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.
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So, I went and read through “Answers in Genesis” and must say that I am surprised at the lengths people will go to delude themselves. I understand that you’re at an impasse in your understanding of the universe; since it is your belief that the Bible is the literal word of God, you cannot admit that any part of it is anything less than literal lest you admit everything you built your belief system on could be called into question.
This quote from “Answers in Genesis” sums it up:
“Ultimately, there are only two ways of thinking: starting with the revelation from God (the Bible) as foundational to all thinking (including biology, history, and geology), resulting in a Christian worldview; or starting with man’s beliefs (for example, the evolutionary story) as foundational to all thinking, resulting in a secular worldview.“
You start from a conclusion and work your way back, standing in bold denial of anything that may offer contradictory proof. My favorite is this one:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/what-happened-to-the-dinosaurs
To claim that vegetarian dinosaurs and people walked side by side on the earth only 6000 years ago (within the age of the written word, no less) is to willfully ignore volumes of bona fide science which points to the contrary.
If for nothing else, thanks for the laughs and wonderment.
In the end, this boils down to creationists, etc. have no concept of just how little they know about science and evolution. The level of the lack of knowledge is so great it is an example of “not seeing the forest for the trees”. You think you know what your talking about, but really, you don’t.
pashorter, your argument amounts to “if we can’t explain it right now, then god must have put it there.“ I’m not sure what you are referring to when you mention disproved facts and the fossil known as ‘Lucy’, no doubt more ‘pop’ science. I have heard the stat you mentioned that something like half the country doesn’t accept evolution, I think that has been pretty well established in many reputable polls. What has also been established in polls is that most Americans don’t know the planets or their order in the solar system, or that most Americans can name more of the ‘Seven Dwarfs’ than Supreme Court Justices, or more people vote for ‘American Idol’ than vote in general elections. I wouldn’t call most Americans stupid, that is too easy an excuse. Stupidity is a condition, I would refer to most American’s as willfully ignorant. When a fact, that is verified and tested time and time again, contradicts their religious ideology they simply resort to willful ignorance and mental gymnastics to “support” there biased views. You accept the conveniences that science provides in your day to day life but reject that same science when it is applied to proving details of one the most solidly proven scientific concepts ever.
For byron m. 804, Randy, pashorter , et al…
I think you have misunderstood my earlier post. I will try to clarify:
A. Christian doctrine states that God is a spirit. Consider the Philosophical Proof from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica:
P1. No body is in motion unless put in motion
P2. The cosmological argument for the existence of God proves God is the first cause and the unmoved mover. P3. Suppose God has a corporeal body that can move.
C1. Premise 3 must be absurd because it conflicts with Premise 2. Since P2 has been proven, P3 is false.
C2. Therefore, God has no body.
B. Theories of evolution of material things (organic & inorganic) do not deny the existence of an incorporeal God.
C. Many Creationists, Ken Ham of AIG for example, claim that if one accepts the theory of evolution one cannot accept the Gospel of Christ; and thus reject the existence of an omnipotent divine Spirit.
D. “Strident” Creationists DO NOT actually believe in God. Creationists merely worship the act of condemning evolution as the cause of trouble in the world rather than affirming God:
“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 second and third-order effects are destructive.” —Ronald Ellyson
This is not faith in God.
Consider again the words of John Paul II on evolution:
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.
CWB717 and other evolutionists, Answers in Genesis basis for suppositions is the Bible. Your and other evolutionists basis for your suppositions is man’s discoveries. How many “supposed” facts have been disproved over the years, i.e. “Lucy” and the other so called missing links? The educational system has been teaching evolution exclusively for I know 52 yrs. because that’s when they were teaching it to me. But when polls are taken of the American public, I don’t remember the exact figure, somewhere between 55% and 65% believe in creationism and not in evolution. I suppose that’s because we are all brainwashed dupes and not enlightened like you. How come with all that indoctrination you’re not more successful? Most people can look at God’s creation and marvel at the wonder of it, like the complexity of the human body and specifically the human eye. I also look at things like the Bombadier beetle that has 2 chemicals contained in his body in seperate chambers and when ejected out they burn to ward off predators. If they ever mix in his body he blows up. How did that “naturally” occur? There are so many things man can’t explain and only a Creator can.
pashorter, the difference here is that creationist, IDer’s, anti-evolutionists, or whatever you call yourselves try and manipulate good science to fit into a box you have built with your own religious bias. You will fold and contort (read manipulate) information in anyway you can to make it fit in you religious box. Real scientists really don’t have an agenda other than one of true discovery, we follow were nature leads us. We didn’t just wake up one day and say “You know what, I want to disprove the bible, so maybe I will make up something to do that.“ We wake up curious to how the world works and passionately pursue the truth. That is the difference between real science and ‘pop’ science that only exists to promote a very narrow religious ideology. That amounts to what your posted site does. I saw no peer reviewed journals there, the “scientists” cited are members of a religious foundation and are doing the same thing you are, contorting facts to fit in your little religious box. Arguments like irreducible complexity are openly mocked by real scientists. So yes, I am ‘pooh poohing’ your ‘site’, because it is garbage and exists simply to promote a religious bias. A true scientist leaves his bias at the door.
pashorter: Surely your buds over at Answers in Genesis know that biogenesis has nothing to do with evolution, right? The theory of evolution makes no claims about how life originated. When Darwin was asked how life originated, he said he had no idea.
CWB717 and other striddent evolution believers, this body of evidence you present about how life could have been formed is theory and supposition. If humans know so much about this, why haven’t we produced life from these chemistry experiments? As many have pointed out I am not a scientist. If you are truely hungry for answers to the information, I have presented go to answersingenesis.org and the scientists there will answer all your questions that I cannot. I’m sure some of you will pooh-pooh this web site and continue listening to the atheistic professors you have always listened to, which shows that you are really not interested in seeing what the other side has to say, you just want to pontificate on what you think you know. Think abpout it.
GREAT letter Jamie Lindsey!
No more faith than it takes to attribute it to a big invisible hand.
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