evolution/creationism

Geronimo. I think you'll find that Islam as a religion believes that all things on earth are created as a problem for humans to find a solution to. Infact in the infancy of this religion there were many scientific discoveries made and built from the greek and roman philosiphers (namely human physiology). Shame times have changed really.

God damn it lifer. Can't you go and do some accounting? 😯

I do not object to people believing what they want. It's the acting on those beliefs I object to. I do object to religion and creationism being taught in schools, unless as a form of secularist observation, with lots of ridicule thrown in.

I agree with you all the way up til the ridicule part. I don't believe in ridiculing people. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of ridicule for my (non-religious) beliefs and my personality over the years, and it's very unpleasant, and very unnecessary. Just a nasty way of getting a cheap laugh at someone else's expense tbh.

So ratinalising something does exist beause its the only way to complete this model and then not finding it

A lot of scientific enquiry has been about looking for patterns. If you have a sequence of A, B, C, and E (not the actual letters of course) then you could surmise pretty strongly that D exists. In the case of the standard model, we had about half the alphabet as a hypothesis, and we then looked for and found almost all the rest, with a few exceptions. So it is quite reasonable to work with the assumption that the rules that have been vindicated dozens of times should be able to deliver the last piece of the puzzle. Of course it's not guaranteed that we'll find it, and the model may well have to be revised. And scientists are well aware of this.

Contrary to popular belief, scientists are not stupid. Plus, they've spent their careers learning about and thinking about this, not just an afternoon on an internet forum.

alex: say you have some jigsaw pieces and someone examines those pieces and the relationships between them and proposes a theory that the jigsaw is square. Using that theory you are then able to successfully find all the other pieces except one corner piece.

Logic then dictates that the missing corner piece is worth looking for.

If you find it then the "square jigsaw" theory is further reinforced.

If you find something else then it might give you the insight to revise the theory and find loads more stuff.

If you don't find it then you might expose a flaw in the theory that forces it to be re-examined.

Either way it is a win and no close-mindedness or unquestioning faith is required.

Right what have I missed;

Toy's toys have left the pram! Did I upset you?

Stoners pragmatism is pretty wise. I would be tempted to take it a step further, lose the freind, can you really have any respect for someone who is either:

a) clearly your intellectual inferior
b) mentally ill and danger to you and yours
c) probably both

Unless of course you want to keep the friend for the purpose of wheeling out at parties and doing a bit of baiting. But keep Stoners advice in mind, never trust anything they say or do again.

I do not object to people believing what they want. It's the acting on those beliefs I object to.

Axe to grind have we? (Oh yes,you point that out later on)

As I said before,live and let live.

It's like this;I respect your Atheism,that is your choice.I do not accept your statement that anybody religious is mentally ill and should be brought out as an object of ridicule.Of course for calling you to task for the first post,and pointing out the typo,I am a rank hypocrite who has insulted you.I will take that tag,you poor sensitive soul.

Another thing to remember about scientists is that they are not one single body ruled by a supposedly infallible leader whose job it is to deliver unequivocal statements about the nature of the world, and what we should all be doing.

So there will clearly be many cases where there is a lack of consensus, and that is a good thing. Not a sign of weakness.

Look I'm not saying that its wrong I'm just playing devils advocate. I for one do believe that quantum physics and super string theory (M theory) give answers to alot of questions. I do believe that the higgs boson does exist somewhere. I was just drawing parallels with religion because there are some. Explaining the unexplainable blah blah blah. Just find it hard to believe that 'open minded' people could be so dismissive of something that there can be no proof of. I also find it funny how people blame all the wars in the world on religion but fail to see how science has delivered the killing envelope. Unfortunately or fortunately science and religion are tied with the same string. They both serve a similar purpose just one is alot older and hence the dogma attached is harder to break. There is and I stand by this I also think that this thread has proven it scientific dogma. All I was trying to point out is that there is at times little divergence between the two. However much some people want there to be.

Just found this reading back:

I'm not religious, but I can't see why anyone who is would worry about evolution being some sort of threat to religion, because it isn't.

It's a thread to dogma, and claims of biblical inerrancy, hence to some people's authority. That's why some people are upset about it. Plus to be honest it's all been blown out of proportion somewhat.

Alex222s grasp of science and theology is a lot better than his/her grasp of punctuation 🙂

I'll take that as a compliment.

I for one do believe that quantum physics and super string theory (M theory) give answers to alot of questions. I do believe that the higgs boson does exist somewhere. I was just drawing parallels with religion because there are some. Explaining the unexplainable blah blah blah.

The difference is the approach to explaining the unexplainable. GrahamS has given a very good analogy for how it works in science. Where is the parallel with religion here?

Just find it hard to believe that 'open minded' people could be so dismissive of something that there can be no proof of

Well, OK, but this is what the Flying Spegahetti Monster and Russell's Teapot are about, aren't they?

Its starting again. God is just a word to describe something beyond description. You call it flying cleg nut and the robotic soul cocktail mixer or whatever the name doesn't matter. This is why that argument is irrelevant. Maybe this imaginary thing flying round some people call god is called the higgs boson by other people?

That's not really what the teapot and FSM are about. How do you get through life being open minded about everything and not dismissing anything, even when those things are strongly at odds with your knowledge/model/theory of how the world works?

But important enough to build a big ol' tunnel in the ground and nearly bring about the end of the world looking for it. Didn't they nearly create a black hole or something? Quite scary this science stuff…

But how close has the world come to destruction over dogma, be it political or religious. Makes a change for science to threaten the world on its own account and not as a adjunct to some other method.

As for the bible, the bible we have is not the whole "bible" it is a collection of books assembled in the 4th century i believe, this is where the gnostic gospels come in. I would say that the bible is true in the same way as the Times or Guardian provide the truth. They reflect the truth according to one world view. Obviously the difference is that a newspaper is produced at the time, the bible was written tens if not hundreds of years after the events it tells.

Finally even genesis has some truth in it, there evidence of the flood, and it is a common story through Babylon and beyond. The bible was written by semitic peoples with a world in the middle east, there was no Australia, no Americas, the world was the middle east.

As for Human intelligence, look at the story of Easter Island and weep for the future of the human race, there is no future as we now know it.

Maybe this imaginary thing flying round some people call god is called the higgs boson by other people?

Perhaps. But if Higgs Boson is God then it differs pretty significantly from the god you describe here.

Specifically it turns out that God is an elementary particle forming a component of a Higgs field, rather than an invisible super hero that lives in the sky.

If we're going to be that obtuse then it is equally likely that what I call "my cat" is actually God.

And I don't have a cat. It's imaginary.

I don't think I ever described god. I think your being facetious. Or is it me being facetious?

But how close has the world come to destruction over dogma, be it political or religious. Makes a change for science to threaten the world on its own account and not as a adjunct to some other method.

No but science did invent the atom bomb, the gun, the process for making steel from iron, the jet engine, intercontinental ballistic missile. Just because the war is in the name of religion doesn't mean science hasn't made the people die.

Let's assume for the moment that there is a God. Do we believe that he is just the God of Earth, or does he perhaps run our galaxy?

Maybe he created the whole universe? Is that what Christians believe, he did the whole heaven and earth thing? Because if that's the case, he created an estimated billion galaxies each with an estimated billion stars and planet systems within each one. He then populated at least one planet out of all of those with six billion people (at any one time) and countless other amazing things.

If that's true, does anyone really think that he's got the desire, time or inclination to give a shit whether we look after each other or not.

We're each here for a blink of an eye, in a tiny outpost in the universe. I can't imagine anybody is so arrogant to assume that they have any importance in God's to do list.

very concise and well put. I guess some of thagt is what I was trying to say.

Let's assume for the moment that there is a God

let's not stop at one – it might be lonely…

But how close has the world come to destruction over dogma

Nowhere near as close as if they'd make that black hole they were threatening 😯

We're each here for a blink of an eye, in a tiny outpost in the universe. I can't imagine anybody is so arrogant to assume that they have any importance in God's to do list.

That's the whole point about God. That He can love everyone personally despite there being 6bn or perhaps trillions of times more of us. Cos he's a supreme being, see? Why impose arbitrary limitations on what He could do or the way He might behave?

Some of you people are just not getting it. For the majority, religion is not about who or what created the world, it's about the idea that above all of the crap of every day life, there is someone or something that loves you unconditionally and will look after you ultimately, even when you die miserably.

I don't think I ever described god. I think your being facetious. Or is it me being facetious?

Once you start saying things like 'maybe God is the universe' you're not talking about anything anymore. Sure it's big and mystical sounding but it's just noise. All it's doing is trying to make people's sky fairy beliefs look a little less shaky.

No but science did invent the atom bomb, the gun, the process for making steel from iron, the jet engine, intercontinental ballistic missile. Just because the war is in the name of religion doesn't mean science hasn't made the people die.

science made these things, but why? because politicians wanted them. why do we have jet aircraft, to kill people quicker. science has not changed anything, the wars would have happened, just taken longer to kill people. Look at history, look at the remains of the iron age brits slashed to death by the romans, do you think the norman conquest wouldn't have happened if there had been no bows? People kill people, and people like killing people.

chimps kill without the need for weapons.

deadlydarcy, cuban missile crisis, can't get much closer than that.

and to quote voltaire

"if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him"

why? control.

In those terms then both science and religion are creations of man. Both the manifestation of man wanting to rationalise and explain that which is around him. Like I said earlier both tied by the same rope.

I heard this once and I liked it "is god as much a creation of man as man is a creation of god?"

I also heard this "To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant"

I think that they sum it up along with mrmo quote quite nicely.

Interesting molgrips.

But maybe some religious folk aren't getting it either. He goes through all of this effort to create life and give you the oportunity to live it (by way of miracle), and all you can think is:

it's about the idea that above all of the crap of every day life, there is someone or something that loves you unconditionally and will look after you ultimately, even when you die miserably.

If I was him I'd wonder why I bothered.

Once you start saying things like 'maybe God is the universe' you're not talking about anything anymore. Sure it's big and mystical sounding but it's just noise. All it's doing is trying to make people's sky fairy beliefs look a little less shaky.

I don't actually believe in god like I've said before I'm playing devils advocate. I don't think its a far stretch to say it though. God is dark matter/the universe/higgs boson/the reason gravity is such a weak force/human suffering/greed/envy/lust. You get the idea.

I don't actually believe in god like I've said before I'm playing devils advocate. I don't think its a far stretch to say it though. God is dark matter/the universe/higgs boson/the reason gravity is such a weak force/human suffering/greed/envy/lust. You get the idea.

I see what you're saying, but it just seems that in justifying some belief in some God you've simultaneously made it/Him totally redundant.

Yup thats pretty much it.

No sorry, but outside of a particularly lucid trip you can't really claim that god is the omnipotent creator of all things, who watches over us all with unquestioning love and forgiveness, who sent his only son to die for our sins; OR he might actually be something to do with a top quark anti-quark pairing in theoretical physics.

Besides, I thought it was the Devil that was in the details?

Who actually said that?

When it comes down to it, people believe in a god because they want to, despite the lack of any evidence and choose to ignore inconvenient discoveries made by mankind.

They adhere to (some of)the rules of a religion for a one or more of the following:

indoctrinated fear('what if it just might be true?')
A feeling of helplessness
Belonging to a social group

indoctrinated fear('what if it just might be true?')
A feeling of helplessness
Belonging to a social group

Just like being a member of the stw forum then? 😀

But maybe some religious folk aren't getting it either.

Quite possibly 🙂

you can't really claim that god is the omnipotent creator of all things, who watches over us all with unquestioning love and forgiveness, who sent his only son to die for our sins

Sure you can!

And remember – other people's criteria for belief are not necessarily the same as yours. That's all it boils down to, and is impossible to overturn without straying into the area of ramming your beliefs down someone else's throat. Scientist OR religionist!

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant"

or even: "To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the informed" 🙂

Bloody hell Andy, you've stirred them up good & proper! 😀

Kinda quoting me out of context there molgrips.

The point of the statement is that folk can't really expect to be taken seriously if they say "Yeah He's this big ghost with a beard and sandals who created everything" and then point to some obscure theoretical particle physics and say "Look there he is!"

Why not Graham? You don't have to actually think that the world was created in seven days do you? I mean one of gods days could be around a billion of our years.