List of scientists who became creationists after studying the evidence

Edan wrote: That's not true, we dress up to look good for the earth when she sucks all of our nutrients back for herself

No we dont, I am going to be cremated.

I would like to know what truths...plz

carlos - i dont understand exactly what youre asking

could you please make your question more precise?

Khaos wrote:

Edan wrote: That's not true, we dress up to look good for the earth when she sucks all of our nutrients back for herself

No we dont, I am going to be cremated.

Me too, but I rather hope my family won't keep me in a metal pot for the rest of eternity :dry:

My wife intends to keep me until she goes, or vice versa, and then have our ashes mixed and put somewhere.

Its about as sentimental and symbolic that I get.

:evil:

OB1Shinobi wrote: imo science is merely the religion of FACTS

but science is the most misguided knowledge of all as a religion because it focuses on "what things are" rather than "what things MEAN"

and on what we CAN do, rather than what we SHOULD do

*Sigh*...
No... science is not a religion. If it were, it would have local boundaries, a tendency to isolationism and some severe dogmatism problems. It happens to have the exact opposite of those which explains why people had been seeing science and religion as antithetical to each other for centuries now, whether they actually are or not.
Neither is science devoted to facts. Facts are points of data that are not in dispute either because they are independantly verifiable through observation or inescapable conclusions of valid logical analysis, the latter of which would not strictly need be facts about actual reality and I can give examples of how that can be, if required. Science is the process of proposition generation with the goal of constructing a model to explain the given facts and no less importantly predict facts to be identified in the future. One could sloppily say that science is in the business of interpreting facts, rather than producing or worshipping them. What things "MEAN", as you put it, is quite exactly what science is all about.
Now, at no least, after all of that was dead wrong, you said that science is not concerned with what we should do. This is a very common criticism that really never doesn't come up which would make one expect that it be of more merit. While science is strictly not a morality generator, nonetheless it has some of the most solid ethical standards among other disciplines. Not only does one not get away being a sloppy or dishonest scientist, being anything less than reasonably kind in all things would also sooner rather than later prove a severe obstacle. And as if that wasn't enough, science also improves our understanding of things in and outside of itself such that we can make better decisions. One could say it also informs the wicked on how to decide for their cause, but it doesn't quite help them justify it and in the end they end up weakened through the progress of the rest of us, time and time again.

ideology is dangerous, not religion

Religion is a strict subset of the ideologies set. If you have a religion, you have an ideology. Doesn't necessarily work the other way though.

the ideology of nihilism for instance is dangerous - in the extreme

Which nihilism? I can think of about five relevant and different types off the top of my head none of which are necessarily either ideologies or dangerous.

without god, why NOT send our neighbors into the ovens?

Good question! One moral philosophers have been trying to find answers to for the past millennia and to which several answers with limited applicability already exist. There is another question like it: "With god, why not send our neighbors into the ovens?" Except this question wasn't answered. The best people came up with for this one is hijack the answers to your question.

if you think that god is not necessary to instill a sense that life is sacred - and the sense that life, at least human life is sacred as being necessary to prevent the ovens - then i think you are wrong

what is not necessary is any particular interpretation of god

this one, that one, whatever

Now that I finally agree with. The notion of sacredness either goes with no justification or with something like "coz god" which IMHO is equally vapid as sticking without justification. My only question is "So what?". To me, life isn't sacred. Nothing is. I value many things, and there are things I would do my utmost to protect at just about any cost. I am perfectly fine conceding that they are important to me or to others or that I feel like it is the right thing to do, but I see nothing sacred about them. In that sense i could either say that I don't know what sacred means, which makes the word useless to me, but the only thing that makes me different from someone who insists that the things he favours are sacred is just that. They think that what is important to them has a sort of divine spark behind it and that everybody else should kneel before those things as they do. They also often think of themselves as morally superior just because their version of the cause is 'sacred'. I am quite enough of a douchebag already and don't need to grow any more self-righteous. Nor am I so insecure about either my positions or their occasional intellectual shortcomings that I'd slap a god-sticker on them for compensation.

what we need to discard is the pervasive sense that "I" and MY IDEAS and MY RELIGION are so good that i can ridicule YOU, and YOUR IDEAS and YOUR RELIGION

be me or you a scientist or creationist

Putting ideas to the test and subsequently exposing their failures is not ridicule. What this is is what happens to ideas if you put them out in an open marketplace of ideas and especially if you try to say they should be considered science as creationists keep insisting their ideas are. Perhaps one could argue that not all ideas need be a matter of science and thus subjects to scientific standards. Well, again, if you want to play with the science kids, you gotta play by science rules, but aside from that I agree. If you are willing to risk ideas like these to prevail and flourish, as they do in places where it is thought that peer review is counter to the spirit of science, there are places like that and I concede that there are people who like and need that. I'm just not one of them.

there is something intrinsic to the human psyche wherein we demand something to hold in awe

and we need some standard by which to measure ourselves and by which to judge our own actions

"the idea of the Holy" is as undeniable and inescapable to our essential nature as fear or sex or laughter or rage - it is a part of us

Erm, I would like some evidence of that intrinsic something, please...

without some intelligently designed interpretation of precisely what that HOLY means, at least insofar as that we have a precise sense of the principles by which it implies we must abide, we will MAKE holy that which is profane - plunder and loot and the power to submit each other into obedience

the classic argument is "we dont need god to know that we should treat each other with respect"

i say: WRONG

we dont need any specific and dominant-above-all-others god to do that

but the idea that there is an intrinsic holiness to life and that life has worth BECAUSE OF THIS HOLINESS, with no other requirement, is EXACTLY what we need in order to value each other with respect and tolerance

Same point. Evidence, please. So far it has always seemed like the opposite were true, if we judge ideas by their fruits. In fact, just right now you are basically telling both your own and my peers, that people over on my side of the fence do not have what it takes to value their neighbors. I shan't take offense over this, but I shall indeed point to how this sort of contradicts what you just said, if I assume that you acknowledge said holiness.

without that idea, not only is there no real NEED to value one another, but in fact it becomes a BURDEN

False. It is occasionally a burden and we often do it more than is strictly necessary. But we do need it and we succeed individually and collectively when we do and we fail when we don't. That is also true of all the other social animals most of which I think we agree do not do it out of acknowledgement of the holy. Heck, even among humans, doing it for that reason kind of cheapens it, if you think about it.

WHY should i be bothered to acknowledge you in any more meaningful way than that you prevent me from getting what i want or can help me get what i want?

i shouldnt

the only value i place on respecting you is in relation to the direct material consequences and rewards of either choice

Sorry to hear you feel that way, brother... I suppose my reason is that no man is an island, basically. What I do to you may not come back to me in a direct and exact way, but overall the world is a better place if people treat each other with kindness and I happen to want to live in good world. I admit that my wanting so is all the reason I have and need and any claim to this being a matter of holiness would in my opinion only sound both insecure and arrogant. Not to mention that the question would remain the same with and without acceptance of the holy. With and without god, the moral problems we are faced with are exactly the same and we solve them in mostly the same ways, except some of us admit that their ways are potentially flawed and in need of improvement while others violently reject that possibility.

i am not at all promoting creationism

Now why would you need to stress it if it nowhere seemed that you did?

i think the big bang is better proof of god than anything any creationist could cook up anyway

"let there be light"

BANG!

lol

to get SOMETHING when there was NOTHING is an act of god, whatever terminology you wish to use

An act of god is something a god does. Terminology matters. If you are saying this was an act of god, you have to make sure we all agree that a god exists, that it could have done something of the sort and then show several independant lines of evidence positively indicating that it did in fact do it. Alternatively, you can try and prove that it could not have come about an alternative way, though I think that's more effort.
Also, all of this works pending a working definition of "something", "when there was" and "nothing", respectively.

its stupid to try and keep the collective of human knowledge centered on the ideas of the past, be they god OR science

I agree. That's why science keeps moving on, all on its own, while religion needs to be dragged kicking and screaming.

religion:
1 blah blah blah
2) blah blah blah
3) a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
"consumerism is the new religion"


ideology:
1) a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
2) archaic; the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.

dictionaries change over time
a word means a particular thing ONLY BECAUSE SOMEONE SAYS it means that thing

i say the best definition of religion is this "what you belive to be true about life, existence, and your place within it"

ideology i would define as religion no longer open to review and with the demand of external conformity (i.e. the rest of the world must fall in line)

i understand that people who dont like "religion" and dont want to be considered "religious" dont want to see it that way

those feelings considered i STILL think these are the best i.e. most functional as well as most intuitive definitions, and when i say the words "religion" or "ideology" it is usually these ideas which i am expressing


you cannot make the case that religion has local boundaries or isolationism

NATIONALISM sometimes does, but also sometimes doesnt; japan being a nation which offers examples of both

but what are the local boundaries of christianity? buddhism? judaism?

even if that assertion could be justified by history, with the internet right in front of us, those words
in a discussion of ideas (religion and ideology) and the impact of ideas, is not sociologically feasible at this time

as far as dogma - this is no more a required element of religion than of science - dogmatism is an issue of human psychology
science has mechanisms for overcoming dogma, but dogmatism is a human tendency to which scientists as individuals are as prone as anyone else

it could equally be said that religions have mechanisms against dogma, and they do, but again, DOGMA itself may be a canonical issue, but DOGMATISM is a reflex of some aspect of the human mind under certain conditions, and this is an important distinction

the scientific method is proof against dogma in the strictest sense, but DOGMATISM surely afflicts individual scientists else there would not be so many examples of resistance within science to new ideas and the individuals which promote them

the scientific method offers venue for all ideas to prove themselves by reproduction of results under laboratory conditions and this is a great strength of science and one that i endorse

but life is not a laboratory, unless we are speaking metaphorically

and when you enter the realm of metaphor, thats where you enter the realm of religion

imo, there is a movement to make a science of religion, and it is to be found in psychology and its related fields - loosely speaking - the collaboration of all fields of study which have to do with human thought and human behavior are, imo, the scientific approach to religion

not to following religion, precisely, but to understanding religion, what it actually does and what it

i dont know if ive worded that well

but thats a great question there; is psychology a science?

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/08/19/is-psychology-science-is-the-wrong-question/#.VU5LkflVikp


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/2013/08/13/psychology-is-a-science/


the fist part of the IP here is focused on myth and i want to touch on the importance of that

as far as i can tell, myths are the very substance of religion

myths are powerful because, though they are not FACTUAL, nevertheless, they are TRUE

they are true because they express truths about our natures and our lives
they cannot generally be carbon dated or scientifically verified within a test tube or a particle collider
but when we talk about the garden of eden or the heroes adventure or the buffalo princess, there is something important there, something real - no less real than a particle or a frequency


when i say that science is a religion of facts

---

posted by Gisteron: "Science is the process of proposition generation with the goal of constructing a model to explain the given facts and no less importantly predict facts to be identified in the future.
One could sloppily say that science is in the business of interpreting facts, ... "

---

yes, exactly what i said, just - not exactly

science is about facts and what we can do with those facts

but not all truths are factual, clinical truths, in the way of say, the boiling point of water, or the degree of an angle in a geometric shape

the heroes journey is not a factual, clinical journey

but it is our journey none the less
it is a myth which is THE myth of our lives, and it is as real as the angle of a shape or the boiling point of water but it is not something controlled and produced cleanly in a lab under a microscope
most importantly, the heroes journey is, among other things, the process of coming to grips with what we should DO with our facts

what is the scientific reason that a person with the power to kill of 95% of the population and enslave the rest, SHOULD NOT do that?
why, scientifically speaking, shouldnt i kill EVERYONE except for (relative to the entire human race) a very small cadre of slaves and concubines and enjoy owning the paradise of the new garden of eden?

im taking applications for concubines btw; but you have to act fast, theres a lot of positions but only a few openings available



if scientists are moral it is because they have been exposed to the ideas of the religious belife in the value of life and individual worth

i dont see that there is any scientific validation to these ideas at all

science could even be said to refute that there is ANY value to ANY individual or even any species - or even life itself

beyond of course the fact that we happen to be alive, and that some of it is interesting, or merely useful to the one doing the science

it could be said that science not only gives us the power to destroy everyone and everything, but it also FAILS to give us a reason NOT TO

the idea that scientists are "ethical" is imo simply not true

the scientists of phillip morris or at least some of the scientists at bp or exxon spring to mind

the scientific methods of reproducible results do nothing to prevent the scientist from feeding his children to his experiments - they only ensure that his scientific assertions have merit, which incidentally is a pretty good defense mechanism for his own reputation and career - a scientist who is shown not to be honest about her work is a scientist whose word will not be trusted and who will probably have to get a job with phillip morris or exxon

imo
what i consider the scientific impulse and the religious impulse are at heart the same thing

a desire for understanding and a sense of wonder at the awesomeness which we are a part of

the problem as i see it is that people tend to confuse things within their disciplines

religion should not be viewed as a collection of literal facts in the way that world history is considered to be a collection of literal facts

we are all beowulf - we all have to face a goliath, and reconcile ourselves to the appearance of oya, and we will all bow to shiva in our time

these things are TRUE

but they are not FACTS

and science does not sufficiently deal with them, as far as i can tell, exceot in the earlier mentioned realms of say psychology, within which fields characters such as the hydra and medusa are VERY real

more real, some would say, than the boiling pint of water, which needs, in a manner of speaking, only alternate measuring standards to change

---

creationism is a word which to my knowledge specifically endorses the christian interpretation of god as having created the world in seven literal days

which is absurd, obviously

intelligent design is a little more open ended, but the christians are doing their best from what i could tell when i cared, to hijack it into creationism - except for the smarter ones who see it is the only chance they have left of preserving "god did it" as their explanation for existence

my personal belife is that the URGE TO LIVE reaches back to a single source, which breaks itself into as many pieces as it can and expresses itself in as many ways as it can, because it DEMANDS TO BE

it says; I AM THAT WHICH I AM

but this is not intelligent design per se

i also belive in SPIRIT

the universe interacts with us
i have seen this in my own life to the extent that i am convinced that there will be no evidence presented to me which is stronger in the negative than what i have already witnessed to the positive

i do not need any particular ideology to support this

now, if you want me to prove it to you, all i can say is look around

you can accept or deny whatever you wish
and certainly the laboratory stands as a refuge of the safe and the orderly and the measurable

but shiva still watches and oya still laughs, refuge or no

---

Locksley wrote:

lol - this was the first star trek i got into - then DS 9 i thought was awesome, especially at the end with the Emissary arc

should i believe the movement of his hands, or the look on his face?

also, im guessing that this conversation was not what you had in mind when you started the topic, i can only hope youre not too unhappy at the turn its taken, it IS (imo) a good conversation

---

this was intelligent and really funny and also relevant to the topic

its about an hr 1/2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BHQIasisqY

---

lastly, and just as an aside, its a strange feeling to realize how many of the things each of us knows are really not our own knowledge

from the time we were children we were capable of learning about certain ideas and accepting them, but they werent really OUR ideas or OUR experiences, yet we claim them as our truths

this goes on all of our lives

in many ways, all most of us have really done was to be born
from there we just accepted what we were told and believed in the most convincing (to us) arguments for whatever topics presented themselves

at what point does any particular knowledge really belong to the individual?

I read all of that....and have no idea what your trying to get across.

*dogmatism is more of a problem than dogma and it is not restricted to religion

*science is not inherently superior to religion - rather they are different sides of the same innate desire

*religion is not a factual accounting of the events and materials of the universe, but rather a synopsis of the psyches and developmental process of the individual and the roles we play and issues we face in our lives

*science, as a discipline, does not provide the solutions or guides to these issues

*science offers the power to destroy the human species but not really any good reason NOT TO DO IT

*religion - more specifically, religious thought, does both

*im always looking for new concubines

*sorry for hijacking the thread

*the ST image is deceptive; he is applauding but the look on his face says "this is really stupid"

*stephen colbert is my hero

I don't quite got it either, but I did count a total of 15 explicit lies and 2 that may be a matter of expression and interpretation. With the summary post there was only one of each.

if youd be so kind as to point out these explicit lies so that i may be aware of the deception i am explicitly attempting?

actually Gisteron im going to respond this way:

i was cordial and offered what i belive to be valid ideas in the conversation

you, as usual are a prig

im aware that i have a bit of a tendency to be a prig as well so i wont harp overmuch on it beyond the following

calling someone an explicit liar because they present ideas you dont agree with is not only further demonstration of your poor interpretive abilities and underdeveloped social skills
but also contrary to the whole point of public discussion

its easy enough to hide behind a sense of smug superiority but if you cannot address the issues presented in the discussion then you forfeit the right to relevance

im open to an explanation which will demonstrate that i am not correct in what i say

but i am not a liar

i make no claims to an intellect beyond my time or of any significantly higher ability than the average person
but i know my own intelligence and it is sufficient to the analysis of evidence and to the task of discourse - if the best retort which you have to what i have said is "liar liar pants on fire" then youve no retort at all

Fine, fine, let's do this...

you cannot make the case that religion has local boundaries or isolationism

Yes, I can. Watch me.
This is a map of the biggest world religions. Notice how well defined the boundaries mostly are.
This is a map of milk consumption, for comparison. Just to illustrate that judging by distribution patterns, religions might as well be habits or tastes. Animal and disease spreading patterns look similar, too, implying that memes have some similarity to genes. Here is another illustration:
This is a US map of Christian denominations. Notice how Baptists, Lutherans and Catholics dominate their respective areas with mostly clear boundaries to the other tribes. I predict that in the border regions there will be high church attendance because faced with those of other faiths people will try to stick with theirs and mark their tribe and territory.
And look at that, a church attendance map . And yes, it shows just what I predicted it would: The most attendance tends to be in places of most diversity: The middle line between the Dakotas and Texas, and, very noticeably, Utah and southern Idaho, the Mormon region that is so narrowly surrounded by Catholics.
As for isolationism, this is more clearly visible with deeply islamic countries and how they shun particularly the internet or lose believers if they don't. One could also compare religious diversity or religiosity with internet access in the US, and you will see a pattern emerge.

as far as dogma - this is no more a required element of religion than of science

Yes, it is. There are historians who believe in Truther conspiracies and there are biologists who reject the big bang model. There are no Shiites who believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God and there are no Mormons who don't think Joseph Smith was for real that one time. Religion has required and prohibited beliefs. Science does not.

it could equally be said that religions have mechanisms against dogma, and they do

No, they don't. They do have ways to discourage beliefs in other religions, but they positively encourage dogma and dogmatic thinking. I don't like to bring up history, but the close ties religions always had with totalitarianism are no coincidence. While they can be explained away by humans just being humans, i.e. power hungry, there is still a case to be made that religion helps to seize and keep power and religious thought, and I am, admittedly, generalizing somewhat here, is a good start in learning to become submissive to those in power.
Before this comes back to me, yes, I did notice the distinction of dogma and dogmatism. I am addressing the mindset that makes one produce and accept dogma. That is what I mean by dogmatism. A mindset which combats the tendency to dogmatism is in my view a force for good in this world.

when you enter the realm of metaphor, thats where you enter the realm of religion

If we are talking about religious metaphor, then yes. There are other metaphors around, some worse, some better. Let's not credit religion with creative use of language. We do that with and without it.

You went on to say that fields like psychology are moving to make a science of religion. I would agree in so far as they try to understand how religious thought comes about and how it affects us. If that is all you meant, no argument here.

is psychology a science?

Yes, so far it is. With the advent of neuroscience, when the time comes to call psychology obsolete, the label might be hijacked by future woo-scientists, but for now it is well within what we call science.

I had a few points to make about what you said regarding the IP, but then I realized that you use some labels the way Campbell would, and I shan't argue with that for now. I will say though that I think particles and frequencies are real in a different way than myths are. Myths express what we feel about this world and our place in it, as does all art. And while the tales themselves can either have occurred or not, what they express does not much depend on their historical accuracy.

when i say that science is a religion of facts ...

Truths aren't facts and facts aren't truths. Science is not concerned with truths and only concerned with facts insofar as they are the thing to be explained and predicted.

[The hero's journey] is as real as the angle of a shape or the boiling point of water but it is not something controlled and produced cleanly in a lab under a microscope

Neither the boiling point of actual water nor the angle of an actual shape are as clear and solid as you make it sound. Before they even let us into a lab we had a two hour lecture on measurement inaccuracy and uncertainty. Actually, not even so. They just told us what to do to decrease it and how to calculate the approximate uncertainty from the collected data. However, the journey is not "as real as" even those uncertain things, because it does not compare. It is like the difference of being at 30°C and being warm. One of them is a synthetic proposition that can be evaluated by some epistemic process, like the scientific method, the other one is an incorribile statement and is either true by definition or is beyond truth-value judgement.

The moral point is now moved to a different thread, so there it shall be discussed amongst us all.

if scientists are moral it is because they have been exposed to the ideas of the religious belife in the value of life and individual worth

The misconception you are having is that this is a religious belief. It isn't. It happens to be claimed by some (not all) religions to some extent, but it is not inherently religious. I would go as far and say that it is a basic animal instinct, far older than even our own species, which is why we find it throughout the animal kingdom to varying extents. Some people are born without that instinct. We call them sociopaths. Interestingly, they are on average not very much less religious than the rest of us, some are even far more religious. Indeed, many religions tend to speak lowly of the human being and thus provide easy justification to those with a grudge against mankind.

i dont see that there is any scientific validation to these ideas at all

science could even be said to refute that there is ANY value to ANY individual or even any species - or even life itself

That could be said, I suppose, but it would be wrong. There is no scientific finding that would remotely indicate that people or life is not valuable. Nor could there be such a finding in science, because there is no science studying worth. What can be said is that psychology and biology in general have an increasingly good idea of why it is many of us value each other, which is more than any other reasoning ever did for us, but it can't tell us why this should be so, though, unlike religions, it never pretends as if it could either.

it could be said that science not only gives us the power to destroy everyone and everything, but it also FAILS to give us a reason NOT TO

People don't fail at things they don't attempt. And decent people don't claim success when in fact they miserably failed and know it.

the idea that scientists are "ethical" is imo simply not true

the scientists of phillip morris or at least some of the scientists at bp or exxon spring to mind

I recall saying that you don't get away with being dishonest or unkind as a scientist. That is, there is no place for you in science unless you adhere to some ethical standards working with your subject and the people around you. That does not mean that scientists are good people in general, but your reputation as a scientist and your employ in academia vanishes if you sell out. Likewise, if you are working for a company, there is little you can do about them scewing your results which makes you no worse a scientist for it. But if you lie by trade, that company better pay you well because there is no genuine research centre or university departament that will have your name attached to their papers.
Now one could say that people who make a habit of being decent and honest at work might have some of that outside of work, but I don't think that the environment outside of work needs be adressed after how many preachers we know of who in the line of their work must profess what they don't believe and often deceive other people into believing it, too.

religion should not be viewed as a collection of literal facts in the way that world history is considered to be a collection of literal facts

Except neither world history nor religion is not a collection of literal facts, one of them is in many cases a collection of mostly falsehoods, and it is that very same one that most often keeps insistinting their story is a collection of literal facts, while the other almost never does anything of the sort. There are holocaust-denying historians. Are there flood-denying young-earth-creationists?

we are all beowulf - we all have to face a goliath, and reconcile ourselves to the appearance of oya, and we will all bow to shiva in our time

these things are TRUE

but they are not FACTS

How do you know? I get it that you mean it metaphorically, but how do you know that no human was born, lived and died without skipping one, multiple or all of these steps?

and science does not sufficiently deal with them, as far as i can tell, exceot in the earlier mentioned realms of say psychology, within which fields characters such as the hydra and medusa are VERY real

more real, some would say, than the boiling pint of water, which needs, in a manner of speaking, only alternate measuring standards to change

No... That's not true. Science does deal in metaphor, because ultimately all our models are mere models representing the real thing with limited accuracy, much like metaphors do. However, in psychology characters like the Hydra or Medusa are not "VERY real" at all. The only times it deals with those is when dealing with human fears and dreams, their origins and what underlying emotions can be derived from them. The only real thing about them is that somebody's brain really imagined them. They are nowhere near as real as the boiling point of water which is no matter of imagination at all.
Thoughts are real, contents of thoughts need not be. The map is not the territory .

I shan't say much on the intelligent design thing. It seems to me though that it was conceived and presented as a form of creationism all along, but since it matters little to the argument, I'm willing to accept tentatively for the sake of discussion, that it is not in its roots creationist.

OB1Shinobi wrote: actually Gisteron im going to respond this way:

i was cordial and offered what i belive to be valid ideas in the conversation

you, as usual are a prig

im aware that i have a bit of a tendency to be a prig as well so i wont harp overmuch on it beyond the following

Name-calling doesn't help, even when used in self-deprecation. Perhaps especially then. When we feel attacked or put-upon it's easy to want to lash out, but for the sake of the discussion it makes more sense to ignore any potential personal factors and just focus on the topic at hand. This is really something we're all learning. Whether or not a person is morally superior (or believes they are) is of no consequence. Whether or not their argument is faulty is.

also, im guessing that this conversation was not what you had in mind when you started the topic, i can only hope youre not too unhappy at the turn its taken, it IS (imo) a good conversation

No, but I really didn't have anything in mind, so that works out pretty well. I wish that people would create a spin-off thread in the philosophy section to continue this conversation - rather than continuing it in the humor section - but you can't get everything you want in life.

If asked, I'd say that the best way to get a real handle on this would be to try and migrate the core ideas from this thread, and the one in the science section, into a unified thread within the philosophy section. Give everyone a fresh perspective and allow everyone to take the time to carefully rephrase their initial points on the topic - fully, and leaving nothing out, but remaining as concise in the initial post as possible. But like I said above, "you can't...."

It's also not my job to put out fires, should any arise. I just happen to find this discussion interesting in places.

you cannot make the case that religion has local boundaries or isolationism

The Vatican even has its own police force, but it also has a stockpile of religious texts and items it deems not needed to be seen by the general public.

so...minus the Bible what are the "truths"? i wonder?

ideas do not have boundaries
and ideologues do not want to isolate but rather to indoctrinate

they usually only kill the ones they cant convert

unless you can demonstrate that every "religious" person who has ever lived is "such and such nonsense" then to say "religion is such and such nonsense" is incorrect

for instance - "religion makes people kill people"

well, there have been billions and billions of religious people who have never killed anybody

so "religion" does not make people kill people

ect

Gisteron, you say "Religion has required and prohibited beliefs. Science does not."
You and I both know that science has required and prohibited beliefs. For example, the belief that testing and retesting will allow us to gain information. The physicist believes, presumably, in Newton's laws. The astronomer believes that we can determine the chemical composition of a faraway star based on the light it gives off. But you and I both know that all things in science boil down to "It is most often the case that x", not "It is the case that x".
One can be a Jew and say "I don't believe that some guy named Abraham wandered around in a desert talking to God and then circumcised himself". Though that might be seen as a required belief of Judaism. And, someone can say "I'm a Christian, but I believe that there is a time NOT to turn the other cheek" even though that might be seen as a prohibited belief of Christianity. Just as the astronomer can say "I don't believe in gravity".
Ultimately, the sciences deal with reinforced beliefs, and some are clearly required to participate in the sciences. That is not to belittle the sciences; all information any of us have is belief. No one actually knows anything. We have beliefs which we hold until they are contested, at which point we engage in doubt and inquiry, and form new beliefs because of that inquiry. Any form of practice in any field requires certain beliefs, and science is not an exception to this.

I could also believe that the Moon is made of cheese, or that the Martian "canals" are home to an advanced race of green-skinned aliens. Science is a collection of testable ideas - yes, reinforced through observation and experimentation- but vastly different from a choice in whether or not to believe that a character from a religious text did or did not exist. There's really no direct comparison between the two, because one boils down to personal preference and unsubstantiated faith, and the other boils down to having an idea and attempting to prove that that idea remains consistently accurate under observation and holds up to counter-arguments placed by peers. In other words, the astronomer could say "I don't believe in gravity, but that won't make a mite of difference as to whether or not he continues to be drawn by gravity to the center of the mass of our planet. It would also make him a very poor astronomer.