Sure it does. That is why you want to use it, because it's such a vague definition.
WHAT's VAGUE FOR YOU IS CLEAR FOR ME.
"-is a concern over what exists beyond the visible world (operating through faith and intuition, as opposed to reason);
-generally includes the idea of the existence of a single being, a group of beings, an eternal principle, or transcendental spiritual entity that has created the world, that governs it, that controls its destinies, or that intervenes occasionally in the natural course of its history;
-is a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects; and
-is the idea that ritual, prayer, spiritual exercises, or certain principles and conduct arise naturally as a human response to the belief in such a being or eternal principle."
MIRRIAM WEBSTER DICTIONARY :
relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged *ultimate reality* or deity.
Here is one from WORDSMYTH :
a set of beliefs concerned with explaining the origins and purposes of the universe, usually involving belief in a supernatural creator and offering guidance in ethics and morals.
SEE HERE :
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Religion WIKTIONARY says thusly :
A system of beliefs that involves the existence or *nonexistence* of at least one of: a human soul or spirit, a deity or higher being, or self after the death of one’s body.
Usage notes
Generally speaking, systems of belief that do not involve the existence of one or more deities, such as Buddhism, can be considered a religion, though some people prefer a stricter definition that excludes the possibility of a non-theistic religion. Others are in favor of a very general definition of religion: that any belief or system of beliefs is a religion or part of a religion, including science and atheism.
So no, I am not a postmodernist, this is perfectly acceptable usage. And if the quotes of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins are to be taken seriously, I'd say
they qualify.
Remember who said this with conviction :
"The Cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be."
Which leads to the next question --- HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT ?
You might want to read the furious exchange between Michael Ruse ( an agnostic and
evolutionist I admire ) and Richard Dawkins ( who I don't ).
SEE HERE :
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/844 Also, see here :
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/InterviewTypeDetail/assetid/46165;jsessionid=baa6gWCz81 Here is what Michael Ruse says of Richard Dawkins :
"Dawkins is an interesting case. If being deeply interested in and committed to these various issues counts as religious—as well as having strong moral feelings (especially about the wickedness of existing religion)—then I would say he is religious. He reminds me a bit of Calvin. More than this, he clearly thinks that his Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity, so it does have theological implications. On the other hand, he does not want to tie in the course of nature with morality—as did Julian Huxley and as does Ed Wilson—so I would be hesitant to call him a secular humanist or whatever, as I would them. Don't forget that terms like religious are terms that can stretch and can support different usages."
Here is the ones you decided to ignore earlier:
UH UH, CAN'T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS. I did not IGNORE the definitions, I *INCLUDED* the definitions that DESCRIBE the belief systems of many evolutionists.
This of course includes ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF *ULTIMATE REALITY*, or a set of beliefs that explain the ORIGINS and PURPOSE of the universe.
The difference -- YOU *LIMIT* the definition, I DON'T.
Consider this usage of the word by Robert Jastrow...
Robert Jastrow is perhaps the nation's most prominent astronomer. In a book entitled God and the Astronomers, Jastrow, who is an agnostic, one who declares an
intelligent conclusion cannot be drawn regarding the existence of God, confesses:
"There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe, and every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event.... This religious faith of the
scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid (p. 111-112)."
So, is Jastrow a post-modernist now ?
If you want to do a *battle of the dictionaries*, you will lose.
My purpose is not to "win", my purpose is to determine what is true. If your arguments win, and they win on merit, in what sense do I lose ? The truth wins out and
that's what matters to me.
Also, this is not a battle of dictionaries, it is an excercise in determining the SENSE of the word. My usage is ACCEPTABLE based on what the dictionaries
tell me.
The vast majority of definitions for religion are about belief in a
supernatural agent.
AND THEY ALSO INCLUDE ---- acknowledgement of *ultimate reality*.
Wiktionary's usage notes states :
that any belief or system of beliefs is a religion or part of a religion, including science and atheism.
I Do not ignore that.
It IS the experimental method. There is no way to operate scientifically without
methodological naturalism.
Well I can see the problem with FOSSILS then.
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
-You Ask A Question
-Form An Hypothesis
-Research
-Experiment
-Analyze Your Experiment
-Draw Conclusions
-Repeat Experiment
In order form something to qualify as science it must follow the Scientific Method.
In any scientific endeavor there must be repeated experimentation. If an experiment cannot be done, an idea (no matter how wild it is or seems) is just that, an idea.
A person can look at the supposed "evidence for evolution", but unless he or she can do the same in an experiment, I don't see how you can present this as fact. Not when the observation does not match what you say you expect.
No, design isn't ruled out because there is no way to do so. There is no way to
make it a part of science. It's not a scientific claim, it's a theological claim.
And by default NS+RM is science ? How is that a scientific claim ? Where is are experimentation and the results ?
In everyday life, we ASSUME that when we see order and complexity, that intelligence is behind it, how is that a theological claim ?
It's untestable.
Well, I'd be glad for you to show me the results of tests that shows random mutation, chance actually produced a bacterial flagellum, just as one example.
"And who said that Intelligence has to be SUPERNATURAL ? "
Nobody.
Well good, then you seem to be agreeing with a lot of ID proponents.
They leave the identity of the intelligent agent UNKNOWN.
In fact, Francis Crick a Nobel prize winning scientist, a co-discoverer of the DNA, toyed with the idea of "panspermia," the notion that life was "seeded" upon the earth in the long ago by alien space creatures. THAT IS *ID* right there.
Francis Crick frankly admitted that, "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going" (Life Itself 1981, p. 88).
It's not science because it's untestable theology.
I believe William Dembski responded to this claim.
I'll cut and paste it in his response to the great George Will's critique...
"The deeper concern is that intelligent design is not science because it is not testable. If ID were not testable, you would have a point. But the fact is that ID is eminently testable, a fact that is easy to see.
To test ID, it is enough to show how systems that ID claims lie beyond the reach of Darwinian and other evolutionary mechanisms are in fact attainable via such mechanisms. For instance, ID proponents have offered arguments for why non-teleological evolutionary mechanisms should be unable to produce systems like the bacterial flagellum (see chapter 5 of my book No Free Lunch [Rowman & Littlefield, 2002] and Michael Behe’s essay in my co-edited collection titled Debating Design [Cambridge, 2004]).
Moreover, critics of ID have tacitly assumed this burden of proof — see Ken Miller’s book Finding Darwin’s God (Harper, 1999) or Ian Musgrave’s failed attempt to provide a plausible evolutionary story for the bacterial flagellum in Why Intelligent Design Fails (Rutgers, 2004).
Intelligent design and evolutionary theory are either both testable or both untestable. Parity of reasoning requires that the testability of one entails the testability of the other. Evolutionary theory claims that certain material mechanisms are able to propel the evolutionary process, gradually transforming organisms with one set of characteristics into another (for instance, transforming bacteria without a flagellum into bacteria with one). Intelligent design, by contrast, claims that intelligence needs to supplement material mechanisms if they are to bring about organisms with certain complex features. Accordingly, testing the adequacy or inadequacy of evolutionary mechanisms constitutes a joint test of both evolutionary theory and intelligent design.
Unhappy with thus allowing ID on the playing field of science, evolutionary theorist
now typically try the following gambit: Intelligent design, they say, constitutes an argument from ignorance or god-of-the-gaps, in which gaps in the evolutionary story are plugged by invoking intelligence. But if intelligent design by definition
constitutes such a god-of-the-gaps, then evolutionary theory in turn becomes untestable, for in that case no failures in evolutionary explanation or positive evidence for ID could ever overturn evolutionary theory.
I cited earlier Darwin’s well-known statement, “If it could be demonstrated that any
complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
Immediately after this statement Darwin added, “But I can find out no such case.”
Darwin so much as admits here that his theory is immune to disconfirmation. Indeed, how could any contravening evidence ever be found if the burden of proof on the evolution critic is to rule out all conceivable evolutionary pathways — pathways that are left completely unspecified.
In consequence, Darwin’s own criterion for defeating his theory is impossible to meet and effectively shields his theory from disconfirmation. Unless ID is admitted
onto the scientific playing field, mechanistic theories of evolution win the day in the absence of evidence, making them a priori, untestable principles rather than inferences from scientific evidence.
Bottom line: For a claim to ascertainably true it must be possible for it to be ascertainably false. The fate of ID and evolutionary theory, whether as science or
non-science, are thus inextricably bound. No surprise therefore that Darwin’s Origin of Species requires ID as a foil throughout."
In their private school, fine. In a government school, ID has no place in a science
class, as it's not even close to being science.
Disagree. The TAX-PAYING DOVER community decides what they want in their curriculum as in any other community. THEY PAY THEIR TAXES, THEY MAKE THEIR DECISION.
Federal JUDGES are NOT QUALIFIED to make decisions on this.
If tax-paying community A wants ID presented as part of a class in biology, I say let them.
If tax-Paying community B DOES NOT want ID presented as part of a class in biology, fine with me, AS LONG AS THEY GET TO DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.
I gather that one community in Kentucky ALLOWED ID to be presented and Dover recently VOTED OUT the board members who Allowed ID to be presented. BOTH ARE FINE WITH ME.
The communities decide and THAT is where it should be made.
The key word is -- VOTED. That is the bottom line for me in a free society. PEOPLE GET TO DECIDE.
Your caps are still on. Please take those meds.
Are vitamins considered meds ? Who is the postmodernist now ?
:)