Cedar Point Math & Science Week

I wasn't trying to force you into anything, I was just answering how I felt.

You take care also.

Curious -- same thing with huge crowds at Kings Island this week, right? So avoid until next week?

Yup. Never go during Math & Science Week unless you can't go any other time.

I certainly respect you for stating your beliefs, regardless of how much I disagree with them. I know many, many people of character who want to love God and love neighbor to the best of their ability who happen to believe things that I don't believe.

What I am having trouble with is:

You keep saying that you don't want to offend people but you made a claim about a group of people (evolutionary scientists). Now, instead of defending your original claim or retracting it, you seem to be attempting to move on or dismiss it without addressing it.

In my book, if you're going to make a claim like that, you better be prepared to back it up.

I actually went to SFoT Saturday afternoon around 5 pm on band day. The parking lot was filled with close to 100 yellow school busses. You couldn't throw a rock without hitting a band kid. Funny thing was, by 6pm, the park was very managable. There was a huge exodus between 5pm and 6pm and the regular people who had braved the crowds were few and far between. We would have had a pretty empty park to ourselves if we were planning on staying longer (we ended up leaving around 6:30 for unrelated reasons).

Marvin Miller said:

Curious -- same thing with huge crowds at Kings Island this week, right? So avoid until next week?

Kings Island is likely to have more creationists than scientists.

As the resident atheist, I think you're all goofy. ;)

I would like to point out that the room is quite academic and clings to scientific fact (as well we should) quite tightly. But I'd also like to point out that 500 years ago we'd be laughing at the guy who suggested that the Sun didn't revolve around the Earth.

If we cling too hard to what we perceive as fact, we may never move on to a better or more complete truth. It the wackos who thought the Earth revolved around the sun that moved us forward. I think there's always room for thinking outside the box. Who knows what silly things we argue as 'fact' now will be giggled about in the future?

With all of that said...

Everyone knows that aliens plopped a settlement on this little blue planet right about the time of the Egyptians.

What a bunch of maroons!

Since we are actually having this discussion, I would love to know why people believe this. My theory, without any research on the subject, is that some Christians want to believe that the Bible is word from word factual. They don't want to admit that perhaps the Bible has been mistranslated, may have ideas that we can't understand out of context, or simply has had some things removed or added by forces who want to use religion to control people instead of enlighten people.

All I know is that Mr. J, Son of God, the one and only Jesus, died for me. That's all you have to know. All the division between different sects of the Christian religion are doing us all no good. It keep as all bickering about differences instead of celebrating the things that we have in common.

I have another theory, and that is that the insane thoughts that some of these Christian school are teaching our kids is on purpose, to begin turning our society into a bunch of ignoramuses. What better way to control the people than to have them believe without question that science can not answer the big questions.

Wow, my conspiracy theory mind is working overdrive on this now, so I better stop.

I think that when we all die, we will meet our maker and ask him what we got right and what we got wrong. He will laugh at those who believed that the earth is only 6,000 years old, but that doesn't mean He doesn't love you any less.

(Edit in bold - ) It's hard to understand how someone can believe that it's a lot nicer of a thought that when we die, we turn off, like a light in the dark, and cease to exist. That makes no sense to me at all. What happens to all the memories and all the life inside of us? Where does the energy inside us that we might call a soul, or a life force, go? How does it get from a person who died to a person who has just been born?

Then we could get into other non-Christian religions. How many cans of worms do we have to open here?

How did CoasterBuzz get me to think this deeply? lol

You really think that it's a nicer thought to believe that when you die, everything shuts off? I always thought that's what scared people, that it was more comforting to think that there's an eternally blissful afterlife.

LostKause, how do you know that Jesus died for you? If you get that from the Bible, then why can't Tyler get his 6000-year-old Earth from the Bible as well? Muslims don't believe that Jesus died for them; they believe that Muhammad was the last prophet of God. They know this the same way that you know Jesus died for you.

Like Gonch said, I think it's all nutty.

Since the worms are all over the place, why not jump into the conversation?

I'm a Christian. I'm not ashamed of it. I don't think it makes me ignorant. There are things I believe in and things I don't. There are also a whole horde of things I don't really understand, and you know what? I'm okay with that. I think that Christians sometimes get a bad rep because they try to claim that they do understand those things or they place too much emphasis on them that they lose sight of the basics, and really, those basics are really all that's important.

Travis kind of hit it on the head. Some Christians go nuts over the trivial matters. Some Christians go hyperactive over science as well, and honestly, I don't see why Christianity and science have to stand in opposition. That at one point the church was convinced the Earth was flat and that to say otherwise is ludicrous to me. I fail to see how a flat Earth was so essential to our belief system. Some of the stuff Christians fight over is hysterical.

Where in the bible does it say the earth is 10,000 years old?

I've obviously never seen that scripture.

2 Tyler 6:23:

"Lo, the Earth was madeth in 7,987 BC. And yea, mankind shalt sprint forth throughout the land."

ApolloAndy said:

You couldn't throw a rock without hitting a band kid.

Did you try? :)

It's against my religion. ;) Although apparently I *should* be stoning more people.

I find it odd that so many put their faith in science, when the so-called "proof" and things we believed our entire lives are frequently debunked. I remember "knowing" that there existed a creature called "brontosaurus" and that there were nine planets in our solar system.

Well, the theory of science and the practice of science are a bit farther apart than many would like to admit. In theory, science is an ambivalent, pure way of learning new things about and experiencing the universe, which seems awesome. In practice, it is full of agendas, biases, hypocrites and ultimately messed up humans. Depending on your interpretation, it can be anywhere from utter nonsense to the answer to everything.

You can substitute religion in the previous paragraph.

Am going this friday. Dont really care how many kiddies are there as I plan on buying a fast lane+ ....thimking that not a lot of fast lanes will be sold that day as the school kids all will be in groups and chances are most of them wont have the money to buy them and even if some of them do, I would doubt that eveyone in the group will be able to do it. It may be busy but I'm betting on the fast lane line to be relatively short. Maybe just wishful thinking on my part.

Oh...and I think we should all celebrate "Life Day"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j7fEpo5IOc

I just prayed for all of you. ;-)

ApolloAndy said:

You can substitute religion in the previous paragraph.

Agreed, Andy. However, I don't believe Christianity is a religion. Krause has it right on most accounts. Simply put, Christianity is the belief that Jesus died for us, and accepting that He is our savior. That, and only that, is how we achieve eternal life.