A challenge for creationists.

[Hellbender]

Of course you don't physically see God, hellbender, but that's the entire nature of God. We see only the result of his work, not the creator himself. Sorry, you'll have to do better then that to convince me...

 

couldn't "god's work" also be interpreted as "natural" forces at work? Why can't I see god? If he is real, why is he hiding from me?

[Sayonara]

erm mabye people who take an interest in the wider world mabye? (i dont mean that in a patronising or sarcastic manner)

Since when were caring and intrigue mutually exclusive?

 

 

I don't consider myself a creationist, and I do care what they think. I, unlike most people on this site, don't discount God too easily.

What has not caring what creationists think got to do with discounting god?

 

 

And, by the way, Creationism and Evolution are two seperate things...they don't have anything to do with each other. They are 2 different and completely valid theories.

If that's to me (and, indeed, in light of the start of this post), perhaps you might look at the dozens of other threads on this topic before condemning people based on opinions that you think they have.

[Sayonara]

I don't agree that dehumanization is the goal.

Indeed.

[ecoli]

like root's post earlier. Its all about character attacks, false notions and propaganda. ecoli is the exception. I can tell he is simply not going to creationist sites and copy/pasting the crap that they write there.

 

. Thank you Hellbender. I do not, as you say, do this. My ideas are entirely my own, (though I apologize if other people share them, I'm not trying to take credit for other's ideas).

 

As you say, the Creationist/Evolution debates is about "character attacks, false notions and propaganda." If Creationists do this more then Evolution it's simply because Creationists don't have any scientific data to back them up. Without these other techniques (though I don't condone them) the creationist theory would dissapear and be discredited.

They're just trying to fight for their theory the best way they know how. To bad there isn't another way.

[ecoli]

What has not caring what creationists think got to do with discounting god?

Nothing... I sincerly apologize for that post.

[Hellbender]

I really appreciate a person with original ideas, even if I don't happen to agree with all of them.

 

I know they are trying to argue for their religious beliefs in light of a lack of scientific evidence. But this is a science forum, as I have said. Tactics are tactics. You can present facts, or you can bash, lie and attack. It doesn't make it right to do, and it doesn't make it correct. That kind of arguing has no spot in any discussion, let alone a science forum. Their lack of evidence only goes to show how desperate biblical creationists are to keep their beliefs from being overshadowed in (other areas but the south) by science.

[Sayonara]

Nothing... I sincerly apologize for that post.

Seriously, I am wondering what route you took between the two thoughts. I don't see the connection.

[ecoli]

I was just attempting to explain their tactics...I'm definately not condoning them.

[Hellbender]

oh ok. It sounded that way for a sec.

[ecoli]

Seriously, I am wondering what route you took between the two thoughts. I don't see the connection.

 

Niether do I...a momentary lapse of reason, I think. Sorry.

[ecoli]

oh ok. It sounded that way for a sec.

 

nope...sorry for the confusion. I wish the Creationist could find a different way to argue their points.

[Hellbender]

me too. Maybe then I wouldn't have so many ulcers.

[Gnieus]

My point is that lines in the bible can be related to science. Snakes wiht legs is not far-fetched at all. Vestigial appendiges is quite common, in the theory of evolution.

 

My point it was a joke, a field not really mastered by science or religion...

[Gnieus]

They're just trying to fight for their theory the best way they know how. To bad there isn't another way.

 

Are you honestly calling God made the world the planet then light etc in 7 days a theory ... [hypothesis being the right word you should use if you insist to bring it into the science realm], and binning thousands of papers telling you different ...

 

Religion = static faith, no evidence

Science = dynamic faith based on common sense and logic and reason

 

It's unproductive and futile to see if apple or apple juice is right.

 

I someones makes a formula and says when I release an apple it goes down with 9.81 m/s^2 then I go and test it and see it's right. If Einstein comes and says this is a subset of a bigger thing and they test and it fits its reasonable, then one accepts it as the current stand of knowledge. If then somebody comes and says it's not right we have to adapt it, then this is a dynamic process evolving to achieve a reasonable model system of the world around us.

 

Going out saying we have to bear children and woman have to suffer in child birth coz a talking snake convinced a woman into eating an apple from a tree it just seems rather odd and unreproducable, untestable and equivalent to saying Harry Potter made the world. Disprove that ..

 

 

Appreciate your devil's advocat ... but cranberry juice is the way forward

[ecoli]

What are these "so-called" thousands of paper's that tell me different.

 

It's easy to deny religion it's place but, "There are no atheists in a foxhole"

 

Who ever says that religion lacks evidence. What about the questions science can't asnwer, but religion can.

 

Unless you were present and the time of the big bang...It's still impossible to prove it happened. It's impossible to disprove creationism...As i have been saying all along.

 

(and btw. your attempts at discrediting creationism and gloriyifying by changing your tone are quite babyish. Using incorrect grammar in an attempt to make Creationism sound less appealing; Come on...grow up.)

[Gnieus]

What are these "so-called" thousands of paper's that tell me different.

 

They tell you that something like reason exists. As these are practically all, I am not gonna quote them.

 

If reason exists the Bible is logically wrong, it's that simple.

 

It's easy to deny religion it's place but' date=' "There are no atheists in a foxhole"[/quote']

 

Religion is obviously a human escape route for an over worked and frightened consciousness.

 

Who ever says that religion lacks evidence. What about the questions science can't asnwer' date=' but religion can.

[/quote']

Again science is a dynamic faith based on reason and logic. Science is a dynamic process. It doesn't have all the answers and doesn't claim it has them. It tries to achieve them by reason and experiment. Unlike faith which is static and is just made up. That's why creationists don't get science because they can't comprehend the reality of that we don't know everything and unlikely ever will. Religion claims, that they have all the answers, it's done finished and we can all sit down, relax and have a beer [or glass of water ... whatever your faith is]

 

 

Unless you were present and the time of the big bang...It's still impossible to prove it happened. It's impossible to disprove creationism...As i have been saying all along.

 

Again science is a dynamic faith based on reason and logic' date=' as you surely realise hypotheses have been overthrown. Science is an attempts to minimise the likelihood of error in our model system of the world.

 

(and btw. your attempts at discrediting creationism and gloriyifying by changing your tone are quite babyish. Using incorrect grammar in an attempt to make Creationism sound less appealing; Come on...grow up.)

 

Personal attack, talk normally.

[In My Memory]

Sayonara

 

Does anyone who isn't a creationist actually care what creationists think?

I wouldnt if it werent for the fact that they carry so much political persuasivness here in the US.

 

 

Root,

 

On the same tune I think it is lame to suggest one can prove "The theory of evolution". It is to this day just a theory, a theory has yet to establish itself as fact.

There is a popular misconception that scientists call things "theory" because they havent been proven or arent terribly believable - but that isnt what the word theory means in science.

 

The scientific definition of "theory" (a large of collection of organized and related facts to explain and describe natural phenomena) implies, if anything, that the theory is very credible. Evolution is both a theory and factual.

 

But how do evolutionists account for life developing on the planet?

Evolution really describes the diversity of life on the planet, not the origins of life.

 

But for the most part, I know a lot of people who believe that the origins of life can be explained in terms of matter and purely natural phenomena, and I've read books that seem to take the same point of view (lots of mud seems to be thrown about, but evolutionists have the intellectual upperhand, and are probably correct).

 

As far as I know, life isnt is so remarkable as to be explicable only by appealing to the supernatural. And I also know that trying to explain things by invoking the supernatural really doesnt explain things at all - especially not by grounding supernatural explanation in terms of scientific ignorance.

 

 

Ecoli,

 

My point is that lines in the bible can be related to science. Snakes wiht legs is not far-fetched at all. Vestigial appendiges is quite common, in the theory of evolution.

I am a former Southern-Baptist, so I'm familiar with the bible. I would say the bible makes a far better guide to helping people live much more loving and caring lives than it does at being a guide of science and history.

 

That being said, the bible doesnt include many testable predictions, but of the ones I'm aware of, most of them have been falsified.

 

Who ever says that religion lacks evidence. What about the questions science can't asnwer' date=' but religion can.

 

Unless you were present and the time of the big bang...It's still impossible to prove it happened. It's impossible to disprove creationism...As i have been saying all along.[/quote']

I dont know about you, but I prefer a scientific explanation above supernatural ones.

 

Here is a personal anecdote:

One of the reasons I gave up on theism in the first place was simply that I relied so much on trying to make my god exist in the places that I deemed "the unknown". At least now, I dont really see that as a particularly good thing, because what it effectively did was render God existent in all of the places in the universe that science couldnt explain - but, everyday, what we can legitimately call the unexplainable and "the unknown" grows smaller ans smaller everyday.

 

From a theistic point of view, I didnt particularly care for the idea of the walls closing in on my god until he eventually would cease to exist all together.

 

It is very appealing to rely on religious explanation, but sometimes they really doesnt mean much. After all, what good is faith when someone like me can have just as much faith in my gods as another has in theirs? I say "faith" specifically, because I see that there really is terribly little alternative in favor of religious explanation outside of faith - at least from what I'm aware, the other alternatives, reason and science, seem to be stacked against religious explanationation altogether.

 

I've heard before "science explains how things happen, and religion explains why" - that much is true enough, I think. Although, my perpetual sense of doubt really makes it hard for me to take comfort in religious answers to all the "why's" in the world, at least more so than non-religious answers to "why".

[Gnieus]

I am a former Southern-Baptist' date=' so I'm familiar with the bible. I would say the bible makes a far better guide to helping people live much more loving and caring lives than it does at being a guide of science and history.

[/quote']

 

Exactly the MESSAGE of the Bible/Koran/Talmud is about social interactions.

 

If you would see it from a game theoretical stand point, it tries to change the Game from hawk/dove to just dove, which is a neither a bad thing, nor a bad evolutionary strategy.

 

Maybe evolution made humans to make the Bible to make us all communists. Now that's a message for middle America...

 

OK OK, I'll bring my own stake

[Gnieus]

Has anyone mentioned yet, there isn't only Christianity ...

[ecoli]

Who said there wasn't? I'm Jewish...

 

But Christian or Pagan, your arguments against Creationism should make a difference...every religion has different versions of creationism. My own don't exactly match the Christian version...

[Hellbender]

 

It's easy to deny religion it's place but' date=' "There are no atheists in a foxhole"

 

Who ever says that religion lacks evidence. What about the questions science can't asnwer, but religion can. QUOTE']

 

Yeah because there are no more foxholes. This is a standard attack on atheists to make it seem ike if you are not religious, you are not a patriot and are a coward. No a coward is someone who can't accept life on its own and has to appeal to something all powerful which he has never seen for help all the time.

 

There are things you can't answer with science, this is true. But religion makes up answers. It is better to not know something than to make something up.

[swansont]

It's easy to deny religion it's place but, "There are no atheists in a foxhole"

 

If God did not exist man would find it necessary to invent him.

 

Who ever says that religion lacks evidence. What about the questions science can't asnwer' date=' but religion can.

 

Unless you were present and the time of the big bang...It's still impossible to prove it happened.

[/quote']

 

What about them? As long as religion stays in the spiritual arena, and science in the science arena, there isn't a problem.

 

Scientific inquiry is more than observing events as they happen. Past events can be studied scientifically.

[Hellbender]

If God did not exist man would find it necessary to invent him.

 

wow I love that. Good quote.

[ecoli]

Yeah because there are no more foxholes. This is a standard attack on atheists to make it seem ike if you are not religious' date=' you are not a patriot and are a coward. No a coward is someone who can't accept life on its own and has to appeal to something all powerful which he has never seen for help all the time.

 

There are things you can't answer with science, this is true. But religion [i']makes up[/i] answers. It is better to not know something than to make something up.

 

I'm not trying to attack atheists...or anyone else. This quote was created in WWII...it means people who are in trouble automatically turn to God for help, when all other hope fails. It means humans have a natural prediliction to believing in a Creator. This is definately not cowardice.

 

By your definition, the soldiers who died on the beaches of Normandy who were almost assured of dying, who found comfort in the thought of God and afterlife...were not patriots. They were cowards. They couldn't accept life own it's own becasue they had to thiink there lives had a purpose. These men could turn to God, in order to give them comfort in the face of certain death...and by your definition, they are cowards.

[Hellbender]

I'm not trying to attack atheists...or anyone else. This quote was created in WWII...it means people who are in trouble automatically turn to God for help' date=' when all other hope fails. It means humans have a natural prediliction to believing in a Creator. This is definately not cowardice.

 

By your definition, the soldiers who died on the beaches of Normandy who were almost assured of dying, who found comfort in the thought of God and afterlife...were not patriots. They were cowards. They couldn't accept life own it's own becasue they had to thiink there lives had a purpose. These men could turn to God, in order to give them comfort in the face of certain death...and by your definition, they are cowards.[/quote']

 

I'm sorry but I disagree. Humans do have a tendency to believe in god or gods becasue we in our high leverl thinking need comfort. I can accept that. This statement is used (maybe not by you) to bash atheists and pigeonhole us as cowards. There is nothing wrong with finding comfort in the fact that there is an afterlife. I meant people who call atheists cowards (i.e. people who use this bigoted statement to demean atheists) deserve to be called that themselves as they can't accept life for what it is. What someone does in the heat of war is different. They are under considerable stress. Please don't use statements that invoke patriotism in people to make me feel bad. Those men weren't cowards. But neither are atheists. Atheists are not always people who renounced their faith in a hissyfit against god. Some atheist (like myself) put a lot of intellectual thought into why they are atheists and are as serious about it as any religious person. If I was getting shot at from a machine gun nest, who knows maybe even I would try something to remove the stress of imminent death, but I doubt it.