In their battles against the godless heathens of the scientific community, creationists will often make scientific-sounding definitions and use these in attempts to destroy the basis of their enemy’s arguments and as such it is useful to have a fixed set of definitions for the more common scientific & religious concepts.
I genuinely had no intention of going to see Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". Several people had opined on how bad (gory, violent, bloody) the film was and I did not want to contribute to the coffers of Mr Gibson whose then behaviour I had been viewing with some alarm. The offer of free tickets by some local churches apparently aware and happy that many of those applying for them were atheist or agnostic changed that and both I and a friend set off to see it.
Young Earth creationists, attempting to disprove any theory that disputes their belief that the Earth & universe were divinely created, often use arguments that attempt to demonstrate theories opposing theirs as immoral. Darwin's theory of Evolution (or Neo-Darwinism as it known today) is claimed to be the cause of violence, racism and other forms of immoral behaviour.
Science is an ongoing attempt to explain the universe and in this respect, is attempting to explain all that is observable. Science is not absolute and the rational minded would not claim so or that it has the absolute answer to anything. So, what is truth? Truth is something which is absolutely correct, without doubt, and the polar opposite of something which is not true.
I have always had a fairly tolerant attitude towards pretty much everything, part of being a liberal at heart, so I have generally felt that religion needed to be tolerated just as long as it didn't actually do anything inherently divisive. The example I always used was that of the Church of England. Anglicanism in the UK has always been the village-fête faith. The tombola faith. The bingo faith.
Are ghosts real and are people's claims to out-of-body experiences genuine? An entire media culture, books, films and TV are devoted to such things, indeed, the basis of almost all religions is that an important part of us is the ghost-like spirit, soul or daemon. In my not-so-humble opinion, it is ludicrous to believe in such things as there isn't a shred of validatable evidence ...
So, I was wondering about Satan. You know, the little red angry guy with the horns and off around the world corrupting it 'n all that and I started wondering. I mean, has the guy really been given a chance? We're told he lives in a place called hell which is where we all go if we don't follow "da roolz" after we're dead but if we do (follow "da roolz") we're good and off we po to some place called Heaven. I mean, do we? I mean, is this bloke Satan really all that bad?
Science represents our best effort to understand the universe around us and, regardless of whether the understanding it engenders is used for good or ill, that knowledge is a good thing. I want the human race to reach as high as we can. I want us to leave this lonely planet in this far-flung corner of what may well be a lonely galaxy and throw ourselves outwards exploring and finding out more about the universe. IMO, the further we throw ourselves the greater we ensure our survival.
One of the biggest charges laid at the door of science by creationists is that the Theory of Evolution requires as much faith as a belief in a god and, as such, the "theory" of creation should be taught in schools alongside evolution as a science.This article demonstrates that the Theory of Evolution fully adheres to scientific principles and that creation, and particularly, creation "science" cannot be considered as a science at all.
I am an atheist. I'm proud of being what I am because, to my mind, it implies a certain amount of intelligent consideration of the issues surrounding religions and their claims. However, I don't usually start discussions on atheism or religion because of what I am ... more often than not, something or someone will bring up the subject. That's in public but mostly it's online where I have frequently been as to why it is, I am an atheist.