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 Peregrine wrote:

So, especially in the US, if you're going to talk about a way that a religious group is harming society it's almost certainly going to be a Christian church responsible.

Also you arent looking at Christian churches harming society, you are just looking at Christian churches, they don't need to harm anyone. You want them out of the schools and public meetings because fanatic atheism.

Take the prayers in public meetings issue discussing. Christian churches arent causing 'societal harm' here, the thread hasn't even expressed an interest in finding out what type of issues are raised in the prayers, it is the fact that they are still around still exist, and still pray that makes then unwanted to fanatic atheists. No harm is necessary to be hated by the haters.

Stop pretending that this is a necessary response to Christians 'harming society'. It isn't that rational, we even had people right here saying that they find having prayers in meetings as and of itself offensive and when asked to apply some tolerance to that get angry.

I posit that Christian churches are harming society in the US by trying to force public schools to teach Creationism/Intelligent Design, and banning sex ed/family planning courses.

Both of which indisputably cause harm to society.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/secular-philosophies/why-religion-must-end-interview-with-sam-harris.aspx

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/12/were-putting-an-end-to-religion-richard-dawkins-bill-maher-and-the-exploding-new-american-secularism/

https://www.facebook.com/religionmustendnow/

Nice job moving the goal posts there. Opposing religion and saying "we want to persuade people that their beliefs are incorrect" is not at all the same as trying to ban religion. Please don't use such a dishonest argument.

the arguments are not dishonest, the motive is to end religion, it is the stated goal. The thing is religion is not going away.
Now it is understood that you cant just slaughter all the religious people, but you can try to systemically ban them from meetings schools etc.

 Peregrine wrote:

And, amusingly, that Sam Harris interview even refutes your own claim that atheists don't target Islam. Quotes:

But what does he DO about Islam? The atheist movement is concerned with going after the easier target.
Anyway my point was that as Christianity is targeted the atheist vs Christianity problem comes from atheists targeting Christians not the other way around.

Granted that Harris doesn't like Islam. But then again I listed the three quotes as a counter to your claim that it was ridiculous to think that atheists want to end religion when its is a stated aim.

 Orlanth wrote:

Take the prayers in public meetings issue discussing. Christian churches arent causing 'societal harm' here, the thread hasn't even expressed an interest in finding out what type of issues are raised in the prayers, it is the fact that they are still around still exist, and still pray that makes then unwanted to fanatic atheists. No harm is necessary to be hated by the haters.

No.

The thing that makes them unwanted to "fanatic" atheists is that they quite clearly violate disestablishment, they place one religion over another and shows preferential treatment to a select group of people.

 feeder wrote:
I posit that Christian churches are harming society in the US by trying to force public schools to teach Creationism/Intelligent Design, and banning sex ed/family planning courses.

Both of which indisputably cause harm to society.

It can be disputed easily enough.

Creationism and Intelligent design offer a counterbalance of teaching. Exposing children to the idea that not all concepts are universally accepted and that some concepts might have multiple logical paths while being apparently similar is helpful.
teach only one way and you don't teach the person to think for themselves. Also evolution is not an atheist exclusive doctrine, Intelligent Design prevents it from being hijacked as such. In fact all you need to do to teach intelligent design is to say that the evolutionary process is considered by some not to be random but guided by a deity. As backup up one could mention certain bottleneck species which would be difficult to explain under random natural selection because they have developed a very specific lifecycle which could be disrupted in intervening evolutionary stages unless guided. Parasitic wasps come to mind here.

You seem to think that just having a religious element to education is harmful as and of itself. Which actually doesn't show you to be a good judge on what would make fair teaching.

Churches are not banning sex education courses. Churches prefer an abstinenced focused sex education policy. This can work but needs to be backed up with sexual health focused education. the trouble with the former is if people want to ignore abstinence they will. the trouble with the latter is that it sexualises children at progressively younger ages.
There is a logic behind both issues, abstinence is traditonal, is 100% efective if stuck to and doesnt require any sexualisation. It can be combined successfully with awareness of STI's and pregnancy. Just encouranging the use iof condoms however lowers the age of sexual awareness. The UK follows this path and now has to start sex education with preteens in order to educate before the sexualisation of the child. Sexualisation of pre-pubescent children is generally not good.
Besides the church are not the driving force of either but is a party political issue, though it is certainly there.

Nevertheless the churches are concerned with the sexualisation of youth, and it is a desperate stretch to label that indisputable harm. By and large the bible belt areas and those communities with abstinence focused societies have better sexual health overall. You cant just take the same teaching to a ghetto school and get the same results.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Take the prayers in public meetings issue discussing. Christian churches arent causing 'societal harm' here, the thread hasn't even expressed an interest in finding out what type of issues are raised in the prayers, it is the fact that they are still around still exist, and still pray that makes then unwanted to fanatic atheists. No harm is necessary to be hated by the haters.

No.

The thing that makes them unwanted to "fanatic" atheists is that they quite clearly violate disestablishment, they place one religion over another and shows preferential treatment to a select group of people.

But it has already been shown that the meetings can be made multifaith if another part of the community wants in.

'I don't get my special priveleges' is definitely the same as 'bannimg religion'.

/sarcasm.

 Orlanth wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I posit that Christian churches are harming society in the US by trying to force public schools to teach Creationism/Intelligent Design, and banning sex ed/family planning courses.

Both of which indisputably cause harm to society.

It can be disputed easily enough.

Creationism and Intelligent design offer a counterbalance of teaching. Exposing children to the idea that not all concepts are universally accepted and that some concepts might have multiple logical paths while being apparently similar is helpful.
teach only one way and you don't teach the person to think for themselves. Also evolution is not an atheist exclusive doctrine, Intelligent Design prevents it from being hijacked as such. In fact all you need to do to teach intelligent design is to say that the evolutionary process is considered by some not to be random but guided by a deity. As backup up one could mention certain bottleneck species which would be difficult to explain under random natural selection because they have developed a very specific lifecycle which could be disrupted in intervening evolutionary stages unless guided. Parasitic wasps come to mind here.

You seem to think that just having a religious element to education is harmful as and of itself. Which actually doesn't show you to be a good judge on what would make fair teaching.

Churches are not banning sex education courses. Churches prefer an abstinenced focused sex education policy. This can work but needs to be backed up with sexual health focused education. the trouble with the former is if people want to ignore abstinence they will. the trouble with the latter is that it sexualises children at progressively younger ages.
There is a logic behind both issues, abstinence is traditonal, is 100% efective if stuck to and doesnt require any sexualisation. It can be combined successfully with awareness of STI's and pregnancy. Just encouranging the use iof condoms however lowers the age of sexual awareness. The UK follows this path and now has to start sex education with preteens in order to educate before the sexualisation of the child. Sexualisation of pre-pubescent children is generally not good.
Besides the church are not the driving force of either but is a party political issue, though it is certainly there.

Nevertheless the churches are concerned with the sexualisation of youth, and it is a desperate stretch to label that indisputable harm. By and large the bible belt areas and those communities with abstinence focused societies have better sexual health overall. You cant just take the same teaching to a ghetto school and get the same results.

creastionism/ID have the same merit as Russell's teapot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

The only difference is one is obviously made up, and the other is made up and then written down in a book. Creationism/ID has no scientific evidence to back it up, has its roots in theology, and therefore should be nowhere near any publicly funded school.

Also, if abstinence works so fantastically, why does Texas (and other abstinence focused states over actual sex ed classes) have the highest teen pregnancy rates?

Intelligent design could be taught in schools... however in the US at least, it is ALWAYS coupled with religious dogma. It's been a fair few months since my last science course, but TBB, singularity or spoken word for the instant of creation are not taught. What is taught is scientific, observable fact. This means evolution is taught.


When it comes to sex ed, yeah, Evangelical conservative groups (if you care to, google what happened in Texas) have pushed for abstinence only "education." Most school districts that have implemented these policies from that pressure, within a few months will see a major spike in STIs. Every. Single. Time.

I will not sit here saying "the church" as if Christianity is a cohesive group, but it is undeniable that when a local group gets it's way on religious grounds, the results to education and public discourse is never good.

 Orlanth wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I posit that Christian churches are harming society in the US by trying to force public schools to teach Creationism/Intelligent Design, and banning sex ed/family planning courses.

Both of which indisputably cause harm to society.

It can be disputed easily enough.

Creationism and Intelligent design offer a counterbalance of teaching. Exposing children to the idea that not all concepts are universally accepted and that some concepts might have multiple logical paths while being apparently similar is helpful.

And have nothing to do with science. There is no disprovable theory to either. They are not scientific theories and do not belong in science classes. It is beyond laughable that a well-tested scientific theory is put on the same level as a religious myth. Also, if you're going to teach creationism (In a philosophy class), you have to teach ALL of the creation stories from all the religions. Intelligent Design is just a dog whistle for 'Christian God did this'.


[quote[You seem to think that just having a religious element to education is harmful as and of itself. Which actually doesn't show you to be a good judge on what would make fair teaching.

 skyth wrote:

And have nothing to do with science. There is no disprovable theory to either. They are not scientific theories and do not belong in science classes. It is beyond laughable that a well-tested scientific theory is put on the same level as a religious myth. Also, if you're going to teach creationism (In a philosophy class), you have to teach ALL of the creation stories from all the religions. Intelligent Design is just a dog whistle for 'Christian God did this'.

Creationism doesn't necessarily have to include any particular story, just the concept that some people believe that the origins of creation had a guiding hand. You don't even have to accentuate with any specific deity. That is indeed best left to religion classes.

 skyth wrote:

Actually, it is not science at all. Teaching it AS science in a science classroom IS harmful. Not realizing that shows that YOU are not a good judge on what would make fair teaching.

The point here is that atheism isn't scientific either, including that evolutionary theory does not imply the non existence of a creator God. keeps the teaching fair, as it cannot thereby be hijacked by atheism.

 skyth wrote:

The church is the driving force behind abstinence ONLY teaching. No other information is allowed to be presented other than trying to scare the kids.

Citation please. And what are the kids being scared with? AIDS etc, thats just a loaded way of saying they include the CDC approved eduction on STI's.

 skyth wrote:

And that statement has no relation to reality at all. Abstinence-only sex ed produces more teen pregnancies than a balanced approach.

The availability of condoms in the local area will be the deciding factor.

 skyth wrote:

And it has already been shown that communities refuse to do that and marginalize people who are not an 'accepted' religion.

Except evidence suggests that faith groups can and do demand their rights to free religion. The problem mainly rises from spoof 'religions' set up to mock those rights. Some breaks are needed to prevent people from turning up and demanding equal time for the belief in their left sock, or a spaghetti monster.

 skyth wrote:

The whole point is that Christianity is singled out for criticism in the western world because it enjoys undeserved privilege and works to keep other religions down.

Except that the reality differs from the doctrine. This is certainly not true in the UK, the opposite in fact even with a formal state religion. Ethnic religions get the free pass and isolated critique of the churches is encouraged.
As for undeserved privilege, freedom of religion is not an undeserved privilege, its a right that doesn't require merit to attain.

 Orlanth wrote:
As backup up one could mention certain bottleneck species which would be difficult to explain under random natural selection because they have developed a very specific lifecycle which could be disrupted in intervening evolutionary stages unless guided. Parasitic wasps come to mind here.

Just going to stop you here. There is no such thing as a species that is difficult to explain under evolution. Creationism is no more appropriate for science class than flat earth theory, it's clearly garbage and the only way it should ever be mentioned is in a historical context of incorrect theories and how we moved past them. And intelligent design is nothing more than an attempt to get Christian creationism past US separation of church and state laws, complete with literally copy/pasting "intelligent design" over "creationism" in a creationist textbook.

By and large the bible belt areas and those communities with abstinence focused societies have better sexual health overall.

Uh, no, they don't at all. We have some pretty strong evidence that abstinence-only policies increase rates of disease and pregnancy. And the state with the highest rate of teen pregnancy? Mississippi, right in the heart of the bible belt. So yeah, feel free to state the obvious and mention that abstinence is 100% effective at preventing things that happen if you have sex, but you'd better be giving out more useful information as well.

But it has already been shown that the meetings can be made multifaith if another part of the community wants in.

Did you see the article I posted, where the county immediately stopped having pre-meeting prayers as soon as a Muslim gave one, and the chairman explicitly said that only Christian prayers were welcome?

 Orlanth wrote:
the arguments are not dishonest, the motive is to end religion, it is the stated goal. The thing is religion is not going away.
Now it is understood that you cant just slaughter all the religious people, but you can try to systemically ban them from meetings schools etc.

It's absolutely dishonest. The subject was banning religion, you moved the goalposts and provided examples of atheists saying "we should persuade people that their religions are wrong". Do you honestly not see a difference between using the power of the government to remove religion by force and trying to persuade people to say "you know, you're right, this whole god thing is kind of silly".

But what does he DO about Islam?

What does he DO about Christianity? You seem to have this impossible standard for "targeting Islam" where anything short of personally grabbing a gun and going off to fight ISIS doesn't count.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Intelligent design could be taught in schools... however in the US at least, it is ALWAYS coupled with religious dogma. It's been a fair few months since my last science course, but TBB, singularity or spoken word for the instant of creation are not taught. What is taught is scientific, observable fact. This means evolution is taught.

Fair point. This issue is handled with more care and foresight elsewhere in the west. Intelligent design can be summed up in once sentence anyway: " in evolution theory science may have discovered a tool by which a creator god could create.". It requires no separate study.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

I will not sit here saying "the church" as if Christianity is a cohesive group, but it is undeniable that when a local group gets it's way on religious grounds, the results to education and public discourse is never good.

Pity this, again decent teaching can be had in a balanced approach. In the UK the balanced approach of the faith schools has better results than the approach of encouraging condom use in ever younger children which runs the danger of directly encouraging sexual experimentation at younger ages. With the pregnancies and STI's being skewed towards the secular schools.

Ok, I can see where you are coming from about Texas. But removing religion as an influence in schools is not a good solution, without the CoE to hold the candle education in he UK would be ever poorer than it is. But then the UK denominations are not like some American ones.

That being said abstinence can and does work, but needs a social framework to surround it. and a community with workable abstinence would likely not be afraid of teaching about STI's and condoms aswell. That does exist in some US communities, due to the geography of isolation but is almost unheard of in Europe including the UK.

Not everything to do with Bible belt is full of whackjob fringe churches. If some communities get to make it work. I wonder if they are less heard because they are less scripturally aggressive?

 Orlanth wrote:
You want them out of the schools and public meetings because fanatic atheism.

No, I want them out of public schools and government meetings because an important principle of the US government (stated in the very first amendment in our bill of rights) is that church and state are separate. The government does not get to promote or endorse any religion or position on religion. It would be just as inappropriate to open a government meeting with an atheist giving a speech on why god doesn't exist.


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 Orlanth wrote:
Intelligent design can be summed up in once sentence anyway: " in evolution theory science may have discovered a tool by which a creator god could create.". It requires no separate study.

Here's an alternate sentence: "it's Christian creationism, except with the references to 'God' literally find/replaced to 'intelligent designer' to attempt to slip through US laws on separation of church and state". I see no reason to pretend that it's anything other than a dishonest attempt to get Jesus back into public schools.

Not everything to do with Bible belt is full of whackjob fringe churches.

It really is. Even outside of the "Bible belt" region the US is still pretty overwhelmingly Christian. The thing that defines the "Bible belt" is that those supposed whackjob fringe churches have a whole lot more influence than other places.

 Orlanth wrote:

 skyth wrote:

Actually, it is not science at all. Teaching it AS science in a science classroom IS harmful. Not realizing that shows that YOU are not a good judge on what would make fair teaching.

The point here is that atheism isn't scientific either, including that evolutionary theory does not imply the non existence of a creator God. keeps the teaching fair, as it cannot thereby be hijacked by atheism.

Irrelevant. Not mentioning a creator deity is not the same as saying that there is no deities. There's that Christian privilege...Needing to make sure that your religion is injected into everything.

 skyth wrote:

The church is the driving force behind abstinence ONLY teaching. No other information is allowed to be presented other than trying to scare the kids.

Citation please. And what are the kids being scared with? AIDS etc, thats just a loaded way of saying they include the CDC approved eduction on STI's.

 skyth wrote:

And that statement has no relation to reality at all. Abstinence-only sex ed produces more teen pregnancies than a balanced approach.

The availability of condoms in the local area will be the deciding factor.

How to use them and that they are effective is more of a deciding factor. Abstinence only education tends to lie and greatly exaggerate (IE effectively lie) about the possibility of condom failure and don't include how to use one. Message is 'why bother then?'

 skyth wrote:

And it has already been shown that communities refuse to do that and marginalize people who are not an 'accepted' religion.

Except evidence suggests that faith groups can and do demand their rights to free religion. The problem mainly rises from spoof 'religions' set up to mock those rights. Some breaks are needed to prevent people from turning up and demanding equal time for the belief in their left sock, or a spaghetti monster.

A)free religion does not include the right to have the government give your religion preferential treatment. and 'spoof' religions have all the same rights as 'real' religions. To the government they should be indistinguishable. The validity of a religion should never be up for debate for a government institution.

 skyth wrote:

The whole point is that Christianity is singled out for criticism in the western world because it enjoys undeserved privilege and works to keep other religions down.

Except that the reality differs from the doctrine. This is certainly not true in the UK, the opposite in fact even with a formal state religion. Ethnic religions get the free pass and isolated critique of the churches is encouraged.
As for undeserved privilege, freedom of religion is not an undeserved privilege, its a right that doesn't require merit to attain.

Freedom of religion is being allowed to practice your own religion. it does not include the right to have the government force your religion on anyone else. Besides the fact that that isn't the only privilege that Christianity has in western society. I liked to a list of over 30 of them earlier in the thread.

Quite frankly, the government has no business sponsoring religious practices or deciding which ones are valid. There government should have an EXTREMELY good reason to make anyone feel like an outsider. This is especially true with regards to religion and I can see no compelling reason to intertwine religion with government.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
As backup up one could mention certain bottleneck species which would be difficult to explain under random natural selection because they have developed a very specific lifecycle which could be disrupted in intervening evolutionary stages unless guided. Parasitic wasps come to mind here.

Just going to stop you here. There is no such thing as a species that is difficult to explain under evolution.

How about parasitic wasps that eat into the host caterpillar brain just enough to specifically brain damage them so they wrap their cocoon around the wasp rather than themselves, then stand guard over the wasp cocoons.
This will require to pull off , random brain surgery by an insect larva, and survival of such in order to survive the metamorphosis which is entirely reliant on the continuence of the host species in its changed state.
This offers no room for error, and thus no room for random progression, but is easily understandable if the parasitic wasp was guided by an external intelligence into what it needs to do, until the brain surgery program as set.

 Peregrine wrote:

Creationism is no more appropriate for science class than flat earth theory, it's clearly garbage and the only way it should ever be mentioned is in a historical context of incorrect theories and how we moved past them. And intelligent design is nothing more than an attempt to get Christian creationism past US separation of church and state laws, complete with literally copy/pasting "intelligent design" over "creationism" in a creationist textbook.

Creationism is intelligent design. Young earth creationism is the Bible literalist stuf, and the Bible itself preaches against Bible literalism.
Intelligent design as and of itself has nothing to do with US law. From the time of Darwin some theologians have put forward the hypothesis that evolution is nothing more than the tool God uses. From a non literalist it makes sense, and it is not inconsistent with scripture either for reasons that I wont go into long, briedly put: Genesis is creation from Gods perspective (there wasnt any other) to God a day is an unspecified age/thousand years/long time and God is an extra dimensional being, thus the seven days of Creation are seven 'long times', and not necessarily in chronological order, but the order in which God thinks through the process.
But I need not go into that on an intelligent design/creationism.

 Peregrine wrote:

complete with literally copy/pasting "intelligent design" over "creationism" in a creationist textbook.

They should copy paste it back. Intelligent design is just creationism explained. Its a recent political movement, but an old idea. Hadnled properly it requires no explaining because it doesnt interfere with the science in any way, it just challenges the assumption of evolution as an exclusively atheist theorem.

 Peregrine wrote:

Uh, no, they don't at all. We have some pretty strong evidence that abstinence-only policies increase rates of disease and pregnancy.

I am not calling for that, and neither are many states, including some Bible belt ones. Abstinence can be taught in tandem, many education curricula do just that. I never reference abstinence-only as anything positive, it fact I never mentioned it at all. Have a check.

And the state with the highest rate of teen pregnancy? Mississippi, right in the heart of the bible belt. So yeah, feel free to state the obvious and mention that abstinence is 100% effective at preventing things that happen if you have sex, but you'd better be giving out more useful information as well.

 Peregrine wrote:

Did you see the article I posted, where the county immediately stopped having pre-meeting prayers as soon as a Muslim gave one, and the chairman explicitly said that only Christian prayers were welcome?

Time to apply essential rights.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's absolutely dishonest. The subject was banning religion, you moved the goalposts and provided examples of atheists saying "we should persuade people that their religions are wrong". Do you honestly not see a difference between using the power of the government to remove religion by force and trying to persuade people to say "you know, you're right, this whole god thing is kind of silly".

Some people have been saying that a long time, religion is still here. Nothing is going to change that way. However they have a professed intention to remove religion, hijacking the education system is a start. It is not a case of explaining to people God is silly, its about controlling the narrative, likely through the media and a biased education system. With the intent to rid the word of religion, so a generation is raised atheist and can then prevent its continuence.
This wont work either, China did that, religion went underground, but it survived and in fact grew.

 Peregrine wrote:

What does he DO about Christianity? You seem to have this impossible standard for "targeting Islam" where anything short of personally grabbing a gun and going off to fight ISIS doesn't count.

Call for it to be removed from schools.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


Here's an alternate sentence: "it's Christian creationism, except with the references to 'God' literally find/replaced to 'intelligent designer' to attempt to slip through US laws on separation of church and state". I see no reason to pretend that it's anything other than a dishonest attempt to get Jesus back into public schools.

Except it predates the controversy you talk about.

 Peregrine wrote:

It really is. Even outside of the "Bible belt" region the US is still pretty overwhelmingly Christian. The thing that defines the "Bible belt" is that those supposed whackjob fringe churches have a whole lot more influence than other places.

I think you misread me here. Yep the bible belt is full of Christian churches, but most churches are attached to functional communities and are not run by nutcases. America includes communities that simply could not exist elsewhere due to its minimal interference in religious affairs, Amish for example. it is a strong credit to the US that a people group can say: we want to live in a selectively primitive environment not based on poverty, as a community, for generations but without complete isolation - and achieve that.

 Peregrine wrote:

By and large the bible belt areas and those communities with abstinence focused societies have better sexual health overall.

Uh, no, they don't at all. We have some pretty strong evidence that abstinence-only policies increase rates of disease and pregnancy. And the state with the highest rate of teen pregnancy? Mississippi, right in the heart of the bible belt. So yeah, feel free to state the obvious and mention that abstinence is 100% effective at preventing things that happen if you have sex, but you'd better be giving out more useful information as well.

Just for funsies, I looked for an article I recall seeing a while back, and came across some interesting maps... If by "sexual health" Orlanth means, absolutely swimming in STDs, then yeah, the bible belt is pretty healthy.

Also, the bible belt has the highest rates of non-completion of HS, lower college rates, higher obesity, higher diabetes rates, etc. etc. etc.

This link covers pretty much everything I just mentioned:
https://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/08/15/red-america-vs-blue-america-state-maps-illustrate-the-difference/

This one just STDs:
http://www.livescience.com/48100-sexually-transmitted-infections-50-states-map.html


But please, continue believing that abstinence only education really works

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

But please, continue believing that abstinence only education really works

And who called for that? Hint: read carefully.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
As backup up one could mention certain bottleneck species which would be difficult to explain under random natural selection because they have developed a very specific lifecycle which could be disrupted in intervening evolutionary stages unless guided. Parasitic wasps come to mind here.

Just going to stop you here. There is no such thing as a species that is difficult to explain under evolution.

How about parasitic wasps that eat into the host caterpillar brain just enough to specifically brain damage them so they wrap their cocoon around the wasp rather than themselves, then stand guard over the wasp cocoons.
This will require to pull off , random brain surgery by an insect larva, and survival of such in order to survive the metamorphosis which is entirely reliant on the continuence of the host species in its changed state.
This offers no room for error, and thus no room for random progression, but is easily understandable if the parasitic wasp was guided by an external intelligence into what it needs to do, until the brain surgery program as set.

I think that you simply underestimate what 100 million years of a 100 million wasps can achieve by sheer dumb luck. Even with one-in-a-billion odds of it working that is still 10 million wasps who will get it right. Plus it would not have happened all at once but instead probably have derived from a more typical parasitoid life cycle.

And just for fun what are the odds of an intelligent creator appearing who knows what to do to cause the wasps to evolve this way? Because it is actually creating a more complicated scenario, not a simpler one.

I actually agreed with you that intelligent design could be taught in school... what I pointed out was that here in the US, is that it would be attached to theology, which is scientifically unsound, as well as putting religion in schools where it doesn't belong.

It was you who kept up with abstinence programs being so successful, and yet there are a number of links you could check out to find that you are wrong. Instead, you wanted to continue beating the "it works!" drum.

As mentioned earlier ITT, religion has been generally negative for the world. And the link I provided that shows that the most religious portion of the US happens to also have the highest rates of most of the worst things (heart disease, strokes, diabetes, STDs, low education, economic issues, etc) which should at least give you pause. I know I'm not gonna change your mind, but you should also keep in mind that the religious experiences you have in the UK (I'm assuming you're CoE?) is probably quite different from Evangelicalism, Millenialism and other fairly distinctly American aspects of Christianity.

 Orlanth wrote:
How about parasitic wasps that eat into the host caterpillar brain just enough to specifically brain damage them so they wrap their cocoon around the wasp rather than themselves, then stand guard over the wasp cocoons.
This will require to pull off , random brain surgery by an insect larva, and survival of such in order to survive the metamorphosis which is entirely reliant on the continuence of the host species in its changed state.
This offers no room for error, and thus no room for random progression, but is easily understandable if the parasitic wasp was guided by an external intelligence into what it needs to do, until the brain surgery program as set.

Even a brief google search will give you discussion of the evolution of parasitic wasps, without involving any guiding intelligence at all.

Intelligent design as and of itself has nothing to do with US law.

No, it really does have to do with US law. The concept of god guiding the process of life is not new, but in the past people had no problem being open about calling it "god". The idea of intelligent design is to remove the explicit references to "god" and say "look, this is a purely scientific theory, it has nothing to do with religion so we can teach it in public schools" as if the courts are too RAW-literal to notice how obvious it is that the "intelligent designer" is meant to be the Christian god.

I am not calling for that, and neither are many states, including some Bible belt ones. Abstinence can be taught in tandem, many education curricula do just that. I never reference abstinence-only as anything positive, it fact I never mentioned it at all. Have a check.

So then what exactly are you talking about then? Normally when people mention teaching abstinence it's in the context of abstinence-only policies. And removed from that context the idea of teaching abstinence seems kind of meaningless. It's stating the obvious to say that the chance of pregnancy is zero if you never have sex, so what does your desired teaching approach include that isn't either abstinence-only or what we currently have?

Some people have been saying that a long time, religion is still here. Nothing is going to change that way. However they have a professed intention to remove religion, hijacking the education system is a start. It is not a case of explaining to people God is silly, its about controlling the narrative, likely through the media and a biased education system. With the intent to rid the word of religion, so a generation is raised atheist and can then prevent its continuence.
This wont work either, China did that, religion went underground, but it survived and in fact grew.

Sorry, but this is getting into tinfoil hat territory. Having schools be neutral on the subject of religion (and no, that does not include teaching atheism instead) is not an attack on your religion. Nor is it anything like China's attacks on religion, where churches are banned/restricted.

Call for it to be removed from schools.

And I'm pretty sure he also wants Islam removed from public schools. The only difference here is that, in the US, there are a lot more schools attempting to violate separation of church and state by promoting Christianity than schools attempting to violate separation of church and state by promoting Islam.

I think you misread me here. Yep the bible belt is full of Christian churches, but most churches are attached to functional communities and are not run by nutcases. America includes communities that simply could not exist elsewhere due to its minimal interference in religious affairs, Amish for example. it is a strong credit to the US that a people group can say: we want to live in a selectively primitive environment not based on poverty, as a community, for generations but without complete isolation - and achieve that.

I saw what you said, my point is that the defining element of the "Bible belt" is that more of the churches are run by nutcases. Maybe their communities are "functional" in some sense, but it's where you get the most problems like parents disowning their gay kids and leaving them homeless. Contrast this with the rest of the country, where the Christian majority is still overwhelming but churches are much more of "that thing you do on sundays" than some kind of right-wing theocracy.

And screw the Amish and their abusive cult. The conventional myth of the Amish as peaceful people living a simpler rural way of life is just that: a myth. In reality they're a lot like the fundamentalist Mormon cults, an ugly mess of abuse and misogyny using "freedom of religion" as an excuse to keep the cult free of outside interference. The only real difference is that the Amish bring in tourist money, so the secular authorities have a strong incentive to not look beyond the superficial image.

 IllumiNini wrote:

I think the idea of Resurrection doesn't even have to find basis in religion at all. All it needs is for a person to believe the idea that there's something after you die (i.e. the continued existence of the "Soul"). To my mind: Religion (with respect to resurrection) only paints a picture of what happens and possibly provides incentive to do something (i.e. the ideas of heaven vs hell), but religion doesn't form the basis for the idea of resurrection.

That sounds religious to me.

 Orlanth wrote:

You didn't comment on the importance (or not) of human life, you took a line out of my post isolating it from its context and made snide remarks that disparaged my ability.
Explain your 'logic' behind your personal attack or man up and apologise.

I already explained my reasoning, and I'm not going to apologize for anything. I said you shouldn't be a suicide counselor because, based on your statements, you shouldn't be one. You clearly have no idea what could motivate a person to end their own life, and would probably try to brute force the matter by saying something like "God wants you to live!".

There are lots of reasons why people would try to end their life, and God isn't always the answer. Indeed, trying to drive someone to God through counselling is often counterproductive.

 Orlanth wrote:

You want them out of the schools and public meetings because fanatic atheism.

No, but I would bet Peregrine's belief is grounded in how fanatical Christianity is in parts of the US. And probably Amendments too.

And what is "fanatic atheism"? Dawkins noise?

It is almost like believing in daemons, speaking in tongues, etc predisposes you to not actually not engage with reality...

 Orlanth wrote:

America includes communities that simply could not exist elsewhere due to its minimal interference in religious affairs, Amish for example. it is a strong credit to the US that a people group can say: we want to live in a selectively primitive environment not based on poverty, as a community, for generations but without complete isolation - and achieve that.

Only a select few of the Amish have held to the primitive lifestyle, most have given into modernity somehow; often leaving their communities for better things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:

Creationism and Intelligent design offer a counterbalance of teaching. Exposing children to the idea that not all concepts are universally accepted and that some concepts might have multiple logical paths while being apparently similar is helpful.

Multiple "reasonable" paths, but not multiple "logical" paths; and a lot of those "reasonable" paths are easily refuted.

 Orlanth wrote:

Creationism and Intelligent design offer a counterbalance of teaching. Exposing children to the idea that not all concepts are universally accepted and that some concepts might have multiple logical paths while being apparently similar is helpful.

In certain parts of Africa, there is a belief (or superstition) that having sex with a virgin cures HIV, which sadly results in HIV infected men raping babies, and consequently compounds the AIDS problem in the region... Would you also argue that this belief offers "a counterbalance" to medical science and contraception, or is it just misguided and unhelpful when people replace education and critical thinking with superstition?

A conscientious science teacher might use Intelligent Design to compare with Evolutionary Theory as an example of pseudoscience. They wouldn't teach it as an alternative theory because it isn't. They might teach an example, such as the blood clotting cascade mechanism, that ID says is too complex to have arisen by evolution in order to show how it did arise by evolution.

Mainstream Christianity accepts the truth of evolution and doesn't believe in Intelligent Design.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/10/31/pope-franciss-comments-on-the-big-bang-are-not-revolutionary-catholic-teaching-has-long-professed-the-likelihood-of-human-evolution/

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

You didn't comment on the importance (or not) of human life, you took a line out of my post isolating it from its context and made snide remarks that disparaged my ability.
Explain your 'logic' behind your personal attack or man up and apologise.

I already explained my reasoning, and I'm not going to apologize for anything. I said you shouldn't be a suicide counselor because, based on your statements, you shouldn't be one. You clearly have no idea what could motivate a person to end their own life, and would probably try to brute force the matter by saying something like "God wants you to live!".

There are lots of reasons why people would try to end their life, and God isn't always the answer. Indeed, trying to drive someone to God through counselling is often counterproductive.

Not only should you refrain from personal attacks, you should also refrain from adding in completely unwarranted personal attacks caused by totally misreading a comment.

For a start you don't know me kiddo.
Second you don't know what I was talking about because as usual you eliminate context in order to fit your own agenda, and then assume the person you are wanting to attack is saying something different to what they actually are.
By the time you extrapolate this you are so far off the mark you might as well just be making random troll noises, and as a conclusion make blanket assessments about your targets capacities, bassee entirely on the false evidence manufactured for purpose.

Now let me explain to you why your comment is way off the reservation.

Here is the actual post.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/180/697735.page#8809527

Here is the actual post. The comment I made, in context was a rebuttal to Peregrines assumption that if people pray to live it is because they know deep down there is no afterlife, they are praying ofr the one life they will ever have to continue. In adition he hypothesises that a believer would logically pray for death, so that heaven comes sooner.
My reply was that you get one life on Earth and therefore there is a instilled highlight to preserve that life as and of itself, and that doing so doesn't mean that an afterlife doesn't exist.
And from the section you took out of context - a believer who was assured of resurrection has no reason to just seek death sooner on the grounds that heaven is assured.
It continues there reinforcing the context.

The context is not in any way unclear. It has nothing to do with specific cases or circumstances, like suicidal thoughts, only the general point as to why believers dont generally feel an urge to seek an early death to get to the afterlife sooner.

Now you stripped one sentence out of all context, in order to make a troll point that I would be unable to help a person who felt suicidal. In doing so you made blanket assumptions here on my own beliefs, without even seeking evidence if I actually believed them. Somehow you persisted in this even when posting "even if assured of resurrection there is no reason to seek death now." which indicates that it refers to a case of a believer, so your comments on using or not using Biblical motives in counselling is invalid because there is Christian counselling, and that of other religions which is intended to help other believers exclusively. Most people who do this are also secular counsellors and can wear different hats for different tasks. It is insulting to assume that someone with a Christian perspective in counselling is incapable of being a secular councellor. I know you are flat out wrong here because I know people in the church who are both accredited Christian and secular counsellors and are able to use either methodologies dependent on what client comes to them. I have done something similar as a homeless worker, though at a lower level. I and other homeless workers would pass along suicide cases quickly.

As for suicide counselling, most people are not pants-on head stupid to be uncareful in what to say. In my private life I have known personal friends who have stuggled with suicidal thoughts, and I don't abandon my friends when in need, but I know better than to be anything but gentle.











Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
A conscientious science teacher might use Intelligent Design to compare with Evolutionary Theory as an example of pseudoscience. They wouldn't teach it as an alternative theory because it isn't. They might teach an example, such as the blood clotting cascade mechanism, that ID says is too complex to have arisen by evolution in order to show how it did arise by evolution.

Mainstream Christianity accepts the truth of evolution and doesn't believe in Intelligent Design.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/10/31/pope-franciss-comments-on-the-big-bang-are-not-revolutionary-catholic-teaching-has-long-professed-the-likelihood-of-human-evolution/

Actually mainstream Christianity accepts the truth of evolution and calls it the tools of creation. At its heart most Christian denominations are creationist, and believe in a creator God.

Taking my own example. I am a creationist because I believe in a creator God, and I see no need to dress that up in any way. I also have 0% trouble with accepting evolutionary theory, it just isn't a challenge to my or God in any way. Now I believe in the creator for reasons quite separate to this doctrine, I know God by other means. In other words I don't believe in God because I am a creationist, I am a creationist because I know God and choose to believe He creates because He says He does.

I don't like the term Intelligent design because it doesnt require its own material, just evolution + statement that evolution is a theorem that explains the mechanics of how life has come to be and makes no comment of itself on the existence or non existence of God. The Pope has got this right, the Catholic church accepts evolution, it makes sense to do so. You can do that and be a creationist or not a creationist, and it makes no difference to the theology of creation or the science of evolution if you do. the Pope has made no statement disavowing creation. The beginning of Genesis is being seen at long last like people have always read the end of revelation, as apocalyptic prose rather than literalist prose. About time.

Religions believe in churches, customs and some written stories . Agnostics can believe in god directly. They do, when something bad happening in their life. And then forget again

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It is almost like believing in daemons, speaking in tongues, etc predisposes you to not actually not engage with reality...

Actually having grown up in a church where speaking in tongues and other "gifts of the spirit" were a common occurrence, I cannot explain what is going on, but I can tell you that that church's beliefs, or rather the things people are told it's a good idea to believe definitely fall under your latter statement.

During my time growing up, one mother was on a one woman crusade to get everyone to boycott disney films because of "subliminal messaging" (this was like, day 5 of the internet, and she had seen an article describing what most of us know as the covert protests of the artists who felt they were being wronged in their disputes with Disney)

The church held the belief, partly due to a "satanic cult" that was discovered in the local theater (oldest theater in town, bought by new guy. New guy discovers candles and books and chalk lines/designs in a back room. Calls cops, those cops call our church's pastor)... It was a rather imaginative group of DnD players.... So, the church ends up believing that DnD, and by extension, ALL RPGs are creations of the devil, and by role playing someone other than yourself, you are actually role playing a demon, thereby opening your soul to be possessed by said demon.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It is almost like believing in daemons, speaking in tongues, etc predisposes you to not actually not engage with reality...

Actually having grown up in a church where speaking in tongues and other "gifts of the spirit" were a common occurrence, I cannot explain what is going on, but I can tell you that that church's beliefs, or rather the things people are told it's a good idea to believe definitely fall under your latter statement.

During my time growing up, one mother was on a one woman crusade to get everyone to boycott disney films because of "subliminal messaging" (this was like, day 5 of the internet, and she had seen an article describing what most of us know as the covert protests of the artists who felt they were being wronged in their disputes with Disney)

The church held the belief, partly due to a "satanic cult" that was discovered in the local theater (oldest theater in town, bought by new guy. New guy discovers candles and books and chalk lines/designs in a back room. Calls cops, those cops call our church's pastor)... It was a rather imaginative group of DnD players.... So, the church ends up believing that DnD, and by extension, ALL RPGs are creations of the devil, and by role playing someone other than yourself, you are actually role playing a demon, thereby opening your soul to be possessed by said demon.

How did the speaking in tongues work? Could the people speaking be understood by someone who spoke the language?
I ask because a close friend of mine was a missionary in Malasia who had a few weeks of learning and was not very fluent. He was on a bus with a fellow missionary and someone asked him who he was, since looks wise, he stood out from the regular population. He then spent several minutes talking with the man, telling him of Christ and gospel doctrine.
After they left the bus, his fellow missionary, who had been in the country for over a year and a half, told him he had spoken the language flawlessly.

Relapse wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
It is almost like believing in daemons, speaking in tongues, etc predisposes you to not actually not engage with reality...

Actually having grown up in a church where speaking in tongues and other "gifts of the spirit" were a common occurrence, I cannot explain what is going on, but I can tell you that that church's beliefs, or rather the things people are told it's a good idea to believe definitely fall under your latter statement.

During my time growing up, one mother was on a one woman crusade to get everyone to boycott disney films because of "subliminal messaging" (this was like, day 5 of the internet, and she had seen an article describing what most of us know as the covert protests of the artists who felt they were being wronged in their disputes with Disney)

The church held the belief, partly due to a "satanic cult" that was discovered in the local theater (oldest theater in town, bought by new guy. New guy discovers candles and books and chalk lines/designs in a back room. Calls cops, those cops call our church's pastor)... It was a rather imaginative group of DnD players.... So, the church ends up believing that DnD, and by extension, ALL RPGs are creations of the devil, and by role playing someone other than yourself, you are actually role playing a demon, thereby opening your soul to be possessed by said demon.

How did the speaking in tongues work? Could the people speaking be understood by someone who spoke the language?
I ask because a close friend of mine was a missionary in Malasia who had a few weeks of learning and was not very fluent. He was on a bus with a fellow missionary and someone asked him who he was, since looks wise, he stood out from the regular population. He then spent several minutes talking with the man, telling him of Christ and gospel doctrine.
After they left the bus, his fellow missionary, who had been in the country for over a year and a half, told him he had spoken the language flawlessly.

I speak in tongues. I dont know the language I speak, it could even have been unique to me. I recognise words, but do not know what they are.

Anyway back in 2005 a family came to the church I was at and asked for the gift of tongues. People laid hands towards them (you dont need physical contact) and prayed they would receive the gift. The instruction was, just start speaking, dont think about it just try it. Tongues being a subconscious gift. I prayed for this young Indian man about 20 years old. . All the family started speaking odd words. the young man before me started speaking in tongues, but had this confused and a little embarassed look on his face. With tongues it is hard to tell for yourself at first if you are operating with the spirit or just mimicing it. I could see the doubt on his face. I could also hear him clearly. I dont know what he was saying or which language but I reconise the words he used. I had only ever heard them before from one source. Me. This man had been imparted with the same spiritual language that I had been gifted with.

So I said to him. "You look like you dont know what you are saying, like you dont know if you are doing this for real or faking the gift." He frowned at that,, and seemed to be disappointed and examining himself. I continued. "But dont be concerned. I recognise the words you are saying, I don't know what they mean but they are the exact same words I say. We speak the same language. You do have the gift, know this to be true."

I will remember the look of joy on his face to my dying day.

Tongues is a very uplifting thing, once you pass beyond doubt.