just let them believe in creationism

I did not say the Catholic Church created the scientific method.
Yes it works for me. I like science. It is one of the disciplines that keeps me entertained during my brief stay on earth. Math is good too though it is the only exact science there really is.
Psychology is another intriguiging study as well.

Science has served us with pollution of all kinds, garbage, light, noise, water, all products of materialistic science generating materialistic consumption.
And who will win in competing for an ear of corn in the future, the man needing gasoline for his car or the hungry child in India?

Science is a method, not a noun. You can not attribute a bad thing to "science", it is simply a method. It'd be like me saying let's attribute all those things you listed to "sex", since it produced the people who produced those things. Let's just wipe out everyone to prevent any more pollution! A sarcastic comment, obviously.

Science is also providing us with green technology, cures for diseases, better food, more food, the computer that you use to deface the idea that allows it to exist, electricity, furnaces to keep your house warm, the internet for instant worldwide communication, iron, steel, any type of material that is complex in nature... The list is endless.

As far as who will win the ear of corn, I'll leave that in the hand of capable geneticists who can produce multiple strings of a plant that are resistant to disease, have higher yield, have more nutrients, have a longer growing season, and taste better. I will also leave it in the hands of people who are working very hard and diligently to create green technologies, similar to the recent break throughs at MIT in battery technology and solar panel technology.


Edit: Added to the last paragraph

Round and round and round we go, where it stop, no one knows.

[edit on 29-8-2008 by OnionCloud]

I believe that World Religion should be a required course in schools. Creationism should be taught within that context. It is not a science.

No one is saying science should not be questioned. It should not, however, be compromised by those who regret what it has revealed.

Originally posted by Grumble
I believe that World Religion should be a required course in schools. Creationism should be taught within that context. It is not a science.

No one is saying science should not be questioned. It should not, however, be compromised by those who regret what it has revealed.

Now THAT is a sentiment I can get behind. I have no qualms what so ever with a world religion class being taught. I think that's whats done in Australia.

reply to post by Grumble


That's what I learned in school - we had "Religious Education", which taught us what each religion is about. None were presented as fact. Then we had science where we learned about the current state of various theories, including evolution.

Religion, and all that stems from it, is not science. Keep it in religious education, and out of the lab.

Dave, Onion and all
Your theory of evolution begins at the big bang.
My theory of creation begins before that.
Historically the creation preceeds and includes and encompasses the evolutionary theory.
Besides if you want to be evolved from a lower life form then dont use it as an excuse for anything you do, just use it as a basis for how you think.
Three ways to get a man to think if he wont do it himself.
1. Tell him a parable.
2. Ask him questions he should know the answer to and does not.
3. Make him angry.

reply to post by fmcanarney


No, evolution begins as soon as organisms start to reproduce. At least TRY to get that right. Evolution is not the same as the big bang.

Your hypothesis, (not a theory, no matter what you think), never even got off the ground, as it was simply ignorant farmers looking to explain how things happened to be. They didn't know about DNA, or how beneficial traits are passed from one generation to the next, as they were too busy fending off disease and beating the crap out of each other with stones and spears for not worshipping the right Jewish Zombie in precisely the right way.

I can do you one better. One way to get a person to think:

1. Imbue rationalism

You don't need to bring the bible into this. In fact, dogma is the antithesis of thinking - it is a strict doctrine and belief system that can not be challenged.

Here's a nice viewpoint I saw someone discuss earlier:

In science, when current notions are shattered and new ones created, they get a Nobel Prize.

In religion, when current notions are challenged, they get branded a heretic, and in old days, killed, brutally, in front of everyone.

Religion = ignorance.

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by fmcanarney

 

No, evolution begins as soon as organisms start to reproduce. At least TRY to get that right. Evolution is not the same as the big bang.

How did the first organism get here, it had to "evolve" from some combination of amino acid and some other collaborative force.
Then where did the amino acids come from.
Take your evolution back to before even the earth was formed. The earth had to "evolve" from something or some process right?
What was that plasma gasses and nebuli and other matters.
Then where did that plasma and nebuli and matter come from. It had to evolve from something right?
What did it evolve from.


Your hypothesis, (not a theory, no matter what you think), never even got off the ground, as it was simply ignorant farmers looking to explain how things happened to be. They didn't know about DNA, or how beneficial traits are passed from one generation to the next, as they were too busy fending off disease and beating the crap out of each other with stones and spears for not worshipping the right Jewish Zombie in precisely the right way.

Notice that YOU were the first to reference the written word of the bible.

I can do you one better. One way to get a person to think:

1. Imbue rationalism

The apes you evolved from are rational?
Are the laws of science rational or irrational?
If you say they are rational then from what did they evolve from to be rational, a frog? Based on evolution it is not rational to espouse that reational thought comes from irrational preceedents.

You don't need to bring the bible into this. In fact, dogma is the antithesis of thinking - it is a strict doctrine and belief system that can not be challenged.

Your comments about religion are employing a large number of emotionally laden language like murder, torture, and this is evidence of you highly intense emotional based reasoning.
Even the last line religion = ignorance
I am using the term "Creationism" to explain the existence of the universe that we experience.
Religion = ignorance.

reply to post by fmcanarney


Gees ... I think this debate got a bit of OP topic heh ... for the record ... let them believe in creationism ... it doesn't change the fact that evolution happens.

But if we must we must ...

The issue I have most with Creationism and ID is that they argue everything from a human perspective and start with HUGE assumptions.

Creationism believes that the universe was created for humankind by a god and that we hold a special place within that gods creation.

The human perspective in this belief is obvious. It doesn't surprise me that this is a popular belief. It means the humans are better than everything else ... and this makes people feel safe and secure ... great marketing ... it also assumes that we are a gods favourite creation.

I don't actually have a problem with Creationism. It is so far removed from reality that, as another poster as said, any student with an ounce of rationalism in them will be a able to mentally separate a faith based philosophical belief from a factual scientific based theory. In saying that it should be kept well away from the science class.

ID says that the universe is so delicately balanced for life that the odds of this happening by chance are much to great so there must be a creator.

What a load of rubbish and flawed is so many ways.

It is a bunch of what if's and could be's not actually looking at the evidence presented ... well looking at it and then saying "Ahh yes but what if it wasn't like that!" ... sorry to disappoint you but it is like that ... we could go into the creative writing class next door and discuss what would happen if our reality was different but lets leave that for the Twilight Zone heh?

Look ... the chances of the universe being exactly the right conditions for life is exactly 1 ... because life exists.

Saying that if you changed some of the universal constants slightly that life couldn't exist is a straw mans argument on a monumental scale.

For starters:

We can't change the universal constants ... so that ends that argument.

Secondly, IDers are assuming that another form of life could not possibly arise within the changed universal conditions.

Could it? We don't know but I do know there is know way we can say for certain that it wouldn't. If we cant be sure that it would then we have to assume that it could.

Thirdly, ID is argued assuming that creation requires intelligent.

Humans are intelligent. Humans can create things. Therefore only intelligence can create things.

So there is no other explanation for creation? No possibilities outside of this chain of deduction?

Of course there is!!

To liken the creation of the universe to the creation of a clock by a watchmaker is so simplistic and out of perspective that it's like saying that drawing a picture of a baby on a piece of paper is the same as actually birthing a baby, raising that child and buying the child it's first car.

Intelligent Design requires extraordinary evidence if it wants to be taken seriously. Just saying so does not make it so.

So far the evidence for this to be accepted as a scientific theory as been:

"They are allowed to teach theirs, so we should be allowed to teach ours"

Children, please!

So ... there you have it.

I personally believe that life is a force just like gravity or electromagnetism.

Life will happen where ever and when ever it can and in what ever form it possibly can.

There is no intelligence behind it.

Edit - addition of info, creatively


[edit on 2/9/08 by Horza]

From what did the earth evolve?

reply to post by Keeper of Kheb

4. Carry low paying jobs as if they're too stupid to get anything better

actually, i think what he was saying was more along the lines of "make sure they have low paying jobs". it's a social darwinism thing, with a bit of help from the predator. he's claiming the darwinists are the predators and the creationists are the victims of the predators, who they may or may not allow to shine their shoes for a nickle.

Originally posted by fmcanarney
From what did the earth evolve?

The theory of Evolution does not deal with the creation of Earth, the universe or even the origin of life.

It theorises only on the evolutionary pathways that lead the first Earth based life form to evolve onto the amazing biosphere we have today.

Earth did not "evolve" in the context of "Evolution"

The Earth formed like this:

wapedia.mobi...

So evolution only applies to Earth.

Eartth was created, universe was created. By what force or by whom?

reply to post by fmcanarney


Well, the earth was created when a bunch of dust in the universe grouped together, due to gravity. As for the universe, that's still unknown. But any explanation requires evidence, so we can't simply say "well, as we don't know, let's just say it's God and pretend that there's any merit behind that assumption". That is irrational.

reply to post by fmcanarney


Evolution applies to how individual species occur. So far, as the only life forms we know are on Earth, it is confined to terrestrial species.

If life arose on Earth, the timing of this event is highly speculative—perhaps it arose around 4 billion years ago. [11] In the energetic chemistry of early Earth, a molecule (or even something else) gained the ability to make copies of itself-the replicator. The nature of this molecule is unknown, its function having long since been superseded by life’s current replicator, DNA. In making copies of itself, the replicator did not always perform accurately: some copies contained an “error.” If the change destroyed the copying ability of the molecule, there could be no more copies, and the line would “die out.” On the other hand, a few rare changes might make the molecule replicate faster or better: those “strains” would become more numerous and “successful.” As choice raw materials (“food”) became depleted, strains which could exploit different materials, or perhaps halt the progress of other strains and steal their resources, became more numerous.

From your website.
A REPLICATOR, explain what that is cause it sounds like science fiction.
Earlien ir the article is says "The BIRTH of the universe".
Who gave birth to the universe. Was it the replicators mother?

until by chance there arose a new molecule: the replicator. This had the bizarre property of promoting the chemical reactions which produced a copy of itself,

WHAT IS A BIZARRE PROPERTY. This is not rational at all and is based on supposition, conjecture, bizarre reasoning, and whatever...
Have you replicated yourself recently or did it require the DNA from another partial replicator of the opposite sex who was imbubed with the complimentary set of DNA.
Hell, why not just use a Xerox copy machine to replicate. Hey there we go, the replicator was an early Xerox copy machine.

It is all a lot of reaction formation disguised as thinking to escape the question of who am I and why am I here.

This article focuses on scientific information about the Earth. For religious beliefs about the Earth, see creation myth. For the history of modern humans, see History of the world.
The history of Earth covers approximately 4.6 billion years (4,567,000,000 years), from Earth’s formation out of the solar nebula to the present. This article presents a broad overview, summarizing the leading, most current scientific theories.

Summarizing the most recent scientific myths.
From the Earths formation, from where and what and how did the earth form.
Is there some replicator earth that made a copy of itself out there somewhere.
Bizarre replicator VS Creator.
The choice is yours.
If evolution holds true on earth then it must hold true for the origin of the earth, the beginning of the earth, and more distantly in the past, hold true for the universe.
And if you find how the earth evolved, by some bizarre myth, from some replicator planet out there then with as many varied and unique life forms that have replicated on earth there needs to be an equal amount or inhabited planets and such. It aint there.

Originally posted by fmcanarney

If evolution holds true on earth then it must hold true for the origin of the earth, the beginning of the earth, and more distantly in the past, hold true for the universe.

I don't agree with you at all here.

The evolution of a species from a common ancestor is a completely different process to the formation of planets, solar systems and universes.

Because they are fundamentally different processes, the way one happens will not hold true the another.

But your logic does explain why you believe in an intelligent creator.

I believe this is your logic:

Humans are intelligent. Humans can create things. Therefore intelligence is needed to create things.

It is a very basic humanistic form of logic and one that was used for many years ... The Flat Earth for example

It is very a very closed straw man type of argument

Have you considered other possibilities?

Have I considered other options.

But if evolution is true on earth, it holds to reason that the evolutionary chain is unbroken back to its inception.

Then evolution must be able to reach back through time and space to have a beginning. Why have a theory that only holds true for earth and claim evolution of planets is an entirely different method. Broaden your horizon with the evolutionary paradigm. The earth evolved from something right. What ?