Another theory that must be rejected by conservatives

[orogenicman]

You can not counter irrationality with empirical evidence. Maybe you can't do it with humor, sarcasm, irony, and ridicule, either, but it is a lot more fun to try.

No, but that doesn't mean that I have to lower myself to their level of thought, either. My reponses aren't really directed at them anyway, since I already consider most of them to be a lost cause. My responses are really directed at the fence sitters who might be reading the posts.

 

[GenSeneca]

The last thing I want to do is question the theory of evolution, of global climate change, or of relativity.

Do you seriously accept all three without question?

 

[GenSeneca]

It's a form of bigotry

So is Anti-Theism.

frankly, this country is far enough behind in the learning curve where science is concerned to tolerate this kind of blatant, willful ignorance.

Are you intolerant of opinions that differ from your own?

It hurts us in countless ways as a nation

Please, list a few.

not the least of which is its divisiveness.

What do you suggest doing about that?

 

[PLC1]

Do you seriously accept all three without question?

I accept the scientific method without question. That's the direction the facts and observations point, so, until new facts not currently in evidence come to light, yes, I accept the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and global warming theory to be correct as currently understood.

 

[GenSeneca]

I accept the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and global warming theory to be correct

If they were indeed correct, they would no longer be theories.

 

[orogenicman]

So is Anti-Theism.

Are you intolerant of opinions that differ from your own?

Please, list a few.

What do you suggest doing about that?

1) What, exactly does anti-theism, whatever that is, have to do with anything we are discussing?

2) The Theory of Evolution is not merely an opinion. Neither is relativity, or any other scientific theory.

3) The eggheads who promote creationism, for instance, are doing so for one specific purpose, and that is to get religion back into the public schools. What's more, despite the fact that creationism is not science, they are promoting it to people as a scientific theory, and of course, nothing could be further from the truth. It was dismissed as such in the 19th century, and for good reason.

4) Facilities like the creation museum give children the wrong impression of science, and is detrimental to the advancement of science education.

Do I need to go on?

What needs to happen is for people who don't understand science to either get a an education and then stand in the professional publishing line with the rest of us or else stop interefering with the process. Creation science is not science, and so the people promoting it should not get the same consideration in academic circles or in our public schools. Like I've said before, if they can't come up with something better than "God did it", then they have no right pretending to the public that what geologists, paleontologists, cosmologists, and evolutionary biologsists know from hundreds of years of scientific research not to be true.

1) Noah's global flood? A myth

2) The world was created in 7 days? Fairy tale

3) Plate Tectonics? Real

4) Evolution does not violate the laws of thermodynamics

5) The Bible is not a science book.
Etc, etc, etc.

 

[orogenicman]

If they were indeed correct, they would no longer be theories.

Scientific theories are not correct or incorrect. They represent the current best scientific knowledge on a subject. Like a geology professor once said about scientific precision. "99.9999 is not 1.0, but it's d*&n close". The Theory of Evolution is not "perfect"; there are problems. But the problems are so small that they have no bearing at all on the overall validity of the paradigm. When something comes along that better explains the phenomena we observe in nature or in the laboratory, it gets reviewed in great detail by the scientific community, and only when the vast majority of the scientific community is satisfied with the explanation does it get called a theory. This is science 101, folks. As I've pointed out before, most theories don't get replaced (as if they are incorrect). Newton was largely right. Einstein didn't replace Newton. He built on the discoveries of Newton and others and discovered something entirely new as a result.

 

[PLC1]

If they were indeed correct, they would no longer be theories.

How could you possibly have come to that conclusion?

 

[GenSeneca]

How could you possibly have come to that conclusion?

Did you read the post above yours? Here it is...

Scientific theories are not correct or incorrect. They represent the current best scientific knowledge on a subject.

Once a scientific theory has been proven correct it becomes scientific law.

 

[orogenicman]

"Once a scientific theory has been proven correct it becomes scientific law."

Theories generally can't become scientific law because the purpose of theories are different than laws. A theory explains a law or general fact or phenomenon. For instance, the law of gravity states that there is gravity- this is clearly a fact, and is concrete. Einstein's theory of gravity (or whichever theory is currently supported) explains how gravity works.

Laws state that something happens, and theories state why.

 

[GenSeneca]

1) What, exactly does anti-theism, whatever that is, have to do with anything we are discussing?

You accused people of being bigots because they believe something different than what you believe. The following is from a post I made about the difference between Atheism and Anti-Theism:

Anti-Theists tend to believe:

* There is NO God, Period.
* Religion is evil and used for perpetuating the same.
* People who believe in Religion are dupes, sheep, non-thinkers.
* Religion has been the cause of most of the worlds misery.
* Religion is in direct conflict with Science and the scientific method, stifling the progress of science whenever possible.
* The world would be better off without Religion.

How many of those would you agree with?

2) The Theory of Evolution is not merely an opinion. Neither is relativity, or any other scientific theory.

Opinion: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

In the absence of complete certainty, a theory remains an opinion.

4) Facilities like the creation museum give children the wrong impression of science, and is detrimental to the advancement of science education.

* Religion is in direct conflict with Science and the scientific method, stifling the progress of science whenever possible.

they have no right pretending to the public that what [scientists] know from hundreds of years of scientific research not to be true.

Their beliefs are not violating the rights of anyone, so they are well within their own rights to make any claims they wish.

Now I'd like to go back to the questions I asked you. You stated that the existence of their beliefs, "hurts us in countless ways as a nation", please list a few.

You also stated the existence of their beliefs causes "divisiveness":

Divisive: Causing or tending to cause disagreement or dissension.

Why is this bad and how do you propose to end all disagreement and dissension?

 

[orogenicman]

An antitheist is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god."

In contrast, an atheist simply doesn't believe that god exists. Seneca, nothing I have posted here is in opposition to anyone's belief in the existence of God. You can believe whatever the hell you want to believe as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. All I have done here is express my opinion that certain aspects of certain religions infringe not only on the rights of others, but blatantly and intentionally lie about our knowledge of the Earth, about our human origins, and what we know about cosmology and even biology. These aspects of certain religions are also openly anti-science in nature and overall tone. Now, you may believe that they have a right to do this, and so my response is that then they shouldn't claim any sort of moral high ground whatsoever with what they are doing, because they are lying to themselves and to the public, and doing a lot of damage to science education. But I guess lying for Jesus is all the rage these days, eh?

You said:

"Opinion: a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

In the absence of complete certainty, a theory remains an opinion."

I think the issue here boils down to the real difference between religion and science. Religion subscribes to absolutism, ergo, religious dogma. For someone who has viewed the world from the point of religious absolutism, I can see where they might also ascribe the same kind of absolutism in matters of science. What many don't understand is that science doesn't deal in absolutes (in a broad sense). Today, we think that Ardi is the oldest common ancestor of man. Tomorrow, someone will find an older one. Science deals with empirical evidence which doesn't reveal itself all at once, but is discovered over time. Religion has little, if any, emperical evidence in it's support. That's why it is called "an act of faith". And as we all know, faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof. Science is not an act of faith. I know that here on Earth, if I drop a ball in a calm wind, it most certainly will fall to the ground. There is no uncertainty, unless the variables I referred to above change. And so, the notion that complete certainty is required is simply not the case.

Food for thought. Our knowledge of orbital dynamics, while not "certain", allowed us to thread a proverbial needle about 1.5 billion miles away in order to place a small robot into orbit around Saturn. So it is my opinion that the science is "pretty d*&m certain, that is, certain enough". I have always found it ironic that those who object the most to the "uncertainty" of science, have no problem whatsoever ascribing as absolutely true the notion that there is a god, a notion for which there is no empirical proof whatsoever.

 

[PLC1]

Science neither confirms nor denies the existence of god. There is no scientific evidence one way or the other, so science has no opinion. There is no god hypothesis, as there are no facts pointing to or against the existence of god.

While there is a conflict between some people's interpretation of ancient writings and scientific theories, there is none between scientific theories and god.

The world may have been created, or may have simply evolved on its own. The world was not created in six days, as all of the evidence and facts counter that notion. Noah's flood was just a story, as it is scientifically impossible that it could have happened as described. That does not mean that there is no god, just that the story of Noah is just a story.

 

[orogenicman]

There are plenty of facts that reduce the possibility of the god of the Bible existing as described to something like microscopically small. Yeah, there may be a possibility that such an entity exists, however remote. But I see it this way. Say you are a jurer, one of twelve in a murder trial. The trial has concluded and the jury is sequestered and making their deliberations. All of the evidence is poured over by each jury member. There is DNA evidence belonging to the defendant recovered from the body of the deceased. The defendant's fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. 25 cameras in the stadium where the crime was committed recorded the act. The 45,000 witnesses in the stadium all confirm that the defendant committed the murder, and yet you aqre the only one who stands up and say, "we must reserve judgement because there mkight be some minute bit of evidence that we've missed or that was overlooked. And so you become the only holdout to finding the man guilty. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the person is guilty, you refuse to concede his guilty on the remotest of possibilities that evidence will turn up proving his innocence. Conversely, however miniscule the possibility that God exists may be, it does not, in my view, outweight the utter lack of evidence that God does exist.

 

[PLC1]

There are plenty of facts that reduce the possibility of the god of the Bible existing as described to something like microscopically small. Yeah, there may be a possibility that such an entity exists, however remote. But I see it this way. Say you are a jurer, one of twelve in a murder trial. The trial has concluded and the jury is sequestered and making their deliberations. All of the evidence is poured over by each jury member. There is DNA evidence belonging to the defendant recovered from the body of the deceased. The defendant's fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. 25 cameras in the stadium where the crime was committed recorded the act. The 45,000 witnesses in the stadium all confirm that the defendant committed the murder, and yet you aqre the only one who stands up and say, "we must reserve judgement because there mkight be some minute bit of evidence that we've missed or that was overlooked. And so you become the only holdout to finding the man guilty. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the person is guilty, you refuse to concede his guilty on the remotest of possibilities that evidence will turn up proving his innocence. Conversely, however miniscule the possibility that God exists may be, it does not, in my view, outweight the utter lack of evidence that God does exist.

There is no scientific evidence that god exists, but what is the evidence that god does not exist?

The case could be made that the stories in the Bible are just stories, but the existence of god boils down to two improbable ideas, one of which has to be correct:

Either this world we all live on, all of the complex web of life that exists here, all simply sprang into being all on its own, starting with abiogenesis and proceeding on to human intelligence, all with no intelligent guidance, intelligence springing unbidden from the ooze, or

an intelligence we call god started the whole thing in motion, and, perhaps, guides the process from time to time.

Two improbable ideas, yet one or the other has to be true. Science can't tell us which one it is, can it?