This is a video series produced by AronRa on youtube.

The first falsehood, being an equivalence between evolution and atheism which is a creationist falsehood designed to scare away the scientifically receptive religious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY

You can find more of AronRa's examination of evolution at his site:
http://www.aronra.com/

This has to do with what Sam Harris was speaking on in the transcript which is posted here in the belief forums found here:

http://www.booktalk.org/harris-speech-t ... t9887.html

And that is that creationists have been attempting to give the word atheist the same sort of knee-jerk ENEMY reaction that people have managed to slap onto communism, when there is nothing inherently evil about either.

And in fact, evolution cannot be an "atheist" pursuit since there is no trait which binds atheist together other than their lack of belief in gods. In other words, there is no meeting to discuss the non-existent agenda to forward the theory of evolution among a group of people who do not conspire together.

Evolution is the cause of material rationalists, and not because they desire to see the position front and center, but because it actually is what is happening and it is evident through empirical, objective evidence. People who know that everything there is has attributes of some kind and because it is possible to detect these attributes it is possible to have real, evidenciary knowledge about those things which are not reliant on subjective interpretation for them to be true.

That is why a christian who believes that god did in fact create all life can still accept the obvious, monumental heap of evidence in favor of evolution and still be a christian. It has nothing to say about NID's (non interactive dieties. a play on WIMP)Evolution is a set of rules humans have compiled to explain what DOES happen during reproduction of organisms. Changing the name of evolution or pretending it doesn't exist all together would have no impact on the empirical fact that it does occur and is the reason for biodiversity.

It is wrong and ill-concieved to frame the discussion about evolution in terms of atheism, and the above video makes a good case to that effect.

Although what you say is correct, it's also true that understanding evolution removes a major justification for believing in God. You can always tack on, "well, God started it," but you can do that for anything.

However, since many Christians do accept evolution, and it doesn't logically disprove theism, I don't really understand why there are so many people that still insist on creationism in defiance of all evidence. Of course, in a sense I do understand it, because that's what they've been told their whole life, and see no need to consider the evidence and question their beliefs.

For me, once you start seeing that god can be uprooted from his place as a gap-filler, then it is an obvious and inevitable path toward pre-emptive eviction from all gaps so that he isn't cluttering up the view. I would like to think that that isn't just me, but there are so many people who are just unable to relinquish their cherished fairy tales.

Mental gymnastic though it is, they have found a way to insist god is invovled all the same by tacking on the obligatore "god started it" that you mention.

It does seem like an inevitable slide into rationalism to me, but perhaps thats because i dismiss gods out of hand as purely wish fulfilment fantasy.

For me, once you start seeing that god can be uprooted from his place as a gap-filler, then it is an obvious and inevitable path toward pre-emptive eviction from all gaps so that he isn't cluttering up the view.

You should be quoted and slapped on the back for that line. Very well put, well worded sentence.

Quite true. Once you "forget" that certain matters are empiral fact, you can start putting your name tag on it and claim a patent. If genes and certain DNA can go through court (as here in Germany) and be claimed and patented by a company, then it goes to follow that Christian/Hindus, whatever, can use the same material and empirical facts as ground material, put their patent on them and go from there.

I'm reminded by a comment by William L. Rowe who said something along the lines of it not being difficult for an atheist to be friendly if the atheist has reason to believe that the theist could not reasonably be expected to be familiar with the grounds for disbelief that the atheist has.
I'm bringing this up because I just had the dubious pleasure of watching a documentary on an American creationist family called Bates. Huge family, many children (19, I think)and home-schooling. This fascinated me as home-schooling is not allowed in Germany. So family units can thus keep knowledge and empirical fact away from their children? Can this be correct?

Oblivion we do have a t.v. show here on a family named Dugger (actually lovely people with nice looking children) and they are friends with a family named Bates, but I do believe it is the Dugger's who have the larger family. Not absolutely sure though.

Yes, it is perfectly legal here to home school children and I have neighbors who do so. Often it is for religious reasons but not always and yes, they can of course keep empirical (well not exactly as empirical of course means what the person experiences, sees etc.) but certainly facts away from the children.

Actually I was watching the Duggers last night (Mother and oldest daughter went sky diving) and was thinking that while they give credit for each conception of theirs to God they certainly restrict their children from any threat of sexual intercourse when wouldn't you think they would also consider the results/lack of results from any such intercourse also attributable to God?

Could you amplify on your comments about DNA, genes and German courts? Not too sure I understand what you are saying?

Unfortunately the only home-schooled people that i have personally met were all done so explicitly to keep them ignorant of scientific fact.

With the move toward anti-intellectualism and the "lord of the flies" atmosphere of schools, it is not beyond the realm of reason that we will be home schooling our children ourselves. It is universally recognized that children need adult supervision and teachers, yet the only possible outcome of our deprived education system is overwhelmed teachers wrangling more students than they could possibly handle leaving the children to set their own rules about social interactions, the treatment of the disadvantaged and what is most valuable in life.

It is the children who set the agenda of your own kids development through peer pressure and un-realistic, disadvantageous expectations about what is cool and the scholastic attitudes that are elevated by children are explicitly anti-intellectual.

Our children are implicitly recognized as being in need of our guidance, yet it is they who are left to determine among themselves how to treat people. Is it any wonder that a culture could spring up that results in columbine?

How else could we arrive at a place where mediocre high-school football players are granted near celebrity status when their skills will prove wholly useless later in life and those interests and talents which will be the nation’s future are derided and ridiculed for being nerdy.

Our home-schooling will be exactly the opposite. We want our children to receive the nourishment and one on one attention necessary to bring out their best. Not only that, we can bring our love of learning and appreciation for the power of science to them with enthusiasm and praise them for their academic achievement, rather than call them a fag for wanting to read.

This would of course involve bringing in talent where we lack the necessary acumen to bring out the best in our children. For instance, our baby sitters will be bi-lingual, and we will insist they speak to our children in the second language.

Thank you both for the home-schooling verification.
Lady of Shallot, what I meant was there was a case of patenting genes here in Germany which went through, in spite of objections that since the genes was not created by the company applying for the patent, it should not get the patent. The objection was overruled and the patent went through. This was concerning a mouse where cells were injected. Or the potato.
I was applying this principle to theists: evolution has been taking place and is not finished yet. The Creationists, for example, are using something they did not create--pick any example from evolutionary priniciples--but put the tag of "god did this" on it. It's a case of taking something that already exists by much of natural evolution, altering something (in the case of the mouse, a gene; in the case of theists, implanting belief) and claiming it's all their work.
Apologies, not stated well.