Everyone start laughing at them.

not that funny. not funny at all really. *cough*
 
Congratulations on butchering science and dumbing your youth, Kansas. Seriously, kudos.

I'm crossing my fingers that a twister comes your way.
 
There aren't enough twisters in the world for them, my friend.
 
I think we just found the next place to test the Neutron bomb (when or if it is ready for test anyways). all those houses in perfect condition for people looking to start a family (fridge included!!111one!).
 
Honestly, philosophically, and cosmologically, evidence seems to point to the fact that the universe was in fact created. Big Bang, the idea of infinite time, organization implies design, and a bunch more. This doesn't necessarily imply life was directly designed by any type of deity. That said, I personally don't believe in God, nor deny His existence, I just wanted to put that out there.

EDIT: However, I don't feel this should be taught as a theory in schools. I rather liked how mine did it: "Life: How did it begin on earth? Well, some say it was generated by chemicals and heat in shallow pools, some say it arrived on meteors, some say it was placed here by a god. Here's a weeklong look at Evolution...."
 
I'm just glad I got out of Kansas public schools before this stuff got to me. Our whole state is pretty much ****ed up.
 
spookymooky said:
Big Bang,
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This has what to do with a creator being?

the idea of infinite time,
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Time is finite to us because the concept of existence without a beginning or end seems alien to us.

organization implies design,
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Absolutely ****ing not. You're just spouting ID talking points. If ID was in any way a reputable scientific theory, it would be recognized as such. After all, many if not most scientists are theists. But thank the heavens they have the sense to recognize ID for what it is and rightly oppose its labelling as a scientific theory.

EDIT: However, I don't feel this should be taught as a theory in schools. I rather liked how mine did it: "Life: How did it begin on earth? Well, some say it was generated by chemicals and heat in shallow pools, some say it arrived on meteors, some say it was placed here by a god. Here's a weeklong look at Evolution...."
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The problem with this is that if you're going to devote time to ID, then you might as well do the same for the flying spaghetti monster. There are thousands of ideas as to how life began, and a lot of them are inane unsubstantiated garbage. School should only bother with ideas that hold some worth, not unfalsifiable fables.
 
AHH HA HAA!! The best quote in a long time - my new sig.

Now it's up to the colleges/universities to teach Kansas schools about natural selection. "Going for a science degree, huh? From Kansas, are you? Interesting..."
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While it may not be an accurate representation of the United States.. think about how it comes across when a state does something this utterly brainless.
 
Keep the Religion Bashing to yourself. Its really starting to bug me.
 
Instead, we should be like Kansas and bash rational thought to within an inch of its life.

:O

By introducing religion into a secular domain, people have willingly put their faith into what I call the 'Bash Zone', where no mercy is reserved for their two-bit fearmongering and disgusting abuse of majority status.

**** your jesus.
 
Uriel said:
Keep the Religion Bashing to yourself. Its really starting to bug me.
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Caring about religion is like caring about peple who tyPPEE lik tihslolz airiateh. Both are completely nonsensical and lack a basic understanding of.. everything. They rely on pure faith because that's all they have. I could go on but you get the gist.
 
spookymooky said:
Honestly, philosophically, and cosmologically, evidence seems to point to the fact that the universe was in fact created. Big Bang, the idea of infinite time, organization implies design, and a bunch more. This doesn't necessarily imply life was directly designed by any type of deity. That said, I personally don't believe in God, nor deny His existence, I just wanted to put that out there.
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The idea of infinite time is there because we can't comprehend anything else. The 'organization implies design' point is senseless, so stop it :)

Nat Turner said:
Caring about religion is like caring about peple who tyPPEE lik tihslolz airiateh. Both are completely nonsensical and lack a basic understanding of.. everything. They rely on pure faith because that's all they have. I could go on but you get the gist.
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I don't like religion much as a concept, but I don't go outof my way to piss christians off.

EDIT: Oh, and this isn't funny at all, the implications are immense
 
LOL STUPID REDNECKS!

mc2005117012qq.jpg
 
That's the pose you adopt when you are at a squat-bog and you need to dislodge a rather stubborn stool.
 
They have the right to challenge any unproven theory dealing with Science.....some are very illogical and increadibly stupid...but they do have the right. (lets just hope they don't find any proof.)
 
Kansas was never known for it's "more intelligent folk"

They are now officially lower than Iowa..and that's saying ALOT :(

uriel said:
Keep the Religion Bashing to yourself. Its really starting to bug me.
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So you people get "bugged" when we talk about anti-god..but you guys can go into a business, and ask the cashier, "Are you a christian? What church do you go to, you should come to our church, ask me questions, we need more of you folk.." You folk? What am I, an outcast? pfft.
 
Why do religious people act like their beliefs should be treated with some sort of legitimacy?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
An early argument for the finite age of universe (and hence the first cause) was based on the second law of thermodynamics and growth of entropy. Entropy tends to grow in an isolated system, and the Universe can be considered as an isolated system with finite amount of matter and particles. If the Universe was infinitely old, the entropy had already gained its maximum extent, there would be no differences in temperature and the universe would itself had suffered the heat death already. Time itself can in this model be understood as the gradient of entropy. Ergo, since the heat death has not yet occurred, the age of the universe is finite and it has not existed eternally.

Modern quantum physics is sometimes taken to deny the validity of the first premise of this stylized argument, asserting that subatomic particles such as electrons, positrons, and photons, can come into existence, and perish, by virtue of spontaneous energy fluctuations in a vacuum. Such occurrences do not violate the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy, and they are not essentially different from other natural stochastic processes which are not presently fully understood (with some saying that it is impossible to predict them, and others saying, with Albert Einstein, that "God does not play dice with the universe"). Some scientists like David Bohm have also taken quantum fluctuations to be causal in nature. Thus, it is not presently known whether such processes have any bearing on the assertion that all effects have causes.

Modern cosmology is sometimes taken to be neutral on the second premise asserting that while spacetime as observed tends toward a singularity giving the universe an observed finite age, this does not discount the possibility that the stochastic processes that govern the early evolution of the universe actually cause the universe to be eternal. In particular, the lack of a consistent theory of quantum gravity has meant that there is no physical theory and no meaningful prediction can be made about what character the universe had before the Planck time. Indeed the supposed singularity from which the universe is said to have originated in the classic Big Bang picture is actually a physical paradox - an indication that current theory is not an adequate description. This era of the universe and its associated energy regime remains one of the unsolved problems in physics and as such does not lend itself either to the existence of a "first cause" or lack thereof.

Recently, newer, speculative theories have been offered by a number of theorists, but there is no scientific consensus as of yet on whether the universe necessarily began to exist or whether it is eternal.
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Currently, the theory of the cosmological history of the universe most widely accepted by astronomers arguably includes an apparent first event—the Big Bang—the immense explosion of all known matter and energy from a superdense point at some finite time in the past. If this really is the first event in the universe, this explosion could not be the result of any prior event. According to the cosmological argument, the cause of the first event would necessarily be a being which is capable of causing other events, but which is not itself caused. Aristotle called this the Uncaused Cause, and left it at that, but Aquinas went on to argue that this Uncaused Cause is just another name for God.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

In 1802, Paley wrote that if a pocket watch is found on a field, it is most reasonable to assume that someone dropped it and that it was made by a watchmaker and not by natural forces. Paley went on to argue that complex structures of living things must be the work of God. One theology student who found these arguments compelling was Charles Darwin, who later developed his theory of the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection to put forward an alternative explanation for complexity in nature.

Many have argued against this argument, mainly by showing that highly complex systems can be produced by a series of very small randomly-generated steps. Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker is one of the best known works following this idea.

The debate over this is closely related to irreducible complexity, the premise that certain biological structures can function only if all their substructures are present. It argues that each substructure confers no benefit on its own, and therefore cannot have been selected by an evolutionary mechanism. It then argues that the probability of all the substructures being created in a single mutation is too low to be considered possible. Counterarguments suggest that simple structures (whose probability of randomly evolving is realistic) could have themselves evolved (ie. changed) into more complex ones over time, resulting in a present structure which appears to be irreducibly complex. See Gradual Replacement.
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I think evolution is a valid theory, and very useful, and probably on the whole accounts for the selection of life on earth. I know for sure it works on a small scale, as in with superbacteria and the like. There wholes in the theory. Scientists do not know how cell's organelles could have evolved, for example. A mitochondria is a rather small, complex bit of protein. Take any of it away, and the whole thing is rendered useless.

There are also other theories to explain life on earth, though quite unconventional:
Opponents of creationist argumentation claim that there is no way to distinguish between creationism's objection to mainstream science and objections to mainstream science that are derived from groups that are not followers of creationism. The following list gives an idea of the many diverse views on origins beyond the creation-evolution dichotomy:

With Zen and New Age religions, everything and nothing are all interconnected, inseparable, a made whole. These conceptions deny that the person is the first cause and posit a guiding non-anthropomorphic consciousness that balances the universe and serves as a source for all being.
Theogony by Hesiod contains a poetic rendering of the Greek myth that the Cosmos was created through sexual intercourse.
Panspermia is a theory explaining the existence of life on the Earth as a result of fertilization by germs coming from outer space.
Norse mythology says that Odin and his brothers used the body of Ymir, the giant, to create the world.
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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_controversy#False_dichotomy)

Intelligent Design — The intelligent design movement as a matter of policy and strategy distance themselves from other forms of creationism, preferring to be known as wholly separate from creationism as a philosophy. Outwardly, in addressing the public, education officials, and public policymakers, ID proponents claim to support an uncritical look at origins as a means to discover the inherent supernatural design of the natural and biological worlds.[2] But when addressing their constituency, who are largely evangelical Protestants, they present their arguments in largely theistic terms.[3] Since the ID premise necessarily relies on a supernatural explanation for natural events, it is by necessity another form of creationism. Leading ID proponents, notably law professor Phillip E. Johnson, have stated that the goal of ID is to cast creationism as a scientific concept: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."[4] "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy."[5] Ongoing attempts by ID proponents to include ID alongside with evolution in public schools often present a "teach the controversy" slogan to appeal to a sense of fairness and open-mindedness. Opponents reply that this is inappropriate for a science classroom because the "controversy" is a matter of religion and politics and there is no scientific controversy about the teaching of the theory of evolution.
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I'm not really making much of an organized argument here. I'm just trying to say Evolution is as much of a theory as Intelligent Design is. While it should be taught as a philosophy, or even a religion, one has to remember that all science is "natural philosophy". We don't really know much about gravity, light, or basic biological functions. Like all philosophies, what we do "know" has been hypothesized from a few assumptions.

Usual disclaimer: I do not believe in Intelligent Design. I do not believe that the theory of evolution exactly as it is known today is fact. I do believe that the theory of evolution provides valuable material for a science class while Intelligent Design probably doesn't. I also do not feel the two must be independent. I feel that those who look down on religion, haven't really looked into it. I think you would have a hard time arguing with a good theologian. I myself don't believe, or disbelieve in a god, but argument-wise, I am rather impressed with the religions.
 
Absinthe said:
Why do religious people act like their beliefs should be treated with some sort of legitimacy?
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I guess this is technically a double post, but I really want to emphasize how foolish this statement appears to me. There are proofs for God. Disprove them with logic, or prove logic is false through some other method, but until you can do that, you have "no more right to spit on [their] religion than you have to spit on my religion--or my lack of it"
 
spookymooky said:
I'm just trying to say Evolution is as much of a theory as Intelligent Design is.
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No, no, and no.

The entire basis of ID is largely based on an argument from ignorance (ie. Science can't quite explain something, THEREFORE TEHER IS IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY!!!1!).
 
spookymooky said:
I guess this is technically a double post, but I really want to emphasize how foolish this statement appears to me. There are proofs for God. Disprove them with logic, or prove logic is false through some other method, but until you can do that, you have "no more right to spit on [their] religion than you have to spit on my religion--or my lack of it"
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I don't need to disprove their gods any more than I need to disprove the existence of a magic spoon orbiting Jupiter. Proof of gods? Sure, lay it out for me then. Because the onus of evidence is not mine.

You only see it as foolish because society has ingrained theism as rational. I have yet to be directed to a sound rational reason for me to respect the beliefs of the religious any moreso than I do for madmen.
 
The problem with the religious argument is that it's not provable in the least- it doesn't have anything to do with evidence. Hell, religion is essentially defined by blind faith. There really aren't any legitimate "proofs" (sic) out there, short of ancient texts by men who needed an explanation for various phenomena. As Douglas Adams points out in his book The Salmon of Doubt, now that we have actual explanations for these phenomena, there's no need for faith. Religion is obsolete. It exists purely to give people something to believe in. Well, I say, go ahead. We all need something to believe in. However, I choose to believe in the real world.
 
I choose to believe...
I choose to believe...
I choose to believe...

...what do I believe?

D:
 
Absinthe said:
I don't need to disprove their gods any more than I need to disprove the existence of a magic spoon orbiting Jupiter. Proof of gods? Sure, lay it out for me then. Because the onus of evidence is not mine.

You only see it as foolish because society has ingrained theism as rational. I have yet to be directed to a sound rational reason for me to respect the beliefs of the religious any moreso than I do for madmen.
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If you want to take a position on something you do indeed need to be able to justify it. It is simple to prove there is no spoon around jupiter. If you don't know whether there is or isn't say nothing. If you are going to positively say there is no God, prove it. If I show you a photograph of a spoon orbiting jupiter, show me one that shows it's not there. If i tell you that I can detect it's gravitic anomalies, either show that I can't or don't deny it.

Religion is rational. The existence of God has hundreds of rational arguments. I've listed a few, start by showing those are incorrect. Show me my pictures of the spoon are photoshopped. Or, logically prove that God cannot exist. Until you do this, the possibility remains open.

I have no problem with anyone not believing that God exists. I don't believe it personally, or disbelieve it for that matter. I do have a problem with you putting down the beliefs of another without justification.
 
spookymooky said:
If you want to take a position on something you do indeed need to be able to justify it. It is simple to prove there is no spoon around jupiter. If you don't know whether there is or isn't say nothing. If you are going to positively say there is no God, prove it. If I show you a photograph of a spoon orbiting jupiter, show me one that shows it's not there. If i tell you that I can detect it's gravitic anomalies, either show that I can't or don't deny it.
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You're right, a position does need a justification, and that's something the religious clearly lack. Thank you for making my argument for me.

I don't recall making the assertion that there is no god. That's a common straw-man fallacy against atheism and it's sad that you've played into it. No, I've simply come to the conclusion that there is no rational reason to believe in a god. Wether or not such an entity actually exists independently of evidence is an entirely different matter.
In the case of the spoon orbiting Jupiter, I have no evidence of its existence. It might be there, but that doesn't grant the possibility any credence. You have some seriously ****ed up notion that people need to definitively make evidence for the non-existence of unfalsifiable concepts. That demonstrates right there that you haven't the first clue as to what you're talking about. If you allow leeway to that line of reasoning, then I invite you to also definitively prove the non-existence of witches, elves, scrambled egg monsters, and Big Foot. Would belief in those things be rational? No. Belief in a god is no different.

This is a very simple practice that we employ every day. We hear hundreds of claims, rumors, and theories. But with a lack of evidence to support them, we don't believe them. That's not the same as ruling them out entirely, but it is a rational process. We only posit credence in things that have worth and substantiation. To not do so is to buy into every single concept mankind has ever produced, no matter how ridiculous.

Religion is rational. The existence of God has hundreds of rational arguments. I've listed a few, start by showing those are incorrect. Show me my pictures of the spoon are photoshopped. Or, logically prove that God cannot exist. Until you do this, the possibility remains open.
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Rational arguments? You've made NONE. If I missed them, please repost them. Because the most you've argued is irreducible complexity, which is pretty much a flawed concept born out of a lack of an imagination and ignorance. The possibility of something doesn't make it credible. At all. Duh.

I have no problem with anyone not believing that God exists. I don't believe it personally, or disbelieve it for that matter. I do have a problem with you putting down the beliefs of another without justification.
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I'm sorry that their beliefs make no sense. And I'm sorry my forward approach towards such bullshit rubs you the wrong way. If you find me offensive, then by all means continue to treat such beliefs with kid gloves. But I'm personally not going to give it much kindness.
 
There is absolutely no reason for there to be a god.

The existence of our universe proves only that our universe exists, not that god exists.

End.
 
Ennui said:
There is absolutely no reason for there to be a god.

The existence of our universe proves only that our universe exists, not that god exists.

End.
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Truth.
 
Apparently the burden of proof lies on my, though you must refute all these arguments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Existence_of_God/Franc's_Fork

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_argument_for_the_existence_of_God

The Scotch School led by Thomas Reid taught that the fact of the existence of God is accepted by us without knowledge of reasons but simply by a natural impulse. That God exists, this school said, is one of the chief metaphysical principles that we accept not because they are evident in themselves or because they can be proved, but because common sense obliges us to accept them.
The Argument from a Proper Basis argues that belief in God is "properly basic"--that is, similar to statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain." Such beliefs are non-falsifiable and, thus, neither able to be proved nor disproved; they concern perceptual beliefs or indisputable mental states.
In Germany, the School of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi taught that our reason is able to perceive the suprasensible. Jacobi distinguished three faculties: sense, reason, and understanding. Just as sense has immediate perception of the material so has reason immediate perception of the immaterial, while the understanding brings these perceptions to our consciousness and unites them to one another (Stöckl, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, II, 82 sqq.). God's existence, then, cannot be proved--Jacobi, like Kant, rejected the absolute value of the principle of causality--it must be felt by the mind.
In his Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that when our understanding ponders over the existence of God it encounters nothing but contradictions; the impulses of our hearts, however, are of more value than the understanding, and these proclaim clearly to us the truths of natural religion, namely, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.
The same theory was advocated in Germany by Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834), who assumed an inner religious sense by means of which we feel religious truths. According to Schleiermacher, religion consists solely in this inner perception, and dogmatic doctrines are unessential (Stöckl, loc. cit., 199 sqq.).
Many modern Protestant theologians follow in Schleiermacher's footsteps, and teach that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated; certainty as to this truth is only furnished us by inner experience, feeling, and perception.
Modernist Christianity also denies the demonstrability of the existence of God. According to them we can only know something of God by means of the vital immanence, that is, under favorable circumstances the need of the Divine dormant in our subconsciousness becomes conscious and arouses that religious feeling or experience in which God reveals himself to us. In condemnation of this view the oath against Modernism formulated by Pius X says: "Deum ... naturali rationis lumine per ea quae facta sunt, hoc est per visibilia creationis opera, tanquam causam per effectus certo cognosci adeoque demostrari etiam posse, profiteor." ("I declare that by the natural light of reason, God can be certainly known and therefore His existence demonstrated through the things that are made, i.e., through the visible works of Creation, as the cause is known through its effects.")
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^^^This isnt the basis of the links, it's a subset of one which I didnt post as it was too large.

(Just happened to run across this, it's the technical name for the Flying Spaghetti Monster argumemt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HRG's_cat
Look, I'm not saying God exists. I do not believe this to be the case. I do require proof of his nonexistence before he can be ruled out, however. Also, this is not the topic here, whether ID should be taught in schools is. I'm not going to respond anymore regarding God's existence, so take your last pot shots at this, then let's move on.
 
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