Yet another religious cult raided

[kandrathe]

Or, you could go back to the original subject and provide some evidence that there's a grand conspiracy of nasty Darwinists out there. You've not supplied any yet that stands scrutiny.

I will do my best. You did not ask me for a grand conspiracy of Darwinists, you asked for one. I gave you three, and you picked them apart. We could also go back to where I said that it is because of perceptions (and maybe fact) of institutionalized biases in schools and colleges that certain movements get traction. That's how we got here.

You are asking for something that is very hard for anyone to find conclusively, because it involves employment contracts and judgments that are usually sealed. Then, if we do find something and post it here, there will be two sides to the dismissals and "persecution" which you may choose to side with the defense of the party doing the persecution. Ergo, prove conclusively that persecution occurred. Your tactic here is the same one that Jester used in the Wright discussion when he asked me to prove that a Wright inspired sermon incited violence. It is hard to make a point where something seemingly apparent, for example that any prominent orator castigating and targeting an entire class of people as their enemy might inspire violent action against that enemy. Or, that when people are demoted, fired or denied employment it might be because of a dogmatic bias against their beliefs (whether that be based on race, sex or religion).

As for my notions of reality, and getting through the day. No, it's not hard. I don't feel I need to have an answer for everything, and I can accept that some things are just a mystery at present. I'm a very open minded person who considers many and all possibilities and evidence. I seem to be stuck on the Earth by what I can only understand is a constant force of Gravity which seems to have been around since I was born. My physics education has presented many theories and systems to explain it, and it seems to make sense, but Newton and Einstein were also wrong on some stuff. Their models generally explain most of the gravitational phenomena we encounter at our scale, but lose validity at the edges. There is no reason for me to fear it suddenly going away and me flying off into space at any rate. So, take Bose Einstein Condensates... I freely admit I get a little lost in the quantum mechanics of it all, and it seems kind of magical to me. It might be that YOU actually created the entire universe just 10 seconds ago, but not very likely and I have no evidence to substantiate it anyway. :)

It is disheartening that you are using the tactic to place the burden on me to research and then when I deliver findings I'm concerned you will just casually dismiss them, as you have already done. For example, you don't trust the article or its contents because of the publisher, which is a pretty common debate tactic. Are we engaged in an open minded discussion, or are you trying to score points and win? So, I claim there is a bias against Christians in science, and not just Creationists in biology and you have said, a) it is justified because no one who believes in spirituality can be a scientist(not based on evidence), and b) this bias isn't happening anyway. I maintain there is a growing proportion of scientists, and laymen who are dogmatic in their absolute beliefs in some science theories. So much so, that they discriminate and persecute those who do not adhere to their dogma.

If I understand your point, you say that if scientists admit to being Christian it is ok, as long as they deny that part in Chapter 1 on how God created it all. You don't think that is a challenge to faith? The first line of the Apostles Creed is, "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth." It is an anchor of Christianity. I think you and they are closing your mind to understanding that philosophy only one way, where I'm saying that these philosophical beliefs are complex and allow for various understanding of what that means. Some narrow minded strictly fundamentalist beliefs are incompatible with the scientific evidence present in paleontology, geology, cosmology, biology, etc., but even then I don't think it would prevent them from contributing and writing as long as they kept their philosophy separate from their science. When Teilhard worked as a paleontologist, the fact that he remained spiritually based did not interfere with his science. He was intellectual enough to separate his teleological philosophies from his scientific work. So here we are in 2008, rehashing Aristotle and Lucretius. Even Dobzhansky himself spoke of God as creating through evolution.

Finally, when I present my world experience with scientists first hand, you find it hard to believe. It would be fun to fly you here and introduce you personally, so we could chat face to face with some of them and let them explain for themselves. It is hard for me to speak for them generally and they would do a much better job than I can do supporting their positions. You see, I do believe in the evidence supporting evolutionary biology, cosmology, etc.

P.S. Also, one last point on Creationism -- it is a broad category and if you are reading my prior statements with the strict fundamentalist literal interpretation point of view, I can understand your confusion. This is not how I meant Creationism. I mean it in the broad philosophical teleological sense. So, my answer when someone asks if Creationism should be taught in public schools, is "Yes!, but not as a theory in opposition to Darwin's". Religious topics should be taught within the humanities, not in the sciences sections of schools. Science is science, and philosophy is philosophy. And, then, if it were possible it would be my hope that given all the information, children would be allowed to decide for themselves how to rationalize their own understanding of the heavens and earth. I fear that instead, they are indoctrinated toward one particular politically based world view.