Evolution conflict and division

The Barbarian · Friday at 9:37 PM

You might as well say that plumbers live in a fantasy world where they keep God and pipes separate. C'mon. Do you even think what you write?

Mercy Shown said:
You seem to ignore the fact that evolution and plumbing are not the same thing.

You ignore that they work the same way.

Mercy Shown said:
Theistic plumbing is not even a thing.

Every theistic plumber shows that you are wrong. Lots of plumbers recognize that hydraulics work the way God intended, without having to put religion into their work. Same with physicists and biologists.

Mercy Shown said:
In general theistic evolution is the belief that God created the universe and life through the natural process of evolution, harmonizing scientific findings with religious faith by viewing evolution as a tool or method God used, rather than a conflict with creation.

Sort of like plumbing and hydraulics.

Mercy Shown said:
This directly ties God and evolution together. But how? That is the issue. What kind of God is he if he even exists.

The sort of God Who is intimately involved in every particle of the universe. A sparrow doesn't fall, absent God's notice. The God Jesus tells us about. I like that kind of God.

Mercy Shown said:
Your idea that God just created this world to bring forth life spawns the very questions I am asking.

Maybe you should take it up with the Author. It's His words, not mine.

Mercy Shown said:
One may stay with their head in the sand and be satisfied

That's the ID/YEC choice. But it's not a very realistic one.

The Barbarian · Friday at 9:41 PM

Mercy Shown said:
These aren't answers. Just dodges.

They are calling out your assumptions. And you seem unable to deal with the arguments.

SpiritMorpher · Friday at 9:52 PM

Mercy Shown said:
Truths about what? Is this not just open to anyone's interpretation. And how does the intense, often brutal, competition for survival and reproduction, where organisms with advantageous traits outcompete, kill, or displace others for limited resources, mates, and territory, driving evolution through the elimination of less fit variations, seen in predatory acts, sexual conflict, infanticide, and inter-group conflict, making survival a relentless, high-stakes struggle. Jibe with the a god of love? As the new testament portrays?
Why should we be asked to do what god doesn't?

Shalom,
I find your post confusing. To be fair, please understand that I have not been involved with this conversation before and have not even read the original post. Now that you understand that I lack information, you may be able to see my post in a positive manner. Obviously, you're responding to someone else, but I am going to focus on your message and no other. You should explain further on what you mean about, "Why should we be asked to do what God doesn't?" What does this mean? This makes your post very confusing. I also want to point out to you that sin has affected everything. By your username, you seem to be creating a statement that you believe in the One True God. If this is the case, then surely you believe the Bible to be completely true. This means that you should understand that it is not God's Will that animals fight and even die. He created all in perfect harmony. Sin from man tainted even the lowest of creeping things. This is not God's doing, but man's through the deception of Satan. He put Adam in charge of all. Adam chose Satan at one point, and it affected ALL FLESH. Evolution did not do this, but sin. The Bible gives us an accurate account from Adam to Christ. Here we are 2000 years later in the Hebrew year of 5786. This is how many years it has been since the creation of the world. Science has lied to us all. It is in opposition of the Lord. Satan is behind all science and education, especially in USA. All the space programs operate under fallen angels. God is the only real scientist there is. There is no evolution, only sin.

The Barbarian · Friday at 9:54 PM

Mercy Shown said:
Will you answer these questions?

1. Did God know from the very beginning that humans would emerge from violence of natural selection?

Of course, God intended humans to appear, but as Darwin pointed out, humans emerged from the evolution of altruism as a useful trait. You have it backwards.

Mercy Shown said:
2. How can we separate mankind form lower animals since they are all simply products of natural selection?

God immediately gives each of us a living soul. It's not physical. We have become like Him in soul and spirit.

Mercy Shown said:
3. Considering that natural selection is a relentless competition for scarce resources, leading to the elimination of "unfit" individuals through death or reproductive failure, fostering traits like aggression and predation that secure survival, and can manifest in brutal acts like infanticide or intense conflict, all driven by the mindless, constant pressure to survive and pass on genes, even if it is cruel. It's a brutal weeding-out process where unfavorable variations are discarded, and advantageous ones prevail, making life a constant struggle, how can we support the biblical ideal that God is love. Why should man be held to a standard that even God does not reflect?

Because in humans, altruism is a useful trait. That's how we evolved. Hobbsian societies die out, because altruistic societies almost inevitably outcompete them.

Proc Bio Sci Sept 2008

A simple and general explanation for the evolution of altruism

We present a simple framework that highlights the most fundamental requirement for the evolution of altruism: assortment between individuals carrying the cooperative genotype and the helping behaviours of others with which these individuals interact. We partition the fitness effects on individuals into those due to self and those due to the ‘interaction environment’, and show that it is the latter that is most fundamental to understanding the evolution of altruism. We illustrate that while kinship or genetic similarity among those interacting may generate a favourable structure of interaction environments, it is not a fundamental requirement for the evolution of altruism, and even suicidal aid can theoretically evolve without help ever being exchanged among genetically similar individuals. Using our simple framework, we also clarify a common confusion made in the literature between alternative fitness accounting methods (which may equally apply to the same biological circumstances) and unique causal mechanisms for creating the assortment necessary for altruism to be favoured by natural selection.

Turns out that love, in humans, is a very useful trait. Jesus cut through the cycle of violence by extending the concept of "neighbor" to all people. The parable of the Good Samaritan is not about how right it is to help the unfortunate. It's that a heretic who loves his fellow man is to be emulated in preference to a religiously-correct Levite who does not. And that, is what we had missed since the Fall.

Trust God. He could have created a world where there would be no evil. He chose otherwise. I can only trust that He did it right.

Mercy Shown · Friday at 11:26 PM

The Barbarian said:
Of course, God intended humans to appear, but as Darwin pointed out, humans emerged from the evolution of altruism as a useful trait. You have it backwards.

God guided selection? Then it really wasn't natural selection.

The Barbarian said:
God immediately gives each of us a living soul. It's not physical. We have become like Him in soul and spirit.

When did this happen?

The Barbarian said:
Because in humans, altruism is a useful trait. That's how we evolved. Hobbsian societies die out, because altruistic societies almost inevitably outcompete them.

Humans had to emerge first. There is no human altruism without humans, and altruism is not love.

The Barbarian said:
Proc Bio Sci Sept 2008

A simple and general explanation for the evolution of altruism
We present a simple framework that highlights the most fundamental requirement for the evolution of altruism: assortment between individuals carrying the cooperative genotype and the helping behaviours of others with which these individuals interact. We partition the fitness effects on individuals into those due to self and those due to the ‘interaction environment’, and show that it is the latter that is most fundamental to understanding the evolution of altruism. We illustrate that while kinship or genetic similarity among those interacting may generate a favourable structure of interaction environments, it is not a fundamental requirement for the evolution of altruism, and even suicidal aid can theoretically evolve without help ever being exchanged among genetically similar individuals. Using our simple framework, we also clarify a common confusion made in the literature between alternative fitness accounting methods (which may equally apply to the same biological circumstances) and unique causal mechanisms for creating the assortment necessary for altruism to be favoured by natural selection.

Turns out that love, in humans, is a very useful trait. Jesus cut through the cycle of violence by extending the concept of "neighbor" to all people. The parable of the Good Samaritan is not about how right it is to help the unfortunate. It's that a heretic who loves his fellow man is to be emulated in preference to a religiously-correct Levite who does not. And that, is what we had missed since the Fall.

Trust God. He could have created a world where there would be no evil. He chose otherwise. I can only trust that He did it right.

I appreciate the fact that you are the only one to address even one of my questions. All in all, you have scored some points with me with your answers. They were thoughtful and have given me more to think and wonder about. I wish the rest of my questions could be addressed as clearly as you have done here.

Mercy Shown · Friday at 11:30 PM

SpiritMorpher said:
Shalom,
I find your post confusing. To be fair, please understand that I have not been involved with this conversation before and have not even read the original post. Now that you understand that I lack information, you may be able to see my post in a positive manner. Obviously, you're responding to someone else, but I am going to focus on your message and no other. You should explain further on what you mean about, "Why should we be asked to do what God doesn't?" What does this mean? This makes your post very confusing. I also want to point out to you that sin has affected everything. By your username, you seem to be creating a statement that you believe in the One True God. If this is the case, then surely you believe the Bible to be completely true. This means that you should understand that it is not God's Will that animals fight and even die. He created all in perfect harmony. Sin from man tainted even the lowest of creeping things. This is not God's doing, but man's through the deception of Satan. He put Adam in charge of all. Adam chose Satan at one point, and it affected ALL FLESH. Evolution did not do this, but sin. The Bible gives us an accurate account from Adam to Christ. Here we are 2000 years later in the Hebrew year of 5786. This is how many years it has been since the creation of the world. Science has lied to us all. It is in opposition of the Lord. Satan is behind all science and education, especially in USA. All the space programs operate under fallen angels. God is the only real scientist there is. There is no evolution, only sin.

The statement was made to theistic evolutionists who believe God used billions of years of violence and death to evolve mankind. God asks us to love one another and treat animals with kindness, when, if they are correct, he did not do that himself.

Mercy Shown · Friday at 11:32 PM

The Barbarian said:
They are calling out your assumptions. And you seem unable to deal with the arguments.

That is a good one. If you believe what you just posted, it confirms my suspicions.

Mercy Shown · Friday at 11:46 PM

The Barbarian said:
You might as well say that plumbers live in a fantasy world where they keep God and pipes separate. C'mon. Do you even think what you write?

Wow, where do I start on this one? What life has plumbing brought forth. Where are the theistic plumbers to be found? Is plumbing created by natural selection? I could go on, but the comparison is so incredible that it collapses on its own.

The Barbarian said:
You ignore that they work the same way.

Now that is the strangest of them all. It only increases the dissonance. Plumbing and evolution work the same way? I do not even need to rebut that.

The Barbarian said:
Every theistic plumber shows that you are wrong. Lots of plumbers recognize that hydraulics work the way God intended, without having to put religion into their work. Same with physicists and biologists.

Plumbers do the work of plumbing. Physicists do the studying of the fundamental principles of matter and energy, conducting research and experiments to understand the universe and develop new technologies. Biologists do the studying of living organisms and their interactions with the environment, conducting research to advance our understanding of life and address practical challenges in health, conservation, and ecology.

Who does the work of evolution?

Bottom line: You infer that God used billionsof years of violent natural selection to create us. Is that who God is?

SpiritMorpher · Friday at 11:48 PM

The Barbarian said:
Of course, God intended humans to appear, but as Darwin pointed out, humans emerged from the evolution of altruism as a useful trait. You have it backwards.

Darwin was a freemason, worshiper of Lucifer. He is not to be trusted in anything he says because his father is the father of lies. The education system has lied to us all. To believe in evolution from monkeys is absolute absurdity to dumb down mankind and take them away from Jesus Christ. When you open the Bible, you will be faced with a challenge, to believe in the total truth of God, or in the lies of Satan through man.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 9:19 AM

SpiritMorpher said:
Darwin was a freemason, worshiper of Lucifer. He is not to be trusted in anything he says because his father is the father of lies.

Speaking as a Catholic, I'm no fan of Freemasons, but it seems excessively paranoid to put them down as worshipers of Lucifer.

SpiritMorpher said:
To believe in evolution from monkeys is absolute absurdity to dumb down mankind and take them away from Jesus Christ.

If you mean humans evolving from monkeys, it is a dumb idea. Monkeys are too evolved in their own way to have given rise to humans. We're apes, not monkeys.

SpiritMorpher said:
When you open the Bible, you will be faced with a challenge, to believe in the total truth of God, or in the lies of Satan through man.

The problem is always that men want to revise God's word to peddle their own ideas. Avoid that.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 9:32 AM

You might as well say that plumbers live in a fantasy world where they keep God and pipes separate. C'mon. Do you even think what you write?

Mercy Shown said:
What life has plumbing brought forth.

Or physics, or evolutionary theory? That's not what those things do. You're expecting way too much of science and technology.

Mercy Shown said:
Where are the theistic plumbers to be found?

The plumber I call is a theistic plumber. He recognizes Jesus is Lord, but doesn't use God in his work as a plumber.

Mercy Shown said:
Is plumbing created by natural selection?

Is physics? Evolution is not created by natural selection. Evolution is a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. Evolution is often (but not always) directed by natural selection.

Mercy Shown said:
Plumbing and evolution work the same way?

Plumbing and evolutionary theory work the same way. You've confused the phenomenon of evolution with the theory that explains it.

Mercy Shown said:
Plumbers do the work of plumbing. Physicists do the studying of the fundamental principles of matter and energy, conducting research and experiments to understand the universe and develop new technologies. Biologists do the studying of living organisms and their interactions with the environment, conducting research to advance our understanding of life and address practical challenges in health, conservation, and ecology.

Yep. Evolutionary theory is to biology what gravitational theory is to physics, and what hydraulics is to plumbing.

Mercy Shown said:
Who does the work of evolution?

Who does the work of gravity? C'mon. Do we really have to tell you these things?

Mercy Shown said:
Bottom line: You infer that God used billionsof years of violent natural selection to create us.

Here, you assume the old superstition of "nature red in tooth and claw." Much of natural selection is not like that. Humans, for example, evolved by becoming more altruistic, as Darwin pointed out. You might think that God got it wrong to create living things as they are, but I'm inclined to believe that He did it right.

Akita Suggagaki · Saturday at 9:36 AM

Mercy Shown said:
Truths about what? Is this not just open to anyone's interpretation. And how does the intense, often brutal, competition for survival and reproduction, where organisms with advantageous traits outcompete, kill, or displace others for limited resources, mates, and territory, driving evolution through the elimination of less fit variations, seen in predatory acts, sexual conflict, infanticide, and inter-group conflict, making survival a relentless, high-stakes struggle. Jibe with the a god of love? As the new testament portrays?
Why should we be asked to do what god doesn't?

“Truths about what?”

Truths about the human struggle to make sense of our existence with aspiration and hope.

Are you an atheist? If, so your list does seem compelling with your final question a real stumper.

If you are a literalist I suppose you can try to blame it all onEve and Adam. I did not read all 24 pages so maybe you made your beliefs clear.

And all the things you mentioned are not only confined to eons in the past. To this day human sponsored suffering, in fact all suffering, raises the theodicy question.

In Asian religion they have Karma working its way out. Buddhists just live with the reality. Christians have God incarnate who willingly enters into all with love and acceptance. Jews are a mystery to me. They still have faith after the Holocaust.

For many if us suffering is the supreme challenge to our faith.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 9:43 AM

Mercy Shown said:
God guided selection?

He created the world to produce us. Doesn't matter if it was by necessity or contingency.

Mercy Shown said:
Then it really wasn't natural selection.

If you think so, you still don't get God as Creator.

Mercy Shown said:
The statement was made to theistic evolutionists who believe God used billions of years of violence and death to evolve mankind.

God could have made the world otherwise. He chose not to. He killed animals to make clothing for Adam and Eve. He instructed men to sacrifice animals to please Him. If you want to label this as evil, then your beef is not with evolutionary theory.

God immediately gives each of us a living soul. It's not physical. We have become like Him in soul and spirit.

Mercy Shown said:
When did this happen?

It's done by Him directly to each of us. I believe it happens at conception. But it's clear that it isn't a biological event.

Mercy Shown said:
Humans had to emerge first. There is no human altruism without humans,

Yes. I don't know when the first two humans got living souls. If they happened to be H. erectus, would that offend you? We see that Neanderthals took care of people who obviously could not have survived on their own, so it was a very long time ago.

Akita Suggagaki · Saturday at 10:07 AM

I might add that each of us has the potential to be an antidote to “conflict and division”. It is called solidarity. It helps to have love and to try to see from the perspective of others. It may even require sacrifice and a diminishment of our own ego. Naturally, not many are evolved enough to desire or accept a mentality of solidarity, love, and sacrifice.

2PhiloVoid · Saturday at 11:21 AM

The Barbarian said:
He created the world to produce us. Doesn't matter if it was by necessity or contingency.

If you think so, you still don't get God as Creator.

God could have made the world otherwise. He chose not to. He killed animals to make clothing for Adam and Eve. He instructed men to sacrifice animals to please Him. If you want to label this as evil, then your beef is not with evolutionary theory.

God immediately gives each of us a living soul. It's not physical. We have become like Him in soul and spirit.

It's done by Him directly to each of us. I believe it happens at conception. But it's clear that it isn't a biological event.

Yes. I don't know when the first two humans got living souls. If they happened to be H. erectus, would that offend you? We see that Neanderthals took care of people who obviously could not have survived on their own, so it was a very long time ago.

He's just on a heretic hunt at this point, and due to this, I won't be commenting any further in this thread. The anti-intellectualism of some people who claim to be Christian is astounding to me.....

o_mlly · Saturday at 11:49 AM

The Barbarian said:
Although science can't help you with that, there are other ways of dealing with the issue. Perhaps Summa Theologica (St. Thomas Aquinas) would help you in that search. It could clear up a lot of questions for you.

Rather than affirm, the Angelic Doctor dispels the claims of theistic evolutionists.

See Summa Theologicae I, q. 45, a. 5 "Whether it belongs to God alone to create?"

It happens, however, that something participates the proper action of another, not by its own power, but instrumentally, inasmuch as it acts by the power of another; as air can heat and ignite by the power of fire. And so some have supposed that although creation is the proper act of the universal cause, still some inferior cause acting by the power of the first cause, can create. And thus Avicenna asserted that the first separate substance created by God created another after itself, and the substance of the world and its soul; and that the substance of the world creates the matter of inferior bodies. And in the same manner the Master says (Sent. iv, D, 5) that God can communicate to a creature the power of creating, so that the latter can create ministerially, not by its own power.

But such a thing cannot be, because the secondary instrumental cause does not participate the action of the superior cause, except inasmuch as by something proper to itself it acts dispositively to the effect of the principal agent. If therefore it effects nothing, according to what is proper to itself, it is used to no purpose; nor would there be any need of certain instruments for certain actions.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 12:02 PM

o_mlly said:
Rather than affirm, the Angelic Doctor dispels the claims of theistic evolutionists.

You do realize that the passage you quote, is used by Christians to support God's continuing role in evolution (indeed in all of nature), do you not? It's pretty much the point of theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution: a Contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2023
Chapter five asks a question about the hypothetical reaction of Aquinas to evolutionary biology, revealing the complexity of the debate on whether there is a “space” for evolution in his theology, as well as the openness for reinterpretation and further development of his ideas in reference to the contemporary metaphysical analyses of speciation. It ends with an original constructive proposal of the contemporary Thomistic account of theistic evolution.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 12:04 PM

2PhiloVoid said:
He's just on a heretic hunt at this point, and due to this, I won't be commenting any further in this thread. The anti-intellectualism of some people who claim to be Christian is astounding to me.....

I get it. But even error can be instructive as a teachable moment. He's bringing up a lot of common misunderstandings about evolution and evolutionary theory, and sometimes it's useful to illuminate the errors.

And I'm a very patient guy.

2PhiloVoid · Saturday at 12:12 PM

The Barbarian said:
I get it. But even error can be instructive as a teachable moment. He's bringing up a lot of common misunderstandings about evolution and evolutionary theory, and sometimes it's useful to illuminate the errors.

And I'm a very patient guy.

I don't know. Maybe you're right, but he doesn't seem to be listening and when I sense that someone is obtuse and stonewalling, or even using troll tactics where they refuse to engage---and then have the gall to accuse their opponent of doing that very thing---I'm done.

At some point, it becomes a situation that promulgates further stupidity and no one learns much of anything.

So, I leave the floor to you and @Job 33:6 and whoever else to address these issues.

The Barbarian · Saturday at 12:17 PM

2PhiloVoid said:
At some point, it becomes a situation that promulgates further stupidity and no one learns much of anything.

I don't think we're quite there yet. I don't think it's stupidity as much as doctrinal sclerosis.

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Evolution conflict and division

Crabby Old White Guy

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A simple and general explanation for the evolution of altruism​

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A simple and general explanation for the evolution of altruism​

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Crabby Old White Guy

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Get off my back, babbler !!!

“Behold, I make all things new.”

Crabby Old White Guy

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Get off my back, babbler !!!

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