Actually, I’d say it shows the readers didn’t pay attention in epistemology, and haven’t realised how utterly barren and self-defeating a solipsist position is.
Personally, I actually agree with both. As Obi-wan told Luke in Return of the Jedi, “The truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” Right or wrong, however, I figure we’ll all find out for sure one way or the other when we each kick the bucket. In the meantime, I’ll worry more about paying my bills.
Some people believe that Apollo drags the sun across the sky in a golden chariot. Other people believe that the Earth orbits the sun at a distance of approximately 93 million miles. Me? I believe there’s ROOM FOR DISCUSSION.
God created the world at 11:37:22 am, Sept 15, 2011.
As a measure of his Omnipotence, he did it so well that nobody noticed the transition between the pre-created memories of past events and current existence.
it could be true. But since there are no possible tests that could disprove it (non-falsifiable), it’s not science.
God created the universe at 2:14:33 P.M (GMT) next Tuesday
As a measure of his omnipotence, no one is able to notice that what we don’t exist yet.
OR
God destroyed the world at 3:14:06 A.M (GMT) October, 8th, 1743 and as a measure of his omnipotence, nobody noticed the transition between past existence and the post-created memories of current events
I’m pretty sure it’s one of these 2 things, but I can’t be certain untill I do more tests
Gee, most people have no idea what I’m talking about when I use the ‘Not Created Yet’ example.
I’ll grant the possibility of the Post Destruction Simulation, but it lacks a certain logic that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Being honest about being a jerk who refuses to attempt to look at things from someone else’s perspective does not make you less of a jerk. Just a lazy jerk.
Really it just makes you exactly the same as the die-hard theists. No difference at all, its all just belief that you are right and screw that other dude man. But its so much fun (and so easy) to make fun of religious people, hooo boy! “Don’t we just feel smart that we aren’t THOSE clowns?” And that is exactly what they say about you. The whole affair I find pretty damn funny.
Until you honestly accept the possibility that they could be right and you wrong ( no matter WHAT you or they believe) and are really content with that, then you are wrong by default. You can move through life without concrete universal beliefs about everything, I promise.
Yes, I am a jerk. I refuse to respect people who base their choices and opinions on unscientific make-believe.
Of course someone who bases their choices absolutely on unscientific belief I will disrespect absolutely taking every chance to point out the error of their ways as long as I do not put myself in significant physical or social danger, based on the above logic.
There simply isn’t much place in the world for delusional fanatics. Such individuals are too dangerous and as such we have to rehabilitate them.
Actually I’d really like to apologize. My reply was very over the top compared to what you said. I was out of line and was far more of a jerk then you were being, sorry there mate. Also in like of recent Santorum caucus victory’s, you make an excellent point. The fear of possible theocracy is sort of outweigh social politeness at this point.
Most of the people I know fall in the green category, including myself. I’m inclined to think that it’s a much larger slice than most people perceive it to be, but because the other two groups are so very loud, it’s hard to get an accurate count.
Creationism and evolution aren’t incompatible with each other. Church teaching (the Catholic Church anyway) doesn’t have a problem with evolution in general, just the “humans evolved from apes” part.
God probably used (and still uses) evolution to create (and renew) the universe, and probably used a big bang to set it in motion. It’s okay. I don’t look to the church to explain how atoms and molecules work and I don’t look to science to save my immortal soul.
People really gotta stop drawing battle lines before they understand what they’re talking about.
I’m pretty much with you on this one.
Only that humans did not exactly evolve from apes, but apes and humans both evolved from the same origin.
I am open to other people’s believes. At least so far that I’m going to listen to them and see for myself if their version holds up. So far I haven’t seen proof for Creationism that held longer than for five minutes of easy research. While there is definite proof that races can be altered over time (just ask your average farmer, dog breeder, etcetera). I don’t really get people claiming that evolution proves that there is no god though. What proof do they have that there isn’t some kind of guiding hand behind it all? None, if you look closely.
I worded that one badly: With ‘Creationism’ in my comment there, I was mostly refering to the group of people saying that the world was created word by word as written in the bible (little problem here: There are two versions in the bible with slight differences), is only a few thousand years old and that all goes by Intelligent Design. Truth be told, it is what most people calling themselves Creationists around here (Switzerland) are like.
Any modern day theologian? Maybe all the modern theologians (and Hebrew Lit historians) I’ve met don’t exist, but a lot of people believe that Genesis is definitely not allegorical, since historically that particular writing style falls with Hebrew History writing, not Hebrew Lit. That doesn’t make them necessarily ignorant or closed minded, does it? I hope not.
Oh, oh, do one on politics next! Dems Reps and people who want them all to shut up! (If you thought this conversation was long I bet you could get a whole mob on that one!)
As a psychologist, I do believe that this survey question will produce a biased result. As an example, the vast majority of people do not want to perceive themselves as being close-minded. I know many die-hard evolutionists and creationists who believe that there is “room for discussion”. However, mostly these “discussions” are very one-sided debates involving a lot of anger and passion for one side or the other. Since the implications of both theories are mutually exclusive, the idea that someone could legitimately believe that there is “room for discussion” likely means that person is likely biased one way or the other but would like to feel superior because they are willing to listen and try to understand the other side’s theories.
Anyway, there is always a chance that everyone on this particular set of comics actually is owning up to what they believe, but the better chance is that people are creating better images for themselves by lying – consciously or unconsciously.
You make a good point, but the real problem is that the pie chart only shows 3 incredibly vauge sides…
My “personal” beliefs lean strongly towards evolution, but the details cause it to fall into a weird side of the fence that doesn’t exist (not ON the fence, it’s more like perdendicular to opposite side of the 3rd fencepost from the left)
That’s part of why I fall under all 3 categories at once, the side that I take isn’t shown on the chart because it’s too specific to warrant it’s own category
I stoped listening to the debates about this issue, mostly because the ones who join the debates tend to only see 2 sides. There are at least 5 (6 if you want to get technical) each of which can be subdivided into several more categories (and so on)
So you can’t really analyze this because a majority of the views out there fall under a separate side (and most under one of those sides would default to “room for discussion”)
Sure – there are plenty of options that the cartoon does not discuss and most people tend to view the debate as being two-sided instead of seeing the multifaceted reality of the issue. However, I do believe that the cartoon’s point is still valid – with all respect to you, there are very few people who (slight variations accepted) chose to believe in the third party. Of course, that’s a fact, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with other opinions. In fact, historical trends show that the opinion of the majority tends to be wrong…
You are awesome paradox, but my fence exists in 5 dimensions at once, and is perpendicular to itself in three of these.
Rationalize that internets.
Please.
I believe God created the world, let it evolve, then introduced man to get down to the important stuff. He then gave us the brains to figure it out, and hinted at the whole history of it all at the same time.
I’m firmly in the red group. I have no difficulty believing in a God who is powerful enough to speak and have things simply come to exist because He said they should, nor in a God who is capable of ensuring that the message He desired the Bible to deliver to us has been maintained safely. It’d be a pretty small god who wasn’t, to me.
Science is a valuable tool for telling us how the world works. But we need to remember that science is merely human observation, confined within the same natural boundaries that humans are confined within. It sees what humans see and thinks what humans think. The supernatural by definition is beyond the boundaries of science, which observes only the natural. Which is why the supernatural falls more in the realm of faith than science. However, being unable to measure something is not the same as being able to safely ignore it as a factor. Before medicine could see germs, they were still affecting us dramatically, and many a wrong conclusion was drawn from otherwise valid logic because we didn’t know to factor in the role that germs played. While science cannot measure God, if it leaves Him out of its equations it may never reach the right conclusions. Human beings are very talented at creating perfectly logical self-deceptions from flawed premises.
An atheist may consider God a non-existent factor in science and history. Whether he is correct or not about his atheism determines whether his conclusions are inherently flawed. Someone who believes in the existence of deity has at the least introduced an additional factor into his equations. How large or small a factor depends on how involved the supernatural is. How known or unknown the factor depends on what, if anything, he accepts as authoritative regarding the activities of the supernatural and how much that source tells. For me, I accept the Bible as authoritative. When it tells me that an evening and a morning comprised the first day of creation, and thus and thus were done that day, using Hebrew terminology consistent with the Jewish rendering of 24-hour days, I accept that as literal and authoritative.
There are intelligent people who disagree with me, and intelligent people who agree with me. I can have a polite discussion with the former as long as they’re not the sort that believes unshakeably that anyone who disagrees with them has the intelligence of a wet log. Anyone who believes that all intelligent people agree with them is pretty much useless to debate, because agreement with their position becomes their sole arbiter of intelligence.
I’m going for a Neil Gaiman-ish option. There’s a God, but humans cannot see him as mortals. Heck we cannot se Heaven or Hell as mortals because as mortals we would probably never handle seeing anything celestial by nature.
I hold with Tim Minchin, who looked at the statistics from a recent survey and said 48-52% of people believe in the literal Genesis story. Another forty percent or so believe in evolution, but believe that god created it, and is tending to it currently. Which leaves a small number, just ten percent or so, who’re right.
A problem with calling any explanation of origins scientific is there are multiple meanings of ‘science’. There is operational science, forensic science, sociological science, psychological science and so on. Only one of these really ‘proves’ anything – and that’s operational science. The rest are carefully structured ways to gain knowledge – but they never *prove* anything. The best they can do is deal in probabilities or generalities. I can prove that being submerged under water will drown and thus kill someone. I cannot prove that someone met their death by drowning. Such is the fodder for many a crime show nowadays.
The decision between evolution or creation or the flying spaghetti monster is, at best, in the realm of forensic science. We can form a theory or model, and see how the evidence fits that model, and choose a best fit – but we still haven’t *proved* any of them. As “Nebulous” brought forth: All of the models are non-falsifiable. At each supposed death-knell of any model, the proponents of each say “Let me think on that for awhile”, and they modify their model to fit.
There are five broad categories for how it all came to be – and each is equally a statement of faith. Whether you say
1) No god ever (atheistic evolution),
2) a god created the raw materials, gave it a kick and then left (deistic evolution),
3) the god of (2) stuck around to stack the dice when needed (theistic evolution),
4) a god created everything over a time scale that happens to match (1&2) Macro evolution did not play a part. (progressive creation)
5) a god created everything pretty much as we see it some short time ago (special creation – the Bible literalists fall here).
Well – maybe they’re not equally statements of faith – those in 3 and 4 seem to be mostly trying to just compromise…
And as mentioned by others: its nigh impossible to have a reasoned discussion about it…
I exist in all 3 groups at once…
That’s not a joke on my username, I really believe that the universe is too complicated to have just one answer to things
you sir are clearly intelligent…i’m sorry but the internets has no room for you. take your brain and go back to where you came! lol
i agree with you though lol…uhoh internet guards!
D’accord with Paradox.
I third what Paradox said!
I’m green, and know many other greens.
“Believes it is possible to disagree with someone without regarding them with contempt.”
So many people seem to think that anyone who disagrees with them is either a moron, being offensive, or is a threat. It ain’t necessarily so.
Clearly this proves that your readers are on average vastly more enlightened than the rest of the population. Right, Crow?
Absabolutely!
Actually, I’d say it shows the readers didn’t pay attention in epistemology, and haven’t realised how utterly barren and self-defeating a solipsist position is.
Personally, I actually agree with both. As Obi-wan told Luke in Return of the Jedi, “The truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” Right or wrong, however, I figure we’ll all find out for sure one way or the other when we each kick the bucket. In the meantime, I’ll worry more about paying my bills.
I’ve said that same thing to several people before (the thing about how we’ll know who’s right once we’re dead)
As to your starwars quote I present this:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fv01386.htm
I believe in both. So I guess I’m green with a lot of purple.
Some people believe that Apollo drags the sun across the sky in a golden chariot. Other people believe that the Earth orbits the sun at a distance of approximately 93 million miles. Me? I believe there’s ROOM FOR DISCUSSION.
God created the world at 11:37:22 am, Sept 15, 2011.
As a measure of his Omnipotence, he did it so well that nobody noticed the transition between the pre-created memories of past events and current existence.
it could be true. But since there are no possible tests that could disprove it (non-falsifiable), it’s not science.
Interesting theory, but I must disagree.
God created the universe at 2:14:33 P.M (GMT) next Tuesday
As a measure of his omnipotence, no one is able to notice that what we don’t exist yet.
OR
God destroyed the world at 3:14:06 A.M (GMT) October, 8th, 1743 and as a measure of his omnipotence, nobody noticed the transition between past existence and the post-created memories of current events
I’m pretty sure it’s one of these 2 things, but I can’t be certain untill I do more tests
Gee, most people have no idea what I’m talking about when I use the ‘Not Created Yet’ example.
I’ll grant the possibility of the Post Destruction Simulation, but it lacks a certain logic that I can’t quite put my finger on.
I believe in evolution!!!!! I’m blue.
I believe in evolution and I have no patience whatsoever with creationists, but hey, at least I’m honest about it.
Being honest about being a jerk who refuses to attempt to look at things from someone else’s perspective does not make you less of a jerk. Just a lazy jerk.
Really it just makes you exactly the same as the die-hard theists. No difference at all, its all just belief that you are right and screw that other dude man. But its so much fun (and so easy) to make fun of religious people, hooo boy! “Don’t we just feel smart that we aren’t THOSE clowns?” And that is exactly what they say about you. The whole affair I find pretty damn funny.
Until you honestly accept the possibility that they could be right and you wrong ( no matter WHAT you or they believe) and are really content with that, then you are wrong by default. You can move through life without concrete universal beliefs about everything, I promise.
Yes, I am a jerk. I refuse to respect people who base their choices and opinions on unscientific make-believe.
Of course someone who bases their choices absolutely on unscientific belief I will disrespect absolutely taking every chance to point out the error of their ways as long as I do not put myself in significant physical or social danger, based on the above logic.
There simply isn’t much place in the world for delusional fanatics. Such individuals are too dangerous and as such we have to rehabilitate them.
Actually I’d really like to apologize. My reply was very over the top compared to what you said. I was out of line and was far more of a jerk then you were being, sorry there mate. Also in like of recent Santorum caucus victory’s, you make an excellent point. The fear of possible theocracy is sort of outweigh social politeness at this point.
Kudos Zephi! That’s the sort of thing I’m pleased to read.
And I’m often a bit too blunt. Anyway, I’m happy that we came to some sort of agreement.
Most of the people I know fall in the green category, including myself. I’m inclined to think that it’s a much larger slice than most people perceive it to be, but because the other two groups are so very loud, it’s hard to get an accurate count.
Creationism and evolution aren’t incompatible with each other. Church teaching (the Catholic Church anyway) doesn’t have a problem with evolution in general, just the “humans evolved from apes” part.
God probably used (and still uses) evolution to create (and renew) the universe, and probably used a big bang to set it in motion. It’s okay. I don’t look to the church to explain how atoms and molecules work and I don’t look to science to save my immortal soul.
People really gotta stop drawing battle lines before they understand what they’re talking about.
I’m pretty much with you on this one.
Only that humans did not exactly evolve from apes, but apes and humans both evolved from the same origin.
I am open to other people’s believes. At least so far that I’m going to listen to them and see for myself if their version holds up. So far I haven’t seen proof for Creationism that held longer than for five minutes of easy research. While there is definite proof that races can be altered over time (just ask your average farmer, dog breeder, etcetera). I don’t really get people claiming that evolution proves that there is no god though. What proof do they have that there isn’t some kind of guiding hand behind it all? None, if you look closely.
I worded that one badly: With ‘Creationism’ in my comment there, I was mostly refering to the group of people saying that the world was created word by word as written in the bible (little problem here: There are two versions in the bible with slight differences), is only a few thousand years old and that all goes by Intelligent Design. Truth be told, it is what most people calling themselves Creationists around here (Switzerland) are like.
Ah, yeah. Any modern-day theologian (or your local bishop or a quick look-up in the Catechism) will tell you that Genesis is an allegorical book.
I guess my main point is that science should neither threaten nor dictate our beliefs. Fact and Truth are two different things.
Any modern day theologian? Maybe all the modern theologians (and Hebrew Lit historians) I’ve met don’t exist, but a lot of people believe that Genesis is definitely not allegorical, since historically that particular writing style falls with Hebrew History writing, not Hebrew Lit. That doesn’t make them necessarily ignorant or closed minded, does it? I hope not.
Oh, oh, do one on politics next! Dems Reps and people who want them all to shut up! (If you thought this conversation was long I bet you could get a whole mob on that one!)
As a psychologist, I do believe that this survey question will produce a biased result. As an example, the vast majority of people do not want to perceive themselves as being close-minded. I know many die-hard evolutionists and creationists who believe that there is “room for discussion”. However, mostly these “discussions” are very one-sided debates involving a lot of anger and passion for one side or the other. Since the implications of both theories are mutually exclusive, the idea that someone could legitimately believe that there is “room for discussion” likely means that person is likely biased one way or the other but would like to feel superior because they are willing to listen and try to understand the other side’s theories.
Anyway, there is always a chance that everyone on this particular set of comics actually is owning up to what they believe, but the better chance is that people are creating better images for themselves by lying – consciously or unconsciously.
You make a good point, but the real problem is that the pie chart only shows 3 incredibly vauge sides…
My “personal” beliefs lean strongly towards evolution, but the details cause it to fall into a weird side of the fence that doesn’t exist (not ON the fence, it’s more like perdendicular to opposite side of the 3rd fencepost from the left)
That’s part of why I fall under all 3 categories at once, the side that I take isn’t shown on the chart because it’s too specific to warrant it’s own category
I stoped listening to the debates about this issue, mostly because the ones who join the debates tend to only see 2 sides. There are at least 5 (6 if you want to get technical) each of which can be subdivided into several more categories (and so on)
So you can’t really analyze this because a majority of the views out there fall under a separate side (and most under one of those sides would default to “room for discussion”)
Sure – there are plenty of options that the cartoon does not discuss and most people tend to view the debate as being two-sided instead of seeing the multifaceted reality of the issue. However, I do believe that the cartoon’s point is still valid – with all respect to you, there are very few people who (slight variations accepted) chose to believe in the third party. Of course, that’s a fact, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with other opinions. In fact, historical trends show that the opinion of the majority tends to be wrong…
You are awesome paradox, but my fence exists in 5 dimensions at once, and is perpendicular to itself in three of these.
Rationalize that internets.
Please.
I believe in our Lord the great and mighty Flying Spaghetti Monster and that he did create our universe after a mega awesome night of heavy drinking.
Ramen!
May His Noodlely Appendage fondle us all!
I believe God created the world, let it evolve, then introduced man to get down to the important stuff. He then gave us the brains to figure it out, and hinted at the whole history of it all at the same time.
I’m firmly in the red group. I have no difficulty believing in a God who is powerful enough to speak and have things simply come to exist because He said they should, nor in a God who is capable of ensuring that the message He desired the Bible to deliver to us has been maintained safely. It’d be a pretty small god who wasn’t, to me.
Science is a valuable tool for telling us how the world works. But we need to remember that science is merely human observation, confined within the same natural boundaries that humans are confined within. It sees what humans see and thinks what humans think. The supernatural by definition is beyond the boundaries of science, which observes only the natural. Which is why the supernatural falls more in the realm of faith than science. However, being unable to measure something is not the same as being able to safely ignore it as a factor. Before medicine could see germs, they were still affecting us dramatically, and many a wrong conclusion was drawn from otherwise valid logic because we didn’t know to factor in the role that germs played. While science cannot measure God, if it leaves Him out of its equations it may never reach the right conclusions. Human beings are very talented at creating perfectly logical self-deceptions from flawed premises.
An atheist may consider God a non-existent factor in science and history. Whether he is correct or not about his atheism determines whether his conclusions are inherently flawed. Someone who believes in the existence of deity has at the least introduced an additional factor into his equations. How large or small a factor depends on how involved the supernatural is. How known or unknown the factor depends on what, if anything, he accepts as authoritative regarding the activities of the supernatural and how much that source tells. For me, I accept the Bible as authoritative. When it tells me that an evening and a morning comprised the first day of creation, and thus and thus were done that day, using Hebrew terminology consistent with the Jewish rendering of 24-hour days, I accept that as literal and authoritative.
There are intelligent people who disagree with me, and intelligent people who agree with me. I can have a polite discussion with the former as long as they’re not the sort that believes unshakeably that anyone who disagrees with them has the intelligence of a wet log. Anyone who believes that all intelligent people agree with them is pretty much useless to debate, because agreement with their position becomes their sole arbiter of intelligence.
I’m going for a Neil Gaiman-ish option. There’s a God, but humans cannot see him as mortals. Heck we cannot se Heaven or Hell as mortals because as mortals we would probably never handle seeing anything celestial by nature.
I hold with Tim Minchin, who looked at the statistics from a recent survey and said 48-52% of people believe in the literal Genesis story. Another forty percent or so believe in evolution, but believe that god created it, and is tending to it currently. Which leaves a small number, just ten percent or so, who’re right.
I don’t even bother trying to think about it…
A problem with calling any explanation of origins scientific is there are multiple meanings of ‘science’. There is operational science, forensic science, sociological science, psychological science and so on. Only one of these really ‘proves’ anything – and that’s operational science. The rest are carefully structured ways to gain knowledge – but they never *prove* anything. The best they can do is deal in probabilities or generalities. I can prove that being submerged under water will drown and thus kill someone. I cannot prove that someone met their death by drowning. Such is the fodder for many a crime show nowadays.
The decision between evolution or creation or the flying spaghetti monster is, at best, in the realm of forensic science. We can form a theory or model, and see how the evidence fits that model, and choose a best fit – but we still haven’t *proved* any of them. As “Nebulous” brought forth: All of the models are non-falsifiable. At each supposed death-knell of any model, the proponents of each say “Let me think on that for awhile”, and they modify their model to fit.
There are five broad categories for how it all came to be – and each is equally a statement of faith. Whether you say
1) No god ever (atheistic evolution),
2) a god created the raw materials, gave it a kick and then left (deistic evolution),
3) the god of (2) stuck around to stack the dice when needed (theistic evolution),
4) a god created everything over a time scale that happens to match (1&2) Macro evolution did not play a part. (progressive creation)
5) a god created everything pretty much as we see it some short time ago (special creation – the Bible literalists fall here).
Well – maybe they’re not equally statements of faith – those in 3 and 4 seem to be mostly trying to just compromise…
And as mentioned by others: its nigh impossible to have a reasoned discussion about it…
Dave.
Red. Blues will die for all eternity.
“Thanks Sarge, for that wonderful motivational speech.”