O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in school

[FirmaFan]

This is a wonderful little video showing Bill O'Reilly from the god fearing Fox network interviewing Richard Dawkins (labeled only as "Atheist" by Faux News). I was especially interested in the part where O'Reilly justifies his belief in Jesus (as opposed to a belief in Zeus, Thor, Buddha, Mohammad, etc as is repeatedly pointed out by Dawkins) by saying that since science has yet to come up with all the answers to explain all facts about the known universe (specifically its origin), and is "throwing it in" with Jesus (let's hope, for his sake, he's thrown it in with the right god).

Here is the video:



This specifically points out why religion can not, now, or ever, be allowed into any place of learning. What O'Reilly's religion has done is falsely and irrationally claim to have all the answers and to explain all things, negating the necessity for learning, investigation, and further education. He doesn't care that science can not explain all things, he is able to simply say to himself "god did it". He will never be able to achieve a higher level of understanding of anything, he has no reason to. Religion is detrimental for many reasons, and I thank O'Reilly for demonstrating on of the many.

There was, as you may remember, a court battle over trying to teach this exact method of thinking in Dover, PA not too long ago. In this trial, the almost intoxicating and corrupting need to explain everything in the universe with "god did it" was shown to be so powerful, that those for this method of thinking would knowingly lie (almost to the point where perjury charges were filed), cheat, steal, and vandalize in order to put this "god did it" way of looking at the universe using the disguise of "intelligent design" into classrooms. If the children are our future, it amazes me that people would knowingly and willingly attempt to teach children a view of the universe and life that was written in the bronze age. Is that the kind of education they want in a person they may one day be calling "my doctor"?

This video is a 1 hour lecture given by the lead witness for the prosecution of the Dover trial, is incredibly interesting (it's one of my all time favorite science lecture videos), and shows how wrong, harmful, and dishonest this way of viewing the universe actually is (above and beyond what O'Reilly already showed).

 

[EwanSF]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Aye, he's a fuckin' cretin.

 

[Glafna]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Let me just say this, Faith is a good thing, as it allows you to blelieve in things greater then yourself, whether it be a cause or some higher power. It's when an organized religion gets involved is when everything gets fucked up, especially since this "we're right, your wrong" mentality is so prevulant within religions, even the least aggressive such as Buddhism(from what I understand) has some portions that argued as 100% correct

 

[Shafted]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

As soon as people realize that morality need not be married to religion, I think most of these bogus faith-based operations will wither on the vine.

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

As soon as people realize that morality need not be married to religion, I think most of these bogus faith-based operations will wither on the vine.

What I don't understand is how people actually claim to get their morality from their religion, when it is so obvious that morality is actually a concept of the social times and social ideas, rather than religious ones. Let's take one of the most successful works of literary fiction, the bible, from which the majority religion in the US comes from. Morality in the bible includes (but is not limited to) slavery, stoning of unruly children, death to homosexuals, genocide, human sacrifice, etc. Do people follow these moral guidelines? Of course they don't. They do what every person who chooses to follow the bible does - pick and choose. Using some guideline independent of biblical teachings, they go through the bible and decide which moral teachings they will follow and which they won't. Definitely not the source of their morality. Atheists have just as much morality as people of religion, if not more, due to the fact that no irrational belief in the afterlife prevents them from having infinitely more value for the present life than any person of religion can ever have.

What is dangerous is that people, using the bible, can make up just about any morality they want to. There is a thread on this board about Fred Phelps trying to put up an anti-homosexual monument. While I am not defending him in any way (I find the very mention of his name atrocious), he does have a completely valid interpretation of the bible that motivates him to do these things that he otherwise might not be doing. There are good people, both people of religion and atheists, who live good lives and do good things, there are bad people, both people of religion and atheists, who live bad lives and do bad things, but only religion provides a pathway of logic that is able to convince logical, reasonable, good people to do bad things. Atheism can provide no such logic, which makes sense, seeing as how atheism is actually an absence of belief, rather than an alternative belief.

 

[andysayshi]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

What I don't understand is how people actually claim to get their morality from their religion, when it is so obvious that morality is actually a concept of the social times and social ideas, rather than religious ones. Let's take one of the most successful works of literary fiction, the bible, from which the majority religion in the US comes from. Morality in the bible includes (but is not limited to) slavery, stoning of unruly children, death to homosexuals, genocide, human sacrifice, etc. Do people follow these moral guidelines? Of course they don't. They do what every person who chooses to follow the bible does - pick and choose. Using some guideline independent of biblical teachings, they go through the bible and decide which moral teachings they will follow and which they won't. Definitely not the source of their morality. Atheists have just as much morality as people of religion, if not more, due to the fact that no irrational belief in the afterlife prevents them from having infinitely more value for the present life than any person of religion can ever have.

What you don't understand is how to read -- much of anything.
You're acting once again as though the Bible is a shopping list, and every line in it is equal to every other line. If you've read it, and still think that, it's proof that you don't know how to read.
The morality of the Bible does not include "stoning of unruly children, death to homosexuals, genocide, human sacrifice, etc." The morality of the Old Testament (note that word "old") in the times before the Prophets included one of those and arguably a second, but by the time of the Prophets God is driving home an "updated" lesson. So even without the New Testament, your charge is baseless.
And that's not a matter of "picking and choosing", it's a matter of reading. No "guideline independent of biblical teachings" is necessary; the Bible itself says those things are over and done.
Atheists hold the present life with more value? They have no reason to; to the atheist, there's no real point to life save to enjoy it -- no reason to care for other people, or for the environment, or for anything at all, except that it pleases them. There's no cause for an atheist to be anything but a hedonist.

What is dangerous is that people, using the bible, can make up just about any morality they want to. There is a thread on this board about Fred Phelps trying to put up an anti-homosexual monument. While I am not defending him in any way (I find the very mention of his name atrocious), he does have a completely valid interpretation of the bible that motivates him to do these things that he otherwise might not be doing. There are good people, both people of religion and atheists, who live good lives and do good things, there are bad people, both people of religion and atheists, who live bad lives and do bad things, but only religion provides a pathway of logic that is able to convince logical, reasonable, good people to do bad things. Atheism can provide no such logic, which makes sense, seeing as how atheism is actually an absence of belief, rather than an alternative belief.

No, what's dangerous is people abusing the Bible -- because the Bible's morality is very plain.
Fred Phelps' "interpretation" of the Bible is not in any way valid -- in fact the Bible condemns his beliefs in no uncertain terms. Phelps is operating from a deep personal self-righteousness that leads him to judge others and condemn things he doesn't like, and allows him to indulge in vicious treatment of others. He takes the Bible and twists it to justify that, to commend himself for what he wants to do anyway. It's easy enough to see that he isn't following the Bible, because he isn't acting in love, or mercy. Fred Phelps knows nothing of Jesus; he knows only his own bigotry.

I won't speak for other religions, but Christianity does not convince anyone to do bad things: like any other system of thought, people who want to do bad things make use of its cover to justify their evil.

Atheism isn't an absence of belief, it's a belief in absence -- absence of any deity. Agnosticism is the absence of belief; it makes no claims either way, and doesn't particularly care. But atheism and theism are both forms of faith, at opposite ends of the continuum that has agnosticism in the middle. The word atheist contains, even proclaims a belief: "No god!" is what it says, an assertion that cannot be proven -- which means it's a statement of faith. Agnosticism just says, "I don't know"; it believes in nothing at all.

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

What you don't understand is how to read -- much of anything.

An insult. Okay. I'm sorry, was that supposed to hurt, was that the purpose? I guess it was, because one thing it doesn't do (and never does) is validate any arguments you might make. This invalidation is exponentially exacerbated when, in a response to a written text, you make the claim that the writer of that text can't read.

You're acting once again as though the Bible is a shopping list, and every line in it is equal to every other line. If you've read it, and still think that, it's proof that you don't know how to read.

It's not that I think that every line in the bible is equal to every other line, it's that I believe that people can make any line in the bible however "equal" they want it to be.

The morality of the Bible does not include "stoning of unruly children, death to homosexuals, genocide, human sacrifice, etc." The morality of the Old Testament (note that word "old") in the times before the Prophets included one of those and arguably a second, but by the time of the Prophets God is driving home an "updated" lesson. So even without the New Testament, your charge is baseless.

Which is how you've chosen to interpret the bible. Thankfully, most old testament nonsense has been removed from society, based upon the social times. During the times of slavery in the US, many justified the owning of slaves because it's in the bible. Today, slavery is unthinkable to most. What changed? Why is slavery, which was perfectly acceptable then, is completely immoral now? I know the bible didn't change. You'll find morality a product of the time in which we live, not a product of the bible. That is how morals change while the bible remains forever the same.

Atheists hold the present life with more value? They have no reason to; to the atheist, there's no real point to life save to enjoy it -- no reason to care for other people, or for the environment, or for anything at all, except that it pleases them. There's no cause for an atheist to be anything but a hedonist.

I thought I pretty much explained how this is absolutely false, but maybe it was too quick, so, I'll explain in detail:

Atheists have no reason to value life? The reason to value life is that this is the ONLY life we will ever get. No afterlife, no eternal paradise, this is it. This one chance at existence is all that will ever be. That makes this life of infinite value. It's the one and only.

If you want to see the value of life reduced to zero, look at every person that has ever been willing to die for their religion. Those willing to sacrifice life for belief because of the promise of an afterlife are proof of how devalued life becomes when entertaining those beliefs. It would be easy for me to point to suicide bombers or 9/11 terrorists, those are easy targets, so, instead, I'll direct attention to Paul Hill, who ultimately gave his life (value = 0) when he was executed following the murder of an abortion doctor (remember: good people doing bad things). He believed so strongly in an afterlife that he was willing to kill and die for it. His life, to him, was utterly meaningless because he believed that doing this deed, and cutting his life extremely short, would get him into heaven.

As for the "point of life" that you refer to, that's an easy one, the point of all life is survival in order to maintain a prorogation of the species, favoring slight genetic mutations that provide an evolutionary advantage through natural selection. That's the only objective "point" to life. Any other "point" you may come across is purely a subjective opinion. This is not to say anyone should follow the objective "point" of life, that is not my belief, or the belief of any other atheist, because, the subjective point that people follow their lives by is much more favorable.

Now, personally, I'd rather spend my life doing what is enjoyable and favorable (which can and does include doing things for others, so it is by no means selfish) instead of wasting every precious moment of my one and only life life doing things that I believe will please a god I have no rational justification for believing in. Label that as hedonism if you wish, but, when I think about people going to church, worshiping, praying, spending time in their lives doing those irrational, dogmatic practices, only one word comes to mind: wasteful.

No, what's dangerous is people abusing the Bible -- because the Bible's morality is very plain.
Fred Phelps' "interpretation" of the Bible is not in any way valid -- in fact the Bible condemns his beliefs in no uncertain terms. Phelps is operating from a deep personal self-righteousness that leads him to judge others and condemn things he doesn't like, and allows him to indulge in vicious treatment of others. He takes the Bible and twists it to justify that, to commend himself for what he wants to do anyway. It's easy enough to see that he isn't following the Bible, because he isn't acting in love, or mercy. Fred Phelps knows nothing of Jesus; he knows only his own bigotry.

Phelps is following a religion. Where it comes from, be it personal bigotry or the bible (I, like you, say the bible enables his bigotry), is irrelevant. You say it's not valid. I say all religions are not valid. What's really the difference between you and me with regards to Phelps, or, more broadly, with regards to any religion, past or present? You just have one less religion than I that we have come to understand as "invalid."

I won't speak for other religions, but Christianity does not convince anyone to do bad things

It has just as much ability to do so (and has done so) as any other religion.

like any other system of thought, people who want to do bad things make use of its cover to justify their evil.

I can't think of any other "system of thought" as powerful as religion or politics to give otherwise rational people the justification to do things that would be, in any other situation, unthinkable, even to the people who commit them.

Atheism isn't an absence of belief, it's a belief in absence -- absence of any deity. Agnosticism is the absence of belief; it makes no claims either way, and doesn't particularly care. But atheism and theism are both forms of faith, at opposite ends of the continuum that has agnosticism in the middle. The word atheist contains, even proclaims a belief: "No god!" is what it says, an assertion that cannot be proven -- which means it's a statement of faith. Agnosticism just says, "I don't know"; it believes in nothing at all.

I can't speak for other atheists, but atheism, to me, is not a belief in absence. I do not take it on faith that there is no god. Coming from a science education background, I will never say that there is no possibility for a god (anything is possible, including the flying spaghetti monster). While open to all possibilities, I use reason and logic to interpret the testable, repeatable, falsifiable, verifiable, empirical evidence we have about the mechanisms by which this universe operates to come to the conclusion about which ones, of the infinite number of possibilities, are the most probable. The existence of god is so improbable that I might as well declare "there is no god." I guess, by your definition, I am as close to being an atheist as an agnostic can get. There is no evidence for the existence of your god, no matter how sincerely you believe and claim to have evidence, a sincerity that I am sure is as equal to those that worshiped Zeus, Thor, Rha, the sun, Buddha, Mohammad, or Jesus. I just can not justify sharing those beliefs without evidence.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I don't think O'Reilly demonstrated much of anything except that his thoughts are very muddled! As a Roman Catholic, he should go back to catechism class and get a grasp of the basics, before he starts playing out in public.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

An insult. Okay. I'm sorry, was that supposed to hurt, was that the purpose? I guess it was, because one thing it doesn't do (and never does) is validate any arguments you might make. This invalidation is exponentially exacerbated when, in a response to a written text, you make the claim that the writer of that text can't read.

There's reading (R), like knowing how to move the different pieces on a chess board, and then there's reading (R'), like actually knowing how to play chess.
It wasn't an insult, it was an objective statement: if you've read (R) the Bible and can say all that you do, then you haven't read (R') the Bible.

It's not that I think that every line in the bible is equal to every other line, it's that I believe that people can make any line in the bible however "equal" they want it to be.

The principle of interpretation that you used in your statement was that every line in the Bible is equal to every other line. Saying that you believe other people treat it that way is saying that they do not know how to read (R').

Which is how you've chosen to interpret the bible. Thankfully, most old testament nonsense has been removed from society, based upon the social times. During the times of slavery in the US, many justified the owning of slaves because it's in the bible. Today, slavery is unthinkable to most. What changed? Why is slavery, which was perfectly acceptable then, is completely immoral now? I know the bible didn't change. You'll find morality a product of the time in which we live, not a product of the bible. That is how morals change while the bible remains forever the same.

"How you've chosen to interpret the Bible" is a standard cop-out.
Most "Old Testament nonsense" has been removed from society because the Bible said so. I've posted before the quite plain statements from the Bible which set older parts to rest. Parts of the Old Testament are set to rest by later parts, and other than principles, the entirety is set to rest by the New.
That isn't a matter of choice; to avoid that, you have to take scissors to the Bible, cutting out declarations by major prophets, by Jesus, by Paul, even by Peter.
What changed on slavery? Look at history: Christians realized from the principles in the Bible that slavery was immoral. That was happening in Newton's time, as people who read the Bible grasped that slavery was not consonant with humans being in the image of God. In the matter of slavery, it was the Bible which changed society. Those people who tried to justify slavery from the Bible? They knew how to read (R), but not how to read (R').
Morality has been a product of the Bible for a long time. The basic laws of European nations came from the Bible, for starters. Many of those who fought against child labor took their case from the Bible. For that matter, many of those who fought in the American Revolution, which was a sea change in morals, did so because of the Bible -- which is why you read of pastors of churches not only exhorting their parishioners to take up weapons, but going along themselves with the family musket.
Yes, some morals we have because we can afford them -- but others are Bible-driven. A very ironic one there is international law concerning war: where did that come from? It came from the Bible, where St. Augustine and others discovered the concept of just war v. unjust war, of humane treatment of captives, etc. But when we had a self-proclaimed Christian president, he tossed the Bible out the window whenever he pleased (not that such should be surprising; Christian emperors and kings and princes and popes and doges and other heads of state have rarely operated by the Bible's morality). The whole concept of war crimes arose from the Bible -- and was enforced more than once on Roman emperors by bishops who demanded repentance and penance for the sort of thing Bush did with Iraq... demands that threatened the emperor's authority unless he did repent.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Atheists have no reason to value life? The reason to value life is that this is the ONLY life we will ever get. No afterlife, no eternal paradise, this is it. This one chance at existence is all that will ever be. That makes this life of infinite value. It's the one and only.

That makes the individual's life of infinite value to that individual -- and that's where it ends. It says nothing about the value of others, or of other life.

If you want to see the value of life reduced to zero, look at every person that has ever been willing to die for their religion. Those willing to sacrifice life for belief because of the promise of an afterlife are proof of how devalued life becomes when entertaining those beliefs. It would be easy for me to point to suicide bombers or 9/11 terrorists, those are easy targets, so, instead, I'll direct attention to Paul Hill, who ultimately gave his life (value = 0) when he was executed following the murder of an abortion doctor (remember: good people doing bad things). He believed so strongly in an afterlife that he was willing to kill and die for it. His life, to him, was utterly meaningless because he believed that doing this deed, and cutting his life extremely short, would get him into heaven.

Hill's life was not utterly meaningless to him. He may have spent it foolishly, but he spent it in the same way that an atheist soldier might throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades. Does that soldier therefore consider his life to be of no value? Every few years there's a case of an adult losing his or her life to rescue some children -- do they consider their lives of no value? Thinking of 9/11, numerous firemen and police died working to save others -- did they consider their lives of no value?
Those who are willing to die for something don't declare that their lives are worthless, but that they regard something else as worth more. When we look at the firefighters at the Towers, we see them as noble and heroic. If someone stood between a madman and a school bus, and died keeping the madman from slaughtering them, we'd call that heroic. But that is exactly what Hill did, by his lights: to him, personhood begins at the moment of conception, which made abortion doctors murderers -- so he did what he judged best within his capacity, to save children.
Very few of those who die for such things think at all that it will "get them into heaven", because they know that heaven can't be earned. But they are convinced that every human life is worth the same, whether their own or that of a stranger. To them, that equality of value is an objective fact -- while to the atheist it can only be a matter of pragmatism.

As for the "point of life" that you refer to, that's an easy one, the point of all life is survival in order to maintain a prorogation of the species, favoring slight genetic mutations that provide an evolutionary advantage through natural selection. That's the only objective "point" to life. Any other "point" you may come across is purely a subjective opinion. This is not to say anyone should follow the objective "point" of life, that is not my belief, or the belief of any other atheist, because, the subjective point that people follow their lives by is much more favorable.

On that basis, it would be perfectly moral to sort through all the kids in fifth grade, and kill the ones who have any sort of weakness or defect. If the point is the propagation of the species, we ought to execute everyone with Down's Syndrome or any other extremely debilitating disease. If survival of the species is the foundation, then instead of a national health program, we should have a program of euthanizing the poor and weak.
By following some subjective opinion about life instead, atheists are merely being inconsistent.

 

[FirmaFan]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

That makes the individual's life of infinite value to that individual -- and that's where it ends. It says nothing about the value of others, or of other life.

Thankfully, evolution has given humans a need to value other human life. Being social beings, the necessity to do good for others is a social evolutionary advantage. Atheism needs no more input from the bible to be a moral person and be good to others than atheists need the bible to have a sexual need for procreation.

On that basis, it would be perfectly moral to sort through all the kids in fifth grade, and kill the ones who have any sort of weakness or defect. If the point is the propagation of the species, we ought to execute everyone with Down's Syndrome or any other extremely debilitating disease. If survival of the species is the foundation, then instead of a national health program, we should have a program of euthanizing the poor and weak.

You must have missed the point where I said that I do not, nor does any atheist, believe that anyone should follow this way of living simply because it is the natural mechanism by which life functions. When you talked about the point of life and I responded by describing the purpose of life, I was not describing how life should be lived, only about how life operates. You then went looking for morality in a purely scientific construct (evolution by natural selection). It would be like looking for morality in the theory of gravity or the atomic theory. The universe is amoral, as are the mechanisms which govern it. Humans are very capable of overcoming this innate mechanism of life, we care for the less fit, do not execute the weaker of the fifth graders. Hell, every time a human uses contraception they are overcoming the mechanism by which life exists. There is no morality in the theory of evolution by natural selection (the "point of life" I described). There is morality in being human, though. It's an evolutionary advantage. Religion is just some people's excuse.

By following some subjective opinion about life instead, atheists are merely being inconsistent.

No, they are being human. Their morality is no different than any other physiological or biological process: the result of millions of years of evolutionary natural selection. The bible came second.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Now, personally, I'd rather spend my life doing what is enjoyable and favorable (which can and does include doing things for others, so it is by no means selfish) instead of wasting every precious moment of my one and only life life doing things that I believe will please a god I have no rational justification for believing in. Label that as hedonism if you wish, but, when I think about people going to church, worshiping, praying, spending time in their lives doing those irrational, dogmatic practices, only one word comes to mind: wasteful.

I'll take St. Francis -- who "spent his life doing those irrational, dogmatic practices" -- over Josef Stalin -- who spent his life doing what to him was "enjoyable and favorable" -- any moment of the day.
Stalin is an example of the kind of ethics that arise quite reasonably from atheism: he was making a stronger, better Motherland, to make a better future for the species. Francis is an example of the beautiful life that arises quite reasonable from the Bible: helping everyone through service and encouragement.

Phelps is following a religion. Where it comes from, be it personal bigotry or the bible (I, like you, say the bible enables his bigotry), is irrelevant. You say it's not valid. I say all religions are not valid. What's really the difference between you and me with regards to Phelps, or, more broadly, with regards to any religion, past or present? You just have one less religion than I that we have come to understand as "invalid."

In that case, everyone who has ever fought for or supported a cause was "following a religion". Personal bigotry is a personal value, and if something arising from personal bigotry is a religion, then so is everything else which arises from any personal value, whether it's teaching children, healing the sick, denouncing hypocrisy, feeding the poor....

It has just as much ability to do so (and has done so) as any other religion.

It's a lot harder to be evil to others when your book says "Do not murder", and "Consider others as more important than yourself", than if your book doesn't say such things. You're making the common error of confusing the behavior of extremist believers with the content of the religion -- the same thing done when people look at terrorists and conclude that Islam is nothing but hate and killing.

I can't think of any other "system of thought" as powerful as religion or politics to give otherwise rational people the justification to do things that would be, in any other situation, unthinkable, even to the people who commit them.

That you include politics points in the accurate direction: it isn't religion, but ideology. With Bush, the ideology of "freedom" justified all sorts of things, and he could even invoke God's name for them. With ancient popes, the ideology of "supremacy" justified all sorts of things, and they even invoked the name of God in support of them. You can go through history and find kings, caliphs, emirs, and others invoking the name of God for a cause -- but as a wise English teacher in my high school told kids, if they're invoking God's name for their cause, it probably has little to do with God.

I can't speak for other atheists, but atheism, to me, is not a belief in absence. I do not take it on faith that there is no god. Coming from a science education background, I will never say that there is no possibility for a god (anything is possible, including the flying spaghetti monster). While open to all possibilities, I use reason and logic to interpret the testable, repeatable, falsifiable, verifiable, empirical evidence we have about the mechanisms by which this universe operates to come to the conclusion about which ones, of the infinite number of possibilities, are the most probable. The existence of god is so improbable that I might as well declare "there is no god." I guess, by your definition, I am as close to being an atheist as an agnostic can get. There is no evidence for the existence of your god, no matter how sincerely you believe and claim to have evidence, a sincerity that I am sure is as equal to those that worshiped Zeus, Thor, Rha, the sun, Buddha, Mohammad, or Jesus. I just can not justify sharing those beliefs without evidence.

With all due respect to pasta, the flying spaghetti monster is a poor candidate for deity -- for the same reason that Zeus, Thor, Ra, and the sun are: they're part of the system, and thus subject to its rules. In fact they're precisely the kind of god that science could deal with, because they are said to have material existence within this universe (the original Star Trek series made that point rather baldly in a couple of episodes) -- though Ra may not qualify there; to some Egyptian thinkers he actually was transcendent.
Buddha never claimed to be God, or a god, or even that there was/is any such thing as deity, BTW. Mohamed claimed to be a prophet while being a robber, warlord, and arguably a murderer, rapist, and pedophile as well.
Jesus is the only one who claimed to be God, and to me that says one thing rather loudly: if any of the claims to revelation are true, it's this one, because any deity worthy of the name would be sufficiently transcendent that the best way to communicate with us would be to come himself.

 

[construct]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

To bring us back to the topic of the forum and and to the original topic of this thread, I would suggest teaching evolution in the biology classroom. I would advocate teaching the historical and cultural significance of religion in either a philosophy class or a Western civilization class.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

To bring us back to the topic of the forum and and to the original topic of this thread, I would suggest teaching evolution in the biology classroom.

Really?.....

 

[construct]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Really?.....

Really. Evolution is science; religion is not. Whatever else religion might be, it is not science. However, I believe there is an astonishing amount of biblical illiteracy in this country. Students ought to learn the contents of the Bible (at least in broad outline) and it's role in the history of Europe and America. Call me old-fashioned, but that's what I think.

 

[TX-Beau]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Sorry, the ironic tone of voice didn't come across very well there.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I loved that long video -- wish I could have been in that room!

I was also fascinated by the fact that it utterly destroys your thesis, that "religion can not, now, or ever, be allowed into any place of learning" -- because the guy giving the talk, Dr. Miller, is a devout Roman Catholic.

I was once again saddned by what the Creationist movement has done to Intelligent Design. When I encountered ID, it has nothing to do with the Bible -- in fact among the first ID people I met were Buddhist -- it had to do with the underlying elegance, balance, and symmetry in the universe. The guy in the question period who pointed out that saying "there is no evidence for design" is foolish (a statement endorsed by Dr. Miller) was right on target; it's not only false, but it's unscientific. That's where I came in on ID, that there is tons of evidence for design; it's as much a scientific position as the wildly speculative "branes" some physicists indulge in -- but in both cases, it's something you can't see beyond: we can measure only this universe, and no matter how much it may tell about design, it has little to contribute about the identity of the Designer... and none of that is scientific.

It's one of those areas where science can lead somewhere, but can't enter. The foolishness, the vileness of the Creationists in kidnapping the label is the pretense that it can be called science once you cross the boundary. I have no problem with speculating about science from a metaphysical point of view, but to pretend you're doing science then is deceitful.

At any rate, that excellent video shows that religion can be either good or bad in a place of learning.

Good stuff.

 

[EwanSF]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

Kulindahr, yet again, what you're promoting here is not the bible it's self, but your interpretation of it. The morality of the bible is not clear in the slightest, otherwise there wouldn't be so many interpretations.

The minute you have to tell me "how" to read something, it becomes interpretation, no matter how much you believe the opposite to be true. There is no abuse of the bible. It is so ambiguous, so utterly riddled with contradictions that your reading of it is no more or less valid than that of Fred and Shirleys.

And, frankly, that's why it needs to end.

 

[andysayshi]

Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc

I liked the slogan that an atheist group posted on the side of London buses: