"Biological life is not a car. Biological life makes sense within the chemical context of our universe."
I was speaking about the universe, and that it makes more sense to believe the universe had a creator than to believe 'poof' it just came into being. It seems like a more reasonable explanation than 'it just exploded, we don't know why.'
"If I could discount it, then chances are they didn't really defy the odds all that much. Human beings are demonstrably terrible at calculating the odds or finding meanings in coincidences."
I've always been very good at math, I wouldn't miscalculate that badly. Certainly some of the things that have happened to me are unlikely enough that they'll never happen to me again. So why did they happen at a critical junction in my life, causing me to say "I get the point God, I'll go down that path, instead of the one I'm on?." Just a few days earlier or a few days later and it wouldn't have had the same effect. In some cases had the timing been just a couple hours or even 10 minutes off, it would have been too late. Life would be drastically different for me without those so called 'coincidences'. Actually, truth be told, it would be drastically worse. If there is no God, trusting him has sure had a strong positive impact in my life, not bad for a figment of my imagination. In the face of everything that's happened to me, the arguments people like you put forward seem awfully weak.
"How _hedonism_ a good motivation to believe anything? If there exists a God who would destroy or damn or let be destroyed a person because they didn't play some elaborate head game or try to force their beliefs one way or another because someone threatened them, then I'm not sure I'd care for such a tyrant anyway. Any human being that acted like that and demanded it of other people would rightly be condemned as a bigot."
I don't claim to understand or to know on what grounds God may or may not grant eternal life. But let's look at it this way. If you're a father you'll understand better, but imagine your son died to save a person. This person spends his whole life, despite the selfless actions of your son, disrespecting and ignoring both yourself and your son. Now this person gets kicked out of his house, and comes knocking on your door wanting to stay with you. What would you say? I'd say go to hell. We may well be individuals who screwed up badly in heaven, and God certainly has no obligation to let any of us back into his house. How he would make that decision we don't know, we have only the Bible to go on, which is clearly written by mortals, and so is pretty badly flawed. Ironically the words of Jesus in the New Testament as recorded by his disciples are very solid, even when viewed from today's context. Not much of the bible looks like that, so when he says all that you need to go to heaven is to believe, I'm tempted to believe him.
"Lets be honest here: anyone who says things like this hasn't taken the time to figure out the most basic ways in which scientists use words like "theory" and 'fact.'"
I understand how science works, I just don't always express myself clearly in words. Trying again, my point is that Evolution is a theory, it is not necessarily true, and like many theories, I think even it's strongest supporters would be surprised if it exactly described how it really is. Again I'm not saying it isn't true either.
"If you have an alternative, then please present it. But in order for it to be scientific, it needs to be both testible AND fit all the facts. I've never heard of an alternative that does both."
Clearly the concept of God doesn't fit nicely into science, because science is belief in what we can measure, and God is about faith (belief in what we cannot measure).
But just to humor you, here's a theory that may be testable and that fits the facts. It might be a little wild, but I just made it up now to show that alternatives are possible. Never close your mind to something.
Imagine that you are a leader of a country and war took place. Roughly 1/3 of your people supported you, roughly 1/3 supported the enemy, and another 1/3 didn't have a clear affiliation. You win the war, and exile the people who fought against you. Now you're left with a significant number of people who you don't know if you can trust. One way to deal with this is design a test, keep those who pass it, and exile those who fail. Suppose you had extremely advanced technology, you could make a virtual world just like our universe and plug these people into it without knowledge that they exist outside the simulation (have a soul), you could then pass them or fail them by how they act in the simulation, at no risk to your country. Sure that's far out, but you can't rule it out either. It would allow us to explain such things as the parting of the Red Sea, or Jesus walking on water, if indeed those things happened. If you make the rules, you can break them whenever and however you want. So how might you test this? The only way I can see, is to look for examples of rules being broken - i.e miracles. You can't prove something was a miracle, but you can certainly accumulate a good amount of circumstantial (read statistical) evidence, which, correct me if I'm wrong, but evolution is largely based on too, since none of us were around 4 billion years ago.
On A side note, it's a lot easier to believe miracles that happen to you. I've lost count of the number of large and small things that happen in my life that just plain old defy the odds and seeming randomness of the universe. I could go into detail, but without having walked in my shoes you'll just discount it all anyway. It doesn't mean much to someone else, but I simply cannot as a reasoning man discount everything. What puzzles me is why do these things happen to me, what's so special about me? Why can I literally feel God's guiding hand on my life? I don't have an answer for that, but maybe I will one day. At the very least it has given me faith and has saved me from your fate, because most people of my intelligence find it very hard to have faith - for us it is easier to believe in what can be intellectualized.
"You're conflating 4 billion years of contingency down into a single sentence."
Indeed, but it underlines that evolution is not such a simple thing. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.
"Your explanation of God is neither testible, nor does it explain anything more than it "just happened" (poof! is not an explanation of anything)."
'Poof' is about the best science can ever offer us, but the notion that someone brought the universe into being make more sense. It's not logical to look at a car and think 'poof, it just happened' so why is it logical to look at the universe and say 'poof it just happened' when it is clearly more fantastic than a humble car. It's not testable, but it's a lot easier to believe.
While I don't see intelligent design as much of a scientific theory, it is an equally valid alternate viewpoint. It's just different. Belief that God had a hand in creating our universe does not make a person stupid, I believe in intelligent design, and odds are that by a measurement of raw intelligence I'm smarter than you are. Nothing unusual or immodest about that, I'm smarter than most people, the average IQ is 100, and I'm well above that.
You, however, should know better than to generalize about a population just because they don't think the same as you. Last I checked people are free to think how they want to, something you as a scientist should really appreciate.
So why then do you give such an irrational, emotional response? It sounds little different than the irrational responses people make in defense of ID. Perhaps this is because there is more in common between you and right wing Christians than you would like to admit. I think this is because you view evolution as not just a theory, but a religion of sorts. It's your (godless) religion of how you came into being, which is a not an unusual concept for a religion by any means.
Let's be truthful here. Evolution is a theory, not a fact. There is some good evidence for evolution, but it's not ironclad. Clearly species not only adapt but it follows logically that such adaptations over time can lead to new species. What is a species anyway but a arbitrary classification by us? This does not mean that it is logical for a soup of non-living organic molecules to become a human with trillions of cells, each cell a complex organism functioning together, each doing it's part in the whole. I'm not saying it's impossible, but by no means is it the only possible explanation, and you deceive yourself if you think otherwise.
And even if that's the way it happened, I would like to point out that this universe had a beginning some 13 billion years ago, where an enormous explosion of energy far in excess of all the mass of all the matter in the universe multiplied by the speed of light squared brought everything we know into being. This is not a cyclical event, because it has both a beginning, and if the universe keeps expanding (as science tells us it seems to be) it will have a cold, dark end. I think that the idea that God provided that initial matter and that initial energy along with the very fundamental 'code' of this universe itself (which we as scientists are only reverse-engineering) is far more plausible than your theory that it "just happened".
So before you make a fool out of yourself by mocking what you do not understand, and get carried away in your own importance and puff up with pride, just remember we're just mammals on one tiny little dust ball in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, amongst hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. Don't EVER think that you are even close to understanding it all! One day, hopefully not too soon, you'll find this out for yourself, because everybody regardless of their beliefs gets to see the truth after they die. And with all possible sincerity I pray that you will find the truth before then. God doesn't go away just because you stop believing in him.
So is it wrong to teach students that there is a (non-scientific) alternative to evolution? No, but it has no place in a science class, let them teach it outside the banner of science.
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"Biological life is not a car. Biological life makes sense within the chemical context of our universe." I was speaking about the universe, and that it makes more sense to believe the universe had a creator than to believe 'poof' it just came into being. It seems like a more reasonable explanation than 'it just exploded, we don't know why.' "If I could discount it, then chances are they didn't really defy the odds all that much. Human beings are demonstrably terrible at calculating the odds or finding meanings in coincidences." I've always been very good at math, I wouldn't miscalculate that badly. Certainly some of the things that have happened to me are unlikely enough that they'll never happen to me again. So why did they happen at a critical junction in my life, causing me to say "I get the point God, I'll go down that path, instead of the one I'm on?." Just a few days earlier or a few days later and it wouldn't have had the same effect. In some cases had the timing been just a couple hours or even 10 minutes off, it would have been too late. Life would be drastically different for me without those so called 'coincidences'. Actually, truth be told, it would be drastically worse. If there is no God, trusting him has sure had a strong positive impact in my life, not bad for a figment of my imagination. In the face of everything that's happened to me, the arguments people like you put forward seem awfully weak. "How _hedonism_ a good motivation to believe anything? If there exists a God who would destroy or damn or let be destroyed a person because they didn't play some elaborate head game or try to force their beliefs one way or another because someone threatened them, then I'm not sure I'd care for such a tyrant anyway. Any human being that acted like that and demanded it of other people would rightly be condemned as a bigot." I don't claim to understand or to know on what grounds God may or may not grant eternal life. But let's look at it this way. If you're a father you'll understand better, but imagine your son died to save a person. This person spends his whole life, despite the selfless actions of your son, disrespecting and ignoring both yourself and your son. Now this person gets kicked out of his house, and comes knocking on your door wanting to stay with you. What would you say? I'd say go to hell. We may well be individuals who screwed up badly in heaven, and God certainly has no obligation to let any of us back into his house. How he would make that decision we don't know, we have only the Bible to go on, which is clearly written by mortals, and so is pretty badly flawed. Ironically the words of Jesus in the New Testament as recorded by his disciples are very solid, even when viewed from today's context. Not much of the bible looks like that, so when he says all that you need to go to heaven is to believe, I'm tempted to believe him.
"Lets be honest here: anyone who says things like this hasn't taken the time to figure out the most basic ways in which scientists use words like "theory" and 'fact.'"
I understand how science works, I just don't always express myself clearly in words. Trying again, my point is that Evolution is a theory, it is not necessarily true, and like many theories, I think even it's strongest supporters would be surprised if it exactly described how it really is. Again I'm not saying it isn't true either.
"If you have an alternative, then please present it. But in order for it to be scientific, it needs to be both testible AND fit all the facts. I've never heard of an alternative that does both."
Clearly the concept of God doesn't fit nicely into science, because science is belief in what we can measure, and God is about faith (belief in what we cannot measure).
But just to humor you, here's a theory that may be testable and that fits the facts. It might be a little wild, but I just made it up now to show that alternatives are possible. Never close your mind to something.
Imagine that you are a leader of a country and war took place. Roughly 1/3 of your people supported you, roughly 1/3 supported the enemy, and another 1/3 didn't have a clear affiliation. You win the war, and exile the people who fought against you. Now you're left with a significant number of people who you don't know if you can trust. One way to deal with this is design a test, keep those who pass it, and exile those who fail. Suppose you had extremely advanced technology, you could make a virtual world just like our universe and plug these people into it without knowledge that they exist outside the simulation (have a soul), you could then pass them or fail them by how they act in the simulation, at no risk to your country. Sure that's far out, but you can't rule it out either. It would allow us to explain such things as the parting of the Red Sea, or Jesus walking on water, if indeed those things happened. If you make the rules, you can break them whenever and however you want. So how might you test this? The only way I can see, is to look for examples of rules being broken - i.e miracles. You can't prove something was a miracle, but you can certainly accumulate a good amount of circumstantial (read statistical) evidence, which, correct me if I'm wrong, but evolution is largely based on too, since none of us were around 4 billion years ago.
On A side note, it's a lot easier to believe miracles that happen to you. I've lost count of the number of large and small things that happen in my life that just plain old defy the odds and seeming randomness of the universe. I could go into detail, but without having walked in my shoes you'll just discount it all anyway. It doesn't mean much to someone else, but I simply cannot as a reasoning man discount everything. What puzzles me is why do these things happen to me, what's so special about me? Why can I literally feel God's guiding hand on my life? I don't have an answer for that, but maybe I will one day. At the very least it has given me faith and has saved me from your fate, because most people of my intelligence find it very hard to have faith - for us it is easier to believe in what can be intellectualized.
"You're conflating 4 billion years of contingency down into a single sentence."
Indeed, but it underlines that evolution is not such a simple thing. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.
"Your explanation of God is neither testible, nor does it explain anything more than it "just happened" (poof! is not an explanation of anything)."
'Poof' is about the best science can ever offer us, but the notion that someone brought the universe into being make more sense. It's not logical to look at a car and think 'poof, it just happened' so why is it logical to look at the universe and say 'poof it just happened' when it is clearly more fantastic than a humble car. It's not testable, but it's a lot easier to believe.
"That's your belief. But it's
While I don't see intelligent design as much of a scientific theory, it is an equally valid alternate viewpoint. It's just different. Belief that God had a hand in creating our universe does not make a person stupid, I believe in intelligent design, and odds are that by a measurement of raw intelligence I'm smarter than you are. Nothing unusual or immodest about that, I'm smarter than most people, the average IQ is 100, and I'm well above that.
You, however, should know better than to generalize about a population just because they don't think the same as you. Last I checked people are free to think how they want to, something you as a scientist should really appreciate.
So why then do you give such an irrational, emotional response? It sounds little different than the irrational responses people make in defense of ID. Perhaps this is because there is more in common between you and right wing Christians than you would like to admit. I think this is because you view evolution as not just a theory, but a religion of sorts. It's your (godless) religion of how you came into being, which is a not an unusual concept for a religion by any means.
Let's be truthful here. Evolution is a theory, not a fact. There is some good evidence for evolution, but it's not ironclad. Clearly species not only adapt but it follows logically that such adaptations over time can lead to new species. What is a species anyway but a arbitrary classification by us? This does not mean that it is logical for a soup of non-living organic molecules to become a human with trillions of cells, each cell a complex organism functioning together, each doing it's part in the whole. I'm not saying it's impossible, but by no means is it the only possible explanation, and you deceive yourself if you think otherwise.
And even if that's the way it happened, I would like to point out that this universe had a beginning some 13 billion years ago, where an enormous explosion of energy far in excess of all the mass of all the matter in the universe multiplied by the speed of light squared brought everything we know into being. This is not a cyclical event, because it has both a beginning, and if the universe keeps expanding (as science tells us it seems to be) it will have a cold, dark end. I think that the idea that God provided that initial matter and that initial energy along with the very fundamental 'code' of this universe itself (which we as scientists are only reverse-engineering) is far more plausible than your theory that it "just happened".
So before you make a fool out of yourself by mocking what you do not understand, and get carried away in your own importance and puff up with pride, just remember we're just mammals on one tiny little dust ball in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, amongst hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. Don't EVER think that you are even close to understanding it all! One day, hopefully not too soon, you'll find this out for yourself, because everybody regardless of their beliefs gets to see the truth after they die. And with all possible sincerity I pray that you will find the truth before then. God doesn't go away just because you stop believing in him.
So is it wrong to teach students that there is a (non-scientific) alternative to evolution? No, but it has no place in a science class, let them teach it outside the banner of science.