7 in 10 U.S. Protestant pastors reject evolution
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 2, 2024 16:34
VIEWED: 9190
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There was a real disconnect from reality.
It was politics being played, by both Dems and GOP. The precedent that Clinton set, with declaring that it was US policy to remove Saddam from power, along w/ the inflammatory rhetoric by Dems, prior to and even after 9/11, only for them to then flip on their position, AFTER the war started, is deplorable.
Saddam was still more dangerous than the MSM is telling the public, even if the stories that there were warehouses full of WMD weren't true.
And you're wrong about 1 thing. A WMD program need not be all that big to constitute a threat. In a country like Iraq, it's be quite easy to dismantle, and hide, or move entirely out of country, to Syria.
"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. - Someone.
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Back to our regularly schedule program.
There is a spectrum of proof and a spectrum of belief, but at one extreme "belief" includes accepting ideas which run counter to widely-observed evidence. To me, the question isn't where you are on that spectrum but which direction you will move: Will you move in the direction of better evidence? Will you continue to ask questions and look for answers within the realm of the evident world? Or will you be plopped here or there, wherever someone left you after they implanted an idea in your head (or after you did that to yourself)?
I have more confidence in someone who starts out on the unrealistic end of the spectrum but continues to ask and observe and weigh evidence, than someone who can quote you chapter and verse about string theory because they "believe" it.
Reality-based thinking isn't a position on various topics, it is a PROCESS. It depends on three a priori (before everything) assumptions: (1)there is a real world (2) we are part of it (3) we come to know it through our senses. That eliminates subjectivism as a philosophy.
AFA socialism being a "religion" - we all have goals and values and assumptions- things we believe are "right" and "wrong". IMHO they should be just as subject to question as any part of the external world.
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:LOL. Pot, meet kettle.
Originally posted by AURaptor:
I believe you're right.
We are all believers. We just believe different things.
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I love, therefore I am.
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Saddam was still more dangerous than the MSM is telling the public, even if the stories that there were warehouses full of WMD weren't true.
And it all comes full circle...
"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"
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DREAMTROVE
Quote:Specifically... "The religion that lives in academia...sounds like science..." Well, it sounds to me as if you have nothing against science per se, but against the orthodoxy of scientists. The practitioners of "science", if you will, who are not open to new ideas and fresh insights and the unpredictability of nature, but want to hammer every square peg of reality into the round hole of orthodoxy. Is that correct?
You're missing the point. The attacker [science? evolution?] is also a religion. this is a religious war. The religion that lives in academia is a different offshoot of the same lunacy, it's just more intelligent in its design so it learns to replace its creation myth with one that sounds like science, and so forth. This ain't a case of the truth attacking ignorant loons, it's a case of conflicting world view.
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CANTAKESKY I have a little harder time figuring out what you're saying because you're not very clear, or perhaps you're trying to say several things.
Quote:What does that mean? Because, IMHO, evolution shows that the universe has no "intentions" at all. And since evolution has produced a wide variety of creatures... and nature has capriciously destroyed them... it would be impossible to predict where humankind "should" be headed, based on the fossil record. (Except maybe off this plant, if we really want to think about long-term survival) Are you perhaps talking about social Darwinism, which posits that people are, or should be, in endless brutal competition against each other? Or are you perhaps thinking that evolution favors the self-domesticated human, the one who likes to live in large groups and bows his/ her head to others' will? Or do you think that evolution is telling us that we cannot control our own destiny, that nature will trump ANY attempt to form ourselves? Or do you think that evidence-based-thinking destroys hope for the future? "Realism" is too harsh? Or do you simply not like to be told what to think? What is it, specifically, that you're reacting to?
Evolution has become a philosophy of the intentions of the universe, a blueprint for what is natural and unnatural, a map for where humankind ought to be headed.
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I'm rather disappointed. Few of you seem to have understood what I'm saying- All knowledge is provisional, question your knowledge daily, and try to look with fresh eyes at the evidence around . But, be prepared to accept what it tells you, even if you don't like it.
Now, everyone here... me included... has beliefs, or values, or hopes, or even fears (yes, especially fears. Nothing narrows scope of thought like stress.) ... which make them resistant to evidence. Things we don't want to see because it makes us uncomfortable. THAT should be a personal sign that this is an area to look into, not a place to avoid. I have never gotten in so much trouble as when I ditched that little inner warning bell in favor of what I "wanted". I loaned money to people I shouldn't have, taken on projects I couldn't complete, failed to respond to another's illness. And I missed following up on significant scientific questions too, which I dismissed at the time with "Oh, I'm sure somebody else has thought about it"... for example, the connection between stem cells and cancer. Lately, I have been looking at human history, and it is replete with examples of how hierarchies develop along with technology and trade. I keep trying to figure out how to have one without the other, and have been trying to solve it with the idea of democracy. But, maybe democracy itself is a red herring. Maybe people are so self-domesticated they are no longer suitable to guide their own affairs. Maybe the real answer is, you CAN'T have one without the other. I don't know, it would be interesting to talk about, but few people here seem interested in having an EVIDENCE-BASED conversation, and I'm not interested in endless recitations of your personal orthodoxy, since I feel I know it quite w
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Just watched Hogfather last night. Thought this conversation was pertinent.
Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
Gotta love Terry Pratchett
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"We are all believers. We just believe different things."
Not true.
We all have bases we can't prove. SOME of us understand we are acting on what are mere assumptions. Others of us believe our assumptions are facts.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Just watched Hogfather last night. Thought this conversation was pertinent.
Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?
Gotta love Terry Pratchett
That scene (and the poor little match girl) are what convinced me to BUY a copy of Hogfather.
Excellent flick that, damn shame Ian Richardson ain't around no more though.
Know what I like best about the Death of Discworld ?
He CHEATS.
Telling Susan to not get involved was all but begging her to do it, and he bloody well knew that when he did so!
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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"I'm hoping for a conversation in which we both (or all) develop as we develop an idea."
Said in the voice of a child offering up their finest whine: But it's HAAarrrrrd. Thinking's HAAARRRRRRD. It's TOOOoooOOO haAAAarrrrrd.
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Frem, it;s also sad that Pratchett has alzeihmers and not likely to write much anymore.
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Of all of the things I like to think, I like to think that we can rise above our limitations and lizard-brain reactions and choose our goals and values wisely. And understand out HOW to implement them.
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