I Think Indoctrinating Children With Religion Is Child Abuse

@BittersweetPotato 🐈 perfectly said.

@BittersweetPotato are you totally out of touch with what goes on in the world today? Some religion might be taught uncritically and unquestioningly but the Christian faith certainly shouldn't be as it is historically true and can stand up to reason. Your statement is a sad generalisation. I know it applies to some religions but it certainly should not apply to Christiainity.
Of course, atheism is taught uncritocLly as well. It was taught uncritically in the Soviet block and also today I places like China and North Korea. If you read Richard Dawkins or listen to him he will teach you atheism uncritically.
And are you saying science is taught critically in schools? Since when are kids taught (eg) that some of the principles of evolution they are taught might not be right and should be questioned and actually are questioned by certain scientists? It's quite laughable that some things that were taught uncritically as an uncritical 'fact' when I was a boy have now been disproved. I can even remember the Piltdown man been taught as a fact! As far as I remember science was not discussed in the classroom as to its factual nature but religion actually was. Your problem is you are making absurd generalisations - just the sort made in the propaganda of the new atheists. You seem to swallow their line hook line and sinker, which tells of your own gullibility and uncritical acceptance

@Speedyman Yes, the Piltdown man turned out to be a fake. But it did show that science can learn from mistakes and is willing to change it's views if the evidence shows that a change is needed. Also, can you provide some examples, other than the Piltdown man, of evolutionary principles that "might not be right"?

I am sorry but what universe do you live in? You have of course swallowed the misconceptions that a lot of people have about religion. Of course they thought critically. We teach people to think and examine the evidence so that the faith might read on a solid foundation. You however have shown yourself gullible enough just to swallow what certain websites no doubt put out. If you think that teaching children religion is done by fear then you are completely up the pole. You are living in the Middle Ages when the church was apostate . The problem is that people like you swallow these misconceptions hook line and sinker . You are the ones who accept things without thinking or proper research and then accuse other people of doing so@BittersweetPotato

Well the Cambrian explosion did knock a huge hole in Darwinian gradualism. Consider the whole fossil record. If life on Earth today is the result of countless tiny changes over 3.8 billion years, a clear chain of fossils extending back to that original single-celled organism should be present in the fossil record. There should be billions of fossils documenting the transitions between billions of creatures throughout the record. Yet this prediction has not been verified in the fossil record.@Bushranger

@Speedyman Christianity is like any other religion and more specifically is like any other Abrahamic religion. It is filled with myth and fairy tales, so can you tell me how on earth such myth can stand to reason? What is your "solid basis" for believing the ridiculous miracles the bible tells of? Critical thinking involves being able to ((((rationally)))) comprehend the information you are given and religion including Christianity is indeed irrational as it tells tons of stories that contradict any logic or rational we know as human beings and sure such stories have no evidence whatsoever behind them. You only believe them because they are mentioned in a book which you think is divine, but let us choose some ridiculous miracle inside that book and "critically" explain it and have me convinced that it happened with evidence.

I've listened to Richard Dawkins before, I am not a follower though, he is an atheist scientist, not a "preacher" of atheism and I very much doubt that someone with such mentality that's used to questioning and testing would ever support uncritical thinking. It is true that science can be of factual nature and is taught on this basis in schools, but it only becomes of factual nature once it has been proven through experiments, it is questioned, tested, discussed and only then can be declared as a fact, and when we are taught in schools that this piece of information is a scientific fact, then it means that it is verifiable and we are taught WHY it is a fact and how it was proven to be a fact. Unlike religion, where you are told fairy tales about something that happened thousands of years ago and it is a fact, you must believe it, but how and why is it a fact? Nobody knows including you!

Science is sometimes proven wrong, that's not a problem! If anything, it is a proof enough that accepting something as a given is never the case in a non-religious world, rather, there is a constant need for questioning, experimenting, and discussing, these people are not afraid to use their brain, and when they come across new information that disagrees with former findings, they are not afraid to say sorry, we were wrong, here is what we think is correct and here is WHY we think it is correct. Only then we can move forward, that's why the world keeps advancing and science is changing with every passing day, and that's why religion is stand-still! As a matter of fact, tell anyone that their holy book has been "amended" with new findings, turned out that page 100 contained wrong information and we have revised it, they could kill you for it.

The religious fight for things to remain the same, because they believe that what they have is from god and that god can make no mistake, and therefore, any change could only ruin this divinity surrounding their beliefs,and since they are not looking for changing anything, why use their brain? Why think? Why question when they know everything MUST BE right IN ADVANCE?

Lastly, you are in complete denial when you say that religion teachings are not based on fear. Religion FEEDS on fear. This is the main concept religion is actually based on, intimidation and fear. Can you eliminate hell from the picture next time you teach religion? Can you eliminate the concept of reward and punishment? If you can then you've proven me wrong on this point. But then if you do, you are probably coming up with a new form of religion that's very different from Christianity and any religion for that matter.

@Speedyman https://biologos.org/common-questions/scientific-evidence/cambrian-explosion

The fact that any fossils exist at all surprises me, given the way that they are formed. The Cambrian explosion would have to be one of the slowest explosions ever to occur, as it took millions of years to complete. You have to remember the geologists tend to think of time differently to us mere mortals lol. People with qualifications in the field describe transitional fossils in the record, so I think that argument is not valid. I'm not a geologist or paleontologist, so I can't speak from first hand research or study, however, peer reviewed publications should be considered accurate. I'm sure there are numerous articles that would confirm the presence of transitional fossils. Can you provide references to support your assertions, please.

You have been greatly decide if you don't believe that Dawkins is a preacher of atheism. For goodness sake he is a fundamentalist preacher just the same as the most fanatical fundamentalist. When it comes to reason and testing Dawkins does not apply these to religious issues. As someone has said Dawkins might be good at biology but he's not very good at thinking. His theology, history and philosophy are absolute rubbish . Frankly he has proved many times he simply doesn't know what he's talking about in these areas. He should stick to what knows which is biology. But of course he is very good with words and can convince the gullible that he actually knows what he's talking about.
I've got science has proven wrong but the insistence on something where there are so many intellectual and evidential flaws seems to me somewhat of a misnomer. The fact is we should question Darwin like we do any other scientific theory. But Darwin tends to get away with it as to question him on irigins also leads us to a philosophical problem which many do not want to face.
The religious fight for things to remain the same? You are obviously not read any history as the early Christians were persecuted because they didn't want things to remain the same. The religious fight for things to remain the same? You are obviously not read any history as the early Christians were persecuted because they didn't want things to remain the same. This is another absurd generalisation you make . Of course there are religious conservatives but the history of science shows there are scientific Conservatives too.
You are completely wrong in making the generalisation that religious teachings feed on fair. You have just swallowed some garbage from the Internet. While it is true that some religions do feed on fear, it is absurd to put a generalisation on it. Your experience with Christianity is obviously that is not of the new Testament if you are making such absurd statements @BittersweetPotato

There is a cause a lot of arguments in biological circles trying to justify aspects there is a cause a lot of arguments in biological circles trying to justify aspects of evolutionary theory in the light of things like the Cambrian explosion. But even evolutionists admit to problems
Decades ago, the late, famous evolutionary paleontologist of Harvard, Stephen J. Gould, acknowledged this problem. He said, “The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution” . “All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt” . “[T]he extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches: the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of the fossils”. His study of the fossil record led to his rejection of gradualistic evolution altogether although, of course he still remains an evolutionist by conviction.
David B. Kitts, the late evolutionary geologist, paleontologist, and professor of geology and the history of science at Oklahoma University, said, “Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of ‘seeing’ evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species, and paleontology does not provide them”. Concerning the evolution of humans, Richard Lewontin, research professor at the Museum of Comparitive Zoology at Harvard, admitted, “The main problem is the poor fossil record. Despite a handful of hominid fossils stretching back 4million years or so, we can’t be sure that any of them are on the main ancestral line to us. Many of them could have been evolutionary side branches”. Evolutionist and senior science writer for Scientific American, Kate Wong, admitted, “The origin of our genus, Homo, is…[b]ased on…meager evidence…. [W]ith so little to go on, the origin of our genus has remained as mysterious as ever” . Editor-in-chief of Scientific American, Mariette DiChristina, said, “Pieces of our ancient forebears generally are hard to come by, however. Scientists working to interpret our evolution often have had to make do with studying a fossil toe bone here or a jaw there”. Colin Patterson literally “wrote the textbook” on evolution. He was the paleontologist who served as the editor of the professional journal published by the British Museum of Natural History in London. In response to a letter asking why he did not include examples of transitional fossils in his book, he responded, “I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them…. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils…. I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument” . Evolutionary zoologist of Oxford University, Mark Ridley, went so far as to say, “No real evolutionist, whether gradualistic or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation”.
In quoting these we are not saying these people think that evolutionary theory has been disproved but they are at least saying there are problems with it and especially with the fossil record. To say that the lack of fossils is due to the difficulty in which they thought is frankly a get out. From the fossils we have we would expect to see many, many transitional fossils given the fact that it is estimated that to change from one species to another as Darwin envisaged takes about 50,000 small genetic changes. That for over millions of years with millions of changes there should be vastly more fossils indicating intermediate stages. @Bushranger

@Speedyman The statement about the way fossils are formed was my opinion. I apologise, I should have pointed that out.

Interesting quotes you provided. I'm glad to see that you have gone beyond just making statements. I'm pretty sure that the comments by Gould have been disputed in a previous post, so I won't go there.

I won't quote slabs of text, but will provide a couple of links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils https://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/transitional-fossils-are-not-rare

Interestingly, there is an example of speciation occurring amongst water dragons in Queensland http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-10/water-dragons-are-evolving-at-a-pace-we-can-witness/9418686

Did you get your information from the trueorigin.org website?

@Speedyman Do you realise that you have not provided any new information in your comment or responded to what I actually said? All you did is that you just bashed Dawkins, and accused me of generalising and copying off the internet although I didn't really say anything which is THAT intelligent in order to copy from the internet, I just talked common sense!

Now whether Dawkins is a bright and good man or not is really irrelevant. I have no idea why all of a sudden you are discussing him. You probably look at him from a religious perspective. You probably think of him as the "atheists' prophet" and so you think that he represents atheism etc.. While atheists don't have THAT kind of thing, they don't worship humans or portray them as perfect and take every word that comes out of their mouth as a given or a fact, they don't do that so you might as well just drop him, he is irrelevant.

"Darwin tends to get away with it" - Really?? Are you actually saying these words? Yea right, because Darwin simply said monkeys become humans and the rest of us instantly agreed with his simple statement and this is how we arrived at Evolution! Don't you think that what you are saying is a little too simple? Now I am no scientist, but i know that Evolution has been supported with evidences, yet if tomorrow new evidence is found that contradicts the who scientific theory, I am not going to "collapse" because my entire belief system is not based on it.

You see, you are still talking from a religious perspective. You are assuming that Dawkins is the prophet of the atheists and Evolution is their bible. When this is the main difference really, because religion is based on specific principals that cannot be changed and if they do, the entire thing is going to collapse. Why? because it is coming from god and obviously god is not going to change his view on things, don't you think? Whereas in a non religious world, things are in constant change and if tomorrow all scientists come to a conclusion that Darwin had no clue what was going on, that won't turn me into a believer, simply because religion has proven to be illogical and so there is no use of going back there, I'd probably wait for an explanation to come along, but this is all. Simply because we have no reason or motive to support something that's not true, we never claimed any text to be an immaculate divine thing, and Evolution is not any different.

Now to keep on saying that i am generalizing even though I have specifically referred to Christianity quite a few times is a waste of time. I have explained why every single religion feeds on fear, simply because in every religious text, there are similar warnings of hell burning if we don't obey, I think this point is clear enough.

If you don't have anything new, no need to waste time ranting irrelevant things without explaining why or supporting what you are saying although it is the typical religious way of discussion.

I can certainly see your no scientist from what you say. You are certainly no theologian either and you certainly should not criticise other people for ranting irrelevant things as you are ranting irrelevant things yourself all the while. You say I'm coming from a Christian perspective but you are coming from the perspective of a fundamentalist Atheist. Your assumption that Christianity is illogical is totally facile as if you studied it properly you would know that it stands up historically and intellectually. If you knew more about science then you would know there is actually no contradiction between science and faith as some of the greatest scientists have also been made of faith. Those who seek contradictions between science and faith are making philosophical statements not scientific statements concerning their own world view . it.@BittersweetPotato

@Speedyman I never claimed to be a scientist or a theologian, never claimed to have superior knowledge of science, I am a simple accountant! I am also not an atheist :D Yet somehow I come across to you as a "fundamentalist Atheist", shows that you are assuming things again! Just because there are scientists who believe in god, doesn't mean that there are no contradictions between science and religious faith be it Christianity or any other faith for that matter, there are actually tons which should make any sane person wonder, how the hell is it that a religious text that's coming from god is not accurate scientifically, something to think about 🤔

I think you need to actually do some proper study of the issues involved rather than just assuming contradictions that were dreamed up during the 19th century. I apologise if I assumed you were a fundamentalist atheist but that is how your post read . I think you must realise that certainly the Bible is not a scientific book but it's a book for the ages. Because something is not couched in scientific language does not mean it's scientifically inaccurate . I mean, we all say the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west even though that is nonsense scientifically. The point is though it is how we see things. The point is that the creation text of the Bible shows us that God created but doesn't tell us how he created. No doubt God could've given this a highly accurate scientific text but no one would've understood it for about 4000 years. As it is everyone who cares to think can appreciate the creation story as it is timeless [@ MissGaga]

@Speedyman No, I don't think I need to do proper studies myself, I leave matters to the experts of them. They've done enough studies and know what they are talking about. No use of you pretending to understand every scientific theory and try to imply that you are so perfectly able to see that your bible is CLEARLY in line with modern science! You assumed I was an atheist because like many believers, you felt that my words were a form of "conspiracy" from those atheists! Simply because you didn't like them. Whether what we say about the sun is nonsense or not, that doesn't really prove anything because we are not god and are not scientists either and so if we are inaccurate, that's really okay...! But when you are god, people kinda expect you to be very accurate scientifically since you are the one who created the whole universe, you know O.o Why don't you stop going around the subject as you try to blame it on the "language" of the book, and not the actual content. Do you realise that Muslims have the exact same excuse when faced with scientific challenge? What a coincidence 😅 I find it perfectly fine to slip some brilliant scientific information 4000 years ago so that those arrogant atheists will not have an excuse today and won't be able to accuse believers of being outdated! Or, it would have been a good idea too to at least avoide scientific errors in the bible O.o

I do wish when some of you people contribute you would actually bring some signs into it rather than banging on with your rather silly criticisms. All it does is show your own prejudice minds and yourlack of ability to reason outside of your own tiny box. You were brought absolutely nothing to the argument with what you've just said except your own negative prejudices. Absolutely pathetic@BittersweetPotato