h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I suspect that the true nature and distribution of fossils is just another area of scientific ignorance for fundamentalists.

They way they talk, you'd think there were just a few mysterious bones turning up on a beach here and there, whereas a significant fraction of many mountain ranges in Europe is made of little apart from fossils embedded in a carbonate matrix derived from the shells of other creatures. Many places in the Rocky mountains are similar, and it's *not* just a joke scattering on the surface - they're fossils all the way through. I speak from direct physical experience.

God (even a prankster God) must also have been peculiarly fond of crinoids, ammonites and other pretty dull ocean life. Either that, or he had an amazingly limited imagination.


As to how small-minded it's possible to be, evidently it's easy for some people to believe that only their tiny sub-sect is going to heaven, and yet they *still* call themselves Christians (though I suspect many more sensible Christians might disagree).
A few days ago I saw a local church minibus. Written on the side were the two lines of text :

Church Of ....(whatever)....
'The Church Of True Worshippers'

I wonder how many atheists would write 'Stop praying, you're wasting your time, you idiot' on the side of *their* car...

I saw a classic sign outside a church a few weeks back:

"If God is your co-pilot.....change seats"

Another example of 'Don't think for yourself - let the church tell you what do. Don't have an opinion. God's opinion is the only one you need'

I'm still planning on buying one of those EvolveFish 'Shark' badges for my car, when I get around to it

Sample question: How do you know you have saurian remains? Just seeing them doesn't prove anything, does it?

Now understand this isn't how I approach it. I don't see any reason to doubt the reality of fossils. I used to know (still do) EVERYTHING about dinosaurs and the like. However, if you can prove the existence of God and the validity of the Bible, then which one is a more stable observation: that this creature is 65 million years old or improperly dated?

Now I understand an atheist would consider this argument stupid. An atheist believes it is impossible to prove the existence of God, right? And besides, dinosaurs... No paleoentological stuff, alright? Off the top of my head, I can think of a few dinosaur species that were discovered using a single tooth. I'm NOT saying those species didn't exist, alright? I'm just saying that paleoentology is based on fairly shaky ground, scientifically, and no one- not even atheists- should put too much faith in it. Please don't ask me about dinosaurs.

And circular logic? Please. If God exists, you are simply ignoing the possibility. f God exists then there is a simple, logical line of thought which verifies it.

-Zel

BTW, it said "God," not "your religion" or "your pastor or priest." An enormous amount of the Bible is written about this huge sacrifice to God. Not your church- God. Of course, for all this to work, there must be a God and you must be in contat with him.

But then, if He does and you are, what's to stop you from arguing the Christian view? I've said before- the one thing no atheist can explain is a Christian...

I can explain Christians... heck, I *was* one, and so were many other Atheists. Oh, and I'll thank you not to play "No True Scotsman" on that either - though I guess it's your priviledge to call a largish percentage of people liars.

The human mind is a wonderous thing. People have out of body experiences, and justify them according to whatever religion they belong to - be that Christian, Buddhist, or whatever. People have hallucinations (that's not an insult - I regularly have hallucinations in early morning lectures), and interpret them according to their religion. People *WANT* to see something so bad, that they actually see them. I've been there. I interpreted the raising of the hairs on my back when I said the creed as evidence of the Holy Spirit, when it was just that at about that time in the service in a chilly church, my body temperature dropped sufficiently to cause the standard reflex response. When I went to a new church, the "spirit" went away.

Then there are those who don't see, but believe anyway. (c.f. Doubting Thomas). I explain them by pointing out the extreme power of peer pressure, and mind viruses. Knowledge of the theory of memes gives a largely flawless analysis of the reasons for christianity spreading so rapidly, and also of the persecution they faced in the early years.

So there you go, Christianity is perfectly explainable psychologically, and sociologically. This doesn't mean that it's not true, but it also means that you can't use numbers of believers as evidence. Which is just as well, really, since I believe Muslims outnumber you guys by a fair amount, and the percentage of christians is dropping off slowly.

Whim be with you

"If God exists then there is a simple, logical line of thought which verifies it."

Then to reword you, a little... "If God exists, then God exists"

That's pretty much the definition of circular reasoning.

(nobody mention Iguanadons!)

ARRRGGHH!! I just came from the mechanics, because it was time to smog-check my car. The garage had god music blaring out oud, and the car in the corner had god bumper stickers all over it. I wish I'd had a Darwin fish... anyway...

Some dinos were discovered based on only a tooth: true. However, some dinos have been discovered in whole, and even recently, in whole packs. That's fairly solid ground to conjecture from.

Better info on the universe... we know from basic trigonometry that some of the stars that we can see are hundreds of millions of light years away. So if the universe is only 10,000 years old, how do we see their light?

Ok, maybe I can not prove we are talking about saurian remains, maybe nobody can. But we CAN prove that they are from beings like nobody has ever seen during the last 2000 years at least. Is that good enough for the moment?

If we COULD prove the existence of a god, and we KNEW that the bible WAS valid, then would there be a reason to doubt it? But on the other hand, would it be reasonable to think that one would improperly date a 10.000 year old artefact as 65 MILLION years old? That would be a rather obvious mistake. Actually, nobody could make such a huge error, even if they wanted to. Remember, we're talking a factor 65.000 here. That's like saying that yesterday's bread is about 200 years old. Very unlikely.

An atheist doesn't believe it's impossible to prove god's existence, an atheist simply feels god doesn't exist. You may think there's little difference, but I don't. If god doesn't exist, there is no REASON to prove his existence. One could just as easily try to prove that the Loch Ness monster exists. Futile!

Ok, maybe some of the things the paleonthologists and archaeologists come up with are not as well worked out as other things, but not everything they've 'discovered' so far is purely based on *one* tooth. They also have complete, or nearly complete, skeletons of some fantastic animals. And a lot of these bones could NEVER have been from any kind of animal we know. Surely, sometimes they build theories on quicksand or less, I admit that...

As for circular logic: ok, I'll accept your dare. If we now assume God exists, then can you tell me the line of thought that would logically verify his existence? Be careful about it, though

So if the universe is only 10,000 years old, how do we see their light?

Good point. But if someone believes in a God, they will also believe he corrected for that by placing streams of light that would reach us in time to fool our senses. Just another test of our faith...

Anyway, some true believers are even daring enough to doubt the truth of 1 + 1 = 2, let alone 'basic trigonometry'. That concept is beyond them by a few million lightyears.

It's not so much what one can absolutely prove, it's a matter of what a reasonable person would be confident in assuming. That depends both on the strength of evidence supporting any given conclusion and the strength of any evidence which is incompatible with that conclusion.

A great many things are *possible*, but yet vanishingly unlikely, with no supporting evidence. For example, Christianity could have been inflicted on us by extraterrestrials wishing to stifle our scientific development, (though I suspect they might have made a more believable job of the Bible). While that possibility cannot be entirely dismissed, for all practical purposes, it can be ignored unless supporting evidence comes to light.

Science is not only a way of determining the likeliest explanation, but also for determining the confidence that can be placed in that explanation. In the case of paleontology and archeology, a decent scientist might accept *some* conclusions as the best explanation so far, and yet have many doubts as to the certainty of those conclusions. A scientist might also recognise some ideas as so tentative that they should at best be considered as dreamy speculation (Anyone who's seen 'Walking With Dinosaurs' will probably understand what I mean).

Unsurprisingly, I would contend that the more someone is exposed to science, and is aware of which theories are later disproved or modified, and which are strengthened by evidence and experiment, the more likely they are to be able to differentiate between good and bad science.
I quite understand the mistrust in science as a whole that can be generated by overspeculative media coverage (Even many BBC1 wildlife programs often appear dumbed down relative their BBC2 equivalents).
I suspect that if people watched less television science, and read more science books, which I feel are generally of a higher standard, we would all benefit. In fact, if people watched less TV in general, and read more decent books of any kind, we would all benefit.

Getting back to the point, I don't doubt there are many misclassifications of fossil bones as belonging to a particular species, but Mummy is entirely right in saying that, whatever the precise nature of many dinosaurs was, they're clearly unlike anything around today. Even the simple physical size of some specimens demonstrates that quite conclusively, and I, for one, generally trust my eyesight as a reliable indicator of the size of objects in the physical world. I suspect such trust is widespread.

Hypothetically, if there were indeed *a* God, what are the odds that any given Christian sect would turn out to have guessed correctly? Just because Christianity has been spread throughout the world as the result of a combination of technology and European imperial politics hardly guarantees its correctness. After all, if the Old testament was handed down from God, surely that would make the Jews right, unless God changed his mind later. If he did change his mind, you'd think he'd make sure all his chosen people would know about it.

Not at all. It's more like symmetric logic, if you want to boil it down like that. And you can't even get it to look like that. WHat I said was "If God exists, you'll be able to figure it out."

Ahem ...
At the time this thread started I was unaware of h2g2 let alone the tumult it contained. So, it is with some trepidation that I venture a toe near the water.

I have spent the past four evenings (far less than you invested) in following it and some of the links, only some because I wanted to follow the developments. Some thoughts have occurred relating to various stages of the thread and not immediately relevant but I'll put one here because, otherwise, it would sink without trace in the voluminous postings. I'll try this one for a starter (which so far as I recall has not actually been stated).

"Walk a mile in my shoes."
Gargleblaster, it is not easy for me to appreciate your predicament in having your life continually or continuously invaded by the propaganda of (a) religious sect(s) any more than your visualising John Major's "Elderly spinster riding her bicycle to eight o'clock Sunday communion through the misty country lanes."

"Belief in God arises chiefly from environmental influence rather than personal experience." - Discuss.

I'm assuming this one was to me.
Oh, hello again by the way. just popped in....

1) by why, i meant philisophical Whys like "why are we here?" and "why is it wrong to kill people?" etc etc. Science cannot dictate morals - that's Nazism. Sorry for the confusion.

2) why are his miracles not non-personal? Dunno. Ask Him. or ask some of the people who have experienced miracles in their community.

3) uh. Can't remember what point I made here. OK, scientists and Christians exist. Scientists can be christians. People can believe the Bible and still believe in evolution. OK? Is that what you wanted to hear? Oh, also, scientists can get it wrong. So can preachers. Human beings have that innate gift.

4) I'm sure that many people believe in Christ. However, THAT does not get you into the kingdom, as clarified by the scriptures; "acknowledge with your mouth, believe in your heart" "faith cannot exist without good works" etc etc. I'm sure that, as a scientist, you get pissed when people get their DNA and RNA mixed up with their baryons and mesons, or when people take an idiotic but newsworthy experiment and blow it out of all proportion in the papers. Sucks, doesn't it?

5) The texts of the Bible were written by man. The spirit of the Bible was breathed by God. We just tried to put words around the vision, and for the most part got it right. Oh, and as for the flood thing, we screwed up, God got angry. He does that. I think you'll find that that's how the biggest sea in the world arrived (no, I don't subscribe to a total world flood at the moment, unless you take the "world" to mean that which is populated by humans). But hey, I don't deny the possibility....

"Belief in God arises chiefly from environmental influence rather than personal experience." - Discuss.

McDuff = exception to obviously stated rule.

Fact: If al I had to go on was the church, you would not see me there. I'm still there.

Mcduff = exception that proves the rule...

fwiw, the statement was CHIEFLY...

Me, I'll go for "*Which* God is believed in arises almost invariably from enviro...." I'm sure there are people who turn to Zeus because they had a vision from him saying that Ra is a false god, but I can't see them being a minority.

myre

1) Well.... depends what you mean....
"why are we here?" - You'll need to expand that question - as stands it's ambiguous. I could start by observing that most of us are here because we like h2g2.
"why is it wrong to kill people?" - presupposes that it IS wrong to kill people, which is not obvious. There are times when it *feels* morally ok - in self-defence, for example, or fighting for freedom in a war.

*briefly wonders whether to invoke Godwin's Law*

Personally, religious philosophy makes me VERY nervous. The bible can be used to justify slavery, to say that homosexuality is wrong, and to justify punishing jews. It sees no value in the seperation of Church and State, and religious freedom and tolerance is typically not in the top ten of biblical commandments.

Personally, I'll take philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists over preachers any day of the week. Though generally, I'll side with the Apathy movement, and point out that mankind has managed without the answers to these questions for a LONG time, so clearly there's no rush to find an answer.

I would be about as happy finding that some God had a grand purpose for earth, as discovering that the local space aliens had a grand plan to build an intergalactic superhighway through there. I'm happier with no purpose, cos it makes me free-er.

3) the ratio of theist scientists to atheist/agnostic scientists is about 40:60. The ratio for non-scientists is about 90:10. That's a pretty good correlation, though it proves nothing, of course...
It'd be interesting to find a documented example of preachers getting it RIGHT. I can give plenty of examples of them getting it wrong, but correct predictions are fairly rare...

5) At the time of the creation of the meditteranean, there's evidence to show that there were a bunch of humans quietly living in America. There were DEFINATELY people living in places other than where the meditteranean now lies. So your God, who attempted to wipe out all humanity, either missed the majority, or really DID flood the world.

I deny the possibility, because an omnipotent God would do it a subtler way (qv Angel of Death), whereas a non-omnipotent God would have difficulty ensuring that the 250,000 species of beetles in the Ark stayed alive for a year without snuffing it. You'd also need a rationale for where all this water suddenly came from, where it is now, and why we see no geographical evidence for a world-wide flood. Oh, and why the weight of the water didn't crush the earth to a pulp. And how the 8 inhabitants of the ark managed to have sex fast enough to repopulate the entire world in a few thousand years. And why everyone else in the area had their own flood myths, where YHWH is conspicuous by his absence.

1. A human beleiver in a religion 'interpreted' by humans is not necessarily better informed when it comes to philosophical 'why' questions than anybody else, even though they may think they are. Possibly, they may be less suited to moral philosophy, if their opinions are merely copies of someone else's, as they may be less practised at actually thinking for themselves. If you look at several different religions and find what few simple moral concepts they have in common (if anything), I suspect it's almost certainly something that a couple of humanists could work out after an evening's chat.

2. Unfortunately, given the widespread ignorance about both science and the techniques of skilled conjurers, personal testimony on the subject of miracles is no more reliable than the opinion of a believer in the psychic abilities of Uri Geller.

3. At least if the scientist is a decent one, they'll probably admit their mistake once someone proves them wrong. One fundamental strength of science is that methods of proving someone wrong do exist, which they don't seem to in religion.
If a scientist has a theory, it's up to other people to work out whether they think the scientist is correct before they base a decision on that theory. The more serious the consequences of error, the more checking can be done.
The same is not true with the pronouncements of a preacher - without any method of checking, you either have to believe everything you're told (*very* bad), or believe what fits your own ideas (in which case, why bother with the preacher)

5. Regarding the flood, I agree there is zero evidence for any world flood, and in case you're talking about the post ice-age flooding of the Black Sea being the actual event badly mis-described in the Bible, there were people living all over the world well before that happened.

"We just tried to put words around the vision, and for the most part got it right"
How on earth could you possibly know that, and how do you explain all the other world religions with entirely differnt myths - what is supposed to be so special about a few Middle-Eastern tribes after all.
Than again, what with Judaism, the numerous brands of Christianity, and Islam, it seems God can't even make up his own mind about the proper religion for one small part of the planet.

Not a reply, but this link is useful to load this forum: http://www.h2g2.com/F27390?thread=30459?skip=211show=40

I can't say I like this "load 20 at a time" idea. Where's the "go to end" button???

Improvements to this system will come soon enough. Meanwhile, please use the link posted above. This is a forum that definately needs it .