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Kilkrazy wrote:There are ways to examine past events such as nuclear decay and get a time rate, for example by examining Carbon-14 decay in layers of known age.

That is to say, you determine the age of the layer by an independent factor, like Iridium content, and see if the Carbon-14 decay reading gives the same age. When it does, you put your non-religious faith in the idea that God didn't play a shell game with reality to make history different to the bible story in order to screw with his creations' heads.

Nothing is ever proved in science. It is only indicated with a greater or lesser degree of confidence.

KK...You said a lot of different things there...and you kind of repeated what I said. There ARE assumptions that science makes to come to their conclusions. It doesn't matter if iridium 192 can give a similar date as carbon 14..the fact is that the assumptions underlying them both are the same.

GG

We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

Orlanth wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
Oh no the horror of those UK atheists, "abolition of compulsory religious education" How dare they not want your god taught to their kids, how sickening .

Religious education is compulsory as it grounds children in the religions and faith choices present in our society. It doesn't focus on one religion the syllabus covers Christianity in several forms, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Atheism. This is so kids today grow up less ignorant of the multi-faith culture inherent in the UK today. Faith schools do focus on one religion, not always Christianity so there is genuine diversity in the system. Those who send their kids to a Christian or Jewish school etc expect that the respective religions will feature heavily in the schools culture, even so the formal syllabus doesnt change and the children must be at least aware of the basic tenets of the various major religious and faith choices out there. Besides noone is forced to send their children to any such school by the government or schools system.

What Atheism UK wants to do is ban this, completely, for the stated aim of abolishing religion by preventing it from belief propagated across the generations.

Why not concentrate on the real message behind the link the erosion of religious liberty and the entrenchment of atheist fundamentalism by force of statute irregardless of the wishes of the populace.

Funny I didn't see them saying anything about banning all churches. Can't you still teach your religion in your churches? Can't you, as a parent, read the bible or whatever to your kids? Not teaching religion in schools does not erode religion liberty.

What definition are you using for compulsory? to me that says all kids are required to learn it regardless of what school they are at. judging by your use of the word atheist and your understanding of it, I don't think your school did a very good of a job teaching about it.




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generalgrog wrote:Orlanth..I've been sitting on the side on this thread since I looked at it late. I don't know if you use the ignore feature( I do)..but I recommend not wasting your time with sirlynch. He/she doesn't care to have a reasonable discussion.

Case in point how he/she thinks Christians believe that westboro baptists are Christians and how he/she misrepresents what Christians believe on the matter. While there may be someone out there that thinks they are Christians, he/she presents it as if it's the general consensus of Christianity.

GG

Learn to read. I said nothing of the sort.

Can you state with absolute certainty that god exists?
Can you state with absolute certainty the religion that god (if he exists) wants you to follow?

Palindrome wrote:We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

I didn't say science was a religion..I said there is faith in accepting scientific conclusions.

GG

The same faith of believing that the Earth will still be there beneath your feet between one step and the next.

generalgrog wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:There are ways to examine past events such as nuclear decay and get a time rate, for example by examining Carbon-14 decay in layers of known age.

That is to say, you determine the age of the layer by an independent factor, like Iridium content, and see if the Carbon-14 decay reading gives the same age. When it does, you put your non-religious faith in the idea that God didn't play a shell game with reality to make history different to the bible story in order to screw with his creations' heads.

Nothing is ever proved in science. It is only indicated with a greater or lesser degree of confidence.

KK...You said a lot of different things there...and you kind of repeated what I said. There ARE assumptions that science makes to come to their conclusions. It doesn't matter if iridium 192 can give a similar date as carbon 14..the fact is that the assumptions underlying them both are the same.

GG

The comparative tests are between factors that are independent of each other and don't share assumptions.

In other words, you can test iridium deposited by meteor strikes, pollen deposited by plants, and carbon 14 decay in animal remains. These are three different and independent indicators of the age of a sample. The decay rate would not agree if the strong nuclear force had changed during the time involved, but the strong nuclear force change would not have affected pollen deposition. If they all agree, it seems as if one might consider this to be evidence that the carbon decay was correct, and therefore the strong nuclear force had not changed during the time since deposition.

It is possible that the tests are wrong, of course, and that is why science is open to revision. The underlying assumption is that the world exists and operates according to a set of rules. Secondly, that we are capable of making tests to discover the rules, and of testing the tests to be sure they work.

generalgrog wrote:

Palindrome wrote:We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

I didn't say science was a religion..I said there is faith in accepting scientific conclusions.

GG

Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

Palindrome wrote:Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

And yet you can still be blinded by science.

Glorioski wrote:
Funny that, most of the stuff you two seem to spend so much time arguing about in this off topic forum looks like nebulous bs to me. Usually the first point one of you makes is valid and the rest is just a perpetual argument fuelled on one-upmanship.

Oh well. maybe some philosophr out there will fall upon this small section of a wargamning forum one day and all of the grey is black or white arguments will have maybe an iota of meaning.

Strangely I've spent a good chunk of my life studying philosophy, and arguing with people who do philosophy (read: teach philosophy) for a living.

What you're seeing here is pretty much how it goes outside journal articles, and sometimes in them as well.

If you want to draw a parallel, the divide between Orlanth and myself is essentially the same as the divide between continental and analytic philosophy.

Orlanth wrote:
Religious education is compulsory as it grounds children in the religions and faith choices present in our society. It doesn't focus on one religion the syllabus covers Christianity in several forms, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Atheism. This is so kids today grow up less ignorant of the multi-faith culture inherent in the UK today.

Wait, I thought you disliked "PC dogma"?

generalgrog wrote:
Respectfully I think you just proved my argument. You have to have faith in the now. Faith that what we observe now...is what actually happened in the past.

No you don't. It is not faith to presume that what is observed is consistent with took place before, because if you're attempting examine the past you essentially have nothing else to go on.

Ahtman wrote:

Palindrome wrote:Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

And yet you can still be blinded by science.

Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you're beautiful!

http://puregod.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/good-heavens-miss-sakamoto-youre.html

Orlanth wrote:Thankyou for th cold water Glorioski.

dogma, we arent going to agree, and both of us 'know' the other is wrong. Lets call it a day, between ourselves at least.

I actually know you're wrong, because continental philosophy, as it has attempted to keep pace with analytic philosophy, has fundamental problems developing conclusions from its penchant amorphous terminology.

Ahtman wrote:

Palindrome wrote:Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

And yet you can still be blinded by science.

Nice!!


GG


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Palindrome wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

Palindrome wrote:We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

I didn't say science was a religion..I said there is faith in accepting scientific conclusions.

GG

Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

Now you have done me a disservice...by inserting "blind" into what I said.

GG

I'm sorry, I'm not sure how else to term faith in the intangible.

You still haven't explained where you are going with this.

dogma wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
Religious education is compulsory as it grounds children in the religions and faith choices present in our society. It doesn't focus on one religion the syllabus covers Christianity in several forms, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Atheism. This is so kids today grow up less ignorant of the multi-faith culture inherent in the UK today.

Wait, I thought you disliked "PC dogma"?

Becoming aware of different worldviews and forcing people to join them are not one and the same.

An example where PC dogma can and does interfere is when equal opportunities are lobsided. In the case in point Christian faith schools are placed under far greater and harder scrutiny to the point of unfairness than say Islamic schools.
It is not uncommon for a minority to be pandered to for fear of causing offence.
There is a world of difference between, 'we wont allow children whose fathers are service personnel to be highlighted in bring a parent to work day for fear it offends Moslems' and 'lets learn about different faiths including Islam'. And yes the former is a problem in dogmatised schools with high ethnic catchments.

Sometimes it helps to look at the problem through mature eyes able to see how a subject is approached in a detached way. Learning about Islam in schools doesnt necessary mean 'pandering' or 'cultural dilution', it merely means education. No dogma need not be attached to it, but I should not be surprised if you couldn't distinguish between education on a subject and emotive involvement.


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Palindrome wrote:

generalgrog wrote:

Palindrome wrote:We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

I didn't say science was a religion..I said there is faith in accepting scientific conclusions.

GG

Whhat are you trying to say then? Science does not work on blind faith.

Faith itself need not be blind either. Evidence is there, even if proof is withheld.

Orlanth wrote:Faith itself need not be blind either. Evidence is there, even if proof is withheld.

No, it isn't. Not of the empirical sort. Anecdotal, perhaps.

Also, you claimed earlier in this thread that you'd "proven" the existence of "atheist fundamentalism." Perhaps you could define what that means for me?


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generalgrog wrote:

Palindrome wrote:We are not omnipotent, we have to rely upon assumptions, but these assumptions are tested as well as we can manage.

As I have already stated, twice, that does not make science a religion. The very idea is absurd.

I didn't say science was a religion..I said there is faith in accepting scientific conclusions.

GG

There is not, no. There is observation and extrapolation of conclusions from observation, and all the freedom in the world to completely reverse those conclusions in light of new observation. There is never belief that is not based on evidence.

Seaward wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Faith itself need not be blind either. Evidence is there, even if proof is withheld.

No, it isn't. Not of the empirical sort. Anecdotal, perhaps.

The difference between empirical evidence and anecdotal is the number of steps between the observer and the one proporting the evidence. This assumes unfairly that people of faith do not see the evidence for themselves, when indeed many can and do. Its also unfairly delimits the value of a religious testimony compared to other. If one noticed a chimpanzee making a specific tool not previously seen is that anecdotal or empirical evidence? It might be claimed to vbe empirical evidence depending on who did the observation.
There is plenty of evidence for the charismata for example, but if you don't want to believe that then no matter how much evidence is presented it will be flatly rejected as hearsay. Again I argue that the rejection or acceptance of said evidence as one whims is due to the faith based nature of our study of the religious.
Most people looking at a religious topic have already found their conclusion before seeing any evidence, because that is their preferred personal choice.

Seaward wrote:
Also, you claimed earlier in this thread that you'd "proven" the existence of "atheist fundamentalism." Perhaps you could define what that means for me?

Read previous posts and the links provided.

The atheist fundamentalism is plain to see.

If you still cant find it ask yourself this:

If you edited the Atheist Uk website and replaced the titular references to atheism with Islam, and edited their issue to remove through modifying the education system the 'lie that God exists' with 'rejection of Allah' you would see the threat and it would be clearly definable as Islamic fundamentalist extremism.
Removing other religious choices through force or pressure is what fundamentalist extremists do, people are best and most clearly defined by their actions and their desires. If some atheist groups adopt this strategy they should not evade the classification as fundamentalist extremists or scrutiny against extremism that to due to protect the public.

Now by its original definition 'fundamentalism' just means going back to basics. So from a theological point of view fundamentalist of any kind is not necessarily harmful, just someone who tries to adapt to the core belief or knowledge of a system rather than ancillary knowledge. However when 'fundamentalism' is mentioned here it is on the grounds of the modern colloquial definition used today in the media and in mainstream politics, as in violent or dogmatic to the point of wanting to propagate a belief system irregardless of the rights of others.

Children in primary school are forced to engage in a certain amount of prayer each day, that is compulsory. That is absolutely wrong and discriminates against atheists, there should be a choice. If schools were forced to teach about santa claus people wouldn't allow that, and to certain people teaching about a man in the sky is the same as teaching about a man in Lapland. Neither is real, and neither is an effective use of time that would be better spent learning Maths or English or modern languages.

IMHO, all schools should be secular, the same as all governments. There is plenty of time to teach a child about your religion when they are at home. I don't mind Religious Education classes, but they should be done from an objective viewpoint, not preferring one over the other, this did not happen when I was at school, and I doubt it happens now.

Faith and belief have overlapping meanings.

Religious faith means belief without proof. It is regarded as a virtue in adherents. Hence the importance of the story of Doubting Thomas.

Science on the other hand places a premium on belief in provable (or at least highly likely) hypotheses.

dæl wrote:Children in primary school are forced to engage in a certain amount of prayer each day, that is compulsory

In what country mate?

Not the UK right? I don't remember any of that gak in primary school anyway!

We did the lords prayer in primary school at every assembly. That was what, 15 years ago?

Your primary school was breaking the law.

All schools in EnglandandWales are required to engage in a collective act of religious worship at assembly.

dæl wrote:Children in primary school are forced to engage in a certain amount of prayer each day, that is compulsory. That is absolutely wrong and discriminates against atheists, there should be a choice.

Why not find out about how asemblies work before scaremongering.
http://www.assemblies.org.uk/

Children only have to engage in compulsory prayer each day if their parents sent them to a faith school.
In a secular school there is a secular assembly, this does not necessarily involve prayer of any kind, and that parayer it does is multi faith and indicative of how or why people pray rather than propogating one world view in favour of another..

Take for example July's curriculum for secular primary school assemblies

Didn't we have a lovely time: A seaside celebration
Celebrates the experience of a day at the seaside.

Giving up your place
An Olympic-themed assembly that looks at how sacrifice is better than winning.

Keep going like Billy and Wilma
An Olympic-themed assembly that seeks to inspire pupils to have courage despite obstacles.

The martyrdom of the Bab (9 July 2012)
Looks at faith in the context of the Baha’i religion. (This assembly is taken from an assembly taken from Primary Schools Assemblies for Religious Festivals, edited by Ronni Lamont (SPCK, August 2012).)

Ramadan (20 July to 18 August 2012)
Considers how denying ourselves something we crave teaches us self-control and makes us more grateful for those things we take for granted. (This assembly is taken from Primary Schools Assemblies for Religious Festivals, edited by Ronni Lamont (SPCK, August 2012).)

Ignatius of Loyola (Feast day 31 July)
Reflects on the life and ministry of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Roman Catholic Jesuit movement. (This assembly is taken from Primary Schools Assemblies for Religious Festivals, edited by Ronni Lamont (SPCK, August 2012).

Laughter is the best medicine: A leavers' assembly
Considers facing new challenges with laughter

Team challenge: The London 2012 50p Sports Collection
An Olympic-themed assembly that affirms and encourages teamwork.

Now teaching children about three different mutually exclusive religions is counterproductive if the idea is to indoctrinate them, but helpful if the goal is to educate them so that faith systems are not alien to them.
This is not to say that dogma isn't introduced by dogmatised teachers, thats a problem nowadays, but the assembly system as intended breaks down boundaries rather than constructs them.

dæl wrote:IMHO, all schools should be secular, the same as all governments.

The abolition of faith schooling prevents the parent from choosing the culture into which they wish their family values to be reinforced from. As parents have jobs to go to a large percenrtage of a chids time is outside of their purview. Children need role models and religious families have every right to consider that protecting their own ethical standard by reinforcing it in the school culture is acceptable.

Besides one of the reasons behind the success of faith schools is what they stand for and how that affects the learning environment.

mattyrm wrote:

dæl wrote:Children in primary school are forced to engage in a certain amount of prayer each day, that is compulsory

In what country mate?

Not the UK right? I don't remember any of that gak in primary school anyway!

A friend of mine is training to be a primary school teacher, she is more pissed off about this than anything else.

@Orlanth You argue we must teach religion because it promotes integration, then argue that we should segregate children based on their parents religion.

Now I'm all up for Catholic School Girls to carry on, purely for the selfish reasons that Frank Zappa noted, although any leaving school now would be a bit young. But I do think there would be considerably less intolerance if people were forced to integrate with people they wouldn't normally do so with.

Orlanth wrote:The difference between empirical evidence and anecdotal is the number of steps between the observer and the one proporting the evidence. This assumes unfairly that people of faith do not see the evidence for themselves, when indeed many can and do. Its also unfairly delimits the value of a religious testimony compared to other. If one noticed a chimpanzee making a specific tool not previously seen is that anecdotal or empirical evidence? It might be claimed to vbe empirical evidence depending on who did the observation.
There is plenty of evidence for the charismata for example, but if you don't want to believe that then no matter how much evidence is presented it will be flatly rejected as hearsay. Again I argue that the rejection or acceptance of said evidence as one whims is due to the faith based nature of our study of the religious.
Most people looking at a religious topic have already found their conclusion before seeing any evidence, because that is their preferred personal choice.

Well, that's all remarkably incorrect. There is, full stop, no verifiable evidence for supernatural phenomena. We can, on the other hand, rather easily verify that a chimpanzee uses said tool for whatever task.

Read previous posts and the links provided.

The atheist fundamentalism is plain to see.

If you still cant find it ask yourself this:

If you edited the Atheist Uk website and replaced the titular references to atheism with Islam, and edited their issue to remove through modifying the education system the 'lie that God exists' with 'rejection of Allah' you would see the threat and it would be clearly definable as Islamic fundamentalist extremism.

So, in other words, if I completely changed the message, it would be Islamic fundamentalism? Sure, I'll agree to that.

You are confusing atheism with anti-theism. You really need to stop.

Removing other religious choices through force or pressure is what fundamentalist extremists do, people are best and most clearly defined by their actions and their desires. If some atheist groups adopt this strategy they should not evade the classification as fundamentalist extremists or scrutiny against extremism that to due to protect the public.

The problem for you is, you have shown zero evidence of atheists anywhere attempting to remove an individual's ability to choose freely their religion. You have certainly shown evidence of a small group of atheists attempting to have the teaching of religion removed from schools, but that no more impugns on your freedom of religion than removing beer from campuses impugns on your freedom to drink.

Orlanth wrote:
Sometimes it helps to look at the problem through mature eyes able to see how a subject is approached in a detached way. Learning about Islam in schools doesnt necessary mean 'pandering' or 'cultural dilution', it merely means education. No dogma need not be attached to it, but I should not be surprised if you couldn't distinguish between education on a subject and emotive involvement.

Well, if PC dogma is a thing, then any approach to a topic has to be predicated on dogma, it would simply be one which you find acceptable. For example: "Learning about religion is good." or "Learning is good."

Either way, I'm not seeing emotive involvement as being a necessary issue of "PC dogma" (should it exist). If doing something, say sending soldiers to career day, is feared as it may offend people, and people really are likely to be offended, it doesn't seem to be a uniquely emotive response to not allow soldiers at career day. Hell, one could argue that ignoring the potential for offense is simple nationalism or patriotism and, as Sean Connery told us all, that is the virtue of the vicious.

Orlanth wrote:
The difference between empirical evidence and anecdotal is the number of steps between the observer and the one proporting the evidence.

In this context, no. Empirical evidence, as relevant to the sciences, requires not only derivation from observation, but reproducibility.

Of course, there's always Kuhn, but that only matters in terms of interpretation.

Orlanth wrote:
If one noticed a chimpanzee making a specific tool not previously seen is that anecdotal or empirical evidence? It might be claimed to vbe empirical evidence depending on who did the observation.

Anecdotal. And it would be treated as such by all reputable scientists.

Seaward wrote:
You are confusing atheism with anti-theism. You really need to stop. .

He can't. Its what he really believes, right or wrong (wrong).

Orlanth wrote:

Seaward wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Faith itself need not be blind either. Evidence is there, even if proof is withheld.

No, it isn't. Not of the empirical sort. Anecdotal, perhaps.

The difference between empirical evidence and anecdotal is the number of steps between the observer and the one proporting the evidence. This assumes unfairly that people of faith do not see the evidence for themselves, when indeed many can and do. Its also unfairly delimits the value of a religious testimony compared to other. If one noticed a chimpanzee making a specific tool not previously seen is that anecdotal or empirical evidence? It might be claimed to vbe empirical evidence depending on who did the observation.
There is plenty of evidence for the charismata for example, but if you don't want to believe that then no matter how much evidence is presented it will be flatly rejected as hearsay. Again I argue that the rejection or acceptance of said evidence as one whims is due to the faith based nature of our study of the religious.
Most people looking at a religious topic have already found their conclusion before seeing any evidence, because that is their preferred personal choice.

Speak for yourself, that might be what you're doing, but please stop projecting your ideas onto most people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_research
1 Observation: The collecting and organisation of empirical facts; Forming hypothesis.
2 Induction: Formulating hypothesis.
3 Deduction: Deducting consequences of hypothesis as testable predictions.
4 Testing: Testing the hypothesis with new empirical material.
5 Evaluation: Evaluating the outcome of testing or else

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
In science, anecdotal evidence has been defined as:
"information that is not based on facts or careful study"
"reports or observations of usually unscientific observers"
"casual observations or indications rather than rigorous or scientific analysis"
"information passed along by word-of-mouth but not documented scientifically"

so your statement of "The difference between empirical evidence and anecdotal is the number of steps between the observer and the one proporting the evidence" is completely wrong. the difference between the two is testing. Its not based on whims, its based on what you can predict, test, and evaluate. And if you can prove it, other people should be able to do the same test and get the same results. This is where the religious claims for god fail, just because 1 person survives a plane crash is not proof of any gods. Now if that same person survives 10 or more plane crashes you might be onto something. But then we'd get into if there is a god, well what god is it? there's over 2,000 to choose from. And what would that prove anyways, god likes that one person, but damn the other passengers of those 10 crashes. Or just if he's on the plane, be sure to get off it as quick as possible? I'd bet if we studied that one person, we could find out scientifically how he survives all those crashes with a natural explanation.

I've asked for evidence many times in these topics, and have never been provided any. I asked you early in this thread as well and was likewise not provided any. You claim god exists, now please formulate your hypothesis, make predictions based on it, test it, then let others evaluate and re do your tests. If your claim can pass the scientific process it could one day become a theory based on the amount of data you have to support your hypothesis.

If you can prove a god exists, then prove it is your god, I would look at your evidence then make a knowledge based decision on if I should join your religion or not. til then I don't accept any claims a god exists without proof, and that does not magically put me into some other religion or world wide organization. See, speaking for myself with no appeals to authority.

MrDwhitey wrote:We did the lords prayer in primary school at every assembly. That was what, 15 years ago?

Oh gak yeah!

I remember now.. I think every Friday we y did it. I recall having "Hymn practice" once a week too. My missus thinks its funny I know all the words to the songs.

I like all the hymns though, I never really equated them to God or anything, I just liked the singing bit, and one of our teachers was the gak on the piano!


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dæl wrote:
A friend of mine is training to be a primary school teacher, she is more pissed off about this than anything else.

Aye funny that, I figured we would have moved on a little by now... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Matty's teacher's:

dogma wrote:Matty's teacher's:

Hah! I didn't go to a convent, It was a normal C of E primary school, the funny thing about the UK is we still have separate ones for Catholics, I remember because mine was called "Chandlers Ridge" and the other Primary School a mile down the road was a Catholic one called Saint Bernadette's.

Maybe its all changed these days.. I think I'm getting old.

Its funny though, I always mock my missus about America being super Religious, but she doesn't know any hymns!

mattyrm wrote: Its funny though, I always mock my missus about America being super Religious, but she doesn't know any hymns!

American religiosity is really more of the, "Do as I say, not as I do," variety.