Exactly who is arguing that these are the types of regulations that hamper the economy? You cannot be this dense. Is deregulation really a slippery slope toward the removal of traffic signs? It's clear that you've never operated a business yourself, but this cartoon makes me wonder if you've ever even met or spoken with someone who owned a business. It's a wee bit more complicated than simply being either for or against regulations cart blanche. You cannot be this dense.
Lr103 said...
You forget, it was also religion that condoned slavery. Actually, it was the human consciousness (something that exist in all humans regardless of religion or non-religion affiliation), and not religion, that led to the abolition of slavery.
I hate to muddy your stream of consciousness by making pesky distinctions, but “religion” doesn’t condone or endorse anything. Neither does “science.” Adherents of various religions have condoned slavery, as have many atheists. Some have even used the label “science” to justify racism and eugenics. On all these fronts, the guilty parties were fully “conscious” of what they were doing, thus they are morally culpable. It was due, not to lack of consciousness, but to their sin (something that exists in all humans regardless of religion or non-religion affiliation).
To look back on 18th century British Quakers and Evangelicals and claim that “consciousness” was responsible for their work to abolish slavery is like an atheist claiming responsibility for the advent of science. You’re poaching. It was when they became conscious that what they were doing was sinful and that even those humans whom enlightened Europeans thought to be unfit for freedom were created in God’s image, with inherent dignity – then, and only then, were measures taken to end the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself. Religion didn’t begin or end slavery. Neither did science or consciousness. A group of 18th British Christians ended one form of slavery. Thank God.
The good news has far more power for reforming society and excising its evils than either science or consciousness. Happy Easter.
TPliske said...
… The debate was over the irrefutably of science even in the face of religious ideology. In that, you cannot bend science/reality to your ideological will. Galileo was punished for saying that religion was wrong …
Booohaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaa. You guys and gals are drinking some potent kool-aid. LOL
Blunderdog said...
Your idea of God has been the reason that humans have been forced into ignorance. We have been held back from scientific discoveries until rise of the atheist.
You’re cracking me up. Saying that atheists discovered science is like Columbus planting a Spanish flag in the Bahamas. You’re a bunch of poachers.
“Man's language is not vast enough to have a complete sense of everything within the universe and the forces behind the universe.”
Good point.
“Religion has been the straps which has created slaves of humanity.”
Incomplete point. You are more correct about religions than you probably know. At the risk of offending you by making a distinction, however, there is one notable exception, and it did something that atheism has never had the moral spine to do: it abolished slavery. (I d-a-r-e you to conduct some primary source research to discover how it came about.)
My guess is that you grew up in a fundamentalist (and possibly abusive) environment that never gave you anything more than a superficial understanding of the teachings of the Bible and that never cared about pre-20th century history. So, you were a sitting duck for the fairy tales some professor or fellow student suckered you into believing about the role of religion in history. There are thousands of victims in this racket.
The simplistic fairy tales floating about in many history textbooks and classrooms are the life-support for poaching science teachers who deny (and ridicule) the truth that a Creator exists. Such a pity. Parents, teach your children well.
4W - as hair splitters go, you win the big blue ribbon.
Scientists also tend to be hairsplitters. Thank God.
Advances in scientific knowledge, characterized by the augmentation or usurpation of widely accepted hypotheses at a certain point in time (most often as a result of new evidence or advances in the quality of scientific tools), exemplify growth in knowledge and are to be celebrated. The ability of scientists to overturn the work of other scientists is at the heart of the matter …
Thanks for the clarification. I should have accepted your venting for what it was.
… and is precisely why science will always overcome rigid dogma. Scientific knowledge will grow inexorably and "gaps" will narrow and disappear one by one.
A heartfelt statement of the foundationalist faith in inevitable progress. Your narrative ignores the long periods of blind spots, rabbit trails, and, well, historical amnesia among a culture’s scientific community. Dogmatic faith in western science’s inexorable “march” toward enlightened certainty (omniscience?) unravels the sense of wonder, mystery, and humility that actually fuels the scientific enterprise. (The lizard eats its tail.) I share your enthusiasm for modern advances in science, but your dreams and prophecies of a world of science devoid religious sensibilities is nothing more than rigid, improvable dogma.
The challenge I intended to posit, was for anyone to demonstrate that in times since science got on steady legs, there is not a single instance where accepted scientific fact has been overturned by anyone appealing to the world of fantasy, illogic and unreason, best exemplified by persons with blind faith in an ephemeral god.
Agreed. Western history’s faulty “scientific facts” were often overturned by wide-awake theists who acknowledged the existence and orderly activity of a rational God who is not confined to western categories of what constitutes “facts.” It was their precision and drive that steadied the legs of the scientific endeavor in the West.
Your blind faith that “science” (scientists?) always speaks with one voice or that it/they will move toward a final destination of absolute certainty is simply ahistorical – a fantasy. Also, not to split hairs, but scientific laws are not the same as scientific method.
Let’s shoot down the new law without preaching that religion is an obstacle rather than a boost to good science. (See Einstein above.)
mountainlaurel said... “Let’s not muddle what Einstein had to say about science, wonder and religion”
Indeed. Other insights from the same work (“Why Religion Will Not Be Superseded by Science,” Albert Einstein)
“Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer.”
[He then draws a number of distinctions between the proper function of science and the proper function of religion.]
He concludes:
“The interpretation of religion, as here advanced, implies a dependence of science on the religious attitude, a relation which, in our predominantly materialistic age, is only too easily overlooked. While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza’s Amor Dei Intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements.”
3W - you have correctly described the scientific method. Now, if you wish to dismiss the theory of evolution on the basis that new theories challenge old theories, please put forth the information - developed and applied consistent with the scientific method - and not just dogma grounded in a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2.
I said nothing about evolution or literalism. My topic was librul’s denial of the value of the scientific method. I also highlighted the absurdity of atheists extrapolating their philosophical viewpoints from a scientific theory. It’s just as bad as literalists constructing scientific theories from the Bible. (Read the rest of Einstein’s article that mountianlaurel quoted to find out how that works. It also contains his enlightening views about the culture-sustaining value of religion, specifically Christianity.)
I also pointed to the anachronism of thinking that modern science came from anywhere other than European Christians and Jews rejecting the superstitions and simplistic theories of pagans. Please put forth your theories that refute what I actually wrote.
the librul salamander, eating his own tail, said...
“Ahem, still waiting since 7:52 for all of you fantasy-inspired folk to reveal JUST ONE BIT OF SUBSTANTIVE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE that has been derived as the result of disproving the laws of science.”
For starters, Copernicus’ heliocentrism debunked Ptolemy’s then-universally accepted “law” of geocentrism. It may not be SUBSTANTIVE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE for you, but most people would beg to differ.
THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF SCIENCE is the story of new theories challenging, revising, and, in some cases, overturning what earlier scientists considered scientific law. If your “laws of science” are not subject to this type of scrutiny, if their proponents thunder from on high against blasphemous theories that challenge them, then what you have is dogma, not science.
The bill, like most of what the legislature produces, is ludicrous. And so are the anachronisms of agnostics and atheists squeezing their size 30’s into the designer dress of science. Or autographing the label as if they were the ones who came up with it.
“To know the mighty works of God; to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful working of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance can not be more grateful than knowledge.” - Nicolaus Copernicus
Deregulation
Exactly who is arguing that these are the types of regulations that hamper the economy? You cannot be this dense. Is deregulation really a slippery slope toward the removal of traffic signs? It's clear that you've never operated a business yourself, but this cartoon makes me wonder if you've ever even met or spoken with someone who owned a business. It's a wee bit more complicated than simply being either for or against regulations cart blanche. You cannot be this dense.
The Romney Plan
Mitt Romney is the Michael Dukakis of the GOP. Gonna be a long year.
Evolution
Lr103 said... You forget, it was also religion that condoned slavery. Actually, it was the human consciousness (something that exist in all humans regardless of religion or non-religion affiliation), and not religion, that led to the abolition of slavery.
I hate to muddy your stream of consciousness by making pesky distinctions, but “religion” doesn’t condone or endorse anything. Neither does “science.” Adherents of various religions have condoned slavery, as have many atheists. Some have even used the label “science” to justify racism and eugenics. On all these fronts, the guilty parties were fully “conscious” of what they were doing, thus they are morally culpable. It was due, not to lack of consciousness, but to their sin (something that exists in all humans regardless of religion or non-religion affiliation).
To look back on 18th century British Quakers and Evangelicals and claim that “consciousness” was responsible for their work to abolish slavery is like an atheist claiming responsibility for the advent of science. You’re poaching. It was when they became conscious that what they were doing was sinful and that even those humans whom enlightened Europeans thought to be unfit for freedom were created in God’s image, with inherent dignity – then, and only then, were measures taken to end the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself. Religion didn’t begin or end slavery. Neither did science or consciousness. A group of 18th British Christians ended one form of slavery. Thank God.
The good news has far more power for reforming society and excising its evils than either science or consciousness. Happy Easter.
Evolution
TPliske said... … The debate was over the irrefutably of science even in the face of religious ideology. In that, you cannot bend science/reality to your ideological will. Galileo was punished for saying that religion was wrong …
Booohaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaa. You guys and gals are drinking some potent kool-aid. LOL
Blunderdog said... Your idea of God has been the reason that humans have been forced into ignorance. We have been held back from scientific discoveries until rise of the atheist.
You’re cracking me up. Saying that atheists discovered science is like Columbus planting a Spanish flag in the Bahamas. You’re a bunch of poachers.
Evolution
Blunderdog said...
“Man's language is not vast enough to have a complete sense of everything within the universe and the forces behind the universe.”
Good point.
“Religion has been the straps which has created slaves of humanity.”
Incomplete point. You are more correct about religions than you probably know. At the risk of offending you by making a distinction, however, there is one notable exception, and it did something that atheism has never had the moral spine to do: it abolished slavery. (I d-a-r-e you to conduct some primary source research to discover how it came about.)
My guess is that you grew up in a fundamentalist (and possibly abusive) environment that never gave you anything more than a superficial understanding of the teachings of the Bible and that never cared about pre-20th century history. So, you were a sitting duck for the fairy tales some professor or fellow student suckered you into believing about the role of religion in history. There are thousands of victims in this racket.
The simplistic fairy tales floating about in many history textbooks and classrooms are the life-support for poaching science teachers who deny (and ridicule) the truth that a Creator exists. Such a pity. Parents, teach your children well.
List of Christian thinkers in science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Busted!
CHET123.
Your mother and I are very disappointed in you. You are a confused young man. I believe that you will recover, though. Hang in there.
Busted!
librul said...
4W - as hair splitters go, you win the big blue ribbon.
Scientists also tend to be hairsplitters. Thank God.
Advances in scientific knowledge, characterized by the augmentation or usurpation of widely accepted hypotheses at a certain point in time (most often as a result of new evidence or advances in the quality of scientific tools), exemplify growth in knowledge and are to be celebrated. The ability of scientists to overturn the work of other scientists is at the heart of the matter …
Thanks for the clarification. I should have accepted your venting for what it was.
… and is precisely why science will always overcome rigid dogma. Scientific knowledge will grow inexorably and "gaps" will narrow and disappear one by one.
A heartfelt statement of the foundationalist faith in inevitable progress. Your narrative ignores the long periods of blind spots, rabbit trails, and, well, historical amnesia among a culture’s scientific community. Dogmatic faith in western science’s inexorable “march” toward enlightened certainty (omniscience?) unravels the sense of wonder, mystery, and humility that actually fuels the scientific enterprise. (The lizard eats its tail.) I share your enthusiasm for modern advances in science, but your dreams and prophecies of a world of science devoid religious sensibilities is nothing more than rigid, improvable dogma.
The challenge I intended to posit, was for anyone to demonstrate that in times since science got on steady legs, there is not a single instance where accepted scientific fact has been overturned by anyone appealing to the world of fantasy, illogic and unreason, best exemplified by persons with blind faith in an ephemeral god.
Agreed. Western history’s faulty “scientific facts” were often overturned by wide-awake theists who acknowledged the existence and orderly activity of a rational God who is not confined to western categories of what constitutes “facts.” It was their precision and drive that steadied the legs of the scientific endeavor in the West.
Your blind faith that “science” (scientists?) always speaks with one voice or that it/they will move toward a final destination of absolute certainty is simply ahistorical – a fantasy. Also, not to split hairs, but scientific laws are not the same as scientific method.
Let’s shoot down the new law without preaching that religion is an obstacle rather than a boost to good science. (See Einstein above.)
Busted!
mountainlaurel said... “Let’s not muddle what Einstein had to say about science, wonder and religion”
Indeed. Other insights from the same work (“Why Religion Will Not Be Superseded by Science,” Albert Einstein)
“Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer.”
[He then draws a number of distinctions between the proper function of science and the proper function of religion.]
He concludes:
“The interpretation of religion, as here advanced, implies a dependence of science on the religious attitude, a relation which, in our predominantly materialistic age, is only too easily overlooked. While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza’s Amor Dei Intellectualis, they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements.”
Busted!
MTJohn said...
3W - you have correctly described the scientific method. Now, if you wish to dismiss the theory of evolution on the basis that new theories challenge old theories, please put forth the information - developed and applied consistent with the scientific method - and not just dogma grounded in a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2.
I said nothing about evolution or literalism. My topic was librul’s denial of the value of the scientific method. I also highlighted the absurdity of atheists extrapolating their philosophical viewpoints from a scientific theory. It’s just as bad as literalists constructing scientific theories from the Bible. (Read the rest of Einstein’s article that mountianlaurel quoted to find out how that works. It also contains his enlightening views about the culture-sustaining value of religion, specifically Christianity.)
I also pointed to the anachronism of thinking that modern science came from anywhere other than European Christians and Jews rejecting the superstitions and simplistic theories of pagans. Please put forth your theories that refute what I actually wrote.
Busted!
the librul salamander, eating his own tail, said...
“Ahem, still waiting since 7:52 for all of you fantasy-inspired folk to reveal JUST ONE BIT OF SUBSTANTIVE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE that has been derived as the result of disproving the laws of science.”
For starters, Copernicus’ heliocentrism debunked Ptolemy’s then-universally accepted “law” of geocentrism. It may not be SUBSTANTIVE HUMAN KNOWLEDGE for you, but most people would beg to differ.
THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF SCIENCE is the story of new theories challenging, revising, and, in some cases, overturning what earlier scientists considered scientific law. If your “laws of science” are not subject to this type of scrutiny, if their proponents thunder from on high against blasphemous theories that challenge them, then what you have is dogma, not science.
The bill, like most of what the legislature produces, is ludicrous. And so are the anachronisms of agnostics and atheists squeezing their size 30’s into the designer dress of science. Or autographing the label as if they were the ones who came up with it.
“To know the mighty works of God; to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful working of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance can not be more grateful than knowledge.” - Nicolaus Copernicus