The dark age is coming back

[Fish]

Originally Posted by VON_CAPO

Some of you consider that religion is not a big deal. That atheists are over reacting.

Are you sure?
Let me show you another documental about fanatism and its political ties with the goverment, with a special emphasis in America:

""" Root of all evil """ is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion.
The documentary was first broadcasted in January 2006, in the form of two 45 minute episodes on Channel 4 in the UK.

Part 1: ---> http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...all+Evil&hl=en

Part 2: ---> http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...all+Evil&hl=en

Enjoy!!!

Thanks for the links, some parts are scary, from both side, muslim/christian.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Wim Libaers

So do we also make it mandatory to teach about the flying spaghetti monster?
http://www.venganza.org/ :p

Seriously, science has very strong claims to correctness. The fact that various scientific theories have been proven wrong (or at least incomplete), and that many other theories will also require changes in the future doesn't indicate that science is wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: every theory that has to be changed is a victory for science, because such changes happen because new discoveries are made that improve our knowledge about how things work, and get rid of old misconceptions. Science adapts to new findings, asks that theories have supporting evidence, and rejects what can be disproven. So it's very different from a mere belief. Science cannot claim complete knowledge and correctness, but it does strive towards it, adapting to new evidence. And it works pretty well, if you consider its achievements.

But if schools teach science not as this process of refinement, but merely as a disconnected set of facts that the student has to learn, those students could be forgiven for not noticing a difference.

Intelligent Design advocates something that you could call "the God of the gaps". Basically, whenever there is a gap in our understanding of the world, that means God must have been involved. So, before people understood electricity, it was explained as God being angry and destroying something, throwing a hammer, etc...

As science progressed, the number of gaps decreased, and with it the importance of this particular type of God. ID is just a bunch of people who feel the need to attack some domain of science to make people believe there are more gaps in our knowledge.

Of course, you are right that science is not the answer for everything. It offers knowledge, but people also need motivations for their actions, and such motivations are rather subjective.

Very well sayd.
If there was no science, we still would hunt with a stone and live in caves!

[joea]

Originally Posted by VON_CAPO

This is what loving people teaches their childen
Do you notice the horns? :hmm:

No it isn't...could you answer my post?

VON_CAPO so what do YOU want? Respect for atheists? Freedom for their position, and not having religion or spirituality or superstition forced on them? (Take your pick) Great, but it seems you want religion to be eliminated as much as some religious people want atheism to be eliminated. I don't think that is very fair or openminded.

You seem to mock all religious people and put them in the same light that some religious people put atheists.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

I have posted this before and I'll gladly post it again:

Think Again: Charlie Darwin's Angels, by Jonathan Rosenblum, Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2006

You are a creationist?

[VON_CAPO]

Originally Posted by Fish

You are a creationist?

Of course, she is.

[VON_CAPO]

Originally Posted by joea

...could you answer my post?

Take again, a carefully look to post #1, measure its deep implications.
If that is not sufficient, you could take a tour into the post #16 , it has a lot of revelations about the topic.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by VON_CAPO

Of course, she is.

Well, most probably. :hmm: I say that because there's room for Darwin's theory, or parts thereof, in Judaic commentaries on the Genesis. But the bottom line is it makes no difference to me in any way how G-d created the universe and its contents.

Now, if the initial "shock" of my opinion has worn off, would anyone care to address the article I linked to?

[VON_CAPO]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Now, if the initial "shock" of my opinion has worn off, would anyone care to address the article I linked to?

I take this sentence as mine. Thanks.

[Ducimus]

All im going to add is that i like to view everything as sort of a system of checks and balances.

For every vocal religious nutjub trying to ram their religion down our throat, theres a "rabble rouser" trying to make sure he doesnt. For every zealous rightwing nutjub, theres an equally zealous liberal weenie. As long as one faction or another doesnt gain too much influence for very long, we should be ok. When one group or intrest gains too much influence for too long of a period of time, then we have a problem.

Im surpised someone brought the old "under god" in the pledge debate back. I think thats the leading claim alot of zealous christians have that America is an offical christian nation that should live by their beleifs. As i recall the whole "under god" thign was added to the pledge, by i think Truman? As i recall he was a devoute christian influced by his religious constituations. To paraphrase his reasoning i think was cold war bull****, that we weren't going to be like the "godless commies".

Problem with fighting something like that now, is because its been in our system for so long, people can't think of it any other way. People say "under god" even if they don't belive in it, simply because thats the way they were taught, and wouldnt change the pledge for anything, even if they're not a chrisitan nutjob. As a kid i never thought much of it but it did make me scowl a little, but thats because i was victim to real.. and i do mean, real, no exaggeration, chrisitan nutjob of a grandmother who tramatized me, and everyone who ever came in contact with her to christiantily. To this day, everyone in that side of the family HATES church because of this woman, myself included.

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Now, if the initial "shock" of my opinion has worn off, would anyone care to address the article I linked to?

Although Wim´s post (#31) hasn´t addressed that particular article, it fits IMO: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=31

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

Although Wim´s post (#31) hasn´t addressed that particular article, it fits IMO: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=31

Let's analyze that:

So do we also make it mandatory to teach about the flying spaghetti monster?
http://www.venganza.org/

I can't speak for other religious minded people here but I have no problem with the theory of evolution being taught in the US public school system. I do, however, have a problem with evolution being taught - ironically - as the gospel truth. Furthermore, I don't believe there are a significant number of FSM believers in the US school system to qualify teaching the subject. If there were, I would not object to a comparative analysis of common and uncommon points being highlighted by teachers.

The world isn't full of FSM believers - thank G-d! However, there are several highly followed and respected (that's very relevant) religions whose understandings of the origins of everything partially or wholey contradict Darwin.

Simple question to all the aetheists: explain the big bang? How do you get something out of nothing?

Seriously, science has very strong claims to correctness.

That's very vague but no problem there in general.

The fact that various scientific theories have been proven wrong (or at least incomplete), and that many other theories will also require changes in the future doesn't indicate that science is wrong.

No but the inverse is true, too. This is a 2 way street.

In fact, the opposite is true: every theory that has to be changed is a victory for science, because such changes happen because new discoveries are made that improve our knowledge about how things work, and get rid of old misconceptions.

I agree that this is true of "science" but not of all "scientists". There is often a lot of subjectivity involved, whether the scientist is religious, non-religious, financially involved, etc.

Science adapts to new findings, asks that theories have supporting evidence, and rejects what can be disproven. So it's very different from a mere belief. Science cannot claim complete knowledge and correctness, but it does strive towards it, adapting to new evidence. And it works pretty well, if you consider its achievements.

I wouldn't argue with this.

But if schools teach science not as this process of refinement, but merely as a disconnected set of facts that the student has to learn, those students could be forgiven for not noticing a difference.

Sounds nice to me.

Intelligent Design advocates something that you could call "the God of the gaps". Basically, whenever there is a gap in our understanding of the world, that means God must have been involved.

If there is a god and it is understood that G-d is the creator, then this is true.

So, before people understood electricity, it was explained as God being angry and destroying something, throwing a hammer, etc...

And this has been disproven. In fact, do you know of any religious people who believe this today? I don't. But it's not relevant to creationism. In fact, it's similar to science in the way that it was an assumed theory, proven incorrect and accepted by all.

As science progressed, the number of gaps decreased, and with it the importance of this particular type of God.

Lost me there. What does this mean?

ID is just a bunch of people who feel the need to attack some domain of science to make people believe there are more gaps in our knowledge.

This itself is a childish attack.

Of course, you are right that science is not the answer for everything. It offers knowledge, but people also need motivations for their actions, and such motivations are rather subjective.

OK. So?

To sum it up, I don't see anything exciting in the above post. Maybe that's because I don't feel it applies to me. Maybe.

It still does not deal with the article I previously linked to. Waiting for a scientific response.

Here's another article. I'll post it in full because I can only browse it in a cached webpage copy:

Monkeys and atheists
Posted: May 28, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Thomas Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") is said to have come up with the most famous defense of the atheist belief that life was created by chance, not God. In a debate at Oxford, he is reported to have stated that if enough monkeys randomly pressed typewriter keys for a long enough time, sooner or later Psalm 23 would emerge.

Not all atheists use this argument, but it accurately represents the atheist belief that with enough time and enough solar systems, you'll get you, me and Bach's cello suites.

This belief has always struck me as implausible. The argument that infinitely complex intelligence came about by itself, unguided by any intelligence, can only be deemed convincing by those who have a vested interest (intellectual, emotional, psychological) in atheism.

I fully acknowledge the great challenge to theism – the rampant and seemingly random unfairness built into human life. But no intellectually honest atheist should deny the great challenge to atheism – the existence of design and intelligence. The belief that Bach's music randomly evolved from a paramecium should strike anyone as so fantastic as to be absurd, even more absurd than the belief that a monkey could monkey Shakespeare. The finite number of years in the universe's existence and the finite number of planets would not come close to producing a few sentences, let alone Psalm 23 or a Shakespeare play.

But a just reported English University experiment has convinced me that the number of monkeys and the amount of time are irrelevant. Psalm 23, let alone Hamlet, would never be written. Why? Because the monkeys probably wouldn't do any typing.

According to news reports, instructors at Plymouth University put six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys in a room with a computer and keyboards for four weeks. Though one of the monkeys frequently typed the letter "s", the other monkeys ignored the keyboard, preferring to play with one another and with the ropes and toys placed there. When they did pay attention to the keyboard, one smashed it with a stone and the others repeatedly urinated and defecated on it.

The instructors hastened to note the study was not scientific, given the short duration of time and the small number of monkeys, but some of us find this "study" to be a hilarious vindication of our view of the "enough monkeys for enough time" argument for random creation.

According to the science correspondent of Britain's Guardian newspaper, "assuming each monkey typed a steady 120 characters a minute (itself a preposterous assumption), mathematicians have calculated it would take 10 to the 813th power (10 followed by 813 zeros) monkeys about five years to knock out a decent version of Shakespeare's Sonnet 3"

To put 10 to the 813th power into perspective, remember that a billion is 10 to the ninth power.

There are many intellectually honest atheists, and there are many intellectually dishonest believers in God. Nevertheless, I believe that any objective person would have to conclude that the belief that everything came about by itself and that randomness is the creator is infinitely less intellectually sound than the belief in a Creator-Designer.

Sadly, many people come to doubt God's existence because so many intellectuals are atheists. But it was a major scientist, Professor Robert Jastrow, one of the greatest living astronomers, head of the Mount Wilson Observatory, formerly head of NASA's Goddard Space Center, and an agnostic, who best explained the atheism of many scientists.

In his book "God and the Astronomers," Jastrow tells of his surprise when so many fellow astronomers refused to accept the Big Bang hypothesis for the origins of the universe. In fact, Jastrow writes, many astronomers were actually unhappy about it. Why? Because the Big Bang implied a beginning to the universe – and a beginning implies a Creator, something many scientists passionately reject.

This led Jastrow to the sobering conclusion that many scientists have vested, non-scientific interests in some of their beliefs, especially the non-existence of God. For some psychological or emotional reasons, not intellectual ones, many scientists prefer to believe that given enough monkeys, one will type out a psalm.

But neither math nor science argues that all came about randomly, without a Creator. Only a keen desire to deny God explains such a belief, a belief that should be laid to rest beneath a large pile of monkey doo-doo at Plymouth University, England.

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Simple question to all the aetheists: explain the big bang? How do you get something out of nothing?

"We" can´t explain that, neither can "your group". The answer to that cannot be "science can´t explain it, so there has to be a god".

How is this for a way to sort out the issue. If you believe in a Divinity and God doesn’t exist, no harm, no foul. If you don’t believe in a Divinity, and God does exist, well then I guess we all know the answer to that, don’t we.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

"We" can´t explain that, neither can "your group". The answer to that cannot be "science can´t explain it, so there has to be a god".

No. The answer to that is that we (I speak only on behalf of Judaism in this post) are a people who have believed in G-d for good historical reasons and we have no problem understanding the big-bang theory, which itself is - again ironically - a scientific postulation.

[Gizzmoe]

Now I´m confused. What´s your point? Why did you ask the atheists to explain the big bang when, as you say, your religion has no problem understanding the big-bang theory? Which btw doesn´t of course explain everything, especially not the "How do you get something out of nothing?" part.

who have believed in G-d for good historical reasons

The "national revelation" thing is a good historical reason for you, I don´t believe a word of it. I won´t let an ancient book tell me what to think, eat, drink or how to behave.