So I was just watching this video [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkBmhM0R2A0]Miss USA 2011 - 51 Delegates Interview (Q2 - Evolution taught in school) - YouTube[/ame] and am wondering, being from a country under god's ass, what portion of the American population represents these "religious belief and science are two sides of the coin" christian brain-washing dogmas. I would really like to hear how many people actually hold this "God created us 6000 BC and now were here so everything can resolve around us" standpoint and what kind of people are they? I mean, there are these Misses but there's gotta be others... Rednecks? How many? What are they like? Thanks for all the answers. Toke out.
I'm no redneck, but I do believe there's a higher consciousness, based mainly on the fact of my own consciousness. I mean, there's the order and harmony of your own body meant to maintain your bodily integrity and you, a conscious being, are in charge of that. There's a societal harmony and order consciously meant to maintain the societal structure. Why is it so far fetched to speculate that the natural system has a consciousness at the helm? You're quick to believe in mysterious "dark matter," without which we couldn't exist, yet you, a conscious being, dismiss any idea of a higher consciousness? Does that mean that you're the highest consciousness? That's almost as bad as believing the earth is the center of the universe. Now before you weigh in with insults and simple declarations that people who believe in higher consciousness are "rednecks", try explaining your reasoning since you asked the question.
40 Percent Of Americans Still Believe In Creationism Seemed like you wanted an actual statistic, so hear you go. 40% is still ridiculously high. And this was from 2 years ago so that number might be +/- some %.
Dark matter is accepted because buttloads of empirical evidence support it. As for a higher consciousness, there's not really any coherent concept as to what that means (I've seen the phrase thrown around and mean different things each time), so there's clearly not going to be evidence to propose the existence of one. If things aren't supported by evidence, they shouldn't be believed.
I do somewhat believe in creationism. Not in the Christian sense because I am an atheist, but it is very possible that human beings and even early animals could have been made by another life form somewhere else with DNA altering capabilities. I mean why not we can clone animals now, who's to say in another 1000 years we won't be able to create a new species of animal, discover another inhabitable planet, and let them evolve....then we would in sense be "god" to these creatures. Not to sound like a scientologist or anything but its possible
I love that your first guess is Rednecks. What are they like? They are like every other human on the planet, some have some good ideas, others aren't interested in looking any deeper than they have already. That isn't restricted to a religious subject either.
The idea of seeding another planet only envelops the truth, God would be a platonic sense in such a scenario. I plant trees but don't consider myself God, nor should the tree deem me one.
Im not sure what I believe exactly. I used to consider myself a christian, but after long thinking sessions when Im high and reading science books I dont consider myself religious anymore. I mean I never really believed the bible, its a book written by people, not by a god so how can I take that seriously. The fact that everything we're made of, everything we need to survive came from space makes me believe in science. I don't believe we evolved from monkeys though... because if that were true wouldn't we still see evolution happening? And monkeys would no longer exist, they'd all turn into humans wouldnt they have? Because I mean look at the dinosaurs every single one of them evolved into different species today. So why would some monkeys turn into humans while all the rest stayed the same? Just doesnt make sense to me. I dont know how the fuck we got here, but I dont think it was through monkeys. What do I know though... Im no scientist.
You can't really try to compare millions of years of evolution from dinosaurs to a bird to thousands of years from monkey to human. Think of it this way if the timeline of the universe was a foot ball field, life on earth would only be about the size of the end zone.
Sorry for replying to an age-old topic, but I have to weigh in through my current perspective. I can't actually believe I changed so much in two years, I would never bother to post something like that nowadays. I didn't mean people with those kinds of beliefs, I meant the orthodox christians, the creationists. I have a maybe perspective on a higher consciousness as you describe, based primarily on psychedelic experience. Yet the ones I meant, have no such beliefs built on experience, but believe what they have been TOLD to believe... That the Bible is the word of god, that he created the world in 7 days 6000 years ago and that fossils are here to test our faith in the one and only Jesus Christ. I'm quite fond of a more spiritual approach though, as long as it's based on personal experience and compassion. And not shoving it down other peoples throats, especially presented to kids as truth. Humans and apes had a common ancestor, some 5-10 million years ago, Modern human remains are from 150.000 years ago. If monkeys did evolve, they did so on a minute level, as we can see humans barely (if at all, on a biological level) changed in the last 150.000 years. Evolution is a slow process.
What about carbon dating neadrethal man's bones? Is that a lie? 8k years is not long at all. Archeologists estimate that modern humans have been on the Earth for about 200,000 years.
Even so. Let's give it a 50% incorrect ratio. That means that humans have been here 100k years. Thats over 10X 8k. I truly believe that humans have been here longer than 8 or even 10k years. The Earth is millions of years old. Nothing in the bible about that. unless God's equivalant of 1 day is 10 million years.
People are going to believe what they believe. There are people out there that believe cannabis is a tool of the devil. Whatever, not my place, more for me.
I do too. This is just something I've been thinking about a lot the last few weeks. I'm trying to get everyone's side. I honestly don't think the earth is 6000 years old but I've seen some evidence I haven't been able to dismiss away because I just don't know. Mostly because I'm not very educated on subjects like geology and chemistry.
Humans have been around for awhile.. maybe not modern humans, but the homo lineage. Homo literally means human, and the homo line began around 2 million years ago. Not only that, carbon dating isn't the only type of dating. It's only is accurate til about 50,000 years ago, after that they use other radioactive dating methods.. like uranium/lead dating that can go back millions of years ago. Modern humans haven't been around that long in comparison to Earth and life, but I think people get held up on how fast we progressed.. but you have to remember that what we are is millions of years in the making.