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You have also spent a fair deal of words talking non sense about pink elephants and little men named Fred. Somebody here said it takes as much faith not to believe in a god as it does to believe in a god.
There's nothing faith-based about science, if we are to take that word in the same meaning as it applies to theistic belief. Science is the accumlation of observable and measureable knowledge about the natural world. It is true that our current scientific paradigms have holes in it, and also that science has been proved inaccurate--these historical inaccuraces are actually what make the scientific process so exact. Theories are refined and updated by new discoveries and knowledge. No one said that our current understanding of the universe is the end-all paradigm of knowledge, because I'm sure in 300 years it will be quite a bit more advanced based on the discoveries to be made in that time. The important part about science is that it is the most accurate description of reality that we can currently make based on what we know.
There's no faith in science, and the two principles (science and religion) are in such a different nature that to compare them in this way demonstrates a misunderstanding of science. Science is merely the paradigm of knowledge about reality. Its observations about reality and nature. Its not the same as having faith in god, which is why there are many people who are both highly scientific but also highly religious.
This is also a misunderstanding of science. Scientific Theory is different from regular theory. If i say "i believe that Elvis was abducted by aliens," that is a theory, not a fact. But Scientific Theories are both theories and fact because when we use the word "theory" here we are not talking about speculatory things, we are talking about a paradigm of knowledge. The theory of evolution is both a theory and a fact in the same way that the theory of gravity is both a theory and a fact. A series of facts and knowlege has been collected to such an extent that we can assert that a hypothesis is correct and that it will stay correct. For instance, we have enough knowledge about gravity that we can assert that it behaves according to certain principles, and we also have enough knowledge to assert that there is no reason to believe those principles will change. The theory of evolution follows similarly, although religious people use the ignorance of the layman to say "hey, its a THEORY, therefore it is unproven!!1" which is totally incorrect.
No it is a perfectly apt analogy and my point was not that its lame. My point was that the pink elephant has the same qualities and characteristics as a supposed god would have: it is invisible, cannot be touched, heard, communicated with or detected in any clear way. So because it has all of these qualities which would make me completely ignorant to its presence, there is the possibility that it does indeed exist, perhaps hovering undetected over my shoulder as i type this. This is the exact same characteristics as a supposed god would have. So what reason is there to believe that the undetectable elephant indeed exists? Its very logical that it could indeed exist, since i would not be aware of its presence. But why would i believe that such a thing is there if i have no reason to?
That is not at all reason for a "design". In fact, this doesn't even fit some peoples definition of god since some don't see him as a designer. Oragnisms are structured to behave in such a way as to be self-improving in order to adapt in environment, right down to the cellular level, and its called evolution, something many people seem to think is contrary to god. As you can see, however, people's opinions of god are very personalized--how can we even begin to claim what god is or isn't when everyone seems to be merely projecting their own subjective preferences into their idealised version of a benevolent deity?
You see religion as a reason to hate and a reason to explain thing we don't understand. But even with science, what you would call truth and facts, get a room full of 50 scientists, even fifty prominent ones who have contributed to texts books and journals, and let's get them to agree on the origin of the universe.
Not quite, there are certain things that most can agree on, and there isn't an unlimited number of probabilities floating around. In fact, we basically have the major fundamentals figured out: everything started out as a singularity, exploded in the big bang, expanded outward, cooled down, formed gases and elements, and eventually planetoids and organisms. The only areas where we don't have a great deal of knowledge is to where the singularity came from, but saying "its magic" (i.e. god) is not an acceptable explanation to fill in an unknown value.
You said,
"Ignorance to such basic factual knowledge is bad for the progress of society."
Close mindedness is also ignorance. My grandfather believed that scientist made up dinosaurs to prove the theory of evolution. That is ignorance. I agree a lot of religious people today (and in the past like my grandfather) stick their fingers in their ears and yell when you give them scientific fact that they feel threatens there faith.
I was actually making that statement in regards to flat-earth people.
You will find that if you read the Bible you will be hard pressed to find scientific inaccuracies or historical inaccuracies. If your idea that belief in God is sheer ignorance, then no educated person would be a theist.
This leads me to believe that you either know nothing about history or science or haven't ever cracked open a Bible. The Bible is a mythological text thousands of years old and is filled with the same inaccuracies as you would expect to find in such a text, and it is no different than say, The Illiad. It proposes the world as flat, it describes the heavenly bodies as deities, asserts that the sky is a series of successivly more supernatural planes (which is why in Medieval times this was thought to be the case), that the world is only five thousand years old, that the universe was created in a few days, that King Herod slaughtered all the boys in Bethlehem, and many, many, many hundreds and probably thousands of similar such absurdities and fabrications of varying degrees.
We would have all the upper-class educated people being atheists, and all the trailer park, low class, uneducated people dumbly believing in God. This however, is not the case at all.
Actually, this is partially statistically true. Most religious people--and the highestly religious people--come from rural areas, areas which are not at all as eductaed as the urban areas. By the same token, hardly any atheists come from rural areas--how many atheists have you met in rural small towns? Not very many. Conversely, most atheists can be found in metropolitan areas, areas which are more educated than the rural counterparts. Thus, in areas where education is the lowest, supernatural belief is the highest. There have actually been studies done on this, although i am admit i cannot at the moment recall the official name of the inquiry. But basically, the findings was that as education increases, belief in the supernatural decreases. That, to me, seems like a logical following. Obviously though it doesn't apply to everyone--there are tons of brilliant people who are also highly religious. But, preportionally, atheists are much more intelligent than religious people. Theres also a study done recently that suggests that religious people may be happier than non-religious people; i guess that confirms the old expression that ignorance is bliss.
Anyway, I am not really wishing to make a fight, it is just annoying how you openly insult people who believe in God. You believe what you will, I have plenty of atheist friends and I wouldn't hold it against you. But you really shouldn't belittle people just because they believe differently than you. It is good to see things from more than one point of view, and it can be a great insight to have friends with an extremely different world view than yourself. It helps you understand the world better. Also, don't worry, progress of society won't be impeded by religious people. It has not been and it won't be. Also I am willing to bet that religious people have made as many contributions to society over the history of the world as atheists have been. I would love to see an example of them holding back the progression of society today.
I am not trying to belittle anyone, but when someone makes such stupid arguments as "if there was no god then religion would be simple" then i will argue them down. I also am mostly presenting verifiable historical and scientific fact and have almost exclsuively strayed from personal opionion, so if you have a problem then it is likely not with me but with reality. Religion tends to completely collapse under factual and logical scrutiny. And that goes back to what i was saying--belief in the supernatural must come from faith, because theres not much factual basis for it. People believe because they want to believe. I am reminded of that UFO poster that was made famous on the X-Files--"I WANT TO BELIEVE." There really isn't any evidence to believe in alien abductions, but people are attached to the idea of such things occuring--they believe in spite of the glaring lack of evidence because they have an emotional need to.