God created everything

[GreyGhost]

fraggle said:

I have a better theory.

Damn - being a sinistral means I auto-fail the character test. :(

"Granite has another very unique property in that it cannot be created by scientists. It is considered to be an "original" material in the Earth. When melted and allowed to harden, it does not return to the original granite crystalline structure."

While I'm in no position to repeat the experiment, I suspect the conditions required to create granite are somewhat extreme.

[Csonicgo]

Once you stop seeing God as a deity but more as a trollface in the sky, it all comes together.

[Enjay]

Aliotroph? said:

So it's to justify faith. Yeah, got that. Why not just say it?

Not quite - it's to try and allow something that has its basis in faith to be taught where it currently isn't allowed. By pretending ID is science, not faith, the argument is that it should be taught as a competing scientific theory.

It's not justifying faith, it's a (attempted) back door to getting something with a religious basis taught in schools. Once that is achieved, its only a short step for the creationalists to finish the job by saying "well, we all know who the intelligence behind intelligent design is don't we".

Interestingly, ID is really only a hot issue in the US where its agenda has a purpose. In the UK, it's pretty much an irrelevance. The only concern that we have over here is that the country with the highest level of current scientific research (the US) will somehow be shackled by their own ID nutters and that is why it is seen as dangerous by some people here - but then only by those who care enough to read up about it in the first place. I would suggest that most people here haven't even heard of ID. It's primarily a US phenomenon.

[Belial]

Enjay said:

The only concern that we have over here is that the country with the highest level of current scientific research (the US) will somehow be shackled by their own ID nutters and that is why it is seen as dangerous by some people here

The ID nutters will soon have to buy plane tickets to India anyway.

[magicsofa]

Enjay said:

It's primarily a US phenomenon.

Yes, we suck

[Philnemba]

This reminds me of a book I once read when I was 12 that explains that the world will end by an asteroid in January of 2015 and that god sent it to us to start the apocalypse......yea right :P

[Mr. Freeze]

troll thread

[Patrick]

I think intelligent design fascinates me for the reason that it indeed is only a political issue. And for that matter only a political issue in the US.

Mr. Freeze said:

troll thread

Mr. Freeze is correct.

[Clonehunter]

Enjay said:

So, I got to thinking (purely hypothetically) if I said that I had been to the bottom of my garden and had met a little blue goblin who had told me that he had created the world and that I should worship him and spread the word,

Woah hold the phone everyone... You've met him too? Geez, I was beginning to think I was going insane and the only one! HE also gave me a pie when I "asked" for it. Did you get anything? (He only has blue berry pies though, sorry.)

[SYS]

I watched that "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" movie that has Ben Stein in it. In a nutshell it goes on about Teachers/Professors/Researchers that lost their jobs or grant money as soon they mention Intelligent Design. Then Ben talks to skeptics and Atheists, juxtaposes Darwinism with Eugenics and Nazism, portrays the academic community as fascists that don't want to hear anything of intelligent design.


The best part of the film has to be when Stein sits down with Dawkins. Dawkins himself doesn't deny that scientists are still unable to prove what created Earth's first self replicating single cell organism. He also doesn't deny the possibility of a more technologically advanced race of aliens that could have visited Earth and left behind a catalyst to create everything.

It's in the argument of the origins of the first self replicating single cell organism that Stein tries to validate Intelligent Design.

tl dr; Fuckin' Origins of The First Self Replicating Single Cell Organism, how do they work?

[Skeletor]

I think modern science has proven beyond a doubt that the earth is not 10,000 years old as Young Earth Creationists claim.

I do believe that evolution and Christianity are compatible. The Bible is not, never was, and never will be a science textbook.

People like Richard Dawkins, a.k.a Militant Atheists, are idiots. They are taking science which is neutral and they somehow conclude that because evolution has been proven, God therefore does not exist.

[deathbringer]

Some protiens can replicate when they interact with others. Over time these interactions became 'permenant'. Over more time several different kinds ended up coming together in a defined structure. Parts of this structure over more time developed individual functions as part of a whole mechanism, and hence a cell. Further on in time cells came together and began to function together via chemical signalling, with functions including liquid production, gas production and mobility (nb: proven and testable in the laboratory - look up quorum sensing), eventually these joins also became permenant giving multi celled organisms and earth as we know it today. Easy really... i don't know why he had to jabber about aliens.

Also i saw a science video ages ago at school (so it was probably a few decades older again as they all seem to be) where experiments formed self-replicating "building blocks of life" from plain chemicals that exist naturally. Sorted.

[Scet]

POTGIESSER said:

It's in the argument of the origins of the first self replicating single cell organism that Stein tries to validate Intelligent Design

Lack of evidence is not evidence. Just because science has yet to explain everything doesn't mean some deity did it. A lot of people forget that science isn't absolute.

Skeletor said:

They are taking science which is neutral and they somehow conclude that because evolution has been proven, God therefore does not exist.

I think it's more about showing contradictions in the Bible and its creation myth(s). Saying the Bible is wrong still doesn't mean God doesn't exist, just that the portrayal of God and creation are incorrect.

[SYS]

deathbringer said:

Some protiens can replicate when they interact with others. Over time these interactions became 'permenant'. Over more time several different kinds ended up coming together in a defined structure. Parts of this structure over more time developed individual functions as part of a whole mechanism, and hence a cell. Further on in time cells came together and began to function together via chemical signalling, with functions including liquid production, gas production and mobility (nb: proven and testable in the laboratory - look up quorum sensing), eventually these joins also became permenant giving multi celled organisms and earth as we know it today. Easy really... i don't know why he had to jabber about aliens.

Also i saw a science video ages ago at school (so it was probably a few decades older again as they all seem to be) where experiments formed self-replicating "building blocks of life" from plain chemicals that exist naturally. Sorted.

Yet nobody has been able to recreate the exact sequence of all 200 some odd number of strands needed to create a cell that could eventually replicate into all forms of life on earth. The odds are astronomical for this sequence to come about. Mind you they did have all the time in the world to form. Pun quite intended.

Scet said:

Lack of evidence is not evidence. Just because science has yet to explain everything doesn't mean some deity did it. A lot of people forget that science isn't absolute.

Science is infallible and it has the answers to everything.

[Scet]

POTGIESSER said:

Science is infallible and it has the answers to everything.

Wow. Reading comprehension FTL.

[Mr. Freeze]

POTGIESSER said:

Science is infallible and it has the answers to everything.

NO.

[fraggle]

POTGIESSER said:

tl dr; Fuckin' Origins of The First Self Replicating Single Cell Organism, how do they work?

(Skip to 2:30 for the interesting part)

[Aliotroph?]

That's quite good. Compare it with the awful creationist garbage about jars of peanut butter disproving "evolution" that gets linked in the buttons that show up at the end. :D

Ack. You have to go nearly 20 pages through the comments on that vid before anybody tries to say anything worth reading. Scary stuff.

[Gez]

POTGIESSER said:

I watched that "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" movie that has Ben Stein in it. In a nutshell it goes on about Teachers/Professors/Researchers that lost their jobs or grant money as soon they mention Intelligent Design.

And they should, because people who think that "Intelligent Design" is a valid scientific theory should not be within ten thousand miles of a teaching position.

Anyway, Ben Stein is a dishonest douchebag and a horrible hypocrite.

[Shaviro]

Skeletor said:

People like Richard Dawkins, a.k.a Militant Atheists, are idiots. They are taking science which is neutral and they somehow conclude that because evolution has been proven, God therefore does not exist.

They (Dawkins, Hitchens and so forth) most certainly do not. They do not make the claim that evolution proves there is no god. They make the 'claim' that it is extremely unlikely there is one.

[Grazza]

Where's this idea that "science is neutral" coming from?

Science is based on a method of observation, experimentation (if applicable), conjecture, theorizing and rigorous testing of hypotheses. It is also a part of the scientific method to re-examine theories in the light of new evidence or observations.

In none of this is there any requirement for neutrality, only that a scientific method is followed and that the conclusions should be based on that.

Many failures of thinking and policy are due to a view that there have to be two sides to any issue, as if scientific questions should be resolved in something akin to a court of law, where whoever argues their case better to an uneducated audience is the 'winner'.

[DoomUK]

The problem I have with these debates is that someone will invariably point out at some stage all the bad things that have happened because of certain religious convictions. I'll stick my neck out and say that many if not most of the pro-Atheism lobby likely use this as a platform to base much of their argument on.

People are quite capable of making stupid calculations and committing terrible acts without God or a God coming into the equation. Those that DO defy common sense and morality based on a supposed religious belief give everyone else who has taken onboard a simple, personal faith in something a bad name.

[Enjay]

DoomUK said:

pro-Atheism

Although, in this particular incarnation of the debate, there have been very few pro-atheism points made.

The "ID is a load of bollocks" lobby is not necessarily the same as the pro-atheism lobby. It is possible to have the opinion that the whole "ID as a scientific alternative to evolution" argument is a pile of toss and yet still believe in a divine creator. ID is a political illusion of smoke and mirrors. Recognising that does not necessarily mean a person does not believe in a god.

[Mr. T]

I am religious and think that ID is a load of ass... If anything they should teach evolution alongside theories from the three main religions of the world: Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism so kids can see there is more than one way of looking at the world, that would be kewl (which is why it will never happen)

[Belial]

Mr. T said:

If anything they should teach evolution alongside theories from the three main religions of the world

Fuck no. Why not include scientology in that bunch while you're at it.

[Mr. T]

Belial said:

Fuck no. Why not include scientology in that bunch while you're at it.

Ummm because it hasn't been around for thousands of years like the three I specifically mentioned. Don't worry, I thought about that too *hug*

[DoomUK]

Enjay said:

Although, in this particular incarnation of the debate, there have been very few pro-atheism points made.

The "ID is a load of bollocks" lobby is not necessarily the same as the pro-atheism lobby. It is possible to have the opinion that the whole "ID as a scientific alternative to evolution" argument is a pile of toss and yet still believe in a divine creator. ID is a political illusion of smoke and mirrors. Recognising that does not necessarily mean a person does not believe in a god.

Fair observation.

I read far more than I actively participate on these forums, but I think it's safe to say however that the majority of DW's population do subscribe to, or at the very least lean towards to the atheism argument. I suppose I'm expecting this particular thread to go down the same route as most of the other similarly-themed ones have; unless my reckoning is totally off, in which case I apologise for any derailment.

[MajorRawne]

The whole concept of existence is really interesting. Here we are, the most intelligent creatures known to have ever existed, living in a universe based on an order and mathematical logic that we can actually understand, the various galaxies laid out like a cosmic game of Risk, and most of us sit in our bedrooms playing Doom.

I guess nobody saw the epsiode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where it is revealed in a wonderful moment which had no repercussions whatsoever, that we were all created by funny-looking aliens. Who said television doesn't teach us anything.

[Belial]

Mr. T said:

Ummm because it hasn't been around for thousands of years like the three I specifically mentioned.

Which has no bearing whatsoever on the plausibility of their particular fairy tale.

You can discuss fantasy and divide it along cultural or historical lines in literature class, not 'teach it alongside evolution'.

[Enjay]

Mr. T said:

If anything they should teach evolution alongside theories from the three main religions of the world: Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism so kids can see there is more than one way of looking at the world, that would be kewl (which is why it will never happen)

But not in the science room. In a philosophy class, or a religious education class - fine. Indeed, that can and does happen in schools here.

However, evolution is a scientific theory and has a place in the science room. The others are not.