Jindal Excites GOP As a Possible Running Mate

[Associate Justice PiT]

As a sidebar, Jindal believes in "creationism," which is off-putting. I just don't trust creationists. I think they have defective reasoning powers. I just do.

Thie guy is a bio major too. But he did say it during a debate so perhaps it was a pander? Scary that actually helps you get elected. Says a lot about the state of this country.

     Agreed. I recently found a link with terrifying implications (http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm). Best case scenario is that we evolutionaries are holding even & worst case scenario is that we're losing badly to the creationists. This is a truly sobering finding.

[Associate Justice PiT]

As a sidebar, Jindal believes in "creationism," which is off-putting. I just don't trust creationists. I think they have defective reasoning powers. I just do.

Thie guy is a bio major too. But he did say it during a debate so perhaps it was a pander? Scary that actually helps you get elected. Says a lot about the state of this country.

     Agreed. I recently found a link with terrifying implications (http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm). Best case scenario is that we evolutionaries are holding even & worst case scenario is that we're losing badly to the creationists. This is a truly sobering finding.

Another thing we "evolutionaries" have going for us is that a majority of college graduates believe in evolution of some kind. Since the younger generation is going to college in very high numbers, I have hope for the future. I have no problem with people thinking evolution is guided by god, well because they could be right, but it is just astonishing that we would have to debate that evolution occurs. To me it is just as much a fact as gravity.

     I agree totally. The reason I felt the need to post that is that polls have at best shown the numbers holding steady over the last 15 years, even though the number of college graduates undoubtedly increased a lot in that time.

     In the link, it says that in England, 97% of priests & ministers don't believe the universe was created in six days & that 80% don't believe in the existence of Adam & Eve. So theistic evolution is clearly not uncommon in other parts of the world.

     Another thing that's striking is that according to the poll linked to in this topic (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=78192.0), 16% of Americans are atheist/agnostic, which is up from the poll referenced here (http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/10-myths-and-10-truths-about-atheism1/). However, no movement towards universal public acceptance of evolution suggests that the public is slowly congealing into two extreme factions: creationists & atheistic evolutionaries.

One of the major problems that hinders the acceptance of evolution is simply that it is not a reasurring, comforting belief.

An all powerful, benevolent, thinking creator that rewards its creations with life after death fills the heart with warmth.

The thought of our existance being a mathematical improbability where we are constantly controlled on some level by evolutionary psychology (with a noticable pressure towards some segments of the population simply not breeding and disappearing from the gene pool) and constantly lead towards an inevitable finish line where our molecules are broken down, dispersed, and recycled into peat moss just isn't as comforting, regardless of how clear the single-celled organism -> multi-celled organism -> lower-intelligence beings -> higher-intelligence beings flowchart looks.

Yeah its the "god delusion" I guess because even if we have a creator, it is not in the form any of us can imagine. Now if people want to find warmth and comfort with belief in creationism then that is fine, as long as it is not taught in schools.

     My English teacher, who is a hardcore fundamentalist atheist, once said that he understood if other people wanted to believe in God, because the idea of passing into oblivion when we die is terrifying. Jean-Paul Sartre expresses a similar idea in Being & Nothingness (I haven't read him in a while though, so it's possible that I confused it with another book of his).

One of the major problems that hinders the acceptance of evolution is simply that it is not a reasurring, comforting belief.

An all powerful, benevolent, thinking creator that rewards its creations with life after death fills the heart with warmth.

The thought of our existance being a mathematical improbability where we are constantly controlled on some level by evolutionary psychology (with a noticable pressure towards some segments of the population simply not breeding and disappearing from the gene pool) and constantly lead towards an inevitable finish line where our molecules are broken down, dispersed, and recycled into peat moss just isn't as comforting, regardless of how clear the single-celled organism -> multi-celled organism -> lower-intelligence beings -> higher-intelligence beings flowchart looks.

One of the major problems? Yes, I realize theories like this will have other (intellectual) caveats, but I think you've hit the main nail on the head, really.

     I'm curious (I've been writing too long to try to think right now ), but what other major problems do you have in mind?

[Associate Justice PiT]

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One of the major problems? Yes, I realize theories like this will have other (intellectual) caveats, but I think you've hit the main nail on the head, really.

     I'm curious (I've been writing too long to try to think right now ), but what other major problems do you have in mind?
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The same problems that all philosophical assertions about what cannot be directly observed have. That one can not really "know" what is being talked about, only reason that this is how it probably is and construct theories with some predictive power. It is still quite possible that some intelligent being designed the world.
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     I see your point. I will point out that creationists are much more problematic in this area. They predicate their belief in an unobservable event on a part of the Bible (a book that has been constantly changed by people throughout history) that runs contrary to recent scientific developments, which is predicated on the unobservable existence of a divine being.

     My point being, it's better to just not seek a metaphysical truth. Metaphysics has always fallen short in that it is predicated on the unseeable & unknowable, which is not satisfying proof.

     I believe in atheistic evolution. Is it possible that God had a part in it? Absolutely. Is it possible that God created the universe in six days? Yes, though I don't feel such a belief is as justified as it once was in light of recent developments.

The "other" major problem is, of course, that a belief in creationism is instilled in extremely young and impressionable children the same way that "grass is green" is.  It is very hard to go against that kind of societal pressure and early teaching, even against significant evidence to the contrary.

     That is another thing that bothers me. It always gets under my skin when some creationist says that s/he believes it over evolution "because it can be proven." I never try to argue with someone like that because I know that that person doesn't know what s/he's talking about & was just indoctrinated to think that.

     That's also the source of my main fear that creationism will never be truly discredited in the public circle in the United States.