[Closed] Creationist religious nutjob on R4 "One to One 9.30am"

I believe that the Islamic creation myth is very similar to the Judeo-Christian one.

Yup. Six days and Adam and Eve and forbidden fruit and everything.

The thing about a placebo is by definition it does nothing so cannot "work".

It does nothing chemically. The placebo effect however is extremely powerful. So powerful in fact that it even works when you know you are taking a placebo.

What was that about Prawns?

(Leviticus 11:10
English Standard Version (ESV))

" But anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you. "

Anyway, I'm just messing - feel free to stay and have a serious discussion.

Snob??? Odd choice of word tbh.

The thing about a placebo is by definition it does nothing so cannot "work".
Molly you are a scientist I dont know why you do this.

Placebo's have psychological value. Whether it's ethical to use them is another matter.

Most of the animal practices in religion are founded in a prctical aspect- it's quite a good way to think about how religions are developed. Kosher and halal are both fundamentally the same thing- a healthy eating system. Ban unclean animals, place restrictions on how you slaughter them. Put it in a religious context to help it get respected. Over time it gets more ritualised because that's what religion tends to do.

In one of Pratchett's books, Granny Weatherwax tells a family that they need to move their well away from the privvy because of the goblin who lives in the privvy. The young witch is shocked that Granny Weatherwax lied to the family: the previous witch had been telling that family the truth about the tiny invisible creatures in the privvy that were getting into their drinking water, but they wouldn't believe something daft like that so didn't move their well.

But who determines where the "made up stuff" begins/ends and the "truth"

What was that about Prawns?

*and yes I know the reasons - or atleast I was taught one of the reasons at my CoE school, STW or QI may prove that to be cobblers at some point aswell (didn't know the turn the other cheek bit)

Evolution is compatible with intelligent design

No, I'm afraid it's not.

Cougar... when you say "everything" yep God doesn't play marbles with planets for me and whether he did in the past is not of my concern.

I live here and now and I'm signed up to the "everything" humanly possible God/Thor/Budda/Santa has a hand in it.... my life is better for the faith I have and the life of those close to me is better for it (my faith) and hopefully those I met... you my disagree ? 😀

miketually - Member

In one of Pratchett's books, Granny Weatherwax tells a family that they need to move their well away from the privvy because of the goblin who lives in the privvy. The young witch is shocked that Granny Weatherwax lied to the family: the previous witch had been telling that family the truth about the tiny invisible creatures in the privvy that were getting into their drinking water, but they wouldn't believe something daft like that so didn't move their well.

Yup. (same joke is in Pyramids. Death with complications)

Can't remember who said this one, maybe Kim Stanley Robinson... It must have been great being the first jews in a new continent, going around deciding what's kosher and what isn't. Giraffe? Probably kosher. Chimpanzee? Aargh, it's throwing its poo at us, not kosher. Kangaroo? No idea.

I heard this guy on the Radio this morning and turned it off - he had [b]had[/b] a conversation/vision with God. The only imaginary conversation you can have that doesn't get you committed.

I'm envisaging the conversation now...

God: So, did you see the Spurs game at the weekend:
Radio Guy: Yeah! Injury time shocker [i]against[/i] Man U eh?
God: Who would have guessed it. [s****s]
Radio Guy: Wait a min, you sayin' what I think you're sayin'?
God: Listen, karma ain't just a Buddhist thing where I come from.

RM.

I live here and now and I'm signed up to the "everything" humanly possible God/Thor/Budda/Santa has a hand in it.... my life is better for the faith I have and the life of those close to me is better for it (my faith) and hopefully those I met...

... and still, this is not evidence for a god.

What is it called when you can separate your otherwise rational mind from the weird stuff you might believe, I can't remember. Anyway the religious do that lots.

Yeah this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmentalization_(psychology)

Cougar... when you say "everything" yep God doesn't play marbles with planets for me and whether he did in the past is not of my concern.

I live here and now and I'm signed up to the "everything" humanly possible God/Thor/Budda/Santa has a hand in it.... my life is better for the faith I have and the life of those close to me is better for it (my faith) and hopefully those I met... you my disagree ?

One priest I know prays for a parking space when he goes shopping at the supermarket. Another, in the same denomination, doesn't because he doesn't see why God would grant him a parking space as the result of a prayer when he (seems to) not interfere with the results of other prayers.

There are countless examples of people claiming God intervened in something as a result of their faith/prayers. If one child survives a tsunami because "God saved her", did God choose to not save the others?

Are there any religions out there that don't have the concept of an afterlife? To me they're all about giving people a false sense of hope that they might exist for more than the brief time they have on Earth.

Evolution is compatible with intelligent design, since the designer could have just set up the initial conditions and let it happen. No-one knows why there was a big bang after all.

But who determines where the "made up stuff" begins/ends and the "truth"

generally the head honcho of the religion.... or possibly committee. Hmm yep actually I'm changing my answer to "a committee"

It depends upon the religion. The truth of whether of not women could become bishops in the Church of England was decided by a vote. Slightly more than half of one section of the voters thought that the Bible said no, so women can't become Bishops.

So, even within the same denomination, there are disagreements. That's why it's so very hard to debate rationally with believers.

Plus the fact that a lot of believers don't [i]actually[/i] know what the bible says.

Woppit ... no not for you, we get it. Thanks for the input

Mike .. "people claiming God intervened" there is, I haven't. Again I can speak for every one... what does your Mrs think ?

Religion is a hangover from the era before science could explain most things.
To be fair science still has trouble with the origin of the universe so I take the attitude that I don't know, nobody has come up with a decent explanation yet but I'll keep an open mind.

Some aspects of religion regarding leading a decent life can be helpful but you don't NEED religion for that, just don't be a prick.

Some people get comfort from their faith in times of stress and that's fine too, each to their own.

The problem I have is teaching this in school, it has to be optional as it can be very emotive and equal teaching time must be given to other theories...which should also be optional.
Origins of the earth should perhaps be left out of the curriculum, when children are old enough and curious about it they'll read up on it themselves.

I hate having religion pushed down my neck though, preachy evangelists of any subject deserve a punch in the face.

Ro5ey - Member

Woppit ... no not for you, we get it.

I'd be grateful if you'd explain how

live here and now and I'm signed up to the "everything" humanly possible God/Thor/Budda/Santa has a hand in it.... my life is better for the faith I have and the life of those close to me is better for it (my faith) and hopefully those I met...

... is [i]evidence[/i] of anything other than "I've decided to abandon rational objectivity in favour of unproven fairy-stories"...

I hate having religion pushed down my neck though, preachy evangelists of any subject deserve a [s] punch [/s] tickle in the face.

FIFY

Woppit... "we get it", that you don't believe in God.

Whic ??

Mike .. "people claiming God intervened" there is, I haven't. Again I can speak for every one... what does your Mrs think ?

She's a very wooly liberal Anglican, who doesn't like religion. So, something about being lovely and helping people.

Ro5ey - Member

Woppit... "we get it", that you don't believe in God.

Oh, I see. IBYP.

So tell me. What does god look like? What colour is it?

"I hate having religion pushed down my neck though, preachy evangelists of any subject deserve a punch in the face."

Nice... peace be with you brother 😆

I hate having religion pushed down my neck though, preachy evangelists of any subject deserve a punch in the face.

I hate anyone trying to force their opinion on me, be it through evangelism or violence.

I dislike hate.

Oh Woppit that easy....

All the colours of the rainbow my friend. All the colours and a shinning light all rolled into one 😆 😆

Your Happy Clappy friend

Mr Woppit - Member

Ro5ey - Member

Woppit... "we get it", that you don't believe in God.

Oh, I see. IBYP.

So tell me. What does god look like? What colour is it?

miketually - Member

I dislike hate.

I hate dislike, so wishy washy.

Mike ... I like the sound of her 🙂

so wishy washy.

What does god look like? What colour is it?

All the colour of the rainbow my friend. All the colours and a shinning light all rolled into one

You just got owned Mr Woppit.

Ro5ey - Member

Oh Woppit that easy....

All the colour of the rainbow my friend. All the colours and a shinning light all rolled into one

You have been having a hallucination. Possibly temporal lobe epilepsy, a recognised condition that produces experiences of the type that you describe.

"I hate having religion pushed down my neck though, preachy evangelists of any subject deserve a punch in the face."

god deserves a punch in the face - if there is one...

All the colours of the rainbow my friend. All the colours and a shinning light all rolled into one

So, God is white? I always thought he'd be quite dusky, like Jesus.

Also see:

... an experience that can also be replicated by taking drugs...

😆

There you go ... taking things oh so literally.

Yeah mike he's got a beard and everything 😀

[b]TurnerGuy[/b] just punch your fist in the air - remember, He is omnipresent 😉

Ro5ey - Member

There you go ... taking things oh so literally.

Yeah mike he's got a beard and everything

Oh I see, so I notice that you have no actual answer to the question, then.

I struggle with long sentences - have we got a definitive answer as to who is right..?

is it the god botherers or the scienceologists...?

Have to say Ro5ey is fast becoming one of my favourite STW people.

There you go ... taking things oh so literally.

Yeah mike he's got a beard and everything

I know, some Italian bloke painted a picture on a ceiling.

He's a good dancer.

Apparently dinosaurs were put there by god to test our faith

I have my first disciple !!

I'm on my way, Hallelujah

Now where are all those rich hollywood celebs

😆

It's been fun guys... Peace, outta here

I have my first disciple !!

That's so important. You are now no longer a lone nut:

Evolution is compatible with intelligent design, since the designer could have just set up the initial conditions and let it happen. No-one knows why there was a big bang after all.

Ah - so God wound it up and let it go, and then evolution took over. And which God was that exactly?

I said 'designer' not God.

Intelligent design isn't the same as religion, which isn't the same as creationism.

Intelligent design says that some intelligent thing created the universe in some way or other. We could all be the result of some other civilisation's large hadron collider experiment, or the contents of a really big petri dish. Or we could all be in the Matrix. Those are intelligent design ideas.

Creationism insists that the world was created exactly as it is now by God as per Genesis.

Religion can run anywhere between these ideas, or neither of them.

What does god look like? What colour is it?

Hah.. n00b. What colour is an electron? What does it look like? What's that, you don't know? They must not exist then!

Molly you are a scientist I dont know why you do this.

What's being a scientist got to do with it? The world is full of ideas, some have merit, some do not. A lot of people don't really give a shit about how the universe was created.

We could all be the result of some other civilisation's large hadron collider experiment, or the contents of a really big petri dish. Or we could all be in the Matrix. Those are intelligent design ideas.

Nah, they're way older than that but not incompatable with ID

Intelligent design isn't the same as religion, which isn't the same as creationism.

True to an extent, but intelligent design was invented by religious creationists as a back door way of getting religious ideas taught in American schools.

So's gravity. Do you ever feel like just floating off?

I've missed a few posts, but i'm loving this theory of gravity, could someone explain it to me?

Naah man, it's too much of a downer to talk about.

I've missed a few posts, but i'm loving this theory of gravity, could someone explain it to me?

Apparently you could escape Deimos with a bike and a ramp:

[img] [/img]

[url= http://xkcd.com/681_large/ ]Link[/url]

Hah.. n00b. What colour is an electron? What does it look like? What's that, you don't know? They must not exist then!

Good point.

Very good, actually. 🙂

Well, that's 2 noes sofar then

Is the OP claiming as absolute certainty that their evolutionary viewpoint is right?
In practice, evolution is neither fact nor theory.
A theory is a well-supported, but falsifiable, body of interconnected statements that has explanatory and predictive power. For instance, gravity has observable "how" effects although there is great divergence in current, eminent, scholarly opinion when it comes to explaining gravity's "whys".
Evolution, does not fit this definition because it is assumed prior to the research being conducted and because it assumes many one-time events that can neither be tested nor verified (nor have eye-witness confirmation).
Evolutionists fit all evidence into the framework of evolutionary naturalism (the belief that there are no supernatural causes). As a corollary to this, evolution cannot be used to make predictions because all results are filtered through the prior belief in evolution.
Evolution is better referred to as a tenet of naturalistic philosophy or humanism (a belief system).
Most evolutionists presuppose a worldview that demands the removal of any supernatural agents acting in a knowable way (e.g., miracles, special creation). Calling it a theory and/or fact is a disingenuous attempt to hide the underlying beliefs and to discourage debate by ridiculing those who disagree.
QED "Creationist religious nutjob"
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.
The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. (C S Lewis)

True to an extent, but intelligent design was invented by religious creationists

Ok, then who invented religous creationists!

The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. (C S Lewis)

But a bit like the wave/particle duality - it can be one or either depending on your viewpoint with neither being the 'correct' one

True to an extent, but intelligent design was invented by religious creationists as a back door way of getting religious ideas taught in American schools.

Well not entirely. It also applies to those people who think the world is an alien experiment.

Good point

Thanks, but there's actually several points in there.

1 - electrons are too small to 'look' like anything or have colour. They still exist. Therefore, the 'can you see it' argument is not a good one.

2 - You can never perceive them directly, but they still exist. We know this because of secondary evidence that they exist.

3 - Most likely you have not done these experiments yourself anyway, so you are taking other peoples' word for it.

Now you should be able to see the parallels with the religious arguments there.

9 pages in 7 hours! A new stw record surely

And if I may, 3 'undred

What's being a scientist got to do with it? The world is full of ideas, some have merit, some do not

Do you really have no idea what science would have to do with working out whether creationism is true or has merit 😯

Now you should be able to see the parallels with the religious arguments there.

Ah yes, but "electrons" can be demonstrated to exist by the effects they produce, no? As part of a larger chain of cause and effect that can also be demonstrated. Unlike a "supernatural" being.

I could, I suppose, visit the LHC and do a course in physics to fully understand what people like the lovely Dr Cox are doing there - but it certainly looks and sounds (from what I've read and seen/heard) to be a great deal more solid than "god did it" (invented by people who had barely got beyond inventing the wheel)TBH...

Ok, then who invented religous creationists!

They're an evolutionary backwater:
The duck billed platypuses of the religious world. 😐

However CS Lewis did not have the ability to test DNA as we do now. If we had no fossils at all, evolution is completely proven in the DNA. It's as solid a theory as any in the scientific sense of the word and no amount of semantics can change that. Evolution is, without doubt, a fact.

Well not entirely. It also applies to those people who think the world is an alien experiment.

But we don't take those nutters seriously 😉

But we don't take those nutters seriously

What ever happened to Kaesae?

In practice, evolution is neither fact nor theory.

Wrong. Evolution is a fact and has been observed in a laboratory.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

Oops.....I listened to the program on my drive to work and gave no real thought to the thread or how it would pan out, i thought perhaps a few folk on here would listen to the R4 program as i know there is a healthy distrust of religion amongst most of us on this forum but i did not expect the thread to turn into such a behemoth...Oh well....glad i could give you's all something to discuss t'day. I'd better head back to page 1 to read through the responses and see how the arguments evolved over the course of the day, kind'a like what that darwin chap mentioned in his book 150 odd years ago, you know the one i'm meaning.....something bout' evolution 😀

To get back to the original discussion I read up on the chappie who was on the radio this morning. While I don't really care about his wacko views about the creation of the world, since most people will consider him off his rocker, I think he's really clueless in his pontificating on depression. Apparently its the depressed persons fault based on their pride. Idiot.

Needless to say he thinks that all you have to do is the usual happy flappy clappy stuff to cure yourself.

I am at a loss to understand why he was on the radio though. Should anyone with bizarre views be asked to come on the radio, perhaps fixie owners?

Wow! That filled what promised to be a pretty dull train journey home from London.

Religion is just mankind's way to communicate with the weather (or god).

Nine pages of debate. I wonder if as many people actually heard the programme?

I did. It was a truly surreal experience. I learned that the earth is at the centre of the universe and that the alleged creator of the universe talks to people in cars.

The programme seemed to be about people who believe things regardless of society. The previous ones were informative. This one was not.

He does have form as a self-publicist and received a huge amount of flak for it, especially from Christians: [url= http://www.4thought.tv/themes/is-faith-a-remedy-for-depression/malcolm-bowden ]channel 4 [/url]

I am at a loss to understand why he was on the radio though.

A lot of this is properly over my head but I'll throw this into the ring:

Pretty much every world religion (and "no religion") is represented in my "lifelong friends" (I grew up in Luton, nice and mixed bag, I believe they call it multiculturalism or something) group.

The media only ever report on the tiny, tiny percentage of nutcases who do bad things in the name of religion, and never on the vast majority for whom religion provides a set of pretty decent moral guidelines on how to lead a decent life. There will always be a few wronguns, and if they don't use religion to justify bad and misguided acts, it's colour, immigration, politics or something else. A nutcase will latch onto something and use it as a crutch to justify what they do.

You may or may not agree with some geezer on Radio 4 who believes in creationism, but you know what, if his beliefs don't hurt anyone and help him live a better life and guide him to be a better man, who are we to judge?

as i know there is a healthy distrust of religion amongst most of us on this forum

No...
Never! 😆

If it was the same chap who was on the Nicky Campbell thing, he gives Christians a bad name.

a satanist !!

[i]a satanist !! [/i]

worse.

He's a Pentecostalist.

😉

I think andyrm has just posted the most sensible thing I've read on here all day.

molgrips:

Hah.. n00b. What colour is an electron? What does it look like? What's that, you don't know? They must not exist then!

I have conducted experiments which provide very strong evidence for the presence of negatively charged sub atomic particles. I will join with convention and call them electrons.

Now, what do you mean by what colour are they? When we refer to the colour of light we mean its wavelength - I've measured the wavelength of electrons, it is outside of the wavelength perceptible to the human eye. Also, in the widely accepted understanding of molecular structure, nothing would have colour without electrons absorbing light and transitioning from one state to another.

It would appear others have determined that they are spherical: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13545453