Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
You have this very bad habit of saying evidence for something exists, then doing nothing to source this evidence, or even elaborating on it. Not to call you a liar - that might very well be true - but it wouldn't kill you to back up your claims every now and then.
Your religious beliefs. If you were wrong, how would you know?
But your beliefs about science don't align with the data.
Which leads to the follow up question, is there any amount of evidence that would make you change your beliefs?
Had your parents been Muslims do you agree that you could well be a Muslim now?I would not find reality consistent with my beliefs.
Is there any evidence that can not be refuted or changed following new discoveries?
The Christian worldview is consistent with the overall known universe. I think that evidence is important in any worldview, however, I believe that you as well as I allow for gaps or the unknown in each of our worldviews.
Had your parents been Muslims do you agree that you could well be a Muslim now?
I do hope you are not going to tell us that your parents had nothing to do with you being a creationist.
The universe is 13.72 b y old, and the earth 4.56 b y old, for starters.
So? There is nothing in the Bible that puts an age on the universe.
You mentioned the evidence was important, correct? Well, there is overwhelming evidence supporting the age of the universe and the earth, which the majority of christians already accept. Are you saying you reject this overwhelming evidence because the unknown authors who wrote the bible 2000 years ago didn't state these ages?
This is in direct conflict with the G1 creation account.
I went and had a look. Much of the information that was used was really dated. The titles listed were more on present day Physcology.To access that list, go to the link below, click on "index", then page up above the index, and you'll be in the bibliography.
The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology: Robert Wright: 9780679763994: Amazon.com: Books
Its not an issue anyway.Sigh. Yes. So I tried to summarize a 500 page book which itself was a summary of decades of research before, and that didn't work. Against my better judgement, I'll try again:
OK, first, imagine that intelligence evovles ..... wolves, monkeys, lions, deer, and many other animals have a hierarchical structure - so I'm guessing you'll agree that's a likely situation.
Memory is another evolutionary mystery. We don't know when or how it evolved. We do not know how it even works now. So you put forth memory as a requirement but have no evolutionary explanation for it.
This explains altruism on today's terms. In man's early existence (if we even start at man) life was not of surplus, it was not about time on one's hands. It was an existence of constant struggle to stay alive.Now, as you know from daily life, situations arise often where helping someone helps them much more than it hurts you. For instance, giving some extra food to a starving person saves their life, yet cost you little (because you have a surplus), or releasing them from a trap/entanglement takes only a minute of your time, and saves their life, etc. So a brain structure that causes generosity will benefit yourself, because now and then the tables will be turned, and you'll receive a great benefit from someone you helped before. However, if someone always helps everyone, then they are taken advantage of even by those who themselves never help anyone.
After the fact material. This isn't about the arising of morality.This is structurally the same as the classic "prisoner's dilemma", and a lot of research has been done using computer programs to simulate societies of hundreds of individuals, and a mix of very different brain structures (responses) including those who always take advantage of others (while never helping), those who help everyone, those who only help those who have helped them (tit-for-tat), and a whole mix of other strategies (such as "random"). Then, the simulations allow the next generation based on those who have benefited the most (natural selection).
You are interpreting the actions of the monkey to show fairness, what I see is that the monkey sees that the rock gets grapes, it gives the rock intending to get the grape and doesn't get it. It doesn't want the cucumber so it throws it back and tries to get the grape itself. It is a desire for the grape, not fairness that is being shown.
Which I feel is not showing what it is trying to show and only is being interpreted in the way they want to interpret it.
Yes, I am saying that intelligence does not evolve from mindless processes.
I have read studies that provide evidence that intelligence is present in infancy and in fact, is present at birth and brought out in stages. It is there it is just revealed in stages.If so, then consider this. Intelligence, like so many other traits, is a gradual scale. A newborn is obviously doesn't have intelligence. It can't reason, think, consider, or anything. As time goes by, the intelligence develops gradually, and a 12 year old is obviously intelligent. (or, if you are going to claim a newborn is intelligent, then simply go back to a zygote, and that's clearly not intelligent.
That is not a problem for me.Or maybe your objection is that intelligence is not an advantage for survival. However, a more intelligent creature is better at getting food and avoiding being food. You can see this in the advantage of a greater degree of intelligence in most given situations, such as, say, stalking a prey animal.
I don't understand that you seem to be unable to see the possibility of God ingraining anything into the life forms that allow for morality and intelligence to come into existence.
Okay.
Then you and your unsourced, untested, unsubstantiated anecdote can take a number and get in line behind Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and all the other random supernatural occurrences that people have had over the years but have zero evidence for.
Please.
Wow, this is a fast moving thread! For reference, I'm replying to Once's post #428.
Once wrote:
Yes, there is a mix of old and new stuff. The old stuff is still relevant if it hasn't been found wrong by newer work. At any rate, this gives you a lot to look into if you are interested in understanding how morality can result from an evolutionary process, in addition to the descriptions from the book which I wrote out, and of course newer work, like that in the several journals on this topic.
OK, that sounds like we agree that the evolution of intelligence and of hierarchy are agreed to be feasible.
What? Are you for real? Memory is not an evolutionary mystery. The physical and chemical way memories are formed, retained, and recalled is well understood in detail, and is based on the binding of magnesium ions on neural synapses. I don't have a biology degree and I even know that. It's described in more detail in basic biology courses like this one: Biology: The Science of Life
The evolution of memory is also well understood, with the changes to the neurons over time and the intermediates forms described.
If you want to understand the complicated and wondrous history that gave us memory, then you could get a degree in neurological evolution. It'll take that to learn the many details and how we know them.
It again sounds like you are making false assertions from a position of ignorance.
It's also worth mentioning that the evolution of nervous systems is also well understood, with plenty of intermediates. You mentioned that basic nervous systems appeared "fully functional" - but that's a pointless statement, because any animal will be "fully functional" to survive, since if it isn't, then it's extinct. Nervous systems developed from very simple to very complex. For instance, early nervous systems were simply scattered cells that were able to activate each other, forming a net of nerves. That's a far cry from the parallel systems of sensory and motor nerves we have, with a layered and hierarchical structure.
In anytime, there are times of surplus and scarcity. Yes, we are certainly talking about times before modern humans, and about the many times one would be in a situation where another's scarcity is significantly worse than one's own. This is clear to any biologist, in species ranging from apes, to vampire bats and many more.
Why would you think that's after the fact? It's the same situation millions of animals are in, in the wild today. It's shows how morality evolved.
There is a ton of reasearch here. Check out other videos if this one isn't clear. For instance, a monkey given a desired prize will throw it back if a neighbor monkey gets a bigger prize for the same action.
Why would you think that this is being interpreted in a non-objective way? After all, this work is being done by people with all kinds of different motivations and worldviews - some Christians, some Muslims, some Atheists, and so on. How could they possibly be all trying to support these disparate worldviews, yet agreeing on the data?
Why not?
OK, so consider an egg cell with a sperm cell next to it. It it intelligent?
OK, good. So we agree that intelligence confers an advantage, and hence would experience positive selection pressure by natural selection.
Oh, I agree that, aside from any evidence about what actually happened, that God could well have ingrained something into life forms that gave rise to intelligence. In fact, in that way I agree that God could have poofed intelligence into being at any time, or at multiple times. Or that God could have poofed all life into existence instantaneously, or that He could have poofed Mt. Vesuvius into existence instantaneously, or that He could have poofed you and I into existence instantaneously last Thursday.
I'm simply looking at the evidence and seeing HOW God likely actually did the creating - since He could have created it in by using any of literally millions of methods.
I think we agree that God did the creating, and that God is vast and powerful enough to have used any of millions of methods, right?
Papias
This is textbook Gish inspired creationism... throw an unsubstantiated claim out there and then move on the next one.
Clarify then. Do you accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that states the age of the universe and earth?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?