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A Field Trip To the Creation Museum
Lillith writes "The anti-evolution Creation Museum opened last weekend and Ars took a field trip there and took lots of pictures. 'There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years, and how rapidly the biblical flood would cover the earth, drowning all but a handful of living creatures. The flood plays a big part in the museum's attempt to explain away what we see as millions of years of natural processes. There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.' (Myself, I liked the picture of the velociraptor grazing peacefully next to Eve, who is wearing some kind of dirndl, in the Garden of Eden.)" The reporter posted more photos from the museum on Flickr.
Queue anti-religious /. comments...... NOW.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Eve was naked until she ate from the tree of knowledge, at which point she made herself a skirt with leaves.
They fail at bible accuracy, in a frikkin bible museum!
You can't take the sky from me...
Scary.
I'm at a loss for words (apart from this one)
Sarcasm is beautiful in typed text. You were being sarcastic.. right?
Dinosaurs with sharp teeth were actually very timid and would never chomp into a human flesh bag. But I'm curious, how come there aren't any human bones buried alongside dinosaur bones?
Ok, I'm confused. What does the great flood have to do with creationism? Is it "evidence" of creation?
This just seems to validate that it's more of a biblical museum than a creation museum.
Developers: We can use your help.
Belief in something with no scientific proof is the foundation of just about every failed adventure in human-kind.
It turns man against man, because of different ancient social mores and savagely ignorant beliefs about the workings of the universe.
Glad I could accomodate you, as religion has been a particular pox on my existance.
Blar.
Better be prepared!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Seriously, i laughed more at this article than any April Fools or other jokes here on slashdot! Gotta thank the creationists for making it all possible!
This museum was built by godless atheists who want to profit from true believers!
Badass Resumes
I couldn't tell from their pics; did their Adam model have a belly button?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
...oh, there it is!
This is one interpretation of biblical history. Don't think that all Christians believe this or are what you see on religious TV. Just like not all Muslims have bombs under their clothes.
Doesn't sound like it was very intelligently designed
buh-da-chingWell, back to rejecting software patent applications.
a local radio host had on an atheist the other day who refused to recite the pledge in its current incarnation because of the "one nation under God" part.
Someone came on and identified themselves as a Catholic and bemoaned how society has become "me first" and this was because of people not worshipping God.
That got me thinking, if the caller was upset about the "me first" generation then he should certainly have a problem with the biggest "me first"er of them all: God.
After all, God says that there will be only one God, him (her/it/whatever), that you must follow his rules and you must give thanks to him. If that isn't self-centered, I don't know what is.
As we can see from the exhibits (it's not a museum folks), apparently anything can be twisted enough to justify a religious rather than scientific or logical reason for something.
The really depressing part is now we'll have another generation of kids having their minds polluted by nonsense of dinosaurs living with man and the Earth being only a few thousand years old. I guess being oblivious to reality is the easiest way of getting through life.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
jesus christ! what an abomination.
Even though I know God exists, I don't try and fill in history that the Bible doesn't explain. I'm not sure why other people have this desire to do so.
God spoke to me.
I read in an illustrated book how this big guy with an S on his shirt turned coal into a diamond by holding the coal and merely pressing his hands together. That took seconds. So maybe coal could be made in weeks. I think too in a similar book, there was this guy who lived with dinosaurs on a hidden island. So maybe man did, or does live with dinosaurs. I mean, I saw these things in print. they must be true.
Not sure why we're even bothering to comment on this article. I guess it has comedy value of sorts.
Perhaps we should flood the nutters with explicit pictures of nude Eve, as per their own scriptures, for even more comedy.
I know it sounds harsh, but I am really tired or religious people. They have caused more pain and suffering in this world under the idea of uniting it than any scientific advancement has, including nuclear bombs.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Only in USA you could see such a building, a museum worshiping stupidity.
Why don't creationists take the $20+ million they spent on the museum, and use it to apply "Flood Geology" to finding valuable mineral deposits and such? They could open a bunch of museums with the profits, and provide solid evidence for their "theory" that would make those 'deluded geologists' take notice.
Funny how they never seem to want to actually try to apply what they say they believe...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I would've liked better pictures of Adam and Eve. Dare I be surprized that they looked ever-so-slightly olive-complected? At least they weren't blond-haired and blue-eyed. I also liked the picture showing how diversity recovered after the flood. It was strange that they picked silhouettes of domesticated dogs, which only have such diversity because humans selectively bred them for differing characteristics. I'm not surprized the museum is so slick, though. Creationism has a lot of money, and that buys good literature, nice buildings, and so on. From what I read, Howard Ahmanson, Jr funded the Discovery Institute, which of course pushes ID, everyone's favorite edited-for-the-Supreme-Court proxy for creationism. I would've liked to read more about how the flood covered the Earth--I've still yet to see an explanation of where all that water came from.
How cool would it be if the Flat Earth Society opened a similar, though less expensive, attraction right next door. Even if somebody just put up a sign for it, it would be so poignant.
On the other side of their building, we could have a "global warming" museum..... Oh, crap. This is slashdot. I am about to get modded down into oblivion.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Oh, Jesus Christ!
Errrr, scratch that...
Yeah, I can just imagine velociraptors grazing next to Eve... "Fresh meat!"
I've been thinking a lot about this ever since I first heard about the Creation Museum, and I find myself powerfully troubled and conflicted -- not over its content, which I know exactly where I stand on -- but over my intense desire to decry this "museum" as an utter abomination. I have always tried to endorse tolerance and understanding, and I've always let people believe whatever they want.
But I have a big, big problem when it comes to the public actions of those believers. How many thousands of children and impressionable adults will never even have the chance to learn basic tenets of logic, reason and science after being indoctrinated by a "museum" like this and the cooing, gentle voice of its proponents, telling children stories about dinosaurs living next to adam and eve and jesus?
I don't know what to do. I fully believe in Voltaire's classic quotation on freedom of speech and belief. But in this instance, I find myself thoroughly unwilling to defend the "Creation Museum's" right to make up whatever crazy "facts" they want. It's the first time I find myself wanting to "think of the children" who may very well grow up into the willfully ignorant bible beaters that are founding this "museum."
And yet there I am, suddenly the intolerant monster I have never been able to stand. Yet I tremble to imagine a future dark ages in America, where real science -- the search for the evidence of the reality of the universe -- is stoned in the streets and systematically rubbed out.
Please: before you mod me into oblivion, I want to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.
Limina.Log
It is sad but true. A very "renaissance" of obscurantism. The US looks more and more like Iran or the Taliban. No science, no reason, only stupidity. This is the beginning of the end of the US empire. No doubt about it.
There are at least 2 sides to everything...http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.a sp?ID=25812.
While most non-creationist long for rights and equality in most things, when it comes to an argument like this they are quick to go on the offensive.
The article above is merely from the one Baptist, I'm sure there are other Baptist views as well as other Christian views.
Do they have an explanation for the fish?
What kind of altered state do you have to get yourself wrapped up in to believe this stuff? This counts as a serious mental illness as far as I'm concerned. It's like someone took all the spaced out nutiness in the bible seriously and then put it in one place. Which, well, is exactly what they did.
Hmmm, y'know, with a population of whacked out nut jobs who'll believe anything you tell them no matter how insane, you could conquer the world.
Deleted
Now there's a business opportunity if ever I heard one! No more expensive and dangerous mining.
I wonder if they can do the same trick with gasoline.
Actually, let's aim a bit higher: maybe we can get the almighty to miraculously solve global warming and the coming energy crisis by giving us all cheap, C02-free God Power (tm).
I love that third picture on the first page of Ars Technica's site in the article that states "Present changes are too small and too slow to explain these differences, suggesting God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly."
:P
YES! Because nothing that we're directly looking at in the past few hundred years or so isn't showing massive steps in evolution, that's surely UNDENIABLE evidence that that it couldn't have EVER possibly happened in the past, and is therefore completely false! A VICTORY IS GOD!!!11!
Ahh, hilarity at it's best.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Well, I can't find a link right now, but there is at least one company who claims they found a "vein" of pre-flood dirt somewhere. They pack it in jars and sell it for like $30 a pop claiming it is the most fertile land ever and can turn any arrid, no-plant producing land into fertile land again. I'd say that's profiting!
Decades from now, when archaeologists uncover the ruins of this museum, people around the world will wonder how man even survived within the Bible Belt under such harsh conditions of ignorance ...
The Bible is a law book that was necessary at it's time. People, then, had no idea that they should not kill or that they should not steal.
The Bible was a text that, with many colorful stories, explained why society could benefit from these laws.
The Bible belongs into a museum because it's a very early juridical document.
Instead people became obsessed with these ideas and laws and turned it into something they would later call a "religion".
This Museum is just another embarrassing step. I pity the people who waste their lives with the doctrines of organized religion.
Anyone else remember the bad old days when slash was just old digg stories reposted? At least now we get some variety...
At the bottom of the
From the picture I've seen, there's no way to know if it was before or after she ate from the tree...so you can't really make that point. Also, She didn't make herself a skirt. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
I guess I am not surprised to see anti-religious bigotry at slashdot. When do we get to see you do some anti-islamic bigotry as well?
This is total crap. But, if you really think about it, who's to say the universe and all that is in it was not created the moment before you read this post? It is faith either way, and impossible to prove completely. No one thinks like this anymore, always it has to be absolutes. And if God does exist, why not believe in Evolution as it fits with our observations about the world around us? Seems silly not to.
Considering the incredible number of species we know, I'm really curious what they claim was the size of Noah's Ark. Anyone knows? I'm not sure the Titanic would be able to fit all of that... I'm also very curious about the method used to mice and cats aboard the same boat. :-)
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
The Museum of Ignorance would be more appropriate. How else to explain a museum which shuts out overwhelming scientific evidence supporting evolution (amongst other things) by essentially claiming "God did it". Which is a non-answer. For "God" they could substitute "a side of ham", "Elvis Presley" or anything else with as much validity. Oh but you get to ride a triceratops at the end so that makes it money well spent.
"There were posters explaining just how coal could be formed in a few weeks as opposed to over millions of years"
So, if you could make coal in just a few weeks out of (I assume) whatever biomass is laying around, wouldn't they have a big coal-production plant running by now? I mean, if it's that easy, wouldn't that make it easier than digging it out of the ground?
...by saying that somehow the benefits of democracy outweigh censoring even really dangerous, stupid shit like this museum.
At least we all get a good laugh out of this one.
And a good cry.
Do they know that we have some dating methods that... ummm... date Dinosaurs before 65M BC and humans much, much after that?
Ok, so maybe not a caveman but do they realy think that God would bother to explain to people who doesn't even know that there is atoms how he created the universe? It's what Pratchett calls Lies for children.
God - Ok so afte a couple of million years...
Secretary - Hold on, how much is a couple million years?
God - Sigh... ok so on the first _day_ I made light using what I like to call the Big Bang.
Secretary - Sorry that's too long and my hand hurts. I'll just write God made light on the first day.
God - Sigh....
I don't actually see that much problem with being both beliver of evolution and the Big bang and being a christian. I think the problem is that people read the bible like it was a book about natural science instead of what it realy is ie a history book and a book about ethics.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
Creationism museum to open in Alberta
Falwell, Pat Robertson, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, everyone on Trinity Broadcasting Network, and this stupid-ass museum...
PLEASE GO AWAY or SHUT THE HELL UP! You're fscking embarrassing.
Except TBN - you're Jesus pimps... which is far worse. The Bible has something to say about pimping God... and that He doesn't take kindly to it.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Or if coal can be made in two weeks, they could make a killing. Everyone is looking for ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere and here they say they have a method!
It's quite clear that the summary is quite misleading. This is in fact more of a "Bible" museum vs a "Creationism" museum. Unfortunately, the term "creationism" is inexorably linked to the Christian faith. It's unfortunate because the belief that we may be on this earth due to the conscious actions of a higher level being are not necessarily tied to Christianity (though they obviously "believe" in a version of this).
This is similar to the word "liberal". Except in specific instances, when someone is tagged "liberal", they are being tagged with the political label, vs the generic definition of a free thinker (which are not always the same).
I notice they're not closed for Jewish holidays. As a jewish person, I always find that interesting.
As a non-young-earth creationist who believes in evolution for the most part, it bothers me somewhat that the young-earth creationists have been so loud in calling themselves Creationists. In their search for a short, catchy title they have made it difficult for me to use a word that I feel should rightly, if broadly, describe me. Now, when people ask me what I believe, I have to ponderously explain that I believe in a creator deity, but I mostly don't believe in the Biblical account of creation. I inevitably have to go through several rounds of "Wait, you believe in science?" or some such questioning because of my audience's preconceived notions, which are based primarily on publicity-garnering displays like this weird museum.
This space reserved for administrative use.
I'm going to preface this with... I am a born again Christian.
As far as I'm concerned God made everything, right? However, I don't pretend to know how he did it-- and I'm a big proponent of science! I also think the evolution of species is undeniable. And you know what? This doesn't bother me at all. What does how creation unfolded have to do with the story and purpose Jesus? The chain of evolution I have seen in many of theories, points to the same order laid out in Genesis. But thats as far as I'll look into reconciling the creation story with science.
I looked through the pictures, and I wasn't going to comment at all, but the bulletin board that seems to send a message of hate to homosexuals was a bit over the top for me. According to the Bible, homosexuality is wrong, I understand that. But no where does it say I should hate people, stir fear up about them, and try to control them! It always disturbs me to see anti-gay messages spread by Christians. We are suppose to spread the gospel... God loves you, Jesus died for your sins, try and introduce people to God... and GOD DOES THE REST! Remember we are all sinners, we have all screwed up, and even after we are saved we STILL screw up because we are imperfect.
Anyway, what the heck does a proganda poster like that have to do with creationism!!??
I went to the flickr gallery and was stunned and fascinated (shocked and awed?) at the exhibit which "explained" where Cain got his wife and why it was okay for him to marry (and have sex, although the "S" word is never used) his sister.
For your edification I copied out the central "argument" for you to mock (er, I mean discuss.)
"The farther back in history one goes (back towards the Fall of Adam), the less of a problem mutation in the human population would be.
At the time of Adam and Eve's children, there would have been very few mutations in the human genome--thus close relatives could marry, and provided it was one man for one woman (the biblical doctrine of marriage), there was nothing wrong with close relatives marrying in early biblical history."
B.S. (Bedevere Science) all. (SIR BEDEVERE: And that, my liege, is how we know the earth to be banana-shaped. ARTHUR: This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.)
Read any good sonnets lately?
Silly, sure.
But dangerous?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Am I the only one that saw this and thought, weird - alt.religion.scientology - went on a field trip to a creation museum. Did it have volcanoes?
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
it can be a religion in it's own right and is more often than not it is discovered to be quite mistaken from one generation of scientists to the next. I'm not saying that the museum is right but I am saying that more than likely our science is wrong and it'll be some time before we realize this because every generation believed the science of its time.
From Eugenics (Teddy Roosevelt was a fan) to the idea that Jews are inferior (Dr. Mengele had two Phds one in Medicine and one in Anthropology) we can trace really bad ideas that were espoused as common sense fact all through history and we will continue to see this happen. Our science today is probably wrong on some level even when it is going in the right direction.
Please, let's not get into an anti religious fervor here and keep it congenial.
$20 to get in? That's a change up from the normal "collection-plate" sort of deal one usually sees in Christian churches. That's what this is, of course.. it's an apologetic ministry facility run by an on-the-books religious organization, labelled a museum.
Although to be honest, if the Christian church I was brought to as a kid had dinosaur rides out front, I may never have converted away from the faith.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
... That I went to a strict Catholic school, had Jesuits as science teachers, and Creation was relegated to Religion hour? In class, it was Darwin or bust, the Earth was some 5 billions years old, and nobody questioned evolution. Ever. And those who taught were priests.
I once asked my biology teacher (Jesuit) about the Bible's recount of the Creation. Answer: "The Bible was written by men, and inspired by God. Do you think He could have gone to some Bronze Age guys and told them about atoms, mass-energy equivalence, aminoacids and DNA? That was Abraham and company He was talking to, not Mr Spock."
You folks need some of these Jesuits types, methinks.
Some fundies put up a creation museum and its goofy, this is news? Give it a rest.
Why is this article classified under Science?
Since my intellectual rights are being violated by the politics of the church, I am not sure if Politics or YRO will fit better.
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
I would hazard a guess where this is all going:
You don't want to believe in science, so you don't learn it.
You don't believe in all this technology stuff, because you don't believe in science.
You begin to not be able to catch up with the modern world around you, so you begin to trail behind.
Some of the American Christians are going down the path of the Amish. One day in the future you will drive by a secluded village where they have insulated themselves from the rest of the advancing civilization.
So please just let them go on their merry way.
That you have the right to create a museum like this, and the right to go to it or NOT, as you see fit. There are many people of faith that believe the creation story. Not all, of course, but I've known several myself. They are rational, successful, happy and productive people all around us. For them, this museum helps them to be comfortable with what they believe. I don't agree with them, but I respect that different ideas can exist. I saw one comment above that said that America was becoming more like the Taliban. There is no reason to think this - if the Taliban were running the country, you wouldn't be allowed to believe in anything else!
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
You would have to be a complete moron to beleive in creationism, I understand the role that religion plays in society and that some people feel that they need to bow down to some omnipitent being to give there life meaning. (Oh and if there is a god that is all powerful and he made us to worship him, don't you think thats just a little bit shallow for a perfect all powerful Deity) But to beleive that the Earth and the Universe is only 6000 years old, in the light of all the overwhelming evidence of that proves evolution and that the universe in billions of years old is not a leap of faith it's a leap back into the dark ages when science was demonised and people were burned at the stake for any attempt to better mankind. We should take all the creationist and take away all the technology that they depend on all the things that science has given them and watch them complain about how they miss TV and their MP3's and theirs cars, and then remind them that according to there beliefs none of things can exists because science is wrong!!! Sorry for the rant. Not for the sentiment.
I agree wholeheartedly (I loved Contact. Had to buy my own copy!) You're coming from a rational and philosophical point of view regarding faith and spirituality. That there's more out there than me and my perceptions of life, the World, and the Universe. Those folks that consider this museum as fact are superstitious. But if you compare their beliefs with the Roman myths, they'd be insulted and say that it's different. Their beliefs are not the spirituality that you speak of - they believe in the religious equivalent of the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
That's what I say. I am naked even as I type this message.
"Why do we have dinosaur bones?"
"God put them there"
"How are diomonds formed?"
"God made them"
Of course it's a load of rubbish. And while we're at it, completely pointless trying to win these idiots over wiht scientific arguments that they don't understand. The theological arguments point to the bible not being intended as a literal history of the universe.
Most of the proponents of Creationism don't believe in it in the first place. They're just uncomfortable with the idea of the non-existence of God, and it's been pushed by some religious fanatics as a polar choice with God and evolution being mutually exclusive.
Just for my own personal enjoyment, I'd love to see more pictures of the kinds of low-IQ folk who go to this ridiculous thing. I don't get to interact with people like this very often, but I'd like to know what to look for (other than the obvious "Jesus" paraphernalia) so I can recognize these people in public and steer clear of them. It's a guilty pleasure, I know.
I don't respond to AC's.
intolerance is evil
intolerance of intolerance is actually good
in fact, to meet a fundamentalist, and for them to call you intolerant, as in, hypocritically intolerant, is actually a badge of achievement
because you are not hypocritically intolerant if you are intolerant of them
because what they don't understand is that fundamentalism is true intolerance, and therefore to be intolerant of that is actually to strive in the direction of more tolerance
intolerant: "because you are not a true christian/ true muslim, i am better than you" =evil
intolerance of intolerance: "because you consider yourself better than me based on your religious bigotry, i am intolerant of you" =good
intolerance can be predicated on a number of characteristics of a person that is not intolerant in and of themselves: race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
intolerance can also be predicated on someone else's intolerance: not tolerating their intolerance of someone because of race, religion, seuxla orientation, etc.
so you can judge any tolerance in question as to what it is opposed to. and if it is opposed to some inherently nonintolerant feature of a person, it is true intolerance. but if it is opposed to an intolerant feature of the person themselves, it is not intolerance, it is a form of tolerance, because it directed against real intolerance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What I really love is the young-Earther's defense of their position. In the end, you can always boil down their "arguments" to a common set of themes, with the last resort being the argument of choice:
Fortunately, you can wipe out every proposition above with two small sentences: "Admit it. Maybe you're just incredibly, incredibly stupid."
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Has any one seen either creation or evolution take place? I know each camp has it's own examples on why their correct, i.e. different minerals at different layers in the earths crust, or how one giant rock in Australia is smooth. In my opinion if no one has seen it happen it takes just as much faith to believe one or the other.
How dare the church of evolution be brought into question!
This museum is evidence of a blind fanaticism that is so very devoted to faith that its adherents will ignore reason, science, evidence and logic in pursuit of a world view. These are the same people who want us to have Christian prayer in schools and impose their conservative lifestyles on the rest of us. And these people vote. In droves.
'godless atheist' is redundant.
Just 'atheist' will suffice.
Darwinism in action. People who believe velociraptors look peaceful and cuddly will be exiting the pool.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Do they explain where all the people living in the city of Nod came from? Or where Cain's wife came from? (Hint: she wasn't an ancestor of Adam and Eve)
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
he just said we should kill religious people. DURRR wonder how i should mod this.
May they be touched by His Noodly Appendage and realise the error of their ways. Ramen.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
I don't think you realize this "museum" *IS* applying "Flood Geology" rather effectively.
Why bother finding pretty rocks, rock that burn hotter, or rocks that glow in the dark, and selling these to make money.
here they are, with one $20+Mil investment, they are mining the most rare and precious of all items. BELIEF.
This place will cause many of the "faithful" to open their pocketbooks and GIVE money away, and not expect anything in return except some vague promise of "eternal life" after they die.
This is the oldest, most effective con ever dreamt of by man. For religion IS a creation of man, not "God".
The sermon on the Mount. It basically destroys any attempt at proselityzation. Whenever I see someone preaching openly I just ask them if they remember Matthew 6. Uusually shuts them up, whether they do or not.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Philosophically, you're right. And if you postulate such a thing, then even logically you could be right.
However, that position is not *useful*. In effect it totally denies any possibility of analysis and scientific progress. It's very much a form of nihilism, and under such conditions, we might as well just pack up any semblence of causal rationality and cease to exist. Scientific and technical progress is *predicated* on analytic causality.
The alternative is to deny your possibility, and instead assume (equally axiomatically) that the past is available to analysis. And once you adopt that alternative then, as an axiom, all of current science follows naturally, and the biblical proposition must necessarily be relegated to the realm of fantasy or delusion.
There isn't really any middle ground possible. The two are inconsistent.
One of my best friends is a very commited Christian, but fortunately an intelligent one. We have many long discussions around these areas. I am very careful not to insult him, and he's a genuinely lovely guy. He doesn't take the bible that literally, though he does have views that don't chime with a scientific approach. I can respect his views, as he doesn't try to ram them down my throat.
This stuff is completely different though. In fact, its absolutely bloody crazy. I'm quite apathetic in a lot of political areas; I know I shouldn't be, but I find it hard to get motivated. My Grandfather gives me a hard time over this, explaining that people died in wars to allow us the right to vote etc and hes completely right. However, I'm really motivated on this shit. I just can't fucking believe this crap is happening. I certainly believed in God right up until I was about 13, and then the weight of science and a questioning mind started to unravel a lot of what I'd been taught in schools; eventually, by the time I was in my late teens, I'd become an atheist.
I've had absoultely no problem with people having faith though. In fact, many times I've been a little jealous that I don't think I'm in with a good chance of living in some sort of Nirvana after I die. It must be really comforting to know that despite life's trials & tribulations everything's going to be just fine. If that helps people get through the day, or deal with great loss, then bully for them. I'm glad they have a way of coping that teaches basic rules in life that ought to apply anyway (don't murder people, treat others as you would wish to be treated etc. All good tenets).
But when a group of people try to subvert the canon of human endeavour over hundreds, if not thousands of years I start to get enraged. I probably feel more strongly about this than anything else going.
Are we going to end up with a completely polarised society, where on the one hand we have scientists and those who accept the principles of empirical testing, and on the other, a bunch of brain-washed idiots sucking down fairy tales? Its true because God said so? I just can't fucking beleive this is happening in the Western world. It's like some sort of nightmare.
I mean, how can you motivate people to do the right thing over genetics, global warming, arms proliferation, international politics, if they believe that everything is (their) God's doing? I mean, if they're going to accept all this utter crap these guys are spouting, they're basically absolving themselves of any responsibilty in this world, aren't they?
Ack, I could rant on like this for hours and what's the bloody point? I'm preaching to the converted here anyways. It's just that this crap seems like the thin end of the wedge to me. If they keep this shite up, then we're really going to be well set for the ultimate Christian/Islam showdown, and I honestly would not be surprised if this wasn't the real aim of all this shit in the first place. I'm with an earlier poster; Let's leave the religious people behind. Except we can't. A lot of them control us and our societies. What the hell is wrong with these people?
If you want to know just how whacked out this shit they have at this "Creation Museum", read this entry from Conservapedia on the origin of kangaroos:
There you have it. Kangaroos got to Australia from the Ark by floating on rafts of vegetation. And what the fuck is a baramin? Is that what they were smoking when they wrote that entry?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
What about the Big Brother house?
So what was Adam exactly doing with that sheep?
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
more than half the US citizens DEMAND that their president be 'a man of faith'.
did you notice, in all the recent debates, how GOD keeps being mentioned?
in the USA of jesusland, you CANNOT get elected unless you hang out under stained glass windows on sundays and eat cookies and drink wine. or so it seems.
(well, nothing wrong with a good wine/cookie break, every now and then; but its hardly an attribute I require in the POTUS)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
How appropriate that this building is located in the middle of the Bible Thumping white Christian South where the average IQ is lower than the number of children they produce.
Cue anti-religious /. comments...... NOW.
Unless you mean to arrange them in sequence, so that they can await processing.
By your poor grammar and lack of spelling knowledge, I must assume that you are a religious person, as non-thinkers tend to be.
Kirk: Excuse me... but what does God need with a starship?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Second link found from googling for "deepest fossil".
There's nothing wrong with believing in God. Problem is when your pastor starts teaching you to burn scientific books and to hang physicians in public.
For example, I'm catholic, and I just love JPII's encyclica "Fides et ratio" (Faith and reason). It's a wonderful reading for both scientists and religious people.
"There are people who believe that humans dinosaurs co-existed. And what this is, plain and simple, is a psychotic reaction. These people are stone-cold-fuck nuts. I can't be nice about this, because these people are watching The Flintstones as if it were a documentary."
How can you deal with people who actually believe that there is an invisible man who lives in the sky who watches over everything that you do and, although he is omnipotent and good, is so insecure that he demands that you devote your life to him but will not tell you any of this directly, instead relying a select group of others to spread the word.
That just makes no fucking sense and it is impossible to engage in a rational conversation with anyone who really believes that because if you can reconcile all of those inconsistencies then you can justify just about anything. No matter how fucking ridicules it is.
I'm not saying there is not a God. There very well may be, there's no way we can ever know, but I can garun-fucking-tee you that if God does exist, he/she/it is nothing like the crap that religious nut bags (of all faiths) are trying to sell you.
I'm definitely not a creationist, but don't think for a minute that psuedo- and anti-science is limited to religious zealots.
Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive? How many people sit around worrying about the "toxins" in the body? How many people belive that Feng Shui increases the positive "energy" in a room?
I see your XKCD, and raise you one more!
FWIW the guy in charge of computational geology at LNNL (Baumgardner? I forget...) is a young earth creationist.
-knewter
May I be the first to welcome our inaccurate and deluded religious overlords...?
...Profit!!
1) take myth
2) kill anyone who doesn't believe it for over 2000 years
3) when left with remanent of believers, make big museum depicting myth
4) charge for entry
5)
All your archeology is belong to us!
Can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Arks?
etc...
I find it a bit odd that most of the comments posted about the United States demise come from the US itself (perhaps not yours, but often anyways).
If so many US citizens are aware of this bullshit going on in their country, why is nothing done? Is it something like, for every 1 intelligence person there are 50 bible thumpers? If so, perhaps you should jump ship (country).
Too many repetitions of "carbon dating said some rock was a trillion years old!" have soured me on this tactic, so if you want to bring in "the last oil field we found" as evidence, you're going to have to recognize that oil fields are found all the time and identify yours a little more precisely.
Your own anecdotes are more amusingly distorted than most, too. Usually creationists at least try to get the Bible right. Seven versus ten plagues isn't as big an error as years versus millions of years, but whereas the latter error is just sad, the former is kinda funny.
Right. Despite atheism being on the rise in the US and extremism being relegated to the fringes, this Musuem represents the true face of America. This Museum is to religion what Tom Cruise is to science.
Matter.
Why doesn't Slashdot report newsWORTHY News?
The Constitution has been destroyed by BushCo.
U.S. troops are the mercenaries for the military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL Complex.
And Slashdot reports on a bunch of fundagelicals in Kentucky.
I see you live in the midwest somewhere - be reassured that there are plenty of areas of the country not quite as full of religious nutjobs yet, despite the people in the White House at the moment.
For example, poor behavior can be recognized as someone making broad unsubstantiated claims, critical or absolutist, with little historical support. There are many human successes with or without unsupported beliefs, as there are many human failures also with or without unsupported beliefs. By explicitly naming "science" and "scientific proof" as the necessary foundation of acceptable knowledge and learning, you are making the same absolutist claim as those who claim the Bible is the basis for all knowledge.
Science is a complex and organized methodology that we have adopted to study the world around us. Before that methodology was adopted, people used whatever method they could to understand the world. They did whatever was necessary to create their own world view, and the resulting world views were often filled with the supernatural, because that is all the knowledge they had to work with at the time.
One can even suppose that in some future time, people will develop some new way of studying, learning and organizing knowledge that is more effective and better suited than the scientific method. There will no doubt be "old school scientific method" holdouts who will be ridiculed and ignored because they didn't make the switch.
"Religion" comes into play in two stages. The first is when some basic understanding gathers enough popular support that people start subscribing to the ideas without using their own knowledge or judgement to vet the concepts involved. As in "I believe the results of quantum collision and baryon creation, even though I don't have a collider or the Physics training to repeat the experiment myself."
The second phase is usually when someone with some ambition for power realizes that this belief could be used to influence those people, and attempts to use that influence to their own advantage. They manipulate the concepts to benefit themselves rather than to further general knowledge. They build power hierarchies on top of this that are focused more on themselves than the beliefs the started with, even to the point of contradicting the original beliefs. The Catholic church has gone deeply into this phase with Christianity. And we can see politicians attempting to do that now with science. Science might be more resiliant, but then it took a few centuries for the church to get going. The politicians have only just begun.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
one thing that has always surprised me...
These "creationists" want you to believe to the point where you suspend common sense. Yet these same people would be the first to condemn a man who claims to talk to god and get a response.
They demand that everyone worship their God, that only through their God is true salvation, and denounce any other religion that states the same. They even go so far as to break their own religious rules to FORCE others to abide by them. "Thou shalt not kill", yet they tortured and murdered people in large numbers because they would not convert.
At what point does religion become a "cult"? At what point can you reasonably TAKE THEIR CHILDREN AWAY to prevent the brainwashing you KNOW is happening? Couldn't you, in the "think of the children" mentality, start banning the Bible, Christianity, Churches, etc.? After all, there is a lot of violence and adult themes in the Bible, why is it available to children?
I despise hypocrasy. Either the rules apply to all, or they do not. Period.
... that it is open 7 days a week?
Hmm... Godwin's law kicked in later than I expected it to in this topic. Surprising.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Things that should *not cause us to abandon literal interpretation of the Genesis account:
science
Things that *should cause us to abandon literal interpretation of the Genesis account:
covering up naughtybits
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
To accept the idea that the universe is really old, and the earth is really old (when compaired to you and me) and we were not always here, nore were we always the most intrusive species on the plannet, and that there are a whole lot of planets, and that when your dead your worm bait, you might have to accept your own insignificance.
Some people prefer not to do that.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
1) build museum
2) charge entry
3)
4) PROFIT!
If only Noah and his immediate family survived the flood, then how did we get so many races of people without evolution in such a short period of time?
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08, @10:58AM (#19437381)
How can you know God exists?
You're as bad as they are. I guess I should really try to support this statement, or be modded down
+5 funny!
Mythology is interesting. It gives insight. However, when you interpret mythology as history it becomes superstition, and that is when it is problematic.
There are many things I think are a bit odd about the story. Setting aside obvious things like talking animals and fruits that make you smarter and so on, I don't understand why Christians accept the stories statements about God's limitations.
According to the text of the Bible, things happen which God did not expect, foresee, or plan on. God regrets his past mistakes (specifically he regrets ever having created us), and God even needs humans to remind him of past promises which he had made and later forgotten. It seems to me that suggesting that an all-knowing, all-powerful being would do such things would be nothing short of heresy.
Maybe I just think to much...which makes me wonder why God cursed me with this logical discriminating brain.
I think many of the evo debators have exaggerated the evidence for evo and have become kind of fanatical themselves. Although I beleive in it, the evidence is *not* overwelming, and hyping it as such turns some away.
First off is the Cambrian Explosion. Most of the modern body plans (Phyla) came out of appearently nowhere. We don't have a good record of how they got the way they did. Suddenly there are lobster-like and fish-like critters swimming and crawling around eating each other. Nobody knows where they came from before that. It is even possible that early metazoans were able to swap genes with each other (perhaps via microbe infections), making their origin virtually untracable as tree-based decent.
Evo has not been demonstrated making large-scale complicated life-forms under full, controlled, and repeatable observation. Incrimental changes do not necessarily equal large changes. Lots of forces make incrimental changes. Thus, the "scale problem" is still out there. Making a beak grow larger is not the same as making brains and immune systems.
"Time ate my homework" is not good enough. Science is picky, I am just the mesenger.
Table-ized A.I.
Go to the Islamic world and publically criticize the Koran, or display your painting of Mohammed. Just as a test.
Now stand outside the Creation Museum and protest it.
Maybe you should do the second part first.
And, yes, maybe only in the USA would we have a museum to silly religious ideas of the Earth's history.
You know why? It's because the people who did this have the freedom to do so.
My hypothesis is that this is a product of a society that has grown "too safe"; our programmed fight-or-flight mechanisms are still an inherent part of us and yet rarely do they have a reason to be triggered. To compensate, we seem to thrive on artificial, constructed fears, like toxins, or in the case of the general US population, terrorism (which is *highly* unlikely to kill you). I believe that anxiety and depressive disorders are on the rise, and this is in part responsible. (FWIW, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, i.e. irrational anxiety about unpredictable things, and I feel that if my anxiety was "directed" towards real threats that my condition wouldn't be an issue. To me, this is evidenced by the fact that when real trauma or dangerous situations occur, I tend to be highly functional and the deeply intensified fear serves a purpose, and when the situation is over, I am left calm for quite some time.)
You can convince of another scientific of the error of his/her ways. You can demonstrate that another scientific is wrong. In faith, well this is another can of worm. Trying to convince somebody/a group that their faith is wrong usually end in lapidation, decapitation, torch and burning, bombing, religious war, and I pass many over. Usually people in science DO NOT bomb/burn/throw stone at each other (although I am pretty sure you can find an example of it). It is true that people can MISUSE the RESULTS of the scientific method, but unless you can show me a scientific jihad of the newtonian believer against the heretic einteinian relativist believer , burning and execution at 11, then you can't even begin to compare the DAMAGE of the first to the second.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Isn't this like kicking puppies or shooting the proverbial (ha!) fish in a barrel?
Slow tech news day?
I don't know that it is just the US...this is happening world wide. Even the article backs this up: "Meanwhile, the founder of the museum, Australian Ken Ham"...
Doh!
i mean, it's common knowledge that there are mistranslations in the Bible. one of the most notable is where Mary rode on the back of a donkey into Bethlehem, when everyone knows it really was a Diplodocus.
All great empires have to end. The Egyptians. Then the Romans. The Ottoman Turks. And now the USA.
The nature of things, relative to some timescale, are cyclical. We do not fully understand this as an advanced society, yet we will suffer under it.
The best suggestion I have, is to not let your future generations be in its path lest your genetic profile might end.
The Taliban never did attempt to twist science to their use. They just accepted that science would not agree with them and stayed away from science except in manufacturing bombs.
No hypocrisy there. Even the Taliban had a sense of principles.
Twisting science is VERY dirty.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
What scares me is not that people believe this stuff, but that people who believe this stuff are getting into public office and passing laws that affect me. I've read more than one message in this thread decrying other posters for speaking out against the Creationist museum. I ask you to please consider your obligation as a US citizen (if you are a US citizen) to participate in the democratic process.
If our elected officials change our government such that it adopts policies in line with Creationist views, and you disagree with those views, it is your right -- your obligation -- to express your contrary opinion in spoken and written form, as well as in the voting booth. The mere existence of a Creationist museum scares me because it means that there are enough voters to push our government in what I feel is a bad direction. The Creationists have a right to have the museum and express their views. But I have a right, and a duty, to express my views that they are mistaken, to argue against their beliefs.
Here's a thought experiment to illustrate my point: Imagine that all medical research and treatment, everywhere in the US from now on, had to adhere to strict supervision by a board of politicians and clergy with fundamentalist views. Now wait 100 years. What do you think the state of US medical technology would be in such a case?
Sigh.
...
The human capacity for willful self-deception is almost infinite. The facts are overwhelming that Creationism as a rational belief system is completely invalid, but that doesn't prevent individuals who don't regard the primacy of facts as the basis for their beliefs from believing what they choose.
The Creationists are just like the Socialists, in the sense that they adamantly refuse to come to terms with the impartial facts that dispute their beliefs. They reach a point where they mentally blank out anything that conflicts with the imaginary structure of reality (aka, sand castle) they have created in their heads
You can't use facts to change an opinion that wasn't derived from facts.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Is there anything about Buddhism? Did they say anything about Dalai Lama?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This is not true about civilized society. In the US, people are adults at 18 years of age. At that point they are presumed to understand the law. Only children or the mentally retarded, which could include Adam and Eve in this context, are treated to lesser charges.
The Devil (a snake here) is just an excuse. People blame their parents, porn., violent video games, and apples. We see this on Slashdot all the time.
Ironically, we now know that humans need apples to live. We are among the few animal who do not make their own vitamin C!
1) How does one express an epic level eye roll in text?
2) I am the only one that thinks that they put this thing in Kentucky because they think that everyone there is an inbred hill billy who won't know any better? (Not saying that everyone from Kentucky *is* an inbred hill billy but that the people who put the museum there think this)
3) Haven't we figured out by now religion and science don't mix? Copernicus, Galileo, Da Vinci, and who knows who else?
4) Umm....the book of Genesis doesn't exactly print out a recipe for world building and population. If it said something like 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of butter.....bake at 350 for 20 minutes, I might be willing to buy this. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't. Instead it gives us a big allegorical story and makes all sorts of references about the fact that time for God doesn't pass like it does for us humans. I myself see no conflict between evolution and religion. They are answers to separate questions - Why and How.
5) Am I the only one that finds it odd that a bunch of nutballs who don't even bother to read their own holy book swear that the it is the literal word God even though it was originally written in Aramaic, translated in to Hebrew, then to Latin, then to Greek, and the back to Latin, and then to English? And that's a best case scenario for most of the books of the "Bible".
6) Am I the only one who really questions the validity of the King James version, the one that most of the swear is "true and correct"? King James had all sorts of things tucked into his translation that supported his divine right to rule. It was politically motivated and PAID FOR by a King - as in "You didn't do what I said. Off with his head!" kind of a King at that.
7) What about the places where the Bible contradicts itself? Since its the literal word of God, that makes God wrong and since God is infallible, he can't be wrong, therefore - using their own logic - God did not write the Bible OR God isn't God.
Oh, but we can ignore all of the historical facts because we have "faith".
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
I know you're joking on this point, but seriously please don't judge the accuracy of the museum's message from the account in this article. They were obviously visiting for the sole purpose of poking fun. I'm not speculating on that, just look at this quote discussing sibling marriage after Creation:
"Apparently there was less sin back then, and therefore fewer mutations in their DNA. Evidently sin, not two copies of the same recessive trait, gives rise to congenital birth defects."
That's absolute garbage. I've read AIG's books on genetics (e.g. One Blood), and they certainly have a solid understanding of the topic and have never made bogus statements like the one above. I'm ashamed of the Slashdot crowd for falling for baseless propaganda like this. It would get laughed out of town if it were on any other topic.
If so many US citizens are aware of this bullshit going on in their country, why is nothing done?
What would you have us do? Attack the museum with pitch forks and burn it down? It was created by private citizens. The down side to freedom of speeh is that alot of speech is stupid.
I'm parafrasing a quote that I can't remember the source of, but The way to combat bad ideas is not attempt to silence them but to make them irrelevant with better ideas.
Yep, I think 'jump ship' would be about their only reprieve of sorts... however then the US would be full of NOTHING but religious zealots. It's kinda nice to at least have a science-minded person or two kicking around in there to stop them from genociding the rest of the heathen world. And it's not like the states is weak or underpowered either... I could see a 100% creationalist country starting up a WW3 pretty damn quickly.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
The irradiation thingy is easy to explain. In basic science class radioactive substance are spoken about, but light is spoken as "light". In my own experience it is only later that light as a form of radiation is spoken on. And don't get me started on ionizing radiation. People are not educated to understand this does not concern radiation as in alpha/beta. So the belief of irradiation=tchernobyl/a-bomb is easily explainable. Sadly I don't see it changing soon due to the above education problem.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Because everyone has virtually identical DNA and they could never get a full set of teeth to identify a body...
You should be -- because most of the arguments I've read aren't about creation theory at all -- they are about insisting that a very narrow interpretation and English language translation of an even narrower set of ancient documents has to be understood "their way". And before anyone gets their dander up, let me announce something: I am both a Christian believer AND a rational scientifically oriented person -- who wouldn't spend a nickel let alone five minutes at that museum which might as well be about Star Wars in terms of "doctrinal" accuracy.
Let me use a fairly simple example: the six "days" of creation. Literal? not possible -- the physics involved (mass + energy in the form of movement) bringing together the sheer amount of matter contained in the earth's crust and core in a 24 hour period would not result in a planet but a rather spectacular explosion that wouldn't result in a land mass and an atmosphere -- which is really what Genesis 1:1 says -- that this planet (earth) began when the Almighty (the Hebrew is plural here) organized the land mass and the "heavens" AKA the atmosphere. Then there's a verse about God checking up on how the first task was accomplished but that the "deep" was still dark (v2), and light being brought to the planet (v3) AKA the whole mass brought in positional proximity to a star, and placed in rotation (v4). Only after this (in v5) is a time period given a name "day" and the dark "night". At no time does it say "and the day was 24 hours".
Think logically folks: if mankind had a huge enough supply of sufficiently large mass drivers, a gazillion tons of the same type of stuff that makes up planet earth -- according to our current knowledge only -- and most importantly a long enough time period to work out the kinks and then do it, couldn't we create a planet (say, on the far side of the sun -- or even two more planets or whatever) -- in the same orbit as Earth? So the importance of those five verses isn't about a foolish interpretation of what one "day" means -- it is that there is a much more powerful, intelligent being that could place a planet with the correct attributes in the exact right place in a solar system so that "life" as we know it could begin and then flourish -- and that everything else comes after.
Consider the question "is there an Almighty being or not?", and if there is, "why would that being chose to create a planet like earth?" Then things start to make sense -- and none of what makes sense about the creation story requires me to accept bad philosophy and call it good religion.
I like your quote "Reality will continue to be what it is regardless of what I want to believe." Because it also means that your believing that there is NOT an Almighty architect of this earth will not change the reality if-- and I grant you that it is a big IF for most people-- the short narrative of creation is just that -- a brief summary of how this world came to be, how life was brought into existence on the planet, and for what purpose it was designed and currently exists.
My advice? Skip the museum and both its pseudoscience and its pseudo-doctrine.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I see you DON'T live in the midwest somewhere. I'm not denying the amount of religous people here, but in my near 30 years of experience living the area, the people in the midwest are some of the most tolerant folk I have ever met.
And yes, I have seen most of the US.. and no, I am not religious.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
One thing that most everyone conveniently overlooks in the book of Genesis is this:
Cain just killed his brother, Able and is confronted by God... (Genesis 4:14-15)
"Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." But the LORD said to him, "Not so [a] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
Now, riddle me this Batman - If Adam & Eve (his very own parents and family) are the ONLY other people who exist, who is going to see Cain, not recognize him and kill him? Why would God have to mark him to keep anyone else from killing him? Who is Cain worried about?
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
I don't know that it is just the US...this is happening world wide. Even the article backs this up: "Meanwhile, the founder of the museum, Australian Ken Ham"...
U.S. + Australia != "worldwide".
Those two countries harbour many of the most stubbornly ignorant citizens of the Anglosphere.
think of "tolerance" in engineering terms - the amount of deviation from the correct that you are prepared to put up with. Acceptable tolerance for a difference engine component would be a lot less than for a more agricultural machine.
Disobedient children will be stoned to death? If so it might be the first museum without a crying baby (at least it won't be crying for long).
You found a contradiction in the BIBLE!?!?! My faith is shaken to the core. Bring on the drugs and hookers!
This story is one big Troll post. And I got caught with the rest of the suckers responding to it.
This is how the debate between sound science and "intelligent design" looks from the sidelines. Note here that we replace the theory that life was created by an intelligent designer {who logically must have been created by a more intelligent designer, and so forth, since any mechanism which would account for the spontaneous generation of an intelligent designer must be capable of spontaneously generating life} with the theory that all roses are red. This has little bearing on the quality of the debate.
IDist: All woses are wed.
Scientist: No they aren't. Look. Produces white rose A white rose.
IDist: That is obviouthly not a wose. All woses are wed. That flower is white. Therefore it cannot be a wose.
Scientist: It is a rose. A white rose. Performs some unspecified test which demonstrates that the white flower indeed belongs to the genus Rosa.
IDist: Well, OK then, I acthept that it may be a wose, but you still haven't dithpwoved my theowy. Even you must surely have to admit that it is sort of a bit wed-ish. No, it's not a white rose -- it's just a vewy pale wed wose. You still haven't dithpwoved my theowy. All woses are wed!
Scientist: Now you're just talking bollocks.
IDist: Waaaah! You used a naughty word! Well, that just pwoves it, doesn't it? All woses are wed. I win! Come on, mummy, buy me an ithe cweam!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why can't people just go about their lives and be happy? Spending $27 million just seems silly to "prove" a belief.
In my opinion it just smacks of insecurity in beliefs. You just believe what you want and I'll just believe what I want.
That's it. That's all. Damn people are stupid.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Well, it depends on how you define bible-thumpers. In terms of the creationism "debate," you can go as high as 65 percent of Americans. Its pretty close to a 50-50 split, but the majority of people in America are religious to some degree, and so a lot of that leaks into politics.
what about the carbon dating, does the flood resolve that as well?
Sure it does! Funny things happen underwater. Don't you know about the famous hydraulic time dilution? It comes from young Einstein's famous thought experiment where he contemplated how long he could hold his breath in a rail tunnel. Stuff that was deeper was under more pressure and had greater dilution of C-14. Dinosaurs are more dense, so they sank to the bottom and became coal. What do they teach you kids in school these days?
Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you how the Earth is flat and the sun runs circles around it.
God, please forgive me for the above.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
i thought people were crazy but the J horse thats the best, also that girl with the valoca raptors my new desktop I'm amazed at how far people can go, also i dont like the anti evolution theme, they try to compare and show one is better than the other but idk the pics give a sense of biased, like the pic with the history of the earth, billions of years vs 6k, the evolution ideas some crazy ass line,implying evolutions crazy. These people need to get a job/life honestly. Whats the point of having a life if you cut out everything worth living for. also I love science vs religion religion- we have a book that tells us what happened science - we took the most simplest observations and built up millions of new techniques from them in layers, all of the observations logical and documented, and "repeatable" religion- well we have a book, oh and its been edited thousands of times if you want to see a repeat then be bad HA! then youll see! (while the year 2000 goes by without a hitch) anyway religion if for crazy mofos, and provides all the others with cheap entertainment
Besides, where would Noah find a "decent" priest willing to marry brother and sister to one another? Noah must have just used the Justice of the Peace instead, because obviously a lawyer MUST have been involved in any incest situation, somehow. All the priests alive after the flood had morals you know! One of those slimy lawyers must have been able to tread water pretty well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a Christian, I've been dreading the opening of this museum. It can only undermine what little dwindling respect remains for the Bible and for God.
Not all Christians believe the King James Version is a perfect literal translation, and therefore that earth was created in less than a literal week. Some of us are at least willing to accept that the ancient word translated "day" in Genesis has more possible translations than "a 24 hour period", and dinosaurs never walked among humans.
Another example: their model of the ark isn't just unrealistic, it's unscriptural--the Bible clearly states the ark of the flood was box-shaped. Sure, this might seem like a petty point compared to some of the more obvious and scientific blunders, but it only goes to support the point that this museum is more interested in pandering to neo-Christian tradition than explaining Bible truth.
There are other references to a huge flood in relation to the biblical great flood. The epic of Gilgamesh references a great flood. Wikipedia has others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_(mythology)
It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 in the bible (and other arabic cultures) was used as an uncountable number. 'I cooked dozens of cookies' does not mean that I baked cookies in some unnamed multiple of 12, it means I cooked a lot of cookies. 'I drove a thousand miles to get here' does not mean that I drove 5,280,000 feet, it means that I drove a long way.
The number 40 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_(number) has interesting religious significance. It is mentioned many other times.
When the rest of y'all "sciency" types can explain ultimate origins of the universe in a fashion that is actually *gasp* scientific I will consider believing it. Hypotheses about ultimate origins are just as much religion as Christianity, Islam, Shintoism, et al.
I knew Adam and Eve were white, just like Jesus, and all the other important people in, er, the Middle East.
Nice "spycology" there, bringing up "transposing" of feelings. Projection is the term you want, but it is not the all purpose "I'm rubber, you're glue" kind of rejoinder you're making it out to be. I suggest you read some more books on "spycology" before trying to apply it in a debate. In any case, its a transparent attempt at poisoning the well.
Sorry, but it IS the same science that makes cars, TVs, and all our modern conveniences that says the universe is a certain age. You are no scientist and have no understanding of science. It all hangs together in a vast web of interrelations. If one part of that web were false, it would have ripple effects on all of the rest of science. You can't just isolate the part that says the universe is X years old from the part that, say, lets us make televisions.
No one hates you for your religious views. Get over your Christian persecution complex. Christians control this country and dominate the political and social landscape. You people are not persecuted. We think your religion is stupid, and we think people shouldn't pay any attention to it. That is not the same as hating you.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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where they make up their own "science". I just hope that my wife never wants to drag me there, although it's good to see how other people think.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
The triceratops with the saddle is awesome. That needs to be in a movie. Oh and by they way we are all related, so my wife is actually a far of cousin. I feel dirty and full of sin now.
Can I bum a sig?
If you need to manipulate science (and reality) to make your God fit into it, then your God is too small and weak and you are a fool for worshiping it.
There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other. Apparently there was less sin back then, and therefore fewer mutations in their DNA. Evidently sin, not two copies of the same recessive trait, gives rise to congenital birth defects.
So incest itself is not sin? If they won't be guided by science, you would hope supertition could keep them from harm. The museum seems to demote both mechanisms. Ick.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Indoctrination is exactly what seems to be happening here in the UK with evolution. Many people will say they believe in science and evolution but they haven't much of a clue about why they believe in either or what good scientific principles are. Rather they believe what the media says about what some scientists concluded and have no idea about how they got there or the assumptions made in the process.
If you question evolution, you are laughed at. I've seen plenty of theories and evidence to support both sides, but creationist scientists are the ones who seem to be asking questions and looking at the evidence. Evolution scientists just seem to laugh and belittle anyone who questions it which I don't find is an argument that furthers my scientific understanding. Evolutionists should be thanking the creationists for pointing out the inconsistencies with their theories so they can ditch or develop them.
"Never lose a holy curiosity"
You do realize that your idea is way too intelligent for these people? The morons believe that they humans used to ride vegetarian T-REXs!
The reason they only saw a few dinosaurs, is because most of them are hiding behind the furnerature.
..the dogmatic and presumptuous comments made in response to this article that both mock and belittle those with faith are ridiculous. The idea that one is ignorant or somehow "mis-led" because he or she does not completely accept science's explanation of the natural universe, is one of the most arrogant and foolish thoughts ever conceived. "Professing to be wise, they became fools" - Romans 1:22
If you read Genesis, you'll find a very abstract version of the Big Bang theory of creation. So the Bible supports the Big Bang Theory
In the same general area you'll find a very abstract version of the Theory of Evolution, with its history of life forms evolving over time. So the Bible supports Evolution.
Note that these are VERY abstract versions of those theories. But also note that the target audience had a lot less knowledge of the universe than we have now.
Creationists tend to ignore these similarities with their assumption that a 'day' is twenty-four Earth hours long. They seem to adopt a human-centric viewpoint in order to simplify things, despite evidence to the contrary.
They also adopt a Judeo-Christian viewpoint, ignoring the creation stories of other religions.
At least the Easter Bunny Museum differentiates between fact and fiction and they don't try to impose teaching how the Easter Bunny makes chocolate eggs (since everybody knows that the easter bunny is a monotreme and is a cross between a platypus and Willy Wonka)
The Creationists are just like the Socialists
What, like the socialists who built the UK National Health Service? That was terribly unrealistic and deluded, providing the entire country with reasonable quality health care at about half the price of a private system which leaves tens of millions without cover. That didn't last very long did it? Oh, wait, it's lasted 50 years so far and is now supported by all parties of the left, right and centre because despite people moaning about it the basic idea is incredibly popular.
Also, the state providing free (at the point of use) schools is just as socialist as providing health care surely? So the US is clearly at least partly socialist.
My point? You appear to be confusing communist dictatorships with (democratic) socialist governments/policies. Maybe it's a language thing, like 'Liberal' being a dirty word in the US and not in Europe?
Don't museums usually have something... uhm... real? Something other than pretty pictures and stories made up by some nutjob? The Air and Space Museum has old planes, space craft, moon rocks, photographs of actual events. The Museum of Natural History has fossils, photographic exhibits on life, mineral specimens. It's not a museum if it doesn't actually have a single hard fact is it?! This crap just makes me angry.
In the Bible, Eve wouldn't be wearing any clothes before the fall. I would shoot them an email, but what can you do with religious zealots who don't even know their own religion, really.
The Big Valley Creation Science Museum has recently opened in "Big Valley", Alberta, Canada - just a 3 hour drive from where I live. It has been built awfully darn close (1hr drive) to the REAL kind of museum you would expect to see in this area full of Dinosaur remains
I look forward to visiting BVCSM wearing my "Reality fish eating a Jesus fish" shirt.
You don't get it. It's very simple. You can not sense things outside your mind. Do you think you are seeing the real flag, the real wind? No, you are seeing what your mind has created out of sense impressions. Duh.
It's not about a senior figure. In Buddhism, one is accounted "senior" in any sense only because others all agree that your wisdom is valuable. There are plenty of other stories in Buddhism where the "senior figure" is shown to be a fool, and the cook or the janitor who no one noticed is shown to be wise.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Consider: The energy (and funds) spent on this museum are not being spent on ...
getting school board members elected etc.
Consider:Is this Museum going to change anyones mind? They are preaching to the choir.
I am a Christian, but I don't reject science at all. I'd consider that an insult to God, thinking we know how the universe works better than he does. Modern Christians have made the bad mistake of forgetting how the Bible was written. Most of it was written by eyewitnesses, but even those accounts have changed (albeit more slightly) over time. Genesis was supposedly recorded by Moses. Until then, it was a bunch of Jewish fireside stories passed down for generations. The Jews were slaves at the time, and I think there's no better way to explain something complicated (God's character) through stories. We can extract God's character from the stories, enjoy the stories as stories, and then look to science for how the physical works. Science and religion don't preclude each other. The ONLY thing religion should do to science is say, "and God made it that way." I believe we evolved from dirt (or self-replicating rna), and that life is an inevitability. I personally don't think God had any sort of intervention in our evolution; he simply made the rules by which matter plays, tossed in a massive amount of energy (big bang), and let the universe do its thing! Please don't let this museum form your opinions of Christians as a whole! There are those who think differently!
Always was, always will be. This facility is a manifest reaction to the loss of that control.
What I enjoy, is that creationists spend most of their time on evolution (biology), and a little on geology. They don't bother arguing physics anymore. Have any of these people ever said quantum anything is the work of the devil? No, and here's why.
It is said that people fear what they don't understand; this isn't completely true. In order to fear something, one must understand it at least enough to arrive at the conclusion that "this is bad". Fire burns. Animals attack. The people who would attack quantum theory have such a complete lack of understanding of it that they have no reason to fear it.
Technology is the practical application of science. This building itself was designed by men, using geometry, physics and chemistry, and tools based upon them: pencils, paper, computers, glue, whatever. We know these people are cherry picking facts to justify their beliefs. They are obviously cherry picking their sciences also.
For centuries, every denomination has been cherry picking dogma and doctrine to further their method of controlling the populace. It would be naive to assume they wouldn't cherry pick the science they use to justify the basis of their primitive fears. If the populace fears nothing, it cannot be controlled.
To go completely off topic.
Now, I understand what Bush meant when he said he was a uniter. If you get everyone chasing you down with torches and pitchforks, they will be united. Hmm...
I am so ashamed and embarrassed by this whole display that I am considering atheism.
Your friend, God
Remember the Heavens gate folks? Those suicidal lunatics who thought that the space aliens were traveling behind Halley's comet at least had some mathematical probability for there being other life in space! Also the hateful homophobic tone in some of the exhibits at this "museum" (and the attitude of most religious zealots towards homosexuals) is as disturbing to me as the attitude towards blacks and there civil rights during the civil rights movement. IMHO devout religious "faith" is nothing more than trying to accept the doctrine your being fed of your particular church, minister, other church members,etc and following this doctrine to the upmost of your ability (closer to the doctrine you are = the closer to god). This all must be done despite any evidence that may show the whole thing to be utter bunk and a real estate scam. People who don't question the doctrine (whatever it is) are dangerous (see 9/11 for some examples of devout men in action who never question their Imam).
Stay tuned for an alternative fuels credit rewarding faith-based producers of instant coal per biblical prescription.
Hey, it makes as much sense as some of the "faith-based" social programs...
. . . are no more fixed than they are monopolized by your imaginary *science* locked in a death match with faith for the hearts and minds of feeble men. It indicates that here is a different kind of knowing. It is not that he does not mean what he say, it just doesn't mean what he think it means.
Waoh, different kinds of truth.
illegitimii non ingravare
"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle" ~Francis of Assisi
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But I would hope that they mention that another way the bible can work is by viewing a "day" as a period of time.
Thank you for one of the most cogent posts on the difference between science, faith and morality I've seen on slashdot. I especially appreciate the reference to Kant and Hume. They struggled with this problem for a long time, and I haven't found any argument that would invalidate their conclusions. Sometimes it does pay off to read the classics. :)
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
At least some of the photos used in their posters are stolen from Wikipedia without even acknowledging the photographer or the proper licensing. For example, the photos of the busts of Socrates and Voltaire, which are under Creative Commons licenses. So not only are they intellectually lazy, but also creatively.
Cafeteria Christianity is a pejorative term, used in general to describe individual Christians or Christian churches who selectively follow or believe in the doctrines of their religion, particularly what the Bible states as being the word or will of God. The use of the term suggests that the believers being so described are not as legitimate as other Christians. As cafeteria style means to pick-and-choose, as in choosing what food to purchase from a cafeteria line, the implication of the term "Cafeteria Christianity" is that the individual's professed religious belief is actually a proxy for their personal opinions rather than a genuine interpretation of or spiritual relationship with Christian doctrine or the teachings of Jesus. The selectivity implied may relate to the acceptance of Christian doctrines (such as creationism and the virgin birth of Jesus) or Biblical morality and ethical prohibitions (e.g. a rejection of homosexual acts and dietary laws) and is often associated with discussions concerning the applicability of Old Testament laws to Christians and the Sermon on the Mount.
The label "Cafeteria Christianity" has been used both to encourage more conformity with Biblical teachings and to advocate for less. When used by Conservative Christians, it is often an expression of a preference for a more literal and uniform approach to the Bible, rather than the carefree do-what-you-want theology preferred (as some see it) by Liberal Christians. The term in this sense thus expresses contempt for those viewed as lax in their Christianity.
It is also used by some Christians and skeptics to undermine the advocacy of particular Christian precepts by pointing out the supposed inconsistency of the advocate's position. The logic of such a usage is that someone who has rejected one supposed command of God has little room to argue that another such command should be followed. Thus these individuals observe that some Christians are more than willing to condemn certain behavior on Biblical grounds and yet do not themselves adhere to the Bible in its totality, i.e. a charge of hypocrisy. For an example, see An Atheist argument on Cafeteria Christianity. The counter argument is usually that, according to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 (as well as some Paul's letters), Gentile Christians are not obliged to keep the entire Old Testament Law.
The term Cafeteria Catholic (also à la carte Catholic or CINO = "Catholic In Name Only") is a pejorative or an insulting characterization and is used to describe people who dissent from certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining an identity as Catholics. These people are said to view the Church much like a "cafeteria", where one picks and chooses only those items that appeal to them. The term is typically applied to those who blatently dissent from selected Catholic moral teaching on issues such as abortion, contraception, premarital sex, and homosexuality. The term is less frequently applied to those who dissent from other Catholic moral teaching on issues such as social justice, capital punishment, or just war. Groups labeled as such include Call to Action, FutureChurch, DignityUSA, and Catholics for a Free Choice. Some of those who employ the term in their vocabulary accuse those who view the term pejoratively of believing dissent from the constant teaching of the Church to be a form of devoutness.
It should be noted that the this epithet is not created, used, or endorsed by official church teaching. However, the practice of selective adherence to the magisterium of the church has been repeatedly condemned through the teaching of the Popes:
* In a homily delivered on April 18, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI clarified the relation of dissent to faith:
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Look at it this way, freedom of speech also gives you the freedom to make a fool of yourself, which is what that museum is doing.
t m ) and Yom can mean a day or an eon which is God's time. Could it not be possible that, according to the Bible, that earth was created over several eons?"
Misinformation, like mushrooms grows in the dark and damp, so trying to buy it does no good. It just festers, and finds justification because *THEY* want to smother "the truth" so it's your mission to spread it under *THEIR* noses.
But out in the open, it has no place to hide and no enemy so there is no self-justifying mission. One is forced to have a conversation and examine your views and see the inconsistencies.
But in order to have that conversation, you can't do a Dawkins and try to smother religion. As the saying goes, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.", only this time the "mission" becomes payback (after all, if *THEY* try to smother me, why can't I do it to them?) and entrenching yourself in your own beliefs becomes essential so that you can "do battle". The "fight or flight" response in humanity is still very strong, so don't be surprised if it shows up in the bible thumpers any more than it shows up in you.
The Socratic Method of continual questioning with humility and sincere desire for an answer (and not trying to prove them wrong) is the only way to get through. And if you do it right, you might actually learn something too (the way Socrates often did).
Here's a good conversation starter, "According to the Bible, by the end of the first day, there was no Sun. So the day was defined to be whatever God wanted it to be defined, and just as Adam lived for hundreds of years, so could a day be longer than what we currently know it to be. In Hebrew, the word used in Genesis for Day is "Yom" ( http://www.answersincreation.org/word_study_yom.h
Ok, so they can form coal in a few week, so there is no need to worry about the fossil fuel shortages to come.
Seems like Big Oil and Big Coal should be supporting the creationists...
Let me use a fairly simple example: the six "days" of creation. Literal? not possible -- the physics involved (mass + energy in the form of movement) bringing together the sheer amount of matter contained in the earth's crust and core in a 24 hour period would not result in a planet
You have made the flawed assumption that God is bound by the laws of physics. A creationist would counter "God can do anything, regardless of what science says is possible."
That's why it's useless for a scientist to debate a creationist. They are debating two different worlds - the observable world viewed by science vs. the unobservable world believed in by creationists.
In the creation museum, they're trying to seem a bit more scientific. But in the end it all boils down to faith and "the bible said so."
$8.95/mo web hosting
If so many US citizens are aware of this bullshit going on in their country, why is nothing done?
Only 53% of them believe evolution, that's why.
If that poll doesn't send shivers down your spine, I don't know what could. 53% don't care if their president doesn't believe in evolution. 53%. 53% are basically saying: scientific method = garbage. 53%.
66% believe that God created humans in the last 10,000 years. 66%. Unreal.
It's mind boggling.
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Why would theology and science have to occupy totally different parts of many peoples lives, if they weren't mutually incompatible? Why put a firewall between two belief systems? Because you can't reconcile them! When you apply the scientific method to religious doctrine, the doctrine falls apart and looks ridiculous. So Cafeteria Christians argue that it's better to separate your beliefs instead of integrate them. That is the definition of TABOO. They might as well take it to the next step, and get a lobotomy that cuts their brain cut in half, so one half can believe in science, and the other can believe in religion.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
that's intolerance of intolerance of intolerance, which is wrong
;-)
think of it this way: intolerance is -1
-1 = -1
intolerance is evil
-1 * -1 = +1
intolerance of intolerance is good
-1 * -1 * -1 = -1
intolerance of intolerance of intolerance is evil
etc. simple math
your problem is you view intolerance as a nebulous concept to be bad. but actually what the intolerance is pointed at is the real issue. for example, if you are intolerant of me for my race or sexual orientation or religion, you yourself are intolerant and evil
however, if in return i were intolerant of you BECAUSE OF your intolerance, that would be a good thing. it would be a good thing because it worked AGINST your intolerance... therefore, spreadin gtolerance. get it?
in such a way, intolerance of fundamentalism is a good thing, since fundamentalism is always this kind of exclusionary bigotry, since fundamentalims is always fundamentally intolerant towards others
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The writers of the bible claimed to be inspired by God, but no part of the Bible actually constitutes God's word, not even when Jesus speaks, as our minds rarely remember quotes exactly, and not a single book of the Bible was written by Jesus. I'm tired of the extremists from both sides telling me I can't accept the morality of Jesus without accepting every insane 4000-year-old metaphor given by people who had no word to literally explain what happened even if they knew.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Since when would a bunch of scientist fly a plane into a building because their experiments proved they'd go to heaven and be rewarded by a haram of virgins?
Since everyone is into evidentiary proof, could someone please prove to me the joy, peace, and enlightenment an overwhelming atheist society can bring, by providing me with an example of such. A few widespread cultural atheist examples that I can think of are Hitler's Germany, Communist Russia, and Communist China. Am I missing something?
Actually, they did die. If you find Adam and Eve alive please tell me. The problem is that humans do not think on the same wave level as God. Humans expect things to happen immediately, that's why they react better to immediate punishment. However, as the bible says elsewhere, 1000 years is to God as 1 day. Even the Hebrew term translated day in English carries the conotation of a period of time, not a literal 24 hour day.
And yes, they did become like God. Satan was actually decieving them without explicitly lying. But his intent was to fool them, and so therefore his intent was to lie. Satan said that they would not die, but his "immediately" was implied. On the literal 24-hr day that they ate from the fruit, their bodies began the process of decay that we know today as aging. Their final death happened at some later literal 24-hr day. Basically, Eve was tricked by word semantics.
And I, for one, would NOT like to know what "colonics" is.
also has a porn website. You might be able to see Eve naked there.
photosMy Photostream
5) Am I the only one that finds it odd that a bunch of nutballs who don't even bother to read their own holy book swear that the it is the literal word God even though it was originally written in Aramaic, translated in to Hebrew, then to Latin, then to Greek, and the back to Latin, and then to English? And that's a best case scenario for most of the books of the "Bible".
Wow. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more fundamentally ignorant statement on Slashdot. This translational game of telephone that you're proposing is divorced from all history. Textual transmission is nothing like what you're suggesting. Our English translations are not obtained from Latin texts; they are obtained from the original languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic).
The Old Testament:
Originally written in Hebrew, except for three or four small sections written in Aramaic. The main Hebrew manuscripts we have now is called the Masoretic text, compiled by the Masoretes in the 9th & 10th centuries. It's a Hebrew manuscript, and does not come from any translational lineage. We also have the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament written before the time of Jesus.
The New Testament:
Originally written in Greek. We have that Greek. (We have many manuscripts copied at different times, some dating back to the second century.) We also have the early Latin translation called the Vulgate, but the Greek manuscripts we have did not come from the Vulgate. We have both. We also have some other early translations (e.g. into coptic/Egyptian language).
Now, there are some who think that the NT was originally in Aramaic. This is highly unlikely for much of the NT, written as letters to Greek Christians throughout the Roman empire. It may be more reasonable for the Gospels, and some of the letters written to primarily Jewish Christians. Hey, Luke's gospel account starts out with a statement that he'd sought out many witnesses as his research, and it's entirely likely that some of that was Aramaic.
So even granting Aramaic primacy for all the NT, the chain for the NT is Aramaic-->Greek. We have that Greek. For the OT, it's just Hebrew (with a little bit written in Aramaic). We have that, too. For both, we also have various later translations, but those translations are not part of the lineage that we have now. For instance, there is no Latin in the lineage of our OT manuscripts at all--that was a ridiculous error. (I.e., our Greek manuscripts are copied from earlier Greek manuscripts, back to the originals.) The English translations are from the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, with no lineage of translation except possibly Aramaic-->Greek.
You know,
I am a Christian. I don't disagree with this museum, but I don't necessarily agree with it either. I believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, but I think that there are some things within it that are meant to be symbolic, and other things that are meant to be literal. I don't know how old the earth is. The people who created this museum don't know how old the earth is. And you know what, NO ONE on here, or ANYWHERE on the earth for that matter, knows how old the earth is. I don't exclude the chance that evolution exists. To me, it is more important that God started everything, that He is the creator, then it is to argue and bitch about whether or not creation was as the Bible says, or if the big bang and evolution explain everything.
I am a very open minded person. I have not always been a Christian. I've looked at things from both sides of the fence. I believe that everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. If someone wants to believe that there is no greater being out there that started everything, fine. If someone wants to believe that there is a greater being out there, but instead of being God, its a frog or a cockroach, then so be it. But I do raise this question. What does all the bitching back and forth accomplish? I'll tell you, not a damn thing. Now, I realize that this post is going to open a doorway for all of you to start attacking me. So be it. Y'all claim that Christians are so closed minded. LOOK IN THE MIRROR. Y'all are just as closed minded as we are. "But we have science on our side." Wake up. Science is NOT always right. There are flaws in your so called 'dating methods.' How do you explain there being no great flood when nearly every ancient civilization, if not all of them, has a great flood recorded? Where is your science in that? I guess my point is this, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe, and others believe what they want to believe. Leave it at that. So they want to open a museum up based off of their beliefs. Science has a LOT more then one freakin museum. So you don't believe with the museum. Thats fine. No one is forcing you to go to it. BUT, until you can prove your opinions, based off of science, without ANY doubt (good luck with it, because you can't even get all scientists to agree on everything science related- regardless of if they are Christian or not)then don't sit there and criticize others for believing in God. When we all die, we'll find out who is right and wrong. But, my opinion is that IF I am wrong for being a Christian, then I'll be rotting right next to y'all. However, if Christians are right, then it will be a whole different picture painted when we all die.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
--John 3:16
http://www.youaredumb.net/archive/2007/6/5
You Are Dumb dot net has a great three part series that started Tuesday about this 'museum.' Check it out!
Jon
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
that any discussion of semantics like this is really pointless if you're not going back to the original text. There are actually a number of versions of the creation myth, dating to various times and places. I know that in one (that I believe dates farther back than the one we currently "use") man was created first, and then animals to entertain him, not him last like in the bibles you read today. Anyhow, my point is that for all I know if you go back to the original Hebrew or Aramaic the tree isn't even called the tree of "Knowledge of Good and Evil," and maybe god didn't say it would kill them, he said it would "destroy them" which you could argue it did, in which case he wasn't lying, but the definition of whatever word kill or destroy is actually coming from is what you need (with the appropriate knowledge of the relevant language) to really make a case either way.
So I guess what I'm saying is that most English translations today are trash anyway, because they've been bastardized over and over by people writing what they want something to mean, or mistakenly think it means, or prefer it to mean so it's easier to digest, or doesn't upset anyone, etc etc, so I wouldn't come to any conclusions on what god supposedly did or did not do off of one.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
I want to go to the Creation Museum just to read the graffiti that will inevitably show up on the men's room walls.
"Flush twice, it's a long way to the curator's office," etc.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Whoops, wrong forum.
My take on that is that the trouble with most Creation theory is that it requires that God has powers that are not comprehensible that do NOT obey the laws of physics. The trouble with science is that we don't understand physics [or chemistry , botany, etc. -- or even human nature for that matter] as well as God does, so we assume that what science has documented as knowledge is "the rest of the story" and "all the news that is news" AKA everything important has been discovered.
What if, for example, one of the "God" level powers governs the ability to change the gravitational exerted by matter at a molecular level in a cohesive organized manner (i.e. like the theoretical Star Trek transporter technology here -- convert the matter to a beamable energy matrix, beam it to the destination, and convert it back to the matter stream). Makes all sorts of stuff (planetary creation, parting of oceans, healing the sick, ascensions, heavenly messengers (the greek word is Angels) "flying" in the midst of heaven (AKA unbound by earth's gravitational field)) and other things possible, ya think?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I think you have made the flawed assumption that all creationists believe the bible is literal truth. I think the key points of CodeShark's argument are:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
--John 3:16
"John" is the odd gospel. It is the only one that tries to convince people that Yesu is th son of gOD. Much of the book are supposed to be direct quotes of the magic man, but John was written decades after his death.
"John" is not credible and should not be quoted. Especially John 3:16, which was a "red letter" quote (which would mean that he talked about himself and his death in the third person past tense while he was alive.)
Take a look at this picture and this one. In order to account for the size of the Ark, they had to stick evolution into the equation. Granted, a greatly sped up, God-directed evolution, but evolution nonetheless.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I never understood the fundamentalist insistence on literal interpretation of the Bible. I'm big into art history and one of the observations I made in was the heavy symbolism of the Late Roman/Early Christian era and its impact on the Bible. Some of the symbolism has been lost to time or is obscure. The Fish has been brought back, but how many Christians recognize the peacock as a representation of God? I vaguely remember reading a passage from Revelations about a beast with 1000 eyes. This isn't some hideous late show monster; it's either God himself or a servant of God (the eyes symbolizing God's omnipotence and omnipresence).
What is a day to God? Does the Bible mean that it literally took 24 X 6 hours to create the Earth? Probably not.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"I pretty much came to the conclusion that yes, Christianity was perfectly logical and justified given one base axiom that the bible is infallible"
Interestingly, starting from the same premise of the Bible's infalibility, I came to the conclusion that it is utterly illogical. For instance (and there are many examples, not just this one) contrast John 1:18 ("no man hath seen God at any time") with the Adam and Eve Story, the Abraham story, the Lot story, the Jacob story, the Moses story, and the Jesus story.
You are confusing corralation for causation and making an argument from ignorance. That, for example, Chairman Mao was atheist has not been shown to be the cause of his actions as a dicatator. If such were true, then it could be said that all Seventh Day Adventists are cult leaders because David Koresh was one.
Additionally, lack of precedent does not indicate impossibility. That you can not imagine how a society, that is not permeated by religion, can be peaceful, joyous, and enlightened does not preclude it from occurring, or having occurred.
So, unless you are planning on proving that the failures in Hitler's Germany, USSR, and Communist China are a direct result of atheism your argument holds no water.
http://forums.randi.org/register.php?referrerid=7
You can say the same things about atheist things like communism - or any other ideology, including radical greenies/environmentalism. It's humanity, stupid. Stop blaming religion for all of the world's problems. It is the nature of humanity and without religion it would be something else.
Man, and you would think that "brilliant" self righteous prideful atheists such as yourself would have figured that out... The story of the Tower of Babel was written about people like you. I find the irony amusing that I get to tell you that.
"There was also an explanation as to why, with only one progenitor family, it wasn't considered incest for Adam and Eve's children to marry each other.'
What about "the other people"?
The Bible clearly states that there were other people around who were not from the garden of Eden.
It's just the the xtians IGNORE this "inconvenient" truth in their own book!
See... no incest needed, and I'm not even xtian and I know that.
Stupid gits ought to read their own damn book!
As an actual Christian, I'm a little irked by such things as this.
:/
One one side we have the "scientists" who claim all the trillions of happy circumstances just *happened* to organized into the perfectly-balanced biosphere complete with plants, animals, and energy sources. Yeah, because robot-trucks run into battery trucks on the highway and we're always chasing robots trying to wash windows for money.
On the other side we have Christians so blinded by tradition, not the truth, that look at almost 300 means of dating systems (not just carbon dating) and say that "the Earth is only 6,000 years old" while standing next to a fjord in Norway with 30,000 layers of snow and (summertime) dirt.
Why is it so hard to believe that apes once played a part in the development of man? Why is it so hard for scientist to look at the "big bang" and reason that everything that _starts_ has a reason?
It was Usher in 1530 or so that reasoned through the book of Numbers and guessed at the 5,000 year total. But as well-intentioned as he was, he was wrong.
But while the Bible doesn't give a play-by-play on each of the 16+M animal's development, it *does* summarize the development of plants, and that matches the fossil record. It *does* offer the form-factor of sea-going vessels a long time before the rest of the community of mankind figured it out.
And if there's one thing the Bible tells us, it's how we can live a happy, fulfilled life. In fact it's a huge part of it. When we act in ways that aren't part of the intended "scope" of this human animal, misery is the result. Cocaine, hurtful, betraying sex outide of marriage, ignoring the plight of widows, taking the virginity of young people.
These aren't capricious entries in a checklist- this is the 'handbook' for this human animal.
And the obfuscation of just what the message is, helps no one. Science and Christianity serve each other...not deny each other.
See http://doesgodexist.com/ for more details. Or get "The Privelaged Planet" DVD to see all the details.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Thank God! Literally, I guess.
Really, so a bunch of what I consider to be misguided people created a museum that supports their views. As a Buddhist, I am cool with that. I also do not honestly think that anyone who goes there will have their minds or opinions changed regarding their beliefs. People will either go to mock, disprove, or to believe it. However, if one wants to promote the interchange of ideas, one *needs* places like this so that if people ask what are the alternatives to say evolution or what have you, you can steer them to the other place where the alternatives are espoused.
My point is this, let people decide for themselves--if the want to believe that the universe was created by God/a god/gods/whatever LET THEM! This debate is pointless. I am as about as unlikely to be shaken from my belief in karma as any Christian is to be shaken from their faith in God--its theoretically possible, but it takes effort!
However I think a lot more good would have been done by devoting that $27mil. to charitable works--but that is another rant.
Behold! Uh, what was I going to say?
Nice generalization. Your ancestors probably pushed Jews into ovens because once, a long time ago, one Jew stole something from them. You're a scumbag.
My argument isn't that atheism causes societies to support mass murdering tyrants.
It just seems to me that there is an assumption that if human societies just stopped propagating religion, then many social ills would be resolved. If that's not the case, then why argue for atheism over theism.
If that is the case, why isn't there any evidence that an atheist populous would result in a better society? What is that argument based on? Theory? Hypothesis? Faith?
I looked through all of those pictures, and not once did I see the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This place is obviously lying to the public.
It's not an issue of tolerance (and I agree that you can be religious and tolerant at the same time), it's an issue of people being so deeply immersed in their religion that they'll believe insanity like this Creation Museum stuff. And whenever something like this pops up (with some exceptions), it's more than likely somewhere in the midwest or the south somewhere.
And for the record, I lived in Central NY state for 24 years, and i'm now in Virginia. Plus I still have relatives in Kentucky & Ohio, so i'm somewhat familiar with the general area of the museum. Luckily I don't think any of them are the type to waste time on something like this, even the deeply religious ones.
It actually did send a shiver down my spine. That's some fucked up shit. But it explains a lot......
You are just fucking creepy.
Take your death cult and go to Hell will you, we don't need your death and destruction around these parts anymore.
"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh."
All the pumping's nearly over for my sweet heart,
This is the one for me,
Time to meet the chef,
O boy! running man is out of death.
Feel cold and old, it's getting hard to catch my breath.
's back to ash, now, you've had your flash boy
The rocks, in time, compress
your blood to oil,
your flesh to coal,
enrich the soil,
not everybody's goal.
Anyway, they say she comes on a pale horse,
But I'm sure I hear a train.
O boy! I don't even feel no pain-
I guess I must be driving myself insane.
Damn it all! does earth plug a hole in heaven,
Or heaven plug a hole in the earth-
Hhow wonderful to be so profound,
when everything you are is dying underground.'
I feel the pull on the rope, let me off at the rainbow.
I could have been exploding in space
Different orbits for my bones
Not me, just quietly buried in stones,
Keep the deadline open with my maker!
See me stretch; for God's elastic acre
The doorbell rings and it's
"Good morning Rael
So sorry you had to wait.
It won't be long, yeh!
She's very rarely late."
Right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, considered or ill conceived, why don't you leave these people alone. The simple fact that stories about this keep appearing on the font page of a "News for Nerds" techie site speaks volumes. I for one am quite tired of the mindless cliche Christian bashing this site and many others do.
There is absolutey no relation between Tom Cruise and science. There is, though, some relation between the Museum and religion.
I chuckle every time I hear about the latest Bin-Laden(TM) tape calling for the destruction of the decadent West. The very same West that created the marvels of technology his organization uses to spread its venom around the world - the portable video recorder, internal combustion engines, VCRs, the internet, PCs and all the electronics there in.
This "museum" is not much different. It uses all the spoils of modern science and technology to attempt to refute the very foundations of the science it uses to make its "point". Everything from the internal combustion engine (how else are the pilgrims going to get there?), the ticketing machines, their LCD screens, the electric motors and control electronics in their juvenile animatronic displays, the plastic of their prematurely modest Eve, the blinkin' lights and LEDs, the A/C and the power to run the whole show.
Personally, my favorite symbol of these people's intellectual bankruptcy is the tiny LED - ubiquitous and utterly taken for granted by every last one of these "believers" and yet it exists solely as a result of science and its concepts - they very concepts they so dearly seek to oppose.
God: I was looking at those! : /
"Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive?"
I hate to say it, but I find that belief of unproven "non-western" therapies even more disturbing than fundamentalism. I've had discussions with folks that are decidedly atheist, intelligent, slashdot reading sceptics, yet buy into this pseudo-medicine quackery lock, stock, and barrel. I believe it's a reaction to a "science will make everything better, come on trust us, it's better than nature" line that companies will spew when a new drug, ag product, household chemical comes out. It's based on a lack of trust and almost replaces religion. Proponents of these alternatives prey on the desperate and disenfranchised, coming at them with the fervor of a zealot. It's scary. As the parent of a 6 year old autistic boy, I've been hooked myself. My thought being, "What have I got to lose? It'll either work or it won't." When it doesn't work, I realize that I've wasted time, money and energy on a worthless therapy when there is plenty of proven effective treatments that I could have chosen. Desperation breeds stupidity.
Superstition ain't the way.
An excellent con would be to form a "Christian" Oil Exploration company that will use flood geology and hire flood geologist. Then attempt to sell shares to the gullib^h^h^h^h faithful. The promotional material must promise huge returns while showing up the evilutionists and old earth geologist. It is an idea that would make millions.
Speaking of geology. I always like to show YEC this picture and ask which deposition layer represents the flood layers
There has been some recent discussion that the T. Rex might have done a lot of swimming...
That said, your basic premise is correct.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Something like 95% of the worlds people believe in some kind of higher power (source Contact, yeah, laugh-it-up). So let us assume that 95% of deranged people also believe in a higher power - seems likely. Well, now you have the source of all your problems with religion: people's confusion.
Religion is really about seeking truth in one's life. It goes beyond science in that it uses mysticism. While some might argue that mysticism isn't an improvement on science (it doesn't pretend to be), this argument is disingenuous: belief that science is "beyond" mysticism is, itself, mysticism.
Religion is responsible for the supression of my rights, the mutilation of my body and of millions of other people (males and females alike), the pyschological damaging of millions of people, the death of even more millions, the cause of untold wars, the supression of sceicen and progress.
While that is definitely true, that doesn't mean the scientifically minded people haven't done ignorant things. The sheer number of religious people (in comparison), just makes it more likely that ignorant activities are going to be executed by religious people. For example, it was the early beginnings of genetics that were used by the Nazi party to postulate that they were a master race. This reasoning was used as justification to murder disabled people.
Religion thinks it should force everyone to be compliant to it's wishes.
That is simply untrue. Some religious people think that, and some people think the world would be better off without religion... because of their mystical beliefs about the true nature of things
By now humanity should have had enough of this shit, but I'm continually depressed by how mindlessly guillable other humans are and they cede their intellectual sovereignty to religion.
By knowing something already, one will never connect with what's really going on, simply because they've already forsaken their senses and reason for a mental construct that they've previously created in their mind. This can take a lot of maintenance - because it can become very hard to shake loose of constructions that one has already assumed to be true. In short, by knowing-something-already, you cede your intellectual sovereignty. By not-already-knowing something, you can open your mind to what is actually there. You open your mind to actually knowing something. You open your mind. Thereby, you inherit your birthright, which is your intellectual sovereignty. Religion doesn't need to enter the picture.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
And feel free to read the book.
What I think is ironic here is the fact that the Creation Museum is open 7 days a week!
Coming to you live from another dimension.
So the importance of those five verses isn't about a foolish interpretation of what one "day" means -- it is that there is a much more powerful, intelligent being that could place a planet with the correct attributes in the exact right place in a solar system so that "life" as we know it could begin and then flourish -- and that everything else comes after.
Fine, what you're describing is some sort of hyper-able and hyper-advanced species or race or being who can make planets. However, you better have a good explanation as to where this being came from... and also, what is the being made of, who can manipulate things in the universe. Even if the universe itself spawned a superbeing such as one who could make and seed entire planets, it would still be a product of the universe and be bound by its laws; it would be a byproduct of it, which fails to explain where the universe itself came from. Unless 'God' created the universe, he isn't really a god, but a logical conclusion based on the rules of a universe whose genesis is independent of this god.
You may not be fitting your views to the Bible as I stated in my previous post. But you are definitely starting as your yardstick the 'creator' must exist, therefore let me posit a universe that could be created by a creator. The reason why scientists do not pursue a creator model is because it doesn't fit what we observe about the universe. Also, because there is no objective, repeatable evidence of such a being.
drop that there 'must' be a creator for a minute. Science believes in a 'big bang' based on background radiation levels and other measurements. Therefore the universe had to exist in some sort of incredibly small, matter poor state. before the big bang, where did the creator 'live'. did he occupy space? there are no good answers. that's why scientists are not modeling and forwarding ideas about a creator.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Kids are pretty smart. When I was at high school our physics teacher believed that the earth was only 6000 years old, so ... we used to get him to talk about it so we could all have a good laugh. Despite the fact that he wasn't a great teacher, I still really liked the subject. I suppose the low level (secondary school) physics didn't conflict too much with his beliefs, plus, he would probably have gotten the sack.
Anyway, at $20 a head, this really sounds like another get rich quick scheme .... and the creationists are the suckers who are going to fund them.
It outside the scope of science to determine the "Who?" and "Why?" of the origin of Earth and the origin of life.
This is completely a legitimate function of science, to identify causality of phenomenon. Why is it outside the scope of science? If we can use science to unlock the function and meaning of our own bodies and their components, why can't we apply the same sort of discovery to our entire planet? Why is examining bacteria bound by one rule, but examining our very existence and nature bound by others?
For every animal we study, for every storm we track, for every electromagnetic field we describe, we are determining a very small piece of the entire fabric of what makes up the universe. and part of that universe is us, and our planet. And I see no reason to analyze plants and animals one way, and the cosmos in another.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
No you don't. "The big bang, and evolution, invalidates a literal interpretation of the Old Testament, especially Genesis.
Genesis -> Eve -> Sin -> Jesus -> Salvation = Christianity.
A symbolic interpretation of Genesis invalidates Christianity. This is why all Christians have to believe in creation pseudo science."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFcZUe0ADpY
>The US looks more and more like Iran or the Taliban.
The funny part is that the *actual* Taliban really doesn't
bother you guys. Actual, murderous barbarians are
just bogeymen that we aren't supposed to be worried
about, right? They're not a real threat, right?
We see evolution every day. Actually, there are very simple ways to prove it. Have you seen a Black woman have a white kid? People look like their fathers. All of Latin America is a living proof of evolution. We are the result of a mix of cultures. We are a new kind, just less than 500 years old, product of genetic evolution.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Just replace the planet hurtling by the earth and the moon with the building of the museum...
Exhibit A!
- S
Enter a post-modern leaning, conservative/liberal often unsure about a lot of things, but deeply grounded, some may say stuck in his beliefs, humanist who studies medieval literature, Christian.
Ok, that might scare a few people a way or attract a few, but you should know where I come from. I've just been studying Thomas Aquinas's views on literal and metaphorical language, themselves taken from Dioyniuis' Celestial Hierarchies, which means what I'm going to talk about is pretty close to the birth of Christianity, though Aquinas articulated the version I have somewhere in the scholastic movement.
Basically, Aquinas almost argues that literal and metaphorical language can look really similar, too similar for good in talking theology, but he knows its all over the Bible. What does he do? He says figurative language is good because it can make us see that it is figurative, lest we accidentally take it for literal. Which means that the problem is not writing in figurative language, even though that means some sort of circumlocution, but rather that what we think is literal language may not be. That's pretty cool from my literary theory point-of-view.
But once we take this, then we find a newer, better problem to deal with, in Prima Pars, Question 1, article 10, he articulates a difference which we seldom, and problematically, often fail to make clear today. There is a literal sense to his interpretation of Scripture which is vastly different from the literal language he has just been talking about. Literal sense of Scripture he describes like this. We come across the figurative language of "God's Arm" in the Bible. Aquinas takes this as figurative language, the literal sense of which is to say God's operative power. Now that's just the opposite of what we normally think is literal. And this is just the point we can easily forget.Just because something isn't literal on the language level doesn't mean their isn't a actually a thing which it is still describing. When we conflate these two, we end up not communicating too well. When people say they take the bible literally we should think about which literal they mean. When we complain that someone is taking literal what doesn't seem like it is, we should again think about this distinction.I myself take Scripture as literally true, but I may not think it means the same thing as others, who might say the same thing and mean something totally different, as well as believe something totally different. Because this "literal sense" which I refer to is often not exposed, even in many theoretical writings today, it's left wide open, at least so my lit theory prof told me; and so we get into a confusing mess. All I'm really trying to say here is that someone can take things literally but still not take the language as literal.
So, here's the two problems all mixed together: people take metaphorical language as literal and totally miss the point. So, according to Thomas, they might think that God literally had an arm, which in his theology, maybe not mine, was a total contradiction. It wouldn't work at all, since God is not substance... no need to get into all that here. The thing is one can take the Bible literally as in the way Thomas did, but not take it literally at the same time. That is the language itself can be layered in metaphor while the truth it reveals, or seems to conceal, is only accessible if we make a bit of a leap.
I'm not saying this is the best way to deal with all this, but does provide a helpful distinction between taking the creation story literaly (language level), versus historically (whatever things actually did happen, be it a big bang or something else) which is the literal sense (which may be different that what seemed like the story, when we read the language as literal language). I, myself, am still dubious of such a position, since it seems a little arduous to get through and like a bit more random pseudo philosophy to explain what really pretty much anybody lacks the language to really talk about, since none
Puh-leez. I wasn't going to respond anymore to this thread, but I'll go ahead and bite. That's a silly argument. You're blanketing all Christians with being the type who read the Bible 100% literally. This is simply not the case. Many denominations actually encourage the scholarly interpretation of the various conflicting--yes conflicting--aspects of the Bible. Christian != Southern Baptist != Catholic != Presbyterian != etc. etc. You're proceeding from a false premise.
u-bend
All that jazz you typed is all fine and dandy.
when people in this thread are saying 'literal interpretation of the bible', they mean
in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical
(first definition of the word).
People are demonstrating at this creationist museum that if you could build a time machine, the furthest you could go back is 6000 years. If you went back 5999 years, 350~ days, they are saying, with a straight face, that there were two humans living in a perfect garden. This is indisputable, see the photos. They created a full size display saying it is the case.
I myself take Scripture as literally true, but I may not think it means the same thing as others
Then you are quite simply misusing the word 'literal'. What you think about a meaning of a word doesn't change what the word actually means. You can obfuscate all you want with the writings of Thomas Aquinas. I bet the guy wrote some insightful stuff about the literature of the bible. But the question is simple: Do you believe that the bible retells, in specific detail, the actual events of 6000 years ago? And for the museum creationists, the answer is an emphatic yes.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I agree that determining causality is legitimate function of science. I never meant to imply that we cannot apply this to any and all parts of the universe.
There is a subtle difference between asking "How was the earth created?" and "Why was the earth created?". The first question can (in theory) be answered by science, while the second falls in the realm of religion or philosophy. Short of God scheduling a press conference about his motivations, we can't even begin to address "why" through scientific methods.
The other question, "Who created the earth?" is something no human can answer (without reliance on "personal beliefs") because none of us were there.
I don't mean to knock science. It has been crucial in the development of human society and is certain to remain so in the future, but to think that "Science can answer any question" is a complete misunderstanding of what it can (and should) be used for.
Adam and Eve were placed on earth by the Universal father to uplift the genetics of the inhabitants of earth. The offspring of Adam and Eve were to go out and then breed with the peoples of earth, giving them the opportunity to jump ahead in evolution. They got kicked out of the garden because Eve fell in love with a dirt person(regular earthling) and they had sex, this was forbidden by the Universal Father because for one reason or another.
Lucifer is not evil, he was kicked out of the club because he wanted to give the true information about why and how earthlings came about and didnt agree with the Universal Father about keeping the truth from the earthlings, he felt that the mud people on earth had a right to know about there universal history. The great default was when Lucifer destroyed the wormwhole so that the Universal superbeings could no longer interfere with earth.
LOL
I am not at all sure that the physical laws are more expressive than peano arithmetic. If the universe is bounded in space and time, and has finite "resolution" (i.e. nothing can be smaller than a Planck length or some similar small length), then there are a finite (if large) number of numbers that can be expressed using the material in the universe.
So the physical laws could be both consistent and complete, because they're weaker than those required for Goedel's proof to apply.
A book about ethics my ass:
.... what ethic is this again? Vengeance? Sorry that's not an ethic. It's not a moral, either. In fact it's part of the bloody side of Christianity.
From Psalm 137:
8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
Yes praise him who smashes your infants against the rocks
Even if recent times have civilized the Catholic and other Christian churches, let's not forget about the crusades, various genocides (bye bye pagan tribes), the inquisitions and witch-burnings and the centuries (continuing on today) of misogyny that this little book has inspired.
Of what ethics do you speak?
This sig contains a manual self-destruct. Kindly please put your foot through your monitor in 8 seconds.
Copernicus was a Roman Catholic who was encouraged by his bishop to spread his research about heliocentrism. Galileo ran into trouble because of remarks he made about the hope - politics was the problem, not science. I don't recall Da Vinci running into any problems re: science and religion
If I read one more "no christian ever persucuted anyone evar" post, it'll be the millionth too many.Copernicus: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161
Leonardo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4289204.stm
The churches stood in the way of science throughout their histories, that's a fact, and your attempted whitewashing of history won't change it.
You can't take the sky from me...
I agree with what you're saying. I think it has been a danger throughout human history to think "Something I don't understand and can't explain is 'magic'". This is the same as saying "We don't know how God could have created the Earth, so that means God must not have to follow the laws of physics."
Now that we have science we realize that there is no "magic", so anything outside the human understanding must be a lie. ("We don't know how God could have created the Earth, so that means God didn't create the Earth.")
We've traded one logical fallacy for another, but the truth is that not knowing how something works doesn't really tell us anything useful. Maybe someday we'll realize that it's better to acknowledge that we don't know everything about the universe than to make conclusions based on the fact that we don't know.
After reading your point in the following sentences I felt I had to show you how your argument is indeed flawed (and very basic research in the early part of Genesis proves this), first I'll quote the sections in point:
...apparently anything can be twisted enough to justify a religious rather than scientific or logical reason for something.
That got me thinking, if the caller was upset about the "me first" generation then he should certainly have a problem with the biggest "me first"er of them all: God.
After all, God says that there will be only one God, him (her/it/whatever), that you must follow his rules and you must give thanks to him. If that isn't self-centered, I don't know what is.
The passage being as below (in the NIV):
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 (context being Genesis 1:26-28, where first God says what He plans to do and then actually does it in the quoted verse, emphasis mine)
The key here being that if you are created in the image of something (in this case Image of God), giving worship to anything that is contrary or not in line with that image is contrary to essentially the likiness in which you were made, and consequently would actually be bad for you as well (like how salt makes fresh water salty such that it is no longer fresh water). You could attempt to call it selfish, but if you were to be made in the image of something, wouldn't you want to be made in the image of the most perfect being in existence? You should really feel honored that God didn't mind creating people in His own image. The real selfishness would be to deny and work against the image in which you were made which is exactly why God says He is the only God. Much like how a family would be disgraced by a member of the family who does something completely contradictory to the beliefs and values that the family stands for.
Indeed, much like your argument in the above section was able to be proven false by use of some very basic research. Remember, if there appears to be a contradiction you may need to perform some more research (especially in the context!) before you conclude that there is a contradiction.
I do not remember a lot more about the bible than the fact that it had a blue cover.
But basic rational thinking can solve this mystery:
>I think one of the best examples given by that site is this:
>GE 2:17 Adam was to die the very day that he ate the forbidden fruit.
>GE 5:5 Adam lived 930 years.
Sometime during his 931st year after birth, Adam strolled by a fruitstand tended by a sales-snake on commission, accepted a free apple, ate it and died from food poisoning. No wonder, since, as he and his spouse were the only customers around, the apple may have been rotting in the cellar for 930 years, and they had no experience to tell a foul from a fresh one.
Where is the problem?
Moral: "There is no such thing as free lunch!"
Hey, in all fairness, I believe in some chiropracty (is that a word)? I threw out my back a few years ago while helping a college buddy move. The pain was worst at night; I'd take some Flexeril and Aleve right before bed and it'd recede enough that I could get 3 or 4 hours of sleep. After that, though, I was wide awake and in tears.
So, after going to a few MDs of various specialties with no real results (just more Flexeril), I finally took my dad's advice and went to his chiropractor. He ran one of those dubious meters they talk about on Quackwatch up and down my spine, said aha!, had me lay down, and popped my back. I almost fainted from the pain but then it got a little better. That night, I got my first solid night's sleep in months, and by the next day I was completely over it.
I claim no knowledge of the workings or theory of chiropractors, but in my case, one particular doctor absolutely fixed me. I know that some of them have some bizarre theories like a misaligned back causing cancer and things like that, but there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that at least some of them know what they're doing.
I love modern medicine - ask my wife, a surgeon - but that doesn't mean that there aren't any worthwhile ideas outside med school. Well, not homeopathy; that's just stupid.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That is true, but there is also no objective, repeatable evidence that such a being does not exist. Why do you suppose scientists are so vehement about the non-existence of God? If they are objective, they should acknowledge that they cannot disprove a "creator model".
At the risk of being modded Flamebait, I have to ask... What if Scientists (with a capital S) worship Science and vigorously oppose viewpoints in which Science is not the center of all human understanding? Could they not be seen by an objective observer as behaving quite similarly to those who take the Bible as literal fact?
Now think about the state of science in Galileo's time. Everyone believed the Earth was the center of the universe would not even consider any other possibilities. Galileo risked everything to just to talk about a different model of the universe.
A reasonable person should realize that it is quite possible that the way we view the universe now may not be the same as how we will view it 100 or 500 or 1000 years from now. Why can't we admit that science has limits?
I heard that they ARE going to put up a Flying Spaghetti Monster museum next to this one. It's tentatively going to be called "The Olive Garden".
This picture from the article, is of an ancient Torah scroll "snuck out of", or as the police call it "stolen", from Iraq. Maybe the Interpol Iraqi Art Taskforce should be notified.
You are quite right. And I certainly think that simply playing around with words makes an all too easily defeated argument. But arguments aside, many people do use it the way I do in theoretical circles and theological circles,(though probably few of those who created the museum do, which you are quite justified to point out. And for me , that is the problem.) but primarily it gets used to mean the relative opposite of that. I actually had a discussion about this with my prof, Paul Fry, who informed me that there are many problems in theoretical writing where people conflate the two types of literal. What Thomas was calling attention to, I think, would be helpful if many people, not just on this site, had a chance to think about. The term //literal// can be confusing, and often in several post-modern discussions the term seems entirely useless since what it refers to may not actually exist. But what the discussion at hand boils down to is exactly how one does interpret the question you laid out.
But the question is simple: Do you believe that the bible retells, in specific detail, the actual events of 6000 years ago? And for the museum creationists, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The creators of the museum would say, apparently, yes. But they first made the assumption that the Bible's account of creation speaks of, and specifically tells of, events 6000 years ago. Last I read the passages, there's a long chronology of people and their children which count up the years from Adam's birth/beginning of existence. And a passage which places Adam's creation in a particular day. But the assumption that his beginning occurred in a time less than seven 24 hour periods after the creation of the world I have a hard time with. That's a rather large assumption for me. (So I'm one of those people who question what //day// means in Genesis before the sun existed, which makes me think //day// has a figurative use.) And indeed for those who say that the passages are figurative but refer to a literal truth which is possibly obscured it is such assumptions which seem to cloud our understanding. Finally, I'm not even sure the question above actually frames a literal interpretation of the Bible, even given the more common definition of literal.
Further, the assumption that Adam was exactly a lone man in a total wilderness of nothing like himself also seems a little dubious. But if we were to think that the whole process was describing something only like what its talking about, which I and many would argue is always the precondition for language, (Though Thomas might not have agreed, I think Augustine would have.) the whole story becomes its own linguistic figure revealing and maybe concealing its intended meaning. Is no language literal? Is any language literal? Well, that's a problem that's far too worn-out for any interesting discussion. But as for theology, and this discussion, to keep it on topic, I find that most people who say they take it literally in the way you defined it here, actually take it more like what I defined, but would never say so. Or more accurately, when confronted with poetry in the Bible they would side with the "literal sense," the way I outlined above, when confronted with what doesn't seem so literary they would side with literal language, the way you defined it. For me, such a practice may be too selective. And the Bible may be far more literary than often thought of. Such is not a problem for me, though for some it could be.
I do think it would be fun to continue discussing conceptions of literality and figurative language, I'm not sure there is a good consensus on what these things are or are not, and thought I would bring up something which does just that. Thomas questions what exactly is literal, though often never goes so far as to doubt literal truth somewhere in the whole mix of things.
To bring it back to science, I think it would be immensely helpful to get a greater consensu
OK I won't "make science [my] God" if you won't make religion your God.
Deal?
Alright - I can understand that Eden might be too explicit for today's horny Christian - but why put Eve in a European dress?
They could have just put masking tape over the mannequin genitalia and they still would have had more coverage than many bikinis.
Even hardcore Christians should be scratching their heads at this particular display.
And why is Eve's skin so friggin white?
I am both an amateur scientist (been working in high-tech for 30 years) and a Christian. I believe in Creation, but I also believe that if there is a Supreme Being that could create the earth and all in it in 6 days (though Genesis notes that TIME had not been created until after the 3rd day) that such a Being could also have made it look a lot older than it is. So whether there were dinosaurs or when they lived or how they died, whether the Earth is 6000 years old or 6 Billion years old really isn't all that relevant to me or many Christians - it doesn't change the really important stuff about why Jesus came to live among us.
Does that imply that god has some companions up there? Who are they, and where did they go?
Sounds like a setup for a sequel.
What I don't understand is how creationists can believe two contradictory creation stories to both be true. As far as I'm aware, Genesis chapters 1 and 2 provide two completely different creation stories, which cannot possible both be right. And yet, creationists somehow convince their minds into believing two mutually exclusive things.
I am seriously confused.
Surely if you are to take the Bible as God's word, then isn't God saying right at the very start that His word is not literal truth?
Maybe I just remember those chapters wrong; it has been about a decade since I read them.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I was just arguing that a very large animal can survive on plant matter alone. Furthermore, T-Rex's body might have been suited in part to help it adapt in the water. The tendency towards small forearms is common in animals that have become more aquatic than their ancestors. (Note: the latter supposition is both new and not widely accepted. However, neither should it be considered "fringe".)
Please, please don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not arguing that T-Rex was ever a vegetarian. The part about the teeth is absolutely true. I just felt like getting picky. ;)
I'm no longer sure about this. It might have swam down other large creatures. I mean, just look at those pathetic forearms! (I'm also not a paleontologist.)
Here are two interesting articles on T-rex:
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I thought what it means to be a Christian was settled by the various Ecumenical Councils. Specifically Councils one through seven. If you just follow the teachings of Christ but do not subscribe to the beliefs expressed in the first seven councils, the rest of Christianity considers you to be a heretic.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
this is absolute idiocy. someone needs to publically humiliate these people.
So according to this place everything was vegetarian before sin. So are they advocating vegetarianism? That would be rather interesting since many people stereotype vegetarians as left-wing pinko commies. On the other hand, if they don't advocate vegetarianism, why not? Since meat eating only came about once sin was created, it would seem that eating meat would be associated with sin in some way (if not sinful in an dof itself since that is the kind of logic they seem to use).
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
See this story for more detail on the museum's choice of actor to play Adam, and his real life sexual exploits.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
... can be found here. I believe that the whole notion of a global flood is ridiculous even if you take the Bible literally! There are plenty of contextual clues in the Biblical text that the flood cannot be truly global.
Regarding the Biblical account of the flood- where'd all that water come from, and where did it go?
Religion as scapegoat for atrocities that would have happened anyway? Explain the Crusades then. As I wrote in the section you carefully edited out, the Christian kingdoms prosecuting a Crusade could not possibly have profited from it, because the holy lands were much too far away. So why did the Crusades happen, if not for religious reasons?
Face it, a large church behaves a lot like a multinational business and competes in many of the same ways -- up to and including the incitement of warfare whenever that would be profitable.
But even if you were right about scapegoats, the world would still be better off without religion. Because a holy appeal is the first and probably still the best way to manipulate the emotions of a large crowd; and therefore any religion is a huge intensifier of conflict. The last thing a nuclear world needs is another reason to fight, which is why we would be far better off without the priests, mullahs, and rabbis.
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." --- Diderot
But if you're sure it's an extra and not a star, let's point out the bible-inaccurate shape of their arc instead.
You can't take the sky from me...
National Geographic has a story on it. If you'll notice, the article says that there is evidence that they were swimming (not wading) in 3m deep water, but that evidence that they were swimming in deeper water would necessarily be absent (if the water is deep enough that they don't leave tracks, then there are no tracks, and it's really hard to study the absence of tracks). Futhermore, other research I've read (I can't find it right now) mentioned that their small forearms were sometimes indicative of species that were adapting to a more aquatic lifestyle. Not conclusive, but definitely an interesting hypothesis (with semi-aquatic, not full-blown aquatic, being the hypothesis). Additionally, with their body shape they couldn't run very fast. If they stumbled at high speeds, their arms wouldn't be able to stop the accompanying 6g deceleration rates.
Also, you'll note that I did couch my original statement with the safety word "might". I'm definitely not claiming this is a settled issue, or even a widely accepted issue - just an interesting new theory. Again, I'm no expert, and I'm not even reading the original journal articles.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why can't it be both? I've never understood that. It's only really naive people who take the biblical creation story completely literally, especially when it's been translated so many times from the original. For example, when it says that the earth was created in six days that doesn't mean six twenty-four-hour periods. God could have just as easily taken his sweet time and created the world over millions of years (after all he invented everything that we use science to try and figure out), but try explaining that to people 2000 years ago...
They almost lost me with the overly-clothed Eve, but won me over again: screw science, I wanna ride a triceratops!
Are you trolling? You know that the cambrain explosion occurred some 500 million years ago?
Yet Religion will NEVER be there
Irrelavent. Fix the evo house and forget about what *they* do. You sound like my children who are quick to point out when their sibblings F up but downplay their own faults. "Nah nwa, well, he did it tooooo, nwa".
Why does this concept trip up everybody here?
Table-ized A.I.
Having only read a tiny amount on the origions of modern monotheism in Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian myth, it still becomes pretty obvious that most of what many millions of people have foughten and died for was another man's entertainment.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not sure exactly what this means, but the online Creation Museum store appears to only sell propaganda -- DVDs, books, etc. about creationism or de-bunking science. I was hoping to order a t-shirt, but no such luck. Anybody want to take a stab at what it means when a museum only tries to hype its point of view, but won't sell t-shirts, keyrings or other doo-dads?
Actually I know the real truth: I (yes me) created the universe about 30 seconds ago (Fri Jun 8 16:44:24 PDT 2007) I'll give $1000 to anyone who can prove me wrong.
So if it's "factually correct" based on the science of economics to, euthanize people with an IQ under 60, in order to create a more efficient and productive society, that would be OK with you?
And besides aren't atheist making a value judgment when they argue that to raise a child in a theistic belief system is "bad" for the child...
Yes. You'll remember that Hitler burned the Jews. Actually anyone he found who wasn't Christian. So please add Hitler's Germany to your list of Religion's cultural successes.
Oh, then note how the USSR was probably capable of putting a man on the moon within a few months of when the US finally did, just it was pointless by that time since we'd already done it and there wasn't much interesting science left to do there for the cost.
Not to mention the fact that communism is pretty much a religion all its own, asking you to take the state on faith instead of the church. That's why they didn't have religions - religion would compete with the state.
Anyway, it certainly wasn't a lack of god that made the USSR fail - if anything that saved them a bit of money on churches. It failed because communism fails to reward the individual and is prone to mass corruption orders of magnitude worse then competing systems. Not to mention that Communist China (with elements of capitalism in its economy so that it doesn't run out of money) is pretty much succeeding as the fastest growing economy in the world...
Now please tell me one way religion has benefited society that couldn't have happened in the absence of religion. Try the crusades on for size. Or the spanish inquisition. The massacre of South America (North America was mostly disease and arguably due to religion as well). September 11th. Radical Islam in general. The Dark Ages. You could try the red cross, but I'm afraid it is hardly the only charity - there are plenty of non-religious ones. Morality is genetic (see recent story about chimps exhibiting basic morality) and also enforced with social contract (i.e. gov't - jail is as effective as hell when there is no heaven). I suppose you could try to claim some churches are pretty, but I can't see them being worth all the trouble religion causes. Oh, and there is plenty of non-religious art that I like just fine (cheaper to make as well, I bet).
You can't take the sky from me...
Yeah, sure, they're all placebos, but which placebo (or combination thereof) is the best?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
You seem to be working on a variant of the "evolution says we're animals, and that's bad, so evolution isn't true" or at the very least, "evolution says we're animals, and that's bad, so we shouldn't believe it" argument. I don't think that either one of those makes sense. My reasons for believing something to be true center entirely on whether or not I think it's likely to be true, not on the ethical or emotional ramifications of it being true.
Well, yes, I suppose they are. How is that a problem? Does the truth of evolution or the lack of a deity suddenly make value judgments impossible to make? I will come out and say that to the extent that religious teachings may cause a child to reject objective reality, they could be bad for a child. I wouldn't go much further than that, though.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
[Your understanding of the cambrian is about 30 years out of date.] Not. Only about 2 out of 9 or so major animal phyla have any fairly certain pre-cambriam fossil ancestors, and even those are within a relatively small time-frame before the boundary. I have a 2004 book by a biologist which reiterates this.
See page 186 of "On the Origin of Phyla" by James W. Valentine, 2004. (ISBN: 0-226-84548-6) Valentine appears to be a well-respected biologist as far as I can tell. The chart clearly shows a "burst" of new base types (as currently understood) at or near the boundary between cambrian and pre-cambrian.
Table-ized A.I.
Are there fewer wars and political problems if nobody believes in unicorns than if people do? Probably not. Does that mean that arguing that there's something logically wrong with arguing that the belief in unicorns is silly? I don't particularly think so.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Forgive me. I didn't mean to suggest that you thought it was a vegetarian. I'm just a ranter, and when I get going, I don't know where I'm going or where I was.
Personally, I've read theories saying it might not have been that fast, but I would think it would be faster than a lot of large, 4 legged creatures. (If only by thinking of modern reptiles. Some are indeed fast, but some of the fastest I've seen ran on 2 legs.) Or, as you hinted at, it could chase it to the water, and gulp it down as it drowned/got stuck.
This, and all the other evidence for evolution, does sadly suggest Jesus did NOT get to ride dinosaurs.
But I also like the Dilbert theory: Dinosaurs aren't extinct, just hiding behind furniture.
I apologize in advance for any condescending words i may utter.
1) Belief in God is not necessarily a lie or a myth. However, a theory that states "X happens because God made it that way." is of no scientific benefit for at least two reasons: One, it cannot be disproven. Two, such a theory could be used to explain absolutely anything: It has infinite explanatory powers, which means it has no predictive abilities. Such a theory is not a lie, a half-truth, or a myth, it is just scientifically useless.
2) If you google "Superstition in the pigeon" you may find it a fascinating read. In a famous study by B.F. Skinner, hungry pigeons were shown to develop "superstitious" and "ritulistic" behaviors simply by being fed small morsels of food at completely random intervals. In my humble opinion it is an enlightening perspective on human behavior, and although it may be a bit of a stretch, that study tells me that humans are naturally superstituous and ritulistic. I'd be genuinely surprised if we were able to let go of our religious beliefs.
3) To a believing Christian, using the words "magical sky wizards" to refer to God and calling their beliefs lies and myths only advertises deliberate irreverence. Furthermore, calling people that believe in God nut jobs is extremely rude and disrespectful. If you'd like to be thought of as an arrogant, ignorant, militant athiest or you'd like to start a fight, those are great ways to do it.
4) Indoctrinating children with religious beliefs does not necessarily mean that they will believe them. I can only give you my word i'm living proof of that.
Lindsey
@>-->-----
Why do you believe this? What scientific proof do you have to make such a statement?
My problem with religion in general is less a complaint about specific activities and more a result of one simple fact: Religion is good at getting people to do things that they might not otherwise do. Whether those things are "good" or "bad" are completely orthogonal to the religion in question. I'm always surprised to see people trying to dump all of the bad things done in the name of religion on religion while ignoring the good or vice versa. The simple fact is, in either case religion has simply acted as a way of getting people to do something that they might not otherwise do. My problem is that things done in the name of an invisible entity whose will only "I" know are inherently irrational and potentially dangerous. They're not healthy motivators, even if they result in "good" actions.
The idea, for example, that our next President should necessarily be a "person of faith" is downright frightening to me. The idea that the statement "I believe things without evidence and act on those beliefs" somehow makes one qualified to make public policy decisions strikes me as nutty.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I put "[verb]" there because the Hebrew word is translated into English based on context. Later in Genesis, the same [verb] occurs in the sentence "Lot's wife [verb] a pillar of salt." That verb could be "was" or "became" in English, based on context. With this second verse we're pretty certain that Lot's wife wasn't initially a pillar of salt, but that she became one after looking back on Sodom. Also, in Genesis 1, how we translate that verb depends on our understanding of the context.
Was the earth initially created as waste and void? Or, did something happen that resulted in the earth becoming that way? Well, among many clues are verses such as Isaiah 45:15 which state that the earth was NOT created waste and void, but to be inhabited. Job tells us that the "sons of God (the angels) rejoiced at the laying of the foundation of the earth." Translating Genesis 1:2 as "was waste and void" would create a direct contradiction to Isaiah 45:15. Translating it "became" would agree.
That the earth "became" waste and void after some indeterminate time after God's initial creation of the heavens and the earth would allow us to sequentially place the fall of Lucifer, the archangel, to his becoming God's adversary (Satan, in it's actual meaning, "adversary"), between creation and the earth "becoming" waste and void.
This point of theology may seem esoteric but just this one word translated "was" or "became" results spending millions to develop a Creation Museum or allowing for scientific discovery without contradicting one's beliefs.
Not that I agree with everything on the Wikipedia article, but here's some more reading in line with The Gap Theory of creationism.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
i'll re-restate the logic as simply as i can
"i am intolerant of you because you are black"
is being black intolerant?
no. therefore, being intolerant of someone being black is evil
"i am intolerant of you because you are a racist"
is being racist intolerant?
being racist is being intolerant of someone because of their race
is having a different race intolerant?
no
therefore racism is intolerance
therefore intolerance of intolerance is good
straightforward enough?
with such logic, one can conclude that not all intolerance is the same. intolerance OF intolerance is in fact, a form of tolerance
likewise, it also follows logically that to tolerate intolerance is to be intolerant yourself
beware moral relativists
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That is true, but there is also no objective, repeatable evidence that such a being does not exist.
I've argued this point before about falsifiability. Simply put, it is up to a claimant to offer evidence of an idea, not the other way around. Am i supposed to analyze every atom in the universe for god? at what point would you say I have disproven it? or do you deny my faculty to even make such a judgement, due to my limited human mind? If our minds are so weak as to not be able to discover god scientifically, how are our minds so broad as to understand that there is a god?
Putting that aside; what does that say about believers if the best evidence they have is that no one can prove it wrong? At least the pious of the past claimed to speak with god, to witness his miracles. Today's mystics either mold their religions tenets and events to fit their own desires (such as Christians who don't attend church, don't forgo premarital sex, accept homosexuality, etc), or they flee to a more consistent view, such as 'New Age' type mysticism, where people unabashedly believe in magic like crystal energy, shakras and faith healers.
I used to believe in god when I was younger. I went to catholic school, was an altar server. I know what its like to believe. And do I wish it were true! immortality, unconditional love! But alas, as I have learned, wanting something to be true does not make it so.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
If all religion is, is one source (of a large number) of motivations, to sometimes make people act in a negative way against their fellow person, then I'm unconvinced that we should all be atheist. I need better evidence then that.
I think that we have differing definitions of irrational. There's real reward in wealth, fame, etc. In fact, doing something because God tells you to ("Do this or I'll roast you") is completely rational as well. My point is that if there's no particularly strong reason to believe that God actually is telling anybody anything, it's not particularly rational for people to act like he is. From my perspective, any action that can't be motivated outside of an invisible entity telling you to do it is decidedly irrational. If I'm lucky, that entity will tell you to be nice to me. If not, well, sucks to be me.
If you reread my post, I'm not saying that's the primary reason. In fact, that would be a silly argument from adverse consequences. My reason for rejecting religion is that there's no rational way to distinguish among them and no particularly strong evidence for any of them. Given that, I don't see any reason to believe in a particular one. In my opinion, that's the only rational reason to be an atheist. If you're an atheist because, while you believe in a diety, you think that it makes people do bad things, then you're not really an atheist. My only critereon for belief or lack of belief in something is whether or not I see it as likely to be true.
The question of whether we're better off with religion or not I would certainly leave up in the air. To the extent that religion may cause people to reject objective reality, it's probably a net negative. However, it may be a net positive in that it tends to codify behaviors that are conducive to healthy societies (and I think that there are obvious reasons for that). I would argue strongly that using religion to inform government policy in a pluralistic society is a bad idea and that a secular government is the only way to create a stable long term government in any society where more than one religion is represented, but that's another question.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I'm back at my computer, so...I guess I'm going to respond after all. :)
JeanPaulBob said:
What I stepped in to talk about was the unreasonable, irrational mischaracterizations you committed in your first response to JonathanBoyd. You said that he was claiming no Christian ever persecuted anyone, which is ludicrous
Scrameustache said:
I do that on purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Uh, either you misunderstood me, or you don't understand reductio ad absurdum. When I said "which is ludicrous", I was not saying that "no Christian ever persecuted anyone" is ludicrous. It is, but I was saying that your characterization was ludicrous. That was an example of one of the "unreasonable, irrational mischaracterizations" of which I was accusing you.
Exaggerating your opponent's arguments to make them look ridiculous is not reductio ad absurdum. Reductio ad absurdum is accepting your opponent's argument, and showing how it leads to something ridiculous. What I was accusing you of was strawman argumentation, basically.
I can't tell whether you misunderstood me the way I said, or misunderstand reductio ad absurdum. The fact that you also called it "proof by contradiction" implies that you do understand it... Maybe you took some abstract algebra or geometry. Or maybe you were just repeating the term because it was in the Wikipedia article, because I honestly can't imagine how you could think that "claiming no Christian ever persecuted anyone" is in any sense accepting JonathanBoyd's arguments and showing the absurd logical conclusion. That's just exaggeration. (Heh. "An argument is a series of propositions intended to establish a proposition, it's not just exaggeration!" "Yes it is." "No it isn't!")
Come on now, who gave this a "troll" rating? There is nothing bad about this. Some of these moderators really chap my hide. They are holding secret trials. Feedback be damned. eerrrrg....
"troll" is so vague anyhow. It should be removed from the list.
Table-ized A.I.
the thing that I find amusing is the velociraptors and eve- and the fact that the bible somehow indicates that all animals were vegetarians-
also- has anyone ever thought what covering the entire earth in salt water would do? how the hell would we have the ecosystems that we do?
and if the "flood" was what killed the dinosaurs- what about plesiosaurs, pliosaurs, mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs? why do we not still find them?
You've got that right. Even when Moses was getting letter by letter instruction, you can kind of tell that the One doing the dictation was saying "no matter how simple I make this, they'll still get it wrong.... Ten laws for ten fingers, they'll still forget numbers nine and ten.... There are no 'excepts' in here at all, but they'll have that 'kill' one messed up right after they play with that golden calf.... And... HOW OFTEN DO I HAVE TO SAY CLOSE THE DOOR, WE'RE NOT HEATING THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD!!! GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!..."
No no no. The Flood washed everything around, well 'sept of those bones, they kinda stayed together, but moved around. So yeah your "science" doesn't work when applied to The Flood, noob.
I'm loving the controversy this whole thing is stirring up - to see the die hard humanistic evolutionists working themselves into a lather over one museum in the middle of nowhere setup by a bunch of 'nobodys'. It reminds me of that scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:28-29 - "He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."
If I sincerely believed that there was no God and that I came about by chance through a series of random mutations over millions of years, then I'd be pretty uncomfortable knowing that there is a rising tide of educated,intelligent, well-equipped 'fundys' beginning to erode the foundation on which I'd built my worldview.
Romans 1:20 - "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
Europe has its own tourist attractions that promote pseudoscience/cult-archaeology. For example, there's Erich von Daniken's Mystery Park in Switzerland, which promotes von Daniken's crackpot ideas about aliens building the pyramids, etc. Although Mystery Park is currently closed due to financial problems. Maybe, eventually, the same thing will happen with AiG's creation "museum"; but considering that nearly half of Americans agree that humans were created in their present form sometime within the last 10 000 years I can't see AiG's monument to ignorance going bankrupt anytime soon.
Total BULLSHIT!
Seriously, what are you smoking? How would the use of retarted propagators and the very weak arrow of time in current physical theory mean that causality is taken on faith or is even clearly meaningful? And how does the opinion of admittedly smart philosophers on science from hundreds of years before modern scientific theories and understanding matter?
A further problem is that the things outside the ambit of science are those for which we have no operational definitions and with regard to human thoughts, opinions etc. that is beginning to fast change with modern neuroscience.
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein
There were obviously many local floods (near all coastal areas) at the ends of the ice ages and the flood story probably comes from there (though could have spread through the Gilgamesh epic which was after all the first major literary work) and probably the mother of all floods was the filling of the Mediterranean about 5.5 million years. However, any suggestion of a global flood covering up mountains is absurd for the simple reason that that quantity of water doesn't exist on earth! Further, as pointed out by someone else, if the flood actually covered Mt. Everest in just 40 days and nights, no known flooding mechanism has that sort of continuous rate of water deposition even if we forget about the quantity.
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein
Are the cookies and wine free? If so, I might trouble myself to look up the building next door apparently dedicated to some primitive beliefs of the natives. :)
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - Albert Einstein
Hey, chiropractic at least work - that is, it actually makes some people feel better (and in a physical sense, too; it's not just a "feel-good" measure that puts their minds at ease). It's kinda like acupuncture in that regard; the explanations offered are probably bull, but it seems to work to some extent, so I personally think of it as an opportunity for further research.
The rest, of course, is pure unadulterated bull, and I always find it rather frightening that people are so willing to soak up all this crap in a desperate attempt to have something to believe in - something that tells them that the universe is more than a huge, cold, uncaring place, that their existence is more than just a random curiosity, and that there actually is some significance to their lifes.
butter the donkey
"National Geographic has a story on it. If you'll notice, the article says that there is evidence that they were swimming (not wading) in 3m deep water, but that evidence that they were swimming in deeper water would necessarily be absent (if the water is deep enough that they don't leave tracks, then there are no tracks, and it's really hard to study the absence of tracks)."
There is however, as I said, nothing in the article to support your claim that they did a lot of swimming, and it also supports my contention that the evidence is disputed (the bit about rheas leaving similar tracks when running in nearly dry plaster).
"Futhermore, other research I've read (I can't find it right now) mentioned that their small forearms were sometimes indicative of species that were adapting to a more aquatic lifestyle."
Unfortunately for that idea, air breathing animals adapting to an aquatic or semi-aqautic lifestyle tend to exhibit any atrophying or major modifications in their rear limbs first, not the front ones, if indeed there _is_ any form of atrophying or modification. By way of evidence, I cite plesiosaurs (rear limbs smaller than front), icthyosaurs (rear limbs disappeared), sea turtles (rear limbs smaller than front), marine iguanas (no obvious atrophying), crocodiles (rear limbs slightly smaller than front), cetaceans (rear limbs disappeared), penguins (front limbs are significantly bigger), and seals (rear limbs are significantly modified, front limbs are bigger and stronger).
Another thing that is noticeable about all aquatic and semi-aqautic air breathers is the fact that their front-limbs are positioned at the sides of their bodies, or are capable of pivoting sideways to permit steering in both the X and Y axis in a similar manner to shark fins (sharks lack the swim bladders of most other sorts of fish, so they depend entirely on their fins for steering in both axes). This is in stark contrast to T- Rex's fore-limbs, which were similar to the limbs of most modern land-dwellers without recent arboreal ancestry in having virtually no lateral movement capability whatsoever, which together with their tiny (relative) size would mean that the short-necked T.Rex would have an extremely difficult job getting its massive head above water to allow its forward-facing nostrils to breathe. This would obviously be a major disadvantage for a semi-aqautic animal.
"Additionally, with their body shape they couldn't run very fast. If they stumbled at high speeds, their arms wouldn't be able to stop the accompanying 6g deceleration rates."
Being unable to run quickly isn't a disadvantage if one's prey aren't capable of running quickly either, or (as has been suggested rather more convincingly than the ludicrous idea that their physiology made them even remotely suited to an aquatic life style) they were scavengers whose large size helped them see off smaller predators such as velociraptors.
"Also, you'll note that I did couch my original statement with the safety word "might". I'm definitely not claiming this is a settled issue, or even a widely accepted issue - just an interesting new theory"
Suggesting that small forelimbs and massive hind limbs are an adaptation to a semi-aqautic life style when no other known semi-aqautic animal (living or extinct) exhibits such an adaptation isn't a theory -- it's a hypothesis.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
"Oh Neddy! I've never been so scared, I thought I was going to eternal paradise." - Ned's wife after a near death experience.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The intentional spelling and grammatical error of the original "quote" should have clued you in.
P.S. There's a [quote] button, try it out.
You can't take the sky from me...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He didn't claim those people weren't Christians, he reminded us that their science was rejected for religious reasons.
You can't take the sky from me...
Ouch. That hurts because you're exactly right. +10 for you. :)
Anyways, on a related note, did you notice my other post discussing the presence of quasi-evolution in their Creationism museum? I was surprised that it didn't garner even a single response as I found that tidbit to be extremely interesting.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'm also in the midwest, and yes there are a lot of tolerant people out here. There are also a lot of intolerant assholes out here.
Look at all the things that people buy into today, particularly in Europe, such as homeopathy, reflexology, chiropractics, magnet therapy, colonics, yadda yadda. How many people believe that irradiated strawberries are radioactive?
Sure sure, but those people generally aren't making policy and shoving their ideas down the throats of others.
I was taught in science at school (in the 1960s) that we were coming out of an ice age and could expect the world to get warmer.
The coolest answer to such a creationist "museum" is to build close to it:
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a Fixed Earth museum (Copernicus was wrong, Ptolemy was right)
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a Flat Earth museum (global conspiracy about round Earth)
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another Creation museum with naked Adam and Eve, 3 miles long box shaped Noah's ark to hold enough species, flood simulation at 30 feet per hour rain and no dinosaurs (faked artifacts)
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a Matrix museum (we're inside a matrix, that's the meaning of the fall of Adam and Eve, outside is real Earth, Hell and Paradise)
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a Raellian museum (we're part of an alien experiment who seeded Earth to produce human beings)
In case no one wants to fund those builds we could set up some hoaxes to trap a few journalists... the more absurd it looked like the more realistic the project will be.Mainstream geology
Mainstream geology. Mainstream biology. Mainstream science. Mainstream this, mainstream that.
.
.
Mainstream math.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Actually, he did. I believe that the verse says that they would die IN THE SAME DAY that they ate the fruit, which they surely did not.
Spokesbossy for ominous cow herds everywhere.
if you're looking to find something, you probably will. If you suspect where the Ark is and find something structural and say "That's the ark!" the connection is weaker than when you say What the heck is this big structural thing? It's like finding all the edge pieces of a puzzle.
It occurs to me that basing something on being anti something else simply makes it into a version of the thing it tries to be the opposite of. So, and anti-evolution museum is defined by being against evolution; it is nothing in itself and it exists more or less at the mercy of what it hates.
If one was simply a believer in the Bible as fundamentally and literally true, then perhaps one would think about the theory of evolution and find that it has much going for it, but that somethings are dubious and can't be true if the Bible is to be taken as literally true. On the other hand, if one's starting point is that evolution is against the Bible and therefore must be wrong, then every time evolution theory changes (as it does constantly), one has to adjust one's viewpoint. Just imagine what would happen if one day evolution theory discovered that there is, after all, a God behind it all. Science doesn't a priory exclude that possibility, it just doesn't assume God's existence.
Because, at least in Catholic dogma, those are three representations of the same God.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... then avoid making yourslef look stupid and uninformed.
The devil is not a deity, the devil is a fallen angel which was created by god and rebelled agains it.
The devil and angels are not considered deities (neither are saints, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, etc, I mean, clrifying just in case).
In Catholic dogma the only deity is god and it has 3 differents "persons" or way it presents itself: the father, the son and the holly ghost.
From an atheist raised as a Catholic, with love.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In Catholic dogma the angels were created by good, one of the many creatures in creation. They have a closer relationship to god than humans and serve in many ocassions as his messangers, but prophets do so as well, and human prophets also punish evil humans in the name of god as do angels in some instances (like when Adam and Eve are thrown out of paradise).
But there is absolutely no confussion about this in the Catholic dogma: angels are not worshipped at all.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You do know that your patently simple defintion would have had you excommunicated or executed at some time in history, don't you?
Jesus himself named the head of his Church (at least according to Catholic dogma, I an frankly not interested in the hundreds of deviations from this), which pretty much meant that he wanted some form of earthly organization to spread his teachings.
And this organization, the church, had many intestine wars fighting to define what was a true Christian.
If defining a Christian was su puerile to define, people would have not fought and died in defense of their definition of the term.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That neatly sidesteps my point, "Scientists (in general) base their models of the universe on the premise that God does not exist." I do not think the statements "God exists" and "God does not exist" can be proven or disproven by science (in its current state). It falls outside the realm of science to make this determination, and yet many scientists take the statement "God does not exist" as an unspoken axiom in their theories.
Many would consider the Bible as a historical document which supports this belief. Clearly you do not, but stating "I don't believe it" does no more to discredit the evidence than the statement "I believe it" does to support it.
To borrow a legal term, science proves things "beyond a reasonable doubt". We should not make the assumption that what is "proven" today will remain unchallenged by future evidence. Dogmatic adherence to what modern day science has "proven" is foolish. Take it for what it is, the best model we can develop with the current evidence.
Or, as they are commonly known, Catholics.
And if Christians can't afree on anything, I think they all should frankly not be taken very seriously.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This is my fist.
That is your face.
Do you want to test if it is my fist hitting your face, your face hitting my fist, or the mind making it all up?
Waste of time nonsense frankly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For example, one reason 6000-year creationism hasn't gone the way of "the sun revolves around the earth" is the limited falsifiability of long-term geology.
But the sun does revolve around the earth. If there are two bodies revolving around each other, which one is doing the revolving depends entirely on where the observer is.
You are most likely referring to the discovery that it's much easier to describe the motion of the other planets as revolving around the sun rather than revolving around the earth. It turns out that this is just an approximation, though. It looks correct because the sun is much more massive than the other bodies. But gravity is a two-way street: The planets and the sun are collectively revolving around each other.
Science and religion do not mix.
That does not mean a Christian can't do scientific research, he may be completely wrong about religion (since god does not exist) but that does not preclude that on his field of expertise he adheres to the scientific method and reaches valid results.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Every time somebody mentions these obvious conondrums the world mistranslation is freely waived in the air as a blank cheque from god.
If all was so badly mistranslated, why should anybody put his faith on such a shaky ground?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Clarifying two of my arguments a bit more...
Item 1: about the Immutable laws of physics... Assume that there is a set of "principles of physics" that we humans consider to be "immutable", i.e. that can't change. Assume secondarily that there is another set of physics that "God" uses whenever he wants to super-cede the first set. Would it make sense for the "God set" to be incompatible with the "known set"? Or is it one set with two basic divisions, i.e. 1) physics principles currently theorized and either confirmed or considered confirmable by known science and 2) the "supervisory set" -- the stuff not covered by the known set that is in reality the "rest of the story". I would argue that the knowledge and ability to use the principles in this supervisory set is what a "God being" uses to do what we consider to be miraculous/supernatural, etc.
Item 2: Under our current understanding of both the Hebrew source docs and science, our "24 hour" marker for a day, doesn't make sense. But if the idea of a day is "one revolution of the planet" consisting of one lit period and one night period makes sense -- Genesis 1:1-4 still isn't bound by that period -- because the time period named a "day" doesn't take place until v5 -- and it still doesn't state the time period as being our currently astronomically determined roughly "23 hour 56 minute" day.
Overall what I am saying is that a literal constructionist version of our planet history represented by the creation museum has as much chance as getting it right as a "no-God, all-science" version if in fact there is a supremely powerful being behind the organization of this planet. Which is to say, zero.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Hmmm...paraphrasing badly: a fairly well known recent astrophysicist came to an interesting conclusion which he published in a book not too terribly long ago -- which is that "the universe has always existed". Or an earlier physicist who stated his thought that "God does not play dice with the universe". I do believe that the names of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein come to mind...
Thing is, if you define a "God" as a being with certain capabilities that go beyond our current level of scientific comprehension to what we would call supernatural (planetary creation, historical intervention and some form of the preservation of individual human consciousness outside the physical body being the "powers" that most religions are concerned with...) then the "Almighty" for this planet becomes "the being or beings with the power to affect and control all physics properties in this physical domain of the universe", not some incomprehensible being that has to predate and supercede even the universe itself.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
... is studied by ethics.
You don't need religon for that (although religions clearly have loads of ethical teachings).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Please tell us when a beligerant state has backed down in a conflict because a deity told them not to do it.
Might has always been right, religion or no religion.
The only hope of changing that is reason in the way of agreements and laws, not religion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... as source of wisdom.
The logical follow up to that would have been to enumerate all the actions and thoughts that show he did love him.
To any reasonbale person that would amount to enough proof.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Gravity exists. It is measurable, we use it every day in scientific calculations.
This "Matrixsy" nonsense about something being there or us thinking it is there, is fine for so-so movies, but for real life is a complete non starter.
Or jump from the top of a 20 storey building. I put my reputation here on the line of fire that if you are silly enough to do that you will end as a human tortilla 20 floors below. I *know* it would happen.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Soviet Communism did not respect the most basic postulates of economic theory.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Inalienbale human rights are not based in any belief, they are based in the observation, very scientific, that people treated unfairly wiil beat your a@@ at the first chance they get.
Ethics, sociology, antropology, history and many other sciences and disciplines can enlighten our way if required.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It kept my father alive for 10 years.
It allowed me to lead a productive life in spite of some disabilities.
It pulled out mankind from squalor and disease into comfortable middle class aspiritions.
What did religions gave us before that? Nothing remotely compaable.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... a child refusing to accept Evolutionary theory should not get a pass.
Spin it any way you want, that would be akin do denying the validy of arithmetic when enroled in a course of calculus.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There is plenty of evidence that god does not exist.
Multitude of processes in nature can proceed according to mathematical laws and there has never been an observation of any god perturbing them.
Which is why some religious nuts hate evolutionary theory so much: it puts firmly in the realms of chance all what is so carefully crafted in Genesis. NO god neeeded for evolution, since it is a natural, self contained process.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You are right that there is a lot of mysticism out there. However, I do not see (at least yet) homeopathy followers demanding that everyone must also be a homeopath. I do not see magnet therapists trying to make sure their garbage is the only thing taught in public schools, etc, etc.
I find it "interesting" that you make this comment since I am 50% jew...
I recommend you see the movie (it's out on DVD now) called "Jesus Camp". It is VERY VERY VERY SCARY.
The theory of evolution is a result of the scientific process. To engage in the scientific process, in a nut shell, is to show that the world is not magic. This is done y guessing about a non-magic cause for some effect and then experimenting and observing the natural world to show that the guess is correct. Scientist have been xtraordinarily good at figuring out non-magical causes for even the most magical-appearing phenomena.
Creationist hold that the creation of the world was supernatural, magic if you will. They reject the notion that only natural phenomena were involved in the creation of the world.
Now it is reasonably safe to believe that there are so many natural phenomena going on in the universe that scientist will never develop a consistent and comprehensive set of causes for every effect that has ever occurred. Assuming that this is true, scientist will never eliminate the possibility that magic occurred at some point and some time in the universe. There will always be effects for which a cause is not known. Thus scientist will never be able to completely exclude magic.
On the other hand creationist cannot prove that magic ever has
occurred in the universe. If a creationist points out a seemingly
magical phenomena, the scientist will study it until a non-magical
cause is discovered. If a non-magical cause is not readily discovered
the scientist will just keep trying forever. There is no deadline.
So what should one believe?
One should believe that evolution is the best non-magical explanation
for the beginning of the universe. However, this is not to say that
creationism is false. Rather it is a fundamental assumption of science
that the world is not magic. Thus science cannot speak to creationism.
Likewise, creationism is based on the belief in the supernatural. That
is not to say that evolution is false. Rather that creationist deal
with elements outside the bounds of science.
So arguments about the origins of the universe should begin with the
question: "Do you believe in supernatural causes in the natural
world?" Unless the participants agree on the answer to this questions
then any further argument is pointless.
It is fine to hold to the fundamental assumption that the universe is
not magic. It is not fine to discount the belief of others that do not
hold to that assumption. And visa versa.
So evolution proponents, please stop acting like creationism is the
result of ignorance. Often this might be the case. But you have no
basis to tell someone that their assessment about the existence of the
supernatural is wrong. You have not proven that there is no
supernatural causes...you have assumed it.
And creationist, please stop acting like scientist are grossly
incompetent and that you are qualified to point out flaws in their
theories. Usually you are grossly ignorant of the theories you are
trying to dispute. Accept the fact that your belief in the
supernatural is outside the scope of science and thatt your worldview
cannot be support by science.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
I think it's safe to say that they are truly a minority group, and this is their chance to have a moment in the sun.
The latest Gallup poll showed that creationism is accepted by a sweeping 41% of the US population.
Well, that and in this country we value freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech refers to state censorship, not laughing at stupid opinions or protesting against indoctrinating children into them.
Deus est fatalis
is based on misunderstanding of taxonomy
No, the forms are very novel compared to what came before upon visual inspection *regardless* of classification issues.
Secondly, a lot of the explosion seems based on an explosion in the development of fossilizable parts rather than something especially dramatic in the development of creatures.
The "soft fossil" theory has already been addressed. It does not seem to be well supported anymore. We have a good enough sample of soft-body fossils both before and after CE. Niche critters perhaps escaped fossilation, but we have a pretty good snapshot from multiple regions of the more common critters. I'll see if I can find some quotes from Valentine's Phyla book.
Table-ized A.I.
"No, the forms are very novel compared to what came before upon visual inspection *regardless* of classification issues."
Again, this claim is very overblown: first of all, as time as has gone on, we HAVE found more and more precusors to many of the forms: like precambrian proto-chordates for instance.
Second of all, you are overplaying the novelty of just one feature: bodyplans. But early multicelluar life had a lot of flexibility in body plans precisely because so little was set down so far: that isn't the same thing as demonstrating that this era of life showed changes that were functionally to a degree unlike any other change in the fossil record. For all we know (and indeed it seems likely), life in this era could take on radically different bodyplans quite a lot more easily with very little underlying genetic modification compared to more complex multicelluar life today. Your authority Valentine notes, for instance, that if we consider number of likely cell types as a measure of complexity, then there is no Cambrian Explosion at all: there in fact a fairly steady increase from before the Cambrian on into the present day.
But third of all, none of this addresses the claim that YOU MADE that there is something huge and amazing about the creatures showing up being "whole new phyla." As I already explained, this is an extremely misleading way to make the case that they were especially novel. I'd say that birds and lizards and elephants are pretty darn amazingly different from any Cambrian life form, and yet we keep getting told by people pushing the CE as a barrier to evolution that we should find it especially significant that most of the major phyla all appeared at the time. Nonsense.
"The "soft fossil" theory has already been addressed. It does not seem to be well supported anymore. We have a good enough sample of soft-body fossils both before and after CE. Niche critters perhaps escaped fossilation, but we have a pretty good snapshot from multiple regions of the more common critters."
No it has not been well addressed: especially because niche creatures that took off is PRECISELY the issue with many of these forms and especially because some of the earliest fossils we have in periods just before the Cambrian show traces of being near microscopic: i.e. many of the forms could be there already, but too small to see without very rare conditions to preserve detail at that size. All of this is discussed, in fact, in Valentine's work: if you are going to cite him, why haven't you mentioned any of this yet? If you plan on providing quotes, it will be more interesting to see which you DO NOT provide, I think.
Regardless, the claim that we have "enough" samples to conclude anything and rule out future finds is ludicrous: most simply because we have continued to find more relevant fossils fairly steadily as time goes on that we'd never seen before. The fossil record has always been gappy and will always be gappy. There are many animal phyla, for instance, that are not part of the Cambrian and appear after it without solid fossil records. No one from this, however, believes that they have no precursors (and indeed molecular evidence confirms this, just as it suggests that most Cambrian life dates their splits from other life back before the Cambrian.
In short, you've failed to make any case that the Cambrian Explosion, while still a mystery, provides any reason to think it outside the paradigm of common descent and small stepwise change in populations from generation to generation.
like precambrian proto-chordates for instance.
I've only seen very prelimary stuff on this out of australia. It appears to be one person's theory. It may be a Nectocaris ancestor.
life in this era could take on radically different bodyplans quite a lot more easily with very little underlying genetic modification compared to more complex multicelluar life today.
But this is all speculation. Nobody knows what actually did happen to produce the burst. And, why didn't earlier macroscopic life take advantage of this instead of staying flat and boring for dozens of Mil. years?
Your authority Valentine notes, for instance, that if we consider number of likely cell types as a measure of complexity, then there is no Cambrian Explosion at all: there in fact a fairly steady increase from before the Cambrian on into the present day.
That is gradual, not a burst.
I'd say that birds and lizards and elephants are pretty darn amazingly different from any Cambrian life form, and yet we keep getting told by people pushing the CE as a barrier to evolution that we should find it especially significant that most of the major phyla all appeared at the time. Nonsense.
Birds, lizards, and elephants *didn't* all appear at about the same time.
many of the forms could be there already, but too small to see without very rare conditions to preserve detail at that size.
Perhaps, but that is still speculation. And why they would be able to outcompete all the Ediacarin waffles would still be unanswered.
The fossil record has always been gappy and will always be gappy.
Yes, but what we *do* have shows a CE.
There are many animal phyla, for instance, that are not part of the Cambrian and appear after it without solid fossil records.
Most of these are rather obscure niche lifeforms. Valentine has a nice chart that plots the first agreed-upon occurence of each phyla. It CLEARLY shows a burst at the CE.
No one from this, however, believes that they have no precursors
That is not the point. The point is that the burst is currently a big mystery. There 3 basic "parts" to the mystery:
* Appearence of limbs, eyes, mouths, and clear digestive tracks
* Disappearence of all Ediacarin forms
* Apparence of many new phyla (those we know today)
We see non-gradulism at the scale of multiple phyla.
Table-ized A.I.
Again, you do the same thing again: claim that the appearance of many new _phyla_ is significant, when in fact they are only the heads of new phyla in retrospect. I'm not arguing (and so it does no good to argue against) the idea that there was no CE at all: but the supposed uniqueness and suddeness has been greatly misrepresented.
And yes we have lots of speculation without lots of certain answers on many elements here. But that's exactly the point. There are too MANY different possible explanations for the CE, not too few, certainly not none at all, and definitely not anything approaching a demonstration that it was anything other than the evolutionary based on stepwise genetic change we see everywhere else. And in fact, all the details still fit that pattern rather than contradicting it.
Again, you do the same thing again: claim that the appearance of many new _phyla_ is significant, when in fact they are only the heads of new phyla in retrospect.
We don't know what they are the heads of because we cannot see the "body".
And yes we have lots of speculation without lots of certain answers on many elements here. But that's exactly the point. There are too MANY different possible explanations for the CE, not too few,
That's called "creativity", not solutions. One can make up theories about *any* odd observation. My favorite is that a new kind of virus appeared that exchanged genes across phylums such that limbs, eyes, digistive tracks, immune systems, etc. could be shared such that they didn't have to be invented independently, sort of like the Soviets stealing our nuke secrets, setting off an arms race.
And in fact, all the details still fit that pattern rather than contradicting it.
They don't fit anything because we have no solid answer.
Table-ized A.I.
"We don't know what they are the heads of because we cannot see the "body"."
Non-responsive.
"That's called "creativity", not solutions. One can make up theories about *any* odd observation."
This is completely non-responsive. The issue was whether the CE demonstrated, as many creationists and ID'ers claim, something that cannot be explained in an evolutionary context. And yet there are too many different ways that it could. We indeed don't know exactly what happened and that the possibilities remain speculative. But many perfectly plausible explanations exist that are not contradicted by the facts and indeed have some support in the facts we have so far (and we keep looking to learn more, so its all good). That already refutes the claim that the CE is some great challenge to evolution.
"They don't fit anything because we have no solid answer."
Non-sequitur. I said that they fit the overall pattern of evolution. None of these lifeforms are anything like the extremely complex modern multicelluars. All of them are variations of multicelluar forms, many of which we DO have precursors for in the fossil record.
Non-responsive.
It addresses the issue. You are making statements about what the Phyla really are relative to some pet speculation of yours.
The issue was whether the CE demonstrated, as many creationists and ID'ers claim, something that cannot be explained in an evolutionary context.
No, that's not the issue.
I said that they fit the overall pattern of evolution. None of these lifeforms are anything like the extremely complex modern multicelluars.
Why do you say that?
All of them are variations of multicelluar forms, many of which we DO have precursors for in the fossil record.
You are making that up. Nobody knows where the hell arthropods, chordates, etc. came from outside of speculation.
Table-ized A.I.
Your "no true Scotsman fallacy" was excellent, but I think you lost me on the "popular is true" approach to Christianity. Can you think of a time when a majority of people thought something true (e.g. spontaneous generation), but later found it to be false? What happened: was it true untill they changed their minds, or did they change their minds because something else was true and what they thought was false? The concept that you have put forward is a popular and dangerous one. We need a more solid foundation for knowledge, or we have to ask ourselves "is anything really objectively true?"
There's no "pet" speculation. Claiming that it's a big deal when phyla first appear is creationist bs based on not understanding how taxonomy works.
"No, that's not the issue."
That IS your issue, as you've made very plain. Your entire case is parrot of the Discovery Institutes's position on the CE and what it implies for common descent and evolution.
"You are making that up. Nobody knows where the hell arthropods, chordates, etc. came from outside of speculation."
Pure bs. We do have precambrian fossils for some. We have molecular evidence. We have measured rates of morphological change in modern species (which arguably are far less bodyplan flexible than the much simpler multicelluar life around during the CE era) that are many times faster than the fastest transition even in the CE. And we have the one and only explanation that fit all the evidence.
There's no "pet" speculation. Claiming that it's a big deal when phyla first appear is creationist bs based on not understanding how taxonomy works.
Nobody has satisfactorily explained the magnitude of the CE, period. There are no details availabe that are beyond speculation. That is a fact. You appear biased by your hatred of creationists.
Pure bs. We do have precambrian fossils for some.
Only sponge-like phyla have any agreed-upon pre-cambrian specimens. None of the bilaterans do. (There is some support for Kimberella as a Mullusc, but there is still lots of disagreement.)
We have molecular evidence.
Citation?
We have measured rates of morphological change in modern species (which arguably are far less bodyplan flexible than the much simpler multicelluar life around during the CE era) that are many times faster than the fastest transition even in the CE.
Such as? In about 9 *different* phyla at the same time?
And we have the one and only explanation that fit all the evidence.
There are multiple candidate explanations for the CE, and none is the clear favorite right now.
Table-ized A.I.
True. But the Hebrew OT is replete with examples where basically God says "hey, you can choose this way (good) or that way (evil), but if you choose that way, you'll be toasted by {curse of Cain, flood, language changes, turned to salt, burned by fire (Sodom and Gomorrah), Nile regional plagues, invasions by Babylonian/Assyrian/Egyptian/Philistine armies etc. to name a few of the ways that the "disobedient" humans got the sharp end of the point}, where if you choose this way, you {survive,be protected, be blessed, etc.}.
Which still fits with the concept of free will at the "human set" level, but the ability to intervene at the supervisory set level -- which is still pretty much off limits, right?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...