Easy money, ey Arabas?
Or you'd think so...![greekturkish/sneaky.gif](http://greekturkish.18.<a href="http://www.forumer.com">forumer</a>.com/html/emoticons/greekturkish/sneaky.gif)
Or you'd think so...
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| Creationist Adnan Oktar offers trillion-pound prize for fossil proof of evolution Mr Oktar, 52, who successfully campaigned for Mr Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey, has said he will give 10 trillion Turkish lira, roughly equal to £4.4trn "to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution." Mr Oktar is a household name in Turkey after publishing hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDs to con-*test*-('") Darwin's theory of evolution. Using the pen name Harun Yahya, his book The Atlas Of Creation sold 10,000 copies worldwide. The 800-page book detailed his claims that for millions of years life forms have not developed, thus supporting his Islamic creationist beliefs. The former architecture student claims there are no fossils to support Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He said: "Not one [fossil] belongs to strange-looking creatures in the course of development of the kind supposed by evolutionists." His views have been dismissed by critics however. Dr Kevin Padian from the University of California told The New York Times Mr Oktar "does not have any sense of what we know about how things change through time", while the concept of extinction "does not seem to bother him." Mr Oktar recently successfully campaigned for Mr Dawkins' website to be banned in Turkey. He had complained he and his book had been defamed by comments made by Mr Dawkins, and also claimed the site included blasphemous and defamatory content. Mr Dawkins had written of Mr Oktar's book: "I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content." Mr Oktar had responded: "We could have spoken on a more scientific basis if he had been able to produce an intermediate form fossil capable of confirming evolution in the face of all the hundreds of fossils in my book." Mr Oktar has also defended Professor Michael Reiss, the British biologist who resigned as the director of education for the Royal Society earlier this month after suggesting science teachers should tackle creationism if the matter is raised by pupils. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...-evolution.html |
| QUOTE (katastrof @ September 29, 2008 03:12 pm) |
| It's funny how these people are still asking for "proof" when there's overwhelming "evidence" to support the theory of evolution. It's pretty clear that no amount of evidence will be good enough for them, unless they see with their own eyes the evolution of frog into man in rapid motion... & that's not gonna happen, is it? Another ironic side to this is that if they applied the same proof-standard to creationism (and even slightly that is), the written dogma of the scriptures would just collapse to their feet immediately & with the most violent of earthquakes. But no, it's OK to take scripture as "fact" through leaps of faith and with no evidence whatsoever, but disregard any evidence in favor of evolution (and any evidence against scripture too, for that matter). Don't get me wrong, I'm not the one to do faith-bashing or religion-bashing. The point is, if religions are to survive against science, they need to find a way to make peace with incoming scientific evidence. If they instead turn it into a battlefield of creationism vs. science, and keep pushing this fallacy of duality further, it'll be a battle religion will be doomed to lose big time. And if it's completely impossible to reconcile religion and science, the hell with scripture anyway, it's not worth pursuing in the first place. If humanity wants to remain spiritual there will always be other ways to do so. |
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| QUOTE (AlperNYC @ September 29, 2008 04:28 pm) |
| Overwhelming evidence? Where, can't see it. Its all myths and theories with no solid proof to back it up. |
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| The chance of this universe coming into creation by 'chance' (as per the natural law theory) is impossible, well I lied, it is in fact 1/ (this number would not even fit on a piece of paper spanning the entire area of the universe or greater) and that's a scientific fact. I don't like those odds. |
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| Now where is your scientific proof that proposes similar odds for the non-existence of god? Professor Hawking and Professor Penrose have established that everything began with one singularity, before which point, there was no time, matter or space. They cannot account for this 'nothingness' that was before our relative world, but when asked on their opinions, they merely stated that their job is to provide the Science, it is the job of the philosopher to interpret it........so if 2 genuinses cannot say that god does not exist, how can the average Atheist? |
| QUOTE (katastrof @ September 30, 2008 12:37 am) |
| This is just funny. How come all the people who keep arguing against evolution know squat about it in the first place? |
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| The rest of the stuff you wrote doesn't even deserve a response, being the ridiculous schwackbullhorse they are. Get over Harun Yahya's [aka Fethullah Gulen] bullshit ASAP, for your own sake. |
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| Before the birth of Darwinism, biology was accepted as a branch of Science which provided evidence on existence of God. In his book natural theology William Paley maintained that to the extent that every clock proves the existence of a clock maker, natural designs prove the existence of God. However, Darwin rejected this truth in his theory of evolution by distorting the truth, the fit materialist philosophy, he claimed that all living things were the result of a "coincidences". In this way, he created an artificial separation of religion and science. From The Messianic Legacy: " For Isaac Newton, a century and a half before Darwin, science was not separate from religion but, on the contrary, an aspect of religion, and ultimately subservient to it. But the science of Darwin's time became precisely that, divorcing itself from the context in which it had previously existed and established itself as a rival absolute, an alternative repository of meaning. As a result, religion and science were no longer working in concert, but rather stood opposed to each other, and humanity was increasingly forced to choose between them. " Now, not only biology but all other branches of science were twisted and turned according to materialist philosophy. Astronomy was distorted according to materialist dogmas of ancient Greece. The new aim of science was to confirm materialist philosophy. These incorrect ideas dragged the scientific world to a dead end for the past 150 years. Tens of thousands scientists worked in hope for proving Darwinism and other materialist theories but they were dissapointed. The scientific evidence show the exact opposite conclusion of what they wanted to reach, that is, it confirmed the truth of creation. Today the world of science is astonished by this truth. When nature is examined it emerges that there is a major plan in "design" in every detail and this has cut away the foundations of materialism philosophy. Gene Myers , todays Human Genome Map Has Scientist (administrator) had this to say: " What really astounds me is the architecture of life. The system is extremely complex... Theres a huge intelligence there, It's like it was designed " As we know, scientists were taught Darwinism as the truth which some of them are declaring this belief as a flawed theory. For instance today, the American professor of chemistry Michael Behe discribes the situation of the scientific world like this: " over the past four decades modern biochemistry has uncovered the secrets of the cell. The progress has been hard won. It has required tens of thousands of people to dedicate the better parts of their lives to the tedious work of the laboratory.. The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell- to investigate life after the molecular level - is a loud, clear, piercing cry of "design!". The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the grea-*test*-('") achievements in the history of science.. But, no bottles have been uncorked, no hands clapped. Why does the scientific community not greedily embrace its startling discovery? The dilemma is that while one side of the issue is labelled intelligent design, the other side must be labeled God. " As we can see, more and more scientists who were once your ordinary atheists, are slowly but surely finding the existence of God with their scientific researches. |
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| Agrippa On the contrary, Islam encourages science. The major scientific advances in Islamic history clearly show the importance of this encouragement. Today, the nineteenth century theories which tried to confuse science with materialist philosophy have lost their validity. Humanity will shortly understand clearly that God created the entire universe and all living things, science shows the evidence of this creation and the Quran which broke the news of this truth in fourteen centuries ago leads the way to science. Scientific observation introduced man to the mysteries of creation, and ultimately, to God's eternal knowledge, wisdom and power. As stated by Albert Einstein, "science without religion is lame", which is to say, that science, unguided by religion, cannot proceed correctly, but rather, wastes much time in achieving results, and worse, is often inconclusive. Islam is a religion of reason that encourages science. The advanced scientific culture of the islamic world paved the way for the western renaissance. The Muslim scientists acted in the knowledge that their investigation of Gods creation was apath in which they could get to know him. With the transfer of this mentality to the western world, the advance of the west began. However, the medieval Europe was ruled by the dogmatic regime of the catholic church. The church opposed the freedom of thought and pressed scientists where people could be punished in the inquisition for simply holding beliefs or their ideas didnt match with that of the church. Their books were burned and they them selves were executed. In reality, the western researchers of that time were actually believers and not rebeller s against the church. |
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| This is how the Qur'an describes it: The Universe that we know is the 'physical creation' that we can observe. The Qur'an states that there are 7 realms beyond this physical creation, which are infinitely larger than our physical universe. The Qur'an explains that there was one unit of mass, which was emmersed in smoke or hot gas. This unit of mass was caused to explode (big bang). The unit of mass and gas, then became the universe as we know it. The Qur'an also states that it is continually expanding. |
| QUOTE (AlperNYC @ September 30, 2008 04:33 am) |
| As we can see, more and more scientists who were once your ordinary atheists, are slowly but surely finding the existence of God with their scientific researches. |
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| The Universe is proof of a God |
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| The sheer inanity of Mr Oktar's words are mind boggling. That he can stand behind his theory of creationism - which has as much credibility as the Harry Potter series - and demand Mr Dawkins to produce fossil evidence to support the theory of evolution is utterly laughable. I am living in Turkey, and whilst it is a nice place with many things going for it, the sheer senseless devotion to creationism and the stubborn unwillingness to question the traditional doctrine of Islam is far too prevelant. Mr Oktar represents that nonscencial unprogressive small-minded mentality that simply, when it comes down to it, is fearful of accepting that their cosy little world of religion and God and angels and miracles and divine work is simply a story; a mythical creation of mankind invented to fill in gaps that humans are fearful to not have answers for. In short, it presents a perfect mould for the weak-minded individual into which they can comfortably melt and put reason and logic and the capacity for thinking to one side. Permanently. This underlying weakness would explain why many advocators of a more 'pious' religious society are very keen to remove any source of opposition, be it through violence or through getting your government to ban websites. The rabid ferocity with which religious people slam atheists or free-thinkers is alarming in the sense that there is a scary amount of people who think that's acceptable behaviour but not surprising that it should be so ferocious, considering they have absolutely nothing to base their outlandish 'facts' of Abrahamic doctrine on. Now I'm not a biologist, nor an archaeologist, nor have I studied the 'controversial' claim concerned, and Richard Dawkins may well not have fossil evidence to set his theories in stone. But again, that criticism coming from a source that equally has no evidence supporting it's theories plus the fact that it's theories are hardly on a par with those of evolution, is utterly baseless. That religion is old and has billions of adherents does not make it correct. What it does do is prove the human weakness for needing to feel there's a reason for everything and even more dishearteningly shows that most of these humans put their faith in gods, guardian angels and similar hocus pocus rather than in the simple human capacity to feel empathy, to live a just and honest life without having to shower everything in unrealistic hype, in creationist eccentricities and exaggerated doctrine. It would be an issue that could be fobbed of with a shrug and a snort were it not so life threatening, but throughout history - and be under no illusion that it's abated - we've seen the sheer ferocious anger with which the word of god, be it Islamic, Christian or Jewish, has been laid down. Great people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Darwin and similar progressive thinkers who challenged the brainwashing monopoly religion had on the masses have created a gap, even in Turkey, a space in which people who shun the frameless rhetoric of religion can breath easily. But that shouldn't make us think that we're safe from the ever present attempts religion makes at spreading it's theory of creationism. We need only to look at the Evangelical nonsense in America, how they wriggle their way to the highest echelons and wreak their silent havoc on the unsuspecting populace, we need only to see how the Taliban exercise 'God's will on earth' with beatings, tortures, stonings and curbs on musical tastes, we need only to look at the violence that's spread over generations in Kashmir, the rampage of various Islamic and Christian terror squads in Africa, the planes that plummet out of the skies full of innocent people and the presidents that invade countries with the firm conviction that 'God sent him there'. In a world where Hindus kill Christians, Christians kill Muslims, Muslims kill Christians and fanatic Jewish sects want the entire world to crumble beneath their endless righteous march on the 'holy land', how can logical, peace-loving people stand back and allow this Mr Oktar to even have a voice on this issue, allow him to spread his dogmatic ideas that regard atheists as 'ignorant of theism' and sign off with 'I'm a good Muslim', how? In many respects Turkey has come on leaps and bounds in the controversial arena of religion, polls show that the younger generation are less devout and less tied to religious traditions than their parents, but in many ways it's getting no better. The Prime minister and President of this country have their roots in devout Islam, more dangerously political Islam. The former is endlessly making snide remarks about the lack of piousness in Turkey and his attacks on various republican and staunchly secular groups in the media, government and press totally contradict his endless claim of 'commitment to secularism'. Behind the ettiquette he has to keep up, one can easily imagine Prime Minister Erdogan sitting at home reading one of the 10,000 copies of 'The Atlas of Creation' by Mr Oktar and silently nodding to himself in a stupor of belief that society began to instil in him since the day he was born, the day he was born just a mass a flesh and bones like every other human alive. A blank canvas, an unformatted human baby. Granted we have our quirks, our characteristics, but essentially, spiritually, we are all the same at birth, connected in the vast web of mother nature that bestows us with the gift of reflex, the gift of common sense and train of thought. It's only later when babies across the world are exposed to the rot of the varying societies they were born into do they begin to unwittingly adopt the mantra of the masses. People like Mr Oktar are victims of that 'mantra', and do nothing but exacerbate the tide of ignorance and lack of reflectivity over religion that festers in so many Turkish families. Perhaps what is more unforgivable is the expectation that hangs over people like Mr Dawkins who feel obliged to 'tread carefully' and exercise 'verbal caution' so as not to offend religion. Quite frankly, there is nothing religion can't be offended about since it's all baseless rubbish anyway. The prevalent notion that religion deserves some sort of special respect is nothing more than an age-old self defence scheme to avoid the spreading of 'blasphemous' suggestions contrary to accepted religious dogma. I could go on and on about this, but to sum up, as a citizen of Turkey I am ashamed of my government for blocking this website (and several others in fact) that simply transmits a theory, and a credible, viable, probable theory at that. Instead, the governing body of the internet in Turkey, Turk Telekom, happily abides by the wishes of an eccentric creationist out to make a quick buck. Were he a genuine pious man, a man of God, would he not deposit the undoubtedly handsome revenue his book has made him to some charity? Hah! The day religion begins to be genuinely religious will be the day it drops it's irrational absurdities and becomes simple atheism, the acceptance of things as they are, the open-minded objectionable research into probable events, the search for evidence and proof before claiming fact and the realisation that humanism can exist fully - and arguably more effectively - without the additional mind-controlling irritation of organised faith. |