Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
if you are against higher education you are against education.
And please, do not use dishonest arguments. You are usually better than that.
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Genesis & Science - Friend or Foe?
- Thread starter nPeace
- Start date
And please, do not use dishonest arguments. You are usually better than that.
Yes. I did. It was not a declaration written in a big banner. I never said that. But reading the material available there, it is clear that JW's do not encourage and even discourage higher education.
It is a good thing you are a Professed Christian and would not start shooting accusations out that were unjust and incorrect.
I agree with your assessment on education, but I cannot agree with your optimism on the latter.
It goes against what he believes and is, therefore, bad science.
Why then did you quote so many verses decrying it, calling it foolishness as the "wisdom of man"? Have you changed your mind on the matter and are willing to listen to what comes out of modern scholarship now? Or is it only a premodern JW-approved curriculum which you consider true education?
ecco
Veteran Member
sooda
Veteran Member
Like the Taliban.. Education is a threat.. Same for Boko Haram.
I would say that both mythic and scientific modes of thinking are both "reality-based". They are just different perceptions of reality. As I said before, it is literally different realities the two different spaces create for the participants.
One could think of it in terms of our own personal experiences growing up. It's all the same physical world, but how it is held in mind and experienced amd understood by us at different stages of development in our lives radically changes. The world, or reality, when I was 16 was a radical shift of reality contrasted with when I was 5 years old. And again when I grew into my 20s, then 30s, and so forth. Of course that change was not due solely to biology, because there are plenty of fully mature bodies in their adulthoods who are still 13 years old emotionally, or cognitively, for instance.
As far as the mythic-literal stage goes, I would not call that "faith-based". Faith is a different thing. It doesn't meaning "believing without scientific evidence", which is how it gets distorted in meaning within rationalistic terms, considering it to be part of our history's religious past. Faith exists at all stages of development, including the rationalist stage. Faith, by definition, is not cognitive. It's a heart-based, sense-based, intuitive-based set of eyes.
A good way to understand this is this. The eye of the flesh. The eye of the mind. The eye of the spirit. Each is a different mode of perception, and each of those three modes of knowing are found in each of the stages of development; archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral. Those three are are, in my opinion, the balancing arms of our humanity, in each of the stages of development.
To put that into context, think of those like parts of your own body, like your arms, your waist, and your legs. I practice Taijiquan as a mental, physical, and spiritual discipline. Each of those, body, mind, spirit, are like the arms, waist, and legs. Everything is interconnected, actively engaged, and moves as a whole, each providing counter-balance and structure so the form is light, effortless, and powerful all at once.
It takes far more than just being able to punch really hard (compare this to having a really sharp mind, or science). It takes the centering and grounding of energies (spirit) to focus that movement to exponentially more powerful action than just brute force alone (science).
I'll just share this here because it inspires me, and metaphorically it captures visually what I am saying. I believe we in a modernist world with its enamouration of the sciences, neglects the rest of ourselves, which would otherwise create a more powerful, connected, and dare I say, divine reality for ourselves at this stage of development. Just watch this form and imagine it as how we live our lives in daily life. To do that at this level requires a strong integration of all of these areas of life, body, mind, and spirit.
So back to the mythic stage as a whole. There are plenty operating at the mythic stage who do not have faith at all. The "believers" are using their minds, not their hearts or their intuitions. In fact, this is one of the big problems with religion is that what it is calling faith, is actually just belief.
So the mythic stage is not the faith-stage, which you grow out of and become a rationalist. Faith itself actually has stages of development itself, and someone at the rational stage, may well be at the mythic stage of faith, which is unable to understand the meaning of the symbol apart from the symbol, seeing them as one thing fused together. If it is not true factually, then it has no meaning.
This is what you see within a lot of modern atheist's rejection of religious myths as "just myths". That reflects a stage 2 faith, IMO. "If it's not literally true, it's not true at all". Chart of James Fowler's Stages of Faith | psychologycharts.com
It also disguises itself as faith in the guise of religion.
It's really just simply anti-modernity and pro-traditionalist, and religion is the excuse because of common identity. None of that has to do with actual faith.
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Maybe it might be clearer reading this post I just made here. Genesis & Science - Friend or Foe?
Let me know if you're still confused after reading that, and ask me specifics that don't make sense to you.
Patriottechsan
Member
I apologize if you took it as proselytizing. That never crossed my mind. I only thought of it as a way to let you know you could get free science info from former evolutionist scientist monthly in a free magazine & by email. It was just to let you know it was available if & only if you were interested.
Heck if someone else did the same thing with their info. As long as free. I'd not be offended or feel they crossed a line. Ultimately due to it being free & easy. It's my personal decision if I have the interest to want to take advantage of something I otherwise wouldn't know about.
No harm no foul imho. That's me.
I apologize for offending unintentionally. I just didn't see it that way & still don't. But to each his own. Sadly in today's world its like everyone is so easily offended by things never intended to be. I like being educated. If I can be for free all the better if it's something I freely choose. It's still my choice. Not like having a gun put to my head. How can we learn if we get offended when offered free info on a topic we may or may not want to learn more about. We sure can't if we don't know about it.
I can learn & love to. But one thing I've learned on message boards is this. Most have a strong opinion already. Rarely do you find anyone truly academically honest enough to look at all sides in depth. What I find is most limit their reading to just material that validates their own view & attack others that disagree with an academic superiority complex that's not deserved. Why? Because they've never truly researched the other side.
Here's my example. This is how I first learned about debate & learning. I had a teacher & we had two teams & each of us had a side to debate for. She had told us to learn the other side really well to be fully & best prepared for the debate. That should have tipped us off but didn't.
When time came for the debate. She made us switch sides & debate for the other side instead of the side wed prepared for.
I've never forgotten that lesson. Point is this. I rarely if ever find anyone so committed to fully learning that they know the subject well enough that they could do that. Their bias interferes too strongly. Many times its so strong they refuse to see what's plainly there. Then they blame the other party.
For example, when I give links to things to read. It's rarely if ever read but it's attacked w/o being read.
When I get articles to read & I point out the verbage they use & what that indicates. Instead of dealing with that issue itself. I'm told I just don't know the subject.
In honesty. How objective are most people. They use this as a forum to attack differing opinions but not really open to learn. Why I didn't see offering free info as proselytizing but a way to get further educated on the other side for free if one so choose to.
Heck if someone else did the same thing with their info. As long as free. I'd not be offended or feel they crossed a line. Ultimately due to it being free & easy. It's my personal decision if I have the interest to want to take advantage of something I otherwise wouldn't know about.
No harm no foul imho. That's me.
I apologize for offending unintentionally. I just didn't see it that way & still don't. But to each his own. Sadly in today's world its like everyone is so easily offended by things never intended to be. I like being educated. If I can be for free all the better if it's something I freely choose. It's still my choice. Not like having a gun put to my head. How can we learn if we get offended when offered free info on a topic we may or may not want to learn more about. We sure can't if we don't know about it.
I can learn & love to. But one thing I've learned on message boards is this. Most have a strong opinion already. Rarely do you find anyone truly academically honest enough to look at all sides in depth. What I find is most limit their reading to just material that validates their own view & attack others that disagree with an academic superiority complex that's not deserved. Why? Because they've never truly researched the other side.
Here's my example. This is how I first learned about debate & learning. I had a teacher & we had two teams & each of us had a side to debate for. She had told us to learn the other side really well to be fully & best prepared for the debate. That should have tipped us off but didn't.
When time came for the debate. She made us switch sides & debate for the other side instead of the side wed prepared for.
I've never forgotten that lesson. Point is this. I rarely if ever find anyone so committed to fully learning that they know the subject well enough that they could do that. Their bias interferes too strongly. Many times its so strong they refuse to see what's plainly there. Then they blame the other party.
For example, when I give links to things to read. It's rarely if ever read but it's attacked w/o being read.
When I get articles to read & I point out the verbage they use & what that indicates. Instead of dealing with that issue itself. I'm told I just don't know the subject.
In honesty. How objective are most people. They use this as a forum to attack differing opinions but not really open to learn. Why I didn't see offering free info as proselytizing but a way to get further educated on the other side for free if one so choose to.
What do you wish to debate on? There is a one-one debate section here where I am willing to debate or discuss any topic that you are interested in.
ecco
Veteran Member
I looked at it. I got to this part...
...I skimmed the video.
Bottom line is I see no connection between my life and a guy dancing in slow motion. But I guess that's because I'm really not into woo.
ecco
Veteran Member
Oh, please don't apologize. Your comments continue to be a source of hilarity. And that's true whether I consider your comments to be sincere, in which case it is your views that are funny, or if it's all a put on, in which case your words are funny just like most caricature drawings are funny.
I'm content that the theory of evolution is correct.
You are one of dozens of creationists who cannot tell the gallery why anyone should abandon a system of ideas that unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture - and replace it with a sterile idea that can do none of that, one that can't be used for anything of value.
Answer that, and maybe I'll take an interest in your argument and your resources. Thank you for your interest and offer, but I'm not in the habit of getting my science from creationists or creationist resources. I have no incentive to see look at material on science not from a legitimate science education resource like TalkOrigins.com
The evidence is to the contrary, assuming that by education you mean what others mean. We're talking about useful education, including formal education.
And specifically, in this context, we're talking about the kind of education that makes a person competitive in modern society. Getting an education from your church will not do that.
Your concept of the place of observation is probably skewed. What needs to be observable is the evidence used to come to a conclusion. Other need to be able to reproduce the findings and make the same observations made during the original study.
It is not necessary, nor possible, to witness the past. We witness evidence in the present that points to the past. If I come upon the body of a dead person on the street, the evidence before me and what I know about life is enough to conclude that this person died even though perhaps nobody witnessed it. Probably was also born once, and took a first step, and learned to speak, even though nobody is able to give eye-witness testimony of those facts.
That's how evidence and reason applied to it work to have the present report on the past.
We will not witness the kind of evolution that occurs over millions of years. Nor need we to know from the evidence observable today what happened in the past.
The evidence for evolution observable to Darwin in his day is observable still visible today, and more.
Yes, it's a hypothesis that was so robustly supported by evidence that the theory of evolution rose to the status of a scientific theory.
Extrapolation is very much in keeping with the scientific method. Extrapolation is not an action to be observed. It is a mathematical process. It's how New Horizons got to Pluto - extrapolating the positions and motions of the probe, Earth, and Pluto from T = 0 to a projected point of rendezvous years later.
Speaking of which, did you know that Pluto has never been observed to complete an orbit around the sun. Do you believe that it has? If so, based on what?
That's correct - that which has been and can be and has been observed - Pluto completing about a third of an orbit since it was discovered. That's extrapolation, too. Let's extrapolate further. Times millions of laps around the sun.
As I told @Patriottechsan , what we have is a robust theory that has already proved its value. Let me ask you the question I asked him - why throw out what works for that which can be used for nothing? Assumptions and speculations are all that religion brings, unless you want to add promises that can't be verified and don't need to be kept. The science has delivered results.
There are different kinds of learning, some useful, some not. Not all of it is taught formally in a classroom.
Successfully dissuading children from getting a good formal education because you fear that they will fall from the faith if they see a college campus seems like yoking them with a huge burden based on beliefs that might not be correct.
ecco
Veteran Member
Well, now, that is a comment based on ignorance. You have no way of knowing how much research I, or anyone else, has done into the claims of fundy creos.
I assure you that I, and I believe many others, could log in here with a username like EvilutionIsEvil and make excellent arguments for a literal six-day creation.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Many of the people that are correcting you here were Christians. Some of the people correcting you still are Christians. They can pull the switch and argue the other side. They can even pretend not to know any science.
Unfortunately you are totally unprepared to make such a switch. You are unable to debate your side, and you have demonstrated an almost total lack of understanding of the sciences so you would be even worse off trying to argue for reality.
ecco
Veteran Member
Conversely, if something wasn't observed, you would not believe it. Right?
You are walking down the sidewalk. You hear brakes squealing. You hear a thud. You turn around. There is a car stopped. On the ground in front of the car is a man bleeding. You don't believe the man was hit by the car.
In most murders, there are no eyewitnesses. You believe all those cases should go unsolved.
You have never seen two hydrogen atoms pair with an oxygen atom to make a molecule of water.
Do you believe in atoms?
Do you believe in water molecules?
And this is the classic example of a neo-atheist, calling something like Tai Chi "woo". Ridiculous. That is just a religious response, not based in rationality. It's not rational at all, actually.
It's the core of the martial arts, like Kung Fu, which is a form of Taijiquan. Your response is not far away rationally from those who say the book of Genesis is science. Neither is based in reason. I think this may answer why you're not getting it.
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ecco
Veteran Member
On what basis do you refer to me as a neo-atheist? A have been a regular atheist for many, many years. Perhaps you think you know something about me that I don't know.
Tai Chi is not woo.
The woo part is that you try to connect Tai Chi with blather like:
I get when someone is selling woo. It's really easy to spot.
Haha! You apparently do not know what a neo-atheist is. It doesn't mean how many years you've been an atheist!
Yes, you are a neo-atheist. Your argumentations and dismissive cynicism screams it. You're not an atheist like Sartre or Camus, who actually had substantial things to say. Richard Dawkins by contrast, is considered a neo-atheist. To laugh at mythic stories like Noah's Ark, is not a sign of depth at all.
Again, classic neo-atheism. To call what I just said as "blather" shows a lack of actual reason. These are themes which minds like Sartre and Camus explored, as well as many thinker past and present. I am touching upon the bane of "scientism" which disconnects a person from the other aspects of their consciousness, namely the body and spirit.
Kung fu, Tai Chi, is doing exactly everything you called "blather". Again, ridiculous. It's like talking science with Ken Ham.
Yeah, okay. So how many years ago did you become an ExChristian?