@Draugnar, you're making excellent points at the moment. normally I don't agree with what you say in the forum but I wanted to say that for once I am agreeing whole heartedly with you here.

@Jack - I agree with you. And those priests should be defrocked and prosecuted. I'm not Catholic, so don't lay the failings of a bunch of pervs in Rome on all Christianity. K?

Early medicine had it's share of harm done (leechings and blood letting) because it was so misinformed and misguided as well. So science doesn't exactly have a clean slate. Oh, and you pointed out that science split the atom. What was the first thing we did with that discovery? Blow the fuck out of two Japanese cities killing more in two days than any other two days in history to that point. Science gave us gunpowder. Now we have to contend with thugs with guns robbing, raping, and murdering. Yeah science! I don't have stats to back it up, but my gut says more people have died from those two inventions of science than Christianity ever killed.

@roller

I'm not sure why you're having trouble with this. The reason I believe something in a science textbooks is:

1) It has been reviewed by a number of people in the field (their names and contacts are listed so I can review their credentials).
2) If I chose to, I could independently verify their results.

Do you really think this is the same as believing a document that is thousands of years old and has been translated numerous times by many people. Not to mention, you can't personally verify anything written on those pages?

How can you say those are equivalent.

"Why the insistence on comparing a science to a philosophy?"

Looking back, I don't think it was a good point and I didn't make myself clear. Roller compared science to religion, claiming that science read by students from books is as much a matter of faith as religion, the point was to show the difference between science books, articles and journals and religious texts ( the Bible, Koran, Gita, etc), I was trying to show that they are very different things.

Also, isn't the Bible the word of God? That's why I claimed it can't be peer reviewed. Also, Bible study, even by professional theologians, is not the same as a physics or biology study being reviewed by other scientists, as you yourself said that theology is akin to philosophy, not science (I agree with you on that point). I don't know if philosophy articles are peer reviewed, but if they are I'm guessing their method would be different compared to science journals.

semck, that specific sentence was supposed to be written in a light-hearted manner, though the point it is illustrating is not.

Its not just Catholics. Hell, in my hometown, the minister of the most conservative church was arrested a couple months back for blackmailing female congregants into sex.

And the difference, my dear fellow is that religion makes the claim to be a positive moral force. Science merely investigates things. Its a set of tools. It makes no claim to be a moral force for positive or negative.

Religion makes the claim to be a moral force, and yet it keeps causing problems. I mean, its not like you can say we left all that behind in the Middle Ages... 9/11 was because of religion.

And frankly, I don't care if you're part of a particular cult/sect/whatever that doesn't agree. As your coreligionists in this thread have shown, religion teaches you to accept an answer by fiat, and not to investigate shit. Teaches people not to actually think, but to believe. And if we're ever going to advance as a fucking species, its going to require us to actually use these brains we spent so many eons evolving.

Ah ha, Draugnar! And who created humans, and who made nuclear fission and gunpowder reactions possible? God! Ergo, blame on him. :)

"I don't have stats to back it up, but my gut says more people have died from those two inventions of science than Christianity ever killed. "

That's like comparing apples and oranges, one is a method of killing, the other is a reason to do so.

Actually, Biblically speaking, the Word of God is Christ, but in so far as the reference is commonly used, the Bible is the Word of God as relayed through man. Once again, men are not perfect and so the Bible has it's share of flaws. But John 1:1 very clearly lays out that the true Word of God is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah,a nd that He has been from the beginning both with God (the Father) as God (the Son). He is the true and perfect Word of God. At least if you choose to take John at face value.

Understand, I'm a Deist with Theist leanings, as such I have no qualm with the Bible having flaws. I see man's imperfections throughout and just equate them with any other philosophy or history book. The problem is that we are not allowed to be inspired to revise and correct those flaws (because man/the Church won't let us) like history books can be. Until organized (and therefore corrupt) Christianity is taken out of the hands of the few who don't want to let go of the power and the scholars are allowed to not only correct translations, but correct obvious fallacies caused by the author injecting his views, we Christians need to study and understand for ourselves those flaws and accept that they exist and will be used against us. Until Judaism and Christianity realize that perfection didn't exist 7000 years ago or 2000 years ago in the writings of the time, they will be stuck in dogma and never gain a true understanding of what God desires for us and wants from us.

@largeham, gotcha. In that case, I enjoyed your joke.

@Jack - I won't argue 9/11 was religious, but it wasn't Christian violence. Every "new" religion goes through a trial by fire and has it's periods of extremism. Even Christianity is perverted with firebombing "abortion clinics" or attacking others for their race, creed, or sexual orientation. Yes, religion has it's issues. I just believe you need to stop focusing exclusively on the negative and look at it from a disconnected point of view, weighing the pros and the cons of religion in general, then look to the specific religions and even specific congregations to see which are good and which are bad.

@Jack - "And frankly, I don't care if you're part of a particular cult/sect/whatever that doesn't agree. As your coreligionists in this thread have shown, religion teaches you to accept an answer by fiat, and not to investigate shit."

A more false statement could not be made. You have just lumped every single religion into the extremists religious views. Any Christian minister or Jewish rabbi worth his or her position would (and do) *encourage* their followers to read and study and research, coming to their own conclussions and finding their own walk with God.

Draugnar, I see. It's just that fundies generally take the Bible as it is. Also, the Bible might be fallible, but as theology is not close to science, it can't be peer reviewed, or if it is, not in the same way a science article is. Articles written in theological journals (or the equivalent) might be peer reviewed, but the Bible itself is not, though many people agree it does have flaws.

"at the moment, your state of mind, is no different than a theists'. you simply believe, because you have faith in science. (it's not a question of whether you can or cannot verify something) It's a question of having blind faith. again, in that respect you are no different than a theist who believes in the scriptures."

There is a very important distinction between religious faith and alleged "scientific faith". The reader of a science book is aware that the claims within are check-able, and this is not true for the key religious beliefs, which must accepted, knowing full well that the claims are not check-able. The latter truly is faith, while former bares only a superficial resemblance to faith.

Richard Dawkins puts its better than I:
"I ought to mention at this point, that in science there is something that looks a little bit like accepting authority. I haven’t, for example, seen with my own eyes the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186 000 miles per second. I believe that on the authority of physics books and physics professors and that looks as though it’s no better than believing on the authority of the Pope. But it actually is much better because the people who wrote the books, the physics professors whom I consult, have seen the evidence and I know that, in principle, if I had enough time and if I educated myself sufficiently, I would be, I am, free to go and examine the same evidence as convinced the physicists. But not even the priests claim that there’s any actual evidence for the story about Mary’s body shooting off to heaven."

spelling mistake.... *bears only a superficial resemblance to faith

The science behind your articles are peer reviewed. Likewise, new translations from original and newly discovered sources of the Bible are peer reviewed, but you are correct in that a history book such as the Bible can not be peer reviewed for content accuracy just as Homer's Iliad cannot be peer reviewed for content accuracy. The Bible is a collection of letters wrapped around philosophical opinions, stories meant to enlighten through prose and poetry, and historical texts meant to provide groundwork.

I so love how Dawkins shows himself to be uninformed as to Christian teachings and what the Bible actually says. Catholic dogma regarding the Assumption of Mary is *not* Biblically based and he once again makes himself look the fool.

Its a doctrine held by people who are for all intents and purposes the same religion as you. It was an example. Just because your particular superstition thinks that doctrine is crazy doesn't make what you believe any less crazy.

Give me objective evidence for God's intervention in the physical world. C'mon. I double dog dare you to objectively prove even ONE miracle.

And to be clear, I'm not looking for "Well, we don't have an explanation, so God must have done it". Thats getting back to the 'Zeus makes lightning' level of belief. A miracle that is only attributable to God's work in the physical world.

Oh, there's a fallacy that keeps cropping up in this thread: that to believe in God, to find truth, one must accept all religions.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein

Not that it matters what Einstein's opinion was, just thought I'd get it straight.

draugnar- i highly doubt he cares

Agreed. In fairness, although the above does summarize Einstein's position, he did create some of the confusion himself. People are going to be confused, whether reasonably or not, if you go about saying "God" all the time when you mean the universe (or something closely related).

Science as it is presented to the masses can be very misleading. Is anyone else old enough to remember the science textbooks we had that showed a photo of an exhibit that was a progression from a tiny, primitive, "horse ancestor" to the modern horse as an illustration of evolution? It turns out that they were different animals, found in different places around the world, and were not even in chronological order.

And I'm sure there are scientists who molest little boys. But I don't hold that against scientists or those who believe in science (as I do). Analogy.

Nor do I imply that the other side of this argument thinks things they don't, a logical fallacy called straw man.

Here's the little horsies: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html
(I'm opposed to evolution, by the way; but one should at least get the actual theory of it right)

But this thread is getting unwieldy. If anyone has any further questions for this particular Christian, I welcome private messages. Good night all.

Here's a famous pedohile scientist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Carleton_Gajdusek

One last post: The other side of the horse evolution series. http://www.equest4truth.com/eo_nonevolution.html