How have anti-evolution tactics evolved over time? They’ve gotten sneakier.

[Boss]

What's funny, IsaacNewton, is the real Isaac Newton would laugh his ass off at you. I hate to tell you this but people's religion is along side them no matter what they do. If they are teaching or learning science, if they are passing or voting against legislation... their religious beliefs are right there with them and there's not a whole lot you're going to ever do about that.

Teaching about the theory of Intelligent Design or irreducible complexity, is not teaching a religion. It can be taught without any deference to religion. In fact, myself and many others who would favor teaching ID would insist that it be that way. I don't want any religious view being taught but that also includes YOUR religious view that God doesn't exist. No one ever agreed to elevate your religion above all others.

Regardless of whether you believe ID is religious bunk, it's still a legitimate theory and will remain one until you can refute it. We cannot simply teach things we like and dismiss things that make us uncomfortable. Can you imagine what sort of fucked up world that would produce? And, since Evolution theory regards the evolution of existing life and ID theory deals with the origin of life, it is completely possible for both theories to be valid. One doesn't negate the other, they are not competing theories. In fact, they don't even deal with the same thing. They are both associated with "irreducible complexity" which is a phrase first found in Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

Isaac Newton is laughing in your face, along with Einstein, Galileo, and Copernicus.

Teach your religious fantasy in your home or your church. Just like every other religion. There are 300,000 churches in the US, I think there are plenty of venues to get your flying grandpa theories out there. Knock yourself out.

And you don't get to label everyone else as believing in a 'religion' like you do. Your religion is not based on fact or evidence, it is based on feelings and unsubstantiated beliefs. Science relies on evidence.

You read a few articles and like to portray yourself as 'educated' on a few subjects but you aren't. You just use things to try to fit your religious beliefs into rational evidence based science.

This is a new convention for the religious minded kristian in the US. It is a phoney attempt to try to put 'belief' on the same level as 'evidence'. Do whatever mental gymnastics your mind feels compelled to do to try to make yourself feel better about believing in fairies.

They are still fairies.


'intelligent design' is neither. It is farce dreamed up by the current crop of bible thumpers to try to give their beliefs gravitas in academia and the public. But it is farce, it is not 'legitimate'.

Well... Unlike Newton, I do not have a religion. I also didn't attend a religious college like Newton or devote much study to biblical chronology and alchemy. But... Similar to Newton, I believe in what he defined as a "mercurial spirit coursing through our universe" and I don't believe in the Holy Trinity.

Your post is full of seething hate and venom. Anyone with a rational mind can objectively see this in the choice of words and phrases you use. This is a hallmark of people devoid of spiritual connection and faith. When your morals are no longer grounded in something greater than self, you devolve into a lesser animal. You have fallen from your higher state. Ultimately, you become more and more demonic. Less and less caring for humanity. It's a gradual change and you don't notice it yourself but others do, as I have pointed it out here.

I agree that the post is certainly angry and all that, but I do not agree that nonbelievers devolve into lesser animals or become demonic and less caring of others.

But again, you are interjecting words that I haven't used. I consider myself a "nonbeliever" because there are lots of things I don't believe in. I believe that all organized religion is inherently flawed and self-contradictory because it is the creation of man who is not flawless. I can respect the religious because I think they are nurturing their spiritual connection in a way they can relate. Although, that doesn't mean I automatically assume all religious people are good or all non-religious people are bad.

Many people mask their spirituality for fear of criticism. Some of the biggest believers in God are Atheists... or so they claim to be. While some of the most reprehensible humans hide behind their religious professions. Others simply replace their spiritual faith with faith in something else, like science, for example. But generally speaking, people who do not have a core belief in something greater than self, have a real problem maintaining a genuine moral compass. They talk a good game, they just find a way to justify whatever pleases them in the moment... because there is nothing holding them accountable. These people tend to become more demonic and less human over time and they never realize it.

You're speculating about other people's psychology. I don't believe in something greater than myself and I hold myself accountable. I don't murder, steal, cheat, lie (well, anymore than anyone else and less than some); I'm not hedonistic, inconsiderate, or a sociopath. I don't feel the need to be supervised in order to be moral, and I wouldn't truly be moral if I did.

I don't mean to assume you're a Christian or any other religiously affiliated person. Pardon me for doing so. But you do practice a faith in a higher power. I don't believe in science as though it were a religion. I don't believe in the theories of evolution or the big bang theory, or any other scientific theory. I trust science, but not blindly or without skepticism. Faith in something vague or undetectable without sufficient evidence is not something I find satisfactory.

It's not a matter of supervision, it's a matter of accountability. I am not supervised by a deity either. I don't have a God telling me what I can and can't do. I'm not speculating about people's psychology, I am a psychologist, I study and observe human behavior. I'm always careful to state my positions in terms that avoid absolutes. That's why I said "people tend to" and not that it's always so.

You will notice in your deposition of attributes above, you didn't really touch on your faults. You didn't tell me what is fucked up about Coloradomtnman. You didn't mention things you are ashamed you did or perverse sick thoughts you might have had... those stay locked safely away inside your mind. How many people have you ever encountered who said... I'm immoral to the core... I am a totally loathsome human being... I'm dishonest, I hurt people for no reason, I get a thrill out of doing wrong, I'm a total sociopath? NONE... that's how many.

It's because no matter how bad we are or how bad we get, we tend to justify it. We're like children being put in charge of running the candy store. We may start off with the best of intentions. We're going to do such a good job, the grown ups are going to be so proud of us. Until one day, we are tempted... and it all comes unraveled from there. If there is no source of accountability, our human nature drives us toward temptation and we generally give in. We justify our actions... no one will notice if I have a gumball... turns into... well my friends love me now because I ply them with free candy all the time, I am very popular!

 

[chikenwing]

Please do the math,what are the statistical probabilities that,life managed to form,that same life managed to keep itself alive,then after that found a way to reproduce,before it died as all life here does at some point.

Goes WAY beyond that. First you need to explain how we became a water world, and it needs to be an explanation which also explains why only our planet has water. They used to say.. well, meteorites brought the water here over millions of years. (This was based on a meteorite they found which contained a salt crystal with a tiny droplet of water inside.) However, they've dated Earth to 4.2 billion years old and recently discovered the oldest Earth rock, which is 4 billion years old. Problem is, studying it's composition we discovered it was created under water. So the young earth at 200 million years was already covered in water.

That's a lot of meteorites in a short period of time, relatively speaking. And why didn't Mars or the Moon, or any other planets receive this life-giving gift of abundant water? Ahh... well the reason there is, the Earth has a molten iron-nickel core which enables an atmosphere... this also requires explanation. It seems our planet, at some point after material coalesced due to gravity, was essentially "cooked" at a very high temperature, which caused the heavier elements (iron and nickel) to sink and lighter elements of the mantle and crust to rise. But again, how did our planet get "cooked" but not the moon or other planets?

Speaking of the moon, it has to be up there pulling on the ocean tides or our oceans become stagnant pools which no life could survive in. When some larger body careened into our planet to form the moon, it also caused a unique wobbling rotation of our planet which gives us seasons and ocean convection as well as climate. Again, seasons are vital to almost all life. As you can see, there are LOTS of mathematical improbabilities that have happened in our journey before we ever get to a point where life can even exist. We haven't even touched origin yet.

Speculations abound over how the very first living organism came to be. Regardless of the theory, we have never been able to produce a living organism of any kind from inorganic material. We have the most sophisticated labs with all the latest nuclear technology and despite our best efforts, we cannot make this happen. Yet... somehow it happened by random chance. (supposedly) and everything evolved from there (supposedly).

Every form of living organism contains a DNA molecule which depends on 27 or so amino acids and 40-90 enzymes and proteins created by those amino acids. The chance of any one amino acid or enzyme being randomly created from a mutation is 10^180 ...that's greater than the amount of all atoms in the universe. Yet, in order to account for all the interdependent and symbiotic relationships found in life, this had to happen millions and millions of times and it had to happen very rapidly because, well, symbiotic means what it implies.

Of course it does ,just keeping it simple,for the "enlightened"