Creation science or not?

I hope that this doesn't take us too far off topic. If it does, it might be interesting enough to begin a new topic.I can't disagree more with you here, Modulous. Being open minded and scientifically minded doesn't mean that one can never come to a firm conclusion that something doesn't exist. I have evaluated what I consider to be the relevant evidence, weighed the probabilities and come to a firm conclusion that there is no higher power. I believe this to be a rational conclusion. I am open minded in the sense that if new information were to come to light, I might re-evalute my conclusion if the caliber of the evidence is sufficient to cause me to doubt my conclusion. But I do not think that willingness to evaluate new evidence would make me an agnostic. I believe there are no supreme beings. I am an atheist.Let me put it to you this way: are you agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus? the tooth fairy? Zeus, Apollo, Athena? Thor? I venture to guess that you are not, that you are atheist as far as those beings are concerned. Why is being atheist about them any less open minded or scientifically minded than being atheist about all gods?Or, to put it as Steven Roberts put it, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Are you agnostic about Santa Claus?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Because it is moderated by something I said a bit further down in the message. I am willing to revise my conclusion if new evidence comes to light. Really, it's no different from any other conclusion that science comes to. All conclusions are subject to revision based on new evidence. That doesn't make the conclusions any less certain, simply contingent.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

schrafinator, I guess you can characterize what you think my opinion is any way you want to, it's no skin off my nose. But I do not simply have no opinion based on a lack of evidence. I have come to a conclusion that there is no god based on the evidence I see. And it's more than just a lack of evidence of a god.Of course, all of this is a bit tangential to the point that I was making in my original post in this thread. My conclusion is based on my analysis of the evidence that I have seen and what I consider to be rational conclusions drawn from the evidence. My conclusion is open minded in the sense that I will re-evaluate it if sufficient additional evidence appears. I view my conclusion much the same way as I would any other conclusion I come to based on a scientific analysis.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

Neither can I say that they definitely do not exist. Nor can I definitely say that life evolved on this planet, that the earth revolves around the sun or that I wasn't created five minutes ago, complete with memories that go back 40 some years.The discussion as I have followed it has centered on whether it is scientifically open minded to be an atheist. Since science doesn't deal in definites, that's not really the relevant standard.For what it's worth, I think crashfrog's analysis hit the nail on the head, "intellectual timidity." And if you want to use different rules, that's your prerogative. I'm just curious why.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

I don't think your analogy of the sandwich in the fridge, or the lost keys, really helps you much. I both cases, you have defined a rather limited universe that can fairly easily be explored in its entirety for purposes of establishing the non-existence of something. That's not a compelling parallel for the entire universe, the whole of human existence, or even the planet.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

The problem with this statement is that nobody has yet been able to identify one single "biological system" that is irreducibly complex. Creos used to say the eye was irreducibly complex. (Although they didn't use that phrase when the eye argument was first proposed, the point was the same.) Now, Behe, the leading creo advocate of IC, has suggested blood clotting and bacterial flagella are IC. Unfortunately for him, evolutionary histories for both of these things have been suggested. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, blood clotting systems have been found with fewer than all the elements that Behe said were necessary.It's all well and good to say there are IC "biological systems." But the fact is, nobody has ever found one much less "many."

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin