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EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by farrisdabis, Mar 25, 2008.

  1. rhester

    rhester Member

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    I believe in the bible creation.
    You are right I am marginally educated (Cougar High) but I am rational. But I try not to be religious minded. I respect your post as an opinion. A majority opinion. In fact a vast majority opinion. But still an opinion.

    I attended 12 years of school as an atheist who believed in evolution and changed my mind.

    When I became a Christian I still believed in evolution and many other Christians do believe in evolution. Nothing wrong with that.

    But I began to challenge my own beliefs and now I do not find enough genuine evidence to buy into evolution any more. And just because I don't buy into the vast majority opinion neither makes me wrong or right. I don't look at it as right or wrong at all, I look at it as something to do in D&D. :)
     
  2. rhester

    rhester Member

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    I was going to ask you to answer that. But, it is not micro evolution.
     
  3. surrender

    surrender Member

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    Ad populum.
     
  4. justtxyank

    justtxyank Member

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    Incorrect use of Latin.

    I'm not saying because millions believe in creation that it is true, I'm saying calling them all irrational or uneducated is insulting.
     
  5. Refman

    Refman Member

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    Bingo.

    This is why some horrible things have been done in the name of Jesus. People reading each word of the Bible literally, rather than getting the meaning out of the stories and the message that Jesus was trying to convey.
     
  6. Rashmon

    Rashmon Member

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    Touche, and to you and justyanks, my sincere apology for sounding insulting. It is not my wish to come off that way.
     
  7. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    No one says you have to believe in evolution. However, most of the modern science theories in the field of bilogy is based on the theory of evolution. It is the fundamental principle of the whole field and the best we got until someone comes up with something better(if they do, more power to them. Just like Newton's Law of physics was the best we got until relativity came along).

    People could still teach that earth is the center of universe and that earth is flat, but the only ones hurt by that would be the kids who were not taught the most up to date scientific theories. If this nation does not care about scientific advancements in the field of biology whn the rest of the world is gonig full speed ahead, I guess that is not going to bother other countries at all. We could all follow the example of Kansas and drop evolution and teach intelligent desgin, I am sure that will make this country better and stronger.
     
  8. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Can I put in that song from those NBA commercials?

    Where Evolution Happens
     
  9. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    They aren't shunned until they try to inject unprovable and untestable premises into the scientific method.

    It's like saying, "Gravity exists because of God."

    Yeah, that's great, and I'll respectfully disagree with that belief as long as you (in general) don't use that as an excuse to inject religion inside science classrooms.

    Personally, religion shouldn't be banned in all classes. The arts and social sciences are being cut in the guise of funding for computers and labs, but how can administrators say that with a straight face with the money they spend on sports programs and their own buildings?

    I would not care if ID was taught in a mandatory theology class. If that happens, maybe these activist groups can stop watering down curricula for bio so we can keep up with other industrialized nations.
     
  10. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Member

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    I see I should have put my paragraph about ID being a distraction in bold-face. I think you're hung up on your prejudice against creationists and ID folks and not addressing the point of the post you quoted. There are scientists who work to discredit evolution without any appeal to ID. There are scientists who work in evolution-neutral terms. They both have a hard time getting traction in the industry. My sister tells me that a discussion of the evolutionary implications of her research is necessary to be entertained for publication or even be considered 'done' by lab heads. I don't think that's simple adherence to the scientific method; that's dogmatic adherence to evolution, scientific method be damned. If you want to be true to the scientific method, address studies that claim to discredit evolution and disprove them instead of trying to eliminate their funding or to villify the author.
     
  11. joliver325

    joliver325 Member

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    I just can't get with the fact that there was a big bang and the Universe was born from it. Somehow out of all that bacteria got together and created organisms that live amongst other organisms that now evolved into something able to be self aware of its existence.

    To think we are randomly placed here for no apparent reason makes no sense. So there is no sense to all that we see? Its hard to fathom being aware of the beautiness of the world and not think that some one designed it and designed us to see and be aware of it.

    For those who don't believe in creationism, I respect your opinions but since there is no reason except pure randomness being here why do we live and why do we believe in society and living amongst others. Why do we have a feeling strong enough to cause us to die for certain beliefs or people?
     
  12. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Setting aside whatever I believe about our place in the universe, even if we were a mistake or random coincidence, we've created meaning upon meaning in our 5,000+ years of recorded history.

    Should believing that we're created enhance our views of this world, or can the view of the beautiful world be innate or learned?

    I honestly don't think Evolution and religion are mutually exclusive. A God facilitated process of Evolution will always be possible, but science shouldn't be a tool to dig deep into religion and vice versa. Both can be complimentary for individuals who seek deeper meaning in their lives and their place in the universe. To me, both are necessary for that goal.
     
  13. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
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    Tracing genetic phylogeny may now present the single greatest piece of evidence of evolution. If the world was made in a strict Biblical way, then God very deliberately set every tiny gene, in each organism, to be absolutely pointing to an evolutionary theory that took millions of years. He was deliberately as misleading as possible, and I don't understand that notion of God. (e.g. there's no need for monkeys and humans to have some of the exact same, quirky dormant, genetic artifacts, and have those artifacts absent in fish, lizards and even dogs, unless monkeys and humans have a common ancestor.) The Almighty put brains in our heads, presented a wealth of gorgeous evidence, only to trick us?

    If someone starts in Nacogdoches, Texas, walking, and then you see him in Lufkin two days later, sweaty, tired, with fresh red dirt on his shoes, do you think there's evidence he walked in between? Or did he teleport, and all the sweat, red dirt and fatigue are just there to trick you? And I mean, you analyze each molecule of dirt and can show which acre of land it came from exactly, tracing his path from Nacogdoches to Lufkin... but he teleported, and is a prankster, someone practicing an intensely detailed chicanery for no good reason.

    I don't think the version of God I believe in would do such a thing.


    -=-----------------


    To me... I see the universe, and our continued discoveries of it, as glorious things that can amplify spirituality and belief in the divine.

    The term "intelligent design" was, ironically, coined by a capital-S Scientist, a cosmologist in fact (that is, a physicist studying the structure of the universe). The person was referring to the amazing fact that all the fundamental constants are at just the perfect values, out to 10 decimal places, that we need to have the fundamental forces form planets, to form organic molecules, and to have carbon-based life as we know it. It is like the universe has been set, by an agent, to allow the processes of stellar evolution, planetary development, atmospheres, and even, at least in one case, life. Change any one of those constants, for gravity, the permittivity of free space, etc, and you can't get a universe like ours.

    That is awe-inspiring, moving, and, to some of us, completely compatible with a spiritual faith.

    And evolution, a brilliant system for the propagation, adaptation and survival of life, completely fits with the notion that something bigger than mankind's understanding is at work. In short, how could you possibly create a more intelligent design than the central dogma of DNA and what happens when you let the process of genetic mutation interact with the earth's environment for a few million years?

    All chances of me being an atheist went out the window when I really learned some of the details of evolution and of modern cosmology. Yes, they are theories, and we have more to learn. There is a ton of evidence underwriting both, and these theories will always point to deep mysteries in terms of our origin and that of the universe.

    There is more room than ever for a prime mover, IMHO. Science carves out a central stage for such.
     
  14. JeffB

    JeffB Member

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    Recently read Dawkin's The God Delusion... found it a straight-forward, honest, fun and insightful read. (Don't agree with all of it, but I think he presents his position well.) He lays out a well reasoned explanation for the "pure randomness" and "designed" thing (hint: natural selection isn't "pure randomness"). His basic position on designer theories is that they put us back in the position we are in now: trying to explain the emergence of the universe's complexity. If there is a designer (God) Dawkins asks, "so where did the designer come from?" or simply "so who designed the designer?" ( A question I, son of a minister, have always found puzzling. ) Well, there is, of course, more to his position. Check out is book, if you haven't. At least know what you are disagreeing with.

    Anyway, just wanted to put more kindle on this fire:

    Here is an athiest critique of the film: Expelled Overview.

    Dawkins and others were filmed under false pretenses for this film and then edited and made up to distort their positions. Dawkins complains about getting Michael Moored and other things here: Lying for Jesus?.

    One biologist featured in the film was forced to leave a premiere. He got... expelled.
     
  15. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
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    joliver and INvisible fan, great and different posts. joliver, I agree with you more than you might at first think. I hope my long ramble makes that clear.
     
  16. MR. MEOWGI

    MR. MEOWGI Contributing Member

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    That was you?
     
  17. JeffB

    JeffB Member

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    This is pretty much where I stand. I am not an athiest, but I also do not beleive in the Abrahamic or an interventionist God. I also have a hard time buying multiverses and whatnot. Read some Paul Davies and find his thoughts interesting to ponder. Anyway, even in my deepest moments of belief, I still wonder what/who moved the prime mover? In what system does the mover exist?
     
  18. rhester

    rhester Member

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    Here's one designer's paper worth reading.

    Genetic Phylogeny
     
  19. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Are you saying it is unprovable?
    isn't observability a cheif tenet of the 'scientific method'?


    Rocket River
     
  20. pppbigppp

    pppbigppp Member

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    I would like to voice my displeasure on the subject of gravity. You see, although it is only a theory, it is being taught as an indisputable fact in schools. We had stop teaching plausible alternative explanation, which is why our education system is failing. As such, we need to instill intelligent falling back into classrooms.
     

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