Better asked, how can I put this?

Post #17,804 by ben_tilly 11/11/01 9:04:38 PM Reply	Better asked, how can I put this? Wade. You have a religious belief in things which are, given the physical evidence, very silly. It is a disservice for anyone who wants to learn science for them to be taught otherwise. Let me give you a simple example. Ice lays down layers, one per year, in a similar manner to tree rings. This process is known, understood, and has been measured. Well we have gone out to Greenland and Antarctica and drilled cores that go back several hundred thousand years. Uninterrupted by anything like the world flood you believe in. If you want you can just count layers. (The actual reason for getting the cores is to study climates past.) There is something ridiculous about having Creationists arguing that the world is less than 10,000 years old, and trying to explain away these ice cores, while the scientific community is doing things like verifying the predicted change in the ratio of days to months a billion years ago (verifiable through patterns of sediment laid down in tides) and figuring out what reactions inside of stars resulted in the exact ratios of elements and isotopes of elements that we see around us. (BTW elements past iron are only produced in supernovas.) But the fact is that the theories of literal creationists are disproven, not part of science, contribute nothing to science, and teaching anything else is teaching people to lack the foundation they need to understand science. Sorry, there is no half-way position here. Asking for any kind of "compromise" is asking for teachers to lie about the scientific enterprise. Ben
Post #17,808 by boxley 11/11/01 9:47:44 PM Reply	Well there is a way for the earth to be new and old at the same time. The bible also speaks of the little item that there is nothing new under the sun. This just might be the latest release. Man 25.6p14. Me I kindas think a statement you made earlier is relevent. God made the world so it wouldnt need tinkering(I am aware that you were explaining others ideas, not your own.)evolution would be proof of a very smart omnipotent being chating a course from a few data collection points to an AI organism run by electrolyes. my 2 pence. thanx, bill tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #17,815 by ben_tilly 11/11/01 11:05:51 PM Reply	Every new toy is made out of old stuff. :-) Very literally. As for your comment about the possibility of evolution being the method that God uses, several major religions have settled on an official resolution that is something like that. Evolution as a mechanism, with appropriate divine nudges, and a divine origin for the soul. Cheers, Ben
Post #17,833 by a6l6e6x 11/12/01 5:43:10 AM Reply	Somewhat OT: world flood This past week there was a National Geographic show on PBS (so it must be true :)) about what is now the Black Sea and how it was once a much smaller fresh water lake that was rapidly flooded from the Med around 5500 BC. It is thought likely to be the cataclysmic event that has been passed down to us as Noah's flood. [link\|http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/12/122800blacksea.html\|National Geographic link.] Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #17,838 by ben_tilly 11/12/01 6:24:38 AM Reply	There are no shortage of candidates... for a local flood that could give rise to stories of the Great Flood. The flooding of the Black Sea. The eruption of Thera. There is even evidence of an asteroid impact crater. Plenty of devout Christians I have known believe that the Old Testament is a humanly recorded history of a people who had encounters with the Divine. There is no conflict between believing that the history created and maintained by people is fallible, and believing that it documents extraordinary events. And as soon as you open the door for this belief, you open up all sorts of possible reconciliations between science and the Bible. A particularly commonly cited one being that a local flood could give rise to the story of Noah's Ark. Of course as soon as you think that the record is fallible, there are all sorts of difficult questions about what in particular is likely to be wrong. Fundamentalists generally don't like questions like these. It is far more convenient to just have the Revealed Truth which you can use to club backsliders and atheists with... Cheers, Ben
Post #17,957 by static 11/12/01 7:38:10 PM Reply	You're arguing the wrong point. You're putting forward the view that there is no evidence of a supernatural being having created this universe nor of one contributing to this life. I beg to differ on the latter: I have had personal experiences with such. All I was posting that I disagreed with some of the conclusions that evolutionary teaching arrives at: specifically the conclusion that there could not possibly be a God. I was merely agreeing that some authorities in Alabama also thought the same way. I had no intention of disputing the science either for or against evolution and am not impressed you and others are resurrecting this. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #17,962 by ben_tilly 11/12/01 8:05:18 PM Reply	Some of the conclusions that what arrives at? Evolution says nothing one way or the other about whether there could possibly be a God. That is to say zero, zip, nada. Anyone who believes that it does, does not understand the theory of evolution. In fact talk.origins even has a [link\|http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html\|FAQ] about this. Anyone who claims that it does either needs to learn more about evolution, or should stop trying to misrepresent science to serve their own agendas. Cheers, Ben
Post #17,966 by static 11/12/01 8:14:11 PM Reply	Yep. Precisely. In spades. Most definitely. Evolution does not preclude religious beliefs. But that does not prevent people (mis-)teaching otherwise. Are we finally on the same page? Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #17,969 by Ashton 11/12/01 8:27:33 PM Reply	"IWETHEY's Terrible Horde of Enigmatic Yammerers." Proof! below That one may have omniscience without the need for additional innovative attributes, ex-post-facto! above LRPD QED OBE CQD* * betcha don't know That one! :-)
Post #17,978 by ben_tilly 11/12/01 9:03:59 PM Reply	Quite possibly... If you understand that what people object to in Alabama's bill is the emphasis on literal Creationism, and not the question of whether evolution precludes being religious. And that is why everyone brought up the classic problems with fundamentalist Creationism. Remove Creationism from the picture, and make it clear that religious beliefs as a topic belongs outside of the teaching of how science works, and there is no conflict left. (It is as inappropriate for science to be the place to teach about religious belief as it would be to cite Bible class to predict a result in, say, Chemistry.) Cheers, Ben
Post #17,986 by static 11/12/01 10:25:53 PM Reply	Ah. Noted. Apart from the fact I got unfairly punished but not reading the original link properly. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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