Re: O'Reilly shows us we can't have religion in sc
What evidence? Show me the evidence.
You'd have to ask Dr. Miller -- he's the one who agreed that there's lots of evidence for design.
The only "evidence" for design I have ever encountered is the "watchmaker" argument, so often used by creationists, but can just as easily be applied to a designer who made the universe 6 billion years ago via the big bang and designed a mechanism for abiogenesis leading to evolution through natural selection to form all manner of life on this planet. The argument being that when you see something with enormous complexity and a sense of purpose, you infer that it must have been made by a designer. This, however, does nothing to explain the designer. Show the Mona Lisa (a painting creationists love to talk about) and one can interpret that it was designed, but until you show me DaVinci's signature on the back of the painting, I will say there is no evidence in the painting for the existence of DaVinci himself. The biggest problem I have with a designer is the argument that a complex system requires a designer. There is one important thing I want to point out , which is the main point made by that argument: complexity requires a designer. I will agree that the universe is extremely complex. That being said, it requires a designer, as has been argued. A being that has the ability to create such a complex system would have to be infinitely more complex than the system that has been created. So, the designer is complex. Remember the main point of the argument. Complexity requires a designer. The designer is complex. The designer requires a designer. Now, the designer requires explanation. Talking about a designer actually explains nothing, while appearing to explain everything.
You do fine until you claim that a designer would have to be infinitely more complex than what is designed. I'll refer to DNA, which is elegantly simple -- but gives rise to incredible complexity.
A designer's creative capacity would have to be greater than (or equal to) what is designed, but unless you want to include the creative capacity as part of the designer, the designer doesn't have to be: it can be as simple a matter as the very basic constants of the universe, from which everything else flows.
OTOH, the type of people who claim Intelligent Design as their cause these days probably are thinking in simple enough terms that your criticism fells them... and they wouldn't likely even get it.
No, I want people to be taught about what is known to be true based upon objective evidence-based facts. I don't care what they believe, and I don't care what they are taught outside of a public system of learning.
That's what I said -- you want materialistic empiricism imposed as the official philosophy.
Or are you requiring also that the teachers tell students that there's no proof that materialistic empiricism is the only way to know things?
I find it interesting the way we both use the word religion differently. I use religion to describe all faith-based beliefs, all religions of the world. When you say religion, you obviously are describing your religion, and so when you talk about schools being anti-religious, I assume you mean anti-christian religion. By implementing any religious teachings in a school, that school automatically becomes anti-every other religion. Now, unless you want to implement small aspects of every single religion in teaching, the only way to remain neutral is to not incorporate any. You made a previous post that says this way of thinking is against religious teachers, religious symbols of any kind, and religious behavior being banned in school. I don't care about any of that, no matter how you want to spin my arguments. I care only about teaching religion.
Bingo!
And by establishing materialistic empiricism as the faith of your school, you are automatically "anti-every other religion".
You guess wrong; when I say "relgion", I mean all faith-based systems of thought -- including materialistic empiricism.
What I am advocating is not faith based. What I am advocating is the teaching of topics in schools that do not require faith to be taught and understood. It's no more against teaching religion in school than it is against teaching unicorns or fairies. It's just that religion is the only fantastical topic that is ever actually seriously considered for classroom teachings.
That's subtly different than what you've said before -- and if it has indeed been your position, it negates some of my charges. It sounds as though you're announcing up front that there may be other ways of knowing things, but that what (this) school looks at are the things that everyone can find out if they have the skills to get there -- and the intelligence, of course.
As for religion being the "only fantastical topic" -- that depends on how you define religion; as was noted in the question/answer period with Dr. Miller, there are "spiritual" movements "on the left" that are anti-science as well (like all the "crystals have healing powers" and similar nonsense).
It has become obvious to me that your posts have grown exponentially more personally insulting and slanderous (I'll point to your amorality, tyrannical, thought controlling comments). Reply to this if you want, but I am done enabling you.
If you think I've been growing more insulting, you just have an overactive imagination.
If you want only your materialistic empiricism taught in school, that's tyrannical, because you're making no allowance for people who don't want their children taught that way. If you want morality based only on evolution, then you have no morality except survival. And if as you originally said, you want no religion at all in the classroom, then you're after thought control. Those aren't insults, nor are they slander, they're objective statements.
And if you want to defend atheism by pointing to your personal feelings, remember how others on here say "that's only your interpretation" about things. Stalin's version of atheist morality is as valid as yours -- and more valid than Phelps' interpretation of the Bible, because there are no strictures whatsoever, in atheism, against Stalinesque behavior.
But even if you think I've been flinging insults, what do you expect when you start a baiting thread that starts off by insulting all believers of any variety?
BTW:
It's too bad you haven't responded to my core analysis of your original post -- namely, that it demonstrates an anti-God, anti-faith prejudice which only looks at the evidence which supports its position.
](/images/smilies/bang.gif "Brick wall ](*,)")
