How do you dumb down science for fundies and the general public?

[FSM_scot]

(21-04-2012 06:06 AM)issacwilliamspaul Wrote:  5. A colony of bacteria living inside a trench made by them in the intestine of human is trying to understand its existence how long will it develop the intelligent to understand humans. One day after a few hundred years they may develop helicoptwers and come out of humans mouth. yet they cant understand fully were they exist.

[Chas]

(21-04-2012 06:06 AM)issacwilliamspaul Wrote:  Today somebody questioned me of why i beliiiieve in god.After that i explained to myself the reasons i belived in god


The God-Man-Bacteria Analogy
-----------------------------


1. I always wonder the curious fact that life exists everywhere in many or in strange forms.In deep oceans ,in volcanos, in high thermal vents, extreme saline hot cold situvations it simply exist.SO....


2. its quit natural to beliiiiiieve that life is going to exist outside earrth too there are billion billion stars in unniverse. There are possibllllly a billion billion universes. and its mere vastness is great enough reason to believe there is life outside earth.many intelligent species too.SO...


3. Our human body is a vast universe. there are 10^13 cells in our body....but the strange thing is the parasetic and symbiotic bacteria and viruses ...simply out number our body cells to a factor of 100. There is a 100 times more bacteria in our body than livin g cells.


4. Bacteria is a very intelligent species more intelligent in its realms than human.its adaptability,thrive to existence,power of resilence learning powers defending abilities attackinnnnng abilities are much advanced than humans. yet compared to our macro world they are helpless.

5. A colony of bacteria living inside a trench made by them in the intestine of human is trying to understand its existence how long will it develop the intelligent to understand humans. One day after a few hundred years they may develop helicoptwers and come out of humans mouth. yet they cant understand fully were they exist.

6. We may be like bacterias living inside the guts of a Supreme Being which we call god. May be living in the inside nail of god


7. The world is made in a solar sytem model from micro to macro level.even electrons protons to universes blackholes fgollowing the model.so its natural to believe the earth is a part if not a cell of the god itself

8. god as we fear bacterias may be afraid of us too.Its very difficult for him to wipe us out of him.

This certainly seems to demonstrate science dumbed down a little too much.

[Leela]

look at this, I just found it, and I find it educational for, say, 8+ years, or very dumb grown ups. Allthough the very dumb grown ups might be too stubborn to try and understand and will just give you stupid, nasty comments about it. But it's worth a try, eh.

[FSM_scot]

(20-04-2012 06:51 PM)ghostexorcist Wrote:  Thank you for the complement. I really liked that video. The illustration that I often use is copying a picture on a copying machine. Each copy comes out differently than the one before it, leading to major differences down the line. I think the video is a much simpler idea to grasp, especially when you can see the progression on the computer screen.

I remember watching that on TV and thinking, That is brilliant yet so simple . I've used it to explain evolution once to someone who has no real knowledge of science and they understood it perfectly.

The key to explaining things like evolution to someone with no prior knowledge seems to be, keeping it simple and use something they are familiar with.

[Starcrash]

(20-04-2012 02:38 PM)ghostexorcist Wrote:  It's obvious that many fundies have not done their homework when they try to refute stuff like the big bang theory (BBT) and evolution. Beyond this, much of the general public doesn't have enough foundation in science to understand the supporting evidence. My mother fits into the latter group. She is not a terribly religious person, but she does not quite accept the BBT or evolution. Regarding the BBT, I’ve told her about how we know the universe had an origin because of the fact that it is expanding. I made it easier for her to understand the concept of “red shift” by comparing light with sound via the imagery of an ambulance and a slinky. I first started off by asking her if she noticed how an ambulance siren sounded higher while coming at her and lower after passing. This is due to the compression of sound in the former (like someone squishing a slinky) and the stretching of sound in the latter (like pulling a slinky). Then I tell her that light works the same way. Light moving towards us turns blue, while light moving away turns red. We know that stars and galaxies are moving away—i.e., the universe is expanding—because they shift towards the red end of the spectrum.

Some fundies often claim that the 2nd law of Thermodynamics disproves the BBT because a 14 billion-year-old universe would have collapsed from chaos eons ago. I have recently thought up an illustration to show them why this is not true. Just have them imagine the universe as a fish tank full of water. Now have them imagine chaos as a dropper full of red dye constantly dripping into the fish tank. Logic would dictate that, over time, the dye would eventually turn all of the water red, thus representing the destruction of the universe. However, the universe is not a closed system like this because it is expanding. You can illustrate the expansion by having them imagine a hose pumping water into the tank. The negative effect of the dye (chaos) is balanced out by the expanding water (universe).

I don't know if "dumbing it down for them" is really the answer here. You mention how the 2nd law of thermodynamics doesn't apply in the same way that YECs think it does, but this is because they haven't bothered to study the 2nd law of thermodynamics or to get an opinion on the topic from "the other side". It isn't so much that they don't understand the material as they don't care to understand it. They're simply looking for a sound bite that they can throw at their opponents. Seth of TheThinkingAtheist said that you should ask them what the other laws are, and if they don't know then it means they haven't bothered to research it even slightly.

That said, is everyone here familiar with the laws of thermodynamics? They take about 5 minutes to read about and understand.

[freedom]

I have been reading the posts on this blog site. I have read about your belief in science in refuting God, declaring that the bible is a "fairytale" and full of contradictions challenging theists to prove there is a God based on science. I have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists. I have also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him.

So lets look in the book of "fairy tales" Lets look at the book of Acts. Acts 17. Here Paul goes into Athens. Athens was a cultural and intellectual center big on idol worship. Paul found 3 different types of people there. The religious, the street pagans and the intellectual philosphers. Among them were the Epicurions and the stoics. The Stoics were the pantheists, much like the new age believers today and the Epicurions were the atheists. They believed they were the "intellectuals" of their time. They were the "enlightened ones". They called Paul a "babbler". Now this was over 2,000 years ago. In your quest to "dumb down science" to try to help the poor uneducated intellectually inferior theist understand. In your endeavors to challenge the theist to prove there is a God, you are only proving your own foolishness and lack of knowledge. Because if you were to be so darn smart you would know that the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of history and prophetic scripture. And the bible is the book that the theist would use to try to explain the existence of God. So make up your minds. If you want argue with a theist about God then use the bible and leave science out of it. If you want to use science you will never prove there is or isn't a God. Your reasoning and beliefs are the same as the Epicurions 2000 years ago. So your see there is nothing new under the sun.

[Starcrash]

(24-04-2012 11:12 AM)freedom Wrote:  I have been reading the posts on this blog site. I have read about your belief in science in refuting God, declaring that the bible is a "fairytale" and full of contradictions challenging theists to prove there is a God based on science. I have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists. I have also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him.

So lets look in the book of "fairy tales" Lets look at the book of Acts. Acts 17. Here Paul goes into Athens. Athens was a cultural and intellectual center big on idol worship. Paul found 3 different types of people there. The religious, the street pagans and the intellectual philosphers. Among them were the Epicurions and the stoics. The Stoics were the pantheists, much like the new age believers today and the Epicurions were the atheists. They believed they were the "intellectuals" of their time. They were the "enlightened ones". They called Paul a "babbler". Now this was over 2,000 years ago. In your quest to "dumb down science" to try to help the poor uneducated intellectually inferior theist understand. In your endeavors to challenge the theist to prove there is a God, you are only proving your own foolishness and lack of knowledge. Because if you were to be so darn smart you would know that the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of history and prophetic scripture. And the bible is the book that the theist would use to try to explain the existence of God. So make up your minds. If you want argue with a theist about God then use the bible and leave science out of it. If you want to use science you will never prove there is or isn't a God. Your reasoning and beliefs are the same as the Epicurions 2000 years ago. So your see there is nothing new under the sun.

The problem with this argument at the start is that it attacks a straw man, no matter who you're addressing it to. If you don't attack a specific person's argument then you're going to misrepresent your opponent(s). I notice that you "have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists" and "also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him". These things don't represent me, and they don't represent other atheists. Even though you didn't cite any posts (and you can, because there's a hyperlink button available here) I imagine it's true of some atheists. But please don't stereotype us like this.

The rest of your argument is taken from the bible. It's fair to say that most atheists don't care about what the bible has to say, and I'm among that number. If you were debating with a Muslim about whether his god was real or not, would you care about his citations from the Q'uran? Obviously not.

But it is true that we don't see the bible as scientific. Whether or not it is a "book of science", if the stories told inside are "historic", they should still hold up to scientific scrutiny. We don't think that the story about Jacob breeding spotted and speckled sheep for Laban, for example, is a true story because it is scientifically inaccurate.

It hardly matters how much we point out scientific absurdities, though, right? In the Book of Mormon, specifically 1 Nephi 4:9, we're told about a story that supposedly happened over 2600 years ago where this guy Nephi came across a sword with a hilt of gold and a blade of "precious steel", 2000 years before the invention of steel. There are still people who believe in the Book of Mormon as the literal truth, despite scientific stupidity like this. You may not believe this specific story, but try convincing a Mormon that it's silly. The reply you hear back will sound much like your own. Your own bias makes it impossible to think critically about your holy book.

[mysticjbyrd]

(24-04-2012 11:12 AM)freedom Wrote:  I have been reading the posts on this blog site. I have read about your belief in science in refuting God, declaring that the bible is a "fairytale" and full of contradictions challenging theists to prove there is a God based on science. I have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists. I have also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him.

So lets look in the book of "fairy tales" Lets look at the book of Acts. Acts 17. Here Paul goes into Athens. Athens was a cultural and intellectual center big on idol worship. Paul found 3 different types of people there. The religious, the street pagans and the intellectual philosphers. Among them were the Epicurions and the stoics. The Stoics were the pantheists, much like the new age believers today and the Epicurions were the atheists. They believed they were the "intellectuals" of their time. They were the "enlightened ones". They called Paul a "babbler". Now this was over 2,000 years ago. In your quest to "dumb down science" to try to help the poor uneducated intellectually inferior theist understand. In your endeavors to challenge the theist to prove there is a God, you are only proving your own foolishness and lack of knowledge. Because if you were to be so darn smart you would know that the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of history and prophetic scripture. And the bible is the book that the theist would use to try to explain the existence of God. So make up your minds. If you want argue with a theist about God then use the bible and leave science out of it. If you want to use science you will never prove there is or isn't a God. Your reasoning and beliefs are the same as the Epicurions 2000 years ago. So your see there is nothing new under the sun.

Your rant about athens seemed rather meaningless.
The Bible is obviously not a science book. However, it is also a terrible source for historical information. It is a book of fairy tales and BS, like "prophetic scripture".
Also, I have never seen an atheist tell a theist to prove their god exists. Its common sense and even common knowledge that they can't prove it.

[Chas]

(24-04-2012 11:12 AM)freedom Wrote:  I have been reading the posts on this blog site. I have read about your belief in science in refuting God, declaring that the bible is a "fairytale" and full of contradictions challenging theists to prove there is a God based on science. I have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists. I have also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him.

So lets look in the book of "fairy tales" Lets look at the book of Acts. Acts 17. Here Paul goes into Athens. Athens was a cultural and intellectual center big on idol worship. Paul found 3 different types of people there. The religious, the street pagans and the intellectual philosphers. Among them were the Epicurions and the stoics. The Stoics were the pantheists, much like the new age believers today and the Epicurions were the atheists. They believed they were the "intellectuals" of their time. They were the "enlightened ones". They called Paul a "babbler". Now this was over 2,000 years ago. In your quest to "dumb down science" to try to help the poor uneducated intellectually inferior theist understand. In your endeavors to challenge the theist to prove there is a God, you are only proving your own foolishness and lack of knowledge. Because if you were to be so darn smart you would know that the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of history and prophetic scripture. And the bible is the book that the theist would use to try to explain the existence of God. So make up your minds. If you want argue with a theist about God then use the bible and leave science out of it. If you want to use science you will never prove there is or isn't a God. Your reasoning and beliefs are the same as the Epicurions 2000 years ago. So your see there is nothing new under the sun.

Your misunderstanding of atheism is epic.

You are the one making the claims, that God exists, that the Bible is true, etc.
There is no evidence for these claims, and overwhelming evidence against. Therefor, I don't accept the truth of the claims. I am making no assertions that need proof.

[Thomas]

(24-04-2012 11:12 AM)freedom Wrote:  I have been reading the posts on this blog site. I have read about your belief in science in refuting God, declaring that the bible is a "fairytale" and full of contradictions challenging theists to prove there is a God based on science. I have read quotes as to how atheists declare they are just plain more intelligent than theists. I have also read posts where the person felt the need to desecrate God and the people who believe in him.

So lets look in the book of "fairy tales" Lets look at the book of Acts. Acts 17. Here Paul goes into Athens. Athens was a cultural and intellectual center big on idol worship. Paul found 3 different types of people there. The religious, the street pagans and the intellectual philosphers. Among them were the Epicurions and the stoics. The Stoics were the pantheists, much like the new age believers today and the Epicurions were the atheists. They believed they were the "intellectuals" of their time. They were the "enlightened ones". They called Paul a "babbler". Now this was over 2,000 years ago. In your quest to "dumb down science" to try to help the poor uneducated intellectually inferior theist understand. In your endeavors to challenge the theist to prove there is a God, you are only proving your own foolishness and lack of knowledge. Because if you were to be so darn smart you would know that the bible is not a book of science. It is a book of history and prophetic scripture. And the bible is the book that the theist would use to try to explain the existence of God. So make up your minds. If you want argue with a theist about God then use the bible and leave science out of it. If you want to use science you will never prove there is or isn't a God. Your reasoning and beliefs are the same as the Epicurions 2000 years ago. So your see there is nothing new under the sun.

Correct. The bible is not a book of science.
It's a book of superstitious myths written down by scientifically ignorant people who were wrong about almost everything.
You choose to believe that what these people pieced together about the world is factual because a god inspired them to write it down.
If this is true, then your god is an idiot.
If your god is an idiot where does this put you?
Could I be any more clear?