Is Macroevolution Religion?

VirOptimus said:

You want atheists to talk about god(s) they dont believe in? Thats crazy.

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They do don't they?

*I know right.

inquiring mind said:

Genesis says 'according to their kinds.' The most relevant Merriam-Webster Definition of ‘according to’ here appears to be 'in conformity with or depending on.' Doesn't that constitute a barrier?

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Dictionaries provide common usage of words. They don't define reality.

Tone said:

They do don't they?

*I know right.

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Just to say they dont exist.

You want us to incorporate them in science.

inquiring mind said:

Genesis says 'according to their kinds.' The most relevant Merriam-Webster Definition of ‘according to’ here appears to be 'in conformity with or depending on.' Doesn't that constitute a barrier?

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No. The traditional Jewish interpretation is that it expresses the general orderliness of nature; figs don't grow on orange trees, cows do not give birth to sheep, that kind of thing. It also can be seen as expressing an important principle of evolution, the principle of reproductive similarity. That is, there is a limit to the differences between parent and offspring.

inquiring mind said:

Well, I just said 'in my opinion' because I didn’t want you to mistake me and my highly intellectual input for that of a renowned biologist.

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Oh, there are noone who will ever do that.

inquiring mind said:

This despite there is no definitive long-term biological evidence to make it so.

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What is "long-term" evidence? Evidence doesn't have either an expiration date when it goes bad or a graduation date when it gets better.

What there is is sufficient evidence, from multiple lines of inquiry, to establish the matter so conclusively that evolutionary theory is the best explanation of the evidence. The theory has withstood 150 years of probing and questioning, only to emerge stronger as we have learned more about the natural world.

Speedwell said:

No, it's just a left-handed attempt to perpetrate the big lie of creationism, that the theory of evolution denies the existence of God.

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Science and Belief

By Dr. Francis Collins
Note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers. I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?"

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative." But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection? Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

inquiring mind said:

Scientists, academia, and a multitude of supporters accept macroevolution whole-heartedly. This despite there is no definitive long-term biological evidence to make it so. They defend and hold on to their belief and faith like the creationist does with Genesis. It sort of gives them a distinct natural world religion to cling to, in my opinion.

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I think people should move out of the "earthly debate" of this turned into that etc. and move into the cosmos, astro physics, dark matter and such ... because we all do agree ultimately it all started there anyways.

inquiring mind said:

Todd, like so many others, doesn’t seem to distinguish between micro and macro level evolution in the article. That makes evolutionists happy because they don’t like that separation (even deny it), and like to lead the unsuspecting with the inclusive phrase of ‘evolution.’ Of course, there’s “gobs and gobs,” as he says, of evidence, but in the observable microevolution sense only (in the form of adaptation). Macroevolution (gradual transformation from one kind to something altogether different) is another story (weak, speculative support only), and it imo requires faith.

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I challenge you then to take your argument to a scientific forum, and present it to evolutionary scientists. Then copy and paste the convo or provide us a link. Easy enough to do. I promise that if you do so, and provide a link, I will follow the conversation. If you want to challenge an established scientific theory, do so with the scientists instead of preaching to the unaccredited choir here.

inquiring mind said:

That’s all fine, but it doesn’t make macroevolution true. Why’s it so hard to accept there is an inability to show a definitive gradual transformation from the first soft-bodied metazoans to every living thing today (over hundreds of million years)? It’s impossible, and only speculation.

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No, its not speculation.

The science is very well supported and understood.

inquiring mind said:

Why’s it so hard to accept there is an inability to show a definitive gradual transformation from the first soft-bodied metazoans to every living thing today (over hundreds of million years)? It’s impossible, and only speculation.

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It's not speculation though. This is again the creationist attempt to re-frame things in order to deny them, as opposed to addressing the real-world evidence.

What we ought to be discussing in this thread is the psychology behind the creationist mindset in this regard.

inquiring mind said:

That’s all fine, but it doesn’t make macroevolution true. Why’s it so hard to accept there is an inability to show a definitive gradual transformation from the first soft-bodied metazoans to every living thing today (over hundreds of million years)? It’s impossible, and only speculation.

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Speculation as opposed to what? It's more than mere speculation in any case. There are enough pieces of the chain of development in evidence to make it at least a reasonable inference, and a plausible, tested mechanism capable of producing the entire sequence. Plus, there is no other other credible explanation for the evidence on hand, despite the fact that we don't have it all. As a provisional explanation (which is all scientific theories ever are, really) that's about as good as it gets in science.

VirOptimus said:

No, its not speculation.

The science is very well supported and understood.

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Before you run away, why not tell us HOW mindless Nature inserted something it does not have, into the brains of animals, who magically change into Humans (descendants of Adam)? with the mind of God? Identify the process, please.

Aman777 said:

Before you run away, why not tell us HOW mindless Nature inserted something it does not have, into the brains of animals, who magically change into Humans (descendants of Adam)? with the mind of God? Identify the process.

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I’m not interested in talking to you.

inquiring mind said:

I guess what we should be discussing... is whether macroevolution qualifies as a religion, or not? As in the context of: despite lack of definitive evidence, there is an established system of faith in it, and a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

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There is no faith in the ToE.

Faith is for religion, not for science.

Isnt this line of arguing against the forum rules btw?

VirOptimus said:

I’m not interested in talking to you.

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I agree since it's not nice to pick on the uninformed. I promise not to ask any more scientific questions of you.