So well said.  I agree 100%.

What many "God-Haters" are really out to destroy is religion. There is a huge difference between being anti-"God" and anti-religion. While I definitely believe in a Creator - an intelligent designer - I wholly reject religion, which nearly always seeks to define who that Creator is. Historically, many religions have formed from ulterior motives, primarily power, wealth, and/or control of the masses.

Therefore, the difference between "Intelligent Design" and "Creationism" is that the former concurs with the overwhelming scientific evidence of design, whereas, creationists go one step further and presume to define the creator. It is vital to understand this difference in order to have an intelligent discussion.

I don't begrudge anyone their religion and I believe that on some level and for many people it is necessary. However, not all anti-religious people are "God-Haters" and atheists. Some of us are Deists, which, by the way, is what most of our founding fathers were. We can have a very civil discussion, but the odds are better if we keep religion (not a Creator) out of it.

The scientific method did not grow out of Christianity.  Some scientific techniques did, but not the principle of science altogether, which had its start when the first being with a mind was able to put facts together and test them.  Who knows how long ago that was?  Also, cultures before Christianity were engaged in science--the Greeks, etc.--and though sometimes their science was tainted by superstition, often they had very clear ideas as to how science works, and even discounted the influence of gods, etc.  If you need to point to any historical evidence for the beginnings of science, take a look at those cultures.

An addendum to Mr. Sawyer. The Scientific Method as we know it today (Observe, Hypothesize, Experiment/Verify, Conclude) was formulated by Francis Bacon, a Franciscan monk. It goes without saying that as long as there have been inquiring minds, there has been Science.

My original comment was a response to the notion that religion and science are incompatible and that people of faith are ignorant.  

The God (or Life) Haters have a method to their madness. Sir Charles Darwin was two men, One a biologist & One of the WEALTHIEST men of his day.

Darwin, at the zenith of his social strata and part of the program He and His fellow masters over us had for us was to create stress to cause the weaker among us to fail. This would suppress the masses, whom they feared. That is where "survival of the fittest" is promoted, yet Darwin did not form those words. They came from Herbert Spencer, an economist who created the theory of Social Darwinism.

To be fair to Darwin, Spencer's ideas of fall flat on the face of Darwin's observation of nature supporting organisms that cooperated for their mutual benefit. If organisms fight to the death, usually both die. Darwin knew this yet his contemporaries liked the ring of this as it justified them to fight for space at the top and keep others from reaching their strata. Twisting science to justify fascism.

One outcome of this top hat cigar chomping brainstorming was recruiting people to write and insert ideas into main stream thought to mold opinion. H.G. Wells was their instrument, despite the fact that Darwin was a Racist who thought so little of the Irish that I can't quote what Darwin said about Irishmen like Wells.

The Prussian Militarized Education system was promoted and relabeled by people friendly to their cause Like Dewey and today's American Public Education system with its "stressing elements" is what we enjoy. One of the reasons for this system was Coal barons & Industrialists needed workers who would stay put after money was spent training them.

The average man at that time was too bright to spend his whole life toiling on some assembly line, He would often quit after 6 months, take his earnings & buy an item for his homestead.

Free book for the downloading:

"The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto a 3 time teacher of the Year. www.johntaylorgatto.com/.../index.htm

That was a very eloquent comeback. Thank you for that information.

Intelligence is adaptability.

Intelligence is the ability to predict.

Given certain inputs, your ability to predict what is next.

Where is the ball going to be.

Is that animal chasing you down/dangerous.

The book On Intelligence explains this very well.

Anyone who has taken a MENSA test will recorgnize that the tests

give you a series of information/pictures and then asks you to PREDICT

the next one in the series, or IDENTIFY the pattern principle.

Education is supposed to be a process to developing more pattern

recognition and prediction...

But this article is about science/beliefs and punishment therein...

We need to STOP ALL THE CENSORSHIP!

The drug companies need to stop censoring the herb/vitamin companies,

and the solid studies that are being done.  The news media is deplorable

here.

We need to STOP the POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

We need to COMMUNICATE and ACCEPT the communication for what it is.

I for one DO NOT BELIEVE That Dinasaur bones were put there by God to test my faith.  How silly.  I do not believe the Divine Creator created us in HIS IMAGE, because I think he would have MORE SELF-ESTEEM than that.

But who cares what I believe?  I don't!  Honestly, it is not the driving force for me getting out of bed every day.  It is what I believe, it has changed over the years, and GUESS WHAT, it will change again...

If you can accept that in yourself, it goes a long way to realizing it is true of any rational person about any given topic...

Love the feedback this is producing...

Kirk Out!

Yes, it looks like that after you have "survived" EDUCATION you can start to use your INTELLIGENCE based on your adult FREE WILL to seek, sort and use right INFORMATION for your own and others' well-being and happiness.