DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Question for the Religious....

Theology isn't my field, but I don't think the New Testament forbids one from feigning acceptance of evolutionary theory in order to pass a higher education class. Nor does it preclude the possibility of a creator or intelligent design behind evolution. Any complaint one can come up with is undoubtedly sour grapes over a society not catering to their viewpoint. No one is forced to accept anything. We have sparkling freedom of speech rights. The best in the world. Same for religious freedom as well. These type of baseless claims of persecution are frankly an insult to those around the world who are, in fact, forced against the will of their faith.

That makes sense.

i don't have an issue with it being taught. i do have an issue with some wanting either or exclusively taught in schools.

Covering every belief systems' idea of their creation story does not belong in the science classroom. It's much more harmful to actual science education than many think. Teach ID in a theology class in highschool. No hard physical evidence backs any creation myth from any religion.

Any school that receives taxpayer dollars is a public school, not just the ones that receive the most. I have no problem with a private school teaching whatever it wants to the kids that pay tuition as long as taxpayer money isn't subsidizing the cost.

I worry that if we put the Bible in a mythology class that Christians would be more upset than if we just didn't mention the Bible at all in school. Worth an experiment though

I'll be your first subject then. Put me in that group. I work at home and I take my kids to church to learn about the Bible and faith. I don't need a teacher, whose personal beliefs I do not know, teaching my kids about the Bible.

Because it's not the role of public schools to teach the merits of theology. It's to give children the tools to succeed after they graduate.



He could have. And once we find evidence of that I'm more than willing to have that discussion. Being open minded is a key tenant of any scientific research and discovery. But until then, there is no reason to discuss things outside the known model because there is no testable and provable method by which to model it. It's unscientific. The only reason Creation Scientists argue the age of the earth and how life originated the way they do is because of something written down in a book. That is not science.



Not entirely true on gravity. Gravity has been known for a long time and was accepted shortly after Newton proposed his laws (9.8m/s^2 on Earth) but later when Einstein developed his theories of relatively we find that while Newton was close, his model broke down once you added the fourth dimension of time. And as we learn about new facets of our universe such as sub atomic particles and quantum mechanics, old formulas will be found to be close, or not close at all. And then we will update said formulas.

I'm not saying there isn't a God, but to assume there is one is dogmatism, not science. To assume there is one is based on the Bible as ultimate authority. And it's not close-mindedness that bothers me about it, but arrogance. You reduce the origins of the universe to a personal decision, not a scientific one.

I agree with you. I want my child to learn about religion because I think he should make up his own mind about the world around him. But I want him to learn it from qualified theologians and family, not someone reading a footnote in a mythology book. Modern Christianity and Islam are too large to reduce to that. So to that end, yes, I'd be more upset about my child learning from a mythos class than not learning it in school at all

To assume there isn't a God is also dogmatic. I don't assume there is one, but I don't rule out the possibility of a higher power.

I can somewhat see where you're coming from with the changing formulas for gravity, but evolution doesn't really even seem to have formulas in its "laws".

If the Public schools job is to prepare kids to succeed afterwards, it's doing a pretty poor job. Now if it's trying to teach people to regurgitate information to answer questions on standardized testing, it's okay. How does limiting students from asking certain questions and stifling their curiosity help them succeed?

Creation Scientists argue for a young earth because if they pick and choose which facts to use they can make it fit. Evolutionists do the same thing for an old earth. I fail to see the difference.

Explain the presence of multitudes of fossils of deep ocean organisms on top of mountaintops without a global flood.

What if you get a girl preggers and she kills your baby against your wishes?

Don't like child molesters ....don't be, one and don't complain about others who do.

Don't like murder don't commit it... but dont complain about others who do.

Don't like rape.... dont commit it, but dont complain about others who do.

Hey some people don't see anything wrong with molesting kids, raping women, or murdering others so why should your beliefs be forced on them?

my list doesn't violate anybody's rights.

your's does.

come on bro....

Agreed, to believe in atheism is also dogmatic. Heck I still believe in a God for no really valid reason at this point other than I kinda do, but I think the reason many people become atheists is because of lack of evidence.



I think alot of that is because Evolution is a scientific explanation for why life is what it is today. Laws are mechanisms with which to described phenomena, but by themselves make no explanation as to why. Newtons second law states that Force = mass * acceleration but it doesn't explain why that is. And I think this language difference is where people get caught up, assuming that a law is "proven true" and a theory is not. To be honest neither is absolutely true, evolution because we have not observed the entire system yet; and the second law of motion because it does not take into account quantum mechanics.



Oh we can talk about the effectiveness of public schools all day. I was just stating their charter. I asked several questions about religion in public school and was never once told I can't talk about it. In many instances the class got involved with the discussion.



There is no equivalent of Evolution Scientist to Creation Scientist. There are evolutionists and creationists, but Creation Science deals only in finding evidence to support the literal translation of the Bible. Evolution is backed by scores of archaeologists, astronomers, biologists, geologists, etc. Scientists who make data fit are called out on it by other, better scientists. It's not about making the data fit. It's about whether or not the hypothesis fits the data. And due to peer review and reductive testing, we should be able to sniff out a bad study using the scientific method.

And we can talk about the accuracy of radiometric dating and aging, but when two sides are talking about an earth age difference of 75 MILLION percent, this isn't just a case of someone not carrying the 1. And instead of coming up with their own alternatives to dating, creationists just attack established methods. If they had a viable dating model that would explain the age of the earth to be 6000 years I'd be all for reading that paper. Instead their papers are just on trying to punch holes in established methods, usually with faulty testing scenarios. Their best explanation for the age of the earth is that the known laws of the universe changed with no evidence to support this claim.



Are you asking about the whale fossils in the Andes mountains? Mountains were formed due to tectonic shift from the earths plates. This is fairly accepted geological stuff. So whales died in the ocean, their carcasses fossilized, and then tectonic shift made the mountains, taking the now fossilized remains with them.

That's because you don't think the baby should have rights, some people do.

Yup. I believe in my heart of hearts that you are killing the baby even if it's in the womb. When I saw my son for the first time on ultrasound there was no doubt to me that he was a living person even at only 14 weeks. I do think there are valid reasons why a mother may want to abort a baby and we should respect the mothers wishes. But abortion is quite a moral gray area. Personally I think once the fetus is able to survive outside the womb it transitions from being a part of the mother to being its own person.

It violates the Baby's and the fathers bro.

Read up on the Quiverfull movement, you'll care...

My hang up comes back to the millions of years. If you don't believe in "God", then millions of years is pretty much the only possibility that makes any sense whatsoever. You can't prove "God", so "Science" doesn't take the possibility into account. Radioactive decay dates make sense (in a broad sense, not necessarily as far as accuracy) if millions of years are a given. If you believe "God" is all powerful, eternal, etc. or at least admit the possibility, He could have created items with whatever combination of isotopes he wanted through "supernatural" means.

It's the time factor that I just can't see as obvious. There are natural phenomena that occur now that we still don't fully understand. Weather forecasters are wrong just as often as they are right (especially if you live in Ohio.) If they can't predict what is happening tomorrow with accuracy, how do we know what environmental conditions were like over the course of millions of years? How do you take changing ocean currents into account in a laboratory controlled dating experiment?

I can't explain the very beginning without some higher power. There are no examples of spontaneous generation of anything without some external influence. If there has to be some higher power, then the millions of years aren't a given. There could be some other explanation that I'm not aware of, but I haven't heard it yet. I'm not saying I know what the exact answer is- I definitely don't. I just don't see evolution and the millions of years paradigm as presenting anything near a complete understanding.

As far as ocean fossils, I wasn't referring to a specific mountain range. They are found in ranges all over the globe. Geology/Evolution both require the millions of years which I don't really want to re-hash again. We've reached the point in this discussion where it pretty much feels like we're just running around in circles.

That's a cute thought lmao

Because the theory of intelligent design is not based on science. It's based on religion.

Supernatural means...LOL No such thingy

Natural selection is completely natural in the nature of all living organisms. This could have been by design. Why discount it. If you believe that god created all things he could have designed natural selection as well. Just saying.

Intelligent design is not based on religion. It is based on the fact that there is absolutely no other, mathematically possible, way to start life. There has to be a creator, whether you call that creator God, or Allah, or Bob for that matter, the fact remains that the chances of life "just appearing all by itself" is so mathematically remote as to be all but completely impossible. Evolution has no answer for how life began, except for an impossible proposition.

I mean, there once was a puddle of goo ..... and then it decided to become alive? Really? I would bet that there are better odds of you or I fathering a completely new form of life in a new universe than life in this universe just suddenly appearing out of nothing.

No matter where else we go from the beginning, the beginning matters. According to evolution, a puddle of glop just somehow went from a puddle of chemicals, to a living being, all by itself. That is as impossible as can be. The odds are 1 in 10 to the 340,000,000th (10 with 340 million zeroes behind it) power against. I don't know if I could type out that many zeroes in this year. It did not happen. It cannot happen. There had to be a designer. It is the only logical explanation. Teaching that there is not a creator, whatever you call this creator, defies logic.

So, evolution begins with the idea that we evolved from nothing into life, and then from life into what we see all around us today. However, the very beginning of this theory is so flawed that the rest also has to be questioned.

If life began on earth, then how? If life began elsewhere in the universe, then the same question remains, how? The only logical explanation is that there is a creator, from outside of this universe, that created life as we know it. To argue otherwise is to argue an illogical point.

I could say that a computer program, say, maybe, Microsoft Office, is a marvelous example of self creation, and how incredible it is that it just appeared out of nothing, but people would laugh at me. Why? Because the very concept is ludicrous. Yet the idea that life, (an infinitely more complex creation) was created out of nothing, beyond all possible odds of it happening, is "science".

That is a religious belief. Logical or not.....IT'S NOT BASED ON SCIENCE. So it can't be taught in a science class in a public school.

Puddle of glop and chemicals LOL... It's called bacteria. This world is full bacteria and they are the building blocks of life. Humans are the icing on the top. Doesn't mean your "God" or your "creator" didn't have evolution in mind all along by design does it?

It is not only a religious view.

It is all but mathematically impossible for the universe, and life, to have self created. There has to have been a creator of some sort.

Once more, the odds against life self creating are 1 in 10 to the 34 millionth power. (that is 10 followed by 34 million zeros) I is a mathematical impossibility. Not an improbability, but the chances are so mathematically improbable as to render it realistically impossible.

Life did not begin as a puddle of goo suddenly deciding to become alive. Something or someone created life. Again, whether you call this entity creator, God, Allah, or Sam .... there is a creator. it is the only mathematically possible, realistic solution to the problem. Self creation is all but impossible. There is some ridiculously low chance, but like I said, a computer with no programming suddenly creating, on its own, Microsoft Office, probably has better odds.

It did not happen. It is as close t impossible as anything could be, and closer to impossible than just about anything else in this universe. However, this is being taught as fact in our schools. It is ridiculous. The universe had a creator. It is the only realistic, reasonable explanation.

An article from last Christmas for your perusal.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-metaxas-science-increasingly-makes-the-case-for-god-1419544568

Dec. 25, 2014 4:56 p.m. ET
9365 COMMENTS
In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself.

Here’s the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 27 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.

With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researchers have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”

As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.

Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.

Mr. Metaxas is the author, most recently, of “Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life” ( Dutton Adult, 2014).

Correction

An earlier version understated the number of zeroes in an octillion and a septillion.

What created the bacteria?

What created God?

Checkmate. Athiests 1 God 0.

God always existed. God is. He exists outside of time and space, and is so far beyond our understanding that we could sooner figure out on our own how to create a planet with our own 2 hands long before we could ever understand the infinite, all powerful, all knowing, and eternal nature of God.

More on the odds of "chance" creation:

http://worldview3.50webs.com/mathprfcosmos.html

Probability and Order Versus Evolution | The Institute for Creation Research
http://www.icr.org/article/probability-order-versus-evolution/

There are hundreds more out there if you care to read them.

For me, the greatest odds are that I need to go over to my mom's house. Thus, since I am unable to psychically interact with my laptop, (though the odds are probably as good as life just appearing) I will have to pick this up later.

I said "supernatural" not magic faerie dust. We're not talking Sam and Dean "Supernatural". I was using it as an adjective referring to the definition: "of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity." #Webster

Link

(I've been spending way too much time reading facebook/twitter recently.)

As soon as I stop laughing at your spelling, I'll explain the "Christian" thinking to you. (I'm not trying to denigrate you, typos happen. Just a bit of situational comedy to me.) I also think it's proper form to declare check before going straight to checkmate.

The Bible defines God as omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. He is not bound by the laws of physics. At least the Bible makes an attempt to explain the very beginning (of time), unlike Atheists (that's e, i, Atheist) who simply avoid mentioning it. I'm not implying the Bible is right.

In one ear out the other. Last word...If you believe god created all things you must also believe natural selection was intentional in our creation. You can't have one without the other.

LOL... 1st century human explanations. Give me a break.

Is it possible that religion was invented thousands of years ago as a tool to help create and uphold social order as the human population continued to grow? I mean what if the Bible was just written by a group of scholars that then went on to swear it true, and for the last few thousand years it's just stuck and people accept it as truth. That's not necessarily what I believe, but to me, it's a logical explanation for how religion originated and I certainly believe its a possibility. Thoughts?

It's a possibility, but I think the opposite is also possible. Just replace the Bible with Evolution in your scenario.

I'm not really for or against the Bible or Evolution. I'm just not willing to rule either out.

Your analysis is breathtaking. Thank you for adding to the discussion.

"Scientists" thought Galileo's ideas were laughable, too.

I don't consider belief in God and belief in deep time (earth being billions of years old) to be at odds with one another. It is only at odds when one takes a literal position on the Bible, a document which also says in the old testament to stone your children when they talk back at you. It is hard enough for modern man to comprehend deep time, so why would God supply a literal answer to his followers?



You do an experiment the best you can with the best technology and knowledge you have. If the experiment fits within good scientific method that is all that is required for the findings to contain merit. When another scientist comes along and says hey there's a variable here you missed, and proves that to be true, then you need to update the prior experiment. But neither experiment was faulty.

What you seem to be getting hung up on is that because man can't explain everything, that means that we must give credence to a supernatural being. But which one? Christianity's God? Allah? Buddha?



Yea deep time by it's nature will have gaps, incomplete understanding, new information that challenges prior findings, etc. It's far easier to look at natural science as a group of detectives trying to figure out the past. Sometimes in cop shows the good guys finger the wrong person before they find the right one. Same in science. It doesn't mean the scientists are faulty or incorrect. Just means that their first assumption was wrong.

But history as told by the Bible has gaps too. Heck there is even a "Gap Theory." Are you familiar with it?

http://www.kjvbible.org/gap_theory.html



So instead of discussing the age of the earth directly, lets talk a bit about gut feelings then, if I may. For me the actual age is not terribly important. What is important to me is that we use good techniques and methods to learn as much as we can about our environment. Not just for philosophical questions, but for technological advancements too. Learning what we can about the past can apply to future results. If we start injecting bad science into these processes we will end up with bad results, holding back human advancement. If we come back later and say hey this method was wrong, then let's fix it using the new information we find. But taking a pre-existing position and trying to fit data to that (even when other data invalidates your position) is not science, and it can even be dangerous.

Biochemistry is not probability. To claim that life synthesized from chance is false. And to claim that there is absolutely no other way for life to begin without a God is the fallacy of incredulity.

We don't know what the earth was like when first life arrived. We don't know what materials were present when first life arrived. And we don't know how much of this material was present. So your probability doesn't take into account how many attempts at life would be taking place simultaneously. Nor does the probability take into account a potential intermediate state from say proteinoid microspheres to modern cellular structures.

I agree with pretty much everything you are saying here. I'm just not certain that evolution is entirely good science. Observation is a large part of the scientific method. You can't really apply it to the past. I'm all for knowing as much as we can about everything, not just our environment. I'm just not sure the modern environment allows us to infer as much as "scientists" do about the past. We are so much more technologically advanced now than we (we as inhabitants of earth) were in any previous era. How do radio waves affect radiation? Just looking at the etymology of the words, you'd think they would affect each other. We have radio waves all over the place now. I've worked with high powered radio frequency in the military. Trust me, you don't have it set up right, you can fry something across a room with nothing but radio waves. I'm assuming lower power rf would still have effects. We've done sub-surface radio testing. We've got industrial emissions, acid rain, nuclear fallout, all kinds of crazy changes that aren't taken into account in the variables of dating experiments. Have dating methods been tested around Nagasaki or Hiroshima?

I agree about the dangers, I just think you are doing some ignoring of your own somewhat in regards to evolution.

You're making my argument for me.

To be verbose I could say something along the lines of "to the best of our data modelling, conjecture, and knowledge, we suggest the age of the earth to be 4.54 +- 0.05 billion years old." And I think when discussing ANY scientific study whether geology, evolution, or whether coffee is good or bad for you, to take it with that sort of understanding. To regard science as absolute takes away from what makes science what it is to me. If you still think I'm ignoring something based on that, let me know.

Everything you mentioned in the prior paragraph are variables that would be good to know about. Complex systems work in complex ways and if we don't include a variable it's only because we either don't know about it, or have no way to model it.

Man, I was making fun of militant athiests. Are you not familiar with the internet?

I've read the bible multiple times and we're talking all of it. I got some verses memorized and not on some Pulp Fiction cool fantasy, but because they were really meaningful. I've also read the literature on it. It was just a joke, man.

Absolutely. But to state we don't know is far different than claiming we do because we take a literal translation of a 3500 year old text. Creationists challenge natural scientists to prove that God doesn't exist. That is not how burden of proof works. Burden of proof lies in who makes the greater claim. Since creationists claim to believe in a being that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and able to change the laws of the universe, that claim is greater and therefore must be defended.