Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom <<In matters of faith, of course, all bets are off. But at least the book doesn't fudge on what can be proven.>> Prove there was an Adam and an Eve. Prove that a man named Noah built an ark and rescued ALL the animals on earth. And if we are to take the Bible literally what about the Fishes? Did Noah rescue them too?
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "Prove there was an Adam and an Eve. Prove that a man named Noah built an ark and rescued ALL the animals on earth. And if we are to take the Bible literally what about the Fishes? Did Noah rescue them too? " And that's the thing, many of the Old Testament events don't have factual evidence to back them up. It's the New Testament that's a bit easier to show some proof of.
Originally Posted By trailsend This thread has just been the most interesting I've read in a long time. Hats off to everyone who has participated with good thought and discussion from all points of view. I have a question to pose. To those of you who do not believe in any Supreme Being, or do not believe in God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, how do you face the difficult moments we all deal with in life? Or, when you are caught up in a moment of a beautiful day or something special say with family or children, if you don't look up and say *thank you* or whisper a prayer from your heart, how do you acknowledge the moment? I'm just very curious about the spirit in the ones who do not profess any religion. There has been great discussion about science, proof, evidence, facts, etc. here. I'm wondering what part does your spirit, your soul play in your existence.
Originally Posted By Neverland <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41260" target="_blank">http://www.theonion.com/conten t/node/41260</a>
Originally Posted By DlandDug RE: Post #160 Gotta love the Onion. My favorite "highlight" of the Intelligent Design Trial: "It is proven that this country is going to hell, but not for the reasons the intelligent-design supporters think.
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka Interesting: <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040202/redsea.html" target="_blank">http://dsc.discovery.com/news/ briefs/20040202/redsea.html</a>
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>Prove there was an Adam and an Eve. Prove that a man named Noah built an ark and rescued ALL the animals on earth. And if we are to take the Bible literally what about the Fishes?<< Nowhere did I suggest that the Bible was to be taken literally. I did say, rather plainly, that in areas of known history and geography, there is no conflict with the Bible as an historical document. Insisting on "proof" of the existence of Adam and Eve is about as useful as insisting on proof that there really was a Pliny the Elder. ID does not stand or fall on the basis of the literal interpretation of the Bible, any more than Evolution stands or falls on the basis of the supposed age of the Earth. Both are matters of Faith to their adherents. It's just that those who espouse Evolution seem to find it incredible that anyone would question their belief system.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >> It's just that those who espouse Evolution seem to find it incredible that anyone would question their belief system.<< In fairness, there are some religious people who feel the same way about their belief system.
Originally Posted By ecdc "Try that line in a court of law. According to this line of reasoning, there is no reason to believe in the following: <snip>" Huh? You're brighter than this, Dug. You know my point. The previous poster said that since the Bible was written down, it constituted "evidence" (his/her word). Based on that logic, I could write down that 2+2=5 and that would make it "evidence." I simply pointed out that this is some pretty weak thinking. I'd think even you could spot that. The Bible holds up well over geography and other factual accounts, because so many of the stories were political attempts. They used real people and real locales and embellished or created other stories around them to prove their point. Hence the J, E, P, & D authors in higher criticism. In other words, it's like saying since the state of Maine exists, Stephen King's book "It" must've really taken place.
Originally Posted By itsme >>I have a question to pose. To those of you who do not believe in any Supreme Being, or do not believe in God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, how do you face the difficult moments we all deal with in life? Or, when you are caught up in a moment of a beautiful day or something special say with family or children, if you don't look up and say *thank you* or whisper a prayer from your heart, how do you acknowledge the moment? I'm just very curious about the spirit in the ones who do not profess any religion. --------- As for those moments, I know of a family that had 5 members that were alcoholics at one point in their lives. They have all stopped drinking but there were 2 that "needed" or "found" god and that's how they say was the only reason that were able to stop. The others all basically said thats it i gotta stop with no help at all. It all lays in your mind, Most people no matter how smart or brave or whatever have no idea how much they can train there mind to handle things that arise. Look at how some people deal with pain from say a cut on your finger. We are all wired the same, we all have the same meridians that flow energy through the body to control things such as pain, will power etc, yet some can get cut and never realize it and others will wither in pain. If some people feel by talking to or accepting a higher power it gives them the strength to deal with certain things they face and thats ok, but what it is really doing is giving them the power/abilty to control their mind which controls all aspects of the body. Alot just need something to believe in to give them the power they had all along but didnt know how to.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>I could write down that 2+2=5 and that would make it "evidence."<< Yes, evidence that you don't know math.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Both are matters of Faith to their adherents<< You only need faith for things that cannot be tested or measured. The process of evolution has been tested and measured for the last 150 years. Once you introduce elements that cannot be tested and measured - like whether or not supernatural forces affected evolution - then you need faith. Science does not ask you to have faith in what it says. You can duplicate any experiment or finding, and you can attempt to disprove them if you think the reasoning or method behind them is faulty. Whether or not God exists is beyond the realm of science. Science is a tool that can measure the observable world. Using science to measure God is like using a yardstick to measure color.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "Or, when you are caught up in a moment of a beautiful day or something special say with family or children, if you don't look up and say *thank you* or whisper a prayer from your heart, how do you acknowledge the moment? I'm just very curious about the spirit in the ones who do not profess any religion. " Well, Itsme pretty much summed up what I was going to say in post #167. I guess I don't consider myself an atheist, rather I'm an agnostic. I just don't know that there is or isn't a God. I do appreciate the beauty in nature, but I take the beauty for what it is, and just appreciate that it's there...regardless of how or why it's there. I can be thankful that I'm alive without really getting into the hows or whys, but that's just my take on it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Once you introduce elements that cannot be tested and measured - like whether or not supernatural forces affected evolution - then you need faith. Science does not ask you to have faith in what it says. You can duplicate any experiment or finding, and you can attempt to disprove them if you think the reasoning or method behind them is faulty. Whether or not God exists is beyond the realm of science. Science is a tool that can measure the observable world. Using science to measure God is like using a yardstick to measure color.> Exactly, Tom.
Originally Posted By mentalhh Interestingly there are scientists that don't believe in God per se but do totally disregard the idea of macroevolution. They believe that a cause did indeed happen to cause the world to be as it is. Just rather hydrogen than an Intelligent designer. Its actually funny for me to here people saying the theory of Creation is jsut a load of old tosh while saying my ancestor was a type of fish.
Originally Posted By ElKay "Its actually funny for me to here people saying the theory of Creation is jsut a load of old tosh while saying my ancestor was a type of fish. " Isn't strange that the same sort of ridicule of science that was used in the 1920s Scopes trial is again being used 85 years later. Just as government ought to stay out of religion; religion ought to stay out of science. Supposed after being "sucessful" in installing ID as the organizing principal in biology, religious people then turn their attention toward physics or medicine, because something runs counter to their religious beliefs? Wasn't that what happened at the beginning of the Dark Ages, when religion was the dominate organizing force in Europe? This past Monday there was a PBS documentary on the engineering designs of Leonardo da Vinci, trying to recreate a couple of his technical drawings. At the end of the doc. there was mentioned that when he died, many of his notebooks were willed to a protege, then to a distant relative and eventually to a high Church official. At that point, in history his papers were either lost or distroyed so only about 1/5 of his works survive today. Many of his works might have run counter to Church dogma and there was a good chance that they, like Galileo were supressed. Historians and engineers can only speculate what sorts of inventions and technologies might have been in use had da Vinci's work had been kept intact and availble for study. Supposed the papers of Darwin and other genetic researchers had been supressed by religioud leaders, and these findings not "discovered" until the 24th century, what might we today have missed in disease resistant and higher yield crops or farm animals or in medicine. For some, faith would console, but I'll bet there are dozens of advances utilized even by people of faith, just because science education was allowed to take it's course.
Originally Posted By Harbor1313 While I don't pretend this is an original response, my view on this can be summed up by the question, "Why do God and evolution have to be viewed as mutually exclusive?" Unless one insists on interpreting Genesis to the point of literal absurdity (the whole "6 days" thing), I see no reason why one cannot adopt the more encompassing view that evolution may be true, but God may well have set it in motion. I do not have "proof" that such is the case, but absolute proof in this subject area is hard to come by. I'm just suggesting that a view such as that described above can harmonize both positions. Speaking of my personal views, I consider myself both a believer in God and a Christian (though not a fundamentalist Christian), as well as a person who tends to find most of the theory of evolution persuasive. I also believe that the "6 days" in which the world was created as described in Genesis is true more in a metaphoric sense than in a literal sense. We do not know, for absolutely certain, for example, that what is "a day" (to God) is the same as "a day" to us as humans. I would like to believe that God could set in motion any type of complex process that He desired to set in motion and, thus, I don't at all see why belief in God needs to exclude the possibility of evolution being true, or vice versa. Just my $.02.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>Isn't strange that the same sort of ridicule of science that was used in the 1920s Scopes trial is again being used 85 years later.<< Yes. But then, religious people have been dealing with ridicule for thousands of years...
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Just as government ought to stay out of religion; religion ought to stay out of science.<< I disagree. I think both are complementary. Science can tell you what you want to know about "how". Religion can tell you what you want to know about "why". Both deal with things beyond the scope of the other, and in my opinion focusing on one while ignoring the other is like trying to build a house using only a hammer or only a saw but not both.
