Religion, what's the point?

It seems there's to be a debate between Bill Nye (a Science talking head for kids) and the guy that started the Creationism Museum. I was just there not 2 months ago. Very interesting place.

Aside from some self-serving publicity I would expect the debate to be a complete waste of time.
 
Well if you think the earth was created 6,000 years ago, you have to make a few compromises squashing things in.
 
"It provides solace when Manchester United are abysmally shit at football"

is my answer to the thread title. Carry on.
 
"Only God knows why things happen. He has all the answers. We don't always understand why he makes his angels so young but we have to put our faith in him & trust him. Be thankful for your gifts from God no matter how young or old they are."


Nonsense like this annoys me. The reason is that god doesn't exist and disease, illness, famine, murder, acts of nature, etc. are the real reasons for death.
 
Mystry said:
Is that the place where they think dinosaurs lived together with humans?
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Yup

I learned that all creatures were vegetarian until the Fall. Piranhas, tyrannosauruses, sharks... you name it. Everything got along and could play with anything else (see my snap above).

Here's something. There's a strong suspicion that dragons weren't mythical, but rather were latent dinosaurs.

Like I said, interesting place. They even had zip lines out back, though I'm not clear on how those fit in with scripture.
 
Mockney said:
When you say "very interesting place".....I assume they have some neat puppets.
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I don't recall telling anyone here that I collected puppets? Funny you mention it though, as this was the 2nd stop after arriving. First stop was at Venthaven to the Ventriloquism museum, but they wouldn't open up for me :mad:
 
brad-dyrak said:
I learned that all creatures were vegetarian until the Fall. Piranhas, tyrannosauruses, sharks... you name it. Everything got along and could play with anything else (see my snap above).
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:lol:

That's reminiscent of Jeovah's Witnesses idea of heaven. I had a load of books with pictures similar to the one below. My grandmother was one, fortunately most of the rest of the family escaped the daily brainwashing. I had a deeply catholic grandmother as well, and she was nowhere near that insistent.

Beautiful_Surroundings.jpg
 
tbf, getting to play with a tiger and a tyrannosaurus would be immense. Still nothing on Valhalla though. Getting to drink with and then slay your friends every night would be tops and would make an even better museum.

My practicing Catholic buddy went with me to the museum and told me he hoped I didn't think he held with this guff. He said the popes were past this years ago.

We got to talking on it and Christianity in general. I reckon Catholicism with all it's behind the scenes hierarchies, Latin masses, and anachronistic rules, can turn out a really strange religion. Protestantism with it's free for all individual interpretation of scripture, can turn out some really strange people, bless 'em.
 
brad-dyrak said:
tbf, getting to play with a tiger and a tyrannosaurus would be immense. Still nothing on Valhalla though. Getting to drink with and then slay your friends every night would be tops and would make an even better museum.

My practicing Catholic buddy went with me to the museum and told me he hoped I didn't think he held with this guff. He said the popes were past this years ago.

We got to talking on it and Christianity in general. I reckon Catholicism with all it's behind the scenes hierarchies, Latin masses, and anachronistic rules, can turn out a really strange religion. Protestantism with it's free for all individual interpretation of scripture, can turn out some really strange people, bless 'em.
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:lol:
 
http://nation.time.com/2014/01/22/godless-cities-in-america/?hpt=hp_t3

My city came in 83rd in terms of being "Bible Minded" (that means we are as a whole not very bible minded).

A little surprised to see a city in Iowa make the top 5 of least bible minded. Not too much to be surprised at the distribution of the most and least cities in terms of geographic location in the US.
 
How can Portland OR not be the least "bible minded"? Somehow they've got it at 61st?? Very strange study that.
 
The Youtube link I posted above contains Maher's interview with Ham during the filming of 'Religulous.' Ham is a nutter. Nye should not have agreed to a debate as nothing will change Ham's beliefs nor the millions of creationism believers.

NPR ran a blog as the debate carried on. Unfortunately, I had class last night and missed the debate.

Scroll down to the comments under comments until you find a poster called Darwins Myth... what a nutter. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...nism-vs-evolution-debate-bill-nye-and-ken-ham
 
MrMarcello said:
"...Ham is a nutter. Nye should not have agreed to a debate as nothing will change Ham's beliefs nor the millions of creationism believers.
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You're right. I haven't bothered watching it either, but it couldn't have been a debate in any real sense, and it was never going be. Just 2 guys saying what they think, but no interactive discussion or debate. Nye will bring up evidence (probably fossils, starlight, rock strata) that show the earth is well past 6,000 yrs. Ham says human reasoning is fallible and it's not what the good book said.

I was just at the Creationism museum, and they don't hem and haw around what they believe. There's no grey area, and so nothing to debate. The first display once you enter the exhibits couldn't make it any clearer. My apologies for my lousy picture but hopefully you can make it out
IMG_2507.jpg

So that's it. They freely admit and are proud that they start with this revealed truth, and then warp the science around that. Some of these warps can have some appeal to those not adequately schooled or closed minded. Edge cases are presented to explain things like rock strata, and past and present inconsistencies in the sciences are presented to cast doubts, all mixed in with animatronic children having a frolic with dinos, and a Noah hollering at Ham or Shemp or someone to "hurry up with that ark".

I expect some of the appeal is that they purport to offer a uncompromising, consistent and unwavering world view. There will be plenty of folks out there that conflate an incomplete set of ideas with a flawed set, and this could appeal to them.

Regardless, I could do without all the gleeful ballyhooing and snickering at their expense. I expect for evolution to be grasped sufficiently to be debated, requires a deeper understanding than many of the snarkiest actually possess. It's only within my lifetime that an absolutely crucial aspect of evolution theory has been rectified (selfish genes, genetic drift).

BTW, I would again recommend Richard Dawkins's "Ancestor' Tale" as a phenomenal book on the subject. He can be an arrogant prick of a man (though he's gotten better) when stating opinion, but his science writing is superb.
 
Maroon Lucifer said:
And then there is this guy... "If Americans came from Europe, why are there still Europeans?"
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FWIW, the stand at the museum was that they didn't deny evolution happens. Just that it happens at a much faster rate. So this guy would be inconsistent with what the museum laid out. They also believe in extinction events as well, like Noah's flood. I may have mentioned this already, but I attended a lecture while I was there and the fellow played a clip from none other than Pat Robertson in which he said that it's crazy to believe that the earth is 6,000 yrs old. These folks recognize themselves as outliers. I get the feeling they're proud to have been marginalized by their literalist beliefs.

Honestly if you think about it though, it's not necessarily that immediately obvious why monkeys and humans might still coexist. I'd bet that most folks that believe in evolution don't sufficiently understand the mechanics of it. Causes for speciation are quite subtle. It's not like he threw off the creationist blinders and all the pieces immediately fell into place for Darwin. He and some other very clever folks had to go around on this for years, and there's still some lively current debate on the details.
 
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She's right. Science has not, and cannot, explain sunsets.

Game, set and match to Creationism.
 
Sunsets on Mars are blue. Prankster God.

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Indeed.

Why do they always bang on about thermodynamics though?
 
'If dictionaries exist, why don't Creationists know the difference between "their" and "there"?'
 
I knew you would be after that self-same opinion being voiced loudly on here.
 
He's been saying that for some time. They played a clip of it in the lecture at the museum.
 
Finally. fecking brilliant. I've been waiting for years for somebody's legal system to take the faith-based bs of all these religions and make them prove it in a court of law before they start using these wild falsehoods on their followers. Give them the same treatment we would to any sort of secular con man who is spouting bollocks to get money out of the common man. Pisses me off to no end how "religions" get special treatment and get away with it. Let's see the minimum of proof of even the possibility of a virgin pregnancy before these con men can keep getting away with this farce.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/...orders-mormon-leader-to-prove-faiths-origins/

Legal experts gobsmacked after British judge orders Mormon leader to prove faith’s origins

Steal this story ... LEGALLY

A disgruntled former Mormon has convinced an English court to file two summonses to appear against Thomas S. Monson, the current president of the Mormon Church.

Tom Phillips based his complaint on the Fraud Act of 2006, a British law that outlaws making a profit off of false representations. According to Phillips, this is precisely what the Mormon Church does — it uses statements it knows to be factually untrue in order to secure tithes from members of the Church.

The facts in question, court records show, are tenets of the Mormon faith, including that Joseph Smith translated The Book of Mormon from ancient gold plates, that Native Americans are descendants of a family of Israelites, and that death didn’t exist on this planet until 6,000 years ago.

“These are not statements of mere ‘beliefs’ or opinions or theories,” Phillips wrote. “They are made as actual facts and their truthfulness can be objectively tested with evidence.”

Although Phillips can prove that Native Americans are not of Middle Eastern origins using contemporary genetic evidence, it is unlikely that such a finding would have the force of law in a British courtroom.

Neil Addison, a former crown prosecutor whose specializes in issues relating to religious freedom, said he was “sitting here with an open mouth. I think the British courts will recoil in horror. This is just using the law to make a show, an anti-Mormon point. And I’m frankly shocked that a magistrate has issued it.”

Since 2007, the Mormon Church in England has taken in over $257 million in tithes, and the summonses request Monson come to England and prove that they were not collected on knowingly false pretenses.

A British solicitor, Harvey Kass, said “I can’t imagine how it got through the court process. It would be set aside within 10 seconds, in my opinion.” Neither Kass nor Addison believes the British government will act upon the summonses and seek to extradite Monson, or that the United States would comply with an extradition request made on anti-religious grounds.
 
Eyepopper said:
Yep I agree with you. Praying is mainly just paying lip service, rattling off words, half of which you don't even know, or begging for something.

I'm not sure about the big man in the sky... I think that's all bollocks as its presented.... I do like to believe that the original idea of religion was just people trying to figure out how best to live their lives.. then the money men got involved.

I think religion is bullshit, organised religion at least, but that's not to say that there are elements and practices, now bound under the label of being 'religious', and which will be abandoned along with it (I think the catholic church has about 20 - 25 years of relevence left in western europe) which can actually have a point. If someone feels better as a result, who really cares whether they're meditating thinking of being judged by a man on a cloud or just focusing on their breathing.

The risk we run is that we abandon everything ever associated with religion simply because its associated with religion.
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The current interpretation of any religion is purely bull shite. Religion is actually a science by itself.
 
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