I’m terrible at interpreting the Bible, but doesn’t that last phrase imply, with “To you it has been granted” that believers know the truth and the rest will only interpret it as metaphorical? To whom is “To you” referring?
See? That’s a damn shame, because I think you rock. I mean, completely wrong about some things but you still rock.
Where did I place any blame on the scientific community? Nowhere at all do I say that. Unless you think that by “self superior jerkoffs” I meant the scientific community, which I didn’t.
I don’t think that at this point in time, of the communities either implicitly or explicitly mentioned in this discussion that the religious community is generating the most social pressure to conform, although there is always that component to internal cohesive forces in any group.[/QUOTE]
I do think that decrying the religious community and then using a quote from a religious text too cute by half, though.
The theory of evolution has not and will not ever be exhaustively proven. Even if our current understanding of evolution is complete and completely correct, we would still be unable to prove it formally, and we would still be calling it a theory.
Philosophically all our ‘knowledge’ is just theories with varying amounts of evidence for them. A chap called Popper advanced his own theory that scientific theories are never ‘proved’ 100% only disproved. The idea being that we cannot prove that all swans are white just because we have never seen a black swan, but the instant we locate a black swan we can disprove that all swans are white conclusively.
Practically speaking, philosophical semantic nuances don’t really matter a hair. If we want to use proved as a word meaning ‘has lots and lots of evidence, and is good enough until someone comes up with something better’ then yes, evolution is as proved as some other scientific theories and more proved than a lot of them. Saying evolution is ‘just a theory’ is about as convincing as saying that the sun will rise every day* is ‘just a theory’. Yes, you are correct, but the issue really at stake is whether you have any chain of supporting events that backup your theory. If you don’t have this evidence then your theory is less valid, likely less useful and less interesting to humanity (and so far I think we can say that theories backed by evidence have proven more useful, interesting and more elegant than ones not so endowed). Nothing is more beautiful than a theory well supported by evidence, especially evidence not discovered during the formulation of the theory.
*Not in frozen north lands it doesn’t!
Every time I see a poll where a significant portion of the people polled don’t have an opinion, I think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn3nbFimBtc
Dan is quite right. Science, by definition, is never 100%. There are no scientific facts in that sense of the term. There are only theories. However, as long as we keep that in mind, using ‘fact’ is perfectly acceptable. But I think in order for a theory to be considered a fact, it needs to be pretty close to consensus. Unfortunately, evolution can’t get that kind of consensus because of its conflict with certain religious views.
GOOGLE DEFINE: THEORY
- A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
See, the problem is that when people use the word “theory” in their day-to-day conversations about non-sciency things, they use it to mean almost the opposite of what it really means, i.e. some possible explanation of something, that may or may not have some evidence but is mostly a guess. So when they hear about “the theory of evolution,” they instantly think “well, I guess they don’t really know, so the Bible is just as likely.” But yes, evolution is a theory, just like gravity is a theory. The confusion is caused by people not knowing what the word “theory” means when applied to science.
Except for this: that consensus need only exist in the scientific community. Why should something be viewed as less valid because, even though virtually every scientist in that field accepts it, a large portion of suckers who reject science wholesale in the general community don’t?
You’re honestly trying to say that there aren’t voices in the scientific community who use evolution as an excuse to argue for atheism? It’s true that much of the Biblical literalist community sees evolutionary belief as a threat, but this conflation is undeniably a two-way street. There are people on both sides who insist that evolution and Biblical belief are incompatible.
However, I think that evolution’s entanglement with atheism is finally diminishing. There are increasing numbers of conservative people in the religious community (especially within Catholics and the evangelical youth of today) who have been able to reconcile a belief in evolution with belief that much of the Bible (including Jesus’ resurrection) can still be taken literally. This is primarily due to the sequence of Biblical creation roughly matching the sequence of evolution. The only thing they need to adjust in their beliefs is that the “day/night” cycle of the creation story isn’t an actual 24-hour day, which isn’t difficult to do. The graphs in the linked polls show that youthful acceptance of evolution is on the rise, and I think this reconciliation of religious and scientific belief among religious youth is a part of that. That’s also shown by a previous poll on that website, where over 70% of the respondents who said they believed in evolution also said that they believed it was guided by God.
^ Crispus expressed my thoughts better than I could.
I visited the Creation Museum last week*, & this is exactly the way they framed young earth creationism. They had a short video of a Creationist paleontologist over a dinosaur skeleton on a dig site, with a fellow paleontologist next to him. In an even-handed, fatherly tone, he said “My friend Dr. so-and-so believes this skeleton is millions of years old, & was buried gradually over time. I believe it is thousands of years old, & was quickly buried in mud caused by floodwaters (Ed. note: of Noah’s ark fame). We have the same set of facts, but come to different conclusions, because we start from different assumptions.”
There were also many signs with the phrase “Different views, because of different starting points,” next to plaques that would contrast “God’s Word” explanations versus “Human Reason” explanations. The underlying message, of course, is that the two are equally valid, & have equally strong supporting evidence.
I give the museum designers credit for being more subtle than I thought they would be. I should note, however, that later exhibits in the museum were more direct in depicting the inevitable catastrophes that befall humankind when they go with Human Reason.
- Whether I’m a whole-hearted believer in Creationism, or went with a bunch of atheists who noted the irony of visiting so close to Darwin’s birthday & approached the day as an anthropological study (before drinking heavily that evening), is an exercise left to the reader.
In theory, you are right.
Unfortunately that doesn’t make them any less retarded for believing in a god.
At least untangling evolution from atheism will start getting more people on the path to questioning all the bullshit they’ve been fed by their religious texts.
I’m not a fan of religion, Pogo. But some of the brightest people in history have believed in a god of some kind. You are highly ignorant if you paint with that broad of a brush.
Unfortunately many of those people grew up in a context that almost required that religion, lest all your work be chastised, or you would just be killed. But today, in first world countries, it seems inexcusable.
I totally agree with this. Now go back and re-read my post.
This character-based contempt for religious people is, IMO, why a decent proportion of them are suspicious of the scientific community. Instead of saying you disagree with belief in a God, you criticize the character of believers. It makes anyone defensive.
As an example, I believe there is vast empirical evidence that exposure to violent media (including videogames) increases the probability of violent thoughts & behavior.* I feel confident that over 95% of college textbooks in social psychology or interpersonal behavior would state this finding as an accepted phenomena. In fact, there’s more evidence for media’s impact on people than there is evidence for or against the existence of God, simply because the scientific method can’t be applied to many questions of faith. Science repeatedly demonstrates an influence of media on observers, but it can’t be used to support or disconfirm God’s existence.
Probably 99% of the readers of this forum don’t believe the finding regarding media, or strangely believe that videogames can influence people in only beneficial ways, but not harmful ones. What possible value would there be if I were to repeatedly state that you folks are retarded and incapable of rational thought, simply because we differ on this belief? Make no mistake, I believe you all are mistaken, in part because I have more training in evaluating scientific evidence than 95% of posters. I’ve gotten into debates a number of times in previous threads where I try to summarize the evidence, been dismissed each time, and still believe most of you are wrong.
I’ve always tried to keep the discussion focused on the ideas, however, not the person. When folks engage in contemptuous & mocking dismissal of a person’s entire being, simply because they have a few different beliefs, I find that behavior highly emotional & defensive. Ironically, these folks often condemn others for acting emotionally & defensive.
- Just so that we can get the strawmen out of the way, of course this also means I believe every single person who has ever been in a room where a videogame is being played is going to take out a school full of developmentally delayed kids & puppies.
Kind of like this post is retarded, I would say.
What I am saying is that you have been responding to nearly every issue lately with something about reactions against elitist behavior. If I were to quote, “The Closer,” I would say, “When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
I try.
The people he was speaking to were his disciples. Everyone else, including the crowd, and the readers of the bible, had to learn by parables. I picked that section because it deals with people not absorbing knowledge, or not being willing to listen to good information, and because it is the passage that demonstrates conclusively that the Bible is not meant literally, as Jesus himself said, to paraphrase, “Yeah, most people don’t listen to anything but anecdotes.”
Just kidding about the anecdotes shot.
Not to backtrack, but do you mean to imply that a religious text could only be used in the context of proselytizing? Are you suggesting that human wisdom is thusly encapsulated in its own existence and should not be projected outside of its own domain?