Good teaching tool for early teaching in biology

[Flash]

The fossil record completely backs it up. But religious nuts choose to remain willfully ignorant.

Is that like the stupid Moon Bats ignoring the biological fact that a fetus is a human being?

 

[Riff Raff]

I'm not so sure about that. There is no evidence for supernatural creation by any of the gods.

On the other hand, we have overwhelming, verifiable evidence of biological evolution.

It seems to me you're rejection of something based on lack of evidence and not on evidence against it is closed-minded when it should be open-minded. It also appears to me that your constant mention of "gods" — plural — when speaking to someone that believes in one God, as religions in the West usually do, is intended as a attempt at belittling anothers opinions with arrogance.

I'm right, aren't I?

 

[Hollie]

It seems to me you're rejection of something based on lack of evidence and not on evidence against it is closed-minded when it should be open-minded. It also appears to me that your constant mention of "gods" — plural — when speaking to someone that believes in one God, as religions in the West usually do, is intended as a attempt at belittling anothers opinions with arrogance.

I'm right, aren't I?

What an audacious idea - requiring evidence to support an argument. Faith doesn’t claim evidence because it can not claim evidence. That's because faith isn't a tool-- it is a conclusion. Faith is not a path to knowledge -- else, if the item is known, it no longer needs faith. If one can be said to "know there is a god" -- then of what need is there for faith?
Since reason won't suffice to support an irrational claim (i.e., supernatural beings being real, not fictional), one is forced to defend supernaturalism. Enter faith, theistically defined as the substance of things "hoped for"; the evidence of things not being possible to demonstrate.

As to the use of gods (plural), what is a triune God if not multiple instances?

Emirite?

 

[Riff Raff]

What an audacious idea - requiring evidence to support an argument.

It is. Not everything can be physically inspected. By the same method you can claim love exists others can claim God exists. Do you reject that love exists because of insufficient evidence? And if you say that love exists because of the conclusions based on observations, scientific or otherwise, then one could reasonably conclude the same about God.

Faith doesn’t claim evidence because it can not claim evidence. That's because faith isn't a tool-- it is a conclusion. Faith is not a path to knowledge -- else, if the item is known, it no longer needs faith. If one can be said to "know there is a god" -- then of what need is there for faith?

I know there is God. I say this based on fact and reason, and not faith. I'm also not a Christian nor am I religious (I have read on the world's religions, some more in depth than others, and read a many-volume encyclopedia of the world's religions from A to Z as an introduction). I respect all sincere pursuits of Truth but while understanding the common traits of religion, their views of God (or gods) and how it relates to other pursuits like science, philosophy, observation of nature and direct experiences of humans, individuals and other beings with the natural environment was influential, ultimately, I only based conclusions on fact and reason.

Albert Einstein made casual references to God and his belief in predeterminism at the most fundamental level (hence, his discomfort with modern quantum theory, famously represented by his "God does not play dice with the universe" statement) and his theories about relativity, are harmonious with most religions concept of God. I suspect his view, based on fact and reason as mine, is about reality, not faith. (His facts are of an extremely more substantial depth than mine, of course).

Since reason won't suffice to support an irrational claim (i.e., supernatural beings being real, not fictional), one is forced to defend supernaturalism. Enter faith, theistically defined as the substance of things "hoped for"; the evidence of things not being possible to demonstrate.

All religions realize the understanding of God, the "big picture," is elusive. My explanation, most simply, is that we're not designed to have that full revelation and exist because of the (pretend) denial of it. God is All but 'pretends' to not be so that 'she' can experience and enjoy moments and things (space and time), so lifely existence is God/Not God. Sounds a bit similar to quantum theory, doesn't it?

So, specifically addressing Christianity here, Jesus, his disciples and other early Christian leaders taught followers to adopt faith, for its not humanly possible to know God and 'his' ways fully, and difficult to even keep any of it it in mind when by nature we're built to look away from the whole.

There can be a sense of connection within us all that can help guide us to recognize or feel the Truth (which you will reject, of course) but some humans do experience that on some level, as Jesus did. And, as with Jesus, it will waver at times.

So, faith has its purpose for most who want to know the meaning of their existence and that around them, and if they are part of greater good and have reason for living a harmonious, loving, moral and disciplined life.

As to the use of gods (plural), what is a triune God if not multiple instances?

Emirite?

No. I was right. You're playing verbally and now justifying doing so by pretending to refer to the Trinity. (Which, by the way, is a human concoction in its own right, I believe, but that's not our real point here).

 

[CrusaderFrank]

No, if a genetic anomoly results in an advantage in that environment, over an enormous period of time and an enormous number of replications, its success begets further success, leading to a spin-off without necessarily affecting the original.

Genetic anomalies are helpful? You mean like a meteor can smash into a ranch style house and made it a Tudor?

Alligators never had a single helpful genetic anomaly in 60 million years???

 

[Riff Raff]

Genetic anomalies are helpful? You mean like a meteor can smash into a ranch style house and made it a Tudor?

Alligators never had a single helpful genetic anomaly in 60 million years???

More likely, a Victorian.

About them 'gators, it's not that they didn't have genetic mutations, as you mistakenly assume, but none that were favorable enough to warrant those opposable thumbs. With a jaw like that, who needs to hold their prey with hands?

 

[Woodznutz]

I'd ask some difficult questions about "science-talk" before criticizing those evil "science- believers". Are you willing to acknowledge the unanswered questions regarding cures for disease? Science cures disease. Not all, but science offers a remedy to counter those disease designing gods. Disease implies a supernatural designer of illness and disease. Either the supernatural designer is incompetent as a designer or the supernatural designer of disease and suffering has made an intentional effort to promote disease and suffering.

True that God both fashioned diseases and allows mankind to be afflicted with them. It's closely related to the God-given laws of health. They are very strict. Science is completely unaware of this. For all the scientific achievements regarding curing disease we are still a pretty sick species. Science refuses to acknowledge the true cause of disease; rebellion against the principles of health.

A Reader's Digest article many years ago was revealing. A (highly educated scientific) researcher went to Peru to study the eating habits of the people there. While there a traditional race was being held where men would trek the high mountain trails for days eating only some cornbread cakes flavored with honey. The researcher couldn't figure out how the men could eat so little and still complete the grueling race. She calculated that each would require nearly 3500 calories per day, while the meager rations provided only about 1100.

We suffer from the same dilemma today, believing that we must eat much more food than we actually need for health and energy. Overeating is the single most flagrant violation of God's laws of health. More people have dug their graves with a 'knife and fork' than all the weapons of war. Yet we continue to eat, eat, eat.

 

[Woodznutz]

Seems an odd question and I sense there's an underlying reason for asking it, but regardless, the obvious answer for me is that it brings pleasure and therefore also can promote the propagation of the species.

Removal of the clitoris in some populations doesn't seem to affect their fecundity.

 

[Woodznutz]

What an audacious idea - requiring evidence to support an argument. Faith doesn’t claim evidence because it can not claim evidence. That's because faith isn't a tool-- it is a conclusion. Faith is not a path to knowledge -- else, if the item is known, it no longer needs faith. If one can be said to "know there is a god" -- then of what need is there for faith?
Since reason won't suffice to support an irrational claim (i.e., supernatural beings being real, not fictional), one is forced to defend supernaturalism. Enter faith, theistically defined as the substance of things "hoped for"; the evidence of things not being possible to demonstrate.

As to the use of gods (plural), what is a triune God if not multiple instances?

Emirite?

Faith is the pathway to Godly knowledge, something we could use more of.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Throw a stack of sheet aluminum and a million nuts and bolts into the air, and down falls a jet airliner.

Or, blow up a Caddy and when the dust settles, there's a brand new Harley sitting there...

 

[Hollie]

It is. Not everything can be physically inspected. By the same method you can claim love exists others can claim God exists. Do you reject that love exists because of insufficient evidence? And if you say that love exists because of the conclusions based on observations, scientific or otherwise, then one could reasonably conclude the same about God.

That's a terrible attempt at analogy. Love is a human emotion, predicated upon nurturing, protection, loyalty, affection, caring (etc.). An emotion is an urge or proclivity based upon chemical changes in the brain that engages the behavior to feel the above. (Test for it: remove or impede the brain's ability to engage these desires, and there is no love extant. Damage or injury to the brain removes all "feelings" of love and gods alike.

Love can find its root in a hierarchy of animal behaviors where protection of ones mate and offspring is extant. As human beings have sentience, they have labeled these deep seated urges to feel this way as "love". Emotions can be shown to exist in lower creatures; for instance, nurturing and parental caring can be seen in higher apes. As you go lower down the chain, you can see a marked "lessening" of these sorts of caring, until, as you get to simple-brained creatures, they no longer exist. There is nothing to indicate that emotions are not the result of the interactions of chemicals and neurons in the brain.

Describing the attributes and manifestations of a phenomenon, testing for it, falsifying it, and recording its consistency does adequately describe it. You can express all the "feelings" you have about your gods just as others express their "feelings" abouy their gods. Why are they right and you're wrong?

I know there is God. I say this based on fact and reason, and not faith. I'm also not a Christian nor am I religious (I have read on the world's religions, some more in depth than others, and read a many-volume encyclopedia of the world's religions from A to Z as an introduction). I respect all sincere pursuits of Truth but while understanding the common traits of religion, their views of God (or gods) and how it relates to other pursuits like science, philosophy, observation of nature and direct experiences of humans, individuals and other beings with the natural environment was influential, ultimately, I only based conclusions on fact and reason.

No. You don't there are gods. That's just silly. "Feelings" tell us nothing about gods.
There are, in the evolution of the Abrahamic faiths, theological thresholds that were crossed allowing the later religions to establish themselves as unique. For Judaism (which began as simply a national sect within Canaanite polytheism) it was elevation of their national god, Yahweh, to the unique status of only god, rather than merely one among others. For Christianity (which began as simply an esthetic sect within traditional messianic Judaism) it was adoption of the Pauline theology of the divinity of Jesus and his substitutionary atonement for sin. And for Islam (which began as simply a unitarian sect within Arab Christianity) it was acceptance of a unique exemplar for behavior and law in the person of Muhammad.

Each of these thresholds is certainly part of a continuum in which the earlier religions are relevant to the later, but they are also departures from the old and creation of the new. Judaism did not exist prior to the 6th century BC. Christianity did not exist prior to the 1st Century AD. And Islam did not exist prior to the 7th Century AD.

Albert Einstein made casual references to God and his belief in predeterminism at the most fundamental level (hence, his discomfort with modern quantum theory, famously represented by his "God does not play dice with the universe" statement) and his theories about relativity, are harmonious with most religions concept of God. I suspect his view, based on fact and reason as mine, is about reality, not faith. (His facts are of an extremely more substantial depth than mine, of course).

Einstein was ambivalent about gods. Who cares if made casual references? References bring no one any closer to Amun Ra.

All religions realize the understanding of God, the "big picture," is elusive. My explanation, most simply, is that we're not designed to have that full revelation and exist because of the (pretend) denial of it. God is All but 'pretends' to not be so that 'she' can experience and enjoy moments and things (space and time), so lifely existence is God/Not God. Sounds a bit similar to quantum theory, doesn't it?

So, specifically addressing Christianity here, Jesus, his disciples and other early Christian leaders taught followers to adopt faith, for its not humanly possible to know God and 'his' ways fully, and difficult to even keep any of it it in mind when by nature we're built to look away from the whole.

There can be a sense of connection within us all that can help guide us to recognize or feel the Truth (which you will reject, of course) but some humans do experience that on some level, as Jesus did. And, as with Jesus, it will waver at times.

So, faith has its purpose for most who want to know the meaning of their existence and that around them, and if they are part of greater good and have reason for living a harmonious, loving, moral and disciplined life.


No. I was right. You're playing verbally and now justifying doing so by pretending to refer to the Trinity. (Which, by the way, is a human concoction in its own right, I believe, but that's not our real point here).

Well. once again you are making appeals to gods and offering nothing to support those emotional appeals. What theists need to account for is that as soon as they begin dismissing the claims of others' gods, they have inadvertently condemned the arguments for their own gods. The sectarian theistic (supernatural), contention is dependent on claims of a particular god(s). As soon as one begins to approach any discussion of a specific sectarian version of God(s), you must hold that god(s) to the same standards of proof that all gods must meet. To dismiss the Greek gods as an absurd claim while holding different gods to be extant supplies believers in the Greek Gods with all the necessary ammunition to shoot down in flames your version as absurd.

Religions, as gods, come and go with cultures and civilizations. Consider the Romans, for example. Not only were they exceedingly tolerant of other nation's gods, they actually assumed that those gods were also true. Certainly, they found the earlier Egyptian gods to be a bit… um… strange, but they still considered them powerful and extant. In a profoundly spectacular acknowledgement of their own lack of knowledge regarding the gods, the Romans also worshiped “the unknown god.” Think of this as essentially praying to, “to whom it may concern” with the explicit understanding that nobody had exclusive or full knowledge of the real nature of THE god or gods... sort of the god or gods to be announced at a later date, or… the god or gods to suit any occasion, so to speak. Certainly, this idea was borrowed from the earlier Greeks. The Greeks even built a temple in Athens to this: Agnostos Theos.

The theist is immediately placed into a dilemma from which there is no escape by using faith as a method or tool to gain knowledge, to "know the meaning of their existence and that around them". Simply put, faith and reason cannot exist side by side; they are mutually exclusive to one another. If something is believed to be true, and there is evidence for its reality, there is no need for faith; it is rationally a reality. But if something requires faith in order for it to be believed, then it is no longer rational, and if it is not rational, then what supports its reliability? Thus the theist is trapped into an impossible dilemma-- he cannot make an appeal to knowledge, since knowledge depends on reason for its existence.

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[Hollie]

Faith is the pathway to Godly knowledge, something we could use more of.

‘faith” is not a path to knowledge. Faith is presumptive. All of your testimony presupposes that your god is the true god. All religions make this claim. I see nothing that advances your claim above the others.

No religion claims itself secondary in comparison to its competition. That would dismantle the authority of every religion ("Well, we're sort of right," said the Dalai Lama, "But you know, maybe those Moslems are really right." Uh, not likely.)

 

[Woodznutz]

‘faith” is not a path to knowledge. Faith is presumptive. All of your testimony presupposes that your god is the true god. All religions make this claim. I see nothing that advances your claim above the others.

No religion claims itself secondary in comparison to its competition. That would dismantle the authority of every religion ("Well, we're sort of right," said the Dalai Lama, "But you know, maybe those Moslems are really right." Uh, not likely.)

Sorry, I should have said faith is the doorway to Godly knowledge. The pathway is doing the will of God in your life.

The Christian understands that faith is proof without evidence.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

You've basically made a good argument for the 'foolishness' of religion, which makes perfect sense to the unbeliever.

1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Of course, spirituality isn't 'rational' to the unbeliever.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Might be counterproductive as it demonstrates the utter impossibility of it actually happening.

What a bizarre claim. And you just failed out of 4th grade.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Sorry, I should have said faith is the doorway to Godly knowledge.

*but only if it is the God you approve.

Which would mean faith is NOT the doorway to godly knowledge for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived.

So, what you just said is false.

 

[Woodznutz]

What a bizarre claim. And you just failed out of 4th grade.

The presentation lacks the details necessary for it to be taken seriously. Too many quantum leaps.

 

[Woodznutz]

*but only if it is the God you approve.

Which would mean faith is NOT the doorway to godly knowledge for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived.

So, what you just said is false.

The vast majority haven't been called yet. The church is to be called first. The rest will follow during the millenial period of Christ's rule.

Church: The spring harvest.
The rest of mankind: The greater fall harvest.

We are still in the 'church age'. Be patient, your time will come.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The presentation lacks the details necessary for it to be taken seriously. Too many quantum leaps.

As if you watched it. Give me a break. This is psychobabble

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The vast majority haven't been called yet.

Because they're dead. Sorry, but your comments are just nonsensical, for the reasons stated.

 

[Woodznutz]

Because they're dead. Sorry, but your comments are just nonsensical, for the reasons stated.

biblegateway.com is your friend. Search "resurrection".