[Millie]

I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in this discussion again, but God help me (ha ha), I can't avoid it.

So where do we begin?

Originally Posted by Lyenae

I'm not here to respond to any of her points.

That's comforting to know. I'd have just as much fun arguing with a brick wall, I suppose: it offers the same degree of intellectual back-and-forth.

She tries to box this argument a 2 front science/religion war which it isn't. I don't play the sides game. My arguments have nothing to do with religion.

I'm not trying to "box" this argument in any way that hasn't already been discussed prior to my entry into the thread. Religion vs. Science was already going at full steam by the time I got here.

So far I've educated this thread by

1) Making people aware of naturalism/skepticism.

And yet, oh Great Skeptic, you refuse to turn that skeptical gaze inward at your own faith. Hypocrisy at its finest. This is yet another of the many points I've made on this thread to which you deign not to respond.

If you're going to wear the mantle of the enlightened skeptic, you need to apply that same skepticism to everything. You have to be willing to accept that evolution may have occurred just as readily as you presently doubt that it did. Skepticism, contrary to your belief, cuts both ways: in the negative ("I'm not convinced X happened") and in the positive ("I'm not convinced X didn't happen, either").

Furthermore, earlier on in this thread you made the assertion that evolution need not be taught in schools because it's -- and I quote you here -- "a waste of time." In fact, you lumped most scientific/theoretical education into the "waste of time" trash bin.

How are we to take seriously your intellectual skepticism if you argue against the teaching of scientific and/or theoretical knowledge?

I spent a year being a substitute teacher awhile back, across many school districts, kids in urban school systems are not given basic thinking skills, period.

So your solution is to cut non-practical skills like science out of the curriculum altogether, and presumably to implement religious education/indoctrination in their place. Yeah. THAT'LL teach them to think critically!

3) Making clear that every 'begging the question' is a circular argument.

What you did was take one thing I wrote out of context and attempt to debunk it in a light in which it was never intended to be cast. I didn't make the statement "Science has discovered things in the past; therefore, it will discover things in the future" to imply that science will figure everything out. Rather, I said that as a means of describing the scientific mode of progression. I was talking about what science does, not making a prediction about what science will do.

My point was that science asks questions, evolves, grows, etc., and that religion works from an opposite point of view: that everything is known now, up front, and that there can be no further improvement because God is perfect and He created everything.

I've contributed a ton to this thread.

The amount of hot air you've spewed into this thread could melt a polar ice cap or two. Certainly.

People who are interested in thinking for themselves and are curious how people know anything, should pick up a general world philosophy book and go from there.

It'll rank up there as one of the best time investments you ever do.

But let's not teach philosophy to our kids. It's a "waste of time!"