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When it comes to what is taught in schools, you really should go with the side that has a little logic and real science behind it.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:

Frazzled wrote:There are plenty of scientists who believe in a form of creationism. To think all scientists are atheists is..misplaced.

Creationism generally refers to the belief that the Earth was created relatively recently (~6000 BC is the typical time) and that humans were created directly as humans and did not evolve from any other form of life. Essentially no scientists who work in hard science believe in that. Plenty of people who are not atheists do not believe that. If you're using creationism to describe a belief that the world was created by God at some point in the past without the specific 'no human evolution' and 'short time ago', then there are plenty of scientists who believe that, but it's not what is usually referred to as creationism.

Thats your view, not everyone's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Henners91 wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:You do us a disservice to imply that we all make fun of people of faith.

To think all people who believe in Christianity believe in Creationism is also misplaced. There are plenty of scientists who have religious faith and do not believe in Creationism.

Belief in Christianity does not require belief in the literal truth of the whole Bible.

If one accepts the Bible story of creation as an allegory, one can explain the universe and evolution as being mechanisms set up by God, but not requiring constant tinkering by God to keep them working.

This is fully consistent with mainstream Christian faith as propounded by the Roman Catholic and C of E churches, and is consistent with scientific theories.

I don't get it, if Christians can deny certain parts of the Holy Book penned by their creator, why not the whole lot?

I mean, lots of people ditched Catholicism to justify money-lending and the hoarding of capital anyway...

And now it's devolved to paying lip-service to a deity and then continuing to live our exploitative immoral lives, there's just no point in keeping up the facáde anymore....

I may not be a fan; but real Christians should be Catholic fundamentalists that take the entire Bible literally ;P

Stone the gays!

And the attack begins.

Since this is to be taught in schools, I think it is reasonable for the curriculum to be laid out in advance, rather than simply brought in as a fait accompli.

(I know you're not a teacher.)

Kilkrazy wrote:Since this is to be taught in schools, I think it is reasonable for the curriculum to be laid out in advance, rather than simply brought in as a fait accompli.

(I know you're not a teacher.)

Who are you referring to?

If its me, I wouldn't waste time on this nonsense.
"Here's the theory of evolution. You will now be bored with the same stupid ass commentary and graph from the monk from centuries ago and pea pods. Its lame. You know it. I know it. We could actually do this is in a much more cool manner but that would be interesting and frankly, this is how I had to learn it so you little bastards have go through this mind numbingly boring lesson too. I hate you all but the law won't allow me to give you the thrashing you all so righteously deserve. I need a drink. "

You.

You were arguing that creationism is equivalent to evolution.

Ah, so we have this Senator, from the 'Tea Party', proving what a total idiot she is and within a couple of posts the thread is diverted away from what a bunch of blithering idiots the Tea Party are sending out as potential members of Government and onto religion... AGAIN.

End result, folks argue for a bit, then folks take offence, then thread gets locked down, over something it was never about in the first place.

OPEN A NEW THREAD to have your argument about religion and then enjoy it getting locked down (by mods other than those doing the 'discussion' presumably?) by about page 2-3.

Is shouting going to help?

The issue of creationism and religion is the core point in the whole thread, since the argument over the First Amendment is whether it applies to religion in schools and whether creationism is religion.

I thought the point was that the silly (Manchu notes a word filter bug here) didn't even know the bloody constitution and yet is being put forwards as the nominee for the tea party, raising the fairly obvious point of WTF are these numbnuts serious or is that entire 'political movement' a joke in poor taste.

It's like pointing out Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country and then going on to have a discussion about the politics of Africa, knowing that half the folks doing the discussing have a viewpoint that will end up in them taking offence at the other half doing the discussing and therefore locking the thread.

@MGS: Yeah, she's a joke. The Republicans are doing well with their joke candidates in other states but this particular joke isn't going over as well.

Kilkrazy wrote:Is shouting going to help?

Shouting, naked screaming, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

Also, http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2017#comic

No capslock guys? You're not coming off as insane yet.

MY WORDS ARE REALLY BIG

CHRISTINE O'DONNELL IS A SECRET JEWISH AGENT SENT TO DESTROY OUR WHITE CULTURE AND LIBEL OUR BLOOD

THIS WILL ALL BE REVEALED TO YOU ON 2012

ALSO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND IS A REPTILE ALIEN HOW CAN FIRE MELT STEEL BEAMS?

WAKE UP SHEEPLE

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I thought the point was that the silly (Manchu notes a word filter bug here) didn't even know the bloody constitution and yet is being put forwards as the nominee for the tea party, ...

...

Surely that was self evident from the start. No-one disagreed, and we moved on to the constitutional matters.


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BTW...

Kilkrazy wrote:Is shouting going to help?

The issue of creationism and religion is the core point in the whole thread, since the argument over the First Amendment is whether it applies to religion in schools and whether creationism is religion.

1) Schools are run by the government so DUH yes it applies.
2) Unless you intend to teach the creation story of every single religion in existence then yes, teaching only judeo-chrisitian literal 6 days 8,000 years ago creationism is a violation of the amendment.

How is this actually a question?

We have a different view on creation then Killkrazy. I'm using creation to describe all concepts to define the beginning of the universe not involving its origin as spontaneous generation-hence the denotation of "creation science" to be a very distinct subset.

Kilkrazy wrote:Is shouting going to help?

The issue of creationism and religion is the core point in the whole thread, since the argument over the First Amendment is whether it applies to religion in schools and whether creationism is religion.

Wait I thought it was making fun of here because she didn't know the section was in the First Amendment.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Surely that was self evident from the start. No-one disagreed, and we moved on to the constitutional matters.

Oh? I read an argument about creationism and teaching it in schools, must have been another thread.

/shrugs and returns to plotting BFG lists.

Tyyr wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Is shouting going to help?

The issue of creationism and religion is the core point in the whole thread, since the argument over the First Amendment is whether it applies to religion in schools and whether creationism is religion.

1) Schools are run by the government so DUH yes it applies.
2) Unless you intend to teach the creation story of every single religion in existence then yes, teaching only judeo-chrisitian literal 6 days 8,000 years ago creationism is a violation of the amendment.

How is this actually a question?

Again...teach evolution. Teach in the same dull manner I was taught. No one will care or even pay attention. Just bring an alarm clock to wake people up.

I quite enjoyed my highschool biology classes, particularly regarding evolutionary theories. Before I ever heard of Richard Dawkins as a fussy atheistic crank, I read him as an evolutionary biologist back in those days. Didn't agree with him then, either, actually--thanks to Stephen J. Gould, another atheist. The point is that this stuff is not inherently boring but will actually stimulate the intellectually curious. I suppose "Intelligent Design" could be taught in a lesson on what science is not. And that would certainly be intellectually stimulating for some of the students. It might also be traumatic for others (at least from their parents' point of view).

O'Connell says it doesn't matter what she believes (bit convenient that, as she also trots out her "catholicism" at every corner): she believes the Constitution says creationism (the specific body of "science" now, not a general idea that the universe was created by some being) ought to be taught in schools. And in that regard, I would say that she is absolutely incorrect.

Much of the work done by creation scientists was taught to me in science class in order to illustrate two concepts:

1) False deduction of the sort that treats refutation of one hypothesis as confirmation of another.

2) Poor hypothesis construction due to a lean on concepts that are impossible to operationalize.

For all its attempts to be viewed as science, the only scientific component of creation science is the one that has absolutely no significance to proving the existence of God. So, in that respect, 'creation science' could be taught in schools, but the overarching concept that holds it all together, the part that cannot be operationally tested on even a small scale, cannot be.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:
Like several others have said, this really need a cite - all I've ever seen of Creation "Science" is some guys with a degree from a religious university sitting around poking at evolution.

A few off the top of my head...
Kurt P.Wise PhD in Geology from Harvard. He studied under the noted evolutionist Stephen J Gould, inventer of the evolutionary "punctuated equilibrium" theory.

His most famous book "Faith, Form, and Time: What the Bible Teaches and Science Confirms About Creation and the Age of the Universe" Mr. Wise is noted for his work on "Baraminism" or created kinds which is to say that dogs all come form a common dog kind ancestor and cows come from a common cow as opposed to cows turning into whales or reptiles turning into birds. (here is link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Created_kind)

Michael Behe, introduced "ireducibile complexity" He is a professor of Bio chemistry at lehigh University. He wrote "Darwins Black Box"

I'll get more later.... got to run right now.

GG

Well, it's all rather a sham in any case. How we could ever pass off the message of people like O'Donnell as anything but latent attempts to sacralize government or institutionalize some concept of religion is the real puzzler.

I took these from Wikipedia but feel free to point out if they are incorrectly quoted (in spirit).

"Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless... ...We have it on the authority of a man who may well be creationism’s most highly qualified and most intelligent scientist that no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference. - Richard Dawkins

"If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate." - Kurt Wise

In other words, If he came across evidence that contradicted his position he would ignore it. It's also worth noting that he hasn't studied biology (of any kind) since high school.

Sorry, Kurt Wise' opinion isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Frazzled wrote:

Tyyr wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Is shouting going to help?

The issue of creationism and religion is the core point in the whole thread, since the argument over the First Amendment is whether it applies to religion in schools and whether creationism is religion.

1) Schools are run by the government so DUH yes it applies.
2) Unless you intend to teach the creation story of every single religion in existence then yes, teaching only judeo-chrisitian literal 6 days 8,000 years ago creationism is a violation of the amendment.

How is this actually a question?

Again...teach evolution. Teach in the same dull manner I was taught. No one will care or even pay attention. Just bring an alarm clock to wake people up.

Come now, teaching evolution doesn't have to be boring:

If we all came from monkeys, how come we still got monkeys?

Riddle me that, atheists.

Orkeosaurus wrote:If we all came from monkeys, how come we still got monkeys?

Riddle me that, atheists.

Monkeys that came from lizards that came from fish that came from amoebas... But we still have all those things!!! My science, it's falling apart!

@Orkeosaurus: How many different fruits are there in the world? One of them is a bit hand shaped? Well that's conclusive! I'm just going to stop reading science books right now!

I do have a worst nightmare but it isn't bananas. Maybe I'm not atheist enough.

Every time I watch that video I mentally replace the word banana with penis and giggle.

George Spiggott wrote:I took these from Wikipedia but feel free to point out if they are incorrectly quoted (in spirit).

"Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless... ...We have it on the authority of a man who may well be creationism’s most highly qualified and most intelligent scientist that no evidence, no matter how overwhelming, no matter how all-embracing, no matter how devastatingly convincing, can ever make any difference. - Richard Dawkins

"If all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate." - Kurt Wise

In other words, If he came across evidence that contradicted his position he would ignore it. It's also worth noting that he hasn't studied biology (of any kind) since high school.

Sorry, Kurt Wise' opinion isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Everyone pay close attention...George Spiggot from the Internets has spoken!!

He is a representative from the church of Richard Dawkins..and I think I heard him say "Can I get an amen?"

GG

generalgrog wrote:Everyone pay close attention...George Spiggot from the Internets has spoken!!

He is a representative from the church of Richard Dawkins..and I think I heard him say "Can I get an amen?"

GG

I'm from the internet and the church of Richard Dawkins? Well I am highly manoeuvrable after all. I'm glad we agree, arguing this man's (Wise) credentials further would have wasted us both time and effort.

I'm sending you this piece of cheese as a token of our new found friendship and agreement.