lol good article, too bad peopple are humans

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Here's a the problem for xtians who accept evolution: at what point did pre-man with a continuously evolving brain get a "soul"?

I would say first of all, that the soul is granted when we have sentience.

Ok, I tried to word it as clearly as possible: our brains gradually grew to what we have today. If a Christian accepts evolution, and that animals don't have souls while humans do, there must therefore be a cut-off in our ancestors, despite the fact that between generations there would only be a marginal difference in intelligence. So there really is no point at which we gain sentience.

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Right, let them believe it, but it becomes a problem when they try to force that belief into a secular school system, as FSM was protesting.

And the Creationists were protesting the secular school system forcing their belief on their children.

Already addressed by someone else: science is not equivalent to belief. Religious beliefs are based on faith, while science is based on evidence. If you want to say evidence isn't a good basis for knowledge, you aren't capable of crossing the street safely.

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what they did. The courts rejected teaching of creationism in schools because it was a violation of the separation of church and state. They replaced god with "an outside force" and tried to get it in again. Read up on the history of "Of Pandas and People" before you speak so kindly of their intentions.

What they were trying to do is redress the essentials of creationism into something more easily digestible by the public at large. I suppose the difference is that I am sympathetic to their views. That's why before I said that the debate is useless and if the evolution model works in science then that is that. If parents don't want their children to learn evolution it isn't going to kill their children. It only effects them if they are trying to get into biology, at which point they would obviously have to either be reeducated, find another profession, or somehow by some miracle convince people of their views.

Evolution is the basis for modern biology. Without evolution, anything more than a superficial understanding of biology isn't possible. Even my 9th grade bio class talk about evolution. Even if you think it's not important, it opens the door for denying other subjects. I don't want my child learning multiplication, the alphabet, etc. Where do you draw the line?

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Right, it is an accidental byproduct of advantageous behavior. First, it is good to follow what your parents teach you. Since parents have better judgement than children, children who blindly follow what their parents say would be more likely to survive than ones that decide to see if lions and tigers and bears are really as bad as they say. This, coupled with memory heuristics that make "facts" in our brains hard to change has the byproduct of propagating religion.

I don't buy that explanation. The portion of the brain in question is the temporal lobe, when stimulated it can give people spiritual feelings, like they are not alone. It's not a matter of conditioning, a part of the brain has the effect of spirituality. This can't be explained by children following their parents or memory heuristics. All that it explains is the form in which we conceive of the divine.

Yeah, I don't think this is something we are actually debating about. I have heard of both features of the brain and I don't have any reason to believe they are mutually exclusive hypotheses. Both may be true.

trlkly:
You really want to have this debate with me? I guess I must assume the answer is yes, as you obviously wouldn't be assuming I wouldn't answer (and thus you would seem to have beaten me)

That's not how internet debates work, since no one really convinces anyone, no one wins :)
I just do it to familiarize myself with arguments used by the other side for future reference and on the off chance I actually learn something. Mostly it's just a medium in which to flesh out my own ideas and apply ideas I've learned from others.

trlkly:

oneplus999:

trlkly:
I've personally decided that Creationist/Evolution debate detracts from the core message of Jesus's teachings.

I agree, but for a creationist, the fall of man is the cause for everyone to be sinful, necessitating Jesus to die for those sins. Here's a the problem for xtians who accept evolution: at what point did pre-man with a continuously evolving brain get a "soul"? Assuming that animals don't have souls and humans do, at what point in this evolution did god decide these human children have souls and moral decisions to make, but their parents are soulless animals? This MUST have happened unless you want to say that all animals in our evolutionary history, including bacteria, have souls and go to heaven.

Humans began to have "souls" the second they did something God told them not to do. The only command we have recorded for other lifeforms is "Be fruitful and multiply." As long as they do that, they survive. They stop? They die. We had an extra commandment. We violated it. We now have a soul. Why were we given an extra commandment? I guess because we got smart enough to actually understand it. Or God created us from scratch. It doesn't really matter. We are the ones who broke the world that God created, and we have to fix it.

Of course, I don't have to point out that Jesus didn't actually teach about the Fall of Man, do I? Because that would be a nitpick. Speaking of which...

I don't know if Jesus didn't point it out as the reason for his death, but that's certainly the reason I'm familiar with.

So then there was a family of humans or pre-human ancestors who got god's "word" and suddenly had souls and knew what they needed to do to go to heaven? Did this happen for all such creatures in existence at the time, or only for a few? Were some going to heaven while their second cousins weren't? The difference between them and their dead grandparents, who obviously didn't have a soul, is so slight, why not just let their grandparents in (and then by recursion their grandparents?)

trlkly:

trlkly:

(My belief? Uh, Evolution theory is incomplete, particularly in the area of Abiogenesis.

Evolution is NOT a theory that presents an answer to the origin of life, there are many theories that attempt to answer this, and they fall under the separate field of abiogenesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
The inherent problem is that evolution continues to occur to this day and is easily observable in the fossil record while abiogenesis can't be witnessed so easily, so we may never know for sure how it first happened.

Okay, so that's just being nitpicky. I spell the word wrong and you think I don't know what it means? The problem is, no matter Wikipedia says, the various abiogenesis theories are often lumped up in the bigger version of the Theory of Evolution. If not, how could a creation vs. evolution debate even exist? Since creation is an abiogenesis theory (if you'll allow me the liberty of calling something that isn't quite scientific a theory), it would be like comparing apples and oranges.

You're right, but that's what IDers and creationists do. They point to the lack of knowledge about the origin of life as the reason to need alternatives to the perfectly sound theory of evolution. Doesn't make sense does it?

trlkly:

Still, most of it is as right as we can get with our limited information. I just find it ridiculous to allow violations of Cell Theory in order to create life, but have only the flimsiest explanations on why it's allowed.)

Because before there were cells, the world had a completely different set of environmental conditions to take into account. Obviously the first cell couldn't come from a previous cell, but this isnt violating cell theory, its just an obvious exception. Enter abiogenesis theories.

That's the flimsy excuse that I'm talking about. None of the various abiogenesis theories have proof (sorry, I mean compelling evidence) that their required environmental conditions (particularly the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere) ever existed, as oxidation occurs even in the lowest layers of sedimentary rock. I just think it's silly to assume that Cell Theory has an exception without that evidence. But you're right. It may be lost to us forever. Kinda makes it unfalsifiable, doesn't it?

????

"We don't know" is not an unfalsifiable theory. It's a statement of fact. Are you saying that the fact that abiogenesis happened at all is unfalsifiable? Only in so much as every single explained event in the known universe has a natural explanation, and therefore rejecting the idea that abiogenesis has a natural explanation is just a case of poor pattern recognition. Allow me to elaborate:

A long time ago:
We don't know why it rains.
God must do it!
We figured out how it rains, I guess God didn't do it.

Later:
We don't know why the sun rises.
God must do it!
We figured out how the sun rises, I guess it's not God there either!

More recently:
We don't know why people get sick.
The devil must do it!
We figured out how people get sick, I guess it's not the devil!

Now:
We don't know how life began.
God did it!

See any patterns? Just because we don't know something is obviously not a good reason to ascribe that action to God. Instead, it's clearly safer to just assume that it, too has a natural explanation, as does every explained event in the universe.

trlkly:

---

As it stands now, almost every book I've ever read about evolution assumes abiogenesis as its starting point.

Yes, because evolution only concerns how life changes, not how it began. I don't see what the problem is here.

Great article Mr. Pitts!
As for the value of debating Science VS Intelligent Design/Creationism on the comment section of a website, I believe this issue is much bigger and much more complex than can be summed up in a few sentences.

For those interested in educating themselves in this topic I would suggest a few of good podcasts that I listen to regularly.
Darwin or Design http://darwinordesign.com/
The Way of Reason http://infidelguy.libsyn.com/
Evolution 101 http://www.drzach.net/podcast.htm (Sadly, there are no new shows, but you can still download all of the episodes!)

Also for general Science based thought,
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Point of Inquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/
Skepticality http://www.skepticality.com/index.php
Truth Driven Thinking http://www.truthdriventhinking.com/
This Week In Science http://www.twis.org/
Skeptoid http://skeptoid.com/
The PopSci Podcast http://www.popsci.com/podcast (Popular Science)
Physics 10 Descriptive Introduction to Physics http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978397 and finally,
NPR: Science Friday Podcast http://www.sciencefriday.com/

IMHO, Religion sucks and this article sucks - not because it calls a religion on its myths but because it can't even separate wildly differing views and over simplifies ... because its funny to the writer. [sarcasm] Oh, does science have differing views? Who cares! Lets all toss them all in together and say all scientists are right, all of the time! [end sarcasm] Sad really.

oneplus999:

I'm afraid you have fallen prey to the ID campaign of misinformation Though they would deny it, ID was designed to be as close to creationism as legally possible. While it may not use the word "god" it was in fact just a repackaging of creationist ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandas_And_People
Instead of "god" they describe an "outside force", which just happens to be a sentient force capable of directing evolution across the history of life on earth. Gee how many entities can we think of who can do that?

I haven't fallen prey to shit. It's true that the old, now dead, campaign to push ID in public schools was mainly supported by creationists. It's also true that Pandas And People is a rewrite of a creationist work.

It is not true, however, that ID advocates don't ask some serious questions of evolution. I resent that you assume that I've fallen prey to a mass marketed campaign because I seriously considered some objections.

Have you heard, for example of these critiques:
Evolutionists follow a Doctrine of Onthological Naturalism
While an EYE might evolve, how could something like cilia evolve?
What about complex protein cascades?

Let me reiterate that I don't consider the two lines of though equal, and I don't sympathize much with ID advocates.

But I do respect the differences between someone who advocates ID and someone who advocates YEC.

The idea that it is backed by scientific evidence is also a lie. There have been no peer-reviewed studies supporting ID, and it's really not even testable as a theory, since the intervention of an "outside force" is not reproducible in the lab (as the theory was designed to be).

I'll agree there. Is less of a theory and more of a categorized list of complaints against evolution. But a decent reply to all of those questions would be the "Onthological Naturalism" Argument.

So, for #1, it's crap because of radiometric dating (actually not carbon dating since it is too short term, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossils#Further_discoveries they use Argon and uranium dating).

Creationism, not ID.

#2 Really doesn't sound too different from ID, unless this is the "evolution is god's way of generating life" idea, which is still stupid to me, but ok. On a related note you wouldn't get your paycheck this week if FSM didn't let it happen.

Saying that life evolved would be an enourmous, unforgivable concession for a creationist. In that since they are very different. And while the idea may seem stupid to you, many people reconcile their faith in God with the seeming near-proof of evolution by looking at it in just the way you described.

#3 ID doesn't raise interesting SCIENTIFIC questions, since they don't meet the definition of a scientific hypothesis, which includes that it be testable and disprovable.

No, you don't NEED to have an alternative hypothesis to generate questions. And it does ask some interesting questions. Most of the modern, interesting questions, however, now deal with micro-biology and the world of molecules.

Let me, please, reiterate however that all of the views expressed above are more Devil's Advocate than anything else at all. I don't believe in ID in the least. The main problem I have with ID is that, sure, it's fine for you to believe what you want on your own time, but its not useful in a practical way to invoke the name of the creator when you bump into a hard ship on the road. Evolution is better, then, because if forces you to try and explain in a naturalistic way the problems you encounter.

Let me also reiterate that the article is a gross oversimplification of the debate. I am glad there are several people here who agree with me.

Uszi:

oneplus999:

I'm afraid you have fallen prey to the ID campaign of misinformation Though they would deny it, ID was designed to be as close to creationism as legally possible. While it may not use the word "god" it was in fact just a repackaging of creationist ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandas_And_People
Instead of "god" they describe an "outside force", which just happens to be a sentient force capable of directing evolution across the history of life on earth. Gee how many entities can we think of who can do that?

I haven't fallen prey to shit. It's true that the old, now dead, campaign to push ID in public schools was mainly supported by creationists. It's also true that Pandas And People is a rewrite of a creationist work.

Older quote:

Uszi:

there are actually a fair deal of respectable scientific minds that do as well

The lie to which I referred is the idea that there are serious scientific minds behind ID, which you claimed in a previous post. I don't know why you think this campaign is dead when the movie Expelled just came out. Basically they conned prominent scientists into explaining some of the unproven hypotheses of abiogenesis, and to talk about some of the areas where evolution hasn't yet answered every single question in the evolution of every thing that has ever lived on earth, or to mention that it is, with some imagination, feasible for an alien race to have started life on our planet, and then they say, SEE SEE HE BELIEVES IN ID! Write his name down on our list of ID supporters! In reality ID has no peer reviewed scientific papers.

Uszi:

It is not true, however, that ID advocates don't ask some serious questions of evolution. I resent that you assume that I've fallen prey to a mass marketed campaign because I seriously considered some objections.

Have you heard, for example of these critiques:
Evolutionists follow a Doctrine of Onthological Naturalism
While an EYE might evolve, how could something like cilia evolve?
What about complex protein cascades?

Let me reiterate that I don't consider the two lines of though equal, and I don't sympathize much with ID advocates.

These are questions that can easily be raised outside of ID. I have no problem with a biology class that says, "and here are a list of evolutionary events that have not yet been explained, and may never be", I do have a problem with a class that says "and so there must be some unobservable outside force that did it *COUGH*GOD*COUGH*".

Archon:
This is ridiculous. It is past time we reject false idols and religions in favor of a deeper understanding of the true nature of the Force.

I agree, Jedi Master Archon.

oneplus999:

Uszi:

oneplus999:

I'm afraid you have fallen prey to the ID campaign of misinformation Though they would deny it, ID was designed to be as close to creationism as legally possible. While it may not use the word "god" it was in fact just a repackaging of creationist ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandas_And_People
Instead of "god" they describe an "outside force", which just happens to be a sentient force capable of directing evolution across the history of life on earth. Gee how many entities can we think of who can do that?

I haven't fallen prey to shit. It's true that the old, now dead, campaign to push ID in public schools was mainly supported by creationists. It's also true that Pandas And People is a rewrite of a creationist work.

Older quote:

Uszi:

there are actually a fair deal of respectable scientific minds that do as well

The lie to which I referred is the idea that there are serious scientific minds behind ID, which you claimed in a previous post. I don't know why you think this campaign is dead when the movie Expelled just came out. Basically they conned prominent scientists into explaining some of the unproven hypotheses of abiogenesis, and to talk about some of the areas where evolution hasn't yet answered every single question in the evolution of every thing that has ever lived on earth, or to mention that it is, with some imagination, feasible for an alien race to have started life on our planet, and then they say, SEE SEE HE BELIEVES IN ID! Write his name down on our list of ID supporters! In reality ID has no peer reviewed scientific papers.

Uszi:

It is not true, however, that ID advocates don't ask some serious questions of evolution. I resent that you assume that I've fallen prey to a mass marketed campaign because I seriously considered some objections.

Have you heard, for example of these critiques:
Evolutionists follow a Doctrine of Onthological Naturalism
While an EYE might evolve, how could something like cilia evolve?
What about complex protein cascades?

Let me reiterate that I don't consider the two lines of though equal, and I don't sympathize much with ID advocates.

These are questions that can easily be raised outside of ID. I have no problem with a biology class that says, "and here are a list of evolutionary events that have not yet been explained, and may never be", I do have a problem with a class that says "and so there must be some unobservable outside force that did it *COUGH*GOD*COUGH*".

I honestly feel you've got a chip on your shoulder and that you're specifically targeting ID because it was pushed on you in the form of creationism and you didn't like being pushed. Thus you seem to have made the assumption that whoever believes in either concept has been successfully forced to believe something that can't be true.

Think about what you're saying, that no smart scientist can be a proponent of ID because you feel the concept is stupid. Are you a master's degree holding professor of biology or anything that would give you the authority to make an even potentially right claim about the standing of all intelligent scientists? The same argument you make against most pro-ID people also works against you, as does the argument that the idea is changed to meet the facts rather than the facts creating the idea as a whole.

On a side note, I believe animals have souls and I am vegetarian.

Jacques 2:
On a gaming based website I'd hardly expect to see such a clear anti-religious article, and hell, I like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's entertaining.

It certainly is. And the more anti-religious stuff, the better - mocking religion being both a sign of intelligence and respect for the human species.

That said, what the fox (flying, of course) does this have to do with gaming? Are you trying to advance this under the cover of some kind of "hip," humor/skepticism complimentary to gaming "culture" or mindset or what have you?

Apart from hosting Yahtzee and the old, good PDF-format issues, what exactly is the purpose of The Escapist at this point?

Jacques 2:
I believe animals have souls and I am vegetarian.

Well there's your problem right there. Not the soul part. The vegetarian part. Maybe the soul part. Probably the believe part, too, though.

The main problem I'm seeing here, having arrived a bit late to be truly entrenched on one side of this debate, is a lack of logical thought on both sides (Welcome to the internet, ha ha, it is a joke.) Rather than go out and gather sufficient sources, most of the arguments I'm seeing here throw out random facts with little to no backup. There was a bit about the rise of childhood diseases, a bit on the types of creationists/IDists, and another bit on texbooks not being able to keep up with good science.

In case you were wondering, I didn't bother with the quote command because I was just going to throw out examples. Enough about human failure. Onward to ideological inconsistency! Big words! I'm samrt!

Essentially, evolution says that species are the way they are now because a while ago, there was a spontaneous genetic mutation that was beneficial to one member of the species, that particular organism got busy with other organisms (Or itself, some animals can do that,) and passed its genetic material down through future generations. The key word here is spontaneous. Sometimes things just happen. Background radiation, botched cell replication, it doesn't matter. Evolution doesn't care why it happened, it just goes. It gives us a 'how'. That's how as in who, what, where, when, why, how. Not how as in stereotypical Native American greeting.

Intelligent Design, from what I can gather, states that something (God, Aliens, Spaghetti, whatever,) has shaped some particular aspect because that particular aspect of the universe couldn't be attributed to random happenings. It pretty much gives us a why.

If you want to mix the two, then you will, miraculously, get a how and a why for your what.

Really. I don't see how you can believe in ID without believing in evolution. Also, I'm doing my best to remain relatively impartial, so I'll not rant about picking and choosing parts of religious dogmas to accept. I'm sure Jesus was a nice guy. He has good lessons. I think saying he's the son of God might be a little egomaniacal, but that's enough on that.

On a side note, I don't care if animals have souls, because I only consume 100% processed meat that was raised in a concrete bunker designed specifically to not disrupt the outside environment. You can take your pesticide-spewing, combine harvesting, tofu burgers and their toll on the environment. I'm having steak.

Also, 900 years is absurd. Even for Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. Yeah. Highlander reference. But I guess you'd have to be that old to build a boat big enough to hold two of every animal in the world. Or did Noah croak at 700?

Sorry, gang, but I'm a Haruhiist in good standing. ;-)

I'm a vegetarian too; after all, you are what you eat, and cows eat vegetation, so cows are vegetables (once removed).

Eat your vegetables, kids.

-- Steve

(Actually, speaking technically, I guess given that line of reasoning I'm actually eating the Sun. Fear me.)

Jacques 2:

I honestly feel you've got a chip on your shoulder and that you're specifically targeting ID because it was pushed on you in the form of creationism and you didn't like being pushed. Thus you seem to have made the assumption that whoever believes in either concept has been successfully forced to believe something that can't be true.

The reason anyone who is not a fundamentalist christian and supports ID has been duped: LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF ID! I'm not basing this on a "chip", I'm basing it on the multiple ID/evolution debates I've watched and the information I have read/watched from multiple sources about ID. It is a modernized form of creationism. It has no scientific backing. People are trying to get it taught our schools. Anyone who thinks that this movement is "dead" just look at the movie Expelled, which just came out. I will now say this again: believe whatever junk you want to on your own time, that's fine by me (I have nothing personal against IDers just for being IDers), but people who push ID into the schools do so because they are afraid that evolution will lead people to atheism, or because they don't want to admit they are descended from a common ancestor to apes, or they think all morality will break down if we are actually just another soulless animal. They need to start over and come back when they have some evidence, and not just a god of the gaps.

Jacques 2:

Think about what you're saying, that no smart scientist can be a proponent of ID because you feel the concept is stupid. Are you a master's degree holding professor of biology or anything that would give you the authority to make an even potentially right claim about the standing of all intelligent scientists?

If it helps, I did my undergrad in biochemistry and I am going to be starting a PhD in either Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, or in Bioinformatics, so while not doing evolution specifically, one area of computational biology is about computing genetic phylogeny trees based on DNA sequences from different species, so they are a bit related.

And the funniest thing you said in that paragraph:

Jacques 2:

The same argument you make against most pro-ID people also works against you, as does the argument that the idea is changed to meet the facts rather than the facts creating the idea as a whole.

My argument: ID is a religiously based, non-scientific conjecture that is being pushed on children as an alternative to the well accepted scientific theory of evolution, based on the lack of peer reviewed papers and its historic, documented connection to the creationist movement.

Their argument: Evolution hasn't 100% explained the existence of every last biological feature of every single organism in existence, therefore an outside force that no one can detect *COUGH*god*COUGH* must have done it.

You don't see a difference?

Jacques 2:

On a side note, I believe animals have souls and I am vegetarian.

You completely misssed the point, if you think that being a vegetarian is relevant, if I am correct in assuming you believe plants don't have souls. So then this goes back all the way? All the way to bacteria? But if we have a common ancestor with plants, and all of our ancestors had souls, then that means there necessarily was a bacterium that had a soul but whose offspring had no soul (which then went on to become plants). On another vein, bacteria with souls: How does the soul of a creature that simply undergoes mitosis and splits pass on? Does it go away and two new souls come? Does the soul split? When a bacterium dies, how does god decide what happens to the soul? Are bacteria held accountable for their actions as we humans supposedly are? Etc. There are too many logical incoherencies in that idea.

Verra good article Mr Pitts. Gave me quite a chuckle or two.

Anyways, on this debate on science versus religion:

Religion is a matter of faith. Science a matter of fact. If Creationists want their ID theory to be taught in school, they should petition to have it placed in the Religious Studies curriculum where it belongs.

What if you believe carrots and peas have souls?

Arbre:
What if you believe carrots and peas have souls?

Yum... souls.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kitten_huffing

So if only humans have souls, and only people with souls go to heaven, then heaven by the standard definition is pretty boring. Besides, how many people had their favorite pet die and had their parents tell them it would be there in heaven? Evolution fits wonderfully with religion.

[I haven't even come close to reading all the posts.]

Jacques 2:
I don't honestly think that the Flu we commonly know is going to kill any healthy 4-40 year olds. But thanks for the information, though I have to think, how can mercury not harm the brain?

Apple pips contain cyanide. Yet we can eat them. Therefore, mercury in minuscule amounts is not certain to damage the brain. I thought religion was based on faith. Proof denies faith, therefore by backing up your religion with 'evidence' and 'facts' and trying to prove that your religion is possible surely undermines the whole principle of religion? If that doesn't make sense go read the Hitchhiker's Guide. I have no issues with people being religious, but it annoys the hell out of me when they try and prove it's true. As such the FSM is my new deity :)

Singing Gremlin:
Apple pips contain cyanide. Yet we can eat them.

For the most part, apple seeds aren't digested. They pass unharmed, and thus get to be trees, with a handy source of fertilizer.

But, as a general thing: nearly anything can be bad for you or be irrelevant, depending on the dose. Not enough water? Bad. Enough water? Good. Too much water? Bad (drowning/hyperhydration). Small enough amount of mercury/cyanide? Meh. Threshold amount? Death.

Sylocat:
Sorry, gang, but I'm a Haruhiist in good standing. ;-)

LOL!

Wow, didn't see that one coming. Good for you!

Easykill:
So if only humans have souls, and only people with souls go to heaven, then heaven by the standard definition is pretty boring. Besides, how many people had their favorite pet die and had their parents tell them it would be there in heaven? Evolution fits wonderfully with religion.

[I haven't even come close to reading all the posts.]

I have! :P

Seriously though, I've got nothing to contribute to the argument except confusion. Good Luck Escapist junkies!

I don't care for the FSM. I also beleive it to be very odd how I found the painter's website (http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/) before I heard of the FSM.

Religions are ok with science right up to the point where science challenges their dogma.

Creationists, for example, happily avail themselves of technology and engineering achievements in transportation, communication, construction, sanitation, and whatnot untroubled by the fact that the same science which enabled these wonders also reveals the Earth to be more than 6000 years old and that, yes, evolution is true.

As long as they don't have to confront that part, they're A-OK with science. That confrontation is unavoidable, though, because sooner or later someone will turn the spotlight of empiricism and experimentation on what religions consider to be their "turf."

The battle was joined once science went beyond building a better mousetrap and tackled things like the historicity of sacred texts, the origin of man, the relation of Earth to the heavens, etc.

"Faith" is at odds with science not merely because of the specific teachings of this or that religion but due to its essential nature. Faith inverts the scientific method by beginning with conclusions (prophecies, clerical decrees, books declared to be the Word of God, sacred traditions, etc.) and working backwards to the facts.

If your faith/religion makes any concrete claims about reality, it runs the risk of colliding with what is subsequently learned through scientific investigation. What do you do? Your ancient holy book says "X" but we now know that "Not-X" is true. What do you do?

Your options at that point are either outright irrationalism and denial (a la Young Earth Creationism) or to sacrifice the discredited dogma.

"Well" you say, "Seems like that part wasn't the Word of God after all."

Then how do you know what IS?!

You don't, of course. You never did. You just had "faith."

Let me start by saying that I don't believe anything has a soul, and that all matters of the mind and personality are purely physical. How can a soul exist if it can't be measured and has no effect on anything other than how you think or act, are all souls different in some fundamental way? Cause they can't all be the same or everyone be the same..Would a soul be able to evolve?

Sorry, I don't believe in souls, so all Soul-Related debates are rendered meaningless to me. At what point does a fetus develop it's own soul? And taken in an evolutionary sense, if our common ancestor had no soul, and chimpanzee's have no souls, did our souls evolve into our bodies gradually over time? It wouldn't be a sudden step from no soul to having a soul, there'd have to be the development of a soul gradually, piece by piece, and how would a soul be a natural advantage over our competitors when it does nothing either than give us mind or personality? If you look at any animal you can see that each one has different tendencies brought on by personality, so how can an animal have a personality but no soul yet we have a soul with a personality?

Bleh, Souls Don't Exist, In My Opinion.
Everything can be explained with nature rather than GOD DID IT!
That seems such a childish way of explaining things, rather lazy too...Why does the earth move around the sun? God pushes it of course! There can't possibly be a natural force which propels the Earth around the sun due to a difference in Mass which favors the smaller mass being pulled towards the larger mass due to a bend in Space-Time, for as everyone knows Mass Distorts Space-Time.

I'm part of FSM, The initiation is hard. But I did it. And here I am, although I must ask, Russ? Were you in full pirate attire when writing this? Because you can not teach of the Flying Spaghetti monster without being in full pirate attire. It angers his noodley greatness.

(not a exact quote but the best i could do from memory)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dcncPpQ8loA
It's pretty close to the original radio show I think.

FireFox170:

Sorry, I don't believe in souls, so all Soul-Related debates are rendered meaningless to me. At what point does a fetus develop it's own soul?

You may have missed the original posts about souls, but all of the logical incoherencies about a soul are exactly the reason I brought them up in the first place as a problem for christians who accept evolution as god's mechanism for creating diversity, and not ID.

I have nothing wrong with religion. I think it's great. It can provide hope, peace, yada yada yada, but what I can't stand is fingers in ears fanatics of it. Creationists are just that, fanatics. You can love god, you just need to abosre some facts.

Jacques 2:
If you'd like evidence, look at the rise in various childhood conditions, such as ADHD (which I know, like anybody else, isn't always true for every kid that claims it), autism (also linkable to flu vaccines containing minute amounts of mercury thought to be in-potent till recently), bipolar disorder, etc. etc. think about it and our life spans, the only reason they are increasing in comparison to the past few centuries is better living conditions.

It's because we choose to ignore people with these deseases. Lock them away in metal homes or let them die. It's horrible that only now we are starting to look at these symtoms and allow it into society, and not because they have recently poped up due to imbreding.

DreamerM:
There's the Stupid Faith that values obedience and submission and order above curiosity and observation, the kind that demands you not eat certain foods or mix with certain people or take your children to the doctor.

So it's now stupid to take your child to the doctor and eat healthy. Your arguement keeps getting stronger.

DreamerM:
Then there's the Smart Faith. The kind that brings people together, provides the Hope that will keep you going when everything is lost. The kind that brings Strength out of nowhere, because it's bigger then what you can see, simply by it's nature it exists against and above all reason and words and intellect that could be leveled against it.

That's the kind of faith that we smart-ass Atheists can't really make fun of. The kind that gives strength out of nowhere.

Us smart-arse Atheists can find strength and faith from other things besides religion. The shoulder of a friend. The company of a loved one or just my own inner strength. Sorry, but there's a good reason we don't believe in religion

oneplus999:

Keljeck:

oneplus999:
Yes, but they update their theories to be as close to creationism as possible without breaking the first amendment, as opposed to updating a theory to be in line with conflicting observations :)

They're trying to change the language to be more inclusive. Not necessarily to infiltrate our schools and teach scientific heresy.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what they did. The courts rejected teaching of creationism in schools because it was a violation of the separation of church and state. They replaced god with "an outside force" and tried to get it in again. Read up on the history of "Of Pandas and People" before you speak so kindly of their intentions.

When Darwin created his theories he was shot down when they tried to teach it in school. "People aren't monkies! That blasthemy! etc."

Ok. I'm going to end my rant before this becomes to big and people start getting banned. I just want to leave you all with something... terrible I guess. A childrens creationist website. This is the main reason behind my hate. It's still very very funny:

http://objectiveministries.org/kidz/

PurpleRain:

Ok. I'm going to end my rant before this becomes to big and people start getting banned. I just want to leave you all with something... terrible I guess. A childrens creationist website. This is the main reason behind my hate. It's still very very funny:

http://objectiveministries.org/kidz/

You should go on the Truth For Youth website- 'The condom makers put little holes in the condoms to let the AIDS swim through'. Seriously that site both scared me and had me in stitches.

I gotta admit, this article has nothing to do with any aspect of gaming and I really question why it was given the go-ahead, considering that it was really a one-sided argument (namely, he never tries to give a defense intelligent design, he mostly points at them and says "You stupid idiots", which reeks of lazy writing). But it doesn't really matter, in a few days, all new articles will be up, hopefully ones that have something to do with the point of this website.

Ahh!! They don't deserve to live! Damn Zealots! Did you see the Occult page?

Cheeze_Pavilion:

I think that's an incorrect view of the birth of science. Science was always tackling those sorts of things: really, religion is in part born of early science.

Religion is in part born from the search for answers, I'm with you there. The problem is that lacking the ability to properly discover them, humans took answers which were incomplete, provisional or just plain wrong and simply DECLARED them to be true under an unimpeachable divine imprimatur. That, at essence, is what "religion" and "faith" are. They are volitional states of mind.

I agree that one needn't resort to supernaturalism to fall prey to this. Plenty of people have espoused all manner of nonsense in the name of "science" and "reason" and what have you.

The difference - and here is where the rubber meets the road - is that science is an investigative process whereas "faith" is not. "Faith" is an act of will. Science can self-examine and self-correct whereas "faith" can only be abandoned or swapped out for "faith" in some other kind of magic.

(I'm not saying that to be snarky. "Magic" - more specifically, theurgy - is what we're talking about here. "God did this," "God did that" are inescapably magical claims.)

Religious persons are not the only ones with this problem. Anyone who believes 'all men are created equal' has to deal with the ways in which the creation of humans is very unequal. Anyone who believes in human rights has to deal with the same issue as religious people deal with in deciding when a leaky sack of amino acids acquires a soul: when does, in the words of Bill Mahr, "a pile of goo" become a person worth marching on Washington to demand civil rights for.

1) "All men are..." poses no problems when seen as a profession of egalitarian principles and a repudiation of social systems based on hereditary castes. "Equality" doesn't - and need not - mean that we are all literally the same any more than "the brotherhood of man" requires us to be actual siblings, or indeed, to even be male siblings.

2) Is this about the Pro-Choice/Pro-Life thing? My personal answer is: at the point of extra-maternal viability*. This is a flawed answer, to be sure, but then I'm not one of those "people of faith" claiming that the Creator of the Universe whispers things into my ear.

Just two things to think about: are we using the word religion to refer to faith in "prophecies, clerical decrees, books declared to be the Word of God, sacred traditions" OR are we using it to refer to any 'faith' in the sense of a belief that starts with a conclusion and works backwards to the facts?

I use the terms somewhat interchangeably and I should not. "Religion" is the concretion and systematization of "faith."

*Unless, of course, they are Yankees fans. Then it's open season on 'em.