| User | Comment |
|---|
| mandy | | posted 16-Dec-2001 1:17am |
Creation should be taught along with all the other mythologies and religion based theories on how the world was created.
Evolution should be presented as science. |
Kristal_Rose    | | posted 16-Dec-2001 2:44am |
¥"If you want it in the morning, call my name. World wide family".
They exist in parallel. Both are possible and plausible, in a literal sense, but former ages to man did exist, as well as adam and eve, and missing race/links before them. The universe was torn asunder to look at itself like a cloud being blown into a glass ball. History was very rich before man became the dominant consciousness. The pantheons were around in former worlds. Birds were once the height of self-conscious willed evolution. Divine intervention and divine order have always been down to the detail. |
| Gamera | | posted 16-Dec-2001 2:49am |
As I see it, science class should be the place where the prevailing scientific theories are taught- as theories. Any good science program should include a fair amount of education about how people of different eras have come to believe, scientifically, things which later eras have come to disbelieve... for instance, the "science" of parthenogenesis, how that theory came to be believed, proved, then disproved. I think that all good scientists, in order to be good scientists, must be able to embrace the possibility that everything they believe to be true might be proved wrong later, or else their preconceived ideas will hinder good observation. I believe that creationism should be discussed and taught in a comparative religions class and that the different views of it should be raised in a lively discussion about how people of faith come to terms with a science-dominated society. A very clever teacher might try to have the class discuss the similarities are between a person who believes entirely in religion, and a person who believes entirely in science. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Gamera) posted 16-Dec-2001 3:03am |
In my philosophy of religion class we had a gal learn more about her own faith than in all her years in catholic school.
Sounds like a good survey. [What are the similarities/differences between religious belief and scientific belief]. Flip a coin for who authors it? |
| phi | | posted 16-Dec-2001 3:07am |
These options don't capture my opinions, or what I believe to be the opinions of many others, very accurately. But they will do well enough so long as no one reading this survey interprets the popularity of any of the answers to indicate exactly how people feel. |
| kaleb777 | | posted 16-Dec-2001 6:13am |
Both should be taught, I mean different theories exist side by side in other sciences, why not for the origins of life on Earth.
I believe the 'days' refered to in the bible are periods of time, probably closer to 100,000 years than 1000 years. I also believe if everything was created, it was created with the ability to adapt and survive - evolution. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 16-Dec-2001 6:18am |
¥'The sound that neither one can hide'
Try the "Be the radio" survey. |
| skylark | | posted 16-Dec-2001 6:37am |
I believe in evolution and that Earth was formed billions of years ago, and the universe over ten billion years ago. I can't deny the existence of a God, but it can't be proved either. Maybe I believe in some kind of God (or whatever supernatural being who might have something to do with things in this universe).
But evolution has to be taught in all schools, if they teach biology since it IS biology and can be proved scientifically. Knowledge of different religions is very important but any stories written by ancient humans (like Bible) simply can not be allowed to override science.
When I was in school (in Finland) we were taught both religion and biology, including evolution theories. None of the religion teachers I had ever stated that evolution theory would actually be in conflict with the Bible or Christianity. And I don't believe Bible was meant to be interpreted literally. |
| autumnlight | | posted 16-Dec-2001 7:13am |
I've just had to an essay on natural selection...grrr.
Anyway, I have no idea of what i think about the beginning of the earth, but I do believe in Darwin's theory.
I don't think that creation has a place at school,unless it is being taught as a belief that can be disputed rather than what is 'right'. |
| serendipity | | posted 16-Dec-2001 7:25am |
I don't know what to believe. Belief is a highly overrated concept. I grant scientific theory a moderate amount of credit. As such I have come to rely on the theories of inflation (big bang), galaxy formation, 1st generation through 3rd generation stars, planetary disc formation, spontaneous amino acid formation, plate tectonics and evolution via natural selection. These theories are not the whole picture, but I am pretty sure the God theory is fundamentally flawed. I have no opinion on what *should* be taught. I am personally opposed to the current way in which parents get children, how these children are "educated", the political proces in which it gets decided what gets taught in public schools. As my views are so vastly different, to me the issues involves are trivial. But in everyday life I'll tend towards teaching evolution in public schools, and giving *some* attention to fringe theories, like aboriginal dreamtime, rigellians, divine spermata, rama, Erich von Daniken, creationism andsoforth. |
jettles  | | posted 16-Dec-2001 8:40am |
i think that the choices were too simplistic. i believe that god created the first inhabitants of earth but that they weren't humans, the big bang was an act of god and evolution of sorts was put in place at that time.
i don't think that the christian story of creation should be taught in schools, well ok, in religion class along with all the other religions so every one has full exposure to the other people in the world. |
| dab | | posted 16-Dec-2001 9:13am |
I think topper has pretty well said it. I'd just add that instead of 1000 year days, it's more like 700,000,000 year days for answer #1. |
| juliw | | posted 16-Dec-2001 10:31am |
I believe the '"six days" of creation were used figuratively, and that each of these "days" were maybe thousands of years. I believe God created everything, but also that both people and animals have evolved over the course of millions of years, with God's help and natural forces. I believe both evolution and creation should be discussed in the schools. |
| romkey | | posted 16-Dec-2001 11:00am |
I believe that the earth is roughly four billion years old and that, back when they were proposed, the six days of creation mentioned in the bible are a nice model for how things came about but that they're not particularly relevant now
|
| romkey |
unfortunately, very few religions encourage people to really learn about the history of the religion; most encourage people simply to embrace the religion's belief-system. |
| Jemmy | | posted 16-Dec-2001 11:14am |
I believe in most parts of evolution, but I believe that perhaps god had a hand in it. The bible is more symbolic than anything and was not meant to be taken literally.
I believe most mainstream theories (including evolution and creation) should be acknowledged in school, but more time be given to evolution, as at my school at least, religion is a different subject. And, I believe that the teachers should remind students that they are able to make up their own minds. |
| jkiehart | | posted 16-Dec-2001 11:50am |
Where's the flat out "I belive in God?" I believe in God, and I also believe that the earth may be millions of years old, and the 6 days of creation mentioned in the Bible were actually ages that spanned about 1000 years each. |
| kaleb777 | | posted 16-Dec-2001 12:23pm |
Further to my comment above, I think the big bang is a croq. The reason people believe in the big bang is because apparently in this small region of the universe (the 100 or so galaxies we can see) there appears to me a movement away from somewhere. There may have been a big bang of something in this region of space that has pushed a few galaxies away from a single point, but I can't see that ALL matter in the universe once existed as a single object which for some reason one day decided to explode. It's unlikely that all matter in a vacuum would collect into one object given that gravity is not the only force that operates and moves matter in space. |
| confetti | | posted 16-Dec-2001 12:23pm |
Other: God ignited the Big Bang, which created the Universe, Solar System and Earth. Humans and other creatures are here by means of evolution and natural selection. Evolution should be taught in both private and public schools--but in science. Creation should be taught in both public and private schools, too--but in religion classes, as a nice moral tale or whatever it is. |
| Enheduanna | | posted 16-Dec-2001 12:46pm |
I don't believe in God; I believe in evolution and the Big Bang theory, although I think the Big Bang still leaves some unanswered questions. I think evolution and creation should both be taught in public schools; however, I think evolution should be taught in science classes and creation should be taught in literature classes which study the Bible. |
| sequel | | posted 16-Dec-2001 1:30pm |
Evolution should be taught in science classes; creation should be taught in social studies as one belief some people hold. |
| happyme | | posted 16-Dec-2001 1:40pm |
I believe that God is the creator and author of the universe. I don't know how he did it, I don't think any of us could possibly understand. All I know is the first four words of the Bible:
"In the beginning, God" The rest is just details.
I think that in a public school setting, both creation and evolution should be taught. Evolution should be taught as what it is, a theory, not a fact. |
| Biggles | | posted 16-Dec-2001 2:03pm |
Other answer completely! |
| romkey | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 16-Dec-2001 3:55pm |
I thought the big bang was well accepted was a guy thing...  more seriously, what you describe isn't a very good representation of the current state of the big bang or inflationary theory. I don't believe that the current theory calls for the initial condition before the big bang to be one object made out of all matter, but for a singularity which explodes, releasing a vast amount of energy which inflates space, leading space itself to grow, and which over time condenses into matter, which the force of gravity then further aggregates into planets and stars. I think the principle flaw with the theory is its lack of explanation of the true starting conditions, but they're not thought to be a very heavy pool ball sitting in a vaccuum. |
| Gamera |
I can't think really how I would ask that question well- it's all yours if you want it.  |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Gamera) posted 16-Dec-2001 5:14pm |
¥"I can take it, when you're ready."
¥"You're so full of color" |
| Kristal_Rose | | posted 16-Dec-2001 5:15pm |
¥"We are not your children but you taught us well. Please don't keep it to yourself." |
| Zang | | posted 16-Dec-2001 5:37pm |
This is a very complex issue, and not one that I can easily describe my attitudes about within the confines of the available options. I think that evolution is not a fact, it is a theory...and not even a very good one. I run into arguments with people all the time because so many people believe in evolution, and assume that everyone else does too. At this point, I might well describe what I mean by "evolution". I have no argument with the theory of "natural selection". I think that within a species certain traits will become predominant due to environment etc.. What I find totally absurd is that otherwise sensible people could possibly put their faith in a theory that life evolved from pond scum which became fish, which became mammals, which became apes, which developed consciousness...Yeah right! Inevitably this theory is tied to the "big bang" theory that once everything in the universe was in one place, and it just exploded out and everything came out of that. Well, let's try a simple experiment: Let's take a load of lumber, some shingles, a few plates of glass, a door, a few pounds of nails, hinges, screws etc. and pile it up with some explosives. I wonder how many times we'll have to blow this crap up before we get a simple garden shed?  The laws of physics state that everything moves towards entropy. From order to chaos. Not the other way around! Anyway, before I wind up writing a complete dissertation...As far as what they teach in school, I suppose the most sensible thing is to simply tell the children that some people believe this, some people believe that, and no one knows for sure. And leave it at that! |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 16-Dec-2001 5:58pm |
Copleston and Paley. Natural Teleology. |
| spidertea | | posted 16-Dec-2001 6:34pm |
I believe in a higher power.
I also believe that religion has no place in public schools. |
| Oscar | | posted 16-Dec-2001 9:07pm |
I believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, and the 6 days of creation mentioned in the Bible were each 24 hours long.
&
I believe God created the earth and the first inhabitants, but what exists today is a product of evolution and natural selection.
if I am reading it right. |
| Zang |
http://www.quodlibet.net/cockshaw-quantum.shtml??????????????????????????????????????????????? It seems to me that the whole idea of "the beginning of the universe" is unscientific in and of itself. "Big Bang" and "Evolution" are not science, they are the creation myths of the pseudo-scientific atheist. A real scientist wouldn't waste his or her time on such nonsense. Science is about measuring, testing, and experimenting with real and tangible things. What evidence do these fools have to back up their theories? "The matter in the universe (at least those parts of it that we can detect) appears to be moving away from some central point." "We found some old bones." I'm so fudging underwhelmed.  |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 17-Dec-2001 2:40am |
I've never meditated quite that far back. I fuzzily have seen how the heavens can be torn asunder, but it's not quite the big bang, more like a cloud billowing full of movie projectors. If we dismiss directional time, i suppose it doesn't where it moves. Actually I do believe there are much more fascinating (or at least equally) places in the universe than the milkyway. I'm out of my league on this question, even though I've done a smidgeon of stellar astral travel and have a brother-in-law that programs the major telescopes. He told me about joining site holographic interferometry to create telescope eyes of vast magnitudes, like they do with remote radio telescope data.
e=mc^2 that means eternal conservation of mass or energy 'provided' time exists. My experience and research seem to indicate it does not. Throw flexible time into the equation, and it gets interesting.
Excellent link. You just saved me a whole lot of work putting my class notes into html. Of course the most interesting notes are the heartfelt practical experiences that demonstrate the theories. |
| Dino | | posted 17-Dec-2001 3:47am |
What can I say? I would quite happily rejoice the end of religious schools. ie Schools taught under the banner of one religion. I personally believe the bible thing is a mythology and will one day be seen in the same light as the Greeks and Romans - great inspiration for painters and a cute read but thats it. Therefore we should change religious studies to mythology studies and/or try to add a little more emphasis on the philosophy of these religious texts - including the Greek and Roman works. |
| Zang |
Glad I could help! I'll take that as a "yes". Did you get my email? I came up with the same idea (as the one in the links) last night as I was heading out to do some grocery shopping. |
| skylark |
Erich von Däniken, yeah, wasn't he the UFO guy who thought the strange figures in the (Chilean?) desert were ancient runways for alien spaceships? |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 17-Dec-2001 8:58am |
Apparently. My email has been kristal_phoenix@msn.com for the last year. (and hopefully changing again in a month (so maybe you should hold onto the unused one))
I don't have time to follow the links at the moment.
Synchronicity. I think i once mentioned you are my closest mirror here. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to skylark) posted 17-Dec-2001 9:02am |
Those figures were most likely achieved by astral flight or telepathic vision through birds (both things I've done), although doing it with surveying geometry (which I've done too  ) wouldn't have required aliens either. |
| MissThing | | (reply to jkiehart) posted 17-Dec-2001 9:03am |
I didn't include a check-off for "I believe in God" because I thought the first few choices implied a belief in God. Sorry about that. |
| skylark |
I saw an interesting document about the tribe (can't remember their name) that probably made those figures. They were explained so that the shamans ate some mushrooms that made them "fly" and during their "flight" they could see things from above. It had something to do with water and their irrigation systems and canals too. And a holy mountain, if I recall right. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to skylark) posted 17-Dec-2001 9:34am |
Back in the early 70's when people were becoming aware of multi-cultural supernatural phenomenon, we were also obsessed with UFO's, and ready to blame anything historical on them. I think it ultimately did much to discredit new-age thought, though it seems to have steadfastly purified and gained reputation. |
| Zang |
I got it off your website. |
| jkiehart | | (reply to MissThing) posted 17-Dec-2001 11:45am |
Gotchya! It's clear to me now! |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to romkey) posted 17-Dec-2001 1:06pm |
However that theory postulates that there was a limit to space because it was expanded by an exploding singularity, and I find that harder to believe. If space is void, how can there be a limit to it since beyond the limit there would be more space? I think the big bang theory is a huge assumption. I see space as infinite since if there was a wall at the end of space there has to be something on the other side, even if it is a void that is more space. If space is infinite then even if we manage to see 200 million galaxies that is still only our neighbourhood. There may have been an event near us but I doubt that the entire universe was effected. I prefer the big bang guy thing. That is certainly an accepted fact. |
| romkey | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 17-Dec-2001 4:07pm |
I wish I could present current theory better but I don't have enough of a physics background and I don't keep up-to-date with it sufficiently, but I think part of it is that space isn't void - which is true of Stephen Hawking's theory of black hole decay, as well - and that it has some characteristics which allow it to inflate. I know that's not intuitive, but then neither is a lot of quantum dynamics. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 17-Dec-2001 8:30pm |
On the reach me page? I thought I changed everything. |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to romkey) posted 18-Dec-2001 12:55pm |
That whole concept about space folding and being 'other dimensional' is hard to grasp. That black hole thing is a worry, I mean in the very long term, considering they can accrete stars and are constantly gaining mass. I guess I'll never have to worry about that though. |
| Zang |
I can't remember, I think there was a list of links on the left, and one of them said "contact" or something, and opened my email application. Something like that... |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 18-Dec-2001 9:43pm |
hopefully it was the 'conceptual design synthesis' at the bottom of the tarot section, cause otherwise I can't find it. Oh well. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 18-Dec-2001 9:50pm |
When you see it being written in front of your eyes at a near particle level, you'll have a much different view on it. The eye creates. Sui (17 i-ching hexagram): The emperor can become a sage, the sage can uncreate the world, the emperor brings it back.Perfect power is perfect following. |
| Zang |
I went to: http://www.ereiam.com/tarot.htmWhich you posted on a survey about tarot cards. On the left hand side you've got a link called "reach me" which opens a page with "email"...sound familiar now? Yeah there is the one you mentioned, but that wasn't so obvious. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Zang) posted 20-Dec-2001 12:26am |
ok, hopefully it's current. I just caught yet another e-mail linked to the e-amail icon. I hate following details. |
| phi | | (reply to Zang) posted 20-Dec-2001 11:44am |
OK, let's do another experiment. Let's take an infinite number of loads of lumber, shingles, plates of glass, doors, nails, hinges, screws etc. and pile each load up with some explosives. Now explode them all. What do we get? Well there's an infinite number of explosions, so we should get some of every possible arrangement of debris. We won't get very many garden sheds. But we'll get a few. Look inside, and we'll see some monkeys arguing about how impossible it was that their particular shed was created by exploding a big pile of construction materials. |
| phi | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 20-Dec-2001 11:56am |
Since you asked: the reason it doesn't make sense to talk about what's on the other side of the edge of the universe is that it's moving away from us at the speed of light. By the time you got there to look at it, it would have moved away from you by another 15 billion light-years.
Oh, and by the way, astronomers have measured the velocities of hundreds of thousands of galaxies and all of them are moving away from us at a speed more or less proportional to what, using other methods, we estimate to be their distance from us. The only exceptions are a few galaxies that are so close to us that their velocity relative to other galaxies is larger than the Hubble effect. |
| Zang | | (reply to phi) posted 20-Dec-2001 10:33pm |
Do you think so? How often do you wonder if that is perhaps how the building you are in at the moment was built? You never know... |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to phi) posted 21-Dec-2001 2:01am |
are any headed our way? |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to phi) posted 21-Dec-2001 2:21pm |
*ALL* of them are moving away from us!? Wouldn't that make our location the site of the so called big bang? |
| phi | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 21-Dec-2001 5:05pm |
Everywhere is the site of the big bang. |
| phi | | (reply to Zang) posted 21-Dec-2001 5:07pm |
I believe something even more improbable: that the building I am in was built by beings that evolved out of simple organic molecules, made of elements forged in enormous nuclear furnaces that formed due only to the initial physical constants of this particular universe. |
| mandy | | (reply to phi) posted 21-Dec-2001 8:36pm |
*snickers*
*has a dirty thought*
*again* |
| Zang | | (reply to phi) posted 21-Dec-2001 8:59pm |
Harrumph! Have you seen these builders? How do you even know they exist? It sounds to me like some far-fetched fantasy or wishful thinking... |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to phi) posted 22-Dec-2001 8:22am |
No, sorry, you cannot say that everywhere is the site then say that every other galaxy is moving away from ours. Angular momentum is a fact, or so I was taught in high school. This big bang theory is starting to sound like a religion where established scientific facts are ignored in lieu of faith. |
| phi | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 22-Dec-2001 1:51pm |
Who said anything about angular momentum?
Imagine a balloon being filled with air (or a big sheet of rubber being stretched out in all directions, or an inner tube, or what have you; the balloon analogy is not meant to imply anything about the shape of the universe). Draw little dots on the balloon; those are galaxies. Everything is getting further away from everything else. From the point of view of each of the galaxies, all the other galaxies seem to be receding. But that doesn't make any of the galaxies the "middle"; all the other galaxies see the same effect, and the entire balloon was there, just much much smaller, at what we might as well call the dawn of time. |
| serendipity | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 22-Dec-2001 2:39pm |
Observations of key stars, key novae, the hubble constant, galaxy rotation, redshift; most theoretical models, etc. agree in detail and grant a fairly consistent picture of the fundamentals. The universe itself inflates, that much is certain. But we can't state for fact the expansion is a hypersphere (a 4 dimensional sphere). The inflation model is very naive as a starting point.
Beyond that we simply cannot anything meaningfull about creation or spontaneous emergence of the universe. "Creation" is to me a fundamentally human concept. We cannot even be sure there is nonhuman intelligent life, and if it excists we can't even be sure that life uses instruments in the same way humanity does. I find the discussion that there's a "god" who "created" the "universe" to be parochial. Fiction. Speculation. It isn't even metaphorical.
Earth is a speck, of which we know some details about the thin strip of surface. We have a rough idea about the Solar system, the inside of earth. We know next to nothing about what's happening in nearby stellar systems, in interstellar space. Space is BIZARRE, and transcends any human estimate or value judgement. If a human speculates about "god" it talks about fundamentally human concepts. To make bold statements about God being of critical importance in the universe strikes me as fundamentally silly.
When I consider galactic explosions, hypernovea, gamma ray bursts, dark matter, inflation models, redshift, lightyears, billions of years I get a sense of a reality beyond our comfortable world which is so brutally not-interested in the feeble perceptions of humanity, these speculations are laughable. |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to phi) posted 23-Dec-2001 10:03am |
I don't believe that space ends at the surface of some mythical invisible expanding force. Space is just that - space. It is a void. It is infinite. I don't buy any of the big bang theories. |
| kaleb777 |
I don't believe there are different laws that apply to space and the ones we know that apply to Earth. Physical laws are constant. Immense forces of gravity may cause shifts of light spectrums. Expanding space seems a ridiculous notion to me. Matter moving in a wave from a given point is easier to accept but I still doubt it. What was supposed to be before the big bang? A object containing ALL the matter in the entire universe which for some reason just appeared in a ball one day and sat there for trillions of years until for some unknown reason it exploded and caused space to grow and expand because before there was no space around the object. Pff, sounds like a fairy tale to me. |
| Gamera |
Ah... yes, you've described how I feel about the whole thing pretty well there. Particularly in calling the idea "parochial." Yep. Put your finger right on it for me. |
| phi | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 23-Dec-2001 9:08pm |
Shame on me for taking a rhetorical question seriously.
*plonk* |
| cuteasabutton | | posted 28-Dec-2001 2:23pm |
Yay God! |
| jzp | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 1-Jan-2002 6:17pm |
is it more ore less silly to believe that all matter & energy has always existed? especially when there is evidence of decay/entropy leading the contents of the universe from the current state to another?
you obviously missed some basic physics concepts to say "ALL the matter in the entire universe [...] sat there for trillions of years" -- time has no meaning without space, silly-head. |
| kaleb777 | | (reply to jzp) posted 2-Jan-2002 12:18pm |
Time is different from space. Of course time has meaning without space. Is it sillier to believe matter has always been or that it just pops into existance from the 5th dimension or whatever? |
| arj |
I believe that the Earth was spun off from solar matter, that the universe started in the Big Bang, and that life on Earth as we know it today is the result of evolution through natural selection. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 5-Jan-2002 12:23am |
But science has found particles that just pop into being. Otherwise I'd say that e=mc^2 means eternal conservation of matter and energy, as long as time exists as light. (in otherwords I don't believe in entropy either) Personally I believe they are all basically an illusion. The closer to just the instant existing, the closer to the truth. |
| kaleb777 |
To me, anyone who believes in eternal decay until all exists as Hydrogen or whatever, is close to admitting there must be a higher power capable of organizing matter into more complex elements such as those that comprise our physical bodies. Instead, they try to explain these things with ideas such as those already mentioned, where new matter pops into our dimension when ours has decayed. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to kaleb777) posted 5-Jan-2002 8:29pm |
I see your logic. Aquinas would have been proud of you. (your getting a taste of Thor talking). |
| natsim |
I do not believe IN either of these things.
I believe that God was involved in the creation of all that has life on earth. How God did it makes no difference to me. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to natsim) posted 8-Jan-2002 10:11pm |
was, or is? |
| natsim |
Oops... caught me there.... was AND is. |
