DK's and religion

[Chayesh]

Heh...like I needed help with that.

[Goomf]

Well you don't count. Only people with interesting things to say who make sense counts

[Celerity]

It would take quite a long time for me to explain my beliefs on Genesis' date=' as they're not in the majority of Christians. .... If you want a website of some people that believe similarly to me (scientists and astronomers), www.reasons.org is an excellent one.

"Creation Science is a branch of creationism that aims to reconcile modern science with a creationist worldview. Advocates of Creation Science believe that scientific evidence best supports the Biblical account of creation. The scientific status of Creation Science is disputed by most of the scientific community as pseudoscience because Creation Science begins with a desired answer and attempts to interpret all evidence to fit in with this predetermined conclusion. According to the methodological demarcation principle of the rationalistic falsificationism, profoundly justified by Karl Popper as a philosophy of science and broadly supported by scientists, scientific investigation must formulate only falsifiable theories. Scientists see this as in direct conflict with creationist's assumption that the literal interpretation of the bible is absolutely true and cannot be refuted even in principle."

My point with hearsay is that if 5.3 billion people believe in the spiritual (the approximate total of all religious people in the world), and you do not, perhaps you are the one in error. It is true that majority does not make you correct, but neither does minority, especially with something that every person can experience themselves.

99.9999999% of people 5000 years ago believed that stars were not burning balls of gas. This isn't a game of how many people believe what, but a question of accuracy.

I am talking of the senile, those who have less value than a child, and are as hard or harder to keep alive.

Once more, just because they don't have a value to the mass society, doesn't mean they lack value completely. Apparently somebody thinks they should be alive. Being secular has nothing to do with being an extreme survivalist with the only goal of progress and efficiency. Secularism is a lack of religion, that's it.

The problem with your ethics are that a government has the ability to remove rights if they do not come from an authority above the government. Our Constitution states that we are endowed by our "Creator" with our rights. If rights come from the government, then the government can remove them. If they come from G-d, they cannot. The result of a government that can take rights away is the USSR, North Korea, China, etc.

Well, that is if the rights come from the government. The countries you are thinking of (Canada, Australia, etc) all have rights that come from the people, not the government. Being secular does not mean that you are totalitarian, liberal, democratic, or communist. It means a lack of religion in the government. You can be any of those and be secular or nonsecular. The accountability of (canada, australia, etc) derives from a system of checks and balances, not Christian ideals. This can be seen easily because governments were NOT accountable to the people (including Christian governments) until such a system was devised (tons of stages..back from greece..britain..all the way up in the western system).

Any government can and will take away PRIVLEDGES. They can also grant them. Once more, this has nothing to do with being secular or not. The only accountable rights (in the US gov.) come from the consititution, not from the Bible.

The reason this results is that even if you have good men leading the country, once they remove a right, it is gone, and in the future you do not have that right. This is why you end up with forced abortions in China, gulags in the USSR, and murders of religious Koreans in Pyongyang.

You can say that about ANY government..inquisition..patriot act..anything.

The problem is that you are assuming a more powerful person who can enforce your right to property. What happens if I want, for example, to have sex with a pretty girl? I am 6'0", in great shape, and a black belt in Taekwon-do. A tiny percentage of women would even have a chance against me in combat. Does that mean that I have to right to have sex with any of them since they can't slap me around? In my moral system, obviously not. In yours, their only defense is to enforce their morality themselves which they would be incapable of doing, or hire a big man who is stronger, faster, and more skilled than me, which merely becomes an arms race.

You are describing anarchy, not secularism. You can have any form of government (except theocracy I guess) in a secular way. With ANY degree of accountability to the people, system, whatever. That means they can have police, jails, laws, courts, etc. In the first one, you were describing giant secular states (PRC, USSR), but now you define it as anarchy?

I'm not sure where you got the figures that most scientists agree with creationism.

The American Physical Society's governing Council has long expressed its opposition to the inclusion of religious concepts such as intelligent design and related forms of creationism in science classes. [11] APS is the world's largest professional body of physicists, representing over 43,000 physicists in academia and industry in the US and internationally.

The Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society supports "evolution as the only scientifically accepted explanation for the origin and diversity of species." [10]

The American Geophysical Union states that "Earth History and the Evolution of Life Must Be Taught: Creationism Is Not Science," thus the AGU "opposes all efforts to require or promote teaching creationism or any other religious tenets as science." [9] In addition, the American Geological Institute, the Association for Women Geoscientists, the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and The Society for Organic Petrology all have position statements supporting the teaching of evolution and opposing the teaching of non-scientific ideas

The American Astronomical Society supports teaching evolution, noting that many astronomical observations show changes in the universe over a long period of time consistent with evolution. They state that "'Intelligent Design' fails to meet the basic definition of a scientific idea" and "does not belong in the science curriculum." [8]

The United States National Academy of Sciences has made a number of statements opposing creationism. They state, "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." [3]

[Behrens]

Celerity, you are attacking a position on Creation that I don't hold. Read what I say before attacking it.

My point is not that scientific advance does not invalidate previous belief, that's commonly known. Even if 100% of the scientific community believed that I was wrong, that would not make them right, but on the Internet, appeals to authority are all we have. Even if I was a leading scientist in cosmology and astrological origins, which I am not, there would be no way for me to confirm that, so we have to go with published papers. I am not saying that a majority of scientists believe as I do, I am saying a majority of humanity believes in the spiritual. Since spirituality is something that each person can observe for himself, you are assuming that the vast majority of humanity is delusional.

Secularism isn't merely a lack of religion, it is a religion of its own, which has as its core tenets that reason is the foundation of everything, and that there is nothing that cannot be explained by reason. It is a materialist religion.

My point is not that there are not secular governments with decent values, my point is that where your rights come from matters, because a government cannot take a G-d given right, but can take a secularly derived right. Our Declaration of Independance states where our rights come from, and it isn't the Constitution.

[Pali]

Religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Secularism: the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element.

Secularism is the REJECTION of religion, it is not a religion itself.

[Chayesh]

"Creation Science is a branch of creationism that aims to reconcile modern science with a creationist worldview. Advocates of Creation Science believe that scientific evidence best supports the Biblical account of creation. The scientific status of Creation Science is disputed by most of the scientific community as pseudoscience because Creation Science begins with a desired answer and attempts to interpret all evidence to fit in with this predetermined conclusion. According to the methodological demarcation principle of the rationalistic falsificationism, profoundly justified by Karl Popper as a philosophy of science and broadly supported by scientists, scientific investigation must formulate only falsifiable theories. Scientists see this as in direct conflict with creationist's assumption that the literal interpretation of the bible is absolutely true and cannot be refuted even in principle."

99.9999999% of people 5000 years ago believed that stars were not burning balls of gas. This isn't a game of how many people believe what, but a question of accuracy.

Popular science in the 15th century insisted that the world was flat.

The Bible states that it is round.

Additionally, evolution is not science either, as it is nothing more than an unproven and unsubstantiated hypothesis, hence its name the theory of evolution. Personally, I think science is itself guilty from the same thing you claim creation scientists are doing, that is, shaping unrelated incidences in nature that fit their assumption that there is no God, i.e. they ignore scientific method in search of any (and I do mean any, regardless of the ludicrous nature of it) explanation they can craft that writes God out of the script. By the definitions you provide from various groups of scientists, evolution doesn't meet the standard of criteria for science either, nor does it operate within the realm of the governing laws of the physical universe, in addition to lacking any viable evidence that hasn't been disproven as complete falsification.

Order does not happen by accident. Design complexity is not a random occurrence. The intricacy of biological design and systems found throught nature more than point to a Designer, they scream it.

[Pali]

Every time I hear someone say evolution is not science, I burst out laughing. Evolution is the most backed up scientific theory in the world. It ties into every branch of science, from geology to molecular biology to physics to chemistry, all of which support it. Yeah, it's a theory. EVERYTHING in science is a theory. A scientific theory is a hypothesis that fits all observable data and has been tested time and again. Evolution has passed all those tests, makes predictions that are found accurate, and is considered among scientists to be the most solid theory that we have. The MECHANISM of evolution (natural selection) is the only place where there is any real controversy in the scientific arena, and that controversy is whether it was natural selection or some other form of selection that played a primary role. If evolution was a weak theory, it'd have been disproven years ago. People continue to test it now because if someone could scientifically disprove evolution, he'd have just written himself into the history books. There's a reason that doesn't happen.

[Behrens]

Evolution is the most backed up scientific theory in the world.

Sorry, but this statement is just plain wrong, at all levels. The most backed up theory is probably gravitation, but relativity is another good candidate. I'm all for internet hyperbole, but let's keep this on a realistic plane.

[Pali]

You're correct, I should have put "one of the most backed up theories", not "the single most". That doesn't stop me from being right in that in the scientific community, there is almost zero debate that evolution happens. There's debate over how, but that it happens is accepted pretty much as fact in science.

[Celerity]

Well..relativity found that gravity wasn't exactly what we thought it was so...................

Celerity, you are attacking a position on Creation that I don't hold. Read what I say before attacking it.

I'm attacking reasons.org, which is a site you stated as sharing your beliefs.

This is reasons.org's statement of purpose:

"Founded in 1986, Reasons To Believe is an international, interdenominational ministry established to communicate the uniquely factual basis for belief in the Bible as the error-free Word of God and for personal faith in Jesus Christ as Creator and Savior. "

Falls right in line to what I've said...The most important part of my response to this kind of argument is this: The scientific status of Creation Science is disputed by most of the scientific community as pseudoscience because Creation Science begins with a desired answer and attempts to interpret all evidence to fit in with this predetermined conclusion.

I am not saying that a majority of scientists believe as I do, I am saying a majority of humanity believes in the spiritual.

You are using a 'scientific' approach to attack my statements. If you want to say that this is what you believe...JUST BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IT...that is fine and nobody will stop you. Once you try to qualify your beliefs to others, you have to have back up for it. That back up MUST come through scientific reasoning to be seriously considered.

Ex. You can say: I believe the world was made in seven days. You are entitled to that belief. When you try to PROVE that belief (or say that it is better than some other belief), you need to have evidence for it...this is the role of the scientific community.

my point is that where your rights come from matters, because a government cannot take a G-d given right

A government CAN do that, but it would not be a secular government.

but can take a secularly derived right

Secular or nonsecular governments can (and will/have) do this.

Our Declaration of Independance states where our rights come from, and it isn't the Constitution.

I think our declaration of independence stated our...intention to become independent from Britain. The rights of the people (used today) can be found in the constitution.

Secularism isn't merely a lack of religion

That is exactly what it is...

it is a religion of its own

That is contradictory to the definition...

which has as its core tenets that reason is the foundation of everything, and that there is nothing that cannot be explained by reason.

This is a scientific philosophy, not secular.

It is a materialist religion.

That would be Catholicism...scientology...etc

[evolution]nor does it operate within the realm of the governing laws of the physical universe, in addition to lacking any viable evidence that hasn't been disproven as complete falsification.

Err..what laws does it violate? That is a MAJOR statement there. Lacking ANY evidence whatsoever?

Additionally, evolution is not science either, as it is nothing more than an unproven and unsubstantiated hypothesis,

This has got to be a joke, right?

For a quick intro into the evidence behind evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#Evidence_of_evolution

Popular science in the 15th century insisted that the world was flat.

The Bible states that it is round.

Exactly..just because the majority thinks something, doesn't mean it is correct. It can be, of course.

edit: also important:

Starting with the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, the modern science of evolution has been a source of nearly constant controversy. In general, controversy has centered on the philosophical, cosmological, social, and religious implications of evolution, not on the science of evolution itself. The proposition that biological evolution occurs through the mechanism of natural selection has been almost completely uncontested within the scientific community for much of the 20th century.

[Pali]

Celerity, you will find the idea that evolution is a hack theory that has no basis is VERY popular with the very religious. I've had that thrown at me in more religious debates than I can remember, and it's always funny to show them just how wrong they are.

[Behrens]

Define terms, and let's discuss.

1. Adaptation: The increase or decrease of specific traits to more ably fit an environment. For example, the ability of European humans to digest milk, a more common part of their diet, is missing in most Asiatic peoples.

2. Evolution: The change of one species into another by the process of a series of adaptations over time.

The problem with evolution is that it has never been observed. We can see different species in fossil layers, and many smart scientists assume that adaptation occured at a high enough rate to create evolution. However, there has never been a record of a species shifting to a new species. The reason is that mutation, the only method of introducting new genomic signatures into a population, is too slow, and has a high rate of introducing lethal variables. The only way that evolution is possible is if there are high burst periods of increased mutation and decreased lethality of mutation. However, there is no way to know the mutation rate at any time in the past, since genetic composition is not preserved in fossils.

Steven Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed a new system to deal with this problem, called punctuated equilibrium, which states that small "side populations" could experience more rapid change than the general population, thus splitting a new species. The problem with this is its testability. We have never observed such a split, and until we do, this is no more than raw hypothesis.

[Celerity]

We can see different species in fossil layers, and many smart scientists assume that adaptation occured at a high enough rate to create evolution.

The rate of adaptation doesn't have to do with the 'creation' of evolution. Like it said, evolution (creation of a species) happens when there have been enough adaptations to differentiate it from other species. This can take a VERY long time, or happen literally overnight. To deny evolution on scientific grounds is to deny that species change and adapt over time.

However, there is no way to know the mutation rate at any time in the past, since genetic composition is not preserved in fossils.

Once again, the rate isn't that important.

In your example of adaptation, you use this: the ability of European humans to digest milk, a more common part of their diet, is missing in most Asiatic peoples.

If enough of these adaptations (a LOT) happen, you will see a new species. Since these adaptations DO happen (we see them) and adaptations happen on top of other adaptations (we see this too), this is very strong evidence to say that the chain can continue to the point of a new species. Besides, we create new species(strands) all the time. This is what genetic engineering is all about.

However, there is no way to know the mutation rate at any time in the past, since genetic composition is not preserved in fossils.

The DNA isn't usually preserved, but the results are (fossils, etc).

Once again, have a look at the evidence for evolution on that website..this is ALL explained there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...e_of_evolution

[Behrens]

Quick question, as I don't have time right now to do a full post (I promise I will later).

What set of data could falsify evolution, as you see it? If it is a scientific theory, it has to make predictions, which we can compare against reality.

For example, the theory of special relativity claims that no object of finite, non-zero mass can travel at the speed of light, and that no object of non-imaginary mass can travel faster than light. Should we find such an object, we would falsify special relativity.

What object or set of data would falsify evolution?

Note: I know that I don't accept that G-d can be falsified. I believe He is beyond science, so please don't drift into that area, the question is specific.

[Pali]

Dogs did not exist ten thousand years ago. They started to exist when domesticated wolves started being bred for certain qualities, and the various different species of dogs started appearing. That's evolution right there. It's not evolution by natural selection, it's evolution by artificial selection, but it's still evolution. The banana, corn, all these did not exist in their current incarnation until artificial selection caused such to begin appearing through evolution.

And yes, direct evolution from one species into another (among higher lifeforms) has never been observed (we see it all the time with bacteria/viruses). This is not a surprise. In the case of complex higher life-forms, this generally takes a few thousand years. How long has humanity even had agriculture? Oh yeah... a few thousand years. Humanity has been around for an eyeblink of this planet's history. Saying "We haven't seen it therefore it didn't happen" is like saying "It wasn't a meteor that killed the dinosaurs because nobody saw it happen" despite the massive amount of current evidence that it did.

EDIT: As for what could falsify evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html has a nice long list of predictions evolution makes and ways it could be found wrong.

[goldbond]

pretty much all biologists or biology related-field scientists who are also christian automatically acknowledge the majority of the theory of evolution.

genetic drift, and speciation (to a certain degree).

all you have to do is observe any plant's polyploid state (multiple sets of chromosomes residing in the same nucleus) and observe that plant species' later speciation (becoming a bona fide diff species, like an ape, birthing something more genetically similar to lemur)

except, the ape analogy is not accurate because all female mammals conceiving a zygote with this rare condition of multiple chromosomes will almost always spontaneously abort or experience a stillbirth. this is because we mammals cannot biologically handle such a enormous explosion in genetic material the way we are.

but hookworms, some members of chordata (fish and stuff) experience these insane gene explosions and survive, but none have been observed yet to succeed in establishing a true new species (offspring of the severly mutated)

basically polyploid states are like natural genetic Chernobyls (a "good bruce banner kind) that occur, and plants and microorganisms thrive on this and make new species and we encourage that through genetic engineering and intentionally inducing these genetic chernobyls.

oh, the point is that christian biologists are fully aware of all this b/c it's natural fact and published in any textbook and primary journals.

they, and only those christian scientists who are also creationist at the same time, refuse to believe that all life on earth sprang forth from a common gooey ancestor and spontaneously generated. and those particular scientists might be very right, because some secular biologists are beginning to say similar things about the probability even over 1 billion+ years to even form self replicating DNA.

[Chayesh]

Specialization within a species, the main thrust of Darwin's work, is of course not only observable, but fact. A dog becomes a better dog. A horse becomes a faster better horse. Man becomes more specialized and more advanced. I fully accept this.

Interspecies evolution, touted as science today with no discernable proof at all, that a snake becomes a frog which becomes a bird which becomes a goat, is fantasy of the highest order. Additionally, no one wants to discuss the burning question that results from believing this jumble of theories. Where did the original creature come from? Again, specific design doesn't happen by accident and for a lesser species to become a separate MORE ordered species is completely against natural laws of the universe, in specific, the law of entropy, that all things tend toward randomness, not order.

I'll give evolution a whit of my attention when someone explains how something as specialized as say, the autonomic nervous system, arose from chance, happenstance, and natural selection.

[Zrothum]

All your neutrons and protozoids in a bunch?

[Celerity]

Just a quick note:

If you can see specialization, you can see evolution. Fins specialize into claws, which may further specialize into feet, hooves, paws, whatever. Species are just the lines we draw between things with different specializations.

So if you want, you can just think of humans as realllly specialized single-celled bacteria.

You tag entropy with a law very easily, when it is certainly a theory. Why can't you hold the same standard to evolution? Likewise, if you believe in all things moving towards randomization, how does intelligent design (orderly creation) work into this?

[Fiere]

You can't apply "theory" to evolution simply because most of the people who believe in evolution do just that-they beleive in it. Just as much or more than religious people believe in God, sometimes.

[Celerity]

You can't apply "theory" to evolution simply because most of the people who believe in evolution do just that-they beleive in it. Just as much or more than religious people believe in God, sometimes.

You can definitely apply scientific theory to evolution. Whether or not people agree with it does not make it not a theory. Creationism is also a theory..it just doesn't have nearly the support of evolution. So while they are both theories, they are not nearly equal in weight or influence.

[Fiere]

Just out of curiosity, since I don't know a ton about evolution other than what I've learned in school, how did it all start? I mean, you have to start with something...

[Celerity]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution

Just browse around. That is the trillion dollar question...

[Fiere]

Ah, thanks.

[Pali]

Just out of curiosity' date=' since I don't know a ton about evolution other than what I've learned in school, how did it all start? I mean, you have to start with something...[/quote']

This is the problem. Few people are adequately taught evolution in school. I wasn't. Most of what I know I chose to learn on my own. Yet it is one of the cornerstones of modern science. It is repeatedly shown to be correct, and has NEVER been shown to be wrong with anything beyond pure conjecture. Find me ONE fossil out of place, find me ONE species that existed before it should have, and you will make history as the person who proved evolution wrong. Hell, find me one species where the DNA doesn't fit into predicted evolutionary timelines. There's a reason that nobody is known as the person who disproved evolution, and that's because nobody HAS. Not a single piece of evidence hasn't fit. Not a single prediction has been found wrong. If you can find me anything saying to the contrary (with good sources that don't all refer to the Bible as fact), please, post a link.