Denialism. Why people believe unbelievable things.

Timshel_

How do we solve this problem?

Agree with very little in that rant.

My thoughts:

Don't believe what ANYONE else tells you is the right way to live.
ALWAYS questions your own beliefs.
NEVER stop looking for answers.
UNDERSTAND you will NEVER have all the answers.

KNOW that ANYONE who tells you 'they know', doesn't know and is trying to sell you something.

penrbrown

How do we solve this problem?

Agree with very little in that rant.

My thoughts:

Don't believe what ANYONE else tells you is the right way to live.
ALWAYS questions your own beliefs.
NEVER stop looking for answers.
UNDERSTAND you will NEVER have all the answers.

KNOW that ANYONE who tells you 'they know', doesn't know and is trying to sell you something.

*snicker*

That last line was brilliant.

Timshel_

*snicker*

That last line was brilliant.

For $5 I can help you be brilliant too.

penrbrown

*snicker*

That last line was brilliant.

For $5 I can help you be brilliant too.

But for $4.99 I can help YOU be wise. Maybe we could just trade?

doorki

You need it more concise? Ok.

1. The most brilliant people in history believe in God.
Democritus, Epicurus, Andrew Carnegie, Ivan Pavlov, Sigmund Freud, Clarence Darrow, Bertrand Russell, Linus Pauling, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Claude Shannon, Richard Feynman, Noam Chomsky, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking... all non-believers and truly some of the most brilliant people in history

2. Some of the controversial ideas in science are ideologies themselves and lack evidence.
Which is why they're ideas, not theories or proofs.

3. Science needs to go back to studying things for more knowledge instead of setting up experiments in such a way that supports their ideology.
Science doesn't need to do what you want. It operates independently of your wishes. Which is good, that way we didn't have to wait for them to invent the internet you enjoy using so much.

Succinct. Concise. I like the longer version myself.

Succinct, concise, false. As expected.

You listed Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking in your list? Well, lets just agree to disagree.

Do you not find them brilliant or do you disagree that they were not religious?

WendyTerry420

You listed Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking in your list? Well, lets just agree to disagree.

:laugh: You laud Carver and dismiss Hawking?! Oh that's rich.

One makes revolutionary breakthroughs in the study of the universe, the other came up with many uses for peanuts, not including peanut butter.

You must be joking.

Hey, watch the tone when talking about my peanut man!


But yeah, I have no idea why anyone would not including Hawking in a list of brilliant people. (Sagan is my favorite from your list, and as for Freud....anyone who can do as much coke as he did is alright in my book. :laugh:)

:flowerforyou:

CJisinShape

I am disappointed you didn't address my points, but I will address yours. Whatever religion, God made himself known through the creation, so that everyone is without an excuse. The fact that we don't know the facts is proof of mystery in the creation. It is God's glory to hide it, and man's glory to find it (computer programmers, game designers, writers, movie makers and artists that concept very well).

As for the easy way out - you flip the switch and the light turns on. A small child can grasp this. Knowledge of the how and why is not required to know the what, nor is it needed to UTILIZE it. George Washington Carver asked God for answers. He got them. He did not have a hypothesis, he didn't use controls in his experiments. It wasn't scientific - it was brilliant. Scientists in his day were appalled, but they did not make a fraction of the discoveries he made. Knowledge is great, wisdom is better.

I'm always impressed with the ability to write or speak so many words and yet convey no coherent thought.

I understood it perfectly. George Washington Carver is one of my heroes, and the peanut is one of my favorite foods!

Thanks.

Being in Missouri, I have visited the GWC monument on several occasions. I learn something new every time I go. He was definitely a brilliant man.


Also:

Democritus, Epicurus, Andrew Carnegie, Ivan Pavlov, Sigmund Freud, Clarence Darrow, Bertrand Russell, Linus Pauling, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Claude Shannon, Richard Feynman, {deleted} Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking...

^^ Are all brilliant as well, but this can by no means be called an exhaustive list. So many people besides these can also be considered brilliant. (I mean, hell, you didn't even include Einstein or Newton. :ohwell:)

I took a class from a guy who used Carver's method, he's an organic chemist. When given a project to make the molecules of the product smaller, he consulted with more experienced chemists who told him it was impossible. He prayed, got the answer, and millions of people use this product today. What is interesting to me is how the field of physics seems to embrace the concept of hidden mystery. Perhaps because their discoveries are so mathematically logical, it's obviously well designed, like a skilled craftsmants joint. When you see how we'll it fits, you know something of the dedication of the craftsman.

CJisinShape

You listed Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking in your list? Well, lets just agree to disagree.

:laugh: You laud Carver and dismiss Hawking?! Oh that's rich.

One makes revolutionary breakthroughs in the study of the universe, the other came up with many uses for peanuts, not including peanut butter.

You must be joking.

He didn't invent peanut butter.

CJisinShape

Carvers discoveries revitalized the economy of the southern United States that was decimated by the Civil War, and created products that makes people's lives better.

WendyTerry420

You listed Sigmund Freud and Stephen Hawking in your list? Well, lets just agree to disagree.

:laugh: You laud Carver and dismiss Hawking?! Oh that's rich.

One makes revolutionary breakthroughs in the study of the universe, the other came up with many uses for peanuts, not including peanut butter.

You must be joking.

Hey, watch the tone when talking about my peanut man!


But yeah, I have no idea why anyone would not including Hawking in a list of brilliant people. (Sagan is my favorite from your list, and as for Freud....anyone who can do as much coke as he did is alright in my book. :laugh:)

:flowerforyou:

I was going to go back and edit to say I don't mean to take anything away from the man. He was very intelligent. But he's no Hawking.

:smokin:


I wouldn't want to put one IQ against the other. Carver is my hero for more than just being brilliant, for the adversities he overcame as a man of color, the changes he made to "black colleges," etc. :bigsmile:

bennettinfinity

^^ Are all brilliant as well, but this can by no means be called an exhaustive list. So many people besides these can also be considered brilliant. (I mean, hell, you didn't even include Einstein or Newton. :ohwell:)

FYI - Isaac Newton was an ordained minister... so was Charles Darwin for that matter. Faith and science can coexist.

Timshel_

*snicker*

That last line was brilliant.

For $5 I can help you be brilliant too.

But for $4.99 I can help YOU be wise. Maybe we could just trade?

You would still owe me a penny.

Just sayin.

fast_eddie_72

You need it more concise? Ok.

1. The most brilliant people in history believe in God.
Democritus, Epicurus, Andrew Carnegie, Ivan Pavlov, Sigmund Freud, Clarence Darrow, Bertrand Russell, Linus Pauling, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Claude Shannon, Richard Feynman, Noam Chomsky, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking... all non-believers and truly some of the most brilliant people in history

2. Some of the controversial ideas in science are ideologies themselves and lack evidence.
Which is why they're ideas, not theories or proofs.

3. Science needs to go back to studying things for more knowledge instead of setting up experiments in such a way that supports their ideology.
Science doesn't need to do what you want. It operates independently of your wishes. Which is good, that way we didn't have to wait for them to invent the internet you enjoy using so much.

Succinct. Concise. I like the longer version myself.

Succinct, concise, false. As expected.

Yeah, sorry. Well said, but pretty much false. First point, maybe, but I'd say that has to do more with sociology than science. It may also be confusing spirituality with belief in "God" (Which could mean any number of things. I talk about God. I'm pretty sure what I mean when I use that word is a lot different than what you mean. In other words, were I ever to be considered "brilliant", I'd make your list, but my inclusion in this context would be misleading.)

QuietBloom

Define weird tricks?

...what if he made 4.49999 billion (years) happen in a 10th of a second?

That.

(edited to make sense, even though it makes no sense to begin with)

What if God exists outside of time? He created it, and is independent of it (unlike us). I think that is a pretty cool trick myself.

Neat.

But like I said before, you're just making things up. Science can't prove or disprove your theory because it's been defined as unprovable. God is invisible, God won't show himself, God exists outside of space and time, God can be what anyone says they want it to be...

You know why you think of clouds when you picture heaven? Because that's where people originally said God lived. Science checked, he wasn't there. So God was moved somewhere else. Handy system you all have, but I find it to be intellectually dishonest.

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike" -DB McKown

I don't think of clouds when I picture Heaven, actually. But putting that aside, God is a matter of faith, not science. Too many Christians want to put science in a box, and make it explain things the way they think they should have happened according to our limited understanding of God and how He works. Creationists often embarrass me with their lack of understanding of the evidence in the fossil record. I don't have a problem with believing that God created the Universe, and I don't have to understand how He did. The human brain is quite limited. I would say Einstein's brain was the least limited brain in our recent history, and even he flirted with just the edges of understanding how time (as a dimension) works.

Would you really say that it is intellectually dishonest to admit there is much that exists that we don't see?

QuietBloom

^^ Are all brilliant as well, but this can by no means be called an exhaustive list. So many people besides these can also be considered brilliant. (I mean, hell, you didn't even include Einstein or Newton. :ohwell:)

FYI - Isaac Newton was an ordained minister... so was Charles Darwin for that matter. Faith and science can coexist.

Exactly. Also, Einstein said this, and I think it is brilliant and what I was trying to convey earlier.

"Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.[20]"

Viereck, George Sylvester. "Glimpses of the Great". Duckworth, 1930. p. 372-373.

QuietBloom

Say, what happened to the chap who predicted this thread would die right off the bat? :laugh:

DamePiglet