Kevin Dorner

<a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,668520,00.html" target="_blank">Creationists 'harm religion'</a>

A good place to refer people to who say "evolution is anti-Christian" or other such nonsense.

Some snippets from the article:

...the Rt Rev Harries expressed his dismay that such ideas were being promoted. "Historians of science note how quickly the late Victorian Christian public accepted evolution," he said. "It is therefore quite extraordinary that 140 years later, after so much evidence has accumulated, that a school in Gateshead is opposing evolutionary theory on alleged biblical grounds. Do some people really think that the worldwide scientific community is engaged in a massive conspiracy to hoodwink the rest of us?"
The bishop, who described science as a "God-given activity", added: "I find what this school is doing sad ... the theory of evolution, far from undermining faith, deepens it. "The fact that the universe probably began about 12 billion years ago with life beginning to evolve about 3 billion years ago simply underlines the extraordinary detailed, persistent, patience of the divine creator spirit. "This attempt to see the Book of Genesis as a rival to scientific truth [also] stops people taking the Bible seriously. Biblical literalism brings not only the Bible but Christianity itself into disrepute."

(Indeed. There are several people on this board who have stated that the dishonest tactics and data of the creationism proponents were what drove them away from their church or from religion altogether.)

scombrid

Bingo. I had drifted from regular religious practice but still considered myself a Christian when asked. I created a theistic evolution model for myself, adapted from my diverse Christian background. I was comfortable so I didn't give religion much thought. Then some proselytizing ass, actually a family friend, showed up at my house (a house including a PhD Ichthyologist, a MS student of Ichthyology, and a Botanist) with a bunch of creationist crap including cartoonish Dr. Dino tracts and a Chick tract. Having had our collective intelligence severely insulted I set about debunking his proselytizing efforts and reasoned myself right out of my cognitive dissonance. His in your face fundamentalism was the catalyst that led me down a path to realizing that even feel good Christianity like that promoted by Wayne Dyre is worthless make-believe. My brother deconverted in a similar manner.

If our friend was trying to win brownie points with the head cheese by winning souls from the evilutionist movement, I'll wager that God's mad at him now.

David Bowden

Thanks for the link, Kevin. Great article.

BTW, it fit nicely on a single page in MS Word, so now I can trade propaganda with the guy on the bus who's always trying to push his Chick tracts on me.

-Wanderer