(November 6, 2013 at 10:04 am)enrico Wrote: In other word you can give the meaning that you like to the word theory but the original meaning contradict your believe.
Yes you can, but if you have to do that to make your ideas work then the problem lies with those ideas and not the people you're trying to convince. Words evolve meanings over time, it's true; however that doesn't mean they are arbitrary things that can have any definition you feel like assigning them. That's why we have dictionaries and the ability - generally - to make ourselves understood. If you want to talk science and have your ideas taken seriously, you need to accept the language of science unless you have a bloody good reason not to. You have an issue with the modern scientific definition of the word "theory", take it up with the National Center for Science Education.
But if you want to go down the route of using only the 'original' meanings of commonly-accepted words because they're not as inconvenient for you, then you'd better leave Atheist Forums since an atheist was originally a christian, a person who denied the existence of the Roman gods. In fact, stop using your computer, given that the word originally meant a person who calculated numbers for a living, and start telling everyone you use an electric Difference Engine.
Or we could stop this silly semantic game and actually have a proper grown-up discussion.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
