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Author | Topic: No evolution/creation debate in Europe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
I think you're just praciticing idiotic Bush apologetics, CS. Don't get me wrong, I have no reason for Bush apologetics. I just think you're making it out to be more than it is. But I really don't care that much and there's not reason to go further off topic.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 6190 Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Yes Bush Sr. was, though while he was campaigning for the Presidency. During an interview he was asked about atheists who are patriots and he responded that he could not think of atheists as Americans let alone as patriots.
That was from memory of 20 years ago. I just found more information on it in Wikipedia's "Discrimination against atheists" article, "Rob Sherman controversy" section, at Discrimination against atheists - Wikipedia. BTW, I have completed 31 years of honorable military service and am still serving. I have been an atheist for about 45 years. So for his 8 years in office my citizenship was considered null and void by my Commander-in-Chief and I'm sure that the Acorn is also of the same opinion. As my July 4th date commented to me, she was glad to think that that time next year we will have something that we haven't had for 8 years: a representative government. {NOTE: reply interrupted by work. Hate when work gets in the way.} Edited by dwise1, : note explaining delay in posting
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Agobot Member (Idle past 5851 days) Posts: 786 Joined: |
You were probably looking for the word 'agnostic' (vs 'atheist'), though i am not sure Mr. Bush knows the difference between the two and it seems to me that's why he couldn't find the right word.
Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.
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Agobot Member (Idle past 5851 days) Posts: 786 Joined: |
Beretta writes: I feel incredibly sorry for those in countries that do not have the opportunity to learn about God's existance. If it hadn't been for South Africa, I would have had no clue either.I used to think the Christians were really quite silly believing in myths but now I know that it was not myth that they believed in, but truth. How could you teach children something that's based COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY on belief? Hell, even the communists knew better. On the other hand, if you possess some evidence about the existence of gods, i am willing to apologise.
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Adminnemooseus Administrator Posts: 3987 Joined: |
The Status of Atheists in America
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5919 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
How could you teach children something that's based COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY on belief? You mean like evolution?The question is not whether or not an explanation is based on a personal belief, but is it true? An explanation may be both based on a personal belief and true. Personal beliefs are rarely based on nothing.Facts don't speak for themselves, they are interpreted within a framework.
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AdminNosy Administrator Posts: 4755 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: |
Beretta,
You have been given lots of different forms of evidence. You have yet to actually discuss them. If you do not wish to conduct and honest debate then please stop posting to threads where others do want to behave in an intellectually honest fashion. It may become necessary to start suspending you. For example, if you insist on repeating the mantra about "different interpretations" then you must show an alternative interpretation that actually explains all the facts. You can not simply claim there is such an interpretation. That would, of course, best be conducted in a separate thread and not this one. I think you would be best to stay out of this thread.
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5919 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
Hello Rahvin,
It is sad. Any time the government decides to make religion (or non-religion) mandatory by law is a travesty of justice. I agree with you there. No government should make religion or non-religion mandatory by law. It’s your choice. Christianity cannot be enforced or it becomes a farce.Communists made non-religion mandatory and took all the Bibles away. Everyone should be free to choose
But while the rationale you mention may well have been the reasoning of the Communist Party, it doesn't mean God exists. Absolutely but what did they have to fear if God didn’t exist in any case -so leave the believers to their’ myth’ if it is one.
...except of course that evolution is grounded in observation and evidence just as strongly as any part of physics and chemistry, and is the entire groundwork for modern biology. Well this is where we part company as far as agreement goes.Evolution is by no means grounded in observation and evidence. Physics and chemistry is and has no need for evolution whatsoever.Neither is evolution the entire groundwork for modern biology.If my doctor tells me I have a disease and need this or that treatment, evolution never played a part. If my dentist tells me that my wisdom teeth are impacted, is it important to know his evolutionary view about my apparently vestigial teeth or should he know how to extract them? Evolution is historical science as opposed to experimental observational science.Evolution is also a philosophical worldview based on the belief that matter is all there is.It provides a framework for materialists to insert their observations into. Creationists and ID’ers insert the very same facts into their respective worldviews and try to make sense of them in that way. They say that matter is not all there is and that intelligence was required to bring about life and all of its complexity, rather than just chance mutations and natural selection. Facts never speak for themselves - they are considered within a worldview and the most accurate or likely worldview has the least anomalies.Neither worldview can be absolutely proven since then you’d have to prove that matter is all there is and that mutation and selection are capable of producing the complexity of biological systems and I’d probably have to produce God. Continuing to learn about well-founded science in science classes and continuing to develop a country struggling to catch up to the rest of the world is a good thing, Beretta We’ve had no problem with keeping up with the rest of the world as far as medicine and engineering and every other discipline goes. A lack of evolution only ever held evolutionary biology back and that is no contribution to technology IMHO.
Without evolution, modern medical research, genetics, and all of the other biological fields simply don't work. I’m afraid I absolutely cannot agree with you there. Do we need to know how our hearts adapted from ape hearts to be able to do heart transplants for example? Genetics works perfectly well apart from evolution. All we need to know is how mutation and natural selection works which we all agree works. We just differ in that we do not believe that a belief in macromutation is essential for understanding anything -especially since it is not proven by any means that it actually ever happened.By the way, we do hear about evolution in our universities just not in the schools - but it’s more an aside than anything of importance. I remember learning about the ontogenic recapitulation of phylogeny in embryology and about vestigiality of wisdom teeth at university but frankly I never needed any of it in my life or in my profession. It’s a whole lot less important than you seem to think, for practical purposes. Is it fair to say to South African kids, "we're not going to teach you about evolution, and so you're not likely ever going to be the one to find a cure for AIDS or cancer, you'll never be a biologist, your medical education will always be substandard, and other countries will laugh at you, all because of our religious beliefs that you may or may not share?" My my, you really do have an inflated opinion of the value of evolution in education. All it is, is an alternative creation story - if there’s no God, you need to make up a story of your own to fulfil a basic need of knowing where you came from, even if it is a complete fabrication. In that way you can become, as Dawkins put it, an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Personally, I wish I hadn't been indoctrinated into the Christian faith from birth. Well now all that’s happened is that you’ve been indoctrinated into a worthless alternative story. You’re going to regret giving up the truth for a lie. Keep looking into it. There’s more than enough evidence to support intelligence behind what exists.
...and yet you wouldn't be able to present any evidence for that supposed "truth," would you. Well like I’ve said before, facts don’t get interpreted in a vacuum. Either everything came from nothing or there’s an intelligence behind everything. Logically, I know which one makes more sense.
What do you mean, the "indoctrination of years in Europe?" You mean simply learning accepted science in science classrooms without religious bias? Well there is a religious bias. Everything created itself or everything was created. They can’t both be true. Both are religious views.
Because if you'll notice the Christian religion is still going quite strongly in former Soviet-held territories. Oppression can really wake people up. Freedom of choice has its downside too - everybody sleeps. Now that they have a choice, Christianity (that had to remain hidden) is flourishing. Shouldn’t be long before Putin puts a lid on it though.
...and yet you wouldn't be able to present any evidence for that supposed "truth," would you. There’s more than enough historical evidence backing the Bible’s veracity. As for evidence, we all have the same facts -we interpret them differently. For example, we say that mutations can’t produce complex specified biological systems. Evolutionists, on the other hand, say they can. Which one is wish projection? Evolution. There’s no evidence for information adding beneficial mutations even though you’ll find lots of negative mutations. Would you want your child to be born with a mutation? No -because we all know what that means. But when it comes to evolution, it is apparently happening positively all the time with no evidence whatsoever except that we’re here and evolutionists have already decided how that happened. So they have a philosophical attachment to materialism.
What do you mean, the "indoctrination of years in Europe?" You mean simply learning accepted science in science classrooms without religious bias? No, with religious bias as mentioned above.
Ignorance isn't bliss, it's embarrassing, and the lack of exposure to any other culture or belief set demonstrates exactly how even mainstream Christianity behaves exactly like a cult, and the only difference is popularity. I believe that the problem with people like you is that you are taught the Bible but not how to defend it scientifically and historically - and along with your own insecurity, you backed off when challenged until they took you out. I’m sure there are other reasons as well -people tend to blame God for lots of things -even those who deny God’s existence secretly or not so secretly hate the God they don’t even apparently believe in.
And if your side wins, the youth of the nation will be condemned to be the laughing stocks of the entire scientific community when they graduate. Not if we teach the controversy and kids learn both sides of the argument.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3613 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
I was going to stay out of this thread but I gotta point something out.
Beretta writes:
This kind of bullshit argument is on the same line as stating that the nazis took everyone's guns away before they made the shit hit the fan when arguing against gun control. Communists made non-religion mandatory and took all the Bibles away. Everyone should be free to choose Pointing out an extreme example of what appears to be the other side of the debate is always bullshit. Here is another one of these bullshit argument that is more obviously bullshit. A sees B stuffing food down his toddler's throat because the toddler, like every other toddler, has been hardly eating anything today. A: you know, it's not good that you're force feeding him like that. B: if I don't feed him at all, he will starve to death. A: well, I'm not saying we don't feed him at all. But he could choke if you force feed him like that. B: hitler starved millions of Jews to death. A: what the hell has that got to do with anything? Beretta, be a good christian and stop with the bullshit. I've been seeing you make such bullshit arguments long enough.
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2427 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
All it is, is an alternative creation story - if there’s no God, you need to make up a story of your own to fulfil a basic need of knowing where you came from... Nonsense. One stems from evidence and the other stems from revealed knowledge. That revealed knowledge is less reliable is attested by the existence of some 4,300 world religious and some 30,000+ Christian denominations. If revealed knowledge was accurate there would be only one religion, upon which all could agree.
As for evidence, we all have the same facts -we interpret them differently. Nice try, but not all interpretations are of equal explanatory value. Some interpretations spring readily from the facts, others have to be forced. That is the role of creation "science" and other forms of religious apologetics -- to force facts to fit religious belief, no matter how they have to be distorted or twisted, and how many have to simply be ignored, in the process. Science, as it stands today, is a very complex weave of facts and interpretations (theories). If you start to force alternative interpretations where they don't fit, you end up with too many loose threads. As an example, to force the facts to "fit" a young earth, the decay constant if often accelerated by YECers. This ignores the fact that radioactive decay gives off heat, and 4.5 billion years of radioactive decay compressed into 6,000 years would have released enough heat in that short time period to cook the earth. No, some interpretations of the facts simply don't work and no amount of twisting and distortion will make them work. Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5919 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
Thanks for your opinion Taz but I just have to say that your argument makes no sense.
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5919 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
One stems from evidence and the other stems from revealed knowledge. No, one stems from revealed knowledge and the other stems from human efforts to do away with the need for revealed knowledge. Man's opinions versus the truth.
not all interpretations are of equal explanatory value You're right -intelligent design fits the equation while evolution is force fitted against all the odds. If it was such a sure thing, they'd stop coming with absolute final confirmation that Darwin was right but they are always desperate to justify what is unjustifiable and far from evidential.
Science, as it stands today, is a very complex weave of facts and interpretations (theories). No it is a grand attempt to make the facts (which are the same for both sides) fit the theory. It is man's attempt, via naturalistic philisophy, to remove himself from what really happened. It's called self delusion.
If you start to force alternative interpretations where they don't fit, you end up with too many loose threads. There you go, that's what evolution ends up with, too many loose threads.
some interpretations of the facts simply don't work and no amount of twisting and distortion will make them work. You hit the nail on the head there. Natural selection and mutation doesn't make complex biological systems except in some people's wishful imaginings. Only intelligence can produce the genetic information for life.
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 5037 days) Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
. the facts (which are the same for both sides) . But the facts aren't the same for both sides; i.e., radioactive decay rates are pretty much immutable in Sci-circles, while in Creo-circles they can do what ever is convenient. Why does God make silly faces behind out backs and then go all straight faced when we snap around to look? Kindly When I was young I loved everything about cigarettes: the smell, the taste, the feel . everything. Now that I’m older I’ve had a change of heart. Want to see the scar?
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Beretta Member (Idle past 5919 days) Posts: 422 From: South Africa Joined: |
But the facts aren't the same for both sides; i.e., radioactive decay rates are pretty much immutable in Sci-circles, while in Creo-circles they can do what ever is convenient. Well they do appear to be constant now but something's amiss with the helium quantities and the C14 that should be long gone.We can't just ignore the inconvenient anomalies, you know.All you really need to do is show us how new and complex genetic information is generated by random mistakes converting bacteria into nuclear scientists and we can all go home -it's that simple. Why does God make silly faces behind out backs and then go all straight faced when we snap around to look? I suppose God just finds it interesting the lengths to which humanity will go in their misguided attempt to write Him out of the equation.Making up their own stories of life's origin sure can liven things up - unfortunately the truth remains and I don't think anyone's scoring any points for the best story.
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9012 From: Canada Joined: |
Well they do appear to be constant now but something's amiss with the helium quantities and the C14 that should be long gone.We can't just ignore the inconvenient anomalies, you know. Since you've been around awhile you know that the above is utterly wrong. Continuing to repeat yourself after you have had things explained makes you look like you are stubborn, deaf or stupid. Which is it? All you really need to do is show us how new and complex genetic information is generated by random mistakes converting bacteria into nuclear scientists and we can all go home -it's that simple.[/qs] This can be taken to another thread. It's been covered but perhaps not to you.
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