If Evolution is true what is purpose of life?

[Mr. Ex Nihilo]

Yes...I know. That's why I'm asking it.

Um...maybe you could start a new thread for it then?

 

[Mr. Ex Nihilo]

Again, yes, but these studies have already been done. It is known which misconceptions lead to the abuses of this theory.

Cool. Why didn't you say so. This would've prevented a lot of typing.

Link?

 

[Physics_guy]

Hey Mr. Ex Nihilo, have you ever heard of Godwin's Law? I think you have gone for a new record.

 

[Freodin]

Cool. Why didn't you say so. This would've prevented a lot of typing.

Link?

Sorry, I have no link for you. I remember reading various essays about the pseudo-scientific backgrounds of Hitler´s racistic system while I was in University, but I´m afraid I haven´t that material available now.

But you can be certain that you are not the first one who raised this question - German historians have a long history of debating Hitler, and all aspects of his system.

 

[Randall McNally]

But, yet I've seen people give up their faith because of it. Heck, there's people right here on this forum that are doing it.

Are there? I haven't been here so long, but I can't recall one example of a person who abdicated faith solely because of any perceived implications of evolutionary theory.

Wellll...I have a bit more sympathy for others than you do. I don't think it absurd. I find it tragic. It happens often.

I disagree. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of deconversion testimonials in General Apologetics, but not one that I've read mentioned anything as single-minded as what you suggest.

Which came back to my point I already said. Stalin, Hitler and Trotsky were probably evil men to begin with. I said this already.

So why was it important to note their involvement with evolutionary theory? That seems fairly prejudicial.

Yes he did do that didn't he. The poor Russians probably never new what hit them.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Lysenko was quickly ousted as President of the Agricultural Society. Remarkably, he was again elected in 1961 after Khrushchev came to power.

But it was very easily carried over by Hitler.

I don't know. It seems like if it was so easily done, we would see it done more often.

Um...there have been more wars engaged in the last half-century than in much of man's previous history. I'm not blaming evolution. I'm just curious though and looking into it further.

Start with technology. The ability to move massive forces great distances in relatively little time probably has something to do with it.

 

[gluadys]

Yet, sometimes the theory of evolution has led others away from faith rather violently.

For example, Trotsky was mesmerized by Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. He said: “Darwin stood for me like a mightly doorkeeper at the entrance to the temple of the universe.” He said that Darwin's ideas “intoxicated” him. And he could not understand in the slightest how belief in God could find room in the same head as belief in Darwin's ideas.

Russian dictator and revolutionist, Joseph Stalin, was studying at Tiflis Theological Seminary when he started to read the works of Charles Darwin. One of his friends later said in a book that when Stalin read Darwin he became an atheist. At the age of 19, Stalin was expelled from the theological seminary because of his revolutionary connections.

Of course, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler endorsed a program in Germany to breed a superior race. The scheme was based on a horrific evolutionary theory called “eugenics” that was founded by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton. The idea of eugenics was to improve the human race using principles promoted in the theory of evolution.

Obviously, not all people are affected by the theory of evolution in this way. More to the point, the three examples I posted above seemed to be lose cannons well before they read the theory of evolution. These were evil men period (and, to be fair, I'm sure many could cite ways in which religion has sparked holocausts in their own right -- note: Africa, Germany, Ireland, etc..). However, I do beleive it is worthy of studying further to see if there is an inherent pattern observed with this theory.

Along with such a study, one might do a comparative one on the way Christian theology sparked the Crusades, the Inquisition and anti-semitism.

I wonder whether it was Darwin or the Church that was more influential in leading to the Nazi holocaust of European Jewry.

I'm a Christian, but I strongly suspect it was the Church.

 

[Mr. Ex Nihilo]

Hey Mr. Ex Nihilo, have you ever heard of Godwin's Law? I think you have gone for a new record.

No. I didn't. I had to go look it up.

Note:

Godwin's standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate semantic impact.

 

[GoSeminoles!]

I am not one to state facts proving creationism or evolution but I started to think about it on my level.

If evolution is true then I am here by chance and not made for any specific reason besides mabye to contiue my species.

Strictly speaking, this is correct. Our only biological purpose is to survive long enough to reproduce. But fortunately, humans have found many ways to discern meaning from life. Religion plays an important role in that aspect.

If I was an evolution scientiest and spent all my time trying to prove evolution then I would be trying to let others know that there is no reason for them to be here and that there life means nothing its just an accident or by chance.

I don't see evolutionary scientists moping around in goth clothing lamenting that there is no meaning to life. Many are religious.

With Christianity atleast I have hope for what happens to me after death.

This is one of the appeals of religion. But some of you Christians have got to get out of this absurd, juvenile mindset that evolution=atheism. You can have both the warm fuzzies of religion and accept the scientific reality of evolution.

 

[gladiatrix]

Yet, sometimes the theory of evolution has led others away from faith rather violently.

For example, Trotsky was mesmerized by Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. He said: “Darwin stood for me like a mightly doorkeeper at the entrance to the temple of the universe.” He said that Darwin's ideas “intoxicated” him. And he could not understand in the slightest how belief in God could find room in the same head as belief in Darwin's ideas.

Russian dictator and revolutionist, Joseph Stalin, was studying at Tiflis Theological Seminary when he started to read the works of Charles Darwin. One of his friends later said in a book that when Stalin read Darwin he became an atheist. At the age of 19, Stalin was expelled from the theological seminary because of his revolutionary connections.

Of course, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler endorsed a program in Germany to breed a superior race. The scheme was based on a horrific evolutionary theory called “eugenics” that was founded by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton. The idea of eugenics was to improve the human race using principles promoted in the theory of evolution.

Obviously, not all people are affected by the theory of evolution in this way. More to the point, the three examples I posted above seemed to be lose cannons well before they read the theory of evolution. These were evil men period (and, to be fair, I'm sure many could cite ways in which religion has sparked holocausts in their own right -- note: Africa, Germany, Ireland, etc..). However, I do beleive it is worthy of studying further to see if there is an inherent pattern observed with this theory.

Oh, pulllezzze!!! Not the Hitler/Stalin were Darwinists bovine scatology, again. NEITHER one of these men were "Darwinists"...

PART 1: STALIN, AN EVOLUTIONIST (DARWINIST)?
Stalin did NOT believe in evolution but was a devotee of the ideas of Trofim Lysenko. What Lysenko proposed was a form of Lamarckism which is NOT evolution. Lysenko got Stalin’s ear with the assertion that Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s theory of heredity were wrong. “Bourgeois science,” he called them, not fit for a communist state. It was a case of politics replacing science.

Lysenko came from a peasant family in the Ukraine. He was a prominent figure in the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) because of his controversial, unscientific, approach to biological science, beginning with agriculture and leading to a more general theory of heredity that rejected the existence of gene. In particular, Lysenko insisted on the ability of different species to transform one into another. He "proved" this by planting a field of wheat and finding there several plants of rye. The real reason for this was in stray seeds of rye that found their way to the field; however in order to hide the obvious he silenced those who dared to speak against him using his connections with the Secret Police (NKVD ).

Biography
After World War II regime led by Joseph Stalin began to distance itself from Western ideas and concepts, including science. Stalin declared genetics and cybernetics to be Anti-Soviet and ideologically unfit; he put Lysenko in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Soviet Union and made him responsible for ending the propagation of harmful ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose faithfully, causing the expulsion, imprisonment and death of hundreds of scientists and the demise of genetics (a previously flourishing field) throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism. Particularly, he bears responsibility for the death of the greatest Soviet biologist, Nikolai Vavilov at the hands of the NKVD. After Stalin's death in 1953, Lysenko retained his position, enjoying a relative degree of trust from Nikita Khrushchev.

In 1962 three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich Iakov Borisovich Zeldovich, set out the case against Lysenko, his false science and his policy of political extermination of scientific opponents. This happened as a part of a greater trend of combatting the ideological influence that had held such sway in Soviet society and science. Khrushchev then dismissed Lysenko.

The implementation of Lysenko's "science" eventually resulted in the starvation of millions. Read more about this debacle when ideology overcomes science.

PART 2: HITLER AN EVOLUTIONIST (DARWINIST)?
To answer this charge, let's begin with the following:

From Creationists, Hitler and Evolution

EXCERPT
A common charge made by creationists is that evolutionary theory is "evil" and is the source of racism in general, and of dictatorial killers in particular. The most often-heard assertion is that Hitler and his racist genocide were the product of "evolutionary philosophy". Henry Morris, for instance, flatly declares, "However one may react morally against Hitler, he was certainly a consistent evolutionst." (Morris, "Evolution and Modern racism", ICR Impact, October 1973) Morris adds: "The philosophies of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche--the forerunners of Stalin and Hitler--have been particularly baleful in their effect: both were dedicated evolutionists." (Morris, Troubled Waters of Evolution, 1974 p. 33)

How accurate is this creationist finger-pointing? Not very. The creationists are apparently unaware of the fact that Stalinist Russia rejected Darwinian evolution as "bourgeois" and instead embraced the non-Darwinian "proletarian biology" of Lysenko and Michurin (a disaster from which Russian genetics and biological sciences has still not completely recovered). As for Hitler, even a cursory reading of his book Mein Kampf reveals that the true source of Hitler's inspiration and exhortations came from a source that creationists, understandably, would rather not talk about.

Hitler's goal was the "purification" of the "Aryan race" through the elimination of "subhumans", which included Jews, gypsies, Asians, black Africans, and everyone else who was not a white Aryan. Despite the creationists claims that this was based on Darwinain evolutionary theory, Hitler's own writings give quite a different story. The ICR claims that "Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) over and over again in his book." (ICR Impact, "The Ascent of Racism", Paul Humber Feb 1987) Like so many of ICR's claims, this one is simply not true---a quick scan of several online English translations of Mein Kampf shows only ONE use of the word "evolution", in a context which does not refer at all to biological evolution, but instead to the development of political ideas in Germany: "This evolution has not yet taken the shape of a conscious intention and movement to restore the political power and independence of our nation."

Had ICR made even a cursory reading of Mein Kampf, they would have seen a quite different source for Hitler's racist inspiration than the one they would have us believe. White Aryans, Hitler writes, are the special creations of God, the "highest image of the Lord", put here specifically to rule over the "subhuman" races: "Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of an age without culture will again descend on this globe. The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." (all quotes from Hitler, Mein Kampf, online version) Actions which aid the "subhumans" at the expense of the Aryan master race, Hitler declared, were an offense against God: " It is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions."

Rather than basing his racism on any evolutionary theory, Hitler based it squarely on his view of white Aryans as the favored people of God. In fact, Hitler solemnly declares that his program of removing Jews and other "subhumans" from the earth is a divine task forced upon him by the Lord Almighty: "What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproductionof our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purityof our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that ourpeople may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the Creator of the universe."

Hitler concludes: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord," adding "Compared to the absurd catchword about safeguarding law and order, thus laying a peaceable groundwork for mutual swindles, the task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission." For Hitler, removing the subhumans from earth was not a matter of biology or evolution---it was a divine mandate from God Himself, the "work of the Lord", a "truly high mission".
-----end excerpt-----

When the "Hitler was an atheist" argument is shown to be a fallacy, creationists will invariably try to blame Hitler's cruelty on evolution, their second-favorite whipping boy for the evils of the world after atheists/Satan. FYI, the phrase "survival of the fittest" was NOT coined by Darwin, but by the philosopher Henry Spencer. Furthermore, this phase, reluctantly adopted by Darwin, does NOT mean the survival of the meanest, strongest bad guy on the block at the expense of the weaker. This is the common mischaracterization by religionists and erstwhile "social Darwinists" like the American industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller et al, who first coined the phrase to justify their underhanded, dog-eat-dog corporate warfare and exploitation of their workers. What this phrase really means , IN CONTEXT, from Introduction to Evolutionary Biology

The phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used synonymously with natural selection. The phrase is both incomplete and misleading. For one thing, survival is only one component of selection -- and perhaps one of the less important ones in many populations. For example, in polygynous species, a number of males survive to reproductive age, but only a few ever mate. Males may differ little in their ability to survive, but greatly in their ability to attract mates -- the difference in reproductive success stems mainly from the latter consideration. Also, the word fit is often confused with physically fit. Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variants in a gene pool. Fit does not necessarily mean biggest, fastest or strongest..." In other words, who produces the most offspring (leaves more copies of their genes behind) is the "fittest".

Hitler was NEITHER an atheist nor a "Darwinist". Hitler was a Catholic who never renounced his faith and the Church who knew what he was from the start didn't excommunicate him, nor did they speak out against him.

 

[Asimov]

Um...maybe you could start a new thread for it then?

Why? it's part of the topic. He claims there is no meaning in life if you "believe" in evolution, I claim the exact opposite.

 

[Freodin]

...snip the rest...
Hitler was NEITHER an atheist nor a "Darwinist". Hitler was a Catholic who never renounced his faith and the Church who knew what he was from the start didn't excommunicate him, nor did they speak out against him.

I don´t think this is the usual argument of "Hitler was an Evolutionist, so Evolution is wrong".

It rather seems to a question about how much the existence of the Theory of Evolution had on Hitler´s policies.

It should be obvious that, had Darwin not published his thesis, the racism of Hitler and the connected programms would have taken a differnt form - just how different is up to speculation.

But of course, Hitler´s rule would have been vastly different had James Watt not build his steam engine - but I don´t think steam power can tell us or deny us the meaning of life.

 

[JohnR7]

Why? it's part of the topic. He claims there is no meaning in life if you "believe" in evolution, I claim the exact opposite.

So, what meaning does your life has as a believer in the theory of evolution?

 

[JohnR7]

If evolution is true then I am here by chance

EVolution is actually the opposite of chance, it is a theory to try to explain how selection takes place.

 

[Asimov]

So, what meaning does your life has as a believer in the theory of evolution?

I don't look for meaning in life in science. I find my own meaning.

 

[Nathan Poe]

So, what meaning does your life has as a believer in the theory of evolution?

As a believer in the theory of evolution, none.
As a left-handed Hockey fan, also none.

As a member of the human race, my life has plenty of meaning, but this isn't the time or place to go into that.

What meaning does your life have as a believer in the theory of gravity?

 

[Blessed-one]

*MOD HAT ON*

Rule No. 1 - No "Flaming"
1.1 You will not post any messages that harass, insult, belittle, threaten or flame another member or guest.
1.2 You may discuss another member's beliefs but there will be no personal (ad hominem) attacks on the member himself or herself.
1.3 You will not misquote another member regardless of context.
1.4 You will not directly state or otherwise imply that another member is not a Christian.
1.5 You will not directly state or otherwise imply that another member is not a "good" or "proper" Christian.

note: thread cleaned.

*MOD HAT OFF*

 

[JohnR7]

I don't look for meaning in life in science. I find my own meaning.

So are you admiting that science does not in any way give meaning to life? Is this not the point the origional poster was trying to make.

 

[Hydra009]

So are you admiting that science does not in any way give meaning to life? Is this not the point the origional poster was trying to make.

No, that wasn't the claim in the OP. The claim in the OP was evolution = chance = no meaning to life. It's a tired old creationist tactic.

Evolution doesn't give meaning to life any more than gravity or magnetics gives meaning to life. Let's put it this way: anyone who seriously gets their meaning of life from a scientific theory explaining speciation and adaptation seriously needs to re-examine his/her life.

 

[Randall McNally]

So are you admiting that science does not in any way give meaning to life? Is this not the point the origional poster was trying to make.

Not only do we admit it, we insist.

 

[Mr. Ex Nihilo]

I don´t think this is the usual argument of "Hitler was an Evolutionist, so Evolution is wrong".

It rather seems to a question about how much the existence of the Theory of Evolution had on Hitler´s policies.

It should be obvious that, had Darwin not published his thesis, the racism of Hitler and the connected programms would have taken a differnt form - just how different is up to speculation.

Thank you for clarifying my thoughts. This is what I was trying to explain -- apparently rather badly I might add.