Differences between scientist and those that are religious.

I do something still today that used to really piss my ex-wife off. I would find a subject and start thinking about it heavily. I have been reading a few old blogs I used to read often until they quit publishing. The one I was reading that led to this post was about how religious people claim it takes faith to believe in science. It seems to me that this type of statement requires you to redefine the word faith. We know that faith is believing something without the evidence to support that view. I know of no science that is based on no evidence.

I have conducted no studies nor do I plan to about this topic. The points I plan on making here are my opinions and mine alone. Some of the differences I see between these two types of people are scientist tend to avoid saying they are 100% sure and always welcome challenges. I have met a few theist that seem to welcome challenges but once you start showing the evidence against their view they tend to get less and less willing to accept anything but their own words. Most that believe in any religion tend to be 100% sure of their views and will throw any evidence out with the bathwater if it doesn't fit their views. Yes a scientist will have some faith in his/her new hypothesis but will tend to have more trust in his/her abilities. A scientist might not like it but if their idea is proven wrong to them, they will accept it and modify their views to fit the new evidence. Many religious people will ignore any evidence or throw the devil into the mix to avoid admitting they are wrong.  Most scientist will keep up with any advances in their fields and those that are related to it. I can't say that i know of any people who are religious that keep up with advances other religions make other then the methods which will get them more followers.

Do both scientist and theist use fear to advance their views? Is money the main reason either of these groups attempt to advance their views? I know theist use fear as a tool to advance their religion but I don't think it is used by most scientist. There are some but most people who use fear to advance science aren't actually scientist. The problem is that most non-scientist see the fear invoked by these other none scientist as coming from scientist. Yes money is always a factor in both fields. The difference I see is that most scientist use the money they struggle to get to help all of mankind while religions tend to use it to just advance their own views and could care less about the harm done to others. I have no way of knowing the full numbers but I would be willing to bet all I have that less then 50% of the money given to churches actually helps anyone outside of that church. I would be about 75% willing to bet less then 25% goes to those in need outside the churches.

Morals

I have been doing some research into morals and how we might come about with the morals we do. I know most religious people claim it is their god that gives us our morals but I just can't see that. The main problem I see with this claim is that christian morals change with society but by their claims they shouldn't change at all. I like the example of how the laws and morals of people began to change after women got the right to vote here in the USA. Once women started voting many politicians began to enact laws which helped women. It has taken many years but the morals of people have changed when it comes to many crimes committed against women. There are other areas where religious claim morals but their actions don't support their views. Some of these areas are charity, murder, rape, and war. They talk about how their god is all about peace but will condone all the above as long as it is for their god.

What christian principles do christians mean when they say

What christian principles do christians mean when they say that the US Constitution was founded on?  I have asked this of many christians that have claimed these principles are what it is based on. I have never gotten an answer to this question from the people who make these types of comments on the blogs I read. I have found a few sites that discuss these claims and will be doing a few post over the next few months reviewing them. Anyone interested in helping me with this check out this site. I figure I will make this the main one I will be reviewing. http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-bible-and-government

Racism from my point of view.

I have been asked to write a post on my take of racism. I'm not sure i am the best person for doing this. First I need to give some background about myself and why I feel I am not a typical white male in regards to racism. I am from Arkansas and lived in a rural area that left me little chance of contact with other people other then at school and teen hangouts. The county I am from had 5 different school districts and of those five, three of them were all white students. One of the two had just a few years before I graduated gotten its first black students. The biggest town, population wise, was the main area where there were blacks residing. I can't be sure but would say between 85-95% of the black population lived within a small area of that town.  It wasn't until I had turned 18 that I can honestly say I had any real contact with people of the black race. The contact I had until Oct. 81 was during sporting events and a couple of times at summer camps. One of the summer camps I went to when I was around 11 or 12 was the first time that I recall this group having a desegregated camp.
It was also at this age I saw the effects of racism for the first time.

I went to school at a small school that was one of the all white schools. The town only had about 500-600 residents when I was 12. Because I lived about 6 miles from town I seldom got to hang out in town other then when we had peewee football practice. A bunch of us would share bikes and go riding all over town. One day me and a friend were riding past this house that was near the school and saw a younger black couple moving into a home. I'm not sure if it was one or two weeks later but me and the same friend rode by that same house and it was completely different. All the windows had been busted out and there was a lot of graffiti painted on it. I never said anything about it until many years later and it was odd how some people reacted to it. The rest of the racism up until I left Arkansas for the army was whites talking shit that they had no reason for saying. I never said anything back and at times laughed at their jokes. Even today the town I went to school at is just over 97% white.

In 1981 I went into the army and for the first time I actually was forced to begin to understand that things weren't like I was always told they were. I guess I knew much of what I was taught as a child wasn't the truth but avoided questioning it. It wasn't until I got to my first duty station in Germany that I really started opening my eyes to the fact that other then skin color most people want the same things for their life. I have to give credit for this to SPC. Allen. He was actually very patient with me even though he really didn't have to be. Of course it took a few more years before I really got a basic understanding of how racism has truly hurt this nation. I guess the second big racist thing I saw happened while I was in the army.

I wasn't real big at hanging out with the people involved in this event but did know them all. The people involved were all white and the victims weren't actual people but the image that these guys presented. They were know within the unit as racist but they tended to keep it hidden from those in command. What final got them was a photo they took of a rope around the neck of a bust of a man that was black. Like most racist they weren't big on the brain power. They passed the photo around for others to see and a copy of it made it to the unit commanders attention. They were gone in a couple of weeks.

Earlier I talked about an event when I was around 12 and how some peoples reactions to the event were odd. I was attending PLDC, Primary Leadership Course, while in the army and one of the topics was racism. Some of the other students thought that race relations within the USA was pretty good but I disagreed with them. I used the two stories as examples of how there are still many racist out here and that to believe it is pretty good was foolish. They didn't actually believe my stories until one of the instructors took my side with me. What I found odd was that two of those disagreeing with me and not even believing me were black. We were in Kentucky and I knew black guys who wouldn't even stop at gas stations unless they were with others.  It really did surprise me that they couldn't believe how racist the area around Ft. Knox was. While I was there one of the main leaders of the KKK lived about 15 miles from the base.

Have I beaten my racist upbringing? No I can't say I have completely beat it. The reason I say I'm not a good example is I am not a very active person when it comes to making friends. I has a small group of people I call friends and the rest are just people I know. I have a set of rules I use to define what makes a person a friend and there have probably been less then 100 people in my 46 years that fit these rules. I would say less then 10 of those were people that have been non-whites. Even within the army I was a bit of a loner and prefer it that way. Some people might say 100 friends is a good number but you have to understand I have known several thousand in this time. While I was in the army I would meet around 100-150 new people every 12-18 months due to normal rotations within the army. I still have to be aware that I can easily base my opinion on peoples skin color not on their actions.

Where I live now the race relations have gotten better then they were back in the 70's and 80's. I know there are still problems and until everyone decides to base their views of people on actions instead of what their skin color is, it will be a problem.

Thanks for the Invite.

Thanks for inviting me to make post on your blog and I will try not to disappoint you. I haven't really ever told anyone out here that much about myself and figure I should probably do that in this posting. 

I tend to avoid being very open about myself even to people I know. I am a 46 yr old male who until just a little over a year ago finally started to get involved in fighting against the negative influence of religion. I knew at a fairly early age I wasn't like most of the others around my age when it came to religion. Me and one of my brothers was always getting into trouble for playing tic-tac-toe during the church services and we even got called out by the preacher once. I never bought into that 6000 year old earth belief and I think that when I asked my dad about how could the dinosaurs have lived millions of years ago, it was the only time I saw anger in his eyes at a question like this. I never got a straight answer from him but I knew not to ask it again. I know I was under 14 when I asked this and I don't think I have ever asked him another religious question. I guess I had already decided at that time I believed in something other then creationism but at the time I didn't know what it was. I can't say religion was an important part of my life at anytime and it was in vacation bible school that I knew for sure I was different then others. I was 13 or 14 and the next year I wouldn't be attending vacation bible school but would be there to help out in instructing the younger kids if I went. One of the other guys there was just to excited about how he was going to pass on the words of the lord next year. I felt embarrassed for him and it was shortly after that that I quit attending church. 

I don't see myself as an atheist but I know that I am not a theist. I don't believe there is a being or force anything like what people here on earth claim there is. I don't think I ever saw myself as a christian so I have no conversion story.

I enjoy studying history for the most part and I think that is one of the key factors in deciding that religion is full of crap. I see religion not as a major factor in the evils of man but the guiding force which has caused man to make the same stupid mistakes over and over. Religion has for thew most part held mankind back until the last few hundred years. Yes they did have educational institutes but they weren't for all people but a select few. How many people who could have helped to advance mankind were denied the education they needed by religion? Even now religion keeps people who could help mankind advance from following their dreams when they were young. I have no stats on the number of people who want to go into advanced sciences or other fields but because these fields conflict with their religious views they abandon those dreams. I have a niece who could have gone into most any field she wanted but because of her religion she abandon those so she could remain blind to the facts. She isn't the only one I know that hid from facts because of their brainwashing as a child. I live in a fairly rural area that puts religion about all else and have seen many leave for college just to return when they were forced to admit that their beliefs weren't universal. Instead of facing these other views they ran back to their group of like believers. 

This is a true human.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36174722/ns/today-today_people/  I just saw this story on MSNBC and I have to say I wish more people was like this. People who help others no matter what the reason shouldn't try to self promote themselves. I can understand people discussing the actions they are taking while trying to help others in a natural disaster since these people can't really hide from the press. I hope this guy never takes credit for his actions but continues his life as if it never happened. This is the kind of story that makes me sure people are not evil at heart as many within religion claim but want what is best for all. The problem is many within the press seem to avoid these types of stories unless kids are involved. Yeah I could rant about many negative things now but this story tells me good people are in the world and that together they can save 1 or 1000s of lives given the chance.

Should I have said something?

This morning I heard about a news story that is going on here in Arkansas and told a co-worker about it. The story I mentioned doesn't have anything to do with the title but from this I learned about another event. http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/UCA-student-charged-with-588-counts-of-child-porn/cSV4p0HHxEKP0H2oR_1q1A.cspx?rss=315 This is the story I mentioned.

It was about 4 years ago that a guy I worked with quit and since then I haven't really had any contact with him. While we worked together we talked a lot about religion and how bad I was. He said I would be going to hell and all. My brother and I both missed his conversations when he quit. We both used to have fun baiting him on areas of religion and I am sad to say it was easy to get him flustered. I would hang out with him sometimes after work but he wasn't what I would call a close friend but someone I could debate with at times. A few times we discussed how Hard Copy would do those chat room hookups pretending to be minors and he would get a bit to emotional about this area of conversation. There was something about the way he acted and said stuff that made me wonder about how true his words were. I wasn't the only person that felt he was hiding something but neither of us had any kind of evidence to base this view on. I think it was his reaction to some of the comments I made and how fast he let his emotions get away from him.

Today I was told he has plead guilty to inappropriate touching of a minor under 14 years old. I always thought that his reaction were off but had nothing to base them on. It felt about the same as all those anti gay preachers and politicians that end up being caught in homosexual acts. Should I have said something more or was I correct in not announcing my thoughts?