Creationism taught in school?

[evilregis]

Anything that has mass can bend light. Stars, being extremely dense bend light far more than less dense objects. Except for the most massive objects, the gravitational effects are negligible and immeasurable. They've used gravitational lensing to take some of the furthest pictures into the universe that we have. Black holes, on the other hand, trap light and are so dense that it cannot escape it once it's within the black hole's event horizon.

If you were to squeeze the contents of Earth into a diameter smaller than 1.8cm (0.7 inches) it would become a black hole. A human would have to be condensed to a size much much smaller than an atom to become a black hole.

[Spiral]

This is an interesting thread, I have no problem with the idea of creationism being taught in school, but don't teach it as "God" created the world in 7 days. If you teach the idea of a greater power creating the universe, then allow the students to come to their own conclusions about the identity of the greater power, nobody will be angry.

Its the idea of forcefeeding religion to children that is what I'd have a problem with.

[John Scott]

The missing link

Some people doubt whether the neodarwinistic theory of evolution can provide an explanation beyond any doubt for the great changes in evolution. An example of such a great change is the coming into being of mammals from reptiles. Other people assume that it is possible. At present there is a lack of data for many of these kind of considerable changes. These are the so-called missing links. Further research produce more and more data, but there are still many missing links that could be used as counter arguments for evolution.
The head start of man

The neodarwinistic evolution theory also cannot explain why mankind has such a head start on all other animals. By far man is the most intelligent animal on earth. The smarter or stronger an animal is, the less enemies it has. If an animal barely has any enemies, the law of "survival of the fittest" is not applicable anymore and the species will not evolve as long as this head start remains.

Indeed an interesting topic.

Its the idea of forcefeeding religion to children that is what I'd have a problem with.

I doubt that will ever happen in public schools. I think the creationism they refer to is the possibility of the universe being created by design, that is, created by an intelligent being. Not in a religious sense. The extreme complexity of organisms seems to strongly indicate creation by design.

It's been said many times that the Big Bang theory fails to create life. Explosions occur all the time, and most often result in death, and not once in the history of the universe has an explosion resulted in the creation of even a simple life form.

[G10]

Originally Posted by evilregis

Anything that has mass can bend light. Stars, being extremely dense bend light far more than less dense objects. Except for the most massive objects, the gravitational effects are negligible and immeasurable. They've used gravitational lensing to take some of the furthest pictures into the universe that we have. Black holes, on the other hand, trap light and are so dense that it cannot escape it once it's within the black hole's event horizon.

If you were to squeeze the contents of Earth into a diameter smaller than 1.8cm (0.7 inches) it would become a black hole. A human would have to be condensed to a size much much smaller than an atom to become a black hole.

I agree with this evilregis.

They say that even time can not escape from within this which means that time could actually stand still.

Science can not properly determine what happens to an object when it goes into a black hole, they can only theorise the results (though I am not disputing them).

Until we/science understands the workings of something like this and everything else out there, the big bang etc is just a theory.

As for the idea of forcing religion on children, can't see this happening too much as there are so many different beliefs and there would be a massive outcry from angered parents as to why their child is having another belief forced upon them.

[evilregis]

Just to be a prick, though I understand what John was saying, I could say that that last statement is false. It's just that this is a very cool thing to me, and it was as good a segue as a guy could ask for. Explosions have created the strongest, most intelligent life forms, as well as the simplest.

The carbon that we and other life are built from and the iron that carries the oxygen in our blood was created when a star exploded and scattered those atoms throughout the cosmos.

We're literally made from dead stars. Fascinating thought to me.

[littleFella]

In general I like your post but there are some problems with it.

• You assume that creationism inevitably leads to the Biblical creationism. This narrows the dispute to Christianity.
• The age of the universe (proven or not) does not require creationism to be wrong. The Bible is only one of the creationist allegories.
• There are lines of thoughts based on scientific methods leading to creationism as the only plausible explanation of the Beginning of the Universe.
• You put creationism and science opposite each other and judge both on the basis that if one is right then the other must be wrong.
• You assume that for God to exist he must be good.
• By saying “I believe science can demonstrate that the chances of an accidental Universe are infinitely small” you demonstrate just another belief, not a scientific fact. After all science has not demonstrated the “infinite smallness” yet. Therefore, you follow one belief, but reject the other. Not to mention that infinitely small is not the same as zero.
• The science of Christmas pudding (or any pudding for that matter) is actually pretty damn valid science; lots of chemistry going on there

What you neglect to mention, or stress rather, is that the age of the physical Universe is very significant in the pro-creationist argument. It is also important to mention that science deals with the physical Universe, not with the Supernatural, i.e. that which exists (or may exist) outside the realm of the physical.

Since the physical Universe has a determined age it follows that it must have a beginning. It is not just a logical trick. This is actually supported by the laws of thermodynamics and can be calculated on most handheld calculators. Specifically by the 3rd Law, known also as law Entropy suggests that such calculation is possible. Based on that law, we must reject the notion that the physical Universe always existed, because if the universe always existed it would necessarily have to be in the state of entropy right now. It obviously isn't, therefore it had a beginning in time, calculated to be somewhere between 13 and 15 B years, give or take a billion, plus minus a Planck constant or two.

Now, if the Universe did have a beginning, then there was a time when it didn’t exist. What made it come to being? Whatever it was it couldn’t have been of physical nature since we already established that the physical didn’t even exist. Therefore the beginning of the Universe is Supernatural, i.e. not physical, as physics does not allow nothing to turn into something. Some experiments with Quarks offered hope to materialists. Initially they concluded that quarks can pop-up out of nothing. Well, experiments showed they can't.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the Biblical God, or the Hindu Gods, or other creatures equated with the divine are responsible for the existence of the Universe . But it does mean that physical science, by its very currently accepted definition, method and subject of research may never be able offer the answer as to who/what made everything “be”.

There is also another problem with science - creationism plagued by it too. They both use a language created by those who chose to use it. It’s a language that is not necessarily objective. For instance in science, I find it difficult to reconcile the notion of 0 (zero) with a lack of its representation in the Universe. There is no known equivalent of 0 in the physical universe, and yet 0 is one of the tools used to describe it. How's that for a nice taint of dogma in science

OK, I hope I didn't make it harder than it reaaly apears to me

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by evilregis

Just to be a prick, though I understand what John was saying, I could say that that last statement is false. It's just that this is a very cool thing to me, and it was as good a segue as a guy could ask for. Explosions have created the strongest, most intelligent life forms, as well as the simplest.

The carbon that we and other life are built from and the iron that carries the oxygen in our blood was created when a star exploded and scattered those atoms throughout the cosmos.

We're literally made from dead stars. Fascinating thought to me.

Even if I grant that explosions created carbon, oxygen, and and PC chips, it still isn't life. In fact, we can't even create life in the labs, much less create it from explosions.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Even if I grant that explosions created carbon, oxygen, and and PC chips, it still isn't life. In fact, we can't even create life in the labs, much less create it from explosions.

Even if they haven't they are damn close to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2122619.stm

[ferret77]

An example of such a great change is the coming into being of mammals from reptiles. Other people assume that it is possible. At present there is a lack of data for many of these kind of considerable changes. These are the so-called missing links.

I could of sworn in college when I took anthropology they taught us that we came from apes. I thought there was pretty clear fossil record. Although I devoted much more time trying to getting drunk and trying to hook up with dance majors(serious ballet dancers are amazing) then studying

apes with big brains( and skulls) reproduced more, survived more , children had to be born less developed due to the cranial size, slowing lengthening child rearing to the present length now. Much longer then "apes"

Actually some they think some of the missing lineages of apes might be from us eating them. Early man was sort of carnivorous, they also think that we were scavengers at one point, stealing kills from other animals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1108413.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/999030.stm

I think from an actually DNA stand point we are more closely related to chimpanzees then chimpanzees are related to gorillas

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3042781.stm

Creationism or intelligent design should be taught in philosophy or religion class. There is no scientific proof for it.

[Atom]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Even if they haven't they are damn close to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2122619.stm

I've read the article but I do not agree with your statement. The reason is because there was no mention of how close scientists were, or even if they were close at all, to agreeing that a virus is life.

side note: That's a very interesting post your #66 one there. I've read it several times and am going to read it again.

[gorillaboy]

If you folks could see me you'd be quite positive we came from apes.

On a semi-related note:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6733240

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by Atom

I've read the article but I do not agree with your statement. The reason is because there was no mention of how close scientists were, or even if they were close at all, to agreeing that a virus is life.

You kinda got it right. It would also follow that if we find life on Mars we will be arguing whether it is life indeed

quote from the article:

Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive. For those that think it is, then this synthetic artefact would constitute a simple form of life.

As the quote shows, so much for science because even science is a mater of belief.

Years ago, while unpacking in a hotel room I caught a glimpse of a program on TV. One interesting thing they said was that even in science one starts with a belief. You can't invent a plane unless you believe a bunch of steel can fly, contrary to the obvious observations that it can't .

Sure, once you make it fly you will be able to find any number of scientific reasons why it does, but the same could be said about the existence of God. We haven't founda scientific proof yet, but if we do, then suddenly it may become obvious that all math and physics and chemistry clearly prooves that God exists. It's just that at this point all the science is not equipped for this task yet.

Of course we may never find the answer either, and the fact that science cannot disprove the existence of God doesn't mean that God exists.

This is when art for arts sake comes to play. Not the destination, but the travel is what makes things interesting.

Originally Posted by Atom

side note: That's a very interesting post your #66 one there. I've read it several times and am going to read it again.

So am I. Still struggling with all these things myself

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

Even if they haven't they are damn close to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2122619.stm

Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. And if they had created life from scratch, I'm sure there would be no doubt about it.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by gorillaboy

If you folks could see me you'd be quite positive we came from apes.

A few weeks ago they showed a monkey after a surgery. When the creature become healthy again it could not walk on all fours anymore. The only way it moved around was in an upright position, just like humans do. The doctors said that must have resulted from some brain damage during the operation.

Doesn't say much about human kind, does it ?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by littleFella

You kinda got it right. It would also follow that if we find life on Mars we will be arguing whether it is life indeed

quote from the article:

Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive. For those that think it is, then this synthetic artefact would constitute a simple form of life.

As the quote shows, so much for science because even science is a mater of belief.

Years ago, while unpacking in a hotel room I caught a glimpse of a program on TV. One interesting thing they said was that even in science one starts with a belief. You can't invent a plane unless you believe a bunch of steel can fly, contrary to the obvious observations that it can't .

Sure, once you make it fly you will be able to find any number of scientific reasons why it does, but the same could be said about the existence of God. We haven't founda scientific proof yet, but if we do, then suddenly it may become obvious that all math and physics and chemistry clearly prooves that God exists. It's just that at this point all the science is not equipped for this task yet.

Of course we may never find the answer either, and the fact that science cannot disprove the existence of God doesn't mean that God exists.

This is when art for arts sake comes to play. Not the destination, but the travel is what makes things interesting.



So am I. Still struggling with all these things myself

I think we've gotten off topic here. The point of the lscience_can't_make_life observation is to say that, if we can't engineer it with all the technology we have, what are the odds of life randomly occuring in an explosion?

Empiracally speaking, the odds are ZERO. That is to say, documented history to date shows not a single instance of an explosion creating life. All life on this planet, even according to the evolutionists, came from one original life. All life forms in existence are mutations of that original life.

Odd concept to think that such an extremely complex thing as life happened as the result of a random explosion of matter which did not exist.

[Atom]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

Odd concept to think that such an extremely complex thing as life happened as the result of a random explosion of matter which did not exist.

I have always thought this an extremely odd concept, myself.

Magic with no magician ... hard for me to phathom that one, must be because of all those God stories I've heard. Maybe I'm just brainwashed... yeah, that's it.

[littleFella]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

I think we've gotten off topic here. The point of the lscience_can't_make_life observation is to say that, if we can't engineer it with all the technology we have, what are the odds of life randomly occuring in an explosion?

I don't think this is proper reasoning. The fact that we can't produce something, doesn't mean that it canot be produced by nature (or universe, or whatever else other than us). We can't produce gold, or any number of chemical compunds naturally occuring in the universe, and yet they do occur in the universe. Our inabilities may be permament, or they may be temporary. Just like with electricity. It's been around the universe forever, and yet humans learned to generate and use itnot such a long time ago.