Jesus

[BlitzJoker]

Kiz:

Right. I guess we need to teach flat earth in school, because the THEORY of gravity is only a theory. Or maybe we need to go back to the age old idea that illness is caused by evil spirits because Germ THEORY is just that.
Apparently, many people don't understand the difference between the colloquial usage of "theory" and its scientific usage. In the latter case it means a set of commonly accepted facts (supported by evidence, that is) that have been repeatedly tested and that can be used to make predictions about the real world.
I'd say the biggest problem concerning many scientific principles is that a layperson typically either doesn't understand them or has misrepresented notions of what they really state.
Tell me zz, in your own words and notions, how do you define "evolution"?

Theory should never be accepted as fact. Do you think the scientists of the old age just said the earth was flat because they liked the ring of it? They said the earth was flat because they had "scientific evidence" they believed was the truth, they believed the earth was suspended as a floating disk in the heavens. First think of the scientific capability back then, then consider this. A person back then may have taken a piece of bread and an orange and poured dirt over both, which one will the dirt stay on? If none of the dirt will stay on the round orange how can anything stay on the Earth? Theories such as gravity did not exist back then, so this is the best they could do.

But I guess if you lived back then you would say it was flat to, because thats was a widely accepted theory at the time. I'm sure these people think they have theories, maybe you should join in http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forums/index.php.

So whats my point? People should never believe theory as fact, because for all you know there can be a theory in the future that will clearly disprove the theory of evolution.

A theory is used to explain the unknown, so yes you can say that there were theories to explain the unknown such as illness being evil spirits and the earth being flat as described above. These theories have been disproved by new technology and more clearly logical theories. So unless you can prove to me how the theory of evolution clearly disproves the theory of religion please shush, Kiz.

Bakster:

I am forced to go to church every week. But my family is Polish, so I have to go to a Polish church, and I don't speak a word of Polish. So I don't learn anything. But I am forced to study Religion at school because it is a Catholic school.

Do not criticize that which you do not understand.

So the authors followed Jesus around all his life and wrote about him. I certainly wouldn't be able to keep up. How did the Bible get published anyway? None of that stuff existed back then.

It was handwritten.....

So Jesus got crucified for doing what he did all his life, and people just noticed? And wasn't Jesus loved a few days before execution, and suddenly everybody hated him? Bible need logic.

I doubt the Bible says he was preaching his entire life....I believe the Bible says Jesus was loved by his followers, but not by the government. And who do you think had the power back then?

My school/family say I have to believe in Christianity. And aren't I entitled to my own opinion. I may have been too offensive, and I apologise, but I should be able to express my views on this subject.

You are your own person, and your thoughts should reflect what you believe. If you family says you must believe, you do not have to? You may be forced to go to church, so do what you must until you are old enough that you can't be forced to. If your family is mad that you do not wish to be a Christian at that time, then it's their loss because they will be putting more stress on their bodies(by being angry).

You are entitled to your opinion, just make sure your facts are straight and you express your opinion in a polite manor.

[anima]

Nice points being suggested and discussed here. Bakster your first post was just immature and offensive, but apart from that, this is an interesting topic.

But, kiz suggested that 'evolution' is 100% proven. In fact, it still has many flaws and missing pieces. Even Darwin believed in GOD and had his doubts about the theory. It is taught as fact because scientists consider it the only logical explanation.

Everyone is searching for spirituality no matter how much you deny it. Its in our soul.

LOVE peace SOUL 

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." (Albert Einstein)

[zzboots]

"You're saying you can do anything with just the trust in God? Ha."
No we are called to be responsible for our own actions.  But God can give us guidance and support.  There's a story, I'll paraphrase, about a man in an area that was about to be flooded.  The weather forcaster warned everyone to evacuate their homes.  The man thought, "God will save me".  A policeman came to the man's house and told him to leave but he refused, thinking "God will save me".  When the water was about waste deep, a boat came by and asked the man to get in, but the man said "No thanks, God will save me".  Finally the man was forced to retreat to his roof and a helicopter came flying by.  The man refused to be rescued, thinking "God will save me".  The man drowns and goes to Heaven.  When he sees God, he asked Him, "God, why didn't you save me?"  God replies, "What do you mean? I sent you the warning on TV and by policeman.  Then I sent the boat and helicopter to rescue you.  What more could I do?"  The moral of the story is that we find God's presence through the actions of the other people.  Take the Simpson's episode, Homer the Heretic, when he is saved by people of various religions, same principle of God working through people here on earth.

"What is the purpose of that passage? It's not like we can all perform magic tricks to help others."
To show how Jesus began his ministry.  We all got to start somewhere, the same thing is true about Jesus.

"Now this is the part of religion that confuses me. Everlasting life? Does that mean if we repent and forgive, humans will live forever? Humans still perish, they don't come back to life like Jesus did. Where is this "new life" they are granted?"
The Christian belief is that the soul will live on in the Kingdom of Heaven though some people believe their body will be returned to the soul at the end time.  Again it's all speculation about the least understood part of life, death.  No one knows what happens once he or she dies, until they do die.

"I am also making a claim that the majority of the other 5 billion people in the world are right"
Though they have hundreds of separate belief systems and ideas about the Other.  You can't justify Christianity being wrong, but every other single religion as right.  The fact is every person should have the option to make his or her own decision on faith.

Kiz, your examples of incorrect theories help justify my point.  It is possible that the THEORY of Evolution may turn out to be correct.  And Kiz, I see a great deal of potential correctness in Evolution, so I am not just posting against it based upon a belief in creationism.  I look at the bible in a contextual way.  The creation story is more of a representation of God's presence in the formation of the world rather then an exact guideline.

"I think it's highly unlikely that evolution will always remain a theory. I bet it will be definitively proven or disproven within our lifetimes."
Are you going to build a time machine and travel back millions of years?    You cannot prove evolution based on a few bones and educated guesses.  The slow process of evolution would mean that we would have to record and document thousands of years of change for species still evolving today, but that still wouldn't account for the events of the past.

[CrazyHazy]

wow... these posts are so long. No way in hell im reading these.

[Kiz]

Kiz:

Theory should never be accepted as fact. Do you think the scientists of the old age just said the earth was flat because they liked the ring of it? They said the earth was flat because they had "scientific evidence" they believed was the truth

Which was?

So whats my point? People should never believe theory as fact, because for all you know there can be a theory in the future that will clearly disprove the theory of evolution.

I guess I should stop you right here. This is what I mean when I say that you conflate the colloquial understanding of the term "theory" and it's usage in science.
In science, "theory" does not mean "hunch" or "hypothesis", it genuinely means a set of principals that have been supported by empirical evidence and have explanatory and predictive power.

So unless you can prove to me how the theory of evolution clearly disproves the theory of religion please shush, Kiz.

Huh? What are you going on about?
It's funny how you think that just because I'm espousing evolution I am somehow trying to denounce religion.

/edit It's also interesting to note that many people share this insight.

[Kiz]

Kiz, your examples of incorrect theories help justify my point.  It is possible that the THEORY of Evolution may turn out to be correct.  And Kiz, I see a great deal of potential correctness in Evolution, so I am not just posting against it based upon a belief in creationism.  I look at the bible in a contextual way.  The creation story is more of a representation of God's presence in the formation of the world rather then an exact guideline.

How does it help justify your point? I guess you forgot to explain that part.

/edit
Btw, zz, I asked you earlier if you could give share with me your understanding what evolutionary theory states. Just as a reminder.

[zzboots]

How does it help justify your point? I guess you forgot to explain that part.

/edit
Btw, zz, I asked you earlier if you could give share with me your understanding what evolutionary theory states. Just as a reminder.

You brought up theories that were later proven to be untrue.  So it is possible that that evolution may one day be discredited despite so much current backing.

Evolution is the transformation, be it gradual or radical, of one species into another.  The evolutionary theory is that life developed from one common ancestor then branched out into new groups of species over the course of millions of years.

[Kiz]

You brought up theories that were later proven to be untrue.  So it is possible that that evolution may one day be discredited despite so much current backing.

This is fallacious reasoning. Just because something might be proven false doesn't mean that it is false.
"We shouldn't trust in Germ Theory, because [insert arbitrary theory here] has been proven false, therefore it too will be proven false."
Do you see how this is bad reasoning?

Evolution is the transformation, be it gradual or radical, of one species into another.  The evolutionary theory is that life developed from one common ancestor then branched out into new groups of species over the course of millions of years.

Pretty much (more accuarately, though, it is the change of a genepool of a population over time). Now, why is it that you claim that there is no evidence for evolution despite the plethora of instances in the fossil record of gradual changes of skeletal structure over time and the cases of observed speciation today?a

[BlitzJoker]

Which was?

Well I already gave one example, but maybe you mind missed that one.......it was the observation of things not staying on a round surface. They thought, how could anything stay on something round without simply falling off. For further answers the that question you can go wiki "flat earth".

guess I should stop you right here. This is what I mean when I say that you conflate the colloquial understanding of the term "theory" and it's usage in science.
In science, "theory" does not mean "hunch" or "hypothesis", it genuinely means a set of principals that have been supported by empirical evidence and have explanatory and predictive power.

Ok please read my posts before you make an idiot of yourself. I never said it was a hunch, or a hypothesis, nor did I imply it. Ok now this may cause you to use some, not all, but some(well maybe all for you) of your brain......you could term it critical thinking if you want.

Now throughout the past theories have been made, and they have had scientific backing sufficient for the time they were made in. When the idea of the flat earth came up in the past, they couldn't just jump in a rocket and fly to space to see what shape the Earth was. They used what they could given their point of development to test a hypothesis, and if their evidence was sufficient it would be accepted as a theory. This goes for any theory so don't bother asking me for examples.....its quite obvious that this has happened.

So to try and show you how this relates: Currently you and others feel there is sufficient evidence to make evolution a theory, and there is. But again, that does NOT make it fact. In the future there can be new technology, new findings not currently available or even imagined in our heads, to completely disprove the theory of evolution(which is the same thing that has happened through the past).

Huh? What are you going on about?
It's funny how you think that just because I'm espousing evolution I am somehow trying to denounce religion.

I don't really see anything comical about that? You are implying that because the theory of evolution has some experiments that have supported it(same with every other theory, thats how it becomes a "theory") that it is true. So explain to me how evolution can be true and the theory that god created man and the world is also true?

/edit It's also interesting to note that many people share this insight.

Ok now just so you won't find something comical again I'll say this first. Here I am guessing that by putting this in here because it someway supports your point. Just because something is widely accepted doesn't mean anything. Everyone used to think the universe was Earth centered, need I say more?


Finally I hope you go on to rant about me not understanding theory because you understand it better than anyone. Well come to think of it, maybe you are the one who doesn't understand.

Here is a quote from wiki "In science, a theory is never considered fact or infallible, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified to fit the additional data."

That basically summarizes what I have been trying to get through your think head using examples from the past.

[Kiz]

Well I already gave one example, but maybe you mind missed that one.......it was the observation of things not staying on a round surface. They thought, how could anything stay on something round without simply falling off. For further answers the that question you can go wiki "flat earth".

It is very weak to say that liquid falling off of an orange is evidence that the earth is round, because you are making the assumption that gravity originates from below the globe. One has to support this assumption otherwise it is a fallacy of equivocation.

Ok please read my posts before you make an idiot of yourself. I never said it was a hunch, or a hypothesis, nor did I imply it. Ok now this may cause you to use some, not all, but some(well maybe all for you) of your brain......you could term it critical thinking if you want.

Saying it is "just" a theory certainly implies it. Theories are what carry weight, since they are principles supported by evidence. Gravity is "just" a theory too, maybe we should disregard that as well?

So to try and show you how this relates: Currently you and others feel there is sufficient evidence to make evolution a theory, and there is. But again, that does NOT make it fact. In the future there can be new technology, new findings not currently available or even imagined in our heads, to completely disprove the theory of evolution(which is the same thing that has happened through the past).

Argument to the future. Just because it may be disproven in the future doesn't mean it's false, this is the same mistake zz made in his last post

I don't really see anything comical about that? You are implying that because the theory of evolution has some experiments that have supported it(same with every other theory, thats how it becomes a "theory") that it is true. So explain to me how evolution can be true and the theory that god created man and the world is also true?

I never said that god creating man and the world is true or false. You're just trying to interject that point.

Ok now just so you won't find something comical again I'll say this first. Here I am guessing that by putting this in here because it someway supports your point. Just because something is widely accepted doesn't mean anything. Everyone used to think the universe was Earth centered, need I say more?

I agree with you here. General acceptance doesn't confirm an idea. But that's not what my point here is, it is that evolution IS supported by evidence and saying that you will not believe in it because it may be disproven sometime in the future is  silly.

Also, about my explanation of theory, I agree I've misdefined it by including the word "fact". It happens.

[BlitzJoker]

It is very weak to say that liquid falling off of an orange is evidence that the earth is round, because you are making the assumption that gravity originates from below the globe. One has to support this assumption otherwise it is a fallacy of equivocation.

This was an example from the past, they didn't know what gravity was.............

Saying it is "just" a theory certainly implies it. Theories are what carry weight, since they are principles supported by evidence. Gravity is "just" a theory too, maybe we should disregard that as well?

I never said we should disregard something because it's a theory, I am saying we should not accept it as fact.

Argument to the future. Just because it may be disproven in the future doesn't mean it's false, this is the same mistake zz made in his last post

And just because it's proven now doesn't mean it's true.

I never said that god creating man and the world is true or false. You're just trying to interject that point.

The theory of evolution and god creating the world are conflicting, and since you are supporting the former, thats where I incorporated that from. But whatever.

I agree with you here. General acceptance doesn't confirm an idea. But that's not what my point here is, it is that evolution IS supported by evidence and saying that you will not believe in it because it may be disproven sometime in the future is  silly.

I never said I didn't believe in evolution, because I actually do firmly believe in it. I was just saying that you comming on here to criticise zz for saying that evolution is as much as a theory as the religious explanation is simply wrong.

Also, about my explanation of theory, I agree I've misdefined it by including the word "fact". It happens.

pwned.




I'm done.

[Kiz]

This was an example from the past, they didn't know what gravity was.............

It wasn't a scientific theory, that's the point.

I never said we should disregard something because it's a theory, I am saying we should not accept it as fact.

Excuse me, but wasn't it zz who said that evolution is only a "theory" therefore we should give it as much credence as any other (scientific or not)?

And just because it's proven now doesn't mean it's true.

It's a little pointless to say that because we assume that it is true because it is useful. For example, Newton's laws of motion turned out to be incomplete, but they were and still are useful for describing more common mechanics.
In fact, since evolution is supported by a torrent of evidence it would be surprising if any theory that were to replace it (if that were to happen) would be substantially different.

The theory of evolution and god creating the world are conflicting, and since you are supporting the former, thats where I incorporated that from. But whatever.

No, they're only conflicting if you believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis. One view is that God has guided the evolution process along, no?

I never said I didn't believe in evolution, because I actually do firmly believe in it. I was just saying that you comming on here to criticise zz for saying that evolution is as much as a theory as the religious explanation is simply wrong.

Ummm, sorry to burst your bubble, but creationism is not a scientific theory.

pwned

Careful, your ego's sticking out 

[BlitzJoker]

Now I could have a reply to all but probably one of those.

So i figured I would choose the most important.

Careful, your ego's sticking out

Heh


Like I said I'm done...

[Kiz]

Now I could have a reply to all but probably one of those.

Why not do so, then?

[zzboots]

This is fallacious reasoning. Just because something might be proven false doesn't mean that it is false.
"We shouldn't trust in Germ Theory, because [insert arbitrary theory here] has been proven false, therefore it too will be proven false."
Do you see how this is bad reasoning?

I never said one should treat a theory as false.  I said theories have the potential to be false.  So you have to be open to other potential ideas.  Theories are wonderful tools.  Take caution and make sure you don't call a theory fact.

Pretty much (more accuarately, though, it is the change of a genepool of a population over time). Now, why is it that you claim that there is no evidence for evolution despite the plethora of instances in the fossil record of gradual changes of skeletal structure over time and the cases of observed speciation today?a

I didn't "claim there is no evidence for evolution".  But fossil records are incomplete.  You can't trace back exact lineages of fossils from parent to child proving that evolution occurred.