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I was a Southern Baptist deacon and Sunday School teacher, even preached in substitute at a small church twice , in church every Sunday week in and week out for decades , until about 10 yrs ago. One of ( but not the only ) the major things that made me question it all was the complete lack of honesty regarding the conflict between science and conservative evangelical beliefs. More lies were told than I could stomach, not only about what evolution supposedly said, but lies in the rebuttals to evolution , along with lies about those believing in evolution, including atheists and agnostics. I finally decided that a belief that dealt in so much deception could not be true as a whole even if some parts of it were OK. I refer here to conservative evangelical Christianity, and not the other strains like Catholicism and Orthodoxy , or more mainline and moderate Christian groups.
I have since learned that many in the other forms of Christianity regard this part of it as either an aberrant and warped form of Christianity, or simply dont regard it as real Christianity.
We have similar backgrounds, wallflash. I wasn't a deacon, but I was a licensed Southern Baptist minister and preached in a good three score different churches and had a short stint as an interim pastor. The evolution ideas didn't bother me as much as the development through the years of the anti-gay and anti-women philosophy which has permeated the denomination since about the mid-eighties. I left their critical nature about 20 years ago and have never regretted anything but the old southern gospel music which we used to sing.
The intransigentcy of many members who couldn't see beyond the sacred page began to weigh upon me. It is amazing, literally amazing how people who accept science concerning medical and chemical discoveries, many with no more evidence than that of evolution, will ingest things into their bodies which may or may not be in their best interest, yet will reject how close we are aligned to apes and chimps--by evolution.
In my college days at a Southern Baptist college they still allowed our geology teacher, a committed christian, to teach about how many billions of years old the earth is. Now it is taught as a theory competing against YEC.
We have similar backgrounds, wallflash. I wasn't a deacon, but I was a licensed Southern Baptist minister and preached in a good three score different churches and had a short stint as an interim pastor. The evolution ideas didn't bother me as much as the development through the years of the anti-gay and anti-women philosophy which has permeated the denomination since about the mid-eighties. I left their critical nature about 20 years ago and have never regretted anything but the old southern gospel music which we used to sing.
The demonization of gays is one of the other reasons I left. I understand and accept their opposition even though I don't agree with it , but in the last church I was in , before I literally got up and walked out in the middle of a service and told my wife I would meet her at the car afterwards, almost every sermon every week worked around to the gays and how they were destroying America. It became the preachers ace in the hole if his sermon wasn't going well. Bash the gays, and the amens from the congregation began to roll.
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In my college days at a Southern Baptist college they still allowed our geology teacher, a committed christian, to teach about how many billions of years old the earth is. Now it is taught as a theory competing against YEC.
The intransigents won.
Take heart, they may be circling the wagons in some places and digging in , but this is the statement on evolution from Baylor University, which , as you know, is the flagship university of the Southern Baptists and the largest Baptist university in the world:
"Evolution, a foundational principle of modern biology, is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence and is accepted by the vast majority of scientists. Because it is fundamental to the understanding of modern biology, the faculty in the Biology Department at Baylor University, Waco, TX, teach evolution throughout the biology curriculum. We are in accordance with the American Association for Advancement of Science's statement on evolution. We are a science department, so we do not teach alternative hypotheses or philosophically deduced theories that cannot be tested rigorously."
Intelligence and education is winning out, even if slowly in some areas. As was noted by someone else, creationism's last real bastion of strength is in the US , most specifically in the very area of the country where their own flagship university made the above statement.
Seriously, brother, try harder and pay closer attention. Tunguska was an event about which there are hypotheses . . . NOT a scientific THEORY. The use of theory in common parlance is misleading. The status of scientific THEORY is NOT predicated on single events and does not rely on experimentation alone. Your idea that only experimental evidence can produce a theory is false. It is the scientific method of observation and accumulation of consistent evidence across multiple disciplines and types of evidence that eventually provides sufficient support for a full-blown scientific THEORY, like evolution.
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Originally Posted by DRob4JC
I never said the bold. I said the exact opposite. I said shortcuts are taken at times.
Theories that result from observation does not necessarily mean they are true.
This essentially says the bold, DRob. It implies that only observations derived from experimental evidence qualify as evidence sufficient to establish a theory, which is false. There are no shortcuts taken in establishing a scientific THEORY, DRob. What you are referring to are hypothetical explanations, NOT well-supported THEORIES.
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Evolution, to the point where people originated from another species, has never taken place.
We did not develop FROM another species, we are a NEWER evolved form of the original species (primate), as are our cousins, the chimps, apes, orangutans, etc.
I read his words, they just don't apply to your point. Ive read numerous in depth books on Einstein ( guys like Einstein, Sagan, Hawking, De Grasse being favorite subjects of mine ), and am currently reading one in which his spirituality is expressed in his own words on various topics. No where does he support any beliefs you put forth here, yet you mistakenly quote him for support.
And no, not much else to say if you are so confused that you don't really understand where Einstein stood on religion and evolution. I suggest you take the time to learn more about what you speak of before speaking.
I QUOTED HIM. What you choose to do with it is on no import to me. Honest people will receive it honestly and those who aren't will equivocate about it.
He also said this about atheists;
“The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ — cannot hear the music of the spheres.”
Well, it's clearly what I thought you were asking. Your exact words were, "How old would Adam have been measured by our current technology, on the first day of his existence?" I answered your question the way I interpreted it.
Oh really? You've got that kind of insight into other people's hearts, huh? Man, you are really something.
Or, what you purport to. Bottom line is you avoid directly answering twice now.
I have the Holy Spirit, and He knows all.
1 Cor 2:14; The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
I QUOTED HIM. What you choose to do with it is on no import to me. Honest people will receive it honestly and those who aren't will equivocate about it.
He also said this about atheists;
“The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ — cannot hear the music of the spheres.”
No need to add anything further.
Yeah!
IN! HIS! FACE!
No need indeed - you done the deed.
You da' man, Stanley!
(I feel terrible though, that through an unfortunate misunderstanding - when I said true things and frightened him into ignoring me - Stanley is unable to appreciate my apparent praise. I'll get over it, though. Most likely by the time I hit "Submit Reply.")
I QUOTED HIM. What you choose to do with it is on no import to me. Honest people will receive it honestly and those who aren't will equivocate about it.
He also said this about atheists;
“The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ — cannot hear the music of the spheres.”
No need to add anything further.
So you quoted him. Congratulations. The fact that you found yourself capable of such doesn't mean what you quoted has any application to your point, or that you even understand what you quoted, as is the case for so many Christians who quote Einstein, not realizing he was not a theist at all , and certainly not Christian , but was more of a pantheist and thus is regarded as being in Hell by the very people who quote him to support their theistic positions.
Let's make sure we understand Einstein's "belief" system. It was closer to the pantheistic views of Spinoza.
If you had bothered to do even a small amount of research you might have found this from his Autobiographical Notes. He both gained and lost the Jewish faith of his childhood:
Einstein was a confirmed agnostic, although he flat out rejected atheism as he did the idea of a "personal" god.
When it comes to science, not many even today could top Einstein in mathematical calculations. But if you wish to quote someone standing up for Jesus---well, he is in no way your guy--or mine either.
So you believe he didn't MEAN what he said? Do you think he was NOT able to properly express himself?
I never claimed he was a Christian, I just quoted what he said in response to the particular issue being made. Some have said; Einstein’s religion, if you have to put a label to it, is a sort of nebulous Deism: Maybe God played in role in creating the universe — because nature inspires such awe and the universe seems perfectly guided by mathematics — but that God has no direct affect on our lives today.
Einstein himself said; A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
Now if you want to treat this as a philosophy, then take it to the philosophy thread. My point is that one of the smartest people ever confirmed God, and those that claim low IQ or lack of knowledge is a commonality in YEC's, they are just as simple minded as they claim believers to be.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Originally Posted by StanJP
So you believe he didn't MEAN what he said? Do you think he was NOT able to properly express himself?
I never claimed he was a Christian, I just quoted what he said in response to the particular issue being made. Some have said; Einstein’s religion, if you have to put a label to it, is a sort of nebulous Deism: Maybe God played in role in creating the universe — because nature inspires such awe and the universe seems perfectly guided by mathematics — but that God has no direct affect on our lives today.
Einstein himself said; A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
Now if you want to treat this as a philosophy, then take it to the philosophy thread. My point is that one of the smartest people ever confirmed God, and those that claim low IQ or lack of knowledge is a commonality in YEC's, they are just as simple minded as they claim believers to be.
This is probably Einstein's final, late life view of religion:
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text."
Let's recap:
God is only an expression of human weakness
Bible only primitive legends
Pretty well nails it.
Stephen Hawkins, who arguably is at least Einstein's equal if not superior in intellect, has no use for a god figure.
In 2011, he told The Guardian that he didn't believe in a heaven or an afterlife, calling it "a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." In 2007, he told the BBC that he was "not religious in the normal sense," adding, "I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."
And, most telling:
"Before we understood science, it was natural to believe that God created the universe, but now science offers a more convincing explanation"
So, the most eminent minds in the world agree... no god.
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