Contradictions: Religion vs Science

[Mr Rayon]

Is there really a conflict between religion and science? Or is it more that religion cannot be proven and assumed to be true using our current scientific methods? What exactly is it that the religions of the world propose which contradict the teachings of science? Would anyone be able to provide a list of these contradictions if this is indeed the case?

[insane_alien]

well, the big ones are the creation of earth which the bible says happened around 6000 years ago. then the big flood 4000 years ago. there should be an abundance of evidence for these things happening but there isn't. the earth is known to be many orders of magnitude older than 6000 and that there was not and could not have been a global flood 4000 years ago.

 

any historical content in the bible (and it would have to be the most brilliantly concieved hoax for there not to be any historical data in it at all) will have been warped by the stories being handed around by various story tellers for years before being written down.

 

even different books of the bible have contradictions. even different parts of the same book have contradictions.

 

as a result the bible is not taken as a reliable historical source. however, there are some cases where it is such as in the depictions of roman crucifictions. it is generally accepted that other historical data is required before anything in the bible can be taken as fact.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Please post discussions involving religion in the religion section. It ultimately slows the greying of the moderators' hair. Moved.

[Mr Rayon]

well, the big ones are the creation of earth which the bible says happened around 6000 years ago. then the big flood 4000 years ago. there should be an abundance of evidence for these things happening but there isn't. the earth is known to be many orders of magnitude older than 6000 and that there was not and could not have been a global flood 4000 years ago.

 

any historical content in the bible (and it would have to be the most brilliantly concieved hoax for there not to be any historical data in it at all) will have been warped by the stories being handed around by various story tellers for years before being written down.

 

even different books of the bible have contradictions. even different parts of the same book have contradictions.

 

as a result the bible is not taken as a reliable historical source. however, there are some cases where it is such as in the depictions of roman crucifictions. it is generally accepted that other historical data is required before anything in the bible can be taken as fact.

 

Alright. But what about scientific contraditions regarding the other holy books? To name a few, the Koran and the Torah? Do they claim the same things also?

[insane_alien]

all religious texts are equally frought with error.

 

the Torah, Bible and Qur'an are very closely related by the way and have a lot of the exact same mistakes.

 

other religious tets tend to have different historical impossibilities.

[John Cuthber]

Never mind the books, even if there is a God, He didn't write them.

The question was

"Is there really a conflict between religion and science? "

and the answer is yes.

If science finds a discrepancy between the current teachings and observations made in the real world then science changes what it preaches.

If religion finds such a discrepancy, it locks up or kills the the people who pointed it out, suppresses the information, and carries on.

 

That's a conflict.

[JohnB]

Actually IA, the Bible doesn't say the Earth is 6,000 years old. That figure was arrived at by a human adding up the Ages of people. It's the literalists that make life difficult.

 

Except for Adam and Eve the account of creation isn't even against evolution. The Bible makes no real mention of timeframes or the method employed. Yes it does mention "days", but the comment is also there that "A day for the Lord is as a thousand years", or something like that. Literalists take that thousand years as definitive, but in the customs of the times it was written it simply means a very, very, very long time. It has similar etymology as the Chinese proverb "A jouney of a thousand miles begins with one step". It obviously doesn't apply only and literally to jouneys of one thousand miles, it simply means any long journey.

 

Don't let the fundamentalists and literalists dominate the discussion, they don't hold the majority opinion.

[john5746]

Don't let the fundamentalists and literalists dominate the discussion, they don't hold the majority opinion.

 

I guess that is true - 50% of Americans believe the Bible is inspired by God, while 30% believe it is literally true. However, I think that if we could survey those in the "inspired" group and get a line by line opinion on several verses, we might find that overall, the majority do agree on literal interpretations of certain passages that science can say is either wrong or very unlikely.

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

[Sisyphus]

Actually IA, the Bible doesn't say the Earth is 6,000 years old.

 

Sure it does. You can argue that it's not intended to be believed as written, but that it is what it says. That's what "literal" means.

[Mr Skeptic]

Sure it does. You can argue that it's not intended to be believed as written, but that it is what it says. That's what "literal" means.

 

But maybe the genealogies are metaphorical!

 

Is there really a conflict between religion and science? Or is it more that religion cannot be proven and assumed to be true using our current scientific methods? What exactly is it that the religions of the world propose which contradict the teachings of science? Would anyone be able to provide a list of these contradictions if this is indeed the case?

 

There usually is conflict but there need not be. For example there is among some the sentiment that if it seems that something the Bible is saying is not true, then the Bible is simply not being interpreted correctly. Others have the sentiment that if it seems that something the Bible is saying is not true, then what was seen is simply not being interpreted correctly. Though it might not seem it, both are equally valid and simply depend on your choice of initial axioms. Similarly for other religions. Also, there is no requirement that a religion make testable claims, and so some religions could exist entirely separate from science.

 

If we move away from specific facts and look at the methods used to determine truth, there is some conflict between science and religion. Inasmuch as religion contains supernatural things, these things must by definition be accepted by faith (if we could replicate them they would be natural). Science on the other hand starts off with very simple axioms, that the world is understandable, consistent, objective; these axioms rather than being stated formally like in math or logic are ingrained in the scientific method. And since miracles do not fit this description (they are inherently inconsistent with the axioms), they cannot be accepted by science as such: for example, if a miracle can be consistently replicated by anyone as required to be accepted by science, it would no longer be considered a miracle.

[John Cuthber]

So, it seems that, among other differences, if science writes that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old it means about 4.5 billion years, but if religion says it is six days it could mean 6000 years or it may also mean 4.5 billion years (or anything else).

That leads me to wonder how you can get advice from, for example, the bible on , for example, how to live your life.

If you end up choosing whatever variation you like from the bible, why not just be honest and say that you chose it because you wanted to, rather than because "the bible says..."

[JohnB]

I guess that is true - 50% of Americans believe the Bible is inspired by God, while 30% believe it is literally true. However, I think that if we could survey those in the "inspired" group and get a line by line opinion on several verses, we might find that overall, the majority do agree on literal interpretations of certain passages that science can say is either wrong or very unlikely.

 

Why does everything come down to what some yanks in the Bible belt think? America is not the entire planet and frankly it's bloody boring to see so many topics get judged on some bloody gallup poll from the States. When discussing what Christians do or don't believe how about getting this fact nailed on a wall. Americans are the minority. Just because you have a p*ss poor education system that finishes up with 1/3 of the population believing in special creation doesn't mean that the ROW does too.

 

For that matter people should stop reading so much into polls FFS. Yeah, a poll says that 30% believe the Bible is literally true, until it is put to the test. Had a rash of parents stoning their children to death for being rude have you? Regardless of what the poll says it is not reality. Bringing up these sorts of polls are possibly the biggest strawmen I've ever seen.

 

Here's what happens when people who think the Bible is literally true get put to the test.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hH1H5qK08

 

The comment on the youtube page sums it up pretty well.

People treat religions like software user agreements, they just skip to the end and say that they agree.

 

By all means discuss religion and science, but for Thors sake stop trying to paint every Christian or religious person as some extreme fundamentalist whacko. It is pointless and insulting.

 

If Americans have a fundy problem, then solve it. Stop trying to project it onto everybody else because we don't have the problem. Fundies make up a very small (and getting smaller) percentage of our population and they are laughed at, not listened to.

Edited February 11, 2011 by JohnB

[john5746]

Why does everything come down to what some yanks in the Bible belt think? America is not the entire planet and frankly it's bloody boring to see so many topics get judged on some bloody gallup poll from the States. When discussing what Christians do or don't believe how about getting this fact nailed on a wall. Americans are the minority. Just because you have a p*ss poor education system that finishes up with 1/3 of the population believing in special creation doesn't mean that the ROW does too.

 

For that matter people should stop reading so much into polls FFS. Yeah, a poll says that 30% believe the Bible is literally true, until it is put to the test. Had a rash of parents stoning their children to death for being rude have you? Regardless of what the poll says it is not reality. Bringing up these sorts of polls are possibly the biggest strawmen I've ever seen.

 

Ok, I've been properly spanked in regards to Americanization, thank you. When you live in the greatest country of all time, you sometimes forget about the other little people out there. THAT WAS A JOKE.

 

In regards to polls, well if it were a poll of the world, I would disagree. I can't help it if people lie or don't understand what they believe. Many people all over the world still have issues accepting evolution and I think most Christians believe a zombie is possible. So I'll relax on the fundie talk, but I won't try and make cover for the religion as some great standard of rational belief.

 

By all means discuss religion and science, but for Thors sake stop trying to paint every Christian or religious person as some extreme fundamentalist whacko. It is pointless and insulting.

 

I didn't do that. Try decaf.

 

 

Anyway, let's see if I can get back to topic. The methods of science and religion are different, so I think they will always have some contradiction, unless the religion follows science or is just watered down to poetry.

[JohnB]

John, sorry if my post seemed aimed at you, it wasn't really. I did quote you for the start, but the comment was meant in a much more general fashion. Too often things get filtered through the American perspective without the understanding that this is neither the only, nor neccessarily the correct one. This is endemic around the web and crosses all topics. While it's funny at first to be accused of being a Rebublican or listening to too much Glen Beck, I'm Australian and Beck isn't on TV here, after a while it gets very frustrating. It unfortunately also reinforces the widespread ideas that Americans know zilch about other nations and aren't interested in any opinions but their own.

 

While your post was the "trigger" the rant wasn't directed at you personally and I apologise for writing in such a way that it would appear so. I expressed myself poorly and I'm sorry for that.

 

If a large percentage of Americans believe in special creation, this is an indication that the American school system leaves much to be desired, but it doesn't really shed any light on the relationship between science and religion in general. A lot of people don't understand what they say they believe, this isn't restricted to religion. I suggest it is similar to politics. Someone might describe themself as supporting one party or another, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, they will often disagree with the party policy.

 

For instance many support the Australian Greens, but I bet they've never read the policies. I thought this bit rather good, they will; "require uranium mining companies to meet enforceable standards to safely contain and to monitor their radioactive tailings wastes for at least 10,000 years." If you quizzed the Greens supporters, how many would think that laws for the next 10,000 years are actually writable? It's the same thing.

 

The vast majority of the Christians and other religious people I've met have no problem with the age of the Universe or a problem with evolution. If anything these things increase their sense of wonder at the sheer size and complexity of creation. Rather than feeling somehow special, they feel humble when considering the vastness, magnificence and sheer beauty of the Universe in which we live.

 

I'm neither a Christian nor religious. I do think that there is a creator for this Universe and I fervently believe that it will be the advancement of the physical sciences that will allow us to eventually understand it and perhaps even communicate with it.

 

Just because some religions, or some of the interpretations of some religions contradict science doesn't mean that all religions do or that all religious people do. Very broad brush strokes really don't work all that well.

[John Cuthber]

"I'm neither a Christian nor religious. I do think that there is a creator for this Universe "

Which one is right?

Belief in a Creator is religion.

[Moontanman]

John, sorry if my post seemed aimed at you, it wasn't really. I did quote you for the start, but the comment was meant in a much more general fashion. Too often things get filtered through the American perspective without the understanding that this is neither the only, nor neccessarily the correct one. This is endemic around the web and crosses all topics. While it's funny at first to be accused of being a Rebublican or listening to too much Glen Beck, I'm Australian and Beck isn't on TV here, after a while it gets very frustrating. It unfortunately also reinforces the widespread ideas that Americans know zilch about other nations and aren't interested in any opinions but their own.

 

If you think living someplace else and hearing about people like our all knowing political extremists or or one of our wonderful evangelicals or some other purveyor of political or religious (or both) superiority and pride is frustrating (I won't bother with a list of these idiots, I'm not sure my key board could stand that much typing and most would not agree to who they are anyway, everyone has their own list) you should try living where these people are coddled by the government to the point of it becoming down right incestuous.

 

I could name a few who's early abortion would have been their finest hour but fortunately these types are few, most are just annoying, or that is what many people tell themselves and as long as none have control of the tiller of state we will continue to just be annoyed but the possibility of one extreme getting real control is always a real danger.

 

While your post was the "trigger" the rant wasn't directed at you personally and I apologise for writing in such a way that it would appear so. I expressed myself poorly and I'm sorry for that.

 

I understand your frustration, we consistently hear how other countries are going to shit because they have things like socialized institutions and we must fight to prevent any possibility of socialism as though pure capitalism will do better. It's always a fight between extremes here, always a drive to demonize the opposition instead of real facts and figures.

 

 

If a large percentage of Americans believe in special creation, this is an indication that the American school system leaves much to be desired, but it doesn't really shed any light on the relationship between science and religion in general. A lot of people don't understand what they say they believe, this isn't restricted to religion. I suggest it is similar to politics. Someone might describe themself as supporting one party or another, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, they will often disagree with the party policy.

 

In the USA politics is so intimately entwined with religion it's impossible to really have anyone who is politically independent of any religion. The problems with the school system is that the worst of the fundamentalists make a point of getting on school boards to influence school curriculum's and the pulpit is used to promote these stupid ideas, it comes mostly from the bottom up not the top down... The squeaky wheel always gets the grease...

 

Religion has a huge influence in the USA, often this causes lots of problems at the level of individuals in small towns but that is getting better, several years ago (about 25) a woman in my State was arrested for performing fellatio on her boy friend, they were seen by someone who was window peeping. The woman was charged, she lost her job with the sheriffs department but neither the boy friend or the peeping tom was charged with anything.

 

It resulted in that law being struck from the books in that town and was hugely embarrassing for the woman involved, she never got her job back, but lots of odd laws prompted by religious bans on sexual things remain on the books on many small and sometimes even large cities or states. Religion has Americans by the short hairs and most of us have no idea....

 

For instance many support the Australian Greens, but I bet they've never read the policies. I thought this bit rather good, they will; "require uranium mining companies to meet enforceable standards to safely contain and to monitor their radioactive tailings wastes for at least 10,000 years." If you quizzed the Greens supporters, how many would think that laws for the next 10,000 years are actually writable? It's the same thing.

 

Sadly you are correct, I see people all the time protesting our nuclear power plant or the new Cement plant, but the local coal fired power plant seldom gets a quick glance even though coal power plants actually release more radioactivity by several orders of magnitude (not to mention heavy metals) into the atmosphere than all the nuclear power plants in the world combined. The local Cement plant is being protested due to possible mercury release even though it exceeds all emission laws by quite a bit, people are just nucking futs.

 

The vast majority of the Christians and other religious people I've met have no problem with the age of the Universe or a problem with evolution. If anything these things increase their sense of wonder at the sheer size and complexity of creation. Rather than feeling somehow special, they feel humble when considering the vastness, magnificence and sheer beauty of the Universe in which we live.

 

I know people like that, sadly they are few and far between here and are constantly being told by their peers (not to mention billboards, signs, TV shows, commercials and the pulpit) that they need to come over the fundamentalist side so they won't burn in hell. The more fundamentalist drive the actions of the less fundamentalist via guilt and fear, many people in private will profess they have their doubts about the need to believe absolutely but the guilt and fear are difficult to beat in a society that worships religion it's self more than the actual practice of it.

 

"They" were at my door this morning wanting to know if I had heard the good news, I told them yes the Moon Goddess has answered my prayers, they have no sense of humor... (I started to ask them if they would come in and pray and lay on hands me to help my impotence but...)

 

I'm neither a Christian nor religious. I do think that there is a creator for this Universe and I fervently believe that it will be the advancement of the physical sciences that will allow us to eventually understand it and perhaps even communicate with it.

 

While I disagree, your stance is yours and as long as you don't aggressively proselytize me with your view I see no reason why I or any reasonable person shouldn't support your right to believe. Sadly most major religions do not take the stance of live and let live, their holy books actively say we have to be converted, the nature of that conversion changes over time but it has ranged from threat of death to extra taxes to guilt and fear of a horrible "after life" (isn't that an oxymoron?) to just treating anyone who disagrees with you as somehow less than human.

 

Just because some religions, or some of the interpretations of some religions contradict science doesn't mean that all religions do or that all religious people do. Very broad brush strokes really don't work all that well.

 

Actually in some places those broad brush strokes do work and that would be ok if those people believed in live and let live but they know they cannot do that. Religion can only exist if it brings in more members and money (religion is much like a parasite on society, it mirrors biological parasites very closely in my view) and the few or the many who are indeed fundamentalist are the most dangerous people in the world.

 

As for the OP, I think science and religion and government were once all the same thing, one guy who told the best explanations for the natural world and the things that happened both good and bad was the leader. Eventually this job split up into a leader and a shaman or priest and most of the time they backed each other up. it took a long time for science as we know it to come about but it has been so successful because it is so successful at describing the natural world, religion and or government are not so good at anything but BS.

 

Now to be fair, there have been off shoots of science (or sometimes real science has been an off shoot) we call them pseudo-science but they were real attempts to explain the reality around us, It's quite possible that some things we think of as real science might one day be thought of as our "astrology" or "alchemy" or "religion" but if so it will be because we investigated them and found out ourselves if it was real or not, it won't be because some guy who hears supernatural voices and requires everyone worship something totally outside our experience of the real world.

[JohnB]

Belief in a Creator is religion.

 

How do you work that out?

[dragonstar57]

If a large percentage of Americans believe in special creation, this is an indication that the American school system leaves much to be desired,

you expect there to be a "religion is lie" class?

little kids are told many things are true and they hang on to those beliefs as long as they can.

many (i was once included in this) when their religion is challenged (ex: by evolution) all they can think is

"GOD EXISTS!!!! end of story! any belief any alteration any pile of carp will believed as long as it does not challenge that statement. the schools might not teach somethings enough but they are not at fault for religion it's preconditioned into the minds of American children

This is endemic around the web and crosses all topics. While it's funny at first to be accused of being a Republican or listening to too much Glen Beck, I'm Australian and Beck isn't on TV here, after a while it gets very frustrating. It unfortunately also reinforces the widespread ideas that Americans know zilch about other nations and aren't interested in any opinions but their own.

get used to it no one is going to memorize Australian television personalities to not seem like an American idiot.

as far as religion goes the usa is behind the rest of the world so what?

Americans know the usa well and most will never leave the USA so no most don't care and no one should expect otherwise

Edited March 1, 2011 by dragonstar57

[Mr Skeptic]

"I'm neither a Christian nor religious. I do think that there is a creator for this Universe "

Which one is right?

Belief in a Creator is religion.

 

Not true. For example, in the Stargate Universe, the Atlantians used a device called a ZPM, which as I understand it contained a universe inside it. Was there to be any life in that universe, their belief in a creator would be a correct, secular belief. In our universe we don't know if we can create universes or not, similar for some meta-universe that our universe might or might not have been created from. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to believe in a creator for our universe who is bound by the laws of physics, so that he wouldn't be divine.

 

Alternately, I believe that my computer was made by a creator. Does that make me religious?

[John Cuthber]

OK, I know there's more to life than wiki but

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion.

 

"The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect."

and

"Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing.[1][2] The English word is thought to date from 1200–50, from the Latin fidem or fidēs, meaning trust, derived from the verb fīdere, to trust.[1]

The term is employed in a religious or theological context to refer to a confident belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. It may be used to refer to a particular religious tradition or to religion in general."

 

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

 

Tend to suggest that belief in God- in the absence of compelling evidence, is an act of faith of the sort commonly referred to as religion.

 

 

Incidentally, Mr Skeptic, Stargate isn't real.

[Mr Skeptic]

OK, I know there's more to life than wiki but

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion.

 

"The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect."

and

"Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing.[1][2] The English word is thought to date from 1200–50, from the Latin fidem or fidēs, meaning trust, derived from the verb fīdere, to trust.[1]

The term is employed in a religious or theological context to refer to a confident belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. It may be used to refer to a particular religious tradition or to religion in general."

 

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

 

Tend to suggest that belief in God- in the absence of compelling evidence, is an act of faith of the sort commonly referred to as religion.

 

Sure, but if you use that definition then you also have to consider belief in quantum mechanics a religion, and the belief that 1+1=2 is a religious belief from the religion of math. If you don't base your moral system on it, I don't think it can be called religion.

 

Incidentally, Mr Skeptic, Stargate isn't real.

 

Well that depends on how you define real, doesn't it? It's a real TV series with real fictional characters in a real fictional universe. It's no different than Euclidean geometry, which we also invented and can accept as an axiom system to deduce things that would be true if the axioms were true. And in any case, are you going to say that fictional characters can't have a religion because they're not real? Or what is your point?

[JohnB]

you expect there to be a "religion is lie" class?

I don't care. How you mismanage your nations education is your business.

 

get used to it no one is going to memorize Australian television personalities to not seem like an American idiot.

as far as religion goes the usa is behind the rest of the world so what?

Americans know the usa well and most will never leave the USA so no most don't care and no one should expect otherwise

 

You miss the point. Unless you learn to listen to and understand what another person is saying without running it through the "American Christian Fundamentalist" filter first then you cannot converse with another.

 

Try a novel approach. Talk about ideas and concepts rather than whether you agree with some parochial talking head or not. Fundamenalists are your problem, not ours. It is wise to remember that. Their opinions are simply not relevent to the ROWs viewpoint.

 

Here's how we treat your fundies. (We aren't as nice to ours.)

 

 

Moontanman. Our education system is very different, we don't have school boards for one. The majority of schools are "State" schools, although there are private and religious schools as well. All schools in a State, whether public or private have to cover certain curricular and teach to a set standard. There are "required" subjects. So a religious school can teach the Bible all they want, but they must teach the required subjects or their students won't get a high enough grade to make the cut for University placement. You can't study medicine without High School biology and you can't study biology without evolution. And the textbooks to be used are designated by the government. A school can add textbooks to the curriculum, but they cannot remove or substitute for the set ones.

 

This cuts down on the fundies because a believer in special creation simply isn't going to score high enough to get past High School. Different subjects have different weightings. A "Top" score in "Religious Studies" isn't worth as much as a top score in Maths or any of the sciences. A creationist might score well enough for a Humanities or other fuzzy subject, but they are locked out of Law, Medicine or any of the sciences. If a creationist can't get into Law, he can't write laws. Solves the problem really.

 

We are nominally a "Christian" nation but less than 10% go to church regularly and I suspect a fair percentage of those are our 1.6% Muslim population. The rest of us just don't care.

 

There appears to be a very fundamental difference between our religious persons and yours. I say "appears" because it could be a media thing and the truth is something else, but this is how it appears. American Christians seem to be big on God "doing this" or God "doing that". It's all about what God will or won't do. Whereas ours (except for the fundy minority) generally have the view that the main thing God did was to give us a brain, after that it's up to us.

 

We, not God designed and built the Snowy River scheme. We, not God designed and built the dams and weirs that changed the Murray River from a sometimes dry and sometimes flooding river into a constantly flowing source of water. We, not God designed the "Stump Jump" plough that helped tame and farm this land. This isn't pride but a statement of fact. The Christians I know are thankful for our bountiful and dangerous land and are thankful for the brains and intelligence that allows us to make good use of that land and to build a dream of a better future for all.

 

That's not to say we don't have problems, we do. One of those is that the very education system that keeps the fundies out of positions of power also puts those with low knowledge of science into the teaching profession. Where you have a problem with fundies trying to influence the curriculum, we have rabid greenies and the very "politically correct". These people don't understand science and dislike it if it disagrees with their previously decided position, in their own way they are as stupid and intractable as any fundy you can find. I can see a battle shaping up in the future between the "Greens" and "Non Greens" and it will not be pretty.

[dragonstar57]

 

I don't care. How you mismanage your nations education is your business.

You miss the point. Unless you learn to listen to and understand what another person is saying without running it through the "American Christian Fundamentalist" filter first then you cannot converse with another.

 

not all Americans are Christians. and republican and democrat while they are not the parities in other countries you could probably translate them over to many countries' political parities(even though saying that you are part of "x" political party would not discredit your argument)

Moontanman. Our education system is very different, we don't have school boards for one. The majority of schools are "State" schools, although there are private and religious schools as well. All schools in a State, whether public or private have to cover certain curricular and teach to a set standard. There are "required" subjects. So a religious school can teach the Bible all they want, but they must teach the required subjects or their students won't get a high enough grade to make the cut for University placement. You can't study medicine without High School biology and you can't study biology without evolution. And the textbooks to be used are designated by the government. A school can add textbooks to the curriculum, but they cannot remove or substitute for the set ones.

 

 

by state do you mean state as controlled by the national government or is your country divided into states/Providences and are controlled by them?

This cuts down on the fundies because a believer in special creation simply isn't going to score high enough to get past High School. Different subjects have different weightings. A "Top" score in "Religious Studies" isn't worth as much as a top score in Maths or any of the sciences. A creationist might score well enough for a Humanities or other fuzzy subject, but they are locked out of Law, Medicine or any of the sciences. If a creationist can't get into Law, he can't write laws. Solves the problem really.

indeed it does and is a fairly good idea but unfortunately schools are divided into districts here (in the us) and the national government does not have much power over the curriculum while that is a good system implementing it in the US would be difficult (at this point if you have a response about this i would suggest starting a thread about the American school system in politics and linking to it)

i would also recommend not making broad sweeping comments about a place that is larger than Europe.

America is a large and varied place we are not all religious fundamentalists and when you say things like to that effect you are going to offend someone.

lol

are you sure that those "religious" people aren't trying to make fun of religion?

his response to the "what about god loving everyone" question is something atheists have been saying about the bible for years. if they really read and believed their holy book than that is what they would do

Edited March 2, 2011 by dragonstar57

[JohnB]

by state do you mean state as controlled by the national government or is your country divided into states/Providences and are controlled by them?

 

Yes, it does get confusing, doesn't it? In many ways I'm still trying to understand your system. The Commonwealth of Australia is a Federation of States where the US is a Union of States. The main difference being that if a US State succeeded from the Union, the Union would not collapse whereas if an Australian State did the Commonwealth would. Your individual States are similar to independent nations where our States are parts of a greater whole. By "State" I mean you have Texas, Carolina etc and we have Queensland, New South Wales, etc.

 

So in this context, I mean the government of the "State of Queensland", where you might say the "Texas State Government". The Feds supply a lot of money, but have very little say in how it is spent and virtually no say at all in the curriculum. While we have "Regions" within a State, they have no say on the curriculum being purely administrative. So we don't have "Districts", the curriculum for the entire State is set by the "Education Dept. of the State of Queensland". Does that make it a bit clearer?

 

Those fundies in the clip are yours, not ours. Westboro Baptist Church is in the US. Our comedians just thought it worth the laugh to send someone to the US to poke fun at them.

 

i would also recommend not making broad sweeping comments about a place that is larger than Europe.

Get thee to an Atlas my lad. The US can talk about "big" when they get States you can't walk across in a day. Queensland is 2 1/2 times the size of Texas and we aren't the biggest Australian State. Hell, we have cattle stations bigger than some of your States. We have Local Councils bigger than half your States. As for Europe, a collection of piddling little principalities, I fly the distance from London to Moscow just to go to a birthday party.

 

As to the fundies. Religion might play an important part in American politics, but it doesn't here. To quote from my thread on the last Australian Election;

Demonstrating the major influence that religion plays in Australian politics, the CDP Christian Party trounced the Secular Party by a resounding 69,465 votes to 10,209. Or if you prefer percentages, by.67% of the vote to .10%. A resounding victory for our religious right. Well done. God is truly smiling on you. Now go away and let him smile on you somewhere else.

 

Consequently I might speak without a left/right religious/atheist bias but it's heard as having one. For example if I say "The Bible is a historical document" it's often interpreted as saying "The Bible is literally true" thereby painting me as some sort of fundy. This is not the case. When the Bible was written it was the distillation of hundreds of years of oral history. That this history is true doesn't mean the bits about burning bushes are as well. Put another way the historical facts contained in the Bible do not prove the religious aspects to be true and the rejection of the religious aspects does not make the historical parts false.

 

That's what I meant about a "filter". So amny atheists are so against religion that they simply cannot accept the idea that some parts of the Bible are in fact, fact. For some reason their worldview is that it must be a total work of fiction, nothing else will satisfy them. I find such illogical needs coming from people who say they base their views on logic to be both amusing and informative.

[dragonstar57]

Yes, it does get confusing, doesn't it? In many ways I'm still trying to understand your system. The Commonwealth of Australia is a Federation of States where the US is a Union of States. The main difference being that if a US State succeeded from the Union, the Union would not collapse whereas if an Australian State did the Commonwealth would. Your individual States are similar to independent nations where our States are parts of a greater whole. By "State" I mean you have Texas, Carolina etc and we have Queensland, New South Wales, etc.

 

So in this context, I mean the government of the "State of Queensland", where you might say the "Texas State Government". The Feds supply a lot of money, but have very little say in how it is spent and virtually no say at all in the curriculum. While we have "Regions" within a State, they have no say on the curriculum being purely administrative. So we don't have "Districts", the curriculum for the entire State is set by the "Education Dept. of the State of Queensland". Does that make it a bit clearer?

 

Those fundies in the clip are yours, not ours. Westboro Baptist Church is in the US. Our comedians just thought it worth the laugh to send someone to the US to poke fun at them.

 

 

Get thee to an Atlas my lad. The US can talk about "big" when they get States you can't walk across in a day. Queensland is 2 1/2 times the size of Texas and we aren't the biggest Australian State. Hell, we have cattle stations bigger than some of your States. We have Local Councils bigger than half your States. As for Europe, a collection of piddling little principalities, I fly the distance from London to Moscow just to go to a birthday party.

 

As to the fundies. Religion might play an important part in American politics, but it doesn't here. To quote from my thread on the last Australian Election;

 

 

Consequently I might speak without a left/right religious/atheist bias but it's heard as having one. For example if I say "The Bible is a historical document" it's often interpreted as saying "The Bible is literally true" thereby painting me as some sort of fundy. This is not the case. When the Bible was written it was the distillation of hundreds of years of oral history. That this history is true doesn't mean the bits about burning bushes are as well. Put another way the historical facts contained in the Bible do not prove the religious aspects to be true and the rejection of the religious aspects does not make the historical parts false.

 

That's what I meant about a "filter". So amny atheists are so against religion that they simply cannot accept the idea that some parts of the Bible are in fact, fact. For some reason their worldview is that it must be a total work of fiction, nothing else will satisfy them. I find such illogical needs coming from people who say they base their views on logic to be both amusing and informative.

http://www.chapelaustralianbiketours.com/images/twomaps.gif

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081228210331AA2wxL3

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_size_of_Australia_compared_to_the_US

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_the_Australia_area_compare_in_size_to_the_US_land_mass

the usa is bigger and has more people but even if Australia was bigger it would be no better to make generalizations about all Americans than about all Australians

what would you think if someone was on here saying that Australians are stupid for wrestling crocodiles or something. not all Americans are the way you seem to think.

to say all Americans you are talking about 307 million people that you have never met to say most you're talking about around 153.5 million broad brush strokes don't work on groups so large

(note even if you want to make such comments like that just about taxes that state has a greater population than Australia so you should remember that it is probably more correct to say all Australians... than all Texans) http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&q=population+of+australia&aq=1&aqi=g-e1g3g-o1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.&fp=eda1291fdd569703

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=population+of+texas&cp=16&pf=p&sclient=psy&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=population+of+te&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.&fp=eda1291fdd569703

http://www.google.com/#about:blank

I agree that there probably are some truths in the bible (such as cities mentioned may have existed attacks on cities may have happened, people may have acutely existed etc) but that is a discussion for another thread this thread is asking if science and religion can coexist without having disagreeing elements

Edited March 3, 2011 by dragonstar57