Evolution is a very logic thing, yet it is misunderstood by a lot of people. And those misunderstandings are often exploited by the ID people.
Simply put, if you agree with two basic facts:
1) Among a group there are individual differences that will affect the likelihood of successful reproduction for that individual.
2) The offspring of those individuals are likely to inherit the traits of their parents.
Then, logically, evolution will occur.
But, just from that we cannot say exactly how evolution has occured. The way we find out that is to look a fossils and see the changes over time, and from that we can draw conclusion of how it is likely that the different species evolved.
Of course it is possible that aliens (or a divine being) created everything 6000 years ago (or five minutes ago for that matter), but there is just no rational reason to believe so.
The ID people should be more concerned with proving their own theory instead of searching for strange fossils. No matter how seemingly unlikely to occur organ or whatever you point at it can not be used to "disprove" evolution. To disprove evolution you have to disprove facts upon which it is based. And even if evolution was disproved it would not automatically make ID a fact.
The God Delusion & The Virus of Faith
Moderator: EG Members
Wow, that astronomy video sucked, it was like an introductory course from elementary school. All he really did was show a bunch of pictures of galaxies and say how beautiful they are and how great God is for creating them.
Look kid, yeah I am talking to you ZoddsNo1Fan, take a real astronomy class. By real I mean at a college and not at some crackpot religious school. They will teach you all about how matter comes together to form stars and planets and how different elements are made from stars and supernovae and such. Then take a chemistry class to learn how the elements interact with eachother, then go onto biology you will see how living organism function, and how you are able to do anything at all. It all makes sense and once you learn things for yourself you will learn how fucking special you really are. The internet has tons of information but, you gotta be smart enough to know whats bullshit and what isnt.
"Where did this "matter" come from?" you ask.
Where did this "God" come from? And why did he create everything? Whats the point? What religion are you apart of? How do you know its the right religion? There are so many, and if there is a god, only one can be right. Right? Man has been creating gods for ages(Zeus, Odin, Ra) to explain the things around him, how is your god any different? Right, those 'mythical' gods have been disproved, Zeus doesnt make lightning, it is just an atmospheric discharge. So your god was created to explain you(man), well now we can explain how you came to be through evolution and your god is no longer needed.
I just dont understand how you can follow someone so blindly. Think for yourself.
Look kid, yeah I am talking to you ZoddsNo1Fan, take a real astronomy class. By real I mean at a college and not at some crackpot religious school. They will teach you all about how matter comes together to form stars and planets and how different elements are made from stars and supernovae and such. Then take a chemistry class to learn how the elements interact with eachother, then go onto biology you will see how living organism function, and how you are able to do anything at all. It all makes sense and once you learn things for yourself you will learn how fucking special you really are. The internet has tons of information but, you gotta be smart enough to know whats bullshit and what isnt.
"Where did this "matter" come from?" you ask.
Where did this "God" come from? And why did he create everything? Whats the point? What religion are you apart of? How do you know its the right religion? There are so many, and if there is a god, only one can be right. Right? Man has been creating gods for ages(Zeus, Odin, Ra) to explain the things around him, how is your god any different? Right, those 'mythical' gods have been disproved, Zeus doesnt make lightning, it is just an atmospheric discharge. So your god was created to explain you(man), well now we can explain how you came to be through evolution and your god is no longer needed.
I just dont understand how you can follow someone so blindly. Think for yourself.
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then
blames them for his own mistakes." - Gene Roddenberry
blames them for his own mistakes." - Gene Roddenberry
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Killfile
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Ok and when you can show me, in a lab, how God made the universe in 6 days and rested on the 7th - when you can verifiably find and test evidence that proves this then what?When they can explain and show in lab how the big bang occured(or even how one species can become another): something from nothing(" a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions"). Where did this "matter" come from? What gave it energy to spin?). (Its all theoretical faith that will never be proven is what they are all getting at), order via disorder, extreme complexity/variety from the simple(all of which go against PROVEN KNOWN TESTABLE SCIENTIFIC FACT) i will believe in evolution. Im not a one minded person i just want the proof.
Hold religion to the same standards you hold science. If you can't do that then it's not science, it's myth, fairy tale, and blind faith. Those are all great things and they might help you to cope with the world -- but they don't help you pass the Biology SAT-II.
In other words - they don't belong in our schools.
If you want to live in the 15th Century that's your call. Just remember when you get treatment for Strep Throat, Bacterial Meningitis, or TB that you want to ask for the versions of the antibiotics which are effective against the "Intelligently Designed" strains, as opposed to the ones that have evolved since our introduction of artificial treatments.
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Brainpiercing
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Quite frankly, this all seems like talking to wall.
If I weren't a civilised person I just might want to take a hammer and tear the wall down. Literally, the hammer to face sort of way.
But I won't do that, because I respect your RIGHT to an opinion, I just don't respect your perceived right to teach said opinion.
And then again: Having an opinion about fact is stupid. Of course, if you were discussing different models for the same problem, then you are entitled to an opinion on which model works best. However, it's still just that, the model may work better for one thing or the other, but the model is not the truth, it's just a way of looking at it. The theory of evolution is a model view of how life could have developed from the very simple self-replicating amino-acid "life-forms" that may have swum around in the radiation bombarded primordial soup, to the complex patters we have today. It takes many instances of evidence to back up this model. Individual details of what Darvin said may have been refuted already, but his main idea stands, because with all the knowledge we have been able to aquire over the past century, his model has still been applicable. We have not found the killer proof to refute his model. Other old models have been refuted. We know that the heat capacity of a solid black body when approaching zero Kelvin also reaches zero, and we have known for many years. But what we haven't know for very long is what exactly happens to atoms in a solid as they reach absolute zero. We have had, over the years, several models that tried to explain what exactly happens. Starting from solid pair potentials, to Einstein coupled oscillators to Debye potentials, to the Debye-Hückel-Onsager theory, to the Bose-Einstein condensate. This is the scientific process. You make a model, you test it against your observations, and if it doesn't fit, you think about how to change the model.
The theory of evolution still lacks an instance where you can irrefutably say "This does not fit." All of the things you mentioned have been disproven.
And then, what you do is not present an alternate model, no, you present a fairy tale. Why even debate a claim when it is so easy to prove the world is older than 5000 years? If you were saying that, YES, life evolved, but it may have evolved with a little help from outside, then that would be hard to disprove, except that there would be no reason for or against your argument. AND you would have to accept that certain parts of your scripture are just plain untrue. Which of course throws the shadow of doubt on all the rest as well.
The trouble that all the hardcore believers run up against is this, a circular argument: If what's written in the book is to be true, then the book must have been influenced by god. And if it was influenced by god, it must be true. But then, what about the instances of obvious falsity in it? Well, those must be true as well, or else the entire house of cards were are building our lives upon will fall down. That's your fear.
And plain old FEAR is what's running your motor. Believers are afraid that moral society will collapse without religion. The house of cards must be upheld, because without it we couldn't for instance claim homosexuals are evil, so obviously, the scripture must be true in every word. Once one word is accepted as untrue, the house of cards falls down.
Tell me what that says about the believers? If fear takes such a central point in their lives, then could they really be good people? Could they really be confident of their morals, if they need fear more than anything else to maintain them? They must have a VERY LOW opinion of human nature if they believe that without fear human values will collapse. And what does that say about your perceived god, if you were shaped in his image? A fearful little creature he must be.
I'm drifting, here, but it's all connected by the underlying theme. The delusion that what's said in one book must be true because it was influenced by god. Get rid of the book, you might as well get rid of god, too, even though all the so-called modarate believers live that hypocrisy every day.
Edit:
Something one guy told me today: One reason to believe in god as anything else than a philosphophy is the personal experience of the beneficial relationship he experiences with his god. I say that's just body chemicals.
And another thing, from a guy who is no extremist, and is studying sciences, and is very much someone living in the here and now without worrying too much about sin, although he does think about being a good man, AND he is an avid believer: He said only an all-powerful being could create itself. To him, that solves the entire conundrum of the god existence - and existence in general. To him the only logical transition from nothing to something is via an all-powerful being coming into existence by itself. That doesn't seem like logic to me, but to him it bridges the probability gap that questions the existence of god. He said, YES, it's very improbable that god exists, but then, it's quite improbable that the universe exists at all, so an all-powerful being is just a little more improbable - but with it, the universe as it is today should become much more probable. Well, go figure, still seems like a circular argument to me.
If I weren't a civilised person I just might want to take a hammer and tear the wall down. Literally, the hammer to face sort of way.
But I won't do that, because I respect your RIGHT to an opinion, I just don't respect your perceived right to teach said opinion.
And then again: Having an opinion about fact is stupid. Of course, if you were discussing different models for the same problem, then you are entitled to an opinion on which model works best. However, it's still just that, the model may work better for one thing or the other, but the model is not the truth, it's just a way of looking at it. The theory of evolution is a model view of how life could have developed from the very simple self-replicating amino-acid "life-forms" that may have swum around in the radiation bombarded primordial soup, to the complex patters we have today. It takes many instances of evidence to back up this model. Individual details of what Darvin said may have been refuted already, but his main idea stands, because with all the knowledge we have been able to aquire over the past century, his model has still been applicable. We have not found the killer proof to refute his model. Other old models have been refuted. We know that the heat capacity of a solid black body when approaching zero Kelvin also reaches zero, and we have known for many years. But what we haven't know for very long is what exactly happens to atoms in a solid as they reach absolute zero. We have had, over the years, several models that tried to explain what exactly happens. Starting from solid pair potentials, to Einstein coupled oscillators to Debye potentials, to the Debye-Hückel-Onsager theory, to the Bose-Einstein condensate. This is the scientific process. You make a model, you test it against your observations, and if it doesn't fit, you think about how to change the model.
The theory of evolution still lacks an instance where you can irrefutably say "This does not fit." All of the things you mentioned have been disproven.
And then, what you do is not present an alternate model, no, you present a fairy tale. Why even debate a claim when it is so easy to prove the world is older than 5000 years? If you were saying that, YES, life evolved, but it may have evolved with a little help from outside, then that would be hard to disprove, except that there would be no reason for or against your argument. AND you would have to accept that certain parts of your scripture are just plain untrue. Which of course throws the shadow of doubt on all the rest as well.
The trouble that all the hardcore believers run up against is this, a circular argument: If what's written in the book is to be true, then the book must have been influenced by god. And if it was influenced by god, it must be true. But then, what about the instances of obvious falsity in it? Well, those must be true as well, or else the entire house of cards were are building our lives upon will fall down. That's your fear.
And plain old FEAR is what's running your motor. Believers are afraid that moral society will collapse without religion. The house of cards must be upheld, because without it we couldn't for instance claim homosexuals are evil, so obviously, the scripture must be true in every word. Once one word is accepted as untrue, the house of cards falls down.
Tell me what that says about the believers? If fear takes such a central point in their lives, then could they really be good people? Could they really be confident of their morals, if they need fear more than anything else to maintain them? They must have a VERY LOW opinion of human nature if they believe that without fear human values will collapse. And what does that say about your perceived god, if you were shaped in his image? A fearful little creature he must be.
I'm drifting, here, but it's all connected by the underlying theme. The delusion that what's said in one book must be true because it was influenced by god. Get rid of the book, you might as well get rid of god, too, even though all the so-called modarate believers live that hypocrisy every day.
Edit:
Something one guy told me today: One reason to believe in god as anything else than a philosphophy is the personal experience of the beneficial relationship he experiences with his god. I say that's just body chemicals.
And another thing, from a guy who is no extremist, and is studying sciences, and is very much someone living in the here and now without worrying too much about sin, although he does think about being a good man, AND he is an avid believer: He said only an all-powerful being could create itself. To him, that solves the entire conundrum of the god existence - and existence in general. To him the only logical transition from nothing to something is via an all-powerful being coming into existence by itself. That doesn't seem like logic to me, but to him it bridges the probability gap that questions the existence of god. He said, YES, it's very improbable that god exists, but then, it's quite improbable that the universe exists at all, so an all-powerful being is just a little more improbable - but with it, the universe as it is today should become much more probable. Well, go figure, still seems like a circular argument to me.
Brainpiercing
"Beer cures poison" - (almost) Guts.
"Beer cures poison" - (almost) Guts.
And where exactly are you going with this remark? To cheaply provoke people is not gonna help, or be remotely constructive. It's pretty clear what Zodd#1 position is, and we can at least give him the fact that he tried and stand up for his beliefs.
The debate is pretty much over with as far as I can see.
The debate is pretty much over with as far as I can see.
assuming this is a reply to my question to zodd, i did not intend to provoke zodd or anyone else for that matter, it was a simple question which i would still like answered.Albator wrote:And where exactly are you going with this remark? To cheaply provoke people is not gonna help, or be remotely constructive. It's pretty clear what Zodd#1 position is, and we can at least give him the fact that he tried and stand up for his beliefs.
The debate is pretty much over with as far as I can see.
It adds nothing to the thread, you can however PM him or create a thread generalizing the question. However, if you have read Zodds#1fan posts it would seem to indicate that he enjoys Berserk else he wouldn't have posted about it.Kekiro wrote:assuming this is a reply to my question to zodd, i did not intend to provoke zodd or anyone else for that matter, it was a simple question which i would still like answered.Albator wrote:And where exactly are you going with this remark? To cheaply provoke people is not gonna help, or be remotely constructive. It's pretty clear what Zodd#1 position is, and we can at least give him the fact that he tried and stand up for his beliefs.
The debate is pretty much over with as far as I can see.
Keep on topic, if you have questions PM the individual please.
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EvilDmitri
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Why would god need a day to rest? Why would it take him 6 days if he is all powerful? Can god create a stone which god cannot lift? Religon is amusingOk and when you can show me, in a lab, how God made the universe in 6 days and rested on the 7th - when you can verifiably find and test evidence that proves this then what?
Stumbled onto this; lookie what that pastor in the video whom supposedly accepts science (HIS version of it) has done. Quite the holy man, isn't he?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggar ... ne_scandal
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EvilDmitri
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Didn't notice it >.<Artezul wrote:It was already mentioned in the thread.
Anyways, the arguing against 'faith' is pretty pointless. As long as it can't be disproved, people will believe it. I personally think they are all in for a big dissapointment, but that's their choice, not mine. It's in an atheist's best interest not to try and convince people they are wrong anyways; I believe in science and not god but I try not to be a prick about it. The very idea of religon is one based upon perception, and human perception is fundamentally flawed to begin with, partially due to the longterm effects of organized religon and its inherent beliefs perhaps, but regardless of such it's not something that can be changed overnight. Touting ourselves as superior to theists is just as reminiscient of the holocaust as the religious fanatics of today; being non-religous does not immunize us from acts of bigotry and hatred - atheist fanaticism is fanaticism all the same. Simply put, if you believe in ANYTHING too strongly it is a dangerous thing, so lest we lower ourselves to the indoctrination practices of organized religon, arguing to convert someone or make them look like a fool is a self defeating method for introducing atheistic concepts.
I believe in science and not god but I try not to be a prick about it.
The real problem with that statement is that you just replaced God with science. Science is not something to believe in, if you have to believe then it isn't science. Belief and science are mutually exclusive in that regard.
Science is trying to find out about the world around us using reason, logic, and empirical testing. Belief (in anything) does none of those three things. One can not believe in science, it is not a replacement for faith.
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EvilDmitri
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I rewrote that since what I originally wrote I felt might have been harsh.psi29a wrote:I believe in science and not god but I try not to be a prick about it.
The real problem with that statement is that you just replaced God with science. Science is not something to believe in, if you have to believe then it isn't science. Belief and science are mutually exclusive in that regard.
Science is trying to find out about the world around us using reason, logic, and empirical testing. Belief (in anything) does none of those three things. One can not believe in science, it is not a replacement for faith.
However, Science is also subject to belief - as we do not as individuals do the research and review the evidence wrought from that research (unless you happen to be a scientist
). Instead, we rely on various channels of media to enlighten us to what has been discovered, which calls into question the subjectivity of the intermediaries. Most forms of media are bias, web included, so we still cannot be sure that what we are learning is true. Thus the belief and the trust. I trust and believe in the scientific establishment and believe that they will do their research in the best interests of mankind, regardless of their religous convictions. Are there such thing as bad scientists whom mislead? Yes, but I still believe the majority are out for the truth.All we can do is believe in the people who find these things out. Either that, or disregard everything you've ever read and do the studies yourself, an impossible task. To that extent, Science can be believed in, but no, it is not a replacement for faith, nor do I wish it to be.
Anybody can go take a look at pubmed. Or the Science or Nature website, they give you summaries and late news. Even Wikipedia. You don't need to be a scientist. Neither do you need to rely on "mainstream" media. It's there for the taking.
You don't need to believe, you just need to read. If something sounds fishy to you, research it. The web is an incredible tool, like never before. If you were talking of a pre-net era, I would agree with you to a certain extent, since there is libraries. However I can guarantee that nowadays you can find out if a scientific info is false or not in about 15mn (if you don't know where to look).
Edit: to sum it up, don't let people feed you BS, there's no excuse for it anymore. Keep a critical view on what's offered to you, and nobody will be able to fool you, even mainstream medias.
You don't need to believe, you just need to read. If something sounds fishy to you, research it. The web is an incredible tool, like never before. If you were talking of a pre-net era, I would agree with you to a certain extent, since there is libraries. However I can guarantee that nowadays you can find out if a scientific info is false or not in about 15mn (if you don't know where to look).
Edit: to sum it up, don't let people feed you BS, there's no excuse for it anymore. Keep a critical view on what's offered to you, and nobody will be able to fool you, even mainstream medias.
Actually science is not subject to belief, that is the entire point. I don't believe the world is round, I know it is round, because we have a definition of what is round and I can test it myself multiple ways including spending a view thousand to go into space.
Belief presupposes faith, which cannot be tested. I'll give an example: Which is more dense, water or olive oil? I don't know, but I can test. Oil stays on top of water, meaning it floats therefor less dense. Let us move onto something that hasn't been tested but has lots of supportive evidence. Let us take macro-evolution. Lots of evidence there to support it, it is being challenged (which is good), we have the ability to test it but apparently over long period of time. We accept by default it is false (hence falsifiability), and spent our time refining it till we can reproduce the result many times over till the hypothesis is tested true by multiple people.
To continue what Albator said, belief isn't always verifiable. Using science, you can verify. I don't believe anything to be true, because I know I can take anything and test it myself. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for beliefs. I can't test beliefs, because beliefs assumes something to be true.
Belief presupposes faith, which cannot be tested. I'll give an example: Which is more dense, water or olive oil? I don't know, but I can test. Oil stays on top of water, meaning it floats therefor less dense. Let us move onto something that hasn't been tested but has lots of supportive evidence. Let us take macro-evolution. Lots of evidence there to support it, it is being challenged (which is good), we have the ability to test it but apparently over long period of time. We accept by default it is false (hence falsifiability), and spent our time refining it till we can reproduce the result many times over till the hypothesis is tested true by multiple people.
To continue what Albator said, belief isn't always verifiable. Using science, you can verify. I don't believe anything to be true, because I know I can take anything and test it myself. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for beliefs. I can't test beliefs, because beliefs assumes something to be true.
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EvilDmitri
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I use the word believe in the form of 'think but am not sure', not 'am absolutely certain' (blind faith). Anyways, that's all just nitpicking over a grammatical mangling instead of agreeing / disagreeing with what I had posted originally, so it really doesn't matter.psi29a wrote:Actually science is not subject to belief, that is the entire point. I don't believe the world is round, I know it is round, because we have a definition of what is round and I can test it myself multiple ways including spending a view thousand to go into space.
Belief presupposes faith, which cannot be tested. I'll give an example: Which is more dense, water or olive oil? I don't know, but I can test. Oil stays on top of water, meaning it floats therefor less dense. Let us move onto something that hasn't been tested but has lots of supportive evidence. Let us take macro-evolution. Lots of evidence there to support it, it is being challenged (which is good), we have the ability to test it but apparently over long period of time. We accept by default it is false (hence falsifiability), and spent our time refining it till we can reproduce the result many times over till the hypothesis is tested true by multiple people.
To continue what Albator said, belief isn't always verifiable. Using science, you can verify. I don't believe anything to be true, because I know I can take anything and test it myself. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for beliefs. I can't test beliefs, because beliefs assumes something to be true.
Fair enough. Do you believe the things said on media, magazines, etc? I agree to a certain extent that you can put trust in those who are specializing in a field you are not. However, that doesn't stop you from going into that field yourself and analyze the results and testing it yourself. Peer review helps in that regard.
Trust I think would be a better word, wouldn't you agree? You trust your parents, you trust teachers, you trust your professors, you trust your deacon or rabbi until that trust is broken or rendered invalid in some way.
I have found enough evidence to the contrary for example to not trust Fox news and to be skeptical of their programming.
We avoid words like faith and belief because they hold a different meaning to many people and we mean to to be concise, especially when trying write for public consumption.
Another reason I bring this up is that people reading and contributing here become better debaters. We shouldn't be thinking of typing to brick walls. Just look at the threads, I think it contributes and makes points on all sides which in the end makes us more informed regardless of stance on issues.
Trust I think would be a better word, wouldn't you agree? You trust your parents, you trust teachers, you trust your professors, you trust your deacon or rabbi until that trust is broken or rendered invalid in some way.
I have found enough evidence to the contrary for example to not trust Fox news and to be skeptical of their programming.
We avoid words like faith and belief because they hold a different meaning to many people and we mean to to be concise, especially when trying write for public consumption.
Another reason I bring this up is that people reading and contributing here become better debaters. We shouldn't be thinking of typing to brick walls. Just look at the threads, I think it contributes and makes points on all sides which in the end makes us more informed regardless of stance on issues.
I don't understand why basically most of the application of science could be integrated into Christianity, except evolution. Is there something written in there that says God created humans in a blink of an eye? I understand why big bang isn't included, because God apparently created it by farting into a lighter with his roommate, Chuck. I haven't read the bible in ages, so I can't recall every single detail.
As for people saying not to analyse scientific findings so literally, how about stop reading the bible so literally? Wouldn't make you any less of a Christian. Also, as for holding 'belief' in science, that's absurd. You don't have to believe in gravity to have both your feet on the ground. You do, however, have to belief in religion in order to feel blessed an other various emotions.
What information people choose to trust from whatever source in is entirely on their own, but the validity of the information should be tested further by self research on the topic to resolve self doubts. A formed opinion on the matter by your own is always better than someone elses.
As for people saying not to analyse scientific findings so literally, how about stop reading the bible so literally? Wouldn't make you any less of a Christian. Also, as for holding 'belief' in science, that's absurd. You don't have to believe in gravity to have both your feet on the ground. You do, however, have to belief in religion in order to feel blessed an other various emotions.
What information people choose to trust from whatever source in is entirely on their own, but the validity of the information should be tested further by self research on the topic to resolve self doubts. A formed opinion on the matter by your own is always better than someone elses.
I don't think half the toilet seats in the world are as clean as I should like; and only half of those are half as clean as they deserve. - tsubaimomo, July 26, 2010 3:00 am
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EvilDmitri
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Trust works well. Generally, I don't trust any television media, as every network is owned by either a liberal or conservative corporation, and is just an extension of the two party system. Most of what I read is from reputable internet sources. The news just sensationalizes things, they are for profit establishments after all, and while it is fine for some absolute things (such as the death of Ford or James Brown), it simply isn't reliable for anything that would be controversial. I've met a lot of people who have made the mistake of taking what's on TV at face value, and the result is almost as bad as what religons can do to people. As far as believing magazines go, just find that video online of a fast motion photoshoot. Using makeup, hairstylists, and photoshop, they turn this 'eh' looking girl into cover girl. With the exception of scientific journals and such, most magazines are just about as bad as the network news, unless you really care who Brittney is hooking up with.psi29a wrote:Fair enough. Do you believe the things said on media, magazines, etc? I agree to a certain extent that you can put trust in those who are specializing in a field you are not. However, that doesn't stop you from going into that field yourself and analyze the results and testing it yourself. Peer review helps in that regard.
Trust I think would be a better word, wouldn't you agree? You trust your parents, you trust teachers, you trust your professors, you trust your deacon or rabbi until that trust is broken or rendered invalid in some way.
I have found enough evidence to the contrary for example to not trust Fox news and to be skeptical of their programming.
We avoid words like faith and belief because they hold a different meaning to many people and we mean to to be concise, especially when trying write for public consumption.
Another reason I bring this up is that people reading and contributing here become better debaters. We shouldn't be thinking of typing to brick walls. Just look at the threads, I think it contributes and makes points on all sides which in the end makes us more informed regardless of stance on issues.
I think the problem with integrating science into religon is that religon attempts to establish itself as science fact in doing so, instead of agreeing that 'okay maybe it didn't happen that way but we feel the message is good'. Regardless of how literal the bible is interpreted, organizations like the Catholic Church have tried to use science (only the parts of it they 'like', things that agree with them) to prove their malarky about god. We spend years and years on the Human Genome project, discover all these things about humans, and religious organizations turn around and say "look at how complex we are! isn't the work of god marvelous?". It's when such things are taught to children that it becomes a dangerous thing. The reason Evolution is such a Christian turn-off is because it suggests that humans evolved like other creatures (they don't like to think of us as animals, as in the bible we are set above animals) and because that evolution took place over millions of years, much longer than the Bible says the world has existed.I don't understand why basically most of the application of science could be integrated into Christianity, except evolution. Is there something written in there that says God created humans in a blink of an eye? I understand why big bang isn't included, because God apparently created it by farting into a lighter with his roommate, Chuck. I haven't read the bible in ages, so I can't recall every single detail.
As for people saying not to analyse scientific findings so literally, how about stop reading the bible so literally? Wouldn't make you any less of a Christian. Also, as for holding 'belief' in science, that's absurd. You don't have to believe in gravity to have both your feet on the ground. You do, however, have to belief in religion in order to feel blessed an other various emotions.
What information people choose to trust from whatever source in is entirely on their own, but the validity of the information should be tested further by self research on the topic to resolve self doubts. A formed opinion on the matter by your own is always better than someone elses.
It stems from a psychological need to feel important. We feel as if we need to be modeled in the image of god, as if we are sooo special in this universe that we deserve a place alongside god, and nothing else does. Then, we distance ourselves so as to not seem greedy and selfish (when in fact, we are), and say 'god is unfathomably powerful, we cannot compare to him or even think of ourselves as doing so'. To be in the image of god, we must have been in our current form since the beginning of existance. A Christian would scoff at the idea that God evolved, and if we are indeed in his image, then it makes Evolution and Intelligent Design mutually exclusive. Basically, people feel insulted by the idea that they came from primates and want to be special. It's one giant 'pat yourself on the back' seminar on Earth.
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Brainpiercing
- Crusher of Dreams
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As someone who knows how the science BUSINESS works, I wouldn't trust every publication I can find. Not only do scientists make mistakes and come to wrong conclusions, I know scientists cheat and lie to look good in front of their peers. It's human, it happens. It's unavoidable with the amount of new facts published every day, only the big mags can actually take the time to reproduce findings, and then only if that is possible quickly with acceptable effort. In chemistry, my own field, it's possible fairly easily, in other fields it's much harder.
Take long-term studies for instance: Usually carried out on a very limited number of subjects (<100) over a longer period of time, at considerable cost, both monetary and logistical. How can you reproduce them when you don't have a personal interest in the result? You'll just have to trust the findings. And then: A major part of science is coming to right conclusions. The findings, the data, in a certain case may be totally correct, but the conclusions all wrong. Of course, should they be proven wrong, scientists will accept that.
But generally the important discoveries, the breakthroughs, will be verified by enough people to be fairly reliable. Until someone finds out something absolutely new.
Take long-term studies for instance: Usually carried out on a very limited number of subjects (<100) over a longer period of time, at considerable cost, both monetary and logistical. How can you reproduce them when you don't have a personal interest in the result? You'll just have to trust the findings. And then: A major part of science is coming to right conclusions. The findings, the data, in a certain case may be totally correct, but the conclusions all wrong. Of course, should they be proven wrong, scientists will accept that.
But generally the important discoveries, the breakthroughs, will be verified by enough people to be fairly reliable. Until someone finds out something absolutely new
.Brainpiercing
"Beer cures poison" - (almost) Guts.
"Beer cures poison" - (almost) Guts.
Before I start going on this, what exactly are you doing in the science business? Chemistry, OK, doing what?
I would just add that you are somehow right, however you are exaggerating. When something big come out, scientists try to reproduce it. Last example in my mind is Dr Hwang Woo Suk from the Seoul National University. He fabricated results from A to Z, claiming that he succesfully produced several stem cells lineage by extracting DNA from patients and cloning. People tried to reproduce the results, never worked. Ultimately a tip led to the discovery of the fraud, but you can be sure that if somebody publish something major and lied about it, it won't stay unknown.
Scientist are sceptics by nature, so you better be careful with what you throw out there. THere's a good chance that the results or hypothesis you obtain contradicts those of somebody else, so you better have good facts to back you up. To exxagerate your results might make you look like a fool at the end.
I would just add that you are somehow right, however you are exaggerating. When something big come out, scientists try to reproduce it. Last example in my mind is Dr Hwang Woo Suk from the Seoul National University. He fabricated results from A to Z, claiming that he succesfully produced several stem cells lineage by extracting DNA from patients and cloning. People tried to reproduce the results, never worked. Ultimately a tip led to the discovery of the fraud, but you can be sure that if somebody publish something major and lied about it, it won't stay unknown.
Scientist are sceptics by nature, so you better be careful with what you throw out there. THere's a good chance that the results or hypothesis you obtain contradicts those of somebody else, so you better have good facts to back you up. To exxagerate your results might make you look like a fool at the end.
Last edited by Albator on Sat Dec 30, 2006 4:00 am, edited 2 times in total.