No it doesn't bother me in the least, how does it impact anything if a fraction of the population thinks the world flat? I don't see what you mean by "deliberate," Globes in schools are still common, To most people the shape of the world is a piece of background minutiae, that doesn't affect their daily lives.
If I had to attach a word to flat-earthers, it would probably be "charming."You want people who are good administrators, mathematicians and engineers, being a-religious shouldn't be a requirement.
When America launched it's first manned orbital flight, do you honestly thing it impaired the working of the spacecraft when backup astronaut Scott Carpenter famously spoke the words “Godspeed, John Glenn?'
You don't see politicians pushing prayer in school, gutting the science and health curricula to remove evolution and age-appropriate sex education as a way of deliberately dumbing down the populace?
Add in the ideology of my provincial government (Jason Kenney's UCP in Alberta) where the Minister of Advanced Education rants about public schools teaching "radicalized ideology" (climate change) and that public schools are immoral because mandatory prayer isn't a thing anymore... and the Minister of Education has time and funds for every school system
but the public system (the public school boards aren't even allowed to have the word "public" in their names anymore) and she's openly contemptuous of any school or teacher who dares to hint that climate change is a valid thing to study.
If you don't worship oil and natural gas at the altar of Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper and openly disparage real science in favor of deniers and $$$$$$, this government has no use for you.
So I'm not talking about round vs. flat. I'm talking about politicians imposing their religious views on the school system and blatantly interfering with scientists' ability to do their jobs and communicate the results of their work to the public.
In the UK, religious observance has almost disappeared, although I suspect around 50 to 60% still believe in a supreme deity. However, no-one here would be shocked if someone stated that they do not regularly attend a place of worship. My experience in the US has been the opposite - even in California.
It must be nice to not be judged on whether you do or don't attend church. Back in the mid-'80s when I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism, a new person (newer than I was) didn't say "hi" as her first word to me when we were introduced (SCA custom would be to say, "Well met"). Her first words were, "What church do you go to?"
I was... flabbergasted. WTF kind of greeting is that? It's on par with "which political party do you vote for" - completely out of place when being introduced at an arts & sciences meeting.
When I told her, "I don't go to church," she got this very confused look on her face, as though she couldn't imagine anyone not going to
some church (she later confirmed this to be accurate; she really couldn't wrap her mind around it).
The next words out of her mouth were: "Well, that's okay... I guess."
My first thought was, "Thank you very much for your gracious permission for me not to attend church!". But I said nothing, and later we became friends. But she never could fathom atheism. When I told her I'm atheist, she contradicted me with, "No. You're
pagan." Better I worship trees or cast spells under a full moon than worship nothing at all, in her mind.
And that was dealing with a social situation. I got a roomful of dirty looks at City Hall one time when I'd been hired to work at a polling station for a municipal election and I refused to swear on the bible. Some people here still think it's the law, but the Charter of Rights guarantees that I no longer can be legally compelled to participate in any religious ceremony, be it prayer in school or swearing on a bible at City Hall or in court.
So even though about 20 people gasped simultaneously when I said I did object to swearing on a bible and would prefer to do the paperwork to affirm my compliance with the duties and regulations associated with the office of Deputy Returning Officer, I stood my ground. The City Clerk was visibly annoyed.
At home, my dad wondered why I didn't just swear on the bible, and I told him that swearing on an object means nothing. My word, however, does.
And isn't it funny... there's something in the New Testament about "let your yes be yes and your no be no". There's nothing I recall about swearing on any holy book.
Science and religion both have the same end result. Science wants to be at the top of the mountain preaching down to everyone what is correct the same holds true with religion.
No.
Science has evidence on its side. Religion doesn't. Science doesn't have to browbeat and threaten and con people, because it doesn't claim to be absolutely right, period, end of story, this way to buy the t-shirt.
In a capitalist society, the ends are nothing more than massing a large amount of wealth. Both science and religion profess that both are all knowing and yet, neither has left the planet to preform any tests outside of the solar system to prove what they are professing is in fact correct.
So you're claiming that the planetary probes currently outside the solar system (Pioneer and Voyager) are not where they're said to be? Are the NASA and JPL scientists lying to us?
Are you seriously trying to tell us that the Hubble Telescope and the International Space Station are on the ground instead of in orbit, and that they haven't actually made a myriad of discoveries not only about our own solar system and galaxy, but others as well?
You can't say that God does or doesn't exist without leaving the cave. You certainty can't say that the rest of the Universe is based on the scientific knowledge discovered in the Sol System. Both forms of science then begin to revolve around an Earth centric model or the Universe revolves around the Earth and that is...not even wrong.
What "both forms of science"? The bible is not a science text. You can't just pray for an answer. You have to figure it out using whatever tools you have at your disposal, and prayer is not anything I ever found in a chemistry lab (I spent 6 years in chemistry labs, so if there were any prayers floating around or tucked into a drawer somewhere, I should have found at least one over all that time).
I have no idea where you get the notion of anything revolving around the Earth (other than what actually does, of course, whether a natural part of the solar system or some satellite or piece of space junk in orbit). It's nonsense to talk about the "universe" revolving around the Earth, because we are part of the universe. The universe isn't "out there" - it's there, here, and every one of us, every speck of matter, is part of it.
Carl Sagan expressed this idea very eloquently:
"The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be."
Do you think there has been a rise in an anti science / anti facts mindset?
Are we destined to live in a so called "post fact" society where science and fact are to be shunned by the masses, and ignorance elevated? In fact I'd go one step further and say truth as a whole could be shunned in favour of tailored "facts" that the masses would consume.
Given the ideological "war" on public education in my province these days, it looks like it.
Teaching students about evolution as if matter has ever created information is a terrible disservice. Matter has never created information. Also, even if you think that animals evolved which came first male or female? You really think that two creatures of the same kind with complimentary reproductive organs simultaneously evolved? Also, there has never been a single species that has been observed evolving into another species. They put things in textbooks to lead kids to conclusions. They draw lines on charts for where they think different species transitioned, but there isn't any proof. They just put that it must have happened. You need evidence and to be able to prove that something happened. If you met someone who didn't believe in authors and thought books made themselves you would rightly say that person was insane. How though can you say that the book of life(DNA) didn't have a creator? It makes a lot more sense to either say you don't have the answers or to believe that God created everything than to think that matter created information, it became extremely organized and created creatures like fish that were perfectly suited for their environments, but then walked on land(didn't die) and later we got people.
Oh, FFS.
Look, you yourself are a piece of matter, and you just created information in the form of your post. It's nonsensical information, but nevertheless, it's information.
Animals evolved. Plants evolved. The stars themselves evolved from simpler ones to the current generation with a plethora of elements in them that didn't exist at the time of the first stars. It takes a supernova to create those heavier elements. So thank a star that blew up many billions of years ago for the fact that you exist and have a computer to type on. Without that supernova explosion, there wouldn't even be carbon to base humans on, let alone all the stuff we take for granted these days.
