David Klinghoffer: Racism is integral to Darwinian thinking, “like an irremediable birth defect”

AaronS1978 @ 23

seversky Almost everything you mentioned about the deaths of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah were in response to the horrible things that they were doing in the first place such as child sacrifice to a demon known as moloch form wealth. Everything you mentioned there was a reason, it wasn’t just some random your God is a bad guy and does bad things because god is a bully It was, Sodom and Gomorrah we’re both doing really awful things and God was asked multiple times not to blow the place up and God gave them chances over and over again to the point where God got sick of it and decided to nuke the place

How do you know that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of all these alleged offenses? All we have is the word of the killers. The population of those two cities are never given a chance to present their side of the story. Clearly, God doesn't believe in due process. And even if bad things were happening in S & G, was the whole population guilty - men, women, children, the unborn? Should we have exterminated the whole population of Germany after World War II because of the appalling atrocities demonstrably committed by the Nazis? Finally, we know from Exodus 7:13 "And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said." that God has the power to change the way people think and behave without having to kill them. If the behavior of the inhabitants of S & G was offensive to Him, why not just change it with a Jedi-like wave of the divine hand?

Dealer: "You wanna buy some deathsticks?" Obi-Wan-Kenobi: "You don't want to sell me deathsticks." Dealer: "I don't want to sell you deathsticks.." Obi-Wan-Kenobi: "You want to go home and rethink your life." Dealer: "I want to go home... and rethink my life."

He has that power, does He not?

It is obvious you really hate Christianity because you paint a really colorful narrative of the miss treatment of Native Americans which was done by not just Christians but everybody in America and our government and a combination of imperialism

I don't hate Christianity. I was raised a Christian, even thought I am now agnostic/atheist, and I still believe there is much good in the faith. There are many Christians whose faith inspires them to tend to the sick and dying, who bring support and comfort to the poor, the homeless, the hopeless and the grief-stricken, without any expectation of recognition and reward in this life. What I hate are the so-called Christians who lust after political power and influence - such as the evangelicals who fawn over this President and his kind at every opportunity - or those who faith is a cover for seeking fame and fortune - such as the despicable prosperity gospelers with their private business jets and the televangelists with their syndicated radio and TV shows - or those who purvey the worst kind of bigotry and hatred - like the Westboro Baptist Church. On that evidence, there are parts of the faith in the US that are seriously corrupt. Seversky

@BB Simple difference between religious discrimination and racism: Religious discrimination is egalitarian, in a sense that racism is not. The fierce Saracene at least gives his victim the opportunity to submit to Allah before being beheaded. On the other hand, racism states the principle that merely because someone is born to certain parents they will always be inferior. Now, the supposed superior people could use this principle to exploit the inferiors, or condescendingly treat them like a pet to be placated and pampered. However, in either case, the fundamental premise is that the inferior will always be inferior and the superior will always be superior. Thus, regardless of how brutal and inhumane religious discrimination can be in comparison to racism, religious discrimination at least always has the upper hand over racism in attributing the power of choice to all human beings to determine their destiny. So, Darwin can rail all he wants against slavery, and have the moral superiority over the Christian who wants to enslave Africans to civilize them, and he is clearly in the right to do this. But, Darwin must always cede that his theory forever takes away the power of choice from the individual and puts him at the mercy of biological destiny, while the most barbaric religion always gives this choice to everyone, elevating the individual above everything in the material world. And this is why the article is correct in stating that Darwinism, and any form of purely naturalistic evolution that denies external intervention, is forever committed to racism. EricMH

Brother Brian:

Since there is no evidence for the existence of objective morality,...

How would you know? It is already a given that you cannot assess any evidence. ET

Seversky:

Are your ancestors “subhuman” just because they preceded you?

No, moron. My ancestors were always human.

Neither are the pre-hominids that came before modern humans...

That never happened. But if we grant that for the sake of argument, then the pre-homs were definitely sub-human- in every way. Perhaps not when compared to you and other evos, though. ET

seversky Almost everything you mentioned about the deaths of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah were in response to the horrible things that they were doing in the first place such as child sacrifice to a demon known as moloch form wealth. Everything you mentioned there was a reason, it wasn’t just some random your God is a bad guy and does bad things because god is a bully It was, Sodom and Gomorrah we’re both doing really awful things and God was asked multiple times not to blow the place up and God gave them chances over and over again to the point where God got sick of it and decided to nuke the place It is obvious you really hate Christianity because you paint a really colorful narrative of the miss treatment of Native Americans which was done by not just Christians but everybody in America and our government and a combination of imperialism, The industrial revolution and other awful things, That is not a mistake shared by Christians alone that is shared by every person that participated in our government, And atheists weren’t sitting there trying to be intellectually superior and saying that we should treat the native Americans better they were participating just as everybody else was. AaronS1978

The idea of racial equality, perfectly natural to a design perspective, can be achieved by the Darwinist only by continually and ruthlessly suppressing a built-in tendency

Perhaps David Klinghoffer would like to read On The Jews And Their Lies written by Martin Luther, one of the leading lights of the Christian Reformation, in 1543 and then tell us how racism did not exist until Charles Darwin published his theory in 1859.

If one believes, however, that God ordained that all human beings possess an immortal soul and are equal in his sight ...

Really? Tell that to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah or the Egyptians or the Midianites or the Amalekites or almost the entire human population of the Earth at the time of the Great Flood. Oh, that's right, you can't. They're all dead, killed by God or His proxies.

… racism is intellectually unreasonable as well as morally wrong.

It is but you need to remind your God of that.

But those aren’t even the only two choices. If one believes merely that evolution has proceeded by many different paths over billions of years—and not predominantly by the long, slow, methodical ascent of natural selection—looking for the subhuman loses its force.

It seems to me that it was Christians who saw non-Christian peoples as sub-human. All those missionaries setting out to bring the glories of the faith to those poor, benighted heathens in other lands. Or those boarding schools where Native Americans underwent an almost Borg-like assimilation, forbidden to speak their native languages, dress in the clothing of their peoples or perform their native, cultural and religious practices. Racism will continue to exist as long as there are those who refuse to accept that we are all capable of it and have to be always consciously on our guard against it.

In any Darwinian scheme, someone must be the subhuman. Otherwise, there is no beginning to human history.

Nonsense. Are your ancestors "subhuman" just because they preceded you? Neither are the pre-hominids that came before modern humans, at least not in the pejorative sense you are implying in your use of that word. Seversky

AaronS1978

I understand that the two of you don’t get along very well...

Me? I get along with everyone. :) I just don’t agree with everyone. You and I have had several interesting discussions even though we are often on opposite sides of the debate. Brother Brian

"I would just try to reframe from comments like that" If he ever demonstrated good faith in these debates on UD I would be more than willing to refrain from so harshly calling him out. But I have seen NO effort on his part to engage in good faith. IMHO, he should have been banned long ago from UD for trollish behavior. My guess is that the admin wants to keep a few pet trolls around UD to argue against. bornagain77

“BB. you are either being purposely obtuse or you are irredeemably clueless. Perhaps both.” When I read this I cringed I understand that the two of you don’t get along very well but it’s comments like these many times from both sides that turn these threads into shit slinging contest And I do respect both of the BB’s Ha! But yeah I would just try to reframe from comments like that AaronS1978

"Since there is no evidence for the existence of objective morality" LOL, says the man who has repeatedly appealed to objective morality in this very thread. :)

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?,,, in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. Harper San Francisco, Zondervan Publishing House, 2001, pp. 38-39.

Moreover, there actually is empirical evidence for the reality of objective morality. The following studies actually show that our moral intuition itself transcends space and time: Specifically, in the following study, They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared

Quantum Consciousness – Time Flies Backwards? – Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual….). In Radin and Bierman’s early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html

And in the following meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010, the researchers found that your body can anticipate morally troubling situations between two and 10 seconds before it happens

Can Your Body Sense Future Events Without Any External Clue? (meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010) - (Oct. 22, 2012) Excerpt: "A person playing a video game at work while wearing headphones, for example, can't hear when his or her boss is coming around the corner. But our analysis suggests that if you were tuned into your body, you might be able to detect these anticipatory changes between two and 10 seconds beforehand,,, This phenomenon is sometimes called "presentiment," as in "sensing the future," but Mossbridge said she and other researchers are not sure whether people are really sensing the future. "I like to call the phenomenon 'anomalous anticipatory activity,'" she said. "The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense. It's anticipatory because it seems to predict future physiological changes in response to an important event without any known clues, and it's an activity because it consists of changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin and nervous systems." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145342.htm

Moreover, in the preceding paper one of the researchers remarked that 'we can't explain (the anticipatory activity of the body) using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense.'… And, exactly as she thought, quantum biological findings do indeed shed light how it might be possible for the body to anticipate morally troubling situations before they happen. In fact, as these following videos show,,

Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate - video (27:15 minute mark, how quantum information theory relates to molecular biology) https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=1634

,,,findings in quantum biology go much further and give us strong physical evidence that humans possess a transcendent component to their being on the molecular level that is not reducible to materialistic explanations.

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

That is to say, findings from quantum biology now give us experimental evidence strongly suggesting we do indeed have a transcendent 'soul' that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies just as Christians have held all along. bornagain77

BA77

Yet what you constantly forget is that you, with your Darwinian worldview, have forsaken any right whatsoever to any claims about objective morality that you may make.

Since there is no evidence for the existence of objective morality, your point is without merit. .

Remember, within your Darwinian worldview, all morality is subjective and illusory. And therefore no moral principle can be held to be objective and binding to all humanity in Darwinian thinking.

Why does a moral principle have to be objective to be binding?

In order for you to argue that any moral principle should be binding to all humanity, you are, in fact, forced to steal from the objective morality that is inherent within Theism,...

How do you know that various religions didn’t simply coopt moral principles that were already commonly held within society?

and even steal from the morality that is uniquely inherent within Christianity itself, (i.e. the golden rule).

Thank you for demonstrating my point. The Golden Rule long predates Christianity and is found, in various forms), in almost all religions, even non-theist ones. Brother Brian

BB: I also noticed that you helped yourself to heaping helpings of objective morality:

"to justify racism (or slavery, segregation, women’s second class status, persecution of homosexuals, etc.). There is a parallel between this and how some have used Darwin’s theory to justify racism, or eugenics."

Yet what you constantly forget is that you, with your Darwinian worldview, have forsaken any right whatsoever to any claims about objective morality that you may make. Remember, within your Darwinian worldview, all morality is subjective and illusory. And therefore no moral principle can be held to be objective and binding to all humanity in Darwinian thinking. In order for you to argue that any moral principle should be binding to all humanity, you are, in fact, forced to steal from the objective morality that is inherent within Theism, and even steal from the morality that is uniquely inherent within Christianity itself, (i.e. the golden rule). This failure to have a moral foundation within the atheistic materialism of Darwinism, is an even more crushing "Irremediable Birth Defect” to Darwinian evolution than the empirical evidence that I laid out in posts 2, 3, and 4, (which you claim that you did not read but, none-the-less, you felt free to call the posts 'nonsense'), since it is actually not only an argument against atheistic materialism but is also an argument for the existence of God. In fact, every time you make an objective moral claim as to what people morally 'ought' to do (as you have done several times now in this thread), you are in fact appealing to God himself since only He can provide a coherent basis for objective morality.

What is the Moral Argument for the Existence of God? (William Lane Craig) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFgrrPNNReE The Moral Argument - drcraigvideos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU

bornagain77

BA77

For crying out loud, if any point has been made clear in this thread it is that racism, despite many people trying to twist scriptures to suit their racism, is completely antithetical to Christian morality,...

And yet many people who consider themselves to be Christian have used scripture to justify their racism. That is an easily proven fact.

In fact, as was shown, the ‘anti-altruistic’ morality inherent in the central Darwinian principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ is now show to be falsified by numerous lines of evidence, i.e. posts 2, 3, and 4.

I, like many others, don't read your extensive posts. I did so when I first arrived here but I did not find the ones I read to be of any great interest, and were often completely off topic.

BB. you are either being purposely obtuse or you are irredeemably clueless. Perhaps both.

Nice talking to you. I might do so again if you can refrain from the personal attacks. Brother Brian

Brother Brain you claimed that you have learned something and yet you have apparently learned nothing,,,

BB: "The argument that racism is integral to evolutionary thinking is as impotent as the argument that racism is integral to Christian thinking."

For crying out loud, if any point has been made clear in this thread it is that racism, despite many people trying to twist scriptures to suit their racism, is completely antithetical to Christian morality, and yet is "An Irremediable Birth Defect” in evolutionary morality, (i.e. an 'anti-morality' that is summed up by the principle of 'survival of the fittest'). In fact, as was shown, the 'anti-altruistic' morality inherent in the central Darwinian principle of 'survival of the fittest' is now show to be falsified by numerous lines of evidence, i.e. posts 2, 3, and 4. BB. you are either being purposely obtuse or you are irredeemably clueless. Perhaps both. bornagain77

AaronS1978@11, very good summary. I appreciate it. I learned several things that I did not know about previously. Whenever I talk about Christianity and racism (including slavery) I try to make sure that I am not referring to the Catholic church, or most other denominations, with the exception of a few crazy's like the Westoboro crowd. I try to couch my words such that I am talking about how some people have used their interpretation of scriptures to justify racism (or slavery, segregation, women's second class status, persecution of homosexuals, etc.). There is a parallel between this and how some have used Darwin's theory to justify racism, or eugenics. The theory itself is neutral on the issue. Just as nuclear physics is neutral on the use of its theories to create nuclear weapons. The argument that racism is integral to evolutionary thinking is as impotent as the argument that racism is integral to Christian thinking. Brother Brian

F/N: Let us note the highlight below from Paul's presentation to the Areopagus, a key contribution to the Christian synthesis:

Acts 17 Paul at Athens 16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was greatly angered when he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he had discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place day after day with any who happened to be there. 18 And some of the [b]Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to engage in conversation with him. And some said, “What could this idle babbler [with his eclectic, scrap-heap learning] have in mind to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities”—because he was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 They took him and brought him to the [c]Areopagus (Hill of Ares, the Greek god of war), saying, “May we know what this [strange] new teaching is which you are proclaiming? 20 For you are bringing some startling and strange things to our ears; so we want to know what they mean.” 21 (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners visiting there used to spend their [leisure] time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) Sermon on Mars Hill 22 So Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I observe [with every turn I make throughout the city] that you are very religious and devout in all respects. 23 Now as I was going along and carefully looking at your objects of worship, I came to an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN [d]UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you already worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who created the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He [e]served by human hands, as though He needed anything, because it is He who gives to all [people] life and breath and all things. 26 And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands and territories. 27 This was so that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grasp for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of [f]your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ 29 So then, being God’s children, we should not think that the Divine Nature (deity) is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination or skill of man. 30 Therefore God overlooked and disregarded the former ages of ignorance; but now He commands all people everywhere to repent [that is, to change their old way of thinking, to regret their past sins, and to seek God’s purpose for their lives], 31 because He has set a day when He will judge the inhabited world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed and destined for that task, and He has provided credible proof to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard [the term] resurrection from the dead, [g]some mocked and sneered; but others said, “We will hear from you again about this matter.” 33 So Paul left them. 34 But some men joined him and believed; among them were Dionysius, [a judge] of the Council of Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. [AMP]

We could not have a more direct statement of our fundamental equality as deriving from a common ancestor and being God's children. Racism, though real and a universal evil (not just a sin of Christendom) has no proper foundation as legitimised, on the Judaeo-Christian worldview. That is, it is little more than the herd reaction against the other, like how a black sheep would be treated by a flock of white sheep. I again point to the observation of Bernard Lewis in his essay on the roots of Muslim rage:

. . . The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet . . . . In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names.

KF kairosfocus

To back up Aaron, this following ancient historian states that , "the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian."

Tom Holland: Why I was wrong about Christianity - 2016 It took me a long time to realise my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian. Excerpt: The longer I spent immersed in the study of classical antiquity, the more alien and unsettling I came to find it. The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics, and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more. It was not just the extremes of callousness that I came to find shocking, but the lack of a sense that the poor or the weak might have any intrinsic value. As such, the founding conviction of the Enlightenment – that it owed nothing to the faith into which most of its greatest figures had been born – increasingly came to seem to me unsustainable. “Every sensible man,” Voltaire wrote, “every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.” Rather than acknowledge that his ethical principles might owe anything to Christianity, he preferred to derive them from a range of other sources – not just classical literature, but Chinese philosophy and his own powers of reason. Yet Voltaire, in his concern for the weak and ­oppressed, was marked more enduringly by the stamp of biblical ethics than he cared to admit. His defiance of the Christian God, in a paradox that was certainly not unique to him, drew on motivations that were, in part at least, recognisably Christian. “We preach Christ crucified,” St Paul declared, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” He was right. Nothing could have run more counter to the most profoundly held assumptions of Paul’s contemporaries – Jews, or Greeks, or Romans. The notion that a god might have suffered torture and death on a cross was so shocking as to appear repulsive. Familiarity with the biblical narrative of the Crucifixion has dulled our sense of just how completely novel a deity Christ was. In the ancient world, it was the role of gods who laid claim to ruling the universe to uphold its order by inflicting punishment – not to suffer it themselves. Today, even as belief in God fades across the West, the countries that were once collectively known as Christendom continue to bear the stamp of the two-millennia-old revolution that Christianity represents. It is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value. In my morals and ethics, I have learned to accept that I am not Greek or Roman at all, but thoroughly and proudly Christian. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/religion/2016/09/tom-holland-why-i-was-wrong-about-christianity?fbclid=IwAR0QqBmBxdpkHh_iiXlJX-UbwShtej-wnB721Z1eULApM6fuxSUzSjnBJA8

bornagain77

Here is a small exert From Catholic answers kind of summarizing the entire slavery and racism. It is highly debated, but I would like to clarify that Christianity particularly the Catholic Church did not support racism or slavery. I believe it was in Matthew that the church was meant for all nations But that does not mean it was not used improperly to support a very awful point of view. I bring up the talkback of slavery from this exert because slavery and racism go hand-in-hand so please bear with me. “Sadly, this is not an uncommon tactic by those with an animus against the Church. Many believe, as this professor did, that the Church approved or at least tolerated slavery, especially of Africans and Native Americans in the New World. Scholars argued that the Church was either late in condemning slavery or actively supported it. But like many other historical myths about the Catholic Church, this one does not withstand scrutiny of the historical record. The myth persists because there were individual Catholics who supported slavery or owned slaves. Scholars with an axe to grind use these examples as “proof” of the Church’s malfeasance without drawing the necessary distinction that what individual Catholics may do does not necessarily reflect the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium. Moreover, scholars have routinely failed to distinguish between different types of slavery. The Church has consistently and constantly condemned the practice of “unjust servitude,” which usually entailed the enslavement of a certain race or for economic gain. But Western society since ancient times permitted just title servitude; that is, the involuntary servitude imposed on criminals or prisoners of war. Just title servitude was considered permissible as recently as 1949, when the Geneva Convention allowed nations at war to conscript prisoners of war for labor. In this case the Church has always demanded humane treatment of slaves by their masters and even encouraged their emancipation. The failure to recognize these distinctions between types of servitude has led many scholars to declare falsely that the Church failed to condemn slavery. The Church was born into a world where slavery was a lynchpin of society. Imperial Rome was built and sustained on the backs of slaves; the complete abolition of slavery in Rome was unthinkable and impractical. Despite societal acceptance of slavery, the Church made no distinction between slaves and freedmen in its membership. The equality of believers in a highly class-stratified society was one of the attractions that the Church held for the people of Rome. Once Emperor Constantine legalized the Church in A.D. 313, its teachings influenced Roman laws and policies. Church funds were used by Christians to redeem slaves, especially prisoners of war. One former slave even rose to become pope (Callistus I) in the early third century! Still, slavery continued in Europe even after the collapse of imperial rule in the late fifth century, but as the Church’s influence increased the institution of slavery decreased, until it was completely eradicated in Christendom. Unfortunately, slavery returned to European society in the fifteenth century, with the conquest of the Canary Islands and the discovery of the New World. But from 1435 to 1890, a succession of popes condemned the slave trade and slavery in no uncertain terms. The first pope to do so was Eugenius IV (r. 1431-1447), who in his 1435 bull Sicut Dudum demanded that Christians free all enslaved natives of the Canary Islands within fifteen days; failure to do so would incur automatic excommunication. Thus, fifty-seven years before Columbus’s first voyage, the Roman pontiff unequivocally prohibited the enslavement of native peoples. In 1537, Pope Paul III (r. 1534-1549) issued a bull, Sublimus Dei, which taught that natives peoples were not to be enslaved. In 1591, Gregory XIV (r. 1590-1591) promulgated Cum Sicuti, which was addressed to the bishop of Manila in the Philippines and reiterated his predecessors’ prohibitions against enslaving native peoples. In the seventeenth century, Urban VIII (r. 1623-1644) promulgated Commissum Nobis (1639) in support of the Spanish king’s (Philip IV) edict prohibiting enslavement of the Indians in the New World. The need for cheap and abundant labor in the colonies is what led to the African slave trade. This new form of bondage was also condemned by the popes, beginning with Innocent XI (r. 1676-1689). In 1741, Benedict XIV (r. 1740-1758) issued Immensa Pastorum, which reiterated that the penalty for enslaving Indians was excommunication. In 1839, Gregory XVI (r. 1831-1846) issued In Supremo to condemn the enslavement of Africans. Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903) promulgated two bulls condemning slavery in 1888 and 1890. Yet despite the many papal condemnations of slavery, European colonists continued to enslave Africans and New World natives until the nineteenth century. Papal denunciations of slavery were so harsh and so frequent that the colonial Spanish instituted a law forbidding the publication of papal documents in the colonies without prior royal approval. It is ironic that the Church is falsely accused of either supporting slavery or failing to condemn it, when the wholesale enslavement of Christians by Muslims (estimated at one million people), especially the Ottoman Turks from the sixteenth to the eighteen century, is all but ignored. Finally, it is disingenuous to equate the immoral behavior of individual Catholics with official Church teaching. The fact that some Catholics owned slaves or participated in the slave trade is not an indictment of the Church, but rather an illustration that Catholics will sometimes ignore the clear teachings of the Church.” Now I know much of this is about slavery. The reason why I bring this up as it has direct relation to racism and the two our most intrinsically tied together. Many slavers tried to quote the Bible, to justify slaves and support their inferiority. They did this by quoting the old testament However any slaves owned by Jews could pay off their debt or work it off and had a time period were which they had to be released upon completing that period of service. They would greatly distort this to support their point of view Now I believe you did mention BB that it is a human distortion and that you are correct humans will do everything in their power to get what they want and to prove their point whether it means distorting lying or telling half truths and splitting hairs to prove their point Christianity was used as an excuse by very evil people to do bad things It is no different then when people use Darwinism to prove the inferiority of another race And the point that I have is that Darwinism can easily be used to support racist points of view by showing an inferiority in another race I know that it wasn’t the intention Of the original Theory, but this is sadly where it has been taken. So I wouldn’t say it was Christians supported racism, neither what I say a theory does either, it is just really bad people doing what they normally do which is abuse the system to get what they want. But with Darwinism I find it easier for them to do just that. And it really doesn’t help that we already had a ugly group try to do this in the past century. AaronS1978

Brother Brian, I merely pointed out that the “irremediable birth defect” of racism, i.e. anti-altruism, is far deeper and more flawed to their theory than Darwinists will ever honestly admit in public. Thanks for proving my point. That you would point out that the Christian doctrine of 'original sin', i.e. that racism is part of humanity's flawed nature, does nothing to alleviate the “irremediable birth defect” of racism, i.e. anti-altruistic morality, that is inherent to, and indeed falsifies, Darwin's theory. An “irremediable birth defect” that played out to the tune of 100's of millions of deaths in the twentieth century. In fact, it is a miracle that Christians, such as Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, were able to call on the Christian morality of the society at large to overcome the 'original sin' of racism inherent to all humans in order to bring Britain and America more in line with the perfect and noble moral ideas that Christianity calls us to try to live up to. It was certainly not Darwinian ideology that inspired those great men to give their lives to fighting for equality among races. That you would even try to defend Darwinian ideology as 'non-racist' is insane. I can give many examples where Darwinian ideology led directly to violent racism. But alas, why bother, you are much more interested in attacking Christianity than you are in examining the truthfulness of your own Darwinian worldview. You are a atheistic troll through and through. Honesty with yourself and others is the first casualty in your preferred worldview of atheism. bornagain77

Brother Brian:

Yet racism thrived when Christianity ruled, and was believed, by the vast majority of Europeans and people of European descent.

Religious discrimination is not racism.

Why does evolution require a “sub-human”?

Evolution doesn't. If humans evolved from non-humans then the answer is obvious. And lions didn't evolve from house cats so your point exposes your inability to think. But it's cute that you think you know what your cat thinks ET

AaronS1978

Black people are less intelligent than white Europeans Black people are not intelligent enough to understand what white Europeans are thinking

And this sentiment, sadly, long predates Darwin. From a time that was predominantly Christian. The fact that “Christians” jumped on Darwin’s theory to justify their racism can’t be laid at Darwin’s feet. The root cause runs much deeper. Brother Brian

I would just like to summarize one thing the reason why Darwinism most likely cannot escape racism is because racist will use its logic to justify their point of view. And they often do jump through hoops and try to connect the dots to prove that another race has a selective advantage over the other therefore showing both scientifically and physically the inferiority of the other race Black people are less intelligent than white Europeans Black people are not intelligent enough to understand what white Europeans are thinking The same can be said for white Europeans versus Asians and finally Asians versus a particular group of Jews As long as they can show that they have something that is a selective advantage like high levels of intelligence they can use that as leverage to prove that they are superior race and justify that the inferior don’t have a say The reality is there’s 1 million different factors that play into intelligence, one of the biggest factors is environment and if you live in a bad environment the odds of you being very unintelligent are very high and unfortunately people of African American dissent have a tendency to of been forced into horrible environments The environmental factor more than explains the difference in intelligence But I would venture a guess that this is the main reason why Darwinism cannot escape racism it is a combination of humans using its logic to justify their means, and it does that very well AaronS1978

As to BA77@2, 3 and 4, if any of that nonsense addresses the fact that racism was rampant long before Darwin, when society was largely Christian, I would love to read it. But if I have to wade through 7,000+ words of word salad to read the nugget of valid argument, I have much better things to do with my time. Things like lancing boils, picking lice, applying preparation H, scraping dead skin.., Brother Brian

Moreover, David Klinghoffer stated in his article that humans are equal because "humans,,, are uniquely endowed with souls bearing some sort of exceptional quality," And indeed that was the exact thinking that lay behind the declaration of independence, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal,"

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—" http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/911-and-the-constitution/terms-to-know

But more than that, we now have scientific evidence, via quantum biology, than all men really are 'created equal' and that we really do have a transcendent component to our being, i.e. we now have scientific evidence, via quantum biology, that all men really do have "a soul" that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies, (i.e. we each have a soul that makes each of us 'created equal'):

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate (27:15 minute mark – how quantum information theory relates to molecular biology) https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=1635 Darwinism vs Biological Form – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w

In the following video, entitled Quantum Entangled Consciousness, Stuart Hameroff states that 'the quantum information,,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul'.

“Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jjpEc98o_Oo?t=300

I concider the present day empirical verification of "a soul", via quantum biology, to be of no small importance: Verses:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul? Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

bornagain77

Moreover, to dive even deeper than bacteria, the falsification of this ‘survival of the fittest’, i.e. ‘selfish’, thinking occurs at the molecular level too. Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene’ concept is more of less directly based on Darwin’s own ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking about competition. Yet genes are now found to be anything but selfish. Instead of being ‘selfish’, genes are now found to be existing in a holistic web of mutual interdependence and cooperation (the antithesis of selfishness).

What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? – JUN 16, 2017 Excerpt: If you told a modern geneticist that a complex trait—whether a physical characteristic like height or weight, or the risk of a disease like cancer or schizophrenia—was the work of just 15 genes, they’d probably laugh. It’s now thought that such traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants, working in concert. The vast majority of them have only tiny effects, but together, they can dramatically shape our bodies and our health. They’re weak individually, but powerful en masse. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/ Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait – June 20, 2018 Excerpt: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way,,, One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism risk, recalled Jonathan Pritchard, now a geneticist at Stanford University. “That’s a lot!” he remembered thinking when the paper came out. Over the years, however, what scientists might consider “a lot” in this context has quietly inflated. Last June, Pritchard and his Stanford colleagues Evan Boyle and Yang Li (now at the University of Chicago) published a paper about this in Cell that immediately sparked controversy, although it also had many people nodding in cautious agreement. The authors described what they called the “omnigenic” model of complex traits. Drawing on GWAS analyses of three diseases, they concluded that in the cell types that are relevant to a disease, it appears that not 15, not 100, but essentially all genes contribute to the condition. The authors suggested that for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000. https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that-all-genes-affect-every-complex-trait-20180620/ Gene Pleiotropy Roadblocks Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. – Dec. 8, 2016 Excerpt: Before the advent of modern molecular biology, scientists defined a gene as a single unit of inheritance. If a gene was found to influence multiple externally visible traits, it was said to be pleiotropic—a term first used in 1910.2 During this early period of genetic discovery, pleiotropy was considered to be quite rare because scientists assumed most genes only possessed a single function—a simplistic idea that remained popular throughout most of the 20th century. However, as our understanding of genetics grew through DNA science, it became clear that genes operate in complex interconnected networks. Furthermore, individual genes produce multiple variants of end products with different effects through a variety of intricate mechanisms.2,3 Taken together, these discoveries show that pleiotropy is a common feature of nearly every gene.,,, The pleiotropy evolution problem is widely known among secular geneticists, but rarely discussed in the popular media. In this new research report, the authors state, “Many studies have provided evidence for the ability of pleiotropy to constrain gene evolution.”,,, “Our study provided supportive evidence that pleiotropy constraints the evolution of transcription factors (Tfs).”,,, The authors state, “We showed that highly pleiotropic genes are more likely to be associated with a disease phenotype.”,,, http://www.icr.org/article/9747

Such ‘holistic cooperation’ is, needless to say, the exact polar opposite of being ‘selfish’ as Dawkins had envisioned with his 'selfish gene' concept. (And should, if Darwinism were a normal science instead of being basically a religion for atheists, count as another direct falsification of the theory). In fact, on top of genes being in a holistic web of mutual cooperation, the genetic responses of humans are designed in a very sophisticated way so as to differentiate between hedonic (selfish) and ‘noble’ (altruistic) moral happiness:

Human Cells Respond in Healthy, Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness – July 29, 2013 Excerpt: Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health,,, The sense of well-being derived from “a noble purpose” may provide cellular health benefits, whereas “simple self-gratification” may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found.,,, But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers. Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, “We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically,” she said. “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161952.htm

Given that Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' processes are grossly inadequate for explaining where even a single gene and/or protein came from, I consider the preceding finding of 'morally noble' gene networks to be yet another particularly direct and damning falsification of Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' theory. Moreover on top of all that, if anything ever went against Darwin’s claim that “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species”, it is the notion that a single cell can somehow become tens of trillions of cells that cooperate “exclusively for the good of other cells” in a single organism for the singular purpose of keeping that single organism alive. To claim that one cell transforming itself into the tens of trillions cells, (of extremely cooperative, even altruistic, cells that make up our ONE human body), is anything less than a miracle is either sheer arrogance or profound ignorance (most likely both).

One Body – animation – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDMLq6eqEM4 Mathematician Alexander Tsiaras on Human Development: “It’s a Mystery, It’s Magic, It’s Divinity” – March 2012 Excerpt: ‘The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.’ https://evolutionnews.org/2012/03/mathematician_a/ “The mere fact that a firefly comes from a single cell that then develops into a firefly puts it in a completely different league [from an iPhone]. That doesn’t happen with smartphones. Factories make smartphones. Fireflies come from fireflies and come from an initial fertilized cell. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult. These things are marvelous.” – Doug Axe PhD. molecular biology – The Problem with Theistic Evolution – video – 1:00 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndRBUyW6EbM

bornagain77

as to:

"can be achieved by the Darwinist only by continually and ruthlessly suppressing a built-in tendency. It requires bad faith: fooling himself about his own way of thinking. Like an irremediable birth defect, it’s never going to go away." - David Klinghoffer

Enter Brother Brian to prove David Klinghoffer's exact point. And the "irremediable birth defect" of racism is far deeper and more flawed to their theory than Darwinists will ever honestly admit in public. In fact, the amorality inherent within atheistic materialism,,,

"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins

,, coupled with the 'anti-morality' inherent in 'survival of the fittest' thinking,,,

“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

,,, In fact, the amorality inherent within atheistic materialism, coupled with the 'anti-morality' inherent in 'survival of the fittest' thinking, actually provides yet another falsification of Darwin's theory. In fact, Darwin himself offered this following ‘anti-altruism’ standard as a falsification criteria for his theory, “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species”… and even stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”

“Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species; though throughout nature one species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by, the structure of another. But natural selection can and does often produce structures for the direct injury of other species, as we see in the fang of the adder, and in the ovipositor of the ichneumon, by which its eggs are deposited in the living bodies of other insects. If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” – Charles Darwin – Origin of Species http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/1866/1866-241-c-1859.html

And yet, directly contrary to Darwin’s claim that “Natural selection cannot possibly produce any modification in any one species exclusively for the good of another species” or it would annihilate his theory, it is now known that ” “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.”

Plant Galls and Evolution How More than Twelve Thousand1 Ugly Facts are Slaying a Beautiful Hypothesis: Darwinism2 Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig – 7 September 2017 Excerpt: in the case of the galls, in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it. The galls are not ‘useful to the possessor’, the plants. There is no space for these phenomena in the world of “the selfish gene” (Dawkins). Moreover, the same conclusion appears to be true for thousands of angiosperm species producing deceptive flowers (in contrast to gall formations, now for the exclusive good of the plant species) – a topic which should be carefully treated in another paper. http://www.weloennig.de/PlantGalls.pdf

Moreover, the falsification of 'survival of the fittest' thinking goes even deeper than that. If evolution by natural selection were actually the truth about how all life came to be on Earth then the only life that should be around should be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most ‘mutational firepower’, since only they, (since they greatly outclass multi-cellular organism in terms of ‘reproductive success’ and ‘mutational firepower’), would be fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind pitiless evolution ruled and only the fittest are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here in this following Richard Dawkins’ video:

Richard Dawkins interview with a ‘Darwinian’ physician goes off track – video Excerpt: “I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly — a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves — that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we’re stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html

In other words, since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful, and highly efficient reproduction, be realistically ‘selected’ for? Darwin himself stated, “every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;”

“every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers;” – Charles Darwin – Origin of Species – pg. 66

The logic of natural selection is nicely and simply illustrated on the following graph:

The Logic of Natural Selection – graph http://recticulatedgiraffe.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/6/2/40627097/1189735.jpg?308

As you can see, any other function besides successful reproduction, such as much slower sexual reproduction, sight, hearing, abstract thinking, and especially morally noble altruistic behavior of any sort, would be highly superfluous and even detrimental to the primary criteria of successful reproduction, and should, on a 'survival of the fittest' Darwinian view, be discarded, and/or ‘eaten’, by bacteria, as so much excess baggage since it obviously would slow down successful reproduction. Yet, contrary to this central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, instead of eating us, time after time we find micro-organisms helping each other, and us, in ways that have nothing to with their own ‘survival of the fittest’’ concerns. The following researchers said they were ‘banging our heads against the wall’ by the contradictory findings to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that they had found. And they even stated that “,,, Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.”

Doubting Darwin: Algae Findings Surprise Scientists – April 28, 2014 Excerpt: One of Charles Darwin’s hypotheses posits that closely related species will compete for food and other resources more strongly with one another than with distant relatives, because they occupy similar ecological niches. Most biologists long have accepted this to be true. Thus, three researchers were more than a little shaken to find that their experiments on fresh water green algae failed to support Darwin’s theory — at least in one case. “It was completely unexpected,” says Bradley Cardinale, associate professor in the University of Michigan’s school of natural resources & environment. “When we saw the results, we said ‘this can’t be.”‘ We sat there banging our heads against the wall. Darwin’s hypothesis has been with us for so long, how can it not be right?” The researchers ,,,— were so uncomfortable with their results that they spent the next several months trying to disprove their own work. But the research held up.,,, The scientists did not set out to disprove Darwin, but, in fact, to learn more about the genetic and ecological uniqueness of fresh water green algae so they could provide conservationists with useful data for decision-making. “We went into it assuming Darwin to be right, and expecting to come up with some real numbers for conservationists,” Cardinale says. “When we started coming up with numbers that showed he wasn’t right, we were completely baffled.”,,, Darwin “was obsessed with competition,” Cardinale says. “He assumed the whole world was composed of species competing with each other, but we found that one-third of the species of algae we studied actually like each other. They don’t grow as well unless you put them with another species. It may be that nature has a heck of a lot more mutualisms than we ever expected. “,,, Maybe Darwin’s presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong.” http://www.livescience.com/45205-data-dont-back-up-darwin-in-algae-study-nsf-bts.html

And again, directly contrary to the central ‘survival of the fittest’ assumption of Darwinian evolution, we find that bacteria are also directly helping us in essential ways that have nothing to do with their own survival of the fittest concerns:

NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body – June 13, 2012 Excerpt: Microbes inhabit just about every part of the human body, living on the skin, in the gut, and up the nose. Sometimes they cause sickness, but most of the time, microorganisms live in harmony with their human hosts, providing vital functions essential for human survival. http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2012/nhgri-13.htm We are living in a bacterial world, and it’s impacting us more than previously thought – February 15, 2013 Excerpt: We often associate bacteria with disease-causing “germs” or pathogens, and bacteria are responsible for many diseases, such as tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and MRSA infections. But bacteria do many good things, too, and the recent research underlines the fact that animal life would not be the same without them.,,, I am,, convinced that the number of beneficial microbes, even very necessary microbes, is much, much greater than the number of pathogens.” http://phys.org/news/2013-02-bacterial-world-impacting-previously-thought.html#ajTabs

Moreover, it is now known that “Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides.”

The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth’s Biogeochemical Cycles – Paul G. Falkowski – 2008 Excerpt: Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.474.2161&rep=rep1&type=pdf – Paul G. Falkowski is Professor Geological Sciences at Rutgers

Darwin's theory simply has no explanation for such behavior and in fact such behavior is completely contrary to the central assumption of 'survival of the fittest' that lays at the heart of Darwin's theoretical framework. bornagain77

The idea of racial equality, perfectly natural to a design perspective, can be achieved by the Darwinist only by continually and ruthlessly suppressing a built-in tendency.

Yet racism thrived when Christianity ruled, and was believed, by the vast majority of Europeans and people of European descent. Until you can explain that all you can really say is that humans, for whatever reason, have a tendency towards racism or, more accurately, a distrust of people who are different. Why does evolution require a “sub-human”? Is a house cat inferior to a lion. I assure you, my cat doesn’t think so. Evolution doesn’t mean inferior or superior in anything other than reproduction. On those grounds, Europeans and those of European descent are “inferior” to other races, cultures and ethnic groups. Brother Brian