Evos will laugh, but God, believers understand He is always more evolved than us yes?

[gluadys]

No evolution does not mean such radically different things in different contexts, that is just typical intellectual hair splitting. Evolution means change, period. It means change in all contexts, no matter what.

Yes, evolution means "change" in all contexts, but what changes and how it changes differs in different contexts. In stellar evolution, one star evolves via physical processes of gravity and nuclear fusion. In biological evolution one species/populations evolve via selection of different varieties within the species Individual organisms don't. The process of change is obviously different as well.

So if one God evolves, what is it that is changing and what is the process of change. Is it more like the evolution of a star or more like the evolution of a population? Or something quite different from both?

 

[gluadys]

I don't know why glaudys is arguing context with you and not addressing my statement of definition, which clarifies the misunderstanding.

Where is that statement of definition?
I looked at the OP, but could not find any definition there.
In the OP you seem to be using a biological frame of reference when you speak of evolution, but as I have explained, in biology, evolution refers to changes in a population. So unless you are suggesting there is a population of gods and something is selecting their more successful characteristics, biological evolution and concepts such as adaptation simply do not apply to God.

It is we who must adapt to God (who is the essence of all Reality) not God to anything.

But I am glad that you recognize it as a dissension with the normal understanding of context. In fact, I have frequently come upon this problem and only recently learned how to combat it. I am glad to see someone with a different point of view struggling with the same problem.

So, this suggests you do intend to use the term "evolution" in an idiosyncratic way not consistent with normal scientific usage. Could you clarify how you are using this term and what you wish us to understand by it?

Ratio defines portent.

I will repeat it again.

The part reflects the whole.

Ratio defines portent.

Obviously, you consider this important, but I have no idea what it means.

There is no way to divorce an individual from its population, by simply adding the word "not". Valid uses of the word "not" are, the individual "is not" the population, or the individual "can not" replace the population, or the individual "and not" the population "can mutate spontaneously".

This I do understand and you are absolutely correct.

Mutation applies to individual genomes, not to populations.
Evolution applies to populations, not to individual genomes or organisms.
The connecting factor is selection which applies to individual organisms (and by extension to the genomes they carry).

Saying "the individual can be part of the population and not be considered evolved" is not valid.

I think I agree with this too. If we compare two individuals from the same population but separated by many generations (over say 100 million years) we will see traits in the early individual that were typical of its species at the time, but have since been lost. And we will see traits in the later individual which are typical of its species at the time, but were not yet manifest at the earlier time.

Because the population evolved, losing some traits and acquiring others, the later individual is also "evolved" in comparison to its distant ancestor. Not that it did any evolving itself, but it is clearly a member of a population which evolved, not of the ancestral population.

In fact, the latter is an anti-Christ

How so? I don't see anything pro or anti Christ in what I just described. It is just the way things are. One might just as well say that waves eroding away a shore is anti-Christ.

To deny portent from ratio, is to reject beauty and sense.

Well, I certainly love beauty and sense, but I still don't understand the portent/ratio business.

I myself have no idea where to start, but the proposal of an insurrection from man to God is certainly a divine one.

Sometimes your use of words seems to suggest that English is not your first language.

The meaning of "insurrection" is to rise up against a governing authority, usually violently. For example, when the Hungarians rose up against the Soviet-backed Communist government in 1956, that was an insurrection.

So, is that the word you really intended to use here?
If so, can you please explain what meaning you are giving to it, since the normal meaning does not seem to fit.

However, this is a strictly linear transition from Earthly to Heavenly. I would suggest that Evolutionists would regard this as contemptible if not spurious, for its simplicity.

I don't know where you get this impression. I would see most who defend the science of biological evolution offering neither contempt nor praise. They would simply pass it by as having no relevance to science, since it deals with matters beyond the bounds of scientific study.

Is there something about Evolution that is against this? It is hard to tell.

I don't think there is something about evolution that is either for or against. It just has no relevance one way or the other. Perhaps you are using a very different concept of evolution, perhaps something like cultural evolution or evolution of spirituality. The categories of biological evolution would not apply in those contexts.

 

[Gottservant]

Literalism is definitely on the way out, this millenia.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Well, you succeeded in blathering him to death, Gluadys.

 

[Gottservant]

Ratio defines portent.

Three words.

The fact that you do not understand that is not my problem.

No matter how much you say you agree gluadys, you fundamentally return to the opposition of this simple fact, rendering everything else you say meaningless.

There is one nerve for a given number, the axon fires for portent, the dendrite fires for ratio. If the brain wants to define something in relation to number the dendrite fires; if the brain wants to define something in relation to its portent, the axon fires. It is the same nerve. The idea that you can negate half this nerve with the statement "populations evolve, individuals do not" is meaningless hypocrisy in the extreme, so extreme it violates the normal functioning of a healthy nervous system.

Ask yourself, what truth could be so important that I need to do that to my nervous system to communicate it?

 

[Armoured]

rendering everything else you say meaningless.

And the irony award for 2013 goes too...

 

[Gottservant]

"to" is spelt with one "o", but I take your point...

...you mean I should be famous.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Gottservant, what about my assertion that God exist at all points in evolution simultaneously. Another way of saying it is that God is outside of time. He is the alpha and the omega at the same time.

 

[Gottservant]

I am not sure.

I just know that unless you can define God, in Evolutionist terms, you will never be able to argue that they should be moral.

Saying God is out of time, is like saying "He is an Evolution that no one inside of time can reach". That accords well with the idea that He is the Unknown God, but the whole point of Evolution is that if it is unknown, you will still (one day) get there. I mean its a definite clash. But then, I suppose any Evolutionist would have to admit that there are an infinite number of mutations and adaptations that will never come to pass because the selection pressure to create them just isn't there.

I don't know, there is something there. Perhaps it is the idea that God is crucified by selection pressures that would kill us, but because they crucify Him and not us, we live. If that makes sense. Ah... I think I just got it. There should be selection pressures we are willing to face, for the sake of others. That's it. Yes. A moral dimension to Evolution, via the importance of the cross.

Wow. I did not ever think the cross would come to be so important to debates about Evolution. How ever, it still doesn't really explain what God is. There is a point at which you can't explain God, but you should still be able to say something. Otherwise you have people that want to face selection pressures for the sake of others, but they do not know why, which only repeats what happened at the cross, all over again. At least if there is room for Wisdom, you can face the cross slightly differently based on some goal.

 

[Fascinated With God]

I am not sure.

I just know that unless you can define God, in Evolutionist terms, you will never be able to argue that they should be moral.

Saying God is out of time, is like saying "He is an Evolution that no one inside of time can reach".

To some degree that must be true because you can never attain an "ultimate" evolution. God is infinite and so following His path is also infinite.

That accords well with the idea that He is the Unknown God, but the whole point of Evolution is that if it is unknown, you will still (one day) get there. I mean its a definite clash.

It is not a contradiction that we will have eternal life and our path of following God will never end. And no matter how spiritually evolved we become God is always infinitely far ahead of us. It is not a contradiction to say there is no ending and God will always be there to guide us.

I don't know, there is something there. Perhaps it is the idea that God is crucified by selection pressures that would kill us, but because they crucify Him and not us, we live. If that makes sense. Ah... I think I just got it. There should be selection pressures we are willing to face, for the sake of others. That's it. Yes. A moral dimension to Evolution, via the importance of the cross.

Wow. I did not ever think the cross would come to be so important to debates about Evolution. How ever, it still doesn't really explain what God is. There is a point at which you can't explain God, but you should still be able to say something. Otherwise you have people that want to face selection pressures for the sake of others, but they do not know why, which only repeats what happened at the cross, all over again. At least if there is room for Wisdom, you can face the cross slightly differently based on some goal.

Even fish have souls (nephesh) according to the Bible, but that doesn't give fish a moral dimension. Wiping out a species would have a moral dimension, but not killing a limited group of animals. They have an entirely different kind of spirit and soul. We have individuated souls that are unique. They have generic cookie cutter souls all stamped out in the same mold. Pets are sometimes exceptions, contact with an individuated soul can induce individuation in the soul of a young pet who is raised lovingly. But wild/feral animals have no understanding of love, all they understand is fear and aggression, "might makes right". They have very dark spirits.

One notable exception is wolves. Wolves have raised infant humans to childhood and the only example of interspecies compassion that I have ever seen on any nature documentary was wolves who let a bear mother feed on their kill. While she ate they would run up to the cubs and run away slow enough to get the cubs to chase them. They kept playing with the cubs like this until a male bear appeared. Males will kill cubs, so the mother and cubs split. When the male bear got near the kill and the wolves they had him across the creek in 10 seconds, racing in tight circles around him with each one bighting his back side and tail when in range. He was spinning around wildly during his whole retreat.

They could easily have repelled the mother, but instead they played with the cute cubs. Wolves and humans are natural partners, we are both daylight predators, which is rare, and we are both capable of having big hearts.

 

[Gottservant]

Fascinated with God, my understanding of what you wrote is that God desires to compete with Evolutionists, but that God uniquely gives us compassion, as distinct from other creatures. This gives you what is called "the upper hand" but I think you fail to realize that you can make almost no argument from this position, given that you have surrendered the basis of distinction from Evolution by suggesting that God cares what they think and limited compassion to a frame of reference that Evolutionists no longer call relevant, the human race.

I believe this leaves us at something of an impasse, as I would rather suggest that God has all manner of potential, beyond an Evolutionist's capacity to "evolve towards" due to their lack of greater faith and that the compassion they fail to recognize is in every living creature that does not succumb to the temptation to mutate and abandon the greater faith of its young. In other words, no one desires to mutate to an extreme their young cannot sustain and yet we still desire the goodness that is in God for our young and us also. This is a symbiotic relationship of dependency on the ability of God to both produce more evolution and limit the deliverance of it to what we can handle.

For some reason I still do not hear you saying God does indeed have an advantage over Evolutionists who promise the world (but fail to recognize it)

 

[Gottservant]

I recently have come to the conclusion that God is the Supreme Evolution. I'm not sure what you think about that?

It just means that all Evolutions are ultimately with reference to God and no other.

It also means that the ultimate direction of Evolution is as fundamentally unknown as God is.

This may pose some problems for people who say Evolutionary telos is unknown period and those who say it doesn't exist alike

 

[RiemannZ]

I recently have come to the conclusion that God is the Supreme Evolution. I'm not sure what you think about that?

It just means that all Evolutions are ultimately with reference to God and no other.

It also means that the ultimate direction of Evolution is as fundamentally unknown as God is.

This may pose some problems for people who say Evolutionary telos is unknown period and those who say it doesn't exist alike

This is a bit of a science fiction trope, where an ancient species evolves eventually into beings of pure energy with seemingly magical powers. It doesn't really match the omniscient omnipotent Abrahamic God because even with full control over energy/matter conversion you still have to deal with the natural laws.

Isn't the Abrahamic God more like a programmer of a MMO or the matrix controller than a highly evolved physical entity?

What you're describing fits more into the Norse, Greek, Shinto and Chinese idea of gods

 

[gluadys]

I recently have come to the conclusion that God is the Supreme Evolution. I'm not sure what you think about that?

It just means that all Evolutions are ultimately with reference to God and no other.

It also means that the ultimate direction of Evolution is as fundamentally unknown as God is.

This may pose some problems for people who say Evolutionary telos is unknown period and those who say it doesn't exist alike

Priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came to a similar conclusion. Have you ever read his book The Phenomenon of Man?

 

[Gottservant]

Priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came to a similar conclusion. Have you ever read his book The Phenomenon of Man?

I haven't heard of it, could you expand on it, a little?

 

[gluadys]

I haven't heard of it, could you expand on it, a little?

Not really. He was a Jesuit priest who was also a paleontologist. Was part of the team that discovered what was then called Peking Man, now recognized as Homo erectus (along with many many other fossils of the same era). That was back in 1937

As a paleontologist he could see the truth of evolution, including the evolution of humanity. As a Christian and priest, he was interesting in how to take this phenomenon in theologically.

The Phenomenon of Man was one of the first systematic attempts at a theology we now call "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creation" and ties the phenomenon of evolution to redemption in Christ. It was published in 1953, shortly after his death.


If you have a library near you, by all means pick it up. It is a fairly easy read, intended for average believers, and not a technical scientific paper.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

The Phenomenon of Man was one of the first systematic attempts at a theology we now call "theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creation" and ties the phenomenon of evolution to redemption in Christ. It was published in 1953, shortly after his death.

If you have a library near you, by all means pick it up. It is a fairly easy read, intended for average believers, and not a technical scientific paper.

Thanks for the resource and sharing it

 

[SkyWriting]

God is more evolved than we could ever be.

God does not change. Nor experience time. So the word does not apply.

Malachi 3:6 -"I the LORD do not change."

 

[Gottservant]

God does not change. Nor experience time. So the word does not apply.

Malachi 3:6 -"I the LORD do not change."

Yes, right, unless He is already from the beginning the personification of all possible adaptations.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

You think the progression is relevant, I'm saying He is already the best the progression can be.

 

[Gottservant]

I get the feeling that God is somewhere there, in the dark, behind our preconceptions of what Evolution is, if only we could see.