Does ANYONE here believe the earth is only 6000 years old ?

I was arguing with a friend that those on the right are much more uninformed than us, and I referred to and re-read this article :

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_14657.shtml

" College Park, MD: Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions. "


Then it hit me ! How many of these wingnuts ALSO believe in creationism, and that the earth is only 6000 years old, and that we actually ARE all desended from 'Adam and Eve' ?

Those who believe this truly have the capacity for self delusion. They WANT it to be true, so to them it is. No facts needed. It's amazing how there are creationist 'scientists' who go to great lengths to try and prove things like the earth is really only 6000 years old, or Noah really could have built an ark big enough to carry every animal on earth. That wingnut with the black hair, glasses and a goatee who yaps on TV a lot ( steven something ) wrote a book about how Saddam had WMD. Not much different, is it ?

These 'believers' are brainwashed, pure and simple.

Can this sort EVER deal with 'reality' or are they too far gone ?

and I PROMISE i will not flame u (and pls feel free to pm me if don't want to be flamed by others).

~Tes
News & Views from the Left at www.democracyiscoming.com - Proud to be Member of the Moral Minority at www.cafepress.com/tesibria - Spotlight on the Real Morals of the alleged "Moral Majority" at www.redmorals.com

My point was that some of the more religiously devout people are guilty of checking their brains into the cloak room when they enter the church.

And then, sometimes, they forget to grab their brains on the way out.

THAT is their true "base"

Well -- these people believe what they have been taught. There is a difference. Especially in smaller schools that to this day do not teach evolution as a fact (or, in some cases, as a credible theory).

So -- it's not that they're brainwashed -- it's that they're
(a) untaught, literally; or
(b) untaught, in that they have not been taught the facts in a manner that reaches them.

~Tes
News & Views from the Left at www.democracyiscoming.com - Proud to be Member of the Moral Minority at www.cafepress.com/tesibria - Spotlight on the Real Morals of the alleged "Moral Majority" at www.redmorals.com

They did in my day.

Or billions, I forget !

heathens.

there will always be a student who tells me that I am wrong - because their mom, preacher, etc. said so. Last year I had a student put his fingers in his ears, chanting something to the effect of "I will not listen, I will not listen." So, the textbooks can say what they will. I can teach what is scientifically sound and acceptable, but I can't make them listen. I have a parents this year that has already informed me that if I start teaching anything other than the biblical account of the earth's origins, her son is to be excused from class. We won't get into that until the end of the year - should be fun. Right now I am having fun, because we are studying ecology, global warming, pollution, etc. I'm sending home projects on Monday that the kids can do at home to be more environmentally aware (start a compost heap, recycle, etc.) I can't wait for the fundy phone calls - guaranteed at least 3 parents will call me by 3 o'clock Monday afternoon for "brainwashing" their kids. Guaranteed.

screwed up

Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.

The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

they actually want to put stickers on all kids books that evolution is just one of many theories which also include creationism. I think last year one county wanted to only teach creationism.

I guess the "tiny man" they just found the bones of kind of blows that theory, huh.

Dumbos with big ears they are...... berniebear

are already trained to be ignorant and delusional

many who embrace "fundie religions" ARE educated -- just in an "alternate universe." They have been taught one specific point of view, and only one point of view. And they have not been exposed to - or exposed themselves to - other views.

I am not defending their beliefs. I continue to believe, however, that we do them -- AND AS/MORE IMPORTANTLY, OURSELVES -- when we so dismissively reject them as nuts. It's like dismissing bin Laden as a raghead. Wrongheaded AND stupid.

imho

~Tes
News & Views from the Left at www.democracyiscoming.com - Proud to be Member of the Moral Minority at www.cafepress.com/tesibria - Spotlight on the Real Morals of the alleged "Moral Majority" at www.redmorals.com

but fundamentalists are ignorant and delusional

Their beliefs are demonstrably false unless one invokes imaginary forces or appeals to an arbirtrary authority

they believe in things that can't be shown to exist

In my considerable experience with them, they do not know the facts (whether of science, economics or history) that they dismiss.

ignorant and delusional.

I did not use a derogatory term like "raghead."

Can you prove that Love exists?

love is an emotion, not a deity.

"Whosoever knoweth not Love, knoweth not God; For God is Love."

Odd for a non-believer to tell a believer what god is and is not, no?

...who profess to have "God" (who is love) in there heart, seem to have an awfully strange way of showing what their God is all about.

when people assume that because I'm religious, I'm the same way.

The Bible also says God created man in His image. And they're very specific with the pronouns.

The Bible was writen in Aramaic, and the words you know are the result of a translation of a translation. In the course of translation, a word that was gender-nuetral and referred to people of either sex was translated into "man"

And in my copy of Genesis, it says that both man and woman were created in God's image.

why was it necessary for God to create both man and woman?

Why didn't God create both man and woman at the same time instead of man first and then woman as an afterthought?

Why did God create man with a penis and no woman?

--IMM

understand the reasons for having the delusions and how to get rid of them. The patients, like most people, already know what a delusion is.

And unlike the person who thinks they what the Bible says or God is, a psychiatrist has studied the issues involved.

God is love. And love exists. Therefore God exists.

How about:

A unicorn is an animal. Animals exist. Therefore unicorns exist.

--IMM

For one thing, unicorns aren't animals. Unicorns don't exist.

For another, "God is Love" is not comparable to "A unicorn is an animal". The former is a definition, while the latter is a categorization. Te point here being that, unlike a unicorn, God does not have a uniform meaning. Different people mean different things when they speak of God.

The bible also says this:)
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not to send peace, But a sword. Matthew 10:34

feelings and behaviors; as such, the definition is rather vague and many people have different ideas of what it is exactly. Behaviors could be observed and compared to some criteria to determine if they represented "love." At the present time science can not detect and characterize emotion directly, however it could detect electrical activity in a part of the brain associated with "love." In any case, even when science can detect and reproduce emotion directly, there will still be a dispute over what the definition of love is, because it is subjective.

The flip side of that is that the history of the earth is *objective,* not subjective, and there is no credible evidence whatsoever that creationist theory remotely resembles the true history of the universe. Rationality simply demands giving mainstream evolutionary theory more credance.

Can you prove it exists?

This is an old one (Lewis).

It can be "proved" as much as anything can be proven. It depends, like many things, on the definition. In a way, love is a feeling experienced through hormones in the body to certain stimuli... just like all emotions. In another sense, it's used to describe certain behaviors humans engage in.

In short, the experience of love is no more a proof of divinity than the experience of anger or sadness. Nor does it bear on science one jot.

It can be "proved" as much as anything can be proven.

Agree, and I note that this applies to both Love and God, neither of which can be scientifically proven. Science can show that there are certain hormones flowing through your body while you experience an emotion, but science cannot answer why you experience it the way you do.

It depends, like many things, on the definition.

And IMO, that applies equally to both God and Love. Martin Luther King Jr wrote a famous speech called the The Seven Kinds of Love. It's a very interesting read. And God too, has many meanings. Different people have different conceptions of God.

In short, the experience of love is no more a proof of divinity than the experience of anger or sadness. Nor does it bear on science one jot.

True, love proves nothing of any scientific value and doesn't prove that any deity exists, but IMO, it does give us a reason to question if science can explain this phenomena, and if not, why not and what can?

do you launch into this overblown diatribe when you bid your mother goodbye after a visit or do you just kiss the poor lady and tell her you love her?

Hence the answer. One needn't answer an unasked question when you "kiss your mother," any more than one need explain how tendons work when one grabs something. Why? Because no one bloody asked how tendons work, unlike here.

close-minded and bigoted.

Remember, everyone who makes a broad generalization is an idiot.

but I'm not a bigot.

were blue-eyed, blond, white people too.

:eyes:

and my illustrated bible in grade school.

of Adam and Eve.

It's true you know!

Including Brachiosaurs, T-Rex, etc. two of each type. Okie dokie - these people obviosly never saw what the T-rex did to the outhouse in Jurasic Park. ROFL

The dinosaurs didn't catch the ride, and they ALL drowned in the flood! I thought EVERYONE knew that!


/sarcasm

Just go outside on a clear night and LOOK UP. See the milky way? Our own galaxy is over 100,000 light years across which means the light from the far end of the galaxy takes more than 6000 years to reach earth.

Not to mention the Andromeda Galaxy which is barely visible to the naked eye is 2 MILLION light years away. If the earth was only 6000 years old, it would be almost two million years before we ever knew it existed.

I don't. Of couse this is an ex-Catholic, current liberal speaking who is doing her best to get unbrainwashed.

that the first thing they told us was that timespans referred to in the bible were approximations that could be fathomed by people 2,000 years ago.

It was the nuns who taught me that the earth was ~4 billion years old. :)

I wish I had gotten to go to some of the more progressive Catholic schools. The lay teachers and nuns we had from K-6 were mostly nut jobs. I got beaten to the point where I had bleeding welts across my back in Kindergarten. My crime: I laughed when the kid across from me made a funny face. Teacher never asked me to stop, gave me no warning, she just dragged me into the bathroom and started beating the tar out of me.

My parents objected to what she did and stood up for me, but they left me in that hell hole until the eigth grade. Then I got to go to the public highschool. Thank my lucky stars.

wanted to clarify. On the original brainwashing comment, I meant on Creatonist theory in terms of Adam and Eve, not specifically the 6000 year bit. In seventh grade when we were taken over by a post Vatican II principal, we did start being taught evolution and they didn't dismiss it out of hand. They sort of comboed that and creation.

I guess the ultimate point is I believe in evolution and not the Adam and Eve bit. Too much gets blamed on Eve for me to accept it. LOL.

The more I talk to other Catholics in person or on the net about the school I went to in particular, the more and more I am starting to believe it was the anomoly not the over all norm. Some said they saw abuse but not to the extent that I saw. Must be Sister Elephant the first principle I had was just an especially mean human being who hired like types.

the nuns and thought we were always bad kids. They automatically believed the nuns, no questioning of the church....

ok -- wouldn't that mean that the STARS are that old? I.e., suppose a new meteorite appeared in the earth's orbit tonight. If a telescope were on that "newborn" meteorite, would it not be able to see those old stars????

I don't get your logic ... seems almost as bad as theirs ...

imho

~Tes
News & Views from the Left at www.democracyiscoming.com - Proud to be Member of the Moral Minority at www.cafepress.com/tesibria - Spotlight on the Real Morals of the alleged "Moral Majority" at www.redmorals.com

...that the universe was created approximately the same time as Earth, give or take a few hours.

Creationism believes the ENTIRE UNIVERSE was created at approximately the same time as Earth and humanity itself.

i don't remember it all that way -- but my curiosity certainly has been piqued. just ordered couple recent books on it from amazon.

Which many people of faith subscribe to as "Yes the Earth is really really really old but that God was the driving force behind it's creation and evolution".

... seems from very quick reading of reviews re books on Amazon, that when the earth theory started crumbling, the ID movement was created ... interesting. (ok, i'm a geek -- this stuff is interesting to me)

~Tes
News & Views from the Left at www.democracyiscoming.com - Proud to be Member of the Moral Minority at www.cafepress.com/tesibria - Spotlight on the Real Morals of the alleged "Moral Majority" at www.redmorals.com

If the universe needs a creator because it has complex design, then who created God. God must be even more complex then the thing the created, so who created God?

The answer you'll get is usually, "Well, God was always there." OK, then why not just say the universe was always there, there's no need for a further explaination. It's circular reasoning.

You really got them fools there. They can't fully explain God. 'Course, you can't really explain the universe ..... unless one considers the explanation that it happened by chance and is meaningless to be .... well, more meaningful than the universe.

I can give you core samples, carbon dating, fossil record, doppler shift, and a host of other sciences that give a more complete picture of cosmology than the entire field of creationism can give to explain it.

"God did it" is sounds nice in theory, but ulmately until you can provide evidence to back it up other than pure fucking magic (which is precisely what creationism is), you don't have anything to stand on except "faith" which is by definition the believe in something without empirical evidence.

you have no idea what my belief system is, but as your rant goes on, it contains harsher and harsher language. Intolerance, as Gandhi said, betrays a want of faith in one's cause. Trust me that you could tell me very little -- if anything -- about earth science. But you are right about one thing: I have little to stand on, having spent the past few years in a wheel chair. (grin)

I never said that I believe in creationism. If you have faith in science, you should know better than to jump to rash conclusions, with absolutely nothing to support them with.

I don't have "faith" that antibiotics destroy bacteria.

I don't have "faith" the internal combustion engine works.

I don't have "faith" the internet works as it does.

I don't have "faith" that passing an electrical current through a filament produces light.

I don't have "faith" that mixing bleach and ammonia will produce a poisonous gas.

I don't have "faith" that lighting a match to wood cause it to burn.

I don't have "faith" that cutting off my arm and letting it go will result in massive blood loss.

I have facts and evidence to support the knowledge.

I am not the one trying to place scientific knowledge on the same playing field as belief in an unknowable entity.

I readily admit that science doesn't have all the answers and the pursuit of knowledge and testing of theories is the entire basis of which science is built on. Science rarely invokes magic to explain that which don't yet have evidence to prove. Creationism does.

I hope you don't believe in "creationism"! I don't. I do place a lot of faith in science, though.

If it does, then we need go no further.

I see evidence of chance all around. No evidence of god.

Actually, there is more to existence of life than the randomness that fundies assign to evolution. Check out auto-catalysis, and complex systems. Look up the Miller experiments. You'll find that certain structures are favored by the configuration of the material universe. In a sense you could say that the dice are loaded toward life.

Now that could be the result of "the Creator" but that's not what biblical creation says.
--IMM

But it's not by chance.

I am hesitant to discuss this, because I'm not entirely sure what you might mean by "chance," as opposed to what I mean by that same term. But because you are asking sincere questions, though you are trying to find an error in what I say, I'll try to answer you. I recognize that neither of us will change our thinking even a tiny bit, but that's okay.

Chris Byrd is defending his version of the heavyweight title tonight against Jameel McCline, who is much larger. Does Byrd have a "chance"? I think so. But not a random chance; he has trained hard, and focused all of his knowledge and skills on this fight.

One of my clients used to go to a gambling casino every week to try to win a fortune. He had a severe and persistent mental illness, and was mildly retarded. Although he had a limited income, he would spend a significant amount of his money at the casino. Did he have a chance? Clearly not in the same sense that Chris Byrd does.

Of course, this is not exactly what you meant with your question. But I think you will agree with me that it is no coincidence that one man believed in a focused effort to improve his chances, and another believed in random chances if he just tried frequently enough.

There actually is no such thing as coincidence. There is consequence.This of course is the meaning behind the Persian Sufi poet Jalal-ad-din Rumi's beautiful verse: "This world and yonder world are incessantly giving birth: every cause is a mother; its effect the child.

"When the effect is born, it too becomes a cause and gives birth to wonderful effects.

"These causes are generation on generation, but it needs a very well lighted eye to see the links in their chain."

Now, regarding the scripture about the Creation: if you insist on taking it literally, rather than as a beautiful verse much like Rumi's, which is intended to teach, I have no reason to discuss that. It is not intended to be taken literal at all. There is no chance that it was.

If you believe Genesis is the literal truth, then the age of the Earth and the age of the universe are the same, give or take five days.

The best sense I can make of your post is that you are using "newborn meteor" as an analog to "6000-year-old Earth." But your analogy doesn't fit with the Genesis tale.

If I'm wrong about what you're saying, do tell.

Of course, the real answer to the dilemma of distant stars and old rocks is the Tricky God theory: If it's all magic anyway, you can simply posit a god who would hang stars 'way out yonder and create the streams of photons between earth and the stars. Thus did god create a universe that looks old, but is really brand new. Same with fossils, rocks, erosion and all that other bad stuff.

Maybe it's like creating distressed furniture: god just kind of likes that funky, broken-in look.

Not sure why anyone would want to believe in such a deceptive supreme being. Then again, millions of Americans just cast their votes for a known, demonstrable human liar.

that god created these 'illusions' to test us. (Same for fossils)

But watch them turn several shades of puce when you ask them why their god would lie about it.

to fool us into forsaking God's version of things.

had to start coming our way more than 6000 years ago if they are thousands of light years away. (A light year being the distance light would travel in a year...simplified)

If all of creation was only 6000 years old (which is the claim, not just this planet), we could not see light originating that far away.

I think that's where your problem lies, you are thinking in terms of just this planet but the young earth creationists mean ALL of creation...that there was NOTHING before 6000 years ago.

According to Genesis, the earth was created over the first three days (Genesis 1:1-13.) The "lights in the firmament of the heaven" were created on the fourth day (1:14-19). So, according to Scripture, the stars are younger than the earth.

Okasha

Let's say I took a trip that lasts ten years. My nephew is born and is one year old when I arrive to meet him. Can he see me? I would think so. Does his observation change my age? I think not.

Now our sun, known as Sol, is one of those stars. Sol and its planets follow a standard sequence. Our system has been determined to be about 4.5 billion years old. It has about 15 billion to go before it enters the next phase.

The light from a star 10 billion light years away has taken 10 billion years to reach us. Yes it started towards where we are before we existed. But the Bible claims that there was nothing before the earth existed. So how could that star at 10 billions of light years have been there?

--IMM

Actually, what _really_ happened is that the whole world was created yesterday, or maybe on Wednesday -- with the fossils, traveling light, and implanted memories and all...

There's a really funny site with all there 'pseudo science'

They can't explain how animals from the other side of the globe got to the Ark in 40 days, but they're SURE it happened.

maybe he created it with the light already on its way?

And what exactly would the purpose be of 125 billion galaxies in the universe each containing billions upon billions of stars each?

maybe I could answer you.

My five year old can't understand why we can't order Papa John's pizza every night, and no matter how many times I explain money, health, cholesterol, etc, to her, she can't grasp it. If there were an entity or being who created everything you are, see, know, thing or could possibly imagine, odds are pretty good that that entity would understand things you couldn't.

Fallacy. Try again. ;-)

But you may try again, if you like.

There is common ground too. Life in it's smallest and largest form is
still a fascinating mystery.
It's good to hear all our minds clicking.
Wouldn't it be great if we could talk so freely with every point of view?
Maybe someday we can realize that the all people are deserving of their own view of God.

Okay, I'll spell it out for you... you are offering up nothing more than a logical fallacy. A lack of evidence one way is not evidence toward the other way. It's akin to the somewhat famous scene from the Simpsons:

Homer: Ah, not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh? How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around here, do you?

Your reasoning is akin to Homer's, that is, bad reasoning.

and stars and planets?

I would think that God creating what is necessary for this planet should be enough.

Those who believe the Earth is older than 6000 years point to dinosaur bones, carbon dating techniques, nuclear science, archeological calculations, etc, to demonstrate the Earth shows signs of being older than 6000 years. No one knows for sure. The last guy who was around 6000 years ago died off some 5910 years ago, at least.

So if God can create a full grown man, Adam, why not a full grown Earth, complete with signs that modern scientists misinterpret as proving Earth is much older.

For the record, I don't believe that, either, but there are extremely intelligent people who do. You and I believe it can't be true, others believe it is. It's just a matter of belief. An intelligent, well read fundie would argue that you are taking science on faith, that there is no directly observed evidence to prove that we are right, either.

We aren't talking science versus religion, we are talking epistemology.

So prove them wrong. And you can't go with the "it's impossible the body just doesn't do that" argument, either, because you can't prove what the body did 6000 years ago.

There is NO evidence that people used to live 900+ years.

There entire rejection of evolution is based on the notion that mankind is unchanged from the time of creation.

If that is true, then there should be 900 year old people running around today.

Not unlike Fundies do when I argue the opposite with them. Neither side wants to see the other. They use their own belief system to prove the other belief system wrong, even though each belief system discounts the other. You can't prove science is right using science, that's flawed reasoning. Of course science will prove itself, just as religion will prove itself.

Say you're a Fundie. Your argument would be that science hasn't found the right skeleton yet, since only a handful survived that long. You would also argue that we can date a man's lifespan from his skeleton based on present day physiology, but we have no way to prove that the same physiology held true then. Argue, for the sake of it, that there was a 600 year old man 6000 years ago. How did his body function to allow him to age that long? Maybe he just aged slower, so that at 300 he had the body of a 20 year old. How would science detect that wasn't the case? Science has to have an observable standard to compare to its findings, otherwise the findings are just details floating in a void.

As I said, I'm making an epistemological point. But don't feel bad if it escapes you. Fundies never get it, either.

...would lead one to believe that the "laws of nature" were so different in those times?

Did atoms behave differently? Did cells behave differently? There is nothing in the physical record to indicate that. Science postulates that the physical laws are consistent. Religion hypothesizes that nature changes at the will of the being in charge whose purpose is unfathomable. What's the point in studying that? You already know that you're wrong, because the Bible says so.

There is no parity here. Religion imposes no discipline on obtaining knowledge. You wind up debating the significance of mystical writings, knowing that the rules may change at any time.

--IMM

...very strongly that the average person lived to be about 30 years old 6000- years ago.

And I have yet to hear one creationist explain the de-evolution of people that suddenly went from living hundreds of years to less than a century.

That of course flies in the very face of the proposition of creationism that mankind is unchanged from the time of creation. If that is indeed the case, then where are the 600 year old people today?

Wow! Scopes trial?

...granted it will probably never be put to the test legally, most likely, but the usage of the term forensic evidence stands. If we can determine the approximate age and cause of death of a person using the evidence at hand, then let's have at it. I believe we have and can.

rather, I'm questioning your use of a term. Please be able to understand that you do not represent any branch of science to me. I think that it is funny when people use a term to try to feign being an expert. I agree "it stands"!!! Perhaps not as you intend, however.

...is sufficient to get the point across in mixed company. (And perhaps branch is not so much the right word as "application" of science).

I am at best a passable student in the field of geology and cosmology and astonomy is my first love. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a physicist, astronomer, or geologist. I have more than a passing aquaintance with the field of science in my studies as a electronics technician, a degree in computer science, and currently working on a pharmacy degree.

You mocked the use of the word forensic because you don't seem to understand that it's meanings is "of or relating to the public discussion or argumentation particularly within legal proceedings". If you don't like my choice of that word, then by all means pick a better one. I chose the one I felt was appropriate to a public discussion. Your mileage may vary.

If your purpose is to simply nitpick because you didn't like my grammar, then have at it. But I'll stand by the position that there is a wealth of evidence to posit in the realm of public discussion to support the notion that the Earth is indeed much older than 6000 years old whereas there is a dearth of evidence to support the assertions of the other side other than to fall back on a musty old book that makes some pretty fascinating claims.

So tell, me, what do you sir, have to offer to this discussion other than to attempt an ad hominem argument?

Glad you got your Webster's out! "Forensics" is a term that is best applied to something related to a legal argument or case. Let me give you a couple examples: forensic psychiatric social work is working in some capacity with people who are involved in legal proceedings. A forensic study of human remains is therefore a study of a potential crime scene.

Archaeology, one of the branches of anthropology, includes the study of ancient human remains and related cultural artifacts. Hence, if you were to walk through my office, you would find paleolithic artifacts found in the northeast, which in and of themselves are in the neighborhood of twice the 6,000 years mentioned on the original post on this thread.

The most complete manner of studying the archaeological record is not simply the rather dry science of interpreting the archaeological record. There are, as any progressive archaeologist would tell you, three main areas of information that are important in doing a simple survey of a site..... let's just use where two rivers meet in, oh, the northeast. The first thing is the previously recorded, if available, artifacts found in association with the said site, and any in the surrounding area. This indicates the sensitivity. Next you check any written records .... these include "pioneer" stories, local histories, etc. It also includes local historians, and even the old folk that are intimately familiar with the land in question. You can find amazing information. The third, my dear friend the scientist, is to go to the source of the study: in this case the remaining traditional Native American peoples.

If you were in New York State, for example, you would find that Albany, through the state DEC and OPRHP, put a lot of weight on the oral histories of traditional Indians. It's not simply to be quaint, or even politically correct. It's that the oral traditions of tribal peoples are surprisingly accurate .... if you are smart enough to translate them -- not in literal terms, quite often -- but as the stories that passed down truths, rather than facts.

It is the heighth of arrogance .... and the depth of ignorance .... for "scientists" to think that they have a monopoly on the truth, or of an understanding of nature, and what makes the world work. I do not feel any obligation to "prove" to any scientist my understanding of the world. My ancestor's ancestors had the Green Corn Dance, and sang to the young plants. The Euro-Americans laughed at this as foolishness and "pagan" until the 1970s, when scientists "discovered" that talking/singing/music helped plants grow. For goodness sakes! Thank God for science!

What your science seems totally unable to accomplish is to either explain the meaning of life, or to make your lives worth living. The idea that the world occured by random chance, and that life is thus meaningless, seems pretty empty. If the answer to that emptiness is to avoid a shaman or healer, and go to a psychiatrist for a handful of pills that will dull your senses, please count me out.

So tell me, am I wasting your time with my interest in words and their meaning?

Indeed, what you are presenting is the very root of the conflict between religion and science that we are experiencing and have experienced throughout history.

The failure of creationists to understand the purpose of science is not to answer the age old questions of "what is the meaning of life" as though science were some old guru sitting atop a mountain in the a monastery is why the conflict continues. Or put more simply: Science speaks to "how". Spiritualism speaks to "why". While there may be some overlap on occasion, the two are as different from one another as psychology is to mathmatics.

Science doesn't speak to the beauty of a rose. It can certainly tell you why the petals are the color they are and why they have a fragrance, but they really don't speak to the metaphysical appreciation of beauty, that which transcends facts.

Same with evolution, cosmology, astronomy. Evolution doesn't speak to the existance or non-existance of a diety. You know that and I know that, so why must the two be in conflict?

I think the main problem I have with creationism as it exists today is that is tries to mold science to fit religious dogma more often than not.

Where I start to lose patience is when those who put their faith in religion alone desire to pass off their faith AS science. In other words, teaching creationism has as much place in a science classroom in the school environment as a lecture on the relative inability of a nail to hold up the weight of a crucified man would in a church. You don't go to church to learn about the physics of crucifixion. You go there to learn WHY the sacrifice was made. On the flip side, I don't expect to go into a science class to learn why the universe came into existance. I want the facts and mechanics.

It also smacks of that recent discussion of "balance" and equal-time being used as a platform to present junk science on the same level as real science (as in the case of the non-existant breast cancer/abortion link).

When we start to get wishy-washy and start trying to put everything on equal footing (particularly when we are having a discussion for different reasons) then we find ourselves right where we are today where we have textbooks teaching science that has been watered down because it might it might offend the sensibilities of something it isn't even really speaking to.

very much. The abuse of religion, like the abuse of science, creates a climate where people suffer for no good reason.

where talking to plants affects their growth have not been replicated. It's like the frequent studies on the effects of intercessory prayer on healing. If you run enough studies one may indicate a correlation between prayer and healing to hundreds or thousands that don't. Which one gets reported?

The attempts at replicating the effect are ignored. Only the "man bites dog" stuff gets reported.

That doesn't mean that oral and folk histories don't have some validity, but to accept them uncritically puts us back on the flat earth, on the back of a giant turtle.

--IMM

every year since corn, beans, and squash were introduced to the northeast. The statement about the "flat earth" ignores the reality that most people, even the Europeans, realized the earth was not flat. Though the dark ages had retarded Europe's scientific knowledge, very few people believed the earth was flat. It is true that Columbus did not understand the potential implications of his voyage. He was, of course, proposing a trade route to cut out the "middle men" to the East, and the bounty he expected was promised to the crown to do battle with the Islamic world. But one need only think for a moment: he wanted to get to an Eastern destination by sailing west. Euro-American schools teach children too many lies.

Second, regarding the turtle's back: only the least insightful would take that literally. The message it intends for smart folks is every bit as true today as it was 1000 years ago. The intent is exactly the same. Science, if anything, has reinforced that.

But I would like to see the data for those "talk to plants studies."

What is the underlying theory this is based on? Plants don't have ears y'know. Is this rehashed Clive Baxter stuff? I know those studies were discredited.

Plants evolved long before there was speech, prayer, poetry, and greeting cards. What did they do while waiting for us to get here?

If you yell and curse at the plants, do they die? How about crab grass? Seems they do OK regardless.

--IMM

because I do not need a scientist to tell me about growing corn. I do not need to read any research paper to know exactly how to grow beans. Nor do I need a human in a lab coat to tell me about the nature of squash.

Before I go any further, I would hope that you do not yell at plants. I'm not as concerned about what it might do to the "crab grass" than what it will do to you. (grin)

Okay, you are a good person, and so I'll try another one. I think that people with scientific minds can be saved. Here goes. My grandmother's grandmothers going back to what we'll call the time of my ancestor's ancestor ..... called corn, beans, and squash the Three Sisters. You've heard that when you were in 3rd grade social studies, right about Thanksgiving time. It was one of the very few true things you were taught.

Now, my grandmothers knew that the energy in these plants interacted well. They said that the Three Sisters had compatible spirits. The Euro-Americans freaked, and said,"Pagans! Witchcraft!" because they didn't want to think of the earth as having "spirits," which simply implies an energy force.

In the 1970s, scientist "discovered" that the three were compatible; the decay or compost from either two enriched the soil for the third. And, of course, the three grow by nature best when planted exactly as my grandmothers planted them. And it doesn't matter what scientific study anyone wants to undertake: the natural style of gardening will improve the soils without adding dangerous chemicals that poison the ground and water. The earth is capable of supporting human life.

The Original Instructions teach that we are to be aware and thankful of all the spirits/energy forces on earth that provide for our daily life. This includes clean air, pure water, the trees, the animals, and those plants like corn, beans, and squash. When people become separated from the natural world, and forget to give thanks for being part of this miraculous life cycle, those sources can be withdrawn, and people will suffer and die.

"Scientists" like everyone from small playing children to elders rocking in a comfortable chair, are able to tell the difference between a living plant, and a dead plant. But only the scientist is unable to explain accurately what has happened to that energy that once was the miracle of life within that plant.

I respect your right to be a scientist or believer in their myths. Please have equal respect for an old man rocking in his chair.

Let's not mix apples and oranges (so to speak).

I have no doubt that the garden tended with love will tend more to flourish. Not to mention the clean air and water and properly composted soil. But how do you seperate love from care?

Intoducing terms like "spirits" and "energy" without explanation does not illuminate the process. Science is a method to obtain knowledge. It has no myths. It seeks to isolate causalities. This may sound arrogant, but it in itself is a difficult labor, requiring discipline and thoughtfulness. The scientific method seeks for truth and nothing else.

I understand better where you're coming from. And I grew up next to the ocean, and spent time in mountain forests and in the desert, and I know the spirituality those places and its creatures can bestow.

A scientific approach to understanding can, for some, interfere with the romanticism of these wonders. However, for others, it can magnify these "miracles."

I see you rocking in your chair, rock on.

--IMM

But because I'm old and tired, I'll just speak of one.

Scientist believe they are capable of understanding and explaining everything. But that is a vain assumption, that takes far too much for granted. It is very much like the small playing children who assume that they can understand everything, if only an adult will explain it correctly to them. But in truth there are some things that can only be experienced, and that are beyond words that can be typed into a report.

In Western thought, a person's measure is too often considered to be in terms of his/her intellectual capacity. A person is considered to be a success if they are a wealthy business owner, a famous lawyer, or a well-connected politician. But in truth, Western thought promotes snakes, and the proof is in the pudding..... and one need look no further than Dick Cheney. (grin)

In truth, a person's level of being is the true measure of a person's worth. Now that is a spiritual belief. But it allows one to appreciate the miracle of life. When you understand that, than you realize that every day that you are alive is a miracle. The food you eat is a miracle (avoid fast food, a real scientific advance!). Your family and loved ones are miracles. Never take it for granted. If you have children, they are the miracle. They are "God." Not "a" god, and not "thee" God. But part of the miracle. Science can not replace them. Love life. Live life appreciating the miracle of our existence. Be here now.

except to say that what you are calling a myth of science, I am calling a working hypothesis. It's an ideal that I'll admit cannot be achieved. I can accept the answer, "nobody knows" to some questiions.

I accept the gist of your second paragraph, and notice you use the qualifier "too often." I'll submit that what you ascribe to Western thought, is a characteristic of practice, because I don't know a place where it is written. Even secular thought allows for morality. And I acknowlede the miracles of which you speak, but assert that understanding them in a scientific mode does not diminish, and perhaps even heightens their wonder.

To get back to the subject at hand, I don't think that a person who asserts that the earth is only 6000 years old can claim that as proof of spitiual superiority. Likewise one who follows the material evidence, does not thwart spitituality.

--IMM

So if God can create a full grown man, Adam, why not a full grown Earth, complete with signs that modern scientists misinterpret as proving Earth is much older.

D. James Kennedy taught something like that, too, but anticipated that some would consider that evidence that God was being deceptive. His argument dealt more specifically with the speed of light as a constant, however. There are some interesting arguments from scientists about how c should not be considered constant, but I'll listen to them before I take a pastor's musings at face value.

It's just the Quaker in me, I guess...

I said this somewhere else, but if there were an entity who could create everything you are and know, that entity would know things you couldn't. Like why it is necessary to build a planet with rocks that seem pre-aged, perhaps.

and understand, not what we don't. If something is beyond our understanding, then how can we understand it and act on it? Just take it on faith? Well, then where does the faith come from? Answer, it comes from things we *do* know, or more accurately, from things we *think* we know, such as well, gee, something can't come from nothing, so god must have created everything, or well, everybody tells me god exists, and they can't all be wrong.... bottom line is, what we *do* know must be the starting point and guide for everything.

...is the difference between fact and faith.

People who believe (emphasis on that word) the earth is only 6000 years old are using faith to reach that conclusion (faith being the belief in something without supporting empirical evidence) whereas people who believe in a VERY OLD universe have a wealth of evidence to support their conclusions from carbon dating to doppler shift to fossil records to plate tectonics to ice core samples to anthropological evidence and a host of others things that all point to an earth being MUCH MUCH older than 6000 years.

The only difference is which system you choose to believe. You believe science, so you can't possibly accept that it could be flawed. Fundies believe in creation, and can't possibly accept that it could be flawed. Neither of you can accept that the other could possibly be right.

You say the difference between science and religion. I say science is a religion, just as creationism is. The are both metaphysics, and of course disprove each other, to some degree.

Yes they do. They don't do so because of faith. They do so because of science.

If you believe science is faith, then are you PRAYING your message onto the internet or typing it on a keyboard hooked up to computer that is mass of millions of transistors?

Do you cast a magic spell to get to work or do you get into a car or mass transit machine based on science to get you there?

Is your tv the result of something magical with no supporting evidence or is it an outgrowth of the science of eletromagnetism?

Science is based on facts and testable theories supported by empirical evidence.

I can provide you with a multitude of testable facts about the universe that puts it age well beyond 6000 years and the only faith you require is what your lying eyes show you.

Now show me ANY evidence that God created the universe.

That's why they call belief in God "Faith".

And you know that's been proven. A placebo can cause a body to cure itself. So can faith healings.

Youu are either deliberately avoiding my point, though, or you just haven't tried to grasp it. I'm not talking about whether science can be used to find useful cures, or build useful toys. Obviously it is good at that, and the reason is obvious. Science is based on the manipulation of the physical world, so obviously it is going to be best at manipulating the physical world.

But you still take on faith that the way something works now is exactly the way it worked 6000 years ago. You take it on faith that there cannot have been a creator who made the world and universe into a full-blown universe 6000 years ago, complete with all the signs that we interpret as meaning the world is billions of years old.

You can't prove that it wasn't. You just believe in your heart, based on your acceptance of science, that all of what scientists have found means exactly what they say it means. You accept it on faith. You have faith in science. You aren't even willing to consider the possibility that your system could have a flaw. And that in itself is very unscientific, and is just as much a sign of fundamentalism as when a wingnut falls to consider the possibility that they may be wrong.

I'll say it again, in case you missed it earlier. I'm an activist atheist. I have a strong science background, to boot. I believe in the scientific explanation, I do not believe in creationism. I'm not arguing from a lack of knowledge, nor am I arguing from a dagmatic belief. Your logic is flawed, that's what I'm arguing. You won't step out of your faith enough to admit the possibility that it is wrong, even theoretically, and thus you cannot respect that someone else has a different belief. That's fundamentalism. It's exactly what we are fighting against.

bother even getting out of bed in the morning? Maybe my job is just god's joke, and maybe i don't really need to feed my kids today... maybe i don't even have any kids, maybe it's all just an illusion. Please. Obviously the operation of a rational mind depends on its place in a natural world governed by real, knowable physical laws. If the whole thing is god's giant magic trick, then faith is just as inoperative as science.

When someone is so ill that they seek a faith cure, one of two things happen.

1) They get better.
2) They die.

The ones who live get all the attention and they will attribute their cure to faith, even though a similar number of victims without faith can be spontaneously cured.

Nobody pays any attention to the dead ones.

I have posted elsewhere on this thread the results of studies of intercessory prayer. The fact is that faith healing studies show that it produces no better results than random chance. Enough are done so that the occasional study shows a correlation between faith and healing. But this is one out of hundreds and is explained by statistics.

Placebos can work, but what does it show? It shows that something else is affecting the cure. It does not show what it is. Can emotions and expectations lead to physiological changes? Sure. But that's no indication of a higher being.

--IMM

I said that the fact that antibiotics cure isn't proof that the world is over 6000 years old.

Everyone's looking around inside the box saying "See, it's a box, and it extends to the ends of the world." I'm standing outside both boxes and pointing out they are both boxes. One smells better and has nicer people in it, but it is still a box.

I just went by what you said in your post.

--IMM

Accepted scientific theory explains all observed phenomena. When observation show a discrepancy, theory is adjusted to account for the new phenomenon.

Faith does not adjust to newly observed phenomena. I denies its existence.

The only tenets of science that are postulates (taken without proof) are:
a) That nature can be understood, and
b) That the laws of nature are consistent.

If not for a and b, there would be no sense in studying nature.

Religion does not adhere to these postulates.

--IMM

Again, you're analyzing one from the inside, the other from the outside. Science accepts that scientists can make mistakes, but it doesn't accept that the basic premise of science may be wrong, or more appropriately to my point, incomplete. Your two tenets demonstrate that. If Nature can be understood and the laws are consistent, it does not allow for science itself to be wrong, only the particular findings of scientists.

Faith, or I take it you mean Creationism, since to me science is a faith, acknowledges that those who interpret divine revelation or intention can be wrong, too, just as those who interpret science can be wrong. That's why there are so many denominations, because so many people disagree over interpretation. They would all believe that the whole system is perfect, just as you believe about science, but that individuals get the system wrong, just as you believe about science. They have disputes over interpretation, just as scientists have disputes over interpretation. They have systems of settling these disputes, just as scientists do.

Again, back to my point. You choose, as I do, to have faith in science. But you still can't prove your faith is true without resorting to science as the proof, just as Fundies can't prove creationism is true without resorting to some divine revelation (Bible, Qur'an, whatever) as the proof. Just as you or I would tune out someone who proved the world is 6000 years old by citing the Bible, they would tune you out for citing scientific evidence. To them, the Bible trumps your evidence, and my whole point is there is absolutely no way to prove they are wrong and you are right. It's just faith.

I think science acknowledges that there are things ouside its realm which cannot be judged, if that's the right word.

Perhaps you're talking about the faith that the sun will come up tomorrow. I'll give you that. But I think that is on a different order than the faith that god has a long white beard.

To say that there is equivalency here is, I think, erroneous, but I could not prove it. To undertake any discipline, some assumptions must be made. Barring that, we can never know anything. I could live with that.

Science confines itself to a certain scope, and doesn't (shouldn't) delve elsewhere. Questions of god are outside of science. Religion makes no restrictions on itself. There is a difference.

--IMM

The difference between science and religion is whether you draw your conclusions upon observation and experimentation or upon nothing but faith. Science does use facts in coming to a conclusion, but the conclusion may not be factual.

Of course, religiously based conclusions are based upon nothing whatsoever except faith that the words written down by a nomadic tribesman 5000 years ago are the truth.

that there was a period where it changed from "I believe" to "I know". Where science became an influence.

along with billions of of humans with implanted memories of having a life before that creation, various religious myths (including some that, if interpreted in certain ways, imply that the world is 6,000 years) and physical characteristics of being billions of years old. Prove that this is not so.

no way its that old. First God made the oil then the Bible and then Prescott Bush whose grandson would save us all. Didnt ya learn nothing in school?

Where they do fundies believe the dinosaurs came from and how do they explain away their bones?

7-layer dip :)

Dinosaurs never existed and Satan or God put their bones there to test your faith, or dinosaurs really existed but at the time of Adam and Eve, and they all died in the flood. As for Carbon Dating, well, that's the Devil talking.

I like the part where the YEC says about dinosaur fossils: "God put them there to test our faith!" Hicks' response: "I think God put you here to test my faith, dude."

He kept insisting that the Earth was only a few thousand years old, so I asked him about dinosaurs. He agreed that they existed at one point, and that they would have to have been on the planet at the same time as people. I then asked him if he had ever seen "Jurassic Park", because if he had, then he knew what happened when humans and dinosaurs got together. It means no more humans, especially if the humans don't have jeeps and guns and helicopters, but only rocks and sticks. Everyone in the class thought I had just destroyed his entire argument, but he refused to give in. Eventually I just gave up on the idiot, and started thinking of ways to prevent him from ever procreating...

That's great. Thank you!

supposedly, is that the fossil record was put in place by Satan to try and pry us away from God's truth. Hm.

The amount of stuff that he would have to have done to deceive us (geology, biology, just about all scientific LAWS and theories) puts him on a very godlike plane.

"The total available floor space on the ark would have been over 100,000 square feet, which would be more floor space than in 20 standard-sized basketball courts.

The total cubic volume would have been 1,518,000 cubic feet <462,686.4 cubic meters> --that would be equal to the capacity of 569 modern railroad stock cars."

http://www.christiananswers.net/

http://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2004/inthefaceofevil.html

Can someone tell me why Bin Laden and the WTC appear on the cover of a video about Reagan. . . unless of course they're acknowledging that policies initiated by Reagan led us to this point.

Insanity is rampant over there.

Hilarious. According to them it was the scientists, not the ancient people in need of creation myths who just made shit up apparently. Someone put a head or an ass bone on a brontosaurus backwards once, so evolution is all bunk.

ROTFLMAO!

I guess the answer is No.

"What's more, this would be a tremendous testimony to God's creativity. Ken Ham once put it this way: Lack of a belly-button on Adam and Eve would be one of the biggest tourist attractions in the pre-Flood world, as the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren would come up and say, "Why don't you have a belly-button?" And they could recount again and again, to generation after generation, how God had created them special by completed supernatural acts, and yet had designed them to multiply and fill the Earth in natural ways that are equally a part of God's continuing care for what He created."

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/bellybutton.html

LETS JUST NAIL THEM WITH STUFF THAT IS WAY OVER THEIR HEADS.


http://www.christiananswers.net/forms/suggestedquestions.html

My question: What did Albert Einstein mean by the following statement? Help me out!


"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature." Albert Einstein

I would've thought the opposite. Oh well.

The Bible, at times, makes as much sense as *'s bi-weekly flip-flopping.

Abraham's wife Sara was also his sister.

Religion. Fun.

drunk so he would have sex with them and impregnate them. God was not amused. However, by the time of King David there seems to have been strict laws against brother/sister unions. It's probably in the Torah somewhere. I never read Leviticus and Numerology. It was too boring.

I'm a devout atheist. Which may explain why I can read the bible and actually understand the words. The bible says they were the first. It pretty much goes on to explain the Jewish kings were descended from Adam & Eve. But nowhere does it say Adam & Eve were the ONLY people created.

You are so right. I get the feeling that when the stories were finally written down centuries later that a lot of editing had gone on. So Adam and Eve might have been ancestors of a particular tribe, not the very first man and woman on earth. The concept does have a kind of primeval appeal though. I think that's why people hang on to it against all logic.

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I just think it is arrogant for anyone to imagine that they know what a "year" means to God.

Religion is an attempt to develop intellectual constructs to make sense of the unknown and the unknowable. People use the language, the words and the concepts that they have available to them at any given time. Therefore, literal belief and debunking of literal belief are equally off the mark.

Many modern Christians have turned God into a Mafia don in the sky, Jesus into a used car salesman or motivational speaker, and fantasy into reality.

The spritual and allegorical truth of the Bibilical story of creation is powerful and true for me nevertheless. The fossil evidence is compelling as well, of course, given that I am a rational being. I don't see a conflict between the two. I know the difference between the sheet of paper that a musical score is written on and the music itself. Does music "soar?" Sure. But not by tossing the score out of a second story window and into the breeze.

"Render unto Caesar..." is talking about more than just taxes.

religious shows where the "scientific experts" come on to "prove" creation? I remember one -- in which -- i kid you not -- the guy cited to the Loch Ness Monster (and that other "monster" somewhere in the North Atlantic) as evidence that dinosaurs still exist.

i rolled off the futon i was laughing so hard ...

and I'm a little fuzzy about the first five.

about several in the middle, too.

Not to mention that things are getting a little blurry here lately.

Yeah, there's a gap around 1983-1985

I knew it was bad stuff, but I didn't know it was that powerful

and she is actually educated (an RN). She is mennonite though and they read the bible literally. I swear i have had a million convos with her about it cause it amazes me that someone that intelligent can believe something so stupid. She said that the way scientists date things is wrong and they are really younger then what they say. And she also said that dinosaur bones were put on earth by God to trick us into sin. (meaning: she doesn't think dinosaurs ever existed). It has taken everything inside me not to just call her a wackjob and leave it all behind, but i actually just feel sorry for her.

and can think logically.

The Republicans are capable of no wrong doing, EVER. If they do something wrong, it is a liberal's fault. Somehow, no matter how absurd. The Bible says the earth is 6000 years old? That's the answer. Period. End of discussion. Shrubhead says Iraq is full of godless towelhead terraists who will be free if it kills us all, then that is the answer. Period. End of discussion. The "Beleivers" of whom you speak are taught dogma from an early age, including that education is a liberal evil. Critical thinking is a liberal evil. Tollerance is a liberal evil. Questioning is a liberal evil. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on to teach the towelheaded middle-easterners the "right way."

That any one not baptised Catholic was going to hell, heck Mel Gibson still believes it. Uh non-Catholic RWingers if that's true, got some bad news for you. ROTFLO.

I never did accept that by the way and there are plenty of Catholics who don't, less anyone think I am Catholic bashing. Even though I am no longer Catholic a lot of my family still is and they don't believe that.

could go to heaven if they led exemplary lives even if they weren't Catholics. They also taught that the unbaptized couldn't enter heaven but would go to a place called limbo to spend eternity if they had led moral lives. The big difference between heaven and limbo is that in heaven you get to be with god and the angels. In limbo you don't suffer the torments of hell and purgatory, but you don't get to hang around with god and company either.

That's why in Catholic hospitals, babies who might die were often baptized by Catholic nurses so that they would go to heaven. It made for some interesting confessions to non-Catholic parents if the baby survived because the nurses were honor bound to tell them.

Sounds like you had less militant Catholic teachers then we had. Of course to be fair the ones I started off with in kindergarten were Pre-Vatican II and the ones who came after the changes in the Church were fairly nice. They stopped the beatings excetra and a lay teacher even told us it was okay to go to an Episcopal Church if for some reason we couldn't make it to a Catholic one.

Recently when I started having significant trouble with depression and tied some of it to what I'd experienced in Parochial School, a priest someone suggested I talk to said that I needed to find my way back to God even if that meant leaving the Church and that I should blame the Church for failing and hurting me not God. Actually I thought that was pretty cool of him to be that open minded. The more I've searched my mind and my heart now though, I'm just not sure I can ever believe in religion again. There are just too many contradictions and things that don't make sense to me. In my book there is just too much proof for the other side.

I am considering looking into Wicca because I like the ideals of nature and females being portrayed in a positive aspect, and not judging or hurting people, but then part of me thinks I'm safer not beliving in anything but when I can see and verify right now.

Didn't Karl Sagan (sp?) say that religion was a dangerous superstition?

Also though the source is entertainment and what some would regard as silly, there was a great line in Hercules The Legendary Journeys once that stuck with me: " What do the gods give us but an altar to worship upon?" I've always kind of wondered that myself? I mean it's okay for rotten things to happen in the world but God gets a pass because of the freewill of man? Well that's fine for the person excercising the free will say like a rapist or a murderer but what choice does the innocent victim get? Why doesn't God protect them? And then there is natural disasters etc. Plus if Jesus died to forgive all us sinners why do they still teach there is a hell? I just don't get it. And why does religion cause so many (not all)people to hate when it's tenants are supposed to be love?

Sorry for rambling and I am proably way off topic and out in la la land but these theological descussions are interesting to me because I am dealing with this issue so much in my own life, and trying to seek an answer I am comfortable with.

really taught life lessons in an entertainment and non-judgemental way. I personally believe in a spirit world that is unknown to us but exists outside of our ability to percieve it. One of these days I think we will, because we will figure out a way to make contact. It's much like inventing a microscope to see life we didn't know existed but were suspicious that it did. Also, look at the revelations we are learning about the universe.

I've been getting the DVD's as Christmas and Birthday gifts for the past few years. They are entertaining and uplifting and helps me step back from getting too serious.

I agree that we are learning more about the universe everyday and it is interesting pondering what else we will learn as science advances.

Is that 6000 Earth years? Does it take into account relativity?

As you approach the speed of light, time slows down (God gets around right?). If one travels at 99.99999999999% of light speed 6000 years would slow down to something like 13.4 billion years (if I have not slipped a decimal place).



Equation and calculator here:
http://www.1728.com/reltivty.htm

But unless the earth was moving at 99.99999...% the speed of light relative to its human inhabitants, then this doesn't get the fundies anywhere. The measured age of the earth 4.5 billion years, and the timespan as measured by any inhabitants must necessarily be the same, since we share a common reference frame.

:evilgrin:


MDN

So if God is dashing about at near warp speed creating the Universe, only 6000 years pass for God, but 13.4 billion years back here on Earth.

eg:

'So-and-so lived for xx years and begat such-and-such.
Then such-and-such lived for xx years and begat yyy.
Then ... then ... then ...'

(And so on into Roman times)


MDN

To a fundamentalist, the Bible is the "Word of God" and is therefore written from God's perspective. As far as I know, there is no scripture that insists that a year is in human chronology and represents on Earth orbit around the Sun (NOt that they knew it worked that way). Like many things, the fundamentalists assume that with no scriptural basis for that belief.

Relativity, is one of many ways to start getting Biblical literalists to start looking at the difference between what is written and what is assumed.

I grew up fundamentalist, so no amount of mental gymnastics really surprises me when coming from that quarter. But still, it's just so darn much fun to poke holes in their rationalizations :)

(and still, think about it: all the biblical choronologies, upon which the Usher chronology is based, are derived from specific human geneologies and lifespans as recorded in the Old Testament. So, by definition, the time local to those particular human beings is the reference frame for this discussion, relativistically speaking :) ).


MDN

Only fundies are convinced the earth is 6K years old because Israeli civilization is about 6000 years old.
Real Christians do acknowledge the existence of evolution and believe God created the world and started the evolutionary process. In other words, authentic Christianity does take into account scientific discoveries and adjusts beliefs as such. This includes evolution, the fact that radioactive dating (the existence of carbon-14) dated the world as billions of years old and the fundies dead wrong, that prehistoric socities did exist, etc.
Let the fundies explain the fossils of hominids, dinosaurs, etc.

I heard creationism being discussed on AAR the other day (I think it was Morning Sedition). The guest pointed out that it was kind of ironic that intelligent design theory came about when creationism, faced with extinction, had to adapt and change in order to survive.

Everyone know earth on back of giant turtle.

...another turtle.

It's turtles all the way down.

sorta like Dino Flintstone, but it could fly!

Or Lazarus Long.

Did you hear the one about the Archeologists from Oral Roberts University who dug up the 5000 year od T Rex?

These things were put in place by Satan to distract us from God's truth, and us folks who believe in these methods have fallen for Satan's tricks. Yep. There really is no convincing them, because everything is truth, regardless of facts, and faced with facts, they do not have to prove anything because what they believe is right.

I thought Dualist thinking got branded heresy and exterminated a long time ago.

And you have to be talking Dualist thought here, because you need an omnipotent to do what they claim Satan can do.

I thought Dualist thinking got branded heresy and exterminated a long time ago.

And you have to be talking Dualist thought here, because you need an omnipotent to do what they claim Satan can do.

Maybe I'm not saved.

"He would have told us...obviously, whatever dinosaurs and fossils were was not meant for us to know" is what I was told by a fundie. I gave up because I could NOT argue/make any point at all in the face of that nonsense.

But God did that just to trick us.

it's all so confusing, all of this science and education stuff

Even the Pope said that evolution was factual.

as originaly written 4-5,000 years before the bible was invented, is known as Enuma Elish. It's written in humanities oldest known language on seven clay tablets that were unearthed from under milleniums of humans living on the same piece of earth.
Nineveh is the city's name (crops up in the bible at times) and it was a thriving metropolis with temples built for when the 'gods' made periodic visits, schools of higher education (algebra, trig, measurement of the earth, knowledge of the stars movements through eons of time, wobbly earth axis, metallurgy, written and performed music, the wheel, turn plows, animal husbandry, canal irrigation, caravans of goods coming and going through the city required records for distbursement and compensation, and a library. This library at the lowest archeological depth was found to be with an indexing system that corresponded with the items on the shelves. The Enuma Elish was found there. Written before there were Egyptians or Greeks or Romans or anybody else.
Verrrry innnnterrrestinnnng.
Recomended reading.
Available online. With several interpretions.
I give thanks to Zecharia Sitchin for his readings of the meaning of the language that looks like chickens stuck in the mud.
Creation and evolution exist hand in hand.
The Adam and Eve story was invented by the Rove-ian spinmasters of the era.
The Ark was built to roll and tumble in the tsunami that engulfed the east coast of Africa and up into Mesopotamia. A submersible craft that carried seed stock not every living thing.

More here:
http://www.coastvillage.com/origins/alinks.htm

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=628&sid=8f9189f7518693e362ca459044371257

http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0903web/code.html

and if you want more there's google :o)

there are a few things left that I can still agree with the Pope on after all even though I've strayed from the flock? :think:

And I believe that if people that damn were never allowed near a ballot box, the GOP would never be "elected".

He puts clues that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Clue such as solar temperature, fossil record, radiological dating... Oddly the clues all point to just about the same time. But it's a lie. A trap to get you to believe some false devil doctrine. To turn your back on the scriptures. Scriptures of his only sons life. Scriptures written 60-130 years after his death. That can't agree on simple facts like who and when the went to the tomb on Easter morning. If you believe the clues God left for you to find then you goto hell and you burn for all time. If you believe the "good" book (that surprisingly isn't shy in endorsing slavery) then you live forever in happy land. And remember he loves you.

Jack Chick still thinks the Earth is flat.

No Mr. Chick, it's just your brain deflating as its cells rapidly die.

talking to classmates....they'd claim that the world is 6000 years old. I'd ask them for proof, and they'd pull out a bible. That irritated me. I stopped arguing religion with them because I knew I was never gonna win (those kids were brainwashed to the max, i pity them a little).

While you wont win you can frustrate pretty easily. Start off asking where in the Bible the 6000 years is written to start with. Then ask how come different people come up with different times when using the Bible? Then ask which person is correct? Then ask why god creates the Universe twice at the start of the Bible.

Trying to get these guys to think is about as easy as getting the hamster in B*sh's head to turn the wheel.

I'm glad I graduated 1 1/2 years ago and now am in college. My town was VERY conservative, can't say my current college isn't really any better (but I'm transferring next semester).

Religious fanatics are idiots.

...while a part of me wonders how everything got started in the first place billions of years ago. Heck, even a Catholic priest told me once that "Adam and Eve" is bullcrap.

In college I took a geology course and the class included a Baptist who had gone to a Christian school. While she kept quiet in class about it, in private conversations she would complain about the professor talking about evolution and timelines in the millions or billions of years. When I first heard her talk about this it just struck me as odd since I've always accepted the fact that the earth is 4.5+ billion years old. It was the first time that I realized that some people take faith so deeply over science.

I'm really wondering what she expected to get out of a geology course.

Brainwashing presupposes that given accurate info, the person would choose it.

I'm not so sure.

Most of the fundamentalist or more conservative people I've met simply don't want a more complex, more multi-layered view of the physical world. Creationism is simple; so it fits perfectly with their desire for a more simplistic world.

...hand(of God)-tossed, Sicilian pizza baked in the dirty oven of humanity.

We are merely an anchovy...:silly:

You know, about reality.

wasn t the universe made in 7 days? with 1 off to rest?!

As a Geology major, I have studied the Earth and Earth processes over the last four years. With all the evidence that I was provided, how can you NOT believe the Earth is 4.5 billions years old? (Give or take .5 billion years)

Plate tectonics is the current theory right now on how continental and oceanic crust moves about the Earth. Each continent moves about six cm/yr. Since there is abundant evidence that the plates existed as one big supercontinent, and they existed just south of the equator, you can see that it'd take more than a couple of thousand years for these plates to move apart.

Another great example on how we know the Earth is ancient is the process of speleogenesis (cave-forming). A typical limestone cave is formed when acidic groundwater seeps into joints in the limestone and solution these joints until they're large enough for a cave. This process is a very slow process. It can take an order of thousands to millions of years for limestone to dissolve into a room large enough to be called a cave. It is nearly impossible for limestone to dissolve into a cave in 6,000 years or less.

I don't want to bore you all with a geology lesson, so I'll end here. You can find websites all over the internet on geologic evidence of how we know the Earth is older than 6,000 years. To think otherwise is just sheer ignorance.

Sorry if this doesn't sound coherent. I'm kinda hungover today.

I mean, do these guys not know what a theory actually is? Do they believe that it is a synonym for 'opinion'?

:wtf:

They couldn't care less about what the word "theory" means in a scientific context. What they care about is finding some way -- any way -- to associate the term "evolution" with the phrase "not a fact".

The implication : "not factual", "factually incorrect", "not in accord with the facts", "to be treated as a non-fact".

It's deliberate, it's misleading as hell, and neither of these things bother them at all. Onward Christian Soldiers.


MDN

No, I don't believe the biblical stories to which you referred to be completely, literally factual. I regard them as "myth," that is to say, they are full of truth even though they may not be true.

For some reason, many literalists fail to think that ancient peoples had the intellectual subtlety to utilize metaphors, similes and analogies to communicate difficult concepts. But they did. Now, it is possible that kernels of facts served as the basis on which some of these stories were built (like there might have been an actual Noah who saved his family and some farm animals from a local flood, perhaps). The stories as we have them, however, are more important for the messages they provide than for the details hold.

The Bible is full of stories and images that speak to us on deeper levels, and I believe God expects us to use our brains to grow in faith and wisdom. After all, Jesus used parables to get his points across to the disciples. And if it was good enough for him, why can't it be good enough for us?

I talked to because of my struggle to deal with my inner conflicts about the way I was raised to believe verses the way I am coming to believe told me a similar thing. He said that while yes it may have rained on Noah, no one can say for sure whether it rained for forty days and forty nights. He said some of the things in the Bible do contradict each other, and people will always point to this or that passage to prove seemingly contradictory points. He told me I was taking it too literally and while that was popular right now, that traditionally that is never the way Catholics were supposed to view the Bible because it was written by men who were falliable and influenced by the times and culture they lived in. He told me that is why I shouldn't get so upset over the passages that seemed to be anti-women, pro-slavery, and pro-violence.

My question to him then became but if some of it isn't true then how do I know all of it's not true? He said I would have to keep searching my own heart and mind to come up with that answer. I'm still searching for it and that is why I'm still declaring myself an agnostic rather that a full fledged atheist.

I guess Socrates was right. "The wisest man is one who admits he knows nothing."

Also to those still going to church are there any mumblings among your fellow congregation members about the spotlight adoring fundies being the "false prophets" Jesus said would come in his name to preach divisions in his church, but who really did not represent him? Because the small part of me that still believes at all has wondered that myself.

Bible. Day was not defined as a day or as 1000 years or any other specific period of time in connection with creation. The beginning of an act of creation was the "evening" and the conclusion of that act was the "morning." According to the Bible, the Earth could be trillions of years old.

I went to a liberal United Methodist college, and our (required to be classified as a junior) Old Testament survey class covered this quite nicely:

for starters, there are two creation descriptions in Genesis. The story that we most often hear is a loose amalgam of both stories but these two stories actually spring from two different source documents.

One of the versions has God creating the sky, sun, moon, then the waters then the land, then the water creatures/great beasts, then airborne, then land animals, then finally man.This is loose, I did not get my Bible out to track this exactly, so forgive me.

Anyway, I was explaining this to my atheist former Southern Baptist husband who as a geologist takes the most pure scientific approach..and he says "LOOK...the order in which these stages of Creation appear are roughly the same order in which these life forms were known to appear; water before air before land dwelling creatures." And this is a document that was orally transferred for a long time before it was recorded... so the Hebrews were trying to explain things in such a way as to reinforce the power of the great Almighty Creator they had come to worship.

My professor told us 1st day of class that Genesis was the Hebrew mythology, then went on to define myth as a method by which an uneducated group explains the cosmos and the things that they do not understand. So Genesis was the ancient Hebrews' way to explain how things got here, how we got here, why they found these big ole bones lying around (hey if we found dinosaur bones why couldn't they also have done so?) that represent to them the great beasts of the air and of the water...

The Flood legend exists in many cultures. The Old Testament was an oral tradition for thousands of years before it began to be recorded sometime after the return of the Hebrews from the Babylonian captivity, where they were undoubtedly influenced by the religion of the Babylonians. Note the Hebrews had to have been influenced somewhat by that long period in Egypt too.

This is rough, and remember I took this class in 1967, but it all makes sense to me.

I love being a Methodist...

And group homes are already under-funded.

And I counted myself as a Christian back then!

ThoughtCriminal

Are you serious about applying Relativity Theory to God?
If you are serious, I find it funny that you would use Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity to try and discredit another theory (evolution).

By the way, you "hotlinked" that graphic to my website. Some website owners get upset about that sort of thing. If it's on a message board, I don't mind. Also, it was good of you to link to its associated calculator.

Special Relativity doesnt say anything about a space-time Continuum, that was in his 1915 General Relativity.
And yes Einstein has been used to disprove many theories, including Newton's three laws in extreme conditions

JBoris

No, sorry to say you are wrong. It is the Special Theory of Relativity that deals with time dilation, the Lorenz Transformation, etc.
Here's a link:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/relativity2.htm

Anyway, JBoris, I was actually wondering if Thought Criminal was just kidding around or if he really thinks the Universe is 6,000 years old and Evolution Theory is unfounded.

It struck me funny that if he really is a fundamentalist, how quick he is to grab onto a theory (special relativity) to "prove" how the Universe could be 6,000 years old. After all, isn't it the rallying cry of the fundamentalists to dismiss evolution because it is "just a theory"? Maybe they just like to embrace the scientific theories that can be force-fitted into "proving" one of their beliefs.

so it could be only 6,000 years old and god, being as powerful as could be could have put them thar big dinosaurous and monkey bones in the ground to test our faith, right?

this is an interesting topic, but i have to go have sex now, with my pet goat.

That's what God said, so I have to trust it. I wasn't there... but almost! Heheheh

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