400 or so years ago, Isaac newton, was coming up with mathematical formulae to decribe the motion of matter, and indeed his most famous discovery of the equation which describes gravity & interplanetary motion.

This work went against the original ideas of the Catholic church, who believed that God had a plan for eveything, and that a determinitsic math formula for planetary motion went against the understandings of the Church. If it weren't for the Puritans , who sheltered him, the wrolrd as we know it might be very different.

The irony is now, The puritans want to go against scientific understanding by rolling out creationism, and that theories of evolution, big bangs would be forgotten.

Just a thought

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I have something to hide.

Not especially original, though. I agree with you, but plenty of books have been written on the subject.

Also, you may want to use fundamentalist instead of puritan. Us Americans don't take kindly to people who use different words. Like biscuits that aren't biscuits.

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"Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence."
Jim Morrison

How is this ironic?

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lambaste me not

its ironic because, centuries ago, Puritanism allowed for guys like Newton to exist in a world dominated by Catholoicism, and develop laws of phyics, etc... that contradicted the belief that the universe was controlled by God


now the same Puritan religious climate is against teaching of theories which contradict God's creation of the universe

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I have something to hide.

the key word is theories...even if you aren't a puritan, it is difficult to swallow some of the "evolution science" and it remains a theory...can you say "transitional fossils"...I knew you could...

Ok but that really isn't ironic. It simply follows.

Newton's beliefs did not challenge or contradict any belief in God. He just established that objects have three dimensions and gravity exists. Now Galileo? That was different.

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lambaste me not

evolved into something very different from the fundamentalists. Two totally different sects of Christians. The puritans would now be known largely as congregationalists, and they're largely liberal. They're joined by the Quakers, who are perhaps the MOST liberal of all Christian denominations.

The fundamentalists evolved more from mainline protestants who were later arrivals, like the Baptists and methodists, and who weren't puritans.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeyt.../e_gospel.html

And, said fundamentalists AROSE from the issue of evolution, so it's not at all ironic that they're still fighting that battle.

Catz

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Hedonistic Lemming

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

To be fair, I'm not sure if he is being as literal as that. A puritan (not a Puritan with a capital p) is someone who lives by a much more strict moral code than that which is most common. Therefore Muslim extremists, environmentalists and moral vegans can be classified as such.

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lambaste me not

So the facts don't matter as long as the assumptions based on them bash the other party. I get it

What are you talking about?

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lambaste me not