Where is the line drawn.

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Duke1632
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Duke1632 » Sun Nov 10, 2013 2:30 am

As a high-level observation, and given that traits are clearly genetically inherited, consider the following:

If pockets of societies exist separately for a very long time (which is the view of anthropologists), then think how usual it would for no distinguishable differences to exist. Yet, here we are, presented with a scenario in which genetic differences (and attendant physical differences) MUST exist, but meanwhile we are to pretend that they do not.

Truth is always preferable in my view, but that said, I suspect one of the motivations for the well-known denials is that people fear having different classifications, as that was in large part what justified the enslavement of black peoples. In the 19th century, when most of the world finally abolished slavery, the abolitionists had to deal with the fact that many leading scientists of that and early periods argued that blacks were a different species--therefore their 'God given rights' did not apply.

In a similar vein, such sophistry also exists in science, in particular with regard to the so-called Theory of Evolution. In fact that theory operates more like a cult or religion than than it does like science. There are so many flaws, but, as scientists, we are not allowed to say it out loud lest our careers be ruined. And as Spence notes, when two religions are involved, it's best not to argue about it.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Spence » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:49 am

There may be flaws with evolution, but there are clear examples that it happens. I do agree that if you can't challenge any way of thinking, then you are stuck from moving forward. It is like global warming clearly it is getting warmer, but we have measured the global temperatures for such a short time that we can not be sure if this is a normal process of the planet or some thing to be alarmed about. Either way it shouldn't be used as a political issue, but it is. Politics and the politics of religion have always got in the way of science. I am a believer that we have a creator and that he is active in our lives. I think that whatever science uncovers as truth - if it is good science - shouldn't fly in the face of spirituality. Matters of faith are just that. I believe that whatever science uncovers as truth that god made it to be and I accept it on faith. Eventually I will realize the promise of my faith or things will just end for me and hopefully I will have left this world no worse for me being in it. I am ok with either.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby donovan » Sun Nov 10, 2013 1:11 pm

Science and beliefs based on faith often conflict, because we don't know much about either. Religion most often is infinite in its thought( Deity with no beginning and no end). Science is almost always infinite in its scope.( Look at pictures, some of which Duke posted, of the Universe, or the Nobel prize winners "starting" to isolate carriers between the billions of neurons in the brain.) The finite can not comprehend the infinite, by definition, but in both science and religion we operate on faith or belief in the results without knowing how it happens to any great extent. Over the years I have seen bodies healed, restored to some sense of normality when prayers were said and on the other hand one day seeing incontrovertible evidence of abnormality only for the symptoms to be gone the next day without any explanation. And I have seen all the faith expressed in word and in peoples hearts and science beyond my comprehension not have any affect on the malady. I have radically accepted the condition and just say, "Next."

I think Mr. Billybud's SOS beliefs work better in life than they do in football.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby billybud » Sun Nov 10, 2013 7:06 pm

Religion has no business being involved in a discussion of science.

Religion is a belief system (cargo cults, christians, jews, muslims, ancestor worship, rain forest gods, and greek mythology).

And..religious belief is, when you think about it, an accident of birth. And further, an accident of history. If the Muslims has prevailed at the Battle of Tours ( the high tide mark of Islamic expansion) over Charles Martell, the dominant religious beliefs of europe might now be Islamic.

If you were born in Lahore, the odds are that you are Islamic, born in Kansas City, Christian, Beijing or Papua, something else.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Spence » Sun Nov 10, 2013 8:05 pm

billybud wrote:Religion has no business being involved in a discussion of science.

Religion is a belief system (cargo cults, christians, jews, muslims, ancestor worship, rain forest gods, and greek mythology).

And..religious belief is, when you think about it, an accident of birth. And further, an accident of history. If the Muslims has prevailed at the Battle of Tours ( the high tide mark of Islamic expansion) over Charles Martell, the dominant religious beliefs of europe might now be Islamic.

If you were born in Lahore, the odds are that you are Islamic, born in Kansas City, Christian, Beijing or Papua, something else.


But 70% or more of all people belong to a region that goes back to the same basic beginning - abraham.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby donovan » Sun Nov 10, 2013 8:20 pm

billybud wrote:Religion has no business being involved in a discussion of science.

Religion is a belief system (cargo cults, christians, jews, muslims, ancestor worship, rain forest gods, and greek mythology).

And..religious belief is, when you think about it, an accident of birth. And further, an accident of history. If the Muslims has prevailed at the Battle of Tours ( the high tide mark of Islamic expansion) over Charles Martell, the dominant religious beliefs of europe might now be Islamic.

If you were born in Lahore, the odds are that you are Islamic, born in Kansas City, Christian, Beijing or Papua, something else.


Ridiculous. 'We need to talk about science and ethics together more, not less. Aristotle good, Plato bad?
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby billybud » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:20 pm

Ethics is not religion....Ethics should be discussed, and ethics is divorced from religious belief. God save us from those religious (and non religius) folks who have slaughtered millions, in the name of their God, built extermination camps, tortured on the racks, or just refused entry into a country club to non believers.

And just as ethics is not religious, declaring scientific beliefs based on biblical passsages is not science...
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby billybud » Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:13 pm

Spence wrote:
billybud wrote:Religion has no business being involved in a discussion of science.

Religion is a belief system (cargo cults, christians, jews, muslims, ancestor worship, rain forest gods, and greek mythology).

And..religious belief is, when you think about it, an accident of birth. And further, an accident of history. If the Muslims has prevailed at the Battle of Tours ( the high tide mark of Islamic expansion) over Charles Martell, the dominant religious beliefs of europe might now be Islamic.

If you were born in Lahore, the odds are that you are Islamic, born in Kansas City, Christian, Beijing or Papua, something else.


But 70% or more of all people belong to a region that goes back to the same basic beginning - abraham.


Sooo? Western religion all is centered in the mediterranean empires of the last 4000 years...The Abrahamic traditions and biblical stories seem an amalgamation of previous empires...the flood stories of the Gilgamesh tablets, etc. And it is no wonder, since the middle east was the cradle of western civilization.

The fact that a small Jewish sect spread across the west as christianity is the reult of Paul's influence and desire to shape a religion that would appeal to the gentiles of the Roman Empire. A very succesful sales strategy.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Spence » Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:39 pm

Yes, it was. Not only that, but the Jewish and Muslim versions have been very successful as well. All pray to basically the same god - even though they will argue that.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby donovan » Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:33 am

billybud wrote:Ethics is not religion....Ethics should be discussed, and ethics is divorced from religious belief. God save us from those religious (and non religius) folks who have slaughtered millions, in the name of their God, built extermination camps, tortured on the racks, or just refused entry into a country club to non believers.

And just as ethics is not religious, declaring scientific beliefs based on biblical passsages is not science...


Find a subject we can disagree on...this one didn't work. There have been more atrocities based on religious beliefs than any other motivating force I can think of. That does not mean all religious bodies get brushed with the same broad scope.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Duke1632 » Mon Nov 11, 2013 12:59 am

donovan wrote:Find a subject we can disagree on...this one didn't work. There have been more atrocities based on religious beliefs than any other motivating force I can think of. That does not mean all religious bodies get brushed with the same broad scope.


Actually, the institution that has the distinction of being the most prolific killer of all time is government. As noted historian RJ Rummel notes, even excluding warfare, governments of the world have murdered 262 million of their own people in the 20th century alone.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby donovan » Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:08 am

Duke1632 wrote:
donovan wrote:Find a subject we can disagree on...this one didn't work. There have been more atrocities based on religious beliefs than any other motivating force I can think of. That does not mean all religious bodies get brushed with the same broad scope.


Actually, the institution that has the distinction of being the most prolific killer of all time is government. As noted historian RJ Rummel notes, even excluding warfare, governments of the world have murdered 262 million of their own people in the 20th century alone.


Rummel also concludes that the form of government that is least likely to kill its own people, because we exclude war, is democracy. And democratic governments do not wage war against each other. I am not a historian, I can not ever remember what I had for lunch, but most not democratic governments are based on a religion or in opposition to a religion, e.g communism. So if England send crusaders to kill the infidels, which hat are they wearing. Certainly what we call extreme Muslim governmental groups. Hitler used religion as the excuse. Anyway, the argument is valid if you are really studying it.

I forget what the subject is that brought all of this up.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Duke1632 » Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:26 am

billybud wrote:Religion has no business being involved in a discussion of science.


I agree. Religion is based on faith, whereas science is based on the scientific method that invokes deductive reasoning to the maximal extent. That is why it is quite absurd that so much of modern science has abandoned the tenets of science and operates almost exclusively on the tenets of faith, as a religion would do. Well-known examples are the theory of evolution and the big bang theory. Both operate in a manner similar to cults, completely divorced from science and the scientific method. And comically enough, even though the narrative is that these two theories argue against religious belief, the beginnings for both theories were originally set forth by members of the clergy. Mendel (a monk) pioneered evolution and Lemaître (a priest) set forth big bang.

billybud wrote:Ethics is not religion....Ethics should be discussed, and ethics is divorced from religious belief.


Most religions, and particularly Christianity, are inseparably intertwined with right and wrong. Therefore, wouldn't it be more correct to say religion includes components of ethics, even if the two disciplined might also have differences. In fact, many choose a different religion than the one in which they were raised for the singular reason that it espouses ethics that are more in line with what is personally believed right vs. wrong.
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Duke1632 » Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:43 am

donovan wrote:Rummel also concludes that the form of government that is least likely to kill its own people, because we exclude war, is democracy.


Probably close enough, but I believe he approached it from the other direction, saying that the governments most likely to kill its own people are totalitarian governments. Almost all of these murders where orchestrated by collectivist governments, with the chief being those of the Marxist variety. Still, when one institution is responsible for more than 9 out of every 10 murders committed on planet earth throughout all times and places, it seems perceptions and priorities might need to be re-examined just a tad. http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig10/bowman3.html

Clearly, one's greatest enemy is totalitarian government, but it should be noted that being democratic does not necessarily prevent totalitarianism, as I think many are whispering about these days.

donovan wrote:And democratic governments do not wage war against each other.


The bloodiest war of all time up to that point, and the bloodiest war in American history was fought between two democratic governments. That war reversed centuries of "civilized warfare" back to barbarism and genocide. But as you hinted, democracies tend to lead to very bloody wars. Such is the conclusion of many military historians (e.g., John Fuller, Michael Howard, etc.), and are responsible for the return of so-called "total war."
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Re: Where is the line drawn.

Postby Spence » Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:10 am

All wars are over religion, land, or money or some combination of them.

I didn't mean to start a religious debate. Basically I just said that I accept things to be the way they are on faith. I don' t try to debunk science that flies in the face of commonly accepted religious beliefs. I never meant to cause a firestorm.
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