On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 10:25:08 -0400, "Dena L. Bruedigam"
<[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>At 10:08 AM 9/19/00 -0400, rad Cooley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >>If "religion" is not a "set of beliefs", what is it?  a set of truths?  a
>> >>set of rules?  a set of best guesses?  a set of empirical observations?
>> >>"Religion" is a set of beliefs.  "Religion" is not like the laws of
>> >>thermodynamics.
>> >
>> >It's certainly a set of empirical observations, just like the laws of
>> >thermodynamics.>
>>
>>Wrong.  ...
>
>Well, if religion is based on empirical observations, then it should be
>relatively easy to prove (empirically) that god exists, heaven exists, hell
>exists, angels exists, the soul exists, there is an after life, etc. etc. etc.
>
>Yet no one has ever done so.  In fact, the best they've ever done is to
>prove that a few isolated incidents in their holy books actually occurred.
>
>Like I always tell my friends....as soon as you can prove that your god
>exists, I'll be happy to look into the possibility of joining your
>religious group....  No takers yet.

This comes from believing media accounts and popular myths.

There is a field of investigation called "intelligent design", which
started in
conjunction with projects like SETI to determine if radio signals, or
other
patterns were the product of random coincidence or an intelligent
design.

A scientist named Michael J. Behe decided to try and apply this
principle to
biology, and came up with a more specific test of intelligent design
called
"irreducible complexity".   This means that if you have a structure
which is
complex, but fails to work if any of the components are removed or
simplified,
then this item is "irreducibly complex" and therefore cannot be
created by
random coincidences.

A good example is a "Rube Goldberg" device, ie one of those things
where a bunch
of levers and falling objects are laid out where one starts the next
and so on,
ending with a little flag being raised or some such.   If one lever in
the
middle is removed, the device does not work.

Well, it turns out that a bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex,
and
therefore is a product of intelligent design....

You can read more details in his book "Darwin's Black Box".

PS  The huge mistake made by intelligent people, such as the ones who
responded
in this list, is to assume that since some of the specifics of
particular
religions are absurd, that therefore no religious idea is correct.

To use the food analogy again, it would be like a kid whose mother is
a terrible
cook, deciding that food is a bad idea and unnecessary....


--
Cheers,

Ken
[log in to unmask]