Galloway an Evolution Denier

[Frostys Lodger]

Personally, I would be more worried by another Galloway piece mentioned on the same page that has GG claiming that Barack Obama is Americas best hope since RFK.

 

[Geoff Collier]

Personally, I would be more worried by another Galloway piece mentioned on the same page that has GG claiming that Barack Obama is Americas best hope since RFK.

You mean JFK? Or did Robert Kennedy share his brother's middle initial?

 

[Geoff Collier]

You mean JFK? Or did Robert Kennedy share his brother's middle initial?

How embarrassing. He did share the same middle initial

So Galloway meant Robert Kennedy?

 

[butchersapron]

Robert fucking Kennedy here we go. America's Hugh Gaitskill.

 

[danny la rouge]

Anyone who is not an atheist, believes that there is some creationary force at work that shapes nature ie they are a theist

Yes, but it is still unusual, in the UK, to meet intellegent theists who do not in some way incorportate Evolution into their theism. Galloway is therefore more in line with American theists, for example.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Yes, but it is still unusual, in the UK, to meet intellegent theists who do not in some way incorportate Evolution into their theism. Galloway is therefore more in line with American theists, for example.

I have a religious belief but I accept Darwin don't see a problem with that whatsoever. The big question for me is what kicked a bunch of random chemicals into somethign that self replicated?

 

[danny la rouge]

I have a religious belief but I accept Darwin don't see a problem with that whatsoever. The big question for me is what kicked a bunch of random chemicals into somethign that self replicated?

Indeed. That is very much the point at which most intelligent theists in the UK make their differences with atheists.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Yes, but it is still unusual, in the UK, to meet intellegent theists who do not in some way incorportate Evolution into their theism. Galloway is therefore more in line with American theists, for example.

Well it's more complicated that that. I've met members of the Unitarian Church in America who are extremely liberal - they seem to me to be more agnostic than theist, but ultimately do believe there is a God ... just about.

 

[danny la rouge]

the Unitarian Church in America

Of course. I didn't say there aren't liberal theists in the US, just that the demographics of religion differ between the UK and the US. Here, liberal theism is the established position (though that is being challenged), there fundamentalist theism is far more the norm (though there are exceptions, of course).

Imagine a UK prime ministerial hopeful saying what Mike Huckabee did: that he doesn't believe in Evolution. (As did two other Republican hopefuls).

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Of course. I didn't say there aren't liberal theists in the US, just that the demographics of religion differ between the UK and the US. Here, liberal theism is the established position (though that is being challenged), there fundamentalist theism is far more the norm (though there are exceptions, of course).

Imagine a UK prime ministerial hopeful saying what Mike Huckabee did: that he doesn't believe in Evolution. (As did two other Republican hopefuls).

When was the last time an avowed atheist ran for a major public office in Britain? Livingstone, maybe? what's his views? I think he's an atheist without googling it, but if he is he certainly doesn't make much of it ... who in the cabinet is an atheist? I don't actually know, because it's not something we hear very much about ... but we all know Gordon Brown is the son of a preacher and Blair converted to catholicism 'cos they talk about their religion all the time...

There are differences sure between UK and USA, but it's not exactly secularism versus religious fundamentalism.

 

[danny la rouge]

There are differences sure between UK and USA, but it's not exactly secularism versus religious fundamentalism.

No it isn't. But I'm not saying it is.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

No it isn't. But I'm not saying it is.

Well you did imply British theists were typically liberal and American theists were typically reactionary. I'm saying that there are wide shades of opinion in both country, though I accept that there is a different balance. But I think we've got to avoid the view that all americans are reactionary bible-bashers, whereas all europeans are liberal secularists. It's a long way from either extreme, though the american bible-bashers do try to give the impression everyone agrees with them, it is isn't true, and we are the state that produced Ian Paisley after all ...

 

[Badger Kitten]

I thought GG had reverted to Islam?

 

[phildwyer]

George Galloway, in his Daily Record column (Daily Record, Mon 14 January, 2008, p13), has confirmed himself an evolution denier.

Praising the film March of the Penguins, he muses that "the idea that the wonders of nature are some random evolutionary accident" is laughable.

This is the language of the Creationist - mocking evolution as a "random accident" is their stock-in-trade, and betrays a misunderstanding of (or unwillingness to understand) the mechanism of evolution by natural selection. Eyes (a creationist favourite) don't just randomly appear by accident, but are selected for because they are useful, and each stage is more useful than the last - from light sensitive patch, through light sensitive pit, to focus-able lens-ed eyes.

I always knew he was a religious nut, but hadn't realised quite how serious it was.

Plenty of evolutionists would agree with him. Darwin's is not the only theory of evolution, as you should know by now as I've told you often enough.

 

[Fruitloop]

Like a moth to a flame......

 

[Alan G]

Johann Hari claimed this was a quote from Galloway on his blog in December

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/openhouse/2007/12/galloway-comes.html

I was looking at my little six month old baby today beginning to take his first steps crawling across the hall of the Methodist Central Hall today, and it doesn’t look like an accident to me. He doesn’t look like an accident of evolutionary chance to me. I’m not really prepared to believe that from the bottom-dwelling slugs of the pond came the voice of Pavarotti. I’m not really prepared to believe that Albert Einstein and a spider are really the same thing, that they just took a different evolutionary path.

------
Edited because I made it look like Johann was the one saying this rather than quoting the indefatigable one.

 

[Fruitloop]

He's a fucking cretin though. Definitive proof of an inherent arbitrariness to the whole process if ever there was.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm saying that there are wide shades of opinion in both country, though I accept that there is a different balance. But I think we've got to avoid the view that all americans are reactionary bible-bashers, whereas all europeans are liberal secularists.

I agree. Indeed, my mother is a UK reactionary bible-basher - Creationist, homophobic, Biblical literalist. So I'm aware that this view is available in the UK. All I'm saying is that the balance is different. (I also know American liberal-theists, including a good friend of ours who was brought up by Mormons, but who is now a Quaker).

All I was saying is that the mainstream of religious thought in the UK is majority liberal, and the mainstream of religious thought in the US is majority Conservative.

And Phil: don't be silly, Galloway isn't defending your viewpoint; he's defending Creationism.

 

[danny la rouge]

it doesn’t look like an accident to me

It isn't.

 

[Fruitloop]

I was

 

[danny la rouge]

I was

It doesn't mean you weren't wanted. Eventually. A bit.

 

[fogbat]

Like a moth to a flame......

A fly to shit

 

[Fruitloop]

It doesn't mean you weren't wanted. Eventually. A bit.

How is that career change into counselling coming?

 

[danny la rouge]

Not getting much return custom.

 

[kyser_soze]

Johan Hari is a cunt columnist of the highest possible ordure, and I doubt he or his little homoculus have much in common with any other creature with DNA, more like some coherent slime.

Anyway, GG being a creationist? 'Ecky thump, who'd'a thunk it? A tosser reveals himself to be an even bigger tosser. I'm just glad he has no dignity left, much like Kilroy and the famous bucket of shit pic:

And just for fun and cheap laffs:

 

[Haller]

When was the last time an avowed atheist ran for a major public office in Britain?

Nick Clegg.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Nick Clegg.

After the spin-doctors threw a hissy fit, he said "I don't quite believe in God myself, but I think that religious faith is great. Wonderful. Super-duper. Did I mention that my wife is an Olympic-standard bead jiggler and that my children have all been sent to nunneries, even the boys?". Or words to that effect. It was not forthright Dawkinism, anyway.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Also, Clegg's speech the other day sounded an awful lot like "let's hand over welfare functions to charities which we all know will be run by wealthy evangelical Christians".

 

[Fisher_Gate]

The word I used was 'avowed' by which I meant someone who is not just a 'private' atheist but someone who actually proselytises for atheism and has a hostility to religion and religious institutions (but obviously not to believers).

Dawkins is probably just about the only public figure one can cite, and he's not a politician, though I suspect he would get a lot of interest if he set up or joined a party. The dearth of such people in public life says a lot about the reality of the religious hold over this country.

 

[kyser_soze]

The dearth of such people in public life says a lot about the reality of the religious hold over this country.

What it says is that by and large people in this country think religion is a private, not a public issue. Reality of the religious hold over this country - are you for real?