[Soi 10 Tom]

If you read between the lines, PapaRatzo sounds just like Hitler while he was warming up for the Holocost. Looks like PapaRatzo's Hitler Youth Corp. experience had a lifelong effect on the dangerous old Natzi. Is he so clueless as to not realize that he is talking about 30% to 50% of his own professional staff? Pathetic..... If all of these nut case Christians had their way, Auschwitz would be reopened.....tomorrow.

[Curious]

..... If all of these nut case Christians had their way, Auschwitz would be reopened.....tomorrow.

Aunty is a Christian. Does that mean Aunty would be in charge?

[Hmmm]

Oh don’t be a bore, Beryl. What do you mean one set of rules for one part of life and another set for the other part? What ‘rules’ are you talking about? What do you think science is a religion that competes with Christianity much like Islam? However if that is your view, then perhaps you could show me the Book of Science so that I may learn its doctrines and understand how I am to live a good and moral life. And once my days are done what will be my reward for having lived the good science life be? What does Science promise me for that?

Clearly you have a very different view of science than I do. And the other thing that you have left me puzzled with is what does a mathematical measure that gives me 95% confidence (or more) to say that the difference between a bunch of numbers in column A and a bunch of numbers in column B happened to be that way just by chance, or not as the case may be, got to do with creation? You silly queer.

Your notion that being a scientist and a Christian is somehow incongruous, well I can only conclude that either you don’t get out much, or you don’t know many scientists! However the following article may be of interest to you given your apparent extremist views.

Nation's Top Christian Geneticist Defends God and Evolution
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20 ... lution.htm

By the way I will not be adding anything more to this discussion. It just doesn’t interest me to do that here to be honest. This is a board with an equal measure of anti-christian and anti-science bias. Experience has taught me that discussions on topics of this nature are pointless, unproductive and uninformative around here. Let's get back to attractive young Thai men in their undies!

OK, opt out if you wish. Avoidance strategy for the cognitive dissonance between science and religion. Good for peace of mind for those in intellectual vegetative states, if nothing else.

You can call what I am talking about a 'competition' betwen science and religion if you wish. But they ARE incompatible ways of thinking.

And just to be clear, we need to distinguish between science, the 'scientific' method, and scientists. The incompatibility between each of these and religion can be pursued, but let's focus on the scientific method, as that is the crux of the 'religious scientist' incongruity.

Your suggested dichotomy between science and religion is self-serving and self-deluding - a device to accommodate the contradiction of maintaining a rational side to your brain along with an irrational side.

The 'scientific' method provides the 'rules' of science. Of course it is often overlooked in science vs religion debates that the scientific method is actually what NON-scientists also use all day, every day: eg I don't need an umbrella today (null hypothesis); walk outside to see if I get wet (experimental method for testing hypothesis); am I wet, p < 0.05 ? (results of experiment); did I need an umbrella, and what should I do tomorrow (interpretation and conclusions). Tomorrow, repeat experiment using same method to see if results are the same, or if hypothesis should be revised.

That you personally can only see probability theory as useful to testing the difference between two columns of numbers is precisely my point ! One set of rules for your 'scientific' life, and another, non-rational set for your 'religious' life.

Probability should also be telling you of the infinitessimal likelihood of a higher power.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we are an arbibtrary species of arbitrary intelligence. As such, there is no reason why we SHOULD understand the origin of the universe or the meaning of life. So there is no need to postulate the god hypothesis in the first place. It's only necessary if you wish to argue that if science cannot answer all the mysteries of the universe in a way that the human brain can comprehend, then the ONLY possible alternative hypothesis is a metaphysical one, ie god.

That would suggest an arrogant confidence in the level of human intelligence that is rather hard to sustain when we look around us at our fellow humans - like I said, an arbitrary species of arbitrary intelligence.

In actuality, we (and our human-conducted science) may or may not ever be able to explain all the mysteries of the universe. But either way, a metaphysical explanation is entirely unnecessary. It may simply be that we are not capable of discovering / understanding. Nothing mysterious about that. No god is necessary.

The assumption that there MUST be a 'why' is just another self-serving device to allow for the unnecessary intrusion of religion into an otherwise rational discussion.

The delusions of individual scientists, such as yourself and geneticist Francis Collins who you cited, are simply evidence that science and scientists are different entities, and science does not always protect scientists against delusion ... especially in our societies where religious inanities are not only tolerated, but inculcated into children, and protected against challenges. Dawkins would say that the religious 'virus' (whether biologically or socially constructed) is very 'clever'.

I'm actually surprised that you appear to be a christian. It makes your previous support for big pharma's outrageous pricing of AIDs drugs to poor countries, well ... incongruous. And that's defining religion on your own terms - ie that goodness and morality are the province of religion. Of course that is an insult to all atheists, and a load of crap. I don't have a religious molecule in my body, yet my personal moral code gets the high ground over any religious 'moral' code (particularly that of pope hitler).

Your only 'reward' after this life (the only life) will be reduction to dust, like the rest of us. Or perhaps you expect to be confined in the invisible celestial teapot for eternity ?

BTW, assuming I understand your implication, the 'Beryl' reference is another delusion. I have not followed the substance of your spats with the ex-colonel. But after having some spats myself with homi in my earlier days, I do now somewhat strangely often find myself to be in general agreement with at least some of his thoughts.

So don't cloud your thinking any further on the current issue with that irrelevance. Also, that particular delusion would lead you to believe that I have no direct acquaintance with science, scientists, and religion. That would also be incorrect.

As for your characterization of the above viewpoints as 'extreme', that shows how out of touch you are with the broad range of views among scientists (and non-scientists). Of course not all scientists express those views because (1) subjecting religion to intellectual scrutiny is seen as 'intolerant' (unlike criticising other things that have about as much associated sense, ie sexism, racism, homophobia), and (2) in certain parts of the world (eg USA), atheists are even less popular than homosexuals, so one's career can easily be adversely affected.

[z909]

Religion's just a long running & very profitable scam. Thankfully improved education is reducing it's influence in the west, but not nearly fast enough.

Back on topic, I wonder if the pope is a top or bottom? Well surely he wouldn't come out and strongly condemn homosexual acts with no appropriate experience?

[Soi 10 Tom]

Anything that fat has to be bottom. I suspect that all he can do is lay flat on his back, raise his legs in the air...and scream,"OH, JESUS!!!!!!."

[ArNolD]

Just look at President-elect Obama's choice for his inaugural speaker next month, Rick Warren, who makes the Pope look tolerant by comparison.

Thanks for that <horrible> news, Annan, which I was previous to this unaware of.

I must say that my reaction to searching for and finding out that issue on Rick Warren was like I felt on the morning of July 4 last year, on American independence day, that the white house announced Bush would ignore many calls and be patronizing China by attending the Olympic games. I was extremely "dissed" by this news. All I can say is my opinion of Obama has suddenly and irreversibly changed.

And the issue for me, at least, is not gay marriage in California. I would have hoped that Obama would be the beginning of putting religion BEHIND in American politics. He could have made a better choice I am sure, one that would not purposely, it seems, antagonize gays like the pope's condemnation (I could only suggest that the pope consult a Lama and maybe try some meditation to get to the root of his feelings of hatred). Obama might have lead the way by choosing not to even have a preacher give an invocation at an inauguration for the leader of a secular country.

I can see that the issues of religion and gays (right-wing focussed on the marriage issue, not rights) are going to continue for a very long time. It is not a good strat.

[Curious]

All I can say is my opinion of Obama has suddenly and irreversibly changed.

You haven't read "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda Of The Media's Favorite Candidate"? You should. Here's a bit from a review of the book. "The Obama that emerges from its pages is not a bad person. It's just that he's like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Obama won the Democratic nomination for his Illinois senate seat by getting a team of lawyers to throw all the other candidates off the ballot on various technicalities. He then spent the next 8 years without any visible sign of rocking the Democratic boat. He was a staunch supporter of Richard Daley who failed to stem corruption. The full extent of Obama's close links with two toxic Chicago associates, Jeremiah Wright and Antoin Rezko, is also laid out in detail. Once he got to Washington DC Obama's record of voting with his party became one of the most solid in the capital."

Let the great disillusionment begin!

Disclaimer: I voted for Obama for two reasons (1) to keep some skin in the game and (2) I didn't want Sarah Palin as next President but one and being President would have killed McCain. He's too old.

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3916804/Pope-says-humanity-needs-saving-from-homosexuality.html

I'd expect nothing less from a former member of the Hitler youth.
.

to be fair it was compulsorary...one of my greatest socialist friends was in the Hitler Youth

Aunty wrote:
They can deny it as much as they like, but it simply does not, and nor will it ever change the fact that homosexuality was created by God.
..and his son JC was rather suspect..hanging around with all those blokes

[zinzone]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3916804/Pope-says-humanity-needs-saving-from-homosexuality.html

I'd expect nothing less from a former member of the Hitler youth.

I'm not quite sure what moral authority he has to tell us how to live our lives, given his background and current membership of an intolerant organization which actually discourages the use of condoms. Thankfully in most countries the Church is becoming an increasingly irrelevant part of society.

Agree with you z909.

Imagine the outrage if instead of condemning us gays the effing Pope had said the same re Jews or Muslims?
he presides over a mafia controlled "church" that has paid out trillions literally because of the child molestation activities of his pervert Priests.
What hypocrisy?!

[Curious]

Imagine the outrage if instead of condemning us gays the effing Pope had said the same re Jews or Muslims?

Didn't he make an anti-Muslim comment recently?

[aot87]

As 1 who is not american can some one tell who is this ric warren , and what does he stand for

[rincondog]

Who will save humanity from the Catholic Church?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW3IXpEcBZk[/youtube]

[Wesley]

For me the sciences are a set of methods for discovering, coding and stating i.e. reifying, knowledge. Different sciences have different methods or epistemologies depending on the kinds of realities, or ontologies that are to be reified. The physical reality is received through our senses, social reality is the result of the manipulations were are subjected to by our fellows. The physical sciences reify knowledge about the physical world as it is found i.e. stumbled over, kicked against and how things may happen in a physical sense.

Some social scientists construct theories and demonstrate why things happen in a social ontology so the division between "why" and "how" is not as clear cut as stated above.

To equate the theories of Intelligent Design with those of Darwin and the scientists and thinkers of his time is simply crass. Darwin and the scientists of his time, painstakingly gathered evidence for the emergent theory of evolution. It served to demonstrate that an over-respected body of knowledge was deeply flawed. However, that doesn't mean that those bodies of knowledge didn't contain some useful heuristic for an orderly society in a warm dessert climate.

Perhaps that Jesus fellow or Mohammed did know better than their fellows and had interpreted evidence and drawn on knowledge flowing across the trade routes from East and West.

An open mind can have faith and curiousity, just not at each other's expense.

Actually, this makes more common and scientific sense than anything does I have read to date.

I am agonistic, however it is not my job to convince everyone else they should not be, nor for them to tell me I should not be, Freedom to have or not have faith or believe is fundamental to all people.

I do not think they are mentally incompetent just maybe not enlightened as our good fellow here.

I think statements as if they would open the killing chambers of Hitler are as foolish as some of the shit the Christians say, both are too far to the right or left. Moderation is the key to any common knowledge of one’s self and the universe. To equate anyone with such a tragedy is ludicrous in any right-thinking mind.

Wes


Wes

[ArNolD]

Let the great disillusionment begin!

I think it's begun. It looks like Obama's "White Water Gate" is already here. The talking head networks won't let up. The scandal is going to haunt Obama's administration until the very end.

I agree. Obama will be happy just to be in the game.

[Gone Fishing]

.... it simply does not, and nor will it ever change the fact that homosexuality was created by God.

Wes, I also found 555's post one of the few rational ones here. Aunty is clearly having problems differentiating between a "fact", which is something that can be shown and proven to have happened, and is usually either witnessed or corroborated by substantial verifiable evidence, and a belief, which cannot and is not - quite a failing for a scientist!