Evolutionists Moving the Goalposts Again

Chalnoth said:

And I do understand that one of the major Christian beliefs is that without knowledge of God, there can be no goodness.

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I'm not sure you understand. No one is perfectly good except God. All humans were created by God and have knowledge of good and evil. So have the capacity to do good and the knowledge of what is good. I doubt any Christians would say that non-christians cannot do good deeds.

About your bit on their being no absolute morality, I hope you're not suggesting that evolution preaches that because science doesn't moralise.

Markus6 said:

I'm not sure you understand. No one is perfectly good except God. All humans were created by God and have knowledge of good and evil. So have the capacity to do good and the knowledge of what is good. I doubt any Christians would say that non-christians cannot do good deeds.

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Well, you obviously haven't been in the Christian churches I've been in Given the wide variety of denominations, of course, I'm sure my small experience cannot speak for every Christian. But I have definitely heard the sentiment.

About your bit on their being no absolute morality, I hope you're not suggesting that evolution preaches that because science doesn't moralise.

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No, well, evolution doesn't preach anything. It merely provides an explanation for the existence of morality. And that explanation doesn't allow the possibility of absolute morality.

There are also a couple of good arguments against the existence of absolute morality, evolution or no. One is that no matter what moral system you believe in, there are always going to be morally-ambiguous circumstances. Another is that definitions of morality have changed over time within the same culture, and vary greatly among different cultures, even among those that believe in the same religion.

A good example of moral ambiguity is killing. This is a natural moral code that is common the world over, but not in all situations. Consider, for example, that the vast majority of people would consider it okay to kill if that person is in the process of attempting to kill you. And one could come up with a myriad of in-between situations where few would agree on the correct behavior. For example, is it okay to kill in defense of family? In defense of friends? In the defense of strangers? In the defense of people with whom your culture is highly antagonistic (imagine a Jew saving the life of a Muslim by killing a Jew, or vice versa)? In defense of personal property? In defense of others' property? To prevent your own rape? To prevent the rape of another?

A good example of moral change through history is public decency. Consider the Victorian era in England:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_morality
Many of the things they did we would today consider indecent, others we consider overly prudish.

A good example of moral differences over different people within the same religion is abortion. Many Christians believe that all human life is sacred, and thus we shouldn't murder unborn children, for any reason. A significant number of Christians, however, believe that we shouldn't ever force women to go through the pain, discomfort, and even suffering of unwanted pregnancy and birth to protect what isn't even a life, but rather a potential to become life.

Chalnoth said:

It merely provides an explanation for the existence of morality. And that explanation doesn't allow the possibility of absolute morality.

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It provides an explanation but that explanation does not eliminate the possibility of absolute morality. Unless you believe evolution eliminates the possibility of God existing, which is taking evolution beyond the realms of science and into reductionism.

Just because you can provide an explanation for a phenomenon does not mean you have that phenomenon fully explained. Although some of both atheistic evolutionists and creationists think that it does. The creationist believes evolution gives a conflicting explanation of our existence to the bible and so chooses to reject it. They don't realise that both explanations can be valid (though one scientifically and the other theologically). The atheistic evolutionist thinks that having an explanation of our existence automatically eliminates the possibility of God existing.

Though of course I would say that being a theistic evolutionist.

As to your other arguments for why there is no absolute morality, they are your opinion. I don't believe the points you have raised sufficiently disprove its existence but, believing in God, I wouldn't.

Chalnoth said:

And that explanation doesn't allow the possibility of absolute morality.

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It most certainly does not. Gravity does not rule out magical fairies making things fall, germ theory doesn't rule out demons being the cause of illnesses. Natural explenations don't rule out supernatural ones, they just make them unnessecary.

Science changes and advances?

Wow I can't believe my eyes

Let's leave the Apologetics to the trolls and misguided posters and keep C&E to the science regarding Creationism and the Theory of Evolution.

Dannager said:

Let us know if you've got any further questions!

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I certainly will. Thanks!

Do evolutionists believe that once we die, that's basically it. We cease to exist?

The fact,is, out of the billions (or trillions) celestial bodies we have observed, very very few of them have water.

Why is it that even one single planet out there is not teeming with life like earth? Evolution seems to suppose that life is easily created.

Do evolutionists believe that once we die, that's basically it. We cease to exist?

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That would depend on the 'evolutionist,' since they represent many different religious positions.

And if you have multiple questions, might you put them in one post?

jamie4418 said:

The fact,is, out of the billions (or trillions) celestial bodies we have observed, very very few of them have water.

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That might have something to do with the little detail that nearly everything we've seen out there is a star.

For some reason, stars aren't likely to have much in the way of liquid water...

jamie4418 said:

Why is it that even one single planet out there is not teeming with life like earth? Evolution seems to suppose that life is easily created.

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How many planets do you think we've had a good look at? I mean, really, what do you think the total is? You can include moons, if you like..

jamie4418 said:

Why is it that even one single planet out there is not teeming with life like earth? Evolution seems to suppose that life is easily created.

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How many planets have we actually looked at? Depending on your definition of 'teeming' (and, for that matter, 'planet') the answer seems to be somewhere between one and nine. Little premature to be drawing conclusions about the rest of the Universe, no?

jamie4418 said:

Do evolutionists believe that once we die, that's basically it. We cease to exist?

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This one does, others disagree. My wife included, probably on account of her being a Christian.

jamie4418 said:

The fact,is, out of the billions (or trillions) celestial bodies we have observed, very very few of them have water.

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Well, there's ice all over our own solar system, and we haven't yet obtained the capacity to detect water outside our solar system.

The problem with detecting water is twofold. First, stars are bright. Very very bright. Finding a planet next to a star is like finding a black speck on a black background next to a spot light pointed right in your face. This makes finding planets at all very challenging. We're finally getting to the point where we have methods of detecting planets in significant numbers, but we're still a ways away from finding Earth-like planets.

Once we do get to that point, the only way to detect water is through spectral analyses of the planet in question. This is always going to be very difficult to do with a star nearby. But there is the additional problem that there is water in our own atmosphere: if we want to detect water on a far away planet with a telescope on the ground here, we're vastly more likely to just be looking at the water in our own atmosphere than on this far away planet.

So the only reliable way to find liquid water (and thus life-supportin) planets would be to make use of a space-based telescope. This is a very expensive proposition, and will take some time to gain steam. I think that there should be quite enough interest in the subject, so I believe it will happen. But it won't be easy to build, and will take some time.

I personally expect, from what I've been hearing around the astronomy community, that we'll have found a number of Earth-like planets within a decade. Hopefully we'll have a water-detecting satellite up and running within 10-20 years after that.

jamie4418 said:

Why is it that even one single planet out there is not teeming with life like earth? Evolution seems to suppose that life is easily created.

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Most definitely. And I fully expect that we will find the galaxy to be teeming with life once we have the capacity to detect it. Getting to that point, however, is going to be very, very challenging.

But I expect that we can be sure we've detected life if we detect a planet with similar orbital and size characteristics to Earth that has water in its atmosphere, and has an atmosphere mostly composed of oxygen (the only reason we have oxygen is because of plants: from what I understand, oxides are much, much easier to generate through nonliving processes). Once we've detected that, the only way to make the detection conclusive would be to go there....which could easily take hundreds of years.

jamie4418 said:

Do evolutionists believe that once we die, that's basically it. We cease to exist?

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I have no beliefs about death. Why would I? Entertaining thoughts of something I can not possibly know is a fruitless exercise.

What bearing does such speculation have on evolution?

jamie4418 said:

Do evolutionists believe that once we die, that's basically it. We cease to exist?

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Obviously not. Regardless of whatever one's position is theologically, our cells will continue to exist long after we die and our influence on our children and people we have interacted with will also continue. Heck, even our personalities will, in almost every case, continue to exist in or obituaries published in the local newspapers.

It seems like you're confusing evolutionary theory with atheism. Have you looked into this subject much previously?

jamie4418 said:

Why is it that even one single planet out there is not teeming with life like earth? Evolution seems to suppose that life is easily created.

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Could you cite any paper or even some probability study that suggests this? The Earth isn't exactly hospitable to life despite our success thus far. Planets like Jupiter and Mercury obviously are inhospitable to life as we know it. The Drake equation aside, it would seem that life, at least multi-cellular life would seem incredibly rare.