I’m with you on that. I’m willing to go there if there is some kind of demonstrable harm being done. But being different is not the same as being harmful, and when your argument starts with the equivilant of “I just think…” or “I feel that…” x, y, or z is bad, it’s just not compelling in my book.
You are correct - my apologies. Wrong theistic mathematician.
Regards,
Shodan
You could throw Newton in there too. He was as religious as it gets and was emphatic in his belief not only that God had set everything in motion but that God could be apprehended through math.
Nevertheless, Newtonian physics and calculus (which was invented by Newton) still seem to work just fine, for atheists and theists alike.
Diogenes and Shodan, I think they could use you over in this thread!
Well, Newton believed in alchemy, too.
I would differentiate between pre-Darwin and post-Darwin. Once you debunk Creationism, religion looses a lot of its appeal. Pre-Darwin, there wasn’t a good framework outside of religion for understanding the world. (And I realize I’m oversimplifying, since Darwin didn’t single handedly debunk Creationism. But once people started to realize the earth was really old, and that all living things evolved from more primitive ancestors, that really changes things significantly, making agnosticism or atheism more compelling.)
It does and it doesn’t. I was never, ever taught anything but evolution either at home or at school…didn’t even know there were people who still believed in creatioism until I got to HS and read Inherit the Wind (discussion of which revealed a couple of kids in my class who were raised in a creationism-believing religion). My husband, as mentioned, went to Catholic school K-12, and was taught evolution in school, also. Neither one of us thinks that evolution conflicts with what we believe about God.
Gee, thanks, John. It’s not enough that dickwads like Siege’s bishop (who recently unveiled his master plan for taking over American Anglicanism) consider that we’re evil secularists for thinking that God might love gay people too, even if they don’t restrain themselves to cold showers and lifelong abstinence, that Pope Ratzy has decided to tell American Catholics whom they may or may not vote for, and every fundamentalist on the planet is determined to condemn us all for not believing exactly as they do. And, of course, to give my reasons for belief to anyone under 18 is, in the eyes of the estimable Whack-a-Mole brainwashing the young. (Of course, to allege that God has nothing whatsoever to do with anything regarding the natural world or human nature is not.)
Just to put the icing on the cake, I find that I no longer have any justification to believe in God as I conceive Him, because in your opinion His principal purpose was to be a Magic Sky Pixie who was the cause behind all that is not yet explicable by science, and who has nothing to do with the way that the Universe He supposedly created runs. So when Newton and Darwin came along, God was excused from most of His duties.
When you guys get done, just let me know what you’ll allow me to think without violating somebody’s thoughtcrime statutes, OK?
I am getting tired of being ascribed motives I simply do not have. That I am apparently some frothing at the mouth atheist who seeks to remove God wholly from anything and everything. I frankly find the accusation/implication that I am on about this offensive.
If you re-read my posts I challenge you to find ANYWHERE I said any such thing. I stated I was personally Agnostic (which is NOT the same as atheist). I also stated I think it is important that children receive a theological education (and made no specification to what form that should take). I also specifically stated kids in these schools should go to religion classes. Please point out specifically where I stated God is the “root of all evil” or where I suggested God be removed “from every place wherein he can be found”.
We have all gone round and round on God in Geometry yet earlier I posted the Southern Baptists official take on Creation versus Evolution. The school in question is Souther Baptist and accredited by some Southern Baptist run organization and certainly their curriculum descriptions seem in line with all that. WhyNot noted that to be sure we’d need to visit the school, read their textbooks and talk to the teachers and students. That is a bit beyond what I can do here but I think it is certainly a red flag and a fair assumption on my part.
Are you all ok with teaching Creation in a Biology classroom? As long as they can answer questions about Evolution to pass a test (i.e. they know the mechanics of it) then anything else is fine?
I’d be curious how they teach other subjects as viewed through their particular lens as well.
All I am on about is allowing kids some wiggle room to get at simple learning without the fiddly bits tacked on needlessly at EVERY possible turn. They can STILL get religious training in abundance from numerous sources including the school they attend.
DirkGntly, yeah, thanks for the sweeping generalization. When people like Diogenes the Cynic and myself–I am the most vehemently anti-religious person I know, by far–are arguing against Whack-a-Mole, that should tell you something.
Isn’t that between the parents and the school?
For the love of all that is unholy, will you guys stop beating that straw man? He’s losing limbs at this point!
Then don’t go on about it. Simple solution. Look, I’m about as “frothing-at-the-mouth” of an atheist as anyone I know personally, and dude, I gotta tell ya, you’re a frothing at the mouth atheist. You need to take a chill pill. You need to take your nose out of everyone else’s shit, and you need to stop attacking straw men.
If you want to talk about that, why don’t you start a thread about it, instead of abandoning your original position for safer territory? Better yet, since you clearly know you picked a lame duck, maybe you should just concede and apologize for being such a bull-headed asshat* in the first place.
- That’s probably the most contradictory insult I’ve ever used. Oh well.
WTF? You don’t usually engage in such grandiose strawman arguments, Tom, so I’ll assume you misunderstood my post.
First off, I’m one of the biggest defenders of religious freedom on this board, and have been so in this thread. Secondly, all I’m saying is that Newton, who lived in the 17th century, was exposed to an entirely different intellectual climate than someone living in the 20th century. The fact that he believed in God is not really remarkable. Just as it is not remarkable that many scientist today don’t believe in God. I’m not saying either group is right or that religion should be suppressed. Just that it’s understandable that there are many more agnostics and atheist post-Darwin than pre-Darwin. (Again, I’m using “pre-” and “post-Darwin” as a kind of shorthand for the process by which we stopped believing in YEC.)
How so? Where have I claimed an atheist belief here? Where have I said no one should be taught religion? Where have I said religion is evil or anything of the sort? I asked for specific examples yet you provide none and just go to the name calling.
Why start a new thread? I see them as interrelated and I did bring it up before. More to the point is the entire curriculum of the school. The linked article went on about Geometry and this thread got semi-locked into it I do not see why discussion of the broad practice cannot be at issue here. People seem to prefer the easier target of the Geometry question and went for the thread win rather than actually dealing with the more difficult to support aspects.
And so far you are the only one who has resorted to name calling and general ad hominem attacks which is usually the resort of those incapable of dealing with the discussion at hand. For better or worse I have tried to explain my position. I may have done a poor job of it but it was an honest attempt and I did not resort to name calling.
Want an asshat? Look in the mirror.
Oops. That should be “Polycarp”, not Tom.
I’m not saying that evolution should suddenly make everyone atheists, but don’t you think that some of us, upon thinking about this quite seriously, would begin to doubt the existence of God? That’s pretty much what happened to me. I came to my understanding of the universe based upon knowledge generated by some really smart people in the last 150 years or so. Someone living in the 1600s would not have opportunity. Do you think it’s just mere coincidence that there are more atheists today than there were 100 or 200 years ago? (And think of Europe, too, not just the US.)
It may not be a coincidence, but it may not be tied to evolution. It probably has more to do with existentialism than evolution. It’s also noteworthy that while atheism is up in places like Western Europe, theism is on the rise in other places, like Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. At any rate, it isn’t at all clear why evolution should preclude God. It’s a perfectly good method for the eventual emergence of a sentient being. I mean obviously. And surely whatever billions of years there were, God’s own eternity safeguards Him from any temporal contingency. Even if He didn’t create the universe at all, it suits His purpose all the same.
I wish to state, clearly and for the record, that nowhere did I call you out, specifically. I was merely pointing out that the arguments appeared to be heading in the direction I was pointing. I did have a particular poster in mind, who has not shown up in this thread, but I won’t mention his name unless he does and acts in his typically predictable fashion.
fetus, I stated specifically that it was a, “…tiny, sliver of a faction…” meaning to imply that it was by far not the majority of atheists or agnostics on the Board, but extends beyond a single poster, although I did have a particular poster in mind who has not been present here.
Nevermind. If the OP honestly believes what he’s spouting off, this is going nowhere. I’m just going to unsubscribe and thank Loki that Whack-a-Mole doesn’t seem to be in charge of anything particularly important.
ETA: Sorry DirkGntly, somehow I missed the first half of your last post. I must have some strange type of dyslexia. Anyway, yeah, my bad.
Thank God (yeah I said “God”)
You contribute nothing. When called to back up your name calling you can’t. You won’t be missed.
But existentialism itself was a product of the very intellectual environment of the 19th century that I’m talking about (and that I’m using “Darwin” as a shorthand for). It’s no accident that existentialism wasn’t developed in the 16th century.
Then I guess it’s good I never said it does!
Posting that in this thread the implication seemed to be I was among that “tiny sliver”. If I misunderstood that I apologize.
I don’t know that Sartre and Camus were any more intellectual than Descartes and Ockham — or the Greeks for that matter. All the doom philosophies emerged in the same era, from Nietzsche to Schopenhauer to Marx. They’re no more intellectual than their essentialist counterparts. And now that all that stuff is old-school, the late 20th and early 21st centuries have had exciting new contributions that have challenged everything from the JTB theories of knowledge to arguments against ontological necessity. And Miller’s work has challenged even the god of philosophy himself — Immanuel Kant. Miller has explained how existence can be a predicate. These things just ebb and flow over the course of time. Atheism is nothing new at all.