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Topic: Happy Darwin Day (Read 950 times) |
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David Lucifer
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Happy Darwin Day
« on: 2006-02-12 19:00:39 » |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Day
Darwin Day is the anniversary of the birthday of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809.
Darwin provided the first coherent theory of evolution by means of natural selection and so the name is used by a set of loosely-associated events, usually organized locally to take place on or about Darwin's birthday, whose aim is to acquaint the public with the theory of evolution by natural selection and its importance to biology.
The first event using the name Darwin Day appears to be one organized by The Humanist Community of Palo Alto in 1995. It featured a lecture by anthropologist Donald Johanson on Darwin and Human Origins. Starting in 1997, a series of larger events were organized at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville by members of the biology department. This came about in reaction to the consideration by the 1996 Tennessee legislature of a bill aimed at restricting the teaching of evolution in the public (state) schools.
Some advocates would like to have a public holiday declared for February 12, 2009. That day will be the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, and the year will also mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
While the involved parts of the scientific community view the Darwin Day events as educational, and some in the secular humanist community view them as a celebration of the advance of rationality and science, some creationists have called them veneration or even worship of Darwin (see argument from evolution). Adding further confusion, as a joke some scientists and Darwin Day supporters have attempted to add ritual, pseudo-religious elements to their Darwin Day celebrations.
An unusual spinoff of the Darwin Day 2005 event in Birmingham, England was the creation of the Origin of Species in Dub, a celebration of Darwin's masterpiece realized through the medium of reggae and dub music.
Because Darwin Day 2006 falls on a Sunday, over 400 Christian Churches in the United States which feel that for "far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science" have organized an "Evolution Sunday", the purpose of which is "to discuss the compatibility of religion and science [with their] congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups."
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Mermaid
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Re:Happy Darwin Day
« Reply #1 on: 2006-02-12 21:40:09 » |
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hurches celebrate Darwin`s birthday
Feb 12, 2006, 13:35 GM
NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- Nearly 450 Christian churches in the United States are celebrating the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin Sunday.
The churches say Darwin`s theory of biological evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science, the Chicago Tribune reported.
'It`s to demonstrate, by Christian leaders and members of the clergy, that you don`t have to make that choice. You can have both,' said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, who organized the 'Evolution Sunday' event.
A variety of denominational and non-denominational churches, including Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and a host of community churches, are participating in the event, which grew out of Zimmerman`s The Clergy Letter Project, another effort to dispel the perception among many Christians that faith and evolution are mutually exclusive, the newspaper said.
some of the comments are precious. here> http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1096932.php/Churches_celebrate_Darwin%60s_birthday
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Hermit
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Re:Happy Darwin Day
« Reply #2 on: 2006-02-13 07:08:14 » |
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I remember writing a fairly comprehensive response to somebody who claimed (missing that it contains multiple mutually and reality inconsistent creation myths) that the babble's creation myth was not so much invalid as "a poetic interpretation" (or words to that effect) which allowed them to be retained while also accepting science. Does anyone have a handy link to it or even remember when it might have been written?
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Happy Darwin Day
« Reply #3 on: 2006-02-13 07:30:31 » |
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Still my favorite counter-myth quote:
"For surely it is folly to preach to children who will be riding rockets to the moon a morality and cosmology based on concepts of the Good Society and of man's place in nature that were coined before the harnessing of the horse! And the world is now far too small, and men's stake in sanity too great, for any more of those old games of Chosen Folk (whether of Jehovah, Allah, Wotan, Manu, or the Devil) by which tribesmen sustained themselves against their enemies in the days when the serpent could still talk." -- Joseph Campbell, from "The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology"
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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