Evolution and Evil

[Gary51]

What kind of logic drives people to argue against evolution by asking this type of question? How many logic fallacies can you tumble into one question?

The holocaust was no more "natural selection" than the pogroms in Europe during the middle ages were a defining part of Christianity.

Why do anti-evolution groups insist on tagging every known evil in humanity on evolution? Why?

I don't get it.

I don't get the way you think also. I'm trying to understand... I may need time to consider it.

The way I am thinking, is that the world is full of bad things. Man is capable of doing the most horrid things. I just want to know why.

You will probably blaim war mostly on religion... but if man is evolving as you claim... why is he evolving in the way he is.

Is the idea of religion part of evolution?

Why does not man evolve without religion?

 

[Gary51]

Tell me something, Gary51. If I were to take the elevator down to the 1st floor and, soon as the door opened, was shot dead by some crazy person, would that be natural selection? I think not. Would I be considered NOT fit to survive? Perhaps; I mean, my skin wasn't bulletproof, was it?

My question has to do with the guy that shot you.

 

[Naraoia]

People. AV, Gary especially. If something has unpleasant consequences it doesn't mean that thing is not true. I mean, A-bombs operate on nuclear fission. Is that an argument against the reality of nuclear fission?

So please realise that asking whether the holocaust is a case of natural selection has no relevance whatsoever to the question whether natural selection happens.

Sorry to say, even if evolution were evil in some way, it seems you'd have to live with it.

Not that I think there is such a thing as evil (or good). Not outside a human context, anyway.

 

[AV1611VET]

I didn't ask you to defend the holocaust. I asked what the holocaust had to do with hunter-gatherers, natural selection, fight-or-flight responses or survival of the fittest.

And again, I'm not going to defend it.

 

[AV1611VET]

Seems more like creationists *try* to use said terminology, fail, then complain to us when we correct them.

Not hardly --- these terms wouldn't even exist if Creationists had their way.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

And again, I'm not going to defend it.

How is providing evidence that the holocaust is linked or caused by a theory you don't believe in defending?

 

[thaumaturgy]

I don't get the way you think also. I'm trying to understand... I may need time to consider it.

No, I suspect you really just want to slag evolution so you, like so many others before you, try to link it with some horrid excess of death.

But all you need do is look at the history of religion. Even in the Bible itself we have the glories of this gem:

[BIBLE]1 Samuel 15:3[/BIBLE]

So, let's cut to the chase here and focus a bit more on how religion supports killing and genocide.

The way I am thinking, is that the world is full of bad things. Man is capable of doing the most horrid things. I just want to know why.

We are animals. We are capable of hurting other animals. Some animals are more willing to hurt other animals than the rest of the group.

Why does that have to have some sort of "supernatural" explanation?

You will probably blaim war mostly on religion...

And you would be wrong. Sure religion has been behind many wars and it certainly makes some wars easier to support for the "faithful" (if they think they are doing it for God). But wars are not the exclusive realm of religion.

but if man is evolving as you claim... why is he evolving in the way he is.

Huh? What way are we evolving that you disagree with? Are we becoming "more evil"? Prove it. Are we becoming more murderous? Prove it. What are we becoming that you disagree with? Can you back up the claim?

Is the idea of religion part of evolution?

Probably. I assume that since we are a very curious lot of primates who want to know what is behind the next hill we invented religion for unanswered questions. We want to be able to predict when the lightning in the savannah is going to strike us and kill us, and what we can do to avoid it. We want to understand how to keep ourselves and our loved ones from being eaten by lions, etc. To that end we naturally attempt to make "educated guesses". In the meantime we invent placeholders to explain randomness and statistics.

At least that is what I rather guess is the case.

Why does not man evolve without religion?

Man doesn't evolve with a specific religion, but we may evolve with "religion in general", and unless you believe that it doesn't matter WHAT religion one follows then that would seem to be rather an important problem to deal with.

Why are there so many dramatically different religions? Does that mean ONE of them is necessarily true? Or does it mean we are curious primates with a penchant to attempt to make guesses to account for random and statistical processes we don't fully understand?

 

[AV1611VET]

even if those were results of the ToE being true, they have absolutely no bearing on the validity of the ToE.

Ya --- I know --- they're good at stamping DOES NOT APPLY when someone becomes a victim of one of them.

 

[AV1611VET]

You will probably blaim war mostly on religion...

Only because they got tired of blaming their own doctrine.

Study what the Malthusian Doctrine is.

So they started blaming it on us.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I do --- if we want to know their "language," we're expected to learn such terminology as:

• hunter-gatherer
• fight-or-flight
• natural selection
• survival of the fittest

Sorry if terminology bothers you. It's part of "communication". I know that when you leverage your entire life on a book that has many variant readings over the millenia that "common terminology" doesn't necessarily hold any value for you. But that's another reason we know the Bible isn't a science book.

Then when any example of the above manifests itself, evolutionists do verbal cartwheels to detach the effect from the cause.

I thought you were aware that "correlation is not causation".

Which effect and cause are we decoupling here? (choose your answer well: Goose, gander, sauce.)

 

[Split Rock]

Ya --- I know --- they're good at stamping DOES NOT APPLY when someone becomes a victim of one of them.

Does gravity apply when someone falls from a height and dies? Does that mean that gravity is evil or that gravity does not exist or that we shouldn't "believe" in gravity?

 

[AV1611VET]

Sorry to say, even if evolution were evil in some way, it seems you'd have to live with it.

Naraoia, I've asked this question four times, and people are too smart to answer it:

• If Hitler gave financial aid to the Jews, instead of persecuting them, would that be in spite of his natural instincts, or in respect to them?
• If Gandhi lobbied for nuclear war, would that be in spite of his natural instincts, or in respect to them?

When lemmings run off a cliff, that's nature's way of handling overpopulation --- but if someone suggests doing it themselves?

He's an idiot.

 

[Phred]

I don't get the way you think also. I'm trying to understand... I may need time to consider it.

It takes time. Especially when the concepts don't mesh with what you may have been taught over the years.

The way I am thinking, is that the world is full of bad things. Man is capable of doing the most horrid things. I just want to know why.

Religion gives you answers, it says that there are demons out there, the devil and such that cause this. Some people are infected with a thing called "evil" that exists by itself. These concepts have no meaning in reality. They can't be measured or observed. People just do things that they think are good at the time. For whatever reason. The guy that shoots his girlfriend out of blind rage thinks he has only that recourse... until he calms down. Then he realizes how stupid he was and the covering up begins. In the end, all of our acts - with the exception of those committed by those who are actually nuts - are done because we're trying to do what's best.

You will probably blaim war mostly on religion... but if man is evolving as you claim... why is he evolving in the way he is.

Only because so many wars have been justified in the name of religion. Of course, if you really dig down deep you'll find that many of those wars were really fought over gold or land with religion being the canard that was used to stir up the population to go to war. Evolution... well, the evolution that we usually talk about here is the biological process that has nothing at all to do with the mental constructs we create such as religion. That would be the use of the word to mean "process".

Is the idea of religion part of evolution?

Yes and no.

Why does not man evolve without religion?

If being religious means that a man will be more likely to pass on his seed then it's beneficial and will be passed down. It's likely that a tribe that believes in an afterlife will fight more violently with less regard for whether they personally die and so they will conquer others and gain more land and resources thus spreading their ideas. The individual may die but in doing so he ensures that the ideas he fights for live on. Religion, democracy... all are things that live on in this way. We call them memes.

 

[AV1611VET]

Does gravity apply when someone falls from a height and dies? Does that mean that gravity is evil or that gravity does not exist or that we shouldn't "believe" in gravity?

Was he pushed?

 

[Phred]

When lemmings run off a cliff, that's nature's way of handling overpopulation --- but if someone suggests doing it themselves?

Lemmings don't actually run off cliffs. But far be it from you to question something you're told that doesn't conflict with the Bible.

He's an idiot.

Who's an idiot?

 

[OdwinOddball]

I don't get the way you think also. I'm trying to understand... I may need time to consider it.

The way I am thinking, is that the world is full of bad things. Man is capable of doing the most horrid things. I just want to know why.

You will probably blaim war mostly on religion... but if man is evolving as you claim... why is he evolving in the way he is.

Is the idea of religion part of evolution?

Why does not man evolve without religion?

The problem Gary is that you are all over the map. You are trying to link philosophy with science with religion.

Evolution does not equal atheism. Most people who accept the Theory of Evolution also believe in a deity, most commonly the same one you do, the Christian God. Evolution is a natural process. it is neither moral or immoral, just as an avalanche that kills 50 is not moral or immoral. It simply is. Morality is a concept that requires both a sense of self identity and empathy with those around you to exist. Evolution is a natural process and has none of these qualities.

 

[OdwinOddball]

Continued from above due to the post size limit our new dictator has imposed

Another mis connection you are making is that of sin and morality. Sin is by definition a crime against a deity. If one does not believe in a deity then one cannot believe in sin either, as their is no one to sin against. Sin is a meaningless concept without a deity to support it.

Morality is however not dependent on a deity. This is easily demonstrated by observing the fact that believers in all the worlds religions are capable of being both moral and immoral, as are atheists. morality is a subjective concept, dependent on who is making the moral judgment. To me, the actions of Hitler in the Holocaust is the epitome of immoral action. However, Hitler himself would disagree, he considered his actions to be the right and moral thing to do.

Was the Holocaust driven by evolution? No. It was an act of a mad man who used the historical hatred of Jews in much of Christendom to enrage his countrymen and create his own personal empire.


You are trying to connect concepts that are not actually connect, and imposing your own personal beliefs and biases on words to distort their actual meaning to fit your world view. Christianity teaches that their is an objective moral system based upon sin. But the very nature of this system(being based on a religion that not all share) highlights its truly subjective nature. This is a very difficult concept for most Christians to grasp, but if you do so, you will better understand where atheists and other non-Christians are coming from.

 

[Naraoia]

Is the idea of religion part of evolution?

Why does not man evolve without religion?

This makes me wonder. Let me share a bit of my freshest speculations Wild speculations, I must say, but maybe good brain fodder for some of you.

I think religion, or rather the religious explanation of morality might owe its existence to human self-awareness (better say metacognitive abilities) in an interesting way. The fact that you are able to think about your own thoughts (and those of others) makes you able to ask questions such as 'why am I helping this sick man keep up when I know we'd move much faster if I just let him die here?'. The reason why something like a moral code evolves in a group is not really important - the thing is, once it is there and the creature is able to think about its own motives, the motives can become questioned.

While an animal isn't able to ask that sort of question it'll follow the rules of its group, or its emotions (such as compassion towards an injured group mate), or whatever makes it behave in a "good" way without being concerned with why it follows them. Societies just work because the ones with mostly antisocial members could not survive, and members care for other members because their ancestors who had cared for their group members made their groups (and thus themselves) more successful at surviving.

Now when you have beings capable of examining their motives and completely unaware of evolution, I think it's only natural that they come up with explanations for the way their societies work. It's also easier to tell your kids 'you must care for the old and weak because our gods will punish you if you don't' than telling them 'you must care for the old and weak because... ehmm... that's good' or 'that's the way it is'. The latter two explanations seem more prone to an infinite regression of 'why?'-s

Belief in god(s) can easily be just an explanation of the world, and I think god-based morality could originate in a similar way, as an explanation of human societies.

This is a very interesting question indeed, but I'm afraid I can't offer more than reasonable models built inside my mind

 

[Split Rock]

Does gravity apply when someone falls from a height and dies? Does that mean that gravity is evil or that gravity does not exist or that we shouldn't "believe" in gravity?

Was he pushed?

Does it matter?

Lets say he was not pushed. Lets say that he believed that his God would prevent him from falling so he took no precautions (tee hee), or that he was just dumb. Maybe we could call that Natural Selection.

Lets say someone pushed him off, as a random act of violence. That would not be Natural Selection.

Either way, neither gravity, nor Natural Selection is "evil."

 

[AV1611VET]

Does it matter?

Someone falling is too vague an example for natural selection, survival of the fittest, or fight or flight.

I know you guys want to jump right in with your own pet examples that you want me to explain, but I'm not the one that thought this stuff up.