I think teaching theology in shcool would be fine, as long as I'm not forced to learn about it.

rengori
I think teaching theology in shcool would be fine, as long as I'm not forced to learn about it.

There was a guy on the Daily Show a night or two ago that wrote a book called Religious Literacy (by Stephen Prothero). Basically, his point was that everyone should be informed about all the religions in the world and that the public school was a good place to do it. He wasn't pushing teaching one religion over the other or teaching religion for sake of morality, but rather that understanding other religions is essential in communicating with other cultures and for working towards peace. He especially thought that politicians should be well versed in other religions... because even though in America religion isn't THE driving force on our society, religion IS in other places and understanding their religion is the key to understanding them.

I tend to agree with that. Everyone SHOULD be forced to learn about religions just like they're forced to learn math, english or science. Well, they should be forced to sit through the class like others, anyways... choosing to learn is up to the individual.

I plan on reading it. It's hard to think that this guy is wrong about this basic premise; wrong that ignorance of world religion is not the best approach. I don't know what is ACTUALLY in the book, I can only go by the reviews I've read and what he said on the Daily Show.

I agree. Look at how many people are totally ignorant about the impact and contribution religions make to our culture, history and society. Without a good working knowledge of it, you're basically an idiot when it comes to understanding the events in history, anything much about culture, or even current world events, even in your own community!

I can't tell you how much it annoys me when people think they can understand the world perfectly by learning nothing more than some basic facts, and gleaning the rest from pop culture and a dictionary... It's as if to them the world was created in their own teenage years and nothing before that (except what's cool in movies) is really worth knowing about. I'm sorry, but human civilisation and culture is what separates us from the animals (so to speak), it's only by continuing, preserving, and understanding the lessons of the past that we stay civilised.

Rant over. :)

i've read several pages of this thread. it's all very interesting stuff. forgive me if this was already discussed and i missed it but the bible proves evolution if it's read literaly. let me explain.

1) the first time it proves evolution is during creation. seems like an imposibility huh. from what i remember from sunday school god only made 2 people. adam and eve. i'm just assuming that they were both of the same ethnicity. without evolution we would all look just like adam or eve and not be any different from them. even if they were of different ethnicity we would only have 2 ethnicities.

2) the great flood is part 2 and part 3. from what i remember noah and his family built a big wooden boat on land and all the animals came to him. that being said the fish and sea animals did not come to him cause they would have died on land. salt water fish cannot live in freash water and fresh water fish cannot live in salt water. once the oceans covered the land there would be no more fresh water and all fresh water fish would die from the sea salt. we know that the lakes and rivers on land are mostly fresh water and are now occupied by fresh water fish.

3) see number 1 but replace adam and eve with noah and his family.

the funny thing about noah's arc is that no one seems to do the math on a boat holding 2 of ever animal so here it is.

number of species (estimated) http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/FelixNisimov.shtml
1,500,000 - i picked a conservative number based on what is actually catalogued.

it says that 1/2 of these are insects so lets discount those = 750,000

i would estimate that each animal would need about 4 square feet of space. (some will need more and some will need less)
750,000 x 4 = 3,000,000sq ft

but noah had 2 of every animal
3,000,000sq ft x 2 = 6,000,000

there are 5280 ft in 1 mile
6,000,000 / 5280 = 1136.36 sq miles

so lets say that he had multiple layers to his boat
1136.36 / 2 = 568.18sq miles per level if there was 2 levels
1136.36 / 4 = 284.09sq miles per level if there were 4 levels

the largest ship i could find was the knock navis at 1526 ft long. that's .28 miles long. so even if this boat was square it would only have .56sq miles per level.

even if my numbers are off by a lot that one big ass wood boat that 1 family built.

why i think that the creationist movement will hurt america and why it must stop.
The creationist movement is nothing more than preaching religion disguised as science. creationist calling themselves scientist are not implementing the scientific method to back their data:

1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
7. Publish results

they jump the 4,5,6 step and go straight to publishing their material and pass it off as being scientific. There is no scientific panel to judge the validity of thier claim.

One reason why they want creationism to be taught in schools is that it helps to advertise their religion to younger and more malleable minds. They have created many websites which are kid friendly to decieve children with false scientific findings.

To me it is the same as spreading "hate" to impressionable youths. get them while thier young, telling them that thier race is more superior by introducing them with false evidence.

Someone
As the world grows more complex, and we face scientific challenges such as addressing global warming, developing sustainable energy sources, and preventing the spread of pandemics, it is critical that America remain in the forefront of science.

having a assumptions of how things work will create a society of people that assumes how things work instead of finding out why it works. This country's scientific input is slowly declining, instead of creating calculating minds, we are creating people who can't deciper scientific evidence and false facts. While other countries are producing advance science, america's science will start to crumble. No longer will we be the forefront of science, but a coutry that assumes.

every child that is exposed to this material is another great mind lost because they cannot deciper fact from fiction. They are mislead by many creationist views while searching for the answers on the internet. like graffitti, they litter the net. The child could have helped solve the greatest equation that combines quantum mechanic and general relativity. just by a simple equation, general relativity has created many advances in science.

Someone
Evolutionary biology certainly hasnt explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasnt yet tried to explain anything at all.

The supernatural explanation fails to explain because it ducks the responsibility to explain itself.

Try living in Kansas and being the son of a biology professor.

-W

Someone
750,000 x 4 = 3,000,000sq ft

3,000,000sq ft x 2 = 6,000,000

there are 5280 ft in 1 mile
6,000,000 / 5280 = 1136.36 sq miles

so lets say that he had multiple layers to his boat
1136.36 / 2 = 568.18sq miles per level if there was 2 levels
1136.36 / 4 = 284.09sq miles per level if there were 4 levels

Largest Ship In The World [en.wikipedia.org]
Total square feet = 339,904
Total cubic feet = 334,465,536


1 square mile = 27,878,400 square feet
1 cubic mile = 147,197,952,000 square feet

That gives 24.4 sq ft for every person alive on the planet today.

Now then if 6 billion people can fit inside a cubic mile with 24.4 sq ft each then maybe, just maybe, there was a boat big enough to fit two of every animal back 6,000 years ago.

But hey, I'm just throwing around numbers.

CorruptComics
Now then if 6 billion people can fit inside a cubic mile with 24.4 sq ft each then maybe, just maybe, there was a boat big enough to fit two of every animal back 6,000 years ago.

No.

A gigantic ship like the Nock Nevis barely holds together and that's a welded steel vessel that took thousands of men a few years to make. Now think about how they make things 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, or even 5000 years ago. You can't make something that large with wood, reeds, or leather and have it hold together and support itself on the ocean; just not going to happen, ever. It'd collapse under its own weight before you even got the animals aboard. On the ocean the sea would break it up in minutes.

The only other popular material was stone... It's hard enough to make a small stone boat, let alone one the size of a pyramid!

The moral is that it's a stupid story if taken literally, like a lot of mythology, but if you think about it in terms of perhaps just an apocryphal tale existing to make a moral point about something, or even a twisted exaggerated and distorted account of some understandable real event (like a clever farming family who saved some of their breading stock during a bad flood on a fertile river delta by rescuing them from isolated high points using a medium sized reed boat), why then it makes sense!

That's the trouble with creationists, they don't get how either reality or the bible works.

Also, another point.

For the arc to have worked in the literal sense, that means that EVERY creature on earth would have had to have lived in Jerusalem at the time. Otherwise, how is it that they were able to get on the boat, and still live among us today? This means Kangaroos, platypus, sloth's, Anaconda's, bombadier beetles, penguins, polar bears, poison tree frogs, and all number of very specific, easily identifiable creatures that would have no way of living in the climate at the time. The bible makes no refrences to any of these creatures, nor to any local Jerusalem rain forests, so for this story to be taken in a literal sense, it would be an impossible feat from all number of fauna involved.

-W

So we've learned again that you can't take the bible literally. Especially the Old Testament.

Didn't we know that already?

i think the creationist are treating this "war with evolution" as somewhat of a crusade

kingofsnake
So we've learned again that you can't take the bible literally. Especially the Old Testament.

Didn't we know that already?

Yea, but you have to admit; it's damn fun to talk about isn't it?

Perhaps this discussion is drawing to a close then? Or maybe the point all along was just to criticise creationists...? Maybe they need someone to argue their case again. Hmmm... It's hard though because although I quite like mythology, I can't support the idea of taking it so seriously that we let it replace our more rigorous, logical, scientific understanding of the world, because that would eventually lead us backwards technologically. Personally I think creationism and ID theory is a little dangerous when looked at that way.

I mentioned on another topic how evolution deals with the same holes in the theory that ID tries to exploit. I was flipping through a scientific response to ID and creationism the other day.

One of the major points that ID has is genesis. Where did that first simple life come from? And the response of at least this scientist, was basically, yes we know our current theory about genesis sounds pretty farfetched, but at least we're testing it. Show me how to test ID and I'll do it I'll do it today.

Which is really the culmination of the "why theology shouldn't be part of science" the very nature of science is to test theories and ID is untestable.

I personally believe ID, but I don't go around thinking it's scientifically accurate. It's just a belief like anything else.

Evolutionist and Creations both seem to be rather blinded when it comes to finding out the facts of the matter.

Why? Because both have already made up their minds on the matter and are just trying to prove a point. And until I see either side working on finding the real answers, not just wasting time trying to disprove/reprove/unprove/disreunprove ideas and theories they already have decided are set in stone as truth, I'm really just going to ignore both sides.

Creationist wants to prove that the Bible is historically accurate because hey, that's one more thing that could help them convert other to their side.

Evolutionists want to prove that they are right because the last thing a scientists wants to look like it one of those experts who thought the earth was flat at one point. Also they have a thing were anyone who has "faith" in things outside science are some kind of raving mad fools.

I see no harm in letting either side believe what they wish. If the evolutionists are right then life is ultimately meaningless and just some random act of cell reproduction. In that case the past is of little importance anyways. If the creationists are right then... well I guess they get bragging rights in Heaven.

creationist corrupt children's minds with false unscientific proven "facts", that harms the future generation of the society's scientific output. instead of smart people who uses concrete thinking, we have people who make real world conclusions by lackluster data.

Weird thing about kids... they grow up and learn for themselves. If your theory held true than 100% of the kids I went to school with would go to church every day and still believe in creation. It is far from 100%. On that same note I know a lot of people who were taught nothing but evolution and decided that creationisms better explained the origins of life, while they were in college.

you are only as smart as the information you were fed. if you were taught not to see the other side because it is evil and against your religion then you won't.

Yeah, that's not really true at all.

and how did you come to that conclusion?

I lived it

CorruptComics
Weird thing about kids... they grow up and learn for themselves. If your theory held true than 100% of the kids I went to school with would go to church every day and still believe in creation. It is far from 100%. On that same note I know a lot of people who were taught nothing but evolution and decided that creationisms better explained the origins of life, while they were in college.

so , what you're saying is that it doesn't realy matter what kids are taught in elementary and high school because they can just learn something different in college ?
by that standard we can tell kids that the Earth is flat and electricity is evil magic created by the devil !

For a belief system, yes. You can teach a child to believe in God and that he created the world in 7 days. You can a teach a child to believe in what scientists say and that the world evolved to the state it is today.

Because they grow up and sooner or later this applies...

Buddha
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense."

CorruptComics

Someone
750,000 x 4 = 3,000,000sq ft

3,000,000sq ft x 2 = 6,000,000

there are 5280 ft in 1 mile
6,000,000 / 5280 = 1136.36 sq miles

so lets say that he had multiple layers to his boat
1136.36 / 2 = 568.18sq miles per level if there was 2 levels
1136.36 / 4 = 284.09sq miles per level if there were 4 levels

Largest Ship In The World [en.wikipedia.org]
Total square feet = 339,904
Total cubic feet = 334,465,536


1 square mile = 27,878,400 square feet
1 cubic mile = 147,197,952,000 square feet

That gives 24.4 sq ft for every person alive on the planet today.

Now then if 6 billion people can fit inside a cubic mile with 24.4 sq ft each then maybe, just maybe, there was a boat big enough to fit two of every animal back 6,000 years ago.

But hey, I'm just throwing around numbers.

lol. i'm STILL bad at math. but a 1 cubic mile ship would rule. we are noah of borg. you animals will be assimilated.

Someone make a comic, stat!

Yo, Corrupt, keep it professional. This is a discussion, not an outlet for snide remarks and thinly veiled insults.

-W

I had an interesting thought today.

If God created Earth 6,000 years ago with all life perfectly adapted in this divine interwoven network, then why would he leave civilization and culture to evolve as it will? ... and to have so many imperfections?

Why create a perfect universe, planet and symbiotic relation for all life... and then create such an imperfect creature (man) and such a basic civilization and culture within which he is expected to grow and evolve through his destruction there of?

That just doesn't make sense to me. Some would say: because man has a soul and He loves us so much that He allows us to choose imperfection? That doesn't work logically to me... why bother to make everything but man soooo perfect when you fully know with infinite knowledge that he's going to screw it up.

Why not just make civilization perfect in the first place? With technology for agriculture, metal working, space travel, computers... all of it in the beginning? Why make use start in sand huts with rocks tied to sticks and not just start with computers and cell phones and whatever other future tech there is... like easy space travel.

The importance of God creating everything perfect seems negated when its intention is for man to f@#k up.

By intention to f-up... I mean... man, eventually needs a savior (Jesus) and then continues to f-up and eventually needs an apocolypse/rapture (old testement and also new testement) which carries the rebirth of the savior.

That's all "His plan"... and part of that plan involves us f-ing up... which involves making imperfect what he perfectly created.

Just doesn't make sense to me.

well, the whole point of being human is to learn and improve from your own mistakes.

if we were all constantly perfect, etc... then we would never learn anything at all. your scenario that you described above: since we're so perfect and already have all the technology we want, etc... then why brother to try to improve? Why bother learning about compassion for other living things, etc.... because after all, we're already perfect and therefore is above any other living thing on the same planet as us.

If humans didn't have to work at being what they wanted to be, working at the things they wanted to have... then we'll never really learn anything at all. sure, we could have the knowledge implanted into our heads by god to use the technology, etc... but basically we'd just all be one big dumb species with completely no motivation for anything at all.

i think then by that argument of improving one self or species is why evolution exists. because improvement isn't limited to humans.

subcultured
i think then by that argument of improving one self or species is why evolution exists. because improvement isn't limited to humans.

Evolution is about adaption, not improvement. We're going off on a tangent here though.

But what really is a creationist? Someone who takes the Christian version of biblical creation literally? Or doe it also apply to other religious people who take their creation myths seriously? Are there any organised groups from any religion other than Fundamentalist Christianity that have set themselves up in opposition to the theory of evolution?

semantics. evolution= adapting to improve in surviving in a changing environment.