Don't be surprised if the televangelist soon predicts disaster will strike scientists who believe in evolution.
On the Dec. 15 edition of Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, host and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson called evolution a "cultish religion."…
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26 - ss
The thing is, it MAY have been god who invented quantum mechanics. It doesn't have to be. There could be no god at all. Science doesn't make that determination, but it has to assume God does NOT intervene in the natural processes of the universe. The whole idea of verifying by a repeatable experiment assumes there is no unknown, all powerful sentient player that can change the rules on a whim.
If that were the case a scientist could set up an expirement whose results backed his hypothesis
some of the time and ignore negative results as god's intervention.
Whatever the rest of us think, any researcher has to assume God DOES NOT intervene.
And if God does not intervene (this is where the centuries of conflict come into play) if God is not an active participant, he doesn't need to exist for the universe to exist.
As painful as it might be, science has beaten religion in its description of the natural world over and over again, starting with Galileo, extending through Lister and Darwin, and right up to the present day.
You can quote ancient mystics all day long, but when science and religion have gone head to head disagreeing about how the natural world works, science wins.
27 - John Bil
This guy is just an endless source of political humor. According to the bible, the universe is only 5 or 6 thousand years old anyway, not 15 billion. He didn't want to admit that though I guess. It would make him look too dumb, even by his low standards. The really sad thing is that millions of Americans buy into this creationism baloney.
28 - Luke
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
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Why doesn't this warning just come right out and say what it means,
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered, and then rejected, or else you'll go to hell"
29 - Vern Halen
"Whatever the rest of us think, any researcher has to assume God DOES NOT intervene.
And if God does not intervene (this is where the centuries of conflict come into play) if God is not an active participant, he doesn't need to exist for the universe to exist."
A researcher assumes God does not intervene - absolutely. But it doesn't follow that therefore God does not exist or intervene. Nor does it follow that he doesn't need to exist for the universe to exist.
"As painful as it might be, science has beaten religion in its description of the natural world over and over again, starting with Galileo, extending through Lister and Darwin, and right up to the present day.
You can quote ancient mystics all day long, but when science and religion have gone head to head disagreeing about how the natural world works, science wins."
Not painful at all, and ancient mystics need not apply. This was discussed on another thread on Blogcritics months ago. Some would suggest that the scientific process of entropy proves the existence of God. And if one says entropy applies only to closed systems, at some point one has to assume the universe itself is a closed system.
Actually, when it comes down to it, for all practical intents and purposes, I believe in evolution. I figure God can run the show any way He/She/It wants. And if it turns out there's no God, I die one day having lost nothing for my belief.
Also, we've got to accept that evolution really is just a theory. But theories are powerful - they're what we work off of until we get a better idea. Nothing wrong with that. And what happens when you have a theory you'll never be able prove, like some kinds of quantum ideas or string theory in physics - then doesn't science in essence become a religion?
30 - gonzo marx
Vern sez...
*then doesn't science in essence become a religion?*
ummm...nope
i'm very sticky about definitions....without agreed upon epistemology it becomes almost impossible to discuss anything meaningfully
religion:
1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
fair enough so far?
science:
1. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
2. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.
3. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study.
as shown in the original Post...a tactic of Roberston is to attempt to equate science As a religion...and thus have science tossed out under the Establishment Clause ("not establish a religion")
it's this kind of bullshit blurring of the lines and fuzzying up of definitions that the Pennsylvania court rejected this week by tossing I.D. out of 9th grade biology class
as shown by the definitions above, the two are NOT the same thing
nuff said?
Excelsior!
31 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I have no trouble with Gonzo's analysis as far as it goes - or with the idea that IT does not belong in a classroom. The court was right and the people who hustle intelligent design - they've been here in Jerusalem, too - were and remain wrong.
Science classes teach theories. And scientists, theoretically, at least, recognize that ALL theories are tentative and subject to change. Were this not true, then science would be just another cultish religion.
But religion deals with the why and tends to appeal to authority for its knowledge.
So a scientist, when he wants to know how many teeth a horse has, opens the horse's mouth and counts. A religious scholar turns to his source of knowledge. If the source of knowledge says the horse has 30 teeth and the horse has 32, the horse is wrong! The source of knowledge has to be right.
A scientist can describe in chilling detail, how an individual is abused by another. Any police coroner is trained in just this. But the scientist, for all of his knowledge, cannot yet explain the "why" of the abuser. It is the theologian who plumbs the evil of the soul.
This all explains the behavior of the "average bear", so to speak. This is the standard conditioning we in the west receive of what roles the scintist and theologian play in the search for knowledge. Too often, people forget that knowledge is ONE data base and the theologian and scientist look at that data base through different prisms.
The mystic goes beyond this. Fundamental to the mystic's approach is that all knowledge is one. He cuts past the differences that scientists and theologians trouble themselves with and seeks truth from the source of knowledge.
Isaac Newton was such an individual. Most of his work had to do with figuring out the clues strewn throughout the Hebrew Bible as to wisdom encoded within it. His problem was that he alone did not have the ability to do the computing needed - he worked with a paper and a goose quill - and he did not know about statistics and probability. These advances were in the future.
Drs. Eliyahu Rips and Doron Witztum applied the computer to the problem using the advances within mathematics in the fields of statistics and probability and came up with some tentative solutions - which are generally known to the world as the Torah Codes.
I don't have the patience to explain how ancient Jewish priests figured out the average lunation of the moon (the time it takes the moon to rotate around the earth) without an observatory. But their knowledge came from the Torah - and the numbers they came up with were within trillionths or quadrillionths of seconds of what NASA satellite photos and computers later came up with. This was no coincidence.
People like Pat Robertson waste their time on foolishness like IT because they haven't got a clue as to what is in the Hebrew Bible. And all they do is take religion and turn it into a straw man that agnostics and atheists can knock down. Their eyes are on their collection plates.
The coming thing is the convergence of religion and science, and idiots like Robertson and his opponents only delay the progress of that convergence.
32 - Vern Halen
No, by definition science & religion are different things, I agree.
I'm referring to scientific theories which don't meet the criteria you outlined above, i.e., those in which there is no experimental observation. Some examples might be: quantum theory; what goes on in a black hole; and prehistory. Yet most of us accept those as science. And they are all indeed ideas that represent scientific thought at its finest.
I''m just suggesting that neither science nor religion by themselves satisfactorily explain all that humankind wishes to know. So maybe the two disciplines need to accept that there's a place for each in the human experience. Robertson's problem is he tries to demonize science by calling it a cult - a negative connotation to be sure. He speaks for people who can't accept the grey areas or even the various shades of color inherent in the world in which we live. His world is black and white: strictly for cartoon strips in the daily papers.
33 - Christopher Rose
Science is getting on fine and grappling with working out the principles and or understanding of quantum theory, black holes and, indeed, prehistory. The problem is that the whole idea of religion needs revisiting.
I don't subscribe to any religion but that doesn't mean there is no spirituality in my life. It's obvious that the statistical probability of life is low and, so far as we yet know, unique to this region of the Big Bang fallout zone. That alone is a magnificent miracle for a start; the fact that we're all here now is another.
If anything, it is science that will help us understand the true meaning and spirituality of the whatever it is that this whole thing we call existence is, the Big Bang Experience if you like, but the formal religions of today offer nothing but legends and stories of the descendents of aliens mixed with misremembered scraps of history. Or so it seems...
34 - Vern Halen
May your days be flled with the miracles you seek and those that seek you, Mr. Rose. We should all be so fortunate.
35 - Shark
Gonzo is God -- in a poetic sense, ya unnerstand...
=========
re: "Does being a male cheerleader qualify you as an attention whore?"
just an aside: "I'm on Welfare" --- I love you, maaaaaan!
You're not related to the late, great Troll, are ya?
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"Take your satirical insights off my bridge!" -- Troll
36 - Christopher Rose
Every day is a freakin' miracle man; every time I wake up in the morning, I'm slightly amazed by the sheer improbability of it all and how fine it is to be seeing it all unfold.
I would truly like to live for at least a very, very long time, getting off on how the story goes. I revere people like Aubrey de Gray and others working to extend human life expectancy.
37 - Shark
I'm surprised none of you BCers have posted a story on yesterday's historic ruling AGAINST "Intelligent Design" [read: "Christoid Creationism"]
ie. Republican judge laughs the ID folks outta his court.
"They [defendants] exhibited selective memory and outright *lying under oath."
* Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness--?
38 - gonzo marx
namaste', Shark, my fine finny friend..."thou art god" is a Quote near and dear to me...
some good stuff here, but my lunch time is done, so i will have to get back to it all later...
stay tuned...
Excelsior!
39 - Nancy
I was vastly encouraged by the Pennsylvania judge's remarks, especially those pertaining to how the IT people bragged about their religious status outside of court, then lied like crazy about it once they got IN court. Typical of religious zealots to figure their goal excuses any sins committed in gaining same.
40 - Vern Halen
Zealots of all kinds pursue their agendas regardless of reality. The judge was right to rule against the IT'ers. Frankly, I'm not even sure of the details of their position, and as such do not consider myself in their camp. But my suggestion to them (and zealots of all stripes) is that you'd catch more flies with honey than vinegar.