BA-BIBLE & WORSHIP ARTS
BS-BIBLE & WORSHIP ARTS

Now, ignoring the obvious 'BS' jokes... Bible and Worship is an art? Must be some new usage of the word I wasnt aware of.

ARTS
 

I can understand a BA in Bible & Worship Arts, but a BS is an "Arts" course? That's just fucking stupid.:mad:

The reason that only Bible stuff is taught in Bible colleges is because religion is a viable career...a viable *profitmaking* career. But...if you teach the preachers and music worship folks Business and Finance, people will look at them more cynically, so you hire those folks from the outside, and then use the college educated religion salespeople to draw in the marks...I mean parishoners, and separate them from their cash.

Yes, I am cynical about organized religion. Why do you ask?

Science teachers don't don't teach their opinion, they don't teach religion, either. They teach science. :smack:

How obvious. Don't think. Have an education equivalent to a monkey. Then proclaim superiority to those monkeys. Then fight wars for the destruction of mankind - and proclaim all is part of god's will. It must be because it must be.

Why was that logic not so obvious? Clearly I waste time trying to become informed. Clearly I spend not enough time appreciating biblical logic.

Be like a monkey. That means I will be superior - god's chosen creature. Clearly I was wasting too much time learning god’s laws that are not in the bible. Foolish me. Even monkeys know better – that man cannot even fly. Why do I waste time learning science when everything necessary to know is already in the bible? Even gallstones can be removed by prayer. Why waste time in a hospital consulting someone trained in science? After all, god tells us so. How do we know? He told Pat Robertson. And clearly god wants man to destroy all those other evil religions - for the glory of god.

Clearly it must be the purpose of man; to do god’s bidding. Cleanse the world of evil people – especially those so silly as to believe other religions. Even the Jews will be converted. Silly me. I did not realize the bible would tell me all just like a fortune teller. Why did I waste time learning things? Kinkyvixen has just made the purpose of life so obvious.

IOW those who know as much science as a monkey are little different from that monkey. Monkeys also don't understand that science - therefore don't discover more of god's laws.

Well to be honest the science of evolution is 95% carbon dating and material analysis, the rest has the same science content as studying medieval castles. Determining the age of a rock is science, the Theory of Evolution is history. You can test it with genetics, chemistry and biology, but it isn't in any of those fields. You'd be very supprised at how little respect most real scientists have for all but a few scientists who work with evolution, our research grants depend on us keeping that to ourselves though. It's the same thing you see in global warming, scientists on both sides are pressured to say what their employers want to hear because if not 'the other side wins'. I kid you not. It drives the rest of us absolutly nuts.

Honestly, I'd be happier with a good theory of evolution than proof of god, it's more convenient in my line of work. I deal mostly with implants and neural motor prosthesis. Evolution makes sense to me because I can see the next step, we are driven to devolop non-neuron based computational technology because our flesh has hit it's developmental limit. Our brains have an advantage over computers now only because of parallel computing, in terms of processing speed we are no match. The human brain can perform about 20 million billion calculations persecond, our computers now can match about 60% of that. By around 2013 we will be able to replicate the full potential of the human mind, and by 2030 about a million dollars will buy you a computer as powerful as every human on the planet combined. See the pattern? We won't stay competitive for much longer, so will be forced to either fade away or form a sybiosis with our superior counterparts.

Unfortunatly research on linking our nervous system directly into our computers is behind the times, but not by a serious margin. You may have heard of Matt Nagle, in 2001 he was paralysed from the neck down and cannot breath without assistance or talk at all. Thanks to an implant in his neuromotor cortex he can now type, move a mouse, control his wheelchair and move a robotic arm.
http://www.sg.hu/kep/2005_04/0405agy4.jpg

Everything in our bodies is simple electrical interaction, all you have to do is isolate it and control it. Our children will probably think nothing of porting their entire consciousness directly into their computers.

:thumb: Excellent cartoon Griff.

I don't get it. Why is God making the TB bugs more drug-resistant? Does he hate us and want us all to die?

I wouldn't blame him if he did:rolleyes:

no, it's his... um His method of thinning the herd.

...then he needs to be a little more selective in whom he culls.

yes, naturally

The minute that god is a 'he' or 'she', then god is only a ‘Superman’; no different from gods worshipped by Greeks or Romans. How does Christianity differ from other pagan religions? Not by much.

Humans have a psychological need for a parent figure. So humans invent a human like god. It worked. From those parables came lessons on life – how all could be productive members of society. Back then, worship of ‘super nanny’ was easier for most to comprehend. In reality, life and death comes from things they did not understand and that are today measured by tools such as statistics and biology. There is no ‘he’ or ‘she’ in god. But those concept exist in pagan religions.

Um...I was joking. I forgot to insert the [sarcasm] tags.

That man has created God in his own murderous, bipolar image is fairly clear to me, TW.

Apparently I don't quite comprehend the concept?

ahem...
<----- me too

Maybe that's how it was in your science class Bruce, but in most of mine, that wasn't the case.

... which means examples are required to demonstrate what is claimed.

I'm sorry, but I think that some of this is just simple intellectual laziness:
why should I learn anything about science?... it's much easier to believe that God created all of these mysterious things and that's all I need to care about.

...which means if you're gonna teach one, you should teach both. Or none at all, like I was saying.

More like superstition than laziness.
It takes a lot of work to keep denying a truth that is staring you in the face.

Did I say don't learn science? No, actually i'm pretty sure that wasn't what I said. Go back and read. I have an opinion and can state it. I have no idea what you're saying because all you say is relentless BS about the same thing. Doesn't matter, I didn't read enough of what you said to even argue with you. All I said, in more words was, if you're gonna teach one, teach 'em both, or don't act like a 2 year old and expect everyone else to believe your horseshit.

I'm fine with that, as long as the evolution is taught in a science class, and the creationism/intelligent design is taught in a religion or philosophy class. One of the two is a scientific theory, the other is not.

Thank you, glatt, thats exactly how I feel too.

What do you mean "both"? If you're talking creation myths, there's at least one per culture on the planet. And they fit very nicely in a comparative religions or philosophy class.

But this isn't science:

Ted Koppel would do this when one intentionally did not answer the question. "You did not answer the question so I am going to ask it again": So where are your examples. Where are your examples of science teachers teaching opinions?

Show us examples of science teachers teaching opinions instead of science. This is so easy if true. So easy that I should not have to ask this again. So show us. Show us examples of science teachers teaching opinions.

I have had teachers give me opinion in class before...

...But they've always said it was opinion and its never been about something we were actually studying, except in English class.

Science should be taught in science class. You go to a science class to learn science. That's why they call it a science class. If you don't want to learn science, don't go to a science class. If you need a science class for your degree, then there is probably a reason that you need to learn science, and therefore you should probably learn about science while you are in that science class. What was the other "side" to this ???

Bah, I say just cut the whole section out so everyone will stop bitching. It's probably the most useless chapter of the year anyway and not worth the trouble if you ask me. Since we can't even seem to teach 40% of our students to read at a highschool level we have more pressing issues to deal with. Besides, you need to know genetics (and far more than the Mendelian
type) to even begin to understand the principles. I'll admit I'm confused as to why schoolboards feel it's ok to cut atomic theory and (real) genetics out of the cirriculum because 'students just cant handle that level of material (dumbasses), but insist that they are benefiting from a frantic race through evolutionary theory.

Why stop at science? If any part of any class on any subject offends any religious group - that's it! Strike one, you're out!

Not really. You need to know genetics to understand the mechanism or the details, but all you need to know to understand the principle is that children are similar, but not identical, to their parents.

They did something like that with 'Merchant of Venice', exept when its the PC police banning stuff we have to listen.

That's like saying that someone who knows that magnets stick together understands the EM force, or that a student who can tell you that plants produce energy from the sun understands photosynthesis. Parroting back the end result of a process is not understanding it, without knowing the underlying principles you are preforming the same function as a tape recorder. Something my physics prof told us springs to mind:

He's right you know, a person who can only punch numbers into a calculator has the same level of math proficiency as a trained monkey. And a student who understands nothing beyond "organisms evolve in response to environmental pressures" really doesn't understand anything at all. You cannot understand any principle without knowledge of the mechanism behind it.

No, because similar-but-not-identical-children isn't the end result of evolution, it is the assumption going in. You can have a reasonable understanding of evolution just taking that as a given, and working from there.

Not that I'd advocate skipping basic genetics.

What should I eat? Well, what were people probably eating while our current design was being shaped by the forces of our environment, and what were those forces likely to consist of? For instance, an automobile was designed to run on gasoline, so I'm not going to put kerosene in it and expect it to run properly. So, by that same basic reasoning, I can understand so many things about my own body simply by grasping the basic concept of evolution. No advanced genetics required. And, hell, I think I just invented evolutionary biology! Wow, good thing I wasn't ripped-the-fuck-off and not taught this crucial concept at the foundation of so many areas of modern scientific thought.

Lay it on me Flint, what revelations about your body do you garner from studying eating habits. Please don't feed me that crap about vestigial organs, I laughed out loud in class when my teacher tried to tell us the vermiform appendix has no function in the body. (It's primary function is the manufacturing of B lymphocytes and in the production of IgA antibodies in young children. It is also an absolutly critical part of the endocrine system during the development of the fetus)

You want to hear everything I was taught in science class?
I don't have the time nor I expect do you.
Besides, I can't tell you what I was taught, only what I learned. ;)

That's not what I said. I said I can determine what my eating habits should be, by understadnding evolution.

I can determine what is healthiest for me to eat by understanding what I was designed to eat. I accomplish this by understanding the basic pribciple of evolution, nothing advanced, just the basic principle. By this same token, I can determine what kinds, and what type of exercise are appropriate for an organism of my species. It consists of the daily survival activities that I would have to be participating in, if I weren't sitting in an air-conditioned office and having ready access to nutritionally dense food sources. This example of how evolution enhances your personal decision-making process is the easist to grasp, because it is useful on a day to day basis.

But there are other, perhaps more interesting fields, based on the foundation of understanding evolution. For instance, Evolutionary Psychology - why do we have the type emotional structures we do? And, knowing this, what insights can we gain about ourselves and how we interact with others. Evolution helps us understand that, as well as anything else about oursleves that we explore with that line of reasoning.

I agree with much of that but

The Caveman Diet

Doesn't make sense to me, because:

Humans are designed to live about 35 years. You're designed to reproduce and then to get out before you're a burden to the tribe. Nature doesn't fight cholesterol or cancer well because there is no point to keeping the aged and infirm around. Just eat a balanced diet and hope for the best.

I haven't heard of the Caveman Diet, or what it consists of. My point was that an understanding of evolution is a powerful critical thinking tool that can be applied in many areas. To "cut the whole section out" of schools, simply because of pressure from religious groups, would be an extreme disservice to the children have a responsibility to educate.

another "useless chapter"
 

ok, no scientist worth his salt will tell you that the theory of evolution is in the same realm as the theory of gravity. Quantum mechanics would be a better comparison.

But, if religious activists had a problem with gravity, would we "cut the whole section out so everyone will stop bitching" ???

I really couldn't care less about either the bitching or the fact that some people want it pulled. In a well operated public school system where students are being given a detailed, well rounded science education that deals more with actual information than general theories (drawing from my own experience) evolution can play a productive role. But that's not the case and the fault doesn't lie with one set of people. Kids are not getting a good grounding in science before being exposed to more advanced topics like evolution. Take, for instance, kids who are being taught principles of quantum mechanics such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle without knowing more atomic theory than being able to name the parts of an atom and the four basic forces of the universe. You end up with students who have bizzar and erroneous understandings like "the reason you cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle is that by measuring the state of the particle you change it's velocity by an amount proportional to the accuracy of the first reading". And those are the top 0.1% of the class. The teachers and school board proudly tell everyone what a great education the kids are getting with all this exposure to advanced ideas, but it's just a delusion to impress parents and make themselves out to be more than a glorified daycare.

My point is that the addition of evolution to the highschool cirriculum was not only pointless, but harmful because it displaced topics more vital at that low level (yes, highschool is only a low level of education meant as preparation for higher topics).

American science classes are already the laughing stock of developed countries, but it's not because some of them don't teach evolution. It's serving as a scapegoat for an already pitiful effort on the part of all but a few students and teachers. Learn to walk first (used metaphorically) then run.

Fine points. But allowing religion into the science classroom cannot possibly be a positive step for a failing educational system.

Which countries that are laughing at our science classes don't have evolution in theirs?

Evolution, like the other sciences taught, is based upon scientific principles of thought - a logical process. We teach science even in junior high school so that you learn how to form a fact - which means both theory consistent with known facts and experimental evidence. Without both, we don't have a science fact.

Evolution meets the criteria of logical through. Intelligent Design does just the opposite. Intelligent design violates how one forms a logical fact.

We were taught the concept of spontaneous reproduction in elementary school science to demonstrate how myths are created - how the principles of science are violated. If you advocate teaching intelligent design to demonstrate how myths are created, then fine. Let's teach how religious extremist propaganda is a lie in science class; how it vioates basic principles of logical thought. Or better, just leave the religion out of the building altogether and avoid any conflicts. Intelligent design violates science principles. Those other sciences demonstrate how science fact is created.

The fact that some still cannot tell the difference demonstrates why the US has dropped to 23 in science and math - the studies that actually honor god. Instead 1/4 of Americans now worship false idols, cannot think logically and therefore are easily manipulated by Rush Limbaugh, and also want Armageddon.