I say things like that because they are objectively true. The very concept of omnipotence and omniscience violate all kinds of physical laws. They are paradoxes; the "immovable force meeting the immovable object", but all our experience and learning tells us the universe does not work like that. Again, we might be wrong, but the more we learn, the less likely it becomes that we've missed something so vast.

We haven't missed it, chaosengine; the vast majority of people on Earth believes there is a God.

Human history is full of misery, suffering and cruelty to everything around us. One of the few bright points is our quest for knowledge, and you willfully reject that to cling to a stone age belief system that has been demonstrably proven false (geocentricity, for example) again and again.

In every important way, man hasn't learned anything and hasn't changed at all. The misery and suffering in the world increases year by year, it doesn't decrease.

Factually, it's incorrect.
Morally, it's bankrupt and consistently on the wrong side of history.

Matthew 24:35

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.

One day you might wake up and realise (to paraphrase the much missed Douglas Adams) that "the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it".

Until then, you are welcome to indulge in your fantasies, but if you insist on injecting your irrationality into debates like this, expect disagreement.

I've read most of Douglas Adams works. I grew up secular and you would probably be shocked at the level of agreement we would have had in the not too distant past. I have been set free from the bondage of slavery to sin, and have been born again into a living hope. What you know on its own profits you nothing, because without faith it is impossible to please God. Ask God to reveal Himself to you. You don't have to acknowledge it to me, but that is the only way you will ever know anything about God, is by His personal revelation to you. He is faithful to give you a revelation of your need for a Savior.

I say things like that because they are objectively true. The very concept of omnipotence and omniscience violate all kinds of physical laws. They are paradoxes; the "immovable force meeting the immovable object", but all our experience and learning tells us the universe does not work like that. Again, we might be wrong, but the more we learn, the less likely it becomes that we've missed something so vast.

Human history is full of misery, suffering and cruelty to everything around us. One of the few bright points is our quest for knowledge, and you willfully reject that to cling to a stone age belief system that has been demonstrably proven false (geocentricity, for example) again and again.

Factually, it's incorrect.
Morally, it's bankrupt and consistently on the wrong side of history.

One day you might wake up and realise (to paraphrase the much missed Douglas Adams) that "the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it".

Until then, you are welcome to indulge in your fantasies, but if you insist on injecting your irrationality into debates like this, expect disagreement.

we just need a space elevator, then we can use that to build a giant solar panel/reflector in geocentric orbit. This could reflect sunlight from building up heat on the surface of the earth, to compensate for the 4, 6, 12C temperature rise. You could even configure it to block/unblock to control average temperatures, or use it to prevent and/or dissolve hurricanes and tornados.

>> ^A10anis:
@ Shinyblurry's post starting with "Your welcome" (didn't quote the lot of it because i don't want that dribble being repeated below my post)

Your hypothetical story used to make a point about how you make yourself feel better was quite disturbing. Under the same logic you employed there.. if someone told you "kill 1000 babies" and all suffering would end for eternity, your story would only encourage an idiot to be a horrific murderer because of some deranged persons words.

Actually, the point of the hypothetical was to show the sloppy reasoning inherent in digging for treasure in a spot marked other than X.

>> ^A10anis:
You state "The only thing which is stopping you is pride.". No, it's the use of intelligence.
* It's not believing things because they make me feel better, or allowing me to think less because i can say magic did it.

So, how is you believing that you have a superior intellect to someone who believes in God not pride?

>> ^A10anis:
* It's the love of actually thinking about situations from a 'likely/unlikely true based on scientific reasoning' position, which is what drives human advancements forward.

Since there is no empirical evidence for or against Gods existence, how do you calculate how likely or unlikely His existence is?

>> ^A10anis:
* It's not naively thinking or pretending there are great things to learn from a disgusting book of prejudice, torture, fear and horror (i.e. kill your loved ones because you hear voices or let towns rape your daughters because they're of less value than a male stranger).

The bible, apart from the revelation of God, is a historical account of the actions of fallen men. Men who were sinners and sometimes did things which were morally wrong. That there was no effort to cover up those sins is a point in favor, not against.


>> ^A10anis:
* It's not believing claims that a book is an accurate account of history and the universe, when it gets the most basic things a God would know wrong, coincidentally these claims are just the way things would appear to a human's untrained eye (sun revolving around the planet).

If you want to address the accuracy of the bible, you must first accurately portray the bible. My guess is that you have only studied the bible through the lens of skeptics. Do you know the actual history of how this idea came about? The bible does not say the sun revolves around the earth, but it was interpreted that way by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century. Claudius proposed a theory of geocentricity, which at the time, was far more accurate than the existing theory of heliocentricity, and he interpreted certain passages of scripture to support his assertion. These passages, specifically Joshua 10:12-14, and Psalm 93:1, do not teach geocentricity at all, but were taken out of context by Claudius and others to promote the theory.

>> ^A10anis:
* It's because the bible (unbelievable in it's own right), once claimed to be a book of literal truth, becomes more and more metaphorical as science stomps its way all over the human races ignorance of the universe reaching greater level's of understandings that are testable through mathematical predictions.

The scientific theories which contradict the literal truth of the bible, such as the theory of deep time, macro evolution, and abiogenesis, are not subject to empirical testing. You cannot prove these theories in a lab. They are inferences based on circumstantial evidence, and are not truly scientific. You must *believe* them, and real science is based on knowledge, not belief.

>> ^A10anis:
Quote "Yet, it wasn't evidence at all, it was simply what I preferred to be true.". Seems like not much has changed, except your preferences.

Your preaching is nothing more than the same unjustified crap that those who don't have facts to support them continue to make. IMO you've either given up on your critical analytical abilities, or you're a troll copy/pasting.. given how similar your sentences are to other preachers.

What changed is that I fairly investigated the claims of Jesus Christ, instead of dismissing them based on a superficial knowledge of Christianity. When I did that, I received supernatural evidence that they were true.

>> ^A10anis:
Christianity is a sacrificial cult, full of unsubstantiated claims.

Your gross mischaracterization not withstanding, how have you investigated the claims of Jesus Christ?

>> ^A10anis:
Jesus's so called miracles appear in many other religions, usually descriptively to the letter.

Have any actual evidence to support this claim? Be sure to include the original sources and not just the claims of skeptics.

>> ^A10anis:
Your beliefs come from a time where women were valued as little more than a discard-able possessions.

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Scripture teaches that woman have the same value in the eyes of God as men do. God has assigned us different roles, but he shows no partiality between men and women.

>> ^A10anis:
And If your God did exist, then said God can go fuck themselves, as i have no desire to follow the direction and teachings of a psychopathic asshole.

I would suggest it is the distorted lens through which you see God that informs your negative opinion of Him.

>> ^A10anis:
PS: although I'm not censoring myself too much, it's not my primary intention to offend you (but don't care too much either), just can't stand how people spouting this type of content can think they 'should' be taken seriously.

Atheists rarely censor themselves when they speak to Christians. Nothing you've said here is unexpected. I do not take offense at what you said; on the contrary, I care about you as a human being made in the image of God, and I see you as being worthy of love and respect. My hope is that you come to know the love of Jesus Christ. You simply have no experience of God at the moment, but God is willing to show you He is there at any time. He loves you more deeply than you understand. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.

LOL, you don't try to limit personal attacks. You call Obama "Obummer", "His Earness", various derivatives from the falsehood that he was born in Kenya, etc. You also label people liberals, when in truth, they're moderates, or even moderate Republican, and you suggest having liberal beliefs is somehow innately bad instead of something you disagree with only. You're not fooling anybody.

So, I'm just gonna point out once again that your claim that the science behind human contributing climate change is fake, yet you did not identify which part of the theory is false. You immediately launched into a political discussion about giving up rights, etc.

So I'll ask again, which part is it you object to? That CO2 levels are rising? That CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, aka warming on average? That CO2 increases are not due to human activity? That global temperatures are actually rising? What exactly?!

BTW, you do realize that conflicting scientific theories don't make other theories incorrect, right? There was once competing theories of the structure of our galaxy - heliocentric and geocentric. There was of course the third belief that the earth was actually flat, supported by an elephant standing on a turtle. The existence of the geocentric and other models do not disprove the heliocentric model in the slightest.

You of course have a vested interest due to your desperate clinging belief that capitalist systems and policies are the only right ones to follow, and it's virtually impossible to deal with the problem of human induced climate change with that philosophy. Therefore, you flat refuse to look objectively at the data we have, which the majority of it suggests human induced climate change. It's like a priest who wouldn't dare try to reinterpret/retranslate passages in their holy texts in light of scientific data that proves the whole world is flat supported by an elephant on a turtle theory is BS.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Dude, you label your opposition socialists, communists, call Obama childish names, etc. all the dang time! That's all you do! You haven't proven a single thing with any credible scientific data. Not one thing. There are some basic facts that illustrate global warming:
I call 'em as I see 'em but try to limit personal attacks (I hope). Those with opposing viewpoints to mine are usually variants of communists, socialists, anarcho-libertarians and even liberals, aka Socialist-Lite.
What precisely do you object to about the theory?
The worldwide power grab in the name of "safety". It's odd how we pick our battles, don't we? The same guy who hates the Patriot Act as limiting his freedom may simply hand it over when told it will extend the life of a dolphin. Or vice versa.
Do you object to CO2 being deemed a greenhouse gas? That CO2 levels are in fact rising? That humans are the main culprit to CO2 levels rising? That temperatures globally are rising? What?!
PROOF PROOF PROOF. For every theory there is another opposing it, and a third plausible theory that has nothing to do with the original argument.
Remember, credibility is the burden of those trying to change society to suit their vision.

And btw, it's a silly argument that we don't know for sure because it's a scientific theory. If the best evidence suggests global destruction caused by this phenomena, then it would be wise to move as quickly as possible to take action to stop it. It's like sitting on railroad tracks, hearing a train horn in the distance, feeling rumblings on the ground, but deciding you're not gonna move until it's too late. After all, the train could stop well short. It could be someone making It could be someone making train noises, with small earthquakes going at the same time.
The best evidence doesn't point to a looming crisis. TIME IS RUNNING OUT! Do you know where you hear that the most? Commercials. Artificial countdowns. HURRY! THIS SALE ENDS SATURDAY! It's a sales tactic to get people off their butts and ACT, without thinking.
You guys can just write me off as another one who refuses to see THE TRUTH(tm)
Provided I don't get hit by a natural-gas-powered bus, I'll be here, you'll be here and the earth will be here and doing fine 50 years from now.
Climate change alarmist alarmed they’re wrong

Let's just pretend for a moment that you are correct and there is absolutely no evidence to support evolution. This imagined lack of evidence can in no way point to any conclusion other than the disproving of the evolutionary theory. The elimination of this theory does not by default make the theory of creationism a valid replacement.

Can you elaborate on your scientific evidence that suggests that the world was created in 6 days? And please do not say "because it is written in the bible". If you do I am afraid I am going to have to hold you and "the word of god" accountable for all of the Geocentric universe supporters that exist. Do you believe that the earth is the unmovable center of the universe? If not, why?


>> ^shinyblurry:

No, I believe the bible is the inspired word of God and that He created the world in 6 days. I also believe that science supports that account of creation and disputes the theory of evolution. I could give you literally hundreds of examples as to why this is the case.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



Since you continuously miss the subtleties of my critiques while avoiding the actual questions that are being posed, I will spell it out as simply as I can. (Note that my intellectual condescension, which you are right in spotting, is based entirely on your unintelligent responses and childish emotional reactions, your disregard for logic, your circular reasoning and your incessant ad hominem attacks. But please, don't let my "nasty and sarcastic attitude" get in the way of your reasoned and logical argumentation... for which we are still waiting.)


1. On the literal reading of Scripture: My question as to whether you took the Adam/Eve/Eden myth as factual and historical truth is crucial, and since you continued to base your argumentation on the assumption that it is, I followed up with questions pertaining to other literal readings of the Bible, i.e. YEC, geocentrism and flat earth theory. In later comments you dance around the issue of the Earth's age, but refuse to address one of my first questions: is all humanity the actual descendants of the fabled Adam and Eve? If not, the whole theory of original sin crumbles. You might argue, as the begrudgingly-evolution-accepting catholic church does, that "original sin" is equivalent to "human nature", which completely voids the whole "created in His image" and "free will" things.

2. On hypocrisy and cherry-picking: I wish I could say how surprised I am at you being oblivious to your hypocrisy and self-contradiction, but it is all too common among religious apologists. You accuse me of "narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant" interpretation, of arrogance, ignorance and condescension (I fully own up to that last one), and in the very same lines are guilty of all of the above. What makes your interpretation correct, and mine - which is based directly on the actual text - incorrect? Oh yes, your dogma, which declares that there is only one correct reading of the Bible, i.e. the Christian one, no matter how contrary to the text it is. You assume that any one who contradicts your creed with the help of your holy book "has no understanding" of it... and I'm the arrogant one? I could be a theology major for all you know, and while I am not, I have read the Bible thoroughly enough to know it for what it is: a collection of myths, romanticised history, laws and poetry, written by men.

Concerning the "blasphemy challenge", if I understand your reasoning cherry-picking logic, there is no need to believe in God, the Bible or any Christian creed, since we're all going to heaven anyway, right? But then, in a later comment you proclaim that only some are chosen ("many are called..." I know). What happens to those who are not and, more importantly, how will you get out of that without contradicting yourself?

3. Please do not skirt the questions: note that the "answers" to my earliest questions, repeated here, were unintelligible due to your use of terms (see below) which need clarification.

>>"So the story of Adam and Eve is not just a myth, and we are all descendants of incestuous sex (twice, if the story of Noah is taken into account)?

So God values blind obedience higher than natural curiosity, and expects Adam and Eve to obey without knowing that disobeying is "bad" (since they don't yet have the knowledge of good/evil)?

So it is moral to punish an infinity of generations of humans for what their ancestors supposedly did? And then present the "gift" of forgiveness if you submit to the god who caused you to be "sinful" in the first place??"


>>"You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:

God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit."

Given your bullet reply I will do likewise. (even though I think that turns our conversation into more of an argument, and I hate arguments)

I) Both sides had only mathematical constructs with a central notion of understanding behind the numbers. What I mean is, there was no NASA or anything to go look...there was only math. The Heliocentric model was exactly that, a (very) complex mathematical model (of exceptions) to explain the motion of the planets based on observed phenomena. Geocentrism had data as well, but lacked the cultural bias for it to be accepted as a valid view point. Which adds to my point, not detracts from it; as my point what theories get mocked or accepted has more to do with culture than premise.

A) I bet you didn't read the link I posted, and I can't blame you (Quine on a weekday and all!). But what I wrote was a hasty, and perhaps, oversimplified version of Quines waxing and waning on the politics of science. You can see examples of this today where scientists and large hang on the breath of the great intellectuals of the day, like Stephen Hawking. Or, how quickly Einstein is falling out of favor now that quantum doesn't quite add up. More than likely, within our lifetime, you will stop hearing about space time curves and it will be supplanted by some other thing. The main difference between planet orbits and the general laws of the universe are that you can go outside and look at the orbit (with a rocket). You can't go just "see" the laws of nature and therefore have no reason to thing Enstein was any more right about space time curves than of fundamental forces. You can explain, using Newtonian language and adapting its math, relativity and motion. The reason we don't has more to do with culture and self advocacy than evidence. And to the point, that still doesn't address the primary problem, that of which, the PEERS that review are under the influence of culture, they are the rose colored glasses to which I was referring all along.

B) See, I understand a bit of that. But ultimately that seems like an undersell to how life works on this planet. No doubt, change will bring hardship on certain species, but wouldn't also create new opportunities for others? A lack of snow on the tundra is bad for snow foxes...but good for regular foxes. Change is one thing life on this planet handles well...as for individual members their fates are less certain.

C) I disagree on 2 counts. One is my first example. Simply put, even if you idea treads water, it can be framed in such a way as to be demeaned of any value, regardless of merit. You can see this in media smear campaign stuff, if you can frame someone as a nut job, it will discredit them. For example, "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences" is a great read and has many, good observations....but is written by the uni bomber so not high on anyone's reading list. It isn't culturally acceptable to go...hey, the uni bomber is right, this is a problem! Same goes for here, it doesn't matter if it's 600 or 6000 scientists that disagree with the climate change model, if your ideas aren't popular, no one is going to be there to listen.

And second, you can't prove a negative. The only way the could prove that climate change isn't human caused is to completely understand the whole system and then point out how humans are trivial factors. In other words, they would have to be able to do the thing that no climatologist can claim, to know the whole truth about the weather and all its complexities. The burden of proof is actually on those making the claim, not the ones countering that claim. So really, the only thing they have to proof is nothing and just make the assertion that the doomsays math doesn't add up (and why). They just have to poke the holes in the boat in other words...which is what I think they are getting ostracized for. Get on board or get out kind of thing. But that is just an outsiders opinion.

I WAS KIDDING! Did you not read the next line? However, I think being specialtive of data that comes from the distant past is prudent. If one did not question the geocentric model like Copernicus and Galileo, but rather agreed with the Aristotelian consensus would we be better off? Most of the tools we have for looking at the distant past are murky at best, so while useful always have to be taken in stride, which is what I have been saying all along.

Radio age dating, and stellar cartagrophy have all shown themselves to be off by large margins at times. For instance, the believed age of the universe has increased 5 billion years in my life time...a very large number when trying to make other measurements like cosmic inflation and other dependent things. Small and large variances would undo very fundamental understood physical properties of the universe. If the age of the universe changes by any amount, any new theory trying to explain cosmological inflation has to be reworked from scratch...or at the very least re-propagated.

I never said throw it out, I said approach it with cautious skepticism, the same would go for radio carbon dating. It is good for estimations and approximations, but the fact is the data sets could be wildly inerrant. For general things like tectonic tenancies and the slow moment of things overtime, this isn't as big of a deal. But for making very detailed climatic predictions about the overall direction and the results of said direction of the weather is putting to much credence in the information at hand.

If the science is bogus, it doesn't necessarily have to be disproven in a timely manor either. It was nearly two thousands years from Aristotle to Galileo, and that was with something that could bee seen, this can never been seen. Your mistaken my faith in God for my ability to use reason as well. I started an atheist and have a firm back round in science and scientific thinking. The modern movement of science by consolidation more resembles church that true empirical thought. I find that true science is dead, and what is alive now is conjecture by consensus. The empirical model is dead. Science now has more faith than most would care to comment on. Belief in aliens because of the large amount of space and large amount of planets is evidence of faith before empiricism. If you want faith, church is ok, but science is chop full of non-agnostic positions.

My desire is to not be ignorant. I find the current fear mongering as a play on ignorance. I find people defending the radical data as definitive as naive. But I also see pollution as a problem that should be corrected if not just for the sake of doing it or the planet; but for breath of fresh air in the morning, a commodity that is hard to price.

Try not to be jaded by people you assume I am like and look at my argument more fully next time. I don't think you read exactly what I said but you read more what you wanted to read from someone named like I am named. I also was very crass and kinda rude to start off my comments in that thread, so maybe I had it coming

Anyway, it is a problem that is bigger than any one of us, so us calling each other names or mocking each others believe systems is not going to get us anywhere. I will endeavor to not get sarcastic when on a mountain dew high if you will read my objections for what they really are, based in rational skepticism. When confronted with skepticism, my position is to remain as agnostic about projections about what I am skeptical about until that thing is resolved; it is the only logical position.

In reply to this comment by asynchronice:
"O shit, they had climatologists in the 300,000BC"

LOL...you've got to be fucking kidding me. Let's throw out carbon dating too. It's unverifiable! You weren't there ! And how do they know what stars are made of ? They can't verify it !

I don't get the defensiveness here. No debate corporations will use this data for profit. They will use ANYTHING for profit. And governments will always want to tax more of their citizenry. It has no import/relevance on the scientific facts being given. And if the science is bogus, then it will be disproven. PERIOD. That's just how it works. Just because you're spoiled and think the scientific community has to give you a day, a time, and detailed description of what will happen, isn't a reason to dismiss it. If you want that, go back to church.

It weirds me out that people go to great lengths to show how it is all a conspiracy to instill fear and get money; just look at the facts, and make up your own goddamn mind. And if you choose to be willfully ignorant, then do people a favor and stay out of the debate. Some of us actually want to understand what's going on.

>> ^kymbos:
I think this story misses the point. Look at the number of non-Fox watches who believe what she describes as 'myths' - around 40%. If these are patently untrue, when combined with Fox viewers almost half of the country is completely uninformed.
How can you have a debate at all when ignorance is this pronounced?


One in five Americans believes in Geocentrism (that the Sun revolves around the Earth)...

>> ^smooman:
>> ^Simple_Man:
See, this is the stuff that make me disbelief any god people have dreamed up on our little blue dot. Their god is so small, so confined to our tiny planet that it in turn is insignificant compared to displays like this. Compared to the majesty of entire stars and galaxies erupting into life, swirling in the cosmic void, and being devoured by forces we don't even fully understand, the universe is grander, more complex, and more beautiful than any religion in humanity's short history.

I suppose that would depend on how "big" you imagine God to be. Your disposition tells me you think very lowly of any god. It's a matter of perspective. You see something much too grand and marvelous for any god to have a hand in. I see something much too grand and marvelous for God NOT to have a hand in.


When I mention god or religion, I mean the major denominations that people segment themselves into. In that context, how can anyone deny me claiming their god is insignificant? The very idea of a personal god, watching over our tiny planet, personally involving themselves in our affairs is arrogant in nature. It's the same type of arrogance that leads to the ideas like geocentrism, and that our existence is somehow privileged and special. I'd sooner recognize a deist god than any mainstream religion.

>> ^chilaxe:
If educated Christians generally refuse to speak out against their fellow Christians who advocate Bronze Age paradigms (Creationism, Modern geocentrism, Homophobia, etc.), I don't see the problem with referring to Christians as all followers of the same diety.



I'm all for bronze age paradigms!
I, on the other hand, am against the use of words like paradigm and zeitgeist in a pop cultural context.

If educated Christians generally refuse to speak out against their fellow Christians who advocate Bronze Age paradigms (Creationism, Modern geocentrism, Homophobia, etc.), I don't see the problem with referring to Christians as all followers of the same diety.

>> ^Kraz:
How about Copernican theory (Earth goes round sun etc.) which has been accepted for century's, even the church does not bother to contest anymore it despite contradicting the Bible.
Not to sound cheeky, but can you kindly point out where the bible states that the Earth revolves around the Sun? I've heard this before and it piques my interest because I know of no such passage.


Most Bible passages used to support a geocentric universe state that the earth is stationary eg;
1 Chronicles 16:30 but a few also claim that the sun moved for instance god made the sun stop moving for a day until the Israelis had killed all there enemies in 1 Joshua 10:12-13.

As blankfist has described above, science is a method for gaining knowledge. Religion is merely a hypothesis, or rather a huge amount of smaller hypotheses, which can be tested with the scientific method. Thus there is no direct confrontation or contradiction between the two. That being said, religion demands faith of its followers, which is the belief of something in spite of evidence, and this means that it is corrosive to the scientific method. This is bad. And this is why religion hold up to any scientific fact. Faith is the opposite of knowledge.

The example of 1+2=3 is an overly simplistic one and not very useful, because there is only one correct answer; there can never be other answers, because math is a logical system. The world is not a logical system, and science is not merely logic.

An example which I think would be more apt, is the theory of a geocentric universe. Until Copernicus people had faith in the Bible's hypothesis that the universe circled around the Earth. His observations shattered that hypothesis and thus a new hypothesis was made, that the earth was circling around the sun. This has proven to be true through repeated observations and is as such regarded as a theory, or what we lay-people call fact. Every hypothesis that the bible has presented, which have been testable have turned out to be false, and thus it is within reason to regard the whole thing as bunk.

Evolution
Evolution is a theory, or what we lay-people call a fact. It has been observed in fossil records and is happening constantly every time any creature or life form has offspring. Evolution is the theory that life forms changes shape, abilities and such over generations.

Natural selection is a theory that tries to explain how evolution happens, which is why people call it Evolution by Natural Selection. Natural Selection says that the more you spread you genes, the more of your type there will be. (Seems pretty down to earth and intuitive, right?)

Evolution by Natural Selection is therefore NOT RANDOM, at all. Yes, any given mutations are random, but they are merely the catalyst by which natural selection works. Of all those random mutations, some are inherently better adapters than others and will procreate more than others, and that means more life forms with that mutation (which is no longer considered a mutation) will appear in the next generation. But I think we all agree on that particular point, but it is important to make it as clear as possible.

I have yet to see any knowledge gained from the bible that turns out to be true. Of course the things lifted from common sense, "Thou shalt not kill", that fact that gravity existed in the stories and so on are true, but any given hypothesis that the bible has made is always proven false, when it can be proven either way.

If something cannot be proven either way, there is no basis for evaluating it and thus it should not be considered in any situation. Doc_M, you say an agnostic says:

"there might be a God so I consider it when I look at data I take in on a daily basis"

That is false. An agnostic does indeed not consider the things he is agnostic about. I am technically an agnostic, but I am technically agnostic about many, many things. I don't consider them, why should a possible god be considered, more than the pixie-faeries of bubblegum forest? (sorry, I'm being a bit snide there)
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When religion is evaluated with scientific terms, we have to break it down into smaller hypothesis. One such hypothesis, which is pretty basic to almost all religions is, "is there a God?"; the term "a God" must then be defined, so that we can test that hypothesis. If it is defined like in the bible, that there is a being which created everything and continually watches and judges humans, then the evidence until now clearly point to the hypothesis being false.

As I've written above, no hypothesis derived from the bible has yet been proven true. Thus there is no real reason to consider any of it true, and therefor no reason to live by its laws.