Talk:Main Page/Archive 38

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== Anti-Religious Dogma == Hm. Well, if you take one look at the talk topics involving religion/creationism/evolution, it's obvious that Wikipedia users have taken to openly assaulting believers in religious ideals, notably those calling for equal representation on the evolution/creation debate.

This has to stop. As much as I'd like to have such equality (as the modern, scientific society is plagued by intolerance and prejudice towards religion, I realize that it's not attainable without great strife (there's enough as it is).

However, I think that there should be serious consideration towards fighting against slander such as that presented in these talk topics. It's clear that not only will Wikipedia users refuse to accomadate these opinions (which is actually a very understandable point), they will then take pains to demean the deeply-held faith of the person who brought them up. This needs to be prevented. This qualifies as discrimination and it's plain cruelty, whether concealed thinly by sarcasm or thrown out in the open.

This HAS TO stop. why? Keep the articles any way you want, but stop this flagrant personal assault on other users and readers.

Thank you for coming back User:70.93.214.48. As I said before please make specific comments of this sort on the article's discussion page. Otherwise this request is unactionable and we can't quickly correct these biases. If a specfic user is being rude mention it at WP:AN/I or WP:VP to bring this conflict to a larger audience. We want to create a welcoming enviroment for all users. In the future, this page is really meant for the discussion of the front page not wikipedia in general. Also, when you submit comments please add "~~~~" to sign your comments. This link is Broken 01:08, 2 Jun 2005

You seem to be of the peculiar belief that creationism is equal in merit to Evolution, and thus merits equal consideration and discussion. Rest assured, this is not the case. *ALL* the evidence - geological, paleontological, chemical, and physical - supports evolution, and *none* of it supports creationism. Creationism is a myth based on faith, and evolution is a scientific, disprovable theory based on observable fact. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of christian theology; we do not report facts as fundementalist christians interpret them. We *do* report on what the scientific community believes, and every respectable scientist believes in evolution. They may quibble about the details (puncuated equilibrium, peripatric speciation, et al) but all of them accept the general idea. Or, to put it another way, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (Theodosius Dobzhansky). →Raul654 03:40, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

I, being a scientist, argue against evolution being a scientific fact. In fact, the results can only be interpreted within the frame of the original assumptions stated. For example, Carbon 12 dating is often used to date articles of antiquity assuming that its decay is constant over that particular span of time. What if the decays rates were not constant or even linear changing over time? Would that not invalidate what we feel are "factual" results. The truth of the matter is really that the results can be measured and then interpreted in the light of the assumptions used in the hypothesis. If the assumption is incorrect, the measured result may be the same, but the interpretation of what that measured result means can be completely different. On another point, evolution as you define it has yet to really expain the mechanism by which singulary important biological structures such as the human eye have come into being. rarr;rsteven

(Carbon-12, as it has been observed thousands of times in labs, appears to decay at a steady rate. To call evolution into question by saying that it might not (even though overwhelming evidence suggests it does) is illogical. The argument is also unnecessary, as this isn't a debate over evolution as a fact, but over creationism vs. evolution in comparison. Evolution is a credible, if not definite, hypothesis. Creationism is hogwash, repeatedly refuted in scientific tests. )

As noted in the article Intelligent Design there is “some complexity in nature that cannot yet be fully explained by the scientific method (for instance, abiogenesis, the generation of life from non-living matter, is only partially understood by science).” If real science only partially understands a subject such as the origins of life shouldn’t comments about that subject acknowledge that? Just as the article goes on to note “empirical scientists would simply say ‘we don't know’ ... and list what is known.” Also, when someone makes all-encompassing statements (*all* or *none*) about a subject that is partially understood watch out for statements of religious faith. When scientists who dare to challenge the current dogma are implied to be unworthy of respect watch out for religious intolerance. “There’s no evidence for any of the basic tenets of Darwinian evolution. It was a social force that took over the world in 1860, and I think it has been a disaster for science ever since.”--Chandra Wickramasinghe. Evolutionary dogma is not anti-religious it is simply another leap of faith. Like Buddhism it does not require belief in a personal god but it smacks of religious extremism. Let’s stick to what science has actually proven and admit what we have yet to learn. --200.106.67.204 22:18, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What your last sentence is describing is a mythical structure known to creationists as the 'irreducably complex' organ -- a body part that is so mechanically/electrically/chemically complicated that it could not have evolved in stages, and thus would have had to be done by a single step mutation. The human eye is the organ most commonly cited that fits this description. Unfortuntaey for creationists, this little myth was thoroughly debunked last October, when researchers at the European Molecular Biology Labratory actually found a precursor to the human eye - a collection of light-senstivie cells with rods and cones - in Platynereis dumerilii [1], thus laying to rest yet another creationist argument. →Raul654 20:02, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Whether or not it is more accurate is irrelevant. We must represent all reasonable views to be NPOV and people shouldn't assault or insult people of faith. This link is Broken 04:35, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Except that what our anonymous contributor friend here calls insults are nothing more than simple criticisms of creationism as the pseudoscientific dogma that it is. Anything less than full equal merit with evolution is "Evolutionary chauvinism". Now don't get me wrong, I'm fine with having an article on creationism, provided it "tells it like it is" -- that is, is says that Creationism is a religious doctrine, and not a real, viable, or scientific explination for how the world came to exist. And, for the record, a person who comes to the talk page(s) and demands that we rewrite our articles to conform to his particular extremist-POV is obviously flamebaiting. And, to the credit of the people writing here, I don't really see anything on this page that could be construed as a personal attack. Criticisms of someone's belief is not an attack against the person. →Raul654 05:04, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Being factually accurate overrules NPOV. Certainly, it's bad to use either as a voicebox to mouth off about one side or another. But the fact of the matter is that creationism is simply not credible in the scientific community.--Fangz 11:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is important to remember always that being NPOV is not the same thing as including every possible POV on an equal-merit basis. Does Earth give equal coverage to flat-earth views? Filiocht | Blarneyman 11:34, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

What Raul said. --mav 01:15, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is as ridiculous as the Flat Earth Society (http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/).

I'm not so sure about that; at least creationism is supported by some (though a small minority) of scientists, and that website appears to be a forum for joking around more than anything. Ask an intelligent design proponent for an explanation, and you'll get one that is logical (though based on different premises); I'm looking around and I don't see a logical defense of flat earth beliefs on the above website. --Spangineer (háblame) 20:20, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Evolution is a theory. A set of facts may be presented to support a particular assumption/theory, but that does not necessarily move the theory to fact, especially if the item in question can not be replicated. This is he root of your biasness.

If you subscribe to positivism, as that comment suggests, then you surely accept that all facts are simply well-accepted theories, and there's nothing to stop an exception appearing and forcing them to be edited. This makes evolution no different from the belief that objects fall downwards and that the sun is up during the day. It's a theory, but it's the best theory. Sockatume 16:57, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not to be pandantic, but the sun being up during the day is a fact. However, that the sun comes up everyday, on the other hand, is a theory. Theorys predict, facts just ARE. That said, I see what you're saying, and generly agree. I'm too lazy to sign in, so just look for user True Vox

I don't believe in god but I'm not against religion either. I think religion has its value when it is used to promote goodness, but not when people become too fanatical about it. Now that genetic engineering is becoming a reality, I wonder when religion will be replaced by something else. As in evolution, everything evolves over time in order to survive and be relevant, I think the same thing may happen to religion too. When the tools become available to create or to customize new life or to extend life, what sort of morals will we have? Will religion become obsolete and get in the way of humankind's desires? Or will we become even more religious? [lackofsignature]

Greet to everyone, and sorry form my bare English. I read the debate over, and i would express my humble opinion. I think that the scientific evidence must prevail over religious or other thoughts, but we also must report the other points of wiev (with proper explanations). In an encyclopedia we should report any true information, but also the false information if they have a storically or social importance (e.g an urban legend or a famous fake). But we must define that type of information as without foundation. Olpus

Evolution and Judeo-Christian beliefs cannot fit together. One must cut out chunks of scripture and redefine the nature of God and sin to effectively match the two. With that, one must also stop believing in the inerrancy of scripture and subject it to the pressures of cultural change. So in the end, one only has but evolution and remnants of a few miraculous stories. Christians believe because of faith, not science. It is foolish to try to undermine their beliefs with science. Historically, persecution and discrimination have only served to make Christians stronger. Also historically speaking, Judeo-Christian beliefs always out-live the pressures of secularism and paganism. Hence the phrase coined by Nero himself, "Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat." And finally, in looking at the nature of religion, I quote C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory, "No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'" So, good luck undermining over 6 thousand years of recorded history with a hundred or so years of science. Marxism is your only hope. Credo

6000 years of 'history', where much of it is recorded in an apparently infallible book thats been revised more times that the average Wikipedia Featured Article.

I'm using a computer here that was developed in under 50 years of science. Whereas for most of the '6000 years' creationists keep pushing, most of the world lived in mud huts, were in the dark all night and running away scared from large animals..... I know which one I want to support anyway.

You need to get out more. Most of the world still lives in mud huts, unless they are crammed into slums that make mud huts look inviting. If you think that there is universal access to electrical utilites you need to come back to this planet. On the other hand the implication that Jews were poor, backwards people due to their cultural writings is offensive.

There is no proof to back up creationism other than one heavily edited book, and a lot of lies. There is plenty of proof to back up evolution. And thats the way its going to stay. --Kiand 22:01, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I cannot believe that the debate between creationism and evolution still continues. I am very much a Christian but I also respect science; I belive that science is our method of investigating god's handiwork. The thing you have to realize about creationism is that the bible is not meant to be taken literally. I mean, there are many scriptures that say people would rise up in to heaven, but we know that in fact, there is no "up" and "down". To go up would be to go into space. It would say that one man's heaven could be another man's hell quite literally. The bible was translated so that common people could understand it and apply it to their lives. Our society is far more educated than the commoners of that time and we should be able to look for the metaphors in the bible, rather than cling to what we know for certain to be a fable.

Even if you do want to hold the whole thing to nearly perfect interpretation, the bible says that one day to god is a thousand man years. We have evidence of rapid-evolution that shows there is a chance man really did evolve from a significantly lower species than himself very quickly. That species could easy have come from the mud. On top of that, we know cells can go through a process of mitosis, which would allow a metaphor to show that along the way god really did make eve out of Adam. It is all in how you look at things. The bible most likely isn't a perfect illustration of what happened, if god is omniscient, think of it as the first time you taught math to a child. You can't instantly go into multi-variable calculus. It just wouldn't make sense. You tell the child what they can comprehend until they are ready to handle the next stage.

All in all, whether you believe in creationism or evolution, they aren't really all that conflicting. Evolution isn't a replacement for creationism, its our insight into how amazingly well planned out god made everything. It took time and skill beyond our wildest dreams. Personally, I think the literal view of creationism undercuts god, dipicting him as a kid playing with play dough while evolution shows his masterful sculpting of life.--RDev 00:21, 13 Jun 2005 (MST)