Basically, I was hanging out around campus, and this dude with a rather large box comes up to me and offers me a copy of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species." I was rather excited because the copy I have is some ratty, old piece of crap that I'm afraid to pick up anymore.

Turns out, this particular version of the book was published by Living Waters, an Evangelical publishing company.

I did a little research on Ray Comfort, the dude who wrote the disgusting, libelous introduction to the book. Turns out he also edited entire sections out of it to support his Christian fundie propaganda. That idiot Kirk Cameron did a video for the church which you can see here.

Discuss.

If they really wanted to tell the truth about the matter, they would not have removed over 4 chapters of the book. They took out the 4 chapters which had the strongest arguments for evolution. If they wanted to be taken seriously, they should have simply put their own arguments in there along with the full book and all of the information. That way someone could read it and decide for themselves which of the two they believed or if they believe both of them. Believing in evolution and believing in a higher power are not mutually exclusive.

I also wonder why the people who owned the "rights" to the original book allowed them to print it this way. You're not supposed to reproduce documents without express consent of those who own the rights to the material. If I owned the information and someone printed it with some of the information missing, I would most certainly take action in some way.

I don't know why we would expect them to be fair about disseminating information anyway though. Christians are notorious for censorship. We all know what the Catholic Church did to all the documents that it did not agree with so many years ago. When the Bible was created, the people who chose which books when into it had all of those books that were left out destroyed. The Catholic Bible has additional books in the Old Testament which Protestants don't accept. They all believe what they choose to believe.

The problem is when they disseminate their incorrect "partial" information as if it is the "whole" truth and "all" of the information and it's not.

"Believing in evolution and believing in a higher power are not mutually exclusive. "

EXACTLY. i asked my spiritual director about this once. he said that it's okay to believe both. it doesn't need to be one or the other.

THANK YOU.
For goodness sakes, I get so sick of people thinking it's impossible for the two to be connected. It really irritates me because inevitably whenever evolution gets discussed here, it isn't even discussed in a way that makes sense -or even using the word 'evolution' correctly. (evolution does not = we were apes. it means 'change over time'. that's it.)

It just becomes, "we're not random, God made us, blah blah blah". It's as though people think everyone who believes in evolution must be an atheist. It's silly.

i must say i do laugh at the "evolution = we are apes" misconception. like, look it up in a dictionary much?

Are you STILL whining about this stuff? Get over it dude, sheesh. You act like a crying little girl.

lols. It's been what, a day? Run along, little troll.

Honestly though? If people cared they would have commented in your boring diary. You're obviously upset that there weren't as many people commenting you as you'd hoped so you figured posting it in the forums would do the trick. Move on.

least he has the balls to write about this stuff in his diary and post it here. you're diary has no entries, remains unedited and is a "secret". you're probably a known user here and hasn't got the gonads to state your opinions. grow a pair or fuck off.

*your diary...

so how's that edit button coming? lol.

I don't read his diary, and I do care so there!

Actually, the entry and the forum post were posted at the same time. Grow some balls, homie.

I CARE!!

Well then it's not the bloody Origin of Species then is it?! Ugh retards.

The fact that Kirk Cameron is involved automatically makes me disregard it, but still...... what the hell is the point of doing this, if they're going to compromise the integrity of the book? Clearly they are threatened by the idea of evolution if they feel the need to try and damage Darwin's character and take out entire chapters of the book. Ugh.

As a Christian, I apologize on behalf of them. We're not all crazy.

The reason that church can mess with the book is because the copyrights protecting it have expired. No one has exclusive rights for it anymore.

Though, honestly, the church that did this probably did more damage to themselves than good. It's hard to take them seriously after pulling a stunt like that.

I don't know about that, because you would be surprised at how ignorant people are, especially when it comes to believing things put out by their Church. As far as the "real" world is concerned, then yes they have done a lot of damage to themselves, but alot of "these people" (and I don't mean to be offensive by saying that) live in their own little world. I know several people who still think that Obama is a Muslim because that's what their preacher told them. Of course, I live in the South where there is a church on every corner and you're pretty much chastised for being even a slight bit liberal.

I have had people at work tell me they are Christain and therefore "too scared" to see 2012 because they dont want to know what is coming.

So yp..ignorance is alive and well.

LOL serious?! Oh my goodness, how can people so STUPID survive natural selection?!

Ah modern technology has killed natural selection :(

They are giving those out on my husband's university campus today. He conducts research and is earning a doctorate in Cellular Physiology. I just hope, hope HOPE they give him one so he can talk to them. lol. If he doesn't, I hope someone over there is giving them an earful. It's also amusing that they are giving them outside the scientific research related buildings.....they are not exactly going to get any converts over there :-P

Crazy church people are funny. They are only damaging themselves because they refuse to believe science and proven theories because what a bible has told them. That is just insane. Kirk Cameron is insane too.

This is nuts. I hope people don't end up believing the garbage they have put into that book. It just sucks that they messed up something that cannot be changed back. Why didn't they just write their own book, instead of changing and removing parts of this book? That's what upsets me. I don't care if they write their own book spewing their crap, but changing someone else's book is what's wrong. Did they still say it was written by Darwin? I don't think they should be able to do that.

Completely agree. Some fools out there could read it and actually believe that was what Darwin wrote, unless it's explicitly clear that it's been edited.

I used to respect Ray Comfort and his witnessing tools. This turned my stomach.