The God Debate

And this is why I completely lost interest in the subject of science as a kid. Teachers kept trying to tell me how the earth and life came to be. And believe me, if they pass it as a law that teachers can teach evolution in the classroom, they won’t be presenting it to their students as opinion but rather as scientific fact. And that’s just wrong.

’scientists hate god.’ this is the perfect opening line from the non-biased fox news. it’s sensational, inflammatory, and completely untrue. it’s the kind of phrase that stinks of an agenda.

The rest of the world is looking at the US and shaking their heads. They are wondering why the “argument” is even going on. There is no evidence for or against the idea of any God or gods existing. The Gospel of Philip, an ancient Gnostic Gospel found at Nag Hammadi put it this way: “(For in the beginning) God created man. (But now men) create God. That is the way it is in the world — men make gods and worship their creation. It would be fitting for the gods to worship men.” Science has it’s realm and religion has its realm. The problem is that American Fundamentalist Christianity (that is, the American VERSION of Christianity) wants total control of the country and the minds and wallets of the people in this country. They manipulate scripture as well as scientific discoveries to control people’s minds. Their use of half-truths is well-known. (There’s an old Yiddish proverb: A half-truth is a whole lie.) They’re completely right and everyone else is wrong. Even Pope John Paul 2 said, “Evolution is MORE than a theory.” It is. The evidence for evolution IS overwhelming and comes from more than fossils. Scientists aren’t out to destroy peoples’ beliefs. Religionists are. Scientists simply want to find out how the world, and the universe, works. One thing that scientists believe is that science is amenable to change. Einstein stated it this way, “Science is CONDITIONAL truth.” Any true science will change when new information is found. Not so with religion or religious movements such as “creation science” or “intelligent design.” It’s their way only and they’ll manipulate the politicians in order to get their way. And it’s all in the name of the god they created.

Evolution is something that cannot be fought ?
that is a logical fallacy you slipped in.

Evolution says we evolved from rocks.. that can easily be fought.

Sigh, I get so very weary of this argument. First point, our constitution requires a seperation of church and state. PUBLIC schools are maintained and operated by the state and federal funds. Point 2, Science is the practice of coming to conclusions by virtue of observation and test. Through observation one composes a theory, then attempts to test it until one finds something that negates the theory. Creationism cannot be tested, nor observed therefore it is not science by definition. Point 3. The evolution theory has thus far stood the test of time, we have found more and more evidence that supports it, and thus far none that negates it. It therefore is a sound scientific theory and deserves to be taught. Point 4. Evolution is at its base all about external factors, radiation, temperature, conditions for survival, food types, bacteria. Evolution in fact is an organisms response to a given environment. Creationism teaches that man was created, however it does not say HOW, the actual mechanism, simply that it was done. Point 5. Timespans and such, time keeping is an artifical construct. How we as humans have measured time has changed greatly over the years, and currently we have defined a second against a wavelength of light (I don’t remember which exactly) but the point is, this is how we measure time. (others, such as God, may count it vastly differently). Days, hours, years are quite arbitrary, and our values for such are meaningful only in our context (a jupiter year, by our definition is a completely different beast). We have 24 hours in a day, but that is mere agreement, somewhere along the line WE agreed that there would be 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. We could have agreed differently. We could very easily had 32 hours in a day simply by deciding that there were only 45 minutes in a hour. These are all artificial constructs mutual agreed on (and even then not completely by the way). Point 6 (if I haven’t lost count) Last I knew there were over 100 religions, more if you count the various flavors of each. If one is to teach creationism as science (an oxymoron I know), which version shall we teach? While quite a number of religions have similar creation stories, there are a few that are wildly different. As it isn’t a science, we have no way of knowing which is the right version. We can’t teach them all, there are other important things that our children must learn. Point 7. Evolution and Creationism are not mutually exclusive, if you ask our scientist, they will agree… Evolution is science, the HOW of it, Religion is (or should be) the who or why of it. Science is humble enough to know that they don’t know, and may not be able to find out. Point 8 Wasting our tax dollars on useless laws is the real tragedy. We don’t need laws that tell us our native language is american, or whether or not to teach creationism or real science. We pay our teachers to teach. They should be allowed to teach definiable knowledge that is testable and not merely emotional based opinion. Religious training should be left to churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever the FAMILIES determine is the best approach for that. QUIT wasting our tax dollars on useless crap, let our teachers teach, let the ministers preach and stop all this nonsense… We have REAL problems, that are urgent and immediate, the endless debate on whether or not the scientist or the theologians are right is NOT worth the tax dollars or the time… one way or another we will know the end of this soon enough, in the meantime, our children need to learn rational thought, scientific methods and the best of the knowledge that we have thus far garnered so that they may strike out and become productive and competitive adults armed with tools for learning and thinking…

Later

Science can neither prove or disprove the existence of god using scientific method. The “controversy” has nothing to do with science at all, but the age-old question of whether one can accept a final authority greater than any imperfect human. No matter how eloquently a college philosophy student or a legion of the sharpest minds ever to exist can frame the dialog, the question is, “Are you willing to accept that there exists an entity greater than you, to which you are ultimately accountable?” Depending on how you answer the question indicates whether you are the ‘god’ or you let another entity be the ‘God’.

As everyone has noted, “there is no evidence.”

With no evidence, NEITHER SIDE HAS A CASE.

That said, after nearly 70 years of pondering, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is SOMETHING behind the universe and everything in it, but NO ONE knows what that something is.

From that point it’s all BS. But… if filling your head with BS is somehow comforting to you, if it makes life more tolerable/enjoyable/understandable for you, then GO FOR IT.

But please, please, please, “believers,” stop trying to sell what is pure BS as knowledge, God, or truth. ‘Cause it just ain’t and cannot be. Untested assumptions and glib opinions are just that - hot air.

Enjoy your day!