Bill Nye won the evolution/creation debate ... but not for the reason you think

boing
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When the wiccans get and abuse the kind of power the abrahamic religions do, I’ll start being upset.

If everyone’s gods are more or less equivalent, then what reason do you have for choosing any religion over another? I will do some further reading into the religions you listed, but as far as I’ve seen every religion has either one of two things (sometimes both) that exist to encourage people to follow that religion over something else. They are: fear of retribution for not believing or personal benefit as a result of belief.

What’s wrong with leaving everything which can be tested or measured to science, while leaving what, by nature, can’t be to faith?

Then we’re in agreement… Ken Ham should shut the fuck up, since science already has the answer for this.

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The thing you need to understand is that literalism is a sign of weak faith.

If you can prove that one small assertion in their Bible is wrong, then the entire assumption of the book being true falls apart, and anything else in it could be wrong- Everything in it could be wrong. Time to double down and get combative against the threat this proof poses.

Somebody with real faith can say “so that part’s metaphorical”, and not feel threatened by facts. I mean, actually read Genesis: First light, then the heavens, then the Earth, then the plants, then the animals, then man, then civilization. Sounds pretty accurate to me.

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Because, by definition, science deals with everything. The idea that something can be “outside” of science doesn’t make any sense. Cooking, architecture, politics, ballet, fishing, car racing, and even religion can be scientifically studied – it isn’t just about studying things in the laboratory. If gods and demons exist, they too can be studied scientifically.

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Well, I think there needs to be a little wiggle room on how you define “personal benefit as a result of belief”. I would argue for a distinction between “best” and “best for me”.

Wicca teaches that all gods and goddesses of all religions are masks or incarnation of the same two deities, and that therefore all religions are valid- just tailored to their specific culture.

Druidry, Asatru, etc. tend to follow the idea that there are multiple gods, and that “these particular ones” are the ones connected to “our people”.

Ironically, up until the Zoroastrian influence, this was kind of the whole point of Judaism- In a land full of competing tribal religions, one tribe and one god made an exclusive arrangement with each other. Before that, Judaism resembled a Hindu or Kemetic (Egyptian) cosmology- One distant, impersonal godhead divided into several smaller, accessable deities.

I’m not sure if that totally answers your question, but it should provide a little context.

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And what if they exist only metaphorically?

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Anthropologists are scientists who study belief systems which include metaphors.

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From the article:

Too often, scientists in this kind of situation fall into the trap of accepting that what the creationist says represents the only real, true Christian belief.

I would imagine that the majority of “scientists” who believe that creationism is representative of all of Christianity are 14-year olds who discovered Christianity in /r/atheism on reddit. However, having said that, creationism is probably the most pernicious strain of Christianity, and poses by far the biggest threat to rationalism and the quality of scientific education.

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It seems that the three main Abrahamic religions have to deal with the interpretation of the word ‘yom’ or ‘youm’, as all state that the universe was created in six ‘days’. It’s interesting to see that all three contain a large number of people who take the text very seriously, yet question or reject the interpretation of this word as a literal 24 hour day (and have been doing so since long before there was an overwhelming scientific consensus for an old earth). You’re probably right though about the people I spoke with: there seems to be very strong opposition to evolution without such strong statements about the overall age of the earth.

I think Christianity has the most trouble reconciling the less-than-completely historical account of creation and early humans, as so much of the concept of the gospel (especially from Paul) strongly implies that events like the fall were a definite historical event that fundamentally changed human nature and our relationship to God, while it’s easier for Muslims and Jews to interpret the story in terms of inherent human weakness. This ties into the opposition to an old earth, because death is seen as the result of sin and therefore the world would have to be quite new in order for no death to have occurred (I’m talking about a strict, literalist interpretation here; there are many, many Christians who disagree with this, and I would say an old earth without humans would be acceptable to many creationists). Islam also seems to have accounts of different characters from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but without anything like the amount of genealogical information that would tempt people to make definitive statements about dates.

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As an adult in my late 30s, I personally chose to become a Jew.

By the Orthodox Jewish view, non Jews are only expected to follow the Seven Laws of Noah. Even given this idea, we’re not running around trying to force the idea on non Jews, thats just not how we do things.

As for the afterlife, the site you linked to explains pretty clearly that the common view is that all except the completely wicked get to the World To Come eventually. Elsewhere you can find support for the Orthodox view that the World To Come is not the focus of life and we don’t know how God judges in any case. Its just not that important to us.

Interestingly enough, there is no consensus amongst judges of Jewish law that unauthorized copying is a violation of “thou shalt not steal”. To get into the why of that is beyond the scope of this discussion. Fundamentally what we do is almost a legal system within the wrapping paper of religion. Orthodox Jews look at things in terms of does this fall within or without the system of halacha (Torah & Rabbinic Law).

This is why your friend who was enchanted with the non Jewish girl was so strongly discouraged. Our laws of “citizenship” are that a Jew is one who is born of a Jewish mother or who underwent a “legally kosher” conversion (like now nation states have a naturalization process defined in law). You and your friend may not like this, and I’m not asking you to, I’m just explaining things at a basic level.

Reform Judaism only started doing this officially in 1985. Before that they went by the historically normative standards of matrilineal descent. Conservative Judaism does not at this time recognize patrilineal descent.

Maimonides who is considered one of the greats if not the greatest of Jewish philosophers and teachers of the Torah, was not a literalist on the matter of creation.

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Wow, you SO won man, because, like, you can use Google, Wikipedia, copy and paste, and you’ve absolutely captured all of the nuance of a complex belief system in a way that accurately captures all of the beliefs of every one of its adherents! You go, you!

In all seriousness, I find it hilarious and a bit sad that you are so anti-religious, but seem hell-bent (heh) on maintaining the religious dogma of every belief system for every person who describes his or her self as a non-athiest. You… do catch the irony, right? Thank goodness many non-athiests are more open to their own personal definitions of belief than you are!

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Mod reminder: Be nice and stay on topic.

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Why not? It’s not a religious act: a mitzvah is a good deed…any decent human being, of any belief system or philosophy, should be performing mitzvahs whenever they can.

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Buddhism is an excellent example of the border between religion and philosophy: originally there were no gods to believe in, just a philosophy of life, but human nature being what it is, now the Buddha is worshiped as if a god…there are altars and offerings, prayers for help and guidance, etc.

I just realized…this explains Objectivism too. (Talk about two extremes on a continuum!)

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Very true. Cooking, in fact, is an excellent example: it’s chemistry, pure and simple, even though most people don’t realize that.

However, you can study all sorts of subjects without getting into the specifics of science, just as you can study various areas of science without getting into the specifics of non-scientific disciplines. Some of the most interesting work is exploring the interdisciplinary aspects of a particular field, but most academics who delve into a subject matter go deep instead of wide.

It’s not that one way is more right than another. Very few people have the capacity to work globally, at the Da Vinci level. Everyone does what they can. You can’t expect every poet to be able to describe the processes in their brain that created the synapses to learn, remember, and reconfigure experiences into evocative imagery using nothing but words.

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If every kind of food is more or less equivalent, what reason do you have for choosing one meal over another?

Personal taste, culture, past experience, what “feels” right.

I know several polytheists who engage in multiple religions actually. For example: there are aspects of Asatru that appeal to them, they have an affinity for Hekate, they have a small shrine to Cernunnos because of a Gaulish ancestor, and Odin told them they should learn something about American hoodoo. And they’ll occasionally go to Catholic Mass in Latin to soak in that atmosphere. A lot of people believe that God(s) is God(s), and the mythology is more or less interchangeable – and the same people have no beef with science.

There is a lot of cross-pollination between pagan and reconstructionist groups. They go to the same bookstores and conventions and share stories and experiences and advice.

Okay, let’s set aside the religions that use fear tactics, for the supremely logical reason that I think they suck.

So that leaves “there is some personal benefit.” You can say that about every human activity – there is always a motive. I get personal benefit out of playing videogames and reading science fiction, too. The thing with personal benefit is it’s not necessarily exclusive.

The attitude I see from polytheistic religions is “this religion is not for everyone. If it suits you, great. If it doesn’t, we are all better off if you do something else.” There is no sales pitch, no “we have the secrets of the universe and those other guys don’t!” It’s more like “this is one possible path to spiritual growth.” I’ve never seen proselytizing, just people sharing their own enthusiasm and being pleased if someone else picks up on it too.

The closest I’ve seen to exclusivity is an (optional, voluntary) oath to serve particular gods first, at a certain advanced level of commitment, for people who have already been involved and active with that religion for some number of years.

(As far as how I am familiar with this stuff: I have been pagan of one flavor or another since high school. I was Kemetic Orthodox (ancient Egyptian reconstructionism) for 15 years, and a priest for most of that. I have looked into Wicca (and found it not personally tasteful due to gender essentialism), Feri, Celtic paganism, Chaos Magic, Discordianism (fnord), Shinto, Taoism, shamanism in general, the intentional worship of fictional deities, and most recently Gnosticism. Right now, I consider myself floating, but influenced by several of those traditions.)

(Oh, and creationist claims that their story is wrong and evolution is right? Ludicrous. But then I think anyone who takes religion as an explanation for the physical universe, instead of a deeply personal art form, is doing religion wrong.)

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Its actually the protestant branches of christianity that take the view of literalism (with varying degrees of literal strictness of course).

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I think a lot of people have missed the point here. The debate clearly demonstrated that the Creationism is firmly based on the teachings of the bible and inextricably linked to Christianity, making it completely and utterly unacceptable and anti-constitutional to be spending public funds to teach in public schools. Time for the supreme court to step in and squash that bug.

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There’s something I have never understood about religion, perhaps someone can explain it to me.

I’ve met people who have changed religion, for marriage, or because they’ve thought about the various options and plumped for one or the other, perhaps after trying a few.

How does that work? I can’t see how religion is a choice - surely either you believe in a deity (or deities), and a method of worship, demanded behaviors etc. How can you then switch that off and go do it a different way? I’d have thought that if you did believe in a god, you’d feel compelled to follow that religion. If you’re weighing options and choosing a path, rather than doing what you believe you have to, is it really religious?

I.e. it doesn’t make sense to me that someone could choose Buddhism because it gives them a warm fuzzy and they like the idea of being reincarnated, or whatever.

Like I said, I don’t know. I can’t remember ever not being atheist, so I don’t know how the thought processes go.

Edit : I guess there’s something there about the difference between being a theist, and following an organized religion…

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Imma let you finish, but…

The Vatican has issued a new statement running counter to Pope Francis‘ recent suggestion that good deeds can earn atheists entrance to heaven. The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said in what was described as an “explanatory note” that those who know about the Catholic Church “cannot be saved [if they] refuse to enter her or remain in her,” United Press International reported. Father Rosica also added, UPI reported: Those “who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ and His church, but sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, try to do his will as it is known through the dictates of conscience, can attain eternal salvation.”

Through the dictates of conscience…as dictated by, oh, what’s it’s name, ah, right the Catholic Church.

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I’m just going to add one more thought. There are in fact religions that understand their symbols as symbols, and do not require a literal interpretation. Some branches of the Abrahamic religions are more open to this view than others. Eastern belief systems seem to be generally quite good at understanding things like gods and demons and such as being symbols that have a certain use, but not as literal things. It is possible for a religion to have nuanced views about itself!

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