Kirk Cameron: Religious, or Retarded? You decide

Sounds like someone is gunning to be the new Jim Jones.

Kool aid anyone?

Far right conservative Christians are an odd bunch - anything which can be interpreted as in conflict with Biblical teachings is considered the work of Satan and needs to be viciously attacked and exposed as part of Satan's conspiracy to turn people away from Christ and send them to hell. And they simply view logic, research, the scientific method, etc. as just another tool of Satan.

That's kinda wierd...

As a Christian, I admire (rational) influential people who can represent Christianity for what it really is, and not some nutball, whacked-out, cult-like super-religious...cult.

I've always thought Cameron kept it level. I really hope he's not going to turn into one of those wierdos that make Christians look like lunatics. Science isn't evil.

In all honestly, I see no reason why Christianity , as jesus originally preached it, and science, cannot go together harmoniously.

I mean, if one believes in God, then everything is God's creation. As we discover new technology and new truths about our universe and physics, aren't we then discovering what God already knows? And discovering it with brains that God gave us?

I also see no reason why evolution and God need to be at odds. If one accepts that God created everything, then God must also have acknowledged that species must evolve over time to continue to exist in a changing environment. In fact, to believe in God kind of demands that we evolved according to God's original plan.

I guess you would then call this 'Intelligent Design', and not creationism, and I personally do not believe in Intelligent design, but I think there is a rationale behind Intelligent design that I can understand and that fosters growth and understanding of science.

NOVA aired a great documentary about intelligent design a while back.

I found the link incase you wanted to watch it -

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

-A

Intelligent design! That's the word I was searching for earlier.

There HAS to be evolution for a species to continue to exist. I don't think we came from pond sludge, but I am perfectly comfortable believing humans, plants, and animals have evolved over the years. I wouldn't go as far as saying we came from monkeys or even neanderthals, but humans look, think, act, exist completely differently than they did X-amount of years ago.

I think the world, the universe, everything is just too complex, too amazingly-formed, to have just 'happened'. But to completely refute science is crazy. Just like the fundamentalist Christians who refuse to use medication b/c they either think it's interfering with their faith or witchcraft.

God gave us brains for a reason, and the power to use them!

hehe...now whether we use them for good or evil, it's up to us. ;-)

I have huge issues with the Catholic Church, who somehow seem to escape the label of 'Conservative Christian Right' in our nation, when they are just as bad, if not worse, than the right-wing evangelicals that hate gays.

While I personally am somewhere between an agnostic and an athiest most of the time, I do see lots of beauty in the original gnostic teachings of Christ, in the writings of Peter, and think they are a great set of values to live by. Not so different from what Buddhists preach, or most peaceful, self-improvement and inner-peace related religions.

Its Catholicism that perverted all this in the third and fourth centuries, and allied itself with the Romans, and made a fucking mess of everything, and made everyone virginal and put women down and made it about money and wealth and power and control and celibacy and male-domination.

Not sure what American women see in catholicism - we get so down on Islam for not giving women equal rights, but right here in our own country we let catholicism put down women, and not let them become priests. We also let them control the reproductive power women have, and we let them put down gays and people of other religions. It isn't any better than conservative Islam, in my honest opinion.

Amen! Preach it, Sista!

Definitely retarded. Need to hook him up with this gal.

Removed by one thousand wolves - told myself I wouldn't write conspiracy theory stuff on here anymore.

LOL I posted it because I wanted to encourage an exchange of ideas, so please, feel free to have a differing opinion!

I don't think the fact that darwin's theories led to racist genetic control makes his scientific findings any less factual or important to biology.

Einstein's theories allowed us to bomb nagasaki - should we not read about his theories or incorporate them into future inventions?

I think the key issue here, is if we all agree to 'not sterilize people because we think they aren't as good as us', then we ought not to repeat the moral mistakes of the eugenics movement. And that doesn't mean we can't use darwinian evolutionary theory to understand biology, genetic adaptation, and the role of reproductive strategy in our own lives and environment.

Good points, Heidi.

It's weird that many of the people who equate Darwin with racism have no problem practicing their own form of racism by advocating discriminatory actions and sometimes even violence against muslims, gays, women, pagans, liberals, democrats, etc.

"Hey buddy! Darwin is a racist! Now accept Jesus into your heart and grab this baseball bat! We're going to beat up some gays to teach them a religious lesson! And right after that, we're going to shoot this doctor who provides abortions! Yeehaw!!!! I can do whatever I want because God will forgive me!"

How did Christianity get hijacked by these lunatics? Have they ever even read anything by Jesus in the New Testament? I can't even imagine what it must be like to be a real Christian, putting into practice the teachings of Christ, and having these weirdos running around, doing the exact opposite, and leaving you to try to deal with the chaos and intolerance they create.

Jessica, I grew up in the midwest, and the rednecks that went to my highschool thought I was a homosexual, probably because I'm soft spoken and I used to not care how I dressed, so sometimes I wore T shirts with flowers on them and stuff. Ha. Actually, I still don't care how I dress and people still assume I'm gay. Some of the girls at my school who knew for a fact that I wasn't gay used to defend me against redneck bullies (I don't know for sure if the rednecks thought they were Christian - probably). The fact that girls were standing up for me against my bullies certainly didn't help matters when it came to everyone thinking I was gay, but I got a kick out of it anyway.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, despite what Kirk Cameron has to say on the subject, just because you know enough to equate Charles Darwin with eugenics doesn't make you a Christian redneck bully racist homophobe. It just makes you somebody who likes to read books. Or feels obligated to read them. I'm living proof of that. I've spend my entire life being discriminated against for being gay, even though I'm not gay, which is like, double super surreal discrimination. I've been called "faggot" and "queer" and, besides being threatened with physical violence, I've had personal property vandalized by rednecks (they slashed my car tire and actually spit in my front seat - gross!)

I feel like an honorary member of the gay community because of this, my very first best friend was black, and if I decided to discriminate against pagans I would lose 3/4ths of my friends, as that's what most of them are.

Quick question. If there were people out there who didn't want you to know that eugenicists still ran the world, and they wanted to throw liberals off the scent, what do you think they would do? Would they let a (let's face it) joke of a spokesperson get up on his soap box and start mixing in partially true data with hare-brained Christian ideology, gaurenteed to make liberals recoil at everything he says, even the information that happens to be true? Just a thought!

What an embarrassment to the Christian religion.

>>"If there were people out there who didn't want you to know that "

This isn't a trick - there are people who actually believe this hogwash. There are many for whom he is preaching to the choir.

I wish it were just a trick. That would imply no one would be stupid enough to believe what he's saying.

Tristan, the fact that there are people who truely believe what Christian fundamentalists say about the Creation theory (which, in all fairness, you and I cannot disprove) is exactly what makes it a good trick. Mainpulating people's beliefs is nothing new. The far right's beliefs are being manipulated... and so are yours, man. Meanwhile, the real (possible) danger is whitewashed over, lost in the chaos of all the infighting. I like your new picture btw - that rainbow move is pretty rad. Is that guy supposed to be a sorcerer Robin Hood?

I have no idea but I saw the rainbow and thought THAT IS MINE.

<--- one of those Christians who have to deal with the retardivity spread by the nutso fundamentalists who take scriptures wwwaaayyy out of context.

It's maddening, trying to explain to that NO, not all Christians hate gays/democrats/abortion-providers, etc, etc. You can be Bible-believing, and not be a Bible-thumper. I'd rather pray for those who do things/believe things, whatever, rather than judge them.

Amen, sister.

I've been told by extremely conservative Christians that they do not want, in any way, shape or form, a non-Christian praying for them (esp. a Pagan type non-Christian) even if you offer to pray to God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit on their behalf. I'm not 100% clear on the explaination why, other than it apparently has something to do with a creating a back door for Satan to un-save them (or something like that).

<---not crazy, just raised in a charismatic Christian household!

They're idiots. A lot of that is superstition. The thing is, that stuff can't hurt them, unless they give it power over them-- like the voodoo thing:it won't work unless you believe it works. Their salvation in Christ and the power of the blood of Jesus covers them and protects them from the sort of spiritual attacks that they are so terrified of happening. Those sort of Christians seem 'demons' behind every bush and as a result give the real, evil spiritual forces that surround us way too much power. I believe there are supernatural forces out there who do seek to hurt and destroy, and work to keep as many souls as they can separate from God's love, but as I said, some people give those forces much more power than they actually have.

however when a pagan person asks if they can say a prayer to some other god/goddess or cast a spell or whatnot for my sake, or ever when they offer to pray to my God, I just ask them if they could just think good thoughts for me.

LOL I'm sorry...nobody asked for a theology lesson!

Once burned, twice shy. I try put as much distance between me and conservative christians and their beliefs as possible unless they're going out of their way to be deliberately nasty.