jasonw1239 wrote:Mike,
Personally I don't give a rat's ass what somebody chooses to believe in.
For all I care they can get naked and dance under the full moon as long as the are not hurting anybody or keeping their neighbors awake by screaming at yog-sothoth.
The only thing that bothers me is the way that religion has a tendency to try to extend its tendrils into politics and education to promote an agenda.
There is a reason why most democratic countries have a separation of church and state.
What bothers me are the in-your-face street preachers, and the televangelists that prey on the old and the sick with their "send-us-money-and-we'll-pray-for-you" pitch.
Or the "buy our magic water/handkerchief/amulet/blah-blah-blah."
If hucksters selling "snake-oil" is not legal or ethical, this stuff is no better.

[End Rant]  

Preach it brother!

JZavoda wrote:
Yea, there are some annoying absolutists out there. Add to tele-evangelists the athiests who demand that only they are right and only their viewpoint be taught in schools, sworn to in courts, printed on money.

I find these guys pretty low  since their religion is simply no religion allowed and they think that getting their way is fair and right and anyone who doesn't believe what they believe is wrong. Absolutists.

I hear suppossed scientists talking about facts, about the beginning of the universe, about big bang and the age of the earth, about math being 'true'.

Well no one really understands more than a hundred years or so. They imagine what more time than that is like, but they haven't experienced it. There is not even a hint of really understanding 100,000 years, a million, a billion. We can imagine that the light being seen in the sky shows suns and galaxies, but this solar system is still unknown, this planet is still unknown, the force of gravity is unknown, the make-up of matter is unknown.

I find the people who absolutely do not believe in a spiritual world far more annoying, far more underhanded and smarmy than most of those who absolutely believe in a spiritual world. The tendrils of atheists are in politics and public schools far more insidious and deeper than those of the spiritual absolutists and I wish that both would just get the hell out.

Pity the poor Wiccan or Deist.  Called stupid by one side, and told they are going to hell by the other.   Nice!

Not a big fan of the in your face smarmy and sneering "intellectual absolutist" any more than the in your face religious nut.  Like anyone would enjoy being called a mental midgit anymore than someone would enjoy being told they are going to burn in hell for eternity....

I do find it funny that as many times in the last 2000 years science has been found to be absolutely wrong, the science is God crowd will defend to the death it's absolute truth in all things.  There are more things in heaven and earth.....

Mike B.

deimos3428 wrote:It's really frusterating when people note that both science and religion have flaws, and then go on attempting to equate them and suggest that both have a place within the school system.  That's horrible reasoning.

Both science and religion take some things upon faith, and both lack all the answers.  However, while scientific theory requires adjustment in the face of new information, religious theory requires that there is no adjustment in spite of new information.

Both are rooted in belief.  Science is what happens when you take belief and allow it to go through an evolutionary process over time.  Religion is what happens when you take belief and don't allow it to be changed significantly enough to keep up with observed fact.

Why does that matter?  Schools are about learning.  Religion has no place in the schools is because it is all about believing what you're told, and doing what you're told, even in spite of observed fact.  That's the very opposite of learning; challenging what you're told, and improving upon what you're told based on your own observations.

Theology, the study of religion, might well have a place in school but religion itself does not.  Both theology and anthropology (ie. evolutionary theory) are better handled by the university/college system, though.

It is especially annoying when someone talks about science as if it took things on faith. It can't, science is a method of study, Science, with a big S is a religion. It has absolutes and facts, something that science does not.

There are no facts in science, there are only subjective observations, working hyppthesis, theory, endless questions with no firm footing, no absolutes. Small s science is frightening, it is the unknown, the unsecure, the dark abyss of the infinite.

When children are taught one theory and not another, they are being lied to, they are being dogmatized, whether by creationism or undirected evolution.

science, the method of study, takes nothing on faith, nothing... Science the religion, the floor wax, the desert topping, takes the observable, subjective world, on faith, and a very jealous and fearful faith at that.

Teach science, all the questions, all the possibilities, not just the ones that someone, somewhere has taken on faith.

guerret wrote:
That's a very excessive point of view. There are plenty of facts. If you think of natural science, everything starts from facts, which are then dissected, analyzed, generalized and so on. If you think of artificial and conventional sciences (take math, for example), then facts can be much more difficult to detect, but you can find facts there, also. Especially because, in the end, theoretical sciences exist to explain/reproduce/model facts.

Let's make it easy. Think of history. Are there no facts in history?

In science a fact would require an objective observation, which is impossible. This isn't excessive, this point is fundamental to the scientific method.

That people do not understand this is staggering, it shows how the dogmatized religion of big S Science has swallowed centuries of progress.

When people and especially teachers start believing and teaching scientific facts, they have stepped outside of science and into religion. They have failed, not only themselves, not only the people they teach, but they have failed the future of humanity.

science does not color within the lines, it does not require that the sky is blue, the grass is green. It does not have right or wrong, true or false, facts or the absolute. science is a method of study, a process of eternal questioning. Facts end qustioning, they end discovery, facts end science, they are not part of it.

This needs to be the first thing that is taught. There are no facts, question everything. If you teach a child that there are absolutes you put a wall in front of them, call it a fact, paint it a certain color and they may never, never ever, be able to get over it or through it or even paint it a different color.

History? It is so often said that history is written by the winners and winners choose the facts, but it doesn't make them true.

JZavoda wrote:In science a fact would require an objective observation, which is impossible. This isn't excessive, this point is fundamental to the scientific method.

That people do not understand this is staggering, it shows how the dogmatized religion of big S Science has swallowed centuries of progress.

When people and especially teachers start believing and teaching scientific facts, they have stepped outside of science and into religion. They have failed, not only themselves, not only the people they teach, but they have failed the future of humanity.

science does not color within the lines, it does not require that the sky is blue, the grass is green. It does not have right or wrong, true or false, facts or the absolute. science is a method of study, a process of eternal questioning. Facts end qustioning, they end discovery, facts end science, they are not part of it.

This needs to be the first thing that is taught. There are no facts, question everything. If you teach a child that there are absolutes you put a wall in front of them, call it a fact, paint it a certain color and they may never, never ever, be able to get over it or through it or even paint it a different color.

History? It is so often said that history is written by the winners and winners choose the facts, but it doesn't make them true.

The truth is somewhere in between as I see it due to practical matters.  Being a biology major and chemistry minor, I have a great affinity for science.  I see many of its faults and know there are some people who make a religion or faith of it.  I am not that extreme or impractical.

If you want to get legalistic, you can make a logical argument that there are no facts because there is no objective viewpoint, but most people agree on plenty of facts(ie. the freezing temperature of water, the existence of stars, the nuclear make-up of carbon, etc...).  I'm not saying that might makes right or the majority is always right, but I don't quibble over this technicality.

JZavoda wrote:Teach science, all the questions, all the possibilities, not just the ones that someone, somewhere has taken on faith.

Furthermore, it's not practical to teach all science has to offer.  I personally think may public school systems have a decent science curriculum.  While America overall could use some significant improvement to its education system, the curriculum is good enough.  I wish it was better but I digress.  Many university systems also do a great job of teaching science.  America is losing ground to other countries in upper education, but it's still a top contender especially at certain schools.  Look at the student diversity at MIT; the American born Caucasians are a small minority.  People from other countries are clamoring to student at American universities.  Again, I digress but the point is that America offers a good overall education in science, and it doesn't teach everything by a long-shot.

I agree that both science and religion are imperfect and radicals in either camp bug me at best and often disturb me.  Another thing that I think most people here on these forums don't like is those who impose their ways/beliefs/faith on others whether they are religious/spiritual or not.

Which brings me back to the original topic which is that many of us liked playing D&D/Cthulhu/whatever, minding our own business and then someone(s) has to interfere, imposing their rules to fit their way of thinking and believing.  This was especially disconcerting when likely we were expanding our creativity AND our reading abilty AND our understading of history and mythology AND more.  I mean, I thank God for Gary Gygax because I now know that Lapis Lazuli is a blue, semi-precious stone, a fact I never would have learned if it weren't for D&D!   Yes, that was random, but my point remains.

benjoshua wrote:
Furthermore, it's not practical to teach all science has to offer.  I personally think may public school systems have a decent science curriculum.  While America overall could use some significant improvement to its education system, the curriculum is good enough.  I wish it was better but I digress.  Many university systems also do a great job of teaching science.  America is losing ground to other countries in upper education, but it's still a top contender especially at certain schools.  Look at the student diversity at MIT; the American born Caucasians are a small minority.  People from other countries are clamoring to student at American universities.  Again, I digress but the point is that America offers a good overall education in science, and it doesn't teach everything by a long-shot.

I agree that both science and religion are imperfect and radicals in either camp bug me at best and often disturb me.  Another thing that I think most people here on these forums don't like is those who impose their ways/beliefs/faith on others whether they are religious/spiritual or not.

Which brings me back to the original topic which is that many of us liked playing D&D/Cthulhu/whatever, minding our own business and then someone(s) has to interfere, imposing their rules to fit their way of thinking and believing.  This was especially disconcerting when likely we were expanding our creativity AND our reading abilty AND our understading of history and mythology AND more.  I mean, I thank God for Gary Gygax because I now know that Lapis Lazuli is a blue, semi-precious stone, a fact I never would have learned if it weren't for D&D!   Yes, that was random, but my point remains.

I teach math. American education completely fails its citizens' children on a fundemental level. In math, because they fail to understand what is needed in teaching math. Teaching the basics without crutches, without calculators, without just rote memorization. Teaching basics till the kids know the basics before passing them on to the next level, But at least with the math the kids just don't know, they don't think that they do know and base all their further thinking on that, they know that they don't know. And no one thinks it is a big deal not knowing how to do math.

But with science they teach these kids that water boils or freezes at a certain temperature, (without saying relative to what) that AC power is impossible (wait that was what they taught Tesla at college, just a damn good thing he didn't accept that fact) and lots of facts about chemical reactions and biological functions, about the physical world, the speed of sound, the speed of light, and fact after limiting that has nothing to do with science, telling them about theories and tests they will never try to test for themselves, making them believe that they stand upon solid ground, when they don't.

The most important thing, the fundemental lesson to teach, is to always, always question. Never accept, never believe with out doubt, question, test, observe, rinse and repeat.

Teach facts and you build a wall for kids, teach questions and nothing will stop them.

guerret wrote:

Let's make it easy. Think of history. Are there no facts in history?

Now who's changing the subject?

Erm, I like Dungeons & Dragons.................

gyg wrote:Erm, I like Dungeons & Dragons.................

....And John Cusack movies

spades1013 wrote:Religion is the search for Truth, not fact.

"Archaeology is the search for fact, not truth."  You didnt just quote Indiana Jones and goof it up now did you?  

Sorry.....I couldnt stop myself.  I'll leave now.