This is in fact, all relevant to this thread, as this book from God is one of the primary disproofs of evolution, though of course there are many others, which I will post later.
Um... no. It is not at all relevant. This thread is about science. Not 2000-year-old collections of myths and fairy tales. You wanna discuss whether or not the Bible's true, start a new thread.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue discussing science.
Claim being the operative word. Because of their antiquity, we have no way to adjudicate these claims and, therefore, its entirely correct to be skeptical. They could be anything from outright fabrications to exaggerations to honest misinterpretation. Humes adage holds sway here: no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.... Did the Red Sea really part, or was this a fanciful description of crossing the shallows of the Reed Sea? Did the faithful at Fatima really see the Sun crash into the Earth, or were they afflicted by Sun-blindness and hallucination? As far as properly evaluating evidence goes, a mere claim is worthless.
Why on earth are such claims an effective 'disproof of evolution', when evolution has so much scientific confirmation? We could fix the world if we could figure out why people want to believe things on such bad reasoning.
I'm reading a website right now that says we can believe the Qur'an's account of miracles, because the Qur'an is the only divine text to remain uncorrupted.
Why on earth are such claims an effective 'disproof of evolution', when evolution has so much scientific confirmation? We could fix the world if we could figure out why people want to believe things on such bad reasoning.
I'm reading a website right now that says we can believe the Qur'an's account of miracles, because the Qur'an is the only divine text to remain uncorrupted.
Now I'm all about fixing the world so I need to ask about your thought process. How do you fix the world by understanding why people accept these fanciful ideas. Again, I'm not arguing just enquiring.
Now I have a hypothesis that I believe can be tested. The only problem is that it comes from the bible so I'm not sure if I should even post it. I'm not here to offend.
I'm not trying to start anything but remember you want people to respect your opinions and beliefs. Maybe you should respect others beliefs. You call what is written in the bible as myths and fairy-tales, shows a total lack of disrespect for some one who holds those beliefs to be true. Hence the word faith. That's the problem with people. They are so narrow minded that they refuse to understand other people's opinions or beliefs.
I personally do not follow the bible, but I will respect someone's faith and belief in the bible if it helps them in life.
We do well to remember in the face of this interminable amount of assumptions around evolution that there is NO physical evidence of this. This is just a theory. There is no missing link. Remind people of this often. Chimps may use human-like gestures, but so may other animals. It does not follow that we came from chimps.
We should not be afraid to stand up and say that this is wrong. There are observable facts, and people want to push world views that are in contradiction to the observable facts, and this is wrong. When we try to pretend that world views and beliefs are equal and worthy of respect, irregardless of the observable facts, we are perpetuating ignorance and hindering the progress of our society. And that is wrong. And we shouldn't be afraid to say so.
We should not be afraid to stand up and say that this is wrong. There are observable facts, and people want to push world views that are in contradiction to the observable facts, and this is wrong. When we try to pretend that world views and beliefs are equal and worthy of respect, irregardless of the observable facts, we are perpetuating ignorance and hindering the progress of our society. And that is wrong. And we shouldn't be afraid to say so.
Sorry about the unjust control set upon you. Some people weren't taught to control themselves though, some people, a lot actually, are raised to be nothing more than yes men. The problem is these yes men will only accept words from whom they have been taught to give authority to.
So when you try to introduce something to a "yes man" they can't take it, they haven't been taught to critically think things through. So they freak out.
The thing is we are all "yes men" in some way and I can't judge someone else more harshly than I am willing judge myself or else I just become a judgmental hypocrite.
Also I think shame must be taken into account. People are afraid to be wrong because we are taught that mistakes are unacceptable.
It is very difficult to be more than your leaders. Since our leadership, on many fronts, can't admit their mistakes, fix the problem and move forward how on earth can we expect that from the normal people.
I'm not trying to start anything but remember you want people to respect your opinions and beliefs. Maybe you should respect others beliefs. You call what is written in the bible as myths and fairy-tales, shows a total lack of disrespect for some one who holds those beliefs to be true. Hence the word faith. That's the problem with people. They are so narrow minded that they refuse to understand other people's opinions or beliefs.
The ground rules might (arguably) be different in a straight-up religion debate. But this is a thread about biological evolution. Biological evolution is a scientific theory. If its wrong, itll be so proved because a better scientific theory comes along and supplants it.
I mean if we were discussing Special Relativity and someone tried to explain away apparent time dilation by means of Aztec legends, thered be no hesitation in calling a (mythological) spade a spade.
The disrespect you mention actually occurs when someone presumes to enter a scientific discussion armed only with a book of magical tales.
No comments, so one more thought. Now I know this is not a philosophy thread and I don't mean to offend but I think this fits right in with the "belief" conversation.
Socrates is, to me at least, is best known for saying " the only thing I know is that I know nothing".
Now this can be interpreted at least a few different ways. The only way we would ever know the "truth" about what he meant would be to ask him. Since he isn't here we can merely speculate. When I was younger I would have thought he was an idiot for contradicting himself. A few years back I probably would have said that he meant that we just don't have all the answers. At some point I probably would have said he was just a nice and humble old man.
Today though I would say he was brilliant. Socrates knew something alright, he knew that "telling" people what he knew was not a successful way to share his view. Why? Because we all "know something" already. Example; if I say that I'm a creationist, everyone already has a picture in their head of who I am even if i meant something else. Unfortunately most people will run with that preconceived notion and love me or hate me based on a word that probably holds different meanings for us both.
Questions are what Socrates used instead of statements. Why? Because the right questions can point out misconceptions and make the audience feel that it was their own SELF discovery that lead to their enlightenment. Thus an idea is passed on to an accepting mind because the speaker wasn't trying to MAKE someone understand.
I'm probably way off base but it makes sense to me
The ground rules might (arguably) be different in a straight-up religion debate. But this is a thread about biological evolution. Biological evolution is a scientific theory. If its wrong, itll be so proved because a better scientific theory comes along and supplants it.
I mean if we were discussing Special Relativity and someone tried to explain away apparent time dilation by means of Aztec legends, thered be no hesitation in calling a (mythological) spade a spade.
The disrespect you mention actually occurs when someone presumes to enter a scientific discussion armed only with a book of magical tales.
The ground rules might (arguably) be different in a straight-up religion debate. But this is a thread about biological evolution. Biological evolution is a scientific theory. If its wrong, itll be so proved because a better scientific theory comes along and supplants it.
I mean if we were discussing Special Relativity and someone tried to explain away apparent time dilation by means of Aztec legends, thered be no hesitation in calling a (mythological) spade a spade.
The disrespect you mention actually occurs when someone presumes to enter a scientific discussion armed only with a book of magical tales.
Once again people have to put down religion and the bible. I have no problem with someone being atheist. I myself am agnostic and yet I don't put people down for their religious beliefs or people who go around preaching a theory.
Just as the title says. Theory of evolution. A theory doesn't mean factual beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution is real. See, I accept the theory, but at the same time I accept it as just a theory. For all I know, it's probably 100% correct, but it is still just a theory.
You can't be so close minded to just accept whatever. The whole purpose of science is to question.
I'm not trying to start anything but remember you want people to respect your opinions and beliefs. Maybe you should respect others beliefs. You call what is written in the bible as myths and fairy-tales, shows a total lack of disrespect for some one who holds those beliefs to be true. Hence the word faith. That's the problem with people. They are so narrow minded that they refuse to understand other people's opinions or beliefs.
I personally do not follow the bible, but I will respect someone's faith and belief in the bible if it helps them in life.
Sorry, but no. If I were talking about the Odyssey or the Gilgamesh or any other Greco-Roman myth, no one would be offended. And you know why? Because the vast majority of people recognize them as collections of myths and fairy tales.
The only difference between the Greco-Roman myths and the Bible (that is, beyond the fact that the Bible, especially Genesis, is a near-direct rip off of the Gilgamesh and other Greco-Roman myths), is that a huge amount of people think it's different.
If it talks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, I don't care how offensive it is to say it... it's a duck. Reality is neither offensive nor inoffensive. If people choose to be offended when I call a duck a duck, that's not my problem.
Technically it isn't the thread for this, but I'll answer it in spoiler and blackout tags:
[BLACKOUT]Yes, I've read the Bible. About 5 different versions.
In fact, I read the Old Testament, in Biblical Hebrew, just about every Saturday night at Synagogue, mostly for the challenge and to help out my dad. Slowly but surely I'm learning how to translate it.
Not only do I absolutely believe that the Bible is nothing more than a 2000-year-old collection of myths and fairy tales, but I legitimately do not understand how anyone can get their morals from it. A moral person should be opposed to the Bible with every fibre of their being. I don't see any morals we, as modern, 21st-century, moral human beings, should be taking to heart from that book. It should be sold (and loaned) with a warning sticker and be off limits to people under 18.
You should note that there are a lot of atheists who are so because they've read the Bible.
I decided to really read the Bible after my "deconversion", and I have no words for how disgusted I was. I was reading the traditional KJV, so I decided that maybe different versions would be better, but no such luck. Aside from differing translations giving different tones (and, in some cases, utterly different meanings [consider Isaiah 7:14, as an example... "virgin", or "young woman"?... it's "young woman", BTW, because the Hebrew word "alma" has never meant anything else; whether the mistranslation was on purpose or accidental cannot be surmised]), there was not much of a difference in overall content.
And for the record, the only real difference between the OT and the NT is that the NT is a heck of a lot more subtle about it, and only while Jesus is alive. Once he dies, righteous immoral anger makes a full and quite staggering comeback.[/BLACKOUT]
Once again people have to put down religion and the bible. I have no problem with someone being atheist. I myself am agnostic and yet I don't put people down for their religious beliefs or people who go around preaching a theory.
Just as the title says. Theory of evolution. A theory doesn't mean factual beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution is real. See, I accept the theory, but at the same time I accept it as just a theory. For all I know, it's probably 100% correct, but it is still just a theory.
You can't be so close minded to just accept whatever. The whole purpose of science is to question.
"Just a theory" rears its ugly head again. What makes this horribly incorrect trope so damn popular? Why do people love it so much?
...
We already went over what, exactly, a scientific theory is with superpower in this very thread. In fact, I don't think it's all that many pages ago.
In brief...
Your "just a theory" also applies to gravity (theory of gravity, relativity, etc), the germ theory of disease, atomic theory, cell theory, theory of plate tectonics, etc.
And yet, despite these being "just theories", "Intelligent Falling" is not a viable alternative to Relativity or the Theory of Gravity; curses and magic are not viable alternatives to the germ theory of disease; and so on.
A scientific theory is an explanation of a large body of facts and observations. It is, and has to be, held up by insanely huge amounts of evidence, and must, of course, be falsifiable (very different from a mathematical theory and, of course, colloquial theory).
When they say that evolution is both a fact and a theory, that is exactly what they mean. The fact is, evolution happens. That has been proven. The amount of evidence doesn't just hold up in a court of law (though it did), but makes evolution the most well-evidenced fact of reality. There is literally nothing about reality we know more about than evolution. It happened; it's blatantly obvious if you take the time to look around, because nature herself kind of screams it at the top of her lungs on a daily basis. And I've already shown this right in this thread. I'm not just talking out of my behind. The evidence is right here, if you're interested (those three links all go to the same post).
The Theory of Evolution is meant to explain how evolution happens. That it happens is a fact; how it happens is the theory. Neo-Darwinian evolution is the best possible explanation there is at the moment for how evolution happens: a process involving mutation (random, biased, etc), natural selection, genetic drift, genetic hitchhiking, gene flow, and sexual selection. That is the Theory of Evolution; an attempt to understand the mechanisms by which evolution occurs... an it's been observed, by the way...
I'm glad that you accept evolution, Kable, but please... accept it because it's been proven. Because it has.
I would love to know. Honestly. When it comes to evolution and its detractors, over and over and over and over again comes the misunderstanding of what the word theory means.
Does anyone have any thoughts on why this is?
Obviously, theory has a use in common language that is different from the scientific use. You'll often hear someone say "I had a theory on why Sherry didn't show to the wedding", and that kind of thing. In that regard, it means a guess.
But the misunderstanding has to go deeper than that. There is something else at play, for so many people to get the meaning of the word theory wrong on such a constant basis when it comes to science. Is it a failure of public education? What is it? Because it REALLY shouldn't even be a thing. At all.
And what's it gonna take to nip this particular misunderstanding in the bud once and for all?
I'm beginning to think a full scale campaign is required. Posters in the classroom with the definitions and uses of the word theory. One science class out of the year dedicated to explaining what the word theory means.
There's a damn website called notjustatheory.com
This information is so ridiculously readily available.
Maybe there needs to be a feature length movie called Not Just A Theory. I dunno.
My reaction whenever I come across this misunderstanding ranges from amused to frustrated. Sometimes I like to type into the twitter search engine the words evolution and theory, and pretty much every single time there's at least 1 person a day on twitter making the same mistake with the word theory. I think my favourite, is when creationists capitalize the word theory. 'It's the THEORY of evolution'. As if capitalizing the word theory, means we shouldn't take evolution seriously.
Partly it is simple misunderstanding. But you see people to whom the term has been explained still continue to use "just a theory." In that case, it may be a willful ignorance used to defend whichever of their beliefs evolution threatens.
Partly it is simple misunderstanding. But you see people to whom the term has been explained still continue to use "just a theory." In that case, it may be a willful ignorance used to defend whichever of their beliefs evolution threatens.
Look at the definition, one word having multiple meanings just screams misunderstanding to me.
Factor in the notion of a "this or that" type choice between God or evolution and you're bound to see the behavior of people drunk on fear. No matter how tough you are, if someone told you that what you know is all a lie you will go strait into denial, based on fear and like a wild animal (evolution?) we strike out in defense.
Misconceptions/understanding and fear are explosive combination. The more I think about it how could any other outcome be expected?
Dr. Ken Miller talks about the relationship between Homo sapiens and the other primates. He discusses a recent finding of the Human Genome Project which identifies the exact point of fusion of two primate chromosomes that resulted in human chromosome #2.
And earlier, you said “you call what is written in the Bible as myths and fairy tales…” In both instances, this suggests the Bible in toto - everything it contains. And that mischaracterizing the conflict.
Biologists are not pitting their scholarship against, say, the poetry of Psalms; they’re not the ones who are mistaking Biblical metaphor for a scientific analysis.
Creationists, on the other hand, do challenge evolution (and a host of other sciences) based on the inerrancy of Genesis. In other words, the counter-argument to a scientific explanation is an appeal to a magical monarch, a talking snake and various other fantastic characters and scenarios. If that doesn’t evoke “myth” and “fairy tales,” I’m not sure what would. Again, this evocation is under the creationists’ own terms and claims, it’s not externally imposed by biologists. So to complain about the obvious similarities in genres rings a little hollow.
And earlier, you said you call what is written in the Bible as myths and fairy tales In both instances, this suggests the Bible in toto - everything it contains. And that mischaracterizing the conflict.
Biologists are not pitting their scholarship against, say, the poetry of Psalms; theyre not the ones who are mistaking Biblical metaphor for a scientific analysis.
Creationists, on the other hand, do challenge evolution (and a host of other sciences) based on the inerrancy of Genesis. In other words, the counter-argument to a scientific explanation is an appeal to a magical monarch, a talking snake and various other fantastic characters and scenarios. If that doesnt evoke myth and fairy tales, Im not sure what would. Again, this evocation is under the creationists own terms and claims, its not externally imposed by biologists. So to complain about the obvious similarities in genres rings a little hollow.
I give up trying to make my point. Obviously, the PhD's on a superhero message board know all and cannot be reasoned with.
I never said that the bible is right or the bible is truth. I honestly think the bible is just a bunch of stories told by people who followed a man named Jehovah. If someone gets lifted up because of a passage they read in the bible good for them.
I just don't see the point in making fun of someone's belief in religion or their faith in God or Jesus. What is it hurting? If someone wants to believe that some greater existence created the universe, so be it.
I guess I'm not one of the cool kids that makes fun of someone for believing in a greater being that created the universe.
Everyone on here is talking about the narrow mindedness of the people who believe in creationism, but you're all to narrow minded to listen to their reasoning. You're just as bad those the religious zealots pushing it down throats that you can't see yourself pushing the theory of evolution down theirs. It's a pissing contest and everyone is pissing in the wind.
I accept the theory of evolution. I don't ram in down the creationists throat that I accept it. I don't see a point on ridiculing a creationist who wants to practice the word of God and believes that God created the universe.
I don't know if there is a God and I really don't care if there is a God.
I'll have more respect for someone who states their opinions and facts without being an ass than someone who insults the ones they are trying to convince.
So with that, I am done with the creation vs evolution BS. I'm on here to talk comics and movies.
I give up trying to make my point. Obviously, the PhD's on a superhero message board know all and cannot be reasoned with.
I never said that the bible is right or the bible is truth. I honestly think the bible is just a bunch of stories told by people who followed a man named Jehovah. If someone gets lifted up because of a passage they read in the bible good for them.
I just don't see the point in making fun of someone's belief in religion or their faith in God or Jesus. What is it hurting? If someone wants to believe that some greater existence created the universe, so be it.
I guess I'm not one of the cool kids that makes fun of someone for believing in a greater being that created the universe.
Everyone on here is talking about the narrow mindedness of the people who believe in creationism, but you're all to narrow minded to listen to their reasoning. You're just as bad those the religious zealots pushing it down throats that you can't see yourself pushing the theory of evolution down theirs. It's a pissing contest and everyone is pissing in the wind.
I accept the theory of evolution. I don't ram in down the creationists throat that I accept it. I don't see a point on ridiculing a creationist who wants to practice the word of God and believes that God created the universe.
I don't know if there is a God and I really don't care if there is a God.
I'll have more respect for someone who states their opinions and facts without being an ass than someone who insults the ones they are trying to convince.
So with that, I am done with the creation vs evolution BS. I'm on here to talk comics and movies.
I give up trying to make my point. Obviously, the PhD's on a superhero message board know all and cannot be reasoned with.
I never said that the bible is right or the bible is truth. I honestly think the bible is just a bunch of stories told by people who followed a man named Jehovah. If someone gets lifted up because of a passage they read in the bible good for them.
I just don't see the point in making fun of someone's belief in religion or their faith in God or Jesus. What is it hurting? If someone wants to believe that some greater existence created the universe, so be it.
I guess I'm not one of the cool kids that makes fun of someone for believing in a greater being that created the universe.
Everyone on here is talking about the narrow mindedness of the people who believe in creationism, but you're all to narrow minded to listen to their reasoning. You're just as bad those the religious zealots pushing it down throats that you can't see yourself pushing the theory of evolution down theirs. It's a pissing contest and everyone is pissing in the wind.
I accept the theory of evolution. I don't ram in down the creationists throat that I accept it. I don't see a point on ridiculing a creationist who wants to practice the word of God and believes that God created the universe.
I don't know if there is a God and I really don't care if there is a God.
I'll have more respect for someone who states their opinions and facts without being an ass than someone who insults the ones they are trying to convince.
So with that, I am done with the creation vs evolution BS. I'm on here to talk comics and movies.
Personally, I don't see that evolution or science in general is a threat to my beliefs because learning how everything came to be, to me, is like getting to look into the past and see how God did it. I don't take the Bible literally word-for-word because its just text (well, not "just" text, but you know what I mean). There is only so much to get from it, and to think that it has every answer to every possible question is not only ridiculous, but also a slight to it's intentions.
I had to look up strawmanning because I've never heard the term before. That was not my intention. I'm not up on all the new lingo kids have. That's a new one.
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