What matters most for abandoning creationism: facts, or religious interpretation?

What's a "god"? Science doesn't acknowledge such a phenomenon.

 

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I think they can coexist actually - and so too do many hundreds of thousands of Christians who are scientifically trained. I think most people who understand both religion and science recognise some version of the "non-overlapping magisteria" view of Stephen Jay Gould, controversial though this may admittedly be in some circles.

I take your point about infusing a soul into Man, but I suspect most people think of that as a progressive thing too, rather than a yes/no distinction between creatures with a soul and those without. Teilhard de Chardin got there over half a century ago, though it's true the Vatican found his views a bit too hot to handle at the time.

I think too that strictly speaking the Catholic Church still insists on Adam and Eve being real individuals, which seems rather absurd, because for their own arcane theological reasons they seem to think there had to be a specific historical act of disobedience to cause the Fall. So clearly the doctrine of the Fall has a little way to go before it is fully harmonised with common sense - in my opinion, that is.

 

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UOTE=Fraggle Rocker;

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Actually we have a rather good model for how the earth and the entire solar system were formed. Apparently you dropped out of your university courses before you got that far. It's not the kind of thing you're going to learn by reading the newspaper or watching TV.

You are an accountant , have you had any chemistry , biology ?, I am sure accounting does not require such subject , so stop puffing yourself up.
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Our only major blind spot is about how the universe itself came into existence, and the cosmologists are already working on that. We already know that the universe is an exact balance of matter and antimatter, so there was no actual "creation" of anything, merely an increase in the organization of what was originally nothing and is still, basically, nothing. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that spatially and temporally local reversals of entropy are possible, and the Big Bang is probably nothing more than one of those.

You model and you knowledgeable can not account for most of the matter. so stop using WE.

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How can you complain about the few missing parts of the scientific model of the universe, yet accept the theological model, which is all missing parts. Where did God get the matter and energy to build all this? How did he turn it all from chaos to meticulous, detailed organization in just six days? Where did all the waste heat go?

Please keep in mind in the bible does not mention universe, it mention about earth , so read properly and the discuss.
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Most importantly, Where did the god come from? The universe is "everything that exists," and since God exists (in your model, anyway), he is part of the universe. So how did he come into existence? He could not create himself! This is the Fallacy of Recursion and it makes your model utterly ridiculous and unworthy of even a token of respect. It's a fairytale for little children who are not smart enough to see its flaws.


Again you talk about universe . the bible talks about the earth
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I was not nurtured in a religious environment. My family have been atheists for three generations. When I was 7 years old a little boy told me about God and all the other bullshit. I thought it was one of those stories children made up and I thought it was very entertaining so I laughed generously. I didn't understand why he didn't appreciate my laughter.

I see you were smart at the age of 7 , what a blessing to humanity.
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I reminded her that I figured out that the Tooth Fairy is not real all by myself, and I was just a little kid. How come a grownup couldn't figure out that God is not real, since grownups are much smarter than kids? She couldn't answer that question. This is when I became a cynic. It took me 30 years to get over that. And I'm still not completely over it. It's very difficult for me to respect people who can believe something that is so utterly illogical.

Keep on padding your self on the back , you will break your arm.


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The myth of Jesus is more recent, from the Iron Age when the Greeks and Indians had begun to formulate the basic principles of science. But the myth of Jesus appears to be nothing more than a myth. The Romans were meticulous recordkeepers, and if something that fantastic had happened there would be an entire library devoted to all the eyewitness accounts of it. Instead we have one writing attributed to Josephus, and its authenticity is questionable--and even if it truly was written by Josephus we have no good reason to believe that it wasn't just his imagination at work. Everything else about Jesus was written long after his death, by people who were too young to have been eyewitnesses.

Do you know what happen to Alexandian library the greatest in the time , were large amount of old literature existed, go to wiki , beside how log do you think before papirus will decompose,
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No, my friend. It is you whose faith is unsupported by reason or evidence, not mine. My faith in science is reinforced every day. Your faith in miracles is simply wishful thinking.[/QUOTE]

I was gung ho in science and believing the Derk matter dark energy , quarks , and I steel believe but with a grain of salt . Keep your faith but can you provide a gram. of dark matter or one milligram of pure quark , it does not matter if it is one up or one down , by the way can you add one micrograms of muons

 

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For those who already firming believe in Creationism the answer is probably education by a more enlightened religious person that they respect. Most Christians do seem to be able to handle evolution. It's just a few fundamental groups who can't accept it.

For younger people secular education is the way to go I'm sure (as with everything else). The younger generation is less bigoted, less racist, etc.

Arauca mentioned something to the effect that we don't even know what the atmosphere was like in the early Earth. We do know that life wasn't possible. We know what the atmosphere was life during many time periods.

That alone (if they believed the science of course) would disprove the Creationism theory as life wasn't even possible immediately after the Earth was formed.

 

Can you tell me before the slat system was in place , was the earth covered with water ? was it dry ? was the atmosphere composition of nitroge , carbon dioxide was there Hydrogen . How did we get oxide material in the mantle, How come we have much hydrated oxide in the mantle how dit it get there ?
I know I am an old timer I graduated in the early 1970

 

All this means is you can't conceive of anything beyond your own 'belief system' and subsequently show NO respect for the belief system of folks who don't conform to your world view. Standard for intellectually dishonest ideologues as you've shown yourself to be. Idiot wind piety.

 

There is piety in me, I might be an idiot to you , but you are nice fellow to me . I don't have any intention to insult science because I mad my living in it and got a retirement , I believe in chemistry and biology , sent my son to medical school, I believe in physics Newtonian, At the present my other son and I work on nanothbes , does that make me dishonest ?

 

Great points, exchemist!

The problem however with part of your view is that it seems inferred that religious people can sample a little from the science buffet, so long as it doesn't conflict with their belief system. (and still say they accept both, equally) "Non-overlapping magisteria" isn't completely honest which could be why it's controversial. lol While I agree that science and religion don't have to "interfere" with one another, if one is religious and follows a creationist view, such a person will not be able to accept/embrace an opposing view. Evolution opposes the Bible, and clearly this was thought to be true after Darwin's theory emerged. The Catholic Church was rather vehement in teaching against Darwinism. In recent times, the Church teaches a more "flexible" view of the Bible, and certain aspects of evolution, without embracing the whole theory.

IOW, (in my opinion) ..."non-overlapping magisteria" is unrealistic. (Unless this is what religious scientists tell themselves in order to be able to cater to both schools of thought.)

Simply put, if a religious person can't accept in its entirety, the theory of evolution, then he/she truly doesn't support it. To accept evolution in its entirety means that one needs to reject the idea that humans have souls, infused into them by a Divine Creator. Christianity is built on the idea that Jesus died for everyone's sins, and that he came here to save our souls from ''eternal damnation.'' The idea of humans having souls is not an optional belief, as a Christian.

So, when we look at evolution as totally opposing such a view, how can a Christian 'in good faith' support evolution, in its entirety?

The Catholic Church has conveniently 'cherry picked' those aspects of evolution that don't conflict with traditional dogma. (And, that is the Church's idea of ''accepting'' evolution, I guess.) Have you read specifically what the Church teaches about evolution? It nearly looks like a revision, a practical redefining of evolution. That is how the Catholic Church has 'made peace' with the theory of evolution. It modified parts of it to mean something it isn't.

Science and faith can only coexist if they both don't accept one another, entirely. To me, that diminishes the value of both.

Jan Ardena has a thread that I participated in for quite some time, and he asserted all the way through that a believer can't also be a Darwinist. I argued against Jan's assertions, but now I believe he is correct. Unless one modifies his/her faith beliefs, or redefines evolution to mean what suits his/her faith belief system, then a Creationist can't also be a Darwinist.

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I don't know what the "slat system" is. The early earth was volcanic, as it cooled water was retained, the oxygen come after a photosynthetic phase. Earth is made from the same material more or less as the sun is made from.

You are the scientist (not me). You should (and probably do) know the answers so why argue (if you are) for creation when you know the facts?

 

That is not exactly true since all new discovery in science, all new innovations and new theories requires faith by their creator, since these all start at the ground floor, before it has been proven. For example, the existence of dark matter and dark energy is inferred but nevertheless requires faith since it has never been seen in the lab. Once an innovation gets past the idea, development and scale-up stage and then becomes printed in a textbook, the faithless can enjoy.

Innovation needs faith, while memorizing does not. I would be prefer to learn the charisma of faith so I can be creative and persistent. Einstein had faith in relativity decades before proof. The faithless beat him down because they want to memorize but it was too soon for the faithless to move in. If they had faith they could move in earlier.

 

Sorry solar . So is Mars , Venus, Mercury. How did Photosynthesis come about ? I think that is late in time or perhaps 3 billion year ago . Could that be that oxygen was here but in an oxide form ? How did carbon arrived and wen . I am not sure we have carbonateus material in the mantle . Were the volcano below water , How did the earth cooled off, was it doe to evaporation , was it due to tilt of the axis to establish cold region for freezing water to establish dry land , if the earth was covered with water and there are more question

 

Bordering on semantics, but ok. lol Yes, I see your point.

haha

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Ok.

I can understand that, wellwisher. My view is not so much atheistic at this point, as it is agnostic. And not by default. I honestly don't know if there exists a god/gods or not. And I'm ok in not having to know. I'm not looking to get anyone to not believe in God, rather I'm just pointing out that science and faith can only coexist if they don't conflict with one another. (and they often do)

And again, science and faith can only coexist if they don't accept one another, entirely. We can't hold a steadfast belief in God, and then follow a school of thought that opposes that view. (to some extent of it) I mean, we can...but, we won't be true to ourselves by doing so.

 

Yes, sometimes science and religion do conflict; like a freeway with opposite running lanes that overlap. Like two paradigms that are colliding.

 

No dude. They have trust that their hypothesis is likely to be correct. But unlike religious faith, they are willing to modify their assumptions based on EVIDENCE. When facts contradict religion, religion denies the facts.

What evidence would make you disbelieve in god?

 

I know you now, Mazulu...''God is the reason for everrrryyything,'' is your scientific ''approach''.

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I have used this example on other occasions.

We have all had dreams, which are a very common natural output of the brain. Within these dreams there are many details. Although dreams and dream details are a very common human experience and are observed all the time, we can't prove any of these dream details in a way that is consistent with the scientific method. This is real enough, due to billions of data points, yet these details lie beyond the range of the scientific method. You cannot directly observe dreams from the outside, nor can you reproduce the exact details in another lab. Science would conclude dream details are not subject to proof. There is no scientific proof, so they don't exist, right?

The scientific method was developed to separate the subjectivities and projections of the mind, from sensory based objectivity so only objective data would exist within science. This was very useful. In doing so, it eliminated a whole range of phenomena associated with the human mind and consciousness. Dreams details are on the other side of the divide.

When it comes to religious phenomena, these would be expected to be on the other side of the philosophical divide out of range of the philosophy of science. The objective scientist, in calibration, would say these things are conclusive, because the scientific method does not allow one to work, over the wall since the method breaks down.

I like science and was trained in applied science, but I also figured out this divide beyond which science can't go.. The faithless have a real tough time there, because science lacks the philosophical permissions. It is biased by the divide. I am not insulting science but only showing where science breaks down and needs an update for science to proceed over the divide. I like to hurdle back and forth and will use the customs practiced on each side of the divide. Sometimes I forget and reverse these.

 

I'm an atheist and I came to that after a youth dominated by a belief in the christian church. You just assume, "We have grown in a is a believing society , which means attachment to a deity. Many time as we transgress the law we become rebellious and so instead correct our ways before God , we rationalize that there is no god , and to reenforce our direction of thinking , we look into the misery in the world and ask how can there be a god to allow such misery.", that everyone fits your 'we' category. I'm not talking about a lack of respect for science, or any other intellectual endeavor, I'm talking about your 'assumption' that 'we' all would believe in the christian god if we weren't weak and did some 'real' personal analysis. Your disrespect is for the 'validity' of other belief systems.

 

That's silly. I learned about archaeology through dinosaurs when I was a little kid. Same for basic chemistry and biology. Nobody's talking about doctorate-level courses for 9-year-olds, but bringing them up in a world where evolution just is rather than one side of a cooked-up controversy can do a lot of good.

 

I think that in part you're absolutely right in terms of science approaching general philosophy, but religion/faith/spirituality is extraordinarily personal and subjective...so, I don't see it "fitting" in quite the same way.

 

Yes God is the source of everything. But what is God? What is this exploding and churning power that simultaneously creates and destroys? What is it? What is the source of consciousness? Is it just some chemicals in a petri dish? I really don't want to wrap my underwear around my ass really tight like Arfa Bran does; I don't want to put God in a box. The Christian version of God is easy for many people to understand, but is probably just a place-holder.

But let's get down to science since there are guttersnipes who think I don't know any, but are themselves ignorant of the subject. The big bang singularity gave birth to everything material in the universe, electrons, quarks, gluons, protons, all particles of the standard model. Even space-time itself was created. Over many seconds and minutes, the universe cooled and expanded ever larger at the speed of light. Over millions of years, nebulae formed. Their gravity attracted hydrogen and helium until stars were born. Stars create all of the elements of the periodic table. There just isn't time to write down everything I know about science. But there are lots of left over pieces like dark matter that don't appear to do anything. There are still questions about how the physics constants like the speed of light, gravitaitonal constant and Planck constant can remain so ... constant.

wegs,
I am getting this picture from atheists that Christianity is a guilt driven religion. I am not surpised that lots of people are looking for a way out of it. I also understand neuroscience thinks it can has the recipe for consciousness, as just a bunch of neurochemicals crossing the synaptic cleft, as vast networks of constantly changing inductances, etc, etc... If you want to believe that they have the recipe, than go get some peace of mind.

But the hole goes deeper.