How is one orgins story considered better than another

[Whateverist]

To the OP:

It generally comes down to character development and plot. But the quality of the writing can either grease the wheels or act as a deterrent to caring about the characters or what happens to them. I think the biblical origins story suffers most from poor writing. Not a page turner. The characters are underdeveloped and unappealing. And there is way to much begetting with out enough salacious passages to even enjoy rubbing one out. I have to give it two thumbs way down. If you haven't already bought it, save your money.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Not what I said sport.

I said The laws of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics were re-classified as theories. When I was in school they were laws, now they are refered to as theories

Their classification hasn't changed, Oppenheimer. The laws are what gravity and thermodynamics do, the theory is what explains them.

Oh how embarrassing.

[Drich]

Look at how many times it has changed in just the last 20 years. If our understanding of physics changed as many times we would everything throw out and start over.

No.
If our understanding of physics hadn't changed, you wouldn't be using your computer. Or talking on a cellphone. Or using GPS to find directions.
Etc etc etc.

OMG,
It's like talking to rocks...
When 'physics was changed' was the new data that allowed cell phones and gps used to aguement and push the old idea of how physics worked? Or was the old idea discarded and replaced with the new understanding?

How is this different than I you quoted me in saying?

Which again in any other intelectual disipline when an idea gets changed or modified more than the sum total of it orginal purpose then the idea is completely reconsidered. Meaning if you have to change or add to the shape of a circle a few times it ceases being a circle.

[FatAndFaithless]

Rabble rabble rabble!

[paulpablo]

Now before you spend alot of energy telling of all the 'proof' you think you have. Be honest with yourself and acknoweledge that It all boils down to you pointing to a guy or a group of people who you believe to be credible because they are smarter than you, and what they think. And for them what they think is based on what someone smarter than them thinks, and so on goes the daisy chain.

Bottom line what you believe about which ever side of orgins you stand on your belief is 'Faith based.' Fore a faith in 'facts' (A statement that can be proven or disprooved) is still faith.

That being the case what makes your faith any more important than anyone elses? Just because you point at the ground then to a book to decipher what it is you think you see in the ground, does not make you any less dependant on faith, than a man who points to God then the bible to discern his version of Orgins.

Why shouldn't both accounts be taught side by side, not as an excersize of which is right and which is wrong, but as what some believe verses what others believe. I truly think most of us will be shocked that neither strict interpertation of said events is correct.

I don't think any origins story is better than another. But teaching every origins story to every person in the world would take too much time, plus it's pointless because they're just stories. It's better right now just to admit that no one knows the origins of life yet.

Unless you're talking about the battle of evolution vs creationism.

In which case I don't believe the person who has the most credentials I believe the person who is talking the least amount of nonsense.

For example if the theory of evolution didn't involve mutation and natural selection, and it instead involved natural selection and a group of magic instantaneously changing animals, then it WOULD belong right along side all the other creationist stories.

It doesn't matter how clever Richard Dawkins sounds and looks, the moment he mentioned inexplicable magical events I would instantly be skeptical of what he's saying.

[robvalue]

I think you just described the Christian view of evolution

[LostLocke]

Which again in any other intelectual disipline when an idea gets changed or modified more than the sum total of it orginal purpose then the idea is completely reconsidered. Meaning if you have to change or add to the shape of a circle a few times it ceases being a circle.

First of all, there is no "sum total of the original purpose" for physics.
There was no "original purpose" for Newtonian physics, and there is none for relative physics.

And as for the 'shape' of the circle. It's not that the shape is being changed, it's that missing pieces of the arc are being added to it.

[robvalue]

The problem with religion is that nothing is ever reconsidered. All that ever happens is adapting by announcing new reinterpretations of the same unchanging book. The validity of the book is never considered for a second. Well, not in any serious way.

[Esquilax]

Which again in any other intelectual disipline when an idea gets changed or modified more than the sum total of it orginal purpose then the idea is completely reconsidered. Meaning if you have to change or add to the shape of a circle a few times it ceases being a circle.

"Just throw out everything that does work too! Throw it all out! It's all just dirty bath water! Baby? What baby?"

[Minimalist]

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.
These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

Fuck you and your god, drippy.