Summations Only

There's no shame in not understanding what this is all about because in order to understand it you have to have formally studied the subject, normally for many years - like any complex modern science, you would normally be a research scientist in the particular subject before you could even think of having an opinion on it.But there's a huge amount of shame in PRETENDING that you understand it and even more in thinking that you're fooling anyone here by claiming that you do.

Buz, as has been said, it's nothing to do with your correction, what you said was just pure nonsense. You don't understand it at all do you?(fyi - neither do I.)

I don't believe there are any better moderated discussion boards Buz - despite your protests, this is an exceptionally fair place to be. When I attempted to discuss these subjects on a creationists site I was banned without warning within 48 hours.If you keep to the rules and follow advice, you can discuss what you like here - what's your problem with that?

Well that's obviously what we rationalists think, but I was under the impression that creationists believe that they are equally right so why would they worry about coming here and defending their position?My personal 'belief' is that cretionists know that their arguments about nature are weak - except the extremely delusional - so prefer to discuss these things with themselves and reinforce their beliefs rather than challenge them.

This made me smile - it reminded of the playground squabbles we used to have where one boy would say something stinging but obviously true and the other would fluster and finally blurt out something like..."Well at least MY sister doesn't smell of cat piss, like yours does."There'll be a formal critical thinking fallacy for it, but if not, I'm naming it the 'but, anyway, your sister smells' fallacy.

You finally said something that might actually have some merit.The question is why? Do they have so little confidence in their beliefs that they can't defend them adequately against reason? It seems so to me. Creationists prefer to preach rather than debate - it's much safer than arguing fact.

Yes, I've never met a creationist that wasn't extremely confident in their beliefs, but their reaction to being shown evidence of things that might contradict it is often to stick their fingers in their ears and go lalalalala.A Jehova's Witness on anther forum thinks that I am Satan - quite literally - because I try to tell him about evolution. He won't/can't read anything written about it. That doesn't strike me a someone with any real confidence - it seems more like bravado to me.

Well, if that's the case perhaps you'd like to present some of the evidence in another thread and we could discuss it. Personally, I couldn't give a toss what forum it goes into - it,s either interesting or it's not.For what it's worth, I've never met an atheist that was 'turned' by any of the ideas the ToE contains and I've never met an evolutionist and have no idea what one might be - in your world do gravitationists exist too?

This is cobblers. Evolution is a scientific study like organic chemistry or the physics of sound. It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Nothing. You have a peculiarly American, parochial christian fundamentalist view of this. The rest of the world looks on you with vague puzzlement.In Europe evolution and religion get along fine - even the Catholic church - the religion I was born into and happily practiced until my teens - accepts it. My own atheism is as a direct result of noticing that the emperor had no clothes - that it was a blindingly obvious myth.I heard about evolution two years later and didn't even make the link to religion until my (Catholic) biology teacher when introducing the subject of eveolution pointed out that whilst it was different to the Genesis story it was an even greater proof of God's design. (A point that went straight over my teenage head.)As for not wishing to discuss atheism in evolution, you're crazy - we're doing it now, start a thread and we'll all pile in. It might be short lived because it's silly and mistaken, but it will get discussed. Quit whining about forum headings and get on with it.

A gun can be used to bring food to the table or murder a neighbour.Some people - a very few people - both disagree with religion and have made an excellent living at it. They write books about atheism and one of the things they write is that evolution disproves the Genesis stories. Which it does. You really have to get over that simple fact and move on.Us atheists have had to put up with the blithering nonsense written by millions of people and practiced in our churches (several of which are planted in every town and village in my country and yours), media, street corners and schools for our entire lives. Please don't complain that a handful of individuals are now saying things YOU don't like. People are free to choose what they believe, even in the USA I think.But don't blame it on evolution - evolution is simply a fact of our world that can't be denied by anyone that isn't opposed to it as a matter of dogma.I can't speak for all atheists, but all the ones I know bacame atheists because they saw through the nonsense, not because they learned about evolution.I also know few fundamantalists. Here in the UK they are fairly scarce, the majority of Christians here have a very mild kind of religious belief - what you call compromise. But on the contrary, their beliefs are in no way compromised by science's adavances.Your use of the word 'evolutionist' is similar to earlier Christian's use of the word 'heretic' - a thought crime punishable by burning. An evolutionist, if it means anything, refers to a biologist who specialises in the study of evolution, it is not a general statement to be applied to someone who also happens to be an atheist. It's not a synonym. You may as well call atheists biochemists, plumbers or car mechanics - it makes as much sense.It's possible to be a believer in your God and accept evolution and most of the world does. It's also possible to accept evolution and have no views about god. It's also possible to be a real evolutionist and believe in your god and it's probable that 80% of them do.I doubt though that it's possible to be a biologist and refuse evolution - that would be like a physicist denying Newtonian gravity; simply a denial of straight facts.Another inconvenient fact for you is that the owner of this forum, Percy, is both a Christian and what you erroniously call an evolutionist. (Though, he may actually be an evolutionist - a real biologist that is, for all I know.) This forum is built to debate exactly these issues so to claim that the forum is afraid to debate them is pretty much as wrong as it's possible to get - even for a creationist. Don't worry, I don't feel bad about it at all - like I said, my atheism resulted from a reverse revelation, not because a biology teacher said something weird about his personal beliefs.You are railing at evolution and as though it alone was the cause of people's rejection of your myths - it ain't it's just one of the many bullets.

If true, i apologise for my appalling slander.It changes nought much in the sentence though.....A deist believes in god(s), an atheist doesn't. This forum was created to discuss those two opposites and all the ground in between.

You got it in one Buz.

This forum IS a on a mobile platform. I'm accessing it now on an iPad from Cyprus. I quite often do drop in whilst on a train going into London. I wouldn't worry too much about the platform - content is still king.

Yet strangely, you're still here. Maybe it's the popcorn.

Perhaps you could remember this; most atheists don't object to what you believe - it puzzles us but we know that belief is 'normal' and seemingly had some evolutionary advantage.What we DON'T appreciate is believers trying to show that their beliefs are rational and, worse, denying science's discoveries because of their irrational beliefs.