Human Evolution

Estrid said:

Creationists got there long ago.

Click to expand...

That's right.

Creationists were here first.

Then science showed up and started sowing its tares.

Now look.

You can throw a beach ball into a crown with your eyes closed and hit an atheist.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Not in the slightest.

And I think that when you're stuck trying equate acceptance of science to religion, then you have definitely ran out of arguments, boyo.

Click to expand...

Same for that barrel analogy to avoid answering what you know is right.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Not in the slightest.

And I think that when you're stuck trying equate acceptance of science to religion, then you have definitely ran out of arguments, boyo.

Click to expand...

Maybe there's a reason it violates the rules to say it is religion

Estrid said:

Whatever a "naturalist" is supposed to be.

Click to expand...

Oh, here we go again.

Does anything exist in academia?

AV1611VET said:

Same for that barrel analogy to avoid answering what you know is right.

Click to expand...

Except that it's not right since you clearly avoided the word 'thinking'.

Estrid said:

Maybe there's a reason it violates the rules to say it is religion

Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to imply evolution runs on faith.

In fact, I didn't notice that until after I had typed it.

It's just a good point.

Belief comes before acceptance.

doubtingmerle said:

Why is it logical to postulate that perhaps a first cause with a mind just is and it could not be otherwise, but not logical to postulate that perhaps a first cause without a mind just is and it could not be otherwise?

Click to expand...

First Cause is quite a bit more than 'just is', though we might tend to think of him that way. Existence itself 'is' because God exists —not the other way around. God does not fit a principle we know of as 'existence'.

doubtingmerle said:

And why is it, that, no matter what the thread is about, people always, always, always ignore the subject of the thread and change the topic to talk about the origin of the universe instead?

Click to expand...

Somehow, the threads have a tendency to be about postulations that either do or do not deny God.

doubtingmerle said:

And you do agree with me that the assertion that 2 + 2 = 4 represents a fact that just is? It could not possibly be otherwise in any universe. No God was required to decide that.

Click to expand...

If God is God, First Cause and Omnipotent, yes, God made that. He is not subject to it —it is, (to put it crassly), his invention, as is all of reality. But don't worry, he will not change.

Reality is what it is, because God is real. Reality is his 'invention'.

Mark Quayle said:

Somehow, the threads have a tendency to be about postulations that either do or do not deny God.

Click to expand...

That's not true. We're heading towards 200 posts in this thread and nothing has been claimed or suggested that would deny God's existence. If there wasn't a single atheist on this forum, these discussions would still take place. The same arguments would be used. The same points made. It's always been thus.

I am really not aware of anyone in this forum who has ever used science as a means to deny God's existence. Feel free to look if you like, but you'd be wasting your time.

To be honest, these discussions are sometimes a good way to learn about some scientific aspect of evolution or star creation or planetary formation or any of umpteen topics that emerge. And this doesn't reflect well on me, but I join in on occasions because I find some of the arguments mildly amusing (yes, you could say that I'm only doing that because it makes me feel smarter...and I'll take the fifth on that).

So let's be honest here. These type of threads are about some fundamentalist views of scripture bumping into scientific reality. A reality which, as I have said, does NOT deny God's existence.

Glad to have cleared that up.

doubtingmerle said:

By golly, I think you're on to something there, AV1611VET.

Click to expand...

That's just what Paul warned about in Romans 1.

Deleted own post.

Bradskii said:

That's not true. We're heading towards 200 posts in this thread and nothing has been claimed or suggested that would deny God's existence. If there wasn't a single atheist on this forum, these discussions would still take place. The same arguments would be used. The same points made. It's always been thus.

I am really not aware of anyone in this forum who has ever used science as a means to deny God's existence. Feel free to look if you like, but you'd be wasting your time.

To be honest, these discussions are sometimes a good way to learn about some scientific aspect of evolution or star creation or planetary formation or any of umpteen topics that emerge. And this doesn't reflect well on me, but I join in on occasions because I find some of the arguments mildly amusing (yes, you could say that I'm only doing that because it makes me feel smarter...and I'll take the fifth on that).

So let's be honest here. These type of threads are about some fundamentalist views of scripture bumping into scientific reality. A reality which, as I have said, does NOT deny God's existence.

Glad to have cleared that up.

Click to expand...

I guess I was too vague. By 'postulations' I wasn't referring to science, as such, but simply, 'claims', by whatever means anyone arrived at those claims. @doubtingmerle , to whom I was responding, was complaining:
doubtingmerle said: ↑
And why is it, that, no matter what the thread is about, people always, always, always ignore the subject of the thread and change the topic to talk about the origin of the universe instead?

expos4ever said:

Deleted own post.

Click to expand...

Poor little post never had a chance.

Estrid said:

Poor little post never had a chance.

Click to expand...

But then, it has always been so, from the beginning...

eleos1954 said:

The point is that interpretations of scientific evidence can be explained and justified. This isn't a matter of a personal aesthetic reaction to a conclusion.

We have and do collect information .... the information is subject to interpretation (and those vary) .... ie what does the information mean?

Scientific evidence is evidence that serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis

we have collected information and that information is interpreted in various ways.

Click to expand...

Yes, but by removing the justification you give a false equivalence to interpretations.

eleos1954 said:

A fact is something that's indisputable. On the other hand evidence is something that is told by someone. It has to be accepted only on belief.

Click to expand...

I feel that is a false oversimplification of both terms.

eleos1954 said:

When the scientific community changes the theory of evolution to the indisputable facts of evolution .... lemme know.

It's disputable and will remain so.

Click to expand...

I never denied that it is disputable... I just questioned the reasoning of the dispute.

I also stated that nothing is an indisputable fact in science.

Some religious believers may claim to have indisputable facts... but those can even be inconsistent within the same sect of the same religion.

Mark Quayle said:

I guess I was too vague. By 'postulations' I wasn't referring to science, as such, but simply, 'claims', by whatever means anyone arrived at those claims. @doubtingmerle , to whom I was responding, was complaining:
doubtingmerle said: ↑
And why is it, that, no matter what the thread is about, people always, always, always ignore the subject of the thread and change the topic to talk about the origin of the universe instead?

Click to expand...

And the origin of the universe, however we discover it happened (IF we discover it), will be the way that God had decided it should happen. Unless people want to believe in a God that deliberately hides things from us.

I'm up to the back teeth with those (present company exempted) who claim that God must exist because...gee, just look around you at his wonders, and then bend over backwards to deny those wonders when they are explained in terms we can understand.

When the world encompassed as far as we could reasonable travel, then it might have seemed that God must have created it especially for us. His wonders to behold. Then we discovered parts of the planet that had been hidden from us. Then we discovered that some of the pretty lights in the night sky were other planets. So we updated what we thought God had made for us.

Then we discovered that we were a system of planets that revolved around a rather nondescripts sun, and we weren't the centre of all things (at which point the Church had had enough of this heresy and burnt those like Giordano Bruno at the stake for promoting such ideas). Because they seemed to directly counter our impression of what God must have done.

Then we discovered that our solar system was one of many. Then one of thousands. Then one of billions. In an outer suburb of a mediocre galaxy. And people had to rethink what God might have done. Which is difficult at this point because we aren't built to consider such things. Numbers such as a billion and distances like a light year and times on a galactic scale are simply beyond us. Some people started to wonder what it was all for.

Then we discovered that our galaxy was likewise one of many. Then one of billions. We have no concept of a million, let alone a billion. So multiply billions by billions (and I'm starting to sound like Sagan now) and it becomes utterly meaningless. So a lot more people started wondering what on earth it was for.

Then Hubble discovered that space is expanding. So all we can see is not all there is. And some of what we can see is disappearing from all possible contact with us. And that which was out of our reach when we climbed down from the trees will be forever out of our reach. And...this is the clincher...there is good reason to believe that there is an infinity of that which is outside the observable universe.

So there is a small rock on the dark side of a small moon circling a dead planet in a tiny solar system on the outer edge of a dying galaxy in a place that has always been and will forever be somewhere that we can't even see let alone reach. I wonder what on earth it is for.

Feynman once said:
“It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.”

To say that I couldn't agree more is the Understatement Of The Week. But some still hold to the view that caused Bruno to be burnt alive; that we are the centre of everything. And they still claim a literally medieval viewpoint. I can't cope with the audacity of that view.

But even that view is still not an argument against God.