Evolution is proven to be true

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Do you mean to say that though you don't believe in God, you're not "anti" the idea of God, necessarily?

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By "anti-theist", I mean the view that religion is at root a cause of evil in society, and must be opposed by any well-meaning individual.

I personally am of the view that it is mainly authoritarianism in religion that is the problem, and not all religion is authoritarian. I think that anti-theists tend to oversimplify religion to make it all seem like it requires the same sort of faith that overrides reason and leads to mental submission to authoritarian dogmas.

Because of that, I think that the anti-theists such as the so-called New Atheists go a bit too far with their objections, but I do think that there are kernels of truth in those objections.


eudaimonia,

Mark

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

So, you feel that there are some religions that are not authoritarian, hence they are not necessarily "evil" in that sense?

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Yes, some religions, or factions of religions, or personal spiritual exploration.


eudaimonia,

Mark

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

So, you feel that there are some religions that are not authoritarian, hence they are not necessarily "evil" in that sense?

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Most religions can tend to be authoritarian, it just depends on which "brand" of that religion one subscribes to and we all know, when it comes to Christianity, there are numerous brands and flavors of the same.

IMO, religion can be a very positive thing for some people, if it helps them cope with life better, become a more caring person, while still allowing them to acknowledge the realities of the world. In others though, they tend to use religious beliefs as a weapon, think in black and white terms and do little else but judge others who disagree with them.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Let's say that one day, all of evolution was proven to be absolutely true. So much so, in fact, that every single person is convinced of it, and all religious people renounce their faith in their respective creation beliefs and belief in deities.

What would happen in the next 5 years? 10? 50?

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The same thing that has been happening. In every field of science where evolution makes a difference, it is accepted as being true.

Also, why do you think that accepting that evolution occurs means believers will have to give up their faith? My husband believes, and yet he also thinks evolution is real.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Let's say that one day, all of evolution was proven to be absolutely true. So much so, in fact, that every single person is convinced of it, and all religious people renounce their faith in their respective creation beliefs and belief in deities.

What would happen in the next 5 years? 10? 50?

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Like Loudmouth said, it would be similar to the way we now view geocentrism as being clearly wrong and absurd.

And, like geocentrism, it would not necessarily make people lose their faith it would simply lead to a lesser emphasis on certain verses of the Bible and a greater emphasis on others.

For example, with geocentrism, the church used verses such as Joshua 10:12-13, Habakkuk 3:11, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 102:25, Job 28:24, Psalm 103:12 etc to support geocentrism and a flat earth.

However, once the church adopted heliocentrism, people re-interpreted those verses as "poetic" or "metaphorical" and the verses were given less ontological importance. Even good ol' Answers In Genesis has a lengthy (and very scientific) discussion which ironically blasts the literal interpretation of Biblical geocentrism. The church even, hilariously, started touting the Bible as predicting heliocentrism in Job 26:7.


This process is already occurring with Christianity and evolution. In the past, a literal interpretation of the creation story was commonplace. Today, more people are reinterpreting those verses to be poetic or allegorical. Verses that were previously used to support a literal creation are now being used to support evolution and even being used to claim that the Bible predicts evolutionary theory.



That's a fairly long answer, but in essence, I think the proof of evolution will lead (and is leading) to a reinterpretation of the Bible on the same level as the reinterpretation that occurred with the acceptance of heliocentrism.

After this process is complete, what will be the next "big" thing which will fill the void left by the Creation-Evolution sub forum? I think as science delves more and more into consciousness, we may see a new debate which forces a reinterpretation of the afterlife. Believers will rail against the mounting evidence and the process will repeat.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

I wonder, then, what aspect of evolution theory eventually leads certain people away from intelligent design, but not others?

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Intelligent design isn't falsifiable. It is a religious concept. It doesn't have the same stuff going for it as evolutionary theory, evidence.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

I wonder, then, what aspect of evolution theory eventually leads certain people away from intelligent design, but not others?

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I would think that it would be different things for different people. In my own experience, I have seen a few people abandon or at least rethink their position on ID due to the genetic evidence.

One example in particular is a gene called cytochrome C which is nearly ubiquitous in species ranging from fungi to humans. The ID position is that a common creator would reuse designs. The problem is that the designs are not identical at the level of DNA sequence. Why would a creator use a different DNA sequence for the same function, and have those sequences mirror what we would expect from evolution? Why have more differences between chicken and human DNA than human and whale DNA? Why can yeast cells function just fine with the human cytc gene even thought they differ by 35%? Why make things different, and mirror evolutionary predictions, when it isn't needed?

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Hi, Variant

If ID is not falsifiable, why do many people still try to falsify it?

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ID proponents will make excuses as to why ID would produce observations that are identical to what we would expect from non-ID mechanisms. It becomes unfalsifiable when ID proponents claim that God can do whatever he pleases, including the creation of observations that look just like evolution.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Hi, Variant

If ID is not falsifiable, why do many people still try to falsify it?

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Do they? To falsify a concept you have to show contrary evidence.

Most of the criticism of ID I read is that it is not a scientific concept which needs to be falsifiable.

I know it's a religious concept, but there are religious people who seem to be able to fit evolution into their dogma just fine...therefore, why try to use evolution theory to disprove ID?

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Evolution can't disprove ID, nothing can, it's not falsifiable.

What you are probably seeing is people objecting to injecting scientific discussions with religious ideas.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

I think we both know the inverse of that is also observed...just switch "scientific" with "religious"...

Creationists will always challenge the non-creationists, and vice versa, and each side will always have an answer. As it stands today, neither side can claim complete knowledge of either position.

It's a stalemate from the start...

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No evolution clearly happened, but that can't show that there is no God involved.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

Okay...all that totally makes sense. Firstly though, when you say "a common creator would reuse designs", what info for that are you referring to, specifically?

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"DNA comparisons are just a subset of the homology argument, which makes just as much sense in a biblical framework. A common Designer is another interpretation that makes sense of the same data. An architect commonly uses the same building material for different buildings, and a car maker commonly uses the same parts in different cars. So we shouldn’t be surprised if a Designer for life used the same biochemistry and structures in many different creatures. Conversely, if all living organisms were totally different, this might look like there were many designers instead of one. "
Refuting Evolution 2 -- chapter 6: Argument: Common design points to common ancestry - creation.com

What the author at CMI ignores, and what most ID/creationists ignore, is the PATTERN of the shared and different DNA sequences. Evolution predicts a nested hierarchy, or phylogeny. ID/creationism makes no such prediction, and simply can't explain why DNA sequences fall into a phylogeny just as evolution predicts they would.

Also, CMI says that it is a "homology argument". It isn't. It is a phylogenetic argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics

Also, do you not suppose it's possible that we will someday find some commonaity behind what we currently observe in DNA sequencing?

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That "someday" is now. The commonality is shared ancestry.

TheImmortalJellyfish said:

I think we both know the inverse of that is also observed...just switch "scientific" with "religious"...

Creationists will always challenge the non-creationists, and vice versa, and each side will always have an answer. As it stands today, neither side can claim complete knowledge of either position.

It's a stalemate from the start...

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The difference is that evolutionists have verifiable evidence and testable hypotheses. The creationists do not. All the creationists have is the empty assertion that God did something, no matter what the evidence is.