Religion and Science in the Classroom

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Atheism isn't believing the Christian God doesn't exist. It is the belief that no deity exists anywhere. So, again, that requires a specific definition of what a deity is, and it can't just be the Biblical one.

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How can you specifically describe something that you don't believe exists?

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Originally Posted by Nick

I find militant atheists to be quite obnoxious and misguided overall. It's not like we have a mandate to "save" anyone. That's the other side.

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An interesting side note, but this is why religion should be taught in a somewhere in school. The religion of our ancestors primes/biases the way we think. Even if we don't believe in those specific gods, it can give us insight into our own societal constructs.

An atheist has zero reasons to tell him he should 'save' others from the way they think. But that is the narrative of the culture we're born into. We're conditioned to think we should.

For real progress, people need to be able to identify just how deep this stuff runs so they can fully break away from it (if that is their goal).

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Originally Posted by Dolemite

How can you specifically describe something that you don't believe exists?

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How can you believe something you can't describe doesn't exist? I'm talking about characteristics it would have to have, were it to be discovered, to be considered a deity.

Deity is pretty relative. Our ancestors from 3000-4000 years ago would probably think we're gods. A dozen or more things we do each day would appear as miracles to them.

Hell, take headaches for example. Have a headache? Take a pill and it goes away. Oh but we have science and industry to make that possible? Isn't that kind of amazing too? That some how a few million hairless apes are working together across a planet to figure their bodies out, figure chemistry out, plan production, build factories, etc, just so you can get rid of a headache in 5-10 minutes?

We live in an age of wonder. I kind of hate that we placed so much importance on miracles and magic for so long because it has really made us jaded. We experience wonderful things everyday, but we don't care because it isn't magic. We've been set up to think that things that can be understood are less amazing than what can be understood.

or you know, pretty much this:

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

Deity is pretty relative. Our ancestors from 3000-4000 years ago would probably think we're gods. A dozen or more things we do each day would appear as miracles to them.

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That's exactly the point I am making. However one defines deity, there is a significant chance we will one day become or encounter a being that would meet that definition. Therefore, believing deities to be an impossibility is absolutely no different than believing in the Christian God. It's myopic and anti-scientific. The source of the deity's power being science does not discount its status.

Crap, one day we might meet aliens and find out we were made in a lab. That we 'were made in their image' (image being a modified version of their own DNA and science).

In 100-200 years, we will probably be able to do everything we ascribe to a god. Hell, even the christian God. We can listen and watch everything people do, now. We're getting really close to being able to cure tons of stuff with stem cells. We're getting really close to being able to turn off the aging process. One day we'll probably get to where we can make copies of the mind, and if you die, bring you back by imprinting your memory onto a clone or body blank. We can already fly. We can already kill with a word. We can burn and smite the earth several times over.

The zeus odin bible God that everyone wants to believe in probably doesn't exist. But a species that could do everything we ascribe to God? We're doing like a 1/4-1/3 of that now. We just don't see it as a miracle because we have the ability to understand it

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Originally Posted by Nick

Tell you what, if you go back and repost what you've said so that it says exactly what you want to convey, we can talk about your other points. You've made several and I'm not enamored of wasting time watching wriggling when the meaning should have been precise in the first place.

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Sorry, just got back from the burn trauma center.

But in all seriousness, I feel like my reply covered what I wanted to say. It's cool if you don't feel that way - in the end, you're not religious so it's sort of dumb to be combative against you about this stuff.

rezo's post was also pretty damned awesome.

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

Crap, one day we might meet aliens and find out we were made in a lab. That we 'were made in their image' (image being a modified version of their own DNA and science).

In 100-200 years, we will probably be able to do everything we ascribe to a god. Hell, even the christian God. We can listen and watch everything people do, now. We're getting really close to being able to cure tons of stuff with stem cells. We're getting really close to being able to turn off the aging process. One day we'll probably get to where we can make copies of the mind, and if you die, bring you back by imprinting your memory onto a clone or body blank. We can already fly. We can already kill with a word. We can burn and smite the earth several times over.

The zeus odin bible God that everyone wants to believe in probably doesn't exist. But a species that could do everything we ascribe to God? We're doing like a 1/4-1/3 of that now. We just don't see it as a miracle because we have the ability to understand it

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Yep. You nailed it.

Yeah, Professor Cheeks is dropping some deep-thought on us all right now.

To take what he said one more step, several ancient civilizations had technology seemingly far beyond their means. Is it not possible that they really did encounter said being? That would get back to modern man not being as advanced or knowledgeable as we like to lie to ourselves about being.