Dinosaurs are not real :(

[Vonhelmet]

And even that quote is lolworthy because hardly any Christians think that way.

Do you have any evidence for that?

For the record, I'm not sure where I'd look for evidence to the contrary, but hey ho...

 

[Castiel]

Student surveys, and my past classmates and teachers.

Feel free to look it up or carry out your own research if you have to, I think you will find it to be true.

Here you go:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

here is the refutation from Eugenie Scott:

and in answer to Stephen Jay Gould:

Richard Feynman:

"If you think that science is certain—well that's just an error on your part."

which just about says it all really.

 

[bhavv]

Do you have any evidence for that?

I never met a Christian that didnt think that 'Evolution was just a theory'.

Everyone I've spoken to, and these were university students too mind you, stated that they didnt believe in Evolution as it was just a theory with no evidence.

But they can believe in God on the same terms.

here is the refutation from Eugenie Scott:

which just about says it all really.

No, that video does not point out anything against the claim that most Scientists are Atheists. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether 'science' is atheist or agnostic, which was not my argument. Now stop getting confused over words which look similar that you fail to comprehend.

 

[Vonhelmet]

I never met a Christian that didnt think that 'Evolution was just a theory'.

Would you say you've met me?

Also, that's some seriously anecdotal evidence. Not very scientific.

 

[churchhawk]

My mate in work thinks dinosaur bones were made by the government and are not real and that what they taught us schools is all lies.

He also belives there is a hole in the earth which "other" people live.

He smokes weed.

 

[Castiel]

I was referring to your 'powder puff girls' post quite obviously.

And even that quote is lolworthy because hardly any Christians think that way.

But still, it isnt your opinion, its what you think other people believe. You still refuse to answer the question with your own personal beliefs because you know you cant.

What are you talking about now.....you asked what Christian belief, I am not a Christian.

I accept Evolution as a scientific truth in so far as Science can promulgate the truth. I do not have to reconcile that personally with a religious belief as I have none.

As for the post referring to your example of the powerpuff girls, that is also not lolworthy, it is in fact an objective and logical dissemination of what you posted.

 

[bhavv]

Even Eugenie Scott dislikes Christians who say that 'Evolution is only a theory, not a fact', as do I, and yes that makes up 100% of Christians I have personally met. I even went to their chaplaincy thing and their evangelist conversion social events, until I realized they were only being nice to me and inviting me to such stuff to try and convert me to their religion.

 

[Castiel]

No, that video does not point out anything against the claim that most Scientists are Atheists. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether 'science' is atheist or agnostic, which was not my argument. Now stop getting confused over words which look similar that you fail to comprehend.

What it does do is illustrate that science is indeed agnostic and by definition scientists are also agnostic in the sense that their faith in the scientific principles imply this. There personal beliefs are immaterial when you are promoting the concept that scientists are atheist because they are scientists...as the rationale and logic of the scientific method is agnostic and thus scientists as defined by their discipline are also agnostic.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Even Eugenie Scott dislikes Christians who say that 'Evolution is only a theory, not a fact', as do I, and yes that makes up 100% of Christians I have personally met. I even went to their chaplaincy thing and their evangelist conversion social events, until I realized they were only being nice to me and inviting me to such stuff to try and convert me to their religion.

Fairly limited sampling...

Besides, I doubt you ask every person you meet what their religion is and whether, if they are a Christian, they believe in evolution.

 

[bhavv]

I didnt imply that scientists are atheists because they are scientists, though I do imply that in general, more intelligent people in any area of study will be atheist than agnostic or theist, and this is proven by my link.

=
Besides, I doubt you ask every person you meet what their religion is and whether, if they are a Christian, they believe in evolution.

You misunderstand. 90%+ of my friends at university were Christian, and discussion of evolution simply naturally came up (we even went to an evolution vs creationism debate, and I could definitely see every Christian that had attended applauding and believing what the creationist guy said, plus they swarmed around him at the end to try and chat to him like he was some kind of celebrity).

Even the most liberal christians there didnt believe in Evolution. They refused / werent allowed to celebrate halloween because it was a celebration of the devil, and they were fully active evangelists setting up social events to invite their non christian friends to, only in order to preach about God at some point during the events. Oh, and several of them told me I was 'violent' (when drunk), and that this was because I play video games, when funnily enough, I only started drinking after a bunch of christians kept on buying me alcohol and using peer pressure to get me to drink.

 

[Castiel]

I didnt imply that scientists are atheists because they are scientists, though I do imply that in general, more intelligent people in any area of study will be atheist than agnostic or theist, and this is proven by my link.

Again it is not, as Vonhelmet has pointed out the link you gave has a very limited sample and this refutes the findings somewhat:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/03/u...ty-of-faith-in-god.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Scientists have been accused of playing God when they clone sheep, and of naysaying God when they insist that evolution be taught in school, but as a new study indicates, many scientists believe in God by the most mainstream, uppercase definition of the concept.

Repeating verbatim a famous survey first conducted in 1916, Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia has found that the depth of religious faith among scientists has not budged regardless of whatever scientific and technical advances this century has wrought.

Then as now, about 40 percent of the responding biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in a God who, by the survey's strict definition, actively communicates with humankind and to whom one may pray ''in expectation of receiving an answer.'' Roughly 15 percent in both surveys claimed to be agnostic or to have ''no definite belief'' regarding the question, while about 42 percent in 1916 and about 45 percent today said they did not believe in a God as specified in the questionnaire, although whether they believed in some other definition of a deity or an almighty being was not addressed.

The figure of unqualified believers is considerably lower than that usually cited for Americans as a whole. Gallup polls, for example, have found that about 93 percent of people surveyed profess a belief in God. But those familiar with the survey said that, given the questionnaire's exceedingly restrictive definition of God -- narrower than the standard Gallup question -- and given scientists' training to say exactly what they mean and nothing more, the 40 percent figure in fact is impressively high.

More revealing than the figures themselves, experts said, are their stability. The fact that scientists' private beliefs remained unchanged across almost a century defined by change suggests that orthodox religion is no more disappearing among those considered the intellectual elite than it is among the public at large. The results also indicate that, while science and religion often are depicted as irreconcilable antagonists, each a claimant to the throne of truth, many scientists see no contradiction between a quest to understand the laws of nature, and a belief in a higher deity.

The results of Dr. Larson's survey, which he conducted with a religion writer, Larry Witham of Burtonsville, Md., are to appear today in the journal Nature.

Dr. Larson did not try to determine whether the scientists he polled were Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other creed, whether they went to religious services or otherwise attended to the rituals of a particular faith. He merely wanted to see what had happened in the 80-plus years since the renowned psychologist James Leuba asked 1,000 randomly selected scientists if they believed in God.

Mr. Leuba, a devout atheist, had predicted that a disbelief in God would grow as education spread, and Dr. Larson decided to use the psychologist's exact methods to see if the prediction held.

He polled the same number of researchers as had Mr. Leuba and used the same source for picking his subjects -- the directory ''American Men and Women of Science,'' a compendium of researchers successful enough to win awards and be cited regularly in the scientific literature. He followed Mr. Leuba's survey format to the letter, with the same introduction and the same questions written in the same stilted language, even enclosing the same type of return envelope. More than 600 of about 1,000 scientists answered the questionnaire, similar to Mr. Leuba's response rate.

In addition to the question about a belief in an accessible God, the survey asked whether the respondents believed in personal immortality, and if not, whether they would desire immortality anyway. Here there were some changes in the responses. In Mr. Leuba's survey, 50 percent of the scientists said they believed in personal immortality, a puzzling and inconsistent figure given the more modest 40 percent belief in God. Moreover, many doubters confessed to a strong desire for immortality. Dr. Larson found that his two statistics, a belief in God and in life everlasting matched; and that those who didn't believe in personal immortality had little wish for it. ''I see this as a healthy trend,'' he said. ''People have become more consistent, confident and comfortable with their world views.''

But of the divination that religion was on its way out, Dr. Larson writes, ''Leuba misjudged either the human mind or the ability of science to satisfy all human needs.''

Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington in Seattle, said that because the questions in the Leuba survey are so narrowly phrased, the results probably underestimate the extent of religious sentiment among scientists. Several recent surveys of American college professors, he said, show that professors are almost as likely to express a belief in God as are Americans as a whole.

Moreover, he said, when the sample in a study he and his co-workers are now doing is broken down into specialties, teachers of the so-called hard sciences, like math and chemistry, are more likely to be devout than are professors of such softer sciences as anthropology and psychology or of the humanities. Since the analysis is not finished, he could not give exact numbers. The reason for the discrepancy may be that, in an odd sort of way, traditional religious dogma suits the mathematically inclined mind, suggested George Marsden, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. ''It could be that scientists are used to looking for definite answers, whereas humanists go into their field because they like to deal with ambiguities.''

Mr. Leuba's survey had an enormous impact in its day. William Jennings Bryan, a populist Democratic politician and orator, used the results as ammunition in the Scopes trial of the 1920's, claiming that they showed a scandalous level of atheism among scientists and thus proved the dangers of allowing evolutionary thinking to pollute education.

Dr. Larson suggests that the updated survey could be used for very different ends, to calm public fears that scientists are godless at heart. Whether the public hungers for the reassurance is another matter. ''In 1916, when scientists were emerging as the high priests of a new technological culture, everybody cared about what they thought and believed,'' Dr. Marsden said. ''But the prestige of science peaked in 1960 and has been declining ever since. Do people still care whether scientists believe in God? I'm not so sure.''

also for a more up to date and far wider survey(as in the American Association for the Advancement of Science) this one counters what you claim is a majority atheist viewpoint:

http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx

A survey of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in May and June 2009, finds that members of this group are, on the whole, much less religious than the general public. Indeed, the survey shows that scientists are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.

 

[bhavv]

You waste too much time quoting stuff castiel, I'm not interested in reading any of it as it hurts my eyes, unless you can condense it into your own summaries of only a paragraph or two long.

Also this link that you posted:

http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx

Proves that what I said is true.

Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power

= Atheist by definition, and the majority of the Scientists in that poll.

If you dont want to believe that, then believe that significantly fewer Scientists believe in God than the average population do.

Also, I believe I already asked you this question before, but you didnt answer it:

IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN GOD, THEN WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO DEFEND GOD / RELIGION SO STRONGLY.

And answer it with your own personal opinion for a change, not with a barrage of meaningless annoying quotes.

 

[voodooGT]

I'm an eskimo born and raised of mute parents. I have been taught how to hunt, fish and survive in a region so remote I know nothing of other human civilization. I know nothing of God. Am I atheist?

 

[RomanNose]

I'm an eskimo born and raised of mute parents. I have been taught how to hunt, fish and survive in a region so remote I know nothing of other human civilization. I know nothing of God. Am I atheist?

Depends on your definition of atheist. I would say you are atheist by my definition ( which is basically "no belief in a deity" ) ,others will say you would be called an agnostic. My definition includes agnostics anyway. Castiel will say my definition is stupid, but it's what I am most familiar with. Most forums including reddit will actually use something more similar to my definition than the classical one which is basically " There is no god".

 

[RDM]

Even the most liberal christians there didnt believe in Evolution. They refused / werent allowed to celebrate halloween because it was a celebration of the devil, and they were fully active evangelists setting up social events to invite their non christian friends to, only in order to preach about God at some point during the events. Oh, and several of them told me I was 'violent' (when drunk), and that this was because I play video games, when funnily enough, I only started drinking after a bunch of christians kept on buying me alcohol and using peer pressure to get me to drink.

Why is it that you only seem to know evangelicals? My wife is Catholic and has no issue with evolution. Her priest has no issue with evolution. The catholic science teacher in the school she went to has no issue with evolution. I know three or four literalist Christians but many, many more ordinary Christians who have no issue with evolution.

My advice would be to get to know some more people, but then if you are as aggressive against religion as you come across on this board it is no wonder that many moderate people would avoid you!

 

[Gilly]

I didnt imply that scientists are atheists because they are scientists, though I do imply that in general, more intelligent people in any area of study will be atheist than agnostic or theist, and this is proven by my link.

Intelligence will lead towards agnosticism in the main, simply because it is needed to know the existence of god cannot be proven or disproven.

Going either way requires faith.

 

[jmc007]

I'm an eskimo born and raised of mute parents. I have been taught how to hunt, fish and survive in a region so remote I know nothing of other human civilization. I know nothing of God. Am I atheist?

I guess that is from the "joke"/quote by Annie Dillard. “Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"”

 

[Castiel]

You waste too much time quoting stuff castiel, I'm not interested in reading any of it as it hurts my eyes, unless you can condense it into your own summaries of only a paragraph or two long.

Also this link that you posted:

http://pewforum.org/Science-and-Bioethics/Scientists-and-Belief.aspx

Proves that what I said is true.



= Atheist by definition, and the majority of the Scientists in that poll.

If you dont want to believe that, then believe that significantly fewer Scientists believe in God than the average population do.

Also, I believe I already asked you this question before, but you didnt answer it:

IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN GOD, THEN WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO DEFEND GOD / RELIGION SO STRONGLY.

And answer it with your own personal opinion for a change, not with a barrage of meaningless annoying quotes.

It called evidence supporting my opinion that you are wrong. The first quoted example relates directly to the Leuba Study that you quoted yourself. You are also supplying links to supporting opinion and statistics, although in several cases it has been shown that the evidence you supplied doesn't in fact support your opinion, quite the opposite. That you cannot even be bothered to read the opposing evidence makes your opinion all the more useless.

Also, not having a belief in a god doesn't make you an atheist, I don't believe in a god yet I am agnostic and that is the point being raised by everyone here...

You do not understand the definitions of the philosophical positions enough to make the sweeping judgements that you are.

I accept, as I pointed out earlier in the thread that Scientists are less likely to be religious than the general public, but that doesn't equate to most scientist do not believe in a god or some form of spirituality, and it certainly doesn't equate to your opinion that Scientists are mostly atheists. It simply means they are less likely to be religious.

Also my opinion or my refutation of your statements has nothing to do with any belief in God or any defence of religion or God, it has everything to do with you being wrong. Don't suppose for one minute that by demanding I stay out of it becasue I am not religious that you will have an easier time and not look so foolish or that simply because I do not believe in God that I somehow should agree with you.....as I answered you when you asked the question before.

Why do you feel the need to keep on defending something that you yourself dont even believe in? If religion wasnt BS, then you wouldnt have chosen not to believe it.

Christianity doesn't fit within my world-view for a whole raft of reasons, most notably that I find any singular definition of God to be contradictory to other definitions of God and as such I cannot reconcile any religious belief until I can reconcile a universally accepted and falsifiable definition of God with that of my world-view.

As for defending Christianity, I am not, I am pointing out that your statements are not supported by the facts, either by the religions themselves and their doctrines, interpretations and stated beliefs regarding evolution.

There are some Christians participating in this thread who have been on the other side of my opinion on their belief and interpretations, notably kedge and jmc007 at one time or another. I approach this entirely from an academic perspective and not one biased by an agenda to either prove or disprove any particular belief.

 

[Usher]

I'm an eskimo born and raised of mute parents. I have been taught how to hunt, fish and survive in a region so remote I know nothing of other human civilization. I know nothing of God. Am I atheist?

No, but the same applied to the rest of the planet at one time until Christian & Islamic invaders butchered millions in a convert or die bloodbath.

Reading about some of the atrocities sanctioned by brutal early Catholic Popes would turn your stomach.

 

[Castiel]

Depends on your definition of atheist. I would say you are atheist by my definition ( which is basically "no belief in a deity" ) ,others will say you would be called an agnostic. My definition includes agnostics anyway. Castiel will say my definition is stupid, but it's what I am most familiar with. Most forums including reddit will actually use something more similar to my definition than the classical one which is basically " There is no god".

I would never presume to call you stupid, I am aware that many people consider Agnostic Atheism to be a form of Atheism, the converse is also true of course. I am of the opinion that the demarcation is more strict, but that is my personal opinion.

As for the example you quoted regarding the position of the Eskimo. The way I would see it is that the Eskimo is neither a Theist, an Agnostic or an Atheist. Basically each of those positions requires definitive decision to be made based on the proposition of whether their is a God, if the Eskimo is completely ignorant of any such proposition then then he cannot take any definitive decision and as such the Eskimo simply has no philosophical opinion on the matter at all.