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Author Topic:   Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 824 of 2073 (744364)
12-10-2014 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 820 by Colbard
12-10-2014 7:22 AM


Re: Evidence is in the mind
So then in our context, you are clearly Man B, who ignores all the evidence and goes into wild flights of fantasy, ending up reaching irrational conclusions against which he lashes out angrily. Notice that in that process of irrationality, you not only ignore the evidence but you also even go so far as to destroy the evidence.
Man A is obviously the scientific-minded man who is observant of his surroundings and who takes all the evidence into account in order to arrive at rational conclusions.
The knowledgeable and rational Man A weathers through the events quite well, whereas you, the ignorant, irrational, and self-centered Man B, live in constant fear and self-delusional turmoil which leads you to lash out irrationally.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 820 by Colbard, posted 12-10-2014 7:22 AM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 825 of 2073 (744368)
12-10-2014 10:36 AM
Reply to: Message 823 by New Cat's Eye
12-10-2014 9:52 AM


Re: Are You A Troll?
Oh yes, there is that too. But I was talking about the overall situation instead of the immediate encounter.
In the immediate encounter, the creationist goes in overconfident that he's armed with deadly ammo which is recent scientific findings that will just blow those evolutionists away. Instead, he discovers that he's been given blanks as he is very quickly informed in no uncertain terms that those "recent scientific findings" are nothing be false creationist claims that were soundly refuted decades ago and are very well known to his opponents. I have seen that happen in real life (informal debate night where anyone could get up a present their creation/evolution case) when a young creationist got up with "new scientific evidence" that the speed of light has been slowing down, whereupon half the audience immediately broke into uncontrollable laughter while at the same time trying to tell him why the old claim is false. The effect on that young creationist was absolutely devastating.
When that happens on-line, then the creationist can either turn and run or try to handle the situation. Since he cannot allow his position to suffer any defeat, both for the sake of keeping face before lurkers and for the sake of his own self-delusion, he will usually choose to stand and fight. Since he is unable to deal with it rationally, he will turn to dishonest tricks whose primary intent is to deflect attention away from his false claim. That is when we see such tactics as trying to Gish Gallop us with a flood of more false claims, but most often they become increasingly belligerent and start to complain loudly and incessantly about being insulted and ganged up on and treated horribly, etc, etc, etc. IOW, the mode that Colbard is running in.
When the encounter happens in email correspondence, it follows a very predictable pattern -- a Christian posted about this on his site, but I'm in a rush to leave for work and can't access it now. You read a creationist claim on-line so you email him with questions about that claim (the surest way to anger a creationist is to try to discuss his own claim with him, which is evidence that he doesn't understand it himself). The reply, if you get one, just dances around your question, so you send a follow-up email to get your answer. The replies you get become increasingly belligerent and unpleasant until you just have to give up. For example, when I contacted Kent Hovind with questions about his obviously bogus solar-mass-loss claim, he actually tried to pick a fight with me over my AOL screenname, DWise1 -- and he tried that twice!
In Colbard's case, I think that he actually thought that he had a good argument with that beyond-idiotic carbon-dated coin nonsense, but now he's playing the belligerent and martyred creationist card. But now he has also indicated that he's been on many other forums as well, so obviously this was not the first time he had used that claim. That being the case, he had to have been informed of his massive mistake each time (unless those others were purely on creationist circle-jerk forums), which would mean that when he posted it here he knew full well that it was wrong. That would make his posting of that claim here a deliberate lie.
Running late now.
PS {ABE}
I've had some time now.
A few years ago I wrote a webpage that discusses encounters with creationists. It should embellish and explain more fully a lot of what I had written above. You can find it at Encounters with Creationists.
On that page, I quote from Carl Drews (see below). Carl Drews is a fundamentalist I met on-line. He had developed into theistic evolutionist and tells his story at http://www.theistic-evolution.com/mystory.html. First day in high school science class, his teacher told them the basic difference between religion and science and why they do not conflict: religion tells us who created the universe and why, while science tells us how the universe works. As long as either side does not attempt to usurp the other's role, there is no conflict. That laid to rest any possible theological problems, but then a few years later in his young adult Bible study group he had his first brush with creationism. Someone brought the first edition of Chick Pubs' "Big Daddy?" (rewritten many years later, apparently by Kent Hovind) and Carl volunteered to check its claims. Checking the pamphlet's references in the library, he very quickly learned that the author had lied about what each and every source had actually said. He reported his findings to his group and they all realized how false that form of creationism was.
Carl didn't encounter creationism again until years later when he and his family had joined a fundamentalist church that they really liked. Then one Sunday a strongly anti-evolution sermon filled with the same "Big Daddy?" inaccuracies raised concerns which he expressed to the pastor, who insisted that Carl attend a weekly creationism class they were having (basically conduct a video-based creationist seminar). Again, Carl wrote down all the claims that were presented on the video along with their sources, researched them, and yet again found that they were all lies. He presented his findings to the class, but nobody was interested in the truth because they just wanted "ammo" to use in proselytizing. He talked to his pastor again and the pastor expressed the opinion that using lies and deception is acceptable so long as it's against evolution. Carl could not in good conscience belong to a church that taught that, so they left.
On his website, Carl described the typical encounter with a creationist (Evolution, One Christian's Perspective), which agrees with my own repeated experiences:
quote:
Typical Encounters with Young-Earth Creationists
A few times I have written to the authors of young-earth creationist publications, pointing out some inaccuracy or a faulty analysis. The encounter follows the following pattern:

  1. I write to them.
  2. They write back to me refusing to admit error; "I make no apologies."
    They defend their position and manner of expressing it.
    I notice some misinterpretation of my letter, or ignoring of what I clearly said.
  3. If I write back to them a second time, rebutting their response or bringing up another point,
  4. Their communication becomes unpleasant.
  5. At this point I have nothing further to do with them.

On the subject of creationists gathering "ammo" to use in their proselytizing, Glenn R. Morton used to have a page of newsgroup posts that included a post by a former creationist, Scott Rauch (links are broken):
quote:
I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed.
Edited by dwise1, : PS

This message is a reply to:
 Message 823 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-10-2014 9:52 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 830 of 2073 (744388)
12-10-2014 3:23 PM
Reply to: Message 820 by Colbard
12-10-2014 7:22 AM


Re: Evidence is in the mind
... (1844 AD) ...
Huh? Whatever about 1844 are you referring to?
The Edict of Toleration, allowing Jews to settle in the Holy Land?
The closing of the Fleet Prison for debtors in London? Guess that would have been a biggie for Aussies.
The founding of the precursor of the Bah' Faith? Are you Bah'? Funny, I had always thought that Bah's were a lot more reasonable and rational.
The sending of the first electrical telegram over the telegraph? But you've indicated copiously how much you hate science.
The Great Flood of 1844 hitting the Missouri River and Mississippi River? You must love to watch train wrecks too.
The founding of the YMCA in London?
The martyring of Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement? Are you Mormon?
The extinction of the Great Auk?
The meeting of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx?
The first ever international cricket match (played in New York City, United States v Canadian Provinces)? Are you a sports nut? Just when I thought you couldn't possibly sink any lower in my esteem.
The debut of an opera by Joe Green (AKA Giuseppe Verdi)? Naw, that would have gone completely over your head.
The publishing of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" which paved the way for the acceptance of Darwin's book, "The Origin of Species"?
Or was it the Great Disappointment? Jesus' Second Coming was predicted by the Millerites to happen on 22 October 1844. Of course, it didn't happen, which led to the Great Disappointment, which, among many other things, led to the formation of the Seventh-Day Adventists for whom that date became very important.
Is that what you are, one of Ellen G. White's guys? We had one of you on CompuServe. What a piece of work he was! He posted copiously, but never his own writings. He would copy from creationist books so slavishly verbatim that he would include the footnote numbers (but never the footnotes themselves) -- since this was before scanner and OCR technology was common or affordable, we knew he had to have copied it all by hand. We'd comment or question part of a post and he'd "response" with yet another long verbatim copying for that book. When I was finally able to get him to post in his own words, all he could do was to try to convert me! Then he started going on and on about the miraculous physical feats that Ellen G. White could perform while in a deep trance, all of which I was also able to do because of my Aikido training and without having to go into any kind of a trance. Soon as I informed him of that, he instantly had very important business he had to attend to and completely disappeared from that point on. I reposted a reply I had written on CompuServe to his post of "23 Points" against evolution: 23 POINTS AGAINST EVOLUTION AND RESPONSES THERETO.
Or maybe you were just referring to the year when annual British iron production reached 3 million tons.
Whatever you wanted to mean by including that year, it couldn't have been important.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 820 by Colbard, posted 12-10-2014 7:22 AM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 835 of 2073 (744414)
12-10-2014 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 819 by Colbard
12-10-2014 6:51 AM


Re: To the last few replies
The coin story is true, and typical of teenagers, which I was at the time. What the mix up was did not concern me at the time and neither did I find out.
So you can have your lie accusations and religious injunctions back.
I let the story out to watch the seagulls fight over a stone thought to be bread, to prove that contemplative thought is not going on at all, but bickering and fault finding, which are not the elements in which to introduce truth.
The very fact that the argument has turned from the thread subject to the disputes over the two fields of thought, together with mud slinging and proof calling, shows that the opposition to creationism, is unable to focus on the subject at hand. An indication of a lack of intellectual application, which is necessary in order to be able to comprehend the implications of Divine thought as presented in the Bible. (but not necessarily by religions and its proponents).
And yet again you admit to being a troll, purposely acting to create discord and then hypocritically blaming us for what you yourself had wrought.
OK, let's talk honestly. Why are you here? What is your objective? What are you seeking to accomplish? By what actions do you intend to accomplish that objective?
The function of this forum is discussion. Is it your objective to engage in discussion? Or is your objective to disrupt all discussion? Is your intention to be a participant or to be a troll? So far, you've been a troll.
Or is your objective to be a martyr? Stir up discord and negative reactions to you so that you can then cry "oh poor persecuted me! Look at how mean those nassty evolutionistses are!" You want to claim that you are hated for being a creationist? Bullshit! Any hatred or anger directed your way is because you're a hateful disruptive troll.
Or are you a POE who is only posing as a creationist in order to discredit them. Don't bother! They do a sterling job of discrediting themselves; they don't need your help!
If you want to participate in discussion, then do so and stop acting like a troll! If you want to participate in discussion, then please explain to us how you think that you can accomplish that by acting like a troll. If you only want to be a troll, then forget it!
Why are you here? What is your objective?
And just out of curiosity, are you still completely clueless as to why your coin story is so incredibly beyond idiotic?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 819 by Colbard, posted 12-10-2014 6:51 AM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 841 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:04 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 836 of 2073 (744415)
12-10-2014 8:16 PM
Reply to: Message 819 by Colbard
12-10-2014 6:51 AM


Re: To the last few replies
Once a person or society has decided to go down a certain track of philosophy which includes denial of the Creator, it is nigh impossible for them to see any evidence of truth outside of their head space. This also happens in false religion and in nearly every challenge the human mind faces.
But what is the cause of that denial of the Creator? Not science. Science cannot disprove the existence of any of the gods, nor does it try to nor does it have any need to, nor does it have any desire to.
Rather, it is "creation science" that is the cause of that denial of the Creator. And it is "creation science" that is able to disprove the existence of the Judeo-Christian God and it is "creation science" that is very zealous in imposing its teachings that disprove the existence of the Creator. I've explained that to you already. Stop trying to blame others for your own mess!
"Creation science"-based theology is very much a false religion. Chop it down and throw it into the fire! Jesus' orders! (Matt 7:20)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 819 by Colbard, posted 12-10-2014 6:51 AM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 846 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:28 AM dwise1 has replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 837 of 2073 (744416)
12-10-2014 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 819 by Colbard
12-10-2014 6:51 AM


Re: To the last few replies
Please note that I am taking your suggestion seriously and am trying to discuss it with you. Whether you choose to become a participant or remain a troll is entirely up to you.
The only way to prove this point is to have two groups of schools, and universities, one which teaches creationism in the full sense, not half way as many denominations take it, and have the other schools strictly the regular teachings of evolution.
Then the results can be compared in the students, for aptitude, achievements, intuition, practical skills, and every facet of learning including emotional, physical and mental balance.
As Percy replied, this is already being done, though I'm not sure how well the outcome is being monitored and data collected for analysis.
As I understand, for the most part the Christian- and home-schooled students age out of that system and end up entering the general student population in regular colleges and universities, or even younger at the high school (grades 10-12 or 9-12) and junior high (AKA "intermediate" -- grades 7-9 or 6-8) public school levels. When I first entered into college (1969) we all had to take a battery of placements tests to measure our math and verbal skill levels. Since then, it became very common for colleges and universities to use applicants' SAT scores to decide whether to admit that student. To test the results of undergraduate education in colleges and universities in the two groups, there's the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) that's commonly required for admission into post-graduate programs. Such test scores should be excellent for comparing the results of both types of schooling and it cannot be stressed enough that all examination of the results of the education of the two groups must be by the same standards or else any attempt at comparing them will be meaningless. Unfortunately, that testing would need to gather statistics about the test-takers' educational background in order to identify which of the two groups each belongs to, which I very much doubt is being done as part of the testing process.
Also, as I noted above, there would be a third group, kind of a hybrid, which would include those students who started out in one group and then transferred over to the other group. I would also think that this would be a significant group that would be very interesting to study.
Or we could do as Dr Adequate suggests and see what kind of research is being done by creationist universities as opposed to regular universities. One problem that I can see with that is that there could be inherent differences in curricula which might prove very significant, significant enough to make direct comparison very difficult if not virtually impossible. For example, a regular university would be expected to have very strong science departments, but a smaller and very diverse religious studies department. In contrast, a creationist university or "Bible college" would be expected to have very strong religious studies and religious education programs, but what kind of science programs they'd have would be questionable. Also, a regular university would be expected to have strong humanities programs, including philosophy, whereas a "Bible college" would have absorbed those programs under its religious studies umbrella, which would be a very narrow umbrella that caters only to one particular Christian denomination to the exclusion of the vast majority of other Christian denominations, not to mention all other religions.
How would a creationist school handle its science program? We caught a glimpse of that in 1988 when the State of California was considering whether to renew accredidation for the Institute for Creation Research's (ICR) graduate degree in science. The process involved a visitation committee visiting the ICR's school and observing their classes. In one biology class, the ICR pointed out that they used the same textbook as regular universities use in their graduate classes, but then the committee members observed a class in progress: the instructor was taking the class through the book page by page and telling them which parts to cross out because "We don't believe that. And we don't believe that either. ... ". They weren't learning the subject matter, but rather what they needed to reject. The history of that school's accredidation is long and involved. Basically, renewal was rejected so the ICR sued and was given a temporary reprieve, then they created their own accredidation program with which to accredidate themselves, but then they moved to Texas which did not accept their accredidation and unanimously rejected their application for accredidate, which led to a long legal battle with Texas, which ended with the ICR closing their science school and opening it again as "a School of Biblical Apologetics, offering a Master of Christian Education degree with Creation Research being one of four minors", thus making it exempt from accredidation. The entire story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/...Research#School_and_accreditation.
Or perhaps an acceptable metric of the effectiveness of a "creationist university" education over one from a regular university would be in the employability of their graduates: How well are those graduates able to perform in their professions?
Again, we have evidence of that. Glenn R. Morton was a creationist with a bachelors in physics who studied geology from the ICR and who wrote several articles on geology for creationist publications. He went to work for an oil exploration company, where he hired in several of his fellow ICR geology graduates. They had been thoroughly schooled by the ICR in creationist geology, but now they were working day after day directly with the rock-hard geological evidence that actually exists. They were completely unprepared for being faced constantly with geological evidence that the ICR had taught them did not exist and could not possibly exist for Scripture to have any meaning. As a result, they all suffered crises of faith. After reporting about this to the 1986 International Conference on Creationism (ICC), Morton suffered through a decade-long crisis of faith that drove him to the verge of atheism.
Please note that those crises of faith had absolutely nothing to do with "differences of interpretation, but rather with the physical geological evidence and what it very clearly showed. The only interpretation that had any involvement in the matter was the ICR's interpretation that that physical geological evidence did not exist and could not exist ... and yet it does indeed exist.
So then apparently another test we can apply is whether a creationist or a normal education does a better job of preparing the student to deal with reality.
Another metric for the effects of a creationist education could be that of retainability: How many Christian children raised on a creationist education stay in the faith and remain creationists for the rest of their lives?
The answer is "damned few!" A large majority of youth raised in conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist Christian homes end up leaving the faith with many of them either leaving Christianity itself or forsaking religion altogether. Conservative Christian sources and youth ministries give the loss rates in figures ranging from 65% to 80%. Most cite attending public schools and college or university as a prime factor. Having been involved with "creation science" and having read several deconversion stories caused by creationism, my understanding is that it's when they learn actual science and realize that they had been lied to all their life. However, a blog I read a few years ago (link no longer available) cited a study that showed that it's the humanities in college that lead to far more deconversions than science does. According to that study, it is due to their learning that other perpectives exist, ways of looking at things other than their own, and of looking at things through other perspectives, as well as understanding those other perspectives, plus learning to examine all perspectives objectively, including their own, which are all what happens in history, literature, and philosophy classes. One of the greatest deficiencies in a fundamentalist Christian education is the lack of exposure to ideas that differ from their own, leaving the students with the stunted view that their way of seeing the world is the only way possible.
The reason for all that lost faith is that the premises that they were taught cannot withstand the light of day, but rather will wither and crumble away in the face of reality. That means that those who taught them those premises failed to teach them true premises and failed to guide them in forming valid conclusions that could then be true premises for when they did encounter reality. That is what a creationist education does.
If instead of being taught booby-trapped false premises that would blow up in their faces when hit with reality, they were taught premises that are not contrary to fact and to reality, then their faith should have nothing to fear from reality as they can arrive at logical conclusions that include their faith. That is what a regular education can do and regularly does do.
The choice could not be any clearer.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 819 by Colbard, posted 12-10-2014 6:51 AM Colbard has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 849 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:54 AM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 851 by herebedragons, posted 12-11-2014 8:01 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(4)
Message 871 of 2073 (744538)
12-12-2014 12:44 AM
Reply to: Message 841 by Colbard
12-11-2014 7:04 AM


Re: To the last few replies
I understood in the following years that there was a mistake, but it did not change my attitude towards evolution which to me was an insult to God.
So then you already knew that the claim was false, but you still presented it to us as being true. Knowingly trying to pass off a false statement as being true is called deliberate lying.
By your own admission you are a willful liar. According to my own Christian training and what I'd heard from most others who would call themselves "Christian", lying is a sin. The way that you have been waffling and weasel-wording, I don't believe that you have actually identified yourself as being a Christian, but I think we can fairly safely assume that you are, albeit probably of some very odd independent strain. What is your sect's doctrine about "lying for the Lord"? How do you justify committing a sin in the service of your religion? I have repeatedly observed the same behavior over the decades in countless creationists, so I really do want to understand how the creationist mind is working regarding their willful lying in support of their religion.
I initially came here thinking that there would be a fair trial for creationism, ...
So why didn't you pursue that objective instead of immediately resorting to being a troll, posting lies, and deliberately stirring up trouble? You've been working against your objective all this time.
For there to be any kind of a trial, a case must be made and presented. We have repeatedly asked you to present your case, but you have repeatedly refused to. How was that supposed to further your objective? The closest thing to presenting your case was your bogus carbon-dated-coin story, which not only turns out to have been a deliberate lie, but you presented it for the distinct purpose of creating discord (AKA, for you to be a troll). How was supposed to have furthered your objective?
If you truly want to have a fair trial for creationism, then you must present your case for it! And presenting your case is much more than making bald assertions. You must be ready and willing to support the statements of your case. You must be able to present evidence for your case. And you must actively participate in any and all cross-examination, responding to the inevitable challenges to your statements and to your evidence. That means that you must read the responses to your presentations and respond to them substantively.
That is what you must be ready and willing to do you are to make any kind of progress towards your objective. Frankly, everything we've seen from you so far tells us that you do not have the stomach for it. You appear to be deathly afraid of presenting your claims and "evidence" for fear that they will be refuted. Well, you should want them to be tested. If a claim is weak or false (eg, your bogus coin story), then you will want to know that so that you don't use it. And if a claim proves to be strong, then you will want to know that so that you can feel confident in using it. Even that charlatan Kent Hovind stated on his drdino website that he welcomed responding to his critics, because that gave him a chance to test and correct his claims, quoting from the Bible something about "iron sharpeneth iron" (though in practice the hypocrite would do everything he could to avoid responding).
Remember when you "challenged" us by asking us what we would do if we found out something we believed was wrong? Do you remember our responses to that (assuming you didn't just ignore them)? We want to find out if any of our ideas are wrong, because we don't want to use wrong ideas. We're interested, even driven, to seek knowledge and the truth about everything. You need to feel the same way in these discussions.
And we do want you to present your case. When I started studying "creation science" in 1981, it was with the expectation that there was actually something to it, that they actually some kind of evidence for their ideas about creation. It's been more than three decades now and I have yet to see any creationist present any of that evidence; even though they still claim to have "mountains of evidence", the only mountain I've ever seen them present has been Mount Bandini (that is from an old commercial for a fertilizer company, "Ski Mount Bandini!", which refers to their huge pile of dessicated cow manure waiting to be packaged).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 841 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:04 AM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 872 of 2073 (744539)
12-12-2014 1:40 AM
Reply to: Message 841 by Colbard
12-11-2014 7:04 AM


Re: To the last few replies
I initially came here thinking that there would be a fair trial for creationism, ...
In the unlikely event that you are finally able to get on track with this objective instead of frittering your time away counter-productively, I have some suggestions you should think about.
  1. Propose a new topic for the trial. That will afford us a new start and minimize interference and distraction from threads of discussion already in existence.
  2. Review some other topics to see how the proposal, which would be the first message, was written. That should help you in composing your own proposal for the trial.
  3. At some point, you will need to present your definition of "creationism". We all understand it to refer to the young-earth creationism that is associated with biblical literalistic Christian sects, such as fundamentalists and Seventh-Day Adventists, and which employs "creation science". If what you mean "creationism" is distinctly different from that meaning (or at least if you believe that it is), then you will need to explain those differences to us clearly and completely. This is also in keeping with the most fundamental first rule of discussion: define the terms that will be used and have both sides agree to those definitions. Creationists are notorious for switching definitions of words in order to generate confusion, muddy the discussion, and deceive the audience.
  4. You should also do the same for terms such as "evolution". Again, creationists are notorious for not understanding what evolution is or means, such that all their arguments and complaints against "evolution" pertain only to their own grossly distorted misconceptions and not to evolution itself. By providing us with a clear definition of your misunderstanding of evolution, you will help us to help you alleviate your confusion.
That should help you get started on the right path to pursuing your stated objective.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 841 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:04 AM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(5)
Message 873 of 2073 (744560)
12-12-2014 11:25 AM
Reply to: Message 768 by Colbard
12-08-2014 8:28 AM


Re: How Should We be Teaching Science?
What will you feel and say when your world of conclusions is proven wrong?
We have answered your question overwhelmingly: we want to test our own ideas and conclusions in order to detect and correct error. We are dedicated to seeking and learning the truth.
The important question, which we did ask (albeit not as directly) and which you ignored, needs to be directed to you:
What will you feel and say when your world of conclusions is proven wrong?
It is a very important question for creationists to answer honestly:
  1. Creationists in particular and biblical literalists in general have adopted a false theology in which they believe that finding any error in their myriad religious conclusions will invalidate all of their religion, both proving the Bible to be completely and utterly false and even disproving the existence of God. These conclusions include conclusions about the Bible and about what it says and about how the world must be according to their religious conclusions (eg, young earth, Noachian Flood). "Creation science" actively teaches this approach and many creationists I have had discourse with have adamantly insisted on this position.
  2. This question must inevitably be faced because the creationist conclusions about how the world must be are contrary-to-fact. That means that should a creationist make the grave mistake of examining the real world, he will see his religious conclusions contradicted.
  3. Creationists and fundamentalists are thoroughly trained to believe that should they ever find that their religious conclusions are wrong in any way, then the only alternative for them is to through their Bibles into the trash and become atheists. Again, this "necessary" action has been presented to me in numerous discourses with creationists and fundamentalists and they have fervently and adamantly insisted that that is their only alternative.
  4. Creationists will do anything at all to avoid becoming atheists because they've found that their conclusions are wrong. There is no lie too big that they will not try, no deception too insidious.
  5. Hence creationists are driven to become flagrantly and zealously dishonest and to abandon any and all morals in "God's Absolute Laws." And they are taught to fear and hate the truth.
My position for the past three decades has consistently been that none of that is necessary. That there should be no conflict between evolution and belief in a Creator, though there can indeed be some conflict between certain narrow and contrary-to-fact religious beliefs and their own misunderstanding of evolution. That tricking and forcing creationists and fundamentalists into becoming atheists is wrong, unnecessary, and just plain stupid.
Creationists claim that they are defending the truth of the Bible, but that is not true. They claim to believe what the Bible says, but that is also not true. Rather, they actually believe in is their theology and what they are defending is their theology. Their theology tells them what to think about the Bible and what to think that the Bible says and what to believe about how the world must be if God exists. Who creates theologies? Man does. Theologies are all man-made. Oh sure, they're supposed to be based on Revelation, but the vast majority of their mass is all made up by imperfect fallible Man as He tries to understand and interpret and expand upon what he believes to be Revelation. As a result, theologies are imperfect and fallible. And yet creationists and biblical literalists have raised their imperfect fallible theologies to the level of "Word of God", embuing them with the qualities of inerrancy and infallibility. It is their theology that has made contrary-to-fact claims about the real world and that is holding their faith hostage, threatening to obliterate their faith should any of those claims be wrong.
Man created that theology (actually, we all create our own theology, constructed out of our own misunderstanding of what our religious leaders have taught us about their own misunderstanding of what their teachers had taught them about ... etc, etc, etc). Theology was never intended to be perfect. The existence of God was never intended to be dependent on a specific theology. If the claims of a theology about the real world are found to be wrong, then they need to be corrected or removed from that theology. God has nothing to do with that. If you find your theology to be in error, then that means that you need to correct your theology, not give up on God altogether. If you are going to become an atheist, that is not the right way to do it!
So, Colbard, what will you feel and say when your world of conclusions is proven wrong?
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : theology

This message is a reply to:
 Message 768 by Colbard, posted 12-08-2014 8:28 AM Colbard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 874 by RAZD, posted 12-12-2014 12:28 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 875 of 2073 (744588)
12-13-2014 2:45 AM
Reply to: Message 846 by Colbard
12-11-2014 7:28 AM


Re: To the last few replies
DWise1 writes:
But what is the cause of that denial of the Creator? Not science. Science cannot disprove the existence of any of the gods, nor does it try to nor does it have any need to, nor does it have any desire to.
Rather, it is "creation science" that is the cause of that denial of the Creator. And it is "creation science" that is able to disprove the existence of the Judeo-Christian God and it is "creation science" that is very zealous in imposing its teachings that disprove the existence of the Creator. I've explained that to you already. Stop trying to blame others for your own mess!
Here again is that explanation, which you ignored before, from Message 709:
DWise1 writes:
No, science does not disprove Divine Creation, nor does it try to, nor is any scientists without a personal religious agenda in any way motivated to. Nor could science ever disprove Divine Creation. Rather, that is what YEC does. It is YEC that disproves Creation and even God. YEC accomplishes that impossible task by convincing its followers of false premises that say that if the earth is old, then Scripture has no meaning, and that if evolution is true, then God does not exist and everybody should just become atheists (I'm not making this up; over the decades several fundamentalists have insisted emphatically that those are the consequences of an old earth and evolution being true and nothing I could say would budge them from that position). Well, of course the earth is old and evolution is true, so according to their false logic Scripture has no meaning and God does not exist. Even many non-YECs accept YEC's false premises at face value and, seeing that the claims of YEC are false, follow the YEC conclusions that God does not exist.
In that same message, I pointed out that there are several different kinds of creationism, but the current issues center around one particular form of young-earth creationism (YEC) which employs "creation science" as its legalistic deception, though the creationist and fundamentalist communities have themselves adapted that deception into other aspects of their ministries. That fact has a direct bearing on your own objection to "creation science".
Colbard writes:
Coming from your standpoint, I believe you have a case against creation science, personally I have scruples with it too, for other reasons, because it tries to find a compromise between inspiration and the opinions of the world.
Frankly, we also are bewildered by creationists' insistence on explaining away all supernatural miraculous events with naturalistic explanations. A prime example is forum member Faith's attempts to explain how Noah's Flood laid down all the strata of the Grand Canyon and then carved the canyon out all in the very short time-frame of that Flood (which in YEC would have been about one year). This played out here in a few very long topics in which she, being almost completely ignorant of geology and of physics and of chemistry, repeatedly dreamed up more and more imaginative "naturalistic" explanations for how the waters of the Flood could have done all that. Of course, every single one of her "naturalistic explanations" completely violated the laws of physics as she attributed to those Flood waters abilities and behavior no flood water nor any other collection of water could possibly exhibit. Her "naturalistic explanations" were just plain physically impossible. And yet whenever any of us would offer to her that God just performed a supernatural act to "make it so" (eg, in frequent references to her Flood waters being magic), she would adamantly refuse that possibility.
Similarly, we hear of repeated attempts by engineers and scientists and amateurs, who are devout fundamentalist Christians, as they try to "defend and prove the Bible" by trying to come up with purely naturalistic explanations for other miraculous events in the Bible, such as the Parting of the Red Sea as well as the Ten Plagues. Why? And why don't they see that their actions would actually be much more likely to have the opposite effect? In creation/evolution rhetorics, creationists constantly vilify science for "disproving God" by offering naturalistic explanations for things that they think should be credited to God, such as the formation of the Solar System or the beginning of life, and yet here they are doing the exact same things with their own attempts to explain away the Flood and other miracles of the Bible. To non-creationists, that just does not make any sense at all!
I suspect two reasons for this, though both reasons ultimately bring us to "creation science" and the predominant role it has assumed in fundamentalist-et-alia communities.
The first reason coincides with the initial growth of science, in particular with the origins of geology as a science -- I discuss this much more fully on my page, GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF AN ANCIENT EARTH, a repost of an upload I had made to CompuServe back in the day (the historical part starts about 3/4 of the way down the page). Geology really started developing in the early 19th century and it got devout science-minded Christians (AKA "natural theologians") interested in looking for geological evidence of Noah's Flood. Of course, they never found any such evidence and some leading "scriptural geologists" even became the harshest critics of "Scriptural Geology"; eg, William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick. Nonetheless, devotees of "Scriptural Geology" kept puttering about in their sheds and keeping the idea alive among dilettantes. A century later in the 1920's and 1930's, Canadian creationist writer George McCready Price (also a Seventh-Day Adventist) with practically no geological training re-created "Flood Geology". In 1961, Dr. Henry Morris, PhD Hydraulic Engineering (again, no geologist) became the "Father of Flood Geology" by co-authoring the book, The Genesis Flood, in which he appears to have taken all his idea from Price without acknowledging that source. And then a decade later Morris became one of the creators of "creation science".
There is another evangelical tradition that I believe had contributed. From the 1940's and afterwards and undoubtedly even before, evangelical Christians produced a lot of literature, including films, along the lines of "Sermons from Science". Their themes would mainly be to reveal something interesting about nature in order to inspire awe in God as the Creator. I suspect that when "creation science" was being created, they drew on this body of stories.
The second reason I enumerated is based on the history of the creation of "creation science" -- I present it more fully in the handout for a presentation I gave at church, reposted as DWISE1'S EARLY-BIRD PRESENTATION. In the USA, Populist opposition to the teaching of evolution grew into an anti-evolution movement following WWI. In the 1920's, they were able to get "monkey laws" passed in four states, one of which led to the Scopes Trial which proved ineffective since it didn't make it to the US Supreme Court, though it did have the effect of publicly shaming the anti-evolution movement, leading them to shun public attention. Even though they were no longer visible, they did continue to exert pressure on school boards, teachers, and textbook publishers to keep evolution out of the schools. In the 1960's as a reaction to the launching of Sputnik, the US pushed heavily to improve science education, which led to actual scientists writing the textbooks, which led to evolution being reintroduced into the textbooks, which led to teachers being placed in violation of their states' "monkey laws", which led to Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), which led to the striking down of all "monkey laws" as unconstitutional.
Having lost their main tool for barring the teaching of evolution, the anti-evolution movement was revived and revitalized, but they soon found that their old ways no longer worked. They tried law suits and new laws. They also campaigned for equal access to the science classroom under names like "equal time" and "equal access" and "balanced treatment" and for which they developed educational materials which freely mixed their anti-evolution and anti-old-earth claims with explicit religious statements and references. Time after time their efforts were stymied and they would lose their court cases until finally they came to recognize the legal precedence that they could not have the teaching of evolution barred for religious reasons.
That is when and where "creation science" was created. They took their educational materials and superficially scrubbed them of all overt religious references, though their religious basis was still obvious. Now as they campaigned for "equal time" and "equal access" and "balanced treatment", they would lie by insisting that their reasons and their objections to evolution were "purely scientific".
Because of those actions, "creation science" came to be known as "playing the game of 'Hide the Bible'." And the game was also played through new state laws which were later also found to be religiously motivated and hence ruled unconstitutional, such that now "creation science" is legally recognized as being religious in nature. So the anti-evolution movement adopted another development, "intelligent design", as a new name for "creation science", changing the name of the game to "Hide the Creationism". Then in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005) "intelligent design" was legally recognized as just another name for "creation science" and hence also religiously motivated and also not allowed.
Hence "creation science" was created as a deliberate deception for circumventing the law and deceiving the public. But YEC has continued to evolve. The churches started using it to bolster their own morale, to help their congregants convince themselves that they were right in their YEC beliefs. And they started using it to proselytize as well. Now it has become thoroughly integrated in their theologies.
Perhaps part of its appeal for them is a kind of "science envy". In our modern society, the findings of science enjoy a degree of acceptance and trust that religious statements no longer have. So by co-opting science to serve their religion, they hope to imbue their religious statements with an aura of scientific respectability. Even though the only way to do that is by lying.
... personally I have scruples with {creation science} too ...
You also have mentioned studying flood geology. You used "creation science" materials for that. Doesn't say much for your scruples.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 846 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 7:28 AM Colbard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 876 by Phat, posted 12-13-2014 7:28 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 891 of 2073 (744980)
12-17-2014 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 852 by Colbard
12-11-2014 8:03 AM


Well, since you have no objection to elevating science popularizers to the role of Authority, then you will accept what one of our own very well known science popularizers have to say about creationism and its detrimental effects on our children's education ("Bill Nye: Creationism Is 'Raising A Generation Of Young People Who Can't Think'" by Antonia Blumberg, The Huffington Post, 13 Dec 2014 10:59 am EST, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-creationism_n_6317148.html):
quote:
Nye stood by the debate, however, saying he "stepped into the lion's den" in order to spread awareness about the academic opportunities children are denied by being creationism.
"They will not have this fundamental idea that you can question things, that you can think critically, that you can use skeptical thought to learn about nature," Nye told MidPoint. "These children have to suppress everything that they can see in nature to try to get a world view that's compatible with the adults in who they trust and rely on for sustenance."
Bill Nye's statement has been verified by real-life observation, including the ICR-trained geologists hired for oil exploration work by Glenn R. Morton, all of whose faith started to fall apart by being faced daily with rock-hard geological evidence which they had been taught did not exist and could not exist for Scripture to have any meaning and with no possible excuse for ignoring it. These are the results and consequences of a creationist education.
The article includes a video clip of the MidPoint interview being reported on. The debate being referenced was with Australian expatriate creationist Ken Ham several months ago. You should still be able to find the debate on YouTube.
quote:
"We know that ignorance does not work, because we've tried it already."
(From then-Governor of Mississippi justifying his campaign for educational reform, as heard in a radio news report circa 1990)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 852 by Colbard, posted 12-11-2014 8:03 AM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 892 of 2073 (744982)
12-17-2014 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 880 by Colbard
12-14-2014 6:13 PM


Re: A Q of authority
OK, you just informed us that you have absolutely no intention of even attempting to construct and present a case for creationism. No problem. We knew that already. It's obvious that you only tossed out that about "{having come} here thinking that there would be a fair trial for creationism" as a desperate and/or flippant attempt at saving face and pretending to take the moral high-ground. It's obvious that you never expected us to take it seriously. It has always amazed me how the easiest way to confuse and even anger a creationist is to try to discuss his claims seriously.
But should you ever decide to actually have a "fair trial for creationism" (which has already happened many times with YEC; not only has creationism lost consistently, but it's also been thrown out of court for being frivolous), then at least you now have a much better idea of what you will need to do to present a case for it. Such as, present a case for it!
Having talked about it to other audiences, I am aware that the majority, if not all, are incapable of comprehending what I say, it is a matter of intelligence capacities.
Rather, wouldn't it be that what you've presented them is incomprehensible, even incoherent at times? Communication requires three components: a transmitter, a receiver, and a message. For a message to be communicated properly, both the transmitter and the receiver must be functioning properly. If the transmitter is not functioning properly and garbles the message, then the receiver cannot possibly receive the clear and complete message no matter how well it is functioning. Instead of berating everybody else for the motes in their eyes, shouldn't you be attending to the beam in your own eye?
For all your hyper-intelligence, it's amazing how inept you are at constructing a coherent series of logical arguments, which is what you would need to do in order to build a case for creationism. Or even to just be able to communicate your hyper-intelligent ideas. A truly hyper-intelligent being such as you consider yourself to be should have no difficulty in presenting his hyper-intelligent ideas to us mere mortals. By analogy, a good advanced leader in partner dance is able to lead any level of follower regardless of how much of a beginner she is; a hot-shot advanced leader who has far too high an opinion of his own abilities would not be able to lead a beginner. So are you truly so hyper-intelligent that you are capable of the feats of a hyper-intelligent being? Or do you just think that you're such a hot-shot who actually cannot perform the most menial of a hyper-intelligent being's tasks? Don't forget that we've seen you in action. The proof of the pudding and all that, what?
No, rather than a hyper-intelligent being, you come off as yet another typical clueless teen-ager (regardless your chronological age) who thinks that he knows everything and that everybody else knows nothing. Normally, that condition is one that people grow out of, though sadly not everybody.
quote:
When I was eighteen, I thought my father was the most ignorant man in all the world. But when I was twenty-one, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just three years.
(falsely attributed to Mark Twain; there is a plethora of different versions)
I'm sure that you have made your escape from the untenable position you have created for yourself here, shaking the dust off of your sandals. I will continue to comment on what you have said. Even though you will undoubtedly not learn from it, others might.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 880 by Colbard, posted 12-14-2014 6:13 PM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 893 of 2073 (745168)
12-19-2014 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 880 by Colbard
12-14-2014 6:13 PM


Re: A Q of authority
The bottom line is that we are prone to make mistakes, both in the field of science and theology, and that we as human beings are not infallible.
That is absolutely correct! So why do you pretend that that does not apply to you as well?
The big difference between science and theology is that science employs a methodology that questions and tests its own findings and conclusions, which not only enables it to find and correct mistakes, but which also makes that its SOP ("standing operating procedure"). Theology does not have that methodology, nor the motivation to question and test itself. To be fair, science does have an advantage over theology in this regard by restricting itself to the physical universe, to nature, and to phenomena which it can detect, observe, and measure, whereas theology concerns itself primarily with the supernatural which cannot be detected nor observed nor measured nor lend itself to testing in any manner at all.
I thought this was illustrated rather well by a story attributed to Carl Sagan:
quote:
The Physicist and the Metaphysicist
In the 1920s, there was a dinner at which the physicist Robert W. Wood was asked to respond to a toast. This was a time when people stood up, made a toast, and then selected someone to respond. Nobody knew what toast they'd be asked to reply to, so it was a challenge for the quick-witted. In this case the toast was: "To physics and metaphysics." Now by metaphysics was meant something like philosophy -- truths that you could get to just by thinking about them. Wood took a second, glanced about him, and answered along these lines: The physicist has an idea, he said. The more he thinks it through, the more sense it makes to him. He goes to the scientific literature, and the more he reads, the more promising the idea seems. Thus prepared, he devises an experiment to test the idea. The experiment is painstaking. Many possibilities are eliminated or taken into account; the accuracy of the measurement is refined. At the end of all this work, the experiment is completed and ... the idea is shown to be worthless. The physicist then discards the idea, frees his mind (as I was saying a moment ago) from the clutter of error, and moves on to something else.
The difference between physics and metaphysics, Wood concluded, is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.
The meaning of this analogy is that you are able to evaluate a scientific idea objectively by testing it against reality. Such tests are simply not available in theology nor in philosophy.
A second analogy that may prove useful would be that of navigating a ship at sea. Not counting external navigational aids (eg, GPS, LORAN), there are basically two methods of navigation: dead reckoning and plotting a fix. You plot a fix on your location by shooting celestrial objects with your sextant and then going back inside to perform the calculations. With dead reckoning, you start from a known location and, using your ship's inertial navigation system (SINS) or even just manually logging your ship's course and speed over time, extrapolate your new position on the chart in the time that has elapsed (basically applying rate time = distance, unless you also never paid attention in algebra class). The problem with plotting a fix is that it's a lot of work and is time-consuming. The problem with dead reckoning is that there are a number of factors that it does not take into account that can throw you off-course (eg, ocean currents, wind, helmsman error in maintaining a steady course). The solution is to use both navigational methods: use dead reckoning starting from a known plotted starting point and then periodically plot a fix on your position and mark your correct position on the chart as the next dead reckoning starting point. Or in other words, you proceed assuming that you are where you think you are, and then you verify your assumed position against reality and correct your assumptions to match up with reality.
In this analogy, dead reckoning would represent coming up with an idea and developing it mentally. A prominent tool in such an effort would be to use logic to develop a chain of arguments (a term in formal logic) in which premises lead to a conclusion with then acts as a premise to arrive at the next conclusion, etc. This is done in science, theology, and philosophy. The difference lies in the fact that only science has the other tool, testing ("plotting a fix"), with which to test the conclusions arrived out by that chain of logic (as well as the initial premises) against reality; neither theology nor philosophy can perform such a test. The only means of testing that theology and philosophy have are all internal; eg, are there no errors in the logic, do the conclusions conflict with some other aspect of the theology or philosophy. And more fundamentally, there is no way for theology to test its initial premises, since it assumes that that which it considers to be Revelation truly is just that. BTW, for your edification, the reason why it's so important to start a chain of logic with true premises is because logic can be certain to yield a true conclusion only if it is both valid and it starts with true premises.
This may well be the fundamental source of theology's feeling of "science envy" that we discussed earlier (Message 875). With science's methodology of questioning and testing, we can feel a high degree of confidence with our conclusions, but since theology lacks that methodology, we cannot feel anything approaching the same degree of confidence, unless we apply blind faith and dogmatism. While this didn't used to be a concern, the growing prominence in society of science in the past couple centuries presents more and more to followers of religion an apparent alternative to their theology -- please note the emphasis on "apparent".
But that is not quite true. The reason why science is so successful in its methodology is because it restricts itself to the types of questions that it attempts to answer, questions for which there is physical evidence in nature. For the most part, these are the "how" questions of how something works and what causes this phenomenon and what happens when we do this ... .
As interesting as those questions are, they pale in comparison to the really big and vitally interesting questions, the questions which we might insufficiently call "the 'why' questions." Those questions are what theology and philosophy attempt to answer, or at least to address; science could never even begin to consider making the attempt. Not that either theology or philosophy is any better equipped than science would be to test any part of attempting to answer such questions. There is no physical evidence in nature to lead the investigations into those questions, so philosophy works with abstractions and ideals while theology works with statements about the supernatural. Neither the supernatural nor abstractions nor intellectual ideals can be tested and any chain of reasoning involving them cannot be tested against reality, but rather only for internal consistency and lack of invalid logic.
Reasoning within theology and philosophy are like navigating by dead reckoning, except that you don't even have a fix on the position of the starting point. Of the two, philosophy is much better equipped than theology to navigate the voyage because philosophy has made a centuries-old study of the process and pitfalls of logical reasoning. Thus philosophy is able to proceed with eyes wide open, while theology stumbles along boldly with eyes wide shut.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 880 by Colbard, posted 12-14-2014 6:13 PM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 894 of 2073 (745169)
12-19-2014 3:03 PM
Reply to: Message 880 by Colbard
12-14-2014 6:13 PM


Re: A Q of authority
The main difference between genuine Christian believers and the world in general is that they consider the Bible as the word of God, an authority above man made theories and conclusions.
. . .
The first evidence that the true believer has is the word of God and everything else has to be tested by it.
The world on the other hand puts the opinions and conclusions of man above revelation and God. So there is no harmony there.
It does not mean that science cannot be married to creationism, it just means that the conclusions drawn which contradict the Bible have to be left out.
If I were to talk about global flood dynamics, the Bible would be my first and only reference, which has authority over and above the world. It does not matter if other thoughts and conclusions disagree with it.
On HBO I watched a documentary, "Questioning Darwin". As I recall, there was no narrator, but rather it consisted of several people talking about creation/evolution. Only a few of the people featured were pro-evolution; the majority were young-earth creationists and leaders in fundamentalist ministries.
In one clip, a creationist proclaimed proudly about the strength of his faith being such that if he were to find in the Bible that 2+2 is five, then that is how it is and nothing could possibly shake his belief in 2+2=5 and he would actively oppose the atheist teaching of 2+2=4. OK, I did embellish that last part a bit, but it is absolutely true that he stated that if he were to find in the Bible that 2+2=5, then that is how it is and that is what he would believe absolutely regardless of any amount of non-biblical evidence that it really is 2+2=4.
That is the same position that you are arguing for, that the Bible must take precedence over reality. That may whisper "faithful" in your ear, but it shouts "delusional!" to normal people. And it is a blasphemy to the Creator, since you are placing the Word of Man over the Word of God.
quote:
"Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world."
(from the song, The Word of God, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML
quote:
I'm reading from a scripture revealed to me a couple years back, written by God in His own hand. It's all of God's creation and how His creation works and it teaches me more about God than any other source. It needed a name. I called it "The First Testament of God."
. . .
There are billions of pages written in a language common to all and yet impossible for one human mind, impossible for the collective minds of all of time to absorb them all and it's still being written. The First Testament of God is all of God's creation and it is a work in progress.
("The First Testament of God" by George H. Birkett, a devout Christian, on his website, "Blending Faith with Reality", circa 2000)
quote:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
. . .
As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism -- a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.
. . .
That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronony occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.
As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works and writings that man has made; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it has abandonded the original and beautiful system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag of superstition."
. . .
It is the fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
. . .
THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man.
. . .
It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.
("The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine)
This Bible that you believe must take precedence over everything, including reality, does not exist. Yes, some believers in the Creator believe that it is, but believin' alone don't make things so. There are far more believers in the Creator and in the Bible who do not believe the same things about the Bible that you do; they can accept a Bible that is not perfect though still inspired. There can be and have been and still are long discussions and arguments about the nature of the Bible, one of which is still going on in this forum right now. There is no agreement on this question nor can we expect there to ever be any agreement. The bottom line is that your beliefs in an omni-authoritative Bible have no support other than being part of the particular dogma that you believe in.
One thing that comes close to being a point of agreement is that writing, compiling, translating, interpreting, etc, of the Bible have been performed physically by humans. Even believers in the omni-authoritative Bible as the literal "Word of God" can find some degree of agreement with that fact, though they would probably be reluctant to use that wording, while maintaining their primary position by placing those humans very much under the direct or indirect control and guidance of God. And there again there is disagreement as to the nature and properties of inspiration.
And I'm not including any atheists nor other non-Christians in that. I'm talking about believing Christians (whether or not you want to classify them as such) who do believe in the Creator (whether or not in the particular manner that you want to find acceptable). While their doctrines disagree about the exact nature of the Bible and what all that is supposed to mean, they can generally agree -- or at least taciturnly admit -- that humans were directly involved in writing the Bible. On top of that, those doctrines about the Bible, including your own, are all based on man-made theologies.
Ergo, humans wrote the Bible.
In contrast to all the disagreement about the Bible, there can be no disgreement about the Creation. I can see no reason for a real creationist not believing that the Creation is the work of the Creator.
God wrote the rocks. God wrote the sky. God wrote life. God wrote the world.
Science started out as Thomas Paine described it, as a form of "natural theology" in which we would study the Creation, Nature, to learn more about the Creator. Of course, some of those discoveries have proven embarrassing and humbling for us, such as discovering the Creator's inordinate love of beetles. And to this very day, many believing Christians who are scientists, whether professional or amateur or just fans of science, continue to study the Creation for that same reason.
quote:
"The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand."
(from the song, The Word of God, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML
But then you and other creationists choose to place your theologies over Nature, the Word of Man over the True Word of God. Not just placing the Bible written by Man over Nature written by God, but rather your fallible and corrupted theologies of what God had written in Nature. Shouldn't that constitute blasphemy?
It does not mean that science cannot be married to creationism, it just means that the conclusions drawn which contradict the Bible have to be left out.
. .
I believe that if we place our opinions above nature or God then we are kidding ourselves.
And yet you are yourself placing your opinions above nature and God.
Remember that regardless of what the Bible's real status is (and whether it even should be used as the final arbiter of what we should accept as Reality), what the Bible says is never what's being contradicted by the conclusions of science (which in turn are our best understanding of reality to date). Rather it is the conclusions of your theology that is being contradicted by reality. The Bible has absolutely nothing to do with any of that.
Your imperfect and inherently corrupted theology does not have the authority to override Nature nor what God has very clearly written in Nature. By believing that you can place your opinions above nature or God, you are doing far worse than simply kidding yourself.
quote:
I think I do know what all this fuss is about. Dr. Morris describes creation scientists as bible believers. That's it. You gotta believe that the bible is God's divine word. It's the literal truth, the absolute truth, the whole truth, the only truth. It is God's truth. If you don't believe that there's just no way you can believe in God. I got a problem though. I hear them saying things they don't think they're saying -- but I hear them plenty clear. Count on it, they're going to deny it but I hear them saying . . .

"The bible IS God;
except for the bible God wouldn't exist;
the bible is the only way we have of knowing God."

The first and third I've heard word for word: verbatim. The middle one, they say the bible wouldn't exist except for God {sic -- from context, I believe is a typo and should be: "they say God wouldn't exist except for the bible"}. Lordy! WE wouldn't exist except for God. Bottom line: they believe in God less and the bible more. Yep! That's what I hear them saying.
You're just a biblio-idolater, a Bible worshipper. And the Bible, especially your theology's ideas about it, is a false idol. Doesn't the Bible have something to say about worshipping an idol?
It is not that others are incapable of knowing, it is just that it is uncommon for someone to have done the homework themselves and exercised their mind to be able to comprehend the facts that scripture makes so plainly.
To date, you have been annoyed that I make outrageous claims, but that is your problem for having squeezed yourself into a certain pigeon hole, which by the way you would like me to do also by asking me to make a statement of where I stand in theology or whatever.
In regards to the outrageous claims, they are very obvious to anyone who has studied the scriptures.
Circa 2000 on another forum, I experienced an epiphany from something a creationist said. Perhaps in sharing it with you then you might also experience an epiphany.
At that point, I had been studying creationist claims for a couple decades. One salient factor in every single one of those claims has been how utterly ridiculous and ludicrous they are -- though your claim of carbon-dating a coin does surpass the majority of those claims in sheer stupidity. One day, a creationist regurgitated the old canard about the amount of sea salt in the oceans. After explaining the facts to him to the point where even he had to admit that the claim is false, I asked him two more questions:
  1. Q: If your position is that the earth is no older than 10,000 years, why use a claim that would make the earth millions of years old?
    A: That doesn't matter, just so long as it's not BILLIONS of years old as science claims that it is!
    Minor Epiphany: Creationists are not trying to argue for creation, but rather the only goal of their claims is to discredit science.
  2. Q: What can you possibly hope to accomplish with claims that are so ridiculous and unconvincing?
    A: The only reason you don't find them convincing is because you are yourself not yet convinced.
    Major Ephiphany! (partial list):
    1. The only reason why they find their claims convincing is because they are already convinced.
    2. We find them unconvincing, because we are not already convinced.
    3. Because they, being already convinced, find their claims convincing, they are not aware of how weak and unconvincing they are. Hence, they are not aware of the need to try to correct and improve them, so their claims remain weak and unconvincing.
    4. Because they need to remain convinced, they cannot allow themselves to become aware of how weak and unconvincing their claims are, further ensuring that their claims will remain weak and unconvincing.
    5. The primary purpose of their claims is to convince. The sole property by which a creationist claim is to be judged is in how concincing it sounds. It does not matter how false a claim is; as long as it continues to sound convincing then it will be embraced and celebrated by the creationist community and continue to be used regardless of how many times it has been soundly refuted.
Case in point: When faced with the undeniable truth about his sea-salt claim, that creationist admitted that it was false. Then a few months later on the same forum I saw him using the exact same admittedly-false claim on somebody else. I immediately called him on that and he immediately fled, having been publicly caught in a deliberate lie. That also illustrated and helps to explain why creationists repeatedly lie.
How does that bone-headedness apply to you?
It is not that others are incapable of knowing, it is just that it is uncommon for someone to have done the homework themselves and exercised their mind to be able to comprehend the facts that scripture makes so plainly.
IOW, in order to accept your strange claims and find them convincing, one would need to work themselves into a state of already being convinced. Certainly this happens all the time in people who convert to an extreme religious theology: first they are motivated for personal reasons, such as seeking solace and/or a solution to personal problems (eg, personal loss, emotional turmoil, depression, addiction), then they work to align their minds with the sect's theology by working on convincing themselves of it.
Of course, those who see no reason to surrender their minds to a sect or a cult will not put forth that great effort to become convinced of the sect or cult's teachings and hence will remain unconvinced.
In regards to the outrageous claims, they are very obvious to anyone who has studied the scriptures.
Only if by "stud{ying} the scriptures" you mean "convincing yourself of those outrageous claims".
Actually, I'm still mystified by your repeated claim that the Bible teaches religious liberty. Everything I've read in the Bible has taught the exact opposite, that you are forbidden to choose to follow another religion or to worship whatever god you chose. Obviously, you've convinced yourself of "things scriptural" that are contrary to what the Bible says.
To date, you have been annoyed that I make outrageous claims, but that is your problem for having squeezed yourself into a certain pigeon hole, ...
Rather, you are the one who has squeezed yourself into a pigeon hole by restricting yourself to only that which you have convinced yourself. Look at the consequences listed above. You come up with and attempt to use weak and unconvincing claims and arguments. You cannot allow yourself to evaluate those claims and arguments, since that could reduce your state of being convinced. As a result of preventing yourself from evaluating and correcting them, your claims remain weak, unconvincing, outrageous, and bone-headed. You also have to blind yourself to anything and everything that could possibly cast any form of doubt on that of which you have convinced yourself. That places you in a constant state of self-deception and self-delusion. It also prevents you from being able to think.
Since I have not wedged myself in any pigeon hole, I am free to observe and to think. I can learn about other ways of thinking. I can question my own ideas. I can think about what you present and evaluate it.
It would be entirely to your benefit for you to get out of that pigeon hole you've squeezed yourself into. If not for your own sake, then at least for the sake of that poor pigeon.
In re bone-headedness:
quote:
In Bablyon 5, they are in a desperate situation and discussing a radical and highly dangerous tactic, namely engaging their jump drive while in an active jump gate:
Susan Ivanova: EarthForce looked into that idea before and decided it was too dangerous and too stupid to attempt, so we called it the "bone-head maneuver".
(She realizes how that must sound to Lennier, a Minbari, who was part of the conversation)
Ivanova to Lennier: No offense.
Lennier: None taken.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 880 by Colbard, posted 12-14-2014 6:13 PM Colbard has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 913 of 2073 (745641)
12-25-2014 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 909 by Rodnas
12-25-2014 6:15 AM


Re: A Q of authority
We are straying from the main issue.
Yes, you are quite correct in this statement ("Even a broken clock can be correct twice a day.")
The main issue in this topic (which is called a "thread" in some other fora) is, as per the topic title: Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?
Urantia has no bearing on this topic unless it is your intention that it be taught in the US public schools. Is that your intention? If so, then please state that and point to Urantian policy statements to that effect.
If that is not your intention, then your actual intentions can be far better served by proposing a new topic in which your Urantian beliefs can be discussed. I would recommend that the keyword "Urantia" be included in the topic title so that those forum members with knowledge of, experience with, and/or interest in Urantian claims can become aware of this discussion's existence, which currently is being hidden from sight in an entirely different and unrelated topic.
I would suggest that discussion of the scientific claims made by the Urantia book be a major area of discussion. In familiarizing myself with the subject, I read the criticism that the scientific ideas and "facts" presented in that book are from a 1920s perspective and using scientific knowledge of that time which has now been shown to be incorrect. A number of them are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/...tia_Book#Criticism_of_its_science, such as your idea of entirely new species arising in a single generation based on de Vries' short-lived idea that has long since been disproven.
... and a code requires a programmer.
You should also review the false "God of the Gaps" theology (eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps, What Does "God of the Gaps" Mean?, Science and Christian Apologetics), since that is what you are advocating there. Also, both "intelligent design" and "creation science", the originators of that argument, themselves base their arguments on that same false and highly-dangerous-to-the-user theology.
Also, are we really talking about an actual code here? Or is that just an analogy we use to aid in discussing genetics? Like the "Laws of Nature" which do not actually exist, but rather are human formulations of patterns we humans have noticed in how natural processes are observed to work. Or the sun and moon rising and setting, which we still say despite knowing how false that analogy is.
And before you compare genetics to computer programming code, please read up on Dr. Thomas Ray's TIERRA simulation in which he explicitly discusses the differences.
Also, you should probably read up on genetic algorithms. And on evolutionary theory itself. And on the modern evolutionary synthesis which united Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics and which occurred after your book was written. Before the synthesis, genetics was seen as an alternative to Darwinian evolution and a disproof of Darwin, as reflected in the countless 1920's geneticists quote-mined by creationists.
But your first step should be to propose a new topic. Then while waiting for it to be approved, you can catch up on some much-needed reading.
Edited by dwise1, : " and a code requires a programmer." quote that had somehow disappeared

This message is a reply to:
 Message 909 by Rodnas, posted 12-25-2014 6:15 AM Rodnas has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 914 by NoNukes, posted 12-25-2014 12:10 PM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 915 by Rodnas, posted 12-25-2014 2:34 PM dwise1 has not replied
 Message 933 by dwise1, posted 01-04-2015 12:17 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
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