Re: The problem


jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> g@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > As I see it, the basic problem is as follows: An awful lot of people in
> > the USA, perhaps a majority, see a strict dichotomy, evolution or God.
> > To believe in one negates the other. I suspect that some conservative
> > leaders put forth this notion deliberately and disingenuously, as they
> > feel it strengthens their position, but many probably honestly believe
> > it as well.
> >
> > As most people are not atheists, the choice must seem obvious. God,
> > morality, a life with purpose and the chance at an afterlife
> > versus...nothing; the "nothing" supported by at most a few
> > half-remembered biology lessons in high school.
>
> What it comes down to is "God did it" or "Random Chance".

Umm, no. that's what we are asserting in this thread. Scientists who
are theists say that science studies how God does things. Scientists
who aer not theists simply say they study who things happen. There is
no conflict between the two.

And random chance, or course, could accomplish little without natural
selection. Do you genuinely not understand what we mean when we say
that, or are you deliberately misrepresenting science? I suspect the
latter, but I know that in creationists this skewed reading and
speaking is so habitual that it has become a reflex, and is essentially
mindless.

Whether you think they are msitaken or not, there are tens of millions
of people in the US who accept mainstream evolutionary science and are
also Christian (or other theist).

> Both
> arguments are equally unprovable.

"God did it" is absolutely unprovable, except for those people who
assert that this also means that genesis was literally true, there was
a global flood, etc. In this case the data can definitively prove these
claims false.

The theory of evolution is probably the theory with the most supporting
evidence in all of science. The fact that you are still talking of
"proof" in these matters is most discouraging, and indicates a stubborn
dishonesty or inability to see simple but subtle aspects of the
scientific method.


> Atheists say God doesn't exist.

Well, there are quite a few who say that this common definition is not
useful, and they prefer "Atheists do not believe there are gods".

> Mathematicians say random chance doesn't exist.

Really?

> It's completely bizarre
> that atheists hold more scientific standing than mathematicians,

What do atheists per se say which is scientific?
Most atheists are not scientists, you know, and about half of
scientists are not atheists. Are any creationists honest, or do they
simply never post here?

> but
> that's the peer-reviewed scientific opinion that we're supposed to just
> roll over and accept. In case you hadn't noticed, someone's screwing
> with us on a huge scale.

Heh. No evidence for you, nosirriebob.
You aren't going to jus troll over and accept any claim which you or
any number of other people can verify. Nope. You demand emtional
satisfaction.

No evidence is good enough for you creationists, as someone here once
said. Or to put it another way: no evidence is good enough for you
creationists.

>
> Lawyers for atheists have twisted the Establishment Clause in the U.S.
> Constitution, so that it's not about the state sanctioning of one
> religious sect over another religious sect, but the permissable
> curriculum in public education classrooms. By and large, people
> disliked being manipulated, but atheists use the courts in such a
> perverse way, it pisses people off.

Damn judicial activists. Not like codebreaker, who would put Christ
into the constitution, even though he's not there now.

>
> Case in point... Judge to Rule on Merit of Christ Case
> By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer
>
<snip Italian trial reference>
>
> > All the scientific arguments, even if they are heard, will be for
> > naught as long as people believe that evolution precludes religion. It
> > doesn't, of course, although it does render biblical literalism
> > impossible, as do many of the other sciences. Biblical literalists will
> > not likely come around. For them the basic problem more or less holds.
> > Their version of religion *is* directly contradicted by science.
>
> No! It's directly contradicted by atheists using science to piss people
> off.

So exactly which evidence is it again which you claim is unreliable?

>
> > But the rest need to hear more often that science can discover what
> > happened, but probably can never tell us what got the universe started
> > in the first place. Scientifically literate people can be atheists,
> > believers (presumably thinking that God created a Universe in which
> > life and consciousness would come about over time), agnostics (like me)
> > and other permutations too numerous to list.
>
> You know, there are people who just like to piss people off and when
> they get their childish way, they just find some way else to piss
> people off.

Maybe your getting pissed off all the time says more about you than
anyone else.

> When people knew their neighbors and socialized more
> regularly, these people tended to end up in jail, beaten up or dead in
> a ditch.

Heh.
Are you saying you would leave me in a ditch because you don't like the
scientific model which explains the data for evolution? Rather
antisocial, dontcha think?

> It's not really about science, but the redefining of
> anti-social behaviors into social behaviors. If you need any further
> proof, just visit talk.atheism and read what the kind of stuff they
> post for their own amusement.

And why are you there? There are probably plenty of groups where most
of the denizens would annoy me. Guess what? I don't go there.

This group (talk.origins) is exactly *for this dialog.

>
>
> JTG 1/27/06
>
> > Greg Guarino

Kermit

.

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