The inevitable evolution debate thread

[codanostra]

Well I was hoping for a bit more in response. Could you elaborate Card? Otherwise that post adds nothing to the conversation.

And don't simply respond "NO" or I'll be forced to get out my red pen again, haha

I think the point is similar to my original post in this thread, in that the same science that led us to evolution led us to every single thing being taught in science classes. Evolution is just as vetted as astronomy, physics, etc. It's a slippery slope to suggest that evolution be treated as some how separate from the rest of science in the class room, when it is in fact, no different at all

 

[Badorties]

You know, Bado, you should set up something like FB where someone can "Like" a post. Liking post #38.

there is. the plus and minus signs at the bottom of each post.

Yeah, did you not notice by three bars of spectacular aura?

Off topic: forum rep is cool, and soon we will push it to the forefront.

 

[Shepherd]

When I taught sixth grade here in california, evolution was on the menu. However, the curriculum is to teach it as a theory, not a fact. There's a big difference. We also teach the history of major religions that year, and touch on a variety of creation 'theories' including the old testament's version. So creation is taught side-by-side with evolution.

But I want to get back to this comment, because it's something I've been personally dealing with for the past two years:

It's not being discussed, it's being taught as fact to young impressionable kids. I think it's a very valid gripe parents have not wanting their kids to be taught things in direct opposition to their beliefs. I also think, at least for elementary school, "discussion" should be done at home, school is for the three R's.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that your wife is of Asian descent. You send your well-loved, thoughtfully-raised son to school, and he gets called a chink. Sucks, right? Next day, same thing. Then the kids see that dad is white, and they start calling him a half-breed, and a mongrel.

What do you do? Do you talk to the child's teacher? The school principal? Sure, because your son is clearly being bullied based on his race.

Imagine the teacher and principal both tell you this:

"I'm sorry, but it's not our place as a school to tell other children what to think. If the other kids' parents want their kids to grow up racist bullies, that's really their business."

And if that analogy doesn't hit home, what if your child was being bullied at school for being jewish, or christian, or going to a specific church on Sunday. Should the school condone bullying because "school is for the 3 Rs"?

No. As a teacher, it is my duty to make my classroom a safe place for a child to learn regardless of his/her religion, or ethnicity. Likewise, if I have a child in my classroom who is being raised by gay parents, it is my duty to make the classroom a safe place for that child as well. That does NOT mean I'm teaching 8 year-olds about gay sex, which seems to be the fear - it simply means that if somebody is being bullied for any reason I should intervene. It's not up to me to pick and choose which children I protect from bullying and which I let fight it out for themselves.

 

[ORBOTRON]

Ok, if a kid is being bullied because his father is in prison for murdering the rest of the family, do you sit all the kids down and tell them it's ok to be an axe murderer?

Kids need to be taught it's not ok to bully anyone for any reason, not taught that anything people choose to do with their lives is right or wrong, that's the parents' role.

Edit: I might just have to rename this thread the Inevitable Thread About Every Controversial Topic We can Come Up With, lol

 

[Shepherd]

On the second point, it's a bit of a stretch blaming the church for people's past scientific ignorance... Take bloodletting for example, doctors and scientists resisted the evidence against this practice for hundreds of years, yet we don't claim that doctors and scientists are intrinsically opposed to science.

I'm sorry if I came off sounding as if equate religion with ignorance, because I don't. Religion and science are actually, in my opinion, two sides of the same coin. As sentient beings we try to make sense of the world around us, to give reason to our existence, and to find answers to the question that seemingly have to answers. Science does this by presenting us with observable phenomena, hypothesizing as to the cause of the phenomena, and testing these hypotheses. But for many of the questions that science addresses, religion got there first and has already provided an answer. Tension occurs when science presents a theory that conflicts with a long and/or widely held belief.

The practice of bloodletting wasn't based on any hard science - in fact it could be argued that bloodletting was more of a religious belief. For 3,000 years humans believed that bad spirits lived in our bodies, and that you could drain those spirits by spilling blood. The practice was passed down from the ancient world and into Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition (All-Saints day was considered by the church to be an auspicious day for bloodletting).

Am I blaming Christians for bloodletting? Of course not. For three centuries, doctors were taught that it was the best thing to do, and lacking any empirical evidence to the contrary, they carried on the practice. A lot of people suffered. And as evidence came to light that bloodletting was actually doing more harm than good, doctors who had faith the rationale behind the practice were resistant to change.

 

[Shepherd]

Ok, if a kid is being bullied because his father is in prison for murdering the rest of the family, do you sit all the kids down and tell them it's ok to be an axe murderer?

I think you're missing my point. We aren't telling kids that they should go out and be axe murderers, or lesbians, or Christians. We're simply telling kids that it's fucked up to pick on a kid for being the child of an axe murderer, or a lesbian, or a Christian. But for some reason the religious right has decided that it's OK for us to stick up for a child based on his parents' religion, but not on his parents' sexual orientation. If somebody calls a 5 year-old "gay" we're supposed to let it go... and if we don't we'll be sued.

I would love for the schools to be completely free of any talk about right/wrong ways to live one's life. Seriously, it would make my life soooo much easier. But every day I deal with a kid who's been told by their parent that if somebody bothers you, take them out. Or that it's OK for their first grader to call somebody a fag. Along with teaching one's core moral/ethical/religious beliefs, I'd like to see some teaching about basic interpersonal skills and empathy. To me it doesn't matter what religion - or lack there of - you've raised your child in if you've raised him to be an ass hole.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

...... It doesn't matter what religion - or lack thereof - you've raised your child in if you've raised him to be an ass hole.

love it!


I'm SO stealing that!

 

[ORBOTRON]

I've come to the realization that it's not very cool for me to be partaking in this discussion AND moderating it. I'm honestly surprised nobody has jumped on me about it yet, it just goes to show the high caliber users we have here. While I appreciate the implicit vote of confidence in my integrity, I think it's best if I go sit in the corner and think about what I've done, lol.

Carry on!

oh and Card, now that I'm feeling all impartial again, you aren't gonna get away with all these one liners! Add something of substance!

 

[Cardinalsrule]

I gave everyone who desires to learn more one of the best articles on the subject, and a great starting place. Where you take it from there is up to you.....

 

[WidowMakers]

I gave everyone who desires to learn more one of the best articles on the subject, and I great starting place. Where you take it from there is up to you.....

Thanks card. I have read the article and will respond as soon as I can. There have been many otehr posts since then too and I am going to try and lump my post/s together to get as many as I can.

 

[Marauder]

I'm a pretty serious atheist, so i feel i have to respond. The main difference is that it does not require any type of faith to suggest the possibility of the big bang or any hypothesis of that nature. Additionally, scientists don't just 'believe' in the big bang. There is evidence that the event occurred. Nothing concrete, but there is evidence suggesting it. No scientist is going to tell you they believe 100% in any theory that can't be proven, because that's the basis of the scientific method.

Sorry for the delayed response. Let me start by saying that I believe in evolution, I also believe that the big bang is the "most likely scenario" in which our little universe began with.

My question is this, fundamentally, what is the difference between the big bang theory and God?

We are curious little creatures, we want to have an explanation for everything, a basis for our existence. The curse of the human thought process is that we want to explain things that we may never have an answer to. When an atheist ridicules a religious person, I always go to the above question. We can not understand what is and always has been, we have to have a beginning and end. For religious people, it is a figure or deity that created us and the world around us. For atheists, it started with an explosion of energy and there is scientific data to explain what occurred after that, but what led to that beginning, that initial moment of existence of ALL things? Where did energy come from?

I know we can get into semantics, and the fact of believing vs scientific theory, fact vs. theories etc. I am not the type of person that is trying to convince anyone of anything, I don't think atheists or religious people are any less sound in their way of thinking. I just get a chuckle out of people who point a finger and scoff at another group of people when the fact is, nobody really KNOWS squat.

Edited twice for grammatical errors

 

[Badorties]

um.. before the big bang was the big contraction, where all matter in the universe condensed into a single point. This yo-yo diet has been going on ad infinitum.

 

[Marauder]

Okay, where did matter come from?

 

[Badorties]

Okay, where did matter come from?

It didn't come from anywhere, ad infinitum means its just been going on forever. Our feeble human brains are conditioned to put the world into neat little boxes where there is a beginning and an end, just like that movie with that guy. stuff with no ending and no beginning just doesn't 'feel right'. even though, that is just the way it is.

 

[WidowMakers]

It didn't come from anywhere, ad infinitum means its just been going on forever. Our feeble human brains are conditioned to put the world into neat little boxes where there is a beginning and an end, just like that movie with that guy. stuff with no ending and no beginning just doesn't 'feel right'. even though, that is just the way it is.

The oscillating universe theory has pretty much been discredited and put aside by scientists.
There are many issues with it:
1) heat death over infinite time all yo-yos wind down and we (our universe) have not wound down, it are not infinitely old.
2) transversing infinite time. If the universe has always existed infinity old how many years have past since the beginning? Well since there is no beginning, an infinite number of years. And since it is impossible to transverse an infinite time, it would be impossible for us to be here today.

I have talked about this a bit more. I will find my older paper and pull out that section. I just wanted to make sure that I got to this idea quick since, from what I see, even the most true atheists don't believe in oscillation theory.

 

[Badorties]

According to Bado's Law, any attempt to understand the universe and its infinite nature is as futile as ants trying to understand the stock market.

 

[Marauder]

It didn't come from anywhere, ad infinitum means its just been going on forever. Our feeble human brains are conditioned to put the world into neat little boxes where there is a beginning and an end, just like that movie with that guy. stuff with no ending and no beginning just doesn't 'feel right'. even though, that is just the way it is.

We obviously agree. My point is that we are all trying to explain something that can not be explained. Religious people use God, scientific people use science. Although I believe in the scientific data that has occurred after "the beginning", I can not comprehend how that beginning occurred. Neither can anyone else, thus Religion was born. Now science has come along, but neither can answer the true question of our actual existence.

 

[Badorties]

We obviously agree. My point is that we are all trying to explain something that can not be explained. Religious people use God, scientific people use science. Although I believe in the scientific data that has occurred after "the beginning", I can not comprehend how that beginning occurred. Neither can anyone else, thus Religion was born. Now science has come along, but neither can answer the true question of our actual existence.

Correct, neither science nor religion can answer the true question with 100% certainty. However, one of those claims too.

 

[codanostra]

Correct, neither science nor religion can answer the true question with 100% certainty. However, one of those claims too.

have an upvote... err, plus sign.

 

[Jewmowrestler]

i couldn't resist throwing my two cents into the argument so here it goes: I've done extensive research on the topic of the existence of a higher being from several different religious, scientific, and atheistic/agnostic perspectives. I've read selections or full texts from hinduism, buddhism, islam, and different christianities; as well as excerpts from the militant atheist wing (a la richard dawkins). I am not as familiar with the teachings of other faiths, but for Catholicism, I know that there is no conflict with logic and science, despite the much storied past that exists (in fact, the Church defers to science in all matters where there is proof). With regard to the Book of Genesis and its creation stories (according to the Roman Catholic Church), it is not meant to be taken literally (with regard to the seven days of creation). In fact, to take it literally is ....there are many people who do just this, it's fine for you to disagree and state you think it's erroneous, but steer clear of any mocking/derogatory language please....---ORBOTRON and quite erroneous. It was written during the enslavement of the Jews by the Babylonians in response to the violent, chaotic, and disturbing Enuma-Elish (the babylonian creation story). In the Enuma-Elish, humanity is an accident, born of the blood of a goddess, and is enslaved by the remaining deities. In Genesis, humanity is the deliberate result of an inspired plan by an intelligent creator.
The best explanation I have found for the creation of the universe that involves both science and a God, is the Big Bang. Just to give a background for anyone not familiar with this theory, before the "birth" of the universe, all matter existed as a "singularity:" an infinitely small point in space and packed to an infinite density. There was no kinetic energy (movement) in this system, so it could not expand or move in any way. From here, the question becomes "what caused the explosion of the Big Bang?" The only logical answer I have found in many years of searching is that a force from outside of our universe entered it and gave the "singularity" it's original energy. This force would be what religious men call God.
I have tried to make this as clear as possible, but I am rushing so I am not sure of the result. I'll be back in a few to clarify any points that I missed or did not explain clearly.