The End of the Scientific Age

[stahrwe]

Interbane,

I'll get off it when you demonstrate that atheisism serves the betterment of mankind more than Christianity does.

In fact, from what I have been able to see here, atheism is your religion as well as that of most of the members of this group, and it well fits your quote about flying planes into buildings.

[Interbane]

Star: "In fact, from what I have been able to see here, atheism is your religion."

I could care less about gods or lack of gods, or religion or lack of religion. You're the one flaunting your beliefs. I believe there are principles and virtues to which we should strive to instill in others. I posted as such in another thread.

[Frank 013]

Star
I'll get off it when you demonstrate that atheism serves the betterment of mankind more than Christianity does.

Let’s see… non-believers are less likely to go to prison…

Non-believers are less likely to get divorced…

Non-believers are more successful and educated that their religious counterparts…

Non-believers tend to be more self reliant and independent…

Societies with the largest number of non-believers are more charitable… more tolerant… have less crime… have better records of human rights and woman’s rights…

The list goes on.

Christianity on the other hand kills thousands of people daily through its insistence that condoms are sinful.

Christianity has caused or been the motivation of the masses for countless wars… genocidal action against native populations and pagans… witch hunts… bigotry… elitism… Nazism…. Women’s suppression… human slavery… even genocidal action against competing sects of the same religion…

This list goes on as well…

In todays age everything that Christianity offers can be found elsewhere. Christianity has outlived its usefulness and the only thing it has that is now unique, is its ability to keep those ancient bigotries and fears alive.

Later

[CWT36]

Interbane,

I'll get off it when you demonstrate that atheisism serves the betterment of mankind more than Christianity does.

In fact, from what I have been able to see here, atheism is your religion as well as that of most of the members of this group, and it well fits your quote about flying planes into buildings.

It is interesting to watch you attempt to argue so many things about the Bible, and then just shoot off on another tangent when you get frustrated because your arguments do not stand on their own.

"Serving the benefit of mankind" has no relation to whether something is true or not. Rape, torture and hollow point bullets do not serve the betterment of mankind, and discussing them may make us very uncomfortable, yet they are real.

You may not like atheists or their beliefs. The thought that there may be no god watching over us may make you very uncomfortable, but that has no relation on whether it's truth.

You also may not find humor in Interbane's quote about the airplanes, but unfortunately there is truth in the statement. I guess it could have happened somewhere at some time, but to the best of my knowledge no one has ever flown a plane into a building in the name of no god. I do know of three planes flown into buildings in the name of god. So unless you can provide evidence otherwise, it is true that religion makes people fly into buildings. I agree with Interbane, you should get off your high horse.

[johnson1010]

“We, the undersigned American citizens, urge the adoption of policies by our nation's academic institutions to ensure teacher and student academic freedom to discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. Teachers should be protected from being fired, harassed, intimidated, or discriminated against for objectively presenting the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory. Students should be protected from being harassed, intimidated, or discriminated against for expressing their views about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory in an appropriate manner.”

Who is willing to sign up to this?

I thought so.

Lets take a trip down memory lane to get a good look at what you are supporting with this statement.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you are a pawn of the discovery institute. Years ago they manufactured this "controversy" about evolution so that they could exercise their freedom of religion in the form of shoving farcical religious dogma into the throat of science classes with no thought to how America would end up choking on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute

http://www.discovery.org/

The Discovery Institute is a conservative non-profit public policy U.S. think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses.[2][3][4][5][6] A federal court, along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, say the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis", through incorrectly claiming that it is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community.[7][8][9] In 2005, a federal court ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions",[10] and the institute's manifesto, the Wedge strategy, describes a religious goal: to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".[11][12]

Their first attempt was with the ill-fated creationist movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

Creationism refers to the religious belief[1] that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in some form by a supernatural being or beings, commonly a single deity. However the term is more commonly used to refer to religiously motivated rejection of natural biological processes, in particular evolution, as an explanation accounting for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth (the creation-evolution controversy).[2] In Christian sects such creationism is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2[3] but other religions have deity-led creation myths which are quite different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

See the Wedge document here.

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf

This is the basic framework outlined by the Discovery institute in which they seek to supplant investigation with revelation. It outlines a cynical agenda whereby they will proceed to undercut legitimate science and thrust quasi-scientifically worded religious dogma into competition with it.

It is a short document. Easy to read, easy to see the link to what has been happening in the US.

Among the plans outlined in the wedge document is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_A ... _Evolution

A prime feature of the lesson plan is that it treats evolution as a theory which should be questioned in science classes as according to the scientific process.[3]

which, whether you did so willingly or because you did not know any better, is the source of your post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligen ... n_movement

the court case that was necessitated by the recent attempt to "wedge" intelligent design into science classes found documents in which they had simply erased the words "creation science" and replaced them with Intelligent design. It is the exact same strategy that was found to be blatantly religious in nature, by the exact same group of people, for the exact same designs. To replace materialism with religion.

Scientists are not wrestling with their consciences about evolution. It is well supported by all the available evidence. They aren't retiring to their labs, furtively chewing their finger nails trying to shore up the painfully weak theory of evolution. There is no controversy in the scientific community on this topic.

I'm sure any number of graduates from your school, or from Doug Jones university might take issue at this, or any number of other universities which are unaccredited, but they are not real scientists.

So, no. I will not sign your petition. Was there any other "scientific dissent" you were referring to, or just this one blatantly religiously motivated attempt to undermine one of the foundations of modern science for disingenuous purposes?

[stahrwe]

Frank 13,

you may have done so before, but I would appreciate you citing the source for the study your information is derived from.

Whoever said I go off on tangents, I am looking at the different posts and responding where I feel an interest. I think this site is a bit like the old Soviet school system. A convert to Christianity who had been educated in that system said that she couldn't understand why they kept telling her that Christianity was false. They did it so often it piqued her curiousity.

When the World Trade Centers were attacked on September 11th, the Southern Baptist Disaster Recovery team was on site within hours feeding people, provinding places to rest, and the counselors were there mainly to just listen as the first responders needed someone to talk to after trowling human remains into disaster bags for hours.

Can you name an atheist group who was there helping?

When Katrina hit New Orleans, the Southern Baptist Disaster Recovery team was there. I believe they were the first on site feeding thousands of people, providing medical support, clean clothes and water.

Can you name an atheist group who was there helping?

google: Southern Baptist Disaster Recovery

Please provide a suggestion for a google search for Atheist Disaster Recovery


Pol Pott, Cambodia, Atheist 6 million killed on his orders
Joseph Stalin, Atheist, 10 million, 12 million, 20 million of his own people killed on his orders, fact is we don't know.
Mao Tse Tung, Atheis, 20 million killed by him?


Maybe we could change the pithy little quote so proudly displayed:

"Science flies us to the Moon, Religious zealots fly panes into buildgings, Atheistic despots kill their citizens by the tens of millions, but Christians are there to pick up the pieces."

[CWT36]

Neither Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao nor anyone else I know of has ever killed anyone in the name of no god. Those people did fly planes into buildings in the name of god.

Hence:

"Science flies us to the Moon, religious zealots fly planes into buildings, some atheists and some Christians are there to pick up the pieces, while Christian leaders preach God Damn America, God let this happen because he was mad, and we should invade the Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them all to Christianity."

[Frank 013]

Star
Frank 13,

you may have done so before, but I would appreciate you citing the source for the study your information is derived from.

You do not support your statements for us... why should I do it for you?

Later

[Kevin]

I agree, to a point, with the original premise of this thread. It's far too hyperbolic, but still... I believe there's a valid point in it.

There have been recent cases where lines of research have been greatly hampered due to their having offended the sensibilities of various groups. The first one I can think of occurred as a result of Harvard biologist, naturalist etc. Edward O Wilson publishing, in the 70s (okay so 'recent' will be given a few liberties here), his thoughts about what he called Sociobiology - to cut to the chase - he gave to genetic inheritance a greater importance than was deemed acceptable. He was accused, basically, of being various shades of nazi and a (perhaps unwitting) supporter of their doctrines on eugenics and so on...

Anyway, the point is that the validity of his work wasn't so much questioned as were the implications derived from it by his detractors. I have no doubt they believed his work to be flawed, but that wasn't the primary area where they chose to attack it.

I'm not going to brush aside the assertion that science can be sidetracked by forms of groupthink from time to time - and that perhaps we're in one of those right now.

On the matter of evolution/creationism/ID, however, I don't believe the case can be made that the current situation is an unfair or tremendously skewed one. The primary problem I have with the proponents of the latter two theories is that they collectively want to argue, at the same time, the mutually exclusive arguments that there is no scientific consensus on evolution and that the scientific establishment is wrong for not giving anything other than evolution a detailed examination.

I have no problem whatsoever with ID being given a mention, along with other alternative theories concerning, say, the gravitational effect various celestial bodies have on the earth. The key though is that evolution is to be represented, accurately, as being the consensus opinion of the scientific community.

[stahrwe]

You are incorrect about Stalin, Mao, Pott, et al, they murdered in furtherence of the state which was, in their system, godless.

Your inclusing of J. Wright's quote is interesting in that it brings to mind the fact that within the church there are tares which one day will be sifted.