Ahhh, religion...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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The science vs religion argument is kinda pointless. Like arguing tennis vs chess or something. They really don't share a context to be judged in.

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Then would you ask your religious friends to stop trying to teach their religion in the science classroom? I mean, unless you want science taught in your churches. 'K, thx. ;)


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I am a teacher and do have many religious and teacher friends, but none who would advocate teaching religion in schools. We have enough to teach trying to cover all the national standards, we ain't about to look for extra work unless we really think it's important, lol. From the teacher's perspective, religion is kind of intimidating, we don't want to be seen supporting any kind of religion cause we want to keep our jobs. Got look around and make sure there's no kiddies or administrators before we pray or something. Wouldn't want to get in trouble for being human and all. That's also why I don't drink in the same town I work in

I saw one of my students from last year in a bar the other night, it was a bit weird, but not overly much as I just became a teacher and our ages ain't but 5 years apart.

If I get a full time teaching job and end up teaching choir, I would like for my students to sing in latin because it promotes good vowel formation and will help their singing tone. Most music written in latin, however, is liturgical. Masses motets and the like. They would learn so much more singing that than they would oldies like every other mediocre small town choir in the state. But I'm doubtful that will be much an issue. The administrators don't have a clue what we're doing in music class when they CAN understand the language.

Where was I going with that... oh yeah, haha. Most of the teachers I know are quite religious, christian at that, and not one of them wants to teach religion in school. That nonsense comes from idiots trying to tell us how to do our jobs. We've been used to that for a while from the government and administrators. Seems like every principal either used to be a football coach who lost too many games or were a mediocre teacher. Curious...

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I realize I am likely fighting a losing battle for religions as a whole, but I'm glad I've at least illustrated that good things can come out of it. I'm glad y'all view me as an exception to the common suck, but I believe I am who I am because of my religion, not in spite of it. It was a real turning point in my life when I accepted Jesus Christ and realized the 'verse ain't about me anymore. It's not about how unfair things have been for me and how unlucky I have been etc... It's about what I can do and how I can help others. That's part of what led me to teaching. I became 'saved' as a high school sophomore and was not indoctrinated into anything from birth. I sometimes wonder if those who grew up in the Christian setting think less about it because it is so familiar.

Afraid I can't back down though. Someone ought to defend faith and sides, y'all need someone to argue with

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I disagree. If you want to talk numbers, there are tons more people who believe in religion than there are scientists. If you want to talk proportion, someone would have to find out the percentage of close-minded scientists v. close-minded religious people...I’m not sure, but I think it might go in favor of the religious, at least I’d like to think so, given how many of them there are. Some days, I think the opposite, but then as I said, I know my experiences have led to a bias.

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You raise a valid point on numbers, I was thinking more in terms of ratios, but I'll admit I have no data or statistics. That was just limited personal observation, I suppose it might as well be guess work.

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I've not seen religion question itself the way Science does

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*Preemptive wince as I type* Religion does not have to question itself because it is the word of God, transcribed by man as well as man is capable of such things. (This might provoke interesting responses). What we, religious or scholarly curious types, should be questioning is what does it mean. What is the context, what is the setting, situation, cultural influences and the like. Was God angry at the peeps in Sodom for makin' homosex or was he angry at them for wanting to rape his emissaries? Was pork evil meat or was it a drain on resources and dangerous when not cooked carefully? Of course it's easier to interpret things as black and white, gay=bad pork=bad etc... but Yoda told us that's how the dark side works. Quicker, easier, but not stronger.

People not thinking are dangerous religiously, politically, grammatically... the scientific method is a shiney little check on that behavior. Some ideas just can't be measured like that. Those ideas require more thinking, not less, but we all know theory and practice don't always line up quite right.

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In a not all that related story, I actually attended a service last Sunday.

Yep. They let me in and everything.

Even took communion, and did NOT burst into flames.



Though I should have asked.. how many calories ARE there in the body of Christ ?

He tasted kinda sweet, btw. A bit like coffee cake, w/ the wine. Not too bad.



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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:

I suspect much of the assholishness and relative intelligence is a matter of perspective, but I was not there, and even though I find that ratio hard to believe...

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I apologize in advance for not responding to all of your points, but you made entirely too many good ones and it's late and I need to cherry-pick to save time . [/excuses]

Anyway, I'll re-iterate: Intelligence has little to do with it. There are many highly intelligent people that are also religious. Ignorance is not synonymous with idiocy; by definition, it is simply a lack of knowledge on a particular subject. When intelligent people look for answers to the big questions, they tend to go with whatever makes the most sense to them, which, in all fairness, is all we can really ever do. To people who are ignorant of the admittedly twisty and complicated logic that goes into coming up with complex scientific answers, it all looks like arbitrary mumbo-jumbo, so they look for something that makes more sense to them based on their subjective knowledge base, which is where religion comes in.

Oh, and that ratio you mentioned wasn't meant to be taken literally. I don't know what the real ratio is, but speaking from admittedly anecdotal personal experience, I would wager it's pretty close to what I said before.

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Just because people put more faith in a higher power than a scientific theory that is after all, a theory, does not mean they blatantly disregard any and all scientific discoveries.

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You always see the term "it's just a theory" get bandied about as if that somehow discredits it. What most people don't seem to realize is that the scientific definition of "theory" is very different from the layman's definition. It is not a guess. It is a conclusion that has been tested thoroughly enough, with enough evidence supporting said conclusion, that it has been accepted as a likely explaination.

Evolution is the big one that everyone likes to bring up. Opponents say it's just a "theory" (meaning "guess" as per the layman's definition). In reality, the only thing keeping it from being declared actual fact is that we haven't observed it's effects long enough to know for sure that it holds true over the long term. There are mountains of evidence in support of it (if it was all printed out on paper and stacked up, that metaphor may actually be more literal than I intended). 150+ years of observation, from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Barring some completely illogical twist of biology that reverses the process over the long haul and somehow magically falsifies the fossil record, it is fact. But 99.999% sure is still less than 100%, so it's still dubbed a "theory".

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Perhaps you could direct me to the scientific research that proves a higher power cannot exist?

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We both know it doesn't (and can't) exist. Religion is an abstract opinion, like ethics or fashion. It has no physical basis, and thus is impossible to truly comment on using physical means of analysis. That and I never said there were scientific reasons why it was wrong. I was expressing an opinion; in my subjective view, a damn logical opinion, but an opinion nevertheless. Which is all anyone can do to argue it one way or the other, because as I said, it's all opinion. It's like arguing whether or not the sky is the "best" shade of blue.

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As they say, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Just because you can't understand how something works doesn't mean it can't exist, or that people who believe in such things are inherently foolish.

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And neither is absence of proof proof of presence. But oddly enough, I agree with your second point there. I'm what I like to think of as a "true" atheist. What I mean by that is that I reject irrational belief, including the dogmatically irrational idea that it is absolutely impossible for a higher power to exist. I think it is highly unlikely, and I outright re

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Hey,

Far as, just a theory goes, well, isn't it always 99.9999999999999% until we find something better? I'm not going to argue against evolution. Evolution follows the same pattern more or less that God created things according to Genesis anyway right? And besides, unlike creationism, evolution is a very useful teaching tool in biology. Even superseded theories still occasionally find practical applications in the teaching of concepts. I would never argue against effective teaching.

Scripture, for those that believe, is 100% right. They just have to figure out how to interpret it and transpose the ideas into their own lives and areas. 100% vs 99.9999999999 etc... 100 still wins. This is just to explain why many folks have more confidence in their faith than in science. We both know such a comparison serves no purpose. Faith is an abstract thing you can only observe through the medium of a person. Science is a mite easier to dissect into different variables. In my opinion a person is better off with a healthy dose of both, but that's just my opinion.

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And neither is absence of proof proof of presence

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haha, duh! Like I said earlier, I'm only arguing for the possibility and the acknowledgment of that possibility. If proof were clearly observable it wouldn't require faith.

I find it interesting that you believe things thousands of years old must be incorrect because they are so old (I apologize in advance if I am misinterpreting). I would consider something that has withstood the test of time for that long worth more than a moments consideration. Maybe they were on to something? Or even if they weren't, it must be quite fascinating to last that long.

Far as the I don't know you don't know, that's difficult for me to argue correctly just using text, and also I have no way of knowing what you know etc... I have faith and a feeling I attribute to the holy spirit. Might be there's a scientific explanation to that. Might be the holy spirit is still responsible for the scientific explanation. Either way, I can't expect someone to just believe in something I said that they can't see or feel, so I don't. Like that shiney evangelical in the little story I posted, I just try to do right, help folk and share my story with those of like to hearing it.

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you believe things thousands of years old must be incorrect because they are so old (I apologize in advance if I am misinterpreting))

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I think you are. I’m not speaking for anyone but me, but I for me, it’s a matter of rejecting the idea that the people who WROTE the scriptures thousands of years ago knew better what is appropriate for my life today. Pork for example. Back then, “Don’t eat port, it’s evil” was what they told people who couldn’t understand exactly WHY pork was dangerous under some circumstances, so “don’t eat it at all” was the easiest way to deal with it. Well, today I know how to cook and handle pork, so I should be able to decide for myself, and not just accept that “pork is evil” so avoid it. I don’t think it’s so much about them knowing the workings of the universe as it is that they had to speak in a language uneducated, unscientific masses back then could accept, I don’t need that today.

Then there’s The Gay. I’ll have to ask how you feel about that to find out how you interpret the scriptures, but to me it was a method of making people reject the “other”...male/female procreation was important back then, The Church (as in organized religion, not faith) had control over that, and having control over it meant having and wielding power. Ergo, homosexuality lessened that power; get rid of it, make it anathema. That’s what The Church and it’s proponents would still like to do today. It also equates to the chadri, the purdah covering women wear in Muslim countries, most especially Afghanistan. When I lived there we had a secular Shah (tho’ gawd forbid he admit it!); he removed the Chadri. It took bloody riots, but he did it. Now, the Taliban has retaken control, they want that control back over women; they reinstituted the Chadri, along with a lot of the other egregious things connected to it which were done away with.

Scriptures were written by MEN. Actually, the ones written by women were rejected, and whose “scriptures” survived were determined by a few. Ergo, is it the whole story? It can’t be, because a) It was written by humans, ergo carries human subjectivity, and b) the faithful aren’t given sanction to ALL the scriptures, so how do we trust those who chose which ones were allowable? I’ve never believed in the bible except as a gathering of stories as to what happened according to those who were there and how they viewed them, and writings created with more than one purpose in mind. Purposes like keeping people safe from pork, as well as purposes like keeping power in those in charge of the religion.

As to the teacher thing, I acknowledge everything you said. I’ve known a couple of university professors and what they had to say about the politics and back-biting of the education system shocked me, tho’ when I thought about it, it made sense (sadly). BUT, however well-intentioned the teachers themselves, there are those in politics who want to FORCE the teaching of religion as if it is fact, who want to minimize science if not get rid of it entirely...so it should be

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Then can we get those religious politicians and government officials to stop trying to teach their religion in the science classroom?

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I know it’s not, by and large, the teachers themselves; like so many others, the attempt is to make them the pawns...but if some of the religious right get their way, they WILL be made pawns, pawns to force religion down kids’ throats BY LAW, and it is to that I believe he was referring. It is a fact, pure and simple, that some want only creationism taught and some what creationism taught alongside science. I disagree with both. Religion isn’t science. Have different classes, dealing with how religion interprets things, but don’t either add religion or replace science with it to explain things. That’s my view.

Religion in education offends me. There are many religions; each one teaches something slightly different. So whatever religious explanations you teach, you’re omitting every other reli

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