posted
The main reason why I would avoid the Flameboard is simply because I have no intention of being anything less than civil. And frankly, I only read the Enterprise and Tech forums, anyway.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." --Phillip K. Dick
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
i find myself agreeing with Ryan in everything he has said. man, i used to have these kinds of discussions (against my will, by the way) in high school. i remember that the christians in my physics class would yell and yell, with the teacher silently agreeing with what i said (funny that my best friend, who is a sunni muslim, thought they were all jackasses, even though muslims are typically thought of as being like the taliban and hateful to all thought that is different from their own. he's a pre-med student, by the way, and a firm believe of the FACT of evolution. evolution can been shown in a laboratory. it might be a theory when applied to the real world, but in and of itself it is indisputable fact). The mormon church was mentioned in the thread (about tithing, i believe), and i have a nice anecdote about the mormon church. my family, on both sides, is mormon. my father was a missionary in australia, and my mother worked in the temple a lot, until both of them realized that the mormon church is just a money grubbing brain wash machine. my grandmother on my father's side just died, and my parents attended the funeral (i didn't go, as it was 1200 miles away and i had a lot of schoolwork). my grandmother, who i only saw like 20 times in my entire life because she was always to busy with the church to give a shit about her family, had married a very devout mormon about 10 years ago (she and her first husband had separated about 35 years ago). she was already very devout, but being with him made her even more so. soon, she didn't do anything unless it involved the temple. she wouldn't visit family if it meant being 20 minutes away from the temple. she made weekly trips from orlando florida to atlanta to visit a large temple that is there. it brainwashed her and took over her life. my father, and his siblings, had fallen out of the church sometime ago, as they mostly couldn't stand the money grubbing and the brainwashing attempts. because of this, my grandmother's last words to her children weren't ones of love. instead they were chastisements about the fact that they didn't devote their lives to the church, and give 10 percent of their incomes to the church, and do everything that the church told them to do. i doubt that most religions teach people to abandon their familes because they don't go to church for 60 hours a week to pray to some carpenter who may or may not have actually esisted and who apparently stole helios's hat so that he could look sharp in all those early portraits.
that is what religion is to a lot of people who are part of the more fundamentalist churchs. instead of being a personal thing that comforts and gives strength to those who need an outside source (i'm sorry if that offends anyone), it becomes the driving power of their lives, even if it means abandoning people who they once cared for. i have no doubt that the mormon church would be like the taliban if they had the chance. already, the mormon's don't allow their followers to imbide alchohol of caffeine, and they chastise those who live in their community without sharing the dogma. i already had strong beliefs about the corrupting affect that religions can have (note the word "can") but needless to say this cemented it in my mind. just thought you might like to know.
posted
Ryan, I think we probably agree on more than we disagree, at least in terms of using reason to come to decisions and determine "morality." Of course, the one fundamental disagreement (I believe in God, you do not) is a pretty big one .
Something that was hinted at in your post, that I do not think was meant to be offensive, is that you perhaps think humanity's progress would march forward without the old ball-and-chain of religion holding it back. I think that is both true and false. Certainly, in the past, the notion was true. My own religion, back when it "ruled the world" (ah, the glory (or should I say gory?) days) was a notable offender. Today, however, I think any "inhibiting morals" of religions are eventually overridden by the "morals" of the religion most people follow: greed. I and the College of Cardinals can argue till we are blue in the face that cloning and destroying embryos is wrong, but as soon as the Republican party realizes there is big money to be had in stem-cell research it will change it's tune (and thus, stem-cell research will move forward). "We" may slow it down a bit, but, frankly (and in certain issues, sadly (to me)), religion will never halt "progress" where money is to be made (and, in this particular issue, lives could be saved). To put a spin on what religion is doing on the stem-cell research issue: if one grants that research will progress, despite religion's "best efforts," at least religion is keeping progress at a "reasonable pace," as, perhaps, it should be with such a delicate issue (I assume cloning is a "delicate issue" to all people; certain ethics must be upheld lest science really produces a Khan).
Now, to actually state something relating to the original topic, I find it interesting that in the Star Trek universe, humanity is now portrayed as progressing all the way to the stars, even with religion. In fact, the only ones holding humanity back were a people who did not believe in things "supernatural," and devoted themselves entirely to logic and reason .
(One final note: I hope I am evidence that not all religious are politically conservative idealogues, awash in their own superiority and damning people right and left.)
Religion's negative influence is not the result of individuals, it is a result of the existence of religion itself.
*L*
You're funny.
Of COURSE it's the result of individuals. The religions' basic teachings can't possibly cause anything negative in the outside world. Therefore, the negative things that have happened in the name of religion must have been caused by other teachings. Thus the negative results are caused people, and NOT religion itself.
Try replacing the word "religion" in that quote with "humanity". It's a similar argument, and makes exactly as much sense.
Religion as a whole continually plays a game of back-stepping to change its doctrines in light of new discoveries...
Yeah, but the funny thing is that when that happens, it's consistantly beecause someone overstepped the bounds of their basic doctrine to begin with. Take the flat-earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe bit. It's not ANYWHERE in scripture, stated or implied, but the Catholics assumed it and declared it dogma. That's THEIR mistake, not the mistake of the original teachings.
I believe that no belief is justified without evidence.
And you're talking to us... why? For all the evidence you have, we don't exist.
My point is that religious thinking, of all kinds, can lead to problems.
Of course it can. ANY kind of thought can lead to problems. Shall we then eliminate all thought?
As soon as you think you have a source of authority other than the use of rational thought, you open the door to irrationality.
One supposes that that would follow.
But it's not irrationality. It's perfectly logical. It simply proceeds from a different set of assumptions from yours.
No, religion doesn't control the distribution of condoms, but it does play a role in influencing people into accepting or rejecting them.
Religion also plays a role in keeping kids from having sex before they're ready. Religion plays a role in keeping people from every kind of immorality. Religion plays a role in keeping some people SANE (like, say, me). Sure, the CONCEPT has lead to bad things occasionally, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to eliminate the concept all together. First you need further analysis to figure out if there's some aspect of the concept that's the problem.
I have no fault with religious organizations running hospitals... but the point is that these things could be run just as well without religion
Except that they would not EXIST without religion.
If religion disappeared today, we'd still have hospitals; the difference is that the people who were wasting their time with Benny Hinn could get real treatment instead.
Except for the fact that people wouldn't contribute nearly as much to charities, and thus many hospitals would be shut down.
But why do most people (and I am definitely using the qualifier "most" here) reject "death with dignity?"
Because they haven't thought it through. Most people don't give the issue much more than a surface analysis.
However, religious ideas about souls are overwhelmingly influential in the opposition to stemp cell research, abortion, and cloning.
Well, stem-cell research requires the termination of a living fetus, at least beyond what's been authorized already, so that's included under "abortion". As for abortion, it has nothing to do with a soul, any more than laws against murder do. It's the termination of a human being against their will, who threatens no one. Everyone agrees that such a thing is wrong, but they make an exception for abortion for some inscrutable reason.
The pressure from the religious right is powerful enough that over half of all public-school biology teachers don't even mention it at all.
Or maybe it's because there's no evidence.
Nevermind that evolution is the basis of modern biology, integral to nearly every single thing we know about life on our planet.
*L*
Hardly. Just why would a biologist need to know about evolution to study a new plant?
I am often asked, as an atheist, "If there is no God, can't you do anything you want?" If there is a God that forgives any sin, then it is the religious who can do whatever they want! I also find myself asking them, "If you found out God didn't exist tomorrow, would you go around murdering and raping since there aren't any eternal consequences? No? Then why would I?"
Reminds me of the book "Caliban". The no-law robot was often asked, if he had no first law, what kept him from running amok and killing people left and right. His answer was always, "The same thing that keeps you from doing it."
And as for whether we can do whatever we want, read Romans. Paul deals with that quite thoroughly.
What if everyone took an hour every Sunday to read a classic work of literature, or the writings of philosophers, or a science book?
I'd be a far more depressed and volitile person, due to the lack of interaction with other believers, for one.
what if religion disappeared? There would still be charity, people could still feed the hungry.
The question isn't whether they COULD, it's whether they WOULD. And most people wouldn't.
And now for Mr. Oedipus...
evolution can been shown in a laboratory.
No. It can't. You can create most amino acids, but you can't even create a single protein, much less anything that could possibly be considered to be alive. Further, showing evolution with pre-existing life (something of a cheat) would take billenia, in the most conservative scenarios. I don't think we have any labs that old.
it might be a theory when applied to the real world, but in and of itself it is indisputable fact
And just how does THAT work, praytell?
i already had strong beliefs about the corrupting affect that religions can have (note the word "can")
Yes, CAN. Not all religions have these problems. The root of the problem is almost invariably when a believer doesn't have a coherant understanding of what they believe. They can then be misled. Unfortunately, that's how a lot of religious people are. And if they get power, God help us all. (Look! I made a funny!)
you perhaps think humanity's progress would march forward without the old ball-and-chain of religion holding it back. I think that is both true and false. Certainly, in the past, the notion was true. My own religion, back when it "ruled the world" (ah, the glory (or should I say gory?) days) was a notable offender.
Yes, to some degree, but WITHOUT the church there would never have been a Renaisance, nor would the Germanic tribes been civilized as quickly. It was a unifying, stablizing influence in all of Europe.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
posted
Not necessarily, Sol System. Maybe if we just ignore him, we can continue to have a civilized discussion (to be fair, his first post here is civilized).
O.K. I will be the first hypocrite.
quote:Originally posted by Omega: you perhaps think humanity's progress would march forward without the old ball-and-chain of religion holding it back. I think that is both true and false. Certainly, in the past, the notion was true. My own religion, back when it "ruled the world" (ah, the glory (or should I say gory?) days) was a notable offender.
Yes, to some degree, but WITHOUT the church there would never have been a Renaisance, nor would the Germanic tribes been civilized as quickly. It was a unifying, stablizing influence in all of Europe.
First of all, that quote was from me, not Ryan. Second, in a way, the Catholic Church had little influence in Europe, and certainly not a "unifying, stablizing" one. I have no doubt that without the Church the depraved, greedy, power-hungry Middle Ages leaders of Europe would still have gone to war as often as they did. However, if the Church had been influential in the way it should have been, it would have tried to bring about peace, perhaps by playing the "don't kill your fellow Catholics (just Muslims)" card (which it did, but not often enough). As it was, the "influential" Popes were often as depraved, greedy, and power-hungry as the European leaders, and often welcomed war.
One cannot deny that the Catholic Church was a crucial, integral part of the transition from the ancient world to the modern world. However, the Church could have tried to make that transition a lot more peaceful than was.
[ December 01, 2001: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]
posted
Jacob: If it makes you feel any better toward your grandmother, think of it this way: at least she wasn't a Scientologist. :-)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
quote:Now, to actually state something relating to the original topic, I find it interesting that in the Star Trek universe, humanity is now portrayed as progressing all the way to the stars, even with religion. In fact, the only ones holding humanity back were a people who did not believe in things "supernatural," and devoted themselves entirely to logic and reason .
LOL! There is indeed a sweet, appreciable irony to this...
quote:Religion also plays a role in keeping kids from having sex before they're ready. Religion plays a role in keeping people from every kind of immorality.
No, parents play those roles.
quote:Religion plays a role in keeping some people SANE (like, say, me).
I'd say you are insane regardless (hey, you opened the door ).
quote:Except that they would not EXIST without religion.
Sure they would. Different names, same institutions.
quote:Except for the fact that people wouldn't contribute nearly as much to charities, and thus many hospitals would be shut down.
And your sources to support this claim are...? Can you say this for a fact, or for that matter, with the slightest degree of certainty? Nope.
quote:Well, stem-cell research requires the termination of a living fetus, at least beyond what's been authorized already, so that's included under "abortion". As for abortion, it has nothing to do with a soul, any more than laws against murder do. It's the termination of a human being against their will, who threatens no one. Everyone agrees that such a thing is wrong, but they make an exception for abortion for some inscrutable reason.
According to your definitions of what constitutes life / a human being. I surely do *not* need to remind you that any definition is subject to change?
quote:Hardly. Just why would a biologist need to know about evolution to study a new plant?
So the biologist in question is able to 1). understand more about 'how and why' the plant ended up in its present form, and 2). explain its functions within a larger context.
quote:I'd be a far more depressed and volitile person, due to the lack of interaction with other believers, for one.
What an interesting *personal* detail. However, while *you* would turn into dr. Psycho, others might just retain their sanity. It certainly doesn't mean *everyone* would undergo that transformation.
quote:The question isn't whether they COULD, it's whether they WOULD. And most people wouldn't.
And again, this is based upon what, exactly?
quote:No. It can't. You can create most amino acids, but you can't even create a single protein, much less anything that could possibly be considered to be alive.
Wrong. Lab experiments have indicated the formation of protein strands under the right (simulated) conditions. And what do proteins consist of? That's right, amino acids!
quote:Further, showing evolution with pre-existing life (something of a cheat) would take billenia, in the most conservative scenarios. I don't think we have any labs that old.
So the entire theory is instantly dismissed? Ah well. Undermines the authority of the church too much, I suppose.
quote:Yes, to some degree, but WITHOUT the church there would never have been a Renaisance, nor would the Germanic tribes been civilized as quickly. It was a unifying, stablizing influence in all of Europe.
1). There would never have been a Renaissance without the Roman or Greek cultures. The church simply revisited them. Everything had been done before, and definitely better. 2). Unifying? Stabilizing? *Cough* crusades, witch-hunts, etc. *Cough*
[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: Mojo Jojo ]
posted
first, it's Edipis, not Oedipus. well, carl sagan said that evolution is a fact, and he's dead so he knows more than you, Omega . no, in the forms that are simplest to see in a labaratory, evolution is a fact. there have been studies of short lived simgle celled organism's over many generations of the organism's life, and changing the environment that they lived in caused evolutionary changes that are not so slow (at least that's what the studies reproduced in my high school AP Biology book said).
my statement that evolution is a fact in and of itself but a theory when it is used to explain reality is obvisouly true. here, let me give you a simplified example. ice cream melts when it is above freezing. FACT. i propose that that the universe was formed by a big chunk of strawberry ice cream melting because it was suddenly above freezing. THEORY. just because i apply a FACT to a situation that is theoretical doesn't make the underlying fact any less a FACT. the most uneducated southern baptist will admit that the evolution of creatures happens. everyone knows about the moths that went from white to sooty grey when the industrial revolution happened in england. if you don't know of that, let me present it. pre-industrial revolution: trees white, moths white, white moths blend in and aren't eaten by birds. dark moths DO stick out, so there aren't very many of them. post industrial revolution: trees grey with soot: white moths stick out and are eaten by birds: dark moths survive since they blend in. population shifted to dark pigmentation since mostly dark moths wer breeding. that is a FACT. the moths evoloved due to a changing environment. whether you believe that all species came about from evolution or not doesn't determine whether the underlying FACT is still a FACT.
oh, by the way, a couple of things. i'm a European history major, and when you study Europe from the "dark ages" until about the 16th century you are actually studying the catholic church. sounds to me like they had a little bit of control. and, oh yeah! there wouldn't have been a rennaisance with out catholocism, true. but you are missing the fact that without the catholic church repressing knowledge and ideas left and right there wouldn't have been a NEED for a rennaisance. if only those damn monks hadn't squirelled away all of that greek and roman knowledge (don't even pretend that it was to "protect the knowledge". the muslims of the middle ages didn't destroy the knowledge of ancient greece and rome when THEY got their hands on it, so why would anyone else?), and if the popes had been nice who KNOWS where we would be right now. going warp 674 (TOS scale) i imagine.
--jacob
[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
No, they didn't. It's simple natural selection: the grey moths existed while the trees where still white, and the white moths existed while they were grey. It's simply that one group was better able to survive under certain circumstances. It's no more evolution than the existence of human races.
carl sagan said that evolution is a fact, and he's dead so he knows more than you, Omega
Appeal to authority. Invalid argument.
ice cream melts when it is above freezing. FACT. i propose that that the universe was formed by a big chunk of strawberry ice cream melting because it was suddenly above freezing. THEORY
Ah, I get your distinction now. but you're still wrong. There's no evidence anywhere that any species has ever become another species.
MJ:
No, parents play those roles.
Because of their religion.
And your sources to support this claim are...? Can you say this for a fact, or for that matter, with the slightest degree of certainty? Nope.
Tell me something: how much of your anual salary goes to charity? Got a percentage? 'Cause I can guarentee that mine's higher. I give a relatively large portion of my money to charity, and I serve my community in every way possible, ALL because of my religion. Oh, and I'm also a far more pleasant person.
I surely do *not* need to remind you that any definition is subject to change?
Of course definitions are subject to change. But narrowing the definition of human life runs the risk of dehumanizing people. Hey, let's say the Asians aren't human, while we're at it! We've already made one group fair game for killing, why not another?
posted
ah ha! what do you think is the cause of evolution? it's natural selection! species don't just change for fun. a change takes place becasue it is beneficial. whether the change is beneficial for a new environment or is just even better for an environment the animal was already adpated for doesn't matter. when environments change, the examples of a species that are better able to live in the new environment take over the species. because of the changed environment, the moths evolved from a predominantly light colored group to a predominantly dark colored group. yes, of course the fact that there were white and grey moths was caused by random mutation originaly, but it took a changed environment for the species to change, ie evolve, as a whole. they are not 2 different things. giraffes with short necks died out because some giraffes with long necks happened due to random biological chance. the long necked giraffes didn't take over because the long necks are chic, but because it allowed them to eat better, and thus their chances of breeding and causing long necked giraffes were better. just as grey moths lived while white moths died in a changed environment, long necked giraffes superseded short necked in a static environment. in both cases, its ntural selection. in other words, natural selection causes evolution. if the change wasn't beneficial, the mutants would just die of. the species doesn't take on the characteristics as a whole unless there is advantage in it.
i now understand the problems many of the religious have. they don't understand that natural selection is why there is evolution. thank you for elucidating that fact for me. oh, by the way. there is more evidence that one species has become another than there is evidence than a magical invisible old man who cares about who i have sex with lives in the sky. i mean, gosh, most life is 90% identical genetically, but all life isn't 90% magical invisible old man who lives in the sky.
i'm not even going to bother explaining the proof for special evolution, considering that you think evolution and natural selection are two totally remote things. what evidance do you want? seeing the first chimp shooting out of a moneky? it doesn't happen that way (especially since chimps aren't descended from monkeys, they are different branches of the same tree). evolution isn't monkey-chimp-human. animals evolve to fit an environtmental niche. a gorilla is never going to talk because it doesn't need to. it is (or was, their environment has changed in the last century) perfectly adapted to living in jungle highlands. they don't need to drive trucks, so the gorillas with better feet for hitting a gas pedal aren't taking over. man didn't evolve from a monkey. man and monkey had a common ancestor. when some went into the trees, those with strong tales and opposable thumbs on their feet evolved into proto-monkeys, and the rest died or went off somewhere else, since they weren 't as good at climbing trees. those that went into plains and had straighter backs and longer feet could walk better and lived, while those who couldn't died, or went somewhere else. proto-monkey eventually became monkey, as environmental factors weeded them out even more. staight back became homo sapien or homo neandertalus depending on the environment they were in (and when homo sapien came to europe they out hunted the neandertals, or maybe absorbed the neandertals, and the neandertals went away). man, i could write a hundred pages on this. you people want to see a monkey turn to a man in order to prove evolution made both, but that will never happen as natural selection takes a while, and (more importanntly) modern species are well adapted to their environments after millions of years of evolving, and thus aren't going to change too much (there is still evolution. in urban settings, raccoons have grown more nimble, as the nimbler raccoons are better adapted for getting into trash cans and thus breed more than their less nimble compadres. maybe in a million years raccoons will evolve special limbs for taking apart half eaten tv dinners, as the raccoons with hookier claws are better able to peel back the foil, who knows). well, i guess i ended up giving some of the proof in a nutshell. to reiterate, natural selection=evolution.
[edit: by the way, dumbass, there's a reason why i put an emoticon next to my sagan comment . it was a joke. hey, but don't you appeal to an authority everytime you go to church? isn't that an invalid argument?]
--jacob
[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote: Hardly. Just why would a biologist need to know about evolution to study a new plant?
For the love'a nuthin, Omega. Read a science book or two. You work in a friggin' library now...
Context is everything.
quote: It simply proceeds from a different set of assumptions from yours.
Science makes no assumptions. Science proceeds from axioms and data. From these, logical conclusions can be drawn. I won't bother describing the entire process as I'm sure you've heard it before (or haven't and don't intend to), but science does not assume. And we all know what assuming does...
quote: Appeal to authority. Invalid argument.
*falls on floor laughing hysterically*
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
.
. no, in the forms that are simplest to see in a labaratory, evolution is a fact. there have been studies of short lived simgle celled organism's over many generations of the organism's life, and changing the environment that they lived in caused evolutionary changes that are not so slow (at least that's what the studies reproduced in my high school AP Biology book said). 
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