Saturday, August 15, 2015

The Dodo, Science, Gerald Flurry and The Sensuous Curmudgeon



In my side column I have links to various interesting sites.  Some are are COG related and others are there to help some give serious thought to use their ability to look at things from a different viewpoint; something that Armstrongism has always frowned upon.  It doesn't mean you have to believe or agree with any of it, but at least use your mind to look at different points of view.  Use what is useful and move on if its not. Stop checking your brain at the closest stack of COG booklets or the web sites of Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Rod Meredith, to name a few.

Speaking of Gerald Flurry.....There is a great blog entry on The Sensuous Curmudgeon today (August 15, 2015) about Gerald Flurry and his "reasoning" concerning scientific thought and evolution.

Did you know that Flurry claims that science began with original sin?  Inquisitive minds apparently are the result of Eve beguiling Adam with that big old apple called thought processes.  To think is the result of Adam and Eve sinning in the garden.  That thinking process is what created science which then led to evolution.

The Sensuous Curmudgeon quotes Gerald Flurry in The Futility of Science:

Believe it or not, the problem with science is actually revealed in the biblical story of the garden of Eden! In the garden, Adam and Eve rejected the tree of life and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a consequence, God expelled them and cut them off from the tree of life [scripture reference]. From that point, God allowed humankind to devise their own systems of science, religion and education — apart from His direction.
The pursuit of science is a continuation of original sin! Moving along:
As Herbert W. Armstrong wrote: “With the emergence of ‘modern science’ around the beginning of the 19th century, scientists assured the world that man had progressed to the point where he then could dispense with the superstitious crutch of religion and belief in God” (Plain Truth, March 1980).
If Armstrong wrote it, then it must be The Truth.

In a previous article on August 11, 2015, The Sensuous Curmudgeon looks at how Gerald Flurry claims that The Dodo Disproves Evolution.

We present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from The Dodo’s Posthumous Message to Mankind, which appears in The Trumpet, a publication of the Philadelphia Church of God, which has some relationship with Herbert W. Armstrong. The bold font was added by us:
In 1681, the last dodo bird on the planet breathed its last breath. But that was not the final chapter of the bird’s story. Some 300 years later, botanists on Mauritius — the island where the dodo had lived — noticed that a certain species of tree was rapidly dying off. Tambalacoque trees had historically grown in abundance on Mauritius, but by the 1970s only 13 remained. And all of those remaining were thought to be around 300 years old. Even though they were producing fruit containing seeds each year, none of the seeds were sprouting into saplings. This meant that no new Tambalacoque trees had sprouted since the late 1600s.
Aha, a mystery! When the dodo went extinct, the Tambalacoque trees stopped reproducing. Why?
For the rest of this delightful entry read it here.

It has always amazed me how Church of God leaders can spout such utter nonsense when not a single one of them have EVER studied science or evolution, let a alone read books on the subjects.  This should be really no surprise to anyone since not a single one of these men even have a REAL theological education.  Their viewpoint on evolution comes from the writings of Herbert Armstrong and the silly rants of Rod Meredith, Garner Ted, Dean Blackwell, Hermann Hoeh and loudmouth Gerald Waterhouse.  Science was NEVER a major class at Ambassador College which encouraged students to think and study outside the boundaries of COG thought processes.

They could not do that with theology so why would they with science? 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the real dodo is Flurry. What an idiot.

Anonymous said...

Religion certainly doesn't encourage people to think outside the box.
Too much critical thinking is a threat to established religious beliefs not just in the COG's but also in mainstream religion.

To question the existence of God is considered a lack of faith. Some who question the existence of God are even considered to be "mad at God" just for questioning Gods existence. Religion it seems is a no thinking zone. If you question established beliefs there must be something wrong with you or Satan has control of your mind.

Anonymous said...

And this is why the Armstrongists have been given The 2015 Gold-Plated AARSE.

Retired Prof said...

By the way, the name of the blog is The Sensuous Curmudgeon. It makes less sense than The Serious Curmudgeon, but that's okay with the author, who enjoys the whimsy of it.

It's an entertaining blog, worth visiting often if you too admire a bit of rationality buttressed with whimsy.

Unknown said...

When will Flurry go extinct??