On 1/18/2014 4:09 PM, Warp wrote:
> (The intellectually honest thing to do when you see an isolated quote
> from eg. an evolutionary biologist that seems to go completely against
> the theory of evolution is to ask yourself questions like: "Why is this
> known biologist seemingly saying something against evolution? Is this
> quote possibly taken out of context? What did this person mean by this?
> Has he explained what he meant in the rest of the text, or in other texts?
> Has he been asked about this and responded, and if so, what did he say
> about it?" Then the honest person would try to find out and draw
> conclusions only *after* he has all the facts. But no, this is not what
> a creationist does. Instead, a creationist is extremely opportunistic:
> The isolated quote seems to say something against evolution, and it's made
> by a known scientist. To hell what he really meant by it and what else he
> has said on the subject, just take the quote and use it as a weapon.
> Intended meaning is not important, only the impression that the isolated
> quote gives.)
>
Actually, its worse than that. One of the posts linked to, in comments, 
form the blog post I mention in the other post I made is a short bit 
showing some original footage taken by Ray "The Banana Man" Comfort, in 
which he asks two people a fairly nuanced question (to which, I 
personally, would have said no way to, regardless of circumstances), 
about whether or not they might kill someone for a lot of money, if they 
*knew* that the person paying them was the wife of the man she wanted 
killed, and he beat her near to death. He then went and found believers, 
asked them if they would do it for free, then "edited" the result, so 
that it looked like he also asked the non-believers the same, "Would you 
kill someone for free." Noting - no mention of the wife having been 
beaten up by the guy doing it.

Its not just a case that they cherry pick what they need out of 
something something someone has said, but they, sometimes, completely 
substitute questions that where never asked, at all, so that the cherry 
picked bit sounds even worse than that it did, when taken out of context.

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Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> http://yearwithoutgod.com/2014/01/02/am-i-doing-it-wrong

It seems to be a lost battle to try to explain to people that "atheism"
is not a movement, a world view, a set of dogmas, or anything, really.

The words theism and atheism deal with one question, and one question
only: Do you believe in the existence of a god? If you do have such a
belief, then you are a theist, else you are an atheist. What other views
you have is completely inconsequential.

If you want to "try atheism", you could just as well become a Raelian
or a Buddhist. They don't believe in a god, so they are, by definition,
atheists. You can, in fact, believe in all kinds of supernatural hocus
pocus, spirits, the afterlife, psychic powers of the brain, the unicorns
of Atlantis... and still be an atheist, if you don't believe in a god.
The term does not imply anything beyond that one single question.

I'd even go so far as to say that theism isn't a world view either,
and for the exact same reason: It deals with the same question and does
not imply anything else beyond that.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> Seriously? They made it illegal to teach people evolution? For 40 years??
>
> Huh. Well, I suppose that explains it all then... o_O

Suddenly, the sceptical reporter's astonished mutterings of "why have we 
never heard about any of this before?" take on a whole different tone...

I guess if you haven't *seen* the vast swathes of evidence, it's easy to 
believe the (commonly repeated) claims that none exists.

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On 18/01/2014 11:09 PM, Warp wrote:

> This wouldn't be so bad if they just kept to themselves with their
> world view. After all, everybody's free to believe whatever they want.
>
> However, the problem is that many of them are trying to *force* their
> belief system onto others, especially children, by lobbying the
> government and other means. This is not something that we can just
> ignore, like we can eg. with the Moon landing conspiracy theorists
> (who are obnoxious but at least aren't trying to pass laws to enforce
> their beliefs on others.)

This is the thing.

If you want to believe that God exists, sure, you can do that. But if 
you want to claim that this is a scientifically verified fact... erm, 
no. No it is not. Get lost!

Perhaps people misunderstand what science is. Science isn't the study of 
what is true, it is the study of what we can *prove* to be true. God may 
actually exist - but since it is impossible to prove or disprove this, 
the question is outside the remit of science.

And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution, 
they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest 
Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach 
Genesis?

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> If you want to believe that God exists, sure, you can do that. But if 
> you want to claim that this is a scientifically verified fact... erm, 
> no. No it is not. Get lost!

Almost every single "proof" of a god's existence amounts to a very
straightforward argument from ignorance. Almost all of them take,
basically, the form of:

"You have no explanation for this, therefore God."

All of the classical "proofs" are like that. For instance:

"The universe's existence must have had a cause (because my personal
common sense says so, and I'll ignore any possibility of the contrary.)
You can't explain what that cause was, therefore it was God."

"The universe is clearly designed for us in mind. You can't explain how
else it's like that, therefore it was made by God."

"The reader's digest version of the popular science version of scientific
law X (most often "thermodynamics") says this. Therefore God."

"Abstract concepts exist. They come from God. (Proof skipped as
unnecessary.)"

"Evolution cannot explain X. Therefore God."

And naturally "God" is never something like Brahma or Allah, or an entity
completely unknown to us. Of course it's always the God of the Bible.
What else?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 19/01/2014 11:33 AM, Warp wrote:
> And naturally "God" is never something like Brahma or Allah, or an entity
> completely unknown to us. Of course it's always the God of the Bible.
> What else?

Interesting fact: I don't know if God exists, but the Christian Holy 
Bible definitely *does* exist. It's a real thing. It's reportedly the 
most printed book in history.

If you ignore all the superstitious nonsense and focus on how this piece 
of literature came into being... actually kinda interesting. I wander if 
all those self-righteous "the Bible is inerrant" white folks out there 
actually know they're reading an Iraqi tribal myth that's been edited 
and redacted for other a thousand years?

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Am 19.01.2014 11:07, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:
>> Seriously? They made it illegal to teach people evolution? For 40 years??
>>
>> Huh. Well, I suppose that explains it all then... o_O
>
> Suddenly, the sceptical reporter's astonished mutterings of "why have we
> never heard about any of this before?" take on a whole different tone...
>
> I guess if you haven't *seen* the vast swathes of evidence, it's easy to
> believe the (commonly repeated) claims that none exists.

Exactly my thought.

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Am 19.01.2014 11:10, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> If you want to believe that God exists, sure, you can do that. But if
> you want to claim that this is a scientifically verified fact... erm,
> no. No it is not. Get lost!
>
> Perhaps people misunderstand what science is. Science isn't the study of
> what is true, it is the study of what we can *prove* to be true.

Erm... no, not really.

I'd say, science it is the study of how we can describe the world in a 
manner that allows for reliable predictions.

There is only one branch of science that deals with stuff that can be 
proven, and that's mathematics. Even that one relies on axioms that may, 
or may not, be actually true.

In all other branches, proof can never be achieved. Disproof may, however.

> God may
> actually exist - but since it is impossible to prove or disprove this,
> the question is outside the remit of science.

Fully agree on that one.

In my above definition of science however, it's not because we can't 
prove or disprove his/her/their existence, but because that matter 
doesn't get us anywhere in our predictions. (There's even a lot of 
scripture on this matter.)

> And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution,
> they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest
> Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach
> Genesis?

:-P

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> I'd say, science it is the study of how we can describe the world in a 
> manner that allows for reliable predictions.

Perhaps the ultimate goal if science, besides allowing us to understand
how the universe works, is practical applications. As the adage goes,
"science works, b****". That's not just a joke.

On the other hand, it's hard to find any practical applications of
creationism.

A biologist once had a debate with Kent Hovind, one of the most famous
creationists, and he listed lots of *practical* applications of
understanding evolution (including things like understanding how
evolution works has allowed us to develop the techniques that can be
used for eg. tracing where certain pathogens originate, how closely
linked they are, and so on.) He asked Hoving what would be the practical
applications of creationism.

Hoving responded that it allows us to teach children how living beings
are divided into kinds and so on and so for. Yes, he literallly, although
mostly inadvertently, argued that the advantage of creationism is that we
can teach children about creationism.

The circularity of this argument was just baffling.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Perhaps people misunderstand what science is. Science isn't the study of
>> what is true, it is the study of what we can *prove* to be true.
>
> Erm... no, not really.
>
> I'd say, science it is the study of how we can describe the world in a
> manner that allows for reliable predictions.

Exhibit A: Quantum dynamics. ;-)

> There is only one branch of science that deals with stuff that can be
> proven, and that's mathematics. Even that one relies on axioms that may,
> or may not, be actually true.
>
> In all other branches, proof can never be achieved. Disproof may, however.

It is the study of things which can be objectively determined to be true 
or false (as opposed to whoever shouts the loudest in an argument).

I would say "things which can be experimentally verified or refuted", 
except... how the **** do you do an experiment to verify the negative 
curvature of intergalactic space?

Your definition makes it sound like knowledge is only science if it has 
immediate real-world applications. Which isn't the case.

A useful example is String Theory. It's very sciency, it has lots of 
impressive-looking equations, it's a highly active area of research... 
but it's not science. It hasn't made a single *testable* prediction yet. 
Until that happens, it is no more scientific than Creationism.

The difference, of course, is that String Theory has the potential that 
some day it *may* make such a prediction. And if that day comes, it will 
be science. Creationism is unlikely to ever make such a prediction.

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