Why in the world is the question being asked? Before bothering to answer this question, I would like to know what anyone would stand to gain from this. Why is this even something to consider (even assuming it would be feasible at this stage)?
Maybe the next question can be: "What would we lose from getting rid of passports?"
As long as you can do the job you get paid to do, there isn't a whole lot else that concerns me. Maybe I'd have some limits. Clearly anything untoward done on company time is grounds for dismissal. Probably murdering someone outside office hours would make me think again about having you on company premises. But realistically, I not going to waste my time or money googling you on the internet, and if I found any HR person had done the same, they would quickly find their job vacant.
Ah, but what if the HR person only did this after work in their free time?
"the dog ate the chicken bone, and afterward, he barked at the cars driving down the street nearby, he was an old dog, but still could run pretty fast"
"The dog at the chicken bone, and afterward, he barked at the cars driving down the street nearby. He was an old dog, but still could run pretty fast."
When you use the comma in place of a period, the comma's meaning is diluted. This may not cause any problem for simple sentences, but as they become more complicated, it starts to break down.
The period and the capital letter are useful. Put together, they help to distinguish one sentence from another. That way, if an abbr. appears in a sentence, the lack of a capital letter in "appears" can help me determine that the sentence is continuing. Sure, I can and do use context to come to the same conclusion, but removing extra rules that provide supportive cues only makes it that much more likely that I will have to stop the flow of what I am reading. I imagine you might suggest that abbreviations don't even need to have a period after them. Again, I say that building in a little bit of redundancy into what you mean can only help to make your sentence clear and concise, and it will reduce the chances that someone will have to re-read a sentence, or think about your words and not what you are saying.
What if I write, "i really like the who"? Am I talking about the World Health Organization or the band? Is it really all fine and good if I then have to read on before I can determine what was meant in that sentence? In Japanese, there is no plural form for nouns, because they aren't necessary. In French, there is no word "it". So, why do you feel the need to use them? I would suggest that it is because they are conventions in the English language that lead to increased clarity, though they aren't necessary.
Because you have more or less dropped the use of capital letters and periods, you have had to use other methods to convey the lost meaning. Commas can only do so much, so instead you make just about every sentence a paragraph. Now you've lost the value of the paragraph, which is extremely useful to group thoughts together that span multiple sentences. What if you are writing a book? How long is someone going to put up with "one line, one sentence"? Perhaps one could make up something else, like putting a box around, or a line after, a group of sentences that you want to associate together.
To me, the whole idea is like saying "doors are totally unnecessary... we can just use the window!"
(One little side note: Did you ever think about how some people who read these posts aren't native English speakers? I wouldn't want to simplify what I am saying in order for non-native speakers to easily understand it, but I think I would want to make my words as clear and unambiguous as possible.)
Not to mention the fact that the poster, and anyone who just accepts these 8 assertions, is doing what these 8 points are supposedly warning against...
Well, in the universe as we know it, joy has an opposite, and so you can move along the spectrum of super blissful to despair. So yeah, going on the idea that God created everything and controls everything, he could have made something the is good like joy, but call it whatever you want, it wouldn't be the same thing as "joy" as we know it. It's just the good without the bad. There wouldn't necessarily have to be "more joyful" or "less joyful". Just... perfectly happy, and nothing else. It doesn't have to be logical in the universe as we know it, in fact, it can't be.
Talking about this one thing is kind of nitpicking... really what I ask myself is, why is anyone not happy 100% of the time, and why do people spend their lives dreading death and suffering?
I also don't understand how all the bad in the world can be attributed to the fact that we have free will. Besides natural disasters and other things out of our control, it also doesn't explain why, among the things we are free to do, we even have the option of doing gruesome, horrific, and cruel things. Why not make us free to do what we want, but none of the choices are bad? I mean, right now, people don't morph into animals or teleport or make beer come out of their fingers... because it isn't possible. Why not have murder, theft, lying, etc. also be impossible?
It's not something I actually expect an answer for. It just baffles me, that's all.
Listen, thanks for your comments and all... but I think it still doesn't address the main crux of what irks me about the creation story.
I still say that if Adam and Eve had not yet learned good from evil, I don't know how they could be expected to make a judgment on whose words to trust regarding the tree... they needed to eat from the tree in order to understand that Satan was evil, God was good, and taking from the tree was wrong (as I see it).
I still don't see why the tree was made accessible to Adam and Eve, if it was to never be messed with. If it were to test them, then I don't understand why they needed to be tested. And if they fail the test... God created them, so it seems like it should be his bad.
Your point about Satan I understand; God only created the being that *became* Satan, however I still don't understand why God would even allow that to happen, being all-knowing and all-powerful.
I'm not trying to just be argumentative, and I'm certainly not trying to prove anything false... I'm only saying that I don't feel convinced it is more likely to be true above other religions or philosophies about existence.
I understand what you mean, I think, about the distinction. And certainly every video game would not necessarily be art per se. I just think that, in the case of games that are intended as or could be considered works of art on some level, the game-aspect of the work is a component of the art, though it might not be "art" on its own. Like, if you take a Final Fantasy game as art, the music, the plot, the visuals, etc. are all aspects of the art, but the gameplay... if you remove that, you have a different experience with the rest of the art. I probably would not have the same emotional reactions to the cinematic visuals and music without the gameplay.
So what is the "game" part and what is the "art" part? Is the game part so-called because the person can interact with it? What about art that can be interacted with (modern art in particular has many examples of this)? I just don't see it as two separate things. I see it as two components of the whole art.
Even if "for things to work", there had to be opposites to everything, that doesn't mean bad things had to exist. I mean, if there were a world where there was no good OR evil, there's no lack of balance there. We could just be happy or content or whatever, and we wouldn't miss good or evil, because there would be no such thing. Just like we don't mind that there is no "zobort" (along with its anti-zobort counterpart, of course). "Good" and "evil" could also be meaningless terms.
But beyond that, I don't see why there would *have* to be the opposite of each thing. God "created" light. He didn't discover it or put it into our world. He made up what it is. He could have made something that didn't have a dark counterpart and called that light. That's my opinion... obviously it's about as far from provable as you can get.
But beyond what you're saying, there are a few other points about this story that don't make sense.
One, is that God gave Adam and Eve free will, and then ordered them to obey his commands. What was the free will for? You have to wonder, with the tree just sitting there, and these two people living forever... wasn't it almost inevitable that at some point this would happen? Maybe not in the first million years, but we're talking eternity here. I mean... did God just want to make us feel responsible for all the bad things that happen to people, even though we couldn't have done it without his tree? Shift the blame a bit?
Most importantly, though, God punished Adam and Eve for doing something wrong... although until actually carrying out the act, the two had no concept of good or evil. How were they to know that disobeying God was wrong?
It seems that in any other case, when we as people determine the guilt of someone for a crime, we take into account if they were of sound mind, and were able to distingish from right and wrong. How can you expect someone who is incapable of knowing good from evil to make all the right decisions?
It's kind of like... severely punishing your cat for staring at your while you are getting undressed. How is the cat supposed to know any better? Furthermore, if it was so important for the cat not to see you, why didn't you just keep the door closed?
Imagine you bear a child of your own flesh and blood. You delight in them smiling at you (when you can be reasonably certain they are acting in a cognisant manner).. you get a buzz because they are demonstrating freely that you have made them happy.
Now imagine if at birth you'd had that child operated on so that their face displayed a permanent smile. Would that mean you'd take the same delight?
No, but that is because I'm stuck in the rules of this universe, and I'm not a God. So I'd have to do something like have the child operated on to create a false smile. Now, if I could make my child always be happy, always make positive decisions, and have eternal joy and peace... um yeah, I'd do that. But I can't do that because I don't have total control of every aspect of the entire universe.
And that is what I wonder about God, because he is supposed to be in control of it all.
Okay, so you are saying that God actually is fair, and Adam and Eve screwed over all of humanity. So you are saying that it was fair of God to create this Tree of Knowledge, which seems to serve no purpose other than being something that Adam and Eve are told to stay away from? Why did God create this tree, and if he really just *had* to make it, then if he really didn't want Adam and Eve to touch it, why didn't he make it inaccessible?
Then, for some reason, God has created a world in which there is a Satan (in the form of a serpent) who can go around and trick people into doing things? And furthermore, it was fair of God to allow this evil serpent to trick Eve, who at this time has no concept of good or evil, and then hold Eve responsible for doing something wrong?
The whole creation and beginning of mankind thing is probably the very weakest part of the Bible, in my opinion.
I know what you mean. I ask why he would allow there to be anything bad in the world. Free will doesn't cover it.
People who say that aren't really thinking about that God supposedly created *everything*-- not just the Earth and its creatures, but dark and light, up and down, good and evil, happiness, laughter, spleens, hydrogen, etc. Why not just create the universe so that there is no bad, no evil, nothing to ever be upsetting?
If one responds to this suggestion by saying that this would make the world seem dull or pointless... well... God didn't have to create dullness or boredom or pointlessness either. If one responds by saying that God only brings the righteous to Heaven and the Earth is our proving ground... why did God have to make wickedness and bad people? Why not make everything wonderful for everyone all the time forever? Everyone would be worthy of heaven... or heck, put everyone on there to begin with!
I can't think of any reason that God would make the universe where bad things could happen to anyone, unless (A) he made mistakes and didn't intend for the bad things, (B) he actually wants to screw with us/watch some of us fail, or (C) he's not the only one in control.
In any of these cases, God wouldn't be what the Bible suggests, and also he wouldn't really be reliable to come through on this whole heaven thing.
It's not that I don't want to believe in God... I'd love to know that there is a place I go after I die that is even better than living. But it makes no sense that God created a universe like this. It makes no sense that people like murderers and adulterers and rapists make God sad and angry... if he didn't think up these concepts and incorporate them into his universe, they wouldn't even be there.
There is something you can do to play them fullscreen in Quicktime. You can write a one or two line AppleScript and put that in your dock or Scripts menubar icon and click it when you want full screen. I am at work so I can't look at the exact syntax but I think it was something like:
Tell Application "Quicktime" to present movie 1 scale screen
Actually there already has been a blogging tool in.Mac for years. Unless they discontinued it at some point along the way, there is iBlog, a standalone blogging app which works with.Mac the way you'd think it would.
I haven't touched in since I first downloaded it though, because it's not really for me feature-wise.
Dude. Take a step back. I'm not trying to prove science "right", partly because it is unnecessary here and partly because it may be impossible. I'm just reiterating what *is* or *isn't* within the realm of what is considered science by definition. Science is a thing we defined. The topic was about ID entering the science classroom. You don't have to prove science is "right" or that it will hold for all time.
Don't you see that it doesn't matter if there was some supernatural god or not? I mean, your closing paragraph is basically trying to get at the possbility for it. If you understood my point, you would realize that may well be true, but it doesn't matter in a *science* classroom.
I think what appeared to seem like something I was saying was true, I only meant was concrete in the sense that it is science as far as *we have defined it*. So, while the law of gravity may or may not be 100% accurate, I can say that the law of gravity is testable and natural, and thus does fit into our definition of science.
I tried to express the latter part more concretely because it is a human construction, and so if "science" were found to be something different, or something more, then what actually happened is that there is something else entirely that should be given a new name, because we already called science this specific thing (flawed or no).
That is why I feel I can say "that is or is not part of science", although I can't say "that is true/false because of science".
Sorry that I am beating this one point to the ground-- yes we do agree on "truth", and in fact I would say that any remotely credible scientist absolutely would agree with you as well about pragmatic truth in science, even for fundamental things such as gravity. I just want to distinguish that those scientists stating something "is/isn't science" aren't disagreeing with that concept either. Saying our word "science" might include the supernatural or philosophical is like saying the word "red" might be talking about other colors that no person or creature can see or detect. There may be such a color, but it isn't "red".
I keep beating at this minute distinction only because I see this bit of grey area as the place where the "ID as science" fallacy gets its foot in the door.
(Unforunately, not all science teachers are good scientists, but that's another problem entirely...)
Those scientific laws you depend on---on what are they based? A finite number of observations. Those observations are, in principle, isolated events.
Right, and this is why science is always evolving. The closest science comes to "this is true" is "this works thus far". Your proposal about assigning likelihood to different theories and principles is... exactly what is done in the scientific community now.
Newton's theories were refined, altered, and expanded upon by scientists like Einstein. But even if you teach kids about Newton's work as part of a science class, you can teach how the scientific method was used, and how his work formed the basis for new conclusions that were more accurate than what he came up with.
The thing you don't get is, if you think science might potentially be fundamentally wrong in how it is defined-- that the universe really doesn't allow for things to be consistent and repeatable-- whatever you would (theoretically) think is right still doesn't belong in a science classroom, because it isn't science, it is something else.
Your example of the actual creation story IS something that supposedly happened in the natural world, and as such *can* be tested to a certain extent. And it doesn't jive with what scientists believe about the history of earth. However, we aren't talking about people trying to get the creation story in schools, we're talking about the "Intelligent Design" philosophy. And that philosophy does not hypothesize anything that is testable or natural, so it just doesn't belong in a science classroom.
What I'm saying is, science doesn't have to be *right*. It works right now, and has allowed us to do a lot of great things, using the scientific method. Maybe it is how the universe works and maybe it isn't. But, in a basic science class, you want to teach kids how "science" works, not some other thing that you think might be better. Otherwise, they come out not knowing what science *is*.
If there is some other way of looking at the universe that is more useful than science, then tell people about it. In that case, it should probably replace science in schools. Until that time, however, teaching non-scientific philosophies in a science class (unless you use them to contrast science with non-science), only because we have no way of absolutely knowing what will happen for all time, isn't going to help all the scientific advances we've made over the past century, it can only hinder it.
Yes, science may not be "true". Perhaps the laws of physics *can* change. Perhaps everything that has happened up to this moment that we perceive to have actually happened in our minds was just placed in there 3 seconds ago, and we actually just came into existence at that time. Maybe I'm the only being who actually exists, or maybe I don't exist. And so on. Any of that could be true, but introducing all of that into science isn't going to help treat cancer or help us explore other planets in the solar system, it is going to confuse people.
I know it's over a week later, but I didn't get back on Slashdot till now. Nonetheless, what you have written is incredibly wrong, and I wanted to point this fact out.
If you drop a stone and it falls to the ground five times, will it fall to the ground the sixth time?
Logically speaking, the answer is "no". That would be because you cannot reason logically from the specific (five instances) to the general (the sixth instance). This is the fallacy ofinduction. You can only reason logically from the general to the specific (deduction).
If there is no logical reason reason that the stone will fall the sixth time, then what reason is there?
After you wrote this comment implying that there was an ignorance of philosophy that led me to say what I said, I hate to reply by saying that you, in fact, just don't understand science. But, well... you don't.
The problem with what you are saying is that your example where "logic" seems to fail does not use the scientific method. A scientist would not do an experiment by dropping a stone 5 times and then drawing a conclusion about the sixth. Furthermore, a scientist wouldn't stop there and deem the situation a job for philosophy! So, you have yourself created a fallacious argument by attacking this strawman.
A scientist would first look at other important laws and theories in this area, including the law of gravity, as well as mass and friction, to determine what would happen. From these general principles, he would in fact be predicting a specific situation based on more general principles. If the stone did not behave as predicted from this information, and this could be repeated and tested, affected theories would potentially be revised.
Or, assuming that there was no body of knowledge concerning gravity etc. from which to draw, a scientist in this situation might form a hypothesis that the stone would fall the sixth time, and possibly anytime in similar conditions. He would then test his hypothesis, which would likely lead to other experiments. To make a long story short, he would carry out these experiments using the scientific method, draw his conclusions, and then share his results for others so that they could review and verify the results. This would happen over and over, with the theories becoming more and more grounded as they were refined.
Having consistent, predictible results for scientific theories is necessary because *that is what science was created for*. Science is not a thing that we discovered and we must have faith in it truly being what we think it is. We defined it. Just because, before the scientific method, the best thing people had was philosophy, doesn't mean that science now must include philosophies-- natural philosophies science without the rigor, or hypothesis without proper scientific testing. Any philosophy may in fact be correct, but in order to be included in science, it must be tested in a certain way, and it must be capable of being tested in this way.
A strong argument for being consistent in science classes, and not teaching philosophies, is because we want to have less people who, like you, do not seem to understand the differences between science and philosophy, not more.
If you want to be pedantic, I never stated that Washington being the first president was true, nor did I even say that this is what I learned in school. I said that it was something a majority of Americans believe, and that I didn't learn it in science class.
The point is that Evolution is just as unprovable as ID, Creationism, or my personal "I pulled it out of my butt last week" theories.
It doesn't have to be *provable*... it needs to be *disprovable*. Nothing in science is "proven", and thus totally immutable from then on. It is always "this is the best natural explanation" until it is disproven. Evolution can be disproven, and likely there are more minor aspects of evolutionary theory that will be honed, altered, or tossed out. But it was developed through a scientific process, and it will live or die by that same process. And that is what children in these schools (as well as you) need to understand.
Science is about the natural, not the supernatural. Theories in science are about the scientific process, not philosophy. That is how science is defined. If you consider ID to be science, you are actually thinking of some thing other than science that discusses the supernatural.
I took a "Comparitive Religions" course in my public high school in Illinois. We not only learned about every major religion (and many minor ones), but we had three full-day field trips where we visited the places these religions are practiced. And yes, we did cover Christianity and its three major divisions as part of the course.
At least where I was, the class was completely non-controversial, and was populated with religious and non-religious people alike.
You see? If you'd had a better grounding in science, you wouldn't be confused about this. EVERYTHING isn't taught in science class... SCIENCE is taught there-- natural explanations supported by evidence using the scientific method!
I sure didn't have a problem in high school learning about "what a majority of people in the USA believe"... when I took a *comparitive religions* course.
A majority of people also believe that George Washington was our nation's first president... oddly, I don't recall ever learning that in my science class.
No, because the absolutely most important thing that is taught in a science classroom is what science is and what the scientific method is. The specific body of knowledge that you learn in school science classes isn't all going to be considered true anymore once your children are in school. The problem with Intelligent Design in a classroom is that it is not scientific or natural, nor does the support for it follow the scientific method. This distorts some of the most fundamental building blocks of science. This can be harmful, in the same way that it would be harmful if in math classes, the teacher had to tell students that pi is up for debate because, after all, we have never even seen the whole number to its end (bad example, but you get the idea).
(That ID is even being debated in this realm is testament to the fact that people in general aren't getting a solid enough grounding in science.)
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct.
Why in the world is the question being asked? Before bothering to answer this question, I would like to know what anyone would stand to gain from this. Why is this even something to consider (even assuming it would be feasible at this stage)?
Maybe the next question can be: "What would we lose from getting rid of passports?"
What about:
"the dog ate the chicken bone, and afterward, he barked at the cars driving down the street nearby, he was an old dog, but still could run pretty fast"
"The dog at the chicken bone, and afterward, he barked at the cars driving down the street nearby. He was an old dog, but still could run pretty fast."
When you use the comma in place of a period, the comma's meaning is diluted. This may not cause any problem for simple sentences, but as they become more complicated, it starts to break down.
The period and the capital letter are useful. Put together, they help to distinguish one sentence from another. That way, if an abbr. appears in a sentence, the lack of a capital letter in "appears" can help me determine that the sentence is continuing. Sure, I can and do use context to come to the same conclusion, but removing extra rules that provide supportive cues only makes it that much more likely that I will have to stop the flow of what I am reading. I imagine you might suggest that abbreviations don't even need to have a period after them. Again, I say that building in a little bit of redundancy into what you mean can only help to make your sentence clear and concise, and it will reduce the chances that someone will have to re-read a sentence, or think about your words and not what you are saying.
What if I write, "i really like the who"? Am I talking about the World Health Organization or the band? Is it really all fine and good if I then have to read on before I can determine what was meant in that sentence? In Japanese, there is no plural form for nouns, because they aren't necessary. In French, there is no word "it". So, why do you feel the need to use them? I would suggest that it is because they are conventions in the English language that lead to increased clarity, though they aren't necessary.
Because you have more or less dropped the use of capital letters and periods, you have had to use other methods to convey the lost meaning. Commas can only do so much, so instead you make just about every sentence a paragraph. Now you've lost the value of the paragraph, which is extremely useful to group thoughts together that span multiple sentences. What if you are writing a book? How long is someone going to put up with "one line, one sentence"? Perhaps one could make up something else, like putting a box around, or a line after, a group of sentences that you want to associate together.
To me, the whole idea is like saying "doors are totally unnecessary... we can just use the window!"
(One little side note: Did you ever think about how some people who read these posts aren't native English speakers? I wouldn't want to simplify what I am saying in order for non-native speakers to easily understand it, but I think I would want to make my words as clear and unambiguous as possible.)
Not to mention the fact that the poster, and anyone who just accepts these 8 assertions, is doing what these 8 points are supposedly warning against...
Well, in the universe as we know it, joy has an opposite, and so you can move along the spectrum of super blissful to despair. So yeah, going on the idea that God created everything and controls everything, he could have made something the is good like joy, but call it whatever you want, it wouldn't be the same thing as "joy" as we know it. It's just the good without the bad. There wouldn't necessarily have to be "more joyful" or "less joyful". Just... perfectly happy, and nothing else. It doesn't have to be logical in the universe as we know it, in fact, it can't be.
Talking about this one thing is kind of nitpicking... really what I ask myself is, why is anyone not happy 100% of the time, and why do people spend their lives dreading death and suffering?
I also don't understand how all the bad in the world can be attributed to the fact that we have free will. Besides natural disasters and other things out of our control, it also doesn't explain why, among the things we are free to do, we even have the option of doing gruesome, horrific, and cruel things. Why not make us free to do what we want, but none of the choices are bad? I mean, right now, people don't morph into animals or teleport or make beer come out of their fingers... because it isn't possible. Why not have murder, theft, lying, etc. also be impossible?
It's not something I actually expect an answer for. It just baffles me, that's all.
Listen, thanks for your comments and all... but I think it still doesn't address the main crux of what irks me about the creation story.
I still say that if Adam and Eve had not yet learned good from evil, I don't know how they could be expected to make a judgment on whose words to trust regarding the tree... they needed to eat from the tree in order to understand that Satan was evil, God was good, and taking from the tree was wrong (as I see it).
I still don't see why the tree was made accessible to Adam and Eve, if it was to never be messed with. If it were to test them, then I don't understand why they needed to be tested. And if they fail the test... God created them, so it seems like it should be his bad.
Your point about Satan I understand; God only created the being that *became* Satan, however I still don't understand why God would even allow that to happen, being all-knowing and all-powerful.
I'm not trying to just be argumentative, and I'm certainly not trying to prove anything false... I'm only saying that I don't feel convinced it is more likely to be true above other religions or philosophies about existence.
I understand what you mean, I think, about the distinction. And certainly every video game would not necessarily be art per se. I just think that, in the case of games that are intended as or could be considered works of art on some level, the game-aspect of the work is a component of the art, though it might not be "art" on its own. Like, if you take a Final Fantasy game as art, the music, the plot, the visuals, etc. are all aspects of the art, but the gameplay... if you remove that, you have a different experience with the rest of the art. I probably would not have the same emotional reactions to the cinematic visuals and music without the gameplay.
So what is the "game" part and what is the "art" part? Is the game part so-called because the person can interact with it? What about art that can be interacted with (modern art in particular has many examples of this)? I just don't see it as two separate things. I see it as two components of the whole art.
Even if "for things to work", there had to be opposites to everything, that doesn't mean bad things had to exist. I mean, if there were a world where there was no good OR evil, there's no lack of balance there. We could just be happy or content or whatever, and we wouldn't miss good or evil, because there would be no such thing. Just like we don't mind that there is no "zobort" (along with its anti-zobort counterpart, of course). "Good" and "evil" could also be meaningless terms.
But beyond that, I don't see why there would *have* to be the opposite of each thing. God "created" light. He didn't discover it or put it into our world. He made up what it is. He could have made something that didn't have a dark counterpart and called that light. That's my opinion... obviously it's about as far from provable as you can get.
But beyond what you're saying, there are a few other points about this story that don't make sense.
One, is that God gave Adam and Eve free will, and then ordered them to obey his commands. What was the free will for? You have to wonder, with the tree just sitting there, and these two people living forever... wasn't it almost inevitable that at some point this would happen? Maybe not in the first million years, but we're talking eternity here. I mean... did God just want to make us feel responsible for all the bad things that happen to people, even though we couldn't have done it without his tree? Shift the blame a bit?
Most importantly, though, God punished Adam and Eve for doing something wrong... although until actually carrying out the act, the two had no concept of good or evil. How were they to know that disobeying God was wrong?
It seems that in any other case, when we as people determine the guilt of someone for a crime, we take into account if they were of sound mind, and were able to distingish from right and wrong. How can you expect someone who is incapable of knowing good from evil to make all the right decisions?
It's kind of like... severely punishing your cat for staring at your while you are getting undressed. How is the cat supposed to know any better? Furthermore, if it was so important for the cat not to see you, why didn't you just keep the door closed?
And that is what I wonder about God, because he is supposed to be in control of it all.
Okay, so you are saying that God actually is fair, and Adam and Eve screwed over all of humanity. So you are saying that it was fair of God to create this Tree of Knowledge, which seems to serve no purpose other than being something that Adam and Eve are told to stay away from? Why did God create this tree, and if he really just *had* to make it, then if he really didn't want Adam and Eve to touch it, why didn't he make it inaccessible?
Then, for some reason, God has created a world in which there is a Satan (in the form of a serpent) who can go around and trick people into doing things? And furthermore, it was fair of God to allow this evil serpent to trick Eve, who at this time has no concept of good or evil, and then hold Eve responsible for doing something wrong?
The whole creation and beginning of mankind thing is probably the very weakest part of the Bible, in my opinion.
I know what you mean. I ask why he would allow there to be anything bad in the world. Free will doesn't cover it.
People who say that aren't really thinking about that God supposedly created *everything*-- not just the Earth and its creatures, but dark and light, up and down, good and evil, happiness, laughter, spleens, hydrogen, etc. Why not just create the universe so that there is no bad, no evil, nothing to ever be upsetting?
If one responds to this suggestion by saying that this would make the world seem dull or pointless... well... God didn't have to create dullness or boredom or pointlessness either. If one responds by saying that God only brings the righteous to Heaven and the Earth is our proving ground... why did God have to make wickedness and bad people? Why not make everything wonderful for everyone all the time forever? Everyone would be worthy of heaven... or heck, put everyone on there to begin with!
I can't think of any reason that God would make the universe where bad things could happen to anyone, unless (A) he made mistakes and didn't intend for the bad things, (B) he actually wants to screw with us/watch some of us fail, or (C) he's not the only one in control.
In any of these cases, God wouldn't be what the Bible suggests, and also he wouldn't really be reliable to come through on this whole heaven thing.
It's not that I don't want to believe in God... I'd love to know that there is a place I go after I die that is even better than living. But it makes no sense that God created a universe like this. It makes no sense that people like murderers and adulterers and rapists make God sad and angry... if he didn't think up these concepts and incorporate them into his universe, they wouldn't even be there.
There is something you can do to play them fullscreen in Quicktime. You can write a one or two line AppleScript and put that in your dock or Scripts menubar icon and click it when you want full screen. I am at work so I can't look at the exact syntax but I think it was something like:
Tell Application "Quicktime" to present movie 1 scale screen
But I might be off on that...
Actually there already has been a blogging tool in .Mac for years. Unless they discontinued it at some point along the way, there is iBlog, a standalone blogging app which works with .Mac the way you'd think it would.
I haven't touched in since I first downloaded it though, because it's not really for me feature-wise.
Dude. Take a step back. I'm not trying to prove science "right", partly because it is unnecessary here and partly because it may be impossible. I'm just reiterating what *is* or *isn't* within the realm of what is considered science by definition. Science is a thing we defined. The topic was about ID entering the science classroom. You don't have to prove science is "right" or that it will hold for all time.
Don't you see that it doesn't matter if there was some supernatural god or not? I mean, your closing paragraph is basically trying to get at the possbility for it. If you understood my point, you would realize that may well be true, but it doesn't matter in a *science* classroom.
I think what appeared to seem like something I was saying was true, I only meant was concrete in the sense that it is science as far as *we have defined it*. So, while the law of gravity may or may not be 100% accurate, I can say that the law of gravity is testable and natural, and thus does fit into our definition of science.
I tried to express the latter part more concretely because it is a human construction, and so if "science" were found to be something different, or something more, then what actually happened is that there is something else entirely that should be given a new name, because we already called science this specific thing (flawed or no).
That is why I feel I can say "that is or is not part of science", although I can't say "that is true/false because of science".
Sorry that I am beating this one point to the ground-- yes we do agree on "truth", and in fact I would say that any remotely credible scientist absolutely would agree with you as well about pragmatic truth in science, even for fundamental things such as gravity. I just want to distinguish that those scientists stating something "is/isn't science" aren't disagreeing with that concept either. Saying our word "science" might include the supernatural or philosophical is like saying the word "red" might be talking about other colors that no person or creature can see or detect. There may be such a color, but it isn't "red".
I keep beating at this minute distinction only because I see this bit of grey area as the place where the "ID as science" fallacy gets its foot in the door.
(Unforunately, not all science teachers are good scientists, but that's another problem entirely...)
Newton's theories were refined, altered, and expanded upon by scientists like Einstein. But even if you teach kids about Newton's work as part of a science class, you can teach how the scientific method was used, and how his work formed the basis for new conclusions that were more accurate than what he came up with.
The thing you don't get is, if you think science might potentially be fundamentally wrong in how it is defined-- that the universe really doesn't allow for things to be consistent and repeatable-- whatever you would (theoretically) think is right still doesn't belong in a science classroom, because it isn't science, it is something else.
Your example of the actual creation story IS something that supposedly happened in the natural world, and as such *can* be tested to a certain extent. And it doesn't jive with what scientists believe about the history of earth. However, we aren't talking about people trying to get the creation story in schools, we're talking about the "Intelligent Design" philosophy. And that philosophy does not hypothesize anything that is testable or natural, so it just doesn't belong in a science classroom.
What I'm saying is, science doesn't have to be *right*. It works right now, and has allowed us to do a lot of great things, using the scientific method. Maybe it is how the universe works and maybe it isn't. But, in a basic science class, you want to teach kids how "science" works, not some other thing that you think might be better. Otherwise, they come out not knowing what science *is*.
If there is some other way of looking at the universe that is more useful than science, then tell people about it. In that case, it should probably replace science in schools. Until that time, however, teaching non-scientific philosophies in a science class (unless you use them to contrast science with non-science), only because we have no way of absolutely knowing what will happen for all time, isn't going to help all the scientific advances we've made over the past century, it can only hinder it.
Yes, science may not be "true". Perhaps the laws of physics *can* change. Perhaps everything that has happened up to this moment that we perceive to have actually happened in our minds was just placed in there 3 seconds ago, and we actually just came into existence at that time. Maybe I'm the only being who actually exists, or maybe I don't exist. And so on. Any of that could be true, but introducing all of that into science isn't going to help treat cancer or help us explore other planets in the solar system, it is going to confuse people.
After you wrote this comment implying that there was an ignorance of philosophy that led me to say what I said, I hate to reply by saying that you, in fact, just don't understand science. But, well... you don't.
The problem with what you are saying is that your example where "logic" seems to fail does not use the scientific method. A scientist would not do an experiment by dropping a stone 5 times and then drawing a conclusion about the sixth. Furthermore, a scientist wouldn't stop there and deem the situation a job for philosophy! So, you have yourself created a fallacious argument by attacking this strawman.
A scientist would first look at other important laws and theories in this area, including the law of gravity, as well as mass and friction, to determine what would happen. From these general principles, he would in fact be predicting a specific situation based on more general principles. If the stone did not behave as predicted from this information, and this could be repeated and tested, affected theories would potentially be revised.
Or, assuming that there was no body of knowledge concerning gravity etc. from which to draw, a scientist in this situation might form a hypothesis that the stone would fall the sixth time, and possibly anytime in similar conditions. He would then test his hypothesis, which would likely lead to other experiments. To make a long story short, he would carry out these experiments using the scientific method, draw his conclusions, and then share his results for others so that they could review and verify the results. This would happen over and over, with the theories becoming more and more grounded as they were refined.
Having consistent, predictible results for scientific theories is necessary because *that is what science was created for*. Science is not a thing that we discovered and we must have faith in it truly being what we think it is. We defined it. Just because, before the scientific method, the best thing people had was philosophy, doesn't mean that science now must include philosophies-- natural philosophies science without the rigor, or hypothesis without proper scientific testing. Any philosophy may in fact be correct, but in order to be included in science, it must be tested in a certain way, and it must be capable of being tested in this way.
A strong argument for being consistent in science classes, and not teaching philosophies, is because we want to have less people who, like you, do not seem to understand the differences between science and philosophy, not more.
If you want to be pedantic, I never stated that Washington being the first president was true, nor did I even say that this is what I learned in school. I said that it was something a majority of Americans believe, and that I didn't learn it in science class.
Science is about the natural, not the supernatural. Theories in science are about the scientific process, not philosophy. That is how science is defined. If you consider ID to be science, you are actually thinking of some thing other than science that discusses the supernatural.
I took a "Comparitive Religions" course in my public high school in Illinois. We not only learned about every major religion (and many minor ones), but we had three full-day field trips where we visited the places these religions are practiced. And yes, we did cover Christianity and its three major divisions as part of the course.
At least where I was, the class was completely non-controversial, and was populated with religious and non-religious people alike.
You see? If you'd had a better grounding in science, you wouldn't be confused about this. EVERYTHING isn't taught in science class... SCIENCE is taught there-- natural explanations supported by evidence using the scientific method!
I sure didn't have a problem in high school learning about "what a majority of people in the USA believe"... when I took a *comparitive religions* course.
A majority of people also believe that George Washington was our nation's first president... oddly, I don't recall ever learning that in my science class.
No, because the absolutely most important thing that is taught in a science classroom is what science is and what the scientific method is. The specific body of knowledge that you learn in school science classes isn't all going to be considered true anymore once your children are in school. The problem with Intelligent Design in a classroom is that it is not scientific or natural, nor does the support for it follow the scientific method. This distorts some of the most fundamental building blocks of science. This can be harmful, in the same way that it would be harmful if in math classes, the teacher had to tell students that pi is up for debate because, after all, we have never even seen the whole number to its end (bad example, but you get the idea).
(That ID is even being debated in this realm is testament to the fact that people in general aren't getting a solid enough grounding in science.)