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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Atheists, Humanists Push Campaign for ’Darwin Day’
2004-02-13
EFL - this is not Scrappleface, but it should be.
Atheist, agnostic and humanist organizations in the Americas, Europe and Asia are gearing up for a five-year campaign aimed at achieving international recognition of Feb. 12 as "Darwin Day." Their target date is 2009 -- the bicentenary of the birth of British biologist Charles Darwin whose own faith in a deity who created the world collapsed before the theory of evolution he set out in 1859 in his ground-breaking "The Origin of Species."
There are agnostic organizations? I'm not sure I believe in them, but I guess I'm open to proof...
Why push for an annual celebration of Darwin now? His ideas are widely shared and even religious leaders from churches that once denounced him as a heretic accept that life on Earth evolved over 3 billion years from primitive forms. "Because a Darwin Day would send out a signal that science matters in an era when pseudo-science and fear of science seem to be gaining ground," argues the British Humanist Association, which is playing a key role in the campaign. In the United States, where a survey in 2002 found that 45 percent of the population believe an all-powerful deity created the universe and all life in it within the last 10,000 years, this concern has even stronger force. Under the administration [of] President Bush, who says he is a born-again Christian, U.S. humanists and atheists say there has been a broad offensive by "creationists" aimed at undermining or even halting the teaching of evolution in schools. The creationist stance has been boosted by a newer movement arguing that, while the Earth may indeed be billions of years old, evolution leaves open many questions that can only be answered by the existence of an "Intelligent Designer."

"It is very, very scary," says Amanda Chesworth, head of the U.S. Darwin Day movement which works to counter the trend by organizing community festivals marking the biologist’s birthday. "Creationism is spreading further and further. Our nation went from the Earth to the moon a few years ago and discovered these worlds date back billions of years. Now it is sticking its head in the sand, claiming the whole lot was made in a flash a few millennia ago by one entity"...

Other schools may follow, Keith Porteous Wood of Britain’s National Secular Society says, unless critics speak out. In India, where humanism and atheism have a strong tradition and are not so distant from traditional Hindu thought, which rejects "ultimate truths," rationalists are alarmed at the rise of an aggressively militant version of Hinduism.
The worlds most urgent problem - militant Hinduism ???

The world's most urgent problem — whether God created the universe in six days in 6006 B.C., or if he took billions of years to do it. How long is one of God's days, by the way? I surely wish I had enough time on my hands to spend it on pondering the subject, but I've got more important things to do. Like wash my hair.
Posted by:Super Hose

#19  Last comment was by me - forgot to write my name.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-2-14 12:37:33 AM  

#18  "Darwin, like Newton, Aristotle, and hundreds of scientists from early man to today, aren't discovering anything new, they're merely learning just how significant God's attention to detail really was! Tell them all to bugger off and fly a kite - in Pakistan!"

For people that supposedly so much helped enlarge humanity's understanding of God's wonders, you definitely seem to have something of a contempt for them.

Are you sure that's not a sin? Certainly seems akin to cursing Virgin Mary or St. Peter or any of the prophets. :-)

"Darwin wants to claim the credit for God's handiwork"

I'm pretty sure that Darwin never claimed to have personally created the universe or *any* species for that matter, so you are simply being rabidly incoherent, OP.

Fact remains that people who think that the universe was created 4004 BCs (or the people who are against evolution) are fundamentalist idiots who are doing their outmost to destroy the teaching of science at schools.
Posted by: Anonymous   2004-2-14 12:36:34 AM  

#17  hokay godheads--you can be a right wing supporter of capitalism liberty and the war on islamic terrorism without being a mystical believer in the sky god of your childhood--cf randian objectivists--without enlightenment guys like darwin you'd be living under the "soft" oppression of a clerical christiandom or the caliphate--so give him his props and a day--i mean you give a day to a groundhog--grow up--sheesh
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI   2004-2-13 11:47:09 PM  

#16  Elvis's Birthday. I want it.
Posted by: tu3031   2004-2-13 10:00:02 PM  

#15  I suggest the last Monday of each August.

Be a nice place to plant three day weekend between July 4th and Thanksgiving.

Is evolution great or what?
Posted by: Michael   2004-2-13 6:22:20 PM  

#14  Hmmm. Interesting idea. Just one question though. On said Darwin Day, could we kill off those we deem to be ruining the gene pool? I'm sure there are a number of people who could benefit from this day...Mass murderers, rapists, terrorists etc.
Posted by: S   2004-2-13 5:29:57 PM  

#13  The odd coincidence is that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. I am not sure what significance this has.

The coincidence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on July 4, 1826 is quite poetic, though.
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2004-2-13 5:04:58 PM  

#12  LOL. Carl.... tho I understand that he promised the universe in 3 days.... small bugs... crept into the eleventeenth deminsion allegory, screwing up channel 1 for future earth betas.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-2-13 4:07:16 PM  

#11  Geek joke:

Why did it take God only six days to created the universe ?

Because he had no installed user base to deal with...
Posted by: Carl in N.H   2004-2-13 3:44:19 PM  

#10  Like many intelligent Christians, I came to the conclusion that the early part of Genesis is an allegory, rather than rote "truth". How could God have explained things to Moses (who supposedly wrote Genesis) any other way, and have him understand? Could you see God trying to explain the "Big Bang" to him, or Schrodinger's Principle, or plasma physics? At the same time, Stephen Hawkings claims that there MUST have been intelligent design working in the creation of the Universe, since there are literally thousands of things that could have gone differently, and created a universe innimical to life as we know it.

Like any really TALENTED Engineer, God created a feedback mechanism into a system designed to change, so that those creatures that exist have a way of adapting to those changes. Darwin wants to claim the credit for God's handiwork - he's about 20 billion years late, and only sees a tiny part of the Big Picture. Most environmental sciences experts today say there are major flaws in Darwin's theories, and that they need significant modification to account for all the changes that take place.

Darwin, like Newton, Aristotle, and hundreds of scientists from early man to today, aren't discovering anything new, they're merely learning just how significant God's attention to detail really was! Tell them all to bugger off and fly a kite - in Pakistan!

/rant - my $.02 worth.

BTW, Angie, I, unlike Fred, do still have hair - it's thin, there isn't much of it, but it still exists! 8^) (I'll bet that Fred and I are close in age, too)
Posted by: Old Patriot   2004-2-13 3:37:07 PM  

#9  That's right YS. Festivus for the rest of us!
Posted by: Sgt.DT   2004-2-13 3:02:20 PM  

#8  Nope.
Posted by: Fred   2004-2-13 2:46:08 PM  

#7  I just want to say that these people (the Darwin Day promoters) are embarrassing me. Thank you.

...I've got more important things to do. Like wash my hair.

You still have hair, Fred?
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2004-2-13 2:43:39 PM  

#6  Hell, SH, if we didn't snip 'em they wouldn't be able to fit into those Super Large Shiekh's and Trojans... Poor Greeks - and I do mean poor Greeks (!!!) - it must be hard soft to have missed out on all the advantages that cross-breeding being a melting pot offers, heh... I love being that kind of mutt, but we'll have to come up with something new - I don't wanna be called a Heinz 57 mutt anymore...
Posted by: .com   2004-2-13 2:43:02 PM  

#5  .com, LOL your link reminded me of the rant that Aris did awhile back begging Americans to stop the madeness and quit snipping our boys.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-2-13 2:28:07 PM  

#4  

I buy into Darwinian thinking because that would put the right about 100 million years ahead of the left which only now has moved from the bottom of some murky pond to now devour other life forms.
Posted by: dataman1   2004-2-13 2:23:41 PM  

#3  SH - all that snippin' going on... did you circumscribe circumcise this article? If so, which tool did you use?
Posted by: .com   2004-2-13 1:45:55 PM  

#2  YS,

Wouldn't it be a wonderful occasion to hand out Darwin Awards? The whole country would have a day off. It would be bigger and better than the Oscars. The next-of-kin could walk the red carpet.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-2-13 1:36:58 PM  

#1  I want FESTIVUS
Posted by: Yosemite Sam   2004-2-13 1:09:09 PM  

00:00