Scientific IMAX films too controversial for the South

The question is which system do you accept? Since the methodology of science and faith don't even follow the same logical constructs you can't prove one is any more true than the other if you follow their own logic and you can't prove the the truth of the one using the methodology of the other.

Truth in this case become totally subjective. I would propose an alternative that as both rational and spiritual humans it may be possible to hold two truths. Belief in evolution need not rule out belief in divine creation. What troubles me more is when one totally denies the other because they feel it degrades their beliefs or is an assault on their values or worse tries to justify one by warping the means of the other.

You argue empiracism vs logic to question the methodology of the scientific method but I think you're missing that the scientific method isn't a pure rational exercise but its meant to reconcile empiracal phenomena with logical explanations. Observation and testing are central to science to test logical hypothesis empiracally.

See above.

As I said before I'm not going to claim evolution as a fact merely that it is the best scientific idea that we have to explain the diversity of life that we see today. Yes there is a leap of inductive logic to develop the hypothesis of evolution but there's been plenty of supporting evidence that supports that hypothesis to the being a theory. Inductive reason is always going to be weak which is why evolution is always open to testing. So far its held up better than any other idea.

Anyway if you believe inductive reasoning and the scientific method is so weak that doesn't explain why so much of our modern technology is based on it.

I think the point is that in general we're both saying the same thing. You cannot judge one by the other. All I'm asking is don't substitute faith belief for science and don't deny science because it somehow threatens you faith. As MadMax points out you can believe both.

I'm not saying that you're doing that I'm just frustrated with the all of the people who are.

 

MadMax;

There is plenty of scientific explanations for the questions you raise but it would take a long time to go into it and am too tired to do that. I suggest you read a few books on the subject. I'm too tired to recommend some now but maybe some others here can.

 

You sir must be a Buddhist.

 

What is the logical construct of religion? " Uh,I can't explain how we came to exist so it must have been an omnipotent anthropomorphic conciousness that created only humans in her own image, loves us , gives a code of conduct, is the father of the fallen angle of Lucifer who is responsible for al evil (since God is perfect can't be held accountable) and will condem us to an eternity of torment if we don't worship his existence?"

God who in his perfect vision set for forth life as a survival of the fittest where every weaker animal is torn apart in in terror and agony by the stronger one, where is beloved creatures are set upon by pain, sorrow, certain death, disease, insanity, torture, and war.

Yea that's a logical exercise by the perfect creator, wouldn't it have been nicer to just make a cosmic sized Disneyworld. I'm just saying, if your going to start with a totally blank palet and dream up the universe, you know everthing, you can do anything (did you not see the Lucifer thing coming?).

As far as finding life on this planet, we live in a universe of infinite possibilities, why is it so unfathomable to us that we find ourselves in an improbable situation?

 

this discussion is making JV look like a prophet! we're arguing 2 entirely separate things, i think.

the question you asked was how could someone have an easier time accepting micro-evolution over macro-evolution. i answered that...saying it's easier for me to accept because i can observe it.

my faith in God, on the other hand, is an entirely separate matter...it's not something i even attempt to subject to the scientific method. i'm a Jesus freak...or whatever you want to call me. it's not without a sense of my own observation. but it's not hinging on that, either. it's an entirely separate question than comparing micro and macro evolution.

 

God isn't a cosmic rapist who forces himself. Free will is a b****.

 

So I guess Max you do not accept anything you cann't observe first hand? What about all the theories in physics and other scientific fields? If we can only believe in things we can observe humans would still be in the dark ages.

 

i've read explanations. these are holes. it's a theory. i'm not saying it didn't happen. i'm saying i'm open to the possiblity it's not the way life developed.

i find a sense of faith in bridging these gaps/holes in the theory to be on par with my faith in God. that's ok, as long as people are intellectually honest about it.

 

clearly not.

but if you're presenting competing scientific theories to me...you can show me one i know exists (micro-evolution) because we've seen it occur in my lifetime...and i'm going to be more comfortable with that proposition than i am the proposition that bats and whales had a common ancestor millions upon millions of years ago.

 

So I guess the theatre managers (along with the the person who came up with the title of the article) were wrong to assume that these movies were "too controversial for the South" after all. That's really all I've been trying to say. Don't condenm a group of people for what you think they might do before they do it.

As far as my theory of Evolution goes, I think it was a very solid album but not necessarily their best. I would have to go with either Captured or Escape for my favorite Journey album.

 

The underlying goal of what I was trying to figure out was why you arbitrarily decide at a certain point to stop uisng the scietific method and start saying it's God. Plenty of things exist that are unobservable, much with as little evidence as macro-evolution.

I'm not trying to prove evolution to anyone - I don't really care if you don't believe it and I'm certainly not the best person to try. I am just trying to figure out someone else's mindset and see if any of it makes sense.

I could be wrong, and you could help answer the question, but my feel is that many people who think like you aren't discounting macro-evolution because it is technically unobservable. But they are probably discounting it because of the implications it implies for humanity. You already mentioned you were comfortable with evolution, but not comfortable with evolution not specifically laid out by a God. If all of the same evidence for macro-evolution existed, EXCEPT for humans, where there was no historical evidence at all, and we seemed to be a "special" case, my feel is that most would agree with the theory in the same way they agree with micro-evolution and it's peppered moths.

 

Jay --

let me say that my faith in God...and my relationship with Him...far predated any real understanding i had of evolution, be it macro- or micro-. i could talk to you about evidence of God in my life...but i realize that to many it's kooky-talk. i could go through my faith in God, but it's hard to do on a message board because it's too disconnected. much better over a beer or something.

but again...i feel like this is an entirely separate issue than the one i commented on in the first place. do you not see at all how it would be easier to understand/accept micro-evolution than macro-? i mean, even if you ultimately got to a belief in macro-, don't you see how someone might reach a conclusion on micro- first? maybe even using micro- as something more accepted to help prove up macro-?

 

Even though you're a self-declared 'Jesus Freak' I think you're much more open to considering countervailing ideas. Evolution is far from perfect and is open to skepticism and testing. I would ask that you don't abandon that attitude and resort to faith to fill in the gaps.

I'm going to try to say this with due deference to your faith beliefs so I apologize in advance if this comes out as a slam.

I personally feel that it is a copout to resort to faith argument when it becomes difficult to explain holes and incongruity in a scientific explanation. The purpose of science is as much to challenge and revise previous scientific ideas as to understand the previously unexplainable. The problem I have with resorting to faith is that by its very nature it denies external logical testing. Further a traditional faith system that offers specific explanations of the empiracal world will always be limited because it was made upon the knowledge base that was available at the time those explanations were written down. Unlike science which relies upon new empirical knowledge to advance a faith system of knowledge when confronted with new empiracal evidence is in a quandry of how to deal with it. For instance finding evidence that the Earth is much much older than the Bible makes it out to be.

As I said to JV science isn't the triumph of rationality over empiracism but is inherently dependent upon empiracism. For instance one of the slams on String Theory by non String Theory physicists is that it isn't science because there is no way of testing it. For faith ideas that isn't an issue.

As I've been trying to say all along IMO science and faith can coexists but its important not to confuse the one with the other.

 

Well, sure. Lighting storms and static electricity are related, and I can't see static electricity, but I still believe it exists. And my relationship with my parents far predated any understanding I have of chemistry, but I don't think they "invented" the periodic table.

Analogies aside (cause the ones I used probably stinks), I'm not trying to question your faith, just to understand some of the "reasons" behind it. If you tell me you believe what you believe because you do, then you do.

What do you think about the hypothetical macro-scenario I mentioned above? It'd actually make more sense to me for someone to not believe in macro-evolution because of its implications. But to not believe it because it isn't observable, when that's the case with soo many things in life, seems arbitrary. I understand it is your position, though. Don't mean to press ahead on a dead issue, its just rare to have conversation on here where religion is partly involved without some quoting the bible.

 

I spent way too much time in this thread yesterday, so I'm pulling out today to do that work I'm actually paid to do. I got a bit too far from my original argument (that the term censorship was being misused) anyway.

I was just responding to say I didn't mean to imply you'd be dismissive. I meant to show that one must find common ground with the opposition for dialogue. Refusing to recognize a common basis essentially means you won't talk to each other. No personal implication was meant.

And, while I'm at it, I also find it ironic the Ft Worth will not show it due to a public outcry. Is this qualitatively different from them not showing it for fear of a public outcry? If you wanted to see this as a free speech issue (which I still don't), isn't the Ft Worth museum's speech as censored by being forced to show something as when they are forced not to show something?

Sorry, going too far again. I can't stay in this thread. See you in all the others.

 

1. I appreciate the way you framed this so as not to be offensive. Very cool of you.

2. I'm not using faith as a cop out. I'm not asserting that macro-evolution did not happen. I asserted there are some holes...and that I think it's intellectually dishonest to present it as anything more than theory. On one side we have many in the realm of faith who take a literalist view of Genesis and assume if it can't be accounted for in those words on those pages, it didn't happen. On the other hand, we have a seemingly intellectual crowd looking down their noses at anyone who would even question the theory of evolution. I'm saying evolution is possible. I believe God is in creation, no matter how it happened. So none of that shakes my faith.

 

I don't believe this because I don't see God as constrained by time. When He was creating the universe, He was creating it all at once, meaning that He knew the direction that evolution would take place as He was doing the creation.

 

I don't know if i believe it either just thought it was an interesting question. Clearly the answer has to be faith based at this point, especially considering how time itself is really just a scientific principal and how limited our concept of it is - thus making any kind of rational argument based on such a scientific concept relatively meaningless.

 

from thomas hardy's tess of the d'urbervilles:

His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering silence. Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance than for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no account. He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face made observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life. He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the other side of them. But ever and anon his childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination even more deeply than the wonders of creation. If Tess were made rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a spyglass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as Nettlecombe-Tout?

The renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole family, filled Tess with impatience.

"Never mind that now!" she exclaimed.

"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

"Yes."

"All like ours?"

"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted."

"Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?"

"A blighted one."