Non-theists and agnostics??...You can wait the greenroom, where you will find plenty of latex accessories, glycerine based products (in pleasing colors and flavors), and a full wet and hash bar. Happy Twirling!!!

"God and Satan sittin' inna tree, Atheists and Christians cover her trunk with pee!!"

I've long thought evolution and religion can be compatible, its the people and institutions that are inflexible. At our current level of scientific understanding I think there are plenty of places to <insert creator influence here>, and I know many people that do just that. Truthfully, as an atheist, I don't mind those that are hardline literal scripturists. Its their right to choose what they do and don't believe in. I don't want to be told what to believe and neither should they.

My problem is when religion is pushed upon the populace as a whole. Laws whose only basis in reason is religion, or trying to wedge God into and on every aspect of society. Trying to get creationism out of the science rooms, or religious views/symbols out of law isn't an attack on religion its a defense against it.

I saw an interesting article today (I wish i could find again) talking about South Carolina's proposed "I Believe" plates. Though (as far as I can tell) the plates are an option, a lawsuit was/is being brought against the state by individuals trying to keep church and state separate. When i read the article further I was surprised to see it was being brought forth by four Christian pastors, a Rabi, and some Hindus. Though I don't remember the article going further into it, I can only guess they feel as I do, and that government has no place promoting one religion or denomination over another. Either promote all equally (including a lack of religion) or keep their noses out of it completely.

*hurls mud* Naw, seriously, I'll make a proper response later when I have time to properly read it.

"Probably the biggest reason people outside of the sciences have such a hard time with evolution is the idea that something can't turn into something different. (somewhat of a remnant of Aristotle's thought on our culture.)

I think you are right here, but this is exactly not what evolution is. Creatures don't turn into other creatures in a morphing movement like creationists insinuates (like http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Simpsons-Evolution-Intro). Every time a "baby" is born it is different from its parent, even if the genetic changes are minuscule. And this is how a creature species turns into another. It's not generation 1 = monkey, and generation 2 = human. There have been many, many thousands of steps from proto-monkey to human (and to the other apes of today).

So yes, things are what they are, but the next generation is always a mutation away from its parents and theoretically you could call that a different species, but it would be a far to specific species, so we allow quite a lot of difference inside a single species. For instance, humans. It is obvious that there is a difference between whites, blacks and Asians for instance, its not much, but it's there. These are merely different branches of the same evolutionary tree, like different races of dogs.

"Now to the religious individual who feels his beliefs are threatened by evolution. The scriptures as you know them cannot and do not answer the questions about evolution. They were never intended to be used for such a purpose. Evolution should not contradict your beliefs, rather it should support them.

I disagree. The creation story was made for exactly this, to explain why we have the vast multitude of creatures, and it is provably false. This is a problem for everything using the bible, because if THIS is false, what of the rest. How can we know what is true and false, and is it a total coincidence when something is right?

Evolution does not directly threaten religion, because it does not cover religion. It does, however, cover a field which religion previously held claim, creation and life. Science in general does, in my opinion, threaten religion, because the two work in diametrically opposed ways. Religion has the answer in the bible and finds evidence to support it; and science discover answers from the evidence.

Religion: Answer --> Evidence
Science: Evidence --> Answer

You see, that Science can change the answer as the evidence differs from the previous answer. Religion cannot do that - what's in the bible is in the bible - you can re-interpret the bible, but this is like re-interpreting evidence and a single source of evidence is not enough to sustain a viable theory. Some things in the bible cannot be re-interpreted as much as would be needed to still hold up to evidence, see Genesis.

^
When I said 'something can't turn into something different.' I was referring more to a species rather then an individual animal. But that's my bad I didn't clarify.

Actually there is more to the creation story then you see in todays bible. In it's original Hebrew the text changes quite a bit. Because the sound of each character can be broken down into other letters. If it had been translated in that way Genesis would be a lot longer. And the Bible was never meant to be a historical or anthropological record. If can prove that do so, but just saying that it is doesn't make you right.

My guess is you never read the Book of Genesis and that if you did you don't understand the context of the people who wrote it. Hebrew is largely allegorical.

Edit: I would like to add that we gain the book of Genesis from the hand of Mosses as he received an account from his forefathers. Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account was handed down from age to age.

Wither or not God made the earth is six days or six billion years is, and most likely will remain a matter of speculation. I think it will continue to remain a matter of speculation.

The original Hebrew word for day is 'Yom' now keep in mind the Hebrew language is not as diverse as the English language is.
Besides day there are other words associated with Yom namely:
-Time
-Year
-Age
-Ago
-Always
-Season
-Chronicals
-Continually
-Ever
-Evermore

When the bible was translated Yom was seen as day by the scribes at the time and was thus set in the English version of the bible as day. Which is a very specific word in the English language which has over 40,000 as opposed to the Hebrew vocabulary with has roughly 8,700 words

I suspected you meant species too, but what I read and hear from Creationists is usually simplified to "we didn't come from monkeys" and "was your grandfather a monkey?" which is just foolish.

Well, the wonderful thing about religious "proofs" is that I don't have to. It's in the bible.

I will admit that I haven't read it in Hebrew, but then again how many Christians have that? To me it does seem like a cop-out solution "well, they didn't translate it good enough". The fact the days could mean ages is not the only thing wrong with genesis. See http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/cgi-bin/webring/list.pl?ringid=errors_genesis.

Apart from genesis there are many internal contradictions and inconsistencies in the bible, see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html.

I try to "attack" the bible in the same way that Christians use it, because it seems that the bible has different meaning to each group (or even individual), which sort of defeats the purpose of religion.

Well the difficult thing with the bible is that it has undergone many different translations. From Hebrew and Aramaic, to Latin, to German, and then to English. Of course things will be lost and certain words will be transcribed differently then it's original intent. And the Bible has errors in it we know that much, but overall a central doctrinal message.

I imagine it's much like a game of telephone, that I'm sure many have played, it starts with a simple message. Well if you add language barriers and incorrect or insufficient translations it compounds the problem of getting the entire message as clear as it started.

And different interpretations of the Bible is actually why there are so many different Christian denominations. Biblical interpretations inspired men like Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, John Calvin, and others to lead the way for protestant faiths.

Which is why today there is a need for the prophets and apostles of ancient time. In the New Testament there is many letters sent by the apostles to correct changing doctrines within the church at that time. But that's a topic for another discussion.

fuck scriptures. what good have they done for us lately?

so, throwing in my two cent piece... Gorgon tosses in a good point here

"Wither or not God made the earth is six days or six billion years is, and most likely will remain a matter of speculation. I think it will continue to remain a matter of speculation."

There is no agreed-upon way to prove which answer is the truth, but there is one way to figure out which answer is more likely; gather mountains of evidence, each telling part of the story, each from different disciplines and using different methods, and see if we end up with an answer that jives with the mountain.

Now you can still 'prove' simple, specific things with experiments ("a whipped-cream bottle in a microwave will explode"). But for people to believe you're idea about bigger questions, questions dealing with things we can't physically sense, it can be pretty tedious stuff. I'm in brain science, and I'll tell you straight-up that we're still working on the mountains for some very basic questions.

As a final note, the coolest thing about science is that one or two convincing and repeatable experiments can shift understandings in what the mountain of previous evidence was hinting at. I remember recently reading that muscle don't actually get sore from lactic acid build-up, but instead from muscle cells opening pores to release a chemical that literally chews up at muscle structure, and does this on purpose. I know! WTF! A couple of folks in a lab figured this out and some other people tried their experiment and got the same results and now we gotta change all the books!

I like your style. Reminds me of a young me. Not much younger, mind you... in fact a little bit older.
>> ^kulpims:
fuck scriptures. what good have they done for us lately?

Um, oh yeah, I guess I didn't make a clear point...

Point was this; evolution is an idea that jives with every scrap of evidence we've tossed at it. Significant challengers have risen, but further research has explained away the apparent contradictions to the 'natural selection' program.

Its incumbent on the current generation to inspire the next to keep piling up more clues and delving deeper into the intricacies of our natural world. In other words, one way science fails is by giving value to ideas that have little to no evidence to support them. And another way science fails is by allowing a neglect of critical thinking to flourish.

It is important to know that the earth revolves around the sun; we can then begin to understand seasons, shooting stars, other planets, the moon... etc. Similarly it is important to know that evolution occurs by natural selection; we can then begin to understand why there are hundreds of thousands of non-interbreeding beetle species, how ants know what to do, why my great grandfather looks just like me but was a foot shorter, why our bananas are in danger of being wiped out by a fungus, and why squirrels and cats can climb trees while little dogs can not!

https://www.videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Rulers-of-the-World
-edit, point taken below regarding the language, sentiment remains solid- apologies, off to youtube...

^Take your attitude to youtube, we don't want or need it. We're trying to have a civilized discussion and "talk to the hand, fuckers" isn't a very good argument.

Sometimes I wish I could delete comments. Especially when they exist solely to whore votes.

I think where a lot of conflict is generated is where people try to substitute science for religion, or vice versa. When really they two are not really comparable to one another. Religion asks, and answers transcendental, or purpose-driven questions (i.e. why am I here? Is there a supreme being?) touching on the meta-physicals.

Science asks, and answers questions pertaining to our physical world (i.e. how did things start? How has life evolved?). It focuses on the tangible evidence stored in the very fabric of the world we know and live in.

Which is why science can't answer questions beyond what is physically represented. Because it has nothing to analyze.

Likewise religion cannot take transcendental events and place them in a physical light for science to analyze. It's up to the individual to rely on personal experence rather then anything tangible to others.

wasn't meant to whore votes, was meant to express frustration with tomes of babble, on a subject simple to me... like you say gorgon, can't really use some forms of expression to communicate universal truths well-
inna nutshell-I don't ask questions about science vs.religion, atheism vs. theism-tired of folks who do in public....much more pressing matters to attend to on planet earth-(see above verse)

The question of defining things into categories and different species is a very good point, Dakwins has a chapter on this in The Ancestor's Tale, It's called The salamanders tale, and I posted a video of it here http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-The-Salamanders-Tale

One way to look at animals is to compare it to colors, ie: defining "blue" What is blue? it goes from "almost white" to "Almost black", and it goes from "almost purple" to "Almost green" and so on, the truth is that the number of blue shades is actually infinite, the same goes with every other color. The same is true with animals. Imagine if you only lived 3 minutes on a sunny afternoon, and you'd say "The sky is blue. Period" and I show you a picture from the same morning with a blood red sky, you'd perhaps say "That's a different sky, a blue sky cant become a red sky, its blue!" And that's how we see animals, a deer-like animal cant become a dolphin and a dinosaur cant become a bird., yet during the course of a few million years, that's exactly what has happened.

This is 2 pictures of the same person:
http://www.lies.com/wp/images/bush3.jpg
http://www.topnews.in/uploads/george-bush3.jpg

When did the kid turn into an old man? never, and all the time, of course, at no point in this mans life could you actually see, from one day to the next that he became older, but of course, he did. and we have photographic evidence, you can look on the web and find pictures of this guy when he was an infant, when he was 4, 20,30,50 and so on. We can also run a DNA test and determine that Barbara Bush once gave birth to this old man, so he must have been smaller at some point

The same thing goes with evolution: Fossils are like pictures frozen in time, and DNA can show how related we are to tomatoes. Or monkeys. Or fish, or anything else that lives on this planet.

>> ^gorgonheap:
I think where a lot of conflict is generated is where people try to substitute science for religion, or vice versa.

I think you are ignoring the historical context, religion was once the ONLY source of answers, science has been replacing it steadily in this regard.

The physical vs spiritual distinction is an artifact of this shift, before science displaced religion in cosmology everyone in Christendom simply accepted that religion answered everything. That heaven was as physical a place as Rome, that angels and souls exist in the same sense that human bodies and rocks do. As science provided accurate, and more importantly useful, answers which conflicted with the church the church needed a refuge. They were tired of being proven wrong, they created a new category, "real but unobservable" which we call spiritual.

As we learn more and more, as we enter an arena of understanding where we can start asking questions about what is consciousness in a scientific way we pierce the veil of the physical/spiritual boundary, religion is again put to the test.

At some point "spiritual" starts to look like "imaginary", and that is were we stand now, religion can either be put to the test, and run the very real risk of failure, or it can refuse the test, argue that religion is not only irrelevant to Newtonian mechanics, but also to the question of what it is to be human, and declare itself useless to humanity as a source of answers at all.

Science also suffers from this conflict, it's structural need to find answers is threatened by those who claim to have the answers without being able to prove, or even understand the work that would challenge them. Science is harmed because it can not counter non-scientific challenges, but neither does it, or should it, have a way to ignore the answers which follow from the data it collects.

If religion wants science to stop at some boundary it will have to provide some scientifically valid proof that it is taking care of finding the truth in that sphere. Religious people who campaign against science don't even seem to be aware that their objections are meaningless to the scientific community for the same reason the scientific community annoys them in the first place. Science is a set of consistent rules, which means hypotheses can lose, religious institutions are not comfortable with impartial judgment, it is not the nature of their endeavor to allow arbitration, but to be arbitrators.

No consensus can be reached unless we can agree to rules which make sense to all sides, the old rules worked before science passed the event horizon of structural consciousness, it is not clear that new rules can be found which are acceptable to all sides, now that the landscape of understanding has changed.

^Speaking from a religious paradigm I would have to say that a true understanding of religion does not contradict true science. The historical problem was that people who sought to know the workings of the physical world looked for answers in religion, and at the risk of leaving those questions unanswered, there was an explanation given. Maybe not a correct one but it felt, for lack of evidence, to compose a reason for the physical workings of the world, rather then just filling the spiritual needs of it practitioners.

Science has since meet many of the gaps about the physical workings of life that were at one time, speculative at best. However there is a still great deal of mystery about how the universe and all of it's laws interact with one another. To say that man has achieved omniscience about their existence a gross lie.

I don't think religion wants true science to stop at any given point. I for one find that true science harmonizes excitingly well with my religious views. However the two play a much different role in life. My spirituality gives me drive, meaning, and confidence in life and the human experence. Science helps me to understand the laws and specifics of how the world works, opens my mind to the fascination of how simple and basic life starts to how complex and incredible it is now.

While both science and religion ask & answer different questions about our existence, I also see a uniting of the two as being the as truth that will be gathered as a whole.

>> ^gorgonheap:
To say that man has achieved omniscience about their existence a gross lie.

I don't recall anybody making that claim, I certainly did not. Religious revelation is the only claim to universal and total truth that I am aware of in the religion vs science debate, and this is not a position you seem to be advocating from the religious side either.

I was pointing out that the gaps we are working on filling are gaps we didn't even know existed a century ago. We can now start to formulate theories and study mind as a computational system, the question of what we are as thinking beings is no longer a strictly metaphysical exercise, as science keeps answering questions which religion thought it had in the bag, where is there for religion to stand?

Do we have to construct, again, out of whole cloth, a new magisterium which we believe science will never be able to intrude upon? What do we do when science comes knocking on that door in a decade or two?

Looks like I missed out on this discussion. Is it too late to fling some mud like gwiz? Yeah? Well, shit.

>> ^gorgonheap:
Speaking from a religious paradigm I would have to say that a true understanding of religion does not contradict true science. The historical problem was that people who sought to know the workings of the physical world looked for answers in religion, and at the risk of leaving those questions unanswered, there was an explanation given. Maybe not a correct one but it felt, for lack of evidence, to compose a reason for the physical workings of the world, rather then just filling the spiritual needs of it practitioners.


That is exactly the problem. If you accept that science has proven spiritual teachings to be inaccurate, no matter how trivial or allegorical the subject may be, then how can you possibly trust anything else in the scripture? Once you accept that the scripture as fallible, it is no longer holy. If it is not the word of God, but the writings of common men, then it is open to scrutiny that leads inevitably to its invalidation.

When you let religion and the scientific method co-exist in your mind, you are compartmentalizing. You are saying "logic and reason are great tools to use in daily life, but they don't apply to my faith". And why do you do that? Because if you apply logic and reason to religion, it dissolves.

There once was the concept of non-overlapping magisteria, proposing areas of expertise where science or religion could hold full reign without the possibility of being contradicted by the other. But as far as I can tell, there are no areas that science is not making headway, including consciousness itself.

The only way religion will be able to perpetuate itself in the coming centuries is to fight against the nobility of reason itself. This is what we are seeing in the current push to include the so-called debate on creationism. If you can convince a young mind that there are some things that are true without evidence, that are real without facts, and important without cause, then you can convince them to follow your nonsensical teachings without thinking about it too much.

I can tell you are a thoughtful, intelligent person gorgonheap, but you, like the vast majority of humans, are clinging to a comforting superstition. You are afraid that without it you will lose your meaning, your drive. That comfort does not make it true. That fear does not make it true. Life has no inherent meaning. But rather than being terrified of the emptiness, you may if you choose come to realize that it is nothing more or less than the opportunity to invent whatever you want to fill that space. And let me tell you from personal experience, the meaning of life goes to a whole new level when you invent what it is for yourself, and then live it without anybody being able to tell you different.

What do we do when science comes knocking on that door in a decade or two?

We could pretend we're washing our hair?

^MaxWilder

Simply because I acknowledge the bible has errors does not make it any less of a valuable or sacred text. You say life is empty, I say the very fact we are self-aware throws speculation on that theory.

The problem with atheism is that science doesn't support it. Yet you want it too, so you find comfort in logical deduction and experimentation. I don't see how that is so different, we're just scared of different things.

I see science as the laws by which God works, you see science as showing the absence of a deity. You have reason to deny a creator, I have reason to believe in one. It's a glass half full or half empty thing. We're both looking at the same evidence but from it we both come to different conclusions about something that, at this time, cannot be confirmed or denied. That is why it is a belief.

That's exactly what it is for both theism and atheism. They are just beliefs, nothing you can show to support them, it's just something you feel to be true.

*quality

Awarding gorgonheap with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by kronosposeidon.