No problem at all! It's far better this way than getting personal about it.

To answer your question, which I suspect is rhetorical: The proof I, for one, have, is subjective. It is unverifiable and unrepeatable, and therefore unscientific. This does not make it invalid - just unscientific. This is why science and religion should be kept separate, and also why there is no conflict - it's because they simply don't concern each other.
As to the further nature of my proof, I can confidently tell you that what the book says that's over a thousand years old happens to "coincide" with my daily experience. I don't have any metaphysical questions that need answering - they've all been answered, with no contradiction, for me. And my science is entirely fine with that - no contradiction, however, slight, exists there either. On a side note, to have people insulting me, and others, for that belief (I'm not saying you do), is a fault with them and not with me.
Such questions might not have been answered for you, if you happen to have any, so I don't want to force anything on anybody. I'm simply speaking of my personal experience.

I agree with you that ID shouldn't be forced as a science, by the way (as you'll notice if you read some posts on here )

I never insulted your religion, YOU chose to be insulted BY what I said, you melodramatic boob.

Nope, heliocentricism doesn't conflict with religion. Since it did in the 1600's but not now indicates that it isn't an intrinsic fault with religion. People thought that the Bible said the Earth was the centre of the universe, which I can assure you it doesn't.
I don't even know what you mean by "waah", but it certainly isn't anything logical.

*shrug* Whatever you say.

And to be entirely honest, I find it difficult to see how that isn't an insult.

4th post in a row!

You know, you're right. What you said certainly isn't going to stop me from being a Christian, or any other Christian from stopping being one, so I don't have to get offended at anything you say - I just happen to strongly disagree with you. I've said why, I don't need to drag it out. I apologize for my melodrama.

Let me guess, you also claim that the Bible doesn't say that the Earth was made in 6 days either, right, that it was all just 'time scaled' to god's perception of time? Or that the Bible doesn't also claim that genetics is based on what's around sheep when they mate, or where Jesus says worms are immortal. Or that Jesus also thought cripples were inherently sinners too. There's a good New Testament life lesson for you - do you go find handicapped people, pull out your leather-bound bible, point a finger at them, and then start preaching the WORDAH OF THA LORDAH! SAY AMEN YE BROTHAS AN SISTAS SAY AAAAMEEENN BLESSED BE HE WHO ACCEPTAHS THE LIGHT OF THE LORD-AH IN HIS HEART AND YE BE CRIPPLED WITH SIN! THA SNAKE HAS WRAPPED HIS TREACHEROUS COILS AROUND YOUR FRAME AND CRUSHED IT WITH THE BURDEN OF MISDEEDS! MAY YOU BURNAH FOR ETERNITY IN THE LAKE OF FIRE FOR YOUR DEVIANT, HERETICAL WAYS-AH!

I can really get down to the 'insulting religion' part if you'd really like. By the way, if you want to whine about being constructive, well, it's ironic that that comes from a guy who triple-posts and says absolutely nothing.

YOU might not think it conflicts with religion, but YOU are not the Emperor of Christianity. It *DOES* remove a hidey-hole for god, one way or the other, by explaining yet another natural phenomena without theological supernaturalism, and therefore it DOES and it WILL conflict with many people's ideas of the world.

Oh come on. Evolution is proven. It exists. Anyone who refuses to believe so is fooling themselves.

However, I do believe that evolution and God can exist at the same time. Believing in one doesn't mean you cannot believe in the other.

That being said, I do not believe in Intelligent Design, for the most part because I am not a Christian. In fact, I have no freakin' idea what I am - raised Hindu, but I don't care for religion much - I fear it starts wars.

And religion has absolutely NO, read it again, NO place in government or education. PERIOD. To disagree with this is in my opinion, just plain ridiculous. I don't want someone's theory of a religious belief to be imposed upon me in school (especially when this theory has no proof to support it - I do not find Christianity to be proof, because it is not, it too, is a theory). I have the same viewpoint for any viewpoints based off any religion (for example, perhaps a form of Intelligent Design, but based from Hinduism) - it should never even cross anyone's mind to teach it in school as the main explanation for life.

Evolution makes sense, has more proof than anything else, and is the religion-free neutral explanation I think we can all agree on. And being neutral is not just better, but mandatory.

I can't believe people would even challenge the notion of evolution and introduce some far-fetched fairytale. What has the world come to?

- PR-0927

Intelligent design is a joke, unfortunately it's like the one about the chicken crossing the road -- old, tired, and no longer funny.

Religion would be a joke too, if it weren't for the fact that fundamentalists often seem more than willing to kill others who do not adhere to their (the fundamentalists) erroneous beliefs.

All I can say at this point is thank goodness for the idea of the separation of church and state in most modern democracies, and lets just hope that the fundamentalists within them lose their battle to subvert their governments -- especially in places like the United States.

IMO I think everyone should take a page out of chinas book and ban religion altogether. Its all philosophical BS that can never be proven, but will eventually be disproven. I just think we should remove the middle time for it where there are still questions in which "god", "Allah", w/e, can still hide.

Yes you can have experiences that are explained in the bible, koran(sp?), w/e, all that kind of crap. Simply because a book happens to have many good examples of the human condition written in it does not make everything in it true. Its a good book(for the most part, theres a lot of death, vengeance, and killing in there I don't agree with) but it has no place in modern society. This isn't an attack on christianity this means EVERY religion. Since every(large) religion has the exact same book, just a different version, with slightly different stories. It was a method for teaching people way back when to not kill each other etc on a whim. There has to be a good reason first before you start the slaughter. In hindsight it was a BAD idea, but well, you know, like everything, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Religion is the #1 cause for violence in the world, and has been for several thousand years. Yes there were other reasons behind it, but can you think of a better way to convince your entire populace that they should hate and attack another populace than to convince them that the other populace has betrayed/insulted/attacked in some way the fictional figure you have been brainwashed into worshipping? That applies to EVERY religion. Don't go getting up on a high horse and going "Oh, they were misguided, MY god preaches peace!". He doesn't, he preaches peace towards fellow believers in him, and death to everyone that won't convert. Why don't you christians actually READ the bible sometime, and pay attention to what you are reading, I was a christian once, reading the bible was how I decided it was all a pile of horse manure. Yes, even the new testament has the exact same crap, just worded a bit differently.

Since ID is completely based off of religious beliefs(pick your flavor, it applies to pretty much all of them) it has no place in modern society. Lets not also forget that all the scientists etc that support this nonsensical BS are first and foremost christians, or islam, or w/e else they're using ID to attempt to force into the school system.

*pulls out the fire extinguisher for those about to attempt to "cleanse him in eternal flame"*

Actually, Ironhandx, from what I can recall, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shintoism, and Confucianism don't have bibles, or if they do they're very very different from the ones in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

And Hinduism is a fairly major religion, considering there's like a billion people who practice it. Let's also not forget Buddhism, which has a pretty significant number of followers as well.

As for the whole brainwashing a populace into attacking another group of people, that happens in secular states as well -- just look at the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and their allies.

Still, I agree that religion is a load of rubbish, unfortunately I think banning it wouldn't work either. Hopefully humanity will just outgrow it someday, the same way children outgrow imaginary friends.

"This movie also shows that the theoy of Intelligent Desing is completly scientific and that it is only being excluded because it has religious support."

Except thats fundamentally wrong, and shows the entire problem.

In order to be scentifically valid, any theory has to be testible, and as such can be proven (or disproven). You can't create a test that proves or disproves Intelligent Design. Therefore, by our definition of science, its not science.

The opposition to teaching it is so strong because they want to teach it in science class, even though it doesn't meet the most basic definition of scientific study. Teaching non-science in science class really accomplishes nothing except interfering with science education, which happens to be pretty important for our economic competitiveness these days (and is already an area where US schools lag way behind).

Its no different then if someone suggested that English class include a section on French, except that people would see through that a lot more easily.

They do, sorta. They ARE different. But they all boil down to a collection of stories/metaphors by which you should live your life. Which was what I meant, sorry if that was a bit confusing .

And yes, it happens in secular states as well. The majority of those countries you speak of however are christian, and many people hopped onto the bandwagon just because of that "lets kill the ragheads" sentiment that is still quite common amongst followers of that faith in many countries. BUT, since they're secular there are protests etc against the wars and whatnot... but not as much as there was against the war in vietnam because governments have gotten better at thier propaganda generating. It doesnt help that the general media is usually willing to roll over and play mouthpiece for them.

Intelligent design coincidentally forms the basis for the docrine of most popular religons. The hypothesis itself, while arguably untestable and therefore unscientific, can be defended. I might say that the hypothesis is indeed testible, only humanity severely lacks the capacity to test it. When the idea becomes more than what should be mentioned in a science class is when people put ID into their religion's wagon.

"See, ID might be true. Therefore EVERYTHING I have made up to go along with the hypothesis might be true as well."

This is a fallacy of composition. If I say an "intelligent" force set existence into motion in a way that the force did not need to exist iself, then that is a valid hypothesis to explain the seemingly irreducible idea of existence. Saying that because this hypothesis might be true, we can also infer that the force has a name, knows you, and likes you is simply ridiculus. Nevertheless, some of the moral lessons contained in religion serve a beneficial purpose. Where most people have a problem is when religion steps in to make major social assertions (eg. no gay marriage, male superiority, acceptability of genocide, sinfulness of family planing, etc. ).

Not to say religion has no place in life, religion has no place in a school. Anyway, do students not receive that education from home? Send students to a private school if you are so adamant.

ID is a giant farce. There is so much misinformation put out about evolution on their side of the fence, combined with the fact that attacking the other valid design is their only credibly tactic... For those that might know, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was born out of a counter-argument to ID. If we can get away with teaching ID, then we should teach about how FSM created the universe with his noodly appendage. What evidence do we have to support this theory? Why, all of the uncertainty and misinformation ID uses to attack evolution, of course!

Every time you mention ID, I shall answer, "And I was touched by his noodly appendage. Ramen."

"could not agree with you more! This is why I support the removal of evolution from our schools. evolution most certianly is an unsubstantiated and unverifiable idea, and just because so many poeple have come to support it, it is in the schools."

This is completely, factually, 100% WRONG.

Evolution is, in fact, one of the most substantiated and proven 'theories' we have. (and don't get me started on the ridiculous 'it's only a theory' nonsense. Gravity is also 'only' a theory. So is relativity. And they both make predictions that fit 99.999999999% with observable facts, as does evolution) If evolution is, in fact, incorrect, ALL of modern biology (and by extension, modern medicine) would be incorrect.

The only people who claim that evolution is 'unsubstantiated and unverifiable' are creationists who are trying to manufacture a controversy where there is none, and are trying to deny science because it doesn't fit with their belief system.

ID is what is 'unsubstantiated' (there is no proof of a designer except for some people looking at the universe and *believing* that it must be 'designed') and 'unverifiable' (since an 'Intelligent Designer' would be infinitely powerful, once cannot speculate on what s/he could or could not do, and therefore any theories based on that idea cannot be verified scientifically - this alone is the #1 reason ID is *not* science - it's just magical thinking.

a further note - check out http://www.expelledexposed.com/ to see a complete critique of this ridiculous pile of trash that goes by the name of 'Expelled: The Movie'.

I guess my question is...

Why does religion always change from scientific findings? Remember, the earth is the center of the universe...

The thing is, the Ptolemaic system was Greek, and though it was accepted as true by the Church (which was clearly, scientifically, wrong), it didn't come from the Bible. It's also true that a literalist interpretation of the Bible is faulty, for several different reasons. I see what you mean, but it's how science is seen in light of the Bible. Since the two are separate entities, and quite compatible (for various reasons), it doesn't make a difference. Anyway, the point of Christianity isn't whetehr the world was made in 6 days (which it clearly wasn't), it's about the Saving Grace of Christ. This happens also to be the reason why ID shouldn't be taught as science.

Evolution is like the "Global Warming" SCAM!

There is a "consensus" on both of these, therefore, it is declared and taught as Science.
Wasn't there a "consensus" back in the 1400s that the world was flat?
Truth is, you cannot prove Evolution, nor can I prove Intelligent Design.
Which makes more sense? I like what Ben Stein said to the "professor" in the movie... (I don't remember the exact quote) "But how did life begin?"

So... if evolution is only a "theory", then why is it taught as "science"? Those two words do not go together anymore than the words "consensus" and "science" go together like Al Gore thinks it does.

I guess we won't know which side is right until we die. If evolution is right, then everyone will just turn to dust. If ID is right, then I (and other believers in God and Christ) will be spending eternity in Heaven, and the evolutionists and atheists will be in hell. I like my odds better.

I thank God -- literally -- for Ben Stein taking a stand against those who want to silence this side of the issue. This IS America, isn't it? I thought we had a freedom to speak. But it seems there are those that want to silence all who disagree with them... especially if it involves Christianity (no other religions are silenced... just Christianity. That in itself tells me something.)

You are Forgiven.

For everyone who says that evolution is a theory I must ask, do you mean macro or micro? At the microbiological level it has been proven. For those of you who DONT believe in fossil proof at the MACRO level it is still a theory. I for one believe in fossil proof.

Typical of many supporters of ID, you're confusing the scientific use of the word 'theory' with everyday use (or conveniently ignoring the scientific community's definition of the word 'theory').

Theory, as defined by the National Academy of Sciences: Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena.

(Italics and bolding are mine).

Thus, the Theory of Evolution (much like the Theory of Universal Gravitation and the Theory of Relativity).

It's just too bad freedom of speech doesn't carry a requirement to think critically as well.

So... how DID life begin?
Give it your best shot.

Aliens crashed onto our planet and their souls came out of a volcano in Hawaii. Or something like that south park episode. Anyways, cant you people just play spore and be happy? You get to use evolution and intelligent design in this game. Wow, they combined both into a fun game.