If Darwin was correct

[Xin Yu]

Originally posted by DaShi
No offense, but ignorance doesn't prove a theory wrong.

Well, I beg to differ. To prove a theory may require good knowledge of it, but to disprove one only needs one counter example to any of the claims of the theory. That does not need very good knowledge at all.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
Well, I beg to differ. To prove a theory may require good knowledge of it, but to disprove one only needs one counter example to any of the claims of the theory. That does not need very good knowledge at all.

While that maybe true, you have to know the theory to provide a real counterexample, instead of one that's seems to be a counterexample.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
If you use a) it ends here. If you use b) then get ready for at least 3 follow- up questions. So the rule of thumb is: do not introduce new concepts when answer a question unless absolutely necessary.

That's dumb. Nothing wrong with "we don't know" as an honest answer.

Originally posted by Xin Yu
Answer a) is not incorrect, it is just not detailed.

It is incorrect to invoke something you know doesn't exist - or at least something that you can't provide any evidence.

Originally posted by Xin Yu
You give this answer and a lot of people will be satisfied.

It's good to give wrong answers to people?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Xin Yu
OK, my personal opinion: suppose your 9 year old nephew asks you this question, how do you answer him? If you use a) it ends here. If you use b) then get ready for at least 3 follow- up questions. So the rule of thumb is: do not introduce new concepts when answer a question unless absolutely necessary. Answer a) is not incorrect, it is just not detailed. You give this answer and a lot of people will be satisfied. For those who are not, give them a book and let them read since they need to learn more before they can apprehend more complicated answers.

So I should you advocate teaching bull to young people, so that they don't become pesky with questions?

I can understand that parents will sometimes not give proper info to their kids ("clouds are made of strands of cotton that wanted to look good" or something like that) because teaching a kid can be tiresome. It's human, but it's not morally right. And you advocate doing so? (i.e. considering it's the right thing to do?)

[Combat Ingrid]

If you teach your kids to think for themselves, they may leave your religion. Better make sure they don't waste their time thinking about how things work. God made everything, that's all they ever need to know

[Spiffor]

I have just discovered how I'll educate my kids

Everytime they ask me why something good happens, I'll tell them the benevolent Marx has created it And everytime they ask me about something bad, I'll explain it's the evil capitalists' fault

It's a bit undetailed, but it's true!

[DRoseDARs]

Few things in this world are sadder than an uninquisitive person...

My parents didn't force their religion on me like their parents did them. While they taught me right from wrong, I was left to my own devices to explore the world. I believe in Tao and from Tao came God and thus all things. Tao isn't some supernatural force, it simply Is. It seperates Is from Is Not, Somethingness from Nothingness, Existence from Oblivion. I believe God made the seed of the universe and wrote its rules, but I believe God let the universe work on its own after that by setting things in motion with the Big Bang. I DO NOT discount the possibility that God has influenced the universe's developement during the past 12-18 billion years, but I DO discount the need for God influencing that developement. God made the universe well-enough that it doesn't require further tinkering on God's part. It is left to us to discover its workings and treat all of Tao with the respect and care it is due.

[trev]

but I DO discount the need for God influencing that developement.

I must disagree with this statement, when human beings ignore the existence of God completely as a society, they begin to commit great evil, examples being communism under Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Hitler in Nazi Germany. There is a need for people in every society who believe in God and obey his will, or the society will degenerate and commit great evil

[DRoseDARs]

Adolph Hitler was a Christian (well, in claim only). He perverted the religion. In fact, most of the world's great evils were done in the name of religion or God. You might want to take a closer look at history before claiming the lack of God will make society crumble...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by trev

I must disagree with this statement, when human beings ignore the existence of God completely as a society, they begin to commit great evil, examples being communism under Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Hitler in Nazi Germany. There is a need for people in every society who believe in God and obey his will, or the society will degenerate and commit great evil

Stalin was training to be a priest, and Hitler and Goebbels were Catholics. Plenty of churchmen and women supported the Nazi Party in Germany and Mussolini's Fascisti.

Should I go on to list the great evils committed in the name of religion?



Perhaps you may have heard of the 'Holy' Inqusition, for instance.

I think we can all be grateful that mechanization and industrialization weren't available to the three great Inqusitions, nor indeed to the crusading movements.

As it was, the Teutonic Knights did a pretty good job of masscring non-believers in the lands bordering the Baltic Sea, and those warriors for god in the Holy Land were quite adept at killing Muslims and Jews, and Christians who didn't happen to be 'their' kind of Christian. They 'liberated' Jerusalem, for instance, at the cost of 70 000 civilians massacred. Very holy, that.

'Evil' doesn't require a disbelief in a deity to occur.

[trev]

There is a need for people in every society who believe in God and obey his will, or the society will degenerate and commit great evil

I stated that it was necessary for people to believe in God AND obey his will, all the national leaders you mentioned abandoned their faith in God, and it cannot be claimed the the leaders of the inquisition were following God's will or the crusaders as God has never sanctioned vilence as a means for spreading his gospel and crushing opposition. If you wish to oppose my statement, use genuine examples only please.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by trev

I stated that it was necessary for people to believe in God AND obey his will, all the national leaders you mentioned abandoned their faith in God, and it cannot be claimed the the leaders of the inquisition were following God's will or the crusaders as God has never sanctioned vilence as a means for spreading his gospel and crushing opposition. If you wish to oppose my statement, use genuine examples only please.

God has never sanctioned violence? Are you quite sure?


In any case, god and religion are two separate things: since god didn't bothered to show up to contradict St Bernard or Pope Gregory IX or Pope Paul III or the Dominicans or the Crusaders and they all claimed to be following god's will, how exactly is anyone meant to know the difference?


And if you believe in the biblical flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the story of Exodus, the various afflictions supposedly delivered to the enemies of the Hebrews and so forth, then your god is quite familiar with the wreaking of large scale death and destruction to prove a point.

[Whaleboy]

Trev, the inquisition, the religious wars, the English civil war, terrorism... the list goes on ad nausium

Does anyone else find it quite scary about the very poor level of education re. evolution that seems to display itself among certain unnamed creationists? That is to say, where it's being taught there may be deficient teaching methods.

[Odin]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Aren't there still some archeobacteria (sp?) around deepsea vents that don't require oxygen? We know that there used to be because the atmosphere didn't always have oxygen, it had to be expelled as a waste product eons ago.

Most biologists call them Archaea nowdays, and yes, most of them do not use oxygen. The early atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen, about 3.5 billion years ago the Cyanobacteria invented a form of photosynthesis that used water instead of hydrogen sulfide as a source of hydrogen, releasing oxygen instead of sulfur as a waste product. the oxygen reacted with the huge amounts of iron ions in the seawater to form the great iron ore deposits, like the Mesabi formation in NE Minnesota, that we use today. When all the iron was gone, oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere.

[Kidlicious]

Molly bloom is incredible.... In a good way.