes many claims about the nature of the world and reality in general other than those which concern moral conduct. If God doesn’t speak truth about the nature of reality, than why listen to him when he speaks of moral propriety?

To Sur Vivor, Davidf, and quite a few others,
I do think it is interesting that an article which focussed on Darwin, and tried hard to ignore religion, has inspired a discussion focussed on religion. However, where Darwin is concerned, I suppose if the hats fits, wear it.

There seems to be a bit of controversy around your priority of commandments, Dan

see:
http://bible.cc/luke/10-27.htm
which cites Luke 10:27 of the King James version as:

And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

and also Matthew 22:37 as:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."

I prefer Luke's story, as it places equal compulsion on worldly and spiritual obligation to both God and one's fellow man.

Matthew's story allows the unfortunate telling that suits the blindly righteous the world over. So long as the tellers have themselves convinced that they are acting on Matthew's version of this commandment, they can crusade away in every and any religion-based (or other) war.

When spirituality justifies murder, its practice and outcome is no better than applied social Darwinism such as the eugenics of the Nazis.

So if the neighbours aren't following Matthew's version of Jesus' greatest commandment, then it's OK to sort them out - by the sword (in the good old days of proper medieval crusades), by artillery, by bayonet, by Zyklon-B, by car-bomb, by smart bomb, by not-so-smart nuclear device, by colonisation, by anthrax powder by post, by white phosphorus incindiary, by genetically engineered virus and so on.

For ordinary people with grudges or grief, or sick people with character disorders or leaders with psychopathic personalities, Matthew may provide an excuse to walk over, wound or murder "thy neighbour", along with masses of others.

That may be OK for you, Dan, but it is not OK for me. I prefer Luke's version.

As for the original article ignoring religion, I am neither surprised nor offended. The article is about Darwinism as the theory of organic evolution, not about whether Darwin's theory is a better creation story than that told in Genesis.

Me Myself and I, that's three dimensional thinking. Today's world of thinking, the human language can not compete with the numbers that do not fail.
Numbers dictate everything in our universe so what level you are on dictates evolution. Numbers cannot lie, but words can as you all know hence the arguments that are here online.
This is a multidimensional universe with smallness as its basis the infinity is yet what my mind is to discover. Up down left or right, god or evil, well yawn.
De-evolution concepts dictates what lives and what dies, hence 101.
So in layman terms you still all know what I am going to say.
Without a doubt technology plus humans = De-evolution, hence the words that are in fact! aren't we the poor cousins.
So while technology tones us down from running from the lion now the lion sees us as a beanbag hence the reverse. A smaller and smarter world would keep us up with evolution then the living programs would be of an absolute consistency.



EVO

Jade! from cootamundra! Your job! Out-standing!

SMB.

EVO