Ah, we begin to get somewhere. I'll try to set aside any obnoxious personal attacks and just focus on your (rachamim's) actual claims. Incidentally, since you spend quite a lot of time complaining about my "arrogant" & "denigrating" tone, let me just note -- your posts sound exactly the same to me.
So it'd certainly be more productive if you'd do the same: less sneers & self-righteousness and more arguments & facts, please.
Anyways, I'm going to organize this as follows -- first address some random errors & claims you made, and then cover the meat of the question. So the most important part of this will be at the end.
First, to get one issue out of the way, I'm not sure why you're going on about your Judaism so much here. The only relevant question -- and the only point I've brought up -- is:
do your religious beliefs lead you to any position about how the Earth & its life must have appeared? That is -- are there some ideas about how humans & life on Earth came about which you would reject solely based on religious beliefs? Everything you've said at first suggested that you're a fundamentalist Jew (presumably one of the ultra-Orthodox sects?) and so you probably do, which is typical for creationists. (It's telling that you find people of diverse religious beliefs -- atheists, observant Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc. -- who accept the evidence for evolution; yet creationists are almost invariably wedded to extremely conservative/fundamentalist religious views which require them to adopt a creationist position.)
If that's not the case for you, just say so -- we'll happily take your word for it. There's no need to be coy. :D
I love it when people go at it hard in defence of Evolution but never talk about how, according to Darwin, blacks are a lesser form of humanity. All the while they are telling people that the truth (in Evolution) is so self evident.
WTF? What in the world could this have to do with the truth of evolution? Darwin could have made a habit of molesting and murdering homeless Palestinian orphan boys and that wouldn't have any bearing on the truth of the theory of evolution. The truth of evolution is based on the vast evidence for it (see below), not anything to do with Darwin at all. Indeed, while Darwin is considered a great scientist because he discovered some important things which turned out to be true, many of his ideas turned wrong. You'd be laughed out of the room if you tried to suggest to biologists today that should believe XYZ just because Darwin did. And I'm not sure what his
moral beliefs should have to do with anything! Honestly I have a hard time understanding the thought processes of anyone who actually believes this is a reason to accept/reject evolution -- you do in fact realize the its utter irrelevance, don't you?
(Incidentally you should know that in fact Darwin was a committed abolitionist, and, while not rejecting the standard assumption of racial inequities, quite progressive on race compared with his extremely racist time. But again, this is of course totally irrelevant!)
Also, why would you come up with the notion that I think the truth of evolution is "self-evident"? Evolution should be evident to most anyone
who is familiar with the vast evidence for it. Most people aren't; you can often even get through college bio classes without ever hearing much about it (at least here in the US.)
And in both your definitions YOU will note that YOU did not once mention "definative qualification." Ergo, play the semantics game somewhere else. English is like my 7th language and even I recognise the nonsense you are pushing. I really feel bad about coming down on you so hard but I have to call it as I see it. You mount a soapbox, casting these hugely sterotypical judgements, and then hide behind word games. "THEORY" in ANY SENSE of the word can be broken down to its very basic essence and what exactly is that essence? "AN UNPROVEN CLAIM."
No, again, this is just wrong. I'm not sure why you just keep stamping your foot & repeating your original assertion when I've shown it's wrong. Perhaps a dictionary entry will help?
The OED -- which is widely considered
the most comprehensive&authoritative dictionary on the English language BTW -- lists the standard colloquial definition as meaning #6 and the scientific definition as:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50250688?query_type=word&queryword=theory
4. a. A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.[/url]
Not, as you see, meaning "unproven." 
Alternatively, you can look at the various dictionary entries at
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory . The science dictionary says
"A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena. Most theories that are accepted by scientists have been repeatedly tested by experiments and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena," and the American Heritage and Random House there both list both definitions, with only the colloquial one having an implication of "unproven." Indeed, the first dictionary (Random House) even notes:
Theory, hypothesis are used in non-technical contexts to mean an untested idea or opinion. A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena: the theory of relativity. A hypothesis is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serves as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth: This idea is only a hypothesis.
You could also look at some of the excerpts from evolutionary bio texts
here:
A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century.
- Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986, Sinauer Associates, p. 15
It's not surpsising you'd make this mistake, it's very common since most people are just familiar with the colloquial definition. But, as you should now realize, the fact that it's often referred to as the 'theory' of evolution by no means implies doubt about it, just as the 'theory' of gravity doesn't mean gravity is "up in the air," so to speak.
"Zorn is not sure just why Rachamim has an issue with Zorn generalising. After all, Zorn IS talking in broad strokes.": Hahaaha, precious. [...] By simply adding the word "probablly" as in, "Most scientists PROBABLLY consider," you would have made an intelligent point. Instead [..] you merely propagated the very same "ignorance" you railed about. [...] NO generalisation is accurate. Using generalisations is an exercise in ignorance. Surely, if you knew half as many "scientists" as you say you do, you would be well aware of this.
I'm really unclear what your problem is? Obviously some generalizations are accurate:
men tend to be taller than women. Very few women have stronger arms than the average men. Etc. I don't really see any point in arguing about that. As to my statements, as you should have noticed, when I'm speaking in broad strokes I sprinkle them liberally with qualifiers. If I happen to leave one out someplace, you should just insert it yourself, rather than freaking out about it! It's really not that hard to understand what I'm saying.
"Einstein was an atheist, which can be verified by Wiki...": You are talking down to people and you use Wiki as a source? Hahahahhahahhaha. Here is hint: Consumer Generated Content sans Real Editorial Oversight is absolutely worthless. Read a few bigoraphies and get back to me. [...]You know, anyone who spends 15 seconds registering at Wiki can re-edit or even compose pieces on the site. Indeed, I have authored a couple of dozen. The fact that you flaunt the site as a source is the epitome of irony since you dismiss what I say out of hand. In other words, Rachamim is incorrect but some anonymous web denzien who offers 3 annotations (which of course YOU never verified or researched in depth) is inviolable to you. Niiice. [...] You certainly are adept at ESP, but then how is it that you failed to discern what ignorant Rachamim thought?
Oh, I suggested Wikipedia as a convenient source; Einstein's religious views are well-known and you can find them many places. No ESP is necessary to know what Einstein believed, since he made it clear on a number of occasions. For example, here's
a site that collates some of the sources for his views, or look at
the New Scientist's take. You could also look at any decent bio of him, if you really find these too untrustworthy. Since the question is whether we should call Einstein himself a "theist," I'll just quote him directly on the topic:
My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.
— Letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59-215
... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. .... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.
— Letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954
(Einstein's belief was in the mystery & underlying rational order of the universe, or Nature, and a feeling of awe before it. It's pretty interesting actually, and anyone who wants to know more about it should look, as I suggested before, at the pretty good
Wikipedia article on the topic or on some of the other links here.)
Anyways, it's deeply ingenuous at best (and outright false/deceptive at worst) to claim Einstein was a "theist" (when he himself said differently!) without explaining his clear rejection of what many (most?) people would consider 'belief in god' (
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves..." and
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.") In any case, I'm not sure why you brought this up in the first place -- or did you actually want to claim Einstein was a
creationist? (Hint: no.)
Hahahah, look, then you ADMIT that "Out of Africa" is debatable. Yet you then tell us that "atoms" are "established fact." Do you even know the first source for basic atomic theory? Give you a hint, Classical Greece. However, noone has ever seen an atom, nor proved its existence outright. It only posseses a high level of plausability and is therefore accepted by academic consensus,
No, no, this is totally wrong. First, I'm not sure what in the world Greek philosophers have to do with the question; you seem to suffer from some weird variant of the etymological fallacy -- where if some guy dreamed up an idea x thousand years ago, any similar or similarly-named idea today is "really" that dude's idea. In fact, modern atomic theory only very loosely resembles what Democritus speculated about (which he of course had no evidence for.)
Moving on, you're a century or so behind in your conception of atomic theory. :D That description would have been valid ca. the late 1800's, when the chemical evidence was the major support for atomic theory. But we're way past that now. Maybe the easiest way to see that is to note that
modern imaging & manipulation methods easily let us manipulate and image individual atoms; indeed, experimentalists regularly manipulate individual
subatomic components. I'm surprised you haven't seen
this iconic picture, among other things! Or check out the current thread in S&T with a photo of an individual molecule. (They're scamming a little bit with the claim of the "first", I suspect they mean they were the first to start with just 1 molecule of something and then find & image it.)
'Scientists agree on an immense set of facts...": You mean like..."Out of Africa?" Or "Pekling Man?" Do you mean the "Peopling of The Americas?" "Clovis?" "Bering Bridge?" "Kennewick Man?"
You seem to be making a common error: thinking that because we don't know
everything, therefore
we don't know anything. But, obviously, it doesn't work like that! Someone could know the Earth is round, but not its precise mass & composition. Similarly, we know that life on Earth evolved, without knowing every detail of when/where/how each species changed.
That's how science works -- we gradually build up a series of observations & theories relating them. Those things on the edge, supported by only a few observations, are the subjects of active research -- up in the air, debatable to a greater-or-lesser extent. Many of those edge ideas turn out to be wrong. But as you move further "inward," you get to theories that have been supported by more and more evidence and 'cross-checks.' It's actually
extremely rare for a well-supported theory like that to turn out to be wrong. (Try and name some! I will bet you that any you can think of will still have been fairly speculative at the time!) Eventually you get to the point where there's just an overwhelming about of data in favor of something -- where the facts and detailed predictions just get so tight that there's no way out of them. In those cases, you have facts. That's where the round Earth, gravity, atomic theory, evolution (see below), and so on are.
At one time the consensus of academia held that G-D created the universe in 7 literal days. Now you offer that because (you incorrectly assume) a extant consensus on Orthadox Evolutionary Theory exists in academia, that this now translates into "established fact." Interesting, but also VERY telling.
No, again, this is wrong. There was never any scientific consensus around 7-day creation! There simply wasn't any real historical science of the Earth & its life until the birth of modern geology in the 18th & 19th centuries. Prior to that, the standard Christian position was 7-day creationism, but it ran into problems from the newborn geology almost from the very beginning.
Anyways, we at last get to the real meat of the issue -- is there a scientific consensus that evolution is a fact? And is there overwhelming evidence that evolution is a fact? (Yes and yes.) But I'll put this in another post, since this one's already unwieldy.
