I appreciate your answer, but I am still wondering why the battle.
I read that 40% of scientists are believers, one can’t really say science is attacking religion and be totally correct. Yet those like Richard Dawkins are attacking religion in the name of science. So I suspect that there are fanatics or either side that are having at each other while mainstream science and religion continue their daily business.
I met a poster once who understood the controversy and suggested scientists explain better what they mean about evolution to the religious community. I think he was right.
But I don’t think it will be solved quickly. I am spiritual and we spiritual people are caught in the fire from both sides since we believe neither. Thanks again.
well…
it all boils down to the “God of the Gaps”: argument.
We don’t know that particular item yet, so “God” did it.
The gaps in our understanding of the universe are slowly, but inevitably closing. As the gaps close the "god’ must have a place to ooze to, like phlegm leaking from a cllosed off sinus. So far, it is trying to pollute schools and media.
Modern society will either develop immunity to this pestilence, or collapse.
Creationism/Intellegent design and such wishful, magical thinking are artifacts of society based upon superstition. i would call such ideas primative, but it would be an insult to “primative societies”
Religion is why people flew airplanes into the trade center, religion is why the slave trade was allowed, religion is why the spanish inquisition happened.
Religion is a cancer of purposeful, willful ignorance upon the human potential. The 21st century will be a time in which we out grow supernaturalism, or die, as a species because of it.
As I scientist with no religious affiliation, I have to say I think your brush is a bit narrow.
Not all religion is Fundamentalist Idolatrist adherence to ancient writings a. taken out of context, or b. by loons.
Religion can be the source of great social good or of the awareness and appreciation of our existence beyond our physical needs. (I’ll never understand scientists whose knowledge of the complexity of the physical world does not inspire an awe that approaches the religious; how can one not be inspired? But I digress.)
Assuming religious beliefs stay out of the courts and the schools.
Evolution, Young-Earth creationism, ID theory, and almost every conceivable alternative have been discussed in this thread so far. Are you saying “spiritual people” reject all of them? If so, what’s your alternative?
The origin of the universe is a matter of cosmology. The basic unanswered question of cosmology is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Science has not even a hypothetical answer, as yet. Saying “God” is no answer at all; if God exists, God is something and the question remains unanswered. Same with solopsism: If I am all that exists, why do I exist?
I can’t answer for others, spiritual people are unbelievably independent. I believe there is a higher intelligence or consciousness that has been here forever. This doesn’t answer why there is something rather than nothing, but does somewhat explain us being here. I can’t answer where we came from, we being life. I don’t envoke the God of the Gap to answer why things happen, not do I believe in the Christian God.
The origin of life is an event. We can somewhat date it (to a bunch of hundreds of millions of years) based on the fossil records, but no one claims to know how it happened. There are various hypotheses, but I’m not aware any worth the name of theory yet. If we can find a few plausible mechanisms, we might never know which actually happened.
If a molecule which could replicate itself (a simpler version of RNA, perhaps) evolution would start, as versions which were more efficient at getting “nutrients” needed to replicate faster would dominate. Any problem with that?
I just read that a big effort is beginning to build something living - perhaps a virus - from the basic constituents. If that happens, would you agree that no divine “spark of life” is required?
We can’t ever tell what did happen, we can just say what might have happened.
I believe you are right, not all religious people are hypocrits, some are genuinely interested in helping others and spend a lot of their time and money doing so. I like your post.
I can agree with what you have written. I will have to wait until something is actually built before I think about believing it or not. Thanks for your post.
Yes, that’s my problem with the concept of a God. It doesn’t solve anything; it just pushes the problem back one step further. OK, if God created everything, where did God come from, and why?
And lekatt, I don’t really understand what spirituality is, nor do I feel the faintest need for or lack of it in my life. There are lots of things in life bigger than I am, but they’re real, and I can see them, or test for them objectively, and other people can too. I have people in my life whom I love, and their happiness and the betterment of mankind in general is really all the reason I need to try to live morally. I’m not special. There’s nothing but my own deeds that distinguishes me from anyone else on the planet, and let me tell you, my deeds are nothing to write home about. But my own happiness or contentment is justification enough for my existence. So I read your words, but I can’t really connect with them emotionally, and I apologize for that.
Again, this is a misconception. One animal does not turn into another animal. Populations evolve over time, gradually altering their phenotype. What came before Archaeopteryx was only slightly different; what came after, was very probably nothing (Archaeopteryx is not the actual ancestor of modern birds; it represents a “gradistic” change in phentotype. That is, whatever the actual ancestor was, it probably looked a good deal like Archaeopteryx).
“One animal turning into another” is something that can only be assigned in retrospect, and then only thanks to the “snapshot” effect of the fossil record. In reality, the changes are gradual and largely imperceptible, not stepwise and easily categorized.
Also, as a cladist, I feel it necessary to point out that reptiles (or a subgroup thereof) did not “become” birds; birds remain reptiles, just very specialized ones.
Reptiles > Dinosaurs > Birds. It’s like set theory: all birds are dinosaurs, and all dinosaurs are reptiles, therefore all dinosaurs and birds are reptiles. Linnaeaus has done a great deal to confuse the nature of phylogeny and evolution. Also, see above regarding the evolutionary significance of Archaeopteryx.
That is understandable, the religious people don’t connect with us either. Some people become spiritual through trauma and adversity. Others train and practice for years to become spiritual, and still others are born being spiritual.
Being spiritual is real, but you can’t see it, you feel it. I will get into trouble with this, but it is an explansion of consciousness beyond the duality of time and space, right and wrong, black and white. It is being humble before knowledge, and caring of others before self. No spiritual person is perfect at being spiritual, but we try.
But lekatt, did I not, in the passage you quoted, demonstrate humility before knowledge and caring of others before self? I don’t understand what those things have to do with beliefs of something that you can’t even describe except to say you don’t accept either science or religion.
Oh yeah? Well I believe there is a higher intelligence or consciousness that evolved.
But then again, science is not about believing vs not believing. There are words like possibly, maybe, likely, probably that can be applied to convey the lack of absolutism in science. Even calling something a “fact” leaves a little wiggle room (but don’t exagerrate the wiggle room available when something is called a “theory”). And science generally shies away from calling anything the “truth”.
It’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Yeah, I can go along with the likelihood that that’s the case” without having to go so far as saying, “I believe it”.
I suspect that there are lots of different definitions of ‘spiritual’ in play, and that lekatt is only referring to one of them, which doesn’t apply to all. (Notably, all the religious people I know believe themselves to be spiritual.)
For abiogenesis, you are quit right to not believe anything about the mechanism. Do you accept evolution (given that we start with something living) at least provisionally?
When he was young, evolution was already a theory and there was already vast amounts of evidence supporting it. Just sayin’.
Hmm, is there any discussion left to be had on the actual topic of this thread?