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Bren wrote:

"Belief system" does abbreviate as "BS."

Sure does. It all does.

Eh, insulting anything not relevant to the subject is impolite.  If we were debating the merits of religion I'd say go ahead, but why try to rile people up for no reason?  It's like if someone asks a question about the cost of ram  and some yahoo pipes up "Macs SUCK!"  It doesn't add anything to the conversation, it just gets things off topic.  Specking of which, lets get back to the article?

Making a claim that something is BS is just a way of saying it's nonsense and while very crude, not an insult.

I do agree that it's rude to bring it up off-topic just to needle people. However, the issue of religious beliefs was injected in this thread right from the start.

Do any of you have anything to add to the topic? Or should I split this into a separate thread?

resedit wrote:

No - they meant subclades.
Many scientists want to do away with the concept of subspecies anyway, as there are too many cases where morphological differences don't match the cladistics.

But even accepting subspecies, there is not enough differences in humans to justify any subspecies. As humans diverged from the Mountains of Ararat there has been too much contact between populations for subspecies level branching to occur.

Oh, look! The Bible-believing Christian knows as much, if not more, about evolutionary biology than anybody here.

Much respect, Res!

knobtwirler wrote:

I thing gd brings up a good point, whether impolite or not, that these kinds of scientific documents contradict what is taught in religion.

Thats painting religion with a pretty narrow brush.  There are some kooky religious sects who's teachings contradict science these days, but when did they start representing the mainstream outside of hillbilly america or scientology central?

Edit - the adam and eve genes (which do not make a case for literal adam and eve) are:

Y-chromosomal Adam
Mitochondrial_Eve

Notice that Mitochondrial Eve is older than Y-chromosomal Adam, as the Noah story would suggest (in addition to the three families).

The dates are the only real issue with a literal interpretation being possible in light of science.

The real difference is that religion requires belief without any proof.

Science requires belief only so far as you can prove it.

One is a belief system that is based in faith.

The other is a belief system that is based in empirical proof.

Never the twain will meet. Anyone of faith who wants there to be physical proof of the bible is someone of little faith. That the more recent happenings can be corraborated by historical, and archeological means is only an interesting by product of science. These things are not required for the bible or the religions it underpins to be valid, or for any religion to be valid.

Anyone who wishes to prove religions false through the applicaition of science is wasting their time on a fool's errand, since science doesn't depend upon any of the bible or religion to support it.

sturner wrote:

The real difference is that religion requires belief without any proof.

Science requires belief only so far as you can prove it.

One is a belief system that is based in faith.

The other is a belief system that is based in empirical proof.

Never the twain will meet. Anyone of faith who wants there to be physical proof of the bible is someone of little faith. That the more recent happenings can be corraborated by historical, and archeological means is only an interesting by product of science. These things are not required for the bible or the religions it underpins to be valid, or for any religion to be valid.

Anyone who wishes to prove religions false through the applicaition of science is wasting their time on a fool's errand, since science doesn't depend upon any of the bible or religion to support it.

Indeed. Just as nobody can claim to scientifically prove the presence of god, nobody can claim to scientifically disprove. Science, however, can show things believed by religion in the natural world to be false. The bible does not have to be a literal document for god to exist, however.

You would really have to be a bloomin' nut to think it was a literal document.  The people who wrote it didn't.

Metacell wrote:

You would really have to be a bloomin' nut to think it was a literal document.  The people who wrote it didn't.

excuse me?

Some modern Jews may not take it literally, but it wasn't written by modern Jews.
Some modern Jews do, for what it's worth.

Everybody axe yourself the following:

Is there any possibility that posting or reading anything in this thread will change my mind or anybody else's?