Well said, Lotus. But obviously if you don’t believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, you’re not a real christian. :rolleyes:
And one last jab:
BZZZZZT!! Next contestant, please!
Science does not deal in TRUTH. Science deals in fact and evidence. TRUTH is for philosophers and those who choose not to understand science.
-andros-
Yes because religion has nothing to do with the search for truth.
It’s not looking at things we can only observe. If there can be no observation of a cause, then it is not a possible cause. I’m not talking about currently being able to see, I’m talking about the possiblity of ever being able to observe. Using your method, I must go and ask every single person on the planet if they had a hand in creating the universe. Then I must investigate all of their claims, treating them all as equally valid. Hmmmmm. I don’t think so.
Please provide me with a person who follows 100% everything that the old testemant says, let alone the new testemant, or the quaran.
**
No, they despise the scientist, because scientists have the audacity to throw facts in the face of faith.
I’m not sure why Creationists get upset when people don’t believe them.
It would be like me gettign upset if no one believed my claims that the Oakland Colliseum was going to turn into a giant lizard in precisely 654 hours.
well. It seems as though I have been unclear on some things I said in my earlier post, judging by the reactions.
I don’t mind if anyone disagrees with my position, but in some cases, my position doesn’t seem to be clear, so here’s a little clarification:
From Satan:
Not true. Evidence that supports something has to be observed, not just the observation of what you hypothesize is there!
Obviously, observation is nice, but one can also observe evidence which shows that something happened. For example, we do not actually SEE gravity, but we see how gravity effects celestial bodies. Does this mean that gravity doesn’t exist, that someone is simply making all of this happen with telekinesis? According to what you just said, the “Telekinesis Hypothesis” has as much credibility as Gravitational Theory!
What I meant was that if you are a scientist trying to determine how the universe came into being, and the cause really was the Judeo-Christian God, and you have no evidence to support this, you are not allowed, based on the Scientific Method, to posit a theory which states that the universe was created by God. And that bugs me because it is possibly leaving out the truthful cause, and contrary to what someone posted, science should be a search for the truth. Either it’s all created by God or it isn’t period. Both answers cannot be true.
I have no solution to this problem, because I understand completely why the scientific community follows the scientific method. I just wish there were a way to keep from ruling out possible answers without proof that they should be ruled out. I freely admit I am better at pointing out a problem than coming up with a better solution. Kinda like Ross Perot, but’s that’s a whole different thread.
Satan wrote:
Bullshit. If there WAS some evidence, it would had come out, what with the dozens of people who call themselves “Creation Scientists.” There is no evidence which is not either lies, errors or a combination of the two.
If you find some, you will get the Nobel Prize. So where is it?
You can deny that this stigma exists in the scientific community if you like, but I have been part of that community, and it exists. I’ll not waste time defending it anymore.
oldscratch writes:
Yes because religion has nothing to do with the search for truth.
I respectfully disagree. Although you can find many Christians who are not interested in the truth, religion itself is interested in searching for the truth.
oldscratch wrote:
Please provide me with a person who follows 100% everything that the old testemant says, let alone the new testemant, or the quaran.
Many people believe that the bible is worth believing. I am one such person. Does not mean I am successful in following its teachings. That’s why I need a Savior to cover my failures. But I can still use the bible to determine for me what is right or wrong. When I was a kid, I stole a candy bar from the store. That doesn’t mean I am not allowed to believe that stealing is wrong. It just means I have occasionally failed to live up to my value system.
I challenge you to show me someone who has followed their principles perfectly without any failures.
But getting into talk about morals gets us off the creationism vs. science subject.
My bottom line is that it is only fair to acknowledge that sciencists take what they know, and they come up with theories. This is fair, and I have no problem with that. But let’s not be haughty and assume that when the scientific method is followed, the question is answered for all time. The scientific method is man-made, and open to flaws.
It shouldn’t bug you. What you are saying is that a scientist shouldn’t argue something that he has no proof for. OK, sounds great. As soon as that scientist gets some proof he can go for that theory. As soon as some proof arises that the universe was created by God, scientists will jump all over it and you will see a flury of papers on the subject.
I liken it to a historian not saying that Jesus was a woman and a lesbian without some sort of proof.
No it is not. Religion is interested in providing mystical explanation for why things happen, it is not interested in searching for the truth. If you believe this you are sadly misinformed. We can provide concrete evidence that evolution occurs, yet religious people still deny it. Faith and truth are now and will always be opposed.
spiritfood:
Er, yes, that’s what I said. Science does not = Truth. It’s not even necessarily a quest for Truth. Science is a process whereby we come to more fully understand our universe. No one with a half a brain believes that current scientific theories are irrefutable or inalterable. Geez, we’re still tweaking the theory of gravity. That sure doesn’t negate gravity. Or negate science.
I said that science is a process whereby we come to more fully understand our universe. Now, don’t get me wrong, so is religion. But the fundamental difference is that where science deals in fact, religion deals in faith. Easy distinction to make, no?
-andros-
Spiritfood:
I strongly doubt your doubt your claim to scientific credentials.
Surely you would know the difference between hypothesis and theory.
Saying that maybe God created the universe is a hypothesis.
A theory is a hypothesis with evidence to support it.
You are welcome to hypothesize to your heart’s content.
We can say the universe was created:
by God in 7 days.
Puked by a nauseas turtle.
always existed.
Came into existence through a big bang.
is all in my head.
These are all valid hypothesis
What the scientific method suggests is that one select from the available hypothesis the one that can be best supported by observation, experiment, and evidence until you find one that works better.
That one is your theory.
If you have evidence to support you contentions please show us, otherwise which category of the OP do you think you fall in?
“What I meant was that if you are a scientist trying to determine how the universe came into being, and the cause really was the Judeo-Christian God, and you have no evidence to support this, you are not allowed, based on the Scientific Method, to posit a theory which states that the universe was created by God. And that bugs me because it is possibly leaving out the truthful cause.”
Hopefully you see why this statement of yours is incorrect. Without evidence you don’t have a theory. You have a hypothesis.
You are certainly allowed to have one. If it can’t be supported and you insist on clinging to it in the face of contradictory evidence, than one might question your priorities, as well as your rationality.
**
Instead of “Judeo-Christian God,” please insert any of the following:
Now then, do you see the folly in what you are saying? According to your logic, science should consider things which we do not even know if they exist. In that case, here’s my amazing and very scientific report on everything you could ever want science to stody, from a disease to our origins:
Well, that certainly clears a lot of things up, eh? :rolleyes:
**
What you posit is called “Intelligent Design”. It is tripe. Feel free to start a thread on it. All I know is that the expert on the subject at LBMB ghoti got creamed with it while preaching to the choir - I doubt he, it or you will do any better in thos forum.
**
Well, here is the clincher for me, and I wonder what your answer would be here.
Science does a very good job of answering all of the questions it has been asked on this subject, from the origins of the cosmos to abiogenesis to evolution.
Seeing that is the case, why do we need to insert this untestable variable - an intelligent designer - into an equation we already have the answers to without it?
The only reason would be to either:
(A) Prove the evidence we get without this element to be false. As we have established, this will not get you very far.
(B) Because you really, really, REALLY want to put an Intelligent Designer in the equation. Not need, but want,
And that’s fine, really. Just don’t tell science it NEEDS to. It doesn’t.
**
False dilemma. It’s very possible that God created the univers and the planet as we know it through the methods that science shows us is correct.
**
I’m sorry, but why are you using the word “proof” in a discussion about science? A science teacher should know that this word is not very accurate, and in fact is quite misleading.
Also, if there is no evidence, and we cannot get the evidence, it is not ruled out, or ruled in. IT IS NEVER CONSIDERED! This is as it should be. You are mixing up your science with your philosophy, a common trait amongst proponents of the “Intelligent Design” theory.
**
The stigma, as you call it, exists because they have never came up with a shred of evidence to back their claims! The stigma, as you call it, is because real scientists work a lot differently than creation scientists.
Real scientists come up with a hypothesis based upon some other observed phenomenon or an idea which has already been backed by evidence. Creation scientists come up with ideas designed to fit into the landscape of a book.
Real scientists consult their peers, and listen to criticism of their work and ideas, and incorporate this into further experiments. Creation scientists do not consult with anyone, and most actually do little, if any, actual experimentation.
Real scientists take their ideas and publish them in scientific journals where they are further open to critical review from peers, and are not considered “factual” - as in, what they posit will not go to the laymen as “fact” - until this happens. Creation scientists rush their ideas out to the public in book form without any of the above.
Real scientists will tell you things for free, all you have to do is ask. Creation scientists will ask that you buy their views on books or tapes or pay to see them lecture.
Real scientists assume an outcome with their hypothesis and test to see if it is correct or not, and if the outscome is different, they will rework their ideas to explain why this is. Creation scientists assume the outcome with their hypothesis, and if the evidence does not support their desired outcome, they fudge, lie or discard this because the key here is not documentation, but making sure everything fits into what they WANT it to fit into.
And I stand by what I said. I could show you a slew of websites that answer specific charges levelled at the Theory of Evolution by creationists with real science. If real science was not listening, how did they answer all of the questions? If real science is ignoring the creationists, how come every single shred of pseudo-evidence they bring out is showed to be wrong somehow?
Seems to me that science is paying a LOT of attention to them. Please do show me some evidence which mainstream science has NOT debunked. It has to be there - according to you, mainstream science ignored their findings!
If they are ignoring it, surely it’s because they don’t want to see anything that goes against their predetermined outcome (which is actually what the creationists are guilty of, by the way), so please do show us the amazing findings that the many brilliant creationist advocates have come up with that mainstream science has ignored because they cannot answer it.
I am waiting. Science is waiting…
Yer pal,
Satan
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some very good arguments from oldscratch and satan. Believe it or not, I appreciate it, and you are making me think. Not give up my faith, of course. But that’s another thing. 
To back up, somewhat, what you guys are saying, there is a real problem among Christians today that they (we) don’t always follow their own rules when making arguments. You rightly point out how off-base some believers are in defending their beliefs. That’t why I brought up the dinosaur being destroyed by the flood thing.
All I ask is that you not judge God by his people. He’s either real or He’s not. It is not up to us to decide if He’s real. You can decide you don’t believe that an 18-wheeler is about to run over you as you stand in the middle of the street, and the truck is going to run you over regardless of whether or not you believed in it. Of course, you will believe it when it gets there, but then it’s too late.
For the record, I have no scientific credentials. I apologize if i made it sound that way. In the process of obtaining my history degree in order to teach 7th-graders, I took a few extra science courses to make myself certified to teach science in addition to history, to make myself more marketable. It is while taking those upper-level biology and geology courses that I made those observations about what I saw in the scientific community. There is a lot of joking and ridiculing if you bring up creationism, or even God, and I see that as being closed-minded, just as creationists are accused of being. It creates a mindset among these young scientists and grad students, and it usually sticks. I saw it, and I was in the middle of it.
I still maintain that if what science shows opposes what I read in the bible, I will lean toward the bible. However, I will always be congizant of the need to search and see if possibly I have been reading the bible wrong. This is true not only of creation issues, but any subject about which the bible speaks. Science may tell us that Jesus can’t turn water into wine, that it violates the laws of physics, but I’ll chalk that up the idea that the One who created the laws of physics is entitled to break them once in a while.
It’s been fun, guys, but my boss is expecting some production out of me today. I certainly appreciate everyone’s honestly and civility. It is always possible to disagree without being rude.
might I also make the point that the bible has been written and written throughout the medival ages. I remember playing a game called telephone. After the last person was done, it was a completely different message. Sure, there was a person trying to mess it up, but why can’t a king or some other copyer change the bible around a little to gain power?
One more thing: someone mentioned that they doubt my scientific credentials because I got the word ‘theory’ mixed up with ‘hypothesis’. I assure you I have not made anything up. I know the difference between the words. I used to make sure my 7th graders memorized the steps of the scientific method at the beginning of the year. (Despite my history degree, they made me teach science, because I didn’t want to coach. But that’s digressing big time).
It’s just that I am a programmer now, and I should be working, so I typed fast and didn’t have time to proofread, (which also explains my mispelled words).
But I am not a liar. I just type without thinking sometimes.
spiritfood:
The creationists have brought this upon themselves. It is the result of many years of lies, willful ignorance, and a refusal to understand logic (witness pashley on the Cosmos thread). If I knocked on your door everyday for 50 years claiming that the tooth fairy was in your refrigerator and he was responsible for faking the evidence of the age of the universe, well… you would start to ridicule me after a while also.
Well, there may or may not be, but certainly the sort of things in that web page are not going to do the trick.
Here’s an analogy which might be useful. It is not a perfect one but it’s the best I can think up on the spur of the moment to characterize the sort of objections found in sources such as the one you found, and also espoused in popular books and TV shows and so on.
Consider the question, “How do airplanes fly?” At one time, we only had a vague idea. Gradually, we developed more and more knowledge through detailed physical theories and experiments which back up those theories. There is a lot of detailed knowledge now about how planes fly (enough that we can predict a new type of airplane’s behavior very well before ever flying it), but perhaps at the most basic level we might simplify it as, “They push enough air downwards to hold themselves up.”
Now consider someone who comes along and says, “That’s not true! It should be obvious to anyone that air can’t hold up a heavy plane! Just try setting a teacup or book on the air, and you’ll see, and those are much lighter than airplanes. Airplanes are really held up by the collective thoughts of all the people on board - a form of group telekenesis. The whole thing about air is all wrong, and the scientists won’t even listen to reasonable objections when I show them you can’t set a teacup on thin air. In fact, they’ve started to scoff whenever it comes up! But so far, they have never been able to disprove my telekensis theory.”
The trouble here is this: while this might seem like it logically refutes the idea of airplanes being held up by the air, it only seems that way if you have some very basic misconceptions and if you don’t know all the details of what we have learned in the past hundred years about what really does happen.
If we say, “Well, it’s really air that holds up planes” probably won’t convince our hypothetical person. But if that person is willing to learn a few things about Newton’s laws, some basic equations, and do a few experiments, he or she might reach a very simplified, yet useful and essentially correct understanding of how the air can hold up an airplane. If that person is really interested, perhaps they might learn large some heavy duty math and physics and become an expert in computational fluid dynamics, who can predict the exact behavior of airfoils with high accuracy before they are ever flown in reality.
The exaspiration that you tend to find in scientists and engineers when faced with someone who’s arguing that air can’t possibly hold up planes (or for that matter, the misconceptions found in your web page and dozens of other similar sources, about not only cosmology but evolution, geology, and so on), is that even when the misconceptions are explained, it frequently does not dissuade their proponents, who just go on to write another popular book about how you can’t set teacups on thin air. But in the end, the hope is that at least some people who were (through no fault of their own) taken in by those misconceptions, will want to really learn. And who knows, maybe someday they’ll be the one to find a better theory than what we have today.
–
peas on earth
Bantmof:
Excellent analogy.
Not to be a nitpicker, but air doesnt’t hold up airplanes. The low pressure above the wings pulls them up in accordance with that Bernoulli principle thingamabob.
“Don’t just stand there in Uffish thought!”
-The Caterpillar
bantmof, nice analogy, well stated! May I have your permission to use it in the future?
To be honest, spiritfood, that’s not the problem most of us have with Christian. You are welcome (as are the rest of the Christians, Muslims, Zoroastrians, and what have you) to believe whatever you want, however you want to. The trouble arises when:
a) you try to impose your beliefs on other people.
b) you try to wedge the dogma of your beliefs into scientific theories, or worse, replace science with your particular brand of religion.
Nobody here is judging God. I find it strange that you feel He (She/It/They) is under attack. The difference between God and semi is that if I disbelieve a semi, they’ll be scraping bits of phouka off the asphault for some time. They can take pictures of phouka-pancake to run during the five o’clock news. The remains of phouka will be on a tray, in the morgue, and later removed to a funeral home for cremation or burial.
That is, there is verifiable, physical evidence for what a semi would do to me if I decided to disbelieve its existence and stand in its “fictitious” path.
Please show me the bits, pictures, remains or other verifiable, physical evidence that God would leave behind after mowing me down at 45 mph.
If that’s true, (and I don’t doubt that it is) it’s because scientists, graduate students, and others who understand the difference between science and religion have had a bellyful of religious zealots trying to impose their dogma on what is suppose to be an impartial process exploring our physical reality.
I still maintain that if what science shows opposes what I read in the bible, I will lean toward the bible. However, I will always be congizant of the need to search and see if possibly I have been reading the bible wrong. This is true not only of creation issues, but any subject about which the bible speaks. Science may tell us that Jesus can’t turn water into wine, that it violates the laws of physics, but I’ll chalk that up the idea that the One who created the laws of physics is entitled to break them once in a while.
[/QUOTE]
And that’s fine. I have no problem with that at all. Your faith is just that - yours. Faith is not a matter of proving or disproving. It is.
The problem I have is when you assume that science is out to get your God, that scientists have no use for God, or that religion holds better answers than science does. It doesn’t. It holds different answers. Science and religion are mutually exclusive. Religion asks “why?” and maybe “who?” and then provides answers. Science asks “how?”, “when?”, and “what?” and does its level best to provide hypotheses and theories.
Hmm – stepping into this conversation a little late. Let me grab some kindling . . .
Creation science is met with ridicule by the scientific community at large because creation scientists have demonstrated repeatedly that their ideas are unworthy of serious scientific consideration. Now, does this mean that should some one actually discover good evidence for an aspect of creation science he would face an uphill battle in getting his ideas to be broadly accepted? Yes. That is human nature. The beauty if science, though, is that eventualy good results will triumph. English mathematics suffered for 100 years because of the reverence for Newton’s fluctions, but eventually the superior form of Leibnitz’ calculus became the standard.
I do argue against faith, when faith contradicts reason. Somebody someplace might believe that the Sun is pulled through the sky by Hyperion’s chariot. Nevertheless, that faith is wrong. It is not an area in which there is any uncertainty of reason, therefore it is not an area in which faith is a valid guide. Faith in areas that reason cannot illuminate is no more or less reasonable than any other guide to reality. Faith in contradiction to reason is foolishness.
Back in my school yuears I had a PhD in comparative religions tell me that in India she had witnessed *fakirs[/] whose mystical abilities were so potent that they could be fired upon by a machine gun at point blank range without suffering harm. I was reminded of the Boxer Rebellion and promptly decided that the woman was a fool.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Spiritus, what happened during the Boxer Rebellion?
Andros says:
Be my guest… thanks for the compliment!
Scylla says:
Well, I disagree :-). I think air does hold them up. Even symmetric cross section airfoils can fly, and asymmetric airfoils can fly upside-down, neither of which would be possible if Bernoulli was the major effect. Really, the wing accelerates enough air downward (mostly through angle of attack, but there are a lot of interrelated effects) to produce an upward force to balance the weight of the plane. The asymmetric cross section on most wings is desirable to faciliate laminar flow. But maybe this topic would be worthy of its own thread?
–
peas on earth
I think Spiritus is referring to the way Chinese rebels during the Boxer Rebellion believed their magical fighting abilities would make them bulletproof. A lot of them were shot by European troops, and proven not to be bulletproof.
From DavidB
Ok, this brings me to my second question-
Why do so-called creation scientists seem to have such a hard time with the concept of theistic evolution? The best you can hope for when you bring the idea up to them is a polite dismissal.
I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but I also believe that there is much contained therein that is designed to reveal truth while not necessarily being true in the literal sense.
Why do the fundamentalist/creation scientist types have such a hard time with this idea?
I’ll say it again. The Bible is not a science textbook.
(stands back to watch the results from the can of worms she’s just opened)
Now in my second month of exile in the 21 pit