Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 d-usa wrote:


But I do truly find it interesting that it appears that there are circumstances where it appears that there is a driving force behind evolution.

What do you mean it appears there is a driving force behind evolution? Evolution is not a progress towards single perfect species. When an environment is altered or changed so are the optimal traits for survival.

 d-usa wrote:
Believe it or not, but those multiple articles did a lot better job explaining things than your one paragraph oversimplified summary of them.

I'm sorry simplified summaries of complex ideas are not good enough for you. I'll try harder next time.

Well, I for one am glad that our non-random environment that resulted in our planet allowed this to happen.

But I do truly find it interesting that it appears that there are circumstances where it appears that there is a driving force behind evolution. I do like it a lot better when actual knowledge is shared. There is no point in being elitist jerks about this.

There is no "driving force" behind evolution other than an organism's need to adapt and reproduce. Much more often than not, adaptation to changing environments is not fast enough and organisms face extinction before they can fully adapt. Assigning some sort of supernatural cause to it ignores the fact that most animals that have ever lived are now extinct.

 easysauce wrote:
where is the option for us being alien created genetically engineered pig monkeys?

or for us being descendant from hybrids between chimps and pigs who got it on?

also, did you know that ligers are REAL?!

now you know, enjoy.



"Generally speaking, inter species hybrids—like mules, ligers (lion-tiger hybrids), or zedonks (zebra-donkey hybrids)—are less fertile than the parents that produced them. However, as McCarthy has documented in his years of research into hybrids, many crosses produce hybrids that can produce offspring themselves"

When I asked McCarthy if he could give a date estimate for the hybridization event, he said that there are a couple broad possibilities: (1) It might be that hybridization between pigs and apes produced the earliest hominids millions of years ago and that subsequent mating within this hybrid swarm eventually led to the various hominid types and to modern humans; (2) separate crosses between pigs and apes could have produced separate hominids (and there's even a creepy possibility that hybridization might even still be occurring in regions where Sus and Pan still seem to come into contact, like Southern Sudan).

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html#jCp"


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html#jCp

I believe science is the language God used to create and control the universe. Where science fails or doesn't explain things, its due to our own ignorance. We're meant to learn as much as we can about the Earth and the Universe. God didn't give us brains to not use. For me, where true religion and true science meet, there Truth. (capitol 'T' ) The more I learn about the universe, the more beautiful it becomes. Its why I write science fiction.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I believe science is the language God used to create and control the universe. Where science fails or doesn't explain things, its due to our own ignorance. We're meant to learn as much as we can about the Earth and the Universe. God didn't give us brains to not use. For me, where true religion and true science meet, there Truth. (capitol 'T' ) The more I learn about the universe, the more beautiful it becomes. Its why I write science fiction.

Does this mean you believe in a deist God? One that set the rules set everything in motion than left it alone?

Humanity is a paradoxical combination of dualities and all the vagary in between represents the infinite combinations that we believe and assume to be facts.

In this vain, I'm a Christian who believes in both God and Evolution. Raised Catholic, I really see no problem looking at the concept of Evolution and there being a God. Yes, I can say that with a straight face.

The Earth is really old and the Bible is principally a moral guide (which context of time to when certain writings occurred) and allegorical in nature (but does have events which are real).

There exists a God but I like to think it is a separate concept from how Evolution works. How involved God can be is up for debate but I like to think Evolution is a mechanism used for adaptation and for progression (or if warranted, regression) of organisms, generating biological diversity in response to many different stimuli whether at a genetic or environmental stimuli.

In that context, my belief in God is separate from how science works.

If I were a religious man, I would say that Evolution is God's Autopilot. Otherwise everything would be a giant babysitting job, and that doesn't reflect positively on the efficiency of a perfect omnipotent being.

For the same reason there is life on other planets, for otherwise the universe is the worst waste of space ever by the worst architect ever. It would then effectively be an infinitely large version of the posters of sea life you tape behind an aquarium. And anyways there has to be life on other planets, for the other omnipotent kids have to have science projects of their own, too.

Referring to the original post, I find that when people say ,'The fact that there is a correlation between belief in evolution and education must mean that it is stupid to believe in creation,' it is actually based on a lot of other things. Primarily, that throughout the whole of secondary/tertiary education, evolution is spoken about as a definite fact by figures of authority, influencing people's views on the subject. So don't say 'Creationists are only that way because they have been raised to believe it,' unless you want to sound quite hypocritical.

Personally, I think natural selection is pretty obvious in nature, and in tests. But only on a smaller scale, essentially mutations within a species, not evolution from one type of animal to another. I really don't understand how people can say science and Christianity don't mix, I personally find it incredibly interesting to dissect/find out how stuff works, and think that it just helps to highlight some of the amazing aspects of God's creation. I can understand people believing God made creation through evolution, I just personally don't.

Anyways, this is the internet, where militant atheists rule, and other opinions are treated with no respect! Have fun guys!

The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, "Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same." Another time he said, "Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first." Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth. - Hanh, Thich; Philip Kapleau (2005). Zen Keys

 Gutsnagga wrote:
Primarily, that throughout the whole of secondary/tertiary education, evolution is spoken about as a definite fact by figures of authority, influencing people's views on the subject.

Which is because it IS a definite fact.

So don't say 'Creationists are only that way because they have been raised to believe it,' unless you want to sound quite hypocritical.

The difference is that if you're taught about evolution you can go out and confirm those lessons and come to the same conclusion. With creationism, on the other hand, there is nothing to support it. Literally the only way to believe in it is to have someone else tell you what to believe and never verify what you're told. Over and over again creationists tell blatant lies that could be disproved with a few minutes of internet searching (transitional fossils, "what use is half an eye", etc), based on the correct assumption that their followers will never bother to discover that they've been lied to.

But only on a smaller scale, essentially mutations within a species, not evolution from one type of animal to another.

This is absolutely false. Evolution on both scales is indisputable fact that is backed up by overwhelming amounts of evidence. Questioning the ability to produce new species through evolution is about as reasonable as saying that you agree that the earth is round if you just look at it a few miles at a time, but obviously flat when you consider the whole planet.

I really don't understand how people can say science and Christianity don't mix

Because science utterly demolishes core Christian beliefs about the creation of the world. The entire account provided by the bible isn't just wrong, it's laughably wrong.

Anyways, this is the internet, where militant atheists rule, and other opinions are treated with no respect! Have fun guys!

You mean where facts rule, and opinions based on ignorance get no respect.

Because science utterly demolishes core Christian beliefs about the creation of the world. The entire account provided by the bible isn't just wrong, it's laughably wrong.

It really doesn't do that, except for biblical literalists, which are a fairly small minority. Most Christians understand the difference between reality and metaphor and parable, such as the description of the creation of the world at the beginning of Genesis. Science doesn't say "there is no god", it says "that isn't something I deal with, give me something I can measure and observe". Occasionally it also says "can you get me a Mr. Pib and some Red Vines?", but we ignore it when it does that, even though those are amazing treats.

 Gutsnagga wrote:


Personally, I think natural selection is pretty obvious in nature, and in tests. But only on a smaller scale, essentially mutations within a species, not evolution from one type of animal to another. I

The only difference is time. How many mutations does it take to make an animal unrecognisable from what it once was? I don't see how, or why you are making that distinction.

 Ahtman wrote:
It really doesn't do that, except for biblical literalists, which are a fairly small minority.

Actually not. Absolute strict 100% literalists might be rare, but even young-earth creationism (AKA "Genesis is literal fact") is a substantial minority. Apparently accurate polling is kind of difficult on a controversial subject like this, but here's some analysis: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164 . If you count both literalists and Christians who believe in some form of creationism that science proves to be wrong you end up with around half the US population, and that's obviously a higher percentage in some parts of the country.

Most Christians understand the difference between reality and metaphor and parable, such as the description of the creation of the world at the beginning of Genesis.

Except it doesn't make sense as a metaphor. Even ignoring the issue of the "it's just a metaphor" defense being a response being a response to knowledge advancing and making it obvious that it wasn't literal truth, a metaphor has to be a metaphor for something. And if you try to break down Genesis symbolically all you get is a vague "god did it" with all of the literary elements of the account thrown away. Literally any creation story could fill the same metaphorical role.

Science doesn't say "there is no god", it says "that isn't something I deal with, give me something I can measure and observe".

Actually, science also says that things that are not observed (or at least supported by mathematical models/indirect observation/etc) are unlikely to exist, and belief in them without evidence is irrational. Science is perfectly capable of saying that all of the proposed justifications for belief in god are either factually wrong or unfalsifiable speculation. It places belief in god on the same level as the crazy guy on the corner screaming about black helicopters and mind control plots in the chemtrails.

All Christians i know believe in science. But they disagree on the origins of life. I can understand why. When i look at evolution i see a general idea/story with tonnes of gaps and speculation. Like when they find a tooth and make a whole creature out of it etc. Or when i look at the fossil line and see, not progressive change but huge jumps and most (if not all) of those fossils are incomplete. To me i see just as much speculation on the evolutionists part. (i think the T Rex fossil is 100% complete but i cant think of any others)

In my opinion give it a few hundred years and people in the future will laugh at the ideas of people today (much like people laugh at our ancestors for their beliefs) and there will be another trend that people will flock to.

Also Christians (also other religious people) are the nicest people i have ever met. So many charities, poor people homes and nice things are done by them that i never witness in atheists over all. Of course i am generalizing as there are always people that ruin it for others on all sides but i am glad there are a lot more Christians (i say Christians because they are the predominant ones in my area) than atheists due to their attitude towards people and so on.

I see a lot of hate in this thread hence the rant but maybe you should just not care about how they believe people got here and just move on.

We are all going to live and die and be forgotten so who cares I mean if you guys represent the atheist people i really worry about the future. So much anger etc.

 Gutsnagga wrote:
Referring to the original post, I find that when people say ,'The fact that there is a correlation between belief in evolution and education must mean that it is stupid to believe in creation,' it is actually based on a lot of other things.

While saying belief in creationism is "stupid" may be a bit strong, the word illogical fits much better. Whether you ultimately believe in god or not, to look at all the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution by means of natural selection (the fossil record, genetics, anthropology, psychology, every field of biology) and reject that in favor of everything being the result of an invisible sky wizard, it is a denial of human logic.

Primarily, that throughout the whole of secondary/tertiary education, evolution is spoken about as a definite fact by figures of authority, influencing people's views on the subject. So don't say 'Creationists are only that way because they have been raised to believe it,' unless you want to sound quite hypocritical.

Maybe in Australia, but that is not the case in the United States (at least when I was in high school in Nevada). However, I admit that I skipped biology (going from earth science, to chemistry, then physics) but based on conversations with a science teachers I know now (in Virginia, where I currently live) they aren't allowed to present evolution as definite fact (even though it is) but it is discussed. Interesting side story, during his first year of teaching high school science, a friend of mine had a student ask him what layer of the atmosphere Heaven was in during a lesson.

Personally, I think natural selection is pretty obvious in nature, and in tests. But only on a smaller scale, essentially mutations within a species, not evolution from one type of animal to another. I really don't understand how people can say science and Christianity don't mix, I personally find it incredibly interesting to dissect/find out how stuff works, and think that it just helps to highlight some of the amazing aspects of God's creation. I can understand people believing God made creation through evolution, I just personally don't.

Evolution explains biodiversity quite well and there is plenty of evidence to support it.

Anyways, this is the internet, where militant atheists rule, and other opinions are treated with no respect! Have fun guys!

Obvious confirmation bias is obvious.

 WarOne wrote:
Raised Catholic, I really see no problem looking at the concept of Evolution and there being a God. Yes, I can say that with a straight face.

So can the Catholic Church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

Did you know it was a Catholic priest who first proposed the Big Bang theory? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

 Swastakowey wrote:

Also Christians (also other religious people) are the nicest people i have ever met. So many charities, poor people homes and nice things are done by them that i never witness in atheists over all.

The reason why there are few (none?) atheist charities is because atheists aren't a denomination of people united by any sort of doctrine. An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in God or any other form of deity(ies). That said, there are plenty of secular charities, and plenty of atheists who I can imagine also do work and provide donations for non-secular charities as well.

Of course i am generalizing as there are always people that ruin it for others on all sides but i am glad there are a lot more Christians (i say Christians because they are the predominant ones in my area) than atheists due to their attitude towards people and so on.

And what is this attitude towards people that atheists have? Because right now, it sounds like you're being a fair bit derisive, and that's pretty hypocritical.

 Swastakowey wrote:
When i look at evolution i see a general idea/story with tonnes of gaps and speculation.

Yes, evolution does not provide an absolute 100% perfect record of every single thing that has ever lived. But it has tremendous explanatory power, and all of the evidence we do have agrees with the theory. And, more importantly, there is no competing theory that even comes close. All opponents of evolution can offer is thinly-veiled religious doctrine with "Jesus" removed in a dishonest attempt to get around separation of church and state laws (intelligent design), and vague speculation about "god must have done something" without even the slightest bit of evidence to support that speculation.

Also, you seem to be holding evolution to a much higher standard than other fields. Do you refuse to accept a history textbook because we don't know every single detail of the lives of every person in the Roman empire, or do you accept that it provides useful information about the things we do know? Do you throw out all of modern medicine because we don't yet understand all about how cancer works and how to cure it? Of course not. The only reason this argument is ever raised against evolution is because of the religious groups that oppose it because it contradicts their religion.

Or when i look at the fossil line and see, not progressive change but huge jumps and most (if not all) of those fossils are incomplete.

This is a (very poor) creationist argument. We're never going to have all of the fossils to fill in every single gap. Fossils only form at all under specific conditions, and only small parts of the world are available to look for them. Who knows what is buried under a parking lot somewhere? So what we have to do is look at changing features over time and make some assumptions (based on knowledge about how biology works and similar trends in other species) to fill in the gaps. And the reason this is a credible process is that when we do draw the "family tree" of life based on the incomplete fossil record we get the same "family tree" that we get by looking at DNA evidence, geographical distribution of fossils and living species, etc. And then when new fossils are found they generally support the existing model rather than blatantly contradicting it.

Of course if you're a creationist you see fossil A and fossil B and demand an intermediate fossil to "fill in the gaps". And then when intermediate fossil C is found and fills the gap you celebrate because now there are twice as many gaps, from A to C and C to B! Now the theory of evolution is even weaker!

(Needless to say this is an utterly stupid and dishonest argument.)

Also Christians (also other religious people) are the nicest people i have ever met. So many charities, poor people homes and nice things are done by them that i never witness in atheists over all. Of course i am generalizing as there are always people that ruin it for others on all sides but i am glad there are a lot more Christians (i say Christians because they are the predominant ones in my area) than atheists due to their attitude towards people and so on.

Yeah, why not add some offensive stereotypes? The main reason that you don't see atheist charities as much is that atheists don't have a whole infrastructure dedicated to charity work under their particular brand name like churches do, they just quietly donate to existing secular charities that are doing the work they want to support. And a big part of the whole idea of "Christian charity" is funding missionaries/new church buildings/etc that somehow gives them credit for "charity work" while just supporting their own religion. It makes about as much sense as loudly bragging about how much I donate to the "buy Peregrine lots of 40k models" charity.

 Gutsnagga wrote:
Referring to the original post, I find that when people say ,'The fact that there is a correlation between belief in evolution and education must mean that it is stupid to believe in creation,' it is actually based on a lot of other things. Primarily, that throughout the whole of secondary/tertiary education, evolution is spoken about as a definite fact by figures of authority, influencing people's views on the subject. So don't say 'Creationists are only that way because they have been raised to believe it,' unless you want to sound quite hypocritical.

i'm sorry--WHAT!? There is no hypocrisy there. Evolution is a strongly supported theory, such that it can be taken for granted that it is a fact. There are however certain bizarre cases where the conventional ideas behind the theory of evolution fail to explain just..... .... how we end up wiith a fish that looks like it was re-flattened under a hammer, or why certain bizarre one-of-a-kind creatures exist. There's an established link between dinosaurs and today's avians, and the theory of evolution as a model is highly accurate, so much so that one would have to be fairly ignorant not to take it for granted in any post-secondary institution. There is no hypocrisy here. One has to be raised as a creationist to be one, you don't look at the two arguments independent of outside intervention or influence, look at the body of evidence, and then opt for the fairy tale....

Personally, I think natural selection is pretty obvious in nature, and in tests. But only on a smaller scale, essentially mutations within a species, not evolution from one type of animal to another. I really don't understand how people can say science and Christianity don't mix, I personally find it incredibly interesting to dissect/find out how stuff works, and think that it just helps to highlight some of the amazing aspects of God's creation. I can understand people believing God made creation through evolution, I just personally don't.

The frontiers of science today have reached--in fact they've been there for a while--a point where a christian religion approach to science is inhibition to the progress of said science. (I'm not even going to touch the christian "science" that resulted in the whole racial superiority thing past noting that it did exist). I believe "Stem cell" will spark a fire-storm, and as will "gene splicing"... Christianity religion is antithetical to scientific progress for this specific reason: At the limit of cognition, instead of simply saying, "i don't know", the christian religious scientist will make a full stop, and attribute the result to a miracle of god rather than accepting their own shortcomings, and acknowledging that someone else in the future might be able to solve the particular quandary. A religious mind will find the need to insert myths where there is no need to. A mind that approaches science independent of any mythos is forced into accepting any shortcomings and deficiencies in trying to solve the problem (well, unless there's a diametrically opposed political scape-goat around, we can always blame it on the other side's meddling and getting in our way, but, I digress...)
The time-scales at discussion for "natural" reproduction simply cannot be achieved. Consider the fact that your mind struggles to comprehend numbers over 100. The bigger the numbers get, the harder it is for the mind to actually grasp what it means. Sure, I can do integral calculus, but actually understanding what it is that calculus is, what the variables and their manipulation represents, and understanding what the magnitude of the numbers that pop out of equations means? That's incredibly hard to do. Understand this: 2000 years means something along the lines of about 100 generations..... Only 100 generations, that's a number I can understand, but apply the relevant time-scale to it, and it just completely falls out of your mind, because 2000 years is a lot of time between then and now. When we talk about thousands of years or tens of thousands of years for changes to result in a family-group of species, and even more time for branches to completely split and drift in different directions: the time scales involved are huge and beyond our comprehension. Look at something much nearer though that you can relate to. Consider, say, Rough Collies. Look at American Collies and European Collies. There are a wide number of differences between the two strains, and if we go back to the start of the collie craze and assume the two populations were identical before the craze, and remained isolated from eachother, then, inside the space of less than 50 years, the dogs in America were bred bigger, and their faces distorted. Now accounting for the fact that the two strains weren't actually isolated, the fact that there is still such a large distinction in both size and muskulo-skeletal structure resulting from selective breeding, we can prove on a shortened time-scale just how it's possible for a different species to arise out of one ancestor. Consider the labradoodle. that's something that's completely new, and yet, it's recognized as a new dog breed. You can, within your life-time, take the available set of specimens in a species and with controlled breeding create something that has a set of attributes which render it unique from it's parent contributing species.If you can do this in a lab on a short time-scale (your professional life-time), then that crazy woman that's mother nature can do it on her own sweet time over aeons. The fact that you can't grasp the scale of time required to make changes: that's fine, I can't grasp the time-scale either, but the record doesn't lie: everything came from something, and the next generation is always different from it's parent generation.

as to mutations? The mutations aren't necesarily the product of randomoness, so much as it is a need. Yes. Random mutations occurr. It's not so much "random integer from negative infinity to infinity". The randomness is controlled, as the randomness arises from a failure in the gene-strings to copy correctly, and the mixing of different sets of gene-strings that arises during procreation. I'd love to give you examples that encourage a desirable development, alas, all I can think of are degenerative examples, which I'm more than sure you can conceive of yourself.

Anyways, this is the internet, where militant atheists rule, and other opinions are treated with no respect! Have fun guys!

right, and religious crack-nuts who out-of-hand dismiss anything that requires any brain function higher retaining the ability to nod and keeping a body temperature of around 36*C don't exist on the internet.... .....or in real life ... right..... ..... ..... ....... riiiiight..... .... .. ... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.....

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually not. Absolute strict 100% literalists might be rare, but even young-earth creationism (AKA "Genesis is literal fact") is a substantial minority. Apparently accurate polling is kind of difficult on a controversial subject like this, but here's some analysis: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164 . If you count both literalists and Christians who believe in some form of creationism that science proves to be wrong you end up with around half the US population, and that's obviously a higher percentage in some parts of the country.

I know a lot of Christians and only an extreme minority believe that the world was created in a week or that there were only two humans in an actual garden. If the question is "Did god create the universe" I imagine that you will get that number, but if the question is whether god created the universe in seven Earth days I imagine that number to be significantly lower, but then this is all conjecture.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except it doesn't make sense as a metaphor.

Which is why it falls more under the parable heading. As a parable about the creation of the world and that the Abrahamic god was responsible for it it works just fine. There are creation stories all over, and very few of them are meant to be taken literally, Christian or not.

 Peregrine wrote:
if you try to break down Genesis symbolically all you get is a vague "god did it"

Which is the point.

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually, science also says that things that are not observed (or at least supported by mathematical models/indirect observation/etc) are unlikely to exist, and belief in them without evidence is irrational.

I'm with Russel and his teapot around Mars, and agree that it isn't likely or rational, but you have to make a zealots leap to change that to an absolute assertion of knowledge of a negative. At some point one stops being a man of reason and becomes an donkey-cave who thinks they have all the answers, whether you want to couch it in religious or scientific terms.

 Swastakowey wrote:
All Christians i know believe in science. But they disagree on the origins of life. I can understand why. When i look at evolution i see a general idea/story with tonnes of gaps and speculation. Like when they find a tooth and make a whole creature out of it etc. Or when i look at the fossil line and see, not progressive change but huge jumps and most (if not all) of those fossils are incomplete. To me i see just as much speculation on the evolutionists part. (i think the T Rex fossil is 100% complete but i cant think of any others)

There is no "speculation" in the theory of evolution; the mechanisms by which it works are well defined and understood. I would seriously suggest looking in to the fossil record a bit more thoroughly. While there are obvious limits to the fossil record, numerous transitional fossils from every class of vertebrates are known.

Like Issac Asimov said: "Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."

In my opinion give it a few hundred years and people in the future will laugh at the ideas of people today (much like people laugh at our ancestors for their beliefs) and there will be another trend that people will flock to.

They won't. Oh, and evolution is not a "trend." It is as much a fact that the Earth orbits the sun in our solar system.

Also Christians (also other religious people) are the nicest people i have ever met. So many charities, poor people homes and nice things are done by them that i never witness in atheists over all. Of course i am generalizing as there are always people that ruin it for others on all sides but i am glad there are a lot more Christians (i say Christians because they are the predominant ones in my area) than atheists due to their attitude towards people and so on.

Again, obvious confirmation bias is obvious. There is so much wrong with that statement on every level.

I see a lot of hate in this thread hence the rant but maybe you should just not care about how they believe people got here and just move on.

I don't see any hate. There is lots of confusion though.

We are all going to live and die and be forgotten so who cares I mean if you guys represent the atheist people i really worry about the future. So much anger etc.

I'm still failing to see where all this anger the "atheist people" are expressing.

 Ahtman wrote:
I know a lot of Christians and only an extreme minority believe that the world was created in a week or that there were only two humans in an actual garden. If the question is "Did god create the universe" I imagine that you will get that number, but if the question is whether god created the universe in seven Earth days I imagine that number to be significantly lower, but then this is all conjecture.

Again, look at the poll numbers. Obviously this is something that varies significantly depending on where you are, but for the US as a whole young-earth creationism is a non-trivial minority and opposition to evolution is around 50/50. You don't get things like school boards taking evolution out of the curriculum based on an extreme and irrelevant minority.

There are creation stories all over, and very few of them are meant to be taken literally, Christian or not.

And the problem is that the Christian one, taken metaphorically, is no more Christian than any of the other ones. If you reduce it to a vague "god did it" then you could just swap that whole section of the bible with another religion's creation myth and you wouldn't lose anything. The story of Genesis only has religious significance if you keep the specific details intact, and if you include any of that you have an absurd myth that can not coexist with modern science.

I'm with Russel and his teapot around Mars, and agree that it isn't likely or rational, but you have to make a zealots leap to change that to an absolute assertion of knowledge of a negative. At some point one stops being a man of reason and becomes an donkey-cave who thinks they have all the answers, whether you want to couch it in religious or scientific terms.

But that position isn't consistent with everything else you believe. At some point the chances of a factual statement being correct are so low that you can safely approximate them as zero. I can safely make an absolute assertion that I didn't have eggs for breakfast this morning, I don't have to keep considering the possibility that I might be wrong, or include a "but I'm not 100% sure of course" disclaimer every time I talk about what I had for breakfast. And you certainly couldn't make a reasonable argument that I'm no longer a "man of reason" because I make that assertion.

And, like it or not, there is no reason to treat god any differently. The pro-god side has failed utterly, and belief in god can safely be placed in the same category as black helicopters, 9/11 truthers, and mind control plots in the chemtrails. Yes, there's a tiny chance that we could be wrong, but there's no reason to consider the possibility in everyday life until some new evidence is provided. The only reason we make a special case for god is this absurd belief that it's rude and arrogant to ever criticize a religious belief.

Peregrine, I'm glad we are on the same side with this topic.

 Peregrine wrote:
But that position isn't consistent with everything else you believe.

My point of contention isn't whether or not god exists, but that you are broaching an interpretation of science that is an enemy to religion, which it isn't. If your point is that there are probably more deists then realize it I would agree with that sentiment. I also don't think you really know what I believe, beyond not seeing science and religion as incompatible.

 Ahtman wrote:
My point of contention isn't whether or not god exists, but that you are broaching an interpretation of science that is an enemy to religion, which it isn't. If your point is that there are probably more deists then realize it I would agree with that sentiment. I also don't think you really know what I believe, beyond not seeing science and religion as incompatible.

I was assuming that you actually believed the argument you posted about the teapot and not being reasonable if you assert that there is no god. The quoted statement in that post is not consistent with what I presume you, like everyone else, believe about other things. For example, I sincerely doubt that you express any skepticism and need to remain open-minded about whether or not you have ever posted on this forum. Presumably you don't give any credit to the possibility that the negative "all these posts weren't made by my evil twin instead" assertion can't be proven 100% beyond any conceivable doubt to be false.

God is the same. The argument for god has failed so utterly that "god doesn't exist" can safely be asserted without including a "but only probably, we can never be absolutely sure" disclaimer. The only reason we pretend otherwise and talk about how science and religion can be compatible is a political decision to avoid upsetting religious people and driving them away from science. It's a pragmatic decision that a Catholic who believes in a vague "god did it" but votes against the anti-evolution candidates in school board elections is better than pushing that person to vote the other way because we've told them that science and religion are enemies and there's no way they're going to give up their religion.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually not. Absolute strict 100% literalists might be rare, but even young-earth creationism (AKA "Genesis is literal fact") is a substantial minority. Apparently accurate polling is kind of difficult on a controversial subject like this, but here's some analysis: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164 . If you count both literalists and Christians who believe in some form of creationism that science proves to be wrong you end up with around half the US population, and that's obviously a higher percentage in some parts of the country.

I know a lot of Christians and only an extreme minority believe that the world was created in a week or that there were only two humans in an actual garden. If the question is "Did god create the universe" I imagine that you will get that number, but if the question is whether god created the universe in seven Earth days I imagine that number to be significantly lower, but then this is all conjecture.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except it doesn't make sense as a metaphor.

Which is why it falls more under the parable heading. As a parable about the creation of the world and that the Abrahamic god was responsible for it it works just fine. There are creation stories all over, and very few of them are meant to be taken literally, Christian or not.

 Peregrine wrote:
if you try to break down Genesis symbolically all you get is a vague "god did it"

Which is the point.

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually, science also says that things that are not observed (or at least supported by mathematical models/indirect observation/etc) are unlikely to exist, and belief in them without evidence is irrational.

I'm with Russel and his teapot around Mars, and agree that it isn't likely or rational, but you have to make a zealots leap to change that to an absolute assertion of knowledge of a negative. At some point one stops being a man of reason and becomes an donkey-cave who thinks they have all the answers, whether you want to couch it in religious or scientific terms.

So a being that cant be seen, heard, tasted, observed trough any means, metaphorically created the universe wich should not be taken literally how this being managed to do so described in the bible, because?

You should take some parts literally. Just not the parts that have been disproven by modern science obviously.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nor the bits we no longer deem morally acceptable.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually not. Absolute strict 100% literalists might be rare, but even young-earth creationism (AKA "Genesis is literal fact") is a substantial minority. Apparently accurate polling is kind of difficult on a controversial subject like this, but here's some analysis: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/11/just-how-many-young-earth-creationists-are-there-us-0015164 . If you count both literalists and Christians who believe in some form of creationism that science proves to be wrong you end up with around half the US population, and that's obviously a higher percentage in some parts of the country.

I know a lot of Christians and only an extreme minority believe that the world was created in a week or that there were only two humans in an actual garden. If the question is "Did god create the universe" I imagine that you will get that number, but if the question is whether god created the universe in seven Earth days I imagine that number to be significantly lower, but then this is all conjecture.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except it doesn't make sense as a metaphor.

Which is why it falls more under the parable heading. As a parable about the creation of the world and that the Abrahamic god was responsible for it it works just fine. There are creation stories all over, and very few of them are meant to be taken literally, Christian or not.

 Peregrine wrote:
if you try to break down Genesis symbolically all you get is a vague "god did it"

Which is the point.

 Peregrine wrote:
Actually, science also says that things that are not observed (or at least supported by mathematical models/indirect observation/etc) are unlikely to exist, and belief in them without evidence is irrational.

I'm with Russel and his teapot around Mars, and agree that it isn't likely or rational, but you have to make a zealots leap to change that to an absolute assertion of knowledge of a negative. At some point one stops being a man of reason and becomes an donkey-cave who thinks they have all the answers, whether you want to couch it in religious or scientific terms.

So a being that cant be seen, heard, tasted, observed trough any means, metaphorically created the universe wich should not be taken literally how this being managed to do so described in the bible, because?

Because faith.

It all comes down to that one word. Faith.

I have yet to meet someone whose life is 100% rational.

Keep in mind that "micro-evolution" or evolution/adaptation within species is not disputed. So it's not entirely factual to state that young earth creationists don't believe in evolution. It's just the "macro-evolution" aspect(I.E. it took millions of years for single celled organisms to evolve into Human beings) that people have issues with.

GG