Facts!

Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

Originally posted by 667joe
Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

I would hope you'd treat any story about what people thought occurred
millions or billions ago something less than a fact as well, about any topic.
Kelly

Originally posted by 667joe
Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

The Big Bang and the Evilution beliefs are called theories, but many people treat them as facts anyway.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The Big Bang and the Evilution beliefs are called theories, but many people treat them as facts anyway.

Evolution isn't a theory, it's a proven fact. Now there is debates about what evolved from what into what and when BUT that doesn't deter from the fast that thing have and are still evolving.

I'm not quite sure why this is something that creationist see as a threat either tbh. The bible says that the earth was created in 7 days, this is clearly crap as the fossils in the ground proves the existence of life way before us humans.

Now, this doesn't prove that the bible is full of crap either, any logical Christian should then say that the 7 days mentioned in the bible is a metaphor for a certain period of time.

This in turn would enable you to say that God was the reason for evolution and this was the plan all along.

But unfortunately because science can't be right this possibility is ignored and everything that science proves is thrown in the bin by the legend of ignorant religious folk.

Originally posted by 667joe
Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

Verified by whom?

Since when does a fact become a fact when it is universally accepted?

Originally posted by 667joe
Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

Religious beliefs are not theories in the scientific sense of that word unless if false, their falsity can be verified by scientific evidence.

Since you refer to religious beliefs, whey not leave it at that? Call them religious beliefs or just, well, beliefs?

Originally posted by 667joe
Communicators should call facts facts and theories theories. Religious beliefs do not fall in the category of facts. Whenever you hear someone espousing a religious belief, remember it is only a theory that has never been verified or universally accepted. I would have more respect for clerics if they were not so sure of them selves, and if they were less sanctimonious!

I think part of the problem here is in word definitions. In everyday conversation, some words are completely interchangeable (for example: theory, hypothesis, idea, and guess). Scientific language requires more precise language, so scientists have defined some words like hypothesis, theory, law, and fact to mean specific things.

A hypothesis in scientific-speak is an educated guess that hasn’t been tested (or tested sufficiently). A theory is a higher standard. A hypothesis becomes a theory after it been well substantiated based on a body of facts, observations, and experiments. A fact is a piece of data or information. A law is a description of some phenomenon based on experiments.

Using Gravity as an example, Galileo compiled facts about gravity with experiments. From such facts Newton came up with laws which described what gravity did. Einstein came up with a hypothesis about how gravity works (relativity), which then became a theory after several tests that supported relativity were performed by other scientists.

In your example, religion should neither be called a fact or a theory (if we are using scientific definitions). It is more in line with a hypothesis, but hypotheses usually need to at least be potentially testable and potentially falsifiable, which religion is really not.

The problem is someone will say he tests religion with prayer and that prayer works. Rational people know that this is not a scientific test, but those duped by religion don't see it that way!

Originally posted by 667joe
The problem is someone will say he tests religion with prayer and that prayer works. Rational people know that this is not a scientific test, but those duped by religion don't see it that way!

I completely agree with you. Again, I think word definitions are part of the problem. A scientific test is a specific thing. It can be performed by any competent and honest individual, whereas religious “tests” often illegitimately require the experimenter to believe in the idea before the test can be performed. Also, a test must yield consistent and predictable results. Prayer must always work, or work in a consistent and predictable manner, to be a legitimate result in favor of the hypothesis. If you cannot make some sort of prediction if advance about which prayers will work, or which are more likely to work, it isn’t a valid or useful hypothesis.

There actually was a big scientific study on the effect of prayer a few years ago. The STEP project (Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer) was done by the Templeton Foundation (a pro-religion scientific organization). It was a large study of 1800 bypass surgery patients, and used good scientific practices (like being double blind, having a control group, and randomizing the patients). It divided the patients into three groups: a control group that was neither prayed for nor told about the experiment. A second group that was told they might be prayed for and were actually prayed for (by several Christian Church congregations), and a third group that was told they might be prayed for but were not prayed for. The result were that all three groups fared about the same after surgery, and the ones that actually did the worst (albeit marginally) were the group that was prayed for and knew about the experiment.

Originally posted by Trev33
Evolution isn't a theory, it's a proven fact. Now there is debates about what evolved from what into what and when BUT that doesn't deter from the fast that thing have and are still evolving.

I'm not quite sure why this is something that creationist see as a threat either tbh. The bible says that the earth was created in 7 days, this is clearly crap as th ...[text shortened]... nd everything that science proves is thrown in the bin by the legend of ignorant religious folk.

The creation was completed in 6 days. The 7th day was a Sabbath rest day to the Lord. You are not sure of many things about creationists because of your ignorance. The fossils in the ground prove they got there because of the worldwide flood of Noah's day. Why else would there be marine fossils found in all the high mountains over the world?

Originally posted by KellyJay
I would hope you'd treat any story about what people thought occurred
millions or billions ago something less than a fact as well, about any topic.
Kelly

You know it is so hard to resist the sanctimony of a Carl Sagan or a Richard Dawkins.

The bible says that the earth was created in 7 days, this is clearly crap as the fossils in the ground proves the existence of life way before us humans.

Well, I am sure RJHinds would disagree with this.
But what the Hebrew Scriptures say is that in six days God made heaven and earth. It doesn't say He created the earth in seven or six days.

This goes into the controversy of the distinction between the words ASAH and BARA - the first meaning made or appointed, the second including the meaning of create.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The creation was completed in 6 days. The 7th day was a Sabbath rest day to the Lord. You are not sure of many things about creationists because of your ignorance. The fossils in the ground prove they got there because of the worldwide flood of Noah's day. Why else would there be marine fossils found in all the high mountains over the world?

Marine fossils are found in mountains because of plate tectonics. The marine fossils on mountains were moved to the mountains from the ocean by slow movement of the land over millions of years. If the fossils were brought by a flood, we would expect to see a random distribution of these fossils. However, just like everywhere else, we see a correlation between fossils and geologic strata (for example trilobite fossils are only found up until the end of the Permian period).

A time scale of millions of years and plate tectonics can explain fossil/strata correlation, a worldwide flood hypothesis cannot explain the correlation.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The creation was completed in 6 days. The 7th day was a Sabbath rest day to the Lord. You are not sure of many things about creationists because of your ignorance. The fossils in the ground prove they got there because of the worldwide flood of Noah's day. Why else would there be marine fossils found in all the high mountains over the world?

Ok 6 days, excuse my ignorance. With so many 'Christians' playing sports and shops open it's easy to forget that Sunday is supposed to be a religious rest day.

The post above me explains why there are fossils in high mountains so I wont repeat that. I will add that proof of what he is saying can be found by the fact that the Himalaya are still rising, by a couple of cm or an inch each year.

That's why there's fossils in those mountains, the land started in the oceans and were pushed up through millions of years of tectonic pressure.

This as well as evolution is a proven fact, there's no disputing it.

I'm an atheist as you probably know but I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong and there is a God. I'd be as surprised as you would be if there wasn't a God but as it's something either of us can prove or disprove we only have our faith.

I really don't care what faith people have but when they discount a proven fact because something in their faith suggests it might not be true, that is the definition of ignorance and I can't respect that. My only response to that is to ask people to actually read the bible, cover to cover (I haven't but others have) and tell me it all makes sense with no contradictions.

Scripture that old (assuming it's true) has to have holes, especially with so many writers.

Why can't you accept the fact that some of your book might be wrong?

Originally posted by PatNovak
Marine fossils are found in mountains because of plate tectonics. The marine fossils on mountains were moved to the mountains from the ocean by slow movement of the land over millions of years. If the fossils were brought by a flood, we would expect to see a random distribution of these fossils. However, just like everywhere else, we see a correlation betwe ...[text shortened]... explain fossil/strata correlation, a worldwide flood hypothesis cannot explain the correlation.

That is only false propagand by the evilutionists. There was no millions of years anyway. So you are obviously wrong.