Texas Creationist Museum Facing Extinction 824
gattaca writes "A small Texas museum that teaches creationism is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction. The founder and curator of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, which rejects evolution and claims that man and dinosaurs coexisted, said it will close unless the Volkswagen-sized skull finds a generous bidder. 'If it sells, well, then we can come another day,' Joe Taylor said. 'This is very important to our continuing.'" Meanwhile, the much larger Creation Museum in Kentucky that we discussed and toured when it opened last year seems to be thriving.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't even begin to count the billions of hours wasted by Christians in living life in ways completely counter to what our God teaches us. Look at the battle over the 10 Commandments, laws of the Israelites' God that have been countermanded by Christ's teaching to a much more simpler set of rules (completely love God first, completely love others second). And yet, when we dig deeper into the "Why" of modern Christian thought, we come up against the same problem that I see in those who are pro-government: we need "leaders" and we need "rules" and we need "penalties" to keep us in line.
What has happened to the powerful individual in today's society? Evolution versus creationism is a debate that strikes at the heart of my question: why is it that we need "teacher-leaders" to stick to a specific standard, rather than what the individual kid in a unique place in their specific city/society needs to be taught? I can't even understand why science is taught to ALL children, along with higher level maths, when the kids today can barely count, let alone read or speak properly. I had a 20-something in my town use a calculator at a checkout line 2 weeks ago when I gave her $21.01 for a $6.06 charge. Unbelievable.
Creationism and evolution are both articles of faith, and really have no purpose for MOST students. Then again, I truly believe that even High School is worthless for 70% of society considering what it is churning out.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Illogical, insane, and institutionalized... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do understand the religious issues that fuel these kinds of organizations. But it has always seemed to me that since "truth" is central to any religious belief, that an attempt to derail truth through ignorance or outright deception was a horrible "sin".
With the way organizations like this adhere to biblical writing, one might be able to accuse them of having a book as "god" rather than the apparently supernatural "God of the Gaps" most people seem to engage in their spirituality.
The inerrancy of God seems plausible to me. The in inerrancy of a book seems like sheer insanity.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Insightful)
What a non-scientist calls a "theory", a scientist calls a hypothesis, and isn't remotely worth of theory status.
1) Evolution is a scientific theory. To achieve theory status in science, you typically have to test something rigorously and show it to hold up well. The theory of evolution has mathematical/statistical models defining it, explains evidence found on earth very well, and can be tested.
2) A law is achieved by one of two methods: a theory that is not disproved (or even seriously challenged) for a ridiculously long time can achieve "law" status in the books. Alternatively if it can be rigorously proven that no other explanation is possible, the process might be sped up a bit.
3) Creationalism, as the ministers at the church I went to when I was younger suggested, DOES NOT conflict with evolution. The former is the who and why, the latter is the how.
May I ask how your pastor described a theory and went over it?
Also, may I ask how creationalism can be mathematically and statistically defined, as well as tested? For all I've seen in this argument, I've yet to see a good mathematical or statistical model for creationalism, or an accurate test.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
You start off sounding like a very reasonable person, and then end with that.
You have faith in something you cannot prove. Like the existence of a god.
There is tons of evidence for evolution and none against it so no "faith" is required. Or is gravity an article of faith too, because you never know, one day something might fall upwards?!
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution makes predictions that are accurate enough to be useful, regardless of whether is it aboslutely true or not. (For the record: It's as true as anything we've ever come up with.)
Creationism makes no predictions. In fact, it prevents them: Why did this happen? God did it. Will it happen again? If God wants it to. Will it stop? If God gets bored. Can we influence it? If God decides to be influenced, yes. In the end, 'God' is unknowable and unexplainable, so by saying God did it we have stopped all thought, inquiry, or prediction on the topic.
Which is probably why it is attractive to some people: They don't want to think.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Sexuality. Other religions.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:1, Insightful)
I have to chime in on this. These same points would also seem to apply to evolution.
specifically:
verifiable - Design and evolution are 2 conclusions both reached from varying interpretations
repeatable - You can't evolve man in a lab either.
falsifiable - based on number 2 it will always be a matter of probability whether man evolved.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:2, Insightful)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theory [reference.com]
Evolution would be under definition #1, whereas creationism comes under definition #7.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
Logic?
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:2, Insightful)
You may ask me many questions here or via email, but please note that my views come from actually studying the Bible and Christian/Jewish history. My views were not taught to me by fallible men ("pastors") but by actually reading, pondering, and debating the beliefs out there. While I am a Christian, I am considered a heretic by some, and have been actively excommunicated from some Christian communities.
How do you deal with the problem of original sin? I see the problem as thus: If evolution is true, there was no literal Adam. If there was no Adam, there was no "fall". If there was no fall, what do we require Jesus to "save" us from?
I don't believe in Adam as an actual "first figure." Neither do many Jews or Jewish scholars. Genesis was written (probably by Moses, as handed down by God to him) thousands of years ago. Not many Jews believe that Genesis is "canonical fact" but instead a way for God to explain His desires to the ancient Israelites.
My views on the story of Adam was to explain to the ancient Israelites that man was fallen from God's high standards from the beginning of man's knowledge of himself. It is very possible to weave evolutionary growth (say, from apes if that's your thing) with the story of Adam. Since all men, once they are self-aware, did not meet God's standards for them, they were sinful.
I do not believe Jesus exists to save US from anything. You as a non-believer should have no fear of anything in your future, because the actions of Jesus are in the very VERY far past. There is no judgment for you, there is no "Hell" or wrath of God facing you for eternity. God loves you, because of what Jesus did, whether you believe it or not. I don't believe you need to ask for anything, because the Bible clearly shows me that everyone is forgiven of falling short of God's standards, because of what Jesus did on His first coming (birth, life, death on the cross, resurrection), and what He finished on his second coming (70 AD, the day the ancient Israelites were destroyed and banished forever, never to return). That's done, it's over with. Live in God's glorious Kingdom today (here on Earth) if you like. If you don't like, don't. It's up to you, really, but please don't fear eternal punishment because it isn't in the Bible.
I (as an ex-Christian) deal with this by saying Christianity is not real. I had a long talk with my father (a conservative evangelical minister) over Christmas, and he feels that evolution would completely undermine his faith so he deals with it by saying evolution is not real.
Sadly, the Evangelicals tend to believe in a lot of the Christian false teachings. They haven't read, studied and understood the Bible, it seems. The idea of Hell doesn't exist in the Bible if you actively READ it, and decipher who it was written to and what it spoke about. In fact, much of the Bible today is irrelevant to living today, it is just a great story of God and Man's progression together to where we are today, with a VERY SMALL bit on how we can live to maximize our mortal lives.
I am quite curious how you feel about this issue. I rewrote this post about 4 times but couldn't find words that I was confident implied I'm not looking for a fight, so I'm resorting to this disclaimer. You'll get nothing but polite and (hopefully) well-thought out responses from me. I look forward to your answer!
It's OK, it's a very difficult set of thoughts to write down because there is so much fear of anger and tragic judgment that usually comes from Christians.
Note to Evangelicals: Yes, I know you disagree with me, that's OK. I'm safe in my views, and I have Biblical proof for all of it.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:4, Insightful)
To start with: I'm not a Christian, but I find some theological topics like this interesting.
To me, it would make sense to say that the fall is as literal as Adam. The fall comes hand in hand with free will; if free will appeared as a gradual process through evolution, then so too was the fall a gradual process.
This makes sense from other perspectives as well -- we treat young children as innocent, even if their actions by an informed party would be wrong. As they grow older, they become more responsible for their actions, and so (if you're the type who believes in "sin") more capable of sin. It's not an instant process; we'll be more lenient with a 10-year-old than a 20-year-old, but we still expect them to understand right and wrong for the most part. If you're willing to take other parts of the Bible as metaphorical, I see no contradiction in taking the fall and original sin and the Eden story as allegorical for slow processes that came with the evolution of free will.
Easy answer - they're both wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Creationism is a silly extension beyond what the Bible says. You don't believe it, fine, you're "anti-God", a "moron", and "just plain wrong".
Every single Bible says God created the heavens, the earth, every and every thing else (have fun proving/disproving that this is actually what happened), but nowhere does it indicate what time table is to be used, just "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Period. It may have been one minute or 70 quadrillion eons before the next sentence.
Both camps are exercises in futility, extremism, and name-calling.
Creationism silly, science disappointing (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, what I cannot understand is why you would want to invoke a much more ridiculous hypothesis like creationism. It's not even a hypothesis. It's not science. It's not falsifiable. Ok, so it's certain and unchanging. I can understand that. But there's no objective evidence for it. Or at least, the evidence there is does not point in the direction of creation than any other alternative, so choosing creationism is arbitrary. So, when it comes down to it, many people probably choose creationism for two reasons: (1) tradition, and (2) because the scientists leave them feeling like a chump who trusted them, just to be betrayed when the scientist changed his mind (while being completely apologetic about having been wrong).
See, scientists are role models. Yes, I realize that they're just presenting the hypothesis that best fits the evidence (sometimes; sometimes they have personal or political agendas), but they need to be damn careful about how they present their theory and explain better their uncertainties and alternative explanations.
Oh, and the scientists who try to use evolution to disprove God are just as screwed up as the creationists who try to use God to prove evolution. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
the biologist, all views are open for debate and can be overturned
at any time. All it takes is for a "better idea" to come along.
You are attempting to conflate "faith" with "trust".
Faith is based on wishful thinking where as trust is based on experience.
Clinging to your religious view in the face of the current scientific
consensus is the perfect example of this distinction.
Creationism simply isn't that "better idea". Infact, it is what Evolution
REPLACED when it originally came along as the "better idea". It's history.
It belongs alongside the idea that you grow mice by combining scraps of
clothing and grains of wheat.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
What possible prediction can anyone make from Creationism?
Evolution predicts that since all living things on the planet share DNA, then medical research using animals should produce useful medical procedures for humans.
When you cut someone open, it's not full of clay.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
The definition of literacy has dropped in scope, so today's "literacy" is merely a function of using phonics to read versus being able to comprehend what one has read, and being able to dictate an understanding of what they've read.
Ask any English teacher over the age of 50 what they think of today's literacy rates. They'll generally tell you that kids today are idiots, and most can't comprehend Shakespeare let alone the newspaper.
Perhaps youshould learn what Theory means? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is real, it makes predictions, is falsifiable.
There are warehouses of evidence.
Plus, your pasture should probably actually study the history of the Bible. It becomes very obvious, even at a cursory glance, that Genesis isn't a literal book; Which would explain why Genesis I and II contridict each other about creation.
Gravity is also a Scientific Theory.
Evolution isn't an attack on religion, it's just another piece of evidence that the Genesis creation stories are a fable. Also, getting hung up on the creation stories MISSES THE POINT.
I suggest you read your Bible, cover to cover. Take some notes.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
My take on it? Creationism per se is bunk, and evolution is the best theory I've seen to explein how God went about growing this wonderous universe.
Yes, I know it's heresy to admit being a Christian [kuro5hin.org] at slashdot, where athiesm is the site relgion and its proponents will stone with mod points anyone who dares believe that God exists, so mod me down. Arguing the existance of God with an athiest is like arguing the existance of red with a blind man.
You're an athiest because God wants you to be an athiest. "All we are is dust in the wind" - Kansas.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:2, Insightful)
Proof is for mathematics. When I was taught the scientific method in college, it was made abundantly clear that all scientific knowledge is provisional. Nothing, and I mean nothing is ever considered final. All science is a set of models which are supported by evidence. If contradictory evidence appears, which cannot be explained with the current model, it must either be modified to incorporate the new findings, or be completely supplanted by a new model which can account for the new evidence. This has happened many times in the history of science. For example, Newton's Laws of motion were completely supplanted by general relativity. They're still useful for terrestrial calculations, but they are an incorrect description of the universe. The same process happened with the many models of the nucleus that were put forward.
I would be interested to hear about the evidence that you claim contradicts Darwinian evolution. It is possible, but unlikely, that it is impossible to account for using the current theory. However, it is just that kind of evidence that propels science forward. Many biologists would love to find something that truly contradicts evolutionary theory, because it is the outlying cases that give new insights. I freely admit that there is institutional inertia when long-standing theories are challenged, but science is (in the long term) a self-correcting enterprise. Younger, more ambitious scientists come along to challenge long-held theories in order to be published and make a name for themselves. This means that creationism (even repackaged creationism) has little chance of supplanting current biological thinking. As was explained to me by Eugenie Scott, director of the NCSE, creationists seem to believe that if they poke enough holes in Darwinian Evolution, intelligent design will become the de-facto model, but to supplant Darwin, Intelligent Design must amass a greater body of evidence behind it, and give greater explanatory power than the current theory. Currently, it does neither, and it is far more likely that contradictory evidence will simply lead to a more robust theory of Darwinian Evolution.
However, you need to stop looking for "proof" in science, there are only models, backed by evidence.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure they may seem deluded and misguided by people who aren't a part of their scene, but that's really not their problem.
If someone ever got in my face about religion, which has never happened (and I know some hard core religious people) I'd tell them to pick on someone else.
Re:Creationism silly, science disappointing (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because something is counterintuitive, doesn't mean it can't be true. Large parts of quantum physics and other sciences is counterintuitive. Even things like the earth being a sphere and going around the sun are counter to how they appear to the average person.
I'm not sure you can ever disprove god, but you can show that miracles are unnecessary.
I'll also say that we can do without this sort of 'museum' that peddles ideas that were disproved long before it was founded.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:2, Insightful)
Insecure much? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a lot of this sort of bigotry--apparently rooted in insecurity--on Slashdot. In the end, though, you end up looking more like an ignorant, black-or-white thinker than the people who you intend to mock, but whose views to choose to caricature rather than actually understand. That's not to say that there aren't some hard-core "creationists" who are irrational, but they are certainly a minority amid a sea of people who are more-or-less intelligent than you but who believe in God, and you don't allow for that at all. That's why you sound like an idiot to me.
Re:Definitional clarity, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Typically, they think that "evolution" means that a monkey got pregnant one day and out popped a human baby. They think that a theory in science (as in "just a theory") is an idle speculation that just shot out of some scientist's ass and beat out competing theories in a popularity contest. Their faith requires them to believe without question what they are taught by their parents and religious authorities, and so the notions of reason and sceptical inquiry carry zero weight with them.
There's a multitude of them, they're refractory to reason, and they vote. They are also easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who don't give squat about their beliefs but are willing to pander to them to enhance their own power.
This circus is going to go on for a long, long time.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Insightful)
So you believe in fate, predisposition and a clockwork universe? To me, that's a far more disturbing world than the one with the bearded old guy in the sky occasionally raining down fire and brimstone.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
There's more than just math skill while manning a checkout and giving proper change. Lots of other things to be worrying about, not the least of which people like you who assume any problems calculating it are due to being an idiot, which just makes using a calculator all the more desirable. Being able to do quick, accurate mental arithmetic while under pressure is a skill like any other, that takes time to get good at. I think your attitude is unbelievable.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, interesting that you bring up gravity. Last time I checked, we *still* have no clue what the heck gravity is. How it acts at such great distances and such. We can describe it mathematically (G m1 m2 / d^2), but we don't really know the reason for it. Why is it that this works? How can it act apparently instantly across great distances that even photons can't reach as quickly?
Perhaps your smart-ass answer isn't far off - it's God's will. Whatever it is, we do not thoroughly understand it. All we can do is take advantage of it (through mathematics).
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:5, Insightful)
I would also suggest that the argument analogy you presented is inaccurate and misleading, as most analogies often are. Such topics cannot be summed up or dumbed down in such simplistic manners. Case in point, the popular "let me explain this as a car" analogy given so often on Slashdot. Your analogy presents a pre-determined supposition that God does indeed exist, which is the point of the argument in the first place, yes?
Re:Creationism silly, science disappointing (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as scientists being arrogant... Well, you haven't read any scientific papers, or listened to any real scientists being interviewed about their work, have you? For the most part, they qualify just about everything they say and are quick to acknowledge uncertainties and alternate interpretations. They are also quick to shoot down ideas that haven't been rigorously thought out, aren't supported by evidence, or don't have explanatory power, as they well should. Maybe that's what you call arrogance?
It may not seem fair to you, but not all ideas are equal, even if we have the right to express them just the same. Science has a very rigorous system of quality control that determines which theories succeed and which die, and if you take a look around you have to admit that it works very well. No amount of prayer could have produced the computer you're using to read this, but James Clerk Maxwell with his theory ("just a theory!") of electromagnetism gave us the tools to achieve a revolution in electronics. Even with that, it wouldn't have happened had scientists clung to Maxwell's writings literally, refusing to "change their minds" by modifying it, adding to it, building upon it, and interpreting it in new ways that Maxwell couldn't have foreseen.
Evolution, by the way, has been every bit as successful. All of modern biology is based upon it. It's right up there with electromagnetism, relativity, the atomic theory of matter, etc. If you don't see how well it works, then you haven't been keeping up with stunning advances in the life sciences recently. A lot of them get posted here on Slashdot.
Re:Insecure much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately, no.
There are many intelligent, smart, wise people who believe in God. Thing is, for them faith always gives up to reason, never in opposite direction. You believe in things you don't know, you aren't certain. If science explains something, you adapt your faith to accept the fact, you don't deny it to keep that part of faith running.
You may believe that the first string of DNA that created the first living cell was created by an intelligent being. Thing is there's a lot of ways to mix bases of DNA code, just like slamming on the keyboard randomly, but getting a working self-replicating program by slamming on the keyboard randomly, well, that's a lot of slamming and what is more likely, that it happened randomly, or that it was created? We can't estimate the chance of random creation of such a string within several orders of magnitude, so it leaves room for faith: it might have been created this way. If you look at the amazing properties of electromagnetic waves, how simple rules create such amazing results, you think 'How could such rules come to be? Why is electromagnetism the way it is, so possiblity-rich and yet so simple in its essence?' and you think it would take quite a wise mind to invent such a thing... if it could be invented. Again, room for faith, never certainty, but elements of unknown.
But if you hear bones of dinosaurs were dug into the ground some 4000 years ago to confuse us, sorry. No matter how much you believe in God, with a bit of criticism, you say "bullshit".
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:2, Insightful)
Also note that the selfish gene theory poses a "why" question as well: why do organisms bother with sex when asexual reproduction seems to better propagate such selfish genes? The best answer to that question, so far, is the Red Queen theory; organisms have sex in order to switch up their offspring's genes so that the parasites that adapted to the parents' will not immediately infect and kill any such offspring.
This is why most scientists are secular, most of the "why" questions of the universe can be answered with empirical evidence almost as effectively as are "how" questions.
Arguing the existence of God with an atheist is more like arguing the existence of Zeus with a Christian. Religious people tend to think the myths they were brought up with as children are fact, and the ones they were introduced to later in life are fiction.
There is nothing daring about believing in anything; there is, however, something daring about believing in nothing.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mind you, the current Pope probably is a literalist right out of the Middle Ages (the office he headed up before becoming Pope was formerly known as The Inquisition) but he couldn't issue an encyclical that countermanded the current doctrine and get away with it. Papal power isn't what it used to be; there's infallability and there's infallability, capische? (better for this one perhaps, verstehen?).
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask any person, over the age of fity, at any time in the last 1000 years any question about "today's youth" and you will get the exact same answer.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Insightful)
So, purely by reasoning, regardless of the truth of evolution, and regardless of arguing over open or closed systems, the argument from the second law of thermodynamics is self-contradicting, as either our facts are wrong (there is no order), or the SLoT itself is wrong (at least for this part of the universe).
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true that languages evolve, and that Shakespeare's English was very different from our own. There were tens of thousands of words used back then which have completely fallen out of our modern English language. Much like Orwell's Newspeak, English has fewer and fewer words every year; except for technical words, the number of words which people use to express themselves is decreasing. Pretty soon, our only superlatives will be "good" and "plusgood". I imagine most high school kids these days wouldn't even be able to use the word "superlative" in a sentence.
Instead of saying that English is evolving, I would posit that English is devolving.
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:2, Insightful)
1 Corinthians 6:9 New International Version (NIV)
Re:Evolution is a theory too (Score:3, Insightful)
So I put it to Slashdot - Can anyone name a closed system? Something that has no outside inputs or outputs.
Re:Creationism in Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, let's get this out of the way: the whole point of Creationism/ID is to put the Christian God in the (science) classroom. While the theoretical underpinnings are vague, not falsifiable and largely refuted, the motivations and the religious backgrounds of their founders and supports are absolutely not.
Rejection of evolution is a problem on multiple levels. It has massive amounts of independently verifiable emperical evidence to back it up. It is the basis of modern biology and medicine. You can not ignore this. In a sense, we're talking about rejection of reality. But then again, this is not surprising, since the common element of ALL religions is the rejection of the ultimate harsh reality: death.
What kind of philosophical problems would you run into? That it's hard to comprehend the vast complexity of nature? While it may seem like a simple solution to shift the problem to some vague supernatural entity, this is merely a matter of shifting the problem to a domain where you don't have to think about it. However hard it may be, it's infinitely easier to try to tackle the complexities of measurable reality than trying to figure out a tricky entity that by its very nature refuses to even prove something as simple as its own existence!
Sure, the collective of all living beings may form an intelligence in itself and you may call that an intelligent designer. There have been many fascinating stories about scientists studying the physics of some weird effect of insects for example. But this is not a kind of design that Creationism/ID proposes at all.
Re:Atheism and Santa (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not saying that the atheist has to prove anything. All religions are a matter of personal conscience and if someone is an atheist, while I may not share their faith, I am not going to demand that they prove it is 'correct' or stop believing any more than I would go up to a Hindu, Jew etc and demand that they prove that they are 'correct'.
To prove non-existance of anything is an impossible task and is therefore an unreasonable request.
Sorry, but from a scientific point of view this is completely incorrect. The best example of this is the ether. This was the mysterious non-interacting medium that, in the late 1800's was used to explain the propagation of light. At the time it was the simplest explanation for how light propagated through a vacuum. All other waves had some existing medium to propagate through and so, the easiest solution, was to presume that light too had such a medium. Michelson-Morley proved the non-existence of the ether by studying the motion of the Earth through the supposed ether.
This example shows two things. First that it is indeed possible to prove that something does not exist. The second is that Occam's razor does not always give the correct answer: it might be a very good guide but it is by no means always right.
By the same token I have no proof that there aren't 8 dimensions in our universe so I shouldn't not believe that either?
It is very interesting that you should choose this example because there are serious scientific theories that suggest there may well be more than 3+1 dimensions in the Universe. If you talk to a scientist then the response you will generally get is that we don't have any evidence of 4+ space-like dimensions yet but there might be that many, we just don't know. You will generally not hear anyone categorically state that these theories are wrong and that there must only be 3+1 dimensions. They might have a personal belief about whether the theory is right or not but the scientific point of view is that it is unproven. The same holds for your more outlandish examples (except, sadly, for Father Christmas since you can show that it is impossible for him to perform his task in the manner attributed within the laws of physics) - and may be the flying spaghetti monster too but I have no idea what that is.
So for an atheist to go around saying categorically that God does not exist, unless they have some proof that they have not disclosed to the rest of us, they are making a leap of faith...and faith is something that suggests a religion. That leap may be based on rationality and they may have logical arguments to back it up but, as shown in the ether example, rationality and logical argument are great guides most of the time but are by no means infallible. Hence my contention that if you really want to get at the truth the first thing you have to be willing to do is admit that you might be wrong.
Re:The Market Speaks! (Score:2, Insightful)
The common thought through all these posts is that evolution and creation can work if you take Genesis allegorically (or, at least take aspects of it).
The trouble I have with this approach, and where I'd like to take the discussion next, if I may, is if you allow yourselves to treat even one portion of the Bible as non-literal, what stops you from treating any other portion as non-literal? For example, as soon as you say, "The creation story in Genesis is an allegory and never really happened," what stops you from then saying, "When God said he hates homosexuals, he didn't mean it." This is a slippery slope for Christians, I would think, and opens it up for anyone to say they don't agree with whatever particular portion is out of style at the time.
I think this also a "God of the gaps" argument, is it not? There is certainly a lot of evidence now for evolution, so people discount Genesis and keep the rest. It's not socially acceptable to forbid women to speak, so we discount the verses that forbid them to. There are many such instances as this. We treat as "literal" the parts that haven't yet been invalidated and keep the rest. I believe (and the reason I de-converted) these patch-work Bibles fail the Occam's Razor test. The bits we know are false we treat as false. The bits we don't know are false we treat as true. It's much more likely that a book that claims to be perfectly right, but has been proven to be at least partially wrong (or, at the very least, irrelevant), is most likely wrong.
I'd love to hear what people think about that and I look forward to continued discussion.