Creation: yea or nay?

Slick Shit, I have no problem with you being an aethiest, or believing that you descended from a being that scratches it's ass, to a being that is an ass. I took the middle line in my post there, yet you still feel it necessary to attack me. I didn't say I supported Creationism being widely taught by schools.

 

Stop calling me a fucking atheist. I'm an agnostic fundamentalist.

If rebutting is attacking, then I'm guilty.

How is the brief mentioning of these things "the best" possible method? If you only recieved Webster's definition of Algebra, would that be the best way to teach math? I don't believe that Religion belongs in the class room, because it distorts the line between theology and actual, provable fact. If you want your children to believe that the earth was created a mere 6000 years ago, let them learn that at church. Or better yet, why not let them learn one at church, and the other at school, and let them make up their own minds?

 

Omg, PEOPLE THERE'S LIKE, A DIFFERENCE!!!! LIKE, TOTALLY A BIG ONE!!!!!!!

You're a fundamentalist? That explains it...

You didn't rebut you butthead. You did take a shot. I took some too, but for the record, mine were at least marginally humorous.

Well, technically gravity isn't an actual, provable fact, it's still a theory. God's will could be sitting on us and holding us down. It's impossible to completely seperate fact from theology. How do you intend to teach U.S. History and remove the religious aspect? Or English? I would rather have people learn about such things in an environment of objective learning rather than receive a slanted impression somewhere else. It's critical that simple dogmatic conjecture not be given weight OVER a scientific hypothesis, but just because something is an article of faith doesn't outrightly disprove it's potential correctness, nor bar it from conversation.

 

Your history example: It is a fact that people have been motivated by theology, but it doesn't make their theology fact.

I agree with you otherwise. Though I still feel that theology should be saved for college and Church.

 

I know that man, giv eme a little credit. But in order to understand the motivations of those people you need to learn about their theology. That enables you to better understand their intentions and avoid their pitfalls, and duplicate their successes. That's the only point of learning history anyway, to avoid the mistakes of the past.

 

But I'm trying to say that I didn't mean religion should be written out of the history texts, I was only trying to say that it should in no way be involved in Lab Science. Or any science.



Even Astronomy.

 

If the subject is the creation of the earth, and the theory, because while far more likely than a giant hand putting this rock together it is still unprovable, of the big bang and planet formation is being taught, then the theory of God's creation should at least get a passing sentence. Much more than that, I don't think so. Most other religious faiths have such a limited recognition of their creation theories that they likely would not gain mention, and the muslim and jewish creation myths are the same as the christian, so about 40% of the world is covered in that.

 

A scientific theory is as much of a fact as you will ever get. It is more than a hunch, guess, or provisional hypothesis. Gravity is a fact.

Yes, God's will COULD be holding us down, or we could be held down by invisible, undetectable garden gnomes tugging at our trousers. You can make up any story you like but if there's absolutely no way to back it up it has no business being offered to students at taxpayer expense.

Fact and theology are seperated all the time. It's called science and reason. An article of faith is by definition unprovable and irrelevant, and should be excluded from scientific endeavors. Converse all you like, but don't spread the belief that it's at all real or acceptable. There's enough ignorance as it is; we don't need any more help in our cultural regression.

 

I was merely stating that gravity isn't a fact, it remains a theory, because such idle and ignorant ideas cannot be disproved. A fact is that the world is round. We can see that. A fact is planetary rotation, they go around the sun. But until we can see gravitons shooting back and forth, and explain their cause, gravity remains a theory. Granted a more intelligent theory than the earth is really quick sand and we're sinking fast enough to counteract the flying away.

Canis, Einstein himself said that faith without science is blind, but science without faith is lame. Faith isn't irrelevant, it COULD be true for all we know. I don't think everything we understand is the work of a higher power, but since we don't understand it, I'ld be as much of a fool to say it isn't the work of a higher power.

Reason is fine, but reason and theology are not antonyms. And based upon the fact that the vast majority of people in this country are christian, muslim, or jewish, I think that funded discussion the idea that all three faith share, that could be an alternative to a scientific 'fact' is not such a terrible thing.

The simple fact is that for all our ivory towers and textbooks, we scientists don't have a hell of alot of definites when it comes to creation. We may be alot closer than the religious people, but we might also be wrong. That's happened many times before, and it's foolish to dismiss the possibility that it has happened again.

 

Evolution and gravity are facts. If you dismiss them as "just theories" you're in danger of venturing into a field of relativism in which nothing can be true. How do you know the world is round? Perhaps this is simply an illusion from God, designed to test your faith. That's no different from proposing that God keeps us from flying off the planet, or that he *poof* wished us into existence. There's no end to the madness.

Lots of people like to cling to the air of faith even while they embrace reason. I don't care what Einstein said regarding faith, popular fashion, the sorry state of today's youth, or any other subject about which he was poorly informed.

Reason and faith are opposites. Theology is the study of religion, particularly the interpretation of religious text.

Explain how creationism is a viable alternative to evolution. The simple fact that many people in this country are religious doesn't make religion good for us or for the progress of knowledge by default.

 

Retard, evolution is at least credible and has mountains of evidence to back it up. The fact that we cannot explain everything about the universe does not give creationism more credibility - if anything it gives science more credibility. Why? Because Neanderthals understood shit all about how the world worked compared to us, and look how much we've learnt since they were around.

I have never liked how religion likes to explain everything as "because it just is". I'm the sort of person who needs to understand what they know, and religion says that understanding isn't necessary, and faith is a good replacement for knowledge.

 

Science is an organized system of techniques for the advancement of human knowledge based on hypothesis, experiment, and observation, with old models being discarded if a newer model proves superior.

The mainstream religions are not systems for the advancement of knowledge. They are value systems and beliefs which are not supported by the current state of human knowledge (though they might have been at the time of their origin). They have no inherent systems for improving their grasp of reality or advancing their own view of the universe's underlying principles. In fact, they tend to make a virtue out of belief in their principles for its own sake, contrary to all evidence which undermines such principles.

Religion has no place in a curriculum concerning scientific knowledge, such as the study of geology, zoology, or paleontology.

 

Religions are also loaded with sexist tribal traditions like the Miqveh, Head Scarfs, and male only clubs like the Catholic Priesthood. None of these really have any bearing on the scientific method...

 

You guys seem quite good at stating the obvious.

Gravity and evolution are still just theories, although EXTREMELY good theories. They make perfect sense. But they have not been proved. We have gone into space and seen the curvature of the Earth. We haven't yet devised a way to see the graviton, nor do we understand it very much. And while we have seen mutations in animals due to birth defects and radiation, quadriheaded frogs stand out in my mind, we haven't seen anything in even a microcosm of the evolution that has occured on Earth, should the theory hold water like we all presume it does.

You're implying Einstein is poorly informed on the state of science and theories? Would you care to rephrase that?

Canis, if you think I'm arguing the bad points of using reason, your wrong. But the fact remains, while we can deduce all we want, and think up plausible ideas for creation, evolution, or anything else, we're still just guessing. We're making educated guesses, but let's not sugar coat it any more than that. We don't have any proof of the veracity of our claims, they get changed and revised all the time. So isn't it a tad hypocritical to think that there is no possibility that they are in some way wrong now? Or that religion is in some way right?

Canis, outrightly accepting anything has never been good for progress. Outrightly doing anything hasn't been either, and outrightly rejected any possibility that there might be a higher power who likes to poke his hand in things is the same way. Personally, I believe that we can unravel every secret this universe has to offer, but what makes my belief any more acceptable than anyone else's?

I am like you Jar, I like to know why things are the way they are. But why is an electron negatively charged and a proton positive? Why are their quarks made up that way? There may be some things that just are. We can endeavor to understand them, but without factual evidence it's all really just guess work. And the basic crux of my argument lies in the fact that we are assuming our guesses, while based on evidence, are much more credible than anyone else's.

Canis, no I cannot defend creationism. I don't know a Hell of alot about it. Explain to me why it's unequivocally impossible for creationism to have been the case. You are trying to disqualify an idea, the burden of proof isn't with me.

 

Anyone trained in science knows you cannot prove a theory to be true, you can only disprove it. You can't prove gravity exists, because the next time you drop a ball, it might fall up instead of down. Science works by disproving a hypothesis opposite to the one the scientist is seeking to verify, and using the disproved hypotheses as evidence supporting the favored hypothesis.

This system of thought has produced useful results when it comes to predicting events in the natural world. Religion has produced no such results.

Evolution and natural selection have been observed in action numerous times - in everything from drug resistant strains of bacteria developing, to black moths being favored during the Industrial Revolution because they blended in with soot-covered tree bark while the common white moths stood out and got eaten. These events take place inside the human time scale and can be directly observed.

Religions generally cannot be "disproved" because they do not make claims which are subject to experimental verification or disqualification. That does not mean they have validity. It means they make abstract statements which cannot be tested.

 

That's the definition of a theory. When we find verifiable prove of the gravitons existance then gravity will have been proved. Then it'll become a law, as set in stone as newton's laws of motion. You're as versed in basic scientific terms as in legal terms. Congratulations.

No shit sherlock.

The bacteria developement is valid, but is laregly overlooked when you compare that with the amount of evolution that has taken place on Earth. We're talking about monkeys building cities, not the mutation of a chromosonal fragment. Natural selection isn't even being discussed here. If something isn't fit to survive, it will die, that's not a theory it's common sense. Those moths didn't evolve, they just happened to survive.

You're right about religions. But those vague statements are the reason why I won't just reject them as bullshit, because we can't disprove them. It's a cheap tactic, and I never tried to infer they had validity. But if you can show that they don't have validity, then I would be mightily impressed.

 

Blinky, for centuries an acceptable alternative to supporting your theory has been disproving/discrediting/whatever a rival theory. If you can show that someone else's theory is a load of shit, that yours explains current events and phenomena as we know it, and no one can disprove what you are saying, there's not much more you can do.

Creationism is a load of shit, because it tries to explain EVERYTHING about the universe as "someone else, who we'll call "God", did it, and we can't understand how it works, so stop thinking and start following, er, worshipping!"

 

Nothing in science is set in stone. Newtonian mechanics were rendered obsolete both by relativity and by quantum mechanics. The fact is the future can never be predicted with complete certainty, and there is no way to prove that things will always be the same or always were the same, including forces of nature. Scientific hypotheses, theories and laws are all based, like mathematics, on axioms which must be assumed to be true in order to proceed with the logic process. But the axioms themselves can never be proved, and consequently, neither can anything which relies upon them.

Nobody understands why gravity works. Discovering a graviton won't change that. At that point, nobody will understand why gravitons work. Fundamental forces just are - they are fundamental, by definition. They are the axioms of the physical universe. They define the parameters within which everything else happens.

Mutation, evolution and natural selection do happen. I have given examples. There is not enough evidence to "prove" similar processes are what created the current biosphere, but there is no competing theory which has any merit.

Religions cannot be disproved, any more than any abstract fantasy or prediction of far future events may be. Religions are not knowledge of the natural world, and do not belong in classes concerning the acquisition or state of knowledge of the natural world.

 

Mother fucker. If I've ever been misconstrued....

I tell ya'll what. Forget everything I posted earlier in this thread. The following is what the 'Tard believes.

1. Creation by a Supreme Being.
2. Not having Creation being taught in schools. I want my children to learn about Creation in Church. Not school.
3. Evolution of all things. The world is constantly evolving. I'll give some examples.

• A) People's pinky toes are getting shorter. (We're not climbing trees anymore)
  B) People are getting taller. Maybe due to better health, but still included..
  C) Sleek is able to survive in today's world because we humans have somehow largely avoided the whole "weeding out the gene pool, survival of the fittest" bit.
  D) Mountains rise, trees fall, rivers flow, then dry up. Nerds get hot chicks, and that dog that shot his master by stepping on the trigger of the yokel's gun are all proof that things, people, places evolve.

I know why you all assumed I was like, "Gads!!! Ehvohlooshun!! Lord, break out the Bibles, Bessie!! We needs to be cleansed for even speakin' the word!!" I'm not the typical hypocritical Southern Missionary Church of God Speaking in Tounges Baptist. I am a Primitive Baptist. Primitive, root word Prime, meaning Original or First. Unchanged for 200+ years. I'm not with the freaks. I don't believe that if you ain't a Baptist, well, then, by God, you're going to Hell. Even if someone says to me, "I'm an aetheist." I still don't dismiss their soul to the fiery black furnace. That's not my job or my place. God knows who's saved and who ain't. Just like people can't save themselves, they can't damn themselves either. I believe that.

So anyway, I'm running outta steam now. I'm just sick and fucking tired of being dismissed as a non-thinking, brainwashed sheep just because I believe in a Holy God that created all of heaven and earth. I don't dismiss anything as irrelevant, even ehvohlooshun. I just happen to believe in Creation.

As for the rest of the argument, I'm totally with Blinky. Rock out with your cock out, dude.



*Gasp. I said cock. Truly I'm a hypocrite. I claim to be a Christian, then say cock. Cock cocky cock.* [End Extreme Sarcasm]

Back to you, fuckers.

 

You should read "God Knows" by Joseph Heller (yes, the guy who wrote Catch 22). It's quite funny, and you made me think of it with your post.