NOVA - Intelligent Design On Trial

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

My point was that millions -- if not billions -- of people have been told of the myth of an eternity of torment waiting for them if they don't obey the wishes of whatever authority figure is trying to influence them at the time. Passing on such traumatic experiences to children as in the example above is yet another example of the heinous acts committed by organized religions.

Yes your right, but your examples arent exclusive to organized religions..I was in catholic school from grades 1-12..no one ever told me that..Hey i agree with the notion organized religions have some "issues"...but that applies to any organization cause they are run and created by humans! Hey when i was in catholic school there was huge emphasis on forgiveness and repenting...people were forgiven for their sins...no one told them they were going to hell...also had a great time in religion class in HS..nothing but films...got a lot of nice little naps then..also learned alot about other religions besides christianity...and i am an atheist...

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

I believe the old days of preaching "Hell, fire and damnation" are gone.

I agree, religion is misused in the Middle East.

I do not agree with the concept of "Original Sin.

I did not foist my beliefs on my children, but let them make their own choices in that regard. The concept of a devil was never employed to control behavior. I think the only way you influence children is by example.

I'm quite proud of my children. By the way, how may children have you raised, and how did they turn out?

I am the father of 4 children...all of whom have or are turning out very well thanks. Why? Do you think I would talk the talk without walking the walk?
If you are a religious person then it is impossible not to foist your beliefs on your children.
Whether you believe it or not there are literally millions of Christians who still believe in fore and brimstone and sending unbelievers to a torment of an eternity in hell...of course many of todays "Liberal Christians" have changed the dogma to suit their own standards vs what is actually written in the tomes that they supposedly espouse.

[troutman]

The full judgment is available here - an interesting read:

http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmil...miller_342.pdf

I think SHIC is going to watch and discuss the NOVA show Nov. 21st at the Unitarian Church.

http://www.calgaryhumanist.ca/index.html

[Burninator]

Possible Dover repeat?

LAKELAND | A majority of Polk County School Board members say they support teaching intelligent design in addition to evolution in public schools.

Board members Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers said they oppose proposed science standards for Florida schools that lists evolution and biological diversity as one of the "big ideas" that students need to know for a well-grounded science education.

Board member Kay Fields said last week she wants intelligent design, which is promoted by some Christian groups, taught in science classes in addition to evolution.

http://www.theledger.com/article/200...711200414/1039

[MarchHare]

From the linked article:

"My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven," Tim Harris said.

Does that mean they're also going to remove teaching gravity, atomic theory, moleculur biology, and every other scientific theory, since none of those can be "proven" either? Or start teaching "alternative theories" to the above? I wonder if there was a controversy about teaching the Cupernican theory of a heliocentric universe circa 1600, and if religious proponents advocating the teaching of both heleocentricity and the Bible-supported view of geocentricity.

I get so angry with people who are responsable for setting the standards of a science curriculum when they don't even understand what science does -- and does not do.

"It crosses the line with people who are Christians," Lofton said. "Evolution is offensive to a lot of people."

And intelligent design is offensive to anyone who knows what the principles of the scientific method are.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

From the linked article:



Does that mean they're also going to remove teaching gravity, atomic theory, moleculur biology, and every other scientific theory, since none of those can be "proven" either?

I get so angry with people who are responsable for setting the standards of a science curriculum when they don't even understand what science does -- and does not do.

Hey I agree that is stupid..but how did these board memebers get voted in the first place...if they represent the majority..than that is why we have a democracy...democracy knows no reason...

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Hey I agree that is stupid..but how did these board memebers get voted in the first place...if they represent the majority..than that is why we have a democracy...democracy knows no reason...

Was it Jefferson who said something to the effect of "Democracy depends upon an enlightened society"? If I have a minute, I'll search for the exact quotation.

[Edit]
The quote was: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."

[Edit #2]
Also this one: "An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic."

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by Cheese

I am the father of 4 children...all of whom have or are turning out very well thanks. Why? Do you think I would talk the talk without walking the walk?
If you are a religious person then it is impossible not to foist your beliefs on your children.
Whether you believe it or not there are literally millions of Christians who still believe in fore and brimstone and sending unbelievers to a torment of an eternity in hell...of course many of todays "Liberal Christians" have changed the dogma to suit their own standards vs what is actually written in the tomes that they supposedly espouse.

Glad you are talking from a position of experience and that your children are turning out well.

As you are aware, raising kids is not an easy job. It takes a lot of time, energy and devotion to do a good job. I consider myself a religious person, however didn't have much time to attend church while the children were growing up. Most of my experience with the Church was after the children were grown up.

However, I believe I knew enough about good Christian ethics and moral values from my parents, and in my own researches, to teach them to my children. Whether they chose to believe in God was left to them. I just tried to set a good example and hoped they'd follow. I must admit I didn't always succeed in that regard, and thankfully they turned out well in spite of my failings.

In spite of all the negatives attributed to religion, I still think it is a net positive for humanity. I wish you had ears for the positives and not just the negatives.

As far as believing in God, as someone mentioned above, you either have faith there is, or belief there is not. It's a personal thing for each individual. I have friends in both camps.

I've always thought that one of the things that sets Christianity apart from other religions is to "love thine enemy". I love ya Cheese! - I'm only kidding I don't believe you're my enemy. I know knocking religion is your thing, however I only wish you could be a little less forceful and more balanced in your approach.

[metal_geek]

"My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven," Tim Harris said.

Painful... It's like there is no waking people like that up..


I'd be totally willing to teach Creationism in a Religon class where it belongs, along side Muslim Creationism, Native Creationism, Scientology creationism, and every other koolaid drinking ismology out there..

Unfortunatly the people who want that in schools, don't want to teach kids about sacreligious things like Scientology or Islam. Wanna teach 1...gotta teach um all in my opinion!
________
Kitchen Measures

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

Glad you are talking from a position of experience and that your children are turning out well.

As you are aware, raising kids is not an easy job. It takes a lot of time, energy and devotion to do a good job. I consider myself a religious person, however didn't have much time to attend church while the children were growing up. Most of my experience with the Church was after the children were grown up.

However, I believe I knew enough about good Christian ethics and moral values from my parents, and in my own researches, to teach them to my children. Whether they chose to believe in God was left to them. I just tried to set a good example and hoped they'd follow. I must admit I didn't always succeed in that regard, and thankfully they turned out well in spite of my failings.

In spite of all the negatives attributed to religion, I still think it is a net positive for humanity. I wish you had ears for the positives and not just the negatives.

As far as believing in God, as someone mentioned above, you either have faith there is, or belief there is not. It's a personal thing for each individual. I have friends in both camps.

I've always thought that one of the things that sets Christianity apart from other religions is to "love thine enemy". I love ya Cheese! - I'm only kidding I don't believe you're my enemy. I know knocking religion is your thing, however I only wish you could be a little less forceful and more balanced in your approach.

Well just so you know..I love everyone regardless of their faith. Quite frankly if you actually read my posts you wont find anything more abrasive than the vast majority of Atheist or non secular posters. I mentioned that before...when faced with difficult questions theists get their backs up and lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of the people who teach them their specific nonsense. Without an answer of any kind people are left to either slink away mumbling to themselves or use the old..."you are so abrasive comment". I can live with that..and I accept that completely. What I dont appreciate are those who throw out idiotic comments like I am being slanderous...thats beyond ludicrous and suggests that the person involved would rather hurl crap then have a discussion based on "reason". You dont know me...but I have mentioned many times, I have been in your boat before. Heres a quote from another atheist who sums it up nicely..

I can only speak for myself, and I seem incapable of "experiencing" God. Many Christians thoughtlessly blame me for this, claiming that I haven't had enough faith, didn't try hard enough, or wouldn't have accepted such experiences even if I had had them. All of these accusations are wide of the mark; they haven't walked in my shoes. They don't know how many times I've prayed and asked Jesus into my life. Since I don't go around challenging the validity of Christians' religious experiences, I would appreciate it if Christians would refrain from passing judgment on my lack thereof.

Paul Dolland, former Christian

As far as "good Christian ethics" goes...would you care to cite a few of these specific ethics attributable to Christians?

[Biff]

I always quite appreciated this comment from the Jodie Foster movie "Contact".

"Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion."

I understand that lots of people don't believe in God. I object to those who cannot afford me the same courtesy because I DO believe in God. It is unfortunate that some cannot talk about faith or religion without inserting perjorative and condescending editorializations into their arguments. I am a reasonably intelligent, resonably well-educated and generally intellectual person...and I believe there is a God. The last does not invalidate the former.

[MarchHare]

"Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion."

One thing I love about that film is that no matter one's perspective on religion, viewers walk away thinking it supported their side. That's perhaps the greatest tribute there could be to the filmmakers. FWIW, the author of the story, Carl Sagan, was an atheist.

I also think that non-believers account for far more than 5% of the world's population, but that's probably a topic for another thread.

I understand that lots of people don't believe in God. I object to those who cannot afford me the same courtesy because I DO believe in God. It is unfortunate that some cannot talk about faith or religion without inserting perjorative and condescending editorializations into their arguments.

I know very few atheists who would attempt to force their worldview onto others. I think the most common attitude amongst non-believers is one of "live and let live"; you're free to believe whatever the hell you want in the privacy of your own home or place of religious worship. If there's a growing movement of "militant atheism" (for lack of a better term), it's a natural push-back resulting from a trend of increasing religious influence in the public sphere (teaching creationism/ID in school science classrooms, actively fighting against the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV in Africa, etc. to borrow a few recent topics from this forum).

I am a reasonably intelligent, resonably well-educated and generally intellectual person...and I believe there is a God. The last does not invalidate the former.

Ah, but in the mindset of most atheists, belief in God is really no different than belief in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and frankly, it's hard for skeptics to respect the intelligence of believers for that reason. Tell me honestly, you would surely question the intelligence of someone who claimed to have a genuine belief in Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the rest of the Greek pantheon, right? Well, that's how many of us feel about those who believe in other gods.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Ah, but in the mindset of most atheists, belief in God is really no different than belief in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and frankly, it's hard for skeptics to respect the intelligence of believers for that reason. Tell me honestly, you would surely question the intelligence of someone who claimed to have a genuine belief in Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the rest of the Greek pantheon, right? Well, that's how many of us feel about those who believe in other gods.

Hidden in there, somewhere, is my point. Being a believer in God shouldn't automatically subject you to the expectation that you've, somehow, automatically inherited a dunce-cap. In a way, it bothers me that we can all understand that it is no longer okay to automatically stereotype and ridicule people with an alternative sexual orientation but it has absolutely become okay in some people's minds to automatically infer a lack of reason, and subject to ridicule, anyone who believes in God.

Put another way, I may find a homesexual lifestyle abhorent, but the degree to which I discriminate, ostricize, and even ridicule someone who believes or practices differently; to that same degree I become intolerant, offensive and judgemental.

I don't think that same tolerant standard is applied to those of us with a religious viewpoint.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Biff

I always quite appreciated this comment from the Jodie Foster movie "Contact".

"Our job was to select someone to speak for everybody. And I just couldn't in good conscience vote for a person who doesn't believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion."

I understand that lots of people don't believe in God. I object to those who cannot afford me the same courtesy because I DO believe in God. It is unfortunate that some cannot talk about faith or religion without inserting perjorative and condescending editorializations into their arguments. I am a reasonably intelligent, resonably well-educated and generally intellectual person...and I believe there is a God. The last does not invalidate the former.

Good stuff Biff...funny you pick Jodi Foster, an openly devout Atheist.
A quote from JF re the movie Contact:

From: The Georgia Straight, Interview with Jodie Foster by Dan McLeod, July 10-17, 1997; page 43.
Q. Where does Jodie Foster stand in the debate between science and faith?
A. I absolutely believe what Ellie believes - that there is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there's absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that's out there that we haven't discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for phenomena that we call mystical because we don't know any better.


On an HBO special report interviewing the characters of the movie Contact Matthew McConaughey said he did believe in god just as his character did in the movie, however Jodie Foster said she did not believe in god and had no religion. She stated that science comes closest to finding the truth.

Noone is suggesting Christians or any other theist is a dunce Biff. I know extremely intelligent Christians and Muslims...but thats within their choice of profession. Atheists dont object to theists per se...if theists kept to themselves and didnt push their choice(s) upon the public you wouldnt hear a peep from us. For two thousand years Christians have told us Atheists are heretics and murdered, burned at the stake and ridiculed us at every turn.

Not to long ago this famous discussion:

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.


If god wanted people to believe in him, why'd he invent logic then?
David Feherty

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Ah, but in the mindset of most atheists, belief in God is really no different than belief in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and frankly, it's hard for skeptics to respect the intelligence of believers for that reason. Tell me honestly, you would surely question the intelligence of someone who claimed to have a genuine belief in Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the rest of the Greek pantheon, right? Well, that's how many of us feel about those who believe in other gods.

Well perhaps most, but not all of us. I think a belief in God is considerably different than believing in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

There's a little more to a belief in God than there is to a character that is kept around to sell chocolate, or a satirical "god" like the spaghetti monster.

I've met plenty of people who are smarter than me and they have some sort of belief in a god.

I've never met a fundamentalist who wasn't a moron though.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Cheese

of course many of todays "Liberal Christians" have changed the dogma to suit their own standards vs what is actually written in the tomes that they supposedly espouse.

This I have a problem with... language evolves as does knowledge. For God to use modern day terms when speaking with the Jews 2000+ years ago, no one would have understood what he was saying. Instead he used words that had meaning then and have meaning now. The jist of it is the same, the specifics change. Why weren't dinosaurs in the Bible? (As an example...) Well, they'd never seen dinosaur bones. Why confuse them?

Is it changing the dogma, or is it using the things we now KNOW (that'd be where science comes in!) that we didn't know before to help explain what is written? You've apparently already decided it's changing the dogma, but perhaps that's too narrow a view of the Word.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Cheese

If god wanted people to believe in him, why'd he invent logic then?
David Feherty

I don't believe it's logical to have a definite belief one way or the other considering that we have such little information. To me, the only logical way of looking at it is with an open mind.

^^^^ BTW, nice post RougeU.

[MarchHare]

Well perhaps most, but not all of us. I think a belief in God is considerably different than believing in the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

There's a little more to a belief in God than there is to a character that is kept around to sell chocolate, or a satirical "god" like the spaghetti monster.

Yeah, it's true I was being a little bit cheeky comparing the monotheistic God of the major Western religions to the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but what about my latter example? How is the God of Abraham really any different from Zeus and Apollo? If someone were to genuinely, truly believe that a thunderstorm is caused because Zeus is hurling lightning bolts from atop Mount Olympus with the same conviction that Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and Moses parted the Red Sea, most religious people wouldn't respect that belief, would they?

[Edit]

I've met plenty of people who are smarter than me and they have some sort of belief in a god.

Of course, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and (somewhat ironically) Charles Darwin were all believers (as was just about everyone in their time). What is it about religion that makes people who are otherwise sensible and intelligent abandon their faculties of logic and reason when it comes to questions of "faith"?

My own grandfather is a good example of this. He's probably the single most intelligent person I've ever met, he had a master's degree from Cambridge, spoke four languages fluently, and was well-versed in science and the liberal arts. Yet he was also a very devout Christian, which I suppose resulted from his upbringing as the son of a traveling evangelical preacher.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I don't believe it's logical to have a definite belief one way or the other considering that we have such little information. To me, the only logical way of looking at it is with an open mind.

That is the attitude of most non-believers, as difficult as that might be for many to believe. I know few atheists who are staunchly dogmatic in their lack of belief in a god. If evidence were to be produced and solid scientific theories developed concerning creationism/ID, which, after having surpassed the test of peer-review, replaced the theory of evolution as the best logical explanation for the origins of life, almost all atheists would alter their views to accept the new theory.

It's the believers who are staunch in their beliefs and are close-minded, not the atheists.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion. -Carl Sagan

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Yeah, it's true I was being a little bit cheeky comparing the monotheistic God of the major Western religions to the Easter Bunny or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but what about my latter example? How is the God of Abraham really any different from Zeus and Apollo? If someone were to genuinely, truly believe that a thunderstorm is caused because Zeus is hurling lightning bolts from atop Mount Olympus with the same conviction that Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and Moses parted the Red Sea, most religious people wouldn't respect that belief, would they?

I don't know if most religious people would respect that belief or not. I'm sure the hardcore Christians wouldn't. But...

There is a big difference between "believing in God" and "believing all that stuff in the bible actually happened".

I would definitely question the intelligence and even sanity of someone who believes that the story of the Ark actually happened in reality.