[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

To all the science-believers who bash the faith-believers:

You ridicule people who believe in a 6000 year old Earth: But -- do you have a degree in archaeology, and have you personally seen any million-year old fossils or stones, which have then lead you to your own conclusion that the Earth is "between 10 and 16 million years old"? Or have you just "blindly" believed in your scientific textbooks and scientific media to these conclusions?

No, I don't have a degree in archaeology, but I stayed in Holiday Inn Express once. Oh, and both are equally relevant to your example. Archaeology is the study of cultures and human behavior related to society. Completely different field of study, but it would take a person educated in the sciences to know that.

The sciences of importance to your example would be geology (the study of the physical earth and its structural development) and palentology (the study of prehistoric life forms). Holding a degree in either of those is irrelevant as well, as a degree is not proof of expertise in an area any more than Microsoft certification means you are an expert in computer systems. Comprehension and practice of learning proves your expertise, not a piece of paper. The piece of paper is supposed to be proof of your ability to think critically and follow a methodology to the completion of study. Of course with the advent of faith based institutions like Liberty University and it's ilk (unaccredited and producing non-critical thinkers) it blew the whole premise of a degree out of the water and set the educational standard back several hundred years, but I digress. I have studies the subject matter you use in your discussion and have witnessed for myself the evidence that supports the theory. I have several fossils, including a large trilobite estimated to be between 450-500 million years old. The evidence that the earth is around 4.6 billion years old is substantial and does not require much faith. An open mind to science, five minutes of theory and a trip to the Grand Canyon is all it takes.

You ridicule those who believe the Earth is flat: But have you personally gone into Outer Space and seen the spherical Earth for yourself -- or do you blindly believe the assertions and globes others have made?

I know the earth is round because you can see the curvature of the plant while standing on it. That curvature becomes even more obvious when you are travelling in a plane at 35,000 feet. I do not have to fly out into space to see imperical evidence that the earth is round any more than I have to hold my hand in a fire to understand that it will burn my hand if I do so.

My point is that -- unless you are a highly qualified person, having read and understood all of Newton and Galileo and every scientists' works, and having full comprehension of ALL the laws of science -- you are indeed employing faith/non-scientific methods in acquiring your knowledge.
So, unless you do have a Ph.D in Everything in the Universe, shame on you for pretending to know more than you actually do.

Bullcrap. That's like arguing that unless you have an advanced degree in theology you do not understand religion, have any faith, or will ever have the ability to truely know God. You've built the weakest of strawman arguments and it doesn't even stand up to the strenght of yourself breaking wind.

And that makes it highly hypocritical, when you bash religious people for their faith.

Hypocracy? You wish to charge anyone with hypocracy and speak of faith after your uniformed rant? Well, since you don't have that aforementioned advanced degree in theology, you don't actually have the qualification to have faith. Too bad, so sad, but those are the ground rules you laid out.

The reason "religious zealots" (the differentiation must be made) get bashed is for the same reasons I have run you over. They're uniformed and can't speak to any subject with clarity. The comparisions made are weak, theories laughable and easily disproven and dismissed. Generally speaking they do not have an open mind and do not approach subjects using critical thought. Analysis is not in their vocabulary let alone thought process. If these so called "religious" folk put half as much energy into practicing some critical thought and using a proven methodology to study a subject matter, these incredible leaps of faith that they routinely demand of people (making their theories suitable for Comedy Central) would likely no be as large. Mind you, if they did that, they would quickly discover that their theories would not hold up and lead them to an new enlightenment. The fact that they revel in the ignorance is what makes them such easy targets. The fact that they attempt to spread these theories as fact is what makes them so dispicable and well worth the distain shown toward them.

As to faith, that word is not synomous with religion you know. Faith is synomous with belief, and belief is a position of which an individual is convinced of truth through perception and experience. The difference is that "your" faith, that is more religion than it is faith, demands that you believe strictly on your hopes and fears. You HOPE God will be forgiving and FEAR going to hell. You do so without experience or perception. "My" faith demands that I rely on what I can prove, through repeatable experimentation and experience, that allows me to see, feel, touch, smell, and taste results. I have faith that I can go to certain geologic location, dig into a certain layer of strata, and find fossilized remains of an animal that lived millions of years ago, because I, and others, have done it over and over and over again, and the evidence is there to see, feel, touch, smell, and taste. I experience and I perceive, which builds a belief, and from that a very strong faith.

Wise is the man who knows he does not know.

To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer