Proof of God?
Scientifically, absence of proof is proof that it is absent.
You know why?
Given: I have a box w/ a dozen eggs in it
Conclusion: I can test for existence of eggs (sight, feel, texture, shape, smell after rotting, etc.)
Given: I test thoroughly and find 12 eggs
Conclusion A: there are 12 eggs in the box.
Conclusion B: there are only 12 eggs in the box.
There are only 12 eggs. No more. Because i don't have proof of the 13th egg, I cannot claim that a 13th egg exists (within the box)
Therefore, there is no 13th egg. or in the greater picture, w/o proof it doesn't exist.
You just have to ask yourself whether the bible functions as that proof.
Which leads to the point that ID is not a science and therefore it isn't proper to discuss it in science class. Because that's what the entire argument is about. We can sit here all day and say this proves or disproves the existence of God/Greater Being.
Here's what I think about religion in general:
What do they all have in common (excluding radicals)?
Basically: Listen to our god & be nice to everyone
The first part is just a control mechanism unless there really is a god, in which case I'm gonna burn for that one.
Also, what's more terrifying than the idea that after life there is just a black nothingness?
And THAT is the extent of my knowledge that you shall experience in that post.
~me!
"think of all the lives saved by plastic knives"
[EDIT] if you care, Divya wasn't lying (I was forced to admit it!)[/EDIT]
posted by Motor.On at 9:44 PM
16 Comments:
Religion isn't supposed to make sense. I also think you should hit harder on the fact that religions promote acceptance, and peace, yet we went through the crusades, inquisition, and now jihad. All examples of religions not being able to follow one set principal; such as thou shalt not kill... that statement is completely black and white.
Something I've picked up, some people believe that the whole heaven hell thing could just be completely in our own brains. Some people think that as we die our brains secrete chemicals such as (or similar to) DMT, which simply makes us trip, and our dying 2 seconds seems like eternity. Just a little alternative theory (that I don't necessarily believe, I just think it's thought provoking). :D
10:06 PM
that's sweet!
10:09 PM
Uh who's divya?
Don't all theories have some absense of proof? Also, isn't it impossible to be certain? Those are two major flaws in your argument. Sure, it works practically for the egg thing, but with evolution, there is no definite proof that evolution happened the way the theory states. There is evidence that SUPPORTS the theory, but since intelligent design is the same thing with only one major change, the evidence supports it as well. How can you say that absense of proof of God means that there is no god, but absense of proof of a primortial soup concocting the first life form completely randomly means that this event still could have happened? That right there is hypocrisy.
What I don't understand is why you guys are so closed to anything to do with religion. Same with ultra religious people being so closed to science. I just don't get it. The two aren't mutually exclusive. You don't have to worship God, but I think you should be open to the possibility that Intelligent Design may in fact be correct. Same for the ultra religious and sticking to Creationism, which is really stupid in my opinion. I don't know where I stand with covering ID in science class, but I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal. Everyone dismisses it because of the word "God", but the theories are virtually the same. So maybe your teacher takes ten minutes to explain ID, it's brief history, and it's comparison to evolution. There, done. Ten minutes and now you understand a little more about the people of the world. Isn't that what school's about? Learning how to be a functioning person? If nobody knows about alternate theories, they're not gonna be ready to defend their own when it comes time to make a decision, and their opinion really isn't complete anyway without adequate knowledge of the subject.
7:01 AM
Intelligent design is not science how can you teach a non-science in science class?
That's like teaching how to solve the quadratic equation in a class about how to write a persuasive paper.
ID can be taught in private schools, because they are private. But a public school is kinda forced unless you go to a private school.
You can't teach non science in science.
for the "soup", here's another example. If I have some eggshells, or a egg yolk I can reasonably prove that there was once an egg there, no?
All life (excluding viruses (viri wold be so much cooler)) shares some basic structures, which suggest a common ancestor, which (based on lack of scientific evidence for a greater being) suggests in turn some sort of mess of crap that accidentally formed into a cell of some sort.
Anyways, the debate isn't which is right, it's whether ID has any basis in a science classroom.
Does Math belong in English class?
4:47 PM
Intelligent design is EXACTLY THE SAME as evolution with only ONE change - evolution says that things happened by random chance and ID says God made evolution start, no? Why is it wrong to mention the existence of an alternate theory? Just because it has the word God in it doesn't mean it's not science. Science is the study of the world around us, so why can't we attribute something to an all-powerful creator? There are other explanations, but all are equally plausible.
Anyway, you cannot prove that an egg once existed if you have eggshells. All you can prove is that now you have eggshells. You can THEORIZE that an egg once existed, but you cannot PROVE it. That's why ID and Evolution are THEORIES. Since you can't prove either one, why is one more scientific?
I think you just fear religion being taught in any school, for whatever reason. Personally I see no problem with showing students at a public school this alternate theory. Teachers aren't saying "ID is what you have to believe or else", they're merely explaining another theory. I fail to see why that's so egredious. If you don't believe in intelligent design, I don't give a damn, but you can't just pretend the theory doesn't have any scientific basis. The entire theory is based off of evolution, thus making it scientific by the transitive property of equality and by closure.
4:55 PM
Fact A: The constitution puts in place (to some extent) the separation of church and state (also, it's been upheld by the supreme court, so that's pretty much set in place as we stand.)
Fact B: Public schools are run by the state
If you put Religion in a public school, where's the separation of church and state?
Especially because Biology is a required course at almost every public high school in the US.
if you put it in an optional Religion class, that's ok. Or if you describe, this is what Christians believe, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or whatever.
BUT, not in a required course where you only express that religious view.
Why don't we just return to pre-Copernican science if were going to throw all of it out in school systems anyway?
The world being physically flat anyone?
5:05 PM
Fuck! This whole debate is my problem. The comment got a little long, so check out my blog: here
5:58 PM
Fact A: The constitution puts in place (to some extent) the separation of church and state (also, it's been upheld by the supreme court, so that's pretty much set in place as we stand.)
False.
Read the constitution.
It says nowhere in the entirity of the constitution that there is a wall of separation between church and state. In fact, this wall of church and state separation was only discussed in letters from Thomas Jefferson. Also, the concept was to prevent the government from squashing religions, not from a religion influencing government.
http://www.lc.org/Resources/separation.html
Anyway, are governments not allowed to change? Just because something was decided by the courts once doesn't mean it can never be decided the other way by a different judge.
Anyway, Intelligent Design (or Powered Evolution as Eric calls it) is not simply a Christian belief. Since it refers to a "higher force" and not directly to God, it works for virtually every religion known to man. Also, it's not officially affiliated with any one religion, so I don't see your point.
Also, that required course doesn't explain only that religious view - it explains all relevant theories, doesn't it? Evolution and intelligent Design are the two most popular, and therefore most relevant theories of today.
Don't you discuss pre-copernican science in science class? You still discuss Newton, correct? I don't understand your comment about pre-copernican science at all, then. How is Intelligent Design related? We wouldn't return to pre-copernican science because we know that it was false.
Look I'm not saying that the teachers have to tell you "This is right" when they're discussing intelligent design. Ignoring it is stupid. Pretending it's not there won't make it go away. IT doesn't seem very smart to only learn about the most popular theories, or even only the correct ones, because some day you'll run across some crackpot who believes something different than you. If you never experience anything you DON'T believe in, you'll not be able to form a well-thought-out opinion on the subject because you don't know all sides of the story. Isn't that what school's all about? Learning is for the purpose of functioning in the real world, and to do so you have to make decisions. If you don't learn all sides of every issue, how can you be prepared to change the world when the time comes? You do know that's what we have to do, right? We have to change the world. Right now, the world is in the shitter, and our generation is the last hope. Everyone's got nukes, everyone hates america, there are very serious armed conflicts everywhere, not to mention the ozone layer's shot to shit and we're gonna run out of gas. Anyway my point is we need to learn every opinion so that we know how to defeat it.
6:29 PM
Example: The theory of gravity.
What's the second most popular theory?
basically, there are four things , fire, water, air and earth. They each attract each other, causing earth to fall out of air to other ground, water to go to water (downhill as it so happens) etc.
Is that taught? No. It's not a science. There is not a logical, peer reviewed process behind it (see ID).
Newton - born 1643
Copernicus -born 1473
Newtonian physics is taught because it works on Earth. Einsteinian physics works in space. Quantum mechanics works in extreme situations (temp, size, etc.)
Copernicus was the start of the age of Enlightenment. He was the start of the scientific method.
That's when science stopped being a lame unproven dictated we-say-it-you-believe-it situation and became a You've-got-to-prove-it situation.
There is most definitely church-and-state separation in our government. it can change, but it hasn't. And ID was shown to be not allowed to teach in a public school according to the constitution in Pennsylvania. Kansas needs to take a hint.
6:54 PM
Fact A: The first amendment prevents the government from sponsoring a religion.
Being influenced by any one religion is equivilent to sponsoring that religion.
Intelligent Design is creationism. Powered Evolution is a TOTALLY different theory. Stop using them interchangeably. That's like using red and orange interchangeably.
Check your sources. The "Liberty Counsel" claims to be "dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family", however, many of their comments "imply that anything less than active bias for Christianity amounts to bias against Christianity" (wikipedia). A little bit of reading makes me believe that they are indeed uber-conservative. That's a bad source in a debate about religion and science.
Second of all, Alan completely dominated that pre-Copernican science thing, so I won't even comment.
So basically, theories (like I.D.) that don't meet the requirements for scientific theories (testability) shouldn't be taught in a Science class. Teach 'em in History, not Science. Besides, what's the science behind I.D.? It basically goes something like this: "A higher power created us as we are today."
There's no science in that. How can the scientific method be applied?
And I very much doubt our generation is the last hope. If we are, the way forward isn't for us to all become more religious.
3:54 PM
Oh yeah. I forgot about this. Jefferson was the first to use the phrase "separation between Church and State," but he was by no means the only one. In fact, James Madison, the principal writer of the Bill of Rights, made similar comments at least four times:
*"total separation of the church from the state" (1819 letter to Walsh)
*"perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters" (1822 letter to Livingston)
*"line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority... entire abstinence of the government" (1832 letter Rev. Adams)
*"practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States" (1811 letter to Baptist Churches)
(wikipedia)
Teaching Intelligent Design in schools is totally undefendable. Teaching Powered Evolution is stupid, because it fails Occam's Razor (like I've said.) If you're willing to let me teach Powered Evolution, why can't I also teach that Evolution occurred the way it did, but because... I don't know... sunlight is yellow? That just adds another element to Evolution. Occam's Razor tells you to trim the excess "stuff" off of a theory. If God isn't necessary for Evolution to occur, why would you test for Evolution that involved God instead of evolution that didn't?
Powered Evolution is an attempt to reconcile science and religion, which is very short-sighted and shallow. Religion is utterly useless in describing the method in which the world works since the invention of the scientific method. It has simply been surpassed. Engineers don't still use abacuses to do math, do they? That doesn't make religion worthless, though. It's perfectly fine for the softer parts of the world, where opinions are practical. After all, in the real world, two plus two is always equal to four. In men's minds, it can be five, but when you're trying to get a bridge to stand up, two plus two is four.
In ethics, though, something can be right or wrong depending on what you, and the majority of the world believes. In science, everyone can believe the world is flat, and it won't be any less round.
4:19 PM
basically, there are four things , fire, water, air and earth. They each attract each other, causing earth to fall out of air to other ground, water to go to water (downhill as it so happens) etc.
Yes, that was taught. I wouldn't know about it if it wasn't discussed at school at some point or another.
Fact A: The first amendment prevents the government from sponsoring a religion.
Being influenced by any one religion is equivilent to sponsoring that religion.
Powered Evolution is not attributed to one religion, but all. Don't all religions involve a higher power?
Also, about the Occam's Razor with which you're so obsessed, you're just putting arbitrary elements on Powered Evolution and pretending that Darwinian Evolution is the most basic theory. I could do that too.
Evolution + Random Chance = Evolution + Higher Power
There, now they both fail the Razor, and so we should test the evolutionary process before we test how it came about, and therefore we shouldn't test Darwinian Evolution and it shouldn't be taught in schools.
I like to remain ignorant to big points of view, don't you? I don't want to know what different parts of the community believe in. I want school to teach me only one narrow point of view, especially in science, because I want everyone to think the same way. Hell, if that happens, maybe some day we'll get to the year 1984.
6:53 AM
Umm... that "theory of gravity" was never taught in school. Never. especially not in science. It would maybe legitimate in a history classroom.
"my pancreas attracts all the other pancreases in the universe with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and a force directly inverse to the distance between" <-- GRAVITY
microEvolution has been tested and proven. Look at TB strands that resist antibacterial medication. Look at poisonous plants. macroevolution is where everyone gets caught up, and here's a logical proof for that:
given:Standard addition works
1+1+1=3
3>1
therefore, if you add a bunch of small changes (1+1+1+1...+1) together, you get a big change. therefore, macroevolution works.
Are you suggesting that in a geography class we should teach that if you sail from Europe due west, you will fall off the edge of the Earth and be eaten by monsters? or that the Moon is made of cheese?
Pre-Copernican science "why-this-works" ideas are bad to teach unless discussing the history of a certain science.
After all, we don't still organize animals like Aristotle did, do we?
Anyways, how is teaching science, not unproven "theories" limiting your rights? You can still (proven by you yourself) believe in anything you want. For example, Pat Robertson believes that the world is flat (fact! look it up).
Teaching science in a science classroom is not limiting your intelligence any more than teaching that 1+1=2 in math does.
I have an "alternative theory" that 1+1=57. It has a "mathmatical following" of my 2 best friends. Do we ever teach that 1+1=57? We don't even say that 1+1 is about equal to 57. It's not provable fact.
btw, the quote, while from a Weird Al song is the theory of gravity, just replace "pancreas" with "an object with mass" or "matter"
4:03 PM
You're quotes kinda run together, so tab-space 'em or something next time.
That was never taught. I know about it because I did some reading after Alan mentioned an alternative theory of gravity. School can't teach EVERY possible view. That's up to the learned individual to do.
Why are you assuming that everyone has a religion? Atheists don't believe in a higher power, so why force them to learn about a religious belief? If they want to know what creationists think, they can go look it up.
Occam's Razor is one of the most essential rules of logic. It was never taught in school. I think it should be, but that's okay. I'm also smart enough to read, which means I know more than the baseline schoolgoing child.
On that note, background radiation and random chance have both been proven. We can observe and quantify them. Thus, the theory doesn't assume any more hypothetical entities than it needs to. Adding a unproven, unquantifiable "higher power" breaks the rule of only testing one thing at a time, and the entire concept fails the Razor.
I wouldn't like to remain ignorant to big points of view. I also don't want to be taught non-science in a science class. If you want to teach what is basically a religious belief, teach it in either a religion class, or as a unit of history. Or, assume that school isn't the only way people are capable of acquiring information.
4:24 PM
Yeah I got no more left :). I've got no more arguments from the other side, oh well. Not one of my better debates, eh?
I think barrett's full of shit when he's talking about DMT. He sounds like a druggy.
7:02 AM
Barrett doesn't believe that, he just thinks its an interesting idea...
Which it is...
3:00 PM
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