29% of UK teachers favor teaching creationism

OK, I've apparently not been following GDR's creationist ideas.Well, SURE the animosity is driven by my attitude and behavior. Sometimes I lose my temper but that's not the reason. The reason is that I won't compromise, I insist the Bible is God's word, I'm not going to give up even one verse of it for "science" and as I've said I don't believe evolution and old earth science are true science anyway, which is another way my attitude and behavior are offensive. The animosity is toward my uncompromising Biblical belief and my opinions in general. I'm probably not a particularly likeable personality, that could be, but I really think it's my opinions that bring down all the jeers here.

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Well, SURE the animosity is driven by my attitude and behavior. Sometimes I lose my temper but that's not the reason. The reason is that I won't compromise, I insist the Bible is God's word, I'm not going to give up even one verse of it for "science" and as I've said I don't believe evolution and old earth science are true science anyway, which is another way my attitude and behavior are offensive.

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Yes, declaring yourself to be sole arbiter of the truth and calling everybody who disagrees stupid - when you don't even have a solid grasp of what you're talking about - is offensive. Because it is unbelievably arrogant and rude.Geology is real science. It is based on huge amount of research. How on earth can you honestly call it "stupid" when you have almost no idea of what it says or the evidence it is based on ?

To what point does it not matter? To what point does only actions and motivations matter? So what? What is your point? Agreed, but to neglect the greater good that occurred as a result of colonization and to focus on the evil of the actions is a dishonest appraisal of the whole situation. It matters, because you have to be aware that you are committing evil in order to be given the same status as someone who does evil knowingly and without caring about it. Hitler was just as evil as the greater part of europe who thought jews were subhumans and blamed all of societies problems on them. Hitler knew that he hated the jews and all non aryan people and he knew it was wrong to do so. You cannot say the same for much of the people involved in india's colonization. They were not evil. They were a product of their generation. Nobody thought that slavery was evil at the time. Only after men became enlightened on the subject, did they view it as evil. In order for them to be evil, they had to be consciously aware of the evil of their actions. True, but the slave owners did not seek justification for their evil acts because they didn't view them as evil in the first place. Hitler and the rest of europe did know it was evil to hate a whole race of people. They were guilty of justifying their acts. They would have to view their acts as criminal before they could seek justification for them. They thought about the role of the british empire in a pious way long before they ever thought about taking action on it. The british people were very religious and thought of themselves as divinely favored. They took this view before taking any actions based on such attitudes. If Faith is claiming that the british colonization of india was in the will of God, such that God approved of it in every last nasty detail and evil act, then she is sadly mistaken. God may have allowed it because it was the best possible outcome considering all the other possibilities that are unknown to us. But to say that God wanted it all to go down exactly like it did and approved of all the humanity involved in it, is a horrendous idea, and if faith is thinking like that, then she needs to rethink her theology.

I don't think you're getting my point. Saying that the British Empire was a result of God's blessings on the nation is not saying that they behaved rightly as colonial conquerors or anything like that. The blessings built on the past. Clearly those blessings have pretty much all been lost by now, and probably some of it through their mistreatment of their colonies.I AM arguing that they weren't nearly as bad as conquerors as you want to paint them, but I'm NOT saying anything about their colonial activity was "Christian" either. I suspect that HAD there been a substantial Christian spirit in their dealings with India, they would more clearly have benefited both themselves and the Indians and possibly India could have evolved into something similar to Canada or Australia in their relations with their conquerors. Possibly.

I said no such thing or anything remotely similar to that.

I have trouble deciding if you are truly this ignorant or just a troll.Do you have any idea what relationship the native people have with their conquerors in Canada and Australia? That you could even make such a a statement is astounding in its idiocy.Also, to equate the culture of the Indian Subcontinent with the cultures of the stone age people in Australia and the Americas is just stupid and ignorant.

If it were not for the attempts to force creationism into the schools, many of us would think of creationists as strange people with quaint ideas. And many of us would not be debating them.

It was a very big IF. it was the IF of TRUE CHRISTIAN treatment of the people.And who equated what with what? What equation did I even make? I think you're hallucinating.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think the point he was making is that the original culture of Canada and Australia was demolished and that saying this was a good thing as you implied does not make sense.

By "similar to Australia" perhaps you are thinking of the Tasmanian aboriginals, who were completely wiped out - one of the early recorded cases of genocide. Yes, I'm sure that was a great example of the workings of "a substantial Christian spirit."

You argue further on in this post that motivations do matter; That is an argument based upon motivations.The point is that motivations matter. If the British had primarily been interested in educating people or bettering their lives, they could have done so without subjugating them and exploiting their resources. They chose not to do that though. They chose to take those countries at gunpoint. That they found rationalisations for doing so means little to nothing. Well first, I am not convinced that the good achieved is greater. The truth is that Britain meddled so much in the affairs of other countries that it is impossible to guess what might have happened had they been left to fend for themselves.But this is really not the point. The point is that Britain had no right to rule these nations. They didn't earn them, they weren't given them, they stole them. If that happened to your nation, you would not be grateful and nor should anyone else be expected to be grateful for being subjugated by a foreign power. You really don't know that. It is just as likely, if not more likely, that the Nazis viewed their actions as justified. It is a sad fact of human psychology that almost no-one regards themselves as being evil, no matter what evils they commit. Do you seriously imagine that millions of Germans thought of themselves as the bad guys?As for the British imperialists not realising that what they were doing was wrong, I doubt very much that the immoral nature of walking into another country and taking it for themselves was lost on them. They just found ways to rationalise it, that's all. That's what people always do when they commit immoral acts for profit. This is patently untrue. Slave owners repeatedly sought to justify the practise against those who opposed it. They too often invoked divine support. I really don't think that is how rationalisation works. The process of rationalising an action typically prevents the conscious realisation that the act is immoral. It protects the conscious mind from the discomfort of having to admit that one's actions were wrong in the first place. This process is what allows people who do terrible things to continue thinking of themselves as being "good", despite evidence to the contrary. If it worked the way you describe, it would not be such a tempting prospect. To be fair, I don't think that is what Faith was trying to say. Nonetheless, portraying one of the most sorry and shameful chapters in British history as a "blessing" is repugnant. As a Brit, I react to it in much the same way as a modern German might, upon hearing someone say that the Third Reich was a blessing from God.Mutate and Survive

Also, the people in the Indian subcontinent were arguably more advanced in many ways than the British conquerors.The native peoples of Canada and Australia were stone age cultures. To imply that the Indians should have acted like the peoples of Canada and Australia to the British incursion is just the height of ignorance. Evidently non-biblical, non-European and non-US history is not taught in the fundieworld.Faith -You might want to take a look at the history of India before the arrival of the British East India Company. It was a very highly culture.
Also, India was not conquered by the British company but by a private British company.

I don't know what happened to this post.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I meant was that IF THERE HAD BEEN A TRUE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT India could conceivably have eventually developed the same kind of relation with the British Crown as Australia and Canada did, having home rule but still having the Queen nominally as their figurehead. Obviously such a Christian spirit did not apply toward the native peoples of either Australia or the Americas, and I wasn't thinking of racial differences at all.

I SAID NOTHING ABOUT THE CONDITION OF INDIA AS A CULTURE. NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. IF anything I put them on the level of the WHITE settlers of Canada and Australia by assuming they could eventually have possibly come to a similar relationship with England. I realize the circumstances are different, yes yes yes, but I'm trying to say something about how things COULD HAVE BEEN had the spirit of colonization beeen TRULY CHRISTIAN.