Two arguments that give the creationists the upper hand.

[rsucoop]

1. Something can't appear out of nothing.

(I wanted to post a link to a video I saw about this but can't manage to find it again. Why is the thing you wants to find the most the most difficult thing to find? It's like you need something in your apartment, but nomatter where you look you can't find it, just everything else that you DON'T need. When you go to a store to buy something you often find it has everything else you DON'T want but not the thing you were looking for!)

2. The complexity of DNA and the machinery of the cell, explained in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwitJXHjaQ

I find that after watching these two videos, trying to argue against it feels like refusing facts and just being stubborn. Unless a better explanation about the origin of life comes from the Darwinists I think we should now assume a creator is responsible, but at the same time be open to that other possibilities might be discovered in the future.
The next would be trying to solve what the creator IS. Personally I don't believe in the man with the white beard and the bible as I've already mensioned before is written by humans and sensored by humans through the ages, plus the texts have been missinterpreted by every religious society, so it ends up being little more than a fairytale, although some sections about how a human should behave makes sense wether you're religious or not.
So the concept of God must be a totally new one. It may not be an intelligent being or even self aware, but it may be a law of energy about attraction between forces and matter, that must have some kind of will to progress into complex structures. So what happens if every protein in the DNA was taken appart and just thrown together in a mixer. Would it assemble itself again? Probably not because it needs a machinery to be assembled, by machines that were assembled by machines and so on. Where's the force that started it? I'm talking about cells necessary for complex DNA structures explained in the second video (watch all 10 clips).  

Also these machines need to be working together from the beginning otherwise none of them will work, which can't just appear at random.
On the other hand, once the foundation of life is there it will work by itself without any involvement from a higher being.
When I run my evosims I feel reluctant to even click on a bot that could accidently move it away, because I don't want to interfere. I want it to find it's own way. I want them to have the freedom to chose. To mess around in the sim to try and favor one bot over another would feel like a violation. The progress of the sim will find the best way by itself, otherwise it will cease to exist. There is no need for me to affect it. I just made the foundation of life with the best settings that I've managed to figure out. If it doesn't work, I will start over with something else, which could be compared with mass extinctions on the earth from time to time.
So maybe that's what God is, a founder that watch and wait, until we enters his realm by our own progress. If the suffering of humanity and destruction of the environment is not a good thing it will cease by itself.
What do you think?

And now I'm going to try starting a new zerobot sim from scratch with Eric's latest drop to see if sexual reproduction has it's place in this environment. Maybe it will take a year before it even shows up!
Another thing that's interesting is the time it takes for things to appear. Why would God wait billions of years just watching single cellular organisms before suddenly decide to create the rest of the species that exists? That makes me think God waits and let it appear by itself, like I do when I patiently run my evosims.  

You have obviously never heard of dark matter or dark energy. There is no stability in the universe, only a constant change.

It is said that God does want proof of his existance, because with proof their is no need for belief. Yet he claims to have spoken the words of the bible to its writers. Therefore God has shown proof of his existance. Therefore God does not exist. QED    

No you can begin to see the problem with human rationale, vs spiritual belief. If God exists, he does not. But if God doesn't exist, then something else was responsible for the Universe. And our existance is only a mere blink at its current historic value, so how can we possibly explain something we can't comprehend. Surely it can't be as simple as someone conjuring up everything. And as Einstein said, God does not toss die. Secondly, we're not a computer. We can't break the rules of time and space (at the moment), and there is no end or begining. Because in science, even nothingness has a force. Therefore god cannot exist. Evolution is not about the hand of some being, its about the environment from the largest mountain to the tinyest quark. Mutations and the combination of fatty acids occur in the same fashion as the Sun's fusion, on attom exchanges electrons with another and bonds are formed to make more complex compounds.

Also, you should look into the String Theory.

And lastly, look at Douglas Adams' proof why God does not exist.

[Numsgil]

...Yet he claims to have spoken the words of the bible to its writers...

Wrong on three counts.  First, the bible is not God's words personally.  It's the words of various saints and prophets (and some horny kings.  Song of Solomon reads like porn  ).  Second, He hasn't ever said or made any claims to humanity at large except through the saints and prophets, meaning that it's the saints and prophets that say that the bible is the Word of God, that God exists, that He's a good guy and should be trusted, etc.  Not God himself (unless you've had some miraculous visitations yourself).  Third, I don't think it's ever been clamed as proper doctrine that God does not want proof of his existance.  It's just sort of been assumed that way by people who misunderstand the whole premise of God: that there's a benevolent dictator subtley directing the course of human development and the world at large in order to cause humanity as a whole to grow and progress, and individuals specifically to grow and progress.

All taken together: believing the bible is the word of God requires faith, and does not cause the logic of God's existence to unravel at all.  It just adds an extra level of complexity.  

Also, you should look into the String Theory.

Load of hogwash that demonstrates the dangers of pure speculation without empirical backing.  "Oh yeah, the whole universe makes sense if you just presuppose that there are a dozen or some dimensions we can't detect at all."  Pfft, that's like me saying "oh yeah, my homework is done, and it's all correct, but you can't see that because it's in a special language I made up."  Talk about a case of the emporer's new clothes.

[Testlund]

I agree with Nums here about the string theory and such. I've been watching movies about string theory, dark matter, membranes, dimensions, black holes, you name it.
The only theory that makes sense to me of all these is the black holes. The rest I can't get how the hell they came to those conclusions. They admit that the law of physics break down and doesn't make sense before the big bang but still a lot of sientists believes in the string theory and multiverse.
Somehow it feels that most of these scientists think too linear. The time concept, travel faster than light makes you go back in time, big bang pushed it's matter from a single point in one expanding direction etc.
I want a believable model that shows how it's done and why!

[Peter]

The string theorie 'a load of hogwash'. I wouldn't really think about it like that.


Most scientific theories are just theories and very often they are proven wrong later on, meaning that for any theorie there isn't any complete proof.

String theorie, works practically desame as the other theories, with subtle little chances, like that it doesn't allow time-traveling, it is blocked by the 7th or 8th dimension, well atleast one, or was it a combination.
It isn't proven, but it isn't disproven eather. It is complicated, that's true.

Most physics laws mostly really tend to break down in the time after the big bang, therefore exists the expansion theorie.
But there isn't any real ending proof in science, there isn't real final evidence.
You could just say the big bang theorie is wrong or that the phycics laws are wrong. And as well can you say that the string theorie is wrong. There isn't proof for it, the final question is, is there proof against it. Many theories of Einstein are broken down later in time. The theories where pretty close to truth and explained much, but in the end, wrong.

I think the string theorie is a nice concept, the idea to have everything in one theorie is good. It isn't disproven for as far I know. If it is correct it has nice stuff like the explaination of wave–particle duality of light.

The bible isn't disproven eather, as well as most science. If one was proven the other would be automaticly wrong.

Status quo. What could a scientist say. Einstein believed in god.

[Numsgil]

The problem with string theory is that it's all so purely speculative it's hard to even set up an experiment to disprove it.  General relativity, for comparison, is strongly supported by a great number of experiments.  Meaning that it's falsifiable, but strongly supported.  Sure it's a little complex to understand, but it at least makes predictions we can check.  I refuse to call something science if it's impossible to construct an experiment to test it.

[shvarz]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70124175443.htm

[Testlund]

Shvarz has the links we need!  

Ok, so they think they will be able to prove if string theory is wrong, but not if it is right.  

[rsucoop]

...Yet he claims to have spoken the words of the bible to its writers...

Wrong on three counts.  First, the bible is not God's words personally.  It's the words of various saints and prophets (and some horny kings.  Song of Solomon reads like porn  ).  Second, He hasn't ever said or made any claims to humanity at large except through the saints and prophets, meaning that it's the saints and prophets that say that the bible is the Word of God, that God exists, that He's a good guy and should be trusted, etc.  Not God himself (unless you've had some miraculous visitations yourself).  Third, I don't think it's ever been clamed as proper doctrine that God does not want proof of his existance.  It's just sort of been assumed that way by people who misunderstand the whole premise of God: that there's a benevolent dictator subtley directing the course of human development and the world at large in order to cause humanity as a whole to grow and progress, and individuals specifically to grow and progress.

All taken together: believing the bible is the word of God requires faith, and does not cause the logic of God's existence to unravel at all.  It just adds an extra level of complexity.  

Also, you should look into the String Theory.

Load of hogwash that demonstrates the dangers of pure speculation without empirical backing.  "Oh yeah, the whole universe makes sense if you just presuppose that there are a dozen or some dimensions we can't detect at all."  Pfft, that's like me saying "oh yeah, my homework is done, and it's all correct, but you can't see that because it's in a special language I made up."  Talk about a case of the emporer's new clothes.

Ah, but the logic it is derived from is very basic, and does not rely on deranged lunatics hearing voices. Every thing has mass. All mass is energy (Einstein's theory of relativity). All energy is movement, with all Newtonian laws applied one can see how this aplies to say, light or magnetism. So all mass has a frequency. All particles have a frequency. Therefore it is most likely that we are all just made of vibrations, or strings if you will. There isn't much speculation involved, not like the speculation that some God exists. Furthermore, it does not matter who wrote the bible, the basis was that God had to prove he existed to the prophet or the saint by speaking to him. If God exsisted, he wouldn't have to talk to the prophets. Beyond that, Mark Twain makes many good remarks on why its so obsurd to even believe in a God (or at least one that pays any attention to the Universe). Finally, if God doesn't exist and the saints say he does, then God cannot exist by virtue of their writing (Yet if God does exist, then why is he not runnign the Universe? Better yet, why is he not creating more universes and dimensions). Because under saint prestense, god is all-knowing and all-powerful, so it would only make sense that a simple planet would be a waste of his effort (he would already know the outcome of anything he did, and he would know that before humans can do anything to help it, the Universe will hyper-expand). So this idea of a God in the bible sense has many logical errors, making it ilogical and irrational. But the idea of a God who somehow built something seems abit odd too. Why build something that you'll outlive if you're so smart? Seems like a big waste of time if I was god. Sort of like doing this  

Also, its odd that a believer of God would deny that there aren't more dimensions that cannot be percieved with limited 3 dimensional sensors. After all, is that not what religion is abou? Some higher place out of sight, even when using the Hubble Space Sattellite. Also, your analogy does not seem to fit. You're comparing some language that cannot be interpreted (but can be percieved) to something which cannot be percieved yet can be interpreted.

(BTW, time is the 4th dimension. Can you see time? Einstein's proof is 100% accepted and solid. And many things are beginning to show that this fact is the case).

[EricL]

Ok, so they think they will be able to prove if string theory is wrong, but not if it is right.  

This is the way science works.  The only disiplines where you can prove something in the affirmative are a few braches of pure, unapplied mathematics.  Everything else, there are no "proofs".  You formulate a therory then look for ways to falsify it.  If you can, you then refine the therory. Most laymen don't get this - that science is not about proving things, but rather about formulating competing theories and then eliminating the ones you can by falsifying them through evidence, observation and experimentation.   Scientists receive tremendous alcolades and kudos from their peers for disproving their own theories - it's one of the greatest things a scientist can acheive - formulate a therory and then disprove (I.e. refine) it.  Unlike the common usage of the term 'therory' where it means "speculative and unproven", a 'therory' in science is one of the strongest statements there is.  It means "a consistant, generally accepted framework for something that has withstood scrutiny and has yet to be disproven".

Only religon claims to have all the answers and proof in the positive.  Ask your religious leader "what experiment could I perform where if the results came out a certain way would falsify your claims?"  If they answer "none", run away quickly.  They are either deluded or want your money.  Any scientist worth their salt should be able to rattle off a dozen experiments that if performed with a specific outcome would invalidate their favorite theory.  Darwin himself indicated several such (I remember irreducable complexity was cheif amoung them) that if shown to be the case, would cause him to repute his theories.  Of course, no credible evidence of these has ever been presented.

[shvarz]

I'd say that Eric a bit romanticizes the relationship between scientists and their theories - most scientists hold to their favorite theories a bit more tightly than you may imagine from his description. Even when someone shows their theory wrong, they tend not to believe the result until they see it for themselves (or until it is reproduced in multiple studies). But the general idea is quite correct - you cannot prove that a theory is always right, because that would require experiments under all possible conditions everywhere and every time and that is impossible to do. But finding a single inconsistency in a theory breaks the theory down and necessitates a new theory. All science is done that way.

[Numsgil]

Ah, but the logic it is derived from is very basic, and does not rely on deranged lunatics hearing voices. Every thing has mass. All mass is energy (Einstein's theory of relativity). All energy is movement, with all Newtonian laws applied one can see how this aplies to say, light or magnetism. So all mass has a frequency. All particles have a frequency. Therefore it is most likely that we are all just made of vibrations, or strings if you will. There isn't much speculation involved, not like the speculation that some God exists.

Reread what you just said: if that doesn't sound like the deranged rantings of a lunatic, I don't know what does   It's no more absurd than the animistic viewpoint that all matter has a spirit self.  String theory at best is a sort of mathematically based metaphysics.

Furthermore, it does not matter who wrote the bible, the basis was that God had to prove he existed to the prophet or the saint by speaking to him. If God exsisted, he wouldn't have to talk to the prophets. Beyond that, Mark Twain makes many good remarks on why its so obsurd to even believe in a God (or at least one that pays any attention to the Universe). Finally, if God doesn't exist and the saints say he does, then God cannot exist by virtue of their writing (Yet if God does exist, then why is he not runnign the Universe? Better yet, why is he not creating more universes and dimensions). Because under saint prestense, god is all-knowing and all-powerful, so it would only make sense that a simple planet would be a waste of his effort (he would already know the outcome of anything he did, and he would know that before humans can do anything to help it, the Universe will hyper-expand). So this idea of a God in the bible sense has many logical errors, making it ilogical and irrational. But the idea of a God who somehow built something seems abit odd too. Why build something that you'll outlive if you're so smart? Seems like a big waste of time if I was god. Sort of like doing this  

Not at all.  It should be amply clear that the Judeo-Christian monotheistic God has a very straightforward goal in mind: growing a larval stage of His progeny on Earth: namely mankind.  That is, raising his literal children.  Why do you think the imagery of "Father-Child" is used?  It's the same way that teaching a kid to ride a bike isn't a waste of time.  Sure, you could ride the bike yourself, in a fraction of the effort, but the act of teaching is infinitely more meaningful.  That God isn't directly visible gives us a hint of the level of growth mortal life represents: mankind is something like a toddler going to preschool for the first time.  Sure it seems to us like our Parent has abandoned us, but in reality it's just the first step of growing up and becoming independant.

And who says that Earth is the only planet God is working on?  I'm pretty sure I've heard phrases like "worlds without end" at various times in different services.  The whole idea of the Judeo-Christian God is that He's quite literally the God of the whole universe.  Or at least our observable neck of the woods.  Other sentient life is presumably also under God's charge.

Also, its odd that a believer of God would deny that there aren't more dimensions that cannot be percieved with limited 3 dimensional sensors. After all, is that not what religion is abou? Some higher place out of sight, even when using the Hubble Space Sattellite.

I make a careful distinction between belief and science.  If you came to me and said that you're religion claims that there are an extra 8 unobservable dimensions, and that all of everything is built from vibrating strings, that's fine, that's what you believe.  However, when you claim it's good science, I require supporting evidence before I accept it.

Also, your analogy does not seem to fit. You're comparing some language that cannot be interpreted (but can be percieved) to something which cannot be percieved yet can be interpreted.

Perhaps something such as this would make more sense?

(BTW, time is the 4th dimension. Can you see time? Einstein's proof is 100% accepted and solid. And many things are beginning to show that this fact is the case).

Time is observable.  We can percieve time.  Time was understood (in our rather constant inertial frame) long before Einstein.  That's what makes general relativity work: it makes predictions about things we know about.  Einstein didn't have to invent anything new, he just reformulated what we already understood.  When you start talking about compacted dimensions, I must scoff.

Only religon claims to have all the answers and proof in the positive.  Ask your religious leader "what experiment could I perform where if the results came out a certain way would falsify your claims?"

Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:

"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".

The problem is that you as a science minded individual want to measure with a ruler and stopwatch, whereas a priest wants to measure in warm fuzzies.  They're really orthogonal to each other; you might as well be speaking different languages.  Almost everything religion is about (morality, our place in the universe, our relationship with our ancestors, our future destiny, etc.) are things that science has no business even asking.  How do you measure morality?  How do you develop a theory about the meaning of existence?  It just doesn't work.

Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid.  There is a tiny portion of Judeo mythology that modern science conflicts with: namely Genesis and the creation story.  And only like the first 10 chapters at that.  And even then the only reason it's a big deal is that most Christians don't seem able to read more than the first 40 pages of their Bible.  They worked hard on reading that first chapter.  It's all they have.  I mean, once you get into later Genesis you start having all sorts of boring geneologies, and the Mosaic law, and who in their right mind wants to read that?  If the bible started with something like Isaiah, I think people would have a better idea about the whole point of all this.

[Ispettore]

In the last right-wing governement here in italy (berlusconi) we had a minister of public education who wanted to abolish the darwin theory teaching in schools and restore the teaching of creationism. These are very dangerous people, Darwin died 150 years ago and some stupid catholics still don't belive him... italy is truly the third world.

EDIT: BTW the proof that bible is completely wrong, is that earth goes around the sun (in the bible it is written the opposite) and that jews are the most unlucky people in the world, and they should be the chosens. Of course I'm not a nazist, just look at history: they where fucked by all governments, and they have been slaves since the age of pharaons by the hitler's government. Another thing, we italians killed Jesus (if he existed) and god haven't punished we yet.

[EricL]

Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:

"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".

Why not budda?  Or Allah?  Or Gaia?  Or Apollo?  Or Elvis?  Every religion is a minority.  If Christians claim only they are right, then they must think most of the world is deluded and they must therefor accept that it must be relativly easy to be deluded regarding religon.  BUt on the other hand, if they allow that beleif in any god can produce the same inner, untestable statement of truth, then they must acknowledge that perhaps it's not so much the god that matters but rather the belief itself....    

The problem is that you as a science minded individual want to measure with a ruler and stopwatch, whereas a priest wants to measure in warm fuzzies.  They're really orthogonal to each other; you might as well be speaking different languages.  Almost everything religion is about (morality, our place in the universe, our relationship with our ancestors, our future destiny, etc.) are things that science has no business even asking.  How do you measure morality?  How do you develop a theory about the meaning of existence?  It just doesn't work.

Well I strongly disagree here as you might imagine.  All religions make scientific claims:  virgin births, turning wine into blood, physical miricles, the power of prayer and so on.   All of these things are testable and measurable.   Morality is easily measurable for example.  A well designed questionaire or experiment is all it takes.   There have been many studies measuring morality and you might expect, they all find no relationship between religious beleif and morality.  There are moral religious people and immoral religious people, same with athiests and any other large demographic group.  

Science is just a methodology for seeking the answers to questions through rational processes.  As such, I would claim there is nothing that cannot be explored (and eventually addressed) using a scientific method.  But one of the first steps to answerring questions scientifically is to make sure the question is well formed.  Asking "what is the meaning of existance?" is not IMHO a well formed question, in the same way "what came before the big bang?" is not well formed.   The term "meaning" is human centric and presumes aprori that there must be a meaning, that existance and everything else must mean something to humans.  This is obviously not the case.  Similarly, humans have brains evolved to deal with the macro world with it's 4 dimensions.  It should not be surprising that humans have a hard time understanding additional dimensions or that that time itself started with the big bang and that asking "what came before the big bang" is not well formed.    

Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid.

I used to feel this way.   I used to take a live and let live approach.   I changed my mind the day a bunch of religious whack jobs flew airplanes into buildings.  Religion and the irrational beliefs in an afterlife (not to mention unlocked cockpit doors) allowed that to happen.

The irrational beleifs of others effect me, effect the world I live in and the world my children are growing up in.   I have no probelm with someone belonging to a social club they attend every Sunday (or Saturday or Tuesday) morning with their friends.  I have no problems with people (willingly) following a personal code of conduct or subscribing to an organized code of conduct.  I have no problem with tradition and culture.  I was married in a catholic church and celebrate a secular christmas for example.  But supernatural beleifs in direct contradiction to reality are dangerous.  If you beleive in the irrational, you can believe in anything and that makes you dangerous.  Someone may convince you strapping on an explosivie vest and detonating it in a shopping mall is the path to salvation or that electing leaders that believe in armragedon and putting them in charge of tens of thousands of nuclear missles is a good thing.

And let me just add that the whole "those guys weren't my religion" or "those guys were misguided extremists" or "my religion is a kind, gentle religion that would never condone such things" argument is total bullshit.   By beleiving in the supernatural, by making belief in the supernatural not only socially acceptable but desirable, adherants of kinder, gentlier religious are giving aircover to extremists.   Why is it that we would send someone who truly beleives Elvis is alive and talks to them in their head to see a phsycologist but we don't do that for the gods supportted by organized religion?  We should.  Ignorance is the enemy of rationality and beleif in the supernatural is ignorant.  

[Numsgil]

Here's what I almost guarentee a Christian priest would answer:

"Let Christ in to your heart and life, allow him to be your personal savior, and I guarentee you that you will receive a testament of the truth of these things".

Why not budda?  Or Allah?  Or Gaia?  Or Apollo?  Or Elvis?  Every religion is a minority.  If Christians claim only they are right, then they must think most of the world is deluded and they must therefor accept that it must be relativly easy to be deluded regarding religon.  BUt on the other hand, if they allow that beleif in any god can produce the same inner, untestable statement of truth, then they must acknowledge that perhaps it's not so much the god that matters but rather the belief itself....    

Which many might do.  Christianity as a whole is a rather fragmented patch of related but distinct beliefs.  Among these is the so called Christian Humanist.  Another take might be that, like the blind men and the elephant, each religion has a correct, but limited, view of the Almighty.  Yet another view might be that each present religion grew from the same seed of truth, and have long since strayed and erred.  Religion is not cohesive like science.  Religion is not based upon an independantly verified truth.  If science is about removing the human component from our understanding of the universe (removing bias, superstition, etc.), religion is about understanding the universe through the human component.

Well I strongly disagree here as you might imagine.  All religions make scientific claims:  virgin births, turning wine into blood, physical miricles, the power of prayer and so on.   All of these things are testable and measurable.   Morality is easily measurable for example.  A well designed questionaire or experiment is all it takes.   There have been many studies measuring morality and you might expect, they all find no relationship between religious beleif and morality.  There are moral religious people and immoral religious people, same with athiests and any other large demographic group.

What if I answer "I like to kill people" on your questionaire?  Is that a moral or amoral act?  How do you even begin to define "good" and "bad" in a purely scientific manner?  Science is great at being impartial, but it does not deliver any value systems with which to judge the world.  You could maybe develop a theory about the effect of murder on societies and trust, etc. but at some point someone is going to have to make a judgement call about what is desirable and what is not.  That's the realm of religion, philosophy, etc.  Things that are definately not scientific.

The term "meaning" is human centric and presumes aprori that there must be a meaning, that existance and everything else must mean something to humans.  This is obviously not the case.  Similarly, humans have brains evolved to deal with the macro world with it's 4 dimensions.  It should not be surprising that humans have a hard time understanding additional dimensions or that that time itself started with the big bang and that asking "what came before the big bang" is not well formed.

I would say that the argument that "of course humans don't understand higher dimensions, because we don't have the capacity" is anti-human centric.  Imagine for a moment the beginning of life on earth.  The first thing that learned how to move can only move in a straight line.  It's immediately out-competed by a creature that can swim in two dimensions.  That creature is immediately out competed by a creature that can move in 3 dimensions.  etc. etc.  If we can only observe 3 physical dimensions and a strange one way dimension, that must mean that those are the only dimensions that have meaning in our existance.  Higher dimensions may or may not exist in any real sense, but they do not effect our normal, everyday life.

Same way that relativity does not effect normal, everyday life.  You want me to believe in relativity?  I can use suspension of disbelief for a moment, but you'll need to provide empiracle evidence very soon after.  Thankfully, it was just a handful of years after a single man created a new theory that it was confirmed by empiracle evidence.  My assumption was justified.

I will take the existence of higher dimensions as an assumption in a scientific theory, in the same manner as I took relativity.  String theory is like, what?  30 years old?  With thousands of scientists working on it.  And it's not even done.  How many falsifiable experiments do we have?  Talk about much to do about nothing.  You're straining my powers of assumption.  It's just like a software project.  You need to test each individual function against specification.  In science, you need to test every single assumption against evidence.  String theory has put the horse before the carriage, and the result is a huge theoretical mess with no practical use.  Relativity gave us nuclear plants and bombs within just a decade or so.  String theory hasn't even been able to figure out how to test itself yet!

Really the whole idea that science and religion are in direct competition with each other is extremely stupid.

I used to feel this way.   I used to take a live and let live approach.   I changed my mind the day a bunch of religious whack jobs flew airplanes into buildings.  Religion and the irrational beliefs in an afterlife (not to mention unlocked cockpit doors) allowed that to happen.

Sept. 11 was about as much about religion as the crusades were: meaning only a flimsy pretense.  Think about it.  If it was a Muslim war against Christianity, they would have attacked the Vatican.  If it was a Muslim war against Jews, they would have attacked Israel.  Instead it was an attack on trade.  On capatalism.  It's a political attack by a political organization that hides behind its religion for justification.  They're upset with American support for the monarchy in Egypt, or something like that.

People hide their hate behind religion because they're ignorant and stupid.  Don't blame religion.  Islam certainly does not advocate military attacks on civilian targets.  People don't need help being hateful.

But supernatural beleifs in direct contradiction to reality are dangerous.

Are dangerous to whom?  To the people?  Big deal.  You're upset when they intrude on your life.  And rightfully so.  That violates the very founding principle of your country: libertarianism (which, by the way, is a philosphy and not a science.  How would you scientifically define the idea of the right to be left alone?).  But that isn't the fault of belief.  That's the fault of people.  And people will act stupid and hateful regardless of what religion, belief, or philosophy the believe in (or don't).  If anything, religion, belief, and philosophy are what prevents Man from being stupid and hateful all the time.  How easy would it be to fall in to a science-only world view, and adopt Social Darwinism as a guiding principle?  How would that make you any better from someone who falls in to a religion-only world view and adopts I-don't-understand-that-it-must-be-magic guiding principle?  Both views can cause so much harm.

[Numsgil]

EDIT: BTW the proof that bible is completely wrong, is that earth goes around the sun (in the bible it is written the opposite)

Really?  What verse?  No, the bible never says anything about the sun and the earth, and which revolves around the other (and technically, with relativity and lorentz transformations, both are correct).

and that jews are the most unlucky people in the world, and they should be the chosens. Of course I'm not a nazist, just look at history: they where fucked by all governments, and they have been slaves since the age of pharaons by the hitler's government.

You don't understand what it means to be "chosen".  It doesn't mean life's going to be great for you.  It means God's given you a great deal (not always material goods.) and it's your job to live up to God's expectations.  If anything, being chosen is a burden, requiring extra work and effort.  I'm sure there's a parable about that   Something with money and digging holes

 

Another thing, we italians killed Jesus (if he existed) and god haven't punished we yet.
 
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 In the last right-wing governement here in italy (berlusconi) we had a minister of public education who wanted to abolish the darwin theory teaching in schools and restore the teaching of creationism. These are very dangerous people, Darwin died 150 years ago and some stupid catholics still don't belive him... italy is truly the third world.

 You just answered your own question   Anyway, the Romans didn't kill Jesus.  The Jews did.  Or that's the story anyway.  Pontius Pilate (or however it's spelled) tried to get Jesus exonerated, but the (Jewish) crowd wouldn't go for it.  Personally I think the Romans killed Jesus, and the story was changed to make the Empire look better (so Christians wouldn't be killed as unpatriotic).  But whatever.