What is CNN allowing on their commercial breaks?

[Pythagorean]

Yes, people are held against their normal state by parasitic and dangerous memes. Saying that 'oh well, they will never change' is very unrealistic. So is the argument that science should not push the frontier of public understanding of science.

http://richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner

There are quite a few that has changed their minds due to scientific reasoning. They are currently having MySQL troubles, but you can view the Google Cache of the page http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:IKiHdVtObCsJ:richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner+convertscorner&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1 .

In any case, we need more people like Carl Sagan.

Yeah, FAQ is down. I'll check it out tomorrow, anyway. Thanks for the discussion.

In closing for the night, I'm not saying 'oh well, they will never change'. I thought I made it clear that they will change on their own time, and I'm perfectly willing to help someone understand the universe the way I like to see it (through science).

The first testimony I read on that site implies the person was already doubting religion, which was an exception. We lose certainty on how convincing the Dawkins site was since the thought was already in someone's mind. I'm not trying to discred the site... if that's the case, it's exactly what I'm talking about: being there with open arms.

 

[Aether]

That's my point -- religious people have been grudgingly accepting scientific evidence for a while now, but they're always very careful to leave a narrow path through which they can continue to have faith in their deity.

Out of any sufficiently large population of "religious people", some fraction of those people will behave as you describe here; but some other fraction of those will gladly accept valid scientific evidence if it is clear and convincing.

One problem with religion is that naive people tend to first define some dogma as being true, and then they filter everything else through that dogma. Some people never recover from this mistake, but others do recover from it.

 

[Kurdt]

Its undoubtedly a complex issue. I don't agree with an advert trying to take down an argument from either side. Thats not the way to get people to believe in your world view. It comes off petty and bitter. If you want to promote your religion you should do so by advertising the supposed benefits, and it should stand or fall on those values.

On a semi-historical note, its interesting talking about the Greek gods. Greece at the time had many philosophers and mathematicians that were finding things out about nature which made many of those gods obsolete. Its interesting that the Greeks of the time were very accepting that their gods were obsolete but kept the stories as fairy tales. I think Roger Penrose in the introduction to his book Road to Reality hit the nail on the head when he said that the gods were just the way for the people of the time to understand the regularity of the world around them. Perhaps the Greeks were so accepting because they realized this themselves.

The move to monotheism around this time was I suppose a defensive reaction. Well you may be able to explain the smaller gods away but the one true god, the zeus if you like, made the universe. That has been a lot harder for science to discount and might be something it can never explain. Its just recently when the religious try and make ridiculous claims like the young Earth theory which is in no way supported by observational evidence that things have gotten nasty. I have no idea how anybody could be convinced by such arguments at all or why they would want to be. It is literally the promotion of ignorance.

Basically I think some people have a strange idea of what priority to give certain statements. They don't understand the difference between a falsifiable statement and a non-falsifiable statement (to try and put it simply) and the consequences for reality for both of these.

 

[Moridin]

I have no idea how anybody could be convinced by such arguments at all or why they would want to be. It is literally the promotion of ignorance.

Young Earth Creationists are like scientists, only backwards. Science favors empirical observations over arguments from authority, while creationists like Kent Hovind does the exact opposite, excluding claims because the bible contradicts it. That is all that it hinges on. It is not the arguments, but their origin.

 

[mathwonk]

there is a logic cartoon from BC in my favorite old algebra book by harold jacobs, of two guys, one on a unicycle arguing that "if god wanted you to fly he'd have given you wings", and the other guy retorts, "well he didnt give you a bug screen".

i think this was suppressed in the more recent edition.

 

[jim mcnamara]

You guys are missing something important about how cable and a few satellite providers work. See sites like spot runner for details if you're into advertising. www.spotrunner.com

The idea is this: you pay for a local cable provider to insert your ad over a fiber-filler ad the cable network carries. If you have cable - you've probably seen ads for other shows on channel Q while you are tuned to channel A. That's an example of what I mean by fiber-filler ads. Satellite providers do the same thing.

So, with a cable company designated as the intended ad provider, the LDS church (or fill-in-the-blank chruch )provides bucks. Then provider can insert that ad into the stream for local consumption only. It gets shown instead of what's on SCIFI or HGTV tonight.

I think it's meant for local smaller businesses to expand their market.

Conservative, fundmentalist churches with strong tithing requirements are often cash-rich when they are in a well-off suburban setting. The cash is meant for missionary operations, among which getting the "truth" about Evolution out to us ignoramuseseses is prolly a high priority.

In fact, those kinds of churches have political clout far beyond their memberships for the very same reason.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think it's meant for local smaller businesses to expand their market.

It's meant for the TV station to make money, that's their source of income. Any station that has commercials doesn't get paid by the people who watch it. They don't particularly care who they sell slots to as long as they're making bucks and not pissing the FCC off.