welcome to the cultural revolution (aka what the FUCK is wrong with the florida legislature?)

no, challenging one's beliefs is the best thing at moving towards Truth.

yes, but I am human and don't know the Truth.

but it's a VERY abstract analysis, bcz it insists on the existence of a "true knowledge" which possibly only god is aware of, which current human knowledge has deviated from: by "being christians", believers in the abstract align themselves with the true knowledge (bcz xtianity is defined BY DEFN as "true knowledge") though actually in reality none of them are necessarily AWARE of how current human knowledge is deivating in any particular, just a formal concept of how it PEROBABLY MIGHT BE (cz humans are usually wrong, unlike god)

the zizek-eagleton "concrete universal" isn't very difft from this idea (unsurprisingly, as both of em are catholics i think) (eagleton is: zizek i'm not so sure abt)

(i think it's a completely unnecessary add-on, as regards thinking abt thinking, but i don't consider "relativism" a problem: wrestling fact from the power politics of life is as hard now as it wz yesterday, 100 yearsd ago, or a thousand yearws ago)

That is a Christian point of view. There is a long Xtian tradition of science deduced from observing God's creation.

then why are so many bible-bangers such uneducated ignoramuses?!?

Not in Alabama. Believe me.

something I have infinitely more respect for than A Nairn's nonsensically circular bullshit.

this could be for many reasons, but probably because they too put religion/faith into the private sphere out of the public. And into the nonrational sphere out of the rational sphere.

the xtian pov that a.nairn is arguing is that academic study as we understand it provided everything is argued out PROPERLY and FULLY - is the xtian route to truth

he is arguing that professors saying "evolution is a FACT so we don't have to justify it any more" is bad science, hence not xtian

i think evolution is true, and i can see why professors are pissed off having to spend time having to RE-argue stuff they think they already proved BUT in realworld terms, they really DO have to re-argue it - so i think they shd get used to that, and get on with it

the fact that they are not taking the opposition seriously politically IS bad science (even if they're right not to take them seriously SCIENTIFICALLY)

bcz science exists in the world of funding and laws and ppl, NOT just in the intouchable thomist sphere

that's right - everything's a lesson. Including when your professors challenge you to support a belief that you can neither articulate, describe, or discuss evidence for. I think the lesson there is "think critically". which you aren't doing, and that being the case, I'd give you an F and show you the door as well.

replace mine above with "The Biblical Christian point of view"

haha - yeah I love thos Xtians who don't read the Bible! wtf.

heh. and as James Burke once said(in the last ep of Connections or The Day The Universe Changed), our idea of truth changes everytime we define a bit more of the universe.

xpost

there was always that line about how some advanced physicists see themselves as trying to find God. altho, this could be apocryphal. or the guy that used his noggin & some wire to build a little radio-telescope thing in his backyard, and somehow maps out the aftereffects of the Big Bang. He called in "The Footprint of God."

I am not trying to prove that here. I like what Mark is saying.

do you grasp the implications of this statement A. Nairn?

my view runs along the lines of:

{opening shot of blackness. empty dark, etc.}

{a Hand reaches in and places a firecracker in the middle of the frame, a little near the bottom.}

{the Hand then reveals a silver lighter, and flicks it once. (note: it can look like Steve McQueen's Lighter from that one Twilight Zone ep if you like)}

{the firecracker lights and the Hand quickly retreats off-frame}

FIRECRACKER:
"BOOM!"

{a big bang explosion of light, then we have the opening titles...}

When Marshall Field’s employed a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme for its 2004 holiday festivities, the Chicago-born retailer received some complaints that it was promoting the homosexual lifestyle, an executive said recently.

The concerned citizens divined that there was a "hidden gay agenda" in Field’s theme "because seven men were living together," Gregory Clark, vice president of creative services for Field’s in Minneapolis, recounted last month at a Retail Advertising & Marketing Association conference in Chicago.

you can't make this shit up, folks.

you were amusing at first -- now yer getting tiresome.

Haha I'd like to see your examples of this.

Remember that one time a teacher told him to explain himself!?! DOOD THAT WAS MAD PERSECUTION!

Science has it's own rules which guide it and Truth is something that contains science, but cannot be guided by the rules which guide science.

catholoicism has always had a problem with the scope of its definition of the church (radicals say everyone taking communion contributes to the revelation of god's truth"; reactionaries say NO, just the pope and the holy fathers)

protestantism can reduce truth-seeking to radical atomism - one person in conversation with god - which i think is self-evidently disastrous for science, which has to be a collective activity

i would fail a.nairn on his ability to articulate his argument, not on his beliefs: good education is about being able to put your OPPONENT's point fairly and clearly (and clearly is a social judgment) (but in modern politics a complex and contentious one, bcz if the community of scientists say it's clear but the public at large disagrees, then the lab may get closed)

A Chistian can be many different types of things from Morman to Catholic to whatever. Many of which have opposite views. Sometimes It's nessicary to call someone a "biblical christian" to take the emphesis away from the culture surrounding their denomination or cult or whatever and put the emphesis on the Bible.

This is just semantics. Xtian sects don't go around saying, 'Yeah we read the Bible and made some of it up.' There have been Xtian 'fundies' killing each other for at least 1700 years and they all thought that they were right, had interpreted the Bible correctly, and were the only ones on their way to go sit at God's right hand side. The ingorance with which some people treat even the history of their own religion simply shocks me. I don't see any of those people speaking in Hebrew, or Aramaic or Greek, and I'm unlikely to meet many, though the theist who wrote the mofuxorin' Dec. of Independence and enshrined religious tolerance in Virginia law could speak two of the above.

thank you. I agree, I am not good at articulating my argument. But maybe to someone or at least myself it can have hints of clarity.

The interpretations and moments of ignorance are part of the culture surrounding those sects.

petulant student: i know i'm right but i can't find the words to say it
better teacher: well until you can, it's holding everything up, which isn't fair on the others - return to my class when you've maybe found a way the rest of us understand and can use and discuss