Where does everyone stand in regards to...

[Bugweed]

Whatever, Caps. I am still thinking of commonalities between the two. I would study that real hard before pronouncing it a dead idea. If you don't look at it, and close your mind, you could miss one heck of a revelation, or totally prove your point. So look, don't look. Still just a thought, with no biblical or theological thought to be in the way. Study the theory, not the reason behind the theory,i.e. God did it**God didn't do it. You are looking to prove the evolution idea. Study both trains of thought, and move on from there. Reject one if you must, but at least give it a thorough going over to see what might be there to suprise you. Closed minds kill science. Open minds build science.

 

[Capslock]

Don't get me wrong, Bugweed, I'm all for looking and learning. I'll entertain the craziest of ideas, and enjoy the intellectual exercise of doing so.

I was only speaking to the issue of what is taught in schools, which is where I think professional responsibility dictates one direction over the other. It's not like people haven't thought about this before, and it's fairly easy to see where the evidence stacks up. But this is ONLY limited to public policy.

I'd be fascinated and delighted to find out that the prevailing notions are wrong. I get more jazzed about being shown to be wrong than right, odd as that seems. I also love a good mystery, as reality often turns out to be dry by comparison. I have no personal stake in this; although I'm an atheist, my father is a Biblical scholar, and we love to explore what it all means in the greater contexts. I guess I have the reaction I have to this particular issue because of the way it's been handled by school boards and used by politicians over the past several years, and it's made me somewhat reflexively defensive, for which I apologize, as I really do favor all intellectual exploration.

Capslock

 

[Bugweed]

Thanks for clearing that up, Caps. I know what you mean about learning something once thought right was bogus, and being 'blown away" by that knowledge. Precisely why I said study the Creationists views and studies, cull out the theological, look for science backed/based studies within the Creationist framework, and go to town!. But again--Study it. I wouldn't advocate teaching it----yet. Too much to learn, but I am doin' my best!

 

[Wesley]

Quote[/b] ]I cannot agree, Bugweed. There is simply no scientific basis for creationism that would warrant it being taught side by side with evolution. Contrast this with the work of thousands of geologists, biologists, anthropoligists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists and others whose work supports and bolsters and continuously hones evolutionary theories.

You know for a fact that there is NO basis for creationsism, be it Christian, Hindu, Islam etc? So you have resarched them and compared them side by side, otherewise there is know way to prove that there is no basis to creationism. We have been talking an aweful lot about proving, and that would be a bit of a blunder to go and do that.
Contrast it with the work of all the thousands of geologists, biologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, chemists, physicists, and others whose work supports and bolsters and continuously hone creation theories.(I know I coppied you but I didn't wanna try and come up with my own thing LOL)

Quote[/b] ]I was only speaking to the issue of what is taught in schools, which is where I think professional responsibility dictates one direction over the other. It's not like people haven't thought about this before, and it's fairly easy to see where the evidence stacks up. But this is ONLY limited to public policy.

PROFESSIONAL responsibility dictates one direction over the other......... Ugh if you think it's professional to ban the saying of the pledge in the public schools, saying "merry Cristmas"(or did I dream that cause the term "Christams" literally means "Christ worship" LOL, I can't remember) Oh and it's also illigal to sing "Silant Night" and other such Christmas carols because of "suggestive" wording.... and yet these "artists" are all singing about sex, drugs, cussing, etc. Real professional in my opinion. I know you were talking about evo being in the public schools but the same people that allow all the other crap also allow evo and have banned the 10 commandments(they are just rules), Bibles (be it private property or not), and other harmless things.... Anyway before anyone takes offense( I hope you aren't on the school board I really do....) I'm gonna stop. Oh and its all true( it was in the news.... but then again that might be why its false if it's false LOL)

IMHO,
~Wes~(*thinks to himself* "Dagummit none of that had to do with evo.... I need to work on that LOL")

 

[Capslock]

Wes,
I think you misunderstood a bit. I said there's no evidence that warrants it being taught on a par with evolution. I didn't talk about any proof anywhere, though genetic mutation and inheritence can easily be demonstrated, whereas no part of creationism can be demonstrated.

For the record, I'm all for religious freedom, and say "Merry Christmas" myself. Apart from being led from public (government) institutions, people should be able to say, sing, read, believe, wear, and worship however and whatever they want.

Capslock
(incidentally, it's a whole 'nother topic, but forcing school kids to recite an oath to God every morning is wrecklessly irresponsible. The "Pledge" itself is iffy, but to add a religious component, which they did in the fifties in the anti-communist era, was just wrong. But that's a different topic for another thread.)

 

[Wesley]

Quote[/b] ](incidentally, it's a whole 'nother topic, but forcing school kids to recite an oath to God every morning is wrecklessly irresponsible. The "Pledge" itself is iffy, but to add a religious component, which they did in the fifties in the anti-communist era, was just wrong. But that's a different topic for another thread.)

I had feeling I'd get that... but hey now I know why. But I have to wonder, is the mint gonna get sued cause they print money that says "In God we trust"? Just a thought.

Anyway back on track... this is a HUGE link for creation(I haven't read it all but I'm gonna try) Have fun Bugweed and AW. It looks really good so far though. Creationism

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]I cannot agree, Bugweed. There is simply no scientific basis for creationism that would warrant it being taught side by side with evolution

I agree.

Quote[/b] ]Study both trains of thought, and move on from there. Reject one if you must, but at least give it a thorough going over to see what might be there to suprise you. Closed minds kill science. Open minds build science

I've looked at anti-evolution sites (from the stupidest website in the whole entire world- http://www.anzwers.org/free/livedragons/evolutio.htm to one that had me doubting evolution until I researched more- http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/creationtips.html ) and I've debated with anti-evolutionists quite a few times (some which were more active than here)
and I've reached the conclusion that SOME believe purely on faith, others believe because of top-down thinking, others make up wild stories to make their arguments be possible (but definately not plausible... at all), and yet others don't even know what evolution is (cough cough... saying it's "just" a theory etc) So I've completely rejected the branch of creationism that doesn't believe in evolution.

Quote[/b] ]You know for a fact that there is NO basis for creationsism, be it Christian, Hindu, Islam etc?  So you have resarched them and compared them side by side, otherewise there is know way to prove that there is no basis to creationism.

I don't have a religion so why should I waste my time doing that?
have you learned all about other religions? then why are you christian?

Quote[/b] ]and yet these "artists" are all singing about sex, drugs, cussing, etc.

sigh... I'm not even going to say anything or this will end up where I don't want this to end up.

wesley...(from your site)

Quote[/b] ]Simply put, they lived concurrent with man down through the thousands of years of our existence, and they appear to have gone mostly extinct prior to our modern era

do you believe that?

 

Quote[/b] ]The total time of the Great Flood was about 1 year in length from when Noah's family entered till they left the Ark.  That's what it has always clearly stated.  Period.

heh... about the ark... that is one story that the only way to believe it is if you say that god REALLY intervened with the laws of nature.

Quote[/b] ]may not have been very

no supporting arguments. Just thinking up ways that somehow it could have been possible.

Quote[/b] ]Creationists stand on the side of testable-repeatable science.  Ahem, again, creationists are the ones standing on the side of science.

(silence)

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

whoa. I can find plenty of stuff wrong with that site.

Quote[/b] ]There are actually several creation-related theories out there, most of which compromise between strict "evolutionism" (no God, period)

... right.

Quote[/b] ]Certainly this is possible, and we have many examples in the world (cars have "evolved" tremendously during the 20th Century, with the guiding hand of engineers and designers).  

a common mistake. they're confusing english and scientific language.

Quote[/b] ]Sure, this is scientific.  Within the DNA coding God has placed varying factors; thank the Maker for his forethought in allowing for automatic adaptability!  But the third type (related to the first, but with no God "guiding" the outcome), as best as I understand, is unbiblical and also unscientific.  There are no fossils which prove any transitional life forms have ever come about through "natural selection" or otherwise.  The third type of evolution is what is believed and preached to our children in the public schools today, but to the best of my understanding there is no scientific evidence to support its tenets.

"preached" oh PLEASE!
that just shows s/he doesn't know a thing about evolution or fossils. I'm done reading. If s/he doesn't think evolution is scientific then I'm scared to think what s/he thinks is science.

Quote[/b] ]Is it necessarily scientific (but not religious) to exclude God in geologic strata interpretation?

(lol... ok fine I did read more ) yes it is because there is absolutely zero (scientific) proof god exists.

Quote[/b] ]The Flood theory can readily handle strata which, by exception, stacks in "evolutionary" order

huh?


I see lots of statements with nothing to back them up.

Quote[/b] ]EVIDENCE OF A BRILLIANT DESIGNER

well, where the heck is the evidence?

Quote[/b] ]To the best of my knowledge there are no transitional forms in the fossil record

OK! that's it! I'm done. "to the best of my knowledge" ... you don't have very good knowledge then.

 

[endparenthesis]

The Hindu creation story in a nutshell...

"In the Bhagavatam, the most famous of the Puranas, the universe is conceived as "mahayuga," a series of cycles "of creation and dissolution with no beginning or end." The Creation Story tells that Brahma, god as the creator, was resting beneath the ocean in the realm of Naga, the king of serpents. Brahma felt a stirring and suddenly a full-blown Lotus was born on the surface of the ocean. Brahma seated himself on the floating Lotus and looked in all directions for any other beings. Not seeing anyone around but feeling a desire for knowledge, he meditated, seeking knowledge within himself. There he found Truth, God himself, in his own heart, and looking around he now saw God everywhere. And the voice of God told him to create the world out of God. "Creation is only the projection into form of that which already exists." So Brahma drew the wind and the waters of the sea into the Lotus, and divided it into the three spheres - heaven, earth and sky. He gave the world the four Vedas - the wisdom of God. The first humans he created were saints who immediately fell into meditation and were not interested in the world. This would be the end of the humans if some solution could not be found. As Brahma was meditating, he found his own form dividing, and so directly from Brahma's being came the first man, Manu, and the first woman, Shatarupa, the parents of all human beings."

There are almost a billion hindi out there and it's the third most practiced religion on the world. I'd be curious to know if the biblical creationists in this thread can confidently say that this hindu creation story is untrue, and if so, what is your reasoning?

It can't be proven wrong with absolute certainty... so why is it not getting equal focus here? Should we teach this alongside evolution? What would you say to someone who was arguing in this thread that human evolution was a lie because this was how we were created?

And it's certainly not the only creation story out there.

 

[Wesley]

Quote[/b] ]It can't be proven wrong with absolute certainty... so why is it not getting equal focus here? Should we teach this alongside evolution? What would you say to someone who was arguing in this thread that human evolution was a lie because this was how we were created?

It is not getting equal focus, cause we are not talking about Hindus.... we are talking about...err against Christains. The Hindu belief of how the earth came into being could very well be correct, but as it is religious along with Cristianity and all the othere. It is wrong cause it states there is a god... hmmm how sad. I'm so glad I have a god. I like knowing that I will go somewhere(well that's what I believe) when I die, I don't want to merely cease to exist. Evolution "proves" that right? We have no soul but we do lose weight the moment we die... I heard many examples done(by the way dogs don't lose weight when they die interesting "fact" aint it).

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]I like knowing that I will go somewhere(well that's what I believe) when I die, I don't want to merely cease to exist.  Evolution "proves" that right?  

not at all.

Quote[/b] ]We have no soul but we do lose weight the moment we die... I heard many examples done(by the way dogs don't lose weight when they die interesting "fact" aint it).

I've also heard fingernails and hair keep growing after you die (which is false), that there are no transitional fossils (false), that evolution proves nothing happens when you die (maybe that you will get eaten by maggots and other organisms but that's not evolution saying anything)... give me a good scientific site and then I'll believe (no religious sites... I don't trust religious sites one tiny bit to tell the whole truth about science)

Where the HECK are you getting all these "evolution proves" and "evolution says" umm... statements or whatever?
let me guess... religious sites?

heck... I've heard snakes inject their venom with their tails (and when told they didn't they asked if it was with their tongues then...), that mudpuppies bark and sting with their gills, that poinsettias are poisonous... etc.

 

[Bugweed]

That's cuz our heads deflate when we die. Like a balloon.

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]That's cuz our heads deflate when we die. Like a balloon.

and dogs' don't?

 

[Bugweed]

No, they bloat! LOL!!

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

ah... http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
apparently the person who did that was not very scientific, and:

Quote[/b] ]Fellow Massachusetts doctor Augustus P. Clarke took MacDougall to task for having failed to take into account the sudden rise in body temperature at death when the blood stops being air-cooled via its circulation through the lungs. Clarke posited that the sweating and moisture evaporation caused by this rise in body temperature would account both for the drop in the men's weight and the dogs' failure to register one. (Dogs cool themselves by panting, not sweating.) MacDougall rebutted that without circulation, no blood can be brought to the surface of the skin and thus no surface cooling occurs.

sometimes it's half an ounce, sometimes it's 3/4ths, sometimes it's 3/8ths
so I guess some people's soul is heavier than others'

Quote[/b] ]The weight of the soul he has determined to be from one-half ounce to nearly an ounce and a quarter.4

now how the heck did he get that?

Quote[/b] ]What to make of all this? MacDougall's results were flawed because the methodology used to harvest them was suspect, the sample size far too small, and the ability to measure changes in weight imprecise. For this reason, credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams. His postulations on this topic are a curiousity, but nothing more.

so SCIENTIFICALLY nothing was proven.

speaking of proving religious claims, I've seen more "proof" for other religions than for christianity.
My uncle and brother once got their "aura"'s picture taken. I don't know how the heck they do that, but you can see green/red/etc surounding a person. Sometimes you even see balls of light hovering on top of people's heads, etc.
there's also a guy who claims he reincarnated... he has one picture of the "previous" body he had, one of the body he took over BEFORE he took over (looked nothing like the "previous" body) and you can "see" that even though the first picture is not him, his "new" body changed to look more like the first body (did I just confuse the heck out of you? I know I'M confused! lol)
and that same guy... there's been pictures taken of him where he's meditating and he has white balls of light hovering around him and sort of light currents coming out of his assistant's hands.
How do I explain that? I don't have a clue but obviously I don't believe him because I don't have a religion.

anyway my point is that not only christianity has "proof".
(I've also seen pictures of honeycombs and fish scales with "alah" written on them, mosques that survived earthquakes, etc)
(now why the heck did I just say all that? I forgot... GASP! I need to do homework!)

 

[herenorthere]

Creationsits and people weighing souls combine all the worst aspects of religion and science.  And each has plenty of bad attributes.  God isn't a magician flashing a magic wand one day and here's light or a few days later and there's Sarracenia purpurea subsp. purpurea f. heterophylla.  And why the @#$% does a soul have to have a weight?!?  That makes a mockery of Christianity.

 

[scottychaos]

Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Jan. 05 2005,2:33)] And why the @#$% does a soul have to have a weight?!?  That makes a mockery of Christianity.

I agree..that is very lame..
but, I think the Christians who are weighing souls are doing it because they believe that it PROVES that we have souls!
although why a Christian would feel the need to "prove" that is beyond me..you would think that wouldnt require any proof.

I guess its just another way to try to justify the Bible as a scientific textbook..they have no idea it makes people take them even LESS seriously! Christians and nonChristians alike..
the vast majority of Christians probably think its a stupid pointless experiement..(I do, speaking as a Christian.)

Scot

 

[schloaty]

Here is the fundamental problem with trying to compare science and religion....apples and oranges, my friends!

You cannot use religion to answer scientific questions, nor can you use science to answer spiritual ones. It's like driving a nail in with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Wrong tool for the job, and the nail certainly won't go in straight.

 

[jimscott]

On the other hand both science and "religion" can ellucidate one another. Christians never need live in fear of archaelogical discoveries nor technological advancements nor anything biologically related nor questioning. They have a tendency to clarify and prove the Bible to be true.

 

[Wesley]

Dagum.... I need to polish my research... But then again I never really thought you could determine if someone had a sould by waying them. It's like trying to prove that the air is there, you can't see it but you can feel it. The soul(well some of), you can't see but you can feel it(aka conscience and those other things...)