Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films 2242
circletimessquare writes "The New York Times is reporting that a number of Imax theatres are passing on science-themed films that might provoke controversy among a handful of religious fundamentalists. Films that are having their distribution impacted include '"Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in the ocean floor.'"
I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
we lose out on interesting ideas and concepts because they may offend someone. it happens in all levels of education, in business, everywhere.
this is sad but not suprising.
offensive? (Score:5, Insightful)
we shouldn't let a minority dictate what is right or wrong because we risk having our freedom become the same "freedom" they have in China.
religious fundamentalists (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they stick their heads in the holy sand all the time, why can't they just accept that people have different views and should be allowed to express them.
It makes me sick that religious wackos are given all the freedom to worship/teach/live as they please, but fuck everyone else over with their righteous bullshit.
Boring (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me up when there is something happening the US which doesn't upset a minority group which goes in search for media attention or takes it to court.
No Animals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to America (Score:5, Insightful)
ChrisTaliban (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Things like this will destroy the American economy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a shame... (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently met a girl who chewed me out for accepting evolutionary theory. I was at first shocked, as I thought that the issue of evoultion and religion had been worked out. Then it really bugged me that she could be so backward and regressive in her thinking. Then I finally realised that none of it mattered, I was being just as closed-minded as she was. What was more important was if I just forgot the differences and found a way to get the project we had done without making a big deal out of it.
Worrying development (Score:5, Insightful)
While the situation isn't as bad as that Escape from LA movie from the late 80's, there certainly are aspects of that in modern American politics it seems.
this is why I dont like these kind of people.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But, this is my gripe with them...
If I had a conversation with one of these people, they want you to embrace their way of thinking... OK fine.
Yet, when I try to peddle MY truth, its immediately too much to handle, so not right and so horrible they wont hear it.
I am in the south. This is how these people are.
but, then they are quick to call themselves open minded. YEAH RIGHT.
If I cant tell you my truth, and have you at least LISTEN, your not open minded. your a closed minded fool that doesnt deserve to breathe air. its that simple.
All I ask of these people, is to meet us all half way here. they dont have to like it, and they dont have to agree with it.
but saying they are 'good, understanding people' is a REAL stretch.
They DO NOT have to go see these movies....
yet, they boycott their presence. thats not open minded... that is just religion attempting world domination. their way or the highway.
Go watch the documentaries. I do.
Rebel against religious zealots.
Another loss for American culture (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a battle on two fronts: the religious lobbyist that do things like hindering the teaching of science in schools, and the large corporations that would do anything not to offend anyone for fear of losing a few bucks.
How do they get away with it? Why don't people say "oh this is horrid, no more IMAX for me". We just can't be bothered anymore: the PC rants (if you say something controversial YOU are at fault), the lack of any real political debates (besides minor economical and odd moral-related issues) since the outlawing of Communism and any other non-majority view, and of course the the vultures of the media that keeps feeding on this whole thing (WHY show that piece about "evolution is just a theory" over and over?).
I'm an European, and I have no voice in what the American people decide to do, but it's their lack of action and ignorance of the issues at hand that makes me heed this warning: how soon until the free-flying politicians and corporations will do all they wish while you're too busy watching TV? You may have these comfy lives forever, with no blood or guilt on your own hands, but one day you may find yourselves unwilling free citizens of what you yourself would name an "evil empire" if you were on the other side.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Present them with an ultimatum: STFU or IMAX theaters will show films about creation. All creation myths, everybody's.
Science (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ChrisTaliban (Score:3, Insightful)
Right here. People ought to be free to see what they please, whether or not I agree with it.
That said, read the article. There was no protest by Christians, there was no public debate, no outcry by fundamentalists -- nothing. This was Imax making the decision not to show some movies, basing it on the fact that if Christians find it offensible, the film will likely make less money: Christian schools won't go on field trips to see it, church groups won't go out and see it, and so on. All Imax cares about is money.
But no, just like Slashdot, one controversial, hype-inducing, sensationalist headline will get the entire crowd up in an anti-Christian, anti-religious frenzy. Sigh.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh...I hate these threads, I really really do.
"These people are like Nazis. They should be killed."
It's all down hill from here (Score:5, Insightful)
All this crap about faith based this and faith based that coming out of the whitehouse and with a president who openly claims to have a mandate from God... Uhh... I was gonna talk about church and state but, am I the only one here that thinks the President is fucking batshit loco?
But it's a good thing! Really! Lets embrace our freedom to express fundamentalist Christian religion! Lets ban any science that goes "too far" into ethical grey areas for religious pundits to swallow, lets get the federal government to force a tube down a vegetable's throat... it's nice to have a "conservative" government that wants to regulate our way of life. The Founding Fathers would be proud at this emerging christian police state. And if you voted for Bush I bet you're damn proud too.
Controversy = Exposure (Score:2, Insightful)
Exposure = Money
Why are they scared to show the movies again?
Re:Science (Score:3, Insightful)
TRUST me, there is nothing NEW about a moronic Christian. They've been around for CENTURIES, if not millenia. Pick up any ol' history book.
Re:we need another /. religion bash story (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, I'll play the Big Bad Scientist and call Bullshit on your implied equivalence between the theory of evolution and the desperate hand-waving of creationists.
Mod me down for flamebait but isn't about time we stop pretending that these are just two flavors of truth and you have the option of picking one or the other. IMAX theaters in science museums shouldn't show creationism, as it's not science. Commercial IMAX owners can make ther own decisions; it's just sad that they choose to knuckle under.
Hilarious. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps music and cinema are the most evident. With all that money spent on hollow and awesome FX productions that don't lead the human being to any kind of improvement. Is sad to see that the thing is to accumulate money and not to share a vision or a meaning. Is sad to see that people prefere not to think but to forget...
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fundamentalists no more need to go to a museum to protest it, than they have to attend a mainstream film before denouncing it. They're not looking for a rational engagement using such trite things as facts; they're going for a visceral reaction based on hot-button emotionalism. Thiongs like facts and experience just slow down their game.
Re:I don't see a problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
If we had followed the same path, we would have been eating feces long time ago, afterall if we following correctness from numbers... it is clear that 10^12 flies can't be wrong.
A lot of what we consider today to be masterpieces happened to be rather offensive to the standards of the community where they were being created. Had they followed the classical "let the market speak" approach to acceptance of a cultural product, we would be a much poorer society w/o those works of art.
A group which has already forced people to accept that humans come from mud and dung, which has been proven false. A group that has argued that the earth was a) flat, b) the center of the universe, and c) that its core was some sort of purgatory. Well, with such "hit rate" when it comes to factual information... I am inclined to think that this group should be nowhere allowed to force moral or cultura standards with such low accuracy when it comes to actual fact, no matter the number of followers.
organized religion is spiritual zombification (Score:5, Insightful)
likewise, you don't get spirituality from a church/ temple/ mosque.
but that is ok, because just as there are some who will never know real love due to intellectual or character issues, and therefore need whorehouses to sake their lust that would otherwise drive them insane or drive them to commit horrendous crimes on the street, so to are their spiritual pinheads in this world who need churches/ temples/ mosques to give answer to their doubts and fears, so they don't commit horrible atrocities of spiritual void.
so the lowest common denominator empty pap we call organized religion is vile, but still necessary. just like whorehouses.
we don't want ugly or crude men raping women on the streets and we don't want small-spirited people walking around without a sense of morality or a human conscience. if they don't have the spiritual backbone to decide right or wrong, or find the basic goodness in human existence on their own, well then please, let the church turn them into sheep. better sheep than demons without a sense of social responsibility or a clue as to their relationship to human society and the idea of a greater good.
however, when these spiritual pinheads band together and try to gain political power and enforce their narrowminded interpretation of human nature on everyone else, including those who are spiritually sound on their own, they need to be stopped. in many ways, the consolidation of spiritual pinheads into organized religion and then their subsequent desire to see all of humanity fall in lockstep to their blind interpretation of a given creed is unavoidable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't head them off at the pass and continually deny them political power over the rest of us who are spiritually grounded all on our very own.
so organized religion should not be stopped, it is useful to the health of society by satisfying the spiritual needs of those who can't do that on their own. organized religion and the fruits of its passion is even enjoyable in the way a quaint parade in a rural backwards town is enjoyable to a tourist.
but the cost of accepting that means we must be forever and eternally vigilant that the church, the mosque, and the temple never ever enjoy political power. lest they doom the rest of us to the spiritual zombification that is organized religion.
Secularists: it's our fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
We refuse to affiliate or support organisations which champion our cause. We refuse to be sufficiently vocal about matters of importance to us. We refuse, at the very least, to put our money where our mouths are.
Let me tell you, with absolute certainty, that the religious fundamentalists are more than happy to do all these things.
So, when are we going to step up and demand an end to this nonsense?
Re:It's a shame... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry. Actually, I don't think that this is about a few mere movies chalenging their beliefs. I think that extreme fundamentalists (Christians in the US, but fundies are essentially the same everywhere) have convinced themselves that the rest of us are out to get them, that we are conspiring everyday to take away their ability to worship God. They see it all around them; look, we can't put the 10 Cammandments in front of the courthouse! That's one more place where we can't pray. What's next?
Unfortunately this combination of conspiracy theory and fundamentalism is impossible to address. There is simply no way to convince these people that we are not all out to get them, so the best thing to do is accommodate them when possible and ignore them when necessary.
Re:ChrisTaliban (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:offensive? (Score:2, Insightful)
The "minority" that you mention is the local audience that those IMAX theaters are trying to serve and make money from.
This no different from a movie theater in, say, the Castro area of San Francisco (i.e. in the gay neighborhood): no such theaters would show anti-gay movies, featuring Jerry Falwell, because they would get no customers (and probably risk getting burned down).
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:4, Insightful)
religious fundamentalists
What is wrong with these people?
Why do they stick their heads in the holy sand all the time, why can't they just accept that people have different views and should be allowed to express them.
It makes me sick that religious wackos are given all the freedom to worship/teach/live as they please, but fuck everyone else over with their righteous bullshit.
Why is it that people insist on categorizing all fundamentalists as being the same? I am a fundamentalist Bible-believing Christian, but that doesn't mean that I checked my intelligence at the door.
It makes me sick that people can't fathom the concept that within such a large group you will have people at all extremes. Is it OK to assume that all black people are violent gang members and criminals because a few make the evening news for doing a drive by shooting? I didn't think so. That would be racist and prejudicial, you know assuming that every member of a particular diverse group is the same based on the actions of a few?
Uh, no (Score:5, Insightful)
The Galapagos Islands one may offend someone, but Cosmic Voyage, unless they are not telling us something, would be objected to only by a total lunatic fringe... which is no problem because every film will be objectionable to some total lunatic fringe, no exaggeration.
I am not aware of any significant religious group in operation in the United States with any sort of organized, sigificant political clout that has a serious problem with or denies the existance of atoms or galaxies.
If the Imax documentary industry wishes to commit suicide for a dubious political point, they are welcome to. But all y'all Slashdotters would be wise to not suck it up like little lapdogs getting your world views confirmed; for those of you who would consider your world views confirmed by this story, class it in the "too good to be true" category.
The primary adjective to apply to anyone ignorant enough to protest atoms or galaxies is just ignorant, not "religious", and I assure you, a lot of very ignorant people agree with any position you care to name.
Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was growing up as a kid, I never thought that Science and the Bible were necessarily in conflict. Most people believe that the bible represents a guide and isn't to be taken absolutely literally.
For instance, the whole "God created the Earth in seven days." Seven days could mean seven million years, or seven billion years. It's worded in a way that man can understand. Why do people reject Evolution, when it could have been God that kickstarted the whole thing?
I can't say that I believe these things anymore but if you can believe that there is an almighty being that created us, why can't you also believe that this being crafted the universe as we know it now, and all the wonders it contains that science as yet to scratch the surface on?
It's a scary time when the few people with extreme religious views can change the life of everyone to suit their needs.
Re:It's a shame... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. She's an idiot. Being true to the truth requires you to dismiss people now and then. Whereas you have observable phenomenon that have demonstrated evolution occurs, which apparently isn't good enough proof. She has a 2000 year old book with no proof, that is proof enough. Thats bullshit, and stop trying to convince yourself its not for the sake of multi-culturalism.
Re:offensive? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's pretty mild as far as fundie double-think goes... if you really want to hear some convolouted logic, ask them how come "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" are not mutually contridictory.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember this quote from the DragonLance books every time I see this kind of stuff.
A strong believe that they are right is what's wrong with these people.
You misunderstand what "open minded" means... (Score:5, Insightful)
You, mistakenly, thought that "open minded" meant having an open mind, and being open to new ideas.
What *they* meant by "open minded" was that they'd no longer accuse you of witchcraft for being different from your neighbors, or throw you in prison for the crime of "blasphemy", or just come by and burn down your house because you're a filthy non-believer.
The fact that they've allowed you to live, even though you're obviously some sort of eviiil horrible pagan-creationist science-worshipper, shows how open-minded that religious zealots in America have become lately.
Re:Secularists: it's our fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
We refuse to affiliate or support organisations which champion our cause. We refuse to be sufficiently vocal about matters of importance to us. We refuse, at the very least, to put our money where our mouths are.
Let me tell you, with absolute certainty, that the religious fundamentalists are more than happy to do all these things.
Part of the problem is that the people you describe tend towards a libertarian philosophy.. and by "libertarian" here I mean "people who just want to be left the fuck alone," not necessarily Libertarian Party members. And that's just it... libertarian types tend to abhor politics and abhor "getting involved" in general. Which is one reason why it's so difficult for us (and by "us" here I do mean LP members) to achieve results in elections. Many of the very people who sympathise with us, choose not to vote or otherwise involve themselves.
And in the broader sense, we get the problem you describe. People who care about what's going on, ( Libertarian or otherwise) but not enough to get involved (whether by voting, running for office, writing letters to the editor, or whatever) and act to try and correct things.
So, when are we going to step up and demand an end to this nonsense?
I wish I knew the answer to that. Maybe one day the water will get hot enough for the frog to start squirming around - before he boils to death, blissfully unaware.
Re:offensive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's been postulated that the anaerobic bacteria which exist in hot, sulfurous ocean floor vents resemble the earliest life. The original life on earth, probably bacteria or similar single cell prokaryotic (lacking in nucleus) organisms, existed in an atmosphere lacking in oxygen. It was only a few billion years later that oxygen-producing organisms began to exist, and the anaerobic life had to adapt or die.
Basically any film that features this kind of life will by definition be flaunting the theory of evolution in all its glory. This, presumably, offends or threatens the creation literalists.
People are saying it's a shame that fundamentalists are attacking science in this country. I would add that it's a shame that these idiots have hijacked religion. The bible as allegory is brilliant and holds many lessons in morality with bits of history and culture sprinkled in. The bible as literal word is nonsense that flies in the face of all evidence. To deny evolutionary theory makes about as much sense as claiming the world is flat.
It is kind of sad. (Score:4, Insightful)
In this "enlightened" state where everything is relative and we are to respect every viewpoint the last minority it is ok to hate is the Christian minority.
Not every Christian has the same viewpoint or takes the same action on every social issue. The blatant and glib stereotyping that is being modded up here is sickening.
Re:ChrisTaliban (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:5, Insightful)
That is, you might just be willing to accept words written down by some anonymous person a few thousand years ago with who knows what kind of agenda (and edited and approved by various self-appointed authorities in the meantime) over the use of your own critical faculties and scientific knowledge in your understanding of the world.
Face it: people didn't design the computer you used to make your post by asking God how to do it or reading some book. Instead they relied on the experience of people who actually did the hard work to experimentally find out about the world.
Why do you believe in the Bible? Because it is the word of God? Why do you believe *that*? Because your minister told you so? That isn't intelligence. That's dogma.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Undersea volcanoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Errrr...If you recognized anything, you would recognize that the word "theory" means a very different thing in science then it does in Common parlance. For instance, Gravity is a theory. That Germs cause disease is a theory. The Earth Revolving around the sun is a theory. Basicly, anything that cannot be directly observed is a theory. Evoultion is Just as well supported as any of the above theories I mentioned(sometimes more so). If you would like to to tell us about the problems you "know" evoultion has I would be glad to address them.
I feel that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between evolution and creation.
I thought you said you weren't a christian. Why do you half belive in Creation?
Re:ChrisTaliban (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well you are partially right here, the bible is a guide of sorts, it's a collection of fables that are derived from stories from many cultures and believes that people created to show basic ground rules for life and good lessons, and was spiced up a bit. At this level it's pretty good. Even a non religious person can find good value in the bible as a book of fables.
The problem is most people do not see it this way as you say. Most people unfortunately take it very literally, that's where the whole religion part comes in. The bible in it's basic form probably pre-dates religion, it was only later that people began to see it as something more and worship it, like present day people do with Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTRs. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have all the negatives that have come out of religion. It's fine to have kooky beliefs, until it involves killing and condemning.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:5, Insightful)
becoming increasingly ironic. The USA was
largely formed by persons fleeing religious
prosecution, famine, or the law. Only to have
history repeat itself yet again in this modern
day.
Populism and personal freedom is giving way to
increasingly obnoxious religious intolerance
at a time when the USA (and much of Western
society) is under attack by increasingly
obnoxious Islamic religious intolerance. Those
that are bent upon the destruction of Western
civilization have employed (wittingly or not)
fifth columnists to destroy populism and
personal freedom from within. Democracy,
rather than being a rising tide in the Middle
East, is a receding tide in the USA.
Re:Undersea volcanoes (Score:3, Insightful)
If there weren't it would be fact, and not a theory.
Do you mean a law? A theory really is a more appropriate description of evolution than a law, but it doesn't mean it's not true. http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
The fact is that neither religon or science is capable of describing the way in which everything in the universe works. There is a great deal of belief inherent in both systems.
Religion always falls flat when it attempts to describe how anything works. Likewise, science falls flat when it attemts to answer questions like "why are we here"? Remember that if it weren't for "science" (man's attempt to understand the physical world), we'd never have invented tools, and perhaps would still be picking bugs off one another for sustinance.
I feel that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between evolution and creation. This whole debate between the two is really only a tool to divide and conquer (polarize) people. (That is an obvious deducement because that is the obvious product of the two sysems)
The only debate really occurs on the side of religion, when it attempts to answer the "how" questions. How do new species arise, how does my car work, etc. Otherwise, there's no conflict. I really don't see an attempt to divide anyone, there's just an attempt to restrict the pursuit of knowledge lest someone feel their child isn't being properly indoctrinated in their personal faith.
Neither system is really concerned with truth.
Science is by definition the pursuit of truth (in the physical world) through hypothesis, observation, and experimentation.
Religion is the persuit of salvation/happiness/enlightenment through an unseen entity (sometimes all-powerful) and in many cases involves a book that's more than a thousand years old.
I'd say that one system is clearly concerned with truth, and the other is concerned with purely spiritual matters. It's not that religion doesn't answer some really important questions people have, like "what happens when I die", etc. It's just that I'm not going to pray to God to ask him how my car runs, what causes nuclear explosions, or how species emerge on this planet. I imagine that he gave me a brain to figure those things out, or at least be smart enough to find the library.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just thankful that there are people like you that will at least be mindful that some people have differing opinions. I know a LOT of non-religious people, and many of them are my friends. If I pester them and confront them about my faith, they would probably detest me. I just respect their beliefs as they respect mine.
Anyway, a little more on-topic, I kinda doubt that IMAX would cancel movies just because of crazy fundamentalist concerns. Even down here, businesses are not likely to throw away money for such things. There are probably other factors that are causing the cancellation of these movies. And what is the deal with the last example? I kinda sorta somewhat understand the first two.
The fundamentalists and Galileo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it's sad (Score:3, Insightful)
George W Bush is a Christian wacko, and he's murdered about 120,000 Iraqi civilians for a few oilfields.
According to the US State Department, the death toll [state.gov] from all the actions of all the Islamic (and other) wackos from 1980-1999 is 9,255. Add on another 10,000 (generous estimate) for Sept. 11 and other outrages and we have almost 20,000 for the last 20 years.
So we can see Bush is ahead by about 100,000. I'm sure, though that Osama bin Laden and his ilk would have killed more if they could.
Make no mistake: wacko fundamentalism is dangerous no matter what the excuse^H^H^Hreligion.
I am not surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)
We cant research stem cells because jesus doesnt like stem cells, every other person you meet has a fucking creed or "w" bumper sticker on their car. Creed also sucks but thats another issue. Forget facts, forget learning, its much easier to believe and have faith.
The type of people that listen to screaming right wing nutcases that tell them what to think, then watch their Nascar, sports and wrestling with other people screaming at them, then on sundays go to their protestant churches to listen to yet another person scream heavily edited and faultily translated 'holy' screeds at them.
And I am supposed to listen to these low-grade meme receptacles because they are more righteous, more holy and more american?
Then fuck america and give me a one way ticket to France with a complimentary bag of olestra free French fries.
P.S. to the right wing tool in the house (Rep. Bob Ney) that came up with the idiotic moniker Freedom fries, they were invented in fucking Belgium.
Fundamentalists eagerly set the stereotype (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why is it that people insist on categorizing all fundamentalists as being the same?"
Because, by and large, the core "features" of Christian fundamentalism that they promote are the same. For example there doesn't seem to be any large debate within the fundamentalist community about the validity of evolution (and all the supporting evidence from biology, astronomy, cosmology, geology, etc). It's simply rejected out of hand.
"I am a fundamentalist Bible-believing Christian, but that doesn't mean that I checked my intelligence at the door."
Then I wish there were far more of you, and I wish you were much louder than those who would see us enter the Dark Ages again. Given my direct personal experience with friends, relatives and associates who claim to be Christian fundamentalists, intelligence (where intelligence == rational reasoning) is the first thing checked at the door. "Fundamentalist" is generally synonymous with "bible literalist" in these folks.
I was speaking to a woman the other day who, with a straight face, told me that lions, tigers, etc. used to graze on the grass in Eden with the deer. Never killed prey or even scavenged meat. Vegetarians. That "carnivore thing" only started after "The Fall". Yes, intelligence checked at the door and the claim check thrown into the shredder.
"It makes me sick that people can't fathom the concept that within such a large group you will have people at all extremes."
Then I hope you loudly and persistently educate those in your religious circles who cannot separate Islam from terrorism, and see all Muslims as "forces of evil". I hope that makes you just as sick. Does it? And do you speak out on their behalf? If so you have my deepest, genuine gratitude. If not, your just another member of a hate group who cries out when receiving the same treatment you give others.
Also please educate me, what are the different extremes in Christian fundamentalism? And who are their leaders? Because all we hear coming from the leadership (and the door-knockers and "sudden friends" on college campuses) is the same thing. That's not flamebait, I really want to know. It'll give me some hope.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well they control the presidency, both houses of congress, most of the press and pretty soon the supreme court.
We kicked the taliban out of afghanistan but implemented one of our own.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:5, Insightful)
Vatican Observatory (Score:3, Insightful)
"Analyzing the space rocks, or training the Vatican Observatory's $3 million Arizona telescope on a distant galaxy, are both ways of gaining 'a closer appreciation of the personality of the creator', he said in an interview."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/v
FWIW, my local parish priest was the Dean of Chemistry at a local State University. I mention this because I would like readers to be aware that the pro-science side has its own lunatic fringe that likes to pretend that hard science and religion are incompatible.
Mod parent up even more (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't religious fundamentalists who protested Mel Gibson's film before they saw it.
This is a tactic of all thought police, religious affiliation not withstanding.
LK
Re:it's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that GWB murdered 120,000 people for a few oilfields. While the word "murdered" and the number "120000" are for another thread that would be far offtopic, if Iraq was all about oil, what does religious fundamentalism have to do with it? The pope opposed the war in Iraq, as did quite a few religious people, so by your own argument, the civilian deaths in Iraq have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism. Which is it? Is Bush a bible-thumping hick, or is he a master schemer serving exclusively a global oil elite?
You won't find a (reasonable) Christian minister who cheers at the sight of gruesome civilian deaths, but it's not hard to find an imam outside of the US who does cheer when a child blows up a pizzarea. People who believe that the earth is 6000 years old are simply deluding themselves, but at least they don't cheer when innocents die.
You are right that wacko fundamentalism is dangerous no matter what the variety. Perhaps I should have made this clearer in my original post, now modded Flamebait. There is a huge difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. Only a small minority of Muslims are violent, and the rest are decent people.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I wonder is this. If your god is omnipresent and omnicient why do you have to go through physicals gyrations in order to be heard by god? Most christians pray out loud why is that?
I suppose you would get the same reaction to praying in public that a muslim would get if they took out a prayer rug, faced east and started genuflecting or perhaps a wiccan got if they drew a diagram on the ground, lit candles and chanting (or whatever else they do)
I would sincerely like to know your answer to this question. In the same spirit I will answer a couple of your own questions.
"though, of course, it raises an interesting view..if you lack a religion..doesn't that become your religion?"
The answer to this is no. In the same way that not having a porche does not mean you have a porche or not having an ulcer does not mean you have ulcer.
"If you refuse to believe or acknowledge God, aren't you following a belief system?"
Yes but not all belief systems are religions. This is where you seem to have tripped up. You apparently believe that any set of beliefs constitures a religion and that's just not true. For example homosexuality is not a religion although the set of people who are homosexuals believe in having sex with their own gender. Similarly utilitariansim, liberalism, conservatism, and lots of other "ism"s are not a religion even though they are belief systems.
Here's my reasoning (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there are the "bad" ones, who rage and rage about the evil society they think has grown up around them like a fungus. They cannot accept that other people are different. I mean this quite literally. They simply do not have even the concept or a word for the concept that it takes different types of personalities to make the world go round. They see everyone who behaves differently as deviant and the work of the devil. I do mean this literally. Since they haven't got even the concept of different, they are left with seeing differences as pure evil.
These bad fundies are the ones I spit on. I have relatives like that. I have given up trying to even co-exist with them. They are not interested in co-existence with evil people like me any more than they are interested in co-existence with moldy bread or spoiled milk.
I tell you what --- I think the rise in fundies the last few years is temporary. You look back a generation or two, that is people who had contact with the beginnings of the first rapidly changing society, with cars, airplanes, telephones, radio, TV, either personally or via stories from their grandparents. They could see the pace picking up, the gradual quickening, and so the continued quickening does not scare them. Future generations, the ones actually growing up now, see it as natural. The problem is with a generation or two in the middle, who think they have some bizarre vague false genetic memory of a time that existed only in their fantasies, where society was stable, and can only see modern society as being a corruption. They had no gradual start of changes to help them see change as good, and they didn't grow up with the rapid changes of nowadays.
I do believe these fundies will be a shrinking minority soon, a decade or two at the most, and these frenetic attempts at getting the ten commandments into courtrooms and censoring books and movies and everything else -- they are just the tremors of a dying segment of society. Of course, dying things tend to cause havoc around them, and I'd rather they just went away now and quietly, but I console myself with the idea that they are nevertheless the last gasping tremors of a bunch of muddle headed losers who are afraid of independent thought and those who practice it.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it would sound a lot like a yawn. Non-indoctrinated people have traditionally been indifferent to other's beliefs, thinking it's none of their business. I am sure a lot of agnostics/atheists even enjoyed "Passion of the Christ" as good (or so I heard) historical fiction, like Troy.
Perhaps it was our mistake, considering how fundamentalists now want to force their beliefs on us, including apparently which movies we get to see. Time to show up at your neighborhood church and have a nice hissy-fit against what they ask members to do?
Science doesn't always have the answer. It might not be clear why we're against abortion.
On the contrary, it would make a fascinating scientific study. I mean how can someone stop a woman from aborting a fetus with a genetic defect and then let the child die drowning in her own saliva because they also banned stem cell research? Such a profound personality disorder got to show on MRI.
Vocal minority, not majority. (Score:1, Insightful)
You seem to be missing the point. What people believe isn't the issue here, it's tolerance for what others believe. Most Christians have no problem with theatres showing science films that don't line up with their beliefs. If people want to believe these films, then fine, that's their choice. Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority who does have a problem with this sort of thing.
Then I hope you loudly and persistently educate those in your religious circles who cannot separate Islam from terrorism, and see all Muslims as "forces of evil".
Again, vocal minority. Personally, I don't know any Christians who think Islam == terrorism.
Creationism is NOT science, that's why! (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was true, I'd expect to see a fossil layer populated equally and evenly with the same animals I see today. And I do not. But when I bring up this objection, I'm retorted with:
"SATAN IS TRYING TO FOOL YOU! Clearly, God is testing your faith by making the earth with the appearance of age."
This is not science. This is religion dressed up as science.
I have no faith. Otherwise, why not assume the universe was made ten minutes ago? By Satan? As a practical joke?
Sex (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been watching the news lately and is what they have been telling me to believe is wrong with America.
1. Sex (Too many issues to count)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sex_po
2. Terrosim http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/
3. Teen Sex http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinio
4. Gays http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150737,00.htm
4. Bad Words / Howard Stern / Media http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149000,00.htm
5. Drugs (sports and non-sports) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150800,00.htm
6. High Gas Prices http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150977,00.htm
7. Lack of Feeding Tubes http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150988,00.htm
8. Abortion http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/35670.html [theherald.co.uk]
9.Iraqhttp://www.boston.com/news/world/articles
10. Slashdot http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
If you watched the news lately you would know that your lack of a right of a feeding tube is the most dangerous thing in America. The President even flew back a week early to sign the bill into law to secure you right, Not to mention Congress having a late session. You need to get your head screwed on straight, and look at the important things in life and stop listening to Science. Science is too busy messing with something called FACTS.
Re:Here's my reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the reason Voltaire and Swift are so fresh even today.
The only thing to hope for is that the ignorance is not sufficient to wipe out human scientific knowledge.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:2, Insightful)
What, that every citizen deserves equal rights under the law... including homosexuals?
No, you must be talking about the athiest support of stem cell research that could help ease the suffering of millions.
Those bloody athiests.... only ever thinking of themselves. Where are their moral values?
Shitdrummer
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is it that prejudice against Christians is the last remaining acceptable prejudice? Could it be that those screaming loudest for tolerance are in fact the least tolerant of differences?
Re:Scientific Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
When the original poster specifically mentioned experiments, then experiments are fair game. Read the quoted text. As far as observational science goes, the fossil record provides an extremely fragmentary, internally inconsistent, and generally unhelpful view. It is reasonably well accepted (except by idiots^W americans) that this in itself does not deny evolution, it merely doesn't support it very well.
If we come to try and make judgements about long-time-scale dynamic processes from point observations, we fall into the trap of blind inductionism. And that's not (good) science.
Evolution is sufficently poorly characterised that it isn't very good at making predictions, and there aren't many new observations to test them on, so that trivial view of hypothesis doesn't work too well either.
Popper would disagree. How can a singular event be falsifiable? It's the grue/bleen problem all over again. If you're denying this, what account of science are you using?
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:2, Insightful)
I really hate it when the Bible is presented as fact. I don't agree with the Christians/Jews/Muslims view about world.
I really hate it when religion is endorsed by the state "in God we trust" and "one nation under God". I really hate it when politicians bring God into discussion.
And I really hate it when people kill other people in the name of God (no matter in which languages his name is pronounced).
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
We know that science does not produce "facts" as theories can and are supplanted as we discover more about the universe on all scales. If there is an underlying truth to the universe, at best, science will only ever be able to model it. Still, it provides the means to evaluate evidence and make predictions. Of all accounts of the universe, at any scale, it appears that "science" is the most telling and the most reliable. Actually, this is fairly much indisputable.
There is plenty of room left for faith in our personal affairs if one sees fit to model their lives that way. Yet there is no place for faith in science based on the scientific method. The first thing we must abandon when approaching any matter with a scientific mind are the preconceived notions we carry of what we think ought to be. No, we must not have faith of the outcome but instead accept it as it is and find the best explanations we currently can to try to comprehend our observations.
That said, why do people use the term "fundies"? I'm not even sure I know what it means, but I do know that it is used as an insulting and degrading moniker. Using such labeling really shows which side of the ignoranant / enlightened fence that a person sits on.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:2, Insightful)
Can I ask why these 'most people' haven't got together to filter the allegory, the part thats supposed to be the meat of the 'guide' and make a new book?
If the bible is a collection of stories with allegory/metaphor can I know why people need it in the first place, since modern, educated people can be taught things without making up stories and hiding meaning in them ?
Why does anyone need a book to tell them* 'don't kill', 'don't steal' and 'love everyone' ? (* or put fear in them)
My mom taught me not to kill, not to steal and love everyone. She didnt go to any church/temple/mosque. Or read any book. Am I missing something ?
Oh yeah the whole after life thing
Speaking of after life... someones seen it right ? Right ?! I wanna know what happens there ! Do you never get old ? Supposing you die at 2 yrs or 25 do you always stay 2 or 25? Or how mcuh do you grow up ? 15? 25? 45? 95?
Do you forget all your experiences, family, friends etc on earth ? If everything is totally new, are you the same person ? Dosent that mean the wrong person was sent to heaven?
I've seen a lot of religious people who get
Can you have kids in heaven? Do you feel like having kids in heaven? If nobody feels so, is it a society of Humans? Then what use is that 'glorious' body ?
Read my previous posts before modding. I'm not a troll. Just a little drunk.
Well, you know what one of the founders said ... (Score:4, Insightful)
These days, vigilance is lax and "democracy" seems to be more valued than liberty anyway. The religious right and the politically correct left both seem to have an intense desire to dictate how we live our lives and the current state seems to be a "compromise" where both extremes get to do their worst.
Re:Fundamentalists eagerly set the stereotype (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like another poster, I've never known any Christians that believe Muslims are evil or that people of Arab descent are automatically terrorists. In fact, following 9/11, EVERY Christian leader that I heard (fundamentalist and not) made the point specifically that tolerance was fundamentally important and that terrorists were the extreme minority. Hell, even Bush, the whipping boy for anti-religion folk, made that point in almost all of his post 9/11 speeches.
There are many classifications of Christian fundamentalism. Within each organized religion (Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal) there are extremists (trust me when I say their beliefs vary widely). Among those extremists there's a subgroup of people that actually make a fuss over things. While I believe that's their right, I don't agree with it. I also believe it's your right to tell them to shut up, although I wouldn't agree with that either.
I think the few responses you've received to your posts should be enough to show you that your stereotype of fundamentalist Christians ISN'T accurate. As of now, the door knockers and "sudden friends" aren't all you've heard.
Indications of a failing empire? (Score:2, Insightful)
Similarly an Empire falls when it either fails to deal with new inovation or knowledge, or its people become indolent and self-centered or decadent.
In the Middle age's Arab civilisation was vastly in advance of Dark age Europe, mainly because it had a religious view that respected learning and knowledge and was not afraid of learning from others , even if they were not of the same religion or creed, it saved much knowledge from the Greeks that was lost in Europe due to the actions of religious zealots
I think this is just another indicator of the end of the American century, its a shame because America, whilst far from perfect, has or had a lot of good things to teach the world.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:1, Insightful)
I think this is funny, coming from someone who posted AC. Furthermore, I suppose you have performed every science experiment to verify that what you were taught in school is true. I especially hope that you have yourself verified the theory of evolution -- oh wait, that's right...it's a theory. Don't get me wrong, I believe evolution is an adequate theory to describe many phenomena, but to assume it's true because it makes the most sense is not logical at all.
I therefore postulate that you have checked your intelligence at the door. Some people believe in the Bible for reasons other than what they were taught.
If you want something that makes sense --
When I die that is either
1) the end of me. Period.
2) a stopping point before another realm/life/whatever you want to call it.
If 2 is true, but the punishment for not believing in it is eternal damnation, I sure as hell am going to try to believe in #2!
That makes a lot of sense, even logical sense. This isn't why I believe the Bible, but saying the Bible isn't true because it wasn't personally experienced by the reader is pure horseshit. It's posts like yours, Mr. AC, which normally cause me to "foe" someone, but seeing as how you posted AC, I can't do anything about it but change my settings so I only see highly modded posts.
The only way anyone has been foed by me so far is by posting anti-Bible bullshit. If you want to try to disprove the Bible, use logic, not rhetoric.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are required to respect their right to _hold_ that belief.
You, in turn, are permitted to have the belief that their belief is an indication of idiocy. And if they have a problem with that, tell them they're not respecting your beliefs.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have gathered in a circle at the local starbucks and are praying loud enough for other people to hear (even if barely) then there is no appreciable difference between that and opening up a prayer rug in the local starbucks and starting to genuflect.
"Loosely, any specific system of code of ethics, values, and belief." and "A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion." (google Definitions of religion on the Web)"
If that's a definition of religion then libeterianism is a religion, basketball is a religion, weightlifting is a religion, ebay is a religion. All of those are a cause, principle or an activity that is pursued with seal or conscientious devotion.
"And Homosexuality, if I remember correctly, is a value system and life style choice..."
So is christianity or islam. All religions are lifestyle choices.
"And I didn't mention that the isms are automatically Religions. Though, one could make it his/her/it's religion."
Ok then. Athesims is not a religion. It's just another ism.
Here is the thing that really gets my goat though. Atheism, homosexuality, liberterianism, scientology, and christianity are all lifestyle choices and yet of those only scientology and christianity get constitutional protection. I think that's wrong. If homosexuality as you say could be made somebodies religion then it should have the exact same constitutional protection as christianity does. And yet it doesn't. Could you imagine what would happen if your state passed a law saying christians can't get married or serve in the military?
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
No way, that's utterly moronic! Just making up that some thing called God created the Universe, and then believing it as an absolute unassailable truth? Come on now, even if you define "God" as "the thing that created the Universe," that's still terribly presumptuous -- we don't even know for sure that the Universe was ever created! For example, although time appears linear locally, it could have a vastly different actual topology at eternal scale. Heck, we don't even know that reality exists. It's all just a bunch of convenient working assumptions. And while these assumptions are useful in day-to-day life, we certainly have no basis to make any claims about things outside of the Universe. I'm not making this up or just bantering here, I'm totally serious. The deist belief is just faith in disguise, and vastly misguided in claiming to be "based solely on reason." I'm not saying "it makes me feel good" is an invalid reason for you to believe something, I'm just saying that claiming that's not the reason is a flat-out lie (of course, we may be using such different definitions of language that our statements to each other are simply meaningless...).
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, on the other hand *Natural selection* is a scientific *theory* that attempts to explain the facts of evolution. In broad terms, virtually every biologist, paleontologist, biochemist, etc., believes that natural selection is primarily or completely responsible for the evolution of species. In specific terms, there is still a wide range of beliefs on the details of how natural selection occurs in detail, on what time scale a "typical" speciation event occurs, on how species become separated from each other during the process of evolution, etc.
I believe these things to be generally true because practicing scientists test these ideas every day in their work, and are generally honest in their work. And also because when I read Darwin's Origin of Species, he clearly had a marvelous insight.
Whereas the people who tell me that the Bible is 100% literally true are always looking for weak excuses to get around the fact that the Bible sure looks like it was the work of lots of different people, with lots of different motives and ideas and agendas, but without any particularly astounding insight, edited together, leaving a whole lot of loose ends and confusing bits. And, as far as their intellectual approach, the current Biblical-inerrancy fad is based on an explicit *rejection* of those who tried to study Biblical texts using the techniques of modern criticism.
The problem with your response to Pascal's dilemma is that if #1 is true, then you have spent your entire existence believing in some fucking fairy tale rather than something like the truth. Meaning you've turned off a part of your brain, of your own free will, for the duration of your time here on earth. Pardon me if I think self-imposed stupidity is not the most noble of aims.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know what these people are. It's like they combine the worst of both major parties and a few others.
Re:Things like this will destroy the American econ (Score:2, Insightful)
Religion is lacking because of any kind of facts or evidence to back up its claims. Science is lacking because it fails to even begin to explain some of the most basic and important things in our universe.
You might say that science will be able to explain those things given enough time, but isn't that really just another belief? What if it can't? How many times in history have scientific explanations been proven to be totally untrue? How long will it take for currently held scientific explanations to be proven untrue?
Do you get what I'm trying to say?
Given what I have said, is religious belief any better or worse than scientific belief? Is it any wonder that there is so much conflict between the two?
Dom
Re:The nipple dilemma (Score:1, Insightful)
Q: "Okay. Cool. So why did Adam have nipples?"
A: Who the fuck knows and/or cares? Why do all males have nipples? Also even if he did not, what does this have something to do with religion? I don't recall Adam's nipples ever being mentioned in the bible.
Q: "Did he have a belly button also?"
A: No. He was not born and therefore did not have a belly button.
Q: "And then there's the topic of incest between Adam and Eve, 'cause where else did everyone on the planet come from?"
A: Incest is bad because it causes birth defects and other such problems. Back in the days of the Garden of Eden there were no diseases so incest was not a problem.
P.S. Cocky dumbass atheists like yourself give all atheists a bad name.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:2, Insightful)
Some people are just too dense. When fact is is contradicting faith, it might be a hint that reexamining and redefining said faith is a good idea.
Telling people to keep fact to themselves in order to remain blissfully ignorant about it is insane.
Re:Stupid is as stupid does. God is dead. (Score:3, Insightful)
Including the Buddhists who burned down a chirch near where I live (twice in two years), along with several hundred others in this coutnry?
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, buddy. You just spouted some grade-A bullshit.
Consider this:
Many consider it acceptable to be prejudiced against gays.
In many nations, women are repressed. Even in the US they often have to overcome rediculous and antiquated notions.
People executed in the US are disproportinately black.
Arab-Americans are more likely to be stopped at airports.
"Could it be that those screaming loudest for tolerance are in fact the least tolerant of differences?"
No. Most of the people protesting Gibson's film did so because of its extreme graphic violence. Not that they are right, of course - personally, I believe that *any* censorship is wrong (with a few notable exceptions such as child pornography). However, I also believe Gibson's film should have been given an NC-17 rating.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:1, Insightful)
But now we have both radical Christians and fundamentalists all wanting laws to reflect their views so everyone will conform to it. Yuck!
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm perfectly fine with Christianity, and perfectly fine with Islam, for that matter. But pardon me for not getting all warm and fuzzy about the Taliban, Iranian mullahs, and the wackos protesting against gay marriage with such insightful rhetoric as "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" and against stem cell research based on "a culture of life."
Lots of people on this forum are prejudiced against stupidity. That you confuse this prejudice with prejudice against Christianity does not say much for your power of analysis.
Re:About "time" (Score:2, Insightful)
Any religious person who "proves" science is bunk using timelines can be proven to be a heathen who thinks that some how, time has authority over God.
Doing so is fun for awhile, but arguing with the religious is rather boring and pointless. If the current trends follow, suggesting the world may be round will soon get you killed in boiling oil for the act of heresy. Ever wanted to live way back in the days before computers, but still retain your knowledge? nows your chance! what an opportunity I guess.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or could it be that those professing to follow the teachings of a supremely tolerant philosopher are in fact supremely failing to be tolerant. After all we're responding to a an article about Christian intolerance aren't we?
To this day I've yet to come across a "Christian" - ordained or otherwise - that truly understands and practises the teachings of Jesus Christ himself - and I really am looking.
How far have we come? (Score:3, Insightful)
One day people will sit up and realize that disbelieving in multiple gods such as Greek or Roman is pretty much the same thing as disbelieving in a single god and that for the same reasons they disbelieve in those multiples is the same reason for disbelieving in their one.
Many people have realized this, individually, yet so many won't admit to it... and the culture of belief persists. It frightens me that believers exist today -- it truly does.
Taking things a bit too far. (Score:4, Insightful)
I love to see documentaries about science. Learning about the universe that God created fills me with wonder, and the more I see how absolutly amazing the universe is, the more I appreciate what He has given us.
Now, there are those out there who feel that only their understanding of the Bible is correct, and chose to turn their back on any course of study which reveals how truly fantastic creation really is. I have a name for those people: Wackjobs.
It's hard for me to even give those sorts the consideration of being misguided but well intentioned. These people come off as mean-spirited individuals who aren't interested in discovering the truth. God is truth, and turning your back on what is the truth, both spiritually and scientifically is akin to turning your back on God. The way I see it, there's only one way to deal with those types of people: Ignore them.
The only way these people get power is to take their demands seriously. If Imax theaters refuse to show scientific films because they are afraid of offending this very small, but very vocal minority (or in this case, because a few nutjobs said they thought it might be "blasphemous" in one of those inane focus groups), they are doing a disservice to the public in refusing to educating them.
We live in a secular country. We should all be able to celebrate our faith, regardless of what it is. But we shouldn't allow our faith to get in the way of an objective, secular science. Nor should we allow fundamentalism to ruin the education of the population as a whole.
Now, that having been said, it would be nice if the scientific community stopped presenting evolution as the "truth", and touted it for what it is: The best scientific explanation we have right now that outlines the origins and development of life. I only say this because I sometimes think that science, in difference to religion, can be guilty of the same closed mindedness that plagues the fundamentalist movements. When something like "Intelligent Design" comes around, it's immediately dismissed as religious pseudoscience, despite the fact that there might be something to it.
Sure, as far as our current understanding goes, evolution still makes more scientific sense, but let's not sit on our laurels and ignore studying any other ideas. In the same way, let's not succumb to the crazy idea that trying to tell the story of evolution, or of the big bang is somehow an affront to God. Or, more accurately, let's not listen to the vocal minority who wants to stymie any understanding of science which they see as a threat to their faith.
We're fighting a global war on terrorism right now. A good number of those who are out to harm us are motivated by closed minded fundamentalism. Let's try and not give an ear to those within our own country who are motivated by the same thing.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
So is your claim is that Judaism isn't a religion, that those Jews who protested saw the film before they protested or that the protestors were actually non-fundamentalist Jews?
Re:offensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
All we can do is point out that the 4000 years bit was not actually in the bible. Pointing out that it was the raving of a medieval monk who decided to average things due to lack of information would be counterproductive, as is obvious stuff like pointing out that Jesus was jewish and that our zero date on the calender is a convenience since the guys that set it didn't have accurate information.
We are living in a surprisingly superstitious and ignorant age - people are taken in by all kinds of cons - even mesmerism as debunked by Benjamin Franklin has resurfaced in the form of magnetic blanket underlays. It should not be surprising that all kinds of weird ideas are held - for instance beleiving in a book with far more certainty than the guys who wrote it. Life isn't certain, and looking for hidden meanings in numbers of words in something that has been translated a few times is pointless.
Interesting cafeteria comment from years back: "What would Jesus do?" "I think Jesus would eat the beans".
The thing I really hate is the fools that insist that science is a religeon of its own. I suppose if all you have is a hammer ...
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, the not treading on each other's toes that is done in most of the rest of the world is not entirely honest on either the part of the scientists or the churches as regards what they really think, but hey, who want's to cause a fuss, we are jaded old worlders after all, no match for the new worlders in the true believer stakes (scientific or religious).
As a scientist though, I think the whole "nobody said how long the 7 days were" school of thought is just wolly minded rationalization of the worst sort. If you are going to believe stuff, at least have the courage of your convictions.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's all the rage and fashion now to ascribe to a word the very meaning it is defined by.
Denotation. All the kids are doin' it.
Why is it that prejudice against Christians is the last remaining acceptable prejudice?
This is among the more hilarious statements I've read on Slashdot. Unlike conspiracy theories alleging otherwise, uhm, who is in control of the government (all three branches thereof), and just about every major corporation? Oh yeah, Christians.
What is all the "fashion and rage" in fact, is appeasing the Christian right, what with the sudden general outrage against gay marriage, stem cells n' abortions, heathenous evolution, and boobies. Suddenly our very upright and moral members of Congress feel the best use of the might and power of the legislative branch of government is to spank the naughty boys of baseball and turn a doomed woman's life into a political football. Cuz it all plays well with the God-fearin' folk.
Early 1920s temperance movement, 1950s McCarthyism, 1980s Moral Majority, and now the post-9/11-"red state-ism." Every 30 years or so we get all high-n-mighty and take a giant step back for mankind that later proves to be a national embarrassment. Hopefully this one will pass quickly.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
(And yes, I know it wasn't their initiative here, but still).
Notes on the NYT story and this thread (Score:5, Insightful)
2. This is perhaps the worst-modded
3. If this story is legit -- and I'm not at all sure that it is -- the villains aren't the fundies. The villains are the theater managers. TFA doesn't mention any actual protests -- just the *fear* of protests.
4. Like a few other brave souls in this discussion, I find the story pretty fishy. It reads like a pretty typical liberal alarmist, NYT view of what they *think* all those red-state yokels are like. A few of the things that raise warning flags:
* Everyone interviewed had the same point of view (there doesn't seem to be even an attempt to get a quote from "the other side");
* There is no quantification at all (how many people of the 137 in Ft Worth complained? The NYT, oddly, doesn't tell us.)
*The story notes, about the film "Volcanoes": "On other criteria, like narration and music, the film did not score as well as other films, Ms. Murray said, and over all, it did not receive high marks, so she recommended that the museum pass." So that raises the question -- if it WAS good, then would she have run it? And if so, doesn't that make the whole religious angle moot?
Etc. I agree with an earlier poster -- these stories just ring true to a certain subset of
- Alaska Jack
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scientific Theory (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:1, Insightful)
Blasphemer! That's the word of God you're talking about!
"For instance, the whole "God created the Earth in seven days." Seven days could mean seven million years, or seven billion years. It's worded in a way that man can understand. Why do people reject Evolution, when it could have been God that kickstarted the whole thing?"
AT least the fundies don't try this horseshit on - either your stupid fairy tales are taken literally, or they're disregarded. If your interpretation of the Chrisitianmessage is that we should all be a bit nicer to each other then you're NOT a Christian, just a sensible human. Christianity teaches that Christ WAS God in the form of a man, WAS born without a human father, DID perform actual miracles, DOES live forever and DID ACTUALLY rise from the grave. If you believe all that bollocks, and you strive to live your life according to Christ's teachings, then you're a Christian.
If not, you're not. I'm not.
"I can't say that I believe these things anymore but if you can believe that there is an almighty being that created us, why can't you also believe that this being crafted the universe as we know it now, and all the wonders it contains that science as yet to scratch the surface on?"
Almighty being? Grow up.
"It's a scary time when the few people with extreme religious views can change the life of everyone to suit their needs"
And that crap HASN'T been going on for thousands of years? Who built all those fucking churches, temples and mosques?
Re:Cosmic Voyages is awesome! (Score:2, Insightful)
They do and they are, and always have. If they didn't, we wouldn't have Seven Dirty Words, and Winfrey would be getting fined as much as Stern for talking about the exact same topic. Now, how about a nice, warm cup of STFU.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how a country where no state-religion is allowed by the constitution has more opressive religious-control than a country with an official religion whereby the head of state is also head of the religion.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
So hopefully you can see where I (and other people) come from.
It's bullshit like the "controversial" science films that fuels the flames.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's my reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
irreligious = "not controlled by religious motives or principles"
progressive = "favoring improvement, change, progress, reform"
liberal = "Not narrow or contracted in mind; not selfish"
Sign me up for irreligious progressive liberal status right away, these are all the things I've always wanted to be!
Re:it's sad (Score:5, Insightful)
You won't find a (reasonable) imam that does the same. There are plenty of unreasonable Christian ministers who do this; the beloved Reverend Phelps [godhatessweden.com] is just the most tragicomically extreme of this genre. And perhaps at this historical moment there are a helluva lot more unreasonable imams preaching same than there are unreasonable ministers (though look at the rhetoric spouted by such holy men during the crusades and you'll see things weren't always that way). In any case my point is that the imams who do preach that shit are unreasonable fanatics, and, as you note at the end of your post, most Muslims do not support this garbage.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll bite.
Your Pascal's wager isn't making any sense. If your "god" is going to send me in hell for not beliving in him; he is not a merciful, good, and all-forgiving god, but a devil himself.
In otherwords, get a life man.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Then FDR was a oil/religious wacko too ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I find myself in the very uncomfortable position, on the Iraqi war, of despising the modern means of publicizing a war and thus agreeing with the protestors, and yet also realizing that American power over the world is currently very fragile, and yet is the world's best or only hope for (long-term) peace. So I don't know what to think, really. I'm not ultimately sure what is more important: that unjustified war be politically impossible, or that justified war be politically possible.
Europe: the era of the individualist (Score:5, Insightful)
So were does the difference come from? The parent post explanation is way off, at least in Western Europe religions are struggling massively just to get people into the churches - most people just don't believe in churches as institutions anymore, that try to prescribe how people should live. So it's not about the content of the religion, it's about the institution that looses acceptance.
And this is a phenomenon that goes beyond religion; trade unions or any other institutions loose grip on people's lives. We live in the era of the individualist, people make their own choices for their own lives. And they assemble their own 'belief' from religions and non-religous streamings like Buddhism.
NB: European countries don't have state religions
Last I checked (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked you're not forced to go see a movie if you don't want too. They will potentially loose the 10% regardless if the movie is shown there or not. The theatre/museum knows it's market and their 10% is probably more like 90% of the money they make. It's a no brainer.
Oh never mind I forgot. If you disagree with something your still suppose to support it with your hard earned money. I'm sure people will line up.
Re:religious fundamentalists (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, Pascal's Wager is dragged out again, I see. Now, take Pascal's Wager, replace the word "God" with "Vishnu" and see if you want to become a Hindu.
And can you Cristian "The Bible is true, so bats are birds" believers please stop mixing evolution (which is observed to take place) and "primate origin of man" which is the one you don't like? They are not one and the same theory, though the latter requires the former.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
If there is a God, He has a really weird sense of humor.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:2, Insightful)
The first thing Jesus condemned was the Church in His day. I dotn think it'll be any different today.
Re:Europe: the era of the individualist (Score:3, Insightful)
I used the words State Religion because they are non-technical, but it does not precisely convey what I mean. The current term used is 'Ecclessia,' which is a large denomination that ostensibly serves as the main church for an ethnicity. The Catholic Church in Spain, the Anglican in England and Lutheran churches in various Scandinavian countries are all typically considered to be 'Ecclessias' even when they no longer recieve official support from the state.
So it's not about the content of the religion, it's about the institution that loses acceptance.
That is definately part of it. As I said in my previous post, much of the new religious activity in the US is of a populist nature: the televangelists and Super-Churches are not bound to institutions. The churches that are starting to suffer in America are the old established institutional Protestant denominations.
Re:Here's my reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, if you were consistent with your beliefs, you'd know that the power to juge guilt or innocence doesn't belong to mankind, but to God only. The only requirement upon you is to love, forgive, and show compassion to those who are too weak to be enlightened. Who do you think you are, to decide in place of the One greater than you ?
On the other hand, if you're a non-believer, anyway there's no such things as innocence or guilt, but behaviours. Some of the behaviours, without being intrinsicaly good or bad, hurt the society as a whole, some do not. Those which does (crimes) can be taken care off by removing the agent from the society, but you wouldn't kill him because truth being relative, you don't want to make a mistake, so you seek reversibility.
Re:I can answer you about Muslims and Jihad (Score:1, Insightful)
personally i see fundamentalists as being the same whether they are moslem or christian.
again, not really suprising to see badly educated americans with a shaky grip of history pontificating about the world on slashdot.
Re:It's a shame... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So where are all the Christian IMAX films? (Score:1, Insightful)
The Christian viewpoint is under represented? It's _Science_, not an overview of creation myths. If you want to hear the Christian theories of how the universe started, go to someplace that teaches it. If you want to teach it, open a "museum". Just don't think everyone has to attend and to accept it.
At the same time, it's not really funny, because this mental shutdown and absence of critical thinking is the true root of evil. Truly evil people don't think they're bad people like they do in movies, they generally just think they know better than everybody else, and that they must do what they must do for the greater good. Hitler is a perfect example. I'm sure many others immediately come to mind as well.
The importance of the separation of church and state in a truly democratic and free society can't be overemphasized - simply compare the countries that have secularism vs those that don't. The ones that don't are truly terrifying places, in general.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you don't understand what scientists are talking about when they're talking about theories. A theory is a concept that has a mountain of evidence to support it. To throw that evidence out, and put forth a different idea that does not have that body of evidence supporting it would be like convicting a person of a crime without looking at any evidence at the crime scene.
Take the Bible literally and you get slavery (Score:3, Insightful)
Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."
Note that the term "servant" in the King James Version of the Bible refers to slaves, not employees like a butler, cook, or maid.
Yet, slavery was defeated in the USA, or that's what rational Americans think today.
A great reference about this is: What the Bible says about slavery [religioustolerance.org]
Makes you wonder what's behind the apparent rise in America of fundamentalism and the belief that the Bible is inerrant. Some people (some, not most) are still trying to fight the civil war, it appears.
Six days, not seven! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:2, Insightful)
You can take comfort in your illness if you want, like schizophrenics might wish to too, but don't expect society to want to do anything else but eradicate the illness you carry. Working against that is illogical and simply perpetuates the illness.
And that CANNOT be tolerated, just as tuberculosis, AIDS, schizephrenia, ebola, child molestation, typhoid and other physical and mental diseases cannot be tolerated in a civilised society. They must be cured.
Facts combat religious illness.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
Like this article:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/03/con
on the ten commandments says:
"[F]or the general public, whether they are on plaques or monuments, we should simply add, in big letters, 'See how far we have come. We will not put our God before your God. Here we each worship as we like. We have paintings and statues, both sacred and secular. We are not the Taliban. We are free people. We are allowed to think any thought. We are allowed to speak those thoughts.'"
I find it funny (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Name one instance in which an Atheist has shoved morals down anyone's throat via legislation. Just off the top of my head I can think of one going the opposite way right off the top of my head. Blue laws. There is absolutely no reason to prohibit the sale of alcohol on Sunday aside from religious reasons. There are more, but I'll let that one stand as an obvious example.
(though, of course, it raises an interesting view..if you lack a religion..doesn't that become your religion? If you refuse to believe or acknowledge God, aren't you following a belief system?)
No. A lack of religion does NOT constitute religion. By definition. It's not like Atheists (in general) actively disbelieve God in the face of any evidence. On the contrary, the resounding lack of evidence is what drives us to the conclusion that there is no God. On the other hand, if God were to appear tomorrow in a manner that was indisputable, we'd (again, most of us) be instant converts. A religion implies a faith. And faith requires that one believes in something absent evidence. Given evidence, faith is no longer required.
Those who oppose science in the name of God are (Score:2, Insightful)
To lean on your religion in this way is to use it as a crutch for your inability to understand anything past your nose, plain and simple.
I know plenty of people who are very scientific, very well educated, very intelligent, and very religious.
Do they feel that their beliefs mean they can't follow science? Of course not.
What's wrong with feeling that God put the universe there for you to figure out yourself? You can still look at creation and say "It's all part of God's plan". If what you see doesn't match what's in your particular translation of the holy book, your responsibility is to find out WHY it doens't match. Translation error? Historical error? Plain old human error? Science experiment is wrong?
But stuffing your head in the sand and saying "how DARE they teach science" is absurd.
A matter of faith (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:1, Insightful)
A lot of the time those people who take it literally do so very selectivly. e.g. condeming homosexuals whilst wearing a cotton and polyester shirt and eating a bacon cheeseburger.
Re: Arab-Americans are more likely to be stopped.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's my reasoning (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Educated people, particularly educated people of metropolitan educated families, can have a very skewed picture of U.S. demographics. I went to high school in red state North Dakota, and, apparently, that isn't even the worst of fly-over America. Think of a lot of the U.S. as akin to the Afrikaner hinterlands. "Don't need no education when you got the Good Book." Outside of TV, the church _is_ the available culture of many red state Americans. Dude, the town I grew up in had a movie theater I could bicycle to. You take that for granted? A lot of towns across America can't even say that.
2. Speaking of TV. It had been the stereotype that Europeans actually read. Do they still? Because a lot of Americans don't. I took a grad course in medical ethics and, as an aside, the prof asked, "What do people read?" The class came up with all these off-the-wall answers: "New Yorker", "Washington Post", etc. (See out-of-touch above). The answer at that time: National Enquirer. The terrifying truth is that TV is the sole significant source of intellectual content for many, many adult Americans. Americans don't read. Many who do read don't read quality.
3. Prior to the very controversial No Child Left Behind, there have effectively been no national standards in secondary education. I think a lot of the world finds that pretty mind-boggling and pretty mind-boggling that a local parent group can pressure their particular school to teach "intelligent design".
4. Most controversially, I think the significant racial and class division in the U.S. play an important role. And, by that, I don't just mean "oppression" but particularly it's reaction: "I may not have me a fancy education or a good job, but I got Jesus and that's a world better because you can take that education and job and go to hell with it."
Re: Arab-Americans are more likely to be stopped.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, from the Arabs who blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, to the Arabs who plant all the car bombs in Belfast, to the many Arab revolutionary movements in South America, to the Arabs who bomb abortion clinics, to the Arabs who spray Sarin gas in Japanese subways. Nothin' but freakin' a-rabs.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Notwithstanding other reasonable points you make...
Not quite. In the context of fundamentalist Christianity, you're a bit off base. Whether the beliefs are bizarre or not isn't germane. Neither is the notion that every fundamentalist believes exactly the same way in a "lock-step" fashion, a patently absurd notion.
Fundamentalism is the belief that the Bible means what it says. That's all. There's nothing bizarre or sinister about that.
Most Christians are taught that God expects us to use our intelligence to understand the difference between a parable, an illustrative story, and the verifiable fact of how hot our coffee is. Where facts are known to be facts, we accept them as facts. Where stories are understood to be similes for higher concepts or descriptive parables, we accept them as such. And where we don't know, we accept on faith. Thus, to most Christians the Bible is full of great stories that illustrate basic truths (whether the actual events occurred or not) and facts.
Now, where do you draw the line between those two things? Each Christian decides for himself. Frankly, I admire the faith of those who truly believe the Bible can help them ascertain the exact day of the week the world was created. I draw the line in a different place. But the fact remains that we can both still claim to be fundamentalist Chrisitians. Our fundamental belief is that the Bible literally means what it says, even if we both read it to mean something a bit different.
The only problem with this is that I believe that where the Bible says one thing and science says something else, I ascribe that perceived difference to my inability to parse out when the Bible is being literal and when it's being illustrative/representational. I view science as helping me understand God's creation and Word better. I don't try to use the Word to refute provable facts. God gave me intelligence so I could try to grok the difference, not run roughshod over anything new and mysterious to me.
Some Christians, often derisively called "fundies," take a different approach. They, in my judgement, are guilty of the sin of pride. They think their faith is perfect in its current form and should never be informed by new facts. That's sad; Christians are supposed to grow in their faith, not ossify in it. I fear their hubris will be their undoing, eventually, and pray that they may be given better understanding before anybody else gets hurt.
If that makes me, in your eyes, something other than "fundamentalist," then I'm afraid you don't really know what the word means in this context.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
The school that your kid goes to isn't going to go anywhere near an IMAX auditorium without your knowledge unless your kid has been forging your signature.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mirror, thy name is hypocracy. Your statement makes the same mistake that you are accusing the Christians of making (not having a perfect understanding of the teachings of Christ or living them). The fact is that no one is going to have a perfect understanding (and practice) of anything.
I would agree that lots of Christians don't have a very good understanding of what they claim to believe in. I also realize that I may be wrong, I don't think I am, but I am cognecent of that possibility. Thus while I might argue the correctness of how they view certain parts of the Bible, I would never claim perfect understanding, because that's just beyond what's humanly possible.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms.
Isn't one of the the foundations of evolution that all living organisms came from a "primordial soup"? If so, that violates the "fact" that you layed out above.
Re:Censored or Mindfucked? What's better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A matter of faith (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is *not* bad science. We understand genetic drift, and the principle of natural selection. We've *seen* speciation at work. There is a complex web of evidence and backup evidence supporting these assertions. It *is* proven fact. As a species, we understand how evolution works better than we understand how gravity works. (Do you object to Newtonian mechanics being taught to children as "fact", considering that, really, it's not?)
You, on the other hand, have a single chapter in a book. This book was not intended as a science textbook, and people who read it that way are utterly missing the point. In order to accept the 6-day creationism hypothesis, you have to also accept that God lied like crazy to us in constructing the fossil record (indeed, in constructing one at all!), and the geological record, and the genetic record in DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and all the other mutually supporting evidence.
So I ask myself, which is more likely: that God intentionally fabricated all this stuff in such a way that it leads us directly to a precise but wrong conclusion, or that God glossed over a few things when some pretty damn primitive people started wondering where everything came from, so that he could get on to the important concepts of right-and-wrong rather than get bogged down discussing continental drift, genetics, and orbital mechanics. In other words, is God some demented trickster, or is he a good teacher? Kind of a no-brainer.
Re:Eppur Si Muove (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no equivalence. Here's why: on one hand, you have a theory formed from observation of the physical world over the last 150 years, subject to constant change and revision. On the other hand, you have the story of the Creation, which is held to be true because God said so (well, because His followers and a certain Book said so, and the Book actually has two Creation stories which contradict each other).
When we start burning bibles, then we'll be as bad as they are.
k.
Re:Scary (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a pride/humility issue, not an evangelism issue. How do you think Christianity spread to non-Jews in the 1st century? In the marketplaces and Mars Hills of the world.
I'm not defending lunacy, just evangelism.
Re:Extreme fundamentalists are ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
And in fact they did. Unfortunately for us several thousand years later, it was the same word that is translated as "day" in English. It means the period between sunrises, the period between sunrise and sunset, an era, or just a division of time.
Which not only suggests that the author of Genesis had an understanding of metaphor, it also suggests that it is pretty foolish to take a strict literalist interpretation of the Bible based on an translation.
But that's not the point. I used to wonder why fundamentalists would insist so vehemently that God created earth in exactly seven days when the billions of years of galaxies and solar systems forming seems so much more inspiring and God-like in scope. Now that I'm older I know it has nothing to do with whether God went "zap" and mammals appeared or whether God made sure lightning struck a pool of complex carbon chains at just the right time and that the background radiation level provided just the right rate of mutation.
It's about control.
Re:As a religous conservative (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Other creation myths... (Score:2, Insightful)
Fundamentalism Isn't Bad (Score:3, Insightful)
An example of what should be fundamental to a Christian is as follows:
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against these things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and wants. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." (Galatians)
The problem with Bible-thumping Christians is that they love to get fired up over the Bible's condemnations of evil, such as
"Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord" (Psalms)
without studying the Bible to understand how it defines evil. They'll cling to a verse like that, and go fight against not the true evils of the world, like greed and imcompassion, but they war against some superficial "evils" that are usually just cultural impasses.
A great example of Christians missing the point: you know that the Bible doesn't feature the sin of Sodom and Gommorah as having anything to do with homosexuality? Here's what it says:
"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did destable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (Ezekial 16)
If Christians believe in the Bible, then maybe they should read all of it, and think on it, instead of lingering all their life on John 3:16 and the 10 Commandments.
Re:So where are all the Christian IMAX films? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I'm interested in religious explanation of how we came into being, I'll go to a church, mosque, etc... not a science movie.
As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
If you look at the public struggles between creationists and evolutionists, the creationists who represent the mainstream Evangelical thought are not trying to remove evolution, they would just like the teaching of evolution to acknowledge that it is not a proven fact, and that there are other schools of thought, an in particular, the possibility of intelligent design.
As a creationist, I do *not* want the teaching of religion in the public school classroom. Public school teachers have a wide variety of religious beliefs, so what would be the guarantee that they would represent the Christian belief? I rather not even go there.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I also think it's the parents' responsibility to make their children aware of the real world when they are mature enough to handle it. The parents will not be around forever, and it's their job to make mature, responsible adults out of these overgrown zygotes.
What use is it to shelter your children from the truth? When you die, your kid will be down in the basement waiting for his food until he starves to death.
The UAM Theory... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people have already responded that there is no prejudice against fundamentalist christians in the U.S., and that a fundi is far more likely to be pandered to than discriminated against. In general, I agree with all that. However, it is also true that there's a large contingent of liberals in the U.S. who will shamelessly bash fundamentalists, yet wouldn't dream of making fun of blacks, gays, or jews. Why is that?
The main difference between fundis and other minority groups seems to be that fundis don't just want to be tolerated - they want to control everything and everyone around them. Gay people for the most part just want to be left alone. They don't try to make laws forcing others to be gay. Blacks, for the most part, just want to be treated equally. It's perfectly all right with black people if you don't give a damn about black culture, so long as you give them fair consideration when they apply for a job. Jews have their own distinct religious beliefs and code of ethics, but they aren't interested in forcing it on people. They're happy to tell you about their beliefs if you ask, but they respect the fact that most people aren't jewish and don't have any particular interest in (for example) only eating kosher food.
Fundis, unlike these other "persecuted" groups, aren't content with merely being tolerated. They seem to be driven by a desire to make everyone, everywhere, just like them - whether people like it or not. For example, fundis think that nudity is bad, so they make an active effort through legislation to prevent anyone from being able to buy pornography. Jews don't try to make it illegal for anyone to eat beef with milk. Gays don't try to outlaw heterosexuality. Blacks don't try to make it mandatory for everyone to celebrate Kwanzaa. But fundis happily try to force people to comply with their belief system through laws, or any other social pressure available to them.
To put it simply, many people don't respect fundis because fundis don't seem to respect anyone else's right to make their own decisions. Unlike other groups, fundis are an active threat to everyone's freedom.
Real censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
Were there even a discussion about intelligent design (even one that said nothing about the nature of the designer), I think people would be more open minded.
But war breeds war. If we cannot even discuss evolution except as dogmatic truth in any governmental forum (and the courts and congress expand the definition of "government" daily), why should you expect people to respect the opinions on those who are on the side of the oppressors.
Evolution is true? Then debate it. Present both sides and those who have to make up things or evade or mindlessly cite authority texts will look silly.
But then we would have to have a truly open society.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that evangelical Christians, by and large, are afraid of the marketplace of ideas. They are used to being the underdog in an ideological war.
Buddy, you're definitely not from Tennessee.
Where I come from, Christians want to control what you see, hear, and understand in the world.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
But the problem is that that's insane. Would you also have your science teacher say that the heliocentric theory of the solar system is "just a theory", and that there are other schools of thought, including the "epicycle" theory?
A responsible science teacher could not stand before a class and say that the evidence for "intelligent design" is anything like on a par with the evidence for evolution. If you don't realize that the evidence is at that level, then you just haven't been paying attention.
--Bruce Fields
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there exists material (movies, print, etc.) that is contradictory to your believes, then you should not ignore it or ban it, but learn all you can so that you can point out its faults (if any). Trying to sweep it under the carpet only adds credibility. These zealots should see the movies that cast doubt on their beliefs so they can have valid, credible arguments to support their own beliefs in the light of the detractor.
When any group outright bans something that is contrary to their beliefs, my credence of that thing immediately doubles. Perhaps the problem is that the religous groups are doubting their own beliefs or their faith is not strong enough to survive such a test as people watching a movie.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think there is anything in evolutionary theories that define how the first living things came to be. Evolution just describes how living things gradually develop into more complex living things. The source of the first living things on this planet could have been the primordial soup, living things brought here on comets or asteroids, 'seeding' by extraterrestrial life forms or by divine intervention. To evolution, it doesn't matter where the life come from, it just decribes what happens to the life over time.
Re:I don't know what's sadder... (Score:2, Insightful)
A good theory is a theory that is falsifiable. Evolutionary theory is so vague that there is no way to falsify it. Moreover, it is not reproducible. There have been no experiments (yet) that were able to reproduce evolution even in its simplest forms.
Especially considering the lack of intermediary forms, an "evolutionist" might argue that chagnes became very sudden. As a matter of fact, so sudden that it appears that almost some "force" caused the change to happen so suddenly that no intermediary forms have been captures by the fossil record. How is this any different from the belief in "God" who is responsible for making changes, or this "force" that is responsible for the changes?
Even the quote you gave, the only "fact" it mentions with regards to evolution is that current forms came from pre-existing forms. How is that a fact? Has it actually been proven in the lab? It was more of an assumption, with very deep roots, from which most scientist assume their work. One key attribute of a scientist is to approach his/her work without bias, and the work of the scientist is valued when it's not tailored (read: manipulated) to fit his/her theory.
If one sincerely adopts the scientific method and critically applies it to evolution, it will not hold even as a theory.
I am not saying at this point that every scientist must abandon his/her work and become religious... No, far from it, having scientific background myself, I happen to be on the side of science, not the fundamentalists. Give credit where it's due, but science also has to be scrutinized in order to be effective. I'm really surprised at how many scientists put blind faith in evolution. And scientists, from my experience, can be very intolerant of other views.
Re:Scientific Theory (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless you believe that land mammals can magically transform into whales, fossil evidence supports evolution pretty fucking well.
Secondly it is not fossil evidence alone that supports evolution. There are many, many other evidences of evolution to be found. We can trace abberations in DNA back though ancestors, aberations that can be found no where else.
If we come to try and make judgements about long-time-scale dynamic processes from point observations, we fall into the trap of blind inductionism. And that's not (good) science.
Bullshit. First that is not all that is done. Secondly this reasoning would discount all of astronomy as well.
Evolution is sufficently poorly characterised that it isn't very good at making predictions, and there aren't many new observations to test them on, so that trivial view of hypothesis doesn't work too well either.
Bullshit. Evolution makes tons of predictions. You seem to be completely ignorant on this subject.
+4, Jesus Christ this is bad forum for science.
Re:Scary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Teaching in a science classroom that some people believe in the principle of an "intelligent design" teaches children nothing -about science-. The evolutionary model of life has served us well as we've expanded our understanding of biology, zoology, and genetics. Approaching the world scientifically, that is, observing what's observable, formulating a hypothesis, and (to the extent possible) testing that hypothesis has dragged us, inch by inch, from the dark ages to the point in history where we could travel in space, split the atom, and begin to understand a wealth of new mysteries yet to be solved. Science teaches us that -all- our assumptions are subject to revision as new facts come to light. Some of the models we use to understand our world, such as Newtonian Physics, have already proven too simplistic to scale to the world as a whole: but ideas such as these are so time-proven on a practical level, in terms of understanding our world, that they are still good models for understanding how things work. (You don't need special relativity to model the motion of your car, for instance.)
Think about what the "Intelligent Design" idea really says. What purpose does it have other than to stroke the egos of those who favor this idea? It says that someone intentionally created the world. It doesn't get us any closer to understanding how, or why, or even who. There is nothing in the theory itself that makes it incompatible with the existing idea of evolution, but neither does it add anything to our understanding of the world when taken as an assumption. Really, it is a theory for a -Philosophy- class. That is the proper venue for discussing the implications of -why- the world exists, and other ideas that are, now and in the foreseeable future, far beyond the reach of observation and science.
Re:this is why I dont like these kind of people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Next up, not all religious people are Bush supporters, as you seem to imply. Frankly, I'm indifferent to politics because politicians almost always are self-serving, regardless of their party association.
Finally, invoking the name of God in vain, well, my guess (I could be wrong) is that you don't have the full understanding of what that means. Please read my blog post [blogspot.com] that touches on the name of God, and what it means to "take it in vain".
What I dislike about these sorts of all-out, unbridled attacks on religion is that everything is generalized to the point of fallacies. This very thread is based on an article written by a leftist (and therfore, anti-Bush, probably anti-religious) newspaper, the New York Times, in an attempt to slander religious people, and by associaion, the NYT's political enemy, George Bush. Because of hate-filled posts like those found in this thread, all we religious can do is defend ourselves from peanut gallery onslaughts like this one.
I choose to believe that a God has existed throughout history and still does. You don't have to believe that and I won't force my opinions on you. I just wish you would do the same and not force your hatred and your world views on me.
Re:Censored or Mindfucked? What's better? (Score:3, Insightful)
In that context, with days being eons, Genesis 1 fits quite nicely into modern cosmology and geology. I could explain further, but no time right now.
Re:I am not surprised... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Belgium was much more strongly opposed to the Iraq war than France were. It is just that nobody cares was Belgium thinks of anything.
Of course, if Belgium had been part of the "Coalision of the Willing", it would have been an all-important military partner, just like Denmark.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
In science "true" means "makes useful and accurate predictions". Perhaps that's the sticker you should slap on textbooks. Evolution is not a special case here.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Chromosomes get duplicated all the time. If this mutation ever becomes a dominate trait (by happening often enough for both parents to have the new count, and that having some advantage) you now have a change in chromosomes with a very minor change in the organism. The duplicate chromosomes can then diverge over time.
So *many* creationist arguments are of the form "well, what about *this*, explain *this*", to appeal to the uneducated for whom *this* sounds unlikely. While biology doesn't hae all the answers, it has most of them.
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly. Part of science education should be teaching basic terminology. In this case, part of the lesson would be that anyone who uses the phrase "just a theory" is almost certainly not a scientist. This illustrates one of many cases where scientists give a word a rather precise meaning, while in general speech the word is vague and fuzzy. In this case, you want to teach the students that, to a scientist, a "theory" is a hypothesis that has been thoroughly tested and is generally accepted as valid. Saying "just a theory" doesn't make sense in scientific circles, because a theory is the best-supported sort of idea of all. Something can be "just a conjecture" or "just a hypothesis", but not "just a theory".
Yeah, I remember getting this in science classes. The history of ideas should be part of the subject. It's important to teach that science changes as we learn new things. Just where epicycles should go is open to debate. It's probably best taught as an idea that was an attempt to explain the complex orbits of heavenly bodies, but which failed for several reasons. One reason was that it wasn't really testable, since no mechanism for the epicycles could be observed. Another problem was that its predictive ability wasn't good. As equipment became better, it was invariably found that the epicycle theory failed at each new level of precision. Newer and smaller cycles-on-cycles were needed, and the relative sizes of the cycles couldn't be predicted by the theory. It was complex and ad hoc, and wasn't really a proper "theory" in the scientific sense.
Then Newton came along with a radically different theory. His equations were simpler, and their predictions kept working when new, more-precise equipment became available. Eventually, a couple centuries later, people eventually found small errors in Newton's equations, most notably in the orbit of Mercury. And that's when you get to Einstein.
In any case, this is all useful as an illustration of a major difference between science and religion: Scientific theories are always open to revision or replacement. Epicycles were tossed entirely when a better theory came along. Newton's mechanics weren't actually replaced. They were found to be a simplified approximation of Einstein's mechanics, good enough for many purposes, but inaccurate in extreme conditions.
It's also common to explain to students that, although we know the earth revolves around the Sun, we still often use a coordinate system with the Earth as a fixed central object. For most purposes, this is a better approach when you're dealing with travel near the Earth's surface. To someone in an auto, boat or airplane, the Earth's rotation and orbit are unnecessary complications that can be ignored under most circumstances. So, as with the Newton/Einstein difference, we use an Earth-centric or Sun-centric coordinate system, depending on which gives the best results for our immediate purposes.
All of this is useful in getting across the idea that scientific theories are the ones that work well. Of course, that takes a bit of defining, but that should be part of the curriculum.
It's also worth pointing out that we do know of cases of "intelligent design" in living creatures. We call it "breeding", and farmers have been doing it for around 10,000 years. We can also explain how, even if we didn't know about this (for example, we were a visiting alien observer), we could rigorously show that some of the plants and animals on Earth were designed (i.e., knowingly and intentionally modified) by humans. And in doing this, we would also show why it's unlikely that Earth life as a whole had an intelligent designer. The evidence is there, and it's pretty strong.
Of course, there's always the possibilit
Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's ridiculous. The involvement of an intelligent entity affects what the outcome of change will be, but I don't see how you can say that it will affect the possibility of a change.
Unless you want to invoke some sort of spooky new-age junk - bonus points for using the word "quantum".Re:Other creation myths... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "separate floods" hypothesis is further supported by those cultures that lack flood myths. They're not by rivers. Surely they would have a flood myth if they got flooded out, no?