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Why do some creationists think evolution = atheism?

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
There has always been depressive illnesses....but in the world at present, there is an explosion of mental health issues in countries that have a relatively good standard of living. So the cause is not really related to the perceived happiness......or is it that the happiness itself is an illusion?....something created by the media to convince people that they must be happy because of all the material advantages they have? If they are not happy, it just means that they don't have enough "things"....we all know that "things guarantee happiness"...right? :shrug:



The facilities in developed countries are horribly over-stretched when it comes to mental health issues. Putting mentally ill people in a lock up situation with other mentally ill people is not a recipe for recovery...it is a recipe for more mental health issues. Many of the world's homeless even in developed lands are suffering with mental health problems. They are social outcasts if there is no family who can cope with them or who can afford ongoing health care for them.



How does one measure "happiness" in real terms I wonder? Is it just contrasted with others who are not happy? How do you quantify such a thing? No one is happy all the time....and some people are happy some of the time....and a lot of people are miserable most of the time. What is it that makes us truly happy? It will be very different for you than it will be for me, coming from vastly different cultures and belief systems.
Understanding How Gallup Uses the Cantril Scale
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The Bible speaks about a vast global conspiracy that is based on deception, deluding people into a false sense of security. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
If all those billionaires and scientists were to opt for alternative therapies, that would be an admission, now wouldn't it?

I have seen people with cancer who were told to go home and die. They sought out alternative treatments even at that late stage and recovered....never to have the cancer return.

If I was diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, I would not touch the orthodox methods of treatment. I would try proven alternative methods that work with the body's immune system, not against it. And even if I died, I would not spend what little time I had left with my head in a bucket. My last days would be spent with my family, dealing with my pain in other, more natural ways.

Treating a disease with pharmaceuticals is an expensive and ongoing business. People sometimes have to sell their homes to pay for these 'treatments'.....and very often those treatments fail.

Altering eating habits and taking the right supplements can go a long way to bolstering the immune system so that diseases don't get started in the first place. The food we eat is mostly "processed" to death...literally. We need living food and the food industry cant sell living food because it goes rotten too quickly. The reason that they process food so much is to kill every living thing in it so that shelf-life can be maintained and the food still looks OK. Its dead, but you'd never know it and it tastes OK because it is full of artificial ingredients to make it sell.



:facepalm: Yep, just the sort of retort I expect from those blinded by science. My mistrust is well founded...perhaps you should do some research yourself?



I can tell you now, that genetically inherited diseases are more widespread than ever. Some cancers, heart disease, neurological disorders and sexually selective diseases are on the increase. No one knows what is in their DNA when they produce children.....and as time goes on, the gene pool becomes more and more polluted. There is no way to prevent this.

The fact that people eat better than their forebears can explain the longer life, but its not always a 'good' longer life. How many of those elderly ones end up in nursing homes providing a nice profit for those who run them and a convenient abdication by their families who do not wish to be burdened by them?
Big pharma benefits too when you consider how many 'pills' these elderly people take three or four times a day.
money1.gif

Living longer is not necessarily living better. Quality of life counts more than quantity....so how many elderly people do we have with dementia these days?...and the number is increasing at an alarming rate.

"More intelligent"? One wonders, in what ways? Most of the young people I see seem to have their noses glued to a screen of some sort. They have forgotten how to communicate face to face and their hand writing skills are disappearing, being replaced with thumb texting and causing a whole new disease category. Heaven knows what damage is being done by the radiation emissions of all our electronic devices.
The recreational activities of our youth often include a lot of drugs and alcohol....hardly an intelligent passtime.

They often go to college for years, only to come out with no jobs to go to. You'll find them waiting on people who are fortunate enough to have a job and be able to afford to eat out. o_O

We live in the same world more or less, albeit on different sides of it. We have more or less the same risks around us, access to the same kinds of foods, exposure to the same illnesses, etc..

Yet we see two completely different worlds.

People all around me that couldn't walk without pain have new hips. People that couldn't see had cataracts removed and retinal tears and hemorrhaging forestalled to preserve their reading and driving abilities. One poster on these threads told you that his anti-rheumatic medications got him out of his wheelchair. My grandfather's generation frequently experienced death in their fifties from heart attacks as he did. That's rare today. People are walking around with pacemakers instead of falling dead on the streets from what are now treatable dysrhythmias.

But what do you see? A conspiracy of businessmen trying to take your home from you. You can't even say anything positive about living longer. Electronic devices serve us daily, but all you see are sources of radiation poisoning.

How are you hoping to promote this worldview? What does it offer?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You do realize that "happiness" is relative, don't you? Despite Australia's apparent "happiness" compared to the rest of the world, we have an epidemic of depression in this country.....go figure.
putertired.gif

I hope that you can see the humor in this. It's really pretty funny:

 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That depends on what sort of "afterlife" you imagine. The one promoted in Christendom makes no sense and is not what the bible teaches.

Humans were created to live on earth forever. (Read Genesis and see that there was no natural cause of death) There was never any indication that humans would go to heaven. So in ancient Jewish belief, the promised Messiah would set up his kingdom on earth and put everything here to right. The Jews never recognized Jesus as Messiah and are still waiting. We Christians OTOH are waiting for his return. It could be any time. (Matthew 24:42-44) He just told us what to look for in world events and to be ready.

Christendom changed the idea that humans were meant to live on earth, to "everyone's going to heaven"....unless they are going to "roast in hell for all eternity". :rolleyes:

Christ came to choose a finite number of humans to rule with him in his kingdom, (Revelation 20:6) but the vast majority of humans will be citizens of God's kingdom here on earth. There is no 'going to heaven to sing God's praises forever' with nothing more to stimulate the mind and creativity than that. If that is what you think the "afterlife" is all about, you are greatly mistaken. The Creator gave us his qualities....his creativity, his ingenuity, his morality, his justice, a relative exercise of power, curiosity, inventiveness, and the capacity to love. These qualities are what make us human. Animals cannot duplicate the capacity for all these qualities that humans have been endowed with. We are not governed solely by instinct....all of the rest of creation are.

Recall if you will that I commented, "Yes, I have chosen a path, and am very satisfied with it. I hope that yours has satisfied you at least half as much as mine has satisfied me."

This was followed by your comment, "Having reached the age I am with a future is more satisfying than only living to pass on genes to the next generations who will forget that I even existed."

Then, I asked you to "Explain again please how believing in an afterlife makes this life more satisfying."

You didn't do that, which was expected. You can't. The only belief that brings satisfaction is knowing that you have lived life well - that you chose your values well and were true to them. Satisfaction comes from right living and a good heart, not a belief in heaven. Bring integrity, beneficence, industry, responsibility, courage and the like to the situations and relationships in your life, and you will experience satisfaction as you look back upon it.

The alternative is shame, regret, guilt, loss of self-respect, and the like.

People promoting religious belief typically tell us how their hearts are brimming with joy, how they are filled with the Spirit, how much extra meaning and purpose life has with such beliefs, how they have the victory, and the like.

You're actually calling that satisfaction.

Many of us have experience in religion. We've read and studied our Bibles, prayed, witnessed, and fellowshipped with other believers on a regular basis. There was a sense of community there, and a sense of having a promise made to us that seemed exciting, but none of that gives satisfaction, just a kind of comfort. They are different.

I strongly believe that it does. With confidence in God's plans for the future, we are not stuck with the ill informed, and badly executed plans of men. This life isn't all there is. If it is then, what purpose does our existence and our intellect serve? The animals are better off in their ignorance.....are they not?

How are you less "stuck with the ill informed, and badly executed plans of men" because you believe the Jehovah's Witnesses and their doctrine? That actually subjects you to more "plans of men"

I am stuck with no such plans.


The meaningful life that God purposed for us at the beginning will soon become our reality. There will be no end of possibilities in the exercise of all those gifts that the Creator gave us. Once sin is eradicated, then full brain capacity and total physical health will enhance our journey of discovery and we will have no limitations on the time we wish to spend exploring what God has made. This is my vision of the future....and it fills me with anticipation, not dread. Life is not a dead end.

It's a promise that was made to you that doesn't have to be kept. You wouldn't know if it wasn't.

If you are standing on the road watching me sitting at the bus stop, you will most probably be run over by the bus you are not expecting......(Matthew 24:37-39) Wouldn't that be sad? :(

I think you missed the point of the metaphor. It doesn't include me or even a bus - just a person, you in this case, waiting for one, looking down the road to see of it's coming as life passes by unnoticed.

Look at what you turned it into. You stuck me into it, put me in the middle of the road apparently where the bus was headed, and had me getting hit presumably because I had my back to the bus while watching you at the bus stop.

That's pretty funny.
 

ImmortalFlame

Woke gremlin
You are free to believe whatever you wish. There is a rather large proportion of what science publishes that is bogus.
I would love to see evidence of this, please.

What I am ignoring are not facts. They are suggestions masquerading as facts. Science is rather good at distorting facts, but I guess if you swallow every word, you wouldn't notice.
Once again, I think you're confusing "science" with "religion".

images

Who would dare to question the findings of the top scientists?
They would lose their job and get ridiculed out of academia.
Mindless conspiracy mongering is not an argument.

171.gif
You crack me up. What is "obvious" is that you cannot provide an unbiased source for your own position.
So you believe PubMed is a biased source, while the Johavah's Witness official website isn't?

If you want to put faith in the words of the scientists, then you are free to do so. My faith lies elsewhere. :)
I believe what scientists tell me when they can explain and demonstrate how facts support them. You, on the other hand, only believe what scientists tell you when the JW website tells you exactly how to interpret those facts and what conclusions they should leave you to believe.

"Actual, credible, impartial, scientific" to whom? Is preaching to the converted counted in this discussion?
Again, PubMed is not "preaching to to the converted". Your JW website is.

I do not find scientists to be any of those descriptors except to those who put them on a pedestal.
You are not sufficiently equipped, or honest enough, to judge the credibility of any scientist. That doesn't mean they're ALL credible, it just means you're not.

Self exaltation is hardly a recommendation. I am right and you are wrong is hardly an argument.
Even when it is literally the case and supported by an overwhelming amount of facts?

I have my own pedestal and it is occupied by someone who has proven worthy of that position.
The editors of the JW website?

The world is controlled by sinister forces with vested interests in perpetuating false ideas. Popular opinion can be the result of influential propaganda. Perception management is actually a science. No human is immune to these tactics. We have to examine all the evidence, not just the stuff that reinforces our own view. I have done that....have you?
You clearly haven't done that, which is why you haven't even researched your own sources to check their credibility and why you get the majority of your opinion from JW sources, and why you have to resort to conspiracy-mongering every time someone presents a non-JW source that refutes you. You're not interested in facts - you already decided what conclusion you want to believe, and you're only interested in reinforcing that conclusion.

Also, I am still expecting you to present evidence of this following claim of yours:

"I have seen people with cancer who were told to go home and die. They sought out alternative treatments even at that late stage and recovered....never to have the cancer return."

If this occurred, you should easily be able to demonstrate it. This would be global news. So, where are your facts? What is this cure for cancer that you are aware of and yet the millions of oncology doctors and scientists around the globe are acutely unaware of?

This isn't just a simple matter of winning a debate. If what you say is true, it means MILLIONS of lives could be saved - including that of several of my relatives and friends - so if you're going to make such a claim, you damn well better give me a good reason to believe it's true.
 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The world is controlled by sinister forces with vested interests in perpetuating false ideas. Popular opinion can be the result of influential propaganda. Perception management is actually a science. No human is immune to these tactics.

You're correct to a large extent, but one doesn't need to let himself be manipulated. The immunity which you say no man possesses comes from being proficient at critical thinking. Every assertion is questioned (skepticism) and processed against any supporting evidence. Do arguments connect premises to conclusions without fallacy? This means knowing the rules of reason, how to interpret evidence, and how to form tentative conclusions that are tested against reality when possible.

Belief should be no more certain than the quantity and quality of available evidence support, and should be amenable to revision pending significant new evidence. In this way, a data base is built up, and the process of recognizing and not accepting unsupported claims, recognizing logical fallacies, identifying errors of fact becomes routine. You'll simply never be sold a bill of goods unless you violate that method and believe something without sufficient reason.

You probably know that Americans are inundated with political commentary designed to agitate and manipulate them. It isn't necessary to be taken in if one knows how to view and treat the assorted claims that fly by. There isn't enough of it done. Too many people don't know how, especially if they have been taught that faith is a virtue. Faith is the enemy of reason and vice versa.

Does trickle down economics really lift all boats? Is the church really as generous as it claims to be? Is there really no evidence for evolution or global climate change? If there is, what does it show us?

If you can't evaluate evidence, you have to guess on all of these, which means choose your positions by faith.

And those willing to think that way can be manipulated by the kind of tendentious agitprop to which you referred.

The immunity comes from learning other habits of thought.

We have to examine all the evidence, not just the stuff that reinforces our own view. I have done that....have you?

I think we're all pretty familiar with the difference between the way the reason and evidence based thinker uses evidence compared to the faith based thinker. Evidence has a completely unrelated function in each case. With the former, all of it is considered, and it is used to arrive at sound conclusions.

With the latter, unsupported premises are believed by faith, and evidence is sifted according to its ability to make the premise seem like a supported conclusion. This retained evidence is then front-loaded onto what was always a premise now offered as a supported conclusion arrived at by that evidence.

If you're willing to think like that, you have no immunity from bad ideas.
 

ImmortalFlame

Woke gremlin
Open-mindedness lacking a little, eh?
Open-mindedness has nothing to do with it. The simple truth is that the words of a book are irrelevant with regards to issues offact.

Fortunately, for Newton, Boyle, Kepler, and others, their appreciation for God and the Bible is what encouraged them to pursue their interests, and they made valuable contributions to science.
Because all of them were wise enough to not view the world through a Bible-tinted lens and instead observe the world as it was. The fact that they happened to be religious is irrelevant to the facts they discovered through their open and honest analysis of the natural world, removed entirely from Biblical shackles.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Open-mindedness lacking a little, eh?

Fortunately, for Newton, Boyle, Kepler, and others, their appreciation for God and the Bible is what encouraged them to pursue their interests, and they made valuable contributions to science.

How are you connecting doing valid scientific work to a god belief or scripture?
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
"Actual, credible, impartial, scientific" to whom? Is preaching to the converted counted in this discussion?

I do not find scientists to be any of those descriptors except to those who put them on a pedestal.
And that answers the question I asked in the other thread (Is providing data to creationists a waste of time). Here, Deeje makes it perfectly clear that for her, there is no such thing as a credible scientific source. If you post anything scientific to her, she'll immediately dismiss it merely because it comes from scientists. And at the same time, she'll chastise everyone else for being biased.

Kinda nuts, isn't it?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
You are free to believe whatever you wish. There is a rather large proportion of what science publishes that is bogus. What I am ignoring are not facts. They are suggestions masquerading as facts. Science is rather good at distorting facts, but I guess if you swallow every word, you wouldn't notice.

Funny, I would say the same about religion in general.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There has always been depressive illnesses....but in the world at present, there is an explosion of mental health issues in countries that have a relatively good standard of living. So the cause is not really related to the perceived happiness......or is it that the happiness itself is an illusion?....something created by the media to convince people that they must be happy because of all the material advantages they have? If they are not happy, it just means that they don't have enough "things"....we all know that "things guarantee happiness"...right? :shrug:



The facilities in developed countries are horribly over-stretched when it comes to mental health issues. Putting mentally ill people in a lock up situation with other mentally ill people is not a recipe for recovery...it is a recipe for more mental health issues. Many of the world's homeless even in developed lands are suffering with mental health problems. They are social outcasts if there is no family who can cope with them or who can afford ongoing health care for them.



How does one measure "happiness" in real terms I wonder? Is it just contrasted with others who are not happy? How do you quantify such a thing? No one is happy all the time....and some people are happy some of the time....and a lot of people are miserable most of the time. What is it that makes us truly happy? It will be very different for you than it will be for me, coming from vastly different cultures and belief systems.

I think you are making this harder than it needs to be. You seem to be questioning even the possibility of happiness, or that when one thinks he is happy, he may really be unhappy but doesn't know it.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
And that answers the question I asked in the other thread (Is providing data to creationists a waste of time). Here, Deeje makes it perfectly clear that for her, there is no such thing as a credible scientific source. If you post anything scientific to her, she'll immediately dismiss it merely because it comes from scientists. And at the same time, she'll chastise everyone else for being biased.

Kinda nuts, isn't it?

Well, she accepts 'scientists' that agree with her! She isn't *completely* biased against science, right?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I think you missed the point of the metaphor. It doesn't include me or even a bus - just a person, you in this case, waiting for one, looking down the road to see of it's coming as life passes by unnoticed.
Waiting for Godot?

Look at what you turned it into. You stuck me into it, put me in the middle of the road apparently where the bus was headed, and had me getting hit presumably because I had my back to the bus while watching you at the bus stop.

That's pretty funny.

It does show an interesting mindset.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The good that mankind has accomplished is however, vastly overshadowed by the evil that is perpetrated in the name of science and progress.

Not in my world.

If hemp had been permitted to hold its place as the fiber of choice in the manufacturing industry, instead of deadly petroleum based products, the world would not be choking on its own non-bio-degradable waste. Do some research on how that situation came about. Hemp based plastic is bio-degradable and marine creatures can actually eat it and its not toxic. Hemp has so many uses and yet it was outlawed because rich men wanted to sell their own products. Wealthy people and institutions can dictate to governments and influence policy. In this case with disastrous results.

And that makes your life so miserable?

I enjoyed a nice walk on the lake with my wife this morning at sunrise. We saw pelicans, fishermen with nets, palm trees, and a sky of wine and honey. Then it was off to the dog park.

Actually I put a great deal more store in alternative medicine that I ever would in current orthodox medicine.

That's consistent. You're a faith based thinker.

There is no reason to put stock in any kind of therapy unless its effect can be documented to be effective and salutary. Any therapy that extends life, preserves or restores function, or preserves comfort is medicine. The rest is placebo or poison. In other words, there isn't medicine and alternative medicine. There is only medicine, placebo, and poison.

That is just my personal view. I have a neighbor who is at present undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Have you ever had to watch a person undergo this kind of treatment?

This is an area I have much experience and expertise in. I'm a retired physician, board certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice / Palliative Care.

I have an anecdote of my own:

One of the dog park denizens has been undergoing chemotherapy for widely metastatic prostate cancer for the last three years. Both his radiologist son-in-law and I are stunned by how long he has gone with this diagnosis, and how functional he remains.

When I retired in 2009, his prognosis for another year of life would have been under 20%, and those that made it were close t dead and had bone pain from lytic metastasies to the spine. He doesn't complain about being made sick, and is grateful for the extra life and comfort.

The skill comes from knowing which patients can be benefited by therapy, and for which it would be futile. That requires being able to prognosticate.

It is cruel and inhuman and often the person does not survive the treatment and has to spend their final days like skeletons unable to keep anything down. This is after months of chemical poisoning and radiation. Their families suffer right along with them.

Employing futile therapy with toxicity in a terminally ill person is bad medical care.

In hospice, we were up against many barriers to successful treatment, a couple religious in nature. Some people felt that they needed to suffer to become purified before entering heaven. Some felt that they deserved to suffer for the lives they had lived. Some didn't want too get to heaven "addicted to pain medicine."

There was also the attitude that switching to palliative care was "giving up," which was immoral and to be perceived as failure to care enough or value a life enough. You can judge for yourself whether that is a religious concept in origin.

On the other hand, I had a dear friend who declined chemotherapy and chose gentler forms of natural treatment. She eventually lost her fight for life, but not because of the treatments. She died from the cancer and suffered only in the last few weeks of her life rather than long months of chemo, heaving her heart out. I think she made the wiser choice, personally.

That would depend on her cancer - it's cell type and stage - and the effectiveness of available therapeutic options.

With good palliative care, end-of-life physical suffering is minimal. There are also powerful antiemetics available for use with the most potent emetogenic drugs.

I believe that God made herbs for medicine and the doctor's handbook in centuries past was all about herbal medicine. Medical science replaced all those herbs with pharmaceutical drugs made from synthetic substances in a lab. Unlike natural medicines, these were not compatible with the body which resulted in awful side effects. But not to worry because they have other drugs to sell you for those unwanted side effects as well....as long as you can afford them of course.

I had one of those old medical textbooks - from the thirties. My favorite was the discussion of the treatment for bacterial endocarditis - infection of the heart vales and internal surface. The condition was more or less uniformly fatal at that time. The book suggested prayer, or hoping for a misdiagnosis. Herbs were probably also employed by some.

Today's approach to medicine is disgusting IMV. Doctors are hoodwinked by the big pharma funded medical schools, being taught all about pharmacology, but nothing about nutrition. The world is digging a grave with its teeth by consuming artificial foods and medicines, lining the pockets of the drug companies and big business, and creating drug dependent customers for life.

The world doesn't work in the way you describe, and you can see that for yourself if you look rather than trust untrustworthy sources by faith. Those drugs you malign are miraculous, as are many other diagnostic and therapeutic modalities - MRIs, laser surgery of the cornea, gamma knife surgery, coronary catheterization and stenting through a small incision in the groin, etc..

But you do what makes you comfortable.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Creationism is proof reductionism is only valid in talking about car engines. It is not a healthy way of understanding nature god or just about anything but is just a very simplistic view of mechanical functions and that's about it. They have turned the bible into a mechanical truth sayer that says truth mechanically for them. Its dumb beyond dumb but that is reductionism for ya in it's purest form, stupid.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
The simple truth is that the words of a book are irrelevant with regards to issues offact.

You're only repeating what you've heard; I doubt you've ever it.

Now, Mahatma Gandhi read it (at least some of it). He said to the British Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin,
"When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount [i.e., the Bible], we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world."

Sounds quite relevant to me, on the important issues.

Even on matters of science: Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22; Job 38:33; Ecclesiastes 1:7; etc.


Because all of them were wise enough to not view the world through a Bible-tinted lens and instead observe the world as it was.

Oh, but they did. They realized it all existed for a reason, a purpose; and it gave them the impetus and desire to search for that purpose.

Newton said about the Bible:
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."

I'd say the Bible affected his view of the world profoundly

About atheism, he stated:
"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system. I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."

I'm sure, if he had known about the complexity of the cell and the information systems contained in its RNA & DNA, these facts would have reinforced his scientific viewpoint and interest, even more.

The fact that they happened to be religious is irrelevant to the facts they discovered through their open and honest analysis of the natural world, removed entirely from Biblical shackles.

The Bible does not 'shackle' any scientific exploration. The only things it shackles, are selfish actions and attitudes that lead to self-destruction.

And, BTW, it's not religion I'm espousing per se (most religion is wrong), it's the Bible I support.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
And that answers the question I asked in the other thread (Is providing data to creationists a waste of time). Here, Deeje makes it perfectly clear that for her, there is no such thing as a credible scientific source. If you post anything scientific to her, she'll immediately dismiss it merely because it comes from scientists. And at the same time, she'll chastise everyone else for being biased.

Kinda nuts, isn't it?
What boggles me is this assumption that bias means anything in science. And this goes for both sides. Dismissing a statement in science as 'coming from a biased source' be it CATO institute or APA or [Insert controversial research association] is not a good argument. Scientific studies for peer review are transparent by design, if bias is influencing the study somehow then it's up to the person arguing against the study to show where the methodology is incorrect, or why the conclusions being drawn from the study is not reflective of the methodology.

So if anyone says 'this study is biased,' they should expect nothing less than the reply, 'where is the study's methodology wrong?'
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Waiting for Godot?
Great literary reference. I was thinking of Laura, the daughter in The Glass Menagerie. She's been excised from the world and is being stored indoors apart from it.

It does show an interesting mindset.

Dejee's doing a great job of remaining civil against an onslaught of disagreement. She let a little emotion slip through when she started fantasizing about me being hit by a bus. I thought it was funny. I wrote several responses to that before I settled on one.

One began with "LOL." Another with, "It doesn't take a psychologist to recognize that ..."

After years of food fights on another site with a different culture, I'm having to relearn responding here. I'll eventually become more like you.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Newton said about the Bible:
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."

I'd say the Bible affected his view of the world profoundly

About atheism, he stated:
"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system. I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."

I'm sure, if he had known about the complexity of the cell and the information systems contained in its RNA & DNA, these facts would have reinforced his scientific viewpoint and interest, even more.

Yet the further we move ahead from Newton's time, the less religion we see in scientists. Does that tell you anything?

I'd have been a theist in the seventeenth century, and a deist by the late eighteenth century. Our choices have to reflect what is known. Without a mechanism for the workings of every day objects and processes, and for the prior evolution of physical reality and life, what else can you sensibly consider to be the case?

No god is needed any longer to account for where Mercury came from or why it moves as it does. As Dawkins noted, "Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

So naturally, with new knowledge, what seemed reasonable in Newton's time no longer is.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
You're only repeating what you've heard; I doubt you've ever it.

Now, Mahatma Gandhi read it (at least some of it). He said to the British Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin,
"When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount [i.e., the Bible], we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world."

Sounds quite relevant to me, on the important issues.

Even on matters of science: Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22; Job 38:33; Ecclesiastes 1:7; etc.




Oh, but they did. They realized it all existed for a reason, a purpose; and it gave them the impetus and desire to search for that purpose.

Newton said about the Bible:
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily."

I'd say the Bible affected his view of the world profoundly

About atheism, he stated:
"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system. I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."

I'm sure, if he had known about the complexity of the cell and the information systems contained in its RNA & DNA, these facts would have reinforced his scientific viewpoint and interest, even more.



The Bible does not 'shackle' any scientific exploration. The only things it shackles, are selfish actions and attitudes that lead to self-destruction.

And, BTW, it's not religion I'm espousing per se (most religion is wrong), it's the Bible I support.
See, Newton was wrong. Thanks to advances in science and observations of millions of extrasolar planetary system, we now know how solar systems form and we know that many solar systems will necessarily have planets in the habitable zone by the physical dynamics of the accretion disc and how it collapses under gravity to form planets.
So, the one thing Newton said about the scientific justification of God is wrong. What else?

https://phys.org/news/2015-01-planets.html\

As usual, this is the problem with any argument from authority, especially from long dead authority. The important thing is not who believed what, but why what is believed is being believed and if the arguments hold up in the light of current knowledge. For Newton's argument, modern physics refutes it.
 
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