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Evolution a religion?


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Re: Religious Nuts - Yesterday, 03:20 PM by Pyrotex

 

WEBSTERS DICTIONARY (Paraphrase)

Religion: "A specific system of belief"; "A code of ethics"; "A philosophy of life".

Religious: "conscientiously exact"; "scrupulous"; "devout".

...Consequently, Evolution neatly fits the criterion as a religion.

 

 

It may "fit" but not "neatly" by a long shot. First you have to whittle off all the evidential edges, scrape the logic off the sides, round the corners off with a 20" chain saw, and then pound evolution into your definition of religion with a 16-pound sledge hammer.

 

Why would you want to do that, anyway?

 

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Re: Religious Nuts - Yesterday, 03:22 PM by Tormod

 

i'm not sure if anyone here has called me a Rnut, but i have found that most of the time when someone gets mad at me, it's because they know that i'm right.

 

happens all the time with my wife

 

Finally we agree on something!

 

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Re: Religious Nuts - Yesterday, 08:00 PM by Beaker

 

It may "fit" but not "neatly" by a long shot. First you have to whittle off all the evidential edges, scrape the logic off the sides, round the corners off with a 20" chain saw, and then pound evolution into your definition of religion with a 16-pound sledge hammer.

 

Why would you want to do that, anyway?

It's not a matter of wanting to do it; Like it or not - recognize it or not - evolution is a religion, and man is the object of worship. - The god of himself. (Generically speaking).

 

And personally, I see your excellent metaphore doing a far better job describing what it takes to force evolution into the model of the (statistically speaking), extremely monststerous unlikelihood that life actually began in the conventional evolutionary scenario.

 

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Re: Religious Nuts - Yesterday, 08:25 PM by jkellmd

 

It's not a matter of wanting to do it; Like it or not - recognize it or not - evolution is a religion, and man is the object of worship. - The god of himself. (Generically speaking).

 

And personally, I see your excellent metaphore doing a far better job describing what it takes to force evolution into the model of the (statistically speaking), extremely monststerous unlikelihood that life actually began in the conventional evolutionary scenario.

 

 

It is evolutionary theory that allows the masses to finally see beyond humanity, and that we are not the inheritors of the cosmos, destined overlords of the "lesser life forms." Removing man from his pedestal was one of the largest effects of evolutioary theory, an effect which shook 19th century intellectual society to its roots. Darwin's ideas forced a huge reshaping of philosophy and science - only religion has held out.

 

Any scientist would probably discard evloutionary theory, in the unlikely event that any reasonable evidence is found to do so - a fact not shared by any religion. People do not trust in evolution with their hearts, or worship the originators of the idea (at least any more so than they worship Newton or Einstein) - they simply accept the idea based on its elegance and the proponderance of the facts. If you with to convince people focused of the mass of evidence, many of whom see perfect beauty in the idea to boot, you'll need accumulate more evidence to support you.

 

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Definition of "religion" - Yesterday, 09:51 PM by CraigD

 

… Like it or not - recognize it or not - evolution is a religion, …

 

From a dictionary.com result:

 

re•li•gion

1a.Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

1b.A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

Mainstream theories of evolution intentionally avoid reference to a supernatural power. Even ID, in its scientifically credible form (yes, I believe “intelligent design” is a credible, possibly true, possibly false, but as yet poorly developed, scientific hypothesis, despite being buried and obscured by acrimony and controversy from all sides), does not demand a “supernatural designer”.

 

By the most common definition of the term, neither Evolution, nor any naturalistic theory or even non-scientific explanation, is a religion.

WEBSTERS DICTIONARY (Paraphrase)

 

Religion: "A specific system of belief"; "A code of ethics"; "A philosophy of life".

 

Religious: "conscientiously exact"; "scrupulous"; "devout".

 

According to these definitions, religion is not limited to a belief in God, regardless of the common usage of the term.…

I removing all references to the term “supernatural” or “spiritual”, I think BEAKER has paraphrased too much – a term abstracted too far from it’s common usage looses utility. While the term “religion” need not refer to “God”, or a particular god, it must, to remain useful in informal conversation, refer to belief in something supernatural.

 

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All the above was transfered from the religious nuts thread.

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It's not a matter of wanting to do it; Like it or not - recognize it or not - evolution is a religion, and man is the object of worship..

 

I will ddrop in on this thread from day to day to see what happens. Now, a good LOGICAL discussion (or even "arguement" if you will) -- like a good game of Bridge -- has a number of rules. One of those rules, or understandings, concerns the nature of the Dictionary.

 

The Dictionary does not legislate meaning. It reflects current usage. For example, I am sure that someone, in some journal or paper, used "religion" in a general sense to indicate merely a body of belief. Fine. However, that does NOT mean that "religion" MUST be used that way, NOR that ANYTHING which is a body of belief MUST be accepted as a religion.

 

The "dictionary fallacy" is a long recognized form of "counterfeit logic". It can, and usually does, lead to nonsense. You cannot win a logical argument debating like that.

 

As a counter example, let's say I look up "mental illness" and find that it has in at least a few instances been used to mean "a body of delusions or beliefs that lead one to dysfunctional behavior, or the inability to deal with logic". Well, says I, "religion" falls neatly into the definition of a mental illness.

 

Of course, that is nonsense. And so is the conclusion that any theory of science musts be a "religion". A screwdriver is not a hammer, even though both are defined as "tools" in the dictionary.

 

So carry on, guys. I want to see you do your best and deal with logic in a reasonably coherent fashion. If you do, I might just drop in and add a thought or two of my own. Good luck. And please don't chew on the cards.

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Well, the assumption that modern observation and knowledge can eventually disprove a creator of any kind has to be completely taken on faith. Until then, atheism should be considered a subjective view. But there are evos that believe in a creator. There is a distinction between science and projected conclusions.

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The Dictionary does not legislate meaning. It reflects current usage. For example, I am sure that someone, in some journal or paper, used "religion" in a general sense to indicate merely a body of belief. Fine. However, that does NOT mean that "religion" MUST be used that way, NOR that ANYTHING which is a body of belief MUST be accepted as a religion.

 

Very good point Pyro. I point you all therefore to comment on the thread Religion vs. Philosophy to make a site determination of how we should define religion. http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/4266-religion-vs-philosophy.html

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Well, the assumption that modern observation and knowledge can eventually disprove a creator of any kind has to be completely taken on faith. Until then, atheism should be considered a subjective view. But there are evos that believe in a creator. There is a distinction between science and projected conclusions.

It's not my faith that there will ever be anything that will disprove a creator; there's never been any proof that a creator exists to begin with.

 

Look at it like this. Man came into existence; he knew not why or how. Man asked, "Why are we here?", "How did we come to be?". He had no answers. Someone proffered, "we must have been created by something more than we are." Some believed it even though there was no proof, they did so on faith. Some didn't believe it, they wanted evidence. That some chose to believe this without any evidence does not create a burden to disprove the suggestion of creation. The burden is still to prove it. As an atheist and a scientist I am not waiting for evidence to disprove something, I'm waiting for observation and evidence that will prove the suggestion of a creator. Until then there is nothing to support the conclusion there such a creator exists.

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Look at it like this. Man came into existence; he knew not why or how.

You assume he knew not. He could very well have known, but through the centuries truth could have been gossip-ified, multiple versions diverged, and religions resulted. You must at least acknowledge your own bias. We can agree to allow freedom of thought in the grey areas, even fanciful thought.

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You assume he knew not. He could very well have known, but through the centuries truth could have been gossip-ified, multiple versions diverged, and religions resulted. You must at least acknowledge your own bias. We can agree to allow freedom of thought in the grey areas, even fanciful thought.

Through the centuries or millennia? Are you suggesting that the earliest men knew the answers of the origins of life that today's scientists are still looking for? My opinion is not biased. My opinion is based on whatever evidence or lack of evidence that we have, not speculation. We have zero evidence that the first men or their ancestors had any idea who they were or how they got here. If you know otherwise, please share so the world will know.

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They claim to in literature. Why would we not consider it possible?

What literature? The earliest hominid fossils have been dated around 3.8 million years ago and the oldest homosapien fossils date back around 195,000 years. The oldest writing has only been dated back around 5500 years so where is this literature the first men supposedly produced?

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Funny, the orbit of the moon is only mathematically feasible to have an age of 1.2 billion years.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/TechnicalNotes2.html

 

By "date back", what methods are you referring to, exactly?

 

Are you suggesting that the earliest men knew the answers of the origins of life that today's scientists are still looking for?

I'm saying it's a purposefully unrecognized reasonable possibility. They were closer to the source, after all, and time does have a way of forgetting. Consider it a previous theory which has yet to be unseated.

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Funny, the orbit of the moon is only mathematically feasible to have an age of 1.2 billion years.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/TechnicalNotes2.html

 

By "date back", what methods are you referring to, exactly?

 

Brown's method is flawed. The continents on Earth are not stationary, but in fact moving very slowly. I don't think this is debated, even by creationists. The placement of the continents has a huge effect on tidal dissipation. If you include plate tectonics and its effects into your model, you'll find a much higher lower age limit. See Kagan and Maslova (1994), and Bills, Ray, and Chao (1999).

-Will

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Funny, the orbit of the moon is only mathematically feasible to have an age of 1.2 billion years.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/TechnicalNotes2.html

What has that got to do with the age of man and his records? That's more than a billion years before the earliest hominid fossils dated via radiometric dating of the rock samples.

 

I'm saying it's a purposefully unrecognized reasonable possibility. They were closer to the source, after all, and time does have a way of forgetting. Consider it a previous theory which has yet to be unseated.

Purposefully forgotten by whom? Are you saying the earliest homospaiens of 160,000 years ago purposely negleted to pass down their origins so that it could be recorded in the earliest writing that only goes back 5500 years? And that they knew their origins?

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"Center for Scientific Creation"? Please. A quick look through that site tells us that their mission is to spread their religion, and not science. They use language that sounds scientific, but they seem to know very little about science, or at least, they hope everyone else does. They don't even know anything about evolution, they call those who "believe" in it "Evolutionists", and they seem to believe that the formation of the solar system, the origins of the universe, the origins of the moon, and formations and phenomena such as the Grand Canyon, the ice ages, earthquakes and comets have anything to do with the theory of biological evolution. This is what one can expect from an average, typical creationist website: factual errors, irrelevant conclusions, logical flaws, etc. For every visitor to such a website there is always a few who already believe in those things and have their beliefs "confirmed", or they are honestly ignorant and start to believe in it. Such websites help ignorance and superstition to remain widespread, and I'm not sure why anyone would want that to happen.

 

And no, there's nothing to suggest that the earliest humankind or its ancestors knew more about the world than we do today. Even if they did, what texts would we find such info in?

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Look at it like this. Man came into existence; he knew not why or how. Man asked, "Why are we here?", "How did we come to be?". He had no answers. Someone proffered, "we must have been created by something more than we are." Some believed it even though there was no proof, they did so on faith. Some didn't believe it, they wanted evidence. That some chose to believe this without any evidence does not create a burden to disprove the suggestion of creation. The burden is still to prove it.

 

I don't suppose we will ever get around this "push-me-pull-you" kind of reasoning. Too bad, so sad; but just to make sure we are all clear on what we are seeing:

 

you are asking every reader to accept your theoretical presumption about man's begining, and the advent of faith in "whatever"; by putting faith in your "educated" hypothesis.

 

Of course that probably won't be very hard in this venue, since many, if not most of the readers are already predisposed to beliving something along those lines.

 

It's still nothing more than "faith" upon the word of a man (or men) based upon the great preponderance of "evidence", (to use the term loosely) - which is scientific data slanted toward evolution.

 

That same data can be, and is slanted toward creation by those who are predisposed to take it in that direction.

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Brown's method is flawed. The continents on Earth are not stationary, but in fact moving very slowly. I don't think this is debated, even by creationists. The placement of the continents has a huge effect on tidal dissipation. If you include plate tectonics and its effects into your model, you'll find a much higher lower age limit. See Kagan and Maslova (1994), and Bills, Ray, and Chao (1999).

-Will

Tectonics is farse. Explain the strata.

 

Brown's theory does not predict stable continents. If you were familiar enough with the hydroplate theory to know it's flawed, you would already be aware of this. The continents ruptured, drifted, and compressed within months. They have been settling back into spherical equilibrium since. If the world were billions of years old, why is it not closer to a perfect sphere?

 

Some earthquakes in the ocean cause tsunamis, some don't. Why? Settling. Because some quakes result in a lowering of the ocean floor (surprizingly less dense than it should be) initiating a massive movement of water. Modern science remains obtusely unaware.

 

The site is not hogwash. You guys are just too "scientific" to evaluate it objectively.

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