Letters To The Editor
County Supervisor Needs To Fix Sandston's Ills
Editor, Times-Dispatch: I have been a resident of Virginia my entire 15 years of living. I've played on the playgrounds of recreation centers, of Sandston Elementary School, and on the streets of Sandston. I've always known there was a problem with the community and something really should have been done before now -- so I'm doing something about it.
I attend Highland Springs High School. Jim Donati, the Varina representative on the Henrico Board of Supervisors, has not done anything for the Sandston community, only improving things that don't need to be improved. It disgusts me, honestly.
When I was in the first grade at Sandston Elementary, my class had to use the rundown gym before the new one was built -- after 75 years. For my middle school years, I attended Moody Middle in the West End. I was with the IB program. I experienced how the West End schools benefit way more. For example: Hermitage High School has an orchestra pit, a shiny podium, and so on. Highland Springs High School has a beat-up stage and seats that are raggedy.
Donati needs to start investing taxpayer money into something more important -- like schools and recreation. The Sandston Memorial Recreation Center needs help. Flyers were handed out after the First Annual Sandston Memorial Day Parade that described what is wrong with the recreation center. I have created a Facebook group: S.O.S. (Support Our Sandston). I listed all the things on the flyer that need to be done to improve the Sandston community. Supervisor Donati, listen to us. Sandston needs help. Put some money into East End schools and our recreation center. We won't stop until you do.
Cathy Quigg.
Sandston.
Virginia Welcomes McAuliffe's Arrival
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding the editorial about Terry McAuliffe, "Recent History": To assert that the Republican-controlled House of Delegates is a bastion of bipartisanship is untrue, nonsensical, and, well, partisan.
Was the Republican-controlled House bipartisan in refusing the return of $125 million of our tax money to assist workers hammered by the Republican recession?
Was the House bipartisan in opposing legitimate policies for early voting so more Virginians could participate in this process?
Was it bipartisan of the House to block increased energy efficiency across Virginia, block tax exemptions for the use of solar, and tax credits for renewable energy?
Was it bipartisan of the House to block incentives for new companies that manufacture parts for renewable energy projects from locating their plants in Virginia?
Was it bipartisan of the House to slash over 50 percent of Gov. Tim Kaine's funding of Pre-K education?
All these, and others, easily passed the Senate, but the House refused.
The editors blew smoke about our smoke-free law. That law represents a huge scaling back, by the House, of the governor's plan. The speaker of the House, William Howell, was not moved by the 75 percent of the voters supporting the ban. Howell was rattled by the grassroots organizer working his district. The speaker caved out of pure self-interest.
The situation in the House is as bad as McAuliffe asserts.
The transportation mess was created by the House's unwillingness to face reality. Its tone-deaf "no taxes" mantra has put the commonwealth on the precipice of losing federal highway funds.
Your last shot contends that McAuliffe parachuted into Virginia politics. If he did, it was because he was in a hurry to address big issues and the roads were gridlocked.
Jamie Lindsay.
Spotsylvania.
Evolution Isn't Fact -- Don't Present as Such
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Regarding the news story, "Carolina Wrens and Humans: Distant Cousins": The idea of a common ancestry for the Carolina wren and humans is in no way scientific, and does not belong in a column on science. If the author had said, "according to the theory of evolution," I might not have written. However, evolution was presented as established fact. The evolutionary model has no proofs and is thus anti-scientific. There is no evidence of generation of life from non-life, nor of progression in complexity of organisms over time.
The belief in evolution of humans from simpler predecessors is based on a resistance to acknowledgment of the obvious truth: Our lives, characteristics, and personalities derive from the creator -- God. The apostle Paul wrote "what may be known about God is plain . . . from what has been made" and that to believe anything different is to "suppress the truth." People resist the idea of kinship with God because they fear unacceptability to God in their current state. Fortunately, God provided for escape from punishment for sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The acceptance of evolution as fact is the source of hopelessness, meaningless, and the "quiet desperation" that Thoreau identified. The construct is a house of cards, thoroughly false, and its secondand third-order effects are destructive.
Ronald Ellyson.
Hampton.
We Don't Need Another Marketplace
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Considering the manifold problems facing the City of Richmond, spending money to study the feasibility of putting a ballpark in Shockoe Bottom makes as much sense as placing a priority on arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The city doesn't need another Sixth Street Marketplace, and we don't need to destroy William Byrd's view so a few can get richer.
One need only look at Mary Wingfield Scott's two books to get a good picture of what Richmond might have been -- another Charleston, another Savannah.
It's time our elected leaders concentrated their efforts on saving what is left, instead of catering to the developers who make substantial contributions to those with the vote. A.R. Bowles III. Richmond.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
...and all of this happened randomly? Now that’s faith!
Mr. Ellyson’s letter demonstrates the absence of genuine faith common the Politically Correct culture of Conservative American Christianity. Mr. Ellyson seems to regard evolutionary theories of organic & inorganic matter (flesh) as a threat to his faith: “The acceptance of evolution as fact is the source of hopelessness, meaningless…” and, therefore, denies the existence of God, who is Spirit.
Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (October 22, 1996):
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points. For my part, when I received those taking part in your academy’s plenary assembly on October 31, 1992, I had the opportunity with regard to Galileo to draw attention to the need of a rigorous hermeneutic for the correct interpretation of the inspired word. It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say.
Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.
Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans.
In conclusion, I would like to call to mind a Gospel truth which can shed a higher light on the horizon of your research into the origins and unfolding of living matter. The Bible in fact bears an extraordinary message of life. It gives us a wise vision of life inasmuch as it describes the loftiest forms of existence. This vision guided me in the encyclical which I dedicated to respect for human life, and which I called precisely “Evangelium Vitae.“ It is significant that in St. John’s Gospel life refers to the divine light which Christ communicates to us. We are called to enter into eternal life, that is to say, into the eternity of divine beatitude. To warn us against the serious temptations threatening us, our Lord quotes the great saying of Deuteronomy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3; cf. Mt 4:4). Even more, “life” is one of the most beautiful titles which the Bible attributes to God. He is the living God.
I cordially invoke an abundance of divine blessings upon you and upon all who are close to you.
Viruses are actually a good example of what might be considered an intermediate form from non-life to life. Viruses in fact DO have amino acids and proteins and in fact USE energy. Viruses can not reproduce on their own, what a virus does is invade a cell and hijack that cell for the purpose of reproduction. Now imagine, if you can, an Earth very different from the one we inhabit now. An ancient virus may have lived in an environment with much more natural resources available and probably used the abundance of molecules in that ancient environment for reproduction. So it is possible that in an ancient time viruses could have met all the requirements for life, but do not now. And yes, if you want to say it as simply as possible, life came from chemical reactions on clay surfaces that eventually led to RNA and DNA. We are talking about the most common elements in the universe mixing for millions of years in a perfect substance for their chemical reactions to take place, water. Chemistry of this ilk is performed in laboratories across the world everyday with predictable outcomes. The problem is that it is difficult to imagine the time scales involved. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, if you live to be 100 years old, it would be equivalent to your life lasting a second 17 months. Your only argument is that it is impossible, or unbelievable to you, but this is backed up by billions of man hours of research and work by millions of people over many, many decades. You can believe or disbelieve anything you want, but once again I say, do not denounce well established science with the limp argument of “it’s impossible”. If you are going to make such a bold claim, then back it up, otherwise you are wasting your time.
so let me get this straight. You are saying that life came from DNA inside some clay and then all the way down the line after millions of years of evolution, out came humans? correct me if im wrong but that sounds perposterous. I’m going to use your type of “logic” for this one. Take a non-living thing such as a virus. The virus has amino acids proteins and what not. Just like that clay, it can perform non of the functions of life. It does not use energy or react to stimuli. It is not made of cells, it does not grow, and it does not reproduce.
I fail to see how there is any connection with a rock and evolution.
Pashorter, you ask how life came out of lifelessness? O.K., here is a current theory, theory as defined as: “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena”, as science defines it, just to make sure we cut out the whole semantics argument. A simple experiment in the 1950’s by H.C. Urey and Stanley Miller in which by simply mixing the ingredients of the early Earth: methane, ammonia, water vapor, and a power source, they were able to create amino acids in a matter of days. Since then the experiment has been refined with even more complex products. On a young Earth these reaction products were deposited on polymerizing clays that were common causing the organic molecules to polymerize themselves. These chains of molecules are dissipative structures, meaning they are open systems crossed by a flux of matter and energy. These open systems, by nature, behave like feedback loops. In other words, reaction A, leads to reaction B, leading to reaction C, whose reaction process further supports reaction A causing a self sustaining loop. This is the start of biological evolution, the loops that had stronger feedback beat out the ones that didn’t in the struggle for resources. Like I pointed out that fossils simply don’t “poof” out of bone, it is thought that life didn’t either, that maybe it was a process that slowly built without some instant in time where life simply sparked from non-life. Now you said life from non-life is “an impossibility”. I have presented just some of the science that says it isn’t, what have you presented that even comes close…right…because YOU say it is impossible.
Pashorter, I am not sure how to take your remark. Are being sarcastic and mocking a fundamentalist view or are you serious? If you are joking then “The fossils are the result of a world wide flood, the evidence is overwhelming.“ is hilarious! If you are serious then you are misinformed. Biogenesis is an established science, but you are such an expert that you know it’s impossible. As for the fossils you speak of, you are probably confused about how some fossils might appear when buried by a large volcanic ash fall, I’m not sure what whale fossil you speak of and I doubt you do either. As for the process of fossilization, a bone simply does not “poof” into a fossil. Fossilization is a geologic process taking millions of years, and there is no shortage of fossils in different states of fossilization. You are more than welcome to believe what ever you want to, but if you are going to try and debunk one of the most solidly confirmed scientific concepts, you need to come better equipped with scientific knowledge.
Hehe, “The fossils are the result of a world wide flood, the evidence is overwhelming.“, too funny.
“If evolution is fact, please explain how “life evolved from non-life”. That is an impossiblity.“
Just because you can’t comprehend it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Isn’t that one of the tenants of believing in god, anyway? Why is it impossible.
[difficulty: “because it is” is not an acceptable argument]
“Also, please explain how these “fossil records” show a whale fossilized in many strata of fossilized material as well as a whole tree, vertical, in the same position.“
That’s pretty vague, don’t you think? You speak as though this is common knowledge, but despite many geology classes, a job in the vertebrate paleontology department, and years of subscriptions to related magazines I have never heard of this scenario you describe. Let’s see some credentials.
“The fossils are the result of a world wide flood, the evidence is overwhelming.“
Having not seen your “evidence”, I can’t say for certain, but given what you’ve presented here, I doubt it. Even so, if you believe that such evidence must be attributed to a flood, why would that flood have necessarily been worldwide? It seems, unless there are many documented incidences of this “overwhelming evidence” from all over the globe (why isn’t it common knowledge, again?), the rational conclusion would be that the flood occurred locally?
Aw, who am I kidding? You don’t care about the facts.
If evolution is fact, please explain how “life evolved from non-life”. That is an impossiblity. Also, please explain how these “fossil records” show a whale fossilized in many strata of fossilized material as well as a whole tree, vertical, in the same position. If I believed in evolution these fossils would have had to been forming over millions without decaying for the skeleton to be intact. That is impossible. Why aren’t there fossils found in the state of formation now? The fossils are the result of a world wide flood, the evidence is overwhelming. You see it takes more “faith” to believe in evolution than in a God who created everything.
Byron m 804, if there is a god and god created a universe that follows certain laws and we have the ability to understand those laws and do, then we truly do know the mind of god, at least a portion of it. You simply reject evolution based on your interpretation of christian text, or how your pastor told you to interpret it. There are many ways to observe and test evolution everyday. Lets just be honest, you are a superstitious person, I rely on fact and logic. Your way of thinking will go the way of the DoDo, just as the belief in an Earthcentric universe did, or lumeniferoos ether, or belief in fairies.
I see some have implied that non-believers will burn in he!! or have no eternal soul. If we live in world were god would make the entire observable universe “appear” one way and then completely contradict himself in a book of fables to test my “faith”, then I want nothing to do with that god.
So, you just declare something is the truth and then declare that anyone who doesn’t understand that it’s the truth is wrong and will be wrong, no matter what, because logic and reason don’t apply to your particular declaration?
And though it defies “logic” and no human can “understand” it, somehow you’ve got it nailed down to the words of one particular book, written in the recollections of MEN, reinterpreted, and canonized by MEN, written in the words of MEN, using the reasoning of MEN.
Whenever a line of reason boils down to an answer of “because it is”, it can’t be taken seriously in my eyes.
Post a Comment(Requires free registration)
- Please avoid offensive, vulgar, or hateful language.
- Respect others.
- Use the "Flag Comment" link when necessary.
- See the Terms and Conditions for details.
Advertisement