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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
 Posted - 08/31/2010 : 20:35:45 [Permalink]
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I have no experiences with Creationists or any others of such kind. However, from what I experienced, I have the feeling that the problem with it has nothing to do with any of the subjects that are discussed but is a completely different one.
As a scientist I try to find answers that are logic and testable. Those answers are then valid until somebody comes along and proves them wrong or finds more sophisticated answers. The whole thing is inherently dynamic. For example the phylogenetic tree changes at times faster than any printer can possibly manage to finish printing out a complete current one before it is already outdated. This is just the way it goes.
The important thing is that science is questioning due to curiosity and wanting to know regardless of what we like or don’t like and what we want or believed to be true. Answers are then accepted until they are outdated. There are true scientific debates where one says one thing and the other says another thing, which means: back to the drawing board. This is a completely different story and should end with: well, I think we still don't know...
Religion however should (only) have the purpose of giving people answers where they need one to feel save and comfortable in this world. Some people really need those and this is OK. If this involves disbelieving and questioning the answers of scientists then there is nothing wrong with it.
However, the motivation of such disbelieve and questioning is important. Such questioning and disbelieve is not driving by pure curiosity and wanting to know but by the inability to live with the scientific answer. Such a person should then be reminded to stay away from science all together because science is for those nothing else than a trip through hell. It is finding more questions than answers, opening up one bag full of worms after the next, feeling really stupid, and realizing that we know little to nothing. I love it. However for some people this is unbearably discomforting. Those should be reminded that they are allowed to believe what ever they want and that they are allowed to say “STOP QUESTIONING” so they can feel save and comfortable in this world with their answers and I think we, as scientist, should then simply back off.
If this doesn’t do, what happens if they are, instead of given answers, bombarded with even more sophisticated questions than they come up with until they don’t know up and down any more. Why not comming up with questions as an answer to a question. I can easily come up with so many questions that at the end I am not sure any more that I even know that life is not an illusion all together. Prove me wrong – good luck. A scientist has fun with such thing while a religious person runs nuts.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2010 : 22:15:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by daehgnab
Religion however should (only) have the purpose of giving people answers where they need one to feel save and comfortable in this world. |
Why? The world is neither safe nor comfortable. Why should anyone feel that it is?| Some people really need those and this is OK. |
No, it's not okay, it's a delusion.| If this involves disbelieving and questioning the answers of scientists then there is nothing wrong with it. |
Sure there is. It's a denial of reality. These people need therapy, not a church. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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kytheskeptic
New Member
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2010 : 22:58:11 [Permalink]
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| If this involves disbelieving and questioning the answers of scientists then there is nothing wrong with it. |
The problem with that is that some people have a belief that demons/spirits are the cause of diseases. Some would deny medical help and pray for a god/spirit to heal time, or cast a demon/evil spirit out. The consequences of this belief is that these believers would let their children, family, friends and even themselves die slowly with their belief, when science can cure them. What's that harm? That's the harm...
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2010 : 23:42:10 [Permalink]
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The problem I have with religion is that it's practitioners very often seek to legislate their beliefs into laws. Everything from educational content to the conduct of private lives is under assault in the US from religion. TX is well on it's way to banning the teaching of evolution in public school science classrooms. California (no, really, gay ass California) voted in a law to ban same sex marriages. So many of our states have passed legislation to prevent (not ban, but make it very difficult to do or get) abortion, because they think a fertilized egg has the same value as your life! We just had a federal judge order a halt to all the new embryonic stem cell work funded by the NIH, because we actually have a federal law that prohibits federal funding for use on stem cell lines that involve the destruction of an embryo. (we have been using a loophole to get around it for two years)
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have to think it is our responsibility to take religious people seriously, to speak up when they insist on their certainty. I don't know how well your idea of flooding them with questions will work daehgnab, some of these people have been trained to spit out memorized responses to key words. Then there are people like Ken Ham (and other well funded fundies) who hire writers and spend a great deal of money spreading their specific flavor of disinformation. They lobby politicians, they fund political campaigns, they write books, and more... all for the purpose of getting their religious beliefs codified as law.
My point is that I think scientists and skeptics need to be proactive. Currently we are mostly responding to the religious fundamentalists, if we don't switch to a proactive stance in larger numbers then we are going to lose the political battle here.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 16:15:40 [Permalink]
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OK, emotions seem to run high - understandably. Here is a question.
How can I convince people to at least consider the possibility of the existance of an alternative answer if they don't WANT to allow any alternative answer to exist for some reason?
I grew up in a completely non-religious environment by the way so I seriously have no idea how to deal with this issue at all.
You might be able to help me there.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 16:54:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by daehgnab
OK, emotions seem to run high - understandably. Here is a question.
How can I convince people to at least consider the possibility of the existance of an alternative answer if they don't WANT to allow any alternative answer to exist for some reason?
I grew up in a completely non-religious environment by the way so I seriously have no idea how to deal with this issue at all.
You might be able to help me there.
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If I knew the answer to that question I'd patent and copyright it, and make millions renting it out to people.
Flooding them with evidence clearly doesn't work. Evolution has been established science for a century and has an ever growing amount of evidence to support it. It threads across multiple fields of scientific inquiry and remains consistent. It has proven to be predictive in biology, geology, archaeology and other fields. Yet we have people who just ignore all of that in favor of what their local preacher tells them instead, and remain ignorant even when presented with the evidence repeatedly.
I really don't know if there is a good answer to this particular problem.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 17:44:17 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by daehgnab
OK, emotions seem to run high - understandably. |
It does, but that doesn't mean that Dave's and Dude's responses weren't level headed and thought through. They were, but sometimes the truth is harsh, and that may give the impression that they are more emotional than they intend.
Sort of like telling someone he's ignorant. That person may take the statement as a personal insult, when it is really just a statement of fact that he lacks knowledge of a particular subject being discussed.
| How can I convince people to at least consider the possibility of the existence of an alternative answer if they don't WANT to allow any alternative answer to exist for some reason? |
I don't think you can.
Refusing to consider an other point of view is a non-starter.
You can only point, ridicule, and laugh at them. Treat them like leprous, and maybe others will marginalize them too. They are clearly a danger to society, and need to be treated like it lest they infect others too. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 09/01/2010 17:45:02 |
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 18:30:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
If I knew the answer to that question I'd patent and copyright it, and make millions renting it out to people.
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I am so desperate that I would rent it for free...
Originally posted by Dude
Flooding them with evidence clearly doesn't work. Evolution has been established science for a century and has an ever growing amount of evidence to support it. It threads across multiple fields of scientific inquiry and remains consistent. It has proven to be predictive in biology, geology, archaeology and other fields. Yet we have people who just ignore all of that in favor of what their local preacher tells them instead, and remain ignorant even when presented with the evidence repeatedly.
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This is exactly what I had in mind. The stupid thing is that I think that this is however exactly the question to which we need to find a good answer to solve the whole problem.
I personally would be already reasonably happy if they would at least consider the possibility of the existance of an alternative answer because that would mean that their actions would (have to) change from exclusive to inclusive.
Maybe one idea (don't get me wrong, I am only throwing out ideas) would be to first find a way to convince them that we do not want to take them anything away (specially not their savety prison) but that we would highly appreciate if they only would consider the possibility that we might at least not be completely wrong. That alone I would consider a breakthrough.
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 18:40:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
They are clearly a danger to society
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I totally agree with this. It has been shown many many times in history that the non-willingness of at least seriously considering an alternative easily leads to disaster...
This is the reason why it is so important to find an answer to my question. I mean finding a way to reach them.
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 19:18:04 [Permalink]
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Oh, just as a measure of my desparation.
To make sure that the kids in at least the class of my children get a short introduction to the idea of Evolution (teachere were not brave enough to do so), I 'misused' the right of free speech of my children and encouraged them to pick Darwin when it came to giving a 5 minute speech in front of the class about their favourite person of history. One can argue that this wasn't exactly quite the right thing to do but what can you do? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/01/2010 : 20:31:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by daehgnab
Originally posted by Dude
If I knew the answer to that question I'd patent and copyright it, and make millions renting it out to people.
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I am so desperate that I would rent it for free...
Originally posted by Dude
Flooding them with evidence clearly doesn't work. Evolution has been established science for a century and has an ever growing amount of evidence to support it. It threads across multiple fields of scientific inquiry and remains consistent. It has proven to be predictive in biology, geology, archaeology and other fields. Yet we have people who just ignore all of that in favor of what their local preacher tells them instead, and remain ignorant even when presented with the evidence repeatedly.
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This is exactly what I had in mind. The stupid thing is that I think that this is however exactly the question to which we need to find a good answer to solve the whole problem.
I personally would be already reasonably happy if they would at least consider the possibility of the existance of an alternative answer because that would mean that their actions would (have to) change from exclusive to inclusive.
Maybe one idea (don't get me wrong, I am only throwing out ideas) would be to first find a way to convince them that we do not want to take them anything away (specially not their savety prison) but that we would highly appreciate if they only would consider the possibility that we might at least not be completely wrong. That alone I would consider a breakthrough.
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Yeah. There isn't a good answer. When one "side" of a political discussion refuses to actually participate in the discussion, instead using it as an opportunity to push a rigid ideology, there isn't much you can do inside that discussion.
There has been some success in the legal system, but this only happens after some group of hyper religious people make a law or education policy that violates federal laws about religion being promoted by public schools.
In the broader picture I think it is a matter of education. We have to ensure that our schools teach real science. But when schoolboards (the people who determine what educational standards/content are) are elected, and there is no requirement that the people elected to it have a background in education or even have graduated from highschool, we are going to constantly be bombarded by ignorant people trying to push their rigid (and wrong) ideologies in to our school system at the expense of science. In TX they are even trying to push alternate versions of history into school standards...
As it stands now we have to rely on our legal system to check this problem because we can't counter it effectively in the realm of public discourse.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2010 : 06:26:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
When one "side" of a political discussion refuses to actually participate in the discussion, instead using it as an opportunity to push a rigid ideology, there isn't much you can do inside that discussion.
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Bingo. This is exactly what I had in mind when I sayed: "Those should be reminded that they are allowed to believe what ever they want and that they are allowed to say “STOP QUESTIONING” so they can feel save and comfortable in this world with their answers and I think we, as scientist, should then simply back off."
With other words: Do not participate in any discussion that can only fail. But instead, find another way of getting to this sucker.
Just like in research... There, imagine you have question and you want to find an answer. However, your current idea of getting to it turns out to involve bending the laws of physics.... What do you do? Well: Back off, and try to find a different approach of getting to this sucker.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2010 : 18:09:19 [Permalink]
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I agree. I am, however, at a loss when it comes to finding an alternative method for dealing with creationism and it's various offshoots.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 08:00:50 [Permalink]
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I know. It is depressing. But, I think there is still hope.
At least some of you probably know this, but when I first got to know about this, that was exactly when my enthusiasm of discussing science with them went to minus infinity.
I know people who were within those circles. They told me that one exercise they start as children is debating. During such depates, they form two groups. One group has the task to argue against and the other side to vigorously argue pro evolution or any other field of science with the goal to prove/disprove the existance of a creator. This is how they learn how to crush us. The goal of this is not to get closer to any sort of rational truth, but instead to learn how to crush everybody who says that Good can't or might not exist. It is part of their education. It happens that one of the persons I know actually managed (as a teenager) to win such a depate for the "wrong side" and this didn't end well... This is not supposed to happen...and they get better and better with this until a 'normal' person will have no chance at all.
Something that I do not understand is why it is so important for them to "prove" that Good must exist by (mis)using science. Well, I actually did get some answers there, but those don't make sense to me. Are they indeed in such desperation that they can't be happy with simply believing but need prove for Good's existance to be satisfied? This would only possible after science answered every single scientific question and then still can't explain the existance of the universe without that a creator must exist. However, we are indeed so fare away from this that any discussion that comes to any conclusion about the existance/non-existance of a creator does not make any sense. Maybe this is where questioning can come handy. I mean representing all those questions that are not answered yet. Representing all those things that are still in the dark and then vigerously pointing out that as long as we do not know what is in the dark, we can't be really sure of anything because almost everything is still possible. I don't feel that I, as a scientist, loose anything when I say this. They should not either because this might be just how Good wants it. That we never will be able to scientifically prove the existance.
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daehgnab
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 12:10:59 [Permalink]
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Shorter version of the above:
Instead of making arguments such as: "The existance of a Creator is questionable because we know that....."
find arguments such as: "We can not prove the existance of a Creator because we still don't know ...."
-- and you might even get that sucker... |
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