Censored Religious Debate Video Released After Public Outrage

First time accepted submitter tkel writes "On October 12, 2011 Theologian John Haught publicly debated prominent evolutionary scientist and atheist Jerry Coyne at the University of Kentucky. Although both agreed to a videotaping of the event, Haught later prohibited its release because he felt he had been treated unfairly. Coyne released blog posts addressing the matter as an offense to free speech. Reviewing their new status in the blogosphere, Haught and his associates at the University of Kentucky have decided to release the video."

Comments

One small victory for a man..

[kheldan]

..and one giant win for science.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[x2A]

Is always good to see occasions where the saying "have you ever noticed that the less someone knows, the louder they know it?" is shown to not always be true, that sometimes, the knowledgeable can be noisy too :-)

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that the situation in US is difficult, when you have to fight such fights. But the result as I see it, is not win, but loose for all. Faith is not a tool to study physics and geology and vice versa. If you managed to have a contradiction between the two very complementary objects, you have already lost the possibility to get the best from both at a time.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[xyourfacekillerx]

..and one giant win for science.

Right. Because Coyne's "win for science" advanced it so much in so many valuable ways for mankind. What a hallmark in human civilization development this was! AND - AND the best part has to be the repeatable experiments he demonstrated for the audience to prove his points.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the video and I must recall my previous post. I see no science in Coyne's part, this is Michel Moore's 'science'. E.g. you never can draw conclusions on "A truth" from some poll difference between population and scientists in US (the picture can be completely opposite in some states in EU btw). E.g. he treats the article from Nature like religious truth --- science is great because it doesnt afraid of failure - ANY theory can be falsified by new findings and everybody must be happy of it, because it is a pure gain. Superluminous neutrino ? if yes, it is not a shame for articles in Nature, it is a big leap forward.... Very big loss for science, if somebody uses its name to backup his hates. As he said, he did, this was a destructive monologue and other scientists look like idiots now.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[tjbp]

No. In this case, that expression is very much true. Coyne is an obnoxious oaf, and by no means an exception to your rule. He is one of the growing number of secularist zealots that are incapable of arguing coherently or intelligently. Their infatuation with the dismissal of religion as a concept is perpetuated in a lack of education or understanding of their opponents' arguments - leading to the hugely ironic situation in which they have much more in common with religious fundamentalists (bible-bashers) than the academics they accuse of the same. Consider again your blind support for anyone spouting the appropriate buzzwords, or you'll be just another tool in Coyne and his ilk's clueless endeavour to found a belief system upon science.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Evil Pete]

I watched the video and I want my hour back. I thought I was going to get a Creationist being roasted but instead got a reasonable sounding theologian being attacked somewhat irrationally by Coyne. Coyne mentions stuff like the belief in angels etc ... what? Haught wasn't talking about any of that stuff. I think Coyne wrote his talk wanting to counter Creationism irregardless of its relevance to the actual talk. Lame. I thought Haught made reasonable (but sadly incorrect) arguments.

I thought most of what Coyne said was obvious and he went on and on and overdid it. He was wrong about the necessity of having to talk fast etc. Gees.

I was going to say more but have decided it is a waste of time.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

If my mod points hadn't expired yesterday, I'd give them all to you.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Dcnjoe60]

..and one giant win for science.

Aparently god is not siding with the theologin on this one. LMAO he suppressed the video because he knew he was beat. And yet people like this still hang on to their belief system (for dear life) even when they have been bested in a fair debate (conquered by logic).

You must not have watched the video. Haught came across very reasonable. Coyne on the other hand was very obnoxious and didn't even stay on topic, but kept using strawman arguments. In the end, I am quite confident that those who believe in God still do and those who don't still don't.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Kjellander]

You obviously didn't watch the video particularly closely. Coyne (and me and all the rest of the scientists) are telling you exactly the type of things that would change our minds. Human fossils in the precambrian, any anachronistic fossil for that matter, whole amputated limbs regrowing just because of some prayer and not modern medicine, things in the bible like predictions about electrons or something else that couldn't have been written by men in the bronze age, things like that. That is not blind faith. It is falsifiable.

Why not use a tool like science, when it is there, and it makes predictions about the world? Something religion never has done.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[shoehornjob]

Very interesting. I got a different take from listening to the story on NPR yesterday. Aparently there is still some bias in the media .

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Dcnjoe60]

I didn't hear the NPR story, what was their take?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[shoehornjob]

slightly more left leaning. Pretty much same as usual.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[PortHaven]

Maybe Haught was just trying to help preserve a fellow scientist's reputation after all.

Truth is, dogma can be found on both sides. The mere fact that a scientist would dismiss angels, and not in the least be open to their existence is silly.

Essentially, that boils down to a claim of absoluteness that there could be no other intelligent life-forms in our galaxy. A true scientist would say, I have inconclusive evidence. Likely they're just myth. But perhaps there are intelligent beings more advanced than us. And this is some remnant history of an interaction with them.

Closed minds are not scientific.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

Coyne (and me and all the rest of the scientists) are telling you exactly...

Why not use a tool like grammar, when it is there...?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Rosy At Random]

Just the other day, a scientist dismissed my idea of extra-dimensional omniscient radishes. What an idiot!

Re:One small victory for a man..

[SlippyToad]

My Taekwondo/Judo Grandmaster used to say "Empty Can Rattle."

Re:One small victory for a man..

[esocid]

I stopped reading at "irregardless."

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Quila]

So he's kind of like a non-religious Kent Hovind?

Can anybody actually be that bad?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of jerks.

W

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's just not possible...I was sure that the only reason they weren't releasing it was because he got his nutz handed to him. You must have missed something.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

When you use the (not a) word "irregardless" the rest of your post becomes meaningless.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Dcnjoe60]

Closed minds are not scientific.

Amen to that!

Re:One small victory for a man..

[halivar]

Eventually it will be a word, just like "inflammable." The English language moves on. So should you--err, I mean, so shouldst thou.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[halivar]

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James Nicoll

Re:One small victory for a man..

[idontgno]

I hasten to point out that your historical analogy supports your contention poorly.

"Inflammable" is not the prom-queen-popular misspelling of "flammable". It is a legitimate word formed by "-able" suffix formation of "inflame". It has a legitimate and completely independent existence from "flammable", which is the corresponding "-able" suffix expansion of "flame".

If that had too many syllables, let me "tl;dr" for you: "inflammable" is a legitimate word. "Irregardless" is not. The fact that language "move on" simply demonstrates the power of a sufficient quantity of ignorance.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[SleazyRidr]

Dude, it's been in common use for 100 years, you're a little late.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

The only morally correct way to convince someone of something is to present the evidence.

Religious types have unconvincing evidence. That is why they start talking about faith and attempt to use emotional manipulation (you might burn in hell! be afraid!) to harm their target's ability to reason. This is, in my opinion, morally wrong.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[nigelo]

In other words, they said, in genteel and condescending tones, we're all screwed?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[morgauxo]

that's not very descriptive

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

Anyone who doubts this, would be well served to read Coynes initial post, and Haughts response. Coyne has been going off about "censorship" (and shame on you slashdot for reiterating it), despite admitting that there was never an agreement to post the video. His entire beef, the reason he stirred up his fanbase to attack Haught and other UofK professors with hatemail, was that he ASSUMED it would be released and was disappointed when Haught decided that the video was too obnoxious (adhominems, etc) and unprofessional to release.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

I thought I was going to get a Creationist being roasted but instead got a reasonable sounding theologian being attacked somewhat irrationally by Coyne.

If you read the exchange between Coyne on his blog and Haught in the comments (comment 122 i think), you get the same impression. Haught says that the attacks and irrationality are why he did not want to release the video.

But Slashdot scores a win here, as it can drop the word "censorship" and "religion" and out come all the militant athiests to ridicule the idiot theologians. Its a win for them, because they KNOW people cant help starting a flamewar when theres an opportunity to attack religion. I mean, how many people in this very discussion actually READ Coyne's post, and Haught's response? Or watched the video? Or even asked themselves if there was any side of the story other than Coynes? No, 80% of the posters here have an axe to grind, rationality be damned.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[fiddley]

That's not how it works because in science you can't *absolutely* prove anything - unlike in maths. For example, we only have extremely strong evidence that the earth is (roughly) spherical, but we can't *prove* it. Yet you don't hear scientists going round suggesting they have an open mind on it being cuboid for instance. It's because the evidence is so strong for it being spherical, it's to all intents and purposes true. Now the evidence for 'angels' for example is just sketchy reports from madmen. Until something a bit more substantial comes in, then we correctly denounce their existence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

See also Russell's Teapot for this argument in a religious context.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[nedlohs]

No it will be a word just like "flammable". Though at least flammable was a stupid word created intentionally to avoid confusing idiots rather than just idiots not knowing their own language.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

you lost me at "irregardless"

Re:One small victory for a man..

[holmstar]

I don't see the attack that you did. They simply approached the talk differently.

The the basic argument that I heard from Haught was that the universe must have a purpose (more or less because we can't accept the alternative), and while science is valuable, it is not capable of determining what that purpose is due to it's limited view of reality/the universe. Thus religion is there to answer what science can not, and in that way is complementary to science. He didn't really address the opposing viewpoint.

Coyne basically argues that religion is not based on reality and thus can't give truths about the world. In that it is completely incompatible with science. He goes about it by directly addressing the opposing viewpoint and showing how the views are irrational.

Haught took that last part as being a personal attack, but it's fairly clear Coyne quoted Haughts ideas in his examples because they were pertinent to the argument that we was making (that religion is irrational). It wasn't a personal attack.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[FictionPimp]

The important thing is that it is released. Now we can all watch and decide for ourselves.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

Opening your talk by touting your own credentials and begging the question ("X% of people believe in angels, and any smart person knows that there are no angels [because religion is wrong]") isnt really a win for science. Its what we call a massive ego, and logical fallacy.

You might want to listen to the talk before crowing "victory", it doesnt exactly make Coyne look good (in fact, neither does the exchange between Coyne and Haught on his blog). His talk is summed up as "talking about how all smart people today are agnostic" and "why youre stupid if you believe in religion". Im only about 5 minutes in, of course, so its possible he completely reverses direction.

I would also note that his claim that "you get nowhere [in knowledge] by a belief in god" completely ignores that the foundations for modern science came out of religious institutions and from a large number of religious people.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

It confuses me when scientists put forth efforts to disprove a hypothesis that really hasn't been supported by any evidence in the first place.

It's the ultimate straw man. A treasure trove of non sequiturs heaped upon each other to try and prop up a theory that was never coherent in the first place.

Besides, all you have to say is "Diax's rake", and you've won the argument. At least with the cool people.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Jibekn]

No, no it shouldn't, I also stopped reading at "irregardless."

Re:One small victory for a man..

[pixelpusher220]

the foundations for modern science came out of religious institutions and from a large number of religious people.

And I believe you'll find the point at which religion stopped supporting science is just about perfectly matched to when science turned it's critical eye back towards religion.

Both religion and science exist to explain the world we live in. Science caught and passed religion long ago on that ability.

I think it was a Sam Harris quote that went roughly 'if an educated man were transported to the present from 1000 years ago, his scientific knowledge would render him an uninformed simpleton in comparison, but that same person would pretty much be an expert on religion'. Amazing that religion hasn't made significant advances in 1000 years....

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Sabathius]

And what's really going to bake your noodle later on, is the realization that they're not mutually exclusive.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[spinninggears]

Is this sarcasm, a Poe, or have you misunderstood your audience? Most here are quite familiar with ad hominem, straw men, categorical errors and false equivocation.

I prefer to win arguments by presenting and refuting objective evidence, but usually just get fallacy ridden rants such as the one you present. Are you trying to show how ridiculous Haught is in debates by example? If so, you have done an excellent job.

Apologies for the tone, but hey as one of Coyne's ilk, you called me clueless.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched the video and I want my hour back. I thought I was going to get a Creationist being roasted but instead got a reasonable sounding theologian being attacked somewhat irrationally by Coyne. Coyne mentions stuff like the belief in angels etc ... what? Haught wasn't talking about any of that stuff. I think Coyne wrote his talk wanting to counter Creationism irregardless of its relevance to the actual talk. Lame. I thought Haught made reasonable (but sadly incorrect) arguments.

I thought most of what Coyne said was obvious and he went on and on and overdid it. He was wrong about the necessity of having to talk fast etc. Gees.

I was going to say more but have decided it is a waste of time.

irregardless....really?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[bolthole]

Err... you seem to be labelling anything that "could not happen, according to Science", to be "falsifiable", aka "faked".
Which is another way of saying, you refuse to believe it could have happened, simply because "science says it cant happen".

To which I reply, that simply shows that you have "BLIND FAITH" in whatever "science" tells you can or cannot happen.
Additionaly, I will remind you that "science" has a long and well-established history of being WRONG, over, and over again.
It tends to get less wrong as time goes by. But it has not ever reached the point of "always true".

Also, you missed the point of the definition of "miracle". Which means "cannot happen according to the currently understood workings of the normal universe".
The fact that "science" says these things cannot happen, is exactly the point people are making, that it points to a power outside "natural law".
For you to say, "there is not and cannot be anything outside 'science', is, as I've pointed out, "blind faith in science", and makes you a bigot. An "anti-religious bigot", rather than a "religious bigot". But a bigot just the same.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[hey!]

Er... why?

I don't understand why having the video is so important. Does somebody's debate performance make any difference to the validity of an argument? Let's say you manage to put your opponent on the spot. That's a win for your position! Let's say you make the same argument in an essay, and because your opponent has a little more time to think about it, he manages to come up with a better sounding response. Does that change the truth?

Calling this affair "censorship" is ... well it's just plain stupid, as is claiming it's a victory for science, or anything else. It's a victory for one guy's ego, that's all.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[marcello_dl]

If I were atheist I wouldn't be appeased by the proofs you ask for. What if somebody has sufficiently advanced technology to manipulate matter? We are already at the nanotech level. If you find a way to manipulate carbon-14 ratios and other aspects, you can create convincing fakes.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

The important thing is that it is released. Now we can all watch and decide for ourselves.

The GP's point was that the most vocal of Slashdot were able to decide for themselves regardless of whether or not it was released. Releasing it did nothing to help that very very loud part of the discussion.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[thriftysicillian]

"Why not use a tool like science, when it is there, and it makes predictions about the world? Something religion never has done." I think you missed something... Particularly the Christian religion - exists on the basis of believers sharing their faith. It says nothing about "being ignorant about nature". In fact, it goes hand in hand with Christianity to understand the way the world works. The problem is when we decide "oh, based on current evidence, we can make these forensic claims using non-forensic reasoning and evidence." I think if you see the many christians who have propelled science to where it is, you might understand that it it's not exactly about "God made it, it works, stop thinking about it". Science and religion are not diametric opposites. It's when people blatantly dismiss perfectly logical arguments and evidences because it doesn't fit into their theory. To me, there is nothing inherently wrong with the facts misaligning with Christianity - because we can conjecture about the history and motives of certain individuals in history all day - but we don't know what happened, except fragments of writing. The "new testament" is the most historically accurate piece of historical writing we have. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Fned]

"falsifiable", aka "faked".

You do not know what "falsifiable" means in this context. Therefore, the rest of your argument is invalid.

Please obtain knowledge before returning. You may begin by googling "Popper" and "scientific method".

Re:One small victory for a man..

[halivar]

English changes by consensus. At no point in its history has any lingual purist arrested its mutation against the will of the masses. When everyone starts using "irregardless" as a word, it's a word. Regardless of what you think.

Or, as they may say, irregardless.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

If English changes by consensus, doesn't that mean that you should listen to the larger group of us who are telling you that isn't a real word? The consensus isn't "what I personally want", it's "what the largest group says" - and the largest group in this case is saying "no". (I am in that group. Learn the language, or stop trying to communicate in it.)

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

If religion is true, and is the study of Theology (that is, of God), you wouldnt expect "advances". Of course, we DO have them, and we call them liberal.

Taken another way-- the constitution has barely advanced in 200 years! Surely its not worth understanding, because if it were of value, it would have a new, modern interpretation. Of course, we all see what that kind of thinking gets us regarding the freedoms guaranteed in the BoR.

It is a mistake-- one that Coyne himself repeated-- to think that the goal of christianity is the same as the goal of quantum mechanics. One tells us about our relationship with God and our status, the other seeks to find out how the universe operates. One is a static, unchanging thing, the other changes as our knowledge advances. Hence why "evangelicals" are marked by their fierce resistance to the tides of change that sometimes sweep through the church (like abandoning any concept of "truth" in the bible).

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

So your time was wasted because it didn't support your pre-concieved notions? I'd say that those that don't support my pre-concieved notions are the most valuable hours spent.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

Both parties agreed in advance to be taped. Talks given in the Boone Symposium series are routinely posted. After the debate Haught demanded the video not be released, and Rabel complied. Coyne requested Haught's email from Rabel to try and find out why Haught made his demand. Rabel refused. Coyne requested that his portion of the debate--each gave 20-25 minute talks followed by 45 minutes of Q&A--be released. Rabel refused. Coyne requested the tape so that he could remove and post his portion, and Rabel refused. It's easy to connect the dots when they're in a straight line.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Jibekn]

I agree with the AC below and mercilessly tease people who use that word to the point they don't use it again. Also, your inflammable argument doesn't hold water, inflammable it isn't a double negative, its just had its meaning shifted, just like a lot of other word, gay and hipster come to mind instantly. Gay once meant happy, and hipster was originally a word to describe white people who acted like black musicians. Shifted meaning is one thing, a word against the rules of grammar is another, and I doubt you could find a word that is explicitly refuted by English grammar rules that has ended up in the dictionary as non-slang.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

The significance of seeing the video for most is to determine the validity of Haught's claims that Coyne's section of the talk was a long, drawn-out personal attack with no academic merit or relation to the topic at hand.

After viewing the video, I would have to say Haught's claims were entirely bogus, and his attempt at censorship was most likely due to the fact that Coyne was just plain better prepared, and argued his side of the topic more convincingly. There were no personal attacks whatsoever. This isn't a victory for one guy's ego, it's a loss for the other guy's ego, a failed attempt at burying the evidence, and a valuable lesson to his colleagues that censorship can not be used to draw attention away from being on the losing side of a debate - especially censorship based on false statements.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[halivar]

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html

"The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original."

I'm pretty sure that verbing nouns and nouning verbs is against the "rules" of English (as they are determined by consensus). But now they're words, because someone started using it, and other people used it, too.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Jibekn]

Interesting read, however Shakespeare mis-used the words, and invented some to fill gaps in the language. What gap does using the word irregardless as the word regardless fill?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Alsee]

Err... you seem to be labelling anything that "could not happen, according to Science", to be "falsifiable", aka "faked".

You misunderstood him. That's not what he meant. "Falsifiable" doesn't mean false. It means "testable".

"The moon is made of green cheese" is falsifiable.
"The moon is made of rock" is falsifiable.

When tested, one of those statements ended up as falsifiable and falsified. When tested, the other statement ended up as falsifiable and confirmed.

Evolution is falsifiable. For example evolution implies "there are no precambrian human fossils". That is falsifiable - that is testable. If there are precambrian human fossils - or even precambrian rabbit fossils or any other mammal fossils, then evolution would be falsified.

There are a million ways to test evolution, a million tests any one of which could produce a result falsifying evolution. However, so far every such result turned out to confirm evolution. Just as every test so far confirms confirms the moon being made of rock. It would only take one solid result to falsify the moon-being-made-of-rock, and it would only take one solid result to falsify evolution. Finding just one precambrian rabbit would pretty well obliterate evolution.

"God exists" or "God exists and he hears prayers" are unfalsifiable. However once we get to "God hears prayers and sometimes he answers them", then we start getting into falsifiable territory. If you pray for an amputee to grow their legs back, and they do than that would be a pretty impressive confirmation. Failing that, you can say "Ok, God doesn't answer those prayers but that God sometimes answers prayers to help sick people". And you can check a few hundred heart attack patients and have people pray for half of them, which we've done. Prayer made zero difference in their survival rates or overall health. The idea that prayers help heart attack patient survival is falsifiable because it could have been confirmed, but it wasn't. So far every falsifiable claim of God answering prayers which has been tested, has ended up being falsified. Prayers have zero effect on patient survival rates, and among those who do survive the prayer has no effect on health.

-

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Pseudonym]

I haven't watched the video yet, but according to his Wikipedia page, Haught is an evolutionist. I don't see what anachronistic fossils would do to his position.

Why not use a tool like science, when it is there, and it makes predictions about the world? Something religion never has done.

That's a category error, but it's an understandable one since people like Haught often make the same error.

The purpose of religion isn't to make predictions about the natural world, though it has historically been forced into doing that in the absence of anything better. Its primary evolutionary "purpose" (with the caveat that nothing that arises by evolution can properly be spoken of as having a "purpose") is organise individual organisms into a superorganism, just like a beehive or ant colony. It also collates and curates observations about human nature, the existential questions that humans ask, elaborately worked-out thought experiments in human psychology, and even provides some well-tested suggestions as to what to do about it all.

As an added bonus, it provides monumental works of art as a byproduct. Something that science has never done.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Haught made reasonable (but sadly incorrect) arguments. ...and you know this how?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, this is not a win for atheists it's a win for fair-minded people of all religions (or lack thereof).

Let me start by saying, I did read Coyne's complaint, Haught's open response, and viewed the posted video (which unfortunately lacked the Q&A section)

Haught was wrong to try and have the video censored, I'm fairly sure he is aware of that now.

On the other hand Coyne's presentation was filled with a number of VARY flawed arguments. It's a shame that the structure was not more of a debate format, so Haught could respond to them:

1) Coyne groups atheists and agnostics together. They are not one and the same, I'm not even sure it's appropriate to group all atheists together, because not all Atheists are as evangelical as Coyne, who needs to force his beliefs on others with the same veracity of the vary religions he condemns for it. This attempt to merge these groups is a clear attempt at argumentum ad populum (argument to masses), and, as an agnostic, something I find offensive.

2) He compoundeds his first logical fallacy, with his second: he attempts to imply that because most scientists are atheists or agnostics, science and religion are in compatible. we call this logical fallacy "cum hoc ergo propter hoc." (With this, therefore because of this) The problem here is he isn't actually addressing an incompatiblity, he's saying "because most in group A believe idea B, idea B is incompatible with group A"

3) The real irony is from Coyne's own presentation many of the same scientific institutions (mostly made up of atheists and agnostics), so by his own argumentum ad populum he is wrong.

4) He uses a survey asking the question "if science disproved a tenet of your faith, what would you do? Reject the fact, Reject faith, I don't know" this survey itself is a "false dilemma." There is a list of other things I could do, I could attempt to reproduce the experiment (which would actually be a GOOD thing according to every scientist I've ever met).

5) He goes on with a number of other polls of the public, all of which are non sequiturs.

6) Haught asserts that Coyne was took many of his quotes out of context. I'm inclined to believe Haught, because Coyne says many times in his presentation "I don't know what this means" after quoting Haught. For the life of me, I cannot think of a reason to use a quote from my opponent's work in arguing with him and then say "I don't know what this means" except as a way of sliding in a subtle argementum ad hominem.

Frankly, Coyne should be embarrassed at this parade of logical fallacies he presents here. I certainly hope his work as a scientist is of a better caliber.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Having read Haught's letter, I think he is entirely right. Haught presented well reasoned arguments and in depth analysis. Coyne on the other hand just belittled and misquoted his opposition.

I happen to completely disagree with Haught's conclusions (apart from his aversion to being labelled a republican). However, I certainly respect his views (no, he is not a creationist, and yes, he does have a brain).

Re:One small victory for a man..

[lonecrow]

I watched the video and read the posts and I disagree with you. This was presented to me as a debate so for Coyne to Haughts own words as examples seems like a very acceptable thing to do. If he had used quotes from other theologians the response would have been "Coyne rebutes other peoples claims but not the ones I was presenting. He should have debated me" If it is a debate then for one participant to say that the other participant is wrong, is not irrational or rude, its kind of the whole point of a debate isn't it? I have been going over it in my mind and I can not figure out what people thought were personal attacks...? If someone could enlighten me I would appreciate it. I think Coyne is right that science and religion are not compatible. They are not even in the same game. There is a funny moment in Haughts comments where he agrees 100% with Coyne but probably didn't know it:

"Instead, I argued in a purely academic way that scientism is simply unreasonable."

I am sure that Coyne would agree that "scientism" is unreasonable for ALL the same reasons that he stats about religion. Which have nothing to do with science, or the scientific method. So there are good things about organized religion. Mostly to do with building a community that provides mutual civil support. (food hampers for the hunger, shelter for homeless, etc). Getting together and singing songs, getting together to share happy events, etc. Bad things about (some) organized religion. Intolerance, discrimination, and the most dangerous thing in the world, utopian-ism. (as Coyne stated if you have believe you have your hand on the Truth and and a vision of a perfect tomorrow, that can be used to justify any action today no matter how atrocious) But here is the thing, religion is neither necessary nor sufficient for either those good or bad things. Lots of people help their neighbors or neighborhoods without believing in god. And atheist are also capable of being bigots or utopians. I think most religious people could join a community organization (Lions, Rotary, Elks, KinsMen, etc) and get all the good community benefits without having to adopt a whole supernatural universe view at the same time. Can't people decide it's nice to be nice without needing god to tell them? Then they can lose all the negative baggage.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

Haught was wrong to try and have the video censored, I'm fairly sure he is aware of that now.

I STILL dont get this censorship language. The video wasnt public and then redacted, nor was there an agreement to release it-- NOONE disputes this. ALL the censorship implication came from Coyne's rather unfounded assumption that the video would be released; no is claiming that anyone told him that, nor has anyone explained why it would be expected that it would (coyne's explaination basically amounts to "well, I feel like its the kind of thing to release").

Haught, however, gave a very clear reason why he did NOT want to release it-- Coyne was incredibly unprofessional in his remarks, especially launching into a tirade about how catholocism is the cause of all the world's evils: that had NOTHING to do with the discussion, and was totally out of line.

All of those reasons you listed that people should be ashamed of Coyne are the very reasons that Haught didnt want to release the video. I would myself feel a little ashamed to release it, as if I were claiming that were the best the opposition could offer. And honestly, I wish I hadnt wasted the time watching it.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

If he had used quotes from other theologians the response would have been "Coyne rebutes other peoples claims but not the ones I was presenting.

One of Coynes initial remarks was along the lines of "people like Coyne believe in angels, which all smart people know dont exist". What about that sounds acceptable for the forum they were in? Is calling your opposition stupid by way of begging the question now acceptable rhetoric?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

Watch the video before making snide comments. Haught had very good reason to do so-- Coyne acted like an unprofessional child, calling names, using fallacies, etc. It was a mockery of the forum, and it was a waste of time to watch.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Kjellander]

I haven't watched the video yet, but according to his Wikipedia page, Haught is an evolutionist. I don't see what anachronistic fossils would do to his position.

Then watch the fucking video! Listen to what he says literally. I'm not gonna quote him, watch the video for yourself.

Creationists have gotta stop telling each other that just because creation needs blind faith, all other positions also needs blind faith. Believing without evidence, and not believing in absence of evidence is not the same thing. The former needs blind faith, the latter is just the wise thing to do. There is no such thing as an "evolutionist", it's not an -ism. Coyne is a scientist, pure and simple.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Renegade Iconoclast]

Indeed. I watched it and I don't want my hour back. Coyne gave me some new arguments, which is surprising, since I follow the "new atheists" pretty closely. The charge of ad-hominems is completely without merit. It isn't an ad-hominem to point out flaws in your opponent's logic.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[lonecrow]

Fair enough. I guess for me the obviousness of his statement meant that it didn't even register for me as rude.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[michelcolman]

And the funny thing is that I would never have watched the video if there hadn't been a story on slashdot about it being censored.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

and 'irregardless' isn't a word - so deduct one for brevity and one for wanting someone with religious beliefs to be toast.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[LordLimecat]

The gigantic issue-- aside from calling someone stupid in a supposedly respectable forum-- is that "smart people know angels dont exist" is true only if God doesnt exist, and therefore angels do not. If God DOES exist, than that whole statement is both rude AND wrong; and the question at stake under all of this is "does God exist"-- thats the basis of everything that Coyne was arguing. But the debate was never about the existence of God, but the reconciliation of Science and Religion, so it was an Ad Hominem attack AND begging the question AND off topic, to boot.

And that comment hardly stands alone in his speech. It really was an awful speech, and Im suprised that Coyne has the nerve to crow about his performance and declare victory; Haught's refusal to post the video could be said to have been for Coyne's sake as much as anyone elses.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing your point three was that he provided the perfect counterexample, in that at all levels including the highest most prestigious scientific bodies there are religious believers, however few, showing that indeeed they are compatible. Even if it were 1% to 99%, that 1% shows the compatible nature sufficiently. His arguments were all terrible, but I think this was the worst.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[seantide]

How is this a win for science? A decent man--regardless of whether he is correct or not--was flamed by a moron claiming to be a man of science?

Personally I have no conflicts between science and spirituality. I see science and faith complementing one another well, and science certainly has not the clairvoyance to state that all of our religious or spiritual beliefs are wrong. If anything, newer ideas in science suggest they might be real after all. In the end, we should all be focused on learning. If you decide ahead of time, things you cannot possibly know, you are neither faithful nor much of a scientist.

No valid scientist denies God or things of that nature. Before you counter with some sound-bite, make sure you listen to it. The great ones, even those who were atheists, only stated their personal belief. They never denied the things other belief in were impossible. A good scientist knows that isn't possible or reasonable.

The most zealous and religious person I have ever met, and whom still gives me the most grief about his religion, is an atheist. I like to call him and people like him evangelical atheists, members of one of the world's most vocal religions.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Pseudonym]

I am going to watch the video. I will say that given that Haught is a Roman Catholic, it's very likely that he's a theistic evolutionist of some variety. If that's not the case, then he's going against his own church's teachings. That's not necessarily a problem per se, but siding with pseudoscience against your church is a special kind of obtuse that would make even Ken Ham blush.

One thing, though: The suffix "-ism" is derived from a Greek declension which forms abstract nouns from verbs. No more, no less. People outside the US (especially in the UK, where classical education isn't shunned) tend not to have a problem with words like "Darwinism" (despite "Darwin" not being a verb). After all, by your definition, "autism", "heroism", "truism", "euphemism", "magnetism", "mechanism" and "astigmatism" aren't -isms, either.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[A-man]

I may agree in principle with Coyne, but I wish he weren't such an asshole. If I had a choice of being trapped in conversation with Haught or Coyne, I'd choose Haught. He's at least thoughtful. Coyne is just irritating and smug--the worst sort of poster boy for science.

Re:One small victory for a man..

[KingBenny]

the kind where there was no science before there were books confuses me a little ... i don't think writing would have been possible without the inquisitive mind being there first, is this a chicken or the egg thing ?

Re:One small victory for a man..

[KingBenny]

and the part where 60% of americans object to evolution nearly dropped me from my chair ... is that an accurate estimate omg ???

Re:One small victory for a man..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Coyne wrote his talk wanting to counter Creationism irregardless of its relevance to the actual talk. Lame. I thought Haught made reasonable (but sadly incorrect) arguments.

You're certainly not the only one to make this mistake, but since it's become almost the de facto lightning rod of syntax errors, I thought I'd point out:

There word "irregardless" is, at best, deprecated.

Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution. It is not out of an attempt to explain nature and the universe, but an egotistical need to be above it. Being descended from primates is offensive to them because they see the sum of humanity as being a jumble of biological components, rather than our arts and sciences. No wonder: religion has usually opposed arts and sciences until they gained enough traction to threaten the religion itself should it resist further.

It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether. "Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt. Creationism doesn't even deserve a title as a discredited theory, it belongs with mythology like Atlantis and elves, and should rightly be laughed at with impunity.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[TooMuchToDo]

Summary: Facts are non-negotiable.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[pwizard2]

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Full disclosure: I used to be a born again christian, (these days I consider myself an agnostic... I don't really know if there's a god or not) but sites like these really opened my eyes. Most people only believe because they are told the same things over and over again from childhood and free thought is discouraged. I don't know if ministers/seminaries are ignorant of the true history of Christianity or if they are aware and simply covering it up to maintain control over people. Bible "study" is simply re-indoctrinating yourself over and over. Once something happens in your life to make you start questioning what you've been told, your whole worldview inevitably falls apart. It's only a matter of time.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I think debates like this are good. Equal respect for one another's ideas should not be shared.. they should be doing their best to rip the other's ideas apart in as brutal a fashion as possible. You will find, through and through, that religious doctrine will be the first to fall apart under even the most simple of attacks. (Just repeat the word "Evidence?" over and over again, really..)

An additional thing is that debates like this need to be made, so that hopefully, maybe, some people might start to think again.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

The only way to negotiate facts is to supply better facts.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[El Torico]

Why do we even tolerate the profession of "Theologian" in the 21st century? Somehow he's committing fraud if he can make a living off being one.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

I agree, but there is a point where it becomes demeaning; I am not sure how much it is accomplishing. Everyone who watches debates only sees their pre-existing positions winning, which doesn't necessarily do anything productive. Maybe we need more comedians to take up the job. If there is one thing that can shake a belief system, it is feeling that others view it as absurd. Religion provides many excuses like "they're working for the devil," "they hate god," etc; but all of those are too serious to apply to simply being made an ass of in front of an audience. Too bad there is only one Stephen Fry.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[taoareyou]

Declaring a viewpoint is not "deserving" and dismissing it by declaring it unworthy of being addressed is also an egotistical need. A viewpoint that disagrees with yours cannot be simply dismissed, taunted and mocked as a method for demonstrating why your viewpoint is the correct one. Religion represents a plethora of views. Yes, many of them are in contradiction with science. But these views are still embraced by millions of people and thus cannot be just tossed aside as wrong simply by saying, "You're an idiot." This stance is no more effective than the opposing view stating "You must have faith."

Whenever opposing views exist, intelligent debate, where personal attacks, mocking, and egotistic passions are excluded, will always be of value.

Credibility is earned by presenting compelling and influential arguments. If your answer to a viewpoint is to abjectly refuse to refute it, because your view is so superior that all other viewpoints are so wrong that all they deserve is to be laughed at, your stance looks unsurprisingly familiar.

Science doesn't need your elitism or your contempt of other views as a champion, but rather people who present quantifiable alternatives to a viewpoint which are compelling to those who are interested.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[outsider007]

I don't really know if there's a god or not either, but I consider myself an atheist anyway because I would be a lot more surprised if it turned out there is. Plus it pisses off my family.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[MachDelta]

You've made the tragically common mistake of believing that a scientific "theory" means that it has no support.
Rather, it is the opposite - a scientific theory is something which has overwhelming support.

And while science may not yet (or ever) know the exact details of man's origins, we at least have something concrete and observable, unlike theologies wild-ass-guesses. And something is greater than nothing.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, like, "historian"? Sure, there's no place for history in the future. They should throw out archaeologists as well since that's not important. In other news, no.

Just because something isn't valid to you right now, or won't get you laid in the next 15 minutes, does not make it invalid or unworthy of any attention.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[kheldan]

This isn't entirely about people's beliefs. It's mainly about the few (being religious leaders) holding power over the many (being religious followers), and not wanting to have that power taken away from them by logic and reason. I personally know people who are one flavor of Christian or another, but they believe in evolution, and also believe that the sciences, technology, and a diverse education all are good things, and most of them are very educated (at least a Bachelor's, if not higher). For them their relgious beliefs are something that gives them emotional support and comfort, but they don't let it dictate their lives for them.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

Kind of in the same manner as vestigial organs, what always kind of made me wonder was why we need men and women if humans are designed in God's image. Strictly speaking, we should reproduce by agamogenesis. Unless there is something the bible isn't telling us... it does seem fairly insistent that God is a "he" in ever version I saw. oh well, I get fridge logic from religion. At least it has a better ending than lost.

As far as agnostic, I think the term is kind of useless. I don't think anyone takes the position that there is definitely no god (even people like me who love to attack the idea of god existing). There is a very high probability, I would say, that something of some form exists outside of what we consider the universe; if only because the current definition is narrowed mostly to what we are sure exists. However, going by the concept of belief requiring proof, not knowing something exists is essentially the same as it not existing. It is always possible to be wrong if you say something doesn't exist and at some point it turns out to, but the two positions are for all practical purposes identical until that happens. But I digress into epistemology... .

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[dave420]

Your position would look better if you at least tried to understand the scientific method before trying to wail on it. As you clearly don't, you just come off like an ignorant religious twat who can't stand to think of their chosen delusion as specious. Hubris at its finest. It must be upsetting for God to see the brain he gave you going to such ridiculous waste. Not that I believe in God. But you do.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what I'm understanding you to say, is that your wild-ass GUESS about the origin of man is better than someone else's wild-ass GUESS, just because they may believe that the Flying Spagetti Monster or some other Deity is responsible for creating us?

Absolutely, because the theory of evolution, being scientific, is proveable based on evidence, and (if evidence were found against it) disproveable. Creationism (or the term used to try to slip it into schools "Intelligent Design") is not defined in a way that it is disproveable; it is not science, it is faith. It's really as simple as that.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[pwizard2]

In my case, I don't WANT to piss off my family. My dad has been an atheist for years so he wouldn't care, but my mom has always been hyper-religious and I don't want to strain that relationship. I was "in the closet" about my beliefs for some time even though I continued to play the part. Eventually I just couldn't take it anymore and I came out. She took it hard and tried to "scare" me back into the fold but time heals all wounds. The Pauline doctrine is a huge part of what broke my faith... to actually adhere to it you would have to essentially stop being human, and telling yourself that you were a worthless "sinner" over and over again and perpetually begging for forgiveness is incredibly damaging.

If there is a god, I'm very certain that it isn't the spiteful yahweh god of the old testament. Even Jesus seems to be a composite of lots of earlier pagan traditions. Lots of what he said can be traced back to earlier philosophers and the similarities are so uncanny that it's basically plagiarism. (another good site is http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ ) Even when I was still indoctrinated I noticed lots of inconsistencies in the New testament but I was conditioned not to ask questions and just accept it.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

"Science doesn't need your elitism or your contempt of other views as a champion, but rather people who present quantifiable alternatives to a viewpoint which are compelling to those who are interested."

Considering those have been provided and provided again, ad nauseam, you'll forgive me if I continue saying that those following a 2000-3000 year old book in favor of modern facts (or even philosophy) aren't worth listening to. If they bring something serious to the table, I'm sure I will be forced to take note, even against my will, just because there is that fundamental difference about actually caring what is true. Until then, I'll leave you to the unending stream of new ways to weasel "god" into biology/physics/politics.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[kheldan]

THEORIES and FAITH

Here's the difference:
Questioning faith: Discouraged. Sometimes even punished.
Questioning theories: Encouraged, by design.

Now: which do you think is the better system?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[pwizard2]

In my case I DON'T want to piss off my family. My dad has been an atheist for most of my life so he wouldn't care but my mom has always been hyper-religious. I was "in the closet" for a long time after I stopped believing, but eventually I couldn't keep up appearances anymore and I came out recently. She took it hard and tried to scare me back into the fold, but after feeling free for the first time in my LIFE I just couldn't go back to it again. I'm certain that time heals all wounds. The Pauline doctrine is basically what "broke" me in the end... I just couldn't take it anymore. All that talk of sin, damnation, and constantly having to beg god for forgiveness is incredibly damaging.

If there is a god, I'm certain that it isn't the spiteful god in the Old Testament. Even Jesus (somehow the same entity, yet he prays to himself) seems to be a composite of older pagan myths. (another good site is http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ What Jesus taught is so similar to other sources that its essentially plagiarism.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[lakeland]

No, not really.

There is very little in life which can be proven. Apart from logical proofs such as 1 + 1 = 2 or it is possible to colour a map using only four colours without any two nodes having identical colours, nothing can be proven.

So everyone has faith. Some people may choose to believe in Jesus, others in Allah and a good number of people believe that if you can generalize from your observations to find truth.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[crazycheetah]

And then there's others of us who followed the opposite path from atheism/agnosticism to being some sort of theist. In that boat, I can say that it's going to take a whole lot more than anything science has shown me thus far to change my mind. The only thing for me is that I actually believe that science and faith can and should live harmoniously; I'm not the type to discredit evolution, etc. just because it doesn't match some interpretation of the bible that I've been told all my life (actually, it matches my interpretation of the bible just fine, because I don't understand how the two have to conflict at all unless you want to think that your interpretations of said writings are infallible, which of course is what a lot of christians do under the guise of calling the bible infallible). The history of Christianity is dark, but a lot of Christianity for a long time now has been nothing but one blind man driving a bus full of other blind men around. As a believer myself, I have a lot of anger about this. I have spent most of my life in which I've believed not going to church, specifically because of this--I'm not blind any more, I can drive myself where I need to go without a blind guy driving me off of a cliff.

I see the argument of religion vs. evolution to be stupid. Religion vs. atheism doesn't even make sense when talking to most christians. Religion is an institution (at their core, I would say that they are philosophies, but Christianity is specifically guilty of losing any of that philosophy to the institution, which is inherently corrupt and bogus--it's not even about the philosophy any more, it's about having control and power over people). Talking theism vs. atheism makes a lot of sense. Intelligent Design/Creationism vs. Evolution makes sense to a certain point (at a certain point, Intelligent Design and Creationism also try to explain things that have nothing to do with evolution), but Religion always gets dragged into it. That's stupid (why the hell is Noah always brought into it... that specifically seems like such a completely unrelated topic that I've never been able to understand why creationists tout it and evolutionists even entertain them about it).

There's also schools of thought that evolution, etc. can fit securely into a theist's (even christian) mind as well, though that's really a different point than the one I'm trying to make.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[pwizard2]

sorry for the double post.. it seems to be a slashdot malfunction. I posted the first one and it came up blank so I typed everything again.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[EvilAlphonso]

You state that your Wild-Ass Guess is that we descended from primates. A Creationist may believe that the FSM created primates similar to humans to really confuse you and make Darwin the butt of Creationist jokes. Either way, there is no scientific PROOF as you are requiring, and in my opinion, all there will ever be are Wild-Ass Guesses.

You may want to check mtDna and the retrovirus marks. Not only do we have retrovirus leftovers from our primate relatives, those leftovers allow us to trace the branching of our family tree.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

If those are your issues, I think you and Descartes need to have a talk. Amusingly, he pretty much started this whole "atheist" thing accidentally.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[bky1701]

Interestingly, when I did speak to knowledgeable Christians, I had the exact same reaction you just described.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[spooky_d]

For a devout Roman-Catholic, that's really impressive

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I said accidentally.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[couchslug]

No, debate is for exposing them to those who may be swayed away from superstition. Superstitionists cannot think differently, but one can help deny them a few recruits.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Lazy Jones]

If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product.

So? Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?
(before you ask, I'm an atheist/agnostic, but I find it pointless to even debate particular ideas of people suffering from a popular form of mass psychosis)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[David Gerard]

Creation science is one of the greatest sources of really concentrated stupidity to be found anywhere.

Ladeez gemmun, I give you: baraminology.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Lazy Jones]

It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether

That doesn't go far enough. It should be treated as a mental disease, since it doesn't only look exactly like a psychosis, it also frequently motivates affected people towards antisocial and dangerous behavior, so society needs to be protected from it. Unsurprisingly, it is also not uncommon for psychotics/schizophreniacs to display strong religious delusions.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

we call that copy-paste inheritance or "sloppy copypasta".

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[znerk]

Why do we even tolerate the profession of "Theologian" in the 21st century? Somehow he's committing fraud if he can make a living off being one.

"Theologian" is based on "theology" - that is, the study of religion.

Next time you don't actually understand a word, look it up before telling everyone you're a fool.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[spooky_d]

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[znerk]

God made me an atheist. Who are you to judge Him?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[azgard]

I question that there is a better system!

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Zironic]

The issue isn't so much the word, but rather that Theology much like Astrology has a name that implies that it is a scientific field of study, when it's really not.

It stems back from that the field was founded by the church as a way to have the universities teach their priests about the 'truths' about their religion. Non religious study of religions tend to go by names such as Religious Studies.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Seraphim_72]

And thus the Gnostics. Look it up.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Seraphim_72]

Yes, Lucy was nothing. Primordial Eve was nothing. Please don't let facts get in the way of your anti-religious hate fest. That would be unscientific.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[El Torico]

Actually, I looked it up in at least five different places before making my original post you ass. You also conflated Theology with religious studies.

The definition of theology as the study of religion supports my argument. Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science. A Theologist should have no more respect that someone who studies the writings of any other work of fiction. It's on a par with the study of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll. Theology has no practical value except one; it's a useful tool for the Clergy to separate fools from their money and to keep them in line.

This is from the Wikipedia article you referred to -
In his two part The Age of Reason, the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, wrote, "The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing."

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Seraphim_72]

I agree! A thousand years ago your ancestors should have eaten shellfish out of a red tide. Stupid book.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ElmoGonzo]

I don't believe in evolution. I accept it (provisionally) as the best explanation available.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Really? You need a page to explain it? I always thought it'd be a ton easier:

Look: Noah took in all the animals. Let's just accept that point. But what about all the plants? Not many of the plants we have around today would survive 40 days submerged. So either they evolved after the flood (say hi to evolution) or the bible forgets to mention a second creation (the holy book incomplete?) or it's all a big pile of nonsense.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[shentino]

The Roman Catholic Church is nothing but politics that makes use of the bible instead of the constitution.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Registered Coward v2]

The definition of theology as the study of religion supports my argument. Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science.

Actually, it's not. Science and faith can coexist quite nicely since they really consider two different questions - the how (science) and why (faith). One can be a good scientist regardless of one's views on faith. Some religions certainly are anti - science but that does not mean all are; as Haught's viewpoint illustrates.

A Theologist should have no more respect that someone who studies the writings of any other work of fiction. It's on a par with the study of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll. Theology has no practical value except one; it's a useful tool for the Clergy to separate fools from their money and to keep them in line.

Your comment illustrates, IMHO, why the science / religion debate is pointless. People on both sides refuse to hear and understand the other's point of view; rather than debate they ridicule and attack. Of course, since I think the two positions are not polar opposites nor even in the same arena I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

Even Jesus seems to be a composite of lots of earlier pagan traditions. Lots of what he said can be traced back to earlier philosophers and the similarities are so uncanny that it's basically plagiarism.

Not just what he said. There are also stories much like his or parts of his all around the middle east at that time. Basically, The Life of Brian is probably the most accurate movie regarding the proliferance of people a lot like Jesus.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Chrisq]

The only way to negotiate facts is to supply better facts.

I'll up your 1+1=2 with a 1+3=4

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[shentino]

That's because facts, by definition, are true things that do not yield to opinions.

If it wasn't true, it wouldn't be a fact in the first place.

That said, whether something is a fact or not IS a matter of opinion, and things aren't facts/not facts just because we say they are.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[YttriumOxide]

Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science. A Theologist should have no more respect that someone who studies the writings of any other work of fiction. It's on a par with the study of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll. Theology has no practical value except one; it's a useful tool for the Clergy to separate fools from their money and to keep them in line.

Actually, I'd consider it useful as a small part of psychology and anthropology. It can be useful for psychologists and anthropologists to have an idea of what it is that people believe, the reasons why, and some of the history around it. I do think it's a bit much to take it to the level of a whole field unto itself, but that seems to happen a lot in academia anyway.

I agree that most people that study it do NOT do so from a psychological or anthropological standpoint. They do it to further their understanding of the fairy-tales that they believe in (which I fully agree is completely useless) and in some cases "cash in" on it.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ProfessionalCookie]

Um. Seeds?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

So, what I'm understanding you to say, is that your wild-ass GUESS about the origin of man is better than someone else's wild-ass GUESS, just because they may believe that the Flying Spagetti Monster or some other Deity is responsible for creating us?

No, because the evidence we have available supports our "guess", and thoroughly debunks the religious one.

It's a guess at first. You always start out with a guess. Say you and I don't know what the weather is like in Norway today. We both make a guess. Now we part ways. Religion starts to write a book about it, explaining why the weather is as it guessed it is, and burning everyone who says otherwise. Science, on the other hand, tries to find out whether or not the guess is right. Assume we can't get to Norway within a day, so we can never find out for sure what the weather was. But we can go there and see what the weather is tomorrow. And ask the people who live there. And check the ground for signs of recent rain or snow. We can gather all kinds of evidence that either supports or refutes our initial guess. Using that, we may modify our initial "guess". It now becomes what scientists call a "theory". The more our evidence converges, the stronger our theory gets. If the ground is dry, locals are saying it has been sunny all week, it is sunny today - it becomes very, very likely that it was indeed sunny on the day in question.

Problem is, both sides have no PROOF of their position.

See above. Your request of absolute proof borders on the psychotic. We regularily send people to prison for life based on evidence, not proof. A lot of conclusive evidence all pointing to the same result is very often as close to proof as we can get in the real world.

Yes, both sides do not have 100% proof. But one side has a mountain of evidence on their side, and the other has a badly written book of folk-tales.

someone will find a bone fragment (not even a whole bone), yet conceptually render what that person looked like.

It's called inference. It's a perfectly normal process. In fact, you do it yourself every day. You see a small part of a human body, say a leg under a table, and you assume that there's a whole body attached to it. Scientists do the same, just a lot more complicated. But we have enough knowledge about anatomy to be able to make those "guesses". For example, if you have a leg, you can usually assume that there's at least a second leg and that it looks a lot alike, because almost all the animals we know work that way.

Either way, there is no scientific PROOF as you are requiring, and in my opinion, all there will ever be are Wild-Ass Guesses. Then again, maybe the FSM will show itself tomorrow, and prove that we're all descended from bees.

No, we know that it's not bees. The FSM didn't have a license for winged flight.

Look, you have an extremist binary definition of proof. You ignore that the real world isn't binary, that proof is just the name we use for conclusive evidence, and that not every guess is a "wild-ass" guess. There are different qualities of guesses. If we both were to guess about where exactly Barack Obama is at this very moment, a guess of "in his bed" would be a likely guess at this time, while a guess of "on a small moon orbiting one of the planets of Betelgeuse" would be a very unlikely guess. The point being that not all guesses are equal.

It's a stupid trick. "You have no proof, so your guess is as good as mine! Nanana". Sorry, no. Obama may not actually in bed right now, but the two guesses are not equally likely.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it,

Of course not. These debates are not for their benefit, but for the benefit of those who might fall for their nonsense.

It is not out of an attempt to explain nature and the universe, but an egotistical need to be above it.

There's actually more to it than that. Fortunately, science has begun to find out the psychological needs behind religious thinking.
I'm waiting for the day that religion is declared an insanity, like paranoia or schizophrenia.

religion has usually opposed arts and sciences until they gained enough traction to threaten the religion itself should it resist further.

Actually, that's not true. Religion has often embraced art, and sometimes science. Christianity is really a bad model for "all religions". It's one of the worst when it comes to stuff like that. Many other religions, eastern ones, or the ancient ones, actually had a god for arts and sciences (sometimes the same, sometimes different ones).

"Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt.

Of course it has. But as a subject to be studied, not as an equal alternative.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

Having watched the video though, that's not what is done here. At no point is the phrase "you're an idiot" used, or any synonym for it. Instead, a very reasoned argument is given – religion is predicated on the idea of accepting things that you "know" to be true, or "want" to be true, or "feel" to be true no matter what evidence you're given against them. Science is predicated on immediately dismissing things as false if you're given evidence to show that they're false. These two points of view are mutually incompatible. Ergo, religion and science are not compatible things.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[unapersson]

Actually, it's not. Science and faith can coexist quite nicely since they really consider two different questions - the how (science) and why (faith). One can be a good scientist regardless of one's views on faith. Some religions certainly are anti - science but that does not mean all are; as Haught's viewpoint illustrates.

Doesn't science cover how (observation) and why (theory)?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[taoareyou]

When you give up explaining and countering opposing opinions with solid, demonstrative, observable facts then all you are left with is "we're right, you're wrong, we don't have to prove it". Which is the very stance of ignorance you hopefully wish to avoid. It doesn't matter if you've said it a thousand times. There are always new ears. There are always new minds seeking answers. When your opposition tells the youth their worldview, and they look to you and you say, "They are idiots. We're not even going to explain why we're right because they are too stupid to get it", you have provided nothing of substance and only negativism.

We do not give up on fighting ignorance simply because it's ignorance.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[epyT-R]

A historian derives fact from the past. so do archeologists. a theologian might study religious history, but once he goes from an abstract study to belief in it, he becomes a storyteller.

ad hominems don't make your position valid either.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Theology does definitely not simply give us "wild-ass guesses," as you state. Try reading the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, and St. Augustin, to name a few. These pious geniuses approached God and religion, among other topics, in a compelling, logical fashion. Off topic: I often see people who bash God and religion know nothing about its logical bases and are not (genuinely) interested in learning about it. Indeed, there is no blinder man than he who does not want to see, and ignorance is bliss.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's one of the funniest debunkings of an explanation of Noah's flood by one of the most (in)famous creationists on youtube (whose theory has also been featured on the front page of conservapedia!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiGeubgYLBg

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is frequently a bottom line of disrespect, something I cannot accept for anybody (also a stupid atheist). If you must (falsly) connect (like Coyne) education and religion, many my friends are religious and have phd, but I dont know about any of them who belief for emotional comfort. More likely it brings less comfort.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[felipekk]

"Why when one person has an imaginary friend he's called crazy, but when millions have the same imaginary friend it's called religion?"

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[epyT-R]

the point being that scientists may not have every fact in the universe, but they have derived some of them, and based on them, offered theories as to origins. these theories changes as more facts are discovered. religious people do the opposite. they have prefab assumptions with cherry picked facts to support them. they ignore conflicting information.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[epyT-R]

first paragraph = argumentum ad populum fallacy. incorrect positions can and should be dismissed regardless of how many people think they're correct.

third paragraph = the words 'compelling' and 'influential' imply emotional overtones. appeals to emotion prove nothing.. how 'moved' someone is does not make a position more correct. refusing to refute a non-falsifiable position is perfectly reasonable. it is the job of the believer to bring proof of his position and not the job of the doubter to debunk it.

fourth paragraph = true. science doesn't need elitism or contempt.. any feelings a scientist may have or not have are irrelevant. he is either correct or not. a poor scientist would allow his feelings to affect his results. however, it's not science's job to provide compelling positions. it's supposed to show the truth.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Spazztastic]

Thought I was going insane for a minute...

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can be an an Agnostic Theist or an Agnostic Atheist.

They answer two different questions.

Can we know if there is a god? if you say no, you're agnostic.

Do you believe in a god? if you say no, you're atheist.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

Not quite.. Does science answer the question, "what is the purpose of the universe?"

Many people mistakenly take science's silence on the subject as an answer of "there is none", but that is in error - confusing unprovable philosophy and science. Religion however specifically deals with this question. So do some philosophical viewpoints (atheism for example).

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about "many of the plants", but I can easily imagine seeds surviving. I am an atheist, but calling the bible "a big pile of nonsence" is just as ignorant as literally believing in it.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, the creationist crowd doesn't have a problem with "evolution" they have a problem with "evolution" as "origin of species". As do many scientists. Hows that search for the missing link coming along?
 
I don't know who this Haught guy is, but I've seen this guy speak logically regarding science and evolution and creation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Zoxed]

Firstly I am an atheist, however I guess the obvious *religious* response (I repeat: not mine) is that (again) it is God testing you: do you have faith in him, even though there is stacks of evidence and logical arguments against his existence.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[gothzilla]

You know the story of the ugly duckling? Since there is no such thing as a talking duck we should stop telling that story to children, shouldn't we.
The problem less in two places. We have religious people who think you have to believe talking ducks are real, and atheists who are obsessed with mocking anyone who uses talking ducks in a story. Both are missing the whole point of everything.
We certainly shouldn't ever discuss the story of the ugly duckling. It might give the story teller credibility.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Pikoro]

So you're a born again atheist?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Ginger Unicorn]

Have you read it? It really is a big pile of nonsense. I'm not saying that to be glib or senselessly derogatory, but it reads like a David Lynch script.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

Except religion doesn't contain an answer to that question, as it's not based on anything related to reality.

Ask about the purpose of the universe to a Christian, Buddhist and ancient Egyptian, and you'll get three different answers to that question. Heck, even within a single religion they can't agree.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Warwick Allison]

Everyone? Plenty of people have been convinced one way or the other by orators of the position. How did you think we GOT to this point otherwise???

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to negotiate facts is to supply better facts.

That only works if your audience is rational, or at least willing to suspend their biases.

I know somebody who has arthritis who believes that it is caused by somebody putting poison into her food. So although I could argue with her, and in my own biased opinion present her with better "facts", she is not persuaded. She also happens to have strong religious and moral beliefs, which I haven't bothered arguing with her about.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Not just what he said. There are also stories much like his or parts of his all around the middle east at that time. Basically, The Life of Brian is probably the most accurate movie regarding the proliferance of people a lot like Jesus.

Including this bit? Oh, I do hope so :-)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Registered Coward v2]

Actually, it's not. Science and faith can coexist quite nicely since they really consider two different questions - the how (science) and why (faith). One can be a good scientist regardless of one's views on faith. Some religions certainly are anti - science but that does not mean all are; as Haught's viewpoint illustrates.

Doesn't science cover how (observation) and why (theory)?

Only in the very narrow context of the scientific method - which it answers as part of the larger "How does this happen" question I referred to. Faith seeks to answer to the broader "Why does this happen" question - from a philosophical, not scientific - POV. That "why" is unprovable (which is why it is faith, not science) but not in conflict with science. A person can chose to answer the why question however they want - God, random chance, the great flying spaghetti monster - without lessening or contradicting the scientific explanations. Some people try to use their beliefs to discredit science - out of a mistaken hypothesis that understanding science somehow diminishes their God - but that is Religion (with all it's trappings and problems its caused), not faith. Unfortunately, many people find it hard to separate the two (faith and Religion). Similarly, some scientists seem to think that faith somehow threatens science; a position I do not hold.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product

Have you every reverse-engineered any code? Congratulations, you've just demonstrated that if God exists then [s]he is a hacker! Ok, some might have to revise their understanding of "perfection", but some of us are already there. :-)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Could have been seeds, I suppose? ;-)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

I would say that they are philosophies, but Christianity is specifically guilty of losing any of that philosophy to the institution, which is inherently corrupt and bogus--it's not even about the philosophy any more, it's about having control and power over people

An over-generalisation. True of some branches of Christianity, but far from all.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

the holy book incomplete?

That's pretty much a given. I doubt even the most extreme fundamentalist would claim that the Bible records everything that ever happened.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you see in the exact same way as they do.

"The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution." If I flip this sentence it now describes you.
"The people who don't believe in creationism will never be swayed toward it, because their reasons for not believing in it it are not the same as are ours for not believing evolution."

Both of you zealots are the exact same. It is the exact same problem that Muslims and Jews have had. Jews and Christians. Americans and Russians. Etc, etc. It isn't a religious thing. It isn't a religious/science thing. It is just a dislike/hatred thing.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Acron]

Religion is man's attempt to answer that question, i.e. why am I here? Science can't address it. So either you go with total ignorance and avoiding the question, or you engage in religion (or call it philosophy or whatever floats your boat, the name can change, what you are doing doesn't - it is an important question that science can't directly address as it deals with aspects of the universe and existence that exist outside the physical universe, though how interconnected the two are has a lot of room for debate).

.

Ask three different physicists how the universe came into existence (the mechanism) and you can get three different answers. So? Somebody is more or less right, that's all it means.

"...ology" is "the study of", nothing more or less. It doesn't make something scientific to be an ology, though if applicable, you most certainly can use the scientific method. Or logic, etc. It is something that exists that can be studied.

Amazing how few people apparently went and read Haught's letter.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Just repeat the word "Evidence?" over and over again, really..

To which the well-informed religious person will ask "what counts as evidence?" It's a fundamental point of disagreement between science and religion (or at least the more philosophically-nuanced forms of religion). And its a metaphysical disagreement, so it can't be resolved by appeals to evidence (which would be circular reasoning anyway). Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more. As do most scientists, actually, in their everyday lives.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

Religion is man's attempt to answer that question, i.e. why am I here? Science can't address it. So either you go with total ignorance and avoiding the question, or you engage in religion (or call it philosophy or whatever floats your boat, the name can change, what you are doing doesn't - it is an important question that science can't directly address as it deals with aspects of the universe and existence that exist outside the physical universe, though how interconnected the two are has a lot of room for debate).

The correct answer in that case is that while there's no evidence, the question is not answerable.

Ask three different physicists how the universe came into existence (the mechanism) and you can get three different answers. So? Somebody is more or less right, that's all it means.

Actually there's a lot of agreement on that.

If scientists disagreed as much as religious people, it wouldn't mean "somebody is more or less right", it would mean nobody knows what they're talking about.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Actually, I'd consider it useful as a small part of psychology and anthropology.

Yes, and I'd add to that philosophy (which is a faculty it sometimes finds itself in). The study of the arguments for and against God has been invaluable over the centuries in honing our ideas of epistemology, including the continuing development of the scientific method.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the Christian god is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful. Perfect in every way. So comparing it to "an average" painter is blasphemous of the highest order.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Threni]

I know when I want to plant some seeds I keep them safe in dirty salt water for 40 days before hand.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Questioning faith: Discouraged. Sometimes even punished.

Actively encouraged in my experience. I've even been invited to preach agnosticism at a local church (which I did, and it went down well). You are mixing with the wrong religious people. Or more likely not mixing with any and getting your view of them from a few nutjobs that hit the media. Remember that it's only the exceptions that make the news. Man bites dog, and all that.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

Except religion doesn't contain an answer to that question, as it's not based on anything related to my view of reality.

Fixed that for you.

Ask about the purpose of the universe to a Christian, Buddhist and ancient Egyptian, and you'll get three different answers to that question. Heck, even within a single religion they can't agree.

This is true, what is your point? I never specified which religion was correct or if I knew which one was. I have an opinion, sure but I don't claim to be able to prove it.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

No, not really.

There is very little in life which can be proven. Apart from logical proofs such as 1 + 1 = 2 or it is possible to colour a map using only four colours without any two nodes having identical colours, nothing can be proven.

There are extreme forms of solipsism that argue that even those can't be proven. The proof assumes that logic is valid and that there's no systematic bug in the human brain that leads us to think, for example, that if a is identical to b then b is identical to a. If we can't trust logic then we can't prove anything (and can't even be sure that we can't prove anything, and so on, ad infinitum).

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Jappus]

Most of the seeds of todays plants can't take staying completely submerged in water for even a very, very short amount of time. Even very small seeds can only stay airborne for a brief time. Most seeds do not germinate in completely waterlogged and/or eroded soil.

So, either you posit that a few thousand years ago seeds were much hardier (then why aren't they now, then?), or you need to explain how the current abundance of plants came into existence in such a short amount of time.

On top of that, you have mushrooms, most of which reproduce via airborne spores that would've been destroyed even easier by a flood.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Having watched the video though, that's not what is done here. At no point is the phrase "you're an idiot" used, or any synonym for it. Instead, a very reasoned argument is given – religion is predicated on the idea of accepting things that you "know" to be true, or "want" to be true, or "feel" to be true no matter what evidence you're given against them. Science is predicated on immediately dismissing things as false if you're given evidence to show that they're false. These two points of view are mutually incompatible. Ergo, religion and science are not compatible things.

But it's a false view of religion. It's easy to knock down straw men.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming, of course, that mathematics has an "real" meaning beyond the model you apply it to (hint - it doesn't.)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[zegota]

Agnostics like myself maintain that, if there is a god (and most of them think there's probably not), it would be impossible for anyone to ever know that. That's the usual definition of agnostics -- that we *can't* know if god exists, not just that we *don't* know.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Dhalka226]

How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

I don't think vestigial organs are a good case against creationism per se, but this one is actually easy to explain:

Because you're playing with the definition of "flawed." Evolutionarily speaking, "flawed" does not mean "imperfect;" flawed means reduces your ability to survive to reproduce and pass on your genes. If there is no negative selector against the vestigial organs, they may or may not evolve away. It's kind of like eye color; there is no survival advantage or disadvantage to one color versus another, so there is no reason to believe one eye color will ever simply disappear.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

Fixed that for you.

No, you didn't.

This is true, what is your point? I never specified which religion was correct or if I knew which one was. I have an opinion, sure but I don't claim to be able to prove it.

Precisely that, that religion is unrelated to reality.

A Christian, Buddhist and ancient Egyptian looking at a tree would agree on the number of apples hanging from it, but when they look at the universe they come up with completely different answers, which suggests that they're not really describing reality.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Dcnjoe60]

...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution. It is not out of an attempt to explain nature and the universe, but an egotistical need to be above it. Being descended from primates is offensive to them because they see the sum of humanity as being a jumble of biological components, rather than our arts and sciences. No wonder: religion has usually opposed arts and sciences until they gained enough traction to threaten the religion itself should it resist further.

It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether. "Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt. Creationism doesn't even deserve a title as a discredited theory, it belongs with mythology like Atlantis and elves, and should rightly be laughed at with impunity.

Haught is not a creationist and the debate wasn't about creationism. Haught is Catholic and the Catholic Church is one of the largest funders of scientific research. There are many Jesuit (Catholic) Universities in this country that do marvelous research in all areas of science. Even though I am not a Catholic, I do see the contributions they make in research. It seems that in a country that values free speech, proposing that any group be censured or silenced is hypocritical.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[dbIII]

It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether.

Don't you think a Jesuit would have done things differently?
I don't want to make fun of all those groups that grew out of rejecting an educated clergy, but once you get to situations like this it really shows up Christianity Lite as not being able to answer things in the philosophical realm or even see where that ends and science starts. I'm no Catholic but you do have to give them points for considering questions over generations instead of throwing out anything that sounds complicated and just going with what feels good.
I'd say if they don't know enough about religion that they see science as some sort of rival then they probably should keep out of debates about religion AND science.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[AngryDeuce]

Yeah, sorry, gonna have to go with "a big pile of nonsense" myself...

My faith in the truth in the bible was lost in grade school when I played my first game of telephone. If twenty five kids can't even keep a message straight being passed between one another in a minute's time, how the hell can anyone believe with a straight face that the bible has any truth, whether historical or religious, in any way, shape or form? A lot of the stories were centuries old hearsay even by Jesus' time...

I don't doubt that people like Jesus Christ and his apostles actually existed, but I think they had much more in common with David Koresh than the son of God.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

You seem unable to view the world from any point of view except your own limited one. Let me fix things again for you.

A Christian, Buddhist and naturalist looking at a tree would agree on the number of apples hanging from it, but when they look at the universe they come up with completely different answers, which suggests that they're not really describing reality.

I see no reason to assume any point of view describes reality. The fact that they may be internally self consistent is a claim all the modern ones make, thus I place them on the same level.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[TaggartAleslayer]

Exceptional rebuttal. I would mod you up if I had the points.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you apply the same standards for "proof of existence" to all historical people right? Or just the ones that make it uncomfortable for you

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Lazy Jones]

Perfect in every way

Hyperbole and everone knows it, he cannot even create a rock too heavy for him to lift, like we used to say.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

What is false about this view?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[argStyopa]

Or the mass of 2 of each of the 30 million animal species?
Or the ability of him to save both salt- and freshwater fish?
Or the time it would take 2 examples of each species or, say, snails to travel from (say) the opposite side of the world, or at least the poles, to his ark?
Or the logical impossibility of the entire land surface of the planet being covered with water...and then not?

Seriously, one really doesn't need much explanation to see that the Noah story simply cannot be literally true.

Now, the idea that it's some catastrophic flood event in the Black Sea region that's been historically exaggerated over the retellings, and then cast into a morality tale by some ancient finger-wagger? THAT'S entirely credible.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[AngryDeuce]

Does science answer the question, "what is the purpose of the universe?"

Why does it even need one? Why does there have to be purpose at all? What is the purpose of a volcano? Not it's function, we all know what a volcano does and what it is a reaction to, but what is it's purpose? Purpose assumes some weird sort of sentience, an ambition or drive that exists beyond the physical: "A volcano's purpose is to prevent buildup of pressure in the Earth's crust." That's ridiculous, obviously, a volcano is caused by these things, it has no purpose, there is no 'meaning' in a volcano, it is what it is. We can study volcanoes, and we can predict how they will behave, but it is purely scientific...

What is the 'purpose' of anything? What is the purpose of a rock? What is the purpose of oxygen? What is the purpose of the planet Mars? What is the purpose of heat rising? What is the purpose of snow? There's no purpose in any of these things, they are natural reactions based on the physical laws of the universe, laws which we are just barely beginning to understand, but laws nonetheless. The fact that ice floats doesn't have some grand cosmological 'purpose', but it sure is handy, and convenient to the development of life. However, that doesn't imbibe it with some sense of purpose, it's just a natural reaction to the fact that water ice is less dense than liquid water.

There's nothing wrong with drawing a big question mark on the things we don't yet understand. I have no idea why so many people are so afraid of that question mark that they need to fill in the blanks with some magical, intangible cosmic being...

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[tbannist]

Even Jesus seems to be a composite of lots of earlier pagan traditions.

That should be expected. In the best case, the gospels were written almost a century after his death by people with no direct knowledge of the events. In the worst case there was no Jesus and the whole thing was based on the rumors, legends and myths. It could be as wrong as someone writing the Book of Norris 100 years from now and believing that he actually cured cancers based on the number of references to his ability to do so.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's all a big pile of nonsense.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

And your point of view is philosophy. That is the point, from here on in, its philosophy. These are not things we can test for or prove. I am not saying you're wrong, I'm just pointing out that science does not say you're right.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[AngryDeuce]

There's tons of evidence of evolution; Creationism, not so much.

I really don't know what type of proof critics of evolution need. Short of building a time machine and taking them back a couple million years to run around with our cavemen ancestors, there just isn't going to be any beyond studying the fossil record like we have been for hundreds of years. At some point people are going to have to accept that 99.9999999999% certainty is enough evidence to make up for that .00000000000001% of doubt...

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

The " no matter what evidence you're given against them" bit. There are some religious people like that [1] but it's not true of religion as a whole. The religious person might disagree with the scientist on the interpretation of the evidence, but many of them (most of them?) agree on the need to revise their position based on new evidence.

[1] Heck, there are plenty of scientific people like that -- as Max Plank observed, "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

The " no matter what evidence you're given against them" bit. There are some religious people like that [1] but it's not true of religion as a whole.

No – some people who claim to be religious are not religious. Religion involves flat out faith - "what's in this book is true, believe it, if you don't you're a bad person". The requirement very much is that you ignore all evidence against the contents of the book - if you pay attention to it and adjust your view from what the book says you're a bad person again.

The bottom line is that religion is based on "you cannot disprove some core part of my faith". Ideas that cannot be tested or disproved are the absolute antithesis of science. The guys argument is in no way a straw man.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Chrisq]

Assuming, of course, that mathematics has an "real" meaning beyond the model you apply it to (hint - it doesn't.)

This is a far from a settled philosophical point. Indeed some people think that maths is the only thing that's real.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

No – some people who claim to be religious are not religious. Religion involves flat out faith - "what's in this book is true, believe it, if you don't you're a bad person". The requirement very much is that you ignore all evidence against the contents of the book - if you pay attention to it and adjust your view from what the book says you're a bad person again.

The bottom line is that religion is based on "you cannot disprove some core part of my faith". Ideas that cannot be tested or disproved are the absolute antithesis of science. The guys argument is in no way a straw man.

Fine, you can have your (highly idiosyncratic) view of religion if you like. Just be careful of equivocation and remember that your arguments won't relate at all to all those millions who believe in and worship God or gods but who are happy to revise their views based on new evidence.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[AngryDeuce]

The question itself, "What is the purpose of the universe?" is philosophy, because it assumes there even has to be one. Purpose in itself is a purely philosophical construct, no different than 'fate' or 'justice'. It will never be provable, there is no scientific method for testing it, it requires faith and acceptance without evidence, ruled by emotion.

Any scientist will tell you that a theory with no evidence to support it is a bad theory. When 99.9999% of the evidence points to solution A, and .0001% of the evidence points to solution B, science goes with solution A. Faith, on the other hand, dismisses that 99.9999% of evidence as some sort of grand cosmological 'trickery and deceit' and insists that because that 99.9999% is not 100%, that means that solution B is equally valid.

Unless someone comes up with a way to ignore the laws of physics as we understand them and create a time machine and actually take people back to our past and show them our ancestors, 99.9999% is all we're gonna get on things like this. If you want to throw your name in the .0001% hat, that is your right, but don't try to claim that your beliefs are as well supported as the ones with 99.9999% of the evidence.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Sloppy]

Doesn't science cover how (observation) and why (theory)?

No. Observation covers what, and theory covers how.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

Well, there is no evidence either way, so we could equally say "there is no purpose" is also a bad theory. Can you show me this 99% evidence that even suggests the universe has no purpose? I would be most interested. If not, it is honestly just as much faith to assert it has no purpose. I would suggest that if you plan on sticking to science and not going into philosophy, you stick to "I don't know" which, is at least honest.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

You seem unable to view the world from any point of view except your own limited one. Let me fix things again for you.

Fail again. And why do you replace the ancient egyptian? Do you have something against them?

I see no reason to assume any point of view describes reality. The fact that they may be internally self consistent is a claim all the modern ones make, thus I place them on the same level.

That's easy, you test, and look at what works. Prayer demonstrably doesn't work. Science does. That makes it quite clear which is closer to the truth.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Roxton]

...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution.

Given your statement, I think you'd appreciate Coyne's approach. It's self-admittedly pugnacious. He declares there's no room for dialog, only destructive monologuing. At first, the social signaling and negative attitudes are off-putting, but by the end, his signaling seems to successfully in-group the audience and ostracize the theologians. It's kind of fascinating.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor point that needs to be clarified: the world wasn't submerged for 40 days. It rained for 40 days. The world was submerged for something like 9 months, though I can't remember specifically.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

I have nothing against them. I was merely pointing out that your philosophy also fits into that category. Why not debate the matter instead of an arbitrary "fail again"?

Sure prayer works. There are even some scientific studies on it. Mostly they attribute the effects to coincidence and the placebo effect. I will assert though that the effects are not always reproducible, so I don't assert there is a scientific reason to accept prayer.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[AngryDeuce]

Show me purpose. Show me any evidence you have that demonstrates the existence of purpose from a non-theological aspect. Show me how you test 'purpose'. Is it measurable? Does one thing have more 'purpose' than another thing? Who decides what purpose is? What is the point of purpose? What does purpose contribute to the natural world? If purpose exists, what came before purpose?

Like I said, purpose is a human construct based on a purely human perspective. Lions don't feel 'purpose' in what they do, they get hungry because their stomach tells their brain that they'd better go out and eat something because they need to replenish their energy supplies in order to maintain their bodies in order to better make and protect their baby lions. That's it. They're not sitting there singing "The Circle of Life" like some Disney movie. They're not out there hunting because that is their 'purpose' in their ecosystem, it's strictly selfish biology and self-preservation, honed over millions of years of natural selection. Some plants turn towards the sun because millions of years ago plants that didn't starved and died before they could make more little baby plants that didn't turn towards the sun.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[langelgjm]

A historian derives fact from the past.

How do they "derive" that fact? To me, it seems historians interpret documents and other sources from the past into more or less plausible stories. This is one of the reasons history kind of straddles the humanities and the social sciences. Historians are always choosing what sources to emphasize, and what kind of narrative to construct, because those sources don't speak for themselves.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

who believe in and worship God or gods

There's the idea that can't be tested or disproved right there. See, antithesis of science ;)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product.

So? Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

(before you ask, I'm an atheist/agnostic, but I find it pointless to even debate particular ideas of people suffering from a popular form of mass psychosis)

My sentiments exactly. I am a reformed fundamentalist..now agnostic.. but it I dont think pure anti-theism has to be the only answer to crazy biblical creationists. The facts of evolution (which is simply a process) do not explain first cause and the possibility that could be wound up and allowed to happen by a first cause. Whether that first cause is accident or a creator.. we just dont know.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, whether something is a fact or not IS a matter of opinion...

Is that a fact?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

I never offered to prove there was a purpose. All I said was that there is no evidence either way. You brought up the evidence question (99.99%), and I honestly would still be very interested in seeing that. Don't build strawmen here. If you say that my above statement is wrong, then please address the statement. Attacking the statement "there is a purpose" is futile, because I am not making that as a claim.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Hatta]

How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

Two words: Local minima.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Jamu]

Noah took in all the animals. Let's just accept that point. But what about all the plants?

Never mind the plants. Why did he take in the fish?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

I have nothing against them. I was merely pointing out that your philosophy also fits into that category. Why not debate the matter instead of an arbitrary "fail again"?

Of course it does, that's the point. Things that are related to reality can be universally agreed on. On matters of belief there's nothing to agree on, because it's not in any way verifiable. Anybody is free to say anything they want and so far nobody is getting smitten for it.

Sure prayer works. There are even some scientific studies on it. Mostly they attribute the effects to coincidence and the placebo effect. I will assert though that the effects are not always reproducible, so I don't assert there is a scientific reason to accept prayer.

Nope, that's the very definition of it not working. In trials, things are tested against a placebo. Something "working" is defined by being better than a placebo.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Pope]

If there is a god, I'm very certain that it isn't the spiteful yahweh god of the old testament.

And therein lies the biggest problem, IMO: since when does Christianity have a monopoly on the truth? Why is there a default to believe in "a god" rather than many?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[inasity_rules]

No, the placebo as far as I can see seems to be assumed afterwards. I.e. it is assumed prayer is the placebo.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

It's not ignoring of evidence, is it?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about the same debate that is at issue here? Because your comment seems to be responding to some overly caricatured picture of a creationist/evolutionist debate. It seems to me that the idea of such a debate must be lurking in your head, and when any story that is even loosely connected to it pops up, you immediately cram it into that conception.

The debate was about science and theology, despite your inclination is to just reduce it to something like evolution vs creation. This is lazy thinking and it is intellectually and morally dishonest. Not only that, you present an overly simplified version of your imagined creation/evolution debate. Then on the basis of that overly simplified version you say we should close the debate?

And to top it all, the sloppy procedure you demonstrate somehow gives us a case when we can bypass the principle that "dialog is good"?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Frescard]

...but debating these people only give them credibility they do not deserve. The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away

Discussions like these are not meant to convince your *oppenent*.
That's never gonna happen...
But they're there to give those audience member who might still be on the fence an exposure to arguments from the other side, to perhaps convince *them* that there's more to the issue than they've heard so far.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[drinkypoo]

I'm glad it worked for you, but to my mind, you can't expect this to change anyone's mind because God is supposed to be omnipotent. The Ark can be a TARDIS designed to be made from locally available materials whose design was placed into Noah's mind via divine intervention. And the water can have come from a zillion comets and have been piped away with a stargate. If your goal is to defend a totally batshit world view, there's always more bats making more shit.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

That's a badly run study then.

In a good study, you have two groups, one you pray for, and one you tell you pray for but don't. Done that way you can't possibly conclude the improvement is due to a placebo, as that should affect both groups equally. From there, either prayer makes something statistically different, or it doesn't.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Jamu]

I'd have more respect for the studiers of Tolkien's works: They don't assume that the stories they're reading are true.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Jawnn]

Kind of in the same manner as vestigial organs, what always kind of made me wonder was why we need men and women if humans are designed in God's image. Strictly speaking, we should reproduce by agamogenesis.

Oh, dude. That's a big word that will make the fundies' eyes glaze over. If you want to make your point and not lose them at the same time, just ask them why God, the all-powerful, all-knowing super being that created everything, has a penis. The reaction you'll get is much more entertaining.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Faith, on the other hand, dismisses that 99.9999% of evidence as some sort of grand cosmological 'trickery and deceit' and insists that because that 99.9999% is not 100%, that means that solution B is equally valid.

There are at least two .. uh.. "flavors" of religion. The ones that appear to do what you just said, are the easy pickings. These people always eventually end up asserting something that is totally incompatible with all peoples' observations and experience. These are the people who don't limit their religion to the "why" question and bleed into "how" but then to support their unfounded "how" they need to dishonestly make up "what"s. They always eventually get caught and it is easy to mock them. So easy that it's not really even efun after a while. Creationists tend to fall into this group, because they make assertions about the real world.

Then there's another, the ones who stick to musing about "why" with great discipline. This is what faith really is. They are not choosing .0001% of the evidence over the other 99.9999%; they're choosing a position supported by 0 (much much less than .0001%) over a rival position which is supported by 0 evidence. These people are invincible if they can maintain their strict discipline, never venturing to make statements about anything anyone might ever observe.

Creationists do have one out, though, where they can get into the second group, and this is where your 99.9999% evidence thing comes in. All they have to do is say that observation doesn't really exist; there is never any evidence of anything at all, and all decisions are 0 evidence vs 0 evidence. They live in The Matrix and your 99.9999% evidence isn't compelling because 100.0000% of evidence is totally made up.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[SleazyRidr]

Classic creationist misconception. Evolution doesn't trend toward perfection, it trends toward "good enough." Unless it reduces your ability to reproduce it doesn't get evolved away. Even if it does reduce your ability to reproduce, but only a little bit, it can still take a long time to slowly go away, and will usually hang around until the next extinction level event.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Acron]

The correct answer in that case is that while there's no evidence, the question is not answerable.

You are trying to be right by avoiding properly qualifying your answer. You meant was that since there is no scientific physical evidence, the question is not answerable by science. I'm glad we agree.

Actually there's a lot of agreement on that.

If scientists disagreed as much as religious people, it wouldn't mean "somebody is more or less right", it would mean nobody knows what they're talking about.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether or not you're about to under go a paradigm shift or not. If you plot scientific agreement versus the timeline of history, you see lots of disagreement by scientists. And any case, arguments that "x% majority of scientists believes Y" has no value. The truth is the truth, and how many people believe or don't believe in it doesn't change what the truth is.

No, it means someone is more or less right. The universe is what it is, we are trying to determine what the truth is. Our understanding may contain elements of the actual set of truth, and it may contain elements not in that set. So our current understanding is not the total set of truth. Those with more actual truth in their understanding are more right, those with less are less right (by empirical weight, I'm sure you could try to make an argument on another basis by trying to assigning different weighted values to each truth or subset of truth).

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[janeuner]

How much faith do you have in your numbers?
191 * 4 = 800

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me give you the outside of the US view:

  US politics is nothing but religion that makes use of the constitution instead of the Bible.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Marble1972]

Perhaps this a few years too late for you - but here goes ;)

I hear you on the Pauline doctrine...and more. In fact (having significantly revised my faith over the last 10 years - roughly age 30 onwards), I now can see a significant distinction between the 'hellenistic' portion of the NT (typically John & Paul) vs the classic jewish Matt, Mark and basically Luke (though He's greek - he's not pushing a strong hellenistic agenda, remaining more pragmatic than philosophical). By hellenstic I do mean pushing a lot of platonic philosophy (Christ is the Logos and the Logos was in the beginning etc etc; Presumably Logos was part of John's attempt to woo the platonics - but essentially breaking stuff as he goes about it. I'd recommend reading some of Eusebius to understand where John is coming from re Logos - but I'd also recommend reading him as he buttresses his early church history with a lot of other external material and is generally well regarded.

Maybe a bit easier - I'd also/instead recommend the following podcasts by Michael Patton - particularly the early ones too. I don't agree with everything theologically - but found the intellectual honesty to be very high there and significant concepts expounded - all of which is sadly lacking generally. Put it this way - I wish my parents had grown up on that ;)

Sorry - I'm just going to dump some stuff as it comes - but I can't emphasis how critical these realisations have been to me - and if I hadn't come across them - I could imagine going the the severe doubts that you've grappled with without relief.

1/ Paul (and generally the Christian church today) - overplays the spiritual/mystical aspect (yes - a throw back to the platonics/stoics concept that spiritual=good, flesh=bad - which is actually in sharp contradiction to God generally & the OT - but just highlights the reality that Paul/John were products of the culture they were in). Not bad per se - but not theologically accurate I believe. This causes a significant derailment in the commonly preached theology of today.

2/ Our (western) culture is strongly weighted / generally all about innocence-guilt - which is one of the many things from the Greek/Roman culture we inherited. Middle-Eastern culture was based more around Honour and Shame - and I suggest that rather seeing that type of culture as backwards - realise that our innocence-guilt culture may not really work in an ancient world that's dominated by feuding tribes/cities/nations - that doesn't have a police force that can turn up on your doorstep minutes later after dialling 911/000 or an overarching judicial body to enforce our 'inalienable' rights. The judicial system often consisted of your neighbours/village. Christ spoke to a culture that understood and praticed honour and shame as a daily necessity for survival - and group survival at that. While simple innocence & guilt played a part - to see what a lot of the 'that doesn't make sense' parables are about - there is no way around the need to understand the middle-eastern culture at the time. Yes - I can recommend a book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes . e.g.: The parable of the 'faithful' servants who invested their money for return in contrast to the 'unfaithful' one who buried it - make no sense on face value - but the meaning lies in that the servants transacted business in the master's name - a master that wasn't all that popular - and who may not be returning (as he's gone off to secure his position with his soverign - just as had happened with the jews some years before with Herod heading off in a simliar manner), so the servants that transacted his business while he was away - did have faith (i.e. actually were faithful to him as they thr

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

This still gets back to the egotistical nature of the faithful's belief in the god. The attribution of further human characteristics to a god, especially in defense of reasonable questioning brings this to light rather nicely. Never mind that it is all pure speculation regarding the nature of the god, but it is also inconsistent with the concept of an entitiy that exists outside the universe as we know it, which means we would hardly have any common basis what so ever, never mind artistic whimsy in creating physical objects in this universe.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[IICV]

Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

You know what we call artists who make their paintings occasionally explode and kill the viewer? Psychopaths.

Now, Jews are okay with God being a dick (there's the saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans"), but in general modern Christians really aren't. Your analogy only works if you're okay with God not being omnibenevolent (unless you stretch the term "omnibenevolent" to the point where it makes genocide and infanticide a-ok), and that's just not what Christians want to believe.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ShakaUVM]

>>The people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it

Just as Dawkins is unlikely, in the middle of a debate, to go, "You know? You're right! God is real."

Hell, AJ Ayers couldn't be swayed from his famed atheism even after he had a deathbed encounter with God. Man's ego is a powerful thing.

No, the point of debates like these is for the audience, not the speakers. I've actually changed my mind on quite a few issues after listening to presumably well-informed people on each side of a debate argue with each other.

>>No wonder: religion has usually opposed arts and sciences

Obviously, being an atheist doesn't stop you from believing total nonsense. The Conflict Thesis (that Religion is naturally hostile to religionl) didn't come into existence until almost the 20th Century. This was not because people were all friendly to the Church up until then (the Protestants certainly were not), but because it required a certain amount of rewriting of the history. It's now considered inaccurate.

>>It's time for religion to be closed out from the scientific debate altogether.

Religion shouldn't be part of scientific debate, insofar as debating the actual science goes - we don't need to interview a bishop to find out if he thinks that neutrinos can go faster than light (unless the Bishop is a physics PhD working for the Vatican Observatory, perhaps.) The only interaction it should have with science is in the area of ethics.

You see humans as "a jumble of biological components", but I see them as entities worthy of possessing natural rights, that ought to be secure against deprivation.of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

You are trying to be right by avoiding properly qualifying your answer. You meant was that since there is no scientific physical evidence, the question is not answerable by science. I'm glad we agree.

It's not answerable by any method, because there's nothing to base an answer on.

If any religion was correct, the result would be visible. The adherents of the right religion would be magically healed, or be able to have their deity smite their enemies, or perform miracles, or something of that kind. But there's no evidence of any religion working better than any other, and vast civilizations went for many years practicing the wrong religion without visible negative consequences.

I remember reading an account of a Wiccan's account of experimenting with ceremonies and discovering to their astonishment that any kind of ceremony seemed to work equally well. It didn't matter if they used scented candles or not, chanted something or not, and so on. If religion worked that would be testable, and something would work better than something else, even if science was unable to explain why.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether or not you're about to under go a paradigm shift or not. If you plot scientific agreement versus the timeline of history, you see lots of disagreement by scientists. And any case, arguments that "x% majority of scientists believes Y" has no value. The truth is the truth, and how many people believe or don't believe in it doesn't change what the truth is.

It's not about x%, it's about the number of competing opinions. If there were 500 different models of the Solar System, neither of which seemed to predict the movement of the planets better than any other, then it would be quite likely that none of them are correct.

No, it means someone is more or less right. The universe is what it is, we are trying to determine what the truth is. Our understanding may contain elements of the actual set of truth, and it may contain elements not in that set. So our current understanding is not the total set of truth. Those with more actual truth in their understanding are more right, those with less are less right (by empirical weight, I'm sure you could try to make an argument on another basis by trying to assigning different weighted values to each truth or subset of truth).

The process of determining truth is called "science". We try different ideas, and see which one works better. When neither idea is obviously better, then the most likely event is that everybody is wrong and we need to consider other options.

Done properly, we get ever closer to the truth.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

No its the one thing that most creationists could argue but are unwilling to... that god has downs syndrome. It would explain so much.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Even Jesus seems to be a composite of lots of earlier pagan traditions

Given that the lion's share of what he talked about was based on the Old Testament, it's highly unlikely he's a pagan composite. The Expounding of the Law, etc., simply would be impossible to write from pagan sources.

>>The Pauline doctrine is a huge part of what broke my faith... to actually adhere to it you would have to essentially stop being human, and telling yourself that you were a worthless "sinner" over and over again and perpetually begging for forgiveness is incredibly damaging.

Eh, it's partly St. Paul, but a large part of it is the result of St. Augustine's philosophy that one "cannot not sin". Not all Christians buy into that belief. (Can one sin when in a brain-dead coma? I don't think so, personally.)

>>Even when I was still indoctrinated I noticed lots of inconsistencies in the New testament but I was conditioned not to ask questions and just accept it.

It's a shame. My church actively encouraged questioning, well, everything.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I believe in God and also believe in science. I do however believe science is more about finding out HOW God does what he does. So many people bring up things like above (ex. 'But what about the plants?') but seem to forget one thing. If God is God...He can do whatever the fuck he wants...he is GOD!

I'll give you an example. The whole creationism/evolution debate. I fimly believe they can both coexist. Why? Genesis tells a story about how everything was made according to God. What everyone gets hung up on is the 6 days to do it part. I ask you this, what is a day to God? The steps: first there was light (sun formation), there there was water/land (planets formed), then plants, then animals, then humans....WOW sounds like EXACTLY what scientists said happened...as long as you realise that 6 days to us and 6 days to God are completely different.

The other thing is that people are always applying HUMAN traits/abilities to GOD. God is God, He can/has the ability to do whatever he wants...even if it falls out of range of our reality. When we start saying that God can't do this or that...we need to be saying instead...How is God doing that? and expaning our minds to possibilities that we may or may not realise are possible.

I fimly believe that Science is the persuit of finding out how God does what he does and not a tool to, in essence, kill God.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Questioning faith: Discouraged. Sometimes even punished.

Not in my church. Oddly enough, they found that asking questions leads to deeper understandings of faith.

I don't think I ever heard my pastor growing up ever once utter the typical cop-out of "...well, it's a divine mystery," There's lots of things we don't know, naturally, but he was always ready to supply the best theories for these things.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an atheist/agnostic

You can't be both. That's like saying God doesn't exist but he might.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

So you've never copy-pasted code before and just commented out the parts you didn't need?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[IrquiM]

And what was your faith before you were born again?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

The point is that no evidence can be provided either way on this topic. That by definition cannot be unified with science. Being a scientist requires the ability to disprove your theories, holding this theory stops you from being a scientist.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You have YECs that hate evolution, and then talk at length about its impossibility, but turn around and propose the alternative that is basically hyper evolution. That sort of cognitive dissonance has to be bad for your health.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

We have religious people who think you have to believe talking ducks are real, and atheists who are obsessed with mocking anyone who uses talking ducks in a story. Both are missing the whole point of everything.

*facepalm*

I used to read Greek legends when I was a kid (6-10 years old), and thoroughly enjoyed the dramatic stories about the adventures and exploits of various gods and demigods. The difference it, nobody tried to convince me they were real, or told me that Zeus would torture me forever if I didn't believe in him. If you don't see the difference between fanciful stories and the kind of behaviour engaged in by believers in modern religions, you're either blind or a fool. If you DO see the difference, yet don't think they need to be opposed, you're just plain evil.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[znerk]

Your argument that theology is irrelevant, or even fraudulent... does it extend to paleontology? How about sociology? Psychology? All of these are studies of human behavior (some of them in roundabout ways, but still true). Are all scholars fraudulent, or just the ones who study humans?

I was using the wiki to give you a definition for the word, which I thought you lacked.
I see now that a definition was not what you are lacking.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

I agreed that it can't be unified with science, but that's not the same as being antithetical to science (unless you hold to some decidedly unscientific dogmas about the scope of science), it means it's orthogonal to science [1].

[1] Give or take a bit. I don't completely accept Stephen J Gould's view of non-overlapping magisteria, but where they do overlap religion and science both have issues.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[LordLimecat]

Wait, you insist that the Bible really should be taken to mean "species as defined in the last few hundred years", rather than "kind" as it actually says?

Most people Ive ever talked to understand that insisting that "Kind=species" is ridiculous.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

"people who believe in creationism will never be swayed away from it, because their reasons for believing in it it are not the same as ours are for believing evolution."

Don't be so sure. I was a creationist. I was a long process before I could be persuaded that evolution is true, but it worked. And coincidentally, I owe much of it to Coyne's book.

However, say what you will, I still am a faithful believer in Jesus Christ. I just don't believe parables only appeared in the latter parts of the Bible.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.

And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".

It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong. There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.

Of course, I would also argue that, in fact, religious people tend to reject much of science and substitute your "and more" in it's place, but that's just the creamy-diahrrea icing on top of the turd-cake. The essential problem is that, just like any conspiracy theorist or pseudoscientific-quack, religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[jahudabudy]

Ideas that cannot be tested or disproved are the absolute antithesis of science

So basically, every human being on the planet is the antithesis of science? Because there isn't a single one alive today (well, ok, maybe a couple in a psych ward somewhere) that doesn't believe something that can't be tested or disproved. Does your mother love you? Did you hear the song you think you heard on the radio this morning? It's impossible to function in the world if you insist on only believing the bare minimum of things that you have personally scientifically proven. It's an absurd standard and it doesn't do the religion vs. science debate any good when the science side pretends to an extreme rationality that is neither possible nor desirable.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

just ask them why God, the all-powerful, all-knowing super being that created everything, has a penis.

The answer is obviously that the Holy Ghost is a female with glorious, heavenly vulvae (9 of them) with which She causes reactions (the endowments) for the members of the charismatic churches. How else could the Holy Trinity be explained?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[LordLimecat]

Watch the video, and read Haught's response to Coyne's blog, and THEN tell me that Coyne has any credibility to spare. Hes a militant athiest who presented something much less like rational argumentation and much more like a rant about how stupid religious people are, backed by either "evidence" that is mostly the opinion of one or two liberal scholars, or by simply declaring religion to be "obviously" stupid.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Chuck Messenger]

I think you're onto something with your splitting of the NT into the earlier Jewish (Mark, Matt), and later Pauline (pretty much everything else - but including Luke) parts.

The Christianity of today is really much more the religion of Paul than of Jesus. That battle was won when the Ebionites and Gnostics were put down as heretics in Constantine's day (once the religion became an instrument of state power). It's very hard to know what Jesus was really about - so thorough was the Pauline victory. Naturally, all non-approved religious texts were burned.

However, in recent decades, some ancient (and hence uncensored) texts have come to light (see Lost Christianities). It seems clear enough that:

1) The original followers of Jesus were Jews.
2) The original Jewish followers of Jesus became the Ebionites.
3) The Ebionites had a single gospel - Matthew, minus the virgin birth.
4) The Ebionites believed in one god (like the Jews) - not the Pauline trinity.
5) The Ebionites kept Jewish law.
6) The Ebionites considered Paul to be a heretic.

Paul's religion started within a few years of Jesus's death. Paul was very big into prosyletizing - hence, his religion spread. Luke was apparently Paul's secretary/doctor/accolyte. In general, Pauline theology is much more elaborate than Ebionite theology - if you compare Luke to Matt or Mark, you see this elaboration. John came much later, and seems to be utterly unconnected to anything Jewish - it's purely Pauline.

So, the Ebionites held sway in the more traditionally-Jewish areas (Middle East), while Pauline ("proto-Orthodox") Christianity spread thru the rest of the Roman world. In particular, it became dominant in Rome.

None of this would have mattered, except that Constantine (300 years later), out of the blue, decided to make Christianity (very much a minority religion at the time) into the state religion of the Roman Empire. Which variant did he choose? Naturally, the Pauline variety. At this point, all competing Christianities became illegal - Ebionities, Gnostics, etc, were branded heretics, were executed (if they wouldn't recant), had their texts burned, etc.

What I'm getting at is, if you're going to call Pauline theology into question, you've got a whole lot of unwinding to do! There's very little left of non-Pauline Christianity to fall back on. You'll have to go back to the most ancient, pre-Pauline texts. Then, you'll need to start keeping Jewish law, stop believing in the divinity of Jesus, etc.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't assume there is no purpose to these discussions. I was a devout Christian before my own investiagations and many reasonable arguments from Carl Sagan convinced me of the reality of evolution. Also, don't frame "Mythology" as Atlantis and Elves. Mythology is ritualized symbolic truth and has nothing to do with literal history. Read some Jung or Joseph Campbell.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Essentially, these forms of religion accept subjective evidence as well as objective evidence (well, actually they recognise that the boundary is fuzzy). That means that these religious people accept all of science and more.

And by that definition, a crazy person who hears voices in his head also accepts "all of science and more".

Ever heard of "affirming the consequent"? It's a fundamental logical fallacy. Look it up.

It's that "and more" that's the problem. You think it's a good thing - you are wrong.

Thing is, I think you are wrong. Can we decide this with science? No. You're just saying that your metaphysics is better than anybody else's metaphysics.

There's a reason why science rejects that type of "evidence"; it's inherently unreliable, and can be used to "prove" just about anything.

No, it can't be used to "prove" anything, but it can provide an arguably rational basis for decision making.

religious people either don't understand what constitutes valid evidence, or are happy to hold beliefs which are not supported by evidence.

Most of the militant atheists I have read don't understand what constitutes valid evidence either. Not least because it's not an issue that can be decided scientifically, but they think it is. How could it be? Science is based on evidence, and if you feed in different definitions of what counts as evidence (foundationalism, coherentism, reformed epistemology, infinitism...) then you get different versions of science (that agree on almost everything), not information on whether your definition was "right" or not.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[David Gerard]

Yes, but that's because you have a damn clue. Baraminology actually exists as a study.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

I do however believe science is more about finding out HOW God does what he does.

Nietzsche had a two-paragraph debunking of this god-concept, which I think emerged as a response to the enlightenment. I can't possibly duplicate his elegant logic and words, but I'll sum up the argument:

Basically, you are saying that god works not only in mysterious ways, but in ways that we can explain entirely, end-to-end without finding a single drop of evidence for him. Let's accept that he is capable of that and all. Thought to conclusion, it means god works in such ways that whether or not he exists makes no difference at all to the world, because everything is set up so that it would work just as well without - because we understand how it works and there's no need for him in any of it. In the words of Kant, god has become a thing-in-itself.

But things exist by their interaction with other things. Something that does not interact with other things can not be said to "exist" in any reasonable sense of the word.

Now, the thing about language is that yes, you can re-interpret them. Your Genesis example works. By the same method, I could re-interpret Romeo and Juliet into a story about genocide and betrayl, with the two main characters the evil overlords. But what matters is not our ability to put meaning into things, but our ability to correctly extract the meaning the author intended to.

God is God, He can/has the ability to do whatever he wants...even if it falls out of range of our reality.

You're trying to discuss about traits of god with me. But I don't accept your initial assumption that such a being exists at all. Not only that, I don't accept that he is even needed. God isn't dead because we killed him, he's dead because we found better explanations for everything that our ancestors couldn't figure out and thus said "must've been god, I can't explain it otherwise".

I fimly believe that Science is the persuit of finding out how God does what he does and not a tool to, in essence, kill God.

Science doesn't kill god. Killing something requires that it exists (and lives).

Not only have you failed to show any evidence for a god, you've failed to show necessity. For some reason, you want to cling to a belief in an unlikely being. I don't condemn you for that. Other people believe in fantasies, too. Like that their wife really loves them or anyone actually reads their blog. However, you go a step further and that step is what bothers me about believers: You judge other people on a codex that assumes your fantasy to be universally true. You critizise people for treating your illusionary friend in specific ways. You blame science for doing things wrong. You elevate yourself above hundreds of learned people by calling their debates misguided. All based on a single unproven assumption.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

He didn't. The bible is specific on that part. And let's ignore the fresh/salt water issue.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Norris doesn't cure cancer. After he's done, the cancer cells are so scared he'll return, they function like normal cells.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

I stand corrected. It's been years since I tried reading the bible (I put it down less than a third through. The writing is horrible and incoherent and the morals disgusting).

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[hypergreatthing]

This is utter nonsense. If you want to take a fairy tale book written i don't know, 1600 years ago during Constantinople's rule and make it as face value fact of everything Christianity believes in, then lets also take into account that every single generation since the scientific method has come into place has been incorrect about theories on how the universe works. Do me a favor, pick up a scientific study done in the 50s or 60s or 70s, each one will propose theories and show evidence that what they think is correct and there's a huge chance that it's all outdated and made incorrect by today's modern theories.

You're comparing religious nut jobs who can't think for themselves and take what the bible says at face value to people who don't understand what science really is, but believes that science explains everything. Both are wrong. Science is the art of explaining how the universe works as best they can. Religion is faith of a higher power that created the universe and it's set of rules. The two never ever meet. Anyone that claims otherwise is a complete and utter fool. Science can never disprove religion. Religion can never disprove science.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

That's pretty much a given. I doubt even the most extreme fundamentalist would claim that the Bible records everything that ever happened.

I'm not talking about leaving out minor details like what Noah had for breakfast that day. Something like a second creation, though, that's not a minor detail you'd leave out, would you? Simple test: How many pages does it contain that describe less relevant and god-like events? Correct, hundreds.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, as long as by nonsense you mean allegory, metaphors, morality and civil law. Few of the religious outside of the US believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Science and religion don't have to be opposing views. Rather, they are orthogonal.

AC due to laziness.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

I am an atheist, but calling the bible "a big pile of nonsence" is just as ignorant as literally believing in it.

It's using the unfriendly wording for the truth, but frankly, have you checked any of the non-religious secondary sources? Almost nothing in the bible really happened that way. The few things that we can trace back to historic events are grossly distorted.

From all we know, "300" is more historically accurate than "The Passion of Christ" (or any other Jesus movie aside from "The Life of Brian").

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Acron]

Again, you are positing a scientific investigation of the physical universe in your hypothesis about the testability of religion. You assume that "correct religion" involves miracles and smitings, i.e. physical phenomena, where religious believer does X which generates result Y. Do you always get Y when you do X with a human being? No, of course not, we're not programmed robots. So it would be silly to view God has some repeatable phenomena or universal rule, for one religious example.

I would posit there are spiritual laws, just like their are physical laws. God is an engineer, of course. So different religions might get similar results for some sorts of actions, regardless of the non-spiritual trappings they tossed on them. But that's just a hypothesis/speculation. As a Christian I believe the universe has an active, personal creator who remains fully engaged with his creation, so things can be modified as necessary.

There has also been a high amount of agreement at various times in history on very incorrect scientific beliefs. Again, more or less correct is more important than how many opinions there are.

The basic tool for determining truth is logic (Greeks etc, i.e. philosophy - "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline."). Thus we reason and debate to find the truth. "Science" is a particular application of logic in the form of the scientific method for investigating the physical universe.

As an aside, according to the Bible, human beings are spiritually dead because of sin. I posit this means our ability to perceive the supernatural/spiritual universe is very limited. Our inability to see the spiritual universe accurately does not invalidate it one way or the other, and we are left dependent on logic as a tool and what can be inferred indirectly from how the non-physical manifests to us as human beings. The anti-religious wants to believe that science will eventually map out the human biological entity to show that every action we take is predictable by physical laws, thus reducing us to "mere machines". This is a faith belief, just like my belief that we each have a spiritual soul as well as our physical spirit and body.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[beelsebob]

So... what you agree with then is that you cannot both be a scientist and religious at the same time, because being religious requires you to hold an idea that can't be proved either way, while being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

So... what you agree with then is that you cannot both be a scientist and religious at the same time, because being religious requires you to hold an idea that can't be proved either way, while being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way.

No, because I don't agree that being a scientist requires you to always need to be able to prove something either way. Doing science requires you to need to be able to prove something (but not "either way" -- Popper demolished that). Somebody remains a scientist when they are not doing science. And humans can multitask: there's no inherent reason why somebody can't chant "Hare Krishna" whilst doing the calculations on a scientific experiment. The chanting has no effect on the correctness of the calculations (it might affect the achievement of correctness), and the correctness of the calculations has no effect on the chanting.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

Ever heard of "affirming the consequent"? It's a fundamental logical fallacy. Look it up.

If you're going to deny the existence of mental illness, we have nothing to discuss.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[jez9999]

Seriously, one really doesn't need much explanation to see that the Noah story simply cannot be literally true.

Actually, it could technically be true - but it would require a god or gods to allow it all to happen using supernatural powers. And if they were going to do that, it raises the rather obvious question of why they didn't just click their fingers and kill all the bad people on Earth. It would've been orders of magnitude quicker and simpler.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[jez9999]

Genesis tells a story about how everything was made according to God. What everyone gets hung up on is the 6 days to do it part. I ask you this, what is a day to God? The steps: first there was light (sun formation), there there was water/land (planets formed), then plants, then animals, then humans....WOW sounds like EXACTLY what scientists said happened

Even this facile 'point' doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny. Genesis says that God created 'light' a few 'days' before the sun, which ISN'T what science says happens. It takes a star FIRST to create a significant amount of light on Earth.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

Yes, the 50s, 60s, 70s had a number of strange ideas we know not to be true today. They also put a man on the moon. So even though they were "wrong", they were much closer to the truth, and had a lot more to show for it than all holy books combined.

The problem with the bible and other holy books is that they don't get updated. Sure, we don't enforce the rules about slavery or stoning homosexuals to death anymore in most places of the world, but they are still in the holy bible. And every fanatic of the present or future is free to take them at face value again.
I'm not saying that every believer is a fanatic who believes in the literal truth of all the horrible rules their holy book contains (as well as the occasional good one). However, believers are people who intentionally leave their kernel unpatched and all the vulnerabilities open. Because they think it is divine work and shouldn't be touched.

And religion and science absolutely meet. All the time. You have have forgotten it because religion has been losing battles so often that they leave the battlefield the moment science enters these days, but religion also claimed to explain how the world works. It has a lot of rules that announce causality - do this, and that will follow. Many of them are unfalsifiable because the "that" is removed into some afterlife, paradise, whatever - but many are not. Religion also makes statements about the past, both relatively recent and distant. Very few of them check out. For example, we know that even if you read it as a metaphorical description, the events of Genesis can not have happened in this order. The placement of water and the differentiation between the sun and other stars is a good example of an account that makes absolutely no sense with the knowledge we have today, but is a fairly natural assumption for someone of the time period the story was made up.
Finally, do not reduce science to the natural sciences alone. Social and cognitives sciences are rapidly putting religious claims to rest and provide better explanations and slowly also better guidelines. We have scientifically derived rules for negotiations, peace talks, etc. that are provably leaps and bounds beyond the simple rules of the bible, for example.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

True. I got worked up. I have a lot of bitterness about that. A "church" (if you can call it that) I go to now is an example of exception to my statement.

AC as from my phone.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

However, believers are people who intentionally leave their kernel unpatched and all the vulnerabilities open. Because they think it is divine work and shouldn't be touched.

Actually, I just realized you could call Jesus being Service Pack 1 for Judaism. It's a stretch (and the next update is long, long overdue), but you could.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

...why they didn't just click their fingers and kill all the bad people on Earth

Because He was trying to make it look like an accident?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about all the plants?

They're called seeds, saving the plants with divine intervention for the gathering is way more believable than storing all the animals and somehow avoiding inbreeding problems.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Who denied the existence of mental illness? Look up "affirming the consequent", like I suggested. Learn the basic rules of logic if you're going to claim to be on the side of rationality.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[syousef]

Most people only believe because they are told the same things over and over again from childhood and free thought is discouraged.

Oh how I wish that were true. I knew a guy once who completed an engineering degree. He had a decent education. He was exposed to science. He once took on painting my first car as an odd job. Seemed like a standup and capable bloke. Years later he became a priest and was literally knocking on my door trying to bible bash me and convince me that evolution was nonsense when it was clear he hadn't taken the time to understand it. I don't know if he was relying on me to be ignorant or he was dellusional or what was going on. But the truth is some religious people have had a break with reality and are just bat shit insane, and not all of them started off that way.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

Me: crazy people who hear voices.
You: blah blah blah, affirming the consequent.

By dismissing the very concept, you're denying the existence of mental illness. Either rethink your reply, or just stop while you're not too far behind.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could argue all day, or your whole life for that matter, about how an omnipotent, all-powerful God couldn't have *possibly* done something that He said He did. Just know that you're probably never going to find absolute proof for the existence of God while you are still alive here on Earth, but there are some good arguments for His existence. "The Case for a Creator" and "The Case for Christ" are 2 books written by an ex-atheist that I would encourage you to read. Then you would at least have some good, strong arguments on both sides of the debate with which you could make your choice of whether you are for or against Him.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Me: crazy people who hear voices. You: blah blah blah, affirming the consequent.

By dismissing the very concept, you're denying the existence of mental illness. Either rethink your reply, or just stop while you're not too far behind.

Who dismissed the very concept?

Since you are clearly unable to Google it, I'll try to explain it in simple terms. "Affirming the consequent" is an argument along the lines of
- All witches have black cats
- Alice has a black cat
- Therefore Alice is a witch.
Spotting the basic blunder in that argument does not involve dismissing the very concept of black cats.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

*facepalm*

And where, exactly, did I claim ANYTHING which falls into the structure you just defined? Did I claim all religious people are crazy? Did I claim all people who hear voices are crazy? Did I claim all crazy people hear voices? Did I claim all people who use invalid "evidence" are either religious or crazy?

The answer to all of the above is a clear and unambiguous "NO".

I'm quite familiar with logical fallacies, thanks - your misapplication of them is not my fault. Try to read what I write, instead of what you'd like to see.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[digitig]

Then what was the significance of introducing the idea of mental illness? If it wasn't a logical fallacy then it was a violation of Grice's maxim of relation.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[vadim_t]

Again, you are positing a scientific investigation of the physical universe in your hypothesis about the testability of religion. You assume that "correct religion" involves miracles and smitings, i.e. physical phenomena, where religious believer does X which generates result Y.

Of course it has to. Every religion claims it. For instance, Jesus claimed faith could move mountains. That's a very physical claim. Christians surely pray because they think it has some real-world effect.

Do you always get Y when you do X with a human being? No, of course not, we're not programmed robots. So it would be silly to view God has some repeatable phenomena or universal rule, for one religious example.

Of course we do. What do you think medicine is based on? You give somebody an aspirin, and the amount of pain they feel decreases. Of course its not 100% exact, some people may be alergic, some may need a higher dose, but the effect is extremely reliable and very much detectable.

So same with religion. If it worked, it'd be detectable. It doesn't need to be 100% reproducible even. If it works, it will have a very much measurable effect somewhere. For instance, if Christian prayer for somebody's health worked even 5% of the time, there'd be a very noticeable amount of people Christians pray for mysteriously getting better with (say) the Jews experiencing no such thing.

If you're seriously stating that God's actions can't be possibly detected, you're effectively saying that he either never interferes with the world, or affects everybody equally, so there's no measurable difference by any parameter between Christians, Jews, Buddhist or atheists.

I would posit there are spiritual laws, just like their are physical laws. God is an engineer, of course. So different religions might get similar results for some sorts of actions, regardless of the non-spiritual trappings they tossed on them. But that's just a hypothesis/speculation. As a Christian I believe the universe has an active, personal creator who remains fully engaged with his creation, so things can be modified as necessary.

No, you don't believe that. You just implied God doesn't have a physical effect. So he doesn't modify anything.

There has also been a high amount of agreement at various times in history on very incorrect scientific beliefs. Again, more or less correct is more important than how many opinions there are.

Most of those are mesurably at least "half right". For instance, Newton didn't have the entire truth, but in the conditions he tested in, what he found still works.

Also, while epicycles weren't correct, they still predicted the positions of the planets with a pretty good precision, which is why the idea stuck for quite some time.

Also, there's a steady progression towards being more and more correct. While in comparison, the bible gets ever more and more metaphorical, with most people pretending Leviticus doesn't exist, for instance.

As an aside, according to the Bible, human beings are spiritually dead because of sin. I posit this means our ability to perceive the supernatural/spiritual universe is very limited.

In this case, we can't measure or detect anything related, and you have absolutely no reason to believe that whatever you think is correct. You have no feedback about whether you're on the right path or not.

The anti-religious wants to believe that science will eventually map out the human biological entity to show that every action we take is predictable by physical laws, thus reducing us to "mere machines". This is a faith belief, just like my belief that we each have a spiritual soul as well as our physical spirit and body.

Why, there's a good reason to think that way: There's a very long history of religion ever shrinking. We went from needing religi

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science.

I'd make the fairly obvious extension of your argument to the next step of "why even bother studying literature/arts/sociology? It's the complete antithesis of science", but you're starting to sound a lot like you're one of those types who has a serious grudge against any of the "soft" sciences and/or any study that isn't science/math/logic anyway, so I'm certain that line of thought won't get through your skull. Hey! You might have something in common with the religious folk after all!

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about a story that was written thousands of years ago; long before the "new world" was discovered, and even before most of the "old world" was discovered. Maybe Noah's "world" did flood. In his world, there was no Germany, there was no China, there was no anywhere that he did not know of already. He took in all the animals he could find and survived a really big flood. It's still a pretty good story, even if it's not factually precise. When you are looking back that far into our history you can't assume anyone knew what they were talking about with any degree of scientific knowledge.

You don't have to believe what I believe, but as a scientist you should keep an open mind. You cannot disprove God any more than I can prove Him.

Evolutionists don't have all of the answers either you know. Cell reproduction is extremely complicated and involves millions and millions of chemical bonds to be in the exact, precise order that they need to be in for everything to work. If even one molecule is wrong, the entire cell dies and has to be started over. And remember, with evolution; this is all completely random... It's like flipping a coin a million times and having it land heads up each time. One mistake and you're back to square one.

Also, that first cell only seems to have randomly developed ONCE and then evolved into every living thing on earth as all living cells use the exact same design for life and reproduction. random creation should mean that more than one cell has randomly been created. We would have different chemicals found in DNA, different structures inside the cells, and lots more variation involved in cellular structure than we have. But the fact that 99% of all DNA is the same for every living thing points to the fact that either this miraculous event either happened just once and all life came from it, then never happened again; or that there is a design inherent in our creation, designed by our creator.

You can believe what you want, but when two options are possible, it's usually the simpler one that's accurate.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[c6gunner]

If you had read the entire comment as a single reply, instead of trying to Fisk it, you'd have gotten the point (I hope).

What you're calling "evidence" is completely useless because it can have any number of causes. It can be a result of mental illness. It could be the result of a delusion. It could be due to the numerous problems with human hardware and wetware which cause countless issues with our perceptions. It could be a lie. It could be a simple mistake. As long as it's not verifiable or repeatable, it can not be considered valid evidence. It might be ok to accept it as evidence of a mundane claim (my eyes are brown), but it certainly is not acceptable as evidence in the case of extraordinary claims (I have 5 eyes).

The problem with accepting the kind of "evidence" you're talking about is that you end up having to accept every crazy claim in existence, or you end up having to pick and choose between them based on your own "feelings" or some irrational criteria which you pull out of your ass. There is no practical difference between the claim "I saw god heal someone" and "I saw bigfoot drinking beer in my garage". The rational decision is to reject both, because neither person has presented any evidence. Under your definition of "evidence", you have no basis for rejecting either.

And while I'm at it, I may as well correct your misconceptions about science:

Most of the militant atheists I have read don't understand what constitutes valid evidence either. Not least because it's not an issue that can be decided scientifically, but they think it is. How could it be? Science is based on evidence, and if you feed in different definitions of what counts as evidence (foundationalism, coherentism, reformed epistemology, infinitism...) then you get different versions of science (that agree on almost everything), not information on whether your definition was "right" or not.

No, you don't get different versions of science, you get different systems entirely. And guess what - we can look of the output of those different systems, and see how they line up with reality. We can judge which ones are more effective at producing tangible products, or predicting future events. For instance, you can look at alchemy and compare it to chemistry, and see which one gets you carbon fiber composites to make wings for your aircraft. Or you can look at meteorology and prayer, and see which one gets you more accurate information about tomorrow's weather.

We know the scientific model we have is the best tool for analyzing the universe around us because it works. It delivers the goods. No other system of analysis has ever come close. Maybe we'll find a better way at some point in the future, but if we do, it will be through science. It certainly won't be through some numbnut talking about his feelings and subjective experiences.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Fned]

Lions don't feel 'purpose' in what they do,

...they get hungry...

...because they need to...

...in order to...

...in order to better...

There's something wrong, here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

They're not out there hunting because that is their 'purpose' in their ecosystem, it's strictly selfish biology and self-preservation...

Actually, they ARE out there hunting because that is their purpose in the ecosystem. Ecosystems without carefully balanced predation fail, in much the same way that a body without working T-cells has problems.

Now, you could say that those T-cells are just selfishly going around eating what they're programmed to, and from one perspective that's true. But it's a philosophical perspective, and it's not automatically correct. When dealing with immune system problems, for example, it's super-handy to treat them as if they have a purpose.

As to what lions do or do not feel, well, that's also purely philosophy. Avoiding anthropomorphism is a behavioral science tool, not some sort of mathematical truth...

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[hypergreatthing]

The pyramids were built in ancient times, yet the modern scientific method was not developed back then. Don't group achievements as something only science could achieve. While I agree that getting to the moon was enabled by advanced rocketry and metallurgy as well as countless other advances, nothing can be attributed to advances in religion. Comparing the two is simply a straw-man argument.

Ok, let me try and change exactly what you said and put it in the context of science:
The problem with the scientific method and other outdated theories is that they get replaced on a continuous basis. Sure, we don't believe in aether, that electricity travels at the speed of light, that seasons are not the same length, that Saturn is the only planet with rings, meteors are hot when the hit the earth etc (x infinity) but they were still thought to be true at one point in time and there was evidence to think that way. And every generation believes these falsities to be true until they are proven false (only until someone proves again that what they currently thought is wrong in a continuous manner).

I still maintain science is our best explanation that we can currently give while religion is merely a belief that we cannot prove. Science is constantly explaining things that we question, but it is constantly getting things wrong. There are very few absolute truths in science, but it's very flexible. Beliefs and religions are easily flexible as well by changing your beliefs. In fact your belief in the scientific method is flawed because it's based on making theories and proving it wrong.

Lets break down your argument. You state that genesis could never have happened in that order because you can't possibly conceive water being created before light?
Lets examine this in a scientific manner. Can water exist outside of planets? Yes, we see that there are ice asteroids (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10090128) , water detected in comic nebula (http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/G11.html), we think the oort cloud which surrounds this solar system is filled with ice and water (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud), it's only a logical step to believe that in the solar nursery that created our sun that water was a component of this protoplanetary disk (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2011/10/26/tw-hydrae-solar-system-water_n_1032419.html). It's very easy to fall into the trap of not thinking outside the box when it comes to reading events in the bible metaphorically because there is no way for man of that age who created the bible to get scientific theories correct back in that age.

For the record, i really don't care what the bible says, i merely believe there are things that we can't and will never be able to fully explained and religion/beliefs fill that role. I would never ever take any religious text at face value, but merely understand that it was how people thought thousands of years ago and at least from that aspect it's important to understand your past to be able to understand the future.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Marble1972]

There is of course a lot of what Paul wrote isn't particularly at odds with Christ's teachings - due in no small part to them both being Jews. There's still a lot of be good to your neighbour etc + a lot of the new churches (amongst the gentiles) established by Paul weren't coming from Judaism - but rather pagan influence - which was really quite base in comparison and must be taken into account with some of his letters.

Jesus (in seeing the up coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation even) spoke about being at the end of the age. Called the 'temple age' I believe but even if it's seen as ancient Judasim because without the temple a lot of the laws can no longer be followed etc. Christ was setting up what should have been 'true Christianity' (prehaps 'essential' Christianity is a better term) to go beyond the destruction of the temple/Israel. Note also that a large number of the laws given to Israel - _weren't_ asked by God to be enforced on the other nations. A lot of those seemingly meaningless laws (don't wear a cloak that mixes cloth - or don't cook a kid goat with it's mother's milk) were either calling them away from pagan rituals (the latter a fertility rite) or were designed to mark out Israel as different from the surrounding people - to mark out how they were assigned a special place among the nations (to be 'priests and prophets' to the nations. e.g. Jonah to Nineveh).

Interestingly Israel also wasn't called to proselytise the other nations! And in support of that the other nations weren't automatically assumed to be going to 'destruction' (otherwise they would be trying to convert as many as possible - much like modern day Christianity unfortunately) The other nations had as a basis the Noahide laws (the common origin) which was a slightly more fleshed out (1 extra ;) ) version of the Adamic laws - which gave them the basics. Of course the nations fleshed these out further as would be expected - with varying degrees of 'fairness'.

Christ lifts the proselytising restriction with 'Go and make disciples of the nations' - which unfortunately has been interpreted today as being 'make everyone a disciple'. Unfortunate because back then it was recognised then that not everyone needs to be a disciple per se - that the disciples are basically your ministers in training - and not everyone is called / expected to go to theological college for example when the essential requirements are easily understood by 'Love God & love you neighbour'.

So with the destruction of the temple/Israel - a lot of laws no longer are applicable (which many Christians have claimed out of pure tradition - but now I can see it supported by reason) - and only applied to ancient Israel in the first place. E.g. the death penalty for murder - Not even God applied that rule to Cain after he killed Able and actually 'protected' Cain from others seeking his death.

And here's an interesting thing - how many nations do you know have reformed after 2000 odd years of dispersement? And then have the international community in agreement to put them back together??

This from the time of ancient Israel's inception; Deu 30: I have now given you a choice between a blessing and a curse. When all these things have happened to you, and you are living among the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you, you will remember the choice I gave you. If you and your descendants will turn back to the LORD and with all your heart obey his commands that I am giving you today, then the LORD your God will have mercy on you. He will bring you back from the nations where he has scattered you, and he will make you prosperous again. Even if you are scattered to the farthest corners of the earth, the LORD your God will gather you together and bring you back

I offer no guarantees - but we may well be coming to the end of the 'church' age. ;)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

The pyramids were built in ancient times, yet the modern scientific method was not developed back then.

And we rightfully admire them, knowing what a task it was with the means available.

I never said religion can not push men to do extraordinary things. We have much evidence not only in architecture (european cathedrals as well), but also in the arts.

The point was about progress.

The problem with the scientific method and other outdated theories

Sorry, I missed the memo about the scientific method becoming outdated. Where did that come from?

but they were still thought to be true at one point in time and there was evidence to think that way. And every generation believes these falsities to be true until they are proven false (only until someone proves again that what they currently thought is wrong in a continuous manner).

You phrase that in the usual way that misrepresents the whole thing. This is how non-science works - folk-lore, mythology, that kind of thinking. Every now and then, some other idea wins and everything is back to zero. In science, theories get replaced, but not by some random other theory, but by progressively better theories. In fact, that is the very condition for replacement: Your new theory has to match all the facts that the old one does, and provide some benefit in addition. This crucial point - again, progress - is missing from your rephrasing.

because there is no way for man of that age who created the bible to get scientific theories correct back in that age.

Which is exactly my point. The stories told in the bible where the best stories (or guesses, if you like, or theories if you insist) available at their time. You may have noticed that I never called their authors dumb or stupid or anything like that. With the methods and knowledge available to them, it was pretty much making something up that sounded reasonable. What else could they do?

My point is that we've since found out that it ain't so. Insisting on something different is ridiculous, barely worthy of debate. It's like my example of guessing at where Barack Obama is. Guessing he may be on a moon in the Betelgeuse system is ridiculous as it is. But insisting on this point of view after he emerges from his bedroom in his pyjamas - that's solidly in the mental disorder category.

there are things that we can't and will never be able to fully explained and religion/beliefs fill that role.

Science is proving this wrong again and again. Correct, at this point in time, we have many things to which we have no answers. But people thought before that science could never explain X - until it did.

So, I'd challenge you to name your top 10 questions that science will never be able to answer, and then meet again in 10 years to find out how many of them we can cross off that list. But I really don't care all that much. But you can do it for yourself, if you want a clash with reality.

I would never ever take any religious text at face value, but merely understand that it was how people thought thousands of years ago and at least from that aspect it's important to understand your past to be able to understand the future.

I agree with that. I do find religion a window into the past, as it preserves morals and thinking that we would otherwise have to reconstruct from very old sources. I find it fascinating how people explain their world - religion isn't the only approach there, as I've pointed out several times. To me, religion belongs into the same category as mysticism, magical thinking, old folk-tales, etc. - all attempts to make sense of the world.

I just can't understand why people still take it seriously, today.

And I don't understand why some people belief that unless we have 100% solid proof, every possible alternative is equally likely. Nowhere else in our lives do we think that way.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

Sure, as long as by nonsense you mean allegory, metaphors, morality and civil law.

Even as an allegory, it sucks. There are other ancient stories dramatically more valuable in literary and educational value.

As morality and civil law - yes, absolutely. Historically speaking, that was the purpose of the old testament. It was quite common to preserve knowledge and instructions in the form of stories. And the bible even contains a comparatively large number of direct commands - not just the ten commandments, but a long list of them.

But that's considering it as a historic document - as the morality and law of an ancient tribe of goat-herders in the palaestinian desert.

Applying that morality and law to modern society borders on the insane. And if it weren't for the religious aspect, but the mere facts, I doubt anyone would disagree with me.

Science and religion don't have to be opposing views.

Science is the end of religion, and the religious know it very well, which is why they oppose science. Every claim that religion makes that actually matters can be disproven by science, debunking the entire thing. Yes, religion can withdraw further and further into some "beyond the physics" realm, as it has been doing for a few centuries. But we all realize that at the current speed, very soon there won't be much left to withdraw from.

Claiming that science and religion are orthogonal is just another attempt at carving out a special area for religion, of finding a hole to hide in. God has already been pushed back into the non-physical realm, before the big bang, and into other areas currently inaccessible to science. Funny how every time science progresses into an area formerly unknowable, god retreats from there. He was in the heavens until we could look there and not see him. He was beyond the heavens until we could travel there and not meet him. He was in each of us until we could dissect the physical world down to the atom and more. Now he is purely in the spiritual.

Make no mistake. Science and religion are mortal enemies. If you don't want to take it from me, read The Golden Bough - on its surface the most complete collection of folk tales and rituals ever compiled, but if you really read it, you discover the history of magic, religion and science. And why they are three opposing forces.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

When you are looking back that far into our history you can't assume anyone knew what they were talking about with any degree of scientific knowledge.

If you agree with me that it's all a collection of folk-tales, then that much is obvious. It is likewise obvious that whatever the authors had to say about the world may or may not have been appropriate to theirs, but listening to them for advice on our problems today - well, you could just as well read some old greek philosopher, or Indian tales, or chinese legends, or basically anything else. There is not reason whatsoever to attribute this specific book any special value.

Now, if you insist that it's the enlightened word of an almighty and omniscient being - well, in that case I can expect not just some, but a superior degree of knowledge.

Evolutionists don't have all of the answers either you know.

Oh, I know. Science is a limes function. It never reaches the whole truth, but it gets progressively closer. Dawkins actually has some very good illustrations of how "wrong" science is. Quantum physics, for example, is hotly debated and a whole lot of stuff is far from settled. But its predictions are so accurate that the typical quantum mechanical measurement is comparable to measuring the distance between New York and San Franzisco to the millimeter.

You should keep that in mind when you say "science doesn't have all the answers". No, it doesn't. But the margin of error or the amount of uncertainty is often on that scale.

And remember, with evolution; this is all completely random... It's like flipping a coin a million times and having it land heads up each time. One mistake and you're back to square one.

You've just proven that you don't understand the first thing about evolution. The very point about evolution is that it is not completely random. It's past midnight here, I'm too tired to explain it, go read a book. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story (Canto) has a good explanation of the evolution of the cellular system and in chapter 8 even an explicit debunking of your point.

You can believe what you want, but when two options are possible, it's usually the simpler one that's accurate.

No, it is the simpler one of those who fit the facts. Ockhams razor requires the theories to be comparable in their other qualities.

You cannot disprove God any more than I can prove Him.

No, but a world without a god is the simpler theory than a world with a god that made it look like a world without a god. ;-)

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thomas Paine, wrote, "The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches,

Today, theologies and religions are studied in universities with all of the modern tools available. Basically, Paine's argument could be applied to the study of law as well, with the systematization of the legal sources, the enlightenment and customs all the way from the Roman times still serving as foundation and the development of legal theories and arguments similar to formulation of a theology of a religious sect or church as we call often them. Many theologians are also atheists these days.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[skine]

Actually, most Creationists I've argued against have no issue whatsoever with evolution occurring after the Flood.

They call this "micro-evolution."

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Tom]

I don't call it "micro" when it involves basically all the land-based plant life we know today.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Alsee]

it raises the rather obvious question of why

Because He works in strange and mysterious ways.
It doesn't matter that it doesn't make any sense, because out puny brains are too small to understand. So stop trying to understand any of it, and quit asking me annoying "why" questions that I can't answer ya damn kid.

-

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you all science all the time folks you may want to quit ignoring the fact that he is not a strict creationist, nor is evolution completely incompatible with organized religion. For the vast majority of people who call themselves religious the Bible is a spiritual guide and it is not considered a historical document.

Just about anyone reading the Bible today, with at least some science education and an open mind, realizes the book was a compilation of stories written by people who didn't understand how long history really was, the basic composition and function of matter, genetics or galactic motion. The stories were written by people looking around their surroundings and trying to answer questions like "how did we get here?" or "why does the sun rise and set?". They weren't stupid, they just didn't know as much as you. Have you ever listened to how people tell stories to each other and how they change over time. A story that starts out as with "One year in my youth we had a month straight of rain. Like 30 or 40 days of rain. It caused a huge flood and we had to move all our animals up to higher ground. A neighbor named Noah built a bridge the looked like a boat across that gorge over there. We called it arch and it allowed us save at least a few breeding pairs out of each of our herds". Add a couple hundred years, a fair amount alcohol and couple of translations into the current ruling language and you end up "A great man named Noah was told by God to build an ark to save all the animals of the world from a great flood that would last for 40 days..." It's not the original story but it still teaches you to be vigilant and plan ahead. Add to the first version of the story that we are now finding a large number of villages that are now under the water of the Red Sea and from a primitive point of view their "whole world" may well have been submerged but a cataclysmic event. The "whole world" was likely not the planet but instead it was every place they knew of at the time. Think of it like the phrase "When my father died, it felt like my world collapsed" and you may understand the distinction.

Short version: You have an opinion. They have a different opinion. You calling them names does not advance your argument any more then some people clinging to moral alliteration as scientific fact will change your mind.

It's time for you to grow up. I suggest you find a text that helps you learn ways to exist with others and make good moral choices. The Bible might help you if stopped believing that it is considered to be a science text by some and read it for what it is, a collection of life lessons on how to deal with the world around.

Now, its getting chilly in my office this morning so let the flaming begin.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Coren22]

The problem as I see it is that many people (religious and non religious) take the bible to be either fiction, or non fiction, people seem to forget that the bible is a collection of books. The old testament was a collection of oral stories that were brought together into a book. No one should take it all as historical fact. Noah's ark most likely came from a story of a localized flood, and was massively exaggerated in the telling. The creation story is just an explanation of a possible creation seen through the eyes of a people who don't understand how things came about.

The new testament is a collection (made much after the death of all the writers!) of stories of Jesus from different perspectives, as well as "other stuff". When you try to take the bible as a completely non fiction book, you are starting from ignorance of the origins of the book.

I consider creationists and the people attacking creationists to be intellectually challenged people. Would you argue with a mentally challenged individual? Than let it go!

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product.

So? Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

(before you ask, I'm an atheist/agnostic, but I find it pointless to even debate particular ideas of people suffering from a popular form of mass psychosis)

If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product.

So? Perhaps God did it for amusement, perhaps he's artistically inclined. Look at the average painter's paintings (and the stuff the doesn't even like himself and destroys/hides), does he produce useful or aesthetically perfect paintings? How can flaws in nature be an argument against creationism any more than they can be used against evolution theory, when evolution supposedly optimizes away flawed designs in the long run?

(before you ask, I'm an atheist/agnostic, but I find it pointless to even debate particular ideas of people suffering from a popular form of mass psychosis)

that is not an argument and therefore contributes nothing

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[kheldan]

May I present a hypothetical, if perhaps a very much real-life situation?
What if a hypothetical member of your church questions the very existence of God, and comes to their own personal conclusion that God doesn't exist and ceases being a part of your church? What sort of treatment and response can they expect?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[ShakaUVM]

Happened to a good friend of mine who was an undergraduate studying with the goal in mind of attending seminary and becoming a pastor. She eventually decided the evidence was not what she'd thought it was, and became something of an agnostic. She was attending a religious college at the time, and other than probably some disappointment from her parents, suffered no other social stigma. Nobody in my church believes that you should believe in something you consider false. It wouldn't make the slightest amount of sense to us... though, to be fair, a lot of fundiesr and Mormons seem to delight in believing false things as a test of faith or something.

There's a lot of diversity in Christian thinking.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[seantide]

The problem with discussions like this are the definitions are written in water. I see a lot of people in the thread tossing words around with obvious assumptions built in which often are not true. What exactly is an evolutionist or a creationist?

I believe in creationism: I don't think evolution as we understand it is sufficient to explain life. Creationism can be observed: I've created things, and given time humans will learn to create life. If we can create life, why can't some other being have done it?

Likewise I believe in evolution: I don't believe creationism explains life as we understand it, and I believe it is fundamentally dishonest to deny the nature of things, and evolution is clearly a part of life. Some religions fanatics claim to have a high respect for God's creation, but how can they if they deny one of its fundamental properties?

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

I don't see this as valid. Yes I know some people believe in an absolute form of creationism where every single species was custom made by God. Likewise there are a lot of people who believe evolution fully explains it. Both positions are laughably ridiculous.

Why can't a created organism have changed over time? Evolution obviously happens, we know that for a fact. So occasionally a created organism undergoes changes. Its creator anticipated it would need to change so it has a mechanism for handling that. Sometimes those changes are not perfect, or perhaps we just don't fully understand them. Why is that some kind of conflict between evolution and creationism?

I'm not trying to prove anything here, just pointing out that this isn't a valid argument one way or the other. Its interesting and a worthwhile exploration, but hardly proof of anything.

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

The problem is in taking things in the Bible literally. You can't even do that with scientific papers. Its a basic trait of human nature that we exaggerate and modify our stories. Its part of human storytelling, and in spite of what would appear to be a horrible error rate, its been shown to be highly effective and a major part of our ability to survive.

I've seen scientific papers become tangled messes, often highly syncretic, in very short time periods. We seem to accept that without question and yet, we give the Bible grief for the same thing and its thousands of years old and far more prone to alteration. Why the double standard?

Why can't the Noah story be true? Science tells us that there was at least one huge flood during the time period historians believe the biblical story coincides with. It wasn't the world, that idea is obviously ridiculous. However, certainly there were some ancients who thought that the area flooded was the whole world, and might have used a word to say that. Fast forward a few millenia and the story is distorted a bit, but does that mean its totally wrong? What if "the world" in the story is the area flooded when the Black Sea was created/expanded?

Yes there are problems with the story, but most of them can be explained by fairly normal and expected alterations in a story over time, and science if anything is helping us find the truth of these old stories, rather than disprove them totally.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[seantide]

Correction: there is no advantage or disadvantage we are aware of.

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[seantide]

Why can you only think of two possibilities? Why can't Noah's flood have happened in what was "the world" to the writer and be perfectly true? Why can't you allow for morphing of a millennia old document, but accept it in modern science which does it daily?

Re:Dialog is good and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why can't the Noah story be true?

Because you have to change so many details to make it plausible, it ends up not being the same story.

Besides, it's not the details of the story that matter - it's the message that's important.

The lessons I get from it are 1) Even God is not perfect, 2) he's a destroyer as well as a creator, 3) take responsibility for your mistakes, learn from them, and fix them, 4) it's divinely sanctioned to punish the innocent with the guilty, 5) some things are worth preserving out of any flawed work, and 6) cover your tracks with plausible deniability.

Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[LwPhD]

While I'm in favor of piling onto Haught, he isn't a creationist.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[dadioflex]

Watching the video and reading the letter do give a fairly reasonable opposite view from the last article, that has nothing to do with the merits of science or religion. But, ya know, you would have thought a Christian would have turned the other cheek, forgiven his enemy and just released the damn video to get his message across. Christians never seem to remember the forgiveness thing.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching the video and reading the letter do give a fairly reasonable opposite view from the last article, that has nothing to do with the merits of science or religion. But, ya know, you would have thought a Christian would have turned the other cheek, forgiven his enemy and just released the damn video to get his message across. Christians never seem to remember the forgiveness thing.

Neither do niggers. They still haven't gotten over that whole slavery thing.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[nmb3000]

It's also interesting to read his open letter to Coyne that is posted along with the video.

He may be wrong, deluded, full of himself, or just lying, but I have a strong sense that the reporting of this whole event was very badly skewed against Haught. At least now, with the presentations and video made available, we can see how it really played out.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[bky1701]

Well, that's what I get for not RTFA'ing. However, had I, the same argument can be adapted to gems such as (quoting from Wikipedia because I am lazy at the moment):

"He also testified that materialism, the philosophy that only matter exists, is "a belief system, no less a belief system than is intelligent design."

A statement like that shows that you can take the creationism out of the creationist, but not the mindset that led to it. If anything, he is smart enough not to adopt the most easily disproved position, in favor of sneakier ones like "you can't prove religion is false so our positions as just as valid." Of course, again this is me going off Wikipedia having not watched the rather long video yet. He might be a fine and reasonable man... yet something tells me that isn't to be expected.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[x2A]

Lead by example ;-)

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch... that letter is even worse than Haught's performance during the event. He should have asked a friend of his about the wisdom of publicising it.
>the reporting of this whole event was very badly skewed against Haught
Given Haught's performance during the event, and his handling of the way he tried to sweep it under the carpet (whatever his reasons may have been), there was no way any reporting of this event was going to be favourable for Haught. He reaped what he sowed.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Christians are sinners too my friend and forgiveness is hard for all. Otherwise we wouldn't need God at all. Christianity isn't based on Christians being perfect...

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, since they made that mistake of believing in a god in the first place...

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dahamma]

No, you are pretty close. His basic idea is "I believe in all the science you can throw at me, but that still doesn't disprove God". And though he somehow thinks that makes him different, to a real scientist it's not much different from "do you believe in Odin or does Zeus sound more believable?"

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[meerling]

I think that is usually referred to as "the god of the empty spaces". It's the delusion where anything that isn't already explained by science is declared to be the realm and hand of god.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[dgatwood]

What we have here is a false dichotomy. Many folks with religious beliefs merely believe that some things that aren't explained by science might be the hand of God, which is subtly but significantly different from the position you describe. Such an attitude does not mean that we should not use science to learn what we can, but rather shows a humble acceptance that some truths may be fundamentally impossible to grasp from within the confines of our universe. They would argue that we may never be able to explain why certain laws of the universe are true, but that does not mean that we should stop trying, as the more we learn about the universe, the more we inevitably learn about its creator.

The lazy use God as an excuse to stop trying. The true believers use God as a reason to do so. That's why throughout history, a fair amount of scientific discovery has been done by the Church and the faithful, from Copernicus to Mendel. Heck, even Sir Francis Bacon—to many, the founder of modern science—was religious.

While we're at it, let's add a few more to that list. Kepler, Galilei, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Kelvin, Planck, Einstein—you know, all those people who were so important to science that we named measurements, laws, or cages after most of them—all held some belief in a higher power, creator, or similar. Yet no sane person could claim that their impact on modern science was anything less than amazing and groundbreaking.

The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today. And although it is held with the same arrogant religious fervor as the beliefs of the most devout faithful, it is a comically naïve belief built on nothing more solid than smugness and the believer's own desire to feel superior to someone else, usually to make themselves feel less inferior. Frankly, whenever I see such rubbish, it almost makes me ashamed of the human race as a whole.

As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not it, rather the opposite.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[wisty]

No, that's not it at all. It's the fundamentalist Christians (and at times, Catholics) that are out of hand. Fundamentalist atheists are just a reaction against them.

Tell a Hindu that the Earth doesn't sit on a turtle. They'll either laugh, or get offended that you stereotype them as a superstitious savage. Tell a Christian that the world is over a billion years old, and they will tell you that scientists only say that to get funding.

The scientific method *did* benefit from the immense skepticism against new discoveries. Arguing with Jesuits did have some benefit. But only once science started to get the upper hand. Before that point, we had the Dark Ages.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[qeveren]

Uh... religion and science ARE fundamentally at odds. One is based on empirical study, the other is the rejection of the empirical in favour of what is effectively make-believe. And it's nice to quote Einstein, but just because he's famous and was a brilliant scientist doesn't mean that nugget of his wisdom is particularly correct.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[icebraining]

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ⦠For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.

-- Einstein.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Slashdot Assistant]

The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today. And although it is held with the same arrogant religious fervor as the beliefs of the most devout faithful, it is a comically naÃve belief built on nothing more solid than smugness and the believer's own desire to feel superior to someone else, usually to make themselves feel less inferior. Frankly, whenever I see such rubbish, it almost makes me ashamed of the human race as a whole.

As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.

This whole discussion is muddy as Hell. I'll make my position clear:

Religious people can do science. The church has historically supported science, mainly by virtue of it providing the only centers of learning. Religion can inspire a desire to understand creation. How much of this though is due to religion being the only game in town?

Religion and science can be fundamentally at odds; heard of young earth creationism and Biblical literalism? How about the persistent Catholic belief of transubstantiation? What about the Scientologist's e-meter, or the claim that praying can alter physical reality? It is not fundamentalist atheism to say that beliefs such as these are incompatible with science, but even so, a creationist could do science so long as they don't insert their beliefs in to their work. That is the important distinction. One may as well ask if rape is compatible with being a good doctor? The answer is yes, so long as the doctor doesn't rape any of his patients. Bacon had a mustache. Are mustaches compatible with science, well yes, except perhaps if the scientist uses their mustache in lieu of beakers and a bunsen burner.

Oh, and Voltaire said "A witty saying proves nothing." Einstein's beliefs are notoriously difficult to pin-down.

These people need to be seen in their culture. Could Michelangelo have been a great artist without religion? Sure, so long as someone else was around to act as a patron.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

I apologize for the goof who posted first.

But based on your post I'm compelled to ask... if I forgive people for things big and small all the time, been (generally) happy about having done so, and have never needed the notion of an invisible, immortal magician to do it, why would you?

And I don't mean to be judgmental about it, I suspect that you're entirely capable of all the good things you've ever done, with or without subscription to any particular mythology. I'm just occasionally curious about what goes on in a religious person's mind.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

"...but I have a strong sense that the reporting of this whole event was very badly skewed against Haught."

People with delusions always think that the world is out to get them.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, the more far away they are, the better for the rest of us.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[YttriumOxide]

As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.

As Einstein also put it: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Please don't try and paint him as a believer in any particular religion. There's been no end of debates on his religious views, but can't we just agree he was a great man and a great thinker without trying to infuse any beliefs in to it one way or the other?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Do we actually know Haught's side of the story? When this topic was last discussed, we only heard what Coyne and his supporters were saying about the refusal to release the video.

An open letter has been posted in which Haught says "I never gave permission before or after the panel to post the video". If this is true, then the whole matter needs to be seen in an entirely different light. In particular, I'm not sure exactly what Haught needs to seek forgiveness for? Unless thought crimes such as Christianity are themselves a sort of sin?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Well, yes. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this incident was the way that so many people automatically jumped to a wrong conclusion, without even considering that there might be another side to the story. In the last Slashdot discussion, nobody asked what Haught's opinion was. Nobody cared. They just assumed that the nasty creationist theologian had lost the debate and was trying to censor the result, which is a shameful conclusion to jump to.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

The letter is a very interesting read. I have not yet watched the video(hard to do at work... :) ) but if Coyne did behave has above, then he does have a very good point. Even if you disagree with his position, it in constructive debate, it is normally a good idea to avoid ad homiens and also to stick to the topic.

I have a suspicion neither party has acted in complete good faith here. Rather than attack the ideas these two gentlemen have, I think it is valuable to take the time to analyze and critique how they debated them and how academically honest they were. Then it may be worth looking at what they were driving at.

I am always disappointed when people are reduced to flaming each other. It is embarrassing to both sides.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[bentcd]

The one you want to be quoting in this debate would be Thomas Aquinas who, ~800 years ago, defined a set of rules that would allow Christianity and scientific inquiry to happily coexist. Which, apart from the odd extremist, they have been doing ever since.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Fundamentalist atheists are just a reaction against them.

And that makes it better somehow? Just a reaction? If you can't control your emotional reactions you have no business in this sort of debate. Neither do the Christian fundies.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[TheGratefulNet]

einstein did NOT believe in higher powers. if you think so, you mistread what he wrote.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[taoareyou]

Perhaps God is Dark Matter. :) Many scientists believe in dark matter, a vast 83% of all matter in the universe that is so far undetectable. It's just something they made up to explain things they could not explain. It's a theory for something that has no directly observable proof other than "well if it existed, that would explain all these gravitational discrepancies". Religions, throughout history, have done the same thing.

We don't know why, but if these deities existed, that would explain everything.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Lexical_Scope]

Although I'm sure many of the listed scientific luminaries were fully sincere in their faith, it's worth noting that it's only very recently that Atheism as a concept, let alone a life choice, came about. It would never have occurred to a number of these scientists that non-belief was even an option.

It is through their work however that our knowledge of the universe has grown to a degree where belief in a deity IS strictly optional and the number of serious scientists who profess faith in a Creator has diminished accordingly.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[xhrit]

Nope, you are wrong. Einstein was a good American who believed in the christian God with a capital G. Who's belief is naïve now?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[thomst]

Religion and science can be fundamentally at odds; heard of young earth creationism and Biblical literalism? How about the persistent Catholic belief of transubstantiation? What about the Scientologist's e-meter, or the claim that praying can alter physical reality?

Er ... you're comparing apples and iPods, friend. Creationism, Biblical literalism, and belief in transubstatiation and the physical efficacy of prayer are all examples of faith in things for which there is no physical evidence. Scientology's e-meter, by contrast is a device that measures galvanic skin response. It is not based on faith at all, but on medical/forensic science, combined with a decision tree of common neuroses. That's the devilish thing about it (and the reason why Scientology is so adamantly opposed to psychiatry - because they rightly see it as their competition!): the e-meter/decision tree combination is actually pretty effective at identifying common neuroses in people to whom it is applied. And human nature is such that, having been forced to confront neuroses that they've been repressing, most folks immediately feel better about themselves - and they give Scientology the credit for that, and get sucked into the progressively-more-expensive process that leads to the revelation (at the highest and most expensive end of the scam) that Xenu entombed Thetans in an ice volcano (!) and so on.

Disclaimer: I am not a Scientologist, nor do I in any way endorse Scientology as a religion or a lifestyle. I do, however, prefer any discussion to be based on facts, not propaganda.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA'ing is not enough, if you cannot draw correct conclusions. I dont see there if he is creationist or not. After looking to his website a texts, I tend to believe that he is 'evolutionist', which is to understand that this is a very nice and probable theory how the species evolved. With respect to this discovery, I am puzzled why Coyne didnt rather dispute on this level and what was the point to talk about condoms and pedophiles? However, I am not able, like you, to judge if anybody is expected to be fine and reasonable man.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[xhrit]

I think it is a prerequisite for religious people to fail at reading comprehension.

All it takes is a quick reading of some of the holy texts to make an intelligent person not believe in higher powers.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[quintesse]

But when pressed on that matter Einstein also said:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

You present a list of religious scientists without ever knowing what they "really" thought, because we can't ask them anymore. We're talking about people who lived in a time where atheism often just wasn't an option. Heck, even in modern day US you will commit political suicide if you try to run for any kind of office while admitting you're an atheist.

Even so I can understand perfectly that there are scientists who are religious people, but only because they put some kind of artificial barrier between those two sides of their personality and refusing to let their beliefs be tainted by their reason (the faith part). But that doesn't take away from the fact that they can be extraordinary scientists.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I think so. Because the only reason why they're called "fundamentalist" is because they're fed up with having to deal with this "god" stuff all the time and won't stop complaining about it. The thing that separates them form any other atheists is that most "normal" atheists will let you believe what you want as long as you leave them alone. Thing is, religious people do NOT leave us alone, they think us some kind of aberration best to be rid off. A fundamentalist atheist does not wish to be left alone but will actively try to get rid of religious influences in public life.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[GospelHead821]

Christian faith is a little bit more nuanced than that. It is not that we are never capable of performing good deeds or thinking good thoughts without believing in God. We believe, after all, that humans are formed in God's image - certainly, the ability to think and do good things is included in that package. What we observe, however, is that everybody, at some point or another, uses their free will to do or think something unkind or hurtful toward others. That aspect of the human condition is what we refer to as sin and when we refer to being slaves to sin, we're referring to our inability to escape that pattern of behaviour. When we discuss God's grace providing freedom from sin, we're not referring to an immediate transformation that allows us never to sin but rather an acknowledgment of this failing and accepting that only God's perfect goodness can correct it.

Furthermore, we don't claim that the good deeds and thoughts are the ultimate goal of God's grace. Rather, just as misdeeds are symptoms of a broken human condition, good deeds are a symptom of a mended/on-the-mend human condition. We don't act out good deeds "just because" they're objectively good nor because we feel an obligation (which I would call legalism and duty, respectively.) We act out good deeds as an expression of joy because we believe it is pleasing to God when we do so and we are profoundly grateful that he has provided the means by to mend the broken human condition - a process that we believe is begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Tell a Christian that the world is over a billion years old, and they will tell you that scientists only say that to get funding.

I know some Christians online who would react as you describe, but tell any of the Christians I know personally that the world is over a billion years old and they will say "Yes, I know".

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[PopeRatzo]

While I'm in favor of piling onto Haught, he isn't a creationist.

Sure he is. "Intelligent Design" is just creationism with a party hat.

From the wiki link you waved:

He also testified that materialism, the philosophy that only matter exists, is "a belief system, no less a belief system than is intelligent design. And as such, it has absolutely no place in the classroom, and teachers of evolution should not lead their students craftily or explicitly to ... feel that they have to embrace a materialistic world-view in order to make sense of evolution."

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Uh... religion and science ARE fundamentally at odds. One is based on empirical study, the other is the rejection of the empirical in favour of what is effectively make-believe.

You don't actually know what religion is, do you?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that "still doesn't disprove God", because you *can't* disprove God (or Gods). What you can negate are some of the utterly ridiculous scientific interpretations that some creationists offer, up to and including that their religious belief is "scientific" or philosophically better grounded than usual. That also doesn't "disprove God" either, but it does show that said creationists are ordinary fallible and limited humans like the rest of us, with no special insight into the way that the universe works, and with no particular advantage in figuring things out versus conventional scientists whether those scientists happen to believe in God or not. Science isn't infallible either, but at least we don't claim to be basing our ideas on infallible divine words that happen to be still interpreted by ordinary fallible humans. If you are a believer, it could even be argued that scientists work directly with God's creation, whereas traditional religious people read a bunch of words written by other humans.

People should believe whatever darn fool thing they want, but science works reasonably well at purging itself of nonsense (given enough time), whereas religion has a bad historical tendency to preserve it in the face of strong facts to the contrary. This does not inspire much confidence in me with regards to religion, and it is why I favor a scientific approach, but everyone perceives these things differently and has their reasons. What really makes me bristle, though, is the implication that religion has some special, elevated status when it comes to the struggle that we fallible humans have while trying to understand the huge and amazing universe we live in. It is one way forward, and people are entitled to it if they want to use it, but I just don't see any special abilities there. If this guy wants to say "science hasn't disproven God", fine. I know that. He's right, because science can't do so and most people already know that. So what? All that confirms is that he can legitimately go on believing *regardless* of anything that science says. I already knew that too, and so do a lot of scientists who believe on faith. That's what faith *is*. But saying "nyah nyah you can't scientifically disprove my religion" doesn't make it correct or insightful.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[identity0]

>"do you believe in Odin or does Zeus sound more believable?"

Do you see many angsty teens wearing all black giving hand salutes to Zeus while listening to metal? No?

I rest my case.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[moortak]

Instead it is a nasty creationist who feels his public debates at an academic institution should be kept secret.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Did you read the letter?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Have you even read his letter? Being catholic Haught is certainly not a creationist.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Religion and science can be fundamentally at odds; heard of young earth creationism and Biblical literalism? How about the persistent Catholic belief of transubstantiation? What about the Scientologist's e-meter, or the claim that praying can alter physical reality? It is not fundamentalist atheism to say that beliefs such as these are incompatible with science, but even so, a creationist could do science so long as they don't insert their beliefs in to their work.

I agree with most of what you say, but it's worth noting that transubstantiation isn't at odds with science because the doctrine claims that the substance is transformed but the accidents are not. Those words are used in a technical (Platonic) philosophical sense -- terms of art, if you like -- and it's only the accidents that are observable by science. Because the substance is not observable scientists might consider the doctrine meaningless or irrelevant, but the doctrine isn't actually at odds with science.

The claim that "claim that praying can alter physical reality" isn't quite at odds with science either, but that's a trickier case. It's a falsifiable hypothesis, although to avoid the ravens paradox it has to be stated as the converse claim: praying cannot alter physical reality. That claim remains unfalsified and is preferable to the converse claim on the grounds both of Occam's razor and the fact that no plausible model by which praying can alter physical reality has been identified. That means that whereas transubstantiation is not a scientific claim, the effectiveness of prayer is a scientific claim that mainstream scientific thinking currently rejects (on good grounds) but which is not proven false.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Deus.1.01]

At what part of that statement belongs to any Intelligent design philosophy, what he's talking about here is a very high-level, out of reach, philosophical argument, he's not using it to prove hypotheses.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

And what of the rest of us who think both fundamentalist positions are just plain stupid? You're missing the point here. Atheists have the opportunity not to sink to down to that level, and it is disappointing when they do. We expect it from the fundamentalist religious. They are for the most part uneducated. But to be an atheist, you either have to be very lazy (in which case not a fundamentalist) or at least marginally intelligent (you think about these things a bit) in which case we could hope you would not fall into the trap of fundamentalism.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Although I'm sure many of the listed scientific luminaries were fully sincere in their faith, it's worth noting that it's only very recently that Atheism as a concept, let alone a life choice, came about.

5th or 6th century BCE, as an idea that was actually expressed in Europe. Very recently in terms of the age of the Earth, I grant, but long enough ago to have been available to the scientists mentioned.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

I strrongly urge you to review Scientology's beliefs. The "E-meter" is not claimed to measure galvanic skin response, in the deeper levels of the cult it is claimed to measure the the mass of your soul, the strength of the re-incarnated dead galactic citizens called "Thetans" which compose your mind, and to train the disciples in superpowers of mind over matter including levitation, telekinesis, perfect recall, and cancer cures. The "cancer cures" are part of why the FDA stepped on Scientology's claims and Scientology reclassified itself as a religion, to avoid prosecution and to get a tax break.

I'm afraid that your faith in the usefulness of e-meters is founded in the glowing recommendations of cult members who are conditioned, using the e-meter, to give glowing recommendations, not in actual verifiable benefits. While there's overlap to the categorization of emotional problems with the questionnaires used to gather members, all results from questionnaires are evaluated as points to say "Scientology can help with that"! The e-meters are used in the long run to guide hypnotism and conditioning, not therapy. The results are considerably *worse* than those of simple psychoterapy, and the e-meter treatment, which they are prohibited by the FDA from calling treatment, is very dangerous for cases where there is a physical reason for the mental issue.

Some of the inner documents about the "auditing" and beliefs of reborn galactic citizens, especially the evil overlord who slaughtered all those galactics, are available with a casual web search. Particularly look for the "Fishman" papers, regarding "OT VIII" and "Xenu". These recommendations are not borne out by the physical, fiscal, or emotional health of the cult's most devoted members, and is directly contradicted by cases such as the death of Lisa McPherson in a Scientology "Baby Watch".

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[PopeRatzo]

what he's talking about here is a very high-level, out of reach, philosophical argument,

An argument that is being used as a smoke-screen for Intelligent Design.

Just because he's part of this new "deep, complex" theology doesn't mean that it's not all magic underneath.

This is the way they are dressing up creationism now. Using the language of science, the language of modern philosophy, they're just trying to make hocus-pocus "sciencey" and sophisticated, hoping to get their nose under the tent.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dcnjoe60]

Watching the video and reading the letter do give a fairly reasonable opposite view from the last article, that has nothing to do with the merits of science or religion. But, ya know, you would have thought a Christian would have turned the other cheek, forgiven his enemy and just released the damn video to get his message across. Christians never seem to remember the forgiveness thing.

Being Christian doesn't mean you have to accept being trampled on. Christians have rights, too.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[ph0rk]

As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.

On the contrary - the empirical project can get along just fine without the supernatural.

To be a good empiricist, one must relegate the supernatural to that realm that is entirely untouchable by observation. Or, in other words, let God live in places so small that it doesn't matter. If that counts as still "believing", then fine. Fully one third of the US population holds an inerrant view of the Christian bible - the difference in beliefs between that group and "an empiricist who lets God live in small places" is staggering.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[whoop]

Now, now, there's no need for facts on this site. All religions are creationists, all smart people that matter on the internet are evolutionists. You cannot debate unreasonable people because they are just wrong.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[jellomizer]

The fundamentalists and the zealot atheists are really stuck on the Genesis part of the bible aren't they. Heck they get stuck even before they finish Genesis.

This is a story passed down verbally for thousands of years, translated multiple times then finally wrote down and translated again.

So lets make an assumption that God told the first man how he came to be. Then he passed it onto the next generations.

First Man: We evolved billions of years we came from organic elements that were mixed together that were self replicating but with minor changes over time billions of years we came to what we are now.

Kid: What are organic elements?

First Man: They are very tiny unit of mass made from carbon. (He grabs and picks up some soil) Here in my hand I hold billions of these carbon atoms.

Kid: (thinking to himself: "So we came from Mud") so how do these self replicate.

First Man: Well you see these atoms are grouped together in a twisted structure (He draws a double helix in the dirt) And they split and when there is an other DNA pare they will join up can create a brand new chemical combination.

Kid: (thinking to himself: "Those look like ribs, So my Sister came from my dads ribs?") Interesting I will pass this down to my children.

First Man: Good for you... Hey whats that...

First Man get killed by a Tiger. Kid runs away and lives the rest of his life trying to survive and the story kinda got more confused.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Sorry, I forgot... I'm a bit out of date though, do we still hate Windows 7? Vi FTW!

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[pnewhook]

I consider myself a Christian but everything you said is just nonsense. Having free will does not equate to sin, nor do we do good deeds solely to please God.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[tbannist]

Exactly how can an atheist be fundamentalist? It seems like there's really only one fundamental tenet of atheism: there is no god. In that sense every atheist is a either a fundamentalist or agnostic.

Atheists have the opportunity not to sink to down to that level, and it is disappointing when they do. We expect it from the fundamentalist religious.

Lovely, a double-standard. You can expect some groups of people to be better than other groups of people, but most of the time you will be disappointed.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[whoop]

Citation needed.

I'm working through Haught's letter, will watch the video soon, but he brings up valid arguments about the "debate." If Coyne's presentation was just ad hominum and non sequitur fallacies, how is that a useful academic debate? How is bringing up the Catholic Church's stance on divorce, homosexuality, etc useful in a debate on Science/Religion?

And if you disagree, well, you're a poopoo head.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. Again, I'm not looking to get combative, but I'm not sure that really answered my question...

If "god's grace" (I admit I don't actually know what that means) provides you with freedom from occasionally acting badly, but not all the way, and only that can correct your imperfectness, but it won't correct it all the way... how is it that I'm still a good person, presumably without it (seeing as I have no notion that such a thing exists)? Isn't that an observable example of such a belief being entirely unnecessary for goodness, rather than a requirement?

Also, if you don't do good deeds because they're objectively good, you don't feel any obligation to be a good person, and you only do good things because you think it's pleasing to this creature.. then if you eventually accepted science over religion, you don't think you'd be compelled to be a good person anymore? Why do you think you'd be so different from the rest of us good, non-religious people? And if you're a good person because you think the creature will like it, isn't that something altogether different from the grace thing? Also, if you're formed in your gods image, why is everyone physiologically imperfect, and why does everyone have genitalia? Presumably an eternal creature wouldn't have a fundamentally flawed corpus, and wouldn't have any need for breeding apparatus, no? Or is it like, humans are made in its image, but only by some outward appearances?

I apologize for all the questions. A lot of this sounds very different from the rules and reasons I did get when I was young.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[martas]

I wasn't completely convinced by your arguments, until I saw the ï in "naïve". That shows true class, so you must be right! (Note: just kidding, I think you're right regardless)

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Exactly how can an atheist be fundamentalist? It seems like there's really only one fundamental tenet of atheism: there is no god. In that sense every atheist is a either a fundamentalist or agnostic.

Ask the this guy , I'm just using his terminology. But I think he's refering to the practice of actively trying to ridicule and stamp out religion rather than the practice of reasoned debate and the ability to live in peace with people who hold different viewpoints.

Atheists have the opportunity not to sink to down to that level, and it is disappointing when they do. We expect it from the fundamentalist religious.

Lovely, a double-standard. You can expect some groups of people to be better than other groups of people, but most of the time you will be disappointed.

Not really, all I'm saying, is it is illogical for an atheist to be like that. Atheism is a point of view that prizes logic above all else, thus it is disappointing (though not unsurprising) when they fail... For the most part, I have found them reasonable, intelligent people, and I would say the "fundamentalist" groups are the minority. But that is of course anecdotal....

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

It reads to me like someone didn't like getting called out for his fairy tale beliefs.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Deus.1.01]

You do know what Intelligent design is DON'T YOU!

Its the concept/hunt for a higher powers design in THE MATERIAL WORLD! aka "conformation bias: The game".
They use their preferences to tailor the facts/evidence to their preferred narrative.

Haught does NOT! He actually understands science. He knows that the concept of god(s) is not falsifiable, and if it was it would make faith useless.

I am an atheist, but i can honestly say that some religious concepts are more logical and honest then some other religious concepts, and can still be compatible(does not interfere to me more blunt ) with human endevours in new discoveries.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[GospelHead821]

You don't have to apologize for your questions. I'm happy to share my perspective with you.

As I said, good deeds and bad deeds are outward manifestations of an internal condition - expressions of godly character and sinful character respectively. By God's perfect standard, there is no such thing as a "good person." We all fail to live up to God's extraordinarily high expectations. God's grace refers to the sacrifice that God made in the person of Jesus to reconcile the broken human condition with God's perfect standard. The correction of human imperfection is, as I said, begun on Earth and perfected in Heaven. But as long as the sinful condition remains (as it will on Earth), humans will both be drawn toward God's goodness and tempted away from it.

As far as the reason/cause for being good, marriage provides a good analogy. Does a man hold the door for his wife or bring her flowers because he is obligated to or feels that it is his duty? I doubt it. When I bring flowers to my wife, it is because I am grateful for the goodness of the relationship that I share with her. It brings me joy and I express my joy by doing things that I know she likes. It's not appeasement. I'm not buying her affection nor is she giving me affection to buy flowers. It's a mutual expression of appreciation for one another's companionship.

Concerning being "made in God's image," I interpret that statement philosophically. Insomuch as we can create things and make decisions and experience joyful relationships with one another, I believe that we are like God. I don't think that it has anything to do with fleshy bodies.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SadButTrue]

I always find it deeply amusing when bullies play the victim card.

- school prayer
- one nation, under god
- in god we trust
- commandments in the courts
- opening prayer in congress
- christmas and easter notional holidays

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SadButTrue]

Huh? You think the pope isn't a creationist?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Not in the traditional sense of the word. Sure, catholics believe God created the universe, but they pretty much believe that it probably happened in the way science describes. We're not talking about Young earthers, or even people who necessarily think they can prove ID.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SuricouRaven]

The pope is a 'special creationist.' He's willing to accept the mostly-naturalistic explanations for life, the universe and everything... except man. The official position of the catholic church still says that God had to personally get involved in at least that bit and instill a soul or whatever it is God did in Genesis. Otherwise humans are nothing but smart animals and the whole theological system falls apart.

The 'special' part refers to the place of humans - distinct from everything else in the universe as the only creatures made in the image of God and by him directly.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SuricouRaven]

Dawkins termed it the 'God of the Gaps,' and pointed out that the gaps have been shrinking throughout history as science explains more and more of the material questions of the universe.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

What we observe, however, is that everybody, at some point or another, uses their free will to do or think something unkind or hurtful toward others. That aspect of the human condition is what we refer to as sin and when we refer to being slaves to sin, we're referring to our inability to escape that pattern of behaviour.

So God created us as sinners. This means that either:
1. God screwed up. Therefore God is not infallable. Therefore God can not have "perfect goodness".
2. God did it on purpose. Therefore God is a mean son of a bitch and is just playing with us.

If you insist on believing in God then pick one, I guess.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SuricouRaven]

You can't life in peace with different viewpoints when you live in a democracy. Those different viewpoints vote too. The best you can hope for is that the conflict will be academic and political rather than violent.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[GospelHead821]

God created us with free will that allows us to choose sin. The alternative was creating us as will-less automatons. That freedom is necessary for our choices to matter. It is better for humans to exist with the ability to make meaningful choices and to form meaningful relationships than it would be for us to not exist at all or for us to exist but not be able to make meaningful choices or form meaningful relationships.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Or perhaps find common ground and understanding and work towards a helping the fundamentalists stop being like that? I would strongly disagree with you that you can't live in peace. Try.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[tbannist]

Not really, all I'm saying, is it is illogical for an atheist to be like that. Atheism is a point of view that prizes logic above all else, thus it is disappointing (though not unsurprising) when they fail... For the most part, I have found them reasonable, intelligent people, and I would say the "fundamentalist" groups are the minority. But that is of course anecdotal....

That's not actually true, Atheism is a point of view that God doesn't exist. Many atheists arrive at this conclusion through the application of logic and reason, and indeed many atheists do prize logic above all else, but it is not intrinsic to atheism in general. Some people become atheists through personal tragedy, some arrive at it through religious cynicism, some people are atheists because they've never really considered anything else. It's a mixed group unified only by their lack of belief in deities. You can expect every atheist to be a paragon of logic and reason, but you will be disappointed because it's an unreasonably high standard and it is only sometimes applicable.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[h4x0t]

The false dichotomy here is that since the laws of the universe are, they must have a purpose and a creator. There are other options to consider.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so humans were made in the image of your god just in a metaphysical sense, except for the omniscience, omnipotence or your god's self-defined version of perfection which, if I've understood correctly, we aren't capable of comprehending or achieving?

Also, if I remember the sunday school stuff, we're responsible (and bound for eternal torture) for the imperfection we were made with (for that technically incomprehensible definition of perfect). Except, if you choose to accept that a later mortal version of the god was a perfect human sacrifice to itself? Like, if I remember it right, nobody is allowed to know what perfect is and earn a pass on eternal torture by being "a good person". So you have to go with the human sacrifice of the god to itself on blind faith... or you're going to burn forever, right?

As for holding the door or buying flowers, I'd have to say that's something nice (not what I would call "good") that I do for a person, to make that person happy. I wouldn't, say, give a homeless person my jacket because I want a girl to be pleased with me. I'd do it because I want to help the person that needs help. Now maybe a third party would also appreciate what I did, but the act is tangential to my wanting to help the person that actually needed it.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[inasity_rules]

Then I've been lucky in the ones I've met. But I'd probably say the other fall into the lazy category. Just to put people in arbitrary boxes.....

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Fooker]

So from my understanding of what you said, people who believe in god do good deeds because it pleases their god? While it may be them expressing their joy from what you said, you also said "because we believe it is pleasing to god when we do so". Is that because he is pleased because of the good deed you have done or because of you doing it out of joy and selflessness towards your fellow man?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today.

Not breathing is incompatible with life, yet some people have held their breath and are still alive, but that's only a contradiction to "special" people. Almost everyone has historically been religious, so of course science has had to be done by religious people, but as long as they don't try to do their science THROUGH their religion, there's no problem with that. Not believing in gods is a religion as much as not collecting stamps is a hobby. If you really believe religion is as virtuous, rational and honorable as you say, why do you label atheists as religious as though religious were a dirty smear? Seems you don't really believe that religion is so great after all.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dcnjoe60]

I always find it deeply amusing when bullies play the victim card.

- school prayer
- one nation, under god
- in god we trust
- commandments in the courts
- opening prayer in congress
- christmas and easter notional holidays

The problem is that what you list is the based on the agenda of right wing Evangelicals. There are many more christian denominations and groups in the US that do not push those items. With regards to the original topic on the debate, Haught is roman catholic and none of those items apply to the catholic church. Just as not all Muslims are terrorists, not all Christians are extremists.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[GospelHead821]

He is pleased because of one doing it out of joy. Consider 2 Corinthians 9: 7,8
"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."
It says not only that "God loves a cheerful giver" but goes on to remind the reader that our generosity is really just stewardship of the things that God has first given into our care. A few people have commented on the way that I worded my original explanation. Rather than saying that we do good works to please God, it would be more accurate to say that we know that good works are pleasing to God and should also be pleasing to us. Our good works are like a celebration WITH God in thanks for his providence.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Yes religion can happily coexist with science. Mainly by retreating to areas that science hasn't fully explained yet, and refraining from making any verifiable predictions.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

As it happens atheists know more about religion than religious types do. I assure you, we've been exposed to religion almost constantly our entire lives. But if you really think there's something more to it than make-believe, go ahead and try to explain it.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Raenex]

I'm a staunch atheist, but the letter reads to me like Haught had some valid criticisms. In particular, the list of "evils" associated religion. You could easily come up with such a list for science. It's not pertinent to a debate on the compatibility of religion and science.

It'll be interesting to see the video. I'm glad Haught changed his mind, and I give him credit for that.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Unless you have an unusual definition of "religion", it's unrelated to the rejection of the empirical. Some religious people do, some (I suspect most) don't. I'm not going to try to argue that there's anything to it, but if you don't at least aim at the right target then you're pretty sure to miss.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[uigrad_2000]

You are trying to be reasonable, which is wholly unacceptable in this type of discussion.

Didn't you get the memo? Both sides are supposed to yell about how stupid the other side is without actually discussing the facts about the video.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

In what way is belief without evidence unrelated to the rejection of the empirical?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[khallow]

They just assumed that the nasty creationist theologian had lost the debate and was trying to censor the result, which is a shameful conclusion to jump to.

I realize this guy isn't a creationist, but yes, that is precisely the conclusion I reached. If he didn't want me to reach that conclusion, then he shouldn't have done what he did.

I notice also that the people who defend this behavior haven't bothered to give me a reason to change my mind. It's "shameful" to "jump" to conclusions, but why shouldn't I? It' a public debate. He tried to keep it from being released to the general public. I don't see that as evidence he was treated unfairly. I see it as evidence that he's trying to suppress a bad debate performance.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[randomencounter]

Atheism is just the lack of a belief in gods. No more, no less.

Rationality might be a one reason for someone to be an atheist, but it is not the only one and they are only tenuously connected at best.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

If there is evidence and ignore it they are rejecting the empirical. If there is no evidence then there is no "empirical" to reject. Even science has to accept some things without evidence (science can't prove itself as that would be a circular argument; it has to make assumptions in order to get started). Science has been trying for centuries to get rid of its metaphysical underpinnings and so far has failed completely. The current scientific consensus seems to be to accept that, and to accept Popper's argument that the boundary between science and metaphysics is actually just a social convention. Unfortunately, most of the militant atheists are still using a logical positivist view of science which most of us were taught at school and university, unaware that that approach is now "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes". It's surely unfair to criticise religion for doing something that science does too (and that every worldview other than extreme solipsism) has to do.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[ShakaUVM]

>>It's also interesting to read his open letter to Coyne that is posted along with the video.

Yowza. If that's true (there was no prior agreement to release the video) then the atheist is basically guilty of stirring up an internet witch hunt against the guy.

It should really give all the atheists on Slashdot something to reflect upon... you all should think about how easily you were turned into a tool for an evil man's purposes, and contrast that against similar claims you make against religion.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

An idea that when expressed results in being thrown on a big fire or tortured until you 'repent' or being completely de-funded and removed from society, is not an 'available idea'.

I'm not saying this was the case for the last 3000 years, but it very much was the case for most of the Scientists mentioned.

Einstein being the major exception, mainly because we have absolutely no evidence that he actually believed in God (using the word 'God' doesn't mean you believe in the Giant from the sky) and lots of direct quotes where he actually says he doesn't believe; if he did, it would be Spinoza's God (pantheistic idea more akin to 'mother nature' or 'world spirit' than judeo-christian God) and that religion is an incarnation of childish superstitions...

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, I've never understood why you had to believe in either science or religion. I can understand that there is some bitterness towards religion from atheists, scientists and others (God knows the religious have screwed over many in the course of history) but intolerance towards a group has never solved anything.

I enjoy watching as we come to better understand our universe. I perform experiments in my house. I don't just believe in science, I love it. But I believe in God too. I don't think the Bible is completely accurate, especially on a word-to-word basis. Is there really a problem with believing that God created the world but through a vastly more complicated process than they teach in Sunday School? Even if you think that's absurd, do you really think you'd help things by calling me and others idiots? I have no desire to force my beliefs on others (and I think this is the first time I've ever put any of it in writing) but I don't see a need to ostracize others just because they think differently. That we're all different is part of what makes this life beautiful.

Besides, I'm just generally tired of everyone taking the hard-line with each other. Left vs Right, hippies vs red necks, cops vs demonstrators... Contrary to popular belief, people with different ideas and feelings CAN coexist and work together. By targeting not just ideas, but the people who follow them, we alienate them and destroy any chance you had of helping them understand.

Good example of someone avoiding that. I read an article last year about a vegan activist who wanted to convince others to go vegan. Instead of doing what many others do, he didn't throw around phrases like "meat is murder" because he felt that people automatically shut-down when they encounter that approach. Respectful discussion is much more effective. I'm not a vegan, I think that humans are biologically designed to be omnivorous, but I would hear him out and I respect his method. I ignore the other type.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

I'm not defending his behaviour because there is nothing to defend. He simply did not agree to the video being posted online. See the letter:

I want to make it clear that Rob Rabel at the University of Kentucky has confirmed that I never gave permission before or after the panel to post the video.

Had Haught agreed to post the video, and then changed his mind, that would be an indefensible move. But that is not what happened. It is only what Coyne said had happened.

What is truly shameful here is that nobody questioned whether Coyne's version of events was actually correct. Nobody was interested in Haught's reasons, or Haught's version of events.

The lack of curiosity is surprising, because Coyne's description of events is bizarre. Why would Haught hand ammunition to Coyne by reneging on a promise? It does not make any sense. But nobody noticed.

In my view, this is shameful behaviour, because we're supposed to be better than this. What is the point of attacking Fox News viewers or tabloid newspaper readers for their credulous acceptance of spoon-fed truthiness when we are guilty of the same thing? We hear one side of the story - Haught "suppressing a bad debate performance" - and we just say "Ha, typical creationist wacko" and think no further. We are what we hate.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Empiricism has lead to technologies that have saved and improved billions of lives. Mysticism has not. Is that circular? Maybe, but the fact remains that we are better off looking for proof than taking things on faith.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

So... are you saying that he made up that quotation? Because if it's just your word against Einstein's.... I'm gonna go with Einstein on this.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[LwPhD]

No, he's not a fine and reasonable man in terms of science's relationship to religion. He's a deluded woo-meister. But not a creationist. A small consolation.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[LwPhD]

He testified in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial against intelligent design. So yes, ID is just a variant of creationism and Haught is an ID opponent. Again, Haught is deluded and veritable magic 8 ball of deepities. But he's no creationist.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[CCurzon]

Tell a Hindu that the Earth doesn't sit on a turtle. They'll either laugh, or get offended that you stereotype them as a superstitious savage.

Sounds reasonable...

Tell a Christian that the world is over a billion years old, and they will tell you that scientists only say that to get funding.

And now you're an idiot. I am a Christian. I have no problem believing that the Earth is not 6000 years old. I also have no problem in believing that science and God can co-exist. Tell me, if you make a cake, does it just appear on the table, nicely iced and cut into pieces? No, you get the ingredients together, bake it, decorate it, cut it. I feel that this meshes with what we have observed. If you don't, fine. You believe what gets you through the day, I believe what gets me through the day. I am open to discussions, but as soon as you start lumping everyone in a group together, you just sound uneducated.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for ME, I didn't assume any of those things and still thought Haught was a bad guy. You don't agree to video and release a debate and then back out after the fact. That's childish and inappropriate.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[rhakka]

The false dichotomy is you deciding who are "true believers" and who are not.

The entire premise religion is based on is, at its core, faith based. While i have lots of problem with the new atheist movement and its shrill attack methodology, I do agree that they are right, that indulging blind faith and in fact respecting it is wrong and damaging to society as a whole. The problem I have is not the message, it's that they do not hold their own arguments to an extremely high level of rigor as they should when arguing in this vein.

  However, there are degrees of opposition. Certainly we (as rationalist/atheists) should be opposing those who denigrate scientific evaluation as valueless the most forcefully, as they are the biggest threat to rational decisionmaking and progress. The religious who use their faith to drive their inquiry are not the same level of threat. But they are still an impediment to the discovery of actual truth, as is anything that obscures reality behind a veil of faith.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[rhakka]

So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.

Too bad that's a pretty silly premise: it's just a placeholder for ignorance. What value does that have? Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

Empiricism has lead to technologies that have saved and improved billions of lives.

Which is why most religious people are fully in favour of empiricism. Of course, it has also lead to technologies that have killed billions.

Mysticism has not.

Arguable. Maybe not saved, but certainly improved (in the UK, the abolition of slavery and provision of universal education were both religiously motivated, for instance). Of course, it has wrecked lots of lives too.

It's not as clear-cut as you suggested, is it? But it doesn't matter, because argumentum ad consequentiam is a logical fallacy anyway.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

So religion is defensible as long as it's a God of the Gaps.

I can't see even the vaguest hint of a God of the Gaps in what I wrote.

Wouldn't it be far more useful to admit ignorance rather than pretending a lack thereof?

Well, as a militant agnostic I'm bound to be in favour of that, aren't I? But the fact that I prefer admitting ignorance doesn't mean that religion is irrational or anti-scientific. It's all very well admitting ignorance but sometimes everyone is forced to make life-decisions based on incomplete evidence, and that's what I see religious people doing.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Rizimar]

Christianity isn't based on Christians being perfect...

It's based on worshiping something that is supposed to be perfect while believing that you're born into sin, so you're automatically a flawed and damaged disgrace. This is supposed to be true no matter what you have done and no matter what that god has done.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[dgatwood]

We can quote Einstein, too.

The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.

or

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

In other words, Einstein would more properly be described as a deist, not an atheist.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[dgatwood]

Please don't try and paint him as a believer in any particular religion.

I never said he was. I said he believed in a creator. He was basically a deist as far as I can tell, e.g. God kicked off the universe job and let it run. The big difference between deists and other religious groups are that the other religious groups believe God is watching the console and occasionally attaching a debugger to tweak the values of variables here and there.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[khallow]

What is truly shameful here is that nobody questioned whether Coyne's version of events was actually correct. Nobody was interested in Haught's reasons, or Haught's version of events.

This is nonsense. Haught is suppose to be a professional debater and taping or videoing of academic debates is a well known procedure in academia. If he didn't know about the plan to video the debate, then it is only because he didn't do due diligence. And that could be because he had an ulterior motive, namely, an excuse to block publication of unfavorable debate performance.

Note that we also need to explain Haught's legal threats against Coyne.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[dgatwood]

ot believing in gods is a religion as much as not collecting stamps is a hobby.

It is if you then spend half your day going around stamp collecting conventions telling everyone that stamp collecting is dumb and useless.

If you really believe religion is as virtuous, rational and honorable as you say, why do you label atheists as religious as though religious were a dirty smear?

Because to the people I'm talking about (who are just a small subset of the world's atheists, BTW), it is. What I think or believe about religion is irrelevant. In effect, what I'm saying is, "Pot, meet kettle."

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair, with no knowledge of what the debate contained, it in the end boils down to religion vs. science.

Gee, I wonder what side slashdot will be on.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Die infidel scum!

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Right, taping academic debates is common practice, but if talks might be recorded, then speakers must give their permission in writing for (1) the recording and (2) subsequent publications of that recording. I think the TV industry calls this a "release". It's important to have such a thing to make it clear who has ownership of the recording... and, as in this case, to head off any disagreement that might arise over the right to publish it. Academic conferences now ask for video permission regardless of whether any video recording will actually take place. I've signed many forms of this sort.

A signature on a piece of paper. That was all that was needed. Can you explain Coyne's failure to get such a written agreement? Can you explain why, knowing that there was no evidence that Haught had ever agreed to any publication, he nevertheless used his blog to accuse Haught of suppressing the video?

This whole story was fishy from the beginning, but nobody cared because it fitted into a truthy narrative.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[khallow]

A signature on a piece of paper. That was all that was needed. Can you explain Coyne's failure to get such a written agreement?

Actually Coyne did get that signature. It just took a bit of public protest first.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SadButTrue]

My point was that while you claim christians are being trampled on it seems to me, at least in the US, it is the christians doing the trampling. Just because you have decided that evangelicals are less christian and your flavor is more christian, the trampling remains.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that the official position of the Catholic church is that what caused the big bang or "happened" before the bang is the realm of God. Everything else is natural.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[starfishsystems]

Still fascinating to me is that Haught, with all of his famous master debating skills and experience, could fail at the most basic premise of entering into a public debate, which is to let each position stand on its own merits.

It's only natural to suspect the motives of anyone who tries to bury the outcome of a public debate. In this case Haught could well be fanning the fires of controversy for his own purposes, which have now taken form as a far more theatrical degree of outrage than I would expect from someone of his vast experience.

I agree, there are many possible sides to a story. When someone tries to bury the story, however, something quite definite emerges, something called manipulation. By my accounting, he's now failed on three essentials: failure to debate in good faith, attempting to manipulate the record, and false outrage. Either that or he's quintessentially stupid, and there's no historical evidence of that apart from his religious convictions.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[hey!]

I did (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2504726&cid=37923728).

At my age I've been caught with egg on my face for jumping to conclusions so many times that I've learned to ask, "do I really need to have a settled opinion on this now?" That may seem funny because the question should be "am I see the whole story?", but I've found you *can't* see the whole story once you've committed yourself to a narrative, particularly a narrative involving victimization.

Once you take the attitude that you don't have to choose sides right away, you see how people twist their arguments with appeals to emotions like fear, resentment, and alienation. In this case Dr. Coyne presented a narrative in which he'd been victimized. As a skeptic, I had to ask, "What's the big deal with the video? Why can't he just tell us what his arguments were, and summarize the arguments of the other side?" After all, it's the substance of the debate that matters. It's not like a video in which the cops are caught beating some guy up; nothing on the video is evidence for anything, and so it's entirely inconsequential.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

That is not argumentum ad consequentiam. Argumentum ad consequentiam is about desirable consequences. The benefits of empiricism are actual consequences.

And you're right, science has created a lot of technologies that kill billions too. The key point is that empiricism leads to knowledge that allows us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Mysticism does not.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

My point about Argumentum ad consequentiam is that the desirability of the consequences is no indication of truth. I agree completely that "empiricism leads to knowledge that allows us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Mysticism does not." But mysticism doesn't aim to allow us to actually do things that we couldn't before. Your argument is like criticising your computer because it doesn't heat up your room enough.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SniperJoe]

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "evangelical atheist." Actively moving to sway others to your belief system, whatever that belief system is.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Irrelevant. The agreement should have been in place beforehand. Coyne had no business accusing his opponent of cowardice and censorship for reneging on an agreement that never existed.

Incidents like this make atheists look like witless morons. Here we have a group of people who see themselves as "rational" and say they'll believe nothing without evidence. And yet they immediately believe Coyne over Haught, even though Coyne's story makes no sense and is not supported by any evidence. Shame, I say again.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[tbannist]

I was thinking the same thing, and then I looked up the definition of evangelical:
 

of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels

Given that definition, the idea of an "evangelical atheist" is somewhat amusing, although I recognize the final definition is divorced from it's theistic origin.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Mysticism claims to reveal truth. If something is true, that has consequences for the real world. If the set of things you can do knowing X is exactly the same as the set of things you could do not knowing X, then it's not really valid to say that X has a truth value at all. Mysticism therefore fails as a means for obtaining truth.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[digitig]

No, all you have shown is that mysticism is not science. Unless you are claiming that scientific truth is the only truth there is, which is not a scientific claim.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Like you said, every philosophy rests on some unprovable axiom. However not all philosophies that rest on unprovable axioms are equivalent. Empiricism is useful, mysticism is not.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[SniperJoe]

After further research, it seems that there is quite a bit of disagreement on what "evangelical" means.

However, I did find the following bit:

Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism

Perhaps an even more accurate term is a "proselytizing atheist."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proselytism

Of course, I think we've probably dropped into the realm of the pedantic now.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dcnjoe60]

My point was that while you claim christians are being trampled on it seems to me, at least in the US, it is the christians doing the trampling. Just because you have decided that evangelicals are less christian and your flavor is more christian, the trampling remains.

I never said that evangelicals are less christian than anyone else. However, the evangelical right is the group you tend to hear about the most as they are very vocal. My point being that in a country that the 76% of people call them self christian (2008), making generalizations on them based on one group or another is not accurate. Evangelicals as a group represent 26% of the population, but that is all evangelicals, not some organized group with the same ideology. The next group are Roman Catholics with 23% and then mainline Protestants with 18%.

Of those top three, only a portion of the evangelicals claim creationism as what is correct. So, if only a minority of christians hold that believe, why lump all the others in with them?

As for being trampled on, those were not my words. However, if one is being politically correct, then you can't bash Jews and you can't bash Muslims, but for some reason bashing Christians is acceptable. That seems inconsistent in a country that professes freedom of speech and religion.

For the record, I am not even christian, but some of my friends are and none of them support the issues you list.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Nithin Philips]

Well, that's only true if you ignore the period in between when the religious groups decided to hunt down and torture anyone who disagreed with their tenets. Even in the pre-WWII America, to be a successful scientist, you had to at least pay lip service to religion. I'm not sure citing an ancient Greek philosopher would've helped them much.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Nithin Philips]

I think it is somewhat dishonest to brush off both atheists and fundamentalists, equally, claiming that you find both their arguments puerile. The atheists and fundamentalists are arguing in response to each other. Just because the atheists have to respond to repeated assertions about the validity of the genesis story, does not mean that they somehow are responsible for it, or that it makes them equally bad as the fundamentalists. If anything, you can be rest assured that the fundamentalists will, for all time, use more or less the same type of arguments. It's sad that anyone who responds will inevitably look like an idiot, but that's simply the way things are.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[tompaulco]

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this incident was the way that so many people automatically jumped to a wrong conclusion,
This is Slashdot. Jumping to conclusions is the closest thing to physical exercise that happens around here. Oh, wait, I forgot about running our mouths.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

I hoped that somewhere within that topic, someone would be posting a rational, intelligent response. I'm sorry that the signal to noise ratio was too low for me to see it.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Out of curiosity, what sort of non-scientific truth do you propose exists?

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with things that are true, but have no consequences in reality. I keep coming back to the idea that if there are no consequences to truth, there must also be no consequences to falsehood. If truth is indistinguishable from falsehood, what does truth actually mean?

As far as I can tell the assertion that scientific truth is the only truth there is is practically tautological.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Sorry to keep at this, but it's interesting.

To bring this discussion back to what started it, isn't the assertion that there is non-scientific truth a rejection of empiricism?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[ultranova]

You can't life in peace with different viewpoints when you live in a democracy. Those different viewpoints vote too.

And so do you. The result is a compromise where different issues get weight based on how many people find them important. Certain core values - such as freedom of speech - are usually protected so that they can't be changed unless the vast majority wants that.

Frankly, when you say that you can't live in peace with that, I get the impression that you simply can't tolerate not getting your way in every issue.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that makes sense enough. Or at least I understand how you see it. I saw some other folks got cranky about it... I assumed from the beginning that there are different schools of thought and didn't meant to elicit any arguments over it.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's not what he did, at no time did he agree to anything and therefore backed out of nothing. He was accused of doing that though and everyone jumped to believing the accuser because he was a scientist and the accusee was a theologian. Which is childish and inappropriate behaviour here?

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dahamma]

This is a story passed down verbally for thousands of years, translated multiple times then finally wrote down and translated again.

Yes, it is. Same with The Odyssey, but I don't really believe Odysseus blinded a cyclops or had his men turned into pigs by a witch, either.

Not that your little anecdote makes any sense whatsoever... the whole point of evolution is there is no "First Man"...

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Dahamma]

He was quoting Einstein...

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html

Besides, he was raised (non-practicing) Jewish anyway, no idea where Christianity would even come into it...

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[rhakka]

Sorry, wrong parent. was responding to:

What we have here is a false dichotomy. Many folks with religious beliefs merely believe that some things that aren't explained by science might be the hand of God, which is subtly but significantly different from the position you describe. Such an attitude does not mean that we should not use science to learn what we can, but rather shows a humble acceptance that some truths may be fundamentally impossible to grasp from within the confines of our universe. They would argue that we may never be able to explain why certain laws of the universe are true, but that does not mean that we should stop trying, as the more we learn about the universe, the more we inevitably learn about its creator.

The lazy use God as an excuse to stop trying. The true believers use God as a reason to do so. That's why throughout history, a fair amount of scientific discovery has been done by the Church and the faithful, from Copernicus to Mendel. Heck, even Sir Francis Bacon—to many, the founder of modern science—was religious.

While we're at it, let's add a few more to that list. Kepler, Galilei, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Kelvin, Planck, Einstein—you know, all those people who were so important to science that we named measurements, laws, or cages after most of them—all held some belief in a higher power, creator, or similar. Yet no sane person could claim that their impact on modern science was anything less than amazing and groundbreaking.

The fundamentalist-atheist claim that religion and science are fundamentally at odds is no less a religious belief than traditional theistic religions, and more to the point, is an utterly arrogant belief that effectively spits on the countless contributions of the religious to the very foundations of science as we know it today. And although it is held with the same arrogant religious fervor as the beliefs of the most devout faithful, it is a comically naïve belief built on nothing more solid than smugness and the believer's own desire to feel superior to someone else, usually to make themselves feel less inferior. Frankly, whenever I see such rubbish, it almost makes me ashamed of the human race as a whole.

As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[vadim_t]

As a skeptic, I had to ask, "What's the big deal with the video? Why can't he just tell us what his arguments were, and summarize the arguments of the other side?" After all, it's the substance of the debate that matters. It's not like a video in which the cops are caught beating some guy up; nothing on the video is evidence for anything, and so it's entirely inconsequential.

Why should he?

He was promised there would be a video. All he demanded was for the promise to be upheld. And the video is the best proof possible of what happened. A retelling from memory would almost certainly be inaccurate.

It's not like a video in which the cops are caught beating some guy up; nothing on the video is evidence for anything, and so it's entirely inconsequential.

Wrong, the video is evidence of the debate. With the video you can't argue that Coyne misrepresents what happened in his retelling, you see exactly what went on.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[lonecrow]

There were also political reasons. For example, could you imagine an US presidential candidate publicly professing their atheism? No, they have to wear a cross and a flag on their sleeves or the neurotic electorate will roast them.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

Truth is not necessarily empirical. Consider mathematical proofs. These are a demonstrable example of "higher" truth beyond experimental investigation.

That aside, the answer to your question is "no". All scientific knowledge has a scope. Within that scope, the law or theory applies. Outside of the scope, it does not. It is like a logical implication: if X, then Y.

For instance, the second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems. If you have a non-closed system, then the second law does not apply, and is not useful. That is, "closed system" implies "second law".

However, the second law does not assert that all systems are closed, just as "if X, then Y" does not mean "if Y, then X", or "X is true".

Empiricism is similar. Its scope is the material universe, where it applies and is useful. If we are dealing with something material, then empiricism applies. If we are not, then it does not apply, and is of no use.

This is why it is perfectly possible to both accept empiricism along with higher truths beyond the reach of experimental science. It is easy - you simply acknowledge that empiricism is not always applicable. In particular, it is not applicable when we are dealing with anything that transcends materialism, such as mathematical proof, or the (non-)existence of God.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[RespekMyAthorati]

the nasty creationist theologian had lost the debate and was trying to censor the result, which is a shameful conclusion to jump to.

No, he did censor the result. The fact that his censoring was later overruled makes no difference.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[pacinpm]

And yet they immediately believe Coyne over Haught, even though Coyne's story makes no sense and is not supported by any evidence.

If you have two children, one that always says truth and gives reasonable explanations and the other which always lies and states things without any backing up who would you believe more?

You can't trust theologists, they make things up.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[Hatta]

Truth is not necessarily empirical. Consider mathematical proofs. These are a demonstrable example of "higher" truth beyond experimental investigation.

Empricism applies to math too. You can experimentally verify any mathematical law to an arbitrary degree of confidence. The truth or falsehood of a mathematical proposition has consequences that we can verify. Just run through the numbers.

Even mathematical proof itself is a form of empiricism. The experiment is when you try to write a proof. If you are able to write a proof, that is experimental evidence that the conclusions follow from the propositions. Otherwise, the experiment is inconclusive.

It is easy - you simply acknowledge that empiricism is not always applicable

Still sounds to me like a rejection if empiricism. I'd argue that anything that is beyond the scope of empiricism is also beyond the scope of truth. It's not meaningful to say something is true or false when no possible experiment could distinguish between the two. If you disagree, please explain what truth means in such a context.

And besides all this, if empiricism doesn't apply what does? It's the only method we've seen for obtaining truth that actually works.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[JackDW]

You argue that anything beyond empiricism is beyond truth. The error here is your assumption that truth and human knowledge are the same thing, as if truth does not exist unless humans can observe it.

There is a higher sort of truth, a universal variety, that encompasses not just the things that humans can observe as true, but also the things that cannot be observed but are true nonetheless. For instance, there are stars and planets that will never be seen by humans due to their distance from Earth. We cannot see them, we know nothing about them, and yet they exist. This is an example of truth beyond empiricism, to go alongside the mathematical example given previously. Just because we have not observed a counterexample does not mean that none exists, and this is why exhaustive search is no substitute for proof.

The category of error is the same as that of geocentrism, though rather than believing the stars turn around the Earth, you appear to believe that truth turns around humans. It does not. It exists independently of what we know, what we can test, and what we believe. Scientists can only hope to determine an incomplete approximation of this truth.

Some parts of universal truth are known, others are yet to be discovered by humans, and still more are very much in the realm of speculation, philosophy and theology, far beyond the reach of any sort of observation or experiment. We cannot know all the answers, but non-observable facts are still facts.

Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism

[seantide]

Why does creationism have to be mutually exclusive with evolution?

I have never been able to understand why people think the two are in conflict.

Evolution obviously happens. You cannot claim to respect anything, if you are willing to deny its fundamental nature. Religious zealots are inherently dishonest in saying evolution does not happen. We can observe it, so denial is openly dishonest. However, its equally dishonest to say it explains life, because it certain doesn't. The non-religious, atheist, and other creation-hating zealots are just as bad.

Nature likes to break down, lose energy, and simplify... it doesn't spontaneously create the complexity needed for pure evolution.

Evolution is great for explaining how life adapts and how procreation works and benefits a species, but its rather poor for showing how life got here in the first place. An honest and scientific opinion is that its just not enough alone.

Skip to 32 minutes in

[Anonymous Coward]

To get to the good bits.

Re:Skip to 32 minutes in

[spooky_d]

Because hearing only one side is really the scientific way of doing things.

Re:Skip to 32 minutes in

[dave420]

When one side is scientific, and the other is not, it is the scientific way.

Re:Skip to 32 minutes in

[Calydor]

Taking someone else's word for what is scientific and what isn't, without stopping to take a look for yourself is not the scientific way.

Re:Skip to 32 minutes in

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe in Leprechauns but I have absolutely no proof that they exist. Now listen to me rant. Anything else would be unscientific!

Re:Skip to 32 minutes in

[spooky_d]

If we were to debate a topic related to Leprechauns, I would listen.

Streisand Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't going to watch the debate anyway.

Re:Streisand Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Dominating the news cycle.

Re:Streisand Effect

[whereiswaldo]

See here: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2506578&cid=37931088

The article summary is completely wrong. Slashdot is becoming Fox News of the tech journals. What a way to go after all these years.

Social Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the social internet had a big hand in this finally being released, if so this shows internet is not full of garbage. Of course other events through out the world have been changed into positives thanx to the internet.

I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LORD

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I can tell you for a fact that God loves you :) God wants us all to live together in love and peace. We're to love people who even wrong us, and defeat evil by being good in all situations. There are a lot of people who spaz out at the mention of Christianity being good for society, but what is wrong with love and peace?

I don't see conflict with Christianity and Science. I think that is normally just the result of bad theology. The tapes should be out for everyone to analyze. I think there should be more discussions because bad theology makes some Christians misunderstand science, and worse it makes scientists think that God might not be the real and awesome dude that he is.

People also get bent out of shape that they can't use science to prove God exists. Why should you be able to create a scientific experiment that could repetitively force the hand of God? That simply doesn't make sense. If God always did the same thing in the same situation, how is God any different than one of the cosmic laws he's made? You cannot reduce God into god-in-the-box, and you shouldn't be able to. Scripture even says you will not find God through worldly wisdom, but only through preaching.

Many modern atheists have bad theology. They think: How does an all powerful and good God let bad things happen? God operates under ways we cannot understand. For instance: God's goal is not to make your life on Earth a luxurious experience. God's goal might be to maximize the people getting to Heaven. God can allow any amount of finite suffering to happen in order to prevent infinite suffering. God is the only being in reality that can bring people to Heaven where there is peace, love, joy, and no suffering forever. No other being can prevent infinite suffering besides God himself, so why would you want to judge his methods? He himself did not shy away from suffering himself, but died on the cross, proving how much he loves you.

Here are some articles if you would like to know more:
Debunking the Epicurean Fallacy
Exploring the book of Job and why it is bad to judge God.
God's ways are above our ways
God is good, a rebuttal to modern atheists
Why does God allow suffering, part 1
Why does God allow suffering, part 2
The Affect Effect or Order Theory, how God understands the Butterfly Effect

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if God gets tired of spam too.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's your article on What Would Jesus Not Do?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, why do some Christians capitalize "Lord"? I can't see it being because of simple importance, because you're not doing the same to "God" or "Jesus" or even "Saviour" or any of those words. Are you just copying what you've read from someone else?

Streisand Effect

[ebs16]

"Censored Religious Debate Video Released After Public Outrage"..... to an audience 20x larger than would otherwise be present.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, in your article "God is good, a rebuttal to modern atheists", you state:

If you accept Jesus as Lord, you get to go into Heaven. If you reject Jesus as Lord, you get to go where everyone who rejects Jesus goes.

What happens to people who don't know about Jesus? For example, anyone born before Jesus or raised without knowledge of him? Do they still get into Heaven when they die? Or do they go elsewhere?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

It is a designation of honor used in Bibles. Some people do capitalize all the letters of GOD. Some people capitalize HIM when referring to God. The life and afterlife of a Christian involves honoring God for what he has done, and the love he has shown and will show to us. There is nothing a man can do to repay God for the cross, but the least we can do is offer praise.

Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religion

[perpenso]

Careful, you sound like you may fit in well with the eminent scientists who back in the day dismissed a roman catholic priest's "hypothesis of the primeval atom". Dismissing it because (1) it came from a priest and (2) it "smelled of creationism". Today we know this theory by a phrase used by these scientists to mock the hypothesis, "the big bang theory". Men of science are not above letting their personal biases and social/group norms interfere with their objectivity.

Many religious people and some churches believe that belief in god may require faith but that understanding god's creation is done through science. That includes both the evolution the universe and the evolution of life.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the book "Letter To A Christian Nation" by Sam Harris.

At long last...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the nightmare is over. I don't know how many sleepless nights I've had since this began. Now, we can come together, as a nation, and begin the healing process, by one group of people gloating that they made better logical arguments against another group of people that don't use logic anyway.

Truly, the long night is over.

Re:At long last...

[laejoh]

Perl to the rescue!

sh-4.1$ perl -e 'use Date::Calc qw/Delta_Days/; print Delta_Days(2011,10,12,2011,11,3)'
22

22 sleepless nights!

Re:At long last...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Mr C. lacked any logical arguments.

Re:At long last...

[halivar]

Yes. Now we can all use Vim.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

But he did capitalize God...and Science too!

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Lehk228]

YHWH is a dead god, don't waste your breath

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Nietzche was only partially correct. God is not dead, but God was dead, and now he is risen.
I'm stating facts here.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[outsider007]

"Might not be"? Now you sound like you're making this shit up as you go.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Many modern atheists have bad theology

aaand, you lost me there.
Unlike you, I do not think about 'god',
I have no 'theology' (bad, or otherwise),

When shit happens, I think
  'shit happens'', not
  'ah, proof-conclusive-that-a-suprauniversal-being-called-god-whom-the-christians-believe-in-and-is-all-compassionate-and-stuff cannot exist because shit just happened..'
when good things happen, I think
  'Yaay, warm fuzzies', not
' ah, teh warm fuzzies, proof-conclusive-that-the-jesus-character-the-christians-go-on-about-is-real-and-was-a-physical-manifestation-in-4D-space-of-a-suprauniversal-being-they-call-god-and-he-loves-me-and-got-allegedly-nailed-to-a-couple-of-planks-of-wood-by-some-romans-for-the-lulz-probably-or-allegedly-for-my-sins-which-as-they-sins-that-is-are-a-religious-concept-I-dont-actually-subscribe-to-it-seems-a-bit-of-pointless-act-on-his-part-and-a-waste-of-some-good-wood-and-nails-really...'

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of people who spaz out at the mention of Christianity being good for society, but what is wrong with love and peace?

Spaz out at love and peace? Like the crusades? Like the inquisitions? Like the witch burnings? Like the Westboro Baptists? Like "you can't sell stuff on Sunday"? like "you can't have sex except when and where and how we say"? like "you're going to hell"? like "you're living in sin"? like a "god" who failed to tell you to wash your hands before you assist in a birth, or touch a wound, and thus killed untold numbers of infants and mothers, inflicting horror upon every family who were so afflicted? Sure. Love and peace. Yeah. LOL.

Truly, I don't think the average Christian today knows what love *or* peace means. But I'm not surprised, because the lot of you are made of of the deluded driven by the deceivers.

--fyngyrz

Posting (nominally) anon because of Slashdot's cowardly and poorly thought-out anonymous moderator policies

Agitate for accountable moderation!

3:16...Bitches

[Anonymous Coward]

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life....MOTHERFUCKERS

Re:3:16...Bitches

[Anonymous Coward]

CHECKMATE, atheists!

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Eightbitgnosis]

Well we're prepared for that

http://www.examiner.com/healthy-living-in-columbus/delaware-county-prepares-for-a-mock-zombie-outbreak

This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[dell623]

My initial views about this were similar to the popular sentiment on slashdot.

However, it is a shame that the person at the receiving end of the criticism wasn't given a chance to present his version of things, and now that he has, it has still not received the same attention that the original controversy did here on slashdot.

Here is John Haught's own version of the events: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/Letter%20To%20Jerry%20Coyne.pdf

I am sure I will disagree with his views if and when I do read about them. And I have no idea how accurate his version of the events is, but he damned well has the right to be heard.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[data2]

As this is a PDF, here is the full answer:
"An open Letter to Jerry Coyne:
Dear Jerry,
Your distorted reading of my motivation for not releasing the video of our conversation
in Kentucky has given birth to an inordinate number of hostile letters to me. Because of
misleading statements on your website (11/1/2011), I have received a considerable
amount of hate mail, often laced with obscenities, though often also tempered with
inquisitive politeness. The mail mostly complains about my “cowardly” reneging on an
alleged agreement that you falsely assume I made to post online the video of our panel
at the University of Kentucky. When I was in Kentucky I was never asked to do so.
Later, after reflecting on what to me was a most unfortunate event I wrote to Prof Rabel
requesting that any video not be released.
Anyway, Jerry, your own words impute cowardice to me for this refusal, but how do you
know that’s the reason for my reluctance? Here is a typical reaction stirred up by your
remarks: “What a pathetic, sociopathic dweeb you are. Hiding behind your sick belief
system you call a religion. You are an insult to academia, and a dim bulb for the
uninformed masses. You deserve the insults you are getting and should be fired.
Coward, liar and fool you are, loser. And no doubt a Republican too!” (I’m tempted to
say that I can live with every accusation except the last.)
I want to make it clear that Rob Rabel at the University of Kentucky has confirmed that I
never gave permission before or after the panel to post the video. You need to make
this clear to your audience. I never broke the agreement that you have unkindly caused
your readers to assume I made.
However, the more interesting issue has to do with my reasons for refusing permission
to post the video, and whether it was wrong for me to do so. I have no regrets about
anything I had to say during the panel, and if you agree to post this letter on your site I
will be happy to have the video released unedited, for public scrutiny. Those who are
reading this blog are free to look at other videos of my comments on science and
religion available online. They will see that I have no need to hide my views from the
public, and in fact I am quite eager to have my thoughts made available provided they
are presented accurately and fairly.
Why then do I hesitate in this case? It has to do with you alone, Jerry, not anyone else,
including myself. I have had wonderful conversations with many scientific skeptics over
the years, but my meeting with you was exceptionally dismaying and unproductive. I
mentioned to you personally already that in my view, the discussion in Kentucky seldom
rose to the level of a truly academic encounter. I agree that it was probably entertaining
to the audience who gave us a standing ovation at the end. Nevertheless, instead of
being flattered by this I went away terribly discouraged at what had just taken place. I
wish to emphasize that I do not exempt myself from criticism."

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no time to watch the video right now, but thanks for posting the letter! What Haught says sounds very credible, as he pictures Coyne's strategy to be the typical routine: Presume the belief of your opponent to be extremely childish and ridiculous, like the "old man with beard in his magic invisible sky castle" thing. Afterwards, point out how childish and ridiculous it is. When done with that, simply point at all the bad things religion has ever caused. This usually boils down to "You are religious, so you are a bad man in support of hitler!" (Ironically this is the exact same thing bad debaters from the religious stance often do, O'Reilly is an example). I've often seen atheists like Dawkins behaving this way in debates, and it just makes me sad to see this coming from the "defenders of reason".
I hope that when I do watch the video, I turn out wrong and Coyne was fair and objective all the time. Otherwise he'd damage atheism more than support it.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[kevin_j_morse]

Actually this isn't quite the full thing.

Having now watched the video I have to say I can sympathize with Haught... Haught presented his views, Coyne attacked him and his beliefs.

I think that anyone interested in this topic should at least listen to the full video.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[wvmarle]

The blog posting by Coyne was, at least to me, also not very trustworthy. It was so full of mudslinging and name calling that he really lost credibility to me in this matter.

Having read Coyne's blog post linked to the previous /. post, I almost start to fully believe remarks like

I have had wonderful conversations with many scientific skeptics over the years, but my meeting with you was exceptionally dismaying and unproductive.

by Haught. I haven't watched the video, and have no intention to do so, as both parties and actually mostly Coyne have not given me the idea that this would be a really interesting debate where people would respect one another's viewpoints, listen to them, and reply to them rationally. And that's the impression that I got from Coyne's blog post. Which was, as a whole, totally unprofessional, and using language and arguments that I would not expect from a good debater.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Barsteward]

Here's Coynes response to Haughts accusations. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/theologian-john-haught-refuses-to-release-video-of-our-debate/#comment-149313

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

After watching the video I was dumbfounded why John Haught of all people would stand in the way of releasing it. Jerry Coyne on the other hand reminded me much of an enraged monkey throwing his feces about furiously.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[PCM2]

Having seen some of it first hand now, I'm pretty repelled by Coyne, his comments, and the comments of just about everybody that hangs around his online forum. They all seem like a bunch of ignorant, blinkered, petty, rabid zealots. Not one of them seems prepared to communicate with even a modicum of civility -- which they term "accommodation" -- let alone actual academic discourse. Everything is straw men, ad hominem attacks, appeals to ridicule, and every other logical fallacy in the book. This isn't the way to "defend science"; the whole forum is like a cage of shrieking gibbons. I'm not a religious person, but I would never want to associate myself with this lot, not online and certainly not in person. I can't imagine what a bunch of pompous, stuck-up pricks they'd be around a dinner table. Truly amazing. And in closing, I doff my hat at Mr. Haught for his patience in putting up with such a gang of idiots. He seems like an intelligent, considerate, highly rational man who got suckered into spending an hour on a panel with the theological equivalent of Ann Coulter.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

Everyone believes they are correct. When looking at the video and the comments, I am disinclined to accept Coyne's response. In essence he mad an ass of himself and is trying to defend what he did. Haught is not entirely clean in this matter as far as I can see either though. Not wanting the video released I think was more an emotional reaction to what Coyne said than a reasoned response, whatever Haught may say in the letter. I don't think we can legitimately call either side objective.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Warwick Allison]

Except that "How dare you offend me!" is the standard cry of the religious.

Haught's presentation was just a big pile of assertions. That he has managed to hide himself in academia and build up such towers of thought, without being torn down to earth long ago is his only intellectual achievement.

Was this the first time anyone had said, "Hey, that's just a pile of unsubstantiated assertion!"?

Theologians are apparently the last surviving group of old-style navel-contemplating philosophers. At least even the ones that discussed the semantics of the word semantics eventually discovered some inductive process by which to end their discussion.

The theologians remain, surrounded by the impenetrable barrier of "how dare you offend my faith!"

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

Actually, I'd disagree. I think Haught is open to reasonable polite debate. I see no reason why anyone should see the need to respond to an attack like Coyne's. A reasonable debate requires a response. An attack, not so much. In addition, in a debate, just because someone does not provide a citation, does not mean they can't.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Holammer]

Haught held a sermon, Coyne had researched his opponent to the bone and tackled his usual arsenal of talking points aggressively. You call it an "attack", I prefer to think of Coyne as the goddamned Batman.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[jthill]

I hope that when I do watch the video, I turn out wrong and Coyne was fair and objective all the time. Otherwise he'd damage atheism more than support it.

Yeah, then, um, don't watch the video. Religion and science use language in different ways. Religion speaks implicitly, in imagery and metaphor, science explicity. Neither of those two arguments seem very likely to make it across that bridge to achieve communication, but Haught was at least clearly trying. I can't figure out who Coyne was trying to reach.

Or, as I suspect Coyne would have put it and to use language he'd apparently be more likely to understand, on the subject of religion I wouldn't engage him any more than I would a self-righteous creationist teenager, and for the same reasons.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Hatta]

Of course he attacked him. Religion is a fraud, and Haught is a fraudster. Why should he expect anything else?

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that link - it does put things in a different light.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[LateArthurDent]

However, it is a shame that the person at the receiving end of the criticism wasn't given a chance to present his version of things, and now that he has, it has still not received the same attention that the original controversy did here on slashdot.

Not really, no. What slashdot is attacking is that it's justifiable, under any circumstances, to censor the video. I'm still of the opinion that it isn't. If Haught hadn't tried to do so, everyone would see the video, decide Coyne is a bad debater, and move on. Anytime you take the stance, "don't let people see the data and form their own opinions", you should be burned. It's a far more important issue than the debate itself.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

This should get a headline placement in the stream on the front page. I don't generally agree with the original authors worldview, but his coherent points deserve an equal platform, and he deserves an opportunity to respond to the challenges made on his honor here yesterday.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[SuiteSisterMary]

H: Some scientists are religious, and some religionists are scientific. Therefore, religion and science are compatible.

C: By that logic, and given that some pedophiles are Catholic, and some Catholics are pedophiles, the Catholic Church and peodphilia are compatible. Isn't that a ridiculous assertion?

H: That's disgusting! How dare you attack the curch like that?

C: But what about the underlying assertion that....

H: That's ad hominem! That's horrible! I'm here for a reasonable debate! Good day to you sir!

C: But aren't you just proving my point that if my assertion is horrid, then changing just three words doesn't make it suddenly valid?

H: I said good day!

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish I could mod you beyond +5.

I'd like to let Haught know that he has many sympathetic atheists willing to defend him, because the sorts of behavior seen in the video are something up with which we should not put.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[starfishsystems]

Dude, he was given the right to be heard. And then he tried to bury the record.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

the person at the receiving end of the criticism wasn't given a chance to present his version of things

If you remember, that person (Haught) was actively trying to suppress the evidence to let us make up our own minds about how it went. The one part that is of slight interest apart from the video is what was agreed upon in advance.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[IICV]

Since everything is publicly available, I would love to see some examples of (particularly) Dr. Coyne or "everybody that hangs around his online forum" acting like ignorant, blinkered, petty, rabid zealots.

Surely a couple of links or maybe a timestamp from the video isn't too much to ask for?

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

Actually, Coyne would be wrong there. The catholic church condemns pedophiles but not science. The two are not equivalent statements. Whether or not science and religion are compatible, Coyne here is guilty of using an argument designed to create an emotional not a logical reaction. Not that Haughts answer is sufficient. Again, neither party is clean. But I genuinely think if you came to Haught with some respect, he would be open to debate.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[SuiteSisterMary]

The catholic church condemns pedophiles but not science

Well, the church has a history of condemning science, and implicitly condoning pedophilia via things like sheltering clergy. Both policies changed, as Coyne pointed out, due to secular backlash.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

Well, the church has a history of condemning science,

[Citation Needed]

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[SuiteSisterMary]

Well, off the top of my head, and in Wikipedia form in response to your Wikiism, how about Galileo being branded a heritic and imprisioned for life for promoting heliocentrism in direct opposition to the bible?

I'll be the first to admit that the Church actually did some great things in the advancement of science. But on the other hand, it's also done some pretty bass-ackwards things. Kinda like their stance on pedophilia.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

So in other words, like most human run organizations it did some good and some bad? I'd actually say, much as I disagree with the catholic position, that they probably did more good for science then bad. Certainly the modern catholic church isn't anti-science.

Why not look up group dynamics to see why things are that way. This is not something unique to religion.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[SuiteSisterMary]

Agreed, agreed and agreed. All of which goes back to the original comparison, which still stands.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[Anonymous Coward]

I've listened to extensive discourse from a number of famous atheists and sadly they all have disrespect for their protagonists in common.
I watched the 1hr video ... a few observations,

Nobody yet has come back from the dead since Jesus.
This is funny because you imply you believe Jesus came back from the dead. How does you science explain that?

You frequent use of the word "weasle out of" shows a deep disrespect.

The most interesting part of your talk was the frequent little chortles you emit and your almost constant smurk during the talk.
I think it says a lot about you as a person.
It is patronising and distrespectful to your protagonists and prompts cheap laughs from the audience.
It errodes your argument which as a scientist is only convincing if it is dispassionate.
Haught was dispassionate.

"I'm sorry to be so pugnatious but I am a scientist and I have very strong feeling about thee polution of my discipline"
One of those many times people say they are sorry with no sincerity.
If you were genuine about being sorry you'd have tried to stop being pugnatious. The frequency of your pugnatiousness suggested no such intention.
Once again your inability to be dispassionate erodes your the fact-based presentation of science and hence your argument and shows a man getting carried away with himself instead of just presenting the facts.

Re:This reflects badly on Slashdot and its editors

[inasity_rules]

Only if you consider pedophilia equivalent to science in the eyes of the church. Which it has never been.

"Haught later prohibited it's release"

[Dahamma]

"it's release"!? For the love of... ok, refresher course...

The Oatmeal

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[bky1701]

Careful, you sound like you may fit in well with the eminent scientists who back in the day dismissed a roman catholic priest's "hypothesis of the primeval atom". Dismissing it because (1) it came from a priest and (2) it "smelled of creationism". Today we know this theory by a phrase used by these scientists to mock the hypothesis, "the big bang theory". Men of science are not above letting their personal biases and social/group norms interfere with their objectivity.

And yet, it is now a part of the canon of science, in spite of that. I'm still wondering when major religions will not just stop questioning, but actually declare a part of their religion, things like evolution and quantum mechanics. It seems the closest they can get is dragged by public outcry into making some sort of declaration not to talk about it anymore. Point being, science might have some bias, and doesn't everything, but it definitely overcomes it faster.

In the end, it is what you say, not who you are, that matters. The problem I have is when people who have avowed beliefs not backed by any form of evidence begin to make claims involving them. Want to be a creationist christian and a chemist? Sure, why not. But don't act as if I am small-minded if I am more suspicious of him than of others when the same person goes into biology and begins making findings that he claims undermine evolution. Further, I am entirely within my right to laugh at every "theologian," preacher, or priest which declares he knows better than science, yet refuses to provide evidence, or says religion is on the same level as science.

"Many religious people and some churches believe that belief in god may require faith but that understanding god's creation is done through science. That includes both the evolution the universe and the evolution of life."

Which is all fine and good, but that doesn't give them the right to attempt to dictate what is science, should it offend them at some point. I am aware of churches that are quite admittedly progressive, but thank you, I'll still take the word of actual scientists on matters of science.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of people who spaz out at the mention of Christianity being good for society, but what is wrong with love and peace?

I don't know, ask a Christian. They seem to avoid love and peace at all costs.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[toQDuj]

Ok, a quick analysis of your arguments and some counterarguments per paragraph.
par. 1: You state that Christianity=love&peace, and that no-one should hate love and peace. But the one does not require the other, as there can be love and peace without Christianity.

par. 2: You state that Christianity and science are not in conflict. There are two counterarguments: Christianity is inherently anti-scientific in its nature, as it is a belief in something without evidence. Thus, Christianity trains unscientific thought patterns. Second argument is that in politics, Christianity is used as an argument to hinder science. So Christianity and science are in conflict.

par. 3: You state that you should believe in god without any evidence. That there is no way of showing god exists, certainly not in a statistically measurable way. So if god does not influence our lives in the slightest, why believe at all?

par. 4: This paragraph is a bit of a jumble. You state here that love and peace are unattainable on earth, thus conflicting with par. 1. Besides that, it is stated that god died on the cross, but instead it was his son as you should be well aware, or you are considering your god as three gods, the real one, Jezus and the holy spirit. Lastly you state that god does not intervene where we would consider it possible or beneficial. This, again, raises the question of his existence, and my counterargument of: if he does not influence our lives, why believe at all.

Cheers.

Feelings are not facts-

[Anonymous Coward]

Feeling != fact...

I read Stephen King's 'The Stand' recently.
It was amazing, God blows up Las Vegas.
Oh wait- that didn't happen either.

Religion = control, because if all the poor masses knew they had nothing to look forward to after death (virgins!), then they might not follow the leaders so well....

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[toQDuj]

Sorry, but facts without evidence are not facts. As you stated above, there is no evidence.

Georges Lemaître was a man of science.

[Anonymous Coward]

Other men of science disagreed. But, the fact is he was a good scientist. There's nothing about being religious that precludes it. Newton was the best and he was very religious. The only real difference is that when the evidence is there, scientists tend to agree and allow reality to be the ultimate judge. If the evidence for the Big Bang didn't stack up it would have been rejected regardless who proposed it. Since it did, it's nearly universally accepted. The difference here is that this open minded process of going where the evidence leads isn't shared by religion. Some people really think all the worlds animals were loaded on to a large boat because it says it in the Bible. It was accepted in geology for a while until it became apparent that it never happened, and even the religious geologists went ahead and rejected on the grounds that it was false.

But, rather than accept evolution and our understanding of life the religious have taken to denigrating and ignoring evolution and what is meant by the theory. When one's beliefs and reality differ, science goes with reality. When dogma and reality differ, the religious go with the dogma. That's the core of the difference from whence all the other problems come about.

Re:Georges Lemaître was a man of science.

[perpenso]

The difference here is that this open minded process of going where the evidence leads isn't shared by religion ... rather than accept evolution and our understanding of life the religious have taken to denigrating and ignoring evolution and what is meant by the theory

That's not true. You confuse religion with some churches whose views represent a minority opinion.

For example the roman catholic church teaches evolution in its science classes. This church has stated that there is no conflict with faith and the scientific findings regarding evolution. I believe other major denominations have similar views.

Regarding going with the evidence, a Bishop at Oxford helped establish the framework of the western tradition of the scientific method: observe, hypothesize, predict, and test.

Re:Georges Lemaître was a man of science.

[epyT-R]

For example the roman catholic church teaches evolution in its science classes. This church has stated that there is no conflict with faith and the scientific findings regarding evolution. I believe other major denominations have similar views.

a recent development largely due to politics and a desire to keep the church relevant as possible while still holding on to a false sense of historical consistency with existing dogma.

Regarding going with the evidence, a Bishop at Oxford helped establish the framework of the western tradition of the scientific method: observe, hypothesize, predict, and test.

a scientist can be religious as long as his studies don't conflict with his beliefs. the second they do and he lets his faith override his results, he has failed.

Re:Georges Lemaître was a man of science.

[perpenso]

For example the roman catholic church teaches evolution in its science classes. This church has stated that there is no conflict with faith and the scientific findings regarding evolution. I believe other major denominations have similar views.

a recent development largely due to politics and a desire to keep the church relevant as possible while still holding on to a false sense of historical consistency with existing dogma.

I'm not so sure of that. Part of the science behind biological evolution comes not only from members of the church but from members of the clergy.

Regarding going with the evidence, a Bishop at Oxford helped establish the framework of the western tradition of the scientific method: observe, hypothesize, predict, and test.

a scientist can be religious as long as his studies don't conflict with his beliefs. the second they do and he lets his faith override his results, he has failed.

Agreed, just like the scientist who is personally hostile to a church and lets his personal bias dismiss a theory coming from a member of that church.

Re:Georges Lemaître was a man of science.

[ultranova]

For example the roman catholic church teaches evolution in its science classes. This church has stated that there is no conflict with faith and the scientific findings regarding evolution. I believe other major denominations have similar views.

a recent development largely due to politics and a desire to keep the church relevant as possible while still holding on to a false sense of historical consistency with existing dogma.

So when a church doesn't accept evolution it is insane, and when it does it is a hypocrite. So tell us: how should a church relate to evolution to meet your standards?

Regarding going with the evidence, a Bishop at Oxford helped establish the framework of the western tradition of the scientific method: observe, hypothesize, predict, and test.

a scientist can be religious as long as his studies don't conflict with his beliefs. the second they do and he lets his faith override his results, he has failed.

Yes, thinking your personal pre-conceived notions override reality means you fail as a scientists, and in fact I'd say it makes you quite insane. What this has to do with the paragraph you responded to is anyone's quess.

As a side note, refusing to acknowledge that you might simply be wrong (which is what letting faith override evidence is) seems like a classic case of Pride, the numo uno of the Seven Deadly Sins.

This is no debate...

[spooky_d]

This is, instead, a one-sided boxing match. It's not fun to watch. There is no debate. There is a set of punches thrown by the atheist dude, and the rest of the discussion is not anywhere to be seen. Is there a second part? I'm willing to have more bad slashdot karma for what I'm saying here: Coyne is unreasonable, erratic, and doesn't bring any sort of proof for his beliefs. It seems that since Al Gore, everyone is allowed to distort what 'scientific' is as long as it pleases the general population.

Re:This is no debate...

[pentadecagon]

Coyne is unreasonable ...

And here this is a good thing, because you cannot reason with religious believers. This is why those guys usually have a big advantage: They are not bound by logic or reason, they can say the most crazy things and their followers swallow it dutifully. The only way to argue against them is to make fun of them. Which is what Coyne did.

Re:This is no debate...

[spooky_d]

Science is about reason. The guy presenting the 'religious' view was more reasonable and had more arguments than the 'scientific' dude. Just because you agree with his point of view, that doesn't make his presentation any better.

Re:This is no debate...

[pentadecagon]

As I said, religion is arbitrary, you can claim whatever you want, so it is easy to come up with more arguments. But those arbitrary arguments are certainly not reasonable.

Re:This is no debate...

[spooky_d]

Does that justify the 'science defender' to go and run amok without proper arguments? What kind of discussion does he make? Look at how bad that and that went? How about the religion guy to go like: "Look at the nazis, what crimes they committed using science, and for the development of science! Look at the atomic bomb!" This is no debate, and even if the science guy 'wins' he does that by being lame and acting like a retard. That makes science retard, and all of the sudden, I am forced to listen more to the religious guy, because I think I was too critical from the start, and didn't really listen to what he said. And, come to think of it, what he says actually makes sense

Re:This is no debate...

[PCM2]

As I said, religion is arbitrary, you can claim whatever you want

Some try, but not all do. A lot of theological thought is well-grounded in classical philosophy (from Plato and Aristotle straight through to the modern day), which itself laid the foundation for the scientific method.

String theory is also considered to be unfalsifiable -- hence, arbitrary and non-scientific -- by many physicists, yet rational people don't try to argue that the only way to discuss and debate string theory is to ridicule it. That's the tactic of a schoolyard bully, not an intellectual.

Re:This is no debate...

[pentadecagon]

A philosophical background doesn't prove anything. As long as religion takes some random text from some random book as the only truth it is arbirary. On top of it is even an arbitrary interpretation what should be taken literally and what's allegory.

And if String Theory indeed were unfalsifiable it would be completely useless. And making fun of it would be appropriate. Its supporters of course do know this and claim it is falsifiable. The whole idea of science is to create a *useful* model of the world.

Re:This is no debate...

[PCM2]

A philosophical background doesn't prove anything. As long as religion takes some random text from some random book as the only truth it is arbirary

Centuries of scholarship and debate based on the works of the likes of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kierkegaard, etc. should be sufficient evidence that it doesn't "take some random text from some random book." You seem to be assuming that a bunch of deluded evangelicals who believe anything the TV tells them are somehow representative of "religion." They are not; those people may indeed be religious, but they are also quite stupid. You can't paint every believer with the same brush.

You will also find that the vast majority of Christians do not believe Eve was literally created from Adam's rib, or that the Earth is 7,000 years old; nor do they have any particular beef with science as a whole. The Catholic Church certainly doesn't believe any of these things, and Catholicism represents the largest single denomination of Christianity in the United States and makes up about half of Christianity worldwide. Many other denominations have similarly "liberal" views, though I doubt they would describe their views as such.

At the end of the day, this current "debate" has mostly been framed by a bunch of paranoid atheists with chips on their shoulders, like Mr. Coyne. I can understand why some of them feel threatened by the vocal minority of Christians who attack science (especially since that minority seems to have disproportionate access to politicians and media), but some of them just seem to hate what they don't understand. (Which is an odd attitude for someone who claims to defend science, IMHO.)

The whole idea of science is to create a *useful* model of the world.

And religion does not aim to create a model of the physical world at all, but to explore the dimensions of the spiritual one; therefore science and religion can coexist, as neither duplicates the efforts of the other. QED.

Re:This is no debate...

[pentadecagon]

And religion does not aim to create a model of the physical world at all, but to explore the dimensions of the spiritual one; therefore science and religion can coexist, as neither duplicates the efforts of the other. QED.

Sure, in general they can coexist. No argument there. But as you say, this holds only as long as the religious people stay off the realm of science. And since that realm is growing over the years, religion has to retreat more and more. A thousand years ago it was fine having religion making claims about the nature of rainbows and lightnings. Today science conquered that turf by delivering better explanations. Unfortunately Christians have a problem with updating the bible, and this is what upsets people.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Barsteward]

Does he (she?) also speak in CAPITALS like DEATH?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Isaac Remuant]

I'll be happy the next 24 hs just by remembering your comment.

Thanks for that.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Gaygirlie]

I am uncertain if this is just a terrific trolling attempt or if you're really serious.

I can tell you for a fact that God loves you :) God wants us all to live together in love and peace.

I've never understood why is it so important for so many Christians that they feel there is 24/7 someone loving them. Is it insecurity? Would you be depressed if there wasn't? I am genuinely curious about this.

There are a lot of people who spaz out at the mention of Christianity being good for society, but what is wrong with love and peace?

Christianity is far from "love and peace", take for example the crusades: Christians killed MILLIONS of people just because they didn't share the same religion. And not only killed, but tortured, raped, pillaged, took all belongings of even those they let live and enslaved them. Now, where is "love and peace" about that? Or in modern times, how many times have you heard about Christians spewing hatred and bile about all the "non-conforming" people, like us non-heterosexuals for example? There are plenty of examples where homosexuals have been tortured and killed by the religious, even in modern-day society. Hell, _I_ have had people literally come up to my door and start chastising me about how my ways are horrible, vile and I only corrupt everyone and everything around me with them and how I will go to hell and whatnot; I sure as heck do not go to strangers' doors and start judging their views and tastes, so what the hell gives Christians the right to do that?!

"Love and peace" my ass; it's all about CONTROL.

People also get bent out of shape that they can't use science to prove God exists. Why should you be able to create a scientific experiment that could repetitively force the hand of God? That simply doesn't make sense. If God always did the same thing in the same situation, how is God any different than one of the cosmic laws he's made? You cannot reduce God into god-in-the-box, and you shouldn't be able to. Scripture even says you will not find God through worldly wisdom, but only through preaching.

That is exactly the logic fallacy of it all: you can just claim absolutely ANYTHING as "God's will", and that's that.

God is the only being in reality that can bring people to Heaven where there is peace, love, joy, and no suffering forever.

That is another example of a fallacy: human beings evaluate their environment and themselves through conflict. We NEED negative things to happen to us so we can appreciate the positive things. Without negative things we would not be able to appreciate the positive ones. If you never experience anything even mildly displeasing in your life you will simply become inherently bored as whatever you have will feel like nothing. So, in Heaven if there are only positive things and never EVER any kind of conflict then it cannot be a Heaven, atleast not for human beings. It is an oxymoron.

No other being can prevent infinite suffering besides God himself, so why would you want to judge his methods? He himself did not shy away from suffering himself, but died on the cross, proving how much he loves you.

Bible actually teaches that God and Jesus are two totally separate entities and that it is blasphemy to call Jesus a God. Perhaps you need some soul searching to be done.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Gaygirlie]

What happens to people who don't know about Jesus? For example, anyone born before Jesus or raised without knowledge of him? Do they still get into Heaven when they die? Or do they go elsewhere?

I've also wondered about this and I've even asked some priests and theologists about it, and the most common answer is that they still don't get to Heaven. Now, when I then follow with the question "So basically God doesn't even give them people a chance to get into Heaven, they're doomed to go to Hell already way before they're even born into this world?" their answers usually just fall flat on their faces. Then the people who say those people will get to Heaven as they are innocent of the condition of not knowing about God don't know what to answer when I ask them the question: "Why do you people then even tell others about God? If you never went out to teach about God we'd all get to Heaven, whereas by telling them about God you're deliberately exposing them to Hell."

Haught IS progressive

[ericvids]

And yet, it is now a part of the canon of science, in spite of that. I'm still wondering when major religions will not just stop questioning, but actually declare a part of their religion, things like evolution and quantum mechanics. It seems the closest they can get is dragged by public outcry into making some sort of declaration not to talk about it anymore.

Exactly. Which is why we need to give the progressive theologians, which John Haught is a representative of, have their say. It's not a full attempt at declaring all science as part of his religion, but is certainly getting there much faster than the laughable ad hominem attempts of Coyne. (really, I saw what he has to say, and it's all very unconstructive at best, and he's a pitifully and hopelessly biased representative of true atheism at worst)

Which is all fine and good, but that doesn't give them the right to attempt to dictate what is science, should it offend them at some point. I am aware of churches that are quite admittedly progressive, but thank you, I'll still take the word of actual scientists on matters of science.

From what I gather from the debate, no attempt was made by Haught to dictate what science really is. All it is is an attempt to unify current understanding of science with religion, which you are in favor of. Coyne took a LOT of his statements out of context, somehow put them together to paint a caricature of Haught as an ultra-conservative that deserves flogging for even attempting to unify his beliefs, then appealed to the Slashdot crowd by misrepresenting his blatant attack as 'the scientific way'.

Re:Haught IS progressive

[whoop]

Almost all of Coyne's talk thus far hasn't had any debate. His speech has been full of so many logical fallacies, I can only think of Brian Dunning's posts on the subject.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[spooky_d]

Which is all fine and good, but that doesn't give them the right to attempt to dictate what is science, should it offend them at some point. I am aware of churches that are quite admittedly progressive, but thank you, I'll still take the word of actual scientists on matters of science.

Well, in the same way there is the thing that 'the church of science' should not dictate what other churches believe. I am a strong believer in freedom of thought, and it seems that 'science' fans are not, since their church knows better. And I make a clear separation between science fans and scientists, because the latter actually do something useful to the society. As for science fans, I am coming from a purely atheistic society, that is the ex-communist space. I am really sick and tired of the lack of arguments and the lack of insight of people that judge belief and religion by selectively picking their own favorite view of the issue. It's like creationists idiots that think that science is about alchemy, and how idiotic that alchemy thing is.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[ustolemyname]

Lord, with a capital L, is used in Enlish translations to represent a different synonym of God/Yahweh etc used in the Hebrew texts.

I thought you said they released the video

[Anonymous Coward]

vimeo isnt video, its malware posing as video.

Re:This also reflects badly on the science guy

[Anonymous Coward]

The letter you linked claims that the religion guy agreed to a presentation rather than a debate, and that made an effort to keep his presentation purely academic, but the science guy made ad hominem attacks and ridiculed the opinions of the religion guy.

We may never know what was actually agreed upon, but the rest is clearly true based on the video. Basically the science guy was just trying to make a spectacle of the religion guy, and he very clearly succeeded.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[perpenso]

I'm still wondering when major religions will not just stop questioning, but actually declare a part of their religion, things like evolution and quantum mechanics. It seems the closest they can get is dragged by public outcry into making some sort of declaration not to talk about it anymore.

The roman catholic church operates an observatory, supports academic research into cosmology and works with leading observatories and cosmologists around the world. They seem to be actively researching the evolution of the universe, quantum mechanics, etc. Regarding the evolution of life I believe the church says there is no conflict with faith and the scientific findings regarding evolution. They teach evolution in their science classes. They don't take the book of genesis literally. I believe various other churches have similar perspectives.

I am aware of churches that are quite admittedly progressive, but thank you, I'll still take the word of actual scientists on matters of science.

I'm just pointing out that some folks with a deep faith are also actual scientists. A bishop, Grosseteste, helped lay out the framework for the scientific method and also did early work in optics. Another bishop, Saint Albert, did early work in chemistry and biological field research. Copernicus was a clergyman. A friar, Mendel, did early genetics research. A priest, Lemaitre, revolutionized cosmology is recent history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_science#Vatican_Observatory

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[znerk]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
        Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
        Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
        Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
        Then why call him God?

religion v Science

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always baffled, and get a chuckle, out of the very narrow view of what "religion" is in these discussions. I understand and can appreciate where it comes from; almost always it's the fundie Christians that demand a literal reading of the Bible that are involved, and this whole Religion v. Science discussion is framed by that. As if there are no other understandings of what religion is, and what it does, that are available or exist.

Me - I've got degrees in mathematics, philosophy, and physics. I was raised in a non-fundie Christian family, turned athiest, turned radical and militant athiest, became a Heathen, and am considering going into training to become a Heathen priest. I came to my belief because my old ways of thinking were no longer working for me, and when I tried out my current faith, I found something that was working for me.

I was told to pray and see what happens. So I prayed - and I found things happened. Did it come from my Gods? Was it already inside me? Coincidence? I don't know. All I know is if I pray for help I get what I need. So I keep praying, and I keep discovering I get what I need and I leave it at that. I don't feel the need to over-analyze things.

I'm one of those that see religion and science asking different questions, with different motives, for different ends. I do my best not to confuse them. Or to use the one where the other would be more appropriate. I need help, I pray, I get help. Now where that help comes from - THAT is a different question. One that I'm not asking when I pray. Science won't give me the courage to do something that fear is keeping me from doing. Science will tell me that my praying makes changes in my brain that releases chemicals that induce a feeling of 'courage' though. But I don't need to how or where that courage comes from - I just need the courage, dammit!

Religion can be so much more than an explanation for how we came here and it's a shame to see people focus only on one group's twisted needs to the exclusion of all else. And it's a shame that philosophy of science isn't a required course - for scientist AND theological types!

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Barsteward]

I think you need to take some time out and read http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

Coyne set up straw man arguments

[Anonymous Coward]

This was not science vs religion or anything like it at all. Coyne attacked a straw man and if he was smart HE would not want anyone to watch that video.

Re:Coyne set up straw man arguments

[saphena]

This is certainly the way I read it. I watched the video and almost as soon as Coyne started I felt my hackles rise. For a "scientist" he made a pathetic and childish argument, a sneering rant in fact.

If Jerry Coyne's the best science can come up with I'm going back to worshipping trees.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Barsteward]

I've just discovered this site via an earlier posting . http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ I've only had a small read but the section on Mithras is enlightening, he had 12 disciples, a last supper, died to redeem and came back to life 3 days later. I think he was also born 25 December.

Wtf Slashdot...

[xyourfacekillerx]

Nothing Coyne said had anything to do with science, reason or argument. He just made a big rant online with zero intellectual content whatsoever. He even cites the fact Slashdot featured his retarded rant as evidence he "won" the argument. Won the debate? So being featured on slashdot proves God doesn't exist? Seriously editors, what is this stupidity you're posting?

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[tenchikaibyaku]

Eh, what the hell? You are complaining that his "rant" posted online isn't intellectual? Why would his rant need to be more intellectual than a simple statement of facts regarding the censorship (I use the term loosely here) of the video? And can you point me to where he ever makes the claim that being posted on slashdot proves that he won the debate?

Based on your comment I don't think you've bothered to read more than a few random words of these stories and the associated blog posts.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one can prove that a god doesn't exist, just as no one can prove that invisible unicorns don't exist. No one can provide evidence of the non-existence of the supernatural. The believers need to provide the evidence.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. A better caption might be "Scientist throws hissy fit and forces the posting of a video that makes him look like a total asshole." Is the religious viewpoint here silly? Absolutely. Is it going to be "refuted" in any way by the snide, sneering douchebag? Absolutely not. If this guy considers himself as having "won the debate", then his goal must have been to make the religious viewpoint reasonable and mature. There is neither good science nor good argumentation in his scientific argument. Haught's viewpoints and arguments are fairly ridiculous, but if I had to choose one of them I think would teach a better class on science and religion, it certainly wouldn't be the scientist.

Disappointing.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't win a debate by being right. It can help, but it isn't vital. That was a mistake I made once upon a time and it takes a little bit of work to understand a debate is decided by the viewers, which includes the participants. And emotion and desire come into play at least as much as logic and reason, usually more. The viewers are usually deciding who they like more, rather than who actually proved their point better. This is why they are useless at actually getting to the 'truth' of any matter. They aren't about that, they are about swaying the viewers' opinion of the debater through any means necessary.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[Acron]

Yup, take a look at many of the posts here, which make it abundantly clear that very few people took the time to read Haught's reply either.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

He just made a big rant online with zero intellectual content whatsoever.

So, like most Slashdotters then...

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[LordLimecat]

Apparently, judging by the comments posted thus far, the ruse worked.

Re:Wtf Slashdot...

[hey!]

Well, using a term like "censorship" loosely is a very bad thing. We know that when somebody uses the term "piracy" to describe fair use, so we ought not make the same mistake.

Suppose I attend a party at your house, and we have an argument that's caught on video. I demand that you publish the video, and you decline. Are you *censoring* me? Of course not. I have a right to my opinions, and I have a right to express my opinions, but I have no right to that video just because it captured me expressing my opinions.

I have no right to even demand that you answer an argument I put forth. If you happen to do so in some situation, I have a right to quote or paraphrase your argument, but I have no right to your *performance*. If you have otherwise not chosen to answer me publicly, I may *want* that performance, but I have no *right* to it.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or is this religious-spammer-dude confusing God with his son?

Pat Condell

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever religion is brought up I encourage everyone to take is listen to the musings of Pat Condell.
You may not agree with him but he's a laugh riot.

He has many videos, here are a couple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbJ4CPWi_pg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZYN8UV6yg

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[snowgirl]

Many modern atheists have bad theology. They think: How does an all powerful and good God let bad things happen?

No, generally not. This isn't a question that we struggle with, or wonder about. It's like asking if Alice is going to go to the store tomorrow. If I don't believe that Alice exists, then I won't ask her to pick anything up for me, and so if Alice is presumed to be going to the store or not is completely irrelevant to me. However, the question is interesting to believers, and that's why we bring it up in debates with believers.

It's not even like we invented the question, Christians came up with it themselves. "Why does God let bad things happen to good people?" It's been asked longer than before the Book of Job was written. Except now there is an alternative answer to creation. Even if one of the people in the age of the Founding Fathers of the USA were to not believe in Christianity, there still wasn't any good explanation for the origin of life. They believed in a "Creator" because there just wasn't a better answer available to them.

But now we have no need for the hypothesis of a god. So, really now the situation becomes one of pure personal opinion. God/Religion is the why, and Science is the how. The problem is that there are still people out there asserting that God/Religion is the how, and that their holy scriptures are the infallible word of a deity.

So, in short, atheists don't have "bad theology", they don't have to deal with theology at all. Beyond simple, "there are in all likelihood no gods." We bring up these horribly difficult questions of theology, because you theists have been struggling with them for centuries, and the more we can get people to ponder them, and see the most rational explanation accounting for the apparent absence of any deity at all... the more converts we win.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[snowgirl]

Just curious, why do some Christians capitalize "Lord"? I can't see it being because of simple importance, because you're not doing the same to "God" or "Jesus" or even "Saviour" or any of those words. Are you just copying what you've read from someone else?

Are you referring to the practice of using small-caps? Because your examples contradict your statement. They do tend to capitalize "God", "Jesus", "Christ", and even pronouns referring to their god, "He", and "We" when their god apparently addresses themselves in the royal plural...

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[snowgirl]

Bleh, ok, I get it. The OP posted the title with "LORD" in all-caps, and not doing it with any of the other words. The ambiguous and contradictory nature of the grandparent post was confusing, but I get it now.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[MLease]

Nietzche was only partially correct. God is not dead, but God was dead, and now he is risen.
I'm stating facts here.

No. You are stating opinion.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[MLease]

Whoever moderated the parent as "Troll" is an idiot. He is stating his beliefs. Yes, I agree, he's stating his opinions as if they were facts, but nonetheless, this is not a troll. It's an honest statement of what he believes and an honest attempt to contribute to the discussion.

I disagree with the substance of what he says, but moderating him down for it is not the way to respond to or refute it.

The video was censored anyway...

[Anonymous Coward]

Professor Coyne's speech was edited at least twice. Furthermore, the Q&A session, where the actual back-and-forth ensues is completely cut from the video. These people truly are despicable.

Re:The video was censored anyway...

[DrXym]

Yeah I was listening to the clip and noticed that an undetermined chunk of his speech is cut out just as he was about to refer to quotations from Haught's book.

Need a Downloadable version of the video(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

So... where can we DOWNLOAD the video(s) for off-line playback?

Re:Need a Downloadable version of the video(s)

[soliter]

Use firefox+flashgot

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[epyT-R]

it's not that 'science fans' don't want to hear new ideas. they just want some proof backing them beyond snake oil smoke and mirrors. they're also tired of the pseudoscience preached at them. it's the religious who don't want to hear anything contradicting their faith. the strength of feeling the religious have about their belief does not make their position stronger.

The personal attacks defence is getting old...

[Anonymous Coward]

John in his letter to Jerry ( http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/Letter%20To%20Jerry%20Coyne.pdf ) brings up the commonly used point of how Jerry's arguments were criticizing John personally, and how he himself refrained from that.

This is a problem that often arises in religious debates.

It's like a court testimony where a mother testifies how she knows in her heart that that man killed her son. But when she is asked if she actually saw him or anything that would prove that he was the doer, she can't come up with anything but repeating that she just knows it.

If the defense argues against this by claiming that she has no concrete evidence and we can't convict a man based on a testimony of "just knowing", she could say that this is a personal attack against her, as it's questioning her integrity. "You are accusing me of lying and saying that I just don't know when I really know in my heart and...". Thankfully we don't usually reach a verdict based on just a witness's gut feeling.

If the other side's arguments are based on personal beliefs and pure faith, and you can not question one's faith without it being a personal attack, the other party always get's immunity. This would be wrong.

If your arguments are based on personal feelings, the counter-arguments will be against those same personal feelings. What else can you expect?

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[spooky_d]

When guys like this one talk for 'science', really makes me want to become ignorant and send science to hell. He might advocate a good idea, but he does that badly.

The religious guys are the ones that created science, for heavens' sake. Look at the history of science, and you'll see WHO actually contributed to science. There is no real contradiction between the faith/religion, as in the spiritual aspects of life (things like morality and purpose of life) and science, that works in the material aspects of life. Nobody cries that psychology has nothing scientific about it.

And also, please keep in mind what was the topic of the discussion. In this case, the 'religion' guy was saying that science and religion coexist quite well, thank you, the other one was simply an idiot claiming to 'protect' science. Yet the science guy ignored the different aims of science and religion, one is for the material plane of existence, the other is for the psyche. He acted like an ignorant inquisitor. Amazingly, the tables are turned, now, and idiots are in charge of science.

Blind faith in science Re:Dialog is good and all.

[An dochasac]

"Faith" has no place in a field based on empirical evidence and doubt.

This ignores the fact that faith plays an enormous role in the unsteady progression of science. Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of the Scientific Revolution provides many examples where faith, politics and other irrational aspects of human nature have always pulled science in directions contrary to what should be a steady progression of knowledge.

Humans decide which areas of science deserve study. Global warming (aka climate change), oil production and weapons development gets more funding than breast cancer and potentially hazardous asteroids. AIDs and obesity gets more funding than diarrheal diseases and malaria-- not for scientific reasons, not because funded studies can improve more lives, but for political and economic reasons. Even once a project is funded, we shouldn't ignore real bias applied by individual scientists and teams based on their expectations. This isn't just falsified data. Some data is overlooked because it doesn't fit expectations-- our paradigm. On the surface this may not appear the same as religious faith-- indeed because it tends to be far more subtle, it is more dangerous.

Do we trust anthropogenic climate change research (in an environment where dissenting research isn't funded and anomalous data and opinions are marginalized)? Most of us trust it enough to want to make our modern world more efficient, some trust it enough to want to switch to potentially hazardous energy alternatives such as solar and nuclear. But should we trust it enough to modify the climate? We don't have a very good track record regarding the use of science to modify ecological systems?

Science has become a profession, usually far removed from the experience of ordinary individuals-- we all rely on faith. So we believed the tobacco industry studies which told us that smoking wasn't hazardous, we don't worry about the curious lack of studies on the long-term effects of GM foods, BPA and artificial fats and sweeteners. We have faith in science.

"New scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -- Max Planck

Read *WHY* Haught didn't want the release

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel Coyne was the one in the wrong here. After reading Haught's open letter to Coyne I'm somewhat dismayed at the reaction here. It's painfully obvious that most of you just assumed Coyne was telling the truth and that the only reason the video was not released was due to Haught not liking the outcome. However, its far from the truth. Personally, I'm on the science side of the fence, but Coyne's presentation was pretty bad and misrepresented a whole lot. If I were Haught, I'd be dismayed as well. Moreover, Coyne blatantly lied about the supposed agreement that the video would be released afterward. I know a lot of people don't read the articles, but I feel like it's somewhat lame to have such strong feelings on the subject when you have no idea what actually happened. Haught's Open Letter to Coyne: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/GainesCenter/Letter%20To%20Jerry%20Coyne.pdf

No, we observer something and call it dark matter

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we observer something and call it dark matter, if only because calling it Fred would be sillier.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[roman_mir]

I've never understood why is it so important for so many Christians that they feel there is 24/7 someone loving them. Is it insecurity? Would you be depressed if there wasn't? I am genuinely curious about this.

- religion is not just a way to 'fill in the voids in knowledge', but it is a political instrument, which in the hands of the political elite is used to control the herd, which they are using to live off of (so they tax them, they use their labor to do nothing themselves but to be in power over them, they send them to prisons and to wars and control their speech, business, reproduction, entertainment and thus culture).

So for the political elite the thought of an omnipotent god that loves them 24/7 is important, because they cause evil. The do real evil in the world and since they do evil they need the reassurance that no matter how evil they are, god loves them anyway, otherwise - hell, right?

The herd on the other hand is so beat up, it's made poor by this elite, who steal their fruits of their labor, their freedoms and liberties, business, entertainment, rights, culture... it's useful to make them believe that no matter how low they allow themselves to be beaten, no matter how many blows they take, no matter how little DIGNITY they have and how little they love themselves, because they KNOW they don't have dignity - they are slaves, that regardless of this truth the god loves them.

The TOP wants god to love them because they do evil things to the bottom.

The BOTTOM wants god to love them because they allow the evil things to be done and they don't love themselves because they allow themselves to be deprived of dignity, instead of fighting for it, so they want god to love them instead.

(I am an atheist and I am looking at this purely theoretically, I may be wrong.)

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[vadim_t]

The religious guys are the ones that created science, for heavens' sake. Look at the history of science, and you'll see WHO actually contributed to science.

So? Surgery got started by barbers. Fortunately we moved on since then, and good riddance.

There is no real contradiction between the faith/religion, as in the spiritual aspects of life (things like morality and purpose of life) and science, that works in the material aspects of life. Nobody cries that psychology has nothing scientific about it.

Of course there is. Take for instance homosexuality, it's something that falls squarely within both realms.

On the scientific side you have research that indicates it's quite common through the animal kingdom (which includes a lot of weird practices, like duck necrophilia, and male insects raping other males to fertilize females by proxy)

On the religious side, it's an "abomination" and "unnatural" (despite the above) because the bible says so.

I'd like to weigh in on this...

[flappinbooger]

I'll "come out" and chime in on this.

I'm a Christian. There, I said it. I've been hanging out on Slashdot for over 10 years. And I'm a Christian. Hold on, I'm not done yet.

I am a degreed engineer from one of the top private engineering schools in the country. I watch sci-fi. A lot. I believe in Evolution. I don't think humans evolved from pond scum OR monkeys. I believe in God. I believe he is on our side and is in favor of us. I believe God made the universe. I believe in the Bible. (See below) I have experienced things in my life which reinforce my beliefs. I know strict interpretation of the Bible says the earth is 6000 years old. I wasn't there then, I'm not going to argue about it. I'll leave that to people like Kent Hovind, he likes to argue.

I hate "religion". Religion has done more to harm people and discredit belief in God more than anything. Religion does not equal belief in God nor is the opposite true either. Religion is something people created.

I am suspicious there are important parts of the Bible that have been removed. There are things we've forgotten and not been told. I believe that there are certain parts of eastern mysticism that the Christian ought to pay attention to, such as meditation and the energy points in the body. See David Sereda regarding spirituality across religious boundary lines.

As a Christian, an Engineer and a Technologist I point to the spooky stuff in Quantum Physics as an olive branch between the two camps. There is a God, and we don't understand enough things yet to make science agree with that.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[inasity_rules]

I'm also a Christian. (And not worried about karma... :) ) I came here for the tech news and got sucked into the wars... (Vi rules! Windows Sucks!)

But I would disagree with you, while I am not a deist, I do believe that the workings of the universe can be completely explained by science, down to the spooky stuff in Quantum Physics. If God is God, he is God of that too, but I don't think we ever need to look for a gap for God to fill in science. That to me diminishes God to nothing more than a cop out.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You are not alone.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes, religions are something that people created. A massive set of mutually incompatible often warring belief sets that all proclaim they are the one true one.

Christianity is one of those religions.

Certainly not more than one of these views can be correct. And there is no logical way to choose one. So people tend to adhere to the one that is prevalent in their culture. Not because they have support for their belief in observable phenomena, but because they were told from birth to have faith.

Now if there was ANY case of a successful supernatural explanation of anything in the natural world perhaps you might have an argument as to the existence of God. But there isn't. And that includes the spooky stuff in quantum mechanics that really only seems spooky as the result of people trying to apply their daily experience to a world far removed from the reality they are accustomed too.

Lots of times in the past people have felt that they have needed to invoke God to explain some natural phenomena. Newton did it to explain the stability of the orbits of the planets. Of course Newton was wrong as he didn't have the ideas of relativity to help him understand what was actually going on. It is very important for people to learn to reject such flawed faith based thinking as the impediment to progress that it truly is. The proven way to progress and understanding of the world is through science, not faith.

Ultimately believe in the action of God in our universe always falls into conflict with the naturalistic explanations of natural phenomena that science provides. Ultimately you have to decide if you are going to be a rational human being and accept a naturalistic world view or if you are going to rely on blind faith and superstition as a way of ordering your life.

At least as science advances the choice is becoming more and more clear. Hopefully as time goes on more people will realize what truth really is.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[RenHoek]

I'm not religious, don't believe any Gods, but am fine with religious people if they get comfort from it. I believe most of the same techies/intellectuals are like this.

I've read something once that sums up my viewpoint neatly:

Religion is like a penis. It's fine if you have one; it's fine to be proud of it, but don't go waving it around in other peoples faces and for God's sake, don't try to shove it down children's throats! :)

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is extremely foolish to believe that humans do not share a common ancestor with the great apes (and other primates, and other mammals, etc.). After watching this video about ERVs (endogenous retroviruses), which leave their mark on the DNA of the individual that is infected, I guarantee you will no longer be able to deny this fact. Long story short: the only plausible way to explain the sharing of some certain extremely specific and distinctive "marks" on both our DNA and that of the great apes is that we had a common ancestor who "received" these "marks" and passed them on to members of both species.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you only believe PART of the bible... the parts you want to believe in. I don't think this qualifies you to be a "Christian".

I think it's correct for you to believe in the teachings of any book of moral and parable, however, to throw out the "Religion" from the bible, you ignore the core principal the book serves: To control people via fear. When you look a the book as a psychological tool to aid in the rule of the ignorant masses, everything falls into place. I give you the ultimate FUD machine, armed with Revelations, and Segregationist to the core via their arbitrary pre-requisite to being saved from Certain Doom (Hell): The Christians. Furthermore, they're tasked with expanding their ranks -- "spread the good word" -- combined with a MANDATORY tithe (it's only optional if you ignore that part of the bible) this is a profiteering machine.

Why did God make Sampson's hair magic? If Noah's Ark had saved all the animals, who saved all the plants? If "God saved the plants", then why did Noah have to save the animals? The answer is: It's just a fairy-tale. A book of myth... the entire thing is, including the creation part. It has value as such a book, but not as a book of Religious Facts.

If you pick and choose which parts to believe in, then consider that the entire thing can be dismissed. You'll still be a good person. You don't have to fear Hell (it doesn't exist), and you can even have morals and help your fellow man... In fact, you can help more people by not wasting yours or their time (we have so little) with fairy-tales.

As an atheist, I have EVEN MORE drive to make this world a better place and to experience all life has to offer because I Know that there is no after-life to enjoy except as fertilizer. As for the Universe having a purpose... Yes! It does have a purpose, the one we give it!

Learn from the Christianity its morals and values, but most importantly: Learn the history of Christianity, the very evolution of it as a religion, and through such study you can learn either how best to not be oppressed, or how to effectively oppress others.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[Hatta]

I believe in Evolution. I don't think humans evolved from pond scum OR monkeys.

But you believe pond scum, monkeys, and humans, all share a common ancestor. Right?

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[LateArthurDent]

I'm a Christian. There, I said it. I've been hanging out on Slashdot for over 10 years. And I'm a Christian.

Heh. So what? The majority of slashdot readers are christians. There's a higher percentage of atheists here, but that's because there's a higher percentage of atheists among techies. That's still not a majority, you're just more likely to come across them on slashdot and get a reply.

I am a degreed engineer from one of the top private engineering schools in the country. I watch sci-fi. A lot. I believe in Evolution.

Ok.

I don't think humans evolved from pond scum OR monkeys.

What does that mean? You're commenting on how pond scum and monkeys are bad terms for the organic material in primordial earth and our primate ancestors? Or are you saying we don't come from those things? If you're saying we didn't evolve from these things, what did we evolve from? I mean, you believe in evolution, so you believe we evolved, right? Or did everything else evolve, and just not humans. Dude, that was confusing.

I believe in God. I believe he is on our side and is in favor of us. I believe God made the universe.

That's your prerogative, it's fine. I don't have a beef with that.

I believe in the Bible.

Literally? Because we have scientific evidence that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the Bible is not literally true. If you want to believe they are allegories, you are free to believe that. If you want to believe in the literal creation story, the flood, and all that....well, you're being intellectually dishonest with yourself by ignoring evidence that goes against your beliefs.

I know strict interpretation of the Bible says the earth is 6000 years old. I wasn't there then, I'm not going to argue about it.

There are other dating methods, you don't need to be there. It's like watching one of the sci-fi movies you like and going, "they say they used cgi for the special effects, but I wasn't there for the filming. I'm not going to argue whether this is real or not."

As a Christian, an Engineer and a Technologist I point to the spooky stuff in Quantum Physics as an olive branch between the two camps.

"I don't understand Quantum Physics, so I think God has something to do with it." Pointing out things you don't understand doesn't prove it can't be understood. Same goes for things nobody understands. We understand a whole lot more about the universe now than we did 200 years ago, and we'll understand a whole lot more 200 years from now.

There is a God, and we don't understand enough things yet to make science agree with that.

If you want to take the existence of God as an axiom, you are completely free to do so. Just understand that you've done that. You've made a choice and said, "I believe God exists no matter what. I take it on faith that it's true." This prevents you from using stupid arguments trying to prove the existence of God, and it prevents others from trying to use stupid arguments to try to prove God doesn't exist. It's an unfalsifiable concept, it's not the realm of science. Always believe on evidence first. For everything else, you can have faith or not. Just don't try to force the rest of us to share your faith, and we'll get along fine. If anyone tries to force their lack of faith on you, I'll side with you on that. Even if I don't share your faith, I believe you have the right to lead the life you want according to the principles you hold dear.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[hypergreatthing]

the universe cannot be completely explained by science in cases where rules break down, like in a black hole or a few peta seconds after the big bang. Science is constantly evolving as well, coming up with new theories and evidence to support our best explanations as to how the universe works. Do you honestly believe there will be a point where humanity learns all the secrets and has an understanding of everything? I think there will be a lot of good guesses, but no one will really know everything, and that's the role religion/beliefs come into play.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[inasity_rules]

Lets put it this way, my argument is not that we can know everything. Science is a model and it will get better and better(may be never be complete), but there is no need to look for gaps to slot God in. If God is God he is God of the natural as well. It is insulting to both Religion and Science to suggest that just because we don't understand it, God did it. It diminishes God to something found in things we don't yet understand. And when our model grows to encompass those things, where did God go?

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[flappinbooger]

I believe in Evolution. I don't think humans evolved from pond scum OR monkeys.

But you believe pond scum, monkeys, and humans, all share a common ancestor. Right?

Well, evolution is observable. Evolution as origin of species, a creationist would have a problem with that. Lots of Christians are all up in arms with evolution itself, but evolution isn't bad.

One thing I've heard said a lot is that humans and monkeys don't have a common ancestor, they have a common creator. Similarities with appearance, biology, genome, etc, are evidence of the same creator.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[flappinbooger]

Evolution is observable, it happens. Evolution as origin of species, that's what a creationist would disagree with.

Re:I'd like to weigh in on this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Similarities with appearance, biology, genome, etc, are evidence of the same creator.

Similarities that make it look as if they had a common ancestor? With changes to the genotype and phenotype occurring with regularity in an order that makes it look like they have a common ancestor? And all consistent with the observed effects of mutation, fusion, transposed elements and reversals that just happen to match up between great apes and man?

But don't get the idea we came from the same genetic line... that's crazy talk.

Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[Fished]

I suggest you watch the video. As I suggested in a previous post, Jerry Coyne is rather childish and launches a horrible, sneering, ad hominem argument. Haught's argument is much better reasoned and much better -- regardless of who "won."

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[dr_leviathan]

Yes, definitely listen to the debate. I recommend it for both sides of the argument.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[WiiVault]

Little athiests? Sorry but that kinda proves your an asshole. And you call out Coyne for using ad hominem attacks?

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[hey!]

Well, I wouldn't characterize his presentation as sneering, but he doesn't do a very good job of arguing his position, and introduces a lot of distracting emotional arguments about negative things he associates with religion.

Logically, he can argue his case two ways. He can either state his criteria for incompatibility, and show that religion and science meet those criteria. Or he can state his criteria for compatibility, and show that there is at least one criterion which religion and science can never meet.

As is often the case in such philosophical debates, the crux of the difference seems to be in assumptions about terminology. What Coyne shows again and again is that religion and science are *different*, and since he obviously regards that as demonstration of incompatibility, that must be his criterion for incompatibility, a criterion which of course anyone is free to reject.

A more substantive criterion would be that a religious person cannot be a good scientist. Coyne brings this up, but then dismisses the example by claiming that these people are being inconsistent. But ultimately that's a circular argument -- it's begging the question. He concludes they are being inconsistent by assuming that which is to be shown. What he should have done is show that these individuals do poor science as a result of their religious beliefs. Even that's not *proof* of his position, but it would be disproof of these scientists' use in support of the contrary position: that science and religion are compatible if a religious person can do good science.

Another useful inconsistency criterion would be whether science can be done in a society which accepts religious beliefs. Here again he doesn't quite come to grips with the issue. He notes the large number of people who don't believe in evolution, which is certainly a problem if research into evolutionary biology is to be funded. However belief in creationism is hardly a necessary condition to religiosity. Furthermore, Coyne's argument could be turned on its head: Fundamentalists actually agree with him that science and religion are incompatible, they just choose religion over science. Religious people who believe that science and religion are compatible have no difficulty with letting science go where it may. They may be inconsistent in doing so, but once again that is what is to be demonstrated.

By assuming what is to be shown, Coyne is singularly ineffective here. Ironically, he's just preaching to the choir.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down.

I just watched the entire video. There is no such "horrible", "sneering" or "ad hominem" attacks in the video I watched. I challenge you to identify just one ad hominem attack (the time in the video would be fine). Remember, "ad hominem" means "at the person", not "at the person's ideas". The latter is expected in a debate.

If you think Haught's argument is well-reasoned, consider just this one point.

At 12:55 in the video, Haught discusses the "heirarchical principle". He claims that understanding of the material world, the "lower circles", can never get its head around the higher world (God?). Yet, the very "heirarchical principle" he is speaking of is an example of the "lower circles" claiming to understand the structure of the "higher circles". In fact, his entire argument centers on appeals to authority: that religion is correct because and people with greater wisdom and life experience can feel it (17:00). That is not objectively better.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, Haught's argument is touchy, feely, metaphorical, we can reconcile all the contradictions if we just blah blah. It was devoid of reason. Did you watch the video? He justifies abandoning reason quite explicitly in order to know that we can't know the purpose of the universe but we can have a revelation that is has a purpose. Coyne's a dick about it, but that's because the inability of the faithful to give up their beliefs IS in direct contradiction to science. They can add nothing and subtract quite a bit if real scientists ever gave them any credence.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[liquidweaver]

What's a little atheist? Is that different from an atheist, or perhaps a great big atheist?

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[Holammer]

Not to mention that he got modded +5 *informative* despite loaded language. Sites such as slashdot & tvtropes remain the realm of theists.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched the video, hence the late reply. After about 1 hour reading Coynes Q&A and Haught's response, then 1 hour for the debate, and another 1/2 for the Q&A, I believe I can make up my own mind without intereference or pollution from others.

My gut feel when I first read the Slashdot post was another theologian cowering from a ineffectual debate. The intensity of the debate, notwithstanding the off the cuff comments, hinted at something more profund, and I mused on this on my blog (http://storizabautpipol.com/) that Haught may have hurt himself by his censorship. So when I learned about trhe actual posting, I couldn't wait, and listened attentively to both Haught's and then Coyne's presentation, and the following Q&A. To one of Haught's point, the sense of rightness feels useful, but does it lead to religion? Not at all, it leads to searching for an answer, and religion certainly falls short.

Coyne does come out swinging, and in an almost pervese way it feels almost Quixotic. I'm obviously biased, but who isn't? The reason this caught my interest is because of my agnostic bend (science has no basis to determine whether there even can be such a concept as a god, and aside from science it there is such a thing what good would it do me based of what I see around me...?) and my interest in philosophy. So what did I learn? That faith is based on unproven beliefs - one interesting point that wasn't brought up is why there should be so many unproven incompatible beliefs, and in fact violently opposed beliefs, in a world created presumably by a single god? That science has no need for the concept of god; Coyne made the point very well.

Re:Before all the little atheists celebrate...

[transami]

Haught sounds reasonable? It's just a bunch of sophistry. He hardly makes a single concrete statement about anything.

Coyne is somewhat rude, and I think that isn't necessary. But he's rather unabashed about it and admits upfront he is going to be. Yet overall his argument makes a great deal more sense. However it is very much a rebuttal argument.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[digitig]

And yet, it is now a part of the canon of science, in spite of that. I'm still wondering when major religions will not just stop questioning, but actually declare a part of their religion, things like evolution and quantum mechanics.

Most religious people accept those things. They don't need to make them part of their religion because they can get them from science.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[spooky_d]

On the religious side, it's an "abomination" and "unnatural" (despite the above) because the bible says so.

You know that what you said has nothing in common with the idea of God and spirituality, and also nothing to do with the 'debate' that we're discussing? This is pretty much what the science dude said too, but that was not the subject matter of the discussion, and you're very, very, very offtopic.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[digitig]

The 25th December is a red herring. A (pagan) Roman emperor (can't remember which one) wanted to unify the religions in the empire and basically ordered the Christians to have a party each 25th December or be executed. The version of Christianity that has come down to us is the one that had the party. Natural selection in action!

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[digitig]

Sorry, but facts without evidence are not facts.

Actually, they can be, we just don't know whether they are or not.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[digitig]

Actually, if [s]he is able but not willing all you have shown is that [s]he is not a utilitarian.

Einstein's opinion on religion...

[Anonymous Coward]

...has just about as much bearing as the Pope's opinion on the equations of General Relativity (and far from "Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof", the merest hint of any supernatural explanation of the way the world is, is what demands - but never receives - extraordinary proof ). Science has no need for the concept of a creator, and the fact that otherwise honest and intelligent scientists may have been capable of performing the self-deceptive sophistry necessary to square their continuing belief with their otherwise total insistence on the scientific method most definitely does not justify their inability to question their own beliefs, nor elevate those beliefs beyond rank superstition. As for comments about "smugness", "feeling superior" and so forth - that's, frankly, merely an ad hominem attack, and not worthy of being addressed.

Theology has to refuse to debate.

[eyenot]

Reading the letter, and listening to the video, it seems to me that Coyne completely blindsided Haught. But, I can't help but feel that Haught's avoidance of anything resembling debate probably has something to do with this statement:

`` Sophisticated argument requires as an essential condition that you have the good manners to understand before you criticize. '' -- John Haught (to Jerry Coyne)

In the video, Haught defines faith explicitly as feeling the presence of something you have absolutely no means or context to comprehend. "Like being carried along by something large." But he also attempts to argue for spiritual awareness and "personal transformation" as necessary for complete thought, by referring to the Biblical writer, Paul.

Haught also refers to reality, existence, and experience, as consisting of multiple layers of meaning which can be deduced by some and not by others. He uses the example of a book: to a monkey, it is "black marks on white paper"; to a toddler learning the alphabet, it is "a treasure trove of possible meaning, a code"; to an adolescent, it's a plain use of language and to an adult with experiences to relate, it's a source of "timeless wisdom".

Relating all of these sentiments back to the Bible, from what authority did the authors write? From what authority does the reader attempt to understand? The suggestion is that the Bible (along with all of the other religious texts) constitutes this "something large" that carried the authors along. But in my personal experience, the use of the Bible more closely resembles this statement:

`` Citation of a few isolated sentences or paragraphs, the meaning of which requires reading and understanding many chapters, is hardly useful criticism. You grossly distorted every quotation you used, and then you coated over your [mis]understanding of these statements with your own uncritical creationist and literalist set of assumptions about the Bible and theology. There was no room for real conversation, as impartial viewers will notice. '' -- John Haught (to Jerry Coyne)

If we replace the word "criticism" with "evangelism" (which we can, because you have to be able to think critically about a subject in order to relate it to others with any cognition):

`` Sophisticated evangelism requires as an essential condition that you have the good manners to understand before you evangelize. ''

`` Citation of a few isolated sentences or paragraphs, the meaning of which requires reading and understanding many chapters, is hardly useful evangelism. You grossly distorted every quotation you used, and then you coated over your [mis]understanding of these statements with your own uncritical creationist and literalist set of assumptions about the Bible and theology. ''

The big problem with religious texts is that they both have to be taken as a whole (in order to be accepted for what they are presented as being by their followers) but they have to be taken in bits and pieces (because that's how humans communicate realistically, not in entire volumes at a time but in small bits that fit the constraints of energy and time).

There are reasons why the biblicists fought against literacy for centuries, and why when they lost that fight they fought against language, and why when they lost that fight they fought against astronomy and all other sciences, and why when they lost that fight they now fight against proper education and comprehension.

Even though Coyne blindsided Haught, and was arrogant and rude, he has some excuse: he's probably carrying the nerd-rage of seeing how your heroes throughout history have been supressed by religion, along with many of the greatest people of all time, and seeing how the worst offender (Christianity) argues that this treatment of people is looked upon highly by their "God". Anyone who looks at Christianity and truly comprehends it for what it is has every right in the world to be either enraged or frustrated.

If someone like Haught can't face debate, it's because that's one o

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[toQDuj]

I think before something becomes a fact, it's a hypothesis at best.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Hodapp]

Bible actually teaches that God and Jesus are two totally separate entities and that it is blasphemy to call Jesus a God.

Citation on this?

my comment

[Anonymous Coward]

science is about mind
religion is about spirit

How do you define religion?

If you define it as Church, Vatican, Pope, christening of Indians, ... etc, then no, I do not believe in religion
I do not like church.
I do not believe in all that is written in Bible.
Started reading about: You have to pray to me every day... Then I stopped. Why does God needs anything from us if he is allmighty.
"Why does God need a starship?" :)

But some parts are good. Like Judge not others, or you shall be judged, buy the same metric...

Solution.
1. It is about more than one God. It is not about the Source (God), but gods, instead. First is about Lord, then it is mentioned, Lord God...
(Look more on http://www.halexandria.org/ site.)

2. The original writing was changed. Content was added, and removed.
That is why in one part it says: You should tremble in front of your lord. In other God is kind.

If you define religion as spiritual belief in Source (of all), thought, energy, that everything came from, then yes.
I do belive it that.

I believe in (God) Source, and angels.

But, I also do believe in science.

I do not think they are incompatible, more like science is a subset of God's creation, explaining what it can.
Science does not know everything (yet). What if in future, science is able to explain God scientifically?
I won't mention Earth as a flat plane, or Earth is the centre of the Universe.

You cannot see wind, but you can feel it. Or heat, or goodnes.

About cold fusion: see e-cat.

The full video needs to be released

[Anonymous Coward]

The full video needs to be released.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[digitig]

Do things become facts? Was it not a fact that the Earth goes around the Sun before we confirmed the hypothesis?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[TFAFalcon]

Does that mean God deserves to go to hell? Since he did not save the 'others' from hell, did not save them from this 'prison' and welcome them into his home?

Fundamentalism is bad m'kay.

[YouDieAtTheEnd]

At first glance, I would have imagined myself siding with the rational, thought-provoking argument and not the base attack founded on personal fetish. As it turns out, I did not judge myself incorrectly. The more I hear Coyne speak and the more of his words I read, the clearer it becomes that he has taken up the banner of the literalism that he rails against. After reading some of what Hughes has written, it's easy to recognize him as the more rational person in this debate. Here is part of an excerpt from his book God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens that seems to sum it up nicely:

I must confess that it has been disappointing for me to have witnessed the recent surge of interest in atheism. It’s not that my own livelihood, that of a theologian, is at stake—although the authors in question would fervently wish that it were so. Nor is it that the treatment of religion in these tracts consists mostly of breezy over-generalizations that leave out almost everything that theologians would want to highlight in their own contemporary discussion of God. Rather, the new atheism is simply unchallenging theologically. Its engagement with theology lies at about the same level of reflection on faith that one can find in contemporary creationist and fundamentalist literature.

Clearly the new atheists’ strategy is to suppress in effect any significant theological voices that might wish to join in conversation with them. As a result of this exclusion, the intellectual quality of their atheism is unnecessarily diminished. Their understanding of religious faith remains consistently at the same unscholarly level as the unreflective, superstitious, and literalist religiosity of those they criticize. Even though the new atheists reject the God of creationists, fundamentalists, terrorists, and “intelligent design” (ID) advocates, it is not without interest that they have decided to debate with these extremists rather than with any major theologians.

This choice of antagonists betrays their unconscious privileging of literalist and conservative versions of religious thought over the more traditionally mainstream types. The new atheists are saying in effect that if God exists at all, we should allow this God’s identity to be determined once and for all by the fundamentalists of the Abrahamic religious traditions. I believe they have chosen this strategy not only to make their job of demolition easier, but also because they have a barely disguised admiration for the simplicity of their opponents’ views of reality.

In preparing treatises on a-theism, one would expect that scholars and journalists would have done some research on theism, just to be sure they know exactly what it is they are rejecting. It is hard to be an informed and consistent atheist without knowing something about theology. And yet, aside from several barbed references, there is no sign of any real contact between the new atheists and theology at all, let alone studious investigation. This circumvention is comparable to creationists rejecting evolution without ever having taken a course in biology. They just know there’s something wrong with those crazy Darwinian fantasies. So the new atheists just know there is something sick and delusional about theology. There is no need to look at it up close. Furthermore, conversation with theologians, most of whom are not biblical literalists, would add a dimension of intricacy to the new atheist literature that would detract from the breeziness that sells books. Ignorance of theology simplifies the new atheists’ attacks on their equally uninformed religious adversaries. It allows their critique to match, point for point, the fundamentalism it is trying to eliminate.

I, personally, am not religious but I do not have a problem with someone holding a different viewpoint on the matter. Unfortunately, it seems to be becoming an ever more popular trend to attack others

Re:Fundamentalism is bad m'kay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it seems to be becoming an ever more popular trend to attack others based on their personal belief

This is new?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[toQDuj]

Depends on your definition of fact, the one I apply is "Fact: Something known to be true". Given that definition: before it is confirmed, we do not know it is true and therefore not a fact.

Lost in the sound and fury....

[Anonymous Coward]

....over debates that are many centuries old are two smaller, perhaps more relevant, and sad facts.

1. The first is that the release of this video was apparently, at least in part, worked out by Haught and Coyne themselves. Haught wrote Coyne a letter, asking Coyne to post the letter on his own blog and stating that, if Coyne did so, he would agree to have the video released. Coyne, apparently did so, complying with the letter, at least, of Haught's request.

2. Missing from this action entirely is Dr. Robert Rabel, who, at least according to Coyne, threatened to sue over the incident. Instead, the statement concerning the release of the video was provided by the Provost of the University of Kentucky. Rabel's absence from the current drama, in light of his threat to sue (if true), leads me to be concerned on his behalf.

After reading both Haught's letter and Coyne's blog side-by-side, and after stepping back and looking at the situation as a whole, I am of the opinion that we most likely have here is a situation in which what at least one group views as an unfortunate and un-collegial exchange of ideas was blown up into a far more damaging scandal by forces unleashed by one party, that, once released, spiraled out of control. And the scandal could conceivably have lasting impacts on careers -- though probably not given the seniority of the dramatis personae.

While it is impossible to avoid seeing the actions of all tree primary actors (Rabel, Coyne, and Haught), as contributory, I cannot help but think that primary the culprits in the act of throwing gasoline on this already smoldering blaze, were none other than ourselves -- the /. subscribers. I don't know Drs. Coyne, Haught, or Rabel. Because I have work to do (as most of us do), and a lot of it (as many of us do), I don't have time to watch the exchange between them. Because of that, I am, thankfully, also able to say that I didn't have time to write the NEH, the UK Provost, or Drs. Rabel or Haught. But again, that's because I don't have time and not, I am sorry to say, because I thought doing a bad idea when I read the original post.

However, admitting my own culpability, at least in terms of what I thought, if not what I did, I do want to take a moment and suggest that the community of IT enthusiasts and professionals has again been complicit in contributing to one of the uglier aspects of new media -- a sort of digital mob justice in which mundanely flawed people and even good people are forced into an anti-celebrity roles by strangers. We all want justice folks. And, our new overlords notwithstanding, I know that everybody on this forum wants free speech. But justice doesn't come over the internet. It happens person to person and face to face. I suspect that the outcome could have been the same if everyone who had written angry, abusive, or profane letters to Drs. Haught or Rabel (or the NEH or the UKY Provost for that matter) instead wrote respectful and collegial letters that explained merely explained their points. It could have been the same, except it wouldn't have been so painful to the primary players involved. So, that's my two bits. Maybe now it's my turn to be /.-ed.

Re:Lost in the sound and fury.......My Post.

[j_f_chamblee]

Oops. This was my post folks. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. Doesn't do much good to say such things as an anonymous coward. Talk about mundanely flawed!

The only way to win is to not play

[Sloppy]

*sigh* You're taking them too seriously, and as soon as you play their game, you lose. If I may play FSMs-advocate..

vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product.

Shouldn't be there?! Who are you, puny human, to say what should or shouldn't be? How do you know FSM's plan? Where the fuck were you when FSM created the world? Bad design?! Oh really, Mr. Smarty Pants, you can call the design "bad" when you don't even know what the goal was? LOL, you puny humans and your blinders, focusing on trivial things like efficiency and performance, since those limited concepts are the only things your tiny FSM-given brains can handle. Telling you the purpose of the designs so that you would be able to judge (HA!) whether they're good or bad, would be like you telling an ant who just cares about gathering food, the purpose of a USB flash drive. He tastes the flash drive, sees it doesn't work well as food, and concludes it must not have had any conscious creator.

The sheer arrogance of thinking you know what's in FSM's mind or know better than FSM, is just outrageous. The fact that the vestigial parts are there, is evidence that they should be there. You just haven't figured out why, because you're not as smart as FSM.

Dude: religion. What part of "can't be falsified" don't you understand? If religion could be tested or argued about, it wouldn't be religion.

Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[DG]

Posts like these reveal the latest tactic in the religious fundamentalist PYSOPS campaign - the attempt to cast "science" (which is a process) as a "belief system" or "religion" and thus either elevating their religion to the same level as science or pulling science down to their level (whichever view you prefer)

Sometimes, the reveal is the use of the new portmanteau "sciencism" but other times - like in this case - it is more baldly stated.

The ironic thing is that I think this particular theme is meant as much in defence as it is offense; most religious fundies give each other a degree of professional courtesy and refrain from directly attacking each other's dogmas - you don't often see Bible Belters railing against Buddists. Perhaps they hope that if they can recast science as a belief system, science will extend that "professional courtesy" to them and leave them the hell alone.

Sadly, they are tilting at windmills; "science" does not care one whit about religious dogma. It's not even on the radar. What science "cares" about is the propogation of knowlege teased out through experiment. If religion contradicts this, science - quite rightly - seeks to correct the error (the same way science seeks to eliminate error from science).

If science winds up systemically dismembering religious dogmas, well, so much the worse for religion - but it isn't PURPOSEFUL.

The problem with religion is that it has made claims about the workings of the universe which are demonstratively, testably, and predictively FALSE - and they are still, after centuries of Enlightenment, still not equipped to deal with it.

So nice try - but we're on to this tactic too.

DG

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[SuricouRaven]

I view it more in terms of 'if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' To someone who thinks of everything in life in religious terms, it'd hard to comprehend science as anything but another religion competing for followers.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Mr. Slippery]

you don't often see Bible Belters railing against Buddists.

Only because there aren't enough Buddhists in the Bible Belt to make it worthwhile.

I'm not sure what a "Buddhist Fundamentalist" would look like -- the core of the Buddha's teaching (the Four Noble Truths) has fsck-all to do with metaphysics. You can be a Buddhist and an scientific atheist at the same time with no conflict. Even the Dalai Lama, head of one of the more woo-woo sects of Buddhism, has expressed admiration for the scientific method and said that if science is in conflict with Buddhism, then Buddhism has to change.

Point is, not every religion is like Bible-thumping Xianity. Religion, literally, means "reconnection" ("to tie again"), not "belief in supernatural forces and invisible omnipotent beings".

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Actually, 'If all you have is a Hammer, everything looks like your Thumb'

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[tjbp]

Wait a second, what? You've just highlighted the precise problem amongst the science-supporting camp; just because empirical evidence is reliable, doesn't mean that its supporters and their chosen arguments are too. My post was intended to shed light on a subject I feel is hindering science's progress with the argument, and you effectively accuse me of being some kind of religious saboteur. I'm not a religious fundamentalist, and if you can't differentiate between constructive criticism and psychological warfare you need to pull your head out of your ass.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[HornWumpus]

If all you have is a Hammer, everything looks like a skull.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Kelbear]

I honestly could use some help with understanding why "science" isn't a belief system.

I don't ascribe to any religion. I suppose if I cared enough to think about it, I'd consider myself an atheist.

With that said, I don't navigate the world with science. For me, science is purely a belief system based on consensus. Any scientific "fact" I happen to know isn't something I've personally tested, or even researched (barring simple high-school experiments). I believe in those scientific facts only because I've been told that they're widely accepted by the scientific community and I assume that they've undergone peer review at some point. I believe that the scientific method works and when applied properly, it zeroes in on the truth, but I'm not applying the scientific method, I just believe that somewhere, someone else is.

The more unusual the claim, the more support I'll want to see or hear, but that's about as rigorous as I'll get. I believe creatures evolved because it has a wide body of support, as opposed to creationism. However, if I read a series of newspaper articles with a breakthrough discovery of intelligent design behind it all, neatly explaining the evolution of exhibits I've seen in museums and zoos, and accepted by the majority of scientists...then I'm going to believe in intelligent design after I get over my initial shock. Ditto with climate change. Whatever the consensus is telling me, that's the "science" I believe, because I'm not actually researching any of this stuff. Setting aside the discussion of whether or not I, as an individual, should be researching these things personally, why wouldn't my "faith" in the scientific community be considered a belief system?

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[ultranova]

What science "cares" about is the propogation of knowlege teased out through experiment. If religion contradicts this, science - quite rightly - seeks to correct the error (the same way science seeks to eliminate error from science).

No. Science does not care about anything, because science is simply systematic study of the surrounding reality. Scientists might care about correcting errors, and that is all well and good; however, when you start ascribing this desire to science itself, you are for all intents and purposes setting up a god.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[DG]

If you are repeating their theme, you are supporting their cause - even if you aren't doing so with intent.

DG

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, science is purely a belief system based on consensus. Any scientific "fact" I happen to know isn't something I've personally tested, or even researched (barring simple high-school experiments). I believe in those scientific facts only because I've been told that they're widely accepted by the scientific community and I assume that they've undergone peer review at some point. I believe that the scientific method works and when applied properly, it zeroes in on the truth, but I'm not applying the scientific method, I just believe that somewhere, someone else is.

What you're describing is not science being belief system but a belief for the repeatable efforts of your fellow human beings. It's the same belief that you hold for the pilot when boarding a plane that the pilot doesn't intend to collide the plane with a large, five-cornered building or cause an emergency landing with the purpose of appearing as a saving hero, or for a surgeon when admitting yourself into a hospital for an operation. Basically you trust other people to do their responsibilities like you do yours.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[joggle]

To me, the problem is simple. Anything I can think of that would be predicted by something that has no physical basis cannot be studied scientifically. Even if the prediction is true, how can the prediction be repeated? Obviously, some sort of advanced scientific knowledge gleaned simply from religion would be wonderful, but the lack of such proof doesn't mean other predictions are false.

For a personal example, my wife recently passed away at the age of 24. Ever since she was young she hated being alone. She had a vivid dream when she was a child that she was going to die alone at a young age. She also very much believed this dream, going to such lengths as going to work with her mom or always living in homes with roommates. She was also extraordinarily careful, trying not to do anything risky or dangerous.

Yet, after spending over 3 weeks together on our honeymoon, she died the day after we returned home while I was at work. It was the first time she had been alone in over 25 days. She died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism, without showing any symptoms during the weeks prior to her death.

In addition, just two months before the trip she emphatically warned me to not leave her at home alone. On her last day, I simply forgot about it and thought she would want rest (she had even wanted to go with me to work that day).

This, of course, is a one-time event and not reproducible. It seems very unlikely that a young woman would be in such fear of dieing alone at that age and, despite her best efforts, dieing alone. It could be a case of bizarre coincidences, but of course to me that also seems unlikely.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly could use some help with understanding why "science" isn't a belief system.

Because it's actually a knowledge system. There is a big difference.

No, the knowledge attained scientifically is not perfect and it's not transmitted between people without error, but it is extremely solid nonetheless, especially when compared to myth, hearsay, fable, rhetoric and dogma - some of the alternative methods for distributing mental models of the world.

Scientists, journal editors, and academic administrators may care about what you believe, but science itself doesn't care one whit. Which is as it should be. Beliefs may change but its hard-won body of knowledge accumulated over the last few hundred years stands on its own.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[jaqen]

What you’re describing is belief that human reasoning is correct. But that’s not “belief” in the religious/spiritual sense. Not to me. Religious belief is faith that something that can't be proven is true. Science is a method of showing how something can be proven to be true. Just because you “believe” what someone else has proven, doesn’t make science belief-based—it makes you lazy at worst, or reliant on your fellow humans to do the hard work at best. You take Science’s word that evolution happens because you can't be bothered to test it out yourself. That doesn't mean you couldn't if you wanted to. That doesn't mean every person in the world couldn't do it if they wanted to. Religion is a belief because *no human* can prove that any tenet is true. *Everyone* has to take it on faith. There is not one human who has ever lived who could prove that God/gods exist, nor show how any other human could verify that existence for himself. That's what faith means. The only thing you have to “believe” is that your experience of life follows predictable patterns of cause & effect. If you “believe” in that, then Science is just an elaborate extension (and rigorous testing) of that.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[TFAFalcon]

You should ask yourself: How many people that feel the same way your wife did are there? And how many of them DON'T die suddenly?

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[joggle]

I have. While the fear of being alone is common enough, I haven't heard of anyone at that age believe there's a significant chance they will die if left alone. This isn't a fear she told others about. As far as I can determine, I'm the only one she told about why she didn't want to be alone.

She also didn't seem to have any mental disorder. I'm familiar with several different ones, and she seemed completely normal with the exception of not wanting to be alone for any significant length of time.

On top of that, the odds of this happening while she was alone were very low. Out of the entire year we spent together, there were only 4 or 5 days she spent several hours or more alone. She had a full-time job and almost always had days off on the same days I did.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[DG]

Before I start, allow me to express my deepest condolences on the passing of your wife. And I really, truly, mean that.

My assumption is that, given that you have broached this subject, that you are recovered enough from that loss to discuss it.

There are four possibilities:

1. Through some biological mechansim not currently understood (but understandable, once discovered and studied) your wife was subconciously aware that something was profoundly wrong, and it manifested itself as fear;

2. Your wife's fear was irrational, but, thorugh a mechanism not currently understood (but also potentially understandable) that fear directly caused the embolism. There are cases of demonstrated "mind over matter" (the Placebo Effect is very real, and currently not understood) so this is actually possible;

3. Your wife's fear and her sudden passing are completely unrealated and utter coincidence; or

4. Some invisible, "divine" presence was warning your wife of her impending demise (and yet - I'm trying not to be harsh here - did nothing to prevent it)

Three of those explainations are plausible and require no supernatural influence. One requires both supernatural influence and, I would argue, inhuman cruelty.

I clearly cannot say which, if any, of these scenarios are "the truth". But I hope for all of humanity that #4 isn't it.

And again, you have my sympathies. I would not wish what you have gone through on my worst enemy.

DG

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Alsee]

In other words: Don't anthropomorphize science, it hates when people do that.

-

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, science is purely a belief system based on consensus.

The history of science is full of examples of people whose theories were vindicated after years of rejection - look at Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, or Shechtman's recent Nobel Prize for discovering quasicrystals (pooh-poohed by the establishment).

A theory can be wrong even though everyone believes it's correct, and likewise can be right even if not a single person believes it. Consensus is important for the direction of research, but fortunately it has nothing to do with the outcome of that research.

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[Thing 1]

"Nature abhors anthropomorphism."

Re:Hrm. The latest theme in the religious PSYOPS

[x2A]

It's not very common but it's not unheard of, the condition's known as monophobia, which you may know already, and yes it does sound like she had it bad, possibly to the extent that it would have had an effect on her health, as persistent worrying does, increasing the chance of something like that happening. I've seen similar anxiety disorders, both self-directed or externally-directed, such as a mother who was convinced her baby wouldn't wake up again if she didn't sing a certain song to him going to sleep. The thought processes that lead to that belief are complex to say the least. One of the difficult things with a fear like that is that it is self preserving, because getting rid of the fear would expose the chance of that thing happening (eg, if she stopped thinking that she needed to sing that song for her child to ever wake up again, then she would stop, which would lead to loss of her child) which results in the putting up of defenses against having the fear dealt with, which you obviously saw first hand.

And yes these things can be very acute, and I imagine can form like synesthesias, where a crossover between two unrelated concepts forms, so the number 7 might always appear yellow. While less common, there's no reason why these can't form with higher function concepts, like the idea of being alone and the idea of personal danger. Of course, there's so many different concepts within our brains that there's a massive number of combinations of things that could result from the same thing happening... and when it is acute, the person, being otherwise of complete rational mindedness, just finds ways of dealing with that thing, or avoiding it, while living otherwise as any other "normal" person would do.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[whoop]

Right near the beginning of the video, the second page of his presentation, "Religions: the universe is here for a reason." This is just how my years in Catholic schools evolved. Sure mistakes have been made in the science/religion debate over the centuries within Catholicism, ie Galileo. But science has been about understand how things work, leaving religion to ask "why are we here?" Thinking about our purpose in the universe, leads to living a good life, treat others well, etc. All of which makes for a stable society (no murdering, stealing, etc).

I'm halfway through the video, completing Mr. Haught's presentation, and isn't it funny how Mr. Science can't get his laptop to work through the projector. God works in mysterious ways. :)

Anyway, he opens with, "We're going to have a real debate." So there you have it folks, he wins! Everything Haught said is not real!! Game over.

"Forgiveness" as part of Game Theory

[DG]

Just as an aside, "forgiveness" is often raised as a point in favour of religion, as if it were a new concept created out of whole cloth by the "Jesus" fellow.

And yet, "forgiveness" is an essential, mathematical part of Games Theory. Strategies that punish transgressions and then "forgive" are provenly superior (in a mathematical sense) to strategies that only punish or never punish.

And "niceness" is proveably superior to "nastiness".

Science has a claim on ethics, and unlike religion, can test and prove strategies and ethics.

DG

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[vadim_t]

You know that what you said has nothing in common with the idea of God and spirituality, and also nothing to do with the 'debate' that we're discussing? This is pretty much what the science dude said too, but that was not the subject matter of the discussion, and you're very, very, very offtopic.

It does have a lot to do with morality, which you mentioned in your first post ("things like morality and purpose of life"). When people stop attempting to make laws to regulate behavior according to religion, then the idea of non-conflict will be a bit more believeable.

My position is that morality is within the realm of science and that religion is unnecessary for moral matters. In fact much science has been done on morality. There's your conflict.

when will nihilists have their voice heard?!

[cod3r_]

WE BELIEVE IN NOTHING

Re:Blind faith in science Re:Dialog is good and al

[the eric conspiracy]

Nobody is claiming the process of science has to always follow a completely idealized form for it to be successful. It is not in human nature for impediments like faith and politics and building one's empire to not play a part.

However at the end of the day the process works because the truth becomes the building blocks of the future of science. Failed theories fall by the wayside because they are not successful in providing a platform for future progress. Yes it's messy and full of errors and side path and politics and irrational behavior. But that's because human beings do science, not because science requires these side trips.

Ultimately faith plays no part in the progress of science because the erroneous faith based decisions are eventually replaced by decisions based on what actually works to explain the universe and to provide a foundation to build further understanding.

We don't have a very good track record regarding the use of science to modify ecological systems?

I don't know about that. There are plenty of success stories including the world wide response to the depletion of the ozone layer by CFCs, the use of fishing limits to prevent extinction of many species of fish and so on.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[Hatta]

I'm just pointing out that some folks with a deep faith are also actual scientists.

All this really demonstrates is the human capacity to hold two conflicting ideas in their head without experiencing cognitive dissonance.

Summary of how the debate turned ugly

[drewm1980]

Having watched the video and read the letters, here is my summary of how it got ugly:

In refuting the notion that the existence of religious scientists itself is evidence that science and religion are compatible, Hoyne uses the existence of Catholic pedophiles as an example of humans being able to hold incompatible beliefs in their heads. This was a strawman (Hoyne didn't use this argument), and a rather low blow; there are any number of non-humiliating examples that could have been used to make the same point.

Haught, was quite understandably offended by this, and didn't want the video published. If, say, the National Academy of Science had been caught systematically raping children and covering it up, I suspect Coyne would be just as offended if the scandal were needlessly mentioned by his opponent in a public, and supposedly good-natured academic debate.

Re:Summary of how the debate turned ugly

[dr_leviathan]

And as a result Coyne made his point very effectively. The killer counter argument to the "religious scientists exist therefore the two are compatible" statement will be hard to forget.

BTW, that debate video was definitely worth watching. I recommend it.

Re:Summary of how the debate turned ugly

[drewm1980]

I agree that it made the point, but I still feel it hurts his cause. Right now the biggest PR problem for atheists is that they come off as impolite jerks far too often, largely thanks to the style (not the substance) of public figures such as Dawkins. To quote the great Lebowski, "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an ***hole."

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Gaygirlie]

Bible actually teaches that God and Jesus are two totally separate entities and that it is blasphemy to call Jesus a God.

Citation on this?

I don't own a Bible so I cannot provide you with any direct quote, sorry. I had one that I had gotten from elementary school years and years ago, but I lost it in a fire. Not that I miss it anyways.

Anyways, if Jesus and God were one and the same, then why would Jesus on many occasions call out to himself, including when he is in horrible pain due to just having been crucifixed? You know, the "Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?" - part ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sayings_of_Jesus_on_the_cross ) He even teaches about his "father in Heaven" and so on, ie. in a third person.

And we all know that the ten commandments tell you to only have the one and only God and no other Gods. So, if you're calling Jesus a God you are indeed having multiple ones and breaking the commandment.

Science is a method, not a world view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like any method, no matter how effective, elegant, versatile, beautiful, etc (and personally, I think the scientific method is all of these), science is limited in scope. Granted, its scope is vast. Can the scientific method be brought to bear on the question of whether the scientific method is the only possible method for gaining understanding about the universe? I feel a fit of recursion coming on.
Privately, I find myself thinking extremely scornful thoughts about the types of attitudes people adopt in this discussion. Usually those thoughts are followed by a feeling that such scorn is just as useless as all the other divisive chatter. It's hard to control that stuff in spontaneous speech or thought, but one nice thing about writing, even in posts like this, is that you get to use the backspace key. I would like to see it used more often in this comment thread.
(Sorry for the anonymous post, I will go sign up for an account right now.)

You've got a couple of small errors there.

[Medievalist]

Your statement describing "the problem with religion" does not distinguish between some religions (i.e., the science-denying, intolerant ones like Baptist Christianity and Orthodox Judaism) and all religions (which would include religions that specifically endorse the scientific method or have no such conflicts, for example Unitarian Universalism and some of the various later forms of Judaism popular in the USA).

You've also made an error of fact, although it's understandable - I assume you've got better things to do with your time than hang out in Bible Belt tent revivals, so you weren't aware that Bible Belters quite often do rail against Buddhists. This is why such a big deal was made about Al Gore being friendly towards Buddhists during the Gore/Bush presidential race - he lost votes among conservative Christians in the so-called "heartland". Many fundamentalists will tell you quite sincerely that both the Buddha and Mohammed were direct manifestations of Satan, and that all non-Christian religions should be suppressed violently by the state. Some of them feel that way about the Pope, too.

If you avoid contact with religion you are unlikely to be able to speak authoritatively about it. This is a basic philosophic principle that scientists should not forget; purposeful ignorance does not grant enlightenment. Unfortunately, in the western world, everyone gets their faces jammed into Christianity all the time - governments directly sponsor it, through the scheduling of school holidays and other cultural events - so everyone tends to think they have lots of contact with religion, when really they've probably only had contact with one or two tiny, stagnant tide-pools in the vast sea of religious thought.

Re:You've got a couple of small errors there.

[Dog-Cow]

Orthodox Judaism does not deny science. Unfortunately, many Orthodox Jews do. As an Orthodox Jew myself, I find this to be sad, but true.

Re:You've got a couple of small errors there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of them feel that way about the Pope, too.

They also think Europe is the nesting place of all evil and don't remember that we Europeans have gone through a painful learning process about the consequences of sectarian violence, ravaging most of Europe and causing the birth of the modern diplomacy as we know it. We even burned Rome as the nesting place of the "Anti-Christ" and our intolerance of the ideological forefathers of the people of the "heartland" caused them to immigrate in the first place. History has an ironical way of repeating itself through ignorance of the past.

Re:You've got a couple of small errors there.

[Thing 1]

If you avoid contact with religion you are unlikely to be able to speak authoritatively about it. This is a basic philosophic principle that scientists should not forget; purposeful ignorance does not grant enlightenment.

I don't need to go to jail to understand that I don't want to.

sheep.

[Anonymous Coward]

The beginning as referenced by "Science": There was a molecule spinning infinitely fast. Then it exploded into all of the planets, stars, and the universe. From there mud formed bacteria, and bacteria joined forces and created a lizard, who morphed into an ape. One ape didn't like his brother so he stood up straight and stayed that way. Doing so made him lose most hair and slimmed his face (in most cases). We call him man.

Science makes so much more sense than creationism- NOT! Look at the beginning of time, sheep. If there is no God, then explain anything- Science can't, they simply have theories which can't be proven so they are accepted as "scientific fact" because they can't be dis-proven. Use common sense, it's all around you. If you don't believe in the flood or in Adam and Eve, at *least* acknowledge there is a God who created everything. With that frame of mind you're going to come a lot closer to the truth than some theory Darwin made up and than DISCREDITED on his death bed.

Everything I needed to know I learned from Stargat

[Jumperalex]

As I have gotten older (39), my ego has waxed and waned, my experiences have broadened, I've had many a debate with family, friends and acquaintences, and I've thought about the topic and at this point in time my feelings on the subject are:

Politically: I'm nearly a militant athiest, keep your "beliefs" the hell out of my life. I live in an observable testable world of logic.
Intellectually: I ackowledge that I can't KNOW either way, but I also have yet to see any evidence even hinting at the existance of a god(s)
Personally: I do not care because I do not believe it/they are worthy of worship, give a shit about me, or play any part in the short or long term outcome of my life.

In true nerd fashion, Stargate really had a huge impact on crystalizing thoughts that were rattling around in my head back in my 20's. In the end, no matter how powerful, or even responsible for my existance, a being/beings may be, they are still nothing more than advanced life forms with egos. If they demand worship, they do not deserve it. If they exact revenge they deserve active resistance. If they have no concern for me they are no concern of mine. And if they wish to help, I will accept it so long as the price is one I'm willing to pay and does not involve loss of free will. But most of all, I "worship" no one.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[Jumperalex]

The difference is that priests hypothesis was actually testable because it made predicitions that could actually be verified or invalidated by experimentation.

No one is saying ignore priests, they are saying ignore people who deal in faith based fantasies that are not even remotely testable or falsafiable. That those people tent to be priests and that priests generally only talk about that type of stuff is the cruch of the arguement.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[renoX]

>> Many modern atheists have bad theology. They think: How does an all powerful and good God let bad things happen?
>
> No, generally not.

Well, I know one atheist who told me that she used to be a Christian but then *something bad happen* then she thought that the "good God" must not exist..

I find this a bit ridiculous (and I'm an atheist), but I wish we had stats to know what percentage of atheists are like this.

So the angels are dismissed?

[FatSean]

Religion is all-in. Who are you to dismiss certain parts of the holy books? IMO if you can dismiss some parts you can dismiss all the claims.

Re:So the angels are dismissed?

[marcello_dl]

All-in is impossible whenever there are two different version of the same fact. How many noah tales? gospels? QED.

IMO if you find out that one thing that was written had a different meaning than the literal one, you can dismiss whatever interpretations, the symbolic when you think it's literal, the literal when you think it's symbolic.
In one religious book a guy claimed he'd rebuild a temple. He didn't. According to the book, he meant a different thing that he did later, resurrection. Conditions are met.

All in is there: your adherence to what you, or the tradition you choose to follow says, must be complete, all-in, else you are hypocrite or in bad faith.

Everybody has the right to his own version, nobody has any right to force others to believe their own version. Yet I'd suggest standing on the shoulder of giants, and first see what your own catholic, protestant, muslim, etc. tradition says, you can always criticize it later and move on.

Re:So the angels are dismissed?

[Rich0]

When you debate somebody you find the fault in the argument the other side is making, not make up an argument for them that is dumb and refute that.

If the guy you're talking to doesn't profess to believe in Angels then arguing against their existence is just a straw man. Instead focus on the claims that actually are being made and refute those.

If your point is that not all religious people on the planet agree on who is right, well, that's a big revelation. Thanks! :)

Re:So the angels are dismissed?

[Anonymous Coward]

The format of the talk (yes talk, not debate) was that each speaker was to prepare a 25 minute talk ahead of time, and present that talk, then an opportunity for the audience to question both speakers was to be presented. The topic of those talks was to be an argument either supporting the idea that religion and science are compatible, or refuting it. At no point was there a requirement that the talks directly address the other party's statements as a response, which would in fact have been physically impossible without time travel - you'd have to berate Haught for not responding to any of Coyne's points in his talk too in order for your complaint to be valid.

Coyne's talk did exactly what it was supposed to - point out the basic incompatibility of science and religion, and the belief in angels point was directly linked to that. He did not at any time ascribe that belief to Haught, nor did he claim that Haught thought that belief was a good thing. His point was that a large number of Americans believe in something for which there is no proof at all, due to faith, which is the opposite of what science works towards. That's not a straw man, it's citing evidence to support a claim.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[ShakaUVM]

If people are judged on the merits of their life, and being a Christian is less likely to have them steal another man's wife, murder the guy when he finds out, and then run off with all his property, then yeah, Christianity improves your chances of getting into heaven and reduces the chances of going to hell.

Certainly the Bible talks about people acting virtuously or evilly prior to the handing down of the Law, and well before Jesus.

Belief in "gods" is a non-starter.

[FatSean]

All arguments derive from the holy book claims, which are simply arbitrary.

Missed Opportunity

[morgauxo]

I wish we could see all the questions/responses given afterward. The first question, about Darwin's belief that the 'savage races' would die out shortly was a missed opportunity for Coyne.

He responded with talk about Darwin's work against slavery and how his comments were informed by the culture of the time... blah blah blah... That all may be true but it sounds just like the kind of arguments commonly made by the religious side. For example, "Sure the Old Testiment (and Koran) seem anti-woman and pro-slavery. In the context of the cultures of that place and times they were actually quite liberal... "

More importantly I think, this was a great example of how science and religion are different. Science has no Bible. It's ok for science when a belief is dis-proven. Textbooks get updated constantly and Science is all the stronger for it's new knowledge.

Science does have 'heroes', scientists from the past that are remembered for their great contributions but they are not considered gods and they all had beliefs that were later modified or dis-proven altogether. Check out Einstein's flip-flop on the Cosmological Constant for example. This is in stark contrast to religion. Take Christianity... Jesus said that the prophets were inspired by God and that all they said was true. If something a prophet said was wrong (and it is something that can't be explained away as allegory) then either Jesus (who was actually God himself) was wrong or Jesus lied. Either way he is no longer the perfect sacrifice and everyone is screwed.

I think creationists often hold up Darwin and 'On the Origin of Species' as some sort of evolutionists' prophet and bible. I suppose that is understandable since they are putting things into a context they are familiar with. It's just not how Science actually works and for the creationist it's a great source of strawman arguments.

Haught's side

[Nermal]

I would recommend that anyone, before reaching conclusions about what occurred, read Haught's open letter to Coyne (which really should have been linked from TFA) and, of course, watch the video.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[ChiefNX]

I've asked this question to many Christians too. A common belief (which I cannot give a biblical reference for) is that those that haven't explicitly encountered the gospel may gain entrance to heaven by concluding that God exists independently, e.g. by 'observing the miracle of creation'. (N.B. God in this contexts means something closer to 'deity/creator' than the being specifically described in the Christian mythology.)

So that's a slightly more coherent explanation for you and in my experience it's closer to what more critical and thoughtful Christians believe.

I've not yet talked to a believer who could satisfactorily answer whether babies/young children enter heaven if they die before their brains develop sufficiently to deal with the concept of God though. I'd be grateful if anyone could provide an answer to that one?

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted the first question as AC and there is site that explains this (and other) questions:

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/neverheard.html

It would be nice if more "Christians" read this and adjusted their rhetoric accordingly.

Science isn't on trial here, Religion is!

[jd.schmidt]

After reading Haught letter, I totally want to see the video now. No wonder he was so upset, he thought it was going to be an evening of him cherry picking unresolved issues or errors in science to show, in his own words, "scientism is logically incoherent". Instead he found he had to defend Religion from the same kind of arguments!

And of course, when you set the kind of bar Science has to jump over all the time for anything else, the anything else, religion in this case, can't make the jump.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm really bad with the clarity. I meant all-caps, "LORD". I've seen this elsewhere and I was just curious.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, religion is a force to unify the poor against the elite.

The poor know their life sucks, so they seek salvation. The elite aren't showing results (can only tell them the rich are "job creators" so many times before people stop believing), so they look for a higher power.

When enough people believe that "god is with them", they stop being afraid to stand up against the oppressors, even if said oppressors have the bigger guns. Just ask the terrorists.

The "state", if it wishes to maintain power, has to manage religion in one way or another. Some governments restrict freedom of religion (ask China about Falun Gong). Others like the US co-opt it ("God bless America")

One way or another, it is in a state's best interest to reduce and limit the power of religion, as that is a power that could end up competing against the state

Any untested faith is definitely a belief system

[Anonymous Coward]

Upon reading your post, I would classify you as agnostic, not atheist. At the risk of oversimplifying, I'd say agnosticism is usually a more principled stance; it inherently acknowledges that any intelligent actor can be mistaken or misled. Atheism, in its most strident form, is entirely faith-based; and in its more scientifically and philosophically defensible forms atheism tends to be difficult to distinguish from agnosticism or pantheism.

There are several religions that accept agnostic congregants, but the only explicitly agnostic religion I know of is one of the smaller Hindu sects. There are several atheist religions - the most interesting one is probably Jainism, which holds that any being that we would perceive as God is merely an extremely advanced person. Jains believe that they can perfect themselves morally, psychologically and philosophically and become as gods themselves. Jainism is much older than Christianity and still a vibrant living religious tradition, incidentally.

Christian Creationist

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a Christian but I have no problem with the advances of science and evidence/knowledge regarding evolution. IMO anyone who uses the Bible as a book of facts is simply deluded or unable to conceive of a Creator that has by evidence provided by science provided such a mysterious and wonderful universe to explore and contemplate. Faith is believing in something that you cannot prove. One cannot prove there is no God and one cannot prove that God did no create our universe. Coyne seems to be one of those anti-christians who has a faith of his own and is as zealous in his faith as the most ardent fundamentalist Christian or Muslim.

Re: cases of superanatural

[maddogsparky]

"Now if there was ANY case of a successful supernatural explanation of anything in the natural world perhaps you might have an argument as to the existence of God. But there isn't."

Any religion with a true believer satisfies your premise. If you are looking for supernatural things that have been subjected to modern scientific scrutiny, read up on:
-the Miracle of Lanciano (I've seen this first hand-no apparent change last year since the earliest pictures)
-the Shroud of Turin

Note that the Shroud has not been proven to be a medieval forgery as often cited; read up on the follow-up study by the original dating team which found the original carbon dating to be invalid because it incorporated fibers from a medieval repair effort. Don't limit yourself to reading the summaries; the case for an invalid dating is rock solid as stated by the man who led the initial dating effort (the original dated samples contained a mixture of linen fibers from the original fabric and died wool from the repair which resulted in a date weighted significantly in the direction of the repair date due to exponential decay).

Also, there are many examples of "miraculous" occurrences in modern settings that are well documented, but ignored or unknown by nonbelievers. If you don't think any of them are credible, take it upon yourself to talk to a number of medical doctors (especially ER) and ask how many have seen things that they contradict everything they know about medicine; the likelihood of finding something that has yet to be explained by science is pretty high in any population of doctors or emergency workers.

Scientists & religion

[phorm]

The problem is when people want you to be an absolute believer in the far side of either camp.
There are plenty of aspects to religion that I accept. There are plenty of scientific facts and even theories that I accept.
Science constantly shows that what we as a species know about the universe around us - while it seems a lot - is the tiniest fraction of what there is to know. It shows that *amazing* things happen, and that life is general is an amazingly complex process.

For all the things that make *life* on earth, all the things that are required to allow us to live and exist as we do, I would say that I would accept some of the "religious" answers over "blind chance with infinitesimal odds against incredible possibilities" (small odds of life, incredible size of universe in which it can occur). I don't have to give it a name, but rather just accept that the reason for my existence is bigger than the understanding of anyone.

Unless you believe in time-loops or whatever, I don't believe that there could ever be an answer to the "where did it come from" question that doesn't involve something bigger than ourselves. OK, so the universe exploded from a point of highly compressed matter, which happened billions of years ago. Where did *THAT* come from... and before that, and before that...

Re:Scientists & religion

[inasity_rules]

As I understand it, the current theory is that before the big bang, there was no "time" as such, so the question, "where did it come from" to a physicist is not meaningful.

A more interesting question is why did it come at all?

The Long night isn't over

[Anonymous Coward]

The long night won't truly be over until Dylan Hunt reappears!

Scientific evils?

[sidragon.net]

Please list some.

Re:Scientific evils?

[Raenex]

Sure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

Not just the Nazis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

There's also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Science also brought nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and all around just better and better ways of killing each other.

Re:Scientific evils?

[LrdDimwit]

WTF, slashdot? I never asked you - not once - to change the moderation system to moderate with one click. Now I can't mod this person up, and instead have to post this silly statement that they are, in fact, not Offtopic at all.

hate & threats are not love

[Anonymous Coward]

I have read your bible, perhaps you should read it again, because your Magic Man in the Sky meets every requirement I can come up with for being truly evil.

Of course it's followers will believe they are doing good works; that's the real kicker.

Spew hatred and intolerance, then claim its really love.

Spew ignorance, and claim faith is more important than knowledge.

Destroy rather than embrace or educate the opposition.

All these things are found in your own good book. I suggest you try actually reading it with a critical mindset, instead of a preconceived notion about what you want it to say or have been told it says.

Drowning every last man-woman and child on the earth, is not good.

Stoning people to death, especially children, is not good.

I'm not going to cite verses, because I expect you to go back and actually read what these people were instructed to do by this so-called loving god.

And on top of that...

[DG]

All excellent points.

But on top of that, for any given set of scientific "beliefs", you have the ability to personally replicate the experiment and see the results for yourself. While science says "trust me", it also expects (and, in fact, RELIES UPON) that some people will NOT trust, and insist on replicating and verifying the results.

No dogmatic religion permits this. Nobody is expected or allowed to attempt a virgin birth, to change water into wine, raise the dead etc etc etc.

Science encourages questions. Religion discourages it. That, to me, is THE key difference.

DG

Subtleties.

[sidragon.net]

Does science defend those practices? Is there some scientific precept that states: it is just and good to experiment upon or lobotomize humans? Are there scientific rules that dictate that physics, biology, and chemistry must be used for warfare?

Re:Subtleties.

[Raenex]

Just as there's no rule that religion has to be used for evil, there's no rule that science has to be used for good or evil. You asked for a list and I gave it to you. They were born out of science, and some of them were accepted by the mainstream scientists of the day.

video edits

[Anonymous Coward]

is it just me, or is the video edited? at about 44 minutes in or so they cut part of Coyne's argument out.

Sad Panda :(

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first read about this I quickly jumped behind the Atheist believing he was wronged by Haught. Sadly however, after watching the video and hearing the accounts from both parties I am embarrassed to have sided so quickly with Coyne solely on the fact that his is a fellow Atheist. I have to say I am disappointed in the way Coyne approached the debate by attacking Haught instead of addressing the arguments he presented to the audience. While I don't agree with Haught, I shy away from siding with someone who took an opportunity for useful academic debate and turned it into a smear campaign. I have to give Haught credit for presenting his views calmly and intelligently(as a religious person can) and express my disappointment in Coyne who seemed to talk as quickly and loudly as possible. In his blog post Coyne said he asked his Atheist peers if anything like this had ever happened to them, to which they replied no. Now I know why he is the only one this has happened to. He was kind of a Douche :(

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[perpenso]

I'm just pointing out that some folks with a deep faith are also actual scientists.

All this really demonstrates is the human capacity to hold two conflicting ideas in their head without experiencing cognitive dissonance.

Not really, some churches explicitly say that there is no conflict between science and faith. That science explains the mechanics of god's universe, including the evolution of the universe and of life.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[perpenso]

No one is saying ignore priests, they are saying ignore people who deal in faith based fantasies that are not even remotely testable or falsafiable. That those people tent to be priests and that priests generally only talk about that type of stuff is the cruch of the arguement.

That does not seem an accurate characterizations. While these priests talks about things outside of science quite often, when they do talk about science they seem to be in agreement with the scientist. Their church teaches that the findings of science are not in conflict with faith. So when the topic is scientific in nature there seems to be no reason to automatically mistrust these priests. YMMV depending on the specific church that members of the clergy belong too.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

What facts ?!

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[Hatta]

Some churches would like us to believe that there is no conflict between science and faith. Doesn't mean that it's true. Churches say lots of things that aren't true.

Purpose and Cause

[Pfhorrest]

To ask "what is the purpose of x?" is essentially to ask "why is it good that x?"; much like asking "what is the cause of x?" is asking "why is it true that x?" Purpose is the prescriptive analogue of descriptive cause: "why is it..." vs "why should it be...".

Thus, asking what the purpose of something is presupposes, as you say, that there is a purpose; which is to say, presupposes that it is good, that it should be. Asking what the purpose of a volcano is may then be something like asking what the cause of Atlantis sinking was -- it presumes something that is probably not correct. There is no cause of Atlantis sinking because there was never an Atlantis to sink. There is no purpose to volcanoes erupting because it is not particularly good that volcanoes erupt.

Asking the purpose of the universe is thus asking what's so good about the universe existing, and that seems like a pretty straightforward question: something must exist for anything good to exist, and if anything exists then the universe exists, consisting of at least that thing if nothing else.

Science is not in the business of answering normative questions, so science cannot answer questions of purpose. That does not mean that there are no answers to normative questions; nor does that mean that normative questions are the domain of religion. Religion is an approach to answering both normative and factual questions. Science is a superior approach to answering factual questions, and there are are many superior (irreligious) approaches to answering normative questions too, which do not eliminatively reduce them to factual questions for science to answer. They just... need better PR and more refinement, I guess, but we're getting there.

Re:I'm a dude who knows God loves you, Jesus is LO

[Anonymous Coward]

That site also has a lot of other dubious information such as "Christianity is the one true religion" and if you knowingly reject Christ, you can't get into heaven.

Con man

[jawahar]

"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain

Why is video edited ?

[idiotein30]

The video is obviously edited (around 46 min), why is that ? Did they run out of tape/memory in the middle ?

whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

For over 2000 years chrisitians have been threatening unbelievers with everlasting burning fire unless they toe the line. Now look, an unbeliever makes some unharmful comments and he is accused of "flaming."

The hypocrisy if religion never ends

Misuse.

[sidragon.net]

Your examples are misapplications. Science, and its products, are tools which may be misused. And I have not fallen into the “no true Scotsman” fallacy; science is, for instance, the reason we no longer perform lobotomies or practice eugenics. In contrast, dogmas originating from our major religions do—explicitly—command adherents to perform cruel acts.

Re:Misuse.

[Raenex]

science is, for instance, the reason we no longer perform lobotomies or practice eugenics.

Not really. It's our ethics that changed. Eugenics, in particular, got a bad name after Nazi Germany. Also, the desire to know more, what's driving science, is what caused the cruel human experiments, and why we still have cruel animal experiments to this very day. It's true in the case of lobotomies that they were replaced with the advancement of chemical drugs.

In contrast, dogmas originating from our major religions doâ"explicitlyâ"command adherents to perform cruel acts.

There's nothing inherent in religion that says it has to be used for evil -- there are different religions, some without a word of evil in them. Religions also change over time, despite the dogma, in response to our sense of ethics.

In conclusion, the problem of evil isn't inherent in religion or science. It's just that the people involved can use it for either end. That's true of pretty much anything, including stuff like free speech and democracy.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[Coren22]

Along with the above replies, I would like to leave this link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

The Catholic Church is not against evolution. As others have said in above threads, religion seeks to answer the why, not the how or what.

Haught got it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Coyne spent the entire time arguing against Christian religion, against God and framed his entire rant around why he doesn't buy into religion. His most compelling arguments consisted of statements like, "Well if you believe in religion, you are wrong." He proceeds to flame religion for trying to use the same arguments. He also tries to argue the point that John makes about the story of Adam and Eve, and how their sin was the resistance of God's plan of forward movement. Almost every argument following consists of him saying, "I'm not sure what that really means." This quote sums up his major failing in this debate and why Coyne actually lost. He simply does not understand what he is supposed to be debating. He spends all of 3 minutes addressing the topic the COMPATIBILITY of science and religion. And even those arguments are based on the idea that religion is wrong thus it is incompatible with science. Of course he must talk fast to distract and confuse people so they don't realize that he has completely derailed the conversation by having them join his happy atheistic bandwagon. Even if you believe in all of his views on religion and the discrepancies between Christian faith and science, you have to put that aside as that is not what is being debated here. Coyne understood that he could win a debate about whether or not religion could ever be true when framed in the lens of science. No one can argue against that. But the point being made by Haught is that the two can be reconciled and one can safely (and is being used safely by great scientific minds) as an overlay to the other. Furthermore, Coyne started wrapping up his argument with an example of discovering a new vaccine. He actually makes an argument that could and should be used by those arguing that the two fields can be compatible. He says something to the effect of, when science discovers a new vaccine, what should happen with it is determined by ethics and other outside factors. Science will never be able to provide the answer to this kind of question. It is a person's religion (atheism included) that will always answer that question, and thus makes the two inseparable. Science provides the facts and answers to the questions of "how", and religion provides the answers to the questions of "why."

Coyne appeared to have won because he fed the retarded audience instead of arguing the topic. He would make a good politician.

TL;DR Coyne totally missed the memo about the debate topic.

Re:Haught got it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, read this. It does a better job than I did explaining just how pathetic Coyne is.
Haught letter to Coyne

Kinda funny how much atheism resembles every other religion when the voice of an obsessive militant is viewed as the collective representative.

Religion != any one religion

[Medievalist]

Oh, absolutely... I didn't mean to imply that you should go join a religion before deciding it's not for you. I can tell I don't want to drink flaming gasoline without even tasting it!

However, you should not expect to be able to pass judgment on the subtle flavors of wine if you aren't ever going to taste anything but Mad Dog 20/20, eh?

As I said before, It's not surprising that most non-religious people think they know all about religion. It's because they have to spend so much time and effort avoiding whatever religion their rulers, parents and neighbors keep trying to force down their throats. In truth, they usually do know a lot about those particular religions - often more than their adherents!

But there's a very big difference between understanding religion and understanding any particular religion's beliefs and behaviors. So non-religious persons who wish to avoid making major misstatements should either stick to criticizing the specific religion(s) they actually know about, or do some serious long-term study of theology and religious philosophy.

You can choose either path and you'll be able to exercise your critical faculties without compromising your integrity. Those who choose to damn all based on the actions of a few, though, they tend to come across as either intolerant fools or dangerous bigots. It's an easy trap to fall into.

Re:Religion != any one religion

[Thing 1]

I would tend to agree with your sentiment, that most people who reject religion understand it far better than those who accept it. And, that does not come from avoidance; it's from the childhood attempts at acceptance, which fell flat when logic flew out the door. Answering your last two paragraphs, I don't need to study illogic to know that I should reject it. Sure, there may be useful lessons to be gleaned from mythology; but it is much harder separating the wheat from the chaff (from the exploding chaff) in mythology, than it is in science.

Re:Religion != any one religion

[Medievalist]

No, no, that's not at all what I said. You're not hearing what I'm saying yet.

In your reply, you've equated religion with illogic and mythology. These are not features of religion. They are features of the particular religion you know about.

I catch your meaning.

[Medievalist]

Hmmm... I have very much enjoyed some long theological conversations with Reconstructionist and Conservative rabbis, but I rarely try to do so with Orthodox Jews because of irreconcilable differences in our respective attitudes toward things like racial and gender issues.

So I apologize if I've mischaracterized Orthodoxy as a whole, in regards to acceptance of science. I was under the impression that Orthodox Jews believed literally in Maimonides' 13 principles.

Well know we know from the video that...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Coyne is pugnacious, at least in this one video, as evidenced by him apologizing for appearing as such.
2) Haught is boring to listen to, at least in this one video, as evidenced by me falling asleep while he was talking.
3) There was no debate published. We got to listen to both opening rants, and then two questions from the audience.

Re:Evolution of universe/life compatible w/ religi

[Jumperalex]

I should have been more clear ... my point isn't about the priests, but about faith based, non-scientific explanations for the world around us. Priests often use them, and people who use them are often priests. Some priests likely do still attempt to seek true knowledge and search for rational explanations for the world around us. But, if I happen across a random religious figure on the street, odds are against them having an open and honest discussion about the origin and workings of the universe that doesn't turn a blind eye to facts. As you say YMMV but by their very nature as priests they have already "admitted" that at some point their explanation for the universe is "god did it"

Re: cases of superanatural

[the eric conspiracy]

Unexplained events (like the ER incidents you are citing) are not events that have been explained by supernatural phenomena.

All they are is events that don't have an explanation.

Re: cases of superanatural

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, there are many examples of "miraculous" occurrences in modern settings that are well documented, but ignored or unknown by nonbelievers. If you don't think any of them are credible, take it upon yourself to talk to a number of medical doctors (especially ER) and ask how many have seen things that they contradict everything they know about medicine; the likelihood of finding something that has yet to be explained by science is pretty high in any population of doctors or emergency workers.

"Unknown cause" does not equal "supernatural." The fact is, nobody has ever been able to produce any solid evidence of any event EVER violating the known laws of physics, in the entire history of humankind.

That pushed just about any supposed miracle into "extraordinary claims" territory.

Gnu Atheists, Same Nuttiness...

[JaredJammer]

I've read enough of Coyne's work to know that he's a crazy old geezer who clearly has irreligious motivations in keeping biology stuck in a time of ignorance, when Darwin's theory actually seemed plausible, but this is worse than I ever imagined.

You've lost, Jerry. Darwin's theory is long dead. You'll have to find something new to use as a crutch for your God-denialism.

Kudos to Dr. Haught for showing some personal and professional dignity in being outraged by Coyne's bizarre and dangerous behavior.

Between Richard Dawkins' now-legendary ducking of the masterful William Lane Craig, and the public exposition of Coyne's irrational mindset, it's been a very bad few weeks for the Gnu Atheists and their flock of sheeple.

Re:Gnu Atheists, Same Nuttiness...

[Anonymous Coward]

> You've lost, Jerry. Darwin's theory is long dead. Lol! True, it's been replaced by the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis... which is still widely in use in biology and continuously being confirmed by observations. Nice try, though. Dawkins famously said "although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," the truth is that evolutionary theory doesn't entail atheism and is in fact totally separate from any religious dogma.

Booooo!

[DG]

Boooo to the religious fundie that modded this comment down.

Too close to home, huh?

DG