Re: Evolve/Create (posted for D. Way)

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Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 18:11:43 -0500 (EST)
From: DAVID WAY <WAY3043@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: Re: Evolve/Create
To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
Organization: SUNY at Plattsburgh, New York, USA
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>Subj:  Evolve/Create
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>Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:39:27 -0700
>From: jlipps@ucmp1.Berkeley.EDU (Jere H. Lipps)
>Subject: Evolve/Create
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>None of this kind of thing should be too surprizing.  In "The Creationist
>Movement in Modern America" (Twayne Pub., Boston, 1990), Eve and Harrold
>report three surveys in the late 1980's that report between 43 and 48% of
>ALL Americans believe in the literal interpretation of the bible.  Some 95%
>believe in GOD.  Many of my classes of freshmen here at Berkeley (entering
>average GPA = A) believe all of it too.  Most don't say much, thankfully,
>but their hearts are often against us!
>
>No easy way to win, but anyone needing help should contact the National
>Center for Science Education, 1328 6th Street, Berkeley, CA  94710.  Genie
>Scott there has helped many people fight these matters from a very
>intelligent perspective.
>
>
>Jere H. Lipps, Professor and Director
>Department of Integrative Biology and
>Museum of Paleontology
>University of California
>Berkeley, California 94720 USA
>
>Voice:  510-642-9006.  Fax:  510-642-1822.
>Internet:  jlipps@ucmp1.berkeley.edu
>
>
If believing in a god will give a person meaning to his or her life why
shouldn't that belief be pursued.  I am not saying by this to not teach
evolution, but from after the initial formation of the universe.  At that
point we do not know what happend and it would be arogant to think that we
did.  Many people need a god to give what they can't find and to
teach that away by insisting belief in God is unintelligent is taking your
knowledge for granted.  I myself do not believe in a god or creation this is
my personal feeling about the subject and I would not force my view onto
others.  I would however argue for evolution purely because of the evidence
of it.  "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"  - but it surely is
not evidence of it.  I don't believe I am speaking unintelligently, just
rationally.

DAVID WAY