Letters to the Editor
debaser
Published Letters: 652 Editor's Choice: 11
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Why?
[Read the article: The evolution of creationism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why "bigjimbo"? Why did you dash my prayer? And what a simple one it was...just for a reprieve from the tired old "flying spaghetti monster".
Didn't you read Gary Kayima's piece today on being polite? You know that phrase's only purpose is to make your opponent look foolish. You know it's an absurdly simplistic characterization of an enormously complex notion (don't believe me? Go to a University Library some time...hell there's at least four here at my secular school solely devoted to theological tracts). Please stop with this whole false dichotomy of "I'm right and you're an idiot", it's petty and divisive and gets us precisely nowhere.
You're smarter than this...
there's those who would use olde timey religion as a wedge issue to rile up hate (and those are worthy of every scrap of scorn one can muster) and there's those that can quite easily live a modern, secular life and still believe in both evolution (and science and representative democracy) and God. When you start tossing around "flying spaghetti monster" you insult the whole mosaic and debase (heh)the whole discussion.
cheers,
p.s. To saintzak and Serai1: The reason your Catholic schools taught evolution is because Catholics believe in evolution. It's one of the nice surprises that came out of the Counter Reformation. Unlike Luther (who was the one that was all about The Scripture being the unadulterated Word of God - which was mainly a way to wrest control away from Rome) The Catholic Church proclaimed at the Council of Trent that they and the Bible were pretty much equal. They did this to keep power, but in a roundabout way, it means that they, unlike the Protestant religions Lutheranism spawned, aren't beholden to Scripture as Truth...so at least we have that going for us (to quote caddyshack ;)
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@JosephU
[Read the article: The evolution of creationism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Council of Trent? First Vatican Council (1868)? Pius XII (1950s)?
You see how all of your "proofs" for the backwardness of the Catholic Church are pre-Vatican II? You do realize that, contrary to popular opinion, the church is not a monolithic enterprise; that once a proclimation is made there it stays, forever encased in stone?
How do these quotes grab ya?
the Vatican's former chief astronomer, Fr. George Coyne, prior to his retirement, issued a statement on 18 November 2005 saying that "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." Cardinal Paul Poupard added that "the faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity." He also warned of the permanent lesson we have learned from the Galileo affair, and that "we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism." Fiorenzo Facchini, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, called intelligent design unscientific, and wrote in the January 16-17, 2006 edition L'Osservatore Romano (The Vatican's Newspaper: "But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science....It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."
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beautiful
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On the sports page of my local online paper, right beside the headline "Bonds Indicted Over Doping" is the headline "MLB Revenues Top $6 Billion"
that kind of says it all doesn't it?
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but anonymous...
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What about the NAACP, The ACLU, Affirmative Action, The DNC, "Hollywood", The Federal Reserve, and the holy mother of all things evil "political correctness"?
if you're gonna spout off insane nonsense, then why limit yourself buddy?
Go for broke young man!
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Mister Marker
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm confused. So if steroids (and by extension all PEDs and all legal supplements) don't help one whit, then why did (does) Bonds and countless others do them? I know the general impression of athletes is that they're not the smartest...but by your rationale they're positively moronic, causing untold damage to themselves for no discernible reason.
I think you're missing the point with Bonds. I don't think it's that he did steroids, full stop. Rather it's that he was well on his way to being one of the all-time greats without them and then decided to use them and go for the immortal glory of being The Best Ever. Bonds, and all athletes, and all athletics, is not so much about the people, but what they represent. Neither you, nor I will ever get to know Mr Bonds, or any athlete. When we choose to venerate an athlete it's because of their physical prowess and their "story" - be it the blue collar superstar (a la Teddy Bruschi or John Kruk) or the flaymboyant talent (like Terrell Owens) or humble titan (like Gretzky).
At this juncture what does Bonds represent? Nothing but good ol' Hubris.