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| Author | Topic: International opinions: USA on science! | |||||||||||||||||||
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days)  Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
In fact, a not insignificant number of Americans could not find Norway on a map much less have any clue regarding international opinion. Heck they can't even list all the provinces in Canada or the states in Mexico, our two border neighbors. Or even know how many there are. Ask them where Puerto Rico is and wait. The only reason they know about Cuba is because it is an evil communist totalitarian state that wants to take over South America ....  Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
When it all comes to it, I suspect that a lot of you guys are actually lying. Lying to us and to yourselfes. I can not understand how anybody can actually beleive that the world is 6000 years old, despite the owerwhelming evidenses saying it is older. To claim lying you need to demonstrate intent to deceive. I prefer the terms {deluded\ignorant} to describe the condition. Ignorant means what it says - they just don't know. Willfull ignorance is also an attribute -- willfully staying ignorant and denying evidence and intentionally not pursuing the evidence that contradicts -- due to the fear of the reality you mention. Deluded is a little different, it can include self-delusion, but it can also include false information being fed from sources of authority. The US was deluded by the false information that the Botch Administration used to justify the Iraq invasion - they didn't choose to believe the evidence so much as trust the providers. Also calling someone a liar is a quick way to get a suspension  . Welcome to the fray. Edited by RAZD, : tyupo eh? we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I'm sorry if I hurt your felings RAZD, that was not my intent. My feelings aren't hurt, I have a thick skin for such from many years of living around creationists. My point is that you are making blatantly biased statements without regard for others, probably not even realizing how biased and uncaring they are.
Can you explain your official position as a Deist? I only ask because it seems that all the Deists I've met have a different theory. Since they aren't unified on any given specifics, I wonder what purpose there is in calling oneself, a Deist. Religion is a personal {study\trail\growth} issue. Deists are just honest in stating that it is their personal belief, and that they are not beholden to any other person's or group of people's version(s). Deist in general do not believe in any "revealed" message and that god is essentially unknowable, in some versions even that god is {gone\dead\become else}.
As well, if the Creator got it right from the start, then why would things evolve? Because it was designed to. That is the best way to design a robust system -- it adapts to changes, meets new challenges, overcomes obstacles the way no static designed system can. It is designed to become more than it started out to be -- and it is still happening. There is no reason to think we are a final result -- or even near final (we may be too limited a life-form to amount to more than a rock - 3rd from the sun - hugging organism).
Maybe you explain your official stance on your beliefs, assuming that your beliefs about the Creator extend beyond that dirty word.... faith. My faith is that what we see is what is in fact there, that what we understand is but a fraction of what we will understand, given time and dedication to learning instead of navel gazing (ie - watching TV ... and the like)
I am led by experience here. Very rarely have I met a theistic evolutionist. And when I do meet them, they give me the impression that they are just misinformed. ...simply because they don't care enough about the subject to have ever made an honest inquiry. How many different kinds of religions have you studied, not just read about, but actually considered the value of?
And most evolutionists that I've ever met or have ever seen on the web are atheists. I think you could say the same thing about most Christians being creationists. Its not the rule, but it isn't some bigoted response. I've lived in some pretty "bible-belt" areas, and even there I would not say that most are creationist so much as misinformed and don't "understand the Word beyond a Sunday school level understanding, like Noah and Jonah" having ignored most of what was taught in school and having an almost pathological tendency to avoid reality to the point of not going more than 10 miles from where they were born so they can think they live in paradise. I'd say they were honest in their beliefs but short on facts. I've known many christian evolutionists (some of my best friends? ) and felt that they were honest in their beliefs and pretty long on facts. I've also known some atheists that couldn't find a fact if it was in front of them. I think were talking two factors that are perpendicular -- level of faith and level of knowledge -- and that define a "space" populated by everybody.
You're down to 27% with A college degree (so the number with a Masters is less and the number with a PhD is even less). That makes the education level of someone with a PhD significantly higher than the education level of the general population. Okay, I'm not really sure where this all fits into the argument. But since when has anyone honored PhD's in the creationist camps? Let's be clear that we are talking about PhD's in the field in question, so we have mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers and biologists that have PhD's and are creationists -- yes it happens, so? We are talking about proportions in the science fields versus proportions in the general population. The general population is uneducated, even in America (some because the choose to be, some because the can't help it and some because they did not have a good opportunity to be). You're thesis is that atheists gravitate to evolution:
What I meant was that evolution and atheism inherently go hand in hand. The point is that you need to compare all sciences to say that this happens more with evolution than with other sciences. What you may be seeing is a natural gravitation of {atheists\agnostics\deists\theists} towards finding more information about the universe -- so they are the ones that pursue a higher education.
I also meant that ToE finally gave the atheist a compelling reason to be an atheist. Horsepucky. Evolution does not rule out god nor does it make it any less possible. This is a logical fallacy on the order of all {A} is {B}, {B} exists, therefore {A}.
Purhaps atheists like to pursue education more than the general public because they are less content to wallow in ingnorance. Oh, hang on, let me turn the other cheek. If the shoe fits wear it - with pride. I didn't say that only creationists like to wallow in ignorance, but the general public -- the fans of Jerry Springer and other numbskull catering TV shows.
You believe that He/Her/It created the possibility for nothing to become actual so that it will allow for He/Her/It to be "surprised", i.e. He/She/It does not know the outcome, therefore, He/She/It is not omnipotent, To begin with you mean omniscience not omnipotence, but I don't need to assume either for there to be a god that created the universe. --{he\her\it} just needs to have sufficient ability and knowledge to accomplish the task. Think of a god that can predict everything and that has the ability to make anything happen, thus it has the ability to make something happen that it can't predict. The problem is not in my faith, but in the terms that have been invented to make more of something than needs to be. Think of a 99.9999999999...% omniscient and 99.9999999999...% omnipotent god -- what is the most logical thing they are going to do, given living forever and the like? Knowing all is boring. Why do anything when you know the outcome before you do it? How much more tantalizing to play with tweaking, maximizing {uncertainty\unpredictability\chaos} than to play endless navel gazing solitaire games when you know where all the cards are even before they are dealt and always know how it will end. The universe is chaotic.
Please don't confuse my assertiveness and confidence in my beliefs to be obstinate, close-minded, arrogant, prodeful, or ignorant. I haven't been discourteous to you or used ad hominem with you or anyone else on EvC. I kind of like "prodful" - a "happy accident" eh? But this is where you were supposed to do the "Oh, hang on, let me turn the other cheek" bit, but it also ties in to my opening statement whereby your personal biases and beliefs flavor the way you see things -- you may believe you are not "obstinate closed minded arrogant prideful" and ignorant, but that isn't necessarily true. I know I have biases -- probably the biggest is about willful ignorance, intentional misrepresentations and the like. Doesn't mean I'm not guilty of them either. Think of it as a "prodful" comment. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : No reason given. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Does consciousness have a fundamental role in the universe in the same way ... It's inversely proportional to entropy. As matter becomes more disorganized, thought becomes more organized. It's due to the conservation of organization (a conservation that is well known in all bureaucracies).  Edited by RAZD, : No reason given. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I've held off replying to this for a number of reasons.
I'm interested in knowing what prompted you to come to a decision of a Creator, or even a need for one to exist, when you at every turn you give no reason to even believe in one. If God is "unknowable," then how do you know Him? How could you have come to the decision that a Creator exists if there is no compelling reason to do so? You've effectively erased any possibility of a personal relationship, so we know that you haven't come to your conclusion down that avenue. And we know that you champion naturalistic explanations for everything, including spontaneous generation. So, your god didn't create the possibility of life according to your testimony. Where in the world does God fit in the picture for you to have ever come to your decision? This is what I don't understand about Deists. To me, it just sounds like a vague explanation. Again, your lack of ability to understand is not my problem, but I find this attitude of yours somewhat insulting and offensive. There is no need whatever for my faith to fit your personal opinion of what faith entails. I understand that you are somewhat bewildered, and do not intend insult, but it is something you will have to deal with on your own.
So, your god didn't create the possibility of life according to your testimony. False. He\she\it\they created the environment that made it possible. No fix and repair needed later, ... as compared to, say, a creation that is full of fixes, including the first - was it day 8? - because he forgot Eve? Or it could just be a difference between believing in a deity that is a egotistical control freak and one who has confidence that what he\she\it\they have done will be "good" (and not self declared). Or they are willing to wait to see what we (life) become, having given (life) maximum possibility for greatest diversity.
So, your faith is that Truth, in its totality, will be revealed? No, just that we will be able to understand more by studying it more: that reality is the book that was written in atomic particles and natural laws. We will always be limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand. We can only build knowledge on top of knowledge.
On one hand I think we can safely assume that education is an important aspect in our development. At the same time, I think we are under a false illusion that education is going to be some bastian of hope or that people with high level of education are some how going to be more intelligent than someone without it. (Good) Education gives you the best opportunity to make the best use of the knowledge and experience you have. Not more intelligent, better prepared, and anyone can become better prepared. Personally I think creativity is as important as raw intelligence, and that the best scientists are creative.
Let me ask you this: Do you honestly, truly, wholeheartedly believe that AiG and ICR is just complete and total nonsense? Or do you believe that they have, however miniscule,some level of understanding that exceeds the "general public?" I think some of the people are honest, and some others are definitely not -- not much different from any other corporate entity. I also think there are many deluded people ... using the least biased\discriminatory definition, #2 "the state of being deluded."
quote: Education can help keep delusions from getting in the way of rational thought. Science in particular (to veer suddenly and dangerously towards the topic of the thread ), because science has been able to uncover so many delusions that people have had in the past ... whether you include a flat earth or a geocentric earth ... or a young earth.
But see, I think that's silly because I think you could recognize that creationists are just as much fascinated with science as the average evolutionist. For them, its a way to explore the individual thought of God and have them revealed. What I see as disingenuous from creationists is an almost pathological inability to deal with contradictory evidence, the denial and the hand waving. That is not fascination with science, it is delusion. It is clinging to delusion in spite of evidence to the contrary ... it falls to level 4 in the definitions -- paranoid delusion. Look at randman as a case in point: it seems everything in science is a conspiracy to him of one kind or another.
Again, most creationists have some sort of theological belief. That isn't unfounded. And most evolutionists seem to fancy or favor a purely naturalistic explanation for everything. Neither cancels the other out, and neither is the absolute rule, but recognizing that most evolutionists exhibit atheistic tendencies isn't unfounded either. Science does not live with delusion. Evidence cancels delusions whether you believe the evolutionist or the creationist explanations or not.
I didn't grow up believing about God. It wasn't taught to me to believe in it. I came to that conclusion only a few years ago. Contrastly, I was indoctrinated by evolution from the beginning, just like eveeryone else on this forum. I'm sorry but I just cannot take that as being entirely true. Your understanding of evolution, as demonstrated by so many posts, does not indicate a good education in evolution, but in some general mis-representations of it, from bad class material to many media sources and other places. Certainly it was not the same as my education in basic biology sciences, even though I am not a biology major. You cannot claim equal education to people you just don't know as an {excuse\cover\straw man} that you somehow overcame in a moment of enlightenment. You cannot measure the amount of information you do not have. No-one can. And it was not an "indoctrination" in evolution ... that kind of comment sounds a lot more like paranoia than a rational evaluation of the facts unhindered by delusions. Indoctrination is when you are given misinformation, false information, and deluded into believing it. Things like a young earth. Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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