There is a particular subset of believers who really aren’t seeking any answers, outside of the one they believe they already have. They are by no means the majority. But the ones I’m talking about have beliefs that are pretty intractable.
True, but there are also plenty stories of people who were brought up religiously, who after they reached the age of reason decided that science is the better option of two belief systems.
The stories describing the opposite are are far and few between.
It’s a war of attrition. Have you seen who is on the board of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences?
Nobel Prize Members
During its various decades of activity, the Academy has had a number of Nobel Prize winners amongst its members, many of whom were appointed Academicians before they received this prestigious international award. These include:
Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908)
Guglielmo Marconi (Physics, 1909)
Alexis Carrel (Physiology, 1912)
Max von Laue (Physics, 1914)
Max Planck (Physics, 1918)
Niels Bohr (Physics, 1922)
Werner Heisenberg (Physics, 1932)
Paul Dirac (Physics, 1933)
Erwin Schrödinger (Physics, 1933)
Peter J.W. Debye (Chemistry, 1936)
Otto Hahn (Chemistry, 1944)
Sir Alexander Fleming (Physiology, 1945)
Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee (Physics, 1957)
Joshua Lederberg (Physiology, 1958)
Rudolf Mössbauer (Physics, 1961)
Max F. Perutz (Chemistry, 1962)
John Carew Eccles (Physiology, 1963)
Charles H. Townes (Physics, 1964)
Manfred Eigen and George Porter (Chemistry, 1967)
Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg (Physiology, 1968)
Christian de Duve (Physiology, 1974)
George Emil Palade (Physiology, 1974)
David Baltimore (Physiology, 1975)
Aage Bohr (Physics, 1975)
Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979)
Paul Berg (Chemistry, 1980)
Kai Siegbahn (Physics, 1981)
Sune Bergstrom (Physiology, 1982)
Carlo Rubbia (Physics, 1984)
Klaus von Klitzing (Physics, 1985)
Rita Levi-Montalcini (Physiology, 1986)
John C. Polanyi (Chemistry, 1986)
Yuan Tseh Lee (Chemistry, 1986)
Jean-Marie Lehn (Chemistry, 1987)
Joseph E. Murray (Physiology, 1990)
Gary S. Becker (Economics, 1992)
Paul J. Crutzen and Mario J. Molina (Chemistry, 1995)
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Physics, 1997)
Ahmed H. Zewail (Chemistry, 1999)
Günter Blobel (Physiology, 1999)
Ryoji Noyori (Chemistry, 2001)
Aaron Ciechanover (Chemistry, 2004)
The straw man is that you say I’m simply asking you to be nice. Communication is a little more complicated than that. Respectful discourse is more than avoiding offending someone. It’s not shutting up or bowing down either. I didn’t ask you to do any of those things.
The straw man is that you say I’m simply asking you to be nice.
That's what I heard.
Communication is a little more complicated than that.
Right, which is why I'm always dragging my stuff out here and invite serious critique - though I'm lucky if I get veiled insinuations - that I then need to decipher best I can.
I didn’t ask you to do any of those things.
Okay, what were you asking? As we all know I'm not that good a intellectual riddles.
Science as we know it has only been around for 500 years, but you are lamenting how people are acting in the ways they have been for 50,000 years. We talk intellectually about how we are at the mercy of our biology, then we walk out into the world as if we are independent actors with total free will to use our rational minds to figure out anything. And if we see someone doing something because their mother told them it was right, we call them willfully ignorant.
I thought you were on to something, acknowledging the power of story telling and using the concept of intelligent design but not accepting the supernatural power of it. But you ask for “successful messaging”, then dismiss some of the things suggested, like Ursula Goodenough’s work. We had some discussion going, but you threw in “faith-shackled” and I thought that was worth pointing out as something that is counter productive. If you can’t take feedback on your use of language in a discussion that is about the use of language, that makes my part of the conversation kind of difficult.
There is a particular subset of believers who really aren’t seeking any answers, outside of the one they believe they already have…
True, but there are also plenty stories of people who were brought up religiously, who after they reached the age of reason decided that science is the better option of two belief systems.
Of course, there are tons of people raised believing in the Biblical account who later accept scientific truth. I never suggested otherwise.
I was getting at was this:
both disciplines (religion v science) are seeking the same answers.
I agree with that, for the majority. I was, as I said, referring to a specific subset of the religious for whom seeking is, in and of itself, not simply discouraged but not even mildly interesting. They truly believe the Bible contains everything they'd ever need or want to know, and they simply have zero curiosity about the world. Since they have no interest, they are not "seeking."
Obviously, some of those people DO begin questioning. But at that point, they are no longer the people I was referring to.
As for the list of Nobel prize winners, I don’t really know who these folks are so I’m not sure what I was supposed to see.
I’m taking the feedback, but what’s wrong with a little push back? Especially among friends.
… then dismiss some of the things suggested,
Well, if we don’t see any of that working - why not a little cynicism? Why, not a little pushing the envelop?
“Faith-shackled” I believe is an extremely descriptive term - I can appreciate not calling someone to their face - A Faith-Shacked sheople.
But then again, how else would you describe what those 40% who see Trump as their Messiah - and who react to educational efforts and physical solid facts, as though they were mortal aggressive personal attacks to be counter-attacked with ruthless disregard for honesty, let alone decency and respect???
After all, that is the reality unfolding in our land and world
Someone who believes that only by Promising Jesus they love Jesus and that JC is bestest ever and the One And Only Way to get to Heaven.
Yes, I’m steaming pissed off, heartbroken, spirit broken, hopeless, then cycle through it again and again - at the travesty of fantasy we have all come to accept as normal and okay - when it is the ticket to our self-destruction.
As for the list of Nobel prize winners, I don’t really know who these folks are so I’m not sure what I was supposed to see.
I’m sure you recognize some of these names. It speaks well of the Pontifical Academy and proof is that it has come to the conclusion that Evolution is TRUE, which falsifies the biblical account of Genesis.
Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908)
Guglielmo Marconi (Physics, 1909)
Alexis Carrel (Physiology, 1912)
Max von Laue (Physics, 1914)
Max Planck (Physics, 1918)
Niels Bohr (Physics, 1922)
Werner Heisenberg (Physics, 1932)
Paul Dirac (Physics, 1933)
Erwin Schrödinger (Physics, 1933)
These are true heavyweigths of science and most of them are Atheist. Just query any of these names on Wiki. Most of them are Nobel Laureates.
That the Pontifical Academy consults them speaks positively to the church’s genuine interest of seeking truth. After all, two Popes have declared Evolution to be true. A small step for Science, a giant leap for the Church.
40% is the percentage of the public that still backs Trump and the GOP.
A percent of that 40% back him for reasons of Evangelical zeal, because they think God sent him, either to support a right-wing anti-abortion anti-gay agenda, and some of those think God sent him to usher in the end times. But even those people don’t think he is their “Messiah” literally. If you are saying it tongue-in-cheek, fine
I wrote a comment on the “collusion” thread but lost it. I’m in a hurry. Will explain later
It speaks well of the Pontifical Academy and proof is that it has come to the conclusion that Evolution is TRUE, which falsifies the biblical account of Genesis.
Oh. So?
We don’t need this list to prove what the Vatican thinks. The Vatican officially accepted the possibility of evolution in 1950, and officially said that evolution was clearly scientific fact – and that it did not conflict with Catholicism, which accepts Genesis as metaphor – back in 1963 (Vatican II).
Catholic K-12 schools and universities have been teaching evolution ever since. At the same time, the Vatican accepted that God’s truth was bigger than the Catholic church, and that truth is truth regardless of who reveals it, so atheists don’t terrify Catholics anymore. Science does not “falsify” anything for Catholics.
You didn’t know this about Catholics? You are 56 years behind.
I think I have said, in every one of these threads, that Catholics, Orthodox and most Protestants have no problem with evolution.
I just think that we don’t help the conversation if we don’t understand who believes what on the other side.
We don’t need this list to prove what the Vatican thinks. The Vatican officially accepted the possibility of evolution in 1950, and officially said that evolution was clearly scientific fact — and that it did not conflict with Catholicism, which accepts Genesis as metaphor — back in 1963 (Vatican II).
Catholic K-12 schools and universities have been teaching evolution ever since. At the same time, the Vatican accepted that God’s truth was bigger than the Catholic church, and that truth is truth regardless of who reveals it, so atheists don’t terrify Catholics anymore. Science does not “falsify” anything for Catholics.
You didn’t know this about Catholics? You are 56 years behind.
I think I have said, in every one of these threads, that Catholics, Orthodox and most Protestants have no problem with evolution.
I just think that we don’t help the conversation if we don’t understand who believes what on the other side.
Wow, those are some weighty conclusions you just spouted. It is very clear you don’t know me. I am a hard atheist and I reject all belief systems that include supernatural values and functions. I have posted my own conclusions how the concept of an invisible sky being was arrived at by man’s progenitor. I also posted the news flash about the popes many years ago on this very forum.
I am also empathic and very much able to place myself into another’s shoes. It allows me to understand the need for some higher purpose in many people.
And IMO, in the face of 3000 years of rigid enforcement of religious scripture, 56 years of a fundamental agreement between religion and science is an encouraging sign. Maybe in another century we can look back at the first primitive efforts to explain the Universe and smile at the evolution of “knowledge” slowly replacing “faith”.
If someone wants to believe that God came before the BB, have at it. It’s unprovable, but if it offers some kind of emotional comfort without having to slay a bunch of apostates, I call that a small step in the direction of “enlightenment”.
Let’s start with eliminating the violence associated with “God’s Will”. At least then we can sit down and have a dispassionate discussion on the matter. Atheist don’t need to slay their opponents. No one ever got killed by Atheists in the name of the “absence of a God”.
I am literally running out the door, but I really think something got massively misconstrued here.
To be clear:
I am a hard atheist.
I know that you, too, are a hard atheist.
I understand you want Christians who oppose evolution to come to a realization of scientific fact. I do as well.
When you showed me the Vaticans list of atheist scientists to prove that Genesis has been disproven, I was confused. Because Catholics have been cool with evolution for a long time. It’s old news.
But the Catholics reasoning will not affect the reasoning of the Protrstant Fundamentalist Christians who do oppose evolution. In fact, that is just one more reason they hate Cathlics.
Because Cathokics and Fundamentalist Protestants have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ways of interpreting the Bible and COMPLELY DIFFERENT theology.
“Faith-shackled” I believe is an extremely descriptive term – I can appreciate not calling someone to their face – A Faith-Shacked sheople.
But then again, how else would you describe what those 40% who see Trump as their Messiah – and who react to educational efforts and physical solid facts, as though they were mortal aggressive personal attacks to be counter-attacked with ruthless disregard for honesty, let alone decency and respect???
Actually I need to take that back. I could use Faith-shackled directly to such an individual within a civil dialogue where we’re allowed to define our positions - it’s all in the context and delivery.
As for 40% I base that on the 40% who manage to support trump no matter how landish and unAmerican totalitarian he gets.
I’m think surveys on the acceptance or entertaining a six day six thousand year ago creation -
would bear out some such terrifying numbers regarding staunch faith-based thinking in deliberate disregard for physical evidence or scientific facts.
The consumerist business model is designed to siphon all of the wealth to the top and will eventually collapse into a serfdom when there is no more wealth left to siphon.
The consumerist business model is designed to siphon all of the wealth to the top and will eventually collapse into a serfdom when there is no more wealth left to siphon.
I don't know that it's 'designed' to do that, but it is the inevitable outcome if there aren't lots of rules and regulations reigning it in.
The belief that capitalism the best and, indeed, only viable model, is held with religious fervor. I bang my head against that wall every time politics comes up, which is why I don’t talk politics.
But even those people don’t think he is their “Messiah” literally. If you are saying it tongue-in-cheek, fine
So, Tee and I agree, 40% is in error. That's the Presidential approval rating which includes a lot of people who could not name the Vice President. Why does it matter? Because the topic is about a marketing strategy. That starts with defining your market. Saying something tongue-in-cheek would not be a good strategy.
It is absolutely designed to siphon wealth to the top, and it works very well. The wealth gap has never been bigger. It wasn’t designed to eventually collapse, but if you already own most of the wealth in the world there isn’t much more to take anyway.
Back to the original topic I think it only makes sense that scientists don’t really talk about ID. That’s a settled thing. It’s crap. There’s no reason for them to research it. There’s no reason for them to debate it. There’s no reason for them to talk about it among themselves. And with very few exceptions (my favorite being Michio Kaku because he seems like a nice guy, he looks sharp and his name is fun to say) there aren’t really a lot of scientists just out telling the public how it is. They make the occasional appearance on some special and that’s about it except for the Cosmos reboot (very excited about that). What format would they even use to talk about ID to the people? And how would that pay the bills? Because they have to get paid. A PhD isn’t a cheap thing unless you get it from one of those scam “schools” that charge you a few hundred dollars and send you a degree you didn’t earn. Would there be an audience for it besides those who already agree? I’m not sure what more they can do as scientists that they haven’t already done, which is to say, “We looked into it and it’s crap.”
And frankly scientists don’t really have the best track record with taking this stuff on. Dawkins is on a crusade against science deniers, but he’s so abrasive about it that I agree with him and even I think he’s kind of a dick.
When they truly are “dark forces”, such as the Discovery Institute, yeah. No holds barred. But atheists already have this bad rap as being total, self-righteous a-holes, which, let’s face it, many of us are. I understand losing your cool when you’re talking to Ken Ham or something. But the MOMENT you piss someone off while questioning their beliefs you just made it 10x harder to change their minds, and it was already an uphill battle to begin with.