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No, the thread is about religion and science. I'm just proof that science and religion are not mutually exclusive as some are trying to claim. I'm also a teacher and I've seen hundreds of students and see no evidence that religion stops kids from learning science. I have seen kids with strong religious beliefs do well in science and seen kids who are atheists flunk my class. I see laziness and lack of interest stopping kids from learning science. From my vantage point, I see that our kids just don't do hard. They do not value learning for learning's sake. They don't value an education. An education is a means to an end. A ticket to a job. They're into ticket punching.
No this isn't about me but I am an example of the fact that religion an science are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they can play quite well together. Throughout the years almost everyone I've known in science has had strong religious beliefs. I've met a few who didn't but most did.
Also, one must consider just what percent of the population has strong religious beliefs. Let's say it's 50% and that those who claim that religion stands in the way of learning science are right. My question to you is what's stopping the other 50%?
The premise of this thread is badly flawed.
As I've said, as a teacher I do not see religion stopping kids from learning science. I see laziness stopping them. I see the self esteem movement as having created kids who are unwilling to take chances. If you don't take chances you won't learn science. Science is hard. We don't do hard. I'm not seeing the proof that that religious beliefs are the culprit here. I can personally name half a dozen chemists who are Christians who are very good at what they do. Being a former chemical engineer, I happen to know more people in the sciences and I do not see religion as being the stumbling block that some here are claiming it is. I used to attend a church of 300 members where I was one of about 50 scientists or engineers who were members. Why so many? Because there are lots of jobs for scientists and engineers here...well there were back then. Show me your proof that religion stands in the way of learning science. I'm not seeing it. I see laziness as being a far bigger problem.
This thread is about people that believe the earth is 6,000 years old. Not about people with religious beliefs, or even strong religious beliefs, or Christians in general.
People that believe the earth is only 6,000 years old eschew science by definition. Your hypothesis that God created a whole old earth with laws and then for some reason wrote a totally contradictory creation story just to confuse everyone notwithstanding.
I'm glad Finn up there figured that it's actually closer to 10%. That makes more sense. And is quite the relief to me.
You'd be lucky to get 6,000 Americans who care how old the earth is.
They can't even recognize the vice president.
You can even pass binding legislation without telling them what was in it.
It matters not how old the earth is as most simply believe what they are taught to believe.
If facts were the saving grace, there would be no overweight people trying to figure out how to lose weight. How to lose weight has been known for more than 6,ooo years and yet there are frustrated overweight people.
Then of course you have the literal and figurative folks who will never understand each other and could never give each other understandable driving directions to the nearest Dairy Queen.
There seems to be a stunning disconnect when the topic of religion enters ANY situation. You can take people who are totally succesful in their private and employed lives, people who employ common sense, logic, and reason to get through their day and achieve the great things they have in life, and the minute you bring up the Bible and their literal belief in it, it's like a switch shuts off in their brains. All of a sudden, blind faith is the name of the game, and anyone who doubts is an enemy of God. The common sense, logic, and reason they employ in every other aspect of their daily lives that has made them successful suddenly has no bearing when religion enters the equation. Critical thought is obsolete. REPENT OR BURN!!!
Funny .... from a completely objective point of view, the hostility and vitriol is almost always directed AT the religious, FROM the non-religious. And the tactics and straw man arguments abound, just like this thread's premise that assumes all or most religious people believe in the young earth theory. The truth is, I've never actually met a person that believed or promoted such a thing, though there is little doubt some do, I suspect it is a very small percentage. Some may even be liberal god haters pretending to believe in the young earth theory to ridicule religion ... because that's how dishonest the dogmatic god haters often are.
As the other poster suggested, religion and science aren't mutually exclusive, except in the dogmatic mindsets of extremists who are usually of the religion hating variety. And believe me, the posture is nothing short of irrational hatred from such types. I mean, these are the same people who find the public display of a christmas tree to be a greater threat than the bubonic plague.
Furthermore, they seem to be disconnected with the basic logic that they claim the relgious side lacks, by insinuating that there is no such thing as a scientist who believes in creation or inelligent design. When someone comes forth to prove otherwise, they conveniently declare them to not be real scientists ... LOL ... a true "heads I win, tails you lose" game.
It is my firm position that a true scientist unencumbered with ideological-philosophical prejudice would be forced to concede that the origin of life is not known, and has not been explained in purely matterial science terms. And, those scientists who have a firm grip on mathematical probabilities would dismiss the suggestion that the intricate complexity of self replicating cells, and of DNA and it's code containing the instructions for all of the tasks associated with replication is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be the product of random mixing of inert elements, no matter how long nature's "blender" was allowed to mix away.
Perhaps the most inane position of all comes from those who insist that they see no sign of "design" present in a living cell's structure and operation. Yet, this is a requisite stance for thos who cannot explain how living matter came into existence, but insist on how it could not have been purposeful, but had to be random and quite accidental.
This mindset is akin to someone insisting that MT Rushmore was a result of natural rock erosion, with no indication of deliberately designed intension, and the stark ressemblance of historic men is purely coincidental ..... only, in the case of living matter, a living cell is infintely more complex than faces of US presidents blasted into rock.
LMAO...you must not hang out with your fellow countrymen very much.
This nation has more rubes per square mile than any nation on Earth. I'm actually surprised that the percentage of people that believe it isn't much higher.
LMAO...you must not hang out with your fellow countrymen very much.
This nation has more rubes per square mile than any nation on Earth. I'm actually surprised that the percentage of people that believe it isn't much higher.
Do a poll, and ask if anyone on CD has ever personally met someone who believes the earth is 6,000 years old. This does not include seeing some internet link or hearing about someone, I mean actually have personally met a person, face-to-face, who believes that planet earth is only about 6,000 years old.
For example, I have not needed to know the three branches of government once since I took the test in high school government class. While it was worth learning, because it's good to have an idea how your government works, it's not the end of the world if someone cannot name all three branches. That's really just a jeopardy question.
One of the "basics" that I would recommend would be to know the words of major figures in American history, figures like let's say Abraham Lincoln who said;
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Science vs. ...mysticism and superstition? Anyone can create a "religion" and claim the earth is as old as they want. Heck, I think I will right now, the earth was created in 1959. There is no "proof" that this is not the case. All the people, buildings, civilization and society just were created "as is", by, lets say the flying posta monster. Or by allah. Or god. Or heck, my best friends dog. As long as I accept that on faith, it is every bit as valid as any other religious belief. And you better not fault that, you heretic! I burn you at de stake! (or I kell you, infadel!)
Religion creates a story, and demands it's blind acceptance based on "faith". And often brutally punishes any questioning of that story. Science creates hypothises and demands that they be questioned. And tested via experimental methods to try to prove or disprove that hypothisis. It encourages, in fact the scientific method demands, skepticism and testing to prove a hypothisis.
The religious belief demands that science be ignored. Geologists and hydrologists can measure rates of erosion and can verify by emperical measurement that rivers erode valleys at specific rates. Erosion back 100, 1000, 2000 years has been documented via observation. But wait...at 6000 years ago we throw the data out the window and put our belief in magic? We can observe the effects of glaciers and how they are currently impacting the environment and geology...yet the ice ages never happened since they were over 6000 years ago. We have measured the rates of decay of carbon isotopes...yet carbon dating is thrown out because the same process dates many things to far more than 6000 years ago. Ah, yeah.
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