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Author Topic:   2/3rds of Americans want creationism taught.
Rahvin
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Posts: 4042
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.0


Message 151 of 253 (239706)
09-01-2005 4:58 PM


I think a recent article in the Guardian sums things up nicely.
quote:
One side can be wrong
Accepting 'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous consequences, warn Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne
Thursday September 1, 2005
The Guardian
It sounds so reasonable, doesn't it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach "both sides" and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." At first hearing, everything about the phrase "both sides" warms the hearts of educators like ourselves.
One of us spent years as an Oxford tutor and it was his habit to choose controversial topics for the students' weekly essays. They were required to go to the library, read about both sides of an argument, give a fair account of both, and then come to a balanced judgment in their essay. The call for balance, by the way, was always tempered by the maxim, "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong."
As teachers, both of us have found that asking our students to analyse controversies is of enormous value to their education. What is wrong, then, with teaching both sides of the alleged controversy between evolution and creationism or "intelligent design" (ID)? And, by the way, don't be fooled by the disingenuous euphemism. There is nothing new about ID. It is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name to slip (with some success, thanks to loads of tax-free money and slick public-relations professionals) under the radar of the US Constitution's mandate for separation between church and state.
Why, then, would two lifelong educators and passionate advocates of the "both sides" style of teaching join with essentially all biologists in making an exception of the alleged controversy between creation and evolution? What is wrong with the apparently sweet reasonableness of "it is only fair to teach both sides"? The answer is simple. This is not a scientific controversy at all. And it is a time-wasting distraction because evolutionary science, perhaps more than any other major science, is bountifully endowed with genuine controversy.
Among the controversies that students of evolution commonly face, these are genuinely challenging and of great educational value: neutralism versus selectionism in molecular evolution; adaptationism; group selection; punctuated equilibrium; cladism; "evo-devo"; the "Cambrian Explosion"; mass extinctions; interspecies competition; sympatric speciation; sexual selection; the evolution of sex itself; evolutionary psychology; Darwinian medicine and so on. The point is that all these controversies, and many more, provide fodder for fascinating and lively argument, not just in essays but for student discussions late at night.
Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?
So, why are we so sure that intelligent design is not a real scientific theory, worthy of "both sides" treatment? Isn't that just our personal opinion? It is an opinion shared by the vast majority of professional biologists, but of course science does not proceed by majority vote among scientists. Why isn't creationism (or its incarnation as intelligent design) just another scientific controversy, as worthy of scientific debate as the dozen essay topics we listed above? Here's why.
If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.
The argument the ID advocates put, such as it is, is always of the same character. Never do they offer positive evidence in favour of intelligent design. All we ever get is a list of alleged deficiencies in evolution. We are told of "gaps" in the fossil record. Or organs are stated, by fiat and without supporting evidence, to be "irreducibly complex": too complex to have evolved by natural selection.
In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it. Note how unbalanced this is, and how it gives the lie to the apparent reasonableness of "let's teach both sides". One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way. The other side is never required to produce one iota of evidence, but is deemed to have won automatically, the moment the first side encounters a difficulty - the sort of difficulty that all sciences encounter every day, and go to work to solve, with relish.
What, after all, is a gap in the fossil record? It is simply the absence of a fossil which would otherwise have documented a particular evolutionary transition. The gap means that we lack a complete cinematic record of every step in the evolutionary process. But how incredibly presumptuous to demand a complete record, given that only a minuscule proportion of deaths result in a fossil anyway.
The equivalent evidential demand of creationism would be a complete cinematic record of God's behaviour on the day that he went to work on, say, the mammalian ear bones or the bacterial flagellum - the small, hair-like organ that propels mobile bacteria. Not even the most ardent advocate of intelligent design claims that any such divine videotape will ever become available.
Biologists, on the other hand, can confidently claim the equivalent "cinematic" sequence of fossils for a very large number of evolutionary transitions. Not all, but very many, including our own descent from the bipedal ape Australopithecus. And - far more telling - not a single authentic fossil has ever been found in the "wrong" place in the evolutionary sequence. Such an anachronistic fossil, if one were ever unearthed, would blow evolution out of the water.
As the great biologist J B S Haldane growled, when asked what might disprove evolution: "Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian." Evolution, like all good theories, makes itself vulnerable to disproof. Needless to say, it has always come through with flying colours.
Similarly, the claim that something - say the bacterial flagellum - is too complex to have evolved by natural selection is alleged, by a lamentably common but false syllogism, to support the "rival" intelligent design theory by default. This kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. And indeed, a moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more complex, and therefore statistically improbable, entity than the bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created.
If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.
In fact, the bacterial flagellum is certainly not too complex to have evolved, nor is any other living structure that has ever been carefully studied. Biologists have located plausible series of intermediates, using ingredients to be found elsewhere in living systems. But even if some particular case were found for which biologists could offer no ready explanation, the important point is that the "default" logic of the creationists remains thoroughly rotten.
There is no evidence in favour of intelligent design: only alleged gaps in the completeness of the evolutionary account, coupled with the "default" fallacy we have identified. And, while it is inevitably true that there are incompletenesses in evolutionary science, the positive evidence for the fact of evolution is truly massive, made up of hundreds of thousands of mutually corroborating observations. These come from areas such as geology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ethology, biogeography, embryology and - increasingly nowadays - molecular genetics.
The weight of the evidence has become so heavy that opposition to the fact of evolution is laughable to all who are acquainted with even a fraction of the published data. Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system.
Why, finally, does it matter whether these issues are discussed in science classes? There is a case for saying that it doesn't - that biologists shouldn't get so hot under the collar. Perhaps we should just accept the popular demand that we teach ID as well as evolution in science classes. It would, after all, take only about 10 minutes to exhaust the case for ID, then we could get back to teaching real science and genuine controversy.
Tempting as this is, a serious worry remains. The seductive "let's teach the controversy" language still conveys the false, and highly pernicious, idea that there really are two sides. This would distract students from the genuinely important and interesting controversies that enliven evolutionary discourse. Worse, it would hand creationism the only victory it realistically aspires to. Without needing to make a single good point in any argument, it would have won the right for a form of supernaturalism to be recognised as an authentic part of science. And that would be the end of science education in America.
Arguments worth having ...
The "Cambrian Explosion"
Although the fossil record shows that the first multicellular animals lived about 640m years ago, the diversity of species was low until about 530m years ago. At that time there was a sudden explosion of many diverse marine species, including the first appearance of molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms and vertebrates. "Sudden" here is used in the geological sense; the "explosion" occurred over a period of 10m to 30m years, which is, after all, comparable to the time taken to evolve most of the great radiations of mammals. This rapid diversification raises fascinating questions; explanations include the evolution of organisms with hard parts (which aid fossilisation), the evolutionary "discovery" of eyes, and the development of new genes that allowed parts of organisms to evolve independently.
The evolutionary basis of human behaviour
The field of evolutionary psychology (once called "sociobiology") maintains that many universal traits of human behaviour (especially sexual behaviour), as well as differences between individuals and between ethnic groups, have a genetic basis. These traits and differences are said to have evolved in our ancestors via natural selection. There is much controversy about these claims, largely because it is hard to reconstruct the evolutionary forces that acted on our ancestors, and it is unethical to do genetic experiments on modern humans.
Sexual versus natural selection
Although evolutionists agree that adaptations invariably result from natural selection, there are many traits, such as the elaborate plumage of male birds and size differences between the sexes in many species, that are better explained by "sexual selection": selection based on members of one sex (usually females) preferring to mate with members of the other sex that show certain desirable traits. Evolutionists debate how many features of animals have resulted from sexual as opposed to natural selection; some, like Darwin himself, feel that many physical features differentiating human "races" resulted from sexual selection.
The target of natural selection
Evolutionists agree that natural selection usually acts on genes in organisms - individuals carrying genes that give them a reproductive or survival advantage over others will leave more descendants, gradually changing the genetic composition of a species. This is called "individual selection". But some evolutionists have proposed that selection can act at higher levels as well: on populations (group selection), or even on species themselves (species selection). The relative importance of individual versus these higher order forms of selection is a topic of lively debate.
Natural selection versus genetic drift
Natural selection is a process that leads to the replacement of one gene by another in a predictable way. But there is also a "random" evolutionary process called genetic drift, which is the genetic equivalent of coin-tossing. Genetic drift leads to unpredictable changes in the frequencies of genes that don't make much difference to the adaptation of their carriers, and can cause evolution by changing the genetic composition of populations. Many features of DNA are said to have evolved by genetic drift. Evolutionary geneticists disagree about the importance of selection versus drift in explaining features of organisms and their DNA. All evolutionists agree that genetic drift can't explain adaptive evolution. But not all evolution is adaptive.
Further reading
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent
Website explaining evolution in user-friendly fashion
Climbing Mount Improbable
Richard Dawkin (illustrations by Lalla Ward), Penguin 1997
Evolution versus Creationism
Eugenie C Scott, Greenwood Press, 2004
Richard Dawkins is Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, and Jerry Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago
Richard Dawkins book 'The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life' is published by Phoenix in paperback today priced 9.99.
Whether 2/3rds of the population think it should be taught or not, Creationism is simply wrong from a realistic (ie, not faith-based) point of view. "Teaching the controversy" is idiotic. As the article asks, in a 20th century history class, would anyone suggest "teaching the controversy" and teaching the "theory" that the Holocaust never happened? After all, they are both just "theories." We should let the students make up their minds, right?

Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Replies to this message:
 Message 153 by Phat, posted 09-01-2005 5:07 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Yaro
Member (Idle past 6521 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 152 of 253 (239709)
09-01-2005 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 150 by cavediver
09-01-2005 4:54 PM


Re: the truth hurts
Just as an aside, Yaro, not all mathematicans think this way, and to present this as anything other than your particular take on mathematics is misleading. I certainly disagree with your post.
Interesting stuff! I never knew there was so much going on concerning math. I had allways assumed it was just an abstraction of impereicism, but reading thrugh the wiki has made me question that a bit.
I don't know if I buy it all yet, but then again, I'm not a mathematitian . Thanx for the info cavediver.
This message has been edited by Yaro, 09-01-2005 05:01 PM

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Phat
Member
Posts: 18333
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.0


Message 153 of 253 (239712)
09-01-2005 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 151 by Rahvin
09-01-2005 4:58 PM


Rahvin writes:
Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?
I quite agree with you except that origin is still a matter of unresolved validity.(Before earth,specifically) Dubya better quit worrying about things he knows nothing about...(wait...that would mean he would never worry about anything!) OOPS

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4042
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.0


Message 154 of 253 (239718)
09-01-2005 5:20 PM
Reply to: Message 153 by Phat
09-01-2005 5:07 PM


I quite agree with you except that origin is still a matter of unresolved validity
Certainly. We aren't sure about the precise origin of the Universe, we just have a pretty good idea that has thus far withstood testing, thouhg it is sorely lacking in detail.
However, there is still no reason to teach religious ideas in a secular classroom environment. Religious dogma has as much validity as any other idea pulled from thin air - to teach it as possibly true means one must teach about pink unicorns, magic fairies, and the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster. At the least it gives all religions equal validity (if one were to use the logic that only those ideas that have a large support base should be taught). I somehow doubt those who want Creation taught in schools also want the Hindu or Buddhist creation myths taught in science class, but they have equal validity with the Biblical myth in a scientific setting.
It's stupid to teach every idea that anyone has come up with (even restricting it to religious beliefs) and let the kids figure it out themselves. Is that how we should teach about the lunar landings? Should we teach kids about the lunar hoax "theory?" Perhaps we should let the kids decide if Armstrong ever walked on the moon. Maybe we should also teach the "theory" that the South won the American Civil War, or that the "alternative theory" that the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets, and their purpose is sinister.
Teaching the controversy and letting kids decide which is true for themselves is idiotic. When one side has evidence to support it and the other has none, when one side is supported by 200 years of research and the other is supported by religious belief, it is easily apparent that one side is simply wrong and has no place in the public school system, regardless of how many people believe in it.

Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

This message is a reply to:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4924 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 155 of 253 (239721)
09-01-2005 5:21 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Yaro
09-01-2005 8:40 AM


Re: the truth hurts
I think all truths, emotional, spiritual, etc. can be boiled down to a naturalistic, physical component. There are neurons involved, sensual stimuli, etc. Since this is the case, all percived "truth" is naturalistic, i.e. it is dependent on phisical reality.
This is your opinion. Can you back it up?
Define "physical reality" for starters. Also, define "spiritual."
On the issue of math, it is not considered to be a mere abstraction of physical observations, and in fact, often the math is taken as evidence of what reality should be. In that sense, you could say there is a connection, except that this reality is not so "physical" sense it does not consist solely of observable 3-D space.
I think a lot of what you say breaks down when you consider what makes up physical reality.

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6521 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 156 of 253 (239729)
09-01-2005 5:48 PM
Reply to: Message 155 by randman
09-01-2005 5:21 PM


Re: the truth hurts
This is your opinion. Can you back it up?
Define "physical reality" for starters.
Yes. I know only what I observe thrugh my 5 senses. All of those things are by defenition physical. The whol "I think, therefore I am" bit.
Also, define "spiritual."
Scratch that one. I don't belive in spirituality. However, I would say that what people Perceive as spiritual has it's roots in the physical.
On the issue of math, it is not considered to be a mere abstraction of physical observations, and in fact, often the math is taken as evidence of what reality should be. In that sense, you could say there is a connection, except that this reality is not so "physical" sense it does not consist solely of observable 3-D space.
I don't know if I buy this wholheartedly yet. It's tangled up with the phylosophy of mathmatics, which I found quite interesting, however the subject is new to me so I will withdraw from making any conlusions about it.
As far as math being based on objective reality, that's allways seemed the case to me. Perhapse it is not, but it has seemed reasonable to me from what I have read and been taught.
I think a lot of what you say breaks down when you consider what makes up physical reality.
How so? If it is physical, then it is real.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1430 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 157 of 253 (239745)
09-01-2005 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 155 by randman
09-01-2005 5:21 PM


Re: the truth hurts
well there is the striped yellow motorcycle helmet experience ....
picture from Holy visions

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4924 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 158 of 253 (239771)
09-01-2005 7:28 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by Yaro
09-01-2005 5:48 PM


Re: the truth hurts

Off Topic. Do not reply to this message

You still haven't given us a good definition of physical reality. If you mean anything "real", then any real thing is by definition physical. That would make angels, God, or just about anything, if real, physical.
Let me ask you something. Before observation, what is a particle? What form is it in?
What enables particles to either be more wave-like or more particle-like without any exchange of energy?
If something has no matter, is it physical?
Is a photon purely physical?
If from a photon's perspective, we would not measure time nor space, does that mean time and space are not fundamental to physical existence?
Can something exist in a state where time and space are not apparent?
These are some of the many questions you need to answer if you are going to answer the question on what "physical" means.
So have at it. Define physical so we can test things to see if they are indeed just physical or rooted in the physical. Moreover, perhaps the physical part of reality is rooted in the non-physical part of reality. Certainly, we see particles popping in and out of existence and appearing to exist in states that are intrinsincly undefined and in states not apparently from observation as something "physical."
This message has been edited by AdminJar, 09-01-2005 06:52 PM

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CK
Member (Idle past 4153 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 159 of 253 (239775)
09-01-2005 7:35 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by randman
09-01-2005 7:28 PM


Way off topic and science in a non-science forum
That looks awfully like you are trying to have a debate about science and QM (which is odd because a) you are barred from the science forums and b) the last time you were discussing QM you were getting knocked out of the park by John but doing your usual "NANANANANANANANANAN".
If the discussion goes in that direction - what does it directly have to do with the OP?

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Yaro
Member (Idle past 6521 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 160 of 253 (239784)
09-01-2005 7:54 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by randman
09-01-2005 7:28 PM


Re: the truth hurts
If you want to talk about the nature of reality/non-reality go ahead and start a new thread.

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Phat
Member
Posts: 18333
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.0


Message 161 of 253 (239858)
09-02-2005 3:22 AM
Reply to: Message 154 by Rahvin
09-01-2005 5:20 PM


Sorry to speculate and sound arrogant, but..
You honestly sound like a true unbeliever! You appear to have no knowledge of God, or having experienced a fragment of the power thereof....
Religious dogma has as much validity as any other idea pulled from thin air - to teach it as possibly true means one must teach about pink unicorns, magic fairies, and the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster.
But what do you define as dogma? Lets concentrate..FIRSTLY...on this word, "dogma." I have actually never met anyone who fervantly feels a relational connection with pink unicorns, magic fairies or flying monsters of any chef! I have read about such people in psychological writings, but there are not too many around. You honestly have not actually prayed with or met any fervant Christians who fervantly knew that they had a relational connection with God? We both need to get out more!

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black wolf
Junior Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 10
From: Berlin, Germany
Joined: 09-02-2005


Message 162 of 253 (239866)
09-02-2005 5:07 AM


re: Sorry to speculate and sound arrogant, but..
from wikipedia: Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas) is belief or doctrine held by a religion or any kind of organization to be authoritative. Evidence, analysis, or established fact may or may not be adduced, depending upon usage.
since we have explored the reasons why people believe in different supernatural manifestations (psychology, biochemistry, tradition, society etc.), we know that any new idea (such as FSM) can become religion of the same order as Christianity, given time and effort. if you had never heard of a being called 'God', instead had been taught about the Flying Spaghetti Monster all your life (in a community of believers), would you not then relate your spiritual connection to It?

  
Yaro
Member (Idle past 6521 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 163 of 253 (239895)
09-02-2005 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Phat
09-02-2005 3:22 AM


Re: Sorry to speculate and sound arrogant, but..
Lets concentrate..FIRSTLY...on this word, "dogma." I have actually never met anyone who fervantly feels a relational connection with pink unicorns, magic fairies or flying monsters of any chef! I have read about such people in psychological writings...
Perhapse not those creatures, but I can show you fervent belivers in Hindu mythology that belive it whole heartedly. What would you make of them?

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CK
Member (Idle past 4153 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 164 of 253 (239896)
09-02-2005 9:34 AM
Reply to: Message 161 by Phat
09-02-2005 3:22 AM


Re: Sorry to speculate and sound arrogant, but..
What about native indians and their spirit guides?
What so inherently easier to believe about a man who could walk on water and could raise from the dead.
For the outsider your belief seems equally as valid/invalid as any other.
This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 02-Sep-2005 09:43 AM

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jar
Member (Idle past 420 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 165 of 253 (239917)
09-02-2005 11:08 AM
Reply to: Message 164 by CK
09-02-2005 9:34 AM


Native American belief systems
Many of the Native American belief systems were far more Christian in nature than the beliefs of the Christian Europeans that supplanted them. It's long be interesting to me to read the recorded saying and writings of those folk. The Native Americans soon gained a full and complete understanding of the Christian Religion and one constant theme is that they clearly saw the disconnect between what the Europeans were teaching and their actions.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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