# Religiosity - a survey.



## KaerbEmEvig

Are you an atheist, a theist or a deist?

A thiest - believes in/worships a personal God/god (can be either monotheism, polytheism or henotheism).

A deist - believes in/worships an impersonal God/higher power (can be either pantheism or panentheism).

An athiest - doesn't believe in/worship a God, gods or a supernatural higher power.

Note that declaring oneself an agnostic doesn't answer the question. An agnostic is simply someone who thinks they do not posses the means to state something for certain. One can be an agnostic atheist, but one can just as well be an agnostic theist.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism


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## Argus

A religion thread. I think that might been tried here before a few times. :devil:

I'll stick to form and go for a thread lock/deletion after about 23 pages of squabbling.


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## Yoshi

Let's see how many days this will last without being locked :lol:.
Anyway, atheist here. Always been one all my life.


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## Art Rock

Agnostic with strong atheist tendencies.


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## Edward Elgar

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!! My god!


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## Huilunsoittaja

Edward Elgar said:


> HERE WE GO AGAIN!!! My god!


Yes, Edward, you called my name? jk :tiphat:


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## Chris

Theist here, sermon notes ready


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## Edward Elgar

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Yes, Edward, you called my name? jk :tiphat:


You are god?! Oh lordy lordy he is risen again! Heal my leprosy oh lord!


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## Edward Elgar

Chris said:


> Theist here, sermon notes ready


About the golden rule - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

If you were willing for others to murder you, does that mean murder is okay? I know that there are 10 commandments in the old testament (one of which forbids murder), but that's not the important testament right? Maybe murder is a bad example. How about slavery, what does the bible have to say about that?


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## Huilunsoittaja

Edward Elgar said:


> You are god?! Oh lordy lordy he is risen again! Heal my leprosy oh lord!


Nah, not really making that claim. Just challenging you. I alluded to a movie where that happened. But you never know, one day, He might just answer you when you take His name in vain.


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## Chris

Edward Elgar said:


> About the golden rule - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
> 
> If you were willing for others to murder you, does that mean murder is okay? I know that there are 10 commandments in the old testament (one of which forbids murder), but that's not the important testament right? Maybe murder is a bad example. How about slavery, what does the bible have to say about that?


As briefly as I can; the Old Testament prescribed a form of voluntary domestic slavery in which people could sell themselves as bonded servants (usually due to bankruptcy), but they had to be released after six years. Those who wanted to remain in this bonded servant role permanently were allowed to do so. Details are in Exodus 21:1-11. All this was part of the civic regulations pertaining to the Jewish theocracy and became obsolete, along with all the other OT civic and ceremonial laws, when that dispensation passed away in the first century AD.

The New Testament instructs slaves to get their freedom if they can, but if they can't, to obey their earthly masters. We are still talking about domestic slaves, not quite the situation of the Africans shipped to American plantations. Several passages (e.g. Book of Philemon) make it clear that a Christian slave is the spiritual equal, and brother of, his Christian master. So in summary, New Testament teaching is to make slavery redundant.

Hope that hasn't caused too much confusion.


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## KaerbEmEvig

I would appreciate it, if people who have voiced their opinion by posting, voted, too.


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## Art Rock

Agnostic is not there. And in spite of what you say, "agnostic with strong atheist tendencies" does not equal atheist.


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## Edward Elgar

Chris said:


> Hope that hasn't caused too much confusion.


There's still that matter of my first question relating to the golden rule.

Also, are the 10 commandments redundant as they too are in the old testament?

A few more questions:

Also, if you pray for someone to live and they die is god testing you? If they live does god answer your prayers?

Also, how are you sure there is only one god and not 2 or 3 or 4 or 50?

Also, why do we choose to use medicine if faith alone can heal?


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## Edward Elgar

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Nah, not really making that claim. Just challenging you. I alluded to a movie where that happened. But you never know, one day, He might just answer you when you take His name in vain.


But how can I be sure he exists? I've found no evidence of his existence. (And don't say the bible is evidence because it was written by fallible mortal men who had political agendas.)


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## Boccherini

*Oy vey gevalt!*

Somehow, I have the impression that the OP "forgot" a few questions to ask his religious foes in the first time, so he chose to start a new thread in order to recapture the past. Pretty wierd, is it not?

Furthermore, it seems that some people even enjoy that. Oy vey iz mir!


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## World Violist

I suppose I'd be called somewhat of a deist. I don't care all that much for religion anymore. Strange, not that long ago I'd have called myself a very religious, theistic person. I suppose music just took its place.:trp:


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## KaerbEmEvig

Art Rock said:


> Agnostic is not there. And in spite of what you say, "agnostic with strong atheist tendencies" does not equal atheist.


You're simply wrong.

http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism#Types_of_agnosticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

You do not understand the definitions of words you use, hence the misunderstanding. Somehow authors of these articles agree with me on the definitions of words I have used in the survey/poll.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnosticism

http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/

In spite of what you may think, you're an atheist.


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## dmg

Atheist here, though I was heavily theist at one point in the past.


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## Aramis

> http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagn.../a/atheism.htm


Now, this one is really dumb:



> The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god exhaust all of the possibilities


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## KaerbEmEvig

Aramis said:


> Now, this one is really dumb:


How is that dumb? Have you seen a half-pregnant woman before? I haven't.


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## Aramis

KaerbEmEvig said:


> How is that dumb? Have you seen a half-pregnant woman before? I haven't.


The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god doesn't exhaust all of the possibilities because lack of such belief can take more than one form: one in which one simpy lacks belief that god exists and another which implies belief that there is no god for sure - that's huge difference.

Pregnancy is silly comparison because physical condition has little to do with state of human mind.


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## KaerbEmEvig

Aramis said:


> The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god doesn't exhaust all of the possibilities because lack of such belief can take more than one form: one in which one simpy lacks belief that god exists and another which implies belief that there is no god for sure - that's huge difference.
> 
> Pregnancy is silly comparison because physical condition has little to do with state of human mind.


This blog entry explains this well:

http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/

Whether you think you know for sure has nothing to do with the *fact that you do not worship a God, which makes you an atheist.*


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## Chi_townPhilly

dmg said:


> Atheist here, though I was heavily theist at one point in the past.


Theist here, though I was heavily atheist at one point in the past.

Now, speaking as an interested dilettante in philosophy, I hope we can acknowledge a continuum of thought on this issue, rather than an insistence on categorizing people in one camp or another, _particularly when such people have expressed the wish not to be so categorized._

Now, speaking in another capacity, I expect to check in on this thread frequently... and believe that this thread may survive if we simply relate our belief, as the poll requests, and recognize that argumentation isn't likely to change anyone's mind on this issue... and also resist the temptation to try to show up anyone's point-of-view, or belittle another's beliefs.


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## Aramis

KaerbEmEvig said:


> This blog entry explains this well:
> 
> http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/
> 
> Whether you think you know for sure has nothing to do with the *fact that you do not worship a God, which makes you an atheist.*


That's nice theory obliged to make more people call themselves atheists but in practice such difference is too important to ignore and asking people about their beliefs with giving just these two options is pointless because it gives no real answer, those options include too many extremely diffrent kind of attitudes.

Personally I take practical meaning of "atheist" (diffrent than one that these articles suggest) into consideration and I avoid calling myself atheist because I know that to people it will mean something that I don't want to say.


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## KaerbEmEvig

Aramis said:


> That's nice theory obliged to make more people call themselves atheists but in practice such difference is too important to ignore and asking people about their beliefs with giving just these two options is pointless because it gives no real answer, those options include too many extremely diffrent kind of attitudes.


It's plain as a summer day. Either you believe in/worship a God or you do not. These are *dictionary definitions*. You can't choose not to adhere to them - that can only bring confusion.



> Personally I take practical meaning of "atheist" (diffrent than one that these articles suggest) into consideration and I avoid calling myself atheist because I know that to people it will mean something that I don't want to say.


I assume you also refuse to admit before people that you listen to classical music, because they will consider you a freak, right?:tiphat:



Chi_townPhilly said:


> Now, speaking as an interested dilettante in philosophy, I hope we can acknowledge a continuum of thought on this issue, rather than an insistence on categorizing people in one camp or another, _particularly when such people have expressed the wish not to be so categorized._


And I think that it is best to forget the prejudice one may hold stick to the dictionary definitions. That's exactly what I've done by omitting agnosticism in the poll. Art-Rock fell a victim of a common misconception.


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## Aramis

What's with dictionary definitions now? Your articles went much further than that and whatever you'll say agnosticism also has dictionary definition which falls into category of religious beliefs and is also diffrent from those two that you consider the only one. Now, what's the reason to skip it in the poll and force people to call themselves atheists despite that there is other term, not so much distorted in people's minds and giving much more clarity?


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## Kopachris

Edward Elgar said:


> There's still that matter of my first question relating to the golden rule.
> 
> Also, are the 10 commandments redundant as they too are in the old testament?
> 
> A few more questions:
> 
> Also, if you pray for someone to live and they die is god testing you? If they live does god answer your prayers?
> 
> Also, how are you sure there is only one god and not 2 or 3 or 4 or 50?
> 
> Also, why do we choose to use medicine if faith alone can heal?


[scaryvoice]God is rolling his eyes at your meaningless questions.[/scaryvoice]

Regarding the 10 commandments and the golden rule, though: firstly, there are many more than ten commandments presented throughout the Old Testament, and I don't see how they would be redundant just for being in the old testament. They're redundant because they were written thousands of years ago. Secondly, the "golden rule" has been around long before Christianity or Judaism, and is present in some form or another in every major world religion. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rule


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## Huilunsoittaja

Edward Elgar said:


> But how can I be sure he exists? I've found no evidence of his existence. (And don't say the bible is evidence because it was written by fallible mortal men who had political agendas.)


HOH! I almost fell out of my chair.

Nah, I'm not gonna get in an argument that will take up like 175 posts.


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## Chi_townPhilly

KaerbEmEvig said:


> I assume you also refuse to admit before people that you listen to classical music, because they will consider you a freak, right?:tiphat:


Objection! Assumptions based on assertions not in evidence. I think *Aramis* made it clear enough that he chose not to categorize himself as an atheist _in order that others would not misapprehend his viewpoint_. As to the specific particulars of his viewpoint, I believe it best to let him expound on it, (if he chooses... and he CERTAINLY is under no obligation in that regard) and not presume that I (or _anyone_ other than he) can classify it better that he can.

The more this argumentation continues, the more clear it becomes that there are those who are more interested in making their polemical points than they are in surveying other people's thoughts on this issue.


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## KaerbEmEvig

Chi_townPhilly said:


> The more this argumentation continues, the more clear it becomes that there are those who are more interested in making their polemical points than they are in surveying other people's thoughts on this issue.


My point still stands. If people won't adhere to dictionary definitions but their own, then a poll of any sort is pointless because one cannot know what meaning people attach to the words used. That's what dictionaries were devised for in the first place.


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## Chi_townPhilly

KaerbEmEvig said:


> My point still stands.


As does mine.

And to these I will add that omitting an option for those whose first inclination is that their perspective 
is one of uncertainty is a sort of prior restraint-- and at least I now see that this, too, is not an accident.


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## KaerbEmEvig

Chi_townPhilly said:


> As does mine.
> 
> And to these I will add that omitting an option for those whose first inclination is that their perspective
> is one of uncertainty is a sort of prior restraint-- and at least I now see that this, too, is not an accident.


I've already explained this. Certain or not one either does worship a god or one does not. There is no magical middle ground just as there is no middle ground between being pregnant and not being pregnant. Taking the pregnancy test will not change the physiological basis behind the result, now, will it?

What Aramis and Art_Rock do is called wishful thinking. They think they will be viewed as open-minded and intellectual if they exclaim that they cannot be sure about their stance, but stating that milk is white tells us nothing about its taste.


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## TresPicos

I'm an agnostic theist, I think. I _believe_, but I don't _know_.

Then we have strong and weak agnosticism: 
- Strong: The existence of gods is unknowable. 
- Weak: The existence of gods in unknown, but not necessarily unknowable.

I guess I'm a _very _weak agnostic theist, since I believe that the existence of gods is not necessarily unknown either. Maybe someone somewhere actually knows, but is not telling. 

But I think "pure agnostic" or something should have been a poll alternative too - the absence of any belief in either direction. "Undecided" is a pretty reasonable position once you admit that you don't know.


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## KaerbEmEvig

TresPicos said:


> I'm an agnostic theist, I think. I _believe_, but I don't _know_.
> 
> Then we have strong and weak agnosticism:
> - Strong: The existence of gods is unknowable.
> - Weak: The existence of gods in unknown, but not necessarily unknowable.
> 
> I guess I'm a _very _weak agnostic theist, since I believe that the existence of gods is not necessarily unknown either. Maybe someone somewhere actually knows, but is not telling.
> 
> But I think "pure agnostic" or something should have been a poll alternative too - the absence of any belief in either direction. "Undecided" is a pretty reasonable position once you admit that you don't know.


The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god? You do? You're a theist. You don't? Then you're an atheist. No room for a middle ground - nobody has asked you whether you are certain. The atheism/theism distinction does not deal with the matter at all.

If someone asks me how how an apple looks like I don't tell him that I haven't eaten one - that makes no sense whatsoever.


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## andrea

I'm an anti-theist. There's no god because the whole idea is bloody silly. I'm glad of this because the abrahamic god if it existed would be capricious and needy and plain dumb. We've got enough world leaders like that without having an extra big one in the sky.

I'd rather adore a great musician, composer, sports star or writer.


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## Edward Elgar

andrea said:


> I'd rather adore a great musician, composer, sports star or writer.


Me too. At least you can prove Mozart and Beethoven existed.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Edit: We once again make the following request:


Chi_townPhilly said:


> ...resist the temptation... [to] belittle another's beliefs.


 We further request that if a member has stated an intent not to participate in the argumentation portion of the discussion, that users are NOT to attempt to goad members into a confrontation. This is trolling, plain-and-simple.

The forum Guidelines & Terms of Service call for the expression of disagreements "in a »civil« and respectful manner." Every member who signed up on this board said that they understood and agreed to abide by these rules. Do so.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

andrea said:


> I'm an anti-theist. There's no god because the whole idea is bloody silly. I'm glad of this because the abrahamic god if it existed would be capricious and needy and plain dumb. We've got enough world leaders like that without having an extra big one in the sky.
> 
> I'd rather adore a great musician, composer, sports star or writer.


Another religion thread!

:lol: Probably the most entertaining reply so far!

As for the poll itself, I think there should have been a couple of options for folks who are agnostic or undecided; folks who clearly understand what these two terms mean and feel that describe them best. Unless of course, this poll was designed to exclude these folks for whatever reason.


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## TresPicos

KaerbEmEvig said:


> The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god? You do? You're a theist. You don't? Then you're an atheist. No room for a middle ground - nobody has asked you whether you are certain. The atheism/theism distinction does not deal with the matter at all.
> 
> If someone asks me how how an apple looks like I don't tell him that I haven't eaten one - that makes no sense whatsoever.


Fine, nobody has asked me whether I'm certain, but you have asked me whether or not I believe. Then there might as well be three standpoints:

I have a belief that A
I have a belief that not A
I have no belief at all regarding A

You make it sound like we have to make up our minds. Well, we don't. It's okay to be undecided.

Whether I worship a god or not is another question. In that case, either I do or I don't. But you have mixed the two questions together in a sloppy fashion. And it's even possible to have a belief that a god exists, but then not worship that god, because that god might not presribe any worshipping, or I may believe that worshipping is not necessary.

Either way, your sentence "The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god" is not quite correct.


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## Huilunsoittaja

andrea said:


> I'm an anti-theist. There's no god because the whole idea is bloody silly. I'm glad of this because the abrahamic god if it existed would be capricious and needy and plain dumb. We've got enough world leaders like that without having an extra big one in the sky.
> 
> I'd rather adore a great musician, composer, sports star or writer.


I won't come down on you in particular, you're a Junior member, but if comments like that against theism are allowed, then wouldn't it be allowed to use as negative language against atheism? Why would that be more acceptable to say, and not if I were to attack atheism? 

Just goes to show.


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## jurianbai

LOL for this thread

my (singlish) friend always said "Till you die you know ...."


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## KaerbEmEvig

TresPicos said:


> Fine, nobody has asked me whether I'm certain, but you have asked me whether or not I believe. Then there might as well be three standpoints:
> 
> I have a belief that A
> I have a belief that not A
> I have no belief at all regarding A
> 
> You make it sound like we have to make up our minds. Well, we don't. It's okay to be undecided.
> 
> Whether I worship a god or not is another question. In that case, either I do or I don't. But you have mixed the two questions together in a sloppy fashion. And it's even possible to have a belief that a god exists, but then not worship that god, because that god might not presribe any worshipping, or I may believe that worshipping is not necessary.
> 
> Either way, your sentence "The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god" is not quite correct.


In the context of faith the verb "to believe" [usually] stands for: "to have religious faith".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/believe

I think I've made it clear which definition I used by stating it this way: "believe in/worship".

Also, I have yet to see a dictionary definition that leaves room for a middle ground between atheism and theism. What exactly do you mean by being undecided? Believing is not different to, lets say, walking. You either walk or you don't. How can you be undecided? You can be undecided whether you will walk (want to walk at all, etc.), but you're either walking or not. *There is no middle ground*. An action either takes place or does not.



Huilunsoittaja said:


> I won't come down on you in particular, you're a Junior member, but if comments like that against theism are allowed, then wouldn't it be allowed to use as negative language against atheism? Why would that be more acceptable to say, and not if I were to attack atheism?
> 
> Just goes to show.


I for one wouldn't be offended.

Don't worry about her attitude.=]


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## opus55

I know many people around me who firmly believe god exists but they don't worship god at all. Just an observation..


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## Yoshi

I don't think there were offensive comments here. People didn't really attack someone, they were just giving their opinion about the religion. 
Reminds me of this person I knew that used to say my parents were horrible people because they didn't baptize me  and then he also said that I was going to hell for being an atheist (I don't care about that because I don't believe in hell but still). Later he got all mad at me when I simply said evolution was a theory that made more sense to me than creationism. My point wasn't to say he was an idiot for believing in God, I was just trying to explain why I believe in a different theory than him... it's like they have the right to call us all sort of things, but if we mention anything it's because we're not respecting their beliefs.


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## dmg

KaerbEmEvig said:


> The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god? You do? You're a theist. You don't? Then you're an atheist.


What if you believe in a god but do not worship it? Are you still an atheist?


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## Kopachris

opus55 said:


> I know many people around me who firmly believe god exists but they don't worship god at all. Just an observation..


I agree. Belief in god(s) doesn't not necessarily imply worship. Ancient Greeks believed in Hades, but few worshiped him. Christians believe in Satan, but don't worship him. Salieri (at least in the movie _Amadeus_, historically may well be another matter entirely) believed in God, but didn't worship him, believing God to be against him. I'm sure there are people like that today.


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## Guest

When I saw the title of the thread, I immediately knew what kinds of comments would be found in this thread, and was not disappointed. In fact, several of those making the comments were also predictable. Given my experiences in this forum, and others, when these types of threads come up, I'll decline to participate and not bother with it. Whether there were pure intentions in creating the poll, these always invite those with axes to grind to spout off, and to not anticipate such is to be willfully naive. 

That is my first - and last - word in this thread.


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## opus55

DrMike said:


> When I saw the title of the thread, I immediately knew what kinds of comments would be found in this thread, and was not disappointed. In fact, several of those making the comments were also predictable. Given my experiences in this forum, and others, when these types of threads come up, I'll decline to participate and not bother with it. Whether there were pure intentions in creating the poll, these always invite those with axes to grind to spout off, and to not anticipate such is to be willfully naive.
> 
> That is my first - and last - word in this thread.


I agree with all your points. Religion and politics tend to divide people.. sadly.


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## Edward Elgar

I have 4 simple queries about theology.

If you are willing for others to make a slave of you, does that mean it's okay to make a slave of another?

If you pray for someone to live and they die is god testing you? If they live does god answer your prayers?

How can we be sure there is only one god and not 2 or 3 or 4 or 50?

Why do we choose to use medicine if faith alone can heal?


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## TresPicos

KaerbEmEvig said:


> In the context of faith the verb "to believe" [usually] stands for: "to have religious faith".


Unless you study that religious faith from a philosophical standpoint where "to believe" is more like "to have an opinion", in which case there is clearly middle ground.



> Also, I have yet to see a dictionary definition that leaves room for a middle ground between atheism and theism. What exactly do you mean by being undecided? Believing is not different to, lets say, walking. You either walk or you don't. How can you be undecided? You can be undecided whether you will walk (want to walk at all, etc.), but you're either walking or not. *There is no middle ground*. An action either takes place or does not.


A belief in the wider sense is not the same thing as an action.

Either way, your sentence "The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god" is not correct. The question can, of course, be asked in different ways, hence the different (wider and narrower) definitions of, for example, atheism, and hence the need for more alternatives, like "undecided".


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## jurianbai

Edward Elgar said:


> I have 4 simple queries about theology.
> 
> If you are willing for others to make a slave of you, does that mean it's okay to make a slave of another?
> 
> If you pray for someone to live and they die is god testing you? If they live does god answer your prayers?
> 
> How can we be sure there is only one god and not 2 or 3 or 4 or 50?
> 
> Why do we choose to use medicine if faith alone can heal?


LOL ... the old religion specialist poster.

I don't understand the first one so I'll skip 

the second and fourth answer is like this. Every human is to die sooner or later, so if the person is the sick, I'll pray for his goodness, but if he die then let it be, because of the first premise. Is it God testing? nope, because in religion, most part is orientated to afterlife matters, somehow, dying is not really a test.

why take medicine? because religion simply teach human to stay in their human world for most part, taking medicine while sick is the common practise. the available of medicine to cure the complex chemical system of human body, is already a faith.

In other believe, however, you can simply ignore the medicine and take the faith, for example the chinese spiritualist can heal you right away in supranatural practise. I witnessed this and even take part in my earlier life.

There is enough information on most of believe that the nature of God explained, for your third question.


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## emiellucifuge

I believe there are enough things not yet explained by science, but that one day they will enter into our understanding as part of a scientific model.

Electricity would seem like magic to a tribesman living in the Brazilian rainforest.


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## David58117

I voted Atheist.

But I never understood those who believe that right here right now is ALL there is, yet chose to dedicate their time and effort into something they believe to be false and a waste of time. But to each their own...

Also, I think Atheists need to get together and do something productive for society. There are so many theist groups that donate, build houses, etc...but what do we Atheists do? Sorry, I don't want to get together and talk about the new Dawkins book, or do something to "promote the cause of Atheism" (give me a break, all you did was fall under the spell of one belief (atheism) rather than another (christianity)). Nope, I'd love to get together and do something for someone else because - this is it! Someone else is down in the dumps and if I can do something within my means to make *their* single shot at life better, I'm going to do it.

Personally, I gave up on other Atheists. I became a nurse and do my part, I see religious groups coming in and doing their part to help,...any of you young Atheists want to put down the Dawkins or Hitchens books and spend your free time volunteering to perform music or activities at your nearest nursing home and rehab center? Life is ticking by...


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## Edward Elgar

jurianbai said:


> the second and fourth answer is like this. Every human is to die sooner or later, so if the person is the sick, I'll pray for his goodness, but if he die then let it be, because of the first premise. Is it God testing? nope, because in religion, most part is orientated to afterlife matters, somehow, dying is not really a test.
> 
> why take medicine? because religion simply teach human to stay in their human world for most part, taking medicine while sick is the common practise. the available of medicine to cure the complex chemical system of human body, is already a faith.
> 
> In other believe, however, you can simply ignore the medicine and take the faith, for example the chinese spiritualist can heal you right away in supranatural practise. I witnessed this and even take part in my earlier life.
> 
> There is enough information on most of believe that the nature of God explained, for your third question.


Thank you for answering some of my questions. In response to your response I have the following questions,

What is the point of prayer if it can't influence events?

If medicine cures the sick, why is faith necessary as a method to make you well?

And finally, I haven't found any evidence to suggest there is just one god. Some cultures believe in many gods. are they wrong?


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## jurianbai

haha.. sorry but I only intended for answering your initial questions. but for me, faith is important, and necessery to being included when takes medicine, as I say, how can you believe a single pil can cure your stomach. and your initial questions didn't included talk about evidences.

see the internet for more questions please. for me, if I got chances to ask querry on theology, I will ask a simple, _what's the thing will happened after you got put inside the coffin._


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## emiellucifuge

David58117 said:


> I voted Atheist.
> 
> But I never understood those who believe that right here right now is ALL there is, yet chose to dedicate their time and effort into something they believe to be false and a waste of time. But to each their own...
> 
> Also, I think Atheists need to get together and do something productive for society. There are so many theist groups that donate, build houses, etc...but what do we Atheists do? Sorry, I don't want to get together and talk about the new Dawkins book, or do something to "promote the cause of Atheism" (give me a break, all you did was fall under the spell of one belief (atheism) rather than another (christianity)). Nope, I'd love to get together and do something for someone else because - this is it! Someone else is down in the dumps and if I can do something within my means to make *their* single shot at life better, I'm going to do it.
> 
> Personally, I gave up on other Atheists. I became a nurse and do my part, I see religious groups coming in and doing their part to help,...any of you young Atheists want to put down the Dawkins or Hitchens books and spend your free time volunteering to perform music or activities at your nearest nursing home and rehab center? Life is ticking by...


Perhaps it is to do with the fact that atheists do not feel the need to band together in herds and contribute to society in the name of something greater. There are many atheists such as yourself working as nurses, and many atheists will contribute to charity - they just wont feel the need to contribute specifically to the 'Atheist Mission in Uganda' but may rather contribute to the Red Cross for example.


----------



## Listener

Non theist


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## Yoshi

David58117 said:


> I voted Atheist.
> 
> But I never understood those who believe that right here right now is ALL there is, yet chose to dedicate their time and effort into something they believe to be false and a waste of time. But to each their own...
> 
> Also, I think Atheists need to get together and do something productive for society. There are so many theist groups that donate, build houses, etc...but what do we Atheists do? Sorry, I don't want to get together and talk about the new Dawkins book, or do something to "promote the cause of Atheism" (give me a break, all you did was fall under the spell of one belief (atheism) rather than another (christianity)). Nope, I'd love to get together and do something for someone else because - this is it! Someone else is down in the dumps and if I can do something within my means to make *their* single shot at life better, I'm going to do it.
> 
> Personally, I gave up on other Atheists. I became a nurse and do my part, I see religious groups coming in and doing their part to help,...any of you young Atheists want to put down the Dawkins or Hitchens books and spend your free time volunteering to perform music or activities at your nearest nursing home and rehab center? Life is ticking by...


Do you seriously believe that you're the only atheist who is doing something good for society? Oh my...


----------



## Kopachris

Edward Elgar said:


> If medicine cures the sick, why is faith necessary as a method to make you well?


Why do you even take medicine? How do you know it'll work? Sure, maybe it worked before, but what guarantee is there that it'll work this time? How do you know that records showing that it works most of the time haven't been falsified? Atheists have faith too, just not the same kind.


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## PatF

In spite of the poll results on this forum, it seems that worldwide, atheism is in decline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
Estimates range from 16-18% of world population.


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## Chi_townPhilly

emiellucifuge said:


> Perhaps it is to do with the fact that atheists do not feel the need to band together in herds and contribute to society in the name of something greater.


_That_ is speculation. That's all right... the fact that the word 'perhaps' was used is an acknowledgement of the speculative nature of the assertion.

There have been a number of studies done on the issue of the inter-relation of God-belief and charitable giving and volunteerism. Rather than cite or link a few (and then doubtless be accused of cherry-picking), the interested seeker can internet-search this issue, and move beyond speculation.


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## emiellucifuge

Kopachris said:


> Why do you even take medicine? How do you know it'll work? Sure, maybe it worked before, but what guarantee is there that it'll work this time? How do you know that records showing that it works most of the time haven't been falsified? Atheists have faith too, just not the same kind.


Its not always about basing a prediction on past observations.

Yes it was speculation so Perhaps was appropriate.
If Atheism is on a decline as a percentage of world population then I suggest this is because religious countries have more children due to various laws against contraception, not because less people are becoming atheistic.


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## Edward Elgar

Kopachris said:


> Why do you even take medicine? How do you know it'll work? Sure, maybe it worked before, but what guarantee is there that it'll work this time? How do you know that records showing that it works most of the time haven't been falsified? Atheists have faith too, just not the same kind.


The thing with medicine is that it remedies your health problems. There is no faith required. Medicine heals as a dog barks. It just is.


----------



## Jacob Singer

Chi_townPhilly said:


> There have been a number of studies done on the issue of the inter-relation of God-belief and charitable giving and volunteerism.


But do these people give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts, or because they fear retribution by some higher power if they were not to do such things?

That's the problem with studies done through polling. These studies are only measuring what people _say_, and in no way are accurately measuring what they _think_.


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## Almaviva

Why, oh why start this kind of thread?

1. Nobody's opinion on this will ever change, on this eternally controversial topic.
2. Whether people here spouse one view or another matters very little to the purpose of our participation here, and there is no point in finding out what view predominates
3. Whatever the result of this poll is, it has no bearing on any societal overview because the sample has not been scientifically chosen.


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## gurthbruins

Edward Elgar said:


> There's still that matter of my first question relating to the golden rule.
> 
> Also, are the 10 commandments redundant as they too are in the old testament?
> 
> A few more questions:
> 
> Also, if you pray for someone to live and they die is god testing you? If they live does god answer your prayers?
> 
> Also, how are you sure there is only one god and not 2 or 3 or 4 or 50?
> 
> Also, why do we choose to use medicine if faith alone can heal?


I love these threads, seeing how people lose their cool so easily.

0) I'm a pantheist, Spinoza's Pantheism with a whiff of Zen and Taoism.

1) The 10 commandments are hopelessly out of date. I hear there are progressive Judaists.

2) You should not pray for someone to live, you might be keeping them out of paradise.
Even if sure they are going to hell, you should not try to tell God what to do. He knows best, leave it to him! god may be testing you, but for sure he won't answer your prayers, any more than a professional doctor would heed the advice of a quack.

3) There is only one universe, that is easily proven. Equate that with God, and you're home and dry.

4) In case of illness, don't worry too much. Don't be too afraid of death or bereavement. 
after all, it happens to eveybody so it can't be so bad. Faith won't cure you if your number is up, nor will medicine. Take it, don't take it, it's up to you. My advice is: don't take it.

Warning: I only answer sensible questions.


----------



## gurthbruins

Almaviva said:


> Why, oh why start this kind of thread?
> 
> 1. Nobody's opinion on this will ever change, on this eternally controversial topic.
> 2. Whether people here spouse one view or another matters very little to the purpose of our participation here, and there is no point in finding out what view predominates
> 3. Whatever the result of this poll is, it has no bearing on any societal overview because the sample has not been scientifically chosen.


I am interested in people, I esteem it as a favour if they tell me what they are thinking.
And I like sharing my thoughts. Who knows, on a forum of people who prefer 'classical', you might actually meet someone of like mind. But you won't know anything about them unless you 'talk' to them.

If you only want to talk about other things, the answer is obvious - don't read this thread.


----------



## Guest

Former evangelical christian turned hardcore atheist (I believe science and logic show god to be unlikely and probably impossible).


----------



## gurthbruins

Edward Elgar said:


> About the golden rule - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
> 
> If you were willing for others to murder you, does that mean murder is okay? I know that there are 10 commandments in the old testament (one of which forbids murder), but that's not the important testament right? Maybe murder is a bad example. How about slavery, what does the bible have to say about that?


About the golden rule: this 'rule' falls into the category of persons trying to influence and order other people around. Don't stand for it! Nobody has the right to tell you what to do, unless he is pointing a gun at you. Might is right.

It might be a good idea to follow the 'rule' anyway, but you don't need anybody to tell you that. It's up to you to decide how you want to behave. Better not to generalise, but treat each case on its merits. (btw if you don't like my preaching, nobody is asking you to comply with it).

Murder is always okay, whether or not you are willing for others to murder you. But don't forget to calculate the consequences of your action in advance: if you fancy the odds, then go ahead.

About slavery: the bible is not infallible, so slavery is okay too. Just be careful your slaves don't kill you. Treat them well and they'll worship the ground you walk on.


----------



## Yoshi

Almaviva said:


> Why, oh why start this kind of thread?
> 
> 1. Nobody's opinion on this will ever change, on this eternally controversial topic.
> 2. Whether people here spouse one view or another matters very little to the purpose of our participation here, and there is no point in finding out what view predominates
> 3. Whatever the result of this poll is, it has no bearing on any societal overview because the sample has not been scientifically chosen.


1. Who says the point of this thread is to convert anyone? Of course everyone will stay with their own opinion, it happens in other threads too. And if it's a controversial topic, it will probably stay active with interesting discussions.
2. The "How is your weather?" thread doesn't matter at all to our purpose here either. This is the members chat section anyway.
3. I think the poll was just to see out of curiosity how many of us are atheists and theists. Nothing strange in that.


----------



## gurthbruins

World Violist said:


> I suppose I'd be called somewhat of a deist. I don't care all that much for religion anymore. Strange, not that long ago I'd have called myself a very religious, theistic person. I suppose music just took its place.:trp:


There you go, found a man after my own heart already.
As Beethoven said, music is a higher revelation than all wisdom or philosophy.

And all the waffling about religion is part of philosophy (something much more barren than music), and philosophy is (or should be) part of psychology (other parts of philosophy should be called science).

Really, we only need the waffling in order to cope with the other wafflers.


----------



## Jacob Singer

Lifelong atheist. Even as a child being forced to go to church, I just never believed.


----------



## gurthbruins

KaerbEmEvig said:


> The distinction between theism and atheism asks just one question: you you worship a god? You do? You're a theist. You don't? Then you're an atheist. No room for a middle ground - nobody has asked you whether you are certain. The atheism/theism distinction does not deal with the matter at all.
> 
> If someone asks me how how an apple looks like I don't tell him that I haven't eaten one - that makes no sense whatsoever.


KEE is being very persistent with his argument here, and seems to be drawing a bit of flak from the mod. That is all okay with me, and I hope the mod doesn't get too drastic too easily because the idea of free speech should be supported to some extreme I think.

After all, if you disagree with KEE (and I most certainly do so disagree with him!) then all you need to do is put your point and then ignore it when he simply repeats what he has said before. If he can't see your point, well that's his funeral.


----------



## emiellucifuge

gurthbruins said:


> There you go, found a man after my own heart already.
> As Beethoven said, music is a higher revelation than all wisdom or philosophy.
> 
> And all the waffling about religion is part of philosophy (something much more barren than music), and philosophy is (or should be) part of psychology (other parts of philosophy should be called science).
> 
> Really, we only need the waffling in order to cope with the other wafflers.


Surely Psychology is merely a branch of science, and science in itself is a branch of philosophy, separating only relatively recently.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

It would have been better to have a poll _without_ comments allowed. Numbers speak enough on htis subject. This thread is gonna hit 175 posts in no time, going on and on about the same thing.


----------



## gurthbruins

Jacob Singer said:


> Lifelong atheist. Even as a child being forced to go to church, I just never believed.


Forcing a child to go to church and listen to a lot of hogwash is probably the most effective way of creating an atheist.

Although I am a pantheistic deist, in general I prefer atheists to theists, they are usually honest, sincere and intelligent. It's not their fault if they have not experienced God - it's the will of God.


----------



## gurthbruins

Huilunsoittaja said:


> It would have been better to have a poll _without_ comments allowed. Numbers speak enough on htis subject. This thread is gonna hit 175 posts in no time, going on and on about the same thing.


_Without_ comments ALLOWED??

Viva la habladura libre (free speech). There is no law which says you have to come to this thread!!


----------



## Jacob Singer

gurthbruins said:


> Forcing a child to go to church and listen to a lot of hogwash is probably the most effective way of creating an atheist.


:lol:

Yeah, but the pipe organ was cool! That's about all I got out of it.


----------



## Il Seraglio

I'm still searching for the 'truth' as it were. I find Christianity highly seductive as the world just seems an unbelievably cruel place without an afterlife where good people with unhappy lives are finally rewarded. I know that sounds slightly immature, but be honest. What good is your life if you or the people you care about spend it getting trampled on, treated unfairly, experiencing little to no pleasure and there will be no better place to go to after you die? To believe any such thing is nihilistic in the extreme.

I think this was what Nietzsche meant by the doctrine Eternal Return. Once you accept the absence of a God or afterlife, you have to look at your life as if it were going to repeat itself over and over forever. This can be a way of treating the finitude of our existence with the same level of seriousness with which Christians treat the immortality of the soul.

I don't have it in me to reject Christianity's entire moral edifice in such a way. However the secular humanist argument that such morality (kindness to others, all mankind as equal) is innate and a matter of common sense does not wash with me. How does such a worldview go about explaining the multitude cultures and civilizations throughout history whose morals were completely unrecognisable compared to our own?


----------



## jurianbai

Edward Elgar said:


> The thing with medicine is that it remedies your health problems. There is no faith required. Medicine heals as a dog barks. It just is.


if you haven't read in detail my earlier respond:


jurianbai said:


> In other believe, however, you can simply ignore the medicine and take the faith, for example the chinese spiritualist can heal you right away in supranatural practise. I witnessed this and even take part in my earlier life.


try to search "reiki", "shamanism", "energy healing" etc. I know this will be doubt, it is so obvious a fraud at first, but the reason it is even has an amount of sustained practitioners suggested that... it is heal. now if believe in paranormal or supranatural the same as believe in theist ?


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## emiellucifuge

Il Seraglio said:


> I don't have it in me to reject Christianity's entire moral edifice in such a way. However the secular humanist argument that such morality (kindness to others, all mankind as equal) is innate and a matter of common sense does not wash with me. How does such a worldview go about explaining the multitude cultures and civilizations throughout history whose morals were completely unrecognisable compared to our own?


Becase the truth is, human populations living in different enviroments face different selective pressures. Predation, weather, food are all issues that until very recently tested our species to the limit, only the fittest survive. Everything we have developed physically and psychologically is a direct result of natural selection. This includes our complex social structures (which are not too dissimilar from our near-relatives), it includes our morality. Morality or ethics is a component of human social nature. It merely dictates how we behave towards eachother and what we as a society feel we are permitted to do. Certain guidelines are necessary for the survival of humanity as a species, and these will no doubt differ between different populations due to the varying selective pressures applied.
I give an example: we feel a strong repulsion towards incest, we feel it is wrong, but have you ever asked yourself - what, according to my moral code makes incest wrong? It is a difficult question, and the answer is not borne out of your moral code but is genetically defined in your mental and instinctual structure. Incest, decreases genetic variation within a population - thus making it less able to adapt to new pressures and more susceptible to disease. This is the sole reason for our repulsion to incest - it is a selective disadvantage.


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## emiellucifuge

jurianbai said:


> if you haven't read in detail my earlier respond:
> 
> try to search "reiki", "shamanism", "energy healing" etc. I know this will be doubt, it is so obvious a fraud at first, but the reason it is even has an amount of sustained practitioners suggested that... it is heal. now if believe in paranormal or supranatural the same as believe in theist ?


Im sorry but these things do not work - i claimed before that there are many things not yet incorporated in science that we believe to be magical, but this is not one of them. 
Besides, traditional chinese medicines are driving many species to extinction. The Black rhino is hunted for its horn and sold on the chinese black market. From this critically endangered species, over 500 have been killed this year alone. Tigers are killed for their ***** which is also sold on the chinese market. Only 2000 remain.


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## Edward Elgar

jurianbai said:


> try to search "reiki", "shamanism", "energy healing" etc. I know this will be doubt, it is so obvious a fraud at first, but the reason it is even has an amount of sustained practitioners suggested that... it is heal. now if believe in paranormal or supranatural the same as believe in theist ?


These methods are not practised by the medical profession and for good reason. They do not work. Have you heard of the placebo effect? If you are a believer, the sacrifice of a goat may speed your recovery of a common cold via the placebo effect, but what if you have cancer? What are you going to do? Sacrifice a goat or get chemotherapy? I'd sincerely hope you'd go for the later.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly

Chi_townPhilly said:


> There have been a number of studies done on the issue of the inter-relation of God-belief and charitable giving and volunteerism.
> 
> 
> Jacob Singer said:
> 
> 
> 
> But do these people give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts, or because they fear retribution by some higher power if they were not to do such things?
> 
> That's the problem with studies done through polling. These studies are only measuring what people _say_, and in no way are accurately measuring what they _think_.
Click to expand...

Regarding the latter point, I think it can be discovered that there is more than just polling behind them. Additionally, I believe that the ultimate aim of the most thorough of them is not to assess what they say, but what they *do*.

Regarding the former point (whether one gives cheerfully, or out of concern for the consequences of non-giving), I'm reminded of that quip from a world-statesman that if you're about to drown and someone throws you a life-preserver, you don't demand to know the identity of the person on the other end of the line before grasping it. Neither does one ask for the motivation of the one making the throw.

If you're a witness or a bystander, you might find a study of the reasons for people's charity a worthy matter for study and pursuit... and there's nothing wrong with that. However, if you're _in extemis_ and on the receiving end of the charity, it's quite a bit more likely that you won't much care...


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## david johnson

The atheist members here need to silence Elgar. He's making them look amazingly foolish.

dj


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## jurianbai

about the non medical healing.

So, it is weird, that in a place where you have alternative of scientific medical method, these did not prove effective (in western). But in a place where people less educated, less informed about chemotherapy, etc. this happen to works (in eastern). Reiki, for instance, is a newly "re-structured" spiritual healing method so it can be more "scientific" and accepted, but it is essentially an Buddhism style of healing previously. This do works, for people have faith on it, the western called it placebo effect for some of phenomenon. So, it is incorporated to your question earlier (E. Elgar) that is it faith alone can cure.

Surely, this is hard to believe. But, here my proposal. I've been grace to be staying in a very exotic region, SE Asian. There are at least four type of spiritualism existed here: the Chinese style, the Islamic Malay , the sinkretism Islamic Javanese (called _pesugihan_ if you like to googled) and the most exotic one... the Dayak animism (that where I stayed right now, the Borneo Island). All these four, can cure you to the extreme. In my western faith, it's labelled as not very good information, so I will not go details.

In near a month from now, there will be a Chinese Lunar new year and will have a festival where the _Mediums _ show their power, around the city. You can come here (I invited...) and if the show not good at least the beaches over here is worth the visit ...:trp:

Btw, just to end my discussion (THIS IS NOT THE FORUM TO DISCUSS such thing ... echoing mr moderator LOL). In the age where the Europe less "scientific" there is a report about witchcrafty, there is voodooism in the Africa and American and sort of example I said above. This is about, how do you think about paranormal phenomenon, if the organized religion did not satisfy you, how you explained those, in paralel to your atheism?


----------



## science

I'm pretty sure I'm an atheist, but I'm not entirely sure. I think that makes me an agnostic.


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## dmg

Il Seraglio said:


> I'm still searching for the 'truth' as it were. I find Christianity highly seductive as the world just seems an unbelievably cruel place without an afterlife where good people with unhappy lives are finally rewarded.


What about other creatures? What about a neglected horse who lives a very bad and abused life. Do you think that horse is rewarded in the afterlife? Do you think 'cruelty' only applies to humans, and that other creatures do not experience suffering? If you answered 'yes', you cannot be Christian, because in Christianity only people have immortal souls.


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## emiellucifuge

In any case its a very false logic, wishfully believing in some afterlife in order to justify the perceived cruelty of the world.


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## Norse

I'm an atheist. A strong one when it comes to religion-specific theism, a weak one when it comes to the more 'vague' stuff like "something more between heaven and earth", deism etc.. 

(Weak atheism is just the lack of an active belief in gods (Which is why I think most people who label themselves as agnostics are actually atheists), strong atheism is an actual conviction that the proposed theism is false)


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## Delicious Manager

100% atheist here. Anything else just goes against common sense for me.


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## Guest

Despite my better judgment, I want to make a few points here.

The talk of science vs. religion is silly. Neither will win. Because neither has the tools to discuss the other. Science deals with facts and evidence, tests and results, data and observations - unless politics gets involved. Religion deals in a different realm. Faith, belief, revelation, inspiration. There aren't common points that can be debated. Science can't speak to what it can't measure. It can only speculate, and speculating on things that can't possibly be measured takes you out of science, so don't continue to claim science can disprove God or the afterlife - it can't. Likewise, religion can't answer certain questions, and to pretend otherwise is not actually productive to your argument.

There is talk about religion being the natural evolutionary product of man - sort of a defense mechanism developed to help make sense of a scary world by our primitive ancestors. And as we evolve, we discard much of these superstitions. And so is the case with much of the beliefs of the past. We no longer believe the earth is flat. We know the earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around. We know that we aren't ruled by supernatural beings dwelling on Mount Olympus. We know that there is no rainbow bridge connecting this world with another, where warriors inhabit halls, drinking away eternity until the final battle of the gods. I'm pretty sure most people don't believe in a feathered snake coming across the sea as their savior.

Most superstitions and beliefs fall by the wayside over time as we are better able to explain our surroundings and why they act as they do. And yet . . . and yet . . . some seem to persist. Buddhism still persists. The monotheistic God common to Jews, Christians, and Muslims continues to draw people. And not only in third world countries. In most cases we jettison things that no longer seem necessary. We, as a species, aren't particularly known for being pack rats. Sure, we still have that pesky appendix, but in general, we jettison what we no longer need. Granted, some things go a bit slower, especially in the realm of ideas, but there are very few things that we still have in common, especially as far as beliefs and ideas go, with those that walked the earth 2000 years ago, or 3000 years ago. So you have to start asking yourself what is so special about some of these non-scientific ideas that are persisting as long as they have. Maybe moral codes can evolve based on survival instincts and this concept of them being good for the perpetuation and improvement of the species. But why these other things? And if it is merely some general phenomenon, why have so many other religions come and gone? What has made these ideas, particularly those originating from a culture that sprung from a single obscure family in the middle east millennia ago?


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## Iveforgottenmyoldpassword

DrMike said:


> Despite my better judgment, I want to make a few points here.
> 
> The talk of science vs. religion is silly. Neither will win. Because neither has the tools to discuss the other. Science deals with facts and evidence, tests and results, data and observations - unless politics gets involved. Religion deals in a different realm. Faith, belief, revelation, inspiration. There aren't common points that can be debated. Science can't speak to what it can't measure. It can only speculate, and speculating on things that can't possibly be measured takes you out of science, so don't continue to claim science can disprove God or the afterlife - it can't. Likewise, religion can't answer certain questions, and to pretend otherwise is not actually productive to your argument.


I agree that science and religion can not be used to disprove one another, however i do believe that science is applicable within religion. The religious beliefs of an individual do not have to discredit all scientific findings. I personally am a fairly religious person and science is probably my favorite subject. I see science as the study of God's creation. Whether God exists or created it tends to be irrelevant to the information that we discover because either it happened all by itself or something planned and set it into motion. Either way, its a fascinating subject and i don't see why some Christians find it necessary to 
discredit it in order to validate their own beliefs (and vice versa).


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## emiellucifuge

Many of the things in Religion are disproven or confirmed by science, and there are still many things to investigate. I am confident all that we know religoon or spirituality will be disproven or confirmed. However, religious people need to accept scientific evidence before faith. For example - we now know evolution is correct - adapt to the science not the other way around.


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## starthrower

Some good points from DrMike, but why mention Buddhism in the same breath with religious superstition? It doesn't apply. Buddhist's don't preach religious dogma like Christians, Jews, and Muslims.


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## andrea

Hmm, I was edited and warned for a really very mild post! 
I'm glad I didn't quote Pat Condell or Christopher Hitchens as I'd planned!!! Anyone who wants a less than mild opinion on religion should google either of those two. Warning: Don't google Pat Condell unless you really don't get offended easily!! 

I'm genuinely shocked at the warning. If I'd criticised a political party or a film or a musician like this I wonder if it would have been the same... well debates on religion always seem to bring on the oddest reactions. 

I didn't mean to offend on this occasion. If I offended anyone then I'm really sorry.


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## emiellucifuge

Oops - I posted this by accident


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## Chris

emiellucifuge said:


> we now know evolution is correct.


Really? Did somebody watch it happen?


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## dmg

Yes, people watch it happen all the time.


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## Aramis

A peasant once said: ooo, they will think they know everything but they will know nothing.

I agree with peasant, humans tend to have too much confidence in their knowledge.

A dumb guy reads a couple of biased books including biased informations and think he is wisest man in universe. HE-MAN... AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE


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## andrea

Chris said:


> Really? Did somebody watch it happen?


Yes! is the short answer to that one!!

example.
The reason the flu keeps coming back is that it constantly evolves to counteract the defences we - and birds and pigs - keep evolving to fight. Just because the flu virus is very small doesn't mean it isn't significant!

A really inspiring study into the workings of evolution is here http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/


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## emiellucifuge

Chris said:


> Really? Did somebody watch it happen?


Yes there are multiple experiments underway in the process of observing bacterial evolution. One of these tests has a bacterial population of the same species being subjected to different conditions each generation - the generation is then split and different conditions are applied to each subgroup and so on.
I belive they are currently over 50,000 generations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Other than the above, evolution has been observed in various populations of lizards, birds, fish and other organisms colonising new land or undergoing drastic enviromental alterations.


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## Chris

dmg said:


> Yes, people watch it happen all the time.


Are you sure you don't mean people watch NATURAL SELECTION all the time? Natural selection is not evolution.


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## starthrower

Where should we put our confidence? In ignorance and assumptions? Seems many religious people don't have a problem with science when it serves their own interests. Air conditioning, automobiles, medical care, television(Christian evangelists love TV) but are offended when it challenges their religious world view and dogmatic assumptions.


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## Guest

somerandomdude said:


> I agree that science and religion can not be used to disprove one another, however i do believe that science is applicable within religion. The religious beliefs of an individual do not have to discredit all scientific findings. I personally am a fairly religious person and science is probably my favorite subject. I see science as the study of God's creation. Whether God exists or created it tends to be irrelevant to the information that we discover because either it happened all by itself or something planned and set it into motion. Either way, its a fascinating subject and i don't see why some Christians find it necessary to
> discredit it in order to validate their own beliefs (and vice versa).


I am actually both a devout Christian AND a scientist - microbiology. For religious people, science need not - should not - be disregarded. Science seeks to understand the physical world around us. It cannot explain the unseeable. There is no war between religion and science, rather between those who do and do not accept religion. Some of those who reject religion use science as a weapon to bludgeon those who accept religion, but it is not as effective a tool as they would think. And those who are religious shouldn't view it as such. Because it has been used by some to attack religion does not make science anti-religion. If a person kills another with a hammer, that does not mean that the hammer is a tool meant to kill. It has been misused from its intended purpose.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Many of the things in Religion are disproven or confirmed by science, and there are still many things to investigate. I am confident all that we know religoon or spirituality will be disproven or confirmed. However, religious people need to accept scientific evidence before faith. For example - we now know evolution is correct - adapt to the science not the other way around.


The fundamental tenets of most of the major religions that are practiced today, to my knowledge, have not been verified or refuted. You would have to be more specific if you want to make such a bold statement as that. Existence of a god/deity/higher power? Existence of a soul? Afterlife? Show me those studies.

I am not confident that science ever would, or could, definitively confirm or repute even half of religious doctrine. That isn't making a judgment on whether the religious beliefs are true or not - it simply is not within the power of science. You simply cannot prove that something does not exist - you can't prove a negative. Science accepts the concept of infinity - there is simply no way to prove that any given thing cannot possibly exist anywhere in that infinite expanse we refer to as the universe. Now, that is not de facto proof that these things must then exist - we are at an impasse. Religion cannot prove, and science cannot disprove. Hence my argument that there are simply certain things that science cannot do. That is not a knock on science. It is simply a recognition that we have limitations in science as to what we can and cannot do.

As for evolution - I don't know if the discussion was here, or another forum, but your last statement was false. There is evidence of evolution, yes. Certain tests of evolution have produced positive results. But to claim it is beyond the realm of anymore doubt is simply ludicrous, and such statements tend to come from those who choose to use the science as a weapon against the views of others, rather than those who have a genuine interest in knowledge, regardless of where it takes them - which should be at the heart of science, not a desire to use science as a weapon, which tends to bias people to see only the results they want.


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## Guest

starthrower said:


> Some good points from DrMike, but why mention Buddhism in the same breath with religious superstition? It doesn't apply. Buddhist's don't preach religious dogma like Christians, Jews, and Muslims.


I did not meant to imply anything derogatory in how I mentioned Buddhism - but there are mystical aspects to buddhism that lie outside of scientific explanation. No, there is no God, like in monotheistic religions, but there are other beliefs that set it apart from typical moral philosophies. Were it only a system that taught correct moral behavior, then I would call it distinct from other religions, but there is more - not the least being the idea of rebirth/reincarnation, which certainly would raise eyebrows among the anti-religious as much as the concept of a creator, especially when you start getting into the various forms of existence that Buddhism teaches are possible - humans and animals are not the only ones, as there are also Naraka beings, Preta, Asuras, and Devas, none of which, I believe, can be demonstrated scientifically.


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## Yoshi

Chris said:


> Really? Did somebody watch it happen?


Fossils...


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## Chris

Jan said:


> Fossils...


What about fossils?


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## Yoshi

Chris said:


> What about fossils?


We obviously didn't "watch it" happen, because evolution is a slow process that takes millions of years. Fossils are one of the evidence that we have. There are so many events in human's history for example that you didn't witness, but you know they happened because of documented stuff and other evidence.


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## Guest

andrea said:


> Yes! is the short answer to that one!!
> 
> example.
> The reason the flu keeps coming back is that it constantly evolves to counteract the defences we - and birds and pigs - keep evolving to fight. Just because the flu virus is very small doesn't mean it isn't significant!
> 
> A really inspiring study into the workings of evolution is here http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/


The problem here is what people understand when we talk about evolution. For the scientifically minded, we understand it means the generation of diversity at any scale, and when you explain that to people, they understand and accept it. Flu is actually a tricky one, as it is not always necessarily evolution that causes the problems. It is one of those viruses that humans don't develop good, long-lasting immunity for, like we have with smallpox. Many times new outbreaks are of pre-existing strains that have been dormant in whatever reservoir. That is why we talk about the "re-emergence" of certain nasty strains. Sometimes it is merely a redistributing of pre-existing genes when a host animal is infected with multiple strains - they swap DNA, you could say. And then sometimes, it is actually from new mutations arising.

But the biggest problem is simply that once we have cleared a particular strain of the flu virus, we won't have long-term immunity to protect us from ever catching that particular strain again.

Sorry, viral immunology is my profession. Didn't mean to launch into that tangent.

The "evolution" that many people have issues with is macro-evolution - the evolution that does more than generate different hair colors among people, or varieties in skin pigmentation, or the ability of a bacteria to survive on different nutrients. We are talking about evolution on the scale of millions of years that can generate all life as we now know it from a single primitive source. It is that type of evolution that is not proven. Small scale evolution is proven. The difficulty is taking small, relatively minor variations generated in controlled experiments based that produce diversity WITHIN a species, and extrapolating those observations, spiced with some tantalizing fossil records of similar structures, to say that this mechanism can create ever more complex organisms, all arising from a very small population of primitive, "first" life. So yes, evolution is real. The issue is the predictions that people have made from evolution.

Evolution can generate diversity in the flu virus - you are absolutely correct there. That is true. It is proven. It is evidence of evolution, and it can be tested and proven. But what cannot be proven is the extrapolation of that observation. With all the evolution occurring with the flu virus, does it ever evolve into, say, a retrovirus (such as HIV), or into the smallpox virus? Or beyond a virus? With all the evolution observed in the E. coli experiment, have they generated a different bacteria other than E. coli?

Now, there is nothing wrong with this. Scientists do it all the time. Testing the big theories is incredibly difficult to do. You start small. You do smaller tests in simpler systems, and from those results, you develop hypotheses as to how things work on a larger scale. Scientists can't test whether you can create a monkey from a bacteria - if it is possible, it takes millions, if not billions of years, and can't possibly be tested. So they test small things. Can I make this bacteria survive on nutrients it normally couldn't survive on? Can I detect changes in this species in response to a new environment? If the answer is yes, well, it hints that greater changes could be possible, if given enough time. But that isn't tested, it is only extrapolated. If I put my kid in little league, and he is able to hit a fastball from the best pitcher in his league, then I might extrapolate that he would be able to do the same against a top pitcher in the major leagues. I could extrapolate that, but that is not the same as my observation of my sons abilities on a smaller scale.

Why? Well, because the larger the system, the more complexity there is. When you are taking about creating all life from a single source, you need things more powerful than a mutation here and there. To hit the next step of evolution for, say, the E. coli, you need more than merely a mutation that allows the utilization of a new nutrient source. For example, to go from whatever ancestor immediately preceded mammals that wouldn't be considered a mammal, you would need a whole system of changes. To go from an organism that replicated asexually (like bacteria, with binary fission) to that first organism that was capable of sexual reproduction, think of all the necessary differences. Consider the gap between E. coli and man. All of the genetic information in E. coli allows it to be a single-celled bacteria. All the genetic information allows a highly complex organism in which takes a sperm and an egg, fuses them, combines the DNA, and then initiates a series of programs that systematically turn on and turn off various genes at different stages to allow for cells to replicate and form together to create a heart, or a liver, or a kidney, or skin, or a brain, or an intestine, or a spleen, or a pancreas. And that is where the extrapolation in evolution kicks in. Scientists will hold up an experiment of a bacteria growing in different media, or a fruit fly changing in subtle ways, and then sit there and belittle you if you can't see what is so obvious to them - if we can make bacteria eat different food, then it stands to reason that you can create a multi-organed, multi-cellular complex organism from a single-celled organism - you just need to give it enough time.


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## Chris

Jan said:


> We obviously didn't "watch it" happen, because evolution is a slow process that takes millions of years. Fossils are one of the evidence that we have. There are so many events in human's history for example that you didn't witness, but you know they happened because of documented stuff and other evidence.


Fossils do not come with documentation! The palaeontologist digs them out of the ground, cleans them up, weighs them and measures them. That is the scientific bit. What comes after this is largely speculation and faith. I have been around long enough to see innumererable evolutionary tales woven out of little more than imagination. I remember some years back the papers were full of the discovery of a genuine half man, half ape creature, accompanied by details of the creature's lifestyle, diet and habits, with drawings. It was all based on the discovery of a single tooth. The tooth was later found to be the tooth of a pig. The point is, these scientists desperately wanted to see evolution, and if you _really_ want to see something, you'll see it.


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## KaerbEmEvig

DrMike said:


> The problem here is what people understand when we talk about evolution. For the scientifically minded, we understand it means the generation of diversity at any scale, and when you explain that to people, they understand and accept it. Flu is actually a tricky one, as it is not always necessarily evolution that causes the problems. It is one of those viruses that humans don't develop good, long-lasting immunity for, like we have with smallpox. Many times new outbreaks are of pre-existing strains that have been dormant in whatever reservoir. That is why we talk about the "re-emergence" of certain nasty strains. Sometimes it is merely a redistributing of pre-existing genes when a host animal is infected with multiple strains - they swap DNA, you could say. And then sometimes, it is actually from new mutations arising.
> 
> But the biggest problem is simply that once we have cleared a particular strain of the flu virus, we won't have long-term immunity to protect us from ever catching that particular strain again.
> 
> Sorry, viral immunology is my profession. Didn't mean to launch into that tangent.
> 
> The "evolution" that many people have issues with is macro-evolution - the evolution that does more than generate different hair colors among people, or varieties in skin pigmentation, or the ability of a bacteria to survive on different nutrients. We are talking about evolution on the scale of millions of years that can generate all life as we now know it from a single primitive source. It is that type of evolution that is not proven. Small scale evolution is proven. The difficulty is taking small, relatively minor variations generated in controlled experiments based that produce diversity WITHIN a species, and extrapolating those observations, spiced with some tantalizing fossil records of similar structures, to say that this mechanism can create ever more complex organisms, all arising from a very small population of primitive, "first" life. So yes, evolution is real. The issue is the predictions that people have made from evolution.
> 
> Evolution can generate diversity in the flu virus - you are absolutely correct there. That is true. It is proven. It is evidence of evolution, and it can be tested and proven. But what cannot be proven is the extrapolation of that observation. With all the evolution occurring with the flu virus, does it ever evolve into, say, a retrovirus (such as HIV), or into the smallpox virus? Or beyond a virus? With all the evolution observed in the E. coli experiment, have they generated a different bacteria other than E. coli?
> 
> Now, there is nothing wrong with this. Scientists do it all the time. Testing the big theories is incredibly difficult to do. You start small. You do smaller tests in simpler systems, and from those results, you develop hypotheses as to how things work on a larger scale. Scientists can't test whether you can create a monkey from a bacteria - if it is possible, it takes millions, if not billions of years, and can't possibly be tested. So they test small things. Can I make this bacteria survive on nutrients it normally couldn't survive on? Can I detect changes in this species in response to a new environment? If the answer is yes, well, it hints that greater changes could be possible, if given enough time. But that isn't tested, it is only extrapolated. If I put my kid in little league, and he is able to hit a fastball from the best pitcher in his league, then I might extrapolate that he would be able to do the same against a top pitcher in the major leagues. I could extrapolate that, but that is not the same as my observation of my sons abilities on a smaller scale.
> 
> Why? Well, because the larger the system, the more complexity there is. When you are taking about creating all life from a single source, you need things more powerful than a mutation here and there. To hit the next step of evolution for, say, the E. coli, you need more than merely a mutation that allows the utilization of a new nutrient source. For example, to go from whatever ancestor immediately preceded mammals that wouldn't be considered a mammal, you would need a whole system of changes. To go from an organism that replicated asexually (like bacteria, with binary fission) to that first organism that was capable of sexual reproduction, think of all the necessary differences. Consider the gap between E. coli and man. All of the genetic information in E. coli allows it to be a single-celled bacteria. All the genetic information allows a highly complex organism in which takes a sperm and an egg, fuses them, combines the DNA, and then initiates a series of programs that systematically turn on and turn off various genes at different stages to allow for cells to replicate and form together to create a heart, or a liver, or a kidney, or skin, or a brain, or an intestine, or a spleen, or a pancreas. And that is where the extrapolation in evolution kicks in. Scientists will hold up an experiment of a bacteria growing in different media, or a fruit fly changing in subtle ways, and then sit there and belittle you if you can't see what is so obvious to them - if we can make bacteria eat different food, then it stands to reason that you can create a multi-organed, multi-cellular complex organism from a single-celled organism - you just need to give it enough time.


Here you go, examples of so called "macro evolution" (i.e. speciation):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation


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## Yoshi

Chris said:


> Fossils do not come with documentation! The palaeontologist digs them out of the ground, cleans them up, weighs them and measures them. That is the scientific bit. What comes after this is largely speculation and faith. I have been around long enough to see innumererable evolutionary tales woven out of little more than imagination. I remember some years back the papers were full of the discovery of a genuine half man, half ape creature, accompanied by details of the creature's lifestyle, diet and habits, with drawings. It was all based on the discovery of a single tooth. The tooth was later found to be the tooth of a pig. The point is, these scientists desperately wanted to see evolution, and if you _really_ want to see something, you'll see it.


And so are plenty of cases where they didn't find just a tooth. There are complete remains of dinosaurs for example. Scientists don't want desperately to see evolution, they have discovered things that lead them to that theory. Evolution isn't a theory based on speculation and faith, creationism is...


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## emiellucifuge

Chris said:


> Fossils do not come with documentation! The palaeontologist digs them out of the ground, cleans them up, weighs them and measures them. That is the scientific bit. What comes after this is largely speculation and faith. I have been around long enough to see innumererable evolutionary tales woven out of little more than imagination. I remember some years back the papers were full of the discovery of a genuine half man, half ape creature, accompanied by details of the creature's lifestyle, diet and habits, with drawings. It was all based on the discovery of a single tooth. The tooth was later found to be the tooth of a pig. The point is, these scientists desperately wanted to see evolution, and if you _really_ want to see something, you'll see it.


Refer to my previous post.



DrMike said:


> The fundamental tenets of most of the major religions that are practiced today, to my knowledge, have not been verified or refuted. You would have to be more specific if you want to make such a bold statement as that. Existence of a god/deity/higher power? Existence of a soul? Afterlife? Show me those studies.
> 
> I am not confident that science ever would, or could, definitively confirm or repute even half of religious doctrine. That isn't making a judgment on whether the religious beliefs are true or not - it simply is not within the power of science. You simply cannot prove that something does not exist - you can't prove a negative. Science accepts the concept of infinity - there is simply no way to prove that any given thing cannot possibly exist anywhere in that infinite expanse we refer to as the universe. Now, that is not de facto proof that these things must then exist - we are at an impasse. Religion cannot prove, and science cannot disprove. Hence my argument that there are simply certain things that science cannot do. That is not a knock on science. It is simply a recognition that we have limitations in science as to what we can and cannot do.
> 
> As for evolution - I don't know if the discussion was here, or another forum, but your last statement was false. There is evidence of evolution, yes. Certain tests of evolution have produced positive results. But to claim it is beyond the realm of anymore doubt is simply ludicrous, and such statements tend to come from those who choose to use the science as a weapon against the views of others, rather than those who have a genuine interest in knowledge, regardless of where it takes them - which should be at the heart of science, not a desire to use science as a weapon, which tends to bias people to see only the results they want.


Sure - those things you mentioned have not been proven, but the little stuff. Evolution vs Creationism is an example, then there are thousands of superstitions that people adopted from a logical base in their doctrine which are being eroded.


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## ricardo_jvc6

I just laughed at this subject, lol, I got like rofl on the floor. Actually talking about religion, you ever heard Messias music? on the church which someone played the wrong notes xD


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## dmg

Here's a good video on evolution for those who don't understand it. Warning: You might get insulted as this video is not meant to be shown directly to 'deniers', but rather those who feel the need to explain it to 'deniers':


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## Chris

Jan said:


> And so are plenty of cases where they didn't find just a tooth. There are complete remains of dinosaurs for example. Scientists don't want desperately to see evolution, they have discovered things that lead them to that theory. Evolution isn't a theory based on speculation and faith, creationism is...


You have missed the point here. Nobody is doubting the existence of dinosaurs. The issue I mentioned involved an imaginary half man half ape.

On your second point, evolution has a very large dollop of faith in it. You can see this in the concept of 'living fossils' where plants or animals known supposedly only from fossils allegedly scores of millions of years old suddenly turn up alive and well in the world somewhere. A truly objective scientist would say 'Perhaps we were wrong about the scores of millions of years. Perhaps the fossils are in fact recent'. But who is going to break the faith and utter such a heresy, which could bring down the whole evolutionary edifice? So instead, the bizarre idea of 'living fossils' is invented, in which, while hippos are turning into whales and rabbits are turning into squirrels, some species just look on in bemusement and stay just as they are.


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## Chris

KaerbEmEvig said:


> Here you go, examples of so called "macro evolution" (i.e. speciation):
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation


Speciation is not the same as 'macro evolution' (a term I don't use). I believe in the former but not the latter. I believe (along with most creationists) that the original Creation was endowed with rich DNA that resulted, and may still result, in the emergence of new species, these new species appearing when some factor, perhaps environmental, causes expression of DNA material which was always present.


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## dmg

Chris said:


> You have missed the point here. Nobody is doubting the existence of dinosaurs. The issue I mentioned involved an imaginary half man half ape.
> 
> On your second point, evolution has a very large dollop of faith in it. You can see this in the concept of 'living fossils' where plants or animals known supposedly only from fossils allegedly scores of millions of years old suddenly turn up alive and well in the world somewhere. A truly objective scientist would say 'Perhaps we were wrong about the scores of millions of years. Perhaps the fossils are in fact recent'. But who is going to break the faith and utter such a heresy, which could bring down the whole evolutionary edifice? So instead, the bizarre idea of 'living fossils' is invented, in which, while hippos are turning into whales and rabbits are turning into squirrels, some species just look on in bemusement and stay just as they are.


Watch the video. You do not understand the concept of evolution. Completely throw out that image of a hunched-over ape gradually becoming a fully erect human. That's not how it works (it was created by a magazine cover artist - not a biologist). One species does not 'become' another. A new species forms when a population of an original species becomes genetically separated (usually by physical boundaries, such as a body of water, etc.) and the compiled genetic mutations in the separated population do not mix with the original population. The original species did not 'turn into something else' as it still exists; thus, you can have so-called 'living fossils'.


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## Guest

KaerbEmEvig said:


> Here you go, examples of so called "macro evolution" (i.e. speciation):
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation


No, that isn't what I meant. Different kinds of turtles, different kinds of birds, different kinds of fruit flies. But that isn't what is a hang up for people. These are the small observations that then are extrapolated. Well, if we can generate different kinds of birds and fruit flies, then surely we can extrapolate that to mean that they all came from some common ancestor. That given enough time, from one single, or possibly a small number, of original life forms, we got turtles, and fruit flies, and birds. Different species of turtles are all going to have almost all of the same things - the differences, when considered in total, are really quite minor. How minor? Well, there is less than 2% difference between humans and chimps, genetically speaking, but oh what a difference that small percentage makes. And between two different species of turtles, even less. But how great of a difference is there genetically between a human and E. coli? Or E. coli and the flu virus?

Certain systems work nicely to demonstrate evolution - bacteria are nice, because you don't need sexual reproduction, and the reproduction time is very small. Flies also replicate relatively quickly. Viruses replicate incredibly quickly. And they don't require a mate to replicate. So if they develop a mutation, they can replicate rather easily, provided the new mutation isn't in some way detrimental. Once you start getting into species that must reproduce sexually, then this ability to propagate mutations comes to a relative screeching halt. Creatures that reproduce sexually typically have to wait until they have sexually matured, which can be a considerable amount of time - for most humans, at least a decade to a decade and a half before males and females are sexually developed enough. So the mutation has to have some staying power to last that long. Then you have to find a willing mate. If the change is different enough, it might make that prospect challenging. Then we know that, depending on what kind of a mutation it is, there is no guarantee it will be passed to offspring. Not like bacteria, where the offspring are identical to the parent. Sexual reproduction results in a mixing of genetic material. If the mutation is recessive, it might not be expressed in any of the offspring. If the mutation occurred in only one individual, then that individual would need to have multiple offspring, and then would need those carriers of the trait to mate with one another. That is just one example - there are numerous different ways that these things could happen, but the point is that the more complex the life form is, the more complex and difficult it is to transmit major changes.

Now, granted, there is evidence that when you have an entire population exposed to a new environment, then you can get multiple similar mutations occurring in multiple animals - population evolving. But these still tend to be minor changes that can be incorporated rather quickly and easily. But more complex changes would be trickier. How does one develop a multi-organ digestive system? Or an eye? It is more than a simple amino acid change here and there. In many cases, it is the acquisition of multiple genes, which can represent thousands of DNA nucleotides. Or how did sex chromosomes come to be? A few mutations here and there over time, then suddenly, hey look, we have a male and a female! And I am expected to believe this because, hey, there are different kinds of turtles on different islands. Or because the fruit flies changed subtly when isolated from each other.

Evolution is a provable tool that is very effective in generating diversity and helping life adapt to ever changing environmental pressures. But whether it is powerful enough to create this broad and diverse a biosphere from a single primitive source has not been proven.


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## Guest

Jan said:


> And so are plenty of cases where they didn't find just a tooth. There are complete remains of dinosaurs for example.* Scientists don't want desperately to see evolution*, they have discovered things that lead them to that theory. Evolution isn't a theory based on speculation and faith, creationism is...


You wanna bet? When their being able to publish papers, or get grants, depends on getting good results that support those endeavors? I believe in my hypotheses that I test in my lab, and I desperately want to see them proven. The question is whether the scientist is open to the fact that they just might be wrong. And we have ample evidence that some scientists are willing to go to great lengths to not have to admit they are wrong - witness the chap in England with the falsified study linking autism to the MMR vaccine, or individuals who falsified data to get papers published and were discovered.


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## Yoshi

Chris said:


> You have missed the point here. Nobody is doubting the existence of dinosaurs. The issue I mentioned involved an imaginary half man half ape.
> 
> On your second point, evolution has a very large dollop of faith in it. You can see this in the concept of 'living fossils' where plants or animals known supposedly only from fossils allegedly scores of millions of years old suddenly turn up alive and well in the world somewhere. A truly objective scientist would say 'Perhaps we were wrong about the scores of millions of years. Perhaps the fossils are in fact recent'. But who is going to break the faith and utter such a heresy, which could bring down the whole evolutionary edifice? So instead, the bizarre idea of 'living fossils' is invented, in which, while hippos are turning into whales and rabbits are turning into squirrels, some species just look on in bemusement and stay just as they are.


I see your point and I'll try to explain this. 
The thing is that species will only evolve to help on their survival. When we say that animal1 evolved to animal 2, we don't mean that animal number 1 disappeared from earth. Species will evolve according to the conditions of the environment they find, so there might be a group of them that stays the same. That's why a group of the same species may evolve to something else, but there are still members of that species that don't suffer changes.

One of the signs that we evolved would be the fact that we have some vestigial organs.


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## MJTTOMB

Staying out of the discussion, I'd just like to throw my hat in as a pantheist who doesn't believe God can be defined. You can't put a concept as abstract and as massive as God in a little cage and say, God does this, God did this, God condemns x, y, and z. That's the product of a human being projecting his or her own conscience onto something utterly undefinable. On the converse, I personally believe that God is simply a word for the essence of the universe, a force that defines us.

Do I know for certain? No. But I'm always open to hearing new perspectives.


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## Yoshi

DrMike said:


> You wanna bet? When their being able to publish papers, or get grants, depends on getting good results that support those endeavors? I believe in my hypotheses that I test in my lab, and I desperately want to see them proven. The question is whether the scientist is open to the fact that they just might be wrong. And we have ample evidence that some scientists are willing to go to great lengths to not have to admit they are wrong - witness the chap in England with the falsified study linking autism to the MMR vaccine, or individuals who falsified data to get papers published and were discovered.


What's the point of only quoting half of my sentence?
I meant that scientists came up with this theory after years of studying animal species. Someone didn't just wake up one day, decided that animals evolved and then desperately tried to find evidence.


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## Iveforgottenmyoldpassword

DrMike said:


> I am actually both a devout Christian AND a scientist - microbiology. For religious people, science need not - should not - be disregarded. Science seeks to understand the physical world around us. It cannot explain the unseeable. There is no war between religion and science, rather between those who do and do not accept religion. Some of those who reject religion use science as a weapon to bludgeon those who accept religion, but it is not as effective a tool as they would think. And those who are religious shouldn't view it as such. Because it has been used by some to attack religion does not make science anti-religion. If a person kills another with a hammer, that does not mean that the hammer is a tool meant to kill. It has been misused from its intended purpose.


Exactly what I'm saying. Religion doesn't demerit science just as science doesn't demerit religion.


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## KaerbEmEvig

DrMike, don't tell me that You, as a molecular biologist, do not understand that genotype defines the phenotype - that's what makes birds birds and flies flies. You also seem to forget how much genes we actually share with other animals.

It boggles me how you do not understand how physical appearance is just a tiny factor as far as differences between species go. So what that they look similar? They can't mate thus they are separate species - macro evolution, there you go. I can give you examples of completely different species that look [almost] exactly the same and can't mate at all - would you not consider them different species? You are fighting a lost cause, mate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_convergent_evolution

You can overwhelm people with walls of text, but you won't trick people who understand the Theory of Evolution, speciation and so on.


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## starthrower

somerandomdude said:


> Exactly what I'm saying. Religion doesn't demerit science just as science doesn't demerit religion.


But when the religious person claims the guy who committed murder with the hammer was influenced by Satan or demons, I have a problem with that. Religion most certainly attributes supernatural phenomena to human behavior.


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## Iveforgottenmyoldpassword

starthrower said:


> But when the religious person claims the guy who committed murder with the hammer was influenced by Satan or demons, I have a problem with that. Religion most certainly attributes supernatural phenomena to human behavior.


See this is where you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that everything in religion is explainable through science and certainly not that everything in science is explainable through religion. I'm saying that they don't have to butt heads with one another because Religion does not disprove science just as science does not disprove religion. Can you prove through scientific method that there are not invisible beings from another dimension which can and do manipulate our minds in certain ways? Of course you can't that's not something that is applicable to science. Could a christian, using their personal beliefs disprove scientific research? Absolutely not. Science and religion can coexist comfortably until you attempt to disprove one with the other. Lets say that we know for a fact that that man was influenced by satan to kill someone. That doesn't mean that there isn't also a scientific explanation that is just as valid, he could have been chemically imbalanced, who's to say that people that are under the influence of the devil aren't chemically imbalanced? See what i mean? They can coexist because they're on different wavelengths, one can not combat the other effectively because one doesn't have to die for the other to live so to speak.


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## starthrower

They can't coexist in my mind because I don't believe there's such a creature as a devil, but I understand your overall point, I think? I'm all for peaceful coexistence, but as it's been mentioned, the world is full of divisive, and politically opportunistic people. What makes religion valid in my mind is personal revelation. I'm not going to challenge anyone on that. As for myself I haven't had one, so I choose to reject the dogma that was drilled into my head as a child. I can't accept religious explanations for mental instability.


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## Guest

KaerbEmEvig said:


> DrMike, don't tell me that You, as a molecular biologist, do not understand that genotype defines the phenotype - that's what makes birds birds and flies flies. You also seem to forget how much genes we actually share with other animals.
> 
> It boggles me how you do not understand how physical appearance is just a tiny factor as far as differences between species go. So what that they look similar? They can't mate thus they are separate species - macro evolution, there you go. I can give you examples of completely different species that look [almost] exactly the same and can't mate at all - would you not consider them different species? You are fighting a lost cause, mate.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_convergent_evolution
> 
> You can overwhelm people with walls of text, but you won't trick people who understand the Theory of Evolution, speciation and so on.


Yes, mammals all have many similarities genetically. It is really quite interesting how similar a man is to a mouse. Ditto for reptiles. I don't quite understand your criticism in the first paragraph, or where you inferred that I didn't understand from my comments.

But the problem lies in how far you take the extrapolation of the power of evolution. I get it, you can generate different species, I already conceded that. I already stated I believe evolution is real. But you are talking about generating a new species of fly from an existing one, or a new species of turtle from an existing one. And people don't have a problem with that. But stop dodging the real issue that causes controversy, which is the inference that scientists make of evolution - that it generated all the diversity of life that has ever, and will ever live on this earth from a single primitive source. Put simply, that the new species of turtle evolved from another species of turtle, but also evolved from the same common ancestor as did dinosaurs, bacteria, chimpanzees, man, fish, trees, grass, etc. Are you going to say that is proven science? You are creating strawmen from my posts, and arguing points that I'm not making. This is the main issue - does evolution have the power to generate all life that has ever existed on this planet from a single common source, or is that only the speculation of people based on small scale evolution that we can observe and scientifically verify?

A true scientific mind would be open to this possibility, but not to the point that they confuse the speculation with the science. I make scientific observations all the time, and speculate what those observations could mean, and make predictions based on them. But I don't equate my predictions with my observations.


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## Guest

starthrower said:


> But when the religious person claims the guy who committed murder with the hammer was influenced by Satan or demons, I have a problem with that. Religion most certainly attributes supernatural phenomena to human behavior.


The real problem occurs when one takes on particular religious idea, either real, or what one thinks a particular religion teaches, and then uses that to tar all religions. And typically they find some particular idea that they don't like. So if you think one religious idea from one particular group (I don't know what particular religion you attribute the above belief to - I assume you are drawing on your perception of some generic Christianity, when in fact there is a broad diversity even within the Christian branch of religion) is wrong, then all religions must be wrong?

Incidentally, most Christians probably wouldn't accept a defense of "the devil made me do it," any more than they would accept "my dog ate my homework," as they still believe that we are responsible for our actions and for resisting temptations, whatever their source.


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## Guest

Jan said:


> What's the point of only quoting half of my sentence?
> I meant that scientists came up with this theory after years of studying animal species. Someone didn't just wake up one day, decided that animals evolved and then desperately tried to find evidence.


You are right, it isn't a random idea that suddenly emerged and is being chased after to find proof.

That being said, for quite some time now, this is what people have been raised to believe - either you are smart, scientific, sophisticated, and believe that all animals, plants, bacteria, etc. sprung from the same common ancestor, or you are an uneducated, unsophisticated, blind fool who clings to archaic superstitions and believes that God created everything.

So if you study evolution, it is assumed that you will be contributing to this idea. If you propose research to challenge this idea, then when your grant goes to review, all the other people who are on the review committee will toss out your grant because they think it is ridiculous; and if you send a paper to be published, it will most likely also be dismissed. It happens all the time - current thought has a strong influence on what science gets published and funded. The recent disclosure of files regarding global warming showed this quite clearly, where individuals talked about the need to suppress publications in reputable journals of any studies that challenged the prevailing dogma regarding global warming.


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## CageFan

Evolutionists look for threads of similarity between species and phenomenons, and provide spaces for speculation, even though human wisdom often proof itself to have a limit; and we all enjoy the breaking of it.

"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” - Albert Einstein


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## Sid James

I'm an agnostic. I do see both the negative & positive aspects of the major world religions. I think that there is much in common with humanistic values in all the world religions. These common values should unite, and not divide (as is sadly often the case) the people of many different religions across the world. I have had enough of people who want to ram religion down my throat. We are all human beings first, and Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. second...


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## Serge

Andre said:


> I'm an agnostic. I do see both the negative & positive aspects of the major world religions.


This is not a political party that you are looking for to join.

Although with most of the people it sure looks that way.


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## science

I personally see no point in getting into the argument against creationism. The information is out there, and anyone who wants to find it can. 

The talkorigins site is great. There are some fun videos on youtube. 

If you want a slightly deeper level of information, books by authors such as Carl Zimmer, Matt Ridley, and David Quammen's "Song of the Dodo" are also great resources.

And if you really wanted to get into it, you could study biology. 

In the end, of course some people will just believe what they want to believe - this is true of both sides. But hopefully there's a large number of people in the middle who will believe the evidence.

The final point I'd like to make is this: It is absolutely possible to acknowledge the evidence for evolution and maintain Christian faith, belief in God, strong moral principles, and so on. A lot of good biologists do so. One in particular is Kenneth Miller, who wrote a great book on the topic, "Finding Darwin's God."


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## Serge

KaerbEmEvig said:


> Believing is not different to, lets say, walking. You either walk or you don't.


Not if you walk on water. 

I am a non-believer but voted atheist because I used to be one. Now you won't make me touch anything relating to a religion with a six-foot pole. Precisely because I no longer care.

But let me ask you, why did you go for an option to disclose the identity of voters? Seems like an odd choice for a sensitive issue such as this.


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## Herr Rott

The bizzare thing for some of us who have no belief in the conventional conception of God is that the very thing we have no affinity with has brought us some of the most glorious music ever written.


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## science

And "Gimme that Christian Side Hug." 

But it is a good point. I love choral music, and most of the best of it was commissioned by the church. Got to give them credit for that.


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## emiellucifuge

I think some of you should read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594787


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## science

When Dawkins talks biology, almost no one is better. 

When he talks philosophy, he's about as good as everyone else.

When he talks religion, almost no one is worse.


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## emiellucifuge

science said:


> When Dawkins talks biology, almost no one is better.
> 
> When he talks philosophy, he's about as good as everyone else.
> 
> When he talks religion, almost no one is worse.


Agreed!

Luckily this book is all biology.


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## Iveforgottenmyoldpassword

starthrower said:


> They can't coexist in my mind because I don't believe there's such a creature as a devil, but I understand your overall point, I think? I'm all for peaceful coexistence, but as it's been mentioned, the world is full of divisive, and politically opportunistic people. What makes religion valid in my mind is personal revelation. I'm not going to challenge anyone on that. As for myself I haven't had one, so I choose to reject the dogma that was drilled into my head as a child. I can't accept religious explanations for mental instability.


Of course, I don't mean that everyone can accept the religious beliefs of everyone else I simply mean that they(science/religion) do not have to contradict one another.
It isn't possible to agree with everyone's personal belief system and i wouldn't expect you to. Your scientific explanation of people's actions can stand alone just as well as can a religious ideal, however they can also stand together just as easily for someone who accepts both.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Agreed!
> 
> Luckily this book is all biology.


Really? So under what branch of biology does this statement from chapter 1 fall:
"The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust."

Dawkins is not such a wonderful proponent of evolution as you might think - it seems anymore that he revels more in the role of a polemicist than an evolutionary biologist. In his writings, he seems to be at war with himself, trying to decide what he would much rather do - explain evolution or belittle those who do not believe as he does. Although he may think himself more in line with Galileo, in practice, his actions make him more akin to the Inquisition.


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## science

The Inquisition? Seriously?

Edit, from wikipedia: "Although the Inquisition was technically forbidden from permanently harming or drawing blood, this still allowed for methods of torture. The methods most used were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending the victim from the ceiling by the wrists, which are tied behind the back. Sometimes weights were tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which the arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated. The toca, also called interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning (see: waterboarding). The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently."


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## Serge

DrMike said:


> Although he may think himself more in line with Galileo, in practice, his actions make him more akin to the Inquisition.


So it's like religious people now feel being persecuted? Who would have thought that we'd see the day?


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## emiellucifuge

DrMike said:


> Really? So under what branch of biology does this statement from chapter 1 fall:
> "The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust."
> 
> Dawkins is not such a wonderful proponent of evolution as you might think - it seems anymore that he revels more in the role of a polemicist than an evolutionary biologist. In his writings, he seems to be at war with himself, trying to decide what he would much rather do - explain evolution or belittle those who do not believe as he does. Although he may think himself more in line with Galileo, in practice, his actions make him more akin to the Inquisition.


Sure but how is this relevant? Youre picking on an embellishment to the actual substance of the book. No matter how convincing dawkins proclaims the evidence to be - it is his personal opinion. One should rather focus on the evidence actually presented which is all biological and scientific until perhaps the final chapter which is written more as an appendix.


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## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> So you have to start asking yourself what is so special about some of these non-scientific ideas that are persisting as long as they have. Maybe moral codes can evolve based on survival instincts and this concept of them being good for the perpetuation and improvement of the species. But why these other things? And if it is merely some general phenomenon, why have so many other religions come and gone? What has made these ideas, particularly those originating from a culture that sprung from a single obscure family in the middle east millennia ago?


Other religions/deities have lasted that long too, and some have lasted longer. The fact is that most religions were simply the product of previous belief systems that were modified over time to reflect the changes in society and culture. Even the Christianity of today has been _heavily_ edited and modified over the centuries, with many of the original texts being banned by the church for political reasons.

What is so special about these particular religious ideas, you ask? Why is _our_ western culture and religion so wonderful and important?

Well… it isn't.

People from virtually every era of human civilization have thought that about _their_ time and place in the universe. We have a tendency to be extremely egocentric, and we often think that we are more important than we actually are, usually at the expense of other peoples from other cultures and from other times in history.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Many of the things in Religion are disproven or confirmed by science, and there are still many things to investigate. I am confident all that we know religoon or spirituality will be disproven or confirmed. However, *religious people need to accept scientific evidence before faith. For example - we now know evolution is correct - adapt to the science not the other way around*.


There are some major problems with blind faith in science. Let me refer you to some critical scientific "evidence" for evolution that many of you may remember learning, and probably still hold to be true.

The Miller-Urey experiment - these two scientists attempted to replicate the primordial conditions under which the first life may have emerged. The results were the generation of amino acids, the basic building blocks of proteins. This seemed a plausible starting point - it was possible to jump-start life with simple chemistry. Except that now it is firmly accepted that the primordial conditions assumed in this experiment were probably wrong. When you use the conditions that are now accepted as being present at the time, you cannot replicate these results. So the experiment no longer is valid. This was determined in the 1970's, and yet the Miller-Urey experiment is still cited in common science textbooks - I learned of it myself, and I began school in 1980, and probably was not exposed to this until the 90's - almost two decades after it was discredited.

Many people have been told that similar embryos are proof of common descent. Many people have seen the pictures in textbooks of embryos of different species side by side. The picture is a fake. It was drawn in the late 19th century by Haeckel, a German biologist. The pictures were drawn from memory. He embellished much. Even at the time, his colleagues called him out on inaccuracies. But neo-Darwinists picked up on the pictures (drawn, not photographs), and Darwin himself found this convincing evidence for his ideas. Only recently, in the late 1990's, has this picture been finally denounced for the fraud it is - not by a creationist, but by Michael Richardson, a believer in evolution, who actually photographed various embryos and showed that the widely disseminated Haeckel picture was not only wrong, but horribly wrong.

The peppered moth - do you remember the study of why peppered moths in England had become darker? A scientist speculated that it was to adapt to the darker trees, due to more pollution. The moths evolved to better hide on tree trunks and not be eaten. I'm sure many of you have seen the side-by-side pictures of a black moth on a white tree and a white moth on a dark tree. The scientist showed that white moths on dark trees were eaten by birds more readily than dark moths on dark trees. Boom! Evidence of evolution. Except it was wrong. In the 1980's, scientists proved this wrong. The problem was that the moths don't rest on tree trunks. In fact, they don't come out in the day time. They rest UNDER BRANCHES during the day, and then fly by night. But those pictures? Staged. People would glue moths to trees to get the pictures. Not necessarily fraud, because they probably did believe that was how it was, and they just couldn't get the moths to pose perfectly.

Then there is the issue of homology being proof of common descent. If body parts on different creatures look similar, it must be from common descent. That was a strong argument in Darwin's time. The problem is now we know that what we are is defined by genetics, and it is possible to arrive at homologous structures by different genetic routes, which doesn't bolster the argument of common descent.

Darwin's finches - made so popular as the classic example of evolution. In the '70's, a study was done showing that in times of drought, finch beaks could actually increase by as much as 5% - presumably making it easier to crack drier, harder seeds. Others extrapolated this idea, assuming on an island you could have droughts occur once every 10 years, you could end up with a new species in only 200 years (a claim made in a U.S. National Academy of Sciences publication). Voila, yet more evidence that evolution is real. But that analysis left out the other part of the study findings - when rain returned, so too did normal beak sizes. And just like that you have no net change. But that other piece of information didn't make it into the NAS assessment - it didn't fit into the framework.

From Darwin's time until now, scientists still have no good explanation for the Cambrian explosion - a relatively short period, estimated at ~10 million years, that suddenly saw the emergence of an enormous amount of complexity. New structures emerged fully formed for which no transitional precursors can be found in earlier strata. Some argue that this may be due to the emergence at this point of structures that were more easily fossilized - harder structures. But most of the fossil record from this period indicates still a great many soft structures. Darwin acknowledged this paradox, and scientists today still acknowledge it, but only when pushed to do so.

Trust me, having been in science for a while, there is something that most scientists know, but don't like to spread around. Most scientists do not falsify data. Most errors are honest ones, or are based on false assumptions. However, when the experiment is done, and you are looking at the data, most will focus on the results that fit best with the story they are trying to tell, and often will simply omit inconvenient results. Or they simply won't publish the data, because they don't like it, or know reviewers won't like it. Any scientist you talk to can tell you that when you read scientific papers, there will sometimes be holes in the data - logical things that should have been done, or maybe data is presented in an unusual way, and many times you assume that they probably did it, but didn't get a good result, so they left it out so it wouldn't complicate the story. Why do they assume this? Because they have probably done it themselves. They haven't presented false data - they simply may not have presented all the data.

Why? Well, you have to convince other people your study is worth publishing. And if it calls into question something held as dogma, it is even harder to convince people to publish it. Sometimes it is because someone reviewing the paper may have a vested interest in the current dogma being maintained. Sometimes it may be out of concern that something that differs from the dogma may not be right, and the editor doesn't want to be the one who published the flawed study.

So blind adherence to science can be just as misleading as many of you believe blind faith in religion to be. Bear in mind that while these above-mentioned flaws were eventually called out, some still persist, and most took many years to be discredited - the embryo picture over a century, the moth study 30 years, the Miller-Urey experiment 30 years (and yet still is included in many textbooks). These things are instantaneously included in the growing "evidence" of evolution, but are only slowly, if at all, removed once discredited, and never with as much fanfare as when they were accepted.


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## Guest

science said:


> The Inquisition? Seriously?
> 
> Edit, from wikipedia: "Although the Inquisition was technically forbidden from permanently harming or drawing blood, this still allowed for methods of torture. The methods most used were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending the victim from the ceiling by the wrists, which are tied behind the back. Sometimes weights were tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which the arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated. The toca, also called interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning (see: waterboarding). The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently."


Sorry, I should have been more explicit in my allusion. I was not referring to the Inquisition in general, rather the instance when Galileo was called before the Inquisition and demanded to denounce his support for the Copernican theory of a heliocentric solar system in which the earth orbited the sun, rather than the belief held by the Catholic Church that the sun orbited the earth. Galileo was belittled and chastised for not accepting the official wisdom by the Inquisition. My purpose was to say that, while Dawkins may believe himself the intellectual heir of Galileo by supporting scientific observation in the face of religious dogma, his actions and methods place him more in continuity with the Inquisition, which sought more to attack the individual for professing belief in something other than the accepted wisdom.

I assumed my initial reference to Galileo would set the background.

And I am sorry, but while Dawkins may be one of evolutions more belligerent and offensive proponents of evolution, he does no service to the cause of promoting acceptance of it - particularly when he takes to comparing those who don't accept his narrative of the origin of all life on this planet to those who deny the mass murder of millions of Jews. I don't care how educated the man is on the subject - he does not deserve the royalties from me that would come from my purchasing his book to read it. He may try to flog me for my skepticism, but I don't need to buy him the whip.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Sure but how is this relevant? Youre picking on an embellishment to the actual substance of the book. No matter how convincing dawkins proclaims the evidence to be - it is his personal opinion. One should rather focus on the evidence actually presented which is all biological and scientific until perhaps the final chapter which is written more as an appendix.


Yes, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. But taken as a whole, I would still call the man despicable.

I don't care how much biology is included in the book - I can get that elsewhere. I choose to obtain my facts from sources that don't seek to belittle me and hold me up to scorn along the way. Tell me - how successful do you think a university would be if it possessed some of the greatest minds in the various disciplines (although not necessarily THE greatest) who chose to ridicule and insult their students as they taught them? Who would you criticize - the students for not remaining and absorbing the wisdom along with the abuse, or the professors for including unnecessary and belligerent language in their teaching? What if I told you, oh, don't worry, he only insults he at the beginning and ending of class, but in the meantime, he has some really important things to say? And on top of all that, the student has to pay to attend the class?

Others have written more academic books that have spelled out the case for evolution without the need to belittle readers. I wonder why you feel that Dawkins book, of all those available, should be the one we should refer to? Perhaps to not only show those of us who are skeptical of the evolution narrative that we are wrong, but to also subject us to Dawkins' abuse? Very similar to the whole "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" during the Great Awakening - where people seeking to find religion were given doctrine with a healthy dose of condemnation for their previous waywardness. Really, Dawkins has much in common with many of the more contemptible aspects of religions in the past - he just preaches a different gospel.


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## emiellucifuge

Dr Mike im gonna answer your posts backwards as I scroll up the page.

Firstly allow me to concede that you are much more experienced than I, myself being a mere student with a vested interest and in my youth pursuing lofty ideals with the utmost conviction - im sure you understand.

Then:-
The reason for me selecting this book is simple and has nothing to do with me 'subjecting you to Dawkin's abuse' (while reading I did not perceive any abuse). I am only familiar with a few books displaying the full evidence for evolution, the majority being large textbooks discussing the topic of biology in general and devoting perhaps 100 pages to evolution. The Dawkins book is entirely focused on the topic and is therefore relatively cheap, light - and has the advantage of being written in normal prose not aimed at those with an in depth prior knowledge.

I for one would not enjoy such a class - no student can be expected to suffer so for knowledge, but again I did not feel the slightest abused while reading the book. In fact i feel Dawkins has a passion for correcting many misconceptions people may hold and this eagerness comes through. His private crusade against religion through other media, I felt, did not permeate this book to an extreme degree.

Of course science in practise is tainted by the egos and ambitions of humans, but in its most ideal form it is purely the method by which we attain knowledge and seek truth. One would hope that results are not change, experiments faked, erros biased and so forth, but I am beginning to suspect this is more to do with human nature than anything else. However, I still consider that science allows for corrections and requires the peer reviewing of evidence and results before they are published. Once published all experiments I believe are subjected to open criticism. Religion on the other hand allows for none of these things, notwithstanding that it lacks the evidence to review, it is purely dogma upon which any dissent is dealt with by excluding the black sheep.

Noted: I was surprised to hear about those moths as the experiment in its 'false' form is still included in my A Level textbook as an example.


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## emiellucifuge

Besides Im sure you listen to Wagner or am I wrong?


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## dmg

DrMike said:


> From Darwin's time until now, scientists still have no good explanation for the Cambrian explosion - a relatively short period, estimated at ~10 million years, that suddenly saw the emergence of an enormous amount of complexity. New structures emerged fully formed for which no transitional precursors can be found in earlier strata. Some argue that this may be due to the emergence at this point of structures that were more easily fossilized - harder structures. But most of the fossil record from this period indicates still a great many soft structures. Darwin acknowledged this paradox, and scientists today still acknowledge it, but only when pushed to do so.


Watch the video I posted. The Cambrian period was longer than 10 million years (more like 54 million years - which is a long time, even in geological terms - plenty of time for an 'explosion'), and it is perfectly explained. It merely showed an increase in fossils, but only because organisms began to evolve hard body parts and thus allowed for easier fossilization. Evidence of biodiversity exists beforehand in secondary fossilization, such as burrows and tracks - however, there is little in actual fossilized bodies as they were all soft tissue for the most part.


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## science

Dr. Mike 

Why "flog?"


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## science

Dr. Mike - 

"I don't care how much biology is included in the book - I can get that elsewhere. I choose to obtain my facts from sources that don't seek to belittle me and hold me up to scorn along the way."

Then do so. You've been misled and you need to correct yourself.


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## David58117

DrMike said:


> There are some major problems with blind faith in science. Let me refer you to some critical scientific "evidence" for evolution that many of you may remember learning, and probably still hold to be true.


Oh no! You mean people actually tried to pursue some cutting edge idea, where actually wrong at the time, and then later the field self corrected itself and put forth some better ideas!? How horrible!


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Besides Im sure you listen to Wagner or am I wrong?


I have listened to Wagner, but am not a fan. I don't dislike him, I just have not found myself drawn in by his operas. Operas in general (with some exceptions from Mozart) are not high on my list, so my not listening to Wagner is probably most due to the fact that most of his works are in this genre, as opposed to any particular aspects of his music.

The point with the moths and the other false studies is a critical one to all of this. Obviously, being a scientist, I don't mean to dismiss science in general. But we all need to realize that science is only as good as scientists. There needs to be a distinction between actual facts and scientific models. In some cases, we have come as close as we can to merging the two, and there also exists examples for the other extreme, where ideas are proposed that simply have no basis in fact. But the vast majority lies in between. And every scientist strives hard to prove their ideas correct. Sure, we strive hard for objectivity, but when you come up with a novel idea, you invest a lot of yourself in it, and you really want to be able to prove it. Some false ideas are revealed quickly, and the realization is relatively painless. But for ideas that you have spent years testing, a negative result can be pretty hard to swallow - not a flaw of scientists specifically, but all people in general.

The problem gets exacerbated when you hit upon something that can be exploited in other areas - politics being a prime example. Take, for example, some of the things done in the name of reducing global warming. Alternative fuels - specifically, ethanol. In theory, it is a cleaner fuel than gas. In practice, though, the land needed to grow the crop to produce the ethanol, the process for converting that crop into ethanol, and the lower efficiency of ethanol compared to gasoline, results in it not really leaving you in a better place. Even Al Gore concedes that now. And yet ethanol is still heavily subsidized in the U.S. - why? Because it is very political. Politicians from Midwest states saw the rise of ethanol, and knew they could use the issue to funnel money to their farmers who grow the corn to make ethanol. Now who cares what the evidence says, politics trumps.

Evolution has also fallen into this trap. Rather than merely being another scientific model to explain the natural world, it has been taken up by people with more than a philosophical interest, but also those who have an ax to grind with religion, and this gives them a very effective weapon in that battle. And so emotion joins in. The result? Whatever the evidence is, the narrative must stay the same. Any evidence that supports the model is readily accepted and flung in the face of skeptics. When any of that evidence is disproven, is it quickly rejected, as you would expect to happen in science? No. Because while discarding the rejected science is what scientists should do, in the larger picture of this war between skeptics and believers, admitting you are wrong weakens your case. It isn't about truth, it is about winning. And so the lines are blurred. Failure to discard the rejected science causes problems on multiple levels. First, nothing is worse for conducting science than to perpetuate false assumptions. Scientists build off of past observations. If those observations are wrong, how much confidence can you have in whatever comes from them? The primitive atmosphere experiment gives an excellent example - the wrong conditions were assumed, and so no matter what the results were, they are irrelevant, as they came from false assumptions. It doesn't matter that chemistry alone could produce amino acids, potentially explaining the origins of life, if you set up the wrong reaction.

The longer the incorrect ideas are not rejected, the more suspect science they will produce.

The other problem is that yes, as you said, eventually problems and falsehoods will be discovered. But if they are left in place long enough, and especially if it is discovered that those that espoused them knew they were wrong and only rejected them when they were made public, you are going to add to, rather than reduce, any skepticism about other discoveries. The embryo pictures weren't only recently found to be wrong - they were known to be wrong almost from the beginning, over 100 years ago. Haeckel's colleagues told him so. He admitted he took license with the relative sizes of various parts to make them look more homologous. And other scientists have known since then, especially embryologists. But they let it slide, because they felt the larger story conveyed was more important than any potential errors in the details. And not until about 10 years ago did someone finally put it to rest by giving definitive proof that the pictures were woefully inaccurate. And then you have people like Stephen Gould admitting that he had know for some time of their being wrong, and yet still denounce anybody who raises criticism of those pictures (as he did to Behe, a noted evolution skeptic). So it looks like scientists are pulling a hoax on people, either spreading false data to support their argument, or failing to acknowledge false data, especially when that false data continues to be taught to children as fact long after it has been disproven. These are not the actions of a group confident in the correctness of their claims and supposedly wed to logic, facts, and reason.

And it creates a bad impression of science in general - something I personally take issue with. No doubt in the past, and even today, religion has played a large role in the general skepticism we see regarding science. But I think we can now also lay an ever larger share of the blame at the feet of those who are co-opting science to push their own agendas that are not always in sync with the goals of science. In the past, the church used barbaric tactics to force people out of "heretical" views, including scientific views that challenged certain religious dogmas. While people like Dawkins and Hitchens don't resort to the violent tactics employed in the past, their tactics are certainly distasteful, and one wonders what they enjoy more - sharing knowledge with others, or using their obviously highly intelligent minds to hold others to scorn and ridicule. Dawkins equates belief in God with a delusion, inferring some mental deficiency. He equates evolution skeptics with Holocaust deniers. Hitchens incredulously lays most of the blame for histories problems at the feet of religion, and is so blinded by his disdain for religion that he could not even forego trashing the reputation of Mother Teresa after she died:
"Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT [Mother Teresa]: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions." Posted on the website "Slate" on October 20, 2003.

I have read excerpts from the Dawkins book, enough to know that I would probably not add anything new to my knowledge of the evidence for evolution, and would probably be more than a little insulted. From what I have read, Dawkins refers to evolution skeptics as "history-deniers," "worse than ignorant," and "deluded to the point of perversity." If you still have your copy, and cannot find those statements, please let me know if I have been mislead on this. I have not read Dawkins, but I have listened a great deal to him. A little while back, I watched an extended discussion online between Dawkins, Hitchens, and a few others (I believe Sam Harris was also a participant). While I did appreciate that Dawkins was nominally less critical of religion than Hitchens (Dawkins would not go so far as to accept Hitchens' assertion that there was a moral equivalence between a devout Christian trying to do what was right and a muslim fanatic who would crash planes full of people into skyscrapers), none of these individuals seemed to be able to make their case without interjecting unprovoked and juvenile criticisms of skeptics. They view such people as not only wrong, but mentally flawed. And so they do not deserve the money I would have to spend to obtain any of their books, regardless of what else was contained therein (and they certainly are - thankfully - not the sole sources for such information).


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## Jacob Singer

David58117 said:


> Oh no! You mean people actually tried to pursue some cutting edge idea, where actually wrong at the time, and then later the field self corrected itself and put forth some better ideas!? How horrible!


Seriously.

Science vets itself.

Religion does not.


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## Guest

David58117 said:


> Oh no! You mean people actually tried to pursue some cutting edge idea, where actually wrong at the time, and then later the field self corrected itself and put forth some better ideas!? How horrible!


You missed the whole story - the field self-corrected, but was in no hurry to distribute the new information and correct the mistakes. Textbooks are still cranked out with these ideas that have been disproven. People still think that scientists proved in the lab that life could have arisen from random chemical reactions based on the primordial environment here on earth.

So what is worse - people choosing to be ignorant of scientific findings, or scientists knowingly allowing people to continuously be taught incorrect and disproven ideas as fact?


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## emiellucifuge

Going backwards again:

Well sure, you personally may not gain anything new, but then again the book is written for people who do not yet understand or know the evidence for evolution. Going back to my previous post:

_The reason for me selecting this book is simple and has nothing to do with me 'subjecting you to Dawkin's abuse' (while reading I did not perceive any abuse). I am only familiar with a few books displaying the full evidence for evolution, the majority being large textbooks discussing the topic of biology in general and devoting perhaps 100 pages to evolution. The Dawkins book is entirely focused on the topic and is therefore relatively cheap, light - and has the advantage of being written in normal prose not aimed at those with an in depth prior knowledge._

Then to address your other point; my original statements still stand. Dogmatic thought is always bad, whether it be in the name of science or religion. One must be able to accept evidence that contradicts your views accept new truths (provided they are based on sound science). Religion does the opposite, it holds you to a dogma which has sprung up from various unfounded principles. The egocentric emphasis on man found in the bible led to the church opressing Galileo for his discovery that the universe did not revolve around us. Anything that may contradict their dogma is surpressed. Science at least provides mechanisms for our knowledge to be adapted and confirmed.


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## emiellucifuge

DrMike said:


> So what is worse - people choosing to be ignorant of scientific findings, or scientists knowingly allowing people to continuously be taught incorrect and disproven ideas as fact?


I would say the latter as you also actively aim to inhibit the learning of others, but these are both cases of dogmatic and inflexible thought.


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## David58117

DrMike said:


> You missed the whole story - the field self-corrected, but was in no hurry to distribute the new information and correct the mistakes. Textbooks are still cranked out with these ideas that have been disproven. People still think that scientists proved in the lab that life could have arisen from random chemical reactions based on the primordial environment here on earth.
> 
> So what is worse - people choosing to be ignorant of scientific findings, or scientists knowingly allowing people to continuously be taught incorrect and disproven ideas as fact?


Oh no! You mean modern scientists actually move slow and cautiously with new data that disproves older thinking? And that they don't blast it straight out into text books the minute they realize what they have?

What next! You're going to tell me they have to wait and undertake a long peer review process, where other scientists all over the world try to replicate their experiment and see if it holds water?!

Oh no Mike, this just gets worse and worse!!!!!!!


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## Comus

I am an atheist, but I'm with DrMike on this. It is foolish to vest all your faith in science for many of the reasons he has already enumerated. For this reason I don't have beliefs, not in God and not in Man; the two are uncannily alike. Did God create Man in his likeness or visa verse?


----------



## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> So what is worse - people choosing to be ignorant of scientific findings, or scientists knowingly allowing people to continuously be taught incorrect and disproven ideas as fact?


Ok, but the propagation of unsupported claims represents only a tiny fraction of a percentage of scientific information available. Science (and perhaps more importantly, scientists) will never be completely perfect, but the scientific method is the best system we have for ascertaining the complex realities of our world (indeed, it's the only system that works at all in that regard).

In sharp contrast, the propagation of unsupported claims represents 99.99% of the information from most religions.


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## Guest

dmg said:


> Watch the video I posted. The Cambrian period was longer than 10 million years (more like 54 million years - which is a long time, even in geological terms - plenty of time for an 'explosion'), and it is perfectly explained. It merely showed an increase in fossils, but only because organisms began to evolve hard body parts and thus allowed for easier fossilization. Evidence of biodiversity exists beforehand in secondary fossilization, such as burrows and tracks - however, there is little in actual fossilized bodies as they were all soft tissue for the most part.


The information I have read says that the earliest signs of life date back 3.5 billion years ago - 54 million years equates to just 1.5% of the potential length in time since life emerged - chances are life emerged before 3.5 billion years ago, this is just the earliest we have found, so 54 million years becomes even more insignificant.

But leaving aside that - with the Cambrian period, we see the generation (or the evidence of the existence) for the first time of several new phyla. So what are we to conclude? That they actually all existed prior to the Cambrian explosion, but in more primitive forms that lacked hard body parts conducive to fossilization, and they all, suddenly and independently evolved hard body parts making them now more amenable to fossilization? That would be a trick indeed. I know that you can take a single population and expose all its members to the same changes and get multiple independent changes concurrently, but for this to happen across so broad a spectrum that so many distinct and divergent life forms all developed hard body parts within the same 54 million year span? So pre-cambrian this same diversity existed, but mostly with soft body parts, then during the Cambrian period, it was the hip thing to evolve hard body parts, and everybody was doing it?


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## David58117

Comus said:


> I am an atheist, but I'm with DrMike on this. It is foolish to vest all your faith in science for many of the reasons he has already enumerated. For this reason I don't have beliefs, not in God and not in Man; the two are uncannily alike. Did God create Man in his likeness or visa verse?


Can I ask how you believe science works? Is there a process to it, does it evolve or is it stagnant, how is new knowledge gathered, etc etc? Just curious.

I know you're not the originator of it, but I don't get the phrase "investing all your faith in science" either - I know I've heard it before, and it sounded just as goofy and misguided then, eh...


----------



## Argus

Comus said:


> I am an atheist, but I'm with DrMike on this. It is foolish to vest all your faith in science for many of the reasons he has already enumerated. For this reason I don't have beliefs, not in God and not in Man; the two are uncannily alike. Did God create Man in his likeness or visa verse?












*Ve believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing.*


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## Guest

David58117 said:


> Oh no! You mean modern scientists actually move slow and cautiously with new data that disproves older thinking? And that they don't blast it straight out into text books the minute they realize what they have?
> 
> What next! You're going to tell me they have to wait and undertake a long peer review process, where other scientists all over the world try to replicate their experiment and see if it holds water?!
> 
> Oh no Mike, this just gets worse and worse!!!!!!!


Why shouldn't scientists act quickly to make the public aware that new evidence has proven old assertions wrong. After all, you expect religious people to simply listen to scientists and then immediately reject their beliefs and embrace what scientists tell them.

Religious people should immediately reject anything scientists tell them is wrong, but scientists can continue to allow false information to be taught in class rooms until they feel comfortable enough?

Religious people must accept without question the assertions of scientists as fact (even if they are later shown to be wrong), but must not apply such blind faith to matters of religion? Why is it perfectly fine and rational to blindly accept scientific findings that later prove to be hoaxes (Piltdown man, anyone?), but it is delusional to believe in certain religious doctrines?

You give scientists more latitude than believers. Scientific observations are not necessarily fact, but you like to treat it as such. Absolute acceptance is demanded the second any new idea is demonstrated, especially if it fits in with a pre-conceived dogma. There is no concern whether it will prove true with time. And if it then happens to be proven false, you claim that as an advantage of this system - it self-corrects! Except that the correction is not accepted quite as readily, and the damage is already done, and little thought is taken to correcting the damage incurred by the false data. Sure, scientists notify each other, and go on, but are perfectly happy to let the public continue in ignorance. After all, they only need to know what is good for them. A result is a result. Why shouldn't new results be disseminated as rapidly as old results, ESPECIALLY if they change the prevailing wisdom.

Hence, we should tell everybody, publish in every science textbook, that moths evolved with changing trunk colors, but we don't really need to make a big deal about these new findings disputing that. Actually, it isn't even disputing, it is refuting. It is showing that the original experiment doesn't need to be reconsidered - it should be immediately rejected, because it was a false experiment, assuming behavior that did not occur, with no evidence that such behavior ever occurred. This isn't something that scientists should cautiously consider. It is a no brainer.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

DrMike said:


> ...more akin to the Inquisition.


The Inquisition killed people in the name of your God.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> I'm an agnostic. I do see both the negative & positive aspects of the major world religions. I think that there is much in common with humanistic values in all the world religions. These common values should unite, and not divide (as is sadly often the case) the people of many different religions across the world. I have had enough of people who want to ram religion down my throat. We are all human beings first, and Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. second...


Agree entirely.


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## Guest

There is no science to believe or not believe. Science is a process by which man seeks through observation and trial to understand how things in the natural world behave, and why they behave. There is no overseeing "science" to which we should pledge our loyalty and obedience. Science is the collected understanding of man in these areas. Science is not infallible, because man is not infallible. Science cannot answer everything, because science only has whatever power the people working in science have. And most of that is limited by technology. Additionally, it is also limited by what we can measure, and to measure, we need physical evidence. The process of science requires making an observation, forming a hypothesis to explain that observation, devising a series of tests for that hypothesis, and then collecting the data, analyzing it, and determining how close your hypothesis predicted the results. Even if your hypothesis correctly predicted the results, that is not a guarantee that your hypothesis explains the original observations. The tests are only as good as the assumptions behind them. No test is perfect - we cannot know all of the factors that might need to be considered. We design simplified experiments, and hope that our observations from them closely approximate reality.

Take drug and vaccine design to fight diseases. We identify candidates in simple systems - tissue cultures or small animal models. We test them in those systems for efficacy and safety. We test them in species as close to humans as possible before actually trying them in humans. And even then, they can act completely differently, because our model system, while closely approximating a human, is not a human, and so will not exactly reflect what would happen in a human. An example not too long ago was an antibody that was thought to improve immune function for fighting infections. It showed great promise in small animal models, and proved safe in non-human primates. But when it was then tested in humans, it proved potentially fatal, setting off violent reactions in patients that were not observed in any of the animal models - completely unexpected.

The difference is here they could actually do the ultimate test in the actual system they were trying to study. With evolution, you can perform all kinds of small scale experiments that continue to bolster this grand idea of evolution generating all life as we know it. But you can never ultimately test it, and until you can, no matter how compelling the evidence, it is impossible for you to take into account all the various factors at play, any one of which could completely refute the entire idea. To prove something requires continuous experimentation. To refute requires only one.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> The Inquisition killed people in the name of your God.


Yes, and are people being purposely obtuse as to my analogy? Guess what, I am also not saying that Dawkins believes he is Galileo reincarnated, or his literal descendent, just to make sure that nobody is confused on that point. - the analogy is not a literal one, and I believe I explained it already. And, for the record, the Inquisition did not kill Galileo.


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## Huilunsoittaja

176

It was even better than I expected! 

Rather sad that the Atheists outnumber the Theists 2:1 at this point, but what would I expect? It's the world.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

I think we should have new thread about those of us who are religious *and* who may find the religious classical music spiritually uplifting. I think that discussion would be more suitable for a forum like this. Even non-religious folks like me would be able to contribute in discussing the religious music.

I actually think it's getting rather pathetic to see this religion thread drag on again and again. I haven't read all of it, don't intend to but just randomly picked some replies. Really, these don't get anywhere.


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## dmg

DrMike said:


> The information I have read says that the earliest signs of life date back 3.5 billion years ago - 54 million years equates to just 1.5% of the potential length in time since life emerged - chances are life emerged before 3.5 billion years ago, this is just the earliest we have found, so 54 million years becomes even more insignificant.
> 
> But leaving aside that - with the Cambrian period, we see the generation (or the evidence of the existence) for the first time of several new phyla. So what are we to conclude? That they actually all existed prior to the Cambrian explosion, but in more primitive forms that lacked hard body parts conducive to fossilization, and they all, suddenly and independently evolved hard body parts making them now more amenable to fossilization? That would be a trick indeed. I know that you can take a single population and expose all its members to the same changes and get multiple independent changes concurrently, but for this to happen across so broad a spectrum that so many distinct and divergent life forms all developed hard body parts within the same 54 million year span? So pre-cambrian this same diversity existed, but mostly with soft body parts, then during the Cambrian period, it was the hip thing to evolve hard body parts, and everybody was doing it?


It's not really that hard to imagine. Predator develops hard mouth parts, becomes efficient hunter. Prey develops harder body parts to help protect from predator. The environment rapidly changes as a result, and to be a predator you have to be able to bite hard. To survive predation you have to either be really fast and/or have a hard exoskeleton. So new lines develop and adapt to the rapidly changing phenotypic landscape - harder body parts, etc. 54 million years is not an unreasonable amount of time for an 'explosion' such as this.

Here, you have observable phenotypic changes in an organism over a very short period of time:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm

To understand more of how a classification of organisms can evolve rapidly (or relatively rapidly), you need to understand genetic drift. This is a gene's (or set of genes) progression through a population. If a gene or mutation has no positive or negative phenotypic effect on an organism, it will spread through the population randomly. Any 'end of the line' for the gene is not the 'fault' of the gene, or the phenotype displayed. If a gene has a positive effect on an organism's survival and reproduction, it has a greater chance of spreading through an organism's population (and the opposite is true if it has a negative effect). If a population finds itself in a new environment, or with new challenges (different food, tougher predators, etc.), genetic mutations are more likely to have an effect on the survivability of an organism. Add in the natural mutagen of stress, and this process increases even more. As environments continue to change, this process is ongoing - more mutations move through the population than would in a population living in a static environment.

So an 'explosion' over a period of 54 million years is very much not unreasonable and can be explained with the knowledge we currently have of genetic drift, mutation and natural selection.


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## Comus

David58117 said:


> Can I ask how you believe science works? Is there a process to it, does it evolve or is it stagnant, how is new knowledge gathered, etc etc? Just curious.
> 
> I know you're not the originator of it, but I don't get the phrase "investing all your faith in science" either - I know I've heard it before, and it sounded just as goofy and misguided then, eh...


What???????????????


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## jurianbai

Huilunsoittaja said:


> 176
> 
> It was even better than I expected!
> 
> Rather sad that the Atheists outnumber the Theists 2:1 at this point, but what would I expect? It's the world.


LOL, the thread started 9th Jan and now it is 4 days long. 180/4 = 45 post per day :trp:

this thread got hot because it is the anti theist started the "attack" on pro theist at first. If I going to use anti theist style remark on the forum I will write, "Evolution is only a theory, not proven and written in political ill, because if religion accepted 100% to the society, there will be no casino on earth (and singapore will be broke)."


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## science

There is no faith in science. 

At all. 

It is all proof, argument and evidence. You show me one scientific paper where the authors said, "You'll have to take this on faith; trust us." I'll show you one that wasn't published by a serious scientific journal.


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## Guest

science said:


> *There is no faith in science.*
> 
> At all.


And that, my friends, is the quote of the thread.:lol:

You are right - so long as those who think they can use science as a weapon against religion, or to push political agendas, then there will be no faith in science, or that scientists can be trusted to tell us the complete and impartial truth, as opposed to their cherry-picked findings that fit their narrative.


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## Sid James

Obviously, the OP had an agenda to push, otherwise s/he would have included "agnostic" in the poll. This is not surprising, as inevitably those discussing religion or pushing ideologies often end up advocating certain agendas, to the exclusion of others with different opinions than theirs. It's the way of the world, unfortunately...


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## KaerbEmEvig

Andre said:


> Obviously, the OP had an agenda to push, otherwise s/he would have included "agnostic" in the poll. This is not surprising, as inevitably those discussing religion or pushing ideologies often end up advocating certain agendas, to the exclusion of others with different opinions than theirs. It's the way of the world, unfortunately...


I demand an apology. An agenda to push? I haven't participated in any of the discussions in this topic. I've explained why there is no agnostic option (because you can't be half-pregnant!), but that's about it. Have I discussed religion in this thread? No. Have I pushed an ideology in this thread? No.:tiphat:


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## Couchie

DrMike said:


> ...viral immunology is my profession.


What is your opinion on the common-ancestor evidence of apes and humans from the mutations in the LTRs of HERV insertions?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...10feaa2e8e461dad3dadbaae14fbbf47&searchtype=a


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## Guest

Couchie said:


> What is your opinion on the common-ancestor evidence of apes and humans from the mutations in the LTRs of HERV insertions?
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...10feaa2e8e461dad3dadbaae14fbbf47&searchtype=a


Given that all I can access right now is the abstract, I don't have much of an opinion on this paper at all. Not really a viral immunology paper, so it wouldn't have come up in my normal reading. I'd need to read it. From what I can gather, it seems they determine the rate of mutation of the LTRs in these viruses, and with that information extrapolate the ages of various strains. With those values, they then argue that they can estimate how early these retroviruses could have been integrated into the genomes of various human and non-human primates. They state that they analyze potential LTR-containing loci in various primate species, so I would really like to see the data itself to see just how compelling the data are that they are, in fact, LTR-containing loci. But from the abstract alone, it seems to say that these viruses entered different species of primates at different periods in time - which is entirely plausible, and I'd have to read how they view that as evidence of common ancestry for primate species. This phenomenon is already well known. Other retroviruses have shown this. The immunodeficiency viruses that infect primates behave similarly. Non-human primates are believed to have first been infected with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), and studies now suggest that HIV most likely crossed over to humans from chimpanzees, as the chimpanzee strain of SIV is the most similar, genetically, to HIV. The different times of infection reflect changes in the virus that allow it to infect a different species that it couldn't previously.

So you tell me - what is your take on the study?


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## emiellucifuge

In my current limited experience Couchie tends to ask penetrating questions but is less willing to expose his own ideas - lets see....


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## Guest

KaerbEmEvig said:


> I demand an apology. An agenda to push? I haven't participated in any of the discussions in this topic. I've explained why there is no agnostic option (because you can't be half-pregnant!), but that's about it. Have I discussed religion in this thread? No. Have I pushed an ideology in this thread? No.:tiphat:


:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Really, given your postings in the previous "What Ideology Do You Follow" thread that was closed, and now this curiously similar poll thread, and you expect us to buy that there was no agenda behind this? If you were a newbie unaware of that previous poll, then maybe I could accept that, but I don't believe, with as much as you participated in that thread, that there was still a whole lot of uncertainty for you as to how the different groups in your poll were proportionately represented in this forum. And being familiar with that thread, you should have also known the direction that a similar thread would go. So whether or not you have heavily participated in the discussion here isn't pertinent as to whether or not you had an agenda in starting it in the first place.

I don't mean this to cause offense, as a lot of the people chiming in now - myself included - were also heavily engaged in that thread. I'm just saying that for you to be shocked, shocked I say, that anyone would accuse you of an agenda here should apologize is rather transparent. Own it and move on.


----------



## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> In my current limited experience Couchie tends to ask penetrating questions but is less willing to expose his own ideas - lets see....


Yes, but I'm not willing to be pulled into a game of carefully analyzing every scientific study thrown at me, without knowing whether the asker fully understands the study, or pulled it off the internet to throw at me. Scientific papers are time consuming to read, especially if they are not in your primary discipline, so before I devote myself to the time of understanding an article, I make sure that it isn't just someone bombarding with stuff they don't particularly understand.

So if Couchie convinces me he has read and understands the above paper, I will be more than willing to read it myself and discuss.


----------



## emiellucifuge

No of course, my post was intended as a heads up


----------



## KaerbEmEvig

DrMike said:


> :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
> 
> Really, given your postings in the previous "What Ideology Do You Follow" thread that was closed, and now this curiously similar poll thread, and you expect us to buy that there was no agenda behind this? If you were a newbie unaware of that previous poll, then maybe I could accept that, but I don't believe, with as much as you participated in that thread, that there was still a whole lot of uncertainty for you as to how the different groups in your poll were proportionately represented in this forum. And being familiar with that thread, you should have also known the direction that a similar thread would go. So whether or not you have heavily participated in the discussion here isn't pertinent as to whether or not you had an agenda in starting it in the first place.
> 
> I don't mean this to cause offense, as a lot of the people chiming in now - myself included - were also heavily engaged in that thread. I'm just saying that for you to be shocked, shocked I say, that anyone would accuse you of an agenda here should apologize is rather transparent. Own it and move on.


Believe it or not - this website is not my whole life (based on the length of your posts, it seems it may be that way to you, though). I do not remember "the previous poll" at all. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less about its results either.

This is what one calls having an agenda: http://www.talkclassical.com/8513-music-creation-divinity.html
Not not including agnosticism (which, it seems, has not been included in "the previous poll" either).


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## opus55

This thread is doomed :devil:

Add me to the list of people who are getting tired of religious thread.


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## science

DrMike said:


> And that, my friends, is the quote of the thread.:lol:
> 
> You are right - so long as those who think they can use science as a weapon against religion, or to push political agendas, then there will be no faith in science, or that scientists can be trusted to tell us the complete and impartial truth, as opposed to their cherry-picked findings that fit their narrative.


I think that second paragraph is an incomplete sentence, so I'm not sure I've understood your point.

Anyway, of course science is not a political agenda and has no inherent political agenda. Yet sometimes one political view or another finds itself on the wrong side of science - we can call that "the losing side."

Science and religion would be two different things entirely if religion would mind its own business. It is not the business of religion to make or evaluate hyptheses about the physical world, and that is the only way religion and science come into conflict.

Stick to angels, ancestors and ethics, and stay away from astronomy, biology, and neurology.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> I think that second paragraph is an incomplete sentence, so I'm not sure I've understood your point.
> 
> Anyway, of course science is not a political agenda and has no inherent political agenda. Yet sometimes one political view or another finds itself on the wrong side of science - we can call that "the losing side."
> 
> Science and religion would be two different things entirely if religion would mind its own business. It is not the business of religion to make or evaluate hyptheses about the physical world, and that is the only way religion and science come into conflict.
> 
> Stick to angels, ancestors and ethics, and stay away from astronomy, biology, and neurology.


Well of course science has no agenda - science is a tool, a process. It can't have an agenda, just as music has no agenda. But scientists can, and often do, have an agenda. Newsflash - most humans have agendas. Let's not create some mythical being called a scientist that has somehow conquered human nature and is able to be completely impartial and dispassionate in their search for "truth."

Every scientist seeks to push the idea that their particular research is the most important area that needs to be considered, and their particular hypotheses the best in their fields. That is how they convince funding agencies that their research is the most worthy of funding. That is how they convince scientific journals that their papers should be published.

You are going to tell me that Richard Dawkins has no agenda? That his entire career wouldn't come crashing down were we to discover definitive evidence that all life on earth didn't evolve from a common ancestor? Or the numerous scientists involved in the global climate change debate? And why should they try to suppress any studies that contradict their own findings, rather than simply let them also be subject to peer review?

And why do we continuously hear from people like Dawkins or Stephen Hawking how every new discovery in their fields provides more evidence to disprove the existence of God? If religion should leave science alone, what of scientists seeking to intrude upon religion? Does your criticism extend the other direction? The conflict is not one-sided, as you claim. Scientists are just as guilty of making assertions regarding religion that they can't possibly test or prove.


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## science

It's true that scientists can have agendas. That was a good point. 

The second paragraph seems about right as well. 

The third paragraph and the first half of the fourth is wrongheaded. If evolution isn't true, Richard Dawkins won't be the only biologist whose career crashes, and Hawking has probably never said that some finding proves that God doesn't exist. And of course a lot of climate scientists are just scientists. 

I don't know what you're talking about when you ask, "And why should they try to suppress any studies that contradict their own findings, rather than simply let them also be subject to peer review?" It seems to me that peer-review would be the main way a scientist would have of suppressing some other scientists' work. What else do you have in mind? 

The last point: it is true that scientists sometimes make untestable comments about religion - but not in scientific articles. That is, not in their role as scientists. Whereas religious leaders, in their role as religious leaders, and politicians as politicians, often to make testable claims, rendering themselves subject to the judgment of science.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> It's true that scientists can have agendas. That was a good point.
> 
> The second paragraph seems about right as well.
> 
> The third paragraph and the first half of the fourth is wrongheaded. If evolution isn't true, Richard Dawkins won't be the only biologist whose career crashes, and Hawking has probably never said that some finding proves that God doesn't exist. And of course a lot of climate scientists are just scientists.
> 
> I don't know what you're talking about when you ask, "And why should they try to suppress any studies that contradict their own findings, rather than simply let them also be subject to peer review?" It seems to me that peer-review would be the main way a scientist would have of suppressing some other scientists' work. What else do you have in mind?
> 
> The last point: it is true that scientists sometimes make untestable comments about religion - but not in scientific articles. That is, not in their role as scientists. Whereas religious leaders, in their role as religious leaders, and politicians as politicians, often to make testable claims, rendering themselves subject to the judgment of science.


http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/06/24/epa-suppresses-internal-global-warming-study/

Or what about the CRU emails which showed discussions of how to pressure a journal (Climate Research) to not consider papers from skeptics? They even reject directly your assertion that they would want the peer review - their argument being that if you let it get to the peer review process, there is a chance it could get through, so best to stop it before it ever gets that far.

So when Dawkins makes his claims of science disproving God, do you honestly expect us to believe that he is not speaking as a scientist and recognized evolution expert? I would think that he embraces that role - it adds prestige and sells books. Who cares if some nobody claims that science has disproven God. But if Richard Dawkins says it, well then, that must mean something.

Stephen Hawking, in his book The Grand Design, states, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist… It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going."

No, not a peer reviewed paper - but definitely published to imply that a genius in his field believes this way, and so should you. Scientific papers are to convince other scientists of something - the average person doesn't read them. And so they can't make such a statement as the one above. So scientists write books, such as Hawking's and Dawkins' - to report what they know to be able to sway public opinion their way with statements a scientific journal would never allow.

There is this idea that a Creator undermines the very foundations of science, that the only rational idea is one where laws of nature alone determine everything. Yet is the cloned sheep Dolly any less real because she was created by scientists in a test tube rather than the natural process? All science can tell us is the process by which things occur. Hawking may tell us the laws that govern the creation of the universe. But his theories are in no way cheapened to suggest that some being used these laws to create the universe. Nature uses evolution to generate diversity. Do we ignore the fact that mankind has harnessed some of these laws to breed different types of plants that yield better crops? Or that humans have used selective breeding to generate different kinds of animals (dogs, birds, cats, mice)? Even scientific studies to prove evolution, such as the E. coli study, show mankind proving evolution by harnessing it. So no matter what new evidence emerges, the fact that humans were able to harness the natural laws to derive that evidence is irrefutable proof that science will not be able to disprove that just because we can explain how things happened doesn't mean that we can prove that nobody was involved in making it happen. Does the modern domesticated dog know that a good deal of what it now is came from selective breeding by humans a long time ago from his wild, undomesticated ancestor?

Religion has meddled in science a lot through history, but not always for nefarious designs. Religion by its nature seeks to know how things are as they are - it simply starts from the assumption of some driving force. Much of science stemmed from people wanting to know how God did something. Now, perhaps religion at times was reluctant to discard accepted views in exchange for some new radical idea. Let's not forget - the Catholic Church was not the one that first devised the geocentric cosmology model that Copernicus and Galileo sought to overturn with the now accepted heliocentric model. The idea had existed from antiquity, from the ancient Greeks and Chinese. It was the accepted wisdom from Ptolemy and Aristotle, and had been the accepted wisdom for 1500 years. Should the church not have persecuted Galileo for teaching otherwise? Absolutely! But the broader picture is that this wasn't some scheme by religion to keep people ignorant - it was defending the accepted scientific wisdom and status quo. That is something that scientists do today, rigorously debating and challenging any new hypothesis that challenges basic assumptions. Pasteur bucked the system when he showed that spontaneous generation was a myth. Semmelweis bucked the system when he suggested that going from handling cadavers to treating patients without first washing your hands might transmit disease. There is always going to be some group that is resistant to new ideas in science - in Galileo's time that was the church. In our time, often it is other scientists and scientific organizations.


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## emiellucifuge

There will always be resistance to evidence that defies accepted wisdom - that is human nature. However, these things usually manage to gain support if they are 'true' (or at least more true). There are things in religion that will never be discarded and this is the reason why faith is required, in order to accept something given no evidence nor reasonable explanation.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> There will always be resistance to evidence that defies accepted wisdom - that is human nature. However, these things usually manage to gain support if they are 'true' (or at least more true). There are things in religion that will never be discarded and this is the reason why faith is required, in order to accept something given no evidence nor reasonable explanation.


I have no objections to that statement. Just as I don't believe that science can claim to disprove God, I also don't believe that religion should claim external physical proof for their claims. Faith is a different matter. And though it may annoy many scientists, there is more to being human than the mere accumulation of physical observations. Faith, emotions, feelings, all of these things deal with intangibles that are not easily quantifiable, and are often very personal.


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## Herr Rott

*Science Sings Hymns*


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## Serge

DrMike said:


> Faith, emotions, feelings, all of these things deal with intangibles that are not easily quantifiable, and are often very personal.


And, needless to say, religious people are exceptionally good at keeping these personal things personal. I am reminded of that fact every time some nut knocks on my door to hand out his goddamn booklet.

Not to mention all these exceptionally discreet churches that they built. (I am sure they thought nobody would notice.)


----------



## science

DrMike said:


> http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/06/24/epa-suppresses-internal-global-warming-study/
> 
> Or what about the CRU emails which showed discussions of how to pressure a journal (Climate Research) to not consider papers from skeptics? They even reject directly your assertion that they would want the peer review - their argument being that if you let it get to the peer review process, there is a chance it could get through, so best to stop it before it ever gets that far.


I'm not going to start debating globalwarming.org.

If someone has good evidence for or against a theory, it will be published.



DrMike said:


> So when Dawkins makes his claims of science disproving God, do you honestly expect us to believe that he is not speaking as a scientist and recognized evolution expert?


Unless he has a way to test the hypothesis, it is not a scientific statement.



DrMike said:


> I would think that he embraces that role - it adds prestige and sells books. Who cares if some nobody claims that science has disproven God. But if Richard Dawkins says it, well then, that must mean something.
> 
> Stephen Hawking, in his book The Grand Design, states, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist… It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going."


That is not saying that God doesn't exist.

I begin to see very well where your problems come from.



DrMike said:


> No, not a peer reviewed paper - but definitely published to imply that a genius in his field believes this way, and so should you. Scientific papers are to convince other scientists of something - the average person doesn't read them. And so they can't make such a statement as the one above. So scientists write books, such as Hawking's and Dawkins' - to report what they know to be able to sway public opinion their way with statements a scientific journal would never allow.
> 
> There is this idea that a Creator undermines the very foundations of science, that the only rational idea is one where laws of nature alone determine everything. Yet is the cloned sheep Dolly any less real because she was created by scientists in a test tube rather than the natural process?


Huge non-sequitor. Obviously so. Probably not even an attempt at honest thought.



DrMike said:


> All science can tell us is the process by which things occur. Hawking may tell us the laws that govern the creation of the universe. But his theories are in no way cheapened to suggest that some being used these laws to create the universe. Nature uses evolution to generate diversity. Do we ignore the fact that mankind has harnessed some of these laws to breed different types of plants that yield better crops? Or that humans have used selective breeding to generate different kinds of animals (dogs, birds, cats, mice)?


This is funny. You should read the first chapter of "On the Origin of Species."

Irony aside, you appear to have confused yourself. Evolution doesn't disprove God - we both agree about that. If there is a God, he surely doesn't "harness" evolution. He may even just sit back and let it happen.



DrMike said:


> Even scientific studies to prove evolution, such as the E. coli study, show mankind proving evolution by harnessing it. So no matter what new evidence emerges, the fact that humans were able to harness the natural laws to derive that evidence is irrefutable proof that science will not be able to disprove that just because we can explain how things happened doesn't mean that we can prove that nobody was involved in making it happen. *Does the modern domesticated dog know that a good deal of what it now is came from selective breeding by humans a long time ago from his wild, undomesticated ancestor?*


What? You expect me to take this nonsense seriously?



DrMike said:


> Religion has meddled in science a lot through history, but not always for nefarious designs. Religion by its nature seeks to know how things are as they are


I'd argue _precisely_ the opposite.



DrMike said:


> - it simply starts from the assumption of some driving force.


So if there's no driving force, religion begins in error.



DrMike said:


> Much of science stemmed from people wanting to know how God did something. Now, perhaps religion at times was reluctant to discard accepted views in exchange for some new radical idea. Let's not forget - the Catholic Church was not the one that first devised the geocentric cosmology model that Copernicus and Galileo sought to overturn with the now accepted heliocentric model. The idea had existed from antiquity, from the ancient Greeks and Chinese. It was the accepted wisdom from Ptolemy and Aristotle, and had been the accepted wisdom for 1500 years. Should the church not have persecuted Galileo for teaching otherwise? Absolutely! But the broader picture is that this wasn't some scheme by religion to keep people ignorant - it was defending the accepted scientific wisdom and status quo. That is something that scientists do today, rigorously debating and challenging any new hypothesis that challenges basic assumptions.


You let me know the next time a scientist arrests another scientist for challenging the status quo.

Or burns one at the stake. (Giordano Bruno.)



DrMike said:


> Pasteur bucked the system when he showed that spontaneous generation was a myth. Semmelweis bucked the system when he suggested that going from handling cadavers to treating patients without first washing your hands might transmit disease. There is always going to be some group that is resistant to new ideas in science - in Galileo's time that was the church. In our time, often it is other scientists and scientific organizations.


Yup. Scientists sometimes resist new ideas. But if there is enough evidence to support them, the new ideas are eventually accepted. I'm not sure why that seemed relevant.


----------



## Guest

Serge said:


> And, needless to say, religious people are exceptionally good at keeping these personal things personal. I am reminded of that fact every time some nut knocks on my door to hand out his goddamn booklet.
> 
> Not to mention all these exceptionally discreet churches that they built. (I am sure they thought nobody would notice.)


Right - because building a large structure anywhere is incredibly easy to do without being noticed. What with all the permits you have to obtain, the purchase of the land, etc. In my experience, there aren't too many religions that are hoping to build small, unnoticeable buildings that nobody will notice or be curious about.

And you mistake the meaning of personal that I intended. There is no problem with asking a person if they would like to hear about something. Now, if they ignore your wishes, that is a different matter.

Need I remind you that this forum contains all kinds of people with different tastes in music - there really being no logical reason as to why each persons tastes differ, rather it is on a personal level - who try to tell others how they should listen to different kinds of music. Why do some people like Schoenberg and others don't. Why do those who like Schoenberg encourage others to sample his music and see for themselves whether they like his works?


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## Guest

science said:


> You let me know the next time a scientist arrests another scientist for challenging the status quo.
> 
> Or burns one at the stake. (Giordano Bruno.)


Hmm, I don't know if I can cite specific examples such as those, but while I look, maybe you can read these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
Does whole body irradiation fall in the same category as burning at the stake?
Now granted, these were not done to silence people whose ideology differed from theirs. Instead, these were merely undesirables that nobody would care about (poor black men in the South, the mentally disabled, prisoners, children).


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## science

Yup, you've changed the subject completely. But if the question is whether scientists ever did anything wrong, or immoral experiments, you win.


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## Guest

science said:


> Yup, you've changed the subject completely. But if the question is whether scientists ever did anything wrong, or immoral experiments, you win.


No, I'm saying that both science and religion have done some bad things throughout history, even though at the time they thought they were taking the proper action and working towards the greater good. So when religion is singled out for criticism for people that it has hurt from its actions in the past, lets just remember that this is less a symptom of religion, and more a failing of humans in general. Even scientists who rely on reason can do some pretty horrible things in their efforts to achieve their goals. Or, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.


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## science

That's all fine with me. The tone is unnecessarily defensive, but the intellectual content is fair enough.

Edit: Of course it's not relevant to anything that I remember saying in this thread.


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## david johnson

Originally Posted by Andre View Post
I'm an agnostic. I do see both the negative & positive aspects of the major world religions. I think that there is much in common with humanistic values in all the world religions. These common values should unite, and not divide (as is sadly often the case) the people of many different religions across the world. I have had enough of people who want to ram religion down my throat. We are all human beings first, and Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. second...

*and I have had more than my share of my contemporaries trying to ram non-belief and contempt in every hole we have.*


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## science

Yup. It used to be just religious people who felt free to do that, but now atheists feel free too.


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## Guest

science said:


> Yup. It used to be just religious people who felt free to do that, but now atheists feel free too.


Yes, but as we are continually told, religious people are just a bunch of superstitious weirdos who reject logic and reason, and a lot of the complaints for their actions date back several centuries. What excuse do atheists and scientists have?


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## science

No matter what you believe, people who disagree are going to say bad things about you. 

No matter what group you identify with, unless the identiy was just formed, it's going to have done some bad things sometime in the past. 

You've just got to get over it. There'll be nothing wrong with admitting that the group you belong to has sinned.

The self-pity discredits you. 

Search relentlessly for truth. Striving to criticize and not to justify your own beliefs.


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## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> Yes, but as we are continually told, religious people are just a bunch of superstitious weirdos who reject logic and reason, and a lot of the complaints for their actions date back several centuries. What excuse do atheists and scientists have?


I hardly see atheists/scientists trying to force their beliefs on anyone. In fact, I've seen so little of that in my lifetime that some of your statements in that regard come off as patently absurd. On the other hand, I've witnessed an overabundance of religious people trying to impose their will on others (and on the world at large through violence and destruction). The fact is that millions upon millions _upon millions_ have been killed in the name of the monotheistic religions for two thousand years.

How many have been killed in the name of science? How many crusades have been sent by scientists to tame or destroy the infidels? How many people have been tortured or burned at the stake by scientists? How many IED's and suicide bombers have been sent by scientists?


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## Guest

Jacob Singer said:


> I hardly see atheists/scientists trying to force their beliefs on anyone. In fact, I've seen so little of that in my lifetime that some of your statements in that regard come off as patently absurd. On the other hand, I've witnessed an overabundance of religious people trying to impose their will on others (and on the world at large through violence and destruction). The fact is that millions upon millions _upon millions_ have been killed in the name of the monotheistic religions for two thousand years.
> 
> How many have been killed in the name of science? How many crusades have been sent by scientists to tame or destroy the infidels? How many people have been tortured or burned at the stake by scientists? How many IED's and suicide bombers have been sent by scientists?


Well it seems rather absurd to lump all religion into one common category, or even just narrowing down to the monotheistic ones. I certainly won't seek to defend everything contained in the category of religion. And certainly, if you were to limit your period of concern to the same one you use for identifying abuse by scientists/atheists (in your second sentence you state "in my lifetime"), then the amount of abuse by religion certainly drops off precipitously. On the other hand, the amount of abuse perpetrated by scientists/atheists increases in that period - not because I think they are becoming more abusive, but probably more simply because there are now more atheists and scientists than at any other time in history. But you point out radicals in religious groups as perpetrating violence today. Well, then if we are going to expand the definitions that broadly, then why don't we include Dr. Mengele? Or "scientific" experiments performed on Jews during the Holocaust? Or the Tuskegee syphillis experiments? Or those conducted in Central America where ethical restraints could be side-stepped? Now, granted, those are not representative of the scientific community at large, but if you are going to associate suicide bombers with religious people in general, then I figured the Dr. Mengele association with scientists was fair game.

As for atheists oppressing religious people, have you not paid attention to the plight of the followers of Falun Gong or Christianity in China? Or the attempt by communist Russia to eliminate religion? Both examples of atheist ideologies tied to political movements that saw the need to oppress religion. You can include the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Extreme examples? Absolutely! Representative of atheists and scientists in general? Definitely not. What you have here are people who co-opted ideologies to further their political agendas. And that is also historically what has happened with religion. Sure, some religions no doubt were inherently violent. But many that have been criticized for violence centuries back were at variance with their doctrine. With Constantine's co-opting the Christian religion for political reasons, he tied religion to politics for centuries in Europe. Religion was hijacked as a tool to further political power. Don't believe me? Then why do we not see many of the abuses that were committed after Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire occurring prior to then? Before then, the story is more one of numerous martyrs for their beliefs.

As to the total number abused by this, well, again, if you lump all religion together, and give such a long time span, well, no doubt the number will be large (although I'd like to see whether your millions upon millions upon millions is reflecting actual data or more an exaggeration to strengthen you point). In contrast, just within the last century, Nazi scientific experimentation on humans was huge - Mengele alone experimented on at least 3000 twins, forced sterilization was performed on more than 400,000. North Korea has persecuted hundreds of thousands of religious people specifically for their religion (North Korea is officially an atheist state). The Soviet Union established state atheism and made criticism of atheism forbidden. Millions of orthodox Christians were killed in the Soviet Union in the 20th Century. 21 million alone died in the gulags. So here I guess you could say that millions upon millions upon millions of religious people have been persecuted and/or killed by atheists/scientists, but whereas it took 2000 years for religion to do that much, it took atheists/scientists less than 100 years.


----------



## emiellucifuge

DrMike said:


> Millions of orthodox Christians were killed in the Soviet Union in the 20th Century. 21 million alone died in the gulags. So here I guess you could say that millions upon millions upon millions of religious people have been persecuted and/or killed by atheists/scientists, but whereas it took 2000 years for religion to do that much, it took atheists/scientists less than 100 years.


Sure but that is an unfair comparison. Perhaps it is necessary to factor in the total world population or at least express the data as percentage of that to give a fair comparison between different time periods.

Anyway; North Korea may be officially 'Atheist', but they propagate a doctrine of quasi-religious proportion. Kim Il Sung is the eternal leader and there exists a large canon of myths to support this claim:



> Those are the facts, established by historians from Soviet-era archives. Here's the myth concocted by the Kim dynasty's propaganda machine: Kim Il Sung and his wife were bravely leading the heroic struggle against the Japanese from mountain hideouts on the border between Korea and Manchuria when Kim Jong Il was born. At his birth--on Mount Paekdu, Korea's highest and most sacred peak--a double rainbow arched over the family's log cabin, a new star appeared in the sky and a swallow flew overhead to announce that a great general had come into the world. When Kim Jong Il was three and a half, his father personally fought and defeated the Japanese, marched into Pyongyang and liberated Korea.


http://www.asiapacificms.com/articles/north_korea_myths/

This is no doubt done in order to maintain total power over the people of North Korea, who are brainwashed into believing their leader to be some supernatural god and are kept oblivious of the wealth and other benefits enjoyed in the neighbouring South. Without comparison they have nothing to complain about and will accept their existence bereft of rights, food security or happiness. People there actually believe they live in a glorious nation.






A similar story exists in nearly all the dictatorships or communist regimes you mentioned. Keep the people ignorant to maintain power.

The argument I wish to have is not necessarily Atheism VS Theism, but it is rather Misinformation (faith) VS Information (Truth). 
The examples listed are really just examples of state-enforced religion but given a different name.


----------



## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> Well it seems rather absurd to lump all religion into one common category, or even just narrowing down to the monotheistic ones. I certainly won't seek to defend everything contained in the category of religion. And certainly, if you were to limit your period of concern to the same one you use for identifying abuse by scientists/atheists (in your second sentence you state "in my lifetime"), then the amount of abuse by religion certainly drops off precipitously.


Yeah, well tell that to all those people in the Middle East, or Northern Ireland, or all those young boys at those Catholic churches. Where are all these comparable atrocities committed by scientists in this recent time period?

And I said "in my lifetime" to point out that I've witnessed ZERO oppression or abuse by scientists in that period, yet I've seen a ton of abuse by one particular religion. I've seen more hate and division caused by this particular religion than all other groups (religious or otherwise) put together.



DrMike said:


> As for atheists oppressing religious people, have you not paid attention to the plight of the followers of Falun Gong or Christianity in China? Or the attempt by communist Russia to eliminate religion? Both examples of atheist ideologies tied to political movements that saw the need to oppress religion. You can include the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.


But those aren't scientists. They are fanatics and extremists whose only difference from religious extremists is that their religion/god is the state.

I was talking about the established scientific community, and I asked how many deaths they have been responsible for. Compared to the established religious groups/communities (even if you just look at the two major monotheistic ones in our modern times), the number is so small as to be almost completely insignificant.



DrMike said:


> North Korea has persecuted hundreds of thousands of religious people specifically for their religion (North Korea is officially an atheist state). The Soviet Union established state atheism and made criticism of atheism forbidden. Millions of orthodox Christians were killed in the Soviet Union in the 20th Century. 21 million alone died in the gulags. So here I guess you could say that millions upon millions upon millions of religious people have been persecuted and/or killed by atheists/scientists, but whereas it took 2000 years for religion to do that much, it took atheists/scientists less than 100 years.


Again, in almost all cases those are not scientists. Yet, we have a plethora of examples of the _established_ religious communities (almost exclusively the monotheistic ones, fwiw) oppressing and killing people on a regular basis for 2000 years (with no end in sight). The difference is staggering.

In fact, I would bet that scores of people are being hurt or killed by religious groups somewhere on earth _right at this very moment_. Care to bet how many people are being hurt or killed by scientists right now?


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## Guest

Jacob Singer said:


> In fact, I would bet that scores of people are being hurt or killed by religious groups somewhere on earth _right at this very moment_. Care to bet how many people are being hurt or killed by scientists right now?


What official established religion right now is hurting or killing people right now? Let's keep the standards the same here - we are talking official established religions, not fringe sects or radical splinter groups, or zealots professing a faith but actually outside any official established religion.

Much of what you allude to is from the past, where actions were taken by states that were intertwined with a religion. Recent examples you refer to are examples of abuses within a specific established religion - which may have acted to conceal such actions at local levels, but certainly never authorized or condoned such actions - or by fringe groups who use religion to justify their violent goals.

In the scientific abuse examples I gave you, which happened this last century (Tuskegee, Guatemala), as well as the article I cited earlier, many of the studies performed by U.S. scientists were published in peer reviewed journals, or funded by governmental funding agencies. These weren't kooks hiding in their cellars, performing secret experiments. I don't even have to drag in the extreme Nazi example to make this point. In the case of experimentation on prison inmates and mentally handicapped individuals, they would have had to have permission to gain access to those facilities.

Don't get me wrong - I am a scientist. But let us make no mistake here - the abuses that go on are not monopolized by any one group or ideology. Scientists are no less fallible than anyone else, simply because they use reason and logic. People who strive to exert power over others or abuse others will grasp for whatever source is available. In the Middle Ages, the prevailing power was state-sponsored religion, so that is what they used. Today, other ideologies are invoked. I'm not sure the Leninists and Stalinists were so dogmatically atheist, so much as they wanted complete control, and they saw religion as competing with that control, and therefore it had to go. As has been said already by someone else here, people can use whatever ideology they choose - science, religion, etc. - to rationalize their actions. The blame does not necessarily lie at the feet of science or religion, but at the feet of those who committed the actions.


----------



## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> What official established religion right now is hurting or killing people right now? Let's keep the standards the same here - we are talking official established religions, not fringe sects or radical splinter groups, or zealots professing a faith but actually outside any official established religion.


Yeah, and people who are members of these established religions hurt people all the time. Perhaps in the west it is not usually with violence, but the hatred and division created by followers of these religions is undeniable. In the US alone, millions of religious people actively promote the denial of basic civil rights for those who do not act in accordance with their religious beliefs. Even if these kinds of religious people are not nearly as violent as those in other parts of the world, they are still every bit as common.



DrMike said:


> In the scientific abuse examples I gave you, which happened this last century (Tuskegee, Guatemala), as well as the article I cited earlier, many of the studies performed by U.S. scientists were published in peer reviewed journals, or funded by governmental funding agencies. These weren't kooks hiding in their cellars, performing secret experiments. I don't even have to drag in the extreme Nazi example to make this point.


No, but your own examples of scientists behaving badly show that you have to go to the furthest extremes of human history to try to prove your point. Sure, Mengele and these other examples were horrible, but there are so few examples like those that it is ridiculous to try to use that to prove anything. The same is true when it comes to your examples of "atheist" states such as the Soviets, North Korea, etc: outside of these _really_ rare and extreme examples from history there have been very few others, and as you said they weren't actually doing _any_ of the things they did in the name of promoting "atheism" or science. No, they just wanted their citizens to worship their state/political philosophy and no one else's, which actually resembles a religion much more than the lack of one.

In sharp contrast, I don't have to go to such lengths to find examples of abuse in the name of religion, and in fact I can point you to examples of it quite easily. There are literally millions and millions of followers of these established religions that actively promote hatred and division, and there are tens of millions of these kinds of people here in the US alone. Whether they are following _your_ version of the religion or not, they _are_ following a very real and very organized religion, and there are literally _thousands_ of these kinds of hateful churches all across the US.

Tell me, where are the thousands of organizations of scientists or atheists promoting hatred and division, as you would have us believe?

I don't know of any. Yet, I've been harassed and targeted by religious people for most of my adult life. I've never known a single scientist or atheist who has behaved with that kind of zealotry, as the vast majority of them don't seem care whether you believe them or not (here's the part when you pull up another extremely rare example to try to compare to the extremely common examples I am talking about).


----------



## Chris

Jacob Singer said:


> There are literally millions and millions of followers of these established religions that actively promote hatred and division, and there are tens of millions of these kinds of people here in the US alone. Whether they are following _your_ version of the religion or not, they _are_ following a very real and very organized religion, and there are literally _thousands_ of these kinds of hateful churches all across the US.
> 
> I've been harassed and targeted by religious people for most of my adult life.


I've never been to the US but this is a strange picture you are painting. *Tens of millions *of foaming, gnashing, hate-filled people 'harrassing and targetting' people like yourself!

Dear me, what have you been doing?


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## Guest

Jacob Singer said:


> Yeah, and people who are members of these established religions hurt people all the time. Perhaps in the west it is not usually with violence, but the hatred and division created by followers of these religions is undeniable. In the US alone, millions of religious people actively promote the denial of basic civil rights for those who do not act in accordance with their religious beliefs. Even if these kinds of religious people are not nearly as violent as those in other parts of the world, they are still every bit as common.
> 
> No, but your own examples of scientists behaving badly show that you have to go to the furthest extremes of human history to try to prove your point. Sure, Mengele and these other examples were horrible, but there are so few examples like those that it is ridiculous to try to use that to prove anything. The same is true when it comes to your examples of "atheist" states such as the Soviets, North Korea, etc: outside of these _really_ rare and extreme examples from history there have been very few others, and as you said they weren't actually doing _any_ of the things they did in the name of promoting "atheism" or science. No, they just wanted their citizens to worship their state/political philosophy and no one else's, which actually resembles a religion much more than the lack of one.
> 
> In sharp contrast, I don't have to go to such lengths to find examples of abuse in the name of religion, and in fact I can point you to examples of it quite easily. There are literally millions and millions of followers of these established religions that actively promote hatred and division, and there are tens of millions of these kinds of people here in the US alone. Whether they are following _your_ version of the religion or not, they _are_ following a very real and very organized religion, and there are literally _thousands_ of these kinds of hateful churches all across the US.
> 
> Tell me, where are the thousands of organizations of scientists or atheists promoting hatred and division, as you would have us believe?
> 
> I don't know of any. Yet, I've been harassed and targeted by religious people for most of my adult life. I've never known a single scientist or atheist who has behaved with that kind of zealotry, as the vast majority of them don't seem care whether you believe them or not (here's the part when you pull up another extremely rare example to try to compare to the extremely common examples I am talking about).


Ah, so now we get to it. You have a very specific grievance with religion. But I notice you keep changing the definitions as we go to suit your needs. First it was hurting and killing, and now somehow we have also included issues that fall not merely along religious, but political lines as well. Then when I give you concrete examples of abuses by scientists and atheists, well, you redefine them to not apply. Suddenly an atheist state that murdered millions of people for being Christian, not to mention all the others they murdered for other reasons, is a "rare and extreme example from history." Then somehow the atheist state is really more just like a religion! These examples I gave happened within the last century. You cite abuses spanning 2000 years. Do you know that in that 2000 years, tens of millions of Christians were killed for their religion? But you are right - sending 21 million Christians to gulags to die because they didn't toe the state atheism line is really just a rare and extreme example from history compared to the horrible atrocity of not wanting to redefine marriage in the U.S.

Also, just because you don't personally know anybody in science who has committed abuses is not proof of absence. I assume that you believe most of what atheists and scientists claim, so should it surprise you that you don't see them trying to force ideas down your throat that you don't accept? What about prominent examples like Richard Dawkins? Oh yeah, he's just a rare example, as compared to all of the specific examples you have given - legions of religious people lining up to personally persecute you. Tell me, has it been religions that have persecuted you, or people who happen to be affiliated with religions? Because I am not aware of very many churches in the U.S. that teach their members to persecute others. Now, they may fight for their personal beliefs, particularly when those fights are carried out in the political arena, where we are all allowed to vote our conscience - but that hardly arises to the level of persecution. Now, there are certainly examples, but those examples are not supported by the majority, and are often denounced by them (I'm thinking of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, but that is little more than the pastor and his family, so that hardly constitutes any significant percentage).


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## Guest

Chris said:


> I've never been to the US but this is a strange picture you are painting. *Tens of millions *of foaming, gnashing, hate-filled people 'harrassing and targetting' people like yourself!
> 
> Dear me, what have you been doing?


Yes - we still burn people for witchcraft as well! We keep tabs on all of our neighbors and note the ones who don't attend church services so that we can go persecute them later. You wouldn't believe how time consuming it is to be a monotheist in the U.S. - with all the church bake sales, Sunday services, shuttling our kids to and from sports practice (because you know it is because of us that the earth is being overpopulated) - there just isn't enough time in the day to then go get our pitchforks and look for groups to persecute. Yes, we are a fearsome bunch. We go out and beat people down with our votes at the ballot boxes, and assembling at political rallies. Yep, Stalin ain't got nothin' on us.


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## Couchie

DrMike said:


> Given that all I can access right now is the abstract, I don't have much of an opinion on this paper at all. Not really a viral immunology paper, so it wouldn't have come up in my normal reading. I'd need to read it. From what I can gather, it seems they determine the rate of mutation of the LTRs in these viruses, and with that information extrapolate the ages of various strains. With those values, they then argue that they can estimate how early these retroviruses could have been integrated into the genomes of various human and non-human primates. They state that they analyze potential LTR-containing loci in various primate species, so I would really like to see the data itself to see just how compelling the data are that they are, in fact, LTR-containing loci. But from the abstract alone, it seems to say that these viruses entered different species of primates at different periods in time - which is entirely plausible, and I'd have to read how they view that as evidence of common ancestry for primate species.


To be honest I didn't expect you to have to read the article, but already be familiar with the phenomenon.

This is one of strongest evidences for common descent, but it is recent and more difficult to understand than fossils or comparative anatomy, and therefore under-appreciated. A quick rundown (written in simple terms for others as well who don't have your background):


 Some viruses, _retroviruses_, are capable of inserting their own DNA into your genome. HIV-1 is an example.
 The viruses' DNA consists of functional genes flanked by Long Terminal Repeats (LTRs). The LTRs have short repeated DNA sequences repeated thousands of times (ie: GAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAA..)
 If this happens in the reproductive cells, then your offspring will bear the viral genome.
 Every time DNA replicates, mutations occur randomly. These mutations can eventually deactivate the viral genes in your genome so it is no longer harmful, however, it will remain in your genome and continue to be passed down to your children and your children's children.
 This is not speculation, nor rare on grand timescales. Hundreds of viral DNA sequences have been identified in the human genome. About 1% of the human genome is believed to have been contributed by retroviruses.
 Now the random mutations will also occur in the LTRs. Remember their simple repeating pattern, mutations are easily detected. Random mutation occurs on average at a fixed rate, identified in the above paper as 0.13% difference every million years.
 Therefore the viral insertions are essentially time-stamped as to when the host was originally infected. More mutation = older, less mutation = newer.
 The DNA between the LTRs is specific to different viruses. Therefore the viruses can be both distinguished, and dated.
 Let's bring up the human and chimpanzee genomes. There are some insertions that humans have and chimps don't. The level of mutation in the LTRs is relatively low. This means that the human lineage was infected separately from chimps, recently.
 But there are some insertions that both chimps and humans share. The same virus inserted into the exact same location on the human and chimpanzee. It's LTRs are mutated more heavily than the human-only virus, indicating it's older. Given the billions of base pairs and that the virus inserts into an essentially random location, the probability that the same viruses infected both chimps and humans separately at the same time and inserted into the exact same location on the genome is extremely unlikely. Given multiple cases of this, the probabilities approach impossibility. The only explanation is that a human-chimpanzee ancestor was infected, and then later the chimpanzees and humans diverged. 
 We can continue this process by then going and comparing with other primates. Humans and gibbons are less similar, and only share very old and heavily mutated insertions. The upshot is that the viral insertions retrace the evolutionary tree as already drawn by much older evidence. Incredible isn't it that Darwin had no conception of biochemistry and genetics yet genetics perfectly provides his required mechanism, and continues to provide evidence supporting common descent in agreement with evidence from fossils, anatomy, and other independent sources.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

*News, 14 January 2011*

"_Pope Benedict XVI has formally approved a miracle attributed to his late predecessor, paving the way to John Paul II's beatification on 1 May. The Vatican credits him with the miraculous cure of a nun said to have had Parkinson's Disease.

Church officials believe that the Polish pope, who himself suffered from the condition, interceded for the *miraculous cure *of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a Frenchwoman in her late forties. She has said her illness inexplicably disappeared two months after John Paul II's death, after she and her fellow nuns had prayed to him_."

:lol:

Laughable. A mockery of the good work that doctors and scientists have done, and are still doing, to manage and cure the disease. When asked why did God choose to cure this particular case only, one often gets the cop-out response along the lines of "it's the will of God/the Lord works in mysterious ways, and is not to be questioned/part of God's bigger scheme of things" etc.

I personally have no doubt John Paul II was a good person. But the Roman Catholic Church's outdated methods to recognise the good that he did by this bizzare means is a bastardisation of the good that John Paul II actually did do for the wider humanity. It's a plain old self-advertisement of miracles and an utter insult to others suffering the disease.


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## Couchie

DrMike said:


> Also, just because you don't personally know anybody in science who has committed abuses is not proof of absence. I assume that you believe most of what atheists and scientists claim, so should it surprise you that you don't see them trying to force ideas down your throat that you don't accept? What about prominent examples like Richard Dawkins? Oh yeah, he's just a rare example, as compared to all of the specific examples you have given - legions of religious people lining up to personally persecute you. Tell me, has it been religions that have persecuted you, or people who happen to be affiliated with religions? Because I am not aware of very many churches in the U.S. that teach their members to persecute others. Now, they may fight for their personal beliefs, particularly when those fights are carried out in the political arena, where we are all allowed to vote our conscience - but that hardly arises to the level of persecution. Now, there are certainly examples, but those examples are not supported by the majority, and are often denounced by them (I'm thinking of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, but that is little more than the pastor and his family, so that hardly constitutes any significant percentage).


The bible calls for holy war, genocide, and other violence. It teaches wife submission and the execution of gays. The Qur'an is similar. Atheism has no book of recommended violence you can make a case for partaking in.

Now in America, these verses are today sugar-coated to the extreme, in fact most of the OT teachings are thrown out on a few technicalities muttered by Jesus. However, it the past Christians were not so nice, and their violence was supported with the bible. You can find as many verses in the bible recommending to burn a witch as you can to spare her life. Can you really say that anything that the Westboro Baptist Church recommends is unbiblical? They take an extreme interpretation, but the fact that the book allows for such an interpretation in the first place is a major failing of the book itself. Such a book is worthless as a moral compass.

God apparently took it upon himself to define morality absolutely, yet didn't have the foresight to write unambiguously what he really wanted. I could go an kill my one gay friend and declare: _"If a man lies with another man he should be surely put to death"_. Your disagreement would be a matter of interpretation and opinion. Could I do the same thing with the International Declaration of Human Rights? Of course not, because it doesn't allow for this sort of insane wiggle room. Again, the Bible is worthless as a source of morality when its embedded with whoppers like these. So is the Qur'an.

Atheism has no book of rules, and indeed has no core philosophy at all other than the answer "no" to the question "Do you believe in god?". Atheism therefore commits no atrocities. An insane political ideology including atheism can however commit atrocities. The difference is that nothing in atheism is used to justify the atrocities. In the USSR, the source was Stalin's particularly unpleasant reading of Marx that deemed abolishment of religion was necessary to free the working class and successfully sustain communism. The Great Terror was correlated with Stalin's atheism, not caused by it. He wasn't able to justify it with any atheist verses because there are none. This is where atrocities committed by the religious in the name of god and the atrocities committed by atheists are fundamentally different. Getting rid of books by which people can justify their evil, especially _divine_ books, would stop a lot of evil from getting done.


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## Couchie

emiellucifuge said:


> In my current limited experience Couchie tends to ask penetrating questions but is less willing to expose his own ideas - lets see....


I won't deny that it is much more fun and comfortable to be the Inquisitor than the Inquisited... :tiphat:


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## Chi_townPhilly

Couchie said:


> Getting rid of books by which people can justify their evil, especially _divine_ books, would stop a lot of evil from getting done.


Getting *rid* of books??!

Hopefully this was an injudicious turn of phrase, 
and that a free-thinking humanist couldn't possibly have meant that!

Like the recommendations of Milton's _Aereopagitica_, I say let the books stand, reviewed and openly discussed on their own. Allow people to form their own conclusions on their studies.

Please keep in mind that I say this more as a matter of emotion than of logic. I have previously admitted elsewhere in this Forum that the sight of a book *(ANY book)* burning physically sickens me, and I have to turn away from viewing any such scene.

Yes, I'm definitely having an _emotional_ reaction to such a proposal.

I don't apologize for it.


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## Jacob Singer

DrMike said:


> But I notice you keep changing the definitions as we go to suit your needs.


Do I sense a little projection? It seems like you've been doing that for most of this thread. I obviously haven't.

You listed about three organizations of scientists TOTAL who have killed others in the name of science. Anyone with even a shred of intellectual honesty will admit that these were very rare and unusual cases, and represent an extremely tiny fraction _of a fraction_ of a percentage of scientists and their organizations. Can you at least admit that?

You listed about three "atheist" nation-states who have killed religious people, but what I find _really_ strange is how you had previously conceded the following: _"I'm not sure the Leninists and Stalinists were so dogmatically atheist, so much as they wanted complete control, and they saw religion as competing with that control, and therefore it had to go"_… but _then_ when it became convenient, you turned around and used my statements to the same effect in order to argue that I am downplaying the whole issue:



DrMike said:


> Then when I give you concrete examples of abuses by scientists and atheists, well, you redefine them to not apply. Suddenly an atheist state that murdered millions of people for being Christian, not to mention all the others they murdered for other reasons, is a "rare and extreme example from history."


Are you serious? Yes, this kind of thing from an atheist group absolutely _is_ a rare and extreme example, and one we have seen only a very few times in all of human history (not coincidentally all tied to the exact same political sources, and all occurring over a single relatively small time period of the 20th century). In contrast, we have seen the killing of a lot more people in the name of religion, and we have seen it consistently for two millennia, again and again _and again_, from a plethora of different societies, organizations, etc. (and with no apparent end in sight). There is simply no logical way you can place the one on par with the other, _especially_ if you are an honest scientist, as you claim.



DrMike said:


> Tell me, has it been religions that have persecuted you, or people who happen to be affiliated with religions?


So let me get this straight: your definition of religions are those organizations (which are groups of individuals, by the way) who behave _well_ in the name of their beliefs, while those who behave badly in the name of their beliefs are just _"people who happen to be affiliated with religions"_?

How convenient…

For someone who calls himself a scientist, I find your tactic of selectively manipulating the facts to be very strange. You cannot acknowledge the unspeakable amount of harm that has been caused (and continues to be caused every single day) in the name of religion, and instead you only focus on the few _extremely_ rare examples from history of scientists/atheists causing the same kind of harm in the name of their beliefs. That's about as unscientific as you can get. Furthermore, you've answered virtually none of my questions, and you just keep dodging one logical argument after another.


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## Couchie

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Getting *rid* of books??!
> 
> Hopefully this was an injudicious turn of phrase,
> and that a free-thinking humanist couldn't possibly have meant that!
> 
> Like the recommendations of Milton's _Aereopagitica_, I say let the books stand, reviewed and openly discussed on their own. Allow people to form their own conclusions on their studies.
> 
> Please keep in mind that I say this more as a matter of emotion than of logic. I have previously admitted elsewhere in this Forum that the sight of a book *(ANY book)* burning physically sickens me, and I have to turn away from viewing any such scene.
> 
> Yes, I'm definitely having an _emotional_ reaction to such a proposal.
> 
> I don't apologize for it.


 I am of course not suggesting confiscation and destruction of these holy texts. Rather that we get "rid" of them by disuse.

Also I do not identify as humanist. Humanist seems to be a label atheists apply to themselves to improve public perception. I don't know of any atheists which don't identify with most/all of Humanism's fundamentals, and I imagine people who don't would fall into the realms of other labels such as 'misanthropy' and 'psychopathy'.


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## Chi_townPhilly

For my part, I found the whole "scientists v. 'the religious'" juxtaposition a rather unsatisfying dichotomy.

To begin with, surely there are scientists who are religious, so the groups aren't mutually exclusive.

Secondly, it really is an "apples & oranges" comparison- contrasting a sizeable macro-group with an occupation.

Consider the comparison/contrast "custodians v. Germans."

Custodians aren't out there committing violence in the name of janitorial services at this time, but there are Germans in the world engaged in violent acts _right now_. (I'm sure there will be entries in the Police Blotters in Germany tomorrow morning, if nothing else.) (Of course, there are over 80 million Germans, so we can expect this to be true, just as it would be true of any other broad group consisting of tens of millions of people.)

At bottom, I'm not going to revile any broad group for exhibiting tendencies that would be unsurprising given the size of the sample. Also, although I think I can safely count some scientists among my friends, I hope they won't be offended by my saying that I don't think they have any special moral virtue compared to any other similar occupational group of comparable size and/or socio-economic status.


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## jurianbai

Couchie said:


> The bible calls for holy war, genocide, and other violence. It teaches wife submission and the execution of gays. The Qur'an is similar. Atheism has no book of recommended violence you can make a case for partaking in.


You are using your own approach to decide this manner, which is the present of a book. As Dr Mike said previously, use examples. Both side at one point failed in interpret their way of life. And as Dr Mike said, it is more a fail of the users.


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## Chi_townPhilly

I think we're destined for enough work with the idea of "do you or do you not believe in a Supreme Being" that the contention "defend or abjure the premise that The Bible is literally accurate" spins us into waffle that is an unnecessary complication to the discussion.

I don't expect that will discourage anyone from continuing discussion of The Bible in this manner- 
but I'm just sayin'...

I also notice atheists' tendency to refer to "the bible" as opposed to "the Qur'an." 
See, the Moslem holy book rates a capital-letter, but the Christian one doesn't. 
For now, I'll withhold speculation as to why this should be the case...


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## Rasa

Probably because a smaller percentage of Christians will bash your head in when you do then Muslims.


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## KaerbEmEvig

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I also notice atheists' tendency to refer to "the bible" as opposed to "the Qur'an."
> See, the Moslem holy book rates a capital-letter, but the Christian one doesn't.
> For now, I'll withhold speculation as to why this should be the case...


That's a blatant lie. I've checked every page of this thread to test this assertion. The Qu'ran has been mentioned just twice (post #222) by Couchie, who happens to spell The Bible varyingly. A huge sample pool - one person and two instances.:lol:


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## science

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I think we're destined for enough work with the idea of "do you or do you not believe in a Supreme Being" that the contention "defend or abjure the premise that The Bible is literally accurate" spins us into waffle that is an unnecessary complication to the discussion.
> 
> I don't expect that will discourage anyone from continuing discussion of The Bible in this manner-
> but I'm just sayin'...
> 
> I also notice atheists' tendency to refer to "the bible" as opposed to "the Qur'an."
> See, the Moslem holy book rates a capital-letter, but the Christian one doesn't.
> For now, I'll withhold speculation as to why this should be the case...


If you mean a widespread cultural phenomenon, I think the explanation may be that people who know enough to talk about the Koran also know enough to use capitalization correctly.


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## jurianbai

KaerbEmEvig said:


> That's a blatant lie. I've checked every page of this thread to test this assertion. The Qu'ran has mentioned just twice (post #222) by Couchie, who happens to spell The Bible varyingly. A huge sample pool - one person and two instances.:lol:


but one is enough for a sample in this thread..:devil:


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## Chi_townPhilly

science said:


> If you mean a widespread cultural phenomenon, I think the explanation may be that people who know enough to talk about the Koran also know enough to use capitalization correctly.


I'm willing to consider the possibility. That's why I withheld further comment at that time.


Rasa said:


> Probably becuase a smaller percentage of Christians will bash your head in when you do than Muslims.


And _this_ thought crossed my mind, too.

Apologies in advance to atheists who can discuss contrary beliefs without directly insulting them, but I have in the past seen a tendency on the part of some atheists to reserve the strongest of their venom for Christianity. I've taken note that more than a few delight in the insults. _Again, if you are not one of those atheists that tends to do this, the above comment is not intended to refer to your views in particular, nor Atheism as a whole._ As *Rasa* intimated, though, I don't think it's a particularly controversial statement to say that insults and belittling of the Muslim religion is an activity that puts one at greater personal risk, nowadays. Consequently, the obvious conclusions will be drawn when we see that Islam is insulted quite a bit less than Christianity lately.


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## Guest

Well it seems I have posts coming at me from multiple directions that are seeking my comment. Rather than quote each individually, I'll try to answer them here.

First of all, because I happen to be religious does not mean that I am going to defend the virtue of every religion that has ever existed on this earth. My own perspective is that of a Christian. I make no claims regarding others.

Regarding the Bible - the comments criticizing it betray a lack of understanding as to how most Christians interpret the Bible. Many teachings and commandments were given over the centuries that are recorded in the Bible. Some were given for very specific instances - much of the commandments revolving around war and battle are in conjunction with the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, and not meant to imply some perpetual global domination and subjugation. Furthermore, to dismiss changes in what we are commanded based on the few utterances of Jesus is really quite absurd. Christianity is based on the utterances of Jesus! It is the foundation for the differences between the Christian and Jewish faith! These aren't just a few marginal changes. The Bible, as Christians understand it, tells of God's first covenant with the Israelites, which was fulfilled with Christ, who then established a new covenant.

I can't comment on Muslim theology - I read the Koran once in college for a History of Civilization course, but don't honestly remember that much. But suffice it to say that the vast majority of Muslims in the world aren't seeking to die with a bomb strapped to their bodies.

I already admitted that atrocities committed by atheists - such as in the USSR - didn't reflect any atheist ideology. It was people using atheism to rationalize their motives. I have been asking, though, that people acknowledge the same with regards to atrocities committed in the name of religion in the past. Take the crusades, for example. Any honest student of history knows that one of the major reasons behind these crusades wasn't so much taking the Holy Land back, so much as solving ongoing political squabbles. And there was also the desire to push back the encroaching Muslim armies that were pushing in on Europe from both the east and the west.

But seriously - the Bible proscribes all kinds of violence against people? When exactly did the Inquisitions commence? Was this a common practice throughout the entire history of Christianity, or a relatively short period (like the argument that the killing of millions of Christians in the USSR should be discredited because it was a statistically insignificant moment in time, if not a statistically insignificant number of people killed)?

People determined to oppress other people always look for a justification. Religion has been used in the past, and now we also know that atheism and science have been also used. The Nazis perverted scientific ideas to claim that the elimination of undesirables was nothing more than protecting the species. The USSR used a belief that atheism was the ideal ideology based on logic and reason, and that it was beneficial to eliminate those who didn't see this. Experiments concerning syphilis were conducted on poor prison inmates in Guatemala and poor black men in Alabama because it was important to understand the disease, and they were using people that didn't matter to society. Leaders in Europe, beginning with Constantine, saw the usefulness of combining Christianity with their political ambitions. Religion had a stronger ability to combine large disparate groups than ethnicity or political boundaries.

People have made the claim that religious documents (the Bible, the Koran) have been used by people to justify atrocious actions, and Couchie wishes that they would be rejected by people for that reason. So that is the standard? Have people not misused Darwin's Origin to justify horrible ideologies - eugenics, forced sterilization, Social Darwinism? Let's do away with Darwin's hate-inspiring book! Wait, no, that would be stupid, because I can distinguish between what the book teaches and how people have manipulated what was written to justify their bad behavior. Apparently enlightened atheists can't do the same with regards to the Bible. I question why the entire history of Christianity is portrayed as one continual round of abuse and murder? Let us ignore those who follow the Christian teaching to love your enemies, to pray for those who despitefully use you, to turn the other cheek, to lover their neighbors as themselves, to not only kill, but to not even entertain angry thoughts against another, to not only not commit adultery, but not even look on another with lustful thought. There seems to be a discrepancy between these teachings and the historical record of state religion - and oddly enough it seems that the worst abuses come when religion is tied in with politics. Or when atheism is tied in with politics. Or when science is tied in with politics. When you separate those from politics, much of the abuse seems to disappear. Hmmmm, anybody else here sensing a pattern?

No, wait, that doesn't fit with the official line here of religion bad, science/atheism good.


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## science

Equating science with atheism is a mistake. 

Equating Darwin's writings with evolutionary theory is also a mistake.

Otherwise, it was a pretty good post.


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## Couchie

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Apologies in advance to atheists who can discuss contrary beliefs without directly insulting them, but I have in the past seen a tendency on the part of some atheists to reserve the strongest of their venom for Christianity. I've taken note that more than a few delight in the insults. _Again, if you are not one of those atheists that tends to do this, the above comment is not intended to refer to your views in particular, nor Atheism as a whole._ As *Rasa* intimated, though, I don't think it's a particularly controversial statement to say that insults and belittling of the Muslim religion is an activity that puts one at greater personal risk, nowadays. Consequently, the obvious conclusions will be drawn when we see that Islam is insulted quite a bit less than Christianity lately.


There is probably truth to this when it comes to public figures and journalists, but for online anonymous discussion I believe it is mostly a function of the fact that most people come from developed countries where Christianity is the dominant religion, and therefore affected day-to-day by Christianity's shortcomings, and those of Christians, rather than those of Islam. They're much more familiar with Christianity's history and theology than Islam. Also, many atheists (such as myself) were Christian in the past, and left the religion, and therefore have an existing stockpile of anti-Christianity arguments acquired when they became disillusioned and left the religion.


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## Guest

science said:


> Equating science with atheism is a mistake.
> 
> Equating Darwin's writings with evolutionary theory is also a mistake.
> 
> Otherwise, it was a pretty good post.


I wasn't equating Darwin's writings with evolutionary theory - in fact, most who misappropriated his writings for nefarious purposes were more interested in his concept of natural selection and survival of the fittest than any grand explanation for the existence of all life. It was their rationale to prune out what they saw as non-beneficial genetics from the gene pool.

And I agree - as I said before - that science does not equal atheism. I am a scientist, and work with other scientists who, while not necessarily as strong practicing as I, are religious. And there are many other examples. There is nothing that says the two must be mutually exclusive outside of some who like to use controversies to gain popularity and sell books (and I am not singling out atheists or scientists in this matter, as there are religious people who like to exploit the divide between the two for their own purposes).

Honestly, I don't want for there to be this battle of science vs. religion (or, more aptly put, scientists vs. religious people). I think both sides have things to offer. Science has helped our understanding of the world and made life a lot more comfortable for us. Religion has its benefits as well. Ethics in science is many times driven by moral objections, which come quite often from religious groups. Sure, you may think that sometimes they push back too far, but I think we all know the danger of not pushing back far enough. Religion, used properly, has also done more than its fair share in alleviating suffering in this world. As mentioned earlier, atheist charitable agencies, or scientific charitable organizations, are insignificantly small compared to the charitable efforts of various religious groups. This is probably largely influenced by the fact that there are no organized atheist organizations like there are religious groups, and no formal admonition for atheists to perform charitable acts, as there are for certain religious groups.

So long as all sides understand the abilities and limitations of their positions, there need not be conflict. And really, it seems ridiculous for each side to completely discredit the other and act as if they have nothing of value to say in the conversation.


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## emiellucifuge

Do our morals really come from religion?

Surely there are much more interesting and fulfilling mystical traditions than the 'big' organised religions? If youre looking for a more personal and spiritual side to balance a scientific rationale.


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## Guest

Couchie said:


> To be honest I didn't expect you to have to read the article, but already be familiar with the phenomenon.
> 
> This is one of strongest evidences for common descent, but it is recent and more difficult to understand than fossils or comparative anatomy, and therefore under-appreciated. A quick rundown (written in simple terms for others as well who don't have your background):
> 
> 
> Some viruses, _retroviruses_, are capable of inserting their own DNA into your genome. HIV-1 is an example.
> The viruses' DNA consists of functional genes flanked by Long Terminal Repeats (LTRs). The LTRs have short repeated DNA sequences repeated thousands of times (ie: GAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAAGAA..)
> If this happens in the reproductive cells, then your offspring will bear the viral genome.
> Every time DNA replicates, mutations occur randomly. These mutations can eventually deactivate the viral genes in your genome so it is no longer harmful, however, it will remain in your genome and continue to be passed down to your children and your children's children.
> This is not speculation, nor rare on grand timescales. Hundreds of viral DNA sequences have been identified in the human genome. About 1% of the human genome is believed to have been contributed by retroviruses.
> Now the random mutations will also occur in the LTRs. Remember their simple repeating pattern, mutations are easily detected. Random mutation occurs on average at a fixed rate, identified in the above paper as 0.13% difference every million years.
> Therefore the viral insertions are essentially time-stamped as to when the host was originally infected. More mutation = older, less mutation = newer.
> The DNA between the LTRs is specific to different viruses. Therefore the viruses can be both distinguished, and dated.
> Let's bring up the human and chimpanzee genomes. There are some insertions that humans have and chimps don't. The level of mutation in the LTRs is relatively low. This means that the human lineage was infected separately from chimps, recently.
> But there are some insertions that both chimps and humans share. The same virus inserted into the exact same location on the human and chimpanzee. It's LTRs are mutated more heavily than the human-only virus, indicating it's older. Given the billions of base pairs and that the virus inserts into an essentially random location, the probability that the same viruses infected both chimps and humans separately at the same time and inserted into the exact same location on the genome is extremely unlikely. Given multiple cases of this, the probabilities approach impossibility. The only explanation is that a human-chimpanzee ancestor was infected, and then later the chimpanzees and humans diverged.
> We can continue this process by then going and comparing with other primates. Humans and gibbons are less similar, and only share very old and heavily mutated insertions. The upshot is that the viral insertions retrace the evolutionary tree as already drawn by much older evidence. Incredible isn't it that Darwin had no conception of biochemistry and genetics yet genetics perfectly provides his required mechanism, and continues to provide evidence supporting common descent in agreement with evidence from fossils, anatomy, and other independent sources.


Honestly, I don't know what to say here. It seems really interesting, and there are a lot of compelling aspects to this evidence. For one, the chance that the virus would insert in the same relative space in different species is pretty low.

Some thoughts that come to mind would be to ask how prevalent throughout the genome these HERV sequences are - are there copies elsewhere in the genomes of these different species, and are those other insertions also in relatively the same positions? Is there something special about this particular insertion location that would increase the likelihood of finding the sequence here? At what frequency do they see elimination of these sequences from the host genomes? Does insertion at these particular site confer some beneficial effect to the host that could alternatively explain why it should be find in this same location in different species? Perhaps the insertion may serve as a promoter to increase expression of some downstream protein that confers a selective advantage? Or alters the DNA secondary structure in some way that benefits the host?

I'm also not as familiar with these viruses - I don't know how likely they are to infect sex cells. There are a variety of factors that impact what cells a virus can infect. I don't know how many different kinds can infect sex cells.

And I guess the final question that I noticed in reading about this is whether these insertions are in other animal genomes more distantly related than primates. I don't know whether there has been a similar search, or if analyses thus far have been limited to humans and non-human primates. I know there are a few species that have had their genomes completely sequenced, so that might be interesting to look at.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Do our morals really come from religion?
> 
> Surely there are much more interesting and fulfilling mystical traditions than the 'big' organised religions? If youre looking for a more personal and spiritual side to balance a scientific rationale.


If you read my post again, you will notice I didn't say that morals come from religion - I stress this because I made certain to not say that. What I said was that many of the ethical debates in science have been triggered by moral objections raised by religious groups. Where the morals originate is irrelevant to that statement - merely that in many instances the moral objection is raised by a religious group. I personally don't think that morals come from religion, but are inherent in all of us. Religions provide codes of conduct for living our lives, among other things. But morality is not unique to any one religion.


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## KaerbEmEvig

DrMike said:


> If you read my post again, you will notice I didn't say that morals come from religion - I stress this because I made certain to not say that. What I said was that many of the ethical debates in science have been triggered by moral objections raised by religious groups. Where the morals originate is irrelevant to that statement - merely that in many instances the moral objection is raised by a religious group. I personally don't think that morals don't come from religion, but are inherent in all of us. Religions provide codes of conduct for living our lives, among other things. But morality is not unique to any one religion.


I think DrMike is right here, although it often (way too often) goes too far (stem cells are a prominent example).


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## emiellucifuge

Okay fair enough, I mis-read your post!


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## science

DrMike said:


> Religion has its benefits as well. Ethics in science is many times driven by moral objections, which come quite often from religious groups. Sure, you may think that sometimes they push back too far, but I think we all know the danger of not pushing back far enough. Religion, used properly, has also done more than its fair share in alleviating suffering in this world. As mentioned earlier, atheist charitable agencies, or scientific charitable organizations, are insignificantly small compared to the charitable efforts of various religious groups. This is probably largely influenced by the fact that there are no organized atheist organizations like there are religious groups, and no formal admonition for atheists to perform charitable acts, as there are for certain religious groups.
> 
> So long as all sides understand the abilities and limitations of their positions, there need not be conflict. And really, it seems ridiculous for each side to completely discredit the other and act as if they have nothing of value to say in the conversation.


I think I disagree with this. If you can say "Religion - Politics = Religion" then I can say "Religion - charity = Religion." My wife and I (both atheists) donate hundreds of dollars each month to charity, in addition to occasionally donating our time, and so do other non-religious people around the world (such as Bill Gates).

In my own opinion, the only thing religion is uniquely good at is creating strong loyalties. Modern states have adopted a lot of religion's techniques for doing this, but still aren't quite as successful as religion.

But I'm not sure that's a good thing. So I'm not sure that we wouldn't be better off without religion.


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## Guest

science said:


> I think I disagree with this. If you can say "Religion - Politics = Religion" then I can say "Religion - charity = Religion." My wife and I (both atheists) donate hundreds of dollars each month to charity, in addition to occasionally donating our time, and so do other non-religious people around the world (such as Bill Gates).
> 
> In my own opinion, the only thing religion is uniquely good at is creating strong loyalties. Modern states have adopted a lot of religion's techniques for doing this, but still aren't quite as successful as religion.
> 
> But I'm not sure that's a good thing. So I'm not sure that we wouldn't be better off without religion.


Again, this all depends on whether you simply lump all religions into one giant melting pot, as if they all had the same general beliefs and acted in the same way. But clearly they do not. Even the 3 major monotheistic religions that share a common origin - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - are drastically different in so many ways. Buddhism is different than those. Hinduism is as well. And so on.

For certain religions, you might be able to separate charity from them, but for Christianity in particular - the only one I feel comfortable commenting on in detail - charity is explicitly commanded as part of the fundamental doctrine. In contrast, using Christianity for political gains is not. So yes, you can take the political aspect out (and you should), and Christianity is still Christianity. But if you take out the charity, then it is no longer Christianity. The single-most important act at the center of the Christian faith - the sacrifice of Jesus to save mankind - is the ultimate example of charity for Christians, and to somehow think that that charity can be separated from the doctrine is wrong.

That being said - I never implied that others don't give. I made the point that religious groups often have more infrastructure built in to support charity - due to doctrinal issues. Other groups outside of this can give just as easily, but I made the point that there are less official atheist or scientific charitable foundations. It goes hand in hand with what I said earlier - morality does not come from any religion. It is something we all have by virtue of our membership in the human race (we will probably disagree as to how it is there, but that is a debate for another time) - some people are more attentive to their moral compass than others. The lines are not strictly drawn along the lines of religious vs. non-believing.

I think that religion can do more than merely inspire loyalty. Again, I don't presume to speak for all religions, but religion, properly practiced, can inspire people to better actions. I'm not exactly sure what aspects of religion have been co-opted into modern states - I'd ask you to expound upon that, because I'm not sure I see it.


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## science

I didn't say that religions can "merely" inspire loyalty. Obviously they can do many more things. But that is their unique strength, whereas morality and charity are obviously not. The point, like you pointed out, is enhanced when we look at other religions. I was commenting on religion, not Christianity. 

You should be aware that although the sacrifice of Jesus is the center of your version of Christianity, in other traditions the incarnation or the resurrection are relatively more central. The incarnation is probably rarely mentioned in your traditionl. 

If you look at states five hundred years ago and compare them to states today, you'll see the point. Now we have national rituals, nationalist hymns, nationalist "holy" days (holidays), parades ~ processions, national monuments ~ sacred sites, some of them very obviously in the form of temples, and we take "pilgrimages" to them, creeds ~ oaths of allegiance. The military has conscripted dance (not necessarily an obvious part of Christianity, depending on your tradition, but important in most traditions) in the form of marching, and uses many rituals.


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## Ravellian

After being more or less forced to be Christian throughout my earlier life, I am now a devout atheist. I still have full respect for theists, though.. one's religion should always be a personal decision.


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## Guest

science said:


> I didn't say that religions can "merely" inspire loyalty. Obviously they can do many more things. But that is their unique strength, whereas morality and charity are obviously not. The point, like you pointed out, is enhanced when we look at other religions. I was commenting on religion, not Christianity.
> 
> You should be aware that although the sacrifice of Jesus is the center of your version of Christianity, in other traditions the incarnation or the resurrection are relatively more central. The incarnation is probably rarely mentioned in your traditionl.
> 
> If you look at states five hundred years ago and compare them to states today, you'll see the point. Now we have national rituals, nationalist hymns, nationalist "holy" days (holidays), parades ~ processions, national monuments ~ sacred sites, some of them very obviously in the form of temples, and we take "pilgrimages" to them, creeds ~ oaths of allegiance. The military has conscripted dance (not necessarily an obvious part of Christianity, depending on your tradition, but important in most traditions) in the form of marching, and uses many rituals.


The central point of most of Christianity is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That involves various aspects, but most mainstream Christian faiths accept it as the intercession of Christ to allow forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

I'm not sure how you make the connection between religions and those practices of various states, but I think your comparisons are a bit strained. Beginning 500 years ago and going back, there were considerably fewer states than there are today. You had some large empires, and some smaller states, but not like today. But national rituals seem to date back at least as far back as nations do. The word "holiday" is an English word, and to imply anything because of a term that, historically, would not have been used by very many nations, is a stretch. Nations will celebrate the date of their founding, but mankind in general likes to celebrate important events. Unless you are going to imply that celebration of birthdays is also a construct of religion, this point is a bit shaky. As for processions, well, again, how do you claim this is a religious construct? I believe that conquerors would parade into vanquished cities, and then also back into their own nations to receive praise for their actions.

National monuments? Really? These really are stretches. People like to erect monuments for various reasons - pride, memorials, you name it. And some people like to go visit them. These aren't inherently religious practices. Creeds are the creation of religion? Oaths of allegiance? Without religion you don't think that leaders would require their subjects to swear oaths of allegiance? And military marching a form of dance? I thought it was a way to instill discipline, and as a practical matter, a disciplined and ordered marching force is probably much easier to transport from place to place than one that meanders randomly. Marches for display then show the discipline of the men, as well as project the image of power, both to the ruler, as well as to any potential enemies. Not because some religions were fond of dancing.

These really are some stretches to try and lay blame at the feet of religion for more and more of the world's problems. This is perhaps more a reflection of a hypothesis seeking data. You have the preconceived notion already in your head, so now you look for anything that might possibly fit that narrative, and you see associations that aren't really there. I guess I don't really see the need of scientists and atheists to attribute as many historical problems as possible to religion - the ideology most recently touted by Chris Hitchens in his God Is Not Great book, casting blame for all of the problems of civilization at the feet of religion. Kind of some unifying theory of religious blame, you could say. Give blame where blame is due, but these exaggerations and grasping at straws really seem ridiculous.


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## science

I wasn't blaming religion for anything. Why do you consistently and maliciously misinterpret my posts?


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## Chi_townPhilly

Okay... this is getting painful.
I think this thread could benefit from a "time-out."
(This decision is more pre-emptive than reactive, 
because we're on the precipice of having this really go "critical mass.")

Temporarily closed.


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