Evolution: Science vs. Religion

[Asif_NSU]

Hi there everyone,
Please fill up this questionnaire to help me in my research. It is regarding evolution and religion. I hope to get very good co-operation from you guyz.
The questionnaire is Here

Thank you.

[OurNation]

I belive in eveloution I dont really want to go in depth with the religon thing so it doesnt get to contreiversail(spelling).

[Asif_NSU]

So u believe in EVE-loution or EVO-lution? :D

[OurNation]

Im just retarded and cant spell

[zeroth]

From what I've read, you definitely are not retarded...

It's either you can't type or you have six fingers on each hand and they get in the way!

[OurNation]

Im just not to good at spelling and forgot to scroll down to see how its spelt

[YoungCoder]

I assume you are taking a stratified sample considering you are asking o na technology based website which means the majority will most likely favour the science option :p

[Asif_NSU]

well, In my university most of the students are muslims. So i m not getting much of a variety in opinions. So i posted it here to see what people from other walks of life/religions think about it. And itz not that i m trying to defend science on the issue of evolution or go against it. My sole interest is to know how today's people view Darwinism along with their spiritual beliefs(if any;yup, i got quite a number of atheists).

[Asif_NSU]

Hi there everyone,
I have to present the statistics of this questionnaire this Tuesday. Thanks to everyone who participated, the questionnaire will still be active upto Monday. People who did not do it yet please do, it takes only a minute.
Thank you.

[jwenting]

Sorry, not going to hand over my email address to a company I've never even heard of. Enough harvesting for spam purposes going on as it is.

Religion is a means of explaining away things you don't understand in terms you do understand.
Once it gets organised it degenerates (or evolves, depends on who you are in the hierarchy) into a means for a few (whom are called priests to stay in generic terms) of controlling the masses through indoctrination and by keeping them unaware of reality.
Thus religion will create supernatural all knowing beings whom are claimed to be in contact with the priest cast, telling on all disgressions from the rules laid down by that priest cast on the general population. This (together with the statement that those rules are dictated by those supernatural beings) provides an easy way for the priesthood to control the population and gives them the power to do pretty much whatever they wish.
In such a system there's no place for scientific development as that would inevitably explain away the "miracles" the priests perform or claim the gods perform by means of logic and scientific evidence.
The denial by religions of evolution is one example of that denial and suppression of science by religion.

And yes, I was raised (semi)religiously but never forced to accept any religion and I didn't.
I will tolerate and respect any religion that tolerates and respects the fact that I don't share its ideals and ideas and don't wish to be the target of their indoctrination campaigns.

[nanosani]

I'll be waiting for the result.

[moderate_rock48]

Very well put jwenting, but I am religous and yes (gasp) Catholic. I like to read other peoples viewpoints on how the world works, and I am very tolerant of other peoples opinions, to the point where they start bad mouthing me for what I believe.

I dont think religion suppress science, people are going to try and figure this whole thing out if the church condones it or not. But people got to believe what they got to believe. Otherwise they would have nothing.

Also, the hierarchy of priest and all may affect the mass majority of peoples opinions, or what people are going to believe, but that is life. That is how we humans are built, to be led by other people in power. That is how all government works. Please, dont think im trying to push religion off on you, I dont want to be one of those people. I thought your thoughts were expressed very well without offending anybody. :cheesy:

[meksikatsi]

religion is for those who believe in it

[OurNation]

Ahh I think moderates post sprayed some religion on me.....gasp

[jwenting]

religion not suppressing science?
Tell that to Galileo...
Other scientists have been killed as heretics for daring to proclaim things that didn't fit in the framework of the ruling religion.
Religious groups in the US and elsewhere want to ban evolution theory from being taught in schools as heretical.

[moderate_rock48]

ok fine...but your not going to see me going around killing people for teaching evolution, I dont care. It seems everyone can declare there stance on the matter, just make sure your atheist....Also it seems I wont talk about this anymore because it is obviously quite sensitive. I would like to end this now before it is blown out of porportion.

[zeroth]

you are right about it being a sensitive subject, moderate, and it's getting more so daily. Secularism is the new "religion" in the US and growing fast. Secularists don't want any religious conotations in society at all.

I think we should all live and let live. I can't understand why anyone needs to palm off their beliefs on anyone else, but some people cannot stand it if somebody is free...

[jwenting]

Correct zeroth. I've nothing against any religion (like I said) nor against religios conotations in society as long as that religion doesn't force its ideas and ideals on me.
For example, I've nothing against an easter bunny, but don't expect me to go to church on easter.
I've nothing against Muslims praying in the subway, but don't ask me to do the same or to condone them blocking the tunnels.

And no, I'm no atheist. Atheism is a religion too, as atheists have a religious disbelief in the existence of gods.

I keep my options open... Being pragmatic I have concluded that every religion out there preaches harsher punishment after death for believers in false gods than it does for people that believe in no gods at all.
That means you're better off not joining any religion than you are joining the wrong one and as there's so many religions gambling on choosing the correct one is too risky.

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I am Episcopal, and a believer in Jesus Christ.

What I find interesting are people who claim not to be religious, and yet want to have Christmas off and Easter vacation.

I see different religions as different paths to God, such as Buddhist, Judism, and Arabic religions.

But religion can also be the "bond" of a cruel force. During the middle ages, Catholics were very meddling in society... what happened to Galieo for example, or the crusades, or the concept of indulgances. Leaders of the religion can turn the base into a collective weapon.

I am not sure that science can explain everything that happens, such as how personality develops inside people. I also think that certain scientific quests, such as cloning, will create great problems for our society. We do not have the wisdom as a society to control that power. Take a look at Jurassic Park if you need a very fundamental exam of that theory. OR look at the terminator movies... would you really like AI like that? How dare we think as humans that if a machine could define an enemy, that the AI machine would not seek to defend itself?

I do think it is important for a religion to be in a society. Not a state sponsored one, but a balance of duties and responsibility.

Christian

[zeroth]

J, I love options. And I believe that religion and science must tolerate one another. It´s a balance, but they both must be openminded to maintain the balance, sort of like politics. Like politics, it doesn´t always work out but in the long run, everything seems to progress.

The way I look at it, all the religions (with the exception of those like naturism, which have more than one god) say that there is one god. If that is true, aren´t they all talking about the same god? And if that´s true, then what is all the fuss about.

It doesn´t seem to matter, whatever group people are in are always mad at the people in the other groups.

[moderate_rock48]

I agree with zeroth in that religion and science must be tolerant and open-minded. I think we can all look at the facts and take away from them what we will. Whether we choose to believe it was a cosmic coincidence, or there is a God, it is all up to us, as individuals to decide. You have to believe what you have to believe, its all we've got.

[Asif_NSU]

My final presentation has been extended to 16 th April. So the questionnaire is still open.
The Questionnaire

To Jwenting:

Sorry, not going to hand over my email address to a company I've never even heard of. Enough harvesting for spam purposes going on as it is./

>>You dont have to, they wont even try to confirm whether it's a valid email address or not. It's just to discourage no one participates twice(not very effective though). You can use any email address like [e-mail].

I have read your opinion on religions. Your disgust for people or system that uses or used religion to control population and thereby suppressing scientific development is very logical. However,the blame should not be on religion. Religion was not and is not meant to operate in that way. It's those people who needs to be blamed, not the religion. It's that system which suppressed science, but not the religion itself. Religion is not responsible for Galileo's fate, it's the people who cant tolerate other opinions are to be blamed.
And I believe what they did to Galileo was against the teachings of religion and not for it.

Being pragmatic I have concluded that every religion out there preaches harsher punishment after death for believers in false gods than it does for people that believe in no gods at all.
That means you're better off not joining any religion than you are joining the wrong one and as there's so many religions gambling on choosing the correct one is too risky.

>> I liked your reasoning. Not that I agree, but I liked it. Although it would be better to replace the word "gods" with "religions". All the Abrahamic religions(Judaism, Christianity, Islam) talk about fundamentally the same Almighty God as zeroth pointed it out.

To Kc0rf:
I am not sure that science can explain everything that happens.
>>In my opinion it cannot. It can tell you that there is Gravitational force that is responsible for planets movement. But cant tell you how that Gravitation itself came into existence. Science is always limited by the knowledge we humans possess. And ofcourse we know so little about this world. Saying science can explain everything is like saying we can explain everything.

[Real-tiner]

There are two parts to Evolution:

Part 1 is natural selection. That has been proved, and does not contradict the Bible.

Part 2 is spontaneous generation of new forms through random chance. While this is possible, it does contradict the Bible, and it is not even a theory. A theory must be testable. Usually a theory is tested against the results of a random event (the null hypothesis). But in this case, the "theory" itself expects a random event. It IS the null hypothesis.

Not only is there any way to definitely prove that something occurred due to a random event, we don't even have any proof that random events really exist. According to chaos theory, everything could be totally deterministic, but in such a way that man can never know all of the variables needed to predict the outcome.

Proving conclusively that something definitely occurred due to a random event is as impossible as proving that there are no space aliens in the entire universe. Man will probably never have enough information to prove either case as being true. But it would take only one counterexample to prove either case false.

Since Evolution as the Origin of Species requires proof of BOTH parts, it can never be proved.

But one proof against Evolution is the way the "scientists" get mad whenever someone wants Evolution removed from the schools. Very scientific! Anger is usually evidence of bias.

[Real-tiner]

So u believe in EVE-lution or EVO-lution? :D

EVIL-UTION?

[jwenting]

However,the blame should not be on religion. Religion was not and is not meant to operate in that way. It's those people who needs to be blamed, not the religion

Depends on how you look at it maybe.
When a religion states certain things which can be scientifically proven to be incorrect to be fact by virtue of being the word of a deity, a word which cannot be denied, that religion suppresses science.
After all, scientists proving that those religious claims are false are guilty of herecy.
Most religions proscribe extreme penalties for herecy up to and including death. So unless you want to die for science (and that for the fact of pursuing a certain scientific path, not for publishing your findings) you'd better stay out of that scientific field.
Such was the case with Galileo. The bible claims the earth is the center of the universe. When interpreted literally (rather than on philosophical basis) this means that anyone proving that the earth rotates around the sun (and thus is not the center as the center is stationary) is a heretic.

[Catweazle]

Concerned about this one:

A person is free to accept any scientific theory about human origins provided it is acknowledged that, at some stage, God infused an immortal soul into the human body.

I'm agnostic. I do not believe that 'life' can be adequately explained by physical science, or that such explanation is ever conceivably within the boundaries of human comprehension. Yet the use of the terms 'God' and 'immortal soul' presupposes an explanation one way or another. The question seems value-laden, and intended to push me toward making a 'science v religion' decision which I'm not prepared to make.

[crunchie]

http://www.creationevolution.net/irreducible_complexity.htm An excellent read for those who believe in evolution. It may make you rethink?

[JJ___]

religion not suppressing science?
Tell that to Galileo...
Other scientists have been killed as heretics for daring to proclaim things that didn't fit in the framework of the ruling religion.
Religious groups in the US and elsewhere want to ban evolution theory from being taught in schools as heretical.

Sorry to burst your bubble jwenting, but in most of the societies which do the research mentioned, people do not usually get killed as heretics nowadays to my knowledge...
As for the evolution thing, it still has not been proven so I don't know why it is taught in Unis in the first place.

[Asif_NSU]

As for the evolution thing, it still has not been proven so I don't know why it is taught in Unis in the first place.

A scientific theory is a higher level of understanding that ties "facts" together. A scientific theory stands until proven wrong -- it is never proven correct. Every theory in science has a falsification test, say it predicts the result of an experiment but if the result of that experiment goes entirely against prediction made by the theory then the theory is proven wrong/incomplete and a better theory needs to be formulated or the original theory needs to be corrected. That's how science works. What you can argue is that science is open to changes, so a certain theory may be disproved later on.

The big bang theory explains why the universe is expanding and other astronomical facts, but it hasn't been proved.

Relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory.

The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory.

Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen.

Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as a scientific fact.

So i dont know what you meant by "evolution is not proven" ! You need to acknowledge that the theory of evolution has been supported by numerous scientific experiments, observations in various fields of science, not just biology. According to your logic science books should be "empty". If evolution is proven wrong then our understanding of various scientific facts would simply collapse.

To JWenting:

When a religion states certain things which can be scientifically proven to be incorrect to be fact by virtue of being the word of a deity, a word which cannot be denied, that religion suppresses science.

As I said science is open to changes, so if a person finds conflicts between science and religion I dont blame him if he chooses religion rather than science. The foundation of a religion is that it is infallible, while science is ever changing. I think even you answered to this dilemma in your example of Galileo:

Such was the case with Galileo. The bible claims the earth is the center of the universe. When interpreted literally (rather than on philosophical basis) this means that anyone proving that the earth rotates around the sun (and thus is not the center as the center is stationary) is a heretic.

We understand the revealtions of God through something called "language" --which can be thought of as one of our tools. Here we also need to acknowledge that science is also one of our tools and it makes sense if we try to interpret God’s revelation with the help of science. Since God is the Creator of the physical universe and the source of revelation, there should be no contradiction between the two. If there appears to be any, then we are either misinterpreting physical reality or misinterpreting revelation. Now the problem occurs just here, religious people cannot accept that they had been misinterpreting a certain verse for such a long time. This feeling is what that suppresses science.

Here I could not refrain myself from giving an example that relates to my own religion Islam. There is a verse in the Quran that says:

It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course (Qur’an 21: 33).

Now all the early Muslims thought that it refers to the "sun and moon moving around the earth". Muslims along with Christians used to believe that the universe is earth centered. So when told of Copernicus theory of sun-centered universe Muslims rejected it along with the Christians without giving it a second thought. The sun moves around(according to Quran), so the sun cannot be stationary as stated in the Copernicus theory. The Indian scholar Ahmad Raza Khan rejected it and EVEN devised a mathematical theory proving that the earth was in fact the stationary centre of the universe. He rejected it on the grounds that the Qur'an clearly states that the sun moves in a fixed orbit. We now know, of course, that both Copernicus and Ahmad Raza were incorrect - both the earth and the sun move on their own orbits. So if there seems to be a confusion regarding a scientific theory and God’s revelation then we just need to go through more research and wait for the results before drawing any conclusion.

[server_crash]

I believe all good nations have a religous foundation, and I don't care what other people say. The reason the United States is in Jeopardy is because it's morals(set by religion) are under attack. Regardless of wether your a believer or not, religion(specifically christian) creates good morals.

Now, there is some that believe in the communist views. I believe it was in Carl Marx's "The communist manifesto" that he said, religion is the root of all evils in a nation(something along that line). Hitler took that piece of information, got religion out of government, and was left with Germany being the higher power. When there's nothing higher than the country, then you have problems...Just like what arised in Germany. The US constitution is based on there being a higher power than the nation, and this keeps the goverment under control.

About theorys, almost everything is a theory. Take math for instance, does it really exist? I mean, surely someone came up with it.