Creationists hijack lessons

[Kennybhoy]

You keep believing, I'll keep evolving.

EDIT:

Yeah, actually, religion does cause social progress, as detailed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

[Russ]

This is why we need religion out of our government systems, and, as much as possible, out of our schools. Religion has rarely, and most likely never, helped the advancement of science. The same could be said of social progress.

That's a terrible reason for taking religious education out of schools. The advancement of science is by no means the most important function of education. I don't particularly care if they teach creationism as long as they teach it alongside alternate models, fairly.


To be fair the dark ages weren't caused solely by christianity. Oh well, back to this amusing graph
[IMG]http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9364/darkages.gif[/img]

[Glockmeister]

I do find this notion that religion is totally useless as a rather bad generalisation. A lot of the historical justification for this notion are based on things that have no basis on historical truth at all. For example, the belief that the world was flat.

[Cthulhu]

This book discusses this at length.

That book calls a comet a star.

Edit: Also Chinese astronomers and baBbylonian astronomers already knew about things like Halley's comet and comets in general.

[Yitzi_K]

Sure.

If you REALLY believed that, then the Torah would be your maths textbook, not Essential/MathsQuest/whatever you're using. "All of science can be derived from Torah" :') That is so priceless... I challenge you to find me a reference to Magnetohydrodynamics in the Torah, or a path to its derivation from the Torah. Go! Of course, you'd have no idea what MHD is, much less how it would be derived from even Physical principles, because it is a relatively advanced topic of Physics that you wouldn't study until 3rd year of university. Yet you so BLINDLY believe that you can derive it from the Torah. This is an assertion which requires some sort of proof. Do you see the sort of logical traps you fall into?

Yes, magnetohydrodynamics can be learnt from the Torah. But I don't know how, so don't ask me. The same goes for specialist maths. It says in the Talmud 'G-d looked into the Torah, and created the world' meaning He used the Torah as a sort of blueprint for creation. Hence, everything inside creation, is in the Torah.

You so easily take on whatever crap you're fed. Vilna Gaon WAS A STUDENT OF EUCLID'S GREAT WORKS. Maimonides studied Aristotle. Seriously, did you even do the most basic of research? It wasn't just Torah education, it was a MATHEMATICS education as well. They didn't read the bloody Torah and go "LOLZ OK DIS IS MATHS" - they actually read authors/experts in the relevant fields and that's how they gained their knowledge. Not from the fairytale. And you'd know this if you SIMPLY read those wiki articles. But I'm guessing your teacher at school told you this and you just took it as gospel. That is the most logical explanation for the discrepancy.

For someone accusing me of not reading what I post, you're doing a good job of it yourself. I brought the Vilna Gaon and the Rambam only as examples

of people who were first and foremost Torah scholars, and at the same time world experts in mathematical and scientific fields.

At no point did I say these people were examples of people who had learnt solely from the Torah. You being so eager to go on the attack, as per usual, clearly made you misinterpret or misread what I wrote, deliberately or otherwise, hence your irrelevant diatribe about my being a gullible brainwashed idiot. Of course I read the wiki articles, but I don't need them to increase my knowledge of these people. I know full well that they used secular sources to enhance their knowledge.

The people about whom I DID say that they had no secular education were the Talmudic sages, a part of my previous post which you completely ignored. I'll assume that's because you have no way of challenging it.

P'tach et ha mo'ach shel'cha.

How's this for open-mindedness? Just yesterday (nothing is coincidence) my teacher, one of those you often rail about, said 'You can't just accept what you read in the Talmud. You have to question and attack every line and statement.' Now to me that looks like the epitome of having an open mind. Ironically, you seem to have a mo'ach sagur when it comes to accepting that religion can be open-minded.

[taiga]

Religion is good to you if you believe it is good to you.

It is useless if you question it.

[Kennybhoy]

Now I know why the Jewish schools are so academically elite.

[Russ]

Now I know why the Jewish schools are so academically elite.

Because they give all their students perfect marks on sacs?

[ninwa]

For someone accusing me of not reading what I post, you're doing a good job of it yourself. I brought the Vilna Gaon and the Rambam only as examples

of people who were first and foremost Torah scholars, and at the same time world experts in mathematical and scientific fields.

At no point did I say these people were examples of people who had learnt solely from the Torah.

So you are saying everything can't be learned from the Torah? If not, what was the point of citing those examples? They don't support your argument at all. Why did they turn to outside sources to study when everything is supposedly already contained in the Torah?

[ninwa]

Yes, magnetohydrodynamics can be learnt from the Torah. But I don't know how, so don't ask me. The same goes for specialist maths. It says in the Talmud 'G-d looked into the Torah, and created the world' meaning He used the Torah as a sort of blueprint for creation. Hence, everything inside creation, is in the Torah.

Okay, I accept you probably have no idea what MHD actually is.

But please show me an example of where the Torah teaches you specialist maths concepts. This is a rather interesting claim.

[Cthulhu]

Can you give me an example of a talmudic scholar who was also a mathematician and learned everything they knew about mathematics from the Torah Yitzi_K?

[TrueTears]

This Torah thing is quite interesting, does that mean I can read the Torah rather than reading Stewarts Calculus and I'll be able to learn everything about Calculus? If so, that's pretty cool, looks like I can ditch all my maths books and read the Torah.

[Yitzi_K]

For someone accusing me of not reading what I post, you're doing a good job of it yourself. I brought the Vilna Gaon and the Rambam only as examples

of people who were first and foremost Torah scholars, and at the same time world experts in mathematical and scientific fields.

At no point did I say these people were examples of people who had learnt solely from the Torah.

I was simply trying to give examples of religious people who also contributed to science. As for why they learnt from other sources, it's because the Torah is far from a textbook whereby everything is clearly written and explained. When I say the entirety of human knowledge is contained within it, I don't mean it can be simply read off the pages. It has to be studied and learnt in infinitesimal detail.

Interesting factoid: Pi wasn't proven to be transcendental until 1882. Yet the Rambam, who I mentioned above, writes

The ratio [we know as pi] cannot be known. Since it is impossible to arrive at a perfectly accurate ratio, they assumed a round number...

around 600 years before that. He learnt that from the Torah.

Yes, magnetohydrodynamics can be learnt from the Torah. But I don't know how, so don't ask me. The same goes for specialist maths. It says in the Talmud 'G-d looked into the Torah, and created the world' meaning He used the Torah as a sort of blueprint for creation. Hence, everything inside creation, is in the Torah.

Okay, I accept you probably have no idea what MHD actually is.

But please show me an example of where the Torah teaches you specialist maths concepts. This is a rather interesting claim.

I said I don't know how. But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Can you give me an example of a talmudic scholar who was also a mathematician and learned everything they knew about mathematics from the Torah Yitzi_K?

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. He was exploring concepts of infinity, purely from a religious perspective, 2000 years before Georg Cantor came along.

This Torah thing is quite interesting, does that mean I can read the Torah rather than reading Stewarts Calculus and I'll be able to learn everything about Calculus? If so, that's pretty cool, looks like I can ditch all my maths books and read the Torah.

That's a good idea. Although I imagine it would take decades for you, or anyone for that matter, many decades to gain such an understanding of the Torah as to learn calculus from it, but it is a worthy pursuit.

[ninwa]

I was simply trying to give examples of religious people who also contributed to science. As for why they learnt from other sources, it's because the Torah is far from a textbook whereby everything is clearly written and explained. When I say the entirety of human knowledge is contained within it, I don't mean it can be simply read off the pages. It has to be studied and learnt in infinitesimal detail.

You've made quite a leap of logic there. Just because religious people have contributed to science doesn't mean religion itself has.

That's a good idea. Although I imagine it would take decades for you, or anyone for that matter, many decades to gain such an understanding of the Torah as to learn calculus from it, but it is a worthy pursuit.

If learning ANYTHING from the Torah is so difficult, then I cannot see how Judaism has contributed to science when even scholars need to turn to other sources to learn. Saying "you could possibly learn something if you bothered to spend decades of your life studying it" is not a contribution to science. And please don't pick me up on my use of the word "possibly", it is only a mere possibility when you cannot explain how it is done.

I said I don't know how. But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Are you serious. Okay my turn!

I believe the pile of rocks in my garden holds the secrets to all knowledge in the universe. I don't know how but that doesn't mean it can't be done. o_O

[Yitzi_K]

That's a good idea. Although I imagine it would take decades for you, or anyone for that matter, many decades to gain such an understanding of the Torah as to learn calculus from it, but it is a worthy pursuit.

If learning ANYTHING from the Torah is so difficult, then I cannot see how Judaism has contributed to science when even scholars need to turn to other sources to learn. Saying "you could possibly learn something if you bothered to spend decades of your life studying it" is not a contribution to science. And please don't pick me up on my use of the word "possibly", it is only a mere possibility when you cannot explain how it is done.

You appear to have ignored my examples of scholars who HAVE learnt science and maths from the Torah...

I said I don't know how. But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Are you serious. Okay my turn!

I believe the pile of rocks in my garden holds the secrets to all knowledge in the universe. I don't know how but that doesn't mean it can't be done. o_O

Fair enough. So worship your pile of rocks, see where it gets you.