Have atheists redefined science to get rid of God?

farmerman, You know damn well by now that creationists quiver when asked to prove their theory of creationism or disprove evolution. They dance around it like some puppets that only know how to move one way. Any admission that they are wrong sends them straight to hellfire; they're afraid, and scared shetless. After all, they've believed all their life only one 'teaching.'

I have not read all 37 pages of this thread, so if I repeat, please forgive me. Here's my take on this issue.


Athiests cannot redefine science to get rid of God. God does not exist in scienctific terms to begin with. My basic understanding of science is that one comes up with a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis, re-tests the hypothesis and continues to do so with the same conditions so as to prove through repeated identical results that the hypothesis is correct or to find out that it is incorrect and then change or drop the hypothesis. It may or may not become a theory. A theory cannot be proven true since at some point we may have additional information that proves it false.

To make this easier to understand I'll use the characteristics of a theory as provided by Wikopedia:



Now, where in that scientific description of theory is God?

On the other side, who is God? Most religions I'm familiar with claim God's single diety existence. Many refer to God as a Father. In a parental role we want our child to accept and love us without strings and without our having to prove our love for them. We don't want our children to love us because of what we provide for them, or based on the amount of love they feel they are getting from us, or certainly not by having to prove we are their father. Right?

Why would God, as our Father, be different? Why do the Christians that are demanding God be placed in science books not see that they are actually harming belief in God? We are to believe in Him based on faith, not scientific proof.

So, what happens when He can't be proven? What happens when the scientific method is applied to God and creation? Falls apart, right? And, Christians have now created more athiests.

What is God to begin with? The mover, the universe itself, or a conscious deity? This creationism stuff seems to focus mainly on Judaic/Christian idea of what a God is. Where are Plato in all of this? and the Deists who believe that "reason leads to God"?
Anyhow, Squinney puts it nicely. It's not a science, since science requires empirical experiments to be conducted and the realm of whether a God exist or not, is a metaphysical question in which science does not deal with.

The only problem with your thesis is the fact that religious people are always trying to prove that evolution doesn't exist.

Yeah. Maybe some of them have the wrong idea of what it is, or they're somewhat fanatical.

Although, it could be good if they are trying to disprove it rationally and does not jump to conclusion.

Again, I do not dispute the evidence. What I dispute are the conclusions formed from the evidence to support evolution.
Take DNA. One of the conclusions formed from the similarity in DNA between varied species is that the similarity is due to parallel evolutionary tracks.
This is not evidence but conjecture. Based on the same DNA evidence one could come to the conclusion that the DNA's similarity is due to creation.
One could also theorise that the DNA was mutated by aliens.
Maybe there was an advanced civilization that inhabited earth who cut and spliced DNA to their hearts content to create the species and sub-species under study. (The fact that there is no evidence to this could bring me to conclude that they were so advanced that they took all the evidence with them)
All of the evolutionary evidence I have ever seen could be explained by any number of other theories that could be out there.
Conjecture is not evidence.

Quote, "This is not evidence but conjecture. Based on the same DNA evidence one could come to the conclusion that the DNA's similarity is due to creation." For which you have absolutely no evidence to support it. Saying something over and over doesn't make it true; there's more to DNA than just your narrow view of it.

But not by any other *scientific* theories. Of course any number of crackpot magical theories from creation to aliens to elves could be used to explain the world around us, but that's what makes science so different and so effective; it's based on Naturalism.

GM-Not only has the evidence of the parallel structure of DNA in the exons very compelling for similar genes, the fact that the zones between the exons are not alike, indicating lots of winnowing during time.Mouse and man have very similar genomes for equivalent chromosomal sections , and bvery different gene structure in the introns.
This extends to the higher orders between mice and men, where similar exons are retained and much variability resides in the introns
. You are arguing for the huuuuuge statistical impossibility to throw a series of (minimally) 3 pairs of dice representing a genomic zone for every mammalian order from mouse to human and have them all come up the same.
Then, on top of this, we see that genomic structure for almost all exons occur and are only added onto. This is economically handled as an event in the evolutionary sequence, or else its the product of a creator who has remembered all the the sequences and is obliged to recreate them each time a new species originates through geologic time. (of course then, you have to admit that species periodically go extinct and new ones would have to be "created" to supplant them).
When you consider all the special conditions that you have to have for Creation to work, you start to realize that , If all else is equal, evolution is the simplest solution to the rise of species.
Theres a book that, although its rather cynically written by assuming that Creationists and IDers are stupid (which I renounce). It is a good reference into the current ressurection of Creationism in the form of Intelligent Design. The Book is called "Creationisms Trojan Horse". Itspretty good if you can get by the assumption I previously posted.

But in the search for the truth, naturalism only represents one base of studies, what if the real origin of man lies in something not of the natural world? You'll never find it looking through a microscope...

One question, did plants come about the same way humans-by evolution I mean?

thunder, Good question. However, without the background or knowledge about the evolution of plants, it would seem to imply by the obvious such as the cactus that it also holds true for plants. What are now desert areas were probably once (some ions ago) full of greenery. The change in the landmass converted them in different ways, and all the plant life had to change or die off.

Maybe Farmerman knows...

Also, when plants reproduce, do mutations occur such as in animals?

Man grafts plants all the time to change what is 'reproduced.' Man also uses chemistry to change the plants to inhibit disease and pests.

Does this occur naturally though?

More than likely; otherwise most plants would have probably disappeared from this planet. We all know for a fact that the landmass has changed dramatically during the past 5.5 billion years with two ice ages to boot. Their survival says to me, at least, they made evolutionary changes.

plants developed from the first differentiated protist cell almost 3.8 ByA. Ever since then, plants have underfgone their own evolution and migration. Remember from your 8th grade physical science, where books showed that in the Carboniferous Period, all plants were "gymnosperms" like ferns, cycads, pines, etc. Flowering plants, or "angiosperms" didnt evolve till the Late Cretaceous or early Paleocene.
We can follow genomes of plants just like animals, in fact, some of the longest coding genomes are bacteria and algae The coding setions of e. coli is about 3 to 10 times larger than a human

Did evolution play a part in the formation of our near-perfect ecosystem? More specifically, the oxygen-carbon dioxide cycles?

Define perfect . . . you keep adding value judgments to your silly remarks, which makes them meaningless in terms of scientific validity . . . were there no significant levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, the religious wackos would not be around to advance their ludicrous propositions, nor the scientists to wearily deny their outrageous falsehoods. You put the cart before the horse, consistently.

I mean, an ecosystem that is self-supporting, and perfect for us to live in.

Which means you haven't grasped the concept of how the system works, and continue to put the cart before the horse. The system settles to the lowest order of balance--it is sheerly coincidence that we are here. We are here, in the form in which we are here, because we adapt to the system. The system is not "designed" nor "created" to serve our ends.