@Mujus:

"Obi, you are absolutely correct that God cannot be proven scientifically. But you still hold science up as the path to all truth, while I am asserting that there is an area of knowledge beyond science, beyond the physical."

1. The burden of proof for that beyond-the-physical realm is on you, however. As it is not physically or empircally apparent, if you don't give me a reason to accept your claim that there is a metaphysical realm and more than mere materialism, then we cannot accept your claim as truth, for a claim to be held as true in this sense requires proof

2. Even if I were to grant you the metaphysical, however--a rather tall task--the fact remains that the METAphysical has no place in a PHYSICAL SCIENCE class. And that's my point--God has his steepled house, and science has its happy home in the schoolyards--and each should keep where they are, ie, science shouldn't be brought into the House of God, and God shouldn't be shoehorned into science classes and textbooks.

"But you still hold science up as the path to all truth, while I am asserting that there is an area of knowledge beyond science, beyond the physical."

And that's all you'll ever have, blind assertions, a bunch of wishful thinking parading as profundity.

"the fact remains that the METAphysical has no place in a PHYSICAL SCIENCE class."

QFT

"If you really do value an open mind, then you will try not to shut it to any avenue of inquiry and exploration, even if it is beyond time and space. What's out there, outside of this time/space bubble, in eternity? Jesus says "

Having an open mind doesn't mean accepting any crazy theory out there as equally plausible. Science requires some accountability for hypotheses, but you religious types always duck accountability while pretending like every hypothesis out there should be given equal time, no matter how non-rigorous your version of reality is when tested against actual reality. You haven't given a single *reason* to view your Christianity as a plausible worldview.

@Putin: I'm actually not christian so your analysis is way off mark there Putin. I'm somewhere between an atheist and agnostic. I do however see the benefits of studying literature that has so effected human society for so long. To examine it both for the lessons it's taught. The effects its had and the truth we can extract from it. Should it be a part of science class. Not presented as empirically true. But hey neither should the big bang theory. The two are equally valid though, in that the amount of scientific evidence for either is practically non-existent.

@Mujus: While personal experience is all well and good I'm the sort who prefers a more universal distillation of ideas. Or a personal experience of my own. So I hope you'll forgive me if I don't entirely agree with you. There could be a realm beyond the thinking. I'm fairly convinced that there is more to life then just a bunch of chemicals. Given the similarities between all life despite their separation from one another. However despite this I'm still rather skeptical of the idea of a realm beyond the physical. As you can tell. I'm open to learning more of what people have to say though.

That's my entire point. The more you learn the better informed you will be. The better informed you are the more you can think for yourself and not just parrot back the arguments of others.

@Santa: I tend to think it is the fact that they have been shaped by man that makes them so important.

@Obi: Can you prove the world is entirely physical? That there is nothing of a metaphysical nature? If the answer why not teach people about it. Allow them to see both sides of things. We aren't going to ever find an answer if we raise a generation of kids to ignore half the problem. If we simply tell them that science is the way things are and that nothing else is possible.

I'd rather God didn't get taught as the truth in schools but I think it is important to teach in schools. If only for the moral lessons it could teach. Because this generation needs moral education more then ever before, as more and more often they have no source for it, at home, particularly in secular families. That said teaching the bible as the truth has problems as well. Which is why I feel that is should be taught in a more philosophical fashion. Like a theory.

"Should it be a part of science class. Not presented as empirically true. But hey neither should the big bang theory. The two are equally valid though, in that the amount of scientific evidence for either is practically non-existent."

They are not *equally* valid, that's the very aspect of false equivalence you claimed I was "off the mark" about. For one, religious accounts of the origins of the universe/earth are not "theories" at all, since they haven't been empirically tested at all. The religious or pro-religious agnostics continually equivocate with the term "theory" to make it seem like it refers to nothing more than a shot in the dark, but theory is an explanation that has been tested. The extent that we can take the Old Testament's vague gibberish about creation seriously at all it has been shown to be embarrassingly false. But usually the religious types don't even go as far as to say that the account of origins given by their texts should be taken seriously, and instead do a bunch of excuse-making about "metaphors" and "symbolism", even though not long ago they were claiming that the Sun revolved around the Earth and the Earth was made before the universe and the stars, and insisted that the races of mankind were created in separate creation events.

The big bang theory has been empirically tested in a variety of ways. The idea that the two are on par and therefore ancient Bronze Age mythological texts have the same amount of validity as the sum of our knowledge of cosmology is absolutely absurd and really tremendously insulting to the scientific community who have made enormous progress in this field.

What moral lessons does "God" teach? This is where Christianity spectacularly fails. It is not a moral system, it is a salvation system. In Christianity, everything is permissible so long as you agree to worship and adore the legend of some alleged half-man/half-god who existed 2,000 years ago. Nothing we regard as "moral" today, based on the evolution of humans as a species, is reflected in the Bible.

You're incorrect on that account. There have been attempts to empirically test the claims related to intelligent design.

In fact there is an entire community of religious science that attempts to research the world and find evidence for ID.

I'll pass you off to this article. The 1st, 3rd and 4th points are all relevant to this discussion.

ID isn't just simply ancient bronze age texts. The assumption you make their is again false. It is a re-examining of some of the important base ideas with this origin texts to look for an understanding of reality.

ID is not simply, the bible is correct all praise the lord. But instead an idea that their is a level of complexity beyond human reason that must be the product of design, something that cannot be explained by the simple material nature of things..

This said asking for empirical evidence is kind of amusing in that your asking for us to put in the terms of your five sense something that is beyond reason. Which is to say, something that can only be approached and apprehended indirectly through the study of the interactions in the natural world.

You are confusing ID with creationism.

This conversation has worked backwards. I'm now fairly convinced that ID needs to be taught in schools, simply so the alternative way of thinking it represents is covered.

The idea that the product can be greater then the sum of its parts.

On morality: Are you actually going to pretend that there aren't lessons of moral worth within the bible? It is a series of stories designed to teach people how to live. The established church might be a pay for salvation sort of system. But the bible does contain lessons. Even if we look only to the laws set out in the old testament. Do not kill, don't covet that which others have, and the like are still all important lessons to this day.

ID isn't christianity exactly. It's simply the idea that there is something more.

Unfortunately for ID proponents, the mask of ID has been removed and it has been revealed to be nothing more than creationism in disguise. In fact, I encourage everyone to read the decision made in Kitzmiller v. Dover. A Bush appointee judge thoroughly demolished the claims by ID proponents that their "theory" wasn't creationism by another name.

In particular, people should read the entirety of the section entitled "Application of the Endorsement Test to ID policy" which exhaustively details two things that are very important. 1-How ID became the new "tactic" of the fundamentalist creationist movement after previous attempts to impose creationism and/or ban evolution in science failed and generally how ID is a creationist movement ;and 2-How ID is not science at all.

You're trying to have it both ways. On one hand you're trying to claim ID is "science", in the next breath you reject as understood by the National Academy of Sciences and scientific community as a whole.

Most damning for you is the following sentences from Kitzmiller

"(1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research."

Further:

"Notably, every major scientific association that has taken a position on the issue of whether ID is science has concluded that ID is not, and cannot be considered as such. (1:98-99 (Miller); 14:75-78 (Alters); 37:25 (Minnich)). Initially, we note that NAS, the "most prestigious" scientific association in this country, views ID as follows:

Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. These claims subordinate observed data to statements based on authority, revelation, or religious belief. Documentation offered in support of these claims is typically limited to the special publications of their advocates. These publications do not offer hypotheses subject to change in light of new data, new interpretations, or demonstration of error. This contrasts with science, where any hypothesis or theory always remains subject to the possibility of rejection or modification in the light of new knowledge."

"Not a single expert witness over the course of the six week trial identified one major scientific association, society or organization that endorsed ID as science. What is more, defense experts concede that ID is not a theory as that term is defined by the NAS and admit that ID is at best "fringe science" which has achieved no acceptance in the scientific community. (21:37-38 (Behe); Fuller Dep. at 98-101, June 21, 2005; 28:47 (Fuller); Minnich Dep. at 89, May 26, 2005)."

"Are you actually going to pretend that there aren't lessons of moral worth within the bible? It is a series of stories designed to teach people how to live. The established church might be a pay for salvation sort of system. But the bible does contain lessons. Even if we look only to the laws set out in the old testament. Do not kill, don't covet that which others have, and the like are still all important lessons to this day. "

The "lessons" are contradicted and seem to be subordinate to one commanding idea - the worship and adoration of the Judeo-Christian god. For killing is ok for this god's followers to do, even indiscriminate killing, if it advances the glory of the Judeo-Christian god. Furthermore the god sanctions mass rape (of those that are not killed) as well. Elsewhere the Bible says to stone rape victims to death for the "crime" of not preventing the rape. What moral lessons are we to learn from such an inconsistent script? There are far superior bases in which to build a moral culture, that have nothing to do with this anachronistic desert religion.

The Kitzmiller decision

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html#p46

@ Putin, your own anti-supernatural bias is evident by the very tone and tenor of your words, the way you twist what the Bible says around to refute straw men, the way you accuse people of religion of all past crimes, and the way you refuse to admit that neither science nor religion can prove the origin of the universe and matter and such empirically. It's beyond science and enters the realm of relationship with God, which you can't have if you refuse to accept even the possibility that God exists.

But that's your God-given right. ;-)

And is it right to tell children that there is no supernatural world, no spiritual side of things? How could anyone possibly prove that assertion??

"@Santa: I tend to think it is the fact that they have been shaped by man that makes them so important."

how? How does the fact that millions in the English speaking world now believe in a protestant version of god because Henry VIII needed a divorce make this so important?

"@ Putin, your own anti-supernatural bias is evident by the very tone and tenor of your words?"

I have a bias against using any mythological story as a basis for fact, yes. You again seem preoccupied with this idea that any idea, no matter how patently absurd, deserves equal treatment, else you'll accuse everybody of *bias*. That's basically all you have going for you right now, the cockamamie anti-scientific "fairness" doctrine that the Creationists have been pushing for decades in order to push their religion down the throats of educators and children.

" the way you twist what the Bible says around to refute straw men"

Yes, whenever you quote the Bible verbatim, it's called "twisting". It's "misinterpreting". You have to midrash away blatant commands to indiscriminately kill that are in black and white, blatant commands to commit mass rape, etc. Can you defend your barbaric religion without resorting to these kinds of games?

"the way you accuse people of religion of all past crimes"

Where did I do that in this thread? You're just making stuff up now.

"and the way you refuse to admit that neither science nor religion can prove the origin of the universe and matter and such empirically. It's beyond science and enters the realm of relationship with God, which you can't have if you refuse to accept even the possibility that God exists."

You religious types love to insert your position as the default, as if you win by default if something isn't proven conclusively yet even though plenty of your metaphysical claims have been conclusively disproven because they contradict well known aspects of reality. You thrive on ignorance and our current limitations of knowledge, and hope we never find the answers and thereby reduce the space for your ignorance to operate in place of knowledge.

You can't simply assert the existence of god and then hide behind our current limitations, and then declare victory.

"And is it right to tell children that there is no supernatural world, no spiritual side of things? How could anyone possibly prove that assertion??"

We have no reason to believe it. Not one. It's just sheer wishful thinking on your part. We don't teach alternatives to germ theory, we don't teach alternatives to atomic theory, we shouldn't teach alternatives to evolution or alternatives to the Big Bang theory. There is not a single solitary reason to believe in supernaturalism. Supernaturalism has been disproven countless times. Their ignorant hypotheses about the physical world have been rejected time and time again. When are we as a species going to stop wishing for witchcraft, spells, and magic to be real?

When has supernaturalism been disproven. I call bullshit on that one, Putin. to disprove supernaturalism would mean you proved it didn't exist. That can't be done, so your assertion is patently false. You may chose not to believe, but don't even claim my belief system has "been disproven" because it hasn't and you know damn well it hasn't.

Supernatural accounts for physical phenomenon have been disproven over and over again.

Here's an exhaustive description of the innumerable supernatural theories of the physical world that have been supplanted/disproved by science.

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/

Disproving indicidual accounts does not disprove the supernatural. Please, disprove the resurection of Christ for me. Please disprove plagues and the parting of the Red Sea for the Jewish amongst us. You said "Supernaturalism has been disproven" when only specific instances have been shown to be something else. Disproving the mico doesn't disprove the macro. disproving certain UFO sightings as being weather balloons or, as has come out in recent years, experimental aircraft that actually flew out of Area 41 doesn't disprove the possible existence of alien visitation.

Even if you disprove every reported occurence, you haven't disproven the possibility.

*Area 51, typo...

I specifically spoke of the specific theories postulated by supernaturalists which have been proven to be false. You can only disprove a theory if it makes some claim about the world. If it doesn't make any claims about the world then it's absolutely useless and irrelevant anyway.

But that's all you have to go on, the idea that any absurdity has a "possibility" of being true, even if not one of your dangerous theories which have caused so much suffering for humanity and obstructed so much advancement of knowledge, has ever been demonstrated to be true. If any scientific paradigm had the record of embarrassing failure that supernaturalism has, it would have been laughed out of existence ages ago.

It's only because the religious have often had the guns of the state to back up their backward views about the physical world and keep the world in the dark ages, that they've survived this long.

You said "Supernaturalism has been disproven". Not "Several theories of supernaturalism have been disproven". You are a scholar. Do you not see the difference?

Back to the "religion is bad" that you claim you don't say, but say again and again. <*shakes head in wonderment at the stupidity of the argument*>

To return to the point you were making Putin, on ID not being science. This is not the point I am arguing. The point I am arguing is that it is an important thing to be taught in schools.

The big bang theory is about a scientific as ID. In that it looks at a series of macro events and speculates at their cause. If you insist on teaching the big bang theory, so too should you teach ID.

The only difference between the two. Is that TBBT follows an empiricist way of thinking. While ID follows the neoplatonic mode of thought. In modern society we have been heavily emphasized the empirical philosophy, and decided to ignore other schools of philosophy.

Would you suggest that we should not learn about Aristotle? His ideas after all are the foundation of ID after all. An examination of the nature of the world, from which one looks backwards for a source.

And yes we should teach alternatives to all of the aforementioned theories. Atomic, and otherwise. It is important to know both how these theories developed, and what other people think so you can develop your own understanding of how things are. So you can weigh the pros and cons of each argument.

Obviously you weren't taught in a fashion that promotes this freedom of exploration and thought. But I will tell you this, in countries that are not America we do teach alternatives to every single theory you mentioned.

Suggesting we shouldn't teach things that don't fit in the objective, empiricist philosophy in schools. Is like suggesting we should only teach capitalism in schools. Because just as we don't want our children growing up to think like neoplatonists, we simply can't have our children growing up to be commies either.

It is important for a balanced education that things from other schools of thought are taught. That we don't focus entirely on the empirical school of epistemology, and we allow room for other branches of this school of thought.

@Santa Re: Protestantism

It provides us with an interesting historical perspective on england, and the religious/political structure at this time.

As well as containing lessons on how to live as people of that era viewed it.

@Putin pt 2. Re: Morality

You are confusing the old testament with the message of the bible. While the old testament has some important lessons in it. The new testament is where we see a shift from a harsh punishing god to a more caring one, smiting is practically done away with, and the idea is that a sin is a wrong doing but not something to punish another for.

Sure the bible is used a lot to justify terrible actions but the moral lessons are there, and should be read in the context of forgiveness present in the new testament. After all we aren't in the bc era anymore..

"You said "Supernaturalism has been disproven". Not "Several theories of supernaturalism have been disproven". You are a scholar. Do you not see the difference?"

When a paradigm has zero record of success, it is discarded, especially when confronted with another paradigm that has a long and robust record of explaining the same things and leads to the discovery of novel facts. I did say however that the claims of supernaturalism have been disproven over and over again, I referred specifically to supernatural hypotheses. So your criticism is not valid.

Give me a single solitary example of a supernatural claim about the physical world that has been demonstrated to be true. Don't give me the whole 'beyond space and time' routine, you supernaturalists make claims about the physical world all the time, show me the success stories.

Aristotelian Science the underpinning of ancient, classical, and medieval science taught for 2500 years that the universe was infinite and had no beginning point. The bible said the universe began with a blast of light. Science later stated that the Universe began with a blast of light.

Not saying, just saying.

"To return to the point you were making Putin, on ID not being science. This is not the point I am arguing. The point I am arguing is that it is an important thing to be taught in schools."

Well if you're claiming something should be taught in the scientific classroom, then it ought to actually be germane to the topic being studied. If it's not science, it doesn't belong in a science classroom. It doesn't belong in the same room with the big bang theory or evolution at all.

"The big bang theory is about a scientific as ID. In that it looks at a series of macro events and speculates at their cause. If you insist on teaching the big bang theory, so too should you teach ID."

That's a profoundly ignorant comment. There have been multitudes of rigorous tests based on the predictive modeling of the big bang theory which have been confirmed. This doesn't mean that there isn't more to discover, but to suggest that ID, which has zero supporting tests or empirical support whatsoever, is as scientific as Big Bang theory is really really wrong. Most of the "tests" ID tries to construct are simply matters of hole poking against Darwinian evolution, they have done very little in the way of work to try and construct a positive case for ID. ID "scholars" simply cite each other's work, and write in their own well funded creationist journals. There isn't a single scientific organization anywhere that takes it seriously. It is junk science, on par with astrology and phrenology. Indeed one of the heroes of the ID movement, Michael Behe, even claimed that astrology meets his criteria for what counts as a scientific theory.

"The only difference between the two. Is that TBBT follows an empiricist way of thinking. While ID follows the neoplatonic mode of thought. In modern society we have been heavily emphasized the empirical philosophy, and decided to ignore other schools of philosophy. "

Which is why it's abject nonsense to claim that big bang theory is *as* scientific as ID. The Big Bang theory is a can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested hypotheses, ID does none of these things because as you even admit it rejects the scientific method and whole scientific enterprise, even though it claims to be "looking for evidence". You can't "look for evidence" while rejecting empirical testing. The "evidence" being looked for is nothing more than so-called holes in Darwinian evolution, and when these holes are found they insert themselves as the default correct explanation.

"In modern society we have been heavily emphasized the empirical philosophy, and decided to ignore other schools of philosophy. "

Because science has a long record of generating new knowledge and modifying past knowledge and has provided a means of measuring its explanations against the real world, no school of speculative philosophy has such a record which is why they're not used.

"Would you suggest that we should not learn about Aristotle? His ideas after all are the foundation of ID after all."

We shouldn't accept Aristolean ideas about the universe as fact, that's for sure, because they've been conclusively demonstrated to be false.

"An examination of the nature of the world, from which one looks backwards for a source. "

What ID does is make false analogies with human design of artifacts and engage in pure unsubstantiated assertion making, simply inserting design as the "default". The fact is that ID claims of "irreducible complexity" have been conclusively demonstrated to be false in peer reviewed scientific journals, and that when closely examined, systems that have been given this designation aren't irreducibly complex at all. Again, ID has such a dismal record of substantiating its attacks on Darwinism, and fails to construct a positive case for ID of any merit, why should it be given equal time with Darwinian evolution? Are we simply to believe that every aspect of knowledge is up in the air and because of this any speculation whatsoever should be given air time? Is there no criteria whatsoever for discarding speculative hypotheses in the classroom? Are we so lacking in our knowledge base that everything is fair game? Shouldn't we at least demand that ID meet the same rigors as actual scientific theories when getting this kind of attention, since they certainly don't get to jump in line after a long record of failure. Or should we just give ID special treatment because of the sensitivity of the religious community?

" So you can weigh the pros and cons of each argument. "

But again this is a false equivalence. Not every argument is equally valid. Indeed to call some things "arguments" is a complete equivocation since some so-called arguments have a robust and rigorously tested record of substantiation and others are nothing but nonsense that somebody concocted out of whole cloth. To engage in this kind of false equivalency is going to confuse students and undermine the accumulation of knowledge, not to mention be a waste of curriculum time that could be better spent elsewhere. It's a criminal act when you consider how lagging America and probably Canada is in scientific education.

"Obviously you weren't taught in a fashion that promotes this freedom of exploration and thought. But I will tell you this, in countries that are not America we do teach alternatives to every single theory you mentioned."

Really, so what are the controversies in germ theory being taught in Canada?

What a waste of time. What an insufferable burden you place on your teachers, what confusion you bring down on your poor students. All in the guise of "freedom of thought". As if "freedom of thought" means destroying the meritocracy of knowledge, in which claims and arguments require substantiation. Does your legal system do the same thing? Does unsubstantiated nonsense = substantiated claims in the name of 'freedom of thought'?

You can have philosophical debates in philosophy classrooms. They don't belong in science classrooms.