re: "Why Do People Persist in Believing Things That Just Aren't True?"

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So science should be lauded only when it concludes correct findings, but we are never really sure if they are correct, but just presently assumed to be so, right?

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Science, as an abstract concept, isn't "wrong" or "right", it merely is. It is the reality of the nature of the world around us.

Our interpretation of science can be wrong, and our findings can be wrong, but "science" as a concept is reality. It isn't "wrong" any more so than the natural world can be "wrong".

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The problem is that you don't reject it for logical, scientific reasons. You don't understand the scientific issues well enough to have any sort of opinion on their accuracy. You reject certain ideas while accepting others because some ideas don't jive with your dogmatic religious belief. If you are well-versed academically in a given field and have hard data disproving an idea or come up with a better one by all means present it. That is what science is all about, new and better ideas rooted in evidence. What you are doing is merely a simplistic rejection of ideas you don't like.

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I could say the same thing about people who have never had a personal relationship with Christ, have only read portions of the bible, or have no understanding of scriptural understanding that is Spirit revealed. This though, doesn't stop the unlearned from commenting or making naive statements about things they barely understand.

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I could say the same thing about people who have never had a personal relationship with Christ

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No, you couldn't. A personal relationship with a deity isn't quantifiable, it isn't observable, it cannot be studied or documented.

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have only read portions of the bible

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The proportion of believers and non-believers in America who have read the Bible in its entirety isn't very different. I, and most non-believers I know, have read the bible at least once cover to cover. Your mistake is assuming that all non-believers are as ignorant of religion as you are of science.

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no understanding of scriptural understanding that is Spirit revealed

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Again, this cannot be studied.

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This though, doesn't stop the unlearned from commenting or making naive statements about things they barely understand.

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Yes, plenty of nonbelievers make comments about religion and the bible they have no business making. That doesn't make the statement less true if they are, in fact, true. Just because someone who has never read the bible talks about biblical contradiction it doesn't mean that there are no contradictions.

The number of non-believers with a very strong understanding of Christianity is much higher than you seem to think it is however. I'd go so far as to say the average knowledge of the bible among ALL Christians (not just the devout ones) and ALL professed nonbelievers would be indistinguishable if it were tested.

You compared commenting on science with insufficient understanding to commenting on religion with insufficient understanding, and I simply said that is not an acceptable equivalency.

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Yet scientists are quick to assert that the current conclusions are totally correct. Scientists do tend to have this god like opinion of themselves.

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If that is their findings and no one has the evidence to refute it, why should they not be confident in it?

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So doctors who prescribed frontal lobotomies for patients or gave opiates to small children weren't part of the scientific field? And nutritionist don't use science to come up with their recommendations? And astronomers who once thought the earth was flat or that the sun revolved around the earth weren't part of science?

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Science evolves with the times. 2000 year old religious texts don't.

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So you disagree that medicine and the study of nutrition fall under the heading of science?

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Of course not, but you don't understand the basic concept of the fact that science is continually evolving, and we can only make the best guesses with the information at hand. Sometimes these are pretty damn conclusive, other times not.

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Science evolves with the times. 2000 year old religious texts don't.

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What good did the evolution of science do for those who underwent forced sterilizations, were given lobotomies or kids who suffered radiation poisoning from fluoroscopes? And what good will that evolving science do to those who go through this current life believing as fact things that will be disproven in future generations?

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People who say this clearly don't understand the most basic concepts of science.

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It really is like trying to talk computer operating systems with a bank teller from the 1930s.

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Of course not, but you don't understand the basic concept of the fact that science is continually evolving, and we can only make the best guesses with the information at hand. Sometimes these are pretty damn conclusive, other times not.

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So the" candle in the dark" metaphor was a way of symbolizing that science takes blind stabs in the dark instead of exclaiming that it lights the path of knowledge?