Nimzabaat said:
Callate said:
...Because they have a vested stake in believing something else.
And as long as someone is willing to step forward and say something in an authoritative manner, someone will believe them, and many more will be afraid to admit that they have their doubts.
That statement goes both ways and I totally agree with it. I've been around long enough to see scientists change their minds a few times. It saddens me that the "educated and enlightened" on this thread are just as close minded and dogmatic in their beliefs as the people they are arguing against. That's why we can't have nice things.
How do I put this.
I agree that it's important to keep an open mind to new possibilities. And I recognize that both scientists and those who follow their work (sometimes not as closely as they should) can be mistaken. And believe it or not, I'm really not especially inclined towards strict, knee-jerk anti-theism.
But I have to flatly reject the idea, as comes up so often, that there's a strict equivalency in both sides, neither of any more worth in any field. There is a difference between a Theory and a catechism, both in application and, to some extent, in intent. A scientist whose findings don't meet up with reality can expect to have their results challenged if their results aren't repeatable in further experiments; a member of the clergy whose dogma doesn't mesh with reality isn't likely to be challenged at all. Challenging an existing model in science is part of the process, and can lead to breakthroughs and names being made. Challenging a religious doctrine can lead to accusations of heresy, excommunication, and schism.
It's one thing to hold a personal faith, and hold it with both the strength and the flexibility to credit the possibility that it is the believer's understanding of reality that is flawed, not the deity who inspires that belief. It's quite another to decide without warrant that because of faith, a technique like carbon dating that shows every indication of being a helpful gauge of certain
real things simply doesn't apply.