Are they going to start taking away diesel fuel and fertilizer? The Works toilet boil cleaner and tin foil? Dry ice? I can think of a lot more "dangerous" substances being sold in stores now more so than 100 mg bottles of ammonium chloride and copper sulfate. I always figured that the chemistry sets would be pulled from the shelves one day, not because of anti-terrorism measures, but because most of today's kids are idiots. A quick view of Youtube shows that there are some kids out there that could probably kill themselves with a bottle of distilled water, more less "real" chemicals. Plus, in out ever-growing litigious society, the companies making the kits would probably be sued right into the ground. Back when I was growing up, when I f-ed up with my chemistry set, it was my fault; now, when a kid, not following directions, chemically burns himself, he gets millions in a lawsuit.
You hear all the time about drug runners being busted while bringing in their contraband from Mexico. If this goes through, we'll start seeing a bunch of pasty white guys busted for smuggling in Maxtors.
In my experience most people (religious or otherwise) get irrational when their core beliefs are challenged. Not always hostile, but definitely irrational. They will spout logical fallacies left and right, seeming to have suddenly lost their ability to detect them, when only moments before they were pointing them out (as fallacies) in rival belief systems.
This seems to be a psychological defense mechanism that serves to protect one from the very disturbing feelings of uncertainty that arise in such discussions.
I'm surprised that many seem to think this applies to just religion. As you stated ("religious or otherwise") can very easily include atheists and evolutionist who act the exact same way. That's why a couple of classmates in my college biology class were kicked out (of the class) for challenging the professor on the subject of evolution. Almost instantly, she became hostile and began to personally attack the first one and then the other student when she chimed in about the professor's attitude. Saying that only religious people irrationally defend their beliefs is like "the pot calling the kettle black" as the saying goes.
The people I've known who don't get irrational when their core beliefs are challenged were usually philosophers (by formal study). Also, they seemed to like it when they suddenly realized that the issues were deeper and less clear than previously thought. In other words, they didn't find uncertainty disturbing, hence they didn't need defense mechanisms, and hence they could remain rational when being challenged, and hence they could actually authentically be considered open minded.
Open-mindedness? Being that easily swayed in one's beliefs doesn't sound like open-mindedness, but rather weak-mindedness. It doesn't sound like they held the belief at all to begin with.
My challenge to you: Humans are not perfect; in fact they often mess things up pretty good. Every single word in the Bible was written by a human. God himself didn't manifest before you and hand you a copy; a human did. Your belief that God used his divine power to preserve the accuracy of the Bible was also taught to you by a human (and, ultimately, cooked up by a human).
I agree with you right up until now, except for the parenthetical subjective statement at the end. Humans are messed up people, but the Bible teaches that God created a plan that humans would be able to obtain forgiveness for those mistakes.
You simply cannot escape the element of human fallibility present in the Bible, and in all arguments made to it's final authority.
You didn't provide any proof to show that human fallibility caused errors in the Bible, but only that humans had a hand in writing it and that mistakes could have been made in the process. Hardly a concrete argument against Biblical authority.
So your faith isn't actually in God. It is in humans. That is to say, you have placed your faith in the specific humans who wrote the Bible, and the specific humans who gave you teachings about it.
I disagree. 2nd Timothy 3:16 states: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." My faith is that the scribes who put pen to paper were divinely inspired by God as to what to write. As for the "specific humans" who taught me, they were able to point me to scriptures that back up their teachings.
In that light, what rational reason can you give me for believing that the (very strange) stories in the Bible (the ones about heaven, hell, superhuman powers, talking animals, and so on) are concretely and historically accurate?
I can't give you a reason for believing the Bible, but I can give you reasons why the Bible is accurate. Looking at the numbers, the Bible contains 66 books, written by about 40 different writers,
Looking through all the posts, one thing is obvious. The common consensus is that anybody that doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot. One problem that I have with that assumption is that after 4 years in a liberal state college, I never had a single professor who was a flat out die-hard evolutionist. The truth is, most biologist admit that there is no evidence in intra-species evolution. Evolution is not a fact; it shouldn't be even considered a theory, because theories can be tested, which is not true of evolution. I keep hearing about unfalsifiable truth proving evolution, but the fact is that despite a half-hour of googling relevant terms, I didn't find any unfalsifiable evolutionary evidence. All of the info I found relies heavily on the use of assumptions. Most scientist revere Darwin as a "saint" of evolution theory, but if you take the time to read his writings, you'll find that he never provides proof of his ideas. In fact, his only evidence of evolution was based on negative proof. So when you're trying to debate evolution v/s creation, evolution already has the the odds stacked in its favor. Suppose you make the playing field level and give creationism the same benefit of being "proved" by means of negative proof. Now you have the arguments "Evolution is true because there is no evidence that evolution is false" and "creationism is true because there is no evidence that creation is false." Now debate those two arguments; you really can't. There's no evidence of a "missing link" to date, which means that there is a possibility that one doesn't exist, but that's not to say that one won't be found tomorrow. Likewise, since we haven't seen God, there is the possibility that he doesn't exists, but that's not to say that he won't reveal himself tomorrow. What both arguments are hinged on is faith. One side accusing the other of being ignorant and stupid is nothing more than the evidence of a narrow-minded individual, which is not science by any stretch of the imagination.
Adam and Eve got a bum deal. They were created and placed in paradise where they could have anything they want. Except two trees. Well, it's real hard to argue Biblical things when you don't even know what it states. There was only one forbidden tree, not two. You, like many others on here, try to quote the Bible and say that this contradicts that or that the Bible says "..." but I can't find anywhere in my Bible where it states what you say it does. This leads me to wonder, have you actually read the Bible? Have you ever even seen a Bible? You try to put yourself out there as a science-minded person, but you completely disregard the scientific method. You didn't do research, you don't understand what you are trying to discuss and you try to pass your findings off as scientific fact. What the people behind the creationist museum have done is that they have studied evolutionary teachings and have come up with scientific answers as to why evolution doesn't fully answer how the universe came into existence. And instead of trying to use science to disprove their findings, you resort to cowardly insulting them and their beliefs. If they used faulty scientific reasoning, then attack their findings with evidence supporting your view. Attacking the Bible does nothing to disprove the scientific evidence that they also use in many of the displays at the museum.
I doubt that any here have visited the museum, and until doing so, you can't refute it without proving you are more narrow-minded than the Christians that you insult.
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Are they going to start taking away diesel fuel and fertilizer? The Works toilet boil cleaner and tin foil? Dry ice? I can think of a lot more "dangerous" substances being sold in stores now more so than 100 mg bottles of ammonium chloride and copper sulfate. I always figured that the chemistry sets would be pulled from the shelves one day, not because of anti-terrorism measures, but because most of today's kids are idiots. A quick view of Youtube shows that there are some kids out there that could probably kill themselves with a bottle of distilled water, more less "real" chemicals. Plus, in out ever-growing litigious society, the companies making the kits would probably be sued right into the ground. Back when I was growing up, when I f-ed up with my chemistry set, it was my fault; now, when a kid, not following directions, chemically burns himself, he gets millions in a lawsuit.
You hear all the time about drug runners being busted while bringing in their contraband from Mexico. If this goes through, we'll start seeing a bunch of pasty white guys busted for smuggling in Maxtors.
I'm surprised that many seem to think this applies to just religion. As you stated ("religious or otherwise") can very easily include atheists and evolutionist who act the exact same way. That's why a couple of classmates in my college biology class were kicked out (of the class) for challenging the professor on the subject of evolution. Almost instantly, she became hostile and began to personally attack the first one and then the other student when she chimed in about the professor's attitude. Saying that only religious people irrationally defend their beliefs is like "the pot calling the kettle black" as the saying goes.
Open-mindedness? Being that easily swayed in one's beliefs doesn't sound like open-mindedness, but rather weak-mindedness. It doesn't sound like they held the belief at all to begin with.
I agree with you right up until now, except for the parenthetical subjective statement at the end. Humans are messed up people, but the Bible teaches that God created a plan that humans would be able to obtain forgiveness for those mistakes.
You didn't provide any proof to show that human fallibility caused errors in the Bible, but only that humans had a hand in writing it and that mistakes could have been made in the process. Hardly a concrete argument against Biblical authority.
I disagree. 2nd Timothy 3:16 states: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." My faith is that the scribes who put pen to paper were divinely inspired by God as to what to write. As for the "specific humans" who taught me, they were able to point me to scriptures that back up their teachings.
I can't give you a reason for believing the Bible, but I can give you reasons why the Bible is accurate. Looking at the numbers, the Bible contains 66 books, written by about 40 different writers,
Looking through all the posts, one thing is obvious. The common consensus is that anybody that doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot. One problem that I have with that assumption is that after 4 years in a liberal state college, I never had a single professor who was a flat out die-hard evolutionist. The truth is, most biologist admit that there is no evidence in intra-species evolution. Evolution is not a fact; it shouldn't be even considered a theory, because theories can be tested, which is not true of evolution. I keep hearing about unfalsifiable truth proving evolution, but the fact is that despite a half-hour of googling relevant terms, I didn't find any unfalsifiable evolutionary evidence. All of the info I found relies heavily on the use of assumptions. Most scientist revere Darwin as a "saint" of evolution theory, but if you take the time to read his writings, you'll find that he never provides proof of his ideas. In fact, his only evidence of evolution was based on negative proof. So when you're trying to debate evolution v/s creation, evolution already has the the odds stacked in its favor. Suppose you make the playing field level and give creationism the same benefit of being "proved" by means of negative proof. Now you have the arguments "Evolution is true because there is no evidence that evolution is false" and "creationism is true because there is no evidence that creation is false." Now debate those two arguments; you really can't. There's no evidence of a "missing link" to date, which means that there is a possibility that one doesn't exist, but that's not to say that one won't be found tomorrow. Likewise, since we haven't seen God, there is the possibility that he doesn't exists, but that's not to say that he won't reveal himself tomorrow. What both arguments are hinged on is faith. One side accusing the other of being ignorant and stupid is nothing more than the evidence of a narrow-minded individual, which is not science by any stretch of the imagination.
I doubt that any here have visited the museum, and until doing so, you can't refute it without proving you are more narrow-minded than the Christians that you insult.
Pretty good *CAPTCHA*: disagree
Her lawyer should have used the Chewbacca defense, that way, the case wouldn't have drug on for so long.
Make him give up every cent he got through spam to charities and as a condition of his probation/parole, don't allow him to own or use a PC.