Is this so "wrong," it is just wrong?
I am one who is usually respectful of all religious beliefs unless those somehow violate the right of another, but to me, this is pure ignorance and is, by definition, wrong. Am I wrong?
I agree with you. Not all beliefs are entitled to deference merely because they are cloaked with being "religious beliefs." A lot of religious beliefs are wrong, including beliefs that are sincerely held.
To further the thread along, can I ask of you what beliefs you find to be just completely and utterly wrong?
You mean in general, or just in the scenario you mentioned? If you mean in general, it's almost unlimited. I mean, people have been coming up with bad ideas since the beginning of time.
If you are talking about the scenario above, I think all of them are wrong. The only one that is not completely objectively wrong, IMO, is his belief regarding evolution. Some evolution does occur, and we can observe it. I think we can debate about the extent of the evolutionary process or whether macro-evolution occurs, and plenty of atheists and agnostics will even concede that point. So for him to completely write off evolution is just silly. And his other points...I just don't see any merit to them.
No sir... the extent that evolution occurs is not being debated. We know that macroevolution occurs. Macroevolution is simply microevolution, over and over again. The only difference is time scale. Just like the only difference between a 20 foot walk and 20 mile walk is time scale. What debates ARE going on in evolution, you may be asking? Well, some people think that evolution occurs in huge steps over long periods of time (for example, there are millions of years with almost no evolution occuring and then suddenly a bunch of evolution occurs), and some think that evolution is an entirely gradual process that is always going on. There is also some debate as to whether natural selection is the only force driving evolution, or there are other forces that complement natural selection (like DNA mutations). But NO, NO, NO, NO, there is NO debate WHAT SO EVER as to the EXTENT that evolution occurs.
Also, about this religious nut saying that he doesn't BELIEVE in evolution, well.. with science, there is no BELIEF, because the word belief implies faith. There is no faith in science. Either you accept science, or you do not accept science. "I do not accept evolution" valid claim. "I do not believe in evolution" invalid claim because evolution is not grounded in faith. The same applies to any theory of science, atomic theory, theory of relativity, you name it.
Also, something I wanted to touch into here - nothing in science is
proven. Proof is a MATH term, not a SCIENCE term. That is why the highest level of confidence anything can reach in SCIENCE is THEORY, to get above theory, you have to dive into the field of mathematics. 2 + 2 = 4? Proven. The planet Jupiter is larger than the planet Saturn? not proven. Now do you some of you this may sound like complete rubbish but it is true. Now, there are certain things (like evolution, and the Moon is smaller than the Sun), that while they have not been proven, we are almost 100% certain that they never will be disproven. Why is nothing in science proven, I hear you ask. Well, that is because science is always wanting to IMPROVE, or CHANGE. If scientists said something is PROVEN, that means it is absolute truth. If something is aboslute truth, a more correct explanation cannot be devised. If a more correct explanation cannot be devised, than it cannot change, and as I said before, science is all about change.
/rant for now, if anyone would wish to debate me on any of the point I made, I would be happy to - but please, no straw mans.