UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

[Reincarnate]

it's not too late disclaimer: don't actually do it

[choof]

the only time I've been in a mormon church was to play basketball

[Tidus810]

Originally Posted by choof

the only time I've been in a mormon church was to play basketball

like the wnba, but with more unwarranted smiling


btw reuben, what about my post? I wouldn't mind a reply.

[reuben_tate]

Originally Posted by Tidus810

btw reuben, what about my post? I wouldn't mind a reply.

I'm done in this thread. My Skype is on my ffr profile so anyone can chat with me there if they wish.

[Mollocephalus]

lol

[reuben_tate]

I am a devout pastafarian.

[Tidus810]

I'm pretty sure one of the main purposes behind the FSM is to point out how arbitrary the typical depiction of a higher deity is. ie, Christians love to picture a white Jesus with well-groomed hair in an angelic robe, and a God the 'father' who looks similar. This is obviously not the same way people around the world might picture their deity/deities, so it's kind of an arbitrary depiction to make people feel all warm and fuzzy about it, and to make these characters more relatable. So whoever came up with the FSM was (probably) trying to say "hey, since we don't know what God actually looks like (assuming there is one), he could, in theory, be some giant monster made out of spaghetti and meatballs! You have no way to refute that, so let's keep it within the realm of possibility." (or what spitfire just said lol)

So yeah, it's arbitrary in that it didn't come into being the same way that traditional religion did, but its point still stands. Plus, people who ascribe to 'pastafarianism' do it for the giggles they get from poking fun at religion; they don't do it because they actually believe that there is some Italian dish-based God out there in need of worship.

[Nullifidian]

Isn't that convenient huh

[reuben_tate]

You don't want to waste your time with someone as stupid as myself.

[dAnceguy117]

regardless of who is "winning" the argument here, a lot of the posters have been far from civil. you prob won't have much luck reaching whomever you're responding to if you're gonna be mean about it.

being mean is unhelpful

[Mollocephalus]

Originally Posted by dAnceguy117

being mean is unhelpful

thanks for ur input mr sweetycakes

[Charu]

I went to church before as a kid.

I still faintly remember 2 old guys every time going from person to person and shaking a little pot full of quarters.

[xVaLoRx]

but how can we be sure that reuben_tate is on the other end of the skype chat and not the flying spaghetti monster????

[Nullifidian]

That would've been an excellent question if you incorporated invisible dragons instead of the flying spaghetti monster.

[xVaLoRx]

yeah man u already told me on skype


or maybe an invisible dragon told me... ??? the world may never know

[FoJaR]

byu single and married wards are both terrible

[stargroup100]

You know what the problem is here? Smart people who can't seem to see eye-to-eye.

On one end you have someone who believes what he believes is obvious, and who thinks that it's justified to insult a stupid person as being stupid because he is by definition stupid.

On the other hand, you have someone smart who is looking at it from a slightly different perspective and trying to explain an entirely different point, and who thinks that someone stupid insulting his intelligence is too stupid to understand his point and therefore ignores him.

Clearly we're not getting anywhere. I understand that the "rational community" and academia generally agree that creationism is a load of crap (and I agree). What makes creationism harmful is when it's being used to propagate false information, promote arbitrary principle and standards, and suppress scientific growth. Reuben's point does not pertain to any of this, and in a sense there are "naturalistic" qualities to his arguments, despite the mention of a higher deity.

My dad actually has what could be argued as a creationism belief. He sees God as the "unknown." He doesn't believe in God the way other people do. When I asked to describe the God he believes in, he says he can't, because that's pretty much the point. Humans are able to create inventions and various things that could create systems that have certain degrees of complexity and can be analyzed and explored (computation, economics, etc), but all of these systems exist within a natural world which has systems of its own (chemistry, biology, physics, etc). He's simply arguing that even though he accepts that complex objects can arise from simple rules and develop naturally, they still arise from these rules and systems, which are attributed to this God. He doesn't think this God necessarily (and probably doesn't) has human-like traits, such as morals, but is simply a force outside of the universe that gave some sort of "meaning" to the systems within ours. Obviously he acknowledges there is no evidence for his belief, and does not impose this idea or treat it as fact, and certainly does not use it to influence his perception on real world issues and reality. He's incredibly smart and wise, and yet this is arguably a form of creationism.

This could be what reuben was trying to explain, that there exist rational interpretations of a creationism explanation of the universe. We are looking at creationism as being unfalsifiable and therefore insufficient as justification for any real world result, but what he's talking about is more idealistic. Some of you here like Spitfire don't see this and discredit and insult him, which is wrong in principle, but reuben isn't understanding that the FSM argument is actually addressing a lot of things he's talking about, and in the context of science education this is almost irrelevant anyways, which is sort of wrong because it could be just a consequence of ignorance.

This is quite a nice example of why it's so hard for smart people of differing views to get along, and why it's difficult to even distinguish sometimes between smart and not-so-smart people and their views. I don't think anyone that has passionately discussed the issue in this thread is stupid, but we really need to work on understanding each other better.