Then why assume that you are the only one to have thought critically about the age of the earth and of geological formations? When you were taught that 2+2 is 4, was that truly indoctrination or was rather informing you of a fact? Informing students of what has been discovered and of some of the evidence that led to that discovery is not indoctrination. Demanding that they believe in something is an indication of indoctrination. As I've pointed out before, the explicitly stated goal of public education and of science education is for the students to understand the ideas and the materials, but not that they be compelled to believe in those ideas (eg, my example of USAF NCOs being taught Communism obviously not in order to turn us into Communists). In contrast, ICR "public school edition" "balanced treatment" teaching materials urge the students to choose between believing and an "unnamed" Creator or "atheistic" evolution, which is blatantly indoctrination.
When we accept what a scientific source tells us, it is out of trust that that source had done due dilligence. The same as when you do any kind of research or follow any kind of instruction manual for learning how to do something. That is not automatically indoctrination, though I have encountered some that are indoctrinational (all of which were conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist Christian).
We all accept information without complete knowledge, but then we can think about it and evaluate it and make corrections when we find problems with it. That also includes when we had originally misunderstood something. Indoctrination does not allow for that, but learning does. For example, having read about radiometric dating, I accepted it. But then one day while driving up to the mountains, going past exposed sedimentary layers, I got to thinking and realized that since that material was recycled older rock, how could radiometric dating be applied to it? So I researched further and learned about tie points, igneous formations that can be radiodated and which can bracket sedimentary strata which can then be dated as falling between the ages of the bracketing igneous formations. Now, if I had been indoctrinated, I would never have been able to have questioned what I had been taught, at least not without going through some kind of painful "deconversion" experience, something that you may be familiar with.
Read the rest of the story. You're replying to steps of the thought processes he went through to get to his conclusion, rather than replying to his conclusion and his reasons for arriving there. Read the rest of the story.
I am fully aware of what the physics textbooks say on everything that I have discussed with you. All I am doing is challenging what they say. I thought that the nature of science but perhaps that is not longer what science is about anymore.
Greetings, foreveryoung! I too am a believer in God. God, creator of all seen and unseen,manifested through Jesus Christ and eternally present as the Holy Spirit.
Genesis is true and yet not in a literal word for word sense. People of that time were simply limited in how they could describe that which they saw. God never gives us all of the answers in a literal word for word way. God, in my opinion, expects us to think. To ask questions. To seek better questions rather than easy answers. I respect science. If you get a moment, I want you to watch this short video:
After watching it, ask yourself this question, plus any more that you can come up with.
How does this video relate to the following scripture?
Hebrews 11:1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For you guys who believed it right off the bat without thinking of ways for it possibly to be not true, are guilty of being indoctrinated. You accepted what was told to you without thinking critically about it.
I didn't. And you can't know that about anyone else here (unless they told you that). Its not fair for you to characterize us like that and you're gonna reap what you sow.
I came to that conclusion by long and hard thinking and trying my absolute best to come up with ways that it wasn't true. After all those efforts had failed, I had no choice but to believe it. That is not indoctrination; that is critical thinking.
That's how most of us come to accept the explanations that we do. We're not indoctrinated like you think we are.
What they fail to recognize is that I have taken all of those 101 courses.
If you had taken 20th Century Russion History 101 you would have known about Lysenkoism and how Stalin used his political power to remove evolution from the schools.
Just because I pass a course doesn't mean that I agree with all the conclusions drawn by them.
Two problems here. First, you regularly disagree on the facts, not the conclusions. Secondly, you often misrepresent what the conclusions actually are. That's the problem. We can't have a worthwhile conversation if we disagree on the facts, and if you don't understand what our actual position is. You don't have to agree with us to understand what we are saying.
Their are so myopic in their thinking because they only talk to people who generally agree with them on these issues. They haven't been exposed to cogent, coherent arguments to the contrary. Because of this, they are unaware that there are other valid positions to be taken on many of the issues brought up here and that leads them to conclude that those who disagree with them are just simply ignorant.
You assume incorrectly. I can almost guarantee that Dwise1 knows more about creationism than you do. Many of us know quite a bit about creationism, creationists, and the history of the lies they tell. What you are unaware of is the reasons why creationism is not a valid scientific position. We do.
You guys don't even realize that you have been indoctrinated.
Strangely enough, you have failed to muster any evidence that demonstrates that the theories taught in graduate schools are wrong. You can scream about brainwashing, indoctrination, group think, and the rest but it falls on deaf ears if you lack the evidence.
Start with the evidence. Don't start with a feigned persecution complex or a kooky conspiracy theory. Again, START WITH THE EVIDENCE AND STAY WITH THE EVIDENCE. That is all we ask.
Hello FEY! I have been a lurker on these boards for a while now and so you have not had any interaction from me until this point, but I feel that you have raised a couple of pretty good issues. First off, I would like to say welcome to the land of the Old Earth! It really is quite a beautiful thing when you see how well all of the evidence for this fits with the reality of an Old Earth. Now, on to some of the issues that you have raised...
The first issue you mention is that you have not been indoctrinated, but rather came to this conclusion through researching the evidence and making a decision that you would follow this evidence even if the conclusion would assault your original worldview. This is definitely a commendable reaction to evidenced positions and one that I believe many on this board have come to through very much the same process. For myself, I was raised in a Catholic family, but raised to inquire about the nature of the world and how things worked. This slowly paved the way, not for indoctrination, but for wanting to follow the evidence (similar to you) no matter where it took me. For me, this led me to eventually remove the mantle of my religion and trade it in for Atheism. This was an extremely trying moment in my life because it changed a lot of how I looked at the world (at first). If one solid piece of evidence were to be presented for a God or God-like creature tomorrow, I would be first to join you and say that this is definitely a much more possible idea. However, I would still maintain my skeptical nature and look for more evidence to back up the idea. Similar to the idea of an Old Earth, I would like the theory to be backed by a large quantity of data that increases the likelihood of the theory being correct. Therefore, it is slightly disingenuous to claim to have knowledge of how each individual came to their final decisions on each scientific topic. Most people I know who care about science and scientific principles are also generally very skeptical people. It is therefore likely that these people have analyzed evidence because (like the reason they always ask for it on this board) without evidence all that exists is an unsupported assertion. It could definitely be right, but without evidence there is no reason to investigate it any further. So, in this instance where you state that you, unlike everyone else here, are not indoctrinated I think that you have overstepped the bounds on what evidence you can provide for that statement. In fact, through my own experience I can guarantee that I have come to my views simply through the evidence that I have studied.
As per your thoughts on the Theory of Evolution in Message 38 I feel that you have a point. However, I think that you are missing a portion of it. The part where there seems to be overwhelming agreement in the scientific community is that evolution consists of random mutations and natural selection. Could there be more aspects that affect it that have not been studied enough at this time? Definitely! The theory is still tentative on its final shape, but we have observed the mutations and how natural selection weeds out those that are detrimental to an organism. This is reality, this is observable, and this is a fact that the theory (even if it is a new theory that you end up devising) must explain as well. A great example of a possible future change in the theory is punctuated equilibrium compared with gradualism. Both of these ideas still include the basic fact of evolution that has been observed. Both ideas are aware of the random mutations and natural selection. There is just the difference of the speed at which these mutations happen. Dawkins is a huge proponent of gradualism, but he is not completely closed to the idea of PE, if that is where the evidence takes him. We should not be closed to any evidence, but we should evaluate all evidence from all angles.
My final point has to do with what you refer to as the nature of science. You are definitely correct in that it is scientific in nature to challenge the current paradigms of scientific literature....once evidence has been found that does not fit within the current theory. It is good to challenge, in fact that is how the body of our knowledge grows. However, you must present supported assertions as possibilities. To ensure that your ideas are supported, it is important to remember to look at new evidence from every possible angle. A great example of this is seen in the recent plate tectonic theory. This was an evidenced idea that was set forth to explain some recent discoveries that did not make sense under the theory of the land masses being stable. The scientific community did not like the ideas too much at first, but as the idea was researched (because they had reason to research it, i.e.-positive evidence) the evidence became so overwhelming that the old paradigm was discarded for the idea that better fit with the reality that we see.
I hope I made sense in all of that, kind of tough to keep my mind straight while typing at work. Hope to hear back from you as I am interested in hearing more of what you have to say as you continue to question things and look for truth in your life. And while I do not believe in God, like you do, may your God bless you in this search for truth!
Someone finally took the time to explain to me what it meant for an ancient writing to be in mythological form. I always fought against this notion because the atheists always said genesis was mythological, but they meant it as in a complete fabrication or fairy tale.
You know, I remember when I was told the exact same thing. I was taking a freshman-level course on Greek mythology, and I remember the professor telling us that "mythical" didn't mean "made-up" or "nonsense"; mythology means illustrating what is true by way of a story. It really opened mythology up to me, and made me think about art and stories in a new kind of way.
Romeo and Juliet is a kind of mythology, in that it tells us something true about love without being a literally true story. Indeed, you're right to note that ancient peoples would have been very mythologically-oriented; certainly they had a concept of "truth" and "lies", but the idea that history would be something for which there would be "true" or "false" versions of is an idea they would find very alien. (It's also an idea a lot of modern historians find alien.) They would be more inclined to view history as something in terms of our version and theirs; that is, they would in part define their communities in terms of being all of the people who tell the same stories about what happened in the past.
Two separate phenomena that could not possibly influence one another were in such PRECISE agreement, I could not possibly maintain my position any further without a total denial of reality.
I am fully aware of what the physics textbooks say on everything that I have discussed with you.
So all of the things that you post that are clearly erroneous are deliberate? Is it your position that when you say there are no such things as photons, but then decline to explain how the photoelectric effect works without them, then you've challenged what the text books say in some meaningful way?
All I am doing is challenging what they say.
For the most part, you are simply denying what they say. Denying is not challenging. Tell us why you deny and let us evaluate the worth of your denial.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
What an exceptionally fine piece of clear writing!
I'm reminded of poster slevesque. I wonder how his studies are going.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
Before I start, the tone of this message was most refreshingly different from most of your others. I do hope that this trend will continue.
What finally pushed me over the edge happened on another theology website that I have frequented over the years. Someone finally took the time to explain to me what it meant for an ancient writing to be in mythological form. I always fought against this notion because the atheists always said genesis was mythological, but they meant it as in a complete fabrication or fairy tale. When it was explained to me that mythological writing can be about completely real historical phenomena, but written in such a way as to be understandable to mythologically thinking cultures, I was finally convinced. Genesis was telling me a true story. It was just written in a way that was not meant for people of my era who have a culture immersed in thought that has been with us since the age of enlightenment. Genesis is not going to give us a history of the earth or the universe that is scientific terms of the twenty first century. I did not have to abandon belief in the bible being completely true and accurate to also believe the earth was 4.56 billion years old. There was nothing else left now to stop me from believing it.
Suddenly, the novice was enlightened. (from The Zen of Programming)
First, words, like functions in C++, are overloaded. Although all instances of the same word appear the same, they can have different meanings in different contexts (eg, think of the various meanings of the word, "round"). IOW, what a word means depends on how it's being used. This leads to a common rhetorical trick that I've seen called "semantic shifting", a kind of a "bait and switch", in which you start off using one meaning of a word and then suddenly shift to a different meaning; it comes into place in "creation science" quote-mining when they quote a scientific source using the scientific meaning of a word and then substitute the street meaning (eg, "transitional", "vestigial", "theory").
Just as "theory" has a street meaning akin to "wild-ass guess" (WAG) despite its stringent scientific meaning, "myth" has a street meaning of "fairy tale" or "complete fabrication", as you describe. And yet a myth is much more than that, in that a myth embodies profound truths that transcend mere facts -- any myth that does not is a poor excuse that doesn't deserve the name.
Second, already mentioned immediately above, a myth embodies profound truths that transcend mere facts. An analogy would be the role of aggadah as my rabbinical literature prof, Rabbi Kalir, had taught us. Rabbinic teaching methods traditionally followed two basic approaches: khalakah(spelling?), which is teaching through scholarly examination and exposition, and aggadah, which is teaching through a story. Rabbi Kalir likened how aggadah works to how a joke works: you have a punch line and you have the story leading up to the punch line -- or, if you'd prefer, the moral of the story, which is still the punch line. For any one punch line, you can have an almost unlimited number of stories leading up to it. The details of the stories are unimportant except for how they support the punch line. If you pay more attention to the details of the myriad stories and get too caught up in them, then you could miss the punch line completely.
Myth is a form of aggadah, great truths being taught through stories. The details of the stories or even whether the events of the stories actually happened or not are of no importance compared to the great truths being presented. And if you get all tangled up in the details, you will miss what the myth is teaching.
The really big and fundamental problem that I see with literalist creationists is in how they are missing the meaning and truth and beauty of their Creation Myth as they squabble over the unimportant details of the story, declaring their faith to depend completely on those unimportant details instead of upon the Myth itself. And I trust that you correctly understand what meaning of "myth" it is that I'm using here.
When it was explained to me that mythological writing can be about completely real historical phenomena, but written in such a way as to be understandable to mythologically thinking cultures, I was finally convinced. Genesis was telling me a true story. It was just written in a way that was not meant for people of my era who have a culture immersed in thought that has been with us since the age of enlightenment.
Third, this is what I've been telling you, but you were always too angry, too full of hate and rage, and too prejudiced to even begin to listen to a "non-True-Christian" (a very common trait of fundamentalists that I've noticed far too often). The truth is the truth and does not depend on who's telling it.
Using the analogy of "spiritual meat" vs "spiritual milk", I wrote of "scientific meat" vs "scientific milk", saying that you wouldn't try to feed "scientific meat" to a pre-science society, but rather "scientific milk" in the form of a mythology that tries to convey essentially what happened or why it happened while leaving out all the gory details that not only wouldn't make any sense to them, but could also mislead them. I'm pretty sure I've given the example of a degenerative brain disease, kuru, found among cannibals, since it's spread by eating infected brain tissue. The natives believed it was caused by a demon, so doctors, in order to prove to them what was actually causing it so that they could prevent its spread, showed the natives the virus in infected tissue under the microscope. The natives went away even more convinced it was caused by a demon, because now they've actually seen that demon with their own eyes.
Hopefully you'll now be better able to listen to what's being said here and to think about it. Or at least to discuss it.
PS I gave you a "cheer". The absolute first time I've ever used that feature.
For you guys who believed it right off the bat without thinking of ways for it possibly to be not true, are guilty of being indoctrinated. You accepted what was told to you without thinking critically about it.
You don't know any of us here or what background people come from, what they've studied, etc.
Stop having little temper tantrums and sending angry messages like a punk and you'll get along great here. Who gives a shit what you actually believe or don't believe, the world doesn't stop spinning for you. Get on board or get the fuck off the bus. No one here needs your stupid attitude and constant insults. No one here takes what you believe personally; we're just here to have fun discusions and to learn some as we go. State your position and defend it when it's challenged, that's all you have to do. You have failed to do this. Maybe though this is you making a turn for the better? I hope you do.
I'm not giving onifre a cheer, because of the tone of his post. But this part is about right:
No one here takes what you believe personally; we're just here to have fun discusions and to learn some as we go. State your position and defend it when it's challenged, that's all you have to do.
Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
™ Version 4.1
