No wonder they take us so seriously.

I hope to god you are refering to my post (pun intended).

I've wanted to make this post in a while, but I haven't found the time, so...!

If we say that nothing is up to belief, and that everything can be explained without the word "god", then we must be able to say that we can predict what will happen if the future. Why? If everything is explainable, then we can explain why it happens, thus, we can explain when it will happen if we can find out why. Since everything can be mapped out, every person's destiny is already written down and everyone should know exactly what will happen to their lives. But this leads to two problems:

1. If we observe an object, the object is thus changed by our observation. Therefore, we can never predict what exactly will happen, leading to the conclusion that not everything can be explained; thus, disproving that science can explain all.

2. If the stated can hold true even with the contridictions of Problem #1, then our lives have been mapped out, just as Lutheranism states. So, what's the problem? The Lutherians are correct and thus should be preached about at school.

No, there is a huge difference between saying we know everything, and saying god is not necessary to explain anything. The following words shall not be taboo, "I do not know."

"God did it.", is NOT a usable default position, it is an idea that should make testable predictions before it can be useful, just like any other.

Currently, we do not know how to predict the future, I do not dispute this. You made the claim that it cannot be possible to predict the future, but in order for that to be the case, you have to prove all the current science right, which is impossible(you cannot prove something is the law of physics, unless you defined the law of physics. The best you can do is to say it's predictions are consistent with the laws of physics, which is totally different.)

http://friendlyatheist.com/2007/09/24/21-unconvincing-arguments-for-god/
See number 19 (god of the gaps), This is exactly the argument you have implied.

Teaching Creationism, I have nothing to go against with it teaching it in schools. It just has to be stated that this kind of belief exists, but not encouraged to believe.
Other than that, I haven't read. But in our society currently, running on facts and proofs, "It is the will of God" or "It is God's plan" is not a great diplomatic position to be in.

srry ast, but that wasn't what I was trying to say when I wrote that (probably mb since anti & tux interpreted it your way too). I wasn't talking at all about creationism/evolution, just that there where 6 pages of debate between people that all believed the same thing.

I recently finished the book "40 Days and 40 Nights", which was written by a descendant of Charles Darwin. It discusses a large trial taking place in court involving teaching Intelligent Design vs. Evolution in schools. It was very enlightening, some of the best lawyers I have ever seen. ( Read ) It reinforced my decision - Evolution should be taught in schools, and Intelligent Design and Creationism should be optional, not everybody should be forced understand these theories.

For those of you who don't know what Intelligent Design is, ( You should know what Evolution and Creationism are! ) its basically the idea that God created life, and evolved it the way he wanted to - not anything else like natural selection forming us.

This theory involves irreducible complexity, which is, to say, complexity that is irreducible. It means that a biological system, such as your eye, is made up of many functioning parts, and it is so complex so that if you were to remove one part of the system, it would stop functioning. Therefore, how could it have "evolved" without supernatural interference?

If you're too lazy to read all of that, my opinion is that Creationism, as well as Intelligent Design, should be optional, and learning the theory of Evolution should be mandatory.

Irreductible complexity is a blatant lie, which was addressed in Darwin's original paper, in fact the compound eye evolved independently in mollusks and vertebrates. If you read the transcripts of the dover trial, it is pretty damn obvious.

Also, intelligent design is not a theory, it has not made any verified testable predictions.

Attachments:

Then let me propose another arguement, since you believe science is a non absolute study:

If science is a non-absolute study, then we can only predict what will happen, and our predictions impact the results, so that no study can prove what it set out to prove (it can only come close). There is always an "accepted answer", while every result has a pecentage of error, since no measurement can be precise. Therefore, I can state: Science is nothing more then what people want to believe.

Every result can be twisted by the observer and the observer can accidently change a result. No measurement can be precise to the atom, and every calculation is prone to human error.

I can also state: Religion is nothing more then what people want to believe.

Therefore: Religion and science are nothing more then what people want to believe.

Therefore: Religion == Science.

Except that anyone can independently retest and verify the conclusions of an experiment for themselves, and this is done for every new discovery way before it approaches a consensus in the scientific community.

I will not disagree with you about religion being wishful thinking, but your notion that science is the same, is far worse than wishful thinking. Science is not about what the scientist wants to believe, it is about doing everything you can think of to try to prove yourself wrong.

But science is the same, you COULD believe in science, or you COULD believe in RELIGION.

There is no 'believing' in science, no one tells you to take their word on faith, if you don't believe them you are free to test the hypothesis for yourself, if prove them wrong you probably get the grants they would have.

If you want to be all "Religion == Science", well hey lets both play stupid!!!!

You don't exist because I don't believe that you exist. I don't believe France exists, because I don't want to.

Science is a logical way to achieve a supported idea.
This logical way is called the scientific method.

Religion does not follow the scientific method, and therefor not science.

You seem to be misunderstanding Science.
The idea's that science has been used to formulate, yes all can be assumed to have error. Human error, measurement error, and etc... It's even true that all these ideas are constantly being updated and changed to fit with new observations.

However, Religion is based off of pure belief and hard to change. Science is based off of observations, facts, repeated studies. At a highly abstract level of thinking you could say, Science is an incredibly and repeatidly tested religion.

Of course, at an incredibly abstract level you could say Religion == Science. Then again at an incredibly abstract level I could say Humans == Rocks == Unicorns == Solar Systems == Galaxies; they all have atoms!!!!! No one here is talking that abstract, and no one here, besides you, cares about such an abstract level.

So utilizing your logic:
If Science == Religion
Then
You == Retarded Unicorn.

Hah, you're arguing that science == religion based off of one trivial similarity while ignore all of their differences as AntiSleep and Cole have pointed out.

Of course you can either believe or not believe in something because the definition is just to accept something as true or real. So you can either accept or not accept, but saying that simply because you could accept both doesn't mean they're equal. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Also, because I believe the term equal needs to be defined here. Its use here is too vague. Of course if two things share a common characteristic they can be said to be equal, but only with respect to that one thing, but when saying "they're equal" are you referring to equal in every way?

Because you could basically be trying to argue 3 == 4. We would say no, but then you would say they're both numbers aren't they? That's what I sense is happening here.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Oct 3 2007, 10:02 pm by devilesk.

Hmmm... If you were using my logic, you would have at least tried to state a proof. And you would not have contridicted yourself, unless, of course, you talk to yourself on a daily bases. (You stated that I do not exist, but yet, you still talk to me)

To go of into a tangent: I can easily say that nothing exists, mainly since all my perception is based off of my brain, which is imperfect. I cannot "prove" you exist, nor can I prove that I exist. To state something exists is to believe something exists. People can say the earth is sphereical, but you cannot 'prove' it. I would have to take other peoples' word for it.

Back on subject:

"You seem to be misunderstanding Science."
--No, I am merely taking what Anti has defined as Science.

By the way, tell me again what Evolution states. Then tell me how God 'created' everything.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 4 2007, 2:46 am by A_of-s_t.

Science is the methodical inquiry of the nature of the universe, and everything in it.

The theory of evolution says a lot of things, it says that natural selection is the method by which organisms assimilate information about their environment in to their genome of their of their offspring, it says that bacteria will become resistant if exposed to antibiotics, and it says that there should be no rabbit fossils found Precambrian rock strata.
Or you could become an astronaut and take a look for yourself. It is impossible to prove anything absolutely, but that is not a philosophy that is useful in the real world. In terms of practical application in technology to improve the standard of living, science beats religion every time.

Then let me attack this from a different angle.

Why should religion be taught in school? While learning about history, I always found it tough to understand why wars occured, why people framed the Jews, why the Crusades happened and so on, mainly becuase the teachers became timid when the subject of religion came up. If religion was allowed to be taught at school, not only would the students have a larger grasp of logic, of rebuttles, and of written fluency, but also that of association, of history, and of human advancement. That sole purpose should be enough to allow the teaching of religion at school.

Of course, this does not show that ONLY creationism should be taught at school, but if all religions are taught, then creationism is taught as well; which could show how humans have developed over time in their thought process.

What proof? I saw no proof at all.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 4 2007, 9:52 pm by devilesk.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Schools should require courses that go into detail on some of the major religions, because it is beneficial to us to know about peoples' beliefs when we work with them. A major benefit of this would be to prevent us from offending other peoples' religious beliefs by doing something "unclean" or whatnot to them. Don't get me wrong, I don't think teachers should preach about religion or hold it to be truth. I simply think a non-biased detailed analysis of major religions should be a part of a high school curriculum.

If you think my answer means that I want more people for my religion or whatever, not only do you misunderstand me, you're also wrong on account of the fact that I'm an atheist. So there.

What? That's ludicrous.


What a giant waste of time that would be. Getting a non-biased analysis would be incredibly difficult in the first place, and having the subject required would really be wasting a lot of time for the student's learning of somewhat relevant and relevant things. Not to mention, how could you classify a "major religion"? Not to mention, teaching several major religions will undoubtibly piss off lots of parents who want their kids to follow a religion they've already brought up their kids with.


We don't need an entire course on religion for such a marginal reason that can be gathered through an accumlation of other classes and life in general.