0
Butters

Anger Acceptable for Atheists

Recommended Posts

Quote

You entirely missed the point



Not at all.. I say MOVE it all to a company that does not dictate their business decisions based upon moronic morality rules that does not even follow what is taught in their OWN religious documents. If your company and the others they are being discriminating against all pull your business and place it with a company that has more of an open mind.. you help yourselves... and hurt them where it really hurts.. in their bottom line..

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

And both sides try to use public school boards to push their beliefs....but other schools boards and districts are passing measures that prevent anything other than 100% secular speech and communication.



But shouldn't public schools be secular in nature in their curricula?

Quote

...while hard-core secularists try to remove any mention of Intelligent Design (even mention that there is a competing theory out there called Intelligent Design).



This is exactly as it should be. ID is not a competing scientific theory to evolutionary biology - it is not even a scientific theory.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

And Newdow is an asshole who doesn't speak for me. I see him as NO different whatsoever from Robertson, except the side he is arguing.



You and many others think he is an asshole, but I agree with everything he's trying to do. Any governmental agency should be absolutely neutral concerning religion.

Also, how could you see no difference between Newdow and Robertson (on opposing sides)? Robertson is a vile being who has on several occasions endorsed the killing of his fellow human beings and recites the ugliest of hatred towards gays and atheists, among others.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Both sides are doing it in their own way. Bible-thumpers trying to get intelligent design taught (I'm talking substantively teaching intelligent design) while hard-core secularists try to remove any mention of Intelligent Design (even mention that there is a competing theory out there called Intelligent Design).



And that's exactly why. ID is not a competing theory. ID is not a theory. ID is not science. ID is a fancy way of talking about religion.

Sad to see you've been taken in by it, thought you had better critical thinking skills than that.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Once a month? Sounds about right.

Take a look at church parking lots on Sundays. If you've only got once a month, then it would indicate that thousands of other per month are not knocking.



I live in a small rural community of fewer than 500 residents. I *think* the local church might hold 200 of them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
This is exactly as it should be. ID is not a competing scientific theory to evolutionary biology - it is not even a scientific theory.



______________________________________

So you say. Intelligent Design has no problem with evolutionary biology, it is obviously a very intelligent way God has chosen to maintain His creation. As far as the origins of life, the claim made by evolutionary biology of " chance occurrence" defies statistical possibility and requires as much faith as saying God did it.


__________________________________

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote



This is exactly as it should be. ID is not a competing scientific theory to evolutionary biology - it is not even a scientific theory.



______________________________________

So you say. Intelligent Design has no problem with evolutionary biology, it is obviously a very intelligent way God has chosen to maintain His creation. As far as the origins of life, the claim made by evolutionary biology of " chance occurrence" defies statistical possibility and requires as much faith as saying God did it.


__________________________________



Sweet do you have any evidence for that (and no some christian science magazine does not count)? As far as I know the chances are actually really good. That's also why it is very possible that there are or at least were or will be (timing is pretty crucial when we are talking about 7 billion years) other life forms in the universe.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
>Intelligent Design has no problem with evolutionary biology, it is
>obviously a very intelligent way God has chosen to maintain His creation.

No argument there. As you point out, though, it is a religious perspective, not a scientific one. There is no problem at all teaching creationism in a religion class, and indeed a good religion class would cover the Christian creationism myth, the Norse myth, the Egyptian myth, the various Native American myths etc and compare and contrast them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sweet do you have any evidence for that (and no some christian science magazine does not count)? As far as I know the chances are actually really good. That's also why it is very possible that there are or at least were or will be (timing is pretty crucial when we are talking about 7 billion years) other life forms in the universe.



I don't read Christian magazines. The latest estimate for the age of the universe is 13.73 billion years. What I am referring to is the amazing laws of physics (particle, classical, general relativity, quantum dynamics), chemistry(organic/inorganic) physiology, genetics, geology, cosmology, climatology, oceanography, ecology, etc all which were necessary in their exact parameters for life to begin and exist.


________________________________

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

This is exactly as it should be. ID is not a competing scientific theory to evolutionary biology - it is not even a scientific theory.



So you say. Intelligent Design has no problem with evolutionary biology, it is obviously a very intelligent way God has chosen to maintain His creation. As far as the origins of life, the claim made by evolutionary biology of " chance occurrence" defies statistical possibility and requires as much faith as saying God did it.



ID is not a credible scientific hypothesis because it cannot be tested and disproved, a requirement of any valid scientific hypothesis. If supporters of ID can provide a testable hypothesis, scientists would be more than happy to test it. I'm confident there are many chomping at the bit waiting for that very opportunity. But, until that testable hypothesis is available, Intelligent Design, right or wrong, is not science, as the scientific method requires testability.
Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
[ No argument there. As you point out, though, it is a religious perspective, not a scientific one. There is no problem at all teaching creationism in a religion class, and indeed a good religion class would cover the Christian creationism myth, the Norse myth, the Egyptian myth, the various Native American myths etc and compare and contrast them.

___________________________________

I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem holding the "scientific orgins" myth as some how more true than the Intelligent Design explanation. They all require faith.


____________________________________

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem holding the "scientific orgins" myth as some how more true than the Intelligent Design explanation. They all require faith.



The only faith required for evolutionary theory is faith in the scientific method. Thus, evolution belongs in science classes. ID is not testable with the scientific method. Thus, it has no place in science classes.
Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
A quote from: "HYPERSPACE, A Scientific Odyssey through the 10th Dimension" by Michio Kaku:

Our galaxy, for example, contains about 200 billion stars. To get a ballpark figure for the number of stars with intelligent life forms, we can make the following very crude estimate. We can be conservative and say that 10% of these stars are yellow stars much like the sun, that 10% of those have planets orbiting them, that 10% of those have earthlike planets, that 10% of those have some form of intelligent life. This means that one-millionth of the 200 billion stars in the galaxy will probably have some intelligent life form. This implies that a staggering 200,000 stars will have planets harboring some form of intelligent life.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
>but I do have a problem holding the "scientific orgins" myth as some
>how more true than the Intelligent Design explanation.

It is more scientifically valid. And since it was arrived at via the scientific method (i.e. hypothesis, experimentation, verification) it is taught in science class. Intelligent design/creationism, since they were arrived at by a completely different manner (oral tradition, biblical authors, scholars arguing over what God really meant, political angling to get God into school) it gets taught in religion class.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Hehe yeah you'd think so, but maybe one of those extraterrestrials has oil...

The tricky thing about those assumptions is the timing as I already mentioned. Here another very interesting quote from the same book:

One theory holds that Drake's equation may give us rough probabilities of how many planets contain intelligent life, but tells us nothing about when these planets attain this level of development. Given the astronomical time scales involved, perhaps Drake's equation predicts intelligent life forms that existed millions of years before us, or will exist millions of years after us.
For example, our solar system is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Life started on the earth about 3 to 4 billion years ago but only within the past million years has intelligent life developed on the planet. However, 1 million years, on the time scale of billions of years, is but an instant of time. It is reasonable to assume that thousands of advanced civilizations existed before our distant ancestors even have left the forest and have since perished, or that thousands more civilizations will develop long after ours has died.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

Both sides are doing it in their own way. Bible-thumpers trying to get intelligent design taught (I'm talking substantively teaching intelligent design) while hard-core secularists try to remove any mention of Intelligent Design (even mention that there is a competing theory out there called Intelligent Design).



And that's exactly why. ID is not a competing theory. ID is not a theory. ID is not science. ID is a fancy way of talking about religion.

Sad to see you've been taken in by it, thought you had better critical thinking skills than that.



Tell me about what ID is about.

Then tell me whether your statement shoul dbe allowed in schools.

Why treat ID the way biblethumpers treat sex? Don't mention it and kids won't know about it?

ID SHOULD be discussed - not in science class but perhaps in civics. It sure as hell (no pun intended) should not be ignored.

ps - I notice that there are some who seem to think I am a PROPONENT of ID. I'm not. I don't belive a lick of it. But I think it should be discussed, thus to put critical thinking skills of kids to work.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Any governmental agency should be absolutely neutral concerning religion.



Doesn't that mean neither supporting nor denying the idea of ID? How can anything be "neutral" and only discuss one side of it?

Come on, folks - think CRITICALLY here. Analyze my statements and analyze yours. Explain to me how "neutrality" can mean "only talk about one side."

Either be neutral by presenting both sides, or DON'T be neutral by only presenting one side. Or, don't be nutral by presenting both sides, but putting out there that scientific method and knowledge has, thus far, been unable to provide any evidence to support ID.

I'm in favor of discussing it in a wieghted way.

I am NOT in favor of eliminating all mention of it.

See the difference?


My wife is hotter than your wife.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
No but there is a significant difference between something that is obviously wrong to everybody and something that a few 100 million of people believe to be true.

The spaghetti monster does not have any cultural influence while christianity does and with that the christian faith definitely deserves mentioning.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
>How can anything be "neutral" and only discuss one side of it?

If an earth science class discussed only plate tectonics, oil and coal formation, erosion etc would it be biased? Would it have to add the possibility that "maybe God just faked it all to test you" for you to consider it neutral?

How about current events? If a current-events class did not cover the theory that Bush blew up the WTC buildings (which is indeed a popular theory) would it be biased as well?

Or history? Should a history class cover the theory that the Moon landing was faked? Or would it be OK to cover just the "consensus view" - that Neil Armstrong indeed landed on the moon and returned to earth, as unlikely as that might seem to some?

I think that, in most cases, we should do the best job we can teaching the best information we can, and that we should concentrate on subjects like science, history, math, writing etc. Leave the political battles to Congress.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

[ For every Pat Robertson - bothered by every possible sin out there - there are thousands of Steveorinos who counsel those who ask for his counsel and proselytize nobody - except when asked. .



I guess I live in a different world. For every SteveOrino, there are thousands of Pat Robertsons.
Were there "thousands of SteveOrinos for every one Pat Robertson," this discussion likely wouldn't be taking place at all.
Who has experienced an atheist knocking on their door to tell them how miserable their life is and how badly they need a non-belief system? Contrasted by at least once a month, a missionary from one theist religion or another knocks at our door.



Compare that to the hundreds of posts on here and other places that, in basis, say that oneone who is NOT an atheist is mentally ill or delusional.
Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0