Separation of church and state

[Visbek]

There is no more proof of Evolutionary Origins than there is proof of biblical origins.

There is a great deal of empirical evidence in favor of the idea of abiogenesis and evolution. You are just adamantly unwilling to expose yourself to any of it.

There is zero empirical evidence of supernatural intervention. It is an unfalsifiable claim, which is all but designed to be immune to evidentiary or scientific examination.

And no, the fact that you personally find abiogenesis to be counterintuitive is not "proof."

Just because a man named Jesus existed is not proof of God being the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient creator of all, just like finding the skeleton of an upright walking ape with a slightly larger brain container shows that we are related.

Determining that humans and chimpanzees share about 97% of the same DNA does, in fact, prove that we are closely related to chimpanzees. Examination of the DNA evidence indicates that humans and neanderthals shared a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. Almost all organisms share a great deal of DNA -- e.g. humans have common genes with fruit flies, frogs, fish and so forth.

There is no evidence to support the idea that someone flipped a switch and started evolution in the year 6000 BCE.

Ignoring the DNA evidence is equivalent to ducking your head in the sand.

Who said it was a religion? It is, however, an anti-religion....

No, it is a scientific position that clashes with some -- but definitely not all -- religious beliefs.

Similarly, the idea that the universe is over 13 billion years old, and that humans occupy an incomprehensibly small part thereof, clashes with beliefs held by some, but not all, religions. This does not mean that evidence of the age of the universe is "false" or "anti-religion."

It is ultimately no different than recognizing how germs, not demons or vengeful deities, cause disease.

If you want to allow the religious teaching of evolution in our schools, by say Catholics, that would be preferable to what is going on now....

There is no "religious teaching of evolution," any more than there is a "religious teaching that the universe is 13 billion years old." Neither are based on religious beliefs. Neither rely on religious principles as proof. Both are exclusively scientific claims, and it is not the responsibility of the scientists to reconcile the evidence with anyone's religious beliefs.

I am sure, again, since your bias is in that direction, you will be led down that track. You see "irreducible complexity" has been refuted to your satisfaction…and to the satisfaction of those who believe as you do, but has not been refuted to those who hold to a higher standard.

No, it has merely been refuted. Pretty much every instance of alleged irreducible complexity has, in fact, been explained. Behe's position was so thoroughly debunked, that he was utterly incapable of defending it in a courtroom a few years ago.

But I guess it’s so much better that we are talking about rising up out of the primordial goo, having what, rocks and gases as our most distant relatives...then huge gaps with missing information coupled with silly supposition, that’s just soooo so much better.

Again, the fact that you personally find abiogenesis to be counterintuitive is not proof of anything. The idea that "there is no absolute space and time" or "subatomic particles share the properties of waves and particles" are highly counterintuitive -- and supported by all the current evidence at our disposal. In fact, many concepts of quantum mechanics make a great deal less sense than abiogenesis, and are in fact proven to be the case (e.g. entanglement).

The claim that the human body is 60% water is also thoroughly counter-intuitive. And yet, still true.

Since we have not strip-mined every single inch of the planet, and since only a small percentage of bones become fossils, it makes a great deal of sense that we have not found every possible fossil for every possible species variation on the planet. We also have plenty of DNA evidence to support the claim, and getting more and better data every day.

Uh, wrong...while not my area of expertise, I believe those are both things about phontons that can be put to practical tests to verify... we cannot do that with your gaps... and prehistoric apes that you believe are our closest relatives.

DNA testing is contemporary, it's empirical, it's evidence-based, and does in fact show that (for example) chimpanzees are in fact our closest living relatives. Similarly, scientists are hashing out whether humans did, for example, interbreed with neanderthals.

Is that what your high priests say is it? What is the basis? The fact that they can interbreed shows they are more closely associated than this attempt to separate them would lead us to believe.

The "basis" is taxonomy, and actual evidence of interbreeding.

What you fail to understand is that taxonomy is the imposition of human categories on a natural process, primarily based on phenotypes, and in many respects is imprecise. No one lined up every species on the planet and made each of them so thoroughly genetically distinct that they could not possibly interbreed. The reality is that different species have common ancestors, and over the course of millions or billions of years, slight genetic mutations have resulted in genomes and phenotypes that vary in slightly different ways. And as a result, species can in fact interbreed.

E.g. members of the genus canis -- domesticated dogs, dingoes, coyotes, jackals and some wolves -- are often capable of interbreeding, and producing fertile offspring. You should also keep in mind that Canis lupus familiaris (i.e. the domesticated dog) did not exist before humans actually domesticated them. Early humans noticed that some wolves were friendlier to humans than others, so they isolated and interbred those more amenable wolves, and eventually they became a different species. We have fossil evidence of domesticated dogs dating to around 36,000 years ago, whereas DNA evidence suggests 100,000 years. (A Russian scientist was able to domesticate foxes in about 30 generations using normal breeding techniques, by the way.)

Again, here is the Wiki page on species hybridization: Hybrid speciation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, do tell. When the species is really the same, cats mating with other cats, how do we get rocks to amoeba to fish to apes to man? Those are far far far more disparate groups...

Yes, they are.

However, we're talking about processes that took 3.5 billion years. And again, scientists have produced actual possible abiogenesis in the lab, basically taking a bunch of elements, put them into a specific environment, added a spark, and created amino acids -- the building blocks of life.

I think I know enough to put your arguments to bed...good night arguments.

Yeah, I don't think you actually grasp my arguments, let alone basic biology. All you seem to do is repeat baseless and debunked claims, and deny the rather abundant evidence.

The simple fact is that evolution is a scientific and evidence-based claim, all the way back to The Origin of Species. Your objections amount to nothing more than a refusal to accept the facts.

It is what the OP is about, church and state... and YOU do prove, just by the above statement that you are on the side that goes far beyond what the constitution states or implies. Straw man? No. Talking about the OP, yes.

No, it's pretty clear that nothing I have said purports to eliminate religion from the public square.

Again, I've held that it is perfectly fine to make religious speeches and perform religious rituals in public. It's fine to temporarily display religious iconography on state-owned land, such as public parks. There is no problem whatsoever with a public display of religious iconography or statements on private land.

The line is drawn when actions of the state have a religious dimension. Private citizens holding up a copy of the Ten Commandments in a public park is 100% acceptable. A judge who prominently displays a copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom is unconstitutional.

And nothing in the Constitution limits the restriction on government to establishing a "national church." The prohibition is on establishment of religion.. Any religion whatsoever.

Thus, claiming that I want to evict religion from the public square is a strawman.

Get it?

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

There is a great deal of empirical evidence in favor of the idea of abiogenesis and evolution. You are just adamantly unwilling to expose yourself to any of it.

There is zero empirical evidence of supernatural intervention. It is an unfalsifiable claim, which is all but designed to be immune to evidentiary or scientific examination.

And no, the fact that you personally find abiogenesis to be counterintuitive is not "proof."

Evidence is not proof. There is a great deal of empirical evidence of biblical events as well… does not equate to truth to you perhaps, just as your reading of the tea leaves or goat intestines or fragments of bones of “evolution” makes no real never mind to those who look at what you call evidence with a more critical eye.

In contemporary science there is such a conceit that they can surmise everything from such scant real evidence, that one can “suppose” one's way through everything and the rest of us just must believe… sorry, you may think you have some upper hand in all this, but your suppositions are mostly silly little games that “scientists” play, much like the once unquestioned global warming…oops, I mean climate change…scientists who “knew for certain” of what they spoke…and they spoke with such certainty only to now be questioned on most everything. So, you see, the science fig leaf you hide behind is only that, a fig leaf of self-importance that you folks use as a blunt tool to bludgeon all inquiries of your ineffective hypotheses based on totally inadequate [and missing] evidence.

And so to counter….
No, the fact that you personally find abiogenesis to be insuperable is not "proof."

Plus, just because a claim is unfalsifiable does not, ipso facto, predispose it to be false.

Determining that humans and chimpanzees share about 97% of the same DNA does, in fact, prove that we are closely related to chimpanzees. Examination of the DNA evidence indicates that humans and neanderthals shared a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. Almost all organisms share a great deal of DNA -- e.g. humans have common genes with fruit flies, frogs, fish and so forth.

There is no evidence to support the idea that someone flipped a switch and started evolution in the year 6000 BCE.

Ignoring the DNA evidence is equivalent to ducking your head in the sand.

You make my case with fruit flies and DNA… the fact that we all live on this planet and therefore must have certain programmed common information necessary in our genes so as to acclimate us all here together does not mean we are all related, just means we all have certain criteria by which we must function within to live upon this planet.

The fact that this programming is there, where does science say that came from? Why does science believe life decided upon itself to somehow live, what created that need? There is no need for life. What is the scientific basis for life to come about…and don’t tell me that it just happened, that is by no means a scientific answer… or if it is, well then you can surely understand the “god just is” counter to that being similarly as plausible. Why would minerals and rocks and gases create life, what was the scientific imperative… what is the reasoning behind it all? A rock is better off staying a rock as it does not die or feel pain…what would be the scientific basis for life?

It is ultimately no different than recognizing how germs, not demons or vengeful deities, cause disease.

That analogy is a bit disingenuous...I think it might just be a little different than that. That is an attempt at a subtle dig… you are aware that science used to say that the sun revolved around the earth, known as the geocentric model of Greek astronomy…or that the earth was flat and yet there are several references in the Christian bible [ I am not a scholar of the bible nor a Christian, just am familiar ] to the round spherical nature of the earth…way ahead of the so called scientists.

No, it has merely been refuted. Pretty much every instance of alleged irreducible complexity has, in fact, been explained. Behe's position was so thoroughly debunked, that he was utterly incapable of defending it in a courtroom a few years ago.

You can say that Behe is debunked, but that just does not make it so… only debunked in the eyes of those who are unwilling to keep an open mind, only to those who are not the true scientists. Give me the gist of the debunking of which you speak…what specifically was he ‘debunked’ on? Just as you cannot really defend Origins Evolution…oh you can complain of gaps, of course there are gaps, but complaining of the obvious does not overcome the fact that the evidence is missing, that you cannot complete the circle, the chain of evidence is broken and it is by supposition alone that you make claims that are above your pay grade.

Again, the fact that you personally find abiogenesis to be counterintuitive is not proof of anything. The idea that "there is no absolute space and time" or "subatomic particles share the properties of waves and particles" are highly counterintuitive -- and supported by all the current evidence at our disposal. In fact, many concepts of quantum mechanics make a great deal less sense than abiogenesis, and are in fact proven to be the case (e.g. entanglement).

The claim that the human body is 60% water is also thoroughly counter-intuitive. And yet, still true.

Since we have not strip-mined every single inch of the planet, and since only a small percentage of bones become fossils, it makes a great deal of sense that we have not found every possible fossil for every possible species variation on the planet. We also have plenty of DNA evidence to support the claim, and getting more and better data every day.

None of that proves your point, you can slip and slide around all you want…no proof…and just because, again, that you personally find abiogenesis to be true is not proof of anything.

DNA testing is contemporary, it's empirical, it's evidence-based, and does in fact show that (for example) chimpanzees are in fact our closest living relatives. Similarly, scientists are hashing out whether humans did, for example, interbreed with neanderthals.

That chimps are similar do not make them related to any extent. A house may have windows, doors, seats…but that does not make it a car which has all of those similar items as well. That “sciencist are hashing out”…this hashing out is a diplomatic way to say, they don’t know.

The "basis" is taxonomy, and actual evidence of interbreeding.

What you fail to understand is that taxonomy is the imposition of human categories on a natural process, primarily based on phenotypes, and in many respects is imprecise. No one lined up every species on the planet and made each of them so thoroughly genetically distinct that they could not possibly interbreed. The reality is that different species have common ancestors, and over the course of millions or billions of years, slight genetic mutations have resulted in genomes and phenotypes that vary in slightly different ways. And as a result, species can in fact interbreed.

E.g. members of the genus canis -- domesticated dogs, dingoes, coyotes, jackals and some wolves -- are often capable of interbreeding, and producing fertile offspring. You should also keep in mind that Canis lupus familiaris (i.e. the domesticated dog) did not exist before humans actually domesticated them. Early humans noticed that some wolves were friendlier to humans than others, so they isolated and interbred those more amenable wolves, and eventually they became a different species. We have fossil evidence of domesticated dogs dating to around 36,000 years ago, whereas DNA evidence suggests 100,000 years. (A Russian scientist was able to domesticate foxes in about 30 generations using normal breeding techniques, by the way.)

Again, here is the Wiki page on species hybridization: Hybrid speciation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All very nice information and thanks for presenting…however, the imprecision of man’s classifications just means there are mistakes, that the animals that can breed are more closely related and are probably more of the same species, however classified by man/science, and that a dog and cat cannot interbreed, nor can a man and ape, nor can a squirrel and a mule… these are the cross species jumps of which I speak Not the same species [ don’t act injudicious here, you know very well what we are speaking of ] …because either we can or we cannot. If we cannot, entirely new species would be a difficult hurtle to overcome…either that or we would all be cats…or all dogs…or all something but not many things like is the reality.

Yes, they are.

However, we're talking about processes that took 3.5 billion years. And again, scientists have produced actual possible abiogenesis in the lab, basically taking a bunch of elements, put them into a specific environment, added a spark, and created amino acids -- the building blocks of life.

Yeah yeah yeah… heard it before…I have thrown a bunch of ingredients in a pan and called it a cake…but let me tell you it was not edible. There is just so much more to it than that.

Yeah, I don't think you actually grasp my arguments, let alone basic biology. All you seem to do is repeat baseless and debunked claims, and deny the rather abundant evidence.

The simple fact is that evolution is a scientific and evidence-based claim, all the way back to The Origin of Species. Your objections amount to nothing more than a refusal to accept the facts.

I will admit I am not a scientist, have no particular interest in science as such…but when you see the obvious holes, huge holes, ones you cannot fill, then the outrageous claims of knowledge when it is known that science does not have the answers yet… I mean it’s obvious the hubris, the arrogance of such positions. The stance is similar, just on the other foot, to what Galileo dealt with from the other side. Sure, assert your claims, keep studying, keep working the real science, but to preclude others from believing what is just as, if not more, likely to be what has actually occurred, well, that’s not science, that is more like totalitarian censorship of ideas you just do not want to hear.
The fact that you freely admit that god cannot, by science, be proven or disproven---that is not a limitation of god or religion, that is the limitation of science. Science can only do what science can do. There is more to life than just science.

No, it's pretty clear that nothing I have said purports to eliminate religion from the public square.

Again, I've held that it is perfectly fine to make religious speeches and perform religious rituals in public. It's fine to temporarily display religious iconography on state-owned land, such as public parks. There is no problem whatsoever with a public display of religious iconography or statements on private land.

The line is drawn when actions of the state have a religious dimension. Private citizens holding up a copy of the Ten Commandments in a public park is 100% acceptable. A judge who prominently displays a copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom is unconstitutional.

And nothing in the Constitution limits the restriction on government to establishing a "national church." The prohibition is on establishment of religion.. Any religion whatsoever.

Thus, claiming that I want to evict religion from the public square is a strawman.

Get it?

First, a judge having the ten commandments in his courtroom is a personal choice…it is not the state demanding that everyone worship that religion. Again, why not look of the definition of established religion…yourself look it up, but I will tell you what you will find…an established religion is a NATIONAL CHURCH. That is not created by one judge putting up the ten commandments in his courtroom…just isn’t. If the judge next door put up something else from a different relgion…then you would have conflicting NATIONAL CHURCHES, right…and that would be, by logic, not a national church because a national church is not plural… so yes, you are trying to put your personal spin on how religion must be segregated, must be compartmentalized, must be limited as to how individuals can express that in the public square. That is not what the constitution says anywhere…sorry, its just not.

Wrong...no straw man and you do want to pretty much evict religion from the public square...you proved it with your statements.

And, to kind of paraphrase you, no, the fact that you personally find that there needs to be strictures place on religion as it is expressed in the public square, that is not "proof" that this is found anywhere in the Constitution.